Politics

Goldman Sachs analysts have noted a “significant uptick” in merger and acquisition rumors in the press over the past six weeks. The investment bank forecasts positive M&A growth trends over the next 12 months, signaling a potential rebound in dealmaking activity. 

Analysts Matt Michon and Hannah Taylor penned a note Wednesday to clients about the surge in M&A headlines.

“In the last six weeks, there has been a significant uptick in M&A “rumours” relative to the prior three-quarters so hopefully an encouraging sign that corporate activity is picking-up…!” they said. 

The list of companies below is part of the desk’s M&A monitor, which shows “potential M&A situations reported through the press” and also “highlighted in blue are those with news updates since our last note.” A list of failed M&A approaches was also recorded. 

Most recent M&A headlines… 

Failed M&A approaches. 

In a separate but recent note, Goldman analysts James Yaro and Richard Ramsden told clients that internal leading indicators “forecast 20% M&A growth over the next twelve months.”   

The latest remarks from the FOMC Minutes suggest that Fed officials are leaning toward a more gradual interest rate-cutting cycle. One that could certainly provide relief to corporates… 

Via SchiffGold.com,

Last week, Peter participated in a ZeroHedge debate moderated by Keith Knight (who also interviewed Peter recently). He faced off against Bitcoin advocate Robert Breedlove on his show, “What is Money?”  Peter and Robert discuss the future use cases of Bitcoin and gold, the philosophy and economics behind money, and what it would take for each other to change their minds and renounce their preferred sound money.

Keith has the debaters start with common ground. The state is the source and cause of inflation, and inflation is a devastating tax on consumers:

The effect of that [inflation] is that prices go up. It offsets the decline in prices that might otherwise have resulted from an efficient, growing, free-market economy, where the tendency is for prices to come down over time. Governments can rob people of those benefits by creating inflation. Inflation is not just how much prices go up, and that’s not just the result. It’s how much they might have otherwise gone down, had the government not created the inflation that caused them to go down less or to go up.

As they move into the debate, Peter presents the Austrian school of economics’ explanation for the origin of money. Notably, precious metals needed some non-monetary use before they were used as a medium of exchange:

Before money, people traded goods, but it was cumbersome because you needed a coincidence of needs. … But man eventually found out that they could have one commodity that could be used in exchange for all other commodities. And gold was basically the commodity that ended up being money. Other commodities have been money, and they can be money, but gold just fulfills that role very well for a lot of the properties that Bitcoin copied. … And what gives gold value is the fact that it’s a precious metal that we need because it, you know, it does a lot of things.

Peter contends that even if cryptocurrencies are eventually used as money, there’s no good reason to think Bitcoin will out-compete other coins, especially in the future:

There’s nothing unique about Bitcoin. You say Bitcoin is the only thing. There’s tens of thousands of other tokens that I could create, that have been created, that will be created. There is nothing special about Bitcoin that anybody else can’t copy or replicate.

All that it has is that it has more people who believe in it right now. You have more computer capacity behind it. But that could change.

The odds that anyone’s even going to care about Bitcoin in 10 years, I think, are pretty low.

The fervor around Bitcoin today is driven by speculation. Most retail investors in Bitcoin are not Bitcoin maximalists who actually expect it to function as a medium of exchange:

The main driver is speculation. In fact, the main buying right now for Bitcoin is coming from ETFs. … They’re buying it because they think the price of this ETF is going to go up.

It has got nothing to do with Bitcoin as money… It’s just that people are buying that particular speculative asset in their brokerage accounts instead of some other speculative asset because, for the moment, they think there’s upside.

Robert raises the problem of counterparty risk, which Bitcoin solves under some circumstances. Peter counters by pointing out counterparty risk is inherent in a market economy. Even Robert tolerates counterparty risk, and market forces tend to minimize its effect:

Your main problem then with gold … is you’re saying that you don’t trust the custodian. That the custodian is going to loan out or embezzle my gold, or they’re going to do something. And so gold can’t work in the electronic world of the future because you can’t trust counterparties, that we’re all criminals, and capitalism doesn’t really work in that respect because there’s no way to know who’s honest and who’s a crook. And you can’t trust counterparties. Let me ask you, Rob, do you have any insurance at all? Like life insurance, fire insurance, health insurance, auto insurance—do you have any insurance?

In Peter’s closing segment, he argues that future technology will enhance gold’s monetary properties rather than supplant them. Moving back to metals, not crypto, is the path forward:

Gold, you know, has worked for thousands of years, and the technology associated with digitization, the internet, and computers doesn’t make gold obsolete or diminish its role in any way. In fact, it makes gold perform all of the functions it has performed so successfully over the centuries that much better. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel and getting people to think, ‘Oh, let’s just create this new money out of thin air and pretend it has value,’ like Bitcoin, efforts and resources should be spent trying to move the world back to a gold standard and away from fiat money.

Earlier this fall, Peter also debated Bitcoiner Jack Mallers on Bitcoin. Make sure to check it out!

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in response to a question about his country’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific that this “will depend on the deployment of corresponding US systems in any region of the world.” This came less than a week after Putin authorized the use of Russia’s previously secret hypersonic medium-range Oreshnik missile in Ukraine, the strategic significance of which was analyzed here, and parallels newly deteriorating Russian-South Korean ties.

Seoul is considering arming Ukraine in response to unsubstantiated reports about Russia’s use of North Korean troops against that former Soviet Republic, which prompted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko to warn that “we will respond in every way that we find necessary. It is unlikely that this will strengthen the security of the Republic of Korea itself.”

The two triggers for Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific are therefore the US doing so first or Seoul arming Kiev.

It’s important to point out that while China is Russia’s close military partner and Moscow believes that Washington is engaged in what Russian officials describe as a “dual containment” strategy against both, Beijing isn’t its military ally, unlike Pyongyang with which Moscow just recently signed a military pact. That document was analyzed here and amounts to updating a Soviet-era one. Its strategic significance is that each pledged to help the other if they come under aggression and such assistance is requested.

Accordingly, Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific would be in defense of its own and North Korea’s security, with the first immediate consequence being that it could inadvertently worsen China’s by serving to justify and accelerate the US’ regional containment plans against it. To explain, Trump plans to “Pivot (back) to Asia” upon the end of the Ukrainian Conflict, whenever that might be and regardless of the terms agreed to, which is already troubling enough from China’s perspective.

To make it even worse, Trump is inheriting the Biden Administration’s achievement of having brokered the improvement of South Korean-Japanese ties to such an extent that the US’ long-hoped-for regional trilateral is finally on the brink of becoming a strategic reality. The deployment of short- and intermediate-range Russian missiles to the Asia-Pacific, especially the state-of-the-art Oreshnik, would naturally justify the aforesaid and accelerate all three’s convergence into a tighter triangle.

On the diplomatic front, these missiles could always be withdrawn pending a grand deal between Russia, the US, North Korea, and possibly also China, though the latter’s involvement shouldn’t be taken for granted. After all, an agreement could be reached between the first three in exchange for de-escalating tensions in Northeast Asia, which could then free up the US and Japan to concentrate on more muscularly containing China in Southeast Asia via Taiwan and the Philippines, which both are close with.

It’s premature to predict that this is exactly what will unfold, but the point is that Russia’s role in the emerging Asian front of the New Cold War could be leveraged for de-escalation purposes if its and North Korea’s security interests are met, which only requires negotiating with the US and not with China. Given these military-strategic dynamics, it’s possible that Trump might try to fulfill his campaign pledge to “un-unite” Russia and China by playing them off against each other, though that’s very unlikely to succeed.

All told, Russia’s possible missile deployment to the Asia-Pacific would be triggered by the US or South Korea, with the consequences being that it’ll solidify Russia’s role in that emerging front of the New Cold War while inadvertently worsening China’s security by justifying and accelerating the US’ “Pivot (back) to Asia”. The Kremlin wants to fulfill its allied commitments to North Korea and highlight its relevance in that part of Eurasia, both goals of which are driven by security, diplomatic, and soft power motives.

Days ago, The NY Times revealed that US and European officials have discussed a range of options they believe will deter Russia from taking more Ukrainian territory, including the possibility of providing Kiev with nuclear weapons. “US and European officials are discussing deterrence as a possible security guarantee for Ukraine, such as stockpiling a conventional arsenal sufficient to strike a punishing blow if Russia violates a cease-fire,” the report said.

The article then stated, “Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union.”

Former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Security Counsel Dmitry Medvedev has responded by pointing out that if the West actually went forward with transferring nukes to Ukraine, this would be seen as tantamount to an attack on Russia. He explained that this is a key aspect of Russia’s newly expanded nuclear doctrine.

In a Telegram post on Tuesday, Medvedev specifically referenced the recent NY Times report, and said: “Looks like my sad joke about crazy senile Biden, who’s eager to go out with a bang and take a substantial part of humanity with him, is becoming dangerously real.”

Medvedev then stressed that “giving nukes to a country that’s at war with the greatest nuclear power” is so absurd that Biden and any of his officials considering it must have “massive paranoid psychosis.”

His biggest and most specific threat came as follows: 

“The fact of transferring such weapons may be considered as the launch of an attack against our country in accordance with Paragraph 19 of the ‘Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence’,” Medvedev wrote.

President Putin had formally approved a lowering of the threshold for nuclear weapons use on November 19. The change has been widely seen as in response to Ukraine being authorized by the Western allies to use US-made ATACMS and HIMARS systems, and British-made Storm Shadow and French Scalp missiles on Russian territory.

The aforementioned NY Times report did note that President Putin doesn’t appear ready to actually significantly escalate the war, giving a chance for the Trump administration to take office.

According to a recent New York Times Report, the Biden Administration has discussed the idea of handing nuclear weapons over to Ukraine as it prepares to leave office.

And France and the UK are discussing sending TROOPS into Ukraine! Do they really want WWIII?

Also… pic.twitter.com/qIoxFoGOKc

— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) November 25, 2024

“But the escalation risk of allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with US-supplied weaponry has diminished with the election of Mr. Trump,” the report said, and added: “Biden administration officials believe, calculating that Putin of Russia knows he has to wait only two months for the new administration.”