Toyota Motor Corp on Monday warned 50,000 owners of older American vehicles to stop driving them immediately and seek repairs for a condition that could be deadly. Toyota asks that you don’t even drive it to the dealer, but instead make arrangements for pickup.

Once again, the danger springs from Takata airbags, more than 67,000 of which have already been recalled across 19 different manufacturers, 34 brands and model years spanning 2002 to 2015. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has called that undertaking “the largest and most complex safety recall in U.S. history.”

While the recall has been going on since 2016, some 11 million haven’t been replaced yet, according to Consumer Reports. Meanwhile, the US fatality count has reached 26, alongside hundreds of injuries. 

The latest stark warning focuses on certain 2003-2004 Corolla, 2003-2004 Corolla Matrix, and 2004-2005 RAV4 vehicles in the USA. On the RAV4, the dangerous bag is on the driver side. On the others, it’s the passengers side. Some Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles are under another recall, where they are at risk of airbags deploying outside of an accident, Reuters reports. 

The problem is getting worse over time, said Toyota in a statement, such that an airbag that deploys to save your life could instead end it: 

“Due to the age of the vehicles, if the airbag deploys, a part inside is more likely to explode and shoot sharp metal fragments which could cause SERIOUS INJURY or DEATH to the driver or passengers. Owners SHOULD NOT DRIVE these vehicles until the FREE safety recall repair has been conducted.”

You can check the status of your vehicle by entering your license plate number or Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) at Toyota’s recall website, or by entering the VIN on the NHTSA recalls page.  The repair is free, and most vehicles are done in about an hour, according to Toyota. Some dealers are equipped to perform mobile repair where your vehicle is parked. 

In July, Chrysler’s parent, Stellantis, alerted the owners of 29,000 2003 Dodge Ram pickups to likewise stop driving those vehicles until their air bags were replaced. The move followed the latest American fatal rupture.  

Via SchiffGold.com,

Citizens of Georgia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Kansas may soon enjoy lower taxes on precious metals if recently introduced pro-metal bills are made law in 2024.

Earlier this month, all four states introduced or reintroduced bills that would exempt precious metals from either state sales tax (in Kentucky and Wisconsin) or state income tax (in Georgia and Kansas).

Kentucky lawmakers will vote on House Bill 101 and Senate Bill 105 in this year’s legislative session. If passed, the bills would end state sales tax on gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion starting in August of this year. Wisconsin’s Assembly Bill 29 and Senate Bill 33 would both enact similar provisions while also lifting sales tax on the purchase of copper bullion.

Proponents of these bills point out that gold and silver are one of the only asset classes that have sales taxes; investors don’t have to pay sales tax on more common investments, like stocks and bonds. The Sound Money Defense League recently elaborated on this point:

“Sales taxes are typically levied on final consumer goods. Computers, shirts, and shoes carry sales taxes because the consumer is ‘consuming’ the good. Precious metals are inherently held for resale, not ‘consumption,’ making the imposition of sales taxes on precious metals illogical from the start.”

Both Kansas and Georgia eliminated sales taxes on bullion in the past and are now taking the next logical step in facilitating the use of sound money. House Bill 895 in Georgia and House Bill 2405 and Senate Bill 303 in Kansas would lift state capital gains taxes on precious metals, leaving only the federal capital gains tax on income earned from holding gold or silver.

Kansas’ two bills also explicitly reaffirm that gold and silver are legal tender in the state and ensure physical metal can be used voluntarily as currency, establishing a relatively free market in money:

“The purchase, sale or exchange of any type or form of specie shall not give rise to any tax liability of any kind… Unless expressly provided by statute or by contract, no person shall have the right to compel any other person to tender specie or to accept specie as tender.”

Many argue income tax on precious metals constitutes a second tax on top of inflation. As Peter Schiff says, “Printing money is merely taxation in another form.” This implicit inflation tax affects everyone’s cash holdings, whether they invest in precious metals or not. Depending on where they live, anyone who earns a nominal capital gain on gold and silver can incur a second, explicit tax liability, even if their gain is only nominal.

By considering these bills, these states join the long and growing list of jurisdictions in the United States that offer some sort of tax relief for precious metals. Missouri and Oklahoma, for example, filed bills last month that would also exempt precious metals from state income tax. Oklahoma and Florida went a step further and also considered bills that would establish bullion depositories in each state, which would promote sound monetary policy at the state level.

It’s no surprise that more states are taking steps to protect their citizens from wealth-destroying monetary policy carried out by the Federal Reserve. The recent stretch of high inflation serves as a stark reminder of the centrality of money in advanced economies. When the value of money is eroded by inflationary spending and out-of-control public debt, ordinary people pay the price. Thankfully, as state laws reduce the costs of investing in precious metals, holding physical gold and silver increasingly provides a hedge against this hidden tax.

Should the bills in Kansas, Kentucky, Georgia, and Wisconsin be enacted, state lawmakers will have offered their citizens a more secure financial future.

For years, Apple and Microsoft have been switching places as the world’s most valuable company, in terms of market capitalization.

In today’s chart, Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley explores this history, as well as key events over the past two decades, based on data from CompaniesMarketCap and both companies. Data is from January 16, 2024.

A History of the Battle for Market Cap Dominance

During the 1990s, Microsoft capitalized on the success of Windows, supplanting General Electric as the most valuable company in the U.S. in the process.

Around the same time, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy due to intense competition in the personal computer market, high product pricing, and a lack of innovation. The company also suffered from numerous failed attempts to modernize the Macintosh operating system (Mac OS) and the failed launches of products like QuickTake digital cameras, PowerCD portable CD, audio players, speakers, and the Pippin video game console.

Over the next decade, however, after the return of Steve Jobs as the CEO, Apple’s stock performance was legendary. This can be attributed to the success of products such as the iMac, iPod, and iPhone, the launch of the famous “Think Different” advertising brand campaign, and opening the Apple Store retail chain.

In 2004, Microsoft had a market cap of $291 billion compared to Apple’s $26 billion. By the end of that decade, Apple would reach $297 billion, surpassing its rival ($234 billion).

*As of January 2024

Since then, the top spot has been most often held by Apple. The company only fell behind Microsoft in 2018 when concerns about COVID-driven supply chain shortages affected the iPhone maker’s stock price.

More recently, the Apple vs. Microsoft race was shaken up once again. Microsoft became the world’s most valuable company in January 2024, after the rival iPhone maker’s shares had a weak start to the year due to growing concerns over demand in China.

Microsoft’s shares have also been strongly buoyed by the company’s early lead in generative artificial intelligence, mainly thanks to its early investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

Authored by Kevin van Elswyk via The Mises Institute,

Our vacation airline tickets in September were funded by accumulated miles on our Alaska Airlines credit card. While on vacation this summer, my brother-in-law graciously hosted eight of us for dinner. He tried to downplay the generous hospitality by saying he had just gotten his “cash back” award from his credit card company. The “cash back” credit card had accumulated a tidy sum of money, paying for a very nice dinner.

At home in Brookfield, a takeout restaurant advised a 3.5 percent surcharge if paying by credit or debit card. Shopping later, our favorite farm market added a dollar to all card transactions. It is not unusual in Brookfield to see two prices for gas: one price is for cash, and the slightly higher gallon cost is for credit. These actions offset the cost of interchange fees, the costs from the processing bank. These rates vary up to 3.25 percent.

The cost of processing a credit transaction is deducted most often from the seller’s payment. A credit card with a cash back or airline mileage benefit requires funding. The merchant bank manager deducts the premium cost from the credit to the seller.

Popular credit card hosting sites, such as Visa and Mastercard, account for 84 percent of general purpose credit cards and have leverage over stores and restaurants for their use. Conversely, food truck vendors are happy to pay the fees since they need not carry cash or waste time at a cash register. Covid-19 prevention measures were believed to be enhanced by plastic taps rather than exchanging paper. Credit at the pump is convenient.

The premium benefits also appear in retailer credit cards. Amazon credit card payments create points that translate to cash. Other discrete credit cards offer deals, sales, or bonus bucks, such as Eddie Bauer or Nordstrom through Comenity Capital Bank. All rewards have at their center an offer accepted by the consumer. Buy-now-pay-later offers may be issued at the point of purchase by the retailer if you cannot pay for that new snowblower at Home Depot, but these sales are not tracked by the government.

As a card holder you may have received offers to consolidate your debt, transferring your existing balance(s) for a period of interest-free credit. At the end of the suspension period a new interest rate is calculated. Each offer usually comes with a reward premium to induce your application for their new credit card. The premiums vary, as does the range of interest rates and ancillary charges. Between 2015 and 2019, average purchase volume increased the most for miles and other types of rewards. Purchase volume on cards with no rewards grew the least during this period, while 47 percent of customers who switched credit cards did so for better premium rewards.

The most common premiums are cash back up to 3 percent (for a nice family dinner), bonus points from merchants, and air miles for vacation travel to maybe Seattle.

All the premium offers share a common default interest rate of 29.99 percent if a payment is late. On average, late, interchange, and other fees total 16 percent of a bank’s profitability. Banks have or soon will raise charges for overdraft fees.

The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly referred to as Dodd-Frank, was enacted on July 21, 2010. If Dodd-Frank was designed to befuddle the economy, it was successful.

Senator Elizabeth Warren was the chief advocate of this bill, so named to whitewash reputations of legislators who behaved badly in the home mortgage meltdown of 2008. The Durbin Amendment appeared in this confusion to limit fees for debit card swipes (interchange processing fees).

At the time of passage of this 848-page monstrosity, containing 243 new rules, many parts remained unwritten. There was difficulty determining how to implement the bill in financial institutions other than banks. It was rolled back by then President Donald Trump in May of 2018.

The tarnished Dodd-Frank Act’s departure left intact the idea to control credit cards. That idea was reworked in 2022 creating a novel approach to protect consumers from credit card excesses by creating more competition. The effort found little traction. But Leviathan is patient, and no bad idea goes forgotten. It has grown into the Credit Card Competition Act of 2023 introduced by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Like Dodd-Frank, the details and processes will be written by the Treasury once the bill is passed.

“Pass the bill and we will see what is in it” is a tactic.

In 2015 the Richmond Fed studied interchange fees under the now rolled back Act and came to no conclusion on benefits to the consumer. In fact, the Richmond Fed discovered that banks raised minimum balances and fees on checking accounts to offset the debit card swipe, and 21 percent of merchants increased their prices.

Credit cards are a sprawling segment of the economy. There were fifty-six billion transactions in 2022 with an average interest cost of 19 percent and rising. Total quarter three 2023 credit card debt is $1.08 trillion.

The November 2023 Boston Fed analysis of excess savings shows the discord between two methods of calculating covid excess savings. In one method the savings are almost depleted, while in another $1.5 trillion remain. Consumer praxeology confirms the former through increased credit usage. Credit card debt will fluctuate but increase in 2024.

The credit card market is fluid, wide, and offers features to diverse market niches. It is a market that consumers have successfully navigated for their own benefit of meals, miles, and convenience. Some credit card users may be passive now, but marketing blitzes will increase consumers who use cards for benefits.

As currently constructed, the bill would allow the merchants or consumer to choose from a minimum of two banks to process the “swipe.” The bill assumes that competition would lower prices, and merchants would return the savings to customers. The size of merchant groups supporting this bill suggests more than just an eagerness to lower prices for consumers. A choice of a non-premium card could increase the bank’s payment to the retailer, while reducing premium rewards for usage like cash back, airline miles, and points to the card holder.

Durbin’s proposal lacks self-awareness.

Who created the higher interest rates?

There is limited comprehension of how the bill’s mechanics would create disruptive changes when implemented. Functionally, the government has no insight into consumers’ praxeology. The failure of similar programs is ignored. Our government stands ready to regulate a $1 trillion microeconomic market with a proposal that is the equivalent of a wish list written with crayons on the short tables.

Spending continues, inflation continues, and the cost of credit increases on declining real wages.

The Democratic Senate offers palliatives that sound earnest and responsive but do nothing for the street-level economy.

Legislators who do not pump their own gas, who fly free, and who host events from lavish expense accounts are clueless as to how the market works.

This is another bad idea on board the Ship of Fools that needs to be jettisoned.

Given today’s dovish surge in March rate-cut odds (and 2024 rate-cut expectations) after NYCB’s results, one can’t help but think Powell will use the press conference to push back further against the market’s attitude, building on the very hawkish Fed statement.

At a minimum, The Fed wants to maintain some optionality into the next two meetings and not suggest he is being bullied by the market itself.

Of course, today’s shitshow at NYCB will likely be mentioned (and an imminent start to tapering QT) as we note that The Fed removed the following sentence from the statement:

“The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient”

So, once again, Powell will be walking the tight-rope – this time as the hawkish-dove.

It would be a huge mistake if he inched back from the hawkish statement in some way after all the jawboning…

Watch live (due to start at 1430ET):

Since The Fed’s (uber dovish) last meeting on December 13th, the dollar is down, bonds and gold are up, and bitcoin and big-tech are surging… in other words – the QE-trade or ‘buy all the things’…

Source: Bloomberg

While all yields are lower since the last FOMC meeting, the short-end has dramatically outperformed (with the last few days rescuing the long-end). The curve has steepened dramatically with 2s30s swinging from -45bps to +10bps since the last meeting…

Source: Bloomberg

And finally, right in the middle of The Fed’s meeting NYBC blows up, sending rate-cut expectations soaring (as traders reached for safe-havens like gold and bonds), putting The Fed in the awkward position of likely having to push back against the bullying market (after all the jawboning of the last month was wasted)…

Source: Bloomberg

So, what did The Fed do (and say)…

The FOMC voted unanimously to leave benchmark rate unchanged – as expected – in target range of 5.25%-5.5% for fourth straight meeting while making significant changes to statement

The statement was very much more hawkish than expected:

The Fed pushed back aggressively against the dovish market stance:

“The Committee does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent.”

The Fed did leave the door open for cuts at some point…

“The Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are moving into better balance.”

The Fed removed any reference to “tighter financial conditions”, which makes sense given that financial conditions have massively loosened…

In what appears an implicit nod to ‘animal spirits’ in the economy, The Fed removed any reference to “growth slowing from its strong pace.”

Perhaps most notably, The Fed removed the following sentence from the statement:

“The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient.”

Which makes sense given the shitshow at NYCB today (and the March chaos ahead).

Does the Fed no longer saying that “the U.S. banking system is sound and resilient” mean the banking system is no longer sound and resilient, or was it just a lie before to convince the population of something which was not the case?

The new statement is a sea of red…

Authored by Mary Katherine Ham via RealClear Wire,

California is known for many things –  beautiful scenery, surfing, wine, movies, singing raisins. But perhaps its biggest exports now are its failed public policies and the hundreds of thousands of people leaving the state because they cannot live with those policies. 

One of those infamous policies and the havoc it’s bound to wreak has gone national, thanks to labor department rules issued by the Biden administration. A 339-page Department of Labor rule – you can always count on the federal government to keep it pithy – would make it much harder to be an independent contractor or freelance worker in America. Created to replace a simpler Trump-era rule, it’s modeled on AB5, a disastrous 2019 California law that made independent contracting and freelance work so hard to do that it effectively outlawed it in the Golden State. 

That law was so calamitous, despite its advertised intent of ensuring more employment benefits for more workers, even California had to admit it, scrambling to make fixes and hand out hundreds of exemptions to the law. Those exemptions are, of course, based on lobbying and political clout, leaving smaller, unconnected people to languish or leave the state. The list of exemptions is now more than 20 times longer than the original law. Some industries, like freelance transcription services, simply ceased to exist in California, said Karen Anderson, a freelancer who founded Freelancers Against AB5. Small community theaters suffered, unable to afford to make their freelancers into full-time employees, and that was before they got walloped by COVID restrictions. AB5’s opposition has collected the stories of hundreds of Californians and former Californians who had their livelihoods ruined or disrupted by AB5. 

“The chilling effect alone is enough to make a corporation or a business skittish about hiring an independent contractor at all,” Anderson said, noting the same is probably already happening with Biden’s regulation.

“It was just a complete and total dumpster fire (in California),” she said.

A study on the employment effects of AB5, by economists at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center quantified the dumpster fire by comparing traditional and self-employment rates in California to other states with less strict independent contracting rules. If the law did what its proponents claimed they wanted, it would have increased traditional employment while decreasing self-employment. Instead, the data showed that “AB5 is significantly associated with a decline in self-employment and overall employment,” suggesting businesses were unable to afford to turn freelancers into full-time employees, and people who wished to do independent contracting were pushed out of the labor market or out of the state.

This shouldn’t come as a great surprise, as the Mercatus study notes these results follow a fairly simple economic principle: “While these regulations provide important benefits to workers, they also increase the cost of labor, which may reduce employment, hours worked, or wages.”

So, why export it to the rest of the American work force, over a third of which did some kind of independent contract work in 2023, according to surveys, amounting to more than 60 million workers?

Gov. Gavin Newsom being Newsom, declared his state’s rolling catastrophe the model for America, and Biden both on the campaign trail and in office, agreed. He pushed the passage of the PRO Act, which mirrors AB5 in California, as part of his attempt to be the “the most pro-union president you’d ever seen.”

Unable to muster support in the Senate to pass the law, the administration turned to its bureaucratic buddies to implement the philosophy from his 2023 Labor Day proclamation – “when organized labor wins, our Nation wins.”

And that’s really the point of these laws. As demands for flexibility and novel work arrangements increase in the modern economy, driven in part by the policies of the pandemic era, fewer Americans work traditional jobs and fewer Americans are in unions. Biden and Newsom want more of them in unions, even if they don’t want to be. Supporters argue these laws simply prevent misclassification of workers, which deprives them of benefits they’re due. But there are already laws on the books to prevent misclassification. It’s no accident that the author of AB5, Lorena Gonzalez, leapt from the legislature to leading the California Labor Federation while California’s enforcer for AB5, Julie Su, is now acting Secretary of Labor. 

“Misclassification is not what this and AB5 are aimed at. What they’re aimed at is millions of other people who have willfully chosen to work independently bc that is what is best suited to their lifestyle,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, who introduced legislation to nullify the rule under the Congressional Review Act and prohibit funding for its enforcement. “It makes absolutely no sense to say that because there are some folks out there who are genuinely misclassified, we should eliminate the rights of tens of millions of others to choose the working arrangements that they desire.”

In the Senate, Sen. Tim Scott introduced the Employee Rights Act, designed to protect modern workers from this type of anachronistic push from an administration beholden to Big Labor.

Some of those workers, in Fight for Freelancers, are suing the Department of Labor to protect their economic liberty. They’re represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which notes “ordinary citizens do not know how to structure their relationships to avoid liability under federal law, giving the government a sword of Damocles it can bring down on the heads of businesses it doesn’t like.”

Yet another perk of Bidenomics.

Mary Katharine Ham is a journalist, author, Georgia Bulldog, and host of her own light-hearted podcast, “Getting Hammered.” She lives in Virginia with her husband, four kids, and a very energetic Belgian Mal, and serves on the board of the Travis Manion Foundation.

Recall nearly one year ago, the mayor of East Palestine, Ohio, ripped President Biden a new one for traveling halfway across the world to Ukraine, where he pledged half a billion dollars to a foreign government, even as a chemical fallout from a train derailment battered residents in the small Ohio town. 

East Palestine, Ohio Mayor Trent Conaway: “I found out today through one of the briefings that [Biden] was in the Ukraine giving millions to people over there and doing nothing for us. I’m furious.”pic.twitter.com/8jn32aI4kc

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 21, 2023

Shortly after the train derailment, while animals were dying and people were getting sick from the toxic fumes, millions of Americans asked: Where was Biden? 

Well… 

The people of East Palestine were not pleased with the president for ignoring them:

This is who is waiting for Donald Trump in East Palestine, Ohio.

Perhaps this is why Joe Biden refuses to go. pic.twitter.com/XLIHu3ihoY

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 22, 2023

However, just weeks after the incident, former President Trump arrived in East Palestine, where he told residents: “You’re not forgotten.” 

Trump just landed in East Palestine, Ohio

pic.twitter.com/UuZO91N4cT

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 22, 2023

Now, almost one year later, Biden’s polling numbers are near an all-time low as Bidenomics fails, the invasion on the southern border worsens, and the administration’s foreign policy is seen as a disaster as it appears Ukraine is not winning the war against Russia and a major conflict looms in the Middle East. The 80-something-year-old president finally remembered about East Palestine.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House plans to send the president to East Palestine for the first time. 

The White House said the purpose of the visit would be for the president to “asses the progress that his Administration has helped deliver in coordination with state and local leaders to protect the community and hold Norfolk Southern accountable.” 

In the last year, EPA Administrator Michael Regan and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited and spoke with local leaders and community members. 

Meanwhile, shortly after the incident, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine asked the Biden administration to issue a disaster declaration as 116,000 gallons of the carcinogen vinyl chloride exploded into the air after five tank cars derailed. Still, the president has yet to do so. 

Never forget how the Biden administration prioritized funneling money into Ukraine over their own citizens. This is precisely why Biden’s polling data is terrible. 

Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

To preserve a “livable planet,” the Earth can’t warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the United Nations warns.

Failure to maintain that level could lead to several catastrophes, including increased droughts and weather-related disasters, more heat-related illnesses and deaths, and less food and more poverty, according to NASA.

To avert the looming tribulations and limit global temperature increases, 194 member states and the European Union in 2016 signed the U.N. Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty with a goal to “substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.”

After the agreement, global spending on climate-related projects increased exponentially.

In 2021 and 2022, the world’s taxpayers spent, on average, $1.3 trillion on such projects each year, according to the nonprofit advisory group Climate Policy Initiative.

That’s more than double the spending rate in 2019 and 2020, which came in at $653 billion per year, and it’s significantly up from the $364 billion per year in 2011 and 2012, the report found.

Despite the money pouring in, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that 2023 was the hottest year on record.

NOAA’s climate monitoring stations found that the Earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature in 2023 was 1.35 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

“Not only was 2023 the warmest year in NOAA’s 174-year climate record—it was the warmest by far,” said Sarah Kapnick, NOAA’s chief scientist.

“A warming planet means we need to be prepared for the impacts of climate change that are happening here and now, like extreme weather events that become both more frequent and severe.”

But a growing chorus of climate scientists are saying the temperature readings are faulty and that the trillions of dollars pouring in are based on a problem that doesn’t exist.

More than 90 percent of NOAA’s temperature monitoring stations have a heat bias, according to Anthony Watts, a meteorologist, senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute, author of climate website Watts Up With That, and director of a study that examined NOAA’s climate stations.

“And with that large of a number, over 90 percent, the methods that NOAA employs to try to reduce this don’t work because the bias is so overwhelming,” Mr. Watts told The Epoch Times.

“The few stations that are left that are not biased because they are, for example, outside of town in a field and are an agricultural research station that’s been around for 100 years … their data gets completely swamped by the much larger set of biased data. There’s no way you can adjust that out.”

Meteorologist Roy Spencer agreed.

“The surface thermometer data still have spurious warming effects due to the urban heat island, which increases over time,” Mr. Spencer said.

He is the principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite, and the recipient of NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for his work with satellite-based temperature monitoring.

Mr. Spencer also said computerized climate models used to drive changes in energy policy are even more faulty.

Lt. Col. John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist, said the problems with temperature readings go beyond heat bias. The retired lieutenant colonel was an advanced weather officer in the Air Force.

“After seeing many reports about NOAA’s adjustments to the USHCN [U.S. Historical Climatology Network] temperature data, I decided to download and analyze the data myself,” Lt. Col. Shewchuk told The Epoch Times.

“I was able to confirm what others have found. It is obvious that, overall, the past temperatures were cooled while the present temperatures were warmed.”

He contends that NOAA and NASA have adjusted historical temperature data in such a way as to make the past appear colder and, by so doing, make the current warming trend more pronounced.

Faulty Temperature Readings

The urban heat island effect causes higher temperatures in areas where there are more buildings, roads, and other forms of infrastructure that absorb and then radiate the sun’s heat, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The agency estimates that “daytime temperatures in urban areas are 1–7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than temperatures in outlying areas, and nighttime temperatures are about 2–5 degrees Fahrenheit higher.”

Consequently, NOAA requires all its climate observation stations to be located at least 100 feet away from elements such as concrete, asphalt, and buildings.

However, in March 2009, Mr. Watts released a report that shows that 89 percent of NOAA’s stations had heat bias issues due to being located within 100 feet of those elements, and many were located by airport runways.

“We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat,” Mr. Watts said.

“We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.”

The report concluded that the U.S. temperature record was unreliable, and because it was considered “the best in the world,” global temperature databases were also “compromised and unreliable.”

Following the report, the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Government Accountability Office confirmed Mr. Watt’s findings and stated that NOAA was taking steps to address the issues.

“NOAA acknowledges that there are problems with the USHCN data due to biases introduced by such means as undocumented site relocation, poor siting, or instrument changes,” the OIG report reads.

“All of the experts thought that an improved, modernized climate reporting system is necessary to eliminate the need for data adjustments.”

Despite the assurances, Mr. Watts had doubts about NOAA addressing the issues and in April 2022 and May 2022, he and his team revisited many of the same temperature stations they had observed in 2009.

He published his findings in a new study on July 27, 2022. It found that even more, approximately 96 percent, of NOAA’s temperature stations still failed to meet its own standards.

“There are two main biases in the surface temperature network for the United States, and most likely the world, that I have identified,” Mr. Watts said.

“The biggest bias is the urban heat island effect. What happens is that because heat is retained by the surfaces and released into the air at night, the night’s low temperature is not as low as it could be if the thermometer were outside of town and in a field.”

Over the years, he said, more and more infrastructure has been built up around the thermometer locations, and at night, the asphalt and concrete release the absorbed heat and push up the temperature.

“You can look at any set of climate data, no matter who produces it, and you can see this effect. The low temperatures are trending upward much faster, and the high temperatures are virtually unchanged. But it’s the average temperature that’s being used to track climate change,” Mr. Watts said.

He said that even though both NOAA and NASA claim that they can adjust their data to account for the urban heat island effect, the bias is impossible to overcome because the problem impacts 96 percent of surface stations.

He said the few thermometers located at climate stations not experiencing a heat bias show half the rate of warming currently being reported.

Transient Temperature

The second primary bias that Mr. Watts identified is the transient temperature readings, which are short-term temperature changes that can give a false reading.

NOAA started switching out their mercury thermometers in the mid-to-late 1980s, according to Mr. Watts.

Read the rest here…

The trend for ‘soft’ survey data is very much not the friend of the ‘soft-landing’ or ‘goldilocks’ narrative peddlers as it slumps from extreme optimism to disappointed pessimism…

Source: Bloomberg

And today saw more of the same as the Chicago MNI tumbled further off the ‘weird’ spike in November, back into contraction…

Under the hood was ugly:

• New orders fell at a slower pace; signaling contraction

• Employment fell at a slower pace; signaling contraction

• Inventories fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction

• Supplier deliveries rose at a faster pace; signaling expansion

• Production fell and the direction reversed; signaling contraction

• Order backlogs fell at a slower pace; signaling contraction

Worse still, the prices paid index component continued to rise.

Slower growth, rising prices, and survey-based hope fading fast – not exactly ‘election-winning’ headlines.