Former hedge fund manager and entrepreneur James Altucher says New York City is dead and it’s not coming back.
Born and bred in New York, Altucher took his family and fled to Florida after the Black Lives Matter riots in June when someone tried to break into his apartment.
Since then, the city has continued to suffer a huge surge in shootings and violent crime as well as an anemic financial recovery from the coronavirus lockdown.
Appearing on Fox News Business, Altucher referred to images that were broadcast during the interview showing 6th avenue to be virtually empty.
“We have something like 30 to 50 per cent of the restaurants in New York City are probably already out of business and they’re not coming back,” he pointed out.
Altucher said that despite offices in midtown being allowed to be open, they’re still largely empty because companies like Citigroup, JP Morgan, Google, Twitter and Facebook are encouraging their employees to work remotely from home “for years or maybe permanently.”
“This completely damages not only the economic eco-system of New York City…but what happens to your tax base when all of your workers can now live anywhere they want to in the country?” asked the entrepreneur, noting that many were fleeing to places that are cheaper to live like Nashville, Austin, Miami and Denver.
Warning that the situation was “only going to get worse,” Altucher said that the old New York was not coming back and that creative and business opportunities would now be dispersed throughout the entire country.
“What makes this different now is bandwidth is ten times faster than it was in 2008 so people can work remotely now and have an increase in productivity,” he added.
As we document in the video below, the blame for all this lies firmly at the feet of two people, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio.
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That said, Morgan Stanley – whose bullish stock market outlook has been anchored on a reflationary view – vehemently disagrees.
As the bank’s chief economist Chetan Ahya writes, explaining why the Great Covid-19 Recession (GCR) left an “indelible mark” on the global economy which has resulted in a structural shift in inflation dynamics, “in the case of the GCR, the consensus is of the view that it will be an amplified version of 2008, where deleveraging dynamics took hold and the rebuilding of saving across balance sheets meant that it resulted in weak aggregate demand and persistent disinflationary pressures. Moreover, considering the magnitude of the shock, they also perceive that it will be a long time before we get back to the pre-crisis levels of output.” In contrast, Ahya – and Morgan Stanley in general, including Michael Wilson – has been arguing since early on as this crisis unfolded, that “the most important structural change is the return of inflation – specifically that inflation could rise above DM central banks’ targets, especially in the US.”
There are “four pillars” to the bank’s inflation thesis:
#1 – The V-shaped recovery: A key part of why MS expects inflation to emerge is because it anticipates a sharper but shorter recession. At its core, this recession was triggered by an exogenous shock in the form of a public health crisis. Coming into 2020, there wasn’t an excessive leverage build-up in the private sector and the banking system was in better shape than it was in 2007. This means that deleveraging pressures are more moderate and the financial system can still play its role as a key intermediary, unlike post-2008. Morgan Stanley therefore expects global and DM output levels to reach pre-COVID-19 levels by 4Q20 and 4Q21, respectively.
#2 – The policy response is very different… According to Morgan Stanley, “the policy response also matters in shaping the growth and inflation outlook and it has been timely, sizeable and coordinated (both monetary and fiscal easing).” The fiscal response in particular has been far more aggressive and quicker because, as the chief economist amusingly puts it “the recession is nobody’s fault” (and what if it had been, would the response be any different). A large fiscal response is important because monetary stimulus, expansionary as it is, would not be adequate to lift aggregate demand on its own. Interestingly, the recognition of this issue was growing before 2020. Hence, policy-makers knew that they had to act quickly on fiscal policy (almost as if they welcomed the covid shock). Moreover – and just to repeat the most amusing aspect of this entire argument – Ahya once again notes that “this time around, there were also lesser moral hazard concerns simply because the shock was exogenous.”
…and the use of active fiscal policy is here to stay: Next, the MS economist writes that “policy-makers were increasingly concerned about rising inequality and they recognised that monetary policy was a blunt tool which is not able to address the distributional effects”, if only they could recognize that their policies actually accelerated this rising inequality. The GCR exacerbated these concerns and left a deep scar on lower-income households. At the peak of the COVID-19 shock, 70% of the job losses in the US were in the low-income segments. Hence, the focus on unemployment and impact on lower-income households will mean that expansionary policies will remain in place for longer. Policy efforts to address inequality, and this we do not disagree with “will impart an inflationary impulse, particularly if the mix is skewed towards transfers to households.”
#3 – Risk of scrutiny of the interplay between tech, trade and titans will persist: Policy-makers’ “focus on inequality” will also mean that efforts to restrain trade could continue while there are risks of increased scrutiny of tech and titans. Trade tension is one such example, in which policy-makers had already begun to check the impact of globalization on inequality. However, as the interplay between this trio of tech, trade and titans has been a key driving force of disinflation in the past 30 years, disentangling them will also lead to a shift in the inflation dynamics.
#4 – Central banks are doubling down: At the same time, central banks – which supposedly are so very concerned about rising inequality (which their actions have caused) “have doubled down on their commitment to achieving their inflation goals.” The Fed is already emphasizing the symmetry of its 2%Y inflation goal (meaning after its September review, the Fed will go all-in on further debasing the dollar). Market-based real rates have already declined significantly, and a shift in strategy will allow the Fed to provide more accommodation.
As Ahya summarizes, “this confluence of factors has already led to a very different outcome for US inflation breakevens. They did not decline to the levels seen post the GFC and have also rebounded in a quicker manner to pre-COVID-19 levels.” Of course, one can argue – as we did – that as a placeholder between nominal and real rates, they are merely reflecting the record chasm that has emerged as traders fear to push nominal yields below zero in a time of YCC, but face no such constraints when it comes to real rates, but we’ll leave this argument for another day.
In any event, Morgan Stanley still – correctly – expects additional fiscal accommodation in the form of another fiscal package (especially since the current one has already ended and the result is a sharp drop in spending by those on UI). On monetary policy, the bank’s chief US economist Ellen Zentner expects the FOMC to codify this and update its framework at the September FOMC meeting, which then lays the groundwork for the FOMC to adopt forward guidance in the FOMC statement at the December meeting. “Both these factors should further bolster the case for inflation” according to Ahya.
And here is Morgan Stanley’s conclusion:
Just as the effects of deleveraging were underappreciated post-2008, we think that the effects that this Great COVID-19 recession will have on inflation dynamics are also not as well understood, with most investors still very much in the disinflation camp. But when we look back at 2020, it may well be that the most important structural change that COVID-19 gave rise to from a macro perspective will be this structural shift towards higher inflation.
To be sure, none of that should come as a surprise: after all the Fed has made it abundantly clear that its endgame goal is (asymmetric) inflation, and one way or another – with trillions more in QE or with direct payments to US households – it will achieve it. Now, whether readers agree with this is unclear, and with adherents of both the reflation and deflation thesis battling it out in the market every day, is why back in June we said that whether what comes next is inflation or deflation was, and remains, the most important question in all of finance.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Yq8q96 Tyler Durden
As cities burn and statues topple, the Nasdaq races to all-time highs. As unemployment explodes to levels not seen since the 1930s, gambling on dicey stocks soars. As private property becomes less secure, titles to property are bid higher. As businesses struggle to reopen, it’s business as usual for the great bull market in financial assets.
If the statisticians at the CDC are to be believed, 0.01% of the U.S. civilian labor force has died of the coronavirus in 2020. For a risk that compares to driving an automobile, much of the population was scared out of their wits and a third of the economy put on life support.
The Big Lie
Official narratives have proven far more contagious (and lethal) this year than any virus, and the supporting lies keep getting bigger.
Upon arrival of an unknown health risk in late February, the authorities promoted a top-down one-size-fits-all solution of universal isolation. The centralization of knowledge was assumed and market solutions not even considered. As “non-essential” businesses were shut down, corporate debt markets locked up and stocks lost one-third of their value.
To deal with the economic mess, only top-down government solutions saw the light of day, this time at a price tag of over $5 trillion in borrowed and printed money (with plenty more on the way).
With the death of George Floyd on May 25, caught on video for the world to see, the narrative shifted overnight from gray lives matter and “shelter in place” to “black lives matter” and protest in public. Never mind that Floyd had enough fentanyl in his body to kill him and that the officers on the scene may have acted to save him.
The mainstream media went into overdrive, promoting the well-rehearsed narrative of systemic racism. Keep in mind, 30% of the top 30 highest-paying celebrity endorsements last year went to blacks (even though they account for 13% of the population). Consumers generally don’t buy products endorsed by people they hate.
The third act in this play, reopening the economy, was met with fearmongering over spiking cases, despite evidence that this was due largely to increased testing and inflated by false positives.
(Apparently crowds looting and setting cars on fire were not a factor.)
Meanwhile, the weekly death rate has dropped 60% from its peak in April.
(Over the past week, there were 7,200 official deaths vs. 250,000 recoveries.)
All three deceptions are wrapped in the biggest of lies, that government has a magic printing press that will suspend the laws of economics and make it all go away.
Day trading madness
As it turns out, a fair amount of the stimulus money found its way into the financial markets. Evidently, the government’s economic advisors failed to consider the possibility that shutting down casinos while ordering people to remain home and mailing them $1,200 checks might give the green light to pile into the only casino still open: the stock market.
August 15, 2020
Speculation took off, especially among younger investors. Robinhood, favored by millennials, added 3 million accounts in the first quarter alone. (Charles Schwab has 14 million accounts in total.) According to CNBC,
Robinhood traders lived up to their outlaw name during the coronavirus market downturn. The young investors booked profits – trading stocks with some of the best returns in the past two months – while other Wall Street veterans were left scratching their heads.
Tempting the investment gods, CNBC flattered youth and mocked experience:
Young investors… appeared to have a prescient understanding of the market, unlike the billionaire hedge fund managers who said stocks would retest their lows. Longtime investor Stanley Druckenmiller – who misjudged equities’ comeback – said Monday that the market’s strong performance over the last three weeks has “humbled” him and that he underestimated the power of the Federal Reserve. Even legendary investor Warren Buffett sold his stake in airlines during the pandemic.
In the Twittersphere, the day trading parade is led by Dave Portnoy with 1.6 million followers:
I play the stock market like I play Monopoly. If I land on it, I’m buying it. I don’t care if it’s Baltic, I don’t care if it’s Park Ave… When I land on “Pass Go,” I try to buy Go. When I land in jail, I’m like, can I buy jail?… I just buy, buy, buy. That’s how I do stock market, that’s how I play Monopoly.
It’s hard not to laugh, but also to know what passes for parody and actual investment advice these days. Davey Day Trader, #DDTG, was recently invited to spend 20 minutes interviewing President Trump at the White House as both celebrated buying the dip in March. You can’t make this up.
How to wreck an economy
2020 has been a textbook example of how to inflict maximum economic damage.
Let’s review:
1) The media incites a panic over a severe novel case of the flu. Have state governors use this as a pretext to shut down a third of the economy.
2) With the social fabric frayed, the media segues to racial protests. Allow bad apples to destroy property and have the police stand down while the mob takes over.
3) Pass trillions in money printing and stimulus, preventing the market from adjusting to rapidly changing events. Incentivize unemployment by paying people an extra $600 a week to sit at home and day trade.
5) After you’ve crippled many small businesses with #1-4, regulate them to death, adding costs they can’t afford and inconveniences their customers don’t want.
Déjà vu all over again
Anyone who experienced the tech bubble of the late 1990s must be feeling a profound sense of déjà vu. The internet was a paradigm shift creating a New Economy in which enlightened central bankers would prevent any serious downturn. Silicon Valley was booming. Wall Street was cranking out hot IPOs (initial public offerings) and repackaging companies by adding “.com” to the name in order to keep up with seemingly insatiable demand from the public.
The prevailing mood among investors was that making money was easy. Youth was elevated and wisdom discarded. Profits didn’t matter. What mattered was “first mover advantage” and “eyeballs.” Those who were too old to grasp the new rules just didn’t “get it.” They were stuck in the Old Economy.
February 22, 1999
I remember when the late Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes did a story about the dot-com mania. The young entrepreneurs he interviewed had a religious zeal, like they had been chosen for a higher calling. One even had the audacity to tell Bradley he was a dinosaur and that his job was targeted for extinction.
It is hard to escape the parallels with today’s mania for technology stocks, venture capital, day trading, hot IPOs and youthful exuberance. There are two critical differences: the backdrop for the 2000 vintage was a booming economy and the dollar amounts were much lower. In 2000, Microsoft, GE and Cisco Systems broke the $500 billion barrier for market capitalization. On August 13, Apple hit $2 trillion.
Perhaps it is a rite of passage that every generation must take part in some sort of speculative madness. Today’s millennials seem ideologically wired to believe in the upward slope of technological progress, conflate virtue signaling with investing, underestimate the economic damage from trillions of dollars of stimulus, and place their unswerving faith in the Fed.
Tesla has become the poster child of the millennial bubble, p.c. bubble, EV bubble and VC bubble. Its stock commands a market value of $412 billion, more than BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, Toyota and General Motors combined. Believe it or not, some traders are actually confusing Tesla (symbol “TSLA”) with micro-cap Tiziana Life Sciences (symbol “TLSA”).
Of course, amateur hour at the casino has a silver lining. Experienced poker players salivate when the patsies show up.
(This article was excerpted from the latest issue of The Coffee Can Portfolio.)
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3lmgxNM Tyler Durden
US Bill Seeks To Ban Title “President” For China’s Xi Jinping Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/23/2020 – 19:45
A new bill introduced in Washington seeks to change the way the federal government refers to the leader of China, prohibiting the use of the term “president”, and will – if passed – lead to a dramatic escalation in already tense relations between the two superpowers. According to the SCMP, the “Name the Enemy Act” would require that official US government documents instead refer to the head of state according to his or her role as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, holds three official titles, none of which is “president”: head of state (guojia zhuxi, literally “state chairman”); chairman of the central military commission; and general secretary of the CCP. However, in the English-speaking world, Xi has generally opted for “president”, which critics say “offers unwarranted legitimacy” to an unelected leader.
Introduced by Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, the House bill would prohibit the use of federal funds for the “creation or dissemination” of official documents and communications that refer to the China’s leader as “president”. A spokesperson for Perry, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, did not respond to a SCMP request for comment on the extent to which “communications” would include public statements and remarks by US officials.
“Addressing the head of state of the People’s Republic of China as a “president” grants the incorrect assumption that the people of the state, via democratic means, have readily legitimised the leader who rules them,” the legislation states.
The bill singles out China, despite the fact that presidents in numerous countries are either unelected or in power resulting from elections that are not considered free and fair.
The legislation comes as top cabinet officials, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have begun abandoning the term “president” in favor of “general secretary.” A White House report in May outlining Washington’s strategic approach to China used Xi’s party title exclusively.
The bill “formalises something that we’ve been taking note of in administration statements,” said Anna Ashton, head of government affairs at the US-China Business Council.
While Trump has not followed suit, he has stopped referring to Xi as a “friend” as relations between the two countries continue to sour. “I don’t want to talk to China right now,” he said last Tuesday.
Perry’s bill comes amid strategic efforts by the Republican Party to increase criticism of the Chinese government. In recent months, Perry has introduced a flurry of aggressive and somewhat unlikely bills related to China, including legislation that would cut US funding to the United Nations until the body expels China and recognizes Taiwan, and bills that would authorize the US president to recognize Hong Kong and Tibet as countries independent from China. Those bills have languished upon introduction, failing to gain support from any of Perry’s colleagues.
To be sure, the bill faces an uphill battle in the few months left to this congressional session, with legislative efforts related to the coronavirus pandemic and the November elections looming large on lawmakers’ agendas.
“I can’t imagine it will move this session,” one Democratic House aide, not authorized to speak publicly, said of the Name the Enemy Act. Any bill that has not reached the president’s desk by the session’s close in early January is wiped off the docket, and must be reintroduced the following session.
Ashton said that Perry’s bill was less likely to “gain steam” than China-related bills tackling other, more weighty subjects, such as forced labour, supply chains, and regulation of Chinese companies listed on US exchanges.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32kodr6 Tyler Durden
With opinions changing across the country over the need for urgent criminal justice reform, there’s no time like the present to enact a much-needed overhaul of laws that criminalize poverty and social ills such as drug use. And this November, voters in Oregon will have an opportunity to decriminalize the low-level possession of all drugs.
Under the proposed Measure 110, or the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, the low-level possession of illegal substances would be reclassified from a misdemeanor to a violation, punishable by either a $100 fine or a health assessment.
Drug trafficking would remain a felony offense, while substantial possession of drugs would be reduced to a felony. Rehabilitation services would be expanded under the measure, and 24-hour Addiction Recovery Centers would also be opened.
By effectively decriminalizing the small-scale possession of drugs, the proposed measure would effectively halt one of the most pernicious means by which the “War on Drugs” has adversely impacted communities of color and poor communities that have suffered disproportionate over-policing and mass incarceration.
According to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, the reclassifications proposed by the measure would see roughly 1,800 fewer Oregon residents facing conviction for felony possession of a controlled substance annually – leading to a mammoth 95-percent drop from current conviction rates.
The report from the commission also found that Measure 110 would be of particular benefit for communities of color, with racial disparities in arrests and convictions falling “substantially.” However, the benefits would also cut across the board – with Black people seeing a fall in arrests by 93.7 percent and an 82.9-percent fall for Asians, 86.5 for Hispanics, 94.2 for Native Americans, and 91.1 for whites.
The report also notes that “inequities [may] exist in police stops, jail bookings, bail, pretrial detention, or other areas” but there is not “sufficient or appropriate data to examine those stages.”
The state would fund Measure 110’s addiction programs, which are expected to cost $57 million yearly, entirely through excess taxes collected on cannabis sales. Current tax revenue from cannabis sales are expected to yield $182.4 million from 2021 to 2023. And as tax revenues increase and decriminalization incurs further savings for the state, petitioners for the Yes for 110 Campaign predict that even more funds can be reallocated to help treat and rehabilitate drug addicts.
Supporters of the measure have been enthusiastically organizing online, and have found that many Oregonians are on the same page with them over the need to end the failed “War on Drugs” and pursue an alternative course to tackle widespread drug addiction.
“There’s no playbook for how to campaign in a pandemic,” said Anthony Johnson, one of the chief petitioners for the campaign. However, he’s confident that the measure has “a really good chance of winning” come November.
“Our communications with voters all across the state shows that voters understand that the status quo is not working,” Johnson added. “We’re clearly not going to arrest our way out of addiction.”
A large number of prominent groups and individuals have backed the measure. This includes trade unions, faith groups and churches, groups representing Asian, Black, Indigenous and Latino communities, human rights organizations, several county district attorneys, and even drug policy reform advocates from the ranks of police.
Oregon is no stranger to blazing new trails in drug policy and criminal justice reforms. In 2014, the state legalized cannabis through a 2014 ballot measure, while a 2017 law drastically reduced the penalty for possessing small quantities of cocaine, LSD, and other substances. This November, Oregonians will also have the opportunity to end the prohibition of psilocybin or “magic” mushrooms and establish a new statewide framework for licensed psilocybin therapy treatment centers.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2QipSHV Tyler Durden
Another NYC ‘War Zone’ Weekend: Over 30 Shot, Many Of Them Bystanders, In Violence Reminiscent Of 1980s Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/23/2020 – 18:55
Last weekend we detailed how over a mere three day period from Aug.13 through Aug.15, a whopping 49 people were shot, which was five times more than the eight who were shot during the same 72 hours last year, according to data in the Washington Examiner.
And tragically the trend appears not some aberration but signals the city is fast becoming a war zone now with another deadly subsequent weekend. NYPD sources and local media already countmore than 30 people shot so far this weekend.
This brings NYC to more than 1,000 total shooting incidents across the city year to date, already double all of last year, and the summer is not even over — a summer which ironically has witnessed a supposed heightened consciousness and awareness of police shootings of black Americans given the ongoing George Floyd and Black Lives Matters protests.
Image source: NY Daily News
But in the case of New York City’s explosion of gun violence, people are being killed with the police far away from the scene, though in one instance over a week ago, it was a black police officer shot in Queenswhile looking for a parking spot merely a mile from his home.
Citywide, there were at least 25 shootings that injured 31 people on Friday and Saturday, police said. Officers responded to 16 shootings on Saturday and nine on Sunday.
At least three of those shootings happened within just blocks of each other in Coney Island, according to police.
Among these, there were seven deaths between Friday and Sunday morning, according the NYPD, including a 25-year-old mother of three children.
Priscilla Vasquez was described in local reports as shot in the back of the head by an unknown gunman in the early morning hours of Saturday while standing on a sidewalk in front of a public school, just around the corner from her Bronx home.
Underscoring the senseless and often random nature of much of the violence, her friends and family don’t think she was the intended targeted, also given the gunman appeared to fire wildly and haphazardly.
🚨WANTED for HOMICIDE: Do you know this person? On 8/22 at approximately 5:20 AM, in front of 335 East 152nd St in the Bronx, a 25-year-old female was shot, causing her death. Call 800-577-TIPS, or DM @NYPDTips with any info. All calls are anonymous. pic.twitter.com/UkuthtAHYi
In another incident, a man in Queens was shot and killed while simply playing in a basketball tournament that was also part of a barbecue at a local park. Interestingly, news reports accompanying the tragic death actually blame lack of police presence for the violence there. Local residents are reportedly angry that police routinely “stay away” — something, it should be noted, that national BLM protests have demanded all along.
“We’ve been complaining about that park forever. It’s always dark,” said nearby resident Elaine Bailey. “That park is notorious. It’s been like that for years. It’s a known drug location,” she said of the site near 207 St. and Hillside Ave. in Hollis. “We complain about the drug dealing. Nobody does anything. This was bound to happen. If you’re going to commit a crime, it’s the best place to commit a crime.”
And one of the largest single shootings involved four victims shot in Coney Island Sunday morning, with the youngest victim, a 27-year old man, dying of his injuries.
Meanwhile, as even The Washington Post has observed, the latest nixing of frontline crime fighting units doesn’t seem to be going so well:
“In June, the New York Police Departmentdisbanded its controversial anti-crime unit — the plainclothes officers whose mission, to rid the streets of guns, once relied on a practice known as ‘stop and frisk’ later exposed to have disproportionately targeted innocent Blacks and Latinos.”
Instead this was substituted with more “community engagement” initiatives, though the criminals with guns don’t appear to have gotten the memo — or more cynically perhaps they’ve simply interpreted the lessened law enforcement presence as a license to kill.
On that note, FT published the below chart in mid-July, which covers the period which saw the fiercest protests in major American cities against the police killing of George Floyd.
Pressure has remained on city councils across the country to either shut down whole police departments or at least specific anti-crime units.
The result is that (at minimum it shouldn’t be hard to see correlation if not causation), as WaPo wrote, “The gun violence plaguing New York is reminiscent of the 1980s and ’90s. Authorities have recorded about 900 shootings so far this year, up from around 500 through the beginning of August 2019.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32mhc9d Tyler Durden
Hey there! It’s me, the stock market. I know it’s weird to write you like this, but I felt like I needed to drop a quick thank-you note for everything you’ve done for me this year. I mean, your big ol’ balance sheet is almost $3 trillion larger since early March! You’re backing up the truck and loading it with Treasuries and corporate bonds and bond ETFs, all to keep the competition to stocks from fixed-income yields as limited as Jim Cramer’s understanding of me. It’s been a dream come true, honestly. I mean, fess up: Have you been reading my diary?!
Maybe you’ve noticed, but everything else is a royal mess. Covid-19 is still killing people. Parents are dreading the beginning of “school.” U.S. unemployment is still above 10%, higher than it’s been since the 1980s. The country is facing the biggest economic contraction in its history. Corporate profits are plunging. The recession is forecast to continue at least through the first quarter of next year. And me? I’m soaring! Have you seen these record highs I’ve been setting?
To be honest with you, it’s getting kind of wild – and I’ve seen plenty of weirdness before. I’m more popular with sports fans than March Madness! Of course, there was no March Madness this year, so that’s not really a fair comparison – kind of like comparing my dividend payouts to yields in the bond market. Amirite, or amirite? LOL!
But I’m not kidding when I say things are getting REALLY weird. Have you heard of Dave Portnoy, aka Davey Day Trader, yet? He was just some middling internet celebrity until suddenly he’s going viral for using Scrabble tiles to pick stock ticker symbols. The Robinhood set thinks he’s smarter than Warren Buffett! This probably isn’t going to end well, I’ll tell you that much.
Speaking of Robinhood, that whole Hertz saga was about as weird as it gets. A rental car company was trying to sell new shares while in bankruptcy court, because its stock price was on a tear? Let me repeat that: Hertz. Sold. Shares. While. In. Bankruptcy. I can’t even! You’re sure keeping your pals over at the SEC busy! I mean, it’s so weird out there, Bloomberg Businessweek is resorting to cringeworthy satire to make sense of it all.
Speaking of cringey, what was up with the minutes from your last meeting? Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t actually read them. If I had the attention span for that type of stuff, you’d call me the bond market. Of course, the bond market did read the minutes, and it thinks you’re being a little rude for not wanting to keep the party going. Look, I learned this lesson the hard way—and I sort of thought you did, too—so it bears repeating: Just do whatever the bond market says, OK? It’s bigger, better educated, and a sharper dresser than the both of us.
So please do me a solid and keep this thank-you note in mind when you host your virtual Jackson Hole summit. No cowboy stuff, OK? If I hear anybody mutter something about “irrational exuberance,” I swear I’m gonna blow my top and hurt a few of these Robinhood types, you got that? The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. It’s what I do—and I’m good at it! But right now, this is still a lot of fun for me…
… and when I do end up burning folks, do you really want to be the one who gets thrown under the bus?
I mean, you know you’re going to catch all the blame, right?
C’mon, Fed. We both know you’re smarter than that. What’s another few trillion?
With sincere and deepest gratitude,
The Stock Market
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31kx5xE Tyler Durden
Uber Eats Found To Be Underpaying Drivers On 30% Of Trips, Programming Sleuth Finds Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/23/2020 – 18:05
As the controversy of how Uber classifies its employees in California drags on, Uber Eats could find itself dealing with another set of very real legal problems – very soon. That’s because a programmer and Uber Eats driver says he has built a tool that provides evidence that the service has been “consistently underpaying employees”, according to Business Insider.
And based on the company’s reaction to his findings, it appears his evidence is spot on.
Computer scientist Armin Samii, who also has worked part time as an Uber Eats driver, built a Chrome browser extension called “UberCheats” that helps drivers track their trips and pay. The extension seems to show Uber shorting drivers on between 25% to 30% of trips.
Drivers are paid per-mile and Samii says that, on average, Uber was not paying drivers for 2.5 miles per delivery. For example, it would pay drivers for 1 mile on a 3.5 mile trip.
Samii said he had multiple “back and forths” with Uber customer service who admitted it was a bug and paid him the money he was owned based on his own data.
Samii said:
“This is pretty widespread and pretty egregious. And I don’t think Uber has any plans to fix it.”
Uber had also been accused in the past of making changes to its Uber Eats pay structure and software that resulted in pay reductions for drivers by luring them into taking less profitable trips.
The allegations couldn’t come at a worse time for Uber – or its drivers. The company has been dealing with anti-freelancing laws in California that have all but threatened to shut down their business in the state. Meanwhile, drivers like Samii are turning to Uber after losing their full time jobs as a result of the pandemic, and existing drivers arguably need the pay now more than ever.
Meanwhile, drivers continue to take significant healthcare risks by driving in the midst of the pandemic without access to healthcare, sick pay or paid time off. Perhaps a karmic rebalancing for Uber is in order after all…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YrRIpI Tyler Durden
The New York Times’debunked 1619 Project will be the literature that “sets the tone” for the year at one Massachusetts college.
In a school-wide email on August 13, Mount Holyoke College announced that the New York TimesMagazine’s 1619 Project will be this year’s “Common Read.” Holyoke’s “Common Read” tradition started as a component of Mount Holyoke College’s Orientation in 2000, and occurs annually, “designed to give students new to Mount Holyoke College their first intellectual dialogue based on a shared text.”
The program “sets the tone for the community” and “helps collectively frame discussions for the upcoming academic year.”
Published in August 2019, The 1619 Project is a series of essays meant to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of slaves in modern-day Virginia. It has been widely criticized for its claims that America was founded on the basis of preserving slavery.
Yet, multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning historians have come out and condemned the project. As the Pulitzer-winning historian of the American Revolution and Brown University Professor Emeritus Gordon Woodput it, the project is “wrong in so many ways.”
Another Pulitzer-winning historian, Princeton University Professor Emeritus James McPherson, said that the essays are an “unbalanced, one-sided account” that “left most of the history out.”
“We understand the relevance of The 1619 Project now in light of the significant impact of the global movements for #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName, which has ultimately challenged us to think more deeply about experiences described by our Black, Indigenous and People Of Color (BIPOC) members of the Mount Holyoke Community,” wrote Mount Holyoke.
“We acknowledge that The 1619 Project is United States-centric, and yet we feel it is essential to foundationally understand the racial hierarchy that exists and remains pervasive globally, but particularly at American higher education institutions,” it added. We believe that if our Mount Holyoke community is to challenge and change the structures of systemic racism, racial injustice and white supremacy – at and within our own College and outside of it – we must all understand the roots of these injustices.”
In a news update posted by the college, some of the selection committee members offered their thoughts on The 1619 Project.
Dean of Studies and Director of Student Success Initiatives Amber Douglas was excited about the choice, saying “Now, more than ever, it is essential that we as a community, engage with the history of the transatlantic slave trade and its enduring legacy of systematic anti-Black racism, oppression and violence in this country.”
“For me, The 1619 Project felt urgent before the marches and protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police,” said assistant professor of politics Ali Aslam
“My hope is that we can grasp, with the help of the essays, just how pervasive and deeply ingrained slavery and its legacy are in American culture, norms and ideals.”
The college only selected a few essays from the project, including “The Idea of America” by Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Capitalism” by Matthew Desmond, “A Broken Healthcare System,” by Interlandi Jeneen, “Traffic,” by Kevin M. Kruse, “Undemocratic Democracy” by Jamelle Bouie, “Medical Inequality,” by Linda Villarosa, “American Popular Music,” by Wesley Morris, “Sugar” by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, “Mass Incarceration,” by Bryan Stevenson, and “The Wealth Gap” by Trymaine Lee.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YofX8c Tyler Durden
California Wildfires Cover 1 Million Acres In A Week As Storms Expected To Fan Flames Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/23/2020 – 17:15
In the course of just one week, wildfires blazing across the state of California have burned through nearly one million acres statewide, destroying hundreds of homes ahead of an expected storm system heading toward the state that could bring more high winds and lightning strikes.
Two clusters of wildfires in the Bay Area have grown to become the second- and third-largest wildfires in recent state history by size.
Light winds and cooler and more humid nighttime weather helped fire crews make progress on those fires and a third group of fires south of San Francisco ahead of the forecast of warm, dry weather, erratic wind gusts and lightning, state fire officials said.
Weary firefighters in California raced Saturday to slow the spread of the blazes as President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration to provide federal assistance. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the declaration will also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counseling, housing and other social services.
Calm weather overnight allowed firefighters to make progress against a trio of massive wildfires burning in Northern California, but they were bracing for a weather system Sunday that will bring high winds and thunderstorms that could spark new fires and fan existing blazes that destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands to evacuate.
The “complexes,” or groups of fires, burning on all sides of the San Francisco Bay Area, were initially sparked by lightning strikes – some of roughly 12,000 strikes registered in the state in the past week. The National Weather Service issued a “red flag” warning through Monday afternoon for the drought-stricken areas across the Bay Area, meaning extreme fire conditions, including high temperatures, low humidity and wind gusts up to 65 mph “may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.”
“The worst is not behind us. We are in a battle rhythm,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) Chief Thom Porter said.
The LA Times reported Sunday night that the US military and the state national guard have been deployed to help fight the blazes due to the shortage of able-bodied prisoners able to double as firefighters.
In some parts of the state people are collecting supplies to help those displaced by the blazes.
People are seen collecting donations of supplies to help the tens of thousands of people forced to evacuate amid the ongoing wildfire threat in California. https://t.co/oq574FjYO6pic.twitter.com/1eb7rdd6Hd
Since thousands of lightning strikes ignited the first blazes on Aug. 15, the state has reported 585 wildfires that have burned nearly a million acres, or 1,562 square miles (4,046 square kilometers).
Video shared by Mish Talk showed a devastating blaze ripping through the Mojave National Preserve.
The New York Times warned that in the coming days, the weather will likely make the situation even worse.
Some of the most devastating scenes came out of the state’s national parks, where redwoods burned on Friday and Saturday.
The remains of the headquarters at Big Basin Redwoods State Park can be seen below.
Fire officials are worried that another extreme period of lightning strikes, like the 12,000 strikes blamed for igniting many of the 585 new fires that have emerged since last weekend, could roll through Northern California in the coming days, potentially bringing new blazes to the scorched region.
In the state’s desperation, Gov Newsom put out a plea for assistance from Australia and Canada, after Australia grappled with its own devastating wildfires last season. “These fires are stretching our resources, our personnel,” the governor said. Fortunately, more supplies are on their way.
Coverage of the fires has included many meteorological terms like “fire whirls”, “fire tornadoes”, “fire clouds” and “running crown fires”. For those who aren’t already familiar with these terms, here’s a definition, per USA Today.
Pyrocumulus clouds
One of the more distressing examples are pyrocumulus clouds – essentially “fire clouds” that form over heat sources. The bushfires that ravaged Australia earlier this year featured the massive clouds.
“They’re very concerning for firefighters because they cause their own storm,” he said.
In humid climates, reported ABC News, they are able to generate rain and provide some relief for storms. But in drier climates, the lightning from the storm itself can ignite more fires.
Running crown fires
Two separate fire events – running fires and crown fires – also can merge to form what are known as running crown fires.
Running fires are when fires accelerate at a rate faster that can be controlled. Crown fires take place when fires climb a tree; they usually spread below the tree line before making their way upward, Hockenberry says.
Running crown fires make their way to the tops of trees and move quickly. Also known as active crown fires, these fires appear to burn through the entire canopy as opposed to individual trees, according to the USDA Forest Service.
“You can almost watch tree to tree burn in a matter of seconds from each other,” Hockenberry said, “and you’ll see this gigantic flame wall spreading on the tops of trees.”
Fire tornadoes, whirls
Fire tornadoes, such as the one in the Loyalton Fire, are generated when intense heat from a wildfire causes hot air to rush up from the ground.
All of the air rushing upward has to be replaced at the surface, said Dawn Johnson, a senior meteorologist at NWS Reno to USA TODAY earlier this week. As air comes in it sometimes starts to rotate.
But fire whirls, as scary as they are, have historical precedent. The Great Chicago Fire in 1871, one of the most devastating in American history, was exacerbated by fire whirls.
There are plenty of others, too, said Hockenberry, both recently and in the past, including the 2018 Carr fires, a 1923 earthquake in the Kantō region of Japan that caused severe fires, and the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin, which erupted at the same time as the Great Chicago Fire.
According to SFGate, fire crews battle what they call the ‘LNU Lightning Complex’ fires burning across the North Bay Areaare preparing for dry lightning and gusty winds to pick up throughout the day, which could further fan the flames.
“Any lightning that comes through, based on the fact we have so many resources that are affected and stretched thin throughout California, it’s going to likely result in additional fires,” Cal Fire unit chief Shana Jones said. “We do have a plan in order to immediately attack those fires, but it’s going to take some work.”
Cal Fire officials cautioned that preventing new fires from becoming major blazes will become their immediate top priority, so residents may see resources pulled from fires already burning near them.
More than 1,700 people are helping battle the LNU Lightning Complex, with more arriving from out of state. Fifteen engines from Washington and 25 from Oregon arrived over the weekend, Jones said, adding that the LNU fire is the state’s No. 1 priority for getting more resources. “Despite the increase in resources, we are definitely far from getting these fires handled.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3j8DZvT Tyler Durden
