Move Over, Big Mac Index: The McCarbon Footprint Is Here

This ain’t your childhood McDonalds anymore.

Gone are the statues of Ronald McDonald, the Hamburglar, and Grimace.

Gone are the ball pits and playgrounds.

Instead, kids can enjoy a biodiversity walk and a nature trail with rainwater collection.

Because McDonald’s has been subjected to a UK mandate to reduce—and then eliminate—all carbon emissions.

That’s why it opened a new kind of McDonald’s in Shropshire, UK a year ago.

The UK Green Building Council verified the Market Drayton McDonald’s as the first net-zero building in the UK for construction.

To get there, the restaurant had to make some peculiar choices:

Global Debt & Death Spiral – John Rubino

By Greg Hunter’s USWatchdog.com

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino says we’re are in a “debt and death spiral” that will force dramatic changes on the world. Rubino explains, “The debt spiral part of this means things from here continue to get worse and worse for the big currencies of the world until they die. In other words, until people lose faith in them, refuse to use them and hold them anymore until their value falls to their intrinsic value, which is zero. That manifests to hyperinflation. The value of the currency falls as opposed to the things you buy with it. . . . Things feel basically okay for a long time as long as governments could force interest rates down to really low levels.

Credit Suisse Tanks Yesterday to $3.02; It’s Lost Over 90 Percent of Its Market Value Since 2007; It’s Not Alone

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens:

Credit Suisse continued its long death spiral yesterday, losing 15.64 percent of its market value in one trading session to close at $3.02 on the New York Stock Exchange. The trading action came on the heels of an earnings report that was excruciatingly bad – even for Credit Suisse.

The Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB), which means it’s interconnected to other G-SIBs that could bring down the global financial system, reported yesterday that its clients had yanked over $100 billion in just the fourth quarter — which was more than eight times the outflow in the third quarter. Its pre-tax loss for the quarter was $1.51 billion, marking its fifth consecutive earnings loss.

This Is the Last, Best Crypto Opportunity of Our Lifetime

By Teeka Tiwari

Right now, we’re at a special moment in history…

You see, the crypto bear market we’re in will be the final one we’ll ever see.

Let’s take a brief tour of history to show you what I mean.

Think about the early days of the internet.

After the dot-com crash of 2000 and high-profile blow-ups like Pets.com, many in the mainstream media called the internet a “passing fad.”

And they were all wrong. The internet became one of the most transformational technologies in history.

Internet stocks reigned over the stock market for the next two decades.

But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll notice the best tech stocks never came back down again in such a stunning fashion.

US gov’t $1.5T debt interest will be equal 3X Bitcoin market cap in 2023

By William Suberg

The U.S. will pay over $1 trillion in debt interest next year, the equivalent of three or more Bitcoin market caps at current prices.

bulls do not need to wait long for the United States to start printing money again.

The latest analysis of U.S. macroeconomic data has led one market strategist to predict quantitative tightening (QT) ending to avoid a “catastrophic debt crisis.”

Analyst: Fed will have “no choice” with rate cuts

The U.S. Federal Reserve continues to remove liquidity from the financial system to fight inflation, reversing years of COVID-19-era money printing.

While interest rate hikes look set to continue declining in scope, some now believe that the Fed will soon have only one option — to halt the process altogether.

“Why the Fed will have no choice but to cut or risk a catastrophic debt crisis,” Sven Henrich, founder of NorthmanTrader, summarized on Jan. 27.

“Higher for longer is a fantasy not rooted in math reality.”

Henrich uploaded a chart showing interest payments on current U.S. government expenditure, now hurtling toward $1 trillion a year.

A dizzying number, the interest comes from U.S. government debt being over $31 trillion, with the Fed printing trillions of dollars since March 2020. Since then, interest payments have increased by 42%, Henrich noted.

Why Oil's Hot Streak Will Continue in 2023

By Chris Igou

A 23% decline in a month completed oil's round trip.

The commodity was trading around $75 per barrel before soaring to $120 in the first half of 2022. Then, oil fell... and fell some more.

From November 4 to December 9, oil fell 23% to its lowest level in more than a year. That's a scary move to the downside. But it wasn't the nail in the coffin for oil that you might think...

More often, quick drops like these can't last. The sprint lower eventually ends. And when that happens, assets can come roaring back.

Since its bottom in December, the price of oil is up 15%. But the rally isn't over yet.

This comeback is likely just getting underway. And one hot streak shows just how good it could get going forward...

Prices of Existing Homes Fall 11% from Peak. Sales Hit Lockdown Low. Cash Buyers and Investors Pull Back Hard

by Wolf Richter

Priced right, any home will sell. But sellers are not wanting to price their homes right.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

This is getting relentless: Sales of previously owned houses, condos, and co-ops fell by 1.5% in December from November, the 11th month in a row of month-to-month declines, and by 34% year-over-year, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales of 4.02 million homes, roughly matching the lockdown-low in May 2020, and beyond that the lowest since the depth of Housing Bust 1 in 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors today.

Priced right, just about any home will sell, but sellers are not wanting to price their homes right. And potential sellers are sitting on their vacant homes, hoping for a quick end to this downturn, or they’re putting it on the rental market or try to make a go of it as a vacation rental, rather than dealing with the reality of a mind-blowing housing bubble that has loudly popped