For Halloween, CBS Unearths CSI: Vegas to Stalk the World Once More


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  • CSI: Vegas. CBS. Wednesday, October 6, 10 p.m.
  • Ghosts. CBS. Thursday, October 7, 9 p.m.

It’s October, so already network television is a grisly clutter of ghosts and phantasms and ambulating corpses. The most hideously unnerving of the bunch is CBS’ all-the-entrails-you-can-eat buffet CSI: Vegas—and not just for all the gloriously Technicolor viscera its stars toss around like liver-and-kidney-and-lung-flavored popcorn. If you’re thinking, hey, didn’t we already have a CSI set in Las Vegas, the answer is a dismal yes, and CBS necromancers have reanimated it, opening the very jaws of police procedural Hell upon us.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ran from 2000 to 2015, spawning four spinoffs and countless hours of incomprehensible toxicological jargon and retch-o-rama autopsy footage. TV cop dramas go back to the days of Highway Patrol and Dragnet (which was actually born as a radio series in 1949), so the hacky screenwriting and ventriloquist-dummy acting of CSI were hardly innovative. But the show’s open disdain for characterization was. A whole new termpolice proceduralhad to be invented for shows in which the stars were not actors but petri dishes.

CSI and its clones were eventually done in, like most of its clones, by the unholy invention of cable true-crime documentaries. By 2016, the last of its bastard progeny went to its unmarked Hollywood grave and there was hope for a television future. But word of its return has already aroused NBC, where another notorious procedural franchise, Law & Order, had wasted away from seven series to just one. Sure enough, the original Law & Order is now slated for a comeback, too. Cue the lightning, guys.

As for CSI: Vegas, it’s not much worse (and certainly not a bit better) than its creaky ancestor. Some of the characters, if you aren’t particularly discriminating in your use of the word, are back, including William Petersen as vicious-bug expert Gil Grissom, Jorja Fox as Sara Sidle, a Harvard chick with a thing for vicious-bug experts, and Paul Guilfoyle as Captain Jim Brass, a homicide supervisor so skilled that he got a rookie detective killed before the end of her first shift. The newcomers include Paula Newsome (Chicago Med), Matt Lauria (Parenthood) and Mandeep Dhillon (Star Wars: Episode IX), all scurrying around trying not to be mistaken for somebody else.

Otherwise, this CSI is indistinguishable from all the rest: The same spectacular camera zoom and splashy skyline photography. The same disturbing obsession with corpse porn. The same sawed-open ribcages, the same desiccated organs soaking in secret rehydration sauce, and the same dialogue that would gag a maggot. (One tech, gesturing at a filled-to-the-brim slop jar: “Is that stomach contents?” Second tech, nodding grimly: “Pomegranatehe was full of it.”)

But I did catch one revelatory quip after Newsome’s character pulled out a new device for illuminating rectums or some such. “Once upon a time,” murmurs another cop, “you’d have been burned as a witch.” CSI: Salem, coming soon!

The ghosts in the other new CBS offering, as the fall rollout of new broadcast shows continues into its fourth week, are literal. Also kinda easy to guess at since the name of the show is Ghosts. It concerns a young couple named Samantha (Rose McIver, iZombie) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar, The Mindy Project), who inherit a country estate and make plans to turn it into a B&B. What they don’t know is that the place comes with a couple dozen ghosts, the spirits of previous residents, and only Samantha can see or hear them.

The generally unterrifying ghosts date from different epochs. They include a hippie (Sheila Carrasco, Jane the Virgin) who wandered over from a neighboring rock festival and tried to cuddle up to a bear, with inauspicious results. (“Drugs were involved,” she confesses needlessly. Then there’s a hulking Viking (Devan Long, Bosch) who has spent a good deal of his eternity delivering lectures to his fellow ghosts on the subtle differences between species of cod.  And a decapitated stockbroker (Asher Grodman, Succession) whose death goes unexplained but may have something to do with the three companies he was pushing: Enron, Circuit City, and Blockbuster. All these spirits have one special power related to the manner of their deaths, which in the case of an 18th century militia commander (Brandon Scott Jones, The Good Place) who died of dysentery, you don’t really want to hear much more about.

Adapted from a BBC sitcom of the same name (though nonetheless suspiciously similar to an early-’50s CBS haunted-house comedy called Topper), Ghosts is more cute than funny. Though it must be given credit (if that’s the right word) for breaking the broadcast-TV barrier on a particular euphemism for fellatio, which the ghosts use frequently without any awareness of its modern American significance. Now, on to the rusty trombone.

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The Debt Ceiling Non-Crisis & Why Rates Will Fall

The Debt Ceiling Non-Crisis & Why Rates Will Fall

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The financial media is rife with misinformation on the debt ceiling and the jump in interest rates. However, a review of history shows that not only is the “debt-ceiling” issue a non-crisis, but the recent rise in rates is likely an opportunity to buy bonds.

Let’s start with the media scare tactics over the debt ceiling:

  1. If Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, the Treasury will run out of money.

  2. The U.S. will default on its debt.

  3. The markets and economy will crash.

While there is a grain of truth behind these statements, they are largely false. However, for the media, a manufactured crisis should never be allowed to go to waste. To wit:

“As Washington teeters closer to a possible government shutdown at midnight Thursday, here’s why the status of the nation’s debt ceiling may ignite more worry in financial markets.

Sept. 30 marks the end of the federal government’s fiscal year, and the deadline for Congress to pass a funding measure. The debt ceiling, which is the amount of money lawmakers authorize the Treasury Department to borrow, must be suspended or raised by Oct. 18, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, or the U.S. likely will default on its debt. – MarketWatch

CBS took the “fear-mongering” to a whole new level with this statement:

“The U.S. economy could plunge into another recession this fall if Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling and the nation is unable to pay its obligations, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi. The fallout would wipe out as many as 6 million jobs and erase $15 trillion in household wealth, he estimated in a report.”

While a remarkable statement to get “clicks,” even a cursory review of history suggests the hyperbole falls well short of reality.

Both Parties Equally Responsible For Lifting The Debt Ceiling

Let’s start with an explanation of the “debt ceiling.”

“The debt ceiling is the legal limit on the total amount of federal debt the government can accrue. The limit applies to almost all federal debt, including the roughly $22.3 trillion of debt held by the public and the roughly $6.2 trillion the government owes itself as a result of borrowing from various government accounts, like the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. As a result, the debt continues to rise due to both annual budget deficits financed by borrowing from the public and from trust fund surpluses, which are invested in Treasury bills with the promise to be repaid later with interest.” – CRFB

The entire purpose for establishing a debt ceiling was to place a “credit limit” on the Government. In a responsible Government, as the debt ceiling approaches, members of Congress should begin discussing budget cuts, spending reductions, or revenue increases. The goal, logically, is to keep the country in a “surplus” position over time.

In 1980, that all changed, and seven administrations and four decades later, Government debt surged, deficits exploded, and the debt ceiling rose 78 times. (49 times under Republicans and 29 times under Democrats.)

Has The U.S. Ever Defaulted On Its Debt?

“Investors in T-bills maturing April 26, 1979, got told that the U.S. Treasury could not make its payments on maturing securities to individual investors. The Treasury was also late in redeeming T-bills which become due on May 3 and May 10, 1979. The Treasury blamed this delay on the failure of Congress to act in a timely fashion on the debt ceiling legislation in April. Also, an unanticipated failure of word processing equipment used to prepare check schedules contributed to the delay.” – The Financial Review

What the mainstream media missed, because “fear-mongering” attracts readers, is there are two types of default. The first is an actual default where the borrower cannot pay its debts due to a lack of capital.

The second is a “technical default.” In 1979, as noted, the Treasury was hung up over a “debt ceiling debate” and could not make interest payments. There was little worry by lenders over the safety or security of their capital. They knew that when the U.S. resolved the “technical issues,” the Government would make its payments.

Such is the “crisis” bond investors currently face.

  • Could there be a short-term delay in making interest payments? Absolutely.

  • Is there any risk of a default on the payment of interest or principal on outstanding Treasury bonds? Absolutely not.

As shown, 10-year rates did spike shortly over the initial concerns of the default. However, as soon as bondholders realized there was no continuing threat, they began to buy bonds at a discount to the previous value. Over the next couple of months, rates fell as sanity returned to the bond market. (Later that year, rates would rise again over legitimate concerns of the oil crisis.)

The Democrats Have All The Power To Solve The Problem

Despite all of the media narrative we noted previously; the Democrats did not need ANY Republican votes to:

  1. LIft the debt ceiling

  2. Fund the Government via “Continuing Resolution,” or “C.R.”

  3. Pass the $3.5 Trillion spending bill.

The Democrats did what we expected on Thursday and passed a “clean Continuing Resolution” to fund the government until December 3rd.

The problem for the Democrats in separating the Continuing Resolution from the debt ceiling is they lost any leverage to force a bipartisan debt vote to suspend the debt limit. Such puts the Democrats in a precarious position. With no bipartisan support, the Democrats will own the entirety of the debt increases in the upcoming mid-term elections. Such could be very problematic for representatives from more moderate “purple” states like Virginia and Georgia. As a result, even progressive Democrats are pushing back on Biden and Pelosi’s “runaway” spending plans.

As noted above, it is not surprising to see Treasury yields rising once again. However, the current rate of change in rates is not historically dramatic and well within the context of what one would expect.

Debt Ceiling Crisis Redux

As Congress lifts the debt ceiling for the 79th time, the runaway spending and deficit increases continue to accelerate. The consequence of increasing debts and deficits is evident in the declining economic growth rates over the past 40-years.

During the last 12-years, a debt ceiling fight is an annual event between policymakers. The most prominent of which was in 2011 that led to a comprise to cut $1 trillion in spending. At that time, Ben Bernake launched the third round of Quantitative Easing to compensate for what was feared to be a “fiscal cliff” in 2013. Such was due to spending cuts getting automatically imposed.

As shown, rates spiked during the “debt ceiling crisis” as concerns over default rose. Subsequently, rates fell to new lows as deficits surged and economic growth slowed. Rates initially jumped over concerns of spending cuts, but the massive amount of QE injected into the system fueled stocks into overdrive, and yields collapsed.

Why Now Is Likely A Great Bond Buying Opportunity

There are several vital points evident from reviewing history.

  1. While politicians talk a tough game, the current debate over the debt ceiling is nothing more than political posturing.

  2. The media is a primary source of misinformation over the debt ceiling and potential outcomes.

  3. Bond investors should be welcoming the debt ceiling debate as an opportunity to buy bonds at cheaper prices with higher yields.

Are there currently risks to the bond market that investors should be concerned about near term? Yes. The current spike in inflation will likely last longer than expected due to the break of supply lines. Furthermore, rates tend to rise when the Fed begins to discuss “tapering” their bond purchases as they are doing now.

However, both of these issues will resolve themselves going forward. Eventually, the supply chain disruption will mend, and inflation will decline as supply comes back online.

More importantly, when the Fed does begin the process of “tapering” their bond purchases, yields historically fall as investor’s “risk-preference” shifts from “risk-on” to “risk-off.”

As if always the case with investing, timing, as they say, is everything.

Such is why, with interest rates at more extreme overbought levels, we are looking for our next opportunity to add duration to our bond portfolios. Moreover, with the equity market grossly overvalued, we suspect that bonds will provide a chunk of our capital gains over the next couple of years.

There is little upside to the equity market. However, when the next recession approaches, yields will once again likely approach zero.

Got bonds?

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/01/2021 – 15:00

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PwC Allows 40,000 Young Staffers They Can Work From Home

PwC Allows 40,000 Young Staffers They Can Work From Home

As the battle over “top talent” intensifies among the top banking, consulting and tech firms, PwC – which, like its Big 4 competitors, relies on thousands of young post-grad “analysts” to handle the tremendous churn of work generated by their thousands of corporate clients – has become the latest major company to cave on “remote work”.

According to the FT, PwC told 40K staffers in the US that they can work remotely from anywhere in the country, although they risk a pay cut if they move to areas with a lower cost of living.

They’re the first Big Four firm to allow staff to work remotely on a permanent basis. According to the plan, client-facing employees will be allowed to opt in to “virtual” roles, allowing them to work from home except during occasional office meetings and client visits (and any other important events).

Reducing pay based on cost of living is quickly becoming a standard approach, as Facebook, Twitter and Google have all opted for similar decisions.

PwC’s decision to allow its (primarily younger and less-senior) professionals to work primarily from home on a long-term basis is likely to force its Big Four rivals Deloitte, EY and KPMG, to consider whether they will need to do the same in order to retain staff.

“We have learned a ton through the pandemic, and working virtually, as we think about the evolution of flexibility, is a natural next step,” said Seals-Coffield.

“If you are an employee in good standing, are in client services, and want to work virtually, you can, full stop,” she said.

PwC expects between 30% and 35% of eligible staff to opt in to permanent remote working. Unfortunately, partners managing staff who come to the office regularly will not be allowed to work completely remotely (because this policy change is strictly designed to lure the top young talent, and once you’re an MD, you’ve already pretty much sold your soul to the firm).

It will leave the door open to reversing the policy if permanent remote work isn’t a success. “While these are not short-term moves and are intended to be ongoing options for our people, we will continue to evaluate and innovate – as we do with all of our policies, benefits and flexibility,” it said.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/01/2021 – 14:40

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BofA, Citi, JPMorgan All Blocked From Texas Muni Market Over Anti-Gun Virtue-Signaling

BofA, Citi, JPMorgan All Blocked From Texas Muni Market Over Anti-Gun Virtue-Signaling

Update (1430ET): It turns out JPMorgan is not alone.

As we noted below, the new Texas law is hitting all the bulge bracket, virtue-signaling banks.

Bloomberg reports that since the Republican-backed law took effect on Sept. 1, neither Bank of America, Citigroup, or JPMorgan has managed a single municipal-bond sale in the state.

These 3 banks were the biggest underwriters (and therefore fee takers) in 2020…

All three banks have come out publicly to block and fundraising for gun-makers and that is what Texas Senate Bill 19 addresses, blocking government from working with companies that have a practice, policy, guidance or directive that “discriminates against a firearm entity or firearm trade association.”

  • In 2018, Bank of America said it would stop making new loans to companies that make military-style rifles for civilian use.

  • That same year, Citigroup said it would prohibit retailers that are customers of the bank from offering bump stocks or selling guns to people who haven’t passed a background check or are younger than 21.

  • JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon told a Congressional committee this year that his bank won’t finance gun companies that make military-style weapons for consumers. 

Will they back down in the interest of fees? We highly doubt it.

*  *  *

Following Texas lawmakers’ decision to ban local government from working with Wall Street banks whose policies restrict the firearms industry, it appears JPMorgan is the first of the virtue-signaling banks to feel the pinch from the new law.

Earlier this year, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told a Congressional committee that his bank won’t finance gun companies that make military-style weapons for consumers.

In May, the Texas House of Representatives passed the bill that would block the state and local governments from contracting with banks and other financial-services companies that have policies that limit their work for the firearms or ammunition industries. The legislation reflected 2nd Amendment rights supporters’ furore over corporations pushing themselves into the increasingly divisive policies of America’s identity-politics wars.

And now, as Bloomberg reports, the first impact of the law is hitting Wall Street.

This week, JPMorgan was replaced by UBS as the underwriter of a bond issue for the Decatur authority, an arm of a 7,000-person Texas city that operates Wise Health System.

In July, the agency had disclosed that it was planning to have JPMorgan serve as senior managing underwriter on a financing that could include the sale of up to $150 million of bonds.

The authority cited “uncertainty related to the implementation of new legislation passed by the State of Texas,” though it didn’t specify which law.

Texas’ fast-growing population has made it one of the biggest markets for the muni-bond business and more troubling for the banks in general is the fact that Texas-based issuers accounted for $58 billion of debt sales in 2020, the second-most of any state behind California, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

JPMorgan was credited with working on $3.6 billion of long-term municipal-bond deals in Texas in 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Now that’s a lot of fees that JPMorgan, BofA, and Citi will be missing out on from here:

“While our business practices should permit us to certify, the legal risk associated with this ambiguous law prevents us from bidding on most business right now with Texas public entities,” Patricia Wexler, a spokesperson for the bank, said in an emailed statement.

Three words summed it all up to us – broke banks mounting!

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/01/2021 – 14:15

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Forget ESG, There’s Now A “Betting, Alcohol, & Drugs” ETF

Forget ESG, There’s Now A “Betting, Alcohol, & Drugs” ETF

Finally had enough of all the crowing about the magic and wonder of ESG exchange traded funds? We might have an ETF for you.

Listed Funds Trust is introducing an ETF called the “B.A.D.” ETF, which stands for “betting, alcohol and drugs”. The fund is going to track an index of betting, alcohol and drugs companies, according to Bloomberg, who cited a regulatory filing. 

The index was created by Thematic Investments LLC and includes equities, as well as American Depositary Receipts and Global Depositary Receipts from developed and emerging markets, the report says. It’ll be made up of casinos, gaming companies, alcohol and cannabis companies and companies that develop pharmaceutical products.

The fund will have a relatively lofty expense ratio of 0.75%. 

The ETF will be a nice respite for investors who have grown tired of the ESG charade. Recall, for example, we recently pointed out that funds are now simply rebranding as ESG-focused and watching inflows pour in.

 

“You have big fund companies with an inventory of funds, a lot of which aren’t really attracting assets anymore, saying ‘OK, here’s this new investment trend happening; what do we do,'” said Morningstar Head of Sustainability Research Jon Hale. 

35 of 64 rebranded funds since 2013 “were suffering from investor withdrawals in the three years before they went green”. Once the rebranding was complete, 13 funds saw investors put cash back into the funds. 

Meanwhile, funds like the USAA Sustainable World Fund holds more than $100 million worth of 47 fossil fuel companies. The Sustainable World Fund holds shares of mining companies like Rio Tinto, the report noted.

Mannik S. Dhillon, president of VictoryShares & Solutions, an investment adviser for USAA, told the WSJ:  “We believe incorporating ESG considerations into a portfolio should be an input under a larger mosaic of considerations any manager evaluates to achieve a well-balanced, diversified portfolio.”

The American Century Investment’s Fundamental Equity Fund was also seeing outflows for years before it rebranded in 2016. Since then, it has brought in $1.7 billion. 

For those looking to “stick it to the man” with Listed Funds Trust’s new ETF, the B.A.D. fund doesn’t have a ticker symbol yet. Might we suggest “F-ESG”?

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/01/2021 – 14:19

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Black Lives Murdered

You can see the data here and here. It appears likely that, as with homicide generally, the overwhelming majority of these extra homicides were intraracial, just as the overwhelming majority of the extra homicides of whites were likely intraracial.

Naturally, I very much support preventing unjustified police killings of blacks (and of whites and of others). But of course I’d like to see that happen together with a reduction of the vastly largely number of unjustified nonpolice killings of blacks (and others), rather than together with a sharp increase in net homicides.

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Black Lives Murdered

You can see the data here and here. It appears likely that, as with homicide generally, the overwhelming majority of these extra homicides were intraracial, just as the overwhelming majority of the extra homicides of whites were likely intraracial.

Naturally, I very much support preventing unjustified police killings of blacks (and of whites and of others). But of course I’d like to see that happen together with a reduction of the vastly largely number of unjustified nonpolice killings of blacks (and others), rather than together with a sharp increase in net homicides.

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California Becomes First State To Require Students Be Vaccinated To Attend School

California Becomes First State To Require Students Be Vaccinated To Attend School

Fresh of his victory in the gubernatorial runoff, California Gov. Gavin Newsom just announced that California’s schools will soon require all eligible public and private school students in 7th grade and higher in the Golden State to be vaccinated against COVID, a first-in-the-nation policy that Newsom says will impact millions of students by fall 2022, or possibly sooner.

The mandate would impact students in grades 7 through 12 and will be imposed during the next semester after (and assuming) the FDA gives full approval for vaccines for children ages 12 and older.

“This is just another vaccine,” Newsom said during a news conference after he announced the “state-wide” mandate, claiming the COVID jab would join “a well-established list that currently includes 10 vaccines and well-established rules and regulations that have been advanced by the Legislature for decades.”

Readers can watch the clip below:

Once the vaccines are approved for use in younger students, they will likely be phased in. Apparently, it doesn’t matter whether COVID is still a problem by then or not.

The mandate could take effect for students 12 and older as early as January 2022, if full federal approval comes along by then, the governor said during live remarks at a San Francisco school.

Presently, the vaccine is only approved for patients aged 16 or older, though Pfizer has published trial results and submitted them to the FDA, suggesting approval for students aged 12 o 15 could likely come before the end of the year. If this happens, all students in 7th grade and above will be required to get the vaccine, or attend online school – or home school – permanently.

Medical and religious exemptions will be offered, Newsom said.

What’s more, vaccines for students aged 5 to 11 are not that far off, which means the state could soon extend its requirements to all children in Kindergarten or older. Pfizer is expected to apply for authorization imminently with evidence that shows its vaccine is safe for children in that age range.

California was famously the first state to lock down, minting the “two weeks to stop the spread” slogan that’s remembered

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/01/2021 – 14:00

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The FDA Is Determined To Ignore the Decline in Underage Vaping Because It Weakens the Case for New Restrictions


nicotine-liquids-9-22-19-Newscom

According to the latest results from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), 11 percent of high school students qualified as “current” electronic cigarette users this year, meaning they reported vaping in the previous month. That’s down from nearly 20 percent in 2020 and nearly 28 percent in 2019—a 60 percent drop over two years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which conducts the survey, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates “electronic nicotine delivery systems,” both welcomed this evidence that the “epidemic” of underage vaping is abating.

Just kidding. Since acknowledging the sharp decline in e-cigarette use by teenagers would undermine the case for new restrictions on vaping products, including a ban on the e-liquid flavors that former smokers overwhelmingly prefer, the CDC and the FDA prefer to ignore that downward trend.

The CDC emphasizes that “approximately 2.06 million youths” in high school and middle school “were estimated to be current e-cigarette users in 2021,” adding that “use of tobacco products by youths in any form, including e-cigarettes, is unsafe.” Since vaping products do not contain tobacco and do not burn anything, which explains why they are much less hazardous than cigarettes, the CDC’s habitual conflation of them with “tobacco products” is not only inaccurate but willfully misleading. The slippery term unsafe likewise conceals a huge difference in risk.

The FDA says the latest survey results show that “youth e-cigarette use remains [a] serious public health concern.” However you rate that concern, it surely is not in the same ballpark as cigarette smoking, which according to the CDC causes more than 400,000 premature deaths a year in the United States. In this context, you might think the enormous harm-reducing potential of e-cigarettes, which the FDA itself has acknowledged, would rate at least a mention alongside the alarm about vaping by teenagers.

Lest that alarm begin to fade, the CDC warns that it would be misleading to compare the 2021 NYTS results to the numbers from 2020. “The 2021 NYTS was fully conducted amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, during which time eligible students could participate in the survey in classrooms, at home, or at some other place,” it says in its report on the 2021 NYTS. “Differences in tobacco use estimates by location might be due to potential underreporting of tobacco use behaviors or other unmeasured characteristics among youths participating outside of the classroom. Thus, estimates from the 2021 NYTS should not be compared with previous NYTS survey waves that were primarily conducted on school campuses.”

In other words, students who completed the survey at home may have been less honest than students who completed it in school. While that’s possible, it is also plausible that the enhanced sense of privacy at home increased candor. In any case, a footnote in the CDC’s report notes that “15.0% of high school students who took the survey in a school building or classroom reported currently using e-cigarettes,” which is still 23 percent lower than the rate in 2020 (19.6 percent) and 45 percent lower than the rate in 2019 (27.5 percent).

If “other unmeasured characteristics” explain why students who took the survey at home this year were less likely to report vaping in the previous month, the in-school number is probably misleadingly high. Furthermore, changes in methodology do not explain the 29 percent drop in “current” e-cigarette use by high school students between 2019 and 2020, which the CDC is also keen to ignore.

The FDA’s take on the 2021 survey results is especially disturbing given the agency’s bias against nicotine liquids in flavors other than tobacco, which are very popular among adults who switch from smoking to vaping, a change that dramatically reduces the health risks they face. “These data highlight the fact that flavored e-cigarettes are still extremely popular with kids,” says Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “The FDA continues to take action against those who sell or target e-cigarettes and e-liquids to kids, as seen just this year by the denial of more than one million premarket applications for flavored electronic nicotine delivery system products. It is critical that these products come off the market and out of the hands of our nation’s youth.”

While that statement is ambiguous, Zeller seems to be saying that “flavored electronic nicotine delivery system products” are intolerable because teenagers like them. That interpretation is consistent with the FDA’s regulatory decisions so far. The agency has rejected or declined to accept “premarket” applications for millions of flavored vaping products while emphasizing their appeal to adolescents. It has said it will allow flavored liquids to remain on the market only if manufacturers present “robust,” “reliable,” and “product-specific” evidence that their benefits in helping smokers quit outweigh the risk that they will encourage underage vaping.

As a general matter, the potentially lifesaving benefits of e-cigarettes for millions of smokers easily outweigh the danger posed by underage vaping, which has always been exaggerated and now seems to be waning. It is nevertheless unclear whether even the largest manufacturers—the ones with the resources to conduct the sort of expensive studies that the FDA seems to be demanding—can satisfy the agency that approval of flavored vaping products is “appropriate for the protection of public health,” taking into account “the risks and benefits to the population as a whole.”

That standard, mandated by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, gives the agency a great deal of leeway to reject applications based on a collectivist calculus that is both scientifically dubious and morally objectionable. To the extent that teenagers are vaping instead of smoking, which is what recent trends suggest is happening, that substitution should count as a public health benefit. And even if some teenagers who otherwise never would have tried nicotine become regular vapers, that fact cannot possibly justify depriving adult smokers of harm-reducing alternatives to cigarettes. A flavor ban would make those alternatives less appealing, discouraging some smokers from quitting and driving some vapers back to a far more hazardous habit. The result will be more smoking-related deaths than otherwise would have occurred.

Seven years after the FDA first asserted its authority to regulate e-cigarettes, it still has not approved any vaping products, which means all of them are “marketed unlawfully” and “subject to enforcement action at the FDA’s discretion.” The fact that the FDA continues to hype the “serious public health concern” raised by underage vaping, without acknowledging that the evidence supporting that concern is even weaker now than it was before, does not bode well for the way the agency will choose to exercise its discretion.

“For years, enemies of vapor products and their enablers in the press have worked to the benefit [of] Big Tobacco in trying to regulate our products out of existence,” Amanda Wheeler, president of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association, said in a press release. “Federal regulators routinely downplay or purposefully spin their own research to prop up an alarmist narrative based on a mirage, and deep-pocketed anti-vaping activist groups continue to ignore or conceal the large-scale public health benefits of our products. Some in our government and our paternalistic activist class seem hellbent on outlawing the single most effective smoking cessation method ever devised. It’s going to drive millions of people back to smoking and cost countless lives, and frankly, it’s despicable.”

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The FDA Is Determined To Ignore the Decline in Underage Vaping Because It Weakens the Case for New Restrictions


nicotine-liquids-9-22-19-Newscom

According to the latest results from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), 11 percent of high school students qualified as “current” electronic cigarette users this year, meaning they reported vaping in the previous month. That’s down from nearly 20 percent in 2020 and nearly 28 percent in 2019—a 60 percent drop over two years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which conducts the survey, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates “electronic nicotine delivery systems,” both welcomed this evidence that the “epidemic” of underage vaping is abating.

Just kidding. Since acknowledging the sharp decline in e-cigarette use by teenagers would undermine the case for new restrictions on vaping products, including a ban on the e-liquid flavors that former smokers overwhelmingly prefer, the CDC and the FDA prefer to ignore that downward trend.

The CDC emphasizes that “approximately 2.06 million youths” in high school and middle school “were estimated to be current e-cigarette users in 2021,” adding that “use of tobacco products by youths in any form, including e-cigarettes, is unsafe.” Since vaping products do not contain tobacco and do not burn anything, which explains why they are much less hazardous than cigarettes, the CDC’s habitual conflation of them with “tobacco products” is not only inaccurate but willfully misleading. The slippery term unsafe likewise conceals a huge difference in risk.

The FDA says the latest survey results show that “youth e-cigarette use remains [a] serious public health concern.” However you rate that concern, it surely is not in the same ballpark as cigarette smoking, which according to the CDC causes more than 400,000 premature deaths a year in the United States. In this context, you might think the enormous harm-reducing potential of e-cigarettes, which the FDA itself has acknowledged, would rate at least a mention alongside the alarm about vaping by teenagers.

Lest that alarm begin to fade, the CDC warns that it would be misleading to compare the 2021 NYTS results to the numbers from 2020. “The 2021 NYTS was fully conducted amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, during which time eligible students could participate in the survey in classrooms, at home, or at some other place,” it says in its report on the 2021 NYTS. “Differences in tobacco use estimates by location might be due to potential underreporting of tobacco use behaviors or other unmeasured characteristics among youths participating outside of the classroom. Thus, estimates from the 2021 NYTS should not be compared with previous NYTS survey waves that were primarily conducted on school campuses.”

In other words, students who completed the survey at home may have been less honest than students who completed it in school. While that’s possible, it is also plausible that the enhanced sense of privacy at home increased candor. In any case, a footnote in the CDC’s report notes that “15.0% of high school students who took the survey in a school building or classroom reported currently using e-cigarettes,” which is still 23 percent lower than the rate in 2020 (19.6 percent) and 45 percent lower than the rate in 2019 (27.5 percent).

If “other unmeasured characteristics” explain why students who took the survey at home this year were less likely to report vaping in the previous month, the in-school number is probably misleadingly high. Furthermore, changes in methodology do not explain the 29 percent drop in “current” e-cigarette use by high school students between 2019 and 2020, which the CDC is also keen to ignore.

The FDA’s take on the 2021 survey results is especially disturbing given the agency’s bias against nicotine liquids in flavors other than tobacco, which are very popular among adults who switch from smoking to vaping, a change that dramatically reduces the health risks they face. “These data highlight the fact that flavored e-cigarettes are still extremely popular with kids,” says Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “The FDA continues to take action against those who sell or target e-cigarettes and e-liquids to kids, as seen just this year by the denial of more than one million premarket applications for flavored electronic nicotine delivery system products. It is critical that these products come off the market and out of the hands of our nation’s youth.”

While that statement is ambiguous, Zeller seems to be saying that “flavored electronic nicotine delivery system products” are intolerable because teenagers like them. That interpretation is consistent with the FDA’s regulatory decisions so far. The agency has rejected or declined to accept “premarket” applications for millions of flavored vaping products while emphasizing their appeal to adolescents. It has said it will allow flavored liquids to remain on the market only if manufacturers present “robust,” “reliable,” and “product-specific” evidence that their benefits in helping smokers quit outweigh the risk that they will encourage underage vaping.

As a general matter, the potentially lifesaving benefits of e-cigarettes for millions of smokers easily outweigh the danger posed by underage vaping, which has always been exaggerated and now seems to be waning. It is nevertheless unclear whether even the largest manufacturers—the ones with the resources to conduct the sort of expensive studies that the FDA seems to be demanding—can satisfy the agency that approval of flavored vaping products is “appropriate for the protection of public health,” taking into account “the risks and benefits to the population as a whole.”

That standard, mandated by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, gives the agency a great deal of leeway to reject applications based on a collectivist calculus that is both scientifically dubious and morally objectionable. To the extent that teenagers are vaping instead of smoking, which is what recent trends suggest is happening, that substitution should count as a public health benefit. And even if some teenagers who otherwise never would have tried nicotine become regular vapers, that fact cannot possibly justify depriving adult smokers of harm-reducing alternatives to cigarettes. A flavor ban would make those alternatives less appealing, discouraging some smokers from quitting and driving some vapers back to a far more hazardous habit. The result will be more smoking-related deaths than otherwise would have occurred.

Seven years after the FDA first asserted its authority to regulate e-cigarettes, it still has not approved any vaping products, which means all of them are “marketed unlawfully” and “subject to enforcement action at the FDA’s discretion.” The fact that the FDA continues to hype the “serious public health concern” raised by underage vaping, without acknowledging that the evidence supporting that concern is even weaker now than it was before, does not bode well for the way the agency will choose to exercise its discretion.

“For years, enemies of vapor products and their enablers in the press have worked to the benefit [of] Big Tobacco in trying to regulate our products out of existence,” Amanda Wheeler, president of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association, said in a press release. “Federal regulators routinely downplay or purposefully spin their own research to prop up an alarmist narrative based on a mirage, and deep-pocketed anti-vaping activist groups continue to ignore or conceal the large-scale public health benefits of our products. Some in our government and our paternalistic activist class seem hellbent on outlawing the single most effective smoking cessation method ever devised. It’s going to drive millions of people back to smoking and cost countless lives, and frankly, it’s despicable.”

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