The Tariff Issue Again

Paul Craig Roberts

The whore media is doing its best to misrepresent the tariff issue and to cause hysteria that causes stock market volatility and fears of world recession. One of the anti-Trump propaganda ministries that poses as financial media went so far as to claim that Trump has caused a “regime shift whereby US Treasuries are no longer the global fixed-income safe haven.”

Once upon a time the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Economist, the BBC, the US TV networks were semi-reliable.  Today they are nothing but propaganda ministries.

Trump has “paused” the threatened tariffs.  Why? Because as I have reported in columns and interviews they are a negotiating tool with which to reach agreements.  Trump paused the tariffs, because the tool worked. Seventy-five countries have agreed to negotiate a solution to Trump’s concerns.

How did the excrement that pretends to be a media report Trump’s success? “The most significant retreat by Trump in his term so far.”  “Faced with a world recession, sharp selloff of equities and bonds and plunge in oil prices, Trump abandoned his crackpot tariffs.”

The Western media, especially the one in the US, has never served the West well.  The US media covered up the assassinations of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy.  The media first encouraged, then misrepresented, the Vietnam War. The media used the CIA-orchestrated “Watergate” to hound President Nixon out of office.  The media tried, but failed, to destroy President Reagan as a somnolent Grade-B movie actor who slept through cabinet meetings. The media covered up 9/11. The media supported obvious lies, such as “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people,” accused Gaddafi of ” being an authoritarian administration that systematically violated human rights and financed global terrorism in the region and abroad” (Wikipedia, the worst liar on earth). The media makes excuses, or does not cover, Israel’s extermination of Palestine and the Palestinian people. The media lies through their teeth about “the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” about alleged evils of Iran and China.  

When people in the Western world are confronted by nothing but lies and propaganda serving as news, what understanding can they have?

Consider the Iranian issue.  Iran has not threatened the US in any way, yet labors under Washington’s sanctions and war plans to attack Iran. For many years the Israel Lobby has been trying to get Americans to attack Iran for Israel.  Trump, who appears to be an Israeli puppet instead of a strong American president, is threatening Iran with devastating attack.  But does he mean it, or is it, like the tariff threat, just another negotiating instrument?  

If I were Trump, I would not want any wars, because wars are all-consuming, and the domestic agenda would be put on the back burner. I think that Trump wants to avoid all wars so that he can deal with America’s real enemy:  the American Establishment.

It will be interesting to see who is strongest, Trump or the war establishment.

A land of mass graves and mercenaries – Can this genocide be stopped?

https://www.rt.com/africa/615384-prospects-establishing-parallel-government-sudan/ 

Finally, Russian media responding to Israel’s genocide of Palestine?

No, the story is about Sudan.

It seems the Kremlin and Russian media are under the same Israeli control as Trump and the American media.

Recently, I wrote that Trump and Putin were the two people who counted, but it seems both are nothing but Israeli puppets. Putin even sold out Syria to Netanyahu.

Patriactionary has posted an amusing collection of postmodern Christian action figures. I’ve copied one below as a teaser, but you should go to Patriactionary to see the whole set.  Be warned, more than one ox is gored.

The S&P 500 surged 8.5% off its lows on Wednesday as the administration announced a 90-day tariff pause for all countries except China. Sound familiar? In Tuesday's Commentary, we wrote:

For those of you with bearish nightmares, we share one important takeaway from Monday’s market roller coaster. While there is a good chance the market may explore new lows over the coming months, we must appreciate that there is plenty of fuel for a sizeable bounce. The one piece of important evidence supporting this thesis was a Tweet claiming that Trump is considering a 90-day pause in all tariffs except those on China.

After the official announcement of the 90-day pause, the "fuel" propelled the market to its third-largest percentage gain in history. The two instances ahead of it both occurred in October 2008. The takeaway is that news about retalitory tariffs, pausing the tariffs, and any tariff agreements will continue to drive markets with extreme volatility. If Trump can turn the 90-day pause period into a series of constructive agreements with our largest trade partners, there is more bullish fuel in the tank. Negotiations with China will be most important. Retaliatory tariffs from China and then America have weighed on markets. The longer negotiations take, especially with China, the more negative consumer and investor sentiment will negatively impact the economy and markets.

What To Watch Today

Earnings

Economy

Market Trading Update

Yesterday, we discussed the market reaction to the 90-day pause in tariffs, which sent the stocks surging in the third-largest single-day rally since WWII. As we stated yesterday:

"With the weekly “sell signal” in place, we will very likely see the market either stall at those levels (best case scenario) or retrace to test recent lows (most likely case.). Let’s see if we can get some follow-through on today’s trading.

Unfortunately, the market did not get a follow-through to yesterday's buying, and it was a classic bear market rally. As discussed on SimpleVisor yesterday morning, we took action and used the rally to rebalance portfolio and reduce exposure to equity risk.

"As we have discussed over the last two weeks, the deep oversold condition of the market would lead to a sharp reflexive rally that should be sold into to reduce risk and rebalance portfolios. That rally came yesterday, and we are reducing risk across all models this morning. The first step is to reduce exposure to positions, reduce target weights, and increase cash levels. The next step, if needed, will be to add a short position in portfolios. Today is step one."

We increased cash levels to nearly 20% in the 60/40 portfolio and dropped equity exposure to 49%. With the weekly sell signal in place, we will look to reduce equity risk by another 4-5% by adding a short position to the portfolio on the next rally.

Despite inflation dropping sharply and the 10 and 30-year bond auctions going well, the risk in the bond market is spreading through the equity markets. For more information on the "basis trade" and why it is such a risk, here is an excerpt from the Real Investment Show on Wednesday.

The market remains oversold in the near term, which should provide some opportunity for reflexive bounces to reduce risk and rebalance as needed. I suspect that the larger corrective process remains well intact, and an eventual retest of lows, if not new lows, is likely before this process is complete.

Trade accordingly.

CPI Surprises To The Downside

The CPI (-.1%) and Core CPI (+.1%) came in 0.2% below expectations. Year over year Core CPI (+2.8%), the Fed's preferred inflation measure, is below 3% for the first time since March 2021. Also important, the so-called super core CPI fell by 0.24%, the lowest reading since May 2020. Supercore is the core calculation but also excludes housing.

CPI rent inflation, as shown below, continues to decline steadily. It now sits a hair below 4%. More disinflation in rents and shelter prices will continue, but the pace may slow from here.

While the data is very good, the initial impact of tariffs has yet to be felt. Inflation data could become volatile in the coming months as the tariffs' inflationary and deflationary effects ripple through the economy.

How To Use Tax Harvesting

For investors looking to reduce tax liability while keeping their portfolios optimized for growth, a tax-loss harvesting strategy can be a valuable tool. By strategically selling underperforming investments to offset capital gains, investors can minimize their tax burden and improve their after-tax returns.

Understanding how tax-loss harvesting works, when to apply it, and how it fits within a broader tax-efficient investing strategy can help investors make smarter decisions and maximize their wealth over time.

READ MORE...

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The post The Pause Heard Around The World appeared first on RIA.

As Catholic philosophers and fellow disciples of St. Thomas Aquinas, I would guess that Ed Feser and I are on the same page about many things. Even in his recent take on Catholic teaching on immigration, there is one point on which we are wholly in agreement: namely, that in evaluating policy decisions about immigration and immigration enforcement, we must consider “the entirety of Church teaching” on the subject.

Taken in its entirety, however, the Church’s teaching does not weigh, as Feser suggests, in favor of the Trump administration’s “restrictive immigration policy.” That claim is made to seem plausible only because Feser presents critics of the administration’s policies as consisting exclusively of “advocates of virtually open borders.” In reality, the very Church documents that Feser cites illustrate how it is possible both to criticize specific immoral forms of regulation and enforcement and defend moral forms of regulation and enforcement. Indeed, the whole point of Church teaching on immigration is to enable Catholics to assess whether specific policies are moral or immoral.  

Feser’s essay does not properly reflect how this assessment works, however, because it misunderstands the role of prudence in applying moral principles.  

Feser’s Relativistic Portrayal of Prudence

There is a puzzling disconnect between the beginning and end of Feser’s essay. Titled “A Catholic Defense of Enforcing Immigration Laws,” it opens by taking the position that “the administration’s restrictive immigration policy” is “on much stronger ground” vis-à-vis Catholic social teaching than the alternative that he presents as “virtually open borders.” He then identifies relevant principles from Church documents for the administration’s defenders to embrace: First, that the government ought to regulate immigration; second, that in doing so, it should consider immigrants’ potential impact on the well-being of its citizens, including with respect to employment, overall development, and cultural heritage.  

(I should pause to note that this second point does not quite align with what the cited documents actually say. The point of section 2241 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, about respecting cultural heritage, is phrased in terms of the immigrant’s duties to the host, rather than as something governments should consider in admitting immigrants. The 1988 document Church and Racism introduces “[a country’s] possibilities for employment and perspectives for development” as criteria that justify more limited intake. As the reference to development illustrates, however, this passage is evidently meant to justify a proportionately more limited responsibility for poorer countries in the developing world. Moreover, it takes a more open-ended perspective on the good of society as including that of the potentially admitted refugees, rather than being a one-sided consideration of the “economic well-being of its own citizens” as Feser suggests. Feser takes this same text to justify considering “preserving cultural identity” as a reason for restriction. In reality, what the text actually says is that governments should avoid creating “serious social imbalances” that would impel the home population to reject newcomers due to the perception that their identity and culture are threatened. The Church’s concern, again, is for the good of the newcomers taken together with the preexisting population.  I set these observations aside for the sake of argument, though, and simply address matters the way Feser presents them.)

Now none of this yet makes a case for the essay’s opening position—everything is still too abstract. In the concluding paragraph, however, Feser seems to think that the existence of these principles already settles the question in his favor: 

It would be intellectually dishonest, and indeed contrary to justice and charity, to accuse Catholics who appeal to such considerations in defense of enforcing U.S. immigration laws of somehow dissenting from the Church’s teaching. The truth is that the entirety of that teaching—not only what it says about the obligation to welcome the stranger, but also what it says about the limitations on that obligation—must inform our judgments about how many migrants to allow in and under what conditions.

After presenting this position as objectively preferable in light of Catholic teaching, though, he veers into surprisingly relativistic territory:

And as Aquinas teaches, here “it is not possible to decide, by any general rule” but requires the exercise of the virtue of prudence. As to what prudence calls for, Catholics of good will can reasonably disagree. Those who demand mercy toward immigrants should afford the same courtesy to their fellow Catholics who simply express a legitimate difference of opinion about a matter of public policy.

Two moves occur in this paragraph. First, although Feser is right to emphasize the need for prudence, he relies on an essentially relativistic notion of prudence—one in which objective moral principles only get us so far, and the rest of the work is done by prudential judgment in a personal realm of mere “difference of opinion,” shielded from objective moral scrutiny. Indeed, the phrase “legitimate difference of opinion about a matter of public policy” places public policy outside the realm of things one can objectively morally evaluate—a view commonly found in company with relativistic notions of prudence, as I have argued elsewhere.  

I am not sure why Feser makes this move. It seems at odds with his judgment that Catholic social teaching positively favors “the administration’s restrictive immigration policy.” What makes such a judgment “legitimate”? If it is because the judgment correctly reflects the action’s objective moral status, then Catholics cannot reasonably disagree. But if it is because one has the right to apply moral principles prudentially as one sees fit, then this can only be true if the action has no objective moral status or its true status is for some reason undiscoverable—and then one prudential judgment cannot be “more in line” with Church teaching than another.  

Moral Considerations Are Not Moral Justifications

But there is a second problematic move as well. Feser is at his strongest when he reminds us that many considerations must inform moral analysis of immigration policy—considerations that his conclusion divides roughly into the good of the host society and the good of the immigrant. But the point is (or should be) that all those considerations should inform every moral judgment in this domain. Instead, the conclusion treats social good and welcoming the stranger as separable justifications for irreconcilably opposing moral judgments, one justifying “restrictive” policy and the other justifying “merciful” policy.  

Why is this problematic? Here’s an analogy: In morally evaluating a medical treatment, many considerations are relevant, including expectation of success, the patient’s health and age, the procedure’s cost relative to family and community resources, the absolute wrongness of intentional killing or forgoing ordinary lifesaving means, etc. But the mere fact that age is a relevant factor does not mean that anyone can legitimately appeal to it to sufficiently justify a particular moral judgment. For instance, when my grandmother with Alzheimer’s starts refusing food, I cannot legitimately conclude, “She is old; therefore we can stop feeding her.” Or, if my task is to demolish old buildings, I must take possible outcomes into consideration: a vagrant who may be sleeping inside would be killed or seriously injured. But that does not mean that I am justified in refusing to demolish any buildings on the grounds that a vagrant might be inside. Obviously, instead I should look inside and see if there is a vagrant actually sleeping there or not.

In other words, an item’s being on a list of relevant factors does not automatically make it into a plausible moral justification in an actual case. Otherwise, I could simply pick the factors that give me the answer I want and ignore the others. Rather, through prudence, I need to identify which factor actually does morally determine the case—or, to use more Thomistic language, to identify which moral form “specifies” the particular act, making it right or wrong.  

Consequently, different factors may morally determine different cases. But it is not true that different people may legitimately appeal to different factors to justify opposing judgments of the same case. The principle of noncontradiction applies just as much to moral judgments as to any others. And prudence is the light that illuminates an action’s moral status.  

An Authentically Thomistic Account of Prudence

These two problems are symptoms of something gone awry in the underlying picture of moral reasoning in Feser’s essay, which I want to contrast with an authentically Thomistic view of prudence.  

Consider: Feser cites Aquinas saying that “it is not possible to decide by any general rule” whether in a given situation I should aid a less needy family member versus a more needy stranger. Instead, one must decide by prudence. This can sound as though I must make my decision, not by considering a rule, but by something else: prudence.  

But the English translation is misleading. What Aquinas actually says is that “a general rule cannot determine” which person I am obliged to aid in this situation, something that only prudence can do. The difference sounds innocent, but it is important.

What does Aquinas mean? Here are three important characteristics of Thomistic prudence.

First, Thomistic prudence is objective, not relativistic. For Aquinas, deliberately chosen actions are always objectively either good or evil. Prudence is the virtue for discerning that moral status. Disagreement is legitimate when prudence fails, not when prudence is operating normally. For instance, my options may be equally good and thus morally indistinguishable. Or poorly informed agents may reach different judgments where one or both are unwittingly wrong, but they disagree “legitimately” in the sense of both acting in good faith.

Second, prudence judges in accord with the moral law, not outside it. Prudential reasoning is supposed to identify the features defining a concrete action as good or evil, thus uncovering which moral law the action falls under. Aquinas’s point in the passage above is that there are many relevant rules that might govern aid: e.g., I should aid those nearer to me, and I should aid the needy, both as a general matter. But there is no overarching rule adjudicating between them—i.e., a rule that dictates “in cases of conflict, always prioritize proximity” or “always prioritize need.” Indeed, as Aquinas observes, need and proximity come in degrees, so one can’t know which will be morally defining without having a particular situation in mind. 

Different situations, then, have different “features” that make them fall under different morally defining rules. By examining an action in its particular circumstances, then, the prudent person can discover which rule objectively morally specifies it. In one situation I should prioritize, say, buying a thoughtful gift for my sister to strengthen family ties. In another, I should prioritize, say, buying food to stock the kitchen of a newly arrived refugee to alleviate her hunger and loneliness. (Incidentally, that’s why Aquinas’s ordo amoris isn’t a priority rubric or moral triage principle for allocating aid. Rather, it is one moral principle among many others, and prudence’s task is to detect whether a given action falls under this principle or a different one.)

Third, Thomistic prudence relates principles to particular actions. The reason Feser can make the choice between “restrictive” versus “merciful” policy seem legitimately open is that it remains so abstract. No morally defining features have yet come into view. One cannot morally evaluate “health care procedures” any more than one can morally evaluate “immigration policy” or “enforcing laws” in the abstract. What can be analyzed is a specific law or policy or enforcement activity—e.g., the six-month waiting period for work permits for asylum seekers, or ending refugee admissions in the U.S. in 2025, or the policy of ceasing to consider humanitarian impact when determining whom to deport, or the specific actions that agents of the state take to enforce a law or policy. These are not morally neutral, and the virtue of prudence should enable us to detect their true moral status.

Thomistic Reasoning on Immigration

With this picture of Thomistic prudence in mind, let us now examine how one might exercise moral reasoning on questions pertaining to immigration policy and enforcement. Since there is no room here for full-fledged analysis of any of these actions, I will instead examine how the considerations Feser identifies intersect with the particular circumstances of America in 2025.  

As noted earlier, Feser suggests that the good of the host society has been neglected in previous Catholic discussions—for example, “concerns about security, the economic needs of its own citizens, and the preservation of its own cultural identity.” It is notable that he assumes these factors must count on the side of limiting immigration—one could just as well point to lower crime rates by immigrants and their positive economic impact in favor of expanding immigration. (This illustrates, again, how such abstract considerations are meaningless without reference to particular circumstances.)

In any case, let us take cultural identity as an example. In the abstract, cultural identity looms large as a problem for immigration policy to address. But I want to suggest that when considered in connection with concrete facts about U.S. history, society, and politics—which is how prudence must consider it in order to reach concrete judgments about particular policies—there is little reason in our present circumstances to think that cultural identity will be weighty enough to become a defining moral factor in this domain at all.

In order to understand why, we need to see that in a Thomistic account, a human community is not a mere collective or agglomeration of individuals, but something much more like a living organism capable of self-maintenance. In other words, a community is not like a cake mix made up of various ingredients, which could be easily unbalanced by putting in too much baking powder. Instead, a community is like a tree that is continually taking up nutrients and incorporating them into its own life—reshaping what was once outside itself to make it be part of itself.  

In this framework, communities are normally strong enough to carry out this work of incorporation—which is a basic task they must constantly perform, not just with foreigners, but also with newborn children and even with internal movements of people. A community must be unusually fragile, or take on an unusually large number of incomers, or set up unusually strong barriers to integration, in order to fail in this vital activity. Indeed, this task is not essentially a threat to, but precisely part of, the good of a society (as the example of children illustrates)—just as any living thing stays alive precisely by taking up new material into its life.

Historical examples amply illustrate how most societies are fully capable of incorporating newcomers. American culture has absorbed Irish, Italians, Germans, Hungarians, Polish, Chinese—and each group has gone on to be “digested” into American culture. This is not to say each group of immigrants did not have and even retain unique identifying features. But these did not displace American culture; instead, they became part of the life of American culture. The nation did not become less American after incorporating a wave of Jewish refugees after World War II. Despite initial panics about each new wave of immigration, ultimately, these fears have proved to be unfounded.  

(Compare the widespread fear of conceiving a second child in case one cannot love her as much as one’s first. In reality, the family, being a living entity, expands to take up the new child into its life, making her just as loved and indispensable as the others. Is the family permanently shaped by her presence? Of course. But does the family thereby cease to be what it was, and become something else? Of course not. Instead, the new child is taken up into the family’s identity. Later, one can no longer imagine the family without her.)

Indeed, concerns about the fragility of American culture are hard to maintain in the face of its vigorously self-exporting nature. Wherever it goes, it recruits. So in terms of concrete fragility, it is hard to find any culture on earth whose identity is less fragile. But the U.S. is not unique in its capacity to absorb newcomers. My point is rather that this is what communities essentially do by their nature: like an organism, a community takes up incoming “material” into its own life.

Of course, there are examples of cultures that were instead overrun and destroyed by newcomers. Generally, these are extreme cases involving extraordinary disparity in numbers or resources, such as in the near-annihilation of Native American cultures by a vastly larger number of better-armed European incomers. Some cultures, too, are uniquely fragile because they are already under pressure from a dominant majority. In the Canadian province of Quebec, the only French-majority enclave in a majority-English country, for example, there is a policy of preferring Francophone refugees—a policy that seems defensible specifically because French speakers are already under significant cultural pressure. (Notably, this policy manages to balance protecting Francophone heritage with obligations to the vulnerable, illustrating that attention to one need not exclude the other.) In contrast, there is little evidence that recent waves of immigrants, large as they have been, pose any kind of special threat to American culture and identity.  

My point is not to dismiss social-good factors. National identity (or security for that matter) is just as much a factor for moral reasoning as humanitarian need—in the abstract. But in a concrete set of circumstances, not all the factors may be morally relevant. In the abstract, there is simply no answer to the question whether national identity matters “more” or “less” than humanitarian need (or migrants’ right to pursue their own safety). But in the concrete, there are determining facts of the matter. This is equally true of humanitarian need: one cannot appeal to humanitarian need in defense of a “merciful policy,” without first showing that there is actual humanitarian need, and that such need is morally determinative in the situation at hand. 

Thus Feser is right to say that all factors must be “taken into consideration.” But this only gets us as far as laying out the materials for the project of moral reasoning. It certainly does not mean that anyone who selects one of those considerations as morally determinative is right to do so. One can “legitimately” appeal to those factors if they are in fact morally determinative in the concrete case at hand. If they do not apply, or do not apply in a morally defining way, then one cannot appeal to them in defense of anything.

In short, it is meaningless to talk of the morality of “restrictive” versus “merciful” immigration policies. Prudential reasoning has an important role to play, yes—but that role is to illuminate the objective moral truth about specific immigration laws, policies, and enforcement activities.  

In this response, I haven’t sought to make the case that the specific immigration policies pursued by the Trump Administration fail to align with Church teaching. But that work practically does itself, as soon as we allow ourselves to evaluate concrete policies and the people affected by them in light of the Church’s entire teaching—rather than cutting off discussion at an abstract level and putting further reasoning into a box marked, “Prudential matter! No moral scrutiny required.” It’s the same sort of thing we already do when we stand by a hospital bed, evaluating the morality of specific treatment options for a loved one. And by the light of prudence applying all the principles that Catholic social teaching urges, we can do so in the domain of immigration too.

Image by Rob Goebel and licensed via Adobe Stock.

Finally in proper attire for a non-pope…

The ‘Pope’ of Surprises: Francis Shows Up in Plain Clothes at St. Peter’s Basilica

Today, Apr. 10, 2025, the convalescing ‘Pope’ Francis (Jorge Bergoglio), who according to his doctors is supposed to have as little contact as possible with others and is to stay confined to his apartment in the Casa Santa Marta until May, had himself wheeled into Saint Peter’s Basilica, reportedly to pray at the tomb of Pope St. Pius X (r. 1903-14).

The most unusual aspect of this was that Francis decided to appear without his usual papal attire — white cassock, skull cap, ring, ugly pectoral cross — instead preferring to be seen as just another old man in a wheelchair.… READ MORE

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Based on last year's assisted suicide vote, newly elected State Senators: Dan Cruce (D-Wilmington) and Ray Seigfried (D-North Brandywine) may decide if the assisted suicide bill passes.

Everyone needs to contact members of the Delaware State Senate, with attention to Senators Cruce and Seigfried, to urge them to vote NO to assisted suicide bill HB 140. There are 21 members of the Delaware Senate. (Delaware State Senator Contact List).

The Delaware assisted suicide Bill HB 140 must be defeated in the Senate. 

Assisted suicide bill HB 140 was debated on Wednesday April 9 in the Senate Executive Committee. Sarah Petrowich reported for Delaware Public Media that:

40 members of the public took advantage of potentially their last time to speak on the bill during its final hearing, constituting nearly two hours worth of comments.

21 commenters spoke in opposition of the bill while 19 spoke in favor.

Petrowich further reported that:

Sen. Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn (R-Georgetown) brought forward Dr. Neil Kaye of Hockessin, a physician and past president of the Psychiatric Society of Delaware, to speak on the bill.

Dr. Kaye noted the American Medical Association (AMA), American Psychiatric Association (APA), American College of Physicians (ACP) and National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization all oppose medical aid in dying.

In his comments, Dr. Kaye also said the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine are also opposed to the legislation, although both organizations have adopted varied stances of neutrality.

Dr. James Ruether of Newark, speaking on behalf of the American College of Physicians, expressed sentiments similar to the various healthcare providers who came to speak in opposition of the bill: “The ACP believes that no physician should act, whether as the agent or as an assistant, to cause the death of any patient, and assisted suicide is no exception.”

If all of the Senators vote the same way as in 2024, then the newly elected State Senators: Dan Cruce (D-Wilmington) and Ray Seigfried (D-North Brandywine) will decide if the assisted suicide bill passes.

WATCH THE FACEBOOK VIDEO HERE!

PCR explains the tariff issue

https://x.com/SputnikInt/status/1910056727506198645 

https://sputnikglobe.com/20250409/whats-the-true-purpose-of-trumps-global-tariff-blitz-1121846520.html 

Le Pen’s verdict exposes Western Europe’s dangerous trend

https://www.rt.com/news/615295-le-pens-verdict-exposes-this-trend/ 

We don’t deserve it. But we so need it. Please, God, have mercy on us.

How can you read this, or the author write this, and think we really have a pope?

I am in no way omniscient. Hey, I am not even seminiscent. So, while acknowledging I could somehow be wrong, I just don’t get it.

This is what St. Gregory’s administrator writes in an email about Easter Sunday there:

I have updated the SGG Easter Plan document to reflect this year’s timeline. There are areas that are highlighted in yellow that may need to be addressed—some practice times, coverage for overflow in the PLC, distribution of the Eucharist on the lawn (especially at the 11 am), etc. 
 
As of now, we are expecting and praying for good weather, which means SGG will be very busy Easter Sunday. The KofC are preparing for helping with parking during the 9 am and 11 am Masses; Hispanic Ministry plans to handle parking for the 1 pm; we also have contracted with the State Highway Patrol from 7 am to 1 pm to assist with general traffic direction. We have six troopers on Easter Sunday with two planned at the fire department area and four in the Berkeley Hall/SGG entrance. I have also communicated with the Beaufort County Traffic Engineers and the SC Department of Transportation on making significant adjustments to the lights to help us with traffic flow. Please note that Sunday, April 20 is also the last full day of The Heritage on Hilton Head Island—so there WILL BE traffic!
 
Deacon Denny plans to coordinate with the deacons on coverage, especially in the PLC and for additional coverage at Masses (or on the lawn to help with Communion, because the 11 am tends to have a large crowd).
 
The large screen will be on the lawn for the 9 am and 11 am—with the 1 pm also as a possibility!
 
If you would communicate with your ministries (ushers, greeters, etc.), that would be appreciated—and any staff who are present for any of the Masses can be expected to be “called into action” to assist with chairs, passing baskets, etc. 
 
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or coordinate with your team. It will be a flurry of activity here in the next few days so get your rest and be ready to go!
 
Have a blessed rest of your week…

What is up with the bond market? Many rumors are floating around. For instance, some claim China is selling Treasury bonds in retaliation for increased tariffs. Another rumor claims the bond market is besieged by investors raising money for equity margin calls. While both are plausible, negative interest rate swap spreads point to liquidity problems. We will have more on swap spreads in an article next week.

In late March, Bloomberg published an article titled "Fed Urged to Explore Hedge Fund Bailout Tool for Basis Trades." The article's first paragraph recommends that the Fed create an emergency program to help bail out leveraged hedge funds caught underwater in basis trades.

Treasury basis trades are an arbitrage strategy that exploits the price difference between U.S. Treasury securities and their corresponding futures contracts. The trade, popular with hedge funds, aims to profit from minor discrepancies between the cash and futures market and the guaranteed convergence by maturity. Basis traders buy/sell Treasury bonds and sell/buy futures contracts using up to 20x leverage. While the trade is a guaranteed money maker if held to maturity, illiquid market conditions can cause irregular fluctuations between the bond and future prices. These variations force margin calls. Hedge funds can either meet the margin call with cash or bonds or reverse the trade. Today, that entails selling bonds and buying futures. Hence, that likely explains the swoon in the bond market. The graph and commentary below are courtesy of Bloomberg.

Either the bond market situation resolves itself, or, as we saw in 2019 and 2020, the Fed is forced to bail out hedge funds. Coincidentally, the bailout of Long Term Capital (LTCM) was also due to failed basis trades, as detailed in a section below.

What To Watch Today

Earnings

Economy

Market Trading Update

What a move! Yesterday, we wrote:

"Regarding the S&P 500 specifically, despite the complete reversal of gains yesterday, market breadth signals that we are likely closer to a near-term bottom than not. While the sell-off is certainly weighing on our emotions, selling at this level may alleviate some short-term pain, but will likely lead to missing out on a substantial rally that would provide a better exit point. Given the deep oversold conditions and the continued negative newsflow from the White House, as we saw on both Monday and Tuesday, any small piece of positive news is going to lead to a vicious rally. Use that rally to reduce risk and raise cash levels. Continue to disregard the majority of media headlines. Stock and bond market volatility has not been this high without a nearby bottom in prices."

Yesterday, the White House took an interesting pivot. On Monday, a "fake news" headline suggested that the White House would pause tariffs for 90 days. After seeing the markets' reaction to the headline on Monday, the White House used that same narrative to alleviate the continued asset liquidation in the stock and bond markets by pausing tariffs for 90 days. Was Monday a "leak" and a "test balloon," or did President Trump provide the market a much-needed short-term lifeline? Whatever the reason, it was welcome news and allowed investors to rebalance portfolio risk and exposures.

As shown, if we use the 2022 market correction as a model, the first decline led to a 61.8% retracement. While the decline so far has been more dramatic, there are two retracement levels that investors should consider using to raise cash levels and rebalance portfolio risk. The first is the 50% retracement level at 5480, then the 61.8% retracement level at 5600. We will use both of the levels to begin raising cash levels, adding hedges, and rebalancing exposures as needed. With the weekly "sell signal" in place, we will very likely see the market either stall at those levels (best case scenario) or retrace to test recent lows (most likely case.). Let's see if we can get some follow-through on today's trading.

Long Term Capital Management's Bailout

The potential basis trade blowup reminds us of the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) bailout in 1998. The following quote is from our article- From LTCM to 1966:

LTCM specialized in bond arbitrage. Such trading entails taking advantage of anomalies in the price spread between two securities, which should have predictable price differences. They would bet divergences from the norm would eventually converge, as was all but guaranteed in time.

LTCM was using 25x or more leverage when it failed in 1998. With that kind of leverage, a 4% loss on the trade would deplete the firm’s equity and force it to either raise equity or fail.

The world-renowned hedge fund fell victim to the surprising 1998 Russian default. As a result of the unexpected default, there was a tremendous flight to quality into U.S. Treasury bonds, of which LTCM was effectively short. Bond divergences expanded as markets were illiquid, growing the losses on their convergence bets.

One or multiple hedge funds appear to be caught offside as the tariffs roil markets. What comes next? If the 1998 LTCM debacle is a good proxy, the Fed will support the hedge funds, ultimately protecting the banking system. QE is possible, but more likely is a program in which the Fed buys or sells cash bonds to the hedge funds while the hedge funds sell or buy Treasury futures to the Fed. Essentially, the Fed will help the hedge funds liquidate the trades.

The takeaway is that the financial system has highly leveraged players, including some like LTCM, which supposedly have “foolproof” investments on their books. Making matters fragile, the banks, brokers, and other institutions lending them money are also leveraged. A counterparty failure thus affects the firm in trouble and potentially its lenders. The lenders to the original lenders are then also at risk. The entire financial system is a series of lined-up dominos, at risk if only one decent-sized firm fails.

Trump's Economic Revolution: Unraveling A Blessing And A Curse

Deuteronomy 11:26 – “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse.” This biblical passage has been used countless times to describe the global economic structure in place since 1944. As World War II raged and Britain suffered significant financial stress, the allied forces signed the Bretton Woods Agreement. As part of the pact, the US dollar would replace the British pound as the world’s reserve currency.

Since then, many of the original commitments have gone away. However, friends and foes of the US remain heavily dependent on the US dollar as its reserve currency. With it, they accept the blessings and curses that come with it. The unwritten US dollar reserve pact is and always has been unsustainable. Nevertheless, every US President since 1944 has fully supported it. Donald Trump may no longer be willing to pass the buck as his abrupt economic and foreign policy reversals signal economic revolution.

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The post Is The Bond Basis Trade Freaking Out The Bond Market? appeared first on RIA.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Ex 20:14)…

Francis Congratulates King Charles and Queen Camilla on the Anniversary of Their Adulterous Union

Francis during a general audience on March 24, 2024 (image: Shutterstock/Fabrizio Maffei)

[UPDATE: Video of Charles and Camilla’s Visit added to post below]

Nine years ago, on Apr. 8, 2016, the Argentinian Modernist Jorge Bergoglio (aka ‘Pope’ Francis) issued the infernal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which gave the green light to those in the Vatican II Church who are in an adulterous second ‘marriage’ — the so-called ‘divorced-and-remarried’ — to receive Holy Communion without first repenting of their adultery.… READ MORE