After starting off the week with whimper, renewed hopes for a soft Goldilocks landing as well as two consecutive upgrades of Apple have not only reversed the bitter taste from the preceding two downgrades (today the company was added to Evercore ISI’s tactical outperform, following yesterday’s BofA upgrade which fueled the best day for Apple since May), but have also sparked “banging” trader sentiment which pushed US futures higher in premarket trading while lifting the Nasdaq 100 to a recorder high. As of 7:40am, contracts on the Nasdaq 100 climbed about 0.7% after hitting an all time high on Thursday, while S&P 500 futures were up 0.4%, and with the S&P just 16 handles away from all time highs, we may have a new record today (at which point we assume Marko will finally turn bullish and we can once again short). Treasury yields were flat at 4.14% and the dollar dropped after frenetic repricing of the policy outlook earlier in the week. Investors will pay close attention to UMich inflation expectations and Fed speakers today for further cues on the timing and extent of rate cuts. Traders now see the prospect of easing in March at little more than a coin toss, down from almost 80% at the end of last week.

In premarket trading, semiconductor sector names like Nvidia and Broadcom were among the biggest benefactors from the Nasdaq rally, as a brighter outlook from Taiwanese chipmaking behemoth TSMC two days ago lingered on (and on) and helped lift the mood as well as hopes for a broader recovery in the tech sector in 2024 (even as a similar warning by TSMC a quarter ago was very much ignored). Chip companies such as Advanced Micro Devices climbed 2% while Intel rose 1.2%. Texas Instruments rose more than 2% after maintaining its quarterly dividend. Here are some of the other notable premarket movers:

• Coherus BioSciences shares jump 5.8% after the commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company posted data from the lead-in portion of the Phase 2 clinical trial on a treatment for liver cancer.
• Coinbase shares rise 0.8% as Citi hikes its price target on the cryptocurrency exchange operator, following an increase in crypto prices and volumes quarter-on-quarter.
• Endeavor shares climb 7.5% after Bloomberg reported that Silver Lake plans to sell parts of the entertainment company after taking it private.
• iRobot shares slide 37% following reports that the European Union’s antitrust watchdog is planning to block Amazon’s planned acquisition of the Roomba vacuum maker.
• Roku shares rise 2.3% after Seaport Global raised the maker of TV streaming boxes and software to neutral due to to incremental data points that suggest there could be upside to the asset manager’s estimates.
• Super Micro Computer shares rise 12% after the computer hardware maker’s preliminary financial results beat expectations, with the company saying it expects to exceed its previous guidance. Barclays analysts said that it was a positive pre-announcement for the firm.
• AT&T rises 1.5% in premarket trading after Oppenheimer raised the wireless telecommunications company to outperform from perform, citing several tailwinds including improvements to network capacity and coverage, helping boost average revenue per user growth.
• IBM advances 2.5% in premarket trading after Evercore ISI raised the IT services company to outperform from inline, calling it an “overlooked beneficiary” of the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence.
• Apple Inc.’s long-awaited Vision Pro mixed-reality headset will finally be available for preorders on Friday, giving the company its first real taste of consumer demand for the $3,499 device. Apple Inc. vowed to open up its coveted tap-to-pay technology on iPhones to rivals in a bid to sidestep potentially massive European Union antitrust fines.

“Markets have been unnerved by the reluctance of major central banks to cut rates quickly in response to slowing inflation and weak growth,” said Lee Hardman, a currency strategist at MUFG Bank Ltd. “It is difficult to see today’s rebound in risk assets proving sustainable until central banks give the green light for rate cuts.”

In Fed speak, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic urged policymakers to proceed cautiously given the potential impacts of unpredictable events from elections to global conflicts. His Philadelphia counterpart Patrick Harker said he expects inflation to keep ebbing toward the target. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and the San Franscisco Fed’s Mary Daly are scheduled to speak today.

And speaking of market expectations, BlackRock expects the Fed to start cutting rates in June, senior investment strategist Laura Cooper said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. She sees 75 to 100 basis points of reductions by year-end. “We’re leaning more towards a June rate cut and then a recalibration,” Cooper said. Markets have become “very exuberant” in their bets on policy easing, she said, adding that “there is a degree of repricing that still needs to come through that adds to our view that there’s going to be a bit of volatility ahead.”

On the outlook for US equities, Bank of America strategists said the stocks that led the rally in 2023 are again traders’ top picks amid elevated Treasury yields.Investors are reverting to owning growth, technology, the AI bubble and the so-called Magnificent Seven group of stocks including Apple as the 10-year Treasury yield settles in a range of 3.75% to 4.25%, a BofA team led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note.

This same group of equities led the Nasdaq 100’s 54% rally last year amid expectations of rate cuts, a solid economy and optimism about artificial intelligence developments. So far in January, Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. — all among those seven dominant stocks — are the top gainers on the tech-heavy gauge.

European stocks rose for a second day, albeit slightly, with the Stoxx 600 up 0.1% and trimming its loss this week to 1.2%. The technology sub-sector advanced further as Taiwan Semi’s outlook fueled hopes for a global recovery in chip sales. Swiss electrical-equipment maker ABB dragged industrials lower after saying US lawmakers are reviewing its operations in China. Here are the biggest European movers on Friday:

• Teleperformance jumps as much as 6.3% after Stifel raised its rating and its target price for the shares of the French call center operator which, the broker believes, has the potential to double in the next three years
• BASF rises as much as 2% after reporting preliminary results. UBS says the 4Q numbers represent a trough, though overall Warburg says the figures fall short of the company’s guidance as well as consensus estimates
• Avanza rises as much as 8% after the Swedish bank’s quarterly earnings beat estimates. Citi says the update should prompt an upgrade to earnings consensus
• Persimmon rises as much as 3.5% and is leading gains among UK housebuilders following double upgrade to overweight from Morgan Stanley. Analysts flag hopes that demand is improving as we approach the key Spring selling season, even as the outlook remains uncertain
• Temenos shares rise as much as 7.6%, the most since April, after the Swiss financial software firm reported preliminary 4Q results that were well above expectations and exceeded guidance, according to Vontobel
• Marel shares jump as much as 8%, to its highest intraday level in Amsterdam as John Bean Technologies raised its offer to buy the company to €3.60/share
• 4imprint Group shares rise as much as 15%, the most since August after the promotional merchandise maker said annual pretax profit for 2023 will be above the upper end of analysts’ consensus range
• Wincanton gains as much as 48% the biggest jump on record to 439p, slightly below the offer price of 450p/share proposed by CEVA Logistics, a subsidiary of French shipping and logistics company CMA CGM
• Corbion plunges as much as 8.5% after ING cut its recommendation on the Dutch ingredients maker to sell from hold. The broker say it’s “quite shocking” that over nearly a decade the company has spent the equivalent of its market value in capital expenditure

Earlier in the session, stocks in Asia mostly rose, as gains in semiconductor stocks drove MSCI’s Asia Pacific gauge higher for a second day, and higher as much as 1.1%, set for its biggest gain in at least six sessions and paring this week’s loss to 2.3%. A sub-gauge of tech shares gained more than 3%, on track for its biggest gain in a year. Taiwan’s benchmark Taiex led gains around the region as TSMC climbed 6% after saying it expects a return to solid growth this quarter. Shares in Japan and South Korea also advanced as the Taiwanese chipmaker’s outlook for capital spending and revenue lifted hopes of a broad tech recovery in 2024.

• Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were subdued amid the lingering concerns surrounding an uneven recovery in the Chinese economy, while a restriction on short sales by China’s largest brokerage did little to spur a recovery.
• Nikkei 225 was underpinned and briefly climbed above 36,000 after Japanese CPI data continued to soften and a source report noted there was no pressure for the BoJ to rush towards the exit.
• ASX 200 climbed back above 7,400 with the advances led by tech after similar outperformance stateside.
• Indian stocks advanced, on track for their first gain in four days, tracking regional peers boosted by a rally in chip shares. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.9% to 71,844.37 as of 09:30 a.m. in Mumbai, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index advanced 0.9% to 21,655.75.

“When TSMC reports a strong outlook, you know there will be other winners in the space — market focus is likely to return to other chip stocks and AI plays,” said Charu Chanana, a market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets. “The recovery comes in somewhat faster-than-expected.”

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped 0.1%, its second consecutive day of decline, yet the gauge remains on track for its third straight week of gains as expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut recede;  USDJPY rose 0.4% before paring gains to trade flat at 148.08; Japan’s finance minister Shunichi Suzuki said the government is closely watching FX movements. GBPUSD fell as much as 0.3% to 1.2666, reversing two sessions of gains; after UK retail sales slumped at their fastest pace since January 2021.

In rates, Treasuries trade little changed across the curve. Gilts rallied on the increasing prospect of recession after UK retail sales fell at their fastest pace since Covid-19 lockdowns three years ago. UK 10-year yields drop 3bps to 3.90%.

In commodities, oil was steady after closing at a three-week high on escalating tensions in the Middle East. WTI rose 0.8% to trade near $74.70. Spot gold added 0.3% but was headed for a weekly loss on the recalibration of Fed rate-cut bets.

Bitcoin rose +0.7%, amid attempts to pare back some of the prior day’s hefty losses, though still remains below $41.5K.

To the day ahead now, and data releases include German PPI and UK retail sales, and US existing home sales for December. Otherwise in the US, there’s also the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index for January. From central banks, we’ll hear from ECB President Lagarde, along with the Fed’s Daly and Barr.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures up 0.3% to 4,827.25
• STOXX Europe 600 up 0.3% to 471.69
• MXAP up 1.1% to 163.86
• MXAPJ up 1.2% to 498.73
• Nikkei up 1.4% to 35,963.27
• Topix up 0.7% to 2,510.03
• Hang Seng Index down 0.5% to 15,308.69
• Shanghai Composite down 0.5% to 2,832.28
• Sensex up 0.6% to 71,625.04
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 1.0% to 7,421.24
• Kospi up 1.3% to 2,472.74
• German 10Y yield little changed at 2.34%
• Euro little changed at $1.0882
• Brent Futures up 0.6% to $79.61/bbl
• Gold spot up 0.3% to $2,028.90
• U.S. Dollar Index down 0.16% to 103.37

Top Overnight News

• China’s largest brokerage has suspended short selling for some clients in mainland markets amid a deepening rout in the nation’s stocks. State-owned Citic Securities Co. has stopped lending stocks to individual investors and raised the requirements for institutional clients earlier this week after so-called window guidance from regulators. BBG
• China has said it will rein in expansion of the country’s electric vehicle sector, as Beijing responds to western criticism of its industrial and trade policies that have contributed to a wave of Chinese car exports. FT
• Japan’s core CPI cooled to +3.7% in Dec, inline with expectations and down from +3.8% in Nov, a number that removes pressure from the BOJ. RTRS
• British retailers suffered the biggest drop in sales for almost three years during December, raising the risk that the economy slipped into recession late last year, official data showed on Friday.
• The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said people doing Christmas shopping earlier than usual – especially for food – contributed to retail sales volumes shrinking 3.2% between December and November. It was the biggest monthly drop since January 2021 and left the level of sales at its lowest ebb since May 2020. RTRS
• Germany’s construction union has demanded a pay rise of more than 20 per cent for many of the sector’s 930,000 workers, which economists warn could stoke inflation fears and delay interest rate cuts by the European Central Bank. FT
• Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman says inflation is already near 2%, lower than what the formal gov’t statistics signal (“I think they’re the wrong numbers…the numbers that the Fed are using are overstated”). Barron’s
• Congress passes legislation shifting the gov’t shutdown dates to Mar 1 and May 8 (from Jan 19 and Feb 2). WaPo
• Arab states are working on an initiative to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza as part of a broader plan that could offer Israel a normalization of relations if it agrees to “irreversible” steps towards the creation of a Palestinian state. FT
• META CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company will have 350,000 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units and overall almost 600,000 H100 compute equivalent GPUs by the end of this year. Barrons

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks mostly took impetus from the tech-led advances on Wall St where sentiment was underpinned after initial jobless claims fell to the lowest since September 2022 and with tech encouraged by TSMC’s earnings which lifted the Co.’s shares by over 6% and underpinned other chipmakers including Samsung Electronics. ASX 200 climbed back above 7,400 with the advances led by tech after similar outperformance stateside. Nikkei 225 was underpinned and briefly climbed above 36,000 after Japanese CPI data continued to soften and a source report noted there was no pressure for the BoJ to rush towards the exit. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were subdued amid the lingering concerns surrounding an uneven recovery in the Chinese economy, while a restriction on short sales by China’s largest brokerage did little to spur a recovery.

Top Asian News

• China’s MOFCOM said it hopes all parties concerned will restore and ensure the security of shipping lanes in the Red Sea and it hopes all parties jointly safeguard the smooth flow of global production, supply chains and normal order of international trade. Furthermore, it stated that China will strengthen coordination with relevant departments, closely track developments and provide timely support and assistance to foreign trade enterprises.
• Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki said forex moves are driven by various factors and the government is watching forex developments carefully, while he reiterated it is important for FX to move stably reflecting fundamentals. Suzuki also stated that he won’t comment in advance about what the government expects the BoJ to do but hopes the BoJ guides policy appropriately, working closely with the government to sustainably achieve the 2% inflation target.
• Moody’s cuts Huarong Asset Management to Junk, according to Bloomberg
• China’s cabinet has reportedly instructed heavily indebted governments to halt some unfinished infrastructure projects, according to Reuters sources; Beijing is said to be concerned about potential default due to local governments’ large debts.
• China securities regulator said will strengthen supervision over stock index futures trading to safeguard market stability. No signs yet of the intensive build-up of short positions in stock index futures.

European bourses are modestly firmer but with price action contained amid a lack of pertinent catalysts; the FTSE 100 (+0.5%) leads amid the softer Pound and lower yields. European sectors hold a slight positive tilt; Travel & Leisure outperforms, Tech continues to build on the prior day’s advances whilst Consumer Products is hampered as Luxury gives back some of yesterday’s gains. US equity futures are firmer across the board to varying degrees. The NQ (+0.7%) continues yesterday’s outperformance. BASF (BAS GY) FY Prelim (EUR): adj. EBIT 3.81bln (exp. 3.85bln); Sales 68.90bln (exp. 70.58bln); Miss in forecasts “primarily attributable to non-cash-effective impairments in the amount of EUR 1.1bln”.

Top European News

• UK Chancellor Hunt has given strong hints that he wants to cut taxes in the spring budget, according to the BBC. He did not offer any further detail on the scale of potential future tax cuts, as the government awaits an assessment from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). It is widely expected that the chancellor will focus on income tax in the budget on 6 March, BBC said.
• SNB’s Jordan said that additional rate hikes from the Bank are not necessary to maintain price stability, according to Aargauer Zeitung

FX

• A contained session for the Dollar thus far in narrow 103.31-51 ranges amid a lack of pertinent catalysts and a light docket ahead; DXY resides within yesterday’s 103.14-63 range on either side of its 200 DMA (103.45).
• A flat session for the EUR amidst a quiet morning with little price action seen on the sub-forecast German PPI metrics; EUR/USD trades within yesterday’s 1.0845-1.0906 parameter.
• GBP is the G10 underperformer (albeit narrowly) in the aftermath of the dismal UK Retail Sales data; Cable found resistance just above its 21 DMA (1.2708) and matched yesterday’s high.
• Antipodeans are mixed trade across the antipodeans with the AUD propped by a rise in base metals whilst NZD is subdued following a further contraction in Manufacturing PMI.
• PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1167 vs exp. 7.1972 (prev. 7.1174).

Fixed Income

• USTs are flat following yesterday’s bear-steepened as the long end failed to recover from the larger-than-expected drop in US jobless claims; Resistance at 111-21 and support at the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level from Oct 19 at 110-14.
• Gilts saw a marginal gap higher at the resumption of trade following the dismal UK Retail Sales metrics, which saw the contract open at 98.90 (vs yesterday’s 98.71 close).
• Another choppy morning within narrow ranges for Bunds with horizontal trade seen in APAC hours following yesterday’s fall under 134.00 after yesterday’s US data.

Commodities

• WTI and Brent continue to extend on gains after settling higher by over USD 1/bbl apiece yesterday; Brent Mar resides above USD 79/bbl and found resistance just before USD 79.50/bbl.
• Modest upside bias in precious metals as the DXY remains caged whilst geopolitics could be underpinning the yellow metal as prices were largely unfazed by yesterday’s US data; XAU found support at near its 50 DMA (USD 2,019.74/oz).
• Base metals are firmer across the board despite relatively muted price action elsewhere, with copper continuing to edge higher.
• Russia’s Kremlin said there is no prospect of reviving Black Sea Grain deal, said alternative routes to ship Ukrainian grain carry huge risks
• Saudi Finance Minister said Saudi Arabia is not worried about the oil price, via BBG interview

Geopolitics

• Yemen’s Houthis military spokesman said naval forces carried out an operation against the American ship Chem Ranger in the Gulf of Aden with naval missiles, while the US military later stated Houthis launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a US-owned tanker ship and that there was no reported damage or injuries.
• North Korea said it conducted a test of an underwater nuclear weapons system and that the test was in response to joint military drills involving South Korea, the US and Japan, according to KCNA.
• Belarusian Defence Minister said Belarusian new defence doctrine defines actions in case of aggression against CSTO allies, according to Tass

US Event Calendar

• 10:00: Jan. U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 70.1, prior 69.7
• Jan. U. of Mich. Current Conditions, est. 73.0, prior 73.3
• Jan. U. of Mich. Expectations, est. 67.0, prior 67.4
• Jan. U. of Mich. 1 Yr Inflation, est. 3.1%, prior 3.1%
• Jan. U. of Mich. 5-10 Yr Inflation, est. 3.0%, prior 2.9%
• 10:00: Dec. Existing Home Sales MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.8%
• 10:00: Dec. Home Resales with Condos, est. 3.83m, prior 3.82m
• 16:00: Nov. Total Net TIC Flows, prior -$83.8b

Central bank speakers

• 08:30: Fed’s Goolsbee Speaks on CNBC
• 11:15: Fed’s Daly Speaks on Fox Business
• 13:00: Fed’s Barr Speaks About Bank Regulation

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Risk assets found a firmer footing over the last 24 hours, with the S&P 500 (+0.88%) posting a solid recovery as an upbeat 2024 outlook by chipmaker TSMC drove an outperformance from tech stocks that saw the Magnificent 7 (+1.35%) reach a new all-time high. By contrast, bonds continued to struggle, and the 1 0yr Treasury yield (+3.9bps) hit a one-month high of 4.14% after US data continued to surprise on the upside, and overnight it’s risen further to 4.16%. That was mainly driven by positive data, including the weekly initial jobless claims which fell to just 187k over the week ending January 13 (205k expected), marking their lowest level since September 2022. So that offered yet more evidence of US economic resilience, and the data increasingly looks like a trend, since the release also pushed the 4-week average to its lowest since February.

But it was renewed tech optimism rather than the positive data that helped equities post solid gains yesterday, and the S&P 500’s advance (+0.88%) means the index is now less than half a percent away from its all-time high at the start of 2022. Europe’s STOXX 600 also rose +0.59%. That optimism was driven by an upbeat outlook by the world’s largest chip manufacturer TSMC, which expects revenue growth of at least 20% in 2024. TSMC’s shares are more than +6% up in trading this morning, while its American Depositary Receipts gained +9.87% in US trading yesterday. The news boosted other chipmakers – with the Philadelphia semiconductor index up +3.36% – as well as tech stocks more broadly with the NASDAQ advancing +1.35%, whilst the STOXX Technology index in Europe was up +3.24% in its best daily performance since July. Outside of tech, equities posted more moderate gains though, and the equal weighted version of the S&P 500 (+0.52% yesterday) is still down -2.04% YTD, in contrast to a slight +0.23% gain for the regular index. So the theme of mega caps propping up the equity performance has again played out since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, bond markets continued to see the pattern of positive data pushing up longer-dated bond yields. For instance, t he 30yr Treasury yield was up another +5.4bps yesterday to 4.37%, which is its highest level in over 6 weeks. Similarly in the Euro Area, 10yr bund yields were up +3.3bps yesterday to 2.35%, up more than +45bps from their low less than a month ago. And in the near-term, the robust data meant that investors continued to dial back the prospect of a Q1 rate cut. Indeed, the prospect of a Fed cut by the March meeting was down to 56% yesterday and has moved down further to 55% overnight, its lowest since the Fed’s last meeting in December. Meanwhile at the ECB, the prospect of a cut by March is down to 19% overnight, the lowest since late November.

This pushback on rate cuts was echoed by comments from Atlanta Fed President Bostic (a voter on the FOMC this year), who said that his “outlook right now is for our first cut to be sometime in the third quarter this year”, so that’s a contrast with market pricing, which is still fully pricing in a cut by the May meeting. Remember that today is the last day before the Fed’s blackout period ahead of the next meeting, so the next scheduled remarks are Fed Chair Powell’s press conference on January 31.

For the ECB, their next meeting is now less than a week away, and yesterday saw the release of the December minutes, which showed a concern about the recent easing in financial conditions. It said that “Concern was expressed that the sharp market repricing threatened to loosen financial conditions excessively, which could derail the disinflationary process.” Nevertheless, the accounts also mentioned that “it was argued that the December staff projections for growth in the near term might be too optimistic overall”. So while at least some on the Governing Council are wary of the downside risks to the ECB’s view, the overall reaction function was still focused on ensuring disinflation continues, as seen also in recent comments pushing back at pricing of cuts. See our European economists’ full reaction to the accounts here.

Looking back at the key data yesterday, the decline in US jobless claims was a surprise for markets, and the 187k reading was beneath every economist’s estimate on Bloomberg. And on similar lines, continuing claims fell to 1.806m in the week ending January 6, which was the lowest since October (1.840m expected). That positivity was echoed in the housing data too, where housing starts only fell to an annualised rate of 1.460m in December (vs. 1.425m expected), and building permits were up to an annualised rate of 1.495m (vs. 1.477m expected).

Overnight in Asia, equity markets are mostly up this morning following the rally on Wall Street yesterday. The Nikkei (+1.19%) has posted strong gains, along with the S&P/ASX 200 (+1.02%) and the KOSPI (+0.81%). However, the Shanghai Composite (-0.68%) has lost further ground and is now at its lowest since May 2020, whilst the CSI 300 (-0.37%) and the Hang Seng (-0.28%) are also down. Otherwise overnight, Japan’s headline CPI inflation rate fell to +2.6% in December (vs. +2.5% expected), which is the lowest it’s been since July 2022. In addition, core inflation slowed to +2.3% as expected, and core-core inflation was down to +3.7% as expected, which helped to cement expectations that the Bank of Japan won’t be rushing to end its negative interest rate policy.

In US policy news, last night Congress averted a partial government shutdown that would have started this weekend, with both the Senate and the House approving the latest stopgap spending bill. T he temporary measure pushes out the deadlines into early March, giving six weeks for officials to try and agree a long-term funding bill. Another short-term continuing resolution is also possible, with the harder deadline being 30 April, when automatic sequestration spending cuts would take place if no annual funding bill is passed.

Elsewhere, data yesterday showed fresh evidence that the rise in shipping costs was continuing, with Drewry’s WCI composite index up by +23% to $3,777 for a 40ft container, marking its 6th consecutive weekly advance. That follows the attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by the Houthi rebels, which has led to big diversions as container ships go round the Cape of Good Hope instead. Yesterday also saw further US strikes in response to the Houthis, and President Biden said that they would continue. The news also contributed to upside for oil, with both Brent (+1.57% to $79.10/bbl) and WTI (+2.09% to $74.08/bbl) crude prices rising to YTD highs.

To the day ahead now, and data releases include German PPI and UK retail sales, and US existing home sales for December. Otherwise in the US, there’s also the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment index for January. From central banks, we’ll hear from ECB President Lagarde, along with the Fed’s Daly and Barr.

Footage shared on social media platform X shows what appears to be an Atlas Air Boeing 747-8 with flames shooting out one of its four engines shortly after takeoff. 

Engine fire on Atlas Air Boeing 747 departing from Miami Airport tonight. Flight circled back and landed a few minutes later.

Story is developing.pic.twitter.com/lyDLOQxmLS

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 19, 2024

An Atlas Air spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that the aircraft had encountered an engine malfunction: 

“The crew followed all standard procedures and safely returned to [Miami International Airport].” 

According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, the Boeing 747-8, powered by four General Electric GEnx engines, took off from MIA on Thursday night, around 2232 ET, and was headed to Puerto Rico when it was diverted

Boeing has been under intense scrutiny after an incident earlier this month where an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9’s door ripped off during a flight over Portland, Oregon. Then, days ago, a 737 could not fly US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and staffers back from Davos after a mechanical issue was found. 

Authored by Omid Malekan via Medium.com,

The Wall Street Journal had a piece yesterday exploring Spotify’s struggles to turn a profit, prompting a more philosophical question: why should a platform like Spotify ever make money?

Sure, it offers an effective recommendation algorithm and a nice interface. But the music it streams can be accessed on other platforms – digital music kind of exists everywhere. Presented with a choice, most fans would rather listen to good music on a bad platform than lame music on a cool one.

Entrepreneurs, economists and VCs love the power of online platforms with network effects. This has arguably been The Big Idea of the past twenty years. But how much of a moat can any digital service have if the switching costs are minimal for producers and consumers alike? Fans of Taylor Swift can find her music on virtually every platform and the music coming through their headphones sounds identical. I’m sure there are Swifties who prefer Spotify over YouTube, but if she told them to switch, they would. Music platforms have a hard time differentiating themselves or exercising pricing power because their customers aren’t really their customers.

This issue doesn’t get enough attention, even though it applies to most digital platforms. Uber is so popular that its name has become a verb, but it still can’t turn an operating profit. Rideshare is a commodity. I have multiple apps on my phone and take whichever is more economical. Many drivers do the same. It would be foolish not to, and there are third party apps that help both riders and drivers find the best option.

The stock market obviously disagrees with this assessment and acts like these companies will become reliably profitable any day now.

But Spotify was founded way back in 2006 and Uber is 14 years old. Any day now is getting a little long in the tooth.

Social media platforms have proven the exception to this phenomenon, but for a sinister reason: they’ve engineered their services to be highly addictive.

Companies like Facebook make a lot of money because society as a whole pays the price.

To put it in economic jargon: their network effects lead to a lot of network externalities.

We’ll see how much longer they are allowed to get away with this, especially now that society is waking up to the toxicity of surveillance capitalism.

I’ll spare you the hard sell on why crypto can fix this, in part because the decentralized versions of these online services have yet to find traction.

My suspicion is we still haven’t found the right approach.

What we do know is that taking the existing approach and dropping it onto a blockchain will not work, blockchains-based platforms really have no moats.

We saw this during the last cycle with NFT platforms like OpnSea whose market share collapsed from over 95% to under 20% in the span of a few years.

And why wouldn’t it?

The underlying infrastructure lets users switch platforms with a single click. Competition has been fierce and fees have trended towards zero.

Despite these challenges, I’m confident that decentralized platforms will eventually take over by offering unique value propositions that retain users despite zero switching costs.

I’m not sure what most of those features will be but can speculate on one: ownership. Spotify and Uber wouldn’t care about profitability if their users owned them, and their users would be less likely to switch if they were also management.

Decentralization sounds crazy, until you contemplate the status quo.

Spotify and Uber are two of the most popular digital brands out there. They have 700 million users combined and made $50b in revenues last year. They still can’t make money.

It’s time to try something new.

The U.S. ranks as the third most populous country globally, boasting a population of around 336 million people.

Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti and Sam Parker created this map to compares it states and Washington D.C. to countries with similar population sizes to provide a perspective on the U.S. population. The data is sourced from Census.gov and Worldometer, with population projections for U.S. states as of December 8, 2023, and other countries as of July 16, 2023.

U.S Population Driven by Three States

Almost a third of the U.S. population resides in three states: California, Texas, and Florida.

California, the most populated, has a population equivalent to Canada. If the Golden State were a country, it would rank as the 38th most populous.

Texas, with over 30 million people, matches the population of Madagascar. Florida, with around 23 million, is comparable to Taiwan’s population.

Conversely, Wyoming stands as the least populated state in the country with fewer than 600,000 people, roughly equivalent to the population of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. The state is also the second-last in the U.S. economy by GDP output, just ahead of Vermont (the runner-up state by lowest population).

If New Jersey were a country, its population would match Israel’s. Virginia would have the same number of people as Switzerland, and Michigan would have the same number as Greece.

What might be more surprising to some are comparisons like Pennsylvania, which has almost the same amount of people as Bolivia, the eighth most populated country in South America.

U.S. Population Trends

According to the United States Census Bureau, the U.S. population continues to grow despite declining births.

The nation gained more than 1.6 million people in 2023, growing by 0.5%. More states experienced population growth in 2023 than in any year since the start of the pandemic.

U.S. migration returning to pre-pandemic levels and a drop in deaths have been the key drivers of this population growth.

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

Widening discounts for Russian grades and lower international benchmark prices dragged Russia’s oil export revenues down to a six-month low in December, despite higher export volumes, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday.  

All Russian oil exports, including crude and fuels, jumped by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 7.8 million bpd in the last month of 2023, compared to November, the IEA said in its Oil Market Report for January. This was the highest export level in nine months, with crude oil shipments jumping by 240,000 bpd from November to 5 million bpd, and oil product exports increasing by 260,000 bpd month-on-month.

Despite the highest export volumes in nine months, Russia’s estimated export revenues plunged to their lowest level in six months, to $14.4 billion, the IEA said.

The decline was the result of increased discounts of Russian oil prices compared to benchmarks and the overall decline in international benchmark prices. 

The price of Russia’s flagship crude grade, Urals, dropped in early December to below the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel after the U.S. toughened the enforcement of the sanctions on Russian oil exports.  

The tougher enforcement of the G7 sanctions looks to have created troubles for Russia in placing some its crude in some markets, especially one of its top markets, India.

The toughened enforcement and related issues have been holding up Indian purchases of some cargoes of Russian crude oil, with tankers previously headed to India now turning back eastwards, tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed earlier this month.

Some of those tankers were already en route to India loaded with Russia’s Sokol grade and departed from the Far Eastern ports in Russia.  

At the end of last year, the United States took a tougher stance on the sanctions against Russia and sanctioned several vessels for violating the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel, above which cargoes cannot use Western insurance and financing.  

Authored by John Cody via ReMix News,

In a shocking twist, five police officers are being forced to pay a fine to a Syrian migrant who was convicted for severely injuring one of them during riots related to a Quran burning during Easter of 2022.

The officers will have to pay out a total of 12,650 Swedish crowns (€1,122) from their own pockets to the 45-year-old convicted Syrian who has been sentenced to two years and seven months for his role in the riots.

The officers have reacted with near disbelief over the outcome of the case.

“It feels like something has gone terribly wrong in the legal system here. We are there and doing our job, yet individual police officers must be forced to pay out of their own pockets to people who really wanted us dead,” says Aleksandar Jeremic, who is a group leader in a civil suit involving the Botkyrka local police area and is now one of the five police officers ordered to pay court costs to the foreign national, according to Danish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

The case stems from the Quran riots, which began in Örebro’s city park over Easter weekend in 2022. They were preceded by far-right activist Rasmus Paluden burning a Quran in Sweden, leading to the violent riots that lasted several days.

However, the judge in the case is defending the decision to fine the police officers, saying he is sticking to the letter of the law.

“I understand if it appears offensive from the police’s point of view. But there is no mistake that has been made, the rules are as they are. The issue of damages was separated into a civil case, and the police withdrew their claims, so they are considered the losing party and must pay,” said Johan Nordgren, councilor at Örebro district court and the judge who made the decision.

Several police officers were injured so severely by stone-throwing rioters in Sveaparken that they needed emergency care. Among them was Johan Westberg, who was hospitalized with a severe concussion and hand injuries that are expected to take years to heal.

Westberg is one of the officers requesting damages after the 45-year-old Syrian was sentenced to prison for “gross sabotage against police operations.”

The criminal case and the civil case were handled as two separate matters.

The Syrian was sentenced to over five years in prison, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court and reduced to two years and seven months. However, the Supreme Court decision also destroyed the officers’ civil case.

The judges there argued that officers are not entitled to damages in a case of “gross sabotage against police operations” because it is considered a crime against the state and not against individual police officers.

Based on this finding, the officers had no hope of winning their case. Westberg and the other police officers in the case therefore withdrew their claims for damages.

However, in the procedural code, anyone who withdraws their civil case is considered to have “lost” the case and must pay the other party’s legal fees. This is what happened in this case, resulting in severely injured officers being forced to pay damages to the Syrian who attacked them.

“I don’t intend to pay a penny. Then, they better foreclose on me. This is so wrong, I was in Sveaparken as a service (provider), it was not optional to work,” said Johan Westberg, who no longer works for the police, according to Dagens Nyheter.

The police have appealed to the Göta Court of Appeals. Their attorney, Ester Andersson Zandvoort, says it is very strange how the case was separated into a criminal and civil case to begin with.

“It is exactly the same claim for damages as in other trials and in none of the other cases has it been separated. It is very surprising that this judge has acted this way. We will appeal,” she said.

Read more here…

Authored by Ted Snider & Nicolai N. Petro via The Libertarian Institute,

The essential argument used to avoid negotiation and continue support for the war in Ukraine is based on a falsehood. That falsehood, repeated by President Joe Biden, is that when Vladimir Putin decided to invade, he intended to conquer all of Ukraine and “annihilate” it.

Its falsity has been exposed multiple times by military experts, who have pointed out, both before and after the invasion, that Russia could not have intended to conquer all of Ukraine because it did not invade with sufficient forces to do so. Indeed, this was a key reason why senior Ukrainian officials, and even President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, argued just days before the invasion that it would not occur.

The mistake that most analysts at the time made (these authors included), was to assume that since the troops mobilized by Russia did not suffice for a full scale occupation of Ukraine, no military operation, not even a limited one, was in the offing. It was only later that Western political leaders turned this mistake to their propaganda advantage by insisting that Russia had always intended to first take Kiev, then all of Ukraine, and ultimately even attack NATO.

But if basic military logic is taken into account, the fact that Putin committed only 120,000–190,000 men to his campaign and did not mobilize more resources until months later, after Kiev rejected the Istanbul peace deal, indicates that his objectives in Ukraine were limited and revolved around guaranteeing the security of the populations of Donbass and Crimea from Ukrainian assaults and Russia from NATO expansion. Given that Ukraine had cut off Crimea’s water and electricity years before, this required a land bridge to the region; hence, the illegal annexations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

We also have indirect confirmation that territory was not his objective from an unimpeachable source: NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, who stated that Putin invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO’s expansion. This would explain why, as soon as these goals were within reach when Ukrainian officials initialed the draft of the Istanbul Agreement in March 2022, Putin halted his assault and withdrew Russian forces from Kiev, rather than move further into Ukraine.   

This background is important, because the argument for increasing Western military support for Ukraine relies so heavily on the claim that Russia always intended to expand further, attack NATO, and reestablish the Russian empire.

But, as noted scholar John Mearsheimer has pointed out, “there is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24th.” It was never one of Putin’s stated goals, nor was it ever taken seriously by the Ukrainian leadership. David Arakhamia, the head of Ukraine’s negotiating team in Belarus and Istanbul, recently revealed that the “key point” for Russia was Ukraine not joining NATO, and “everything else was simply rhetoric and political ‘seasoning.’”

Putin himself has consistently said that “this conflict is not about territory…[it] is about the principles underlying the new international order.” We should not take him at his word, but it is still worth asking: had Putin’s ambitions been territorial, would he have waited until 2014 to annex Crimea? Would the upper house of Russia’s parliament have rescinded Putin’s temporary authority to use troops in Ukraine in June 2015? Would he have opposed the 2014 independence referendums in Donetsk and Lugansk?

Looking back even further, if Putin had truly wanted to incorporate parts of the former Soviet Union, he had an ideal opportunity to do so in August 2008, when Russian troops were but an hour’s drive from the Georgian capitol of Tbilisi. He could have simply recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and then annexed them to Russia, but he did not. Reviewing Putin’s current behavior, therefore, former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Bryen concludes that “Russia has no intention of expanding outside of the Ukraine conflict area.”

The false narrative about Russian intentions has served its essential purpose of rallying Western countries behind Ukraine. Continuing to insist on it now, however, risks involving NATO directly in the conflict, and threatens Ukraine’s very survival.

If the challenge the West faces in this conflict is defined as “existential,” then what choice does NATO have but to send its own military forces in to prevent Ukraine’s defeat? President Biden implied as much when he said, “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there. It’s important to see the long run here. He’s going to keep going…Then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops.”

NATO Sec-Gen Jens Stoltenberg declares the Ukraine proxy war a fight for NATO expansion and the limitless right to place military installations on Russia’s frontiers – something no Western power would accept from an adversary pic.twitter.com/ZaJFBjQnre

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 22, 2023

At some point, a decision will have to be made to either greatly expand the West’s commitment, or abandon Ukraine to its fate. Alas, President Biden’s request for $61 billion in additional funding for 2024 does neither, since Ukraine needs at least five time that amount to win, according to its top military commander. With the Ukrainian counteroffensive already running out of steam due to a lack funding, lack of weaponry, and unsustainable losses, Ukraine will likely soon be facing a Russian counteroffensive.

Before such an assault, however, Russia might offer Ukraine new peace terms, albeit far less advantageous than the ones it offered in March 2022. If Ukraine balks, Russia will press its overwhelming advantage and take more territory, which it does not really want (for a good discussion of why, see former Ukrainian diplomat Rostislav Ishchenko), in order to force Ukraine to the negotiating table.

At that point, the West will be faced with a fateful choice: either accept Ukraine’s surrender or send in NATO troops. Either scenario is likely to lead to sharp divisions in the NATO alliance, since Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey have all indicated that they want a peaceful resolution to the conflict, not escalation.

The one thing that escalation cannot guarantee, however, is Russia’s defeat. That is because, by confirming Putin’s narrative that NATO is intent on destroying Russia, his support both within Russia and around the world would likely skyrocket. A more divided West would thus be facing a more united Russia, this time supported openly by the BRICS countries, as well as many other major international actors currently on the sidelines. This would effectively turn the tables on America’s strategy of using Ukraine to contain China’s global ambitions. Instead, it would now be Russia and its allies using Ukraine to contain the global ambitions of the United States.

It was, in no small part, the West’s original false narrative about Russia’s goals in Ukraine that has led us to this dismal outcome; European security weakened, the specter of nuclear war, Ukraine destroyed, and America’s global standing undermined. It has already been used once before to scuttle the Istanbul Agreement, which could have ended the war before hundreds of thousands died. For peace negotiations to become an acceptable alternative to mutual annihilation, this falsehood must be exposed and discarded.

Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Billy was a bright 10-year-old boy with two Ivy-League-educated parents. He was book smart—got straight A’s in school—but lacked street smarts.

He was also a poor sport. Billy would frequently lie and cheat when playing board games or participating in team activities and have full-blown meltdowns when he lost. His friends, who had been with him since kindergarten, began losing patience. His parents recognized that something had to be done.

So Billy’s parents brought him to Dr. Victoria Dunckley, a pediatric psychiatrist specializing in screen use.

After a four-week “screen fast” prescribed by Dr. Dunckley, which eliminated all TVs, phones, and video games, Billy’s problems miraculously cleared up. His parents were so pleased that they decided to maintain the fast.

Six months passed, and Billy’s friends were no longer avoiding him, and his sportsmanship had improved markedly. Billy decided to run for class president and delivered a speech, something that would have previously terrified him.

Billy is one of Dr. Dunckley’s many patients whose mental and behavioral problems disappeared once they eliminated or significantly reduced screen time.

Excessive use of screens has become an epidemic silently eroding lives with little resistance. Gallup’s 2012 survey found that around 60 percent of young adults admit to spending too much of their time on the internet; a subsequent survey estimated that 83 percent of smartphone users say they keep their phone near them “almost all the time during their waking hours.”

Screens can overstimulate our brains, resulting in a perpetual, highly stressed, fight-or-flight state. This then makes us prone to meltdowns, depression, and anxiety when even minor changes in the environment occur.

Rising Problem

The initial link between screen time and poor mental health was spotted through generational studies by Jean Twenge, who has a doctorate in psychology and is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University.

“I got used to changes that would grow slowly and steadily over time,“ but then after 2010, ”I started to see some changes that were much more sudden—I had really never seen anything like it,” Ms. Twenge said in a TEDx talk.

Between 2005 and 2012, the change in rates of depressive episodes in teens aged 12 to 17 barely exceeded 1 percent. However, between 2012 and 2017, there was an almost 4 percent increase.

Additionally, fewer teenagers are going outside or reading books, while their time on social media and the internet is dramatically surging.

In 2008, psychotherapist Tom Kersting, who worked as a school counselor for 25 years, saw a rise in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses in children over age 8.

ADHD tends to be detected in early childhood after a child starts school. However, he has witnessed increasingly delayed diagnoses in teenagers and adults. While it could be possible that some of these teens were missed by clinicians when they were young, Mr. Kersting suspects that some developed symptoms of ADHD due to screen use.

Around 2012, when 30 percent of teenagers had a smartphone, he started to see rebellious behavior and anxiety disorders becoming more common among children. Young adults and teenagers growing up now also tend to be more antisocial and have reduced emotional resilience, which may be related to insufficient in-person socializing due to spending most of their time behind screens.

“It’s not just the amount of time spent in the cyber world,” Mr. Kersting told The Epoch Times, “but also what they missed out on: outside play and social learning.”

During the pandemic, adolescents’ screen time doubled.

Few studies investigated internet addiction in children during the pandemic, but a large study done in adults in 2021 showed that adults who were considered at risk of internet addiction were 2.3 times more likely to have depression and 1.9 times more likely to have anxiety than the general population. Furthermore, people with definite or severe addiction were 13 times more likely to have both depression and anxiety.

Fast forward to post-pandemic times, with teachers reporting that the latest generation—Gen Alpha, also known as “iPad kids”—is aggressive, undisciplined, and regulates emotions poorly in the classroom.

Dr. Clifford Sussman, a psychiatrist specializing in screen addiction, has focused his practice on treating this condition due to increasing need. Especially after the pandemic, “demand for help with this issue exploded,” he told The Epoch Times.

How Screens Hook You

Screen activities—whether they include video games, social media, internet scrolling, or video streaming—offer an escape. These activities are also highly stimulating for the brain due to their bright colors and seamless integration into the virtual world, professor and psychotherapist David Rosenfeld at Buenos Aires University told The Epoch Times.

When presented with anything new and exciting, the brain releases dopamine, and anything that induces dopamine release can be addictive. Dopamine produces a feeling of pleasure, while a drop in it is linked to irritability and poor mood.

Screen activities have been designed to capture our attention by feeding us regular doses of dopamine. Like playing an immersive video game, giving you a thrill when you level up, defeat a boss, or find a new item, screens entice you to spend more time in the virtual world.

“Video games are governed by microscopic rules,” Bennett Foddy, who teaches game design at New York University’s Game Center, said in the book “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked” by Adam Alter, as excerpted by The Guardian.

These micro-rules can be a “ding” sound or a white flash whenever a character moves over a particular square and are synced to the player’s actions so they feel they were the one who caused it. This micro-feedback generates a sense of reward, hooking people into continuously playing the game.

This system may also explain why interactive screen activities may be more problematic for children than passive screen activities, like watching TV.

Dr. Dunckley has observed that while two hours of TV is linked to signs of dysregulation in children, only 30 minutes of interactive screen activities is stimulating enough for signs to occur.

Many video games also employ strategies used in gambling, such as loot-box rewards, where players are rewarded at random intervals throughout the game. Since players do not know when the next reward drop will come, they are further compelled to play the game—even if they are not enjoying it.

This strategy came from the works of psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Skinner put pigeons in a box with a button, rewarding them with food whenever they pressed it. He found that the pigeons rewarded irregularly were more compelled to press the button than those rewarded with every button press.

This compulsion also exists in humans.

Read more here…

The panic is palpable.  Democrat controlled cities across the nation are experiencing something they might never have experienced before:  Consequences for their terrible criminal prosecution policies.  And, they don’t like.  Not one bit.

Democrats have argued for the past couple years that crime rates are actually falling in the US compared to previous decades, but this does not seem to be represented on the streets as retailers in numerous metro areas are closing up shop after many years of operations due to increasing theft.  If crime rates are falling, why are so many businesses leaving blue areas?

Boston, for example, has been bleeding retailers in recent months, with companies like Walgreens closing down four stores in the area in a single year.  Residents and officials are “outraged”, arguing that these companies have a civic duty to stay and service communities in need.  It’s estimated that Massachusetts retailers are losing more than $2 billion per year to criminal theft.  Maybe if the community stopped robbing them on a daily basis, these companies wouldn’t feel the need to shut down.

Walgreens is closing its 4th location in Boston in the black area of Roxbury, a neighborhood plagued by theft.

Residents are outraged and shocked.

Former NAACP president to stores: “Do what’s right for these communities and beyond just your bottom line” pic.twitter.com/tFSZYVQq9I

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 16, 2024

The series of closures in Boston is similar to what is happening in San Francisco, with some neighborhoods slowly but surely losing nearby access to grocers.  Companies have in some cases tried to hide the reason for shutting down (high crime) by suggesting that they are “improving” the area by opening land up for development, but locals know the real cause.

Conclusion – Crime is not falling at all in leftist run cities.  Crime rates rely on reports and arrests.  If leftist officials are making policies which discourage arrests and reporting, then crime rates go down – It’s like magic.

Due to changes in the way data is being collated by the FBI during the covid years, many major cities are not actually required to provide full crime rate information until 2024-2025, and quite a few are taking advantage (at least 30%).  San Francisco will not be reporting complete crime stats until 2025.   

This means that when Democrats argue that crime is going down (ostensibly because of their leadership), this is based on a false and incomplete picture of the data.  Lack of data, as mentioned, is also coupled with lack of arrests, lack of prosecution, and the consistent release of repeat offenders in blue cities.  Lack of arrests and convictions does not mean there’s less crime.  

Again, using San Francisco as an example, the police department’s closure rate on cases remains dismal because the city’s District Attorney refused to prosecute; for every 100 suspects arrested, three are charged and one is convicted.  Until he was recalled in a July 8, 2022, election, San Francisco’s DA was Soros-backed radical leftist Chesa Boudin.  The Soros connection is widely considered one of the prime indicators of crooked DA’s and prosecutors, as well as high crime rates for a city.

Soros DAs run several other major prosecutorial offices, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, St. Louis, New York, Baltimore, Albuquerque, Orlando, and three urban counties in Northern Virginia.  In Massachusetts, Soros-backed federal prosecutor Rachael Rollins was forced to resign after the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel released devastating reports outlining her serious ethical lapses and partisan political activity.  It’s not surprising that wherever Soros influenced DAs and prosecutors run things, food deserts seem to follow.        

Once this dynamic of corruption is understood, it becomes clear why so many grocers and retailers are uprooting their stores and leaving.  It’s no longer profitable to stay because Democrat city governments have chosen criminals over businesses.