US Producer Prices Accelerating At Fastest Rate In 12 Months, Wall Street Reacts...

Ahead of tomorrow's CPI, traders are eyeing this morning's Producer Prices for any hints that the disinflation trend will return...or not.

The answer is "not!"

April Producer Prices rose 0.5% MoM (vs +0.3% exp), with March's +0.2% MoM revised down to -0.1% MoM. The downward revision did not stop the YoY read rising to 2.2% (from +2.1% in March)...

Source: Bloomberg

This is the highest YoY read since April 2023 and is the fourth hotter than expected headline PPI print...

Source: Bloomberg

Producer Prices have been aggressively downwardly revised for 4 of the last 7 months...

Source: Bloomberg

Services costs soared, dominating April's PPI gains with Energy the second most important factor. Food prices actually declined on a MoM basis.

Source: Bloomberg

On a YoY basis, headline PPI's rise was dominated by Services (rising at their hottest since July 2023). For the first time since Feb 2023, none of the underlying factors were negative on a YoY basis...

Source: Bloomberg

On a 6-month annualized rate, Final Demand Core Services PPI is rising at its highest since Q3 2021...

Source: Goldman Sachs

After last month's farcical 'seasonally adjusted' gasoline price, April saw the PPI Gasoline index rise (with actual prices at the pump) but still has a long way to go...

Source: Bloomberg

Core PPI was worse - rising 0.5% MoM (more than double the +0.2% MoM expected) - which pushed the Core PPI YoY up to +2.4%...

Source: Bloomberg

And finally US PPI Final Demand Less Foods Energy and Trade Services rose by 0.4% MoM and 3.1% YoY (the highest in 12 months).

Worse still the pipeline for primary PPI is not good as intermediate demand is starting to accelerate...

Source: Bloomberg

Here are Wall Street’s reactions to PPI:

Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley:

Sticky inflation looked downright stuck this morning after a much hotter-than-expected inflation reading. But with last month’s numbers revised lower, this report may not have been as much of an upside shock as it first appeared to be.
Right or wrong, the CPI tends to have a bigger short-term impact on the markets, so the picture could look much different 24 hours from now. But if the CPI also comes in above expectations, the interest rate picture may be thrown into doubt.

Bespoke Investment Group:

The results of April’s PPI showed a hotter-than-expected m/m reading. That’s the bad news. On a y/y basis, though, the readings were much closer to expectations as March’s report was revised down to negative 0.1% on both a headline and core basis.”

Chris Zaccarelli at Independent Advisor Alliance:

This week is important for markets because they are worried about inflation and this morning’s producer price index hasn’t done anything to assuage those fears.
The most important data release is tomorrow’s CPI print because the Fed’s dual mandate is based on CPI and unemployment, with the former being what the Fed is solely focused on right now.
We believe that the stock market will move higher throughout the year on strong corporate profits and consumer spending, but volatility is likely to spike in the meantime, because the inflation data is going to keep the Fed on edge.

Quincy Krosby at LPL Financial:

Moreover, this report underscores Fed concerns that the path of disinflation has stalled, requiring a higher-for-longer policy stance to combat seemingly entrenched inflation.
An overriding question — and potential dilemma — hovering over markets is whether the broader economic landscape is softening at the same time inflation inches higher, making the Fed’s job increasingly difficult.

Bill Adams at Comerica Bank:

Between an upside surprise and downward revisions to prior data, the trend in total PPI was slightly higher than expected in April.
The PPI report suggests upside risk to the April CPI report, which will come out tomorrow.
At the margin the Fed will see the PPI report as another reason to slow-roll interest rate cuts.

Paul Ashworth at Capital Economics:

These days we mostly care about what the PPI means for the Fed’s preferred PCE deflator measure of core consumer price inflation.
In that respect, April’s news was mixed but, on balance, encouraging. The bad news is that PPI portfolio management prices increased by 3.9% m/m. But that was more than outweighed by the good news. We’ll know more after the release of April’s CPI tomorrow.

Scott Helfstein at Global X:

Inflation and the Fed are less important than growth, and companies have adjusted to the new reality of higher prices and continue to look for technology solutions to manage for profit.
 The last mile on inflation was always going to be the hardest, but we should be comfortable with these numbers.

Over the past month, 'higher prices' have dominated 'lower prices' in recent survey data...

Higher producer prices:

• New York Empire manufacturing price paid advanced to 33.7 from 28.7.
• Philadelphia Fed manufacturing reported prices paid gained to 23.0 from 3.7 in March.
• Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing prices paid rose to 31.0 from 26.6 in the prior month.
• Richmond Fed services prices paid rose to 6.11 from 5.43 in March.
• Kansas City Fed manufacturing prices paid advanced to 18 from 17.
• Kansas City Fed services input price growth continued to outpace selling prices.
• S&P Global manufacturing input cost inflation quickened to hint at sustained near-term upward pressure on selling prices.
• ISM Manufacturing prices paid gained to 60.9, the highest since June 2022, from 55.8 in March.
• ISM Services prices paid notched up to 59.2, the highest since January, from 53.4 in March.

Lower producer prices:

• New York Fed Services prices paid fell to 53.4 from 55.1 in March.
• Richmond Fed manufacturing growth rates of prices paid dipped to 2.79 from 3.22 in March
• Dallas Fed Manufacturing outlook reported prices paid for raw materials dropped to 11.2 from 21.1 in the prior month.
• Dallas service sector input prices index nudged down to 28.8 from 30.4 in the prior month.
• S&P Global Service saw input costs slowed from six-month highs in March.

Do you see the 'flation' now, Jay?

So, no, The Fed does not have inflation under control.

However, there is some hope for tomorrow's CPI as many of the drivers for the consumer prices that are echoed in the producer prices are not accelerating...

No reason to be alarmed by PPI... Strong stock market performance drove part of the gains, but airfares down sharply, auto insurance flat, and general consumer goods markups down... https://t.co/8478c7rykF

— Gregory Daco (@GregDaco) May 14, 2024

A big surprise miss tomorrow, of course, would send stocks to the moon (GME-style) and give Powell what he needs to start cutting.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 08:43

Markets Now Face Make Or Break Inflation Data

By Michael Msika, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist

European stocks are hovering around record highs on conviction that interest rates will come down and revive the economy, making this week’s inflation data a key to extending the rally.

Monetary policies in the US and in Europe are expected to diverge for a few months, with the European Central Bank seen cutting rates earlier than the Fed with inflation looking more in check on the old continent. Yet, US data is always in the driver’s seat when it comes to financial markets, and this week should be no exception, making it all about US CPI.

Whatever the print, the impact that the figure may have on bond yields is looking increasingly important as the correlation between European equities and US treasury yields is now the most negative since the mid-1990s, a pre-condition to a major rally back then.

Morgan Stanley strategists led by Marina Zavolock see the case continuing to build up for a 1990s play-book that saw stocks rallying around the Fed pivot, driven by bond-sensitive sectors like real estate, construction and materials, as well as utilities. “A key catalyst to make or break the trade is this week’s US CPI print,” they say.

The disinflation process is continuing but has been stalling in past months, triggering a repricing in the outlook for rate cuts, particularly in the US. Yet, the subsequent wobble seen in stock markets in April has now been erased, with volatility back to subdued levels both in the US and in Europe. In fact, our preferred measure of near-term stress, the 2/8 VIX future spread is already back to calm levels.

“We think vol (VIX) and vol-of-vol (VVIX) have now found a lower bound in the near-term,” say UBS derivatives strategists led by Maxwell Grinacoff, seeing over 1% implied move for the market on CPI data. “We favor selling puts to fund upside call spreads to position for a moderate retracement higher in volatility risk premia ahead of key CPI and retail sales data.”

Granted, the market has been sensitive to macro data, especially inflation, as shown in the chart below. While some of the moves have often been short-lived, investors may want to keep in mind that the S&P 500 has not had a 2% drop in over 300 trading days, which is abnormal, so some deeper correction can’t be excluded based on history.

Still, one thing that could play in favor of the market is that positioning is now a bit more balanced. While vol control funds’ allocation is still near the historical maximum, CTAs have reduced their equity long positions globally, and risk parity funds also trimmed their exposure to around historical average, according to Deutsche Bank strategists.

“Squeeze risks for rate-sensitive laggards on a CPI miss outweigh downside risks on a CPI beat,” say Bank of America derivatives strategists including Ohsung Kwon. They add that with inflation above consensus for five straight months, the rates market has already priced out five cuts so far this year. But they see equities able to tolerate higher inflation. An in-line print should also be net positive, removing the inflation overhang at least in the near term, they say.

“We expect this week’s April CPI report will likely be central to market participants’ focus and the tone that the market will likely take on near term,” says Oppenheimer Asset Management chief strategist John Stoltzfus. “Near-term volatility could in our view continue to present opportunity for investors to ‘catch babies that get thrown out with the bath water’ in periods of market down drafts.”

 

 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 08:20

AMC Raised $250 Million In ATM Offering As 'Meme' Stocks Rocket Higher

Update (0915ET): Is this 'meme stock frenzy', The Fed's fault once again?

The last time US financial conditions were this easy (jawboned by Fed officials' pivot) was the start of the first manic meltup in GME and its meme-mates...

The meme mania has started to spread with not just AMC and GME, but Virgin Galactic, BlackBerry, Nikola, and SunPower all soaring among many others...

*  *  *

With AMC Entertainment and GameStop's short squeezes causing significant losses for short sellers on Monday, we noted the growing likelihood that "bankers are burning the phones at GME and AMC pitching ATM equity offerings for after the close." 

You know jefferies bankers are burning the phones at GME and AMC pitching ATM equity offerings for after the close

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 13, 2024

Fast forward to Tuesday morning.

And there it is

AMC Raised About $250M of New Equity Capital in ATM Offering

Thank you retail investors https://t.co/MPu8vfEmNz

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 14, 2024

And this. 

And 99% of the stock was sold yesterday bro

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 14, 2024

Bloomberg reports that AMC completed a previously disclosed ATM on March 28. The deal was completed through Citigroup Global Markets, Barclays Capital, B. Riley Securities, and Goldman Sachs & Co., raising about $250 million in new capital for the struggling company - at an average price of $3.45 per share - or about 72.5 million shares. 

Meanwhile, AMC is up 95% in premarket trading in New York, trading around the $10 handle. In the last two days, shares are up a whopping 232%. 

Before yesterday's ripper, AMC was a perfect candidate for a squeeze, with 55.4 million shares, or about 18.82% of the float short. 

The revival of the 'Meme day trading army' - occurred oddly with a post on X from Roaring Kitty, also known as Keith Gill, on Sunday night. 

pic.twitter.com/YgjVqtgcNS

— Roaring Kitty (@TheRoaringKitty) May 13, 2024

GameStop is also higher in premarket, +124% to the $68 handle, on yet another massive short squeeze. In two days, shares have squeezed over 269% higher. 

Hedge funds were scorched in yesterday's Meme stock squeeze. 

Hedge funds got roasted in today’s Meme Stock squeeze.

We just witnessed a 4-Sigma day in HF VIP Longs vs Most Shorted Stocks (-5.9%).

This is the 2nd worst day since the original Meme Stock Mania. $GME $AMC $NVAX $BYND pic.twitter.com/fIjZDGZieh

— David Marlin (@Marlin_Capital) May 14, 2024

GS' Most Shorted Stock Index had the largest single-day increase since mid-December. 

On Monday,  we cited a note from Goldman Sachs flow of funds guru, Scott Rubner, who told clients, "I am starting to see some real FOMO start to develop based on incomings last week. Roaring Kitty is back, the message boards are going crazy this am. It is time for a thread."

Being a squeeze, and just a squeeze, nothing is constant - and what goes up, at some point - after the hedge funds are roasted - must come down—yet another painful lesson. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 08:05

Anglo Goes Bold: Unveils Breakup Plan To Transform Into Copper Giant Amid BHP Takeover Battle

London-listed Anglo-American has unveiled a "clear, compelling, and decisive plan to unlock significant value from its portfolio." This strategy involves selling its platinum and diamond business units while concentrating on copper, positioning itself to prosper off the 'Next AI Trade' as data centers and power grids will use an enormous amount of the base metal to 'power up' the digital economy. Also, it's a move to thwart a hostile takeover attempt from BHP Group. 

Anglo was forced to radically transform itself into a copper giant because of BHP's twice-rejected takeover bid, now worth £34 billion ($43 billion). The move also responds to shareholder pressure to focus on copper assets and demerge its stakes in less profitable ones, such as its steelmaking unit, coal business, Anglo American Platinum, and De Beers (diamonds). 

Anglo Chief Executive Officer Duncan Wanblad's major overhaul aims to replicate rival BHP CEO Mike Henry's proposed idea of transforming Anglo into one of the world's biggest copper giants. 

Financial Review noted that Wanblad plans to wait until after the South African elections on May 29 before announcing his complete restructuring of the company, which will need South African government approval for a demerger of its platinum and diamond mines.

"The only thing the BHP bid [did] was force the timeline on work we were already doing," Wanblad said on a call at 0300 ET. He will present the overhaul plan at the Bank of America Global Metals, Mining & Steel Conference in Miami, Florida, today. 

He continued, "I would probably not have announced this at this particular point in time, it would have been just a little bit later … I would have been much more sensitive in terms of the stakeholder management of this, but I now have no option."

In markets, Anglo shares in London slipped by 3%, while BHP's shares increased by 3%, reflecting the market's perception of a reduced takeover probability. 

"The outcome of Anglo's strategic review will not have changed BHP's plans, but they are probably actively assessing where they are now in light of this," said Lachlan Shaw, an analyst from UBS Group AG.

Joshua Mahoney, chief markets analyst at Scope Markets, wrote in a note, "The decision to spin off their diamond, platinum, and coal mining operations will see a greater focus on copper."

Mahoney said, "With copper rising into a fresh two-year high this morning, there is a clear surge in demand for this key material as the world progressively moves towards increased electrification." 

Concentrating on copper assets is the correct move for Anglo, as Goldman's Nicholas Snowdon penned in a note last week for clients that metal market is "moving into extreme tightness." 

Last month, being uber-bullish on copper, Snowdon wrote, "Copper's time is now" (available to pro subscribers in the usual place)...

Separately, Bank of America's commodity desk jumped on the copper trade, warning that a "supply crisis is here." 

In December, billionaire mining investor Robert Friedland explained to Bloomberg TV in an interview that copper prices are set to soar because the mining industry is failing to increase supply ahead of 'accelerating demand.' He warned: 

"We're heading for a train wreck here." 

As we've noted in "The Next AI Trade" & "Everyone Is Piling Into The "Next AI Trade"", as well as "The "Next AI Trade" Just Hit An All Time High," - data center demand and powering up America will need copious amounts of copper, at a time when mining supplies are dwindling. We all know what that means for price. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 07:45

The Broken Magic Trick Behind Dollar Dominance

Authored by Peter Reagan via Birch Gold Group,

The total debt owed by the United States federal government has reached incredible levels. Today, the total is $34,541,727,970,599.17 – but by the time you read this article, it’ll probably be higher.

I say “probably” because the debt is growing exponentially that by the time you read this, it’s quite possible that another few hundred billion have taken the total over $35 trillion.

Look at the official chart and attention to how fast total debt has risen since the turn of the century:

In the year 2000, total government debt was $5.7 trillion.

Ah, the good old days…

The nation’s debt has grown more than $5.7 trillion since President Biden took office!

Let me put it another way:

• It took the federal government 224 years, the Louisiana Purchase, the Civil War and two World Wars to rack up the first $5.7 trillion in red ink

• And then it took the Biden administration just three years to rack up the last $5.7 trillion!

I apologize for going on and on about this but I honestly cannot believe it.

It’s hard to call this an apples-to-apples comparison, though, because for the majority of those first two centuries, the dollar’s value was based on a defined quantity of gold or silver.

Well, obviously that cannot be the case any more! Based on my back-of-the-envelope estimate, there’s only $16.1 trillion in gold in the world (based on current prices). The ONLY way to create such an astonishing mountain of debt was to divorce the currency from any intrinsic value.

It’s almost a magic trick.

Think about it…

Once, a dollar was 3/4 oz of silver, or 1/2 oz for a $10 coin. People had to go and dig that precious metal out of the ground, refine it and stamp it. That’s a lot of work.

Then, the dollar became a paper certificate exchangeable for the equivalent weight of gold or silver. That’s just more convenient.

Finally, the dollar became just the paper itself.

It’s like money from nothing!

And to be clear, this “money from nothing” magic trick has been working since Nixon ended the last vestiges of the gold standard just over 50 years ago.

But you know how sleight-of-hand works, right?

It depends on deception.

And every time you do the same trick, the audience is one step closer to figuring out that it’s not really magic after all…

This exact same magic trick that’s been supporting both the federal government and the U.S. dollar for five decades just isn’t working as well as it used to.

The end of magical debt thinking

Writing for Project Syndicate, economist and author Kenneth Rogoff recently summarized the insane mentality that drives the current debt situation:

For over a decade, numerous economists – primarily but not exclusively on the left – have argued that the potential benefits of using debt to finance government spending far outweigh any associated costs. The notion that advanced economies could suffer from debt overhang was widely dismissed, and dissenting voices were often ridiculed.

Just so we’re clear, “debt overhang” is defined as a “debt burden so large that an entity cannot take on additional debt to finance future projects, dissuading current investment.”

Via Investopedia

A debt overhang makes it impossible to do anything other than pay back the debt.

That’s what makes it dangerous.

The people who “widely dismissed” the very idea that a whole nation could suffer from a debt overhang are a lot quieter now.

Rogoff explains why:

The tide has turned over the past two years, as this type of magical thinking collided with the harsh realities of high inflation and the return to normal long-term real interest rates. A recent reassessment by three senior IMF economists underscores this remarkable shift. The authors project that the advanced economies’ average debt-to-income ratio will rise to 120% of GDP by 2028, owing to their declining long-term growth prospects. They also note that with elevated borrowing costs becoming the “new normal,” developed countries must “gradually and credibly rebuild fiscal buffers and ensure the sustainability of their sovereign debt.”

That’s another way of saying, “What got us here won’t get us there.”

The federal government printed its way into this debt mountain – it cannot print its way out. See, they’ve done the magic trick too many times.

The audience caught on.

Now we ALL know there’s no magic. Nothing but a rapidly-growing pile of IOUs.

The question becomes, does the government have time to learn a new magic trick?

“The United States has about 20 years left”

Cole Walmsley of Gaiter Capital wrote an entire essay on X to summarize the conundrum facing the U.S. right now. The whole thing’s worth a read, but here are the highlights:

The U.S. Treasury, which is part of the U.S. Federal Government, has to sell new debt to new investors to pay off the old debt from old investors. This is because of 1) the constant budgetary deficits and 2) the debt from years past coming due.

Remember, the debt is made up of two big chunks: This year’s deficit, and all the other deficits racked up over the decades.

The U.S. Federal Government has been in a budgetary deficit in 49 of the last 53 years, with the last surplus year being in 2001.

But yet, even in that 2001 “budgetary surplus” year, the total debt amount increased.

Why?

Because a whole bunch of debt from years past came due.

He does a good job of putting the concept of “a trillion” into perspective, too:

Trillion is just a word. Let’s make sure we note the significance.

A *billion* seconds ago was 1993 (31 years ago).
A *trillion* seconds ago was 30,000 B.C.
And then multiply that trillion by 34.7.

That’s the scale of the United States debt bill.

Finally, Walmsley exposes the shell game at the heart of the federal government’s balance sheet:

The U.S. Treasury always has to have buyers of its debt, because if they don’t, they won’t be able to pay off 1) their deficit spending and 2) the old debt coming due (and the interest on the debt). If they fail to pay those off, the Government would default and collapse.

Well, then, who buys all the U.S. Government debt?

Key point: The largest buyer and owner of the U.S. Federal Government debt is THE U.S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THEMSELVES.

Approximately one third of all U.S. government debt is “owed” to another government department!

You know, this would be hilarious if it wasn’t our Social Security he’s talking about…

So how long can this farce last?

We have a couple of answers.

First, the Wharton School of Business explained why the United States is running out of time to recover from the teetering mountain of debt:

We estimate that the U.S. debt held by the public cannot exceed about 200 percent of GDP…

Larger [debt-to-GDP] ratios in countries like Japan, for example, are not relevant for the United States, because Japan has a much larger household saving rate, which more-than absorbs the larger government debt.

Under current policy, the United States has about 20 years for corrective action after which no amount of future tax increases or spending cuts could avoid the government defaulting on its debt whether explicitly or implicitly (i.e., debt monetization producing significant inflation). Unlike technical defaults where payments are merely delayed, this default would be much larger and would reverberate across the U.S. and world economies.

Japan has a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 260% made possible by the savings habits of Japanese households!

Here in the U.S. we save about 3.2% of our income right now – while in Japan, the savings rate averages 13.2% (and has been as high as 62%!)

Obviously, American households aren’t saving anywhere near enough money to support federal government deficits, even if they wanted to.

(We already pay taxes! Why should we give the White House even more of our money?)

In fact, the “end” could truly be drawing near… In his book This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, coauthored with Carmen Reinhart, Rogoff identified dozens of sovereign debt crises.

Every one unfolded the same way, at about the same time – all for the same reason.

The government’s irresistible urge to keep spending until it becomes obvious to everyone, even elected officials, that IOU is another way of saying, “You’re screwed.”

Now you know how much a trillion really is and why the U.S. won’t take Japan’s path to managing its debt.

Now you know the magic trick supporting the global financial system is just an accounting con.

So let’s talk about how we can move past the magical thinking, into the clear light of reality…

Real assets, real value

If you want to secure your retirement in the face of insane debt spending on the part of the Biden Administration, then it’s time to consider alternative options.

Unlike the vague promise of the dollar, physical precious metals like gold and silver are tangible physical assets you can hold in your hand. They can’t be replaced, canceled or inflated away.

The Founding Fathers knew this – and that’s why they tried to make certain our nation would never fall into the same trap that destroyed so many proud nations in the past. But they couldn’t save the nation.

That doesn’t mean we can’t save ourselves.

Make sure you’ve sheltered at least some portion of your savings with real safe-haven assets that you can hold in your hand. No amount of economic or government insanity can destroy gold and silver.

Empires rise and fall like tides on the beach of history. Gold and silver simply endure.

*  *  *

With global instability increasing and election uncertainties on the horizon, protecting your retirement savings is more important than ever. And this is why you should consider diversifying into a physical gold IRA. Because they offer an easy and tax-deferred way to safeguard your savings using tangible assets. To learn more, click here to get your FREE info kit on Gold IRAs from Birch Gold Group.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 07:20

Wanted: The Most In-Demand Jobs Of The Next Decade

Ever since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022 and other AI tools that have followed in its wake, people have been pondering the potential of artificial intelligence to replace certain occupations, trying to figure out if and how the nascent technology will change the way people work. And while the focus of discussions like this is often on the risk of certain jobs being replaced by emerging technologies; as Statista's Felix Richter reports, these shifts, as well as societal changes, usually offer new employment opportunities as well.

Think of the rise of e-commerce for example: while it has led to a decline in retail jobs, it has supported strong job growth in transportation and warehousing and still does.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Projections, transportation and warehousing is going to be among the fastest growing sectors over the next decade, with wage and salary employment in the sector projected to grow 8.6 percent between 2022 and 2032.

At 9.7 percent, the biggest increase in employment is expected for the healthcare and social assistance sector, which is driven less by technological changes and more by demographic shifts. Due to the ageing population and the growing prevalence of chronic conditions, the healthcare and social assistance sector is projected to account for 2.1 million new jobs by 2032, making up almost half of all new jobs expected by the end of the projection period.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Looking at individual occupations, this trend is also evident, with home health and personal care aids projected to be by far the fastest-growing occupation over the next decade, adding more than 800,000 jobs by 2032.

With registered nurses and medical and health service managers also in the top 10, it’s clear that the health sector as a whole is going to be a major driver of employment growth in the near future.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 06:55

"Markets Extremely Quiet" Ahead Of PPI, CPI, Powell Speech

US equity futures are flat into tomorrow's CPI/Retail Sales print with PPI the major macro data point today, while Fed Chair Powell also speaks. Futures are flat after also closing unchanged yesterday when the return of the meme stonk mania sent GME and AMC soaring, and hammered L/S hedge funds, whose short books exploded, leading to P&L carnage across the board and widespread degrossing which however did not impact index prices.  As of 6:30am, S&P and Nasdaq futures were unchanged. Bond yields are down 1-2bps as the yield curve bull steepens. The USD is flat and commodities are mixed with Ags lagging. Meme Stock Mania returned yesterday with GME +74% and AMC +78%, though Bitcoin was only +3%; As JPM's Andrew Tyler asks this morning "has the Retail investor reactivated and do they support Mag7?"

“Markets this morning are in extremely quiet mood ahead of tomorrow’s US consumer price index data that’s going to come out and shake things up or not,” said Kit Juckes, chief FX strategist at Societe Generale SA. “Sentiment about what the Fed’s going to do, sentiment about a lot of markets, will be determined by core CPI.”

The Stoxx Europe 600 index was little changed, hovering near a record high, as gains in auto and consumer product shares offset losses in travel and insurance names.  Shares in Anglo American Plc fell after the London-based miner outlined a major shake-up to fend of a takeover approach from BHP Group, with analysts citing execution risks. Delivery Hero SE soared as much as 22% after selling its Taiwan business. A revenue beat by Tencent Holdings Ltd. pushed the stock of its largest shareholder, Prosus NV, higher. Here are the most notable European movers:

• Delivery Hero shares soar as much as 22% after the food delivery firm agreed to sell its Taiwanese operations to Uber for $950 million. The deal is attractively priced as it allows Delivery Hero to reduce debt, although regulatory approval could be a potential concern, according to analysts.
• Vodafone shares rise as much as 3.9% after the telecom operator set full-year profit and cash flow guidance ahead of estimates. The German market, which now accounts for more than 45% of Vodafone’s Ebitda, saw service revenue growth ahead of expectations.
• Nagarro shares jump as much as 23%, the most on record, after the German IT service firm’s results beat expectations. Analysts noted the contrast between its reiterated guidance and US peer Epam’s profit warning.
• Nordex shares jump as much as 8.6%, hitting the highest in two years, after the wind turbine maker beat expectations and delivered a “blowout quarter,” according to Jefferies. Analysts at Oddo upgraded the stock.
• Sonova shares jump as much as 6.6% with Morgan Stanley saying the hearing system firm’s outlook implies upgrades to sales and earnings consensus.
• Societe Generale shares gain as much as 4.1% after French President Emmanuel Macron said he’d be open to seeing a major French bank being taken over by an EU rival to spur deeper integration.
• On The Beach shares drop as much as 12% after its first-half earnings showed ongoing pressures on consumers. However, the group’s reinstated dividend and strong demand remain points of confidence, according to analysts.
• Brenntag shares fall as much as 9.6%, the most since November 2022, after the German chemicals distribution firm’s first quarter missed estimates due to pricing pressures. The company reduced its guidance for the full year to the lower end of its range.
• Rheinmetall shares decline as much as 6% after the German defense company reported a backlog for the first quarter that was €40.2 billion compared with €28.2 billion at the same time last year. Oddo calls it a slow start to 2024, with earnings below consensus.
• DCC shares drop as much as 5.3% after its results came in below expectations, bringing an end to a strong run for the international sales and support service group that took its stock to a two-year high yesterday.
• Lonza shares fall as much as 3.3% after the Swiss maker of drug ingredients reported a subdued start to the year and confirmed a flat sales growth outlook for 2024.

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks traded in a narrow range as investors awaited crucial US inflation data. A rally in Hong Kong stocks stalled ahead of key technology sector earnings due later Tuesday. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index swung between gains and losses of as much as 0.2%. TSMC and Alibaba rose, while AIA and Tokyo Marine fell. Shares in Hong Kong and mainland China closed lower ahead of major earnings. A gauge of Chinese tech companies jumped as much as 2.3% before paring much of the gains. Tech is “expected to be a bright spot amid this earnings season that has been lackluster thus far,” said Marvin Chen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index inched up for the third straight day, supported ahead of US producer price data due later Tuesday. Investors also awaited speeches by Federal Reserve President Jerome Powell and Board of Governors member Lisa Cook to see if they offer any additional hints into when US interest rate cuts will start. Markets are bracing for US CPI data due on Wednesday for more steer into whether the Fed will begin easing in September, in line with market pricing.

In rates, Treasuries edge up ahead of US inflation data, with US 10-year yields falling 1bps to 4.48%. UK government bonds have pulled back from session highs having rallied after Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill suggested a summer interest-rate cut is in play. UK 10-year yields fall 1bp to 4.16%. His comments also weighed on the pound which is among the weakest of the G-10 currencies, falling 0.2% against the greenback after showing little reaction to UK jobs figures released earlier.

In commodities, oil prices gained before the release of OPEC’s market outlook, with WTI trading near $79.10. Industrial metals including nickel and copper climbed, while gold was steady after Monday’s decline of more than 1%. Spot gold rises 0.5% to around $2,347/oz.

To the day ahead, and central bank speakers include Fed Chair Powell, the Fed’s Cook, the ECB’s Knot and BoE chief economist Pill. US data releases include PPI inflation for April, along with the NFIB’s small business optimism index. Otherwise, we’ll get UK unemployment for March and the German ZEW survey for May.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures little changed at 5,247.50
• Brent Futures down 0.3% to $83.10/bbl
• Gold spot up 0.1% to $2,338.66
• US Dollar Index up 0.14% to 105.36
• STOXX Europe 600 little changed at 521.06
• MXAP up 0.1% to 178.43
• MXAPJ up 0.2% to 558.88
• Nikkei up 0.5% to 38,356.06
• Topix up 0.3% to 2,730.95
• Hang Seng Index down 0.2% to 19,073.71
• Shanghai Composite little changed at 3,145.77
• Sensex up 0.7% to 73,274.89
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.3% to 7,726.76
• Kospi up 0.1% to 2,730.34
• German 10Y yield little changed at 2.49%
• Euro down 0.1% to $1.0778
• Brent Futures down 0.3% to $83.10/bbl

Top Overnight News

• European stocks and US equity futures kept to small ranges for a second day, with traders waiting for US inflation reports to give markets fresh direction. US Treasuries and the dollar remained steady.
• US President Joe Biden is hiking tariffs on a wide range of Chinese imports — including semiconductors, batteries, solar cells, and critical minerals — in an election-year bid to bolster domestic manufacturing in critical industries.
• Japanese sovereign bond yields are surging to the highest levels in more than a decade amid signs the central bank is ready to reduce debt purchases to ease pressure on the ailing yen.
• From JPMorgan Chase & Co. to Citigroup Inc., Wall Street’s most prominent trading desks are warning that investors should gear up for a potential break in the calm that’s come over the stock market.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks lacked firm conviction after the indecisive performance in the US ahead of key events. ASX 200 was dragged lower by weakness in real estate and consumer staples ahead of the federal budget announcement, while Australian Treasurer Chalmers had previously cautioned against expectations for a welfare 'cash splash'. Nikkei 225 was choppy amid a weaker currency, mixed earnings releases and relatively in-line PPI data. Hang Seng & Shanghai Comp were initially boosted at the open with strength in tech and real estate although the Hong Kong benchmark eventually faded most of the gains, while sentiment was dampened in the mainland amid the threat of looming US tariffs which are expected to be unveiled today, while developer default concerns also lingered after Agile Group missed a coupon payment and flagged an inability to fulfil all payment obligations.

Top Asian News

• China's embassy said China remains open to cooperating with the US on repatriation of illegal immigrants but the US side should also demonstrate sincerity and address China's concerns, creating a suitable atmosphere for such cooperation, according to Global Times.
• Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki said it is important for the government and BoJ to coordinate policy and it is important for currencies to move in a stable manner reflecting fundamentals, while he added they will take a thorough response for forex and are closely watching FX moves, according to Reuters.
• Former BoJ executive says the BoJ may decide to reduce the size of scheduled bond purchases next month amid largely dysfunctional bond market, adding that the BoJ is likely to hold off on raising rates until September, according to Reuters.
• Australian Budget: sees 2023/24 budget surplus at AUD 9.3bln (vs. Exp. AUD 9bln) and deficits in 2024/25 - 2026/27 (as expected). 2024/25 deficit AUD 28.3bln vs. Exp. AUD 13.9bln. 2023/24 CPI seen at 3.5%, 2024/25 at 2.75% 2025/26 at 2.75%. 2023/24 unemployment seen at 4.0%, 2024/25 4.5% and 2025/26 4.5%. 2023/24 GDP growth at 1.75%, 2024/25 at 2% and 2025/26 at 2.25%. Sees iron ore price falling to USD 60/tonne, thermal coal USD 70/tonne for Q1 2025.

European bourses, Stoxx600 (+0.1%) are mixed and lack any firm direction, continuing the indecisive performance in APAC trade overnight. European sectors hold little bias with the breadth of the market fairly narrow. Autos is found at the top of the pile, building on the prior day’s gains, whilst Travel & Leisure is weighed on by Flutter (-2.5%) post-earnings. US Equity Futures (ES U/C, NQ +0.1%, RTY +0.1%) are mostly and modestly firmer, with trade tentative ahead of today’s PPI. Elsewhere, the White House says US President Biden is directing US Trade Representative to increase tariffs on USD 18bln of imports from China (in-fitting with recent reports).

Top European News

• BoE Chief Economist Pill says there is still some work to do on the persistence of inflation; not unreasonable to believe that over the summer, the BoE will see enough confidence to consider rate cuts. Not unreasonable to believe that over the summer, the BoE will see enough confidence to consider rate cuts; could cut and keep the stance restrictive. Question of when and how restriction is eased.
• Even a very poor EZ inflation reading this month would not necessarily dissuade the ECB's Governing Council from going through with the 25bp rate cut that has been amply signalled for its June meeting, according to a Eurosystem insider cited by Econostream.

FX

• Dollar is a touch firmer vs. most peers and briefly popping above yesterday's 105.36 high in quiet trade, though with traders mindful of today's PPI, and CPI on Wednesday, in addition to Chair Powell at 15:00BST/10:00ET.
• EUR is steady vs the USD after the pair failed to hold above the 1.08 mark. EUR/USD is currently contained within yesterday's 1.0765-1.0806 bounds with newsflow light, ZEW data failed to move the markets.
• GBP is the laggard across the majors. GBP was choppy following mixed jobs data, though commentary from BoE's Pill sent Sterling lower. The Chief Economist continued to talk up the possibility of rate cuts. Cable down as low as 1.2510 with eyes on a test of 1.25; not breached since May 9th.
• JPY is once again losing ground to the USD with markets bracing for upcoming US inflation prints, which could be the next inflection point for the pair. USD/JPY has been as high as 156.56 with not much in the way of resistance until 157.
• Mildly diverging fortunes for the antipodes with NZD edging out moderate gains vs. the USD. AUD/USD is holding above the 0.66 mark and respecting yesterday's 0.6587-0.6628 range in quiet trade.
• PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1053 vs exp. 7.2307 (prev. 7.1030).

Fixed Income

• USTs are incrementally firmer but with magnitudes much more contained than EGBs as we await US PPI ahead of Wednesday's CPI print. USTs at the top-end of 108-24 to 108-29 bounds which are contained by Monday's 108-23 to 109-00 parameters.
• Gilts initially gapped lower by just 11 ticks to 97.52 following the morning's data which was hawkish on the wage components, though upticks in unemployment and another sizeable negative employment change provided some dovish reprieve. Speak from BoE's Pill thereafter lifted Gilts to a 97.89 peak just shy of Monday's 97.93 best.
• Bunds are flat after initially being supported in tandem with Gilt price action; the ZEW data once again came in stronger than expected and prompted Bunds to pullback to the 131.00 mark. Bunds to a 131.13 peak post-Pill matching Monday's best.

Commodities

• Subdued trade across the crude complex following yesterday's gains, which saw the contract settle higher but off best levels in a day with light oil newsflow. Brent Jul'24 sits within a USD 82.98-83.62/bbl parameter.
• Precious metals hold an upward bias despite the stronger Dollar, with outperformance in spot palladium this morning whilst spot gold remains caged ahead of the aforementioned risk events including US PPI and Fed Chair Powell later; XAU sits within a tight USD 2,334.89-2,345.99/oz intraday range thus far.
• Mixed trade across base metals with 3M LME copper futures flat but holding onto a USD 10k+ status, while aluminium prices are subdued following another large warehouse stock metric (+131k/T).
• OPEC OMR due at 11:00BST/06:00ET today
• LME Stocks: Aluminium +131k/T.
• Peru copper production dipped slightly in March and was down 0.1% Y/Y, according to government data.

Geopolitics

• "Israeli tanks began to penetrate into the center of Rafah for the first time amid fierce clashes ", according to Al Arabiya
• "Lebanese agency: Israel used 'seismic missiles' in the town of Kafr Kila in southern Lebanon", according to Al Arabiya
• Member of the Hamas Political Bureau told Al Arabiya they are committed to the path of the exchange deal negotiations.
• Heavy Israeli artillery shelling and heavy gunfire reported in the centre and east of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Al Jazeera.
• US officials said Israel has mobilised enough forces to launch a large-scale operation in Rafah but they are not sure if We are not sure if Israel has made a final decision to launch a large-scale operation in Rafah, according to CNN.
• US Deputy Secretary of State said we do not believe that the complete victory that Israel seeks to achieve is likely or possible, according to CNN.
• Hezbollah said it targeted two buildings used by enemy soldiers in the settlement of Metulla and achieved a direct hit, according to Al Jazeera.
• EU decided to broaden the scope of its sanctions framework to include not only provision of drones from Iran to Russia but also missiles. It also expands the sanctions regime geographically to cover the Middle East, according to a press release. 
• US Secretary of State Blinken arrived in Ukraine on a previously undisclosed trip and intends to send the signal of reassurance to Ukraine at a 'very difficult moment', while US-supplied artillery, ATACMS long-range missiles and air defence interceptors are already reaching Ukraine's front lines from the new US aid package approved on April 24th, according to a US official cited by Reuters. 
• US and Taiwan navies quietly held Pacific drills in April, while the exercises involved about a half-dozen ships from both sides but officially didn't take place, according to a Reuters source. Furthermore, a source added that exercises were dubbed 'unplanned sea encounters' and gave the navies a chance to practice 'basic' operations.

US Event Calendar

• 06:00: April SMALL BUSINESS OPTIMISM 89.2, est. 88.2, prior 88.5
• 08:30: April PPI Ex Food, Energy, Trade MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.2%
• April PPI Ex Food, Energy, Trade YoY, prior 2.8%
• April PPI Final Demand MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.2%
• April PPI Final Demand YoY, est. 2.2%, prior 2.1%

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight news

The start of this week has seen a holding pattern ahead of potentially more exciting times to come over the next couple of days. The S&P 500 (-0.02%) and 10yr Treasury yields (-1.0bps) didn't move much. Unless you've been living on Mars, you'll know that we have the US PPI release today, followed by the CPI tomorrow. You'll also likely be fully aware that the first three months of the year all had fairly strong inflation, and all beating expectations, so this is an important week.

If you're looking for a little bit of excitement then Japanese yields are edging to decade plus yield highs overnight on concerns the BoJ will cut bond purchases again at its next regular operation on Friday. Yields on 10yr JGBs increased +2.5bps to 0.965%, its highest in more than a decade while yields on 20yr JGBs touched a high of 1.77%, the most since 2013 before settling at 1.759% as we go to print. 30yr yields hit their highest since 2011, trading at 2.038% as I type. The speculation being that smaller purchases are being planned to help the ailing Yen which has been drifting back down over the last week or so post what is thought to have been two bouts of intervention. So one to watch.

Back to those upcoming US inflation prints and the mood music ahead of them has been a little worrying, as data on inflation expectations showed a further uptick. That came via the New York Fed’s latest Survey of Consumer Expectations, where 1yr inflation expectations were up from 3.0% to 3.3% in April, marking its highest level in 5 months. Moreover, that follows on the heels of the University of Michigan’s survey last Friday, where inflation expectations also surprised on the upside, so there’ve been several pieces of news pointing in that direction. To be fair, the 3yr NY measure did fall a tenth to 2.8%, but the 5yr measure ticked up two-tenths to 2.8%, so it was a mixed bag at the longer time horizons. Separately, there were some labour market indicators that pointed in a weaker direction, with the mean probability of finding a job in the next 3 months (if one’s job was lost today) falling to a 3-year low of 50.9%.

For the April PPI release today, our economists expect headline PPI to come in at a monthly +0.4% pace. That would be an uptick from the +0.2% pace in March, but the focus for our economists will be on those components that feed into the core PCE deflator, which are health care services, portfolio management and domestic airfares. So those are the categories to keep an eye on, since they feed into the PCE measure that the Fed officially targets.

Ahead of that, we did hear from Fed Vice Chair Jefferson, who reflected the cautious tone of the FOMC about future rate cuts. For instance, he said that they “continue to look for additional evidence that inflation is going to return to our 2% target. And until we have that, I think it is appropriate to keep the policy rate in restrictive territory.” So there wasn’t much to move the dial on market expectations, with the number of cuts priced in by the December meeting little changed at 41bps yesterday. Later today, we’ll hear from Fed Chair Powell as well, who’s speaking at an event with the ECB’s Knot.

We’ll have to see what happens today, but for now at least, the S&P 500 (-0.02%) barely budged, which still leaves the index just 0.6% beneath its all-time high from the end of March. It was a similar story in Europe as well, where the STOXX 600 (+0.02%) narrowly eked out another all-time high. Tech outperformance saw modest gains for the NASDAQ (+0.29%) and the Magnificent 7 (+0.28%), with the latter ending a run of four consecutive declines. But the mood was slightly negative otherwise, with 9 of the 11 S&P 500 sector groups down on the day.

Perhaps the most notable equity story of the day was a + 74.4% rise for Gamestop . This followed a post on X (after a long dormant period) by Keith Hill, who gained notoriety during the 2021 meme-stock frenzy under the moniker “Roaring Kitty”. Some of the other heavily shorted stocks also saw sizeable gains, with the high short interest basket within the Russell 3000 up as much as +6.7% intra-day (+4.55% by the close). To refresh your memory GameStop went above 10 in January 2021. Two weeks later at the height of the frenzy it was trading at nearly 90. Since then it's steadily and consistently fallen back to a low of 10 three weeks ago. Last night it closed above 30 again. Let's see if that speculative craze is going to be reignited.

For sovereign bonds, there was also a subdued performance yesterday, with little major movements in either direction yesterday. Indeed, US Treasuries saw one of the larger moves of the day, with the 10yr yield down -1.0bps to 4.49%. The 10yr yield had traded nearly -4bps down on the day early in the US session but then saw a gradual increase, helped along by the NY Fed inflation expectations release. The bond moves were even smaller moves in Europe, where yields on 10yr bunds (-0.7bps), OATs (-0.5bps) and BTPs (+0.7bps) all moved by less than a basis point.

In the commodity space, oil prices recovered, with Brent up +0.77% to $83.43/bbl after falling to an 8-week low on Friday. Meanwhile, copper posted another 2-year high, up +2.36% on the day and extending its year-to-date gain to +23.5%.

In Asia, Chinese stocks are trading slightly lower with the CSI (-0.15%), Hang Sang (-0.05%) and Shanghai Composite (-0.08%) all seeing minor losses. However, the Hang Seng Tech index (+1.10%) is bucking the trend powered by a rally in Chinese tech stocks with Alibaba and Tencent Holdings reporting earnings later today. Elsewhere, the KOSPI (-0.09%) is also struggling to gain traction whilst the Nikkei (+0.05%) is trading just above flat. US equity futures are very slightly lower.

To the day ahead, and central bank speakers include Fed Chair Powell, the Fed’s Cook, the ECB’s Knot and BoE chief economist Pill. US data releases include PPI inflation for April, along with the NFIB’s small business optimism index. Otherwise, we’ll get UK unemployment for March and the German ZEW survey for May.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 06:33

UNC Chapel Hill Trustees Vote To Redirect DEI Money To Campus Safety

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The board of trustees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has unanimously voted to defund diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and instead use the millions of dollars to boost campus safety.

A barricade protects the American flag at Polk Place at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., on May 1, 2024. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

At a special meeting on Monday morning to discuss budget plans, the board voted to divert the $2.3 million the university invests in DEI programs toward police and other public safety measures. The public university had an operating budget totaling more than $4 billion in the previous fiscal year.

“I think that DEI, in a lot of people’s mind, is divisiveness, exclusion, and indoctrination,” Marty Kotis, vice chair of the board’s budget and finance committee, said during Monday’s meeting. “We need more unity and togetherness, more dialogue, more diversity of thought.”

Mr. Kotis moved on to make the case for using the freed-up DEI dollars to improve campus security, highlighting the vandalizing of an administrative building by pro-Palestinian protesters just hours before the commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 11.

According to photos shared on social media by student newspaper the Daily Tar Heel, protesters defaced Chapel Hill’s South Building with red paint and chalk, leaving red handprints and messages saying “You Support Genocide” and “UNC Has Blood on Its Hands.”

The steps of the building were also covered in red paint, which has since been power-washed off.

“When you have warring groups or dividing groups, they can hurt each other, they can damage property like they did here in the South Building—red paint everywhere, stickers everywhere, things torn up,” Mr. Kotis told fellow board members. “Law enforcement is then forced to react to that. They do not have all the tools they need right now to keep the campus safe from a large threat.”

“It’s important to consider the needs of all 30,000 students, not just 100 or so that may want to disrupt the university’s operations,” he continued. “It takes away resources from us.”

Recent Campus Incidents

Saturday’s vandalism marked the latest incident in a series of pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have roiled UNC’s flagship campus in recent weeks and lead to dozens of arrests. On April 30, more than 30 protesters were detained for trespassing after they tore down barricades outside the campus’ main quad and took down the American flag on a flag pole to replace it with Palestinian colors.

Twenty of those individuals were unaffiliated with the university.

“When you destroy property or you take down the U.S flag and you have to put up gates around it—that costs money,” Mr. Kotis said at the budget meeting. “It’s imperative that we have the proper resources for law enforcement to protect the campus.”

The proposed diversion of funds would also help keep Chapel Hill align with existing state law, as well as a new equality and nondiscrimination policy that could lead to the elimination of DEI positions across all 17 UNC institutions—16 public universities and a public boarding high school, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.

The new policy, adopted April 17 by the UNC Board of Governors’ Committee on University Governance, replaces a 2019 policy that created DEI offices and implemented reporting requirements across the system.

Under the current DEI policy, all institutions within the system are required to employ at least one senior-level administrator who is tasked to oversee “policy development and strategic planning to promote and advance” diversity and inclusion goals.

The new policy’s wording indicates that those DEI positions do not “adhere to and comply with the strictures of institutional neutrality” as outlined in North Carolina law that prohibits public colleges and universities from participating in “political controversies of the day.”

The same policy change will be voted on in a full Board of Governors meeting next week.

If approved, the policy will be effective immediately and individual university chancellors will need to submit a report by September detailing their plans to comply with the institutional neutrality mandate. That includes reporting any “reductions in force and spending, along with changes to job titles and position descriptions undertaken as a result of implementing” the policy, and how those savings achieved from these actions can be “redirected to initiatives related to student success and wellbeing.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 06:30

Transitioning Fleet Trucks To Electric Raises Costs By Up To 114 Percent, Report Warns

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Transitioning conventional truck fleets to electric vehicles (EVs) pushes up annual operational costs, which subsequently increases economic inflation, according to a recent report from transportation and logistics firm Ryder.

Florida-based Ryder analyzed the potential cost of transportation if internal combustion engine trucks are converted to EVs. There is a 5 percent cost increase for light-duty EVs and a 94–114 percent increase for heavy-duty trucks, the May 8 report states. For a fleet of 25 mixed vehicles—light-, medium-, and heavy-duty trucks—costs surge by 56–67 percent.

As transportation costs have a direct bearing on the price of goods sold in markets across the country, Ryder estimates such increases to eventually add about 0.5–1 percent to overall price inflation in the economy.

“There are specific applications where EV adoption makes sense today, but the use cases are still limited. Yet we’re facing regulations aimed at accelerating broader EV adoption when the technology and infrastructure are still developing,” said Karen Jones, executive vice president and head of new product development for Ryder.

“Until the gap in TCT [total cost to transport] for heavier duty vehicles is narrowed or closed, we cannot expect many companies to make the transition; and, if required to convert in today’s market, we face more supply chain disruptions, transportation cost increases, and additional inflationary pressure.”

In California, the annual TCT increase for a heavy-duty EV tractor was approximately $315,000, with the number rising to more than $330,000 in Georgia. In both cases, equipment costs were the biggest contributor to the increase, rising by 500 percent.

Ryder noted there were 16.4 million Class 3 to Class 8 commercial vehicles in operation in the United States, out of which only an estimated 18,000 EVs have been deployed.

“Therefore, if companies are required to convert to EVs in the near future, availability and production of EVs may be far less than the vehicles needed to run America’s supply chains,” the report states.

The report points to a statement made by Clean Freight Coalition (CFC) that there is currently no network in the United States where truck drivers can take rest breaks and charge their EV batteries at the same time.

CFC estimates that electrifying the United States’ current commercial vehicle fleet would necessitate a $1 trillion investment.

Moreover, the International Council on Clean Transportation calculates that almost 700,000 chargers will be required to accommodate the 1 million Class 4, 6, and 8 electric trucks expected to be deployed by 2030. This alone will consume 140,000 megawatts of electricity per day, which is equivalent to the daily electricity needs of roughly 5 million U.S. homes.

“Ryder’s analysis underscores the reasons EV adoption for commercial vehicles remains in its infancy. In addition to the limited support infrastructure and EV availability, the business case for converting to EV for most payload and mileage applications, is extremely challenging,” the report reads.

Robert Sanchez, chairman and CEO of Ryder, said that although the company is actively deploying EVs and charging infrastructure, it has not seen any “significant adoption” of this technology.

“For many of our customers, the business case for converting to EV technology just isn’t there yet, given the limitations of the technology and lack of sufficient charging infrastructure,” he said.

Stuttering EV Adoption

The Ryder report comes as the Biden administration announced last month that it plans to spend nearly $1.5 billion to make the U.S. freight industry “zero-emissions.”

As part of the program, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will offer $1 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to cities and states “to replace Class 6 and Class 7 heavy-duty vehicles—which include school buses, trash trucks, and delivery trucks—with zero-emissions vehicles,” the White House said.

“Freight movement continues to represent a significant share of local air pollution, increasing the risk of asthma, heart disease, hospitalization, and other adverse health outcomes for the millions of Americans, especially overburdened communities, who live and work near highways, ports, railyards, warehouses, and other freight routes,” it stated.

The goal to transition to a zero-emissions freight sector “will prioritize actions to address air pollution hot spots and tackle the climate crisis, mobilizing a broad range of government resources, and reflect public participation and meaningful community engagement, furthering the President’s commitment to environmental justice for all.”

A recent report from consulting firm Roland Berger noted that full electrification of the U.S. commercial truck fleet would be an expensive affair. The cost of new electric trucks is twice or three times that of their diesel equivalents. A diesel Class 8 truck costs about $180,000, and a battery-electric truck costs more than $400,000.

Earlier, the EPA finalized the “strongest ever” greenhouse gas standards for heavy-duty vehicles, a move that attracted strong criticism from trucking organizations.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association called the standards an “assault on small-business truck drivers,” who make up 96 percent of commercial motor carriers.

On April 30, Nick Nigro, the founder of Atlas Public Policy, testified at a House hearing on fleet electrification efforts, supporting such initiatives. He insisted that such a transition is crucial to protect people’s health.

“We aren’t just racing against foreign nations to lead the development of 21st-century vehicle technology,“ he said. ”We’re also in a race to mitigate the worst effects of climate change on the planet and tailpipe pollution on human health.”

The American Lung Association estimates that transitioning to zero-emission trucks could result in $735 billion in public health benefits by 2050, he noted.

In his testimony at the hearing, Taki Darakos, the vice president of vehicle maintenance and fleet service at PITT OHIO, raised concerns about the high costs involved in electrifying fleets.

The upfront costs of zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) “are much higher than their diesel equivalent, making it difficult for fleets to embrace electrification until they see meaningful year-over-year upfront purchase price declines.”

The company incorporated some EVs in its fleet, and Mr. Darakos said: “Increased vehicle weight from the batteries reduced our payload and limited our usage of haul. These limitations have impacted the company’s timeline on how and when to transition to ZEV.”

The American Transportation Research Institute estimated that electrifying the entire vehicle fleet in the United States will consume 40 percent of the United States’ existing electricity generation while requiring a 14 percent overall increase in energy generation.

“Yet our aging grid can hardly meet current demands,“ Mr. Darakos said. ”In California, where rolling blackouts and brownouts are not uncommon, utilities would need to generate an additional 57 percent beyond their current output to support an electric vehicle fleet.”

He pointed out that a truck driver can refuel a new diesel truck within 15 minutes for a journey of up to 1,200 miles. However, charging an EV truck for two hours provides a range of only about 200 miles.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 05:45

The Tide Turns: Research On COVID Vaccine Harms, Once A Taboo Subject, Now Appearing In Some Medical Journals

Authored by Joe Wang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

When COVID-19 took the world by storm in early 2020, I mostly relied on reading Nature Medicine, The Lancet, and a few other medical journals to learn the latest on this new disease.

A health care worker fills a syringe with COVID-19 vaccine in a file image. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

In March 2020, I read an article published in Nature Medicine titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” with great interest. Written by California-based Scripps Institute’s Kristian Andersen and four other well-known professors, it said SARS-CoV-2 binds to human cells much better than any computer programs predicted, and concluded that “SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation.”

Having been a scientist with the world’s largest vaccine company for more than 10 years, I took issue with this claim.

In a May 2022 commentary titled “Pandemic Lessons Learned: Scientific Debate Silenced, With Deadly Consequences” I wrote: “If SARS-CoV-2 infects people better than your computer predicts, then the only conclusion you can draw is that your computer sucks. How did these world-renowned scientists get the basic logic so wrong? And how did the prestigious publication Nature Medicine not catch that? Did anyone even read the paper before publishing it, not to mention peer review it?”

The Andersen article’s conclusion, as it turned out, was a complete flip-flop on Andersen’s Jan. 31, 2020, email to Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in which he wrote that “some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” referring to the coronavirus.

The Fauci emails were made public in June 2021 via Freedom of Information Act requests.

Nevertheless, the Nature Medicine paper became the authority on the origin of COVID. It essentially excluded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Dr. Fauci from any responsibility for the emergence of the virus. Any attempts to investigate or explore other possibilities were labelled conspiracy theories.

Andersen, and the article itself, were the subject of a U.S. Congressional Hearing by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in June 2023. The debate on how COVID originated is still ongoing today.

The Lancet and the Daszak Statement

Andersen and Nature Medicine weren’t the only ones trying to please the CCP and Fauci.

On Feb. 18, 2020, The Lancet, another top medical journal, published a political statement with no science in it. It was organized by Peter Daszak from EcoHealth Alliance, which was the middleman for channeling Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a U.S. Congress report released on May 1 of this year.

The Daszak et al. statement dismissed as a conspiracy theory any suggestion that COVID was not of natural origin.

“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” they wrote. “Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.”

The Tune Is Set

The Daszak statement, along with the Andersen article, set the tune for the officially accepted narrative. The narrative then expanded from “a natural origin of the virus” to “a COVID vaccine will flatten the curve and save the world.” Scientists, doctors, and journal editors who dared to challenge the narrative were cancelled and/or labelled conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers.

It has been four years and six months since the world first encountered SARS-CoV-2. Despite the claims by famous scientists like Fauci and Andersen, and despite the countless efforts by top virologists and public health professionals, evidence that the virus originated naturally has not been found.

More and more people now believe that the virus was leaked or escaped from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been doing gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, and published such research in Nature Medicine in 2015, with NIH funding acknowledged.

The lab origin is no longer a conspiracy theory. The U.S. Energy Department and the FBI both now believe that the virus was more likely leaked from a lab than having developed naturally.

Encouraging Developments

Since the pandemic, The Epoch Times and NTD have been publishing documentary films on COVID origin and vaccine injuries. The first such documentary, Joshua Philipp’s “Tracking Down the Origin of the Wuhan Coronavirus,” was viewed over 100 million times on different platforms combined. However, such reports are rarely seen in other legacy media.

It has also been a taboo subject for scientific research and publication, but that may be starting to change.

Recently, I wrote a commentary about a new paper by five Japanese scientists that was published on Cureus, a peer-reviewed medical journal owned by the Springer Nature Group, the same company that owns Nature and Nature Medicine.

The scientists analyzed data collected from the entire 123 million Japanese population and concluded that the majority of the 115,799 excess deaths in 2022 was not due to COVID infection but rather vaccination, in particular the third COVID shot.

I was pleasantly surprised that a once-taboo subject was now published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, especially a member journal of the Springer Nature Group.

In another positive development, this month the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (IJBM) published a paper titled “Review: N1-methyl-pseudouridine: Friend or foe of cancer?” linking a key ingredient in the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine with cancer development.

IJBM is owned by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier, which also owns renowned publications like The Lancet, Cell, and ScienceDirect.

May the Force Be With the Editors-in-Chief

In the spring of 2022, when more scientists started to challenge the accepted narratives and seek the truth, I co-wrote the commentary “May the Force Be With Them: Scientists Fight Back.”

At that time, these brave scientists needed all the help they could get. For example, when a journal published a well-researched, well-written, and fact-based scientific paper on the safety concerns of the mRNA vaccines, the editor-in-chief of that journal was ousted.

The journal was Food and Chemical Toxicology, another Elsevier publication, and the editor-in-chief was Dr. José Luis Domingo.

Two years later, I’m optimistic that the IJBM editors-in-chief won’t face the same treatment as Dr. Domingo.

Why? I believe the tide has turned.

A recent New York Times article on COVID vaccine injuries is also an encouraging sign. It cites the Food and Drug Administration’s former acting commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock as saying the injuries are “serious” and “life-changing,” and “should be taken seriously.”

“I’m disappointed in myself,” she added. “I did a lot of things I feel very good about, but this is one of the few things I feel I just didn’t bring it home.”

Among the reported injured is the editor-in-chief of the journal Vaccine, Dr. Gregory Poland. He has been suffering from tinnitus since his first shot. The Centers for Disease Control didn’t take his report on his personal experience seriously. He told the NY Times that he did not “get any sense of movement (from the CDC).”

“If they have done studies (on vaccine injury), those studies should be published,” Dr. Poland added.

The journal Vaccine is also an Elsevier publication, and as the editor-in-chief, Dr. Poland is well positioned to offer his encouragement on vaccine injury studies.

Yes, I believe the tide has turned.

However, as of today, the Daszak statement is still on The Lancet website and the Andersen paper is still on Nature Medicine.

I wonder when the Lancet and Nature Medicine will have the courage to retract them? And when will these two eminent journals start publishing research on COVID vaccine injuries?

References:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/pandemic-lessons-learned-scientifi…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/new-email-reveals-what-fauci-knew…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/tony-fauci-ema…

https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2023/20230404-anders…

https://oversight.house.gov/release/wenstrup-to-hold-hearing-with-proxi…

https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930418-9

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024.05.01-SSCP-…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/expert-on-aluminum-toxicity-forced…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/author/aaron-kheriaty

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/editor-in-chief-of-renowned-scienc…

https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/28/politics/wray-fbi-covid-origins-lab-chin…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv?utm_source=epochtv

https://www.ntd.com/

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/the-unseen-crisis-vaccine-stories…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/documentary-tracking-down-the-ori…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/joe-wang-japans-excess-deaths-hit-…

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9012513/

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 05:00

Mapping All The Countries Where Recreational Cannabis Is Legal

In 2024, Germany became the third European Union country to legalize cannabis for personal use, following Malta and Luxembourg.

Here, Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti maps the countries where recreational cannabis use is allowed as of April 2024, based on data from Wikipedia.

Limited to Few Countries

In total, only nine countries have legalized recreational cannabis use nationwide. However, just a few of them have licensed sales.

At the federal level, cannabis is still considered an illegal substance in the United States. That said, individual states do have the right to determine their laws around cannabis sales and usage. Currently, cannabis is allowed in 24 states, 3 territories, and the District of Columbia.

Interestingly, the oldest legal text concerning cannabis dates back to the 1600s—when the colony of Virginia required every farm to grow and produce hemp.

Since then, cannabis use was fairly widespread until the 1930s when the Marihuana Tax Act was enforced, prohibiting marijuana federally but still technically allowing for medical use.

Today, the U.S. cannabis market is a $30 billion business. By the end of the decade, that number is expected to be anywhere from $58 billion to as much as $72 billion.

Similar to the U.S., Australia does not allow the use at the national level, but cannabis can be used legally in the Australian Capital Territory, which includes the capital Canberra.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 04:15

Poland's Border Fortification Buildup Has Nothing To Do With Legitimate Threat Perceptions

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz announced last week that his country will build bunkers and trenches along its border with Russia and Belarus, which was followed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirming that security will be bolstered, including on anti-illegal immigrant pretexts.

The reality though is that this development has nothing to do with legitimate threat perceptions since Russia isn’t going to invade Poland while Tusk’s liberal-globalist coalition government favors illegal immigrants.

The premier has sought to appeal to Polish patriotism since January in order to distract from his country’s domestic political crisis and its comprehensive subordination to Germany under his rule. To that end, he’s hyped up the Ukrainian cause in parallel with fearmongering about World War III, which he predicts could happen through an impending Russian invasion of NATO. What he always dishonestly ignores, however, is that the US has repeatedly reaffirmed its ironclad commitment to Article 5.

Moving along to debunking the illegal immigrant aspect of his justification for Poland’s border buildup, Sejm Speaker Szymon Holownia posed with an illegal immigrant who infiltrated Poland from Belarus under the guise of being a “refugee” during a January photo-op inside the parliamentary chambers. This attitude aligns with his coalition government’s liberal-globalist “values”, which are sold to the public in this context as a means for replacing its aging population and thus keeping the economy competitive.

To be sure, the previous conservative-nationalist government was also hypocritical with respect to the reasons behind its own border buildup, having also dishonestly ignored the US’ commitment to Article 5 and being responsible for legally bringing in 250,000 civilizationally dissimilar migrants to Poland. The first simply saw it hype up the Russian threat like Tusk is doing, while the second concerned the scandal that broke out last summer before the elections and was cynically capitalized upon by the opposition.  

Back to the incumbent government, they hope to rally patriotic Poles behind their leadership as the military-strategic situation continues worsening for the West in Ukraine, with the supplementary objective being to distract some of them from its enthusiastic embrace of illegal immigrants. By pretending to prioritize national defense in spite of surrendering large swaths of Polish sovereignty in this respect to the Anglo-American Axis and Germany, Tusk expects to defuse growing dissent at home.

He might also want to precondition the public for the possibility of Poland conventionally intervening in Ukraine, whether unilaterally or together with France and others in a “coalition of the willing”, with the innuendo that it would be driven by national security purposes intended to defend Poland from Russia. It’s premature to say with certainty whether that’ll happen, but it nevertheless can’t be ruled out after Tusk himself just admitted that NATO troops are already there, albeit supposedly in non-combat roles. 

All that can be known for sure is that the justification behind Poland’s latest border buildup, which continues the process that was hypocritically begun by the incumbent liberal-globalist government’s conservative-nationalist predecessor, has nothing to do with legitimate threat perceptions. False pretexts are being concocted to justify these massive investments of a largely, but not entirely, symbolic nature mostly aimed at dishonestly advancing a domestic political agenda.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 03:30

WHO Makes Key Concessions Ahead Of Pandemic Treaty Vote

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The World Health Organization (WHO) has watered down some provisions of its pandemic agreements ahead of the upcoming World Health Assembly on May 27. Critics in the United States, however, say the changes don’t do enough to address the concerns over the policy.

Provisions in prior drafts of the WHO pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations (IHRs) together aimed to effectively centralize and increase the power of the WHO if it declares a “health emergency.”

The release of the latest draft of the amendments, dated April 17, are the first public update on the IHR draft, which was initially made public early 2023.

“In most areas, and for all of those which most concerned us from a legal perspective, the interim draft reflects a major retreat by the WHO Working Group from the text of the original proposals,” write English solicitors Ben and Molly Kingsley in an April briefing paper regarding the new amendments.

Some WHO-watchers remain wary, however.

“Practically all the bad things are still there,” Dr. Meryl Nass, a U.S.-based physician and vocal critic of the WHO agreements, told The Epoch Times.

“The language is gentler, but since there is so much to be decided later it is not clear the gentler language is meaningful,” Dr. Nass said.

“My best guess is that they are desperate to get something passed, so the options are likely to be either a vanilla version of the treaty … or a delay. But they fear delay because people are waking up.”

The WHO and its advocates—including celebrities, politicians, and religious groups—have launched a global campaign urging the 194 member states to sign the documents.

“Give the people of the world, the people of your countries, the people you represent, a safer future,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a May 3 Geneva meeting. “I have one simple request: please, get this done, for them.”

He urged any countries that don’t support the agreements to refrain from encouraging other states to oppose it.

WHO ambassador and former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown on March 20 lauded “a high-powered intervention by 23 former national presidents, 22 former prime ministers, a former U.N. general secretary, and 3 Nobel Laureates … to press for an urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord.”

Mr. Brown called for unified global action to “expose fake news disinformation campaigns by conspiracy theorists trying to torpedo international agreement for the Pandemic Accord.”

He refuted criticisms that the pandemic treaty and IHR amendments would cede any sovereignty from member nations to the WHO.

(Top) World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a press conference in Geneva on April 6, 2023. (Bottom) People in protective suits spray disinfectant on a street in Shijiazhuang, which was declared a high-risk area for COVID-19 , in northern China's Hebei Province, on Jan. 15, 2021. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images, STR/CNS/AFP via Getty Images) Critics Remain Unconvinced

Despite these assurances, however, the efforts to vest more power within the WHO continue to face resistance.

In recent months, Louisiana and Florida passed laws stating that state officials will not obey WHO directives, and other states, such as Oklahoma, are considering similar legislation.

On May 8, attorneys general from 22 states signed a letter to President Joe Biden urging him not to sign the WHO agreements, and stating that they will resist any attempts by the WHO to set public health policy in their states.

“Although the latest iteration is far better than previous versions, it’s still highly problematic,” the attorneys general wrote. “The fluid and opaque nature of these proceedings, moreover, could allow the most egregious provisions from past versions to return.

“Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn’t to protect public health. It’s to cede authority to the WHO—specifically its director-general—to restrict our citizens’ rights to freedom of speech, privacy, movement (especially travel across borders), and informed consent.”

Amid this recalcitrance, the WHO has stepped back from some of the more controversial measures. The Biden administration is involved in negotiating the WHO treaty and have expressed support for it, but haven’t stated a definite intention to sign.

The Latest Draft

Struck from the latest draft is a provision that member nations “recognize WHO as the guiding and coordinating authority of international public health response” and commit to follow the WHO’s directives during a health emergency. The latest draft also states that WHO recommendations are non-binding.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2024 - 23:40

South Korea Still Dominates The World With The Highest Density Of Robot Workers

China's huge investment in industrial robotics has made it one of the most automated nations on the planet in the space of just a few short years.

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, according to the latest study by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the number of operational robots in China's manufacturing industry reached a ratio of 392 units per 10,000 employees in 2022, a robot density now similar to that of Japanese industry.

China currently ranks fifth in the world, behind South Korea (1,012 per 10,000 employees), Singapore (730), Germany (415) and Japan (397).

As the following infographic shows, China and South Korea are the countries that have made the most progress in the race to industrial automation in recent years.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In Europe, robot density has seen a pretty big jump in Swiss industry, with the ratio more than doubling between 2017 and 2022 - from 129 to 296 robots per 10,000 employees.

France's manufacturing industry still had a lower level of robotization than most of its neighboring European industries: 180 robots per 10,000 employees in 2022 - compared, for example, with 216 in Belgium (and Luxembourg) and 219 in Italy.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2024 - 23:20

The Masked And The Super Masked

Authored by Roger L. Simon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

We live in an era of masks, only not the fun kind you might find at Carnivale in Venice, Italy.

A pro-Palestinian protestor wears a keffiyeh on the West Lawn of Columbia University, in New York, on April 29, 2024. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Something considerably more sinister is going on.

This era began, as almost all of us realize now, with COVID-19 when all of us were told to put on masks or our friends and relatives might die. We might expire ourselves.

How necessary this was has been the subject of much discussion. My “Spidey sense” says no. Others may differ.

Nevertheless, as with all pandemics—real, imagined, or something in between—the need eventually diminished. People were liberated. Sort of.

Only masks are still around us, startlingly so. In some cases they are more around us than ever.

I think it was on Clay Travis and Buck Sexton’s radio show I first heard the masks referred to, ironically, as a “fashion statement.” True enough—they do often tell us where the wearer stands on a whole raft of things—but that was a few months ago. It almost seems like ancient history.

Now masks are upon us with a vengeance—black ones, miscellaneous scarves, and, of course, keffiyehs. The wearers have various intents—to scare us; to hide their identities from the police, college administrators, or potential employers; or simply, pathetically, to be a faddist, part of what they think of as an “in crowd.”

We have seen this song before during Antifa and Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Exercise your right of free speech but don’t tell us who you are. We could call this cowardly, because it is, but it is also quite dangerous as it expands.

In some ways it reminds me of internet trolls, especially paid ones, who turn up virtually everywhere under assumed names, some obvious and some not. Does the First Amendment give you permission—legally, or more importantly, morally—to lie about who you are while exercising your right of free speech? Interesting question.

Many of the masked demonstrators on our campuses, we have been told—and considering the numbers who aren’t students, it is almost certainly true—are also paid for their “work,” not to mention transportation, tents, food, etc.

Who pays?

These are the people I termed in my title the Super Masked. They are the truly nefarious. The masked are their witting or unwitting foot soldiers.

It is the Super Masked who are behind the anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, anti-free market capitalism, open borders, anti-religion, anti-Semitic, often pro-Chinese communist, gender fluid movements, and so forth.

Someone is paying for the campus chaos across our country. It doesn’t come free.

Who, then, are the Super Masked, and why are they doing this?

Park MacDougald has some answers in his Tablet article “The People Setting America on Fire.” Mr. MacDougald isolates, as have others, three groups as the principal organizers of the protests—Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Within Our Lifetime (WOL).

Who is behind them? Mr. MacDougald has interesting details of the various cutouts, but it comes down to many of the “usual suspects”—the Rockefeller Foundation, George Soros in his various guises, and, to a great degree, the Tides Foundation. The author has this to say about Tides:

“Tides, you might have noticed, is a name that keeps coming up again and again. The Tides Nexus, of which the Tides Foundation is a part, is one of largest progressive dark-money networks in the country, controlling upward of a billion in assets; its list of major donors is an all-star cast of left-wing billionaires and foundations, including Soros, Peter Buffett and his NoVo Foundation, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the New Venture Fund, controlled by another Democratic dark-money powerhouse, Eric Kessler’s Arabella Advisors. A pioneer of what critics have called ‘charitable money-laundering’ through the use of fiscal sponsorships to obscure money trails through multiple layers of bureaucracy, Tides, through its donations and fiscal sponsorships, has emerged as a major backer of the anti-Israel protest movement across the country.”

This is, needless to say, not just about anti-Israel activities but about every progressive cause imaginable. Tides might be described as the king of the Super Masked.

One is tempted to channel the immortal words of President Ronald Reagan and say, “Mr. Tides, tear off that mask!”

My intention is to point out the level of often-deliberate obfuscation going on and the amount that people are being used, their ignorance exploited, consciously or unconsciously.

It’s easy to say that the infamous “globalists” are behind all this, and quite possibly it’s true, but I think there is a level at which people of all sorts have been swept up in causes they think are good without stopping to realize what they really are doing. It’s “my team,” and I will do what they say, even if it involves using “dark money.” And hiding my identity behind a mask.

The fight for transparency in our culture has been going on for some time with, unfortunately, little success. Meanwhile, we hear endless blather about preserving “democracy.” But without transparency, there is no democracy or constitutional republic, whichever you prefer.

So, tear off those masks!

End of sermon.

BUT NOT QUITE!

After I wrote the above, the most amazing report came out in the New York Post (May 9) that could break your brain. Black Lives Matter is suing the Tides Foundation? What is going on here?

“A progressive nonprofit that has been shelling out cash to anti-Israel protest groups is being sued by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for fraud and withholding more than $33 million in donations, a bombshell lawsuit claims.

“Tides Foundation, which has managed hundreds of millions in donations for progressive groups since it was founded in 1976, has ‘refused to honor its promises and continues to commandeer BLMGNF’s donations,’ according to the 285-page lawsuit filed in California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, on Monday.

“Instead, Tides doled out an undisclosed amount of donations to a radical BLM breakaway group run by anti-police activist Melina Abdullah — who lost a ‘frivolous’ lawsuit against BLMGNF — according to court papers and an attorney for BLMGNF.”

What was it that Sir Walter Scott said? “What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!”

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2024 - 23:00

Which Countries Have The Highest Infant Mortality Rates?

Infant mortality rates are generally regarded as the barometer of an overall population’s health. A higher rate indicates unmet needs of a population, especially with regards to food availability and sanitation.

Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao visualized the top 15 countries with the highest infant mortality rates, according to 2023 estimates from the CIA World Factbook. It is measured as the number of infant deaths under the age of one, per 1,000 live births in a given year.

ℹ️ Comoros has been excluded from the map for visibility reasons.

Ranked: Countries With the Highest Infant Mortality Rates

Afghanistan currently has the highest infant mortality rate in the world at 103 deaths per 1,000 babies born. Decades of conflict have pushed the country to the brink and a prolonged drought since 2021 has made food more scarce.

Meanwhile, the other 14 countries on this list are all from Sub-Saharan Africa. Some of them are also experiencing civil unrest, a breakdown of state machinery, and high undernourishment rates.

While this is concerning, Africa’s infant mortality rate as a whole has improved tremendously in the last seven decades. Between 1950–2024, the continent’s average fell 73% to 41 deaths per 1,000 births.

Expansion of healthcare, improving nutrition, access to clean drinking water, and mass immunization programs are some of the reasons behind this massive decline.

Estimates assume Africa’s infant mortality rate will improve further to 25 per 1,000 live births by 2050—which is roughly the same as Asia today.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2024 - 22:40

Go Nuts About Nuts To Help Keep Cancer At Bay

Authored by Alexandra Roach via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In their many variations, nuts are a superfood praised as rich sources of minerals, vitamins, amino acids, proteins, and other bioactive compounds.

(Pavel Kalenik/Unsplash)

Chestnuts are champions for vitamin C, for instance. Pistachios contain the most vitamin A and potassium. Both are high in folic acid. Cashews enrich us with magnesium. The level of vitamin B3 (niacin) is the highest in peanuts, and vitamin E (tocopherol) is found in almonds.

Walnuts are especially high in alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a neuroprotective omega-3 fatty acid important for normal growth and development. It also has been shown to induce apoptosis (programmed death of cells) in breast cancer cells.

Our bodies cannot produce ALA, hence, nutritional intake is a must, as it is with many other key nutrients.

Research Supports the Benefits of Nuts

A 2023 review published in the journal Foods, found mounting evidence that a nut-rich diet can potentially prevent numerous chronic illnesses.

According to the report, “The ingestion of phytochemicals from nuts and their positive influence on several diseases (cancer, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, birth defects, cataracts, diabetes, diverticulosis, and obesity) are established.”

In addition to the improvement of cardiovascular disease, depression, and cognitive function, nut consumption is correlated with lower cancer incidence and cancer mortality, and decreased all-cause mortality, states a 2021 review.

The Nut/Cancer Health Connection

The World Health Organization predicts a considerable increase in cancer, with a potential of 32.6 million cases worldwide by 2045.

Effective strategies, such as increasing dietary fiber, eating more fruits and vegetables, and physical activity, could potentially reduce cancer risk factors by approximately 42 percent.

The journal Chronic Diseases and Translational Medicine published a 2023 review about the interrelation of nut consumption and different types of cancer, including women-related and gastrointestinal cancers.

Data suggests that eating nuts not only reduces “cancer-related risk and mortality,” but possibly prevents the occurrence of certain types of cancer and its advancement. Nuts contain active anticarcinogenic compounds such as “folate, phytosterols, saponins, phytic acid, isoflavones, ellagic acid, α-tocopherol, quercetin, and resveratrol,” according to the review.

The research points to certain phytochemicals and their mechanisms as preventatives for cancer.

Accordingly, walnuts, pecans, almonds, and pine nuts contain polyphenols, which inhibit carcinogenesis that is chemically induced. Likewise, hazelnuts and brazil nuts hold helpful properties, called isoflavonoids, to balance hormonal mechanisms.

Most nuts are strong antioxidants that counteract oxidative stress and guard our DNA—the health benefits list of nuts is long.

Nuts at a Glance Walnuts

A review published in the journal Nutrition outlines the cancer-preventative properties of walnuts, as researched in animal studies with mice. It summarizes the following points:

• A diet enriched with walnuts prevented the increase of “human breast cancers implanted in nude mice by [approximately] 80%.”
• Mammary gland tumors were reduced by approximately 60 percent through a diet containing walnuts in a mouse model.
• “Walnuts slowed the growth of prostate, colon, and renal cancers by antiproliferative and antiangiogenic mechanisms.”

Another interesting fact was shared in the review. Comparing the intake of whole walnuts to a diet equally rich in n-3 fatty acids, the reduction of tumors in the mammary gland was greater when ingesting whole nuts. This reinforces the idea that active components in walnuts act synergistically to suppress cancer.

Walnuts also proved their antitumorigenic qualities in an animal study in vivo in mice. Compared to the corn-oil-based control group, the walnut group featured two major improvements—the tumor growth rate was slowed by 27 percent, and the tumor weight was reduced by 33 percent.

Reducing inflammation in the body benefits many health conditions, amongst others cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer. Walnuts have proven valuable in all.

A randomized controlled trial tested a daily intake of 56 grams of walnuts (366 calories) in 46 overweight adults. Another trial analyzed the same amount on diabetic patients. Both results showed that the increased nut intake improved endothelial function significantly, which is key for healthy blood and lymph vessels. In turn, endothelial cells are needed to protect from vascular malfunctions—the hallmarks of several types of malignant disorders.

Almonds

Contrary to common belief, regular almond intake does not lead to weight gain, although the nuts contain almost 50 percent fat. Instead, almonds “appear to promote weight loss,” affirms a research paper published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, which benefits obesity-related illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

However, almonds also contain the highly controversial and much-researched bioactive compound glycoside amygdalin. Highly controversial because its pharmaceutical development as an anti-cancer treatment continues to be a topic of discussion in the pharmaceutical world.

As a commercial drug, amygdalin is distributed under the name Laetrile but has since been shown to have serious side effects, such as damage to nerves and the liver, a lack of oxygen in the blood, and confusion. Furthermore, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved Laetrile and has said that the compound shows only little anticancer effect.

In contrast, a review in the Journal of Cancer Research and Therapeutics praises amygdalin’s few side effects, its low cost, and especially its excellent results in the battle against multidrug resistance. Furthermore, the compound can be easily naturally sourced as it occurs in the kernels of many fruits and is a compound in nuts.

A 2023 comprehensive review published in the International Journal of Molecular Science relates the same hopeful message: “Amygdalin seems to be a promising naturally occurring agent against cancer disease development and progression.”

While Amygdalin has proven its anti-tumor qualities, it is still not recommended as an extensive remedy, as some challenges need to be overcome.

Its correct dosage heavily depends on the type of bacteria present in a person’s gut. Therefore, researchers have not been able to find an across-the-board therapy. “Unfortunately, there is currently no foolproof method for determining the microbial consortium and providing a safe oral dosage for every patient,” researchers state in a 2022 review.

Scientists place their hope in modern nano-technologies as they further explore the qualities of amygdalin in cancer treatment. “There are several pieces of evidence to support the idea that amygdalin can exert anticancer effects against lung, breast, prostate, colorectal, cervical, and gastrointestinal cancers.” The compound “has been reported to induce apoptosis of cancer cells, inhibiting cancer cells’ proliferation and slowing down tumor metastatic spread,” according to the above-mentioned 2023 review.

A 2019 article published in Cancer Medicine that dials in on amygdalin, primarily found in bitter almonds, not only highlights its “antioxidative, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory activities,” but investigates the clinical value of the anticancer agent.

The compound introduces cytotoxicity and apoptosis in the body and balances the immune function, which affects especially “solid tumors” such as lung or bladder cancer and renal cell carcinoma.

Despite limiting factors, such as the “primary stage” of both clinical and experimental research and the lack of high-quality publications on the topic, researchers still believe these studies to be promising regarding cancer treatments.

Many may not be surprised that walnuts and almonds provide us with these health benefits. However, the following nut, which botanically speaking, is a legume, often gets a “bad rap” as a common allergen. Nevertheless, research shows its valuable qualities in cancer therapy.

Peanuts

A human study published in the journal Gynecologic and Obstetric Investigation showed that “High consumption of peanuts, walnuts, and almonds appears to be a protective factor for the development of breast cancer.”

The study group included 97 female patients suffering from breast cancer, and a control group of 104 healthy women. Researchers analyzed their seed consumption via the Mantel-Haenszel test method and found a correlation between dietary nut intake and the development of breast cancer.

Peanuts once again portrayed their qualities as functional food in a study that investigated phytosterols (PS), a natural compound that lowers cholesterol levels and prevents cardiovascular diseases. This research suggests that their sterol beta-sitosterol, in particular, holds protective anticancer effects against “colon, prostate, and breast cancer.”

With 207 milligrams PS per 100 grams, unrefined peanut oil has the highest concentration of valuable beta-sitosterol—even higher than olive oil. Peanut butter “contains 144-157 mg PS/100 g.” Further refinement of the product results in lower rates of the active compound.

Another healthy property of peanuts is the polyphenol phytochemical resveratrol—the target of a review focused on anticancer agents. In addition to peanuts, sources of resveratrol include grapes, red wine, and other berries.

Researchers point out that people benefit from the consumption of this powerful antioxidant, as it displays “strong anti-tumor activities through inhibiting tumor cell proliferation, inducing cell apoptosis, promoting tumor cell differentiation, preventing tumor invasion and metastasis, and further moderating the host immune system to kill tumor cells.”

In fact, the nickname “French Paradox” was given to resveratrol’s impact on the health of the French people, as it seems that the compound counteracts the French diet, which is often high in fats, and protects consumers from cardiovascular disease and more.

Pistachios

Another inconspicuous nut with plenty of healthy properties comes from the cashew family.

In comparison to other nuts, the health profile of pistachios is even more advantageous. They are low-fat, a good source of vegetable protein, contain a remarkable amount of minerals (potassium) and vitamins (C and E), and are high in dietary fiber.

Both, in vitro and in vivo models have indicated significant regulatory properties in pistachios on oxidative stress, according to a 2022 review. Consequently, eating pistachios also positively affected the risk of chronic diseases, including cancer.

Another 2022 review highlighted resveratrol in pistachios and its favorable role in breast cancer treatment.

Unfortunately, the high cost of this nut often keeps people from regular intake, which would be beneficial to their health.

Diet, Inflammation, and Cancer

It has long been known that lifestyle and diets greatly impact our health.

A 2010 review describes the multistage process of cancer as “initiation, promotion, and progression,” and explains that oxidative stress plays a role in all three phases of tumorigenesis (the formation of cancer), as does chronic inflammation in the body—conditions fought by nuts.

A diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids is beneficial to cancer survival, according to a review published in the Journal of Nutrition that examined several animal studies. In addition, it can lessen side effects that come with chemotherapy and increase the treatment’s efficacy. The review goes as far as stating that the “consumption of omega-3 fatty acids might slow or stop the growth of metastatic cancer cells,” after appropriate cancer treatment.

Walnuts contain the highest amount of omega-3 fatty acids.

Attention to Quality

As phenolic compounds in nuts are highly unstable, they may be impacted by various processing techniques.

Unfortunately, studies are rare, as certain types of nuts also react differently. Research that does exist indicates that thermal treatment negatively impacts nuts, such as hazelnuts, where most of the polyphenol content is found in the skin.

Roasting also alters the profile of nutrients in nuts, which can lead to increased allergenicity and changed protein levels, for instance in peanuts. This processing technique seems to affect almonds and pistachios less—they stay stable or might even slightly benefit from the process. In contrast, the antioxidant profile of hazelnuts and walnuts suffers.

A 2023 overview published in the journal Foods mentions that peanuts blanched in 100 degree Celsius water for 20 minutes were less allergenic. On the other hand, “boiling almonds for 10 min[utes], or cashews and pistachios for 60 min[utes] did not affect their properties.”

Authors of the overview suggest that consumers best educate themselves about the variation of bioactive compounds in nuts and the impact of food processing methods, as well as finding a quality source.

Recommended Daily Intake

A 2020 narrative review highlights the extremely low consumption of nuts and seeds worldwide.

Although nuts are continuously praised as a superfood, and the per-capita consumption in the United States increased to 5.6 pounds per person in 2022, recommended consumption is rarely met.

The Global Burden of Disease Study found in 2017 that “global consumption was only 12 % of the recommended level” of a daily intake of 21 grams. In 2019, the Eat-Lancet Commission upped the recommended everyday consumption to 50 grams of tree nuts and/or peanuts. With an average daily intake of 7 grams of nuts, we do not come even close to that goal.

As a rule of thumb, a 2021 study comes to the conclusions that eating a “handful of nuts” is a practical way of “achieving recommended nut intakes.” Researchers explained that combining various types of nuts in a medium-size handful averages at about 36.3 g, which “resulted in a high proportion of individuals taking at least 80% of the recommended intake of nuts.”

Feel free to mix and match, bake with nuts and seeds, or add them to your salads, lunch, and dinner. Mostly though, just have fun going “nuts about nuts” and assisting your health at the same time.

Alexandra Roach is a board-certified holistic health practitioner, herbalist, and movement teacher who has also worked as a journalist, TV news anchor, and author. She has earned citations from U.S. Army commanders for her work with military personnel and writes with a broad perspective on health. Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2024 - 22:20

Services No Longer Required: Which Jobs Are Most At Risk?

Long before the emergence of ChatGPT and other AI tools threatening to take over our jobs, technological advancements have altered the way people work, making some occupations disappear, while others emerged.

Did you know, for example, that people used to work as living alarm clocks before actual alarm clocks became a thing?

“Knocker uppers”, as they were called, would walk around in industrial England, wielding a long stick with which they’d tap on workers’ doors to wake them in time for their shifts.

There also used to be “computers” long before the arrival of personal computers. They were persons performing mathematical calculations, a service that is no longer required today.

So which jobs might be next?

As Statista's Felix Richter reports, each year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes its Occupational Employment Projections - a report that's looking at the U.S. labor market as a whole for the next 10 years, projecting changes in employment by occupation and revealing which jobs are most at risk from automation or other technological and societal shifts. In its latest edition covering the 2022-2032 period, the BLS identified four occupational groups that are projected to lose jobs over the next decade: office and administrative support occupations, production occupations and sales and related occupations as well as occupations in farming, fishing and forestry.

As the following chart shows, cashiers, who are at risk of being replaced by self-checkout, are projected to see the biggest drop in employment over the next decade with 348,100 fewer jobs in 2032 than in 2022.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Other jobs high on the list are secretaries, office clerks and customer service representatives, with each of these occupations expected to see employment decline by more than 150,000 jobs until 2032.

When looking at relative employment changes, word processors and typists (-39 percent) and watch and clock repairers (-30 percent) are most at risk of losing their jobs, with other relatively rare occupations also high on the list.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2024 - 22:00

Oil - A Global Tax

Authored by Robert Burrows via BondVigilantes.com,

Few commodities wield as much influence in the intricate web of global economics as oil. Oil is pivotal in driving economic growth and development as the primary energy source for transportation, manufacturing, and countless other sectors. However, beneath its surface lies a hidden truth: oil can act as a tax on growth, imposing significant costs on economies worldwide. 

The Economic Impact of Oil Prices

Oil prices have a profound impact on virtually every aspect of the economy:

1. Cost of Production: For industries reliant on oil as a primary input, such as transportation, manufacturing, and agriculture, fluctuations in oil prices directly influence production costs. Higher oil prices translate into increased business expenses, squeezing profit margins and potentially leading to higher prices for goods and services.

2. Consumer Spending: Rising oil prices can have a ripple effect on consumer spending patterns. As the cost of gasoline and other energy-related products increases, consumers may cut back on discretionary purchases or reallocate their budgets to cover higher fuel expenses, dampening overall consumption and economic growth.

3. Inflationary Pressures: Oil prices significantly impact inflationary pressures within an economy. As production costs rise, businesses may pass on these higher costs to consumers through higher prices, contributing to inflationary pressures and eroding purchasing power.

4. Macroeconomic Stability: Fluctuations in oil prices can disrupt macroeconomic stability, leading to volatility in financial markets, exchange rates, and interest rates. Oil-exporting countries may experience windfall profits during periods of high oil prices while oil-importing nations face trade imbalances, budget deficits, and currency depreciation.

Essentially, a high oil price acts as a tax on growth via its impact on economic activity, as businesses and consumers bear the financial costs – the same level of GDP, but at a higher cost. So far, there is nothing that we don’t know.

The oil dynamics have been changing over the years, which has been interesting to note. The most important change has been the shale revolution in the US. US oil production has boomed since 2005 due to fracking, recently resulting in the US becoming a net oil exporter and, as such, energy independent.

Source: US Energy Information Administration, May 2024

This changing dynamic has important implications regarding foreign policy and energy security. The US’s reliance on the Middle East is no longer what it once was. As a result, the US could be more hands-off in the future and potentially leave the ‘policing’ up to Europe. Presidential candidate Trump has suggested support for Ukraine could be withdrawn unless Europe increases its defence spending meaningfully. It’s fair to say that Europe needs to prepare for wavering US support and, as a result, has been scrambling to increase defence spending, which it can ill afford. 

An escalation in the Middle East with the potential for less involvement from the US would not be good and would likely increase volatility in the price of oil. It would be in Europe’s best interest to ensure oil price stability.

Geopolitics aside, this newfound global supply should result in excess supply. This, in theory, should mean lower prices for us all. Unfortunately, this is too simple a view; oil prices are heavily influenced by both supply (largely OPEC) and demand (economic growth) factors. Another consideration is the shift to renewable energy, which should force the price of oil downwards, assuming supply remains constant, which it won’t. This renewable energy shift has been slow; oil will likely remain the dominant energy source for years to come.

So I ask myself, ‘is oil expensive or cheap? The answer: it depends.

Looking at inflation-adjusted oil prices in the US, we see that prices are in fact sitting at the long run average:

Source: Bloomberg, M&G, May 2024

Prices could double from here before having a meaningful impact on the US. The moderate price of Oil is no doubt contributing to some of the strength that we currently see in the US. This does, however, bring up an interesting dynamic. As we know, oil is priced in US dollars, and countries other than the US are hostage to the price of oil in dollars. Looking at the cost of oil in a foreign currency tells a very different story. The chart below looks at the inflation adjusted price of oil in JPY:

Source: Bloomberg, M&G, May 2024

Oil prices trading at or near the highs will become problematic for the Japanese economy as they are a heavy net importer. The factors discussed above will be at play. Inflation will continue to increase as the Yen weakens, potentially forcing the BoJ’s hand to raise rates more meaningfully, which is a challenge given the debt level.

Circling back to the oil price in US dollars, it has, in fact, been relatively stable despite the instability in the Middle East. A political misstep could see oil prices lurch higher, putting energy importers with very weak currencies in a very difficult position indeed. 

Back in 1985, the Plaza Accord was signed, an agreement between the major economies to depreciate the dollar by intervening in currency markets. The dollar depreciated significantly as a result. There are similarities between then and now. Back then, monetary policy was tight, implemented by Paul Volker, and set against expansionary fiscal policy by the government at the time. This powerful cocktail sucked in capital, resulting in an extremely strong dollar. Sound familiar?

In fact, just recently, the US, Japan and South Korea met to “consult closely” on currency markets. What exactly this means is unclear, but it is very interesting. Speculation is rife about whether Japan recently intervened in currency markets as the yen hit 160 to the dollar. Are we inching towards a new Plaza Accord? The stresses and strains don’t look particularly stretched when you compare the DXY ( a weighted dollar index versus international currencies) from 1985 to today, so a new Plaza Accord may be some way off:

Source: Bloomberg, M&G, May 2024

That said, the composition of the world we find ourselves in today is very different. Countries have become increasingly unstable as debt levels continue to rise and the share of GDP between developed and emerging markets has completely flipped. The US has a dual mandate of stable prices and full employment; perhaps international stability should also be a consideration.

Source: IMF, May 2024

Emerging markets and highly indebted oil importers with weak currencies will struggle to continue fighting the strong dollar due to the fact that it is the currency of international trade and settlement.

Something is likely to break unless the Fed changes course. It’s hard to see the Fed cutting rates anytime soon, leaving us waiting for something to break. Will oil be the catalyst?

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2024 - 21:40

How Americans Feel About Federal Government Agencies

Come election time, America won’t hesitate to show its approval or disapproval of the country’s elected political representatives. That said, feelings about the federal bureaucracy and its associated agencies are a little harder to gauge.

Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao charts the results from an opinion poll conducted by Pew Research Center between March 13-19, 2023. In it, 10,701 adults—a representative of the U.S. adult population—were asked whether they felt favorably or unfavorably towards 16 different federal government agencies.

ℹ️ Access Pew Research’s methodology document to find out how they conducted their survey.

Americans Love the Park Service, Are Divided Over the IRS

Broadly speaking, 14 of the 16 federal government agencies garnered more favorable responses than unfavorable ones.

Of them, the Parks Service, Postal Service, and NASA all had the approval of more than 70% of the respondents.

Note: Figures are rounded. No answer responses are not shown.

Only the Department of Education and the IRS earned more unfavorable responses, and between them, only the IRS had a majority (51%) of unfavorable responses.

There are some caveats to remember with this data. Firstly, tax collection is a less-friendly activity than say, maintaining picturesque parks. Secondly, the survey was conducted a month before taxes were typically due, a peak time for experiencing filing woes.

Nevertheless, the IRS has come under fire in recent years. As per a New York Times article in 2019, eight years of budget cuts have stymied the agency’s ability to scrutinize tax filings from wealthier and more sophisticated filers.

At the same time poorer Americans are facing increasing audits on wage subsidies available to low income workers. According to a Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse report, this subset of filers was audited five-and-a-half more times the average American.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/13/2024 - 21:20