The US federal government is the nation’s largest landlord and still owns 28 percent of the land in the US. The time has come for large-scale privatization.
Category: Economics
Sinaloa, Mexico sees 19 homicides in only 5 days
These are towns “where violent events have happened between criminal groups.”
Missiles launched by Lebanese Houthis strikes Israel
“Whoever needs a reminder of that [heavy price] is invited to visit the Hodeida port.”
“Attention Seeking” EU Commissioner Thierry Breton Resigns After Musk-Trump Censorship Dust-Up
“Attention Seeking” EU Commissioner Thierry Breton Resigns After Musk-Trump Censorship Dust-Up
One month after the EU disavowed comments by commissioner Thierry Breton after he threatened to punish Elon Musk’s X platform for a lack of censorship, he’s out…
In a Monday letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Breton explains that despite French President Emmanuel Macron designating him France’s official candidate to the College of Commissioners, “you” (von der Leyen) “asked France to withdraw my name – for personal reasons that in no instance you have discussed directly with me.”
In short, you can’t fire me, I quit!
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my colleagues in the College, Commission services, MEPs, Member States, and my team.
Together, we have worked tirelessly to advance an ambitious EU agenda.
It has been an honour & privilege to serve the common European interestđȘđș pic.twitter.com/wQ4eeHUnYu
â Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) September 16, 2024
Breton was roundly chastised by the EU for suggesting that he would punish X if they don’t immediately crack down on “content that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation,” on the same day that Elon Musk and Donald Trump had an unfiltered discussion on the platform.
Musk responded appropriately:
To be honest, I really wanted to respond with this Tropic Thunder meme, but I would NEVER do something so rude & irresponsible! https://t.co/jL0GDW5QUx pic.twitter.com/XhUxCSGFNP
â Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2024
Brussels accused Breton of going rogue with the letter to Musk – saying he never sought approval from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to send the letter.
“The timing and the wording of the letter were neither co-ordinated or agreed with the president nor with the [commissioners],” the Commission said in an August statement reported by the Financial Times.
“Thierry has his own mind and way of working and thinking,” said one EU official who asked not to be named.
Politico Europe also reported that four separate EU officials said that Breton’s threat to Musk caught many off guard within the Commission.
“The EU is not in the business of electoral interference,” said one of those officials. “DSA implementation is too important to be misused by an attention-seeking politician in search of his next big job.”
As journalist Hans Mahncke notes, he was fired:
The letter says he was fired. https://t.co/ReIxjnAd0p
â Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) September 16, 2024
Breton attempted to joke about the situation:
Fantastic news, champ. The world is celebrating. Enjoy your retirement â you wonât be missed! https://t.co/Kb5PG5oeZ4
â Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) September 16, 2024
Bye Felicia!
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/16/2024 – 10:40
NewsWare’s Trade Talk: Monday, September 16 | NewsWareâs Trade Talk
S&P Futures are slightly lower this morning. Big week ahead for Central Bank meetings from the FOMC, BOE & the BOJ. Markets are expecting a dovish narrative from the Fed on Wednesday. CRM’s Dreamforce conference starts tomorrow. MSFT is expected to speak today at 11:00 on a Copilot announcement. A Federal appeal court will consider whether the U.S. government has the rights to force TikTok to sever ties with China. In Europe, markets are displaying muted losses, healthcare and luxury stocks are positive. and oil prices higher but off the morning highs. China demand remains underwhelming.
Understanding the Real Costs of Slavery: It’s Not Cheap labor
The standard belief is that slavery was about obtaining âcheap labor,â yet nothing could be further from the truth. Slavery comes with high opportunity costs, which is why American slave owners depended upon several government regulations to subsidize their âpeculiar institution.â
Four injured in school hammer attack in Russia
A teenage student wounded four people with a hammer on Monday at a school in the southern Russian city of Chelyabinsk, near the border with Kazakhstan, local authorities said. The 13-year-old boy attacked teachers and fellow students before he was stopped, province governor Aleksey Teksler wrote on X. Two 13-year-old girls, one boy and a […]
The post Four injured in school hammer attack in Russia appeared first on Insider Paper.
Hedge Fund CIO: Europe’s Collapse Is A Healthy Reminder For Americans To Stay True To Their System
Hedge Fund CIO: Europe’s Collapse Is A Healthy Reminder For Americans To Stay True To Their System
By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
âFor complex reasoning tasks this is a significant advancement and represents a new level of AI capability,â wrote OpenAI, describing its latest model release. âGiven this, we are resetting the counter back to 1 and naming this series OpenAI o1.â Such is the pace of advancement (and hype) in AI that we need to rebase our calibrations. o1 answered 78% of PhD-level science questions accurately, compared to 56.1% for GPT-4o and 69.7% for human experts, which confirms that o1 is way smarter than I am.
But for some reason I feel Iâm probably more intelligent, at least for now. Even if I couldnât tell you without the help of o1 the precise difference between smarts and intelligence.
Overall:
âFor the first time since the Cold War we must genuinely fear for our self-preservation,â Draghi told reporters, working himself up into another âwhatever-it-takesâ frenzy.
âAnd the reason for a unified response has never been so compelling and I am confident that in our unity we will find the strength to reform,â said Mario, far from confident, his long-awaited report on EU competitiveness hot off the press. But of course, the stock market provides objective, real-time analysis on national competitiveness, and the European benchmark equity index is now just slightly above where it was at the 2007 market high.
Equities are priced in nominal terms though, and the EU consumer price index is roughly 52% higher since 2007. Which means that European equities have fallen 30% in real terms from where they were 17yrs ago (excluding dividends). Relative to where they were at the 2000 highs, European stocks are worth about half what they were nearly 25yrs ago in real terms.
By the same measure, Chinese stock prices are -67% in real terms from the 2007 nosebleed highs (+44% in real terms since 2000 â just before its WTO entry). And the S&P 500 is +60% in real terms from the 2007 highs (+107% from the 2000 highs). As a general observation, the US invents, China builds, the EU regulates.
And the stock market does an admirable job at indicating which of those activities you want to prioritize, if the goal is to aggressively increase overall national prosperity. But the EUâs goal was never really that. That union was formed to avoid another disastrous continental war, which has been a recurring theme since well before the first Italian started shaving coins. The European project as it is currently constituted has narrowly achieved this primary objective, but at the cost of more chronic economic stasis. Naturally though, national weakness invites discontent from within and aggression from without. Which is where Europe finds itself today.
Itâs a healthy reminder for Americans, as we enter our political season, to stay true to our system and to that which has led to our greatness. Innovation, invention, risk taking, entrepreneurialism.
Anecdote
âWe have 4% of the worldâs population and the dominant economy â almost twice the size of China and 5x the next largest,â said the Chairman, an American patriot, a public servant, realist, capitalist.
âUS stock market cap is over $50trln, dwarfing China at $11trln and Japan at $6trln,â he continued. âFor over five decades, the US has produced the next generation of great global companies.â
As Nippon Steel begs our politicians to buy US Steel for $14.9bln, Nvidiaâs market cap is nearly $3trln, and OpenAI is raising a fresh venture round at a $150bln valuation. âMeta started in 2004 and employs 70k people, producing $134bln in annual revenue, much of it from abroad.â Apple, Google, Netflix, the list goes on.
âSilicon Valley is the worldâs premier innovation hub and attracts the best and brightest from across the globe.â Technology is helping lift the worldâs poor out of poverty at an unprecedented rate, and in todayâs hyper-connected world, every person who comes online, becomes a customer of a US tech company.
âGenentech and Amgen were once startups and are now industry leaders. Without the hundreds of billions in theyâd invested in R&D, we would never been able to develop the COVID vaccines in record time,â said the Chairman.
âThe flywheel effects of being the worldâs innovation and growth engine are breathtaking. And are strongly supported by the tax code.â
Since the Revenue Act of 1921, capital gains have been taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income, providing a powerful incentive for individuals to invest in new, often risky ideas. Fueling an entrepreneurial culture, that is the source of Americaâs prosperity, strength, power.
âEnergy is vital to our enduring strength too, economic and geopolitical. We lifted US domestic oil production between 2016-2020 from 9mm barrels per day to 12mm, and natural gas production by 25%.â
Biden quietly continued Trumpâs energy policies, lifting oil production another 1mm barrels and natural gas 15%. âHad we not, our military and economic adversaries would have more control over the future of America and our allies,â said the Chairman.
âWe need a coherence across economic, national security, and energy policy that is centered on and builds upon all these strengths.âÂ
Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/16/2024 – 03:30
Do Financial Markets Immediately Provide All Relevant Information?
The Perfect Market Hypothesis claims that all movements in the market can be considered as random, as market players and prices adjust immediately to new information. However, market players do seek new information and seek to use it.
Trump Advisers Ask Staff to ‘Remain Vigilant’ After Assassination Attempt
Senior advisers for former President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign are telling staff to “remain vigilant” in the wake of a second assassination attempt that unfolded on Sunday in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The post Senior Trump Advisers Ask Campaign Staff to âRemain Vigilantâ After Second Assassination Attempt appeared first on Breitbart.