News of record installations of so-called renewable energy electric generation in China may have kindled the hopes of those supporting the “green” agenda and hostile to fossil fuels. However, China is in no position to give up hydrocarbons, particularly coal.
During the first half of 2023, China approved 52 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power, which was more than all the approvals issued in 2021. These new approvals are in addition to the 136 GW of coal capacity that are already under construction. Together, these new plants represent more than 67% of all new approvals in the world.
Why is China doing this despite climate pledges? And what does the future hold?
Turning Away from Paris One-Step at a Time
Nearly all countries signed the historic Paris Agreement in 2015, which set aggressive goals to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The assumption was that reducing carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels would halt future warming deemed as catastrophic.
As part of this accord, China, the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, agreed to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 and peak its emissions of carbon dioxide by 2030. Many praised these promises, celebrating China’s apparent acceptance of its supposed responsibility to address the climate issue.
But these promises are at odds with reality. China’s economy is mostly based on fossil fuels, which are the most affordable, abundant and dependable energy source. At 159 exajoules, China’s primary energy consumption in 2022 was the highest in the world and 40% more than that consumed the U.S. — the second largest user.
Last year, 82% of the total energy consumed by China came from coal, oil and natural gas. Wind and solar, despite significant investments by Beijing, represented just 7% of all energy consumed in 2022.
Coal remains the linchpin of China’s energy infrastructure and economic vitality. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, coal consumption increased by more than 4% in 2022. Coal imports in August 2023 were the highest since 2015. China is ramping up its import from Russia and Australia and continues to increase imports from Indonesia, which is its main supplier.
Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com writes, “China is mining record amounts of coal and also importing record volumes of coal as it looks to boost its energy security.” This growing appetite for coal is inevitable given the huge demand from the power sector and industry in general.
Demand from Industries to Increase Coal Demand
Over 1 billion tons of crude steel are produced in China each year, accounting for over half of global steel output. The Chinese steel industries—over 90% of them—use coal-based processes.
Despite introducing in 2021 a policy to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, Beijing has yet to announce any cap for steel production. S&P Global believes that there will “be no mandatory steel output cuts this year.” The crude steel output in 2023 is to exceed 2022 levels.
According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, “Chinese steel firms are making significant investments in new, coal-based steelmaking capacity.” To put this in context, China’s approval of new steel capacity per year is twice that of the entire capacity of the German steel industry.
Like steelmaking, the manufacturing of cement is energy intensive, with coal accounting for up to 85% of the energy used in the process. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of cement.
According to analysts, “China consumes as much cement every two years as the U.S. did over the entire 20th century.” Cement production is projected to increase further in coming years, and high demand will possibly last for decades.
In short, China’s security and economic growth depend on satiating the country’s colossal appetite for fossil fuels. Western politics around a non-existent climate crisis won’t change that.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.
Spoiler Alert? Cornel West Plans Major 2024 Push In Swing State Michigan
While he has little chance of winning the 2024 election, independent presidential candidate Cornel West has the potential to affect the outcome of what’s expected to be a close contest between President Biden and former President Donald Trump.
That reality is underscored by a new report indicating West plans to make a major push in the state of Michigan, which played a pivotal role in 2016 and 2020. Trump officially lost Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020, after winning it by 10,700 votes in 2016.
West plans to target key Michigan constituencies that are growing increasingly dissatisfied with Biden, including blacks, Arab-Americans, college students,according to plans shared with Politico.
An NBC News poll released over the weekend found that support for support for Biden among 18- to 34-year-old voters cratered by 15% just since September, as that cohort seethes over the administration’s unwavering support for Israel in its war on Gaza. Seeing an opening, West will visit colleges including the University of Michigan and Michigan State as part of a swing through the state early next year.
Biden’s Israel policy is even more toxic for Arab-Americans and Muslims, a major minority in Michigan. Dearborn, for example, has America’s largest Muslim population per capita. A 2020 exit poll sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found Muslims turned out at a remarkable 84% clip, with 69% voting for Biden against just 17% for Trump.
People are hungry for change. They want good policies over partisan politics. We need to break the grip of the duopoly and give power to the people. I’m running as an Independent candidate for President of the United States to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true… pic.twitter.com/34FFQARTEe
“President Joe Biden’s support among Arab Americans, who are crucial voters in battleground election states, has plunged from a comfortable majority in 2020 to just 17%, a new poll shows, amid growing anger over the Democratic president’s support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza” – Reuters
West has already joined several pro-Palestinian protests and plans to visit Dearborn early next year in coordination with Jewish Voice for Peace. West is well-positioned to be an attractive “protest vote” option for those who are angry with Biden but not persuaded to vote for Trump.
There will be plenty of voters receptive to West’s anti-war, pro-Palestinian message. “Joe Biden has single-handedly alienated almost every Arab-American and Muslim American voter in Michigan,” Democratic state Rep. Alabas Farhat said last month. “I think there’s going to be a lot of people that remember when you won Michigan years ago by a razor-thin margin, when you won Georgia with a razor-thin margin, when you won Arizona by a razor-thin margin — do not be surprised if there are consequences for your actions.”
Blacks are another group turning against Biden: The national NBC poll found 20% percent of blacks now support Trump, compared to 69% for Biden. That a big shift: A Pew Research survey found Biden won the 2020 black vote by an overwhelming 92-to-8 margin.
West isn’t the only wild card in the 2024 race. Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr‘s impact is uncertain, while Jill Stein’s November announcement of a Green Party bid caused flashbacks among Democrats who blame her for supposedly diverting enough 2016 votes from Hillary Clinton to allow Trump to win the presidency.
The presidential victory of Javier Milei in Argentina puts at the head of state the first self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist” in modern history—or probably the first person ever to win an election at this level to identify with that term.
In the meantime, I’ve had many people ask me precisely what this is. So here is the explanation as I understand it.
Central to the idea is that society does not require an entrenched entity of legalized compulsion and coercion called the state in order to enjoy the enforcement of property rights, contracts, defense, and commercial society generally. The fusing of the terms anarchism and capitalism is not a plan for the social order but rather a prediction of what would happen in a civilized community in the absence of the state.
Myth one: it is not “right-wing,” contrary to the New York Times, the Guardian, and a thousand other venues. The “right” in Prussia was for the unity of church, state, and business. The “right” in France was for the divine right of the monarchy to rule. The “right” in America is all over the place in U.S. history but hardly consistent for liberty as a first principle of socio-political life. The notion of “anarcho-capitalism” is outside the left-right binary.
Myth two: the “anarcho” part has nothing to do with Antifa or chaos. The use of the term anarchism here means only the abolition of the state and its replacement with property relationships, voluntary action, private law, and contract enforcement as provided by free enterprise. It does not mean lawless; it means law as an extension of human volition and social evolution rather than imposition from above. Order is the daughter of liberty, not the mother, said Proudhon, and anarcho-capitalists would agree.
Myth three: not everyone who proclaims himself to be an “anarcho-capitalist” speaks for the school of thought, not by a long shot. The designation represents a broad ideal with thousands of iterative applications and a huge diversity of views within, same as any other ideological camp. I’m aware of some who favored COVID lockdowns and shot mandates, and others who keep finding ways to justify war and mass redistribution schemes, for example. Thus should Milei not be held responsible for every cockamamie thing ever said or written by a self-described adherent.
The term originates in the work of American economist (and my beloved mentor) Murray Rothbard, who was strongly influenced in his libertarianism by novelist Ayn Rand in the 1950s. (One of Milei’s dogs is named Murray.) But as Rothbard examined Rand’s work closely, he began to develop doubts about the institution Rand insisted was necessary and essential, namely the state itself. If we are to have property rights, why is the state alone permitted to violate them? If we are to have self-ownership, why is the state the only institution allowed to trample on people via conscription, segregation, and otherwise? If we seek peace, why do we want a state to wage war? And so on.
In Rothbard’s view, a consistent rule in society prohibiting aggression against person and property would have to apply also to the state itself, which has been historically the most socially damaging violator of human rights that there is. We tolerate states to defend our rights only to find out that the state is the main threat to our rights. This way of thinking also observes that no one has ever come up with a technology or system that has successfully restrained the state once it is created. (Highly recommended for deeper understanding: Rothbard’s “Anatomy of the State,” a free download.)
Many anarchists of the socialist left have made similar observations but Rothbard’s spin was one of an analytical prediction concerning what would take the place of the state in its absence. Rothbard said that a society without a state would not be a community governed by perfect sharing of resources and egalitarian sameness, much less some magical elevation beyond human nature, as the left-utopians said. Rather, it would be one of ownership, commerce, the division of labor, investment, private courts, stock markets, private ownership of capital, and all the rest. In other words, a free economy would thrive more than ever without the state, and we would see an ordered liberty brought to its highest possible level of realization.
Keep in mind that pushing forward this idea put Rothbard at odds with practically everyone from the Marxists to the Trotskyites to the Randians to the conservatives and old-style classical liberals who believed that states are necessary for courts, law, and security. It even put him at odds with another one of his mentors, Ludwig von Mises himself, whose only conception of anarchism came from European intellectual circles: they were surely among the least responsible minds on the Continent.
Rothbard’s anarchism was American to the core: more influenced by Colonial times than the Spanish Civil War. He believed that communities could manage themselves without an overlord with the power to tax, inflate the currency, conscript, and murder. He believed that markets and the creativity of peaceful human cooperation would always produce better results than institutions cobbled together by elites and enforced by compulsion. That applies even to courts, security, and law, all of which he believed to be better provided via market forces within the framework of universal norms governing ownership and human action.
In this Rothbard was revisiting a debate from 19th-century France. Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) was a great economist and classical liberal who wrote some of the most compelling writings for freedom of his generation or even ever. But he always held out in his mind the belief in the necessity of some state to keep the system functioning lest society descend into chaos. Opposing him in this was the lesser-known intellectual Gustav de Molinari (1819–1912) who wrote that all functions necessary for social operations under freedom can be provided via market forces. In many ways, Molinari was the actual first “anarcho-capitalist,” though he never used that term.
To be sure, high-level theory originating in Paris salons during the Belle Epoque or New York City intellectual circles in the 1950s are one thing. But putting all this into practice is another. Here is where the test for Milei really is. At this point, his theory is just that, perhaps an inspiration to give courage of conviction but it is hardly a blueprint. He faces a massive administrative state that is deeply entrenched, a collapsed currency, a corrupted court system, a hostile legislature, an enemy media, and 100 years of egregious pension liabilities.
How does one man take all this on? We don’t really know the answer to this question. No leader of a Western democratic developed nation has ever attempted a full-scale routing of a corrupted establishment on this level. Neither Reagan nor Thatcher, as far-reaching as their reforms were, ever cut the budget overall much less really abolished whole agencies. They were reformers within the framework. Milei is being called to do something never done before, in the midst of a grave crisis for the nation.
You don’t have to accept anarcho-capitalism fully to appreciate the drive and hope here. Who would you trust most to beat back the state, someone who strongly believes in some features of it or someone who opposes the whole structure root and branch? This much is clear: this ideological orientation is going to infuse any statesman with a fiery opposition to every corruption, every compulsion, every racket, every scam pushed by the administrative elite. The anarcho-capitalist orientation at least provides a guiding light that could end in more liberty for everyone.
The internal and external forces allied against his success are unthinkably vast. And he is racing against the clock. In a year, the whole of elite media is going to be yelling that “anarcho-capitalism” in Argentina has failed. Promise. That’s how absurd things have become.
Let’s say that Milei gets diverted by neoliberal globalists and pursues reforms that only follow the neo-liberal playbook of the late 20th century and following 2008. Can that be blamed on anarcho-capitalism? Absolutely not.
Anarcho-capitalism is not granting freedom to the largest corporations under oligarchic control to pillage and profit at the people’s expense. It is not “privatizing” functions of the state that should not exist in the first place. It is not selling off state resources to cronies and bandits. It is not contracting out lame public services to the highest bidder. It doesn’t mean allowing tech companies to become state partners in citizen surveillance and control. These are all corruptions of a more pure idea of capitalism. And it certainly is not complying with the dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Word Economic Forum (WEF), much less the U.S. State Department.
There is every reason to be encouraged by Milei’s victory if only because it shows there is a populist demand out there for radical reform and this can in fact win elections. We should hope that GOP candidates in the United States are watching and listening. They seem to have defaulted back to canned speeches and scripted answers, which only bore a public that is fed up with the status quo and ready for someone with the vision and energy of a Milei to get serious.
This might only be round one of many more to come. He might fail. But the desperate need for fundamental and far-reaching reform and revolution in all industrialized democracies to put the people back in charge can hardly be doubted anymore. And if he fails, after a valiant effort, at least we will have had, as Rothbard once said, a temporary but “glorious holiday” from the political and administrative status quo we live with every day.
There is every reason to believe that Milei is just the beginning of a new trend that could spread all over the world. People are fed up and are ready for a radical new direction. Something has to be done to stop the relentless march of the forces of tyranny in Western nations.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
“Dangerous & Misguided Decision”: Maryland Democrats Angered By Federal Court Overturning Handgun Licensing Law
Democratic lawmakers in Maryland expressed discontent following a decision by a federal appeals court to overturn a firearm regulation in the progressive state, which mandated that residents must acquire a license before purchasing a handgun.
In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Maryland lawmakers can no longer pile on additional regulations for purchasing handguns. The court said the law was unenforceable following the pro-2A ruling in the Supreme Court last year.
Circuit Judge Julius N. Richardson wrote in an opinion with Judge G. Steven Agee, “The challenged law restricts the ability of law-abiding adult citizens to possess handguns, and the state has not presented a historical analogue that justifies its restriction; indeed, it has seemingly admitted that it couldn’t find one.”
The judges continued, “Under the Supreme Court’s new burden-shifting test for these claims, Maryland’s law thus fails, and we must enjoin its enforcement.”
They said the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen has led to a “sea change in Second Amendment law.”
Firearms blog website Bearing Arms provided a summary of just how complex Maryland Democrats have made it for law-abiding taxpayers to purchase a pistol for self-defense:
A decade ago, Maryland lawmakers imposed a new burden on residents hoping to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear a handgun by creating a “Handgun Qualification License.” Before any would-be gun owner can take possession of a pistol, they must first jump through several state-mandated hoops, from submitting fingerprints as part of a background check investigation to taking a four-hour-long “firearms safety training course” that includes the firing of at least one live round of ammunition. After waiting 30 days or more for approval, the would-be gun owner then has to go through another background check and an arbitrary seven-day waiting period before they can take possession of their pistol, though they must run another bureaucratic gauntlet before they’re actually allowed to carry the sidearm in self-defense.
How absurd? Democrats have imposed some of the strictest gun restrictions in the country while failing to enforce ‘common sense’ law and order in metro areas like Baltimore City as violent crime spreads to surrounding counties.
Meanwhile, local media outlet The Baltimore Banner received a statement from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, who was truly disappointed in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision:
“This law is not about stripping away rights from responsible gun owners — it’s about every Marylander having the right to live free from fear.”
Moore said his team would “continue to fight for this law.” The state could appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
The media outlet, of course, reached out for comment to anti-gunner Everytown for Gun Safety, who called the ruling a “dangerous and misguided decision.”
“Requiring handgun purchasers to pass a background check and undergo gun safety training prior to purchasing a gun is not only common sense, it is entirely consistent with the Second Amendment and the new test established by the Bruen decision,” William Taylor, a deputy director with Everytown Law, said in a statement.
It should also be noted that billionaire Michael Bloomberg funds Everytown with the goal of disarming America.
“Today’s decision is crazy,” Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, said in a statement.
Crazy, how? Throwing up barriers to deter law-abiding folks from owning guns while Democrats fail to enforce law and order is crazy. People want to defend themselves from the chaos in Democrat cities.
“Even the liberal Fourth Circuit must recognize the broad popularity of the Bruen decision to maintain its legitimacy,” Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed stated.
Several doctors who were in the emergency room when former President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 raised serious doubts about the official narrative that says a lone gunman was responsible, according to a new documentary featuring interviews conducted in 2013.
The federal Warren Commission established that two shots fired by lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, who was located in the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, struck President Kennedy from behind as he was traveling in a motorcade in Dallas. One of the bullets entered his upper back and exited near his larynx, while the second bullet entered the right side of his head and exited via his forehead.
The former president was breathing when he entered Parkland Hospital before he was pronounced dead about a half an hour later. However, what seven doctors said in the recent footage disputes the commission’s claims about the event.
Jacquelynn Lueth, executive producer of “JFK: What the Doctors Saw,” interviewed the seven Parkland doctors for the documentary. She wrote for CBS News last week that the doctors’ “recollections were precise and clear, as if the intervening decades had melted away.“
“Each of them reacted strongly when the autopsy pictures were projected on a screen,” Ms. Lueth wrote. “They didn’t agree on everything, but it became obvious that the way the president looked at Parkland did not match the autopsy photos taken at Bethesda even before the official autopsy began.”
She added that the Parkland doctors “had no agenda other than trying to save the president’s life” but stipulated that those who witnessed the wound to the president’s neck “believed it was an entrance wound,” which would dispute the Warren Commission’s findings. “Several of them saw a gaping hole in the back of JFK’s head,” she said.
Warning to Keep Silent
In one of the clips from the documentary, several of the doctors recalled what was said by Dr. Malcolm Perry, the surgeon who attended to President Kennedy. He also attended to Mr. Oswald.
“So, at the press conference, Dr. Perry, in describing the [throat] wound here, said that he thought it looked like an entrance wound,” said Dr. Robert McClelland in the video taken from the documentary, released this month.
“So, we were thinking there were two wounds. Had to be an entrance wound and an exit wound. That was the only way we could put it together. And so, I thought it was an entrance wound,” said Dr. Ronald Jones, another Parkland doctor.
Later, Dr. McClelland recalled that he noticed something unusual after the press conference with Dr. Perry about the JFK assassination.
“When [Dr. Perry] left the room, someone came up to him who Dr. Perry thought maybe was a Secret Service man, and he told Dr. Perry, ‘You must never, ever say that was an entrance wound again if you know what’s good for you,’” he said.
Dr. McClelland, who died aged 89 in 2019, said that he believed that “in all probability there was a conspiracy, i.e. there was more than one shooter,” according to footage of the documentary released by the Daily Mail.
And Dr. Jones said that “in retrospect,” if Mr. Oswald “was in the sixth floor depository, how could he have been shot from the front then? And so was there more than one assailant?”
Another doctor, Joe Goldstrich, who was a medical student at the time of the assassination, asked: “How could a gunshot from the rear peel the scalp from the front back?
Other than the Warren Commission, established by former President Lyndon B. Johnson, the CIA also has long maintained that Mr. Oswald, who was shot and killed just days later, was the sole perpetrator.
Other Claims
The revelations come as a former U.S. Secret Service agent went public for the first time in 60 years and appeared to refute the “magic bullet” theory.
Paul Landis, an 88-year-old former agent, was only a few feet away from President Kennedy when he was shot and killed. He had been assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy, the former first lady.
In an interview with The New York Times, published on Sept. 9, Mr. Landis recalled hearing multiple gunshots at Dealy Plaza in Dallas as he went behind President Kennedy’s limousine, seeing the president moving forward after being shot in the head. After the assassination, Mr. Landis recalled picking up what he called a near-perfect-condition bullet from the back seat of President Kennedy’s limousine, near where the president had been sitting.
The former agent then transported the bullet to the hospital where President Kennedy was taken and put on a stretcher to be examined. He said he believed someone might pocket the bullet—which he did not describe in detail—as a keepsake.
Mr. Landis suggested that the reason investigators suspected that a “magic bullet” struck the former president is because the bullet that Mr. Landis discovered was later found on a stretcher belonging to President Kennedy. It wasn’t until the New York Times interview that Mr. Landis confirmed that it was he who found the bullet and placed it there.
It wasn’t until 2014 that he realized that the location of the bullet’s recovery that was cited by him was different than what was mentioned in the Warren Commission, he told the outlet. He then checked with several U.S. officials but was met with skepticism.
That same year, a former Secret Service colleague, Clint Hill, warned Mr. Landis that he shouldn’t speak out about what he saw on that day. If he did, there might be “many ramifications” for Mr. Landis, he recalled Mr. Hill as saying.
In a post on X, Mr. Musk said the donations would consist of “all revenue from advertising & subscriptions associated with the war in Gaza.”
Asked how he will ensure the funds to Gaza won’t end up in the hands of Hamas terrorists, the billionaire stressed that X Corp. will track how the funds are spent and go through the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Gaza.
“Better ideas are welcome. We should care about the innocent regardless of race, creed, religion, or anything else,” he said.
Responding to further comments that raised concerns about the funds potentially falling into the wrong hands, Mr. Musk also weighed up potential direct purchases of pediatric medical supplies for the wounded civilians in Gaza.
Mr. Musk’s announcement comes after he denied allegations of anti-Semitism in response to a controversial social media post last week.
The Tesla CEO faced widespread backlash after he replied, “You have said the actual truth,” to a post on X that accused Jewish communities of pushing “dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
Mr. Musk added in his response to the post that “this does not extend to all Jewish communities” but said the blame should be on groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which describes itself as a Jewish advocacy group.
Musk Sparks Backlash
“The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel,” he wrote on Nov. 15. “This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat. It is not right and needs to stop.”
“And, at the risk of being repetitive, I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind. I’m sick of it. Stop now,” he concluded.
His comments drew immediate backlash from multiple officials, including the Biden administration, with White House spokesperson Andrew Bates stating it was “unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of Antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
Mr. Musk later took aim at what he said were the “bogus media stories” that alleged anti-Semitism in the wake of his comments, stressing that “nothing could be further from the truth.”
“I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all,” he added.
X Corp. Files Lawsuit
However, it appeared to do little to quell the backlash, and corporations including Comcast, Disney, IBM, and Warner Bros. promptly began pulling their advertisements from the platform after a report by left-wing media watchdog Media Matters accused the site of failing to contain pro-Nazi content and hate speech.
Specifically, the report claimed that X was placing advertisements for Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), Oracle, Xfinity (Comcast), and IBM “next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi Party.”
The corporate advertisements were appearing on “pro-Hitler, Holocaust denial, white nationalist, pro-violence, and neo-Nazi accounts,” according to the report.
X called the report “another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers.” The company later filed a lawsuit against Media Matters for defamation.
More than 1,200 people were killed when Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Oct. 7.
Since then, more than 14,000 Gazans have been killed, according to medical officials in the Hamas-ruled territory.
On Nov. 22, Israel and Hamas reached a deal for a four-day pause in fighting to allow aid into war-torn Gaza and the release of at least 50 women and children who are among the 240 hostages held in Gaza.
In exchange, at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel, who are also all women and children, will be released.
Naveen Athrappully and Reuters contributed to this report.
Explosives were in the vehicle at the time and two people who were in the car are dead, the sources told Fox News. A border officer was injured.
The vehicle was driving from the US to Canada and were attempting to drive toward the border officer building, the sources said. Fox News
🚨 BREAKING: The car explosion at the border between U.S. and Canada was an “attempted terrorist attack” and there were “a lot of explosives” in the vehicle pic.twitter.com/94yOf2U8Vq
BREAKING: Photo after reports of incident involving vehicle coming into the US on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, NY Gov. Hochul says being briefed on incident. All 4 international border crossings between the US-Canada in Western New York closed https://t.co/v3rws2450Mpic.twitter.com/B2rFfYfRo9
The Rainbow Bridge is closed after there was an incident (looks like a fire or explosion) this morning involving a vehicle coming into the U.S. causing significant damage.
In a post on X, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said, “I’ve been briefed on the incident on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls and we are closely monitoring the situation. State agencies are on site and ready to assist.”
I’ve been briefed on the incident on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls and we are closely monitoring the situation. State agencies are on site and ready to assist.
According to the Peace Bridge Authority, all border crossings from Canada along the Niagara River have been closed after the incident. Besides Rainbow Bridge, Peace Bridge, Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, and Whirpool Bridge are currently shut down in both directions.
Expect heavy traffic delays across the Niagara area.
A Traditional Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner Is 30% More Expensive Since Biden Took Office
Good news, America!
The American Farm Bureau Federation reports that the cost of providing a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner for ten people in 2023 is 4.5% lower than in 2022.
According to the Farm Bureau’s annual shopping survey, the identical grocery items that cost $64.05 a year ago now cost $61.17. The AFBF noted:
“Although survey prices have begun to come down, food price inflation remains a real issue and serves as a constraint on the budget of all U.S. consumers. “
There’s a lot of information in the chart showing how prices for the ten items of the AFBF’s Thanksgiving dinner shopping list has changed in each year since 2020. We’ve used clustered columns along its horizontal axis to indicate the annual average price paid for each of the individual items, which are ranked according to their 2021 cost. We’ve also presented a cumulative cost curve for each year to show how each item adds to the total meal cost that is arrived at on the right-hand side of the chart.
Presenting the data this way lets us see that the increase in the cost of turkey is once again responsible for most of the year-over-year change in the cost of the meal.
Here, we see the cost of a 16-pound bird declined by 5.6% to $27.35 in 2023. That decline is attributable to the rebound from the negative impact of 2022’s avian influenza epidemic on the supply on turkeys during 2022.
Unlike 2022, when only the price of cranberries fell from what they cost the previous year, 2023 saw a larger number of price declines among the items on the AFBF’s shopping list.
In addition to turkey, the prices for milk, cranberries, pie shells, cubed stuffing, whipping cream, and green peas were lower than their 2022 prices. Altogether, these items saw their prices collectively fall by $3.18.
Meanwhile, the prices of the 1-pound veggie tray, rolls, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie mix rose by a combined $0.30.
The total net change is a reduction of $2.88, of which the $1.61 decline in the price of a 16-pound turkey is the biggest component, accounting for 56% of the year-over-year difference.
From 2011 through 2020, the cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner held steady within a relatively narrow range between $46.90 (2020) and $50.11 (2015).
The cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for ten people remains 30% higher than 2020’s level, thanks mainly to President Biden’s inflation.
AFBF concludes, “Despite challenges with inflation and the rising cost of food, farmers and ranchers are working hard each day to provide America with a safe and affordable food supply.”
“Food security plays a significant role in national security, and an abundant and reliable food supply is essential for any free nation.
So, this Thanksgiving, as you gather around the table with friends and family, let’s also give thanks to the hard work of farmers and ranchers in providing our food and the national security and well-being that go with it.”
Meanwhile, Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Jaime Harrison wants you to be thankful for something else, posting on social media platform X:
“You want to know what I’m thankful for this year? … Having a president who knows just how much lower costs will make a difference for families.”
Harrison also shared a picture featuring President Biden, accompanied by text stating, “Thanksgiving costs down this year from turkey to travel.”
You want to know what I’m thankful for this year?
Having a president who knows just how much lower costs will make a difference for families.pic.twitter.com/wqJCnNaIgL
Others explained how Thanksgiving costs are still well above 2019 levels.
Despite the price drop this year, costs are still 25 percent higher than they were in 2019 ($48.91). Prices in 2022 were the highest in the survey’s history. This is called gaslighting. Prices dropped but you’re still paying more.
Investors Have Never Been This Optimistic About Stocks Relative To Bonds
Authored by Ven Ram, Bloomberg strategist,
Never before have investors been this optimistic about stocks relative to bonds, a phenomenon that may have room to run before being upended by an economic downturn.
The net asset value per unit of the SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund was $454.26 on Monday, more than five times that of iShares Treasury bond fund comprising residual maturities longer than 20 years.
That is the most elevated in their contiguous history spanning two decades.
The ratio has doubled since the end of the 2019, just before the pandemic struck, with the Federal Reserve’s 525 basis points of policy tightening since then wreaking havoc with bond valuations even as stocks have shrugged off the onslaught.
As of Monday’s close, the S&P 500 offered investors an earnings yield of just 19 basis points over 10-year Treasuries. That premium was negative as recently as last month, the lowest since 2002.
The melt-up in stocks is testament to their shrinking empirical durations in the current Fed tightening cycle. A few months into the cycle, stocks had demonstrated an empirical duration of 7.1 years, though the recent rally brought the S&P 500’s gain since the Fed started tightening to more than 6%. That means stocks have done enough to boast a negative duration — an asset that increases in value when interest rates rise.
Bonds, on the other hand, have copped it through this cycle. The Bloomberg Treasury total return index has incurred losses of about 9% since the Fed started raising rates.
Despite the recent rally in bonds, the outlook is still murky, with a host of factors weighing on sentiment: estimates that the neutral rate has risen considerably, a labor market where aggregate supply isn’t quite aligned with demand yet, and a disinflationary process that has further to run.
Interest-rate traders are betting that the Fed will start loosening policy around the middle of next year, but the resilience of the US economy has so far wrong-footed investors who have underpriced the policy trajectory through much of this cycle. Those factors explain why two-year Treasury yields have surged more than 100 basis points since the middle of the year to still hover around 5%.
While a chase for duration may have looked legitimate this late in the Fed’s tightening cycle, a surge in real yields has come back to haunt both 10- and 30-year bonds. Should that narrative continue to bedevil the markets, sentiment toward longer-dated maturities may stay subdued.
A turning point in investors’ attitude toward bonds relative to stocks will occur when we see an inflection point in the US economy. However, with the jobless rate still below 4%, a rebalancing of the economy is still not in sight, which may preserve the skew between the two asset classes.
Having solved all of the country’s other problems, the Biden administration is now making sure evil sandwich shops aren’t colluding in dark capitalist board rooms to exploit the everyday American sandwich eater. We feel safer already.
And just when you thought you’ve heard every single wonderful tale in government efficiency possible, some agency finds a way to outdo itself. This time it’s Lina Khan’s FTC, which is looking into a potential “sandwich shop monopoly” as Roark Capital’s $10 billion pending purchase of sandwich chain Subway hangs in the balance.
The regulator is apparently concerned because Roark also owns Jimmy Johns and Arby’s. Oh, the horror…
The reason for concern, according to Yahoo Finance, is “whether the addition of Subway gives Roark too much control of a lucrative segment of the fast food industry”. It’s almost as if they’ve never heard of a restaurant group…
According to Politico, who broke the story, the companies are urging the FTC to broaden its perspective beyond just sandwiches, emphasizing the extensive variety of options available to consumers in the fast food market.
The FTC’s probe into the merger, which began earlier this month, is still in its preliminary phase, with a resolution expected to take several months. The companies’ attempt to avert a lengthy investigation by extending the initial review period by 30 days was unsuccessful.
The FTC’s inquiry represents a heightened emphasis under Chair Lina Khan on private equity transactions and the pricing of essential consumer goods, the report said.
For example, in September, the FTC initiated legal action against a consortium of Texas anesthesia practices and their private equity owner, alleging that their acquisitions unlawfully monopolized the market.
Additionally, the agency is examining the forthcoming merger between supermarket chains Kroger and Albertsons, with a decision on whether to contest the merger anticipated in the near future.
Politico added that antitrust reviews typically last over a year, during which the FTC can either challenge, negotiate terms with the companies, or opt not to act.
Roark, a private equity firm, finalized an agreement in August to acquire Subway. According to a Reuters report, the transaction assigns a value of as much as $9.55 billion to the American sandwich franchise, this figure includes its debts. Roark is known for overseeing Inspire Brands, which manages several dining chains such as Jimmy John’s, Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, and Buffalo Wild Wings.
