Good morning. Here’s your Daily SITREP for Tuesday, 28 November 2023.
Forward Observer’s Cyber Monday deals are live. Next year is going to be turbulent. Protests, riots, civil unrest, supply chains, markets, elections — you name it, it’s going to get disrupted. You don’t have to go it alone in 2024. The Early Warning intel team keeps you informed on what matters, when you need to know it. Put us on your team with a new Early Warning membership.
- (1) BIDEN ANNOUNCES NEW CABINET-LEVEL SUPPLY CHAIN OFFICE: President Biden announced the new cabinet-level White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience, which will conduct a quadrennial review of U.S. supply chains with the first report due by the end of 2024.
- Under the new national strategy, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Commerce will partner to assess foreign dependency and points of failure for critical medicines and drug precursors.
- The White House announced President Biden will also invoke the Defense Production Act to broaden HHS and Department of Health investments in essential domestic medication manufacturing.
- Why It Matters: U.S. reliance on foreign labs, primarily in China and India, remains a significant threat to the availability and quality of medications, drug precursors, and medical devices. Distributors in the U.S. have also recently been caught introducing adulterated medications into the market. To mitigate this threat, the Biden administration will need to implement a more effective inspection process through the Food and Drug Administration and incentivize domestic medication manufacturing. – R.C.
- (2) ARMSTRONG: U.S. ECONOMY WILL BE LAST TO FALL: Economist and former international hedge fund manager Martin Armstrong wrote that rising debts would first cripple countries other than America, despite the growing U.S. debt.
- “For decades, people have predicted that the dollar will crumble to dust [due to rising debt],” and on the opposite side, economists like Paul Krugman argue that government debt can never be too big, Armstrong wrote.
- The debt problem is global, as “every country has been borrowing with no intention of paying back anything… we are looking at a major sovereign debt default” that will start overseas, Armstrong added.
- Why It Matters: Unlike Armstrong, many economists and financial market analysts only consider developments and conditions inside the U.S. rather than internationally. Rising U.S. debts and deficits are a problem, but America still has the world’s leading advanced economy, and the dollar should remain the global reserve currency for the foreseeable future. – H.B.
- (3) DESANTIS AND NEWSOM DEBATE THIS WEEK: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and California Governor Gavin Newsom are scheduled to debate each other on Thursday in an event on Fox News hosted and moderated by Sean Hannity.
- Newsom spokesman Nathan Click said there were “no illusions” that this would be a “two-on-one” match and that Newsom would use the debate to defend President Biden and “take on the misinformation machine at its headwaters.”
- Why It Matters: With Nikki Haley pulling ahead and the “Never Trump” movement coalescing around her campaign, DeSantis has very little to gain from this debate with Newsom but a lot to lose. A bad performance could be the death knell for the already-foundering DeSantis 2024 campaign and a boost to Newsom’s national profile. – R.C.
Forward Observer’s Cyber Monday deals are live. Next year is going to be turbulent. Protests, riots, civil unrest, supply chains, markets, elections — you name it, it’s going to get disrupted. You don’t have to go it alone in 2024. The Early Warning intel team keeps you informed on what matters, when you need to know it. Put us on your team with a new Early Warning membership.