Boston Weighs Measure To Let Foreign Nationals Vote In Elections

Just in time for the upcoming midterm elections, Boston City Council is holding a hearing Tuesday to discuss the idea of voting rights for non-US citizens living in the country legally, according to Boston.com. 

The hearing called by Council President Andrea Campbell is aimed at a discussion on how to make city elections “more inclusive” for the roughly 190,000 foreign-born residents of the city, who would be allowed the right to vote in municipal races. 

That could include legal permanent residents, visa holders and those on Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. –Boston.com

Foreign-born residents account for around 28% of Boston’s population according to Campbell’s order, which claims non-US citizens paid $116 million in local and state taxes, while generating over $3.4 billion in spending according to a 2015 city report.

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SCOTUS Contender Brett Kavanaugh Sees Perils of Aggressive Administrative State

When Donald Trump picked Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court last year, one of the most frequently heard complaints concerned the nominee’s resistance to the doctrine that a court applying an ambiguous statute should defer to any “reasonable” interpretation favored by the administrative agency charged with carrying it out. If Trump chooses Brett Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy, we are likely to hear similar criticism, because the D.C. Circuit judge also has expressed concern about the threat that so-called Chevron deference poses to the rule of law and the separation of powers.

“Chevron has been criticized for many reasons,” Kavanaugh observed in a 2016 book review. “To begin with, it has no basis in the Administrative Procedure Act. So Chevron itself is an atextual invention by courts. In many ways, Chevron is nothing more than a judicially orchestrated shift of power from Congress to the Executive Branch. Moreover, the question of when to apply Chevron has become its own separate difficulty.”

Drawing on his experience in the George W. Bush administration, Kavanaugh wrote that “Chevron encourages the Executive Branch (whichever party controls it) to be extremely aggressive in seeking to squeeze its policy goals into ill-fitting statutory authorizations and restraints.” While “it is no surprise that Presidents and agencies often will do whatever they can within existing statutes,” he said, “that inherent aggressiveness is amped up significantly” by anticipation of Chevron deference. In fact, “executive branch agencies often think they can take a particular action unless it is clearly forbidden.”

As a judge, Kavanaugh has tried to rein in that tendency by developing the “major questions” (a.k.a. “major rules”) exception to the Chevron doctrine, which applies to agency decisions that have sweeping effects but are not clearly authorized. Last year he argued that the Federal Communications Commission’s regulatory imposition of “net neutrality” clearly qualified for that exception:

The FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rule is one of the most consequential regulations ever issued by any executive or independent agency in the history of the United States. The rule transforms the Internet by imposing common-carrier obligations on Internet service providers and thereby prohibiting Internet service providers from exercising editorial control over the content they transmit to consumers. The rule will affect every Internet service provider, every Internet content provider, and every Internet consumer. The economic and political significance of the rule is vast.

Kavanaugh was dissenting from a decision not to rehear a case in which a D.C. Circuit panel had upheld the FCC rule. “Congress did not clearly authorize the FCC to issue the net neutrality rule,” he noted. To the contrary, Congress had debated net neutrality for years without taking legislative action to establish that policy. But if “an agency wants to exercise expansive regulatory authority over some major social or economic activity,” Kavanaugh said, the Supreme Court’s precedents say “an ambiguous grant of statutory authority is not enough.” Therefore, he concluded, “If the Supreme Court’s major rules doctrine means what it says, then the net neutrality rule is unlawful because Congress has not clearly authorized the FCC to issue this major rule.”

As Notre Dame law professor Jeffrey Pojanowski noted at the time, the major questions exception offers a way to curb the problems created by Chevron deference without scrapping the doctrine entirely. “Judge Kavanaugh’s careful explication and reformulation of the ‘major questions’ exception is an important development in its own right,” Pojanowski wrote, “and a rich source for further reflection on the role of the courts in the administrative state.”

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Trump Voters Stand by Their Man as He Wrecks Their Jobs

His supporters were so enamored with him, then-candidate Donald Trump claimed in January 2016, that “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

Thankfully, the president isn’t shooting anyone in the street. But Trump’s theory about his supporters’ enduring love is being put the to test in a southern Missouri town where the White House’s trade policy is killing jobs.

And the crazy thing is, Trump might be right—so far, at least.

The Kansas City Star dispatched a reporter to Poplar Bluff, home to America’s largest manufacturer of nails, to find out how the steel tariffs were affecting Trump-supporting residents. Trump won 79 percent of the vote in Butler County, where Poplar Bluff is located. But the town of 17,000 could be decimated by the closure of the Mid Continent Nail Corporation, whose owners have warned that they may have to lay off hundreds of workers or even close their doors entirely as Trump’s tariffs increase the price of steel—a rather fundamental fixed cost when you’re in the business of making steel nails.

“This company, I think, couldn’t be a better example of the kind of damage that’s being done to America’s manufacturing jobs as a result of this extremely misguided policy,” company spokesman James Glassman told CNN last week.

Yet the Star’s reporter found residents who would “never hold the loss of those jobs against Trump” even as they acknowledge that his trade policies could cause serious problems not only for the workers at Mid Continent but for the town and region as a whole. Even though tariffs are “going to drive up the cost of everything, people are still going to stand behind him,” a chef named Eric Turner tells the Star.

And then there is this telling, and slightly terrifying, passage:

Sean [Foust] said if his friends who work there do lose their jobs, “I don’t think it will turn them” against the president, even if “on the surface, it’s going to look bad.” Why is that?

Mostly, tribalism. “There’s nothing he could do,” the son said, to alienate Republicans. And the same holds true for Democrats, since “everyone’s so set in their ways.”…

Nearby in the downtown parking lot, in between the train tracks and the farmers market, a man wearing a shirt emblazoned with a red, white and blue peace sign, who only gave his first name, John, said he’s “pretty worried” since two of his friends have already been laid off. But more important to him is that “there were so many illegals in the area taking jobs away.” And Trump “is better than the Muslim we had in the White House.” For him, a real threat to jobs is less frightening than an imagined one.

Could tribalism—or Trump’s cult of personality—be such a powerful force in national politics that it overturns one of the oldest rules in the political book: that people vote with their wallets? Polls continue to suggest that Republican voters mostly support Trump’s tariff agenda, even as analysis after analysis shows that the costs of the tariffs (and of the reciprocal tariffs launched by China and Europe) will overwhelmingly hit manufacturing and farming jobs—which is to say, jobs where Republicans and Trump supporters are over-represented.

Those polls, in turn, decrease the likelihood that Republicans in Congress will step up to stop Trump’s trade agenda.

That people often vote against what seems to be in their own self-interest is not new. From Kansas to the West Side of Manhattan, it is a phenomenon that has been the subject of many a think-piece. There’s probably something good—or at least vaguely noble—in the idea that voters can set aside pure self-interest to support what they see as policies aimed at the greater good, even if we might disagree, strongly, about what that greater good is.

When it comes to tariffs, though, it’s not at all clear what greater good is being achieved with the sacrifice of jobs in places like Poplar Bluff. The Trump administration has not outlined a clear plan for what it is trying to accomplish. Officials in China, the nominal target of Trump’s bellicose trade policies, are “absolutely confused” about what the Trump administration wants in terms of concessions, Politico reported last month. It is, of course, difficult to reach an agreement when neither side seems to know what the other side wants.

And it’s not like people in Poplar Bluff have a lot going for them. Median household income is just above $30,000, and more than a quarter of the town’s population lives below the poverty line. Butler County, where Poplar Bluff is located, has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. One in seven residents work in manufacturing jobs, including the 500 or so employed by Mid Continent Nail Corporation. Who knows how many other non-manufacturing jobs are supported by the existence of a large business like that, and could be lost if it shuts down.

Mid Continent is one of thousands of companies to ask the Commerce Department for a special waiver that will allow it to avoid paying the higher taxes created by Trump’s tariffs. Without the waiver, the 60 employees laid off in June could soon have company. Another 200 will be fired by the end of this month unless things change quickly, company executives tell U.S. News and World Report.

All of which leaves the impression that support for Trump’s tariffs is not something generated by a sense of a greater good. It’s not about voters agreeing to take a hit now because they understand it is necessary for something beneficial down the road. It seems to be, mostly, about tribalism. About the fact that our guy is “better than the Muslim we had in the White House,” even if his policies cost my job.

At least that’s how it seems for now. Once more jobs are actually lost, and perhaps once it becomes clear that the tariffs aren’t accomplishing whatever goals Trump has, perhaps that will change. The partisan hatred might not go away, but maybe voters will stay home.

Until then, parts of so-called Trump country seem to be fine with their man destroying their jobs to own the libs.

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Mish Rages At More “Give Everybody Free Money” Idiocy

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Annie Lowrey, the author of a new book on universal basic income says Trump should “shower people with money”.

In a New York Times Op-Ed Annie Lowrey says Trump Should Just Give People Money.

Lowrey claims Trump should “shower people with money, no strings attached“.

Lowery makes two blatant lies in her op-ed.

  • Universal income is a method backed by extensive research.

  • Universal income has a bipartisan pedigree.

Lesson in Scaling

Actually, there is zero research because it has never been tried in scale.

Free money was tried once in Canada. It seemingly “worked” only because everyone in Ontario gave “free” money for the benefit of residents of a single town in the province.

The town did benefit, but next up the scale would have been for everyone in the rest of Canada to give “free” money to everyone living in the province of Ontario.

Once you get to the stage of giving everyone in the country enough free money to abolish poverty, where the heck does the money come from?

Socialist Pedigrees

Lowrey notes that Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton, the Black Lives Matter movement, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are just a few of the free money policy converts and supporters.

Under such a proposal, Uncle Sam would send every American $500 or $1,000 a month, likely eliminating other stingier and less-effective programs.

Lowrey cites an absurd study from the Journal of Poverty, a socialist organization that supports a negative income tax. Here is the pertinent snip:

A group of prominent welfare economists recently examined such a policy and concluded it could be funded by getting rid of programs including SNAP, T.A.N.F. and the earned-income tax credit. Adding it onto what the government already does would cost something like $200 billion or $300 billion a year, which could be easily financed by repealing the Trump tax cuts and closing loopholes for rich companies and individuals.

Hallelujah!

Wait a second, first, let’s do the math.

The US Population is 328 million. Giving everyone $1,000 a month would cost $3.936 trillion.

Read that carefully. Yes, that is close to $4 trillion a year.

Let’s assume Lowrey really meant $1,000 a year, not month, although that is not what she said.

SNAP Math

Let’s do the SNAP math.

126.75 * 12 = $1521.

Oops. To break even with SNAP we would have to give everyone at least $1521 a year.

And what about Earned Income Credit? Medicaid?

Fancy that, so ensure that no one loses under the program we might have to give everyone $2,000 or $3,000 a year.

At $3,000 per year, the cost would be a “mere” $0.984 Trillion. At $2,000 per year the cost would still be an unaffordable $656 billion.

One More Try

If we gave just those 43 million people living in poverty $12,000 a year, the cost would be $516,000 billion a year, assuming they all made zero, which they don’t.

However, the suggestion does not coincide with Lowrey’s Universal Basic income for everybody. And it does not factor in things like inflation and the incentive to not work.

If you are making $12,000 a year and can get $12,000 a year for doing nothing, there will be many millions more who elect to not work.

What If?

Returning to Lowrey’s actual proposal of giving everyone $12,000 a year to live on, how many people would be scaling Trump’s wall to get into the US?

In Europe’s migration crisis, why did the migrants all scramble to get to Germany rather than stopping in Turkey, Greece, or Italy?

The obvious answer is Germany had the most free benefits.

There is no limit to demands for free money and services. Want more unborn, out of wedlock kids? Just give everyone in the US $12,000 a year and you will have millions more of them.

Math Challenged on Every Front

Are these “free money” advocates math challenged on every front? You bet.

They are also economic illiterates.

No Such Thing As Free Money

Returning to the initial absurd premise, there is no such thing as free money.

It has to come via taxation from productive members of society or via inflation from the printing press.

The latter has indeed be tried countless time with the same miserable results every time.

If everyone got a free $12,000 then rest assured $12,000 would be worth perhaps what $1,000 is worth today. The economic illiterates would then want $100,000 free money to “live on”.

Dear Ms. Lowrey

Dear Ms. Lowrey please take a look at Venezuela, a socialist “paradise” in the midst of hyperinflation.

If you prefer, please take a look at Zimbabwe and check out what happened to Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s monetary redistribution schemes.

In case you are too shell-shocked from this math to look it up, here is the answer: Human and capital flight in Zimbabwe led to hyperinflation.

Next, Ms. Lowrey, please ask yourself why the US has Google, Apple, and Microsoft, while France and the EU don’t. Similarly, why is Italy a basket case in the EU?

The answer is the US lets businesses thrive. The EU would breakup Google, Apple and Microsoft.

Please think about Google for a second. Google has all high-paying jobs. Starting as a mere search engine, Google has spawned massive amounts of technology in use in phones and under development in self-driving cars.

Only economic fools want to tax growth engines like that.

And for what? For your mathematically challenged notion that people can thrive on allegedly “free” money.

Dear Ms. Lowrey, please get a grip on reality.

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For #MeToo to Work, We Must Draw the Line Between Sexual Assault and Being a Jerk: New at Reason

At its best, the #MeToo movement has smashed open what had been a closed, whispered conversation, mostly occurring between women, about the prevalence of male sexual harassment and assault. It has exposed serial violent predators like Harvey Weinstein and serial abusive creeps like Louis C.K., and it has apparently led at least some men to rethink their own actions and the boundaries of acceptable behavior. “The #MeToo era has changed my work,” the psychotherapist Avi Klein wrote in a New York Times column. “If therapy has a reputation for navel gazing, this powerful moment has joined men in the room, forcing them to engage with topics that they would have earlier avoided.”

But with any movement, there’s a point where the initial excitement and sense of shared purpose fades a bit. It’s time to discuss exactly what the movement is for—what it’s trying to accomplish and which goals it should seek. No set of #MeToo allegations better highlights the importance of answering these questions clearly than the story of Junot Díaz, writes Jesse Singal.

View this article.

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Fed’s Underlying Inflation Gauge Warns Of Imminent Inflation Surge

As if inflation wasn’t “mysterious” enough to the Fed already, recently the New York Fed joined the Atlanta Fed in releasing its own measure to track underlying inflation called, simply, the Underlying Inflation Gauge. What is notable is that this latest inflation tracker shows prices behaving quite differently from traditional indexes this year.

According to the UIG’s August measure, broad inflation came in at a red hot 3.27%, the highest since September 2005. That compares with just 2.8% annual inflation according to the Labor Department’s CPI and an even more modest 2.0% as measured by the preferred PCE gauge of Fed policy makers.

Why the gap? Because the full data UIG incorporates dozens of additional variables outside of prices, including the unemployment rate, stock prices, bond yields and purchasing managers’ indexes. Furthermore, if Dudley is right, and there is structural disinflation going on, then the UIG would be much higher using a ‘traditional’ supply curve. Here, as Citi cynically noted recently, “structural disinflation is far from permanent, as the Mayor of London’s latest regulatory action illustrated very clearly. Anti-trust or other regulatory measures can end the new supply paradigm at any time.“

Additionally, a lot of the disinflation in the New Economy may have been a function of high G10 unemployment, and urbanization in China: both of which have now ended as drivers of disinflation. 

But what is most troubling is that when one overlays the Underlying Inflation Gauge with core CPI, with a 15 month lead for the former, what emerges is the following troubling chart: it shows that all else equal, core CPI is set to spike in the coming months, and from its current level, is set to rise as high as 2.8%, matching the highest print since 2006 when the Fed Funds rate was around 5%, and a level which not even the Fed’s latest “symmetric” mandate would be able to ignore, forcing Jay Powell to tighten even more aggressively over the coming year.

 

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Nordea Warns ‘Rocky Road’ Is Not Just A Nice Ice-Cream

via Nordea,

A CYCLE OF TARIFFS, BUT SO FAR MANAGEABLE FOR GROWTH

Trade politics have remained high on the agenda, with China, EU and the US in a cycle of responding to each other’s tariffs. The macroeconomic impact should be small from what we have seen so far, although downside risks to growth must be rising. For instance, if the White House starts to mull leaving the WTO, as has been reported, this would remove a back-stop for global trade and increase uncertainty, which might depress business investments. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

The EU’s decision to send European Commission President Juncker to Washington, as well as comments from the US Ambassador to Germany and from German Chancellor Merkel, is consistent with a tentative cooling of the trade tensions between the EU and the US. Negotiations may be taking place, mostly out of the eyes of the public.

CHART 1: DR COPPER NOT LOOKING TOO DANDY

Industrial metal prices have been dropping, consistent with i) rising fears of a supply glut due to trade tensions, as well as ii) the general weakening of the global industrial cycle. Emerging markets, and especially China, have been in focus, in part due to the substantial weakening of the CNY. Indeed, EM FX just had its worst quarter since 2011. However, worrying about emerging markets has started to become old hat (ie a consensus proposition), and as a result, some investors are mulling over whether to start accumulating EM assets once more.

EM ASIA OUTFLOWS MIGHT PICK UP ON THE BACK OF CREDIT PAIN

While emerging Asia has seen equity outflows this year – the worst situation since 2008 – it risks spreading to debt products. The build-up in EM debt levels over the past decade remains concerning to many: EM corporate debt has tripled since 2007, and recent price action in the Asian credit space is worrying. If debt flows are truly turning away from EM Asia, this could be the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end (given the aggregated long position of recent years). For market participants wanting to ponder potentially positive game changers for EM, we published this thematic piece: Could spillbacks trigger a Buenos Aires accord?

CHART 2: EM ASIA EXPERIENCING EQUITY OUTFLOWS; ARE DEBT PRODUCTS NEXT?

In Europe, activity appears to be stabilising, and the economic surprise index is heading higher after having been the worst within the G10 for 35 trading days in a row. This dampens near-term EA growth fears and is supportive of the idea that some of the setback in activity has been driven by temporary factors such as the inclement weather. European political risks also appear to be fading somewhat, even though Italy is sticking to its according to some “too expansive” budget plan. The recent improvement in the EUR surprise index has helped the G10 economic index rise, which is positive for risky assets.

CHART 3: G10 SURPRISE INDEX HAS BEEN HEADING HIGHER

 

ROCKY ROAD IS NOT ONLY A FLAVOURFUL ICE CREAM, IT’S WHAT TO EXPECT

However, we will likely see negative spillovers on both the Euro area and the US from recent emerging market turmoil some time after the summer. For an explanation of spillovers and spillbacks, please see here. The combination of macro trends, liquidity risks and stretched equity valuations/margin expectations for 2019 should lead to a continued rocky road with higher volatility and a negative tilt for risky assets (see Nordea View). You might think such a rocky road would usually prompt central banks to turn a tad more dovish, but we believe higher inflation rates will prevent that.

CHART 4: EXPECT NEGATIVE SPILLBACKS ON DEVELOPED MARKETS AFTER THE SUMMER.

A lot of bond-positive news has recently been digested for the Euro area, however, and with a nascent lull in trade tensions and signs of improving Euro-area data, and ECB officials apparently unhappy with too soft pricing of the ECB, we think 10y swap rates should be ripe for a move higher. We expect the uptrend in 10y swap rates since the end of 2016 to remain intact (support seen at 85bp).

CHART 5: YIELDS SHOULD BE HEADING HIGHER AS PRESIDENT TRUMP WON’T BE LEAVING OFFICE PREMATURELY

THE DOLLAR WILL TRIGGER LOWER S&P500 EARNINGS FORECASTS

The US company report season for the second quarter is about to start. Earnings estimates have been revised markedly higher this year as a result of the US tax reform, underpinning equity indices in the process. The Q2 results will also likely be stellar. However, we argue the broader analyst collective may be missing something.

CHART 6: US EPS ESTIMATES TO BE PRESSURED BY THE DOLLAR

The general practice among sell-side analysts is to incorporate spot rates in medium-term forecasts. Since last updating their forecasts, the trade-weighted USD has strengthened by roughly 6%. As 40-50% of S&P500 revenues stem from abroad, the unhedged translation effect on 2019-2020 forecasts should be in the range of a negative 2.5%-3.0%. If companies remind the sell-side of this or sound more worried about trade, we may see volatility pick up. An even larger share of profits is created abroad for the FAANG equities: could the leadership of tech be threatened?

WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN COMING WEEKS?

Politics are likely to remain important across global markets. First, will the tentative lull in trade tensions between the EU and US grow into something material, or will we see setbacks? President Trump seemingly played both good cop and bad cop with the North Korean leader only months ago, and something similar cannot be ruled out with regard to trade. One can only hope that Mr Juncker will still be welcome in Washington later in July.

Second, tensions have risen ahead of the NATO summit in Brussels (July 11-12), as the US President is not too happy with the low level of defence spending among several allies. Geopolitically parts of Europe are in a tight spot given a lack of military capability and a resurgent Russia, meaning strong US backing is required. But how do you square this with EU countries playing hard ball with Trump on trade? And does Trump support the idea of an EU army?

Third, President Trump will meet with Russia’s President Putin in Helsinki (July 16) and are set to discuss a large range of topics from election meddling to nerve-agents to Crimea. The meeting might result in further signs that the Liberal world order is ending (a geopolitical Minsky moment, if you will), or it might not.

On top of such political events, we have the usual batch of macro culprits.

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Why the Heck Are Taxpayers Bankrolling Episodes of The Bachelorette?

'The Bachelorette'How would you feel if your government paid more than half a million dollars to help cover the costs of production for a really lame reality television show?

Ask the people of Virginia. The state’s tourism agency paid $536,000 to bring an episode of The Bachelorette to Richmond, of all places, in exchange for some promotion of the state’s “Virginia is for Lovers” tourism motto.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch got the details. The Virginia Tourism Corp. gave $300,000 to the show itself. It gave another $236,130 to “defray the costs” of meals, rooms, and production space at two hotels where the show’s staff stayed during filming.

These are direct subsidies to the private sector. They aren’t even tax credits. In exchange, the state of Virginia got “exposure.” Specifically, it got an in-show shot of a “Love” sign, a reference to the “Virginia is for lovers” motto, and some other minor mentions. Even the Times-Dispatch news story casts a bit of shade on the idea that this is significant “exposure” by putting the words in quotation marks.

The justification for giving Virginia citizens’ tax dollars to a Hollywood production company is that this “exposure” will increase tourism to the state, a claim that would be a challenge to prove. The story is full of typical marketing buzzword blather from tourism officials (you may check “branding opportunity” and “thinking outside the box” off your bingo cards). An official claims with a completely straight face that the state received $47 million in “publicity value” for that single episode of the show, which was viewed by 5.22 million people.

Virginia, like many states, gives out all sorts of direct subsidies, tax credits, and other benefits to TV shows that shoot there. They justify this by insisting that the spending pays off in economic activity within the state—the same argument used to justify giving money to private sports stadiums. Virginia offers $700,000 in subsidies and $6.5 million in tax credits to the television show Homeland, then turns around and claims more than $75 million in “economic impact.”

Economic experts tend to think this is bullshit. When somebody tells you it’s possible to get $47 million in “publicity value” off a single episode of a reality television show revolving around painfully artificial romances, you should probably question his other financial figures. Another episode of the show went to Lake Tahoe, where the producers got another plum deal, though the details were not made public. In that case, the president of the local visitors’ bureau said they saw “a spike in web traffic, newsletter subscriptions, social media followers and wedding inquiries.” That’s some nicely vague analysis of the benefits that doesn’t actually indicate “economic activity.” It does, however, read like what’s going to end up on an end-of-year report justifying this visitors’ bureau’s work.

Meanwhile, try to imagine what it must feel like to be working at any of the hotels in Richmond that didn’t get to play host for a show. Their competitors got a direct infusion of money from the state. Virginia has a hotel occupancy tax of 5 percent, and most of that goes to the state. Fundamentally this means that all the other hotels of Richmond helped pay for the costs of the production crews of The Bachelor to stay in hotels that they have to compete with to stay in business.

Critics note that the benefits from the subsidies often go to people outside the state. More than half of the money spent for this episode went to the production company. And so those who support these types of subsidies lean heavily on that “economic impact” claim, using the concept of economic multipliers—that the money spent during the production in Richmond filters back out into the community and is magnified when it gets passed along for other market needs.

But this ignores the opportunity costs. What could have been done with the money had it not been spent on a single episode of a television show? Are there no infrastructure improvements the state could be paying for instead? Oh, but that might involve taking some of the $26.8 million away from the state’s tourism budget.

States don’t just exaggerate the benefits; they conceal the costs. Did the citizens of Virginia truly get a good value from spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars reimbursing a couple of hotels in Richmond? Probably not. In fact, these shows are the ones that go shopping around, seeing where they can get the best deals from municipal and state tourism organizations. This competition between cities to attract television and film crews creates an environment where the government keeps funneling more and more of the citizens’ tax dollars to the production companies.

In The Bachelor‘s terms, city and state tourism and film bureau officials are begging drunkenly in the courtyard for a rose and then trying to convince us in camera confessionals that they’ve got the perfect plan and are sure they’re going to win. The idea that cities desperately pleading with production companies to come film there are also at the same time getting great deals for the taxpayers is as absurd as thinking that anybody on The Bachelor is in love with anything other than the prospect of becoming famous.

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“We Are Headed For The Status Of A Colony”: Boris Johnson’s Full Resignation Letter

The much anticipated resignation letter penned by the former UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson has been released, and in as expected, he does not mince his words in unleashing a brutal attack on Thersa May, warning that “we have postponed crucial decisions — including the preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November — with the result that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system.”

He then adds that while “Brexit should be about opportunity and hope” and “a chance to do things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of the UK as an open, outward-looking global economy”, he warns that the “dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.“

He then compares May’s proposal to a submission even before it has been received by the EU, noting that “what is even more disturbing is that this is our opening bid. This is already how we see the end state for the UK — before the other side has made its counter-offer. It is as though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them.”

And his punchline: the UK is headed for the status of a colony:

In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony — and many will struggle to see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement

Explaining his decision to resing, he then says that “we must have collective responsibility. Since I cannot in all conscience champion these proposals, I have sadly concluded that I must go.”

It remains to be seen if his passionate defense of Brexit will stir enough MPs to indicate they are willing to back a vote of no confidence, and overthrow Theresa May in what would be effectively a coup, resulting in new elections and chaos for the Brexit process going forward.

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg adds, the fact that Boris Johnson, or those around him, made sure his resignation statement came out in time for the evening news – before it was formally issued in the traditional way by May’s office, hints at his continued interest in leading the Conservative Party.

His full letter is below (highlights ours):

Dear Theresa,

It is more than two years since the British people voted to leave the European Union on an unambiguous and categorical promise that if they did so they would be taking back control of their democracy.

They were told that they would be able to manage their own immigration policy, repatriate the sums of UK cash currently spent by the EU, and, above all, that they would be able to pass laws independently and in the interests of the people of this country.

Brexit should be about opportunity and hope. It should be a chance to do things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of the UK as an open, outward-looking global economy.

That dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.

We have postponed crucial decisions — including the preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November — with the result that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system.

It now seems that the opening bid of our negotiations involves accepting that we are not actually going to be able to make our own laws. Indeed we seem to have gone backwards since the last Chequers meeting in February, when I described my frustrations, as Mayor of London, in trying to protect cyclists from juggernauts. We had wanted to lower the cabin windows to improve visibility; and even though such designs were already on the market, and even though there had been a horrific spate of deaths, mainly of female cyclists, we were told that we had to wait for the EU to legislate on the matter.

So at the previous Chequers session we thrashed out an elaborate procedure for divergence from EU rules. But even that now seems to have been taken off the table, and there is in fact no easy UK right of initiative. Yet if Brexit is to mean anything, it must surely give Ministers and Parliament the chance to do things differently to protect the public. If a country cannot pass a law to save the lives of female cyclists —when that proposal is supported at every level of UK Government — then I don’t see how that country can truly be called independent.

Conversely, the British Government has spent decades arguing against this or that EU directive, on the grounds that it was too burdensome or ill-thought out. We are now in the ludicrous position of asserting that we must accept huge amounts of precisely such EU law, without changing an iota, because it is essential for our economic health — and when we no longer have any ability to influence these laws as they are made.

In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony — and many will struggle to see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement.

It is also clear that by surrendering control over our rulebook for goods and agrifoods (and much else besides) we will make it much more difficult to do free trade deals. And then there is the further impediment of having to argue for an impractical and undeliverable customs arrangement unlike any other in existence.

What is even more disturbing is that this is our opening bid. This is already how we see the end state for the UK — before the other side has made its counter-offer. It is as though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them. Indeed, I was concerned, looking at Friday’s document, that there might be further concessions on immigration, or that we might end up effectively paying for access to the single market.

On Friday I acknowledged that my side of the argument were too few to prevail, and congratulated you on at least reaching a Cabinet decision on the way forward. As I said then, the Government now has a song to sing. The trouble is that I have practised the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat.

We must have collective responsibility. Since I cannot in all conscience champion these proposals, I have sadly concluded that I must go.

I am proud to have served as Foreign Secretary in your Government. As I step down, I would like first to thank the patient officers of the Metropolitan Police who have looked after me and my family, at times in demanding circumstances.
I am proud too of the extraordinary men and women of our diplomatic service. Over the last few months they have shown how many friends this country has around the world, as 28 governments expelled Russian spies in an unprecedented protest at the attempted assassination of the Skripals. They have organised a highly successful Commonwealth summit and secured record international support for this Government’s campaign for 12 years of quality education for every girl, and much more besides. As I leave office, the FCO now has the largest and by far the most effective diplomatic network of any country in Europe — a continent which we will never leave.

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Trump Slams Pfizer, Warns “We Will Respond” To Rising Drug Prices

Once again, with the swipe of a few digits, President Trump has knocked a few billion in market cap of stocks as he tweeted that Pfizer and others “should be ashamed that they have raised drug prices for no reason,” criticizing the company for offering cheaper prices abroad than in the U.S. and pledging that “we will respond.”

The response was swift – PFE erasing the day’s gains and weighing on The Dow…

As Bloomberg reports, Trump has promised repeatedly to drive down drug prices, to little effect so far. Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that Pfizer had raised prices on about 100 drugs, following a pattern of regular increases that the company takes each year.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2J4yQmd Tyler Durden