EP 143: Under Modi, India will hit back if provoked: US Intel report, Chinese virus origin & more!

Sree Iyer: Namaskar, it is a great day today in America as we welcome April 16, 2021, the tax deliverance day, but not this year. The last day for submission of taxes is May 15th this year. Your hosts Sree and Sri with the 143rd episode of Daily Global Insights. Here are the main points:

• Under Modi – India likely to respond militarily to Pakistan provocation says a US Intelligence Report
• The study shows Murders Skyrocketing in Anti-Police Democrat Run cities
• Biden Intelligence community Agrees with Marco Rubio: Chinese Virus “Plausibly” Originated at a Wuhan Lab
• Retail Sales jumped 9.8% in March as additional Stimulus sent consumer spending soaring
• Israeli Army says Rockets from Gaza Hit South Israel

In US news, Democrat representative Mondaire Jones: Supreme Court Expansion is Infrastructure. Pelosi says no plans to bring Supreme Court expansion to the floor. Democrats introduced Bill to expand Supreme Court response is stepping and it’s a bad idea Supreme Court Justices condemned Expansion efforts. Mitch McConnell says the Democrats using court-packing to threaten justices into supporting liberal agenda. And Biden is not backing the Democrats court-packing plan for now says spokesperson Psaki. These are all the different things about increasing the Supreme Court count or bench. Sir, your thoughts on why this is being done?

Sridhar Chityala: There is been a distinct and definite impression amongst Democrats that they are adversely impacted by the composition of the nomination in Supreme Court, if by chance they miss the term and during a republican presidency and Republican Senate, it is conceivable that the courts can have nominations adversely impact the Democratic liberal agenda with the Republicans having more conservative judges sitting in the bench. That is the basis of this whole dispute, they either want rotation or they want your limited-term or they want the packing whenever they get a chance. So if Democrats back the Supreme Court well, next Republicans can pack the same Supreme Court to edge to increase. It’s almost like you want to run an agenda based on principles not the principles of justice, but principles of Justice aligned with the political agenda of their respective party. That seems to be the underlying issue. We have had a most revealing statement from a democratic representative Mr Mondaire Jones from New York, he says the Supreme Court Justice nomination is infrastructure. It can’t have a more outlandish statement than that.

Sree Iyer: California Congressman Darrell Issa says the teachers in California should be replaced if they will not go back to work and President Joe Biden is spending 1.6 billion to settle migrant youth children in the United States. Biden Scorns Republicans Stacks Administration with partisans and activist no surprise. According to a Quinnipiac poll, 48% approve of Biden’s job performance and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie says, he asks Republicans to call Biden a liar all this around this core management and what Biden has been trying to do? What do you say about the Quinnipiac poll, sir? Is there a left-leaning for a right-leaning poll? Is it a real poll? what your thoughts are?

Sridhar Chityala: All these polls as we have observed right through last year and year before last during the midterms and prior seems to be sugar-coated and coated with a biased set of data. It doesn’t matter you can take any poll and make your observation. And what can I say about Biden’s performance? Well, Biden is completing hundred days and he had a set of policy objectives that he used in his plank as part of the election campaign. So if you are a Democrat you say tick, tick, tick, tick, all boxes from borders to fracking to energy contracts to Keystone Pipeline to climate to the austerity measures to stimulus to everything that you can name that he used in his campaign. He says I’m delivering most of it through executive orders and so on. To that extent, if you’re a Democrat and mind you 80 million people voted for Biden, 74 million voted for Trump. Now so therefore it reflects some extent or to a large extent, the views but the metrics are there in terms of this policy versus what he is executing.

Sree Iyer:  The study shows that murders are skyrocketing in Democrat-run cities. There are 12 cities according to a study by law enforcement legal defence fund. All these have seen a huge rise in murders and Tucker Carlson says that two systems of Justice are in place one for the allies of the people in charge and a very different one for their enemies and this is the way DOJ is also handling various criminal matters across the country. Viewers, you might remember what we talked about yesterday in terms of how two different police officers are doing the same but, facing very different outcomes for what they did. And Inspector General says that Capitol police response to Jan 6th riots was replete with errors. Now, the more you dig about this Jan 6^th, the more you’re seeing some sort of sloppiness was it because they were not expecting it. Was it because you have never done it before? What are your thoughts are overall about the crime rate in some of the Democrat-run cities?

Sridhar Chityala: It is visible. It is obvious. It is to be seen, many of these cities run by democrats have already got the defunding programs limited resources. The morale is low and hence the rates are high. Three specific cities stand out one in Portland, it is like a 365 days 24 hours agitation. Minnesota, which has had two flashpoints, all they require is an excuse, the next thing that happens is riots arson and looting of shops you can see it. Three, you can also see some we have seen this in Chicago, we are seeing it not in that magnitude but General Law and Order issue in New York, Manhattan and Washington DC. In Washington DC also, you can observe some of these issues why it is not happening in the rest of the cities is an interesting analysis that this particular group have done research on and published their observations.

Sree Iyer: Black lives matter activists from Seattle has been charged with Anti-Asian hate crime. Patrisse Cullors says that BLM Marxist co-founder rating about 20 thousand dollars per month as chairwoman of jail group. And Chris Wray current FBI director, says that the FBI is investigating Antifa for a violent attack and a tip from a Portland police informant leads to police charges against Antifa rioter. Now, remember viewers that Donald Trump had identified Antifa as a terrorist organization sometimes I think in September October time frame of last year, sir, you take it away sir. What is going on now? Finally, I think some of the truth is beginning to emerge.

Sridhar Chityala: It will take some more time. But the fact that FBI has taken interest in the fact that Chris Wray is conducting an investigation into the affairs. Also, one of their leaders in fact, actually two of them one is caught in a scandal and the second one seem responsible for these Anti-Asian rights. So we are now beginning to see these isolated cases of incidents emerge and an FBI investigation the hope is the truth will come out and there is some element of law enforcement against those people who are breaking the law. Whether it is BLM, Antifa any of these groups, you know, they want to do a silent protest, of course, protest has become a norm. I’ve never seen this in the last 30-40 years in Manhattan. I can see now people every other day in front of a building or on the street walking along and you know, or just like India, you know making loud noises and anti down and this types of comments. So protests are good but violence is bad.

Sree Iyer: A group of ten Republicans led by Mitt Romney are coming up with an alternative infrastructure plan somewhere between 600 billion to 800 billion with just a focus on infrastructure. This is a counter to Biden’s 2.1 trillion packages. And as we speak of even that the Biden Administration is releasing 39 billion from that to go towards childcare. So, we are not even debated this, we have not even passed it into law. But some apportioning is already happening, some releases already happening. So this Biden infra bill, where do you think the needle is going to go and stop sir, 600 billion or 2.1 trillion. The numbers are very very well wide apart.

Sridhar Chityala: The Democrats have had a meeting with President Biden and they said with or without Republicans they will pass the 2.1 trillion bill. We have already given the numbers we have outlined in detail the numbers 2.1 trillion dollars has a number of elements that has nothing to do with covid-19. It has got specific set of programs supporting various illegal or legally illegal migrants who are being allowed to come into the country and supporting various programs to integrate them across the country. We have given numbers on it. Now, what is also worrying is some of these numbers are being allocated to support overseas programs, you know going across the various countries in terms of sponsorship and support of the program’s 125 million dollars has been released to Palestine groups. Some amount of money has been released to other countries African countries and so on. It’s already done through ear markings. They are already releasing the money. This is where the objection to the 2.1 trillion number is, but, we’re not stopping with is 2.1. We have another 2 trillion coming on the climate and green energy coming through. So this is as someone said this is not about infrastructure. This is about funding various foreign policy and domestic liberal programs of the Democratic Party.

Sree Iyer: And students are willing to change their liberal views when presented with facts. This is something that we have known all along. In fact, one of the objectives of PGurus is to try and help open the view of many of the students who are just getting into either middle school or high school or in college, believe it or not, a lot of the fake narrative start at as early as in middle school. So I’m glad to see that there is a survey that says that when presented with facts the students are willing to change their liberal views. Your thoughts, sir?

Sridhar Chityala: There are three important sets of activities that are going on and it’s going to be interesting to see how this battle is won. George Soros has allocated a hundred million dollars to go deep into the society and advocate what he calls the New Normal or the new methods. 20 million is released out of the hundred million, so you have one battle. You have the battle of the teachers many of the parents are complaining that in schools that there is this liberal activism being advocated. So, you have that and you saw in California, especially San Diego that the people in the mainstream are not being admitted people from these illegal immigrants are being integrated and taken to some of the school’s not across everybody for the public system. So you have this battle going on. Then, you have the advocacy that we are doing which is to say what is right or wrong etc., and we saw that in the Georgetown case where people were all kind of fighting the Georgia situation. Georgetown Washington DC and then they found subsequently as a this is what you’re fighting is what is actually the reality and they’re all willing to pay back. So there is the rationale presentation of data and so who is going to win this three-tier battle is going to be interesting. This will shape the destiny of the United States because everything is grounded in school and college education as they come out and get in to professional. Now, we have one more challenge just corporations taking sides and moving in one segment of the agenda. We talked about that too. And now the Republicans are now coming and saying they’re going to counter it so you can see that this one sentence has connotations right across as to how this battle is going to be fought and how we’re going to come out of it.

Sree Iyer: In Global News, Representative Waltz says that pulling troops from Afghanistan with 9/11 as the deadline is an insult. I am shocked at the person who chose this date. They could have done 9/10, 9/1, 8/1 whatever why to choose 9/11 this is the most anyway, let it go. Taliban wants that it will continue its Jihad if Biden breaks the Trump Afghanistan deadline. Biden Administration backs away from a report of Russian bounties to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. And Biden expels diplomats, hits Russians with sanctions on cyber-attacks and election interference. So now I want to stop here and get your input on what is happening suddenly with Russia versus the United States, sir. How come now we are seeing election interference is this 2016 or 2020 or which year?

Sridhar Chityala: With regard to this Russian interference and the escalation of Russian issues. If you recall in the election campaign that Trump was blamed that he has not done anything in Russia, especially around the bounties being issued by the Russians to the Taliban to kill the US soldiers. This was one of the items that were debated between the two and lo and behold they find that this thing has been debunked by his own internal intelligence as an old absolute has no relevance. There is a definite mindset and thinking in the Democratic party policy framework. The threat is more from Russia still fighting the old cold war than the Chinese threat as someone said while Biden goes back to 2016 unfinished agenda as to why the Democrats lost the presidential elections, and they have been on this investigation even since, right through the four years of Trump, they were investigating. So it seems like an unfinished agenda soon. It’s going to hit hard on their face until such time they realize this Russia is no longer there. You can see when we talk about the other three points when you complete, the flip-flop that is going on in Russia is just astonishing.

Sree Iyer: Yes, indeed and with your permission, sir. I’m going to put up the first graphic for today because that is coming up straight on what you’re talking about as Biden deescalate Putin closes access to the Black Sea is closing off the Kerch Strait to foreign warships until fall. So this is basically that one small place that you’re seeing a bridge that has been built there and in response to this Biden stops to warships headed to the area to deescalate tensions says this is not the time. So basically what they have done is they have given a free run for Russia to close off of the Sea of Azov.

Sridhar Chityala: Yes, if you see the map which you are seeing on the screen. Yes, you can see the Crimea on one side Ukraine or the other side Russia effectively blocking this completely mitigates any navel advances in the area to defend Ukraine. So, he has very cleverly said you would escalate the tension. I have shut off. No foreign ship can enter either for trade or any other purpose. Shut off into Kerch Strait. So you have escalated the tension you have hurt yourself. You have hurt the Europeans. You probably have a hurt Ukraine and these flip-flops that Mr Biden is doing is not very helpful as he escalates and deescalates escalates and deescalate. I don’t know Russia is like a sleeping giant they woken it up and now they’re suddenly taken centre stage. They are all over the place, they in India. They are in China. They are in Turkey. They are Iran, they are everywhere and then the Ukraine issue has which has played up again.

Sree Iyer: Yes, indeed and Viewers, you have to zoom out this map. I can’t do it right now, but you have to zoom out this map to see where the rest of Ukraine is. But this passage is critical if any other countries such as the United States have to come to the help of Ukraine because it is sandwiched between two parts of Russia. I’m putting Crimea as part of Russia. Say, if there is going to be a pencil-like attack they have essentially done just that they have completely cut off access to get in and be the position to defend or help defend Ukraine. So we’ll see how this thing plays out.

And Biden is going to be hosting South Korean President Moon next month and Biden and Suga are sending a strong signal to the aggressive Chinese Communist party at the summit that is going to be happening very soon and the US press Japan to issue a joint statement in support of Taiwan. Now you are having Taiwan is the front and centre of the topic that’s going to be discussed between the United States and Japan. Taiwan tells Biden emissaries that it will deter China’s threats with the help of the US. The US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen is set to call Taiwan a currency manipulator even as all these ties are warming. So here you have three or four theatres going on here. Suga is coming to meet Biden and then there is also the Taiwan problem and the US is using Taiwan, they say they are going to help you also saying that by the way, you are a currency manipulator. I’m trying to wrap my head around this. Please unravel it for us. What is the bigger strategy here?

Sridhar Chityala: The biggest strategy here is Biden Administration firmly believes the Taiwan strategy and the Chinese deterrence is an amalgam of a partnership between Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. They want Koreans to be part and parcel of this strategy. The Korean has not bought into it as yet. They don’t want a bar of this because they have a Chinese under volatile North Korean border. So they have weaned away what used to be Taiwan used to be an integral part of the South-China, Indo-pacific and quadrilateral strategy. They’re trying to press this trilateral that is why we have these three news items which is what they want to accomplish with Moon, what they want to accomplish with Suga. Mind you Suga has taken a leadership position on Taiwan and he says Taiwan is a red flag right from day one because it just sticks right into the boundary plus you have senkaku Islands. And now comes the trick of the trade which is if for some reasons when you meet the criteria, we have again discussed what constitutes a currency manipulator, the trade imbalance between exports and imports, the currency rates differential between the dollar and Taiwanese. You find that you immediately qualify to become nominated as a currency manipulator. If the treasury falters tomorrow, India will raise the issue, ‘Hey, you broke the rule there. How am I the currency manipulator?’ China will say that how come you violate and you call me a currency manipulator. So, you have that swag of issues coming. On one side, Biden is holding a meeting for them to start the electronic vehicle, chip manufacturing, investment flows into the country and on the other hand, you have the treasury saying if you do all of these things you are immediately creating an imbalance which creates a problem. So, to conclude you have a political and security issue conflicting with the economic parameters by which the United States deals with all other countries

Sree Iyer: While these threads are going on, the US envoy John Kerry visited China to seek common ground on climate. Now, this is another person running on his own. He was in India recently, now, he’s gone to China. What is his mission? Is he doing back-channel negotiations also?

Sridhar Chityala: He’s probably doing some type of testing Waters with various people. That’s all I can say. For releasing the next $2.2 – $2.5 trillion of money, he needs some set of data and influence. So I think he is preparing the ground and supporting all these clean water, clean air, clean energy, and many other such environmental efforts. So this is John Kerry. When somebody confronted him on the fracking site he explained that a car runs on four wheels even if you have a different fuel, so the jobs are not lost as a result of that. He has to justify his rationale. That’s his mission. That’s his job. That’s his brief. So he is doing what is expected but many pundits in the United States believe that negotiating with China on climate completely weakens the United States position on all strategic issues. How are they going to play this? We don’t know. He also visited India, had discussions with India and from India he has moved to China.

Sree Iyer: This is regarding Japan, sir. I’m putting the second graphic. IAEA urges transparency over Japan’s move to release Fukushima wastewaters into the Pacific. This follows Taiwan, China, India, and the United States plea to Japan to try and make this information public. You’ve got a map of Japan, East Asia, the East China Sea here, sir. So people can get an idea of where the water from the Fukushima plant might be going down. Are there currents that lead it towards Taiwan and China? Is that the concern there?

Sridhar Chityala: Their prime concern is how much of this radioactive content has been deactivated of any radioactive materials? And if you recall we had mentioned when we discussed the Strategic triangle in the Taiwan Strait, which you can see on the map, there are two principal areas of concern – resources and fisheries. So marine life could have a significant impact and second, some of these waters could eventually make it to the shores of either Korea, Taiwan and so on. So from IAEA to countries like Taiwan, China, Korea, etc, even India has stepped up and asked for more transparency in terms of what is being pumped into the water.

Sree Iyer: China and the EU are in a tussle for clout in a Montenegro project. China summons Japan’s envoy to protest on the Fukushima water release. Beijing Skies turn yellow as sand dust engulfs the capital. Romania approves built to Bar China’s Huawei from 5G Network. All these are around China, sir, I am just finishing up in a minute. An alarming downward spiral risks Myanmar into a Syria type crisis. So Myanmar, China and everything around this China. China is now again becoming the front and centre of news cycles.

Sridhar Chityala: Well, if you can put up the Adriatic Sea Montenegro map, then we can just touch on that. So there are about 27-28 miles of coastal area that Montenegro shares they have Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, many of these countries in the Adriatic. If you look at the map, the Adriatic map is at the cusp and it is the passage into the Mediterranean Sea which goes into Italy and so on. What is the significance? Montenegro has a population of 1 million. What has China done? On a road infrastructure project, they have lent them $1 billion. The project is incomplete. Again, if you look at the map, Montenegro, that particular area Adriatic Sea is a gateway into a number of adjacent countries in the mainline Eastern European region. So Montenegro reached out to the EU and said, please take over the loan, $1 billion and we need more money to continue the infrastructure, otherwise, we have a China issue and we want us to get out of being dependant on China. Historically, Napoleon conquered this Adriatic Sea and in the process, he controlled the Mediterranean and the broader Europe in that part of the world. So it’s not that China is doing this blindly, China is doing it with a strategic intent to use the Montenegrin connectivity by sea as well as by road into that segment of Europe. So this is another Belt and Road effort, hence it is significant.

Sree Iyer: Israeli Army says that Rockets from Gaza have hit South Israel. I have the Israel map up in front of me. Viewers, you can see Gaza at the very end of the Israeli map on the southwest side and then the country just becomes like a small v-shaped figure as the thing becomes smaller and narrower. Sir, please go ahead.

Sridhar Chityala: So the map is the Gaza map and the broader map is a reflection of the resumption of the rocket. The resumption of the aid and support coming from the United States to the territories. The money has reached. Then when you look at Iran the issues around the nuclear program and the threat. Then when you look at some of the other things that we have already reported around the Iraq-Syrian and the Turkish-Syrian border. It raises concerns as to whether this is becoming another fulcrum point or a volatile point after four years of relative quietness.

Sree Iyer: A drone attack targets Kurdistan Airport. Viewers, you should keep in mind that this is an area that straddles multiple countries. A part of Kurdistan is believed to be in Iraq, a part of it in Syria and part of it in Turkey and with all these things there is Iranian involvement, there is Turkish involvement and backhand Russian involvement and so on and so forth. So what we are seeing here is a lot of things moving parts and play on top of that please remember that Iran has enhanced combat power now via the Beidou navigation system that will even threaten the United States. Iran and China have done a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement that entails three pieces. The whole settlement is on Yuan, again China is trying to get the legitimacy of its currency of $400 billion energy and infrastructure initiative for Iran and construction and installation of the BASN – Beidou Advanced Satellite Navigation system. So all these things put together China is now in the front and centre of this area also, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: Indeed, I think that the objective of those three maps that we have shared including the map of Kurdistan is a reflection of, we had already talked about Northern Syria and some of the challenges in Northern Syria stepping into the Iraqi border. This Kurdistan map and the most recent drone attack is a reflection of the battle that is spreading. What used to be again a relatively quiet battle is now beginning to emerge. We saw in that area the US green zone being targeted, we saw in Iraq, in Baghdad itself being targeted. If you look at the map, Mosul is not too far from that Kurdistan area which was the flashpoint, which was effectively headquarters for the Al-Baghdadi movement and a lot of things happen when they control that specific region from there all the way to Raqqa and then going all the way into Syria. And then you have Iran with its Beidou Advanced Satellite Navigation system which is capable of mitigating missiles and other kinds of things and advancing its nuclear program it begs the question, how the world is going to deal with a challenge even in this area.

Sree Iyer: In Indian news, under Modi, India is likely to respond militarily to Pakistan provocation, a US intelligence report says. Your thoughts, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: My thoughts are, I think they have already demonstrated that if they are under attack, Balakot was an example that India is not going to take any nonsense from Pakistan. It doesn’t matter what Russians say. It doesn’t matter what the UAE says, it doesn’t matter what the United States says, India will defend its territory and will make sure that any kind of provocation, any kind of action is responded in its own clock.

Sree Iyer: Amazon announces a 250 million Venture fund focusing on SMEs with an aim to bring 1 million offline retailers online. So Amazon is now plunging with both feet into India, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: Well, market expansion is a very critical component of any organization. The retail footprint, the integration of whole foods and other grocery chains has clearly demonstrated that these groceries and food is a very big business for Amazon. India is still relatively unorganized in the agricultural sector. The fact that they’re investing money very much into this SME segment of the business and trying to bring them online offers them both as a B2B economic model, maybe potentially they’ll start even acquiring some of these companies as they evolve themselves. I am told that quite a bit of these investment are going into northeastern India, which has never seen, in my view, of course, the Indian experts can find a significant amount of venture capital investment into that region.

Sree Iyer: Foreign produced covid-19 vaccines are going to be decided or an emergency uses the application in the next three days by India.

Continuing to Global covid update, Biden’s intelligence community now agrees with Senator, Marco Rubio that the Chinese virus plausibly originated at a Wuhan lab. So, sir, finally the cat is beginning to get out of the bag.

Sridhar Chityala: Indeed, not only Biden Intelligence Community, doctors, others and so on are now beginning to accept the fact that this is a Wuhan issue. All the reports of the WHO does not stand up.

Sree Iyer: Now, Fauci admits that border surge breaks covid-19 rules. So this is this part is unbelievable, they have shot themselves in the foot with this problem and now they are scrambling, they are in fact rebuilding some of the unfinished wall business. I mean I can go on and on. I don’t understand why Biden’s government did this thing? Anyway, let’s move on, sir because we are talking about covid here.

A CDC study says that keeping the middle seat free could reduce the covid spread and the CDC continues that 5800 fully vaccinated Americans have now contracted covid and 1974 have died. So the fact that you are vaccinated doesn’t automatically mean that you will not have complications. It depends upon what other challenges you have. Lastly, a third covid-19 booster vaccine might be needed possibly within six to 12 months according to the Pfizer CEO. So essentially the life of this vaccine looks like between 6 to 12 months, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: Indeed. One small amendment, 5800 fully vaccinated have contracted covid-19. Only 74 have died. I think what they’re saying is that they’re preparing themselves. We saw that Moderna yesterday announced that they want to do an integrated covid and flu virus vaccine. Now, what we are beginning to see is that Pfizer has enough data to point out that the effectiveness could be 6 to 12 months in terms of the two vaccines completed. So you would definitely need a booster dose to augment the antibodies, so possibly a third vaccine is needed. Soon, the research will point out that this has not gone away. There are 20 different variants hence, you probably need covid-19 vaccines as an annual ritual at least in the United States, I don’t know about the rest of the world, in conjunction with the flu vaccine that we take.

Sree Iyer: Japan is going to co-host the covid-19 vaccine fundraising summit in June and India will be starting to receive Sputnik-5 shots from this quarter, production in India is going to start from July. So there’s a lot of activity in the covid-19 space. I just want to add one little thing that some of you may have caught in one of our previous day Hangouts, which was that Johnson & Johnson has had six issues among six million shots – one in a million. Of those six, all of them are young women and one of them has unfortunately died, the other five are in the process of recovery. We also need to remember that there were some production problems in a million plan that was trying to produce his vaccine. So the fact that there were problems would have been only realized after this thing had gone into the field. So we have to try and keep all this in perspective when we try to say whether J&J should be paused or resumed and I let you give you to censor. We also should remember that a couple of Republican Governors have directed to this because Johnson & Johnson is a single-shot vaccine. Your thoughts, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: Well, I think my view is not of a doctor but based on the data. I think the J&J vaccine should be continued at least in states which are willing to accept and embrace which have seen very positive results and more data should be collected. It is not adversarial from a sample size 66 million of 67 million that’s based on, I have to come back to Dr Fauci here. He says it is the science that is behind the decision. Maybe I see a science that he sees. Maybe I don’t see the science that he sees therefore unless we see the science on the same level footing we have two different data points, and that doesn’t augur well in terms of stopping a vaccine.

Sree Iyer: In markets, the United States jobless claims plunges to 576,000 the lowest since the pandemic, sir. So now we are seeing job activity pick up again.

Sridhar Chityala: Job activity has started to pick up with more restaurants, more bars, and more activity taking place and that has always been the driver of the spurt. SME is the driver of the spurt of employment. That’s the reason why we also had the PPP program. So it’s good to see these numbers ramping up. We have to also be very careful that anybody who is receiving the PPP aid or the direct payments their requirement to go back and work is not immediate. So they have the money coming into the system, technically, they don’t qualify. So that is also helping the system and that’s reflected in this 9.8% astronomical growth in retail sales.

Sree Iyer: Jamie Dimon has reported that consumers are holding close with $2 trillion in Chase bank accounts and this will again unleash spending. Any inflation concern, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: Inflation concerns right now looks not imminent. It is probably advanced. We may begin to see inflation, I won’t use the word we will, because we don’t know this unknown factor called covid-19 and its fluctuations. But clearly, the rate hike in 2022 looks, in my view, very eminent and 2023 is possibly the original date may get advanced as a result of money and economic activity.

Sree Iyer: The 10-year treasury bills, the rate has slipped below 1.6% and the 30-year mortgage is now down to 2.265%, never seen this so low in my lifetime, sir.

Sridhar Chityala: Well again, two things. If you are not investing in stock markets it’s time to invest in the stock market to maximize what you can get in the next eight months. You have never taken a loan it’s time to take a mortgage loan or a home equity loan. You ain’t going to get this type of rate. 30-year is at 2.265% and 10-year is at 1.574%. Remember 10-year went past 1.7% but to the credit of Dr Jerome Powell, he has insisted and insisted and insisted and he somehow kept this bond vigilantes out and kept the rate below that 1.6%. Basically, the bond guys believe there’s basically money going to be slashed into the system. Before I lose anything from my bonds because allocation is moving out of the bonds into the equities the only way I can do it is to keep the rates low.

They’re going to be reporting the Coinbase or Coin is the NASDAQ symbol and it’s a 322.75 which is typically the way the markets, you set a price, it has maybe shown for few hours an uptick then it begins to slide. In 12 months, this could be a $500 number. So one should not be surprised if that happens in the case of coinbase. It follows the same pattern that happened in Facebook and other types of similar digital assets or digital entities. So you are seeing the downward slide. Those who have the appetite buy it and then 12 months down the track you will find that maybe you are you’re still smiling. Regulation is the only threat to successful evolution. But the way China is going I don’t know whether the rest of the world can stand aloof.

Sree Iyer: Today is Friday, which means that we do not have our daily Hangouts tomorrow and the day after but we may have a weekend look depending upon how much data we have in place. But stay tuned. We will be telling you over social media channels. If you’re going to have a special hangout with Sridhar Chityalaji and with that this week comes to a close. You’ve been very very supportive of our cause. May I request every one of you with folded hands to try and subscribe to our Channel if you have not already done so? Also, please donate to our cause, you can become a member of our club. This helps us immensely because we can forecast our spending and budget accordingly.

Sridhrji, I hope you go from strength to strength every day, your voice sounds stronger. You’ve just survived a covid scare, and hopefully, we are going to have the same renewed Energy back and thank you very much, sir, and we’ll be back again Monday morning. Namaskar.

Sridhar Chityala: Namaskar and thank you. Have a wonderful weekend. Do not be fearful of covid. You can fight it and do not be fearful of all these numbers that they are flashing in India. And as long as you take precautions and you know your body and you fight it and with the right treatment, you can prevail.