“The Looming Global Trade War” In 12 Charts

As we pointed out yesterday, according to Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reed who was commenting on the results of last weekend’s Italian election,  “it’s hard to get away from the fact that the overall result was another resounding vote for populism. Indeed over 50% of votes submitted was for a populist party, including of course the party with the largest percentage – the Five Star Movement – and a possible kingmaker in subsequent coalition talks – the Northern League.”

Furthermore, as Deutsche Bank’s populism index showed, the percentage of votes for populist parties on a population weighted basis was now around 32% – a level its largely held since the Trump inspired surge in 2016. In fact, you had  to go all the way back to the WWII period to find the last time that populism had such support.

A focus just on Europe showed that the continent with the high double-digit youth unemployment has become a hotbed for anti-establishment sentiment, which has everything to do with the economy, and lack of opportunities, and nothing to do with Russian operatives, much to Samantha Power’s chagrin.

Reid’s troubling conclusion is that “it’s hard to get away from the fact that populism is currently going through an explosion in support at present.” Reid also notes that while the above index excludes a vote for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party but “one could certainly argue that some of his more radical views and policies are populist in nature.” And if DB were to include Corbyn’s support in the 2017 UK General Election “then our index edges above 35%, eclipsing the 1940s highs, and to the highest since the turn of the 20th century.”

What are the implications:

As of now the rise in populism hasn’t yet destabilised markets however we find it difficult to get away from the fact that uncertainty levels are bound to remain high while such power brokers remain in major elections. Indeed the unpredictability of  Trump’s policies is such an example, with the recent tariff threats which have subsequently escalated market concerns about a trade war being one. At a time when global central banks are moving towards an unprecedented era of tightening and dealing with years of massive asset purchases, risks from rising populist support has the ability to seriously disturb the prevailing equilibrium of the last few years and subsequently markets.

While Reid notes that this is more of a slow burning issue over the next few years, he concedes that populism remains the biggest threat “to the post-1980 globalisation/liberalism world order.”

* * *

One day later, it was Bank of America’s turn to opine on the topic of growing populism, which as chief equity strategist Savita Subramanian writes in a piece titled “From Globalism to looming trade war” is “gaining momentum around the world, exacerbated by mass population displacements and surging income inequality.”

She writes that “concerns over immigration, autonomy and global competition have played a role in political campaigns across the globe.”

In this context, the Trump administration’s latest announcement to levy tariffs on steel and aluminum imports is consistent with anti-globalist shifts seen in this presidency. Since Trump’s inauguration, BofA sumamrizes, the US has also:

  • imposed travel restrictions,
  • withdrawn from the Paris Agreement on climate change,
  • backed out of Trans-Pacific Partnership discussions,
  • threatened to exit the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and
  • imposed tariffs on Canadian paper, imported washing machines and solar panels.

So how did the US go from the paragon of globalization to the instigator of a looming trade war, and what happens next?

The following 12 charts from BofA provide some context.

1. Natural disasters, violence and conflicts have led to a record number of persons being displaced. This has put pressure on other countries to absorb more immigrants, adding to social tensions.

2. Income and wealth inequality continues to rise globally.

3. While President Trump announced temporary tariff exemptions for Canada and Mexico, the implication was that permanent exemptions would be contingent on a successful renegotiation of NAFTA, which just wrapped up its seventh round of negotiations with agreement on just six of the 30 chapters.

4. EU is the US’s single-biggest trading partner. EU officials have called out US steel, bourbon, motorcycles, jeans and various food/agricultural products as likely targets for retaliation.

5. Aside from metal producers, the industries most impacted by the steel and aluminum tariffs appear to be Electric Equipment, Machinery, Miscellaneous Manufacturing and Autos.

6. Since 1983, the S&P 500 has been down following the announcement of a trade action 35% of the time in the first seven days, but just 20% of the time in the first 30 days

7. Large caps tend to outperform small caps following the announcements, but small caps tend to outperform once the tariffs are enacted. And in general, stocks tend to do better than bonds and commodities.

8. Tech has among the highest outperformance rates in the 30 days following the announcement, the implementation and the ending of trade actions. Industrials, Telecom and Materials have the worst track record.

9. Growth-At-a-Reasonable-Price (GARP) and Quality tend to do better, while Value and Growth perform in-line.

10. The S&P 500 derives 30% of its revenues from outside the US vs. 21% for the Russell 2000 small cap index. This explains the recent outperformance of small caps and further supports our tactically bullish view on small caps over large caps.

11. Tech has the highest foreign sales exposure and a globally integrated supply chain, making a trade war a key risk for the sector, particularly if the next round of trade actions are aimed at China.

12. BEA data suggests that imports represent 6% of total operating costs for US private industries. Using that as a proxy, we estimate the impact of a trade war that resulted in a 2% drag on foreign sales growth and a 15% rise in import costs would result in a 6% drag on earnings.

Source: DB, BofA

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Housing Liquidity Crisis Looms: Debt Deflation Follows

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

A liquidity crisis in housing is on the way. Non-banks are at the center of the storm.

The Brookings Institute says a Liquidity Crises in the Mortgage Market is on the way.

This is in guest post format. What follows are key snips from a 68-page Brookings PDF.

This article isn’t very long. My comments follow.

Abstract

Nonbanks originated about half of all mortgages in 2016, and 75% of mortgages insured by the FHA or VA. Both shares are much higher than those observed at any point in the 2000s. We describe in this paper how nonbank mortgage companies are vulnerable to liquidity pressures in both their loan origination and servicing activities, and we document that this sector in aggregate appears to have minimal resources to bring to bear in a stress scenario. We show how these exact same liquidity issues unfolded during the financial crisis, leading to the failure of many nonbank companies, requests for government assistance, and harm to consumers. The extremely high share of nonbank lenders in FHA and VA lending suggests that nonbank failures could be quite costly to the government, but this issue has received very little attention in the housing-reform debate.

Nonbank Stress

There is now considerable stress on Ginnie Mae operations from their nonbank counterparties:

“. . .Today almost two thirds of Ginnie Mae guaranteed securities are issued by independent mortgage banks. And independent mortgage bankers are using some of the most sophisticated financial engineering that this industry has ever seen. We are also seeing greater dependence on credit lines, securitization involving multiple players, and more frequent trading of servicing rights and all of these things have created a new and challenging environment for Ginnie Mae. . . . In other words, the risk is a lot higher and business models of our issuers are a lot more complex. Add in sharply higher annual volumes, and these risks are amplified many times over. . . . Also, we have depended on sheer luck. Luck that the economy does not fall into recession and increase mortgage delinquencies. Luck that our independent mortgage bankers remain able to access their lines of credit. And luck that nothing critical falls through the cracks. . . ”

Nonbank Share in $Billions

GSEs and Ginnie Mae

Although both the GSEs and Ginnie Mae guarantee mortgage-backed securities, there are a number of essential differences. In particular, Ginnie Mae servicers are exposed to greater liquidity strains, and a greater risk of absorbing credit loss, than GSE servicers.

Guarantee and Issuance of Securities

Guarantee and issuance of securities Both the GSEs and Ginnie Mae provide a guarantee to their mortgage-backed securities (MBS) investors that they will receive their payments of interest and principal on time. One crucial difference between these institutions, though, is who issues the underlying securities. The GSEs purchase loans from mortgage originators and issue the securities themselves. For Ginnie Mae MBS, financial institutions originate or purchase mortgages and then issue securities through the Ginnie Mae platform. In both cases, the loans in the securities have to meet certain underwriting standards and other requirements. The GSEs set the standards for the loans in their pools. For Ginnie Mae pools, the standards are set by the government agency that provides the insurance or guarantee on the mortgage (Federal Housing Administration, Veterans’ Administration, Farm Service Agency, Rural Housing Service, or Office of Public and Indian Housing).

Insurance Against Credit Risk

Another crucial difference between the GSEs and Ginnie Mae is who bears the credit risk associated with mortgage default. As shown in figure 3, for loans in GSE pools, the mortgage borrower takes the initial credit loss (in the form of her equity in the house), followed by the private mortgage insurance (PMI) company (if the mortgage has PMI), and then the GSE. For loans in Ginnie Mae pools, the mortgage borrower is again in the first-loss position, followed by the government entity that guarantees or insures the loan. However, the Ginnie issuer/servicer — unlike in the GSE case — is expected to bear any credit losses that the government insurer does not cover. Ginnie Mae covers credit losses only when the corporate resources of the issuer/servicer are exhausted.

Loss Priority

Servicing Strains

Figure 12 shows the share of all mortgages in 2016 that were originated by nonbanks and insured by the FHA or VA.

Servicers with heavy concentrations may be more vulnerable to servicing-advance strains.

Consequences of a Nonbank Mortgage Company Failure

In the event of a failure of a nonbank mortgage company, there are three main types of parties who would bear losses: (1) consumers; (2) the U.S. government and, by extension, taxpayers; (3) the nonbanks, their shareholders, and their creditors.

If nonbank failure resulted in a reduction in mortgage origination capacity, it is not clear that other financial institutions would extend credit on the same terms to these borrowers, or perhaps even extend credit at all. This contraction in mortgage credit availability has the potential to be a significant drag on house prices.

*  *  *

Mish Comments

The Brookings article is 68 pages long. The above snips capture the essence of their liquidity crisis claim but they provide much more detail.

Shocks Coming

Nonbanks are vulnerable to macroeconomic shocks, rising interest rates, home price declines and job losses, often with a bare minimum down payment.

This is happening while debt-to-income DTI ratios are on the rise and median FICO scores are dropping.

This is hardly surprising given homes are not affordable.

Failure is a Given

Brookings provides the failure hierarchy, and failure is a given.

To keep the latest bubble going, nonbanks kept lowering and lowering credit standards as home prices kept rising and rising.

This is a recipe for disaster, and disaster is at hand.

Housing Collapse Coming

Four days ago, before I saw the Brookings article, I commented Housing Collapse Coming Right Up.

The Brookings article reinforces my opinion.

Meanwhile, overdue debt is at a seven-year high. Distressed debt surged 11.5% in the fourth quarter.

​The Financial Times also notes “More Americans are also falling behind on their mortgages, for which problematic debt levels rose 5.2 percent over the same period to $56.7 billion.”

Deflationary Debt Trap Setup

These numbers are huge deflationary. When credit expands there is inflation. When credit contracts (think defaults, bankruptcies, mortgage walk-away events), debt deflation occurs.

Here’s my definition of inflation: An increase in money supply and credit, with credit marked to market.

Deflation is the opposite: A decrease in money supply and credit, with credit marked to market.

Looking Ahead

  • Credit card delinquencies are priced as if they will be paid back. They won’t.

  • As soon as recession hits, defaults and charge-offs will mount. In turn, this will reduce the amounts banks will be willing to lend.

  • Subprime corporations who had been borrowing money quarter after quarter will find they are priced out of the market, unable to roll over their debt.

In a fiat credit-based global setup, this is how the real world works.

Unanimous Opinions

Seldom are opinions nearly unanimous. This is one of those times. Nearly everyone is looking for “inflation”.

We have it! It’s in home prices, junk bond prices, and equity prices.

The equity bubble is about to burst. For discussion, please see Sucker Traps and the Arithmetic of Risk.

Rear View Mirror Inflation

We have so much inflation that Inflation is in the Rear-View Mirror.

The inflation economists expect to happen, already has happened, in stocks, in home prices, in junk bonds.

They don’t see it because they do not understand what inflation really is.

Debt Deflation Coming Up

I expect another round of asset-based deflation with consumer prices and US treasury yields to follow.

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The Amazing and Abundant Future

RonaldBaileyVoiceandExit“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” So declared Woody Allen in his 1979 essay “My Speech to the Graduates.” While obviously meant as a satirical take on the pompous clichés found in college graduation speeches, the doomsaying sentiment is actually quite common in our public discourse.

“Now, for the first time, a global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity,” wrote the prominent Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich and his wife Anne in the March 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. During a conference at the University of Vermont that year, Ehrlich asked, “What are the chances a collapse of civilization can be avoided?” His answer was 10 percent.

As the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker explains in his superb new book, Enlightenment Now: “Those who sow fear about a dreadful prophecy may be seen as serious and responsible, while those who are more measured are seen as complacent and naive. Despair springs eternal.”

Or to quote the 19th-century British historian Thomas Babington Macaulay: “In every age everybody knows that up to his own time, progressive improvement has been taking place; nobody seems to reckon on any improvement in the next generation. We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who say society has reached a turning point—that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason….On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?”

In my short talk at Voice & Exit, I argue that any fair analysis of the global trends in fertility, population, biodiversity, technological progress, and economic growth can only conclude that the coming century will be humanity’s best ever. (You can also get this information and a lot more in my book The End of Doom.) Watch the talk here:

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“The Bottles Kept Flowing” – Inside The Dinner That Led To Trump-Kim Meeting

For at least two decades, leaders in North Korea have been seeking a personal meeting with an American president… and after a hotpot, cold noodles, and several bottles of wine, it appears that meeting is about to happen.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un joked about his image in international media while serving South Korean officials local spirits and cold noodles during their unprecedented visit to Pyongyang this week, two South Korean government sources told Reuters.

Kim made light-hearted remarks about how he is viewed outside North Korea in international media and elsewhere, one Blue House official said. The officials who spoke asked to remain unnamed due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The North Korean leader was “very aware” of his image, the official said, and reacted to comments made about him in a “relaxed” manner by joking about himself from time to time.

Reuters added that Kim told the visiting delegation Moon could rest easy at night now that Pyongyang had decided not to carry out nuclear or missile tests while talks were ongoing, a Blue House official said.

“President Moon has had a rough time chairing national security meetings at the break of dawn whenever we fired missiles,” Kim was cited as saying during a dinner meeting with the visiting South Koreans.

“If working-level talks ever cease and hostility appears, (President Moon) and I can easily resolve it with a phone call,” Kim referring to the hotline the two Koreas are planning to install to connect Kim and Moon. It will be the first such hotline to be set up between the heads of the two Koreas.

When the South Korean officials visited, Reuters notes that no hard feelings were displayed and Kim Jong Un was the first to tackle sensitive topics, including the resumption of a military exercise between South Korea and the United States that was postponed for a peaceful Winter Olympics, the Blue House official said.

The delegation was served North Korean hotpot the first day and cold noodles – another regional specialty – the next, the Blue House official said.

Kim and the officials shared several bottles of wine, liquor made of ginseng and Pyongyang soju, the official said.

“The bottles kept coming,” said another administrative source who had official knowledge of the meeting.

And at the end of all that, South Korean officials say Trump and Kim now plan to meet by the end of May, in what would be the first ever meeting between a sitting U.S. President and a North Korean leader.

However, as a summit unexpectedly appears possible, and a diplomatic victory looms for President Trump ahead of the midterms, ‘some’ are raising doubts.

Reuters reports that analysts fear U.S. President Donald Trump’s understaffed administration may lack the expertise to successfully turn a political spectacle long sought by Pyongyang into a meaningful opportunity to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

“A Trump meeting with Kim presents both risks and opportunities,” said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

“The U.S. side needs to be very, very well prepared and know exactly what it wants to achieve, as well as what the U.S. is willing to provide in return.”

Several experienced career diplomats occupy key positions in the Trump administration’s Korea and East Asia offices, but, as Reuters points out, many of them are in an acting capacity while other positions are entirely empty.

Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the New America think tank, who has engaged North Korean officials at unofficial discussions, said on Twitter:

“It will have to be managed carefully with a great deal of prep work.”

Otherwise, it runs the risk of being more spectacle than substance.

Right now, Kim Jong Un is setting the agenda and the pace, and the Trump administration is reacting. The administration needs to move quickly to change this dynamic.

“A summit is a reward to North Korea,” said Robert Kelly, a professor at South Korea’s Pusan National University.

“It extends the prestige of meeting the head of state of the world’s strongest power and leading democracy. That is why we should not do it unless we get a meaningful concession from North Korea. That is why other presidents have not done it.

Finally, Reuters points out the inevitable truth that if the summit fails, the cost could be higher than in the past, as observers have noted, with North Korea firmly in possession of a nuclear arsenal and Trump having said military strikes may be needed to remove those weapons; a diplomatic failure would leave few (and uglier) options on the table.

 

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US Stocks Suffered “Massive” Outflows As The S&P Jumped

Add one more paradox to a market that seemingly refuses to follow any logic.

In a week in which the S&P did not suffer one down day despite the “Cohn Gone” scare and Trump’s trade war announcement, US stocks suffered “massive” – in Reuters’ words – outflows, according to BofA analysts and EPFR data, which found that investors rushed into government bonds and other safer assets.

Yet while investors bailed on stocks, someone else was clearly buying, as seen by the S&P’s weekly performance.  How is this possible? Two words – stock buybacks.

So looking at the past week, as investors allocated modest capital to European, Japanese and EM funds (+0.1$BN, +$4.1BN and +$0.8BN respectively), they pulled money out of the US at a frantic pace, redeeming $10.3 billion from U.S. equity funds.

The risk-off mood drove investors to put money into the safest of venues, money market funds, whose assets jumped to $2.9 trillion, the highest level since 2010. Gold also saw inflows of $0.4 billion.

Confirming that retail investors were spooked by trade war fears, U.S. small caps “were sheltered from the storm” and enjoyed a tiny $0.03 billion in inflows, offset by $10.1 billion in large-cap outflows.

That said, Trump’s backing down and exempting of Canada and Mexico from the final tariffs announced late on Thursday eased investors fears, while news the U.S. president would meet with North Korean President Kim Jong Un caused crude prices to rise. “US-DPRK detente suggests protectionism can remain at “bark” not “bite” stage,” argued strategists.

Still, BofA’s Michael Hartnett is less sanguine, pointing out that “as QE ends, protectionism begins.” He adds that the upcoming “war on Inequality” will be fought via Protectionism, Keynesianism, Redistribution, and warns that with “monetary & fiscal policy now spent” it leaves markets to discount Protectionism, even as global tariffs are very low (for now as shown below). This is offset by the US-DPRK détente, which suggests that “protectionism can remain at “bark” not “bite” stage.”

Furthermore, as we noted earlier another latent risk is the imminent end of QE: with just 116 trading days until SPX enters the longest bull market all-time, “bullish QE is peaking as Fed/ECB/BoJ have bought $11tn of financial assets since LEH” while in 2018 the Fed will sell $400bn in assets, the ECB tapers in Sept, and by year-end Fed/ECB/BoJ asset purchases turn -ve YoY.

The approaching end to quantitative easing also caused outflows from rate-sensitive credit markets, driving BAML’s “Bull & Bear” indicator of market sentiment down to 6.8, down from 7.6 in the previous week. The indicator’s 10-point scale ranges from most bearish at zero to most bullish at 10.

It’s not just equities: junk bond outflows are also accelerating, with redemptions for eight straight weeks and $3.1BN redeemed in the latest week, while investment grade inflows continue to lose momentum as IG bonds remain some of the worst YTD performers amid rising rates.

Yet nothing appears able to dent what is going on in the tech sector: while global tech funds did slip last week, losing $0.2 billion, they have drawn in record inflows of $42 billion so far this year, even as the market cap of U.S. tech stocks already dwarfs the combined market cap of emerging markets’ and euro zone equities.

Finally, going back to the growing risk of protectionism, here Hartnett writes that the ideal fund to capitalize on global trade war would be: “long “stagflation”…long cash, commodities, real estate, equity volatility, growth defensive sectors e.g. health care “

There was some good news for long-suffering carbon-based fund managers: the silver lining was that active management continued its comeback, if only for the time being – actively managed funds saw their biggest inflows year-to-date since 2013.

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The U.S. Income Inequality Crisis: The American Dream Vanishing?

Authored by Alex Deluce via GoldTelegraph.com,

In the United States, the proven route out of poverty has always been education. A higher level of education has been viewed to be the direct cause of a higher level of income. Surprising studies have revealed that this economic axiom may no longer hold true for everyone.

Despite wage growth, women and African-Americans still find themselves at a disadvantage. Last year, average salaries grew 0.2 percent overall, while the elite top 5 percent wage earners saw a pay increase of 1.5 percent. However, the wages of African-Americans declined on most economic levels, a trend that has held for 17 years. At the same time, men with a four-year degree earned more than female employees with graduate degrees. Education, the once much vaunted escape from poverty is unable to change race or gender, both of which still have a demonstrable effect on overall income.

The economic truth is that those in the highest earning bracket are seeing the highest increase in wages. While the wage gap between men and women exists on all levels, it diminishes at the top 5 percent income range.

For both high school and college graduates, wage growth remains slower than anticipated. Despite the positive employment numbers, the moderate increases in wages reflect a still struggling economy that presents uncertainties for all wage earners.

The democratic truism has always been that a prospering wealthy class will benefit society as a whole, rich and poor alike. Not so, according to one of the world’s greatest investors, Warren Buffet.

Between 1982 and 2017, the wealth of the 400 [richest people in America] increased 29-fold—from $93 billion to $2.7 trillion—while many millions of hardworking citizens remained stuck on an economic treadmill. During this period, the tsunami of wealth didn’t trickle down. It surged upward.

America’s income gap is widening, and the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will almost certainly ensure that this gulf widens further. The corporate tax rate has been lowered from 35 percent to 21 percent to tremendous GOP cheering and fanfare. This tax gain is seen as a boon to employees more than corporations. However, without equal fanfare, $170.8 billion of these corporate tax savings have been used for stock buybacks, much to the enrichment and jubilation of already wealthy stockholders. The income inequality has not been affected.

According to the World Bank’s Gini Index, a global inequality measure, the United States is not the leader in income inequality. The survey determined that America’s top ten percent of earners earned close to 20 percent more than the bottom ten percent of earners. These numbers seem staggering when compared to Denmark, where the top wealthiest citizens earn around twice as much as the low-income workers, The American struggle of the middle and lowers classes in more evident than ever.

When viewing wealth distribution, the picture remains equally troublesome. In 1980, the top 1 percent wage earners owned 11 percent of the nation’s total income. By 2016, that number almost doubled to 20 percent.

While America enjoys a healthy economy, especially when compared to the rest of the developing world, it can also claim one of the highest poverty rates.

Older Americans view big government with suspicion, but generally don’t expect the government to provide more services. However, the current Millennial generation expects large government and increased services. While Boomers and the Silent Generation may have viewed government programs as a last-gasp safety net, Millennials consider equal health care for all and other federal programs as a right and the responsibility of the government. Frustration and distrust of the government spans across generational lines. Still, it’s the growing Millennial generation that wants greater government involvement and more services, as seen in the chart below.

Two-thirds of those under thirty feel that health care is the responsibility of the government. More than half of Millennials want more programs for lower income Americans, even if this results in a greater national debt. These beliefs hold true, even though the distrust of government is highest among Millennials and Generation X.

While 62 percent of all Americans believe the government favors the interest of the powerful and wealthy, two-third of Generation X and Millennials hold that view. Compared to the older, Silent Generation, a mere 50 percent see the government as favoring the rich. When will these generations wake up and realize the real problem is that central banks are serving wall street and not main street?

The increasing income equality is emerging as a threat to capitalism itself as 50% of American millennials support socialism and communism. Millennials no longer believe that inequality can be solved by economic growth. They are rethinking the very fundamentals of wealth distribution and wage disparity. Automation is putting jobs at risk, and Millennials are less willing than any prior generation to wait and slowly accumulate wealth over a lifetime.

The call for fundamental change is global. How and when it will happen is uncertain. But capitalism, the system of government that Millennials’ great-grandparents firmly embraced, may be in danger of extinction if income equality continues its present upward trend which is mainly due to central banks distorting price discovery and serving wall street and avoiding main street.

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Judge Tells Trump to Pretend to Listen to Twitter Haters

Trump tweet on displayIn order to resolve an unusual First Amendment lawsuit over whether President Donald Trump can block people on Twitter, a federal judge has a suggestion: What if he just pretended to listen to them?

The Knight First Amendment Institute and seven individuals are suing the Trump administration because of Trump’s tendency to block people from following his “official” Twitter account if they tweet mean things at him.

A lawsuit sounds absurd, but there are some interesting First Amendment implications surrounding it. Trump and his administration are using a private social media account on a private platform to communicate public messages about important policy decisions. People who are blocked from following the president cannot see these messages. It’s not just about sending sarcastic comments to the president. Blocking also makes it difficult to see what the president of the United States is saying.

U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan seems to be trying to navigate this complicated problem without setting some sort of precedent over censorship, speech, free association, and private social media platforms. She pitched a suggestion to both sides in the lawsuit yesterday: What if Trump merely “muted” these people instead of blocking them?

To explain to those of you who have managed to avoid getting sucked into Twitter’s vicious gravity: Muting a person on Twitter is essentially a secret block. If President Trump were to mute you, you’d still be able to follow him and see his tweets. But he would never see any tweets or messages you directed his way. In old-fashioned postal delivery terms: Blocking is when the post office returns a letter with a “delivery refused” notice; muting is when they just quietly toss it in the trash without saying a word to you.

So if the president were to merely pretend that he was listening even though he wasn’t, this could potentially satisfy both sides. Notes The New York Times:

Katie Fallow, a lawyer for the Knight Institute, said that she was receptive to the possible compromise. She noted that muting would be “much less restrictive” of her clients’ rights.

Nicholas Pappas, a comedy writer and one of the seven plaintiffs, told a gathering of reporters after the hearing that it would be “a great solution,” if he were muted, rather than blocked, by the @realDonaldTrump account. (Mr. Pappas was blocked by that account after tweeting in June: “Trump is right. The government should protect the people. That’s why the courts are protecting us from him.”)

There’s something so very telling about the relationship between citizens and government authority that’s implied in this proposed compromise. These people can be satisfied as long as they can send their messages to Trump, even though he’ll never see them or read them or even remotely care about them. (OK, so they also want to be able to see and quote the president’s tweets, which in theory they can’t do if they’re blocked, though there are well-known workarounds. And practically every tweet from the president gets media coverage these days.)

No doubt many folks who have attempted to give feedback to government can relate. President Barack Obama’s administration made a big deal about its “We the People” petition site, where citizens could attempt to get responses from the White House over their pet issues. But as the site grew popular, the White House increased the signature threshold to even get a response to try to hold back the trolls. As I noted back in 2013, it appeared that all the administration used the petition site for was to provide “a justification for what the administration is doing, wants to do, or has already done rather than an indication of the administration actually changing a position based on public dissatisfaction.”

In the end, all the judge is suggesting here is that the Trump administration do a better job of pretending to care about what members of the public have to say. That people know it’s just a pretense but will be happy anyway probably says more about the frustrated state of our communications with those who control the government than it does about the First Amendment.

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Jack Daniel’s Warns It Could Become “An Unfortunate And Unintended Victim” Of Trump’s Tariffs

The maker of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey is emerging as an unlikely opponent of President Trump’s protectionist tilt.

During a phone call with analysts on Wednesday, Paul Varga the chief executive of Brown-Forman Corp. confirmed that the European Union’s threats of retaliatory tariffs against “distinctly American products” is rattling leaders of the American business community.

Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey, could become “an unfortunate and unintended victim of the policy,” Varga warned.

“The overwhelming majority of our products are made here in America and over the last few years, I’d just cite, we’ve been investing heavily in our American manufacturing expansion.”

After Trump surprised markets by announcing his plans to impose the aluminum and steel tariffs late last week, the EU fired back on Monday by threatening to impose tariffs on (a relatively modest) €2.8 billion ($3.5 billion) of American goods, with Brussels aiming to apply a 25% tit-for-tat levy on a range of consumer, agricultural and steel products imported from the US.

EUStrike

The list of targeted US goods includes motorcycles, jeans and bourbon whiskey, and was intended to send a political message to Washington about the potential domestic economic costs of making good on the president’s threat.

As Bloomberg points out, Jack Daniel’s anxieties are an example of how the tariffs could impact US industries that don’t directly rely on imports of aluminum and steel. And as BBG reminds us, this isn’t the first time that the maker of Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve bourbon has been pulled into the political fray. In 2014, the company found itself in the middle of a spat between the US and Russia.

Varga assured analysts that his company is speaking up about the potential threat to its business.

“It’s not new to Brown-Forman to periodically have things in the macroenvironment arise,” Varga said. “We’re going to monitor the potential for retaliatory tariffs closely. And of course, we’re sharing our point of view in Washington, as well.”

 In the meantime, Varga can hopefully take some comfort in the fact that, should a “hot” trade war erupt, the US is considerably less exposed than other G-10 economies, as the chart below shows:

Trade

 

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Goldman CEO Blankfein Set To Leave, WSJ Reports

God’s work is done…

The Wall Street Journal reports that Lloyd Blankfein is preparing to step down as Goldman Sachs chief executive as soon as the end of the year, capping a more than 12-year run that would make him one of the longest-serving bosses on Wall Street.

While the firm’s co-presidents, Harvey Schwartz and David Solomon, are leading candidates to replace the 63-year-old CEO, one can’t help but wonder about the timeliness of Gary Cohn’s White House exit.

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It’s 1130ET, Do You Know Where Your Crypto Crash Is?

For the third day in a row, the close of European trading (around 1130ET) has prompted a sudden, heavy volume selling pressure across the crypto-space…

Having rebounded dramatically off early weakness, the moment European equity markets closed seemed to spark panic-selling once again in Cryptos with Bitcoin suffering most.

Just a coincidence.

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