Is Vlad Mad or the World Wacky?
Don't disturb the children by letting them know they are human.
We begin this week all feeling something like a hangover from a world-gone-wild weekend where it seems like all Russians have been hitting the hard potato water a little too hard. However, before we get into the world of the weird that is apparently now the new norm, let me touch on the economic news that starts our wacky week.
Of first minor-but-slightly-peculiar note, we are experiencing an oil glut. Less oil is shipping because more is sitting. It’s a case of the anchored tankers. We’re seeing the largest amount of oil being stored on the surface of the ocean since the lockdowns of 2020 when almost nothing was moving because nothing was happening economically. But why now? It appears on-land storage tanks are brimming, perhaps because demand is weakening. No one seems to quite know why in the Oilprice.com article that follows. This we do know: China’s industrial recovery after it ended its extreme Covid lockdowns has failed to meet any expectations, and its stimulus package has already petered out; so, China doesn’t have as much use for oil as people thought it would.
Morgan Stanley’s top strategist, who has been right more than any other big-bankster strategist in stocks, has faced an uphill battle with his bearishness this year; but he is doubling down on doom with his latest forecast that a big correction is imminent. Michael Wilson says risks for stocks have rarely been higher. The bond market is also likely to face a major correction soon because the recent surge in new Treasury issuances was nothing but a warm-up act compared to what is coming later this year and next year that could bring a polar-bear plunge in prices (rise in yields).
Apparently a big correction is imminent for Putin’s new arch-nemesis and former friend, too. After a weekend of monster bites monster, no one has heard a peep out of Wagner’s normally noisy Prigozhin, leading some to ask if he got disappeared. If he hasn’t been “disappeared” already, I’m sure it won’t be long before we hear that Prigozhin took a short stroll off a high Belarussian roof or has joined Putin’s nuclear family of adversaries who ate too much beryllium borscht. (Unless, of course, he’s planning a surprise visit from Belarus’s border south to Kyiv for the summer.)
In other adversarial news, the BRICS currencies continue to crumble against the dollar. The dollar still sits on top of the rubble of the ruble, but it is a price comparison that doesn’t have much validity in the face of the fact that the volume of rubles actually finding a path to trade against dollars has been diminished to a small sidestream on the market. At the same time, the yawning yuan is slowly but consistently digging its own hole to China in the world’s currency markets.
In other sideshows, or things that should have been sideshows that have now become mainstream news because society has been sipping too many silly slushies laced with hormones lately, parents and teachers are now being warned not to make school kids who self-identify as animals feel uncomfortable. To show you how extreme things are becoming with the self-indentifying movement, my own small, highly conservative Trumped-up, so-red-it-glows, and absolutely lovable, practically crime-free, farm community now has a school where one teacher is providing a litter box for one of the students who identifies as a cat and is allowed to answer questions with meows.
So I heard over the weekend, anyway, from a local merchant; though, I am not entirely certain she was not conflating whatever she had heard from a friend with the news I published last week about teachers in the UK enabling students who identify as furries (or as the moon — actual fact, lunacy knowing no bounds these days) to continue to believe in their fantasies. Having questioned her over the possibility of the story coming from the UK, which now stands for Unitedly Krazy, or maybe United Kitties, she tells me that it did not. Apparently, it is seen as healthier for a child to be given a litter box to scratch in so that the reality around her conforms with what she believes, than to help the child understand it is actually a human being and can use a toilet. If so, Amerika is as kitten-krazy as the UK.
We’ve reached a phase where so much weird stuff is happening that you cannot easily sort by common sense what is real news and what is hysteria because the real news often looks hysterical. Take, for example, the video interview posted below where one girl cannot figure out, when interviewed by a black guy, why it is peculiar that she thinks people can change their gender simply by declaring it is what it isn’t; yet, she insists they cannot change their race, though she cannot explain why. As her Black interviewer points out, it should be easier to change your race than your gender. The girl argues back “NO because you cannot change your skin color.” Well, except that you can. Michael Jackson certainly did. He changed his nose, too. He did everything he needed to do, except officially declare himself White … and it was a lot easier and less painful than changing gender. Well, he did everything he needed to, except change his genes, because neither gender benders nor the racially ridiculous can change their own genes.
And to think it was only two years ago I was writing that the next step in this social charade of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” would be for people to begin to declare they are a different race than what they were born and then would start to declare they are a different species. I thought that would take, at least, five years to come about! Silly me to underestimate the speed of crazy. I think that is one thing people like about Mad Vlad — dictatorial and life-crushing as he is — he is also, at least, sane enough to stand against the gushing insanity of Western culture. Now we have schools affirming the alternative-species choices of children because the teachers are so afraid of damaging the forming children’s identities by helping them realize they are actually humans and not fantasies.
Economica (stocks in bondage, bonds in the stockade, market madness, etc.)
Treasury Bill Barrage Is Just a Prelude to Longer-Term Debt Deluge
Oil glut? Global Floating Oil Storage Hits Highest Level Since October 2020
Gloom Grips China Markets Again as Stimulus Trade Fizzles Out
The Bears Still Rule Oil Markets
Corporate bankruptcies and defaults are surging – here’s why
Top tech execs gather around India’s Modi as China’s economy falters
‘The Black Swan’ author Nassim Nicholas Taleb on looming crisis: The risk is in front of us
Housing Bubble Bust 2.0 (including commercial & global real estate)
Mortgage catastrophe brews in Britain as millions are pushed toward insolvency
Money Matters (monetary policy, gold, silver, cryptos, currency wars & cashless)
Yuan Weakens to 7-Month Low Despite China’s Move to Stem Decline
Ruble Hits Weakest in 15 Months After Wagner Challenges Putin
Is Gold in a New Bull Market Phase?
Precious Metals Investor Sentiment Deteriorates As Sweet Silver Setup Ripens
Overinflated (too much money chasing too few goods)
Core CPI in Japan Worst since 1981. Food Inflation Worst since 1976. But Energy Prices Plunge
Wars & Rumors of War, Civil Conflicts & Unrest
Putin is on his way out, but things could go from Vlad to worse
Ukraine makes huge strides against Russia in counterattack as Putin distracted by chaos
Prigozhin, “dead man walking;” Shoigu, large and in charge; but Russia minus Wagner is weaker.
Russian War without Wagner is Weaker
Did Prigozhin Just Get Disappeared
Hacks & Cyberattacks (plus threats from artificial intelligence)
Meta’s unrestriced AI lets people make chatbots. They’re using it for sex.
‘The 2024 elections are going to be a mess’ because of A.I. says Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Politics & Social Decay (national & international)
Parents, teachers warned not to ridicule schoolkids who identify as animals
Clueless Girl Asked if Changing Race Is Like Changing Gender
RFK Jr Promises to FINALLY, After Six Decades, Release Documents About His Uncle's Assassination
DeSantis voters: Angry at Fauci, anxious about 'Cinderfella,' tiring of Trump
The Weird Sleeper Issue Biden Is Betting on for His Re-Election
Oregon monitors your car to charge by the mile instead of the gallon. Other states closing in.
Worshippers outraged as Neo-Nazis wave swastika flags outside Georgia synagogue
A Pox Upon Us (the plagues & pandemic policing of the 2020’s)
24-year CDC lab director blows the whistle on the 'pandemic,' a hysteria driven by junk science
Remember When DEMOCRATS Were The Anti-Vaxxers???
Even the Most Cautious Americans Are Leaving Covid Behind
Cataclysm & Calamity! (extreme weather, earthquakes, fires & floods)
Off-the-Beat or Just Plain Offbeat News (merely off-topic or all-out weird)
Fox News Reclaims Top Primetime Spot
End of the Yellow Brick Road: Elton John Bids Fond Farewell
Can children that identify as cats be spayed or neutered like a cat? Can their health care be performed by a vet? Do they get the same shots as my housecat? (versus human immunization schedule)
So many questions...