Biden “Slam Dunks” In “Speaker Pelosi’s Bottom”
“My mentality was to go out and win at any cost.” (Michael Jordan)
Summary:
· Xi Jinping COVID-Zeros in response to the Biden Slam Dunk.
· COVID-Zero represents a clean break between China and America.
· Russia re-enacts the Bay of Pigs in response to Biden’s Ukraine Slam Dunk.
· The consensus US economic view is that a recession is the only way to end inflation.
· The rising probability of a US economic hard landing is raising the probability of a patriotic monetary policymaking response from the Fed.
· The current UK government must appear to be tough on violent crime rather than as directly increasing violent crime with its economic policies.
In your bottom!
The Biden “Slam Dunk” is becoming an epic Key Signal.
A Weak-Weekly, Early Warning Signal
· A Key Signals proprietary indicator signals that the FOMC is, once again, totally off with its timing, this time, on monetary policy tightening.
(Source and caption by Key Signals)
Not only has the “Slam Dunk” confirmed the Key Signals Fed should ease signal, of the first week in May, but it has also coincided with some policymaker insider dealing which signals the same.
Speaker Pelosi “loves” Microsoft and Apple call options. Madam Speaker’s recent eyebrow-raising leveraged bottom fishing has raised more than a few eyebrows.
Biden Slam Dunks, and Kissinger gets the rebound ….
· It’s Slam Dunk time for the Biden New Multipolar World Order.
(Source: the Author)
US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns has put the Biden “Slam Dunk” into context, with his recent opinion that Sino-US relations are at their lowest point since Nixon was the US President. Readers, who are old enough, will remember that NSA Henry Kissinger was instrumental in how the relationship developed thenceforth.
The author’s assertion that President Biden’s redrafting of US national security policy is a “Slam Dunk” moment has also, recently, received eloquent confirmation from rock star historian Niall Ferguson. Some Nudgers would like us to believe that history is about to repeat itself.
Ferguson is worried that Biden’s “Slam Dunk” will double dribble; and that this technical foul will end in armed conflict with China. Consequently, Ferguson advises that Biden should follow the coaching technique of Henry Kissinger and go for Détente.
Ferguson, unfortunately, is incapable, or unwilling to, consider if China is capable of Détente.
Neither does Ferguson consider if President Biden is now in a position to embrace Détente. Biden may be too far gone, on his current course of action, to change his position.
Charlie Don’t Surf ….
This author would remind readers, and Niall Ferguson, that President Biden is behind in the polls in the last quarter of this game. POTUS is, therefore, highly likely to gamble based on his current position.
Furthermore, this author reminds us that it is highly likely that the Russian endgame, and the confrontation with China, are part of a strategy formed, under Biden’s aegis, back when he was Obama’s Vice President. Had things played out as intended, Biden would now be in a position to magnanimously offer Détente. Détente, from the moral and economic high ground, was effectively the principle of Obama’s Pivot. Biden no longer occupies the economic high ground.
Sadly, China and Russia have not played along with the Détente meme either. They have consistently disrupted and undermined the global architecture of trade, and governance, that has been in place since Bretton Woods. Détente is not an option that they consider. Perpetual economic war, as a proxy for nuclear war, appears to be their option of choice.
Biden’s “Slam Dunk” puts China and Russia in the corner, and then seeks to set parameters on how they will be allowed to escape from their predicament. The “Slam Dunk” also applies economic pressure, which militates in favor of regime change. It is clear that emergence from the corner, by default, must be contingent on the removal of the two countries’ leaders. Removal of these leaders is ignominious, at best, and, lethal at worse. Consequently, faced with eviction, they have no choice but to gamble, on resistance to the “Slam Dunk”, at the risk of taking their economies down should they fail.
Incarcerated, like Hitler, in his bunker, President Putin is leading nobody from the back. His isolation is completely undermining his military, political and economic strategy.
A genocide speech in relation to the Uighurs should now be expected. The ground has already been prepared, with leaked information about the detention and abuse of Uighurs in concentration camps.
President Xi Jinping is entering his bunker. He is effectively at war on two fronts. On the Pacific Front, he faces America, and on the Western Front, he faces the EU. The EU has recently embraced the Uighur Genocide invective originally promulgated by America.
In response, to the twin frontal assaults, President Xi Jinping has doubled down on his COVID-Zero strategy.
COVID-Zero is the antithesis of Détente. This strategy is also the antithesis of the deeper integration of the Chinese economy into the developed markets’ global economy. COVID-Zero deliberately isolates the Chinese economy from the developed markets. Furthermore, it obliges the developed markets to “Friend Shore” their supply chains away from China. COVID-Zero is a clean break and the creation of an alternative global economic system.
This strategic divergence from the global economic order is currently being implemented South of the border.
The contrast between Biden’s “Slam Dunk”, in the Asian basket, and China’s aggressive rebounding was recently highlighted at Asia’s most significant regional security forum held in Singapore.
Addressing the forum, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin stated that all nations, in the region, should be “free to choose, free to prosper, and free to chart their own course.” Clearly, Austin was indirectly alluding to Taiwan, but the message transcended this narrow conflict in the projection of a regional strategy based on freedom and democracy. Austin could just as easily have been referring to the plight of Uighurs, but he left it to his audience to decipher the strategic inferences and nuanced context.
Austin’s message was met with the bombastic warning to keep out of the Taiwan Straits because they are not international waters but are, literally, Chinese littoral territory. Thus, American freedom, and openness, meet Chinese closed oppression. It’s a Cold War thesis and meme.
The Cold War thesis and meme are currently rhyming and repeating, South of the border, in an emerging proxy war in America’s backyard.
Yuankee Go Home ….
· The American thirty-year narrative involves the funding and creation of a bipartisan consensus from the perceived Chinese threat via Latin America.
(Source: the Author)
Latin America has almost become the forgotten war in America’s global conflict with China. Recently, this combat theatre has come back into focus. The Biden administration had excluded representatives from the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the upcoming Summit of the America’s in Los Angeles.
The exclusions were on the basis that the countries excluded have authoritarian governments. The strategic exclusion was, therefore, in compliance with America’s global strategy to exclude dictatorships from the global economy. It is noteworthy that Secretary Austin’s promotion of the freedom of choice does not apply when those given the choice are America’s immediate neighbors who also choose America’s global nemeses.
The summit was framed by a release that confirmed that, with exception of Mexico, China has eclipsed the US in the region in terms of trade. This framing was then swiftly followed by a Bay of Pigs moment. This moment has been anticipated and then followed, by this author, since the original key signal in December 2021. The combination of Russian military aggression, under a Chinese economic umbrella, is the signature of this signal. The hallmark of this signal can be found in the Ukraine conflict.
The latest regional re-enactment of the Bay of Pigs moment will see Russian military personnel deployed in Nicaragua, under the weak camouflage of training roles. Nicaragua has already been identified at the center of a regional political and economic nexus, which seeks to challenge American hegemony and the role of the US Dollar.
A predictable regional escalation will see an increase of Russian ordnance, in Nicaragua, that will require an embedded involvement of trainers and additional personnel. This escalation would mirror America’s involvement in Ukraine to date. Nicaragua is headed for civil war. China has been careful to avoid being identified with the military escalation. This evasion will become difficult to maintain as the escalation builds up toward conflict.
· “Cold Amazon” Vice Chair Brainard reminds that Fed monetary policymaking will always put patriotism before the dual mandate
(Source: the Author)
With global tensions simmering towards boiling point, the Federal Reserve will come under increasing pressure to embrace patriotic monetary policymaking. As this author has already noted, previously, Fed Vice Chair Brainard and Fed Governor Christopher Waller are sounding-off this patriotic monetary policymaking cadence.
Patriotic monetary policymaking will then, in due course, overrun the Fed’s current inflation-fighting imperative. A hard economic landing, by default, is becoming a rising probability. This hard landing will, then, require a combined fiscal and monetary policy stimulus.
The Softly-Softly Approach to the Hard Landing ….
The last report observed Goldman’s positioning, for H2/2022, in light of the arrival of Hurrikraine Dimon. Ostensibly, this was a risk-off position unwind which needed further nuance and context. Initial big picture context was given by the Senior Chairman and President. Nuance has now been provided by the firm’s economists. The nuance is that a Soft-Landing scenario is the highest estimated probability.
Goldman’s view is not shared by the leveraged speculators. They believe that inflation will keep rising and the Fed will keep hiking. Leveraged short bond positions reached a new zenith at the end of May.
· A Key Signals proprietary indicator signals that the FOMC is, once again, totally off with its timing, this time, on monetary policy tightening.
(Source: the Author)
This author was primarily interested, in all these divergent views, because his own proprietary indicator signaled that the Fed should have started easing in the first week of May.
The Fed’s recent embarkation, on a belated tightening phase, thereby, sets the US central bank consistently behind the curve. It has been thus, ever since the Fed failed to respond to the strong economic recovery, and attendant inflation risk, back in March 2021.
All the divergent views of inflation, and the type of economic landing, threw the latest US inflation data into sharp focus. The data was accepted as a shocker, prompting Mr. Market to speculate that a recession is the only way to stop inflation. Mr. Market is of the opinion that the Fed must engineer the recession. This ignores the fact that high inflation will engineer the recession all on its own.
Sadly, the Fed needs to try to regain a modicum of credible commitment by taking the credit for the inflation-ending recession. Soft Landing bets are, hence, off the table after the latest inflation data.
The Summers’ Curse, discussed in the previous report, has not gone away. If anything, the latest inflation data has invigorated its progenitor.
Risus Sardonicus Summers has seized upon the latest inflation data to press for the Fed to investigate its systemic failure. If the Fed were to respond either with a rebuttal or with a review, its credibility would be further eroded. A weak, indirect, rebuttal came by way of Chairman Bernanke, who opined that the Soft-Landing remains possible.
The Fed has little choice, other than to press on with aggressive monetary policy tightening, thereby, fulfilling the curse’s premonitions of a recession. Cognizant of the inevitably, of it all, Wall Street CEOs are plaintively sounding the alarm, on economic growth, in the hope that the Fed response, with interest rate cuts, when it comes, will be swifter than its belated response to rising inflation.
If things look bad in the US, then, they look even worse in the UK.
The Violent Tipping Point ….
The UK Own Goal is, however, a Slam Dunk in waiting for those affiliated with the current global Slam Dunkers.
(Source: the Author)
The upstaging of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee pageant, by the booing of the PM, was a national moment of shame and the final straw in the Rake’s Progress. The new key signal will not be who replaces him, but what affiliations this individual has.
Will the new PM be an Imperialist or will he/she be more closely aligned with the New Multipolar World Order (NMWO), that is currently forming, with Britain on its periphery rather than at its core?
Polled sentiment signals that the British voters despise Boris Johnson, and don’t trust Sir Kier Starmer. Based on this polling, the middle ground is the place to be. A new middle-of-the-road, yet essentially British Greasy Pole, to erode the extreme Greasy Poles to the left and right, is currently in its project phase. Project execution will require a new party.
Newton’s Third Law of Politics dictates that there must also be an equal and opposite force of regime change in the opposition party. This is especially the case if there is to be a resultant Third Way that unites the deeply divided nation. Hence, speculation is rife about who will replace Sir Kier Starmer. Labour’s poor showing Up North, suggests that the new leader will have to be a Northerner first (certainly a Provincial), and then possibly a Brexit Remoaner much later. It’s a project, literally.
· The UK will become an austere economy with an ungovernable polity.
(Source: the Author)
Weakened, but still breathing, after surviving a no-confidence vote, the PM is doubling down on his innate survival tactics. If he loses control of the streets, literally, it will be game over faster than the ballot box decides.
The climate of fear on the streets is contagious. The UK government must be tough on violent crime without appearing to be responsible for creating the violent crime with its economic policies. This demand will test the PM’s verbal dexterity to the limit.
Useful idiots, to blame for the violent crime wave, are required. Immigration is the lowest branch on the Useful Idiot tree. It is highly likely, therefore, that a Rivers of Blood speech is being spun in draft form.
Thanks for reading and commenting Pedro. Managing those economic surprises is the name of the game.
Insightful report, Adam,
Biden’s economic plan is producing outcomes contrary to his critics’s predictions.
Friday’s “Debt to the Penny” report shows a “Total Public Debt Outstanding” level of $30,396,764,239,689.30 on 6/9/2022.
How does it align with earlier numbers? On 3/31/2022 the debt stood at $30,400,959,928,180.97. June numbers lower than earlier March levels? 🤔
For all one knows, more economic surprises could yet come to pass…