China and Russia Just Shocked the US Government With This Move! (Video - 13mn)

  A new world order is being implemented step by step. Probably slower than people expect but taking everything into consideration at a relatively fast pace. 

 

The Incoming Commercial Real Estate Crisis No One Seems Prepared For

  The US office real estate bubble is huge and will probably bankrupt many American Banks by the middle of next year considering the large amount of refinance necessary which technically cannot happen at 5%+.

  Of course this bubble pale compared to the Chinese real estate bubble which is imploding right now. Just as it was the case in Japan 30 years ago, the implosion will not tank the Chinese economy but it will put a severe brake on future growth. All in all, just as the Japan "miracle" ended in a bubble, the Chinese miracle will probably do likewise. To keep growing, China must transform its economy into a more modern one and in so doing enter into direct competition to Europe and the US adding pressure to the country foreign relations.

  And just to prove that mankind, at the social level is unable or at the very least very slow to learn anything, Japan is blowing another real estate bubble. Luckily, 2.0 is restricted to central Tokyo and a few other major cities like Osaka and Fukuoka. It is fueled by foreign money taking advantage of the weak Yen to invest massively in the country. Taking no account whatsoever of demand or the ever present risk of a major earthquake. What could go wrong?

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times

It has been a year since a string of U.S. regional bank failures, together with the collapse of global heavyweight Credit Suisse, caused many to fear that a major financial crisis was imminent.

But, by the summer of 2023, the panicked withdrawals by frightened depositors largely subsided.

In February, however, New York Community Bank (NYCB) appeared to resurrect the crisis when it announced $2.4 billion in losses, fired its CEO, and faced credit downgrades from rating agencies Fitch and Moodys.

In what has become a familiar tale for U.S. regional banks, NYCB’s share price plummeted by 60 percent virtually overnight, erasing billions of dollars from its market value, and its depositors fled en masse.

“I think that there’s more to come,” Peter Earle, a securities analyst and senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times.

Underlying this year’s turbulence is the fact that many regional banks are sitting on large portfolios of distressed commercial real estate (CRE) loans. according to Mr. Earle. And many are attempting to cope through a process called “extend and pretend,” in which they grant insolvent borrowers more time to pay in hopes that things will get better.

“There is trouble out there, and most of it probably won’t be realized because of the ability to roll some of these loans forward and buy a few more years, and maybe things will recover by then,” he said.

“But all it does is it kicks the can down the road, and it basically means a more fragile financial system in the medium term.”

NYCB’s problem was an overwhelming exposure to New York landlords who were struggling to stay solvent. At the start of this year, the bank had on its books more than $18 billion in loans to multifamily, rent-controlled housing developments.

This situation was particularly concerning given that NYCB had been the safe-haven institution that rescued Signature Bank, another failing regional bank, in March 2023.

Much of what took down banks such as Signature Bank in last year’s banking crisis was an unmanageable level of deposits from high net worth and corporate clients that were too large to be insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

In Signature Bank’s case, about 90 percent of its deposits were uninsured, and depositors rushed to withdraw their money when the bank came under stress from losses in the cryptocurrency market.

Another source of stress for regional banks was their inability to cope with an aggressive series of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation. Many banks that held large bond portfolios yielding low fixed rates found that the value of these portfolios declined sharply, creating unrealized losses.

While these portfolios, often made up of U.S. Treasury securities, were considered safe from a credit perspective, they were subject to market risk, and their loss of value sparked concerns about the banks’ solvency in the event they had to be sold. As stock traders rushed to sell the shares of banks with large exposures to interest rate risk, customers became spooked and raced to withdraw their money.

Consequently, unrealized losses quickly became actual losses as banks were forced to sell bonds and loans at a loss in an increasingly futile attempt to make panicking depositors whole.

Rate Hikes Cease, Problems Remain

Today, while interest rates remain high, they are relatively stable. And yet concerns about the health of U.S. regional banks remain because of their large exposure through CRE, including office buildings, multifamily housing units, and retail spaces.

While CRE loans make up about 13 percent of the balance sheets of the biggest U.S. banks, they make up 44 percent of regional banks’ lending portfolios. CRE loans designated as nonperforming doubled as a percentage of U.S. banks’ portfolios from 0.4 percent in 2022 to 0.81 percent by the end of 2023.

In total, there are about 130 regional banks in the United States, with a little more than $3 trillion in assets. These banks, which each have between $10 billion and $100 billion in assets, are typically more exposed to the boom and bust of local markets but also to specific sectors within those markets where they have been able to operate profitably.

While other credit sectors, such as home mortgages, car loans, and corporate loans, are generally the domain of larger financial institutions, regional banks have found a profitable niche in lending to real estate investors. But in the past several years, commercial landlords have been taking hits from two directions.

Since the introduction of lockdowns and the rise of work-at-home culture during the COVID-19 pandemic, many corporations have viewed office rents as a cost ripe for cutting.

According to an April CRE report by Commercial Edge, the office vacancy rate across the United States was 18.2 percent as of March, an increase of 1.5 percent over the prior year.

“U.S. office vacancy rates have increased in recent years as companies embrace remote and hybrid work and re-examine their office footprints,” the report reads. “The increases are not concentrated in just one market or sector.”

Yellen Threatens German Banks With Sanctions; EU Approves Using Russian Asset Profits For Ukraine's Defense

  Remember when Central Banks were supposed to be focused on monetary policies and be politically neutral?

  What a joke! Now that we see the full weaponization of finance, no wonder why the BRICS are in a rush to create their alternative financial system.  

  We are now approaching the end of the Bretton Woods and World Bank systems built after the second World War. But instead of implementing a more open system inclusive of the new economic giants, the US is accelerating the demise of what they painstakingly built over almost a century. The crash is fast approaching but unfortunately so is the risk of a world conflagration.

Yellen Threatens German Banks With Sanctions; EU Approves Using Russian Asset Profits For Ukraine's Defense

In a rare moment of tensions among allies, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is demanding that German bank executives get serious about complying with anti-Russia sanctions, warning further that German banks could find themselves under sanctions.

She warned them of secondary sanctions meant to thwart deals with Russian entities in a meeting among bank leaders in Frankfurt. "Russia continues to procure sensitive goods and to expand its ability to domestically manufacture these goods. We must remain vigilant and be more ambitious," Yellen said. "I urge all institutions here to take heightened compliance measures and to increase your focus on Russian evasion attempts."

According to Reuters, "In an unusually direct warning, she told the executives to police sanctions compliance among their banks' foreign branches and subsidiaries and reach out to foreign correspondent banking customers to do the same, especially in high-risk jurisdictions."

"Russia is desperate to obtain critical goods from advanced economies like Germany and the United States," Yellen continued. "We must remain vigilant to prevent the Kremlin’s ability to supply its defense industrial base, and to access our financial systems to do so."

Washington's pressure campaign to force out Russian interests from Europe appears to be bearing fruit:

Earlier this month, Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) dropped a bid for a 1.5 billion euro ($1.6 billion) industrial stake linked to Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska after intense U.S. pressure.

The deal's collapse was a fresh setback for the lender, which faces criticism for its ties to Moscow more than two years since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The pressure also underscored Washington's willingness to take European banks to task over their Russia ties.

A spokesman later said, "RBI will continue to work towards the de-consolidation of its Russian subsidiary."

Meanwhile the European Union has finally approved a US-backed plan to use seized Russian assets to generate profits which will in turn help arm Ukraine. 

Associated Press reports that "The 27-nation EU is holding around 210 billion euros ($225 billion) in Russian central bank assets, most of it frozen in Belgium, in retaliation for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. It estimates that the interest on that money could provide around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) each year." A first tranche of funds could be available as early as July.

Starting in February, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen began getting more vocal on the "moral case" for using Russian assets to aid Ukraine, telling allies they must find a way to "unlock the value" of the hundreds of billions in immobilized Russian assets, also with an eye towards Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.

Previously some Ukrainian officials floated the idea of "reparation bonds" backed by future claims for war damages against Moscow, and utilizing frozen Russian assets. These initiatives have gained steam under US leadership. Most of the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets are held in Europe - particularly France, Germany, and Belgium.

Taxpayer Costs Skyrocket As Two-Thirds Of Jobless Benefit Recipients In Germany Are Migrants

  Between the wrong type of immigration, of energy policies and external relations, the suicide on Germany is on tracks. by 2030, what was the richest country in Europe will be on its knees. Not that is matters much since by then Europe will be destroyed, either financially or more ominously militarily. Thankfully meanwhile the country is focusing on net zero, transgenders and Russia bashing. Can countries actually go mad?

Authored by Thomas Brooke via ReMix News,

Nearly two-thirds of German residents receiving unemployment benefits have a migration background, new figures from the Federal Employment Agency have revealed.

The statistics published by the federal agency and cited by the Die Welt broadsheet showed that 63.1 percent of those in receipt of the so-called citizen’s income, or “Bürgergeld,” are of migrant origin, and “most do not have a German passport.”

The German newspaper explained that while employment figures are increasing year-over-year, “because the Federal Republic has long allowed very high immigration of low-skilled people, the number of migrants who are unemployed and receiving social benefits is also increasing.”

The figures define “migration background” as anyone who themselves or whose parents were born without German citizenship, i.e., first- and second-generation migrants.

Of the 3.93 million people eligible for the taxpayer-funded benefit as of December 2023, some 2.48 million were classed as being of a migration background, with 1.83 million recipients not having German citizenship.

The percentage varies considerably among the federal states. In Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, and Hamburg, more than 7 in 10 of all recipients are migrants at 76.4 percent, 74.1 percent, and 72.8 percent, respectively.

There exists a strong correlation between the rise in the migrant population and the percentage of welfare benefits going to migrants, giving weight to the argument that mass immigration of low-skilled workers is not a net benefit to Europe’s largest economy.

In 2013, the percentage of the German population with a migration background was 20 percent, with 43 percent of benefit recipients being migrants. Today, 29 percent of the German population are foreign-born and 63 percent of unemployment benefits are handed to migrants.

In July last year, a response by Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs Anette Kramme to a request made by the Alternative for Germany MP René Springer revealed that the number of German recipients of welfare benefits had halved since 2010, while the number of foreign nationals receiving payments had doubled.

The cost to the taxpayer has skyrocketed since 2010, with a 122 percent increase on the €6.9 billion bill then to around €15.4 billion a year today.

Springer said at the time that Germany desperately needed to implement “a restrictive immigration policy that effectively prevents immigration into our social systems. The citizens’ income introduced by the federal government, on the other hand, acts like an immigration magnet.”

Joe Biden Tariffs Against China Just Backfired on the US Economy! (Video - 14mn)

 Tariffs at this stage are not just absurd, they are counterproductive and the symbol of America's decline. Think about Boeing giving back money to its shareholders (and 55 million dollars to its president!) applied to car manufacturing, solar panels, batteries, microchips.

  Just to jump to something completely unrelated, if we are as good as containing AI as the Americans are at containing China, may god have pity on us!

 

Jim Rickards' Last WARNING about the BRICS and the fall of the dollar. (Video - 23mn)

  The BRICS have got the US dollar cornered as the dollar is on its last foot. 

  Great talk by Jim Rickards!

 

Ex-CDC Director Says It's High Time To Admit 'Significant Side Effects' Of COVID-19 Vaccines

  "Never too late!" comes to mind! In Japan too, some voices are starting to be heard against the mRNA vaccines. They are simply not yet operational and therefore dangerous. Now the real problem is that we've known that from the very beginning. And those who promoted their safety are the same people who also managed to skip the tests. If this is not criminal, what is?

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

Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Thursday that many officials who tried to warn the public about potential problems with COVID-19 vaccines were pressured into silence and that it’s high time to admit that there were “significant” side effects that made people sick.

Then director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert Redfield, holds up a document while testifying in Washington, DC, on Sept. 16, 2020 in (Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)

Dr. Redfield made the remarks in a May 16 interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation, during which he lamented the loss of public confidence in public health agencies because of a lack of transparency around the vaccines, which he said “saved a lot of lives” but also made some people “quite ill.”

“Those of us that tried to suggest there may be significant side effects from vaccines ... we kind of got canceled because no one wanted to talk about the potential that there was a problem from the vaccines, because they were afraid that that would cause people not to want to get vaccinated,” Dr. Redfield said.

In his role as head of the CDC, Dr. Redfield was part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, a project to surge COVID-19 vaccine development at a time during the pandemic when little was known about the virus and rapid vaccine rollout was widely seen as key to getting the outbreak under control and lockdowns lifted.

In September 2020, a few months before the first COVID-19 vaccines were given in the United States, Dr. Redfield testified before the Senate that COVID-19 represented the “most significant public health challenge to face our nation in more than a century,” and that the prevailing view among scientists at the time was that the overall case fatality rate of the disease was somewhere between 0.4 and 0.6 percent in the United States.

“If you were to look right now, individuals under the age of 18, it’s about 0.01 percent, 19 to say 69, it’s more like 0.3 percent. And if you’re over the age of 70, it’s about 5 percent now,” he testified at the time.

While there’s lingering controversy about the severity of COVID-19, a recent study estimates that the global case fatality rate was 8.5 percent in February 2020 but had plunged to 0.27 percent in August 2022, meaning that the estimated relative risk reduction over that time was a whopping 96.8 percent.

In his interview on NewsNation, Dr. Redfield said that the vaccines that were developed as part of Operation Warp Speed were “important” and saved “a lot of lives.” However, despite their benefits, the drawbacks of the vaccines must be a matter of open discussion, he said.

“They’re important for the most vulnerable people, those over 60, 65 years of age. They really aren’t that critical for those that are under 50 or younger. But those vaccines saved a lot of lives, but they also—we have to be honest, some people got significant side effects from the vaccine,” he said.

“I have a number of people that are quite ill and they never had COVID, but they are ill from the vaccine,” he continued. “And we just have to acknowledge that.”

Vaccine Controversy

The severity of COVID-19 remains a matter of debate because it’s unclear whether deaths were overcounted or undercounted due to various factors, such as lack of clarity around the role of underlying medical conditions in fatalities in cases where COVID-19 was listed as the primary cause, or underreporting of asymptomatic infections. Aside from the issue of whether people died “from” COVID-19 or “with” a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, there have also been questions about the role of secondary pneumonia caused by mechanical ventilation.

Either way, a study from January 2023 indicates that the global case fatality rate from COVID-19 has dropped dramatically over the course of the pandemic. Global case fatalities ranged from 1.7 to 39.0 percent in February to March of 2020, according to the study—but fell to below 0.3 percent in July to August 2022.

The researchers estimate that the risk of death from COVID-19 has dropped by 96.8 percent over the course of the pandemic.

Along with a decline in COVID-19 fatalities, there have been growing concerns about vaccine side effects, given that a significant number of vaccinated people have reported various adverse reactions.

The most common COVID-19 vaccine adverse events are those that affect the body generally, with fever, fatigue, and overall discomfort being the top three, according to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). But there are others.

For instance, heart muscle inflammation (myocarditis) and inflammation of the lining outside the heart (pericarditis) have both officially been acknowledged by the CDC as a known side effect of Moderna’s and Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

Nervous system disorders have also been reported, with such disorders being the third most common in the Pfizer trials, coming after general and muscle-related adverse events.

There have also been papers linking spike-protein-based COVID-19 vaccines to skin problems, a dull ringing in the ears known as tinnitus, visual impairments, blood clotting, and even death. Recent reporting from EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders“ program indicates that the likelihood of death associated with COVID-19 vaccines (in close proximity to the shot rather than proven as caused by it) was over 100 times greater than for flu vaccines.

There are also concerns about a post-vaccination jump in excess deaths and disability.

The CDC still recommends that people of all ages receive a COVID-19 vaccine, saying that the potential side effects do not outweigh the potential harms of getting sick with COVID-19.

In a notice published in late April, the agency again called for adults aged 65 and older to get the latest version of the vaccines.

We are getting closer to nuclear war! (Video - 53mn)

  "We are getting closer to nuclear war!" That's Canadian Preper, so you'd guess he's on the edge of reality. Fine. Except that gold at 2420 dollar per once would tend to agree. At this speed, we'll be well past 3000 by the Summer.

This Is How They Plan To Control All Of Us, And It's Terrifying (Video - 5mn)

  No, we are not crazy. The conspiracy is real. Here's the proof!

 

Why The Dollar Will Lose Its Status As Global Reserve Currency

  Great post on how the US, just like Rome at the end is undermining itself. 

  One huge caveat as the author completely miss the meaning of the Russo-Chinese alliance and the potential of the BRICS to coalesce developing countries into a non dollar block. 

  But overall, there can be no doubts at this stage: We are at the very edge of momentous changes. 408, 476, 1453, 1789, 1914, history will decide but it is likely that 2024 or maybe 2025 will be added to the list.

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

By the early 400s, the Roman Empire was coming apart at the seams and in desperate need of strong, competent leadership. In theory, Honorius should have been the right man for the job.

Born into the royal household in Constantinople, Honorius had been groomed to rule, practically since birth, by the finest experts in the realm. So even as a young man, Honorius had already accumulated decades of experience.

Yet Rome’s foreign adversaries rightfully believed Honorius to be weak, out of touch, divisive, and completely inept.

He had entered into bonehead peace treaties that strengthened Rome’s enemies. He paid vast sums of money to some of their most powerful rivals and received practically nothing in return. He made virtually no attempt to secure Roman borders, leaving the empire open to be ravaged by barbarians.

Inflation was high. Taxes were high. Economic production declined. Roman military power declined. And all of Rome’s foreign adversaries were emboldened.

To a casual observer it would have almost seemed as if Honorius went out of his way to make the Empire weaker.

One of Rome’s biggest threats came in the year 408, when the barbarian king Alaric invaded Italy; imperial defenses were so non-existent at that point that ancient historians described Alaric’s march towards Rome as unopposed and leisurely, as if they were “at some festival” rather than an invasion.

Alaric and his army arrived to the city of Rome in the autumn of 408 AD and immediately positioned their forces to cut off any supplies. No food could enter the city, and before long, its residents began to starve.

Historians have passed down horrific stories of cannibalism– including women eating their own children in order to survive.

Rather than send troops and fight, however, Honorius agreed to pay a massive ransom to Alaric, including 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and literally tons of other real assets and commodities.

(The equivalent in today’s money, adjusted for population, would be billions of dollars… similar to what the US released to Iran in a prisoner swap last year.)

Naturally Honorius didn’t have such a vast sum in his treasury… so Romans were forced to strip down and melt their shrines and statues in order to pay Alaric’s ransom.

Ironically, one of the statues they melted was a monument to Virtus, the Roman god of bravery and strength… leading the ancient historian Zosimus to conclude that “all which remained of Roman valor and intrepidity was totally extinguished.”

Rome had spent two centuries in the early days of the empire– from the rise of Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD– as the clear, unrivaled superpower. Almost no one dared mess with Rome, and few who did ever lived to tell the tale.

Modern scholars typically view the official “fall” of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476. But it’s pretty clear that the collapse of Roman power and prestige took place decades before.

When Rome was ransomed in 408 (then sacked in 410), it was obvious to everyone at the time that the Emperor no longer had a grip on power.

And before long, most of the lands in the West that Rome had once dominated– Italy, Spain, France, Britain, North Africa, etc. were under control of various Barbarian tribes and kingdoms.

The Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Burgundians, Berbers, etc. all established independent kingdoms. And for a while, there was no dominant superpower in western Europe. It was a multi-polar world. And the transition was rather abrupt.

This is what I think is happening now– we’re experiencing a similar transition, and it seems equally abrupt.

The United States has been the world’s dominant superpower for decades. But like Rome in the later stage of its empire, the US is clearly in decline. This should not be a controversial statement.

Let’s not be dramatic; it’s important to stay focused on facts and reality. The US economy is still vast and potent, and the country is blessed with an abundance of natural resources– incredibly fertile farmland, some of the world’s largest freshwater resources, and incalculable reserves of energy and other key commodities.

In fact, it’s amazing the people in charge have managed to screw it up so badly. And yet they have.

The national debt is out of control, rising by trillions of dollars each year. Debt growth, in fact, substantially outpaces US economic growth.

Social Security is insolvent, and the program’s own trustees (including the US Treasury Secretary) admit that its major trust fund will run out of money in just nine years.

The people in charge never seem to miss an opportunity to dismantle capitalism (i.e. the economic system that created so much prosperity to begin with) brick by brick.

Then there are ubiquitous social crises: public prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law; the weaponization of the justice system; the southern border fiasco; declining birth rates; extraordinary social divisions that are most recently evidenced by the anti-Israel protests.

And most of all the US constantly shows off its incredibly dysfunctional government that can’t manage to agree on anything, from the budget to the debt ceiling. The President has obvious cognitive disabilities and makes the most bizarre decisions to enrich America’s enemies.

Are these problems fixable? Yes. Will they be fixed? Maybe. But as we used to say in the military, “hope is not a course of action”.

Plotting this current trajectory to its natural conclusion leads me to believe that the world will enter a new “barbarian kingdom” paradigm in which there is no dominant superpower.

Certainly, there are a number of rising rivals today. But no one is powerful enough to assume the leading role in the world.

China has a massive population and a huge economy. But it too has way too many problems… with the obvious challenge that no one trusts the Communist Party. So, most likely China will not be the dominant superpower.

India’s economy will eventually surpass China’s, and it has an even bigger population. But India isn’t even close to the ballpark of being the world’s superpower.

Then there’s Europe. Combined, it still has a massive economic and trade union. But it has also been in major decline… with multiple social crises like low birth rates and a migrant invasion.

Then there are the energy powers like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia; they are far too small to dominate the world, but they have the power to menace and disrupt it.

The bottom line is that the US is no longer strong enough to lead the world and keep adversarial nations in check. And it’s clear that other countries are already adapting to this reality.

Earlier this month, for example, China successfully launched a rocket to the moon as part of a multi-decade mission to establish an International Lunar Research Station.

By 2045, China hopes to construct a large, city-like base along with several international partners including Russia, Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Egypt. Turkey and Nicaragua are also interested in joining.

This is pretty remarkable given how many nations are participating, even if just nominally. Yet the US isn’t part of the consortium.

This would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. But today the rest of the world realizes that they no longer need American funding, leadership, or expertise.

We can see similar examples everywhere, most notably in Israel and Ukraine. And I believe one of the next shoes to drop will be the US dollar.

After all, if the rest of the world doesn’t need the US for space exploration, and they can ignore the US when it comes down to World War 3, then why should they need the US dollar anymore?

The dollar was the clear and obvious choice as the global reserve currency back when America was the undisputed superpower. But today it’s a different world.

Foreign nations continuing to rely on the dollar ultimately means governments and central banks buying US government bonds. And why should they take such a risk when the national debt is already 120% of GDP?

In addition, Congress passed a new law a few weeks ago authorizing the Treasury Department to confiscate US dollar assets of any country it deems an “aggressor state.”

While people might think this is a morally righteous idea, the reality is that it will only turn off foreign investors. Why should China, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else buy US government bonds when they can be confiscated in a heartbeat?

All of this ultimately leads to a world in which the US dollar is no longer the dominant reserve currency. We’re already starting to see signs of that shift, and it could be in full swing by the end of the decade.