An upcoming Saudi investment conference has not invited US officials as a rift is widening between Washington and Riyadh, which appears to be gravitating toward Russia amid a worsening energy crisis in the West.

Saudi Arabia will host the Future Investment Initiative (FII), a three-day conference set to begin on October 25 in the capital Riyadh, but the forum's organizer said that unlike previous years, US officials were not invited to the upcoming event.

Richard Attias, CEO of the group behind the event, announced on Monday that his group didn't invite any US government figures.

"We are not inviting too many politicians... because I realized that when you have political leaders on stage, the attention of the media, let's be very frank, is diverted to the political agenda, and we don't want FII to become a political platform."

Attias said that FII - often referred to as "Davos in the Desert" - typically draws Wall Street titans and high-ranking officials from around the world, and up to 400 American CEOs are expected to participate this year.

If you can answer two questions correctly, you might have a unique insight into the direction of monetary policy over the next few years.

1. Does the Fed really need to shrink the SOMA portfolio?
2. Was Milton Friedman right? Or at least partially right?

I sit in a unique position in the financial markets. I've been in the Repo market for over 30 years, seen the evolution of the Fed, government programs and how they affect the markets. I've seen tightening and easing cycles, crises and booms. Through all of the changes, there's one thing that's for sure: The Repo market is a window into what's going on behind the scenes.

There's a lot of concern about the fed funds rate right now. Keep in mind, the Fed moves this rate up and down. It was too low for a long time and it will eventually be too high. There might be a recession. Hopefully not. These all seem really important to the market right now, but they're not the real risk. These are events we've experienced many times before. They're a natural part of the financial markets. What's important is the unknown unknown.

That's the "wild card." Right now, the risk lurking in the shadows is Balance Sheet Runoff. The Fed, the markets, the regulators, and even us Repo guys have limited experience with the Fed shrinking the balance sheet. Bottom line: there's a risk that Balance Sheet Runoff will breaking something. On top of that, no one's talking about it! [ZH: that's not true, Mark Cabana has been talking about it for a long time]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's "Operation Lone Star" has deployed thousands of Texas National Guard soldiers and Department of Public Safety troopers across the border this year despite the lack of effort from the Biden administration. In doing so, Texas has seized enough fentanyl to kill every American.

According to Abbott's office:

"In the past year, Texas law enforcement alone has seized over 342 million lethal doses of fentanyl — enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States."

The announcement comes after Raul Ortiz, the head of the US Border Patrol, testified under oath that the White House's border strategy of "no consequences" for illegal immigrants had caused one of the most significant border "crises" in years.

Since President Biden entered office, around 5 million illegal immigrants have crossed onto US soil -- that's almost equivalent to the entire population of Ireland. The crisis unfolded after Biden rolled back Trump-era policies. The consequence of migrants and drugs flowing over the border has also led to a surge in fentanyl hitting American streets, triggering a tidal wave of overdose deaths.

FAIR President Dan Stein recently warned:

"The endless flow of illegal aliens and the incursion of lethal narcotics pouring across our border will not end until this administration demonstrates a willingness to enforce our laws."

FAIR is one of the largest immigration reform groups in the country.

Josep Borrell came under fire for calling the bloc a "garden," while describing the rest of the world in less flattering terms

Josep Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, has issued an apology after his metaphor for the perceived fundamental difference between the bloc and the rest of the world caught flak. He insisted, however, that his comparison of the outside world to a "jungle" was not intended to have any racist overtones.

On Tuesday, Borrell published a blog post in which he expressed regret that "some have misinterpreted" his latest metaphor as an example of "colonial Euro-centrism."

"I am sorry if some have felt offended," he added.

The diplomat made the controversial remark last week while speaking at the inauguration ceremony at the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Belgium. Borrell said that Europeans live in a "garden," while most of the outside world is a "jungle."

Ukraine should recognize Crimea as part of Russia and renounce its bid to join NATO for the sake of peace, US billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has said. Just like SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk before him, Ackman was immediately criticized online for suggesting that Kiev should be ready to make concessions in order to end the hostilities.

"Crimea was part of Russia until 1954 and is largely comprised of ethnic Russians, which was apparently why the world did little when Russia annexed it back in 2014," Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, tweeted on Monday.

He added that the borders should return to where they were prior to February 24, when Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring country and before four former Ukrainian regions voted to join Russia. He added that the West should then help Kiev with its recovery, while the country should stay outside of NATO.

"Thousands of lives will be saved and resources can be invested to rebuild [Ukraine] rather than in a war that will only lead to more destruction and death," the billionaire wrote. "If there is a viable path to peace, we should pursue it. Each day the conflict continues, the risk to the world rises."

"Lots of people don't know what happened yesterday. To put it simply, Biden has forced all Americans working in China to pick between quitting their jobs and losing American citizenship. Every American executive and engineer working in China's semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight. One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump. Although American semiconductor exporters had to apply for licenses during the Trump years, licenses were approved within a month.

With the new Biden sanctions, all American suppliers of IP blocks, components, and services departed overnight - thus cutting off all service [to China]. Long story short, every advanced node semiconductor company is currently facing comprehensive supply cut-off, resignations from all American staff, and immediate operations paralysis. This is what annihilation looks like: China's semiconductor manufacturing industry was reduced to zero overnight. Complete collapse. No chance of survival."

Posted at Jordan Schneider's Twitter account @jordanschnyc from a translated thread at @lidangzzz

The Biden administration intensified its war on China last week when it detonated a thermonuclear bomb at the heart of Beijing's booming technology industry. In an effort to block China's access to crucial semiconductor technology, Team Biden announced onerous new export rules aimed at a "comprehensive supply cut-off" of essential semiconductor technology which - according to one analyst - led to an "immediate operations paralysis." The terror unleashed by the announcement was aptly summarized in a thread posted at Jordan Schneider's Twitter account from a translated thread at @lidangzzz (See above quote)

Elon Musk got in hot water again on Twitter — for proposing peace. On Monday, Musk proposed a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, for which he was denounced as a pro-Putin puppet by the Twitter mob that has formed to police the discourse on all things related to Ukraine.

The Federal Reserve Board has announced that six of the nation's largest banks will participate in a pilot climate scenario analysis exercise. This is designed to enhance the ability of supervisors and firms to measure and manage "climate-related financial risks."

The pilot exercise will be launched in early 2023 and is expected to conclude around the end of the year. At the beginning of the exercise, the Board will publish details of the climate, economic, and financial variables that make up the climate scenario narratives.

The banks in the pilot exercise are Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. In the coming months, the Board will provide additional details on how the exercise will be conducted and the scenarios that will be used in the pilot, according to The Federal Reserve's official government website.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has become a fundraising machine for himself and the Republican Party in general, outpacing other governors who, like him, are running for reelection in November.

According to a report by The Center Square, which cited data from Transparency USA, as of Sept. 2, DeSantis had raised $166,578,634, with the top donor being the Republican Governors Association, with a donation of $17.35 million.

"DeSantis is running for his second term against Democrat Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida who switched parties to run for Congress as a Democrat. According to an Oct. 5 Mason-Dixon poll, DeSantis is projected to beat Crist by a vote of 52%-41%. A RealClear Politics average of polls has him leading by 11 points."

None of the other six governors running for reelection evaluated by Transparency USA have raised anywhere near the amount that DeSantis has.

Former US congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has called on Democrats to leave the party, which she said is controlled by "woke, fanatical ideologues." Gabbard herself left last week, calling the leaders "an elitist cabal of warmongers."

Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday, Gabbard said that she experienced "a lot of backlash and anger" from the "woke, fanatical ideologues that are in control of today's Democratic Party" when she announced her decision to leave the party earlier in the week.

Gabbard, who Democrats have long accused of siding with their Republican adversaries, said that she decided to leave due to her former party's support for "anti-white racism," open borders, persecution of their political opponents, and stoking of foreign conflicts.