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The Dollar Is Being Systematically Destroyed, And We're On A Path That Inevitably Leads To Hyperinflation

The Dollar Is Being Systematically Destroyed, And We're On A Path That Inevitably Leads To Hyperinflation Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 16:52

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

If we keep treating the U.S. dollar like it is toilet paper, it is just a matter of time before our entire financial system goes down the tubes.  At this moment, the dollar is still the primary reserve currency of the world, and the fact that we control it is an absolutely massive advantage for us.  Because the rest of the globe uses dollars to trade with one another, that creates a tremendous amount of artificial demand for our currency, and it keeps the value of our currency elevated at a level that it much higher than it otherwise would be.  But now that we are starting to act like the Weimar Republic in their heyday, it is only going to be a matter of time before everyone else on the planet starts abandoning the U.S. dollar in droves.  We are literally killing our “golden goose”, and most Americans do not even understand what is happening.

The remarks that John Williams made about hyperinflation during a recent interview with Greg Hunter have created quite an uproar, but the truth is that Williams is right on target.

We are on the exact same path that Zimbabwe, Venezuela and so many others have already gone down, and the very foolish decisions that we have been making are only going to end in complete and utter disaster.

To illustrate what I am talking about, I would like to direct your attention to what has happened to M2 during this calendar year.  For those that are not familiar with M2, here is a definition that comes from Investopedia…

M2 is a calculation of the money supply that includes all elements of M1 as well as “near money.” M1 includes cash and checking deposits, while near money refers to savings deposits, money market securities, mutual funds, and other time deposits. These assets are less liquid than M1 and not as suitable as exchange mediums, but they can be quickly converted into cash or checking deposits.

As you can see on this chart, the M2 curve has been rising at an exponential pace in 2020.  In fact, since the pandemic started the curve has nearly gone vertical…

If we keep doing this, we won’t be facing a major financial disaster years from now.

Rather, it will just be a matter of months before the wheels start coming off.

But our leaders do not have any intention of changing course now.  During 2020 the Federal Reserve has been pumping money into the financial system at a rate that we have never seen before, and they have indicated that they plan to continue to support the financial markets as we head into 2021.

And Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans just said that he expects that interest rates could continue to be pushed all the way to the floor “perhaps into 2024”…

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans said Monday there is still “quite a long ways to go” for the U.S. recovery from the coronavirus crisis, adding that he expects the Fed to keep interest rates at their current near-zero level until perhaps into 2024.

Of course the federal government is going to continue to pump out “stimulus package” after “stimulus package” no matter who is in the White House.  This is a point that John Williams made very strongly during his interview with Greg Hunter…

Because they has been so much damage done to the economy, Williams says there will have to be stimulus no matter who eventually makes it into the White House.  Williams contends, “Let’s say Trump gets re-elected.  He’s not going to have any choice but to increase stimulus to try to help the economy and help people.  If Biden takes over, he’s going to have to do the same.  He is already promising massive stimulus.  Where it gets really scary is if the Democrats can take control of the House, the Senate as well as the White House. . . . The stimulus there is going to be unbelievable. . . . The more radical Democrats will just print the money you need and spend whatever you need to spend it on, and don’t worry about it. . . . Whoever gets into power, there is going to be more deficit spending.  It’s just a matter of how radical it will be. . . . There is no way we are escaping massive stimulus for at least the next year and into 2022.”

Virtually everyone likes getting “free money” from the government, but you have probably noticed that the price of just about everything has been going up lately.

And this is just the beginning.  According to Williams, we are literally on the verge of a “hyperinflationary Great Depression”…

Williams expects to see some very large inflation because of all the stimulus coming and predicts, “The more left we go, the more rapid will be the demise of the dollar.  Eventually, it will be a hyperinflation in the United States.  What I am looking at here is this evolving into a hyperinflationary Great Depression.  To save yourself, you have to preserve your wealth, your dollar assets.  To do that, you have to convert your dollars into physical gold and silver, precious metals and just hold them.  They will retain value over time as opposed to paper dollars that will effectively become worthless.  You’ll be getting a lot of money from the government, and they will keep giving you more and more and more, but that’s going to be an environment of rising and rising inflation.  It’s not necessarily going to buy you more. . . . Hyperinflation will bring political disruption. . . . Hyperinflation is a form of default.  Gold is telling us hyperinflation is straight ahead of us.”

Needless to say, what Williams is saying is perfectly consistent with the warnings in my new book.

To protect themselves, a lot of investors have been pouring money into gold, silver and other precious metals.

At the start of this year, the price of gold was sitting at $1,520.55.  As I write this article, the price of gold is at $1824.00.

And actually the rise in the price of silver has been even more dramatic over the course of 2020.

Gold and silver will almost certainly keep rising as the value of the dollar continues to be destroyed, but even those that invest in precious metals are not going to win in the end.

Because the truth is that the complete collapse of our financial system is not going to benefit any of us, and there is going to be no way to avoid such a fate if we keep going down this very dangerous path.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

WTI Dips After Surprise Crude Build

WTI Dips After Surprise Crude Build Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 16:45

Oil prices roared higher today (along with energy stocks) with WTI topping $45 for the first time since March on the heels of ongoing positivity around vaccine timelines and the Biden transition process (as well as hopes for stimulus and uber-easy money for as long as anyone can see).

“The fact that we have more certainty on what hopefully is an orderly transition is putting some wind in the sails for crude,” said Stewart Glickman, energy equity analyst at CFRA Research.

“The biggest issue ahead is how willing they’ll be to cross the aisle and enable a stimulus package to happen. That’s going to be a primary driver” for prices.

For now, all eyes are back oin inventories as the Cushing hug is rapdily filling.

API

  • Crude +3.8mm (-300k exp)

  • Cushing -1.4mm

  • Gasoline +1.3mm

  • Distillates -1.8mm

Crude stocks rose for the 3rd week in a row as distillates drew down once again...

Source: Bloomberg

WTI traded just below $45 ahead of the API print and dipped after the bigger than expected build...

“Demand has real potential to pick up rather quickly to the extent that these vaccines roll out,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC. “If we can get a close above $45, it will be very positive, because we’ve been stuck in this range for months.”

"America Is Back": Beltway Hawks Giddy Over Biden's National Security 'A-Team'

"America Is Back": Beltway Hawks Giddy Over Biden's National Security 'A-Team' Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 16:41

Biden's message Tuesday as he unveiled the first six members of his national security and foreign policy team and let them speak for the first time is that "America is back" and is "ready to lead the world" once again.

He reflected in making the in-person introductions that "It's a team that will keep our country and our people safe and secure," and that it—

"Reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. Once again, sit at the head of the table."

"We cannot meet these challenges with old thinking and unchanged habits," Biden said further of the nominees and appointees which CNN noted (no doubt approvingly):

"...offered implicit rebukes of President Donald Trump and his isolationist and 'America First' worldview."

"The team meets this moment," Biden said of those standing with masks in a 'socially distanced' set-up behind him on the stage of the Queen theater in Wilmington. He emphasized among the "firsts" on the team includes Avril Haines as first woman to serve as director of national intelligence, as well as Alejandro Mayorkas - the first Latino and first immigrant to lead the Department of Homeland Security. 

Obama's Secretary of State John Kerry's appointment as "special presidential envoy for climate" will mark the first time a principal on the National Security Council is tasked full time with fighting climate change.

Here are some key lines from a line-up which is allowing the Washington deep state to breath a collective sigh of relief (for a prime example, former DNI Clapper was positively giddy during a CNN preview of the "A-team" line-up, in his words)...

* * *

Antony Blinken, Secretary of State

Via ABC News

Here's what he said upon the introduction by President-Elect Biden: "Now we have to proceed with equal measures of humility and confidence. Humility because, as the President-elect said, we can't solve all of the world's problems alone. We need to be working with other countries, we need their cooperation. We need their partnership. But also confidence, because America at its best still has greater ability than any other country on Earth to bring others together to meet the challenges of our time."

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser

Via AP

Here's what he said: "We will be vigilant in the face of enduring threats, from nuclear weapons to terrorism. But you have also tasked us with reimagining our national security for the unprecedented combination of crises we face at home and abroad. The pandemic, the economic crisis, the climate crisis, technological disruption, threats to democracy, racial injustice and inequality in all forms. The work of the team behind me today will contribute to progress across all these fronts."

Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence

Via Rex/Shutterstock

She said: "Mr. President-elect, you know that I have never shied away from speaking truth to power and that will be my charge as director of national intelligence. I've worked for you for a long time and I accept this nomination knowing that you would never want me to do otherwise and that you value the perspective of the intelligence community and that you will do so even when what I have to say may be inconvenient or difficult, and I assure you, there will be those times."

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security

Via Miami Herald

He noted: "My father and mother brought me to this country to escape communism. They cherished our democracy and were intensely proud to become United States citizens. I have carried that pride throughout my nearly 20 years of government service and throughout my life."

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations

Via UW Madison on Twitter

She began: "On this day, I'm thinking about the American people, my fellow career diplomats and public servants around the world. I want to say to you: America is back. Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is back."

John Kerry, special presidential envoy for climate

Getty Images

Here's what he said: "Mr. President-elect, you've put forward a bold, transformative climate plan, but you've also underscored that no country alone can solve this challenge. Even the United States for all of our industrial strength is responsible for only 13% of global emissions. To end this crisis, the whole world must come together. You're right to rejoin Paris on day one, and you're right to recognize that Paris alone is not enough."

* * * 

Meanwhile, some of the major names among establishment liberal war hawks and 'humanitarian' interventionists wanting to see a return of 'muscular America' abroad gave their glowing endorsements, via the AP:

Thomas-Greenfield "is a valued colleague and veteran diplomat who will restore US leadership and cooperation at the UN," said former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, for whose consulting company, Albright Stonebridge, the nominee now works.

"This will be a phenomenal team," said Samantha Power. "(They) bring decency, professionalism, judgment, and decades of foreign policy experience to these essential jobs. And America will be SO well served."

It's not so much that "American is back"... but rather the American Deep State is back on top.

Watch: CNN Declares Trump Will Form "Shadow Government", Hold "Counter Inaugural"

Watch: CNN Declares Trump Will Form "Shadow Government", Hold "Counter Inaugural" Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 16:20

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

In a deranged segment, CNN pundit Douglas Brinkley predicted that President Trump will form a ‘shadow government’ and hold his own ‘counter inauguration’ in January, in an attempt at ‘sedition’ and an overthrow of US democracy.

Brinkley, who calls himself a ‘presidential historian’, proclaimed that Trump is going to “create a kind of second shadow government out of Mar-a-Lago”.

He added that Trump’s co-conspirator in chief will be talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

“Who would have thought that America would have ever a tinpot dictator, but that’s what we have. President Trump’s living in some kind of fantasy zone,” Brinkley declared.

“He has a philosophy of never losing, so he just will – will philosophically and emotionally refuse to believe that he lost,” Brinkley added.

“He will probably continue to be petulant and pout. He very likely won’t show up for Joe Biden’s inaugural, he might even hold a counter inaugural, for all we know,” the CNN talking head continued.

“I think he’s going to try to probably go after Joe Biden in 2024 and — or have Don Jr. or Ivanka involved. He’s going to create a kind of second shadow government out of Mar-a-Lago. He practically lives next door to Rush Limbaugh,” Brinkley frothed.

Watch:

Brinkley previously compared Trump to the founder of the American Nazi party, calling the President “an abomination” and also expressing happiness when Trump tested positive for COVID.

Dow, S&P, & Bitcoin Soar To Record Close As Dollar & Gold Sink

Dow, S&P, & Bitcoin Soar To Record Close As Dollar & Gold Sink Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 16:01

Consumer Confidence tumbled...

Source: Bloomberg

...COVID cases are soaring, lockdowns are crushing small businesses, and 'hope' is fading fast...

Source: Bloomberg

...so Buy The F**king Record Highs in stocks and dump the dollar, bonds, and gold (because who needs 'protection' when there is Yellen, vaccines, and stimulus-y hopes).

As we noted earlier, The Dow topped 30k for the first time today - all thanks to $14 trillion in global liquidity puked into the markets (not the economy)...

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin also closed at a record high (not quite intraday high), above the $19,100 close on Dec 16thm 2017...

Source: Bloomberg

The reopening/work-from-home trade continues to hold its recent rotation but is not extending...

Source: Bloomberg

Bank stocks soared today...

Source: Bloomberg

But energy stocks continued their massive surge (as healthcare lagged)...

Source: Bloomberg

Extending its month's massive gains...

Source: Bloomberg

Another day, another short-squeeze. This is just endless since the election!

Source: Bloomberg

Momentum continued its carnage relative to value...

Source: Bloomberg

This 13-day crash is the same 30.6% as we saw in May/June... which is equal to the 2009 collapse...

Source: Bloomberg

If "greed is good", then "extreme greed is better"...

Source: CNN

And no one needs any protection...

Source: Bloomberg

Which perhaps explains the plunge in gold, breaking below $1800 intraday...

...finding support at the 200DMA...

Source: Bloomberg

And the selling of bonds (30Y up 8bps in the last two days, 2Y flat)...

Source: Bloomberg

The correlation between bitcoin and gold has entirely reversed...

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar chopped around the last 24 hours, but ended down today...

Source: Bloomberg

...falling to its weakest against its fiat peers since April 2018...

Source: Bloomberg

While gold and silver sank today, oil prices jumped with WTI back above $45 (its highest since March)...

And copper soared back to 2018 highs...

Source: Bloomberg

The surge in copper sent the copper/gold ratio to its highest since January and implies 10Y Yields should be 120bps higher than they currently are (or copper/gold should plunge)....

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, it seemed appropriate to give John Hussman the final words today as The Dow reaches record highs amid capitulation in the face of overwhelming liquidity...

One of the remarkable features of financial television is the single-minded focus of its talking heads on the latest move – their full-fledged immersion in the now. In contrast, the thinking of a disciplined value-investor is primarily on the long-term and the complete cycle. Our measures of market internals are certainly helpful in navigating shorter periods of speculation and risk-aversion. Still, investors who abandon the Iron Law of Valuation are inviting a world of pain.

Take a set of future cash flows and the current price of those cash flows: the relationship between the two reflects the rate of return that investors can expect to attain over time. That’s not a theory, it’s just arithmetic.

The CNBC interview with Jeremy Grantham offered a striking example of the difference between long-term and short-term thinking. Even as Grantham reiterated the extreme valuation concerns he discussed a few months ago, the interviewer countered, “Markets have risen since then. Why are you still convinced?”

Grantham responded, “Actually, it works quite the other way around. The more spectacular the rise, and the longer it goes, the more certainty one can have that you’re in a real McCoy bubble.”

At the most extreme valuations in history, that proposition might, and should, be obvious, but it simply did not compute in the short-term thinking of the anchors – one whose furrowed brow and scrunched facial expressions vacillated between annoyance, ridicule, and derision. The post-interview discussion instead included this interchange:

“I mean, last time around when you talked to him and he called it a bubble, it did seem a little more plausible. It seems like he’s doubling down.”

“You start to weigh out the possibilities that he could be missing a further rally in the markets.”

Oh, man. The unwinding of this bubble is going to be painful.

JPMorgan Makes $1 Billion From Gold Trading After Paying $1 Billion Fine For Manipulating Gold Trading

JPMorgan Makes $1 Billion From Gold Trading After Paying $1 Billion Fine For Manipulating Gold Trading Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 15:45

This, in a nutshell, is how Wall Street works: just two months after JPMorgan was fined a record $1 billion criminal monetary penalty (to make sure not a single banker would end up going to prison) for rigging the gold and silver markets, Reuters reported that JPM - having clearly "learned" the tools of the gold rigging trade, has earned a record $1 billion in revenue so far in 2020 from trading, storing and financing precious metals, vastly outperforming rival banks.

The math simplified: JPM has spent $1 billion over the lifetime of its precious metals rigging, ensuring it has full indemnity from future manipulation claims, allowing allow it to make $1 billion in revenue in just one year. Truly a remarkable IRR, and proving yet again, that on Wall Street crime not only pays, but has a 1-+year payback period.

While the coronavirus has created a bonanza for investment banks dealing in gold, silver and other precious metals by triggering massive investor purchases and rupturing the normal workings of the market, JPMorgan has dominated, growing its share of the market according to Reuters.

Revenue generated by the largest US commercial bank by mid-November accounts for at least half of the $1.7 billion to $2 billion that consultancy McKinsey estimates the top 10 investment banks combined will make this year from precious metals, mostly gold.

And while Blythe Masters is now long gone (and oddly enough was never even once questioned for her involvement in JPM's massive gold manipulation scandal despite being in charge of JPM commodities during the peak of JPM's market rigging), JPMorgan's commodities division is on track to bring in more than $1.5 billion this year and could challenge Goldman Sachs for the title of top earner.

But surely after having been caught so many times rigging gold, JPMorgan is no longer manipulating the commodity market: after all all the regulators are watching it. Well, you decide: individual investment banks have rarely made more than $1 billion in commodities in recent years, and none has ever before earned more than around $600 million in precious metals in a single year, said George Kuznetsov at McKinsey CIB Insights. Yet for JPMorgan, it was child's play.

Why? Because as some have said, the $1 billion criminal manipulation penalty was really a bribe for the CFTC and SEC to look away next time.

Of course, in addition to manipulating the market, JPM also has unprecedented visibility into its every player. The bank sits at the heart of the global bullion market, and its activities span trading physical bars to derivatives, running vaults and clearing trades in London, the biggest trade hub.

Naturally, to avoid the spotlight, JPM had a ready narrative. As Reuters writes, "driving profit has been the clamour for gold and silver from investors, mainly in Europe and North America, worried the coronavirus pandemic and money-printing by central banks could devalue other assets. These investors pushed gold prices to record highs above $2,000 an ounce earlier this year."

To this add profits earned on the Comex futures exchange in New York, where supply issues earlier this year made it more lucrative for those with access to physical gold to trade precious metals. Gold custodian banks - such as JPMorgan - took advantage of opportunities on Comex and helped clients do the same, in some cases bailing out major ETFs and anecdotally, even one rather prominent central bank.

According to Comex data, show JPMorgan’s clients accounted for one-third of all trade in gold bars registered with the exchange in October, and more than two fifths in June. Like other big banks, JPMorgan was able to get and ship metal cheaply and in large quantities when other, smaller traders could not, sources said.

The revenue windfall will likely fade as trading on Comex reverts to normal patterns, but high gold prices and interest from investors mean this business will remain profitable. “2020 is going to be an outlier year,” said Kuznetsov at McKinsey, who clearly did not consider that the manipulation will only accelerate from here. 

YouTube Suspends Pro-Trump News Network OANN, Completely Demonetizes Channel Over COVID-19 'Cure' Video

YouTube Suspends Pro-Trump News Network OANN, Completely Demonetizes Channel Over COVID-19 'Cure' Video Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 15:26

YouTube has suspended the One America News Network from posting new content for one week and has completely demonetized the channel, after the pro-Trump news network reportedly uploaded a video touting a non-approved 'cure' for COVID-19.

According to Axios, "YouTube has been criticized for allowing OANN to spread misinformation using its platform, particularly around coronavirus and the election," adding "This marks the Google-owned service's first crackdown against OANN."

In addition to the temporary ban on videos, the network cannot livestream due to a "strike" received under YouTube's COVID-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content claiming there is a 'guaranteed cure' for the virus. The video in question has reportedly been removed.

If OANN wants to re-monetize the channel, they will need to re-apply to YouTube's Partner Program. If they receive two more strikes, their account will be terminated.

The 'cancel' crew at Sleeping Giants - who seek to silence divergent opinions under the guise of fighting misinformation - celebrated, though not without knocking YouTube for not taking more aggressive action against the news network.

Meanwhile, conservative news outlet The Federalist has jumped from YouTube to Rumble after 'years of throttling our page and restricting our reach.'

Will half the country eventually wind up on Parler and Rumble?

How The Election Was Really Stolen, Tucker Carlson Explains

How The Election Was Really Stolen, Tucker Carlson Explains Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 15:20

Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

When Tucker Carlson attacked Sidney Powell, I was unhappy with him. However, I said that I would still watch Tucker because he’s mostly smart, brave, and funny, qualities I like. Some people (politely) disagreed with me. Having seen Tucker’s Monday monologue, though, I am glad that I stuck to my guns by sticking to Tucker. Tucker excoriates the real fraud in the 2020 election, which was the way the media and Big Tech manipulated the system to destroy Trump.

It’s hard to explain to people who came of age during the Trump era how differently the establishment treated his presidency. Even when the media loathed presidents – as they did with Nixon and Reagan – they at least went through the motions of showing respect.

With Trump, the media’s hate-fest is unbounded.

They ignored the usual 100-day honeymoon. Instead, from the moment Trump was elected, media hacks began to exhaust their limited vocabulary of insults: Trump is Hitler. Trump is worse than Hitler. Trump is a Hitlerly copy of something worse than Hitler.

If they’re not making Hitler analogies, you have Anderson Cooper calling the President of the United States an “obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun.” Stay classy, Anderson! Where’s that sophisticated guy who got drunk and talked about his mother’s sex life on air?

At the end of the day, what the media have done for the past four years is inane, shallow, vulgar, and mean-spirited to the point of evil, but the steady drumbeat works.

Although it’s hard to remember, before Trump came along, the media would at least occasionally report rather objectively about actual news, both foreign and domestic. Nowadays, the news is blatantly slanted in whatever direction benefits Democrats.

Black Lives Matter riots are racial freedom fests while the people who protest being locked in their homes and losing their livelihoods are white nationalist haters. Nor do the media ever report Trump’s accomplishments. Instead, taking in the media is liking listening to the two meanest girls in high school gossip about someone they hate. Again, it’s inane, shallow, vulgar, and mean-spirited, but effective.

Most significantly, it’s impossible to explain the effect of big technology to young people who, having been raised within its omnipresent ambit, are as unaware of its power as fish are of the water in which they swim. When Google hides search results and Twitter and Facebook de-platform people for being “mean,” that’s normal to the young. To them, that’s the appropriate elevation of “safe” speech – and please, stop nattering about “free” speech, which all these young people know is a secret code for saying “hate speech of the type a Hitlerly Hitler would use.”

Incidentally, it’s also impossible to explain any of pre- and post-internet concepts about journalism and free speech to stalwart leftists. Because the media and Big Tech align perfectly with what our leftist (aka, Democrat or progressive) friends believe, they too view bias, censorship, and manipulated information as a fish does water: They are normal, and only conspiracy theorists would believe that the water is toxic and deadly.

Enter Tucker Carlson’s Monday night monologue, with its bracing dose of reality about the way in which the 2020 election was rigged. We conservatives have every reason to believe in shadow rigging, in the form of cemetery votes, faked ballots, and election machine manipulation. All of that, though, requires investigation and a lot of work to establish.

However, Tucker points out that what the media and Big Tech did in the 2020 election is in our faces, it’s devastating, and it’s very frightening for the future of a free America. No wonder Trump pinned Tucker’s monologue to the top of his Twitter page.

(I’m currently trying to point out with some frequency that Twitter never adds to posts from the Biden team any message that “this claim about an election victory is disputed” – although Biden’s claim is quite obviously disputed.)

The leftists are compliant, the politicians are bought and paid for, and we’re all that remains of an America that remembers the First Amendment. We better figure out what to do about this situation before our tech overlords ensure that we have no options left.

'Get Paid To Snitch' - NYC Bill Proposes Crowdsourcing To Report Illegal Parking 

'Get Paid To Snitch' - NYC Bill Proposes Crowdsourcing To Report Illegal Parking  Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 15:00

A new bill proposed by Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn) encourages anyone in NYC to report illegally parked cars, and in return, whistleblowers would receive part of the fines paid by violators.

The bill, introduced by Levin and Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Nov. 19, would increase parking ticket fines from $115 to $175. It allows anyone who reports an infraction to receive 25% of the money or a max payout of around $45. 

The bill "creates a new violation and civil penalty for hazardous obstruction by a vehicle of a bicycle lane, bus lane when bus lane restrictions are in effect, sidewalk, crosswalk, or fire hydrant when such vehicle is located within a radial distance of 1,320 feet of a school building, entrance, or exit," Levin and Johnson wrote. 

The bill's co-sponsors hope the proposed change would improve safety on bike lanes, bus lanes, crosswalks, sidewalks, and fire hydrants. 

According to ABC7 New York, those who report parking violators will do so via an online portal. The site will be managed by the Department of Transportation, which would review each case. 

Vehicles with city-issued placards are not exempt under the proposed bill.

This caused NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) to poke fun at the proposal on Twitter: 

"Imagine if every cop wrote a summons to every vehicle parked illegally or vehicles that violate the vehicle and traffic laws. 

"We could probably bail out NYC, NYS, and even feed the homeless. Everyone will then get exactly what they ask for," the SBA snarked last week. 

Some on social media were quick to react, replying to SBA with pictures of vehicles parked illegally throughout NYC: 

This all suggests the surveillance state wants to transform ordinary citizens into government parking snitches for the sole purpose of collecting more taxes. 

Blow Off...

Blow Off... Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 14:40

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

Four vaccine announcements. Janet Yellen to the Treasury. Donald Trump opening the path to a transition. Fed and ECB signaling more stimulus to come and yet, no new highs on $SPX and $NDX. Rather the bull target identified in October and again discussed in All In still stands having been reached on November 9th.

I find it notable in context of all the bullish boxes being ticked off and the continuous sentiment of euphoria permeating markets. Now I’m not saying the top is in, but I’m noting a certain lack of of progress in the overall market.

At the same time we are witnessing blow off action in several other indices and I’d like to highlight to small caps here.

A ripping 21% up from the November lows and up nearly 29% since the September lows. “Smooth market functioning” the Fed calls the asset bubble they have unleashed. I call it asset price inflation run amok as people abandon all caution and are piling into stocks no matter valuations:

Capitulation in the face of overwhelming liquidity?

After all 21% of all US dollars have been created just this year:

With no end in sight it seems:

The printing will continue until morale improves.

Well congratulations, fin twit is as bullish as ever was, even the bears are throwing in the towel:

And small caps encapsulate this sentiment:

“He’s going vertical. So am l. – We’re going ballistic, man.” – Maverick Top Gun

Moves like this are momentum and short covering pure and they come with consequences. Namely reversion risk and sustainability.

Firstly note how completely incompatible with history this move in small caps is. Here is the monthly candle:

Not only is it the largest monthly upside candle in memory it is also poking far above the monthly Bollinger band. If anything this candle looks similar to the capitulation candle we saw to the downside in March during the crash. Small caps appear to be literally crashing upward.

So outsized is this move in small caps price is now entirely outside the weekly Bollinger band:

Not normal, let’s agree on that. Sustainable? Questionable. Especially in context of a rally ever more dependent on open overnight gaps:

Not normal smooth market functioning behavior. Open gaps have been the hallmark of this market and while the market is persisting on this unprecedented path it continues to inform the coming downside risk.

As does the $IWM’s disconnect from its 200MA reaching 27% this morning:

The oscillator reaching above 20 seen last following the rally off of the 2009 lows. But even that rally proved too much and resulted in an eventual reconnect with the 200MA and a move below.

With a daily RSI on $RUT now reaching into the 74 level small caps are setting up for reversion risk of size:

Note also the rising wedge. I’m not saying the $RUT will top here, what I am saying it could reverse at any moment for any reason and when it does it comes with reversion risk of size. Hence buying long here is dangerous in my view and some may argue shorting it is as well as these momentum moves can defy reason.

But abandoning reason and embracing recklessness is what central bankers in their self conceited wisdom have bestowed on these markets yet again while failing upwards:

Financial stability they call it. There’s nothing stable about the $RUT or the global distortions created in capital markets. I call it speculative excess in context of a historic liquidity bubble. And investors have embraced it hook, line and sinker. Watch out.

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Tesla Patching Model X Exploit That Allows Anyone To Clone A Key And Steal A Vehicle Using $300 In Hardware

Tesla Patching Model X Exploit That Allows Anyone To Clone A Key And Steal A Vehicle Using $300 In Hardware Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 14:20

It was revealed yesterday that, in addition to dealing with a major Chinese recall over Model X suspensions and finding out that 159,000 Tesla vehicles can likely expect their infotainment systems to die at some point soon, the Model X also has a "hack" that allows you to clone its key for "about $300 in equipment".

A researcher was able to find a "pair of unintended flaws" in Tesla's Model X that would allow a person to steal the vehicle "in minutes", Car and Driver documented yesterday. Luckily for Tesla, the flaws were found by a computer security expert, and not someone interested in stealing vehicles. 

The researcher, Lennert Wouters from KU Leuven university in Belgium, found a way to not only gain access to the vehicle, but also to drive it away. He said he told Tesla about the exploit in August and that he was told, in turn, that a patch to fix it could take a month. 

You can steal a Model X using a $300 hardware kit that can fit into a backpack, he said. He said the hardware necessary includes a Raspberry Pi low-cost computer and a Model X body control module, which you can get off eBay. The BCM "enables" the exploits, Wouters explained.

From there, he can "hijack the Bluetooth radio connection that the key fob uses to open the vehicle using the VIN and coming within 15 feet of the target vehicle's fob". He uses this to create a second key for the Model X by using the VIN number and standing near the vehicle for about 90 seconds while his setup clones the key. Once in the vehicle, he uses his hardware to connect to the Controller Area Network to tell the car that his "new" key is valid.

Wouters told Wired in an interview: "The system has everything it needs to be secure. And then there are a few small mistakes that allow me to circumvent all of the security measures."

At that point, the Model X starts up and is ready to drive.

While he won't release the code or the specifics to the hack, he did release this video detailing it:

Home Prices In Every Major City Jump More Than Double The Fed's Inflation Target

Home Prices In Every Major City Jump More Than Double The Fed's Inflation Target Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 14:00

While various Fed speakers are vowing this week that there will be no rate hikes until at least 2023 or 2024, the Fed may be surprised to learn that if it were to broaden its definition of inflation, it would find it is quite ample already.

One month ago, we looked at the housing market which we said was in the middle of a buying "frenzy." Today's Case Shiller data merely confirmed this, with the 20-City Composite index surging at a stunning 6.6% Y/Y in September, more than 1% higher than August (and smashing expectations of a 5.3% print), and the highest in 30 months.

But the real shocker was looking at the component cities that make up the composite index. Here, not only is the housing bubble clearly back in certain Western cities such as Phoenic, Seattle, San Diego and LA, all of which posted a 9.5% or higher increase in annual home prices, but more remarkably even the lowest increase - that of New York - was no less than 4.3% (up from 2.8% just last month).

This means that every major US city saw home price increases that were more than double the Fed's stated 2% inflation target (although under the new Average Inflation Targeting, the Fed's so-called target is a fluid number and can be whatever the Fed decides it is).

But why should we - or central bankers for that matter - care about soaring home prices? For the answer look no further than New Zealand, whose central bank just 6 weeks ago warned that negative rates could be coming, yet where home prices have soared so much, overnight the Finance Minister Grant Robertson sent a letter to the central bank expressing concerns over how low rates have stoked home prices, and asking the RBNZ to include home prices to its monetary policy remit in order to halt the staggering surge in prices and force the central bank to consider tightening financial conditions only due to out of control home prices.

The result, as we reported earlier, was a surge in the New Zealand dollar as odds for a rate cut in 2021 collapsed and the market is on the verge of pricing in a rate hike.

Is this relevant for the US? Well, if one takes Yellen at her word that she is worried about wealth inequality, what other more relevant sector is there to focus on boosting the net worth of lower and middle classes than housing, and specifically making it more affordable so that more Americans can afford buying a home rather than be stuck as renters all their lives.

Of course, if this becomes a concern for the Fed, and considering the unprecedented spike in home prices in recent months, the first rate hike will take place not in 2024 but some time in 2021 as the Fed continues to inject an unprecedented 0.6% of GDP into the market every single month, ensuring that the housing bubble gets bigger with every passing month.

Alas, none of this matters because Yellen is a "progressive" only to sycophant financial commentators and politicians who merely regurgitate talking points for political purposes and/or career advancement. As such, the only chart that matters is this one from Morgan Stanley.

With trillions more in liquidity injection on deck for the next several years, something the stock market has just priced in today with the Dow hitting 30,000 for the first time ever, we can't even imagine how fast home prices will be rising in a few months' time, let alone around the time the Fed is expected to proceed with its first rate hike, sometime in 2023 or 2024.

Bags Of Soybeans Worth $100,000 Each Are Being Mysteriously Sabotaged Across Argentina

Bags Of Soybeans Worth $100,000 Each Are Being Mysteriously Sabotaged Across Argentina Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 13:40

More than 150 unexplained instances of vandals destroying bags of soybeans worth nearly $100,000 each have been documented in Argentina this year. Over the last few months, the attacks have accelerated, despite their origins remaining somewhat of a mystery.

Many in the country attribute the acts of sabotage to growing tension between the leftist government in power and rich farmers in the countryside, according to Bloomberg. There are theories that the attacks are being carried out by "by pro-government zealots to scare the farmers into exporting their soybeans" which would, in turn, generate cash for the country.

Other theories chalk the attacks up to "personal vendettas and trade-union conflicts", but farmers seem convinced the motivation is political. The country's new Vice President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, had formerly depicted the country's farmers as a "greedy clique of businessmen" - a sentiment that farmers believe is emboldening the attacks.

Argentine farmers have used silobags to store soy on their fields for two decades. But with Argentina's currency in collapse, the hoarding of commodities like soy is rising to levels not seen for a decade - which was the last time the government and farmers "clashed spectacularly". 

Farm association Argentine Rural Confederations said: “The vandalism is behaving like a virus that expands, directionless and undiscerning, with the sole premise of damaging for damage’s sake.”

Daniel Pelegrina, head of the Argentine Rural Society, said: “The attacks before were generally down to trade-union problems, but they’re colored differently now, more politically.”

As a result of the attacks, the the local agriculture minister in Cordoba is working on a project to equip soybean bags with alarms. Three companies in the area, which accounts for a disproportionate amount of the country's soy output, have banded together to work on manufacturing bag alarms. Trials, which include using antennae for signals that can detect intruders, are nearly underway in the county of Rio Cuarto. 

Conrado Berbe, president of Arsit SA, who is helping develop the alarms, said: “This can be used to protect tractors or trucks from theft, but there’s an especially big problem with silobags.”

If the testing goes well, Cordoba could get behind the idea and use taxpayer money to implement security measures across the province. 

The hoarding of soy in Argentina stands at odds with soy farming in places like the U.S., which is forecast to hit seven year lows in soy stockpiles as demand spurred by China and a South American drought has picked up. 

Yellen's Appointment As Treasury Secretary Raises Five Critical Questions

Yellen's Appointment As Treasury Secretary Raises Five Critical Questions Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 13:21

By Michael Every of Rabobank

The official US presidential transition process has belatedly begun, in part, and the key slots in the provisional Biden administration are now being filled: this is despite sustained Trump court challenges (and a painfully-slow partial ballot recount in Wisconsin, and a second recount that may or may not include matching signatures to ballots in Georgia). On those slots, as the old joke goes, it’s déjà vu all over again.

Most important for markets, at Treasury we have none other than Janet Yellen. This means she will be the first person to have held the troika of US economic positions, from running The Council of Economic Advisors, to running the Fed, to now running the US economy. Obviously, this is once again the promise of a ‘safe pair of hands’ likely to see the financial markets smile. No boat-rocking likely on that particular watch.

However, it does raise some interesting questions/points.

  • First, what does it say about the US that it is becoming such a gerontocracy? Alongside Biden (78), on the climate crisis it’s John Kerry (76) who leads the ‘charge’, while Yellen is 74 - and Nancy Pelosi in the House is 80. On the other side Trump would be 78 if he runs again in 2024, which seems almost certain in what the market takes as the certain event that his legal challenges fall short; Wilbur Ross (82), who is still ‘running’ Commerce; Larry Kudlow (73); and Ruddy Giuliani (76). This all seems akin to the original cast Star Trek movies (or even the reheated Picard series recently released), where much of the special effects budget was spent on wigs and trusses. (OK, not so much the wig for Picard, but you catch my drift.)

  • Second, what does that say to the younger and/or more progressive political voices pushing for fresher thinking? Yellen’s long career arc from academic economics to economic advisor to presidents, then to Fed chief, and now to economic chief for a president, has not exactly overlapped with a concurrent period of relative American economic ascent – or at least not for the majority of its population. Yellen of course expressed her concerns over inequality as far back as September 2014: yet the central conclusion of that speech was that the poor would be less poor if only they had more assets, and her term at the Fed was yet another episode of the US melodrama that has been running nearly as long as Star Trek: ‘Asset Rich, Income Poor’. So one sees why Wall Street will cheer this Biden appointment: let’s also not forget that Yellen infamously stated in June 2017 that she did not expect another financial crisis in her lifetime.

  • Third, while having a Treasury secretary who knows the Fed inside out ‘has its advantages’, central banks and finance ministries are increasingly joined at the hip around the world. Yet wouldn’t the appointment of Yellen pry the door of politicized central banking open even wider? After all, a Fed board member may now consider that not only can the decisions they make while in office earn them up to $250,000 for an after-dinner speech after they retire, they could also now lead them to High Office too. (And the after-dinner speeches after that.)

  • Fourth, instead of sitting as Fed Chair and impotently wishing the government would do more fiscally, Yellen will now perhaps get to sit as Treasury Secretary… and wish the government would do more fiscally. There is no guarantee that the US House, with its slim Democrat majority, or the Senate, with its two Georgia run-off elections on 5 January, will be willing to provide the huge stimulus the US may well need.

  • Fifth, and more an observation, at least Yellen will know what the Fed is going to do: zilch. Evans yesterday stated that he doesn’t see rates moving until late 2023 at least and maybe 2024. One could argue that the second 2 could be a 3 and it would still be true. Look at Japan.

Anyway, don’t expect any serious discussion of any of these issues in the financial press right now. The Great Restoration is in full swing* (*legal challenges pending): Laisses les bon temps rouler! Stocks up; bond yields down; USD down; risk on; Party on, Wayne; Party on, Garth; we are not worthy!

However, sticking with the serious discussion and the theme of politics and central banks, there is news from New Zealand, a small country with big ideas – recall it was the first to start independent, inflation-targeting central banking. On which note, new Finance Minister Robertson has proposed adding house prices to the central bank’s remit. In other words, not only would the RBNZ have to keep CPI around 2%, but it would also have to keep house price inflation stable.

Obviously these two forces pull in completely different directions: lower rates are needed to try to keep inflation up….but lower rates push house prices through the roof, and so the opposite is needed. What’s a central bank to do? Of course, there are always macro-prudential measures to limit mortgage lending. Yet then one ends up flattening the property market and/or reducing first-time buyers’ ability to get a home loan, and a lot of the time the property market IS the economy, meaning that rates then need to go even lower,…and macroprudential measures become even tighter. This speaks to another aspect of our global problems that markets, basking in The Great Restoration (Party on, Garth; Party on, Wayne), refuse to see.

You can go the neoliberal route, as we have for decades,…and you end up with an oligopolistic, plutocratic, distorted global economy dripping with populism, or worse.

You can try to stay neoliberal and micromanage parts of the economy to get the series of contradictory outcomes you want (e.g., low and stable inflation AND high-but-not-too-high and stable house prices), but it ends badly: a few years ago it was using interest rates to target inflation and the exchange rate – see how that ended in Asia.

Or you can realize this whack-a-mole sees one have to become ever-less (neo)liberal on all manner of fronts and just cut to the chase and go back to Bretton Woods, or worse – if that were even possible.

Yellen faces all these problems too. We all do. But in the short term, expectations of negative RBNZ rates have withered and NZD is up, as it logically should be – which is just what exporters don’t want to see, of course, and leads to even more reliance on domestic demand and the housing ‘wealth effect’.

Frankly, one sees the appeal of The Great Restoration.

Yes, neoliberal economics doesn’t work in the long run: we are currently playing out that heuristic all over again even if it looks Yogi Bull-er right now. But then again, nothing really works, or for long; and neoliberal economics is at least a deliberate reassuringly simple answer to a very complicated set of problems - and there are always those $250,000 after-dinner speeches (and High Office).

Solid Foreign Demand For Record-Sized 7Y Auction

Solid Foreign Demand For Record-Sized 7Y Auction Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 13:16

After two mediocre, record big coupon auctions in the Treasury shortened week on Monday, moments ago the Treasury concluded the week's abbreviated issuance schedule with the sale of another record large auction when it had no difficulty finding buyers for $56BN in 7Y paper, the most on record and double the average 7Y auction size since 2010.

The auction stopped at a high yield 0.653%, which was the highest since March (and decidedly above October's 0.600% auction), but due to the selloff in the rates complex, the auction had built up enough of a concession and it stopped through the When Issued 0.657% by 0.4bps.

Other metrics were less attractive, with the Bid to Cover at 2.374, which while up from 2.236 last month, was below the six auction average of 2.44.

There was some quite welcome news when looking at the Internals, where Indirects - i.e., foreign buyers - jumped from 60.1% to 65.4%, the highest since August, and well above the 63.7% recent average.

Overall, this was a solid (if hardly spectacular) auction, with more than enough demand at the belly of the curve, which confirmed that there remains ample buyside demand at the sensitive belly of the curve, and indicating that fears that the 10Y will soon blow out above 1.0% are overstated. To wit, the 10Y yield promptly dipped almost 1bp after news of the auction broke, although much of the move has now been faded.

Russia Threatens US Warship With "Ramming" Over Alleged Maritime Border Violation

Russia Threatens US Warship With "Ramming" Over Alleged Maritime Border Violation Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 13:00

The US and Russian navies have had a close encounter in the Sea of Japan on Tuesday which has sparked a major diplomatic war of words.

Russia claims the submarine hunting US Navy ship USS John S McCain violated Russia's sovereign maritime borders off the coast of the Russian Far Eastern capital, Vladivostok.

The Kremlin said the US ship strayed over two miles within Russia's internationally recognized territorial waters, with the Ministry of Defense (MoD) asserting the warship had "violated" Russian waters and was "warned of the unacceptability of its actions" by the Udaloy-class destroyer Admiral Vinogradov.

USS John S. McCain file image. Source: US Navy

The Russian destroyer was said to be tailing the American vessel and reportedly conveyed a verbal warning that it could be subject to ramming. According to Russian media sources:

The communiqué added that sailors had told the American ship of the "potential of resorting to ramming to force the trespasser out of the territory." The US navy has not yet issued a response.

Once out of Russian waters, the US ship did not attempt to re-enter the area.

Via NBC News

Here are the official Russian MoD statements via TASS:

Russia’s Admiral Vinogradov anti-submarine destroyer stopped the United States’ USS John S. McCain from violating the Russian border in the Peter the Great Gulf, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

According to the ministry, at 06:17 Moscow time (03:17 GMT) on Tuesday, the USS John S. McCain, which entered the Sea of Japan several days ago, violated Russia’s territorial waters in the Peter the Great Gulf, "passing the maritime border by two kilometers."

"The Pacific Fleet’s Admiral Vinogradov anti-submarine destroyer used an international communication channel to warn the foreign vessel that such actions were unacceptable and the violator could be forced out of the country’s territorial waters in a ramming maneuver. After the warming was issued and the Admiral Vinogradov changed its course, the USS John S. McCain destroyer returned to international waters," the statement said.

The US 7th Fleet is now saying it was conducting a legitimate "freedom of navigation" exercise and that it doesn't recognize the Russian claims that maritime borders were violated, because it doesn't recognize the border designation. 

The US 7th Fleet statement said in response to the Russian charge:

In 1984, the U.S.S.R declared a system of straight baselines along its coasts, including a straight baseline enclosing Peter the Great Bay as claimed internal waters. This 106-nautical mile (nm) closing line is inconsistent with the rules of international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention to enclose the waters of a bay. By drawing this closing line, the U.S.S.R. attempted to claim more internal waters - and territorial sea farther from shore - than it is entitled to claim under international law. Russia has continued the U.S.S.R. claim.

Thus the border is not being recognized by the US Navy, as statement added bluntly: "By conducting this operation, the United States demonstrated that these waters are not Russia's territorial sea and that the United States does not acquiesce in Russia's claim that Peter the Great is a 'historic bay' under international law.

It's not the first time an intercept incident has occurred in disputed waters in the Sea of Japan, but this marks a severe escalation given the rare Russian direct threat of ramming.

Investors Go "All-In" Without A Safety Net

Investors Go "All-In" Without A Safety Net Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 12:40

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

We have recently written a couple of posts about the “exuberance” that has invaded the market since the election. Such is often seen near short- to intermediate-term peaks in markets as investors go “all-in” without a net.

It was on December 5th, 1996, during a televised speech, that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan stated:

“Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?”

It is an interesting point that the U.S. has sustained low rates of inflation combined with monetary and fiscal stimulus, which have lowered risk premiums, leading to an inflation of asset prices.

Unfortunately, the knock off effects has been lower rates of profitability and economic growth. As shown, corporate profits have completely detached from both economic growth and corporate profitability. The last two times such occurred, the outcome was not terrific.

Exuberance Abounds

Over the last two weeks, we have noted the more “exuberant levels” of sentiment from investors since the election. As stated in “Bulls Go Ballistic:”

“Our composite ‘fear/greed’ indicator, which primarily comprises investor positioning, shows much of the same as ‘bullish sentiment’ pushes back to extremes.”

Chart updated through last Friday.

Importantly, investors are once again positioning themselves into equity “risk” at a rather alarming rate, with confidence surging higher. The 4-panel chart below shows investors have piled into equity funds, have a high level of confidence about the future, and complete evaporation of “short-interest” in the market. (Charts courtesy of The DailyShot)

Previously, we saw this type of surge in December of 2017, followed by a near 20% decline just two months later. We saw it again in February of this year.

Importantly, this is just the “fuel” necessary for a more critical correction in the market. As long as “no one strikes a match,” investors have little to be concerned about.

The Spark That Lights The Fuse

However, there are plenty of catalysts currently, which could “light the fuse.” My colleague Doug Kass laid out a list of potential candidates:

  1. The virus mutates, rendering “vaccines” ineffective. 

  2. There are unexpected manufacturing, distribution, and storage problems with delivering a Covid-19 virus.

  3. With a delay and without a timely vaccine, the spread of Covid-19 intensifies.

  4. As Covid spreads over the next month, there is an increase of state lockdowns, business, school closings, “stay at home orders,” and curfews enacted around the country.

  5. The debated election results linger into 2021 as lawsuits multiply.

  6. Global economic growth fails to reaccelerate in the second quarter of 2021.

  7. Housing falls under the weight of higher home prices – affordability suffers. Housing’s economic multiplier effect moves into reverse.

  8. Consumer and business confidence takes a downturn.

  9. Bond spreads widen.

  10. A divided and partisan House fails to deliver a sizeable and credible stimulus bill.

  11. Investors realize that monetary policy can no longer foster or catalyze economic growth.

  12. Deflationary conditions accelerate based on unexpected economic weakness.

  13. A sizeable corporate fraud gets discovered – further deflating investor confidence.

In reality, we have no idea what the catalyst will be. No one expected a “pandemic” in March, but here we are. The point is that with markets extremely overbought, extended, and deviated from long-term means, with overly confident investors, the risk of a reversion has grown.

7-Impossible Trading Rules

In the “heat of the moment,” it is easy to get swept up into narratives as the “Fear Of Missing Out” overtakes our logical thought processes. As such, here are the 7-impossible trading rules to follow:

1) Sell Losers Short: Let Winners Run:

It seems like a simple thing to do, but the average investor sells their winners and keeps their losers, hoping they will eventually return to even.

2) Buy Cheap And Sell Expensive: 

If an investment isn’t “cheap, – it isn’t. Don’t make excuses to justify overpaying for an investment. In the long run, overpaying always reduces returns.

3) This Time Is Never Different:

As much as our emotions and psychology always want to hope for the best – this time is never different. History may not repeat exactly, but it generally rhymes.

4) Be Patient:

There is never a rush to invest. There is also NOTHING WRONG with sitting on cash until a real opportunity comes along. Being patient is an excellent way to keep yourself out of trouble.

5) Turn Off The Television: 

The only thing you achieve by watching the television from one minute to the next is increasing your blood pressure.

6) Risk Is Not Equal To Your Return: 

Risk only relates to the loss of capital incurred when an investment goes wrong. Invest conservatively and grow your money over time with the least amount of risk possible.

7) Go Against The Herd: 

When everyone agrees on the market’s direction due to any given set of reasons – generally, something else happens. Such also cedes to points 2) and 4). To buy something cheap or to sell expensive, you are buying when everyone is selling and selling when everyone is buying.

Conclusion

These are the rules. They are simple but impossible to follow for most. However, if you can incorporate them, you will succeed in your investment goals in the long run. In the end, it is crucially important to understand that markets run in full cycles (up and down).

While the bullish cycle lasts twice as long as the bearish cycle, investors’ damage comes not from lagging markets as they rise but in capturing the decline.

“In the end, it does not matter IF you are ‘bullish’ or ‘bearish.’  The reality is that both ‘bulls’ and ‘bears’ are owned by the ‘broken clock’ syndrome during the full-market cycle. However, what is grossly important in achieving long-term investment success is not necessarily being ‘right’ during the first half of the cycle, but by not being ‘wrong’ during the second half.”

The markets are indeed currently exceedingly exuberant on many fronts. With margin debt back near peaks, stock prices at all-time highs, and “junk bond yields” near record lows, the bullish media continues to suggest there is no reason for concern.

Of course, such should not be a surprise. At market peaks – “everyone’s in the pool.”

“The investor’s chief problem – and even his worst enemy – is likely to be himself.” – Benjamin Graham

Watch: President Trump Celebrates Dow 30k & The Great American People

Watch: President Trump Celebrates Dow 30k & The Great American People Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 12:33

Update (1235ET): Short and sweet... President Trump celebrated Dow 30K and thanked the American people "because there is no people like you"...

*  *  *

A day after allowing GSA to enable the transition process for Joe Biden, the sudden surprise timing of President Trump delivering remarks this morning (ahead of his 'pardoning' a pair of Turkeys) raises more than a few eyebrows.

Watch Live (due to start at 1230ET)...

'The Machines Did The Killing': Obama Awkwardly Defends Drone Kill List In New Memoir

'The Machines Did The Killing': Obama Awkwardly Defends Drone Kill List In New Memoir Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 12:25

Former President Barack Obama still can't shake his legacy as the "drone president" given he still holds the record for number of ordered covert assassination strikes via drones.

"There were ten times more air strikes in the covert war on terror during President Barack Obama’s presidency than under his predecessor, George W. Bush," one prior human rights study found.

"Obama embraced the US drone program, overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama’s two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush," the study said.

This infamously included not only the killing of Yemeni-American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki due to his suspected al-Qaeda links, but also his son, 16-year-old US citizen and Colorado native Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, by a drone airstrike ordered by Obama on October 14, 2011. The boy was not even suspected of a crime upon his death while he had been casually eating dinner with this friends at a cafe in Yemen. 

The Obama administration later claimed the teen's death was "collateral damage" and despite lawsuits related to the CIA operation, no US official has ever been held accountable for literally assassinating two US citizens without trial or so much as filing official charges. 

In his new 768-page memoir out this month, A Promised Land, there's scant mention of the massively expanded secret drone 'targeted killing' program under his watch, however, when it does receive brief attention, it's merely in passing but is still filled with cringeworthy level of self-justification and rationalization:

"...the machinery I commanded, more often had me killing them instead," he wrote.

Clearly he and the editor (and his ghostwriters) took pains to twist the limits of grammar and bizarre sentence structure to create as much distance as possible between the former president and owning up to the killings.

Here's the section in full from the book, where he actually attempts to present himself as the 'savior' of those victims he ordered killed:

In places like Yemen and Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, the lives of millions of young men like those three dead Somalis (some of them boys, really, since the oldest pirate was believed to be nineteen) had been warped and stunted by desperation, ignorance, dreams of religious glory, the violence of their surroundings, or the schemes of older men. I wanted somehow to save them—send them to school, give them a trade, drain them of the hate that had been filling their heads. And yet the world they were a part of, and the machinery I commanded, more often had me killing them instead.

Under Obama estimates of the number of victims that were a result of the White House's secretive "Kill List" often range from 300 to over 500 civilians killed, including over 60 children. 

But that's just a snapshot of a few years out his total two terms, and the true numbers remain classified. 

The New York Times would report in 2012 that Obama began to designate "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."

Obama adviser Robert Gibbs previously said when asked point blank about the ordered killing of a 16-year old American citizen: He should've "had a more responsible father."

So it seems years later Obama's justification is now essentially 'the machines did it'. 

Or again in his own bizarre and twisted words, "...the machinery I commanded, more often had me killing them instead."

Abdulrahman Awlaki, the 16-year old American-born son of Anwar al-Awlaki, was ordered killed by Obama in 2011.

And let's not forget, this is the man awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, and who is still heralded by Liberals as the most enlightened leader this country has ever had.

Trump Says He Will Never Concede To 'Fake Ballots And Dominion'

Trump Says He Will Never Concede To 'Fake Ballots And Dominion' Tyler Durden Tue, 11/24/2020 - 12:00

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump said late Monday that, despite the General Services Administration (GSA) being given the green light to engage with Joe Biden’s transition team, he would “never concede” in what he called “the most corrupt election in American political history,” and his team would continue with legal challenges.

“What does GSA being allowed to preliminarily work with the Dems have to do with continuing to pursue our various cases on what will go down as the most corrupt election in American political history?” Trump wrote.

“We are moving full speed ahead. Will never concede to fake ballots & ‘Dominion’,” the president added, referring to the Dominion Voting System elections platform that has come into the spotlight, with Trump’s legal team arguing that alleged exploits in the voting system were used to switch votes in Biden’s favor.

Sidney Powell, an attorney once affiliated with Trump’s legal team but now acting independently, said she has a deluge of evidence that Dominion and other voting systems were exploited to swing the election, saying she soon intends to file a lawsuit of “epic” proportions that will detail the evidence. This builds on previous remarks she made, claiming the proof she said she was receiving regarding election fraud was massive, and likened its eventual disclosure to “releasing the Kraken.”

President Donald Trump looks on during a briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on Nov. 20, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Dominion has repeatedly denied that its systems were compromised or used in a fraudulent manner. Meanwhile, while a joint statement put out by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on behalf of a national elections infrastructure coalition with links to Dominion through the company’s membership in CISA’s Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC), called the Nov. 3 election “the most secure in American history.”

Trump later fired then-head of CISA, Christopher Krebs, claiming the joint statement was “highly inaccurate in that there were massive improprieties and fraud.”

The president’s message that he would “never concede to fake ballots & ‘Dominion’,” followed an earlier missive in which he indicated that the GSA would make transition resources available for Biden, while insisting that he still has a good shot at victory.

“Our case STRONGLY continues, we will keep up the good fight, and I believe we will prevail!” he wrote in a Twitter post.

The president’s message followed a letter that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy sent to Biden (pdf), where she notified the former vice president that some transition resources, including around $7.3 million in funds, would be available to him and his team.

In her letter, Murphy noted that the decision to provide transition resources should not be understood as a determination that one of the candidates has won the election.

“GSA does not dictate the outcome of legal disputes and recounts, nor does it determine whether such proceedings are reasonable or justified,” she wrote. “The actual winner of the presidential election will be determined by the electoral process detailed in the Constitution.”

General Services Administration Administrator Emily Murphy speaks during a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Washington on June 21, 2019. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo)

Murphy said she made the decision independently despite a huge amount of threats.

“I did, however, receive threats online, by phone, and by mail directed at my safety, my family, my staff, and even my pets in an effort to coerce me into making this determination prematurely. Even in the face of thousands of threats, I always remained committed to upholding the law,” read the letter.

Trump praised Murphy for her dedication and loyalty to the country.

“I want to thank Emily Murphy at GSA for her steadfast dedication and loyalty to our Country. She has been harassed, threatened, and abused—and I do not want to see this happen to her, her family, or employees of GSA,” the president wrote.

Yohannes Abraham, Biden’s transition executive director, said in a statement that Murphy “has ascertained President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the apparent winners of the election, providing the incoming administration with the resources and support necessary to carry out a smooth and peaceful transfer of power.”

“Today’s decision is a needed step to begin tackling the challenges facing our nation, including getting the pandemic under control and our economy back on track,” she added.

The GSA confirmed to The Epoch Times earlier on Monday that it would soon brief some members of Congress on the presidential transition.

While a number of media outlets have declared Biden as president-elect, The Epoch Times won’t declare a winner of the 2020 presidential election until all results are certified and any legal challenges are resolved.

Zachary Stieber, Jack Phillips, Mimi Nguyen-Ly, and Allen Zhong contributed to this report.

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