It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, April 01, 2022
WHAT DAY IS IT?
Russia says Ukraine blew up an oil depot in Russian territory in a helicopter raid, part of an apparent wider fightback
A screen grab captured from a video showing a fire in the Russian city of Belgorod on April 1, 2022. Russian Ministry of Emergency Situation/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A Russian politician said two Ukrainian helicopters blew up an oil depot in Russia on Friday.
The governor of Belgorod said Ukrainian helicopters launched an airstrike on the city of Belgorod.
Ukrainian officials denied carrying out the attack, saying it could be a false flag operation.
A Russian politician said Friday that Ukrainian forces blew up an oil depot on Russian soil in a helicopter raid.
Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram that two Ukrainian helicopters launched an airstrike on the depot in the Russian city of Belgorod, located 24 miles north of the Ukrainian border.
There were no casualties but two oil workers were injured, Gladkov said.
The gains came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia was preparing to shift the focus of its attacks on Ukraine, to focus on attacking the eastern Donbas region.
Zelenskyy said that a claim Russia was "radically" scaling back attacks on Kyiv was actually a repositioning.
Speaking on Friday, Zelenskyy again called on Western powers to supply Ukraine with more arms.
"We need more support from our partners right now. When the Russian military is concentrating additional forces in certain areas," he said.
Clashes between ISIL and Kurds kill four in Syrian camp
ISIL cell attack SDF-run Al-Hol camp, leading to the death of three civilians and one ISIL fighter. Al-Hol is home to displaced civilians as well as family members of ISIL (ISIS) fighters [File: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters]
Published On 29 Mar 202229 Mar 2022
Three people, including a child, have been killed in northeastern Syria’s Al-Hol camp, caught in the fighting between Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in charge of the site and ISIL (ISIS) cells, a war monitoring group said.
An ISIL member was also reportedly killed in the clashes.
“Reliable sources reported that Al-Hawl [Al-Hol] camp in the far south-east countryside of Al-Hasakah province has been witnessing ongoing tension” since Monday night, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Tuesday. It added that another 10 people had been wounded.
The Kurdish Hawar news agency reported that the clashes lasted for three hours after an ISIL cell attacked members of the SDF’s Asayish Forces.
In another report citing the Asayish’s media center, Hawar news said the cell used Kalashnikovs, pistols, and rocket-propelled grenades.
It has been three years since a United States-led coalition captured the last sliver of territory held by ISIL, ending their self-declared caliphate that covered large parts of Iraq and Syria.
The brutal war lasted several years and left US-allied Kurdish authorities in control of the country’s east and northeast areas, with a small presence of several hundred American forces still deployed there.
Since then, remaining ISIL fighters have gone underground in the Syrian-Iraqi border region and continued to launch attacks.
Approximately 56,000 people live in Al-Hol, an overcrowded SDF-run camp for displaced people that has been plagued by murders and regular escape attempts, according to the United Nations. The camp hosts about 10,000 foreigners, including the wives and children of ISIL fighters who are detained in a high-security annexe guarded by SDF forces.
The SDF warned last week that a lack of international support risked allowing for a resurgence of ISIL, as they marked three years since the declared defeat of the militant group’s so-called caliphate.
The SDF have repeatedly called on Western countries to repatriate their nationals held in northeast Syria, but most have been reluctant to do so because of fears of a domestic political backlash.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
Afghan refugees trapped in Syria's Idlib after being deported by Turkey
Four youths picked up in Ankara on their way to Europe from Jalalabad are now penniless after being arrested by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham Nasratullah, a 22-year-old Afghan stuck in Syria's Idlib province
(MEE/Bilal al-Hammoud)
By Harun al-Aswad in Istanbul, Turkey Published date: 31 March 2022
When four young Afghans set off for Europe from Jalalabad, they never expected to find themselves in Syria’s Idlib.
But late last year they were picked up in Ankara, then deported by the Turkish authorities to the Syrian opposition enclave through Khirbet al-Joz border crossing into western Idlib.
“We told the Turkish authorities that we were Afghans, yet they deported us to Syria,” Nasratullah, one of the young Afghan men, told Middle East Eye.
The youths - Nasratullah, 22, Safiallah, 23, Khiyali Gul, 18, and Attaallah, 25 - decided to leave their eastern Afghanistan city when the Taliban took power last summer.
“It took a month to travel from Afghanistan to Turkey via Iran for $1,100," said Safiullah.
“As soon as we got to Ankara, the police caught us and we were persecuted,” Nasratullah added.
“We begged them to send us to Greece. They said they would send us to Greece or Afghanistan but they sent us to Syria.”
Four Afghan youths in the Qah area of Syria's Idlib
(MEE/Bilal al-Hammoud)
Today the young Afghans have largely run out of cash. None have phones, and MEE was only able to speak to them through a local intermediary.
When they were deported, the youths were immediately arrested by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militant group that controls Idlib. They were held for a month, and only released after convincing HTS that they were not connected to Iran and were supportive of the Syrian revolution.
For the past month, the youths have been living in a temporary shelter in northern Idlib’s Qah, under the supervision of a local people smuggler.
The plan remains to cross back into Turkey and resume their journey to Europe. In Qah, they spend their days attempting to reach out to relatives and gather enough money to pay the smugglers to get them across the border.
But even finding work to earn enough cash to live in Idlib is proving hard. And if they are able to pay smugglers, getting across the highly fortified Turkish border is not only difficult – it’s highly dangerous.
Afghan refugees face harsh rules in Iran and Taliban persecution at home
Turkey and Syria are separated by a large border wall reinforced with thermal cameras, trenches and barbed wire. Hundreds of Turkish border guards are positioned along it.
On Wednesday, two Syrians were killed attempting to cross the border. Turkish troops are accused of directly targeting refugees trying to flee Idlib, with hundreds of deaths reported in recent years.
“We have failed to jump across the border wall without a smuggler, and the border guards shot at us twice,” Nasratullah said.
“When we crossed at the third time, the border guards arrested us and brought us back to Syria even though we told them we were Afghans.”
The safest routes into Turkey are inevitably the most expensive. Smugglers claim they bribe Turkish border guards, and have dug tunnels under the fence through which people can pass safely. They charge $2,500 to $3,000 for those routes.
But risks remain. Turkish authorities occasionally seize smuggling tunnels and blow them up to prevent the influx of new refugees.
About four million people live in northwestern Syria, half of whom have been displaced by pro-Syrian government forces and are now living in tents. Rising hostility
The Afghans are not the only foreigners that have been deported to Idlib by Turkey.
Last year, Turkish authorities deported nine Iranians to northern Syria, after they claimed to be Syrians while trying to cross into Europe.
Although there is increasing hostility towards Syrians in Turkey, some foreign refugees and migrants there claim to be Syrian thinking it will win them sympathy of the authorities and the local community.
'We begged them to send us to Greece. They said they would send us to Greece or Afghanistan but they sent us to Syria'
- Nasratullah, Afghan refugee
Last year, Tanju Ozcan, the mayor of the Bolu province, described Syrians as 30 years behind Turks, and said Afghans were 100 years behind.
The Afghan youths’ smuggler is said to have told authorities they were Syrians hoping to win them a reprieve. It didn’t work.
“We were beaten and imprisoned in Turkey, then we were photographed in prison and forced to fingerprint the deportation papers,” Nasratullah said.
Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, urged Turkey to stop deporting asylum-seekers.
“We are deeply concerned by the reports that Turkey has deported Afghans to Idlib, where they were imprisoned by HTS,” she told MEE.
“Asylum-seekers must be given the opportunity to present their fears that have led them to seek asylum,” she added.
“Turkey shouldn’t be introducing processes that complicate refugee access to protection. Deporting people without giving them a chance to claim asylum indicates that Turkey is not a safe third country.”
Turkish officials have on several occasions denied deporting refugees, telling MEE last month that no one has been deported to northwest Syria.
However, sources said that Turkish authorities deported some 150 people to Syria in February, about 16 of whom were able to return to Turkey with difficulty by coordinating with local Syrian organisations based in Turkey.
China Crackdowns Shrink Private Sector’s Slice of Big Business
Tom Hancock, Bloomberg News
China Customs officers raise a Chinese flag during a rehearsal for a flag-raising ceremony along the Bund in front of buildings in the Lujiazui Financial District at sunrise in Shanghai, China, on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022. A wall of maturing debt and a surge in seasonal demand for cash will test China’s financial markets this month, putting pressure on the central bank to ensure sufficient liquidity. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg , Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- China’s regulatory crackdowns last year reduced the private sector’s share of the country’s big businesses for the first time in seven years, but probably won’t be enough to send them into retreat entirely.
Of China’s top 100 listed companies by market capitalization at the end of 2021, 49 were privately owned, down from 53 the previous year, according to a report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. It’s the first time that number has fallen since 2014.
Private-sector companies were hit last year by Beijing’s tough regulation of sectors ranging from internet platforms and education to real estate, an overhaul which fueled a market selloff that at its most extreme erased $1.5 trillion from Chinese stocks.
The market share decline “is thus directly correlated” with the crackdown, the report’s authors wrote, citing the significant drop in value of well-known firms such as DiDi Chuxing Inc, the ride-hailing giant that was probed by cybersecurity regulators and taken off Chinese app stores shortly after a $4.4 billion U.S. initial public offering in June.
“The perception of dramatically increased policy risk had led to a sharp decrease in Chinese stock prices,” the report’s authors said.
Despite the crackdown, the longer-term trend suggests the influence of large, private sector firms in China may not be diminished that much, according to the report’s authors.
When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the number of private companies among China’s top 100 by market capitalization was just 17, nearly a third the amount at the end of last year.
“Its difficult to say if the fall in the private sector’s share will continue. You are not going to see it collapsing,” said Nicolas Veron, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank and co-author of the report.
The private sector accounted for 54% of the total market value of the 100 largest listed Chinese companies in 2020, up from 10% in 2010. The drop to 48% last year was “smaller than we expected,” said Tianlei Huang, who co-authored the report.
“The popular narrative is that during the Xi Jinping era the state is coming back. But when we look at the largest companies, private companies are advancing very quickly,” he added.
The authors found a similar rise in China’s private sector when looking at the Fortune 500 list, which includes companies not listed on public stock markets. Privately owned companies made up 25% of Chinese Fortune 500 members in 2021, up from 7% a decade before.
The report found the private sector’s share of revenue received by China’s largest companies has increased, but remains significantly smaller than the share received by state-owned companies, both among listed and Fortune 500 companies. That likely reflects the concentration of state-owned firms in sectors such as heavy industry, utilities and finance, where companies often operate as monopolies or duopolies.
Large privately owned Chinese companies include internet platform companies such as Alibaba and Tencent, along with others in pharmaceuticals, consumer services, electronics manufacturing and logistics, according to the report.
China’s ruling Communist Party said in a key document last year that it has “unshakable” commitments to both developing state-owned companies and supporting and guiding the private sector. Privately owned companies account for more than 60% of China’s GDP, according to official statistics.
The Peterson Institute report authors also noted that Chinese state-owned companies receive a variety of advantages such as easier access to bank lending.
“Our interpretation is despite all the policies under Xi Jinping, the dynamism of the private sector is such that it offsets the policy bias against it,” Veron said.
China hosts Russia, U.S. officials for talks on Afghanistan
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, where China was set to host two days of meetings on Afghanistan, state broadcaster CGTN reported.
The report gave no other details on their meeting.
Lavrov had arrived earlier in China for talks hosted by Wang that were set to include representatives from Afghanistan's ruling Taliban as well as Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Tom West, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, will attend a separate meeting at the same venue of the so-called Extended Troika: the China, Russia and the United States plus Pakistan, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said.
That meeting does not include Lavrov and Wang.
The talks come against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and as Afghanistan suffers an economic and humanitarian crisis worsened by a financial aid cutoff following the Taliban takeover as U.S.-led troops departed in August.
They also come amid widespread condemnation of the Taliban's U-turn last week on allowing girls to attend public high schools, which has sparked consternation among funders ahead of a key aid donors conference.
The retention of the ban prompted U.S. officials to cancel talks in Doha with the Taliban and a State Department warning that Washington saw the decision as "a potential turning point in our engagement" with the militants.
The United States believes that it shares with other Extended Troika members an interest in the Taliban making good on commitments to form an inclusive government, cooperate on counterterrorism and rebuild the Afghan economy, the State Department spokesperson said.
Last week, Wang visited Kabul, where he met acting Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to discuss political and economic ties, including starting work in the mining sector and Afghanistan's possible role in China's Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, the Afghan foreign ministry said.
Muttaqi was set to attend the meeting in China.
(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian and Tony Munroe; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
LEADER OF TROTSKYIST WSWS TAKES ON HOLLYWOOD
2022 Academy Awards: Will Smith’s disorientation, Hollywood’s and America’s
The incident involving actor Will Smith and comic Chris Rock at the Academy Awards on Sunday night has grabbed public attention worldwide. Video clips of the episode have now been viewed hundreds of millions of times
Smith, seated in the front row at the annual film awards ceremony, charged the stage and slapped Rock on live television, after the comic had made a tasteless but essentially innocuous joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and her shaven head.
The audience at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles went silent—as did the ABC television broadcast, for an unprecedented 30 seconds or more. Upon returning to his seat, a censored (in the US) Smith could be seen twice screaming at Rock, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f---ing mouth.”
“Despite some backstage consultations, the organization and producers decided not to remove Smith from the event,” Deadline reported. Less than half an hour later, Smith was permitted to deliver a rambling, tearful acceptance speech after he won the best actor award for King Richard (directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green).
Will Smith, right, hits presenter Chris Rock on stage while presenting the award for best documentary feature at the Oscars on Sunday, March 27, 2022, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
While vaguely apologizing, Smith ended up essentially defending his action, comparing himself to the figure he plays in King Richard, Richard Williams, the father of tennis players Venus and Serena Williams. Williams, Smith said, “was a fierce defender of his family.” Later in his speech, he commented, “I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams, but love will make you do crazy things.”
Rock has so far declined to press assault charges with the Los Angeles police, but he would certainly be within his rights to do so. On Monday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued a statement condemning “the actions of Mr. Smith at last night’s show. We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our Bylaws, Standards of Conduct and California law.”
On Monday night, Smith issued a more direct, if formulaic apology in an Instagram post, asserting that violence “in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable.” He then went on to excuse himself, on the grounds that “a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.”
Smith went on, “There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.” He concluded, “I am a work in progress.” The actor, generally known for his amiable and easy-going film and television persona, is 53 years old—it might be time for him to act his age. In any event, a contrite appearance somewhere with Oprah Winfrey would presumably allow him back into Hollywood’s good graces.
Jennifer Lawrence and Rob Morgan in Don't Look Up
If the Academy officials possessed any genuine integrity, they would have asked Smith to leave the Dolby Theatre and allowed him to pick up his award at some other time, or they might have delivered it to him. Statements condemning Smith’s violence, after essentially condoning it, ring entirely hollow.
The inability to discipline Smith, at least initially, speaks to the larger issues involved. The actor belongs to the world of celebrities, whose immense wealth (Smith is estimated to be worth $350 million) and fame put them largely beyond the normal reach of the authorities or mere mortals generally—unless, of course, an alleged sexual transgression or “micro-aggression” is involved.
The cult of celebrity has reached an advanced and severely damaging stage in America, having “flourished” dramatically in recent decades. As the actual conditions of life have drastically worsened for tens of millions, the need to live vicariously through others “more fortunate,” to lead a fantasy life, has grown exponentially. As we noted more than two decades ago, “Excessive celebrity must be linked to inequality, indeed becomes a rationale for inequality and reinforces it, ideologically and materially. The heaping of fame and wealth upon a single individual, or a handful of individuals, is only possible and meaningful if the vast majority have no access to those rewards.”
From a rational point of view, Smith’s action was undoubtedly bizarre. The actor first smiled in response to Rock’s jibe, before apparently girding his loins for battle. As with a large portion of Hollywood personalities’ behavior, it is almost impossible in this case to distinguish feeling from playing at feeling. The assault felt contrived, artificial. Such people are always acting. We have no idea what went through Smith’s head in those few seconds. “What am I expected to do?” he might have thought. “If I just sit here, I may be laughed at for allowing my wife to be insulted in public.”
Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand in The Tragedy of Macbeth
It is also possible that Smith had absorbed too much from the mediocre, Williams family-authorized “biopic” for which he was about to receive an award. He may have been acting on the basis of some nonsense he drew from the Richard Williams story about “defending” wife, family, etc. If so, it was an absurd and pathetic miscalculation. Smith now runs the risk of being remembered more for this moment than for any of his film or television appearances.
The episode on Sunday reveals something real about the Hollywood environment, but so much of that environment is itself unreal. Like everything “royal,” Hollywood royalty too has a great deal false and deceptive about it. Stars have money and attention heaped upon them, and they—and much of the public—may interpret that, under certain conditions, as a sign of quasi-divine approval. The gods, however, do not hand out the gift of full psychological and personal development so freely. An actor may have a persona, face and physique that “works,” to one extent or another, in front of a camera, and yet remain extremely limited as a human being. Given a change in circumstances, such as took place between Smith’s slap and his pitiable, semi-incoherent acceptance speech a short while later, a Hollywood “prince” may suddenly appear to be “only a washed-out man with a flabby lower lip,” to borrow a phrase.
Smith’s reference to the fact that there was “no place for violence in a world of love and kindness” has to be seen in the proper context. The incident Sunday night was immediately shocking, because public events in the US, pre-packaged and largely embalmed, are not usually intruded upon by anything unexpected.
But, in the larger sense, there is not the slightest reason to view the Smith-Rock altercation as “shocking.” American life is exceedingly, excessively violent. Some 40,000 people, for example, are killed by guns every year in the US. Three months into 2022, there have already been 112 mass shootings, more than one a day, and more than 4,400 killings and more than 5,800 suicides involving firearms.
American military forces are everywhere. The Pentagon officially acknowledges some 800 bases around the world, in 80 countries. After making war on and devastating Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and other countries, resulting in mass death and misery, the Biden administration has turned its attention toward Russia and threatens to unleash a third world war.
Moreover, the specific conditions of 2022, in the midst of an entirely avoidable pandemic, that has ended 1 million lives in the US, must be factored into the maddened, desperate goings-on at the Academy Awards and in other arenas. The film industry may officially ignore COVID-19, having devoted no more than a minute or two Sunday night to the catastrophic pandemic, but COVID-19 has not ignored the film industry. Performers, writers and crew members have lost their lives. Devastating financial losses took place in 2020 and 2021. The future of the movie theater business is in question. Hollywood has increasingly become a factory for producing a handful of bland, empty “blockbusters.” The normal insecurity of the acting profession has been multiplied by a significant factor.
Inevitably, the legitimately appalled response to the Smith outburst has been seized upon by the identity politics brigade as a sign of “white racism.” The Guardian headlined an article, “White outrage about Will Smith’s slap is rooted in anti-Blackness. It’s inequality in plain sight.” The piece claimed that the reaction to the Smith slap “feels precious at best, and downright racist at worst.” The backlash against Smith, we are told, “is rooted in not just anti-Blackness, but respectability politics as well.” This type of “performative pearl-clutching is only ever reserved for Black men who mess up.”
These stupid, preposterous remarks were echoed in various quarters. For all intents and purposes, National Public Radio (NPR) defended Smith, referring to the “many online” who asserted that “For once … here was a Black man publicly sticking up for his Black wife—and her Black hair—on a stage where Blackness has historically been overlooked or outright shunned.”
Race and gender politics received their inevitable, disgraceful due at the Academy Awards ceremony itself. Virtually nothing takes place in Hollywood these days that has not been vetted by the identity politics censors and calculators. When Ariana DeBose, the least impressive of the lead performers in West Side Story, accepted her award as best supporting actress, she presented herself as “an openly queer woman of color, an Afro‑Latina, who found her strength in life through art.”
Overall, if the Smith-Rock episode could overshadow the rest of the awards program, it was because the rest of the awards program could so relatively easily be overshadowed.
The incident highlighted a ceremony that struck the wrong note at almost every turn. While CODA, a generally well-intentioned and humane film, won awards for best picture, supporting actor (Troy Kotsur) and adapted screenplay (director Siân Heder), the two most serious works by far up for awards, the biting satire Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay) and Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, came away empty-handed.
As we noted in February, Minamata (Andrew Levitas) and A Hero (Asghar Farhadi), neither of which received any nominations, were “the two most obviously deserving films … entirely and disgracefully ignored by Academy voters.” For that matter, with all its limitations, Steven Spielberg-Tony Kushner’s West Side Story (one award) involved far greater thought and skill than most the films that gathered in numerous prizes.
All in all, it should come as no surprise that much of the American population is alienated from and even hostile toward the film world, which largely turns its back on the population’s greatest problems and focuses incessantly on petty issues of vital interest to the affluent middle class. ABC’s broadcast of the Academy Awards on Sunday attracted an estimated audience in the US of 15.3 million viewers, an improvement on last year’s all-time low of 10.4 million, but still the second worst in history. As recently as 1998, more than 48 million Americans watched the ceremony.
At one point, for several decades of the last century, the Hollywood film studios and considerable sections of the American population spoke the same language, or at least could understand one another.
“In January 1940,” David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace explained, John Ford’s “The Grapes of Wrath [a film about the Great Depression and its victims] opened to unanimous critical praise, surprise, and awe. Public response was equally overwhelming. Opening day attendance at New York’s Rivoli Theatre broke all previous records.” William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives, about the difficulties of World War II veterans, sold an estimated 55 million movie tickets in 1946, i.e., to more than half the adult population. But then, overall, 80 million people went to movie theaters every week that year.
Developments in the class struggle, the emergence of a mass movement aimed against the foundations of the existing social order, must bring forward new artistic voices and forces onto the scene. The present situation is simply untenable.
Trump Prosecutors Who Quit Never Planned to Stay for N.Y. Trial
Greg Farrell, Bloomberg News
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at The Rosen Shingle Creek on February 26, 2022 in Orlando, Florida. , Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
(Bloomberg) -- One of the two New York prosecutors who quit over the slow pace of a criminal probe into former President Donald Trump said the pair had always intended to leave the Manhattan District Attorney’s office at some point before the case went to a trial, which would likely take years.
Mark Pomerantz, 70, and Carey Dunne, 63, resigned last month when new District Attorney Alvin Bragg stopped supporting their aggressive push to bring criminal charges and expressed skepticism about their strategy. Both men had been recruited by Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance, whose term expired in December.
“My intent was to stay in the office and work on the prosecution of Donald Trump,” Pomerantz said in a phone interview. “At the same time, Carey and I made it clear that since the case would take a number of years, neither of us would stay for the duration of the prosecution.”
Dunne couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.
Whether Dunne and Pomerantz would stick around may have been an important consideration for Bragg. He inherited a high-profile criminal probe of Trump that hadn’t led to an indictment after three years under Vance and would likely take years longer to complete if it went to trial. Bragg’s office declined to comment.
Both men wrote resignation letters, but Bragg’s office turned down a freedom-of-information request to disclose them publicly because the letters contained discussion of an ongoing criminal investigation and referenced grand jury matters. However, a copy of Pomerantz’s letter appeared in the New York Times last week, which first reported on the men’s February departures.
In the letter, Pomerantz criticized Bragg’s decision not to file charges in the near term.
“I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes,” Pomerantz wrote. “I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice. I therefore resign from my position as a Special Assistant District Attorney, effective immediately.”
Economists Now Predict Multiple Half-Point Rate Hikes in Canada
Erik Hertzberg, Bloomberg News
Tiff Macklem, governor of the Bank of Canada, speaks during a news conference in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Thursday, March 3, 2022. Macklem said the Bank of Canada expects its balance sheet to shrink quickly once it starts the process of running off its bond holdings, in a speech where he sought to reassure Canadians the withdrawal of stimulus will be “deliberate and careful.” , Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- Markets and economists are expecting the Bank of Canada to embark on one of the most aggressive tightening cycles in the central bank’s history as officials race to bring inflation back under control.
In a report Monday, Bank of Montreal ramped up its timeline, predicting Canada will see back-to-back, half-percentage-point hikes at the central bank’s next two policy decisions, beginning April 13. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are forecasting three consecutive 50-basis-point increases. Markets are more sanguine, with just one outsized move priced in over the next two decisions.
The new rate calls represent a marked shift in the outlook for borrowing costs that will take many Canadians by surprise and represent a major test for an economy with one of the highest total debt burdens in the developed world. Steeper expectations were stoked last week when Deputy Governor Sharon Kozicki said in a speech the bank will “act forcefully” to quell inflation, which is now rising 5.7% annually, the fastest pace in three decades.
“The Bank of Canada needs to take the punch bowl away as soon as possible,” Carlos Capistran, an economist at Bank of America, said by email. “We expect them to withdraw stimulus quickly.”
Other central banks, including the Federal Reserve, have pivoted to a more hawkish stance amid red flags about more persistent inflation and supply chain snarls created by the war in Ukraine. Chairman Jerome Powell and other U.S. monetary policymakers have put a half-point hike on the table for the Fed’s meeting in May and suggested more to come.
Bank of Canada officials led by Governor Tiff Macklem began the hiking cycle earlier this month, when they raised their policy interest rate to 0.5%, from the emergency low of 0.25%. Trading in overnight swaps suggest the benchmark rate will climb to almost 3% over the next 12 months -- a pace of tightening that hasn’t been seen in decades.
The Bank of Canada raised its policy rate by more than 2 percentage points in the years leading up to the global financial crisis in 2007, but that took place over a period of three years. The Bank of Canada last hiked by 50 basis points in 2000.
Perhaps the last comparable scenario was when policy makers hiked rates by a full percentage point at one meeting in 1998 to defend a sagging currency, a move that was quickly reversed just months later.
It will be tricky process, and some economists warn high household debt levels may ultimately prevent officials from moving too aggressively. Still, Macklem may be paying the price for waiting too long to start raising interest rates because of what proved to be erroneous assumptions about transitory inflation.
“The bank must now accelerate lift off because they didn’t take flight when they had a chance to earlier,” Derek Holt, an economist at Bank of Nova Scotia, said by email. “That’s going to cause more economic anxiety than if had they moved earlier.”
US Job openings remain high even as the number of workers quitting increases
AFP March 29, 2022
The number of job openings was little changed last month, while the number of people quitting jobs increased.
The Labor Department released its Job openings and labor summary on Tuesday, and job openings last month remained near record levels at 11.3 million on the last day of February. Quits increased to 4.35 million as the Great Resignation persisted.
The data released by the Labor Department serve as indicators of how much demand there is for workers in the U.S. economy and the extent to which employers are still struggling with labor shortages months after the economy began recovering from the Coronavirus pandemic.
While the gap between available positions and the unemployed grew even wider – an increasing number of Americans quit their jobs. The data shows that 4.35 million workers left in February, an increase of 94,000 from the previous month.
Federal Reserve officials watch the JOLTS report closely for signs of labor market slack. The extremely tight jobs picture has helped drive inflation higher, which in turn has pushed the Fed to start raising interest rates.
There are still roughly three million or so people who have not returned to the workforce, according to government data.
“Looking at how poorly our labor force has grown so far this year, if companies want to win the war for the talent they need to engage the people who may not be actively seeking work right now, or be the first option people see when they do return,” Ron Hetrick, a senior economist at Emsi Burning Glass, a data and research company, wrote in a note.
Economists are waiting eagerly for the Friday release of the BLS’s nonfarm payrolls count for March. Experts by Dow Jones are expecting growth of 490,000 and an increase in average hourly earnings of 0.4 percent for the month and 5.5 percent on a 12-month basis.
WARNING THE R WORD; RECESSION
Stock Surge Is a Bear-Market Trap With Curve Inverted, BofA Warns
Vildana Hajric and Katie Greifeld, Bloomberg News
BC-Stock-Surge-Is-a-Bear-Market-Trap-With-Curve-Inverted BofA-Warns , via Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- The 11% surge in U.S. stocks in the past two weeks has the hallmarks of a bear-market rally that might give way to deeper losses.
That’s the conclusion of analysts at Bank of America, who say warning signs are flashing for a market that has climbed “despite clearly weaker fundamentals,” including a Federal Reserve bent on raising rates sharply this year to battle persistent inflation.
The strategists caution that the selloff that took the S&P 500 12% from its January record is not over and sharp rallies are typical of volatility in bear markets, with some of the biggest on record occurring in the throes of the dot-com meltdown and the global financial crisis. A closely watched Treasury market metric flashed a recession warning Tuesday, adding to worries a restrictive Fed will damage the economy.
“The worsening macro backdrop and market-unfriendly Fed make sustained U.S. equity gains unlikely,” strategists including Gonzalo Asis and Riddhi Prasad wrote. The Fed isn’t likely to come to the market’s rescue at any point and, in fact, the central bank is welcoming of tighter financial conditions to aid its battle against inflation. “In practice, this means lower risk assets.”
For now, investors aren’t heeding any warnings. The S&P 500 jumped 1.2% Tuesday for its ninth gain in 11 sessions, even as the yield on two-year Treasuries popped above the 10-year rate for the first time since 2019.
But 10-day stretches of big gains have been common in bear markets. There were four that exceeded the 10-day rally of 10% through Monday in 11 bear markets since 1927, the BofA strategists wrote.
It’s not hard to find reasons for caution. The war in Ukraine still has commodity markets in turmoil, with fertilizer the latest product to skyrocket in price. Oil prices are still elevated, adding to inflationary pressures the Fed has promised to tamp down, even if it damages demand.
The strategists recommend investors sell out-of-the-money calls to hedge against both downturns as well as any potential short-term run-ups, which they say will be “limited.”
Bulls argue that despite the Fed’s push to slow growth, companies will still be able to deliver profit gains that justify valuations. Corporate America, in particular, is most insulated from the impact of sanctions on Russia, at the same time that bonds around the world have been in freefall.
BofA’s strategists said it would take softer inflation for stocks to be able to add to the latest gains -- something the bank’s economists don’t expect. They also warn that any easing of tensions in eastern Europe would remove a threat to growth but also give the Fed cover to hike faster.
The rates markets, for one, are exhibiting a lot more signs of stress. An increase in rates volatility over the past 10 days, as measured by the MOVE Index, relative to falling equity-markets volatility, as measured by the VIX, has been the largest since 2009 and is one of the biggest ever, BofA says. Following the 2009 episode, the S&P 500 fell 7% over the following six weeks.
Stocks registered a big pullback at the start of the year, and investors are now wondering if the market’s mired in a bear market. “We believe so,” Katerina Simonetti, senior vice president at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview.
“We believe that yes, in fact, this is a bear market, we have been in a bear market for quite some time,” she said. Her team came into the year worried about valuations, Fed tightening, inflation and a growth slowdown, and the war in Ukraine worsens many of those concerns.
“Now, this is not to say that there are no pockets of opportunity in this market, there absolutely are, and investors should be in position to take advantage of them,” Simonetti said. “But they are bear market rallies and they have to be seen as such.”
No, the inversion of the US yield curve between 5- and 30-year maturities doesn’t forecast a recession, contrary to what every financial publication in the English language has been saying.
Yes, the yield curve inverted before the 2008 recession. This time is different. The difference is obvious if we separate the yield curve into “real” yields and inflation expectations.
Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS, protect investors against inflation (or at least against increases in the Consumer Price Index, the US government’s flawed measure of inflation), by boosting the payout of principal by the increase in the CPI over the maturity of the note. The difference between the 10-year Treasury yield of 2.46% and the 10-year TIPS yield of negative 0.52%, or about 3%, is the inflation rate at which an investor in TIPS and an investor in ordinary coupon Treasuries will break even. It’s called the “breakeven inflation rate.”
An inverted yield curve (short-term interest rates are higher than long-term interest rates) is supposed to mean that investors expect lower economic activity in the future and hence lower interest rates. That’s what it meant back in 2007.
Today, it means that investors think that inflation will be much lower in the future than it is now. The breakeven inflation slope is sharply negative. Meanwhile, the real yield curve is positive. That’s the opposite of what we saw in 2007.
If investors really expected a recession, they would also expect the Fed to cut interest rates, or at least hold them steady at today’s low levels. But the TIPS curve says that the market expects Fed tightening – which won’t happen if the economy falls into recession.
That doesn’t exclude the possibility of a recession, to be sure. Consumers might balk at higher prices and stop spending, and the Fed’s gradual squeeze on interest rates might pop the US housing bubble. There are some signs of squishiness in consumer spending. The widely followed University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index has fallen almost to the 2008 recession lows.
But that has nothing to do with the yield curve viewed properly, that is, as two curves – a real interest rate curve and an inflation-expectations curve.
