Tesla Faces Another ‘Full Self-Driving’ Probe By NHTSA Over Crashes In Low-Visibility Conditions
Tesla faces a new round of investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, following reports of four crashes, including one fatal incident, involving its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software in low-visibility conditions.
“The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has identified four Standing General Order (SGO) reports in which a Tesla vehicle experienced a crash after entering an area of reduced roadway visibility conditions with FSD -Beta or FSD -Supervised (collectively,” NHTSA wrote in an investigation.
NHTSA continued, “In these crashes, the reduced roadway visibility arose from conditions such as sun glare, fog, or airborne dust. In one of the crashes, the Tesla vehicle fatally struck a pedestrian. One additional crash in these conditions involved a reported injury. The four SGO crash reports are listed at the end of this summary by SGO number.”
This preliminary evaluation is the latest setback for Tesla’s FSD efforts. More than 2.4 million Tesla Model S, 3, X, Y, and Cybertrucks are on US highways and roads.
The investigation centers around FSD:
The ability of FSD’s engineering controls to detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions;
Whether any other similar FSD crashes have occurred in reduced roadway visibility conditions and, if so, the contributing circumstances for those crashes; and
Any updates or modifications from Tesla to the FSD system that may affect the performance of FSD in reduced roadway visibility conditions. In particular, this review will assess the timing, purpose, and capabilities of any such updates, as well as Tesla’s assessment of their safety impact.
“Weather conditions can impact the camera’s ability to see things and I think the regulatory environment will certainly weigh in on this,” Jeff Schuster, vice president at GlobalData, told Reuters, adding, “That could be one of the major roadblocks in what I would call a near-term launch of this technology and these products.”
Tesla states on its website, “Visibility is critical for Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to operate. Low visibility, such as low light or poor weather conditions (rain, snow, direct sun, fog, etc.) can significantly degrade performance.”
“Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is a hands-on feature. Keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times, be mindful of road conditions and surrounding traffic, and always be prepared to take immediate action,” Tesla continued.
It warned, “Failure to follow all warnings and instructions can result in property damage, serious injury or death.”
Tesla has faced multiple NHTSA probes involving FSD this year (read here & here). It’s likely that Tesla will issue an over-the-air update to satisfy government investigators.
Also, Tesla recently beat a lawsuit alleging its top execs overstated investors about FSD claims.
By Benjamin Picton, senior macro strategist at Rabobank
The European Central Bank surprised nobody by cutting its deposit facility rate to 3.25% yesterday. OIS futures were virtually fully-priced for the outcome, and all 65 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg (including our own Bas van Geffen) predicted the 25bps cut, the third of the current easing cycle. The futures market now has 37.7bps worth of cuts priced for the December meeting as Christine Lagarde highlighted concerns over the growth outlook, particularly in the manufacturing sector where rising energy costs, competitive pressures and weaker growth in export markets (China) continues to hurt.
Manufacturing isn’t the only concern. Rabo Research’s Head of Macro Strategy Elwin de Groot and Senior Economist Maartje Wijffelaars recently highlighted perceptions of a ‘catching down’ effect whereby services indicators are following manufacturing lower. Rabo Research argues that softening services indicators are primarily due to weakness in consumer demand, rather than spillover effects from manufacturing. Lagarde confirmed that the ECB has been surprised by this weakness, highlighting that spending had been expected to pick up as growth in wages remains brisk and disinflation continues.
Rabo Research still believes that the conditions exist for a pickup in consumer demand as the high household savings rate normalizes, real wages continue to grow and further monetary easing is delivered. To-date, this has not happened and it has created a divergence between European and American consumers that was illustrated by yesterday’s strong US retail sales report for September. The report confirmed that control group sales rose by 0.7% month-on-month versus expectations and a prior read of +0.3%, prompting the Atlanta Fed’s GDP Nowcast to rise from 3.2% to 3.4%. US initial jobless claims figures released on the day were also stronger than the market expected, printing at 241k versus a consensus estimate of 259k.
The US Treasury curve bear-steepened as 2-year Treasury yields rose by 3.2bps and 10-year yields climbed 7.7bps. By contrast, the German Bund curve also steepened as long-end yields rose, but the dovish message out of the ECB combined with a slightly softer-than-expected CPI print earlier in the day to prompt short end yields to fall and European stocks to rise sharply.
Fed-dated OIS now has just 42.7bps worth of cuts priced in for the two remaining FOMC meetings in 2024. A 25bps cut at each meeting is Rabo Research’s forecast and a popular view in the market following the strong forward guidance issued by Jerome Powell at the NABE conference in late September. The recent run of stronger than expected data has alloyed with comments from the Fed’s Daly and Bostic suggesting that the Fed could skip a cut at one of the upcoming meetings to lift the front end of US rates curves.
Consequently, the S&P500 closed 1 point lower after beginning the day with a firmer tone. The NASDAQ was also broadly unchanged, while the less rate-sensitive Dow Jones gained 0.37% and Bitcoin fell 1%. Brent crude prices rose modestly and are slightly bid in early trade today following news that Israel has eliminated Hamas leader and October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwa, and an announcement by Hezbollah of “a new and escalatory phase in the confrontation with the Israeli enemy”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, spot gold has set another fresh all-time-high at $2,693/oz.
Turning back to macro, the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday released its labor market report for the month of September. The Aussie labor market has been on a bit of a hot streak recently with monthly employment numbers routinely exceeding consensus estimates by orders of magnitude since April. September continued the run as Australia minted 64.1k new jobs against a consensus estimate on the Bloomberg survey of +25k. The unemployment rate held at 4.1% after the August figure was revised down by 1-tick. This was despite the participation rate and the employment to population ratio both rising to new highs.
So, it’s fair to say that the Australian labor market remains remarkably resilient and is not providing any signals to the Reserve Bank that favour a near-term rate cut. Rabo Research has been more hawkish than most in sticking to our forecast that the first cut won’t arrive until May next year. Other analysts had been clustering on the February RBA meeting as a likely date, but the OIS futures now imply a probability of a 25bps cut in February at just ~67%.
Those odds could shift again when the third quarter CPI report is released the week after next. But then again, maybe the third time won’t be the charm for inflation either?
Hamas Vows To Intensify Gaza Fight After ‘Fallen Martyr’ Sinwar’s Killing, As Biden Urges Ceasefire
Hamas on Friday has issued official confirmation that Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in southern Gaza. Spokesman and Gaza head Khalil Hayya announced in a televised address that Sinwar has become a “fallen martyr”.
Calling him “steadfast, brave and intrepid,” Hayya asserted that Sinwar “sacrificed his life to the cause of our liberation.” Israeli authorities had killed him by likely tank fire on a residential building in Rafah, and quickly examined his body, confirming his identify through dental and DNA records (Sinwar had previously spent years in Israeli prison).
“He met his end standing brave, with his head held high, holding his firearm, firing until the last breath, until the last moment of his life,” the Hamas official said, emphasizing that he died in combat. It appears his death happened Wednesday and the Israelis came upon his body amid the rubble on Thursday.
Hayya continued to eulogize the slain Hamas leader in Gaza as follows: “[Sinwar] has lived his whole life as a holy fighter. Since his early days, he was engaged in his struggle as a resistant fighter. He stood defiant behind Israeli bars and after his release in a swapped deal, he continued with his struggle and his dedication to the cause.”
Hayya also described of Sinwar’s “martyrdom” after other leaders which preceded him that this “will only increase the strength and resilience of our movement.”
Amid ongoing speculation that Sinwar’s death could lead to a quick ceasefire and return of the Israeli hostages, Hamas appears to be slamming the door on this prospect. Hayya vowed that the group will continue to fight for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“The occupation prisoners will not return unless the aggression on Gaza stops, there is a complete withdrawal from [Gaza], and our prisoners are released from the prisons,” Hayya declared. “Hamas will continue until the establishment of the Palestinian state on all Palestinian soil with Jerusalem as its capital.”
A separate statement from Al-Qassam Brigades said the same concerning Sinwar’s death. It called anyone who thinks this is the end of the resistance movement “delusional” while proclaiming “martyrdom” as the “highest aspiration” of Hamas leaders.
The statement essentially vowed that many more Hamas militants will step into the fight. “It [martyrdom] burns the aggressors, and our leaders have left behind hundreds of thousands of mujahideen from our people and nation who are determined to fight the Zionist occupation until Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are cleansed of its defilement and swept away from our land, God willing,” Al-Qassem Brigades said.
Meanwhile, European and US leaders in the aftermath of Sinwar’s killing expressed home for a speedy ceasefire. “With the death of the Hamas leader Sinwar… hopefully the concrete prospect will now open up for a ceasefire and an agreement to release the hostages in Gaza,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday during a visit by US President Joe Biden.
Yahya Sinwar is dead.
He was killed in Rafah by the brave soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces.
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 17, 2024
As for Biden, he said this was a “moment of justice” and “an opportunity to seek a path to peace” in Gaza. He stressed the Sinwar had “the blood of Americans and Israelis, Palestinians and Germans and so many others on his hands.”
However, later in the morning White House national security official John Kirby told Axios, “We are not in a situation now where there are serious negotiations on a hostage deal.”
Meanwhile more information has been revealed about Sinwar’s final stand as Israeli forces closed in. While reports say the IDF was pursuing intelligence which generally placed some senior Hamas leaders in the area of Rafah where Sinwar was found, his being there came as a surprise.
The moment that changed the war in Gaza came around 3 p.m. when the trainees searching for Hamas tunnels in the southern city of Rafah saw three armed men leaving a building.
The soldiers opened fire. One of the men fled into a nearby building. Soldiers sent a reconnaissance drone in after him. The video feed showed the militant wounded and alone, sitting in a chair.
The IDF released the drone footage of this moment, showing Sinwar with a severed arm defiantly hurling the piece of wood at the drone, with a keffiyeh around his face.
Some analysts have expressed surprise that the video was released, given that instead of showing a Hamas leader cowered and in hiding – Sinwar appeared to essentially be on the front line and personally engaged in the firefight. Some Israeli reports said he had hurled two grenades at Israeli soldiers who tried to close in on foot. Will Sinwar’s killing only intensify Hamas’ resolve, and delay any chance of ceasefire?
Yahya Sinwar went out fighting. Dressed in fatigues, his right arm severed, he flung a stick defiantly at the Israel drone filming him. He had submitted to his fate from the moment he unleashed the flood. This video practically ensures the tide will rise. pic.twitter.com/B6ttzPMHJT
In a final act of defiance, the man hurled a chunk of wood at the drone, before the soldiers opened fire again—and the house collapsed on him.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when other soldiers returned to sift through the rubble, that they noticed a resemblance between the dead militant and Sinwar, the Middle East’s most wanted man.
“We operated a lot of fire, a lot of artillery,” a soldier involved in Wednesday’s operation, whose name wasn’t disclosed, told Israel’s Channel 12 news. “When we heard he was killed, we joked around saying, ‘How crazy would it be if it was us?’”
To be expected, Iran has seized on this theme portraying Sinwar as a ‘martyr’ who fought bravely till the end. Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X that he “bravely fought to the very end on the battlefield” and that he “did not fear death but sought martyrdom in Gaza.”
IDF released footage showing the moment a tank shell was fired on the building where Yahya Sinwar was killed. #Gazapic.twitter.com/Y2hgYo706m
Araghchi hailed Sinwar’s death as a “source of inspiration for resistance fighters across the region, Palestinian and non-Palestinian,” emphasizing that “We, and countless others around the world, salute his selfless struggle for liberation of the Palestinian people.”
Given all of this rhetoric, it doesn’t seem the war in Gaza will wind down any time soon. Some analysts have also pointed out that Sinwar had been in charge of negotiations from Hamas’ side, and that his death greatly complicates the possibility of even restarting Doha-Cairo talks.
District of Columbia District Judge Tanya Chutkan has denied former President Donald Trump’s request to delay the public release of additional portions of special counsel Jack Smith’s evidence until after the 2024 election.
On Oct. 17, she issued an order and opinion arguing that delaying its release would be a form of election interference.
“If the court withheld information that the public otherwise had a right to access solely because of the potential political consequences of releasing it, that withholding could itself constitute—or appear to be—election interference,” she said in her five-page order.
“The court will therefore continue to keep political considerations out of its decision-making, rather than incorporating them as Defendant requests.”
On Oct. 10, Chutkan had authorized the release of the evidence—the appendix to Smith’s immunity motion—in an order on Oct. 10 but delayed its effects for seven days to give Trump an opportunity to evaluate his next steps. In her recent order, she added that the court would issue an order on the following day directing the release of the redacted appendix.
Trump’s attorneys had requested an extension on the delay Judge Chutkan imposed, suggesting instead in an Oct. 17 motion that she should concurrently release both Smith’s appendix and one from Trump’s team.
Trump’s attorneys said that “if the appendices are released simultaneously, at least some press outlets will attempt to report both sides of this case, reducing (although, again, not eliminating) the potential for irreversible prejudice.”
“Similarly, the risk to witnesses will be somewhat reduced, as the public will have a more balanced picture of their testimony and how it connects to this case,” the filing to the judge read.
Chutkan’s motion also said Trump’s team’s justification for delaying the release to help the public gain a better understanding of the issue is “oxymoronic.”
“Setting aside the oxymoronic proposition that the public’s understanding of this case will be enhanced by withholding information about it, any public debate about the issues in this case has no bearing on the court’s resolution of those issues,” she said.
The judge also pushed back on his attorneys’ concerns about tainting the jury pool, saying instead that concerns like that could be addressed in the jury selection process.
Discovery Requests
The filings represented an ongoing back and forth between Judge Chutkan and Trump over the release of evidence—both to Trump and the public.
Chutkan issued an order on Oct. 16 rejecting most of Trump’s requests to compel discovery from Smith’s team. Out of the 14 categories of evidence he requested, Judge Chutkan only granted him three particular sets of information.
To compel discovery means to submit a request to gain access to relevant evidence, including documents or information, held by the other party before a trial begins.
Her 50-page order accused Trump’s legal team of using speculative reasoning to justify the discovery of various items. It also repeatedly argued that Trump had failed to show their relevance to his state of mind during the acts alleged in Smith’s indictment.
“Defendant has only carried his burden with respect to a small portion of the information he seeks. For most of it, he has proffered only speculation that a search will yield material, noncumulative information,” Chutkan said.
The judge added that while Trump “purports to seek much of this information to show his state of mind at the time of his indicted conduct … he does not indicate that he was aware of the requested information such that it could have affected his state of mind.”
Among the requests she denied were those for information that undercut a statement in which the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency described the 2020 election as the most secure in American history. Another included four types of records related to the Intelligence Community’s (IC) assessment of the 2020 election, which outlined its conclusions about foreign actors’ attempts to influence the election.
The discovery she granted included information the director of national intelligence (DNI) said he reviewed prior to his interview with the special counsel’s office. Chutkan noted how Smith’s original indictment alleged that the DNI “disabused [Trump] of the notion that the Intelligence Community’s findings regarding foreign interference would change the outcome of the election.”
She also acquiesced to Trump’s demand for discovery of “evidence relating to the unauthorized retention of classified documents by Vice President Mike Pence,” which she said could be material for impeaching the former vice president as a witness.
Other evidence included information about Trump’s meeting with Gen. Mark Milley and Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller just days before Jan. 6, 2021. More specifically, Trump sought records of information about security measures that were conveyed to him.
Trump’s motion to compel was filed in November of last year and argued for releasing various forms of evidence in order to, among other things, impeach prosecution witnesses and reveal purported political bias among officials in law enforcement and the intelligence community.
“The [Special Counsel’s] Office cannot rely on selected guidance and judgments by officials it favors from the Intelligence Community and law enforcement while ignoring evidence of political bias in those officials’ decision-making as well as cyberattacks and other interference, both actual and attempted, that targeted critical infrastructure and election facilities before, during, and after the 2020 election,” his attorneys said.
Trump has been given until Oct. 30 to file any additional motions to compel discovery related to the presidential immunity issue. Judge Chutkan also granted discovery requests related to the prosecution team and gave Smith until Oct. 26 to provide those materials to Trump.
Last week, Peter appeared on Soar Financially, where he was interviewed by host Kai Hoffmann. The two dive into gold’s upward trajectory and its historical precedents, the market’s misguided optimism when it comes to the American economy, and recent events in domestic politics and international banking.
Peter starts with his perennial reminder: public sector jobs do not boost the economy, and recent jobs numbers are intended to support a false narrative.
“Government jobs are not a sign of a strong economy. In fact, they weaken an economy because we have to pay for those jobs. They’re non-productive jobs. They result in bigger deficits, higher inflation. That’s really all we have– we have inflation that masquerades as growth.”
One factor distinguishing today’s economy from the past is that no monetary policymakers intend to hike rates in the long-term:
“Gold is on pace to have its biggest gains since 1979. And it’s not a coincidence that gold is moving this much, especially when the Fed is starting to cut rates and just beginning this new easing cycle. In 1979, the Fed was still tightening. In fact, in 1980, that’s when the Fed got rates to 20%. That’s what really stopped the gold bull market. But this gold bull market is just getting started, because the Fed isn’t anywhere near hiking rates. In fact, they’re cutting rates.”
Despite decades of artificially low interest rates and their resulting inflation, the market is too optimistic. The longer this goes on, the less plausible it is that the Fed can stay close to its inflation target:
“Every year, no matter how bad inflation was the prior year, the bond market is just assuming that it’s going to be 2% for the next 30 years. At some point, the bond market is going to have to come to terms with reality that this 2% target is all fantasy land—the Fed isn’t going to even come close to achieving that.”
Likewise, the American public mistakenly believes that politics can fix the economy without a painful and drastic correction period:
“It’s hard to get elected telling the truth that things can only get better if they get worse first. But Trump is promising immediate results—positive, no pain, just gain. And so nobody is prepared for what’s actually going to happen. That’s a problem. But the question is, can you get elected promising short-term pain for long-term gain? ‘Yes, I’m going to fix the problems, but in doing that, things are going to get worse before they get better. We have to spend less. We have to save more.’”
Turning to the havoc caused by hurricanes in recent weeks, Peter explains why it’s foolish to have bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. try to manage every disaster in the country:
“It’s a huge moral hazard, and so on the local levels, we’re not prepared. But it’s much better for North Carolina to take care of its own problems, as opposed to Washington, D.C., taking care of its problems. And California takes care of its problems instead of outsourcing it to Washington, D.C. You have Washington, D.C., trying to take care of wildfires in California, hurricanes in the Carolinas—whatever happens. But there’s so much corruption at the federal level, so much graft; it’s a very inefficient way to do it.”
In Europe, the move away from the dollar continues, with Poland significantly expanding its gold reserves. Central banks are the driving force behind gold’s rise this year, and Peter expects both central banks and the public to increase gold purchases:
“Right now, it’s foreign central banks, but they’re going to step it up. They have a lot more gold to buy—they’ve barely scratched the surface. Look now, Poland just announced that they’ve got more gold than the UK. This is a race. These central banks need to replace their dollars with gold because they can read the writing on the wall—they wrote it.”
NATO Membership Or Nuclear Weapons: Zelensky Stuns Allies With Demand
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, having received a lackluster response when he pitched his ‘victory plan’ to US officials in Washington last month, now says that Ukraine must either join NATO or obtain nuclear weapons.
He made the ultra provocative comments while speaking before the EU’s European Council in Brussels, where he presented the victory plan before European lawmakers. That’s when he referenced a recent private conversation with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying he told Trump that his country needs “some kind of alliance” or be “forced to pursue nuclear weapons.”
“In a conversation with Donald Trump I said – this is our situation: What way out do we have? Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which for us will be a defense, or we’ll need to have some sort of alliance, besides NATO. But today we know of no other alliance,” Zelensky said.
“NATO countries today are not at war. NATO countries are not fighting. In NATO countries people are still alive. Thank God. That is why we choose NATO, not nuclear weapons. And Donald Trump heard me. He said you have a just argument,” he continued.
At one point in these comments he referenced this historic Budapest Memorandum, a 1994 agreement where Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal from Soviet times in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US, and UK.
He also emphasized in a rhetorical question, “Which nuclear states suffered? None except Ukraine… Who gave up their nuclear weapons? All of them? No. Only Ukraine… Who is fighting today? Ukraine.”
Following the address, Zelensky appeared alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and sought to downplay the nuclear remarks, saying,“We never spoke about … that we are preparing to create nuclear weapons or something like this.”
Zelensky himself walked back his earlier comments at a later joint news conference in Brussels with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, saying: “I said I have no alternative except NATO. That was my signal. But we are not building nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has claimed that Ukraine is working on a dirty bomb. He said the Zelensky government “has everything necessary for that: resources, technology and specialists.”
However, he dismissed the Ukrainian leader’s nuke rhetoric as nonsense, and instead focused his criticisms on the likelier potential to develop a dirty bomb.
“Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and then it will be a defense for us, or Ukraine will be in NATO. NATO countries are not at war today. All people are alive in NATO countries. And that is why we choose NATO over nuclear weapons.” – President Zelensky. pic.twitter.com/yAv3RoozDi
If Kiev pushes this nuclear development line further, it’s likely to find that the US and West will distance themselves from more long-term support, amid accusations that arms and ammo supplies have been dwindling to just a trickle.
Among Zelensky’s main messages to the EU on Thursday was that a “dangerous winter” lies ahead, and therefore more immediate financial and weapons aid is urgent. “We did our homework,” Zelensky said of efforts to prepare for the winter months, at a moment Russia is gaining ground in the east.
Buffett Sheds More BofA Shares After Buybacks Push Stake Above 10%
94-year-old Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway offloaded even more Bank of America shares this week to sustain <10% regulatory threshold, a move triggered by the bank's own share buybacks, which pushed Berkshire's stake back above the 10% mark. Buffett's strategy is clear: keep the stake below this threshold to avoid constant SEC reporting that results with every sale.
Bloomberg data shows Berkshire’s total proceeds from selling BofA shares topped $370 million this week. The selling abruptly began in mid-July.
Berkshire’s stake is now under 10%, currently at 9.88%, which means that instead of disclosing trades every few days, this can now be done quarterly. The valuation of the position stands at around $32.64 billion (as of Thursday’s close).
Bloomberg explained how a recent multi-billion share buyback purchase by BofA pushed Berkshire back over the 10% mark:
Buffett’s earlier rounds of selling had already cut the holding to less than 10% of the Bank of America shares known to be in circulation before the lender announced on Tuesday that it had repurchased $3.5 billion of stock during the third quarter. The bank’s updated figure meant Berkshire was back above that key regulatory threshold.
The latest selling is the first round of Berkshire selling BofA shares since right before the pandemic.
Buffett remains the top BofA shareholder.
On Tuesday, Bank of America released its third-quarter earnings, revealing a cycle-low in net interest income while charge-offs and credit losses surged to their highest levels in years.
Los Angeles Has The Highest Home Price-To-Income Ratio In The US
Many Americans continue to find homeownership financially out of reach due to rising house prices and stagnant wages, among other contributing factors. But which U.S. cities are the least affordable?
One way to assess housing affordability is through the home price-to-income ratio, which measures the ratio of the median home price to the median household income.
This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, shows the home price-to-income ratio of 54 large cities (population over one million) in the U.S. using data from Construction Coverage’s analysis of Zillow and U.S. Census Bureau data.
Housing Affordability Worst in Coastal U.S. Cities
Below, we show the home price-to-income ratio, median home price, and median household income, for 54 large cities in the United States of America.
Rank
City
State
Price-to-income
Median home price
Median household income
1
Los Angeles
CA
12.5
$953,501
$76,135
2
San Jose
CA
10.5
$1,406,957
$133,835
3
Long Beach
CA
10.3
$825,502
$80,493
4
San Diego
CA
9.9
$994,023
$100,010
5
New York
NY
9.8
$732,594
$74,694
6
Miami
FL
9.2
$558,873
$60,989
7
San Francisco
CA
9
$1,236,502
$136,692
8
Oakland
CA
8.4
$780,188
$93,146
9
Boston
MA
8.3
$718,233
$86,331
10
Seattle
WA
7.3
$847,419
$115,409
11
Portland
OR
6.5
$524,870
$81,119
12
Denver
CO
6.4
$563,372
$88,213
13
Tucson
AZ
6.4
$327,123
$51,281
14
Washington
DC
6
$610,180
$101,027
15
Austin
TX
6
$533,719
$89,415
16
Nashville
TN
6
$432,592
$71,767
17
Aurora
CO
5.9
$483,228
$81,395
18
Sacramento
CA
5.9
$472,412
$80,254
19
Las Vegas
NV
5.9
$407,969
$68,905
20
Raleigh
NC
5.8
$434,407
$75,424
21
Fresno
CA
5.8
$370,798
$64,196
22
Colorado Springs
CO
5.7
$449,123
$78,568
23
Phoenix
AZ
5.6
$422,001
$75,969
24
Mesa
AZ
5.5
$434,369
$79,496
25
Charlotte
NC
5.3
$391,750
$74,401
26
Bakersfield
CA
5.3
$380,862
$72,017
27
Tampa
FL
5.3
$375,241
$71,089
28
Albuquerque
NM
5
$321,411
$64,757
29
Virginia Beach
VA
4.7
$391,244
$83,245
30
Atlanta
GA
4.7
$390,373
$83,251
31
Dallas
TX
4.7
$307,990
$65,400
32
New Orleans
LA
4.6
$241,369
$52,322
33
Arlington
TX
4.5
$315,222
$70,433
34
Houston
TX
4.4
$264,626
$60,426
35
San Antonio
TX
4.3
$253,762
$58,829
36
Minneapolis
MN
4.2
$312,872
$74,473
37
Fort Worth
TX
4.2
$302,359
$71,527
38
Jacksonville
FL
4.2
$294,450
$69,309
39
El Paso
TX
4.1
$216,673
$52,645
40
Chicago
IL
4
$284,818
$70,386
41
Omaha
NE
4
$272,286
$67,450
42
Columbus
OH
3.9
$238,286
$61,727
43
Milwaukee
WI
3.9
$191,149
$49,270
44
Philadelphia
PA
3.8
$215,593
$56,517
45
Louisville
KY
3.7
$233,464
$63,049
46
Kansas City
MO
3.7
$230,526
$62,175
47
Indianapolis
IN
3.6
$218,591
$61,501
48
Tulsa
OK
3.6
$194,784
$54,040
49
Baltimore
MD
3.2
$177,786
$55,198
50
Oklahoma City
OK
3.1
$198,826
$63,713
51
Wichita
KS
3.1
$186,528
$59,277
52
Memphis
TN
2.9
$144,347
$50,622
53
Cleveland
OH
2.7
$100,734
$37,351
54
Detroit
MI
1.9
$68,379
$36,453
Cities on the West Coast, particularly in California, face the most significant housing affordability challenges.
The top four cities with the highest ratios are all in California, while other major West Coast cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland rank among the top 15.
The top five cities, including New York City, have a home price-to-income ratio more than double the national average of 4.7, making them highly unaffordable.
While median household income in cities like San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle are among the highest in the country, they also have some of the most expensive house prices in the country.
The Midwest and parts of the South have much lower ratios, including Detroit (1.9), Cleveland (2.1), and Memphis (3.1). Midwest cities consistently rank among the most affordable for housing and cost of living.
To learn more about the U.S. housing market, graphic that 10 fastest-growing housing markets in the U.S., based on their housing stock growth between 2013 and 2022.
Mexico’s Senate approved amendments in the constitution that give preference to state electricity firm CFE over other companies in dispatching electricity to the system.
The constitutional amendment was passed in the Senate with 86 votes in favor to 39 against. This met the requirement of a two-thirds majority of votes in favor of amending the constitution.
Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum continues the policies of her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to support and favor the state energy majors, including oil firm Pemex and the state-owned power company Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE).
The constitutional amendments favoring CFE will come into force after it passes a majority of state legislatures and is published in the official gazette.
Under the change, national grid operator Cenace will be required to take first and prioritize electricity from the power plants owned and operated by the state company CFE regardless of the price and whether it is more expensive than the electricity generated from private power producers.
The new Mexican Parliament is also moving to give the president more control over Pemex and CFE.
Despite the reclassification that would give the government a greater say in Pemex operations, the new government is in favor of the company working with private companies to develop the country’s oil and gas resources.
Mexico currently produces around 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, down from a peak of 3.4 million bpd some 20 years ago.
Underinvestment has plagued the industry for years, which was the motivation for the Pena Nieto administration’s reforms that invited foreign players into the local industry.
When former president Lopez Obrador came into power, he did away with the reform, launching reviews of existing contracts with foreign entities on allegations of corruption.
As a result, Pemex has failed to increase oil production as planned by the government. In August, the latest month with available data, production dipped below 1.5 million bpd.
Europe Prepares List Of US Goods It Will Target With Tariffs If Trump Wins
With Trump inching ever closer to unleashing the “most beautiful word in the dictionary” on America’s trading partners – especially after tonight’s disastrous Kamala Harris interview with Bret Baier – the European Union is bracing for the worst and according to Bloomberg, has already prepared a list of American goods it could target with tariffs if the former president wins the US election and follows through on his threat to hit the bloc with punitive trade measures.
Citing “people familiar with the bloc’s thinking”, Bloomberg writes that new levies against US firms aren’t a base case for the EU and will only be used to retaliate against a move by the White House. In other words, a threat to Trump when, not if, he becomes president again. Which is a bold move for Brussels, let’s see how it pays off for them when Trump and Europe, so desperate to export its goods anywhere now that China no longer wants much of what Europe has to sell and which exports far more to the US than it imports, launch a tit-for-tat trade war.
Trump caught the EU by surprise in 2018 when he hit European steel and aluminum exports with tariffs. In that instance, the bloc targeted politically sensitive companies with retaliatory duties, including Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Levi Strauss jeans. Since Trump’s win in 2016, the EU has adopted several trade defense tools, including an instrument to respond to economic coercion. Unfortunately for Europe, in the years since, the continent has been flooded with cheap Chinese EV models which have crushed what little is left of the German economy (now that cheap Russian gas is a thing of the past), and has forced it to fight for its “manufacturing powerhouse” survival. Which is why any trade war with the US will only lead to an accelerated demise of what is already a continent barely hanging on.
Meanwhile, Trump is unlikely to be scared off by the threat of retaliatory tariffs: “to me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariffs,’ Trump said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, where he reiterated his desire to impose broad tariffs against trading partners post the election. “It’s my favorite word.”
Trump has said that as president, he would target countries like China with tariffs anywhere from 60% to 100%, with a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports from other countries. He could also impose counter-measures against European digital services taxes that implicitly go after US technology champions.
“Our allies have taken advantage of us. More so than our enemies,” Trump said. “Our allies are the European Union. We have a trade deficit of $300 billion with the European Union.”
The news is the latest development as the EU prepares an impact assessment of the consequences of the November ballot, paying particular attention to the scenario in which Trump emerges as victor. Regardless of who wins the election, trade relations with the US will be a top priority. In the event of a Harris win, the EU will seek to sort out several of the irritants left unsolved during Biden’s presidency such as a permanent deal to get rid of the remaining steel and aluminum tariffs, said the person.
Harris has cast Trump’s tariffs as a tax on American consumers, even though her senile, demented boss whom she overthrew in a quiet palace coup in July, has refused to drop any of them
Even though Biden’s rhetoric has been more conciliatory than Trump’s, and his alignment with the EU over Ukraine has helped to repair the transatlantic relationship, EU officials remain conscious that his trade policy still has much in common with his predecessor’s ‘America First’ approach. The Europeans were shaken, in particular, by Biden’s $390 billion-plus subsidy program to support green technology, which offers companies an incentive to shift investment from Europe to the US.
