Briefly Noted: Recession, Russia, GOP
It’s been a bit of a slow news day—unless you think the US being in a recession is news. But it turns out that “recession” is like the word “is”—it depends on how you define it. Dems, of course, are adept at redefinition. “Vaccine,” “insurrection,” “is”—you name it, they’ll redefine it. However, if you’re determined to read about these things you can do worse than try Tom Luongo:
None Dare Call it a Recession Lest the Democrats Lose the Mid-Terms
When all you have left is managing narratives, managing narratives becomes a full time job.
This is where The Davos Crowd is today– just before the next Fed rate hike and just over three months out from the US mid-term elections.
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The Fed is fighting the O’Biden administration (and Davos), working to secure the worst mid-term blowout loss for the Democrats since Newt Gringrich became a household name in 1994.
It’s not a hard sell here. Because people aren’t nearly as dumb as our media treats them.
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This week we’re set to get a flood of bad economic data. Inflation is still rising. Keynesian orthodoxy demands the Fed raise until inflation moderates.
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So where are we today?
The Fed is due to raise rates at least another 75 basic points, to 2.25%. After the ECB ‘shocked’ markets with 50 basis points last week, I won’t be surprised if the Fed goes 100.
But I’m not banking on that. Powell has all the cards to play here. He has another meeting before the mid-terms. His stated goal is 4% by year end. He’s got plenty of options now to get to that target.
And every time inflation comes in hotter than expected he’s got the ammunition to go bigger.
And whose ox gets gored when that happens? Europe’s zombie banks who have exactly zero friends in the world now outside of Europe.
Because this time, unlike in 2018, Powell has the tools in place — SOFR, mainly — to make these rate hikes stick by decoupling US bank stress from that of Europe.
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Davos wants an end to the commercial banks, putting all the power in the hands of the central banks, through CBDCs. The Fed and those it represents do not want that.
And given the choice between a recession in the US while scaling back US dollar diplomacy and collapsing into the Eurotrash Communism promulgated by the WEF and Davos, I’m taking the over on the Fed going on the offensive.
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The Fed’s aggressive play against Europe is already producing the expected results. After the ECB capitulated last week, US assets, both stocks and bonds, rallied into the weekly close. The 10-year note was down 25 bps and the Dow Jones put in a technically significant close above recent highs.
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I’m not disputing the idea that there’s not economic dislocation on the horizon. There is. It’s epicenter will be Europe, not the US. That will insulate us and the Fed from the worst of the fallout. Davos‘ only play now is to create as much chaos as possible to take down anyone who stands in their path before the Democrats get blown away in that hurricane I talked about.
The Democrats are happy to burn the country to the ground, since they are now officially traitors to the country after 18 months of pure, unadulterated economic and cultural vandalism. They keep telling us it’s all for the greater good… theirs, not yours.
As usual, much more at the link.
Who else—other than Powell, if we accept Luongo’s thesis—is having fun these days? Why, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. He has the Euros chasing their tails. They thought they had gas coming back on line and could play more sanction games, but — not so fast:
Note: The Ruble being low is a sign of strength. And prices in Russia are falling.
Europeans, and especially Germans, breathed a sigh of relief last Thursday when amid fears that Moscow would not restart flows along the Nord Stream 1 pipeline after its 10 day maintenance period, Putin turned the gas back on, if just to its pre-maintenance peak level of about 40% of maximum capacity.
Alas Europe's muted celebration were not meant to last, and with many speculating that Russia was just waiting for the right opportunity to turn the screws on Germany, both literally and metaphorically, that's precisely what happened moments ago when shortly after Siemens finally delivered transport documents for the controversial Nord Stream turbine that had been stuck in Canada for weeks, Gazprom unexpectedly announced it would halt one more Nord Stream turbine at its Portovaya compressor station from July 27, “taking into account the technical conditions of the engine,” the Russian company says in a statement.
Translation: unless Putin changes his mind, Germany is facing not just a freezing winter, but a bitter recession.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine.
For military students, there was an interesting article at The Saker this morning, which explains the difficulties involved in attempting to deploy Western weapon systems:
In early July, right after Lisichansk was won by the Russian forces, the Russian military and its allies from DNR and LNR, put on display there a large number of captured Ukrainian military equipment. Rows of tanks, rocket launchers and armored vehicles stretched for hundreds of meters. All this was seized by the Russians in just one sector of the front alone. Let’s be honest, most of the Western military assistance to Ukraine is quickly destroyed or falls into the hands of the Russian military, without having any significant impact on the course of the war, and successful exceptions like the US-supplied M142 HIMARS only confirm the rule. Why is this happening?
The whole thing might be pretty simple: while receiving Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Javelin anti-tank systems and French Ceasar self-propelled guns, the Ukrainian army must quickly switch to a single NATO standard, strengthen its combat capability in the wish to stop Russian army. On closer examination, however, it turns out that everything is way more complicated. The unified NATO standard is mainly associated with the calibers of ammunition, and not with the unification of equipment. It is impossible to switch from the German “Leopard” to the French “Leclerc” without a long and serious preparation. A good MRLS operator, used to the Soviet-designed Grad, will not be able to handle America’s famous HIMARS. Each weapon system handed over to Kyiv also requires special retraining of Ukrainian military specialists. And this is just the tip of the iceberg though.
The delivery of one or two self-propelled guns with perfectly trained crews may look good in propaganda videos, but it turns into a logistical nightmare for the Ukrainian military suppliers. Full-fledged confrontation with the enemy requires units trained and equipped with unified weapons, not a battery recruited from different European and Soviet models using five different types of shells. All of them need different parts and accessories. Moreover, gun and tank crews will most likely be unable to replace each other. They are trained to fight with different models of high-tech weapons systems.
This is actually why the Eastern European countries are delivering to Ukraine what is left of their old Warsaw Pact-era stockpiles, not the latest European models.
The article goes on to speak of the HIMARS strike on bridges near Kherson:
This happened amid announcements from Kiev that a Ukrainian “counter-offensive in the south” would follow. Exactly to the Kherson region. With the aim of regaining control over it and defeating and destroying the Russian army on the right bank of the Dnieper. However, what followed was what neither the military leadership in Kiev nor the numerous American, British, German and Polish officers who were fighting invisibly on the Ukrainian side had expected.
A battery of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems arrived from Crimea in the Kherson region – with the task of defending the Antonovsky Bridge. On July 21, the Ukrainians tried two new platoons. Again with long-range rockets that American satellites and Avax guide to the target. But the S-400 intercepted and shot down all 12 missiles launched.
American crews in Ukraine manning American weapons systems, being guided by American satellites. Seems like a very bad idea to me. Much more at the link, of course.
Meanwhile, at home, the GOP seems to be tiring of winning:
The Republican Party is about to betray Christians and destroy the traditional family
Five Republican senators have already suggested they will support Democrats' radical new same-sex 'marriage' and polygamy bill.
(LifeSiteNews) – It’s one of the worst betrayals conservatives have ever suffered at the hands of the Republican Party.
On Tuesday, the House passed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act with a stunning 47 Republican votes and the blessing of GOP House leaders, and the bill is now rapidly gaining traction with Republicans in the Senate, shocking even Democrats and the liberal media.
The Respect for Marriage Act would enshrine same-sex “marriage” into federal law, override duly-enacted laws and constitutional amendments in 35 states, require the federal government to recognize polygamy or any other redefinition of marriage that a state may come up with, and open the door to a wide range of new threats to religious freedom.
The bill, largely intended as a Democratic messaging stunt before the midterms, is nothing less than a declaration of war on the family and Christians, and a gift to the radical LGBT movement and Democrats’ far-left base.
This is another self inflicted disaster.
By the way, you may have heard about the two kids who got the monkeypox? Per the Daily Mail:
One is a toddler from California; the other is in an infant who is not a U.S. resident and was ‘transiting through’ Washington D.C. Neither had contact with each other.
Health officials said both children were ‘doing well’, but warned children under the age of eight are at high risk of severe monkeypox.
It is thought both children likely caught the virus from ‘household contacts’. Dr Rochelle Walensky said the children both had contact with gay or bisexual men — the community where most cases are being detected in the current outbreak.
Obviously there’s an elaborate dance around the truth going on here. But this is America.
As I said 2 weeks ago when "Republicans" appeared to be gaining momentum: they will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
We have 1 party, and their goal is the destruction of everything not radical Left.
We have seen it too many times to count.
The "Respect for Marriage"Act will trigger a disrespect for Congress reaction, and it couldn't have come at a better time with the midterms just over three months away. Cheat the midterms and you risk triggering a disrespect for Washington reaction that may be permanent. Destroy the dollar and the economy while alienating the small business entrepreneurs and there may never be a recovery.