The unknown world of caterpillars New Yorkers (furious)
Great Apes Achieve Momentarily Altered Mental States While Spinning Primates (Anthony L)
Australia: Child hunting snake finds nest of 110 poisonous snake eggss South China Morning Post
NASA unveils new spacesuit for early moon landing BBC (furious)
Caffeine may reduce body fat and risk of type 2 diabetes, study finds Guardian
Climate/Environment
Argentina’s record heat wave has ‘no similarity in history’ CNN (Paul R)
A biologist on the grief of having documented the collapse of the Great Salt Lake infinite time
To reduce methane in cow burps, Bill Gates is launching a start-up to feed cows a seaweed supplement Cowboy State Daily (furious)
Climate change is amplifying floods and droughts, new research shows Grist
Flood-battered California braces for more rain Los Angeles Times (furious)
Canada offers its own register of foreign agents to the deafening silence of the West RT. Kevin W: “The EU is also preparing its own foreign agent register laws.”
China?
Rebuilding America’s chip industry won’t come cheap Asia Times (Kevin W)
EXCLUSIVE: China’s securities regulator suspends approvals for new applications to sell global certificates of deposit, sources say, potentially stifling a lucrative flow of listings in Europe https://t.co/CcIAp8bE6b pic.twitter.com/VYyjEyZj01
—Bloomberg (@business) March 16, 2023
1,100 scientists and students banned from UK amid China crackdown Guardian
Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui charged with billion-dollar fraud in the United States Bloomberg (furious)
New not so cold war
A German spy ship was reportedly sent on a secret mission to the Nord Stream 1 site days before the explosion Sputnik (Kevin W)
Canadian FM says regime change in Moscow is ‘definitely’ the goal Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
New Bakhmut Report: High Casualties – Low Morale – Russian Tactics Alabama Moon (Kevin W)
SCOTT RITTER ON GEORGIA, BAHMUT, XI JINPING -ZELENSKY TALKS, AND WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE WAR ENDS…Youtube. Important for the Georgia discussion. Ritter’s wife is Georgian. Ritter also hopes that China will act as an interlocutor, but in no way how will the United States and NATO allow this to go anywhere. If that appears to be the case, given NordStream, I would expect a US-sponsored attack disguised as a Ukrainian attack to poison the talks. Or alternatively, assassinate Zelensky and blame Russia.
Nasdaq notifies Yandex and other Russian companies of plans to delist their shares Reuters
As Russia looms, US seeks to influence West Africa’s fight against Islamists Reuters (resilc)
🇷🇺🔥 In Rostov-on-Don, the FSB border service is on fire.
Local residents heard an explosion and then black smoke billowed from the building, according to media
No official statement yet… pic.twitter.com/jUCRytomCW
— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) March 16, 2023
The United States and the ICC have a delicate history Washington Post (furious)
Imperial Collapse Watch
U.S. maternal mortality hits highest level since 1965 Wall Street Journal (Dr Kevin)
uncle sucker Cato (resilic). When Cato makes sense…..
Rising arms imports to Europe as US dominance over global arms trade grows SIPRI (resilic)
As SVB fails, Icahn says there’s ‘no company-level leadership’ MarketWatch (resilc). As we said, but more importantly, in leadership positions in government too.
Asset
Federal investigators reviewed Trump Media for possible money laundering, sources say Guardian (resilc)
Biden
GOP slams Biden’s ‘inadequate’ defense budget as he promises spending cuts Defense News (resilc)
Abortion
Texas abortion pill case: Lawyers seeking removal of mifepristone from market admit there is no precedent Business Insider (Kevin W)
Police state surveillance
FBI Bookstore Spies in Chicago on Abortion Rights, Cop City and Anti-Development Activists Unicorn Riot (Tim S)
SVB
SVB Failure: Why It Happened and What It Means Richard Wave, Democracy Journal. A detailed and readable treatment.
‘Unfortunate and wrong’: Angry taxpayers react to latest bank bailouts The hill
BREAKING: California Governor Gavin Newsom lobbied the White House and the Treasury for the bailout of Silicon Valley Bank, without revealing that his private wineries would have been the bank’s clients and that he would even have had a personal bank account, according to the Intercept
– unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 15, 2023
The Ohio State Teachers’ Retirement System has invested heavily in Silicon Valley Bank Cleve Scene (Carla R)
‘A lot more problems’ following SVB’s collapse, says Dalio Heisenberg report (resilc)
Silicon Valley, Once Neglected, Is Now Too Big To Fail MSN (resilic)
Goldman Sachs’ Role in the Last Days of Silicon Valley Bank Yahoo (resilc)
Goldman Sachs eyes big payout from Silicon Valley banking deal New York Times (resilic)
rotten banks
Credit Suisse to borrow up to $54 billion from the Swiss central bank BBC (Kevin W)
US Treasury Reviews US Financial Sector Exposure to Credit Suisse – Bloomberg Reuters (resilc)
What’s going on with First Republic Bank? Adam Levitin. Very good compact description of the differences between SVB, Signature and now Republic.
1/ Mixed signals in the markets at the moment. Treasury implied volatility is screaming “crisis”. But the TED spread – the rate at which US banks lend to each other – is rather moderate. For what? Let’s review a few possibilities. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/jZARHTCOgh
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) March 16, 2023
FDIC Insured Deposit Accepting Bank Failures Since 2001 FDIC (resilic)
Wells Fargo’s Carrie Tolstedt pleads guilty and faces jail New York Times (resilic)
The bezzle
Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly took $2.2 billion from FTX entities Financial Times. Your humble blog focused on this beginning via the first revelations of new CEO John Ray. Our title of November 18: FTX: the new ex-CEO of Enron notes a “total absence of reliable financial information”, loans of 3.3 billion dollars to SBF, deposits of customers not recorded in the balance sheets; Confirms software backdoors, auto-deleted communications
FTX released its “Financial Schedules and Statements” – detailed documents about payments made before bankruptcy.
The title is SBF released billions. But other transfers in $ are hidden because of the secrecy of the case
A brief 🧵 https://t.co/BucUFqJ5Gk
— kadhim (＾ｰ^)ノ (@kadhim) March 16, 2023
Bad luck, Brits: Binance suspends UK deposits and withdrawals The Register (Kevin W)
Class struggle
“Median household net worth is next to nothing,” says Carl Icahn. MarketWatch (resilc)
February marks the 23rd consecutive month of declining real wages for American workers WSWS
In retirement homes, the poor live their last days with a few pennies Associated press (resilc)
Antidote of the day:
And a bonus:
It’s cute#animal #animals #AnimalsLover #funny #dog #cat pic.twitter.com/0fJKZGOPR9
— animalmemesbasic (@wildbeetle66) March 7, 2023
See Yesterday’s Links and Today’s Antidote here.
