Conservatives Wrongly Portrayed the Loudoun County Sexual Assault as a Transgender Bathroom Issue


1920px-Stone_Bridge_High_School_from_sidewalk

In June, a male student in a skirt reportedly assaulted a female classmate in a public school bathroom in Loudoun County, Virginia. It was a story that appeared to confirm the conservative media’s worst fears about how predatory men could theoretically take advantage of accommodations for transgender people in order to harm young girls, and it touched off a wave of protests—with the victim’s father, Scott Smith, at the center of them.

But it was substantially misreported in order to fit a conservative social agenda. Anyone on the right who makes a habit of complaining—often justifiably—about the mainstream media gullibly succumbing to viral stories that fit their priors ought to denounce this as well.

Smith, the father, was arrested for loudly protesting at a school board meeting on June 22. Cops bloodied him, placed him in handcuffs, and charged him with obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct. When it later emerged that Smith was angry with district officials because he thought they weren’t doing anything about his daughter’s rape, he became a conservative folk hero, and was interviewed repeatedly by right-leaning media. The Daily Wire led the charge, seizing on an opportunity to embarrass both the mainstream media and the federal government for portraying hostile parents as akin to “domestic terrorists.”

The Daily Wire‘s interview with Smith portrayed the idea that the daughter’s assailant was “gender fluid” as central to the story. The implicit idea is that the perpetrator wore a skirt in order to gain access to the women’s bathroom at Stone Bridge High School and carry out the attack. Over the summer, Loudoun County approved a new policy making it easier for transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their choice, and thus a connection was established between this policy and what happened to Smith’s daughter.

That policy wasn’t actually implemented until August, it turns out. But even if the school had begun enforcing it before that, there’s no reason to think the assailant’s actions had anything to do with accommodations for trans people.

That’s because the assailant and the victim had a relationship, and had met in the bathroom for sexual activity previously. According to The Washington Post:

On Monday, the teenage victim of the Stone Bridge assault testified that she and her attacker had agreed to meet up in a school bathroom around 12:15 p.m. on the date of the assault. She testified they had not explicitly discussed having sex beforehand.

The teen testified she arrived first and chose to go in the girls’ bathroom because the two had always met in the girls’ bathrooms in the past. When the boy arrived, the teen testified, he came into the handicapped stall she was in and locked the door.

The two talked, before the girl testified the boy began grabbing her neck and other parts of her body in a sexual manner. She testified she told her attacker she was not in the mood for sex, but he forced himself on her.

“He flipped me over,” the girl testified. “I was on the ground and couldn’t move and he sexually assaulted me.”

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Yellen Says Dems Should Pass Debt Limit Alone If Needed

Yellen Says Dems Should Pass Debt Limit Alone If Needed

Breaking from months of Democratic strategy in recent months which sought to pass a debt ceiling hike only in conjunction with Republicans, Janet Yellen told the Washington Post in an interview published on Monday that Democrats should address the nation’s debt limit on their own if Republicans refuse to cooperate, which they have made clear they will.

Yellen has repeatedly urged Congress to act in a bipartisan manner to extend the U.S. government’s borrowing authority or else risk dangerous economic consequences.

“Should it be done on a bipartisan basis? Absolutely. Now, if they’re not going to cooperate, I don’t want to play chicken and end up not raising the debt ceiling. I think that’s the worst possible outcome,” Yellen told The Washington Post on Sunday as she traveled to Dublin.

“If Democrats have to do it by themselves, that’s better than defaulting on the debt to teach the Republicans a lesson,” she added.

It wasn’t clear what lesson the Democrats – who have a majority in the House and Senate – would teach the Republicans by pushing the country into default and being rightfully blamed for the resulting depression.

For now, the market is not too fearful of the debt-ceiling debacle (which likely means Democrats will crank up the fearmongery to ’11’ in the next few weeks)…

But hey, the Treasury Secretary was busy with other things in Dublin…

  • Elsewhere in a separate interview with Reuters, Yellen said the United States could look at eventually lowering some tariffs on China in a reciprocal way. She also discusses Biden’s expected Federal Reserve chair appointment and technology companies’ potential support of global tax rules.

  • Speaking to reporters in Dublin at joint press conference with Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, Yellen disagreed that the global tax deal will hurt developing countries and said that the OECD tax deal as “once in a generation” agreement, adding that all countries will need to move together on pillar 1 of OECD tax agreement.

  • Yellen also brushed off Treasury-market jitters and expressed confidence in the continuing recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. This comes from the same financial genius who 5 years ago said “no financial crisis again in her lifetime”

Yellen is in Ireland for a tax policy meeting before traveling to Scotland for the U.N. climate change conference. It wasn’t clear if she was flying on a gas guzzling private jet.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 10:30

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3BxwZ4v Tyler Durden

Conservatives Wrongly Portrayed the Loudoun County Sexual Assault as a Transgender Bathroom Issue


1920px-Stone_Bridge_High_School_from_sidewalk

In June, a male student in a skirt reportedly assaulted a female classmate in a public school bathroom in Loudoun County, Virginia. It was a story that appeared to confirm the conservative media’s worst fears about how predatory men could theoretically take advantage of accommodations for transgender people in order to harm young girls, and it touched off a wave of protests—with the victim’s father, Scott Smith, at the center of them.

But it was substantially misreported in order to fit a conservative social agenda. Anyone on the right who makes a habit of complaining—often justifiably—about the mainstream media gullibly succumbing to viral stories that fit their priors ought to denounce this as well.

Smith, the father, was arrested for loudly protesting at a school board meeting on June 22. Cops bloodied him, placed him in handcuffs, and charged him with obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct. When it later emerged that Smith was angry with district officials because he thought they weren’t doing anything about his daughter’s rape, he became a conservative folk hero, and was interviewed repeatedly by right-leaning media. The Daily Wire led the charge, seizing on an opportunity to embarrass both the mainstream media and the federal government for portraying hostile parents as akin to “domestic terrorists.”

The Daily Wire‘s interview with Smith portrayed the idea that the daughter’s assailant was “gender fluid” as central to the story. The implicit idea is that the perpetrator wore a skirt in order to gain access to the women’s bathroom at Stone Bridge High School and carry out the attack. Over the summer, Loudoun County approved a new policy making it easier for transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their choice, and thus a connection was established between this policy and what happened to Smith’s daughter.

That policy wasn’t actually implemented until August, it turns out. But even if the school had begun enforcing it before that, there’s no reason to think the assailant’s actions had anything to do with accommodations for trans people.

That’s because the assailant and the victim had a relationship, and had met in the bathroom for sexual activity previously. According to The Washington Post:

On Monday, the teenage victim of the Stone Bridge assault testified that she and her attacker had agreed to meet up in a school bathroom around 12:15 p.m. on the date of the assault. She testified they had not explicitly discussed having sex beforehand.

The teen testified she arrived first and chose to go in the girls’ bathroom because the two had always met in the girls’ bathrooms in the past. When the boy arrived, the teen testified, he came into the handicapped stall she was in and locked the door.

The two talked, before the girl testified the boy began grabbing her neck and other parts of her body in a sexual manner. She testified she told her attacker she was not in the mood for sex, but he forced himself on her.

“He flipped me over,” the girl testified. “I was on the ground and couldn’t move and he sexually assaulted me.”

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Rabobank: The Nuclear Options

Rabobank: The Nuclear Options

By Michael Every of Rabobank

The Nuclear Options

“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”.

The Financial Times lead story this weekend was that US allies are lobbying the White House NOT to shift to a “No First Use” (NFU) nuclear policy. After Afghanistan, this is another enormous shock for an ostensibly “America is Back” administration. Military strategists back to Vegetius (“Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum”) stress America’s nuke stockpile underpins its military might; and Korea, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia aside, that is still what prevents more wars more often everywhere else. If the US moves to NFU, any other power can do whatever it wants short of nukes, and the US can only respond with already-overstretched conventional power. Consider that as Russia again builds up forces near Ukraine; when looking at tensions in the South China Sea; and when China’s Global Times runs an editorial, “US should announce ‘no first use of nuclear weapons,’ with no strings attached”. There are always strings attached to shifts in such existential policies: markets would be well advised to understand the implied volatility.

Meanwhile, Poland will double the size of its army to 300,000, making it the largest in the EU. That’s a key signal about what a country with a keen historical grasp of the existential dangers of geopolitics feels is now necessary.

Word is that French President Macron wants to send a signal that there are consequences for the UK leaving the EU, and the current fishing row could soon involve a go-slow to throttle UK supply chains further. The Sunday Times reports the UK is considering a massive infrastructure spend in response, to shift trade away from Calais-Dover to other EU-UK routes. (And Macron is also openly calling Aussie PM Morrison a liar re: AUKUS.)

The US and EU struck an agreement to suspend steel and aluminum tariffs and to start work on a new Global Sustainable Steel Arrangement. “This marks a milestone in the renewed EU-US partnership,” say the Europeans. The critical point is not the lower tariffs: it is that the US and EU are cooperating on a new green/anti-dumping standard for steel and aluminium that, as US President Biden stated, will “restrict access to our markets for dirty steel, from countries like China.” As the EU’s Dombrovskis put it: “We hope to restrict market access for non-participants who do not meet conditions for market orientation or do not meet the standards for low-carbon intensity products. But we will do this compatible with our international obligations and multilateral groups.” If this approach works, expect it to be rolled out on other fronts. That is called decoupling.

Politico also reports the US is considering reducing tariffs on some non-essential Chinese imports – but greatly increasing them in sectors seen as crucial to national security. And in the background, the ‘Make in America to Sell in America Act’ introduced to Congress would see the US impose a 50% local input requirement on areas of critical economic security to ensure the entire nexus of industrial supply chains is re-shored. That is unlikely to pass; but something like it could still be what eventually comes to pass on the present trend. In the meantime, the economic impact of supply-chain snarls is already worsening.

The port of LA/Long Beach is to start the countdown with its new $100 a day per container rule, which applies for rail shipments three days from now and trucks in nine days. These fees rise daily: e.g., a 10,000 TEU ship faces a 10,000 * $100 = $1m fee on day 1 its cargo is still stuck in the port (i.e., NOT in the ship!); 10,000 * $200 = $2m on day 2; 10,000 * $300 = $3m on day 3, etc. If they get delayed 3 weeks, the total bill will be $231m, which works out as $23,100 per TEU. That more than doubles the already-high cost of ocean carrying.

Back in Asia, China’s PMIs showed a dip in manufacturing to 49.2 and services fell to 52.4. True, as coal flows, energy supplies will be restored to factories, so US logjams will get worse: unless the products made don’t have the US and EU markets they had assumed.

The White House is calling on OPEC+ to produce more oil in order to bring US energy prices down: there are even reports it is “considering its options” if they refuse to do so. Note the US was until recently energy independent, and is only begging other countries to pump more oil because of its own decision to rush for a green transition before it could walk.

On which, the G20 just concluded a “net zero” carbon statement ahead of the private-jet-and-motorcade frenzy of COP26 which even Boris Johnson admits is “too vague” and “not enough”. It set no date for phasing out coal and has no new deadline for ending fossil fuel subsidies. Given the G20 have spoken, and not acted, should we perhaps cancel COP26 and save all the carbon that will expended on it? As an aside, one wonders when the nuclear option will be accepted as necessary as part of the green push: yes, it can go very wrong – but have you ever seen what can happen with hydrogen? Even post-Fukushima Japan, where PM Kishida has just won re-election, is considering it.

Shifting to food, our research team reports, ‘Farm Margins Squeezed From Every Angle’ – and from soaring fertilizer prices in particular, linked back to energy costs. That is likely to mean even more expensive food ahead, which is always highly explosive.

And, as a potential final bang, Facebook’s transformation into ‘Meta’ may be challenged by none other than Yanis Varoufakis, who was already using the name for an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist website: oh, the irony – ‘Meta’ really is Second Life! That’s as the first incarnation sees Politico report: ”Doors across Capitol Hill are shutting on Facebook’s army of lobbyists as the company tries to move past one of its most serious political crises ever.”

But having covered the real economy, let’s all get back to a central bank focus, and watch for yield curve (flattening) and FX (USD rising) signals as to just how much ordnance they are prepared to drop *on themselves* if it means also taking out any potential risk of entrenched higher wage growth ahead:

“I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 10:10

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

SCOTUS GVRs Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. Lacewell; Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch Would Have Granted Cert

Today, the Supreme Court GVR’d Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. Lacewell in light of Fulton. I blogged about this case last month, which involves a New York mandate that insurance policies must cover abortions. The case was GVR’d after four conferences. Once again, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch signaled they would have granted cert. By the process of elimination, we know that neither Justices Kavanaugh nor Barrett voted to grant cert. And, once again, by signaling three dissents, the Court’s conservatives shined a light on their new colleagues.

It is very obvious to me that Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett have no interest in deciding another Free Exercise Clause case now–especially after the denial of review in the Maine case. Barrett signaled that there were not four votes for cert. She would know–she was the potential fourth vote for review who voted no!

For now at least, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch are alone on the Court to provide guidance of how to apply Fulton.

Now, time to listen to the abortion oral arguments. Today at 1 ET/12 CT, I am speaking at the  Texas Tech Federalist Society Chapter. I will provide a recap of the arguments. Stay tuned for a YouTube link.

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Joe Biden Will Let World Leaders Know He Wants To Spend a Lot of Money on Climate Change


BIDENUN_1161x653

World leaders are gathering to discuss climate change at a United Nations summit, just as President Joe Biden tries to get his own spendy domestic environmental agenda over the finish line. This week, the U.N.’s 26th Climate Change Conference will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, where world leaders will discuss their plans for meeting the emissions reduction targets set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

It’s an opportunity for Biden to convince both world leaders and the American public on his $555 billion plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions via a package of tax credits and subsidies.

The plan, part of a slimmed-down $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” spending framework unveiled by the White House on Thursday, includes $320 billion in tax credits for clean energy power generation, electric vehicles, and lower-emission manufacturing. Some $110 billion would be spent on attempting to goose the domestic production of solar panels, batteries, and other less green industries like cement and steel. Another $105 billion would be spent on “resilience investments” to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events and “legacy pollution.”

Negotiations are continuing between congressional leadership and the White House, but it’s possible the “Build Back Better” framework will get a vote in the House later this week alongside an infrastructure bill that would authorize around $500 billion in new spending.

While domestic political wrangling over this spending plan continues, the president is touting all the environmental spending contained in the bill as evidence that the U.S. is committed to tackling climate change.

“This framework makes the most significant investment to deal with the climate crisis that has ever, ever happened—beyond any other advanced nation in the world,” said Biden in a White House speech on Thursday, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Whether the size of the climate provisions in the still-unpassed framework is enough to convince other countries to take more ambitious actions of their own remains to be seen. A G-20 summit in Rome over the weekend, which featured leaders of many of the same nations that will be represented in Glasgow, reportedly made almost no progress on how to cut greenhouse emissions, reports the Journal.

Despite the international image Biden is trying to cultivate as a global climate warrior, his administration has backed a number of less-than-green policies here at home. The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality is in the middle of a rewrite of federal environmental review rules that will make it far more expensive to complete projects environmentalists would normally endorse, whether that’s building wind farms off the coast or implementing congestion pricing in New York City.

The latest version of the “Build Back Better” framework also maintains a $20 billion bailout for the National Flood Insurance Progam, an effective subsidy for people to live in coastal areas threatened by rising sea levels.

FREE MINDS

New York City’s vaccine mandate is proving to be a surprise means of marginally shrinking government payrolls. Beginning Monday, city workers who have yet to get a single vaccine dose will be required to stay home. The New York Post reports that some 20,000 government employees, or about 10 percent of the city’s workforce, will be put on unpaid leave today.

That includes some 3,700 fire department employees, 8,000 police, and 2,000 sanitation workers. Fewer cops and firefighters on the streets have some worried that a vaccine mandate intended to improve public health will instead diminish public safety.

At least when it comes to firefighters, people should rest easy. The number of fires that occur in the country has been steadily declining for decades. Meanwhile, the number of career firefighters continues to grow.

Whatever one thinks of vaccine mandates for government employees, if some of the fire department’s vaccine refuseniks stay home permanently, New York City will end up setting fewer tax dollars alight well.

FREE MARKETS

A plan for a blocky new college dormitory at the University of California, Santa Barbara campus has the internet arguing about how much density is too much density. The controversial 11-story dorm would pack 4,500 students into small, mostly windowless single-occupancy rooms. The design of the building is the brainchild of billionaire investor Charlie Munger, who has promised to donate $200 million to the $1.5 billion project on the condition that his plans be followed to the letter.

In response to Munger’s proposal, an architect on the university’s design review board quit in protest, saying per the Daily Nexus student paper, that “the building is a social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of the undergraduates the university serves.”

On Twitter, others were more favorable to Munger’s proposal. People have suggested that windowless, single-occupancy rooms might be an improvement over traditional shared dorm rooms and that they might even shift the Overton window on “the cube”—a utopian “yes in my backyard” (YIMBY) plan to house all of humanity in a single building in Manhattan.

QUICK HITS

• The American Medical Association has a new guide on how to talk about health disparities that heaps a surprising amount of blame on real estate developers for all the world’s problems.

• The New York Times has a big new investigation on the police departments around the country that fund themselves with fines and traffic tickets.

• The Los Angeles Times has more details on Alec Baldwin’s shooting of two crew members of the set of the movie Rust.

• American Airlines is canceling hundreds of flights because of weather and staffing shortages.

• U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen assures the public that everything is just fine with the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.

• The Food and Drug Administration is delaying its decision on whether to approve the Moderna vaccine for adolescents so that it can evaluate if the shot increases the risk of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, reports The Washington Post.

• SpaceX’s latest mission is delayed due to bad weather. No indication that staffing issues played a role.

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US Manufacturing Surveys Slump In October, New Orders Slide, Prices Surge

US Manufacturing Surveys Slump In October, New Orders Slide, Prices Surge

Markit’s US Manufacturing PMI tumbled in October, from 60.70 in September to 59.2 in preliminary October data to a final print of 58.4, tracking the dismal disappointing slide in actual US macroeconomic data.

ISM’s US Manufacturing survey also slipped lower in October (from 61.1 to 60.8) but printed better than the expected 60.5.

Source: Bloomberg

That is the lowest Manufacturing PMI since Dec 2021 as production growth slowed to the softest since July 2020 in October.

At the same time, firms continued to partially pass on higher costs to clients. The rate of charge inflation accelerated to the fastest on record.

Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit said:

“October saw US manufacturers report yet another near-record lengthening of supply chains, with shortages of components constraining production growth to the lowest since July of last year. Around half of all companies reporting lower production in October attributed the decline to a lack of supplies. However, a further one-in-ten cited a lack of labor, and one-in-four reported that demand had fallen, often as a result of customers either lacking other inputs or pushing back on higher prices.

“Although production growth has now slipped below the pre-pandemic long-run average due to the supply and labor constraints, demand growth – as measured by new order inflows – remains well above trend despite easing in October, hence producers saw another steep rise in backlogs of uncompleted work. This shortfall of production relative to demand was the principal driving force behind a survey record rise in manufacturers’ selling prices, suggesting that inflationary pressures continue to build and look unlikely to abate to any significant degree any time soon.”

ISM data shows stagflationary threats re-appearing with new orders tumbling as prices paid resurges…

Finally, the future doesn’t look bright as output expectations dropped to a 12-month low in October amid concerns regarding inflation and supply-chain disruption.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 10:04

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3mxSi1C Tyler Durden

SCOTUS GVRs Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. Lacewell; Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch Would Have Granted Cert

Today, the Supreme Court GVR’d Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. Lacewell in light of Fulton. I blogged about this case last month, which involves a New York mandate that insurance policies must cover abortions. The case was GVR’d after four conferences. Once again, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch signaled they would have granted cert. By the process of elimination, we know that neither Justices Kavanaugh nor Barrett voted to grant cert. And, once again, by signaling three dissents, the Court’s conservatives shined a light on their new colleagues.

It is very obvious to me that Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett have no interest in deciding another Free Exercise Clause case now–especially after the denial of review in the Maine case. Barrett signaled that there were not four votes for cert. She would know–she was the potential fourth vote for review who voted no!

For now at least, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch are alone on the Court to provide guidance of how to apply Fulton.

Now, time to listen to the abortion oral arguments. Today at 1 ET/12 CT, I am speaking at the  Texas Tech Federalist Society Chapter. I will provide a recap of the arguments. Stay tuned for a YouTube link.

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Crypto Rallies As Amazon Accelerates ‘Digital Assets’ Development Team, Morgan Stanley Initiates Coverage

Crypto Rallies As Amazon Accelerates ‘Digital Assets’ Development Team, Morgan Stanley Initiates Coverage

In late July, we noted that Amazon – for the first time – exposed its interest in accepting cryptocurrencies for payment by announcing a new role seeks an experienced product leader with expertise in blockchain, central bank digital currencies and cryptocurrencies to “develop the case for the capabilities which should be developed” and drive overall product vision.

Now, it appears the tech-giant could be expanding its crypto-related team with the announcement that it is seeking a “Principal Digital Assets Specialist Bus Dev – Financial Services.”

The job announcement was presented on LinkedIn:

The job description includes, helping provide services:

“…as they transform the way they transact digital assets (ex. cryptocurrencies, CBDCs, stable coins, security-backed tokens, asset-backed tokens and NFTs) from price discovery to execution, settlement and custody.”

And moreover, crypto-related experience is key:

“You should have demonstrated experience engaging senior-level executives in past roles both externally and internally, and understands the overall cryptocurrency and digital asset ecosystem across financial services.”

The latest job posting reaffirms Amazon’s growing attention to digital currency, as the company has been apparently developing a new service to allow its customers to shop using digital currency. Earlier this year, Amazon posted a job application to launch a new digital payment product known as “Digital and Emerging Payments,” initially planning to roll out the initiative in Mexico.

It remains unclear whether Amazon is considering launching its own digital currency as part of its payment acceptance process with the new position, as well as (or instead of) existing cryptocurrencies, but for now this is a major step towards a much more mainstream adoption.

This helped push Bitcoin back above $62,000…

Source: Bloomberg

Amazon is not alone.

As Bloomberg reports, despite initially mockery and derision of the cryptospace, some of the biggest banks and financial firms have added about 1,000 crypto-related roles since 2018, according to Revelio Labs, which collects data by scraping LinkedIn.

“The banks can’t run the risk that their clients go to another bank to do these services, so they need to build up,” said Alan Johnson, managing director of Wall Street compensation consultancy Johnson Associates.

“This is a big asset, a big opportunity, and they need people and need them in a hurry. They’re willing to pay a lot.”

The total number of employees who added a new crypto-related position to their LinkedIn profiles has tripled since 2015, according to the data, which surveyed 12 financial firms.

Ethereum is also rebounding back towards $4400…

Source: Bloomberg

Following Goldman’s dramatic price forecast for the cryptocurrency.

As the Goldman strategist writes, the local backdrop looks supportive for Ethereum as “it has tracked inflation markets particularly closely, likely reflecting the pro-cyclical nature as “network based” asset.” And, as Rzymelka notes, “the latest spike in inflation breakevens suggests upside risk if the leading relationship of recent episodes was to hold (grey circles below).”

This, according to Goldman, lines up well with the Ethereum chart. In the past few days, the price of the crypto broke out to new all time highs, rising just shy of $4,500 with a narrowing wedge, which to Goldman is “either a sign of exhaustion and peaking… or a starting point of an accelerating rally upon a break higher.” To Goldman, the answer to this rhetorical question is easy, and the bank hints that ethereum could surge as high as $8000 in the next two months if the historical correlation with inflation fwds persists.

And while some could argue that ETH is due for a pullback, Goldman counters that while the recent surge may appear stretched, “the RSI has yet to hit the overbought levels seen at past market highs.”

One final word of caution. As the Goldman traders notes, US inflation swaps imply core PCE inflation at or above 2.50% for the next 5 years. That’s a lot of overheating, and current market levels hence price a rather aggressive interpretation of the Fed’s AIT framework of “moderately above 2% for some time” already.

On one hand, the upside to inflation markets – and possibly crypto assets – hence looks limited unless the market starts doubting the FOMC’s inflation credibility (much) more fundamentally. In other words, as we have been saying since 2014, cryptos have emerged as the asset class that will benefit the most if we have another major inflationary/stagflationary scare.

As Goldman concludes, “this lines up rather well with the Ethereum chart, suggesting a late stage rally with longer term market top ahead.”

Finally, Morgan Stanley has joined the crypto research providers by initiating coverage:

Cryptocurrency companies are creating a new system of payments and transactions that competes with traditional finance. Governments and regulators are responding. As institutional investor interest intensifies, the crypto regime of leveraged price rises is moving to a regime of regulation.

Morgan Stanley notes that while the US dollar value of all cryptocurrencies in circulation is over 2.5 trillion, only afraction of the size of the US equity market (S&P 500 $39trn), this isn’t where all the “crypto value” is. Business models of traditional finance companies and beyond are being changed to take advantage of the new way of transacting and trading.

Morgan Stanley plans to address many big questions in more detail, including:

  • Is Decentralised Finance (DeFi) lending taking over the bank business model?

  • Can cryptocurrency fit into an ESG portfolio?

  • Is cryptocurrency really beingused as a method of payment?

  • How will regulation evolve?

  • How are companies like banks,asset managers and exchanges incorporating cryptocurrency into their business models?

  • Is cryptocurrency a currency, commodity, risk asset or something else?

  • How do you value bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies?

And ends on a perhaps ominous note for the big banks: “New companies will create faster,easier to use, more secure applications of cryptocurrency transactions to replace certain ways of doing things today.”

Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/01/2021 – 09:40

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3mu1iEV Tyler Durden

Joe Biden Will Let World Leaders Know He Wants To Spend a Lot of Money on Climate Change


BIDENUN_1161x653

World leaders are gathering to discuss climate change at a United Nations summit, just as President Joe Biden tries to get his own spendy domestic environmental agenda over the finish line. This week, the U.N.’s 26th Climate Change Conference will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, where world leaders will discuss their plans for meeting the emissions reduction targets set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

It’s an opportunity for Biden to convince both world leaders and the American public on his $555 billion plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions via a package of tax credits and subsidies.

The plan, part of a slimmed-down $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” spending framework unveiled by the White House on Thursday, includes $320 billion in tax credits for clean energy power generation, electric vehicles, and lower-emission manufacturing. Some $110 billion would be spent on attempting to goose the domestic production of solar panels, batteries, and other less green industries like cement and steel. Another $105 billion would be spent on “resilience investments” to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events and “legacy pollution.”

Negotiations are continuing between congressional leadership and the White House, but it’s possible the “Build Back Better” framework will get a vote in the House later this week alongside an infrastructure bill that would authorize around $500 billion in new spending.

While domestic political wrangling over this spending plan continues, the president is touting all the environmental spending contained in the bill as evidence that the U.S. is committed to tackling climate change.

“This framework makes the most significant investment to deal with the climate crisis that has ever, ever happened—beyond any other advanced nation in the world,” said Biden in a White House speech on Thursday, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Whether the size of the climate provisions in the still-unpassed framework is enough to convince other countries to take more ambitious actions of their own remains to be seen. A G-20 summit in Rome over the weekend, which featured leaders of many of the same nations that will be represented in Glasgow, reportedly made almost no progress on how to cut greenhouse emissions, reports the Journal.

Despite the international image Biden is trying to cultivate as a global climate warrior, his administration has backed a number of less-than-green policies here at home. The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality is in the middle of a rewrite of federal environmental review rules that will make it far more expensive to complete projects environmentalists would normally endorse, whether that’s building wind farms off the coast or implementing congestion pricing in New York City.

The latest version of the “Build Back Better” framework also maintains a $20 billion bailout for the National Flood Insurance Progam, an effective subsidy for people to live in coastal areas threatened by rising sea levels.

FREE MINDS

New York City’s vaccine mandate is proving to be a surprise means of marginally shrinking government payrolls. Beginning Monday, city workers who have yet to get a single vaccine dose will be required to stay home. The New York Post reports that some 20,000 government employees, or about 10 percent of the city’s workforce, will be put on unpaid leave today.

That includes some 3,700 fire department employees, 8,000 police, and 2,000 sanitation workers. Fewer cops and firefighters on the streets have some worried that a vaccine mandate intended to improve public health will instead diminish public safety.

At least when it comes to firefighters, people should rest easy. The number of fires that occur in the country has been steadily declining for decades. Meanwhile, the number of career firefighters continues to grow.

Whatever one thinks of vaccine mandates for government employees, if some of the fire department’s vaccine refuseniks stay home permanently, New York City will end up setting fewer tax dollars alight well.

FREE MARKETS

A plan for a blocky new college dormitory at the University of California, Santa Barbara campus has the internet arguing about how much density is too much density. The controversial 11-story dorm would pack 4,500 students into small, mostly windowless single-occupancy rooms. The design of the building is the brainchild of billionaire investor Charlie Munger, who has promised to donate $200 million to the $1.5 billion project on the condition that his plans be followed to the letter.

In response to Munger’s proposal, an architect on the university’s design review board quit in protest, saying per the Daily Nexus student paper, that “the building is a social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of the undergraduates the university serves.”

On Twitter, others were more favorable to Munger’s proposal. People have suggested that windowless, single-occupancy rooms might be an improvement over traditional shared dorm rooms and that they might even shift the Overton window on “the cube”—a utopian “yes in my backyard” (YIMBY) plan to house all of humanity in a single building in Manhattan.

QUICK HITS

• The American Medical Association has a new guide on how to talk about health disparities that heaps a surprising amount of blame on real estate developers for all the world’s problems.

• The New York Times has a big new investigation on the police departments around the country that fund themselves with fines and traffic tickets.

• The Los Angeles Times has more details on Alec Baldwin’s shooting of two crew members of the set of the movie Rust.

• American Airlines is canceling hundreds of flights because of weather and staffing shortages.

• U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen assures the public that everything is just fine with the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.

• The Food and Drug Administration is delaying its decision on whether to approve the Moderna vaccine for adolescents so that it can evaluate if the shot increases the risk of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, reports The Washington Post.

• SpaceX’s latest mission is delayed due to bad weather. No indication that staffing issues played a role.

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