Rep. Matt Gaetz Retweeted
Newsmax
@newsmax
.
@RepMattGaetz
entered Hunter Biden's laptop into the Congressional Record. Senior White House Correspondent
@johngizzi
reports.
MORE: https://youtu.be/UtkeSbQHkbY
https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1509192039614853134
Rep. Matt Gaetz Retweeted
Natalie Winters
@nataliegwinters
·
1h
FBI can't be bothered to find Hunter Biden's laptop, but managed to raid, handcuff, and steal a copy of the Declaration of Independence from a couple who they thought stole Nancy Pelosi's laptop.
(Couple never even entered the Capitol on Jan 6th.)
https://twitter.com/nataliegwinters/status/1509185645125808133
Recession Signals Light Up as Section of US 'Yield Curve' Inverts
Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12.
While bitcoin's bullish breakout has brought cheer to the crypto market, the U.S. bond markets appear to signal an economic recession, a bearish cue for risk assets.
Data tracked by charting platform TradingView shows that a section of the Treasury yield curve inverted early on Monday. The spread between yields on the 30- and five-year government bonds fell under zero for the first time since 2006 – a year before the great financial crisis of 2007-2008.
The spread between the 10- and two-year yields, another widely tracked section of the yield curve, was 12 basis points short of inversion at press time. A yield curve is a graphical representation of expected returns from bonds of different maturities. Yields have an inverse relationship with bond prices – as price increases, yields fall.
An inverted yield curve is widely read as a sign of impending economic recession, a significant decline in economic activity that lasts for months or even years. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the yield curve has inverted before each recession since 1955, with the economy taking a hit between six and 24 months following the inversion.
The recession hint provided by the latest curve inversion could have bearish implications for bitcoin. While the cryptocurrency hasn't developed strong links to economic activity yet, it has evolved as a macro asset since the coronavirus crash of March 2020 and tends to move in line with risk assets, mainly technology stocks, which are sensitive to economic cycles.
At press time, bitcoin showed no signs of panic, trading 0.8% higher on the day at $47,200. Early Monday, prices escaped a two-month narrowing price range, opening doors for an extended move to the higher side.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/recession-signals-light-section-us-114402790.html
Dollar reserve system frays with India-Russia currency deals
Sanctions on Russia boomerang on US dollar as questions about the rationale behind existing financial system spread far and wide
NEW YORK – Russia and India took a small but important step towards non-dollar trade financing and investment on March 25, when the Reserve Bank of India allowed Russia to invest the proceeds of its arms sales to India in local-currency corporate bonds.
Russia’s account with India’s central bank is small, with a reported balance of US$262 million, but the prospective advantages to both countries are enormous: India will pay for one of its most important import items, namely Russian weapons, in local currency, and Russia will invest the proceeds in a financial market safe from sanctions.
India changed its rules on external commercial borrowing to accommodate the Russian proposal, Bloomberg News reported. The US, European Union (EU) and Japan seized Russian central bank reserves as well as the assets of wealthy Russian nationals after Moscow’s troops invaded Ukraine in late February.
That is another small but indicative crack in the framework of the US dollar reserve system. Saudi Arabia reportedly will accept RMB in payment for oil shipments to China, its largest customer.
That implies in turn that the Saudi kingdom will maintain a significant portion of its reserves in Chinese currency, possibly in an arrangement like the Indian-Russian agreement for reinvestment of the proceeds of arms sales.
Human rights organizations have denounced Saudi Arabia for “longstanding human rights abuses,” as Human Rights Watch wrote on its website. After the seizure of Russian reserves, the Saudis are reluctant to keep their wealth where the US or other Western governments can grab it. Diversification into RMB is a logical alternative.
Russia, meanwhile, has demanded payment for gas shipments to “unfriendly” countries in its own currency, forcing European gas customers to purchase rubles on the open market. The ruble rallied from a low point of 140 rubles to the dollar on March 8 to 100 rubles to the dollar on March 25.
After the US, Europe and Japan seized more than half of Russia’s $630 billion in the wake of the Ukraine war, Russia has few safe places to park oil and gas earnings in dollars and rubles.
By accepting payment in rubles, Russia effectively removes some of its own currency from circulation, holding up the ruble’s exchange rate and suppressing inflationary pressure that arises from currency devaluation.
https://asiatimes.com/2022/03/dollar-reserve-system-frays-with-india-russia-currency-deals/
Russia sets fixed gold price as it restarts official bullion purchases
Russia's central bank resumed its gold purchases from local banks on Monday, but it set a fixed price on the precious metal.
Starting this week, the Russian central bank will pay a fixed price of 5,000 roubles ($52) per gram between March 28 and June 30, the bank said on Friday. This is below the current market value of around $68.
The central bank added that the resumption in buying will ensure supply and uninterrupted production of local gold.
Two weeks ago, Russia's central bank announced that it was halting its official gold purchases from local banks due to a surge in demand from regular consumers.
This is because Russians went on a gold buying spree in March to protect their savings as the ruble collapsed. Major banks in Russia reported a rush of consumers investing in bullion and coins.
Sberbank, Russia's largest financial institution, reported that demand for gold and palladium has quadrupled in the last few weeks. Meanwhile, Russia's Ministry of Finance also referred to gold as an "ideal alternative" to the U.S. dollar.
Setting a fixed price for gold reminds some analysts of what the U.S. did during the “gold standard” years. The period between 1879 and 1914 is known as the classical gold standard era, during which one ounce of gold would represent $21. Then in the 1930s, the U.S. banned gold ownership and raised the value of the dollar in gold from $20.67 to $35 per ounce.
That price remained fixed until 1971 when Richard Nixon put a halt on the U.S. dollar's convertibility into gold, which meant that other countries could no longer redeem dollars for gold. In 1973 the gold standard was scrapped.
"I am reminded of what the U.S. did in the middle of the Great Depression. For the next 40 years, gold's price was pegged to the U.S. dollar at $35. There is a precedent for this. It leads me to believe that Russia's intention would be for the value of the ruble to be linked directly to the value of gold," Gainesville Coins precious metals expert Everett Millman told Kitco News. "Setting a fixed price for rubles per gram of gold seems to be the intention. That's pretty important when it comes to how Russia could seek funding and manage its central bank financing outside of the U.S. dollar system."
Gold is one of the most logical international currencies to use when you are trying to get around sanctions, Millman added.
Sanctions against Russian gold
Last week, the U.S. Treasury banned all gold transactions with Russia's central bank.
"U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in any transaction including gold-related transactions involving the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation or the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation," the Treasury said on its website.
These types of sanctions could be effective to an extent, said Millman. "It can have a significant impact if for no other reason than to force other partners to shy away from doing transactions with Russia in gold. At the same time, knowing that the global gold market can be rather opaque, it would be much more difficult to enforce that type of restriction or regulation," he explained.
In response to escalating sanctions from the West for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow said that "unfriendly" countries could be required to pay for Russian gas in rubles or gold, according to the chair of Russia's Duma Committee on energy.
"If they want to buy, let them pay either in hard currency, and this is gold for us, or pay as it is convenient for us; this is the national currency," Pavel Zavalny said at a news conference on Thursday.
Russia is also considering accepting Bitcoin for its oil and gas exports and being more flexible in general regarding payment options with "friendly" countries.
"We have been proposing to China for a long time to switch to settlements in national currencies for rubles and yuan … With Turkey, it will be lira and rubles," Zavalny said. "You can also trade bitcoins."
https://www.kitco.com/news/2022-03-28/Russia-sets-fixed-gold-price-as-it-restarts-official-bullion-purchases.html
Good evening TRUTH! Important load testing being done tonight by our team so that we can add more patriots! 🔥
My Grandfather caught this in Alaska before he passed away a few years ago. 🐳
https://qagg.news/?read=TO2892
There are 39 planets in our solar system according to John Lear