Tag: news

Joe Biden’s $2 Trillion Green New Deal Is Just a Worn-Out Democratic Jobs Program

biden

“There’s no more consequential challenge that we must meet in the next decade than the onrushing climate crisis. Left unchecked, it is literally an existential threat to the health of our planet and to our very survival.” That’s Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, laying out his energy plan for the country.

He wants you to believe that his $2 trillion plan to combat climate change is a bold new agenda to save the planet. In fact, it’s the same old worn-out jobs programs for Democratic Party interests that he’s been pushing since he became a senator in the early 1970s.

“Climate change is real, but it’s not the end of the world,” says writer and activist Michael Shellenberger, who Time named a “hero of the environment” in 2008. He stresses that deaths from natural disasters “have declined 80 percent over the last 40 years, including in very poor countries.” What’s more, says Shellenberger, “carbon emissions have peaked in rich countries. They’re going to peak in poor countries in the next 10 or 20 years.” His new book, Apocalypse Never, makes the case that climate alarmism, which has become a central part of the Democratic Party’s platform, is flat-out wrong and counterproductive for both the environment and the economy.

A major problem of Biden’s rehash of the Green New Deal is that renewable energy sources such as solar power simply can’t scale up to deliver the electricity that a modern society needs. Shellenberger notes, for instance, that solar farms require 400 times more land than natural gas or a nuclear plant because of the physics of sunlight or wind.

Before Biden revealed his massively expensive green energy plan, he had already promised more than $6 trillion in new spending over the coming decade, paid for through a mix of borrowing and hikes in income and corporate taxes. This comes at a time when the COVID-19 lockdown and emergency spending will push the debt above 100 percent of GDP by the end of 2020, and when the federal government is running vastly larger deficits than it did even at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

Shellenberger says that if politicians were really serious about combating global warming, they would get behind fracking and nuclear energy, which is both clean and practical. Biden doesn’t mention nuclear power, though, because it won’t create jobs for “longshoreman” and “ship builders” or fulfill any other progressive fantasy, such as his dream of a “modern day Civilian Climate Corps” based on the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps.

In Apocalypse Never, Shellenberger argues that environmentalism has become a substitute for religion in an increasingly secular world. Environmentalists, he says, are “treating nature as a new god. They start treating science as a new religion. And that’s when things just go absolutely bonkers and problematic.”

Joe Biden’s “clean energy plan” may make his followers feel saved and it might even help get him elected. But if past is prologue, it won’t create many jobs or help “heal” the planet. It will just mean spending gobs of money we don’t have in a massive giveaway to special interests.

Produced by Nick Gillespie. Graphics by Isaac Reese.

Photo credits: Caro/Oberhaeuser/Newscom, Dan Parrett/Newscom, Michael Bryant/Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS, Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom, Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/Sipa USA/Newscom, Pacific Press/Sipa USA/Newscom, Patrick Fallon/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom, Scranton Times-Tribune/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom, Scranton Times-Tribune/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom, Tracy Robillard/ZUMA Press/Newscom, SMG/ZUMA Press/Newscom.Music credits: “Cold River,” by Repina, “Levitate,” by Out of Flux, licensed by Artlist.

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How Much Will the Planet Warm If Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Doubles?

CO2RichardGriffinDreamstime

The hopeful prospect that doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels might yield a relatively mild increase in global average temperatures is unlikely, according to a comprehensive new study.

Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is conventionally defined as the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature that would occur if carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were doubled and the climate system was given enough time to reach an equilibrium state. Scientific American once called it “the most important number in climate change.”

First, let’s consider where the planet’s climate stands right now. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from the pre-industrial level about 280 parts per million (ppm) to 415 ppm today. The additional carbon dioxide has been added largely due to humanity’s burning of coal, oil, and natural gas, along with plowing down forests. According to ice core data, today’s carbon dioxide levels are higher than at any point in at least the past 800,000 years, and more recent research suggests that the current level is the highest it’s been in the past 23 million years. Average global temperatures are currently about 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels.

In 1979, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences conjectured that ECS was probably somewhere between 1.5°C and 4.5°C per doubling of CO2. In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that ECS is likely to be between 1.5°C and 4.5°C. In other words, the best estimate of sensitivity remained basically the same more than three decades later.

The new study narrows the range of the probable temperature increase. With doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide, the eventual warming would probably be between 2.6°C and 3.9°C. There would be less than 5 percent chance of staying below 2°C—and a 6 to 18 percent chance of exceeding 4.5°C.

Their evidence stems, in part, from a better understanding of the atmospheric feedback processes. The researchers evaluated the evidence for how changes in carbon dioxide, water vapor, surface reflectivity, and, most importantly, cloud cover affect global temperature trends. One of the greatest uncertainties with respect to future global temperature trends has been whether changes in clouds will tend to cool the planet. The researchers conclude that warming-induced changes in clouds will tend to boost rather than moderate future temperatures.

They also argue that the empirical data for historical warming of 1.2°C over the past century or so suggests that an ECS of 1.5°C is implausible. And as a third line of evidence, they looked deeper into prehistoric climates, including the succession of ice ages and the mid-Pliocene warm period, to see how changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels correlated with changes in global average temperatures. In the depths of the ice ages, the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide was just below 200 ppm; global temperatures were between 3°C to 7°C lower than the pre-industrial average.

During the mid-Pliocene warm period, carbon dioxide levels hovered around 400 ppm and average global temperature was 1°C to 5°C warmer than the pre-industrial average. Sea level was 20 to 30 meters higher than now, indicating significant reductions in Antarctic glacial ice. The paleoclimate data, they conclude, suggests the ECS is likely to fall within 1.5°C to 5°C, with highest likelihood around 2.5°C.

The researchers integrate the data from these three strands of evidence to find that the earlier lower-bound estimate of a 1.5°C ECS is improbable. Cloud feedbacks will not likely cool temperatures, historical temperature increases are already approaching the lower bound, and mid-Pliocene warming that was higher than now occurred with lower levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. On the other hand, both historical and paleoclimate evidence suggest that an ECS greater than 4.5°C is also unlikely. The researchers conclude that there is a 66 percent chance that the ECS is  2.6°C to 3.9°C; they offer a broader 2.3°C to 4.5°C range to cautiously account for alternative views, assumptions, and unknown unknowns.

If the current annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide of 2.3 ppm is sustained, it will reach double the pre-industrial level before 2090. Keep in mind that the difference between an ice age when continental glaciers buried about one-third of the global land area and today, when they cover around 10 percent, is a temperature increase of as little as 3°C.

For more background, see “What Climate Science Tells Us About Temperature Trends” and “Climate Change: How Lucky Do You Feel?” 

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New on SCOTUSBlog: “Invisible majorities: Counting to nine votes in per curiam cases”

SCOTUSBlog published my new essay, titled Invisible majorities: Counting to nine votes in per curiam cases. Here is the introduction:

When the Supreme Court issues a signed opinion, each of the nine justices will indicate their position: affirm, reverse or recuse. But not all opinions are signed. The court sometimes issues unsigned per curiam decisions – so named after the Latin phrase meaning “by the court.” In such cases, the justices’ positions are not always so clear. All we know for sure is that at least five members – a majority of the court – agreed with the unsigned order. Individual justices can, and do, write separately to express their concurrence with, or dissent from, a per curiam ruling. But the failure to write separately does not necessarily indicate assent. As a result, it is often impossible in these cases to figure out which justices were in the majority, and which were in the dissent.

This past term, the court issued per curiam rulings in two pairs of “companion” cases: the “faithless elector” cases and the Creek Nation cases. In these decisions, it was difficult to count to nine.

I still remain perplexed by the votes in the Creek Nation cases.

The voting lineup in one of the Creek Nation companion cases is even more ambiguous. On July 9, the court decided McGirt v. Oklahoma and Sharp v. Murphy. Both cases presented the same question: whether portions of eastern Oklahoma remained land reserved for the Creek Nation. McGirt split 5-4. Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. He found that the territory retains its status as a Native American reservation. He was joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. Roberts dissented, joined by Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh. The dissenters argued that Congress had disestablished the reservation.

Murphy was decided with a one-sentence per curiam opinion: “The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is affirmed for the reasons stated in McGirt v. Oklahoma.” But Gorsuch was recused in Murphy – and as a result, only four members of the McGirt majority remained. There had to be at least five justices to form a majority in Murphy. (If the court had split 4-4, and there had been no majority, the per curiam ruling would have stated that the 10th Circuit is affirmed “by an equally divided Court.”) We can safely assume that the remaining four members of the McGirt majority remained: Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. But who was the fifth vote? Thomas and Alito noted their dissents from the Murphy per curiam opinion, presumably for the same reasons they dissented in McGirt. So they’re out.

That leaves Roberts and Kavanaugh. One or both of them must have voted with the majority – even though they vigorously dissented in McGirt. Why? Perhaps they deemed McGirt binding precedent, which must be followed. Or one of them joined the per curiam decision as a courtesy “fifth” vote to create a majority. It is impossible to know for sure. But at least one member of the McGirt dissent must have put aside their disagreement to join the Murphy majority.

I appreciate the chance to write on these nerdy issues.

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“There Are Good Reasons Not to Disparage Your Opponent, Especially in Court Filings”

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided Bearden v. Ballad Health. As the brief opinion makes amply clear, the judges did not think much of the appellant’s advocacy. The opinion by Judge Thapar begins:

As our court has previously explained, there are good reasons not to disparage your opponent, especially in court filings. “The reasons include civility; the near-certainty that overstatement will only push the reader away . . . ; and that, even where the record supports an extreme modifier, the better practice is usually to lay out the facts and let the court reach its own conclusions.” Bennett v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 731 F.3d 584, 585 (6th Cir. 2013) (cleaned up). The most important reason here is that counsel’s colorful insults do nothing to show that his clients have standing to bring this lawsuit. We affirm the district court’s dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.

And what sorts of insults were at issue?  A few examples from the opinion:

  • That MEAC “surrendered to [Ballad] much in the manner Marshal Petain surrendered France to Adolph Hitler.” R. 48-1, Pg. ID 942.
  • That the Ballad merger was an “Octopus which was birthed by [two individuals] on one of the local golf courses while [they] were walking down the ‘green fairways of indifference,’ to the health, safety and welfare of millions of people.” Id.; see also id. at 949 (referring to the merged entity as “the Levine-Greene Octopus”).
  • That Ballad and MEAC are “intertwined in an incestuous relationship, the likes of which have not been seen since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Id. at 950; see also id. at 943 (describing the defendants as in “an incestuous, antitrust relationship”).
  • That the Tennessee Department of Health’s failure to supervise the defendants “is akin to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation allowing criminals to rape, murder, pillage, loot and plunder on its watch, while its agents stand by.” Id. at 951.
  • That “a virus has been effectively introduced into the Ballad Board which has sickened all 11 directors, and which requires their permanent quarantine.” Id. at 954.

And that’s only some of it.

Not only does the Court reject the appellants theory of standing, Judge Thapar adds this cautionary note at the close of his opinion.

One last note. Like the district court, we take a moment to remind plaintiffs’ counsel that, as an officer of the court, he is expected to treat other parties in the case (as well as their counsel) with courtesy and professionalism. “Careful research and cogent reasoning, not aspersions, are the proper tools of our trade.” U.S.I. Props. Corp. v. M.D. Constr. Co., 860 F.2d 1, 6 n.2 (1st Cir. 1988). That is of course not to say that legal documents must be written in dry legalese. Nor is it to criticize passionate and forceful advocacy in aid of a client’s cause—a lawyerly virtue that counsel has displayed at points in this litigation. But just as one cannot “equate contempt with courage or insults with independence,” we cannot dismiss the disparaging statements in this case as mere stylistic flourishes or vigorous advocacy. Sacher v. United States, 343 U.S. 1, 14 (1952). Counsel will best serve his clients if he remembers this going forward.

This is all good advice, though I am not sure appellant’s counsel will want to hear it.

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Introducing The “Everything Bubble” Sentiment-o-Meter

Introducing The “Everything Bubble” Sentiment-o-Meter

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/23/2020 – 16:30

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Since human wetware remains stuck in OS1.01, we can predict a remarkable reversal.

The “Everything Bubble” has been a sight to behold. With central banks providing trillions to the big players and margin debt enabling small punters to leverage up, the hot money rotation has been a real merry-go-round as one asset and sector after another is ignited by a massive flood of money seeking a quick return.

Once the hot sector has been slingshot to absurd heights, the hot money abandons it in favor of whatever hasn’t been shot into orbit.

Bat guano is the new Tesla–or maybe it’s Beanie Babies pulled out of attics, or sand. The sand index could be the next moonshot, who knows?

There’s an interesting self-referential, self reinforcing dynamic in manic bubbles. As everyone sees other “regular folks” scoring massive gains from doing nothing but buying what everyone else is buying, the temptation to join the orgy of easy money becomes irresistible.

This new money adds momentum to the hot-money rotation, accelerating the moves and the gains. In other words, the easy money just keeps getting easier.

This feeds an irresistible compulsion to leverage up–to borrow money and throw it into the 100% guaranteed-to-rise market. Once debt has been maxxed out, then punters discover options and leveraged ETFs as avenues to increase the 100% guaranteed gains.

To chart this self-reinforcing momentum in sentiment and hot money, I’ve prepared this “Everything Bubble” Bubble-o-Meter. Clearly, we’re at the very top: there’s no fear except of missing out. Buy the dip has yielded 100% guaranteed returns, with the proviso that the more you”invest” (heh), the more you make, and the more leverage you take on, the greater your gains.

It’s worth recalling that the tsunami of central bank money–let’s call it $9 trillion–is less than 3% of total global financial wealth which is well north of $300 trillion. The core assumption of the “Everything Bubble” is that this 3% of newly printed cash can push the $340 trillion leviathan of global assets to new heights of everything: higher debt, higher leverage, and higher valuations.

The notion that this is akin to pushing on a string does not compute in the “Everything Bubble.”

Since human wetware remains stuck in OS1.01, we can predict a remarkable reversal from mortgaging the house to chase the hot-money trade of the moment to securing a place in the soup kitchen line. In the manic FOMO stage, no one ponders the idea that the mania could end rather more abruptly than expected; they only ponder how to increase the size of their current bet.

The soup kitchen line awaits…

*  *  *

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*  *  *

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Intel Shares Plunge After Gross Margins Disappoint, Delaying 7-Nano Transition

Intel Shares Plunge After Gross Margins Disappoint, Delaying 7-Nano Transition

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/23/2020 – 16:13

Intel beat top- and bottom-lines in tonight’s earnings:

  • Intel 2Q Rev. $19.7B, Est. $18.54B

  • Intel 2Q Adj EPS $1.23, Est. $1.12

Intel CEO Bob Swan proudly celebrated the quarter:

“It was an excellent quarter, well above our expectations on the continued strong demand for computing performance to support cloud-delivered services, a work- and learn-at-home environment, and the build-out of 5G networks. In our increasingly digital world, Intel technology is essential to nearly every industry on this planet. We have an incredible opportunity to enrich lives and grow this company with a continued focus on innovation and execution.”

The outlook was solid:

  • Intel Sees FY Adj EPS $4.85, Est. $4.78

  • Intel Sees 3Q Rev. About $18.2B, Est. $17.90B

Except for Q3 earnings:

  • Sees 3Q adjusted EPS about $1.10, estimate $1.14 (range 98c to $1.28)

But the devil was in the details as gross margins tumbled from 62% a year ago to 55% (est. 56.3%) and more problematic was the fact that the 7 nanometer chip transition will be delayed and that it is accelerating its 10 nanometer transition.

“The company’s 7nm-based CPU product timing is shifting approximately six months relative to prior expectations. The primary driver is the yield of Intel’s 7nm process, which based on recent data, is now trending approximately twelve months behind the company’s internal target.”

And this sent INTC shares tumbling 8% after hours to its lowest since early April…

Rival AMD is rallying as INTC dives…

 

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Bullion, Bonds, & Bitcoin Jump As Stocks Slump

Bullion, Bonds, & Bitcoin Jump As Stocks Slump

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/23/2020 – 16:00

Just when you thought it was safe to buy any dip, we suffer the worst day in stocks in over 6 weeks as a series of headlines weighed on sentiment…

  • 0830ET *FIRST RISE IN INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS SINCE MARCH

  • 1035ET *FLORIDA POSTS RECORD 173 DAILY VIRUS DEATHS AMONG RESIDENTS

  • 1320ET *HOUSE ANTITRUST PANEL TO EYE AMAZON, APPLE, FACEBOOK, GOOGLE

  • 1335ET *APPLE FACING MULTI-STATE CONSUMER PROTECTION PROBE

But then, in a panicked moment from The Fed as losses accelerated, the collapse stalled as this hit…

  • 1430ET *FED BROADENS FIRMS IT WILL TRANSACT WITH ON THREE LOAN PROGRAMS

But we suspect The Fed is “gonna need a bigger boat”…

Nasdaq led the markets lower with Small Caps outperforming…NOTE the battle that occurred in the last 90 minutes to stabilize the market – makes you wonder who kept bidding every tiny dip to the day’s lows…

Today’s move erased most of the Nasdaq outperformance of the Russell 2000 this month…

Source: Bloomberg

FANG Stocks extended their losses, erasing all of Monday’s panic-bid gains…

Source: Bloomberg

AAPL was downgraded by Goldman (citing its price appreciation as “unsustainable”) and tumbled then accelerated on the consumer fraud probe… this is AAPL’s worst day since 3/20

MSFT is back in the red for July and FB & AAPL are also rapidly erasing their July gains (AMZN is still leading on the month)…

TSLA earnings smashed expectations but investors appear to have finally started looking through the smoke and mirrors

And as stocks tumbled, safe-haven and alternatives were bid, with Treasury yields falling further…

Source: Bloomberg

This is the lowest 10Y yield close since 4/21 (and 2nd lowest close ever) as stocks remain a post-modern version of reality…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold  rebounded off early efforts to hammer them…

But silver did notably did not after its recent surge…

Bitcoin legged higher again on the day…

Source: Bloomberg

Ethereum really surged the last few days…

Source: Bloomberg

Pushing ETH to its highest since Feb 2020…

Source: Bloomberg

The Dollar was lower again but tried hard to rally back late on (another intraday pump and dump though)…

Source: Bloomberg

Pushing the Dollar Index to its lowest of the year…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices fell on the day as stocks sank with WTI findingh brief support at $41..

The silver weakness today stabilized the recent plunge in the gold/silver ratio…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, the acceleration in cases has slowed and while the deceleration in deaths has stalled, there is no sign of an imminent wave of plague-like fatalities anytime soon… (paging Dr.Fauci)

Source: Bloomberg

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

The Unthinkable

The Unthinkable

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/23/2020 – 15:50

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

You know where I stand: Markets have been bloated to high heaven via unlimited and unprecedented liquidity injections creating the illusion of a bull market when there is none. Yes indices such as $SPX and $NDX show incredible strength driven by a few single stocks, but as we discussed the rest of the market is far from bullish.

Equal weight keeps lagging:

…while virtually all market gains are driven by a handful of stocks:

In fact the broader markets has gone nowhere since mid April:

But still the few stocks are running overall market valuations to never before seen highs:

…pushing P/E levels into ever higher extremes:

Who needs earnings growth when all you need is multiple expansion?

Hard to justify valuations with traditional metrics in this environment. You know metrics such as earnings, growth, etc. So best not do it according to none other than Fed hired Blackrock:

‘BlackRock Inc.’s senior quant has bad news for the likes of Bill Gross and Cliff Asness wagering on a comeback for value stocks. In the worldview of Jeff Shen, money managers need new investing methods because there’s no way to tell if betting on ostensibly cheap companies will work again. In fact, comparing share prices to fundamentals like corporate profits or book value is essentially futile in complex markets.

To fix misfiring quant strategies, the co-chief of the $106 billion systematic active equity group has a newfangled suggestion: Investors should scour alternative data for trading signals and end their obsession with valuation metrics.”

Yea, it’s hard to justify valuations in a bubble so best just make things up. It’s different this time. Don’t you know?

Besides, too strong is the draw towards the next stimulus carrot which awaits in the wings of a well advertised new fiscal stimulus package that both Democrats and Republicans pretend to fight over before eventually agreeing to it anyways. It’s an election year and nobody will risk standing in the way of throwing about some more free money. So that stimulus package is coming, unless someone is willing to create a big drama over it, perhaps as a way to create an election narrative? We’ll soon find out who is willing to risk what.

But don’t play too hard to get for this market has yet to prove it can rally other than on chasing stimulus and vaccine optimism headlines.. It just can’t make new highs without.

And in context of the entire rally it is perhaps nothing something very important: The US Dollar. In fact it may be argued that entire unlimited QE and M1 money supply expansion game has had one key net effect: Kill the dollar. The correlation since the March lows seems pretty self evident:

Dollar rises, stocks go down, dollar drops, stock rise. Magic. Currency destruction may make a bull market on paper, but in terms of purchasing power it creates nothing. Have you looked at yields lately? The 10 year now trading below 60bp. Quite the V recovery.

So dollar destruction, the key to keep equities and the bubble floating higher? Good luck with that as the US Dollar has just approached a key level. See, it’s not only stocks that are in trend charts, but also currencies.

And this here suggests the potential for a super bullish move to come in the Dollar:

Sharp rallies in the dollar have generally not been kind to equities in recent years. Think 2008, 2010, even 2015/2016 and then of course in early 2020. The Fed has managed to bring about this big recovery rally as a result of their programs, and with it they weakened the dollar. But now the dollar has hit its key rising trend, a trend in place since 2011.

The unthinkable: The dollar rises from here against all expectations defending its trend and if that happens, then this rally driven by liquidity and currency destruction will find itself subject to a very different environment, perhaps one of rebalancing. The good news for bulls in the short term may be that the US dollar tends to flirt with that lower trend line for a while before kicking off, remember it’s a weekly chart, but it just tagged its trend line so notice has been served which suggests it may reverse trend at any time. And if it does, then this super bullish chart may find itself at serious odds with a market that advertises itself to be super bullish on paper, but underneath is not.

*  *  *

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Stocks Are Back As Americans’ Favorite Way To Invest

Stocks Are Back As Americans’ Favorite Way To Invest

Tyler Durden

Thu, 07/23/2020 – 15:37

Not long after the turn of the century, real estate emerged as America’s preferred “investing” asset class and shortly thereafter the US saw the biggest housing bubble in history, followed quickly by a devastating crash which also destroyed the stock market. Perhaps as a result, for about a decade, Americans were not really sure where to deposit their hard earned savings and instead were collecting a generous 0.00% in interest (courtesy of the Fed) on their cash parked at the bank.

Well, that period appears to be ending., and according to a new Bankrate survey, stocks are back on top in America’s heart, as nearly 28 percent of Americans point to the stock market as the best way to invest over a period of 10 years or more, more than any other option.

The survey also found that real estate was a close second, with 26 percent of Americans naming it as their preferred investment over a decade or more. Stocks’ performance in the survey was up from 20 percent of respondents who said they preferred it in 2019, when real estate was the top investment choice. In 2018, stocks garnered 32 percent of the vote.

“Despite stocks falling by more than one-third in just over a month at the outset of the pandemic, more Americans point to the stock market as the best place to invest money long-term,” says Greg McBride, CFA, Bankrate chief financial analyst. “The swift rebounds this spring and following a 20 percent decline at the end of 2018 have convinced more investors of the market’s long-term merits.”

Bankrate surveyed 1,007 American adults from June 29 to July 5 about their investment preferences. Below are the main findings from the survey.

Key takeaways:

Stocks are the most popular long-term investment

The Bankrate survey showed that stocks topped the list of Americans’ favorite investments, garnering almost 28 percent of respondents. Real estate ran a close second, with 26 percent of Americans citing it as their top long-term investment. Real estate’s performance was down from 31 percent in 2019, and fell within the range of the past eight years of polling, McBride says.

The remainder of the responses came back as the following:

Cash investments came in at 18 percent, down from 19 percent last year, hitting the lowest level in eight years of polling, McBride says. At 14 percent, gold and other precious metals was up for the second straight year. Bonds and bitcoin were cited by just 4 percent of Americans, while 5 percent said either none of these investments, didn’t know or refused to answer the question.

The coronavirus is affecting the choice of top investment

A plurality of Americans, 42 percent, said the coronavirus pandemic will change their investment approach. About 26 percent said they will invest less aggressively as a result, while about 16 percent said they will become more aggressive over the long term.

However, a majority of Americans, about 57 percent, said the coronavirus won’t affect their long-term investment strategy.

Of those who did not select the stock market as the best way to invest long term, more than half (54 percent) cite the coronavirus as either a major or minor reason, including 34 percent who said it was a major reason for their decision.

Respondents who chose bonds or gold as their preferred long-term investment were the most likely to cite the pandemic as the reason they are steering clear of stocks, with 43 percent in both cases citing it as a major reason.

Investors who selected either bonds or bitcoin were the only groups where a majority said they would change their long-term investment strategy – either more or less aggressive – due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Survey results by age group, gender and income

The results by age group differed sometimes from the overall figures. For example, younger millennials (ages 24-30) were the least likely to prefer the stock market for long-term investments and instead preferred real estate (30 percent). In contrast, older millennials (ages 31-39) showed among the highest preferences for the stock market (33 percent) and among the lowest for real estate (19 percent).

That divide was beaten only by the silent generation, which preferred the stock market at the highest rate (43 percent) and real estate the lowest (17 percent).

Among age groups, Generation X cited cash as a preferred long-term investment the most (22 percent), though overall it still preferred stocks and real estate about equally at 26 percent.

About 1 in 4 millennials (24 percent) said the coronavirus pandemic will prompt them to invest more aggressively over the long term, compared with 16 percent of Gen Xers, 7 percent of baby boomers, and 4 percent of the silent generation.

Men and women were relatively close in their preferences for stocks (30 percent to 26 percent, respectively) and real estate (27 percent and 25 percent, respectively). They differed markedly in their preferences in two areas:

  • Cash: Women preferred cash (23 percent) more than men did (13 percent).
  • Gold and other precious metals: Men preferred these (19 percent) as an investment more than women did (9 percent).

Nearly 20 percent of households with income below $50,000 annually say they plan to invest more aggressively in the next decade as a result of the pandemic. In contrast, about 12 percent of those reporting more than $50,000 said they would invest more aggressively.

Cash is fine for the short term, but stocks are better long term

Americans’ preference for cash as a long-term investment is now at its lowest level in the eight years of this Bankrate survey. The switch away from low-yielding cash should ultimately be a net positive for their returns…. at least until the next crash that is.

“While cash is the best place to park money for the short term, it is a very poor long-term investment,” McBride says. “Whether it is falling interest rates or better returns elsewhere, more Americans are getting that message, with fewer citing cash as the best long-term investment than at any time in the past eight years.”

Methodology

This study was conducted for Bankrate via phone interview by SSRS. Interviews were conducted from June 29-July 5, 2020, among a sample of 1,007 adults. Data are weighted and are intended to be representative of all U.S. adults, and therefore are subject to statistical errors typically associated with sample-based information.

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“There Are Good Reasons Not to Disparage Your Opponent, Especially in Court Filings”

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided Bearden v. Ballad Health. As the brief opinion makes amply clear, the judges did not think much of the appellant’s advocacy. The opinion by Judge Thapar begins:

As our court has previously explained, there are good reasons not to disparage your opponent, especially in court filings. “The reasons include civility; the near-certainty that overstatement will only push the reader away . . . ; and that, even where the record supports an extreme modifier, the better practice is usually to lay out the facts and let the court reach its own conclusions.” Bennett v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 731 F.3d 584, 585 (6th Cir. 2013) (cleaned up). The most important reason here is that counsel’s colorful insults do nothing to show that his clients have standing to bring this lawsuit. We affirm the district court’s dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.

And what sorts of insults were at issue?  A few examples from the opinion:

  • That MEAC “surrendered to [Ballad] much in the manner Marshal Petain surrendered France to Adolph Hitler.” R. 48-1, Pg. ID 942.
  • That the Ballad merger was an “Octopus which was birthed by [two individuals] on one of the local golf courses while [they] were walking down the ‘green fairways of indifference,’ to the health, safety and welfare of millions of people.” Id.; see also id. at 949 (referring to the merged entity as “the Levine-Greene Octopus”).
  • That Ballad and MEAC are “intertwined in an incestuous relationship, the likes of which have not been seen since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Id. at 950; see also id. at 943 (describing the defendants as in “an incestuous, antitrust relationship”).
  • That the Tennessee Department of Health’s failure to supervise the defendants “is akin to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation allowing criminals to rape, murder, pillage, loot and plunder on its watch, while its agents stand by.” Id. at 951.
  • That “a virus has been effectively introduced into the Ballad Board which has sickened all 11 directors, and which requires their permanent quarantine.” Id. at 954.

And that’s only some of it.

Not only does the Court reject the appellants theory of standing, Judge Thapar adds this cautionary note at the close of his opinion.

One last note. Like the district court, we take a moment to remind plaintiffs’ counsel that, as an officer of the court, he is expected to treat other parties in the case (as well as their counsel) with courtesy and professionalism. “Careful research and cogent reasoning, not aspersions, are the proper tools of our trade.” U.S.I. Props. Corp. v. M.D. Constr. Co., 860 F.2d 1, 6 n.2 (1st Cir. 1988). That is of course not to say that legal documents must be written in dry legalese. Nor is it to criticize passionate and forceful advocacy in aid of a client’s cause—a lawyerly virtue that counsel has displayed at points in this litigation. But just as one cannot “equate contempt with courage or insults with independence,” we cannot dismiss the disparaging statements in this case as mere stylistic flourishes or vigorous advocacy. Sacher v. United States, 343 U.S. 1, 14 (1952). Counsel will best serve his clients if he remembers this going forward.

This is all good advice, though I am not sure appellant’s counsel will want to hear it.

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