Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price

USD oz AM1953.30

PM1957.34

Historical SGE Fi

New York price at the time: 1905.00

premium $52,00

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bitcoin morning price:, $29,395 UP 23 Dollars

Bitcoin: afternoon price: $29,342 DOWN 30 dollars

Platinum price closing $906.50 DOWN $5.90

Palladium price; $1265.95 DOWN $27.60

END

Due to the huge rise in the dollar, we must look at gold and silver in currencies other than the dollar to understand where we are heading

I will now provide gold in Canadian dollars, British pounds and Euros/4: 15 PM ACCESS

CANADIAN GOLD: $2,567.25 down 5.20 CDN dollars per oz (ALL TIME HIGH 2,775.35)

BRITISH GOLD: 1503.86 down 3.00 pounds per oz//(ALL TIME HIGH//CLOSING///1630.29)

EURO GOLD: 1748.99 UP 0.50 euros per oz //(ALL TIME HIGH/CLOSING//1861.21)//

DONATE

Click here if you wish to send a donation. I sincerely appreciate it as this site takes a lot of preparation

EXCHANGE: COMEX

EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: AUGUST 2023 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 1,912.900000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 08/11/2023 DELIVERY DATE: 08/15/2023
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED

JPMorgan stopped 10 /18 contracts.

FOR AUGUST:

GOLD: NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR AUGUST/2023. CONTRACT: 18 NOTICES FOR 1800 OZ or 0.0559 TONNES

total notices so far: 10,669 contracts for 1,066,900 oz (33.185 tonnes)

FOR AUGUST:

SILVER NOTICES: 0 NOTICE(S) FILED FOR nil OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month : 896 for 4,480,000 oz

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Click here if you wish to send a donation. I sincerely appreciate it as this site takes a lot of preparation

END

GLD

WITH GOLD DOWN $2.10

INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL (PHYS) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD//HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.75 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD

INVENTORY RESTS AT 899.63 TONNES

Silver//

WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER DOWN 3 CENTS AT THE SLV// SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 0.459 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV/

INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV.

CLOSING INVENTORY: 452.565 MILLION OZ

Let us have a look at the data for today

SILVER//OUTLINE

SILVER COMEX OI ROSE BY A GIGANTIC SIZED 2905 CONTRACTS TO 140,394 AND CLOSER TO THE RECORD HIGH OI OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND THIS TINY SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI WAS ACCOMPLISHED DESPITE OUR $0.06 LOSS IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON FRIDAY. TAS ISSUANCE WAS ANOTHER JUPITER SIZED 7596 CONTRACTS. THESE WILL BE USED FOR MANIPULATION LATER THIS MONTH/AS WELL AS TODAY. CRAIG HEMKE HAS POINTED OUT THAT THE CROOKS USE THE MID MONTH FOR MANIPULATION AS THEY SELL THEIR BUY SIDE OF THE CALENDAR SPREAD FIRST AND THEN KEEP THE SELL SIDE TO LIQUIDATE AT A LATER DATE. THUS WE HAVE TWO VEHICLES THE CROOKS USE FOR MANIPULATION AND BOTH ARE SPREADERS: 1) AT MONTH’S END/SPREADERS COMEX AND 2/ TAS SPREADERS, MID MONTH. TOTAL TAS ISSUED ON SATURDAY NIGHT: 7596 CONTRACTS. DESPITE MANY COMPLAINTS THAT THE CROOKS HAVE VIOLATED POSITION LIMITS DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE TAS ISSUED HAVE A VALUE OF ZERO (AS TO POSITION LIMITS FOR OUR CROOKED BANKERS). THE PROBLEM OF COURSE IS THAT THE CROOKS DO NOT LIQUIDATE THE TAS TOGETHER BUT SELL THE BUY SIDE FIRST AND THEN LIQUIDATE THE SELL SIDE TWO MONTHS HENCE. IT IS OBVIOUS MANIPULATION TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE BUT IT NATURALLY FELL ON DEAF EARS WITH OUR REGULATORS (OCC) WHEN THEY RECEIVED OUR COMPLAINTS. IT THUS LOOKS LIKE THE FED (GOV’T) IS BEHIND ALL OF THESE TRADES.

WE HAVE NOW SET ANOTHER RECORD LOW AT 114,102 CONTRACTS ///JULY 3.2023// OUR BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT FELL BY $0.06). BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING OF ANY SILVER CONTRACTS(IF ANY STILL EXIST) AS WE HAD OUR HUMONGOUS GAIN OF 3505 CONTRACTS ON BOTH EXCHANGES ALONG WITH CONSIDERABLE T.A.S.LIQUIDATION THROUGHOUT THE SESSION.

WE MUST HAVE HAD:

A STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS( 600 CONTRACTS) iiii) AN INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 3.105 MILLION OZ (FIRST DAY NOTICE) FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S NIL OZ QUEUE JUMP //NEW STANDING RISES AT 4.480 MILLION OZ + OUR NEW CRIMINAL 0 CONTRACTS OF EXCHANGE FOR RISK FOR 0.00 MILLION OZ + 1.45 MILLION OZ EX. FOR RISK/PRIOR/// NEW TOTAL STANDING FOR SILVER: 5.930 MILLION OZ/// // // HUGE SIZED COMEX OI GAIN/ STRONG SIZED EFP ISSUANCE/VI) JUPITER SIZED NUMBER OF T.A.S. CONTRACT ISSUANCE (7596 CONTRACTS)/ZERO EXCHANGE FOR RISK ISSUED

I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL -157 CONTRACTS

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

TOTAL CONTRACTS for 10 days, total 16,301 contracts: OR 81.505 MILLION OZ (1630 CONTRACTS PER DAY)

TOTAL EFP’S FOR THE MONTH SO FAR: 81.505 MILLION OZ

LAST 23 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

YEAR 2022:

JAN 2022-DEC 2022

JAN 2022// 90.460 MILLION OZ

FEB 2022: 72.39 MILLION OZ//

MARCH 2022: 207.140 MILLION OZ//A NEW RECORD FOR EFP ISSUANCE

APRIL: 114.52 MILLION OZ FINAL//LOW ISSUANCE

MAY: 105.635 MILLION OZ//

JUNE: 94.470 MILLION OZ

JULY : 87.110 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: 65.025 MILLION OZ

SEPT. 74.025 MILLION OZ///FINAL

OCT. 29.017 MILLION OZ FINAL

NOV: 134.290 MILLION OZ//FINAL

DEC, 61.395 MILLION OZ FINAL

TOTALS YR 2022: 1135.767 MILLION OZ (1.1356 BILLION OZ)

JAN 2023/// 53.070 MILLION OZ //FINAL

FEB: 2023: 100.105 MILLION OZ/FINAL//MUCH STRONGER ISSUANCE VS THE LATTER TWO MONTHS.

MARCH 2023: 112.58 MILLION OZ//FINAL//STRONG ISSUANCE

APRIL 118.035 MILLION OZ(SLIGHTLY GREATER THAN THAN LAST MONTH)

MAY 66.120 MILLION OZ/INITIAL (MUCH SMALLER THIS MONTH)

JUNE: 110.395 MILLION OZ//MUCH LARGER THAN LAST MONTH

JULY 85.745 MILLION OZ (SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)

AUGUST: 81.505 MILLION OZ (THIS MONTH IS GOING TO BE GIGANTIC//WE WILL BE CLOSE TO MARCH 2022 RECORD OF 207 MILLION OZ/// )

RESULT: WE HAD A HUGE SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 2905 CONTRACTS DESPITE OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $0.06 IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX//FRIDAY.,. THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A STRONG EFP ISSUANCE CONTRACTS: 700 ISSUED FOR SEPT AND 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX TO LONDON AS FORWARDS./ WE HAVE A GOOD INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR AUGUST OF 3.105 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 0 OZ QUEUE JUMP//NEW STANDING 4.480 MILLION OZ+ 1.45 MILLION OZ EXCHANGE FOR RISK NEW TOTALS 5.930 MILLION OZ//// WE HAVE A STRONG SIZED GAIN OF 3505 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES. THE TOTAL OF TAS INITIATED CONTRACTS TODAY: A MAMMOTH 7596//HUGE FRONT END OF THE TAS CONTRACTS WERE LIQUIDATED DURING THE THURSDAY COMEX SESSION . THE NEW TAS ISSUANCE THURSDAY NIGHT (6604) WILL BE PUT INTO “THE BANK” TO BE COLLUSIVELY USED AT A LATER DATE., AND MOST PROBABLY TODAY.

WE HAD 0 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR nil OZ

THE SILVER COMEX IS NOW BEING ATTACKED FOR METAL BY LONDONERS ET AL.

GOLD//OUTLINE

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A SMALL SIZED 779 CONTRACTS TO 431,187 AND CLOSER TO TO THE 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: – REMOVED: 47 CONTRACTS

WE HAD A SMALL SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI ( 779 CONTRACTS) DESPITE OUR $2.10 LOSS IN PRICE//FRIDAY. WE ALSO HAD A RATHER SMALL INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR AUGUST. AT 30.656 TONNES ON FIRST DAY NOTICE FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 1100 OZ QUEUE JUMP + PRIOR ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR RISK = (.684 TONNES) //NEW STANDING 33.409 TONNES + .684 EXCHANGE FOR RISK = 34.093/ + /A FAIR (AND CRIMINAL) ISSUANCE OF 2306 T.A.S. CONTRACTS /// ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH A $2.10 LOSS IN PRICE WITH RESPECT TO FRIDAY’S TRADING.WE HAD A FAIR SIZED GAIN OF 2381 OI CONTRACTS (7.405 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES.

E.F.P. ISSUANCE

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A FAIR SIZED 1602 CONTRACTS:

The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 431,187

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A FAIR SIZED INCREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 2381 CONTRACTS WITH 779 CONTRACTS INCREASED AT THE COMEX// AND A FAIR 1602 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 2381 CONTRACTS OR 7.405 TONNES. WE HAD THE FOLLOWING TAS CONTRACTS INITIATED (ISSUED): A STRONG 2306 CONTRACTS)

CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

WE HAD A FAIR SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (1602 CONTRACTS) ACCOMPANYING THE SMALL SIZED GAIN IN COMEX OI (779) //TOTAL GAIN FOR OUR THE TWO EXCHANGES: 2381 CONTRACTS. WE HAVE ( 1) NOW RETURNED TO OUR NORMAL FORMAT OF BANKERS GOING SHORT AND SPECULATORS GOING LONG ,2.) FAIR INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR JULY AT 30.656 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 1100 OZ QUEUE JUMP //NEW STANDING 33.409 TONNES + .684 TONNES (EXCHANGE FOR RISK//PRIOR) NEW TOTALS: 34.093 TONNES/// 3) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION WITH CONSIDERABLE TAS LIQUIDATION //4) SMALL SIZED COMEX OPEN INTEREST GAIN/ 5) FAIR ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL PAPER///6: STRONG T.A.S. ISSUANCE: 2306 CONTRACTS

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2023 INCLUDING TODAY

AUGUST

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

TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED: 29,695 CONTRACTS OR 2,969,500 OZ OR 92,36 TONNES IN 10TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 2969 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 10 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES 92.36 TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2022, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 92.36/3550 x 100% TONNES 2.59% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2021 TO 2023

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. 175.62 TONNES//FINAL ISSUANCE//

TOTALS: 2,578.08 TONNES/2021

JAN:2022 247.25 TONNES //FINAL

FEB: 196.04 TONNES//FINAL

MARCH/2022: 409.30 TONNES //FINAL( THIS IS NOW A RECORD EFP ISSUANCE FOR MARCH AND FOR ANY MONTH.

APRIL: 169.55 TONNES (FINAL VERY LOW ISSUANCE MONTH)

MAY: 247.44 TONNES FINAL//

JUNE: 238.13 TONNES FINAL

JULY: 378.43 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST: 180.81 TONNES FINAL

SEPT. 193.16 TONNES FINAL

OCT: 177.57 TONNES FINAL ( MUCH SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)

NOV. 223.98 TONNES//FINAL ( MUCH LARGER THAN PREVIOUS MONTHS//comex running out of physical)

DEC: 185.59 tonnes // FINAL

TOTAL: 2,847,25 TONNES/2022

JAN 2023: 228.49 TONNES FINAL//HUGE AMOUNT OF EFP’S ISSUED THIS MONTH!!

FEB: 151.61 TONNES/FINAL

MARCH: 280.09 TONNES/INITIAL (ANOTHER STRONG MONTH FOR EFP ISSUANCE)

APRIL: 197.42 TONNES

MAY: 236.67 TONNES (A VERY STRONG ISSUANCE FOR THIS MONTH)

JUNE: 172.667 TONNES (WEAKER ISSUANCE THIS MONTH)

JULY: 151.69 TONNES (WEAKER THAN LAST MONTH)

AUGUST: 92.36 TONNES (A STRONG MONTH BUT WILL NOT EQUAL MARCH 2022)

SPREADING OPERATIONS

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

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

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 MAY HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JUNE., FOR BOTH 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 (SEPT), 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.”

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.

The crooks also use the spread in the TAS account (trade at settlement). They buy the spot TAS (e.g. June) and sell the future TAS two months out (e.g. August). Then they unload the front month (i.e. unload the buy side first so the price of gold/silver falls. This occurs in the middle of the front delivery month cycle. They unload the sell side of the equation, two months down the road. The crooks violate position limits as the OCC refuse to hear our complaints.

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 HUGE SIZED 2905 CONTRACTS OI TO 140,394 AND CLOSER TO OUR COMEX HIGH 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 5 YEARS AGO. HOWEVER WE HAVE NOW SET A NEW RECORD LOW OF 114,102 CONTRACTS JULY 3.2023

EFP ISSUANCE A STRONG 600 CONTRACTS

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

SEPT 670 and ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 600 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 2905 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 600 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,

WE OBTAIN A HUGE SIZED GAIN OF OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES OF 3505 CONTRACTS

THUS IN OUNCES, THE GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES TOTAL 17.525 MILLION OZ

OCCURRED DESPITE OUR $0.06 LOSS IN PRICE …..

END

OUTLINE FOR TODAY’S COMMENTARY

1a/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

(report Harvey)

b, ) Gold/silver trading overnight Europe,//GOLD COMMENTARIES

(Peter Schiff)

c) Commentaries from: Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, Pam and Russ Martens

ii a) Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

b. Other gold/silver commentaries

c. Commodity commentaries//

d)/CRYPTOCURRENCIES/BITCOIN ETC

2.ASIAN AFFAIRS//

MONDAY MORNING//SUNDAY NIGHT

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 10.82 PTS OR 0.34% //Hang Seng CLOSED DOWN 301.64 PTS OR 1.58% /The Nikkei CLOSED DOWN 313.74 PTS OR 1.27% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED DOWN 0.81 % /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN 7.2594 /OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN DOWN TO 7.2833 /Oil UP TO 82.80 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT UP AT 86.49 / Stocks in Europe OPENED MOSTLY GREEN// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE WEAKER

a)NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA

outline

b) REPORT ON JAPAN/

OUTLINE

3 CHINA

OUTLINE

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

6.Global Issues//COVID ISSUES/VACCINE ISSUES

OUTLINE

7. OIL ISSUES

OUTLINE

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

9. USA

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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

GOLD

LET US BEGIN:

THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A SMALL SIZED 779 CONTRACTS UP TO 431,187 DESPITE OUR SMALL LOSS IN PRICE OF $2.10 ON FRIDAY.

EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE

WE ARE NOW IN THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF AUGUST… 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 1602 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: : DEC 1602 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 1602 CONTRACTS

ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE GAINED THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A FAIR SIZED TOTAL OF 2381 CONTRACTS IN THAT 1602 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A SMALL SIZED GAIN OF 779 COMEX CONTRACTS..AND THIS GAIN ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES HAPPENED DESPITE OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $2.10//FRIDAY COMEX. AS PER OUR NEWBIE TRADE AT SETTLEMENT (TAS) MANIPULATION OPERATION (WHICH CRAIG HEMKE HAS POINTED OUT HAPPENS DURING MID MONTH IN THE DELIVERY CYCLE), THE CME REPORTS THAT THE TOTAL T.A.S. ISSUANCE FOR SATURDAY NIGHT WAS A STRONG 2306 CONTRACTS. THROUGHOUT THE PAST WEEKS, THE BANKERS SOLD OFF THE LONG SIDE OF THE SPREAD WHICH OF COURSE CONTINUES TO MANIPULATE THE PRICE OF GOLD SOUTHBOUND. (THEY KEEP THE SHORT SIDE OF THE CALENDAR SPREAD WHICH WILL BE LIQUIDATED TWO MONTHS HENCE)//THE HUGE NUMBER OF T.A.S. CONTRACTS INITIATED OVER THE PAST SEVERAL WEEKS SPELLS TROUBLE FOR THE GOLD/SILVER MARKET AS RAIDS WILL SURELY BE UPON US TRYING TO CONTAIN OUR PRECIOUS METALS RISE IN PRICE.

// WE HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING: AUGUST (34.093) ( ACTIVE MONTH)

TONNES),

HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS OF 2021-2022:

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 YEAR 2021 (JAN- DEC): 601.213 TONNES

YEAR 2022:

JANUARY 2022 17.79 TONNES

FEB 2022: 59.023 TONNES

MARCH: 36.678 TONNES

APRIL: 85.340 TONNES FINAL.

MAY: 20.11 TONNES FINAL

JUNE: 74.933 TONNES FINAL

JULY 29.987 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST:104.979 TONNES//FINAL

SEPT. 38.1158 TONNES

OCT: 77.390 TONNES/ FINAL

NOV 27.110 TONNES/FINAL

Dec. 64.000 tonnes

(TOTAL YEAR 656.076 TONNES)

2023:

JAN/2023: 20.559 tonnes

FEB 2023: 47.744 tonnes

MAR: 19.0637 TONNES

APRIL: 75.676 tonnes

MAY: 19.094 TONNES + 1.244 tonnes of exchange for risk = 20.338

JUNE: 64.354 TONNES

JULY: 10.2861 TONNES

AUGUST: 34.093 TONNES (INCLUDING .6842 EXCHANGE FOR RISK)

THE SPECS/HFT WERE SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE( IT LOST $2.10) //// BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING ANY SPECULATOR LONGS (IF ANY STILL EXIST) AS WE HAD A FAIR GAIN OF 2391 TOTAL CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES. WE HAD CONSIDERABLE T.A.S. LIQUIDATION ON THE FRONT END. THE T.A.S. ISSUED ON SATURDAY NIGHT WILL BE “PUT INTO THE BANK” TO BE USED AT A LATER DATE AT THE COLLUSIVE CHOOSING OF OUR BANKERS.

WE HAVE GAINED A TOTAL OI OF 7.405 PAPER TONNES FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES, ACCOMPANYING OUR INITIAL GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR AUGUST. (30.656 TONNES) ON FIRST DAY NOTICE FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 1100 OZ QUEUEJUMP //NEW STANDING ADVANCES A BIT TO 33.409 TONNES + .6842 (PRIOR EXCHANGE FOR RISK) //NEW TOTAL 34.093 TONNES // ALL OF THIS WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE TO THE TUNE OF $2.10.

WE HAD – REMOVED 47 CONTRACTS TO THE COMEX TRADES TO OPEN INTEREST

NET GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 2381 CONTRACTS OR 238,100 OZ OR 7.405 TONNES.

Estimated gold volume today:// 118,610 awful

final gold volumes/yesterday 129,578 awful//speculators have left the gold arena

//AUGUST 14/ FOR THE AUGUST 2023 GOLD CONTRACT

Gold	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory in oz*	nil
Withdrawals from Customer* Inventory in oz*	64.334.148 Brinks 2001 kilobars .
Deposit to the Dealer* Inventory in oz*	nil
Deposits to the Customer* Inventory, in oz*	nil OZ
No of oz served (contracts) today	18 notice(s) 1800 OZ 0.2457TONNES
No of oz to be served (notices)	72 contracts 7200 oz 0.2239 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month	10,669 notices 1,066,900 OZ 33.185 TONNES
Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers* inventory this month*	NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer* inventory this month*	x

0 dealer deposit:

total dealer deposits: NIL oz

customer deposits: 0

total customer deposits: nil oz

we had 1 customer withdrawals

i) Out of Brinks oz 64,334.148 oz (2001 kilobars)

Adjustments; 5 of which all 5 are dealer to customer

i) Brinks 11,396.128 oz

ii) HSBC 20,913.874 oz

iii) JPMorgan: 19,814.34 oz

iv)Malca 17801.062 iz

v) manfra 12,602.309 oz//total adjustment 82,528.813 oz

CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR AUGUST.

For the front month of AUGUST we have an oi of 90 contracts having LOST 68 contracts. We had 79 contracts filed

on Friday, so we gained 11 contracts or an additional 1100 oz will stand at the comex,

Sept gained 50 contracts to 2657.

Oct gained 148 contracts to 33,441 contracts.

We had 18 contracts filed for today representing 1800 oz

Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from J.P.Morgan dealer account and 0 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equate to 18 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 0 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 AUGUST /2023. contract month,

we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (10,669 x 100 oz ), to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of AUGUST (90 CONTRACT) minus the number of notices served upon today 18 x 100 oz per contract equals 1,074,100 OZ OR 33.409 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this active month of AUGUST. + .684 TONNES EXCHANGE FOR RISK/prior = 34.093 tonnes

thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the AUGUST contract month: No of notices filed so far (10,669) x 100 oz + (90) {OI for the front month} minus the number of notices served upon today (18) x 100 oz) which equals 1,074,100 oz standing OR 33.409 TONNES + .684 TONNES OF EXCHANGE FOR RISK/prior = 34.093 TONNES

TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING: 34.058 TONNES WHICH IS SMALL FOR AN ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

COMEX GOLD INVENTORIES/CLASSIFICATION

NEW PLEDGED GOLD:

241,794.285 oz NOW PLEDGED /HSBC 5.94 TONNES

204,937.290 PLEDGED MANFRA 3.08 TONNES

83,657.582 PLEDGED JPMorgan no 1 1.690 tonnes

265,999.054, oz JPM No 2

1,152,376.639 oz pledged Brinks/

Manfra: 33,758.550 oz

Delaware: 193.721 oz

International Delaware:: 11,188.542 oz

total pledged gold: 2,101,333.235 OZ 65.36 tonnes

TOTAL OF ALL GOLD ELIGIBLE AND REGISTERED: 22,047,485.388 OZ

TOTAL REGISTERED GOLD: 11,714,518.831 (364,37 tonnes)..

TOTAL OF ALL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 10,332,967,007 O Z

REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 9,613,185 OZ (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD) 299.01 tonnes//

END

SILVER/COMEX

AUGUST 14

//2023// THE AUGUST 2023 SILVER CONTRACT

Silver	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory*	NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory	1,017,299.785 oz CNT Delaware JPM .
Deposits to the Dealer* Inventory*	nil oz
Deposits to the Customer Inventory	nil oz
No of oz served today (contracts)	0 CONTRACT(S) (0 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)	0 contracts (nil oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)	896 Contracts (4,480,000 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Dealers* inventory this month*	NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Customer* inventory this month*

i) 0 dealer deposit

total dealer deposit: 0 oz

i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal

total dealer withdrawals: 0 oz

We had 0 deposits customer account:

total customer deposits: nil oz

JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 139.276 million oz/279,586 million =49.82% of comex .//

Comex withdrawals 2

i) Out of JPM 415,757.488 oz

ii) Out of JPMorgan: 601,542.300 oz

adjustments: 0

TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 30.828 MILLION OZ//.TOTAL REG + ELIGIBLE. 279.856 million oz

CALCULATIONS FOR THE NEW STANDING FOR SILVER FOR JULY:

silver open interest data:

FRONT MONTH OF AUGUST /2023 OI: 0 CONTRACTS HAVING LOST 0 CONTRACT(S). WE HAD

0 NOTICES FILED ON THURSDAY SO WE GAINED 0 CONTRACTS OR AN ADDITIONAL NIL OZ WILL STAND IN THIS NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF AUGUST.

SEPT HAS A LOSS OF 3842 CONTRACTS DOWN TO 67,491

OCT GAINED 69 CONTRACTS TO STAND AT 427.

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 0 for NIL oz

Comex volumes// est. volume today 62,263 fair

Comex volume: confirmed yesterday: 71,532 good

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in AUGUST. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 896 x 5,000 oz = 4,480,000 oz

to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of AUGUST (0) and the number of notices served upon today 0 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the standings for silver for the AUGUST/2023 contract month: 896 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for the front month of AUGUST (0) – number of notices served upon today (0 )x 500 oz of silver standing for the AUGUST contract month equates to 4.480 million oz.+ 0.0 MILLION OZ EXCHANGE FOR RISK ISSUED TODAY+ 1.45 MILLION OZ EXCHANGE FOR RISK PRIOR//NEW TOTALS: 5.930 MILLION oz.

There are 30.828 million oz of registered silver.

Thus if we take today’s standing at 5.930 and add last month’s 30.9 million oz we have 36.830 million oz against only 31.066 million registered silver.

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

AUGUST 14/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.10 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.75 TONNES FORM THE GLD//: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 899.63 TONNES

AUGUST 11/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.10 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .31 TONNES FORM THE GLD//: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 903.31 TONNES

AUGUST 10/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 903.69 TONNES

AUGUST 9/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.75 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 903.69 TONNES

AUGUST 8/WITH GOLD DOWN $9.60 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.31 TONNES FORM THE GLD /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 903.69 TONNES

AUGUST 7/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.45 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 906.00 TONNES

AUGUST 4/WITH GOLD UP $7.25 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.18 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/// .///INVENTORY RESTS AT 906.00 TONNES

AUGUST 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.25 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD //: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 909.18 TONNES

AUGUST 2/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.45 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.75 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 909.18 TONNES

AUGUST 1/WITH GOLD DOWN $28.45 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.89 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.93 TONNES

JULY 31/WITH GOLD UP $9.50 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.89 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.93 TONNES

JULY 28/WITH GOLD UP $14.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.44 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 915,82 TONNES

JULY 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $21.80 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.74 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.26 TONNES

JULY 26/WITH GOLD UP $6.35 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.00 TONNES

JULY 25/WITH GOLD UP $2.45 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.00 TONNES

JULY 24/WITH GOLD DOWN $4.65 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 5.20 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.00 TONNES

JULY 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.80 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 913.80 TONNES

JULY 20/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.70 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.73 TONNES FROM THE GLD/ .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 913.80 TONNES

JULY 19/WITH GOLD UP $0.65 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .86 TONNES FROM THE GLD/ .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.07 TONNES

JULY 18/WITH GOLD UP $23.45 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.93 TONNES

JULY 17/WITH GOLD DOWN $6.60 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.73 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.93 TONNES

JULY 14/WITH GOLD UP $0.75 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 914.66 TONNES

JULY 13/WITH GOLD UP $3.30 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.29 TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 914.66 TONNES

JULY 12/WITH GOLD UP $24.50 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.31 TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 914.95 TONNES

JULY 11/WITH GOLD UP $6.15 TODAY: BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.0 TONNES OF GOLD OUT OF THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 915.26 TONNES

JULY 10 WITH GOLD DOWN $1.35 TODAY; HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.60 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 916.26 TONNES.

GLD INVENTORY: 899.63 TONNES

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

AUGUST 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 3 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A DEPOSIT OF 0.459 MILLION OZ INTOTHE SLV/: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.106 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 11/WITH SILVER DOWN 6 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A DEPOSIT OF 1.926 MILLION OZ INTOTHE SLV/: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.106 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 10/WITH SILVER UP 6 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A WITHDRAWAL OF 8,807 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV/: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 450.180 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 9/WITH SILVER DOWN 7 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A WITHDRAWAL OF 8,807 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV/: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 450.180 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 8/WITH SILVER DOWN 40 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 458.987 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 7/WITH SILVER DOWN 46 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 458.987 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 4/WITH SILVER UP 1 CENT TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.294 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 458.987 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 3/WITH SILVER DOWN 16 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 189,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.281 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 2/WITH SILVER DOWN 43 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 275,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.471 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 1/WITH SILVER DOWN 61 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 184,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.746 MILLION OZ

JULY 31/WITH SILVER UP 45 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 184,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.746 MILLION OZ

JULY 28/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 550,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.930 MILLION OZ

JULY 27/WITH SILVER DOWN 59 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.480 MILLION OZ

JULY 26/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.480 MILLION OZ/

JULY 25/WITH SILVER UP 24 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A SMALL WITHDRAWAL OF 826,000 OZ FROM THE SLV..////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.480 MILLION OZ/

JULY 24/WITH SILVER DOWN 23 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 453.306 MILLION OZ/

JULY 21/WITH SILVER DOWN 14 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.101 MILLION OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 453.306 MILLION OZ/

JULY 20/WITH SILVER DOWN 38 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.468 MILLION OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 454.107 MILLION OZ/

JULY 19/WITH SILVER UP 11 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 455.875 MILLION OZ/

JULY 18/WITH SILVER DOWN 19 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 455.875 MILLION OZ/

JULY 17/WITH SILVER UP 25 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.856 MILLION OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV////////INVENTORY RESTS AT 455.875 MILLION OZ/

JULY 14/WITH SILVER UP 27 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.21 MILLION OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV////////INVENTORY RESTS AT 455.875 MILLION OZ/

JULY 13/WITH SILVER UP 64 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//////INVENTORY RESTS AT 462.941 MILLION OZ/

JULY 12/WITH SILVER UP $1.00 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.881 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 462.941 MILLION OZ/

JULY 11/WITH SILVER DOWN 5 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF .020 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 464.822 MILLION OZ/

JULY 10/WITH SILVER UP 2 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.672 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 464.802 MILLION OZ

CLOSING INVENTORY 452.565 MILLION OZ//

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

1:Peter Schiff/Mike Maharrey

end

2 Commentaries from: Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, Pam and Russ Martens//JAMES RICKARDS//JOHN RUBINO

EGON VON GREYERZ..

a good read!

POWELL’S ABRACADABRA INFLATION TARGETING

Egon von Greyerz
August 13, 2023

The Fed has two mandates – Maximum Employment and Price Stability

If we look at price stability, the Fed has failed miserably.

The Fed employs 3,000 people in Washington DC of which 300 have a Ph.D. degree.

Their mission is “to provide our nation with a safer and more flexible and more stable monetary and financial system” with the overall mandate being price stability.

In addition to discussing the Fed’s total failure in controlling inflation, in this article I will also stick my neck out in the climate debate before I go on to the likely disastrous effects of debts, deficits and inflation will have on investment markets.

POWELL’S ABRACADABRA INFLATION TARGETING

Last week the Fed chairman explained, in the Senate, the method the 300 Fed PhDs and many of the 3,000 Fed staff apply for inflation targeting.

Senator Cortez asked Powell:

Cortez:

“Why 2% inflation?”

Powell:

“The 2% is globally agreed between all major central banks as a target.”

EvG question: So for this Lemming system 300 PhDs are required?

Cortez:

“How does it help people?”

EvG: The contorted Fed Speak reply which Powell utters summarises the entire wisdom of the Fed.

Powell:

“I will tell you how it does, I guess it is obviously not obvious how that is.”

EvG: Hmmmm… Powell obviously doesn’t have a clue – “OBVIOUSLY NOT OBVIOUS!”

Powell continues:

“To have people believe that it will go back to 2% anchors inflation there.

Evidence is that the modern belief is that people’s expectation has an effect on inflation. If we expect inflation to go up to 5%, then it will because businesses and households expect it.”

So there we have the inner secrets of the Fed’s inflation policy and targeting.

Firstly, the 2% target is just a Lemming system. Every other central bank does it, so we the Fed must follow the system of mediocrity.

Secondly, it is only a matter of making people believe that inflation goes to 2% and it will. What about if the people believe inflation will go to 20%?

This is where Powell the magician comes in to hypnotise businesses and household into believing in 2% inflation:

I agree with senator Cortez’ question: Why 2%? There is nothing desirable about the 2% at all. With 2% inflation, prices double every 36 years. The aim should really be to have no inflation.

The problem with an arbitrary Lemming system targeting 2% is that it doesn’t work. Neither the Fed nor any other central bank have managed to hold it at that level except for accidentally on the way to higher or lower inflation.

INFLATION WILL TURN BACK UP

Between 2015 and 2021 inflation in most industrialised countries was between 0% and 3%.

When inflation in 2021 shot up significantly, Powell and Lagarde (ECB) proclaimed that that was only “transitory”. Still inflation went up to around 10% before it started to retreat in 2022.

As I have explained in previous articles, the world is gradually moving from a financial and debt based economy to a one based on real assets and commodities.

This will lead to a shift from a financially and morally bankrupt Western system to the East and South based on commodities and manufacturing.

An upmove in commodity prices normally lead inflation by 6-9 months. So when commodity prices turned up in late 2019, inflation followed in most countries in early to mid 2020.

After a correction, commodity prices bottomed in March-May 2023 so we could see inflation in the US and Europe turning during the autumn 2023.

So sadly for Powell and Lagarde, their 2% inflation targeting is going to fail again, however much they hypnotise the people to believe it!

Instead high inflation and high interest rates will prevail for decades. But it will most certainly involve a very high level of volatility with fast up moves and violent corrections.

Before I move on to the dire effects that inflation deficits and debts will have for the US and global economy, I will stick my neck out in the heated climate debate.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY – HYSTERIA OR REALITY

The climate debate is totally polarised and dominated by powerful interest groups.

Since Al Gore politicised this issue at a heightened level at the Copenhagen Climate conference in 2009, the trend has been clear.

Just like with Covid, it has suited Western governments to use the climate debate as a means of controlling the people and protecting special interests.

The official climate debate is totally one sided. Any money for research is only granted to scientists who support the notion of man-made global warming caused mainly by fossil fuels.

The fact that fossil fuels account for 83% of all energy and most probably cannot be reduced more than marginally for the next several decades is totally ignored in the debate.

A further problem is that the world has reached peak energy by way of fossil fuels and there is no serious alternative in sight for decades.

In addition, the energy cost of producing energy is increasing fast. The consequence will be falling standards of living for a foreseeable future. (SEEDS – Surplus Energy Economics)

The fact that the Holocene period which started 11,700 years ago has been the coldest in geological history is totally ignored. All the climate activists are just looking at figures for the last couple of hundred years.

Also, the fact that CO2 has been declining for 1 billion years is totally ignored. Without CO2 there would be no life on earth. Total CO2 in the atmosphere is today 0.04%. If that percentage declines below 0.02% there would be no life on earth.

Dr John Clauser, the 2022 physics Noble Prize winner, criticises the climate models as unreliable and not accounting for the dramatic temperature-stabilising feedback of clouds. Clauser says that clouds are more than 50X as powerful as the radiative effect of CO2. In summary he says that there is no climate crisis and that increasing CO2 concentrations will benefit the world.

A leading nuclear physicist Dr. Wallace Manheimer warned that Net Zero would end modern civilisation. He observed that the new wind and solar infrastructure would fail, cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment “and be entirely unnecessary”.

I am not a Covid expert. But in the case of Covid, the debate was totally skewed by the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on propaganda and corruption by the pharmaceutical companies. A small censored scientific minority were totally against an untested gene-manipulating vaccine and warned about its severe dangers. Three years later the fears of this minority have been vindicated.

I am obviously not a Climate expert either. But having studied economic cycles for many years, I am a great believer in understanding history and very long trends rather than basing my opinion on short term opportunism.

Thus studying very long climate cycles, it is clear to me that they are much more powerful than whatever effect that mankind has had on climate in the last 150 years.

To take an example, just look at the 11,000 year climate cycle graph above. It shows a Roman Climate Optimum 2,000 years ago. At that time Rome had a tropical climate. As far as I am aware, there were no cars or other manmade CO2 producing matters at that time.

Of course we all want a world with less pollution in the air and in the oceans and should strive for that globally.

But to believe that we can achieve Net Zero CO2 Emissions by 2050 is as unrealistic as believing that mankind can limit the temperature increase by 1.5 degrees by 2050.

Let me just take some examples. Many Western countries are legislating that only electric vehicles (EVs) can be produced after 2030 or 2035.

What the climate activists ignore is that EVs are costlier to produce than ordinary cars and have a major CO2 effect.

To produce ONE battery takes 250 tons of rock and minerals. The effect is 10-20 tons of CO2 from mining and manufacturing even before has been driven 1 meter.

Also, car batteries cannot be recycled but go to landfill which has major implications.

But that’s not the only problem. For the first 60-70,000 miles an EV produces more CO2 than an ordinary vehicle.

Hopefully the CO2 and cost efficiency of EVs will be improved but so far progress is very slow.

US DEFICITS ARE SURGING

The borrowing requirements of the US treasury is reflecting the total lack of fiscal discipline which is typical for a Banana Republic.

From January to the end of December 2023, the Treasury expects to borrow $3.3 trillion. With some extra bad news, including higher interest rates, the $3.3 trillion could easily rise to $4 – 4.5 trillion. This deficit plus the ongoing QT (quantitative tightening) is likely to put upward pressure on rates.

Except for the Fed, there will be no buyer of an ever increasing amount of US debt.
And so the vicious circle of higher debts, higher inflation, higher deficits starts to spin ever faster.

Sadly, such a dire scenario can never have a happy ending.

For the banks, higher rates mean much higher defaults and a constant squeeze to reduce lending, also mandated by the Fed.

With massively increasing borrowing requirements from the US Government and the Fed as well from the banking sector with dwindling sources of funding, the likelihood of drastic measures are obvious.

After the subprime crises 2006-9, governments agreed that bailouts would be replaced by bail-ins at the next crisis. So far this didn’t happen in mid-March when 4 US banks and Credit Suisse collapsed.

But the coming pressures on both public and private funding are likely to lead to draconian actions by governments next time around. This will probably involve forced savings in government debt for most Western countries, including US, Europe and Japan.

It could involve compulsory purchases by bank depositors of say 10 year bonds with interest rolled up for 25-50% of customer liquidity in the bank.

My old forecast of future US debt made in 2016 is so far looking on target. Whether the debt will be my original $40 trillion forecast or the revised $50 trillion, time will tell.

Major bank and derivatives defaults could easily push it up to $50t.

HOLD TANGIBLE ASSETS

The main beneficiaries of the Western debt and deficit problems are of course:

Precious Metals – especially gold and silver
Commodities – especially oil and uranium

Stocks might benefit short term from higher inflation but over the medium and long term they will collapse.

Buffett’s favourite indicator, Stocks to GDP is massively overvalued. To decline to the mean would involve a 50% fall. But overbought markets always overshoot. So a 70-90% decline would not be unrealistic. In such scenario, it won’t only be stock prices that decline but GDP could easily fall 10-20% in real terms.

Bonds, especially issued by governments, should be avoided like the plague. Inflation and potential defaults or moratoria will make them the worst investment ever. In addition the debasement of currencies will lead to the value of bonds in real terms reaching ZERO very quickly.

So is my forecast too pessimistic. Maybe but I doubt it. No one can of course predict the exact timing.

But what we can evaluate is the risk.

And with global risk being more elevated than at any point in history (and I haven’t even discussed political or geopolitical risks), why not protect your assets today from potentially the biggest wealth destruction ever.

end

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

The USA is still at it: they increased their gold swaps with the BIS by 16 tonnes

(Robert Lambourne)

Robert Lambourne: BIS gold swaps rose 16 tonnes in July

Submitted by admin on Sat, 2023-08-12 13:41Section: Daily Dispatches

By Robert Lambourne
Saturday, August 12, 2023

Active trading in gold swaps by the Bank for International Settlements, the central bank of the central banks, continued in July.

From information in the BIS’ June 31 statement of account, published this week, it is estimated that the volume of gold swaps increased to 103 tonnes from the 87 tonnes estimated at June 30, a gain of 16 tonnes.

The July statement of account can be found here:

Click to access statofacc230731.pdf

The BIS’ gold swaps had fallen to zero as of December 31, 2022, and had increased to 188 tonnes as of May 31 this year before falling 87 tonnes in June and then rising to 103 tonnes at July 31.

It still seems likely that the BIS has entered these swaps on behalf of the U.S. Federal Reserve. There is no evidence to suggest that any other major central bank is actively trading this much gold, and recently it has been clear that many central banks are accumulating physical gold.

The basic transaction that the BIS is believed to undertake is to swap dollars for gold transferred from a bullion bank, and then to deposit this gold in a gold sight account at a central bank, presumed to be the Fed but almost certainly being the central bank that is using the BIS to execute the gold swap on its behalf.

Given the recent volatility in BIS gold swaps, most are probably of short duration. Why a central bank needs the BIS to undertake gold swaps isn’t clear, but the swaps are likely connected with short-term trading needs, which could include suppressing the gold price.

The gold price increased to $1,964 at July 31 from $1,920 at June 30 (per USAGold.com). The volatility in the volume of swaps especially in the last 12 months is clear from a review of Table B below.

The reasons for this active trading have not been officially explained, and thus they may be related to efforts to drive the gold price down in June. Much of GATA’s research on gold price suppression indicates that an active policy of price suppression began more than 30 years ago and was meant primarily to suppress interest rates. This article from 2005 is relevant and highlights work in this area by former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President Lawrence Summers:

Gibson’s Paradox Revisited: Professor Summers Analyzes Gold Prices

It is also relevant to consider the following remarks made in a speech given by Summers on September 8, 1999, as reported in the book “The Wealth of Progressive Nations: The Collected Lectures of Lawrence Summers.” The remarks below are an extract of a section of the speech titled “A New Economic Paradigm.”

“Most important of all, the Clinton-Gore administration has established a new paradigm for the management of our nation’s budget, with enormous cumulative benefits for our economy and our citizens. It has become a commonplace to remark on how exceptional today’s 4.2% unemployment rate is relative to any expectation at the beginning of the decade. It is no less remarkable that today, after 8.5 years of expansion, long-term interest rates are around 2 percentage points lower than they were at its start.“

From this it is reasonable to conclude that keeping interest rates “lower” was considered a priority and succeeding was “remarkable.” While this is not proof that gold price suppression was undertaken specifically to reduce interest rates, it highlights that reducing interest rates was a priority.

In this context the following report issued by GATA in 2007 concerning an analysis of the gold market by Frank Veneroso is worth reading again as it confirms that GATA’s primary assertions about gold price suppression are plausible.

https://www.gata.org/node/5275

Using the July 30 gold price of $1,964, the 103 tonnes of BIS gold swaps are valued at about $6.5 billion. (Their value at June 30 was around $5.4 billion.) So the recent trading in BIS gold swaps is of high monetary value and shows that gold remains a significant monetary asset still actively traded by central banks.

As ever with the BIS, it remains unlikely that more information about the reasons for the bank to undertake these transactions will ever be provided. This secrecy implies that central bank gold policy involves much deception — that it is currency market intervention for one or more central banks for which the BIS provides camouflage.

For example, the recently published BIS 2023 Annual Report does not provide any information on the gold swaps other than confirming that gold swaps covering 77 tonnes were in place as of March 31, 2023.

The worsening finances of Western nations, especially the United States, may reduce the appeal to the BIS of undertaking gold swaps and possibly even reduce the appeal of swaps to the central bank or banks for which the BIS has been acting. So a report issued by GATA in 2012 is worth revisiting as it highlights the acknowledgment of gold price suppression by a former chairman of the BIS, Jelle Zijlstra, a Dutch politician, economist, and central banker. It seems likely that BIS management understands what the swaps are being used for and why they must be camouflaged:

https://www.gata.org/node/11304

The continuing conundrum facing the Federal Reserve about raising dollar interest rates again should reduce the appeal to the Fed of having to return swapped gold. Despite its rhetoric about pushing interest rates higher, the Fed needs to avoid more erosion of confidence in the U.S. Treasuries market when the U.S. government’s ever-increasing debt has been so controversial recently. The Treasury Department’s July report highlights a cumulative deficit of $1.6 trillion featuring lower cumulative revenue than during the same period a year ago, higher cumulative expenditures, and much higher interest costs pushed up by the higher interest rates set by the Fed:

https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts0723.pdf

The cumulative interest charge on the externally held debt of the U.S. government is up by 37% at July 31 compared to the same period in 2022 and indicates the problem caused for U.S. government borrowing by higher interest rates.

In these circumstances the room for the Fed to raise interest rates much more seems restricted and hence it seems that the BIS and some of its shareholders might be questioning the role of the bank in these swaps and the obligation to make future deliveries of gold, since the Fed may be unable to move interest rates high enough to contain inflation. One factor is the evidence of recently increased prices for oil and a possible trend of even higher prices because of falling U.S. oil production combined with official remarks by Saudi Arabia that it aims to cut production.

The recent suspension of the federal government’s debt ceiling makes it easier to defend against a banking crisis by allowing the U.S. government to offer additional bank deposit guarantees. The debt ceiling deal may even make a revaluation of gold easier for the United States to carry out.

As is clear from Table B below, BIS gold swaps were significantly higher in the first half of last year, and the October and December totals were easily the lowest in more than four years.

—–

Table A below highlights the level of gold swaps reported in the annual reports of the BIS back to 2010, when the bank’s use of gold swaps appears to have begun. At only one year-end since then, in March 2016, has the swap level been zero.

The BIS’ recently published annual report dated March 31, 2023, discloses that the BIS still holds 102 tonnes of its own gold and that few of its activities in derivatives involve central banks. An assumption that the gold held by the BIS remains at 102 tonnes has been used by this analyst to make the estimate of the bank’s gold swap level for December. The low level of derivatives reported by the BIS using central banks as counterparties at the year end seems a sensible reason to assume that the swaps are almost certainly done with gold bullion banks rather than central banks. Historically, the first swaps described below were done with bullion banks.

—–

… Historical context …

The BIS rarely comments publicly on its gold activities, but its first use of gold swaps was considered important enough to cause the bank to give some background information to the Financial Times for an article published July 29, 2010, coinciding with publication of the bank’s 2009-10 annual report.

The general manager of the BIS at the time, Jaime Caruana, said the gold swaps were “regular commercial activities” for the bank, and he confirmed that they were carried out with commercial banks and so did not involve central banks. It also seems highly likely that the BIS’ remaining swaps are still all made with commercial banks, because the BIS annual report has never disclosed a gold swap between the BIS and a major central bank.

The swap transactions potentially created a mismatch at the BIS, which may have ended up being long unallocated gold (the gold held in BIS sight accounts at major central banks) and short allocated gold (the gold required to be returned to swap counterparties). This possible mismatch has not been reported by the BIS.

The gold banking activities of the BIS have been a regular part of the services it offers to central banks since the bank’s establishment 90 years ago. The first annual report of the BIS explains these activities in some detail:

http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/archive/ar1931_en.pdf

A June 2008 presentation made by the BIS to potential central bank members at its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, noted that the bank’s services to its members include secret interventions in the gold and foreign exchange markets:

https://www.gata.org/node/11012

The use of gold swaps to take gold held by commercial banks and then deposit it in gold sight accounts held in the name of the BIS at major central banks doesn’t appear ever to have been as large a part of the BIS’ gold banking business as it has been in recent years, although the recent declines suggest this is changing.

As of March 31, 2010, excluding gold owned by the BIS, there were 1,706 tonnes held in the name of the BIS in gold sight accounts at major central banks, of which 346 tonnes or 20% were sourced from gold swaps from commercial banks.

If the BIS was adopting the level of disclosure made by publicly held companies, such as commercial banks, some explanation of these changes probably would have been required by the accounting regulators. This irony may not be lost on those dealing with regulatory activities at the BIS. Presumably the shrinkage of the BIS’ gold banking business shows that even central banks now prefer to hold their own gold or hold it in earmarked form — that is, as allocated gold.

A review of Table B below highlights recent BIS activity with gold swaps, and despite the recent declines, the recent positions estimated from the BIS monthly statements have regularly been large, especially in early 2022, and the volume of trading has been significant.

No explanation for this continuing use of swaps has been published by the BIS. Indeed, no comment on the bank’s use of gold swaps has been offered since 2010.

This gold is supplied by bullion banks via the swaps to the BIS. The gold is then deposited in BIS gold sight accounts (unallocated gold accounts) at major central banks such as the Federal Reserve.

The reasons for this activity have never been fully explained by the BIS and various conjectures have been made as to why the BIS has facilitated it. One conjecture is that the swaps are a mechanism for the return of gold secretly supplied by central banks to cover shortfalls in the gold markets. The use of the BIS to facilitate this trade suggests of a desire to conceal the rationale for the transactions.

As can be seen in Table A below, the BIS has used gold swaps extensively since its financial year 2009-10. No use of swaps is reported in the bank’s annual reports for at least 10 years prior to the year ended March 2010.

The February 2021 estimate of the bank’s gold swaps (552 tonnes) was higher than any level of swaps reported by the BIS at its March year-end since March 2010. The swaps reported at March 2021 were at the highest year-end level reported, as is clear from Table A.

—–

Table A — Swaps reported in BIS annual reports

March 2010: 346 tonnes.
March 2011: 409 tonnes.
March 2012: 355 tonnes.
March 2013: 404 tonnes.
March 2014: 236 tonnes.
March 2015: 47 tonnes.
March 2016: 0 tonnes.
March 2017: 438 tonnes.
March 2018: 361 tonnes.
March 2019: 175 tonnes
March 2020: 326 tonnes
March 2021: 490 tonnes
March 2022: 358 tonnes
March 2023: 77 tonnes

—–

The table below reports the estimated swap levels since August 2018. It can be seen that the BIS is actively involved in trading gold swaps and other gold derivatives with changes from month to month reported in excess of 100 tonnes in this period.

—–

Table B – Swaps estimated by GATA from BIS monthly statements of account

Month ….. Swaps
& year … in tonnes

Jul-23 …. /103

Jun-23 …. /87

May-23 …. /188

Apr-23 …. /135

Mar-23 …. /77*

Feb-23 … /136

Jan-23 … /103

Dec-22 … /0

Nov-22 … /105

Oct-22 ….. /7

Sep-22 …../57

Aug-22 ….. /75

Jul-22 ….. /56

Jun-22 ….. /202

May-22 ….. /270

Apr-22 ….. /315

Mar-22 …. /358

Feb-22 …. /472

Jan-22 ….. /501

Dec-21…. /414

Nov-21…. /451

Oct-21…. /414

Sep-21 …. /438

Aug-21 …. /464

Jul-21 …. /502

Jun-21 …./471

May-21 …./517

Apr-21 …. /472

Mar-21…. /490±

Feb-21 …../552

Jan-21 …. /523

Dec-20 …. /545

Nov-20 …. /520

Oct-20 …. /519

Sep-20…../ 520

Aug-20…../ 484

Jul-20 ….. / 474

Jun-20 …. / 391

May-20 …. / 412

Apr-20 …. / 328

Mar-20 …. / 326**

Feb-20 …. / 326

Jan-20 …. / 320

Dec-19 …. / 313

Nov-19 …. / 250

Oct-19 …. / 186

Sep-19 …. / 128

Aug-19 …. / 162

Jul-19 ….. / 95

Jun-19 …. / 126

May-19 …. / 78

Apr-19 ….. / 88

Mar-19 …. / 175

Feb-19 …. / 303

Jan-19 …. / 247

Dec-18 …. / 275

Nov-18 …. / 308

Oct-18 …. / 372

Sep-18 …. / 238

Aug-18 …. / 370

* The estimate originally reported by GATA was 78 tonnes, but the BIS annual report states 77 tonnes. It is believed that slightly different gold prices account for the difference.

± The estimate originally reported by GATA was 487 tonnes, but the BIS annual report states 490 tonnes, It is believed that slightly different gold prices account for the difference.

** The estimate originally reported by GATA was 332 tonnes, but the BIS annual report states 326 tonnes. It is believed that slightly different gold prices account for the difference.

GATA uses gold prices quoted by USAGold.com to estimate the level of gold swaps held by the BIS at month-ends.

—–

As noted already, the BIS in recent times has refused to explain its activities in the gold market, nor for whom the bank is acting:

Despite this reticence the BIS has almost certainly acted on behalf of central banks in taking out these swaps, as they are the BIS’ owners and control its Board of Directors. Historically, the BIS has often acted on behalf of the Federal Reserve.

This refusal to explain prompts some observers to believe that the BIS acts as an agent for central banks intervening surreptitiously in the gold and currency markets, providing those central banks with access to gold as well as protection from exposure of their interventions.

As mentioned above, it is possible that the swaps provide a mechanism for bullion banks to return gold originally lent to them by central banks to cover bullion bank shortfalls of gold. Some commentators have suggested that a portion of the gold held by exchange-traded funds and managed by bullion banks is sourced directly from central banks.

—–

Robert Lambourne is a retired business executive in the United Kingdom who consults with GATA about the involvement of the Bank for International Settlements in the gold market.

end

Poland certainly understand what is going on. In the last 4 months they have added 71 tonnes, with July at close to 15 tonnes.They know the financial system is breaking and they are certainly aware of the USA still shy of engaging in Base iii compliance. These guys and other central banks are taking on the USA

(Jan //Koos Jansen)

Ronan Manly: Poland central bank perfectly understands gold’s virtues

Submitted by admin on Sat, 2023-08-12 17:45Section: Daily Dispatches

5:45p ET Saturday, August 12, 2023

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Bullion Star gold analysit Ronan Manly today elaborates on the steady enlargement of the Polish central bank’s gold reserves, and his report may be most interesting for quoting the explanation given by the bank’s president, Adam Glapinski.

Perfectly incisive as that endorsement is, Manly writes that it is nothing that could ever be written or uttered by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Manly’s analysis is headlined “Poland’s Central Bank Rramps Up Gold Purchases During July, and Now Holds 300 Tonnes of Gold” and it’s posted at Bullion Star here:

https://www.bullionstar.us/blogs/ronan-manly/polands-central-bank-ramps-up-gold-purchases-during-july-and-now-holds-300-tonnes-of-gold/

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

end

4, OTHER IMPORTANT GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

end

5 a. IMPORTANT COMMENTARIES ON COMMODITIES:

end

5 B GLOBAL COMMODITY ISSUES/FOOD IN GENERAL//FREIGHT

END

6.CRYPTOCURRENCY//DIGITAL CURRENCY// COMMENTARIES/

1.YOUR EARLY CURRENCY VALUES/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN AND EUROPEAN BOURSE MOVEMENTS/AND INTEREST RATE SETTINGS MONDAY MORNING.7:30 AM

ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED DOWN TO 7.2594

OFFSHORE YUAN: DOWN TO 7.2833

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 10.82 PTS OR 0.34%

HANG SENG CLOSED DOWN 301.64 PTS OR 1.58%

2. Nikkei closed DOWN 413.74 OR 1.27%

3. Europe stocks SO FAR: ALL MOSTLY GREEN

USA dollar INDEX UP TO 102.82 EURO RISES TO 1.0938 UP 4 BASIS PTS

3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: RISES TO. +.608 Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese YEN vs USA cross now at 145.01/JAPANESE YEN FALLING AS WELL AS LONG TERM 10 YR. YIELDS RISING //EVENTUALLY THIS WILL BREAK THE JAPANESE CENTRAL BANK

3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000

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

3e Gold DOWN /JAPANESE Yen DOWN CHINESE ON SHORE YUAN: DOWN// OFF- SHORE: DOWN

3f Japan is to buy INFINITE TRILLION YEN’S worth of BONDS. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion USA

Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and NOW they will have OVER 50% of all Japanese debt.

3g Oil DOWN for WTI and DOWN FOR Brent this morning

3h European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund UP TO +2.6085***/Italian 10 Yr bond yield RISES to 4.226*** /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD RISES TO 3.619…**

3i Greek 10 year bond yield RISES TO 3.865

3j Gold at $1913.80 silver at: 22.68 1 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00

3k USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 1 AND 82 /100 roubles/dollar; ROUBLE AT 101.35//

3m oil into the 82 dollar handle for WTI and 85 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 CONTINUES NIRP. THIS MORNING RAISES AMOUNT OF BONDS THAT THEY WILL PURCHASE UP TO .5% ON THE 10 YR BOND///YEN TRADES TO 145/01// 10 YEAR YIELD AFTER FIRST BREAKING .54% LAST YEAR NOW EXCEEDS THAT LEVEL TO 0.608% STILL ON CENTRAL BANK (JAPAN) INTERVENTION

30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this 0.8774 as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 0.9597 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: 4.157 DOWN 1 BASIS PTS…

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 4.261 DOWN 1 BASIS PTS/

USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 4.895 DOWN 0 BASIS PTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 27.05…(TURKEY SET TO BLOW UP FINANCIALLY)

GREAT BRITAIN/10 YEAR YIELD: UP 11 BASIS PTS AT 4.645

end

2.a Overnight: Newsquawk and Zero hedge:

Futures Eek Out Tiny Gains In Muted Session As China Troubles Mount

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 08:10 AM

Futures have reversed earlier losses and are trading higher amid speculation (what else) for Chinese stimulus to address mounting financial and real estate risks, with European markets mixed and Asia slumping on the latest barrage of bad news out of China which however have not (yet) spilled over to the ROW. As of 7:45am ET, S&P emini futures were up 0.2% while Nasdaq futures traded 0.3% higher. 10Y TSY yields are flat at 4.15%, stabilized near their highest level since November. Commodities are lower with USD flat; energy and base metals coming for sale on weaker Chinese growth expectations while Ags mixed on Black Sea headlines. This week’s focus is on Consumer-sector earnings and Retail Sales data, but aside from that this week is an information vacuum into next week’s Jackson Hole so look for positioning/liquidity to guide markets.

In premarket trading, US Steel shares jumped as much as 32% after the steel producer rejected an unsolicited takeover offer from peer Cleveland-Cliffs and said it will instead start a review of its strategic options. Cliffs fell 6.4%. On the other side, Nikola plunged as much as 17% after the electric-vehicle maker says it’s recalling 209 Class 8 Tre battery-electric vehicles following the results of battery investigations. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

Tesla drops as much as 2% after the electric vehicle maker rolled out a new round of price cuts in China, stoking worries that the move could restart a price war that had showed signs of abating.
Airbnb gains 0.5% as Citi raises its price target on the stock, seeing the company and its product-led approach gaining share in the broader lodging market.
Okta rises as much as 4.5% after Goldman Sachs raised the recommendation on the application software company’s stock to buy from sell, saying subscription revenue is likely to bottom.

With investors sitting on record first-half gains, they are contending with central bankers warning they are in no rush to cut interest rates. At the same time, China faces a stuttering economic recovery (and worsening property slump which could soon mutate into a new credit crisis once Country Garden’s grace period expires) while global stock market valuations are starting to look unjustifiably high.

“Higher yields, headwinds from valuations and China risks could spell more near-term selloff,” said Janet Mui, head of market analysis at RBC Brewin Dolphin.

The mood was dented overnight on news China property giant Country Garden was seeking to extend a maturing yuan bond for the first time. As reported last week, the Chinese developer is at risk of joining a slew of defaulters if it fails to make coupon payments on two dollar bonds within a 30-day grace period. The development came as China’s banking regulator announced it would set up a task force to examine risks at Zhongzhi Enterprise Group which missed payments on investment products sold to high-net worth clients and corporations.

“I suspect the risk of contagion beyond China is pretty low,” said Andrew Bell, chief executive officer at Witan Investment Trust. “But it is another reason for markets to be a little bit cautious over the summer.”

Meanwhile, as discussed over the weekend, systematic investors are near maximum long on equities, and short-covering has run its course, implying they’re more likely to turn sellers if volatility shoots up, Barclays Plc strategists said in a recent note. “Equity markets have had quite a strong rally over the last two or three months on hopes that we’re about to see the peak in interest rates,” Bell said. “The market was traveling a little bit on fumes, and now we have to live through the good news before before you can jump another step higher.”

Focus later this week will be on minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting as traders seek clues on the central bank’s next move. Investors who’d bet on a pivot to easier policy this year are having to adjust their bets as officials signal they will keep interest rates higher for longer.

Europe’s Stoxx 600 is up 0.2% with telecommunication, retail and financial stocks leading gains while energy and basic resources fall. The index had opened slightly lower, tracking declines in Asia. Here are some of the most notable European movers:

Philips shares rise as much as 6.2%, the most since April, after John Elkann’s Exor buys 15% stake in the Dutch medical technology company in a deal valued at €2.6b
Gerresheimer rises as much as 2.3%, extending its record high, as Jefferies adds to the clean sweep of positive analyst ratings on the German glass and plastic producer, based on strong medium-term growth expectations
Bilfinger rises as much as 9.5% following the German industrial firm’s second-quarter results, with UBS highlighting an improvement in margins
Valneva shares plunge as much as 13%, the most since September 2022, after the French vaccine maker said the US FDA has revised its decision date for the company’s chikungunya virus vaccine candidate

Asian stocks fell, headed for its lowest close in 10 weeks, amid a selloff in Chinese equities as worries about the nation’s economy and troubled property sector dented investor sentiment. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped as much as 1.7%, with Alibaba and TSMC among the biggest drags. Most regional markets were down, with China’s CSI 300 Index falling more than 1% and close to erasing all of the gains it made since the Politburo meeting in late July while almost all of the 80 members of Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped Monday. Debt woes deepened at Country Garden Holdings, formerly China’s biggest developer, while jitters also mounted over a trust company’s delay in paying its maturing wealth products. Plunging credit growth in July further underscored growing deflationary pressure in China.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 initially swung between gains and losses in which early advances on the back of a weaker currency were wiped out as the index succumbed to the broad risk-off mood. ASX 200 was lower amid headwinds from Australia’s largest trading partner and with participants inundated by a slew of earnings releases.

“There’s indeed a massive wall of worry for China bulls,” and foreign investors continue to sell, said Derek Tay, head of investments at Kamet Capital Partners. “Lots of cracks are showing, no less in credit risks, triggered by the latest Country Garden profit warnings.”

The Asian stock benchmark posted a second-straight weekly decline last week amid growing unease over China’s economic outlook and the prospect of higher-for-longer interest rates in the US. Upside surprise in US producer prices triggered a rout in Treasuries, boosting the case for further rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Investors will look at a series of economic data out of China on Tuesday along with continued corporate earnings, Japan’s GDP and minutes of the latest Reserve Bank of Australia meeting for further market direction

In FX, the BBG Dollar Spot Index was mixed, trading higher, then lower and now almost unchanged; the USD/JPY fell 0.1% after having risen over 2% last week: the yen steadied after breaching its year-high level of 145.07 versus the dollar as investors started to monitor for any signs the government may intervene as it did last year. GBP/USD was little changed ahead of a slate of UK data releases this week, including jobs data and July’s CPI reading. The euro rose 0.1% against the dollar ahead of second quarter euro-zone GDP due Tuesday. The offshore yuan fell 0.2% to 7.2747 per dollar. The ruble weakened beyond the psychologically important level of 100 to the dollar for the first time since March last year, as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on and international sanctions throttle the economy. The Swedish krona is the worst performer among the G-10s, falling 0.5% versus the greenback.

In rates, Treasury yields are slightly higher curve, backing off from highs neared earlier in the session; yields on gilts and bunds are also hovering around unchanged following a subdued overnight session in which yields were broadly rangebound. Treasury yields richer by up to 1.5bp across long-end of the curve which outperforms slightly, flattening 5s30s spread by around half a basis point; 10-year yields sit around 4.15%, near top of Friday’s range, with bunds outperforming by 1.5bp in the sector. Argentine dollar bonds fell sharply on Monday after a populist who vowed to burn down the central bank won surprisingly strong support in a primary vote.

In commodities, Crude futures decline with WTI falling 0.3% to trade near $82.95.

Looking at today’s calendar, it is a quiet start to the week, with no US economic data or Fed speakers.

Market Snapshot

S&P 500 futures up 0.2% to 4,489.25
MXAP down 1.2% to 161.74
MXAPJ down 1.2% to 509.90
Nikkei down 1.3% to 32,059.91
Topix down 1.0% to 2,280.89
Hang Seng Index down 1.6% to 18,773.55
Shanghai Composite down 0.3% to 3,178.43
Sensex little changed at 65,326.94
Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.9% to 7,276.95
Kospi down 0.8% to 2,570.87
STOXX Europe 600 little changed at 459.33
German 10Y yield little changed at 2.62%
Euro little changed at $1.0954
Brent Futures down 0.4% to $86.50/bbl
Gold spot up 0.1% to $1,915.10
U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 102.83

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

China’s economic recovery is being weighed down by a worsening property slump, with the latest data likely to show little sign of a rebound in growth.
The yen touched its weakest in nine months as Japan’s interest-rate gap with the US pushes the currency toward levels that last year saw intervention by authorities in Tokyo.
One of China’s largest private wealth managers is triggering fresh anxiety about the health of the country’s shadow banking industry after missing payments on multiple high-yield investment products.
Gas is back as a risk to the global economy with potential strikes in major producer Australia threatening to shatter the fragile balance of global supplies — and send consumer bills rising once more.
Unmoved by recent signs that inflation pressure is abating, economists continue to predict that the European Central Bank will deliver one final increase in interest rates next month.
The ruble broke through the psychologically important level of 100 to the dollar for the first time since March last year, even after Russia’s central bank sought to arrest the slump by halting its foreign- currency purchases on the domestic market for the rest of 2023.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks were pressured as ongoing Chinese economic woes and developer default concerns sapped risk appetite ahead of upcoming notable events including several key data releases worldwide and FOMC minutes. ASX 200 was lower amid headwinds from Australia’s largest trading partner and with participants inundated by a slew of earnings releases. Nikkei 225 initially swung between gains and losses in which early advances on the back of a weaker currency were wiped out as the index succumbed to the broad risk-off mood. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp declined with the Hong Kong benchmark the worst hit amid heavy losses in tech and the property industry owing to default concerns after Country Garden Holdings suspended trading of 11 onshore bonds and Sino-Ocean Group announced the suspension of trading of 6% guaranteed notes due 2024. China’s recent lending data also added to the ongoing slowdown fears after New Yuan Loans slumped by nearly 90% to the lowest since 2009, while participants are also bracing for tomorrow’s Chinese activity data and this week’s upcoming earnings releases from large tech names including Tencent and JD.com.

Top Asian News

China’s State Council issued guidelines to further optimise the foreign investment environment and will improve the protection of foreign investment rights and interests, while it will crack down on infringement of IP for foreign-invested enterprises. China will also implement relevant preferential tax policies for foreign-invested firms and will explore a convenient and secure management mechanism for cross-border data flows, according to Reuters.
Country Garden Holdings (2007 HK) said it will suspend trading of its 11 onshore bonds from Monday with the resumption to be determined at a later date and Sino-Ocean Group (3377 HK) announced the suspension of trading of 6% guaranteed notes due 2024, while Longfor Group (960 HK) was said to have made a CNY 1.7bln early bond payment related to an onshore bond.
Country Garden (2007 HK) is looking to extend maturing CNY bond over three years, according to Bloomberg.
Chinese hedge funds are reportedly in crises after losses and with US investors retreating, according to Bloomberg.
China has reportedly set up a taskforce for its largest asset fund manager Zhongzhi after missed trust payments, according to Bloomberg0
RBI was reportedly likely selling dollars via state-run banks, according to traders cited by Reuters, while it was also reported that Indonesia’s Central Bank intervened in the spot FX market and domestic NDF markets to prevent high volatility in the IDR exchange rate, according to an official.
Foxconn (2317 TT) – Q2 2023 (TWD): Revenue 1.31tln (exp. 1.34tln), Net 300bln (exp. 25.9bln), Operating profit 30.9bln (exp. 33.2bln); sees Q3 cloud and network revenue decline Y/Y; Sees Q3 Computing revenue decline Y/Y. Cuts FY23 Revenue to ‘slightly decline’ y/y (prev. “flat”). Sees components and other profits to slightly decline in 2023 Y/Y. Sees slight Y/Y decline in consumer electronics products, according to Bloomberg and Reuters.

European bourses trade on the front-foot after shrugging off opening losses which were in part a by-product of Chinese-related concerns overnight. Sectors in Europe have a slight positive tilt with marginal outperformance in Telecoms, Banks and Retail names, whilst Energy and Basic Resource names lag on account of Chinese-inspired weakness in underlying commodity prices. Stateside, futures are trading slightly firmer ahead of a catalyst-thin docket, with the ES briefly topping 4,500.

Top European News

UK government urged universities and unions to return to the negotiating table after industrial action suspended marking for months and left students without degree results, according to FT.
S&P affirmed Denmark at AAA; Outlook Stable and affirmed Switzerland at AAA; Outlook Stable on Friday.

DXY eased from best levels – a partial pick-up in overall sentiment also sapped some of the Greenback’s strength rather than any real change in fundamentals.
G10s are flat across the board with no real standout performers at the time of writing.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1686 vs exp. 7.2461 (prev. 7.1587)

Fixed Income

Debt futures regain composure after overcoming several bouts of selling pressure, albeit not uniformly and without an obvious catalyst.
Bunds bounce from 131.22 to 131.59 to trade 12 ticks above par.
Gilts emulate the feat between 93.35-93.75 parameters before waning.
T-note tagged along within a 109-30+/110-08+ range having closed at 110-06 on Friday.

Commodities

WTI and Brent futures have rebounded from session lows after the European cash open, with price action overnight largely dictated by broader market sentiment.
Dutch TTF futures have trimmed earlier gains but remain positive by around 2% intraday.
Spot gold moves in tandem with the Dollar while base metals have largely rebounded from APAC lows.
Australia’s Fairwork Commission has issued an order that unions can conduct industrial action ballot of employees of Chevron’s (CVX) Wheatstone platform, according to Reuters.

Geopolitics

Russian Defence Ministry said the Russian military opened warning fire on a dry cargo ship near Ukraine flying a Palau flag and the cargo ship then went on its way to Ukraine after inspection by the Russian military, according to Reuters.
Russian Defence Ministry said Russia thwarted Ukraine’s attempt to carry out a terrorist attack on objects in Russia and that Russia destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod region. It was also reported that the regional Governor said apartments and vehicles were damaged which may have been due to a drone attack, according to Reuters.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said Ukraine tried to strike Crimea Bridge with S-200 rockets although there were no casualties, while it was also reported that traffic on the Crimean Bridge was temporarily stopped, according to Reuters.
UK defence intelligence said the Wagner Group is likely moving towards a downsizing and reconfiguration process largely to save on staff salary expenses and there is a realistic possibility that the Kremlin no longer funds the Wagner Group, according to Reuters.
Taiwan’s Vice President Lai said during his visit to the US that Taiwan will not back down to threats. Lai separately commented through social media that he is happy to arrive at the Big Apple which is an icon of liberty, democracy and opportunities, while he is looking forward to seeing friends and attending transit programs in New York. Furthermore, the chair of the US body that handles relations with Taiwan is to meet with Taiwan’s Vice President in San Francisco, while China’s Foreign Ministry said China firmly opposes Taiwan independence separatists’ visiting the US under any name and for any reason, as well as criticised Lai of stubbornly adhering to the separatist position of Taiwan independence and of being a troublemaker, according to Reuters.
North Korean leader Kim inspected missile and arms factories, while he called for a drastic boost in missile production capacity, according to KCNA. according to KCNA and Yonhap.
Chinese Defence Minister to visit Russia and Belarus from Aug 14-16, according to Chinese state media.
Japan and the United States will jointly develop a new type of missile to intercept hypersonic projectiles being developed by countries such as North Korea, China and Russia, according to Kyodo sources.

US event calendar

Nothing major scheduled

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Happy Monday to all our readers still actively following markets as we reach mid-August (whether from the office or your holiday). Henry and I will be holding the fort the next couple of weeks while Jim is in the Alps for a well-deserved (though I’m not sure entirely restful) break. In my recent move to Jim’s team, we did clarify that having twins will not be a pre-condition for others despite the multi-tasking and people management skills this brings. That said, Jim may have jinxed my weekend with his mention on Friday of the challenges of twin life. Any tips on managing big feelings of just-turned-3-years-old girls are very welcome!

Markets have avoided major tantrums of their own but have been in a far from cheerful mood in August so far. In the past week we have seen the highest weekly close for 10yr Treasury yields in 9 months (amid elevated rates vol), the weakest start to the month for equities since March, the weakest week for US semiconductor stocks since last October and oil prices reaching a 9-month high (more on these below). We’ll see if a full August lull takes over this week, but trading in Asia this morning offers some notes of caution.

In terms of events this week, we will get several soundbites on the strength of the US economic cycle, especially on the consumer front, with retail sales (Tuesday) industrial production (Wednesday) and a number of key retailers reporting results. In addition, the Fed will release the minutes of the July FOMC meeting (Wednesday). In Europe, the key data will be in the UK, with the July labour market (Tuesday), inflation (Wednesday) and retail sales (Friday). It will also be a busy week in Asia with the July activity data and the 1-year MLF rate decision in China (Tuesday) and with preliminary Q2 GDP (Tuesday) and national CPI (Friday) in Japan.

In more detail, our US economists expect monthly retail sales to rise +0.3% in July (vs +0.4% consensus and +0.2% prev.) with a slightly slower rise in retail control (+0.2% vs +0.5% consensus). We will also get July industrial production (DBe: +0.1% vs +0.3% consensus), housing starts, the NAHB housing market survey and business surveys from the New York and Philly Feds. The health of the consumer will be crucial to whether the US can avoid a recession. US households will face more headwinds in H2 – slowing employment growth, pass through of policy tightening as well as the resumption of student loan repayments and deferred taxes coming due – though these are more likely to become visible in the autumn. As a reminder, our US economists continue to see a baseline of a mild recession from late 2023, but consumer resilience has made it a closer call.

Consumer activity will also be in focus at the tail end of the earnings season with reports this week from Home Depot (Tuesday), Target (Wednesday) and Walmart (Thursday). Other notable corporate earnings include Cisco and Applied Materials in the US and Tencent and JD.com in China.

From a central bank perspective, the minutes of the July FOMC meeting may give us more hints about the Fed’s reaction function ahead of the September meeting. With the data-dependent tone from Fed speakers, any discussion on the expected path of inflation will be particularly interesting. On the topic of the expected Fed path, our rates strategists published an interesting chart on Friday, showing that while the latest Fed pricing is slightly below the June FOMC dot plot for 2023 and 2024, the two paths are very close from a real rates perspective. See here for more.

Over in Europe, the UK inflation print for July will be the highlight. A strong downside surprise last month drove the second strongest daily rally in 2yr gilts (-18bp) since March. Our UK economist Sanjay Raja sees headline inflation at 6.8% in line with consensus, with core at 6.9% (consensus 6.8%). This would mark the lowest headline inflation since February 2022, but still the highest among the G7. On the labour market, Sanjay sees average weekly earnings picking up to +7.3% yoy (+7.4% consensus).

In Asia, China will dominate the headlines on Tuesday with the July activity data including retail sales and industrial production (we also get the 1yr MLF rate fixing the same day). After weaker trade and bank credit numbers last week, investors will watch for further evidence on the trajectory of China’s economy. The same day we will get the Q2 GDP print in Japan (DBe: +0.9% qoq vs +0.7% qoq consensus). Meanwhile, Japan’s CPI print on Thursday is expected to show CPI ex fresh food and energy moving back to its May peak (+4.3% DBe and consensus vs +4.2% prev.).

In early Asian trading today, the Japanese yen breached the key 145 level, falling to its lowest of the year against the dollar. This raises questions about possible BoJ intervention or scope for BoJ to accept higher JGB yields to support the yen. As we go to print, the yen has reversed its course and is trading at 144.90 per dollar, flat on the day.

Asian equity markets are extending their downward trend this morning. That mirrors Friday’s weakness on Wall Street and concerns over China’s property downturn. As I check my screens, Chinese equities are trading sharply lower with the CSI (-1.33%), the Shanghai Composite (-0.92%), and the Hang Seng (-2.22%). That follows a sell-off in real estate stocks with the shares of Chinese real estate company Country Garden Holdings down as much as -12% after the company suspended the trading of 11 onshore bonds. The lower sentiment has rippled through other bourses in Asia and the Kospi is down (-0.91%) while the Nikkei has edged lower (-0.42%) after a holiday.

In overnight trading, US stock futures are seeing fresh losses with those on the S&P 500 (-0.18%) and NASDAQ 100 (-0.23%) trading lower as risk appetite remains downbeat. Meanwhile, yields on the 10yr USTs (+1.96bps) have edged higher trading at 4.17%. Oil prices are also lower this morning following the concerns in China with Brent (-0.94%) at $85.99 and WTI (0.97%) at $82.38.

Looking back at last week, Friday’s data included US July PPI (+0.3% mom vs +0.2% exp), which sent a (somewhat expected) stronger signal for core PCE than we saw in core CPI the previous day. Meanwhile, the August University of Michigan survey was modestly encouraging, with current conditions at their highest since late 2021 and 1-year inflation expectations down to their joint lowest since early 2021. Over in Europe, UK Q2 GDP came in at +0.2% qoq (0.0% exp.), with the monthly June GDP print at +0.5%. This was above the range of estimates in the Bloomberg survey. This stronger print helped drive the sharpest sell off in 10yr gilts since early July (+16.3bps on Friday to 4.53%).

Volatility remained the dominant theme for bonds last week. 10yr Treasury yields rose +11.8bp to 4.155%, their highest weekly close since last October (+4.7bp Friday). 2yr yields saw a similar move (+12.9bps, +5.2bps Friday) while the 30yr rose +6.1bps (+1.0bps Friday). As we mentioned last week, this stands in contrast to the stable near-term Fed pricing, with the terminal rate staying in a 7bp range since late June. Over in Europe, 10yr bunds were +6.3bps on the week, with a +9.6bp sell off on Friday.

Equities confirmed a soft start to August, with the S&P 500 down -0.31% on the week (-0.11% on Friday), to its lowest level in over a month and down -2.72% month to date. Tech stocks led the weakening with the NASDAQ down -1.90% (-0.68% Friday). Meanwhile, the FANG+ index of tech mega caps (-3.64%) and the Philadelphia semiconductors index (-4.99%) saw their worst weeks since March and since last October respectively. This was led by Nvidia (-8.56%), though the chipmaker is still +180% ytd. The DOW Jones outperformed last week (+0.62%) but this was driven more by specifics of energy and healthcare than being a strong overall signal on the US economy, with the small cap Russell 2000 index down -1.65%. Over in Europe, Stoxx 600 was flat on the week (-0.02%) after a sizeable -1.09% reversal on Friday. France’s CAC (+0.34%) and Spain’s IBEX (+0.70%) gained on the week, while the DAX (-0.75%) and Italy’s FSTE MIEB (-1.09%) underperformed (the latter due to last Tuesday’s Italian bank tax news).

In the commodities space, the oil price rally lost some momentum but still eked out a seventh weekly gain in a row, adding upside to near-term headline inflation. Brent rose +0.47% on the week (+0.66% Friday). WTI was +0.45% on the week to $83.19/bl (+0.45% Friday), having reached a 9-month high of $84.40/bl on Wednesday. In Europe, TTF natural gas prices closed +20.35% higher on the week at EUR 35.8/MWh, after spiking to EUR 39.5, their highest since April, on Wednesday. Copper (-3.84%) saw its worst week in three months amid concerns over China’s property slump.

2 b) NOW NEWSQUAWK (EUROPE/REPORT)/ASIA REPORT

EUROPE

Slight positive sentiment amid catalyst-thin docket; BoC SLOOS due – Newsquawk US Market Open

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 06:13 AM

European bourses trade on the front-foot after shrugging off opening losses which were in part a by-product of Chinese-related concerns overnight.
Stateside, futures are trading slightly firmer ahead of a catalyst-thin docket, with the ES briefly topping 4,500.
A partial pick-up in overall sentiment sapped some of the Greenback’s strength rather than any real change in fundamentals; G10s are flat.
Debt futures regain composure after overcoming several bouts of selling pressure, albeit not uniformly and without an obvious catalyst.
Looking ahead, highlights include the BoC Senior Loan Officer Survey

Highlights include BoC SLOOS.
Click here for the Newsquawk Week Ahead preview.

More Newsquawk in 3 steps:

1. Subscribe to the free premarket movers reports

2. Listen to this report in the market open podcast (available on Apple and Spotify)

3. Trial Newsquawk’s premium real-time audio news squawk box for 7 days

EUROPEAN TRADE

EQUITIES

European bourses trade on the front-foot after shrugging off opening losses which were in part a by-product of Chinese-related concerns overnight.
Sectors in Europe have a slight positive tilt with marginal outperformance in Telecoms, Banks and Retail names, whilst Energy and Basic Resource names lag on account of Chinese-inspired weakness in underlying commodity prices.
Stateside, futures are trading slightly firmer ahead of a catalyst-thin docket, with the ES briefly topping 4,500.
Click here for more detail.
Click here and here for a recap of the main European equity updates.

FX

DXY eased from best levels – a partial pick-up in overall sentiment also sapped some of the Greenback’s strength rather than any real change in fundamentals.
G10s are flat across the board with no real standout performers at the time of writing.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1686 vs exp. 7.2461 (prev. 7.1587)
Click here for more detail.
Click here for the Option Expires for the NY Cut.

FIXED INCOME

Debt futures regain composure after overcoming several bouts of selling pressure, albeit not uniformly and without an obvious catalyst.
Bunds bounce from 131.22 to 131.59 to trade 12 ticks above par.
Gilts emulate the feat between 93.35-93.75 parameters before waning.
T-note tagged along within a 109-30+/110-08+ range having closed at 110-06 on Friday.
Click here for more detail.

COMMODITIES

WTI and Brent futures have rebounded from session lows after the European cash open, with price action overnight largely dictated by broader market sentiment.
Dutch TTF futures have trimmed earlier gains but remain positive by around 2% intraday.
Spot gold moves in tandem with the Dollar while base metals have largely rebounded from APAC lows.
Australia’s Fairwork Commission has issued an order that unions can conduct industrial action ballot of employees of Chevron’s (CVX) Wheatstone platform, according to Reuters.
Click here for more detail.

NOTABLE US HEADLINES

Goldman Sachs expects the Fed to begin cutting rates by the end of June next year at a gradual pace which it anticipates likely to be once per quarter.
Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) proposed to acquire US Steel (X) for USD 17.50/share in cash and 1.023 shares in Cliffs although the offer was rejected as being unreasonable by US Steel’s board, according to Reuters.
Tesla (TSLA) cuts Model Y Performance and Model Y Long Range prices in China.

NOTABLE EUROPEAN HEADLINES

UK government urged universities and unions to return to the negotiating table after industrial action suspended marking for months and left students without degree results, according to FT.
S&P affirmed Denmark at AAA; Outlook Stable and affirmed Switzerland at AAA; Outlook Stable on Friday.

DATA RECAP

German Wholesale Price Index YY* (Jul 2023) -2.8% (Prev. -2.9%)
German Wholesale Price Index MM* (Jul 2023) -0.2% (Prev. -0.2%)

GEOPOLITICS

Russian Defence Ministry said the Russian military opened warning fire on a dry cargo ship near Ukraine flying a Palau flag and the cargo ship then went on its way to Ukraine after inspection by the Russian military, according to Reuters.
Russian Defence Ministry said Russia thwarted Ukraine’s attempt to carry out a terrorist attack on objects in Russia and that Russia destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod region. It was also reported that the regional Governor said apartments and vehicles were damaged which may have been due to a drone attack, according to Reuters.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said Ukraine tried to strike Crimea Bridge with S-200 rockets although there were no casualties, while it was also reported that traffic on the Crimean Bridge was temporarily stopped, according to Reuters.
UK defence intelligence said the Wagner Group is likely moving towards a downsizing and reconfiguration process largely to save on staff salary expenses and there is a realistic possibility that the Kremlin no longer funds the Wagner Group, according to Reuters.
Taiwan’s Vice President Lai said during his visit to the US that Taiwan will not back down to threats. Lai separately commented through social media that he is happy to arrive at the Big Apple which is an icon of liberty, democracy and opportunities, while he is looking forward to seeing friends and attending transit programs in New York. Furthermore, the chair of the US body that handles relations with Taiwan is to meet with Taiwan’s Vice President in San Francisco, while China’s Foreign Ministry said China firmly opposes Taiwan independence separatists’ visiting the US under any name and for any reason, as well as criticised Lai of stubbornly adhering to the separatist position of Taiwan independence and of being a troublemaker, according to Reuters.
North Korean leader Kim inspected missile and arms factories, while he called for a drastic boost in missile production capacity, according to KCNA. according to KCNA and Yonhap.
Chinese Defence Minister to visit Russia and Belarus from Aug 14-16, according to Chinese state media.
Japan and the United States will jointly develop a new type of missile to intercept hypersonic projectiles being developed by countries such as North Korea, China and Russia, according to Kyodo sources.

CRYPTO

Bitcoin trades flat around USD 29k.

APAC TRADE

APAC stocks were pressured as ongoing Chinese economic woes and developer default concerns sapped risk appetite ahead of upcoming notable events including several key data releases worldwide and FOMC minutes.
ASX 200 was lower amid headwinds from Australia’s largest trading partner and with participants inundated by a slew of earnings releases.
Nikkei 225 initially swung between gains and losses in which early advances on the back of a weaker currency were wiped out as the index succumbed to the broad risk-off mood.
Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp declined with the Hong Kong benchmark the worst hit amid heavy losses in tech and the property industry owing to default concerns after Country Garden Holdings suspended trading of 11 onshore bonds and Sino-Ocean Group announced the suspension of trading of 6% guaranteed notes due 2024. China’s recent lending data also added to the ongoing slowdown fears after New Yuan Loans slumped by nearly 90% to the lowest since 2009, while participants are also bracing for tomorrow’s Chinese activity data and this week’s upcoming earnings releases from large tech names including Tencent and JD.com.

NOTABLE ASIA-PAC HEADLINES

China’s State Council issued guidelines to further optimise the foreign investment environment and will improve the protection of foreign investment rights and interests, while it will crack down on infringement of IP for foreign-invested enterprises. China will also implement relevant preferential tax policies for foreign-invested firms and will explore a convenient and secure management mechanism for cross-border data flows, according to Reuters.
Country Garden Holdings (2007 HK) said it will suspend trading of its 11 onshore bonds from Monday with the resumption to be determined at a later date and Sino-Ocean Group (3377 HK) announced the suspension of trading of 6% guaranteed notes due 2024, while Longfor Group (960 HK) was said to have made a CNY 1.7bln early bond payment related to an onshore bond.
Country Garden (2007 HK) is looking to extend maturing CNY bond over three years, according to Bloomberg.
Chinese hedge funds are reportedly in crises after losses and with US investors retreating, according to Bloomberg.
China has reportedly set up a taskforce for its largest asset fund manager Zhongzhi after missed trust payments, according to Bloomberg0
RBI was reportedly likely selling dollars via state-run banks, according to traders cited by Reuters, while it was also reported that Indonesia’s Central Bank intervened in the spot FX market and domestic NDF markets to prevent high volatility in the IDR exchange rate, according to an official.
Foxconn (2317 TT) – Q2 2023 (TWD): Revenue 1.31tln (exp. 1.34tln), Net 300bln (exp. 25.9bln), Operating profit 30.9bln (exp. 33.2bln); sees Q3 cloud and network revenue decline Y/Y; Sees Q3 Computing revenue decline Y/Y. Cuts FY23 Revenue to ‘slightly decline’ y/y (prev. “flat”). Sees components and other profits to slightly decline in 2023 Y/Y. Sees slight Y/Y decline in consumer electronics products, according to Bloomberg and Reuters.

DATA RECAP

Indian WPI Inflation YY* (Jul 2023) -1.36% vs. Exp. -2.7% (Prev. -4.12%

2 c. ASIAN AFFAIRS

ASIAN AND AUSTRALIAN CLOSINGS//EUROPE OPENING TRADING:

MONDAY MORNING/SUNDAY NIGHT

2 d./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA/

////SOUTH KOREA/NORTH KOREA/

END

2e) JAPAN

JAPAN

3 CHINA /

CHINA

A good indicator that global growth is stagnating

(zerohedge)

Iphone Maker Foxconn Slashes Full-Year Sales Outlook On Sliding Smartphone Demand

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 07:20 AM

Taiwan’s Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, downgraded its full-year outlook on Monday morning:

“However, considering many external variables, in response to uncertainties such as global monetary tightening, geopolitical tensions, and inflation, the full-year outlook is now expected to slightly decline, from previous flattish expectations.”

The downgrade comes as consumers and corporations reduce spending on increasing macroeconomic headwinds as China’s recovery stalls. Companies ranging from Apple to Qualcomm Inc. to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have all indicated that the industry downturn, which began post-pandemic, might persist longer than previously anticipated.

In May, the company guided 2023 sales would be around the same levels as 2022 — but that changed as there appears to be no robust recovery in global demand for smartphones, computers, and tablets. It expects the downturn in the PC market to continue through the second half of the year (read: PC Bust Cycle Will Last Until 2024).

Here are other highlights from the earnings report (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Hon Hai will make key components in India in the future
Hon Hai will make consumer electronics, EV parts in India
Hon Hai will start to ship consumer electronics parts from India in 2024
Hon Hai will consider building EV and chip plants in India
Hon Hai will help more Taiwanese firms to invest in India
Hon Hai’s India plants generate more than $10b in sales
Hon Hai’s generative AI servers business gained more than 200% in 1H, and will grow faster than the market average in 2H

Bloomberg recently reported Apple, Hon Hai’s top customer, has requested 85 million units of the iPhone 15 this year, roughly in line with the year before.

There was a bright spot, Hon Hai reported a net income of NT$33 billion, surpassing the NT$25.9 billion average of analyst estimates due to gains in real estate transactions. Though posted a 14% decline in revenue for the quarter, the first drop since the fourth quarter of 2021.

Counterpoint Research analyst Ivan Lam reacted to the earnings report in a note to clients by saying:

“iPhone shipment from Foxconn in the fourth quarter and next year’s first quarter will be lower than they were a year earlier, due to weak demand from multiple key markets such as the US, China and Japan, and the order shifting towards vendors such as Luxshare.”

The slump in computers and handheld devices comes as the world’s biggest market for smartphones, China, is sliding into a deflationary environment that might worsen.

end

China’s crashing loans show how China is in deep trouble due to collapsing real estate problems (Country Garden etc)

(zerohedge)

China’s Crashing Loans Show Risk of Beijing Acting Too Late

SUNDAY, AUG 13, 2023 – 10:15 PM

By Charlie Zhu and Helen Sun, Bloomberg markets live reporters and strategists

Three things we learned last week:

1. China’s economy weakened further in July but Beijing was slow to arrest the decline. The nation’s banks extended the smallest amount of monthly loans since 2009, and aggregate financing was less than half the level forecast by economists.

Worse, loans to the real economy plummeted to RMB 36.4BN, the lowest since 2006. As Goldman notes, “last week’s print underscores the weak demand in the economy and the need for the government to implement more easing measures.”

In addition, both consumer and producer prices fell in July from a year ago, the first time since 2020 that both sets of prices registered a decline. This is taking place as companies are slashing prices to jumpstart consumption, underscoring the deflationary pressure that’s building in China.

The trade outlook is looking similarly dire. Overseas shipments dropped in July by the most in more than three years, and imports contracted for a fifth consecutive month. While it’s not surprising to see the former shrinking due to slowing global growth, sustained weakness in the latter is worrying as it suggests that domestic demand is also faltering.

“The credit demand is very subdued,” said Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. “The key remains to send clear policy signals regarding the private sector, foreign companies and the real estate industry, so that people become willing to borrow money and invest, including in housing.”

Meanwhile, Country Garden Holdings Co.’s troubles reflect the impact of a delay in rolling out forceful housing market policies: once the country’s top builder, the developer has become a penny stock as it was said to be considering a move to extend some of its notes that will fall due soon. This is adding to the overall gloom surrounding Chinese assets.

Country Garden’s liquidity situation may deteriorate as sentiment weakens, and Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kristy Hung warns that a default would impact the housing market more than China Evergrande Group’s collapse as the former has four times as many projects as the latter.

It’s a vicious cycle. As builders struggle to deliver homes, buyers will refrain from purchasing, which will crimp sales further. The crisis of confidence shows no signs of abating with home sales down the most in a year in July. The securities regulator held a meeting with developers on Friday, after the central bank organized a similar session. Is help on the way?

* * *

2. Elsewhere, an anti-corruption campaign aimed at the pharmaceutical industry is invoking memories of previous government crackdowns. Local media reported that as of July 26, the number of hospital executives being probed for allegedly violating laws and regulations was double the tally registered in the whole of last year. The CSI 300 Health Care Index dropped to the lowest since September, reflecting growing jitters about the crackdown.

In another discouraging sign, a central bank adviser’s call to treat the private sector and state-owned firms equally was deleted from a top think tank’s social media account, a sign of how sensitive the issue is even as the ruling Communist Party vows to support private enterprise.

* * *

3. Given that things are looking so glum, authorities are taking incremental steps to bolster economic growth and contain the risks. The finance ministry was said to be looking to allow provincial-level governments to raise about 1 trillion yuan ($138 billion) via bond sales to repay the debt of local-government financing vehicles and other off-balance sheet issuers.

In another bit of good news, the nation has also lifted a ban on group tours to a slew of countries including the US, UK, Australia, South Korea and Japan, setting the stage for a rebound in domestic and global tourism.

“Without sugar-coating economic developments in China, digging beneath the surface, things are probably slightly less bad than they appear at first glance,” Paul Danis, head of asset allocation at RBC Brewin Dolphin, wrote in a note Thursday before the credit data was released. It seems unlikely that China will fall into a balance-sheet recession like Japan, but the main risk is that Chinese authorities may make a number of bad policy choices, he wrote.

end

4.EUROPEAN AFFAIRS//UK /SCANDAVIAN AFFAIRS

EUROPE/

Dr Lacalle describes the mess Europe is in with respect to energy. They were lucky last year as their winter was mild. Maybe not this year

(zerohedge0

The European Energy Crisis May Be Back Soon

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 09:05 AM

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

European natural gas prices soared almost 40 percent on the risk of a global liquefied natural gas shortage. European wholesale power prices remain below the record highs of the energy crisis but have steadily climbed as the volatility in the international commodity spectrum underscores the fragility of the European energy system.

Unfortunately, the European Union bureaucrats declared the end of the energy crisis as if it were the result of decisive policy action, but the reality is that the energy problem in the EU was only diminished by purely external factors: a very mild winter and the decline in global commodity prices due to the central bank rate hikes. Thus, the energy crisis remains, and the problems of security of supply and affordability of the system persist.

The European Union’s dependency on Russian gas has not been solved; it has only been disguised by a massive increase in dependency on coal (lignite) in the case of Germany and expensive liquefied natural gas imported from the rest of the world. At the end of 2022, Germany’s energy mix was the clearest example of its energy policy failure. Hard coal and lignite accounted for 31.2%, natural gas 13.8%, and mineral oil 0.8%, with nuclear at 6.0%. After almost 200 billion euros in renewable subsidies, Germany needs more coal and imported natural gas. What did the government decide after facing the mistake of shutting down almost all its nuclear fleet? You guessed it. Double down and continue with the process of closing the remaining ones. No wonder Germany is in recession. Its industrial model requires abundant and affordable energy, and the different governments have made the cost of energy uncompetitive.

What about Spain? The government decided to implement an “Iberian exception” that eliminates the cost of gas from the wholesale power price only to charge it back to consumers as a surcharge in the bill. The result? The fifth highest electricity bill in Europe sent hundreds of millions of euros to France and Portugal that purchased the subsidized energy while the Spanish consumer paid the bill to natural gas producers, and its imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) soared, but the government tried to convince citizens that LNG from Novatek is “not Russian gas” because it is not a pipeline Gazprom supply, even when the supplier is a leading Russian energy multinational. You cannot make this up.

Even worse. Consumers have not seen the improvement in commodities in their bills. If we look at the latest reported Eurostat figures of household electricity prices, these increased in all but two EU Member States in the second half of 2022, compared with the second half of 2021, just as commodities slumped in international markets. The average for the EU stands at 252 euros per MWh and 261 euros per MWh for the euro area. This is between 20 and 30% higher than the average residential electricity rate in the U.S., according to data from Energy Sage.

The European energy crisis was not solved. It was disguised thanks to a mild winter and the slowdown in coal and gas imports from China.

European governments continue to place all their bets on a misguided energy transition that ignores security of supply and competitiveness and will make the EU depend on China for rare earths and metals as well as the U.S. and OPEC for commodities.

The European Union should have abandoned ideological decisions and allowed technology, competition, and industry to provide the optimal solution that delivers a competitive and secure supply of energy. Deciding to forbid the development of domestic resources and focus on intermittent and volatile sources of energy before the battery technology is fully operational is an enormous mistake that condemns the European Union to suffer higher costs and lower growth. Environmental policies must be considered from a global perspective. The EU accounts for less than 10% of global emissions but almost 100% of the cost. It needs to focus on competitiveness, security of supply, and respect for the environment from an industrial perspective. Ignoring the importance of making the most of nuclear, hydroelectric, gas, and all other available sources is dangerous.

In China or the United States, affordability, security of supply, and competitiveness are the drivers of energy policy.

In Europe, it is a misguided view of “not in my backyard” that is making the continent more dependent on others, not less.

Subsidies are delaying the necessary development of intermittent and volatile energy sources because policymakers reject the importance of creative destruction and competition as driving forces of progress.

Interventionism is not delivering better or cheaper energy; it is making the European Union lose in the technology and energy security race.

end

5 RUSSIA//UKRAINE AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

RUSSIA/UKRAINE

Ukraine’s counteroffensive stimmed

Anzalone/Libertarian’s Institute)

Ukrainians Begin To Despair As Bloody Counteroffensive Yields Small Gains

SUNDAY, AUG 13, 2023 – 08:45 AM

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

According to the Washington Post, many citizens of Ukraine are adopting a darker mood about the war with Russia, and national unity is beginning to fray. The change in sentiment comes as Kiev’s spring counteroffensive fails to retake significant territory despite surging casualties.

“Ukrainians, much in need of good news, are simply not getting any,” the Washington Post reported Thursday. One Ukrainian, Alla Blyzniuk, interviewed by the outlet, said, “[before] people were united.” Now, she described, a sense of collective “disappointment.”Image: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine

The sense of despair is driven by massive casualties in Kiev’s counteroffensive. Blyzniuk said that most soldiers sent to the front die in just two to three days.

Last week, Politico reported that Kiev had committed 150,000 troops to fight along three fronts. Nevertheless, the Pentagon admits that Ukrainian forces have failed to make any significant gains.

Washington publicly claims it has provided Kiev with everything Ukraine needs to wage a successful counteroffensive. However, Western officials admitted to the Wall Street Journal that Ukrainian forces lacked critical equipment.

“When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons—from shells to warplanes—that it needed to dislodge Russian forces.” The report continued, “But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day. They Haven’t.”

Anna Oliinyk, a Ukrainian soldier, told the Post that she hoped the losses would be worth the price…

“We’ve got all these guys coming back from the front line without limbs,” she said. “I want the price they paid to be reasonable. Otherwise it’s just useless, what they went through.”

Anna’s husband, a Ukrainian soldier who lost a leg, told the Post he would not enlist if he could make the choice again, adding that Kiev is sending untrained soldiers to the front lines.

“They are taking everyone and sending them to the front line without proper preparation,” he said. “I don’t want to be in the company of unmotivated people.”

END

RUSSIA/UKRAINE

As Part of a Broader Assault on the Orthodox Church, Religious Persecution in the Ukraine Continues Unabated — Strategic Culture

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, including resident Ukrainians.

When this first started the fan crowd of War and those who naturally hate applauded the move to strike those Russkies … or “snow niggers” as the DC Neocons utter. While the plan to break Russia up into 41 pieces is well advertised there was no consideration of the plight of Ukrainians. Who in their naive thinking were going to be hailed as some kind of hero’s for Western ambitions of conquest. Like in all such endeavors, they overlooked that they exist as cannon fodder that is expendable to the last one. Yes, money will flow as all eager hands dip into the pool of corruption and inhumanity that such conflicts bring. Making life there very cheap in quest for survival.

And with ill gotten money comes all manner of persecution whether it is religious or ethnic and with this comes so called cleansing. One should remember that the same Nazi ideology that Bandura and his merry accomplices executed was beyond savage and touched many people. Poles would to well to revisit tales and stories told by those now dead of horrors experienced at the hands of so called Ukrainian nationalists. Because tomorrow they may well become the next patsy of Neocon indifference in pursuing agenda. Because such lives lost are considered the cheap labor of conflict.

Today, in Ukraine it is no no different and has been building for years. In such regimes, life becomes awful cheap and has been repeated many a time. And the ending is always the same. One should expect in the future to hear of many a story of persecution before this nightmare ends for Ukrainians. And when it does, the West will learn as it has before, there will be no gratitude for what was done. And many departed Ukrainians will return home having discovered that refugee abroad was convenient until it was not.

And as old graves of various dead soldiers in Ukraine dating back to WWII are dug up to make way and room for fresh dead bodies. Time will erase the memories for those fallen in vain for foreign agendas. However, not all people forget and new understandings will create new hatred to be carried into the future. Such is pattern of such affairs.

And what the nation could have been is no longer and is lost for all time as a new nation if it still exists in the future will be far different than it was. As is the case with many nations; they exist only as long as public culture triumphs over the corruption of foreign hands and nationalists eager to sell out.

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/08/10/as-part-of-broader-assault-on-orthodox-church-religious-persecution-in-ukraine-continues-unabated/

END

Robert h to us;

Douglas Macgregor on Twitter: “Ukrainian Soldiers are seeing the losses, they can’t make any headway against Russian defenses. They are not trained or equipped for it. Make Peace you Fools! https://t.co/0SNuknNeu0” / X

Sadly Neocons do not care. The only question is who is next?

https://twitter.com/DougAMacgregor/status/1690212141612023808 end

end

6.GLOBAL ISSUES//MEDICAL ISSUES

end

GLOBAL ECONOMIC ISSUES//

END

GLOBAL VACCINE/COVID ISSUES

Subclinical Heart Damage More Prevalent Than Thought After Moderna Vaccination: Study

By Zachary Steiber
The Epoch Times, New York
Monday, July 26, 2023

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/subclinical-heart-damage-more-prevalent-than-thought-after-moderna-vaccination-study-5423864

Damage to the heart is more common than thought after receipt of Moderna’s COVID-19 booster, a new study indicates.

One in 35 health care workers at a Swiss hospital had signs of heart injury associated with the vaccine, mRNA-1273, researchers found.

“mRNA-1273 booster vaccination-associated elevation of markers of myocardial injury occurred in about one out of 35 persons (2.8%), a greater incidence than estimated in meta-analyses of hospitalized cases with myocarditis (estimated incidence 0.0035%) after the second vaccination,” the researchers wrote in the paper, published by the European Journal of Heart Failure.

In a generally healthy population, the level would be about 1 percent, the researchers said.

The group experiencing the adverse effects was followed for only 30 days, and half still had unusually high levels of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T, an indicator of subclinical heart damage, at follow-up.

The long-term implications of the study remain unclear as little research has tracked people over time with heart injury after messenger RNA vaccination, which is known to cause myocarditis and other forms of heart damage.

“According to current knowledge, the cardiac muscle can’t regenerate, or only to a very limited degree at best. So it’s possible that repeated booster vaccinations every year could cause moderate damage to the heart muscle cells,” University Hospital Basel professor Christian Muller, a cardiologist and the lead researcher, said in a statement.

Moderna did not respond to a request for comment.

None of the patients experienced a major adverse cardiac event, such as heart failure, within 30 days of booster vaccination, and none had electrocardiogram changes.

The people with elevated levels were advised to avoid strenuous exercise, which may have mitigated more serious problems, the researchers said.

No imaging was done to examine the participants’ hearts, despite imaging being recommended by many cardiologists in cases of suspected vaccine-induced myocarditis.

It’s possible that imaging would have revealed inflammation, which could cause scarring or irregular heartbeat, Dr. Andrew Bostom, a heart expert in the United States who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times.

Dr. Anish Koka, an American cardiologist, said that the findings were “super useful to see how ‘cardioactive’ the booster is” but that it was hard to say how significant the elevated troponin levels were, particularly without a comparison to baseline levels. “There is really nothing clinically concerning at 30 days to report,” he said on Twitter.

Study Methods
Researchers posited that the incidence of vaccine-associated heart injury was more prevalent than previously thought following messenger RNA booster vaccination because of a lack of symptoms or mild symptoms.

They defined injury as a sharp increase in high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T on the third day after vaccination without evidence of an alternative cause. The levels of cardiac troponin had to hit the upper limit of normal, 8.9 nanograms per liter in women and 15.5 nanograms per liter in men.

All workers at the University Hospital Basel scheduled to receive a Moderna booster for the first time were offered a chance to participate in the study, unless they experienced a cardiac event or underwent heart surgery within 30 days of vaccination. The workers received a booster, which is half the dosage level of the primary series shots, from Dec. 10, 2021, to Feb. 10, 2022. The cohort ended up being 777 workers, including 540 females. The median age was 37 years.

Among the participants, 40 had elevated levels of cardiac troponin. Alternative causes were identified in 18. For the other 22, the researchers determined they had “vaccine-associated myocardial injury.” The median age of the 22 was 46. All but two were women, making the percentage of women with elevated levels higher than the percentage of men (3.7 percent versus 0.8 percent), which contrasts with most of the previous literature on vaccine-induced myocarditis. That could stem from women receiving a higher vaccine dose per body weight, the researchers said.

Baseline levels were not recorded because the hospital’s COVID-19 task force and the researchers decided that the study “should interfere as little as possible with the motivation of the hospital staff to obtain the mRNA-1273 first booster vaccination and the logistics of booster vaccination itself.”

None of the people with elevated markers had a history of heart disease. While half experienced symptoms, most symptoms were nonspecific like fever. Two participants suffered from chest pain. And two, according to the Brighton Collaboration case definition, likely suffered myocarditis.

Testing was done for high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T because of its sensitivity.

“This marker is extremely sensitive—with other methods such as MRI we wouldn’t have been able to detect any damage to the cardiac muscle, as it only becomes visible once the damage there is about three to five times greater,” Dr. Muller said.

The researchers were not able to figure out the mechanism for the vaccine hurting the heart muscle.

The authors reported some conflicts of interest, including Dr. Muller reporting grants from drugmakers such as Novartis and Roche. The study was funded by the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel.

Limitations include the lack of baseline levels and lack of imaging.

Previous Findings, and Pending Study
Several other prospective studies examine myocarditis following Pfizer vaccination.

In Thailand, researchers found that 29 percent of 301 adolescents developed cardiovascular effects, including chest pain, after a second Pfizer dose. Seven were diagnosed with heart inflammation.

Researchers in Taiwan established baseline electrocardiogram levels before a second Pfizer dose and recorded abnormal results following the administration in one percent of 4,928 primary school students. That included five students diagnosed with myocarditis or an abnormal heartbeat.

And an Israeli study of 324 health care workers with a median age of 51 who received a second Pfizer booster identified two cases of vaccine-induced heart injury on day three.

Other recent studies have confirmed that vaccine-induced myocarditis can kill, including a South Korean study that ruled out all other possible causes for eight sudden deaths following messenger RNA vaccination. Myocarditis was not suspected as a clinical diagnosis or cause of death before autopsies were performed, researchers said.

The Swiss researchers said more prospective studies are needed to examine post-vaccination heart injury. Long-term problems from the injuries, they stressed, remain unclear.

Moderna was required by U.S. authorities to conduct a prospective study to assess the incidence of subclinical myocarditis following a booster among adults, with a projected completion date of June 30, 2023. Neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor Moderna have disclosed the results of the study as of yet.

Pfizer was required to conduct a similar study, with results due on Dec. 31, 2022, but the FDA changed the end date at the request of Pfizer.

-END-

COVID-19 Vagus Nerve Inflammation May Lead To Dysautonomia: New Study

FRIDAY, AUG 11, 2023 – 11:00 PM

Authored by Megan Redshaw via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

New data may provide answers for those experiencing persistent symptoms long after their bout with COVID-19 has ended. These may include fatigue, lightheadedness, brain fog, cognitive issues, gastrointestinal problems, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, or an inability to tolerate upright postures.

A July 15 study published in Acta Neuropathologica suggests that SARS-CoV-2 infection may damage the nerves of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), causing an inflammatory response that can later lead to dysautonomia observed in long COVID patients.(Billion Photos/Shutterstock)

Study Findings

Using several methods, researchers at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany performed a microscopic analysis of the vagus nerves in 27 deceased patients with COVID-19 and five controls who died of other causes, without COVID-19.

The vagus nerve is a vital component of the ANS that regulates critical functions such as digestion, respiratory and heart rate, and immune response. Vagus nerve signaling to the brainstem also controls the “sickness behavior response,” where the brain mounts flu-like symptoms including nausea, fatigue, pain, and other chronic symptoms in response to inflammation.

The researchers detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in vagus nerve samples obtained from deceased patients with severe COVID-19 showing direct infection of the nerve was accompanied by inflammatory cell infiltration composed mostly of monocytes—a type of white blood cell that finds and destroys germs and eliminates infected cells. Their analysis revealed a “strong enrichment of genes regulating antiviral responses and interferon signaling,” supporting the idea that vagus nerve inflammation is a common phenomenon with COVID-19.

The researchers also analyzed 23 vagus nerve samples of deceased COVID-19 patients grouped into low, intermediate, and high SARS-CoV-2 RNA viral load to determine if the virus was directly detectable in the vagus nerve and if the viral load correlated with vagus nerve dysfunction. Results showed the virus was present in the vagus nerve and also determined there was a direct correlation between SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA load and dysfunction of the central nervous system.

Researchers then screened a cohort of 323 patients admitted to the emergency room between Feb. 13, 2020, and Aug. 15, 2022, categorized by whether they had mild, moderate, severe, critical, or lethal COVID-19. They found that the respiratory rate increased in survivors but decreased in non-survivors of critical COVID-19. These results suggest SARS-CoV-2 induces vagus nerve inflammation followed by autonomic dysfunction (respiratory rate decrease), which “contributes to critical disease courses and might contribute to dysautonomia observed in long COVID.”

Responding to the study, microbiologist Amy Proal of PolyBio Research Foundation wrote on X, “Because the vagus nerve is an essential component of the #autonomic nervous system and regulates body functions such as heart rate, digestion, and respiratory rate, direct infection of the nerve by SARS-CoV-2 may contribute to related symptoms.” She added, “The findings beg the question: Could persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection of the vagus nerve contribute to dysautonomia in #LongCovid?”

What is Dysautonomia?

Nearly 1 in 5 people in the United States continue to experience unexplained symptoms of long COVID after their infection ends, with as many as 66 percent of patients suffering from moderate to severe dysfunction of the ANS known as dysautonomia.

Dysautonomia is a disorder of the ANS, a part of the central nervous system that controls vital involuntary functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, skin and body temperature regulation, salivating, hormonal and bladder function, and sexual function. The ANS also plays a role in the acute “fight or flight” stress response and sends messages to and from internal organs.

Dysautonomia causes the ANS—which consists of the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric nervous systems—to malfunction, either through an inability to perform its tasks or by causing too much activity, resulting in high blood pressure or a rapid heart rate. The condition can be confined to the arms and legs or spread throughout the entire body. It can be severe or mild, and may be reversible or worsen over time.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a common form of dysautonomia that has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic began and has been reported by those with long COVID and in those following COVID-19 vaccination.

Symptoms of POTS include but are not limited to lightheadedness, difficulty thinking or concentrating, severe and long-lasting fatigue, intolerance to exercise, blurred vision, low blood pressure, heart palpitations, tremors, and nausea.

Since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, 801 cases of POTS were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System as of July 28. This includes 597 cases attributed to Pfizer and 171 cases to Moderna.

Treatments for Dysautonomia

Therapeutic treatment options for autonomic dysfunction in the medical community are aimed at symptom management and avoiding triggers using pharmaceutical drugs and nonpharmacologic measures.

EG.5 (ERIS) sub-variant COVID clade off-shoot of XBB; this is a ‘nothing burger’ fear-porn, low-risk, yes, more infectious as we expect, yes, evades immunity (antigenic sin, imprinting) mismatch

to existing vaccine and boosters, yet there is no data, NONE to say it is more dangerous, same as Omicron; we however run risk with sub-optimal immune pressure to drive new lethal variants

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERAUG 12

IMO bringing that XBB.1.5 booster in September will be disastrous and will do much damage and drive this (these variants and the fear porn) to continue for decades. IMO this is deliberate. Done deliberate.

The very same disaster we caused with the in toto across the board, across all age-groups MASS vaccination of the population into the teeth (in the midst) of an ongoing pandemic (it is like loading your gun while the enemy was on the battlefield) where there was MASSIVE infectious pressure (from circulating virus (still is)) while there was MASSIVE mounting immune pressure (mounting population immunity) that was sub-optimal; the immune response (vaccine-induced antibodies (Abs)) could not reach MAXIMAL affinity, full binding capacity for the target antigen (epitopes binding domains e.g. infectiousness of the virus) and as such PRESSURED the virus somewhat (the infectiousness of the virus aka the spike) yet could not STERILIZE the virus (in other words, the Abs could not NEUTRALIZE the virus) and thus could not stop infection, replication, and importantly, TRANSMISSION.

END

EG.5 vs FL.1.5.1 COVID subvariant clades? Which horse will win? Eric Feigl-‘Ding’ is going full ‘Dong’; XBB1.5 booster FDA called for will be DOA, obsolete, garbage as we said! Class-switch IMMUNE

tolerance for the spike/virus (IgG4 antibodies) that is surging, original antigenic sin (recalled antibodies to the initial prime/exposure), viral immune escape, selective pressure, a clusterf*ck!!!

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERAUG 13

Eric was and shows how just bat-sh*t crazy he is…I just chuckle when he TWITTERS, he is deranged and inept and was always WRONG! what this EG.5 clade is showing us and likely losing dominance to FL.1.5.1 clade eventually, especially if infections are surging at this time, is that people like Geert Vanden Bossche who said a more infectious variant and potentially more lethal once would and could emerge, was CORRECT! We sidelined Geert yet he remains their guru. We are seeing viral immune escape due to the natural selection pressure via a sub-optimal mounting population immune response (not getting to full affinity) in the midst of circulating virus. The result will be variant after variant.

Note to you idiotic vaccine makers out there as you continue this lie and you deliberately drive the emergence of more infectious variants, is that the virus will always win and will always outsmart and outrun the vaccine. Even if and when vaccine antibodies matches the virus spike. The vaccine, these mRNA technology gene based platforms just do not work and are deadly.

I wonder if Eric ‘ding-a-ling’ dong is in support of the already ‘going to fail and drive variants’ XBB.1.5 booster’ that is coming? Knowing that EG.5 or FL.1.5.1 clades will be dominant?

Stunning Swiss research (Mueller) found that Moderna vaccine-associated myocardial injury was much more common than previously thought and much more frequent in women versus men; “Moderna (mRNA-1273)

booster vaccination-associated elevation of markers of myocardial injury occurred in about one out of 35 persons (2.8%)” vs usual reported 0.0035%; 20 cases occurred in women (3.7%) vs 2 in men (0.8%)

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERAUG 11

‘Among 777 participants (median age 37 years, 69.5% women), 40 participants (5.1%; 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.7–7.0%) had elevated hs-cTnT concentration on day 3 and mRNA-1273 vaccine-associated myocardial injury was adjudicated in 22 participants (2.8% [95% CI 1.7–4.3%]). Twenty cases occurred in women (3.7% [95% CI 2.3–5.7%]), two in men (0.8% [95% CI 0.1–3.0%]).’

see my prior substack:

Moderna’s COVID mRNA technology based injection booster damages the heart as reported in a July 2023 study (Buergin, Mueller et al.); 'Sex-specific differences in myocardial injury incidence after

CNN & crooked deadly corrupted legacy fecal media saying COVID wave this fall 2023; FDA asked Pfizer Moderna to bring booster for XBB.1.5 subvariant clade by September; but EG.5 (Eris) clade DOMINANT

SLAY NEWS

The latest reports from Slay News

120,000 American Children ‘Died Suddenly’ after Covid Shots Rollout A bombshell new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that a staggering 120,000 American children have “died suddenly” following the public rollout of the mRNA Covid shots.READ MORE

Merrick Garland Appoints Special Counsel to Investigate Hunter Biden, Picks Trump Appointee Attorney General Merrick Garland announced today that the President Donald Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who is investigating Hunter Biden has been given “special counsel” status.READ MORE

Unknown Country Singer’s D.C Protest Song Is World’s Most Listened-to Track in Last 24 Hours Oliver Anthony lives on 90 acres in Farmville, Virginia with his three dogs.READ MORE

DOJ Turns on Biden, Requests Interview for Classified Documents Case Attorneys for Joe Biden and the special counsel appointed to investigate his mishandling of classified documents are close to an agreement to get the Democrat president to sit down for an interview.READ MORE

Chuck Todd Makes Fool of Biden: ‘Greg Abbott Was Right’NBC’s Chuck Todd put Democrat President Joe Biden on notice by asserting that Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott was right to send migrants to blue cities.READ MORE

Kathy Griffin Does It Again, Posts Vile Image of Jack Smith Holding Trump’s Severed Head Hollywood leftist Kathy Griffin apparently didn’t learn a lesson from the infamous anti-Trump stunt that destroyed her “comedy” career.READ MORE

Ex-Capitol Police Chief Exposes Pelosi’s ‘Set Up’ on Jan 6: ‘It Just Gets Worse’Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund has blown the whistle to expose the “set up” on Jan. 6 that was led by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).READ MORE

Disney Suffers Massive $460 Million Loss in Second Quarter as Streaming Subscriptions Plummet Walt Disney has just posted a staggering loss as subscriptions for the company’s streaming service have plummeted.READ MORE

Retiring Seattle Cop Slams ‘Spineless Mayor’ and ‘Extremist’ City Democrats In a brutal resignation letter, a retired Seattle cop has unloaded the Democrat-run city’s leadership.READ MORE

Joe Manchin Drops Bombshell: ‘The Democrat Brand Has Become So Bad I Am Seriously Thinking about Leaving the Party’Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has said he is “thinking seriously” about leaving the Democratic Party and going independent ahead of the 2024 election.READ MORE

GOP Takes Off Kid Gloves: ‘We Are Going to Subpoena the Biden Family’Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said that his House Oversight and Accountability Committee will move to subpoena the Biden family, including the Democrat president himself.READ MORE

Elise Stefanik Finds ‘Damning Picture’ of Biden: ‘All Evidence Points Directly to Joe Biden Being Deeply Compromised’House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has found a “damning photo” of then-Vice President Joe Biden aboard an Air Force Two flight during a trip to Ukraine.READ MORE

Elon Musk Sets Democrat Rep Cori Bush Straight with Embarrassing Fact Check after She Spread Debunked Lie Elon Musk’s new community notes system at Twitter just set Democrat Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) straight with an embarrassing fact check.READ MORE

The latest reports from Slay NewsSenator Johnson: Covid Was ‘Preplanned by Elite Group’ to ‘Take Total Control of Our Lives’Republican Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has issued an explosive statement on national television by warning the American people that Covid was “preplanned by an elite group of people.”READ MORE All-Cause Mortality Soars 45% in Children & Young Adults since Early 2021, CDC Data Shows All-cause mortality rates in babies, children, teenagers, and young adults have soared by a staggering 45 percent since early 2021, new official data has revealed.READ MORE Matt Gaetz Suggests He May Be Trump’s AG, Warns Biden He ‘Will Be There to Actually Enforce the Law’Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has suggested that he could be in the running as President Donald Trump’s attorney general if he returns to the White House in 2025.READ MORE Maui Christian Church Untouched after Surrounding Area Destroyed by Wildfires: ‘A Miracle’Locals are hailing a miracle after a Christian church in Maui, Hawaii was untouched by the devastating wildfires that destroyed the surrounding area.READ MORE Transgender Child Molester Found Dead in Jail Cell A transgender who confessed to molesting multiple autistic children has been found dead in a jail cell.READ MORE Maui’s Emergency Sirens Failed to Warn Residents of Approaching Fire: ‘No Warning’The emergency siren system in Maui, Hawaii failed to go off as the devastating fire approached, leaving residents with “no warning” about the wildfire, according to reports.READ MORE Arizona Gov Katie Hobbs Demanded Twitter Censor Her Critics, Emails Show Arizona’s Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs used her position as secretary of state to demand that social media companies censor her critics, newly surfaced emails show.READ MORE Barack Obama Wrote in Letter to Ex: ‘I Make Love to Men Daily but in the Imagination’Former President Barack Obama claimed to have an “androgynous” mind and bragged about “making love to men daily, but in my imagination,” in a 1982 letter to an ex-girlfriend.READ MOREThe latest reports from Slay NewsWEF Scientist Details Plan to End Public Meat Consumption to Fight ‘Climate Change’A World Economic Forum-linked scientist has detailed disturbing plans to force the public into ending meat consumption in order to fight “climate change.”READ MORE Fauci & Collins Cashed In on Covid: Records Show 58 NIH Royalty Payments Worth $325M Newly discovered records have exposed the staggering profits that were reaped in the form of royalty checks on the back of the Covid pandemic.READ MORE 4 Articles of Impeachment Filed against Biden by GOP Congressman, Including Fraud and Abuse of Power Republican Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) has filed articles of impeachment against Democrat President Joe Biden for high crimes and misdemeanors.READ MORE GOP Senator Threatened to ‘Kick the Sh*t Out’ of Biden for Touching His Wife Republican former U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) has revealed that he once threatened to “kick the sh*t out” of Joe Biden for touching his wife.READ MORE 16-Year-Old Cheerleader Dies after Sudden Cardiac Arrest A 16-year-old Texas girl has tragically died after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest at a cheerleading camp.READ MORE Man Forced to Abandon $115K Electric Ford Truck during Family Road Trip: ‘Biggest Scam of Modern Times’A Canadian man is outraged after being forced to abandon his expensive electric truck during a family road trip.READ MORE Elon Musk & Mark Zuckerberg Fight Will Be at ‘Epic Location’ in Italy, Live Streamed to Benefit Veterans Twitter/X boss Elon Musk has shared new details on the upcoming fight between himself and Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.READ MORE Democrat Cori Bush: ‘The Climate Crisis Is Here and It’s Killing People!’Radical Democrat Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) has taken to social media to deceitfully blames the wildfires in Hawaii on an alleged “climate crisis.”READ MORE Woman Shoots & Kills Thug Who Is Holding Gun to Her Husband’s Head A woman has shot and killed a thug while he was holding a gun to her husband’s head, according to police.READ MORE James Comer Throws Jared Kushner Under the Bus: He ‘Crossed the Line of Ethics’House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has finally thrown lifelong Democrat Jared Kushner under the bus.READ MORE Eric Bolling Issues Warning to Biden: ‘I’ve Interviewed Trump Dozens of Times, This Was the Most Engaged He’s Been – Ever’Newsmax host Eric Bolling has issued a warning to Joe Biden, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Ron DeSantis after he interviewed President Donald Trump.READ MORE Comer Gets Jake Tapper to Admit Biden Family Is Sleazy: ‘Certainly, There’s Sleaze There’House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) got CNN host Jake Tapper to admit on live television that Democrat President Joe Biden’s family is sleazy.READ MORE Jim Jordan Smells a Rat, Warns DOJ Trying to ‘Whitewash Biden Family’s Corruption, Stonewall Congressional Oversight’House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan smells a rat with the Justice Department’s shock appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden.READ MORE

EVOL NEWS

NYC’s Democrat Mayor Demands Biden Declare Emergency at Southern BorderREAD MORE…

LATEST NEWS:

Set your logo on company info page, thank you.Democrat Cori Bush: ‘The Climate Crisis Is Here and It’s Killing People!’READ MORE… LATEST NEWS:Woman Shoots & Kills Thug Who Is Holding Gun to Her Husband’s HeadRead more…GOP Rep Gets Jake Tapper To Admit The Biden Family Is Sleazy: “Certainly, there’s sleaze — there’s sleaze there”Read more…Jim Jordan Smells A Rat: “Something’s not right, whitewash the Biden family’s corruption, stonewall congressional oversightRead more…Twitter’s WEF-Linked CEO Unveils New Anti-Free Speech AgendaRead more…120,000 American Children ‘Died Suddenly’ after Covid Shots RolloutRead more…Merrick Garland Screws Joe Biden, Appoints Special Counsel To Investigate Hunter And Picks A Trump AppointeeRead more…WATCH: Friend Of Friend of Utah Man Killed By FBI Speaks Out, ‘He Could Not Get Out Of His Chair Without A Cane’Read more…Unknown Country Singer’s DC Protest Song Is Most Listened To Track In The World In Last 24 HoursRead more…

0.1% of All Covid Shot Recipients Have Died, Official Data ShowsRead more…Secret Service Told Biden Who Took Cocaine into White House, Hid Findings from PublicRead more…Biden Snaps over Grilling from Peter Doocy: ‘You Were on Speaker Phone a Lot Talking Business’Read more…WATCH: Peter Doocy Confronts Biden Face To Face Over Damning Testimony From Devon ArcherRead more…Who is Michael Jones?: FBI Informant Planted in Proud Boys Caught on Tape on January 6Read more…DeSantis Suspends Democrat State Attorney Monique Worrell for Neglect of Duty and IncompetenceRead more…Ex-Soccer Star Blames Women’s Team Loss on ‘Entitled’ Players Who Are ‘Not Respectful of Others’Read more…Disney Hires Grown Man to Dress as Minnie Mouse in Campaign to Promote Children’s Clothing
Read more…

NEWS ADDICTS

LATEST REPORTS FOR NEWS JUNKIES

Experts Raise Alarm as Teen Heart Attacks Skyrocket Experts are raising the alarm about vaccine-induced myocarditis as reports of heart attacks among teenagers continue to skyrocket to unprecedented levels.READ THE FULL REPORT
LATEST REPORTS FOR NEWS JUNKIESCDC Admits Thousands of Vaxxed Children Are Dying Suddenly The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has quietly released explosive data that confirms tens of thousands of vaxxed children have “died suddenly.”READ THE FULL REPORT Illinois Supreme Court Upholds State’s ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban On Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines.READ THE FULL REPORT Judge Tanya Chutkan Makes Decision: Bans Trump from Commenting on Witness Testimony and Restricts His Legal Team Size On Friday, Judge Tanya Chutkan, based in Washington, D.C., decided that President Donald Trump can make public statements about his case.READ THE FULL REPORT Details Posted for Elon Musk Mark Zuckerberg Fight, Will be at ‘Epic Location’ in Italy and Streamed on X and META to Benefit Veterans X and Tesla owner Elon Musk shared more details on the proposed fight between himself and META CEO Mark Zuckerberg Friday morning. The fight will not be held in a UFC cage match Musk told his X followers. It will be managed by Musk and Zuckerberg’s foundations. The proceeds will go to veterans. He also shared that the proposed location …READ THE FULL REPORT Leo Terrell Says David Weiss is the Wrong Person to be Hunter Biden Special Counsel: ‘He Tried to Give Hunter Biden Sweetheart Deal’Friday morning, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced he was appointing Attorney for the United States District Court for the District of Delaware David Weiss as special counsel over the ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden. In response to the announcement from Garland, Leo Terrell shared his thoughts on X: “The appointment of David Weiss as special counsel is designed to slow …READ THE FULL REPORT

end

MICHAEL EVERY/PHIL MAREY/OR OTHER EXECS //RABOBANK

end

7//OIL ISSUES//NATURAL GAS ISSUES/USA AND GLOBE

INDIA/RUSSIA CRUDE OIL

India’s economy is booming due to its purchases to discounted Russian oil

(zerohedge)

India Consumes 11x More Crude Oil From Russia, Exposing Ineffectiveness Of Western Sanctions

FRIDAY, AUG 11, 2023 – 10:20 PM

Via Remix News,

Russia has now become the main crude oil supplier of India, one of the world’s largest consumers, Hungarian daily Magyar Hírlap reports.

According to the data, export volumes were almost 11 times higher than last year’s shipments over the same period and exceeded shipments for the whole of 2022. Last year, India imported 33.4 million tonnes of Russian crude oil.

It is another sign that Western sanctions have had a much smaller impact than expected on Russia’s ability to export its natural resources.

During the period under review, Russia secured the title of India’s primary supplier of crude oil, followed by Iraq (21.4 million tonnes) and Saudi Arabia (17.5 million tonnes).

Russian crude imports to India continued to grow over the summer, reaching a record 2.2 million barrels per day in June and rising for ten consecutive months, according to crude analyst firm Kpler.

Deliveries fell slightly in July to an average of 1.9 million barrels, according to a special report in the Morning Express newspaper earlier this week.

Analysts attributed the decline to the production cut agreed by the OPEC+ group, under which Moscow has pledged to reduce output by 500,000 barrels a day.

Moscow began redirecting oil shipments to Asia last year in response to Western sanctions on Ukraine, which included an oil embargo and price restrictions on Russian crude and petroleum products. India, the world’s third-largest importer and consumer of oil, has become one of Russia’s biggest consumers by not joining the sanctions and taking advantage of the discounts offered by Moscow.

However, New Delhi has pledged not to breach the Western price ceiling for Russian crude oil, which is set at $60 per barrel, excluding transport, freight, customs, and insurance costs.

END

CHINA/SAUDI ARABIA/CRUDE OIL

China is purchasing more of Saudi Oil

(zerohedge)

China’s Imports Of Saudi Oil Set To Soar Despite Production Cuts

FRIDAY, AUG 11, 2023 – 09:00 PM

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com,

China is set to import 40% more crude from Saudi Arabia under term contracts in September despite the unilateral production cut of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of the world’s top crude oil exporter, traders told Bloomberg on Friday.

Chinese refiners are estimated to receive as much as 52 million barrels of crude oil cargoes next month, compared to about 37 million barrels set to arrive in August, the traders participating in the market told Bloomberg. The significant increase will come from the start of a new supply contract between Saudi oil giant Aramco and Chinese refiner Rongsheng Petrochemical Co.

Under an agreement signed by Aramco and Rongsheng Petrochemical last month, the Saudi firm successfully closed the transaction to buy a 10% stake in the Chinese refiner for $3.4 billion (24.6 billion Chinese yuan). The deal includes the supply of 480,000 bpd of Arabian crude to the largest Chinese integrated refining and chemicals complex, which is owned by Rongsheng affiliate Zhejiang Petroleum and Chemical Co. Ltd (ZPC).

Last week, Saudi Arabia said it would extend its unilateral voluntary cut of 1 million bpd from July and August into September, adding that the cut could be extended or extended and deepened.

The Kingdom’s production for the month of September 2023 will be around 9 million bpd, as it is in July and August.

Despite the cut, Saudi Arabia is expected to supply full crude oil volumes in September under contracts with Asian buyers.

Saudi Aramco raised the official selling price (OSP) for its Arab Light crude oil grade to Asia by $0.30 per barrel for the month of September, to $3.50 above the Oman/Dubai average, the company said earlier this month. Aramco also raised the price of its Arab Light crude to Europe by $2 per barrel, but it left its crude to the United States the same at +$7.25 versus ASCI for the month of September, it said.

end

This is how stupid the oil cap really is: Russia has earned an extra $1.2 billion by overcharging for transportation

(zerohedge)

Russia May Have Earned $1.2 Billion By Exploiting Oil Price Cap Loophole

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 01:20 PM

Authored by Tsvetana Parskova via OilPrice.com,

Russia may have earned an additional $1.2 billion in the three months to July by exploiting a loophole in the G7 oil price cap.
While Russian producers have been selling their crude to India at below the price cap, they have overcharged for shipping costs.
Russia’s export revenues rose by $2.5 billion from June but they were $4.1 billion lower compared to July 2022.

Russian producers have been selling their crude oil to India at prices below the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel, but since shipping costs are not included in this price ceiling, Russia has been overcharging for freight costs and getting more revenue from oil trade, a Financial Times analysis showed this weekend.

FT has analyzed the fees and charges on tankers leaving the Baltic Sea ports in Russia for India.

The findings suggest that the overcharging for shipping costs, plus the fees for Russia-linked tankers, may have boosted Russia’s oil trade revenues by a combined $1.2 billion in May, June, and July.

The loophole in the price cap is that it does not include freight costs. So Russian sellers, traders, and Russia-linked tanker operators have been overcharging for the shipping of the crude, inflating Russian revenues from oil sales despite the fact that it appears that the cargoes were sold below the price cap.

In June, India’s crude oil imports from Russia were estimated to have been the cheapest since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The average cost of a barrel of Russian crude that landed at India’s ports in June was at $68.17, per data from India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry cited by Bloomberg. The price exceeds the $60 price cap set by the G7, but the cap does not include shipping.

Most of India’s purchases of Russian crude oil are being done on a delivered basis inclusive of freight, insurance, and other costs.

Russia’s crude oil and refined products exports remained steady at some 7.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, while higher oil prices and narrower price differentials for Russian crude pushed Moscow’s revenues higher compared to June, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Russia’s export revenues, at $15.3 billion in July, rose by $2.5 billion from June, but they were $4.1 billion lower compared to July 2022, the agency’s estimates showed.

8. EMERGING MARKETS//AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND ISSUES

ARGENTINA

Far right wing outsider Melei wins the primary ahead of this Oct.’s general election. His primary win caused the Peso to plummet from 67 to 350 Pesos per dollar. The unofficial rate is now 600 pesos per dollar. The Central Bank of Argentina raised its interest rate to 118% per year…deadly to all business.

(zerohedge)

Argentina Devalues Peso, Hikes Rates After Libertarian Outsider’s Shock Win In Presidential Primary

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 11:00 AM

The Argentine peso, already at historic lows, puked immediately after far-right political outsider Javier Milei won the country’s primary election on Sunday. He wants a dramatic overhaul of the country’s entire political and economic system, even vowing to ditch the peso.

Milei is a rock-singing libertarian outsider candidate, an admirer of Donald Trump and self-described anarcho-capitalist, and his primary win headed into the October general election is being widely viewed as punishment for Argentina’s two main political establishment blocs – the center-left Peronist coalition and the main Together for Change conservative opposition bloc.Javier Milei, via the Observador

After winning 30% of the vote, beating the main conservative opposition bloc (at 28%) and the ruling Peronist coalition which came in third place, it’s being hailed in Argentine media as a “political earthquake”.

The 52-year old Milei might also be called the Ron Paul of Argentine politics, given his willingness to controversially raze entire longstanding institutions, including pledges to abolish Argentina’s central bank. He has also talked about replacing the peso with the US dollar and privatizing state-run firms.

Multiple administrations have overseen a years-long spiral into a persisting economic crisis, with year-on-year inflation above 115%, and one in four people living in poverty. The peso has in recent months plummeted such that foreign soccer fans now regularly taunt locals at matches by burning and ripping up the Argentine currency.

Milei’s win, which is being taken as a clear sign of what lies in store for the Oct.22 election, is voters’ attempt to “shock” the system and try something new.

The peso’s plummet prompted the Argentine central bank to hike rates (to 118%!) and devalue the official peso rate to 350/USD in an effort to reassure markets and to prevent a broader selloff of assets from spreading. It hasn’t worked yet as the peso plunge continued and a US-traded Argentina ETF plunges most since March 2020.

Bloomberg reports Monday, the government’s moves is “a drastic policy shift as it runs out of funds to defend its currency.”

However, the official rate remains dramatically deocoupled from the reality of perceived value on the street, with the so-called ‘blue dolar’ trading at almost 600/USD…

His ultra anti-establishment views will continue to have ripple effects. Bloomberg Economics economist Adriana Dupita previews more of the uncertainty ahead based on the central bank’s latest actions:

If the past is any guide, a sharp peso depreciation would definitely add some inflationary pressure but not sufficient to tip the country into hyperinflation. We estimate that a 25% depreciation of the peso could add some 8 percentage points to the year-over-year CPI one year after it happens — on top of what inflation would be with the currency stable, in real terms. Most of the impact would happen in the first month after the currency shock.

That pressure is relevant but not sufficient per se to trigger an inflation spiral. The rise in interest rates announced by the BCRA helps mitigating the hyperinflation risk, but the problem is that the devaluation is happening in a moment when fiscal policy is lax and amid expectations of new rounds of depreciation — illustrated by the plunge in dollar blue, and fueled by the prospect of a dollarization in case Milei wins. That renders the impact of the devaluation on prices a lot more uncertain.

Milei had told supporters on Sunday that “we have managed to build this competitive alternative that will put an end to the parasitic, thieving, useless political caste.”

END

YOUR EARLY CURRENCY/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN CLOSING MARKETS AND EUROPEAN BOURSE OPENING AND CLOSING/ INTEREST RATE SETTINGS MONDAY MORNING 7;30AM//OPENING AND CLOSINGS

EURO VS USA DOLLAR: 1.0938 UP 0.0004

USA/ YEN 145.01 UP 0.148 NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT 1.00% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…//YEN STILL FALLS//

GBP/USA 1.2698 UP 0.0037

USA/CAN DOLLAR: 1.3440 UP .0015 (CDN DOLLAR DOWN 15 BASIS PTS)

Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED DOWN 10.82 PTS OR 0.34%

Hang Seng CLOSED DOWN 301.64 PTS OR 1.58%

AUSTRALIA CLOSED DOWN 0.81 % // EUROPEAN BOURSE: MOSTLY GREEN EXCEPT LONDON

Trading from Europe and ASIA

I) EUROPEAN BOURSES: MOSTLY GREEN EXCEPT LONDON

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SENG DOWN 301.64 PTS OR 1.58%

/SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 10.82 PTS OR 0.34%

AUSTRALIA BOURSE CLOSED DOWN 0.81%

(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED DOWN 413.74 PTS OR 1.27

INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE GREEN

Gold very early morning trading: 1914.30

silver:$22.68

USA dollar index early MONDAY morning: 102.97 UP 8 BASIS POINTS FROM FRIDAY’s CLOSE.

MONDAY MORNING NUMBERS ENDS

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And now your closing MONDAY NUMBERS 11: 30 AM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 3.325% UP 2 in basis point(s) yield

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: +0.609% UP 4 AND 0//100 BASIS POINTS /JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 3.655 UP 3 in basis points yield

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD 4.273 UP 4 points in basis points yield ./ THE ECB IS QE’ ING ITALIAN BONDS (BUYING ITALIAN BONDS/SELLING GERMAN BUNDS)

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: 2.6345 UP 2 BASIS PTS

END

IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES FOR MONDAY

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

Euro/USA 1.0903 DOWN 0.0031 or 31 basis points

USA/Japan: 145.44 UP 0.583 OR YEN DOWN 58 basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.2660 DOWN 0.0011 OR 11 BASIS POINTS //

Canadian dollar DOWN .0011 OR 11 BASIS pts to 1.3466

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The USA/Yuan, CNY: closed ON SHORE CLOSED (DOWN) …7.2633

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: (YUAN CLOSED (DOWN)…. (7.2818)

TURKISH LIRA: 27.06 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WATCH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.//ON DEATH WATCH

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield at +0.609…VERY DANGEROUS

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield UP 2 in basis points from FRIDAY at 4.179% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic

USA 30 yr bond yield 4.275 UP 2 in basis points ON THE DAY/12.00 PM

Your 12:00 AM bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates FRIDAY: CLOSING TIME 12:00 PM

London: CLOSED DOWN 27.33 points or 0.36%

German Dax : CLOSED UP 60.92 PTS OR 0.38%

Paris CAC CLOSED UP 11.61 PTS OR 16%

Spain IBEX UP 14.40 PTS OR 0.15%

Italian MIB: CLOSED UP 187.90 PTS OR 10.66%

WTI Oil price 81.79 12: EST

Brent Oil: 85.26 12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN ROUBLE /// AT: 99.18; ROUBLE UP 0 AND 24//100

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; +2.6345 UP 2 BASIS PTS

UK 10 YR YIELD: 4.6125 UP 8 BASIS PTS

CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM

Euro vs USA: 1.0908 DOWN 0.0026 OR 26 BASIS POINTS

British Pound: 1.2682 UP .0082 or 82 basis pts

BRITISH 10 YR GILT BOND YIELD: 4.6065 % UP 4 BASIS PTS//

JAPAN 10 YR YIELD: .607%

USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 145.46 UP 0.604 //YEN DOWN 61 BASIS PTS//

USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.3466 UP .0040 CDN dollar,DOWN 40 basis pts)

West Texas intermediate oil: 82.46

Brent OIL: 86.17

USA 10 yr bond yield UP 2 BASIS pts to 4.191%

USA 30 yr bond yield DOWN 2 BASIS PTS to 4.284%

USA 2 YR BOND: UP 7 PTS AT 4.967%

USA dollar index: 103.02 UP 33 BASIS POINTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 27.05 (GETTING QUITE CLOSE TO BLOWING UP/

USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIA//// ROUBLE: 97.66 UP 1 AND 76/100 roubles

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: UP 105.71 PTS OR 0.30%

NASDAQ 100 DOWN 100.77 PTS OR 0.78%

VOLATILITY INDEX: 15.02 DOWN 0.83 PTS (5.25)%

GLD: $177.79 DOWN 0.00 OR 0.00%

SLV/ $20.80 DOWN ,00 OR 0.00%

end

USA AFFAIRS

USA TRADING IN GRAPH FORM:

Big-Tech Bounces; Bonds, Bitcoin, & Black Gold Struggle As Rate-Hike Odds Rise

BY TYLER DURDEN

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 04:00 PM

A quiet day on the macro-front removed headline risk and allowed the algos to play on a very technical-feeling day.

NVDA rebounded above its 50DMA
Russell 2000 found support at 50DMA
Nasdaq rallied back up to its 50DMA
USD Index rallied up to its 200DMA
Gold fell to its 200DMA

Notably, rate-hike expectations extended their hawkish shift today, erasing all of the dovish-response to payrolls…

Source: Bloomberg

Futures were ugly overnight until hopes of China stimulus sparked a brief buying panic at the end of the Asia session / open of European session. That did not hold well and selling pressure began early in the US session. The cash open sparked Small Caps selling, big-tech-buying but at around 1000ET, 0-DTE traders began to aggressively fade the rally but the S&P held its gains…

Source: SpotGamma

Small Caps ended the day’s biggest loser and The Dow was red and barely better. Nasdaq took al the glory with the S&P far behind but green…

Small Caps bounced perfectly off their 50DMA. Nasdaq rallied back up to its 50DMA…

NVDA opened lower, testing its trillion-dollar-market-cap, but then a wave of buying emerged as a major 0-DTE gamma squeeze swept into the AI-Angel…

Source: SpotGamma

…and lifted it back above its 50DMA…

The timing of the NVDA bounce is right on cue…

Source: Bloomberg

‘X’ marked the spot of acquisition exuberance today – up 40% as it appears in play…

Amid a choppy day, Treasuries were sold across the curve today with the short-end significantly underperforming (2Y +7bps, 30Y +2bps). We note the period from the US open to EU close saw buying…

Source: Bloomberg

2Y yields rose for the 4th straight day, erasing the payrolls puke in yields and back up toward 5.00%…

Source: Bloomberg

10Y Yield hits highest since Nov ’22…

Source: Bloomberg

Dollar Index rallied further, pushing above its 200DMA…

Source: Bloomberg

But it could not hold the 200DMA intraday…

Source: Bloomberg

China’s offshore yuan tumbled to Nov ’22 lows as the nation’s struggling economy prompts capital outflows…

Source: Bloomberg

Russia’s Ruble continued its rout as the country’s current account surplus tumbled 85% from a year ago. But then it stalled after headlines about an ‘extraordinary’ key rate meeting…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold fell to its 200DMA…

Source: Bloomberg

Finding support just above $1900 at the 200DMA intraday…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices clipped lower on the day – after trying to back to even multiple times…

Finally, there remains an alternative…

Source: Bloomberg

6-mo bills yield 94bps more than the S&P’s earnings yield… do you feel lucky?

b) THIS MORNING TRADING//

end

II) USA DATA/

end

III) USA ECONOMIC STORIES

Strange data;

Large Bank Loan Volumes Slump Despite Fed Reporting Massive Deposit Inflows

FRIDAY, AUG 11, 2023 – 04:40 PM

Money-market funds saw inflows and banks’ usage of the Fed’s emergency BTFP facility hit a new high this week, so what malarkey does The Fed have in store when it tries to explain what happened to bank deposits.

Seasonally-adjusted, total deposits rose by $17.6 billion last week (the 3rd straight week on SA inflows)…

Source: Bloomberg

And for once, non-seasonally-adjusted deposits rose too (by a huge $121 billion!)

Source: Bloomberg

The divergence between money-market fund assets and bank deposits remains extreme…

Source: Bloomberg

On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, Large banks saw $81BN inflows and Small banks $53BN inflows (while Foreign banks suffered a $12BN deposit outflow)…

Source: Bloomberg

The big surge in NSA (out of nowhere) magically recoupled it with the cumulative SA deposit outflows…

Domestically (removing foreign deposit flows), banks saw a massive $134BN inflow (NSA), which was whittled down to a $31.5BN inflow (SA)…

Source: Bloomberg

On the other side of the ledger the story gets murkier with large bank loan volumes tumbling almost $10 billion as small bank lending accelerated…

Source: Bloomberg

Make of it what you will – but ‘baffle em with bullshit’ comes to mind on this dataset.

end

USA CRE crumbling!

(zerohedge)

Downtown San Fran Office Tower Sells At 66% Off As CRE Crisis Claims Another Victim

SATURDAY, AUG 12, 2023 – 06:00 PM

Understanding the backdrop of the crime-ridden progressive metro area of San Francisco, alongside the mass exodus of businesses and residents, and the record-high vacancy rate of office towers, we asked a very important question earlier this summer: What are office buildings worth?

We quickly found out in June that one downtown San Francisco office building sold for roughly 70% less than its previously estimated value, an ominous sign of what would come as the commercial real estate market dominos appear to be falling.

Now Sixty Spear St., an 11-story building that is 30% occupied and is expected to be entirely vacant by summer 2025, has been sold to Presidio Bay Ventures for $40.9 million, about a 66% discount versus the most recent assessed property value of $121 million, according to local media SFGATE.

“We acknowledge the formidable challenges that confront San Francisco,” Cyrus Sanandaji, founder and managing principal of Presidio Bay, who is now the office tower’s proud new owner. He remains a bull on the San Francisco office market and wants to expand the building’s square footage from 157,436 to 170,000 square feet and transform it into a “Class-A trophy office building with exceptional design and hospitality-driven amenities.”

All we have to say to Sanandaji’s CRE bet is good luck. The crime-ridden metro area covered in poop must come to terms with City Hall’s horrendous progressive policies that have entirely backfired and led to an exodus of businesses and people. Until Mayor London Breed can instill law and order once more — the ability for the downtown area to thrive once more will remain challenging.

Marc Benioff, the chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city’s largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, warned last month that the metro area is in danger. He offered a grim outlook: The downtown area is “never going back to the way it was” in pre-Covid times when workers commuted to offices daily.

“We need to rebalance downtown,” Benioff said, adding Breed needs to initiate a program to convert dormant office space into housing and hire additional law enforcement to restore law and order.

… and documenting how the downtown area has rapidly transformed into a ghost town is Youtuber METAL LEO, who walks around with a video camera, revealing empty stores, malls, and towers.

Besides Sixty Spear, SFGATE provided data on other recent tower transactions:

The 13-story 180 Howard St. building, known for being the headquarters of the State Bar of California, sold for about $62 million after being expected to sell for about $85 million.

The offices at 350 California St. reportedly sold for roughly 75% less than its previously estimated value in May, and the 22-story Financial District edifice mostly sits empty. Just a few weeks later, nearby 550 California changed hands for less than half of what owner Wells Fargo paid for the building in 2005.

Things are so bad that some building owners are just walking away from properties:

CRE Doom Loop Accelerates As Westfield Abandons Largest San Fran Mall, Stops Paying $558 Million Loan

And defaulting…

San Fran’s CRE Apocalypse: The City’s Two Biggest Hotels Have Defaulted

As the CRE crisis spreads, remember last week: Baltimore Sun Editorial Board Tells Everyone ‘Keep Calm’ Amid CRE Panic … this will only mean bad news for commercial real estate-small banks that could threaten financial stability and either cause a recession or make a recession more severe.

If you’re curious where we could be in the CRE crisis cycle, a recent analysis by CoStar Group shows 55% of office leases signed before the pandemic that were active during Covid haven’t expired, meaning vacancies will continue to rise.

Here’s what could be next: The collapse of WeWork will only cause more pain for CRE markets nationwide. The coworking company occupies 16.8 million square feet across the US.

END

We should now seen the CPI rise again as rents are surging back to their record highs

(zerohedge)

Not So Fast With The CPI Celebrations: Rents Are Surging Again And Back To Record Highs

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 06:55 AM

Last week’s CPI report was surprisingly dovish because, as we have discussed extensively in the past two years, rent inflation – which is the biggest variable in the CPI’s biggest category (shelter) – has turned, and is now decelerating sharply. Recall that it was two years ago when we first warned that contrary to CPI report’s subdued and badly lagging prints, rental inflation when observed using real-time indicators such as Apartment List, Zillow or Real Page – was soaring out of control…

… and would feed through into the inflation report in 9-12 months… which it did right on schedule, at which point the market freaked out earlier this year just as expected, even though as we showed half a year ago using real-time metrics, rent inflation had actually topped out in late 2022.

The good news is that as the CPI report continues to lag the actual economic data with its traditional 12-month lag, rents have continued to slide, and in fact the latest Apartment List data showed that the “rental market hit a big milestone this month, as national rent growth is finally negative year-over-year.”

This means that on average across the nation, apartments today are renting for less than they did one year ago. This marks a major deceleration from recent years, when annual rent growth neared 18% nationally and soared to over 40% in a handful of popular cities.

So far so good, and indeed many economists – even those who had never heard of real-time rent indices until a few months ago – declared victory and went so far as to pronounce inflation as “basically GONE” when one excludes lagging shelter/rent data.

Unfortunately, there is one big snag with this analysis: it looks at the annual rate of change, not the actual current read of the index. What we mean by this is that while the annual rate of change – a favorite indicator of economists – indeed turned negative in July, the actual amount of dollars spent on rent has resumed rising again after bottoming in January and is now higher for six consecutive months…

… and at this rate, the pace of annual change will turn positive again in just 2-3 short months.

Or sooner than that, because while Apartment List’s rent index may itself be lagging the price data by a few months due to compilation and calculation delays, that of real estate brokerage RedFin appears to be even more accurate and “real-time”, and has found that after rising since the start of the year, the median US asking rent in July was $2,038, just $16 below the record high set in August 2022.

In other words, not only is the YoY rental print about to turn positive again, it will do so just as rents print a new all time high!

To be sure, there are some caveats: as RedFin notes, while rents are just shy of their all-time high, rent growth remains sluggish. The median asking rent was up just 0.3% from a year earlier in July, compared with a 13.6% annual gain in July 2022. Still, that’s with Fed Funds at 5.5%, 3x higher from the 1.75% last July. And yes, this surge in rates was supposed to crash the rental housing market… something it has clearly failed to do.

As RedFin notes, “Rent gains cooled over the past year due to an increase in supply, economic uncertainty and slowing household formation, but big bargains are still often hard to come by given rents are near record highs.”

“While rents are flattening out, it’s too early to say whether rent growth has bottomed,” said Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr. “A strong job market, cooling inflation and increasing consumer spending—which have decreased the likelihood of a recession—point to resilient renter demand. But there are still a lot of newly built apartments that have yet to hit the market, meaning rents may still have room to fall as landlords grapple with rising vacancies.”

Making the Fed’s life especially difficult, Marr explains that the median asking rent is near its record high “because the housing market tends to be “downside sticky,” meaning prices don’t typically fall substantially even when business is slow.” Instead of lowering rents, many landlords offer perks like a free month’s rent or discounted parking, which tend to be less detrimental to profits.

The good news for landlords is that the Fed is pretty much done hiking rates if the economist consensus is accurate; in fact, according to a Sunday note from Goldman, the Fed may start cutting as soon as Q2 2024, which means a renewed burst higher in rents… and everything else.

There is another challenge for those seeing a roof above their heads: over the past year, the number of options renters had to choose from had steadily climbed as completed residential projects in buildings with five or more units rose 26.3% year over year to 476,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in June— the most recent month for which data is available — meaning landlords have more vacancies to fill and less leeway to raise prices.

But the homebuilding boom itself is now easing as the number of permitted residential projects in buildings with five or more units fell 33.4% year over year to 465,000 in June, the biggest drop since 2016. Permits, or approvals given by local jurisdictions to start construction projects, are a leading indicator of what’s happening in the housing market. Completions are a lagging indicator.

In other words, not only are surging commodities about to blow away hopes for moderation in headline CPI, but economists are once again dead wrong, and instead of looking at the moderation in YoY rents – which they correctly see as indicative of a slowdown in the CPI basket-heavy OER index – what they should be looking at is the real-time actual rental index, which has been rising for 6 months now and is about to take out all time highs at a time when the Fed is supposedly pausing its rate hikes and if anything, is already planning its next easing cycle.

What happens next? The following chart from Schwab’s Jeffrey Kleintop tells you all you need to know.

end

Interesting! these 3 appellant judges get what’s going on as they compare the Biden regime to the Mafia(zerohedge0

Not-So Veiled Threats’: Judge Compares Biden Regime To Mafia For ‘Strong-Arming’ Social Media Companies

SATURDAY, AUG 12, 2023 – 04:00 PM

A three-judge panel excoriated the ‘mob-like’ Biden administration over its ‘strong-arm’ tactics to bully social media companies into complying with censorship requests, which “time and time again” prove to be true.

The judicial smackdown took place during a Thursday hearing in front of the Fifth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments over the administration’s appeal of an injunction barring the US government from communication with social media giants in order to censor protected speech.

Representing the government was attorney Daniel Tenny – who had quite the trio of pissed off judges on his hands. At one point, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod compared the Biden administration to the mafia before walking it back.

“In these movies that we see with the mob … they don’t say and spell out things, but they have these ongoing relationships,” she said, adding “They never actually say ‘go do this or else you’re going to have this consequence.’ But everybody just knows.“

“I’m certainly not equating the federal government with anybody in illegal organized crime but there are certain relationships that people know things without always saying the ‘or else,'” Elrod continued.

She had earlier noted that the Biden administration had a “very close working relationship” with social media giants, and browbeated them like “a supervisor complaining about a worker” until they got their way.

“What appears to be in the record are these irate messages from time to time from high ranking government officials that say, ‘You didn’t do this yet!’ — and that’s my toning down the language— ‘Why haven’t you done this yet?’” she said. “It’s like ‘jump’ and ‘how high?'” said Elrod.

Judges Edith Brown Clement and Don R. Willett were also obviously perturbed by the government’s behavior – with Willett noting that the government operated “out of the public eye” via “unsubtle strong-arming and veiled or not-so-veiled threats.”

“That’s a really nice social media platform you’ve got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it,” he summarized, according to the Daily Caller.

Tenney goes on defense

Clearly sensing the judges’ hostility, Daniel Tenny attempted to tap-dance his way out of claims of government overreach – saying: “The government is generically going to be angry” when companies refuse to take action, but that the communications show federal officials and social media giants alternating between “friendly” and “testy,” as opposed to giving specific orders to comply “or else.”

Judge Elrod wasn’t buying it, calling the government’s messages “irate” at times, and saying that they actually show high-ranking officials badgering counterparts about why they hadn’t censored the material they wanted censored.

Elrod asked Tenney if high-level government officials had asked companies “in a coercive manner to propagate certain things that the government knew were untrue, and to deamplify certain things that it knew were true … but didn’t fit its message, would that be able to be enjoined?”

To which Tenney said the question presumes that the government acted coercively – for which he says they had no factual evidence, and claimed that the Biden administration knows it can’t unilaterally sidestep legal liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Elrod fired back, saying “Time and time again,” what the government considers mis-, dis- and malinformation, “always with great fervor,” turn out to be true. For example, the government’s attempts by National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins’ attempts to issue a published takedown of the Great Barrington Declaration – an open letter by Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard – which challenged government lockdowns during the pandemic.

Tenney argued that the judges also couldn’t consider a ‘friend of the court‘ briefing by leading House Republicans – which includes members of the Judiciary and Weaponization of the Federal Government committees – which lays out how much of the “[v]ery recent evidence’ their committees had obtained ‘further corroborates’ the basis for the injunction.

Tenney also argued that the plaintiffs don’t have legal standing to bring the case, because conservative officials who claim that their own posts were censored didn’t argue that they plan to make similar posts in the future – which would create “ongoing injury” from the censorship.

When asked by Judge Edith Brown Clement if the Biden administration is still communicating with social media giants, he admitted that they hadn’t “entirely stopped,” but dodged a question over whether they maintained “day-to-day involvement,” according to Just the News.

Attorney John Sauer, representing the State of Louisiana, asked the judges what they would think of a senior White House staffer contacting Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers to participate in a “book-burning program” focused on authors who criticize the administration, with the companies only giving in after months of escalating White House rhetoric.

That’s exactly what the White House did to compel platforms to remove and throttle the “most persuasive speakers” critical of its policies, such as former New York Times drug industry reporter Alex Berenson and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Sauer said.

Sauer added that the appellate court should indeed take “judicial notice” of the congressional amicus brief because there’s no dispute on the authenticity of the newly identified communications and it “powerfully reinforces” the alleged coercion, such as a Facebook official suggesting the company back down because of “bigger fish we have to fry” with the administration. -JTN

According to Sauer, one of the individual plaintiffs, Health Freedom Louisiana co-director Jill Hines, claimed as recently as May that Facebook continues to remove groups she’s created to protest COVID policies.

“This notion that COVID censorship is over is completely unsupportable,” said Sauer.

END

With the rise in bond yields, mortgage rates soared to a 23 year high

(MishShedlock)

Bond Market Carnage Sends Mortgage Rates Soaring Towards 23-Year Highs

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 08:25 AM

Authored by Mike Shedlock via Mish Talk,

US Treasury yields rose last week despite a relatively tame CPI report. Mortgage rates rose as well. What’s going on?30-year mortgage chart courtesy of Mortgage News Daily, annotations by Mish

30-Year Mortgage Chart Notes

On Friday, August 11, 2023, mortgage rates jumped to 7.19 percent and approach the October 20, 2022 high of 7.37 percent as noted by Mortgag e N ews Daily.
The 7.37 percent rate was the highest since October of 2000, nearly 23 years ago.

Ominous Chart Technically

Technically speaking, the chart is ominous. Rising triangle formations tend to break higher.

That’s certainly not a guarantee, or even close. But it fits in with US treasury action in response to CPI data.

US Treasury Yields Since 1998US treasury yields since 1998 courtesy of StockCharts.Com, annotations by Mish.

Since 1998 there have been three major inversions where short-term yields soared above long-term yields across the board.

Currently we are in one of the steepest inversion in history with the 3-month yield at 5.54 percent and the 10-year yield at 4.16 percent.

But it’s the recent action that is more telling especially vs the CPI.

US Treasury Yields Since 2022

CPI Year-Over-Year

Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the BLS, chart by Mish.

Year-over-year the CPI peaked at 9.1 percent in June of 2022. Since then, it has plunged to 3.2 percent.

For the move, the 10-year treasury yield slid to 3.54 percent in April of 2023. Mortgage rates also declined, leading the way, in fact.

30 year Fixed Mortgage Rates Detail

30-year mortgage chart courtesy of Mortgage News Daily, annotations by Mish

What’s the Message?

Another uptick in inflation is on the way.
The Fed is not done hiking.
The goldilocks view by the Fed any widely touted in mainstream media isn’t going to happen.

Take your pick from those choices and add any other views you like.

Meanwhile, the already crippled housing market is sure to take another hit transaction-wise.

CPI Rises 0.2 Percent, Shelter Again Accounts for Most of the Increase

On August 10, I noted CPI Rises 0.2 Percent, Shelter Again Accou nts f or Most of the Increase

For the 18th straight month, the price of shelter has risen at least 0.4 percent. For a year, analysts have predicted not just a slowing pace of increases, but falling prices. They have been wrong.

Producer Price Index Rises 0.3 Percent Led by a 0.5% jump in Services

On Friday, I noted Producer Price Index Rises 0.3 P ercent Led by a 0.5% jump in Services

I think it was the PPI that spooked the bond market. The index for crude petroleum rose 8.4 percent in July.

That will spill over into gasoline prices. Unless the price of shelter stabilizes, the August CPI report is going to come in on the hot side.

Does Fed Policy Help?

It’s debatable if rate hikes will do much for shelter, at least the way the BLS and Fed view things, because home prices are not directly in the CPI.

Higher rates will slow the pace of new construction, and its finished construction that will add to supply and possibly pressure rent prices.

The price of a new leases are falling because of the added supply, but existing leases are stubborn. Meanwhile, landlords have every reason and incentive to keep hiking rents and have done so, despite reported claims to the contrary for months on end.

The supply of existing homes is extremely tight because people do not want to trade a a 3.0 percent mortgage for a 7.0 percent mortgage. And potentially millions of people want to buy a new home but cannot because they cannot afford these high interest payments.

The Fed created this housing mess by not factoring in home prices into its inflation model.

Like homeowners who want to move but can’t, the Fed is also trapped into a problem of its own making. The Fed wants to reduce demand, and has done so, but simultaneously, the Fed is reducing supply of new houses. The latter acts to firm rent prices.

USA// COVID//VACCINE/

SWAMP STORIES

This is an interesting read for Meijer…

‘On The Verge Of The Abyss’ – No US Presidential Election In 2024?

FRIDAY, AUG 11, 2023 – 10:00 PM

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

In January 2023, US special counsel Jack Smith applied for -and received- a subpoena for Twitter, specifically for all of Donald Trump’s utterances at the site through the years, including the ones he may have never published. Note: the subpoena came long after Trump left Twitter. And no, it wasn’t X then, and therefore it is not now. He wrote it when it was Twitter. Important. Trump left Twitter (was cancelled) on Jan 8 2021, Elon Musk bought it on October 27 2022, and renamed it “X” in late July 2023. Just so we get our horses and dogs in line.

Special counsel Jack Smith received his Twitter/Trump subpoena with the added provision that it had to be entirely secret, not even Twitter or Trump could know. US District Court Judge Beryll Howell gave Smith what he wanted, agreeing that if Trump’s years-old Twitter past was known, he would become a flight risk. But both Smith and Howell knew this was absolute nonsense. Not only is Twitter the last place you turn to when you have nefarious secrets to hide (it’s the opposite!), but the man is running for President, for God’s sake! And because of some 5 year old -or so- tweets he would pack in the family and disappear to an -underground- bungalow on Vanatua, never to be heard from again?

I would put this down as the moment when it became impossible for the US to have a presidential election in 2024. We’ve had some 8 years of this anti-Trump circus now, non-stop, Hillary, Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Robert Mueller, yada yada yada, but I don’t think we’ve reached the point before where the elections might as well be cancelled.

We’re there now though. And that is a BIG point.

We’ve let it come far too far. We’re in slapstick territory.

Think of it as a boxing match.

In the one corner, we have the former champion/president, wearing the slightly widened red trunks. At age 77, he looks somewhat bruised and battered, but he doesn’t look beaten- yet. What’s noticeable though is that his corner is empty, except for Melania cleaning his brow, not even his own party is there to support him. There are some 90 million Americans behind him, but they are at home.

In the other corner, the defending champion, in blue trunks, weighing in at about 25 pounds and falling, looks a little lost. But behind him in his corner he has thousands of operatives: his entire party, plus the CIA and NSA and FBI and DOJ. And all the newspapers and TV channels and social media in the country. And all the judges and prosecutors, the DAs and GAs, it’s a veritable love-in. The guy in the blue trunks could be braindead and he’d still win. And I wish I was a cartoonist, and could capture the entire image in one frame. I can see it in front of my eyes, but I can’t draw it.

Where the boxing analogy goes astray is that in this case the blue side is allowed to harass the red side before, during and after the (preparations for) the fight, and during the fight itself. You can’t a have a free and fair fight, and a level playing field, if some “blue operatives” can put shackles on the ankles and wrists of the red candidate, or even lock him up while he’s preparing for the bell to ring. If the system allows him to be a candidate, it must also allow him to prepare for his candidacy, in the same way that his opponent can. That is not happening.

US special counsel Jack Smith has announced that the US plans to drag Trump before court after court starting January 2 2024. At least 3 major indictments (will be a dozen) , likely many more, and at my last count, 82 charges (it’s impossible to keep up). Smith can then finger pick any of these charges to put Trump in custody, whenever he feels like it. The judges are almost all “blue”, and so are the jury pools: New York and DC. And this is while he’s supposed to be campaigning!

And also: Trump allegedly already spent $40 million on legal expenses. But what if Trump doesn’t have $40 million? We could argue the $40 million should be spent on his campaign. Look at Imran Khan, guys, who was just convicted to a 3-year prison term in Pakistan on US directives. Like Trump, he is the most popular political candidate in his nation, and they got him on selling necklaces when he was PM.

That is Trump’s future too.

And hence, the end of American democracy.

He doesn’t stand a chance. And if he doesn’t, the system doesn’t, and you don’t. You’re fine as long as you agree with the boot stomping on your neck, and you maybe even enjoy it. But if you don’t, Jack Smith and his ilk – and Obama, Hillary, Adam Schiff, Pelosi, the whole gang, will come with charges and indictments directed at you.

You’re on the verge of the abyss.

If you want to take your chances with what you might find down there, fair enough. But always know that you have a choice.

And that, if somehow they do manage to stage a presidential election in November 2024 as things stand now, it’ll be fake from A to Z. Grow a pair, people, grow a backbone. You’re going to need them.

end

This is obvious!

(zerohedge)

“David Weiss Can’t Be Trusted”: Comer, Jordan Slam Hunter Biden Special Counsel ‘Coverup’

SATURDAY, AUG 12, 2023 – 09:00 PM

The Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, James Comer (R-KY) said in a Friday statement that the announcement of a special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation is a DOJ “coverup.”

“This move by Attorney General Garland is part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of the House Oversight Committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals,” Comer said in a lengthy statement shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of US Attorney David Weiss as special counsel, the Daily Caller reports.

“The Justice Department’s misconduct and politicization in the Biden criminal investigation already allowed the statute of limitations to run with respect to egregious felonies committed by Hunter Biden. Justice Department officials refused to follow evidence that could have led to Joe Biden, tipped off the Biden transition team and Hunter Biden’s lawyers about planned interviews and searches, and attempted to sneakily place Hunter Biden on the path to a sweetheart plea deal,” the statement continues.

“Let’s be clear what today’s move is really about. The Biden Justice Department is trying to stonewall congressional oversight as we have presented evidence to the American people about the Biden family’s corruption. The House Oversight Committee will continue to follow the Biden family’s money trail and interview witnesses to determine whether foreign actors targeted the Bidens, President Biden is compromised and corrupt, and our national security is threatened. We will also continue to work with the House Committees on Judiciary and Ways and Means to root out misconduct at the Justice Department and hold bad actors accountable for weaponizing law enforcement powers,” Comer continued.

House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan (R-OH) conveyed similar sentiments, telling the Caller: “David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption. Weiss has already signed off on a sweetheart plea deal that was so awful and unfair that a federal judge rejected it. We will continue to pursue facts brought to light by brave whistleblowers as well as Weiss’s inconsistent statements to Congress.”

According to Garland, “The appointment of Mr. Weiss reinforces for the American people the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” adding “I am confident that Mr. Weiss will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this department.”

We’re sure he’s quite confident.

end

Cruz: It’s Time For Biden Impeachment Inquiries

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 02:20 PM

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

GOP Senator Ted Cruz called Sunday for impeachment inquiries against Joe Biden to begin, noting that the special council appointment of U.S. attorney David Weiss is a “cover up”.

“I think it’s disgraceful,” Cruz told Fox News, adding “David Weiss was the U.S. attorney handpicked to lead this investigation who spent the last five years covering it up.”

“David Weiss, who was personally selected by the two Democrat senators from Delaware, Tom Carper and Chris Coons, for five years, the investigation has gone nowhere, other than to protect Hunter Biden and Joe Biden,” Cruz further asserted.

“Not only that, David Weiss is the one that is subject to two whistle-blower complaints from senior career IRS officials who came forward,” the Senator continued.

Cruz continued, “They said they’d never seen an investigation like this in their entire time in law enforcement. They said that the Department of Justice lawyers working for David Weiss protected the Biden family, that they gave heads-up to Hunter Biden before search warrants were executed, presumably so that he could hide incriminating evidence, that they refused to allow them to ask any questions at all about the Big Guy, about Joe Biden, that they were focused on, you cannot inquire into President Joe Biden’s personal corruption.”

“David Weiss either was an active participant in covering up this criminality and protecting Joe Biden in engaging in obstruction of justice. That’s option one. Or, option two, he wasn’t the driver. He was just complicit. He was so weak that he couldn’t stop the partisans in main Justice from turning it into a political effort to protect Joe Biden,” Cruz explained.

“Either case, he is a wildly inappropriate person to be a special counsel,” he concluded.

Turning to Hunter Biden’s involvement in alleged corruption, Cruz noted that “Hunter has no marketable skills. No one on planet Earth would pay him $20 million to do anything.”

“What Hunter was selling was daddy. This was Joe Biden’s business, shaking down — mind you, not shaking down our friends, not shaking down France or England or Italy, but shaking down corrupt oligarchs in communist China, to the tune of over $20 million,” Cruz urged.

“Hunter was the salesman, but the product was Joe Biden’s personal favors. And that is, if true, corruption at the very highest level of government,” the Senator further emphasized.

Watch:https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cruz-its-time-biden-impeachment-inquiries

* * *

end

“Shoeless Joe” And The Fixing Of The Biden Scandal

BY TYLER DURDEN

MONDAY, AUG 14, 2023 – 03:40 PM

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in The Hill on the appointment of David Weiss as special counsel. Despite my enthusiastic support at this nomination, I have come to view Attorney General Merrick Garland as a failure as Attorney General. This decision captures why I have lost faith in his leadership – and why his department is at one of the lowest levels of public trust.

Here is the column:

Roughly 100 years ago, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson admitted that, as a player for the Chicago White Sox, he and seven other teammates had intentionally lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in 1919.

When a kid stopped him outside of the grand jury room and asked “It ain’t true, is it, Joe?” Jackson responded “Yes, kid, I’m afraid it is.”

This is not a case of history repeating itself. After being confronted by allegations of a fixed investigation, Attorney General Merrick Garland just sent Shoeless Joe back into the game.

The appointment of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as the new special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden left many with the same disbelief as that kid in Chicago.

This is, after all, the same Weiss who headed an investigation that was trashed by whistleblowers, who alleged that his investigation had been fixed from the outset.

It is the same Weiss who ran an investigation in which agents were allegedly prevented from asking about Joe Biden, obstructed in their efforts to pursue questions and compromised by tip offs to the Biden team on planned searches.

It is also the same Weiss who reportedly allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Hunter’s major tax offenses, even though he had the option to extend it.

It is the same Weiss who did not indict on major tax felonies and cut a plea deal that brushed aside a felony gun charge.

It is the same Weiss who inked a widely panned “sweetheart” deal that caused a federal judge to balk and trash a sweeping immunity grant — language that even the prosecutor admitted he had never previously seen in a plea deal.

That is why many asked Garland to “say it ain’t so.”

The Weiss appointment definitively established Garland as a failure as attorney general. As someone who initially praised Garland’s appointment, I now see that he has repeatedly shown he lacks the strength and leadership to rise to these moments.

This is why the Justice Department is now less trusted by the public than it was under his predecessor, Bill Barr. During Barr’s tenure, Pew found that 54 percent of the public viewed the department favorably, and 70 percent had a favorable view of the FBI. Under Garland, the department’s favorability had declined to 49 percent as of March, before many of the recent failures. The FBI’s favorability has fallen by 18 points to just 52 percent.

Garland’s failure of leadership has undermined key cases. A Harvard-Harris poll this summer showed that 55 percent of the public view the Trump indictment as “politically motivated,” and 56 percent believe that it constitutes election interference.

Garland continues to do little to reverse that public perception, other than repeatedly refer to the motto of the Department. He offered the same mantra for years as some of us called for a special counsel appointment to investigate Biden corruption. The case for such an appointment has long been unassailable, but Garland refused to make the appointment, allowing years to pass with underlying crimes.

The immediate effect of this belated appointment will be to insulate Weiss and the Department from Congress as it prepares to interview Weiss and members of his team.

Yet if that was truly his purpose in doing this, Garland might have been too clever by half.

First, since Garland did not appoint someone from outside of the Department (as envisioned under Section 600.3).

Of course, Garland could insist that, although this appointment from inside the Justice Department violates the statute, Special Counsel John Durham was also selected from the department’s ranks. Yet that does not excuse the appointment of a prosecutor who has been accused of conflicts of interest and false statements — the very antithesis of a special counsel who is supposed to have “a reputation for integrity and impartial decision-making.”

Second, there is the failure to expand Weiss’s mandate. Garland described that mandate as focusing again on Hunter Biden, and the Justice Department refused to respond to questions on the possible inclusion of his father in the investigation.

This was another opportunity to recognize the widespread distrust over the department and expressly allow the special counsel to include the corruption allegations involving both Hunter and the president. That would have supported calls for the House to delay further investigations.

As it stands, Garland has virtually ensured that Congress will pursue an impeachment inquiry as the only body seriously investigating the scandal.

The use of impeachment authority is the only effective way to overcome the roadblocks that the Justice Department is likely to throw up after this new appointment. Impeachment can work as constitutional Kryptonite. No court could seriously question the right and duty of Congress to get to the bottom of corruption allegations against the president without delay. Although Weiss can refuse to answer questions, Congress can use its impeachment authority to demand answers from fact witnesses, including Biden family members.

None of this means that Hunter Biden will be protected by Weiss from additional charges. He will likely pursue long dormant charges, such as Hunter’s being an unregistered foreign agent. He could also pursue felonies on the crimes detailed in the now-defunct plea bargain. In other words, he could show all of the aggression that was lacking in his prior work.

The public, however, doesn’t seem to be buying the special counsel spin. The result is reinforcing rather than resolving the lack of trust in the Justice Department.

It could not be worse for the Justice Department as an institution. “Shoeless Joe” Weiss is back in the game, long after the public has left in disgust.

THE KING REPORT

The King Report August 14, 2023 Issuer 7053

Independent View of the News

We thought evidence indicated that July PPI should be higher than the expected 0.2% m/m and 0.7% y/y. It was: July PPI 0.3% m/m & 0.8% y/y; Core PPI 0.3% m/m & 2.4% y/y, 0.3% m/m and 2.3% y/y exp.

The BLS has diesel fuel -7.1% y/y despite the sharp rally in energy prices in July! PPI Services increased 0.5% m/m, the largest gain since August 2022. Meat prices jumped 5.0%.  Airline fares are +1.7% m/m (Table 1), but they tumbled 8.1% m/m in the July CPI Report! https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm

US Diesel Prices Surge Anticipating a Soft Landing
Futures prices for ultra-low sulphur diesel delivered in New York Harbor in September climbed to $135 per barrel on August 9, up from $95 on May 31…
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/us-diesel-prices-surge-anticipating-soft-landing

A 7.6% surge in portfolio management fees accounted for 40% of the rise in services. Portfolio management fees had dropped 0.4% in June. Last month’s surge was likely due to the strong performance of financial markets as investors bet the Fed was probably done hiking rates… (Isn’t this dubious?)
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-producer-prices-increase-july-rebound-services-2023-08-11/

Producer Price Index for Portfolio Management and Investment Advice – NAICS 523940
Transactions that are measured in this index include fees paid to financial planners for creating
https://www.bls.gov/ppi/factsheets/producer-price-index-for-portfolio-management-and-investment-advice-naics-523940.htm

Gasoline soared as much as 2.7% on Friday due to a 2.7-million-barrel decline in US gasoline inventories. This is a 10-month high. August CPI could be a doozy!

ESUs traded higher during early Asian trading. After hitting a peak of 4495.00 at 20:51 ET, they rolled over into a decline that ended when the Nikkei closed at 1 ET. The Pump & Dump rally for the European open then commenced. The rally ended at 3:23 ET. ESUs and stocks then commenced a protracted decline that accelerated after the worse than expected US July PPI Report.

ESUs hit a bottom of 4459.00 at the NYSE opening. ESUs then soared to 4493.00 at 10:23 ET on conditioned buying: Dip buying, Friday rally expectations, and getting long for the expected Expiry Week manipulation. Alas, sellers returned, ESUs slid to 4469.00 at 11:33 ET on Old World liquidation ahead of the 11:30 ET European close. A Noon Balloon took ESUs to 4485.20 at 12:12 ET. ESUs and stocks then declined until the expected Friday afternoon rally began at 13:00 ET.

ESUs traded in a 15-handle range until they broke higher near 14:30 ET. The rally quickly faltered; ESUs traded sideways until they broke lower at 15:10 ET. After a minor rally, ESUs fell into the close.

USUs traded negatively but sideways from the Nikkei opening until then broke down after the US July PPI Report. USU hit a low of 120 23/32 at 9:30 ET. After a bounce to 121 12/32 at 10:55 ET, USUs slid back to the daily low. After a modest rally aborted, USUs dropped to new daily lows.

The UM August Sentiment was the expected 71.2, 71.6 prior. Current Conditions 77.4, 76.9 expected, 71.6 prior; Expectations 67.3 as expected, prior 68.3; 1-year Inflation 3.3%, 3.5% expected, 3.4% prior

WSJ: The scary math behind the world’s safest assets
Washington has laid the seeds of a crisis that Wall Street can no longer ignore.
    Though they were called “certificates of confiscation” in the inflationary 1970s, longer-term Treasurys have been the go-to asset in times of crisis…Now, though, the government’s pile of debt has swelled following the War on Terror, the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic…
    The Congressional Budget Office… says that U.S. debt held by the public will surpass gross domestic product this fiscal year and that interest on that debt will equal about three-quarters of discretionary, nondefense spending… around three-quarters of Treasurys must be rolled over within 5yrs… That would result in an additional $3.5tn in federal debt by 2033. The govt’s annual interest bill alone would then be ~$2tn… individual income taxes are set to bring in only $2.5tn this year…  https://wsj.com/articles/the-s

Positive aspects of previous session
Once again, US stock rebounded on trader buying after an early decline on negative fundamentals

Negative aspects of previous session
Gasoline rallied sharply again and hit a 10-month high; Bonds declined again
Fangs were conspicuously soft all session due to Nvidia, which declined as much as 4.12%

Ambiguous aspects of previous session
When will a critical mass of investor create the tipping point for US debt?

First Hour/Last Hour Action [S&P 500 Index]: 1st Hour from NYSE Open: Up; Last Hour: Down

Pivot Point for S&P 500 Index [above/below indicates daily trend to traders]: 4484.71
Previous session S&P 500 Index High/Low: 4527.37; 4457.92

@SpeakerMcCarthy: The Chinese Communist Party wants us to depend on them for Critical minerals, Medical supplies, Agricultural goods and a lot more. Now more than ever, we must protect our national security and END our dependence on China.
     Ex-DJT top trade advisor @RealPNavarro: This a@@hole singlehandedly nixed a bill when I was in the White House that would have prevented Communist China from building our rail and subway systems because he had a China bus plant in his district.  HYPOCRITE BLOWDRIED CCP B@TCH.

FDA Drops Ivermectin Bombshell (Now say it’s appropriate to treat Covid!)
“FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,”
     The FDA on Aug. 21, 2021, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” The post, which linked to an FDA page that says people shouldn’t use ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19, went viral…In other statements, the FDA said that ivermectin “isn’t authorized or approved to treat COVID-19”…
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fda-drops-ivermectin-bombshell

We told you a few years ago, and RFK Jr. said it a few weeks ago, the powers that be slammed Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, and other effective drug treatments for Covid because there is NO Emergency Use Authorization for a vaccine if there are effective drugs for the malady.

@RWMaloneMD:  Not only did physicians get bonuses for mass vaccination campaigns based on percentages of patients jabbed, they got an extra $50 per patient as an “incentive”.  “your practice will receive $50 per Anthem member five years of age and older vaccinated by December 31, 2022.”
https://twitter.com/RWMaloneMD/status/1690385556046282754

Millions of kids missing weeks of school as attendance tanks across the US (Another US crisis!)
More than a quarter of students missed at least 10% of the 2021-22 school year, making them chronically absent, according to the most recent data available… an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent… Absences were more prevalent among Latino, Black, and low-income students…
    Kids are staying home for myriad reasons — finances, housing instability, illness, transportation issues, school staffing shortages, anxiety, depression, bullying and generally feeling unwelcome at school.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/11/millions-of-kids-are-missing-weeks-of-school-as-attendance-tanks-across-the-us/

Students harmed by remote learning inequities can take California to trial, judge rules
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/remote-learning-trial-18288286.php

Fake meat is failing because it’s gross and unhealthy https://trib.al/8AhPhaq

Microplastics found in human hearts for first time, alarming new study finds https://trib.al/DMZfXsk

Zelensky Fires All Heads of Ukraine’s Military Recruitment amid Bribery Probe
This week, even one of Kiev’s most ardent supporters and NATO backers – Poland, has said the counteroffensive is likely to fail. Polish President Andrzej Duda said in a fresh Washington Post interview, “Does Ukraine have enough weapons to change the balance of the war and get the upper hand?” And he answered his rhetorical with – “Probably, no.”…
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zelensky-fires-all-heads-ukraines-military-recruitment-over-bribery-probe

Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden’s Kazakh business partner Kenes Rakishev helped supply armored vehicles to Putin-backed forces that invaded Ukraine alongside Russia, report claims
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12394729/Hunter-Bidens-Kazakh-business-partner-Kenes-Rakishev-helped-supply-armored-vehicles-Putin-backed-forces-invaded-Ukraine-alongside-Russia-report-claims.html

@JChengWSJ: A DuPont China Deal Reveals Cracks in U.S. National-Security Screening – U.S. officials forged an uneasy compromise to let DuPont sell its sustainable-materials unit last year to a Chinese company while ensuring the technology behind it never left the U.S. The arrangement hasn’t worked as planned.
    @niubi: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin argued in a tense video call with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and others that the deal should be blocked. Treasury didn’t agree. The agency found those concerns too abstract, and believed that scuttling a transaction on such grounds would amount to improper market interference. Officials on the Cfius panel reached a complicated compromise to approve the sale, which closed in May 2022. But no sooner had it been signed than Cfius was told its effort to protect the industrial secret involved hadn’t worked.  (No Schiff, Sherlock!)

China decries US ‘economic coercion’ over investment ban, vows ‘necessary’ countermeasure
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday US time signed an executive order to ban new US investments in key technology industries in China that could be used to bolster its military capabilities…
    Reuters reported that the US government is expected to exempt some deals. There are more than 70,000 US companies that are currently doing business in China…
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202308/1296063.shtml

Today – It’s a summer Friday and the Friday before expiry week! So, the usual suspects will play for a rally. July PPI is expected to be benign. However, as illustrated above, wholesale (Sept. future contract) gasoline prices soared in July. With a non-corrupted government, this would suggest an upside surprise in the July PPI. Bonds are increasingly becoming a burden for stocks.  Mr. Bond is crumbling under the burden of playing Atlas for Biden’s mushrooming and debilitating debt. Watch him intently!

ESUs are +9:00 at 20:30 ET on buying for the expected Monday and Expiry Week upward biases. The Yen/$ hit 145.21, the lowest yen/$ since November.  This is a negative for US bonds; USU are – 5/32.

S&P 500 Index 50-day MA: 4432; 100-day MA: 4269; 150-day MA: 4182; 200-day MA: 4112
DJIA 50-day MA: 34,455; 100-day MA: 33,886; 150-day MA: 33,712; 200-day MA: 33,605
(Green is positive slope; Red is negative slope)

S&P 500 Index – Trender trading model and MACD for key time frames
Monthly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 3752.81 triggers a sell signal
Weekly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 4372.50 triggers a sell signal
Daily: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4570.93 triggers a buy signal
Hourly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4520.62 triggers a buy signal

Delaware federal prosecutor (David Weiss) named special counsel to investigate Biden family
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/delaware-federal-prosecutor-named-special-counsel-investigate-biden

Weiss appointment as Hunter Biden special counsel violates DOJ regulations, experts warn
“The Special Counsel shall be selected from outside the United States Government.”…
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/holdweisss-appointment-special-counsel-violates-dojs-own-regulations

@JonathanTurley on Merrick Garland appointing David Weiss special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe:
“They waited for the appointment of a special counsel after the statute of limitations has run on critical crimes like the tax violations in 2014-2015. They waited until Weiss himself was accused of slowing or suppressing efforts.“   https://twitter.com/WarMachineRR/status/1690040222698852352

@GOPoversight: STATEMENT ON SPECIAL COUNSEL
The DOJ is attempting a Biden family coverup… This is part of the DOJ’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of our Committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling “the brand” for millions of dollars to foreign nationals.
    The Justice Department’s misconduct and politicization in the Biden criminal investigation already allowed the statute of limitations to run with respect to egregious felonies committed by Hunter Biden. Justice Department officials refused to follow evidence that could have led to Joe Biden, tipped off the Biden transition team and Hunter Biden’s lawyers about planned interviews and searches, and attempted to sneakily place Hunter Biden on the path to a sweetheart plea deal… The Biden Justice Department is trying to stonewall congressional oversight as we have presented evidence to the American people about the Biden family’s corruption… President Biden is compromised and corrupt, and our national security is threatened. We will also continue to work with the House Committees on @JudiciaryGOP and @WaysAndMeansGOP to root out misconduct at the Justice Department and hold bad actors accountable for weaponizing law enforcement powers. @RepJamesComer

House Judiciary Com Chair @Jim_Jordan: First, David Weiss said he didn’t have the power he needed and wanted special counsel status. Then, he said he had all the power he needs. Now, he gets special counsel status because he didn’t really have the power he needs?  Something’s not right.
    Thought we had the plea agreement all worked out.  Now Weiss needs to be special counsel? What?

@ChadPergram: 1) From Russell Dye, spokesman to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH): “David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption.“ 2) “Weiss has already signed off on a sweetheart plea deal that was so awful and unfair that a federal judge rejected it….”

@JonathanTurley: After his appointment as Special Counsel, Weiss has announced that the deal with Hunter is dead as Dillinger. Defense counsel may now regret telling the prosecutors to “just rip up” the agreement. FARA anyone?

GOP Sen. TomCottonAR: Biden’s DOJ wants to dismiss the charges against Hunter, *supposedly* to refile them elsewhere, no doubt before some liberal judge who will rubber-stamp a sweetheart deal.
When Biden’s DOJ and Hunter’s lawyers meet, they’re not negotiating. They’re conspiring.
https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1690046044921286656/photo/1

@mrddmia: Now Garland and Weiss want to move Hunter’s criminal case away from Judge Noreika in Delaware to a more compliant Democrat judge in California or DC. Obvious coverup.

Et tu, NYT: Garland’s decision comes after a judge puts Hunter Biden’s plea deal on hold, questioning its details… https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/08/11/us/hunter-biden-garland-special-counsel

Only an Impeachment Inquiry Can Unravel Biden Family Corruption and the Feds’ Role
https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/25/only-an-impeachment-inquiry-can-unravel-biden-family-corruption-and-the-feds-role/

Either critics of Garland’s SC appointment are correct about an attempt to stonewall, or Weiss presented evidence (Joe harming US nat’l security?) to Garland that shocked the AG into the appointment. Ergo, the USA has its most severe political crisis since Reconstruction. Either the US DoJ has moved to cover up heinous, potentially seditious crimes that include jeopardizing national security or Garland was shocked by the Bidens’ actions.  This is truly a momentous and critical chapter of US history.

@RNCResearch: NBC’s Chuck Todd: “Biden’s handling of the [Hunter Biden corruption] case has raised questions at a time when voters already have doubts about his age and political standing…”
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1690719166716588033

@TheBabylonBee: Democrats Say It’ll Take A Lot More Than Eyewitness Testimony, Bank Records, Audio, Video, Complete Confessions for Them to Believe Biden Did Anything Wrong

Archives to Biden lawyer on election eve: We need to ‘change our approach’ on classified docs
Whilst clearing out Biden’s former office in the Penn-Biden Center, Moore discovered a litany of records marked classified, which reportedly included intelligence on Ukraine, Iran, and the UK…
   Garland tapped Robert Hur to lead that investigation, which has thus far failed to result in any charges, revelations, or meaningful developments known to the public.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/archives-told-biden-lawyer-it-needed-change-our-approach-toward-classified-docs

Ex-Senator Scott Brown Threatened to ‘Kick the Sh–Out’ of Biden Over Treatment of Wife
“We all know people who have dementia and have the beginning of Alzheimer’s, and he’s got it. I mean, it’s the walk. It’s the way he’s mumbling, his angry outbursts. And it’s a shame that we can’t do better in this great country.”…  https://nhjournal.com/scott-brown-threatened-to-kick-the-sh-out-of-biden-over-treatment-of-wife/

It Was Pelosi: Former Capitol Police Chief Reveals ‘Set Up’ Behind January 6
Perhaps most damning is Sund’s claim that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refused to authorize the deployment of the National Guard at the Capitol despite Sund’s pleas, and that federal agencies withheld information and warning signs of potential dangers prior to the riot…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/it-was-pelosi-former-capitol-police-chief-reveals-set-behind-january-6

‘Strong-arming:’ Appeals court judges compare Biden social media pressure to mafia
Echoing the injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, the 5th Circuit judges repeatedly cited specific conversations from the factual record that suggest social media companies feared legal consequences for not complying with White House and agency requests to censor or diminish the reach of websites or social media postings of which the Biden administration disapproved…
    Federal officials appeared to practice “fairly unsubtle strong-arming” and make “not-so-veiled threats” in the vein of “this is a really nice social media platform you’ve got there, would be a shame if something happened to it,” Willett said… “Time and again,” what the government labels as mis-, dis- and malinformation, “always with great fervor,” is vindicated as true, Willett said…
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/appeals-judges-compare-biden-social-media-pressure-mafia-supervisor

MI AG Dana Nessel CONFIRMS 8,000 to 10,000 Suspected Fraudulent Registrations Delivered to Muskegon Clerk October 2020, as Noted in MI State Police Report She Buried from Public
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/breaking-mi-ag-dana-nessel-confirms-8000-10000/

Scientist admits the ‘overwhelming consensus’ on the climate change crisis is ‘manufactured’
The media loved her when she published a study that seemed to show a dramatic increase in hurricane intensity… But then some researchers pointed out gaps in her research — years with low levels of hurricanes. “Like a good scientist, I investigated,” says Curry.
    She realized that the critics were right. “Part of it was bad data. Part of it is natural climate variability.”… Then the Climategate scandal taught her that other climate researchers weren’t so open-minded…Alarmist scientists’ aggressive attempts to hide data suggesting climate change is not a crisis were revealed in leaked emails…
    “Promote the alarming papers! Don’t even send the other ones out for review. If you wanted to advance in your career, like be at a prestigious university and get a big salary, have big laboratory space, get lots of grant funding, be director of an institute, there was clearly one path to go.”
    That’s what we’ve got now: a massive government-funded climate alarmism complex.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/09/climate-scientist-admits-the-overwhelming-consensus-is-manufactured/

Friend of Utah man fatally shot by FBI raises questions about what led to shooting
Frank Montoya, a former FBI agent… “Threats against the president are something that are made all the time,” he said, “but it rarely results in an execution of a search warrant, let alone a shootout.”…
   “What compelled them to pull the trigger?” he asked. “Did he take a gun and aim it at them? Or was it just a verbal altercation? That’s what I want to know.”…
https://kutv.com/news/local/craig-robertson-president-joe-biden-online-provo-social-media-fbi-facebook-friend-of-man-fatally-shot-speaks-out-former-agent-explains-investigating-threats

@WallStreetSilv: The FBI assassinated a 75 year old man who struggled to move around with a cane. The guy was basically a keyboard warrior on social media.  There is no evidence that he was threatening the FBI when they came to his house with dozens of agents. The FBI surely has video of the event, but won’t release it. Mostly likely because the evidence would show that he was unarmed.

Newspaper’s co-owner, 98, collapses and dies after being left ‘overwhelmed’ by ‘Gestapo-like’ police raid to seize records from her office and home (Who is protecting Americans’ inalienable rights?)
   The raid occurred after a source leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper about local restaurateur Kari Newell that could have got her liquor license revoked… (A trivial pursuit results in a death!)
    Danny Karon, an adjunct professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, told The Daily Beast: ‘The raid was chilling and unprecedented, like a scene out of 1945 Nazi Germany.’…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12402357/Newspapers-owner-dies-police-raid-seize.html

Erie County (NY) to stop accepting asylum seekers after man is accused of sexually abusing Cheektowaga hotel worker  https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/erie-county-to-stop-accepting-asylum-seekers-after-man-is-accused-of-sexually-abusing-cheektowaga-hotel-worker

END

GREG HUNTER..INTERVIEWING BILL HOLTER

Full Faith & Credit of a Bankrupt Insolvent Government – Bill Holter

Full Faith & Credit of a Bankrupt Insolvent Government – Bill Holter

By Greg Hunter On August 12, 2023 In Market AnalysisNo Comments

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

Precious metals expert and financial writer Bill Holter says there is a long list of financial trouble coming to America sooner than later. There is the commercial real estate implosion, rising interest rates, an exploding federal budget, banana republic political problems, but the at the top of the list is the monster unpayable debt problem and the soon-to-be failing U.S. dollar. Holter says, “You can’t have a third of the federal taxes paid out in interest, and that number is only going to grow over time. . . . If the markets would not collapse ahead of time, which they certainly will, but if they did not, we would get to the point where the interest would eat up all the tax receipts. That is a mathematical impossibility. We’re broke. On the other side of it, we have two rules of law. We have one rule of law if you are a liar from the left and another rule of law if you are a conservative and you don’t support the bull crap rules they are putting out there. . . . This is an illustration that this country has already become a banana republic. The problem with that is the dollar issued by this country is the world’s reserve currency. It’s a huge problem.”

Holter says the dollar is going to take a big hit in the next financial crisis that has already started. When it hits, Holter predicts, “The actual bottom line is dollars are just pieces of paper backed by our government. The dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of a bankrupt insolvent government, and people will figure that out very quickly. When it comes to survival, people are not going to give up something real for nothing. . . . We are in the weeds right now because of interest rates . . . look at mortgage rates, they are well over 7% for a 30-year mortgage. So, that’s going to hurt housing. Commercial real estate has already been destroyed. . . . I think we are in the weeds because interest rates are at a point that nothing can be refinanced and rolled over.”

In closing, Holter says, “This is not my opinion, it’s a mathematical equation. The debt cannot be paid back. It’s not possible. We will default one way or another. We will print the crap out of the dollar and devalue it, or outright nonpayment.”

Holter predicted years ago we would end up in a “Mad Max” scenario when credit dries up and store shelves empty. Holter contends that credit is drying up with the money supply shrinking for eight straight months. The “Mad Max” world Holter is still predicting is now looking like it’s going to come true sooner than later.

There is much more in the 42-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter for 8.12.23.

(https://usawatchdog.com/full-faith-credit-of-a-bankrupt-insolvent-government-bill-holter/)

(Tech Note: If you do not see the video, know it is there. Unplug your modem and plug it back in after 30 sec. This will clear codes that may be blocking you from seeing it. In addition, try different browsers. Also, turn off all ad blockers if you have them. All the above is a way Big Tech tries to censor people like USAWatchdog.com.)

After the Interview:

Bill Holter’s new website is growing by leaps and bounds. It’s called BillHolter.com.

Check it out!!!

SEE YOU TUESDAY