📈 🇺🇸 💵 Annualized interest expense on US Federal debt is nearing $1.1 TRILLION.

To put this in perspective, 2023 defense spending was $821 billion.

This means the US is on track to spend 34% MORE on interest expense than defense spending.

In 2023, the US government produced $4.4 trillion in revenue.

This means that 25% of receipts in the entire 2023 are equivalent to our annual interest expense.

If it looks like interest expense is moving in a straight line higher, that’s because it is.

Rising rates and falling tax revenue are both occurring at the same time.

What’s the game plan here?

📎 Kobeissi Letter

🛢 🇺🇸 The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve stands at its lowest level since the 1980s, but physical constraints and maintenance at the network of underground caverns along the US Gulf Coast have been limiting the amount the Energy Department can purchase to about 3 million barrels a month, Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-04/us-strategic-oil-reserve-refill-limited-despite-low-prices

https://archive.ph/yEds6

📖 🇮🇱 🇵🇸 July 12, 2016 | Israeli military chief rabbi-designate under fire over remarks on rape

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0ZS1Q0/

https://archive.ph/7gQyY

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russia and Ukraine are conducting secret peace negotiations along the Gerasimov-Zaluzhny line, despite the objections of Zelensky and the White House, claims American journalist Seymour Hersh, citing US officials

🔸SHORT SELLERS KNEW ABOUT HAMAS ATTACK, STUDY ALLEGES

A STUDY BY RESEARCHERS AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY AND COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CLAIMS THAT TRADERS OBTAINED INFORMATION ABOUT THE HAMAS ATTACK ON ISRAEL ON OCTOBER 7 BEFORE IT HAPPENED, AND CARRIED OUT SHORT TRADES ON THE US AND ISRAELI STOCK EXCHANGES, IN THE EXPECTATION THAT SHARE PRICES WOULD FALL AFTER THE ATTACK. EN.GLOBES.CO.IL/EN/ARTICLE-S… ...

JUST IN: Bloomberg says this is the start of a fresh crypto supercycle that will push Bitcoin above $500,000.

@WatcherGuru

📝 🇺🇸 🏗 Bear in mind this is from the Pentagon leadership, which has been trying to convince us things are okay - Elbridge Colby

🔶️ "The U.S. defense industrial base “does not possess the capacity... to satisfy the full range of military production needs at speed and scale."

🔶️ "According to a draft version of the report, just as significantly, the traditional defense contractors would be challenged to respond to modern conflict at the velocity, scale, and flexibility necessary to meet the dynamic requirements of a major modern conflict.”

🔶️ "It notes that America builds the best weapons in the world, but it can’t produce them quickly enough.

🔶️ “This mismatch presents a growing strategic risk as the US supports combat ops … while deterring the larger, more advanced pacing threat looming in the Indo-Pacific.”

⬛️ Larger and more technically advanced pacing threat looming."

That should be the priority, right!??

🔶️ "Some who have seen the draft report are frustrated with what they perceive is a lack of hard recommendations. One defense industry adviser called it “underwhelming,” saying it doesn’t focus on long-term solutions to supply chain issues that have plagued the defense industry."

🔶️ It's moving deck chairs on the Titanic without a top, national, political-level call for national mobilization of our industrial base to resuscitate the DIB. Massive changes are very clearly needed.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/02/draft-pentagon-strategy-china-00129764

https://archive.ph/uEzWo

🚢 🇮🇱 💵 War Risk Insurance Rates Edge Up Amid Red Sea Ship Attacks

🔶️ "Insurance industry sources said that war risk premiums had stayed firm on Monday at between 0.05% to 0.1% of the value of a ship, from around 0.03% estimated last week before the attacks. This translates into tens of thousands of dollars of additional costs for a seven-day voyage."

https://gcaptain.com/war-risk-insurance-rates-edge-up-amid-red-sea-ship-attacks/