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Newspapers Team Up to Tell Trump They Aren’t Colluding Against Him: Reason Roundup

“Journalists are not the enemy.” Hot off of calling for more social-media censorship and supporting destructive speech regulations like FOSTA, newspaper editors would like you to know that Donald Trump’s dissing of the news media makes them sad. More than 300 U.S. newspapers ran Thursday editorials that “call for an end to President Trump’s sustained assault” on the press.

“Our role is to serve as a check on government,” the Chicago Tribune declares. “The president ought to get used to it.”

“Our democracy is endangered when citizens are persuaded to reject or ignore the professionals who provide news and information,” warns The Athens News in Ohio.

And so on.

The editorials were organized by The Boston Globe and, as HuffPost describes them, “have each been constructed with different words but bear a shared message: Mr. President, ‘journalists are not the enemy.'”

As a journalist (as well as general enthusiast for classical liberal principles and a person capable of making basic historical analogies), I too find the president’s description of journalists as enemies of the people unsettling. But whipping up contempt toward the press has been a staple of right-wing talking points in this country for at least two decades. The president’s preening anti-media tirades are not so much stirring new hatred within his base as stoking a longstanding sentiment.

So far, however, Trump’s anti-press antics have stayed in the realm of rhetoric. Meanwhile, the good folks in Congress, state government, and federal agencies are doing things all the time that actually infringe on freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and an open internet, while the vast majority of news outlets remain silent at best.

Meanwhile, in places where we could use real reporting, mainstream journalists fall all over themselves to create petty drama and praise John McCain for his contributions to warmongering. While the ideals espoused in these editorials may be righteous, they ring a little hollow…

…and a little self-serving. Too many in media seem to have confused their own diminishing role as gatekeepers of all info and narratives with an existential threat to democracy. Yes, let’s fight back against Trump and anyone else in government who seeks to suppress dissent. But maybe people wouldn’t hate us so much if we fought as hard for everyone’s dignity and right to speak as we do for our own tribe’s.

Jack Shafer shares some of these concerns. “It goes without saying that press bashing, Trump-style, is alarming,” Shafer writes in Politico. “But this Globe-sponsored coordinated editorial response is sure to backfire: It will provide Trump with circumstantial evidence of the existence of a national press cabal that has been convened solely to oppose him….The Globe‘s anti-Trump project is also an exercise in redundancy, not to mention self-stroking. Most newspapers have already published a multitude of editorials and columns rebuking the president for his trash-talking of the press.”

FREE MINDS

But on to journalists doing good things… The South Florida Sun Sentinel is under fire “for publishing confidential but legally obtained information about Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz.” The Broward County Public Schools had requested that two reporters and the paper be held in contempt of court after publishing portions of a school district report that Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer had ordered redacted before the district made it public.

“At issue is a report released Aug. 3 based on Cruz’s educational record, revealing what officials knew about him in the years leading up to his Feb. 14 attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he killed 17 people and wounded 17 more,” the Sun Sentinel explains.

But here’s the kicker: The school district blacked out sensitive portions of the report only before posting it online, leaving the underlying data intact—a “method [that] made it possible for anyone to read the blacked-out portions by copying and pasting them into another file.” More about what the Sun Sentinel found in that “redacted” information here.

University of Southern California journalism professor Philip Seib told the paper, “It sounds to me like the people who were in contempt were those in the government agency who allowed it to be disseminated in a way that any school child could have decoded.”

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Marijuana vote in Utah hits Mormon snag. In November, Utah voters will get to vote on whether the state should legalize medical marijuana. But only if a lawsuit filed yesterday by Mormon activists is successful. “In the complaint, opponents of Proposition 2—which would legalize marijuana for people with an array of health conditions—said the ballot initiative would tread on their freedom of religion,” the Salt Lake Tribune explains. More:

The group says the measure would violate the religious beliefs of Walter J. Plumb, an attorney and active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who is the primary financier of the opposition campaign.

The lawsuit takes issue with a provision of the ballot measure that would prevent landlords from not renting to a medical marijuana cardholder, saying that could create an issue of Mormon property owners being forced into renting to people who use cannabis. Plumb’s “religious beliefs include a strict adherence to a code of health which precludes the consumption and possession of mind-altering drugs, substances and chemicals, which includes cannabis and its various derivatives,” the complaint states.

QUICK HITS

  • Trump has revoked the security clearance of CIA director turned Trump critic John Brennan. “Former national security officials often maintain their security clearances to advise their successors,” NPR notes. Trump also offered up a list of nine other folks whose security clearances he was considering revoking.
  • A Georgia cop deployed a stun gun against an 87-year-old woman who was using a knife to cut dandelions. “She told us she was smiling at them to tell them that she wasn’t a threat…and she was trying to get closer to them to communicate with them, and that’s when they tased her,” her grandson told ABC News.
  • Government policies are making the future of porn worse.
  • Happy birthday to Madonna, who at 60 is still pissing people off with her outfits.
  • Elizabeth Warren has a “plan to save capitalism.” Sigh.
  • An FBI robbery investigation leads to “an unprecedented grab for Google location data.”
  • The Masterpiece Cakeshop battle never ends.
  • The Federal Communications Commission has killed Alex Jones’ “Radio Liberty” station, but the move is unrelated to recent social media drama. “According to documents in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Austin this week, Radio Liberty had been illegally broadcasting over a local FM station from 2013 until it ceased pirating the airwaves in December and switched to online streaming and a call-in ‘listen line,'” The Week reports.

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Is ‘Bitcoin Tracker One’ The Closest Thing American Investors Can Come To An ETF?

The last year or so has seen cryptocurrency owners disappointed time and again as the SEC delays or refuses to sanction an ETF product based on Bitcoin that will (in HODLers’ minds) bring a new influx of activity and interest into the space, sending prices surging higher.

Each time news picks up about “Bitcoin ETF”, the price of Bitcoin has gained, only to fade with the SEC’s rulings…

But perhaps that is all about to change.

While it’s not the rainbow unicorn ETF that so many hope for, Bloomberg reports that beginning today, investors can trade in an exchange-traded-note called Bitcoin Tracker One.

Unlike exchange-traded funds, ETNs are debt instruments that are backed by their issuers — often a bank — rather than a pool of assets and often focus on esoteric strategies that don’t easily fit in a fund.

Though it’s technically listed and regulated in Sweden (started trading on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange in 2015), it’s now quoted in U.S. dollars under the ticker CXBTF, helping brokerages offer it to American investors.

“Everyone that’s investing in dollars can now get exposure to these products, whereas before, they were only available in euros or Swedish krona,” said Ryan Radloff, the chief executive officer of CoinShares Holdings Ltd., the parent of the company that offers the ETN.

“Given the current climate on the regulatory front in the U.S., this is a big win for Bitcoin.”

They picked a good day to launch as safe-haven flows amid the chaos in the financial markets sparked a notable bid in Bitcoin itself…

Which – although amid extremely low volumes – pushed the Bitcoin Tracker ETN higher…

Trading Bitcoin Tracker One is now similar to buying an American depositary receipt, in that traders will see a foreign-listed asset in U.S. dollars. Investors can purchase so-called F shares, which means that while the trades are executed in U.S. dollars, they are settled, cleared and held in custody in its home market, according to OTC Markets Group.

Bitcoin Tracker One may give investors an alternative to Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust, which also offers exposure to Bitcoin but trades at a dramatic premium to the underlying asset.

“I do see this as a competitive product,” Radloff said.

“Our products historically have not traded at a premium and are liquid.”

Was today’s ramp in Bitcoin about BTFD or safe-havens? Or was it due to CXBTF flows? We shall see.

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Weed-Killing Carcinogen Glyphosate Found In Children’s Foods

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

The known carcinogen and infamous weed killing chemical glyphosate has just been found in breakfast foods marketed for children. A new study has discovered trace amounts of the most widely used herbicide in the country in oats, granolas, and snack bars.

Concern over glyphosate has continued to grow in the United States in recent years.  Although the chemical may be safe in some amounts to spray on weeds if certain safety precautions are taken, it is probably a lot more dangerous if it’s ingested by a child. Most disturbing, however, is the fact that thirty-one out of 45 tested products had levels of glyphosate that were higher than what many scientists consider safe for children.

The study, which was conducted by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that many of the breakfast foods marketed to children contain glyphosate.  “I was shocked,” said Dr. Jennifer Lowry, who heads the Council on Environmental Health for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Although not much is known about the effects of the chemical on children, parents and doctors are concerned. “We don’t know a lot about the effects of glyphosate on children,” Lowry said. “And essentially we’re just throwing it at them.”

“We’re very concerned that consumers are eating more glyphosate than they know,” said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs at EWG, according to CBS News. Faber has been working to improve food safety standards for more than a decade. He said he and his team at EWG conducted the study which included a lab test involving “45 samples of products made with conventionally grown oats.” The researchers found glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in the Monsanto weed-killer Roundup, in all but two of the products.

EWG used it’s own very stringent standards of safe levels of glyphosate when testing the products, which should also be noted. Because of that, in response to EWG’s study, Monsanto said, “even at the highest level reported… an adult would have to eat 118 pounds of the food item every day for the rest of their life in order to reach the EPA’s limit” for glyphosate residues. Just last week, in fact, a jury in California ordered Monsanto to pay one man $289 million in damages after his lawsuit claimed the company’s weedkillers caused his cancer. EWG’s Faber is skeptical of EPA’s glyphosate limits.

The World Health Organization says glyphosate is a “probable carcinogen,” and California lists it as a chemical “known to the state to cause cancer.” Monsanto continues to dispute the claim that the chemical is carcinogenic, saying in a statement, “glyphosate does not cause cancer” and “has a more than 40-year history of safe use.”

As the debate over glyphosate’s safety continues, it isn’t likely to see tests on the stuff cease anytime soon. And Faber isn’t the only person concerned over its possible carcinogenic effects.  “It is time now for them to step up and do their jobs to ban glyphosate,” said Zen Honeycutt, who heads Moms Across America, a group formed to raise awareness about toxic exposures. “We want to trust that what is in the grocery store is safe and the shocking reality is that in many cases it’s not,” Honeycutt said.

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Is It Racist to Refer to Space ‘Colonization’?: New at Reason

There is a time and a place—many times and many places, in fact—when it is good to highlight that certain utterances are likely to offend. Once, my parents were on a trip and met someone who casually used the term “Jewed down.” And far too many people still use the term “gyp,” not realizing it is a negative, stereotype-fueling reference to a group that faces horrific discrimination and violence. There’s a reason it will be seen as a big deal if Donald Trump in fact used the ‘N-word,’ while no one would have batted an eye if a white person used that same term just a couple of generations ago. Part of the evolution of language is retiring old, bad words, or severely limiting their usage.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be on the lookout for language overpolicing, as well, writes Jesse Singal in his latest piece at Reason.

View this article.

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Italy’s Atlantia Plunges Most On Record After Genoa Bridge Disaster

Investors in Italy’s Atlantia SpA faced record losses with the stock price crashing as much as a quarter, getting halted several times in the process, amid sliding bond prices, after the Italian government began the process of revoking its toll-road concession after the deadly Genoa bridge collapse which killed 39 people.

The stock dropped as much as 26% in Milan, the most on record, after a delayed opening as markets were closed in Italy on Wednesday for the Ferragosto holiday. The move erased over $5 billion in value. meanwhile, some of the bonds of Atlantia and the highways unit that operated the Genoa bridge, Autostrade per l’Italia, fell to their lowest levels on record.

Atlantia’s $1BN of 1.875% bonds due July 2027 plunged below 89 cents on the euro, the lowest since they were issued.

The 700 million euros of notes due September 2029 issued by Autostrade fell below 92 cents on the euro, also a record. Meanwhile, Atlantia’s CDS soared, and the cost of insuring against an Atlantia default soared 126 basis points on Thursday to 300bps, the highest since the European sovereign debt crisis.

The disaster sparked political finger-pointing and prompted the populist government to revoke the lucrative toll-road concession, wiping out billions in enterprise value. According to Bloomberg, “that’s thrown Atlantia and its largest shareholder, Italy’s powerful Benetton family, into a fight to salvage its investment and protect its fortune amid rising anger over the tragedy that killed at least 39 people.”

Predictably, a shell-shocked Atlantia said Thursday that government officials’ decision to start the revocation process came prematurely, “without any verification of the material causes of the accident.”

The company said its contract requires Atlantia to be reimbursed if the concession is withdrawn, and said it will continue to support Autostrade “with the aim of protecting the interests of its shareholders and bondholders.”

The panic started late on Wednesday, when Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told reporters that the government will “start the procedure to revoke Autostrade’s license” and added that officials won’t wait for the outcome of a probe or a trial to take action.

Additionally, the government may limit the license-withdrawal to the A10 highway that includes the bridge, not the entire toll-road network run by Autostrade, according to a Transport Ministry official who asked not to be named in line with internal policy.

If the highway-operating license is revoked, the division’s creditors may have the option to accelerate repayment, Creditsights analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday, quoting the firm’s EMTN prospectus. The analysts changed their recommendation on the debt to “underperform.”

The plunge in Atlantia follows the tragedy of the Morandi bridge, which collapsed in a heavy rain on Tuesday, causing more than two dozen vehicles to drop to the railroad tracks about 150 feet below, and leading to 39 deaths. It was built in the 1960s, and was part of a major artery connecting the Italian Riviera to the southern coast of France.

The disaster occurred during the height of Italy’s summer travel season. Most companies, including Atlantia, are shut down during the Ferragosto week. The bridge’s failure and accompanying loss of life has shocked Italians and led to questions about the safety of hundreds of aging bridges and tunnels.

Giovanni Castellucci, the chief executive officer of both Atlantia and Autostrade, has become a focus of anger over the tragedy, as politicians called for his removal. The Autostrade unit will hold an emergency board meeting early next week to evaluate the impact of the tragedy on its business and respond to government’s request, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News late Wednesday. The CEO has the support of the Benetton family and has no current plan to resign, one of the people said.

Edidizione Srl, the family’s holding company, said it will do “everything in its power to discover the truth and the responsibilities” for the Genoa disaster, while extending condolences to the families of the victims.  Edizione said Autostrade has invested over 10 billion euros in the last 10 years to widen and modernize the Italian highway network.

Of course, if only corporations spent a fraction of what they put into buybacks on capex and keeping their asset base new, tragedies such as this one could likely be avoided.

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Philly Fed Survey Crashes To Pre-Election Lows

Is the soft-survey data about to start collapsing back to hard data reality?

 

Philly Fed survey headline data crashed to 11.9 – the lowest since Nov 2016 (before Trump’s election) – dramatically missing expectations of 22.0 (and well below the lowest economists’ forecast)…

 

Across the board it was a bloodbath of reality checks as new orders and employment and workweek plunged, shipments tumbled, inventories rose and prices paid (and received) actually fell.

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Housing Starts Disappoint Dramatically, Fall Year-Over-Year

After Housing Starts collapsed 12.9% in June, July rebounded just 0.9% (dramatically missing expectations of a 7.4% bounce) as Permits rose 1.5% MoM.

A second month in a row with a massive miss to economists’ expectations…

Single-family starts remain very soft and multi-family starts barely rebounded at all from June’s crash…

And housing starts are now down YoY for ehe 2nd month in a row…

Permits rebounded very modestly in both single- and multi-family units…

Two of four regions posted a gain in starts, with the South increasing 10.4 percent and the Midwest climbing by 11.6 percent; the Northeast declined 4 percent and the West plunged 19.6 percent, the biggest drop since January 2017

Finally we note that US homebuilder stocks have been tracking fundamentals dramatically lower all years…

 

Time for some more rate-hikes…

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JCPenney Crashes To Record Lows As Default Risk Soars

JCPenney shares are down over 20% this morning in the pre-market…

…trading below $2 for the first time in its almost 40 year history…

…after posting a wider-than-expected quarterly loss and disappointing sales. The struggling department-store chain, which has been without a chief executive since May, also lowered its forecast for the year, and now expect a loss.

Chairman Ronald W. Tysoe gave an update on the CEO search in the earnings statement.

“The process is going well and the Board has met with highly qualified candidates who have expressed a strong desire to become the next leader of JCPenney,” Tysoe said. “The hiring of a new CEO is the top priority of the board of directors.”

We wish them luck.

JCP bond yields are now above 14%

 

And CDS imply a 65% probability of default (and that is without this morning’s move)

We suspect once trading starts today that JCP will overtake Sears on the CDS deadpool list.

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Trump and Sanders Both Stand Against Free Trade: New at Reason

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump said of Bernie Sanders, “He and I are similar on trade.” Trump was correct, writes Veronique de Rugy. Despite seemingly falling on different ends of the political spectrum, both men are populists who apparently believe that governments are better than markets at managing economic activity.

View this article.

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China Crushes Yuan Bears As Cost To Short Yuan Soars Most Since 2016

One day after Turkey unleashed measures to crush Turkish Lira shorts, China did the same and on Thursday, the offshore Yuan tumbled by 0.7% from as low as 6.94 to 6.8825 – the biggest drop since July 25 – after the offshore Yuan’s 12 month forward points soared from 350 bps to 830bps, the biggest one-day move since January 2016 – sending the cost of short bets against the Yuan soaring, with the spike in CNH forward points making it riskier, and more expensive, to short the Yuan.

Separately, CNH tomorrow-next forward points soared as much as 15.7 to 15, before paring the increase to 3 in an attempt to force stops by Yuan shorts.  

A Reuters reprot rexplained the move was driven by China limiting CNH liquidity to increase cost of shorting CNH, similar to what Erdogan did to Lira shorts earlier this week. Specifically, China banned banks in its free trade zones from certain lending activities to ease pressure on the yuan currency in offshore markets.

The restrictions, announced by the Shanghai branch of the PBOC on Thursday morning, closed off channels used to deposit and lend yuan offshore through the trade zones as the currency plumbs 15-month lows. They prevent commercial banks from using some interbank accounts to deposit or lend yuan offshore through free trade zone schemes. And while the restriction on offshore yuan deposits and lending applies to some Free Trade Accounting Unit (FTU) businesses, it is not meant to affect cross-border capital flows that reflect real demand, according to the notice.

The yuan surged on the news, adding to earlier gains that were fueled by a stronger-than-expected daily fixing from the central bank and a report that Chinese and U.S. officials will engage in low-level trade talks later this month.

“Many offshore investors unwound their short yuan positions today,” said Zhou Hao, senior emerging markets economist at Commerzbank AG in Singapore.

As Bloomberg notes, Chinese authorities have been trying to limit bets against the yuan after the currency depreciated more than 9% since March, approaching the closely watched level of 7 per dollar. While a weaker exchange rate has helped Chinese exporters weather the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, policy makers worry that a disorderly drop could trigger capital outflows and threaten China’s financial stability; it could also lead to further anger among the Trump administration and accusations of devaluation, just as a Chinese trade delegation is set to come to Washington.

As the yuan’s slump has accelerated in recent weeks, the People’s Bank of China has taken several steps to slow its drop. Two weeks ago, the central bank made it costlier to place short bets against the currency with forwards. And last week, the monetary authority urged big banks to avoid bearish momentum trades.

To be sure, the PBOC’s response has been well rehearsed: during a similar selloff in the Yuan in 2015 and 2016, Chinese authorities squeezed yuan bears by lifting offshore funding costs dramatically. They also spent billions in foreign-exchange reserves to buy the currency and clamped down on capital outflows.

While the government’s response this time around has been much less extreme, policy makers have sent a clear message that they want to avoid disorderly swings in the exchange rate, according to Carie Li, an economist at OCBC Wing Hang Bank in Hong Kong.

“PBOC’s bottom line is to prevent one-way yuan depreciation,” Li said. “Investors probably have unwound short-yuan positions amid fear of further intervention.”

And if they haven’t, the PBOC will simply do the same thing again and again, until the “evil speculators” fold again, as they did back in 2015 and 2016.

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