12 Good Things That Might Happen Today, None of Which Involve Trump or Biden

westendrf525045

The 2020 election has so been so dominated by Biden versus Trump insanity that a lot of consequential ballot initiates have been getting short shrift. But today, voters in various U.S. locales will have the opportunity to usher in some pretty exciting—and libertarian—policies, as well as the chance to reject a few really bad ideas.

Let’s start with the good, shall we?

Proposition 22 in California
California’s Proposition 22 would undo some of the damage wrought by A.B. 5, the 2019 state law that reclassified all sorts of independent contractors and freelancers in California as full-fledged employees. Pushed as a way to stick it to disfavored businesses like Uber and Lyft, the law has proved detrimental to workers across a range of industries, infringing on their ability to work when and how they choose as well as leading to a lot of lost jobs. If Proposition 22 is passed, it would help mitigate these ill effects for people who drive or do deliveries by allowing them to be classified as independent contractors once again.

Proposition 207 in Arizona
Arizona residents will get the chance to legalize recreational marijuana sales by voting for Proposition 207 (also dubbed the “Smart and Safe Act”). “If passed, it would allow…adults 21 and older to purchase up to one ounce of cannabis and have up to six plants at their home,” explains Steve Cottrell, president of Curaleaf Arizona. “Adult-use cannabis products would be subject to state and local sales taxes, with an additional 16 percent excise tax.”

South Dakota Amendment A
Another marijuana legalization measure, this ballot initiative would create a constitutional amendment “to legalize the recreational use of marijuana and require the South Dakota State Legislature to pass laws providing for the use of medical marijuana and the sale of hemp by April 1, 2022.”

Initiative 190 in Montana
Montana residents also have the chance to approve recreational marijuana. Voting yes on Montana Initiative 190 would mean “legalizing the possession and use of marijuana for adults over the age of 21, imposing a 20% tax on marijuana sales, requiring the Department of Revenue to develop rules to regulate marijuana businesses, and allowing for the resentencing or expungement of marijuana-related crimes.”

Public Question 1 in New Jersey
If New Jersey’s Public Question 1 passes, it will “legalize the possession and use of marijuana for persons age 21 and older and legalize the cultivation, processing, and sale of retail marijuana.”

Initiative 65 in Mississippi
Mississippians get to vote on legalizing medical marijuana. A citizen-led ballot measure, Initiative 65, would OK it for a variety of conditions. Meanwhile, Initiative 65A—a government-led measure that’s been accused of being floated just to confuse voters—would legalize medical marijuana for terminally ill people only.

Initiative 429 in Nebraska
This ballot measure would legalize all sorts of gambling at licensed racetracks. “Currently, Nebraska outlaws gambling, except with respect to the state lottery, licensed raffles, and bingo,” notes Ballotpedia.

Measure 109 in Oregon
Oregon’s Measure 109 would let people legally purchase and consume hallucinogenic mushrooms under the care of a psilocybin administrator. If passed, it would give the Oregon Health Authority two years to “determine who is eligible to be licensed as a facilitator, determine what qualifications, education, training, and exams are needed, and create a code of professional conduct for facilitators,” says Ballotpedia.

Ballot Measure 2 in Alaska and Question 2 in Massachusetts
Ballot initiatives in Alaska and Massachusetts would establish ranked-choice voting, in which voters rank candidates by order of preference instead of just voting for one candidate.

Proposition 25 in California
Voting yes on Proposition 25 will help bring more fairness to the bail system. “A ‘yes’ vote is to uphold the contested legislation, Senate Bill 10 (SB 10), which would replace cash bail with risk assessments for detained suspects awaiting trials,” Ballotpedia explains.

Measure 110 in Oregon
This measure would lessen penalties for all sorts of illegal drugs—including heroin and cocaine—moving personal possession of them from serious criminal infractions to something warranting classes or a small fine.

Alas, this year’s ballot measures aren’t all about legalizing drugs, making the criminal justice system fairer, and negating bad workplace regulations. A number of initiatives also seek to limit liberty and individual rights and roll back positive reforms. Here are a few of the worst:

Proposition 20 in California
This California ballot measure “would undo significant criminal justice system reforms passed by California voters in recent years at the very moment that many other states are finally starting to make needed reforms,” explains policy analyst Alix Ollivier with the Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that publishes this site):

Prop. 20, supported by groups such as the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, seeks to address complaints from law enforcement groups that claim it has become too difficult to prosecute repeat offenders, that more minor offenses should be charged as felonies, and they should be able to take DNA from people that commit minor crimes in efforts to expand the DNA database used to help solve crimes.

The initiative would roll back reforms that have been made to the classification of crimes considered non-violent, create two new crimes that would be added to state law—serial theft and organized theft, and make parole more difficult to attain for those convicted of various crimes.

The measure is largely written as law enforcement’s effort to unwind the statewide criminal justice ballot measures voters passed in 2014 and 2016.

Illinois Allow for Graduated Income Tax Amendment
The state is seeking permission to raise people’s income taxes from a flat rate of 4.95 percent to 7.75 percent for households making over $250,000 and 7.99 percent for households with annual incomes over $750,000. The governor already signed a law to this effect last year, but to enact it requires a constitutional amendment since the state constitution bans a progressive income tax.

Proposition 208 in Arizona
Another ballot initiative intended to raise taxes, Arizona’s Proposition 208 would almost double the marginal income tax rate—from 4.5 percent to 8 percent—for high-earning individuals and households. It would also raise taxes on small businesses, since “small businesses pay their taxes on the individual portion of the tax code,” explains Arizona Chamber of Commerce President Glenn Hamer. If Proposition 208 passes, “small businesses will pay a top rate of 8 percent, much higher than the corporate rate of 4.9 percent. We would be the only state in the country to basically double the tax on small businesses, and at a time when so many are struggling.”

Proposition 115 in Colorado
Colorado’s Proposition 115 would criminalize abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy. “Performing a prohibited abortion would be a Class 1 misdemeanor (the most serious level of misdemeanor in Colorado), which would be punishable by a fine ranging from $500 to $5,000 and not by jail time,” and “medical professionals who are found to have performed a prohibited abortion would have their medical licenses suspended by the Colorado Medical Board for at least three years,” explains Ballotpedia. “Under the initiative, abortions after 22 weeks would be lawful if the physician believes it is immediately necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman.”

Louisiana Amendment 1
Amendment 1 aims to ready Louisiana to curtail abortion access should Roe v. Wade be overturned by amending the state’s constitution to say nothing in it “shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.” As the Wall Street Journal explains, “should a more solidly conservative U.S. Supreme Court give states more authority to regulate abortion, Louisiana state courts would have less ability to strike down antiabortion laws” if Amendment 1 passes.

Proposition 21 in California
This measure would allow for the expansion of state rent control policies.

QUICK HITS

• In a long Twitter thread, Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.) lays out the many, many ways that President Donald Trump has failed libertarians:

• Folks in charge of the Grammy Awards are making a big deal about replacing the “world music” award category with the almost-identical category of “global music.”

• “An Eastern Washington teen went to a mental health clinic for help. Eight days later, he died in a jail cell.“

• The Daily Caller blows holes in Trumpian theories about Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his son, Hunter:

• What will the post-election major parties look like?

• Why the mobile-only streaming platform Quibi failed.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/32cdGPw
via IFTTT

Hey, Teacher! Don’t Leave Those Kids at Home

Kids schools coronavirus

As newly detected COVID-19 infections in France spiraled toward 40,000 a day—almost three times the U.S. rate in per capita terms—President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country would undertake a second national lockdown, starting last Friday. But there was one big difference from France’s last lockdown: This time, the schools would remain open.

It’s a sharp contrast with large parts of the U.S., where there has been substantial resistance to reopening schools. Teachers unions in affluent Fairfax, Virginia, recently petitioned for the district’s schools to remain closed for the entire 2020–21 school year. Last week, hundreds of teachers held a sick-out in Idaho’s largest school district, protesting plans to bring kids back to classrooms. 

Many political leaders have demonstrated the same extreme reluctance to resume in-person learning. Two weeks ago, following an uptick in Boston’s positive test rate, Mayor Marty Walsh announced that all city schools would halt in-person learning. Earlier in October, just days after in-person classes recommenced, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered 124 public schools to shut in New York City COVID-19 hotspots while allowing bars and restaurants to remain open. 

This reluctance has by no means been unanimous. In July, the Florida Department of Education ordered public schools to reopen by the end of August. Scientists, Gov. Ron DeSantis explained, are “just not finding the kids to be major vectors” of disease spread. He also called the school closures “one of the biggest public health mistakes in modern American history.”

For proponents of reopening, the benefits of in-person learning are straightforward: for kids, greater learning and less social isolation; for parents, a greater ability to work. Data from D.C.’s public schools, for example, show an 11 percentage point decline in the fraction of kindergarten students meeting literacy targets. And one economist estimates that school closures drove 1.6 million mothers from the labor force by September. Both factors are particularly relevant for younger children, who are more likely to struggle with online learning and to require supervision if at home.

Meanwhile, opponents argue that reopening schools will spread the disease further: 7-year-olds, not known for being proficient in social distancing, will transmit the virus among themselves and then infect their teachers and families. As a result, they say, we could see large numbers of dead children, teachers, and grandmas. In location after location teachers unions insist they want to resume in-person learning, but insist that doing so just is not safe.

Fortunately, more than nine months into the pandemic, evidence is now available to litigate many of these disputes. For example, it has been clear for months that COVID-19 poses a low mortality risk for children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just 80 American kids under age 15 are known to have died from COVID-19. (In the same time period, around 19,000 have died from other causes.)

In Florida, which provides extremely detailed data on COVID-19 infections, there have been 5 deaths from more than 48,000 known cases in this age group, a case fatality rate of approximately 0.01 percent. (The infection mortality rate,  including undetected cases, is likely substantially lower.) Kids are at a much greater risk during a typical flu season, and obviously society does not think about shutting down schools then.

The far more relevant risk of reopening schools is that kids would spread it to older teachers and family members, who are much more susceptible to COVID-19. In recent weeks, we’ve gotten valuable data on this from states like Florida, where large numbers of schools have been open since mid-August, allowing plentiful opportunity for rampant spread to occur if it is likely to do so.

Florida releases two datasets that are useful for our purposes. The first is the daily case line data—data on every individual in Florida who has tested positive from a PCR or antigen test, including info on age, race, county, date of infection, and whether the patient ultimately is hospitalized or dies. Second: Since the academic year began, Florida has been releasing data on cases associated with schools, covering any student, teacher, or staff member who tests positive.

It turns out there has not been an explosion in cases among school-aged kids since reopening. In fact, comparing September and October against August, when schools had only just begun to reopen, the daily number of detected cases in children ages 5 to 17 has fallen by 33 percent. Cases across all age groups have also fallen sharply—by 40%—over the same period, so to be conservative we can instead look at cases among children as a share of all detected cases. Measured this way, there has been a relative increase in cases among children, but only a very muted one; the share of detected cases involving school-aged children has risen from 7.6 percent to 8.6 percent. (You might wonder whether an increase of this magnitude might be driven by increased testing of children since schools reopened. While this seems possible, a similar relative increase has occurred in the share of children among people hospitalized with COVID-19.) Further, by looking at each age specifically, a consistent pattern arises: The increase in cases is particularly small for elementary-school-aged children and largest for those in late high school.

Since colleges have observed substantial outbreaks while minimal spread has been linked to child care centers, this variation by age seems unsurprising. While it was never realistic to hope that schools would be magically immune from spreading the virus entirely, these numbers strongly suggest that schools aren’t driving substantial spread, especially among younger children.

What about the data on COVID-19 cases in schools? Excluding universities and colleges, slightly more than 7,400 students, teachers, and staffers tested positive from September 6 to October 24. At first glance, it is not immediately apparent whether this is evidence for or against the idea that schools drive spread. After all, there are more than a million school-aged children in Florida, and these data don’t separate people who caught the virus at school from those infected elsewhere.

But if schools are driving spread, those 7,400 cases should be concentrated in a small number of schools, many of which should have large numbers of cases. For example, if five schools have 500 cases each, while most schools have zero cases, this would suggest that a lot of in-school transmission is occurring (unless there is some other explanation—for example, if those schools happen to be in counties with extremely high infection rates). Conversely, if within-school spread is rare, those 7,400 cases should be spread over a large number of schools, each with very few cases (with children largely being infected outside of school, and not spreading it much while at school, thus producing few large clusters).

Which do we see? Among schools that have at least one case, the average elementary school has only 2.17 cases. For middle and high schools, the numbers are 2.76 and 5.55 cases, respectively. Of the institutions that reported at least one case over this seven-week period, 45 percent of elementary schools and 37 percent of middle schools have no other cases recorded; 95 percent and 89 percent, respectively, have five or fewer cases. Even allowing for undercounting due to non-comprehensive testing, it is very difficult to square this with substantial spread at elementary and middle schools. And while high schools are reporting more cases per school, some of this is presumably due to them typically having more students. 

The data also provide insight on whether students are infecting teachers in substantial numbers. Looking at schools with at least one student case, only 17.6 percent have any recorded teacher cases over the entire seven-week sample, with little variation by student age. This is strikingly low—and it almost certainly overestimates the risk teachers face, because it includes cases where the teacher was infected before the student and cases where the infections occurred many weeks apart. Common sense also suggests that undercounting is likely to be a less relevant factor: Even if kids are not being tested much, teachers are likely being more vigilant about being tested, especially once a positive case has been announced in their school community. 

The experience in Florida adds to a growing mound of evidence—not just in the U.S. but in places as far-flung as Iceland, Australia, and Singapore—that young children are rarely superspreaders. Policy makers should remember the substantial harms of keeping schools shut, and the minimal disease spread that schools (especially elementary and middle schools) appear to be causing.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2I0dT0Z
via IFTTT

Machete-Wielding Man Arrested In Central Paris As France Braces For Copycat Attacks

Machete-Wielding Man Arrested In Central Paris As France Braces For Copycat Attacks

Tyler Durden

Tue, 11/03/2020 – 09:41

France is in a continued state of ‘high security alert’ after a series of Islamist terror attacks rocked the country leaving multiple innocent bystanders dead and wounded. Other European countries too have increased security given the latest mass shooting by jihadists roving the streets and randomly killing in a Jewish neighborhood of Vienna Monday night. 

And now on Tuesday French police descended on a hotel to apprehend a man who had been seen walking the streets of central Paris wielding a machete. Local reports said the man barricaded himself inside the building.

Multiple witnesses had called police when at around 11:30am they saw “a man armed with a machete in the corridors of the Metro at Père-Lachaise station,” according to a Paris police spokesman.

The incident was enough for police to shut down the entire street after the man was seen entering a hotel. The hotel was surrounded with snipers positioned on surrounding buildings.

It’s unclear at this point if he attempted to attack or swing it at anyone, but it understandably caused momentary panic in the area, given last month’s beheadings. So far there’s been no reports of victims, while police said the investigation is ongoing.

One eyewitness was cited in a UK media report as saying:

“There’s a guy walking through the halls of Père Lachaise with a machete. I watched my life pass, not knowing if I should stay in the metro or run back.“

No doubt police are taking no chances and it’s likely that anyone seen brandishing a weapon in public, especially something like a long blade or sword, will trigger a full emergency SWAT response. 

On Monday night four people were killed in Vienna when terrorists began random killings in the center of the city. One gunman was still at large hours after the terror attack and was being pursued by police and military.

Some reports are suggesting the man apprehended in central Paris was prepared to possibly carry out a ‘copycat’ attack.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/34RM4k9 Tyler Durden

Deutsche Bank Wants To “Sever Ties” With Trump By Offloading Business Loans

Deutsche Bank Wants To “Sever Ties” With Trump By Offloading Business Loans

Tyler Durden

Tue, 11/03/2020 – 09:31

Considering all the airtime that CNN and MSNBC have devoted to speculation about President Trump’s alleged ties to shadowy Russian financiers, the New York Times’ decision to publish all those details from the president’s tax returns has ironically proven that Trump doesn’t owe any substantial money to “Russia”.

Rather, while Trump’s company owes millions of dollars in personally-backed loans, the lender isn’t some oligarch; it’s Deutsche Bank, which, as has been widely reported by now, established a relationship with Trump in the late 1990s, and continued to finance the president’s businesses during and after “the Apprentice” era. Late last month, the NYT published a story filling in the details about how Trump managed to strong-arm DB into forgiving hundreds of millions of dollars Trump owed when he was just weeks away from default during the financial crisis.

As one can probably imagine, all of the investigations into President Trump’s finances have created serious headaches for the bank. And now – on election day, no less – Reuters reports that some of DB’s top risk managers are plotting ways to get the Trump loans off the bank’s books, a process that could become easier if he fails to secure a second term.

If Trump loses and Democrats sweep the Senate, the bank fears that a battle over Trump’s tax returns that has stalled in the courts might heat up, as a newly emboldened Sen Elizabeth Warren carries out the financial version of a colonoscopy in the hunt for wrongdoing committed by the president or the bank (during its dealings with the president).

But a loss could also make it easier for the bank to dump the loans, presumably since Trump becoming a private citizen again would make it easier for the holder of the loans to collect on his promised collateral if Trump should default.

So far, the Trump Org has only had to pay interest on the loans, which are backed by golf courses in Miami and hotels in Washington and Chicago. The entire principal is outstanding, and the loans come due in 2023 and 2024. The advent of the coronavirus outbreak has only increased the risk on the loans (as the properties backing them have now moved deeper into the red), making DB all the more eager to sell.

But the most important detail in the report comes at the very end, when the reporters explain how the bank would essentially be forced to extend the term once again if Trump were to win a second term, since executives fear the backlash of trying to seize assets from a sitting president.

If Trump is not in office, Deutsche Bank executives feel that it would be easier for them to demand repayment, foreclose if he is not able to pay it off or refinance, or try to sell the loans, according to two of the three bank officials.

Since Trump has personally guaranteed all the loans, Deutsche Bank could also seize the president’s assets if he is unable to repay, two of the three bank officials said.

If Trump wins a second term, Deutsche Bank executives feel their options would be fewer, the three bank officials said. The bank wouldn’t want the negative publicity inherent with seizing assets from a sitting president and would likely extend the loans until he is out of office, two of the bank officials said.

The bottom line, the three bank officials said, is that the matter won’t be resolved until well after the election.

Trump is probably worried about the financial fallout should he lose. But a defeat wouldn’t exactly set him on the road to ruin. After all, Trump made hundreds of millions of dollars in deals for endorsements and licensing just off the strength of ‘the Apprentice’. We imagine plenty of business opportunities will be waiting if Trump does leave the Oval Office.

We have just one question though: If Russian backers buy the loans, would that finally make Trump a ‘Russia-backed’ president?

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3jNiGQw Tyler Durden

Judge Rules Gov. Newsom Violated California Constitution (Again) With June Order For Mail-In Ballots

Judge Rules Gov. Newsom Violated California Constitution (Again) With June Order For Mail-In Ballots

Tyler Durden

Tue, 11/03/2020 – 09:18

Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,

A judge tentatively ruled on Nov. 2 that California Gov. Gavin Newsom overstepped his authority when he issued an executive order in June requiring all counties in the state to send mail-in ballots to every registered voter for the Nov. 3 election.

Sutter County Superior Court Judge Sarah Heckman said that the move was “an unconstitutional exercise of legislative power,” and also blocked Newsom “from exercising any power under the California Emergency Services Act which amends, alters, or changes existing statutory law, or makes new statutory law or legislative policy.”

The governor’s June executive order violated the California Constitution, Heckman ruled, because it created new law. Only the legislature has the power to create laws under California’s constitutional separation of powers.

Heckman’s ruling (pdf) found that the California Emergency Services Act gives Newsom authority “to suspend certain statutes, not to amend any statutes or create new ones.”

The Nov. 3 election will be unaffected by the ruling because the California Legislature subsequently voted to enact the same mail-in ballot policy enacted by the governor with his executive order, alongside other safeguards.

Heckman acted in a lawsuit brought by Republican Assemblymen James Gallagher of Yuba City and Kevin Kiley of Rocklin who both said Newsom, a Democrat, was single-handedly overriding state laws in the name of what he argued was keeping Californians safe in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus pandemic.

“This is a victory for separation of powers,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

Newsom “has continued to create and change state law without public input and without the deliberative process provided by the legislature.”

“Nobody disputes that there are actions that should be taken to keep people safe during an emergency,” they added.

“But that doesn’t mean that we put our Constitution and free society on hold by centralizing all power in the hands of one man.”

The judge’s decision will become final in 10 days unless Newsom’s attorneys can raise new challenges.

Newsom’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. A spokesman told The Associated Press that the governor’s administration is evaluating its next steps and strongly disagrees with the order’s specific limitations.

The governor has issued more than 50 executive orders related to the CCP virus since he declared a state of emergency in March.

Lawmakers of both political parties have criticized Newsom for not properly consulting with them before issuing sweeping orders and budget decisions.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3ekVlo6 Tyler Durden

Hey, Teacher! Don’t Leave Those Kids at Home

Kids schools coronavirus

As newly detected COVID-19 infections in France spiraled toward 40,000 a day—almost three times the U.S. rate in per capita terms—President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country would undertake a second national lockdown, starting last Friday. But there was one big difference from France’s last lockdown: This time, the schools would remain open.

It’s a sharp contrast with large parts of the U.S., where there has been substantial resistance to reopening schools. Teachers unions in affluent Fairfax, Virginia, recently petitioned for the district’s schools to remain closed for the entire 2020–21 school year. Last week, hundreds of teachers held a sick-out in Idaho’s largest school district, protesting plans to bring kids back to classrooms. 

Many political leaders have demonstrated the same extreme reluctance to resume in-person learning. Two weeks ago, following an uptick in Boston’s positive test rate, Mayor Marty Walsh announced that all city schools would halt in-person learning. Earlier in October, just days after in-person classes recommenced, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered 124 public schools to shut in New York City COVID-19 hotspots while allowing bars and restaurants to remain open. 

This reluctance has by no means been unanimous. In July, the Florida Department of Education ordered public schools to reopen by the end of August. Scientists, Gov. Ron DeSantis explained, are “just not finding the kids to be major vectors” of disease spread. He also called the school closures “one of the biggest public health mistakes in modern American history.”

For proponents of reopening, the benefits of in-person learning are straightforward: for kids, greater learning and less social isolation; for parents, a greater ability to work. Data from D.C.’s public schools, for example, show an 11 percentage point decline in the fraction of kindergarten students meeting literacy targets. And one economist estimates that school closures drove 1.6 million mothers from the labor force by September. Both factors are particularly relevant for younger children, who are more likely to struggle with online learning and to require supervision if at home.

Meanwhile, opponents argue that reopening schools will spread the disease further: 7-year-olds, not known for being proficient in social distancing, will transmit the virus among themselves and then infect their teachers and families. As a result, they say, we could see large numbers of dead children, teachers, and grandmas. In location after location teachers unions insist they want to resume in-person learning, but insist that doing so just is not safe.

Fortunately, more than nine months into the pandemic, evidence is now available to litigate many of these disputes. For example, it has been clear for months that COVID-19 poses a low mortality risk for children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just 80 American kids under age 15 are known to have died from COVID-19. (In the same time period, around 19,000 have died from other causes.)

In Florida, which provides extremely detailed data on COVID-19 infections, there have been 5 deaths from more than 48,000 known cases in this age group, a case fatality rate of approximately 0.01 percent. (The infection mortality rate,  including undetected cases, is likely substantially lower.) Kids are at a much greater risk during a typical flu season, and obviously society does not think about shutting down schools then.

The far more relevant risk of reopening schools is that kids would spread it to older teachers and family members, who are much more susceptible to COVID-19. In recent weeks, we’ve gotten valuable data on this from states like Florida, where large numbers of schools have been open since mid-August, allowing plentiful opportunity for rampant spread to occur if it is likely to do so.

Florida releases two datasets that are useful for our purposes. The first is the daily case line data—data on every individual in Florida who has tested positive from a PCR or antigen test, including info on age, race, county, date of infection, and whether the patient ultimately is hospitalized or dies. Second: Since the academic year began, Florida has been releasing data on cases associated with schools, covering any student, teacher, or staff member who tests positive.

It turns out there has not been an explosion in cases among school-aged kids since reopening. In fact, comparing September and October against August, when schools had only just begun to reopen, the daily number of detected cases in children ages 5 to 17 has fallen by 33 percent. Cases across all age groups have also fallen sharply—by 40%—over the same period, so to be conservative we can instead look at cases among children as a share of all detected cases. Measured this way, there has been a relative increase in cases among children, but only a very muted one; the share of detected cases involving school-aged children has risen from 7.6 percent to 8.6 percent. (You might wonder whether an increase of this magnitude might be driven by increased testing of children since schools reopened. While this seems possible, a similar relative increase has occurred in the share of children among people hospitalized with COVID-19.) Further, by looking at each age specifically, a consistent pattern arises: The increase in cases is particularly small for elementary-school-aged children and largest for those in late high school.

Since colleges have observed substantial outbreaks while minimal spread has been linked to child care centers, this variation by age seems unsurprising. While it was never realistic to hope that schools would be magically immune from spreading the virus entirely, these numbers strongly suggest that schools aren’t driving substantial spread, especially among younger children.

What about the data on COVID-19 cases in schools? Excluding universities and colleges, slightly more than 7,400 students, teachers, and staffers tested positive from September 6 to October 24. At first glance, it is not immediately apparent whether this is evidence for or against the idea that schools drive spread. After all, there are more than a million school-aged children in Florida, and these data don’t separate people who caught the virus at school from those infected elsewhere.

But if schools are driving spread, those 7,400 cases should be concentrated in a small number of schools, many of which should have large numbers of cases. For example, if five schools have 500 cases each, while most schools have zero cases, this would suggest that a lot of in-school transmission is occurring (unless there is some other explanation—for example, if those schools happen to be in counties with extremely high infection rates). Conversely, if within-school spread is rare, those 7,400 cases should be spread over a large number of schools, each with very few cases (with children largely being infected outside of school, and not spreading it much while at school, thus producing few large clusters).

Which do we see? Among schools that have at least one case, the average elementary school has only 2.17 cases. For middle and high schools, the numbers are 2.76 and 5.55 cases, respectively. Of the institutions that reported at least one case over this seven-week period, 45 percent of elementary schools and 37 percent of middle schools have no other cases recorded; 95 percent and 89 percent, respectively, have five or fewer cases. Even allowing for undercounting due to non-comprehensive testing, it is very difficult to square this with substantial spread at elementary and middle schools. And while high schools are reporting more cases per school, some of this is presumably due to them typically having more students. 

The data also provide insight on whether students are infecting teachers in substantial numbers. Looking at schools with at least one student case, only 17.6 percent have any recorded teacher cases over the entire seven-week sample, with little variation by student age. This is strikingly low—and it almost certainly overestimates the risk teachers face, because it includes cases where the teacher was infected before the student and cases where the infections occurred many weeks apart. Common sense also suggests that undercounting is likely to be a less relevant factor: Even if kids are not being tested much, teachers are likely being more vigilant about being tested, especially once a positive case has been announced in their school community. 

The experience in Florida adds to a growing mound of evidence—not just in the U.S. but in places as far-flung as Iceland, Australia, and Singapore—that young children are rarely superspreaders. Policy makers should remember the substantial harms of keeping schools shut, and the minimal disease spread that schools (especially elementary and middle schools) appear to be causing.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2I0dT0Z
via IFTTT

Nicaragua Braces For Arrival Of Powerful Hurricane Eta 

Nicaragua Braces For Arrival Of Powerful Hurricane Eta 

Tyler Durden

Tue, 11/03/2020 – 08:58

Category 4 Hurricane Eta has rapidly strengthened in the Caribbean Sea as it approaches Nicaragua on Tuesday morning with winds upwards of 145 mph. 

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is calling Eta “extremely dangerous” as it nears northern Nicaragua and the Honduras coastline. The storm is expected to bring “life-threatening storm surge, catastrophic winds, flash flooding, and landslides” to central America. Some areas could expect 35 inches of rain this week. 

As of 0700 ET, NHC said Eta had maximum sustained winds of 145 mph and is traveling west-southwest at around four mph. 

“Eta is an extremely severe hurricane, capable of causing very high storm surges and catastrophic damage,” the hurricane center warned.

After today’s landfall, the hurricane will weaken as it moves inland over northern Nicaragua through Wednesday morning and then crosses Honduras by Thursday. The official forecast map shows the system could move back into the Caribbean by Saturday and strengthen into a tropical storm on Sunday. 

“It is not certain that the surface circulation will survive after moving over Central America for the next three days or so,” NHC said.” The official forecast shows the system, perhaps at first the upper-level remnant of Eta, emerging over the northwestern Caribbean Sea in the latter part of the forecast period. It should be noted that both the intensity and track at 4-5 days are highly uncertain at this time.” 

Here’s our past reporting on Eta:

Eta has become an impressive November hurricane for so late in the Atlantic hurricane season. It has become the 28th named storm, tying the 2005 record for most named storms in a single season. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3kSykvm Tyler Durden

How One Trader Is Betting On A “Surprise” Trump Victory

How One Trader Is Betting On A “Surprise” Trump Victory

Tyler Durden

Tue, 11/03/2020 – 08:30

Submitted by Harris Kupperman from Adventures in Capitalism

My Trump Trades

Let’s start with a disclaimer here. I’m not a professional pollster. With few exceptions, most of the professional pollsters are on the opposite side of this trade. I’m a contrarian and that means I am bound to get a few of these wrong.

With that disclaimer out of the way, the early voting data shows Trump with a small lead and as the days have gone by, the voting has consistently turned “redder,” while the remaining potential voter pool shrinks. Nothing is a sure thing in elections, but I see independents swinging for Trump and there’s a surprisingly large net wobble amongst Democrats. I have spent a lot of time going through the data and don’t want to focus this article on the minutiae of numbers (especially as I may have interpreted it all wrong). Instead, let’s talk about my passion; setting up a low-risk, high-reward, Event-Driven trade, with a view that Trump likely has this one in the bag and everyone is leaning the wrong way.

I always start this process by asking what happened last time. Last time, I also called it right. I was short S&P futures in size and short even more through notional put spreads. I covered on limit-down (actually my wife did, as I was out celebrating) and reversed max long. This time is different, both candidates support Project Zimbabwe, so we must focus on the individual names as opposed to broad market indexes.

Who benefits from a Trump win? Ironically, it’s probably the same guys as last time.

My biggest Trump play is CoreCivic (CXW – USA), owner and operator of prisons. Government is synonymous with waste and incompetence, hence why many government functions have been outsourced over the years—everyone wins, which makes outsourcing into a bipartisan issue. Over the past decade or so, the Democrats have turned against private prisons. I don’t want to debate the issue, but it’s worth understanding that private prisons are no longer bipartisan.

CXW is something of an oddity as an Event-Driven play since it’s undergoing multiple headwinds simultaneously. To start with, the folks who craft the ESG rules are also against private prisons, so funds are being forced to sell CXW and there is some question on if CXW will have future access to debt funding. It hasn’t helped that CXW made a decision to cease being a REIT as of the first day in 2021, leading multiple REIT ETFs and institutional REIT owners to become sellers, while the retail crowd formerly attracted to the double-digit dividend yield was shocked when the dividend was cancelled. Any one of these could set up an attractive Event-Driven trade and the multi-catalyst overlap has made CXW into an unusually coiled spring. It’s said that when someone yells “fire” in a burning theater, I’m the only fool who runs towards the fire. CXW is one such a fire with multiple layers of indiscriminate selling and a Presidential candidate who wants to ban the business.

Now, let’s look under the hood a bit. To start with, Obama talked a big game about closing Guantanamo, but realized that it was a lot harder than he thought—some people really need to be locked up in prisons. Actually, private prisons did just fine under Obama. Pulling away another onion layer, CXW operates with long-term government contracts. A President cannot simply cancel these contracts, especially as so much of the prison infrastructure was outsourced to private operators and there is nowhere to put these inmates. Finally, a good chunk of the business is done at the state level, a venue where Presidents have less power. The only place for real interference is on the ICE contracts which are tied to inmate populations. Even on the ICE contracts, I suspect that a Democratic President opening the border will lead to more criminals crossing and a potentially higher ICE population. Societal trends towards sentencing reforms and decriminalizing various drugs are likely to be bearish longer-term secular trends, but that’s beyond the purview of this election play. In summary, a candidate can say scary things, but Guantanamo shows how gradual the process will go in reality. Meanwhile, CXW at $6 trades at roughly three times normalized AFFO. CXW is cancelling its REIT status in order to de-lever and then repurchase shares. From a capital allocation standpoint, this makes rather strong sense.

I don’t know what the right multiple on real estate with long-term US Government counter-parties is, but in a ZIRP world, it should be a whole lot higher than the current quote—especially as the business is slowly moving away from operating prisons, to a model where CXW instead leases them to government agencies on fixed-price long-term leases. This was a stock trading in the $20s just 18 months ago. I suspect it will make it at least into the teens on a Trump victory. You only have to look at 2016 to see some precedent as the stock more than doubled. I’m not much of a call buyer as I hate paying for premium, but I’ve also lifted an unusually large number of November OTM calls here.

Where else have the Democrats focused? They absolutely hate thermal coal. I can’t have a Trump spread without one coal play and I’ve chosen Alliance Resource Partners (ARLP – USA). ARLP is the lowest cost diversified domestic thermal player and throughout the bear market, they’ve consistently produced cash flow. Insiders own almost a third of the company and as a result they’ve ran ARLP with reasonably low leverage. Finally, ARLP also has a growing oil and gas royalty business which is likely worth a good chunk of the market cap. In any case, while Trump rolled back some regulations, he was no savior of thermal coal as low natural gas prices pushed many mines out of business. That said, I’m unusually bullish on natural gas here. After over a decade of natural gas production growth, production will comp negative in 2021, at a time when demand is still growing. This is a recipe for higher natural gas prices. Coal should do extra well as not only will the realized price increase, but tons sold should increase as well, leading to operating synergies and lower costs. ARLP trades at roughly one times FCF after maintenance spending, which means there’s a good deal of upside in a world where natural gas is in the $3s or higher. A year ago, the shares traded in the teens and I assume they can go back there with a benign regulatory environment.

Of course, when I look at Event-Driven trades with a clear catalyst, I want to protect my downside. I don’t see any President banning coal. You can’t charge your EV without baseload power and California is learning that the hard way. Instead, I expect an increase in operating costs and taxes to use coal. It will be a gradual extinction event, not an asteroid hit. At the same time, back when Biden was still capable of uttering full sentences, he was pretty clear about banning fracking. I can see a lot of scenarios where less gas production actually leads to more coal production as you have a perfectly permitted coal mine but cannot permit a new well. Besides, cause and effect isn’t a strong suit for most environmental types. In any case, I own a whole lot of ARLP as well.

In the case of CXW and ARLP, I’ve tried to set up trades with the election as a clear catalyst and a situation where the stocks are already so beaten down that a lot of the worst-case scenario should be priced in, while a Trump victory should give me multi-baggers in short order. Finally, I’ve selected companies that are somewhat insulated if I get it wrong, because history says I’ll get it wrong plenty of times. Like all Event-Driven trades, I’m playing the odds and with a big enough sample set, the odds are very much in my favor, especially as the data increasingly says that Trump wins this one.

On a final note, I’ve always ran this site as a way to crowd-source ideas. I have a growing basket of “Trump plays,” but I’m sure I’ve missed my fair share. I’m not looking for a small pop or a view on interest rates. Rather, I’m looking for the next Fannie Mae (FNMA – USA) that tripled on the last Trump win. If you have ideas, please email me at kuppy@adventuresincapitalism.com

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3eknFaj Tyler Durden

In Texas, Wearing the Wrong Thing to the Polls Could Land You in Jail

rtrltwelve255852

When Jillian Ostrewich showed up to vote in the 2018 midterm elections, a pollworker denied her entry. At issue was Ostrewich’s shirt, a Houston firefighters tee with union insignia, which was deemed to violate a prohibition on wearing politicized regalia within 100 feet of a polling place. Rules against “electioneering” at the polls are typically understood to restrict signs, posters, and verbal attempts to sway voters, but Texas has laid out a more stringent approach—and running amok of electioneering law there can constitute a criminal offense.

If Ostrewich’s outfit choice sounds benign, that’s because it was. But one measure on the ballot, Proposition B, was an initiative dealing with firefighter pay. So the “election judge” at Ostrewich’s polling place ordered her to turn her shirt inside-out or go home; she felt violated but complied, went to the back of the line, and eventually cast her vote.

“On the merits, the electioneering statutes violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment,” argues a suit by the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF). In making her case, Ostrewich’s attorneys invoke Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky (2018), a Supreme Court precedent that struck down a similar law in Minnesota. The Texas statutes “are facially unconstitutional under [Minnesota Voters Alliance],” the suit says, “because they do not provide to the tens of thousands of election workers that enforce them any ‘objective, workable standards’ about ‘what may come in [and] what must stay out,’ resulting in ‘erratic application’ of the law.”

That erratic application was on full display in Ostrewich’s case: A county administrator specifically advised that her union shirt be exempt from any electioneering charges, though that guidance came the day after Ostrewich voted. The t-shirt “did not mention any candidate, measure, or political party, much less take a position,” writes PLF. Texas electioneering law also prohibits any clothing bearing a slogan or the name of a past candidate, including those not in Texas and those no longer living.

“I think one of the very troubling aspects of the Texas law is that election judges disagree on what is and what is not electioneering,” says Wen Fa, the lead attorney on Ostrewich’s suit. “Some judges see Black Lives Matter as electioneering. Others do not. Some people see Second Amendment t-shirts as electioneering. Others do not. Some see Tea Party t-shirts as electioneering. Others do not.”

One of the more open-and-shut cases came in 2016, when Brett Mauthe wore a “Make America Great Again” hat paired with a “Basket of Deplorables” shirt, both clearly indicating his support for presidential candidate Donald Trump. Mauthe agreed to remove the hat but refused to turn his shirt inside-out. He was arrested and eventually released on $500 bond, as if he was somehow a danger to the public.

That sort of crackdown is rare; enforcement is typically limited to arguments between clerks and voters. But then, arguments are one of the things the law is supposed to stop. “States are worried about other voters being offended that someone is supporting Trump, or supporting Biden, or supporting whichever other candidates, so they prevent voters from wearing them in the first place,” notes Fa. (Fa knows of no evidence that any voter-on-voter confrontations have stemmed from a t-shirt in Texas.)

“If you just ask a person on the street,” says Fa, “you would not really think of this as a criminal offense. People have the right to express themselves.  They have the right to express their political opinions. And their right to free speech does not stop on election day.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2HYDrf2
via IFTTT

Bizarro World: Australian Dollar Soars After RBA Cuts Rate To Record Low, Launches New A$100Bn QE

Bizarro World: Australian Dollar Soars After RBA Cuts Rate To Record Low, Launches New A$100Bn QE

Tyler Durden

Tue, 11/03/2020 – 08:21

In the latest episode of global bizarro Japanification, Australia’s central bank trimmed interest rates to near zero on Tuesday and expanded its bond-buying program, as widely expected, in an attempt to ease the country’s worst recession in a generation. As BMO’s Stephen Gallo described it, “the RBA spent three more bullets last night” as follows: i) it cut its overnight rate by 15bps to 0.10% which, it pledged will remain unchanged until inflation is sustainably within its 2-3% target band, ii) cut its 3Y govt bond yield target to 0.10% and iii) launched a new A$100 billion ($70.41 billion) bond purchase program aimed at the 5-10Y segment of the government bond market. That additional QE program was announced to run over the next 6 months.

Australia’s A$2 trillion economy is in its first recession in three decades as the coronavirus pandemic forced businesses to down shutters, leaving hundreds of thousands without work. The jobless rate is hovering near 7%, having risen from around 5% before the COVID-19 pandemic. Economists say the actual level of unemployment would be even higher if those on government support are included.

While Australia has controlled the spread of the virulent disease and opened its economy earlier than expected, domestic and international borders remain closed, business investment is weak and consumer spending is still tepid.

But while boosting the economy was certainly a consideration behind the RBA’s move, the primary motive was to pressure the AUD lower: in his written statement, RBA Governor Lowe stated that one of the key motivations for the moves was “contributing to a lower exchange rate than otherwise” would be the cause for AUD. He reiterated that motivation in his press conference, but said it was only “one factor.”

There was just one problem: while the AUDUSD initially fell from 0.7050 to 0.7028 in the wake of the announcement, it has since soared demonstrating just how bizarro the FX market has become, and just how powerless central banks truly are to achieve their desired outcomes!

As Gallo puts it, “to the extent [the RBA’s actions] were intended to weaken AUD, the RBA didn’t get much bang for spending almost all of their remaining bullets.”

As a result, as CreditorWatch Chief Economist Harley Dale said, “any further support the Australian economy requires will have to come from fiscal policy and quantitative easing.” On its part, Australia’s conservative government has unleashed A$300 billion in emergency stimulus to prop up growth this year, including A$17.8 billion in personal tax cuts approved by parliament last month. However it remains unclear how the AUD – which remains a proxy for the Chinese yuan – will ease if the RBA throwing the kitchen sink at it results in the opposite outcome of what was intended…

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3oVsr2E Tyler Durden