After two months of ugly declines, US pending home sales bounced in June (up 4.8% MoM). However, that jump was not enough to juice YoY changes which saw sales decline 7.8% YoY…

Source: Bloomberg

June’s rebound pulls sales off record low levels going back to 2001…

Source: Bloomberg

“The rise in housing inventory is beginning to lead to more contract signings,” and more supply should hit the market in the coming months, NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.

“Multiple offers are less intense, and buyers are in a more favorable position.”

The pending-sales figures tend to be a leading indicator of sales of previously owned homes, because houses typically go under contract a month or two before they’re sold.

Authored by Caden Pearsen via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday overturned a lower court’s decision requiring Texas to relocate a 1,000-foot floating barrier in the Rio Grande, installed to prevent illegal border crossings.

The Fifth Circuit found that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas had abused its discretion when it ordered Texas to relocate the buoys from the river last summer.

Tuesday’s ruling permits the barrier system to temporarily remain in the river until a trial is held.

The Justice Department sued Texas after the buoys were placed in the river in July 2023, alleging that the barrier was unlawful. The district court had previously granted a preliminary injunction directing Texas to move the barrier to the riverbank.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) appealed the ruling unsuccessfully, with a three-judge panel upholding the district court’s decision in a 2-1 opinion. But the full court later heard the case en banc, vacating the panel’s opinion and blocking the injunction pending appeal.

On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Don R. Willett, joined by eight other judges, found that the district court had abused its discretion in issuing the preliminary injunction.

“We hold that the district court clearly erred in finding that the United States will likely prove that the barrier is in a navigable stretch of the Rio Grande,” Willett wrote.

“We cannot square the district court’s findings and conclusions with over a century’s worth of precedent, which on a fair and faithful reading renders inapplicable or unpersuasive the evidence on which the district court relies.”

The appeals court said that a preliminary injunction should not be granted unless the requesting party meets all four necessary criteria: the likelihood of success on the merits, the likelihood of irreparable harm, the balance of equities in its favor, and alignment with the public interest.

The appeals court said the federal  bears the “heavy burden” of proving a likelihood of success, and the district court “cannot cure the United States’ evidentiary deficiencies by creatively reinterpreting binding caselaw.”

“Because we conclude that the United States fares no better on the three other preliminary-injunction factors, we hold that the district court abused its discretion by granting the United States a preliminary injunction,” the opinion stated.

Abbott, who has said the buoys are a measure to secure the U.S. southern border and prevent illegal immigrants from reaching it, hailed the ruling in a post on X.

“Biden tried to remove them. I fought to keep them in the water,” he wrote.

“That is exactly where they will stay. JUSTICE!!!!”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also welcomed the ruling and pledged to “continue to defend Texas’s right to protect its border from illegal immigration!”

People walk between razor wire and a string of buoys placed on the water along the Rio Grande border with Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on July 16, 2023. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images)

In July 2023, Texas installed a 1,000-foot floating barrier made of interconnected rotating buoys, ranging from 4 to 6 feet in height, at a crossing hotspot near Eagle Pass, approximately 145 miles southwest of San Antonio.

Both the Mexican government and the Biden administration criticized the installation. The Biden administration sued Texas, claiming the barrier illegally disrupts navigation and was placed without authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The DOJ’s lawsuit accuses Abbott of installing the barrier without the necessary federal authorization, as required by the Rivers and Harbors Act.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta has previously said that the barrier poses threats to navigation and public safety and has implications for U.S. foreign policy due to diplomatic protests from Mexico.

The Epoch Times has contacted the DOJ for comment.

The world just woke up to a new Middle East on Wednesday which stands on the precipice of major war between Iran and its proxies and Israel, following the overnight Israeli assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the top political leader of Hamas, during an inauguration event for Iran’s new president. Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar, and an Iranian security guard were killed reportedly while in the Iranian capital. Hamas has since condemned the “treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran.”

Iran is vowing “severe” punishment, with the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, announcing in English and Farsi on X, “The criminal, terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our territory and has caused our grief, but it has also prepared the ground for a severe punishment.”

And Iran’s newly sworn-in president Masoud Pezeshkian in a statement cited in state media said the country will “defend its territorial integrity, dignity, honor, and pride, and will make the terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly act.”

Taking out Haniyeh was the second high-profile assassination attributed by Israel in a matter of hours, following the Tuesday airstrike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah’s top military leader and right-hand man to Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Fuad Shukr. 

That attack was massive and on a neighborhood and buildings in the south of the capital, with Lebanon’s Health Ministry saying three people, including two children, have been killed, with at least 74 wounded. Emergency workers are still searching under the rubble, and thus the civilian death toll is likely to rise further.

And now there are emerging reports of another Israeli air raid – this time on Syria’s capital of Damascus (unconfirmed) – with likely casualties. A large cloud of smoke was seen rising over the Damascus suburb of Sayyidah Zaynab at around 3pm local time. It is an area which sees a constant influx of Iranian religious pilgrims, and Israel has bombed it frequently, saying each time it is targeting Iranian military assets and proxies.

Adding to this volatile mix, the US military also overnight launched its first military action in Iraq in months, reportedly striking militia combatants who attempted to launch a drone attack. The Pentagon is calling the new military action a defensive airstrike.

The US State Department and US administration have reportedly expressed confusion at the rapid series of Israeli actions in the last hours…

“How can Israeli-Palestinian mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on other side?” Stated Qatar’s Prime Minister

Bill Burns is in midst of negotiations

Blinken said he didn’t know what was going on. Israel doesn’t tell him. https://t.co/6FaTLUEcOP

— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) July 31, 2024

Iraq’s pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Authority confirmed casualties, saying, “Forces affiliated with the 47th Brigade… were exposed to an explosion of unknown nature, which resulted in the martyrdom of a number of people and the injury of others.”

So in the last 24 hours there has been military action by Israel or the US in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant regarding “the threats to Israel posed by a range of Iranian-backed terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hezbollah,” according to a readout.

View from the destruction in the aftermath of the Israeli attack on the Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik:

⚡️View from the destruction in Haret Hreik, Lebanon

Zionist terrorists bombed this civilian building which led to the martyrdom of 2 children and one woman. pic.twitter.com/QT29bGH6ws

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) July 31, 2024

Still there is no official comment from Israel over the Haniyeh killing, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has convene his security cabinet as regional threats of revenge mount over the high profile assassinations. An Israeli government spokesman has said, “We are on extremely high alert for Iranian retaliation.”

Without doubt, this throws the prospect of any hostage negotiations in total disarray and the temperature of conversations within the White House and State Department are likely high. Secretary Blinken has said “We were not aware of or involved in the attack on Haniyeh.” Times of Israel correspondents have said ordinary Palestinians are exhausted from war and exasperated: 

War-weary Palestinians in Gaza mourn the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Some say it will complicate efforts to reach a ceasefire deal with Israel.

“This man could have signed the prisoner exchange deal with the Israelis,” says Saleh al-Shannar, who was displaced from his home in northern Gaza. “Why did they kill him? They killed peace, not Ismail Haniyeh.”

Meanwhile, Russia has condemned the Israeli killing of the Hamas leader, saying “dangerous” consequences are likely:

⚡Russian Foreign Ministry: Those behind the assassination of Hamas leader were aware of the dangerous consequences this would have for the region — Reuters

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) July 31, 2024

Many observers already concluded long ago that Netanyahu doesn’t actually want a quick resolution to the Gaza war, but is indeed intent on fighting until Hamas is eradicated, even if that puts the remaining hostages in jeopardy. This has been the constant criticism of his domestic political rivals and the hostage victims’ families. All that Washington officials have said so far is statements saying they are ‘very concerned’ at these developments. Middle East analyst Rami Khouri has expressed the feeling of many Arab leaders in the region, saying that the latest assassination shows that Israel is “a runaway killing machine.”

Earlier this week, in our Quarterly Refunding preview we said that “the August refunding package will be identical to the one in May, with $125bn in gross issuance across 3y, 10y and 30y auctions. In addition, expect unchanged 5y TIPS new issue and 30y TIPS reopening (at $23bn and $8bn, respectively), and a $1bn increase to the 10y TIPS reopening (to $17bn) to commensurate with the increase in the 10y TIPS new issue auctioned this month.”

Well, that’s precisely what the Treasury revealed at 8:30am this morning, when it published its latest Quarterly Refunding Announcement (the funding needs were already reported on Monday when the Treasury revealed a debt issuance schedule in line with expectations) in which  it reported that, as expected, the quarterly refunding would be $125 billion, with issuance raising $14 billion in new cash from private investors, as follows:

• $58 billion in 3-year notes
• $42 billion in 10-year notes
• $25 billion in 30-year bonds

Some rates strategist had cautioned of risk that the Treasury would revise its guidance to incorporate the potential for increasing issuance of longer-dated securities, given the outsize federal budget deficit. But the department reiterated its May language, preventing another bond market rout similar to the one seen exactly one year ago when Janet Yellen shocked the market with a big surge in bond issuance.

The refunding total is just shy of the record $126BN first reached in Feb. 2021; auction sizes across the curve began rising in 2018 to finance tax cuts and surged in 2020 to finance federal pandemic response

The Treasury confirmed expectations that the balance of Treasury financing requirements over the quarter will be met with regular weekly bill auctions, cash management bills (CMBs), and monthly note, bond, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), and 2-year Floating Rate Note (FRN) auctions.

It also said that “its current auction sizes leave it well positioned to address potential changes to the fiscal outlook and to the pace and duration of future SOMA redemptions.” More improtantly, the Treasury forecast that “based on current projected borrowing needs, Treasury does not anticipate needing to increase nominal coupon or FRN auction sizes for at least the next several quarters.“

The table below presents, in billions of dollars, the actual auction sizes for the May to July 2024 quarter and the anticipated auction sizes for the August to October 2024 quarter:

Many dealers have said in recent weeks that the Treasury will have to bump note and bond sales higher again given the fiscal outlook as the US continues to run its largest federal deficit outside of crisis times, a deficit which will only get much larger regardless of who the next US president is. Marketable Treasury debt outstanding has already grown to $27 trillion from about $12 trillion a decade ago; and total US debt just hit $35 trillion on Monday.

Aside from Notes and Bonds, the treasury said it plans to address “any seasonal or unexpected variations in borrowing needs over the next quarter through changes in regular bill auction sizes and/or CMBs.”

The Treasury said that “given current fiscal forecasts” it plans to “modestly increase the offering size of short-dated bills being sold next week,” maintaining those sizes through August. It then expects to reduce offering sizes in early to mid-September in anticipation of the Sept. 15 non-withheld corporate tax date, and to subsequently increase all auction sizes over the course of October, based on expected fiscal outflows

The department will also continue with weekly issuance of the six-week CMB while it makes “necessary operational and systems changes in order to smoothly transition” issue to benchmark status. Timing of first benchmark auction will be provided at an upcoming refunding.

Sales of floating-rate debt were also kept unchanged for the coming three months, the Treasury said. With regard to Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS, the department lifted the size of the October 5-year TIPS auction — the only new issue during the quarter —  by $1 billion. It also boosted the September 10-year TIPS reopening by $1 billion.

The supply of bills has increased by around $2.2 trillion since the start of last year, enabling the rapid drain of the Fed’s reverse repo facility. That left their share of total debt above the 15%-to-20% range that TBAC previously recommended, before Wednesday’s new guidance, which suggests the uptrend will resume.

Treasury officials have repeatedly said this isn’t a problem and highlighted that TBAC in the past indicated there was flexibility around that recommendation. In Wednesday’s statement, TBAC doubled down on that argument: “the committee unanimously noted the importance for Treasury to retain flexibility to adapt this over time with evolving market dynamics.”

To that end, Treasury officials asked the TBAC, or Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (which we have dubbed previously as the shadowy group that runs the world) to take another look at the recommended share of bills, which the TBAC had previously recommended a 15% to 20% range.

“Most” TBAC members this time indicated that averaging around 20% over time was a good tradeoff between interest-rate costs, volatility in financing and the risk of rolling over a major amount of debt at one time, the panel said in a separate report.

Just as notable, especially to those who keep track of the Treasury’s own recently launched “Not QE“, i.e., treasury buybacks, today the Treasury released a buyback schedule for the upcoming refunding quarter and updating its buyback FAQs.  As the schedule indicates, Treasury plans to conduct weekly liquidity support buybacks of up to $4 billion per operation in nominal coupon securities. In longer-maturity buckets, Treasury will conduct two operations, each up to $2 billion, over the refunding quarter.  Treasury also plans to conduct two operations, each up to $500 million, in each of the TIPS buckets.

Starting in August 2024, Treasury is removing the 20 CUSIP cap on eligible securities for each operation and will move towards operation sizes consistent with its previous guidance – i.e., a maximum of $30 billion per quarter across buckets for liquidity support, up from $15 billion previously. Indeed, while once upon a time the Fed’s POMO schedule served to goose the market on QE action days, so the Treasury’s bond buyback schedule will soon fill that void, at least until the Fed restarts full-blown QE.

With the Fed recently reducing the amount of Treasuries it’s letting mature each month without replacement, that has in turn eased the burden on the Treasury to sell more debt to the public to fund the fiscal deficit.

Later Wednesday, the Fed is widely expected to signal it will start lowering interest rates, offering further relief for the Treasury by reducing the government’s debt-servicing bill. The pace of so-called quantitative tightening — the amount the central bank is shrinking its balance sheet, is seen staying at the current amount of up to $25 billion a month for Treasuries.

The Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index (BCOMSP) has wiped out all gains so far this year. After peaking in late May (+12%), the index quickly slipped into negative territory by late July. This downward pressure on BCOMSP stems from faltering economic growth in China, which has sparked concerns about falling demand for agricultural goods, crude oil, crude products, copper, iron ore, and other essential commodities. Some traders are on high alert, fearing a potential repeat of a 2015 China slowdown.

“The ‘domestic consumption’ engine of the Chinese economy seems to be faltering,” said Sandeep Rao, senior researcher at exchange-traded product provider Leverage Shares, who MarketWatch quoted. 

Rao said, “Real estate interest has been plummeting, and online sales continue needing discounting strategies to prop up values.”

Recall that Apple has been discounting its iPhones in the world’s largest smartphone market. Yet new data shows that this strategy by Apple has miserably failed.

The People’s Bank of China recently surprised the market with interest-rate cuts, a move to prop up faltering growth after the Communist Party’s stimulus failed to result in any robust economic recovery. 

China’s downturn in manufacturing and productivity “does find parallels in the leadup” 2015-16 turmoil, said Rao, adding that the “Chinese economy’s vulnerability is simultaneously local, global and strategic.” 

He pointed out that the US and European economies have been “paring down consumption volumes and the Chinese economy’s ‘export’ engine [faces] competition in the long run from the likes of India and Vietnam.” 

Interestingly, Rao said the CCP “does not have the incentive to stimulate the economy” until after the US presidential elections in November, when a clear winner is chosen.

According to Bloomberg, “China has been stuck in the longest streak of deflation since 1999, with economy-wide prices dropping for five straight quarters.” 

The impact of China’s downturn has obviously trickled down into commodities. However, there’s good news for at least the metals market, as Goldamn’s Gabe Tkach noted Tuesday:

Liquidation was the core theme in metals over the past week as we saw weak Western hands enter and exit the Gold market in July and a continued reduction in positioning in copper. We estimate that 60% of the length in copper has been unwound but Gold was positioned lighter as China has been the marginal buyer this year. The focus on this meeting will be on the implicit confirmation of the path forward that Powell could offer given the recent sharp moves in front-end rates. We still think that the beginning of the upcoming cutting cycle will be positive for metals but a fair amount of length has already been deployed this year. (Thank You Ben Binet-Laisne – Metals Trading)

And there are broadening war risks with IDF Forces hitting targets in Beirut. A risk positive for Brent crude prices. 

All eyes will be on US monetary policy in September and China’s economy after the election for stimulus. These two factors will influence BCOMSP price action. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Secret Service is making changes in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, the agency’s new acting director announced on July 30.

Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said that he traveled to the site of the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president was shot by a man who fired from the roof of the nearby AGR building.

“What I saw made me ashamed,” Mr. Rowe told two U.S. Senate committees on Capitol Hill. “As a career law enforcement officer, and a twenty-five-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”

He added, “To prevent similar lapses from occurring in the future, I directed our personnel to ensure every event site security plan is thoroughly vetted by multiple experienced supervisors before it is implemented.”

Mr. Rowe said he believed agents had plenty of time to plan for the rally and called what happened a “failure on multiple levels.”

In addition to former President Trump, three others were struck by bullets. One died.

Mr. Rowe assumed the director position after Kimberly Cheatle, the presidential appointee who was serving as director, stepped down a week after the former president was hit with a bullet.

Ms. Cheatle, in remarks before Congress before she resigned, said the assassination attempt represented the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure in decades.”

Lawmakers from both parties said the Secret Service should have secured the rooftop of the nearby building, or made sure other law enforcement officers secured the rooftop.

Snipers spotted Mr. Crooks 1 hour and 45 minutes before shots were fired, according to texts disclosed this week, but no officers detained the suspicious person, according to officials.

After Mr. Crooks fired the shots, he was taken out by a Secret Service sniper, officials have said.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appointed Mr. Rowe to serve as acting director. Mr. Rowe has been part of the Secret Service for 24 years. He was previously the agency’s deputy director.

“I appreciate his willingness to lead the Secret Service at this incredibly challenging moment, as the agency works to get to the bottom of exactly what happened on July 13 and cooperate with ongoing investigations and Congressional oversight,” Mr. Mayorkas said.

Mr. Rowe said that the Secret Service has implemented enhanced protective measures such as expanding the use of drones at sites since the rally shooting “to ensure the people and places we protect are safe.” He said the agency has strengthened protection for all individuals it protects, is conducting threat assessments for all the people, and has started protecting six new people, including Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who was recently tapped to join former President Trump’s ticket, and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to whom officials had previously denied protection.

Mr. Rowe also said that officials are working to make sure the agency’s protection of the Democratic National Convention is strong and effective, following the protection of the Republican National Convention.

“I am immensely proud of the selfless dedication of our employees to the mission,“ he said. ”Every day, across the globe, the men and women [of the Secret Service] answer the call to protect our nation’s leaders and the standard is no fail for a reason.”

The acting director said that, depending on the results of an internal probe, some employees may be disciplined. That could include termination, he said.

The Secret Service is conducting an investigation. The U.S. House of Representatives is also investigating, as is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.

Samantha Flom contributed to this report.

A new study by car accident lawyer Levine and Wiss recently analyzed the number of most searched electric vehicles involved in fatal crashes, as well as each model’s units sold during these years. 

The study then took the crash rate per 10,000 cars sold to identify the EVs with the highest accident rates.

Authored by Daniel Ramirez-Escudero via CoinTelegraph.com,

The digital euro will be one of the most private forms of electronic payment, according do a data protection official from the European Union. 

On Oct. 2, 2020, the European Central Bank (ECB) released a report laying the groundwork for its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital euro.

The digital euro has been in its investigation phase since October 2021, during which ECB officials and bankers hypothesized about its possible design and purpose.

As of November 2023, the digital euro has entered the preparation phase, with possible legislative adoption expected by the last financial quarter of 2024.

If the ECB can stick to its roadmap, digital euro use cases could roll out by November 2025.

Despite still being in development, the digital euro is already facing resistance over privacy concerns.

Maarten Daman, a data protection officer at the ECB, claimed in a June 13 blog post that the ECB is “designing the digital euro to be the most private electronic payment option.”

To achieve this goal, the ECB must offer assurances to gain the trust of EU citizens to use the CBDC. Daman spoke with Cointelegraph to about the issue, where he stressed that the ECB has no hidden agenda:

“We are committed to being as transparent as possible regarding the privacy aspects of a digital euro as our analysis progresses. We have nothing to hide.”

Tackling the digital euro’s privacy issue

Most Europeans remain uninformed about the digital euro. A June 6 survey from Germany’s central bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, found that 59% of respondents knew nothing about it.

The ECB has a prime opportunity to form the digital euro’s narrative for most Europeans.

The Bundesbank survey found that despite the widespread ignorance about the digital euro, three-quarters of respondents rated privacy regarding using the digital euro as very important or important.

Importance of various features of the digital euro. Source: Deutsche Bundesbank

In a 2024 progress report on the digital euro, the ECB said it would not collect financial data from clients. However, it will gather some data to comply with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations. Daman said there are strong efforts to create a digital euro that requires the least data possible:

“As a principle, the Eurosystem’s starting point is to process only as little as possible personal data required to fulfill our objectives.”

The ECB report mentioned how it is exploring technological solutions — namely pseudonymization — so that the Eurosystem, the issuer and payment infrastructure provider, can’t directly link transactions to specific individuals.

Pseudonymization enhances privacy by replacing identity attributes with fictitious ones, thus hiding personal identities. This process allows authorities to analyze data without being directly traceable to individuals, maintaining the data’s usefulness in transaction processing while protecting individual privacy.

The pseudonymization strategy aligns with that of Richard Brown, R3’s chief technology officer, who specializes in enterprise blockchain and CBDCs.

Brown told Cointelegraph that an elegant solution to the digital euro’s privacy problems would involve private firms unrelated to the government managing customers’ direct commercial relationships as their personally identifiable data. He said that “identifiable data would be kept away from the core record of financial transactions, also known as the ledger.”

Brown said the ECB would only provide the core infrastructure and ledger for a digital euro while private firms would act as wallet providers. This infrastructure “would ease privacy concerns, especially if the privacy promises were backed by the force of law,” he said.

The ECB pseudonymization approach follows this route, as the Payment Service Providers in charge of handling citizens’ data would have a segregated data stream with the Eurosystem, making it impossible to directly identify end-users or link any of the data it processes to a determined end-user.

Could the digital euro offer a backdoor for governments?

Concerns remain that governments could have a backdoor into user data, as some information needs to be shared with authorities to satisfy AML regulations.

Daman acknowledged the concern but said that a number of mechanisms would prevent this from happening:

“The Eurosystem would not be technically able to directly identify digital euro users, track their payments, nor legally allowed to do so, nor would we have a commercial incentive as a public institution.”

Daman said the ECB “will adhere to the digital euro’s legislation. The proposal explicitly prohibits us from processing personal data to directly identify users.”

The ECB would be overseen by the European Data Protection Supervisor, an independent institution that supervises EU institutions and has the power to conduct audits and inspections.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will intervene if the law is breached. If an EU act is believed to violate EU treaties or fundamental rights, such as the right to privacy, the ECJ has the power to annul it.

The ECJ has a history of defending privacy rights. The court invalidated the Safe Harbor (2015) and Privacy Shield (2020) frameworks — which provided data transfers between the EU and the United States — after it found that these agreements did not adequately protect EU citizens’ data from US government surveillance.

Digital euro skeptics still don’t trust the project

Fiat currencies like the dollar or euro rely on the public’s trust in the issuer. Daman said that trust and privacy are core aspects taken into account for the digital euro:

“High levels of privacy and trust will be key aspects that distinguish a digital euro from other currently available payment solutions.”

Richard Turrin, author of Cashless: China’s Digital Currency Revolution and an influencer focused on CBDCs, told Cointelegraph that he believes “the ECB’s messaging on privacy is spot on, and their claims that the digital euro will be more private than existing card-based payments are true.”

However, he said that once the ECB launches the final design, “we’ll all need to take a look to ensure their claims of privacy, but they’re off to a good start.”

Despite the assurances offered by the ECB backed by solid laws and supervising authorities, mistrust remains.

Joana Cotar, an independent German member of parliament and organizer of the awareness campaign Bitcoin im Bundestag, told Cointelegraph that history has demonstrated several cases where states repeatedly used new technologies against people.

Cotar said, “Risks are succinctly dismissed concerning legal frameworks that are supposed to rule out any abuse.” She noted how “the ECB does not mention that such laws can be rewritten or circumvented.”

“I believe that blind faith in the ECB is reckless. No matter what political promises have been made.”

Josh Swihart, CEO of Electric Coin Company, which created the privacy coin Zcash, claims that the CBDC design allows issuers to have “visibility into balances and transactions and to be able to take action such as blacklisting addresses or freezing funds.” He told Cointelegraph that under such a structure, complete financial privacy isn’t guaranteed:

“Privacy is not binary; it’s a gradient.”

Swihart highlighted how governments could mandate the use of their centrally controlled currency and suppress alternatives, such as privacy-protecting crypto.

The ECB has repeatedly stated that the digital euro is not intended to substitute other payment solutions and that a government mandate won’t enforce the use of the CBDC. Despite the ECB’s good intentions, Swihart believes that “even if the control is not exercised abusively today, it’s a slippery slope.”

He highlighted how “power doesn’t typically cede power,” adding that “once an individual gives up their rights to governments, it typically leads to greater invasions of freedom rather than less.”

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows the homicide rates for the U.S., UK, and Europe, based on data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, CNN, and Our World in Data.

The European dataset includes 47 countries and territories as classified by the United Nations, including the UK. Note that data for some places may be unavailable for certain years.

Europe’s Homicide Rate Has Fallen Dramatically

While the United States has lower homicide rates than most developing and undeveloped countries globally, it still has a higher homicide rate than Europe as a whole.

The overall homicide rate in Europe dropped from 7.8 per 100,000 people in 2000 to 2.4 per 100,000 people in 2020. Meanwhile, the U.S. rate rose from 5.5 to 6.4.

Worldwide, the U.S. ranks 57th in intentional homicide counts and victims per 100,000 inhabitants. France ranks 132nd, Germany 167th, and the United Kingdom 142nd. The UK homicide rate is less than half of the overall rate across Europe and about one-sixth of the rate in the United States.

According to the Council on Criminal Justice, people aged 15 to 19 years old were three times more likely to die by homicide in the U.S. in 2020-2021 than in 1960. Additionally, black males were eight times more likely, and black females were four times more likely to die by homicide in 2020-2021 than their white counterparts.

Since 2020, more than three-quarters of homicides in the U.S. have been committed with guns.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via ReMix News,

Benefit recipients in Germany who refuse to work should have their state handouts rescinded, and Ukrainian refugees are no different, the general secretary of Germany’s largest opposition party has claimed.

Carsten Linnemann, the deputy leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), was discussing the wider consideration of what should happen to the benefits of those unwilling to accept employment when he was asked specifically about Ukrainian refugees.

“Ukrainians defend our freedom. But if there is a service, it is associated with something in return,” he said during an interview with the Deutschlandfunk media outlet.

Just 234,000 Ukrainian refugees out of a total of 800,000 of working age are currently employed in Germany.

Some 187,000 have permanent jobs with 47,000 working on temporary or fixed-term contracts.

The majority of refugees receive the Citizens’ Benefit known as Bürgergeld, which equates to €563 a month. Many refugees are also housed in taxpayer-funded state accommodation and receive other economic benefits.

Linnemann suggested that more than 100,000 people currently in receipt of benefits who point-blank refuse to work should be the first to lose their financial assistance.

“Statistics show that a six-figure number of people are unwilling to accept a job on principle. If this is the situation, the state should assume that people do not need (these benefits). Cutting benefits by 10, 20 or 30 percent is not enough. In this case, it is necessary to completely cancel the basic income,” he said.

In May, figures published by the Federal Employment Agency revealed that nearly two-thirds of German residents receiving Bürgergeld have a migration background — a figure that rises to three-quarters in some German states.

A total of 63.1 percent of recipients are of migrant origin and “most do not have a German passport,” Die Welt reported.

Of the 3.93 million people eligible for the taxpayer-funded benefit as of December 2023, some 2.48 million were classed as being of a migration background, with 1.83 million recipients not having German citizenship.

The percentage varies considerably among the federal states. In Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, and Hamburg, more than 7 in 10 of all recipients are migrants at 76.4 percent, 74.1 percent, and 72.8 percent, respectively.

The cost of Germany’s welfare state has soared since 2010. Previously costing German taxpayers €6.9 billion, the bill has skyrocketed to €15.4 billion a year today.