Tropical Depression Hone Forecast Advisory
000 WTPA21 PHFO 301433 TCMCP1 TROPICAL DEPRESSION HONE FORECAST/ADVISORY NUMBER 33 NWS CENTRAL PACIFIC HURRICANE CENTER HONOLULU HI CP012024 1500 UTC FRI AUG 30 2024 NOTICE... LAND-BASED TROPICAL CYCLONE WATCHES AND WARNINGS ARE NO LONGER INCLUDED IN THE TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST/ADVISORY...(TCM). CURRENT LAND-BASED COASTAL WATCHES AND WARNINGS CAN BE FOUND IN THE MOST RECENTLY ISSUED TROPICAL CYCLONE PUBLIC ADVISORY...(TCP). TROPICAL DEPRESSION CENTER LOCATED NEAR 21.8N 174.7W AT 30/1500Z POSITION ACCURATE WITHIN 15 NM PRESENT MOVEMENT TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST OR 290 DEGREES AT 7 KT ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE 1008 MB MAX SUSTAINED WINDS 30 KT WITH GUSTS TO 40 KT. 12 FT SEAS.. 40NE 0SE 0SW 40NW. WINDS AND SEAS VARY GREATLY IN EACH QUADRANT. RADII IN NAUTICAL MILES ARE THE LARGEST RADII EXPECTED ANYWHERE IN THAT QUADRANT. REPEAT...CENTER LOCATED NEAR 21.8N 174.7W AT 30/1500Z AT 30/1200Z CENTER WAS LOCATED NEAR 21.7N 174.4W FORECAST VALID 31/0000Z 22.4N 175.7W MAX WIND 30 KT...GUSTS 40 KT. FORECAST VALID 31/1200Z 23.7N 176.4W MAX WIND 35 KT...GUSTS 45 KT. 34 KT... 20NE 0SE 0SW 20NW. FORECAST VALID 01/0000Z 24.8N 177.3W MAX WIND 40 KT...GUSTS 50 KT. 34 KT... 30NE 0SE 0SW 30NW. FORECAST VALID 01/1200Z 25.8N 178.6W MAX WIND 40 KT...GUSTS 50 KT. 34 KT... 50NE 20SE 10SW 40NW. FORECAST VALID 02/0000Z 26.6N 179.7E MAX WIND 45 KT...GUSTS 55 KT. 34 KT... 60NE 40SE 15SW 40NW. FORECAST VALID 02/1200Z 27.1N 177.8E MAX WIND 45 KT...GUSTS 55 KT. 34 KT... 70NE 50SE 20SW 50NW. EXTENDED OUTLOOK. NOTE...ERRORS FOR TRACK HAVE AVERAGED NEAR 150 NM ON DAY 4 AND 200 NM ON DAY 5...AND FOR INTENSITY NEAR 20 KT EACH DAY OUTLOOK VALID 03/1200Z 28.7N 174.2E MAX WIND 50 KT...GUSTS 60 KT. 50 KT... 20NE 15SE 10SW 15NW. 34 KT... 80NE 60SE 30SW 70NW. OUTLOOK VALID 04/1200Z 31.3N 171.1E MAX WIND 50 KT...GUSTS 60 KT. 50 KT... 30NE 15SE 10SW 20NW. 34 KT... 90NE 70SE 40SW 80NW. REQUEST FOR 3 HOURLY SHIP REPORTS WITHIN 300 MILES OF 21.8N 174.7W NEXT ADVISORY AT 30/2100Z $$ FORECASTER POWELL
Originally Posted at:
NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER and CENTRAL PACIFIC HURRICANE CENTER
At The NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
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ESG Undermines Social Welfare
ESG has become a buzzword for both the American Left and Right. For the Right, it is just a Trojan horse for progressive social attitudes to sneak into business. For the Left it is an alternative to the “cruel” profits-only business model of Milton Friedman. Some on the Right abhor ESG because they worship profit in some abstract material sense. They treat it as if consumerism and profit are materialistic ends to worship in of themselves. But what they ignore is the crucial insight that all action accounts for social welfare.
ESG does not improve care for the environment or social causes, it actively undermines social welfare.
Humans are not only impelled by their physical desires to act, but also social, cultural, and religious desires. Mises describes this in Human Action:
Whether it is possible to separate neatly those actions which aim at the satisfaction of needs exclusively conditioned by man’s physiological constitution from other “higher” needs can be left undecided . . . It cannot be denied that the demand for goods is widely influenced by metaphysical, religious, and ethical considerations . . . and many other things. To an economist who would try to restrict his investigations to “material” aspects only, the subject matter of inquiry vanishes as soon as he wants to catch it.
When a man builds a church he still acts purposefully even if there is no bodily need for a church building. When a monk chooses to take up radical poverty, he acts purposefully. When someone chooses to donate their money in order to plant trees for the environment, they still are acting. Human action doesn’t entail the satiation of our carnal physical desires, it entails all our actions to change the state of affairs around us. Donations, conservation, and the like are all possible forms of action.
So, when we pursue profit, it is always a reflection of an increase in social welfare. Profit isn’t just “making more things.” Rather, it is the allocation of goods and resources to the most urgent economic demands in society. This is done so by the capitalist-entrepreneur who anticipates future desires of the consumers and forwarding present funds for future goods. If they correctly anticipate what society will desire and value in the future, they reap profit. If they do not, they are punished with losses for wasting resources. Those resources are then liquidated and more competent entrepreneurs are able to make use of scarce resources.
A consumer who values a cause like environmentalism may value the psychic profit reaped from buying a good from a firm that donates to the environment more than from, say, Walmart. As a result, they may be willing to pay more for such causes. Others may be more willing, but are unable to because of material circumstances. Our concerns and cares for various social causes are imputed into every action and choice we make—our choice of a path in the causes we support. This includes the brands and stores from which we choose to purchase. It is not just the physical pleasure derived from consuming a good, it is also all of our social values. All of our social, religious, physical, and psychological values are imputed into our actions. Our action is then mediated through the market and exchange.
The market finds a compromise of interests and maximizes welfare where exchange occurs. If a scarce resource or labor is being exchanged, the social, personal, and religious values are present in the choices of consumers and producers.
Producers are another side of the equation who also carry values. They too may prefer to incur some costs and reap less profit so they might donate to some cause. Matt McCaffrey and Carmen Dorobăț gave an example in a Mises University session in which they noted that a businessman may be happier to reap only 8% profit and donate to help the environment rather than 10% profit with no donation.
If the welfare derived from these things was widely demanded by consumers and producers there would be no need for ESG scores. ESG scores force firms into over-weighing certain social values that are already implicit in profit-exchange. Profits do not only mean the creation of more physical goods for physical satisfaction but also the creation of value in these non-material areas. By diverting from profit, ESG actively undermines the careful balance of these values. Turning away from profits means that less value is created for both consumers and producers.
Not to mention the fact that it is economic growth that allows for more care of the environment. It is only when we are able to meet our basic needs that we can afford to care for the world around us. London itself provides a perfect example, with air pollution first increasing with industrialization and eventually declining even lower than when it was first measured in 1700. Economic growth gives us the means to care for the environment. If you cannot feed yourself, you will be unable, and likely unwilling, to care for the world around you.
ESG and similar strategies undermine the very things they claim to facilitate. Care for the environment and social causes (ones actually held by the populace) are already implicit within all human action. ESG foists imbalance on exchange that already cares for these social values. If we wish to maximize care for these things, we should seek economic growth in part and understand that profit reflects value—and value comes from many places.
Originally Posted at https://mises.org/
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The Misesian, vol. 1, no. 4, 2024
Many millions of Americans fall for the government propaganda that uses wars as excuses to eviscerate American freedoms, spend trillions of dollars and rack up gargantuan deficits that will impose a heavy financial burden for decades to come. In recent centuries, though, there have been many who were not quite so easily fooled. These were the defenders of liberty we now call “classical liberals” or “radical liberals” or “libertarians.” Indeed, the more radically these activists were opposed to state power, the more radically they opposed militarism and war. They understood, decades before Randolph Bourne coined the phrase “war is the health of the state,” that war is among every regime’s favorite tool in growing state power and destroying freedom.
For the radical liberals of that time, the fight for freedom was synonymous with the fight for peace. To fight for freedom meant to oppose imperialism, colonialism, standing armies, and the profligate spending that comes with it all.
The Mises Institute preserves this tradition in the 21st century.
Originally Posted at https://mises.org/
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Video: Rising Prices Are Caused by Monetary Inflation, Not Greed
View the video version of this article below, or on Twitter/X.
One of the myths being endlessly repeated in this inflationary cycle is the myth that rising prices are caused by greed.
For example, Democratic senator Bob Casey is running around Pennsylvania campaigning on the idea while claiming he’ll solve the problem if you re-elect him. Kamala Harris is doing the same.
But the fact that greed doesn’t cause inflation is obvious if we just ask why prices across the board have surged since 2020. Since then, consumer prices rose more than twenty percent, knocking off about a fourth of the value of every dollar you hold.
Is that all because greed suddenly got worse after 2020 for some unknown reason? And, if so, why is it that greed was magically barely a problem at all for many years during the last decade when official CPI inflation rates often came in between 1 and 2 percent?
There is no explanation for this greed thesis, and the reason is that there is only one cause of generally rising prices— the thing we could call price inflation. The only cause of this is monetary inflation—that is, a rising money supply. Or, as sometimes stated more casually: printing new money.
So, if the question is why did we see the consumer price index go up by more than 20 percent over the past four years—with home prices rising by 50 percent and wages not keeping up? The answer is that the central banks literally created trillions of new dollars during that period. (When we say they “printed” this money, we don’t mean they physically printed it, although they sometimes do. When we say the central bank “printed money, we mean the central bank created new money out of nothing.)
Recall how during the covid lockdowns, the government was paying people to stay home and not work. Where did this money come from? The central bank printed it. There was not money to be had from the Treasury, of course, as the federal government itself was already running huge deficits.
The central bank created so much new money in fact, that the money supply has increased by 32 percent since early 2020. And nearly one quarter of all the dollars that are out there right now, were created since then. These are astounding numbers.
And, we can go back further than that. You want to know why stock prices and real estate prices have been going up so relentlessly for more than ten years? It’s because since 2009, when we began the age of quantitative easing, the money supply is up by 185 percent.
For many years, the monetary inflation appeared primarily as rising prices in assets like housing. That’s why CPI inflation seemed “low” for a long time between 2010 and 2020. But, eventually, the piper must be paid for relentless monetary expansion of the type we’ve experienced since 2009. The frenzy of money creation that occurred since 2020—and the rising prices that followed—have made this clear.
[Read More: “Money-Supply Growth Accelerates as Wall Street Demands Even More Easy Money“ by Ryan McMaken]
Of course, politicians are now trying to have it both ways. First, they’re claiming that there isn’t much price inflation at all, and Bidenomics already solved that somehow.
At the same thing they’re saying that yes, there is price inflation, but it’s the fault of greedy corporations who are trying to price-gouge you.
Neither of these claims are true, though.
Prices aren’t falling, or even flat. By the government’s measure, food now costs 26 percent more than it did only four years ago. And prices still rising. Last month, the feds’ own measure said there was 3 percent growth in the CPI. That’s 3 percent on top of all the other increases of recent years. And, the farther down you are on the economic ladder, the lower the odds your income has come close to keeping up with that. Meanwhile, home prices have risen far beyond the CPI measure.
And then there’s that other claim that if there is any price inflation at all, it’s all caused by greed.
Yet, the real cause of rising prices is right in front of us. It’s 15 years of money printing to bail out banks that started back in 2009. And on top of this, we got even more of that newly printed COVID money.
The problem is not greed, it’s the growth in the money supply.
Its elected officials and their friends who CAUSED this problem, of course, but they certainly aren’t going to tell you that.
Price inflation is NEVER caused by greed. It’s always caused by a growing money supply. The money supply has grown big-time since 2020, and now we pay a lot more for food and housing. More: https://t.co/4tJNgoq1Th pic.twitter.com/s5g5bDiKz4
— Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) August 30, 2024
Originally Posted at https://mises.org/
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Don’t Court the Court Intellectuals
The Fake China Threat and Its Very Real Danger
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
Libertarian Institute, 2023; vii + 145 pp.
It’s often claimed that China, aspiring to world hegemony, plans to wage war against the United States. Democrats and Republicans alike warn of an impending war. Joseph Solis-Mullen, a libertarian who often writes for antiwar.com and knows a great deal about China (although he claims he is no Sinologist), dissents. In his view, China poses no threat to America. The difficulty in the relations between the two countries rather stems from the fact that China has built up sufficient military capacity to have a good chance of defeating an American assault aimed at defending Taiwan, which is hardly evidence of Chinese aggression. Solis-Mullen maintains that the United States ought to withdraw from Taiwan, which in his view is clearly an area properly under Chinese sovereignty. Doing so, he thinks, would greatly improve the chances of good relations between the two countries.
Solis-Mullen’s argument against an aggressive policy toward China does not depend on China’s intentions. No matter how hostile China may be, he thinks, it lacks the capacity to invade us.
Solis-Mullen adduces a host of difficulties that would make it difficult for China to invade, including America’s geography and China’s continuing demographic collapse, resource constraints, discontented minority groups and hostile neighbors. Why, then, does the U.S. government endeavor to convince people that the danger of invasion is substantial? Solis-Mullen’s answer is that it is in their interest to do so. It is a way for the state to convince us to surrender our
liberties and enhance its own power.
He calls attention to a remark by William F. Buckley Jr., a CIA operative who claimed to be a libertarian:
“Deeming Soviet Power to be a menace to American Freedom … ‘we shall have to rearrange, sensibly, our battle plans; and this means that we have got to accept Big Government for the duration [of the Cold War contest] … for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged … except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores.’
… “‘Ideally,’ Buckley wrote, … ‘the Republican Party Platform should acknowledge a domestic enemy, the state.’” But, in his words, such ‘idealism’ must be set aside in the name of national security.”
In brief, those in control of the state tell us that we must give up freedom in order to defend freedom. Citing Robert Higgs and Randolph Bourne, Solis-Mullen says:
“This relationship between war, the preparation for war, and the loss of individual freedom to government, is so obvious one can find any number of such quotations to this effect — even if this common sense wisdom, in the day-today bustle of life and the thousand decisions that entails, often gets lost, shuffled into the background, provisions violating our most fundamental rights stuffed into the footnotes of bills thousands of pages long and passed without ever having been read.”
In order to grasp Solis-Mullen’s argument, it is essential to understand a fundamental assumption of his that Rothbardians will find congenial. Americans have a vital defense interest only in protecting our own borders from invasion. We may deplore what happens elsewhere, but it is not our concern to try to remedy problems abroad. He says about the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur minority:
“Are Uyghurs being discriminated against? Maybe. Maybe even probably. But should that serve as the basis of policy toward Beijing? Assuredly not. Such discrimination is hardly unique, nor is having an abysmal human rights record. This does not prevent the likes of Egypt or a host of other authoritarian states from sitting comfortably on the U.S.’s payroll. It is obvious to everybody, allies, frenemies, and foes alike, why Washington has decided to make the Uyghurs an issue: it serves their interests.”
Solis-Mullen’s conclusion that the United States should not get involved in what does not directly threaten us is right, but there is a problem with the argument just presented. It rests on the premise that if one is concerned with human rights violations, one must either act against all such violations. Why can’t one be concerned with some violations and not others, depending on one’s interests? Being concerned with some violations does not logically require one to be concerned with others.
Solis-Mullen’s presentation of U.S.-China relations is informative. He stresses that the Chinese have often responded to American provocations, and readers will profit from his expert account. I disagree with him, though, in one area. He says:
“Content to let the warring Japanese and Chinese bleed one another throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, it wasn’t until near the conclusion of the U.S. Pacific theater campaign against the Japanese that real aid started to flow to the corrupt, ineffectual, nominally Republican forces. Though the aid would continue in the years following the Japanese surrender, it was clear, particularly to George Marshall, who visited China to encourage a reconciliation between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the CCP, that good money was being thrown after bad.”
To the contrary, Anthony Kubek’s 1963 “How the Far East Was Lost” makes a good case that much of the so-called aid to Chiang Kai-shek was designed to destroy his monetary system and that Marshall had the wool pulled over his eyes by advisers who were Communist sympathizers. Readers should bear in mind that the defects of the KMT shouldn’t lead us to forget the defects of the KMT.
Despite a few points of disagreement, I highly recommend “The Fake China Threat and Its Very Real Danger.” Like Murray Rothbard, Solis- Mullen is fully aware of the dangers posed by court intellectuals, who defend positions that will give them power and wealth. He says about them, “Regarding conflicts of interest, it is easy for anyone concerned to discover who pays the people writing these books [claiming that China threatens the United States]. Hardly the product of merely concerned citizens or honestly interested academics, almost invariably they are produced by people with a direct financial or career interest in great power conflict, specifically with China.”
Originally Posted at https://mises.org/
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Evil? Maybe. Crazy? Don’t Bet On It.
How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy
by John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato
Yale University Press, 2023; 304 pp.
In this very useful book, the political scientists John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato warn against a logic that leads to war: America is challenged by an evil dictator who will not respond rationally to incentives. Such a person can be dealt with only through overwhelming force and must be eliminated from the scene. Today Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un are the world’s irrational dictators, and in past years it was Saddam Hussein.
The fallacy in this way of thinking, Mearsheimer and Rosato aver, is that these dictators, however evil we may consider them, and the states they represent are in fact acting in a rational way. This at once raises the question of what counts as rational, and the authors answer that a policy is rational if it aims at the preservation of the state, is based on a credible theory, and is arrived at through a deliberative process that doesn’t exclude alternatives.
They say that Putin’s actions in Ukraine were rational judged by these criteria:
“Consider that Russian leaders relied on a credible theory. … The fact is that Putin and his advisers thought in terms of straightforward balance-of-power theory, viewing the West’s efforts to make Ukraine a bulwark on Russia’s border as an existential threat that could not be allowed to stand. … In short, this was a war of selfdefense aimed at preventing an adverse shift in the balance of power.
“It is worth noting that Moscow preferred to deal with the growing threat to its borders through aggressive diplomacy [proposals backed by the implicit threat of force], but the United States and its allies were unwilling to accommodate Russia’s security concerns. This being the case, Russia opted for war, which analysts expected to result in the Russian military’s overrunning Ukraine.
“The Russian decision to invade was also the product of a deliberative process. … Nor does Putin appear to have made the decision for war alone. When asked whether the Russian president consulted with his advisers, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov replied, ‘Every country has a decision-making mechanism. In that case the mechanism existing in the Russian Federation was fully employed.’”
By no means, though, do Mearsheimer and Rosato maintain that states always act rationally, and in fact the United States has sometimes operated based on theories that aren’t credible. George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was based on two such theories:
“But forcible democracy promotion theory and domino theory are both noncredible. It is clear from the historical record that attempts to force democracy on other states almost always fail. The United States’ own dismal track record made this clear. … The argument is that since publics around the world yearn for democracy and only tyrants stand in their way, a democracy can use its military to do large-scale social engineering in another country. But there is hardly any evidence that this strategy ever succeeds — although this is not to deny that states can promote democracy abroad in other ways. Several studies show that the United States, which has frequently tried to impose democracy abroad, routinely fails in these efforts.
“There is also hardly any evidence that the domino theory works as advertised. The theory was tested in a variety of circumstances following World War II and found wanting.
“… the policymaking process was also nondeliberative. Although he was determined to go to war to democratize the greater Middle East, Bush himself was not deeply involved in the relevant debates inside his administration.
“Proponents of the war used coercion to get their way. It is well-known, for example, that [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld would not tolerate disagreement with his views.”
The authors anticipate an objection that may occur to libertarian readers. Won’t those who control the state be concerned with their own survival rather than the survival of the society they rule over? They answer that in most cases, keeping their state in existence is the best means to ensure their own survival:
“Apart from public posturing, there is no evidence that leaders seeking nuclear weapons have not cared about the survival of their states. In fact, the pursuit of such weapons suggests the opposite. A nuclear weapons capability is the ultimate deterrent; it maximizes a country’s prospects of surviving. Consider that Beijing has had a nuclear arsenal for well over fifty years and has never threatened to use it — let alone actually used it — in ways that could risk China’s destruction …
“There is abundant evidence that states are goal rational, which is to say they have sought to survive and have placed survival above other goals. To be clear, this does not mean states always manage to survive. The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia died after the Cold War ended. But in each case, the leaders preferred to keep their countries intact; they were simply unable to do so.”
In speaking of credible theories, Mearsheimer and Rosato also raise a crucial methodological point that will be of interest to students of Austrian economics. Credible theories of political action, they argue, must be supported by empirical evidence. They cannot be purely a priori because, unlike Austrian economics, they are concerned with particular actions rather than action in general:
“After all, a theory that does not mesh with actual cases cannot explain events in the real world. Maurice Allais made the point well … : ‘Any theory whatever, if it is not verified by empirical evidence, has no scientific value and should be rejected.’” Further, they hold, these credible theories must be based on realistic assumptions. In this connection, they make some criticisms of Milton Friedman that will resonate with Austrians:
“Some scholars argue that assumptions need not reflect reality; what matters is whether a theory based on a particular set of assumptions makes claims that are supported by the empirical record. [Milton] Friedman went so far as to maintain that the best theories ‘will be found to have ‘assumptions’ that are wildly inaccurate descriptive representations of reality and, in general, the more significant the theory, the more unrealistic the ‘assumptions.’ As Ronald Coase wrote in response to Friedman’s claim, ‘Realism in our assumptions is needed if our theories are ever to help us to understand how the system works in the way it does. Realism in assumptions forces us to analyze the world that exists, not some imaginary world that does not.’”
It is ironic that the leaders of the American state are quick to condemn foreign dictators as irrational when their own policies are often irrational themselves.
Originally Posted at https://mises.org/
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NewsWare’s Trade Talk: Friday, August 30 | NewsWare‘s Trade Talk
S&P Futures are displaying positive action ahead of the opening bell. The focus this morning is on inflation with the PCE report due out before the opening bell. ADSK, DELL, LULU, MDB & MRVL are all higher this morning after releasing earnings results. Next week economic data will be focused on employment with the non-farms payrolls being the major market moving report. There is a big union meeting on Wednesday as dock workers at some of the nation’s busiest ports are looking for a new contract. In Europe, markets are higher and reacting to the latest economic data out of the EuroZone. Oil is steady to higher.
Home for this information is at NewsWare‘s Trade Talk homepage at this link
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Futures Rise Ahead Of Fed’s Favorite Inflation Print
US equity futures were set for a stronger open to close the week after two days of wobbles, with tech stocks outperforming, paring back some of the NVIDIA-induced losses as confidence mounted that the Fed and ECB will cut interest rates in the coming months, after inflation in Europe continued to sink and with today’s core PCE expect to confirm a taming of US inflation. As of 730am, S&P futures rose 0.5% while Nasdaq 100 Index added 0.7% as traders waited to see if the Fed’s favorite inflation indicator, core PCE, confirms the picture of moderating prices. Europe’s main stock index rallied to a record high as euro-area inflation eased to a three-year low, cementing the case for the ECB to cut rates in September. The dollar was flat and 10Y yields were unchanged around 3.86% as treasuries were poised for their longest monthly winning streak in three years. Gold traded near record highs, oil was flat and bitcoin was also unchanged. Today’s macro calendar has Personal Income, Spending and core PCE as well as the UMich consumer sentiment on deck.
In premarket trading, Nvidia edged higher after tumbling 6% the previous day, while other tech names, including Marvell Technology and Dell were boosted by forecast-beating results. Here are some of the other notable premarket movers:
- Abercrombie & Fitch shares rise 2.3% after the apparel retailer was upgraded to buy from neutral at Citi, which sees several reasons as to why the investment story for the stock remains attractive.
- Autodesk shares are up 3.7% after the maker of engineering software reported second-quarter results that beat expectations. The firm raised its full-year forecast for both revenue and adjusted EPS, impressing analysts after coming under pressure from an activist investor.
- Dell Technologies shares rose 5.9% after the computer hardware company reported second-quarter results that beat expectations, with particular strength in orders for AI servers.
- Elastic shares are down 27% after the application-software company cut its full-year revenue forecast. Analysts say execution problems around sales changes made at the start of the quarter had a negative impact on the software company’s results.
- Intel shares rise 2.6% after Bloomberg News reported that the company is discussing various scenarios, including a split of its product-design and manufacturing businesses, as well as which factory projects might potentially be scrapped.
- Intuitive Machines shares soar 19% after the company said it received a $116.9 million contract from NASA to deliver six science and technology payloads, including one European Space Agency-led drill suite to the Moon’s South Pole.
- Lululemon shares rise 4.2% after the the activewear company reported second-quarter earnings. While the firm reported a top-line miss in the second quarter and reduced its full-year guidance, Morgan Stanley sees the revised guidance as achievable, noting that investors might have assigned a floor to its valuation.
- MongoDB shares rise 15.14% after the database software company reported second-quarter results that beat expectations and raised its full-year forecast. Analysts say the results suggest that growth could accelerate with an improving underlying picture.
- Ulta Beauty shares drop 8.5% after the cosmetics retailer trimmed its sales forecast following weaker-than-expected second-quarter results. Analysts flagged the impact of competition as well as the softer macroeconomic environment.
Global stocks are on track for a fourth month of gains, with most data indicating the Fed has achieved a soft-landing, by taming inflation without tipping the economy into recession. While economists expect a slight pick-up in the year-on-year PCE reading later on Friday, that’s not expected to derail prospects for a September rate cut. Bloomberg Economics sees the inflation report reviving talk of a “Goldilocks” economy that allows the Federal Reserve to start cutting rates next month.
“When rates ease, it lifts all boats,” said Florian Ielpo, head of macro research at Lombard Odier Asset Management in Geneva. “Inflation is looking better and economic growth remains decent and that’s the environment we are in.”
No matter today’s PCE print, markets expect the Fed to cut rates next month by as much as 50 basis points (but more likely 25bps after yesterday’s hot GDP and initial claims reports), and by another half-point by year-end. Ielpo said that for traders watching for monetary-policy clues, the US monthly payrolls report due next week would be even more significant than today’s PCE reading. “Inflation is a done deal so markets are more likely to pay attention to what’s happening to employment and growth,” he added, just don’t forget to keep an eye on geopolitics and the price of oil which has resumed its latest ascent and may yet throw a wrench in the Fed’s easing plans.
Expectations for central bank easing saw investors pump $20.7 billion into global bond funds this past week, with Treasuries recording the largest inflow since last October, Bank of America said, citing EPFR Global data. Treasuries were on course for their longest monthly winning streak in three years. But the wagers have weighed on the dollar, which edged lower against a basket of currencies and was set for its worst monthly performance this year.
European stocks rise for a fourth session, taking the Stoxx 600 to another record intraday high as euro-area headline and core inflation slowed as expected in August. Real estate and consumer product shares are leading gains while technology is a drag. Here are some of the biggest movers on Friday:
- Chipmaker-machinery stocks decline in Europe after a Bloomberg report saying Intel is considering splitting the design and manufacturing businesses. BE Semi falls 2.5%, ASML -2.1%, ASMI -1.3%
- Ambu shares fall as much as 14%, the most since November 2022, after the Danish health-care equipment maker reported 3Q numbers that disappointed in its key endoscopy division. Analysts also said a correction was due after the shares gained 14% in July and August.
- BlueNord falls as much 6.1%, the most since July 8, after the Norwegian fossil-fuel exploration firm said operator TotalEnergies intends to implement measures that are expected to not allow maximum technical capacity at the Tyra II field to be reached until 4Q.
Earlier in the session, Asian equities cruised to a six-week high. Hang Seng Tech Index jumps more than 3% and CSI 300 climbs almost 2%. Japanese, South Korean and Australian indexes all firmly in the green.
In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index falls 0.1% but is poised to snap its four-week declining streak ahead of US core PCE data, with it up 0.7% on week. Tthe euro is little changed around $1.1080. USD/JPY rose above 145 after dipping back under following a post-GDP spike on Thursday. GBP/USD hovers above mid 1.31-1.32. AUD/USD consolidates around 0.68. NZD/USD grinds higher but remains below Thursday’s peak of 0.6299.
In rates, treasuries are mixed with the yield curve flatter as US trading gets under way, led by similar price action in UK and German bonds after August euro-area headline and core inflation slowed as expected. Long-end Treasury yields are richer by ~1bp curve with front-end and belly little changed, flattening 5s30s spread; the 10Y TSY yield traded 1bp lower to 3.85%. Long-end German yields richer by more than 2bps on the CPI data and held higher on the day with German 10-year yields down 2bps at 2.26%. UK’s by nearly 5bp, narrowing their curve spreads. Curve-flattening has support from anticipation of buying tied to month-end index rebalancing, which will extend the duration of the Bloomberg Treasury Index by an estimated 0.10 year as securities auctioned during the month are added to it. Also, traders anticipate flows tied to corporate bond offerings next week, a historically heavy issuance period
As noted earlier, treasuries are poised for their longest monthly winning streak in three years as traders look past US data on personal income and expenditure due Friday and prepare for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates. US government bonds returned 1.5% in August through Thursday, set for a fourth month of gains that would be the longest run since July 2021, according to the Bloomberg US Treasury Total Return Index. The gauge has been rallying since the end of April, extending this year’s gain to almost 3%, as investors have grown more confident in the case for lower US borrowing costs.
In commodity markets, oil was steady with WTI trading near $76 a barrel, though the main crude benchmark is set for its first back-to-back monthly loss this year on fears that slowing economic growth, especially in China, will impact demand. Iron ore futures pulled back slightly after jumping by about 10% in 10 days to breach $100 a ton. Spot gold climbs $4 to around $2,525/oz.
Bitcoin is holding steady just above USD 59.5k, whilst Ethereum slips slightly. Elon Musk and Tesla win dismissal of lawsuit claiming they rigged Dogecoin.
The US economic data calendar includes July personal income and spending with PCE price indexes (8:30am), August MNI Chicago PMI (9:45am, several minutes earlier to subscribers) and August final University of Michigan sentiment (10am). Fed speaker slate empty for the session. Meanwhile in the Euro Area, there’s the flash CPI release for August and the unemployment rate from July. We’ll also get German unemployment for August, UK mortgage approvals for July, and Canada’s GDP for Q2. From central banks, we’ll hear from the ECB’s Schnabel, Rehn, Kazaks, Simkus and Muller.
Market Snapshot
- S&P 500 futures up 0.4% to 5,633.25
- STOXX Europe 600 up 0.3% to 526.32
- MXAP up 0.8% to 186.82
- MXAPJ up 0.6% to 577.85
- Nikkei up 0.7% to 38,647.75
- Topix up 0.7% to 2,712.63
- Hang Seng Index up 1.1% to 17,989.07
- Shanghai Composite up 0.7% to 2,842.21
- Sensex up 0.4% to 82,426.55
- Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.6% to 8,091.85
- Kospi up 0.5% to 2,674.31
- German 10Y yield down 1.6 bps at 2.26%
- Euro up 0.2% to $1.1094
- Brent Futures up 0.6% to $80.42/bbl
- Gold spot up 0.2% to $2,526.17
- US Dollar Index little changed at 101.26
Top Overnight News
- China could allow homeowners to refinance as much as $5.4T worth of mortgages months before the process typically occurs in January, and potentially with different banks. BBG
- Offices in China’s biggest cities are emptier than they were during stringent Covid-19 lockdowns in what analysts say is a sign of how the country’s economic slowdown has hurt business confidence. FT
- Russian companies are having an increasingly difficult time transacting w/partners in China as Chinese banks become worried about running afoul of int’l restrictions and being subject to sanctions. RTRS
- Eurozone CPI is inline w/the Street for Aug, including +2.2% for headline (down from +2.6% in Jul) and +2.8% core (down from +2.9% in Aug). BBG
- Israel’s defense minister said the country should expand its war goals to ensure that the ~60K people displaced from the north by Hezbollah rocket attacks can return home. FT
- Harris is up 1 point in a head-to-head contest vs. Trump and up 2 points if all candidates are included. WSJ
- Intel is working with advisors to explore options, including potentially splitting off its manufacturing operations. BBG
- Apple and Nvidia are in talks to invest in OpenAI, a move that would strengthen their ties to a partner integral to their efforts in the artificial-intelligence race. WSJ
- Recent US inflation readings are “still far” from the Fed’s 2% goal, Raphael Bostic said. He may take some confidence from July’s core PCE deflator, due later. Bloomberg Economics said it probably increased at an annualized pace consistent with target, while the savings rate may have slid further. BBG
A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk
APAC stocks traded higher across the board despite a lack of fresh catalysts following a mixed lead from Wall Street, and ahead of US PCE and the US long weekend. ASX 200 remained in a narrow range (8,045.10-8,085.00) but was propped up by its Industrials, Energy, and Gold names. Nikkei 225 traded firmer following a choppy start after August Tokyo core CPI surprisingly ticked higher, whilst the Japanese unemployment rate surprisingly rose. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp opened with modest gains and eventually soared despite a lack of newsflow, whilst Bloomberg suggested the CSI 300 rallied amid heavy volume. Sentiment in China could’ve also seen tailwinds from the PBoC yesterday suggesting it will step up counter-cyclical adjustments and will strengthen financial support to the real economy, whilst the mood was further lifted amid Bloomberg reports China reportedly mulls allowing refinancing on USD 5.4tln in mortgages.
Top Asian News
- China reportedly mulls allowing refinancing on USD 5.4tln in mortgages, according to Bloomberg.
- Japanese government official on industrial output, said if output falls short of plans, August production could fall M/M. September is expected to fall M/M on lower production of semiconductor production equipment and electronic component devices, although the assessment is revised upward, need to be vigilant about the outlook. The official added that the impact of Typhoon Shanshan was not taken into account in August data.
- PBoC injected CNY 30.1bln via 7-day Reverse Repo at a maintained rate of 1.70%.
- China’s major state-owned banks seen buying USD in onshore foreign exchange market to prevent CNH from appreciating too fast, via Reuters citing sources.
- China’s FX Regulator to launch foreign currency non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) on 2nd September within the interbank market.
- PBoC purchased net CNY 100bln of gov’t bonds from dealers during August, via Bloomberg.
European bourses, Stoxx 600 (+0.3%) began the session with a mixed picture, and traded tentatively on either side of the unchanged mark. As the morning progressed, indices gradually picked up and edged towards session highs. European sectors hold a strong positive bias; Real Estate is found at the top of the pile, alongside Basic Resources. Tech is found at the foot of the pile, paring back the prior day’s advances and accounting for the post-earning losses in NVIDIA. US Equity Futures (ES +0.4%, NQ +0.6%, RTY +0.5%) are entirely in the green, with the NQ outperforming, paring back some of the NVIDIA-induced losses. The docket ahead includes the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, PCE (July).
Top European News
- ECB’s Schnabel: “while risks to growth have increased, a soft landing still looks more likely than a recession”; “Incoming data broadly confirm the baseline scenario”. “In particular, the closer policy rates get to the upper band of estimates of the neutral rate of interest – that is, the less certain we are how restrictive our policy is –, the more cautious we should be to avoid that policy itself becomes a factor slowing down disinflation.”; “In other words, the pace of policy easing cannot be mechanical. It needs to rest on data and analysis.”; “Wage pass-through may be stronger.”. In short, remarks from Schnabel are in-fitting with the data-dependent approach the ECB has been taking but with a slight hawkish skew from the ECB official, in-fitting with her general bias.
- ECB’s Kazaks says services inflation remains sticky. Open to a September discussion on policy easing.
FX
- The Dollar is broadly softer vs. peers in the run-up to US PCE metrics. DXY is currently contained within yesterday’s 100.88-101.57 range.
- EUR is steady post-EZ inflation data which was broadly in-line. However, greater concern could come via the services metric which rose to 4.2% from 4.0%. EUR/USD is contained just below the 1.11 mark and within yesterday’s 1.1055-1.1139 range.
- GBP is firmer vs. the USD but Cable is unable to reclaim the 1.32 handle with the current session high at 1.3198 and south of yesteday’s 1.3227 peak.
- JPY was a touch firmer vs. the USD following firm Tokyo inflation data overnight. In terms of price action for USD/JPY, the pair is back on a 144 handle but still some way north of yesterday’s 144.22 trough.
- AUD/USD is mildly extending on its recent uptrend which has seen the pair breach 0.68 to the upside with newsflow out of China providing support.
- USD/CNH has continued its recent move to the downside with the latest leg lower prompted by reporting from Bloomberg that China is mulling allowing refinancing on USD 5.4tln in mortgages.
- PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1124 vs exp. 7.1116 (prev. 7.1299)
Fixed Income
- USTs are flat ahead of monthly US PCE, afterwhich conditions will likely become thinner than normal on account of Monday’s US market holiday. A few fleeting ticks higher on EGB-drivers, but not sufficient to merit a range of more than a couple of ticks; additionally, yields are pivoting the unchanged mark but with an incremental flattening bias.
- Bunds were slightly firmer after French inflation metrics and climbed above 134.00 into the EZ-wide figures. Headline cooled to 2.2% Y/Y as expected, whilst Services rose to 4.2% (prev. 4%); no real reaction was seen in Bunds.
- Gilts are firmer and specifics quite light, though the UK Nationwide House Price index saw an unexpected drop for the month. Gilts at the top-end of the session’s range but shy of the 99.00 handle.
- China’s major state-owned banks seen buying USD in onshore foreign exchange market to prevent CNH from appreciating too fast, via Reuters citing sources.
Commodities
- Crude benchmarks began with a modest upward bias and have continued to inch higher throughout the European morning despite a lack of fresh drivers.
- Thus far, WTI & Brent have been as high as USD 76.53/bbl and USD 80.60/bbl respectively, just shy of Thursday’s USD 76.87bbl and USD 80.78/bbl best.
- Spot gold is essentially unchanged, in-fitting with the tentative performance of FX into monthly US PCE; in a relatively thin USD 2512-2523/oz band, which is towards the upper-end of yesterday’s parameters.
- LME Copper is firmer but around familar levels after a choppy and shortened week; upside being driven by the modestly constructive risk tone and USD pressure.
- Liberian Environmental Protection Agency said China Union’s iron ore Bong Mines is shut down for several environmental violations, according to Reuters.
Geopolitics
- “Lebanese sources: Israeli raids on different areas in southern Lebanon”, according to Sky News Arabiya.
- Missile attack launched on US military base in eastern Syria, according to IRNA.
- There is now a planned call at the theatre commander level between the US and China, according to Fox’s Heinrich. “It comes after China bristled at US Indo-Pacific Command’s Adm. Paparo suggesting this week US forces could escort Philippine ships through the South China Sea, following a months-long series of violent confrontations between Chinese and Philippine ships”.
- Israeli military says local Hamas commander in West Bank City of Jenin killed by Israeli police.
US Event Calendar
- 08:30: July Personal Income, est. 0.2%, prior 0.2%
- July Personal Spending, est. 0.5%, prior 0.3%
- July Real Personal Spending, est. 0.3%, prior 0.2%
- 08:30: July Core PCE Price Index MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.2%
- July PCE Price Index YoY, est. 2.5%, prior 2.5%
- July PCE Price Index MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.1%
- July Core PCE Price Index YoY, est. 2.7%, prior 2.6%
- 09:45: Aug. MNI Chicago PMI, est. 44.8, prior 45.3
- 10:00: Aug. U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 68.1, prior 67.8
- U. of Mich. Current Conditions, est. 61.2, prior 60.9
- U. of Mich. Expectations, est. 72.4, prior 72.1
- U. of Mich. 1 Yr Inflation, est. 2.9%, prior 2.9%
- U. of Mich. 5-10 Yr Inflation, est. 3.0%, prior 3.0%
DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap
Risk assets put in a decent performance over the last 24 hours, as solid US data outweighed investors’ disappointment about Nvidia’s latest results. It’s true that the S&P 500 was unchanged on the day, but the index was weighed down by the Magnificent 7 (-0.72%) and the equal-weighted S&P 500 (+0.37%) moved up to a new record, as did the Dow Jones (+0.59%) and Germany’s DAX (+0.69%). So in most places it was a pretty decent performance, and overnight the Hang Seng (+1.76%) is also on track to close at a 7-week high. Other risk assets were on the stronger side, with EUR HY spreads at their tightest level in over a month, whilst oil prices moved higher as well. The main exception were sovereign bonds however, which mostly lost ground as investors dialled back the chance of a 50bp rate cut from the Fed next month.
This positivity was driven by several US data releases that collectively pointed away from a recession, leading to a fresh bout of optimism about the outlook. The key headline came from the Q2 GDP numbers. They were actually the second estimates rather than the original release, but they painted an even more positive story than the first estimate released in late July. For instance, headline GDP was revised up to show an annualised growth rate of +3.0% (vs. +2.8% previous estimate). On a year-on-year basis, that leaves real GDP up +3.1%, so these are very good numbers that really don’t look like a recession. On top of that, the GDP release included downward revisions to PCE inflation in Q2, which is the measure the Fed officially targets. Headline PCE was revised down a tenth to an annualised +2.5% rate, whilst core PCE was also revised down a tenth to +2.8%. So a bit closer to the Fed’s 2% target than we previously thought. Today we’ll get the first look at PCE inflation for the month of July, so one to keep an eye on.
On top of the GDP release, yesterday also brought the weekly initial jobless claims, which were basically in line with expectations at 231k over the week ending August 24 (vs. 232k expected). That wasn’t a shock, but it helped to bring down the 4-week moving average as well, which now stands at a two-month low of 231.5k. So again, that’s another release pointing away from a recession, with the weekly claims looking in better shape than they did at the end of July.
With all that data in hand, the general perception was that the economy was doing better than thought, and that a larger 50bp cut from the Fed was now less likely. Indeed, futures lowered the chance of a 50bp move in September from 36% to 32%. And the number of cuts priced in by December also came down from 103bps to 100bps. In turn, that led to a selloff across US Treasuries, with the 2yr yield up +2.9bps to 3.90%, whilst the 10yr yield was up +2.6bps to 3.86%.
For equities, the stronger data initially pushed the S&P 500 nearly 1% higher intra-day, but those gains were pared back and the index ended the day unchanged. Even so, the overall performance still leaned on the positive side, with more than two thirds of the S&P 500 higher on the day, and the equal-weighted version of the index (+0.37%) actually hitting a new record. That came amid gains for more cyclical sectors including financials (+0.85%) and industrials (+0.70%), while energy stocks (+1.26%) led the way as oil prices rallied, with Brent crude up +1.64% to $79.94/bbl. The small cap Russell 2000 (+0.66%) also posted a solid gain. On the downside, the NASDAQ (-0.23%) and the Magnificent 7 (-0.72%) retreated, mostly due to a -6.38% loss for Nvidia after its results the previous evening. To be fair, 5 of the Magnificent 7 were higher on the day, but it is notable how the weakness among the Mag-7 group (which is now -11.7% beneath its peak) has been holding back the overall S&P 500 (-1.3% beneath its peak) from new all-time highs.
In Europe, the main story came on the inflation side, as the initial flash CPI releases came in softer than expected. In particular, Germany’s CPI fell to +2.0% on the EU-harmonised measure, which was the lowest since March 2021, and also beneath the +2.2% reading expected. Similarly in Spain, harmonised CPI was down to a one-year low of +2.4% (vs. +2.5% expected). So that added to investors’ confidence that the ECB were set to keep cutting rates over the coming months, with rising expectations that they might move to a more regular pace of cuts where they happen at every meeting, rather than every other meeting. In light of those releases, European sovereign bonds outperformed US Treasuries. Front-end yields declined, with those on 2yr German yields down -2.9bps, while 10yr yields saw only modest increases for bunds (+1.3bps), OATs (+0.5bps) and BTPs (+0.8bps).
It was a very strong day for European equities as well, with the STOXX 600 (+0.76%) closing just -0.03% beneath its all-time high from May. Tech stocks led the gains, and the advance was seen across the continent, with the DAX (+0.69%) closing at an all-time high, and other indices including the FTSE 100 (+0.43%) and the CAC 40 (+0.84%) posting gains.
Overnight in Asia, the positive sentiment among investors has continued, with gains across all the major indices. In Japan, both the Nikkei (+0.48%) and the TOPIX (+0.45%) are on track for their highest closing levels so far in August, moving past the turmoil from earlier in the month. Elsewhere, the Hang Seng (+1.76%), the CSI 300 (+1.72%) and the Shanghai Comp (+1.34%) have posted very strong gains, and the KOSPI is also up +0.59%. In the meantime, US equity futures are also pointing higher, with those on the S&P 500 up +0.16% this morning.
On the data side, we’ve had several releases from Japan overnight, including the Tokyo CPI reading for August. That showed CPI was stronger than expected at +2.6% year-on-year (vs. +2.3% expected), whilst the core measures were also above consensus. That said, the activity data in Japan was a bit weaker than expected, with retail sales only up +0.2% on the month in July (vs. +0.4% expected), whilst industrial production was only up +2.8% (vs. +3.5% expected). Moreover, the jobless rate ticked up to 2.7% in July (vs. 2.5% expected), which is the highest since March 2023.
To the day ahead now, and data releases from the US include the PCE inflation data for July, along with the University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment index for August. Meanwhile in the Euro Area, there’s the flash CPI release for August and the unemployment rate from July. We’ll also get German unemployment for August, UK mortgage approvals for July, and Canada’s GDP for Q2. From central banks, we’ll hear from the ECB’s Schnabel, Rehn, Kazaks, Simkus and Muller.
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Originally Posted at; https://www.zerohedge.com//
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Nearly 6,200 murders in South Africa over three months
Nearly 6,200 people were murdered in South Africa between April and June, police figures showed Friday, as tackling crime poses a key issue for the new coalition government.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu said that 6,198 people were murdered during the three months, a 0.5-percent decrease over the same period a year earlier.
“These numbers tell a sobering story, reflecting the severity of the challenges we face,” he told a Cape Town press conference.
South Africa has one of the highest peacetime per capita homicide rates in the world.
Rapes, in a country notorious for sex attacks against women and children, increased by 0.6 percent, compared to the same three-month period last year.
The country recorded a total of 9,309 rapes between April and June.
Police also said there were 44,735 drug-related crimes detected as a result of police action during the period.
“We have carried out significant operations targeting drug syndicates, leading to the seizure of substantial quantities of illegal narcotics,” the minister said.
Last month, three Mexicans and two South Africans were arrested when elite police units raided a multi-million-dollar crystal meth lab hidden in a remote farm north of Johannesburg.
In a separate incident, a Russian man was arrested along with a South African after police seized 14 bags filled with bricks of cocaine worth 252 million rand (almost $14 million).
Crime is a key issue facing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s new coalition government after his African National Congress was forced into an uneasy coalition with the centrist Democratic Alliance and other smaller parties following May elections.
“These numbers represent more than just figures on a page; they reflect the lived realities of our citizens — their fears, their losses and their hopes for a safer tomorrow,” Mchunu said.
“We will confront these challenges head-on and work tirelessly to ensure that South Africa is a place where all can feel safe and secure once again,” he vowed.
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Why did Zuckerberg come clean on his collusion with feds to silence the voices of conservative Americans?
by Leo Hohmann, Leo Hohmann:
Mark Zuckerberg says he suddenly “regrets” that his company, Meta, bowed to the Biden regime’s pressure to censor content on Facebook, saying in a letter that the interference was “wrong” and he plans to push back if it happens again.
Should we take him seriously? Is this a genuine mia culpa?
According to an article in Politico, Zuckerberg aired his grievances in a letter Monday to the House Judiciary Committee in response to its investigation into content moderation on online platforms. Zuckerberg detailed how senior administration officials leaned on the company to censor certain posts about Covid-19, including humor and satire, and “expressed a lot of frustration” when the social media platform resisted.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Zuckerberg wrote:
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”
Zuckerberg also expressed regret in the letter for his company’s disgusting effort to memory-hole content related to coverage by the New York Post about Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 election. This is the story, you will remember, that the FBI falsely warned may have been planted as “Russian disinformation.”
“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” he wrote.
Republicans on the committee, led by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, celebrated the letter in a long series of posts on X, calling it a “big win for free speech.”
But is it? What, if anything, is Congress going to do about this revelation of guilt, which proves what we already knew about how the government outsources its violations of the First Amendment to its partners in the private sector known as Big Tech.
Robert F. Kennedy has an active lawsuit against the federal government and has explained to Tucker Carlson in a recent interview just how involved the feds were in monitoring the social media platforms and then pressuring them to delete or downplay information that the government didn’t want American citizens to know. It didn’t even matter if the information was true. In fact, it was the truth about Covd and the 2020 election that the government feared the most.
In the video below, fast-forward to the 15:47 mark and listen for the next five minutes or so.
If you look at Zuckerberg’s history, he tends to play ball with whatever government holds the reins of power. He cooperates with Chinese communists as easily as he does American globalists. Whatever he needs to do to keep raking in the billions.
Originally Posted at https://www.sgtreport.com
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