Month: May 2019

Earth Is Nearly 520 Percent More Abundant Now Than in 1980

Good news: The Earth was 518.98 percent more abundant last year than it was in 1980.

So says the latest edition of the Simon Abundance Index, which tracks the relative availability of 50 fundamental commodities over time. The index, which was first unveiled last year by Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute and Gale Pooley of Brigham Young University–Hawaii, was inspired by economist Julian Simon’s famous win over population bomber Paul Ehrlich in a bet on whether the prices of a basket of non-renewable resources would rise or fall between 1980 and 1990. They fell by more than 50 percent, and in 1990 Ehrlich mailed Simon a check for $576.07.

In constructing the index, Tupy and Pooley first measure the “time price” of that basket of 50 commodities—that is, the amount of time that a person has to work in order to earn enough money to buy something. They calculate this by multiplying the World Bank’s average global GDP per person with the Conference Board’s estimate of annual hours worked. Tupy and Pooley find that from 1980 and 2018, the average time price of the basket of 50 basic commodities fell by 72.3 percent. In other words, the time it took to earn enough money to buy one unit in that basket of commodities in 1980 bought 3.62 units in 2018.

Tupy and Pooley then use the time price of the commodities and the change in global population to estimate overall resource abundance. In their words:

The Index represents the ratio of the change in population over the change in the time price, times 100. It has a base year of 1980 and a base value of 100. In 2018, the Index reached a level of 618.98. That is to say that the Earth was 518.98 percent more abundant in 2018 than it was in 1980. The compounded growth rate of abundance came to 3.44 percent per annum, which means that the affordability of our basket of commodities doubled every 20.49 years.

Back in 1981, Simon argued compellingly that human minds are the ultimate resource. “There is no physical or economic reason,” he wrote, “why human resourcefulness and enterprise cannot forever continue to respond to impending shortages and existing problems with new expedients that, after an adjustment period, leave us better off than before the problem arose.”

Tupy and Pooley confirm Simon’s insight by noting that between 1980 and 2018, the world’s population increased by 71.2 percent. The time price of commodities fell by 72.3 percent. Consequently, the time price of commodities declined by 1.016 percent for every 1 percent increase in the world’s population. In other words, over the last 38 years, every additional human being born on our planet appears to have made resources proportionately more plentiful for the rest of us.

Disclosure: Marian Tupy and I are co-authors of the forthcoming book Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know.

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Review: Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is set in a startlingly accurate replica of downtown Washington, D.C. You’re given an underexplained, overlong, mostly irrelevant list of tasks and forced to fend off waves of crude thugs and power-mad gang leaders who want to rule the town. Surprisingly, it’s not a game about being a congressional intern.

There’s a premise—the U.S. has suffered a chemical attack and now the cities have become overrun with violent gangs—but there’s not much story. The game is built around three core activities: hiding behind stuff, shooting people, and collecting “loot,” the game’s catch-all term for powerful weapons and gear that will allow you to hide behind more stuff, shoot more people, and so on and so forth, in an endless loop.

The game is best experienced as a form of virtual tourism, in which the principal pleasure is tromping through a D.C. that has been recreated almost perfectly, down to the street signs. Although many specific location names have been changed and the streets have been cluttered with debris, almost every building façade has been recreated in faithful detail.

Missions take you inside major landmarks, turning them into virtual shooting galleries: You’ll liberate the Newseum (renamed “Viewpoint”) from a gang of white-nationalist types and fight your way through a Vietnam-themed exhibit at the American History Museum—an odd reminder that neither war nor the game can ever truly be won.

The game’s repetitive structure feels work-like, with each mission and location just leading to more of the same, but slightly harder. The only reward is yet another pointless task. Come to think of it, maybe it is about being an intern after all.

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2YW20wb
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“Make Abysmal Growth Attainable”: JPM Now Expects Two Rate Cuts In 2019

A financial cage match is forming between Goldman and JPMorgan.

In the hawkish corner we have Goldman’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius who until very recently was expecting no rate cuts in the coming year, and in fact is anticipating the Fed will hike toward the end of 2020, arguably as a result of the upcoming inflationary spike as a result of trade war. In the dovish corner, we have JP Morgan which as of this morning has turned so bearish that the latest report from the bank’s chief economist, Michael Feroli, says that “Making Abysmal Growth Attainable” again would require not one but two rate cuts before the end of 2020!

As Feroli writes, “last night’s tariff announcement adds yet another trade-related headwind to the growth outlook. If the Administration follows through on the proposed actions, we believe the adverse growth implications would prompt Fed easing. Even if a deal is quickly reached with Mexico, which seems plausible, the damage to business confidence could be lasting, with consequences that might still require a Fed response.”

As a result, the biggest US bank is now looking for two 25bp reductions in the federal funds rate target, in September and December, and provides the following explanation:

By combined import and export shares Mexico is the US’s second-largest trading partner after Canada. Moreover, the supply chain integration has been deepened over the last quarter-century by an understanding that the steady rule of law would govern that trading relationship. This is now in doubt. It is unusually difficult to quantify the drag on growth from last night’s announcement, but we believe ground zero will be business capital spending—the expenditure type most sensitive to uncertainty. We now merely pencil in a quarter-point reduction in our Q3 GDP outlook to 1.5%. The greater worry—which could prompt a larger revision—is that capital spending weakness morphs into hiring caution, and from there into consumer spending.

To be sure, Feroli hedges without binding himself to a specific timing stating that his “revised Fed call averages scenarios” cautioning that “if tariffs on Mexico are raised all the way to 25%, the Fed may well need to cut by much more than 50bp.” Yet even with a quick deal, JPM still sees “some chance that the Fed would guard against downside risks.”

That said, Feroli expects that the Fed will want to see some weakening in the economic data before taking action. Moreover, the May data cycle—which begins next week—will be much too soon to look for the effect of either the Chinese or Mexican tariffs. For this reason, JPM tells its clients not to expect a material shift in the Fed’s stance at the June  meeting. But if JPM is right in its newly found pessimism, it would expect to see the deterioration in the business sentiment data, and subsequently hard activity data, beginning in early July.

And while we wait to see if Goldman matches this revision, and finally throws in the towel on its hawkishness, the market has already spoken, and as of this morning it is pricing in 1 rate cut by the end of 2020 and almost three by the end of 2021.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2W4vaHm Tyler Durden

Review: Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is set in a startlingly accurate replica of downtown Washington, D.C. You’re given an underexplained, overlong, mostly irrelevant list of tasks and forced to fend off waves of crude thugs and power-mad gang leaders who want to rule the town. Surprisingly, it’s not a game about being a congressional intern.

There’s a premise—the U.S. has suffered a chemical attack and now the cities have become overrun with violent gangs—but there’s not much story. The game is built around three core activities: hiding behind stuff, shooting people, and collecting “loot,” the game’s catch-all term for powerful weapons and gear that will allow you to hide behind more stuff, shoot more people, and so on and so forth, in an endless loop.

The game is best experienced as a form of virtual tourism, in which the principal pleasure is tromping through a D.C. that has been recreated almost perfectly, down to the street signs. Although many specific location names have been changed and the streets have been cluttered with debris, almost every building façade has been recreated in faithful detail.

Missions take you inside major landmarks, turning them into virtual shooting galleries: You’ll liberate the Newseum (renamed “Viewpoint”) from a gang of white-nationalist types and fight your way through a Vietnam-themed exhibit at the American History Museum—an odd reminder that neither war nor the game can ever truly be won.

The game’s repetitive structure feels work-like, with each mission and location just leading to more of the same, but slightly harder. The only reward is yet another pointless task. Come to think of it, maybe it is about being an intern after all.

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2YW20wb
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Seattle Doesn’t Want You To Have A Big House

In good news for people suffering from Seattle’s high housing costs, the city is considering a plan to expand the number of backyard cottages, basement apartments, and “accessory dwelling units” allowed in some residential neighborhoods. Yet at the same time, Seattle City Council members are considering a ban on building big homes.

A proposal from Seattle Councilman Mike O’Brien would limit the construction of larger houses, deemed “McMansions,” by constraining the floor area ratio allowed when building new homes. 

O’Brien first started this push in 2016, as a means to try and combat homelessness in Seattle. His proposal would increase the maximum size limit for backyard and basement units to 1000 square feet, as well as increase the maximum number of occupants allowed from 8 to 12. It also would eliminate existing requirements that the owner reside in the building and that there be at least one street parking space available per unit.

Such changes would allow people to live more densely in desirable neighborhoods and create more rental housing options. But in conjunction with these changes, O’Brien also wants to limit local residents’ options when it comes to larger and single-family homes.

“You see people who tear down a house and build a larger house that may be out of scale and that doesn’t add any housing,” O’Brien told the Seattle Times. “They’re replacing a less-expensive housing unit with a more-expensive housing unit.”

He wants to stop it.

Yet houses that would be restricted with the new proposal are the most popular types of houses being built in Seattle—a fact that is not just acknowledged by O’Brien but given as a reason to restrict them.

“When people are building new houses, they’re building these huge structures, a lot larger than the typical structure,” O’Brien told the Times. “That reinforces the urgency around this policy.”

A Seattle Times inquiry showed that 47 percent of all houses built in the last decade would not have been allowed to be built had this housing plan been in effect in 2010.

Still, “McMansions” aren’t the real issue with Seattle housing, says radio host Jason Rantz, who objects to O’Brien’s proposal.

It’s “being done under the guise of affordable housing,” but allowing some more backyard cottages and limiting the size of new houses will “have a minuscule impact on the amount of housing available to anyone.”

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2JVkWI7
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Seattle Doesn’t Want You To Have A Big House

In good news for people suffering from Seattle’s high housing costs, the city is considering a plan to expand the number of backyard cottages, basement apartments, and “accessory dwelling units” allowed in some residential neighborhoods. Yet at the same time, Seattle City Council members are considering a ban on building big homes.

A proposal from Seattle Councilman Mike O’Brien would limit the construction of larger houses, deemed “McMansions,” by constraining the floor area ratio allowed when building new homes. 

O’Brien first started this push in 2016, as a means to try and combat homelessness in Seattle. His proposal would increase the maximum size limit for backyard and basement units to 1000 square feet, as well as increase the maximum number of occupants allowed from 8 to 12. It also would eliminate existing requirements that the owner reside in the building and that there be at least one street parking space available per unit.

Such changes would allow people to live more densely in desirable neighborhoods and create more rental housing options. But in conjunction with these changes, O’Brien also wants to limit local residents’ options when it comes to larger and single-family homes.

“You see people who tear down a house and build a larger house that may be out of scale and that doesn’t add any housing,” O’Brien told the Seattle Times. “They’re replacing a less-expensive housing unit with a more-expensive housing unit.”

He wants to stop it.

Yet houses that would be restricted with the new proposal are the most popular types of houses being built in Seattle—a fact that is not just acknowledged by O’Brien but given as a reason to restrict them.

“When people are building new houses, they’re building these huge structures, a lot larger than the typical structure,” O’Brien told the Times. “That reinforces the urgency around this policy.”

A Seattle Times inquiry showed that 47 percent of all houses built in the last decade would not have been allowed to be built had this housing plan been in effect in 2010.

Still, “McMansions” aren’t the real issue with Seattle housing, says radio host Jason Rantz, who objects to O’Brien’s proposal.

It’s “being done under the guise of affordable housing,” but allowing some more backyard cottages and limiting the size of new houses will “have a minuscule impact on the amount of housing available to anyone.”

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2JVkWI7
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Business Groups Plan To Sue Trump Over Mexico Tariffs: CNBC

President Trump’s latest act of trade-war aggression (this time with a special immigration-policy twist) has so angered the American business community that business groups are weighing legal action against the White House, according to CNBC, which cited sources at the Chamber of Commerce.

Discussions will continue through the weekend, and groups hope to have an agreement on next steps by Monday.

If we had to guess, we’d wager that America’s automakers are deeply involved in the plan, since they’re among the industries that will be most heavily impacted.  

The pattern of using lawsuits to recoup losses has emerged as a popular strategy this year, with Lyft & Uber shareholders filing lawsuits after the two tech unicorn IPOs flopped.

As a reminder, here’s a breakdown of US imports from Mexico.

GS

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

Baby Bust: Millennial Brith Rates Plunges To Three-Decade Low

A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) shows that US birth rates continue to plunge, hitting a three-decade low in 2018, as millennials delay marriage and children due to economic uncertainty.

In 2018, women ages 15 to 44 had a birth rate of 59 births per 1,000, which is 2% lower than in 2017, and the lowest on record since 1909, according to the report.

About 3.8 million babies were born in 2018, which is a 2% decline in the total number born in 2017, the lowest number of births in 32-years.

All birth rates for women under 35 fell. Women in their early 20s saw a 4% drop in birth rates from 2017 to 2018. However, birth rates increased for women ages 35 to 39 and 40 to 44.

The birth rate among teens ages 15 to 19 also fell 7% from 2017 to 2018, to a rate of about 17 births per 1,000 teens.

Dr. Jeff Chapa with the Cleveland Clinic said: “I think what we’re seeing is that there is a trend towards delayed childbearing.”

NCHS didn’t specify the reason for the overall deterioration in millennial births but indicates young adults have fewer children.

The amount of Americans over 25 who have never married has doubled since 1960. Those who do tie the knot are having fewer kids. One explanation behind this troubling trend is economic uncertainty: millennials are deeper in debt than any other generation that has come before them.

With mortgage and credit card debt levels aren’t as high for millennials, their level of student loan debt is off the chart.

“While the debt levels accumulated by millennials eclipse those of the previous generation, Generation X, at a similar point in time, the complexion of the debt is very different.

According to a 2018 report from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, mortgage debt is about 15% lower for millennials and credit card debt among millennials was about two-thirds that of Gen X.

However, student loan debt was over 300% greater,” said Michael Snyder from The Economic Collapse blog. 

Financial burdens are shaping young adults into the lost generation. Besides delaying marriage and children, millennials are also putting off the American dream of homeownership. The baby bust is another sign that America is in decline.

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

New York City trying to “liberate” teachers from their “whiteness”

Happy Friday everyone. Here’s our weekly roll-up of some of the most bizarre (and occasionally happy) stories from around the world that we’re following:

NYC schools training teachers to discriminate against white students

A new mandatory, $23 million “anti-bias” program is training New York City school teachers to discriminate against white children, no matter what.

The New York Post recently published remarks from one training session, in which the instructor defined ‘racial equality’ as favoring non-white students over white students, regardless of any other circumstances.

In another session among NYC school superintendents, attendees were asked to discuss various life experiences that inspired them to fight for social justice.

One high-ranking school official– a white, Jewish man, described his family’s experience in the Holocaust and Nazi concentration camps.

He was publicly chastised by his own colleagues, with one woman saying “This is not about being Jewish! This is about black and brown boys of color only. You better check yourself.”

According to a middle school teacher interviewed by the Post, the training teaches ‘replacement thinking’ and encourages educators to become ‘liberated’ from their ‘whiteness’.

Click here to read the full story.

Australian man fined for giving money to a homeless man

A motorist from Perth, Western Australia named Luke Bresland was fined A$50 earlier this year when he gave A$1.50 (that’s a little more than 1 US dollar) to an apparent homeless man who washed his windshield while stopped at a traffic light.

When the light turned green, Mr. Bresland continued on his journey, only to be pulled over by a local policeman.

The policeman asked him if he had given money to the homeless man, and then cited him for violating a local ordinance.

Under local law, it is illegal for anyone in a vehicle to buy or offer to buy an article or service from a person who is on the road.

Citations under this law are so rare that one prominent local lawyer in Perth claimed he had never heard of it, and congratulated the police for finding a law that even lawyers were unfamiliar with.

Mr. Bresland entered a NOT GUILTY plea and prepared to fight against this absurdity in court, prompting local police to withdraw the charges and rip up the citation.

One small victory for common sense this week.

It’s official: You can record the police in public places

You’d think it would be obvious that you can record anything in a public place– people, plants, pets, even police.

But there have been countless arrests of people who were charged (and subsequently manhandled) for recording police, even in public spaces.

The arrests finally subsided last December after a federal judge in Boston ruled that it is unconstitutional to arrest anyone for recording public officials, even if they are doing so (or attempting to do so) in secret.

Since 2011, in Boston alone, at least eleven felony cases were filed in court against people who were recording the police in public; they were all charged with violating an obscure state wiretapping law.

Last week the same judge reinforced that decision and ordered the Boston police department to inform all of its officers that people have the right to record the police anywhere in public during the performance of their duties.

Click here to read the full story.

CPS agent strip searched young children in their own home

In 2017, a Kentucky mother named Holly Curry popped into a local cafe to buy some muffins. She left her children in the car– it was a cloudy, 67 degrees (about 19C).

Within 10 minutes, the cops were already on site, telling Curry that they were calling in Child Protective Services.

The next day, a CPS official arrived to Curry’s home and demanded entry, claiming that any refusal would result in the forfeit of her children.

The official was allowed inside and began to ask questions of Curry. Then, without asking for Curry’s permission, the investigator took the three children and undressed them all, down to their genitals, to check for bruises and signs of abuse.

Curry was eventually found not guilty of child neglect. But she filed a federal lawsuit to protest this gross perversion and invasion of privacy on the part of government officials.

We’re particularly interested in the outcome of this as it may be an important precedent in either reining in this sort of disgusting abuse of power… or additional license to let it continue unchecked.

Click here to read the full story.

Source

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Buchanan Blasts Mueller: “Republicans Should Not Let Him Skate On This”

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

What is it about special counsel Robert Mueller that he cannot say clearly and concisely what he means?

His nine-minute summary of the findings of his office, after two years of investigation, was a mess. It guarantees that the internecine warfare that has poisoned our politics continues into 2020.

If it was the intention of the Russian hackers and trolls of 2016 to sow discord within their great power rival, they have succeeded beyond their dreams.

Consider. Of the charge of conspiracy to collude with the Russians to hack the emails of the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Mueller said, “there was insufficient evidence to charge a larger conspiracy.”

This suggests that there was at least some evidence to conclude that Donald Trump’s campaign did conspire with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin to fix the 2016 election, just not enough evidence to sustain a charge of treason.

Didn’t they use to call this McCarthyism?

On obstruction of justice, Trump attempting to impede his investigation, Mueller said:

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”

“Mueller Declines to Absolve Trump” was The New York Times headline.

That tells us that Mueller would not give Trump absolution. But why would Trump need absolution, if he did not commit the crime?

Mueller implied that his refusal to charge Trump publicly was based on a Justice Department ruling that presidents cannot be indicted.

But if the special counsel cannot indict a sitting president, and ought not charge him, as, said Mueller, it is “unfair to accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge,” then what was the point of naming a special counsel?

If Mueller actually believes Trump was guilty of obstruction, why did he not forthrightly declare:

“While the Justice Department’s interpretation of the Constitution precludes my office us from indicting President Trump, we believe his actions during the course of our investigation constituted an obstruction of justice.”

At least we would have clarity. Now we have Mueller walking out, without taking questions, and leaving us with this toxic mush.

Republicans should not let Mueller skate on this. For the James Comey-Mueller investigation is itself in need of investigation.

Among the questions that need answering:

If, after two years, Mueller found “insufficient evidence” of collusion by Trump, what was the compelling evidence that justified launching the investigation of collusion during the Obama era?

Did that earlier “evidence” turn out to be false allegations and lies?

When did Mueller discover that George Papadopoulos and Carter Page were not agents of the GRU or KGB?

When did Mueller decide there was no collusion or conspiracy?

Was it not until this spring? Or has Mueller known for a good while there was no conspiracy?

Why are these questions important?

Because the investigation itself, leaving as it did a cloud over the legitimacy of the president, was damaging not only to Trump but also to the nation. As long as half the country believed Trump was an agent or asset or blackmail victim of Putin, the nation could not come together.

Did Mueller feel no obligation to clear up that false impression as swiftly and fully as possible, if, indeed, he believes it is false?

When did Mueller discover the Steele dossier was the product of a dirt-diving operation, financed by the Clinton campaign and fabricated by a Trump-hating ex-chief of British intelligence with long ties both to former agents of Russia’s FSB and James Comey’s FBI?

Did Mueller ever suspect that the investigation he inherited was a takedown operation, instigated by enemies of Trump who were determined that he never become president or, if he did, that his tenure would be short?

Mueller’s performance Wednesday has reinvigorated the impeach-Trump caucus. But it has disserved the Democratic Party as much as it has the country.

The progressive left and its media auxiliaries, rabid on the subject, are egging on and cheering for candidates who call for impeachment. As of now, at least eight Democratic presidential candidates favor hearings.

The Democratic left is out to break Nancy Pelosi’s resistance.

If they succeed and this city and the nation turn their attention to a titanic battle to see if the Democratic Party can remove the Republican president, it will be bad news for the republic.

The real business of the nation will be put off until 2021.

Meanwhile, the Venezuela crisis is smoldering, and Sen. Lindsey Graham is urging an ultimatum to Cuba to get its forces out.

North Korea is testing missiles again, with few believing Kim Jong Un will give up the security provided by his nuclear weapons.

And John Bolton is in the Middle East accusing Iran of acts of sabotage and war in Yemen and the Gulf, and of threats to American forces in Iraq.

Mueller’s assignment was to give us answers. After two years, he gave us options.

The nation will pay a price for Mueller’s muddling indecisiveness.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2JO1Ymv Tyler Durden