Jul 29

Today’s News 29th July 2021

  • Taliban Seeks International 'Legitimacy' In Meeting With Top China Officials
    Taliban Seeks International ‘Legitimacy’ In Meeting With Top China Officials

    Amid the Islamist militant group’s unleashing chaos and a mounting civilian death toll on the Afghan landscape, and now in possession of at least half of the country’s districts, Talban leaders have traveled to China where “warming ties” were on display Wednesday in a meeting with top Beijing officials.

    China’s foreign minister Wang Yi hosted the visit of a Taliban delegation of nine Taliban leaders, including the group’s co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Yi told reporters that China expects to “play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan.”

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    Clearly the Taliban are now seeking international “legitimacy” as they are poised to eventually retake the entire country via military force, particularly the Afghan capital of Kabul, which US intelligence admitted recently could be just six months away.

    Al Jazeera aptly commented on the question of legitimacy in the following: 

    Wednesday’s meeting in the Chinese city of Tianjin, which Taliban spokesman Mohammed Naeem said was at the invitation from Chinese authorities, was widely seen as a gift from Beijing towards that legitimacy.

    The Taliban were greeted with smiles and nods to the camera in Tianjin, the major port city in northeast China where a US delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met with Chinese counterparts on Sunday into Monday for what was by all accounts a much icier reception.

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    Sharing the stage with America’s longtime #1 terrorist enemy in Central Asia, a Chinese foreign ministry press statement said further: 

    “China has throughout adhered to non-interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs … Afghanistan belongs to the Afghan people,” which was offered in stark contrast to the “failure of US policy towards Afghanistan.”

    Some pundits in the West picked up on the brazen hypocrisy of Chinese officials being chummy with hardline Islamists given the long-running crackdown on Uyghur Muslims in China…

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    Interestingly, also on Wednesday US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to hint that Washington is preparing for the worst. He said Afghanistan will certainly be seen as a “pariah state” should the Taliban conquer Afghanistan and become the main government.

    He was responding specifically to the Taliban going to China: “The Taliban says that it seeks international recognition, that it wants international support for Afghanistan. Presumably, it wants its leaders to be able to travel freely in the world, sanctions lifted, etc,” he said to reporters. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/29/2021 – 02:45

  • Breaking Britain's Doom-Loop
    Breaking Britain’s Doom-Loop

    Via The Critic,

    If we don’t return to normal now, when can we?

    Boris Johnson was advised to “tone down the rhetoric” about Freedom Day. He ended up doing more than that. What was once billed as an “irreversible” lifting of coronavirus restrictions has become just another day in the new normal.

    Contact tracing is continuing, with hundreds of thousands ordered to self-isolate each week; public transportation networks are still insisting on masks as a condition of carriage; a Covid status certification scheme is being rolled out across the country; nightly BBC bulletins still warn of a coming apocalypse; and travel abroad remains a logistical nightmare. As for leaving decisions about mask-wearing and social distancing to our discretion: prepare now for the finger waving.

    Basic freedoms were taken from us to fight a virus whose impact the government dares not quantify. Insofar as these rights have been returned, the government is clear that they can be snatched back at any moment.

    Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, has warned that we may have to lock down again within weeks if hospital admissions continue to rise. Professor Neil Ferguson has said we could be facing a “significant flu epidemic” in the coming months because the lockdowns so successfully suppressed it last winter that the NHS risks being overwhelmed now.

    To break out of this doom loop, we need to reacquire the habits of freedom. Go to the pub, the club, the restaurant, the theatre, the opera, the gallery, the cricket in the balmy outdoors. Start spending.

    According to the ONS’s latest economic bulletin, the household saving ratio — the percentage of a household’s disposable income that people can afford to put away — increased to 19.1 per cent in the first quarter of this year, the second-highest on record. As there’s no longer any point in saving for a holiday abroad — the cost of the PCR tests alone will be more than the villa, and you might have to quarantine on your return — get in the car, head to the beach and drink and eat and live.

    This isn’t just to give the economy a boost. Our Gross Domestic Product shrunk by 1.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2021 thanks to the third lockdown and, even though the economy grew by 0.8 per cent in May, the government had to borrow £24.3 billion to meet its spending obligations — the second highest May borrowing on record.

    By the end of that month, the UK’s national debt stood at £2.19 trillion, up from £1.87 trillion in April 2020. Blue chip businesses — staples of the economy who would be thriving in normal circumstances — are on their uppers. Yet appreciation of just how dire the country’s economic outlook is if normal business life doesn’t rapidly resume is vanishingly rare.

    The hospitality sector has been particularly hard hit. From January to March, spending in restaurants and hotels fell by 42.2 per cent and the impact of that isn’t hard to see on the high street. A tenth of restaurants have gone out of business since March 2020, and pubs are closing at the rate of 30 a day. This is not creative destruction, it’s pure ruin.

    The lives destroyed will not magically recover. And worse can be more, to mangle Kingsley Amis. At every stage in the government’s panicked response to the pandemic thus far the feeling has been, “they can count: they can’t keep this up much longer” but on they have gone, laying waste to the basic stuff of life. But why will they stop when it polls so well?

    Jonathan Sumption has been the rare jurist to note just what an assault the lockdowns have been on personal freedom.

    “We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought,” said Neil Ferguson, referring to the imprisonment of healthy people in their homes in China in February, 2020, “and then Italy did it. And we realised we could.”

    If we don’t make use of our freedoms, if we don’t again leave our homes when we want, meet up with whoever we choose and move around masked as we will, we’ll be telling the government they can reimpose restrictions whenever their chronically mismanaged NHS is under strain. Which is every winter, forever.

    When Matt Hancock announced the rollout of the vaccine programme, he claimed we could “cry freedom” when the most vulnerable groups in our society had been vaccinated. With two-thirds of the adult population now double jabbed, we’ve long passed that milestone.

    Yes, we’re in the midst of a “third wave” but, unlike in earlier waves, the link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths has been broken, thanks, in part, to Britain’s world-leading vaccination programme. As Boris Johnson said before he got cold feet about “Freedom Day”, if we don’t start going back to normal now, when can we?

    In the same interview in which he used the phrase “cry freedom”, Mr Hancock also said we could look forward to a “great summer”. The former health secretary has ruined lives far and near his own, but serving ministers need to understand enough is enough.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/29/2021 – 02:00

  • Biden: Cyberattacks Could Lead To "Real Shooting War" With A Major Power
    Biden: Cyberattacks Could Lead To “Real Shooting War” With A Major Power

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The US is constantly accusing countries like Russia and China of carrying out cyberattacks, and comments from President Biden on Tuesday suggest he could use these claims as a pretext for military intervention. He warned that if Washington ended up in a “real shooting war with a major power,” it could be the result of a cyberattack on the US.

    “You know, we’ve seen how cyber threats, including ransomware attacks, increasingly are able to cause damage and disruption to the real world,” Biden said in a speech during a visit to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “I think it’s more likely we’re going to end up — well, if we end up in a war, a real shooting war with a major power, it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach of great consequence.”

    Via AP

    The US and several allies, including NATO, recently accused China of being behind the hack of the Microsoft Exchange Server that was discovered earlier this year. Like similar claims against Russia, the US offered no evidence to back up the accusation. The accusation marked the first time NATO joined in on such claims against China. The alliance recently added cyberattacks to the list of reasons to make NATO invoke the Article 5 mutual defense clause, which would spark a war with all 30 of its members.

    In his speech, Biden addressed the so-called “threats” from Russia and China. Taking a shot at Russia, Biden said President Vladimir Putin is “sitting on top of an economy that has nuclear weapons and oil wells and nothing else.” He said this makes Putin “even more dangerous.”

    Biden spoke of his time with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Obama Administration, when both leaders were serving as vice presidents. Biden said Xi wants China to become “the most powerful military force in the world” as well as the “most prominent economy” by the 2040s.

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    Hyping the threat of China serves Biden to justify his spending bills, whether it’s the Pentagon budget or his infrastructure plan. Biden has repeatedly framed the relationship as competition for the 21st century, something he repeated on Tuesday.

    “You know, as we compete for the future of the 21st century with China and other nations, we have to stay on top of the cutting-edge developments of science and technology,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/29/2021 – 00:00

  • Chinese City Offers Cash Handouts To Incentivize More Childbirths Amid Demographic Crisis 
    Chinese City Offers Cash Handouts To Incentivize More Childbirths Amid Demographic Crisis 

    As concerns about China’s demographic deterioration intensifies (stoked by news that the country’s birthrate fell to its lowest level in 2020 since CCP record-keeping began in 1949), one city in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province is offering couples subsidies per month to make babies. 

    China is battling not one but three demons: insurmountable debts, deflation, and demographics threaten to derail the economy. 

    To fix this, and what may be a pilot test for a much wider rollout, Panzhihua city in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, with about 1.23 million population is handing out 500 yuan ($76.87) per baby every month for families that have a second or third child, until the babies turn three, according to state-run media Global Times. 

    Panzhihua is the first city to announce bonus checks every month for couples to make more babies. 

    In 2013, China abandoned its controversial one-child policy. But nearly eight years later, Chinese couples are still reluctant to have a second or third child, and maybe a little bit of extra cash could incentivize that. 

    The principal policymaking committee of the communist party, otherwise known as politburo or political bureau, announced in May that couples could have three children. 

    The decision not to just lift the maximum number of births but now pay citizens to have babies is a massive shakeup to the CCP’s notoriously strict family planning. 

    None of this is surprising as the narrative shaped by Beijing is China on the “rise,” as President Xi Jinping believes: “the East is rising, and the West is declining.”

    After decades of disastrous ‘one-child policy,’ China today draws parallels between Japan in the late 1980s – just before its “lost decade,” where the country experienced a decade of secular stagnation. 

    Demographics – if economic growth is a function of the number of workers and consumers in the economy and technological productivity, then a declining population in China would drag on the global economy. 

    It could make sense that Panzhihua is a testing ground for a much wider rollout of the CCP cutting monthly checks to couples to make babies. 

    As Bejing prepares to tackle demographic headwinds, there’s also a baby bust in the US that wouldn’t shock us if the Biden administration rolled out similar baby-making incentives as well. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 23:40

  • California One-Ups CDC With More Restrictive Mask Mandate
    California One-Ups CDC With More Restrictive Mask Mandate

    Not to be outdone by the federal government, the state of California and it’s top public health officials have decided to implement and even more restrictive indoor masking mandate than the CDC unveiled yesterday. The LA Times reports that California is urging everybody – whether fully vaccinated or not – to mask up indoors when in public.

    The new guidelines, issued Wednesday by Dr. Tomas Aragon, the director of California’s Department of Public Health, are more expansive than the federal guidance because the CDC is only requiring people to wear masks indoors in places where community transmission is considered “substantial” or “high”. But California’s order is statewide, asking for all residents to mask up when indoors until the guidance is adjusted. To be sure, roughly 90% of Californians currently live in areas that fall under those designations, according to the LAT.

    “This adds an extra precautionary measure for all to reduce the transmission of COVID-19, especially in communities currently seeing the highest transmission rates,” the guidance states.

    Here’s a rundown of the new requirements in California:

    Masks are required for all individuals in the following indoor settings, regardless of vaccination status:

    • On public transit (examples: airplanes, ships, ferries, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and ride-shares) and in transportation hubs (examples: airport, bus terminal, marina, train station, seaport or other port, subway station, or any other area that provides transportation)
    • Indoors in K-12 schools, childcare
    • Emergency shelters and cooling centers

    Masks are required for all individuals, in the following indoor settings, regardless of vaccination status (and surgical masks are recommended):

    • Healthcare settings
    • State and local correctional facilities and detention centers
    • Homeless shelters
    • Long Term Care Settings & Adult and Senior Care Facilities

    Additionally, masks are required* for unvaccinated individuals in indoor public settings and businesses (examples: retail, restaurants, theaters, family entertainment centers, meetings, state and local government offices serving the public).

    Over the last week, Cali has reported an average of nearly 7,400 new coronavirus cases a day, 8x the rate from four weeks ago. On Monday, 3,200 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized statewide, with 720 of them in intensive care, numbers that have doubled in the past two weeks.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom has already ordered all state employees to show proof they have been vaccinated, or submit to regular COVID tests by the beginning of August while also being required to wear masks at work. Newsom called his state’s projections “sobering” during a news conference earlier this week.

    LA County became the first major city in the US to revive masking for the vaccinated earlier this month. In addition to to strict requirements being imposed by the state, tech companies  are reevaluating their own mask and vaccination requirements (now that the federal government has given employers the green light to “incentivize” employees to get vaccinated). Apple announced earlier that it would require masks at most stores for buyers and staff. And Netflix just announced strict requirements, including demanding that all actors on its sets are fully vaccinated.

    Meanwhile, Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned earlier that the surge in cases caused by the delta variant will likely subside in two or three weeks, following a pattern seen in Europe, the UK and India.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 23:20

  • Ecuador Abruptly Revokes Julian Assange's Citizenship On Suspicions Of Fraud
    Ecuador Abruptly Revokes Julian Assange’s Citizenship On Suspicions Of Fraud

    Ecuador this week took the major step of revoking WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s citizenship at a moment he’s languishing in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison while awaiting further US extradition request legal proceedings.

    The Australian had initially received Ecuadorian citizenship in January 2018 as part of a failed bid of then-President Lenín Moreno, an avid supporter of Assange’s, to get him classified as a diplomat so that he could safely walk out of the Ecuadorian embassy.

    That attempt failed, of course, as on April 11, 2019 UK police were invited into the embassy after his asylum was abruptly revoked. He’s remained in Belmarsh ever since, following his seven years holed up in the embassy, at the end of which he had frequently clashed with Ecuadorian staff and officials.

    Julian Assange during his time in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

    Assange was reportedly notified of the nullity of his naturalization in a letter, with the WikiLeaks organization on Wednesday vowing to fight the decision as it was done without representation and due process, according to his legal team. “On the date (Assange) was cited he was deprived of his liberty and with a health crisis inside the deprivation of liberty center where he was being held,” Assange’s lawyer said in a press statement.

    Ecuador reportedly based its decision on what government authorities say was a possible fraud in the way the documents for naturalization were prepared. Previously a vocal political enemy of Assange,  then-Foreign Minister José Valencia, had charged that “false claims” were made in his naturalization application documents.

    “A naturalization is considered damaging when it is granted based on the concealment of relevant facts, false documents or fraud,” The Associated Press writes of the government’s position. “Ecuadorian authorities say Assange’s naturalization letter had multiple inconsistencies, different signatures, the possible alteration of documents and unpaid fees, among other issues.”

    Assange is still facing potential extradition after the US prosecutor was able to appeal the prior decision of a London court which refused to extradite, with the UK judge saying he would face “oppressive” and possibly torturous conditions inside the US supermax prison he would likely end up in. The US has since sought to assure the London court it will not send him to a supermax facility. 

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    That appeal will only drag out the legal proceedings, and at the same time he’ll stay in prison, which WikiLeaks supporters say is precisely the point – to drag things on indefinitely while legal limbo keeps him locked up.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 23:00

  • Biden Official Orders Immigration Judges To Stop Describing Illegal Aliens As "Illegal Aliens"
    Biden Official Orders Immigration Judges To Stop Describing Illegal Aliens As “Illegal Aliens”

    Authored by Ivan Pentchoukov via The Epoch Times,

    A top Biden-appointed immigration official issued a memo last week directing immigration judges to stop using the term “illegal aliens” to describe illegal aliens.

    In a July 23 memo titled “Terminology,” Acting Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Jean King directed immigration judges to instead use terms like “undocumented noncitizen” and “undocumented individual.”

    King also directed judges to stop using the term “unaccompanied alien child” to describe unaccompanied alien children, directing them to use terms like “unaccompanied non-citizen child” and “unaccompanied non-U.S. citizen child.”

    The memo references a pair of President Joe Biden’s executive orders and notes that neither uses the term “alien” or “illegal alien” to describe illegal aliens. It also points to two recent Supreme Court opinions in which the justices opted to substitute the term “noncitizen” for the statutory term “alien.”

    The memo’s footnotes also reference the 2013 style guidance change by the Associated Press, which forbids the use of terms like “illegal alien,” “an illegal,” “illegals,” and “undocumented.” It also points to a 2016 decision by the Library of Congress to stop using the term “illegal alien.”

    “The phrase ‘illegal aliens’ has taken on a pejorative tone in recent years, and in response, some institutions have determined that they will cease to use it,” the Library of Congress decision stated.

    “After deliberation, the meeting participants determined that the heading Aliens will be revised to Noncitizens.”

    King’s memo notes that the only exception for the new language mandate is when “when quoting a statute, regulation, legal opinion, court order, or settlement agreement.”

    Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and now a resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, wrote that King’s directive set an “extremely sinister precedent.”

    “None of these changes has any basis in law (or logic for what that matters),” Arthur wrote.

    “‘Noncitizen’ is not a word, at least not in a legal sense, because it includes ‘aliens’ who can be removed from the United States and non-citizen ‘nationals’ who cannot.”

    Staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have already been barred from using the term “illegal alien,” according to The Washington Post and Axios respectively.

    The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act codified the term “alien” in 1952, defining it as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 22:40

  • The Race Towards Full Vaccination
    The Race Towards Full Vaccination

    Scientists initially estimated that 60 to 70 percent of a population would have to acquire resistance to Covid-19 in order for herd immunity to take effect, a threshold that has been revised upwards since the start of the year with 80 to 85 percent quoted in some cases.

    Additionally, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that as the Delta variant of Covid-19 generates fresh concern, the race towards full vaccination has become increasingly urgent and Israel has led the way, according to Our World in Data, though other countries have now overtaken it.

    Infographic: The Race Towards Full Vaccination | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The UAE is one of them and it now has 68.4 percent of its population fully vaccinated while Bahrain has reached 62.2 percent coverage.

    Israel follows closely at 61.1 percent.

    In the United States, 48.7 percent of people have been fully vaccinated.

    In this case, full vaccination refers to all doses prescribed by the vaccination protocol with data only available for countries reporting the breakdown of their doses.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 22:20

  • Whistleblowers Say They Were Told To Downplay COVID Outbreak At Biden Child Migrant Camp Operated By Servpro
    Whistleblowers Say They Were Told To Downplay COVID Outbreak At Biden Child Migrant Camp Operated By Servpro

    Two additional whistleblowers have come forward, accusing federal contractors and senior federal employee managers at a Department of Health and Human Services migrant shelter in Fort Bliss, TX of mistreating children and telling them to downplay hundreds of COVID-19 infections among the children detained at the facility.

    “Covid was widespread among children and eventually spread to many employees. Hundreds of children contracted Covid in the overcrowded conditions. Adequate masks were not consistently provided to children, nor was their use consistently enforced,” whistleblowers Arthur Pearlstein and Lauren Reinhold alleged in a federal whistleblower complaint filed on Wednesday, according to NBC News.

    According to the complaint, workers at the camp were given regular written instructions from HHS public affairs that told them “when asked, to make everything sound positive about the Fort Bliss experience and to play down anything negative.“

    At a town hall with employees, a senior manager from the U.S. Public Health Service refused to share the rate of infections, explaining that he did not want the number to end up reported by the media, they said.

    Pearlstein and Reinhold are federal employees who volunteered to be detailed to the shelter when the Biden administration ramped up staffing to accommodate the influx of unaccompanied children crossing the border by building emergency intake shelters like Fort Bliss and others.

    NBC News previously reported that Servpro [!?], a company that specializes in disaster cleanup and has no child welfare experience, oversaw the care of nearly 5,000 children in Ft. Bliss in early May and June.

    In their complaint, which was filed by lawyers from the Government Accountability Project, Pearlstein and Reinhold said two other contractors in addition to Servpro — Chenega Corporation and Rapid Deployment Inc. — also handled the close to $1 billion in contracts the federal government paid to operate Fort Bliss. None of the three companies had child care experience and they did not properly vet applicants to be sure they had relevant experience, they said.

    As a result of the government using contractors with no childcare experience, federal detailees with no background in child psychology were tasked with interviewing over 5,000 children to determine whether they need special attention due to sex or labor trafficking, or a history of other abuse.

    “They did their level best, flagging those who required special attention,” reads the complaint.

    A spokesperson for Servpro said on July 7 that a franchise holder operated the contract and that the company “immediately advised the franchise operator that these are not approved Servpro offerings,” adding “We have been informed by the franchise operator that it is no longer providing these services through the Servpro franchise.”

    The same day, a HHS spokesperson said: “HHS has taken action to improve the conditions at Fort Bliss and at all Emergency Intake Sites. Children are receiving nutritionally appropriate meals and there are now 60 mental health professionals on site at Fort Bliss and counselors at all other emergency intake sites.”

    Perhaps the worst part about all of this – according to Pearlstein and Reinhold, “the contractors gave children false hopes of reuniting with family members only to pull them back at the last minute, even taking children out of lines for buses and off airplanes before takeoff.”

    They also alleged there was widespread lice in girls’ tents that was left untreated. And in May, they said, there were riots in some of the boys’ tents.

    “Ms. Reinhold witnessed security contractors surrounding a tent during one incident. Detailees were never briefed about the riots or trained on how to act in the event a riot broke out,” the complaint said.

    They were not specific about which company was to blame for giving children false hope, manage lice outbreaks or riot response.

    Pearlstein and Reinhold said they voiced their concern to Chenega about children having no clean underwear.

    “The problem persisted for weeks and months,” they said. “Each time the answer was that the shipments had not come in.”

    We can only conclude, of course, that they’re killing people.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 22:00

  • Uber Tumbles After SoftBank Dumps A Third Of Its Stake To Cover Didi Losses
    Uber Tumbles After SoftBank Dumps A Third Of Its Stake To Cover Didi Losses

    Almost two years ago, before the world’s central banks coordinated to inject tens of trillions of liquidity into the financial system under the pretext of fighting a virus, we said that Masa Son’s Japanese bizarro conglomerate SoftBank will one day be the bubble era’s Short of the Century, and we still stand by this suggestion. And stories like this is why.

    Late this afternoon, Uber stock took a 5% tumble and nobody knew why – there was no news that sparked the dump.

    Only later did we learn what caused the sale: according to CNBC, SoftBank sold a third of its stake in Uber in a block sale to cover losses on its investment in Chinese ride-hailing company Didi, which earlier this week plunged as much as 50% from its recent IPO price of $14. Sources said that SoftBank was selling 45 million shares, which will have a 30-day lockup, at a price of $44.15 to $46.14 each, using Goldman as agent.

    Uber stock tumbled as soon news of the block sale hit the tape.

    Adding to the incest, the value of Uber’s own Didi stake declined $2 billion last week following the June debut of Didi’s American depositary shares on the NYSE as a result of China crackdown against the ridehailing giant which flounted Beijing’s demands to delay its IPO. Didi shares have fallen 37% from their $14.14 closing price on the stock’s first day of trading, June 30. Over the same period Uber shares are down about 8%.

    At the same time, SoftBank has also lost about $4 billion on its Didi position in total; the losses have pressured SoftBank’s own shares which have also tumbled since the Didi IPO. As a reminder, the SoftBank Vision Fund owned 21.5% of Didi following its U.S. listing.

    In keeping with its traditional style of cross-investing big in money losing “story” stocks which in some cases end up as a total bust – such as WeWork – SoftBank is also a major shareholder in Uber where it took a stake initially 2018. In 2019 SoftBank Vision Fund invested another $333 million in Uber and as recently as March 31 Uber referred to SoftBank as “a large stockholder.”

    Many people called SoftBank’s Uber equity purchase a failed investment, especially after the stock plunged in the immediate aftermath of the covid pandemic, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son told analysts on a conference call in February, saying it was paying expensive money to a bad company.

    “However,” he said, “as a matter of fact, as you can see that we have already made something close to ¥500 billion gain from Uber.”

    We wonder what he will say about his investment in Didi should Beijing’s crackdown on China’s tech giants accelerate. And worse, what happens if and when Beijing goes after more SoftBank portfolio companies: as the image below shows, there’s plenty of those.

    Which goes back to our original thesis: SoftBank has enjoyed every moment of the massive central bank asset hyperinflation ploy over the past decade, but it’s slowly coming to an end, first in China and then, everywhere else. So as the world prepares for the upcoming downturn, we raise our original question: is a short position in SoftBank the best way to hedge the coming unicorn decimation in which companies worth billions are suddenly found to be worth, well, nothing?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 21:44

  • California Restaurant Requires "Proof Of Being UNvaccinated" For Service
    California Restaurant Requires “Proof Of Being UNvaccinated” For Service

    A restaurant in Huntington Beach, California is requiring that patrons show proof they’re unvaccinated before they can receive service.

    “PROOF OF BEING UNVACCINATED REQUIRED,” reads a sign taped to the window at Basilico’s Pasta e Vino, according to NBC LA.

    “Our American way of life is under attack,” wrote owner Tony Roman in a statement to NBCLA. “And I feel blessed to be on the front lines of this battle in defense of Liberty and Freedom, willing to put everything at risk for it, pledging our business as a ‘Constitutional Battleground’ since day one of the lockdowns on March 19th, 2020.”

    “We have never complied with any restrictions since, and when the tiny tyrants go on the  attack with new mandates, we fire back launching new missiles of defiance. And with the new and aggressive push for mandatory vax policies, we couldn’t resist, so we are sending a message of our own. Hopefully most are smart enough to read between the lines. Otherwise we will just sit back and have fun watching their heads explode over it.”

    It’s unknown how Roman verifies a customer is indeed unvaccinated, however he declared it a ‘mask-free zone’ and remained open in March 2020 when other restaurants were on lockdown.

    The report comes amid a Tuesday admission by the Biden administration that vaccinated people can still contract and transmit COVID – while the Daily Mail reported last week that one fully-vaccinated Australian man infected at least 60 people in a single weekend.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 21:40

  • Canada Border Officers Vote To Strike, Warn Of Supply Chain Disruption
    Canada Border Officers Vote To Strike, Warn Of Supply Chain Disruption

    By Nate Tabak of FreightWaves,

    Thousands of Canada Border Services Agency personnel have overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike – something that could throw a wrench into port, cross-border trucking, airfreight and international parcel operations. 

    The strike could happen as early as Aug. 6, the Public Service Alliance of Canada and its Customs and Immigration Union said on Tuesday. The union represents some 8,500 CBSA employees, including officers serving at ports of entry across the country. 

    The threat of a strike comes as Canada prepares to reopen its land border to nonessential travel for the first time since March 2020. The timing wasn’t lost on the union, which warned that a strike could lead to “significant disruption to the flow of goods.”

    The impacts could bring delays to commercial vehicle traffic and impact parcel deliveries and duties collection, the union said. 

    CBSA officers serving in essential positions are legally barred from striking. But as American Shipper reported, the legal definition of essential is narrow in scope and doesn’t include collection of duties and taxes, according to a federal tribunal ruling. 

    The Port of Vancouver appears particularly vulnerable as it contends with an unprecedented level of container ship traffic. As the largest port in Canada, any disruption there could have impacts throughout the country and intermodal rail and trucking operations.  

    The union members have been without a contract since 2018 and are seeking pay parity with other Canadian law enforcement agencies and protections against what they allege is a toxic workplace culture. 

    “They’ve kept our borders safe, screened travelers entering Canada and ensured the rapid clearance of vaccine shipments,” Chris Aylward, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said in a statement.

    “Now it’s time for the government to step up for them the way they’ve stepped up for Canadians.”

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Tuesday that his government is negotiating with the union and hoped to reach an agreement.

    “We’re hopeful that there won’t be any disruptions,” Trudeau told reporters.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 21:20

  • Latest Data Show Efficacy Of Pfizer Vaccine Falls To 84% After 6 Months
    Latest Data Show Efficacy Of Pfizer Vaccine Falls To 84% After 6 Months

    As pressure builds for the FDA to simply ‘get on with it’ and issue full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna jabs, it looks like the people responsible for deciding whether vaccines are safe and effective are finally coming around to the reality that those vaccines aren’t as effective against the delta strain as they had once hoped.

    Despite months of insisting that the opposite was true, the FDA has found that the efficacy of the jabs has fallen to 84% over six months, according to new data released Wednesday. Conveniently, STAT News, which broke the story about the data, reported that the lower efficacy would likely bolster Pfizer’s case for approval of a third dose.

    Per the data, which has been released to outside scientists, the ongoing study, which enrolled more than 44K volunteers, found that the vaccine’s efficacy appeared to decline by an average of 6% every two months after administration. Efficacy peaked at more than 96% within two months of vaccination and slipped to 84% after six months.

    The overall efficacy against severe disease was a still considerable 97% (though that’s still not 100%).

    Unsurprisingly, STAT lined up a few talking heads to plug the numbers. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told STAT that the results were “very reassuring.” The potential need for booster shots is tied to the number of fully vaccinated people who develop severe disease, Offit said. That number is just 3% lower after six months, suggesting two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine offers adequate protection.

    Earlier, Pfizer boosted its fiscal year revenue forecast for its vaccine business. Perhaps these data offer some insight into that decision.

    Of course, there’s reason to believe that number might be even lower than the 97%.

    Israel’s Ministry of Health recently found that the Pfizer vaccine is only 39% effective at combating delta, down from 64% according to earlier Israeli data intended to measure the efficacy against the delta variant.

    Pfizer is already shipping jabs to Israel, which is preparing to start doling out booster shots to residents deemed vulnerable to COVID. For whatever reason, the data released Wednesday doesn’t directly address the delta variant. 

    Readers can find the data below:

    2021.07.28.21261159v1.full

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 21:00

  • Herzog: Med Schools Are Now Denying Biological Sex
    Herzog: Med Schools Are Now Denying Biological Sex

    Authored by Katie Herzog via Common Sense with Bari Weiss (emphasis ours),

    Today we bring you another installment of Katie Herzog’s ongoing series about the spread of woke ideology in the field of medicine. Her first story focused on the ideological purge at the top medical schools and teaching hospitals in the country. “Wokeness,” as one doctor put it, “feels like an existential threat.”

    Katie’s latest reporting illustrates some of the most urgent elements of that threat. It focuses on how biological sex is being denied by professors fearful of being smeared by their students as transphobic. And it shows how the true victims of that denial are not sensitive medical students but patients, perhaps most importantly, transgender ones. 

    Some of you may find Katie’s story shocking and disconcerting and perhaps even maddening. You might also ask yourself: How has it come to this? How has this radical ideology gone from the relatively obscure academic fringe to the mainstream in such a short time?

    Those are among the questions that motivate this newsletter. We feel obligated to chronicle in detail and in primary accounts the takeover of our institutions by this ideology — and the consequences of it. 

    So far, it has taken root in some of our leading medical schools. Some. Not all. But I’m left thinking: What state will American medicine — or any other American institution —  find itself in after being routed by this ideology?  

    If you think reporting like Katie Herzog’s is important I hope you’ll support us by subscribing here.

    — BW

    *  *  *

    A human anatomy dummy stands next to a chemical/periodic table in classroom.(Patrick Downs/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

    During a recent endocrinology course at a top medical school in the University of California system, a professor stopped mid-lecture to apologize for something he’d said at the beginning of class.

    “I don’t want you to think that I am in any way trying to imply anything, and if you can summon some generosity to forgive me, I would really appreciate it,” the physician says in a recording provided by a student in the class (whom I’ll call Lauren). “Again, I’m very sorry for that. It was certainly not my intention to offend anyone. The worst thing that I can do as a human being is be offensive.” 

    His offense: using the term “pregnant women.” 

    “I said ‘when a woman is pregnant,’ which implies that only women can get pregnant and I most sincerely apologize to all of you.”

    It wasn’t the first time Lauren had heard an instructor apologize for using language that, to most Americans, would seem utterly inoffensive. Words like “male” and “female.”

    Why would medical school professors apologize for referring to a patient’s biological sex? Because, Lauren explains, in the context of her medical school “acknowledging biological sex can be considered transphobic.”

    When sex is acknowledged by her instructors, it’s sometimes portrayed as a social construct, not a biological reality, she says. In a lecture on transgender health, an instructor declared: “Biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender are all constructs. These are all constructs that we have created.” 

    In other words, some of the country’s top medical students are being taught that humans are not, like other mammals, a species comprising two sexes. The notion of sex, they are learning, is just a man-made creation. 

    The idea that sex is a social construct may be interesting debate fodder in an anthropology class. But in medicine, the material reality of sex really matters, in part because the refusal to acknowledge sex can have devastating effects on patient outcomes. 

    In 2019, the New England Journal of Medicine reported the case of a 32-year-old transgender man who went to an ER complaining of abdominal pain. While the patient disclosed he was transgender, his medical records did not. He was simply a man. The triage nurse determined that the patient, who was obese, was in pain because he’d stopped taking a medication meant to relieve hypertension. This was no emergency, she decided. She was wrong: The patient was, in fact, pregnant and in labor. By the time hospital staff realized that, it was too late. The baby was dead. And the patient, despite his own shock at being pregnant, was shattered.

    Professors Running Scared of Students

    To Dana Beyer, a trans activist in Maryland who is also a retired surgeon, such stories illustrate how vital it is that sex, not just gender identity — how someone perceives their gender — is taken into consideration in medicine. “The practice of medicine is based in scientific reality, which includes sex, but not gender,” Beyer says. “The more honest a patient is with their physician, the better the odds for a positive outcome.”

    The denial of sex doesn’t help anyone, perhaps least of all transgender patients who require special treatment. But, Lauren says, instructors who discuss sex risk complaints from their students — which is why, she thinks, many don’t. “I think there’s a small percentage of instructors who are true believers. But most of them are probably just scared of their students,” she says. 

    And for good reason. Her medical school hosts an online forum in which students correct their instructors for using terms like “male” and “female” or “breastfeed” instead of “chestfeed.” Students can lodge their complaints in real time during lectures. After one class, Lauren says, she heard that a professor was so upset by students calling her out for using “male” and “female” that she started crying. 

    Then there are the petitions. At the beginning of the year, students circulated a number of petitions designed to, as Lauren puts it, “name and shame” instructors for “wrongspeak.” 

    One was delivered after a lecture on chromosomal disorders in which the professor used the pronouns “she” and “her” as well as the terms “father” and “son,” all of which, according to the students, are “cisnormative.” After the petition was delivered, the instructor emailed the class, noting that while she had consulted with a member of the school’s LGBTQ Committee prior to the lecture, she was sorry for using such “binary” language. Another petition was delivered after an instructor referred to “a man changing into a woman,” which, according to the students, incorrectly assumed that the trans woman wasn’t always a woman. But, as Lauren points out, “if trans women were born women, why would they need to transition?”

    This phenomenon — of students policing teachers; of students being treated as the authorities over and above their teachers — has had consequences.

    “Since the petitions were sent out, instructors have been far more proactive about ‘correcting’ their slides in advance or sending out emails to the school listserv if any upcoming material has ‘outdated’ terminology,” Lauren tells me. “At first, compliance is demanded from outside, and eventually the instructors become trained to police their own language proactively.” 

    In one point in the semester, a faculty member sent out a preemptive email warning students about forthcoming lectures containing language that doesn’t align with the school’s “approach to gender inclusivity and gender/sex antioppression.” That language included the term “premenopausal women.” In the future, the professor promised, this would be updated to “premenopausal people.”

    Lauren also says young doctors are being taught to declare their pronouns upon meeting patients and ask for patients’ pronouns in return. This was echoed by a recent graduate of Mount Sinai Medical School in New York. “Everything was about pronouns,” the student said. The student objected to this, thinking most patients would be confused or offended by a doctor asking them what their pronouns were, but she never said so — at least not publicly. “It was impossible to push back without worrying about getting expelled,” she told me.  

    This hypersensitivity is undermining medical training. And many of these students are likely not even aware that their education is being informed by ideology. 

    “Take abdominal aortic aneurysms,” Lauren says. “These are four times as likely to occur in males than females, but this very significant difference wasn’t emphasized. I had to look it up, and I don’t have the time to look up the sex predominance for the hundreds of diseases I’m expected to know. I’m not even sure what I’m not being taught, and unless my classmates are as skeptical as I am, they probably aren’t aware either.” 

    Other conditions that present differently and at different rates in males and females include hernias, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and asthma, among many others. Males and females also have different normal ranges for kidney function, which impacts drug dosage. They have different symptoms during heart attacks: males complain of chest pain, while women experience fatigue, dizziness, and indigestion. In other words: biological sex is a hugely important factor in knowing what ails patients and how to properly treat them. 

    Carole Hooven is the author of T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us and a professor at Harvard who focuses on behavioral endocrinology. I discussed Lauren’s story with her and Hooven found it deeply troubling. “Today’s students will go on to hold professional positions that give them a great deal of power over others’ bodies and minds. These young people are our future doctors, educators, researchers, statisticians, psychologists. To ignore or downplay the reality of sex and sex-based differences is to perversely handicap our understanding and our ability to increase human health and thriving.”

    A former dean of a leading medical school agrees: “I don’t know the extent to which the stories you relate are now widespread in medical education, but to the extent that they are — and I hear some of this is popping up at my own institution — they are a serious departure from the expectation that medical education and practice should be based on science and be free from imposition of ideology and ideology-based intimidation.”

    He added: “How male and female members of our species develop, how they differ genetically, anatomically, physiologically, and with respect to diseases and their treatment are foundational to clinical medicine and research. Efforts to erase or diminish these foundations should be unacceptable to responsible professional leaders.” 

    There is no doubt the rules are changing. According to the American Psychological Association, the terms “natal sex” and “birth sex,” for example, are now considered “disparaging”; the preferred term is “assigned sex at birth.” The National Institutes of Health, the CDC, and Harvard Medical School have all made efforts to divorce sex from medicine and emphasize gender identity. 

    When Asking Questions Can Destroy Your Career

    While it’s unclear if this trend will remain limited to some medical schools, what is perfectly clear is that activism, specifically around issues of sex, gender, and race, is impacting scientific research and progress. 

    One of the most notorious examples is that of a physician and former associate professor at Brown University, Lisa Littman. 

    Around 2014, Littman began to notice a sudden uptick in female adolescents in her social network who were coming out as transgender boys. Until recently, the incidence of gender dysphoria was thought to be rare, affecting an estimated one in 10,000 people in the U.S. While the exact number of trans-identifying adolescents (or adults, for that matter) is unknown, in the last decade or so, the number of youth seeking treatment for gender dysphoria has spiked by over 1,000 percent in the U.S.; in the U.K., it’s jumped by 4,000 percent. The largest youth gender clinic in Los Angeles reportedly saw 1,000 patients in 2019. That same clinic, in 2009, saw about 80. 

    Curious about what was happening, Littman surveyed about 250 parents whose adolescent children had announced they were transgender — after never before exhibiting the symptoms of gender dysphoria. Over 80 percent of cases involved girls; many were part of friend groups in which half or more of the members had come out as trans. Littman coined the term “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” to describe this phenomenon. She posited that it might be a sort of social contagion, not unlike cutting or anorexia, both of which were endemic among teenage girls when I was in high school in the ’90s. 

    In August 2018, Littman published her results in a paper called “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Study of Parental Reports” in the journal PLOS One. Littman, the journal, and Brown University were pummeled with accusations of transphobia in the press and on social media. In response, the journal announced an investigation into Littman’s work. Several hours later, Brown University issued a press release denouncing the professor’s paper.

    Littman’s paper was republished in March 2019 with an amended title and other minor, mostly cosmetic changes. The journal has since confirmed that, while the paper was “corrected,” the original version contained no false information.

    But Littman’s career was forever altered. She no longer teaches at Brown. And her contract at the Rhode Island State Health Department wasn’t renewed. 

    Littman is hardly alone. Trans activists have also targeted Ray Blanchard and Ken Zucker in Toronto, Michael Bailey at Northwestern, and Stephen Gliske at the University of Michigan for publishing findings they deemed transphobic. In a recent case, trans activists shut down research that was to be conducted by UCLA psychiatrist Jamie Feusner, who had hoped to explore the physiological underpinnings of gender dysphoria.

    Nor is this limited to academia. Journalists who question the new ideological orthodoxy, like Abigail Shrier and Jesse Singal (with whom I co-host a podcast), have also been smeared for their work. After the American Booksellers Association included Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage, in a promotional mailing to bookstores, activists went ballistic, prompting the ABA’s CEO to apologize for having done “horrific harm” that “traumatized and endangered members of the trans community” and “caused violence and pain.”

    I had a similar experience in 2017 after writing about de-transitioners — people who transition to a different gender and then transition back — for the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger. After the piece came out, people put up flyers and stickers around Seattle calling me transphobic; someone burned stacks of the newspaper and sent me a video of it. I lost many friends, and later ended up moving out of the city in part because of the turmoil. 

    But far more concerning than the treatment of journalists chronicling this story is the treatment of patients themselves. 

    Patients Are Suffering

    Julia Mason is a pediatrician in the Portland suburbs who, unlike most doctors I spoke to, allowed me to use her name. Mason explained that she works at a small private practice and her boss is a libertarian. In other words: she won’t get fired for being honest. 

    Mason has been practicing for over 25 years, but it wasn’t until 2015 that she saw her first transgender patient: a 15-year-old trans boy who Mason referred to a gender clinic, where the patient was prescribed testosterone. 

    Since that first patient, she says there have been about 10 more requests for referrals to gender clinics. As this number increased, Mason started wondering about the advice her patients are getting at these clinics. 

    “A 12-year-old female came to see me, and the dad told me that they went to a therapist, and in the first five minutes, the therapist was like, ‘Yep. He’s trans,’” she told me. “And then they went to a pediatric endocrinologist who recommended puberty blockers on the first visit.” 

    Mason generally avoids prescribing puberty blockers, which inhibit the development of secondary sex characteristics like breasts or facial hair. The reason, she says, is that because there have been no controlled studies on the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoric youth, the long term effects are still unknown. (In the U.K., a recent review of existing studies found that the quality of the evidence that puberty blockers are effective in relieving gender dysphoria and improving mental health is “very low.”)

    In girls, Mason says, blockers inhibit breast development, but “you end up shorter, and the last thing a female who wants to look male needs is to be shorter.” Other side effects may include a loss of bone density, headache, fatigue, joint pain, hot flashes, mood swings and something called “brain fog.” In boys, blockers inhibit penis growth, which can make it harder for them to achieve orgasm and for surgeons to later construct those penises into “neo-vaginas,” a procedure known as vaginoplasty. 

    Trans activists often claim the effects of puberty blockers are fully reversible, but this remains unproven, and studies show that the overwhelming majority of teens who start on puberty blockers later take cross-sex hormones (testosterone for females and estrogen for males) to complete their transition. The combination of puberty blockers followed by hormones can cause sterility and other health problems, including sexual dysfunction, and the hormones must be taken for life — or until detransition. Little is known about their long-term effects. While the line that blockers are “fully reversible” is oft-repeated by activists and the media, last year, England’s National Health Service back-tracked this unsubstantiated claim on its website. 

    Mason is one of several doctors who voiced concerns about the fast-tracking of adolescents seeking to transition — and the new normal in the medical establishment, which seems to encourage that fast-tracking. 

    In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that pediatricians “affirm” their patients’ chosen gender without taking into account mental health, family history, trauma, or fears of puberty. The AAP recommendations say nothing about the many consequences, physical and psychological, of transitioning. So perhaps it is not surprising that surgeons are performing double mastectomies, or “top surgery,” on patients as young as 13. 

    One leading clinician, Diane Ehrensaft, has said that children as young as three have the cognitive ability to come out as transgender. And the University of California San Francisco Child and Adolescent Gender Center Clinic, where Ehrensaft is the mental health director, has helped kids of that age transition socially. 

    But not all clinicians have cheered these developments. In a paper responding to the AAP guidelines, James Cantor, a clinical psychologist in Toronto, noted that “every follow-up study of [gender dysphoric] children, without exception, found the same thing: By puberty, the majority of GD children ceased to want to transition.” Other studies of gender-clinic patients, stretching back to the 1970s, have found that 60 to 90 percent of patients eventually grow out of their gender dysphoria; most come out as gay or lesbian. 

    In an email to me, Cantor said: “The deafening silence from AAP when asked about the evidence allegedly supporting their trans policy is hard to interpret as anything other than their ‘pleading the 5th,’ as you in the U.S. put it.”

    Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist at the UCSF Child and Adolescent Gender Center Clinic and a trans woman herself, also voiced skepticism about the AAP’s approach to would-be transitioners. Unlike Mason, Anderson says withholding puberty blockers from dysphoric children is “cruel.” But she is suspicious of the sharp spike in young people, and especially young women. While she doesn’t like phrases like “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” or “social contagion,” she said something is definitely going on. 

    “What makes us think that gender is the one exception to peer influence?” she told me. “For 100 years, psychology has acknowledged that adolescence is a time of experimentation and exploration. It’s normal. I’m not alarmed by that. What I’m alarmed by is some medical and psychological professionals rushing kids into taking blockers or hormones.”

    Because Anderson has been so vocal, including a recent 60 Minutes appearance in which she discussed detransitioners, she regularly gets calls from frantic parents. She told me she’d gotten off the phone with the parents of a 17-year-old who had announced that they were trans and wanted hormones. “It’s alarming to these parents,” Anderson said. 

    Anderson isn’t opposed to pediatric transition when patients are properly diagnosed, but she wants to see more individualized care rather than the activist-driven, one-size-fits-all approach. That, however, goes against current AAP guidelines. 

    Will Science Prevail?

    Medicine is not impervious to trends. 

    “In the 90s, when I was training, everything was about controlling pain,” said a pediatrician in the Midwest who declined to be named for fear of repercussions. “We were taught that it was really hard to become addicted to narcotics. Look where that got us.”

    Around the same time, she says, there was a rash of kids being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, something we now know is exceedingly rare in children. Before that, there was the recovered memory craze, multiple personality disorder, and rebirthing therapy, a bizarre treatment for attachment disorders that lead to the deaths of several children in the U.S. So how does this happen?

    “Some idea will get picked up by major medical associations that put out reports and their members turn to those instead of the actual literature,” this pediatrician said. “And when you get too far ahead of the research, that’s when you get into trouble. That’s what’s happening now.”

    For her part, Lauren, the medical student in California, is both hopeful for the future — and not. “On the one hand, I have this idea that the truth will eventually come out and science will ultimately prevail,” she said.

    But the difference between things like rebirthing therapy or multiple personality disorder and the new gender ideology is that the latter is portrayed as a civil rights movement. “It seems virtuous. It seems like the right thing to do,” she said. “So how can you fight against something that’s being marketed as a fight for human rights?”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 20:40

  • Watch: Olympic Judo Coach Under Fire For 'Brutally' Slapping Female Athlete In Warm-Up Ritual
    Watch: Olympic Judo Coach Under Fire For ‘Brutally’ Slapping Female Athlete In Warm-Up Ritual

    Judo is obviously among the more intense contact sports at the Olympic games, being among the few martial arts competitions offered, so it should come as no surprise that warming up for the competition might also be physical.

    But a short video of one such warm-up is now going viral and the subject of international headlines and “outrage” – landing the coach in hot water. The Telegraph describes “A German judoka has defended her coach after the man brutally shook and slapped her in a pre-competition ritual during the Tokyo Olympics. German Olympian Martyna Trajdos, 32, was filmed marching out to her Judo fight with coach Claudiu Pusa on Tuesday.”

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    The athlete is seen pausing to face her coach just before entering the arena, which suggests she clearly knows what’s coming. Coach Pusa grabs the front of her Judo gi and quickly shakes her before landing a couple forceful open-handed slaps, one to each cheek. Olympic viewers were widely reported as “shocked” according to multiple headlines.

    Trajdos later came to the defense of her coach when the clip was met with widespread criticism for “abuse” of an athlete: “This is what I asked my coach to do so please don’t blame him. I need this before my fights to be awake,” she told media outlets.

    “Looks like this was not hard enough,” she wrote on Instagram. Trajdos then added in reference to what ended up being a lost match: “I wish I could have made a different headline today. As I already said, that’s the ritual which I chose pre-competition! My coach is just doing what I want him to do to fire me up.” Trajdos is a veteran of the sport, having been European champion in 2015 and a world bronze medalist in 2019.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The video clearly shows the pre-competition ritual did indeed get her pumped up and motivated – precisely what it was intended to do. Yet still, those most outraged at the spectacle are likely those who have no athletic competition experience (especially in the context of intense or extreme contact sports).

    A number of social media commentators, however, noted that anyone who’s participated in martial arts competitions should easily recognize such warm-ups as the norm and nothing threatening or abusive.

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    “Judokas understand this,” one commenter was cited in The Telegraph as saying.

    However, the International Judo Federation still issued “a serious official warning” for the Germany team coach, calling it “bad behavior” according to the Associated Press. Judo “is an educational sport and as such cannot tolerate such behavior,” the governing body added.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 20:20

  • The Unwoke In San Francisco Seek To Recall Three School Board Members
    The Unwoke In San Francisco Seek To Recall Three School Board Members

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    I am pleased to report an unwoke revolt where it’s desperately needed…

    Revolt of the Unwoke

    In a Revolt of the Unwoke, three progressive San Francisco school board members are targeted for a recall.

    The targets are President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga and Commissioner Alison M. Collins. To force a recall election, pro-recall forces need 51,325 signatures for each candidate by Sept. 7.

    They already have more than half what they need, and say they now have the resources to hire professional signature gatherers for the rest. Polling shows 69% of San Francisco parents back the school-board recall—far more than the 43% in a poll last week who support recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom in the election scheduled for Sept. 14. 

    What Did the Woke Administrators Do?

    1. Punish Asian-Americans: The school board scrapped merit-based admissions in favor of a lottery system at Lowell High School, the crown jewel of the city’s public system. Lowell is already 82% nonwhite. Ms. López, the president,asserted that a merit-based system is inherently racist.

    2. San Francisco was one of the last public school systems to reopen. It was so bad, at one point the city itself sued the school district.

    3. Ordinary citizens are upset with educators dividing America into two groups, white oppressors and nonwhite oppressed. 

    4. in January the board voted to strip 44 public schools of their names, including Abraham Lincoln High over alleged complicity in racism or oppression. This was followed by an embarrassing about-face when it emerged how flimsy the criteria were.

    5. Ms. Collins was stripped of her vice president title and committee assignments when tweets from 2016 emerged, one of which accused Asian-Americans of using “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and get ahead.” Yet she remains on the board, which she is now suing for $87 million on grounds that she is the victim.

    Rigged Lottery

    In March, the Harmeet Dhillon, a nationally prominent Indian-American attorney and the Dhillon Law Group sent a letter threatening a lawsuit charging the board of education of a “rigged lottery”.

    I am writing this demand letter regarding the San Francisco Board of Education’s (“Board”) February 9, 2021 5-2 vote to permanently discontinue use of merit-based admissions at Lowell High School (“Lowell”). By adopting Resolution 212-2A1, the Board improperly and illegally converted Lowell’s carefully crafted admissions policy (“Policy 5120.1”) into a misleadingly labeled “lottery” admissions system (“Rigged Lottery”) ostensibly intended to address “systemic racism.” Unfortunately, the record overwhelmingly establishes that the new admissions program is not only not an impartial “lottery” that will fail to even remedy “systemic racism,” but constitutes an unconstitutional and illegal program designed to disenfranchise hardworking students in the San Francisco Unified School District (“SFUSD”) and decrease the number of Asian students admitted to Lowell.

    The Board violated clear and longstanding precedent of California statutes, the California Constitution, and the United States Constitution, when it exchanged a merit-based admission process for a program intended and designed to reduce the number of Asian American students admitted to Lowell. The Board, under false legal pretense and the ruse that Lowell’s admissions process perpetuates “white supremacy,” changed Lowell’s admissions process to a Rigged Lottery designed to reduce the admission of Asian American applicants. 

    You publicly stated your support for permanently demolishing Lowell’s merit-based admissions process because of your belief that Lowell needed “more representation” from minorities, completely ignoring the fact that Lowell’s student body is 82% non-white.

    The Polls

    I am also pleased to report San Francisco School Board Recall Effort Grows According to New Polling Data.

    Helping the effort in the past few weeks has been new polling data by EMC Research. In a June 25th memo, it found that 69% of San Franciscan parents support the recall. The 69% figure, garnered from two polls conducted in May, showed a noticeable rise in support from February, when only 60% of parents were in favor of a recall.

    The memo also notes that the SF School Board has an overall 71% negative rating among voters, with the District itself getting a 57% unfavorable rating. This was a drastic rise from a 2016 poll that showed that only 17% of voters had an unfavorable view of the School District.

    Kick Em Goodbye 

    San Francisco should not kiss López, Moliga and Collins goodbye.

    They should figuratively kick them goodbye. 

    Unfortunately most school districts do not have easy recall procedures. 

    Given the vote was 5-2 for the lottery system, the recall effort was two short of what’s needed.

    But flipping three votes would make it 5-2 in favor of sanity. 

    That would be a good start and a nice model for the nation, assuming the replacements were not more Woke idiots.

    *  *  *

    Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 20:00

  • Robinhood's Retail Reckoning Awaits After IPO'ing At Low-End Of Range
    Robinhood’s Retail Reckoning Awaits After IPO’ing At Low-End Of Range

    Robinhood reportedly sold 55 million shares at $38 (the low end of the marketed price range of $38 to $42 per share), as WSJ reports the popular trading platform met tepid demand for its highly anticipated debut.

    At that price ($38 per share), Robinhood would raise $2.1 billion and achieve a market valuation of more than $31 billion.

    *  *  *

    And now as Drew Singer, Bloomberg reporter and capital markets commentator, warns, Robinhood’s retail reckoning awaits…

    Robinhood Markets is YOLOing its initial public offering on a speculative bet of its own: retail investors.

    In more ways than one, the trading app maker that’s fueled the rise of meme stocks is relying on additional support from the retail community to sustain its proposed IPO valuation into the aftermarket.

    “I’m betting most of these people have never owned an IPO before,” said David Erickson, former co-head of global equity capital markets at Barclays Plcand currently a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

    When bankers allocate IPOs, they typically assess information gleaned during the roadshow for signals as which investors will be committed holders. Among the questions to consider are whether prospective buyers met with the management team, own similar companies and if they have been long-term holders of IPOs in the past.

    “In terms of Robinhood’s customers potentiality getting one-third of the allocation, that’s a black box,” he said in an interview. “If the stock doesn’t trade well, what happens? You just don’t have any behavior background to really assess that.”

    Robinhood’s reliance on retail traders has two prongs.

    • First, the traders must buy and hold the stock at a proportion of the float rarely or never seen before in an IPO.

    • Next, this group must adopt Robinhood’s app in greater numbers as users.

    Both have their headwinds.

    Up to $770 million of shares will be allocated to retail investors in the IPO, according to the prospectus, representing about one-third of the entire deal. That’s a much larger portion than for most IPOs, which typically reserve about 90% of the deal for institutional investors that will hopefully become long-term holders.

    The fintech and online-broker peer group is valued at price-to-sales multiples below recently public high-flying tech disruptors, but investor interest in Robinhood — with 30-40% allocated to retail — could drive multiples toward the latter, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Julie Chariell wrote in a note, calling retail investors “pivotal” to fundamentals.

    But retail’s investment in Robinhood won’t do the trick alone.

    A bullish IPO valuation also requires new users substantial enough to grow Robinhood’s payment for order flow on equity and options trading, Chariell wrote.

    “In three revenue scenarios for Robinhood in 2021-22, only our aggressive case may align with the $40 billion valuation implied in the last round of private fundraising,” she wrote.

    “But there’s a greater chance that our base or weak cases play out.”

    Any growth in the key payments metric would mean bucking an expected decline in volume on the Nasdaq and CBOE, according to Chariell. Increased regulatory scrutiny is also a headwind, alongside a drop in crypto trading gains. To help drive user growth, Robinhood is working on a feature that lets users invest their spare change, according to code hidden within a test version of its iPhone app.

    Further complicating the situation is recent weakness in meme stocks.

    While some standouts continue to surge, most are getting pummeled. The price action threatens Robinhood’s user metrics and indicates that retail trading volume may fade alongside a return to the office for more of its users.

    *  *  *

    Finally, as MishTalk.com’s Mike Shedlock detailed earlier, Christopher Bloomstran compiled detailed of Robinhood in a lengthy series of Tweets that every would be Robinhood investor ought to read.

    Warning to Robinhood Investors

    I don’t follow Robinhood other than reporting the numerous problems it has had with account theft and customer service.

    However I know a good set of Tweets when I see them. This Tweet Thread by Bloomstran is a must read for anyone thinking of investing in Robinhood.

    1. For those that haven’t read Robinhood’s 360-page S-1 and subsequent registration amendment, some brief observations follow on some of the most egregious aspects of one of the most one-sided, enrich the insider casino offerings I’ve ever seen, and there have been some doozies. 

    2. If Robin Hood robbed the rich to give to the poor, the modern-day version is now in the business of gutting the sheep and pocketing the wealth of the retail speculator for himself. Fleecing at least. “Robinhood is democratizing finance for all,” reads the prospectus. Sure. 

    3. Robinhood, who in December paid a $65 million fine (without admitting or denying guilt, wink) for best execution and payment for order flow alleged violations, will raise on the order of $2.3 billion from new shareholders in its upcoming IPO. What does The IPO investor get?

    4. The expected $2.3B brought to the party by new shareholders represents almost 30% of all of capital raised since 2013, including proceeds raised in the offering. For their money these new “investors” will only own 7% of the company and far less voting rights. Dilution, baby.

    5. Including proceeds from the IPO, the VAST MAJORITY of capital will have been raised just in the past two years, mostly 2021. Reread the breakdown of how much capital the IPO buyers are investing and what percent of the company they will own. This makes SPACs look non-dilutive. 

    6. From its founding in ’13, $HOOD raised $5.6B in a series of $2.2B convertible preferreds and 2 tranches of $4.7B in converts (the converts sold just this year). Additional paid in capital totals $149m. The balance sheet has $4.8B cash with shareholder equity a negative $1.5B. 

    7. Most of the negative equity value reflects “losses” on the degree to which converts issued in February are already “in the money.” They were money good at issue! More on this in a bit. The IPO will sell 55 million shares, with the founders & CFO selling 2.6 million of those.

    8. An over-allotment option for another 5.5m could bring the total to 60.5m shares sold at an expected range of $38-$42 per share. Using the midpoint, the company may raise $2.3B, bringing cumulative capital raised to $7.9B. At $40, Robinhood will have a market value of ~$33.6B.

    9. Remember, this is against $7.9B in cumulative capital raised, including proceeds from the IPO. In their generous hearts of hearts, 25% to 30% of the shares offered in the IPO are “reserved” for Robinhood “customers.” That’s 13 to 16 million shares at a midrange $40 per share.

    10. That’s $500 million to more than $600 million. Rob from the fools, give to the poor insiders. What a deal. But it’s a brokerage firm. With capital requirements. Growing revenues will require new capital, either retained profit or new capital. Regardless, let’s talk dilution.

    11.  What’s missing from outstanding shares at 3/31? Hold on to your wallets. There are $2.55B in tranche 1 converts outstanding which will be exercised at the LOWER of 70% of the IPO price or $38.29. Assume at $28, which at an IPO price of $40 yields a quick 42.9% gain or $1.1B.

    12. The converts were sold in February 2021, not bad for 5 months of ownership. If the IPO is wildly oversubscribed and prices north of $55 per share, the option holders get in at no higher than $38.29. The only way the converts were anything but free money was if no IPO ensued. 

    13. There are $1.03B in tranche 2 converts outstanding which will be likewise exercised at the LOWER of 70% of the IPO price or $42.12. Again assume at $28, which at an IPO price of $40 yields the same quick 42.9% gain or a gain of $441m. Same deal as above. Quick. Free. Money.

    14. These converts were also sold in February 2021, again not bad in 5 months of ownership. Who wouldn’t invest at 70 cents on the dollar if an IPO was coming tomorrow? On both tranches of converts, buyers were further rewarded with 6% interest in the interim. Payable in shares!

    15. These converts were also sold in February 2021, again not bad in 5 months of ownership. Who wouldn’t invest at 70 cents on the dollar if an IPO was coming tomorrow? On both tranches of converts, buyers were further rewarded with 6% interest in the interim. Payable in shares!

    16. There are 39.1m “time-based” RSUs outstanding. At a $40 price these have $1.6B of pre-tax value. Not bad. The company will withhold the tax liability. There are 27.7m (I think that’s the #) 2019-class “market based” RSUs out that vest at the IPO. Graduated hurdle is an IPO!

    17. There are 35,520,000 2021-class “market based” RSU shares outstanding that vest at the IPO. These will have $1.42B of value at a $40 IPO price. Not bad for a few months of ownership. These were granted in MAY – TWO MONTHS AGO. Brilliant timing. What luck.

    18. There are 27.8m shares set aside for future SBC. This is a $1.1B set-aside for insiders. In total, an additional 14% dilution is authorized. There are additional shares set-aside for an Employee Stock Purchase Plan, offering new shares at a discount to market value. Why not.

    19.  Any A-share RSUs vested and exercised by the founders can be converted to uber-voting B shares upon exercise. There were 230.7m shares outstanding (vested and held by insiders/private owners) at 3/31 (before the IPO). After the IPO, the share count stands to be ~840 million. 

    20. New shareholders will bring $2.3B to the party, over 29% of all of the capital raised since 2103. For their money they will own 7% of the company. Did I already mention dilution? Wait until you see the dilution in book value and evisceration of per share book value.

    21.  Cash in the firm will total about $7 billion with the addition of proceeds from the IPO. So how do you get to a ~$34B valuation? On fundamentals, 2020 REVENUES totaled $959m. 3/31 quarterly revs were $522m & 6/30 are estimated by the company at a range of $546 and $574m.

    22. At the midpoint, sequential revenues were up 7.3%, growing fast but decelerating in a hurry…In fact, monthly revenues in March of this year actually declined from February. The company reports $81 billion in assets under custody at March 31 and 18 million accounts.

    23. That works out to a whopping $4,444 per account (the median must be even WAY lower). The company further reports annual revenue per user of $137. No doubt some averaging is involved, but what they don’t report is that $137 in revenues from a $4,444 account is 3% per year.

    24. On those 18 million $4,444 accounts, total assets under custody break down as: $65 billion in equities (AMC, GME & TSLA for sure) $2B options $11.6B crypto (up from $3.5B at 12/31 & $481m a year ago) $7.6B cash ($5.4B) margin Total assets under custody total $81B. 

    25. 14% of customer assets are crypto! You don’t see any bonds. You don’t see any mutual funds. Half of transaction revenue, which are 81% of firm revenues, come from OPTION rebates, while options at market value account for only $2B of customer assets. Tell me it’s not a casino.

    26. Option trading should definitely be allowed for the inexperienced, small, retail “investor.” This is how you get experience, and initiated. On assets held as crypto, these “assets” can neither be transferred in our ACAT’d out. They must be transacted while in the hood.

    27.  The company naturally collects transaction fees from its trading partners and “can not guarantee the risk of a hack or theft.” Most crypto is stored in “cold pockets” but, of course, no SIPC protection exists on crypto. I can’t imagine anything untoward or going wrong here.

    28.  17% of firm revenues were earned in Q1 from crypto transaction “rebates,” up from 4% in the prior quarter. While  $HOOD supports 7 cryptos for trading, no less than 34% of crypto revenues were from DOGECOIN! Hilarious reading this. I’m probably wrong about this being a casino.

    29. In the first quarter alone, “customers” traded $88B of crypto against $11.6B held at 3/31 and $3.5B at year-end 2020. Definitely not a casino, but a platform encouraging the long-term ownership of investments. You think new “customers” learn all about the coffee can approach?

    30. Robinhood further discloses that 81% of Q1 revenue came from selling equity and option order flow to 4 market makers, up from 75% of revenue during 2020. Regulatory issue on the horizon? Durability of “moat” issue? It’s in the Risk section, but so is lots of boilerplate.

    31. Reasons for concern? In the first quarter, the company lost 5% of account value to transfers out, versus a quarterly average of 1.2% in 2020. Hopefully not a trend, particularly since customers cannot transfer crypto in and out. That said, crypto transactions = revenue! So…

    32. The two company founders will own 135 million shares, 16% of those outstanding after the IPO with a value of $5.4 billion. If viewed as a percent of cumulative capital raised, including the IPO, that’s 68% of capital on virtually nothing invested. Ambitions on space travel?

    33.  Voting control through super-voting B shares give the lads 65% of the vote. Lockups for insiders and newly converted shareholders are benign. A flood is coming, but only after the share price reaches certain thresholds triggering the vesting of additional performance shares.

    34. The CFO and Chief Legal Officer were each paid more compensation in 2020, mostly in shares, than Berkshire Hathaway’s two operating Vice Chairmen, Greg Abel and Ajit Jain are paid, all in cash, each year to operate the largest company in the world by fixed tangible assets.

    35. The CFO & CLO, non-founders, were each given shares that at a $40 IPO will be valued at almost $100 million each. The CFO signed on in Dec 2018. The CLO joined up in May 2020, so just over a year in. The good news is he was CLO at Mylan, so knows his way around a courtroom.

    36.  The valuation seems insane, but will be “justified” because the company is a FinTech player. By comparison, Schwab’s market cap is $128 billion on $58 billion of book value and $5 billion of profit. Profit at Schwab is more than twice Robinhood’s total revenues.

    37.  Schwab’s assets under custody (larger retail & institutional clients) total $7.5 trillion on only 31.5 million active customer accounts. Fewer than 2x the accounts but nearly 100x the assets under custody with a valuation only 3x as great as the expected valuation of $HOOD.

    38. Bully for those investing $5.6 billion in Robinhood prior to the IPO. Their investment plus shares given to founders/insiders will own 93% of the company post-IPO, which at a $33.6B valuation represents a $31.3B position & a gain of 650%, mostly earned over the past 2 years

    39. Brokers have capital requirements, of which Robinhood has been short of at times. Schwab earns a roughly 10% ROE over time. The IPO will remedy capital need, for now. But a firm highly levered to selling customer order flow, rebates on crypto transactions and margin interest?

    40. Equity, option & crypto trading are advertised in the prospectus as, “commission-free.” Um hum. Costless to the unwitting “customer.” The business wins only if the “customer” transacts or borrows. This is good for society? Know that Robinhood’s shave is only part of the cost.

    41.  Citadel doesn’t pay for flow for grins. The platform is not encouraging the long-term investment of patient capital. What I do know is that on a successful IPO, there will be corks a-popping in Menlo Park. This is massive dilution and delusion about valuing a retail broker.

    42. Rob the unsuspecting and keep the gold, or the crypto, is sadly the new Robin Hood. In a week where famously introduced himself to Twitter, perhaps he has room on his plate for this one. The IPO is what it is. The way the company makes money, on the other hand…

    43. On the IPO, it’s all there in black & white in the S-1. None of it is illegal. Moral? Surely contemptible. If you like investing in IPOs, where sellers are selling for a reason, and if you like being diluted by people who are in the business of taking, get your subscription in.

    Reflections on Twitter

    Many people think Social Media is a useless waste of time. I get a lot of usable ideas from Twitter, but I don’t bother much with the others.

    This is an example of the things one can learn. And if I was looking for an IPO analyst I would want Bloomstran on my team. 

    Robinhood the Disruptor

    To add my 2 cents, sure Robinhood was a disruptor. It forced other brokerages to drop commissions. But once everyone does the same thing, where is the value?  OK it also has a phone app. 

    What’s stopping any other company from offering such a platform?

    But unless one has a portfolio of at least $25,000 you’re generally limited to no more than 3 day trades in a 5 trading day period. 

    And it locked out customers at a critical time from trading GameStop and AMC. It had to because it was undercapitalized and could not hedge its risks. It still faces multiple lawsuits over the outages. 

    Related Suicide

    Then there’s the story of a 20-year-old trader who killed himself after believing he racked up huge losses. 

    Alex Kearns, a then-sophomore at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, committed suicide in June after thinking he had a negative $730,165 cash balance on Robinhood.

    “How was a 20 year old with no income able to get assigned almost a million dollars worth of leverage?” read the note Kearns wrote to his family.

    A Robinhood spokesperson told CNBC, “We were devastated by Alex Kearns’ death. Since June, we’ve made improvements to our options offering.”

    Robinhood, which is run by CEO Vlad Tenev, has come under scrutiny for its “gamification” of investing and alleged predatory marketing practices.

    Robinhood is also facing class-action lawsuits from clients after the app’s decision to restrict trading in certain securities during the recent GameStop controversy.

    Kearns’ family filed a wrongful death suit. “Its customer ‘service’ was virtually non-existent, consisting of automated e-mail replies devoid of any human contact or interaction,” the family alleged in the suit.

    But hey, here’s the important thing.

    The Casino is Open!

    *  *  *

    Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 19:48

  • Hank Paulson's TPG Climate Fund Raises $5.4 Billion
    Hank Paulson’s TPG Climate Fund Raises $5.4 Billion

    The revolving door between private sector Wall Street jobs and the Treasury and/or Fed continues…

    Today’s installment is brought to you by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who is now officially executive chairman of The TPG Rise Climate fund.

    Just 6 months after Hank Paulson began his personal roadshow to try and drum up investor capital, TPG’s inaugural fund, focused on its “climate investing strategy”, has raised $5.4 billion from high profile investors like Allstate and Hartford Financial, Reuters reported this week. The fund’s investor base also includes the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and France’s AXA, the report notes.

    TPG says the fund is “designed to expand the scope of commercially viable climate technologies”. 

    Recall, back in January 2021 we noted that Paulson was returning to Wall Street to run the new climate-focused investment fund. It marked Paulson’s first return to the private sector since leaving Goldman in 2006.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 19:40

  • In 67-32 Vote, Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Advances To Debate In The Senate
    In 67-32 Vote, Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Advances To Debate In The Senate

    Update (720pm EDT): With 17 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats, the Senate on Wednesday voted to advance debate on a broad infrastructure package, just hours after a bipartisan group of senators and Joe Biden reached accord on a $550 billion plan that is a major step forward for the White House’s economic agenda.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Below is a list of the key republicans who joined the Democrats to pass the vote:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    While the 67-32 procedural vote doesn’t guarantee that the package of spending on physical infrastructure will pass the Senate, but is a good indication that it may have enough support. Lawmakers expect votes on amendments and final passage to last into the weekend and possibly next week, with an eye to salvaging a long recess set to begin Aug. 9.

    The Senate will convene at 10:30 AM tomorrow. Following the conclusion of Morning Business, the Senate will resume consideration of the Motion to Proceed to H.R. 3684 (the legislative vehicle for the bipartisan infrastructure bill), post-cloture

    As noted earlier, a core group led by Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio and Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona hammered out the infrastructure deal after lawmakers failed to muster the votes to begin debate last week.

    “Our plan will create good-paying jobs in communities across our country without raising taxes. Reaching this agreement was no easy task—but our constituents expect us to put in the hard work and show that two parties can still work together to address the needs of the American people,” the group of nine Republicans, 10 Democrats and one independent said in a statement.

    Among the projects that would get money, according to the White House:

    • $110 billion for roads, bridges and major projects
    • $73 billion for electric grid upgrades
    • $66 billion for rail and Amtrak improvements
    • $65 billion for broadband expansion
    • $55 billion for clean drinking water
    • $39 billion for transit
    • $17 billion for ports and $25 billion for airports
    • $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers

    “This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function, deliver, and do big things,” Biden said in a statement. It “will help ensure that America can compete in the global economy just when we are in a race with China and the rest of the world for the 21st century.”

    But several Republicans, including Rick Scott of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, blasted the overall price tag and said they would oppose the bill.
    “Congress can’t keep spending trillions of dollars we don’t have,” the senators said in a statement. “The infrastructure package announced today continues the trend in Congress of insane deficit spending.”

    The package would be paid for by measures like re-purposing $200 billion in unspent Covid-19 relief funds, sales from the Strategic Petroleum reserve, increased customs user fees, government-sponsored enterprise fees and increased reporting requirements on cryptocurrency transactions. It also uses some funding sources that are sometimes called gimmicks, like counting revenue from future economic growth, extending cuts to future Medicare spending that Congress regularly turns off and allowing companies

    If the Senate is able to pass the bill in the coming days, Democrats hope to quickly pivot to passing a budget for fiscal 2022 which would set up a fast-track process to enact much of the rest of Biden’s economic agenda without any Republican support.

    * * *

    Earlier

    Remember how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’d hand-grenade any bipartisan infrastructure bill unless a larger, $3.5 trillion Democratic-only bill was passed in the Senate via reconciliation (requiring a simple majority)?

    Looks like it’ll be a no-go on both, after Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) said on Wednesday that she does not support the $3.5 trillion package.

    “I have also made clear that while I will support beginning this process, I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion — and in the coming months, I will work in good faith to develop this legislation with my colleagues and the administration to strengthen Arizona’s economy and help Arizona’s everyday families get ahead,” Sinema said in a statement to The Arizona Republic.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Your move, Nancy.

    *  *  *

    A ‘bipartisan’ group of Senators on Wednesday have finally reached a deal on a $1.2 trillion “hard” infrastructure package, following ‘weeks of long nights and endless Zoom calls,’ according to Axios.

    “We now have an agreement on the major issues,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), lead GOP negotiator for a group of Republicans which includes Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) – not exactly the MAGA majority of the party.

    While Axios suggests it will likely be ‘days’ before the group finishes writing the bill, Portman says he expects to have the text hammered out by Wednesday night.

    In response, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on Wednesday that the Senate could vote as early as Wednesday night to advance the proposal – the second time they’ll have done so on this procedural measure. Schumer added that he’s prepared to keep the Senate in session over the weekend.

    “It’s time for everyone to get to yes,” he said on Monday.

    According to the report, “The deal is expected to cost $1.2 trillion over eight years, or $974 billion over five years, and offers more than $579 billion in new spending.“

    More via Axios:

    Behind the scenes: The deal comes hours after Portman and White House counselor Steve Ricchetti huddled for hours at the Capitol Tuesday night hashing out the remaining sticking points of the bill.

    • The biggest problems revolved around transit policy and how to pay for the package, among other hurdles.
    • On Wednesday morning, Sens. Portman, Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in his office.
    • McConnell so far has taken a hands-off approach to the talks. This meeting signals the group is ready to bring him into the fold.

    What’s next: Schumer has made clear that both the bipartisan bill and the Senate’s $3.5 trillion budget resolution need to pass prior to August recess, which as of now is still scheduled to begin in just two-and-a-half weeks.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/28/2021 – 19:26

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