Month: March 2023

Face-Masks & Lab-Leaks No Match For Progressive Ideology

Face-Masks & Lab-Leaks No Match For Progressive Ideology

Authored by J.Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

During much of the COVID pandemic, progressives intimidated, insulted, and sought to censor those who questioned the efficacy of face masks or wondered if the virus might have leaked from a lab in China.

Displaying their trademark belief that they always possess the truth, progressive politicians, activists, and journalists attacked those who opposed mask mandates as enemies of science and smeared lab leak proponents as peddlers of a fringe “conspiracy theory.”

Now their tattered narrative regarding COVID-19 is being ripped apart even more by the insistent foe of ideology – reality. On Sunday we learned that the Department of Energy has concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic probably began with the leak of the virus from a Chinese lab. This comes on the heels of an authoritative new study that found face masks have provided no measurable protection to the public.

In fairness, neither piece of information is the final word on these subjects.

The DOE reportedly has “low confidence” in the classified intelligence reports informing its view; the FBI expressed “moderate confidence” in its 2021 determination that a lab leak likely caused the pandemic.

The mask study’s conclusion – based on a review of many other studies on masks by the well-respected Cochrane Review – was more robust, as its lead author, Oxford’s Tom Jefferson, stated: “There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop.” But other respected experts argue that the study is not definitive.

These developments – along with previous studies questioning the effectiveness of lockdowns – should provoke deep soul-searching for progressives who were as wrong as one can be on matters of profound consequence. They will not, because of the left’s anti-democratic impulses.

To begin, the problem with the progressives’ response to COVID was not that they were mistaken during a time of fog and murk, or even that they used their power to push questionable policies. Such failings are an expression of the human condition. It was, instead, their illiberal assault on the core values of free and open debate that – when allowed to work properly — allow us to identify, address, and overcome those failings.

American democracy has thrived because of its optimistic humility regarding human understanding. We’ve been driven by the recognition that knowledge is ever evolving, that there is always a better way. Putting these ideas into action requires free speech and open inquiry, as well as the belief that good ideas can come from any Horatio Alger quarter, and that the best ones will triumph in the rough and tumble marketplace of ideas.

This approach is necessarily fractious; human beings instinctively resist change and resist making room for others. Indeed, our country has failed when it has turned its back on this hurly-burly freedom in the name of rigid ideologies and beliefs.

Sadly, many of today’s progressives, who control most of the levers of power, largely reject this fact-based tradition.

Embracing an ideology that hinges on the faith that they know best – that they are duty-bound to lead the masses who aren’t equipped to make good decisions – they cast themselves as secular popes who know the truth on every matter.

Because their authority rests on their expertise, progressives are largely incapable of admitting error.

When their policies fall short – Lyndon B. Johnson said his Great Society programs aimed “not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it” – they inevitably blame a lack of resources or resistant people. Give them any intractable issue, from health care to education, and they will insist that they know what works; all that’s holding them back is money, will, and power.

When their failures are more cut and dried, they try to minimize the damage by rewriting history. For example, despite unequivocal proof that Donald Trump did not conspire with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election, they still suggest that he did. In response to these recent COVID revelations, I predict progressives will claim that they did the best they could with the information they had, all the while purging our collective memory of the ways they limited the range of permissible facts and ideas.

My mind has changed about progressives as they have become even more radical in recent years. Once I despaired that Godot would arrive before the scales fell from their eyes. But at least that thought contained a ray of hope. Now I see that they know what’s going on and just don’t care. Like so many figures now on the ash heap of history, they choose ideology over experience every time.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/01/2023 – 16:20

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Bitcoin & Bullion Jump, Bonds & Big-Tech Dump As Stagflation Signs Soar

Bitcoin & Bullion Jump, Bonds & Big-Tech Dump As Stagflation Signs Soar

March Madness is off with chaos in oil prices today, wild swings in stocks, gold and crypto spiking, and bonds battered as stagflationary fears roared back.

Hotter than expected inflation print out of Germany (after yesterday’s hot prints in France and Spain) sparked a pre-open ramp in yields and dump in stocks. Hawkish Kashkari comments did not help out of the gate and Manufacturing surveys confirmed stagflation fears with a resurgence in inflation and a slowing of production/orders, dragging stocks to fresh lows for the day.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both broke down to their 200DMA and bounced…

…thanks to 0DTE-Call-Buying (highlighted in the orange box). The afternoon saw an aggressive swing positive in gamma positioning with 0DTE call-buying and put-selling (even as the market sold off – green box)…

A clearer picture of the use of 0DTE options to lift the S&P off its 200DMA is below…

HIRO Indicator | SpotGamma™

But it wasn’t enough as stocks faded back towards the lows and the key technical levels. Nasdaq was the biggest loser on the day along with the S&P, but The Dow and Small Caps managed to get back into the green…

“Most Shorted” stocks were squeezed at the cash open and faded back (again)…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were dumped across the curve with the belly underperforming (30Y +3.5bps, 5Y +9bps, 2Y +7bps). On the week, the short-end (2Y) is the biggest loser…

Source: Bloomberg

The 10Y Yield topped 4.00%…

Source: Bloomberg

…for the first time since November’s CPI print…

Source: Bloomberg

The market priced in a 5.5% terminal Fed rate for the first time this cycle (Sep 2023) with any hopes of rate-cuts basically gone…

Source: Bloomberg

Also of note, expectations for The ECB’s terminal rate rose above 4.00% for the first time today…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar was dumped overnight after China’s strong PMIs but strengthened a little during the US session…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin surged up to test $24k, faded back, then as the last hour of equity trading began, BTC dumped…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices were chaotic today, swinging wildly on China PMIs, German inflation, yet more crude inventory builds, and US PMIs…

Gold extended yesterday’s bounce, topping $1850 intraday…

Finally, financial conditions continue to tighten back towards monetary policy reality…

Source: Bloomberg

With a 2-3 week lag, that would suggest that US Macro data is going to start surprising to the downside soon…

Source: Bloomberg

…which will then prompt pivot talk… which will rally stocks and bonds… which will loosen financial conditions… rinse, repeat.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/01/2023 – 16:01

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“You Are Killing Us!”: Southern California Gas Seeks 13 Percent Monthly Bill Increase

“You Are Killing Us!”: Southern California Gas Seeks 13 Percent Monthly Bill Increase

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The pain might not be over for southern California gas customers.

As millions recover from exorbitant utility bills, the state is considering Southern California Gas Company’s (SoCalGas) request to raise monthly rates by 13.2 percent next year for the 5.9 million households and businesses it serves.

Although the increase is a routine request made by SoCalGas every four years, it comes at a time when many residents are paying as much as 300 percent more for gas.

Skyrocketing costs for natural gas sent bills soaring in February because of inventory shortages strained by the Ukraine conflict, restrictions on licensing and drilling, and increased national electric power needs.

“SoCalGas files this [rate increase] during a time of transformative change,” SoCalGas President Maryam Brown said in a release in May. “Events in California and around the world have shown us that maintain[ing] the safety, reliability, and affordability of our local energy systems remain critically important.”

The revenue increase is expected to cost an average customer about $8.30 more for each bill and will cover operation, maintenance, and upgrade costs, according to the company. SoCalGas doesn’t make money on the natural gas it supplies customers.

News of the possible rate increase has sparked some opposition from residents who commented on the state’s utility commission website.

“I am vehemently against the proposed increase and feel that it borders on being criminal,” a Cathedral City man wrote. “I would encourage the [California Public Utilities Commission] to look at other ways [of managing expenses] to prevent such an increase.”

A Riverside resident on a fixed income told the commission her bill had already increased to $650.

“You are killing us! We need the heat in order to live,” the woman wrote. “This is just price gouging your customers and forcing people to live miserable lives. Stop the insanity.”

According to SoCalGas, about 58 percent of the increase will be spent to modernize and upgrade infrastructure, including paying for safety-related costs. Another 34 percent will pay for growth and development of clean fuels to help meet the state’s environmental goals, and improvements to customer service. The remainder will cover increased personnel costs to fund the company’s compensation programs.

SoCalGas and the California Public Utilities Commission will host two online public forums March 6 and March 15 to hear public comments and concerns about the increase.

The public can also provide written comments to the state’s utility commission. About 15 people commented by Feb. 27.

A judge assigned to the case will consider proposals and evidence presented during the hearing and is expected to decide whether to approve the application.

If approved, the rate increase would show up on bills beginning Jan. 1, 2024.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/01/2023 – 15:40

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A Textualist Defense of the Major Questions Doctrine


Questions

Over the last few years, the once-relatively obscure “major questions doctrine” (MQD) has become increasingly controversial, as the Supreme Court has relied on it in several major cases, such as  the eviction moratorium decision, the OSHA large-employer vaccine mandate case, and West Virginia v. EPA. If yesterday’s oral argument is any indication, the Court may also use it to strike down the Biden Administration’s massive loan forgiveness plan.

The doctrine requires Congress to “speak clearly when authorizing an [executive branch] agency to exercise powers of vast ‘economic and political significance.'” If such a broad delegation of power isn’t clear, courts must rule against the executive’s claims that it has the authority in question. Critics often argue that this rule is at odds with textualism in statutory interpretation—a theory to which many conservative judges are committed. For example, in her forceful dissent in West Virginia v. EPA, Justice Elena Kagan complains that MQD has become “a get-out-of-text free card.” If the otherwise-best interpretation of a given text is that it grants the executive sweeping powers, why should MQD overturn it?

But, contrary to popular belief, there is in fact a textualist justification for MQD. Most textualists hold that statutory language should be interpreted in accordance with its “ordinary meaning.” And they also recognize that ordinary meaning varies based on context. The same words and phrases might have different meanings depending on the situation. For example, prominent textualist legal scholar and judge Frank Easterbrook rejects  “[a]n unadorned ‘plain meaning’ approach to interpretation [that] supposes that words have meanings divorced from their contexts.” Instead, he emphasizes that “[l]anguage is a process of communication that works only when authors and readers share a set of rules and meanings.” And those “rules and meanings” depend on context. Indeed, “clarity depends on context.”

Such contextual considerations can justify the major questions doctrine. In most situations, people expect greater clarity and precision when granting an agent broad power, than when authorizing something narrower. For example, my wife and I recently hired a contractor to repair the old and increasingly dilapidated deck attached to our house. Imagine we signed an agreement giving the contractor the authority to “modernize and improve” the deck, and he then proceeded to tear the whole thing down and replace it with a bigger and more modern structure.

As a semantic matter “divorced from context,” the contractor could argue that tearing down and replacing the deck counts as modernization and improvement. Indeed, it might result in greater modernization and improvement than a more limited repair job would have! But most ordinary readers of the agreement would readily understand that the contractor had exceeded his authority. Tearing down and replacing the entire deck is a big, expensive step that requires clearer and more specific authorization than a vague mandate to “modernize and improve.” By contrast, if the contractor had taken the much more limited step of replacing a few decaying floor boards, most people would agree his actions were properly authorized, even though the agreement doesn’t specifically mention such replacement.

The same point applies to statutory language. If anything, most ordinary readers probably assume that vast grants of legal authority over millions of people require even more clarity and precision than do contractual agreements like the deck replacement. For example, in the loan forgiveness case, the Biden Administration relies on a vague provision of the HEROES Act that allows the executive branch to “waive or modify” regulations governing federal student loans to justify cancellation of over $400 billion in student loan debt. Even if semantics “divorced from context” suggests that mass cancellation qualifies as a type of waiver or modification, contextual ordinary meaning indicates that such an enormous delegation of power requires greater precision.

The above analysis doesn’t refute all possible objections to MQD. It obviously won’t persuade non-textualist critics of the doctrine. Nor does it address claims that broad delegations to executive agencies are desirable, so the latter can use their (supposedly) objective scientific expertise to solve new social problems as they come up—especially in a world where Congress is often gridlocked.

Similarly, the argument made in this post doesn’t address the problem that it will sometimes be difficult to tell whether a given assertion of executive authority qualifies as “major” or not. Here, I will only say that such fuzziness at the margin is a characteristic of many legal doctrines. It may be unavoidable in many situations where courts must rely on balancing tests and standards, rather than bright-line rules.

My argument also doesn’t necessarily prove that any particular use of MQD to strike down a policy  was justified. While I think the Court got it right in the eviction moratorium and vaccine mandate rulings, and would be justified in using MQD again in student loan forgiveness cases, West Virginia v. EPA strikes me as a tougher case; Justice Kagan’s dissent makes a strong argument that the text of that statute is clear enough to satisfy MQD requirements.

Finally, the textualist rationale for MQD doesn’t preclude other justifications for it. For example, I and others have also argued that the doctrine helps enforce constitutional nondelegation limits on the transfer of legislative authority to the executive.

But, despite its limited nature, the point made here does rebut one widespread criticism of MQD. Far from being inconsistent with ordinary-meaning textualism, the doctrine actually helps implement it.

 

 

The post A Textualist Defense of the Major Questions Doctrine appeared first on Reason.com.

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Ohio Woman Says Cops Broke Her Wrist for Recording During Traffic Stop


A police officer pulling a woman out of a car.

A new lawsuit alleges that an Ohio woman suffered a broken wrist and other injuries after being violently arrested during a traffic stop, in part due to filming the police who pulled her over.

In February 2020, Amanda Mills was pulled over for speeding in Walton Hills, a small town outside Cleveland, Ohio. According to the suit, a police officer, identified in the lawsuit only as “Officer Schmidt” exited his cruiser “irate” and “screaming.” Nervous, Mills began recording the encounter. Schmidt ordered Mills to get out of her vehicle. According to the suit, “Amanda asked ‘why?’ without making any other statement or any sudden movement. At this point, Officer Schmidt realized Amanda was filming him with her cellphone, and he became even more agitated.”

According to the complaint, Schmidt “opened Amanda’s driver-side door, grabbed her by the wrist and arm, and ripped her out of her vehicle.” Another officer helped Schmidt pin Mills to the side of her vehicle. The suit alleges that “Amanda screamed that she was not resisting arrest and continued to cry out in pain.” However, rather than releasing her, officers handcuffed Mills and put her in the back of their cruiser while they searched her vehicle. Eventually, Mills was released from custody after officers could not find illegal substances or outstanding warrants for her arrest. While Mills was initially charged with a first-degree misdemeanor for “failing to comply” with police orders, that charge was eventually dropped.

According to the suit, Mills was left with a broken wrist and other injuries to her arm and breasts. The complaint alleges that the officers’ excessive force violated Mills’ Fourth and 14th Amendment rights. The complaint also says that the Walton Hills Police Department’s practices are the “moving force behind the injuries suffered by Amanda,” and the department is guilty of “failing to adequately train, adequately supervise, as well as failing to investigate and discipline, its police officers when it comes to the excessive use of force.”

While Mills’ claims and the video she recorded are chilling, she faces an uphill battle in receiving restitution due to the specter of qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that protects government officials from civil liability even when their actions are unconstitutional.

In Mills’ case, police seemed to have been enraged in particular by her attempt to film them—an activity which has consistently been ruled to be protected by the First Amendment.

“Forcibly removing someone from their vehicle without warning or reasonable circumstances and then violently slamming them against the car is so extreme, outrageous, and beyond the realm of human decency and intolerable in a civilized society that emotional distress is guaranteed to occur,” the complaint reads. “The Officers’ actions were unreasonable, deliberately indifferent, reckless, willful, wanton, and shocking to the conscience, all of which deprived Amanda of her civil rights.”

The post Ohio Woman Says Cops Broke Her Wrist for Recording During Traffic Stop appeared first on Reason.com.

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These Were The Best And Worst Performing Assets In February And YTD

These Were The Best And Worst Performing Assets In February And YTD

After a very strong start to the year for financial markets, February saw much of the early momentum go into reverse, with losses across equities, credit, sovereign bonds and commodities. That, as DB’s Henry Allen explains in his monthly performance review note, came “amidst growing concern about the persistence of inflation, which in turn led investors to ramp up their expectations for central bank rate hikes.” When all was said and done, it was an awful month for bonds, with Bloomberg’s global aggregate bond index experiencing its worst February performance since its inception in 1990 just one month after its best ever January. At the same time, February also marked a recovery for the US Dollar, while European equities proved resilient amidst the broader losses elsewhere. Furthermore, the YTD performance of financial assets is still generally positive, with most of those tracked by Deutsche Bank still higher over 2023 so far.

Below we excerpt from DB’s Month in Review, starting with the high-level macro overview

Having just experienced a strong rally in January, the initial mood in markets was pretty positive as February began. However, that all changed on the third day of the month, when the US jobs report for January was released. It showed that nonfarm payrolls had risen by credibility-busting 517k in January, marking the strongest job growth in six months. Furthermore, the unemployment rate fell to a 53-year low of 3.4%. The data raised fears that inflation would prove more persistent than previously thought. This led to a sharp re-appraisal on how fast the Fed would be hiking rates, with futures pricing for the December 2023 meeting up by +22.2bps on the day of the jobs report, and then a further +20.5bps on the following Monday. As of today, the terminal rate has shot up by 60bps in the past month, as more than two additional rate have been priced in.

This positive news on the employment side was then followed by upward revisions to inflation data from late-2022. These showed that CPI had fallen less rapidly than thought over Q4, with the 3-month annualized rate of core CPI in December being revised up from 3.14% to 4.25%. Then we had the January CPI data, where headline and core CPI remained hot, as did the PCE measure closely watched by the Fed.

With stronger data on the labor market and inflation, there was growing speculation that the economy could be in for a “no landing” scenario, rather than a hard or a soft landing. Unlike the hard or soft landing, which both see inflation coming down, the “no landing” would involve inflation remaining high, with growth remaining strong, and the Fed needing to hike rates even further in order to bear down on inflation. By the end of the  month, this meant that expectations of the Fed’s terminal rate had risen from 4.92% to 5.42%. And if you look at the rate priced by the December 2023 meeting, it went up from 4.48% to 5.28%, an increase of +80.5bps over the month. Investors’ expectations of inflation also saw a sharp move higher, with the 2yr breakeven up from 2.33% to 3.18% over the month.

This trend wasn’t confined in the United States: In the Euro Area, core inflation rose to a new record of +5.3% in January, and initial country releases for February from France, Spain and Germany are still showing high inflation. Similarly, the latest data shows Euro Area unemployment remaining at a joint record low of 6.6% in December, and there was further support on the growth side as natural gas prices declined a further -18.6%. Meanwhile in Japan, headline and core CPI for January reached their highest level since 1981.

The result of all this was a dramatic slide in global bonds. US Treasuries (-2.4%) suffered their worst monthly performance since September, and Bloomberg’s Global Aggregate Bond Index (-3.3%) saw its worst February performance since its inception back in 1990. Equities also struggled, with the S&P 500 peaking for the month on the day before the jobs report came out, before closing -2.4% lower. However, one of the few assets that benefited from this shift in Fed pricing was the US Dollar, with the dollar index (+2.7%) ending a run of 4 consecutive monthly declines.

Which assets saw the biggest gains in February?

  • European Equities: The outperformance of European equities continued into February, with further gains for the STOXX 600 (+1.9%), the FTSE 100 (+1.8%) and the DAX (+1.6%). That leaves European equities as some of the best YTD performers in our sample, particularly in southern Europe. For instance on a YTD basis, there are now double-digit gains for Spain’s IBEX 35 (+14.7%), Italy’s FTSE MIB (+16.4%) and Greece’s ASE General Index (+21.5%).
  • US Dollar: After a run of 4 consecutive monthly losses, the dollar index strengthened +2.7% in February. Indeed, it strengthened against every other G10 currency. The Swedish Krona was the next best performer among the G10, only weakening -0.04% against the US Dollar, which followed the Riksbank’s announcement that QT would be starting from April and they expected to raise the policy rate further in the spring.

Which assets saw the biggest losses in February?

  • US Equities: Unlike their counterparts in Europe, US equities fell back amidst the prospect of further rate hikes. For instance, the S&P 500 fell -2.4%, the NASDAQ fell -1.0%, and the Dow Jones fell -3.9%. For the S&P 500, that brought its YTD gains back down to +3.7%.
  • Sovereign Bonds: The prospect of higher inflation and more rate hikes was bad news for sovereign bonds. US Treasuries (-2.4%) and Euro Sovereigns (-2.3%) gave up most of their January gains, whilst gilts (-3.3%) are now in negative territory on a YTD basis.
  • Credit: As with sovereign bonds, it was a rough month for credit. USD credit saw the worst performance on a relative basis, with US IG non-fin down -3.5%. However, EUR IG non-fin was still down -1.6%, and GBP IG non-fin was down -2.8%. HY also outperformed IG, with USD HY only down -1.6%, whilst EUR HY (-0.1%) was only just in negative territory. In terms of spreads, EUR IG (-22bps) and EUR HY (-4bps) tightened over February, as did US HY (-8bps). But US IG (+7bps) saw spreads widen for the first time since September.
  • EM Assets: After a very strong performance in January, it was a bad month for EM assets. For equities, the MSCI EM index was down -6.5%. EM bonds fell back too, with a -2.7% decline. And for EM FX, there was a -1.7% decline.
  • Commodities: All the major commodity groups lost ground in February. For energy, there were significant declines in European natural gas (-18.6%) along with smaller losses for Brent crude (-0.7%) and WTI (-2.3%) oil prices. Metals struggled too, with copper (-3.0%) and gold (-5.3%) both falling after three consecutive monthly gains. And agricultural goods lost ground as well, with corn (-7.4%) and wheat (-9.2%) posting noticeable declines.

Finally, here is a visual breakdown of the best and worst performing assets in February…

… and YTD.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/01/2023 – 15:28

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Woody Harrelson Doubles Down, Slams COVID Mandates: US Is “Not A Free Country”

Woody Harrelson Doubles Down, Slams COVID Mandates: US Is “Not A Free Country”

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Following a 30 second bit on SNL where he branded big pharma as a ‘cartel’ forcing it’s drugs on people with government consent, actor Woody Harrelson has further spoken out against COVID mandates.

In an interview with the New York Times, Harrelson warned that America is no longer a free country, branding COVID protocols as “rather absurd.”

When asked what was “absurd about the COVID protocols,” Harrelson replied, “The fact that they’re still going on!”

“I don’t think that anybody should have the right to demand that you’re forced to do the testing, forced to wear the mask and forced to get vaccinated three years on,” the Zombieland star asserted.

“I’m just like, let’s be done with this nonsense,” Harrelson continued, adding “It’s not fair to the crews. I don’t have to wear the mask. Why should they? Why should they have to be vaccinated? How’s that not up to the individual? I shouldn’t be talking about this [expletive].”

“It makes me angry for the crew. The anarchist part of me, I don’t feel that we should have forced testing, forced masking and forced vaccination,” he continued.

“That’s not a free country,” he further warned, adding

“Really I’m talking about the crew. Because I can get out of wearing a mask. I can test less. I’m not in the same position they’re in, but it’s wrong. It’s three years. Stop.”

Cue the normie backlash…

*  * *

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Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/01/2023 – 15:00

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CCP Mouthpiece Threatens Elon Musk Over COVID Lab-Leak Comments

CCP Mouthpiece Threatens Elon Musk Over COVID Lab-Leak Comments

Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times,

Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter and Tesla, stood in the crosshairs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when he chipped in on the discussion on the origin of COVID-19 and brought attention to the theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory.

The world’s richest person joined in comments about a Wall Street Journal article on Sunday, Feb. 26, which reported that a classified intelligence report by the Energy Department said the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The Chinese regime denies the lab leak theory and has accused its proponents of being conspiracy theorists.

Musk’s Comments

The billionaire hopped on discussions on Twitter following the news, with some users accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), of funding gain-of-function research at the WIV before the virus began spreading in early 2020.

“Dr. Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, lied to Congress about it, and now both the FBI & the Department of Energy have concluded that the coronavirus originated at the Wuhan lab,” wrote a Twitter user with the handle @KanekoaTheGreat. “Does that mean Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the development of COVID-19?”

“[Fauci] did it via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth),” Musk wrote in a reply, referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and former White House Chief Medical Advisor. Fauci’s NIAID sent $3.4 million in research grants via non-profit EcoHealth Alliance to the Wuhan laboratory.

Though that comment from Musk came as the latest of a series of jabs at Fauci, it stepped on a few nerves across the Pacific.

“Anti-China political forces in America have yet again hyped up the rumor that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” reads a Feb. 28 article published in the Global Times, the CCP’s mouthpiece publication, titled “‘Elon Musk, are you smashing China’s pot?” which translates into the western euphemism “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

“Even the famous Tesla boss Elon Musk has joined in,” the article reads. 

“Some may think [Musk] made those remarks only to attack Fauci, but the posts he reposted almost all linked the origins of COVID-19 to China. And the argument is repeatedly used by the hostile-to-China U.S. right-wing and anti-China media to frame China.”

The Global Times piece then said the collaboration between the Wuhan laboratory worked and EcoHealth Alliance had “no relation” to researching the coronavirus or gain-of-function research (research that makes the virus more potent or more transmissible, or both), calling anyone who suggests otherwise “internet conspiracy theorists” and “anti-China forces.”

‘Smashing China’s Wok’

The comments from the state-owned media are a signal that the Chinese regime is discontent with the billionaire’s remarks.

The authoritarian regime keeps a close tab on Western businesses that operate in China and often has drastic reactions when it deems any entities to have stepped out of line. These reactions have included exerting pressure on companies to stick to the regime’s narrative or boycotting the companies altogether.

In 2019, in response to an undated statement from retail company H&M that said it is “deeply concerned by … accusations of forced labor” in Xinjiang, the Communist Youth League, following the calling of China’s state television, initiated a boycott campaign. It came amid reports of the detention of more than 1 million Muslim Uyghurs, along with forced sterilization, forced labor, and torture.

Notably, part of the comment by the Youth League is in almost identical wording to that posted by the Global Times on Tuesday, namely: “don’t expect to get fed by the Chinese and smash the Chinese wok at the same time.”

Following the boycott campaign, H&M was removed from online platforms such as Tmall and Alibaba and has seen significant drops in sales in the country.

In Musk’s case, the Chinese regime’s Tuesday signal had a significant shift in tone from the last time Musk waded into Chinese politics.

In an interview with the Financial Times in October 2022, Musk said that he recommends a “special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable” and that such an “arrangement” between Taiwan and the Chinese regime could probably be “more lenient than Hong Kong.” That comment won support from Chinese propagandists who saw Musk’s remarks as supportive of the regime’s clear intentions to claim Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy, as its own territory.

China is Tesla’s second-largest market, with a year-to-date average sales of 1,016 daily in 2023, according to Reuters. But the automaker currently faces strong headwinds from competitors in China such as BYD, who have been introducing new models and interior designs in its electric car products.

The Epoch Times contacted Tesla for comment.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/01/2023 – 14:25

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Corporate Insider-Buyers’ Strike Accelerates In February

Corporate Insider-Buyers’ Strike Accelerates In February

In early January we noted that while the average investor continues to pour money into the equity markets like there’s no tomorrow (aka, a reckoning for the everything bubble), corporate insiders are notably doing just the opposite.

“The thing that stands out right now is the lack of buying even though prices have come down so much. That’s kind of a warning,” Nejat Seyhun told the Wall Street Journal at the time.

In the six weeks or more since, the apparent buyers’ strike by corporate insiders has continued.

Bloomberg’s Elena Popina reports that as US stocks slid last month, only about 450 corporate executives scooped up shares of their own firms and more than four times as many insiders sold, data compiled by the Washington Service show.

That’s the highest ratio of sellers versus buyers since April 2021.

“The selling is around where it has been, but buying has yet to pick up this year,” the Washington Service’s analysts said by email.

“It seems like they are sort of in a wait-and-see mode, or perhaps selling portions of their holdings for increased liquidity.”

As Popina noted, insider transactions may seem like an unlikely market-timing indicator, but they have a track record of providing an early read on market direction over the years.

The insider buy-sell ratio jumped in August 2015 and late 2018, with the former preceding a market bottom and the latter coinciding with one. In March 2020, corporate insiders’ purchases correctly signaled the bottom of a bear-market rout.

Furthermore, despite all the Fed Pivot chatter (that is now dead), there really was no sign of insider enthusiasm in aggregate whatsoever, and while investors are increasingly focused on ever-shrinking timeframes (0DTE options traders running the show), just like 2016 and 2020, insiders are sending a very clear message that this time is different.

Oddly, with the sellers dominating the buyers, C-suites are far from pessimistic. On a scale from 1 to 10, a gauge of CEO confidence in prospects for business over the coming year rose to 6.3 in February, the third monthly advance and the highest level since March 2022.

What’s more, announced buybacks stood at more than $163 billion in February, a decrease from the same time a year ago but still the third-highest reading for February ever, according to data compiled by Birinyi Associates.

Maybe, as always, it’s better to watch what execs ‘do’ rather than what they ‘say’.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/01/2023 – 14:05

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

DeSantis’ Disney Drama Turns Culture War Into Political Gains


Headshot of Ron DeSantis wearing Minnie ears in front of the Disney castle on a chalky blue background

At the campaign-style event on Monday where Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law revising Disney’s quasi-governmental status, one of the more telling details was the assortment of individuals who served as his opening acts.

John Shirey, president of Reedy Creek Professional Firefighters, which provides emergency fire service to the Walt Disney World Resort, praised the governor’s takeover as a move ensuring that public safety is a top priority in the district. Next, a self-described “parent who no longer trusts Disney” blasted the company for teaching children to “be comfortable with or participate with immorality.” (Her family has canceled their annual park passes and discontinued using Disney’s streaming service.) Finally, a former Disney employee who claimed to have lost his job due to the company’s vaccine mandate praised the governor for his “courage and good sense” to stand up to the company.

If you’ve been following the DeSantis-versus-Disney drama during the past year, you might notice that these complaints don’t have much to do with why this fight started. Initially, DeSantis was punishing Disney for criticizing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which limits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools. Rather than merely using state power to punish Disney and its former CEO for exercising their free speech rights, DeSantis has recast his actions as an effort to stem the tide of immorality in pop culture.

And by doing so, he’s using the culture war for his own personal and political gain.

Take another look at those three introductory speakers on Monday and you can see an update on Ronald Reagan’s famous “three-legged stool” of conservatism. In the 1980s, it was a fusion of Christian traditionalists, Cold War hawks, and fiscal conservatives. Those broad factions don’t meaningfully exist in contemporary politics, but DeSantis is probably correct that the GOP’s national coalition is best triangulated around public safety, conservative parents wary of cultural liberalism, and COVID reactionaries; with the last category ranging from people rightfully angered by how government and corporate elites handled the pandemic to anti-vax conspiracy theorists.

The new legs of the conservative stool are all sympathetic to DeSantis’ willingness to dispense with political checks and balances in order to slay a “woke” economic Goliath. DeSantis made that point more explicit in an op-ed published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal: “When corporations try to use their economic power to advance a woke agenda, they become political, and not merely economic, actors,” he wrote. “In such an environment, reflexively deferring to big business effectively surrenders the political battlefield to the militant left. Having private companies wield de facto public power isn’t in the best interests of most Americans.”

If Monday’s press conference was a helpful illustration of the DeSantis political coalition—public safety plus parents plus lingering COVID anger—then another aspect of the new Disney law is a tidy summary of who stands to benefit from DeSantis’ riding the conservative populist tide.

First, we have to back up a little. The bill that DeSantis signed on Monday is in many ways more limited than the hasty and ill-conceived effort passed last year that would have eliminated the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RDIC). Under the new rules, Disney will keep its special tax status, will continue funding its own government services, and will be able to make development plans without needing approval from local governments. That addresses some of the unresolved issues in the earlier bill, which would have put taxpayers on the hook for some of Disney’s corporate debt.

The main change in the new law is that the five-member board charged with overseeing the RDIC—functioning effectively as the region’s quasi-government—will now be appointed by the governor of Florida rather than handpicked by Disney’s executives.

DeSantis argues that this is a pro-transparency change that will ensure Disney cannot do whatever it pleases without some semblance of state oversight. It could also be, as DeSantis critics like Jonathan Chait have argued, a move that will allow DeSantis to exert direct pressure over Disney’s content in the future. The board members won’t be able to write or reject plot arcs in future Disney films, of course, but an unhappy board could cause problems for the company’s development plans in and around its Florida theme parks.

It remains to be seen how all this will play out—though it might be telling that one of DeSantis’ nominees (subject to confirmation by the state Senate) is Ron Peri, chairman and CEO of The Gathering USA, a Christian nationalist group. Another nominee is Bridget Ziegler, a Sarasota school board member and founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty. Ziegler is married to the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, and she played an advisory role in DeSantis’s crafting of the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill that kicked off the feud with Disney.

A crucial part of politics has always been controlling patronage jobs within public or semi-public institutions. You want to have your guys running the Commerce Department or handling contracts for the transit system. The difference is that DeSantis is forcing that same dynamic into space that used to be wholly private—and doing it unabashedly.

“I think all of these board members very much would like to see the type of entertainment that all families can appreciate,” DeSantis said Monday.

But why should Ziegler or Peri get to exercise control (even if only in a small way) over Disney’s private decisions? Simply declaring that private companies cease being private when they express political opinions should be an unsatisfying answer, even for conservatives cheering DeSantis. Indeed, that would imply that a Democratic governor should have the authority to place his or her own appointees to oversee Peri’s ministry group.

This is a nonsensical principle to use for governing, but DeSantis seems to have harnessed the political formula effectively—at least in Florida, where a Republican-dominated legislature is compliantly passing these ideas into law.

The most successful Republican populist politicians have struggled to move beyond the outrage cycle into substantive policy. That’s one reason why there are so many trolls and so few serious ideas within the so-called New Right. DeSantis’s fight with Disney separates him from keyboard warriors looking to make a buck. DeSantis is signing the New Right’s most authoritarian ideas into law, erasing the distinctions between the private and political realms, and rewarding supporters of his power grab with more extraordinary political powers of their own.

In the old days, conservatives would have viewed unelected officials being appointed to oversee corporate decisions as a worrying intrusion of state power into private affairs. DeSantis has figured out how to get them to cheer for it.

The post DeSantis' Disney Drama Turns Culture War Into Political Gains appeared first on Reason.com.

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