Month: November 2018

Democrats Did Better Than Early Election Results Revealed: Reason Roundup

The Republican seats that might not be. Much-watched midterm races in Arizona, Florida, and Georgia have still not produced definitive winners. And things could get ugly.

Authorities in these states are still tallying up absentee, overseas, and provisional ballots. A few positions that seemed sure to go to Republicans on election night are now swinging toward the Democratic candidates. And potential losers on both sides are suggesting some funny business among ballot counters.

FLORIDA

“Florida has retained the championship belt for election shenanigans,” writes Matthew Zeitlin. There are no more chads to hang (the state uses pen and paper voting now), but Floridians are still awaiting results on who will be the state’s governor, Republican Ron DeSantis or Democrat Andrew Gillum, as well as who will be elected to the U.S. Senate and several state offices.

“DeSantis seemed on Tuesday night to have won,” notes The New York Times:

Mr. Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, conceded shortly before The Associated Press called the race for Mr. DeSantis on Tuesday night, when he was ahead by more than a percentage point. But the margin of victory has since shrunk to 0.44 points—small enough to require a machine recount under Florida law—and there were still ballots to count.

As far as the Senate seat goes,

just 15,175 votes were separating the front-runner, Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, from the Democratic incumbent, Senator Bill Nelson, on Thursday evening, out of more than eight million cast. At just 0.18 percentage points, Mr. Scott’s margin had become so narrow that a more thorough manual recount is required.

At a press conference yesterday, Scott accused Florida Democrats of “rampant fraud,” though he offered no particular evidence to support this. He promised to file lawsuits against officials in Broward and Palm Beach counties, saying, “No ragtag group of liberal activists or lawyers from D.C. will be allowed to steal this election from the voters of this great state.” In a late-Thursday filing in federal court, Scott demanded an immediate hearing.

President Trump (see tweet above) and Marco Rubio also joined in the accusations:

Palm Beach and Broward are the two largest counties in Florida, and officials there are still tallying mail-in and provisional ballots. Like all Florida counties, they have until noon on Saturday to submit unofficial totals and are not violating reporting requirements.

“The goal here is to see that all the votes in Florida are counted and counted accurately,” said a statement from the Nelson campaign. “Rick Scott’s action appears to be politically motivated and borne out of desperation.”

GEORGIA

The winner of Georgia’s gubernatorial race is still a puzzle. As of last night, Republican Brian Kemp was beating Democrat Stacey Abrams by around 63,000 votes and “had 50.3 percent of the total, according to an unofficial tally by the Georgia secretary of state’s office—which Mr. Kemp headed throughout the campaign,” The New York Times reports.

Kemp just resigned as secretary of state, ignoring “calls throughout the campaign to step aside from a post that made him the supervisor of an election in which he was a candidate.” Faced with a federal lawsuit, he finally offered his resignation yesterday.

“Abrams’s campaign insists that when all the votes are counted, Mr. Kemp’s share may yet fall below 50 percent, which under Georgia law would require a runoff in early December,” the Times notes. Georgia Democrats are asking courts to extend absentee-ballot voting for a county caught in Hurricane Michael’s crosshairs, and “lawyers elsewhere are scrutinizing the methods some counties used to reject absentee ballots.” They argue that ballots should be counted as long as they were postmarked by election day and arrive by Friday.

ARIZONA

In Arizona, the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Flake is still being contested by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Martha McSally. As of Thursday, Sinema had a slight lead.

ELSEWHERE

As of Thursday afternoon, news outlets had yet to project winners in 17 House or Senate races, notes FiveThirtyEight:

These races have the potential to meaningfully change the narrative around this election—for example, Democrats could pick up 42 House seats instead of 29, or turn a disappointing showing in the Senate into a draw….

As things stand right now, Republicans have picked up two seats in the Senate, but that net gain could be anywhere from zero to three when the races in Arizona, Florida and Mississippi get resolved.

In Mississippi, “the special U.S. Senate election…will proceed to a runoff on Nov. 27 as none of the candidates secured 50 percent of the vote on Tuesday.” Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith is projected to win over Democrat Mike Espy.

Two races that were too close to call until later yesterday ultimately went in Democrats’ favor. Democrat Lucy McBath beat Republican Rep. Karen Handel—by less than 1 percentage point—in Georgia. And Democrat Kim Schrier won in Washington’s 8th District.

A close House-seat election in North Carolina was called for Republican Mark Harris.

FREE MARKETS

War on vaping. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to treat e-cigarettes and other vaping devices more strictly than it does actual cigarettes. Under upcoming FDA rules reported by NBC, the agency will ban all flavored e-cigs and vaping products from being sold except in stores specifically devoted to tobacco or vaping.

FOLLOW-UPS

People took to the streets in Seattle, New York City, and elsewhere last night to protest President Donald Trump’s firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and to “protect Mueller” and the special counsel’s investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Chris Christie is being floated as a possible replacement for Sessions.

The interim head of the Justice Department, Matthew Whitaker, gets more and more charming the more that comes out about him.

George Conway—wife of counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway—argues in The New York Times today that Whitaker’s appointment was unconstitutional.

QUICK HITS

  • The Trump administration can’t start deporting undocumented immigrants brought here as kids and protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday. “The unanimous decision…makes it more likely that the Supreme Court will settle the question,” writes Robert Barnes at The Washington Post. “The Trump administration has asked the justices to add it to the docket for this term.”
  • To add to the growing list of immigration-related court battles: Trump’s new restrictions on asylum seekers were released yesterday.

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Crude Testing Critical Support… Will Stocks & Jobs Follow?

Via Global Macro Monitor,

The near WTI futures price is down 23% since peaking on October 3rd as traders front ran the Iranian oil sanctions, which went in to place this week.   Fearing spiking oil prices, the U.S. granted waivers to eight of Iran’s largest buyers of crude – China, India, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Greece, Taiwan, and Turkey.

KeyStone Cops Markets

Now fearing the world is amply supplied, traders are selling crude down and down.  The U.S. now produces more oil and than Saudi and Russia.

The United States has increased output to more than 11 million barrels a day, surpassing Saudi and Russian production. Saudi Arabia and Russia have also been increasing output to offset the drop in Iranian exports. – CNBC

Testing Key Levels

After bottoming below $42 on June 1, 2017, WTI’s 2-year uptrend has been violated and now testing critical Fibonacci retracement levels.   It has already sliced through the .382 at $63.32 and is now set to test the .500 at $59.12.  The next key level is the .618 at around $55, which,  if broken, it significantly increases the risk of giving it all back.

Crude prices are a trending machine and usually need a significant fundamental change, such an OPEC cut,  to reverse the trend.   We urge caution.   Watch and wait mode, folks.

Crude Oil And The S&P

Not exactly a perfect correlation, but the chart illustrates both stocks and the oil price tend to move together.  Moreover,  such a large price divergence as seen over the past month is not sustained.   We suspect crude is sending a signal that stocks are going to, at best, struggle here or move lower.

Crude Prices And U.S. Jobs

We have written quite a bit about the U.S. labor market over the past year.

The only sector, which has experienced outsized employment growth since January 2017 has been in mining with job growth over 17 percent since President Trump took office.  The rise in the oil price has generated demand for roughneck hiring in the oil patch.

The following chart illustrates how mining support service hiring tracks the oil price but with a lag, from anywhere between 2-8 months. 

 If past is prologue,  the downturn in prices won’t begin to be felt in the oil patch for another month or two.

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Iran’s Leadership Must Decide “If They Want Their People To Eat” – Pompeo

Less than a week after US Secretary of State Secretary Mike Pompeo told Fox News Sunday that the “Iranians are responsible for the starvation’ of Yemeni civilians” he’s again issued hugely provocative words, telling the BBC during an interview that Iranian “leadership has to make a decision that they want their people to eat” in reference to the latest round of US sanctions. 

As the interview was with BBC Persian, Pompeo’s words were immediately translated from English and broadcast to the Iranian public through BBC’s Persian-language publication. Pompeo repeated his theme that Iran is the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror and a “destabilizing influence” in the Middle East while ultimately blaming the country’s economic suffering on the intransigence of the country’s leaders. 

Pompeo’s words came on the heels of Iran’s foreign ministry issuing a formal response to this week’s US sanctions snap back on the energy sector, publishing a 3-minute video of FM Javad Zarif on Tuesday wherein Zarif emphasized that the sanctions mainly targeted average Iranian citizens, referencing “the economic warfare that directly targets the Iranian people.”

The most contentious segment of the BBC interview was as follows:  

QUESTION: You say you are not punishing the people. You say that the sanctions are not targeting the people. But what if —

SECRETARY POMPEO: No, they’re not.

QUESTION: But what if the sanctions hurt the Iranian people, the ordinary lives of them?

SECRETARY POMPEO: The folks who are hurting the Iranian people are the ayatollah and Qasem Soleimani and the Iranian leadership. That’s who is bringing the difficulties to Iran today. And you see this. You see this when you read of the protests. You see this when Iranian people have a chance to speak, although we know the human rights there don’t permit the Iranian people to speak freely. It’s the regime that is inflicting harm on the Iranian people, not the world and not the United States.

QUESTION: But as you – but you say that this is not a democratic regime. You say that the regime doesn’t care for Iranian people. But you say you do care for Iranian people.

SECRETARY POMPEO: We do.

— State Dept. transcript of the BBC Persian interview

But with hundreds of thousands of common Iranians reportedly now struggling to find life-saving medicines due to the sanctions, we doubt the Iranian public is going to be convinced of Washington’s “care” and “concern” for common Iranians. 

In the weeks leading up to the November 5th round of sanctions European governments attempted to persuade the White House to agree to guarantees or waivers of Iranian imports of basic foods and medicine — pleas that were reportedly rebuffed. 

Addressing the medicine issue in the BBC interview, Pompeo denied that the US was disallowing the flow of life-saving drugs into the country, and made the following assertion: “Not only are the transactions themselves exempted – that is, the transactions in medicine, for example – but the financial transactions connected to that activity also are authorized,” he said.

Pompeo also claimed that “None of the sanctions that have been imposed prevent humanitarian assistance and, indeed, there are big exemptions for medicine for sure, pharmaceuticals, but also more broadly than that for agricultural imports too.”

However, Pompeo seemed to contradict his prior denial that the sanctions were impacting medicines, saying it was ultimately up to Tehran to change its behavior in the face of the sanctions. Pompeo said: 

Well, remember, just so you remember, the leadership has to make a decision that they want their people to eat. They have to make a decision that they want to use their wealth to import medicine, and not use their wealth to fund Qasem Soleimani’s travels around the Middle East with – causing death and destruction. That’s the Iranian Government’s choice on how to use Iranian wealth.

Recent words out of Tehran suggest that Iranian leadership is prepared to settle in for a “long siege” which could result in a years-long stalemate, while continuing to find ways to circumvent US sanctions and while urging Europe to help it weather the storm. 

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Why Are So Few Americans Able To Get Ahead?

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Our entire economy is characterized by cartel rentier skims, central-bank goosed asset bubbles and stagnating earned income for the bottom 90%.

Despite the rah-rah about the “ownership society” and the best economy ever, the sobering reality is very few Americans are able to get ahead, i.e. build real financial security via meaningful, secure assets which can be passed on to their children.

As I’ve often discussed here, only the top 10% of American households are getting ahead in both income and wealth, and most of the gains of these 12 million households are concentrated in the top 1% (1.2 million households). (see wealth chart below).

Why are so few Americans able to get ahead? there are three core reasons:

1. Earnings (wages and salaries) have not kept up with the rising cost of living.

2. The gains have flowed to capital, which is mostly owned by the top 10%, rather than to labor ((wages and salaries).

3. Our financialized economy incentivizes cartels and other rentier skims, i.e. structures that raise costs but don’t provide any additional value for the additional costs.

It’s instructive to compare today’s household with households a few generations ago. As recently as the early 1970s, 45 years ago, it was still possible for a single fulltime-earner to support the household and buy a home, which in 1973 cost around $30,000 (median house price, as per the St. Louis FRED database).

As recently as 20 years ago, in 1998, the median house price in the U.S. was about $150,000— still within reach of many two-earner households, even those with average jobs.

As the chart below shows, real median household income has only recently exceeded the 1998 level— and only by a meager $1,000 annually. If we use real-world inflation rather than the under-estimated official inflation, real income has plummeted by 10% or more in the past 20 years.

This reality is reflected in a new study of wages in Silicon Valley, which we might assume would keep up due to the higher value of the region’s output.The study found the wages of the bottom 90% declined when adjusted for inflation by as much as 14% over the past 20 years:

“The just-released report showed that wages for 90 percent of Silicon Valley workers (all levels of workers except for the top 10 percent) are lower now than they were 20 years ago, after adjusting for inflation. That’s in stark contrast to the 74 percent increase in overall per capita economic output in the Valley from 2001 to 2017.”

source: Why Silicon Valley Income Inequality Is Just a Preview of What’s to Come for the Rest of the U.S.

Meanwhile, the median house price has more than doubled to $325,000 while median household income has stagnated. Please note this price is not adjusted for inflation, like the median income chart. But if we take nominal household income in 1998 (around $40,000 annually) and compare it to nominal household income now in 2018 (around $60,000), that’s a 50% increase–far below the more than doubling of house prices.

To raise stagnant incomes, the Federal Reserve and other central banks have attempted to generate a wealth effect by boosting the valuations of risk-on assets such as stocks, bonds and commercial real estate. But the Fed et al. overlooked the fact that the vast majority of these assets are owned by the top 10%–and as noted above, the ownership of the top 10% is concentrated in the top 1% and .1%.

As a result, the vast majority of the wealth effect capital gains have flowed to the top 1%:

Lastly, the cartel structure of the U.S. economy has raised costs while providing no additional value. One example is higher education, a cartel that issues diplomas with diminishing economic value that now cost a fortune, a reality reflected in this chart of student loan debt, which simply didn’t exist a generation ago:

Our entire economy is characterized by cartel rentier skims, central-bank goosed asset bubbles and stagnating earned income for the bottom 90%. Given these realities, the bottom 90% are left with few pathways to get ahead in terms of financial security and building secure family wealth.

*  *  *

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Kurt Loder Reviews The Girl in the Spider’s Web and Overlord: New at Reason

The Girl in the Spider’s Web—the second English-language movie adaptation of a novel from the Dragon Tattoo series begun by the late Stieg Larsson—feels second-hand in every way. The director is new, the lead actress is new, the rest of the cast is new, and the book on which the film is based wasn’t written by Larsson. (It’s the work of estate-approved Swedish author David Lagercrantz, and like Larsson’s books it was a transatlantic bestseller.)

Everything about this project is awkward, writes Kurt Loder.

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US Producer Prices Surge Most In 6 Years

Core Producer Prices surged 0.6% MoM (well above the 0.2% expected), the biggest spike since September 2012 which sparked rebounds in the headline YoY change back towards 3.00%.

The biggest MoM jump in headline PPI since Sept 2012…

And even Core PPI surge most since Jan 2016

 

About one-fifth of the October advance in prices for final demand services is attributable to a 1.2-percent rise in margins for machinery, equipment, parts, and supplies wholesaling. The indexes for food and alcohol retailing; health, beauty, and optical goods retailing; inpatient care; apparel, jewelry, footwear, and accessories retailing; and traveler accommodation services also moved higher. In contrast, prices for loan services (partial) fell 0.5 percent. The indexes for hospital outpatient care and furniture retailing also declined.

The index for final demand goods climbed 0.6 percent in October, the largest rise since advancing 0.9 percent in May. Nearly three-fourths of the October increase can be traced to prices for final demand energy, which moved up 2.7 percent.

Over 60 percent of the October increase in prices for final demand goods is attributable to the gasoline index, which jumped 7.6 percent. Prices for diesel fuel, fresh and dry vegetables, beef and veal, cigarettes, and jet fuel also moved higher. Conversely, the motor vehicles index fell 0.7 percent. (In accordance with usual practice, most new-model-year passenger car and light motor trucks were introduced into the PPI in October. Prices for liquefied petroleum gas and for fresh fruits and melons also decreased.

So to sum up where we are now:

  • If producers are successful at passing through prices, 3% CPI is coming (and considerably more hawkish Fed)…

  • If they are not, margins will collapse.

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The Growing Consensus for Legalizing Marijuana: New at Reason

The United States remains starkly divided between red and blue, with Republicans and Democrats each registering some gains and some setbacks in the elections. But on one important issue, writes Steve Chapman, a national consensus is emerging that transcends party and ideology. America is becoming Weed Nation.

On Tuesday, Michigan became the 10th state, along with the District of Columbia, to decide to legalize marijuana for purely recreational use. A quarter of Americans will live in states that let them get stoned without fear of the constable.

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Surprise Lending Directive Sends Chinese Stocks Reeling

On November 8, China surprised markets with its latest targeted stimulus in the form of a lending directive ordering large banks to issue loans to private companies to at least one-third of new corporate lending, said Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. The announcement sparked a new round of investor concerns about what is being unsaid about China’s opaque, private enterprises, raising prospects of a fresh spike in bad assets.

Guo’s comments were the latest attempt by authorities to try to improve funding access for China’s non-state companies, which have been struggling to get bank loans in the aftermath of China’s crackdown on shadow lending. More importantly, it was the first time financial regulators had given targets on private lending, confirmation that earlier efforts hadn’t sparked the necessary credit activity.

According to commentators, the new policy was prompted by the need to ensure that China’s private firms, already challenged by China’s state-owned behemoths, survive amid a plunging stock market, record corporate defaults and a cooling economy. At the same time, the target for small and medium-sized banks is higher, at two-thirds of new corporate loans, with Guo adding that he wants to see loans to private companies account for at least half of total new corporate loans in three years.

But most importantly, this targeted lending will increase market concern on banks’ “civic duty” with Huatai Securities predicting a new sharp spike in NPL ratio amid the accelerating economic slowdown, which would prove negative for short-term sentiment.

Sure enough, overnight the Shanghai Composite was hammered again, sliding 1.4% to the lowest level since the end of September, and back below 2,600…

… while the Shenzhen Financial index sliding 2.2%, following another drop the previous day.

The Friday drop followed a Thursday rout when the news was first announced which saw the major banks tumble as a result of this latest government intervention in capital allocation, with the following results: Bank of Shanghai -4%, China Merchants Bank -4%, ICBC -3.3%, Agricultural Bank of China -2.9%, Industrial Bank -2.5%, Bank of China -1.6%, Bank of Communications -1.3%

 

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Florida Passed A Hugely Important Amendment to Allow Lawmakers to Reduce Criminal Sentences

Florida voters passed an important ballot amendment this week that will fundamentally change criminal justice in the Sunshine State.

We’re not talking about Amendment 4, which will restore voting rights to an estimated 1.4 million people with felony records, but Amendment 11.

Florida was the only state with a constitutional ban on reducing past criminal sentences, until Tuesday, when voters approved Amendment 11 by 62 percent, just over the 60 percent threshold for ballot measures in the state. The measure contained three bundled constitutional amendments, one of which repealed an 1885 provision in the Florida constitution known as the “Savings Clause” that banned the state legislature from making retroactive changes to criminal sentencing laws.

Now state lawmakers will not only be able to roll back harsh mandatory minimum sentences, but make those sentenced under those laws eligible for release. And one state senator says there already bills on the way to do just that.

“One hundred percent, there will be a bill on retroactivity this year,” says Florida Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes, who has written and co-sponsored several criminal justice reform bills over the past several years.

Brandes says Amendment 11’s passage “really frees the state up to begin to cast a bold vision for criminal justice reform.”

“I’m excited to see where this goes,” Brandes says. “I think this really is going to be helpful as we look to reduce the prison population in the state of Florida and in a meaningful way. We simply can’t afford 96,000 inmates. This is a state that spends $2.3 billion dollars a year on incarcerated inmates.”

As Reason reported in an investigation last year, Florida’s draconian opioid trafficking laws have put thousands of inmates in prison for “trafficking” what amounted to a handful of pills. Hundreds of them are first-time, nonviolent offenders, such as Cynthia Powell, a 40-year-old woman who was sentenced to 25 years in state prison for selling a bottle of painkillers to an undercover cop.

In response to concerns over these brutal sentences, the Florida legislature increased the amount of drugs necessary to trigger a trafficking felony in 2014. That meant a defendant would have to be found with more drugs to receive the same sentence. But lawmakers could do nothing for inmates like Powell, who’d already been sentenced and could not, under Florida law, have her sentence reduced to reflect a change in the criminal code.

“Florida voters sent a clear message on Monday: Now’s the time for meaningful criminal justice reform,” says Lauren Krisai, senior policy analyst at the Justice Action Network and co-author of the Reason investigation. “There are hundreds of inmates serving sentences for years longer than those who are being sentenced for the same crimes today. I hope the legislature begins to correct this injustice in 2019—thankfully Amendment 11 cleared that pathway.”

Greg Newburn—the director of state policy for FAMM, an advocacy group that opposes mandatory minimum sentencing, and the chair of the Yes on 11 campaign—started working on the issue several years ago after realizing that any type of retroactive sentencing reform would be impossible under Florida’s constitution.

“Without any kind of safety valves to provide any hope for retroactivity, it just became a matter of, OK, well if the constitution prohibits that, we have to change the constitution,” Newburn says. “There was really no question about whether it had to be done. It was only a question of whether it could be done.”

Lacking the resources to launch a massive signature gathering campaign, FAMM decided to try and get the Savings Clause repeal on the ballot through Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission, which meets only once every 20 years.

Fortuitously, 2017 was one of those years, and the Savings Clause repeal managed to make it on the ballot, surviving a selection process that winnowed down more than 1,000 proposed constitutional amendments.

Newburn says Amendment 11 received grassroots support from families of inmates. It was also endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as the NRA. The latter’s support led progressive groups and editorial boards to oppose Amendment 11, fearing it would allow the state’s “stand your ground” law to be applied retroactively. In fact, the amendment performed worst in liberal counties.

Nevertheless, it passed by a supermajority, and with that kind of mandate, Brandes says the legislature can begin considering not just sentencing reform, but increased diversion and reentry programs.

“All kinds of different options now are on the table,” Brandes says. “It really is as much of a momentum discussion as it is a policy discussion.”

If Florida eventually legalizes marijuana, Amendment 11 would allow sweeping expungements of criminal records for people convicted of pot offenses, similar to what Massachusetts and other states have done following legalization.

“I hope this serves as a signal that Florida is ready for criminal justice reform,” Newburn says. “Sixty two percent of the vote, 4.6 million people who say yes to not just sentencing reform, but retroactivity of sentencing reform—when you have those kinds of numbers around the state, it should send the signal to the legislature that people recognize that there are injustices in the system and they want them fixed.”

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Oil Slumps Below $60 To 8-Month Lows – Set For Record Losing Streak

WTI Crude is trading back below $60 for the first time since March (and Brent below $70) as Washington’s decision to allow eight countries to continue importing from Iran, which it slapped with sanctions earlier this week; as well as pledges by Saudi Arabia and other producers to pump more (as well as surges in American supply and stockpiles), have turned fears of a supply crunch into talk of an oversupply.

This is the 10th down-day in a row…

Which if it holds, will be the longest losing streak in the history of the oil contract…

“The focus is on negative sentiment in oil and negative momentum,” said Giovanni Staunovo, a commodity analyst at UBS Group AG.

“It’ll be interesting to see if some stick with their shorts over the weekend with the OPEC meeting.”

Is it time for Energy stocks to catch down to reality?

And are inflation breakevens about to tumble?

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