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Is This What’s Behind Pete Buttigieg’s Tremendous Ascent In The Polls

Is This What’s Behind Pete Buttigieg’s Tremendous Ascent In The Polls

It has been a rough two months for Elizabeth Warren, whose formerly insurmountable lead according to PredictIt has all but melted away, leaving her tied with Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination.

But as Warren’s star was setting, that of Pete Buttigieg has rising, with his nomination odds staging an impressive run in the past month, leading to what is effectively a three way tie between Warren, Biden and Buttigieg.

One possible reason for the Indiana mayor’s run was laid out by Cowen analyst Jaret Seidberg, who said that the democratic presidential candidate is being well-received by markets due to his pragmatic approach to governing and his “appreciation for the benefits of capitalism.” As a reminder, Buttigieg is due to take the debate stage on Wednesday night as the emerging front-runner in Iowa.

Pete Buttigieg. Photo credit Bloomberg

In a field that involves staunch leftists such as Warren and Sanders, the Indiana mayor is probably one of the better Democratic candidates for financial and housing stocks, Seiberg wrote adding that Buttigieg’s “experience is solving problems rather than partisan brawling,” while he hasn’t endorsed “some of the more radical policy plans that other Democrats are advocating.”

Seiberg also pointed out that though Buttigieg hasn’t articulated many views on financial firms while campaigning, he’s “Harvard and Oxford educated and worked for McKinsey on economic stabilization in war-torn areas.”

That is a point made previously by Jeff Gundlach who said that two weeks ago that “Mayor Pete is very smart.  His Hunger Games “let them kill each other” strategy is perfect.  Can you name a single policy Pete’s advocating?”

Buttigieg also presents himself as a “Democratic Capitalist” and has touted his business experience, with Seiberg also pointing out that his national policy adviser Sonal Shah, was formerly with Goldman Sachs and Google, and “sounds like another progressive pragmatist.”

As a result, when it comes to markets, the Cowen analyst believes that Buttigieg would probably pick a Fed chairman who’s similar to Janet Yellen, as he may understand the “importance of an independent central bank that can put the long-term interests of economy ahead of short-term political gains.” More importantly, Buttigieg is unlikely to choose a central banker who endorses modern monetary theory, in contrast to what Warren or Sanders would certainly pursue.

And while little is known about Buttigieg does endorse, Seidberg summarized his known policy views on financials and housing as follows, courtesy of Bloomberg:

  • Buttigieg has been vocal about ensuring consumers can sue credit card companies rather than having to use arbitration.
  • He would restore corporate tax rates to 35% to pay for his health care plan, which means that higher taxes aren’t a separate priority, reducing risk.
  • He has endorsed a transaction tax, possibly aimed at high frequency trading rather than traditional trading.
  • He supports higher estate and top individual tax rates.
  • Buttigieg may be good for housing as he wants to create a federal program to provide downpayment assistance for 1 million families.
  • Buttigieg’s discussion of using affordable housing trust funds to finance two million units of affordable housing may be an “implicit endorsement” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  • Cowen hasn’t heard Buttigieg discuss bank regulation, noting that the candidate hasn’t weighed in on breaking up banks or objected to plans to reduce reliance on leverage ratios in the Federal Reserve’s stress test.
  • Like most of Democratic candidates, Buttigieg favors legalizing cannabis


Tyler Durden

Wed, 11/20/2019 – 16:45

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Politics
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Philly Police Union Attacks Eagles Football Player for Opposing Police Brutality

After Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins wrote an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer calling for more police accountability and transparency, the local Philly police union responded by bluntly telling Jenkins to shut up.

Philadelphia is in the midst of a much-needed conversation about police reform. Mayor Jim Kenney was re-elected to another term in office earlier in the month and is now on the hunt for a new police commissioner after Richard Ross resigned in August amid reports of sexual harassment and racial discrimination within the police force.

The Philadelphia Police Department’s mismanagement has led to hundreds of drug cases being dropped due to a corrupt narcotics unit, the creation of an oft-abused asset forfeiture program, and thousands of stops of mostly black drivers by officers who claim to “smell” marijuana in order to justify warrantless stop-and-frisk searches. In 2016, Philadelphia voters elected Larry Krasner, a civil rights lawyer, as the city’s district attorney for the purpose of checking and balancing that oppressive policing system.

Jenkins, meanwhile, is a co-founder of the Players Coalition Task Force, a non-profit organization formed by professional athletes to call for reform in policing and criminal justice. Jenkins submitted an op-ed to the Philadelphia Inquirer that ran on Monday, calling for Kenney to select a new police commissioner who will focus on fighting corruption within the department and reforming the practices of the police to focus on real crimes that affect the community. Jenkins came loaded with stats and facts:

The last commissioner resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment. Over 300 officers posted racist and sexist social media posts. Officers remain on the force despite using physical force against vulnerable people. And rather than solving serious crimes — police here make arrests in just 47% of all murder cases and 23% of all nonfatal shootings — they are busy stopping people over the “smell” of marijuana with over 3,300 drivers in the first quarter of 2019 alone, 84% of whom were black.

He notes that the Philadelphia police’s use of stop-and-frisk searches find guns just one percent of the time. He calls for the police to stop arresting children in school, and for any new commissioner to implement a “zero tolerance” policy for police misconduct and to support a citizen review board.

Here’s how the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of the Police, which represents 14,000 active and retired officers, responded in a letter signed by its president, John J. McNesby:

It’s amazing, but not terribly surprising, that McNesby responded to Jenkins’ critique not by challenging his data, but with a personal attack against him and the Inquirer for publishing his opinion. McNesby then has the gall to complain that “Hurling slurs and false allegations against police offers nothing in the way of improvement.” Yet, there are no insults in Jenkins’ piece, only data and specific recommendations that could reduce violent crime and improve community relations.

Let’s suggest that this one particular paragraph is what is sticking in McNesby’s craw. Jenkins wants a commissioner who is not afraid of McNesby’s bluster:

A commissioner who fights back against the police union. Nearly every time we hear a story of an officer abusing power, whether through violence or racist Facebook postings, the police union is there to defend the bad behavior. We need a commissioner who isn’t in lockstep with the union and who will instead push back when the union tries to hide and justify bad behavior. The commissioner must also support a union contract that allows for more officer accountability, even if that is an unpopular position with the rank and file.

Data shows that hundreds of Philadelphia cops fired for bad behavior have been able to fight their way back onto the police force, thanks to union contracts. Reason noted in 2017 how one police officer managed to get back on the force after being fired for killing an unarmed man by shooting him in the back.

The police union’s overheated response here indicates how little value the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police places on developing or maintaining positive relationships with members of its own community. Second, it demonstrates how little regard Philadelphia’s police union places in behaving like responsible, mature adults who will accept accountability for the power to arrest and use deadly force against citizens.

McNesby might be right about one thing, however. Given the Philadelphia Police Department’s practice of planting drugs on suspects, costing the city millions in lawsuit settlements, perhaps the Inquirer should consider surveying drug dealers.

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Dr.Doom: Why Financial Markets’ New Exuberance Is Irrational

Dr.Doom: Why Financial Markets’ New Exuberance Is Irrational

Authored by Nouriel Roubini via Project Syndicate,

Owing to a recent easing of both Sino-American tensions and monetary policies, many investors seem to be betting on another era of expansion for the global economy. But they would do well to remember that the fundamental risks to growth remain, and are actually getting worse.

This past May and August, escalations in the trade and technology conflict between the United States and China rattled stock markets and pushed bond yields to historic lows. But that was then: since then, financial markets have once again become giddy. US and other equities are trending toward new highs, and there is even talk of a potential “melt-up” in equity values. The financial-market buzz has seized on the possibility of a “reflation trade,” in the hope that the recent global slowdown will be followed in 2020 by accelerating growth and firmer inflation (which helps profits and risky assets).

The sudden shift from risk-off to risk-on reflects four positive developments.

First, the US and China are likely to reach a “phase-one” deal that would at least temporarily halt any further escalation of their trade and technology war.

Second, despite the uncertainty surrounding the United Kingdom’s election on December 12, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has at least managed to secure a tentative “soft Brexit” deal with the EU, and the chances of the UK crashing out of the bloc have been substantially reduced.

Third, the US has demonstrated restraint in the face of Iranian provocations in the Middle East, with President Donald Trump realizing that surgical strikes against that country could result in a full-scale war and severe oil-price spike.

And, lastly, the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and other major central banks have gotten ahead of geopolitical headwinds by easing monetary policies. With central banks once again coming to the rescue, even minor “green shoots” – such as the stabilization of the US manufacturing sector and the resilience of services and consumption growth – have been taken as a harbinger of renewed global expansion.

Yet there is much to suggest that not all is well with the global economy.

For starters, recent data from China, Germany, and Japan suggest that the slowdown is still ongoing, even if its pace has become less severe.

Second, while the US and China may agree to a truce, the ongoing decoupling of the world’s two largest economies will almost certainly accelerate again after the US election next November. In the medium to long term, the best one can hope for is that the looming cold war will not turn hot.

Third, while China has shown restraint in confronting the popular uprising in Hong Kong, the situation in the city is worsening, making a forceful crackdown likely in 2020. Among other things, a militarized Chinese response could derail any trade deal with the US and shock financial markets, as well as push Taiwan in the direction of forces supporting independence – a red line for Beijing.

Fourth, although a “hard Brexit” may be off the table, the eurozone is experiencing a deepening malaise that is not related to the UK’s impending departure. Germany and other countries with fiscal space continue to resist demands for stimulus. Worse, the ECB’s new president, Christine Lagarde, will most likely be unable to provide much more in the way of monetary-policy stimulus, given that one-third of the ECB Governing Council already opposes the current round of easing.

Beyond challenges stemming from an aging population, weakening Chinese demand, and the costs of meeting new emissions standards, Europe also remains vulnerable to Trump’s oft-repeated threat to impose import tariffs on German and other European cars. And key European economies – not least Germany, Spain, France, and Italy – are experiencing political ructions that could translate into economic trouble.

Fifth, with crippling US-led sanctions now fueling street riots, the Iranian regime will see no other choice but to continue fomenting instability in the wider region, in order to raise the costs of America’s current approach. The Middle East is already in turmoil. Massive protests have erupted in Iraq and Lebanon, a country that is effectively bankrupt and at risk of a currency, sovereign-debt, and banking crisis. In the current political vacuum there, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah could decide to attack Israel. Turkey’s incursion into Syria has introduced many new risks, including to the supply of oil from Iraqi Kurdistan. Yemen’s civil war has no end in sight. And Israel is currently without a government. The region is a powder keg; an explosion could trigger an oil shock and a renewed risk-off episode.

Sixth, central banks are reaching the limits of what they can do to backstop the economy, and fiscal policy remains constrained by politics and high debts. To be sure, policymakers could turn to even more unconventional policies – namely, monetized fiscal deficits – whenever another downturn occurs, but they will not do so until the next crisis is already severe.

Seventh, the populist backlash against globalization, trade, migration, and technology is worsening in many places. In a race to the bottom, more countries may pursue policies to restrict the movement of goods, capital, labor, technology, and data. While recent mass protests in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Spain, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon reflect a variety of causes, all are experiencing economic malaise and rising political resentment over inequality and other issues.

Eighth, the US under Trump may become the biggest source of uncertainty. Trump’s “America First” trade foreign policies risk destroying the international order that the US and its allies created after WWII. Some in Europe – like French President Emmanuel Macron – worry that NATO is now comatose, while the US is provoking rather than supporting its Asian allies, such as Japan and South Korea. At home, the impeachment process will lead to even more bipartisan gridlock and warfare, and some Democrats running for the party nomination have policy platforms that are making financial markets nervous.

Finally, medium-term trends may cause still more economic damage and disruption: demographic aging in advanced economies and emerging markets will inevitably reduce potential growth, and restrictions on migration will make the problem worse. Climate change is already causing costly economic damage as extreme weather events become more frequent, virulent, and destructive. And while technological innovation may expand the size of the economic pie in the long run, artificial intelligence and automation will first disrupt jobs, firms, and entire industries, exacerbating already high levels of inequality. Whenever the next severe downturn occurs, high and rising private and public debts will prove unsustainable, triggering a wave of disorderly defaults and bankruptcies.

The disconnect between financial markets and the real economy is becoming more pronounced. Investors are happily focusing on the attenuation of some short-term tail risks, and on central banks’ return to monetary-policy easing. But the fundamental risks to the global economy remain. In fact, from a medium-term perspective, they are actually getting worse.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 11/20/2019 – 16:25

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Business Finance
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Philly Police Union Attacks Eagles Football Player for Opposing Police Brutality

After Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins wrote an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer calling for more police accountability and transparency, the local Philly police union responded by bluntly telling Jenkins to shut up.

Philadelphia is in the midst of a much-needed conversation about police reform. Mayor Jim Kenney was re-elected to another term in office earlier in the month and is now on the hunt for a new police commissioner after Richard Ross resigned in August amid reports of sexual harassment and racial discrimination within the police force.

The Philadelphia Police Department’s mismanagement has led to hundreds of drug cases being dropped due to a corrupt narcotics unit, the creation of an oft-abused asset forfeiture program, and thousands of stops of mostly black drivers by officers who claim to “smell” marijuana in order to justify warrantless stop-and-frisk searches. In 2016, Philadelphia voters elected Larry Krasner, a civil rights lawyer, as the city’s district attorney for the purpose of checking and balancing that oppressive policing system.

Jenkins, meanwhile, is a co-founder of the Players Coalition Task Force, a non-profit organization formed by professional athletes to call for reform in policing and criminal justice. Jenkins submitted an op-ed to the Philadelphia Inquirer that ran on Monday, calling for Kenney to select a new police commissioner who will focus on fighting corruption within the department and reforming the practices of the police to focus on real crimes that affect the community. Jenkins came loaded with stats and facts:

The last commissioner resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment. Over 300 officers posted racist and sexist social media posts. Officers remain on the force despite using physical force against vulnerable people. And rather than solving serious crimes — police here make arrests in just 47% of all murder cases and 23% of all nonfatal shootings — they are busy stopping people over the “smell” of marijuana with over 3,300 drivers in the first quarter of 2019 alone, 84% of whom were black.

He notes that the Philadelphia police’s use of stop-and-frisk searches find guns just one percent of the time. He calls for the police to stop arresting children in school, and for any new commissioner to implement a “zero tolerance” policy for police misconduct and to support a citizen review board.

Here’s how the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of the Police, which represents 14,000 active and retired officers, responded in a letter signed by its president, John J. McNesby:

It’s amazing, but not terribly surprising, that McNesby responded to Jenkins’ critique not by challenging his data, but with a personal attack against him and the Inquirer for publishing his opinion. McNesby then has the gall to complain that “Hurling slurs and false allegations against police offers nothing in the way of improvement.” Yet, there are no insults in Jenkins’ piece, only data and specific recommendations that could reduce violent crime and improve community relations.

Let’s suggest that this one particular paragraph is what is sticking in McNesby’s craw. Jenkins wants a commissioner who is not afraid of McNesby’s bluster:

A commissioner who fights back against the police union. Nearly every time we hear a story of an officer abusing power, whether through violence or racist Facebook postings, the police union is there to defend the bad behavior. We need a commissioner who isn’t in lockstep with the union and who will instead push back when the union tries to hide and justify bad behavior. The commissioner must also support a union contract that allows for more officer accountability, even if that is an unpopular position with the rank and file.

Data shows that hundreds of Philadelphia cops fired for bad behavior have been able to fight their way back onto the police force, thanks to union contracts. Reason noted in 2017 how one police officer managed to get back on the force after being fired for killing an unarmed man by shooting him in the back.

The police union’s overheated response here indicates how little value the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police places on developing or maintaining positive relationships with members of its own community. Second, it demonstrates how little regard Philadelphia’s police union places in behaving like responsible, mature adults who will accept accountability for the power to arrest and use deadly force against citizens.

McNesby might be right about one thing, however. Given the Philadelphia Police Department’s practice of planting drugs on suspects, costing the city millions in lawsuit settlements, perhaps the Inquirer should consider surveying drug dealers.

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Stocks & Bond Yields Tumble As China Trade Deal Hope Fades

Stocks & Bond Yields Tumble As China Trade Deal Hope Fades

The so-called “resilience” of US equities overnight as they shrugged off the Washington Democracy Bill vote and the China retaliation threat is more a signal of ignorance (or total complacency) as every negative trade headline was met with a sudden wall of bids to try and get back to even…

As US sources told Reuters that the deal may be delayed, the market began to drop the odds of a trade deal (albeit modestly)

Source: Bloomberg

This was just a fleshwound though for the algos who know only buying matters now…

Chinese stocks faded overnight (as they should rationally)…

Source: Bloomberg

European stocks started ugly but were bid all day…

Source: Bloomberg

US equities were all lower on the day (Trannies worst) but note the two BTFD efforts…

The Dow is down two days in a row, and less than 1%, but that is still the biggest such drop in 6 weeks!!

Source: Bloomberg

The VIX term structure continues to steepen dramatically…

Source: Bloomberg

Momo has erased almost all the month’s losses (as bond yields have tumbled)…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were all lower once again today with the long-end notably outperforming…

Source: Bloomberg

With 10Y back below the key 1.75% level…

Source: Bloomberg

The yield continues to flatten dramatically back towards inversion…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar rallied for the 2nd day in a row…

Source: Bloomberg

Offshore Yuan fell to three-week lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos ambled modestly lower today…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin was choppy intraday but ended marginally lower…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold, Silver, and Copper were relatively flat today but oil prices surged (despite the odds of a trade deal fading and a build in crude stocks)….

Source: Bloomberg

But the rebound was purely technical in nature…

 

And finally, whatever you do, don’t worry about there being a recession anytime soon, the ‘experts’ know better…

And this was notable, Warren has collapsed in the betting to equal Biden as Buttigieg is surging…

Source: Bloomberg

Who’s right – the FX markets or the equity markets?

Source: Bloomberg


Tyler Durden

Wed, 11/20/2019 – 16:00

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Business Finance

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Uber To Record Audio During Rides Amid Spate Of Sexual Assaults

Uber To Record Audio During Rides Amid Spate Of Sexual Assaults

Uber is planning recording audio from rides in the United States as part of a new security initiative, amid rising safety concerns over drivers who have sexually assaulted passengers, according to the Washington Post.

The new feature, which will be piloted in Mexico and Brazil next month, will let users opt-in to active an audio recording on any trip or all trips, according to internal communications leaked to the Post. Where available, passengers would be given a blanket warning that trips may be recorded, and that the feature will be active in their market. Neither riders or drivers will be able to listen to the audio.

The on-trip audio recording is the latest safety-oriented change the app is making amid a push to reduce violence, unwanted advances and inappropriate behavior in its rides. Uber has added features such as in-app 911, along with automatic safety check-ins when trips veer off course as part of its Safety Toolkit.

Uber said that in the upcoming pilot, drivers can set the feature to automatically record all trips. For riders to record, they have to activate the feature through the Safety Toolkit, which becomes available before they get into the car. Drivers and passengers’ recordings are placed in their trip history in case they decide to report the incident later. –Washington Post

“When the trip ends, the user will be asked if everything is okay and be able to report a safety incident and submit the audio recording to Uber with a few taps,” reads an email written by an Uber executive. “The encrypted audio file is sent to Uber’s customer support agents who will use it to better understand an incident and take the appropriate action.”

The company plans to test it in the U.S. “soon,” according to the email, but the timeline for rolling it out is still unclear and may be difficult. “Laws in the United States around consent to being recorded can vary from state to state, but we hope to be able to make this available nationally,” the email said.

In an interview with The Post, Sachin Kansal, Uber’s head of safety products, said the feature is expected to help prove the truth of what happened on a ride, allowing the company to take decisive action.

“We have taken a position that whenever you are in an Uber, the feeling that we want both parties to have is ‘the lights are on.’” he added. “That leads to safer interaction on the platform.” –Washington Post

Uber has come under fire for numerous allegations of physical assaults, rapes, sexual assault and sexual harassment – with some riders and drivers complaining that the company has been slow to respond to allegations or hasn’t taken them seriously enough, chalking disputes up to a ‘he said, she said’ situation.

In April, a Washington DC woman sued Uber for negligence and consumer protection violations after she was raped by one of the ride-hailing company’s drivers, Raul E. Rodriguez Vasquez. DNA evidence linked him to the assault, and he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse.

In 2018, CNN reported that at least 103 Uber drivers in the United States had been accused of sexually assaulting or abusing their passengers over a four-year period. And according to The Verge, at least 31 drivers have been convicted of crimes ranging from forcible touching and false imprisonment to rape.

The Post, meanwhile, reports that Uber’s internal safety division – the Special Investigations Unit, primarily exists to shield the company from liability when such issues arise.

That said, the new feature also raises concerns over privacy – as well as the potential to run afoul of various state wiretapping and eavesdropping laws aimed at protecting people from being recorded without their consent.

Albert Gidari, consulting director of privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, said Uber runs the risk of violating those laws. What the company does with those communications is irrelevant to that conversation, he said. (Uber said its encrypted audio files would be password-protected for security.)

Uber needs to show the passengers and driver “expected they would be recorded or could be recorded in the vehicle,” he said. “Absent that the fact — that it’s an encrypted file is a meaningless safeguard.”

Further complicating the issue is the myriad situations that could occur in an Uber, where the ride may be just a passenger and a driver or a group of passengers such as on a pooled ride. There could also be a sleeping or intoxicated passenger. –Washington Post

“You might have the drunk passed out in the back — you might have the additional rider who might understand it,” said Gidari. “Either party can invoke it, but how can the other parties know what’s happening?”

Last year Uber and Lyft suspended a driver who was covertly live-streaming passengers’ trips.

“If someone is already uncomfortable and they start the audio recording, we don’t want there to be any escalation of that particular situation,” said Kansal.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 11/20/2019 – 15:50

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Disaster Accident

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33aKLcl Tyler Durden

Wanted: A Dem Presidential Candidate Who Defends Individualism, Capitalism, Non-Interventionism

Tonight’s Democratic debate will showcase attacks on South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttiegieg, who has surged in early state polls over the past month, achieving frontrunner status in Iowa and New Hampshire. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.)—whose momentum has stalled after finally explaining how she was going to pay for her Medicare for All plan—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.), tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.), billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii), and Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) will all be gunning for Mayor Pete, and it should be fun and interesting to see how the 37-year-old military vet and former McKinsey consultant holds up under it all.

The Democratic nomination is still completely up for grabs, which helps explain why near-zero-chance characters such as former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are testing the waters. Here we are, a year out from a general election against the least-popular president in recent memory, and the Dems look poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. So much so, in fact, that former Pres. Barack Obama has stepped out of an Andy Thomas painting to implore his party to nominate a centrist who might actually be able to win. (Go here for details on how to watch the debate on cable or online.)

But as someone who is socially tolerant and fiscally responsible, tonight’s debate will mostly be about what’s not on stage: A candidate who robustly champions what Reason celebrates as “a world of expanding choice—in lifestyles, identities, goods, work arrangements, and more,” and pushes back against “busybodies, elites, and gatekeepers who insist on how other people should live their lives.” My vote, along with the votes of one-third of the electorate, is up for grabs. According to The New York Times, 32 percent of Americans have said they will “definitely” vote for President Trump and 33 percent have said they will vote for whomever the Democrats nominate. But there is nobody in the Democratic field who comes close enough to libertarian preferences toward the size, scope, and spending of government to win me over at this point. Rather than promising to be the second coming of FDR, they should seriously think about what it would take to win my vote and people who think like me.

Which is not to say certain positions taking root among Democratic Party elites aren’t consistent with a libertarian perspective. With the exception of Biden and possible candidate Bloomberg, all the Democrats have signed off on pot legalization and at least a few have nodded toward the decriminalization of sex work, the abolition of cash bail, criminal justice reform, ending civil asset forfeiture, and other longstanding libertarian hobby horses. When it comes to foreign policy, most are non-interventionist (Tulsi Gabbard is particularly outspoken on this issue), though Joe Biden, who still leads in the national polls, is a tried-and-true hawk, and the relative inexperience or silence of the others is worrying (the military-industrial complex routinely rolls whoever is in the White House). These are not small wins, especially since Donald Trump basically supports the same agenda. The president has already signed the most-significant federal criminal-justice-reform law in recent memory and, as a candidate, promised that he would sign legislation turning marijuana’s status over to the states (something Hillary Clinton refused to do).

Unfortunately, the Democratic candidates have all pledged to spend vast amounts of new money and to institute massive new regulations or create new bureaucracies to further their vision of the good society. Warren is the exemplar on this score, extruding new policies costing trillions of dollars on an almost daily basis, as if it’s a bodily function. She’ll pay for her version of Medicare for All, plus free college, reparations for gay couples who couldn’t take tax deductions when same-sex marriage was banned, and much more with a wealth tax and a host of other new levies that somehow never touch the sacrosanct “middle class” (now defined as anyone making less than a billion dollars a year). Never mind that her plans are likely unconstitutional and incapable of raising the trillions of dollars needed to pay for such largess. Arguably more troubling, Warren has also promised to break up companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, and anyone else she thinks is too big or contravenes her personal sense of right and wrong.

In calling for huge amounts of new spending and regulation, Warren is joined even by supposedly forward-looking, business-savvy candidates such as Andrew Yang, whose 21st-century cabinet would include a Department of the Attention Economy, which would dictate policy and business strategy to social media companies. Each of the Democratic candidates also supports some version of The Green New Deal, which uses environmental end-of-days hysteria to sell every jobs, housing, and health care plan floated by progressives over the past 50 years.

Just a few decades ago, the future was supposed to be about radically decentralizing power to “end users” in distributed networks. That dream is almost completely missing from any of the Democrats’ platforms. In highly attenuated form, it flickers on in Andrew Yang’s unaffordable universal basic income plan, which would gift unrestricted cash grants to every American adult. It lives on, too, barely, in Cory Booker’s tepid support for charter schools, but the big idea of giving individuals more freedom in how to run their lives and businesses has taken a back seat to command-and-control policies that give a bigger-and-bigger federal government more say in every decision we might make.

Of course, neither Donald Trump nor the Republicans offer much to libertarians, despite historical reliance on libertrarian rhetoric about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and nominal support for minimal government. In fact, under Trump, the GOP has become the party of trade barriers and immigration restriction while continuing to load up on debt and deficits. Such policies work against, if not completely negate, whatever successful deregulation and tax reform has happened. Whether he realizes it or not, the president is acting like the Hickey character in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, shredding all our illusions by forcing us to confront the vast gap between our rhetorical dreams and lived realities. Certainly, he’s revealed that Republicans, who couldn’t stop talking (rightly) about the negative effects of debt and executive branch overreach during Obama’s tenure, to be unprincipled worshippers of power.

If The New York Times is right, Trump and whatever Democrat ends up with the brass ring next spring can bank on one-third of the electorate. What of the remaining 33 percent? Many, maybe most, will doubtless be swayed by the literal and figurative handouts each side will offer: Here’s free healthcare, free college, free birth control, free whatever. Vote for me. Here’s more money if you have kids or own a house. Here’s a way of pissing off coastal elites, of keeping factory jobs in the country and of keeping economic refugees from “shithole countries” out. Vote for me. Politics isn’t that complicated, it’s a tawdry slow dance between self-enrichment and contempt for the other side.

But then there are the libertarians among us, whom many insist simply don’t exist. Yet according to Cato’s polling director, Emily Ekins, somewhere between 7 percent and 22 percent of American voters can legitimately be called libertarian in that they broadly support economic freedom, civil liberties, and lifestyle pluralism. Only one of the last five presidential elections was decided by more than 7 percentage points of the popular vote, suggesting that libertarians can provide the winning edge even if we only exist in numbers to the low end of Ekins’ assay. In fact, in 2016, the Libertarian Party (LP) candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, pulled 3.3 percent of the popular vote, or more than the 2.1 percent margin between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Unless independent Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan jumps into the LP race, the party’s nominee is likely to be a virtual unknown almost certainly incapable of replicating Johnson’s haul of nearly 4.5 million votes. Most of those votes, like mine, are up for grabs.

It’s a lark, of course, to dream that any of the candidates on tonight’s stage will start talking libertarian-friendly lines about economic freedom and individualism, just as it’s nuts to expect Donald Trump to reverse himself about the ease and efficacy of trade wars and tariffs. But come the general election, my vote—and that of between 7 percent and 22 percent of the electorate—will still be in play and waiting to be won by a candidate who defends or at least pays respect to economic and civil liberties, individualism and free speech, and what Reason dubs “free minds and free markets.” The wooing of the libertarian vote, if it’s going to happen at all on the Democratic side, starts tonight.

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Wanted: A Dem Presidential Candidate Who Defends Individualism, Capitalism, Non-Interventionism

Tonight’s Democratic debate will showcase attacks on South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttiegieg, who has surged in early state polls over the past month, achieving frontrunner status in Iowa and New Hampshire. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.)—whose momentum has stalled after finally explaining how she was going to pay for her Medicare for All plan—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.), tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.), billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii), and Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) will all be gunning for Mayor Pete, and it should be fun and interesting to see how the 37-year-old military vet and former McKinsey consultant holds up under it all.

The Democratic nomination is still completely up for grabs, which helps explain why near-zero-chance characters such as former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are testing the waters. Here we are, a year out from a general election against the least-popular president in recent memory, and the Dems look poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. So much so, in fact, that former Pres. Barack Obama has stepped out of an Andy Thomas painting to implore his party to nominate a centrist who might actually be able to win. (Go here for details on how to watch the debate on cable or online.)

But as someone who is socially tolerant and fiscally responsible, tonight’s debate will mostly be about what’s not on stage: A candidate who robustly champions what Reason celebrates as “a world of expanding choice—in lifestyles, identities, goods, work arrangements, and more,” and pushes back against “busybodies, elites, and gatekeepers who insist on how other people should live their lives.” My vote, along with the votes of one-third of the electorate, is up for grabs. According to The New York Times, 32 percent of Americans have said they will “definitely” vote for President Trump and 33 percent have said they will vote for whomever the Democrats nominate. But there is nobody in the Democratic field who comes close enough to libertarian preferences toward the size, scope, and spending of government to win me over at this point. Rather than promising to be the second coming of FDR, they should seriously think about what it would take to win my vote and people who think like me.

Which is not to say certain positions taking root among Democratic Party elites aren’t consistent with a libertarian perspective. With the exception of Biden and possible candidate Bloomberg, all the Democrats have signed off on pot legalization and at least a few have nodded toward the decriminalization of sex work, the abolition of cash bail, criminal justice reform, ending civil asset forfeiture, and other longstanding libertarian hobby horses. When it comes to foreign policy, most are non-interventionist (Tulsi Gabbard is particularly outspoken on this issue), though Joe Biden, who still leads in the national polls, is a tried-and-true hawk, and the relative inexperience or silence of the others is worrying (the military-industrial complex routinely rolls whoever is in the White House). These are not small wins, especially since Donald Trump basically supports the same agenda. The president has already signed the most-significant federal criminal-justice-reform law in recent memory and, as a candidate, promised that he would sign legislation turning marijuana’s status over to the states (something Hillary Clinton refused to do).

Unfortunately, the Democratic candidates have all pledged to spend vast amounts of new money and to institute massive new regulations or create new bureaucracies to further their vision of the good society. Warren is the exemplar on this score, extruding new policies costing trillions of dollars on an almost daily basis, as if it’s a bodily function. She’ll pay for her version of Medicare for All, plus free college, reparations for gay couples who couldn’t take tax deductions when same-sex marriage was banned, and much more with a wealth tax and a host of other new levies that somehow never touch the sacrosanct “middle class” (now defined as anyone making less than a billion dollars a year). Never mind that her plans are likely unconstitutional and incapable of raising the trillions of dollars needed to pay for such largess. Arguably more troubling, Warren has also promised to break up companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, and anyone else she thinks is too big or contravenes her personal sense of right and wrong.

In calling for huge amounts of new spending and regulation, Warren is joined even by supposedly forward-looking, business-savvy candidates such as Andrew Yang, whose 21st-century cabinet would include a Department of the Attention Economy, which would dictate policy and business strategy to social media companies. Each of the Democratic candidates also supports some version of The Green New Deal, which uses environmental end-of-days hysteria to sell every jobs, housing, and health care plan floated by progressives over the past 50 years.

Just a few decades ago, the future was supposed to be about radically decentralizing power to “end users” in distributed networks. That dream is almost completely missing from any of the Democrats’ platforms. In highly attenuated form, it flickers on in Andrew Yang’s unaffordable universal basic income plan, which would gift unrestricted cash grants to every American adult. It lives on, too, barely, in Cory Booker’s tepid support for charter schools, but the big idea of giving individuals more freedom in how to run their lives and businesses has taken a back seat to command-and-control policies that give a bigger-and-bigger federal government more say in every decision we might make.

Of course, neither Donald Trump nor the Republicans offer much to libertarians, despite historical reliance on libertrarian rhetoric about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and nominal support for minimal government. In fact, under Trump, the GOP has become the party of trade barriers and immigration restriction while continuing to load up on debt and deficits. Such policies work against, if not completely negate, whatever successful deregulation and tax reform has happened. Whether he realizes it or not, the president is acting like the Hickey character in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, shredding all our illusions by forcing us to confront the vast gap between our rhetorical dreams and lived realities. Certainly, he’s revealed that Republicans, who couldn’t stop talking (rightly) about the negative effects of debt and executive branch overreach during Obama’s tenure, to be unprincipled worshippers of power.

If The New York Times is right, Trump and whatever Democrat ends up with the brass ring next spring can bank on one-third of the electorate. What of the remaining 33 percent? Many, maybe most, will doubtless be swayed by the literal and figurative handouts each side will offer: Here’s free healthcare, free college, free birth control, free whatever. Vote for me. Here’s more money if you have kids or own a house. Here’s a way of pissing off coastal elites, of keeping factory jobs in the country and of keeping economic refugees from “shithole countries” out. Vote for me. Politics isn’t that complicated, it’s a tawdry slow dance between self-enrichment and contempt for the other side.

But then there are the libertarians among us, whom many insist simply don’t exist. Yet according to Cato’s polling director, Emily Ekins, somewhere between 7 percent and 22 percent of American voters can legitimately be called libertarian in that they broadly support economic freedom, civil liberties, and lifestyle pluralism. Only one of the last five presidential elections was decided by more than 7 percentage points of the popular vote, suggesting that libertarians can provide the winning edge even if we only exist in numbers to the low end of Ekins’ assay. In fact, in 2016, the Libertarian Party (LP) candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, pulled 3.3 percent of the popular vote, or more than the 2.1 percent margin between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Unless independent Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan jumps into the LP race, the party’s nominee is likely to be a virtual unknown almost certainly incapable of replicating Johnson’s haul of nearly 4.5 million votes. Most of those votes, like mine, are up for grabs.

It’s a lark, of course, to dream that any of the candidates on tonight’s stage will start talking libertarian-friendly lines about economic freedom and individualism, just as it’s nuts to expect Donald Trump to reverse himself about the ease and efficacy of trade wars and tariffs. But come the general election, my vote—and that of between 7 percent and 22 percent of the electorate—will still be in play and waiting to be won by a candidate who defends or at least pays respect to economic and civil liberties, individualism and free speech, and what Reason dubs “free minds and free markets.” The wooing of the libertarian vote, if it’s going to happen at all on the Democratic side, starts tonight.

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US Relations With China Were Just Destroyed, And Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again

US Relations With China Were Just Destroyed, And Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

Our relationship with China just went from bad to worse, and most Americans don’t even realize that we just witnessed one of the most critical foreign policy decisions of this century. The U.S. Senate just unanimously passed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019”, and the Chinese are absolutely seething with anger. Violent protests have been rocking Hong Kong for months, and the Chinese have repeatedly accused the United States of being behind the protests. Whether that is true or not, the U.S. Senate has openly sided with the protesters by passing this bill, and there is no turning back now.

The protesters in Hong Kong have been waving American flags, singing our national anthem and they have made it exceedingly clear that they want independence from China. And all of us should certainly be able to understand why they would want that, because China is a deeply tyrannical regime. But to the Chinese government, this move by the U.S. Senate is essentially an assault on China itself. They are going to argue that the U.S. is inciting a revolution in Hong Kong, and after what the Senate has just done it will be very difficult to claim that is not true.

The Chinese take matters of internal security very seriously, and the status of Hong Kong is one of those issues that they are super sensitive about. China will never, ever compromise when it comes to Hong Kong, and if the U.S. keeps pushing this issue it could literally take us to the brink of a military conflict.

And you can forget about a comprehensive trade agreement ever happening. Even if a Democrat is elected in 2020, that Democrat is going to back what the Senate just did. That is why it was such a major deal that this bill passed by unanimous consent. It sent a message to the Chinese that Republicans and Democrats are united on this issue and that the next election is not going to change anything.

And the trade deal that President Trump was trying to put together was already on exceedingly shaky ground. “Phase one” was extremely limited, nothing was ever put in writing, and nothing was ever signed. And in recent days it became quite clear that both sides couldn’t even agree about what “phase one” was supposed to cover…

A spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry said earlier this month that both countries had agreed to cancel some existing tariffs simultaneously. Trump later said that he had not agreed to scrap the tariffs, lowering hopes for a deal.

“They’d like to have a rollback. I haven’t agreed to anything,” the president said.

On Tuesday, Trump was visibly frustrated by how things are going with China, and he publicly warned the Chinese that he could soon “raise the tariffs even higher”…

President Donald Trump threatened higher tariffs on Chinese goods if that country does not make a deal on trade.

The comments came during a meeting with the president’s Cabinet on Tuesday. The U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies, have been locked in an apparent stalemate in trade negotiations that have lasted nearly two years.

“If we don’t make a deal with China, I’ll just raise the tariffs even higher,” Trump said in the meeting.

Unfortunately, raising tariffs isn’t going to fix anything at this point.

In fact, Trump can raise tariffs until the cows come home but it isn’t going to cause the Chinese to budge.

That is because on Tuesday evening everything changed.

When they passed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019” by unanimous consent, the U.S. Senate essentially doused our relationship with China with kerosene and set it on fire. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

In a widely anticipated move, just after 6pm ET on Tuesday, the Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan bill, S.1838, showing support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong by requiring an annual review of whether the city is sufficiently autonomous from Beijing to justify its special trading status. In doing so, the Senate has delivered a warning to China against a violent suppression of the demonstrations, a stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s near-silence on the issue, the result of a behind the scenes agreement whereby China would allow the S&P to rise indefinitely as long as Trump kept his mouth shut.

As we reported last week, the vote marks the most aggressively diplomatic challenge to the government in Beijing just as the US and China seek to close the “Phase 1” of their agreement to end their trade war. The Senate measure would require annual reviews of Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law to assess the extent to which China has chipped away the city’s autonomy; in light of recent events, Hong Kong would not pass. It’s unclear what would happen next.

I am finding it difficult to find the words to describe what this means to the Chinese.

We have deeply insulted their national honor, and our relationship with them will never be the same again.

Many will debate whether standing up to China on this issue was the right thing to do, but in this article I am trying to get you to understand that there will be severe consequences for what the U.S. Senate just did.

There isn’t going to be a comprehensive trade deal, the global economy is going to suffer greatly, and the Chinese now consider us to be their primary global adversary.

Shortly after the Senate passed the bill, a strongly worded statement was released by the Chinese government. The following excerpt comes from the first two paragraphs of that statement…

On November 19th, the US Senate passed the “Hong Kong Bill of Rights on Human Rights and Democracy.” The bill disregards the facts, confuses right and wrong, violates the axioms, plays with double standards, openly intervenes in Hong Kong affairs, interferes in China’s internal affairs, and seriously violates the basic norms of international law and international relations. The Chinese side strongly condemns and resolutely opposes this.

In the past five months, the persistent violent criminal acts in Hong Kong have seriously jeopardized the safety of the public’s life and property, seriously trampled on the rule of law and social order, seriously undermined Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability, and seriously challenged the bottom line of the “one country, two systems” principle. At present, what Hong Kong faces is not the so-called human rights and democracy issues, but the issue of ending the storms, maintaining the rule of law and restoring order as soon as possible. The Chinese central government will continue to firmly support the Hong Kong SAR Government in its administration of the law, firmly support the Hong Kong police in law enforcement, and firmly support the Hong Kong Judiciary in punishing violent criminals in accordance with the law, protecting the lives and property of Hong Kong residents and maintaining Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability.

For a long time I have been warning that U.S. relations with China would greatly deteriorate, and this is the biggest blow that we have seen yet.

The U.S. and China are now enemies, and ultimately that is going to result in a tremendous amount of pain for the entire planet.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 11/20/2019 – 15:35

Tags
Politics

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Oil’s Most Legendary Trader And Permabull Turns Bearish

Oil’s Most Legendary Trader And Permabull Turns Bearish

For virtually all of his career, legendary oil trader Andy Hall was a permabull when it comes to the price of oil.

Andy Hall Photo: Bloomberg

While that served him well for much of the past three decades as oil prices rose alongside China’s ascent and relentless demand for crude, resulting in a personal fortune and making Hall one of the richest and most successful commodity traders in the world, it also was the reason for his demise, when after several years of declining oil prices following the OPEC near collapse on Thanksgiving Day 2014, Hall – who was unwilling to change his bullish outlook – was forced to shutter his Astenbeck hedge fund for good in 2017, “a capitulation of one of the best-known figures in the commodities world” according to Bloomberg.

Since then Hall has kept a low profile, but he finally emerged last week in New York… as an oil bear, and instead of seeing relentless oil price growth coupled with the occasional fling in “peak oil”, now predicts the biggest shift yet in the global market: the end of demand growth.

“There’s a non-zero chance that by 2030, we will see a plateauing or decline in global oil consumption,” the former hedge fund manager told at an industry event in New York which was organized by Orbital Insight and RBC Capital Markets, and quoted by Bloomberg. “It’ll happen because of technology, electric cars, renewable energy.”

“Oil demand has grown exponentially since the end of World War II,” Hall said at the event,. “It was just a given that oil consumption would grow from here to eternity. Except we knew logically that couldn’t happen.”

The long-term implications for the price of oil are obvious.

Hall’s revised view is hardly original, echoing a recent warning from the International Energy Agency according to which global oil consumption will plateau in about a decade. The prospect of “peak demand” would end an expansion that dominated the past century and comes as investors and governments face pressure to move away from fossil-fuel-based economies.

The notable shift from “peak oil” to “peak demand” comes even as new oil supplies from places like Brazil, Norway and Guyana soar, while US shale production has helped US oil production hit an all time high and make the country energy independent.

It comes amid growing concerns from the oil and gas industry that it’s running up against a shift in energy consumption. That transition will increasingly limit its ability to make ends meet, with some shale firms and oil-service providers already struggling or going under, according to both Bloomberg and a recent lengthy report from Bloomberg.

Speaking later in an interview with Bloomberg, Hall said that solar and wind energy are already cheaper than coal.

“If the world fully transitions to renewable energy, what is the role of a fossil fuel company?” he said. “I think renewables is the new oil.”

Hall also quoted Sheikh Ahmad Zaki Yamani, the former Saudi Arabian oil minister who famously said that the Stone Age didn’t come to an end for lack of stones, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.

Global benchmark Brent crude traded at around $62 a barrel. While prices are up about 16% this year, they are still well below lofty highs above $100 from earlier this decade.

“Could we see $100 oil again? Absolutely,” Hall told Bloomberg News. “That would only be temporary and hasten the ultimate demise.”


Tyler Durden

Wed, 11/20/2019 – 15:20

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Business Finance

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