Month: May 2019

Beijing Threatens To Blacklist “Unreliable” US Companies, Loses Faith In Trade Deal

While investors and the financial press had anticipated that President Trump might open up a second front in his global trade war by antagonizing the EU and Japan with Section 232 auto tariffs. And last night, the president did instigate another trade fight, but it wasn’t the one they had expected.

Trump stunned Wall Street and sent stock futures reeling by announcing via tweet his plans to slap tariffs on all Mexican imports early next month over the country’s failure to stop hundreds of thousands of migrants from illegally entering the US.

Trump

But while investors are temporarily preoccupied with the latest trade-war twist, Chinese officials are apparently seizing on the opportunity to inspire more FUD in markets that are already oversaturated.

To wit, the SCMP reported Friday that a breakthrough on the trade stalemate between China and the US during the G-20 Summit in Osaka late next month is unlikely, attributing the comment to Dai Xianglong, the former head of the PBOC.

A breakthrough in the current stalemate between China and the US is unlikely when Chinese President Xi Jinping meets his American counterpart at the G20 summit in Japan next month, a former Chinese central bank chief said on Friday.

“Leaders of China and the US will meet late next month in Japan and I hope there will be positive news [from the meeting],” said Dai Xianglong, former governor of the People’s Bank of China, at a seminar on China-US technology development in Beijing.

“However, [any breakthrough] would not be easy because it is actually very difficult for the US side to form a powerful and systematic correction that can right the wrongs made by [President] Trump,” he said adding he had no direct knowledge of the meeting arrangement.

The report was published just hours before Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion in American goods are set to take effect. Dai is now a vice-chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a Beijing-based think tank.

Once again, Beijing is pushing back against optimistic trade-war jawboning by both President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. And if President Xi and senior party officials are angry now, Pence’s plans to make a sweeping speech to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre probably won’t help de-escalate the situation.

But the SCMP report wasn’t all. As Beijing’s trade-war rhetoric increasingly focuses on its plans to retaliate for the blacklisting of Huawei, Global Times editor Hu Xijin tweeted Friday that China is planning to implement “major retaliatory measures” against US companies over the blacklisting of Huawei.

Though Hu didn’t go into detail, the threat was swiftly confirmed when Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng announced during a press briefing that China would set up an “unreliable entities” list – China’s own blacklist for foreign enterprises, organizations and individuals, Bloomberg reports.

Organizations and individuals who don’t obey market rules, violate contracts and block, cut off supply for non-commercial reasons or severely damage the legitimate interests of Chinese companies will be added to the list, Gao said, adding that more details would be available “soon.” US investors can now add plans to target companies that cut ties with Huawei, as well as potentially other major US tech firms, to the list of potential trade-war retaliation, alongside Beijing’s threats to curb the export of rare-earth metals.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HMFErl Tyler Durden

Reviews: Rocketman and Ma

Rocketman is the kind of music-biz biopic in which the star of the show, Elton John (played by Taron Egerton), sings a duet with his nine-year-old self (Matthew Illesley)—a rendition of the 1974 E.J. hit “The Bitch Is Back.” It’s also the kind of movie in which this scene is set in the middle of a group-therapy session at the rehab facility to which Elton has come to battle his mid-career addictions to alcohol, cocaine, sex, and shopping. Later on, the nine-year-old Elton reappears, sitting at a little piano at the bottom of a swimming pool, singing the picture’s title song. It’s that kind of movie, too.

Although director Dexter Fletcher also worked on last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody (he was brought in to take the wheel after original director Bryan Singer was chucked over the side), his star here doesn’t manage to conjure up as much biographical soul as Rami Malek did in the role of Freddie Mercury. Despite the array of glam-tastic furs and spangles and winged stage boots in which he is bedecked, Egerton doesn’t bear a strong resemblance to Elton (apart from a slight plumpness, maybe), and he’s blocked by the hackneyed screenplay from creating much in the way of subtle character illumination.

Egerton does, however, bring considerable fire to the performance scenes, in which he actually sings the songs. This might be all that fans want from an Elton John movie: the hits. All of the big ones are here, to one extent or another: “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” Unsurprisingly for what is basically a jukebox musical, chronological rigor was not among the filmmakers’ foremost concerns. We see an unknown Elton auditioning for London music publisher Dick James in the late 1960s with renditions of “Daniel” (which didn’t appear in the world until 1973) and “I Guess that’s Why They Call It the Blues” (from 1983). We see Elton meeting his longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin (an event that occurred in 1967) and then almost immediately we see Taupin (played by Jamie Bell) penning the lyrics to “Honky Cat,” which actually dates from 1972. Most brazenly, the movie has Elton performing “Crocodile Rock” during his famous U.S. stage debut at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in 1970—a song that wasn’t in his set list at the time because it wasn’t written until three years later.

Egerton blows past some of these plot nits on a wave of sheer energy and determination. But Lee Hall’s screenplay leads him into bogs of cliché. Obviously a place had to be found for the 1973 hit “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” but did it really have to be slotted into a big pub-fight scene? And did Elton’s parents (Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh) have to be so stereotypically inadequate? (Dad’s a disapproving cold fish, mom a martini-blurred airhead.) Then there’s the gay thing. Apart from a passing put-down by his father when he catches his young son eyeing a fashion magazine (“Stop looking at that, you’re not a girl”), we’re shown that Elton doesn’t begin to suspect his sexual inclinations until he’s a teenaged backing musician for some visiting American R&B acts and one of the black men on the bill walks up to him, kisses him full on the mouth, and then walks away. Years later, at a party following the Troubadour show, a gay Scottish manager named John Reid (Richard Madden)—also a character in Bohemian Rhapsody—approaches Elton to coyly express his admiration. (“So you like the song?” Elton says. “Not as much as the singer,” Reid replies.) There follows a bedroom sex scene of medium sizzle, but then, following that, we’re presented with the sight of these two gay men making out…in a closet.

We know where Elton’s debilitating enthusiasms (“I have fucked everything that moves and have taken every drug that exists”) will lead, and we know that at the end the movie will dutifully fill us in on where the man stands today: clean and sober, happily married father of two, currently embarked on a three-year “farewell” tour, et cetera. None of this is quite as rousing, or as revealing, as one might expect. Elton John has lived most of his life on the pages and airwaves of the pop media. If Rocketman fails to answer any pressing questions about the man, it could be because there are none to ask.

Ma

Universal PicturesMa is an almost-horror movie that almost works. It’s basically an atmospheric creepfest enlivened by a few torture-porn jolts toward the end, and if Octavia Spencer seems oddly ensconced in it, we can probably credit her presence to a long friendship with director Tate Taylor, in whose 2011 hit The Help she earned a best-supporting-actress Oscar.

Whatever the case, we follow most of the story from the POV of a coltish high-school student named Maggie (Diana Silvers, of Glass and Booksmart), who has just moved to a dull and unidentified town with her bar-waitress mom (Juliette Lewis), a native of this nowhere burg. Maggie makes friends easily enough (the liveliest are party girl McKaley Miller and designated crush Corey Fogelmanis), and soon they’re all making the acquaintance of a weirdly solicitous local lady named Sue Ann (Spencer). Before long they will regret this.

Sue Ann comes upon these kids loitering outside a liquor store hoping for a soft-touch grownup to come

along and buy them some party booze. Sue Ann not only agrees to do this, she suggests they

conduct their illicit revel in the basement of her house, which is of course remotely located. There are a few rules, though—no taking the Lord’s name in vain on the premises…and no going upstairs, ever.

All seems fine at first. Sue Ann is happy to crank up the party music and serve the kids drinks, smiling eerily all the while. Even when she pulls a gun on one young guy and orders him to strip…well, she quickly apologizes and claims it was a joke, so she’s immediately forgiven.

What the kids don’t know, as they keep returning to Sue Ann’s party pad for repeat frolics, is that their

host has a very dark past in this small town, and that it involves some of their parents (Luke Evans chief among them). And only slowly do they become aware of this strange woman’s expertise in tracking them through social media, and her access to powerful animal tranquilizers through her job working for town vet Allison Janney (another alumna of The Help).

The movie is a mid-level product of the Blumhouse horror factory. Spencer is agreeably sinister and the picture keeps you squirming through its first hour. But it never comes into focus—the gory conclusion feels stylistically unrelated to the rest of the film. There are worse things, of course, but that’s not much of a recommendation.

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Reviews: Rocketman and Ma

Rocketman is the kind of music-biz biopic in which the star of the show, Elton John (played by Taron Egerton), sings a duet with his nine-year-old self (Matthew Illesley)—a rendition of the 1974 E.J. hit “The Bitch Is Back.” It’s also the kind of movie in which this scene is set in the middle of a group-therapy session at the rehab facility to which Elton has come to battle his mid-career addictions to alcohol, cocaine, sex, and shopping. Later on, the nine-year-old Elton reappears, sitting at a little piano at the bottom of a swimming pool, singing the picture’s title song. It’s that kind of movie, too.

Although director Dexter Fletcher also worked on last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody (he was brought in to take the wheel after original director Bryan Singer was chucked over the side), his star here doesn’t manage to conjure up as much biographical soul as Rami Malek did in the role of Freddie Mercury. Despite the array of glam-tastic furs and spangles and winged stage boots in which he is bedecked, Egerton doesn’t bear a strong resemblance to Elton (apart from a slight plumpness, maybe), and he’s blocked by the hackneyed screenplay from creating much in the way of subtle character illumination.

Egerton does, however, bring considerable fire to the performance scenes, in which he actually sings the songs. This might be all that fans want from an Elton John movie: the hits. All of the big ones are here, to one extent or another: “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” Unsurprisingly for what is basically a jukebox musical, chronological rigor was not among the filmmakers’ foremost concerns. We see an unknown Elton auditioning for London music publisher Dick James in the late 1960s with renditions of “Daniel” (which didn’t appear in the world until 1973) and “I Guess that’s Why They Call It the Blues” (from 1983). We see Elton meeting his longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin (an event that occurred in 1967) and then almost immediately we see Taupin (played by Jamie Bell) penning the lyrics to “Honky Cat,” which actually dates from 1972. Most brazenly, the movie has Elton performing “Crocodile Rock” during his famous U.S. stage debut at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in 1970—a song that wasn’t in his set list at the time because it wasn’t written until three years later.

Egerton blows past some of these plot nits on a wave of sheer energy and determination. But Lee Hall’s screenplay leads him into bogs of cliché. Obviously a place had to be found for the 1973 hit “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” but did it really have to be slotted into a big pub-fight scene? And did Elton’s parents (Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh) have to be so stereotypically inadequate? (Dad’s a disapproving cold fish, mom a martini-blurred airhead.) Then there’s the gay thing. Apart from a passing put-down by his father when he catches his young son eyeing a fashion magazine (“Stop looking at that, you’re not a girl”), we’re shown that Elton doesn’t begin to suspect his sexual inclinations until he’s a teenaged backing musician for some visiting American R&B acts and one of the black men on the bill walks up to him, kisses him full on the mouth, and then walks away. Years later, at a party following the Troubadour show, a gay Scottish manager named John Reid (Richard Madden)—also a character in Bohemian Rhapsody—approaches Elton to coyly express his admiration. (“So you like the song?” Elton says. “Not as much as the singer,” Reid replies.) There follows a bedroom sex scene of medium sizzle, but then, following that, we’re presented with the sight of these two gay men making out…in a closet.

We know where Elton’s debilitating enthusiasms (“I have fucked everything that moves and have taken every drug that exists”) will lead, and we know that at the end the movie will dutifully fill us in on where the man stands today: clean and sober, happily married father of two, currently embarked on a three-year “farewell” tour, et cetera. None of this is quite as rousing, or as revealing, as one might expect. Elton John has lived most of his life on the pages and airwaves of the pop media. If Rocketman fails to answer any pressing questions about the man, it could be because there are none to ask.

Ma

Universal PicturesMa is an almost-horror movie that almost works. It’s basically an atmospheric creepfest enlivened by a few torture-porn jolts toward the end, and if Octavia Spencer seems oddly ensconced in it, we can probably credit her presence to a long friendship with director Tate Taylor, in whose 2011 hit The Help she earned a best-supporting-actress Oscar.

Whatever the case, we follow most of the story from the POV of a coltish high-school student named Maggie (Diana Silvers, of Glass and Booksmart), who has just moved to a dull and unidentified town with her bar-waitress mom (Juliette Lewis), a native of this nowhere burg. Maggie makes friends easily enough (the liveliest are party girl McKaley Miller and designated crush Corey Fogelmanis), and soon they’re all making the acquaintance of a weirdly solicitous local lady named Sue Ann (Spencer). Before long they will regret this.

Sue Ann comes upon these kids loitering outside a liquor store hoping for a soft-touch grownup to come

along and buy them some party booze. Sue Ann not only agrees to do this, she suggests they

conduct their illicit revel in the basement of her house, which is of course remotely located. There are a few rules, though—no taking the Lord’s name in vain on the premises…and no going upstairs, ever.

All seems fine at first. Sue Ann is happy to crank up the party music and serve the kids drinks, smiling eerily all the while. Even when she pulls a gun on one young guy and orders him to strip…well, she quickly apologizes and claims it was a joke, so she’s immediately forgiven.

What the kids don’t know, as they keep returning to Sue Ann’s party pad for repeat frolics, is that their

host has a very dark past in this small town, and that it involves some of their parents (Luke Evans chief among them). And only slowly do they become aware of this strange woman’s expertise in tracking them through social media, and her access to powerful animal tranquilizers through her job working for town vet Allison Janney (another alumna of The Help).

The movie is a mid-level product of the Blumhouse horror factory. Spencer is agreeably sinister and the picture keeps you squirming through its first hour. But it never comes into focus—the gory conclusion feels stylistically unrelated to the rest of the film. There are worse things, of course, but that’s not much of a recommendation.

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Stunned Wall Street Responds To Trump’s Shock Tariff Announcement

Just as the trade war with China was heating up to the point where it had become consensus that i) the war would last a long time, ii) it would adversely impact global GDP, and iii) US inflation would likely spike, Trump stunned the investor community when he vowed late on Thursday to impose a 5% tariff on Mexican goods escalating to 25% until the “immigration problem, is remedied.”

The fear is that not only will the move further upend supply chains, shake trade diplomacy and diminish the likelihood of a near-term breakthrough with China, but that a grave new threat to the world economy has emerged. .

Below, courtesy of Bloomberg, are reactions from a mix of strategists, trade experts and market analysts:

Mary Lovely, Syracuse University economics professor

“This is another attack on supply chains,” she told Bloomberg Television. “This is really going to hurt American businesses who use Mexico to reduce their costs and stay competitive with European and Asia. One thing which Donald Trump has said which we know is true now is that he is a tariffs man. He sees tariffs as the solution to all kinds of problems. It’s just throwing the entire card table over, this is just saying we don’t play by anybody’s rules, we can use tariffs when we want.”

David Mann, global chief economist at Standard Chartered

“This news does leave the world wondering whether Trump’s use of tariffs could become ever broader. This is a step change as previously we had been seeing delays in trade-related decisions on Europe and Japan as we thought the administration was so focused on China. It does add to the reasons to worry that any country running a trade surplus with the U.S. could come into the spotlight in the future.”

Rob Carnell, Asia-Pacific head of research at ING Bank

“It’s clearly a further risk-off development, and keeps alive the bond rally, undermines thoughts of an upward equity correction and should keep the dollar grinding stronger. It also dampens hopes for any resolution to the U.S.-China conflict, showing just how easily the U.S. administration resorts to tariffs, not just threats of tariffs, when they don’t get what they want.”

Torsten Slok, economist at Deutsche Bank AG

“If this is implemented it will be a serious downside risk to the U.S. economy. Looking carefully at the trade data between the U.S. and Mexico shows that 67% of all imports from Mexico are related-party trade which is another way of saying intra-company trade. What this means is that U.S. companies are using Mexico for production. Put differently, most of the trade between Mexico and the U.S. is the global supply chain. And the trade data further shows that the biggest import categories from Mexico to the U.S. are cars and car parts and trucks and buses.”

Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre

“The first thing to note is that there is no plausible legal mechanism for applying tariffs in this way. Trump can do it, but this action will be subject to global condemnation. It is unlikely to matter to him, of course, but it will make the global trading system much more precarious. The largest player will have clearly ‘gone rogue.’”

“You may ask what is the difference with steel, aluminum, washing machines, China, etc. and Mexican immigrants? The former actions all had at least a thin veneer of legal justification. Most of these decisions are being fought over at the World Trade Organization now, but they had rules to argue about.”

“The Mexican immigration issue is simply not allowed. There is no provision that lets a member block trade over migrants. The consequences are therefore much bigger than just what happens to companies operating between the U.S. and Mexico or within NAFTA. This is a global concern.”

Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp.

“Global investors worried about U.S.-driven protectionism have been focused firmly on China so a flare-up in trade tensions with Mexico was definitely not on the market radar. Just this week the Bank of Canada expressed ‘increasing prospects for the ratification’ of USMCA. This seemed reasonable given U.S. VP Pence has just arrived in Canada to call for quick passage of the agreement. Pence appears to be completely out of the loop, with every indication from the White House statement that this is very much a Trump decision, not a carefully crafted team policy.”

“This is obviously a major setback for CAD, MXN and the thousands of U.S. businesses that use products made in Mexico (much of which is by U.S.-owned firms). Markets may temper their negative response slightly, if only in hope that corporate America will lobby the White House hard enough to produce some form of backdown before the virtually unthinkable 25% tariffs threatened by October. But it will be a fresh cause for concern for central banks with looming policy decisions such as the RBA and ECB.”

Cliff Tan, East Asian Head of Global Markets Research, MUFG Bank

“Econometric studies have suggested the North America trade engine (USMCA) could benefit as the China trade engine slows down. This is throwing sand into USMCA. When you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”

Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital

“This may be about immigration but it will just add to trade war fears and cause a further blow to business confidence in the U.S. – as businesses will be wondering who will be hit next in their supply chain.”

“Shares are likely to see more short-term downside until the trade issues are resolved. In fact, this may be necessary to put pressure on President Trump to negotiate. So it remains a time for caution for the short-term focused.”

Stephen Innes, head of trading at SPI Asset Management

“It will be a warning to the world, especially Canada and Europe, that Tariff man means business. It sends a horrible signal to risk markets as we tack to the key G20 which is starting to look like a make or break scenario when it comes to U.S.-China negotiations.”

Chua Hak Bin, economist at Maybank Kim Eng Research Ltd.

“Trump is broadening the trade war to multiple fronts and tariffs have become his favorite weapon. There is the big trade war with China and there are smaller battles with the EU over Airbus subsidies, and Germany and Japan over autos, and now with Mexico over migrants.”

“American consumers will bear an increasing proportion of the cost from tariff hikes, as the coverage spreads to consumer goods. Both tariffs and export controls are disrupting and wreaking havoc to supply chains.”

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2JMR3cJ Tyler Durden

Zuckerberg Security Chief Accused Of Sexual Harassment, Making ‘Racist Remarks’ About Zuck’s Wife

Though rarely a day goes by without some new negative story about Facebook’s misdeeds – whether it’s pertaining to data privacy, it’s inability to root out fake (and possibly foreign influenced) accounts, or some other scandal – it appears Buzzfeed and Business Insider dropped a pair of embarrassing reports apparently timed to coincide with Thursday’s meeting.

First, Business Insider reported (and NBC News later confirmed) that Zuckerberg’s personal security chief – a former secret service agent who served under President Obama – had been accused of sexual harassment, as well as making racist and homophobic remarks, including using racist slurs to describe Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, who is Asian-American.

Zuck

The allegations against former secret service agent Liam Booth were brought by former members of Zuckerberg’s household staff. 

Booth has been placed ‘on leave’ while the Zuckerberg family investigates the allegations.

Lawyers representing the employees – a former member of Zuckerberg’s household staff and a former executive assistant to Booth – sent letters regarding the allegations to the law firm that represents the companies that provide security for the Zuckerberg family, according to Business Insider.

Booth has been placed on administrative leave while the Zuckerberg family conducts an investigation into the allegations, according to Ben LaBolt, a spokesperson for the Chan Zuckerberg family office. Booth could not immediately be reached for comment by NBC News.

“The family office takes complaints of workplace misconduct very seriously and our human resources team promptly investigates all such matters,” LaBolt said

“The allegations against Liam Booth were brought to the office’s attention for the first time by The Bloom Firm after both former employees had left employment by the family office and engaged legal counsel,” he continued. “As soon as The Bloom Firm presented these allegations, the family office engaged Munger, Tolles & Olson, an outside law firm, to conduct an investigation of all allegations made by The Bloom Firm to determine whether the claims have merit.”

“The investigation is ongoing,” said LaBolt. “Mr. Booth is on administrative leave pending the completion of this investigation.”

It’s worth noting the timing of the story, which appeared just as Zuckerberg was facing a critical leadership vote at Facebook’s Thursday shareholder meeting.

Thanks to his ironclad control over the company that he founded, which was embedded in the company’s ownership structure during its 2012 IPO, removing Mark Zuckerberg as CEO or chairman of Facebook presents several insurmountable obstacles. But as public frustration with the social media giant continues to fester, inspiring calls by politicians and activists to break up the company, Zuckerberg easily survived a leadership vote on Thursday.

 

As we mentioned above, the story about Zuck’s top security guard wasn’t the only unflattering story about the company or Zuckerberg himself to emerge on Thursday. Buzzfeed published an extensive investigation in partnership with the Toronto Star which purported that Facebook’s promised banning of white supremacist groups was haphazard and incomplete, and that, one month after it announced the ban (which was inspired by the Christchurch attacks), the company had not lived up to its commitments.

One computer science professor quoted by Buzzfeed as an “expert source” said Facebook likes to make sweeping PR pronouncements to signal its virtue – but often, it refuses to follow through.

“Facebook likes to make a PR move and say that they’re doing something but they don’t always follow up on that,” Megan Squire, an Elon University computer science professor who researches online extremism, told a joint BuzzFeed News–Toronto Star investigation.

When approached by Buzzfeed for comment, Facebook insisted that it did follow through on its promise to ban hate groups. However, some of these groups may have returned to the platform, and booting them off again can feel like a game of whack-a-mole.

Kevin Chan, one of Facebook’s global policy directors, said while they proactively removed some hate groups, the company also relies on users, journalists, and other sources to report when banned personalities make it back on the platform.

Chan said that sometimes it may feel like whack-a-mole, but he considers it more of an arms race – with Facebook trying to get better at keeping listed hate groups off its platform, and those banned users figuring out new ways to find their way back online.

“Every time we are learning. Now, we presume they’re also learning…I think it’s really more of an arms race,” Chan said.

“But the trend line is that it is going to get really hard for people to do this, so hard to the point where…there’s going to be so much friction in the system that they’re probably going to go somewhere else,” he said.

And just last week, Facebook revealed that there are 2 billion fake accounts on its platform, nearly equivalent to the number of active users (roughly 2.4 billion).

At least shareholders can find solace in the fact that the company’s shares have largely shaken off last year’s slump – though, if the movement to break up the company or impose strict regulations continues to gain traction, shareholders might soon have a whole new set of near-term risks to worry about.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2W6Ypt7 Tyler Durden

Think Trump’s Attacks on Journalism Are Bad? San Francisco Cops Literally Raided a Reporter’s Home.

Reporters have long denounced Donald Trump’s “war on journalists” given the president’s routine Twitter attacks about “fake news,” his kind words about authoritarian rulers who have abused the media, and his idea to “open” libel laws so politicians can more easily sue publications. He praised a congressional candidate accused of assaulting a reporter. “Any guy who can do a body slam—he’s my kind of guy,” Trump said at a 2018 Montana rally.

“In Donald Trump’s America, the mere act of reporting news unflattering to the president is held up as evidence of bias,” intoned a 2017 Los Angeles Times editorial. “Journalists are slandered as ‘enemies of the people.'” The American Prospect complained last October that “the president is dehumanizing journalists on the campaign trail and priming his base for more assaults on the First Amendment.”

As a journalist, I’m likewise disgusted by Trump’s words and believe they could incite his angriest supporters. He’s playing with fire, but the president hasn’t actually done anything to abridge press freedom, even if we fear what he might like to do. It’s all words and bluster. Frankly, those concerned about this “war” should hope that Trump doesn’t take lessons from several disturbing recent actions against reporters here in California.

The latest example came in Democratic San Francisco, but the scene isn’t particularly uplifting of the city’s oft-touted liberal values. After the unexpected death of the city’s elected public defender, Jeff Adachi, a freelance reporter secured a copy of the related police report and apparently sold the information—some of it pretty salacious—to news outlets. The San Francisco Police Department wants to find the source of the leak.

“Police used a sledgehammer to try to get into (the reporter’s) home and office and cuffed him for hours as they searched and subsequently removed dozens of cameras, cellphones, computers and other equipment used to gather news,” the Associated Press reported. Police are trying to figure out his role in getting the report. The AP notes that it’s not illegal for reporters to receive or publish information, even if it were improperly obtained by a third party. Police reports are supposed to be public records.

This is a heavy-handed approach to a leaked document. “The impact of trying to criminalize disclosure of public records, whether or not it violated internal policy or practice, will have a profound effect on public employees’ willingness to disclose public records,” said attorney Duffy Carolan, quoted by AP. This is more chilling of free speech than some ill-tempered presidential tweets.

I’m not the first person to notice the irony. In his recent column, CALmatters’ Dan Walters noted that if something similar happened at the federal level, “Democratic politicians and civil libertarians would erupt in outrage at a heavy-handed government act intended to discourage journalists from delving into areas that officialdom considered off-limits.” Indeed. There has been criticism, but nothing compared to the “Trump’s war on journalists” rhetoric. What gives?

Walters also pointed to an ongoing case that, in my estimation, is far more disturbing than the San Francisco raid. Early in the year, reporters from UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program made a public-records request to the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training for a list of the 12,000 California police officers, police applicants and former officers who were convicted of crimes, many of them serious. POST did the right thing and provided the records.

When California Attorney General Xavier Becerra found out, he threatened to criminally prosecute the reporters unless they destroy records that were provided by a public agency. Becerra claims the information is confidential even though it involves public records about official verdicts. And to reiterate, state law forbids prosecution of reporters merely for receiving records—and they received the info from an agency within Becerra’s own department.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has been accused of behaving like Trump’s personal attorney rather than an impartial top cop regarding the Mueller report. But Becerra makes Barr look like a font of impartiality by contrast. A close ally of police unions, Becerra is shielding records that are uncomfortable to police even though the records protect public safety. Shouldn’t you get to know if the cop pulling over your wife on a dark highway has a rap sheet?

Beyond threatening to prosecute reporters, Becerra has refused to fully comply with a new law that requires the release of police disciplinary records. Becerra doesn’t attack the media with words, of course, but his actions speaker loudly. This isn’t anything new, either.

Becerra has pursued criminal charges against reporters who produced embarrassing undercover videos of Planned Parenthood back in 2015. The Times, which criticized the reporters’ message and methods, nevertheless called the prosecutions a “disturbing overreach.” But there’s too-little coverage of that situation. There’s no defense of President Trump’s most vile anti-media rhetoric, but we should be even more upset at actions that are much worse.

This column was first published in the Orange County Register.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

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Think Trump’s Attacks on Journalism Are Bad? San Francisco Cops Literally Raided a Reporter’s Home.

Reporters have long denounced Donald Trump’s “war on journalists” given the president’s routine Twitter attacks about “fake news,” his kind words about authoritarian rulers who have abused the media, and his idea to “open” libel laws so politicians can more easily sue publications. He praised a congressional candidate accused of assaulting a reporter. “Any guy who can do a body slam—he’s my kind of guy,” Trump said at a 2018 Montana rally.

“In Donald Trump’s America, the mere act of reporting news unflattering to the president is held up as evidence of bias,” intoned a 2017 Los Angeles Times editorial. “Journalists are slandered as ‘enemies of the people.'” The American Prospect complained last October that “the president is dehumanizing journalists on the campaign trail and priming his base for more assaults on the First Amendment.”

As a journalist, I’m likewise disgusted by Trump’s words and believe they could incite his angriest supporters. He’s playing with fire, but the president hasn’t actually done anything to abridge press freedom, even if we fear what he might like to do. It’s all words and bluster. Frankly, those concerned about this “war” should hope that Trump doesn’t take lessons from several disturbing recent actions against reporters here in California.

The latest example came in Democratic San Francisco, but the scene isn’t particularly uplifting of the city’s oft-touted liberal values. After the unexpected death of the city’s elected public defender, Jeff Adachi, a freelance reporter secured a copy of the related police report and apparently sold the information—some of it pretty salacious—to news outlets. The San Francisco Police Department wants to find the source of the leak.

“Police used a sledgehammer to try to get into (the reporter’s) home and office and cuffed him for hours as they searched and subsequently removed dozens of cameras, cellphones, computers and other equipment used to gather news,” the Associated Press reported. Police are trying to figure out his role in getting the report. The AP notes that it’s not illegal for reporters to receive or publish information, even if it were improperly obtained by a third party. Police reports are supposed to be public records.

This is a heavy-handed approach to a leaked document. “The impact of trying to criminalize disclosure of public records, whether or not it violated internal policy or practice, will have a profound effect on public employees’ willingness to disclose public records,” said attorney Duffy Carolan, quoted by AP. This is more chilling of free speech than some ill-tempered presidential tweets.

I’m not the first person to notice the irony. In his recent column, CALmatters’ Dan Walters noted that if something similar happened at the federal level, “Democratic politicians and civil libertarians would erupt in outrage at a heavy-handed government act intended to discourage journalists from delving into areas that officialdom considered off-limits.” Indeed. There has been criticism, but nothing compared to the “Trump’s war on journalists” rhetoric. What gives?

Walters also pointed to an ongoing case that, in my estimation, is far more disturbing than the San Francisco raid. Early in the year, reporters from UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program made a public-records request to the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training for a list of the 12,000 California police officers, police applicants and former officers who were convicted of crimes, many of them serious. POST did the right thing and provided the records.

When California Attorney General Xavier Becerra found out, he threatened to criminally prosecute the reporters unless they destroy records that were provided by a public agency. Becerra claims the information is confidential even though it involves public records about official verdicts. And to reiterate, state law forbids prosecution of reporters merely for receiving records—and they received the info from an agency within Becerra’s own department.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has been accused of behaving like Trump’s personal attorney rather than an impartial top cop regarding the Mueller report. But Becerra makes Barr look like a font of impartiality by contrast. A close ally of police unions, Becerra is shielding records that are uncomfortable to police even though the records protect public safety. Shouldn’t you get to know if the cop pulling over your wife on a dark highway has a rap sheet?

Beyond threatening to prosecute reporters, Becerra has refused to fully comply with a new law that requires the release of police disciplinary records. Becerra doesn’t attack the media with words, of course, but his actions speaker loudly. This isn’t anything new, either.

Becerra has pursued criminal charges against reporters who produced embarrassing undercover videos of Planned Parenthood back in 2015. The Times, which criticized the reporters’ message and methods, nevertheless called the prosecutions a “disturbing overreach.” But there’s too-little coverage of that situation. There’s no defense of President Trump’s most vile anti-media rhetoric, but we should be even more upset at actions that are much worse.

This column was first published in the Orange County Register.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

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‘Not Winning’ – Collapse In Global Trade Escalates: Imports -2.7%, Exports -4.0%

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Those who claim that Trump has already won or is sure to win the trade war need to ponder actual trade results.

Exports rose 1.0% in March with imports up a reported 0.9%. That progress was taken away and then some in April.

The Census Bureau Advance Trade report shows the balance of trade widened by 0.3%. The details, as noted by Econoday are downright ugly.

Sharp declines in exports are unwelcome headlines in April’s advance data on goods trade. The monthly deficit remains very deep, at $72.1 billion with exports falling 4.2 percent year-on-year and with imports also down, 2.7 percent lower. The deficit compares unfavorably with a $71.3 billion monthly average in the first quarter that marks a weak opening for net exports in the second quarter.

Capital goods are the US’s largest exports and these fell 6.5 percent in the month to $44.3 billion. Compared with April last year, capital goods exports are down 3.7 percent. Auto exports are also down, 7.2 percent lower to $12.9 billion and 6.7 percent below last year. The only export component showing a gain is food & feeds which rose 0.5 percent to $11.2 billion but which is nevertheless 6.2 percent below April last year.

The decline on the import side is also led by a 3.5 percent decline for capital goods ($55.4 billion) but also includes 3.1 percent and 2.3 percent monthly declines in autos ($30.9 billion) and consumer goods ($54.2 billion) as well as a 1.1 percent drop in foods ($12.8 billion).

Global trade figures have been contracting and the latest US numbers are part of that picture. Today’s report gets second-quarter GDP, already held down by contractions for April retail sales and industrial production, off to a slow start.

Note that country balances aren’t posted with the advance report but will follow with the subsequent international trade report that will also include data on services.

Evaluating Winning Claims

Yesterday, I saw yet another claim that Trump is winning the trade war. Last week I saw claim that Trump “already” won the trade war.

A third person claimed this is all part of 3-D outmaneuvering and that Trump has more resolve than China.

Not Winning

This is not winning and it will never be winning.

  1. Trump changes his mind every month if not week, yet he supposedly has more resolve. Yeah, right.

  2. Trump, a proven piss poor negotiator, is somehow supposed to negotiate magically.

  3. Trump has an election to win. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, doesn’t.

  4. Trump is a braggart who demand the other side admit Trump’s prowess.

Dealing With Trump

North Korea figured out how to deal with Trump.

Kim Jong Un gave Trump false praise while knocking Joe Biden.

Problem for China

The problem for China (and the US), is Trump demands China give in on “core” principles.

At that point China walked away. China had no other choice.

Pain Game

Mathematically, the US can likely inflict more pain on China. It is always the case that importers like the US can place more tariffs than vice versa.

But since when does losing less constitute winning?

Rare Earths

China does have some serious ways to strike back such as blocking Rare Earth Elements used in weapons, magnets, cell phones, and other sensitive devices.

Once again,we have seen superficial commentary that rare earths are not really rare (a true statement) thus the US can get other suppliers(a falsehood).

The problem is rare earths are extremely polluting and one does not exactly start a mine overnight. China reduces supply once before and this is what happened.

  1. China reduced supply of rare earths

  2. Rare earth prices skyrocketed

  3. New sources came into production within a couple years

  4. Price crashed

  5. China further flooded the markets

  6. The new Western sources lost money and went out of business.

This is not exactly winning by either side, but the position is the same as before: China supplies 80% of the production as no countries other than China are willing to deal with the toxic, radioactive sludge that producing rate earths entails.

Meanwhile, us weapons manufacturers, cell phone makers, etc. need these rare earths.

For further discussion, please see Trade Hardball: China Threatens to Cut Off US Supply of Rare Earth Elements.

Those who downplay the rare earth angle because there is plenty of “supply” have not thought things through.

Bond Market, Stock Market

The bond market, the stock market, and the global trade numbers all tell the same story: Trump isn’t winning.

A Full-Blown Trade War is Now the Base Case.

Trade War Over Quickly?

The joke of the week, last week was Trump’s blowhard comment Trump Says “Trade War Could be Over Quickly”.

I asked: Why should anyone believe Trump?

The only way the trade war will be over quickly is if Trump, not China, caves.

Recession Warning

Meanwhile, the yield curve flashes a bright red recession flag.

Good luck with that.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2EHXKsA Tyler Durden

Brickbat: Thorough Investigation

A Mississippi jury has awarded $1 million to the family of Ruth Helen Harrion. Harrion, 67, called 911 to report a prowler at her home. But the dispatcher did not keep her on the line until police arrived and did not ask if Harrion could see the prowler. When Jackson police officers arrived, they knocked at the door, but when no one answered, they left. The family found her body about 11 hours later. She had been beaten, strangled, and shot. Her neck had been broken, and she appeared to have been sexually assaulted.

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Macron’s Security Service Threatens French Journalists With Prison And Fines

France has been turning up the heat on journalists who expose government wrongdoing, according to AFP. 

The latest, Le Monde journalist Ariane Chemin, said was questioned by French security services for 45 minutes after she refused to reveal her sources for a report exposing alleged corruption and cronyism within President Emmanuel Macron’s inner circle. 

“They asked me many questions on the manner in which I checked my information, which was an indirect way of asking me about my sources,” said Chemin – who wrote a series of articles on Macron’s former bodyguard Alexandre Benalla, who was fired after video emerged of Benalla roughing up a protester. The incident, and Chemin’s ongoing reporting, resulted in a spate of resignations by government officials.

A file photo of Le Monde journalist Ariane Chemin. Photo: Eric Feferberg / AFP

According to AFP, Le Monde‘s managing director, Louis Dreyfus, was also questioned by the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) on Wednesday. “Everything is done to make it intimidating,” Dreyfus wrote in an editorial describing his own DGSI interrogation. 

“I explained that I never read the articles before they were published, and that I was not meant to do so. And they kept telling me that the offense was punishable by five years in prison and a fine of €75,000.” 

In total, the French secret service has summoned eight reporters who have published negative stories on the government, including French arms being sold to Saudi Arabia and the UAE used in Yemen’s civil war. Aside from Chemin, the others involved are Geoffrey Livolsi, Mathias Destal and Michel Despratx of the investigative news site Disclose; France Inter’s Benoît Collombat; and Valentine Oberti of the TV news show Quotidien along with a Quotidien cameraman and a Quotidien sound technician, according to Reporters Without Borders. 

DGSI interrogated the Disclose journalists earlier this month – threatening them with five-year prison sentences under a 2009 law prohibiting “attacks on national defense secrets” over the publication of a classified document suggesting that the French government was willingly violating a 2014 arms treaty. 

“We fear that the authorities are using these summonses in an attempt to intimidate the journalists and their news organizations and to identify their sources so as to punish them or deter them,” said RSH secretary-general Christophe Deloire. 

“Investigative journalism is now in danger in France because it is under attack and, in particular, it is threatened with legal proceedings. If the confidentiality of journalists’ sources is not guaranteed in a country, if it is undermined by such actions as these, its citizens will be deprived of their right to non-official information. We call on the government to explain the domestic intelligence agency’s apparent attempts to intimidate the media.”

In response to the investigations, the SNJ-CGT union called for a demonstration outside of the DGSI headquarters Wednesday “in support of those journalists summoned by the French state in violation of the law on press freedom.” 

Not a threat?

French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet told the French Senate on Wednesday that the summons should “in no way be seen as an attempt at intimidation or a threat,” and that the summons of Chemin was simply part of a preliminary inquiry following a complaint by a special forces member whose identity was revealed by the paper. 

Senior journalists from 37 French media outlets, including Agence France-Presse, Le Figaro daily, France 2 TV and Mediapart, signed a statement supporting the journalists who were questioned over the Yemen controversy, saying they were “just doing their jobs”. –AFP

Disclose, meanwhile, has pressed ahead with its Yemen reporting, claiming that a shipment of munitions for French Caesar cannons would be loaded onto a Saudi ship through a Mediterranean port. 

Last year, France passed a law allowing the government to shut down any news agency for four months before an election if it could be deemed “under foreign influence.”

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VYWsPv Tyler Durden