Tag: news

Strong Foreign Demand Pushes Yield Lower In Stopping Through 10Y Auction

After yesterday’s mediocre 3Y auction, moments ago the US Treasury sold $23 billion in 10 year paper in a very well received auction. The high yield of 2.314% was fractionally lower than October’s 2.346%, and stopped through the When Issued 2.316% by 0.2bps. 94.01% of the bids at the high yield were accepted. This was the first 10Y refunding to stop through since August 2016.

The bid to cover of 2.48 was fractionally lower than last month’s 2.54, and was higher than the 6 month average of 2.40. In light of the recent rush into the long end, it is perhaps no surprise that the internals were quite so strong. Like last month, a solid foreign, i.e., Indirect, takedown helped to lead the way. Indirect bidders took down 68.0% of the auction, just under October’s 69.1% but well above the 6MMA of 62.3; Directs took down 9% of the auction, more than the 5.8% 6 month average, while Dealers were left holding 23%, the lowest since March.

Yet while the auction was strong, it did little to change the trajectory in today’s curve move, which after starting off flatter for the 9th consecutive day, has progressively, if slowly, stepened, and just after 2pm the 2s10s was at 68.23bps.

With the ominous signal sent by an increasingly flatter yield curve, all eyes will remain solidly glued to where the long end goes from here.

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WTF WTI

Having dropped on a surge in crude production and surprise inventory build, the machines decided it was the perfect time to panic-bid WTI futures (on the back of reports that some Gulf of Mexico production was shut in due to an outage at Shell’s Enchilada platform), running stops from the last two days…

 

Then once that ammunition was exhausted, WTI collapsed back to the lows of the day…

 

Fun-durr-mentals!

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NBCUniversal Says NFL’s Partners Haven’t Followed Through With Threats To Pull Ads…Yet

Remember when Papa John's CEO  John Schnatter said the company was pulling its NFL advertising after unleashing on Commissioner Roger Goodell during the company’s earnings call?

Yeah, turns out that may have been bullshit.

As Ad Age points out, it later emerged that Papa John’s was simply removing the NFL’s logo from some of its marketing, not withdrawing television ads, exposing Shnatter’s bluster for what it truly was: A hollow PR stunt. Another example of a CEO saying what he felt needed to be said to appease furious SJWs threatening to boycott the league, its advertisers and business partners after it appeared to kowtow to President Donald Trump’s demands that it institute a rule banning National Anthem protests.

And based on comments from NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino, Papa Johns isn’t alone.

Linda Yaccarino, NBCU’s chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships, said no advertisers have pulled their spots, despite threatening to do so.

Yaccarino … said that none of NBCUniversal’s NFL advertisers have pulled out of NBC’s Sunday Night Football or Thursday Night Football games. However, a “list of advertisers have made themselves very clear: if you continue covering the political coverage of the issue, we will not be part of the NFL,” she said.

 

“Because think about it: they have half the country that is cheering about that, and they have half the country that is emailing them, saying, don’t do that. So that’s a real thing."

Yaccarino also said that she thinks the protest have affected ratings, even if she can’t prove it. Which is strange, because since Colin Kaepernick first took a knee, kicking off the protest trend last season, ratings for various networks that carry NFL games have slid more than 11%.

CBS CEO Les Moonves said he had observed no hesitation from NFL sponsors. “I don’t know of one sponsor that has pulled out of any spot that they had, Moonves reportedly said. “I don’t think it’s affecting advertising or their desire one iota."

There is clearly a lot of posturing going on here. Advertisers apparently aren’t ready to take the dramatic measure of yanking their spots, but they hope to pressure the league by making noise about doing so. And TV networks don’t want stockholders to think they’re bleeding advertisers, but they too figure they can turn up the heat on the NFL by making the situation seem somewhat dire.

At this point, with protests having faded somewhat from the front pages (special circumstances in Houston aside), the likeliest scenario is probably that advertisers refrain from pulling their spots.

However, if the number of players protesting grows – say following another incident of a police officer killing an unarmed black man – the network might be in real trouble.

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Nicholas Kristof Perfects His Mass Shooting Bait and Switch

This week New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who used the October 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas as an excuse to tout a list of admittedly irrelevant gun control proposals, used Sunday’s attack at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, as an excuse to tout a nearly identical list. This time Kristof has the help of Bill Marsh, graphics editor for the Sunday Review section, so his essay is accompanied by snazzy illustrations, and he presents his ideas as part of a “public health” approach to gun violence that treats firearms the way the government treats cars.

“The left sometimes focuses on ‘gun control,’ which scares off gun owners and leads to more gun sales,” Kristof writes. “A better framing is ‘gun safety’ or ‘reducing gun violence,’ and using auto safety as a model—constant efforts to make the products safer and to limit access by people who are most likely to misuse them.” But neither the framing nor the graphics can conceal the fact that Kristof is still engaging in the classic gun control—excuse me, gun safety—bait and switch, using outrage at mass shootings to promote policies that have little or nothing to do with them.

Last month Kristof and his editors handled that awkward disjunction awkwardly. The headline promised policies aimed at “Preventing Mass Shootings Like the Vegas Strip Attack,” and that is the way he framed the first 14 paragraphs. But in the 15th paragraph Kristof conceded that “it’s too soon to know what, if anything, might have prevented the shooting in Las Vegas, and it may be that nothing could have prevented it.” Three days later, he tried to make his column seem like less of a non sequitur by adding “ban bump stocks” to his list of solutions. That idea at least had something to do with the Las Vegas massacre, although its effectiveness is more than a little doubtful.

In the revised version of Kristof’s October 2 column, a bump stock ban got second billing, right after “universal background checks,” which remained in first place even though the Las Vegas shooter underwent background checks and repeatedly passed them because he had no disqualifying criminal or psychiatric record (as is usually true of mass shooters). In this week’s column, background checks (you know, like the kind you have to undergo when you buy a car) are still Kristof’s top suggestion, despite the fact that the Texas shooter also passed them (although he shouldn’t have).

The headline over the new essay, “How to Reduce Shootings,” is more ambiguous than the previous headline, since “shootings” could refer to ordinary gun violence as well as the more dramatic examples that grab the headlines. Yet Kristof still presents the piece as a response to mass shootings, saying he wants to “learn lessons from these tragedies, so that there can be fewer of them.”

Once again those lessons include, in addition to the wisdom of requiring background checks for all gun transfers and banning bump stocks, the need to prohibit gun purchases by people younger than 21, crack down on straw purchasers, research “smart gun” technology, require safe storage of firearms, and forbid gun possession by people subject to domestic violence restraining orders. Background checks for ammunition purchases have replaced “microstamping of cartridges,” and letting people sue gun manufacturers and dealers for the criminal misuse of the products they sell has replaced funding for research on gun violence.

What all these ideas have in common is that, with the partial and dubious exception of a bump stock ban, they are completely disconnected from the details of the crimes to which Kristof is supposedly responding. Nor can any of them reasonably be expected to have a noticeable impact on the frequency or lethality of mass shootings. Kristof eventually concedes as much:

Critics will say that the kind of measures I cite wouldn’t prevent many shootings. The Las Vegas carnage, for example, might not have been prevented by any of the suggestions I make.

That’s true, and there’s no magic wand available. Yet remember that although it is mass shootings that get our attention, they are not the main cause of loss of life. Much more typical is a friend who shoots another, a husband who kills his wife—or, most common of all, a man who kills himself.

So readers who thought Kristof was talking about mass shootings, because that’s what he said he was talking about, discover about halfway through the article that he is actually more interested in preventing suicide. Kristof, who promises “the blunt, damning truth” about guns in America, falls short of that goal by presenting his argument in such a misleading way.

Kristof is also telling something less than the blunt truth when he discusses armed self-defense as if the only examples that count are ones in which the attacker is killed. That definition omits the vast majority of such cases, including the armed neighbor who may have prevented more deaths in Texas by injuring (but not killing) the perpetrator after he emerged from the church—the very case that prompted Kristof’s regurgitation of familiar gun control proposals.

To his credit, Kristof refrains from endorsing one hoary gun control idea: reviving the federal ban on so-called assault weapons. “The 10-year ban on assault weapons accomplished little,” he says, “partly because definitions were about cosmetic features like bayonet mounts (and partly because even before the ban, such guns were used in only 2 percent of crimes).” Kristof’s colleagues on the New York Times editorial board, by contrast, are still arguing that “assault weapon bans…would do something to thwart mass shootings.”

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Bitcoin Explodes To $7900 After Hard Fork Suspended

The USD price of Bitcoin just exploded higher – near $7900 – on heavy volume as CoinDesk reports The organizers of a controversial bitcoin scaling proposal are suspending an attempt to increase the block size by way of a software upgrade. Bitcoin is up over 10% today, now up over 650% YTD:

 

As CoinDesk details, known for its strong early support from bitcoin startups and mining pools, the plan, called Segwit2x, or simply 2x, was to trigger a block size increase at block 494784, expected to occur on or around November 16th.

Understanding Segwit2x: Why Bitcoin's Next Fork Might Not Mean Free Money

The suspension was announced today in an email, written by Mike Belshe, CEO and co-founder of bitcoin wallet software provider BitGo. One of the leaders of the Segwit2x project, he argued that the scaling proposal is too controversial to move forward.

He wrote:

"Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean block size upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin’s growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x."

 

"Until then, we are suspending our plans for the upcoming 2MB upgrade," he added.

The note is also signed by companies that originally supported the plan, forged at an in-person meeting in May, including CEO and co-founder Mike Belshe, Xapo CEO Wences Casares, mining pool Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu, Bloq CEO and co-founder Jeff Garzik, Blockchain CEO and co-founder Peter Smith and Shapeshift CEO and founder Erik Voorhees.

The group still has hopes that the block size will be increased further down the line, once there is more agreement from stakeholders.

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When Gunmen Strike, You’re On Your Own

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Here is an often-used tactic to defend government police organizations from criticism. Whenever critics point out abusive tactics of police officers, defenders counter with: "And yet you won't refuse police help the next time there's a robber in your house!" This, we are told, illustrates that all police critics are "hypocrites." 

This has always been a dishonest tactic, of course, since "consumers" of police "services" are forced to pay for the local monopoly police force, and have no other options. Government police forces have monopolized the marketplace and crowded out many private security services. Thus, calling the police to scare off some robbers on one's property is no more hypocritical than a critic of the local power company who nevertheless turns on a lightbulb. It's simply a matter of making do with a high-priced, low-quality monopolist when no competition is allowed. 

Just how low these low-quality services are has become more apparent in recent months. 

In the wake of yesterday's church shooting in Texas, for example, private citizens were the ones who shot back at the assailant, and then chased him down in a high speed pursuit. The police did nothing but write some reports afterward. 

A few months earlier, as violence escalated during the Charlottesville riot in Virginia, the law enforcement agencies stood back and did little except crash a helicopter in the woods. 

Worst of all, of course, is the fact that it took police an hour and 12 minutes to respond to the Las Vegas shooter who killed more than fifty people as he opened fire on a crowd near the Las Vegas strip. Although hotel security had reported the location of the gunman — who had shot a security guard — even before the shooting began, local police agencies waited more than hour before entering the shooter's room. It remains unclear why the shooter stopped shooting after only about ten minutes, but we do know that he would have been free to keep shooting for a much, much longer period of time.1

Among advocates for private firearms ownership, the old joke is that "when seconds matter, the police are only minutes away." In Las Vegas at least, the saying could be "when second matter, the police are only an hour (or more) away." 

Defenders of the police, of course, will claim that an hour of preparation was necessary in order to protect "officer safety." But this also tells you a lot about how government police function: while a gunman is raining down gunfire upon a crowd of people, it's officer safety that comes first, not citizen safety. 

These are just some more recent examples. A multitude of historical examples remain, as well, including the Columbine school shooting in which local police agencies did nothing but seal off the area while the shooters remained untouched inside the school. The students and faculty trapped inside the school were on their own. 

One might also point to the Waco Texas massacre in which police agencies, claiming to be rescuing women and children from the cultist David Koresh, decided to burn most of them to death instead. 

None of this should surprise us. 

It is established policy in the United States that police agencies have no duty to protect citizens, and are not liable for any harm that comes to citizens due to police inaction. In other words, the taxpayers are required to pay for "protection" from police. But the police aren't required to actually provide services. One can only imagine the howls we'd hear if any private industry were allowed to function in a similar way. 

So, we shouldn't expect any reform or any other measure that will hold police accountable for doing so little to engage and stop violent criminals in times of extreme crisis. 

If anything, we should expect police agencies to call for the taxpayers to pay even more for more police services. This, of course, is what happened in the wake of September 11, 2001. One of the worst security failures in American history — a failure allowed by the most well-funded security and police agencies in the world — did not lead to questions of whether Americans are actually getting their money's worth for the generous budgets that go year after year to federal law enforcement agencies. Instead, we were all told the taxpayers should be prepared to shell out even more money and give up even more of their freedoms. 

The same is true of local police agencies. Police departments are ever hungry for more funding, for combat vehicles to use against the local population, and for more firepower. 

But even when police are armed and equipped to teeth, arrests for petty drug offenses remain the priority, while car thefts, rapes, and assaults produce few arrests. As the police response to the riots on Ferguson Missouri showed, police are happy to protect government buildings and government property. Everyone else, it seems, is on his own.

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Rand Paul Getting Attacked Is What’s Wrong with Libertarianism. Wait, What?

The premise, admittedly, sounds like a Will Ferrell comedy: Politically outspoken middle-aged neighbor physician attacks actual politician middle-aged neighbor physician, but not over politics (reportedly)—over a “landscaping dispute.” Though even one cracked rib can hurt like hell, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) reportedly has five, sometimes you have to laugh a little:

But if you think a seemingly non-political man-fight would escape the relentless Politicization of Everything, you haven’t been paying attention. By dint of his unusual ideology, Rand Paul suffers from the Weird Man’s Burden, which means sustaining an unprovoked assault is a splendid occasion to call him an asshole.

“Rand Paul is an asshole neighbor,” GQ‘s Jack Moore asserts, for example, in a post titled “Rand Paul Sounds Like the Worst Guy to Have as a Neighbor.” Just how short is that ideological skirt?

He bought a house in a neighborhood that has certain rules with regard to lawns, and he decided that he doesn’t need to follow those rules because of his belief in “property rights” that don’t actually exist. This is, at its core, the problem with libertarianism. Libertarians don’t want to follow the rules that we as a society have agreed upon, because they feel those rules step on their freedoms. And sometimes they might even be right, but that doesn’t mean that they are above those rules and can do whatever they want.

Moore hastens to add, “Now, I don’t want to excuse the other side of this,” so it’s totally fine that his takeaway from a senator getting his ribs cracked is that libertarians suck. But really, who doesn’t want to punch a libertarian, amirite?

The attack has prompted impressively in-depth reporting on Paul’s irritable views toward his local Home Owner Association rules, with asking-for-it newspaper headlines such as, “Rand Paul is not a perfect neighbor, says community developer.” But extra credit goes to Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson, who wrings an entire piece out of the question: What kind of politician mows his own lawn? Sample:

[C]ynicism inclines me toward another explanation, which is that Paul is the sort of fellow who wants to be known as a self-mower, and to be seen driving a John Deere around his own yard.

Mowing one’s own lawn is a time-honored way for a well-educated politician to establish his “just folks” bona fides. Former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis had a Harvard Law School degree, but preferred to be known as a guy who pushed a hand mower around the yard of his modest Brookline home. (That might have been the image that stuck in voters’ minds if Dukakis had not carelessly allowed himself to be photographed in a ridiculous tank helmet.)

Piloting a riding mower around a big yard combines the virile self-reliance of mowing with the aspirational elements of horsepower and real estate acquisition.

Some conservative outlets are also criticizing Hamilton Nolan’s Splinter piece “Drink More Milk Rand Paul,” but I’m a big defender of news-surrealism. Also this, from Trevor Noah, is pretty funny:

Though arguably not as funny as Shepard Smith’s aggressive eye-rolling here (with Judge Andrew Napolitano as the straight man):

We will hopefully understand more about this puzzling incident soon. In the meantime, a pledge: If and when Bernie Sanders gets curb-stomped by an irate Burlingtonian, I won’t use that as an excuse to talk about the inherently off-putting personal traits of democratic socialists. Besides, he was already kicked out of the commune….

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White House Moves To Formally Reverse Obama-Era Detente With Cuba

After months of blustery rhetoric and half measures, the White House is finally taking steps to undo another one of former President Barack Obama’s legacy-defining foreign-policy accomplishments.

The Washington Post reports that, in a landmark ruling, the Trump administration is reversing some of Obama detente with Cuba by cracking down on travel and business with the island.

Under the new rules, most individual visits to Cuba will no longer be allowed, and U.S. citizens will again have to travel as part of a licensed group, accompanied by a group representative. Americans will also be barred from staying at a long list of hotels and from patronizing restaurants, stores and other enterprises that the State Department has determined are owned by or benefit members of the Cuban government, specifically its security services.

Administration officials said that the new regulations, which go into effect Thursday, would not affect travel arrangements already made or contracts already signed, which are to be grandfathered in under existing law.

Trump was extremely critical of Obama’s Cuba policy during the campaign, but after taking office did relatively little to restrict the newly opened lines of trade and tourism opened up by Obama, who made it much easier for US tourists to visit the island, so long as they could justify the trip under a list of criteria issued by the Obama State Department.

Trump railed against Cuba during a speech he gave back in May, sparking speculation that he would threaten to punish Cuba unless it returns US fugitives like Assata Shakur, who received political asylum on the island after being convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper and escaping from a US prison.

Trump was spurred to act over the summer after US media reported on a series of mysterious cyberattacks that targeted more than 20 US diplomats stationed in Havana, including an unusually large number of spies.

Trump expelled most of Cuba’s Washington-based diplomats, and recalled two-thirds of US personnel from Havana after blaming Cuba for not doing more to prevent the attacks, though the US has said there’s no evidence to suggest the attacks were orchestrated by the Cuban government.

But now that it seems like Trump is getting serious, expect more restrictions to follow as Trump follows through with other promises like barring US companies American from making deals with the Cuban military, which controls much of the state-run tourism industry.
 

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Virginia Voters Toss Homophobic Lawmaker in Favor of Transgender Heavy Metal Rocker

Danica RoemVirginia voters shocked entrenched establishment conservatives and pop music enthusiasts last night by electing the lead singer of a heavy metal band to its state legislature. Danica Roem, 33, a Democrat, has defeated 13-term incumbent Robert Marshall to represent Prince William County in Virginia’s House of Delegates.

Roem is the lead singer for Cab Ride Home, a band that describes its music this way: “Northern Virginia metal band Cab Ride Home represents one thing: partying. We’re a five-piece group and all members are committed to ultimately touring full-time. Our sound is drunken thrash metal, our songs are about drinking and our shows are about raging. We’ve played 120 shows and even toured the U.K. ‘Nuff said.”

Looks like those dreams of a tour might have to be put on hold. Though given the reputations of lawmakers, she may not have to give up the drinking or raging.

Oh, also: Roem is transgender, having transitioned to living life openly as a woman between 2012 and 2015. Roem’s identity ended up taking center stage in the coverage of the race, getting much more attention than her actual platform of “fixing Route 28.” She takes a dim view of toll roads, which should be of concern to transportation privatization advocates.

Roem’s victory marks her as the first openly transgender person elected to a state legislature. (Althea Garrison was elected to the state legislature of Massachusetts in 1993, but during the campaign voters apparently didn’t know about her history.)

The other factor drawing attention to Roem’s win is who she defeated. Marshall has a reputation as one of Virginia’s more homophobic legislators. He pushed one of those “bathroom bills” for the stat, driven by a fabricated culture-war panic that sexual predators would take advantage of transgender accommodations to target and assault women or children in public restrooms or facilities.

Marshall’s bill would have required people to use the restrooms and other sex-segregated facilities in schools and other government-owned buildings that matched the gender listed on their birth certificates. Apparently his first version of the legislation even insisted that people’s “original” sex listed on their birth certificates, meaning that even if a transgender person had surgery and legally got his or her birth certificate changed, he or she would be legally obligated to use the other restroom. He ultimately softened the legislation to (like North Carolina’s bathroom law) allow transgender people who have had their birth certificate changed use the appropriate facilities. The bill nevertheless died in committee and did not become law.

That’s just one example of Marshall’s harsh approach to LGBT issues. Marshall pushed Virginia’s constitutional amendment that forbids same-sex marriage recognition. The Marshall-Newman Amendment not only keeps the state from recognizing same-sex marriages, but forbids any sort of legal status between two unmarried people that approximates marriage or assigns similar rights or benefits.

Marshall has even supported legislation to keep private insurance companies from offering benefits to same-sex partners, and he seems to want courts to overrule private guardianship and will agreements between same-sex partners (analysis courtesy of Cato’s Walter Olson).

Roem’s win is widely seen from the perspective of the current culture wars over how transgender people are treated. But Marshall also represents an old-guard attitude toward LGBT people that a good chunk of the Republican Party is looking to leave behind. He has actually called himself Virginia’s “chief homophobe,” but these days your average Republican is about as likely to approve same-sex marriage recognition as oppose it.

So while Virginian Republicans took a pounding in yesterday’s election, I suspect many of them will not be shedding tears at the loss of a dead-ender like Marshall.

Many media sites are focused on these culture war components, but I know Reason readers care about what really matters. So here’s a YouTube video of Roem fronting Cab Ride Home. Enjoy!

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Former Yahoo CEO Mayer Blames Massive Hacks On – Who Else? – Russia

Looks like this guy’s been up to no good…

In an apology that’s long overdue, considering Yahoo revealed two months ago that a series of cyberattacks that it had previously reported actually impacted all of its 3 billion user accounts, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer apologized on Wednesday for a pair of massive data breaches at the internet company. But rather than take responsibility for the cybersecurity failures at company – which was absorbed by Verizon earlier this year – Mayer blamed the hacks on the most convenient bugbear available.

That’s right: Mayer – who gave the apology during Congressional testimony – is blaming the intrusions on the Ruskies, a charge that we’re sure will find sympathy among certain Senate Democrats.

But lest anybody get it twisted, Mayer – in a deflection of blame that was nothing short of Clinton-esque – managed to apologize without admitting ultimate personal responsibility, Reuters reported.

”As CEO, these thefts occurred during my tenure, and I want to sincerely apologize to each and every one of our users,” she told the Senate Commerce Committee, testifying alongside the interim and former CEOs of Equifax Inc and a senior Verizon Communications Inc executive.

 

“Unfortunately, while all our measures helped Yahoo successfully defend against the barrage of attacks by both private and state-sponsored hackers, Russian agents intruded on our systems and stole our users’ data."

Verizon acquired most of Yahoo Inc’s assets in June after Yahoo was forced to accept a lower bid following several unflattering disclosures related to the hacking incidents. Mayer also stepped down in June. Verizon disclosed last month that a 2013 Yahoo data breach affected all 3 billion of its accounts, compared with an estimate of more than 1 billion disclosed in December.

In March, federal prosecutors charged two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers with masterminding the 2014 cybertheft, the first time the US has charged Russia-linked hackers for alleged cybercrimes. Of the accused, one was arrested. Russia has denied the allegations, and there has been some speculation that the attacks were actually planned by the same North Korea-linked group of hackers that perpetrated the 2014 Sony hacks.

According to Reuters, Special Agent Jack Bennett of the FBI’s San Francisco Division said in March the 2013 breach was unrelated to the one Yahoo disclosed in December and that an investigation of the larger incident was continuing.

“We now know that Russian intelligence officers and state-sponsored hackers were responsible for highly complex and sophisticated attacks on Yahoo’s systems,” Mayer said on Wednesday.

The Senate Commerce Committee took the unusual step of subpoenaing Mayer to testify on Oct. 25 after a representative for Mayer declined multiple requests for her voluntarily testimony. A representative for Mayer told Reuters she was appearing voluntarily.
 

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