Tag: news

SCOTUS grants cert to decide whether Ramos is retroactive

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court decided Ramos v. Louisiana. This case decided that the Sixth Amendment requires a unanimous jury verdict for criminal convictions. Ramos did not decide whether that rule could be applied retroactively for collateral review.

I flagged that issue here. Justice Kavanaugh said it could not be applied retroactively. Justice Alito’s dissent faulted Justice Kavanaugh for reaching an issue that was not briefed. Justice Gorsuch’s plurality leaned towards it not being-retroactive, but it was non-committal.

Today, the Supreme Court granted review in Edwards v. Vannoy to decide this issue.

The motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted, and the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted limited to the following question: Whether this Court’s decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. ___ (2020), applies retroactively to cases on federal collateral review.

This Louisiana appeal came from the 5th Circuit. But the case was briefed well before Ramos was decided. The petition, with good reason, didn’t mention retroactivity. It merely raised the unanimity issue.

Now, the Supreme Court has granted review in a case, and added a question the parties did not raise! I can’t recall the last time the Court made such a move.

Here, the Court wanted to resolve the retroactivity question as soon as possible. It did’t want to wait for a circuit court to rule: that is, the Ninth Circuit would (likely) hold that Ramos was retroactive for an Oregon case, and the Fifth Circuit would (likely) hold that Ramos was not retroactive for a Louisiana case.

I suspect we will see a case next term, holding that the rule is not retroactive.

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Lockdown Is Ending, Whether Governments Approve or Not

Some states have lifted their COVID-19 lockdowns or announced plans to let more businesses reopen soon; others have extended stay-at-home orders into late May or even early June. But regardless of what officials dictate, data from Apple and Foursquare suggest the lockdowns are gradually coming to an end on their own anyway, as more people venture out of their homes and resume various levels of economic activity.

“As officials begin the process of relaxing some business restrictions, we’re starting to see upticks in foot traffic to various places,” Foursquare reported in an April 30 blog post. “This is true across regions, regardless of state-specific policies.”

Visits to fast food restaurants and gas stations have already returned to their pre-coronavirus baselines in rural regions, Foursquare reported. While suburban and urban areas are still below normal, those areas have seen 15 percent growth since the end of March.

Gas stations have seen a rebound too. According to Foursquare, gas station visits were down as much as 11 percent from their national averages in the early weeks of April but down only 6 percent for the week of April 24. In some parts of the country—mostly in the Midwest, where the COVID-19 outbreak has been less severe—the visits had returned to pre-coronavirus levels.

Apple’s Mobility Trends, which is aggregated from Apple Maps users, shows a similar uptick in the number of requests for directions—an indicator that people are doing more than just driving around their own neighborhoods. While travel in the United States was still down 16 percent from “normal” by the end of last week, there is an undeniable upward trend, one moving faster than in other countries hit hard by COVID-19.

Hardware stores and outdoor activities like hiking trails have seen a surge in activity during the lockdown—at least outside the few states that made bizarre efforts to shut them down—as Americans use the downtime to do some home improvements or reconnect with nature.

Needless to say, a great deal of economic activity is not back to normal. Bars, casual dining restaurants, gyms, and retail shops continue to be hammered by mandatory shutdowns in many states—and by consumer reluctance too. More than 30 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits since mid-March, and while the uptick in economic activity in the past week or two offers a glimmer of hope, there is a long way to go.

But the Foursquare and Apple data provide policymakers with some critical insights, if they are willing to look. Clearly, individuals have been weighing the risks of the coronavirus against the difficulties of the ongoing lockdowns and deciding to venture out a bit more often. That’s good news for businesses that are still open, but it does nothing for those that the government has ordered to close. Those closures should be reversed as much as possible—though obviously with an eye toward social distancing and with limited capacity.

The data also show something about the nature of the shutdowns. They might have been encouraged by executive orders, but they were always ultimately driven by voluntary behavior. Well before states started issuing stay-at-home orders in the final week of March, many Americans were voluntarily self-quarantining.

Since officials had only limited influence over the beginning of the lockdown, they were always going to have limited influence over its ending. This was always unsustainable pver the long term, and coronavirus policies need to be reconsidered in light of that. On the other hand, declaring states to be “open” will be meaningless unless residents feel it is safe to venture out again.

Nor is this proof that anti-lockdown protests have worked. Dozens of Americans have descended on state capitals in displays of politicized rage, but the lockdowns are coming undone mostly because millions of other people have simply started going about their lives again, at least as much as they can. They’re voting with their feet—and their cars.

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Rabobank: There Is One Key Thing To Watch Today: The Yuan

Rabobank: There Is One Key Thing To Watch Today: The Yuan

Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank

Tunnels & Trolls

There is one key thing to watch today. That is USD/CNH, which is vitally important as the exchange rate of the world’s two largest economies, and as a key trigger for risk off panic when CNH starts to fall. Most of the time, of course, watching this cross or describing its daily movements is like watching paint dry, or describing pain drying. As I repeatedly state, it is not a real market in the traditional sense (though what is nowadays?). Rather, it is a political virtue-signalling device. For that reason, pay very close attention to it as US-China relations tank. Indeed, it seems both sides are doing their level best to undermine relations with a series of tunnels that destroy the foundations of trust and by trolling the other.

From Beijing’s side, the irascible Global Times, among other outfits, has continued to suggest that Covid-19 did not originate in China and that the US army might be responsible instead. On Friday, the Chinese embassy in Paris even released a Lego-style animation mocking the US and its virus response, which was not what one would call traditional diplomacy. Neither was the Global Times editor calling Australia gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe last week. China does not return from holiday until Wednesday, so this is all just a warm-up.

From the side of the land of the brave and the home of Tunnels & Trolls there has been equal tunnelling and trolling. US President Trump, speaking on the virus on TV yesterday, stated: “We will be giving a very strong report on what we think happened, and I think it will be conclusive…Personally, I think [China] made a very horrible mistake. They tried to cover it, they tried to put it out.” Trump also stated that if China does not purchase US goods in line with the “phase one trade deal” that he will terminate it. His likely Democratic presidential opponent is meanwhile attacking Trump for having prioritised the trade deal over a tougher Covid response – indeed, Pew polling in the US shows anti-China rhetoric sells well across party lines. Trump is already pivoting, using tweets to conflate his regular attacks on the press with ones on China, claiming some US news channels are fake and “going out of their way to say GREAT things about China. They are Chinese puppets who want to do business there. They use USA airwaves to help China. The Enemy of the People!”

Secretary of State Pompeo has gone even further, claiming “enormous evidence” that Covid-19 came from Wuhan and that “these are not the first times we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab.” He’s also tweeted even more incendiary attacks on the Chinese Communist Party itself, and on TV stated “China behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and confuse,” and that it continued to block US and WHO expert access to samples of the virus needed for study. There are also news reports circulating that claim US officials believe (meaning ‘want the press to report that’) China deliberately covered up Covid-19 while it secured access to the majority of world Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Further anti-China briefings from US officials can no doubt be expected ahead, with another scheduled for today.

I have repeated several times recently that this backdrop is not conducive for any realistic hopes of a US-China trade deal. Quite the opposite. At this stage the only question is how far relations deteriorate and how much damage is done. USD/CNH was flat this morning at around 7.13, with the market either seeing tacit intervention or a lack of any participant willing to be seen taking a side in this epic trolling session.

It is unlikely that will remain the case, however, and the key thresholds to watch are 7.1545, which was the high seen this year so far, and then 7.1940, which was the high seen before the “phase one trade deal” was signed. Break through the latter and we are in a dark and scary tunnel.

Of course, the timing of all this could not really be worse given we are already seeing mounting evidence that when you remove a virus lockdown things don’t improve much:

  • A consumer survey in China showed 51% of respondents planned to spend less and save more ahead, with only 9% increasing spending; other estimates are that while some 90% of firms are open again, a huge share are operating at a much-reduced capacity. Is it any surprise that we are also seeing manufacturing PMIs in Indonesia, India, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea at the lowest since 2009, or ever?
  • In the UK, a survey shows that nearly 3 in 4 people are worried about lockdowns being rolled back and are unlikely to return to normal consumer behaviour. There is now chatter that the government might have to extend help to commercial landlords whose tenants can’t pay the rent. Hey, just stick it on the tab, right?
  • In the US, Georgia has reopened and yet has been “a disaster” for some retailers, according to a Bisnow.com story. Admittedly the firm featured most heavily–one which lets you throw axes at targets–might not be high up on the list of consumer priorities post-lockdown, although some might say it is much needed. However, the owner reports that he did not even see 10% of his usual client numbers – he got just two all weekend.
  • Only Australia seems to be bucking the trend with a big beat in building approvals (albeit -4.0% m/m vs. -15% expected)…except held-wanted ads dropped 53.1% m/m in April so it’s unclear who is going to be earning enough to buy the houses that are being built, especially with the borders closed too. Moreover, a Labor Party Senator for NSW just wrote an editorial which asks “Do we want migrants to return in the same numbers? The answer is no.” This argues “As a result of COVID-19, Australia will soon have an opportunity to do something we have never done before: restart a migration program. When we do, we must understand that migration is a key economic policy lever that can help or harm Australian workers during the economic recovery and beyond. We must make sure that Australians get a fair go and a first go at jobs. Our post-COVID-19 economic recovery must ensure that Australia shifts away from its increasing reliance on a cheap supply of overseas, temporary labour that undercuts wages for Australian workers and takes jobs Australians could do.” Another political taboo bites the dust, and another economy has to work out where it goes next if not down the same old rabbit-hole. As such, AUD goes down too: more so as despite the yield pick-up over USD it is still a good proxy for CNY or CNH.

In short, we are all still in a long, dark tunnel – and we don’t know if the light we see ahead is a way out or just the reflection of a monster’s eye


Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/04/2020 – 11:36

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Wp97xr Tyler Durden

The Supreme Court’s Surreal, Stilted, and Surprisingly Normal Streaming Oral Argument

Today at 10:00 ET, the Supreme Court live-streamed oral arguments. Well, to be precise, they provided C-SPAN with a feed to the teleconference. But close enough. The experience was surreal. The exchanges were stilted. And, after a few moments, it felt surprisingly normal. (I offered my preview here.)

At 10:00, I heard the live call of Oyez, Oyez, Oyez. I knew it was coming, but the cry still took me by surprise. It felt like a shofar blast. The Court had my attention, but I could’t draw near.

The Chief called the case. Deputy SG Erica Ross provided the first two minutes of her argument. The Chief then promptly interrupted her with several questions. That exchange felt normal. After the Chief was finished, he turned to Justice Thomas. I expected a moment of awkward silence, or perhaps, Thomas saying “Pass.” Instead, Thomas asked several questions. He spoke more today than he has in two decades. It was truly surreal.

Next, Justice Ginsburg began to ask questions. And she wanted to follow-up on Justice Thomas’s question. I was very glad to hear this attempt to maintain continuity between Justices. I also hope it dispels unfair perceptions that Justice Thomas does’t ask questions because he can’t. Here, he posed a useful question, which RBG followed up on. Indeed, Justice Breyer came back to Thomas’s question a few minutes later. Justice Thomas has said oral arguments are not useful. This experience may give him an opportunity to reconsider that position.

The Chief was very strict on time. He interrupted the advocates at the two-minute mark, even mid-sentence. The Justices seemed to give the advocates more time to answer their questions. And the interruptions were more gentle. At one point, Justice Sotomayor said, “Ms. Ross, let me stop you there.” Usually, Sotomayor would simply jump in mid-sentence. I found Justice Kagan had the most aggressive questioning style. She would interrupt and ask several follow-up questions. Justice Breyer did ask a two-minute long question that involved a “combination of four things.” At one point, during the #Breyerpage, Ross said, “Mm-hmm.” Breyer asked about Grocery stores selling toilet paper, Pizza.com, iPizza.com (selling Italian pizzas). FFlowers.com (selling fresh flowers). I did not follow the question.

The arguments ran well beyond an hour. Ross finished around 10:37, without her rebuttal. Blatt finished around 11:13. Ross then took three minutes for rebuttal.  We finished at 11:17.

There were also some pleasantries. Justice Breyer told Ross, “good morning.” She replied, “Good morning.” Justice Kavanaugh also said “good morning.” I liked it. It made the virtual format more familiar. It is common in lower courts to say “good morning.” Also, Lisa Blatt made a funny remark. Justice Sotomayor chuckled, but I think the other Justices were on mute. It was refreshing.

There were some technical glitches. At one point, Justice Breyer’s voice was extremely garbled. But about 30 seconds later, it was fixed. I’m not sure what happened.

There were some delays. After Justice Alito finished questioning Ross, the Chief said “Justice Sotomayor.” Silence. “Justice Sotomayor.” She chimed in, “Sorry Chief.” If I had to guess, she did what we all do; kept herself on mute. It humanized the Justices in a positive way. I half-expected the Chief to say, the now-familiar line, “Justice Sotomayor, please take yourself off mute.” After Blatt finished, the Chief told Ross she had 3 minutes. Silence. The Chief repeated, “Ms. Ross.” Ross came back on the line, and apologized. I think the SG was also on mute.

I did miss some of the visual cues. For example, at one point Ross mentioned a Henry Friendly decision. I instinctively thought to look at the Chief to see if he reacted to a mention of his former boss. And I would have loved to see Justice Thomas jumping in; all the members of the press corps would have started feverishly writing. At one point, Blatt told Justice Gorusch, “You have read the Tushnet brief. You obviously have not read our expert.” (Not many advocates can get away with that barb, but Blatt can.) Gorsuch clapped back, “come on, that’s not fair.” She started answering, and he said “Briefly, Ms. Blatt.” I would have loved to watch that exchange. We lost all of those theatrics, but we gained an important, and long-overdue widow into live proceedings.

At 10:17, the Chief interrupted Ross, and said “the case is submitted.” I think I faintly heard the Marshall saying “All rise,” but C-SPAN cut the feed off. What an experience!

Lisa Blatt has never lost a case at the Supreme Court. I think her streak will remain intact.

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The Supreme Court’s Surreal, Stilted, and Surprisingly Normal Streaming Oral Argument

Today at 10:00 ET, the Supreme Court live-streamed oral arguments. Well, to be precise, they provided C-SPAN with a feed to the teleconference. But close enough. The experience was surreal. The exchanges were stilted. And, after a few moments, it felt surprisingly normal. (I offered my preview here.)

At 10:00, I heard the live call of Oyez, Oyez, Oyez. I knew it was coming, but the cry still took me by surprise. It felt like a shofar blast. The Court had my attention, but I could’t draw near.

The Chief called the case. Deputy SG Erica Ross provided the first two minutes of her argument. The Chief then promptly interrupted her with several questions. That exchange felt normal. After the Chief was finished, he turned to Justice Thomas. I expected a moment of awkward silence, or perhaps, Thomas saying “Pass.” Instead, Thomas asked several questions. He spoke more today than he has in two decades. It was truly surreal.

Next, Justice Ginsburg began to ask questions. And she wanted to follow-up on Justice Thomas’s question. I was very glad to hear this attempt to maintain continuity between Justices. I also hope it dispels unfair perceptions that Justice Thomas does’t ask questions because he can’t. Here, he posed a useful question, which RBG followed up on. Indeed, Justice Breyer came back to Thomas’s question a few minutes later. Justice Thomas has said oral arguments are not useful. This experience may give him an opportunity to reconsider that position.

The Chief was very strict on time. He interrupted the advocates at the two-minute mark, even mid-sentence. The Justices seemed to give the advocates more time to answer their questions. And the interruptions were more gentle. At one point, Justice Sotomayor said, “Ms. Ross, let me stop you there.” Usually, Sotomayor would simply jump in mid-sentence. I found Justice Kagan had the most aggressive questioning style. She would interrupt and ask several follow-up questions. Justice Breyer did ask a two-minute long question that involved a “combination of four things.” At one point, during the #Breyerpage, Ross said, “Mm-hmm.” Breyer asked about Grocery stores selling toilet paper, Pizza.com, iPizza.com (selling Italian pizzas). FFlowers.com (selling fresh flowers). I did not follow the question.

The arguments ran well beyond an hour. Ross finished around 10:37, without her rebuttal. Blatt finished around 11:13. Ross then took three minutes for rebuttal.  We finished at 11:17.

There were also some pleasantries. Justice Breyer told Ross, “good morning.” She replied, “Good morning.” Justice Kavanaugh also said “good morning.” I liked it. It made the virtual format more familiar. It is common in lower courts to say “good morning.” Also, Lisa Blatt made a funny remark. Justice Sotomayor chuckled, but I think the other Justices were on mute. It was refreshing.

There were some technical glitches. At one point, Justice Breyer’s voice was extremely garbled. But about 30 seconds later, it was fixed. I’m not sure what happened.

There were some delays. After Justice Alito finished questioning Ross, the Chief said “Justice Sotomayor.” Silence. “Justice Sotomayor.” She chimed in, “Sorry Chief.” If I had to guess, she did what we all do; kept herself on mute. It humanized the Justices in a positive way. I half-expected the Chief to say, the now-familiar line, “Justice Sotomayor, please take yourself off mute.” After Blatt finished, the Chief told Ross she had 3 minutes. Silence. The Chief repeated, “Ms. Ross.” Ross came back on the line, and apologized. I think the SG was also on mute.

I did miss some of the visual cues. For example, at one point Ross mentioned a Henry Friendly decision. I instinctively thought to look at the Chief to see if he reacted to a mention of his former boss. And I would have loved to see Justice Thomas jumping in; all the members of the press corps would have started feverishly writing. At one point, Blatt told Justice Gorusch, “You have read the Tushnet brief. You obviously have not read our expert.” (Not many advocates can get away with that barb, but Blatt can.) Gorsuch clapped back, “come on, that’s not fair.” She started answering, and he said “Briefly, Ms. Blatt.” I would have loved to watch that exchange. We lost all of those theatrics, but we gained an important, and long-overdue widow into live proceedings.

At 10:17, the Chief interrupted Ross, and said “the case is submitted.” I think I faintly heard the Marshall saying “All rise,” but C-SPAN cut the feed off. What an experience!

Lisa Blatt has never lost a case at the Supreme Court. I think her streak will remain intact.

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“We’re All Born Hunters” – Americans Turn To Hunting Game Amid Pandemic Food Shortage Fears

“We’re All Born Hunters” – Americans Turn To Hunting Game Amid Pandemic Food Shortage Fears

The slowdown or even the shuttering of meat processing plants due to coronavirus outbreaks has led to meat shortages and soaring food inflation. Supermarket chain Kroger reported Friday that it has put “purchase limits” on ground beef and fresh pork at some of its stores following growing concerns of food supply chain disruptions. We noted last month that meat shortages could be seen at grocery stores across the US in the first half of May. The pandemic and all its chaos have led some Americans to purchase a hunting rifle and venture into the wilderness to hunt big-game to put food on their tables. 

Reuters interviews several Americans and reviews hunting license data on a state level to determine that a growing number of people are hunting food big-game to feed their families during the pandemic.

David Elliot, an emergency manager at Holy Cross Hospital in Taos, New Mexico, said the pandemic had given him the urge to fill his freezer with free-range, super-lean meat that he will obtain through hunting elk. He recently received his elk license and plans to borrow a horse and rifle, and roam the vast plains in Taos, searching for big-game. 

“I understand some people might be driven by like antlers or some sort of glory. I don’t want to do that,” said Elliot. “I want to make sure it’s a clean, humane shot, as much as possible, and get a bunch of food.”

Game and fish agencies in Minnesota to New Mexico have noticed a surge in either hunting license sales, permit applications, or both in the last several months. 

Indiana reported a 28% jump in turkey license sales in the first week of the season that started on April 22, said Marty Benson, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Natural Resource. 

Firearm sales jumped in March, and the FBI conducted 3.74 million background checks, the most ever for any month. The reason for the jump is not hunting, but rather, as we’ve noted, people panic hoarded weapons and ammo out of fear the pandemic would lead to social instabilities. 

Hank Forester of Quality Deer Management Association expects a revival of hunting by many Americans who are now witnessing supermarket shelves go bare and meat shortages. 

“People are starting to consider self-reliance and where their food comes from,” said Forester. “We’re all born hunters.”

Brian Van Nevel and Nathaniel Evans, two school teachers in the Taos area, have been waking up very early to hunt wild turkey. Evans said he’d seen a lot more hunters this year, mainly because lockdowns have left many people at home. He said hunting has allowed him to “cleanse my mental card and just go and be present.” 

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has spoken with governors and state officials to open land that has been closed because of the lockdowns, as they say, people need to hunt for food. 

Nina Stafford, a building contractor in Fayetteville, Georgia, shot her first deer earlier this year. She said the pandemic has “only made me want to go and do it more so that I don’t have that scared feeling of where’s my next meal going to come from.” 

Stafford also has a garden that makes her less reliant on supermarkets and hedges her food supply if there were disruptions at supermarkets. 

Last month, we noted internet search trends for “buy seeds” erupted, as Americans have become very concerned that their next meal could be disrupted during these unprecedented timed.

Preliminary state data shows turkey hunter numbers in Georgia increased 47% this year over last, while the number of turkeys killed during the first 23 days of the season rose 26%. 

“It’s not just because of what’s going on in the world right now. Frankly, I don’t make that much money, so like this is just a good idea anyway,” said Elliot.

Americans aren’t just picking up hunting rifles in search of big-game to feed their families as food security becomes a significant issue; folks are also leaving big cities for rural communities during the pandemic. 

The pandemic is forcing people to become more self-sufficient and return to a state of hunter-gatherers. 


Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/04/2020 – 11:15

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Elon Musk Puts Two Homes On The Market After Tweeting He Would Sell Most Of His “Physical Possessions”

Elon Musk Puts Two Homes On The Market After Tweeting He Would Sell Most Of His “Physical Possessions”

By now everybody has had a chance to digest Elon Musk’s Friday meltdown Twitter tirade that lobbed off almost $15 billion in Tesla market cap. Among the various disjointed – and unvetted in violation of Musk’s settlement with the SEC – tweets from Musk, which among others claimed that “Tesla stock price is too high” something which the market clearly disagrees with this morning, was a claim that he was going to sell almost everything that he owned, including his houses:

Many spent much of Friday speculating about Musk’s mental state: Was he serious? Is he speculating in the real estate market now? Could the Feds be onto him? Is he at risk of leaving Tesla? Has he been microdosing – or perhaps macrodosing? Could he really be on the edge of liquidating everything he owns? 

But now it seems Musk is starting to follow through, because on Sunday Musk indeed put two of his homes on the market, and is looking for $39.5 million for the two properties, which are listed as for sale by owner. 

The timing is certainly peculiar: after all, it isn’t exactly a “seller’s market” at the moment.

“Fewer buyers were coming from China, Russia and the Middle East amid international tensions, and limits on state and local tax deductions dampened the appeal of owning California homes for wealthy U.S. buyers,” Bloomberg commented on Monday. 

LA Mag also explored the idea of Musk selling his homes in a recent article that laid out his properties. Musk currently owns 7 homes that are worth an estimated $100 million. Six of them are located near one another in a gated community in Bel Air. The first home listed on Sunday was purchased in 2012 for $17 million. It has 7 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, solar panels on the roof and is 20,248 sq. feet.

Another home listed was previously owned by Gene Wilder (as Musk noted in one of his follow up Tweets). The home was set up to be a private school facility for his children and family friends. 

“Just one stipulation on sale: I own Gene Wilder’s old house. It cannot be torn down or lose any its soul,” Musk said.

In 2015, Musk purchased two other homes while he was dating Talulah Riley. One was a main house that is on the same street as the Wilder house, and the second is a ranch house that overlooks the main house.

Another house is a modern looking abode that is across the street from the 2015 Talulah homes. It was purchased because it was directly above the other home, according to LA Mag, though the purpose is unclear. There is speculation it may have had something to do with freeing up a path for air travel, though that is unconfirmed. 

And his latest purchase cost Musk $6.4 million in 2019. This home is far older, having been owned by its previous owners since 1964. It’s assessed value then was just $310,000. 

All told, if Musk had owned these homes free and clear and was looking to free up cash, he would net about $100 million. However, we noted in early 2019 that Musk had mortgaged most of these properties with Morgan Stanley.

We noted in 2019 that Musk took out $61 million in mortgages on five of the properties in California. Four of these properties are in the Bel Air neighborhood. 

The loans were signed off on by Morgan Stanley and represented $50 million in new borrowing for Musk at the time. One loan was a refinancing on a 20,200 plus sq. foot property that Musk purchased in 2012 for $17 million. The initial $10 million loan he took on the property had turned into a $19.5 million debt, with a monthly payment of about $180,000.

Not very financially savvy for a guy that’s supposedly worth $33 billion. 

Nothing to see here, we’re sure…


Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/04/2020 – 10:58

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2WE05Np Tyler Durden

How COVID-19 Will Affect the Future of Policing

Predictions of the future of policing are usually a mix of glossy tech wizardry and ideology. Warnings of pervasive surveillance compete with calls for eased access to private data. Prescriptions for community policing fight for attention against marketing pitches for software intended to predict the danger posed by suspects. Most of this crystal ball-gazing assumes that law enforcement agencies will have unlimited resources to do what they want. But the post-pandemic world is likely to be poorer than what came before, and to feature changed habits and priorities. Law enforcement under such conditions may well have a reduced role by necessity—yet still be incredibly intrusive in some areas of life.

Writing for RAND Corporation, retired police chief Bob Harrison describes a hypothetical 2030, roughly a decade after multiple waves of COVID-19 gave rise to a world of reduced public interactions, devastated economies, and changed ways of life.

“The virus left in its wake entire industries destroyed or crippled,” writes Harrison. People stopped going to the movies as everyone began streaming almost everything into the home. Small colleges shuttered their buildings; community colleges transitioned to almost all online courses… Retail never quite made it back, either.”

It’s a grim forecast, but one that squares with the International Monetary Fund’s description of the global toll of lockdown measures intended to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus as the “worst economic downturn since the great depression.” U.S. unemployment is now above 20 percent and federal debt soars above already frightening heights.

The collapse may well cast a shadow over the next decade, resulting in reduced prosperity, less travel, and a greater share of work and trade moving online. Along with plummeting traffic fines because of the adoption of self-driving vehicles, Harrison suggests, that means reduced revenue for governments to spend on services including law enforcement.

His world of 2030 is one in which domestic disputes are rife among people spending more time at home. He also foresees a boom in online threats such as identity theft—an area in which most police departments have limited skill or jurisdiction. And “since the police had so little expertise in these types of crimes, people looked elsewhere to resolve their tech crimes and online issues,” Harrison forecasts. He doesn’t specify what “elsewhere” means, but private cybersecurity and identity-protection services might have a rosy future of expanded demand.

Harrison’s imagined 2030 features mass consolidation of police departments and shared resources along regional lines. And, like most futurists, Harrison sees greater use of technology, though he leans more to cost-saving measures than full RoboCop fantasies. That’s especially true when it comes to automating crime reporting and police dispatch to reduce expense. “By 2030, virtual call-takers screened public queries so effectively that people didn’t notice the difference from talking with a human,” he writes. “Dispatch had been virtualized in the early 20s, so now they were tracking to replace humans altogether to facilitate a police response to crime.”

Harrison’s vision is interesting, but it’s not comprehensive. Other intriguing hints at the future of policing can be found from sources that peered into their crystal balls before the novel coronavirus elicited its first cough.

“Nearly every person carries around with them a device that can log and transmit amounts of data that would have been unthinkable a little over a decade ago,” Michael Gelles, Alex Mirkow, and Joe Mariani noted last year for Deloitte Insights. “Simply looking through the call history of a phone at a crime scene can be a huge source of data that can break open even large investigations.”

Now, governments around the world are leaning on their populations to install contact-tracing apps on their cellphones. For the moment, the apps are voluntary in most places and intended only to fight the pandemic. But it’s easy to envision governments finding new uses for technology that tracks people’s movements and is paid for by the end user and not from public coffers.

Already, Hawaii requires visitors to the state to carry working cellphones, on pain of arrest, “to help ensure people are abiding by the traveler quarantine order.” Travelers must also check in daily using a Safe Travels System web app that records their location. It’s a crude system that seems designed more to deter tourists than to track them. But the approach is only a step away from a relatively inexpensive means of continuously monitoring people’s locations. That’s tempting for governments and dangerous for the public.

“GPS monitoring—by making available at a relatively low cost such a substantial quantum of intimate information about any person whom the Government, in its unfettered discretion, chooses to track—may ‘alter the relationship between citizen and government in a way that is inimical to democratic society’,” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in her concurring opinion in United States v. Jones (2012).

Technological solutions—at least lower-cost ones—are likely go-tos for cash-strapped police departments with narrowed missions. Tight budgets may preclude the “swarms of police drones” and “autonomous police vehicles” of some of the more gee-whiz predictions, especially in Harrison’s scenario of limited in-person crime—why spends lots of money to monitor spaces where people no longer congregate? But cameras and facial recognition software are cheaper than personnel, especially if police can convince (or force) private businesses to contribute their own systems.

“With an estimated 30 million security cameras in the United States, tapping into privately owned devices could allow the government to build a CCTV network on the scale of China (at least in terms of population ratio) at a fraction of the cost,” The Constitution Project pointed out last year.

Some policing philosophies may make less sense, or take on different meanings, if more of daily life moves online. Street-level, relationship-based community policing is championed by criminal justice reformers such as those at the Charles Koch Institute as a means of building trust and reducing conflict between police officers and the people they serve. But even before the pandemic, Deloitte’s Gelles, Mirkow, and Mariani discussed how “the instant availability of information on social media, for example, is reshaping the nature of some social ties.” That’s precisely what RAND’s Harrison envisions for the agoraphobic world of 2030, but more so. If Facebook, Twitter, and their successors become the main form of community for people fearful of contagion, community policing might mean little more than cops trawling through online posts and leaving the occasional comments.

Or maybe strapped police departments will cut costs further and just scrape the internet using predictive technology intended to rate people’s potential for engaging in crime. Existing software does just that based on posts, pictures, and other online information. Officers are then apprised of the supposed risks they face from members of the public. The technology is certain to be refined, and its use (and abuse) seems inevitable as a cost-effective means for targeting scarce law enforcement resources.

It’s a fair bet that the post-pandemic world will look different in many ways than what came before. There may be fewer police officers performing more constrained roles in the months and years to come, with less direct interpersonal contact with the people they supposedly serve. That might be good news when it comes to minimizing conflicts between police and members of the public. But it could also mean we’ll be subject to a cut-rate surveillance state.

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And the winner of the next half trillion dollar bailout is…

At precisely 4pm on Friday October 17, 1975, New York City’s government would have a $453 million in debt to repay.

But literally the night before, the city’s government had only $34 million on hand.

It was the makings of an epic financial crisis: the wealthiest city in the world was about to declare bankruptcy.

New York City’s mayor Abe Beame had called US President Gerald Ford numerous times begging for federal assistance, but Ford refused. The nation had bigger problems to deal with.

New York was desperate.

But with only hours to spare, they managed to convince the powerful Teachers’ Union to use its gigantic pension fund to buy up the bonds and save the day.

The plan worked, and New York City was very narrowly able to escape bankruptcy.

But that wouldn’t happen today; a number of state and local governments are teetering on the edge of default, and public pension funds are in no position to bail them out.

Pensions are actually a huge part of the problem.

New York’s Teachers’ Retirement System– the same union that bailed out the city in 1975, is today technically insolvent.

According to the pension fund’s most recent financial report, the fund is about 40% short of being able to pay out its obligations.

And the numbers are similar across the board for New York’s Fire and Police pension funds as well.

And New York is definitely not the only problem spot.

Public pensions in the State of Illinois are 60% underfunded, on average. And more than 65% in New Jersey.

In fact, only TWO states in the Land of the Free have fully-funded public pensions as of 2019: Wisconsin and South Dakota.

So, most pension funds are in serious trouble and in no position to bail anyone out.

State government are even worse off: Illinois’ debt is rated one level above junk, and the state legislature asked the federal government for a $40 billion bailout.

California, New Jersey, and New York are also lining up for a federal bailout.

And amazingly enough, Congress is actually considering a $1 trillion bailout for state governments.

Plus, last week, the Federal Reserve announced that it will step in and buy $500 billion worth of bonds from states, counties, and municipalities.

So that’s another $1.5 trillion for state and local governments, on top of the trillions of dollars worth of bailouts they’ve already made.

Remember– all of this money is just being conjured out of thin air. These politicians and central bankers believe they can print all the bailout money they need without ever having to make a difficult decision.

But this solution is a ridiculous fantasy: you cannot borrow or print your way to prosperity.

If that were the case, Zimbabwe would have become the wealthiest country in the world long ago.

It’s perfectly fine to remain optimistic and hope that, maybe just maybe, the virus will just magically disappear, everything will go back to normal, and there will never be any consequences from all of this money printing.

And while I’m at it, I can also hope that the Dallas Cowboys decide to make me their starting quarterback next season.

But back here on Planet Earth, it’s far more likely that the virus will be around for a while… that decisions will continue to be made by weak leaders whose greatest fear is not being re-elected… and that all this money printing will eventually become a problem.

Let’s be frank: there are VERY few instances throughout history where so much money has been created without any nasty consequences.

We know the famous stories like hyperinflation in Zimbabwe and the Weimar Republic.

Then there are stories from ancient and medieval times, like the insufferable inflation of China’s Jin and Yuan dynasties (both of which used paper currency and printed it freely).

Even in the United States in the 1970s, cheap interest rates and expansion of the money supply led to some of the worst inflation in US economic history.

You really don’t need a PhD in economics to understand that conjuring trillions of dollars out of thin air might hurt the long-term value of the currency.

This is why I keep writing that real assets make so much sense.

There is no sure thing right now. But real assets like productive land, profitable businesses, and precious metals tend to be safe havens at a time when governments and central banks are willing to sacrifice the currency.

Compared to the amount of money that’s being printed right now, precious metals are actually fairly inexpensive.

Gold is undervalued relative to the money supply, and silver is downright cheap relative to gold.

Again, there is no sure thing. And we could see a real roller coaster ride in prices.

But if you believe (as I do) that they’re going to continue printing money to bail everyone out, then there’s a very strong, long-term case to own precious metals right now. And especially silver.

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Crude Storms Above $20 On Report Of Far Smaller Cushing Build

Crude Storms Above $20 On Report Of Far Smaller Cushing Build

Hot on the heels of Goldman’s bullish reversal on the oil sector, in which the bank’s commodity strategist Damien Courvalin said on Friday that “it now appears likely that the market is passing its test on storage capacity” and projected that the recent rally can extend further in May, back to cash-cost levels ($25/bbl for WTI), albeit with still-high price volatility…

… oil is storming higher after initially sinking lower, with the June WTI contract rising as much as 3.9% to $20.55/bbl, erasing earlier losses, while Brent crude briefly rising above $27/bbl, more than $1.4 from session lows.

The catalyst for the sharp move higher appears to be a report that inventories at Cushing rose only 1.8MM bbl last week, which if confirmed, would represent the smallest increase since mid-March, and would indicate that the supply glut is starting to ease.

It also demonstrates just how sensitive the market has become to any changes from the prevailing narrative in which global storage space could potentially fill as soon as late May, early June. Today’s rally also comes following a Friday report from Morgan Stanley according to which there are now more than 350 tankers currently being used for floating oil (crude and product) storage globally…

… With total oil held in floating storage rising to 375mn bbl, up 220mn bbl from mid-March and 230mn bbl from the start of the year.  The question then becomes whether we have hit an inflection point in gasoline demand, something which the following charts from Morgan Stanley showing an increase in mobility trends, would suggest is indeed the case.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/04/2020 – 10:46

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