Month: July 2021

Bumble, the ‘female-friendly’ dating app that gave its entire global workforce (about 700 people) a paid week off in June to “de-compress” and “focus on themselves” after a “traumatic” plague year, is taking its policy of prioritizing the mental well-being of its workers one step further. The firm said Thursday that it would allow all its employees an “unlimited” amount of paid vacation each year – so long as their managers approve it.

The firm says it’s “understood” that the offer of unlimited leave is predicated on employees getting all of their work done. Additionally, the firm says it will close all global offices for one week every six months (to be sure, the firm will keep a skeleton crew working to address any issues with the app, or user complaints).

Bumble President Tarek Shaukat said the pandemic forced to rethink its approach to mental “wellness” in the workplace.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the way that we work, and need to work, has changed and our new policies are a reflection of what really matters and how we can best support our teams in both their work and life,” said Bumble president Tarek Shaukat.

If these policies seem tailored to elicit buzzy headlines bursting with approval from the lamestream press, it’s probably because they are. Chances are, this is merely more virtue-signaling from Silicon Valley as it competes to convince all the top young talent that tech is the place to be, not banking.

As the BBC is well aware, Bumble isn’t the first firm to try the unlimited vacation policy (though, typically, it’s unpaid beyond a certain point). Most who tried it found that staff actually take less vacation, not more, when they don’t have a set number of weeks per year which they are “owed”.

Ben Gately, chief operating officer at UK software firm CharlieHR, ended up offering staff other benefits such as more flexible working hours instead.

“People didn’t take enough [holiday],” Ben Gately told the BBC at the time.

“People are pretty bad at taking holiday, we’re all scared to do it because we have to do our handovers and pass stuff over and meet deadlines.

“There’s a huge amount of anxiety about not knowing the limit. A bunch of our team came to us and said: ‘Actually we’d love to know where the line is. Is it okay to take 35 days? Is it okay to take 25 days? Where should I draw the line?’ Because the reality is that it’s not actually unlimited.”

But Bumble clearly knows this, too, which is why they’re also launching a host of additional leave policies seemingly designed to tug at the virtue-signaler’s heart strings. These include: a minimum of 15 days bereavement leave for staff who suffer miscarriages, and an additional 20 days a year in vacation for staff who have been victims of “domestic violence and other violent crimes”.

Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd became the youngest woman ever to take a company public when Bumble IPO’d in February. Unfortunately for the firm’s shareholders, its stock price has shed nearly 40% of their value from its IPO highs.

And as the firm tries to turn things around, we somehow doubt that encouraging workers at your firm to do the bare minimum while footing the bill for generous vacation time isn’t the way to turn things around. What’s next? Will Bumble extend free vacation time for all ‘workers who menstruate’ to take off during their periods?

Multiple tweets indicate a powerful tornado has demolished buildings in the Bensalem Township, a township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that borders the northeast section of Philadelphia. 

Alertpage Inc. reports a GMC dealership has experienced a “major collapse.” 

BENSALEM, PA (BUCKS COUNTY) | *BUILDING COLLAPSE | 4427 E STATE RD @ GMC DEALERSHIP | MAJOR COLLAPSE REPORTED – MCI DECLARED #BREAKING

— Alertpage Inc. (@alertpage) July 29, 2021

The real-time public safety news Twitter handle says, “major damage throughout the area [Bensalem] – damage to multiple dwellings & reports of trees down.”

MAJOR DAMAGE REPORTED THROUGHOUT THE AREA – DAMAGE TO MULTIPLE DWELLINGS & REPORT OF TREES DOWN – AREA WAS UNDER TORNADO WARNING #BREAKING

— Alertpage Inc. (@alertpage) July 29, 2021

The area was under a tornado warning when a “confirmed” tornado ripped through the township. 

#BREAKING Confirmed tornado over Bensalem near Neshaminy Mall, Bucks Co, with hail size of ping pong balls. Moving southeast now. Take shelter now. @brittneyshipp @SteveSosnaNBC on air now @NBCPhiladelphia #severeweather pic.twitter.com/zBdLjOIYgr

— Jim Rosenfield (@jimrosenfield) July 29, 2021

A car dealership appears to have collapsed. 

Here’s a video of the collapsed building. There are reports of people “screaming underneath the debris.” 

🚨#BREAKING: Mass casualty incident declared following GMC Dealership collapse in Bensalem, Pennsylvania

📌#Bensalem l #PA

The building has collapsed onto numerous people following a potential tornado. Witness reports show people are screaming underneath the debris. pic.twitter.com/51kMTrKFmy

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) July 29, 2021

More views of the damage and storm. 

🚨Please do NOT venture out on the roads in Bensalem. Please allow emergency crews to get through and help our community. The photo below by Jeff Camp: Old Lincoln Highway by the Penn Valley Terrace Trailer Park. pic.twitter.com/yrBEhZbEYF

— Trevose Fire Company (@TFC484) July 29, 2021

Large tornado near Bensalem Pa. @NWS_MountHolly @spann pic.twitter.com/uLlHFNgXEX

— Josh (@JoshOknefski) July 29, 2021

#Bensalem pic.twitter.com/9fU36QTVon

— Shane B. Murphy (@shanermurph) July 29, 2021

#Bensalem
Unconfirmed reports of possible tornado having travelled through the area. pic.twitter.com/UtNTToa85f

— Shane B. Murphy (@shanermurph) July 29, 2021

*This story is still developing… 

By Greg Miller of FreightWaves,

When will the container capacity crunch finally ease? For an early indicator, keep an eye on production of the humble 40-foot dry cargo box. If the volume and cost of new containers pull back, supply chain pressures are abating. Unfortunately for beleaguered cargo shippers, these bellwethers now imply the opposite: that the scramble for container capacity is growing even more intense.

New container prices still rising

On Tuesday, the world’s largest container-equipment leasing company, Triton International, announced record results and provided the latest intel on box production.

The price of a new container, which had stabilized at around $3,500 per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) earlier this year, has risen again and is now at $3,800 per TEU. Prices are “at unprecedented levels,” said John O’Callaghan, Triton’s global head of marketing and operations, during the call with analysts.

The price of a new container at this time two years ago, pre-COVID, was around $1,600 per TEU, less than half the current level.

What’s particularly telling is that the price is rising at the very time Chinese factories are churning out more new boxes than they ever have before.

Record production in China

According to Triton’s estimate, which excludes sales to nonleasing and nonshipping buyers, factories built around 2.6 million TEUs of dry (nonrefrigerated/nontank) containers in H1 2021 — more than the 12-month totals in most years.

It estimated that 2021 production could reach just over 4.5 million TEUs, more than double the annual totals in the prior two years and almost 30% above the record set in 2018. The global container equipment fleet could increase 8% year on year.

Numbers from Drewry on global production of all container types show the same trend. As of May, Drewry reported that 2.66 million TEUs overall had been produced year to date, with factories on track to build at least 5 million TEUs this year. That would bring this year’s tally at least 18% higher than the all-time high in 2018. 

As previously reported by American Shipper, virtually all containers are built in China, where construction is dominated by three Chinese entities: CIMC Group, CXIC and Dong Fang. These three builders accounted for eight of out 10 containers built between January and May, according to Drewry. 

During a quarterly call in February, Tim Page, interim president and CEO of container-lessor CAI International, asserted, “The factories are behaving differently than they have in the past. They don’t have any interest in increasing production at the expense of price. I think it’s a new dynamic in our industry. And I think it’s going to stick. They’re more focused on maintaining high container prices.” 

Five months after that comment, the data confirms that Chinese factories have indeed increased production sharply, yet demand has been so strong that they haven’t had to sacrifice anything on price.   

Inventories still very low

Continued low levels of new container inventory confirm the strength of demand. “What’s being built is being absorbed,” said O’Callaghan. “What’s sitting on the ground is already booked and at most represents two to three weeks of supply. Despite production being at record levels, there is no spike in inventory.” 

Yet another sign of the shipping demand strength is the price of older containers sold for nonshipping uses. 

Just as virtually all older container ships that can still float are being employed, not scrapped, older containers are being kept in service longer. That leaves fewer to be sold in the secondhand market, which has pushed up disposal (resale) prices for aging 40-foot high-cube containers to 2.5 times levels seen a year ago. 

For container-shipping market participants such as investors and cargo shippers, disposal prices are another bellwether to watch. When the global capacity crunch finally eases, many more older boxes will become available for resale and these prices will fall back.

Congestion to persist into 2022?

Strong consumer demand is only one driver of the container shortfall. Port congestion also plays a pivotal role, by tying up equipment.  

Triton CEO Brian Sondey said during the call, “If you look at the number of vessels anchored outside of major ports like Los Angeles, it briefly got better during the second quarter but now it has gotten a little bit worse again. 

“When speaking with our shipping line customers, I think the general feeling is that these various operational disruptions are not likely to clear soon. 

“I’m not sure anyone has a perfect estimate for when we’ll see container flows get back to normal levels of velocity,” Sondey continued. “But what I hear is that it’s not likely this year — that a lot of these disruptions will carry forward into 2022. It’s the high continuing volumes that make it difficult to get the debottlenecking done.”

Container leasing profits soar

Congested supply chains are highly painful to cargo shippers but extremely advantageous to equipment lessors like Triton.

Triton reported adjusted net income of $144.2 million for the second quarter of 2021 compared to $60.1 million in the second quarter of 2020. Adjusted earnings per share of $2.14 topped the consensus estimate for $1.96.

Triton is using the current demand boom to lock in revenues via “very long-duration, high-return leases,” said Sondey. The average lease duration for containers ordered in 2021 is 13 years, far above the historical norm of five to seven years.

“Container leases are so long for two reasons,” he explained. “One is the strength of the market and that we like long-duration leases. It helps us lock in high returns. It’s also driven by the fact that container prices are extraordinarily high. Agreeing to very long-duration leases is a way for the shipping lines to mitigate even higher lease rates [for shorter durations] that we would need to charge right now, given how high container prices are.”

As if the ongoing moratorium on evictions (which shows literally zero signs of ever going away) wasn’t enough government “relief” for those suffering at the hands of the government mandated Covid lockdowns, the Biden administration is now going to be implementing a policy to reduce monthly payments by up to 25% for borrowers with federally backed mortgages who are at the end of forbearance. 

The program is going to allow those with mortgages from the Federal Housing Administration to extend the length of their mortgages and lock in lower monthly principal and interest payments, according to the Wall Street Journal. The changes are targeted toward those who took advantage of government forbearance programs that allowed them to skip payments for up to 18 months and still can’t make payments on time – which we’re guessing is going to amount to precisely everybody.

Most borrowers who took on forbearance plans at the beginning of the pandemic will start to see them expire around September and October and the country’s national foreclosure ban expires July 31. About 75% of new home loans are currently backed by the federal government, the Journal reports.

Bob Broeksmit, president and chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said that the new modifications are “an important additional step to give people the opportunity to stay in their homes after they had a hardship during the pandemic.”

As of now, about 1.55 million homeowners haven’t made mortgage payments in the last 90 days. The “bulk” of these homeowners have forbearance plans and are at risk of foreclosure. They make up a 2.9% slice of the 53 million active mortgages, down from 4.4% in August and September 2020, the report notes.

Many of the borrowers who the new program will affect “have lower incomes and make smaller down payments than people with other government-backed loans”, the report notes. Many have also been hit by job losses as a result of the pandemic. Advocating for the program, Broeksmit continued: “People don’t enter into mortgage borrowing with the notion that they can’t afford the payment.”

And in addition to this planned new aid, a $47 billion federal program has already been implemented to help tenants who can’t pay rent due to Covid. The Journal notes that state and local governments are “struggling to distribute the money,” however. 

Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research at Compass Point Research & Trading said: “If a reduction in monthly costs helps keep that borrower in their home until they are back on their feet, then it is a win for the borrower, policy makers, and Uncle Sam, as he owns the credit risk.”

We’re not sure that you know exactly what the words “credit risk” mean, Issac. But, we digress.

A few days ago, we shared some analysis from Goldman Sachs and other investment banks projecting that the surge across the US in newly diagnosed COVID cases attributed to the delta variant would soon fade, just as outbreaks in the UK, Continental Europe and India all have. They’ve been closely monitoring the situation because it’s now a key factor in their economic growth projections, and most expect delta will have a mild impact in heavily vaccinated Europe.

Now, Bloomberg has apparently caught on.

While hospitalizations and deaths are clearly higher in areas where vaccination rates are lower, rates are still well below their levels from just a few months ago. And although Dr. Anthony Fauci would have you believe that Delta might cause the end of the world as we know it, his isn’t the only view on the matter. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former director of the FDA, believes delta will peak within the next two to three weeks.

And after breaking the data down to the regional level, Bloomberg has apparently spotted some trends that suggest as Delta’s global conquest has been characterized by “hyperspeed spikes in infections that eased dramatically after about two months.”

The first US outbreaks that caught officials’ eye were in Missouri and Arkansas, and they both started in earnest around the end of May, per BBG.

They noted that the rest of the country will be keeping a close eye on both states (along with a handful of others, including California).

The rest of the US will be watching those states closely as infections spread. The cases are prompting authorities to reconsider masking and other public-health measures, but many state and local governments are doing so gingerly and only after outbreaks are well underway. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Wednesday that she would require masks again at indoor county facilities such as libraries.

Bloomberg also cited the following tweet from Dr. Gottlieb where he explained how Rt, a virus’s effective reproductive number, plays into forecasts of the virus’s spread. The logic behind it is pretty simple: If Rt falls below 1, then the virus’s spread should start to slow.

Gottlieb cited data from covidestim, a project with contributors from Yale School of Public Health, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Stanford Medicine, showing the Rt rate in the worst hit states is already trending toward 1. When the numbers did this in the UK, seen as being just a few weeks ahead of the US, cases quickly started falling off. 

Some of the states hardest hit by the Delta surge showing some indication that their epidemic waves could be starting to peak. https://t.co/gwGNlc544i pic.twitter.com/3M566nDLY6

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) July 28, 2021

Figures: Effective Reproduction Number (Rt).

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) July 28, 2021

Just some food for thought.

China’s defense ministry on Thursday unveiled that the PLA military is set to host major joint military drills with Russia in early August – to include more than 10,000 troops from both countries in China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region, in the north-central part of the country.

“The purpose of this exercise is to consolidate and develop a comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Russia,” defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian announced in a press briefing.

At a moment both countries are experiencing deteriorating relations with the United States, including Beijing increasingly in a sanctions tit-for-tat battle with Washington over Hong Kong, the spokesman additionally said, “It will also further demonstrate the determination and ability of both sides to combat terrorist forces and jointly maintain regional peace and security.”

Russia for its part is currently in a standoff with the US over cyberattack allegations and threats. President Biden actually said in a speech this week that potentially a future cyberattack scenario couple end up in a “real shooting war with a major power.” No doubt, he had primarily Russia and China in mind.

Further details of the August war games in China were detailed in South China Morning Post as follows: 

Wu said Chinese troops will come mostly from the Western Theatre Command, China’s largest military area, which oversees regions including Xinjiang and Tibet. Russian troops will be from the Eastern Military District. A joint command center will be established and exercises will focus on aircraft, artillery and armored equipment. There will also be training to improve joint reconnaissance, early warnings, electronic and information attacks and joint strikes.

It’s only been within the past few years that historically cold and tense China-Russia relations have warmed as both found themselves under the eye of a common enemy, resulting in recent joint war games unprecedented in size.

President Joe Biden warned that a significant cyber attack on the United States could lead to ‘a real shooting war’ with a ‘major power,’ highlighting what Washington sees as growing threats posed by Russia and China https://t.co/RmAW2Ig0YY pic.twitter.com/yk4fiR2VuT

— Reuters (@Reuters) July 28, 2021

Beijing also has likely timed these hugely provocative games, which will be watched by the Pentagon closely, as a “message” and warning to the Western military build up in the South China Sea, and as the US and Japan are more openly pushing the Taiwan independence issue. Britain also has a pair of warships currently in the South China Sea, ultimately en route to Japan where they will maintain a ‘permanent’ presence as a rapid response and ostensibly ‘counterterror’ force.

Russia’s much anticipated docking of its new module to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday involved a rare near-miss event which could have potentially resulted in disaster.

About three hours after Russia’s Nauka module successfully docked to the station, it unexpectedly and mysteriously started firing its thrusters, moving the entire station out of its normal position. “All told, the station lost attitude control [a term for the process of controlllng a spacecraft’s orientation relative to Earth] for a total of about 47 minutes, according to NASA officials,” one report said of the space drama.

During the ordeal which sent both the Russian side and NASA scrambling to immediately identify the problem, halt the thrusters, and then engage in a “tug of war” of sorts to get the ISS back in balance, the space station had in the end moved out of its normal orientation by around 45 degrees

Further details of the ordeal are detailed in Business Insider as follows:

The long-awaited science module had already encountered several technical issues on its way to the ISS, but once it docked to the space station on Thursday morning, it seemed to be in the clear. Then about three hours after its arrival — at about 12:45 p.m. ET — Nauka began firing its thrusters, which rotated the station by 45 degrees. Space journalist Anatoly Zak was among the first to notice something had gone wrong.

“Numerous particles are also seen outside the station indicating either major propellant leak or gas vent,” Zak tweeted.

And the fix came about as follows:

In response to the glitch, NASA’s flight controllers began firing thrusters on another part of the ISS, the service module, in what they called a “tug of war” to get the station back onto its normal orbital path.

Around 1:30 p.m. ET, ISS flight controllers announced that Nauka’s thrusters had finally stopped firing and the ISS had regained control of its positioning.

The flight controllers had reportedly been forced to activate thrusters aboard the Russian Zvezda module and a Progress cargo ship in order to reorient the ISS correctly.

ICYMI: Earlier today, the Russian Nauka module inadvertently fired its thrusters while docked to the @Space_Station. Mission Control teams corrected the action and all systems are operating normally. The crew was never in any danger. Stay tuned for a media telecon later today: pic.twitter.com/bjuDmdiZu5

— NASA (@NASA) July 29, 2021

After the incident NASA put out this official statement: “Earlier today, the Russian Nauka module inadvertently fired its thrusters while docked to the Space Station . Mission Control teams corrected the action and all systems are operating normally. The crew was never in any danger.”

RRP volume is quickly approaching $1 trillion a day, with today’s reverse repo usage hitting the second highest on record at $987.3 billion and just shy of $1 trillion.

And with QE still running at $120 billion a month, the Fed continues to inject liquidity into the markets, which then continues to recycle back to the Fed via the RRP facility.

So how big will the Fed’s reverse repo facility get? As Curvature’s Scott Skyrm calculates, assuming QE will not change between now and the end of the year, it is about to get much bigger.

During the month of April, RRP volume increased by $49 billion. $296 billion during the month of May, $362 billion* in June, and $124 billion in July. If RRP volume continues around the same pace, say $200 billion a month, RRP volume will reach $2 trillion by the end of the year.

Looking at the trendline, it puts RRP volume at $2.5 trillion by the end of the year. However, RRP volume at the end of the year will be a large number, meaning it could very well approach $3 trillion by year end.

A few rhetorical questions to conclude: what will be the impact of $2 trillion going into the RRP each day? How will this affect the markets? Will the Fed need to adjust the RRP rate again?

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We have been discussing the rise of advocacy journalism and the rejection of objectivity in journalism schools. The New York Times has been at the forefront of this shift away from traditional reporting but has increasingly found that the fluidity of advocacy journalism leaves it without any clear framework or standards. Consider the latest scandal at the Times.

Justice Department reporter and MSNBC contributor Katie Benner went on a rave about Republicans and called Trump supporters “enemies of the state.” She also made a not-so-veiled call for readers to vote against them. The Times has been in total radio silence over what, just a few years ago, would have been viewed as an outrageous violation of journalistic standards. Yet, just recently, it fired another reporter for a comparatively mild tweet supporting Biden.

Professional ethics, it seems, has become entirely impressionistic in the age of advocacy journalism.

Notably, many of us denounced Donald Trump for calling the New York Times and other media outlets the “enemy of the people.”  The media was aghast and the Times publicly condemned such rhetoric as “inflammatory.” Now, however, journalists like Benner are engaging in the same inflammatory rhetoric and the Times is conspicuously silent.

We have have been discussing how writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy. Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll has denounced how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that the journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”  Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

Benner tweeted on Tuesday during the first hearing of the Democrat-led Jan. 6 select committee was underway:

“Today’s #January6thSelectCommittee underscores the America’s current, essential natsec dilemma: Work to combat legitimate national security threats now entails calling a politician’s supporters enemies of the state.”

The MSNBC contributor also declared:

“As Americans, we believe that state power should not be used to work against a political figure or a political party. But what happens if a politician seems to threaten the state? If the politician continues to do so out of office and his entire party supports that threat?”…That leaves it up to voters, making even more essential free, fair access to the polls.”

Benner’s comments are indistinguishable from the Democratic members that she is covering.  The problem is that, while the Times has embraced advocacy journalism, its has not updated its guidelines which state that “Our journalists should be especially mindful of appearing to take sides on issues that The Times is seeking to cover objectively.”

While the tweets were deleted, the Times refused to respond to other reporters asking about the tweets.

Just recently, we discussed the firing of Lauren Wolfe, who was fired for saying that she had “chills” in watching Biden land at Andrews Air Force base. Wolfe later penned a column declaring “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That” — a full-throated endorsement of the new journalistic model of open bias and advocacy.

I was critical of Wolfe but the two cases leave many completely confused on the standards applied by the Times.  The confusion has been growing for years.

A year ago, the New York Times denounced its own publishing of an editorial of Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) calling for the use of the troops to restore order in Washington after days of rioting around the White House.  It was one of the one of the lowest points in the history of modern American journalism. While Congress would “call in the troops” six months later to quell the rioting at the Capitol on January 6th, New York Times reporters and columnists called the column historically inaccurate and politically inciteful. Reporters insisted that Cotton was even endangering them by suggesting the use of troops and insisted that the newspaper cannot feature people who advocate political violence.

While insisting that it will never again publish someone like Cotton, it has published columns from figures like one of the Chinese leaders crushing protests for freedom in Hong Kong. Cotton was arguing that the use of national guard troops may be necessary to quell violent riots, noting the historical use of this option in past protests. This option was used most recently after the Capitol riot.  Yet the Times has no problem publishing someone called “Beijing’s enforcer” who mocked pro-Democracy protesters as her government beat them and arrested them.

Likewise, almost on the one-year anniversary of its condemning its own publication of Cotton (and forcing out its own editor), the New York Times published an academic columnist who previously defended the killing of conservative protesters.

If none of this makes sense to you, that is because it does not have to make sense. Starting with the Cotton scandal, the New York Times cut its mooring cables with traditional journalist values. It embraced figures like Nikole Hannah-Jones who have championed advocacy journalism.

The problem with Benner was not that she is actively supporting Democrats or viewing Trump supporters as enemies of the state. The problem is that she said it a bit too openly. There remain slight sensibilities to be observed even the age of advocacy journalism. So she deleted the tweet and no one is much interested in how such biased reporters continue to cover such stories. Indeed, just this week, NBC’s Chuck Todd denied that there is a problem of biased journalism despite the long criticism of his own overt partisanship on the air.

In the end, it does not matter what happens to Benner. The lesson for others is to confine any such bias to framing coverage rather than directly calling for votes for Democrats or joining in on the condemnations of Trump supporters. One must keep up appearances even in the age of advocacy journalism.