Tag: news

Former GOP Presidential Candidate, Trump Fed Pick Herman Cain Dies After Battle With Coronavirus

Former GOP Presidential Candidate, Trump Fed Pick Herman Cain Dies After Battle With Coronavirus

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/30/2020 – 10:35

Herman Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and one-time Republican presidential candidate who campaigned on a sweeping tax reform plan called the 9-9-9 plan, died Thursday morning after a monthlong battle with COVID-19. He was 74.

Cain beat Stage 4 colon cancer back in 2006, and has been described by friends and family as a fighter. He was admitted to the hospital due to his COVID-19 infection on July 1. He was diagnosed with the virus two days prior, roughly a week after attending Trump’s Tulsa, Oklahoma rally.

However, it’s impossible to say for certain where Cain was infected (though several of Trump’s campaign staff from the event did contract the virus). Initially after being admitted to the hospital, Cain’s spokesman said he didn’t need a ventilator, and was in “good spirits”.

Cain grew up in Georgia, where he lived at the time of his death. He was the head of “Black Voices for Trump” and had recently signed on to host a new show on Newsmax called “Herman Cain’s America”.

Cain’s name returned to the front page last year when President Trump was considering him for an open seat on the Fed board of governors. However, Cain’s path to the nomination was sabotaged by complains about the sexual indiscretions that helped undermine his 2012 GOP primary campaign (for the nomination eventually won by now Sen. Mitt Romney). However, he once served as director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas.

Dan Calabrese, a longtime writer, and editor of Cain’s website, published a touching obituary written by a longtime friend and staffer. Read it below in full:

* * *

You’re never ready for the kind of news we are grappling with this morning. But we have no choice but to seek and find God’s strength and comfort to deal with it.

Herman Cain – our boss, our friend, like a father to so many of us – has passed away. He’s entering the presence of the Savior he’s served as an associate minister at Antioch Baptist Church in Atlanta for, and preparing for his reward.

Romans 2:6-7 says: “God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” By that measure, we expect the boss is in for some kind of welcome, because all of us who knew him  are well aware of how much good he did.

Let me deal with some of the particulars of the last few weeks. We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a rough fight. He had trouble breathing and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. We all prayed that the initial meds they gave him would get his breathing back to normal, but it became clear pretty quickly that he was in for a battle.

We didn’t release detailed updates on his condition to the public or to the media because neither his family nor we thought there was any reason for that. There were hopeful indicators, including a mere five days ago when doctors told us they thought he would eventually recover, although it wouldn’t be quick. We were relieved to be told that, and passed on the news via Herman’s social media. And yet we also felt real concern about the fact that he never quite seemed to get to the point where the doctors could advance him to the recovery phase.

Herman was 74. Although he was basically pretty healthy in recent years, he was still in a high-risk group because of his history with cancer. We all prayed so hard every day. We knew the time would come when the Lord would call him home, but we really liked having him here with us, and we held out hope he’d have a full recovery.

Herman had just started hosting a new show on Newsmax TV. He was so excited about it, and so pumped up about playing a role in the 2020 election campaign. At an age when a lot of people are looking to slow down, he was taking on new projects, booking speaking opportunities. Ever the dealmaker, he would fill me in with details of his negotiations with people on any number of things. I would always tell him I should have him negotiate my deals with my business’s other clients, because he did them better than anyone.

The last time I talked to him was when he was getting ready to start the Newsmax show. He was really pumped about it, and I was happy for him because he’d walked away from a nice contributor gig at Fox a couple years early to head a Super PAC. When that ran its course, Herman really wanted to get back into TV, and this afforded him a beautiful opportunity. Alas, he only ever got to host one episode.

But there was so much more to him than the public saw, and certainly more than the media presented to you. Most people heard of Herman for the first time when he ran for president in 2011. What they didn’t know was his business background. They didn’t know how he had started his career as a civilian employee of the Navy. It was funny to us because sometimes political pundits portrayed him as kind of a goof – having no idea that during his time working for the Navy, he was literally a rocket scientist.

Many people don’t know about his years climbing the corporate ladder at Pillsbury, at Burger King and finally as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. I will always remember the first time I became aware of him. It was 12 years before I worked with him for the first time. It was the now-famous encounter between Herman and Bill Clinton in which the boss schooled the president on the finer points of small-business finance, and I can’t describe it any better than I can just let you watch it:

Herman could handle himself in a situation like that because he knew who he was, and he wasn’t intimidated by anyone, including the president of the United States.

When I launched the North Star Writers Group syndicate in 2005, I was looking for good writers and thinkers who were not signed to syndicates, and I was surprised to learn that Herman Cain – the guy who had schooled Bill Clinton on national TV – was a free agent. I tracked down contact information for him and told his office I would like to syndicate him. Two days later I had a signed contract, and it kicked off a 15-year professional relationship and friendship that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

It was only a few months later that he informed me of his cancer diagnosis, but he assured me he would continue writing his column every week. Even though I told him that was the last thing he needed to concern himself with, he did it. He never told me he would do something that he didn’t come through on.

In 2007, my business was struggling and I was having a hard time finding a direction for it. Herman welcomed me to come see him in Atlanta, and he spent an entire day with me going over the particulars of my business. Together we drew up an action plan, and he gave me some firm and pointed advice on some things I needed to do. This guy had helped lead some of the biggest companies in the world, and he could have charged massive consulting fees for this sort of thing. But he did it all for free, and he kept working with me over the years to make sure things stayed on the right track.

I haven’t even gotten into his experiences as what he called an ABC – an American Black Conservative – because his politics seems so low on the list of things I want to tell you about him right now. He was one of the most important figures to ever come into my life, and I can’t wrap my head, or my heart, around the fact that he’s gone. I don’t think I’ll be able to for a long time.

But I want you to understand just what our world has lost today. There aren’t many people like Herman Cain, and it behooves us to truly cherish the ones we’re given. His wife Gloria – his children Melanie and Vincent – and his grandchildren…they need our love, our support and our prayers. Nothing I talked about above meant as much to him as these wonderful people did, and because he loved them so much, we will continue to feel his impact on the world through them.

I’m sorry I had to bring you bad news this morning. But the good news is that we had a man so good, so solid, so full of love and faith . . . that his death hits us this hard. Thank God for a man like that.

Rest well in His presence, Boss. We love you.

* * *

Source: HermanCain.com

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3jOn1Ea Tyler Durden

No, the Election Will Not Be Delayed

President Trump, unsurprisingly, has floated the idea of delaying the election. If he had the power to suspend the election, I assume that he would use it. But he doesn’t.

The election will not be delayed for political gain. The date of the election is set by statute. The Constitution unambiguously assigns this power to Congress: “The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.” U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl 4. Congress, meanwhile, “shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” Id. art. I, § 1. And the majority of members of the House of Representatives belong to the Democratic Party.

So, Congress almost certainly will not delay the election, and Congress almost certainly could not constitutionally cancel the election. And, by the way, even if the election were cancelled, President Trump would cease being the President after four years.

Those worried about this sort of thing worry that the Supreme Court might be complicit in an unconstitutional Executive Order to delay the election or just flat out cancel it. Or maybe worse, just a switch to a dictatorship until conditions allow democracy to be restored. Such a thing could happen in some countries. Not here. I do not believe that any such attempt would receive the support of a single Justice. Certainly, it would not receive the support of five Justices. Nor would it receive the support of the military. Nor would it receive the support of academic commentators or serious lawyers. Is there anyone who argues that the President does have the power to delay or cancel the election?

Can we imagine crazy scenarios that could lead to genuine constitutional crises? Sure. Imagine terrorist attacks being launched simultaneously across the United States, but selectively only in strongholds of the then-current President. In such a case, there might be legitimate arguments against the validity of any election results, and it is hard to speculate how such a crisis would be resolved.

But we are nowhere near that today. There is an existing statutory regime in place, and states are empowered (but not required) to expand their allowance of absentee ballots. If disputes arise in the processing of such absentee ballots, state administrative agencies and courts, ultimately supervised by the Supreme Court, can handle them. Is it possible that political considerations might enter into the calculus of how such disputes are resolved? Naturally, and in a close election, that could make a difference.

I see the President’s tweet as an attempt to warn about election fraud before the election so that if any state’s results are uncertain, he will have a plausible-sounding argument about the legitimacy of the results. But there will be an election, and the President will not be in charge of its timing or of counting the ballots.

I hesitate to publish this blog post. It is devoid of any original points. But once in a while, there may be value in stating the uncontroversial and obvious, especially when the President may be hoping to unsettle the status quo.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3fcVGIu
via IFTTT

No, the Election Will Not Be Delayed

President Trump, unsurprisingly, has floated the idea of delaying the election. If he had the power to suspend the election, I assume that he would use it. But he doesn’t.

The election will not be delayed for political gain. The date of the election is set by statute. The Constitution unambiguously assigns this power to Congress: “The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.” U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl 4. Congress, meanwhile, “shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” Id. art. I, § 1. And the majority of members of the House of Representatives belong to the Democratic Party.

So, Congress almost certainly will not delay the election, and Congress almost certainly could not constitutionally cancel the election. And, by the way, even if the election were cancelled, President Trump would cease being the President after four years.

Those worried about this sort of thing worry that the Supreme Court might be complicit in an unconstitutional Executive Order to delay the election or just flat out cancel it. Or maybe worse, just a switch to a dictatorship until conditions allow democracy to be restored. Such a thing could happen in some countries. Not here. I do not believe that any such attempt would receive the support of a single Justice. Certainly, it would not receive the support of five Justices. Nor would it receive the support of the military. Nor would it receive the support of academic commentators or serious lawyers. Is there anyone who argues that the President does have the power to delay or cancel the election?

Can we imagine crazy scenarios that could lead to genuine constitutional crises? Sure. Imagine terrorist attacks being launched simultaneously across the United States, but selectively only in strongholds of the then-current President. In such a case, there might be legitimate arguments against the validity of any election results, and it is hard to speculate how such a crisis would be resolved.

But we are nowhere near that today. There is an existing statutory regime in place, and states are empowered (but not required) to expand their allowance of absentee ballots. If disputes arise in the processing of such absentee ballots, state administrative agencies and courts, ultimately supervised by the Supreme Court, can handle them. Is it possible that political considerations might enter into the calculus of how such disputes are resolved? Naturally, and in a close election, that could make a difference.

I see the President’s tweet as an attempt to warn about election fraud before the election so that if any state’s results are uncertain, he will have a plausible-sounding argument about the legitimacy of the results. But there will be an election, and the President will not be in charge of its timing or of counting the ballots.

I hesitate to publish this blog post. It is devoid of any original points. But once in a while, there may be value in stating the uncontroversial and obvious, especially when the President may be hoping to unsettle the status quo.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3fcVGIu
via IFTTT

Congress Wants To Regulate Big Tech. They Still Don’t Understand It.

sipaphotosten940860

Congress proves how shallow and absurd its anti-tech agenda is. Political preening, petty grievances, and a terrifying cluelessness ruled House lawmakers’ Thursday questioning of the chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

During the hearing, Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee took turns offering a series of stern looks and fiery (if unsupported by anything more than anecdote) allegations about the illegal, un-American, cop-hating, Communist-supporting, Russian disinformation-spreading, election-throwing, child-abuse-enabling, small-business-quashing, app-suppressing, mob-like, conspiracy-minded, all-powerful behaviors of America’s most valuable companies.

Lawmakers barely let the tech CEOs—Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—get a few words out between their wild accusations. And they quickly glossed over any complicated issues, clearly preferring to spend their allotted questioning time getting good video clips of themselves.

As Reason‘s Eric Boehm and Robby Soave explained in posts yesterday, lawmakers spent the time “using the threat of antitrust action to try to force tech firms to take sides” in political battles and couldn’t even keep straight which companies they were mad at for which things.

It was almost enough to make you feel for Zuckerberg, even (almost). Certainly, poor Cook didn’t belong there. And—whatever legitimate (and diverse) issues there are with some of the ways their companies do business—none of them deserved the insults and inanity they were subjected to yesterday.

The telehearing stretched on for hours, over the course of which it became abundantly clear that Democrats and Republicans are often diametrically opposed in their grievances while acting like satisfying them is only a matter of tech leaders choosing to do the Right Thing. Neither side admitted that acting as it wished would run afoul of the supposedly simple and common-sense things their opponents wanted “Big Tech” to do.

The most dramatic of these tensions involves web content moderation. It’s not that far off to say Democrats want these companies to suppress more content and Republicans want them to allow more content without question.

Democrats are worried about “hate speech” and disinformation; Republicans are worried about being labeled as hate speech or disinformation.

Even within the same side and sometimes the same individual, there were contradictory complaints about tech companies and implications about what they should do.

For instance, when it came to marketplaces like Apple’s app and podcast stores, or Amazon more broadly, some committee members acted as if it was dangerously anti-competitive for these companies to reject many podcasts, apps, goods, etc., or to give preferential treatment to their own products and services. Yet Bezos and Cook were also excoriated by lawmakers for failing to completely weed out misleading, offensive, or counterfeit items.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats on the committee would acknowledge the huge tension between expecting tech platforms to be open marketplaces in order to foster competition, avoid discrimination, eschew bias, and satisfy (a perverted version of) antitrust law while simultaneously expecting them to actively thwart spammers, scammers, fakers, foreign influence, sex ads, bigotry, and all the other bad things.

And neither Democrats nor Republicans seemed at all keen on letting these private companies make business decisions as they see fit, with politicians from both parties describing their basic business activities (like trying to improve products, keeping up with current tech trends, etc.) as nefarious conspiracies.

“Undoubtedly, the motivation for many politicians on both sides of the aisle” with anti-tech stuff “is to score political points for standing up to big corporations. Such a David and Goliath narrative plays well on the campaign trail,” notes Casey Given at the Washington Examiner.

In order for them to be the good guys, they need tech leaders to be bad guys.

But keep in mind that this wasn’t just some lark—the committee launched this investigation “more than a year ago,” with the alleged objectives of “document[ing] competition problems in the digital economy” and evaluating “whether the current antitrust framework is able to properly address them.”

If yesterday was any indication, it is not.

None of the tech-company docs they dug through or other investigative measures seem to have yielded new or damning information about Apple, Amazon, Facebook, or Google. A handful of gripes from these companies’ competitors or customers was almost all Congress offered by way of “evidence.” And most of yesterday’s questions weren’t even about antitrust concerns but election integrity, Section 230, content moderation, stopping crime, protecting civil liberties, etc.

Lawmakers yesterday repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding about communications law as it exists and how tech products work.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fla.) asked if any of them opposed “American values” and demanded a pledge to continue working with police.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R–N.D.), bless his heart, was the only member who asked how tech companies are going to protect user data from the police. Armstrong also pointed out that privacy laws can actually help big, entrenched businesses and burden or stop smaller competitors.

Anyway, if you want some quick and potent evidence that this was all about partisan mudslinging, scapegoating, and trying to use search engines, social media, and tech marketplaces to their respective party’s advantage, check out the House Judiciary Democrats and House Judiciary GOP Twitter feeds.

The bottom line, as Boehm wrote yesterday: “Wednesday’s hearing of the House Judiciary Committee was more about theatrics than seriously considering the use of antitrust law. Perhaps that’s because it’s somewhat ridiculous to argue with a straight face that Google or Amazon are actually monopolies, or because it’s quite obvious that consumers who dislike Apple’s or Facebook’s products are perfectly free to give their time, money, and business to competitors on or off the web.”

One more thing: in all the culture war and political posturing, we often overlook the fact that media businesses—emphasis on the business part there—are pushing political investigations and government regulations out of animosity toward tech companies cutting into their ad revenue and audiences. We shouldn’t:

ELECTION 2020

Uh oh:

QUICK HITS

• We can dream:

• ProPublica is keeping tabs on whether police getting violent with current protesters are being disciplined.

• Negotiations in Congress continue over stimulus spending.

• Only two counties in Tennessee have non-worrying rates of COVID-19 transmission:

• A very good and concise summary of Section 230:

• “Hundreds of Thai protesters sang a Japanese cartoon jingle on Sunday with lyrics mocking the government as hungry hamsters feasting on taxpayer cash,” reports Reuters.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/39FyVvv
via IFTTT

Oil Prices Plummet, WTI Accelerates Below $40 As Demand Fears Rise

Oil Prices Plummet, WTI Accelerates Below $40 As Demand Fears Rise

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/30/2020 – 10:26

On top of the Fed-described “extraordinarily uncertain” economic outlook, this morning’s GDP data spooked oil prices lower and it appears $40 stops have been busted…

While fears of a US resurgence of COVID have moderated modestly in recent days, the market remains caught between output cuts from some of the world’s biggest producers and anxiety over demand as Asian nations begin to see a 3rd wave.

“Positive and negative factors still appear balanced on the oil market, with concerns about weak demand being offset by the voluntary OPEC+ production cuts,” said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank AG.

This won’t help the economy ‘recover’ as energy-related job losses transform from temporary to permanent, and as OilPrice.com’s Nick Cunningham notes, several analysts argued this week that the bigger picture is murkier, with economic and pandemic-related risks looming.

“While upwards momentum has stalled over the past month, we still think prices are overdue a downwards correction to reflect the flattening of oil demand recovery and the darkening of economic prospects,” Standard Chartered analysts wrote in a note.

The investment bank added that “consensus views” on the oil market balances in the second half of the year have “weakened significantly over the past month.”

“We now only rarely hear talk of V-shaped demand recoveries and extremely tight markets, the views that allowed Brent to rally beyond USD 40/bbl,” Standard Chartered said. “Instead the main talk among traders seems to have shifted to precisely how much demand will disappoint and how long will it take to normalise inventories.” 

That assessment stands in stark contrast to the behavior of crude prices in the last six weeks. Volatility has vanished, with WTI remaining rooted at about $40 per barrel, and Brent a few dollars more. Prices have been stuck at those levels even as the optimism surrounding economic re-openings has dissipated. The only sign of a more pessimistic outlook creeping into oil markets is the shift from backwardation towards contango. As Standard Chartered pointed out, the discount for front-month Brent contracts relative to fourth-month Brent contracts has widened over the course of July.

“In our view, Brent above USD 40/bbl seems increasingly discordant with the flow of news regarding the coronavirus pandemic and the outlook for the global economy, and particularly jars with increasingly bearish oil market fundamentals,” Standard Chartered analyst concluded. 

However, on the flip side, U.S. gasoline demand jumped in latest EIA data through July 24, rising to 8.8 million barrels per day (mb/d), ending several weeks of decline, at least temporarily. That level of consumption is the highest in four months. 

Moreover, the surge in cases in the United States has eased ever-so-slightly, with key states such as Texas, Florida and California seeing infections coming down from recent peaks. “This could be a sign of retreating demand risks from possible slowdowns or targeted lockdowns, but the prospect of a second wave later in the year still presents looming risks,” ClearView Energy Partners wrote in a note to clients. 

The second wave in the U.S. may be plateauing for the time being, and the rebound in gasoline demand combined with the drawdown in inventories boosted oil prices midweek.

But the sentiment shifts from week to week, and it is not clear that the prevailing wisdom that oil markets would be in a substantial supply/demand deficit in the second half of the year will pan out. On Tuesday, Rystad Energy warned that the loosening of the OPEC+ production cuts could lead to a renewed surplus for the next four months.

Global supply is expected to increase rather significantly over the next several months, outpacing expected demand increases. “OPEC’s experiment to increase production from August could backfire as we are still nowhere near out of the woods yet in terms of oil demand. The overall liquids market will flip back into a mini-supply glut and a swing into deficit will not happen again until December 2020,” Bjornar Tonhaugen, Rystad Energy’s Head of Oil Market Research, said in a statement on Tuesday. 

On Wednesday, Tonhaugen stuck with that thesis, despite the price increase on the back of EIA data. Rystad pointed to the unexpected rise in infections in Europe, a negative development that has yet to be factored in to market expectations. In fact, data from Europe shows a decline in road traffic as virus cases rise. “[D]on’t be fooled by today’s price gains, they may be cancelled as soon as production exceeds demand, which is around the corner, and as this is expected to last for some time, traders will race to price it in,” Tonhaugen said. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2D5P2qn Tyler Durden

Is The Nasdaq About To Collapse Into A Gamma Vortex

Is The Nasdaq About To Collapse Into A Gamma Vortex

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/30/2020 – 10:07

Earlier this week, Nomura’s Charlie McElligott pointed out something ominous: whereas dealer option exposure to the S&P was well in the money, Nasdaq dealer gamma was turning increasingly negative.

Fast forward to today when after the close we have a historic barrage of earnings reports from the Top 4 tech names – Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook – an event which could lead to turmoil for the Nasdaq, and when McElligott warns that the technicals are also turning increasingly unfavorable.

As the Nomura quant writes, for equities, “there a is critical test developing” within the multi-year regime leader “secular growth” Nasdaq, which for the better part of a decade has continued to benefit from its “duration-sensitivity” and bull-flattening in UST curves via a predominately “goldilocks” US economy over that time, but which Nomura warns over the past week and half since making new all-time highs “is now agitating under “crowding” risk and the weight of both its own “perpetual growth” expectations and valuations.”

To McElligott, this “agitation” is evident in the extreme “Growth vs Value” nature inherent to US Equities “1Y Price Momentum” factor, where the factor’s 60d and 120d realized vols exploded to record highs in recent days.

But what about dealer positioning, and just ahead of today’s critical megatech earnings dump at that?

Looking at this “critical” point on Nasdaq, Nomura looks at QQQ options and finds that Dealers are even more “short Gamma” than they were earlier this week, with Gamma vs spot “neutral” level up at $261.90, while QQQs are currently trading $258.50—which naturally indicates the potential for a self-reinforcing exacerbation on further move lower…

… as the Nasdaq tumbles into a “gamma vortex”, one where long overdue selling in the Nasdaq triggers even more selling as dealer option positioning accelerates the downside move.

In short: if McElligott is right, if dealers are indeed bracing for a major drop the Qs, and if today’s earnings reports are anything less than perfection, then watch out below.

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

A “Controlling” Elon Musk Reportedly Bugged Ex-Girlfriend Amber Heard’s Tesla

A “Controlling” Elon Musk Reportedly Bugged Ex-Girlfriend Amber Heard’s Tesla

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/30/2020 – 09:55

Apparently it isn’t just his employees that Elon Musk likes spying on.

A new report from the Daily Mail out Wednesday claims that Musk gave his ex-girlfriend Amber Heard a Tesla “fitted with a bugging device”. The same report says that Heard’s mother preferred Johnny Depp to Musk, who she called “controlling”. 

The report cites Jennifer Howell, who claims to be a close friend of Amber Heard’s younger sister, Whitney Henriquez. She worked as her boss between 2014 and 2016 and also got to know Heard’s mother, Paige. Howell says that Heard’s mother unearthed “extraordinary secrets” about Amber’s relationship with the Tesla CEO. 

Howell said in a sworn statement days ago: “Paige shared with me while I was visiting Whitney that Elon Musk had gifted a Tesla or multiple Teslas (not sure if it was one or more), but Amber found out that they were ‘bugged’.”

She also said that Heard’s mom called Musk “controlling” and expressed her preference for Depp, who she called a “saint”, over Musk. Howell said she heard the claims while visiting Henriquez in 2019 after the birth of Henriquez’s son. 

Additionally, Howell stated: “Paige also told me the reason Johnny and Amber broke up was because Amber was violent and emotional and loved Johnny so much that she could not control it. I was indeed taken aback because this conversation occurred after the divorce and when Hunter was only a few months old, and I was at Whitney’s house.”

She continued in her sworn statement: “Whitney told me that Amber and Johnny were still in touch and that they were each other’s true loves or something to that exact sentiment. Whitney was still going through the emotions of having had a baby and all of those ups and downs, and I could not believe that Amber and Johnny’s relationship was being discussed while Whitney was the one who needed to be the focal point and needed our support.”

Heard’s younger sister, Henriquez, disputes the statements, calling them “bizarre” and “complete fiction”. Both Heard and her sister are reportedly upset that the claims are being attributed to their mother, who died in May at the age of 63. Sources close to Musk called the report “pure fantasy land”. 

Representatives for Amber Heard said: “Jennifer Howell’s statements do not bear any relationship to the truth and I have no idea why she is saying this.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hLz3ME Tyler Durden

Rep. Louie Gohmert: “I’ll Use Zinc, Erythromycin, & Hydroxychloroquine” To Fight COVID-19

Rep. Louie Gohmert: “I’ll Use Zinc, Erythromycin, & Hydroxychloroquine” To Fight COVID-19

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/30/2020 – 09:35

Via SaraACarter.com,

“My doctor and I are all in,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told “Hannity” Wednesday while on quarantine from having contacted coronavirus.

“And I got a text just before I came on from a dear friend, [a] doctor, who just found out he had it, and he said he started a HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] regimen, too.”

“So zinc, erythromycin, and hydroxychloroquine,” Gohmert added, “and that will start just in the next day or two.”

Gohmert explained that he found out he had coronavirus only when he was tested when he got invited to join President Trump on a trip to West Texas.

“He [Trump] called me from Air Force One on the way home tonight and I said … ‘Mr. President, if you would not [have] invited me to go with you to West Texas, I would never have known I had the coronavirus,’” Gohmert said.

“That’s what I got tested for it and then I found out I had it.”

Watch the full clip here:

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3189bUS Tyler Durden

Congress Wants To Regulate Big Tech. They Still Don’t Understand It.

sipaphotosten940860

Congress proves how shallow and absurd its anti-tech agenda is. Political preening, petty grievances, and a terrifying cluelessness ruled House lawmakers’ Thursday questioning of the chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

During the hearing, Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee took turns offering a series of stern looks and fiery (if unsupported by anything more than anecdote) allegations about the illegal, un-American, cop-hating, Communist-supporting, Russian disinformation-spreading, election-throwing, child-abuse-enabling, small-business-quashing, app-suppressing, mob-like, conspiracy-minded, all-powerful behaviors of America’s most valuable companies.

Lawmakers barely let the tech CEOs—Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—get a few words out between their wild accusations. And they quickly glossed over any complicated issues, clearly preferring to spend their allotted questioning time getting good video clips of themselves.

As Reason‘s Eric Boehm and Robby Soave explained in posts yesterday, lawmakers spent the time “using the threat of antitrust action to try to force tech firms to take sides” in political battles and couldn’t even keep straight which companies they were mad at for which things.

It was almost enough to make you feel for Zuckerberg, even (almost). Certainly, poor Cook didn’t belong there. And—whatever legitimate (and diverse) issues there are with some of the ways their companies do business—none of them deserved the insults and inanity they were subjected to yesterday.

The telehearing stretched on for hours, over the course of which it became abundantly clear that Democrats and Republicans are often diametrically opposed in their grievances while acting like satisfying them is only a matter of tech leaders choosing to do the Right Thing. Neither side admitted that acting as it wished would run afoul of the supposedly simple and common-sense things their opponents wanted “Big Tech” to do.

The most dramatic of these tensions involves web content moderation. It’s not that far off to say Democrats want these companies to suppress more content and Republicans want them to allow more content without question.

Democrats are worried about “hate speech” and disinformation; Republicans are worried about being labeled as hate speech or disinformation.

Even within the same side and sometimes the same individual, there were contradictory complaints about tech companies and implications about what they should do.

For instance, when it came to marketplaces like Apple’s app and podcast stores, or Amazon more broadly, some committee members acted as if it was dangerously anti-competitive for these companies to reject many podcasts, apps, goods, etc., or to give preferential treatment to their own products and services. Yet Bezos and Cook were also excoriated by lawmakers for failing to completely weed out misleading, offensive, or counterfeit items.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats on the committee would acknowledge the huge tension between expecting tech platforms to be open marketplaces in order to foster competition, avoid discrimination, eschew bias, and satisfy (a perverted version of) antitrust law while simultaneously expecting them to actively thwart spammers, scammers, fakers, foreign influence, sex ads, bigotry, and all the other bad things.

And neither Democrats nor Republicans seemed at all keen on letting these private companies make business decisions as they see fit, with politicians from both parties describing their basic business activities (like trying to improve products, keeping up with current tech trends, etc) as nefarious conspiracies.

“Undoubtedly, the motivation for many politicians on both sides of the aisle” with anti-tech stuff “is to score political points for standing up to big corporations. Such a David and Goliath narrative plays well on the campaign trail,” notes Casey Given at the Washington Examiner.

In order for them to be the good guys, they need tech leaders to be bad guys.

But keep in mind that this wasn’t just some lark—the committee launched this investigation “more than a year ago,” with the alleged objectives of “document[ing] competition problems in the digital economy” and evaluating “whether the current antitrust framework is able to properly address them.”

If yesterday was any indication, it is not.

None of the tech-company docs they dug through or other investigative measures seem to have yielded new or damning information about Apple, Amazon, Facebook, or Google. A handful of gripes from these companies’ competitors or customers was almost all Congress offered by way of “evidence.” And most of yesterday’s questions weren’t even about antitrust concerns but election integrity, Section 230, content moderation, stopping crime, protecting civil liberties, etc.

Lawmakers yesterday repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding about communications law as it exists and how tech products work.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) asked if any of them opposed “American values” and demanded a pledge to continue working with police.

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R–N.D.), bless his heart, was the only member who asked how tech companies are going to protect user data from the police. Armstrong also pointed out that privacy laws can actually help big, entrenched businesses and burden or stop smaller competitors.

Anyway, if you want some quick and potent evidence that this was all about partisan mudslinging, scapegoating, and trying to use search engines, social media, and tech marketplaces to their respective party’s advantage, check out the House Judiciary Democrats and House Judiciary GOP Twitter feeds.

The bottom line, as Boehm wrote yesterday: “Wednesday’s hearing of the House Judiciary Committee was more about theatrics than seriously considering the use of antitrust law. Perhaps that’s because it’s somewhat ridiculous to argue with a straight face that Google or Amazon are actually monopolies, or because it’s quite obvious that consumers who dislike Apple’s or Facebook’s products are perfectly free to give their time, money, and business to competitors on or off the web.”

One more thing: in all the culture war and political posturing, we often overlook the fact that media businesses—emphasis on the business part there—are pushing political investigations and government regulations out of animosity toward tech companies cutting into their ad revenue and audiences. We shouldn’t:

ELECTION 2020

Uh oh:

QUICK HITS

• We can dream:

• Propublica is keeping tabs on whether police getting violent with current protests are being disciplined.

• Negotiations in congress continue over stimulus spending.

• Only two counties in Tennessee have non-worrying rates of COVID-19 transmission:

• A very good and concise summary of Section 230:

• “Hundreds of Thai protesters sang a Japanese cartoon jingle on Sunday with lyrics mocking the government as hungry hamsters feasting on taxpayer cash,” reports Reuters.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/39FyVvv
via IFTTT

Aviation Flu? It Will Take Years For Passenger Numbers To Fully Recover

Aviation Flu? It Will Take Years For Passenger Numbers To Fully Recover

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/30/2020 – 09:15

Authored by Bill Blain via MorningPorridge.com,

With a lick of her lips she undid all the clips….”

I shall be sending Jerome Powell a No S**t Sherlock award for yesterday’s insightful gem: “The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus.”

Boeing’s miserable results and outlook yesterday will be reinforced by similar dire numbers from Airbus.  The US plane maker delivered a mere 20 aircraft in Q2.  Revenues from passenger plane sales tumbled 68% while income from service and maintenance nose-dived. It’s cutting production as orders are delayed or cancelled.  It doesn’t expect aviation to return to normal for 3 years, and plans to lay off 19,000 workers.  Boeing is a critical cog of the US economy – 1% of US GDP with massive multiplier effects across industry and growth. GE posted a $2bln loss, mainly on the back of crashing orders for jet engines. Rolls Royce and a host of other aerospace firms are in serious trouble. 

Even if the pandemic was magically cured tomorrow, Boeing would still be in massive trouble because of management failure, the B-737 Max clusterf*** saga, and declining orders for its out-of-date list of planes. 

Aviation-backed finance was one of my favourite markets.  The deals were illiquid, but generally offered decent returns secured on assets with clear and predictable resale values. The maths worked – until suddenly COVID literally threw it all in the air… Unlike corporate debt, which rapidly recovered on the back of Central Bank QE Infinity, aircraft backed issues remain in limbo on the back of uncertainty for the industry. Prices for used aircraft are… messy. There has never been a shock like it.

The overnight collapse of tourism and business travel means aviation has taken the biggest and most obvious pandemic hit – over 40 airlines around the globe have gone bust or are in some form of bankruptcy protection. The Boeing/Airbus duopoly looks in serious trouble as orders and deliveries plummet.  

According to my chum Miran Bastajian of Cirium, (the aviation data and information experts (if you a serious investor – read their stuff, and tell em Bill sent you if you don’t) – 34% of the world’s passenger aircraft, over 7600 planes, are sitting unused around the globe.  It was over 14400 planes at one point! Many of the smaller B-737s and A-320/321s are getting back in the skies – but only because they are cheaper to fly half-empty. 

That’s still an awful lot of aircraft that aren’t earning their owners – mainly aircraft leasing companies – reliable rentals. (They are funded through the market.) Immediately after the crisis began airlines scrambled to raise cash to survive – they tried to borrow from the market or close sale and leaseback deals on the aircraft they still owned.  It became quickly apparent many airlines had little perception of how transformational the crisis would be. Some airlines got lucky vie grants and bailouts, while others have been forced to accept dangerous money – expensive and conditional.

We simply don’t know how quickly aviation will recover.  As long as the virus remains a threat, passengers will remain fearful of flying, and governments will continue to over-react in the absence of clear data. Will business travel ever “take-off” again now that we all know how to Zoom? Probably.. but slowly. Business travel is vital for airlines – 20% of tickets and 80% of profits. Tourism seemed set to recover quickly with repressed demand for holidays after lockdown, but that’s been whacked by Spain being put back on the quarantine list. 

We could be looking at a worse-case scenario where it takes years for passenger numbers to recover, and airlines and manufacturers remain massively stressed. Even the best case – assuming an effective vaccine and the end of social distancing, it could be a year before travel returns to anything like “normal”. Airlines will still be facing a solvency issue. They are going to struggle to raise additional debt required to kick start new routes or re-equip their fleets – which means there could be some value in some of the apron-queens sitting in the aircraft bone-yards.  It will be a buyers market.

The equation is made even more complex because aviation was already facing a number of major challenges. In addition to the usual cut-throat competition between airlines: 

1) The business model was evolving. Low-cost carriers had eaten the business of flag carriers in regional travel, and were beginning to open up cheap intercontinental flights.  The hub and spoke model was broken, larger twin aisle aircraft proving far less popular than predicted – airlines were looking to maximise returns via smaller single-aisle point-to-point routes. The B-747 is history, the A-380 super-jumbo production lines has closed and there are few buyers of second-hand models. No one is keen to buy Boeing’s new B-777x. 

2) As millennials became the target market, environmental concerns and “Flygskam” have become a massive consideration for the airlines as they tried to appeal to new customers. 

3) The Boeing/Airbus duopoly was stifling the market – they had little incentive to develop new environmentally friendly or point-to-point new designs, and focused on re-hashed versions of tried old designs – resulting in the B-737Max disaster. To be blunt.. new aircraft like the A-350 and B-787 are more efficient and pleasant to fly, but they are basically evolved tech from the 1950s when fuel was cheap and no one worried about where polar-bears live.

And it will get worse. 

For the last 10-years Airbus and Boeing have been pointing to China as their most promising and exciting markets. They expected thousands of China orders in coming decades. With an escalating cold-war between the US and China, much of that order backlog could be refocused on China’s domestic Comac design (old tech, but cheap…. If it works.) 

Could things change for aviation? 

Whatever the coronavirus has done to the global economy – it clearly isn’t going to kill us all….. Aside from Aviation, the effects on the global economy are likely to be fairly short-term. In a few years we’ll have learnt to cope, and growth will be back on some kind of track again. Unfortunately, airports will become even more depressing experiences because of virus measures, but we will still want holidays in the sun. 

While history tells us pandemics are bad, but survivable, it may not be the same story with the environment – it’s a threat of a different order and magnitude.  While the environmental campaigners have taken second seat to the immediacy of the Pandemic – their message hasn’t changed. Many social analysts now expect the Pandemic will trigger renewed and reinvigorated demand for environmental change… and Aviation will be a major target. Smart politicians get that and will play to the Millennial and Gen Z vote.

Green flying might be just around the corner. Airbus recently expressed its ambition to innovate a hydrogen fuelled airliner by the mid 2030s. Airbus CEO CEO Guillaume Faury said they are: “committed to developing sustainable flight and believes hydrogen is one of the most viable solutions”, adding: “hydrogen is one of the most promising technologies available to help us reach zero-emission flights by 2035.”

But developing a commercial green airliner will cost billions and billions – at a time when airlines will likely still be strapped for cash, and the wheezing Airbus/Boeing duopoly will remain barely profitable turning out old-style polluters. It’s going to require massive government investment and a reset to the current aviation market. 

Including the aircraft that have been “retired” because of the pandemic – there are around 22,000 Av-Gas fuelled commercial airliners available today. To replace all these “clunkers” with clean flyers to achieve zero emissions by 2050 aint going to happen unless someone – ie tax-payers – fund it. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2PbqKxI Tyler Durden