Month: September 2024

At the start of the year, many months after we first pointed out that the biggest untold story of the US labor market was the “great replacement” of native born workers with foreign-born workers (most of whom we subsequently learned were illegal aliens), we asked how is it, that the ongoing replacement (because that’s what it is) of US workers is “not the biggest political talking point right now” considering that “since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period foreign-born workers have gained 3 million jobs”

How is this not the biggest political talking point right now: since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period foreign-born workers have gained 3 million jobs. pic.twitter.com/Z5HVWmQ24C

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 15, 2024

Nine months later, we are delighted to see that our relentless efforts to bring attention to this critical topic finally worked, and the continued replacement of native-born workers with immigrants and illegal aliens was finally the biggest political and media talking point, as demonstrated by such articles as “How Immigration Remade the U.S. Labor Force“ by the WSJ and “Without Immigrants, US Working-Age Population Would Shrink“ from Bloomberg, both of which are an extension of the latest and greatest narrative, first spawned by Fed chair Powell, and then picked up by Goldman, which came down to the following: you can have (record) illegal immigration, or you can have even more (breakneck) inflation. So don’t be angry, and just accept the roving gangs of Venezuelan murderers in your neighborhood, if you know what’s good for you and if you want to keep prices low (the same prices which are only high because the government decided to inject $20 trillion in fiscal stimmies in the past 4 years).

There it is: You can have illegal immigration or you can have even more inflation https://t.co/4npStzH8ft pic.twitter.com/xYofvgPjXV

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 5, 2024

Which brings us to today’s jobs report… where the native vs foreign-born debate just exploded!

As we discussed earlier, superficially the August payrolls report was a mixed bag. On one hand, it was disappointing in that the payrolls print came in softer than expected, but was a big bounce from sharply downward revised June and July prints. On the other hand, the unemployment rate did drop from the Sahm Rule’s recession trigger level of 4.3% to 4.2%, and effectively eliminated the clear cut case for a 50bps rate cut, especially since the Household survey was not only far stronger than the Establishment survey, but indicated the biggest increase in employment since March.

That, at least, was the quantitative view. And while that was mixed, there was no confusion in the picture painted by the qualtitative aspect of the jobs report. Here, everything was a disaster.

Starting at the top, while the number of employed workers did rise by 168K, looking closer at the composition of this increase is disastrous: that’s because it consisted of an increase of 527K part-time jobs, offset by a 438K plunge in full-time jobs.

This means that since last June, the US has added just over 2 million part-time jobs, and lost over 1.5 million full-time jobs.

Needless to say, part-time jobs pay far less, don’t offer benefits, and generally lead to a suboptimal outcomes for the labor market, one of which is the need to get more than one job, and sure enough, the number of multiple jobholders – or people who for whatever reason have more than one job – jumped above 8.5 million, back to all time highs.

And while the quality of job gains in the past year has clearly been catastrophic – a necessary condition to give the impression that headline, or quantiative, job growth was strong –  there was a very clear reason for that, and it goes back to what we have been pounding the table on in the past: the reason is the continued replacement of native-born workers with immigrants (some legal but mostly illegal). And as the following chart shows, it is anything but a theory: it is cold hard fact.

Presenting exhibit A: the number of native-born vs foreign-born workers in August.

In an absolute shocker of a data point, in the past month, the US added 635K foreign-born workers, while losing 1.325 million native-born workers. This was tied for the biggest one-month drop in native-born workers since the covid crash!

But it’s not just the past month, or two, or three… As regular readers know, the reason why suddenly we are bombarded with media pitches for why illegal immigrants are actually great for you, is that the US has not created a single job for native-born workers since July 2018! And in that interval, it has created 4.7 million jobs for immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Finally for those wondering when the Great Job Replacement Fact (again, not theory) kicked in, the following chart showing the historical divergence between native and non-native born workers will make it clear: the gap first emerged at the start of the Biden administration and has exploded to a record size today!

Finally, for those who would push back that these are mostly legal immigrants, here is what Standard Chartered strategist Steven Englander wrote at the start of June to refute that claims and prove that most of these immigrant workers are virtually all illegal: echoing what we have said for the past two years, Englander wrote that immigration, particularly illegal immigration, “is a political flashpoint that has also become an important factor in assessing economic performance. Detailed data from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) suggest that half of non-farm payroll (NFP) growth to date for FY24 (started 1 October 2023) has been from undocumented immigrants who have received an Employment Authorization Document (EAD)” (he defines undocumented immigrants as those who entered the US through non-traditional immigration pathways, such as asylum seekers, parolees, and refugees, i.e. illegals).

“The ability to track EAD issuance to undocumented workers is an advantage in estimating how much they have contributed to employment growth. NFP counts workers with an EAD just like any other. Using that data, it is easy to estimate that undocumented workers have added 109k jobs per month to NFP out of the average 231k increase so far in FY24.”

Which is a big problem because as the BLS now admitted with its downward payrolls revision two weeks ago, the monthly increase in jobs in the past years was not 230K as it had indicated previously, but rather 150K when one removes the 818K jobs that were never there in the past year to begin with.

So if the true pace of job creation in the past year was 150K, and another 109K jobs per month are illegal aliens, that leaves just about 40K jobs for everyone else, i.e., law abiding Americans.

It also means that, great worker replacement scandal aside, the labor market in the US has – for the past year – been an absolute catastrophe and harbinger of economic disaster.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle via The Mises Institute,

In a recent interview with CNN, Kamala Harris said that Bidenomics is working and that she is “proud of bringing inflation down.”

However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published the latest CPI at 2.9%, despite annual inflation being 1.4% when she took office. Inflation is a disguised tax and accumulated inflation since January 2021, when the Biden-Harris administration started, has increased more than 20%.

Of course, Democrats blame inflation on the war, the pandemic, and the science-fantasy concept of “supply chain disruptions.” No one believed it, because most commodities have declined and supply tensions disappeared back to normality, but prices continued to rise.

As a result, Harris invented the concept of greedy grocery stores and evil corporations to blame for inflation and justify price controls. Is it not ironic? She blames grocery stores and corporations for inflation, but when price inflation drops, she proudly takes credit.

The reality is that the Kamala Harris plan, like all interventionist governments, creates and strives for inflation. Inflation is a hidden tax. Governments love it and perpetuate it by printing money through deficit spending and imposing regulations that harm trade, competition, and technological creative destruction. Big government is big inflation.

Inflation is the way in which the government tricks citizens into believing that administrations can provide for anything. It disguises the accumulated debt, quietly transfers wealth from the private sector to the government and condemns citizens to being dependent hostages of government subsidies. It is the only way in which they can continue to spend a constantly depreciated currency and present themselves as the solution. Furthermore, it is the perfect excuse to blame businesses and anyone else who sells in the currency that the government creates.

Kamala Harris will do nothing to cut inflation because she wants inflation to disguise the monster deficit and debt accumulation. In the latest figures, the deficit has soared to $1.5 trillion in the first ten months of the fiscal year. Public debt has soared to $35 trillion, and in the administration’s own forecasts, they will add a $16.3 trillion deficit from 2025 to 2034. It is worse. The previously mentioned figure does not include the $2 trillion in additional debt coming from Kamala’s economic plan.

Harris is aware that her proposals to impose an unrealized capital gains tax, an economic aberration, and other tax hikes will not generate the $2 trillion in additional taxes she seeks. So, she needs the Fed to monetize as much as possible, eroding the US dollar’s purchasing power and making all Americans poorer in the process, only to blame corporations and grocery stores later. Furthermore, it is a way to present the government as the solution to the problem they create, promising the lunacy of price controls and enormous subsidies in a constantly depreciated currency.

It is a perfect plan to nationalize the economy in the style of Peronist socialism in Argentina.

Increase spending, deficits, and debt, making the size of government larger on the way in. Monetize as much debt as possible and cut rates to make it easier for the bankrupt government to borrow. When deficits balloon and inflation soars, increase taxes to the private sector and hike rates, which increases further the size of government in the economy. And you blame corporations?

Governments do not reduce prices. Governments create and perpetuate inflation by printing currency that loses value every year.

Corporations, landlords, and grocery stores do not create or increase inflation; they reduce it through competition and efficiency. Even if all corporations, grocery stores, and landlords were evil and stupid at the same time, they would not make aggregate prices rise and consolidate a constant trend of increases. For the same quantity of money, even a monopoly would not be able to increase aggregate prices. The only one that can make aggregate prices rise, consolidate, and continue increasing, although at a slower pace, is the government issuing and printing more currency than the private sector demands.

By admitting that the deficit will soar by $16.3 trillion in ten years in a budget that expects record revenues, no recession, and continued employment growth, the Harris team is conceding that they will strive for inflation to dilute the currency in which that debt is issued… and make you poorer.

Interventionists argue that the government does not have a budget constraint, only an inflation constraint, and can always tax the excess money in the system. Beautiful. This implies an increase in the size of the government during periods of economic expansion and further government expansion during periods of perceived normalcy. The government receives an enormous transfer of wealth from the productive sector, resulting in the creation of a dependent citizen class.

High taxes are not a tool to reduce debt. High debt and high taxes are tools to confiscate the productive sector’s wealth and create a subclass of dependent citizens.

Socialism redistributes middle-class wealth to bureaucrats, not rich to poor.

Massive government spending, constantly increasing taxes, and printing money.

A plan to reduce the economy to serfdom.

Harris’ economic plan is not aiming to reduce inflation but to perpetuate it. Indeed, this economic policy mirrors Argentina’s 21st-century socialism, and it threatens the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The government does not determine the level of confidence in a currency. When confidence in a currency declines, it does so quickly. Saying it will not happen in the US because it has not occurred yet is the equivalent of driving at 200mph and saying, “We have not killed ourselves yet; accelerate.”

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Violent crashes followed by equally violent rip-your-face-off rallies as we experienced in August are not signs of a healthy, stable stock market.

An astute reader recently asked me: “If you had to rollover a pot of money from a 401K in the next month, how/where would YOU invest it?” Please note that my answer is not investment advice? I am only responding to the reader’s direct question: what would I do? In other words, given my circumstances, age, risk appetite, assets, income, obligations, etc., what would I personally do? My answer is only relevant within the context of my own individual circumstances. Everyone else with their own unique circumstances will have their own answer.

My answer: I’d play it safe. What “safe” means depends on the person, but for me, “safe” means cash, and cash equivalents that earn some sort of yield, for example, short-term Treasury bills / notes / bonds which I can buy via TreasuryDirect.gov . For someone else, “safe” may be some other asset or perhaps diversifying their bets in the casino: some on the roulette wheel, some on the poker tables, etc.

Why would I play it safe? Two reasons come to mind. 

1) Mr. Buffett just sold a dollar amount of Apple stock equal to the GDP of a small nation. That is a very clear signal of how he views valuations and the global economy. Mr. Buffett was widely considered an out-of-it old fool when he missed the dot-com NASDAQ bubble in 1999, but a few years later after the NASDAQ had fallen 85% from its peak, perceptions of the out-of-it old fool changed.

2) Violent crashes followed by equally violent rip-your-face-off rallies as we experienced in August are not signs of a healthy, stable stock market. This kind of action smells very strongly of insiders and major players “distributing” (ie selling) to retail (households with stock portfolios, 401Ks and IRAs, and passive index funds which are bagholders all the way down should stocks crash) in anticipation of a serious, prolonged decline in valuations.

There is an overwhelming abundance of signals and analyses–Treasury yield inversions, etc.–but these two suffice. 

But if you insist on two more, consider:

3) the percentage of household wealth in stocks has reached an all-time high. This has a very strong correlation with major multi-year tops in the stock market.

4) Volatility remains complacently untroubled. Sure, volatility as expressed in the VIX index is suppressed to keep stocks nicely elevated, but the complacency is evident in other readings as well. Recency biashas made punters extremely complacent and confident that A) buying the dip will be handsomely rewarded every time, without fail, and B) the Federal Reserve will do “whatever it takes” to save the stock market from any spot of bother. That these conditions may no longer be guaranteed has not yet entered the risk-return analysis of most punters.

OK, here’s a lagniappe indicator: the bat guano-quatloo / JNK-Mongolian Cattle Futures Index ratio. Interpret this one however you like, but to me it is suggesting that playing it safe has a favorable risk-return thingy.

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Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times,

Former President Donald Trump gained the endorsement of the national Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), America’s biggest and oldest police union, on Sept. 6.

“During his time in the White House, we had a partner and a leader. Today, Mr. President, we stand with you,” FOP President Patrick Yoes said at the group’s meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 6.

“We have your back, and we’re committed to work tirelessly for your election.”

The national FOP has endorsed candidates from both major political parties over the years but has favored Trump during all three of his presidential runs.

After Yoes introduced Trump, the Republican presidential nominee drew frequent applause from the FOP as he described steps he intends to take to bolster police, pursue stricter penalties for serious crimes, and crack down on illegal immigration.

Because Harris is a former California prosecutor and Trump is awaiting sentencing Nov. 26 for business-records offenses in a controversial New York case, some of her supporters have characterized the race as “the prosecutor versus the felon.” Following the FOP endorsement, the Republican Party was branding the former president and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), as “The Pro-Police Ticket.”

The 377,000-member FOP joins the International Union of Police Associations, the National Association of Police Organizations, and “numerous local, state, and police advocacy groups” in endorsing Trump rather than his opponent, Trump campaign senior adviser Bob Paduchik told reporters during a pre-announcement phone call.

How Union Decided Endorsement

Based on votes from all 46 of its state lodges, the FOP chose Trump instead of Harris after considering policy positions of both candidates.

Trump met with an FOP committee, “but no similar meeting was granted” by Harris’ campaign, the FOP said in a news release.

In addition, Trump answered a questionnaire from the FOP, while Harris’ campaign responded with a letter “describing some of their positions on criminal justice and police labor issues,” the FOP said.

Since Aug. 6, when Harris announced she had selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, the Harris-Walz team has given few specifics about their policy positions. The pair also have largely ignored reporters’ questions at campaign stops and have given no formal news conferences.

During that timeframe, the Trump-Vance team has given dozens of interviews and held numerous news conferences.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, talks to reporters after walking over from looking at Air Force Two, Vice President Kamala Harris’ plane, at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Eau Claire, Wis. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

FOP president Yoes lauded Trump for his “true, genuine commitment to advancing policing in this country… at a time when it wasn’t a political battleground.”

He commended Trump for championing a historic criminal justice reform policy and countering efforts to “defund the police.”

Attendees of the FOP meeting greeted Trump with a standing ovation as he began a 50-minute speech.

“America’s cities are under siege,” he said, noting that a trio of police officers suffered gunshot wounds in Milwaukee on the eve of the FOP meeting.

Trump blames policies that he said allow illegal immigration, decreased funding for police, prosecution of police officers for doing their jobs, and misplaced enforcement and prosecution efforts.

Trump said that people like him are targeted for alleging election improprieties while violent criminal suspects are allowed to be released for low or no bond, and many avoid meaningful punishment.

This creates a climate in which “the law-abiding citizen is forced to live in fear and in danger,” he said, adding, “We don’t have to live this way…and when I’m president of the United States, we’re not gonna take it anymore.” The crowd responded with another standing ovation.

Crime Pledges

If he wins reelection, Trump pledged to take numerous anti-crime, pro-police measures.

He called for a return to “proven crime-fighting methods,” such as allowing officers to stop-and-frisk people suspected of crimes.

Trump also cited principles of the “broken-windows theory,” the notion that eliminating disorder and blight in neighborhoods may improve the overall environment and discourage crime.

Federal authorities under Trump would work with local agencies to form a task force “to dismantle the gangs, street crews and criminal networks,” he said, adding that he would deploy the U.S. Navy for “a full blockade on [drug] cartel activity.”

Trump also said he would support “mandatory minimum sentences of 20 years for illegal alien gang members caught committing gun crimes, drug-trafficking crimes, or acts of violence—or we’ll send them back to their country with the assurance that they’ll be put in prison.”

More than 1,000 illegal immigrants wait in line to be processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Dec. 18, 2023. John Moore/Getty Images

In addition, Trump pledged: “I will make their home countries pay for the cost of their imprisonment through reduced foreign aid and high tariffs…the days of foreign nations dumping their criminals into America are over.”

The former president repeated his past promises to restore funding to police agencies, indemnify police officers against unfair legal action for doing their jobs, seal the U.S.-Mexico border, and conduct the largest deportation operation in the nation’s history.

Trump also said he would push for a mandatory 10-year prison term for “anyone guilty of human smuggling,” along with a life sentence for those guilty of trafficking children and the death penalty for drug dealers and “anyone who kills a police officer.”

During the pandemic year of 2020, food insecurity had already ticked up in the United States.

Now, the inflation crisis under the Biden-Harris administration has intensified this issue even more. It was especially families with children that suffered during Covid-19 as school lunches disappeared and they have been hardest hit again in 2022 and 2023.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the USDA just published its latest report on the issue, showing that last year, almost 18 percent of households where children lived were food insecure, up from 17.3 percent in 2022 and 12.5 percent in 2021. The negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic as well as the inflation crisis on food security still stayed behind those of the Great Depression between 2008 and 2011, however.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Looking at all household, 13.5 percent were classified as food insecure by the USDA most recently, defined as experiencing difficulty to meet basic food needs in the span of one year, including the inability to buy enough food, buy balanced meals or eat regular portion sizes as well as skipping meals, experiencing hunger and worry about food. In 2021, this share had been 10.2 percent.

While the share of food-insecure households rose in the U.S. in 2023, so did the share of adults living in them – from 13.5 percent to 14.3 percent. The share of U.S. children living in a food-insecure household rose as well from 18.5 percent to 19.2 percent. However, according to the USDA, it was often the adults in food-insecure households who restricted food intake, while attempting to shield children – especially younger ones – from negative effects.

Household with children number around 36 million in the U.S., around 27 percent of all households, while children themselves make up around 22 percent of U.S. residents at 72 million.

By Ann Daily Moreno of The College Fix

A recent complaint filed with the University of Washington alleges that Professor Robin DiAngelo, a white critical race theorist and alumnus of the school, plagiarized minority scholars and others, largely within her dissertation to earn a PhD in philosophy.

The 20-page complaint, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, outlines nearly a half-dozen scholars whose previous writings appear to have not been properly cited in DiAngelo’s work — despite her saying it’s vital to “always cite and give credit to the work of BIPOC people who have informed your thinking.”

Only one of the scholars whose work was allegedly plagiarized by DiAngelo responded to The College Fix’s request for comment — University of Melbourne professorial fellow Bronwyn Davies — whose work with co-author Rom Harré has been found in a couple of sentences within DiAngelo’s writing.

“Plagiarism is plagiarism and it is not acceptable,” Davies told The College Fix when reached for comment. “But in a thesis on Critical Race Theory, it would seem to be even more egregious.”

DiAngelo’s 2004 dissertation “Whiteness in Racial Dialogue: A Discourse Analysis” appears to lift two paragraphs from Northeastern University Asian-American Professor Thomas Nakayama, and his coauthor, Robert Krizek, without proper attribution, the Beacon reported.

The complaint also “describes dozens of cases in which DiAngelo, who rakes in almost $1 million a year in speaking fees, passed off the work of others as her own,” it added, pointing out that although DiAngelo cited her sources in the bibliography, she did not give proper attribution for in text-citations, according to the complaint, filed anonymously.

Davies describes herself as a “new materialist,” but said she is familiar with critical race theory and told The Fix she does not have “any particular dispute” with the ideology. She said it is “interesting” how the work she was doing 30 years ago is currently being used by critical race theory scholars like DiAngelo.

As for the sentences DiAngelo lifted, Davies told The Fix: “I think this falls within any definition of plagiarism, which is a pretty serious [offense] according to the rules of most universities.”

“However,” she added, “her failure to give proper attribution may not be intentional; it may be ignorance.”

“What I would like to say is that all academic work is in conversation, one way or another, with work that others have done or are doing,” she said.

“Weaving one’s own words together with the words of another involves both acknowledging they are not your own words … while not interrupting the flow of whatever idea it is you are trying to express.”

Davies said she does not have an opinion about any consequences DiAngelo should face, saying it’s up to the university.

However, Davies also said there is “a lot of trust” in publishing one’s ideas and she hopes that whoever reads her ideas will “gain new insights and benefits in their own thinking and writing.”

“Academic publishing is a huge global conversation that is often exciting, and invariably stimulates the production of new ideas and new conversations,” Davies told The Fix. “It makes me sad, and a little disappointed that, in this case, my place in the conversation has not been acknowledged—but only a little.”

Davies also said that she “wonders” about DiAngelo’s ethics since DiAngelo makes millions of dollars in events, but she is also “happy” her words could “still be helpful to the student in developing her own ideas.”

Reached for comment by The College Fix, University of Washington spokesperson Dana Robinson Slote stated campus leaders “are committed to the integrity of research conducted at the University of Washington.”

“Complaints such as this are confidential under institutional policy and relevant federal regulations. Therefore, I cannot speak to or verify the accuracy of any purported complaint, or excerpt from a complaint, that has allegedly been submitted.”

Slote refers to the university’s policies in University of Washington’s Executive Order 61.

Charleen Wilcox, spokesperson for the College of Education, where the alleged plagiarism took place and where DiAngelo currently serves as an affiliate associate professor, told The College Fix the school “does not have any comment at this time.”

DiAngelo, who has not yet replied to requests for comment, is the author of New York Times bestseller “White Fragility,” a book that DiAngelo says was written to help people of color.

DiAngelo has also been involved with the Seattle Office of Civil Rights, appointed as a leader in the mayor’s race and social justice initiative and has, in addition, reportedly made nearly $1 million per year from speaker fees and leading “anti-racism” trainings, some of which can be found on her website.

The Seattle Office of Civil Rights has not yet replied to a request for comment.

Stacey Lee, an Asian-American professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has also been apparently plagiarized by DiAngelo in her dissertation. DiAngelo changed only one sentence, as seen circulating on X and in the original complaint.

DiAngelo also lifts material from Stacey Lee, an Asian-American professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in which Lee summarizes the work of a third scholar, David Theo Goldberg. pic.twitter.com/950cH7gRg7

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) August 26, 2024

Some other scholars whom DiAngelo is accused of plagiarizing include classmate Kristin Gates Cloyes from her PhD program, Debian Marty, an emerita professor of communication at California State University, Monterey Bay, Cynthia Levine-Rasky, associate professor of Sociology at Queen University, and Harré, a philosopher and psychologist, died in 2019.

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Vicki Baker was ready to close the sale of her house in McKinney, Texas, in July four years ago. She and her new husband were settling into a new home in Montana. Her daughter, Deanna Cook, lived in the McKinney house pending the sale closing.

She said the future seemed as bright and boundless as the view from her Montana mountaintop home.

On July 25, 2020, the sale was canceled, the house had more than $50,000 in damage courtesy of the McKinney Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team, and a fugitive was lying dead in what had been Baker’s master bedroom.

Baker, and the public interest law firm, Institute for Justice, have petitioned the U.S Supreme Court to hear Baker’s claim that the damage constitutes a taking under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As such, the city would be obligated to provide Baker just compensation for the damage.

The city of McKinney denies it owes Baker anything because the police were legally exercising their power while responding to an emergency. McKinney appears to have legal precedence on its side.

“Our appellate counsel will be responding in opposition to Ms. Baker’s request to the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of her case,” Denise Lessard, McKinney’s Senior Media & Public Relations Manager, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

However, Jeffrey Redfern of the public interest law firm Institute for Justice, who is representing Baker, says the lower courts got it wrong. He said those courts claim to have found exceptions to the Takings Clause where none are listed.

He pointed out that when the Fifth Amendment was written, the United States had no professional law enforcement agencies.

“So I think the idea that, you know, James Madison, when he was drafting this would have thought that there was an unwritten sort of secret exception for a type of government officer, that he couldn’t have even imagined yet, is pretty far out there,” he told The Epoch Times.

He said the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the Constitution requires payment for property damage under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause.

The Takings Clause states, “No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

In its petition, the Institute for Justice stated that such compensation should be considered an expense of providing public safety.

“As a society, we pay for police salaries, training, equipment, and the cost of running a criminal justice system. We should also pay for the damage that the police must sometimes inflict on innocent property owners,” Institute for Justice’s petition said.

Redfern said the raid on Baker’s property was just as much a taking as if the city had demolished the house to make way for a road. This concept, he said, has been enshrined in Supreme Court decisions as far back as 1871.

“The U.S. Supreme Court recognized in a pretty famous case involving the building of a dam that when the government destroys private property physically, that’s also a taking,” Redfern said.

Baker said her ordeal began when her phone rang on that Saturday afternoon in 2020. She was in Montana when her daughter, Cook, called to tell her that a SWAT team had surrounded the McKinney house.

Baker’s former part-time handyman, Wesley Little, had barricaded himself in the home with a 15-year-old girl. Cook relayed the seriousness of the situation to her mother with an ominous statement.

“She said, ‘Mom, you don’t know how bad this man is,’” Baker told The Epoch Times.

Little released the teen, who told police he was armed and in no mood to surrender. Little told police negotiators the same thing. Eventually, the SWAT team decided to go in after the fugitive.

Before it was over, windows were broken, the garage door was smashed in, and everything in the house—walls, floors, and furniture—was saturated with tear gas.

Little kept his promise not to be taken alive by shooting himself in Baker’s bedroom.

“On my beautiful, beautiful, beautiful bed,” she said.

Baker is not the only Institute for Justice client left holding the bag after a SWAT team raid, Redfern said.

Carlos Pena has owned and operated NoHo Printing and Graphic Design for more than 30 years. On Aug. 3, 2022, he was in the North Hollywood, California, shop he had leased for 13 years when he was confronted by a man running from U.S. Marshals, court records state.

The fugitive knocked him to the ground and then ran into the shop. Stunned, Pena got up as the Marshals ordered him away from the building, court records state.

“I didn’t realize exactly what was going on,” Pena told The Epoch Times. “I was out of it because you never think that this is going to happen to you.”

The Los Angeles police SWAT team was called to assist. The team raided the business using tactics similar to those used in McKinney.

Pena said when it was over his business had holes in the ceiling and walls. There were footprints on some of his equipment, and boxes of supplies were torn open, exposing the contents to tear gas that flooded the building. In court, he claimed $60,000 in damage.

“I saw all the work of my life thrown away,” Pena said.

The fugitive escaped, court records state.

Pena and Baker each contacted their respective insurance companies and city officials for help with repair and cleanup costs.

Baker’s home insurance provider, whom she says was very sympathetic, said there was little she could do other than pay for cleaning up the blood from Little’s suicide. Most homeowner policies don’t cover damage sustained through government action.

The city’s insurance carrier, the Texas Municipal League, sent an Aug. 20, 2020, letter advising that neither the city nor any of its employees were responsible for the damage.

“The officers have immunity while in the scope and course of their job duties. For this reason, we must respectfully deny this claim in its entirety,” Yvonne Cantu, a claims specialist for the Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool, wrote in the letter.

Read the rest here…

Elevators. They get us from here to there in buildings across cities all around the country. But other than that, they are little considered or thought about. Perhaps until now.

That’s because Bisnow is reporting that many of New York City’s over 70,000 elevators in subway stations, offices, stores, and residential towers are set to be replaced or modernized. And replacing each can cost up to $500,000 and take a year—a hefty expense landlords may soon face.

Elevators typically last 20 to 25 years, and many are nearing their end. Of 23 million units globally, over 7 million are already 20+ years old, with more replacements looming. In New York, new policies, health standards, and aging systems are driving the urgent need for elevator upgrades.

Joe Bera, vice president of modernization sales and fulfillment of Schindler Elevator Corp., said: “I’ve been in modernization for most of my career, 30 years, and I’ve never seen the market like it is today. This market has been growing about 5% a year for the last five years.”

The rising demand for elevator upgrades stems largely from the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which set stricter requirements for elevator design and placement, according to the Bisnow report. 

This led many landlords to update their systems for compliance.

The 2000s construction boom, adding new skyscrapers in Manhattan, further increased demand. Otis, the world’s largest elevator manufacturer, has seen modernization orders surge, up 17% last year after growth in the previous two years.

Crawford Green, Otis vice president of modernization acceleration in the Americas, said: “The big push is, ‘How do we get that growing backlog into process? So we don’t have a clog in the funnel.”

The report says that the aging of elevators can be planned for, but unexpected office renovations and new policies can catch landlords off guard.

The pandemic-driven shift to remote work has sparked a move toward high-quality office spaces. In New York, availability in top-tier buildings dropped slightly this year, while over 1M SF of Class-B space opened up as tenants sought better spaces, per JLL data.

To attract tenants, landlords are investing heavily in renovations, including elevator upgrades. Modern systems feature touch screens, faster cars, and advanced tech like AI and facial recognition. Multifamily buildings have also upgraded to meet growing resident demands for better amenities.

Late on Friday, a judge ruled in favor of the US-based predictions market Kalshi, overruling the CFTC, and allowing the platform to offer derivatives for betting on the upcoming US election in November, legally and without the use of shady circumvention devices such as VPNs.

The ruling has potentially monumental consequences, as last year US commodity regulator CFTC forbade Kalshi from listing the Congressional control contracts, on the grounds that they would amount to unlawful gaming and would be “contrary to the public interest.” Kalshi then sued, calling the regulator’s decision “arbitrary [and] capricious.”

Fast forward to Friday, when in a ruling handed by Judge Jia M. Cobb, of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, she sided with Kalshi: “For the reasons stated in the Court’s forthcoming memorandum opinion, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment … and DENIES Defendant’s cross motion for summary judgment,” Cobb wrote.

“Defendant’s September 22, 2023 order prohibiting Plaintiff from listing its congressional control contracts for trading is hereby VACATED.”

In response, the delighted Kalshi CEO, Tarek Mansour, said that “election markets are now legal in the United States for the first time in 100 years.

Variant Fund chief legal officer Jake Chervinsky stated in a Sept. 7 X post that it was a “HUGE win” for Kalshi, but he would like to see the judicial opinion first.

“I want to see the opinion before I start dancing on the grave of the administrative state, but this is even more evidence that the best way to deal with regulatory overreach is to FILE MORE LAWSUITS,” Chervinsky added.

Huge win for @Kalshi against the CFTC.

I want to see the opinion before I start dancing on the grave of the administrative state, but this is even more evidence that the best way to deal with regulatory overreach is to FILE MORE LAWSUITS. https://t.co/gVMgza4H1x

— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) September 7, 2024

Nick Tomaino, founder of the crypto fund 1confirmation, expressed that this is “great news for anyone who believes that having skin in the game is a fundamental aspect of being American.” Still, it may not be quite over yet as the CFTC weighs a proposed rule to bar any of the entities it regulates from offering contracts on political contests, in part over concerns they would undermine the integrity of elections.

Meanwhile, on March 18, Kalshi launched prediction contracts for its clients, enabling bets on Bitcoin and Ether price movements. Other contracts include a prediction on how high Bitcoin will reach in 2024 and one on the daily BTC price.

In more recent news, on Aug. 8, crypto exchange Gemini urged the CFTC to withdraw a proposed regulation that, if passed, would ban all event contracts on decentralized prediction markets.

“The CFTC should withdraw its Proposed Rule on event contracts, which would categorically ban all event contracts in the U.S., like those traded on Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market,” Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss wrote.

This year’s prediction market breakout success, Polymarket, runs on crypto rails and is riding high on excitement about election betting. In August, the site logged over $470 million in volume, a record, according to Dune Analytics data; the lion’s share of that was traded on election contracts. It is unclear, however, how many of its clients are US-based and whether that represents a violation of its own Jan 2022 CFTC settlement, which forbade the company from operating in the US.

Effectively, the Friday ruling makes Kalshi the only legitimate and legal online betting market available to US residents and citizens.

More broadly, the ruling represents a victory for advocates of prediction markets, in which traders bet on the outcomes of real-world events ranging from elections to album sales to temperature increases. Prediction markets are popular in crypto circles, and although Kalshi does not use cryptocurrency, the crypto industry has been watching the case closely; VC firm Paradigm filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the plaintiff.

Authored by Ron Faucheux via RealClearPolitics,

For six weeks, Kamala Harris’ campaign has been running circles around Donald Trump’s efforts. Democrats have raised tons of money, energized their base, and protected Harris from unscripted interviews and political risks. All the while, Trump’s campaigning has been lackluster.

True, Trump has been through a lot over this past year – indictments, trials, contested primaries, and an attempted assassination; the strain is showing. But the time has come for him to make the sale.

Despite Trump’s lack of focus and Harris’ early momentum, polls continue to show a close race. This is why Tuesday’s presidential debate is so important. It could make or break either campaign.

As we’ve learned over the years, debates are more often lost than won. The Biden-Trump showdown in June proved it.

For Trump, the debate is an opportunity to recharge, a chance to unveil a strong, disciplined message. For Harris, it’s an opportunity to broaden her base and reassure skeptical voters. Pundits tell us, incorrectly, that voters have already made up their minds, but the truth is otherwise. Recent polling finds that a sizable part of the electorate (18%) could still swing either way.

Right out of the box, each candidate should lay the predicate for the entire night. Starting aggressively is the best way to take the offense, regardless of questions asked or time limits.

Debate messaging should reflect the campaign’s central theme – assuming a campaign has one. Trump’s central theme has yet to be honed, so the debate is an opportunity for him to do so. Harris’ messaging has been working well, but it’s hollow, mostly a collection of slogans. This debate is a chance for her to tie her themes together.

The first words out of Trump’s mouth should frame the election as a choice between his record and the Biden-Harris record. Polls tell us that most voters prefer the Trump record, especially on the economy, immigration, and national security. This could be Trump’s version of Ronald Reagan’s famous debate line, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Trump also needs to make the case that Harris is too far left by citing specific policies she’s supported. He should end a line of rapid-fire attacks with a pithy summation, something like: “Biden went along with the progressive left, but Harris will be their champion.” 

Harris’ first words should focus on the future, reinforcing her message that “we’re not going back” to the Trump era. From the start, she needs to inoculate herself against likely attacks; that will make it easier to respond when they arise. She should be ready to defend her own views – from Gaza to Ukraine, taxes to fracking, grocery prices to deficit spending. Harris needs to show a depth of knowledge she rarely displays.

At times, the most important thing Trump should do is shut up. Time limits and microphone mute buttons may help him do that. He needs to avoid distractions, such as relitigating the 2020 election. There is no reason for him to bring up his criminal cases. These are potential traps; Harris will have ready-made retorts for all of them.

Unpredictability is Trump’s strength. Harris expects him to be rambling and disruptive. But if, instead, he’s rational and concise, and his attacks are coherent and focused – not his usual word salad of overstatements and distractions – he could force Harris off her game.

Harris should employ two techniques that could throw Trump off stride. One is humor. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Joe Biden effectively used wit against Trump in previous debates, and it was a missed opportunity. The second is for Harris to make her points in the form of questions. As a lawyer and senator, she knows how to do this. Even though debate rules don’t allow cross-questioning, nothing prohibits candidates from posing questions to the audience in the form of statements.

After the endless ads and unremitting smears that often cancel out one another, debates serve as tiebreakers for undecided voters. This may be the only presidential debate left in this election. A bad night for either candidate could be fatal.

Tune in on Tuesday and decide for yourself.

Ron Faucheux is a nonpartisan political analyst, pollster and writer. He edited “The Debate Book” and publishes LunchtimePolitics.com, a nationwide newsletter on polls and public opinion.