Biden completely blew the opportunity to lead the world and deal with the nation's serious problems, but he just repeated all the same old campaign rhetoric of 2020. A grand opportunity missed, and bad news for the world. Zelensky must feel on his own now. There are covert things the CIA and special forces can do to change the war, but Biden is not doing them. Genocide will result.
When the BLS releases its jobs and unemployment report this week it will look good, but don't be fooled. There are some in Wall St who go on TV and say the economy is great, and Ukraine does not really matter to the stock market, and some even said Monday the market has hit bottom. That is pure BS, or ignorance. While jobs have returned, and consumer spend was up nicely in February, inflation is likely going up from here, not down. Oil is now over $110, and going up a lot more since Biden is not going to change his policies. The administration in the past week has shut off expansion of drilling, new LNG terminals and new pipelines. In the face of Ukraine, the stupidity of the administration policies is beyond belief. Food prices are going to soar in the next few weeks as wheat and corn are now going up by the daily limits every day. These are the key ingredients to many foods. With oil so high, transportation costs will rise, and that flows right into consumer prices eventually. We are nowhere near solving the trucker shortage problem. So the Fed will be faced with a slowing economy and rising inflation. Do they raise rates to kill inflation, or not raise much to help a declining economy which will happen soon. With the declines in the stock market and rising rates combined with rising home values, housing has to turn down over the next few months. The combination of all of this will cause further declines in the stock market and stagflation. This is not a year to expect higher stock prices, and unless the administration does a major reversal of policies, next year will be no better. I remain 50% in cash and oil stocks which offset any losses in my core portfolio of stocks like APPL, MSFT, TMO and AMZN. Those, and a few others, will grow well no matter what happens since they do not depend on oil, supply chains, labor shortages, nor do they get impacted by inflation. While APPL does import phones and chips, it will be fine. Risk off for a long time, and don't get lured in by the Wall St pundits who don't seem to understand what is really happening. If your broker says buy mutual funds or annuities, or if they say buy bonds, find a new broker or money manager. This is a time to hunker down. The small group of top investors with whom I communicate regularly thinks the range off of the high of 4800 on SPX, could be down to 3840 (down 20%), to up to 5100 by year end. That is a 32% differential. In short, even the smartest guys have no idea where the market goes from here. Their true thoughts are all over the map. So don't feel bad if you are confused. My own view remains be conservative and wait to see how Ukraine and the Fed unfold. There are huge factors which could move the market in either direction. The big winners will be those who lose the least this year.
During WWII, the Dow did:1942 +10%, 1943 +16%, 1944 +15%, 1945 +30% It peaked in Feb 1946 then dropped. The situation today is very different. Back then there was no QE, and no 0 interest rates, no $6 trillion of transfer to individuals and small business-spending went to build weapons and pay soldiers, there was no pandemic lockdown causing huge increases in savings, and the Fed was not buying trillions of bonds. There was also not inflation at 7.5%. In 1941, we were not far from the severe recession of 1937, so the upside may well have been the recovery from the depression years. The public was mostly lacking in savings, and not part of the stock market. There were no 401K plans.
There is no way to know how all of this ends. Putin, by all accounts from people who seem to know, has isolated himself, and has become delusional. A better description is very dangerous. He will not stop until he is either defeated, killed by his own inner circle, or he completely wins in Ukraine, which he cannot. He will just continue to pour in more troops, and step up the level of weapons he will use. The next step up is thermobaric rockets and bombs which are huge bombs that can kill anything in a very wide radius far beyond a normal bomb. Use of these is a war crime. He already used one this week. Some have speculated he might even try to use a very small nuclear weapon. The fact that sane, objective experts are even speculating about that, is really scary. Obviously we have no way to know what he will do, nor if his generals will go along with such things, but the risk exists. Putin will demand to win this at any cost. Now he has threatened Sweden and Finland. They may now join NATO. He is an almost exact duplicate of Hitler and Stalin now. A friend of mine who is close friends with the deputy NYT bureau chief in Moscow reports that she said Russians are shocked at what Putin is doing and they do not understand it. See below for another report from Moscow. Maybe someone will succeed in killing him. Some doctors and intel people speculate that his puffy face suggests he is on some sort of cancer drugs or steroids for something. Nobody knows, but there is speculation from his facial appearance that there is some sort of serious health issue.
The good news is Germany has finally woken up and realized they are at serious risk, and have finally raised their defense spending to over 2%, and have realized they need a credible military. The shift in German foreign and defense policy is historic, and just exposes the danger created by Merkel's policies toward Russia and Nordstream, and shutting down power plants. Her policies helped create the mess the world is now in. For the first time in modern history Switzerland has joined the banking shut down. They never even did that in WWII. The Russian central bank now cannot get access to a large portion of its reserves due to the sanction on the central bank. Those who still say why should we be so concerned about Ukraine, are just like the people in 1940 who said why should we be concerned about the London blitz. This is WWIII starting now unless it is ended now. The similarities with 1938-39 are very much the same. There is a delusional psychopath in charge of waging this war, just like then. There is no way to overstate the risk. One possible good result is Putin will lose, and at some point be eliminated by his own people, just as the plotters tried to kill Hitler. Another potential good thing is, now maybe it will get so bad for Russia that Xi will realize his ambitions of world domination may not be the best approach. We have no idea where all this goes, but right now it is more dangerous than at any time since 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis.
We have lots of drones, or we could buy 100 Turkish drones so we have deniability. We could launch a combined attack on that huge Russian column with our drones and Ukrainian forces using Javelins, and artillery, and we could obliterate a couple of hundred or more tanks and gasoline supply trucks, and end the threat in about 30 minutes. The road would be littered with dead Russians and destroyed armor. Then we could tell the Russian commanders, turn around or die. Just like we wiped out the Iraqi column fleeing Kuwait. What is Putin going to do then. He will have lost his primary line of attack. Biden will not do it, and thousands of Ukrainians will die as a result. But that is OK because Kerry will have protected the climate. It is a mystery why the column has not been attacked yet. They are sitting ducks. I assume the Ukrainians have some plan.
Question. Since Biden said Ukraine is not a NATO member, there will be no US boots on the ground, does Xi say, there is no NATO type defense agreement with the US and Taiwan, and Taiwan is not even a legal sovereign nation, so using the same logic, Biden will not defend Taiwan. How does Biden say we can't defend Ukraine, and the opposite for Taiwan. Very likely nobody in the White House gamed this out. What will Biden do as we watch cities in Ukraine get obliterated like happened in Syria. Will he allow the genocide of Ukraine go on unimpeded? What will the Europeans do. This is where it is going now.
World history changed this week, and likely for the good. Europe has now taken the steps needed to undertake its own defense instead of relying on the US taxpayer to do it. NATO is starting to become a true military force again, and it will hopefully be brought back up to force levels of two decades ago with real weapons and strenuous training. The US defense budget needs to add a couple of hundred billion right away. Hopefully the Pentagon will stop with CRT classes and go back to training for war fighting. Russia will have lost big, and will not be a threat again, maybe for decades, or even a century or more . The worldwide ramifications are immense. Just think of what happens to Cuba or Venezuela without Russian backing. Xi will have second thoughts about an invasion, and will have lost his partner. The UN security counsel might get rid of Russia and diminish the veto issue, not that the UN matters at all. A lot depends on the outcome of Ukraine, but it is likely this ends in Russian defeat, and then all of the above could potentially flow from that. Too bad we do not have a competent president to lead the world in creating a good scenario out of this. It was the Europeans who initiated shutting SWIFT, and Biden just led from behind and went along. The US did not initiate this. The US could stop buying oil from Russia today, but that would require the US pumping oil again and regaining energy independence. Instead Dems go on TV and claim the problem is oil company profits are too high. The insanity knows no limits. Then to top it off we are depending on Russia to negotiate our position with Iran. Psaki explains this as separate from everything else. Biden is wrong, just as he is wrong about shutting down US energy production. You can't dream up the stupidity of the White House.
Where does all this leave the US economy and the stock market. Reality. Inflation is going to get worse for a while. Oil prices will go up from here. Biden refuses to recognize the reality of the US and the EU dependence on Russian oil, and even now he thinks climate change is the real threat. Oil could go to $125, or even $150 or more, and that would really push inflation much higher. Wheat and corn prices will continue to go much higher because Ukraine is a big supplier, and now that is shut off. Chips will remain high cost, and in short supply because Ukraine supplies freon used in chip production, and Russia supplies other chip making minerals. Shortages will continue. Until Biden reverses his position on oil production, there is no chance oil prices will come back down. Part of why Biden is rushing to do the deal with Iran is to get their 1 million barrels back on the market to get gas prices down. It will not make a big difference to gas prices after a short dip down, but it will make the Mideast far more dangerous, and at risk of another war.
Labor costs will not mitigate for a long time as inflation continues to eat away at real wages. Savings rates are declining, and over time many will see their savings eroded with inflation as they need that money to pay for core goods. We are in a situation where inflation continues to rise, and real incomes, and wealth fall. The worst of all worlds. So now we heard Biden claim we need some new spending programs to fix the mess, which would be the exact wrong thing to do. The economy will slow. The stock market will continue to decline.
The Fed will now be in a real bind. They need to raise to deal with inflation, but they won't be able to raise as much as needed as the economy slows for other reasons than rates. It could prove to be the worst of all worlds. The chance for the recession which I have been predicting in late Q3, is now higher. The result of all of this for the stock market is despite some recent pops higher, the longer term trend in my mind is down for a while, and possibly for a long while. I simply do not see what will occur in the next few months to change my view. Many say the economy is strong and consumers are in very good shape. There is still loads of liquidity in the system. That is all true for the moment, but it may not be so true in a few months if what I have outlined above proves to be the case. There is massive risk now, and a very conservative approach to your financial situation is warranted until we see where things go from here. Do not buy bonds. Cash or a high dividend stock is much better. Oil and defense stocks will be winners. I am making good profits ever day in my oil stocks, and collecting dividends in my other holdings. I hold lots of cash for when the time is right to buy.
Maybe the kiddies will now wake up to real history, and realize America is still the exceptional nation. Maybe this is the end of the far left. Take Back America
Below is an email a friend of mine received from his friend in Moscow. This was the second of similar nature from people in Moscow. When I was in Russia a few years ago I spent a lot of time speaking to locals. In St Petersburg it was very clear they hate the ruling class in Moscow and believe them to all be corrupt and disgusting.. They once loved Putin for recreating a relatively good standard of living in Russia, but now that has all changed. Putin has lost the population.
Physically we are ok, mentally destroyed. No one reasonable person in Russia wants this war!
We don't want it!
We are in hands of beast, who doesn't care of any soul in the world except his!
That is happening is unjustified, disgusting, destroying. We love people. We have relatives, families, friends in Ukraine.
I'am scared. Suffocated.
Pray for all people there
For both sides - innocent people are dying
We try to do everything we can - going to the rallies, signing the petitions, writing down to our deputies, spreading the correct information, donating..
We can't stop it!
Am just not even talking that we are going back to the Stone Age with all sanctions.
We already can't change dollars, not enough money in ATM, some services had stopped their activities here, food is already more expensive..
Sorry, for being so detailed. Cry of my heart
Thank you for asking) it so nice to hear you
Putin has lost the support of the people which he once had in overwhelming numbers. The massive corruption and now the war has changed the attitude of the Russian masses.
And
Ross Rants March 7
Putin will lose the war. The Ukrainians need to hold out and bleed the Russians. The Ukrainians saved Europe and prevented WWIII. Even if Putin continues to attack a few cities, and bomb them to rubble, he cannot control Ukraine, and it is now going to be a graveyard for the Russian military. Ukraine is not Chechnya. This time the whole world is aiding the Ukrainians. Nobody helped the Chechnyan fighters. He is losing not just soldiers, but a lot of equipment, and he will lose a lot more. That 40 mile convoy is being picked apart by the Ukrainians piece by piece, and is unable to be properly supplied. The Ukrainians will destroy it in time and Putin will have lost hundreds of tanks and other vehicles and thousands of soldiers who are now camping out in the woods waiting for gas and supplies. They are easy targets for the Ukrainians. . It is now becoming mud season, and this means his tanks and trucks will be forced to use roads and so be subject to easy ambush and blockades. In the meantime 140,000 have volunteered to join the army. They just need more guns. 20,000 foreigners have volunteered. Many are experienced combat soldiers. It might be that Russia can gain control of some southern areas, but even that will have been very costly, and it will be subject to continuous guerilla attack where many more Russian soldiers will die, and more equipment destroyed. There is zero chance Putin can control much of Ukraine, and he cannot go on with the war forever. His army will be eaten up piece by piece in Ukraine. The key to beating the Russians is for Biden and NATO to send every weapon they can including fighter planes as fast as they can, short of offensive missiles. Unfortunately Biden dawdles and Poland wavers while people die by the hundreds. We have absolutely the wrong president for this moment. This is world history at this moment and it is really bad. Maybe the far left will wake up and realize America is the only hope the world has.
Even though Putin has 700,000 more men under arms, Ukraine means he will never be able to militarily attack Moldavia, nor the Balkans as his weakened army would get wiped out by NATO forces. We now have a direct view of Russian tactics and weaknesses. If Biden would act fast, and like a leader, Poland will give Ukraine the planes it needs to attack the artillery and tanks and wipe them out. In the interim drones are doing a good amount of damage and Russian soldiers are questioning what they are doing attacking people who are their relatives.. Putin miscalculated badly. If Biden had an ounce of brains and leadership, he would publicly announce that NATO will not allow Ukraine to be defeated, and tell Putin to go F himself. He should clearly say, don't dare step one inch into NATO territory, or we will destroy your army, and then take back all of Ukraine. Then he should put US nuclear forces on full alert, send more equipment and a full combat division and nuclear bombers and missiles to Europe, and let Russia's oligarchs and generals know we are ready to wipe you off the planet. The cavalry has arrived. Showing fear is the absolute worst way to deal with Putin, and right now Biden and NATO look weak, hesitant, and afraid. Putin holds the momentum. Biden and NATO do not understand the only way to deal with a bully is to out bully him They are afraid of provoking him. They don't understand that showing fear and weakness provokes him to do worse, where threatening him credibly is the way to deal with him. The CIA should get a couple of Ukrainians into Russia to assassinate a general or two in retaliation for trying to kill Zelensky.
Russians loved Putin because he fixed the mess Gorbachev left, and he brought average Russians a standard of living that for them seemed good. My guide in St Petersburg said she was able to buy French cheese, and to travel to western Europe, and for her that was a major step up, even though she and her 17 year old son lived in a 570 sq ft apartment. This is a woman with a PhD in physics earning a good living being a tour guide to westerners. Her father was head of a major research institute before Gorbachev, and then the institute was closed, and they barely survived on food they grew on the grounds of the institute. After Putin took over, their lives improved immensely. Now they are quickly going backwards due to sanctions. Putin can control his media, but he can't control the reality on the ground of no access to foreign currency at the bank while the Ruble crashes, huge inflation, no access to social media, decreasing products in stores, dead bodies coming home by the thousands (at least 5000 so far, and maybe as many as 11,000) , plus 3x that wounded and coming home by the thousands, and the truth beginning to get out. His oligarch buddies will be losing much of their wealth, and seeing the reality. In time, Putin will get taken out one way or another. I doubt there is any appetite in Russian power circles now, given how badly Ukraine is going, including among the generals, to try to invade a NATO country, and to start WWIII. For Russia that would be catastrophic, and I am sure they understand that now.
If you think I have been negative lately, this will not make you feel better. I am more negative on the economy and markets now. Oil is the most basic commodity in all economies, and now it is on a run much higher. Nobody knows how high. Diesel landed in NY Harbor is up well over 50% year to date, and moving higher quickly. Trucks run on diesel. Other machines run on diesel. Gas prices are headed much higher. The rule of thumb is $10 a barrel higher oil means $.30 at the pump. This means at $130 oil, gas is headed to pass $4.45 and potentially to $4.50 and more on average if oil continues rising. At $150 it is getting to over $5.00, and much more in places like CA with high taxes. That will crush the economy. The higher oil goes, the lower GDP goes. The White House is wedded to its climate ideology, and they love the high oil prices as they think it will force a massive shift to alternatives. They are wrong. Every administration member, and every Dem going on TV talks about alternative energy as a solution. They are idiots. The only fast solution is more US rigs pumping as fast as they can get on line, and that only happens if Biden ends all of the regs and fees and stoppages of pipelines and LNG terminals. A congressman from Long Island talked about wind energy from off Long Island as the solution. That project just started construction. It will be two years before that is available and then will only contribute a very minor amount of power relative to the demand on just part of Long Island. But the economic consequences for that ill- informed ideology is seriously negatively impacting the economy, and is creating an ending of GDP growth. It is a disaster for the low income worker whose real wages are going backwards. The private sector is not waiting for Biden to act, and so there is no more Russian oil or gas coming to the US or the UK now. Nobody will buy, finance, nor ship it. Biden is once again leading from far behind. It seems nobody on his staff is telling him the reality. Food prices are also about to go much higher as Ukraine is not able to plant wheat and corn.
Biden is now counting on the Iran deal to bail him out by having Iran pump oil again. It will not make a big difference. The Mullahs know this, so they are extracting more concessions. Biden wants to continue to support importing Russian oil until the Iran oil is coming, even though the private sector has already shut down Russian oil imports. So an Iran deal will happen as a result of the Ukraine war. Now he is considering traveling to Saudi to crawl on his knees to beg for more oil. His administration made a huge strategic error by slamming Saudis for Khashoggi. More lack of understanding of how the real world works by the far left ideology which never seems to consider the ramifications of their politics. Biden policy is total insanity for which the world will pay a huge price in the next year as Iran will have the money to finance new weapons and proxy wars. Everyone knows how desperate Biden is to do the Iran deal, so now Russia is making demands tied to the deal, and it is likely the US will cave. Russia wants sanctions not to apply to Russia and Iran transactions so that Russia can use Iran as their way to raise funds and transact business. One thing supposedly agreed by the US is to pay Iran billions to free 4 hostages. That breaks the policy of the US to never pay to free hostages. The Iran deal will lead to war in the Mideast, and will again show the US to be weak and stupid. Biden is a foreign policy disaster of historic proportions. The rush to climate change rules and policies is gong to drive the economy into recession, and has driven the world into war. If the Europeans, and mainly Merkel, had not been obsessed with climate change, there would be no dependance on Russia for energy, and Putin would be in a far less power position. The US would be able to be producing massive amounts of LNG for Europe and generating tens of billions for US producers and the government. What is even more absurd is Biden is now hoping Venezuela will provide us with oil. So he is willing to go there instead of the Permian basin. Stupidity knows no limits with this administration devotion to climate change which has priority over the lives of women and children in Ukraine. . We need to hope Congress will refuse to agree the deal, but I expect the Dems to approve, showing how ignorant they all are if they do.
If you want to know about Russian soldiers humanity. When I was in Azerbaijan they described seeing Russian tanks drive right over people in the street when they came to put down protests. In Grozny they literally obliterated the city and everyone in it . Putin and his generals have no iota of morality. They will bombard Ukrainians and destroy whole cities if they think they need to in order to take control. They already announced to Ukrainians that if they resist when the Russians arrive in a city, the city will be destroyed. We are dealing with medieval barbarism and Nazi equivalents. Anyone who thinks Putin or his generals can be made to think like a human is mistaken. Russian culture is one of war on a near continuous basis over 500 years. Their leaders from the 1600's onward through the czars were really mainly of German decent. Even Kathryn The Great was born German. They do not have the same moral cultural base that the west does.
For the stock market this is all bad news. Inflation will continue to be high, and going higher for a while, real wages will decline further, costs, especially food, will rise leading to more inflation, and soon the economy will slow. Meantime the Fed has stopped buying bonds, and is about to raise rates. That will be a material change to the economy. There will be no more big government spending programs, so no new fiscal stimulus, so no more asset bubble price rises-ie. the stock market. The combination will be a massive reduction in economic drivers and liquidity flowing into the system. Offsetting this is the end of Covid as a constraint. What should have been an explosive economic revival, will be muted due to inflation, and regulations pushed by the administration. GDP may not grow much in Q2 and may decline into recession in late Q3. Many believe we will have a recession in 2023. I believe it could be as soon as late Q3 2022, but nothing is predictable in this current world. Everyone now knows Biden just lies when he says BBB will reduce inflation, and when he claims he is doing a great job with the economy. Labor participation is still 1% below Feb 2020, and there are still 1.5 million fewer people working. The MSM never tells you that. The Dems are still pushing for more spending despite inflation running out of control. The Fed will be in a box. Inflation needs to be stopped, but the economy will be slowing, so raising rates to stop inflation may be prevented by a slower economy. It is the worst possible scenario for the Fed.
The result is a lower stock market for quite a while, and continuing volatility. Either the Fed raises a lot and slows growth, or they don't raise enough and inflation destroys the value of the dollar and real wages decline a lot, leading in time to a recession. There will be no further fiscal nor Fed subsidies to boost asset values for years. If you were not 100% in equities the past three years and making outsized gains, you missed it, maybe for a decade or longer. That is over. The period from 2018 through 2021 was a unique moment to make extraordinary profits in the market. From here we will see declines in the short run, and maybe 5% -9% average gains over the next few years when things turn around. Time to reset your portfolio and strategy. Time to be in only real growth companies who have a lot of cash, and strong management and leading edge technology in their products, or a major top position in their market like a Home Depot. The hot meme and SPAC game is over for years. The hot tech companies with no earnings is over. Quality and dividends is what you need once the market turns around, which will happen one of these days.
It is a good time to sit by and watch, and wait for the upturn even as your cash is not earning anything, and is deteriorating in value. When Ukraine ends, the market will rally, but that will not end inflation, and we do not know what the outcome will look like, nor when. There is plenty of time to go back in before a true lasting upturn. The periodic rallies in the market we have seen lately are dead cat bounces, so don't get sucked in. Wait until things sort out, and if you miss some upside by missing the bottom, be comforted you missed a lot of the downside. He who loses least now is a winner. This is a very risky time to invest. The risk of missing a big long term upside is minimal at the moment vs the risk of a further 10% or worse downturn. With the Dems in control, anything bad can happen. November is still a long way off. Nobody knows what may happen next, so there is no way anyone can credibly forecast the market right now. So ignore the talking heads on CNBC and Fox Business. They do not know anything more than you do. I can assure you that the little group of very top investors I communicate with almost daily is all over the lot, and their ranges of where the SPX will be at year end have huge spreads of 20%-30% upside to bottom. Nobody can predict anything about stock prices right now. Any guess is as good as any other. Preservation right now is far more important than getting in at the precise bottom. Patience is a great virtue in markets like this. The old Wall St axiom-pigs get slaughtered. The very good news is the credit markets are functioning very well and are liquid, stable and orderly, and the banks have huge capital cushions. In the US there will be no bank crisis. Nothing bad happened with the banks when the world economy shut down in 2020.
I am well aware of the Wisconsin special counsel investigation of the election of 2020. It is clear there was fraud and criminal activity by Zuckerberg. But that is not proof the national election, nor even the Wisconsin result would have been different enough to change the national result, and there is zero chance they will decertify the results. You can believe any of the stuff on the internet you choose, but there will not be a reelection. Biden won. People need to be prosecuted and laws changed and enforced, but there will not be a decertification. The important thing is to prevent it in November and 2024. Republicans need to have lawyers on call as soon as something appears leading up to November so they can go to court immediately. Everyone needs to move on and ignore all of Trump's incendiary rhetoric which will only serve to harm Republican candidates by using Trump as the way to attack Republicans.
Take Back America and save the world
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Has Barr backtracked or has his distaste of Biden and his radical radicals forced his hand?
Barr Comes Crawling Back To Trump?
Has Barr lost his mind?
Former President Donald Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr appears to be attempting to get back in Trump’s good graces after he wrote a book bashing the former president during his time in office.
According to Newsmax, Barr suggested in an interview that he would vote for Trump again if he decided to run again in 2024.
“Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party, it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee,” Barr said in an interview with NBC
“It’s hard to project what the facts are gonna turn out to be three years hence, but as of now, it’s hard for me to conceive that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee,” Barr reiterated.
Barr was then asked directly if he would vote for Trump in 2024 if he ran and he responded, “Well, I certainly have made it clear – I don’t think he should be our nominee, and I’m going to support somebody else for the nominee,” however Barr suggested that he would still vote for the GOP candidate nonetheless over a Democrat.
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Reverend Al could learn a thing or two on how to "really" shakedown the idiots who run many of America's major companies like Coca Cola, Delta etc.
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