iftttwall

The city of Louisville will pay several million dollars to the family of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman killed by police during a raid on her apartment, as part of a legal settlement with the family, the president of the Louisville Metro Council said.

The Wall Street Journal also reports that the settlement also requires the city to implement police reforms, including a mandate for supervisors to sign off on search warrants, said David James, president of the council, who said a city official briefed him on the settlement Tuesday. He said he wasn’t at liberty to disclose the size of the settlement amount.

The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports that,  Sam Aguiar, one of the family’s lawyers, confirmed via email that a settlement has been reached.

“The city’s response in this case has been delayed and it’s been frustrating, but the fact that they’ve been willing to sit down and talk significant reform was a step in the right direction and hopefully a turning point,” he added to CNN.

Details of the settlement haven’t been confirmed.

Reports indicate it will be one of the largest settlements in police shooting cases in the city’s history.

Benjamin Crump and Lonita Baker, who are helping represent Taylor’s family, plan to hold a press conference with Aguiar and Taylor’s family at Mayor Greg Fischer’s office at 2 p.m. Eastern Time.

They will be gathering “to address a significant update in the Breonna Taylor case,” according to a press release.

A demonstrator holds a sign with the image of Breonna Taylor in Denver, Colo., on June 3, 2020. (Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images)

Fischer said during a radio interview early Tuesday that he couldn’t comment on the reported settlement.

“I don’t have anything to announce on that at this time,” he said.

Attorney’s for Taylor’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit earlier this year, arguing police officers “had no probable cause or other legal basis to enter and search” her home.

Gunfire was exchanged between the officers and Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was charged with attempted murder. The charge was later dropped.

Taylor’s case is being examined by federal, state, and local investigators.

The top FBI agent in the city told activists in July that the investigation was the bureau’s “top priority” but stressed the need to take ample time to handle such a “complex” probe.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office is conducting a separate investigation, as is the Louisville City Council into Fischer’s handling of the case.

The three officers involved in the case were placed on administrative reassignment.

One of them, Brett Hankison, was later fired.

Interim Police Chief Robert Schroeder said the officer “displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life when you wantonly and blindly fired ten (10) rounds into the apartment of Breonna Taylor.”

Activists want the other two officers fired and all three charged.

A whole host of economists and former Federal Reserve heads have warned if Congress and the White House fail to agree on a new round of fiscal stimulus, then it would risk damaging the economic recovery, reported FT. 

As of mid-August, about 7 states, Colorado, Missouri, Utah, Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, and New Mexico, have signed up for President Trump’s emergency FEMA funds to shell out $300 weekly stimulus checks for those receiving unemployment benefits under Trump’s Aug. 8 Executive Order. This is a far cry from the $600 per week millions of Americans were receiving in spring through July 31. 

A top concern ahead of the presidential election is the lapse in Trump stimulus checks, also known as direct transfer payments, accounted for at least a quarter of all personal income, artificially boosted most of the economy – without the second round of checks, the artificial boost is set to subside. 

We explained in July, a fiscal cliff would have uneven regional impacts, affecting smaller communities the worst. What Americans don’t realize is that stimulus checks, were their first real taste of socialism. The consequence of the federal government paying people to stay home is that it desensitizes them to find work, thus causing a delay in the labor market recovery. 

Heading into fall, hopes are quickly fading for another +$1 trillion fiscal pump to boost the economy through the election – perhaps the fiscal cliff is most visible in the reversing Citi economic surprise index from record highs. 

“The diminished chances of additional fiscal support have caused many economists to fret that the US rebound will lose steam in later 2020 or early 2021, creating a drag on the global economy as it tries to recover from the worst contraction since the second world war,” said FT. 

FT notes a handful of economists are warning about “fiscal fatigue” and ‘economic wasteland’ will be seen if another round of stimulus is not passed immediately. 

“The risk of fiscal fatigue where policymakers stop providing stimulus or start trying to claw back too early is a meaningful global risk,” said Nathan Sheets, chief economist for PGIM Fixed Income. “What’s going on in Washington right now is in some sense exhibit A for that.”

Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the US output gap would increase by an annualized rate of 25% in 3Q20 as it bounces back from a historic contraction in 1H20. But Shepherdson expects the figure would drop 10% in 4Q. 

“What they are doing now, or rather what they are not doing now, is raising the risk that large bits of the economy will be a wasteland by the time a [Covid-19] vaccine comes through,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it can never recover, but it does mean that the recovery will be longer and harder and more painful and there’ll be a lot more misery in the meantime. It seems very counterproductive to me.”

At the start of September, virtually every Wall Street strategist was convinced that a fiscal stimulus deal in Washington was inevitable, and would be around  $1.5- $2 trillion ballpark. Now Morgan Stanley is warning that a stimulus deal will not be seen before the election. 

Aneta Markowska and Thomas Simons, economists at Jefferies, said disposable personal income growth would slow from 9.5% in July to about 3% by the end of the year without a deal. Even with a $1 trillion stimulus, both indicated growth in disposable personal income would be around 6%, which suggests consumption is set to tumble. 

“It most certainly will have an impact,” said Julia Coronado, founder of Macropolicy Perspectives.

“Does it double-dip (into recession)? That’s not my base case, but at a minimum, it flattens out the recovery and deepens the permanent damage, and that’s not good,” Coronado said.

She said the lack of stimulus would increase economic disparities: 

“You’re just going to have more of that bifurcation, with wealthy people and professional jobs in the service sector doing just fine . . . and then a lot of people in working-class jobs in deep distress.”

Several former Fed heads pointed out, without another round of stimulus, millions of Americans will suffer. 

Former Fed Chair Janet Yellen recently said: 

“If senators still fail to resolve stalled negotiations when they return after Labor Day, millions of needy Americans will suffer — and the overall economy could degrade from its current slow rebound in growth to no growth at all.” 

Ben Bernanke, another former Fed chair, warned in July that a “significantly worse and protracted recession” if the second round of stimulus was not seen. 

Shepherdson said warning signs of fiscal fatigue have already surfaced in recent employment numbers, including elevated weekly jobless claims and stalling high-frequency data. 

“People can see with their own eyes that the economy is not motoring along,” he said, adding: “It’s very hard to see how taking away the single biggest support for personal incomes can do anything other than depress growth.”

With a fiscal cliff now entering the 45th day, stimulus talks in Washington at a stalemate, a growth scare could further pressure equity markets lower.

Last week, we brought you some of the latest musing from Bank of America’s Jared Woodard, who in the latest Research Investment Committee report discussed the reason why value investing is dead…

… attributing it to a recent transformation in the market where it is “all one trade” now:

However, besides the merely reflexive, where central bank liquidity, relentless momentum chasing, frenzied retail investing in out of the money calls and 3x levered ETFs coupled with the occasional institution forcing a marketwide gamma squeeze, combine into one explosive force propelling the “one trade” ever higher in the process leaving value in the dust, there is a far more tangible – or rather intangible – reason why “value” is no longer value in the conventional sense.

As BofA writes, investors should simply reconsider the definition and meaning of “value.” Take the price-to-book ratio, a favorite metric from the days of Graham & Dodd, and which to this day remains a key input to all major value indexes and factors. As BofA notes, investors should be aware that traditional book value (assets minus liabilities) ignores many of the resources that are most important to companies today.

This means that market leaders – such as enterprise software firms – generate cash flows in ways not easily recognized by conventional valuation metrics. At the same time, research & development performed by a company is recognized only as an expense, and investments in the skills of employees have conventionally only been recognized as administrative expenses.

But, BofA asks, what’s more intuitively valuable to a company like Google: the physical buildings and the network servers inside them, or the intangible algorithms running on those servers? In other words, whereas traditional book value makes sense in an economy composed of factories, farms, and shopping malls, it is increasingly irrelevant in an economy driven by intangibles like patents, licensing agreements, proprietary data, brand value, and network effects.

And the punchline: from just 17% in 1975, the total value of corporate intangibles has risen to over $20 trilion, representing a record 84% of all S&P assets! A breakdown of this divergence is shown below:

What does this mean for investors? As BofA’s Woodard concludes, “recent academic literature shows that an adjusted book value measure accounting for intangible assets can produce significantly better returns.” An adjusted valuation ratio would add the following to tangible book value:

1. Reported intangible assets ex-goodwill;
2. Research & development: expenses depreciated at sector-average rates; and
3. Organizational capital: 30% of SG&A expenses depreciated at 20%/year

There is already scientific backing for such a portfolio shift: Park (2019) found that an intangible-adjusted value strategy improved average annual returns by 260bps per year versus a benchmark. So for all those wondering why their value strategy isn’t working, don’t forget to account for the intangibles.

Authored by Tyler O’Neil via PJMedia.com,

On Monday, Democratic nominee Joe Biden condemned President Donald Trump as a “climate arsonist,” predicting that if the president wins reelection in November, America will witness more “hellish” events like fires in the West, flooding in the Midwest, and hurricanes on the East Coast.

He effectively promised that if he wins, America will suffer from fewer fires, fewer floods, and fewer hurricanes.

Although Biden excoriated Trump for “ignoring the facts” and “denying reality,” he focused his remarks on the wildfires ravaging California, Oregon, and Washington State — fires exacerbated by bad forest management more than any sort of climate change.

“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze? If you give a climate denier four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is under water?” Biden asked.

“Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused these fires and record floods and record hurricanes, but if he gets a second term, these hellish events will continue to become more common, more devastating, and more deadly,” the Democrat insisted.

“Meanwhile, Donald Trump warns that integration is threatening our suburbs,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s attack on Biden’s plan to federalize local zoning (which poses a serious threat to local control of neighborhoods in the name of racial integration). “It’s ridiculous. But you know what is actually threatening our suburbs?”

“Wildfires are burning the suburbs in the West, floods are wiping out suburban neighborhoods in the Midwest, hurricanes are imperiling suburban life along our coast,” Biden said. “If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned from wildfires? How many suburban neighborhoods will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms?”

Climate change is the existential challenge that will define our future as a country. Tune in as I discuss the wildfires up and down the West Coast — and how I’ll tackle the climate crisis head-on and create millions of good-paying jobs: https://t.co/yMhodX8RYe

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 14, 2020

The truth about California’s wildfires

Joe Biden’s argument boils down to the idea that burning fossil fuels is the key cause behind all worsening of extreme weather events, other contributing factors be damned. Those who disagree are “deniers” of “science.” Nevermind the fact that claims of a climate change “consensus” are misleading and overblown, or the facts that climate alarmist predictions have proven wrong time and time again for 50 years.

Biden opened his remarks with a discussion of the devastating wildfires in the West. He noted that the damage in the past two years has reached nearly $50 billion in California alone and that this year, nearly 5 million acres have burned across ten states. He said locals, living “in the shadow of an orange sky” are asking, “Is doomsday here?”

The wildfires are indeed horrific, but climate change isn’t the real story. When it comes to wildland fire mitigation, in particular, I learned the truth from my father, who has been a volunteer fireman for more than 30 years.

I grew up in the foothills of dry Colorado, where the grass is not green but brown. My father sent my brother and me out to rake up dry leaves, pine trees, and other materials we termed “duff” — matter from the forest floor that would go up in flames upon contact with the smallest spark. My father — and later my brother and I — would go out with a chainsaw to trim the lower-hanging pine branches and a weed-whacker to take care of the tall grasses.

For my Eagle Scout project, I led a team of men and boys to clear out the forest floor and trim low-hanging branches near a large propane tank — in order to prevent potential forest fires from spreading up the mountain to burn the houses nearby.

Clearing the forest floor is thankless work, and it is far more efficient to set a small, controlled fire and let nature do the job for you. As Ars Technica’s Scott Johnson reported, a Stanford research team found that about 20 percent of California — 20 million acres — would benefit from controlled burns.

Climate activists have opposed the harvesting of dead trees and the aggressive clearing of brush, however. Gov. Jerry Brown (D-Calif.) vetoed forest management attempts in 2016. California’s forests don’t get the work they need because private landowners fear liability for controlled burns, CAL FIRE doesn’t have enough resources to prioritize controlled burns, and stringent climate regulations make it difficult for proposed burns to get approved.

President Trump has encouraged California to use proper forest management to combat the wildfires. He noted that forest fires are “starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”

Biden condemned Trump for his common-sense advice, suggesting that the president was blaming the victims.

“The West is literally on fire, and he blames the people whose homes and communities are burning,” the Democrat said. “He says, ‘You’ve got to clean your floors, you’ve got to clean your forests.’”

Yes, Trump said that, and he’s 100 percent right. Steve Milloy, a former Trump/Pence EPA transition team member and founder of JunkScience.com, noted that California “has experienced megadroughts lasting as long as 220 years over the past 1,100 years — a period before the advent of SUVs and fossil fuel power plants.”

Wildfires in California, like wildfires in my native Colorado, are nothing new. Poor forest management, not climate change, is the true culprit. If Joe Biden thinks merely talking about forest management constitutes “blaming the victim,” then it seems he’s unlikely to champion the policies that would restrain the spread of wildfires in California.

Floods and hurricanes

Biden did not just promise fewer and less devastating fires if he wins in November. He also promised to cut down on the floods and hurricanes. He attributed these natural disasters to climate change, too, as if floods had never happened in the Midwest and hurricanes had never hit the East Coast before humans started burning fossil fuels.

Although the Midwest did experience devastating floods last year, floods in that area are not exactly new. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in U.S. history, and it came only a few decades after the invention of the automobile.

“Midwest floods are not new,” Milloy told PJ Media. “Huge floods proved torrential in the 1920s, for example.” Milloy argued that land use, specifically the use of concrete and poor stormwater management, can divert “excess water into waterways, causing flooding.”

As for hurricanes, many peer-reviewed studies have disputed the notion that carbon emissions make hurricanes worse. Yet Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) suggested that “there were no hurricanes” hitting New York before the devastating impacts of climate change. Yet analysis of sedimentary evidence from New Jersey showed that a major hurricane struck the New York/New Jersey area between 1278 to 1438, long before the internal combustion engine.

To the hammer (and sickle?) of climate alarmism and government regulation, every natural disaster is a nail. Biden attacks Trump as a “climate arsonist” but he’s the one using natural disasters as a rhetorical weapon against his opponent. There is no evidence that more stringent regulations on fossil fuels will prevent wildfires, floods, and hurricanes that have plagued these parts of America for centuries.

However, California’s rolling blackouts provide concrete evidence that a forced transition to green energy makes energy more expensive and more scarce for a society. Biden’s energy policies could bring California’s rolling blackouts to the rest of America. Far from preventing tragedies, his policies would actually create them.

For all the rhetoric about Fed this, and stimulus that, the simple fact is that 2020 has been a year of two trades: long tech, which is up 25% YTD, or long everything else which is still down for the year.

The fact that long tech is the only performing trade this year has not been lost on Wall Street, and according to the latest Fund Manager Survey which polled 224 panelists worth some $646 billion in AUM, and who according to BofA Chief Investment Officer Michael Hartnett, have become “paranoid tech”; indeed, when asked what they think is the most “crowded trade”, 80% – an all time high consensus – said “long tech”…

…  with fund managers declaring that the “tech bubble” is now the second biggest tail risk…

… after COVID-19 “second wave.”

And while the FMS poll is about as credible as any run off the mill Trump vs Biden poll, with Wall Street pros frequently responding in a way that indicates severe schizophrenia, Hartnett observes that – while one wouldn’t know it looking at tech stock prices – fund managers are rotating, with tech, healthcare and large cap longs trimmed, coupled with flows into small caps and value. Which of course makes absolutely no sense judging by the continued surge in tech and the absolutely relentless mauling of anything value.

A somewhat more accurate representation is that the FMS asset allocation remains “stubbornly” skewed toward healthcare, US, tech, cash, short energy, UK, banks compared to long term history.

While we have repeatedly mocked the relevance of such monthly Wall Street polls, in which the respondents say what they expect to say instead of the truth, it is perhaps worth noting what according to BofA are the contrarian trades, for the simple reason that in a world where the Fed is encouraging catastrophic groupthink and frankly idiocy, they simply won’t work:

“Contrarian trades”: relative to history (Z-score) and Sept FMS flows UK, energy, banks most contrarian longs (trigger is 10Y UST yield>1%); US tech, healthcare, discretionary most contrarian shorts (trigger is vaccine).

TL/DR? Just keep buying tech, forcing those who still believe such a thing as a market still exists to close their shorts and when it all comes crashing down, just beg the Fed for another bailout in the name of fighting inequality, racism, climate change or something other social justice cause.

Novichok poisoning apparently has its perks.

Days after saying he would soon return to Russia as he prepares to leave the Charite hospital in Berlin, where he has been treated for more than a week, Russian opposition candidate Alexei Navalny posted a photo to his Instagram depicting him flanked by his winsome family, decked out in nursing scrubs and face masks.

“Hi, it’s @Navalny. I miss you!” Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny emerges from coma and posts his first Instagram, featuring his wife and kids. He says he is finally able to breathe completely on his own. “I highly recommend it,” he adds. https://t.co/XquqR6dk67 pic.twitter.com/pig57x2ZsN

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) September 15, 2020

Moscow has insisted in recent days that it has “nothing to hide” when it comes to the latest ‘alleged poisoning’ involving the notorious opposition politician.  Moscow has vehemently denied any role in the attack, and even offered to send investigators to Berlin to examine Navalny and insist in the investigation.

Yet, the accolades rolled in.

The world’s bravest man. The world’s bravest family.

— Patrick Maloney (@PatatLFPress) September 15, 2020

Journalists had previously pointed out that Navalny’s investigative journalism has brought him into conflict with a range of oligarchs, any one of whom could have organized the attack.

While Germany insists that a military lab found traces of Novichok, a deadly nerve agent, on Navalny, Russian doctors said no such evidence turned up in their exam. They have also insisted that these findings have been “independently corroborated” by Sweden and France.

In his Instagram post, Navalny revealed that he can breath again.

“I still can’t do many things, but yesterday I could breathe by myself the whole day,” Navalny said. “I did not use any outside help, not even the simplest valve in my throat. I liked it a lot.”

Navalny was reportedly poisoned last month, when he collapsed inside a private plane ferrying him from Siberia back to Moscow. He was treated at a hospital in Siberia before being air-lifted to Germany.

During regional elections held over the weekend, Russia’s ruling party suffered a handful of setbacks in city council votes, though they also won several landslide victories, as NBC News reported.