Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The House of Representatives on Dec. 6 voted to pass a bill that will block a proposed rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to effectively mandate that most cars produced in the United States be fully electric by 2032.

The bill, H.R. 4468, dubbed the Choice in Automobile Retail Sales Act of 2023, passed the House by a 221–197 vote. That included total GOP support; Democrats, meanwhile, sought to have the bill sent back to committee.

The bill would block an EPA rule that would require roughly 68 percent of cars manufactured in the United States be fully electric by 2032. The rule has won the support of President Joe Biden’s administration.

Republicans have rallied against the proposed standards, which they say are unrealistic and threaten to undermine consumer freedom—as well as to increase U.S. dependence on China.

Around 90 percent of the rare earth minerals used to create electric vehicles (EVs) are sourced from the top U.S. adversary.

The broad support among Republicans for blocking the rule was on full display in November, when over 200 House and Senate Republicans signed onto a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urging opposition to the rule (pdf).

“While we are supportive of the free market producing electric vehicles to satisfy a market need, this misguided EPA mandate would have an immediate, detrimental impact on the choices and affordability of cars, trucks, and SUVs available to our constituents,” the Republican signatories said. “It also increases America’s dependence on China.”

Specifically, those who signed the letter pushed for the inclusion of a reversal of the EV standards to be included in the final draft of 2024 government funding.

“Not only would the EPA’s proposed regulation hurt America’s national security, but it would severely limit consumer choice for affordable vehicles that fit the needs of the average American,” they wrote. “At a time of inflation, high interest rates, and rising costs, the last thing Americans need is to find both new and used vehicles unaffordable because of an EPA mandate.”

The National Automobile Dealers Association has also criticized the EPA rule, which they called “too far, too fast.”

In a Dec. 5 press conference the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and other House Republicans spoke in support of the measure to overturn the rule prior to its vote on the floor.

“This standard … is unattainable, it’s unaffordable, and in fact it’s unrealistic,” Mr. Walberg said.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) agreed, saying that the notion that most vehicles should be fully electric by 2032 is “ridiculous.”

She said, “If we force automakers to do this, they will bleed money, which will mean layoffs for employees of families who are already struggling under this administration, and manufacturing will move outside of the United States.

“That is not good for our taxpayers.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), another enthusiastic supporter of the proposal, raised a series of concerns about the potential effects of a mandate.

Specifically, he pointed to the instability of the U.S. electric grid, which is currently unable to support a large-scale move toward EVs.

As proof of this, he pointed to a case in California a few years ago when Gov. Gavin Newsom asked Californians not to charge their EVs between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. due to strains on the electric grid.

“What do you do when you’re stuck? What do you do when your wife is pregnant in the hospital?” Mr. Roy said. “These questions are existential threats to the well being of American families.”

Despite its passage by the House, the legislation seems unlikely to pass muster in the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority.

And even if it did pass the Senate, President Biden has promised to veto the bill.

The White House has defended the rule, saying it’s “projected to save Americans $12,000 over the lifetime of a new light-duty vehicle by accelerating adoption of technologies that reduce fuel and maintenance costs alongside pollution.”

However, Republicans are unusually united behind the effort to overturn the rule, and this issue could become a key point of negotiations over spending next year.

On the same day as House Republicans formalize the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden charged the president’s son late Thursday on nine counts stemming from his failure to pay his federal taxes on time on millions in income from foreign businesses.

A grand jury in the Central District of California (yes California!) charged Mr. Biden with three counts each of evasion of a tax assessment, failure to file and pay taxes, and filing a false or fraudulent tax return, according to the 56-page indictment (see below).

The situation is more serious now as the charges include three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanors.

“At times relevant to this Indictment, the Defendant served on the board of a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate and a Chinese private equity fund. He negotiated and executed contracts and agreements for business and legal services that paid millions of dollars of compensation to him and/or his domestic corporations, Owasco, PC and Owasco, LLC,” the indictment reads.

“The Defendant engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020,” the indictment adds.

This is the second indictment against him this year – the first of which related to alleged gun possession and false statements.

He has pleaded not guilty in the gun charges case.

As a reminder, the previous indictment culminated in a plea deal, which ultimately fell apart amid whistleblower allegations that Biden-appointed officials had worked to stifle the case.

Don Jr offered his perspective on the matter…

Mark my words this was planned and they’re going to use this as the excuse to not testify before Congress… he’ll end up with nothing or slap on the wrist but it’ll make sure he evades the thousands of things @GOPoversight is looking at. Bookmark it! https://t.co/MXC3E3A9Zx

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 8, 2023

The case was assigned to Judge Mark Scarsi, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.

Well, all those 87,000 new IRS agents was money well-spent right?

Instead of going after the ‘billionaires’, they are clearly just trying to keep the poor-but-talented painters of America down.

Thanks Joe!

We’re making corporations and the super-wealthy start to pay their fair share in taxes.

It’s about rewarding work, not wealth.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 27, 2023

….and that’s how Gavin Newsom becomes the Democratic Party nominee.

*  *  *

Read the full docket below:

The one thing progressive corporate media and the radical left in the White House cannot stand is Elon Musk deepening his ties with the Department of Defense from rocket launches to providing the military with high-speed internet beamed from low-Earth orbit. 

According to Bloomberg, Musk’s satellite internet service called “Starlink” successfully completed a nine-month pilot test in the harsh, snowy environment in the Arctic.

Brian Beal, principal engineer with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Integrated Capabilities Directorate, stated that StarLink was a “reliable and high-performance communications system in the Arctic, including on-the-move applications.” 

Beal said the test ended in June and evaluated Starlink’s usefulness for high-speed internet in remote areas that can be set up in minutes.

“We tested in some very high winds and very cold temperatures,” he said, adding, “That all went smoothly though. Once we got the terminals mounted securely to withstand high winds, they worked great with no issues.”

Musk has seen months of success with Starlink. The Pentagon granted Starlink a contract to support Ukraine in June and, in late September, awarded Starlink an additional $70 million contract for the Starshield project. 

Reports indicate Starlink is preparing for an IPO in 2024. Musk recently announced, “Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow!” 

In September, Tesla blogger Sawyer Merritt posted a graph on X showing Starlink’s onboarding of new customers has been parabolic since June 2022. The service now has more than 2 million users worldwide. 

Meanwhile, SpaceX currently has a $175 billion valuation. It has delivered 80% of all Earth’s payload mass to orbit this year. 

SpaceX is tracking to launch over 80% of all Earth payload to orbit this year pic.twitter.com/DMf5tpG0kI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2023

Even Jeff Bezos hired Musk for rocket launches as his space company, Blue Origin, has been hit with ‘frustrating delays’ including a rocket engine explosion during a routine test earlier this year. 

Democrats are furious with Musk’s success and have attempted to weaponize federal agencies to hinder the latest Starship launch. 

Musk is becoming the ‘uncancellable billionaire.’ 

Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In an effort to protect its farming industry, its economy, and the health of its citizens, Italy recently became the first country to officially ban cultivated meat.

Cultivated meat, also known as lab-grown meat, is created in a lab through a five-step process in which stem cells from an animal are replicated and grown in a series of bioreactors before being blended with additives to create a more realistic texture. The meat cells are then drained in a centrifuge, formed, and packaged for distribution, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

In a Nov. 16 Facebook post, Italian Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida said, “In defense of health, of the Italian production system, of thousands of jobs, of our culture and tradition, with the law approved today, Italy is the first nation in the world to be safe from the social and economic risks of synthetic food,” according to an English translation.

The bill passed the Italian Senate by a measure of 159–53 and was supported by the country’s agricultural groups, which worked to protect Italy’s $10.1 billion meat-processing industry.

Efforts in the United States to block lab-grown meat, or to ensure that consumers know what they’re buying, include a 2018 law in Missouri that prohibits plant-based and lab-grown food from being labeled as “meat.”

“​​This act also prohibits misrepresenting a product as meat that is not derived from harvested production livestock or poultry,” the law states.

On Nov. 13, Florida state Rep. Tyler Sirois filed a bill that aims to prohibit the “manufacturing, sale, holding, or distribution of cultivated meat” in the state.

“Farming and cattle are incredibly important industries to Florida,” the Republican legislator told Politico. “So I think this is a very relevant discussion for our state to have.”

Should the bill, HB 435, become law, restaurants and stores in violation could be fined up to $5,000, and manufacturers, processors, packers, or distributors who misrepresent or mislabel the food could be fined up to $10,000 per violation.

Wilton Simpson, commissioner of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, is fully on board with Mr. Sirois’s effort.

“Without this legislation, untested, potentially unsafe, and nearly unregulated laboratory-produced meat could be made available in Florida,” Mr. Simpson said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“One of my top responsibilities is ensuring the safety and wholesomeness of our food supply and protecting Florida’s consumers, and this proposal does just that.”

On Nov. 22, the measure moved to the Agriculture, Conservation, and Resiliency Subcommittee.

Research and Markets predicts that the global lab-grown meat market will reach nearly $2 billion by 2035. It lists 16 cultivated meat companies, five of which are based in the United States, three in Israel, two in the Netherlands, two in Singapore, and one each in China, India, the UK, and Switzerland.

“In 2025, the nuggets segment is expected to account for the largest share of the lab-grown meat market,” Research and Markets states in its January analysis.

“The large market share of this segment is attributed to the increasing adoption of on-the-go lifestyles, the growing demand for snacking products, and the increasing demand for frozen products.”

However, lab-grown burger patties are projected to register the highest compound annual growth rate from 2025 through 2035, according to the company.

In November 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had “completed its first pre-market consultation for a human food made from cultured animal cells.”

On June 21, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) granted its first-ever approval to produce cell-cultured meat to two companies in the United States, Good Meat and Upside Food.

Good Meat—the cultivated meat brand of the food technology company Eat Just, Inc.—has manufacturing facilities in the United States and Singapore.

According to the company, the USDA approval allows for its first lab-grown chicken product to be produced and sold in the United States. Four months earlier, the company had received its “No Questions” letter from the FDA, which meant it passed a food safety review.

“Our first product is cultivated chicken that is prepared and served in multiple formats and was approved for sale in Singapore in 2020 and the United States in 2023,” the company states on its website.

“We’re also working on other types of meat, including cultivated beef using cells from California pasture-raised cattle and Wagyu from the Toriyama farm in Japan.”

Washington-based restaurant China Chilcano added a dish using Good Meat cultivated chicken to its menu in July.

Major investors in Good Meat are UBS O’Connor, a hedge fund management firm within UBS Asset Management, and the venture capital firms of Graphene Ventures and Singapore-based K3 Ventures.

Bill Gates has been a major investor in Upside Foods since its launch in 2017.

Upside Foods said its USDA approval clears the company to produce and sell its cultivated chicken. The company says it takes about three weeks to produce its chicken filet product.

“Not to get bogged down in semantics, but we can’t overstate this: We’re making meat!” the company states on its website. 

“Cultivated meat is a brand-new product category, so we understand that there’s a lot of confusion out there about what it is and what it isn’t. For one thing, cultivated meat is not vegan or vegetarian.”

According to the company, its cell-cultivated chicken is made up of “more than 99 percent chicken cells.”

The FDA approved Upside Foods to make its products in November 2022, based on a self-assessment by Upside of its processes and risk management practices.

Read more here…

How do investors’ return expectations differ from those of advisors? How does this expectation gap shift across countries?

Despite 2022 being the worst year for stock markets in over a decade, investors around the world appear confident about the long-term performance of their portfolios. These convictions point towards resilience across global economies, driven by strong labor markets and moderating inflation.

While advisors are optimistic, their expectations are more conservative overall.

In the following graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld shows the return expectation gap by country between investors and financial professionals in 2023, based on data from Natixis.

Expectation Gap by Country

Below, we show the return expectation gap by country, based on a survey of 8,550 investors and 2,700 financial professionals:

Investors in the U.S. have the highest long-term annual return expectations, at 15.6%. The U.S. also has the highest expectations gap across countries, with investors’ expectations more than double that of advisors.

Likely influencing investor convictions are the outsized returns seen in the last decade, led by big tech. This year is no exception, as a handful of tech giants are seeing soaring returns, lifting the overall market.

From a broader perspective, the S&P 500 has returned 11.5% on average annually since 1928.

Following next in line were investors in Chile and Mexico with return expectations of 15.1% and 14.7%, respectively. Unlike many global markets, the MSCI Chile Index posted double-digit returns in 2022.

Global financial hub, Singapore, has the lowest expectations gap across countries.

Investors in the UK and Europe, have the most moderate return expectations overall. Confidence has been weighed down by geopolitical tensions, high interest rates, and dismal economic data.

Return Expectations Across Asset Classes

What are the expected returns for different asset classes over the next decade?

A separate report by Vanguard used a quantitative model to forecast returns through to 2033. For U.S. equities, it projects 4.1-6.1% in annualized returns. Global equities are forecast to have 6.4-8.4% returns, outperforming U.S. stocks over the next decade.

Bonds, meanwhile, are forecast to see 3.6-4.6% annualized returns for the U.S. aggregate market, while U.S. Treasuries are projected to average 3.3-4.3% annually.

While it’s impossible to predict the future, we can see a clear expectation gap not only between countries, but between advisors, clients, and other models. Factors such as inflation, interest rates, and the ability for countries to weather economic headwinds will likely have a significant influence on future portfolio returns.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Florida real estate agent this week testified in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York that his Mar-a-Lago property is worth at least $1 billion.

Lawrence Moens, who was called as a witness by the defense, testified that the Florida property could be sold as a home, saying he would value it at over $1 billion as of 2021.

“It’s something breathtaking. It’s something amazing to see,” he said of Mar-a-Lago, adding that he had valued it at over $1.2 billion in 2021. He also told the court that President Trump’s company had actually undervalued Mar-a-Lago by about half.

Mr. Moens’s valuation assumes that Mar-a-Lago is a personal residence, a premise that a judge already has rejected in the ongoing civil fraud trial.

“I work very hard to sell rich people property in Palm Beach,” testified Mr. Moens. “I’m on the front lines every day of selling properties, and I have a pretty good handle on what’s happening in the market.”

Spanning 17 acres with waterfront on two sides, the Trump estate and social club is his home, a place where the former president and current Republican 2024 front-runner has conducted high-profile meetings while in and out of office, and the spot where federal special counsel Jack Smith alleges he improperly stashed classified documents, which President Trump denies.

Mar-a-Lago also is a key element of the current New York civil case. State Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit claims that the ex-president and his company deceived lenders and others by giving them financial statements that greatly overstated the values of some of his prime assets, including Mar-a-Lago.

Testifying for Trump’s defense, a Florida real estate attorney said the property could be sold as a home, notwithstanding decades-old legal documents in which Trump said he intended to forswear its use as anything but a club. Then a Palm Beach luxury real estate broker testified that he’d value the historic estate at over $1 billion as of 2021.

Judge Arthur Engoron, in a pretrial ruling declaring that Trump and his company engaged in fraud, found that he exaggerated Mar-a-Lago’s worth by as much as 2,300 percent, compared to the Palm Beach County tax appraiser’s valuations. They ranged from $18 million to $28 million.

However, some real estate professionals who aren’t involved in the case expressed concern about the judge’s ruling several months ago, suggesting that he made an error by relying solely on the tax appraiser’s valuations.

Some Palm Beach luxury real estate agents have told The Associated Press that the property would sell for $300 million to $600 million, and possibly $1 billion or more if it sparked a bidding war among uber-wealthy contenders.

During a short cross-examination Tuesday, state attorney Kevin Wallace asked whether he was a member of the Mar-a-Lago club. “I am,” Mr. Moens said, saying that he joined in 1995 or 1996. “I don’t go too often. I don’t like clubs,” he added.

“You’re not running a process that is re-creatable … is that fair?” Mr. Wallace asked about his valuations of Mar-a-Lago. “That’s fair,” Mr. Moens said.

In a pre-trial deposition over the summer, Mr. Moens had said that he “could dream up anyone from Elon Musk to Bill Gates and everyone in between” to purchase Mar-a-Lago. “Kings, emperors, heads of state.” “If they want the best house in the country, that would be one of the top two or three that would be available if they were for sale,” he added.

“I wish he’d let me sell it, but it’s not for sale,” he said.

Another defense witness, Miami-based real estate attorney John Shubin, also testified that “there is absolutely no prohibition on the use of Mar-a-Lago as a single-family residence.”

He noted that the property is simultaneously a club and President Trump’s residence. Mr. Shubin also pointed to a 1993 agreement between the former president and the city that said Mar-a-Lago would revert to private residential use if the club were “abandoned.”

This week, President Trump confirmed that he’ll return to the witness stand on Monday in the New York case.

“I will be testifying Monday in this shameful, NO JURY ALLOWED ‘TRIAL,’” he wrote Tuesday in a Truth Social post. Court was not in session Wednesday, and his son, Eric Trump, won’t be testifying.

“I told my wonderful son, Eric, not to testify tomorrow at the RIGGED TRIAL … Eric has already testified, PERFECTLY,” President Trump wrote Tuesday. “So there is no reason to waste any more of this Crooked Court’s time on having him say the same thing, over and over again.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday told lawmakers that the United States is facing unprecedented terrorist threats since the start of the Israel–Hamas conflict in October.

“What I would say that is unique about the environment that we’re in right now in my career is that while there may have been times over the years where individual threats could have been higher here or there than where they may be right now, I’ve never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated, all at exactly the same time,” the FBI director said in a Senate hearing after he was pressed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) about the threats facing the United States.

In response, Mr. Graham said that the “blinking red lights analogy about 9/11 … all the lights were blinking red before 9/11, apparently.” He then asked the FBI director: “Would you say there’s multiple blinking red lights out there?”

“I see blinking red lights everywhere,” Mr. Wray answered, without elaborating.

The FBI chief’s comments on Tuesday come as Israeli forces stormed southern Gaza’s main city in what they called the most intense day of combat in five weeks of ground operations against Hamas.

In what appeared to be the biggest ground assault in Gaza since a truce with Hamas ended last week, Israel said its forces reached the heart of Khan Younis.

“We are in the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation,” the commander of the Israeli military’s Southern Command, General Yaron Finkelman, said in Jerusalem.

He said Israeli forces were also fighting in Jabalia, a large urban refugee camp and Hamas stronghold in northern Gaza next to Gaza City, and in Shuja’iyya, east of the city. “We are in the heart of Jabalia, in the heart of Shuja’iyya, and now also in the heart of Khan Younis,” he said.

Previous Remarks

The Tuesday warning comes several weeks after he told lawmakers that the Hamas–Israel war could spark terrorism within the United States and said that Hamas could inspire ISIS-like attacks. Since the start of the conflict on Oct. 7, multiple designated terrorist groups have called for attacks on U.S. targets, he said.

“The actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” Mr. Wray said on Oct. 31

At the time, he told lawmakers that Hamas, a State Department-designated terrorist organization, does not have “the intent or capability to conduct operations inside the U.S., though we cannot, and do not, discount that possibility.”

“This is not a time for panic, but it is a time for vigilance,” Mr. Wray added, responding to public fears about potential terrorist attacks. “You often hear the expression if you see something, say something … that’s never been more true than now,” he added, referring to a slogan that has often been used at U.S. transportation hubs and airports in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

There has also been a rise in incidents targeting Jewish people across the United States, he said, adding that while the White House has expressed alarm reports of incidents at American universities as tensions have prompted university officials to tighten security.

“This is a threat that is reaching, in some way, sort of historic levels,” Mr. Wray said. He said it’s because “the Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum.”

Tensions Rising?

This week, the United States blamed the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen for a series of attacks in Middle Eastern waters since war broke out between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7.

In several recent incidents over the past weekend, three commercial vessels came under attack in international waters in the southern Red Sea. The Houthis acknowledged launching drone and missile attacks against what they said were two Israeli vessels in the area.

The USS Carney, a U.S. Navy destroyer, shot down three drones on Sunday as it answered distress calls from the commercial vessels. The U.S. military says the three vessels were connected to 14 separate nations.

“The Carney took action as a drone was headed in its direction. But again, we can’t assess that the Carney at this time was the intended target,” said Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh.

The Houthi group, which controls most of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, had previously fired ballistic missiles and armed drones toward Israel and vowed to target more Israeli vessels.

The organization was taken off the U.S. State Department’s terror list in 2021. But White House officials have said this week that they are leaving open the possibility of potentially designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization again.

Money-market funds saw another large ($61.5BN) inflow last week. That is the sixth straight week of inflows, adding $290BN in that time to a new record high of $5.9TN…

Source: Bloomberg

In a breakdown for the week to Dec. 6, government funds – which invest primarily in securities like Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and agency debt – saw assets rise to $4.829TN, a $56.1BN increase. 

Prime funds, which tend to invest in higher-risk assets such as commercial paper, meanwhile, saw assets climb to $946BN, a $6.1BN increase

Institutional funds saw the bulk of the inflows once again (+$43BN) while the unbroken trend of inflow into Retail funds continues (+$18.5BN)…

Source: Bloomberg

The resurgence in money-market fund inflows is diverging parabolically from bank deposits (which are basically flat on a seasonally-adjusted basis)…

Source: Bloomberg

Meanwhile, after a small uptick into month-end, November’s exodus from The Fed’s reverse repo facility continued in December…

Source: Bloomberg

While reserve scarcity is not evident quite yet, we did get some angst this week. as SOFR spiked relative to O/N RRP.

For now, The Fed balance sheet contraction accelerated last week, dropping $58.8BN (the biggest weekly decline since September)…

Source: Bloomberg

QT continued with a slight acceleration as ‘securities held’ fell $30.4BN…

Source: Bloomberg

And usage of The Fed’s Bank Term Funding Program (expensive bank bailout fund) exploded higher by $7.8BN (biggest increase since April) to $122BN (a new record high)…

Source: Bloomberg

For banks tapping the Fed’s BTFP, there’s an arbitrage to be deployed where institutions borrow from the facility and park the proceeds in their account at the central bank, according to Bill Nelson, chief economist at the Bank Policy Institute in Washington and a former Federal Reserve economist.

The interest rate on BTFP loans was about 5.18% as of Dec. 1 — one-year OIS swap rate +10bp, while interest on reserve balances is 5.40%

BTFP loans have a term of one-year and the rate is fixed for the term of the loan and can be repaid without penalty, and only backed by securities the bank owned as of March 12

“So borrow from the BTFP, leave the proceeds on deposit at the Fed, and collect the 22bp spread,” Nelson wrote.

If the BTFP rate falls further, banks can repay the loan early and take out a new loan. If IORB falls below the rate on the BTFP loan, institutions can repay the loan

“A similar arbitrage opened up for AMLF loans in May 2009 and the Fed quickly adjusted the program to close it,” he said

And for now, regional bank stocks continue to surge higher as their usage of The Fed’s bailout facility also soars. Is the market betting on a big enough collapse in yields that this $100BN-plus hole in bank balance sheets is miraculously heeled? Just what kind of economic contraction would that take? (and what would that great depression-like scenario do for banks loan books?) Asking for a friend…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, equity market caps continue to rebound after recoupling with bank reserves at The Fed (as the latter also expands once again thanks to the RRP drawdowns)…

Source: Bloomberg

The Fed’s “temporary” bailout fund is up in March… and at the pace of exodus from the RRP facility, that could be the same time that reserve scarcity starts to rear its ugly head.

For decades, our elite institutions and media have treated free speech as increasingly dangerous.

As Alex Berenson highlights in an excellent summary of the situation, they have used their power to put topics off-limits, especially those that expose racial differences.

Like most evils, censorship metastasizes. Universities now police even the smallest offenses against minority or self-declared marginalized groups.

Last year, Harvard declared “misgendering” – that is, referring to transgender people by the pronouns of their actual birth gender – as a form of abuse.

The year before, Columbia had declared it a fireable offense.

This attitude – this “context,” to use a word heard frequently on Tuesday – is what makes Tuesday’s Congressional testimony by three presidents of elite American universities so shameful, fraught, and hypocritical.

At Harvard, “fatphobia” constitutes violence; but now, as Bari Weiss exclaims (Editor of The Free Press), “globalize the intifada” requires context.

Weiss summarizes the utter farce and hypocrisy on display this week in 240 seconds…

At Harvard, “fatphobia” constitutes violence.
But “globalize the intifada” requires context.

WATCH: pic.twitter.com/tEvg9IVVXS

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 7, 2023

But, the question is – how did we get here?

Victor Davis Hanson’s latest essay, “How Were The Universities Lost?” lays out the how and the why, and the fact that the Ivy league and their kindred so-called elite campuses may soon go the way of Disney and Bud Light…

After October 7, the public was shocked at what they saw and heard on America’s campuses.

Americans knew previously they were intolerant, leftwing, and increasingly non-meritocratic.

But immediately after October 7—and even before the response of the Israeli Defense Forces—the sheer student delight on news of the mass murdering of Israeli victims seemed akin more to 1930s Germany than contemporary America.

Indeed, not a day goes by when a university professor or student group has not spouted anti-Semitic hatred. Often, they threaten and attack Jewish students, or engage in mass demonstrations calling for the extinction of Israel.

Why and how did purportedly enlightened universities become incubators of such primordial hatred?

After the George Floyd riots, reparatory admissions—the effort to admit diverse students beyond their numbers in the general population—increased.

Elite universities like Stanford and Yale boasted that their so-called “white” incoming student numbers had plunged to between 20 and 40 precent, despite whites making up 68-70 percent of the general population.

The abolition of the SAT requirement, and often the comparative ranking of high school grade point averages, have ended the ancient and time-proven idea of meritocracy. Brilliant high school transcripts and test scores no longer warrant admissions to so-called elite schools.

One result was that the number of Jews has nosedived from 20-30 percent of Ivy League student bodies during the 1970s and 1980s to 10-15 percent.

Jewish students are also currently stereotyped as “white” and “privileged”—and thus considered as fair game on campus.

At the same time, the number of foreign students, especially from the oil-rich Middle East, has soared on campuses. Most are subsidized by their homeland governments. They pay the full, non-discounted tuition rates to cash-hungry universities.

Huge numbers of students have entered universities, who would not have been admitted by the very standards universities until recently claimed were vital to ensure their own competitiveness and prestige.

Consequently, they are no longer the guarantors of topflight undergraduates and professionals from their graduate programs.

Faculty are faced with new lose/lose/lose choices of either diminishing their course requirements, or inflating their grades, or facing charges by Diversity/Equity/Inclusion commissars of systematic bias in their grading— or all three combined.

The net result is that there are now thousands of students from abroad, especially from the Middle East, far fewer Jewish students, and student bodies who demand radical changes in faculty standards and course work to accommodate their unease with past standards of expected student achievement.

And, presto, an epidemic of anti-Semitism naturally followed.

In such a vacuum, advocacy “-studies” classes proliferated, along with faculty to teach them.

“Gender, black, Latino, feminist, Asian, Queer, trans, peace, environmental, and green”-studies  courses demand far less from students, and arbitrarily select some as “oppressed” and others as “oppressors”.  The former “victims” are then given a blank check to engage in racist and anti-Semitic behavior without consequences.

Proving to be politically correct in these deductive gut-courses rather than pressed to express oneself coherently, inductively, and analytically from a repertoire of fact-based-knowledge explains why the public witnesses faculty and students who are simultaneously both arrogant and ignorant.

At some universities “blacklists” circulate warning “marginalized” students which professors they should avoid who still cling to supposedly outdated standards regarding exam-taking, deadlines, and absences.

All these radical changes explain the current spectacle of angry students citing grievances, and poorly educated graduates who have had little course work in traditional history, literature, philosophy, logic, or the traditional sciences.

Universities and students have plenty of money to continue the weaponization of the university, given their enormous tax-free endowment income. Nearly $2-trillion in government-subsidized student loans are issued without accountability or reasonable demands that they be repaid in timely fashion.

Exceptions and exemptions are the bible of terrified and careerist administrators.

Faced with an epidemic of anti-Semitism, university administrators now claim they can do little to curb the hatred. But privately they know should the targets of similar hatred be instead blacks, gays, Latinos, or women, then they would expel the haters in a nanosecond.

What is the ultimate result of once elite campuses giving 70-80 percent of their students As, becoming hotbeds of dangerous anti-Semitism, and watered-down curricula that cannot turn out educated students?

The Ivy league and their kindred so-called elite campuses may soon go the way of Disney and Bud Light.

They think such a crash in their reputations is impossible given centuries of accustomed stature.

But the erosion is already occurring—and accelerating.

At the present rate, a Stanford law degree, a Harvard political science major, or a Yale social science BA will soon scare off employers and the general public at large.

These certificates will signify not proof of humility, knowledge, and decency, but rather undeserved self-importance, vacuousness, and fanaticism—and all to be avoided rather than courted.

*  *  *

The backlash after the hearings was massive enough to prompt back-pedaling from Harvard…

…and Penn

A Video Message from President Liz Magill pic.twitter.com/GlPE3QZU4P

— Penn (@Penn) December 6, 2023

But, Penn alum Musk is ashamed…

I am a Penn alum and this is indeed shameful

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 7, 2023

And Harvard donor Bill Ackman is waking up to the ‘woke’ issue…

I learned from someone with first person knowledge of the @Harvard president search that the committee would not consider a candidate who did not meet the DEI office’s criteria.

The same was likely true for other elite universities doing searches at the same time, creating an…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 7, 2023

The hypocrisy is inescapable and infuriating.

Meanwhile, Harvard antisemitism adviser David Wolpe has resigned following Gay’s “painful” hearing.

2/3

However, the system at Harvard along with the ideology that grips far too many of the students and faculty, the ideology that works only along axes of oppression and places Jews as oppressors and therefore intrinsically evil, is itself evil. Ignoring Jewish suffering is…

— David Wolpe (@RabbiWolpe) December 7, 2023

3/3 Battling that combination of ideologies is the work of more than a committee or a single university. It is not going to be changed by hiring or firing a single person, or posting on X, or yelling at people who don’t post as you wish when you wish, as though posting is…

— David Wolpe (@RabbiWolpe) December 7, 2023

The latest data on consumer credit data for October confirmed the slowdown seen in September, as total debt increased by just $5.13 billion (below consensus estimates of $8.5 billion).

This is a clear regime shift lower from recent months when the monthly increase was in the $20/$30BN range.

Looking at the composition, both revolving and non-revolving credit were weak.

Starting with the former, in October, credit card debt rose by just $2.9 billion, which with the exception of June’s freak negative revolving credit print, was the lowest monthly increase since April 2021 (amid the COVID lockdown crisis).

As for non-revolving credit, or student and auto loans, here too things have gotten bogged down, rising just $2.3 billion in October…

Of course, the slowdown in debt, and especially credit-card debt, should not be a surprise since the average rate on credit cards across US financial institutions just hit a record high of 22.77%.

And with consumers increasingly reluctant to max out their credit cards due to record high rates, at a time when the personal savings rate in the US has collapsed back near multi-decade lows in recent months…

… it is now only a matter of time before US GDP prints deep negative now that that pillar supporting 70% of the US economy, consumer purchases, is about to crack.