Store Brands Which Require Immediate Cancellation Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2020 – 17:10
As the list of companies, organizations and institutions experiencing a racial awakening grows after decades of un-wokeness, it seems that some brands just aren’t taking this national enlightenment seriously.
Sure, Aunt Jemima, Eskimo Pie, and the Washington Redskins may have been successfully banished from the national consciousness – but institutions such as Yale University – founded by slave trader Elihu Yale, the Atlanta Braves, and Squaw Valley Ski Resort at Lake Tahoe have chosen to remain racistly named despite incalculable levels of insensitivity.
That’s not all. There are dozens of commonly sold grocery store items which also lack sufficient wokeness, and must be canceled immediately so that they no longer offend.
We Are Experiencing Economic Devastation On A Scale That America Has Never Seen Before
For a very long time we have been warned that a U.S. economic collapse was inevitably coming, and now it is here. Fear of COVID-19 and unprecedented civil unrest in our major cities have combined to plunge us into a historic economic downturn, and nobody is exactly sure what is going to happen next.
On Thursday, we learned that U.S. GDP was down 32.9 percent on an annualized basis last quarter. That officially makes last quarter the worst quarter in all of U.S. history, and many people believe that this new economic depression is just getting started. But of course not all areas of the country are being affected equally. According to USA Today, states such as Hawaii, Nevada, Michigan and New York were hit particularly hard last quarter…
Every state was walloped last quarter, though ones that rely heavily on travel and tourism, such as Hawaii and Nevada, were hit hardest by the downturn, according to employment figures analyzed by economist Adam Kamins of Moody’s Analytics. Michigan, the heart of the nation’s auto industry, was slammed as consumers put off car purchases. And densely populated Northeast states struck by the most severe virus outbreaks – like New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts – absorbed among the heaviest economic losses as governors shut down earlier and residents stayed home.
Originally, the mainstream media was telling us that the U.S. economy would come surging back to life during the third quarter, but we continue to get more signs that indicate that the economy is starting to slow down again.
For example, the Labor Department just released some new numbers that were more than just a little bit startling. If you can believe it, another 1.434 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week. That was an increase over last week’s revised number, and it represents the second week in a row that initial claims have risen.
Overall, new claims for unemployment benefits have now been above one million for 19 weeks in a row.
Personally, I don’t know how this is even possible. Prior to this year, the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000. The numbers that we have been getting week after week are so obscene that they are truly difficult to believe.
Overall, a grand total of more than 54 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the last 19 weeks.
But there were only 152 million Americans working when employment peaked back in February. So how is it possible that 54 million workers have filed initial claims for unemployment benefits so far this year?
Have things really gotten that bad?
Maybe they have. Bloomberg just reported on a recent Census Bureau survey that found that 30 million Americans claim that they did not have enough food to eat during the week that ended on July 21st…
Food insecurity for U.S. households last week reached its highest reported level since the Census Bureau started tracking the data in May, with almost 30 million Americans reporting that they’d not had enough to eat at some point in the seven days through July 21.
In the bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, roughly 23.9 million of 249 million respondents indicated they had “sometimes not enough to eat” for the week ended July 21, while about 5.42 million indicated they had “often not enough to eat.”
Once again, those numbers are so shocking that they are hard for me to believe.
Are there really tens of millions of Americans that cannot afford three meals a day right now?
Maybe there are, but it is still difficult to grasp the fact that we have fallen so far in such a short period of time.
Meanwhile, we just got more bad news about the restaurant industry. According to the National Restaurant Association, at least 15 percent of all restaurants in the entire country will be shutting down. The following comes from Zero Hedge…
The National Restaurant Association has determined that at least 15% of all restaurants will close. This number could be a lot higher at the end of the year as Goldman Sachs reports the economic recovery is now reversing.
Small restaurant operators, who fear a double-dip recession, have now resorted to liquidating their eateries on Facebook Marketplace.
A simple search of “restaurant” on Facebook Marketplace, within 80 miles of Trenton, New Jersey, comes up with dozens and dozens and dozens of mom and pop eateries that are trying to get out of the game.
Actually, if we only lose 15 percent of our restaurants we should hold a massive celebration, because that will be a rip-roaring victory.
As fear of COVID-19 stretches on month after month, and as civil unrest becomes even worse, it will become increasingly difficult for restaurants, bars, movie theaters and other establishments where the public gathers to survive.
In the end, I think that we are going to lose hundreds of thousands of restaurants, and it deeply grieves me to say that.
Of course every industry is going to be devastated by this new economic depression, and even the biggest names are going to get hit really hard.
In fact, you know that things are starting to get really bad when even Walmart starts laying off workers…
Walmart Inc. is joining the ranks of Macy’s and L Brands in eliminating hundreds of corporate jobs in order to cut costs.
Employees in the mega-retailer’s store planning, logistics, and real estate units have reportedly received pink slips, reported Bloomberg Thursday
If Walmart executives truly believed that the U.S. economy was going to be returning to normal, they would not have made such a move.
But at this point it should be clear to everyone that there isn’t going to be a return to normal.
More big corporations are going to go bankrupt, more businesses are going to fail, more workers are going to be laid off, and the financial dominoes are going to start to fall at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking.
So many of the things that myself and so many other economic writers have been warning about are starting to happen.
A great unraveling has begun, and it is imperative for all of us to find a way to survive the severe economic pain that is ahead of us.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3glkdMS Tyler Durden
Ficth Revises United States Credit Outlook To “Negative” Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2020 – 16:36
Just over a month ago, Fitch Ratings downgraded Canada from AA+ to AA; and tonight, shortly after the market close – with bond yields at record lows – the ratings agency has revised its outlook for the United States from Stable To Negative, citing “ongoing deterioration in US public finances and the absence of a credible fiscal consolidation plan…”
The U.S. sovereign rating is supported by structural strengths that include the size of the economy, high per capita income and a dynamic business environment. The U.S. benefits from issuing the U.S. dollar, the world’s preeminent reserve currency, and from the associated extraordinary financing flexibility, which has been highlighted once again by developments since March 2020. Fitch considers U.S. debt tolerance to be higher than that of other ‘AAA’ sovereigns.
However, the Outlook has been revised to Negative to reflect the ongoing deterioration in the U.S. public finances and the absence of a credible fiscal consolidation plan, issues that were highlighted in the agency’s last rating review on March 26, 2020. High fiscal deficits and debt were already on a rising medium-term path even before the onset of the huge economic shock precipitated by the coronavirus. They have started to erode the traditional credit strengths of the US. Financing flexibility, assisted by Federal Reserve intervention to restore liquidity to financial markets, does not entirely dispel risks to medium-term debt sustainability, and there is a growing risk that U.S. policymakers will not consolidate public finances sufficiently to stabilize public debt after the pandemic shock has passed. Although a massive policy response has prevented a deeper downturn – such that Fitch expects a less severe contraction in the U.S. in 2020 than in many other advanced economies – the agency has revised down our macroeconomic projections since March and downside risks persist.
The U.S. had the highest government debt of any AAA-rated sovereign heading into the crisis, and Fitch expects general government debt to exceed 130% of GDP by 2021. Fitch’s debt dynamics analysis indicates that debt/GDP could stabilize temporarily from 2023 if fiscal balances return to pre-pandemic levels, but only assuming that interest rates stay very low. Health and social security costs are still set to rise over the medium-term while federal revenue in FY19 was close to its long-term average as a share of GDP.
Fitch expects the general government calendar year deficit to widen to over 20% of GDP in 2020. The agency expects the deficit to narrow to 11% of GDP in 2021 as economic support measures are rolled back. The cumulative federal deficit in the first nine months of FY20 (starting in October 2019) reached USD2.7 trillion, compared with USD747 billion in the same period of FY19. Spending rose by USD1.6 trillion, or by 49%. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in April that the federal deficit would reach USD3.7 trillion in FY20. In the three months since this CBO estimate was published, Congress has made no major addition to the support packages. However, with Congress considering a further round of fiscal stimulus (Senate Republicans’ draft Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection, and Schools (HEALS) Act would provide further transfers to households and extend supplementary federal unemployment benefits at a reduced level), Fitch assumes that a further USD1 trillion in measures will be passed in August to be spread over FY20 and FY21.
The U.S. government has once again demonstrated exceptional financing flexibility, borrowing just under $3 trillion between the end of February and the end of June, of which USD2.5 trillion was in the form of treasury bills, while the Fed has intervened to backstop financial markets (expanding its balance sheet by USD2.6 trillion since mid-March) and boost global dollar liquidity. Amid a borrowing surge, borrowing costs have fallen, with the 10-year treasury bond yielding 0.6%. Marginal government borrowing costs currently average below 1% for up to 20 years. The effective interest rate on the federal government debt stock fell (by 0.75 percentage points (pp) compared with a year ago) to 1.75% by June 2020, and should continue to fall.
In line with our assumption that the Federal Reserve will hold its policy rate at 0.25%, Fitch expects negative real interest rates to provide some support to public debt dynamics. If real growth also reverted to 2%, a debt stabilizing primary deficit for the general government by 2024 could be around 3%-4% of GDP, comparable with 2019 levels. But it is uncertain whether very low market rates will persist once growth and inflation pick up. At current levels of indebtedness, a 1% rise in the effective rate on the debt would add 1.2% of GDP to the interest bill in a single year.
The future direction of fiscal policy depends partly on November’s presidential and congressional elections. The odds of Democrats overturning the Republican majority in the Senate have shifted in their favor over the past quarter, but it is unlikely that either party will achieve a 60-seat majority. A continuation of policy gridlock is a risk. Political polarization may weaken institutions and reduces the scope for bipartisan cooperation, hindering attempts to address structural issues (including some highlighted by the pandemic and protests) but also longer-term fiscal challenges. The economic crisis has likely brought forward the point at which social security and healthcare trust funds are exhausted, demanding bipartisan legislative action to sustainably fund or reform these programs.
Fitch expects the economy to contract by 5.6% in 2020 and recover by 4% in 2021, with the massive fiscal policy response averting a deeper downturn. Personal income rose in 2Q20, despite this marking the trough of the recession, marked by a historic fall in employment and hours worked. Real GDP nevertheless contracted at a 33% annualized rate, in line with Fitch’s expectations, and there are downside risks to Fitch’s growth forecast, with high-frequency data starting to show a greater impact from the pandemic in parts of the country where the public health response has been deficient and fading fiscal policy stimulus. Unemployment, spiked to 14.7% in April as firms shuttered and laid off staff, but declined to 11.1% in June as some of those on furlough returned to work. The prolongation of this stressful economic period will weigh on human capital, financial stability and future growth potential. The deepest post-war recession will not only open up a large output gap, but also take a permanent toll on potential GDP. As the output gap closes, Fitch expects growth to average 2.2% in 2023-25, above our revised estimate of potential growth.
Fitch expects inflation to remain low, averaging below 1% in 2020-2022 Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation was 0.5% in May and CPI was 0.6% in June); the crisis has disrupted both supply and demand. However it may have accelerated a number of trends that could bring about higher inflation over the medium to long-term. Market expectations of inflation as derived from yields on inflation-linked bonds have bottomed out and are rising. Having laid bare inequalities in the provision of health care and exacerbated widening wealth inequality (although government assistance to households focused substantial resources towards those on lower incomes), the crisis could also lead to pressure for higher public spending, greater state involvement in the economy, redistribution of incomes and moves to strengthen workers’ bargaining power.
The aims and policies of the Fed and Treasury have so far complemented each other. Longer-term, a resurgence of inflation might call for a rise in interest rates, potentially even bringing the goals of the Fed and the government into conflict, and adversely affecting debt dynamics, although this is not Fitch’s core forecast. It is a truism that the U.S. government cannot run out of money to service its debts. However, there is a potential (albeit remote) risk of fiscal dominance if debt/GDP spirals, posing risks to U.S. economic dynamism and reserve currency status.
Governance: United States has an ESG Relevance Score (RS) of 5 for both Political Stability and Rights and for the Rule of Law, Institutional and Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption, as is the case for all sovereigns. Theses scores reflect the high weight that the WBGI have in our proprietary Sovereign Rating Model. United States has a high WBGI, ranking at the 84th percentile, reflecting its long track record of stable and peaceful political transitions, well established rights for participation in the political process, strong institutional capacity, effective rule of law and a low level of corruption.
RATING SENSITIVITIES
The main factors that could, individually or collectively, lead to a negative rating action/downgrade:
Public Finances: Absence of a credible commitment to address medium-term public spending and debt challenges that would arrest the upward trajectory of the general government debt to GDP ratio after the pandemic shock;
Macroeconomic policy, performance and prospects: A decline in the coherence and credibility of U.S. policymaking that undermines the reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar and the government’s financing flexibility.
The main factors that could, individually or collectively, lead to a positive rating action
Public Finances: adoption of a set of policies consistent with a protracted reduction of the debt/GDP ratio after the pandemic shock.
What will this move do to gold? Or has it seen this coming for a while?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30jexxk Tyler Durden
Sen. Tom Cotton’s Democratic challenger, Josh Mahony, dropped out of the U.S. Senate race just hours after the filing deadline closed. Between this and Cotton’s comments over the past few weeks, which range from calling slavery a “necessary evil” to calling for military force in American streets, many Arkansas voters worry that the Republican incumbent is running unopposed.
“There is an alternative to Tom Cotton,” reads a Tuesday headline from the Arkansas Times, reminding voters that Cotton’s race is not as uncontested as some people believe.
A Libertarian prison chaplain who hopes to be Arkansas’ first black senator, Harrington is indeed a unique candidate. The 34-year-old Pine Bluff resident is a husband and a father. He’s also the son of a corrections officer and a nurse, which he says is particularly fitting since his campaign’s main issues are criminal justice reform and health care reform.
And he’s running, in part, to keep Cotton out of the White House.
“The Libertarian Party of Arkansas is very enthusiastic about the campaign of Ricky Dale Harrington, Jr. to unseat Senator Tom Cotton,” says Michael Pakko, the Libertarian Party’s state chair. “It is rare to find a high-profile race like this featuring a two-way contest between a Libertarian and an incumbent. We intend to make the most of the publicity.
“Ricky is an exceptional candidate,” Pakko adds. “He is an ordained minister who has experienced life as a missionary overseas, giving him a worldview that is both expansive and nuanced. His experience as a counselor in the Arkansas prison system has given him a first-hand view of the problems of our criminal justice system, providing him with the initial motivation to run for office.”
Ricky Dale Harrington Jr for US Senate/Facebook
Harrington was brought to libertarianism by Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Paul’s non-interventionist stance on American foreign policy won him over, Harrington recalls.
“I would have voted for him if he won the nomination,” says Harrington. “Going to war should be one of the last things humans do.”
Harrington decided to run for Senate for two reasons. The second, he says, is that “the executive branch is becoming exceedingly bloated and expanding its power.” And the first? “Tom Cotton.”
In a 2016 speech, Cotton insisted that America is actually suffering from “an under-incarceration problem.” The statement enraged Harrington. During an interview with Larry Sharpe, Harrington said he wanted to look Cotton in the face and challenge him on the statement.
“I think Tom Cotton is just placating people’s fears and uneducated proclivities. If he had a chance to walk in a penitentiary with any ounce of compassion, he would issue a public apology for a statement like that,” Harrington says.
If anyone is qualified to teach Cotton about the realities of the criminal justice system, it would be Harrington. Growing up, his father “scared him straight” with horror stories about the prison system. So when Harrington applied for a number of jobs after moving back to America from mission work in China, he was surprised that the only call back he received was for a position as a prison chaplain.
“I never thought I’d do something like this,” he says. “But it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.”
Harrington delivers death notifications, both to prisoners about their families and families about the prisoners. He was also tasked to be a chaplain for both the families of murder victims and families of death row inmates during executions.
He mentions the fight to posthumously test DNA evidence in the case of Ledell Lee, a death row inmate executed in 2017. The Innocence Project and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed a Freedom of Information Act suit to use DNA testing to see if Lee was innocent. If the DNA tests show that Arkansas killed an innocent man three years ago, Harrington says he will “vehemently oppose” the practice. As a chaplain for both the families of victims and the families of death row inmates, Harrington has seen how both sides are affected by capital punishment. “But,” he adds, “it’s hard to justify a system that executes an innocent person.”
Harrington has ideas about reforming other parts of the criminal justice system at the state and federal level, beginning with sentencing.
Harrington wants to change an Arkansas law that keeps prisoners who commit certain crimes ineligible for parole until they complete 70 percent of their sentence. Many of the crimes affected by this rule are violent, but it is also applied to such crimes as the manufacture and/or trafficking of methamphetamines. Harrington would like to see the end of mandatory minimums and the War on Drugs, the latter of which he says has “done more harm than good.”
“People shouldn’t be in prison where there is no victim,” he says. “They should deal with a doctor or a therapist, not be thrown in prison where they’re subject to gangs, abuse, sexual assault, or mental health issues.”
Here, Harrington turns to discussing the current protests against abusive policing. Just a week after returning to America from China, Harrington says, he was pulled over by aggressive officers in Sherwood, Arkansas. And encounters like Harrington’s are not uncommon.
“I’m thinking, ‘I just left a Communist country to come back to my own country and die,'” he says of the encounter.
Harrington’s children are autistic, so he worries each time he sees a story of poorly trained officers brutalizing or killing someone who is mentally handicapped (or their caretakers). He once worked as a takedown specialist at a psychiatric hospital, a job that primarily consisted of simply talking to patients when they seemed like they were about to become violent.
“I find myself perplexed that police officers can’t do the same thing.”
Harrington says he’s tired of hearing stories about no-knock raids and children being harmed by flash grenades. As he puts it, “You can’t sit here calling yourself pro-life while supporting babies being maimed over drugs.”
Ricky Dale Harrington Jr for US Senate/Facebook
Harrington’s other ideas include demilitarizing the police (“If police are using the equipment our fighting forces use to crush our enemies, what does that mean the police think about the people?”), better de-escalation techniques (“Every encounter does not need to end in violence or the threat of violence”), easing the burden on public defenders (“It’s hard to give someone a good fighting chance if they’re overloaded”), and promoting prison rehabilitation programs that offer inmates an education and teach basic life skills (“We want people to serve their time, get out, and never come back”).
Besides criminal justice reform, Harrington’s other major issue is health care. “My job is to try to remove government’s heavy hand in the system,” Harrington says. “We need health care revolution.”
In Harrington’s ideal health care system, communities and patients would have more power. He wants to remove regulatory hurdles like certificate-of-need requirements, which he says “keeps competition out” and “drives up cost.” He also rejects the idea that proposed top-down approaches like Medicare for All would lower the exorbitant health care costs passed on to patients.
Harrington worries that his opponent has his eyes on the White House, something that concerns him given Cotton’s history of authoritarian comments. “We need to stop someone who has said the things that he’s said.”
It took a lot of work to get Harrington on the ballot. “In 2019 the state legislature raised the petition signature requirement by nearly 270 percent,” Pakko reports. The party then “embarked on a petition campaign while simultaneously challenging the new higher threshold in federal court. With the help of an injunction that survived a state challenge in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Libertarian Party and Ricky Harrington will be on the ballot in November.”
Meanwhile, the pandemic has made it hard to campaign. Still, Harrington has grabbed every opportunity he has to talk with voters.
“I always try to find common ground with people. It’s just like evangelization,” he says. “If Libertarians spent a lot more time sharing the portions of libertarianism that people already agree with, we’d probably bring a lot more people to our movement and we’d put a dent in the two-party system.”
Reason reached out to Cotton’s campaign for its thoughts on its Libertarian challenger but did not receive a response.
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Sen. Tom Cotton’s Democratic challenger, Josh Mahony, dropped out of the U.S. Senate race just hours after the filing deadline closed. Between this and Cotton’s comments over the past few weeks, which range from calling slavery a “necessary evil” to calling for military force in American streets, many Arkansas voters worry that the Republican incumbent is running unopposed.
“There is an alternative to Tom Cotton,” reads a Tuesday headline from the Arkansas Times, reminding voters that Cotton’s race is not as uncontested as some people believe.
A Libertarian prison chaplain who hopes to be Arkansas’ first black senator, Harrington is indeed a unique candidate. The 34-year-old Pine Bluff resident is a husband and a father. He’s also the son of a corrections officer and a nurse, which he says is particularly fitting since his campaign’s main issues are criminal justice reform and health care reform.
And he’s running, in part, to keep Cotton out of the White House.
“The Libertarian Party of Arkansas is very enthusiastic about the campaign of Ricky Dale Harrington, Jr. to unseat Senator Tom Cotton,” says Michael Pakko, the Libertarian Party’s state chair. “It is rare to find a high-profile race like this featuring a two-way contest between a Libertarian and an incumbent. We intend to make the most of the publicity.
“Ricky is an exceptional candidate,” Pakko adds. “He is an ordained minister who has experienced life as a missionary overseas, giving him a worldview that is both expansive and nuanced. His experience as a counselor in the Arkansas prison system has given him a first-hand view of the problems of our criminal justice system, providing him with the initial motivation to run for office.”
Ricky Dale Harrington Jr for US Senate/Facebook
Harrington was brought to libertarianism by Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Paul’s non-interventionist stance on American foreign policy won him over, Harrington recalls.
“I would have voted for him if he won the nomination,” says Harrington. “Going to war should be one of the last things humans do.”
Harrington decided to run for Senate for two reasons. The second, he says, is that “the executive branch is becoming exceedingly bloated and expanding its power.” And the first? “Tom Cotton.”
In a 2016 speech, Cotton insisted that America is actually suffering from “an under-incarceration problem.” The statement enraged Harrington. During an interview with Larry Sharpe, Harrington said he wanted to look Cotton in the face and challenge him on the statement.
“I think Tom Cotton is just placating people’s fears and uneducated proclivities. If he had a chance to walk in a penitentiary with any ounce of compassion, he would issue a public apology for a statement like that,” Harrington says.
If anyone is qualified to teach Cotton about the realities of the criminal justice system, it would be Harrington. Growing up, his father “scared him straight” with horror stories about the prison system. So when Harrington applied for a number of jobs after moving back to America from mission work in China, he was surprised that the only call back he received was for a position as a prison chaplain.
“I never thought I’d do something like this,” he says. “But it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.”
Harrington delivers death notifications, both to prisoners about their families and families about the prisoners. He was also tasked to be a chaplain for both the families of murder victims and families of death row inmates during executions.
He mentions the fight to posthumously test DNA evidence in the case of Ledell Lee, a death row inmate executed in 2017. The Innocence Project and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed a Freedom of Information Act suit to use DNA testing to see if Lee was innocent. If the DNA tests show that Arkansas killed an innocent man three years ago, Harrington says he will “vehemently oppose” the practice. As a chaplain for both the families of victims and the families of death row inmates, Harrington has seen how both sides are affected by capital punishment. “But,” he adds, “it’s hard to justify a system that executes an innocent person.”
Harrington has ideas about reforming other parts of the criminal justice system at the state and federal level, beginning with sentencing.
Harrington wants to change an Arkansas law that keeps prisoners who commit certain crimes ineligible for parole until they complete 70 percent of their sentence. Many of the crimes affected by this rule are violent, but it is also applied to such crimes as the manufacture and/or trafficking of methamphetamines. Harrington would like to see the end of mandatory minimums and the War on Drugs, the latter of which he says has “done more harm than good.”
“People shouldn’t be in prison where there is no victim,” he says. “They should deal with a doctor or a therapist, not be thrown in prison where they’re subject to gangs, abuse, sexual assault, or mental health issues.”
Here, Harrington turns to discussing the current protests against abusive policing. Just a week after returning to America from China, Harrington says, he was pulled over by aggressive officers in Sherwood, Arkansas. And encounters like Harrington’s are not uncommon.
“I’m thinking, ‘I just left a Communist country to come back to my own country and die,'” he says of the encounter.
Harrington’s children are autistic, so he worries each time he sees a story of poorly trained officers brutalizing or killing someone who is mentally handicapped (or their caretakers). He once worked as a takedown specialist at a psychiatric hospital, a job that primarily consisted of simply talking to patients when they seemed like they were about to become violent.
“I find myself perplexed that police officers can’t do the same thing.”
Harrington says he’s tired of hearing stories about no-knock raids and children being harmed by flash grenades. As he puts it, “You can’t sit here calling yourself pro-life while supporting babies being maimed over drugs.”
Ricky Dale Harrington Jr for US Senate/Facebook
Harrington’s other ideas include demilitarizing the police (“If police are using the equipment our fighting forces use to crush our enemies, what does that mean the police think about the people?”), better de-escalation techniques (“Every encounter does not need to end in violence or the threat of violence”), easing the burden on public defenders (“It’s hard to give someone a good fighting chance if they’re overloaded”), and promoting prison rehabilitation programs that offer inmates an education and teach basic life skills (“We want people to serve their time, get out, and never come back”).
Besides criminal justice reform, Harrington’s other major issue is health care. “My job is to try to remove government’s heavy hand in the system,” Harrington says. “We need health care revolution.”
In Harrington’s ideal health care system, communities and patients would have more power. He wants to remove regulatory hurdles like certificate-of-need requirements, which he says “keeps competition out” and “drives up cost.” He also rejects the idea that proposed top-down approaches like Medicare for All would lower the exorbitant health care costs passed on to patients.
Harrington worries that his opponent has his eyes on the White House, something that concerns him given Cotton’s history of authoritarian comments. “We need to stop someone who has said the things that he’s said.”
It took a lot of work to get Harrington on the ballot. “In 2019 the state legislature raised the petition signature requirement by nearly 270 percent,” Pakko reports. The party then “embarked on a petition campaign while simultaneously challenging the new higher threshold in federal court. With the help of an injunction that survived a state challenge in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Libertarian Party and Ricky Harrington will be on the ballot in November.”
Meanwhile, the pandemic has made it hard to campaign. Still, Harrington has grabbed every opportunity he has to talk with voters.
“I always try to find common ground with people. It’s just like evangelization,” he says. “If Libertarians spent a lot more time sharing the portions of libertarianism that people already agree with, we’d probably bring a lot more people to our movement and we’d put a dent in the two-party system.”
Reason reached out to Cotton’s campaign for its thoughts on its Libertarian challenger but did not receive a response.
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Hundreds Of Angry Protesters Gather Outside Hamptons Billionaire Mansions To Demand Wealth Tax Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2020 – 16:25
Over 200 protesters wielding pitchforks marched through the Hamptons Thursday to demand that Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) slap billionaires with a wealth tax.
According to Business Insider, the group – organized by a coalition of activist groups including New York Communities for Change, a homeless advocacy organization, and News Guild (CWA) marched throughout the ultra-wealthy vacation town. Stops included the homes of several billionaires, including investor Daniel Loeb, real-estate developer Steven Roth and Hudson Yards developer Steven Ross – all Cuomo donors, according to the report (citing The Guardian).
— New York Communities for Change (@nychange) July 30, 2020
A beautiful day to visit the homes of billionaires in the Hamptons with @marcelaforny. The socialists are coming for your purses. 😈 pic.twitter.com/xXOiIUcShK
The protesters were joined by State Senatorial candidate Jabari Brisport, who said outside of Loeb’s East Hampton mansion “If there is one thing that makes me more mad than billionaires, it’s billionaires like Dan Loeb that push and advocate for charter schools,” adding “I’m sick of the attacks on our public school children, and I’m sick of people like this donating to Andrew Cuomo so he can sit there in Albany twiddling his thumbs about how to deal with this budget deficit.”
The economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus crisis has strengthened calls for a wealth tax, especially in New York, where Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex has proposed a special state tax on the ultrawealthy. The proposal has the support of at least 83 ultrawealthy people, including Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Jerry Greenfield and Disney heiress Abigail Disney, who penned an open letter arguing that such a tax would “ensure we adequately fund our health systems, schools, and security … immediately. Substantially. Permanently.”
Cuomo shot down the idea, saying that it would drive New York’s 118 billionaires out of state. At the same time, the governor announced cuts to state funding for schools, public housing, and hospitals amid a budget crisis brought on by the coronavirus crisis, sparking protests. Thursday’s march was the second protest in the Hamptons featuring pitchforks this month. The pitchforks used in the July 1 event were plastic ones purchased from a Halloween store, Patch reported at the time. –Business Insider
Later in the march, protesters began beating drums and chanting “Oh the rent is too damn high,” a phrase coined by former New York mayoral candidate Jimmy McMillan over a decade ago.
— New York Communities for Change (@nychange) July 30, 2020
“The governor has a choice: He can either cut funding from students, nurses, seniors, and working families who keep our city running — or he can tax the rich,” said event organizer Alicé Nascimento, who serves as the Director of Policy & Research at New York Communities for Change. “And he keeps choosing cuts over taxes — because he’d rather protect his wealthy billionaire donors than protect working New Yorkers.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3ghFAi7 Tyler Durden
Stocks managed gains on the month (4th month in a row) – Nasdaq best, Dow worst…
Source: Bloomberg
And note that despite the epic surge in the mega tech stocks overnight… Yes, that is AAPL up 10%!! (GOOGL -4%)…MSFT managed to rally back to unch after rumors of it buying TikTok…
Apple is up $170BN today, more than the market cap of Oracle, more than the GDP of Hungary; Apple’s value increase today would be the 33rd biggest company in the S&P500.
Nasdaq was not a one-way street today as CNBC stunningly remarked “nasdaq has now gone negative which is quite interesting…”
And you have to laugh at this – The Dow scraped by today… as AAPL’s insane squeeze higher dominated the rest of the entire index…
Source: Bloomberg
but that will change when AAPL splits.
BUT, it was in currency, commodity, credit, and crypto land that the real fun and games took place.
Bonds were bid pretty much all month with the long-end notably outperforming…
Source: Bloomberg
… and pushing to new record low yields…
Source: Bloomberg
Some highlights:
2Y Treasury yields fell for the 8th month in a row
30Y Treasury yields fell for the 5th month this year
2s30s Curve flattened by the most since August 2019
Source: Bloomberg
Still a long way down for stocks if bonds are right…
Source: Bloomberg
Gold and silver screamed higher on the month.
Silver’s best month since 1979 (when the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the market)
Gold’s best month since 2011
Spot Gold reached a new record above Sept 2011 and Futures topped $2000…
Source: Bloomberg
Silver’s at its highest since June 2013…
Source: Bloomberg
Oil’s up for the 3rd month in a row, but has largely trod water all month…
Source: Bloomberg
Cryptos soared in July with Ethereum best (up over 50%, its 4th monthly rise in a row) and Bitcoin up 22%…
Source: Bloomberg
Ethereum closed at its highest since August 2018…
Source: Bloomberg
And helping all these assets rise in value, DXY Dollar Index suffered its biggest monthly drop since 2010…
Source: Bloomberg
Breaking a key up-trend line…
Source: Bloomberg
Did Washington mess with the ‘money’ one too many times?
Gold seems to think so…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, we note that ‘soft’ survey macro data has surged full of hope to a region that has not ended well in the recent past
The Fed’s Dollar Debasement Will Trigger An Unprecedented Structural Shift Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2020 – 15:45
Whether it is merely the continued debasement of the dollar by a Fed that has gone full-tilt on money printing, or a historic transition away from the current global reserve currency, the recent sharp drop in the US currency is all Wall Street is talking about, with some such as Goldman going so far as to warn that “real concerns are emerging” about the US Dollar as global reserve currency (and is a reason why the bank is buying gold instead).
BofA’s CIO Michael Hartnett also could not resist the temptation of commenting on the dollar, and in his latest weekly Flow Show note, discussed what is rapidly emerging as the biggest story of 2020.
But before we get there, here is Hartnett on 2020, first looking at the year in numbers:
Covid-19 deaths >670k
Global GDP loss $10tn
US claims >50mn
US budget deficit >40% of Q2 GDP
MOVE index all-time low
Cash on sidelines $5tn,
US corporates raise $2.7tn,
Global stock market cap crashes $30tn, then $25tn rally.
… then in terms of returns, where gold not surprisingly is the best performing asset:
… and then, tying it all together, showing why $20 trillion is the most important number for 2020: that, as the BofA strategist explains, is the total in global policy stimulus unleashed so far in 2020 and consisting of $8.5TN in monetary and $11.4TN Fiscal stimulus (it does not include any of the Phase IV US fiscal stimulus which Congress is fighting over now).
With this fiscal and monetary tsunami it is hardly a surprise that investors are flocking to the deflationary safety of gold and bonds, and dumping the currency in which all this new liquidity is being created out of thin air, the dollar.
As Hartnett puts it, when looking at dollar bear markets, new highs in gold tends to emerge on “dollar debasement” themes, and notes the two great dollar bear markets were in 1970s & 2000s, with outperforming assets those decades were EM equities, commodities, small cap, and value stocks.
Of course, gold – as a “hard” currency – is expected to outperform everything, and sure enough recent inflows into gold funds are off the charts, with $16.7BN allocated over the past 6 weeks, with other notable fund flows include a credit surge: $210bn with a record 12-week inflow to IG, HY and EM bonds), $75.9BN out of money-market funds in the past 11 weeks after $1.2tn inflow.
Meanwhile, as Hartnett explains looking at BofA private clients, there is a lot more gold buying on deck: the current asset allocation is 58.7% equities, 22.0% debt, 13.0% cash, reducing cash holdings for 3 consecutive weeks (first time in 2020 – Chart 5); At the same time, their precious metal ETF holdings % ETF portfolio on rise (2.3%) but well below 9.3% peak of 2012. So they can and will buy a whole lot more.
Fund flows aside and gold surge aside, Hartnett takes a step back to observe the bigger stories of the year unleashed by dollar debasement, which include:
the coming era of bigger government, smaller world,
unconventional fiscal policy accelerated by pandemic, heralded by higher gold & weaker US dollar, best positioned for via commodities, HY bonds, and long RoW stocks vs US stocks;
2010s were decade of liquidity, globalization, profits;
2020s to be decade of deficits, localization, redistribution;
War on Inequality means unconventional monetary policy of 2010s to be replaced by unconventional fiscal policies of 2020s…MMT, UBI, debt forgiveness, unionization (Chart 8).
While not central to Hartnett’s thesis, he sees two outcomes for markets: a big top in the S&P preceded by a “summer dip.”
Big top: 2020 risk asset peak most likely at time of vaccine, full capitulation by bears, higher interest rates (lower US $ + higher yields = risk-off); note history of great bear market rallies predicts SPX 3300-3600 top between Aug-Jan.
Summer dip: summer dip in SPX to 3050 plausible given cross-asset price action on universal belief in interest rate suppression & US$ debasement of US$ (lower $ + lower yields = risk-on); summer trading positives of Fed, tech & credit are peaking
And, as usual, the US dollar is the lead indicator of all major changes because:
US$ = 62% of global FX reserves (Euro = 20%, JPY = 6%, GBP = 4%, CNY = 2% – Chart 10);
US$ = 45% of global FX reserves in 1992; global FX reserves are $12tn (up $10tn since 2001 – 9/11 & China/WTO – Chart 9);
FX reserve shares of Euro (with EU fiscal union) & China (in Tech War with US) likely to rise vs US.
Meanwhile, the most important asset over the short-term is neither gold, nor dollar, nor risk assets, but oil which is “now key for autumn rotation” as consensus remains stubbornly entrenched in deflationary portfolio: “if higher gold, weaker US dollar (Chart 11) followed by oil >$50/b deflationary positions likely to crack (Chart 12)…
… especially if Fed YCC means bond yields stop undershooting expectations (on average by 100bps since 2008).”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30ibYeA Tyler Durden
From yesterday’s memorandum from the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, quoting the report of the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct:
[T]he Committee … [circulated] a new draft Advisory Opinion No. 117 … [which] advised that formal affiliation with the ACS or the Federalist Society, whether as a member or in a leadership role, is inconsistent with the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, and that while membership in the ABA’s Judicial Division is not necessarily inconsistent with the Code, judicial members should carefully monitor the activities of the ABA to determine whether membership remains consistent with the Code and query whether a position taken by the ABA might call the affiliated judge’s impartiality into question and necessitate recusal in a given matter…. The Committee received comments [on the draft] from about 300 judges, expressing a wide variety of views on the issues raised.
At its July 2020 meeting the Committee reviewed the comments, and after extensive deliberations voted to table issuing draft Advisory Opinion No. 117 and not to publish it. The Committee elected to table the matter because the comments on the issue of membership in law- related organizations demonstrated a lack of consonance among judges. Rather than attempting to offer advice on membership in specific organizations, the Committee has decided to rely on the advice it has previously given to judges as to how judges should analyze membership in these types of organizations. See, e.g., Advisory Opinion No. 82: “Joining Organizations.”
The Code of Conduct encourages judges to remain active in the community and the legal profession so long as those activities do not conflict with judicial obligations. The Committee stands by its previous guidance provided in the Published Advisory Opinions and in the Compendium of Selected Opinions. That advice demonstrates that the Committee has consistently opined that judges may appropriately belong to law-related organizations that embrace a broad range of views.
Even so, prudence dictates that as judges confront a world filled with challenges arising out of emerging technologies, deep ideological disputes, a growing sense of mistrust of individuals and institutions, and an ever-changing landscape of competing political, legal, and societal interests, they need to remain vigilant about problems associated with membership in organizations. In making membership decisions, a judge should regularly review, consider, and examine whether membership in any particular organization is consistent with the core values of judging, recognizing that the mission and objectives of organizations may change over time. The Committee’s past guidance has counseled judges to consider such things as recusal obligations and any burdens on judicial integrity, including how membership in an organization may implicate the judge’s impartiality and how membership in an organization may reflect on the judge or the judiciary as a whole.
The nation depends on a judiciary that is impartial and independent. Consistent with the judge’s oath, each individual judge should take care to make all membership decisions in a way that is consistent with the highest ideals of the profession as expressed in the Code of Conduct. The rubric that is laid out in the Committee’s prior opinions and guidance is the appropriate way to analyze membership decisions, but balancing these considerations is ultimately best left to the judgment of individual judges.
Special bonus: The memorandum is fascest! Check out the fasces on the seal on top of the memo (and, yes, the Fascists were indeed named after the fasces):
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Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature from the Institute for Justice.
Slaughterhouses are the weak link in the nation’s meat supply chain: Just over 50 facilities account for 98% of all cattle slaughtering in the United States. So when the coronavirus began to ravage meatpacking plants, beef and pork went scarce. To prevent future shortages, Congress is considering the PRIME Act, which would ease restrictions on local, small-scale slaughterhouses. Over at Forbes.com, IJ’s Nick Sibilla has more.
New on the Short Circuit podcast: Special guest Christina Martin of the Pacific Legal Foundation—a recent victor at the Michigan Supreme Court—joins the panel to talk tax forfeitures and excessive fines.
Barge drops anchor in the Long Island Sound while being towed by a tugboat. The anchor damages an undersea cable, causing oil spillage that costs New York’s Power Authority $10 mil to clean up. Can the Authority recover from the owner of the barge and tugboat? The case should not have been dismissed, says the Second Circuit; the cable does indeed count as a “facility,” as defined by the relevant federal statute.
To incentivize companies to relocate to New Jersey, the Garden State’s “Business Employment Incentive Program” would sometimes grant them millions of dollars in unencumbered cash. IRS to program beneficiary: That $56 mil New Jersey gave you between 2010 and 2013? That’s taxable income. Tax court: No, the grants were merely capital contributions. Third Circuit: It’s taxable income.
In 2015, at the request of the mayor, a local business group that organizes Natchitoches, La.’s annual Christmas parade (a 100-year-old tradition) bars the display of the Confederate battle flag, which an organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers had paraded with many times over the years. Fifth Circuit: Can’t sue the city over that. Concurrence: If you can’t censor the Nazis in Skokie, you can’t censor this. But plaintiffs didn’t sue the right people in time or develop the right arguments.
After two trials and a 2016 trip to the Fifth Circuit, ExxonMobil is slapped with a $20 mil penalty for thousands of Clean Air Act violations at its massive Baytown, Tex. complex. But wait! Did the citizens who filed suit have standing? Fifth Circuit: The case must go back to the district court to determine whether each individual violation is fairly traceable to plaintiffs’ injuries. Partial dissent: We should take this thing en banc to sort out the mess that is our precedent, which is just one ipse dixit after the next.
After doctor finds 33 fractures in 3-month-old’s ribs, legs, and shoulder blade, the baby is taken from his parents for several years. His brother is born the following year, and he is taken as well. Yikes! The older brother has a bone disease, and a Tennessee court orders both boys returned. Can the parents sue the doctor for failing to test for or tell anyone about the possibility of such a disease? The Sixth Circuit says no; we’ve never held that doctors can be liable for making false or reckless statements in support of a child removal (and don’t so hold here), so qualified immunity. (The social workers and the hospital are off the hook, too.)
Persons who reenter the U.S. after previously having been deported can seek “withholding of removal.” But are they entitled to a bond hearing while that withholding-of-removal proceeding winds its way through the courts? Sixth Circuit: We join with the Third and Ninth Circuits—and break with the Second and Fourth—in saying no. Partial dissent: Statutorily, that’s correct, but the length of this detainee’s detention (28 months and counting) violates due process.
Allegation: A series of medical staffers at Michigan correctional facilities decline to order diagnostics or provide treatment for inmate with multiple sclerosis despite his repeated requests, relapses. His cognitive function declines to the point where he consumes his own feces and sucks his thumbs. (He dies in a nursing home.) Sixth Circuit: Most of his estate’s claims were filed too late, but (over a dissent) a pair of physician’s assistants might have been deliberately indifferent to his medical needs.
Nonprofit devoted to defending campus speech sues administrators at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, alleging that various campus policies violate the First Amendment. Seventh Circuit: No standing to challenge two of the policies, and the challenge to the third—a requirement that speakers receive prior approval before distributing campaign literature—is moot because the University repealed that policy. Dissent: I agree on the first two policies, but the third wasn’t repealed until after this litigation began and could be reinstated at any time; that claim should move forward.
Oklahoma and the Creek Nation are not the only ones at odds over 19th-century treaties establishing reservations and the creeping boundaries of the United States. A dispute between Hobart, Wisc. officials and the Oneida Nation came to a head after village officials fined the Nation for holding its annual Big Apple Fest without a village permit. The Seventh Circuit concludes that it is indeed Oneida Nation land.
Allegation: After actress Ashley Judd rebuffed advances by disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, Weinstein told director Peter Jackson that she was “a nightmare to work with,” leading to her losing a major role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Judd only learns of this years later after Weinstein’s harassment, when Jackson gives an interview recounting Weinstein’s statements. Ninth Circuit: And under California law, that is actionable sexual harassment. Case un-dismissed.
Allegation: Prescription pet food, which is substantially more expensive than regular pet food and unavailable for purchase without a veterinarian’s say-so, is a big con. There’s nothing medicinal in the food, and, since the 1980s, pet food companies have supplied vets with prescription pads as a marketing effort. Ninth Circuit (over a dissent): Which might violate California consumer protection law. The case should not have been dismissed.
Are Arizona State University’s disciplinary procedures for sexual misconduct cases biased against men, in violation of Title IX? Ninth Circuit: This Ph.D. student, accused of sexual misconduct by an on-again, off-again romantic partner will get to find out.
Ninth Circuit: Criminal stalking is categorically a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT), for which a green-card holder can be deported. Concurrence: This is the right outcome under our CIMT case law. Also, our case law is “dumb, dumb, dumb.”
Life protip: Don’t shine laser beams at police aircraft; they have equipment that can determine the source of the laser beam. Ninth Circuit law protip: Don’t violate the Fourth Amendment when you investigate the source of the laser beam, or we will have to throw out your case.
Okemah, Okla. stabbing victim tells police his assailant fled in a big, black Chevy truck with a trailer. Officers pull over a dark-colored Chevy truck sans trailer. When the driver doesn’t show his hands, one cop points a gun, and the driver drives away. The cop fires half a dozen times on the fleeing truck, and the truck runs into a ditch. Police do not render aid. The man, who had nothing to do with the stabbing, dies. District court: The cop was in no danger when he fired the shots; his actions were objectively unreasonable. Tenth Circuit (over a dissent): Just so. No qualified immunity.
As Denver, Colo. SWAT team arrives at controlled buy (or, more technically, a “reverse buy-bust”), the suspect draws a pistol. One second later, an officer shoots the suspect, killing him. Allegation: The suspect was trying to place his firearm on the ground and raise his hands in surrender. Tenth Circuit: Even if that were true, the officer couldn’t reasonably have known it in the one second between seeing the firearm and firing.
And in en banc news, the D.C. Circuit will reconsider its decision that the prosecution of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pled guilty to making false statements, must be dismissed because the feds now wish to dismiss it. (We talked about the now-vacated panel opinion on the podcast with the Cato Institute’s Clark Neily.) The Sixth Circuit, however, will not reconsider its decision permitting Tennessee to suspend indigent driver’s licenses over failure to pay traffic debt. Chief Judge Cole dissents. (We also dissent.)
Agencies within the Dep’t of Homeland Security seized over $2 bil in currency from travelers at airports nationwide between 2000 and 2016, $500 mil of which was taken because of missing paperwork. So finds an Institute for Justice report on DHS’ use of civil forfeiture at airports. The study is the first to use data from the Treasury Dep’t’s forfeiture database, the Seized Assets and Case Tracking System or SEACATS, which IJ fought for over four years to obtain. The report concludes that DHS airport currency seizures put innocent people’s property at risk without appearing to advance serious crime-fighting objectives. To ensure innocent Americans cease losing property unjustly, Congress must reform civil forfeiture. Read more about it in The Washington Post.
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