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Hedge funds have been completely wrong-footed by the surge in U.S. Treasuries and the dollar sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Jon Fosse read a poem by Paul Celan called ‘Death Fugue’, and it was dark and hypnotic and eerie, and I read it again at home in the evening, and heard in my inner ear the way Fosse had recited it, and I found it just as hypnotic and eerie then, surrounded by my own familiar things, which merely by virtue of these words going through my head lost their familiarity, they too were woven into the poem, and darkness swept through the poem, for the chair was only a chair, dead; the table was only a table, dead; and the street outside, it lay empty and still and dead in the darkness which emanated not only from the sky but also from the poem.

Although the poem touched a nerve in me, I didn’t understand how it did or why.
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink it and drink it
we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined

One thing was the fathomless darkness that existed in this poem, quite another was what it meant. What thoughts lay behind it? If I were ever to write like this I would have to know where it originated, be conversant with its starting point, the philosophy it expressed. I couldn’t just write something similar. I had to understand it.

Black milk of morning we drink you evenings
we drink you at noon and mornings we drink you at night
we drink and we drink
A man lives in the house he plays with the snakes he writes
he writes when it darkens to Deutschland your golden hair Margarete
he writes and steps in front of his house and the stars glisten and he whistles his dogs to come
he whistles his jews to appear let a grave be dug in the earth
he commands us play up for the dance

Black milk of dawn we drink you at night
we drink you mornings and noontime we drink you evenings
we drink and we drink
A man lives in the house he plays with the snakes he writes
he writes when it turns dark to Deutschland your golden hair Margarete
Your ashen hair Shulamit we dig a grave in the air there one lies at ease

He calls jab deeper into the earth you there and you other men sing and play
he grabs the gun in his belt he draws it his eyes are blue
jab deeper your spades you there and you other men continue to play for the dance

Black milk of dawn we drink you at night
we drink you at noon we drink you evenings
we drink you and drink
a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamit he plays with the snakes

He calls out play death more sweetly death is a master from Deutschland
he calls scrape those fiddles more darkly then as smoke you’ll rise in the air
then you’ll have a grave in the clouds there you’ll lie at ease

Black milk of dawn we drink you at night
we drink you at noon death is a master from Deutschland
we drink you evenings and mornings we drink and drink
death is a master from Deutschland his eye is blue
he strikes you with lead bullets his aim is true
a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete
he sets his dogs on us he gifts us a grave in the air
he plays with the snakes and dreams death is a master from Deutschland

your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamit

We’re making a war against a country which is full of commodities & energy that we need.. this will end badly 

Margins are getting crushed everywhere

Instead it’s about old chestnuts that tend to act as arguments for the status quo. “Spend much more defense!” / “Reform the Pentagon or CIA!” / “Doubling down in Europe will intimidate China”! None of these reckons with the new geopolitics and power scarcity we face. 2/

- How would we pay for that? 
- Will the American people sustainably support that? 
- If we fight there how will we cover down elsewhere? 
- If we sanction there what impact will that have over there? 
- Will that actually work? 5/

Of one thing I am certain of is that it is not Putin who will capitulate 

Euro 1.086020 
Dollar Index 99.237
Japan Yen 115.4780 
Swiss Franc 0.92602 
Pound 1.310825 
Aussie 0.728765 
India Rupee 76.8565 
South Korea Won 1235.810 
Brazil Real 5.1119 
Egypt Pound 15.740300 
South Africa Rand 15.393300 

I have covered this market since I was a trainee reporter in 1997. I can not believe the chart

There's enough famous Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake" examples to justify concern about unrest when food prices go up in EM

The last time we sustained big rises in food prices was the 2000s when global stock levels fell due to poor harvests, the Chinese middle class were eating more meat and high oil prices encouraged bio-fuel usage - but stock levels are much higher now than in the 2000s

It looks like the global agricultural surplus has been bought up by China. Together with India (but India has bought much less and has far lower stocks per capita), China appears to have bought up the entire global wheat surplus

Inflation already one of highest in Asia at 15.1%, and rising.

Its basic tenets were: deny access to the media, the United Nations, and human-rights groups; isolate your opponents, and kill them as quickly as possible; and segregate and terrify the survivors—or, ideally, leave no witnesses at all.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
https://bit.ly/3Bk45Gj

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Equity bank want to dump government securities and ramp up lending to businesses and individuals:
"We don’t want to be a lazy bank that takes deposits and buys treasury bonds" - @KeEquityBank CEO James Mwangi

Plans to start filling doses of it’s Covid vaccine as early as 2023.