Month: October 2024

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The American Hospital Association (AHA) is urging the federal government to declare a national emergency, warning that patient safety is at risk due to a shortage of IV solutions after Hurricane Helene disrupted supplies.

Baxter International, the largest manufacturer of certain intravenous (IV) solutions in the United States, shut down its North Cove manufacturing plant in North Carolina recently after being impacted by Hurricane Helene. This has disrupted the supply of IV fluids to hospitals.

“As a result, our members are already reporting substantial shortages of these lifesaving and life-supporting products,” the AHA said in an Oct. 7 letter to President Joe Biden.

The group represents almost 5,000 member hospitals, 43,000 individual members, and other health care organizations.

“Patients across America are already feeling this impact, which will only deepen in the coming days and weeks unless much more is done to alleviate the situation and minimize the impact on patient care,” the letter reads.

The association asked the federal government to declare a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act.

The AHA said that the North Cove plant produces roughly 1.5 million bags of IV solutions per day, accounting for about 60 percent of America’s supply. With manufacturing disrupted, Baxter and other suppliers of IV solutions have instituted buying limits and are not accepting new customers, the group stated.

“AHA strongly urges the Administration to take immediate actions to increase the supply of IV solutions for the nation’s hospitals, health systems and other health care providers that are already struggling to provide care,” it said.

The organization asked the president to direct the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow hospitals and health systems to prepare sterile IV solutions in their pharmacies.

The FDA should identify international manufacturers capable of producing IV fluids, it stated. The agency should also extend the shelf-life of all IV solutions that are “beyond or nearing their expiration date,” it said.

The AHA asked the federal government to invoke the Defense Production Act to ensure that manufacturers are encouraged to accept contracts for materials required to produce IV solutions.

Such manufacturers should be incentivized to expand the production and supply of critical materials, it stated.

The Epoch Times reached out to the White House for comment but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.

Due to the ongoing IV fluid supply disruptions, some surgeries are being suspended.

Michelle Rathman, the founder of Impact Communications, a company specializing in health care strategy and communications, said the company was working with its “Critical Access Hospital clients to help them inform their communities about suspending elective procedures until further notice,” according to an Oct. 8 social media post.

Tackling Supply Disruption

Last week, Baxter said that Hurricane Helene destroyed the bridges to the firm’s site and that remediation measures were being implemented to resolve the matter. The company said it didn’t yet have a timeline for when operations would be back up and running.

In an Oct. 7 update, Baxter said it had made “steady progress” in its remediation measures. A temporary bridge has been installed to support transport to and from the site. No structural damage to the facility has been identified. The site now has access to electrical power.

“We expect to begin communicating anticipated production plans within the next two weeks,” Baxter stated.

“We have resumed shipments to hospitals and dialysis patients after the temporary hold last week, based on allocations as previously communicated. We have moved finished goods from our North Cove site that were not impacted by the storm and are inspecting other finished goods onsite. This inventory will be used to support current allocations in the short term.”

Several of Baxter’s international plants are ramping up production in an attempt to meet the demand in the United States. The firm expects to receive supplies from these facilities throughout October.

Within the next two weeks, Baxter plans to adjust the buying limits for customers based on inbound shipments.

Health care performance improvement company Vizient, which serves more than 65 percent of America’s acute care providers, published a conservation guide to deal with IV fluid disruptions. The recommendations are aimed at helping preserve existing inventories while ensuring safe patient care.

“IV fluids are a foundational component of basic medication preparation and compounding for hundreds of drugs. Immediately implementing conservation strategies will be important to help minimize supply disruptions as the supply chain works to recover,” said Mittal Sutaria, Vizient’s senior vice president of pharmacy contract and program services.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said his country is becoming a “military superpower” capable of deploying nuclear weapons, an option which would not be ruled out in the case of an enemy attack.

“Our steps toward becoming a military superpower and a nuclear power will accelerate,” Kim declared in a Monday speech at the University of National Defense. He specifically cited the US concentration of its forces, including nuclear assets, on the Korean peninsula in support of Seoul as a reason for pursuing nuclear superpower status.

“The military alliance of the United States and the Republic of Korea, has flouted by the puppets themselves, has become completely nuclear-based, and we need to keep our military preparedness at an endlessly high level,” Kim said.

In the speech later transcribed by state-run KCNA, he emphasized that while Pyongyang has no intention of attacking South Korea, it remains that “if the enemy attempts to use force against our country” North Korea’s military will use its full force without hesitation, and this scenario “does not preclude the use of nuclear weapons.”

Ultimately, the north has found itself in a situation of being confronted by “the world’s largest nuclear power” – he said in another reference to the United States, and his country will “not tolerate” any disruption to the military balance of power on the Korean Peninsula.

Interestingly, during the same speech urging the strengthening of military readiness, he also sent a birthday congratulatory message Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kim called Putin his “closest Comrade” and hailed that “strategic and cooperative relations” with Russia are soon to be raised to a new level to work on “defending regional and global peace and international justice.”

Meanwhile, Yonhap News Agency has issued a Tuesday report alleging that North Korea has likely begun building a new nuclear-powered submarine. This is seen as part of Kim’s broader push to put his ‘superpower’ plan into action.

“In January, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected a project to build a nuclear-powered submarine after vowing to develop such a submarine among other sophisticated weapons systems during a ruling party congress in 2021,” Yonhap notes. Theoretically such a future advanced nuclear sub could come near North American shores.

U.S. Mainland in the Crosshairs: North Korea Begins Construction of First #Nuclear Powered Submarine – Reports https://t.co/pFUJfHtViD

— Military Watch Magazine (@MilitaryWatchM) October 8, 2024

“Partial signs that appear to be the start of the submarine’s construction have been detected,” the South Korea’s military intelligence indicated in a report to Rep. Kang Dae-sik of the ruling People Power Party.

“As construction is still in its early stages, further confirmation is needed on whether it is nuclear powered,” the report added by way of caveat.

Authored by Patricia McCarthy via AmericanThinker.com,

“A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial:  that is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.” 

– George Orwell

The Democrats have always relied on lies, especially when it comes to their campaigns for political office.  

When Hillary Clinton was running for what she deemed her rightful place in the White House, she paid for the many, many lies that kicked off the Russia hoax and led to the endless persecution via lawfare of practically everyone in Trump’s inner circle.  

None of them were guilty of any crimes. 

All that Democrat malice cost taxpayers millions of dollars – the Mueller Report was the tip of their persecution iceberg.  All of their accusations were lies.   

When Donald Trump won, the left made sure that chaos ensued.  It was a miracle that Trump accomplished all the good he did – energy independence,  tax cuts for all (not just the rich as Harris claims), the Abraham Accords, low inflation, a post-COVID recovering economy and low unemployment despite the ravages of lockdowns. 

The Democrats regularly lie about Trump’s many achievements in an attempt to make themselves relevant.  But they are all  anti-American now, especially Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

When Joe Biden was faux-running for the presidency from his basement, he knew the fix was in, because it was.

The thoroughly corrupt mainstream media was delighted to use their vast reach to repeat all the lies the Democrats came up with to destroy Trump.  The 2020 election was rigged and everyone knows it, even all those media tools of the left who pretend to this day that that election was legitimate.  They love to claim that “every judge who looked at the evidence refused to take the numerous legal cases the Trump campaign filed.”  But no judge ever looked at the volumes of evidence; they all denied the cases had standing.  They were all too cowardly to actually look at the evidence available, to expose the truth. 

The Democrats’ guilt on this score probably explains their obsession with trying to make any and all Republicans admit that Biden won fairly even though they know he did not.  

They know the truth. Molly Ball bragged about it. They all know that Democrat lawyer Mark Elias went across the country surreptitiously changing election laws.  They know that social media magnate Mark Zuckerberg funneled $400 million into those drop boxes that were stuffed by mules with thousands of fraudulent ballots.

They all know that on election night, Trump was so far ahead the counting of ballots was stopped for hours.

They needed time to come up with the ballots needed to produce a Biden win. They all know this is what happened. They all lied and continue to lie.

They lie as well about whose rhetoric has generated two assassination attempts.

Curiously, we do not yet know nearly as much as we should about the two shooters, but every sentient person on the planet knows that the left’s language over the last nine years has been purposefully murderous; still is. 

Still, just as they insist the 2020 election was not rigged, the wholly disingenuous George Stephanopoulos still tries to make Trump supporters responsible for the attempts on his life.  You cannot call the man “Hitler,” call for his “elimination,” his “extermination,” etc. and not expect a few mentally ill persons to react as if ordered to kill. 

These people are shameless.

So now, after nearly four years of the worst, most disastrous administration in our nation’s  history by every metric, Kamala Harris is trying to become president based on the lie that she has a record worth touting.  She does not.  She was appointed Biden’s “border czar” about which she did exactly nothing; other than a stopover in El Paso, she only visited the actual border for the first time a week or so ago for twenty minutes, wearing her $62,000 Tiffany necklace!  

She was tasked with spending $42 billion to bring broadband to rural regions. She didn’t. Where is that money? Adding insult to injury, FEMA has been turned into a DEI experiment with predictable results.   Mayorkas has stated that millions of dollars of FEMA funds and resources have been spent on migrants, and the agency is essentially broke! 

The hurricane victims are simply out of luck despite the lies that White House spokesperson, Karine Jean Pierre, tells to the contrary.  Most people will believe the hundreds of clips of victims telling the truth.  FEMA is AWOL.  It seems that this administration has been using FEMA money, $1b of it, to care for the millions of illegal migrants the Biden/Harris administration has ushered into the country.  Their horrific, seemingly purposeful but surely negligent response to the devastation throughout the southeast wrought by Hurricane Helene is more proof of their utter failure to do right by Americans. 

While the empty-headed newsreaders on the Sunday news shows claim that any tales of FEMA not being present and providing needed help are untrue, the folks on the ground tell of FEMA confiscating donations, of threatening to arrest citizens offering help, etc., their stories are clearly and sadly true. 

These victims who have lost everything are being helped by civilian volunteers for water, food and escape, not FEMA. The Biden/Harris administration is slow-walking badly needed help to those victims who have lost everything.  Kamala offered them a measly $750 while sending $157 million to Lebanon for food, water, and shelter.  She is on record saying that disaster relief should be based on equity.  KJP failed miserably to explain this away. 

What’s wrong with this picture?  Everything.  Absolutely everything.  We have a government that cares nothing for its own citizens but reveres illegal migrants and the citizens of other nations.  We have an administration that lies constantly to make itself look good and at the same time do as much damage to the Trump campaign as possible. 

In her 60 Minutes interview, for which she almost certainly had the questions ahead of time, Kamala Harris lied over and over and over again, especially about her border policy.  The day Biden/Harris took office, they opened the border to all comers without vetting.  Hundreds of thousands of them have been unaccompanied children, over 300,000 of whom have gone missing, sold off to traffickers and/or NGOs who place them who-knows-where. 

Now Harris says the border has been “tightened.”  Maybe, because they are now flying them directly from foreign countries to the cities throughout the nation. They are skipping over the border but still accommodating them in huge numbers.  The same goes for the fentanyl that has poured into the country on their watch.  They’ve not only let it happen, they’ve allowed it, encouraged it.  Any protestations to the contrary are … lies.  So, again, massive chaos reigns.

Meanwhile, rumor has it Kamala travels the country for rallies but has to bring busses full of thousands of paid “supporters” with her.  She cannot bring out the crowds Trump does, so it’s not even close. 

She can’t speak without every word being scripted for her to read. Her answers in any of the few interviews she has granted to friendly hosts are word salads, unintelligible gibberish without an answer to the question posed. Her VP pick is a disaster of untold proportions, a pathological liar who idolizes communist China.  Not sure there is a name for what ails him, but it is serious.  In his short appearance on Sunday with Fox News’s Shannon Bream, he continued to lie about Trump’s abortion stance and about Minnesota abortion law. 

Bottom line? The Democrats rely on lies. The Harris/Walz campaign relies on lies. And what do we have? Total, disastrous, murderous chaos. Chaos is what the left thrives on – it’s the basis of the Cloward-Piven strategy.  They’ve been trying to implement it for decades.  

Thanks to this administration, our nation is fast becoming totalitarian, controlled by the censorship the Democrats hope to further implement. 

Here is Hillary the other day: 

“But we now know that … if the platforms, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter/X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we (Democrats)  lose total control,”  but “Free speech is my right to say what you don’t want to hear.”  

Orwell. 

The Harris/Walz ticket must be defeated if America is to prevail.

Chinese stocks puked hard overnight as the return from Golden Week was greeted by less-then-wished-for stimulus chatter from China…

Source: Bloomberg

US stocks shrugged off the China chunder as the mega-caps led (with NVDA legging higher on HonHai partnership to fulfill “crazy” demand). Nasdaq was the best performer, followed by the S&P 500. Small Caps were the day’s laggard. This was the Nasdaq’s best day since the spike on the day after the September FOMC…

The Mag7 basket bounced back from yesterday afternoon’s tumble… but it remains rangebound…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were mixed today with the short-end outperforming (2Y -2bps, 30Y +2bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

2Y fell back below 4.00% while 10Y pushed on up to 4.05% – its highest close since July…

Source: Bloomberg

Rate-cut expectations remain notably more hawkish than they have been since the last FOMC meeting…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar broke out of its post-payrolls tight range today but it was not convincing…

Source: Bloomberg

The blip higher in the dollar managed to spook gold which tanked but found support around $2600…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil also tanked as the lack of MOAR china stimmies took the shine off – thought it seems MidEast chaos doesn’t matter anymore. This was WTI’s worst day since Nov 2023…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin slipped back to $62,000, erasing yesterday’s spike…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, despite US stocks shrugging off the China chunder today, there are numerous risk catalysts ahead including Thursday’s CPI report, Q3 earnings kicking off on Friday (big banks), and of course the election…

Source: Bloomberg

Do vol-sellers really feel lucky?

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

Election Headed for Photo Finish

It’s hard to believe, but the election is now under a month away. How does the race look today? Let’s talk about the polls.

Polls are an indispensable tool in election analysis and forecasting despite many flaws. The first thing to say about polls is that they’re snapshots, not movies. They help you understand where the contest stands today, but not necessarily where the race is going.

I recently did a deep dive on the flaws in polling methodology and highlighted the small number of polling firms that actually do produce somewhat reliable results.

There’s no need to repeat all that here but some highlights include polling “registered voters” instead of “likely voters” and using sample sizes that are too small (a sample of at least 1,300 respondents is needed for reliable results; many polls use only 800 respondents).

Skewing samples to include too many Democrats and Black voters also produces results favoring Democrats.

There are ways to adjust for these flaws but they’re inexact. The simplest way is just to assume that Trump is doing one to two points better than published results once the skews and error margins are backed out.

That’s good news for Trump but it still leaves an incredibly close race.

Here are the latest results from the RealClearPolitics poll of polls average with the leader and the size of the lead expressed in percentage points:

• National: Harris +2.1

• Georgia: Trump +1.5

• North Carolina: Trump +0.6

• Pennsylvania: Tied

• Arizona: Trump +1.4

• Wisconsin: Harris +0.8

• Michigan: Harris +0.7

• Nevada: Harris +1.1

There are a few other states that are not generally regarded as battleground states but are close enough that they could offer some surprises including unexpected paths to victory on Election Day.

These include Virginia (Harris +6.4), Minnesota (Harris +4.7) and New Hampshire (Harris +7.4). If Trump were to score an upset victory in any of these three states, it could partly compensate for the loss of one or more of the battlegrounds.

The current “No Toss-Up” map from RealClearPolitics shows Trump winning the election with 281 electoral votes compared to 257 for Harris. (270 electoral votes are needed for victory.)

However, that map gives Pennsylvania to Trump. If Pennsylvania were moved to the Harris column (entirely possible), then Harris would win the Electoral College 276 to 262, quite close but still a win for Harris.

There are thousands of permutations on the outcome by switching certain states from one column to the other. The bottom line is this election is still extremely close and the outcome highly uncertain.

RealClearPolitics is a reliable source, but the poll of polls average suffers from the fact that the average is derived from about 20 separate polls conducted on irregular dates by various organizations.

This leaves two problems: The first is that if there are flaws in the underlying polls (there are) those flaws will be carried over into the average.

The second problem is that some of the underlying polls in the average are stale and therefore the average tends to lag trends by a few days to a week. That doesn’t mean the result isn’t useful; it just means the result has to be evaluated in the context of these lags.

Trump is performing better nationally and in every state in the Rasmussen poll than the RealClearPolitics average with the exception of Arizona where the results are the same. Given that Rasmussen is among the most reliable pollsters, this is good news for Trump.

Trafalgar polling is also considerably better for Trump than the RealClearPolitics average except for Arizona where the pro-Trump results are stronger in RealClear. The Trafalgar results are also closely aligned with the Rasmussen results where both sites polled the same states.

Since Trafalgar and Rasmussen are both more accurate than other pollsters, the fact that the two align lends credence to the results and is more good news for Trump. Crucially, Trafalgar is showing Trump with a clear lead in Pennsylvania.

As I show you below, Pennsylvania is the single most important state when it comes to various paths to victory in this election. But it’s more complicated than that.

I also show you the multiple paths to victory for both Harris and Trump. Who’ll likely emerge the winner? Read on.

The Race to 270

Political analysts speak of something they call the “path to victory” with victory defined as 270 electoral votes or more. There are a total of 538 electoral votes available from the 50 states and D.C. A tally of 270 electoral votes is a bare majority of the total and that’s enough to win the White House.

For each candidate, the path to victory is a list of states that you can win that add up to 270 or more electoral votes. This is where the concept of battleground states comes in. Harris is all but certain to win a list of states including California (54), New York (28) and Washington (12).

Trump is all but certain to win another list of states including Tennessee (11), Indiana (11), Kentucky (8) and Louisiana (8).

Those “sure thing” states are followed by a list of likely states. For Harris, these include Illinois (19), New Jersey (14) and Virginia (13). For Trump, these include Texas (40), Florida (30) and Missouri (10).

Once these sure-thing and likely states are added up, Harris has 215 electoral votes and Trump has 219. Both candidates fall short of 270 votes at this stage.

This brings us to the true battleground states (or “toss-ups”) of Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Minnesota (10), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), Pennsylvania (19), Wisconsin (10) and a portion of Nebraska (1), which divides votes by congressional districts.

There are 104 electoral votes in this toss-up category. Trump needs 51 of those 104 toss-ups to win. Harris needs 55.

Trump’s path to victory is straightforward. He needs to win all of the states he won in 2020. That seems highly likely as of now although the race is close in North Carolina according to RealClearPolitics. He also needs to flip Arizona and Georgia to his column.

He lost both in 2020 but is ahead in both as of now according to RealClearPolitics, Rasmussen, Trafalgar and The New York Times. With Arizona and Georgia in hand, Trump only needs to win Pennsylvania to cross the 270-vote threshold. He could lose Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada and still win the White House if he takes Pennsylvania.

Of course, there are alternative paths. Trump could lose Pennsylvania (19) and still win the White House if he takes Virginia (13) and Nevada (6). That’s a wash. Trump could lose Pennsylvania and still win if he takes Michigan (15) and Wisconsin (13).

Or Trump could lose Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still win if he takes Michigan and Nevada. You get the point. There are numerous paths to victory.

The path for Kamala Harris is more challenging but still feasible. She begins with the Northeast-Mid-Atlantic base of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, D.C. and Virginia.

Then she picks up the liberal West Coast states of Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada, with Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii and one Nebraska district thrown in for good measure. She pushes toward 270 with the Blue Wall states of New York, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The problem is that all of those states and D.C. combined give her only 257 electoral votes, still 13 short of the target of 270. How does Kamala close that gap? You guessed it. Pennsylvania. If Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes on top of the other states listed, then she is the next president.

It’s clear that Kamala’s path is much narrower than Trump’s. Trump has a few wild cards that could land in his favor including surprise victories in Virginia, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin. Some combination of those could pad his lead or compensate for a loss in Pennsylvania.

Harris has no margin for error. She’s extremely unlikely to pick up any of the Trump states. She has to hold on to Virginia and Nevada. And she has to win the entire Blue Wall including Pennsylvania. Trump has a bit of wiggle room while Harris has to run the table. And that’s exactly what she’s trying to do.

Harris based her campaign on a version of Biden’s 2020 “basement strategy”: Stay hidden, don’t take questions, cater to rich donors, don’t be specific and just try to run out the clock with joy and good vibes.

But it’s not working. Voters want answers to their everyday problems of inflation, crime, illegal immigrants taking jobs and new wars breaking out. Harris doesn’t have any. This could be her undoing.

Trump continues to focus on the key issues (inflation, immigration, crime, jobs) now aided by J.D. Vance’s successful debut to a national audience in the VP debate. Voters are far more interested in those issues than in name-calling and other distractions.

Trump has a clear path to victory and is gaining in the polls. He simply needs to maintain message discipline, ignore sideshows and keep up with his rally schedule and paid advertising to win this election.

Even if Trump can win the election with 270 or more Electoral College votes, likely as of now, the fight will not be over. The Democrats have another lawfare trick up their sleeves.

If Democrats retake the House of Representatives, then on Jan. 6, 2025, the New Democrat-controlled House could pass a resolution that Trump is an “insurrectionist” and disqualify his electoral votes under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Kamala would not have 270 electoral votes needed to win. This would throw the election of the president to the House of Representatives voting as state delegations, not as individuals. Under the XII Amendment (1804), only Kamala Harris could receive votes for president assuming Trump was disqualified and no other candidate won any electors at all.

J.D. Vance would suffer no insurrectionist disqualification. So the result could be Kamala Harris as president and J.D. Vance as vice president (similar to Jefferson and Burr in 1800).

Another possibility is that the Republican-controlled state delegations in the House could boycott the presidential vote in which case a quorum would be lacking. In that case, the vice president (J.D. Vance) “shall act as president” under the XII Amendment. This is not a far-fetched scenario. Democrats led by Jamie Raskin have already set the wheels in motion.

Trump has 28 days to flip the narrative on Kamala Harris and win the election. If he does, the Democrats have a doomsday plan they will unveil on Jan. 6, 2025, to disqualify Trump.

The bottom line is that even when this election is over it won’t be over.

Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times,

Electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Fisker Inc. is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and faces formal objections from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after halting production in March.

Recent filings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware indicate that these legal challenges could affect Fisker’s restructuring and liquidation plans.

The SEC initiated a probe into Fisker’s activities before its bankruptcy filing in June, focusing on potential violations of federal securities laws, according to court records.

In its filing, the SEC stated that Fisker’s bankruptcy plan must preserve the SEC’s “police and regulatory powers” to hold the company accountable for any past misconduct.

The regulator has also stressed the importance of Fisker preserving all relevant documents and records post-bankruptcy to ensure compliance with ongoing investigations and any potential future actions.

According to the filings, the SEC issued multiple subpoenas seeking information about Fisker’s operations before its financial collapse.

Simultaneously, the DOJ, on behalf of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has raised objections concerning Fisker’s financial provisions for vehicle recall expenses.

The DOJ contends in filings that Fisker’s proposed $750,000 cap on recall expenses in its bankruptcy plan is insufficient to cover both parts and labor costs required for vehicle repairs.

According to the DOJ, this cap violates the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which mandates that manufacturers remedy vehicle defects “without charge when the vehicle … is presented for remedy.”

The DOJ argues that Fisker’s plan improperly shifts the financial burden to vehicle owners, requiring them to pay upfront for labor costs with only the possibility of future reimbursement, which is another violation of the Safety Act.

Fisker has issued five separate recalls for its vehicles, addressing issues ranging from defective door handles to faulty electric water pumps, according to the filings.

While some recalls were resolved through over-the-air software updates, others necessitated physical repairs that involved significant costs.

The DOJ says that Fisker’s current plan fails to meet its legal obligations to consumers by limiting funds available for recalls and not fully covering the costs associated with necessary repairs.

The bankruptcy case involves Fisker’s assets and a plan to establish a Liquidating Trust to distribute the remaining assets to creditors.

Both the SEC and DOJ are pushing for changes to ensure Fisker’s accountability for legal obligations tied to its pre-bankruptcy conduct and ongoing responsibilities.

The court is scheduled to address these objections during a hearing on Oct. 9.

If the court sides with the SEC and DOJ, Fisker may be required to modify its bankruptcy plan to comply with regulatory demands.

This could include adjustments to its recall funding provisions and assurances that it will retain and produce relevant documents for the SEC’s ongoing investigation.

Fisker did not respond to a request for comment regarding the SEC and DOJ filings.

VICE co-founder Shane Smith admitted in an interview with legendary music producer and ‘Tetragrammaton’ host Rick Rubin that his the once-high flying digital media empire–once valued at $5.7 billion – collapsed partly due to leaning heavily into “woke” content.

RICK RUBIN: Is there any point in the VICE story where you feel like VICE sold out?

SHANE SMITH: I wouldn’t necessarily say sold out because we were always independent, we always sold pieces of it.

RICK RUBIN: But from a content perspective, did you ever pander your content away from what you actually liked?

SHANE SMITH: The problem with content, and what people don’t understand, is the same thing with TV: people don’t put content on that they like because they like it; they put content on that rates. So, to go back to around 2017, at the peak of the HBO era – because all of our big clients, like Google and the studios, and everybody was out in LA. I moved to LA and so I sort of stepped back from day-to-day but I kept doing news. And VICE – the other channels, not the news, and VICE started moving – ‘cause we always say ‘give the company over to the interns,’ like every five years. And VICE started moving into this sort of weird woke era or whatever. But it was young people writing for themselves for the audience. It was like our audience went from Millennials to whatever that is – Gen Z – and they were writing for themselves, to themselves. By the way, traffic was through the roof, but the old VICE audience, including me, was like, “What are we doing here?”

And also, one of the mistakes was that VICE News was over here, which I was concentrating on, and it was still killing it and doing awards and all that stuff, but people didn’t differentiate between VICE.com and VICE News. There was just VICE, and so I think that was a f**k up. We should have had a lot more differentiation. I mean, the “go woke, go broke” thing, I’m well aware of, and a lot of times I’d see stuff and you would be like, “what the fuck?” Then you go to give someone shit, and they’re like, “Okay, this is the one you liked; 10 people saw the one that this other piece got 100 million, that’s just what fuckin’ young people want, you old man.” And you’re like, “Oh, well.” It’s a problem with digital media, in that it changes with the audience. The audience now, that young digital-consuming audience, is that audience, and that’s the content they want.

So, it became problematic. And definitely, should be speaking of selling out, like Disney or any of those corporate partners, they didn’t want that; we didn’t want that. It was just sort of this… you know, we had, I don’t know, 5,000 employees doing 7,000 pieces a day, and all of this stuff would come out and you’d be like, “What the fuck is this this?” Did we lose control of the bicycle? Yeah.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

McKelvey-PMES Recession Indicator Weakens Slightly but Signal Still Firm

The McKelvey-PMES recession indicator dipped a bit in September but the signal still implies recession.

100 percent of the time, with no false positives or negatives, under current conditions, the economy has been in recession.

The odds are not 100 percent because the NBER sets recession dates, not these charts.

What is the McKelvey Recession Indicator?

Take the current value of the 3-month unemployment rate average, subtract the 12-month low, and if the difference is 0.30 percentage point or more, then a recession has started.

Edward McKelvey, a senior economist at Goldman Sachs, created the indicator.

The problem with the indicator is that it has many false positives.

Claudi Sahm Revision

Claudi Samn, a former Fed economist, revised the rule, claiming it as her own, without credit to McKelvey, then set the indicator to 0.50.

Because that still had false positives, she started her series in 1960.

PMES Acronym

PMES is my acronym for Pascal Michaillat and Emmanuel Saez, economists at the University of California in Santa Cruz.

PMES is their initials. I am not sure that PMES is right but somehow I don’t think the name McKelvey-Michaillat-Saez will catch on.

It is brilliant work to add a second indicator that eliminates the false negatives and false positives.

Credit goes to Regis Barnichon for the data and idea used by PMES and me in the charts in this post.

What Is the PMES Second Indicator?

The PMES recession indicator combines job vacancy rates with unemployment data. The indicator is the minimum of the McKelvey indicator—the difference between the 3-month trailing average of the unemployment rate and its minimum over the past 12 months—and a similar indicator constructed with the vacancy rate—the difference between the 3-month trailing average of the vacancy rate and its maximum over the past 12 months.

Vacancy Rate

The vacancy rate is defined as the ratio of job openings to the labor force. The BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) report only dates to December of 2000.

Regis Barnichon, in 2010 described Building a composite Help-Wanted Index

This paper builds a measure of vacancy posting over 1951–2009 that captures the behavior of total—print and online— help-wanted advertising, and can be used for time series analysis of the US labor market.

Barnichon says HWI and JOLTS “closely track each other. In particular, the composite HWI does a good job of matching the level of JOLTS job openings over 2000–2009, indicating that the MISM can successfully model the share of online advertising.“

It is that overlap period that validates the second indicator.

Minimum Indicator

To decide whether or not there is a recession, PMES takes the minimum of either McKelvey or Job Openings.

That touches all the background bases. Now let’s look at the charts that comprise the lead chart.

Unemployment Rate vs Job Opening Rate

Openings dwindle in recessions while the unemployment rate tends to rise.

Combining the two ideas makes for a better indicator.

McKelvey Recession Indicator

McKelvey has had five false positives.

Job Openings PMES Recession Indicator

PMES has likewise had false positives. However, the PMES false positives do not overlap with McKelvey false positives.

Combining the two indicators (the minimum of PMES and McKelvey) creates the lead chart.

For example the PMES reading is 0.78 and the McKelvey reading is 0.48. The Minimum is 0.48 shown in the lead chart.

The McKelvey Recession Indicator Triggered, But What Are the Odds?

On September 10, I posted The McKelvey Recession Indicator Triggered, But What Are the Odds?

In the above link I go over a method of calculating recession odds based off McKelvey alone. As numbers rise, the odds of recession rise exponentially not linearly.

Between 0.4 and 0.5 the odds of recession are over 50 percent and that is based off a single indicator, not both.

September Jobs Report

Finally, the September jobs report is more than a bit screwy, impacting the above calculations.

For discussion, please see The BLS Reports Jobs Rebounded More Than Expected in September

The BLS reports payroll employment rises by 254,000 in September. I discussed two reasons the report is suspect.

Also see Government Employment Rose by an Amazing 785,000 in September

I am confident something (many things?) went totally nuts in BLS sampling or assumptions.

The economy did not suddenly add 785,000 government workers in September.

Shares of heavily shorted WW International, also known as WeightWatchers, jumped as much as 27% on Tuesday morning after the weight-management company announced a new low-cost weight-loss drug offering, which is essentially a copycat of Novo Nordisk A/S’s Ozempic and Wegovy. 

WW announced the addition of a new compounded semaglutide to its lineup to beat America’s obesity crisis sparked by the processed foods industrial complex. The new treatment starts at $129 per month, and each additional month will cost $189. This is significantly less than GLP-1 obesity treatments from big pharma, which cost north of $1,000 a month. 

“At WeightWatchers, we have always combined proven science and personalized support to help our members achieve meaningful, lasting results. With the addition of compounded semaglutide, we are expanding our offering to include a clinical weight management solution that is both accessible and affordable,” Tara Comonte, Interim CEO of WW, wrote in a statement, adding, “This launch is the culmination of extensive research and rigorous work by our team to ensure that we are offering the highest quality care — reaffirming the trust we’ve built over six decades as the leader in weight management.”

WW’s pursuit of a low-cost GLP-1 obesity treatment comes as the company pointed out continued shortages of Wegovy and Ozempic produced by Novo Nordisk.

Comonte continued, “Given the ongoing shortages of branded medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy, WeightWatchers is committed to ensuring our members still have access to effective alternatives and the support they need to achieve the health outcomes they deserve.”

Food and Drug Administration rules note that compounding pharmacies can produce drugs in short supply. WW contracted with an FDA-registered 503B facility to make its compounded semaglutide. 

“We know that compounded semaglutide can be an important option for those seeking weight loss support, given its greater availability and affordability,” said Dr. Jamil Alkhaddo, Medical Director of WW. 

WW noted that about 45% of its members prescribed GLP-1 medications in the past six months have been denied insurance coverage after three prior authorization attempts. With fewer than 40% of insurers covering GLP-1s for weight loss, many individuals with obesity in today’s elevated inflation and high interest rates environment can’t afford Novo’s $ 1,000-a-month treatment. 

Last week, Eli Lilly’s diabetes and obesity drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound were removed from the FDA’s shortage list, freeing the company from competing with compounding pharmacies. Tirzepatide’s shortage designation lasted 22 months. 

WW shares rose 27% by late morning, though they remain down 88% on the year after disappointing quarterly results and the announcement of a restructuring plan. 

A large bear position has been built in WW since early 2023. The float is 18% short, equivalent to about 13.8 million shares. 

Is it time for a squeeze? 

One would think that the first coupon auction after the Fed’s rate cut would have passed better; one would be wrong.

Moments ago the Treasury sold $58 billion in 3Y paper, matching the all time high issuance for the tenor, in an auction that was unexpectedly ugly. The sale stopped at a high yield of 3.878%, the highest since July, and tailing the When Issued 3.871% by 0.7bps, the first and biggest tail since June and followed the biggest stop through since August 2023.

The Bid to Cover slumped to 2.452 from 2.662, the lowest since June and well below the six-auction average of 2.574.

The internals were especially ugly, with Indirects crashing from a record high 78.2 last month to just 56.9, the lowest of 2024.

Curiously, Direct bidders took down 24.0, the highest  in a decade, leaving Dealers holding to 19.2% of the final allocation, the highest since June.

Overall, this was a very ugly auction, which considering the sharp spike in yields in recent weeks now that the market no longer expects the Fed to cut rates aggressively in the coming months, was to be expected.

The bigger question is when do we get a more sustained selloff across the curve, one which – with trillions of debt issuance on deck – would force the Fed to rush back in with promises of easier monetary policy.