Looking Backwards …
LB #1
We have discussed the strategy that Don Trump is unveiling to raise revenue and trim spending. The DOGE group led by Elon Musk are trimming spending, gutting federal programs, and putting the Mid-Atlantic into a serious recession. That is unfortunate for them, but probably long term necessary for a nationwide financial recovery. Trump has been busy although not on the cost cutting, but on the revenue generating. He has tossed reciprocal tariffs into the mix starting in April in addition to the 10% tariffs on China, the coming steel and aluminum tariffs and possible tariffs if Canada and Mexico don’t stop Americans from using drugs evidently. Trump has announced he wants to seize Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal, but his newest plan is the boldest yet. He wants to cut the line on Ukraine.
This from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph, “Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.
The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.
The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”. The agreement covers the “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine”, including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure (as agreed)”, leaving it unclear what else might be encompassed. “This agreement shall be governed by New York law, without regard to conflict of laws principles,” it states.
The US will take 50pc of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, and 50pc of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for the future monetisation of resources. There will be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations…If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty.”
I said cut the line, because forgive me my history but I do remember the Treaty of Versailles. Germany had to pay the victors, not the losers. America has been backing the loser here. Putin is out soldiers, armaments, economic capacity, and had sanctions put on his country, and he had his money stolen by the United States. Aren’t we forgetting that? Putin and Russia have had British and American missile technology fly into their country and destroy their infrastructure. Do you think that Putin is going to say ok, Ukraine, just pay the US and we will go away? What happens if Putin says, no we will just keep expanding and taking your country and we will sell America any rare earth materials they wish to buy from us? How blinded by our own hubris are we? This is, I assume a Brit, writing this but I am shocked by what he is saying. Hegseth, just verbally gave away Ukrainian territory and Crimea to Russia by running his unqualified mouth last week and then trying to backpedal. Russia knows they have the position of strength from which to bargain, not the US, not the Ukrainians, and not Europe. Why do we think otherwise? What is America going to do? Put sanctions on them, already done, how about not buy their oil, already done. Kick them out of the global banking network and take their foreign reserves done and done. Do you think Russia is going to let this go?
I might be completely wrong, but what happens if Russia demands reparations or the beatings continue. I think our ability to raise revenue from foreign sources is highly overstated. Trump wants to put tariffs on Europe next I hear. Well, Europe might have to up its spending on defense if Russia doesn’t negotiate nicely. What then? They are already borderline in a recession and now add 2-3% GDP going to defense spending and Trump wants to add tariffs to them. That will crucify Europe’s economies and that might actually be the goal. I do not rule that out. The Europeans still have the easy card to play and that is to flip the bird at the United States and say Mr. Putin, we would like your cheap natural gas again please. That would do a couple things though. It might end NATO and even the Euro. I could see Europe splintering as the eastern bloc embraces the warm embrace of Mother Russia again and the western bloc would die on their pride and buy expensive natural gas from the US.
Remember all of this war in Ukraine comes after the United States promised to back Ukraine militarily if it gave up its nuclear weapons in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union. So to circle back to the beginning and hear that the United States government is cutting spending and it will help me, the common man. Color me dubious. All the war drums, all the war talk, all the threats come back to one plan and one plan only. Raise revenue and cut spending. Trump floated the idea to cut spending in the military by half and he can only do that if he makes peace and gets Europe to pay for some of their own defense, Russia to acquiesce, and China to settle down regarding Taiwan. The defense bill is $800 billion annually, and if he can trim a couple hundred billion then this poop storm is worth it. Always follow the money with this guy this is just a shakedown, go balance that budget Don…
LB #2
The Polar Vortex isn’t just the reception Trump has been getting in Europe but also the cold air moving across the North American continent. We turn our gaze to a snowy runway in Toronto Canada where a Delta jet landed way too hard, flipped over, and skipped to a stop upside down. Luckily no one was killed. This from the US Sun and Carsen Holaday, Katie Davis, and Annabel Bate, “Panicked passengers onboard the plane from Minneapolis were forced to crawl along the ceiling to flee after the jet slammed into the icy runway in the terrifying near-disaster…Shocking footage captured of the Bombardier CRJ900, with 76 passengers and four crew on board, shows the moment the jet skids across the runway and erupts into flames.
The body of the aircraft appears to be completely engulfed in fire as it’s captured flipping several times before the bright-orange blaze changes to plumes of thick black smoke.”
On June 23, 2024 we updated a near crash in Hawaii and in April we wrote about the focus being on DEI hiring instead of competence. There was also a near miss in Washington DC at Reagan National Airport. We even quoted Elon Musk who tweeted, “Do you want to fly in an airplane where they prioritize DEI hiring over your safety? That is actually happening.” Well we had a crash a couple weeks ago in DC that killed all aboard the helicopter and the plane out of Wichita. Then there were some small crashes of a medical jet in Philly, a plane in Alaska and a plane in San Diego. There will always be plane wrecks from time to time, but air travel is far safer than driving a car.
But now we have another big wreck. This Delta flight was operated by a company called Endeavor Air. When the plane came to a stop upside down, I heard that all the passengers were hanging upside down like bats. It didn’t take long for this to appear, from ZeroHedge, “The Delta Airlines flight that flipped over and crashed at Pearson Airport was operated by Endeavor Air, a company that has relentlessly pushed DEI initiatives and bragged about having “unmanned” all-female flights that contained no male staff…It’s a minor miracle that no one died, with 19 of the 21 passengers taken to hospital now discharged.
Respondents to the shocking incident noted how Endeavor Air, the Delta subsidiary that operated the flight, was obsessed with DEI initiatives, and produced a feminist girlboss video promoting its all-female flights with a rap song featuring the lyrics “bad girls do it well.”
Other videos linked to the company show other female Endeavor Air flight crew and stewardesses performing choreographed dance routines celebrating the total absence of men. “Buckle up ladies and gentlemen, your flight is unmanned today. #girlpower,” proclaimed a tweet posted by the company. Buckle up, indeed. The Endeavor Air website was also full of DEI virtue-signaling. With this much DEI, it’s a shock that someone didn’t actually DIE.”
LB #3
Nikola has filed for bankruptcy. Another EV darling has run out of cash it seems. The Muskmeister must be happy in his DOGE lair. This from Michael Wayland, “Nikola Corp.
— an auto startup that was once a favorite of Wall Street analysts and retail investors — filed for bankruptcy protection after failing to secure a buyer or raise additional funds to maintain operations.
Nikola said Wednesday that it plans to pursue an auction and sale process of its assets, pending court approval. The company said it has approximately $47 million in cash to fund its bankruptcy activities, implement the sale process and exit Chapter 11…The filing marks the finale of the Phoenix-based company’s yearslong fall from grace. At its peak in 2020, Nikola was valued more than Ford Motor at $30 billion, signed a multibillion-dollar deal with General Motors, and was considered the pinnacle of auto startups to go public through reverse mergers and special purpose acquisition companies.”
If none of that finance mumbo jumbo doesn’t make sense to you let me clarify. Smoke and mirrors, malinvestment, extend and pretend, the end. That’s the story of another green darling.
Looking Forwards…
LF#1
Speaking of a real darling, we go to Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. This from Hans Von Der Burchard at Politico, “French President Emmanuel Macron is convening European leaders for an emergency summit in Paris on Monday, according to Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
France has yet to confirm the meeting. There are “ongoing discussions about holding an informal meeting, but nothing has been decided yet,” an official in Paris said.
Sikorski said he was “very glad that President Macron has called our leaders to Paris,” adding that he expects the European leaders to discuss “in a very serious fashion” the challenges posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“President Trump has a method of operating which the Russians call razvedka boyem —reconnaissance through battle: You push and you see what happens, and then you change your position. … And we need to respond,” the Polish minister said at the Munich conference.
The Paris meeting will take place on Monday, according to two EU officials.”
It sounds light on details and will take place after the German elections so things might change quickly. Europe is being pushed aside by Trump and Putin and they are desperately trying to figure out what to do about it.
LF#2
Speaking of desperately trying to figure out what to do. Let’s discuss unicorns. Not the horny horses of fictional lore, but the startup companies that have been valued at over $1 billion. One of my favorite mythical creatures are the unicorns. Their valuations are as mythical as the horny horses in my opinion. As long as the credit taps are on, everyone gets valuations and when money becomes scarce the values dry up like a petrified horse apple. This from Katie Roof at Bloomberg, “As hard as it is to remember, there were buzzy startups in Silicon Valley before the tech world became solely fixated on artificial intelligence. By the time the Covid-era tech boom crested in 2021, well over 1,000 venture capital-backed startups had reached valuations above $1 billion, including fake meat purveyor Impossible Foods Inc., home maintenance marketplace Thumbtack and online-class platform MasterClass. Then came a squeeze sparked by rising interest rates, a slowing initial public offering market and the feeling that any startup not focused on AI was yesterday’s news. A reckoning that has been looming for years is becoming painfully tangible. In 2021 more than 354 companies received billion-dollar valuations, thus achieving unicorn status. Only six of them have since held IPOs, says Ilya Strebulaev, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Four others have gone public through SPACs, and another 10 have been acquired, several for less than $1 billion. Others, such as the indoor farming company Bowery Farming and AI health-care startup Forward Health, have gone under. Convoy, the freight business valued at $3.8 billion in 2022, collapsed the following year; the supply chain startup Flexport bought its assets for scraps…Some startups feel like the “rug has been pulled out from under them,” says Sam Angus, a partner at the law firm Fenwick & West. “The fundraising reality has shifted.”
Welcome to the era of the zombie unicorn. There are a record 1,200 venture-backed unicorns that have yet to go public or get acquired, according to CB Insights, a researcher that tracks the venture capital industry. Startups that raised large sums of money are beginning to take desperate measures. Startups in later stages are in a particularly difficult position, because they generally need more money to operate—and the investors who’d write checks at billion-dollar-plus valuations have gotten more selective. For some, accepting unfavorable fundraising terms or selling at a steep discount are the only ways to avoid collapsing completely, leaving behind nothing but a unicorpse.”
Unicorpse. Zombie unicorns. They are starting to make up words for these extend and pretend companies that boomed with the trillions of dollars that Trump and Biden poured into the economy like warm honey over a bowl of oats. Now we have a financial polar vortex on top of the weather and the flying inverted with girl power issues brain freeze and that honey is frozen and frozen honey don’t flow no mo.
Unicorns are getting desperate
LF#3
This last topic today upsets me as I don’t know what to believe and therein lies the problem. The first is from the Independent and Alex Woodward, “First Amendment lawyers and press freedom advocates are sounding alarms after a Mississippi newspaper was forced by a judge to delete an editorial criticizing city officials in Clarksdale.
The city sued the publishers of the Clarksdale Press Register over an editorial from February 8, which criticized officials for failing to notify the public about a hearing on proposed tax increases.”
The newspaper was critical of the government. I love it. The first amendment is real and it is the first one for a reason. However, some are making the case that is also interesting to listen to. Who owns the media today? It isn’t independent and organizations with agendas with agendas don’t have double fact checkers etc. It is MSN- Bill Gates, Washington Post- Bezos, Facebook-Zuck, Twitter-Musk, Truth Social- Donny, and the traditional media vote blue by a ratio of what 9 to 1. So what passes for news? Opinions or facts? That’s a very interesting area. I constantly have to pass on articles that I see and discard because I am like there is no way that can be true.
This is bad in media, but we talked about how the Democrats were using lawfare trying to imprison Trump before he was elected. He was indicted on four different sets of charges, convicted of 34 felonies, and basically, they bent the law to hang a collar on him. Now Joe DePaolo reports that times are a changing, “Andy McCarthy — a conservative legal analyst who serves as a Fox News contributor — denounced President Donald Trump and his new Attorney General Pam Bondi for weaponizing the Department of Justice.
In a scathing column for the right-leaning National Review on Sunday, McCarthy denounced the “Weaponization Working Group” established by Bondi. McCarthy believes that group practices the very weaponization it is supposedly trying to root out.
“Under the guise of ‘Restoring the Integrity and Credibility of the Department of Justice,’ the AG is implementing the Biden DOJ model of conviction first and trial later — if ever,” McCarthy wrote. “Standing convicted are Trump’s principal prosecutorial nemeses — Biden DOJ special counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and New York Attorney General Letitia James — and therefore guilty by association are any DOJ and FBI personnel who aided and abetted them. In what crimes, we’re not told — only that Bondi will be “provid[ing] quarterly reports to the White House regarding the progress of the review.”
McCarthy argued President Joe Biden’s DOJ was politicized — but that Trump also engaged in “serious misconduct. The conservative legal analyst added, “The weaponization directive is doing politics, not removing politics from law enforcement. Plainly, the ‘Weaponization Working Group’ exists to settle the president’s scores and rewrite dark chapters of his history — while providing him with quarterly assurances of Attorney General Bondi’s progress on what is now the Justice Department’s core mission.” ”
I hate to see this, but I understand Trump frustration or anger even. This is why our government should be better than this, but sadly it isn’t when morality is lacking.
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
The Dow Jones finished trading …at 43,428.
The 10-year Treasury bond is at …4.43%
The price of Brent Crude is … at $74.43 per barrel.
The price of gold is … at $2949/oz.
The price of silver is … at $32.82/oz.
I leave you with this from the information superhighway, Why were they called the Dark Ages. Because they were full of knights.
Thank you for listening today and you can find all of our articles and more on our website cthomasprinter.com.