Month: May 2022

Florida Sheriff Arrests 10-Year-Old, Releases Mug Shot and Perp Walk, Then Uses Media Tour To Brag About It


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“Present deadly physical force at one of our schools, we’re not waiting one second. We are going to kill you, ’cause you can’t kill evil enough,” declares Lee County, Florida, Sheriff Carmine Marceno, in a TikTok video, in front of a pack of gun-wielding deputies, while Journey’s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” inexplicably serves as background music.

It sounds almost like a joke, something from a television show like Reno 911! that finds humor in some of the most awkward behaviors of law enforcement. It’s not. Marceno posted it on his YouTube channel Friday, part of his response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

Much less amusing was his department’s decision to respond to an alleged school violence threat by a 10-year-old by arresting him on Saturday, releasing the boy’s full name and a mug shot, and even a perp walk. The boy is accused of texting a threat to commit a mass shooting using images of assault rifles, according to Marceno. The parents of the recipient of the text contacted the police.

It seems likely that the boy had no plan to commit violence at all, and Marceno fully acknowledges this. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office obviously had to investigate the threat, even if it came from a child. That’s not in dispute. But Marceno has also decided to launch a public campaign out of the incident, using this boy to draw attention to what he thinks is the right way to prevent school shootings by deliberately humiliating children who act out in ways that can cause real fear.

Marceno is on a full press tour following the boy’s arrest, and he’s retweeting the press coverage of the decision to treat the child as though he was arrested for knocking over a bank. He’s telling parents that they need to sit their kids down and teach them that fake threats can have real consequences. In an appearance on Fox & Friends (which he has excerpted on his YouTube channel) he says, “We need to get back to the old school and hold people accountable.”

Marceno calls himself the “law and order sheriff” on his own video titles and Twitter feed (he even uses a hashtag, #LawandOrderSheriff), and the whole press tour has a weird feel of a branding effort rather than an actual educational drive.

In the days since the shooting, we’ve learned more about the Uvalde shooter, his troubled background, and his regular threatening behavior toward others. We’ve also learned that the Uvalde Police officers on scene absolutely and horrifyingly failed to properly respond to the violence unfolding at the school. In that context, the performative nature of Marceno’s behavior is certainly an attempt to try to reassure people that what happened in Uvalde won’t happen under his watch.

But there’s also a lesson here for those who think that more policing (and not effective policing) is the answer to school shootings. Policing schoolchildren doesn’t necessarily lead to more safety—but it does lead to more arrests of kids. It’s absurd now to look at the Uvalde shooter’s background and conclude that the shooting happened because he wasn’t shamed enough by police for his bad behavior. The Daily Mail notes that Marceno thinks his aggressive shaming response is part of a new “scared straight” effort that parents appreciate. And he no doubt has supporters who believe that this is the right approach: that if kids were punished more publicly for recklessly sending out threats, they’d stop doing it.

But research has shown that “scared straight” approaches—where police and courts expose troubled kids to the prisons and policing system in an attempt to get them to behave better—don’t actually work, and in fact may make problems worse. An analysis of studies of “scared straight” intervention programs published in 2013 found that they actually have a harmful effect on juveniles and don’t deter delinquency or crime in the long run. In fact, researchers found that crime increased among those who participated in such programs compared to those who did not.

Some people think it works, though, and Marceno certainly wants people to think it does rather than question the wisdom of making a media performance out of arresting a small child. He is making assumptions about what the child is going to learn from the experience, and what he thinks the kid will learn doesn’t match what researchers have discovered.

But it sure looks like Marceno is doing something, right? There is something to be learned here: An elected official will happily and proudly make a public performance out of humiliating a small child in order to bolster his own reputation, score media hits, and reinforce tactics that make certain constituencies feel like something is being done even if those tactics don’t actually work.

The post Florida Sheriff Arrests 10-Year-Old, Releases Mug Shot and Perp Walk, Then Uses Media Tour To Brag About It appeared first on Reason.com.

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Massive Fire Breaks Out At Poultry Farm That Supplies Eggs To Major Supermarkets

Massive Fire Breaks Out At Poultry Farm That Supplies Eggs To Major Supermarkets

A poultry farm in Howard Lake, Minnesota, that supplies the nation’s largest supermarkets with three million eggs per day experienced a devastating fire over the weekend. 

Forsman Farms spokesperson Jon Austin told local media outlet KARE that estimates aren’t firm yet, but anywhere between “tens of thousands of chickens were killed, up to a couple hundreds of thousands.” The spokesperson continued and said chickens in adjacent barns were affected by smoke inhalation. 

Video posted on YouTube by Eddie Olson shows massive flames lighting up the night sky on Saturday. 

“It’s a lot of chickens. It’s a hit to the egg market, it’s people’s jobs, it’s a local community. So any time anything big like that happens, it’s not good,” Olson said.

It’s unclear exactly how the fire started though impacts could be felt at supermarkets. This year alone, retail egg prices have soared 41% because of the deadly bird flu wreaking havoc on the country’s egg-laying hen flock. 

Since January, the outbreak has spread to 32 states, killing more than 37 million chickens and turkeys. Of that, 29 million egg-laying hens have died, or about 10% of the U.S.’ total flock of 300 million. Bloomberg recently reported the bird flu is “shaping up to be the worst outbreak of its kind.”

The blaze at the commercial egg farm in Minnesota comes as dozens of food processing facilities across Canada and the U.S. have experienced mystery fires and explosions over the past year, helping to strain the North American food supply chain. 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/31/2022 – 14:00

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Russell Clark: Buy The Dip Or Sell The Rip – Part 4

Russell Clark: Buy The Dip Or Sell The Rip – Part 4

By Russell Clark of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets Substack,

Last time I wrote one of these was March, and the conclusion was sell the rip, which has broadly proven correct. So time to update.

First things first, you have finally had high yield credit sell off to a level where it has paid to buy risk assets. With high yield now just shy of 7%, you are at levels where it made sense to buy in Q4 2018, and during Covid. So, this suggests its time to buy the dip.

You also have the VIX at 30, which is typically a good time to think about buying the dip.

However, the problem with that view is that the sell off in high yield has been accompanied by a sell off in all bonds, including treasuries. So the spread you are earning over treasuries still looks low.

The other problem is that long dated VIX has been rising, so what we find is VIX curve is flattish, which is neither very bullish of very bearish.

It must be said that its the same spread we got to in Q4 2018, which in hindsight turned out to be a good buying opportunity. However, that particular point, the Federal Reserve engaged in a pivot, allowing liquidity to re-enter the market. However at that time, food inflation was low allowing central banks to take a relaxed attitude to central bank policy. This is not the case now.

Market positioning is not that bearish, and inflationary pressures are still strong. Looks to me that its a market to sell the rip, if we get one.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/31/2022 – 13:40

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Slippery Slope Arguments in History: Aristotle

As I noted in my introductory post today, I’m planning on serializing my Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope article; and in between the substantive posts, I’ll be posting some examples of slippery slope arguments from various famous sources (and responses to such arguments). It’s mostly for fun, though partly to remind us about how deep these arguments run; here’s the first, from Aristotle’s Politics:

In well-blended constitutions therefore, if care must be taken to prevent men from committing any other breach of the law, most of all must a small breach be guarded against, for transgression of the law creeps in unnoticed, just as a small expenditure occurring often ruins men’s estates; for the expense is not noticed because it does not come all at once, for the mind is led astray by the repeated small outlays, just like the sophistic puzzle, ‘if each is little, then all are a little.’ This is true in one way but in another it is not; for the whole or total is not little, but made up of little parts. One thing therefore that we must guard against is this beginning ….

The post Slippery Slope Arguments in History: Aristotle appeared first on Reason.com.

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Biden (Almost) Admits That His Own Stimulus Spending Stoked Inflation


spnphotosten816699

In the first few weeks after taking office, President Joe Biden made a series of decisions that continue to have considerable influence on the American economy—which, naturally, has considerable influence on how the average voter views his administration.

“Joe Biden’s administration has dedicated its first few weeks in office to spending more money on pandemic relief—and shrugged off warnings that the economy may overheat as a result,” Bloomberg summarized in a piece published on February 9, 2021. That big bet on “run-it-hot economics,” as Bloomberg termed the move, was partially based on Biden’s campaign trail promises—including a promise to deliver yet a third round of stimulus checks to American households, even those that had not seen their income reduced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

And it was a bet backed up by a general consensus of liberal commentators, who warned that there was a greater risk from going too small than from going too big. The most important economic lesson for Biden to learn from the pandemic was that “a ‘hot’ economy with high deficits didn’t cause runaway inflation,” The New York Times’ Upshot blogger Neil Irwin wrote in January 2021.

Fast-forward to the 16th month of the Biden administration and it’s now painfully apparent that a hot economy with high deficits did in fact help to stoke price increases of the sort that Americans haven’t seen in 40 years. Yes, unexpected events like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and lingering pandemic issues in supply chains have contributed to inflation, but the underlying cause is the same as it always is when prices increase: too much money chasing the same amount of goods.

The economy, in short, is running hot—and the consequences are obvious.

Biden has spent months disingenuously trying to deflect blame for high inflation onto Russian President Vladimir Putin and other causes. On Tuesday, however, the White House pivoted to a new approach. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Biden outlined what he calls a three-part “plan for fighting inflation.”

The op-ed serves as a useful illustration of the Biden administration’s muddled thinking about the current state of the economy, as well as its powerlessness to actually combat the inflation it unleashed on the country.

Before even getting to his three-point plan, Biden reassures readers that he understands their concerns: “I grew up in a family where it mattered when the price of gas or groceries rose. We felt it around the kitchen table.” Then the op-ed veers into several paragraphs that seem like stump speech about the underlying strength of the economy. “The job market is the strongest since the post-World War II era,” Biden argues, in part, due to “the fastest decline in unemployment on record, and millions of Americans getting jobs with better pay.”

That’s as confused as it is misleading. If everything is great, why are Americans anxious? Maybe because those “jobs with better pay” aren’t enough to keep up with inflation, leaving many workers with bigger paychecks but larger bills for everything from groceries and gas to rent and electricity.

Biden’s argument also ignores how the White House’s assurances about the economy have been wildly wrong in the past. “On July 19, 2021, President Biden played down the risk of persistent inflation, telling reporters that price hikes ‘are expected to be temporary.’ This month, Biden called reining in prices his ‘top domestic priority,'” The Washington Post pointed out on Tuesday.

So what about Biden’s three-step plan to fix the things that are, in his telling, already going great? First, Biden says he’ll stand aside and let the Federal Reserve handle things. “Past presidents have sought to influence its decisions inappropriately,” Biden writes in the Wall Street Journal. “I won’t do that.”

Translation: Get ready for higher interest rates throughout the economy. That’s the Fed’s main tool for controlling inflation, one that the central bank is already deploying. Higher interest rates encourage saving rather than spending, which is an effective way to cool an economy running too hot by giving those excess dollars something else to do rather than chase the limited number of goods available.

By signaling that he won’t try to pressure the Federal Reserve into not raising interest rates further, Biden is admitting that the economy is running too hot. This is the closest we’re likely to get to an admission that his presidency pulled the wrong economic levers during those crucial first weeks and months.

The second and third parts of Biden’s inflation-fighting plan are not much of a plan at all. He promises “to take every practical step to make things more affordable for families during this moment of economic uncertainty” without offering much in the way of specifics about how to do that. That’s probably for the best. The White House can’t control prices—as the past year demonstrates—and history suggests that any attempt to set price controls will backfire spectacularly.

Biden also waves at other scapegoats like “the exorbitant fees that foreign ocean freight companies charge to move products,” but it’s hard to take him seriously about that as long as The Jones Act—a 1920s law that jacks up the cost of shipping goods into American ports—remains in effect.

Finally, Biden promises to “keep reducing the federal deficit, which will help ease price pressures.” Reducing the deficit would indeed be a good idea, but Biden’s claim of being a deficit-cutter is as disingenuous as his administration’s attempts to deflect blame for inflation. As the Congressional Budget Office made clear in a report published last week, policies enacted under Biden’s signature have hiked the country’s long-term deficit by about $2.4 trillion.

Biden’s three-point plan for fighting inflation is really just a one-point plan—let the Fed fix this mess—because points two and three are things he either can’t actually do (lower prices and fix supply chains) or things he is actively working against (reducing the deficit).

The president is largely powerless here, because the ideal time to prevent inflation is before it begins. Unfortunately, Biden willingly discarded that option.

The post Biden (Almost) Admits That His Own Stimulus Spending Stoked Inflation appeared first on Reason.com.

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Slippery Slope Arguments in History: Aristotle

As I noted in my introductory post today, I’m planning on serializing my Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope article; and in between the substantive posts, I’ll be posting some examples of slippery slope arguments from various famous sources (and responses to such arguments). It’s mostly for fun, though partly to remind us about how deep these arguments run; here’s the first, from Aristotle’s Politics:

In well-blended constitutions therefore, if care must be taken to prevent men from committing any other breach of the law, most of all must a small breach be guarded against, for transgression of the law creeps in unnoticed, just as a small expenditure occurring often ruins men’s estates; for the expense is not noticed because it does not come all at once, for the mind is led astray by the repeated small outlays, just like the sophistic puzzle, ‘if each is little, then all are a little.’ This is true in one way but in another it is not; for the whole or total is not little, but made up of little parts. One thing therefore that we must guard against is this beginning ….

The post Slippery Slope Arguments in History: Aristotle appeared first on Reason.com.

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Turkey Expands Demands For Finland, Sweden NATO Entry: Change Domestic Laws

Turkey Expands Demands For Finland, Sweden NATO Entry: Change Domestic Laws

Turkey on Tuesday said it has communicated its demands to Finland and Sweden which must be met if they hope to join NATO. Last Friday, delegations representing the Scandinavian countries headed home from Ankara with a list of Turkey’s concerns. A Turkish official previously told Reuters of the talks which made no progress, “They need to take concrete steps that will be difficult. Further negotiations will continue. But a date doesn’t seem very close.”

“Finland and Sweden should change their laws if needed to meet Turkey’s demands and win its backing for their bid to join NATO, the Turkish foreign minister said on Tuesday, doubling down on a threat to veto a historic enlargement of the alliance,” Reuters says in its latest reporting. Ankara has said it’s awaiting a response after handing over documents to the countries’ representatives.

Turkish Presidency’s office, via Reuters

Cavusoglu said Turkey, which makes up the NATO alliance’s second largest military, will keep its veto in place unless its demands are met. All 30 countries that make of the military bloc must approve of membership expansion.

“Are our demands impossible? No. We want them to halt their support for terror,” Cavusoglu said to state-run Anadolu news agency.

But the hurdles for Finland and Sweden’s dual ascension amid the Turkish objection now look more significant than ever, given that Cavusoglu stressed the countries would actually have to change their domestic laws. He said:

“They put it this way: ‘since we are far away from terror regions, our laws are designed that way’. Well, then you need to change them,” he said. “They say it is allowed for the terrorist organization to organize events and wave their flags around. Then you have to change your law.”

In describing what was outlined to Finland and Sweden, the Turkish top diplomat detailed they must:

  • halt their support for the PKK and other groups

  • bar them from organizing any events on their territory

  • extradite those sought by Turkey on terrorism charges

  • support Ankara’s military and counter-terrorism operations

  • lift all arms exports restrictions

Particularly the ban on PKK-linked groups’ ability to “organize events” would require a drastic change in ‘right to assembly’-related laws on a domestic front, which is probably a tall order, given it would first require designating the PKK and its officials a listed terror organization inside Finland and Sweden. Further, the list has gone from merely requesting “halting support” to the PKK, to demanding that Helsinki and Stockholm actively support Turkey’s “military and counter-terrorism operations”.

Meanwhile, a statement from Erdogan’s office said, “Eventually Finland’s government must decide which is more important — to join NATO or protect these kinds of organizations.”

Given all of this, as some have already predicted this means “fast-tracking” the countries’ ascension is all but dead as a realistic option. At this point, their membership bids could even take years.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/31/2022 – 13:23

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Florida School District Accused Of Instructing Staff To Hide Student “Gender Transitions” From Parents

Florida School District Accused Of Instructing Staff To Hide Student “Gender Transitions” From Parents

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Broward County (Florida) Public Schools’ district has been accused by a parents advocacy group of instructing staff to promote transgenderism to children, and then to hide from parents any requests students have to ‘transition’.

The Parents Defending Education group points to a document that the school distributed to teachers called the “Broward County Public Schools LGBTQ Critical Support Guide”.

The manual states that for children in grades 6 through 12 grades before notifying “any parent or guardian regarding the transition process, school staff should work closely with the student to assess the degree to which, if any, the parent(s) or guardian will be involved in the process and must carefully consider the health, well-being and safety of the transitioning student.”

The document also states that teachers and officials should use a “Gender Support and Transition Planning Guide” to determine “when and how this [transition] is communicated to students and their parent(s)/guardian.”

It also outlines that staff must not use gendered terms like ‘girls and boys’, and must use preferred pronouns and “affirmed first name[s],” which will be entered into the District’s Student Information System.

The document also says that students identifying as the opposite gender will “have access to the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity asserted at school,” and that on field trips “[i]f students are to be separated based on gender, the transgender student should be allowed to room with peers that match their gender identity.”

The guide also claims that “The expression of transgender identity, or any other form of gender-expansive behavior, is a healthy, appropriate and typical aspect of human development.” 

In a statement, Parents Defending Education asserted that:

“Broward County school officials must not be aware that gender dysphoria is listed in the DSM-5 since they have declared in an official and public document that the expression of transgender identity is healthy, appropriate and typical. Add to that their recommendation that children transition over the summer and their promise to deceive parents, and their position is indefensible and flies in the face of the promise to do no harm.”

The development comes in the wake of the Biden Administration’s Education Secretary refusing to answer a question during a Senate hearing on whether school districts should keep a child’s involvement in gender transition a secret from parents:

Cardona also suggested that biological boys should be allowed to compete against girls in sports, and even accused his questioner, GOP Congressman Jim Banks, of wanting to exclude children by discussing their biological gender.

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Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/31/2022 – 13:12

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Biden (Almost) Admits That His Own Stimulus Spending Stoked Inflation


spnphotosten816699

In the first few weeks after taking office, President Joe Biden made a series of decisions that continue to have considerable influence on the American economy—which, naturally, has considerable influence on how the average voter views his administration.

“Joe Biden’s administration has dedicated its first few weeks in office to spending more money on pandemic relief—and shrugged off warnings that the economy may overheat as a result,” Bloomberg summarized in a piece published on February 9, 2021. That big bet on “run-it-hot economics,” as Bloomberg termed the move, was partially based on Biden’s campaign trail promises—including a promise to deliver yet a third round of stimulus checks to American households, even those that had not seen their income reduced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

And it was a bet backed up by a general consensus of liberal commentators, who warned that there was a greater risk from going too small than from going too big. The most important economic lesson for Biden to learn from the pandemic was that “a ‘hot’ economy with high deficits didn’t cause runaway inflation,” The New York Times’ Upshot blogger Neil Irwin wrote in January 2021.

Fast-forward to the 16th month of the Biden administration and it’s now painfully apparent that a hot economy with high deficits did in fact help to stoke price increases of the sort that Americans haven’t seen in 40 years. Yes, unexpected events like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and lingering pandemic issues in supply chains have contributed to inflation, but the underlying cause is the same as it always is when prices increase: too much money chasing the same amount of goods.

The economy, in short, is running hot—and the consequences are obvious.

Biden has spent months disingenuously trying to deflect blame for high inflation onto Russian President Vladimir Putin and other causes. On Tuesday, however, the White House pivoted to a new approach. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Biden outlined what he calls a three-part “plan for fighting inflation.”

The op-ed serves as a useful illustration of the Biden administration’s muddled thinking about the current state of the economy, as well as its powerlessness to actually combat the inflation it unleashed on the country.

Before even getting to his three-point plan, Biden reassures readers that he understands their concerns: “I grew up in a family where it mattered when the price of gas or groceries rose. We felt it around the kitchen table.” Then the op-ed veers into several paragraphs that seem like stump speech about the underlying strength of the economy. “The job market is the strongest since the post-World War II era,” Biden argues, in part, due to “the fastest decline in unemployment on record, and millions of Americans getting jobs with better pay.”

That’s as confused as it is misleading. If everything is great, why are Americans anxious? Maybe because those “jobs with better pay” aren’t enough to keep up with inflation, leaving many workers with bigger paychecks but larger bills for everything from groceries and gas to rent and electricity.

Biden’s argument also ignores how the White House’s assurances about the economy have been wildly wrong in the past. “On July 19, 2021, President Biden played down the risk of persistent inflation, telling reporters that price hikes ‘are expected to be temporary.’ This month, Biden called reining in prices his ‘top domestic priority,'” The Washington Post pointed out on Tuesday.

So what about Biden’s three-step plan to fix the things that are, in his telling, already going great? First, Biden says he’ll stand aside and let the Federal Reserve handle things. “Past presidents have sought to influence its decisions inappropriately,” Biden writes in the Wall Street Journal. “I won’t do that.”

Translation: Get ready for higher interest rates throughout the economy. That’s the Fed’s main tool for controlling inflation, one that the central bank is already deploying. Higher interest rates encourage saving rather than spending, which is an effective way to cool an economy running too hot by giving those excess dollars something else to do rather than chase the limited number of goods available.

By signaling that he won’t try to pressure the Federal Reserve into not raising interest rates further, Biden is admitting that the economy is running too hot. This is the closest we’re likely to get to an admission that his presidency pulled the wrong economic levers during those crucial first weeks and months.

The second and third parts of Biden’s inflation-fighting plan are not much of a plan at all. He promises “to take every practical step to make things more affordable for families during this moment of economic uncertainty” without offering much in the way of specifics about how to do that. That’s probably for the best. The White House can’t control prices—as the past year demonstrates—and history suggests that any attempt to set price controls will backfire spectacularly.

Biden also waves at other scapegoats like “the exorbitant fees that foreign ocean freight companies charge to move products,” but it’s hard to take him seriously about that as long as The Jones Act—a 1920s law that jacks up the cost of shipping goods into American ports—remains in effect.

Finally, Biden promises to “keep reducing the federal deficit, which will help ease price pressures.” Reducing the deficit would indeed be a good idea, but Biden’s claim of being a deficit-cutter is as disingenuous as his administration’s attempts to deflect blame for inflation. As the Congressional Budget Office made clear in a report published last week, policies enacted under Biden’s signature have hiked the country’s long-term deficit by about $2.4 trillion.

Biden’s three-point plan for fighting inflation is really just a one-point plan—let the Fed fix this mess—because points two and three are things he either can’t actually do (lower prices and fix supply chains) or things he is actively working against (reducing the deficit).

The president is largely powerless here, because the ideal time to prevent inflation is before it begins. Unfortunately, Biden willingly discarded that option.

The post Biden (Almost) Admits That His Own Stimulus Spending Stoked Inflation appeared first on Reason.com.

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World’s Largest Automaker Misses April Global Production, Slashes Estimates For June 

World’s Largest Automaker Misses April Global Production, Slashes Estimates For June 

The world’s top automaker reported a decline in global production in April. It slashed June production expectations, indicating semiconductor chip shortage and supply chain disruptions in China due to factory shutdowns weighed on production. 

Toyota reported Monday that April sales were 692,259, which fell 9.1% from the same month last year, missing the mark of a planned 750,000 vehicles worldwide, according to Reuters. 

Last week, the automaker slashed its June production twice. In total, the company has now cut 150,000 vehicles to 800,000. 

Toyota expects to produce 9.7 million vehicles worldwide for the entire year, though it could lower estimates later this summer. 

The weak figures come as Japan’s factory output tumbled last month as China’s zero COVID policies hampered manufacturing and dampened prospects for growth in the world’s third-largest economy.

Economic storm clouds are gathering over Japan as Shigeto Nagai, head of Japan economics at Oxford Economics, warned a more significant risk to Japan’s economy than slowing industrial activity is private consumption.

“Although we are now seeing an impressive recovery driven by pent-up demand, the strength of consumption will be severely constrained by a sharp squeeze in real household income caused by a combination of higher inflation and stagnant wage growth.

“The weak yen is also clearly a negative to households and consumption, which is supposed to take a lead in the coming recovery after the coronavirus,” Nagai told Al Jazeera. 

However, Nagai believes the industrial production slowdown is “temporary” and could take another few months to pick back up again as China reopens. 

“I think the slowdown in industrial production today is temporary mainly reflecting disruptions in supply chains and production activities by COVID-related lockdowns in China. 

“Japan’s exports and production will continue to be affected by the lockdowns for another few months but will regain momentum thereafter. We have limited concern about the prospect of Japan’s manufacturing activities amid strong demand for high-end capital goods and autos. The weak yen will also help exports,” he said. 

Besides Toyota, Honda and Nissan, two other top automakers in the country announced Monday that output last month slid on a year-on-year basis because of chip shortages and other supply disruptions related to China lockdowns. 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/31/2022 – 12:52

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