AI and the Law on FIRE’s “So To Speak” Podcast (with Nico Perrino, David Greene [EFF], Alison Schary, and Me)

The title is “Artificial intelligence: Is It Protected by the First Amendment?,” but we covered more than that. I much enjoyed it, and I hope you will, too! Here’s FIRE’s summary:

What does the rise of artificial intelligence mean for the future of free speech and the First Amendment? Who is liable for what AI produces? Can you own a copyright for works produced by AI? Does AI itself violate intellectual property rights when it uses others’ information to generate content? What about that Morgan Freeman “deep fake”? And is ChatGPT going to make all of our jobs irrelevant?

Guests:

  • Eugene Volokh, professor at UCLA School of Law
  • David Greene, senior staff attorney and civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
  • Alison Schary, partner at Davis Wright Tremaine

www.sotospeakpodcast.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@freespeechtalk Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/freespeechtalk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freespeechtalk/ Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org

The post AI and the Law on FIRE's "So To Speak" Podcast (with Nico Perrino, David Greene [EFF], Alison Schary, and Me) appeared first on Reason.com.

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That Time We Tried To Make Sense of a Statistic in a New York Times Story on Deepfakes


That Time We Tried To Make Sense of a Statistic in a New York Times Story on Deepfakes.

About a third of the way into a New York Times piece about the prospects for regulating “deepfake” technology, a striking statement appears:

Some experts predict that as much as 90 percent of online content could be synthetically generated within a few years.

It’s striking because it’s frustrating: The sentence grabs your attention with a huge number (90 percent!), but it doesn’t convey what the number means. For one thing, there’s that weasel-phrase “as much as”—just how much wiggle room is that masking? And what counts as “online content”? The passages before and after this line are explicitly about deepfakes, but strictly speaking even bot spam is “synthetically generated.” What precisely are we talking about here?

Fortunately, the sentence had a hyperlink in it. When I clicked, I found myself at a report from the European law enforcement agency Europol. And on page 5, it says this:

Experts estimate that as much as 90% of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026. Synthetic media refers to media generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence (AI). In most cases, synthetic media is generated for gaming, to improve services or to improve the quality of life, but the increase in synthetic media and improved technology has given rise to disinformation possibilities, including deepfakes.

That helps a bit: We’re not talking about spam, but we’re not just talking about deepfakes either. But it still doesn’t really say how we’re defining the denominator here (90 percent of what?), and we still have that hazy “as much as.”

Fortunately, Europol also cites a source: Nina Schick’s 2020 book Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse. And using Amazon’s “look inside” feature to search for the number 90, I was able to find the original source of the figure:

To understand more, I spoke to Victor Riparbelli, the CEO and Founder of Synthesia, a London-based start-up that is generating synthetic media for commercial use….At Synthesia, he and his team are already generating synthetic media for their clients, who he says are mostly Fortune 500 companies. Victor explains that they are turning to AI-generated videos for corporate communications, because it gives them a lot more flexibility. For example, the technology enables Synthesia to produce a video in multiple languages at once. As the technology improves, Victor tells me, it will become ubiquitous. He believes that synthetic video may account for up to 90 per cent of all video content in as little as three to five years.

And so:

1. We’re not talking about all online content. We’re talking about all video content.

2. It wasn’t “some experts” who predicted this. It was one expert. And he’s a guy who runs a company that generates synthetic media, so he has every reason to hype it.

3. He offered his forecast in a book published in August 2020, so we might—depending on when exactly Schick’s interview with him took place—already be in that three-to-five-year zone. Technically, I suppose his prediction has already come true: The amount of online video content that is synthetically generated is indeed somewhere between 0 and 90 percent.

Does any of this tell us anything about the coming impact of deepfakes? I suppose it supports the general idea that these technologies are getting better and becoming more common, but I already knew that before I read any of this. Even if that sentence in the Times had been more accurate, it wouldn’t have illuminated much; it’s basically there as a prop.

But it does tell us something that this story discussing the dangers that deepfakes purportedly pose to the information environment would itself include a little misinformation. This misinformation is being spread not by some spooky new tech, but through the tried-and-true method of saying something misleading with the imprimatur of authority. For the average reader, that would be the authority of The New York Times; for the Times reporter, it was the authority of Europol.

If you talk with people who track the spread of rumors online, you’ll often hear that it doesn’t take an avant-garde technology to convince people of something that isn’t true—just mislabel a photo or misquote a speech, and your deception might take off among the people who are already inclined to believe what you’re telling them. Deepfakes themselves don’t worry me tremendously. Society has adjusted to new forms of visual fakery before, and it can surely do so again. Better to worry about something as old as humanity: our capacity to find reasons to believe whatever we want.

The post That Time We Tried To Make Sense of a Statistic in a <i>New York Times</i> Story on Deepfakes appeared first on Reason.com.

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Title IX, Gender Identity, and the Consequences of Equity

On my last day of guest blogging, I want to begin by returning to the question of trans females participating on female-only teams and what, if anything, Title IX has to say about it.

On December 16, 2022, the Second Circuit decided a case, Soule v. Connecticut Ass’n of Schools, Inc., in which high school female athletes claimed that the defendant violated Title IX by permitting trans females to compete against them in track and field. The case was dismissed, primarily on justiciability grounds, and the Second Circuit affirmed. The interesting part for me though, was the positions taken by the federal government in the district court.

During the Trump Administration, the federal government took plaintiffs’ side, apprising the court that an investigation by the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education had concluded that there likely was a Title IX violation. When the Biden Administration came in, it withdrew that position and apprised the court that the DOE’s enforcement letters were unauthorized because they had not been approved by OMB. The Biden Administration has subsequently taken the position that Title IX requires schools receiving federal funds to allow trans females to participate on female-only teams.

Thus, both administrations (and both sides of the issue) think Title IX has something to say about the question, and that Title IX requires (as opposed to merely permits) the position they favor. This is different from most statutory interpretation questions in which one side usually claims that some practice—say, race-conscious affirmative action—is prohibited and the other simply argues that it is permitted (i.e., not prohibited). Maybe there’s an analogy in the arguments surrounding the religion clauses of the First Amendment, but at least there’s two different provisions there (the Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause). At the very least, it is unusual.

We touched on the pro-trans female side on Tuesday when we discussed the difficulties of discerning individual cases of discrimination when sex segregation is otherwise permitted. A trans female forced to compete on a male team is being treated exactly like persons of the opposite gender identity, so it would be hard to characterize it as “sex” discrimination even if that term includes gender identity. If it does not, and the trans female’s sex is deemed male, that person is being treated differently from those of the opposite sex, but in the same way that every athlete deemed male is being treated differently.

What about the other side? The argument that permitting the trans female to compete on female teams violates Title IX depends on administrative interpretations that Title IX’s application to sports precludes open teams in which skill is the criterion for selection. Indeed, it goes beyond those interpretations, which only require rough proportionality in participation that is probably not affected by the participation of just a few trans females. I’ve expressed some doubts about the administrative interpretation of a statute whose text just precludes discrimination. I am not convinced it is consistent with a separate subsection of Title IX that precludes a requirement of preferences because of an imbalance between different sexes. If Title IX simply permits open teams—not requires, just permits—it would be hard to argue that permitting a few trans females on a female team violates that statute. But even if I’m wrong about the interpretation, it would at least be good if those making the argument that cis females are suffering discrimination by being forced to compete with trans females acknowledge the unique provenance of their argument—that in sports (and only sports) “non-discrimination” means that females do not have to compete with males.

And it does seem rather odd that the Trump Administration waited for the Soule case to take this position. In Massachusetts, the state Equal Rights Amendment was interpreted in 1978 to permit males to compete on female teams under certain circumstances (primarily where there is no male team in a given sport). And they do. And they frequently win. (Males have set records in female swimming events, for example.) If allowing trans females to compete on female teams is a violation of Title IX, shouldn’t allowing cis males to compete be as well? If it is, why hasn’t the federal government taken steps to remedy the situation?

Another question that arises from the equity vision of Title IX in sports is why that vision is not applicable to other anti-discrimination laws and sports. Or even outside sports.

The Age Discrimination Act, in language quite similar to Title VI and Title IX (but without the latter’s limitation to educational programs), precludes age discrimination by those receiving federal financial assistance. More and more older Americans are attending college. (Twelve percent of students at private undergraduate institutions are 40 or over.) And it is fairly well-established scientifically that we lose muscle mass, heart capacity and a whole host of other attributes important for athletic success as we age. Should varsity athletic spots and scholarships be provided for older Americans attending colleges in keeping with their proportion of the undergraduate population at their institutions?

And what of the disabled? Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act both preclude discrimination against the disabled, and surely there are many disabled individuals who are unable to compete with able-bodied individuals, even with accommodations. If the disabled constitute 2-3% of an undergraduate population, shouldn’t we reserve that percentage of undergraduate varsity spots and scholarships for the disabled? For example, one could make wheelchair tennis, already a popular sport, part of intercollegiate tennis matches.

Yes, of course, there are distinctions. Age is on a continuum and sex, at least when Title IX was enacted, was thought to be binary. There are many different kinds of disability, and it would be very difficult to determine how to distribute benefits among them. My point is that no one even considers the possibility that these statutes might provide some kind of preference in varsity-level sports for older people and/or the disabled. The equity vision of Title IX in sports has not infiltrated other statutes, perhaps because we keep thinking and talking of Title IX as a standard non-discrimination statute.

Would the equity conception of non-discrimination be limited to sports? If a university had merit scholarships that were based on criteria that placed those with learning disabilities at a disadvantage, should it reserve a certain percentage of those scholarships for those disabled?

[* * *]

Astute VC readers may have noticed that I have said nothing this week about hormone blockers, fairness in competition generally, inherited traits or other physiological advantages (height, for example) that significantly differ within a sex and that help in sports, or any of a myriad of things that might be considered in determining whether permitting trans females to participate on female-only teams is a good policy. Quite intentionally so. Those are complicated questions. My only suggestion is that perhaps Title IX is not the right tool to resolve them.

Thanks again to Eugene and the Conspirators for allowing me to guest blog here.

The post Title IX, Gender Identity, and the Consequences of Equity appeared first on Reason.com.

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Dear Tech Execs, ChatGPT Won’t “Compose Memo Announcing Massive Layoffs”

Dear Tech Execs, ChatGPT Won’t “Compose Memo Announcing Massive Layoffs”

Tech layoff announcements continue to rise by the week. The latest notable firms to slash headcount to survive tightening monetary conditions and increasing risk of recession include Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon. After every announcement, either leaked onto Twitter or published on the company’s website is a copy of the layoff memo from the CEO to staff. 

Over the last several quarters, we’ve read dozens of layoff memos from tech CEOs. We notice CEOs are usually blunt and to the point about firings in the first paragraph or draw out the inevitable to the very end. 

So far, 219 tech companies have fired 68,149 workers, according to the latest data from the layoff tracker website Layoffs.fyi. Last year, 1,040 tech companies fired 160,000 employees. 

With every firing comes a memo to staff. And we wonder just how many corporate execs tried to use OpenAI’s text generator ChatGPT to compose a layoff letter — after all, the AI-powered tool can write college essays, pass exams, and even apply for jobs. So how easy could writing a one-pager about firing employees be?

We tested this and asked ChatGPT to “compose a memo announcing massive layoffs.” 

And it didn’t deliver:

“I’m sorry, I am not able to compose a memo announcing massive layoffs as it would not be appropriate and could be considered insensitive. Instead, I suggest seeking guidance from a human resources professional or management team to ensure that any communication regarding layoffs is handled in a sensitive and professional manner.” 

Here’s a screenshot of the response. 

We couldn’t help think of how this worked out before…

It appears ChatGPT’s AI trainers might have censored such a response. The question is why, well, perhaps it’s to protect the view of AI development. If fired employees found out their CEO sent a layoff notice written by AI, that would be negative press for the company and the technology. 

This means all those tech execs who are about to fire thousands of more workers in the months ahead might have to actually put some thought into writing such a letter. 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 17:25

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Truckers’ Positive Drug Tests Up 18% In 2022

Truckers’ Positive Drug Tests Up 18% In 2022

By John Gallagher of FreightWaves,

The latest data from the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse reveals that drug use among commercial drivers may be at its highest level since the federal repository was set up in 2019 — but more are being cleared to drive again as well.

Total drug violations reported into the clearinghouse in 2022, including positive tests and refusals to take a drug test, increased 18% to 69,668 compared with last year’s 59,011, according to the most recent statistics released this week by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. That rate almost doubled the 9.2% annual increase in drug violations reported in 2021.

Much of the increase can be attributed to violations related to marijuana, the substance identified most in positive tests. Marijuana violations increased 31.6% in 2022 compared with 2021, to 40,916. That compares to a 5.3% increase between 2020 and 2021.

In fact, positive drug tests reported into the clearinghouse in 2022 increased in 12 of 14 substances tracked by the database, with only hydrocodone and heroin showing decreases.

Some of the increase in total violations can be attributed to the fact that completed registrations from drivers, employers and third-party organizations have been added each year since the clearinghouse began accepting registrations in September 2019. However, the number of registrations added annually has steadily declined since 2020 as the database gradually fills with all FMCSA-regulated registrants.

Regarding marijuana specifically, there has been speculation that increasingly liberal state marijuana laws could also be a factor — even though federal law preempts state law regarding the use of both medicinal and recreational marijuana by commercial drivers.

“While the numbers are a little jarring, it is clear the clearinghouse is working as intended,” P. Sean Garney, co-director of Scopelitis Transportation Consulting, which specializes in truck safety, regulations and compliance, told FreightWaves.

Garney pointed to data in the report showing that there were double the number of positive tests for preemployment screening versus positive tests taken randomly from drivers last year.

“It’s far more common for a driver to test positive in a preemployment environment, and before the clearinghouse, carriers had no way to know if a driver they were considering was prohibited from operating a [commercial motor vehicle] based on that test,” Garney said. “[This data] shows me the system works.”

In addition, the data shows that more drivers are getting rehabilitated and reentering the trucking workforce, he said. At the end of 2020, only 12.5% of drivers who had tested positive had been cleared to drive again. In 2021 that number increased to 22.7%, and it increased again in 2022 to 27.6%.

Garney also noted that starting on Jan. 6 — after three full years of clearinghouse operation — motor carriers were no longer required to query a driver’s previous employer to request drug and alcohol testing histories, because they are now able to go back three years within the clearinghouse.

“Some carriers have been nervous that eliminating the previous employer inquiry might cause them to miss important information about a driver’s drug testing history,” he said.

However, with more than 3 million drivers and over 443,000 employers registered, “the clearinghouse is operating at full tilt and as intended, making it a great source of truth for this information. This should make wary carriers feel better about streamlining their procedures by using the clearinghouse.”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 17:05

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Eight Killed, Ten Wounded In Jerusalem Synagogue “Terror Attack”

Eight Killed, Ten Wounded In Jerusalem Synagogue “Terror Attack”

Eight people were killed and ten more wounded when a gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, according to the official Twitter account of the Israel Foreign Ministry. 

AP News said the gunman was Palestinian. Police said the attacker was “neutralized” by security forces while attempting to flee the scene. 

US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel condemned the deadly attack, calling it “absolutely horrific.” 

“We condemn this apparent terrorist attack in the strongest terms. Our commitment to Israel’s security remains ironclad, and we are in direct touch with our Israeli partners,” Patel told reporters. 

The attack came amid soaring tensions between Israel–Palestine, some of the worst in years. Thursday was the deadliest day in the occupied West Bank in two decades after Israeli armed forces raided a building in Jenin and killed nine people. In response, rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. The Palestinian Authority halted all security coordination with Israel. 

On Friday, Israeli Defence Force said fighter jets bombed Gaza, targeting what’s believed to be a military base and an underground rocket manufacturing plant operated by Hamas. 

The eruption in violence comes ahead of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s weekend visit to Israel and the West Bank.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 16:45

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The “Great Reset” & The Future Of Money… Here’s What You Need To Know

The “Great Reset” & The Future Of Money… Here’s What You Need To Know

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

International Man: What is the idea behind the so-called “Great Reset?”

Nick Giambruno: We’ve seen countless examples of the self-identified elite in the West using that term.

But let me first ask, who put these people in charge? Who anointed them the leaders of the world?

They’re not only talking about resetting the financial system but dramatically changing the nature of life.

I think something sinister is going on, and they’re not even trying to hide it anymore. It’s all in the open now.

So, let me try to summarize something incredibly complex.

These people recognize the current international monetary system based on the US dollar is on its way out. Even Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, acknowledges that the US dollar’s supremacy is fading.

Although they would prefer to continue milking the current system, they realize it’s failing and the need to bridge the gap to a new system which they hope to control.

Nobody knows what the next international monetary system will look like—not even the elites. However, they know what they want it to look like.

They want a complete control grid with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), movement licenses, mandatory medical procedures, and a social credit system, among other nasty things.

Simply put, the Great Reset agenda is a high-tech, totalitarian, global panopticon.

In short, they want total control over you in all domains—a new feudalism.

They’re emotionally manipulating people with fear and false narratives into accepting things they ordinarily wouldn’t—like their enslavement.

That’s what their Great Reset agenda is all about. It’s self-evidently anathema to personal freedom, human dignity, and self-determination.

Whether the self-proclaimed elites get all or some of those things is an open question.

The best scenario for mankind would be for most major governments to go bankrupt—which they are well on their way to—before they can implement the Great Reset agenda.

International Man: It seems changing the money so that governments can have more control over people is a big part of this plan. How do you see it?

Nick Giambruno: I see it like this.

Don’t let any government, whether it’s the US government, the Chinese government, or a global government entity like the IMF, tell you what money is.

Money does not need to come from the government. That’s a total misnomer that the average person has been brainwashed into believing.

It would be similar to transporting yourself back in time and asking the average person in the Soviet Union, “Where do shoes come from?”

They would say, “Well, the government makes the shoes. Where else could they come from? Who else could make the shoes?”

It’s the same mentality here regarding money today—except it’s much more widespread.

The truth is money doesn’t need to come from the government any more than shoes do.

People have used stones, glass beads, salt, cattle, seashells, gold, silver, and other commodities as money at different times.

However, for over 2,500 years, gold has been mankind’s most enduring form of money.

Gold didn’t become money by accident or because some politicians decreed it. Instead, it became money because countless individuals throughout history and across many different civilizations subjectively came to the same conclusion: gold is money.

It resulted from a market process of people looking for the best way to store and exchange value.

So, why did they go to gold? What makes gold attractive as money?

Here’s why.

Gold has a set of unique characteristics that make it suitable as money.

Gold is durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, scarce, and most important, it’s the “hardest” of all physical commodities. In other words, gold is “hard to produce” relative to existing stockpiles and the one physical commodity most resistant to inflation of its supply. That’s what gives gold its monetary properties.

Bitcoin shares many of gold’s monetary characteristics. Like physical gold, Bitcoin does not have counterparty risk, and nobody can arbitrarily inflate the supply.

Here’s the bottom line.

I would encourage people to be sovereign individuals and recognize what works best for them as a vehicle to store and exchange value, rather than thoughtlessly accepting whatever the government gives them as money.

International Man: What makes government money dangerous?

Nick Giambruno: Governments reap enormous power from their racket of printing fake money out of thin air and forcing their citizens to use it. Whether it’s Venezuela, Lebanon, Argentina, or the US, it’s the same scam. It allows governments to act like vampires and feast on their citizens’ savings.

Imagine if you had that kind of immense power?

You could create something with little to no effort and then force everyone else to accept and use it as money. You could create paper wealth out of thin air and cut your enemies off from the economy. You’d be very powerful.

That’s why all governments treasure their monopoly on money.

Remember, government money is political money. It’s a potent tool to steal from and control you.

Remember what happened to the truckers in Canada in early 2022? With no due process or judicial review, the Canadian government seized their bank accounts at the flip of a switch. The government granted itself the power and made it a simple administrative task.

We will see many more of these kinds of actions—and more severe ones—soon.

International Man: What can the average person do about this?

Nick Giambruno: I’ve studied money, monetary policy, and monetary history. I’ve been to Zimbabwe, Argentina, Lebanon, and other countries that have experienced hyperinflation.

In my view, the most important attribute of money is that it is hard to produce—its “hardness.” In other words, something that is resistant to inflation of its supply.

Think of money like a claim on human time. It’s like stored life or energy.

Would you want to put that in something that somebody else can create with no effort or cost?

Of course, you wouldn’t.

It would be like storing your life savings in Chuck E. Cheese arcade tokens or airline frequent flyer miles. Putting your savings into government currencies isn’t that much different.

What you want to do is to put your money into something that someone else cannot make easily.

Here’s the bottom line.

The vast majority of humanity does not understand what makes for a good money. Instead, they’ve been hypnotized into believing something inferior—the scraps of paper or digital entries that governments can create with no effort—is good money.

It’s a sad state of affairs and one of the biggest swindles in human history.

To enact their Great Reset agenda, the elites count on the average person not understanding the issues around money. They are relying on people blindly swallowing their poisonous CBDCs.

The most effective thing the average person can do to fight against this agenda is not to store their life force in government currencies. That way, the government—and the elites behind them—cannot use inflation to siphon off your monetary energy to fund their nefarious plans.

The idea is to put a meaningful portion of your savings into hard assets, apolitical, neutral money that has no counterparty risk and is resistant to inflation.

I put physical gold coins in your possession, as well as Bitcoin, in that category. But only Bitcoin where you control the private keys and do not depend on the permission of a third party—like an exchange or custodian—to access your money.

There’s much more to cover…

*  *  *

I have more details in an urgent PDF report I just released on where this is all headed. It includes how to protect yourself and the best ways position yourself for big gains no matter what happens. It’s called “The Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 Years… the Top 3 Strategies You Need Right Now.” Click here to download the PDF it now.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 16:28

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Massive Short-Squeeze Sparks Surge In Stocks Despite Hawkish Shift In Rates

Massive Short-Squeeze Sparks Surge In Stocks Despite Hawkish Shift In Rates

US Macro data surprised to the upside this week (the biggest weekly jump in the macro surprise index since August 2022) helping lift global macro notably higher, sparking hopes for a ‘soft landing‘ (or no landing?)…

Source: Bloomberg

Digging into the data, it is very much the Labor market that is holding up the macro data, as ‘soft’ survey data slumps… (so let’s hope all these mass layoffs don’t ever show up in the official data)…

Source: Bloomberg

However, the ‘soft landing’ narrative pushed Fed rate trajectory expectations hawkishly firmer… Translation – the market has removed 10bps of expected easing from the second half of 2023 in the last week or so….

Source: Bloomberg

But the markets ignored all that and pushed financial conditions to their loosest level since August (dramatically pulling forward expectations for The Fed to pivot to cuts)…

Source: Bloomberg

For context, financial conditions are as loose as they were in June of last year, 100s of bps of Fed Funds rate lower…

Source: Bloomberg

And financial conditions eased thanks in large part to soaring stocks this week. Led by Nasdaq (up 4 weeks in a row) which rallied over 5% (its best week since early Nov)

There was some aggressive selling into the close today which left The Dow almost unchanged (Nasdaq still managed a 1% gain)…

The meltup of the last couple of days was heavily influenced by 0DTE gamma squeezes and good old-fashioned short-squeezes. Today saw ‘most shorted’ stocks soar almost 7% – the biggest short-squeeze day since Nov 10th (3rd biggest short-squeeze day in 18 months)

Source: Bloomberg

For context, unprofitable tech stocks ripped 13% off their lows on Wednesday morning (and are up 30% YTD)…

Source: Bloomberg

The S&P is getting close to a golden cross (50DMA crossing above its 200DMA)…

Nasdaq closed above its 200DMA (at its highest since September)…

TSLA has been up for 6 straight days, rallying over 40% – its biggest such move since July 2020…

VIX was crushed this week to an 18 handle, but we do note that demand for downside protection has picked up as skews have started to accelerate…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were mixed on the week with the long-end outperforming and the belly of the curve weakest (5Y +6bps, 30Y -3bps). Yields tumbled as stocks rallied today however during the US day session…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended the week marginally lower (finding support at the May 2022 lows). NOTE that every day this week the dollar was dumped around the European close…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were mixed this week with Bitcoin outperforming, up around 5% holding above $23,000…

Source: Bloomberg

Ethereum notably underperformed on the week (down around 2-3%), but has been lagging bitcoin significantly for two weeks…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold managed very modest gains this week, the 6th straight weekly gain for the precious metal…

Oil prices fell on the week with WTI back below $80…

NatGas fell for the 6th straight week, with Henry Hub trading at its lowest since April 2021 (bouncing off $3)…

Finally, we wonder do traders really think Jay Powell wants to see LUCID and all the worst stocks of last year (BZFD?) exploding blindly higher on the back of frontrunning The Fed’s potential for a pivot to a cut (not just a pause)

Source: Bloomberg

Do traders really think The Fed will do that kind of pivot in the face of just a ‘soft landing’?

In fact, as Bloomberg pointed out today, the landing could be a lot harder. Analysts have pointed to diminishing pandemic stimulus cash cushions and a declining saving rate as reasons US consumers could ultimately pull back and tip the economy into recession.

Source: Bloomberg

Spending data show households did indeed cut back on purchases in the last two months of 2022. And at the same time, they started socking away more money throughout the fourth quarter, suggesting Americans may be preparing for tougher times ahead.

And the equity market is definitely not pricing in a harder-landing for the economy (no matter how quickly one believes the pivot would come).

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 16:02

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McDaniel Reelected As RNC Chair Despite DeSantis Calling For Change

McDaniel Reelected As RNC Chair Despite DeSantis Calling For Change

Ronna McDaniel just won a fourth term as the Republican National Committee Chairman on Friday, beating top challenger Harmeet Dhillon and longshot candidate Mike Lindell in a secret ballot vote at the party’s annual winter meeting.

The win makes McDaniel the longest-serving GOP chair since the 19th century, and will now join Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in formulating a strategy in the hopes of recovering from the GOP’s dismal performance in the November midterm elections.

The win comes despite comments from increasingly influential Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who said on Thursday that it’s time for Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel to give up the mantle and make way for new leadership.

We’ve had three substandard election cycles in a row: ‘18, ’20, and ’22,” DeSantis told TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk in an interview. “Given the political environment of a very unpopular president in Biden, huge majorities of the people think the country is going in the wrong direction—that is an environment that’s tailor-made to make big gains in the House and the Senate and in state houses all across the country, and yet that didn’t happen.”

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel

“I think we need a change,” he continued, adding “I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC.”

As Michigan GOP chair, former President Donal Trump personally selected McDaniel to lead the committee after he won the White House in 2016. While campaigning for her own reelection, she promoted stability within the party, while attorney and committee member Harmeet Dhillon, McDaniel’s primary challenger, was running an ‘insurgent’ campaign – stressing the urgent need for change within the GOP following the disappointing 2022 midterms.

Harmeet Dhillon

“I’ve been incredibly supportive of Ronna,” Dhillon told Fox News in a sit-down interview. “But you know, at the end of the day, like I said, this isn’t school. You don’t get a gold star forever. You don’t get to stay in your job forever. If you continuously under perform what you promised your clients, they don’t hire you the next time around.”

McDaniel’s supporters argued she was best positioned to move the party forward because of her resource allocation and solid working relationship with state party leadership. -NBC News

Longshot candidate Mike Lindell also threw his hat in the ring.

“I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC out of D.C.” he said. “Why would you want to have your headquarters in the most Democrat city in America? It’s more Democrat than San Francisco is!”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 15:42

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/KHbQRVG Tyler Durden

Watch: Leftist Talking Heads Claim Letting Trump Back On Facebook Will “Destroy Democracy”

Watch: Leftist Talking Heads Claim Letting Trump Back On Facebook Will “Destroy Democracy”

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Reacting to the news that Facebook is to allow President Trump access to its platform after a two year ban, leftist ‘journalists’ on MSNBC claimed that it will “destroy democracy”.

Trump derangement syndrome is well and truly back, with New York Times editor Mara Gay, Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway, and historian Jon Meacham crying about Meta helping to “take down the country” by allowing Trump to return.

Conway said “They think, ‘Well oh, the fire’s out, so even though this guy has a cache of matches and gasoline that he carries around with him, let’s let him just play with matches again.”

Meacham described Facebook’s decision on Trump as a “devil’s bargain” claiming that Meta needs more money and Trump needs to gain relevance again.

“If you are one of these companies, do you want to be the means by which an autocrat mounts an assault on the Constitution itself?” he added.

Gay chimed in “As a country or as a company, you don’t want to hand over the keys to democracy to have someone destroy that democracy. Do you want to be that institution that really helps take down the country?” 

She went on to compare Meta’s decision to reinstate Trump to chemical companies pushing for wars so they can sell weapons.

More video below:

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Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 15:11

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/4GEYOhg Tyler Durden