Month: October 2024

A few days after Goldman’s Thomas Evans advised clients to “keep pressing shorts” on natural gas through December, the NatGas futures market in New York exploded Thursday, spiking up to 10%. Another Goldman analyst wrote on Friday morning that the magnitude of this surge signals “short CTA/positioning unwinds.” The price surge may have been sparked by a new cold weather forecast for the Lower 48 and or reports of multiple outages stretching from Norway to the US, heightening concerns about a market tightening ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter. 

On Thursday, NatGas futures spiked as much as 10%. From the low of about $2.25 per million British thermal to start the week, prices have surged 15% to as high as $2.57. Prices are still locked in a multi-year lateral base, with $3 marking a critical level to watch for a potential breakout.

Goldman’s Tallulah Adams told clients that yesterday’s rally in NatGas futures was due to the “possibility of a less than warm November inviting a positioning unwind into a vacuum.” 

Here’s more from Adams’ note:

For the past few weeks, weather runs have consistently rolled warm and October 2024 HDDs will likely end the month the 3rd lowest in the past 50 years.  As a result, the whole curve came off in the first 2 weeks of October, led by an almost 70c selloff in X24.

While the front-end of the curve had started to find bids this week, it was likely the Euro Ensemble run on Wednesday afternoon that ignited this move yesterday.  Until that weather run, most signs pointed to November weather being more of the same as October. X24 was up 18c, Z24 up 11c, and Cal25 up ~7c.

The scale of the move is suggestive of short CTA/positioning unwinds – it’s hard to say that the weather runs from Wednesday alone justify this kind of move. Yesterday was also the first day of limits, so it’s possible unwinding shorts ahead of 2:30 to stay under might have contributed, but we wouldn’t expect the impact of that to be large.

As one would expect, vol and call skew throughout the winter rallied on the flat price move, though the bid for vol really started picking up on the back of large x24 put buying on Monday:

Risk/Reward at this point is a bit tough.  With X now closer to 250, rather than 230, it’s harder to make the argument that producers won’t give more production next month and your ability to meet heating demand in the back half of winter is low and therefore you should own price.  Furthermore, after yesterday’s +80 EIA number (surprise to upside), we conceivably could end the season with ~3.95 TCF in storage and a warm Nov could make it very hard for cash to perform.  On the other hand, as far as we can tell CTAs were max short into this week and it’s unclear what stage we are in of the unwind.

The best risk-reward to us looks like short vol at the moment.  Z24 breakevens are seasonally high, and the burden to outrealize them at this point is quite high.  That being said, it’s early in winter and winter vols can rally substantially off of not much news (this week for example).  It’s probably a positive expected value trade, but we’re sympathetic to wanting to wait until you get a better look at your November weather maps or for X24 to roll off the board.

Building on this note, multiple reports of gas outages from Norway to the US threatened to tighten the market further ahead of the winter heating season. 

Bloomberg Intelligence’s Vincent Piazza and Even Lee commented on US outages and shrinking surplus: 

The US natural gas storage surplus continues to shrink, despite a bearish addition of 80 billion cubic feet (bcf) in the week ended Oct. 18, higher than our view and consensus. Daily production continued its downward trend during the week to below 101 bcf on Oct. 24, which may not be sustained in the near term. Feedgas demand — hurt by reduced flows at Cameron LNG and Sabine Pass — dropped to 12 bcf, while pipeline exports to Mexico were softer too. Weather is offering a slightly more bullish tilt for power generation, residential and commercial consumption as well. Yet weakness early in the week ending Oct. 25 may mute the recent constructive tack.

The $3 level is on watch…

Winter is coming:

• NatGas Bulls Rejoice: Colder Winter Lower 48 Forecasts May “Place Upward Pressure” On Prices

• “Wet Winter Whirlwind”: Farmers’ Almanac Releases New Winter Forecast For US

Brr.

Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times,

Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys argued in a new filing on Oct. 24 that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s superseding indictment should be dismissed since his appointment was unconstitutional.

“Everything that Smith did since Attorney General [Merrick] Garland’s appointment, as President Trump continued his leading campaign against President Biden and then Vice President Harris, was unlawful and unconstitutional,” Trump’s attorneys said in a filing to D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing his election interference case.

“That includes Smith’s separate violation of the Appropriations Clause by relying on an appropriation that does not apply in order to take more than $20 million from taxpayers,” the filing added.

The filing was a motion requesting that Chutkan allow Trump to submit another motion to dismiss based on the legality of Smith’s appointment. Trump is seeking not only dismissal of the superseding indictment but also an injunction preventing Smith from “spending additional public funds” while violating the Constitution.

It’s the latest attempt by Trump to obtain rulings that would severely weaken or end Smith’s prosecution, which restarted after months of delay as the Supreme Court weighed Trump’s appeal on presidential immunity.

Trump is seeking to dismiss the case based on the Supreme Court’s ruling that presidents have some immunity, as well as based on its decision from June in Fischer v. United States, which narrowed Smith’s application of an obstruction statute used against Jan. 6 defendants.

Trump’s latest filing echoes arguments from Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed Smith’s classified documents case against Trump in the state. Both Trump and Cannon also cited Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whose concurring opinion in the immunity decision raised doubts about the legitimacy of Smith’s appointment.

That case is headed towards the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit where Smith is seeking an appeal of Cannon’s decision. If the 11th Circuit and Chutkan return differing opinions on this issue, it could prompt the type of circuit split that reaches the Supreme Court.

Chutkan has already indicated that she would reject the type of arguments that Cannon used in dismissing the classified documents case. During a status conference on Sept. 5, she said that she didn’t find Cannon’s opinion “particularly persuasive.”

Cannon’s ruling conflicted with a 2019 judgment by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which upheld former special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment. That 2019 decision wasn’t binding for Chutkan, Trump’s attorneys argued, because it was decided before the Supreme Court issued multiple decisions attempting to rein in agency power through a principle called the “major questions doctrine.”

That doctrine, which the Supreme Court applied in its decision striking down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness, holds that laws should not be interpreted as allowing agencies to decide major questions unless explicitly stated by the text.

Because Congress didn’t provide a clear statement authorizing the appointment of special counsels like Smith, Trump’s attorneys said, his appointment was illegal.

Smith told the 11th Circuit that Cannon’s decision “needlessly casts doubt on longstanding practices in the Department of Justice and across the Executive Branch.”

He disputed Cannon’s ruling on statutory grounds but also took issue with her interpretation of the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. Nixon. That case centered on former President Richard Nixon’s attempt to resist a subpoena from special prosecutor Leon Jaworski.

In that case, the court’s majority defended the special prosecutor’s appointment.

“Under the authority of Art. II, § 2, Congress has vested in the Attorney General the power to conduct the criminal litigation of the United States Government … It has also vested in him the power to appoint subordinate officers to assist him in the discharge of his duties,” the 1974 majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice Warren Burger, read.

Cannon said in July that the court’s wording was dictum, or nonbinding, on future court decisions. Trump’s attorneys agreed.

So much for Robinhood having a monopoly on overnight trading…

The New York Stock Exchange said in a press release today that it plans on extending weekday trading on its NYSE ARCA Equities Exchange to 22 hours a day. 

“NYSE Group’s NYSE Arca is a fully electronic exchange that ranks as the top U.S. exchange for listing and trading exchange-traded funds,” the release notes. “All U.S.-listed stocks, ETFs and closed-end funds would be available for trading on NYSE Arca during the 22-hour weekday sessions.”

“The extended trading would take place from 1:30 am to 11:30 pm Eastern Time on all weekdays, excluding holidays, subject to regulatory approval,” the release says, noting that the NYSE will “also seek support for extended trading from the U.S. securities information processors”.

Kevin Tyrrell, Head of Markets, New York Stock Exchange, said in the release: “The NYSE’s initiative to extend U.S. equity trading to 22 hours a day, 5 days a week underscores the strength of our U.S. capital markets and growing demand for our listed securities around the world.”

He continued:  “As the steward of the U.S. capital markets, the NYSE is pleased to lead the way in enabling exchange-based trading for our U.S.-listed companies and funds to investors in time zones across the globe.”

“Trades taking place on NYSE Arca during these additional extended hours will continue to be cleared by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which recently announced plans to extend its hours of operation,” the release concludes. 

As Bloomberg noted this morning, the New York Stock Exchange reignited the 24/7 trading debate in April by polling industry participants. NYSE President Lynn Martin told Bloomberg TV that “there are a lot of things to consider, mainly on the infrastructure side”, when considering implementing the extension. 

Via HeadlineUSA.com,

The editorial editor for the Los Angeles Times quit in protest after the newspaper’s owner blocked a decision to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review.

“In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

Garza’s resignation followed the news this week that Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire doctor who purchased the Los Angeles Times in 2018 for $500 million, shot down the Times editorial board’s attempt to endorse Harris.

Mariel Garza / IMAGE: Los Angeles Times Events via YouTube

This will be the first election cycle since 2004 in which the Times has not endorsed a candidate.

In a social media post, Soon-Shiong explained he offered the editorial board the chance to “draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation.”

“With this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years,” he wrote.

“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision.”

So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about.

The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH…

— Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong (@DrPatSoonShiong) October 23, 2024

Garza alleged Soon-Shiong’s decision not to endorse Harris amounted to greater political interference than if he had just allowed the editorial board to throw its support behind her.

“This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what,” Garza told CJR.

“And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies.”

The non-endorsement of Harris is a blow to the Democrat, who began her political career in California, where the paper is based.

Back in Sept 2022, the UK financial system almost collapsed when the bond market vigilantes woke up from a decade long slumber and in response to the tax-cutting mini-budget by former PM Liz “did not outlast the lettuce” Truss, sent yields soaring, the pound crashing and sparked a firesale of the country’s rate sensitive securities, forcing the BOE to resume QE virtually overnight as a buyer of last resort was desperately needed. It was a vivid reminder just how fake and unstable the global financial system has become if one just pulls the curtain on the unlimited daily supports from central bankers, and better yet, it was a teachable lesson why assets can never again drop: because if they do, it means central banks are no longer micromanaging the entire market and an epic crash is inevitable.

Long story short, the UK learned its lesson and the last thing it would ever do again is get perilously close to admitting the truth, which is that it is exclusively reliant on the debt market to fund its marginal deficit spending. Which, however, would mean two things: i) it would somehow have to convince the market it has much more debt capacity than it currently does, i.e. changing the definition of debt, and ii) it would need to actually do the right thing (something it has to do since unlike the US it doesn’t have a reserve currency to punch around) and either boost taxes or cut back spending.

That’s precisely what is about to happen.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, the UK’s equivalent to the Treasury Secretary, has embraced a fiscal overhaul that could allow the UK to borrow as much as £70 billion ($91 billion) more over the next five years by changing the very definition of debt, as the government defended a budget that looks increasingly likely to tax investors.

As Bloomberg reports, at next week’s budget, the government “will be changing the way that we measure debt” to a new arrangement that will “free up money to deliver a long-term return to our country and taxpayers,” Reeves told reporters on Thursday in Washington, where she was attending the IMF’s annual meetings.

And yes, we are literally talking about “changing the definition of debt” as Goldman explained in its Budget preview note (available to pro subscribers).

Her comments confirm local reporting that her budget “will include a new method for assessing the UK’s debt position – a move that will permit the Treasury to borrow more for long-term capital investment.” The change to the debt rule will be welcomed by the IMF, which says spending on UK infrastructure projects should be ringfenced as the government seeks to repair the damage to the public finances caused by the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

At the Budget next week, I will show that we have a choice between investment versus decline.

I am choosing to invest in Britain so we can turn the page on fourteen years of decline and start making the country better off. https://t.co/aMheErGtdf

— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) October 24, 2024

Reeves’ remarks on Thursday confirmed speculation that had mounted ahead of the Oct. 30 budget that she would alter her fiscal rules, and in particular the measure of debt that guides them, in order to allow Britain’s new Labour government to make those investments.

At the budget, she’s planning to set out two fiscal rules to set the tone for Labour’s first term in office since 2010:

• The first rule requires her to pay for day-to-day spending out of taxes. To meet that rule with sufficient headroom to give her flexibility in a crisis, Reeves needs about £40 billion from tax rises and welfare cuts. She refused to be drawn on which taxes will rise but there is widespread expectation that employers will pay more national insurance and that capital gains and inheritance taxes will rise. Income tax thresholds may also be frozen for two more years. That could raise about £20 billion, according to analysis by think tanks such as the IFS, Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research.
• The second rule is that debt must be falling in the fifth year of the official forecast. The measure of debt has yet to be defined but is widely expected to be “public sector net financial liabilities,” which captures the value of assets created alongside the cost of any investment, effectively removing the debt from the books. As a result, the National Wealth Fund and GB Energy would have more scope to invest. Compared with the existing measure of “public sector net debt excluding the Bank of England,” PSNFL will give Reeves £53 billion of additional annual borrowing headroom. Under PSNFL, she would meet her rule with three years to spare.

Speaking to reporters, the chancellor hinted she may make the debt rule tougher by moving from a rolling five-year target to a fixed date of 2029-30. She said: “It is important to do that in the course of the parliament because otherwise it’s always in the future and it never actually gets met.”

By targeting the fiscal rules, and by literally changing the definition of debt, the chancellor is trying to free up as much capital to invest as possible to eliminate the need for further painful tax hikes, because apparently the market is so stupid it can’t figure out what she plans on doing. Reeves said she didn’t want to see public investment fall, as currently projected, to 1.7% of gross domestic product by 2029 from 2.5% now. “We would be embracing the path of decline,” she said.

Reeves is trying to strike a balance between fiscal prudence to keep financial markets on side while increasing investment in roads, schools and other public infrastructure, to drive up economic growth and tax revenues while also ending austerity in public services.

“The reason we’re doing that is because there are massive opportunities to invest in Britain,” Reeves said in a Sky News interview. “To get the growth and jobs for the future here for the UK, it’s not possible under the current rules.”

Maintaining investment spending at 2.5% of GDP across the parliament would cost a cumulative £70 billion, according to Ben Zaranko, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Reeves said she would set out the path for public sector net investment in next Wednesday’s budget.

At the IMF, the chancellor told fellow finance ministers that everything Labour plans will be “built on the rock of economic stability”, by which she supposedly means changing definitions of core financial concepts.

Apparently that was not lost on the debt market either, and in an ominous sign, gilt prices wobbled this week at news of the scale of the potential borrowing, with the spread between gilt yields and German bunds widening since a report in the Guardian newspaper late Wednesday. The yield on 10-year gilts rose on Thursday, widening the spread over equivalent German notes to 199 basis points, the highest in a year.  As John Authers notes, the spike in gilts means that the spread of gilt yields over French OATS is back above its level when France’s Emmanuel Macron made his ill-fated decision to call a snap election back in June: “If not an event on a par with the bond market revolt that greeted former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s mini-budget in 2022, this is still a big deal”, but don’t worry, it will get there.

Adding insult to injury, before Reeves announced her plan to borrow more, the International Monetary Fund this week supported the prospect of Britain moving to a debt rule allowing more investment but also warned that UK debt is already on an unsustainable upward trajectory, which it is explicitly encouraging.

To give markets confidence that Labour will not use all the available borrowing headroom (spoiler alert: it will, and then some), Reeves said “guardrails” will ensure that “any taxpayer money invested will get a return for taxpayers.” The government will also “work with the National Audit Office and the Office for Budget Responsibility to make sure that all those investments are properly validated,” she said. “In terms of markets, that’s why I think these guardrails are important.”

Zaranko said that “the key constraint” on the government’s borrowing for investment will now be its “ability to find good projects and the construction sector’s ability to deliver them,” rather than its fiscal rules.

And while the Labour government is about to change the definition of debt to raise more of it, it will also change the definition of “working people” to tax more of them.

At an annual meeting of Commonwealth heads in Samoa, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was challenged over the definition of working people — who his government has vowed will avoid tax rises in Wednesday’s economic plan.

People who own assets are not “working people”, he said, adding that the type of person he intended to protect was someone who “goes out and earns their living, usually paid in a sort of monthly check” but who does not have the ability to “write a check to get out of difficulties.” One measure being weighed by Reeves is increasing the capital gains tax levied on entrepreneurs when they sell their businesses, according to people familiar with the matter.

The shift in the fiscal rules and hints of a forthcoming tax hike on investors come as the Treasury tries to scrape together enough cash to reverse a decline in spending on infrastructure, and keep its manifesto pledge of boosting growth in the UK economy.

Alas, Starmer’s comments will add to fears that Labour – along with every other socialist/progressive government in Europe and elsewhere – will prompt a rapid flight of the wealthy out of the UK. Reeves has pledged that those with the “broadest shoulders” will have to bear the burden of greater taxes, but many have already made plans to leave. One investor who moved last month to Lugano from London to avoid increased levies on his wealth, Christian Angermayer, told Bloomberg at the time that “every non-dom I know has left or is about to leave,” referring to non-domiciled residents who are currently given some tax breaks on assets held overseas.

In other words, the UK is about to dig itself into a far deeper hole as all those it plans to tax, well, flee to Dubai.

Meanwhile, speculation on what the budget might hold has also been weighing on households more broadly. Consumer confidence edged lower this month, according to a closely watched survey, as Britons became more downbeat about the economy, and with reason: because the tempest that is about to hit the UK will make the mini-budget disaster seem like a jolly dress rehearsal.

More in the Goldman UK Autumn Budget Preview report available to pro subscribers.

Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

By now it’s part of the playbook. It’s predictable. Expected.

Right before the election, another woman will allege she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump. And now they’re trying to link Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein.

This time the accuser is Stacey Williams, a former Sports Illustrated model who struggled as an actress before turning Democrat operative.

According to an exclusive from The Guardian (more on that below), Williams was groped either “in the late winter or early spring of 1993” after “Epstein suggested during a walk they were on that he and Williams stop by to visit Trump at Trump Tower.”

The Guardian continued:

Moments after they arrived, she alleges, Trump greeted Williams, pulled her toward him and started groping her. She said he put his hands “all over my breasts” as well as her waist and her buttocks. She said she froze because she was “deeply confused” about what was happening. At the same time, she said she believed she saw the two men smiling at each other.

The details of the “sexual assault” were alleged “on a call on Monday [October 21, 2024] organized by a group called Survivors for Kamala, which supports Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.”

Why did Williams come forward now, and not in 2016 or 2020? She explained that while she was enjoying life as a “private citizen,” she “watched what has happened to women who come out and it is so horrifying and abusive. The thought of doing that, especially as a mother with a child in my house, was just not possible.”

What a “scoop” for Guardian reporters Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Lucy Osborne. Coincidentally – if you believe in such coincidences – Lucy Osborne had the exclusive September 17, 2020 interview with Amy Dorris, who alleged Trump sexually assaulted her at the 1997 US Open.

ZeroHedge already found one big issue with her story: the timeline doesn’t work.

In any event, it seems the Democrats have Lucy Osborne and The Guardian on speed dial to serve as their preferred vehicle for the now-expected “sexual assault” October surprise against Trump. Two alleged victims with similar stories, both Democrats, who are referred to the same reporter before the Presidential election.

Who put these “victims” in contact with Osborne? The best guess is someone affiliated with the Democratic party. As with the Dorris allegation from 2020, other media outlets are starting to run the Stacey Williams allegations. The Guardian just got the ball rolling – yet again. Sexual assault and the link to Epstein. Truly dirty stuff.

And truly unbelievable stuff. Stacey Williams is a longtime Democrat who followed “her life long passion for organizing by working with Clean Tech for Obama.”

Clean Tech for Obama – apparently with the help of Stacey Williams – would raise over $2 million for then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008. And Obama paid them back. Members of this group would go on to join the Obama Administration and influence the distribution of billions of dollars back to their friends, industries, and former companies.

According to a 2012 US House Oversight Report:

Sanjay Wagle has most recently served as Renewable Energy Advisor to DOE under Secretary Chu, where he helped oversee the $11 billion renewable energy program under the Recovery Act. Wagle was an Obama fundraiser for the 2008 presidential campaign, garnering much of his support through his Clean Tech for Obama group. Another venture capitalist that has acquired an influential role at DOE, his industry colleagues believed that Wagle, among others, “would help ensure commercial successes from ‘the steady flow of dollars coming out of DC.’”

We grabbed this picture from Clean Tech for Obama’s Flickr account. It’s from a 2008 fundraiser in San Fransisco. Is that Stacey Williams with the camera? We’re leaning yes but can’t be sure…

“Clean Tech for Obama” evolved into “Clean Tech for Hillary” in 2016 and has since rebranded into The Cleantech Party, a Democratic fundraising group that supports “clean energy and climate action” – and candidates like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats both in the House and Senate. They’ve partnered with MoveOn.org and other progressive groups, such as SwingLeft and Voices for Progress. Here they are with Nancy Pelosi.

It’s unclear whether Stacey Williams is still involved with that group. We do know that she has been a Democratic donor in the past – and it’s reasonable to assume her affiliation with the Democratic movement has only strengthened in the age of Trump.

She may still be a Democratic donor to this day. If not by financial contributions, then certainly by other means.

Boeing is unlikely to recover from its botched Starliner spacecraft mission to the International Space Station this past summer, leaving two astronauts stranded on the ISS that Elon Musk’s SpaceX has to rescue with a Crew Dragon spacecraft early next year. 

On Friday afternoon, a new Wall Street Journal report revealed that Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has mulled over selling its NASA business, including the unit that manages the Starliner. 

The effort, part of a strategy by Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg to streamline the company and stem its financial losses, is at an early stage and may not result in a deal.

. . . 

Boeing is expected to keep its position overseeing the Space Launch System, some of the people said. The SLS is a huge rocket NASA is paying the company to build to start future lunar-exploration missions.

. . . 

Before Ortberg joined, Boeing held discussions with Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, about taking over some of the NASA programs, people familiar with those discussions said. Blue Origin has been preparing its own rockets for future NASA and commercial missions and to compete with SpaceX. -WSJ 

Boeing’s mounting problems include starliner malfunctions in space this summer – the spacecraft returned to Earth without crew in early September. Also, two of its 737 Max jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. Earlier this year, a door plug ripped off a Max jet.

It’s remarkable that Boeing received $4.2 billion to develop Starliner, while SpaceX was awarded just $2.6 billion to create Crew Dragon over a decade ago. Despite a much smaller contract, Musk and SpaceX achieved what once seemed impossible and now lead the space industry…

Using data from BryceTech, SpaceX launched 525 spacecraft into orbit in the first quarter, far outpacing China and Russia. 

Musk is America’s rocket program: SpaceX launched about 429,125 kg of spacecraft upmass in the first quarter, significantly outpacing China’s rocket program (China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation), which launched a measly 29,426 kg. 

Much of this is due to SpaceX’s Starlink deployment in LEO, as thousands of these satellites provide high-speed internet coverage to millions of customers worldwide. 

Just a few weeks ago: 

• French Media Blames SpaceX For 2,500 Airbus Layoffs As Elon Musk Leads Rocket Race

And this. 

Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/6R5YatSVJX

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024

Meanwhile, a five-week strike at Boeing was prolonged earlier this week after the union rejected a new labor contract. 

“We Remain On Strike”: Boeing Union Rejects New Labor Contract https://t.co/iGbEKaQogm

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 24, 2024

WSJ was the first to note Boeing was exploring asset sales on Oct. 20. 

Boeing Explores Asset Sales In Potential Shrinking Of Corporate Footprint https://t.co/IYjOjKjRUq

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 20, 2024

And Boeing has filed a $25 billion shelf registration amid dwindling cash reserves as it must protect its investment grade credit ratings status at all costs. It also reported a net loss of $6.17 billion for the third quarter. 

The military-industrial complex really fumbled the space ball. Now, Musk and SpaceX lead the space race as power shifts into a new class of billionaires. 

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

A spokesman for the Harris campaign confirmed that Kamala said no after being invited on the Joe Rogan podcast, claiming the invitation was turned down due to a “scheduling” issue,” despite her being in Texas today where Rogan’s podcast is based.

Ian Sams was asked by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about whether an invite had gone out and whether Harris would appear on Rogan’s show given its popularity and reach with young voters.

“Well yeah, I think that the Vice President’s happy to go anywhere and any place to talk to a broad segment of the country,” said Sams, before admitting that she wasn’t prepared to go to Texas to speak with Rogan.

“We talked with Rogan and his team about the podcast, unfortunately it isn’t going to work out right now because of the scheduling of this period of the campaign,” he added.

BREAKING: Ian Sams, Harris spokesman, confirms Kamala Harris will NOT do the Joe Rogan podcast. Anderson Cooper apparently was too much for her.

Trump is scheduled to sit with Rogan tomorrow. Campaign sources confirm it’s locked and will happen. pic.twitter.com/HjRYrsf70f

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) October 25, 2024

That’s a little odd given that Rogan’s podcast is based in Austin, Texas and Kamala will be in Houston Texas later today to appear at a rally alongside Beyoncé.

Houston is just a two and a half hour drive from Austin.

While the clash may be explained by Donald Trump recording a show with Rogan on Friday, it’s unclear why Harris couldn’t have just stayed in Texas and recorded the podcast the next day given the show’s massive audience.

It’s also possible that two podcasts could have been recorded on the same day, but apparently Harris isn’t that bothered about appearing on Rogan’s show.

As we previously speculated, it was always going to be unlikely that Kamala would want to sit down with Rogan for an elongated length of time given that she isn’t really known for her skills when it comes to nuanced, long format conversations.

Rogan’s podcast has a combined Instagram, Spotify and YouTube audience of over 50 million followers, making it the most watched/heard podcast on the planet.

Elon Musk’s first appearance on the show attracted over 68 million viewers on YouTube alone.

Harris has faced sustained criticism for doing barely any adversarial interviews, with the only real test for her so far coming in the form of a 25 minute conversation with Fox News’ Bret Baier, which didn’t go down too well.

* * *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

During a webinar on Wednesday hosted by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing US President Rick Cassidy told listeners that TSMC’s Phoenix, Arizona chip factory has achieved around 4% more usable chips than its Taiwan plants. 

According to Bloomberg, this is a critical metric for TSMC, as its most advanced and efficient chip plants are based in Taiwan. It marks a major win for the US in reshoring chip production through the Biden administration’s 2022 Chips and Science Act. However, Vice President Harris finds little leverage in touting domestic chip developments as inflation and border invasion dominate headlines with the election just ten days away. 

“Our first fab entered engineering wafer production in April with 4-nanometer process technology, and the result is highly satisfactory, with a very good yield,” TSMC CEO C.C. Wei told investors during an earnings call with investors last week, adding, “This is an important operational milestone for TSMC and our customers, demonstrating TSMC’s strong manufacturing capability and execution.”

TSMC has been one of the largest recipients of the Chips and Science Act, receiving $6.6 billion in grants and up to $5 billion in loans—plus 25% tax credits—to build three chip plants in Arizona. 

So far, across all companies, the Biden administration has allocated $39 billion in direct grants, alongside $75 billion in loans and guarantees through the Chips and Science Act to revamp America’s chip-making capacity that has collapsed over the decades after manufacturing was offshored to Asia. This reversal in trend is a promising sign for the revitalization of America’s manufacturing capacities by the end of the decade. Also, high-tech chips for weapons systems mustn’t be produced in areas in or around China – just in case geopolitical tensions spark snarled supply chains.

Here’s what X users are saying:

How do I short Taiwan?

— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) October 24, 2024

Hmm.

That’s interesting yeah. I don’t get the impression that the Harris campaign has made CHIPS/IRA stuff a big part of its message.

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) October 24, 2024

Oops.

Earnings call said AZ profit margin is worse.

I wonder how much due to AZ being the newest fab producing 4nm whereas newer Taiwan fabs are doing 3nm and first gen 3nm had notably poor yields.

— Josh (@Jskybowen) October 24, 2024

Last month, Taiwan-based independent journalist Tim Culpan revealed that TSMC’s Arizona plant produced the first batch of Apple A16 chips using the 4 nm process. 

After the chips are manufactured in Arizona, they’ll likely be sent to Foxconn factories in China or India, where low-cost labor will be used to assemble iPhones or iPads. 

This is great news for made-in-America chips – and reshoring efforts.

Authored by James Samuel via The College Fix,

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya received the American Academy of Sciences and Letters’ top intellectual freedom award on Wednesday for resisting attempts to politically control his scientific work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The academy presents its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom to a scholar “who displays extraordinary courage in the exercise of intellectual freedom,” according to its website.

Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, received the honor during the academy’s annual investiture ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Afterward, he joined Princeton University Professor Stephen Macedo for an interview on stage.

Macedo began by asking about the first time Bhattacharya pushed back against the government’s handling of the pandemic.

“I wasn’t prepared for it,” Bhattacharya said.

“I had never published an op-ed. I had never been on TV. I was a quiet scholar, and I had this idea regarding the pandemic that the disease was more widespread than people realized,” he said.

Then, after he wrote an op-ed about it, he “got death threats.” Bhattacharya said attacks came from Stanford as well.

“The university, which I loved, … investigated me for false allegations … that they knew were false,” he said.

“I got sent a very clear signal that I needed to stay quiet.”

“I lost sleep, I couldn’t eat,” he said. “But I decided that I didn’t care about my career anymore and I needed to say what I saw.”

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

“These policies that we were following were going to harm a lot of poor people … and there were better policies possible,” Bhattacharya said.

In 2020, he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter to government officials and public health authorities challenging mandatory lockdowns and other decisions about the pandemic.

Bhattacharya said it was “the least original thing” he ever wrote, and Macedo pointed out that his recommendations had “been anticipated in many pandemic plans before COVID.”

Bhattacharya contrasted the government’s COVID-19 response with that of the Hong Kong flu in 1968, joking that “the United States addressed it by having Woodstock.”

“The idea that disrupting normal social life is in itself bad for health, I thought was a commonplace in public health,” he said.

Next, Macedo asked why government leaders across the world adopted oppressive measures similar to China’s to try to “stop the spread of a respiratory virus.”

Bhattacharya responded, “I think it’s complicated, but … the central thing is fear. I think public health authorities were scared of this new disease, and they decided that scaring people was also a good policy.

Modern technology also played a part — “that would have been unthinkable before,” he said.

Macedo pointed out that, at the time, Bhattacharya was viewed as “a dissenter from mainstream policy,” but many others “were sympathetic to [his] view but did not feel able to speak up.”

Bhattacharya replied, “I think people were very, very scared, both about their own physical safety, but also, they’re scared for their own careers,” a fear that he shared.

Bhattacharya also touched on his participation in a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of secretly telling social media companies to censor speech that ran against its COVID-19 policies.

“In 2022, when Elon Musk bought Twitter, it turns out that I had been placed on a blacklist the day I joined Twitter because I put the Great Barrington Declaration on there,” he said.

“That was not an accident. Twitter didn’t do that on its own. There was a systematic campaign by the federal bureaucracy, including the CDC, the surgeon general’s office,” he said.

“All of these federal agencies essentially pressured Twitter and other social media to silence voices … that were contrary to pandemic policy put forward by the administration,” Bhattacharya said. “The American First Amendment didn’t hold during the pandemic. We did not have free speech.”

The case is pending in a court, and Bhattacharya expressed hope they will win “eventually.”

“The government going to Twitter or to Facebook and saying ‘Silence Jay or silence people like Jay who are saying these kinds of things,’ where I’m not told I’m being silenced, I don’t get to tell the government to go take a hike … that’s a violation of the First Amendment,” he said.

Macedo asked about the increasing “emphasis on paternalism in public health,” and the idea that “the public doesn’t really understand the science, so they need to be guided rather than told the truth.”

Bhattacharya responded: “If I go around and say smoking is good for you … I’ve done something deeply harmful to the public … but the ethical basis for that is that there really is an honest scientific consensus that smoking is terrible for you.”

However, in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bhattacharya said there was no scientific consensus.

“What we needed was everyone speaking up and saying what they saw, so there was no ethical basis for the normal public health angle to say, ‘Look, you just need to fall in line and say what everybody else says,’” Bhattacharya said.

Macedo concluded by asking about a Stanford conference on COVID policy earlier this fall that Bhattacharya organized, and if it signaled “a period of remorse and contrition” for the university.

“I do actually see some reason for optimism,” Bhattacharya said, adding that Stanford’s president did not take sides.

“What he said was, ‘We have an obligation to be the kind of place where these kinds of conversations happen,’” he said. “What we do as universities is provide the platform where people of good faith can come together and talk to each other. That’s what we’ve forgotten about, and that leads to great things.”

Bhattacharya is the second recipient of the academy’s Zimmer Medal.

The inaugural recipient in 2023 was Sir Salman Rushdie, an author who criticized the Quran in his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses,” and has faced several attempts on his life for it. He was chosen for the award for his adversity and “refusal to be silenced,” according to the academy’s website.

On Wednesday, the academy also honored ten professors with Barry Prizes for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement.

The recipients were Akhil Reed Amar and Nicholas Christakis from Yale; Henry Louis Gates, Karin Öberg, and Jeannie Suk Gersen from Harvard; William Chester Jordan from Princeton; Marianne Bertrand from University of Chicago; Brian Conrad from Stanford; Megan Sykes from Columbia; and Gary Anderson from Notre Dame.

2024 American Academy of Sciences and Letters inductees and award winners

The Barry Prize “honors those whose work has made outstanding contributions to humanity’s knowledge, appreciation, and cultivation of the good, the true, and the beautiful,” according to the academy. The winners also received a $50,000 cash prize.

More than 50 new members also were inducted into the academy on Wednesday.

Salvatore Torquato, a professor of natural sciences at Princeton and a new inductee, told The College Fix that organizations with missions like the Academy of Sciences and Letters’ are “sorely needed.”

Along with supporting academic freedom, the academy works to support “intellectual rigor” and “the fundamental and constitutive mission of colleges and universities as truth-seeking, knowledge advancing institutions,” according to its website.

The ceremony included a performance from Howard University’s Gospel Choir.