science

Markets Need More Than Rate-Cuts To Recover

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The consensus narrative tells you that markets are weak because of Trump’s tariffs. However, that is a typical excuse that makes no sense. If tariffs were the cause of concern, markets would have tanked in 2016 and in 2021. Remember that Biden maintained and increased all of Trump’s tariffs. Between 2016 and 2024, the tariffs imposed by the European Union and China on the United States were much larger than levies against them. However, you never read or heard that the EU and China tariffs were going to destroy the economy or lead to massive inflation.

The mainstream consensus narrative always wants you to believe that tariffs are fine if imposed by socialist countries and evil if imposed by the United States. However, if the market was alarmed by tariffs and the disastrous impact they may have on the economy, German and Japanese bond yields would not have soared. Instead, they would have plummeted as investors sought refuge. Furthermore, if the world feared a US economic disaster, Treasury bond yields would not have declined.

German and Japanese bond yields would be declining and US yields rising if that were the case. What is happening is the opposite. The German 10-year bond yield has risen 21% in 2025, and the Japanese equivalent has soared 34%. The US 10-year Treasury yield has declined 5.6%.

What is really going on? Many market participants are addicted to money printing and dovish central banks. In fact, two generations of traders have only seen rising debt, liquidity injections, and negative real rates, which helped justify increasingly demanding equity and risk asset price valuations. Thus, the market greeted bad economic data with optimism, anticipating another round of monetary laughing gas.

The reason why markets are so volatile is because few know what to do when inflation remains persistent. The Fed panicked twice in 2024 and conducted a misguided dovish policy. It delayed the reduction of the balance sheet in June despite rising inflation expectations and loose financial conditions. In September, the Fed decided to implement an unjustified large rate cut despite concerning core inflation figures and exceedingly loose financial conditions, the loosest in five years. The Fed’s excessive optimism about the disinflation path led to a significant increase in margin debt and exposure to equity markets.

Consensus estimates assumed three or four rate cuts in 2025. However, in November the Fed went hawkish and started to worry about a persistent inflation that was already evident in its previous two dovish moves. Markets did not care and continued to believe that inflation would drop magically despite soaring deficit spending and record debt as well as the highest money supply growth in twenty months. By January, market participants started to worry about persistent inflation. The Fed decided to be serious about inflation and provide hawkish messages coinciding with the end of elections.

Were you not surprised to see how the Fed was unusually dovish and optimistic throughout the campaign and elections and suddenly went hawkish and tightened monetary policy…

Predicting The Shape Of Future Military Conflicts

Authored by Christian Milord via The Epoch Times,

It’s difficult to forecast how military conflicts will unfold once they are initiated, but military realists can identify likely scenarios based upon precedent as well as current ongoing conflicts. What might future conflicts look like and what types of platforms would be utilized in these kinetic and non-kinetic environments?

In a highly informative and thought-provoking book, “Unit X—How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War, 2024,” authors Christopher Kirchhoff and Raj Shah attempt to map out what might occur in both defensive and offensive scenarios. Unit X refers to the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which was the brainchild of Raj Shah, a former F-16 pilot with the Air National Guard.

Shah came up with the idea of an experimental innovation unit after experiencing as a pilot the almost obsolete mapping and navigation capabilities of his fighter aircraft. He had a difficult time knowing for sure whether or not he had crossed a particular prohibited Middle East national border.

Moreover, there were outmoded methods of aircraft scheduling during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Middle East aviation command center that scheduled air operations was still using markers and whiteboards instead of computers for data analysis and the scheduling of hundreds of inbound and outbound aerial missions.

After Shah left the Guard, he had a desire to find solutions to these problems by seeking answers from the Pentagon and venture capital innovators who were forward thinkers. This is where Christopher Kirchhoff entered the picture as a specialist in disruptive and emerging technologies.

Kirchhoff had advised a number of tech companies and the government on national security matters. In the beginning of the DIU venture in 2016, it was tough sledding to create an innovation unit at the Pentagon for two reasons.

First, the Pentagon already had the entrenched Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which was formed in 1958 as a response to the Soviet Union’s Sputnik moment. DARPA had developed the ARPANET, a predecessor of the internet, as well as aerial drones, GPS, night vision goggles, and more. However, DARPA’s failure rate from design to prototype, to testing to production was more than 80 percent.

Next, according to the authors, tense relations existed between the Dept. of Defense (DOD) and California’s Silicon Valley incubator startups. Private sector innovators were impatient with the bureaucratic obstacles encountered when interacting with the Pentagon, while the Pentagon was dissatisfied with some of the innovative technologies coming out of Silicon Valley.

In the first year of the DIU, there were intense discussions, and funding was difficult to garner. However, with some assistance from former Defense Secretaries Ash Carter, Mark Esper and James Mattis, some of the bureaucratic hurdles were overcome and the DIU got off the ground. Relations with Silicon Valley gradually improved in the second and third year. Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who is a Middle East combat veteran currently at the Hoover Institution, also played a role as an adviser…

Newsom’s Podcast Disaster: Why The Left Is Fuming And The Right Smells A Rat

With Kamala Harris’s spectacular failure in the November election, California Governor Gavin Newsom – despite running his state into the ground, may be Democrats’ best hope at victory in 2028. But his latest endeavor – theThis is Gavin Newsom Podcast – has left both progressives and conservatives scratching their heads. 

While Newsom pitched the show as a platform for engaging with both ideological allies and opponents, his first two guests – TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk and former Breitbart EIC Steve Bannon – have turned the effort into a full-blown spectacle.

The reaction from the left? Absolute fury. The reaction from the right? Distrust and ridicule. And from the voters? A mixed bag that could spell serious trouble for Newsom’s future ambitions.

Some key stats, according to a poll of 1,000 California voters conducted by Capitol Weekly (h/t Yashar Ali):

While 54% said they had heard of the podcast, just 0.57% of California voters have listened to it, and 58% said they weren’t likely to listen.
Favorability amongst liberals has dropped from 46% to 30%
Republicans polled overwhelmingly viewed Newsom as insincere – calling him “fake,” and “pandering.”
Newsom’s net favorability dropped from +4 to -6, a 10 point swing
Just 13% of voters had an improved view of Newsom, and only 1 out of 5 polled said it made them want to tune in again.
Charlie Kirk

When Newsom announced that Charlie Kirk would be his first guest, progressives braced for a battle of ideas. Instead, they got a softball exchange where Newsom lavished Kirk with praise – agreeing with him 125 times and “appreciating” his ideas 52 times. Even Kirk, who makes a living bashing Newsom’s policies, found it over the top. “Governor Newsom was being overly effusive in his praise of me,” Kirk chuckled on his own podcast, before launching into his usual tirade about Newsom ruining California.

NEW: California Governor Gavin Newsom tells Charlie Kirk that his son is a massive Charlie Kirk fan.
Newsom: My son really wanted to meet you.
Kirk: You let him to take off school?
Newsom: No. Of course not. He’s not here for a good reason.
Kirk: Well you cancelled school… pic.twitter.com/Bh21YArY36
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 6, 2025
The backlash in Sacramento was swift. The Sacramento Bee’s Robin Epley declared the show “sucked,” while Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barabak predicted Newsom might “talk himself to political death.” But the real political firestorm erupted when Newsom doubled down, inviting Steve Bannon as his next guest.

Newsom Ditches Wokes

Meanwhile, the interviews have further alienated Newsom’s traditional base. In a conversation with Kirk, he blasted the term “Latinx” as out of touch and mocked workplace pronoun declarations. Then, in an even more incendiary moment, he dismissed California’s 2013 policy allowing transgender students to compete in sports according to their gender identity, calling it “deeply unfair.”

California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, long considered an LGBTQ ally, broke with his party, saying that transgender athletes playing in female sports is “deeply unfair” on the first episode of Newson’s new podcast…

NORTHCOM Deploys Guided-Missile Destroyer For “Southern Border Mission” As Hemispheric Defense Takes Shape

The USS Gravely (DDG-107), an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the US Navy, departed Naval Weapons Station Yorktown on the Virginia Peninsula on Saturday. The warship will operate in US and international waters in support of the “southern border mission,” according to a press release published by the US Northern Command. 

The USS Gravely is en route to support our #southernborder security mission. Read more at https://t.co/AgqTDMBCyb pic.twitter.com/E01vkLOHDf
— U.S. Northern Command (@USNorthernCmd) March 15, 2025
“USS Gravely’s deployment will contribute to the U.S. Northern Command southern border mission as part of the DOD’s coordinated effort in response to the Presidential Executive Order. Gravely’s sea-going capacity improves our ability to protect the United States’ territorial integrity, sovereignty, and security,” Gen. Gregory Guillot, Commander, USNORTHCOM, stated. 

USNORTHCOM explained that Gravely’s mission will be “restoring territorial integrity at the U.S. southern border and reinforces the nation’s commitment to border security by enhancing maritime efforts and supporting interagency collaboration,” adding, “The ship’s deployment highlights the Department of Defense and Navy’s dedication to national security priorities, contributing to a coordinated and robust response to combating maritime related terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, piracy, environmental destruction, and illegal seaborne immigration.”

Ship tracking website Vessel Finder showed Gravely’s position (20 hours ago) off the Virginia Beach coast, transiting south… 

USS Gravely’s advanced radar and electronic warfare systems allow the US military to track multiple drug cartels—now designated as foreign terrorist organizations—threats simultaneously, including aircraft, missiles, and surface vessels.  

As we’ve been detailing, the US government has been conducting round after round of signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations near the US-Mexico border and over Mexico using spy planes and CIA drones… 

USAF Spy Plane Runs SIGINT Operation Near Cabo As US Preps For Potential Cartel Fight

USAF Spy Jet Flies Second SIGINT Operation On US Border With Focus On Narco Hub

Border Czar “Expects” Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Drug Cartels

US Designates Mexican Cartels As “Foreign Terrorists,” Signaling Financial Warfare Looms

US P-3B Orion Spy Plane Spotted Over Mexico As SIGINT Ops Target Cartels

CIA Reportedly Flying MQ-9 Spy Drones Over Mexico As Cartel Fight Nears

What you see above is part of the preliminary work to disrupt, dismantle, and eliminate the command and control structures of drug cartels that kill 100,000 American lives per year. 

Remember, the Chinese are heavily involved as well… 

Of course, Democrats are melting down on social media over the deployment of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer to the region—potentially the Gulf of America.

pic.twitter.com/2lZF5hCNMy
— Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeacefull) March 16, 2025
The party is full of open-border globalists who have flooded the nation with millions of unvetted migrants, including thousands of terrorists, while offering no solutions to the ongoing migrant crisis that has overwhelmed local, state, and federal governments. That’s because Democrats see illegals as future voters and weaponized their rogue federal judges to obstruct President Trump’s efforts to restore national security by blocking deportations. 

There’s a broader theme for readers to understand: “Making Sense Of Hemispheric Defense In Trump Era.”

Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/17/2025 – 06:55…

Globalist Games: They Play, We Pay

Authored by J.B.Shurk via AmericanThinker.com,

Canada’s Liberal Party selected central banker Mark Carney to lead the country as prime minister.  

He only recently became a politician, but already he’s sitting at the head of the class!  No worries, though.  He has the kind of résumé all globalists in good standing with Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum would envy.  He ran not only the Bank of Canada, but also the Bank of England.  He’s a central banker extraordinaire!  He loves printing funny money and manipulating markets.  Artificially created inflation is his jam, man!

Carney is the most recent iteration of the World Economic Forum’s standard operating procedure for captured governments (and Canada is most definitely WEF-captured): Whenever possible, put bankers in charge of those pesky territorial designations nostalgically known as nation-states.  France’s petit fromage, Emmanuel Macron, was a Rothschild & Co. investment banker.  Former U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak was a Goldman Sachs and hedge fund guy.  Don’t be surprised when more transnational bankers seemingly come out of nowhere and immediately dominate the politics of other pseudo-sovereign countries.  Investment banking — and more specifically, central banking — is the lifeblood of globalism.  Why?  Because once a bank is big enough, it gambles with the futures of entire nations (and the millions of individual lives therein) as if they were mere poker chips.

So the globalist cabal claims another section of the world map!  Or retains its claim over Canada, I should say.  Everyone knows that soy-boy Justin Castreau (he cried during his farewell press conference, for Pete’s sake!) and his former deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, call Herr Schwab “Daddy.”  Germany’s Dr. Evil makes a natural father figure for both Canucks.

Kooky Chrystia is that crazy-eyed woke-tard who promised to use nuclear weapons against the United States if President Trump imposes reciprocal tariffs and turns off the American money spigots that have long subsidized Canada’s socialist system.  She is a Canadian Karen not likely to go away.  I’m sure Daddy Klaus will give her another chance to scream, “I am womyn, hear me roar!” after central banker Mark Carney completes Canada’s transition to a “green energy”–reliant vassal state of the international money-printing guild.  When the draft dodgers, hippies, and Chinadians up north have gorged on enough of Carney’s WEF-style globalism for Reichsführer Schwab to deem the peasants sufficiently subjugated, he can install Chrystia as prime minister without any resistance.  Once in place and empowered to finish off what’s left of Trudeau and Carney’s castrated Canada, she will probably rename her censorship-loving slave state “Not-so-Freeland-ia” in honor of her favorite grandpa’s fascist proclivities.  

No wonder President Trump remains worried about the U.S.-Canada border.  King Charles III’s North American refuge has become a hornet’s nest of globalists, communists, and woke Nazis.  Perhaps after the southern wall is finished, the builders should hightail it up to the 49th parallel and get busy.  Forget the “global warming” malarkey.  A WEF-engineered winter is most definitely coming.

Of course, Canada is but one territory being pursued in the globalists’ board game of central bank Risk.  The WEF-ers are rolling the dice and capturing lands all over the planet.  

For three years, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and America’s very own CIA have all been yelling,…