March 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Two Fed-Supervised Banks Blew Up Last Week; Two More Dropped Over 40 Percent Yesterday; and the Fed Wants to Investigate Itself — Again
by Gunnar Larson 14 Mar '23

14 Mar '23

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 14, 2023 ~ Last Wednesday, federally-insured Silvergate Bank announced that it was closing shop and liquidating. Its parent’s stock price (Silvergate Capital, ticker SI) had lost over 90 percent of its value over the prior year; it was under a Justice Department investigation for how it moved money for crypto-kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried’s house of frauds; and its depositors were fleeing. Oh – and by the way – its primary regulator was the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Last Friday, California state regulators closed Silicon Valley Bank and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) became the receiver. Its stock price had lost over 80 percent of its market value over the prior year; $150 billion of its $175 billion in deposits were uninsured, either because they exceeded the $250,000 FDIC cap and/or they were foreign deposits. The bank was effectively operating as a Wall Street IPO pipeline in drag as a federally-insured bank. The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco had quietly been bailing it out – to the tune of $15 billion. Oh – and by the way – its primary regulator was the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. And while all of this hubris was occurring, the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, Gregory Becker, was sitting on the Board of Directors of his regulator, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Let’s pause right here for a moment. This is far from the first time that the CEO of a questionable bank was sitting on the Board of a Federal Reserve Bank. As Citigroup CEO, Sandy Weill, was burying the bank under off balance sheet vehicles that would eventually crater the bank in 2008; send its stock price to 99 cents in early 2009; and require the largest bank bailout by the Fed in U.S. history, Weill was also serving on the Board of Directors of the New York Fed. And while Jamie Dimon was CEO of JPMorgan Chase and it was losing what eventually grew to $6.2 billion of bank depositors’ money in wild derivative bets in London, Dimon was also sitting on the Board of the New York Fed. Even when there was a big public uproar over Dimon’s presence on the New York Fed Board as the London Whale derivatives scandal came to light, Dimon remained in place. Oh, and by the way, the Fed member banks in each of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts that can choose to be regulated by the Fed, literally own their regulator. That’s right, they own the stock in their regional Fed bank, which is a private institution, unlike the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. which is an “independent” federal agency. (See, for example, These Are the Banks that Own the New York Fed and Its Money Button.) As the first crypto-related bank failure occurred on Wednesday (Silvergate Bank) and the second largest bank failure in U.S. history occurred on Friday (Silicon Valley Bank) and the third largest bank failure in U.S. history occurred on Sunday (Signature Bank), President Joe Biden attempted yesterday to reassure the public, stating that “Americans can rest assured that our banking system is safe.” But by the close of the stock market yesterday, two more banks whose primary regulator was a Fed regional bank had lost more than 40 percent of their market value – in one day’s trading session. (That doesn’t sound to us like things are under control.) Western Alliance Bancorp (ticker WAL), which is also supervised by the San Francisco Fed, lost 47 percent of its market value by the closing bell. Metropolitan Commercial Bank (bank holding company ticker is MCB) lost 43.78 percent of its market value yesterday. It is supervised by the New York Fed. Adding to the ongoing arrogance of the Fed, its Chairman, Jerome Powell, released a statement two minutes after the market closed yesterday, stating that “The events surrounding Silicon Valley Bank demand a thorough, transparent, and swift review…” So, once again, it’s decided to investigate itself. The Fed’s Vice Chairman for Supervision, Michael Barr, will oversee the investigation. The last time the Fed decided to investigate itself was over its unprecedented trading scandal where various Fed officials engaged in highly inappropriate trading during the pandemic when Fed officials had insider knowledge of bailout actions the Fed planned to take to stem the stock market rout. Powell referred the investigation into that matter to the Fed’s Inspector General – who reports to (wait for it) the Federal Reserve Board, which is headed by Powell. The first news of that trading scandal came to light in early September 2021. It’s now 19 months later and the public has yet to hear a peep about the results of any investigation into the worst actor in the trading scandal, former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan. (See our report: Robert Kaplan Was Trading Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin for Five Years while President of the Dallas Fed; a Dozen Legal Safeguards Failed to Stop Him.) Against this backdrop of Fed hubris, the PBS program, Frontline, will tonight premiere a two-hour documentary on the Fed’s controversial monetary policies that have led us to this dangerous point in time. The Age of Easy Money comes from the award-winning producers James Jacoby and Anya Bourg. In the documentary, economist Nouriel Roubini says “We lived in a bubble, in a dream, and this dream and bubble is bursting.” Jim Millstein, Co-Chairman of Guggenheim Securities, shares this: “I’ve never been more worried in the 42 years that I’ve been a professional. The Fed is absolutely right to try and get it [inflation] under control by raising interest rates in slowing economic activity. But the most highly levered players in our economy are going to come under real stress whether that’s households or businesses or governments, as interest costs rise.” Actually, what’s blowing up right at this moment and scaring the daylights out of the American people are the U.S. banks (some of which were supervised by the Fed) that are sitting on a cumulative $620 billion of unrealized losses. According to a February 28 statement from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on the condition of federally-insured U.S. banks and savings associations, “Unrealized losses on securities totaled $620.4 billion in the fourth quarter, down 10.1 percent from the prior quarter. Unrealized losses on held–to–maturity securities totaled $340.9 billion in the fourth quarter. Unrealized losses on available–for–sale securities totaled $279.5 billion in the fourth quarter.” Age of Easy Money will air tonight on PBS stations (check local listings) and on Frontline’s YouTube channel at 9 p.m. eastern time and 8 p.m. central time.

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Key FBI informant in Michigan governor kidnapping case charged with fraud
by jim bell 14 Mar '23

14 Mar '23

Key FBI informant in Michigan governor kidnapping case charged with fraud https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-informant-michigan-fr… In a fresh development to the high-profile Michigan governor kidnapping case, a key FBI informant has been charged with fraud. Wisconsin native Stephen Robeson was handed the charge last week, accused of defrauding a couple out of an SUV by convincing them to donate to a ‘charity’. He used a fabricated anti-child sex trafficking non-profit as a cover story, the criminal complaint states (via Buzzfeed).

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Re: FreeSpeech and Censorship: Thread
by grarpamp 14 Mar '23

14 Mar '23

US Left-Dem Wokesters Forcibly Topple and Erase History to Prop Up Baphomet... Illinois State Capitol Approves Satanic Monument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHFs6zPVIlY The separation of church and state is a principle fundamental to the United States' constitution. Along with sanctifying the free exercise of religion, the establishment clause forbids the state from advancing a singular belief system above others. Balancing the diverse religious demographics of the United States is no easy task and its difficulty is magnified during the Christmas season as nativity scenes and other decor often attract objections from those who do not adhere to the Christian faith. This year, the Illinois State Capitol finds itself marred in controversy yet again as Christmas approaches but for reasons entirely antithetical to any display detracted from for advancing the Christian religion. For the third straight year, the Illinois State Capitol has decided to approve a display erected by the Church of Satan. This is the third display approved by the Satanic religious group, with the first instance occurring in 2018 then again in 2019 with a pause during 2020 due to pandemic restrictions before being showcased again this year. The 2021 edition of the Church of Satan's display beneath the Capitol rotunda is to mark its holiday of Sol Invictus, which will be observed on December 25th -- Christmas day. The "deity" Baphomet is the centerpiece of the display, transformed into an infantile interpretation of the Éliphas Lévi illustration included in the French occultist's 1856 treatise Dogma and Ritual of High Magic by an Albuquerque-based artist named Chris P. Andres. Lévi's image of Baphomet was incorporated into the pentagram designed by fellow French occultist Stanislas de Guaita in his 1897 work The Key to Black Magic which would be adopted as the Church of Satan's official seal following its creation in 1966 by Anton LaVey. The Church of Satan's holiday of Sol Invictus is a vestige of the pagan origins of Christmas. Sol Invictus was the sun god within the Roman pantheon of deity's whose festival was observed toward the end of what was previously celebrated as Saturnalia. The Cult of Sol Invictus in Rome still remains shrouded in mystery. Some historians view it as a mystery school similar to the Mithraic order that Constantine The Great belonged to while others view it as an Aurelian era revival of the cult of the late Roman Emperor Antoninus, who took the name Elagabalus after the Syrian sun god who he worshiped. Elagabalus was the first and only transsexual Roman Emperor who was assassinated in 222 AD, decades before the Cult of Sol Invictus arose. Regardless of the history of its origins, the contemporaneous celebration of the Satanic iteration of the holiday of Sol Invictus has been met with expected opposition. Bishop Thomas Parocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois voiced his vitriol of the Satanic display vociferously. The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property supported the diocese dissent by convening for prayer at the Capitol. Despite the outcry against the Satanic monument, organizations opposing it would be hard-pressed to accuse the Illinois State Capitol of advancing one religion over another. Since November 30th, the Capitol has also hosted a nativity scene of the birth of Jesus Christ erected by the Springfield Nativity Scene Committee. The Capitol also hosted a ceremony of the nativity scene on its own grounds when it was completed. The Sol Invictus display is another instance of the Church of Satan's public relations efforts. The organization recently filed a legal challenge to the State of Texas Heartbeat Bill claiming that its ceremonial practice of abortion was protected under the first amendment and their rights were violated by the law accordingly. For all its effort on the public relations front, the Church of Satan would have been prudent to invest more in legal research. Laws which act in the general welfare of a state interest like public health affecting but not designed to specifically inhibit religious exercise have been ruled upheld as constitutional following the 1998 case Employment Division v. Smith and subsequent case law affirming the precedent it sent. For all the benevolent intent it espouses by consecrating its Sol Invictus monument, the Church of Satan is less enthusiastic about discussing the exploitative practices of its founder as well as the checkered history of its other founding members. Michael Aquino, who died in 2020, was a priest within Church of Satan before starting The Temple of Set following his departure from LaVey's order. Aquino was famously renowned for his role pioneering psychological warfare linked to the CIA's notorious Project MKUltra as well as connections to child molestation cases at the Presidio daycare center in San Francisco and others linked to Lawrence E. King's criminal enterprise uncovered by the FBI's investigation into the Franklin Credit Union fraud scandal. Although there is plenty of reason to debate the integrity of the Church of Satan, the central question of the constitutionality of their display at the Illinois State Capitol is less debatable. In 2019, the United States' government officially recognized the Church of Satan as a religion under federal law. That year, the Church of Satan was awarded tax exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service Code. Despite claiming that status, the Church of Satan has repeatedly contended that it is a non-theistic group with most members joining for entirely secular reasons. The decision of the Illinois State Capitol to display the Church of Satan's latest monument on its grounds is a perfect display of how difficult balancing the interests of different religious groups can become. While objections to the Baphomet monument continue to be raised, they are protected under the same amendment that protects the Church of Satan's freedom to exercise its religious beliefs. While the Church of Satan erected the display to symbolize its holiday of Sol Invictus, it does much more than represent an esoteric holiday -- it illustrates the starkly juxtaposed directions followed by citizens in an increasingly polarized society with eschatological undertones that are more becoming of the prophesized end times than the revelries of the holiday season.

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[leak] facebook llama most trained research language model
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

this is a cutting edge public language model that was kept private to the academic community. if i recall correctly its major feature is significant downsizing via use of much more training data. it is likely more powerful than common for-pay models such as those sold by openai. i have not verified the torrent is real. from twitter and reddit. https://github.com/facebookresearch/llama/pull/73/files magnet:?xt=urn:btih:ZXXDAUWYLRUXXBHUYEMS6Q5CE5WA3LVA&dn=LLaMA

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Renewed promise of fully decentralized storage and globalized governance
by professor rat 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

Crypto and Artificial Intelligence are eloping despite parental disapproval https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2023/02/20/crypto-bittorrent-implement-ai-infras… Reposts not first starlings of spring

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[crazy] [idea] vr can replace drugs?
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

https://science.slashdot.org/story/22/08/08/2153210/vr-is-as-good-as-psyche… the article, which i have not fully read, focuses on an artistic vr environment that produces responses indistinguishable from lsd and psychedelics on some tests. it also raises the idea that vr could produce other human changes, which is pleasant from a perspective of unaddressed algorithmic psychological manipulation in the world. i was thinking i needed an environment encouraging of rationality. i thought maybe having the user plan how they would move, and then follow through with their plan, as a first idea. i’m not sure how i would make it pleasant — but that seems maybe the study or art of human influence. maybe in the end a different thing than simply what i wanted to do better, would be more humanly influential.

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OBAMA, sorry, Fedbook helped fuel a genocidal campaign in Burma
by professor rat 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

In late 2018 the company admitted that this activity had helped fuel a genocidal anti-Muslim campaign in Myanmar for several years. In 2020 Facebook started belatedly taking action against Holocaust deniers, anti-vaxxers, and the conspiracy movement QAnon. All these dangerous falsehoods were metastasizing . . ." https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/11/1020600/facebook-responsible-ai… Reposts not reams of reactionary Gramps garbage

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Silicon Valley Bank Was a Wall Street IPO Pipeline in Drag as a Federally-Insured Bank; FHLB of San Francisco Was Quietly Bailing It Out
by Gunnar Larson 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-was-a-wall-stree… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 13, 2023 ~ If you want to genuinely understand why Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed and why Jerome Powell’s Fed led the effort yesterday to make sure $150 billion of the bank’s uninsured depositors’ money would be treated as FDIC insured and available today, you need to take a look at how the bank defined itself right up until it blew up on Friday. (That history is still available at the Internet Archives’ Wayback Machine at this link. Give the page time to load.) This was a financial institution deployed to facilitate the goals of powerful venture capital and private equity operators, by financing tech and pharmaceutical startups until they could raise millions or billions of dollars in a Wall Street Initial Public Offering (IPO). The bank was also involved in managing the wealth of those startup millionaires or billionaires once they struck it big in an IPO. Many of the former startup companies also continued to keep their operating money at the bank – in many cases in the millions of dollars, ignoring the fact that just $250,000 of that was insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Last Friday, dozens of publicly-traded companies made filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating that they had large sums of uninsured deposits now frozen at Silicon Valley Bank. Several indicated that the amounts represented 23 to 26 percent of the company’s cash and/or cash equivalents. Roku, Inc., the publicly-traded manufacturer of digital media players for video streaming, reported the following to the SEC: “The Company has total cash and cash equivalents of approximately $1.9 billion as of March 10, 2023. Approximately $487 million is held at SVB, which represents approximately 26% of the Company’s cash and cash equivalents balance as of March 10, 2023.” Publicly-traded Oncorus, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing RNA-based medicine for cancer patients, reported the following to the SEC: “The Company informs its investors that it has deposit accounts with SVB with an aggregate balance of approximately $10 million, which is approximately 23% of the Company’s total current cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. In addition, the Company has a standby letter of credit in place with SVB of approximately $3.4 million securing obligations under its lease agreement with IQHQ-4 Corporate Drive, LLC.” In big, bold type on its website, Silicon Valley Bank bragged that “44% of U.S. venture-backed technology and healthcare IPOs YTD [year-to-date] bank with SVB.” To put it bluntly, this was a Wall Street IPO machine that enriched the investment banks on Wall Street by keeping the IPO pipeline moving; padded the bank accounts of the venture capital and private equity middlemen; and minted startup millionaires for ideas that often flamed out after the companies went public. These are the functions and risks taken by investment banks. Silicon Valley Bank – with this business model — should never have been allowed to hold a federally-insured banking charter and be backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer, who was on the hook for its incompetent bank management. We say incompetent based on this fact alone (although there were clearly lots of other problem areas): $150 billion of its $175 billion in deposits were uninsured. The bank was clearly playing a dangerous gambit with its depositors’ money. Adding further insult to U.S. taxpayers, the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco was quietly bailing out SVB throughout much of last year. Federal Home Loan Banks are also not supposed to be in the business of bailing out venture capitalists or private equity titans. Their job is to provide loans to banks to promote mortgages to individuals and loans to promote affordable housing and community development. According to SEC filings by the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, its loan advances to SVB went from zero at the end of 2021 to a whopping $15 billion on December 31, 2022. The SEC filing provides a graph showing that SVB was its largest borrower at year end, with outstanding advances representing 17 percent of all loans made by the FHLB of San Francisco. Loan Advances Outstanding at Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, December 31, 2022 Notably, another bank which had $14 billion of loans outstanding from the FHLB of San Francisco – First Republic Bank – saw its stock price plummet by 14.8 percent on Friday. In premarket trading this morning, its stock was down another 70 percent, despite the announcement of a new bailout facility last evening by the Fed. Western Alliance Bancorp, also on the FHLB of San Francisco’s list of its top 10 borrowers, saw its stock close with a loss of 20.88 percent on Friday. It had lost another 29 percent in premarket trading this morning. Another member of the top 10 borrowers at FHLB of San Francisco, Silvergate Bank, announced last Wednesday that it was closing shop and liquidating. Silvergate’s problem stemmed from the hot money it held in deposits from crypto companies heading for the exits as investigations began into its role in potentially laundering money for Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed house of frauds. Another crypto-related bank, Signature Bank, was shuttered by New York State regulators on Sunday, with the FDIC being named the receiver. All of its depositors, including its uninsured depositors, will also be made whole, according to a statement from the FDIC yesterday. Signature Bank’s filings with federal regulators indicate that more than $79 billion of its $88 billion in deposits were uninsured at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022. Signature Bank was also quietly tapping into ongoing bailouts from a Federal Home Loan Bank. In this case FHLB of New York. Its borrowings from FHLB of New York exploded in the fourth quarter of last year, rising to $11.3 billion. According to an SEC filing, as of September 30, 2022, it had total borrowing capacity of $23.4 billion from FHLB New York. We’re starting to see a pattern here. If you want to know which banks are going belly up next, simply look at which ones took the largest loan advances from a Federal Home Loan Bank last year. That appears to mean that they were seeing an exodus of depositor money and needed to plug their liquidity holes. The new emergency lending program set up by the Federal Reserve was announced last evening, as follows: “The additional funding will be made available through the creation of a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), offering loans of up to one year in length to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other eligible depository institutions pledging U.S. Treasuries, agency debt and mortgage-backed securities, and other qualifying assets as collateral. These assets will be valued at par. The BTFP will be an additional source of liquidity against high-quality securities, eliminating an institution’s need to quickly sell those securities in times of stress.” The translation of the above is as follows: to prevent banks from further panicking the markets by taking massive losses on their underwater Treasury securities by selling them in order to meet depositor withdrawals, we’re going to accept these Treasury securities as collateral for one-year loans and pretend that their market value is par (the full face amount at maturity). It’s not clear if this new emergency bailout program from the Fed complies with the statutory language of Dodd-Frank, which prohibits the Fed from setting up an emergency bailout program to bail out a specific financial institution; requires that it accept good collateral; and requires that any new Fed emergency facilities be broad-based across the financial industry. Federally-insured banks that did themselves in with crypto deposits or functioned as an IPO pipeline to Wall Street, do not appear to us to represent a broad base of the federally-insured, commercial banking industry in the U.S. The Fed’s bailout program, once again, appears to be rewarding hubris and enshrining moral hazard in the U.S. banking system. Equally troubling, both Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank were supervised by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Why the San Francisco Fed’s bank examiners didn’t blow the whistle on the dangerous manner in which these banks were operating deserves its own investigation. For years now, Wall Street On Parade has warned that the crony Fed should be stripped of its supervision of banks.

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Second Draft (was MC Boss Webcomic, Re: Morning Spam)
by Karl 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

The first draft is still WIP, but the second is being brainstormed a little. I never expect to finish projects. This is a _fictional_ account, intended to _talk about real things via fiction_. I don't attend to the news, so it's all totally wrong and I have very few poignant events. The thorough coverup patterns have been altered to make what is happening more clear. It's June, 2016. A scruffy man approaches somebody on a way to a surgery. They move in a strange pace, a way they haven't walked much before, but they don't think much about it. They're talking to themselves. "Okay, but we're not going to hurt anybody. The gun's just for show. I have somewhere to be, you know?" They walk more purposefully. Suddenly, screaming. "Please! I don't want to do this! I don't like this person but I don't want to kill anybody! Please, oh God, oh God! Please! What is going on??" Tears and blood are flying. The shotgun is discharged three times. The man takes out a knife. "Something's moving my body! Oh my God, don't do this! I don't want to stab her, I don't want to stab her ... ! She's already dead!" The knife gashes a body fifteen times, and that of a bystander as well. Jo Cox lies died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jo_Cox "Brexit!" the man's mouth cries, amidst his screams of complaint, as he runs off. [next could be: epstein's death which was called a suicide but has clear public evidence indicating it was murder by prison guard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jo_Cox ]

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Cryptocurrency: Prevents Humanity From Being Taxed Back Into SocComMarx Stone Age
by grarpamp 13 Mar '23

13 Mar '23

"How are we going to tax everybody when they have a Swiss Bank Account on their phone?! -- Barack Obama, Head Thief Liar and Fraudster" Windfall Tax Leads To Job Losses At UK's Largest Oil & Gas Producer https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Windfall-Tax-Leads-To-Jo… The UK’s largest oil and gas producer, Harbour Energy, is cutting investments and jobs after the new windfall tax on the industry sapped nearly all of its 2022 profits. Harbour Energy’s profits last year were $2.5 billion, pre-tax, but after taxes, the company was left with just an $8 million profit - that’s after the $1.5 billion that needed to go towards the Energy Profits Levy. Harbour Energy has not divulged how many workers will lose their jobs. Harbour Energy said it has cut back on investments, too, with Harbour choosing not to move forward on two drill sites and declining to participate in the North Sea offshore licensing round. The windfall tax has hit UK North Sea producers, many which have already announced reduced investments on the UK Continental Shelf, the new head of trade body Offshore Energies UK said last month. The UK raised the windfall tax on oil and gas operators’ profits last autumn by 10 percentage points, to 35 percent. The increased rate for the Energy Profits Levy went into effect on January 1 of this year. It was also extended into March 2028, from December 2025. The additional levies increased the total tax rate on oil and gas companies to 75 percent - the highest of any industry in the UK. Shell has said it is reevaluating all of its UK projects which make up $30 billion of investments, and TotalEnergies has also said it would cut investments in the UK by 25 percent. Oil and gas companies saw a substantial increase in profits last year thanks to higher oil and gas prices amid geopolitical turmoil and tight markets.

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