Yesterday we announced the launch of The Doomsday Clock, an original 18th Airborne Corps podcast series telling the incredible story of the Corps' Cold War history.

Today we're going to tell you more about some of the guests who will appear on the program.

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By Jan 13, 1945, the Allies entered the final (and most historically overlooked) phase of the Battle of the Bulge

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By midday 75 years ago, all final Allied offensive actions were in motion.

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So, to set the table, let's remember who is who here.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

In the South, Patton's 3rd Army is still slowly making its way northeast to Houffalize (remember, they've been making progress that way since Jan 3rd).

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In the North, you've got
Robert Hasbrouck (commander of 7th Armored Division)

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In the North, you've also got Leland Hobbs who commanded the 30th Infantry Division. Hobbs and Hasbrouck reported to...

1 of 19: TANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE

You crazy for this one, #TankTwitter

The Battle of the Bulge was among the largest tank battles in US history.

[If you are here seeking something other than straightforward analysis of a historical event, please look elsewhere]

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After the war, a narrative developed that American tank units (7th, 9th, 10th Armored Divisions, in particular) overcame a German tank superiority in the Battle of the Battle.

[3 of 19] We'd like to put that idea to the test.

We've discussed Kampfgruppe Peiper outmaneuvering our tanks early on with the newest German tank, the 70-ton Tiger II.

The remaining German forces had the Tiger I and Panzers.

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Lt. Colonel Robert Erlenbusch commanded company A, 31st Tank Battalion in St. Vith during the fighting. After the war, he wrote a paper for III Corps in which he stated that German Panther and Tiger tanks were far superior to the American Sherman and Stuart tanks.

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American tanks had success in Ardennes only if they hit "lucky shots" according to Erlenbusch. Many historians still reference Erlenbusch's findings.

1 of 16: WE ARE ALL JEWS HERE: THE STORY OF RODDIE EDMONDS

One of the most moving and relevant stories of the Battle of the Bulge, or any American Soldier in any war, is that of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a Knoxville, Tennessee native, who served with the 106th Infantry.

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Roddie was captured early on in the Battle of the Bulge, on December 19th, when Panzer forces plowed through his unit.

He, along with almost his entire regiment, was forced to surrender.

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The men were transported to the Stalag IX-A POW camp in Ziegenhain, Germany.

Roddie was the senior enlisted American Soldier at the site. As such, he was the conduit between all American Soldiers and their German captors.

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In late January, the camp’s commandant, Major Siegmann [pictured here], ordered Roddie, a Christian, to identify all Jewish Soldiers and order them to stand in formation by themselves the next day.

[Jewish Soldiers were a minority within American units]

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Throughout WWII, captured Jewish Soldiers were often tortured and then killed by their German captors.

In fact, Jewish Soldiers had been told to bury their dog tags before capture. The dog tag identified Jews with the letter “H” for Hebrew.

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Back to the Battle of the Bulge.

He's late.

Thursday, December 28, 1944, ~ 2:30 PM.

Delayed by fog and snowbanks, Eisenhower's command train pulls into a rail siding in the Belgian town of Hasselt three hours behind schedule.

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Ike is there to meet with Monty.

Ike needs to get the bellicose Brit on board with this plan [we're calling it the "middle option" plan] we showed you yesterday.

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Monty is good with the plan, but he believes it's too early to counterattack.

Monty makes his case: intel suggests another (final) impending German attack, so we should build up our defenses & wait rather than attack.

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Monty recommends a strategy of patience. He wants more divisions, he wants to set conditions before a strike. Wait for the moment to present itself, then pour it on.

[if you get the point of this GIF, we appreciate you]

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Ike counters: If we remain stagnant, we may lose our gains. If we lose momentum, we allow the Panzers to slink back over the West Wall and this war might go on for years.

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DECEMBER 20, 1944

BATTLE OF THE BULGE, DAY 5

At this point, the reserve forces (the 82nd and the 101st and the headquarters of the XVIII Airborne) are in sector and in their fighting positions. For the first time ever, the XVIII Airborne Corps is operating in combat.

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On this day 76 years ago, the 82nd Airborne establishes a defense against the 6th SS Panzer Army in the small Belgian town of Werbemont. This was the northern shoulder of the German bulge.

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It was freezing cold in Werbemont, as temperatures dropped to around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Light snow covered most of the ground.

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Meanwhile, the 82nd's sister Airborne division, the 101st, is now assigned to the VIII Corps. The Screaming Eagles are deployed to a crossroads town named Bastogne, trying to push back the southern shoulder of the German Bulge against the 5th Panzer Army.

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So, the XVIII Airborne Corps starts the day with the 82nd Airborne as its only unit. But, General Ridgway was looking for units to pick up (remember, back then a corps was a loosely organized HQ that picked up units as needed).

1/x The market continues to try & shake out weak hands from overextended positioning by both HF & Retail...After a strong Vanna run up overnight, as expected, retail exuberance exploded on the open in the form of retail call buying, this fragility, paired w/a)Mean reverting flows

2/x from pinned Index Vol b) well documented, risk parity rebalancing flows & c) selling flows tied to bank EOY liquidity constraints. In combination, these flows have together have amounted to substantive selling pressures, strong enough to counteract the positive vanna/ charm

3/x flows, & point to continued likely index RVol an IVol pinning...Historically, the week of quarterly OpEx markets are notoriously volatile intraday, but also mean reverting like we saw today. I think it is fair to expect continued IVol compression & more of the same underlying

4/x chop. Vanna/Charm flows will lose their oomph after Wed 12/16 vixperation morning. There’s a window of weakness which I’ve spoken to for a month that falls 12/16-12/23. That could open a brief window that could lead to revaluation of the real risk & short interest,post 1/6...

5/x but the overwhelming 10k 🦍 of index Vol compression should still hold any correction in time & price in check in the shortterm and it’ll be hard to have anything blow up too bad in SPX land given how cheap & abundant Xmas Vol is 12/23-12/24. NTM, a stim deal & potential Fed

THREAD on how economically Muslims maybe poorer (the state is overall also not as rich) in #Bengal but have relatively got socio-political empowerment (part of Threads I am writing for the understanding of Bengal politics in the context of upcoming assembly election):

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The socio-economic status of Muslims in the state is far behind other communities as the Sachar Committee Report (2006) and Pratichi-SNAP’s “Living Reality of Muslims in West Bengal” (2016) attest.

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But it has not witnessed the rule of the BJP yet although the founder of the predecessor of the saffron party, Bharatiya Jan-Sangh, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was himself a Bengali.

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During both the Congress and the Left Front rule earlier, and now under TMC Muslims did get some leverage although political marginalization even at block level had continued.

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Across India, the last two general elections, and even the recent Bihar assembly elections, have resulted in the further marginalization of Muslims.

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Diminishing Marginal Returns

The productivity of our debt is collapsing and that is creating a major problem.

The problem is here now, and not in the future.

Here is why:

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Charted below is the increase in total debt and the increase in nominal GDP in the 8 quarters before each of the last six recessions.

In other words, how much did debt increase, and how much did GDP increase in the final two years of each economic expansion?

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As the chart shows, it is taking a larger amount of debt to increase GDP.

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Graphed another way, leading up to the 1980 recession it took about 1.94 dollars of debt to boost GDP by 1 dollar.

Leading up to the COVID recession saw debt increase nearly 6 dollars for each 1 dollar of GDP growth.

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Flipping the ratio shows the decline in the utility of debt.

We are only generating about 15-20 cents of growth for each dollar of debt.

This becomes a larger problem when we think about "growth rates" instead of nominal dollars.

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1. Been excited about @JoeNBC's sustained convo today about @KBAndersen's new book Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America which explains how the Republican Party radicalized OVER ECONOMICS over the past 30 years. It was launched w the radical tax cuts in Reagan's presidency, but

2. as the GOP evolved through the 90s & 2000s they became dogmatic about their economic philosophy- until it became a radical litmus test/position the party followed even when conditions screamed for different policy. It was a MIRACLE the party acted to stabilize the economy at

3. at the end of 2008 when it was crashing down around us (though they just barely did & some didn't and that's bc it was before the Great Purges of 2010,2012, & 2014). America doesn't know the hit job the GOP did on the American economy as they dogmatically pursued tax cuts to

4. the exclusion of everything else while denying any policy that could grow wages or improve the economic lives of the bottom 80% aside from the 2 or 3 times Ds managed to squeeze through policy while in charge (minimum wage increase in 2007-which was the 1st time in a decade

5. and now, of course, its been another decade. It's actually a miracle wages (all wages bc when the min wage is artificially low it affects all the wages above it, that's how you end up w $10 per hr EMTs & teachers) aren't even more out of wack w inflation. As @JoeNBC points out

Here @playbookplus goes again: ‘HOW MUCH IS BIPARTISANSHIP WORTH?’ I don't know @politico, how many more months would you like the pandemic to drag on for? How many more dead? How many more people, businesses ruined economically? I'm sorry but this is garbage framing in a crisis.

Oh but this is what powerful people are talking about in DC! Might that point itself be examined with more seriousness than taking this BS at face value? Don't you understand, we just reflect back what people are saying? We are mirrors on the world, we offer no commentary.

If "very serious people" are talking about what "nice number" would be $1.3T, 1.2T and not what we need to get out of this mess, might it be worth saying, perhaps, this conversation w/o reference to epidemiologic or economic reality is just a failure of leadership, governance?