A 33-year old Iranian activist and rapper who has recently been involved in anti-government demonstrations has been handed a shockingly draconian sentence by an Iranian court. Toomaj Salehi was first arrested in Oct. 2022 for publicly backing the so-called 'anti-hijab' protests which swept the ultra-conservative Islamic country. But this week...

"Branch 1 of Isfahan Revolutionary Court... sentenced Salehi to death on the charge of corruption on Earth," his lawyer quoted the court's ruling as saying. The state laid out its case focused on a highly ambiguous charge of spreading "propaganda".

Salehi's lawyer further described that the court "in an unprecedented move, emphasised its independence and did not implement the Supreme Court's ruling" - while noting that "we will certainly appeal against the sentence."

The charges further centered on the Revolutionary Court accusing him of "assistance in sedition, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the system and calling for riots."

In September of 2022, Iran's Islamic 'morality police' arrested 22-year old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini for "improper hijab" as she entered a subway station. Activists say she had been beaten and later died in custody, while Iranian authorities claim she suffered a natural health episode (state media and officials described it as a heart attack), fainted and hit her head on the ground.

Her death sparked months of protests across major cities featuring anti-government slogans and clashes with police. Some international reports say that in total over 500 demonstrators died, while reports said dozens of police and security service personnel were killed and wounded.

Iranian authorities at the time attempted to tie the raging domestic unrest to an externally supported destabilization campaign by Tehran's enemies Israel and the United States.

As for the rapper and his immense popularity and influence in Iran, Sky News has observed that "Salehi, who has 2.3 million followers on Instagram, had posted videos after Amini's death talking about 'revolution' and resistance." According more of his background:

His songs also highlight the widening gap between ordinary Iranians and the country’s leadership, accusing authorities of “suffocating” the people without regard for their well-being.

His angry lyrics resonate among Iranians who are increasingly discontent and alienated by Iran’s clerical establishment -- and by the politicians who fail to keep their promises of change.

Salehi has shared his songs on his Instagram and Twitter accounts. But those accounts became inaccessible while he was in custody.

An sample of his music:

Iran (alongside Saudi Arabia and Egypt) leads the Middle East in number of executions each year. In 2023 alone, Iran hanged at least 834 people, which was an 8-year high. This is partly because the Islamic Republic has recently launched a new 'war on drugs' crackdown, but also amid geopolitical tensions it has executed suspected spies in greater numbers.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Supreme Court on April 23 directed the U.S. Department of Justice to reply to a man convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Justices said the department’s response to Russell Alford is due May 23.

Mr. Alford was convicted by a jury of four misdemeanor counts but is challenging two of the charges, arguing that they don’t apply to his conduct.

The charges should not have been brought because the laws on which they’re based bar disorderly and disruptive conduct in a Capitol building and in a restricted building, but Mr. Alford merely entered the Capitol and stood silently against a wall before exiting, the Supreme Court was told in a filing from Mr. Alford’s lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Tonya Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, originally rejected Mr. Alford’s request to dismiss the counts, finding that his “mere presence inside the Capitol disturbed the public peace or undermined public safety.”

A federal appeals court, after reviewing the rejection, upheld it in January. While Mr. Alford was “neither violent nor destructive ... a jury could rationally find that his unauthorized presence in the Capitol as part of an unruly mob contributed to the disruption of the Congress’s electoral certification and jeopardized public safety,” the ruling stated.

“The court should grant review because this case presents an important question of federal statutory interpretation,” Mr. Alford’s lawyers wrote to the Supreme Court, describing the appeals court ruling as “establish[ing] a slippery and counter-textual standard for criminalizing conduct in settings for political activity.”

One of the laws, 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(2), bars people from “knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of government business or official functions.”

The other, 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(D), makes it a crime to “utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either house of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of a hearing before, or any deliberations of, a committee of Congress or either house of Congress.”

The lower court rulings were wrong in part because they focused on the effects of Mr. Alford’s conduct, not the nature of the conduct, according to the writ to justices.

That focus “collapses the conduct element into the harm element by giving the adjectives no apparent force,” they said. They argued later that merely being present “is not disorderly conduct unless the presence is in defiance of an order to disperse.”

If the court grants the petition, it would review the case and decide if the rulings were appropriate.

The Department of Justice’s Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, told the court on April 12 that the government was waiving its right to file a response to the filing, “unless requested to do so by the court.” The petition was distributed to justices on April 18 for their scheduled May 9 conference. Then, on Tuesday, justices directed the Department of Justice to file a response to Mr. Alford.

Lawyers for Mr. Alford and the government did not respond to requests for comment.

If justices take up the petition and rule in favor of Mr. Alford, a number of other Jan. 6 defendants and convicts could see charges thrown out.

Obstruction Charge

The court already agreed to review another charge brought against many Jan. 6 defendants.

Justices sat for oral arguments on April 16 concerning obstruction of an official proceeding, a charge brought against former police officer Joseph Fischer after he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.

One of Mr. Fischer’s attorneys said the charge should not have been brought because the law was only intended to be used in cases of evidence tampering.

Ms. Prelogar told justices that the charge was proper because it was “not limited to evidence impairment.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by former President Donald Trump, wondered whether the government would bring the charge against people who heckled the court.

“Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify? Would a heckler in today’s audience qualify, or at the State of the Union address? Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?” he asked.

Another justice later questioned if protesters blocking access to a trial would face the charge, noting that protests have taken place in the past at the Supreme Court but the government did not charge the protesters under the law.

Ms. Prelogar said the law might apply in such cases, if there was proof of “corrupt intent.”

Justices are due to hand down a decision in the case at some point in the future.

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

The UniParty's Day Of Infamy, Part 1

The clusterf*ck in the US House of Representatives this past weekend is surely the final straw. The dreadful grip of the UniParty on national security policy has finally produced sheer madness in a single package. To wit:

• $95 billion of foreign aid boondoggles that do not benefit America’s homeland security in the slightest.

• An extension of section 702 of FISA that wantonly expands an already egregious affront to the Fourth Amendment.

• The illegal transfer of billions of sovereign assets stolen from Russia to its enemies in Kiev.

• A national security ban on 15-second TikTok videos about dances, pranks, pets and poppycock viewed overwhelmingly by under 30-year-old Americans whose viewing habits are of zero value to the Chicoms in Beijing.

It is bad enough that there is not an iota of informed consideration behind any of this. But what is really alarming is that every single House Democrat (210) voted in favor of $61 billion for the Ukrainian Demolition Derby. This included a 97-0 vote among so-called Dem “progressives”, who also voted 96-0 in favor of aid to Taiwan—the purpose of which is surely not a more pacific neighborhood on the Pacific Rim.

Once upon a time, the Democrats were the party of the peace candidates. No more, which surely explains their fury at RFK, who is.

At the same time, only fourteen Republicans voted against all four components of this wholesale assault on constitutional liberty and fiscal rectitude. As we have previously documented, America is now careening on fiscal automatic pilot toward a $140 trillion 4/23/24, 12:40 PM The UniParty’s Day of Infamy, Part 1 https://davidstockman.substack.com/p/the-unipartys-day-of-infamy-part 2/11 public debt by mid-century, but the overwhelming share of House Republicans choose to hammer the US economy with even more debt to fund pointless foreign aid boondoggles, while shackling private citizens and entrepreneurs with government intrusions based on the paranoid lies of the national security state.

In this context it was the predictable histrionics of the bevy of neocon warmongers on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal that brought home the full extent of the challenge. Namely, that the mainstream narrative in the Imperial City and among the nation’s elite media is so utterly wrong-headed and morally obtuse that only the complete abandonment of the core framework of contemporary national security policy can save the day.

Accordingly, the “domino” theory needs be repudiated once and for all. Likewise, the Washington-Jefferson doctrine of “no entangling alliances” needs be revived in place of the vestigial cold war notion that informs Washington’s current destructive and bankrupting policies. We are referring to the wholly obsolete notion that America’s homeland security depends upon a worldwide system of military alliances, bases and kinetic power projection capabilities that enable Washington to function as the great Global Hegemon, who is ready, willing and able to intervene in virtually any spate that erupts among the 8 billion peoples of the planet.

The fourteen GOP stalwarts listed below essentially said, no dice to these tired, dangerous, costly and risible formulations: Neither Russia nor China pose even a remote military threat to the American homeland, while proxy wars and economic sanctions against “adversaries” demonized by the Deep State actually undermine domestic liberty and prosperity for no justifiable reason of homeland security at all.

With respect to the latter, for instance, there is no real reason for the sweeping multihundred billion cost to the American economy of sanctions and trade restrictions on China, Iran or Russia. And, similarly, there are no security threats in the world today that even remotely justify the national security state’s intrusion into the rights and privacies of American citizens.

Still, the pseudo-intellectuals at the WSJ trotted out Hitler, Tojo and the “isolationist” epithet as if these references prove anything at all, when, in fact, none have any real relevance to the world of today. There are simply no industrial state tyrants on the march anywhere on the global horizon that resemble even the apparent facts of the 1930s, let alone the actual historical realities of the matter.

The fact is, Stalin and Hitler were sui generis. They were one-time accidents of history arising from the folly of Versailles and the punitive peace of the victors enabled by Woodrow Wilson’s pointless intervention in a European war that would have otherwise ended in stalemate and the mutual exhaustion and bankruptcy of all the combatants.

That is to say, the DNA of the world’s nations is not infected with incipient tendencies toward totalitarianism and aggression. Maintaining the global peace and pacific commerce of the nations does not depend upon an alliance of virtuous interventionists or a Global Hegemon, prepared to enforce its writ at the slightest breakout of local and regional quarrels and conflicts.

At the end of the day, laissez faire is the path to prosperity in both economics and international affairs. Military alliances and Hegemons everywhere and always fall captive to the arms merchants they foster.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the honor roll from last weekend’s rampage of folly by the UniParty consists of a mere 14 House Republicans, who were awarded the scarlet “I” by the war-happy globalists at the Wall Street Journal:

Fourteen Republicans voted against all four bills on the House floor, including the one that would force a sale of TikTok from Chinese ownership. Here’s the dishonor roll in alphabetical order: Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Elijah Crane (Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Bob Good (Va.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Andy Harris (Md.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Troy Nehls (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.), Chip Roy (Texas).

The unavoidable meaning of the votes is that these Members don’t believe the U.S. should support allies threatened by authoritarians on the march. Like Republicans in the 1930s who slept while Hitler and Tojo advanced, these Republicans apparently think America can sit out these fights in splendid isolation. But history suggests that if they prevail, American sons and daughters would eventually have to fight. Better to help allies who want to help themselves.

The isolationist caucus lost this round, but this GOP tendency is dangerous. Another 17 Members voted for arms for Israel but not for Taiwan and Ukraine. Do they want to encourage a Chinese invasion? Perhaps if Florida is attacked, they’ll awaken to the reality of the world’s growing dangers.

No, Florida is not about to be attacked by Putin, Xi or the Ayatollahs. This is just scary bedtime story stuff that no informed adult should accord any credibility whatsoever.

Needless to say, the GOP most rabid neocon and warmonger, Senator Lindsay Graham, is neither informed nor, apparently, even of adult mind.

His incoherent, bloodthirsty rant actually made the WSJ editorialists sound thoughtful by comparison.

“Here’s what I will tell you. If you give Putin Ukraine, he will not stop,” Graham said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “This is not about containing NATO and if you give him Ukraine, there goes Taiwan because China’s watching to see what we do.”

“I want to know what they’re talking about over there before they kill us here. And if you shut this thing down, you’ve turned the war into a crime,” Graham said. “We’re not fighting our crime, we’re finding a bunch of people who would kill all of us if they could get here. So, when you intercept information from a foreigner overseas talking about America, I want to know what they’re talking about.”

The Ukranian military, with our help, has killed about 50 percent of the combat power of the Russians,” Graham said Sunday. “This is the year [of] more. They’re going to have more weapons, but we also want them to have new weapons.”

Nor was the House GOP to be outdone by Senator Graham’s bellicose fulminations. Recently resigned Rep.  Ken Buck let it be known that if you actually understand that America’s homeland security is in no way enhanced by Washington’s misguided proxy war on Russia, as does Rep. Marjorie Greene, why then you surely are a traitor in the pay of Vlad Putin himself:

“Well, Moscow Marjorie has reached a new low,” Buck said of his former colleague.

“She is just mouthing the Russian propaganda and really hurting American foreign policy in the process. She’s acting completely irresponsibly. And again, when history looks at this period of time, Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine is fighting for its freedom, and we should be with the freedom fighters in this war.”

Of course, the insanity of $200 billion of NATO funds already wasted; hundreds of thousands dead; millions fleeing the country to avoid the mayhem of war and the cruelty of being drafted as cannon fodder to serve the perverted pleasure of Washington’s armchair warriors; and the civilian infrastructure of one of Europe’s largest countries in shambles—all have nothing whatsoever to do with “freedom fighters”.

The undeniable fact is that there is nothing at stake worth fighting for in Ukraine that even remotely resembles democratic virtue. It has been a cesspool of egregious corruption virtually since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991, and recently even required a visit from the head of the CIA to tell Zelensky and his fellow thieves to “knock it off” on the corruption front.

To the contrary, as the venerable anti-war writer William Astore put it, the real purpose of Ukrainian installment of the Forever Wars is the enrichment of the merchants of death who have captured the levers of power in Washington:

Of course, this is yet another triumph for the MICIMATT: the military-industrialcongressional-intelligence-media-academe-think-tank complex. Its power and greed are almost irresistible. Add that to AIPAC, threat inflation, and fear-mongering and perhaps it is irresistible until the U.S. empire final collapses under the weight of its own folly.

Yet all of the mindless bellicosity of the Washington interventionists is not simply ludicrous nonsense from an empirical viewpoint. More importantly, the current neocon/interventionist Washington consensus blatantly repudiates the sage advice of both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from more than 220 years ago. Together they articulated a theory of foreign policy that was not “isolationist” at all, but realist and evidence-based.

That is, these wise Founders held that foreign policy should be based on the facts and circumstances of national interest at any given point in time, and that when the facts change and alliances become obsolete, they should be jettisoned.

From George Washington’s Farewell Address: “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities… it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world…”

As further amplified by Jefferson in his 1801 inaugural address, this realist doctrine viewed external military alliances to be arrangements of convenience and should be freely abandoned or reversed as indicated by changing needs of the national interest. Citing Washington’s Farewell Address as his inspiration, Jefferson described the doctrine as-

“peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none.”

That famous phrase is precisely the policy cornerstone that fits today’s realities. America’s homeland security doesn’t require militarized alliances or the wherewithal to maraud militarily around the globe because there are no military-industrial-technological powers that can threaten its security.

Accordingly, institutions like NATO may well have served the national interest 70 years ago with respect to Stalinist Russia and its military capacities and intentions toward its erstwhile but estranged wartime allies in the West. But even there the open archives from both sides of the cold war cast considerable doubt on whether Stalin and world communism were actually on the march or had either the intention or military capability to enslave western Europe, to say nothing of the American homeland on the far side of the Atlantic and Pacific Moats.

As it happened, the Henry Wallace peaceful accommodationist wing of the Roosevelt coalition may have been closer to the truth than the Wall Street based coteries of Henry Stimson, James Forrestal, Dean Acheson and the abominable Dulles Bothers, who actually formulated the nation’s cold war policies during that era.

But that question was resolved once and for all in 1991 when the Soviet Union disappeared into the dustbin of history, and not because of NATO or even Reagan’s Star Wars threat. The real reason was that centralized state communism doesn’t work: Neither for the people it exploits and oppresses, nor for the ruling elites and state-empowered comrades who may have delusions of grandeur about the sustainability of their own rule, to saying nothing of extending it to peoples beyond their borders.

Yet even as the true lesson of Soviet Communism’s collapse marched across the pages of history after 1991, the entrenched military-industrial-foreign policy apparatus was not about to relinquish its power, budgets and perks, just as Eisenhower had warned in another of America’s great Farewell Addresses in 1961. In fact, NATO morphed into something far more obnoxious than a cancellable alliance that had accomplished its mission and was slated for early retirement under the Washington-Jefferson doctrine.

And well it should have been because after 1991, there was no there, there. The Russian rump of the Soviet Union even today has a GDP of merely $2.2 trillion compared to the $28 trillion GDP of the USA and $46 trillion for all 32 NATO countries combined. And Russia has a military budget of barely 6% of NATO’s $1.25 trillion of combined defense expenditures and but one aircraft carrier.

Furthermore, the latter is a 20th century relic that has been in drydock repair since 2017 and is outfitted with neither an armada of escort ships and warplanes or even a crew. The Russian military, therefore, has no way to land on the shores of New Jersey or even enter the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, for that matter. Nor is Putin stupid enough to invade Poland, which offers nothing but centuries of animosity to all things Russian.

Then again, if Poland really believed all the anti-Putin rhetoric spouted by its rightwing government, it would be spending a lot more on defense in 2024 than $30 billion and 3.1% of GDP; nor would it be offering to house NATO nuclear weapons next door to the Russian Bear, as its president did this week.

“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear arms on our territory as part of nuclear sharing, to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready to do so,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said in an interview published today by the Fakt newspaper.

In truth, Duda’s offer is just another case of client state politics run amuck. Rid the scene of Washington’s entangling alliance with the relic of NATO, and the voters of Poland would be looking for a new government. And they would do so even as they were sending it leaders to Moscow to seek mutual accommodation from the natural trade and commercial relationships that are inherent in its geography.

The fact is, 33-years after the demise of the Soviet Union NATO is not simply a pointless obsolete relic. It has morphed into the greatest armaments marketing and sales organization in the history of mankind. The only benefit that came from betraying Bush the Elder’s promise to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand a “single inch” to the east has accrued to the defense contractors, especially the US based giants.

As RFK has cogently pointed out, when the NATO alliance mushroomed from 16 nations to now 32 countries, every one of the new members had to conform their weapons systems and munitions to NATO standards. Not suprisingly, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics and United Technologies prospered mightily–even as they effectively roamed the halls of Congress spreading the lies embedded in the above Wall Street Journal rendition of dominoes and the essentiality of Washington’s obsolete global alliances.

Yet two of the four components of Saturday’s abomination were directed against China, predicated on the same illusion that led to the vast threat-inflation with respect to the Soviet Union. To wit, Chinese Communism, even in the thinly veiled guise of “red capitalism”, is no more viable or sustainable than the Soviet version.

At the end of the day, if you don’t have free markets, constitutionally protected property and personal rights of expression and assembly and honest bankruptcy courts to dispose of failed economic bets, you do not have a sustainable economy or permanently rising prosperity. Period.

To the contrary, China is a vast house of economic cards and statist malignancies propped up by $50 trillion of unpayable debt incurred in barely two decades. Accordingly, it is utterly dependent upon the hard currency earnings from $3.5 trillion of annual exports, mainly to the West, to keep its vast excess of infrastructure and housing investment from capsizing the whole Rube Goldberg Contraption. In the event of war, this export lifeline would soon find its way to Davy Jones’ Locker, along with China’s entire jerry-built economy.

So, it’s not going to be invading anyone, probably not even Taiwan. Chairman Xi and his team of rulers may love to quote Mao and color themselves red ideologically, but they also know that what stands between them and an uprising of China’s oppressed 1.5 billion inhabitants is a consistent and reasonably rising level of internal prosperity.

That rules out a Chinese Armada of black ships heading for the coast of California. Indeed, even the Navy they have today consists of two repurposed Soviet Era aircraft carriers and one new build of far less formidable and lethal capacity than Washington current Gerald Ford class carriers. And its other 400 Navy vessels consists largely of coastal patrol vessels that likely would not make it to the shores of California in one piece.

In terms of lethal firepower, in fact, the US Navy has 4.6 million tons of displacement, averaging 15,000 tons per ship. By contrast, China’s Navy has but 2.0 million tons of displacement, averaging only 5,000 tons per boat. That is to say, the Chinese Navy is totally visible, assessable and trackable, and is not remotely of the size and lethality that would make an invasion of America remotely plausible.

Finally, the main military capacity that is needed for homeland security in the present world, of course, is America’s triad strategic deterrent including 3,800 nuclear warheads. At any moment in time these are scrambled and dispersed -

• along the ocean bottoms among 16 Ohio class subs each bearing 80 independently targetable warheads.

• aloft in the global airspace on a fleet of 66 B-2 and B-52 heavy bombers  

• buried deep in hardened underground silos bearing more than 1,000 ICBM warheads.

This awesome retaliatory force cannot possibly be detected or 100% neutralized by a would-be nuclear blackmailer.

As it happens, the triad deterrent costs about $65 billion per year according to a recent CBO analysis, and full protection of the US shorelines and airspace behind the great ocean moats could bring a total Fortress America model of homeland defense to $400 billion per annum, at most.

The other $500 billion in today’s 050 function represents the ill-gotten budgetary conquests of the military-industrial-intelligence complex, and all the think tanks, NGOs and beltway bandits who make a living getting paid by DOD, State, AID, NED etc. to manufacturing inflated threats and scary stories about sinister foreigners. Such malefic malarky was on full display in the US House last weekend. Accordingly, there is only one cure. A powerful force from outside the beltway needs to splinter the UniParty into a thousand pieces.

That’s the real mission of Robert F Kennedy’s Jr. independent candidacy for President, as we will further amplify in Part 2.

Quiet macro day with Durable Goods Orders looking like a beat - but only because of sizable downward revisions - as orders and shipments are actually down on a YoY basis.

Source: Bloomberg

But stocks were messy with an opening bid immediately squelched and post-EU-close ramp faded into the US close. Small Caps were the day's laggard as Nasdaq outperformed while The Dow and S&P desperately tried to get green...

Nasdaq and The Dow got back above their 100DMAs while Small Caps cannot hold above theirs...

Goldman's Chris Hussey pointed out that, despite an uptick in rates today (yields on 10-year Treasuries are up 6bp to 4.66%), yield sensitive sectors like Tech, Utilities, and Real Estate are outperforming.

On the flip side, Industrials are lagging on the back of particularly weak earnings in Transports.

Source: Bloomberg

And stepping even further back, 9 of the 10 worst-performing stocks in the S&P 500 today reported results after the close yesterday, or before the open this morning -- highlighting how earnings are driving stocks amidst a macro vacuum (at least for today).

Volumes were muted today once again, according to Goldman's trading desk, as they noted once again that hedge funds were slightly better to buy (buying Indust., Info Tech, Disc.), Long-Onlys slight for sale (selling Mats, Disc.,).

TSLA had a big day - its best since Jan 2022 - after earnings last night (that reaffirmed its strategy wasn't too crazy)...

The basket of MAG7 stocks ended unchanged after a strong open thanks to TSLA's gains as traders await META's earnings after the bell...

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were higher across the board today (with the long-end underperforming) as the following two-day chart shows, the 10Y & 30Y yields are back above pre-PMI levels from yesterday while 2Y is at the lows from yesterday...

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve (2s30s) steepened dramatically once again, now up 14bps in two days, back to one-month highs (still inverted)...

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended modestly higher on the day, pulling back during the US session from overnight gains...

Source: Bloomberg

Yen was slammed (again) as traders continue to call The BoJ's interventionist bluff...

Source: Bloomberg

...as JPY is now well below the last intervention threshold (back at its lowest in 34 years)...

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin took another kicking today, tumbling back to a $63,000 handle...

Source: Bloomberg

...once again driven by extreme selling pressure from the perpetual futures market...

Amid all the excitement today, gold ended unchanged and traded in a narrow range...

Source: Bloomberg

Crude prices slipped back from yesterday's surge despite a big crude draw...

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, Goldman's Dominic Wilson and Kamkshya Trivedi highlight how geopolitical tensions and stickier than expected US inflation prints have transitioned markets to trading more of a 'policy shock' than a 'growth upgrade'...

...a development that is making directional trades trickie.

Earlier today we reported that for at least 40% of Americans - up from 27% just two years ago - the American Dream is dead and buried and has been replaced with the American nightmare: renting for life.

And here's why: according to a new survey from Clever Real Estate, a St. Louis-based real estate company, thanks to the galloping housing inflation, the median-priced home in the U.S. now costs $332,494, with NAR and Census Bureau data reporting that the median Existing and New Home sale price has risen to $393,500 and $430,700...

... meaning prospective buyers need an annual income of at least $119,769 to afford it with a 10% down payment.

That's about $45,000 more than the typical household earns annually ($74,755). Even with a 20% down payment, home buyers would need to earn at least $98,202, still well above the typical salary.

The last year that the median buyer put down 20% was 1989, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Today, the median buyer puts down just 15% of a home's purchase price.

The median U.S. income earner ($74,755) with 10% down could only afford a home that costs $207,529 — 38% less than the current median-priced home.

A median-income family aiming to afford a median-priced home would need a hefty 45% down payment, or mortgage rates would need to drop from the current rate of 7.2% to 4% to make it work.

Even with a savings rate of $1,000 each month, it would take a household five and a half years to amass the $66,500 needed for a 20% down payment on a home priced at the median of $332,494.

As it stands, 61% of Americans find themselves priced out of the market even with a 20% down payment.

The median home is affordable for median earners in just four states (West Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana)...

... and only six of the 50 largest metro areas:

1. Pittsburgh, PA
2. Cleveland, OH
3. St. Louis, MO
4. Memphis, TN
5. Indianapolis, IN
6. Birmingham, AL

Unsurprisingly, Los Angeles is the least affordable city, where buyers need an income of a whopping $249,471 to comfortably afford a median-priced home — nearly three times the actual median income of $87,743.

Read the full report at: http://www.listwithclever.com/research/how-much-house-can-i-afford-2024

Former US Congressman Ron Paul has gone completely ham on Speaker Mike Johnson, first - writing in a recent Op-Ed that Johnson has "betrayed liberty and the Constitution" after reauthorizing FISA surveillance but casting the deciding vote that tanked an amendment to require a warrant.

Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign citizens. When the FISA Act was passed, surveillance state boosters promised that 702 warrantless surveillances would never be used against American citizens. However, intelligence agencies have used a loophole in 702, allowing them to subject to warrantless surveillance any American who communicated with a non-US citizen who was a 702 target.

...

Despite the fearmongering by Mike Pompeo and others, as well as the opposition of both President Biden and Speaker Johnson, the amendment failed to pass by only one vote. The amendment would have passed had Speaker Johnson not cast a rare floor vote (speakers usually do not vote on legislation) against the amendment. -Ron Paul

Paul went further this week - calling Johnson out for being a complete sellout and acting, once again, against the interests of Americans.

"Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is reported to have bragged to his colleagues about how easily Speaker Johnson gave Democrats everything they wanted and asked for nothing in return," Paul noted, adding that Johnson "reached across the aisle, stiffed the Republican majority that elected him speaker, and pushed through a massive gift to the warfare corporate welfare state." in passing a massive aid package for Ukraine and Israel.

"After the House voted to send another $60 billion to notoriously corrupt Ukraine, members waved Ukrainian flags on the House floor and chanted, ‘Ukraine! Ukraine!’ While I find it distasteful and disgusting, in some ways, it seemed fitting."

Watch:

Ron Paul Trashes Speaker Mike Johnson in Stunning New Monologue

“Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is reported to have bragged to his colleagues about how easily Speaker Johnson gave Democrats everything they wanted and asked for nothing in return.”

“In the worst example of… pic.twitter.com/aVSTxeTNfs

— The Vigilant Fox ?? (@VigilantFox) April 23, 2024

Here's what Tucker Carlson had to say recently about Johnson...

Tucker Carlson: "Here's the illusion we fall for time and again. We imagine that evil comes like fully advertised as such, like evil people look like Anton Lavey...Evil is an independent force that exists outside of people, that acts upon people...What vessel do they choose? The… pic.twitter.com/ugF3bMgxcx

— Camus (@newstart_2024) April 21, 2024

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

This is why those who understand these dynamics are getting out, even though the city was their home.

A correspondent who prefers to remain anonymous sent me this account of the "doom loop" that is playing out in many American cities. The correspondent makes the case that the Doom Loop is not limited to specific cities, but is a universal dynamic in all US cities due to the core causes of the Doom Loop: financialization and the multi-decade decay of cities' core industrial-economic purpose / mission.

I have edited the text slightly, with the correspondent's approval.

The context of the Doom Loop is the process and politics of this decay are the second-order results of central bank easy money (free fiat). That led to financialization becoming the city's core function and the subsequent loss of the city's previous mission. The people living in cities just haven't gotten the message yet.

As such, there is no reversing the process until the centralization of capital itself is reversed.

The typical media articles on metropolitan "doom loops" make it seem like not every city is headed down the path. Now that financialization does not require a physical presence, every city above a certain size will share the same experience. There will be local variations which impact the trend, such as a potential utility as a large pool of voters (i.e. a vote farm), but the decline is part and parcel of financial 'virtualization.'

It is inevitable.

Even hosting one of the twelve central reserve banks won't save you.

The process when a city loses its purpose but persists due to inertia follows this basic pattern:

1. Corporate consolidation costs the city its financial base as Fortune 100 corporations are sold to conglomerates closer to the centers of finance.

This is one more second-order effect of easy money: global corporations can easily finance the acquisition of multi-billion dollar companies.

2. In the past, cities received huge government subsidies for re-development, but none for ongoing maintenance. All the redevelopment projects looked great at first, but with little funding for maintenance, they've gone downhill and many are now dangerous.

Today, the only redevelopment is done by the billionaire class who make most of their money from (surprise) finance. Once the billionaire loses interest, it's gone, too.

I would rather find myself in a developing-world city than an American downtown, at least there would be people around. Many American downtowns are literally apocalyptic.

3. Major league sports are increasingly an exercise in force protection. It's like going inside a forward firebase in Iraq. People still get shot in the stands from guns fired outside the bubble. Unsurprisingly, some major league teams are exploring space outside the cities despite their stadiums being only 20 years old.

4. When federal agencies build new facilities, they're essentially fortresses with direct entrance/egress from the highway. They add little to nothing to the surrounding economy.

5. Real estate, sales and personal property taxes in cities are typically the highest within the state. As tax revenues decline, cities' political leaders increase business taxes and start floating ideas such as taxing non-profit organizations: a financial death spiral indeed. Should taxes increase, organizations and companies have said they will leave.

6. In the industrial economy, the core purposes of cities were derived from advantageous locations and key transportation assets (first water, then rail, then roads, and later aviation). In the information age, those benefits are diminished or gone. As a result of their transportation advantages, cities became manufacturing and warehousing hubs. Those too are diminished or gone.

7. Cities have lost their core economic purpose and are choking on their high legacy costs. The proposed substitute purposes--entertainment and bourgeois lifestyles--are not true substitutes. Fine dining and secure condos with delivery do not replace actual economic functions.

8. Making matters worse, the upper-middle class doesn't want affordable housing in their enclaves, as it lowers property values. So the workers needed to keep the city functioning can no longer afford to live there. Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) movements to promote affordable housing are not enough.

9. Much of the politics the media focuses on are a consequence of decline, not a cause, and the net result of all the in-fighting is some version of stasis: all sorts of solutions are proposed, but since none address the core sources of decline or the cities' high legacy costs, they boil down to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

This is why those who understand these dynamics are getting out, even though the city was their home.

Of related interest:: The Real Estate Nightmare Unfolding in Downtown St. Louis: The office district is empty, with boarded up towers, copper thieves and failing retail--even the Panera outlet shut down. The city is desperately trying to reverse the 'doom loop.'

*  *  *

Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday passed legislation to allow some trained teachers and school staff to carry firearms despite aggressive opposition from Democrats and gun control advocates calling for the bill to be defeated.  The bill is all but guaranteed to become law within weeks, as Gov. Bill Lee can either sign it or allow it to become law without his signature. Lee has never vetoed a bill.

The law requires criminal and mental health background checks of prospective teachers along with training courses and approval from school administrators.  Democrats railed against the bill, suggesting that training courses are not enough and that it was "unfair" to burden teachers with the job of defending their classrooms from potential assailants.  This argument is strange because teachers are already burdened with the job of protecting students from harm (not to mention their own lives), they just haven't had the means to do that job until now. 

Democrats also stated that armed teachers would "lead to tragedy," with expectations that merely having a gun in or near a school would inevitably cause a shooting with the teacher at fault.  Of course, if a teacher wanted to come to school armed to commit a crime, there's nothing stopping them anyway (except perhaps another armed teacher).

Angry protesters screamed "blood on your hands" when the bill was passed by the House as they attempted to disrupt proceedings.  Protesters were eventually cleared from the building by police.  Representative Justin Jones, a Democrat and activist politician who has been the subject of multiple expulsions from the House, tried to film the event with his cell phone while chanting along with protester and was removed.  Democrats accused Tennessee Republicans of "fascism."

Tennessee Republicans just cut off debate and passed a bill to arm teachers in our schools.

The public chanted “Blood on your hands!” as the Speaker ordered troopers to clear the gallery.

This is what fascism looks like. pic.twitter.com/9mg67oWMxM

— Rep. Justin Jones (@brotherjones_) April 23, 2024

And here we find the disconnect that anti-gun advocates don't grasp:  They seem to believe that the mere presence of a gun will automatically trigger violence, as if it has magical powers to attract and inspire evil.  In reality, the problem is evil people, not "evil" objects.  There's nothing stopping a bad person from acquiring and using a firearm for terrible purposes at any place of their choosing.  Gun free zones only prevent good people from carrying.

Furthermore, why is it that Democrats rabidly defend pornography and sexualized propaganda in schools, but they're aghast at the notion of teachers being trained to defend children from violent attackers?  One might start to think that Democrats want school shootings to continue, but why would that be...?

Keep in mind that the passage of the bill comes one year after the mass shooting at the Christian Covenant School in Nashville.  The shooting was perpetrated by Audrey Hale, a far-left trans activists who was allegedly motivated to make a political statement.  Her manifesto which was confiscated by the FBI still has yet to be released.  Suspicions abound that this is only being done because Hale was part of the LGBT community. 

Not surprisingly, leftist activists and Democrats alike defended Audrey Hale as "just another victim" of the shooting while some even argued that the murders were justified because of Tennessee's attempts to stop transgender surgeries for minors.  

When common sense is labeled "fascism" the likelihood of reconciliation between leftists and conservatives grows dim.  Is it only "democracy" when leftists get their way?  Are Democrats really outraged by the idea of teachers being able to effectively save the lives of students or act as a deterrent so that potential mass shooters never consider going through with an attack?  Or, are they outraged because they secretly fear that the strategy of armed teachers will work? 

Democrats ignore mass shootings in minority neighborhoods all the time because these murders don't serve their purposes.  What they want, what they need, are shootings where the tragedy can be turned into political capital.  Their true intent is to achieve gun confiscation, and if there are no more school shootings because teachers are armed, then they'll no longer have the leverage they desire.     

Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Most NFL general managers (GMs) are optimistic and displaying overconfidence today as they prepare for tomorrow’s NFL draft. The draft is a once-a-year opportunity for GMs to acquire talent.

Like investors, GMs often think they are smarter than their competitors, aka the market. Yet, they frequently have similar mindsets and follow the same narratives that drive their competition.   

As we will share, overconfidence and groupthink among football GMs and investors are behavioral flaws that often harm performance. Having the tools and strategies to mitigate our behavioral traits is extremely valuable and can lead you to better returns.

Overconfidence In The NFL

Four of the first five picks in the draft are expected to be quarterbacks. Not only is the quarterback the most important position on the field but this year’s draft is hyped as having several future greats.

Based on data from Warren Sharp, an NFL analyst, most of the quarterbacks taken in the early rounds will be average. His Fox Sports article entitled The success rate of first round QBs makes Lamar Jackson’s case for him, quantifies just how poor the odds are of drafting the next Super Bowl-winning quarterback. 

There have been 38 quarterbacks drafted in the first round since 2011, the year the NFL changed the collective bargaining agreement.

These 38 first-round quarterbacks have made a total of 1,909 starts. Their record? 1034-1035-7.

He claims that of those 38 quarterbacks, only one, Patrick Mahomes, has won a Super Bowl. Furthermore, of the 28 from that group who are no longer on their initial contracts, the average time they were a starter was a mere 3.4 years.

Despite the proven mediocrity of quarterbacks taken in the first round, we have little doubt that overconfidence will be on full display by the GMs drafting quarterbacks with their top picks after they make their selections.

Groupthink In The NFL

This behavioral trait arises when people seeking conformity think and act similarly. Typically, groups reach a consensus opinion without proper evaluation and with minimal alternative viewpoints.

For instance, it is widely accepted that the four quarterbacks likely to go in the top five, Williams, Daniels, Maye, and McCarthy, will be excellent pros. Most NFL analysts offer differences between the quarterbacks but praise the physical and mental traits they believe will make them NFL starts. Very few analysts have poor ratings on any of those four quarterbacks.

Choosing one of the four quarterbacks is comforting. Simply, GMs have cover if their pick is a dud. Who could have known? Every expert thought he would be a superstar!

Investor Overconfidence And Groupthink

Replace players with investment ideas and GMs with investors. The overconfidence and groupthink mentality impacting GM draft day decisions are similar to those investors always face.

We quantified the odds of GMs picking above-average quarterbacks earlier. Per DFA Funds, the odds of an investor outperforming the market are even more daunting.

We saw from the data above that an investor has about a 75% chance of underperforming the market in any given year, which means you have a 25% chance of beating the market in any given year.

The message to take away from that statistic is to leave your confidence at the door!

Regarding groupthink, most investors, like GMs, find comfort in knowing that many other investors are doing the same thing. Market narratives are a form of groupthink. Narratives help explain market movements and trends. Often, a narrative develops after a trend has started. In other words, rightly or wrongly, the narrative is the rationale.

Today, narratives appear to be quicker to form and longer lasting. Maybe the advent of social media has allowed for their quicker dissemination and growth.

Narratives describe the mindset of a group of investors. When you unknowingly invest based on a narrative, you are likely setting yourself up for failure.

Strategies To Combat Behavioral Traits

Appreciating that GMs have a one in three chance of successfully using a precious top-five draft pick on a quarterback or that only a quarter of investors will beat the market, we best have tools to manage our behavioral traits and improve our odds of success.

Zig

Warren Sharp advises GMs to “zig while others zag.”

To zig is to have a contrarian mindset. For instance, it’s important for your portfolio to have popular stocks leading the market higher. But at the same time, understand that confidence can wane quickly, and a new set of stocks will take the throne soon enough. Don’t overstay your welcome in a narrative.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Magnificent Seven stocks were all the rage. Their returns handily beat almost every stock and index. Holding a meaningful subset of the seven stocks was vital to keep up with the broad market indexes. However, the Magnificent Seven’s period of outperformance has either ended or is on pause. But, the narrative still thrives, and whether it’s already happening or will occur shortly, investing in the aged groupthink will catch many investors offside.

Take Profits 

It’s hard to sell when others are buying. Still, when the narrative-driven stocks fall out of favor, the prior profits and reduced position sizes will bolster returns and lessen the risk of underperforming the market.

Appreciating what the market, and not popular narratives, tell you is equally vital. For instance, have you noticed that utilities and energy are the best-performing sectors lately? Those solely holding the Magnificent Seven and neglecting other sectors are falling behind.

The SimpleVisor table below shows the relative performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks and XLU, the utility ETF, versus the S&P 500 over various time frames. Other than NVDA, most of the seven have been underperforming the market as of late. Also, the once poorly performing utility sector has been beating the market for the last 45 days. Selling the Magnificent Seven 45 days ago to buy utilities would go against groupthink, but it was a smart call.

Appreciate Your Options

The GMs with the top five picks have a precious option. Instead of picking a quarterback with limited odds of success, they can trade the pick to another team. In exchange, they might receive multiple high-level draft picks, boosting the odds of success.

Other positions in the NFL draft have much better success rates than quarterbacks. If a GM can set aside their confidence in their ability to pick the right quarterback, they can increase the odds that they could easily land at least two very good players and possibly a pro bowler. Maybe they can even use one of the picks to get a quarterback in the later rounds. Let’s not forget Brock Purdy, the San Francisco quarterback who led the 49ers to the Superbowl, was Mr. Irrelevant, the last person taken in the draft.

Investors have options, too. Many stocks, sectors, and factors will likely outperform the market but do not fit the narrative du jour. While buying what others aren’t may be uncomfortable, it may be more profitable.

The other lesson is to diversify. Putting most of your eggs in one basket can significantly impact your relative performance. You will underperform if you are proven wrong, as is most common.

Let Winners Run

One of the most popular Wall Street sayings is, “Cut your losses short and let your winners run.”

If our chances of beating the market are one in four, doesn’t it make sense to trade your portfolio actively? Many investors do the opposite. Their confidence and the attraction of groupthink keep them in underperforming stocks. At the same time, alternative stocks that are less followed may be the best bets.

It can be appropriate and profitable at times to follow the crowd. However, at all costs, don’t ignore alternative views.

Summary

We risk underperforming the market by falling victim to our natural behavioral traits. Therefore, we owe it to ourselves to entertain and understand alternative views. As odd as it may seem these days, we need to watch FOX News and read the New York Times. We must challenge ourselves to understand better things that may not be comfortable.

Seek out and study the views of others with whom you disagree. By better understanding opposing opinions, you will strengthen your existing views or better recognize flaws in your current logic. Either way, an investment thesis is better for it.

Most importantly, remember that you are only human. The Patrick Mahomes of the investment world are few and far between. At times, overconfidence is a good trait, but it can also be a critical flaw.

Gucci owner Kering SA's problems in mainland China are only mounting as the French luxury giant issued a profit warning. As a result, shares of the company in Paris plunged to a six-year low. 

Lackluster Chinese demand for the luxury goods maker, which includes the Gucci, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent, Creed, and Alexander McQueen brands, sparked turmoil in Paris trading on Wednesday. Shares were down as much as 10%, tumbling to lows not seen since October 2017. 

Kering said its sales in the first quarter dropped 11%, citing "tough market conditions" in its Asia-Pacific unit, particularly in China, one of the world's largest luxury goods markets. 

• Group first-quarter revenue: €4,504 million, down 11% as reported and down 10% on a comparable basis

"Kering's performance worsened considerably in the first quarter. While we had anticipated a challenging start to the year, sluggish market conditions, notably in China, and the strategic repositioning of certain of our Houses, starting with Gucci, exacerbated downward pressures on our topline," Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman and chief executive officer of Kering, wrote in a statement.

Pinault continued, "In view of this revenue decline, together with our firm determination to continue investing selectively in the long-term appeal and distinctiveness of our brands, we now expect to deliver sharply lower operating profit in the first half of this year. All of us are working tirelessly to see Kering through the current challenges and rebuild a solid platform for enduring growth."

Here's a snapshot of the first quarter earnings (courtesy of Bloomberg):

• Comparable revenue -10%, estimate -10.2% (Bloomberg Consensus)

• Gucci revenue on a comparable basis -18%, estimate -19.4%

• Yves Saint Laurent revenue on a comparable basis -6%, estimate -6.75% 

• Bottega Veneta revenue on a comparable basis +2%, estimate -0.05% 

• Other Houses revenue on a comparable basis -6%, estimate -4.23% 

• Eyewear & corporate revenue on a comparable basis +9%, estimate +18.1%

• Revenue EU4.50 billion, -11% y/y, estimate EU4.47 billion 

• Gucci revenue EU2.08 billion, -21% y/y, estimate EU2.05 billion

• Yves Saint Laurent revenue EU740 million, -8.2% y/y, estimate EU737.1 million

• Bottega Veneta revenue EU388 million, -1.8% y/y, estimate EU381.5 million

• Other Houses revenue EU824 million, -7.4% y/y, estimate EU834.4 million

• Eyewear & corporate revenue EU536 million, +24% y/y, estimate EU517 million

In the financial outlook, Kering warned that, considering "deterioration revenue trends," the company now expects "a decline of 40 to 45% in first-half 2024 recurring operating income compared to the first half of 2023." 

In February, Pinault stated, "Our priority is to get Gucci back on track," adding that this "won't happen overnight."

Kering has scrambled to turn the sinking ship around, as Gucci accounts for half the group's sales. 

Here's what Wall Street analysts are saying about Kering's profit warning amid fears the revamp of Gucci is faltering (list courtesy of Bloomberg): 

Deutsche Bank (buy, PT cut to €460 from €540)

• Kering has followed up its surprise first-quarter revenue pre- release with a bigger-than-expected flow-through into first-half Ebit guidance, analyst Adam Cochrane says

• There are "limited green shoots" with regards to Gucci at this stage, and will have to wait until the third or even fourth quarter to see if the Sabato proportion of the collection hit 30-40%

RBC Capital Markets (outperform, PT cut to €430 from €440)

• While Gucci's margin cut is "optically bad," it was well- anticipated and largely in the price, analyst Piral Dadhania says

•  Performance is currently challenged, with no improvement in second-quarter trading, but the market will likely focus on sequential revenue growth improvement driven by new product introductions

Bryan Garnier (neutral, PT cut to €350 from €405)

• Kering was even worse than expected, says analyst Loic Morvan, even amid marginal signs of improvement at the top and bottom- line in the second half

Jefferies (hold, PT cut to €360 from €370)

• Kering's update confirmed Ebit under pressure in the first half, with Gucci's recovery expected to be only gradual over this year, writes analyst James Grzinic

• Analyst is encouraged that the group is seeking external partners for real estate holdings, but triangulating Gucci's renaissance remains a "challenging affair"

Morgan Stanley (equal-weight, PT cut to €365 from €405)

• Management's tone was cautious on the call regarding the sales and profit trajectory for the remainder of the year, analyst Edouard Aubin writes

• The warning is more a function of incremental operating deleverage rather than proactive investments behind the brands

Citi (buy, PT €470)

• Citi analyst Thomas Chauvet says that Gucci's design transition and new brand aesthetics might be slower-than- expected in driving brand heat and store traffic

• The greatest source of uncertainty this year is the shape of demand in subsequent quarters, and its impact on profitability

Bloomberg Intelligence

• Gucci's rebuild is dragging toward 2025, analyst Deborah Aitken says, adding that overhaul efforts are taking longer, while Kering's second-biggest brand YSL is also weaker, which requires deeper investment

• Sabato de Sarno's collection will take until the third quarter for fuller own-retail store visibility, pushing the resumption of growth to 2025

This all plays into the slowdown of the global luxury market, reflected in the MSCI Inc. index of global luxury stocks, finding three lower highs since peaking during the Covid mania of late 2021. 

Another ominous sign is the flashing red from the watch market just days ago. 

Swiss Watch Exports Crash In China & Hong Kong https://t.co/i2LXXHa5aK

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 19, 2024

The underperformance of luxury results from shoppers who are pulling back on spending, especially in Asia, as the Chinese economic recovery has yet to impress anyone. 

Authored by Turner Wright via CoinTelegraph.com,

Payments firm Block, formerly known as Square, has announced plans to develop a Bitcoin mining system in response to challenges faced by mining operators.

In an April 23 blog post, Block said it had completed development of a three-nanometer chip used for BTC mining, which led to the firm announcing a “full Bitcoin mining system.”

Block — then Square — CEO Jack Dorsey suggested a collaborative approach to decentralize Bitcoin mining in October 2021.

“We’ve spent a significant amount of time talking to a wide variety of bitcoin miners to identify the challenges faced by mining operators,” said Block.

“Building on these insights and pursuant to our goal of supporting mining decentralization, we plan to offer both a standalone mining chip as well as a full mining system of our own design.”

Source: Jack Dorsey

Block completed a prototype design of a five-nanometer BTC mining chip in May 2023, claiming at the time the centralization of chip development in the hands of a few companies was harmful to the ecosystem.

The firm called on the mining community to provide additional feedback for the system, asking for comments on challenges it faced in purchasing miners, maintenance, transparency and software issues. 

Intel announced in 2023 that it planned to end shipping for its Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) mining chips in April as part of cost-cutting measures.

Such chips are often used for mining proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin halving on April 19 cut the block reward for miners from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

The event will likely shake up the market as miners compete for fewer rewards for the same work until the next halving, expected in another four years.