A former deputy director for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) admitted that he knew a “significant portion” of Hunter Biden’s laptop “had to be real,” but signed an October 2020 letter attacking the NY Post‘s bombshell report anyway, the Post reports.

The official, Douglas Wise, was one of 51 former intelligence officials who said the Post‘s report had the appearance of a Russian disinformation campaign.

“All of us figured that a significant portion of that content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible,” in a comment to The Australian. “The letter said it had the earmarks of Russian deceit and we should consider that as a possibility,” he continued.

“It did not say Hunter Biden was a good guy, it didn’t say what he did was right and it wasn’t exculpatory, it was just a cautionary letter.”

Except, the letter concluded that “It is high time that Russia stops interfering in our democracy,” and referenced “[o]ur view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.”

The Oct. 19 letter — whose signatories included former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former Director of National intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan — went out of its way to cast doubt on the legitimacy of The Post’s scoop, devoting five paragraphs to explaining “factors that make us suspicious of Russian involvement” while slipping in the caveat that “we do not know if the emails … are genuine or not and … we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.” -NY Post

And as Jonathan Turley notes,

The infamous letter from the former intel officials (including such Democratic figures like John Brennan, James Clapper, Leon Panetta and Jeremy Bash) was used by the media to assure the public that there was nothing to see in the scandal. It was the perfect deflection in giving a cooperative media cover to bury the story of how the Biden family engaged in influence peddling worth millions with foreign figures, including some with foreign intelligence connections.

It worked beautifully. It was not until two years later that NPR, the New York Times, and other media outlets got around to telling the public the truth.

Now some of the signatories are trying to rehabilitate themselves. It is not hard. Figures like Bash have been rewarded for their loyalty. Others like Brennan and Clapper have become regulars on CNN to continue to give their takes on intelligence.

Wise, however, has tried to find some redeemable role in the letter. He told The Australian that “All of us figured that a significant portion of that content had to be real to make any Russian disinformation credible.” So the emails and photos showing criminal acts with prostitutes and thousands of emails on influence peddling was likely true, but that truth only made them more dangerous forms of Russian disinformation.

It is that easy. True or not, the story was dangerous in detailing the corruption of the Biden family before the election. Done and done.

It also means that, under this dubious logic, you can spike any true story that is embarrassing to the President or the party as presumptive disinformation.

Indeed, Wise says that it was “no surprise” to learn that the emails that he helped spike were actually genuine.

He is not alone. Washington Post columnist Thomas Rid wrote that  “We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation — even if they probably aren’t.”

Let that sink in for a second. It does not matter if these are real emails and not Russian disinformation. They probably are real but should be treated as disinformation even though American intelligence has repeatedly rebutted that claim.  It does not even matter that the computer was seized as evidence in a criminal fraud investigation or that a Biden confidant is now giving his allegations to the FBI under threat of criminal charges if he lies to investigators.

Yet, they still wanted the media to treat the story before the election as part of “Russian overt and covert activities that undermine US national security” as a story with “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Keep in mind that these “experts” literally had nothing beyond a potentially damaging story against the Bidens before an election. That was all that it took for these experts to rush out their letter.

Wise does not address that American intelligence reached the exact opposite conclusion and found no evidence — none — of Russian involvement or some foreign disinformation conspiracy.

Wise and the other signatories did not want to wait for any facts to support their claim. They rushed out the letter to an eagerly awaiting media to spike the story before the election. Now, they are seeking plausible deniability that they were political operatives sent on a political hit job. It is as implausible as calling a presumed true story “disinformation.”

Late last March, FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller was the first to correctly call the coming freight industry recession, a byproduct of the vicious “bullwhip effect” snapback. Overnight, and a little over 9 months later, Fuller is out with another notable call, arguing that while the freight market recession may still be a factor, it is now on the backfoot as the freight market has “likely bottomed.”

The freight market has likely bottomed is the theme of my latest article https://t.co/lcp5UOgyPk

— Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ (@FreightAlley) January 16, 2023

Below we republish Fuller’s latest observations explaining how “High-frequency truckload data suggests the freight market is stabilizing.”

Did the first quarter lull come early, in November and December of 2022? 

For carriers, the first quarter is always the most difficult period in the annual freight calendar, when retailers clear their excess holiday inventory, construction takes a pause for the frigid weather and everything is gloomy and cold. The soft first quarter often follows a robust fourth quarter, in which freight companies enjoy the annual peak season and make an outsized portion of their profits. Carriers look forward to spring for some market stability and potential market accelerations. 

Is it possible that winter came early this year? Did the freight winter start in November and now we are experiencing an early thaw? 

Early freight data and channel checks would suggest the freight market could be stabilizing and clearer skies are ahead. 

Over the past week, we’ve spoken with numerous freight executives who have mentioned that the first two weeks of the first quarter are shaping up better than expected, granted, expectations were incredibly low after such a weak peak. 
Going into the quarter, executives we spoke with predicted a significant collapse in freight for the first quarter, with a seasoned veteran executive of a large trucking technology firm predicting that the first quarter would be the worst in his four-decade career. It was a fair bet considering how challenging the second half of the 2022 was for most in the freight market.

Truckload spot rates, according to the FreightWaves National Truckload Index, hit a low of $1.67 on Nov. 17, 2022, and have since bounced back to $1.98 per mile.

Trucking tender volumes also suggest that the direst of predictions have not played out. Tender volumes on the Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI), an index that tracks the volumes of load requests from shippers to carriers, show that volumes briefly dipped below 2019 and 2020 levels, but they have since broken away from this baseline. 

If the first few weeks of the new year are an early omen, then the freight market may have bottomed in the fourth quarter and carriers can look forward to a far less volatile market in 2023. 

Federal electric vehicle rebates in Canada went 153% over their originally intended budgets, a new report out last week unveiled.

Ottawa had shelled out $759 million on EV rebates by March of last year, according to a report by True North. The “unprecedented” number of people claiming the rebates pushed Canada’s government well over its allocated spending. 

Analysts in the Audit Of Incentives For Zero Emission Vehicles Program said: “The uptake of the program was higher than expected and funding was an ongoing concern.”

“The program’s main risk is not having sufficient funding to meet the demand,” they continued.

In Canada, beginning in 2019, anyone who bought an EV below the price of $45,000 is allowed to claim a rebate of up to $5,000. The government then moved that threshold up to $70,000. 

Liberals first claimed the program would cost $300 million, True North reported.

But an audit of the spending found far different results: “The program exhausted its original funding of $300 million and received two subsequent funding top-ups of $287 million and $172 million to continue the program until March 31, 2022 as planned.”

136,940 buyers in total have claimed rebates and Canada has extended the budget for the program to $1.6 billion until March 2025. The country is trying to fulfill environment minister Steven Guilbeault’s plan to make all vehicles sold by 2035 electric or hybrid.

The cost for such a program amounts to $100 billion a new analysis found. 

By Russell Clark of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets substack

I first went to Japan in 1991 as a 17 year old high school exchange student. I went on to do a degree in Asian Studies (and Economics), and a university exchange to Japan in 1994. When I start working in finance in 2000, one of the things that struck me was how different the Japanese experience was to elsewhere. We were taught that equities always outperform bonds, that large fiscal deficits would imply a weak currency, and inflation was inevitable part of life. When I pointed out that this did not hold in Japan, I was usually told to either shut up, or that Japan was special, so could be ignored. This always struck me as a odd way to do treat the second largest economy in the world, and the largest holder of foreign exchange reserves. For long time readers, you should be aware of my “Japan as the Saudi Arabia of savings” theory, which explained Japanese experience from 1994 up to 2016 very well, but not so well since. I have been contemplating a different way of thinking about Japan.

To follow this analysis, you are going to have to accept a few basic assumptions. First of all is that the US has a very high level of influence on Japanese policy making. This leads to unusually close relationship both economically and politically. One of the distinct features of this is that not only is Japan the largest owners of treasuries, almost uniquely, it ONLY holds US Treasuries as foreign reserves.

This is very different to everywhere else in the world, even countries with very similar economic and political arrangements, like South Korea.

The point of this is to show that Japanese policymakers hew very closely to US policy. With this observation, perhaps we can look at the Japanese economic experience of the last 40 year or so through an American political lens and see if it makes sense. One of the first economic problems that the US faced after World War II was that the US economy was increasingly uncompetitive against its European and Japanese peers. The most visible sign of this was the falling gold reserves of the US.

It is very easy to see the Japanese agreeing a deal to allow the Yen to appreciate, and to go along with the idea of holding treasuries instead of gold as foreign reserves. This led to the first mega trade with Japan – long yen from 1970 to 1990. Since 1990, it has been a wash trade.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan came to power, and we saw politics in the US shift to pro-capital away from pro-labour. One of the key tenets of pro-capital policies is the freedom to buy from wherever is cheapest, with no regard of any political cost. That is, if Japan was cheaper at making cars, then why not buy Japanese cars, for example, but broadly speaking the ideals were of freedom and efficiency were pursued.

Allowing Japanese car makers to compete rigorously with US auto makers also had a secondary benefit. US union power was disproportionally strong in auto makers. By opening up this sector to foreign competition, it should help reduce the power and influence of the unions in the private sector. That is Japan was used as the hammer to break US union power. That is to reduce the political power of pro-labour proponents.

The boom in Japanese manufacturing also led Japan to overtake the US semiconductor industry in the 1980s. As late as 2010, Japan was still a similar size to the US.

As Japanese semiconductor market is dominated by Japanese semiconductor makers, this meant in the late 1980s, Japan producers also had the largest market share. And this is where Japanese problems began. If Japan maintained its technological lead over the US, it would likely face increasing political pressure from the US. It would need to either succumb, or return to the disastrous policies of the 1930s and begin to compete with the US.

Asian sales ex-China has been larger than the US for many years, although US companies have much larger market share outside of Japan, which is probably why even though Asia ex China sales are larger than the US, US market share from above totals more than Japan, Korea and Taiwan combined. It should be remembered that not only are Korea and Taiwan strong military allies of the US, both are former colonies of Japan, and Japanese engineers were instrumental in the setting up of their semiconductor industries. It should be pointed out that neither Korea or Taiwan have an equivalent to Tokyo Electron (semiconductor equipment maker).

In essence, in late 1980s Japan was beginning to look like a strategic competitor to the US, and choose stagnation, and a peaceful life, rather than rupture with the US. I think this makes sense to me. Turning Japan from a strategic competitor back into a natural ally of the US is good statecraft, and given the disaster that World War II was for Japan, an understandable decision. Using this line of thought, Abenomics did indeed mark a political change in Japan, away from managed decline to something else. Where exactly, will be subject of another post.

Authored by Christoph Gisiger via TheMarket.ch,

Speculation is mounting that the Bank of Japan is losing control of the bond market. Jim Grant, editor of «Grant’s Interest Rate Observer», believes this could trigger a shock to the global financial system. He also explains why he expects further surges in inflation and why gold should be part of your portfolio.

The news caught markets off guard: On December 20th, the Bank of Japan surprisingly extended the target range for the yield on ten-year government bonds to plus/minus 0.5%. A move that not a single economist had expected.

This week, the Bank of Japan could announce a major policy shift amid rising government bond yields and a strengthening yen. Although barely a month has passed since the BoJ’s last meeting, the bond market is already testing the new upper limit of the yield curve control regime.

«To us, Japanese interest rate policy resembles the Berlin Wall of the late Cold War era, a stale anachronism that must sooner or later fall,» says Jim Grant. For the editor of the iconic investment bulletin «Grants’ Interest Rate Observer,» recent developments in Japan pose an underestimated risk to global financial markets. Not least because virtually no one is talking about it.

In an in-depth interview with The Market NZZ, which has been slightly edited for clarity, Mr. Grant explains what it means for financial markets if the Bank of Japan is forced to scrap its yield curve control policy. But first, he says why he doesn’t believe inflation will end soon, why bonds may be at the start of a long bear market, and why he believes gold is the best choice as a store of value.

«If the past is prologue and if the great bond bull market is over, then on form, we are looking at what could be a very prolonged and perhaps gradual move higher in interest rates»: Jim Grant.

What do you observe when you look at the financial world today?

Well, it’s always the same, and – here’s the catch – it’s always a little different. The trick is to identify the unique or unusual feature of a familiar cycle. In this regard, it helps to know a little bit of financial history, and to just that extent it helps to be a little old. But what is not helpful is to mistake the past for a certain roadmap to the future.

What are currently the most important developments from a historical perspective?

The essential driver of so much of today’s news are the consequences of the monetary regime in place worldwide. That regime has given us artificially low, indeed suppressed rates of interest, and it has given us the consequences of those false rates which include rampant misallocation of capital and great gusts of speculation; some of which are a lot of fun, and some of which are quite lucrative to the clever people who can get in on them.

However, in the wake of the surge in inflation last year, interest rates have risen rapidly. Now inflation seems to be subsiding. Was the rise in prices only temporary after all?

Plainly, the rate of change has subsided, but what is often ignored is the level of inflation. The rate of change is everyone’s preoccupation, but the loss in purchasing power is never recovered. This is the nature of a fiat currency regime. Way back under the gold standard, prices would rise on average and they would fall on average, but at the end of very long cycles, they would be unchanged. In contrast, a fiat currency regime is characterized by the fact that prices ratchet ever higher and never are allowed to correct to the downside. So what we have is a very elevated level of average prices and a somewhat lower rate of rise in these prices.

Then again, the tension in the markets has eased somewhat recently. Stocks have made a surprisingly good start to the new year.

Certainly, the slowing rate of the rise in inflation is to be celebrated. It’s nice, but we are still left with a system that is inherently inflationary. Here in the United States, it’s a system given to very free and loose public spending, given to great entitlements for one and all, and it’s a system that has flourished in recent years with very low, suppressed rates of interest. To me, that’s the essence of an inflation generating system: Politically, inflation is kind of something for nothing, and that seems to be part of the political zeitgeist. That’s why I would be a little bit guarded in pronouncing the end of this inflationary episode.

Why do you think the issue of inflation could keep us on the edge for some time?

Inflation in such a system resembles one of these inextinguishable long-burning underground coal mine fires. I’m not sure if you have them in Switzerland, but in Pennsylvania for example there has been such a fire that’s been going on for around fifty years. You don’t always see it, but it flares to the surface from time to time. It’s always there, it’s always latent, leaking smoke, warming the soles of your shoes. To me, that is a good analogy for inflation in a free spending and paper currency issuing social democracy.

So are we at a fundamental inflection point heading into a new cycle, characterized by higher inflation and rising interest rates?

Yes, and I say that with well deserved humility because «Grant’s Interest Rate Observer» was calling the end of the secular bull bond market at least a decade before it ended. Looking back, the last great secular bond bear market began in the spring of 1946 in the US and most of the world. It ended in the fall 1981, 35 years later. What followed, of course, was the still greater and more prolonged bond bull market. It began in October 1981 and perhaps ended in 2020 when the ten-year treasury yield got down to 0.5%.

What kind of scenario could now be in store?

If the past is prologue and if the great bond bull market is over, then on form, we are looking at what could be a very prolonged and perhaps gradual move higher in interest rates. We ought to remember that the first ten years of the last bond bear market were characterized by a very gradual increase. It was hardly noticeable. Yields on long-term bonds rose by about ten basis points a year. The treasury yield started off at 2.25% in 1946, and then in 1956 it was at around 3.25%. So with all these qualifications: Yes, I think the bond bull market is over and a bond bear market has begun.

Why do bond market cycles last such a long time?

I’m a little weary of saying that the bond market does these things as opposed to that it has done them in the past. But it has exhibited that tendency. At the risk of being pathetic, I would say that since at least the middle of the 19th century bonds have exhibited the tendency to move up and down in yield over the course of decades or generations. I’m not sure anyone can fully explain why. And, because we can’t explain it, we can’t be dogmatic about it continuing in just this way. But again, if past is prologue, we are in for a very long phase or cycle of rising interest rates.

However, supply chain problems seem to be largely resolved; in the semiconductor industry, for example, there is already overcapacity and full inventories. What are the drivers of inflation in the next few years?

One of the things I’ve learned in the fifty years in this business is to be a little bit less doctrinaire about such things as the cause of inflation. Milton Friedman famously said it’s «always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon». At some trivial level, that is undeniable because inflation involves money. Then again, you could also argue that it cannot be a monetary phenomenon because the purchasing power of money by definition is a casualty of inflation. As to the cause of inflation, there is a whole new school now arguing that it is a fiscal phenomenon. I think there is something to that, as there is something to the Friedmanite view. There is something to the idea that it is a political phenomenon, it’s a characteristic of politically weak societies.

But the Federal Reserve assures us that it can bring inflation under control.

I think that we have not seen the last of this inflationary outburst. But one needs to be quite humble in the face of something that very few central bankers anticipated or even could have imagined. It wasn’t just that the Fed didn’t predict it, but when the Fed saw it, when it saw the whites of inflation’s eyes, it still couldn’t believe it and continued with its QE program until the end of March 2022.

It looks like markets are now gradually shifting their focus to the threat of recession. Does Fed Chair Jerome Powell have the stamina to «get the job done» in curbing inflation, as he says?

Hardly a day passes without one regional Fed president or another declaring that the FOMC will most definitely push the funds rate to 5% or higher and hold it there for six months or a year or maybe two. What I object to these pronouncements is the unseemly certitude that they convey. The Fed seems so sure of itself. It was so sure of itself when it was predicting just as confident in 2021 that a 10 basis-point funds rate was a lock through 2023. Their cocksureness does not become them. The future is a closed book, not an open book. Especially, it is a closed book to people who mobilize pseudo-scientific mathematical models of the workings of the financial economy because they really don’t understand it.

Usually, the Fed raises interest rates until there is an «accident» somewhere in the financial system or the economy. Is that going to be the case this time as well?

The Fed is not a believer in the likelihood of accidents. I’m not sure that it understands the risks its previous QE regime has introduced into the financial system, specifically the heavy leverage in Corporate America, and still more particularly the leverage in private equity for example. Of course, a lot of speculation has been wrung out of the system already, certainly in cryptocurrencies, in SPACs and such things.

Where could such an accident occur?

I think Japan is perhaps the most important risk in the world, not least because it is among the least discussed risks, certainly in the Western press. Mostly, it’s very much an afterthought. The risk is this: Every business day, the Bank of Japan is spending tens of billions of dollars worth of yen to enforce governor Kuroda’s yield curve interest rates suppression program. To put this into perspective: In the UK, when the little crisis over liability driven pension investing in late September happened, the Bank of England spent around $5 billion. The BoJ does that before breakfast.

The Bank of Japan already introduced its policy of yield curve control in the fall of 2016 by keeping the yield on ten-year government bonds within a target range through direct interventions in the bond market. Why should it change its monetary policy now?

Governor Kuroda, who’s term is up on April 8, insists that yield curve control is here to stay. But to us, Japanese interest rate policy resembles the Berlin Wall of the late Cold War era, a stale anachronism that must sooner or later fall.

And why specifically now?

What’s different is that the market is on to something. I say that because the Bank of Japan has already lifted the allowable ceiling on ten-year JGB yields to 0.5% from 0.25% at the end of last year. Kuroda said it was nothing more than a means to the end of ensuring the success and stability of a permanent regime of yield suppression. But the market is like a very ill-behaved dog at the end of a leash. It’s wheezing and frothing, and the Bank of Japan is yanking ever harder and tighter to control this beast.

Why do you think this beast will finally break free?

Kuroda stated that the Bank of Japan is not going to stop until there is inflation. Well, Tokyo’s consumer prices which precede the national CPI rose to 4% in December versus expectations of 3.8%. What’s more, Uniqlo and other corporate leaders are out announcing that they are raising wages significantly. You will find other stories to this effect, signs and precursors of a change. Some former governors of the Bank of Japan are now venting their views that this has gone far enough and the consequences will be devastating. So I think this is a huge risk just offstage and the world has to pay closer attention to it.

What’s the risk if the Bank of Japan gives up control of the yield curve?

What makes it a risk for everybody, whether you are Swiss, American, German or Japanese, are two things. First of all, suppressed rates prompt leveraged individual and corporate balance sheets which at the shock of a rise in interest rates will get into trouble. There are troubles buried in the financial statements of Japanese companies that have borrowed too much. Sure, Japanese businesses are not as inclined as, say, American ones to borrow excessively, but there are also risks regarding a lot of bank saving schemes or structured products in Japan. For instance, you get a yield of 0.75% for five years, but in the fine print there is some caveat that if rates go above a certain level then the duration of this product extends to ten years. I’m making these numbers up, but it’s essentially what the risk is.

And what is the second risk?

The Japanese are a frisky nation. They have an immense amount of net savings, and some $3 trillion of Japanese assets are invested in non-Japanese markets, of which half are domiciled in the United States. In other words, the Japanese, the proverbial Mrs. Watanabe, search the world for yield opportunities. According to Bloomberg, expressed as a percentage of the GDP of the country in which they are invested, Japanese stock and bond holdings break down to 7.3% of America, 7.5% of France, 8.3% of Australia and 9.5% of the Netherlands. What is going to happen if suddenly Japanese yen denominated rates become rather attractive? Well, a lot of this money may be repatriated and the result of that repatriation will be a rise in volatility in markets we can’t really identify now. So the risk of a volatility upsurge is considerable. I think the time is getting ripe for a big change in Japanese rates structure and therefore in interest rates and in the risk presented to bond holders worldwide.

What is your advice to investors in this environment?

Having just mocked the central banks for their pretending to know what they can’t know, I’m in a very compromised position if I were to say what is going to happen. But allow me to suggest that I’m somewhat of a broken record on gold. I’m going to continue with this broken record and observe that people have not yet come to terms with the essential inherent weaknesses of the monetary system that has been in place since 1971. We have all gotten used to it. I mean, you have to be a person of a certain age, indeed you have to be as old as I am, to really recall the debates surrounding the abandonment of Bretton Woods. People have grown up with the idea that money is what they print, and if the Japanese can print $50 billion a day with which to suppress interest rates, that doesn’t shock many people. But I think such shocks do lay ahead.

And gold can help protect a portfolio against such shocks?

I think that the strains that are already obvious will become more so. People will be looking around not for a better brand of paper or digital money, but rather for the real McCoy. In every issue of «Grant’s» we have something to say about a stock, so I don’t want to sound too much of a nutcase. We do live in the real world. But when I look at the very big picture, the money the central banks produce in such profusion is unsound. It may not be now, but in time, people will look around for an alternative and that alternative may just be gold – the thing that has been more or less a shadow cast by Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all the other crypto currencies.

Against this background, how do you assess the general outlook for the stock market?

The market has come down from extremely overvalued to nearly expensive, and my observation is that an extremely overvalued market does not normally bottom out at nearly expensive. So I’m not sure that’s the end of things. I don’t find a whole lot of compelling values in the stock market. Sometimes, one has great conviction, but not now with regard to stocks for me.

Are there any exceptions that appear attractive from a value perspective?

In one of our recent issues, we had a story on Transocean. The stock had a little move, it’s gone up from $2.50 to $5 or something in that order, but we’re still bullish. It’s a high-tech story. The technology happens to pertain to fossil fuels, therefore it’s beyond the pale for «properly sensitive fiduciaries» to put it this way. But it is a very impressive business which happens to have the flaw of a highly leveraged balance sheet. So there is considerable risk, but I think the risk is less compelling now than the reward. So if you ask about something to be bullish on, I would suggest Transocean.

Southwest Airlines’ disastrous operational meltdown over the Christmas holiday canceled thousands of flights and left tens of thousands of passengers stranded at airports across the US. The airline was operating an antiquated computer crew-assignment software called “SkySolver,” which couldn’t match crew members and flights due to the magnitude of the disruption sparked by a winter storm. 

Southwest’s software wasn’t designed to solve large flight disruptions. And that’s why Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan announced Tuesday morning that the airline budgeted $1 billion to upgrade the computer system to ensure this mishap never happens again. 

“We are currently budgeted to spend more than $1 billion of our annual operating plan on investments, upgrades, and maintenance of our IT systems. The recent disruption will accelerate our plans to enhance our processes and technology as we continue to focus on adding capabilities to bring rapid improvements for you, our valued Customers,” Jordan wrote in a statement. 

He continued: “We fell short of your expectations and the high standards we have of ourselves, and for that we are deeply sorry. It is our steadfast commitment to making the necessary changes to address the issues we faced and to regain your trust and confidence.” 

Here is Jordan’s complete statement:

Jan 17, 2023

Dear Valued Rapid Rewards® Members,

During the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, our Customers and Employees–including some of you–endured operational issues that greatly disrupted holiday and end-of-year plans. We want you to know that we are making every effort to prevent that from happening again.

Emerging from some of the most challenging days in our Company’s history, we are highly focused on our Customers, our recovery, and our plan going forward. Our immediate task has been to stabilize our operation, and we are pleased to report that since the disruptions, we’ve operated our expected flight schedule with the Southwest® Reliability that we’ve upheld for 51 years.

Taking Care of Customers: We’ve worked with great urgency to take care of the Customers directly impacted by the disruption by returning their bags, processing refunds and expense reimbursements, and offering those most significantly impacted 25,000 Rapid Rewards points as a gesture of goodwill for their inconvenience. As of the end of last week, we have returned virtually all of the bags we had on hand from the event, have processed nearly all refunds, and are processing tens of thousands of reimbursement requests a day.

Immediate Actions: Following the disruption, we moved swiftly to put mitigation elements in place to further reduce the risk of future operational disruptions that could impede Customer travel plans. Some of those efforts already in progress include:

• Establishing supplemental operational staffing that can quickly mobilize to support Crew recovery efforts
• Enhancing our Crew engagement technology to efficiently communicate with large numbers of Crew Members during frequent schedule changes
• Updating and upgrading our Crew recovery system to not only solve current and future schedules, but also provide the ability to optimize established schedules as we revise them during irregular operations

Going Forward: While we have mitigated risks in the short-term, we are taking additional steps to review the events and make thoughtful recommendations on future actions.

• We’ve engaged a third-party global aviation consulting firm, Oliver Wyman, to complete an assessment of the event and make recommendations of additional mitigation elements for us to consider.
• Our Board of Directors appointed an Operations Review Committee that is working with management to understand the events and help oversee the Company’s response.
• We commit to keep you updated as we make progress on these efforts as well as additional steps to prevent an event like this from happening again.

Southwest has a long history of innovation and continuous improvement. We are currently budgeted to spend more than $1 billion of our annual operating plan on investments, upgrades, and maintenance of our IT systems. The recent disruption will accelerate our plans to enhance our processes and technology as we continue to focus on adding capabilities to bring rapid improvements for you, our valued Customers.

We fell short of your expectations and the high standards we have of ourselves, and for that we are deeply sorry. It is our steadfast commitment to make the necessary changes to address the issues we faced and to regain your trust and confidence. We will continue down our path of providing you the exceptional service you expect and deserve from us. It’s a passionate and personal pursuit for our entire Southwest Family, and we look forward to welcoming you onboard one of our flights very soon with the Heart and Hospitality we’ve been famous for delivering for 51-plus years.

With appreciation,

Bob Jordan

President & Chief Executive Officer

Southwest’s meltdown might push forward some desperately needed modernization of its outdated and ineffective operating systems. 

Authored by Liam Cosgrove via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his newly acquired social media platform over the weekend to make a series of quips aimed at the global organization, the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland—which features a host of international leaders, central bankers, Wall Street executives, and celebrities—began on Monday and will continue throughout the week.

“I guess there’s value to having a mixed government & commercial forum of some kind. WEF does kinda give me the willies though, but I’m sure everything is fine…” Musk said via Twitter on Sunday evening, responding to a Substack article co-written by independent journalists Michael Shellenberger and Izabella Kaminska.

The WEF has been the subject of considerable scorn and criticism for its 2016 ad campaign, which stated, “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.”

Many took issue with the organization’s attempt to frame a lack of personal ownership and privacy as a positive.

Initially accompanied by a promotional video and several articles, much of the campaign’s content has since been removed from the web. A tweet by the WEF remains up, however.

Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better @IdaAuken https://t.co/6BKymvbKB5 pic.twitter.com/YJjAkw8skS

— World Economic Forum (@wef) December 12, 2016

In their article, Shellenberger and Kaminska called out WEF Managing Director Adrian Monck, who blamed the uproar surrounding the ad on the right-wing message board 4chan.

Monck penned an opinion piece in the Canadian outlet The Globe and Mail last August, calling the backlash a “misinformation campaign that targeted the World Economic Forum.”

“The story of ‘you’ll own nothing and be happy’ is anything but trivial and offers valuable insights into how misinformation is created and why it’s essential not to perpetuate its spread,” Monck wrote, adding that many criticisms were racist and anti-semitic.

Shellenberger and Kamiska, linking to the now-deleted WEF content, refuted Monck’s claims. “What Monck claimed was inaccurate. The phrase ‘Own nothing, be happy,’ hadn’t originated on 4chan; it originated on WEF’s website,” they wrote.

Musk continued to crack jokes about the organization. “There should be a game show: “4Chan or Davos, who said it?” he said via Twitter on Monday afternoon.

Allegiance to ESG

The authors also highlighted the organizations’ lack of transparency and declared commitment to the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) agenda. The WEF is outspoken in its allegiance to the ESG movement.

“Recent events have only increased the business world’s focus on ESG,” reads a statement from the WEF website. “Worker wellness has become a major concern during the COVID-19 pandemic; social justice protests have drawn attention to gaps in diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the impacts of climate change and the importance of environmental sustainability are becoming harder, if not impossible, to ignore.”

Despite founding the world’s largest electric vehicle company, Musk is not a fan of ESG.

“The S in ESG stands for Satanic,” tweeted Musk in response. It is not the billionaire’s first comparison of this nature, he referred to the movement as “the devil” back in November.

Declined WEF Invite

In 2008, WEF listed Musk among its “Young Global Leaders” — which the organization classifies as a “membership” program — though it is unclear whether Musk participated in this arrangement. “I was invited to WEF, but declined,” he said via Twitter in December, responding to allegations that he had a relationship with the international group.

The Twitter CEO also responded to a video, featuring a speech by WEF founder Klaus Schwab, in which Schwab warns that a global cyberattack could disrupt supply chains and make the COVID-19 crisis look like “a small disturbance” in comparison.

The WEF founder warned that such an attack “would bring a complete halt to the power supply, transportation, hospital services, our society as a whole.”

Accompanied by daunting music and provocative imagery, the cinematic clip caught the attention of Musk. “This movie writes itself,” Musk responded with a popcorn emoji.

This movie writes itself🍿

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2023

 Read more here…

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former President Donald Trump spoke out after the White House said there are no visitor logs for President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, where multiple classified documents were discovered.

“The White House just announced that there are no LOGS or information of any kind on visitors to the Wilmington house and flimsy, unlocked, and unsecured, but now very famous, garage. Maybe they are smarter than we think!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Jan. 16.

“This is one of seemingly many places where HIGHLY CLASSIFIED documents are stored (in a big pile on the damp floor).”

A “small number” of classified materials were discovered on three separate occasions in Biden’s Wilmington house in December and January, in the garage and a room adjacent to it, White House lawyer Richard Sauber said last week.

Another stash of documents, which Sauber also described as a “small number,” was found in early November at the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which once served as Biden’s office. The documents date back to the Obama administration when Biden was the vice president. The total number of documents uncovered from both sites remains unclear.

Sauber has said the documents were “inadvertently placed” at the locations.

The White House spokesman Ian Sams on Monday said that it wasn’t standard practice to keep visitor logs of the president’s personal residence, after Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, demanded the information over the weekend, citing national security concerns.

“Like every president across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” said Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House counsel, in a statement to the media. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.”

Trump on Monday sought to draw a distinction between Biden’s handling of the files with his case regarding classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago resort, which was subject to an unprecedented FBI raid last August. Agents at the time took about 100 documents marked as classified or top secret and 11,000 others marked as non-classified. Both cases are currently being investigated by separate special counsels. Trump has maintained that he declassified all the materials before he left office.

Unlike Biden’s garage, Trump claimed, “Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service.”

“I have INFO on everyone!” Trump said.

The White House has faced scrutiny for not disclosing the initial discovery of the documents on Nov. 2, with critics saying it was a deliberate attempt to cover up news that would have negatively affected the Democrats during the midterms that took place a few days later. The White House confirmed the initial discovery on Jan. 9, only after the development was first reported by media outlets.

Read more here…

China is using the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting and gathering of global elites at Davos to announce the country’s total reopening after three years of Covid lockdown and isolation, further vowing to gets its economy back on track to pre-pandemic growth levels.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He hailed the end of Beijing’s “zero-COVID” curbs and a new era of an “open door” for foreign investments. In his address at Davos he called on “entrepreneurs, including foreign investors” to “play a critical role as they are the key elements of social wealth creation” in line with President Xi’s so-called “common prosperity” vision.

The speech was peppered with some nearly dozen references to strengthening economic cooperation among the world’s major economies and maintaining “world peace”. He said in this way China and the world can “firmly safeguard world peace.”

“China will always promote all-round opening up, and improve the level and quality of opening up,” Liu said. “Foreign investments are welcome in China, and the door to China will only open up further.”

China’s economic tsar further assessed the Covid situation, which has lately grabbed world headlines due to widespread accusations that health authorities are lying and trying to conceal the true death count, telling WEF founder Klaus Schwab the situation is now “steady” and that people are recovering quickly, which is a “surprise”. He also pledged that the Chinese economy will get back on track this year despite the pandemic era slowed growth indicators.

As the WSJ notes of the timing of Liu’s Davos attendance, “The Chinese economy on Tuesday notched up a 3% year-over- year expansion in gross domestic product in 2022 as the country was ravaged by Beijing’s ‘zero-Covid’ pandemic restrictions and a sharp property-sector downturn.” And further of his words: “Mr. Liu said China’s current account surplus to its GDP stood at over 2% in 2022, compared with 1.8% in 2021.”

He continued in the speech: “We have to abandon the Cold War mentality, try to understand the essence of things from the perspective of material duality, endeavor to build a community with a shared future for mankind, and join hands to respond to global challenges,” according to a translation. He stressed: “We believe that an equitable international economic order must be preserved by all of us” – in what’s perhaps a subtle swipe at China’s main rival the United States.

The EU should focus on “de-risking rather than decoupling” when it comes to trade with China, says von der Leyen in Davos.

She threatens probes: “We will not hesitate to open investigations if we consider that our procurement or other markets are being distorted.” pic.twitter.com/DzX6nqO6Ir

— Rosie Birchard (@RosieBirchard) January 17, 2023

On Wednesday Liu is expected to meet with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Zurich in what will be a first ever in-person meeting, following several virtual meetings. A Chinese foreign ministry statement previewed that the two will seek to “strengthen macroeconomic and financial policy coordination.”

It should be noted that Russia – an ally which Beijing has refused to condemn – is conspicuously absent from Davos this year.

* * *

A note by Goldman Sachs summarized the Vice Premier’s main points in his Davos speech as follows:

• Liu He reaffirmed that policymakers would prioritize economic development, let market play a fundamental role in the economy (Liu emphasized that it’s not possible for China to shift back to the planned economy track) and promote higher-level of opening up.
• He further stated that policymakers would relax restrictions in the property sector imposed when the sector was overheated, and help expand effective demand. Property remains as one of the nation’s pillar industries, accounting for 40% of bank lending, 50% of local government revenues, and 60% of urban households’ assets.
• Liu He clarified that “dual circulation” focuses on expanding domestic demand, but policymakers would stick to opening up and enhancing international cooperation.
• On common prosperity, Liu He stated that this would be a long-term policy goal and aimed to reduce inequality. Policymakers would promote development and encourage wealth creation.
• In the Q and A on China’s Covid situation, Liu He mentioned dining-in, tourism and transportation services have largely normalized in China, and inbound tourists only needed to provide 48-hour negative Covid test results. Liu believed that the recovery of GDP growth to its normal pace is highly possible, and expect imports to improve significantly, firms to step up investment, and household consumption to normalize. The healthcare system functions normally now and Covid policy focuses on treatment of the elderly population, according to Liu He.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

A state Supreme Court judge in Syracuse, New York, struck down a statewide mandate for medical staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19, ruling that Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state’s health department overstepped their authority.

In a landmark ruling issued on Jan. 13, state Supreme Court Judge Gerard Neri declared the statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for medical staff “null, void, and of no effect.”

Hochul and the state Department of Health exceeded their authority by sidestepping the state legislature in imposing a permanent COVID-19 vaccine mandate for medical professionals, the judge wrote in the order (pdf).

Neri also found that the mandate was “arbitrary and capricious,” citing evidence that COVID-19 vaccines don’t prevent the spread of the virus, undercutting the basis for the mandate.

“In true Orwellian fashion, the Respondents acknowledge then-current COVID-19 shots do not prevent transmission,” Neri wrote, citing a Summary of Assessment of Public Comment that was entered as evidence in the case.

In support of the view that the mandate was capricious, Neri also pointed to the fact that the order, titled Prevention of COVID-19 Transmission by Covered Entities (pdf), used a loose definition for “fully vaccinated,” namely one that was “determined by the Department.”

Neri wrote, “A term which is defined at the whim of an entity, subject to change without a moment’s notice contains all the hallmarks of ‘absurdity’ and is no definition at all.”

The ruling came after a lawsuit was filed by Medical Professionals for Informed Consent, a group of medical professionals who were negatively affected by the vaccine mandate and either lost their jobs or faced the prospect of job loss.

“This is a huge win for New York healthcare workers, who have been deprived of their livelihoods for more than a year,” the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Sujata Gibson, said in a statement.

“This is also a huge win for all New Yorkers, who are facing dangerous and unprecedented healthcare worker shortages throughout New York State.”

In siding with the group, Neri stated that the state is prohibited from mandating vaccinations outside of what’s detailed in public health law.

“The Mandate is beyond the scope of Respondents’ authority and is therefore null, void, and of no effect,” he wrote.

‘Critical Win’ Against Vaccine Mandates

Mary Holland, president of Children’s Health Defense, which financed the lawsuit on behalf of Medical Professionals for Informed Consent and several individual health care workers, hailed the decision.

“We are thrilled by this critical win against a COVID vaccine mandate, correctly finding that any such mandate at this stage, given current knowledge is arbitrary,” Holland said in a statement.

“We hope that this decision will continue the trend towards lifting these dangerous and unwarranted vaccine mandates throughout the country.”

Neither Hochul’s office nor the New York State Department of Health immediately responded to a request for comment and information on whether they plan to appeal.

Vaccinations helped reduce transmission of the early variants of the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, recent studies show that the vaccines are less effective in reducing transmission of later variants although they continue to reduce serious illness, hospitalizations, and death.

Some experts, meanwhile, have called for the messenger RNA shots made by Pfizer and Moderna to be withdrawn until new clinical trials can be run showing that they’re safe and effective.

Dr. Joseph Fraiman, based in Louisiana, became one of the latest to call for a pause in the administration of the vaccines pending new trials. He pointed to data including a reanalysis of the original trials that he and others conducted. They concluded that the vaccinated were at higher risk of severe adverse events.

The fact that the Omicron variant and its subvariants are also less virulent—leading to fewer hospitalizations and deaths—and the waning effectiveness of the vaccines also contributes to the building opposition to vaccinating all or portions of the population until better data is made available.