If the UAW strikes haven’t proven to you that workers want to do less, for more money, perhaps this new survey will.

A new study published by FinanceBuzz this week revealed that more than 1/3rd of all remote workers would quit or find a new job if they were asked to come back into the office. Has anybody told these coddled millennials that the pandemic – and the buffet of excuses that go with it – is over?

For the survey, FinanceBuzz surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults in August 2023. Only people who indicated they have a remote or hybrid (partially remote, partially in-office) job were allowed to respond, the report says. 

Their key findings were:

• More than one-third of remote workers (36%) would quit or immediately begin looking for a new job if told they had to return to office.
• 58% of remote workers are likely or very likely to look for a remote role for their next job.
• Compared to 2020, remote workers place increased value on the flexibility to work from anywhere (cited as top perk by 29% in 2020 and 38% in 2023).
• 25% of remote workers say that flexibility of schedule is the top perk of working from home, down from 31% in 2020.
• The percentage of workers that say time with family is the best perk of remote work more than doubled between 2020 and 2023.

For most employees, the crown jewel of remote work appears to be flexibility. According to Finance Buzz’s report, 35% of telecommuters indicated that the freedom to live and work from any location is the most compelling benefit, a shift from being the second most favored perk in a 2020 survey. This surge coincides with the growing allure of the “digital nomad” lifestyle and advances in telecommuting technology.

Coming in second place, 25% of remote workers appreciated the scheduling freedom their jobs provided. This marks a drop from 2020, when 31% cited schedule flexibility as their top perk. While the preferred benefits switched positions between the two surveys, they remained the top two choices, resonating with 60% of respondents collectively.

While telecommuting isn’t without its pitfalls, no single downside stood out unanimously. Difficulties in fostering workplace relationships were mentioned by 41% of respondents, and 40% reported that working from home presented more distractions.

The adoption of remote work has made a lasting impression on the workforce, with many reluctant to revert to a conventional office setting. In fact, 36% of remote workers stated they would prefer quitting their job to relinquishing their work-from-home status. Given this sentiment, it’s hardly startling that 58% of telecommuters are inclined to seek another remote position for their next career move, while a mere 14% would opt otherwise.

You can read the full study here. 

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via Brownstone Institute,

Jeremy Farrar’s book from August 2021 is relatively more candid than most accounts of the initial decision to lock down in the US and UK. “It’s hard to come off nocturnal calls about the possibility of a lab leak and go back to bed,” he wrote of the clandestine phone calls he was getting from January 27-31, 2020. They had already alerted the FBI and MI5. 

“I’d never had trouble sleeping before, something that comes from spending a career working as a doctor in critical care and medicine. But the situation with this new virus and the dark question marks over its origins felt emotionally overwhelming. None of us knew what was going to happen but things had already escalated into an international emergency. On top of that, just a few of us – Eddie [Holmes], Kristian [Anderson], Tony [Fauci] and I – were now privy to sensitive information that, if proved to be true, might set off a whole series of events that would be far bigger than any of us. It felt as if a storm was gathering, of forces beyond anything I had experienced and over which none of us had any control.”

At that point in the trajectory of events, intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic had been put on notice. Anthony Fauci also received confirmation that money from the National Institutes of Health had been channeled to the offending lab in Wuhan, which meant that his career was on the line. Working at a furious pace, the famed “Proximal Origin” paper was produced in record time. It concluded that there was no lab leak. 

In a remarkable series of revelations this week, we’ve learned that the CIA was involved in trying to make payments to those authors (thank you whistleblower), plus it appears that Fauci made visits to the CIA’s headquarters, most likely around the same time. 

Suddenly we get some possible clarity in what has otherwise been a very blurry picture. The anomaly that has heretofore cried out for explanation is how it is that Fauci changed his mind so dramatically and precisely on the merit of lockdowns for the virus. One day he was counseling calm because this was flu-like, and the next day he was drumming up awareness of the coming lockdown. That day was February 27, 2020, the same day that the New York Times joined with alarmist propaganda from its lead virus reporter Donald G. McNeil. 

On February 26, Fauci was writing: “Do not let the fear of the unknown… distort your evaluation of the risk of the pandemic to you relative to the risks that you face every day… do not yield to unreasonable fear.”

The next day, February 27, Fauci wrote actress Morgan Fairchild – likely the most high-profile influencer he knew from the firmament – that “be prepared to mitigate an outbreak in this country by measures that include social distancing, teleworking, temporary closure of schools, etc.”

To be sure, twenty-plus days had passed between the time Fauci alerted intelligence and when he decided to become the voice for lockdowns. We don’t know the exact date of the meetings with the CIA. But generally until now, most of February 2020 has been a blur in terms of the timeline. Something was going on but we hadn’t known just what. 

Let’s distinguish between a proximate and distal cause of the lockdowns.

The proximate cause is the fear of a lab leak and an aping of the Wuhan strategy of keeping everyone in their homes to stop the spread. They might have believed this would work, based on the legend of how SARS-1 was controlled. The CIA had dealings with Wuhan and so did Fauci. They both had an interest in denying the lab leak and stopping the spread. The WHO gave them cover. 

The distal reasons are more complicated. What stands out here is the possibility of a quid pro quo. The CIA pays scientists to say there was no lab leak and otherwise instructs its kept media sources (New York Times) to call the lab leak a conspiracy theory of the far right. Every measure would be deployed to keep Fauci off the hot seat for his funding of the Wuhan lab. But this cooperation would need to come at a price. Fauci would need to participate in a real-life version of the germ games (Event 201 and Crimson Contagion). 

It would be the biggest role of Fauci’s long career. He would need to throw out his principles and medical knowledge of, for example, natural immunity and standard epidemiology concerning the spread of viruses and mitigation strategies. The old pandemic playbook would need to be shredded in favor of lockdown theory as invented in 2005 and then tried in Wuhan. The WHO could be relied upon to say that this strategy worked. 

Fauci would need to be on TV daily to somehow persuade Americans to give up their precious rights and liberties. This would need to go on for a long time, maybe all the way to the election, however implausible this sounds. He would need to push the vaccine for which he had already made a deal with Moderna in late January. 

Above all else, he would need to convince Trump to go along. That was the hardest part. They considered Trump’s weaknesses. He was a germaphobe so that’s good. He hated Chinese imports so it was merely a matter of describing the virus this way. But he also has a well-known weakness for deferring to highly competent and articulate professional women. That’s where the highly reliable Deborah Birx comes in: Fauci would be her wingman to convince Trump to green-light the lockdowns. 

What does the CIA get out of this? The vast intelligence community would have to be put in charge of the pandemic response as the rule maker, the lead agency. Its outposts such as CISA would handle labor-related issues and use its contacts in social media to curate the public mind. This would allow the intelligence community finally to crack down on information flows that had begun 20 years earlier that they had heretofore failed to manage. 

The CIA would hobble and hamstring the US president, whom they hated. And importantly, there was his China problem. He had wrecked relations through his tariff wars. So far as they were concerned, this was treason because he did it all on his own. This man was completely out of control. He needed to be put in his place. To convince the president to destroy the US economy with his own hand would be the ultimate coup de grace for the CIA. 

A lockdown would restart trade with China. It did in fact achieve that. 

How would Fauci and the CIA convince Trump to lock down and restart trade with China? By exploiting these weaknesses and others too: his vulnerability to flattery, his desire for presidential aggrandizement, and his longing for Xi-like powers over all to turn off and then turn on a whole country. Then they would push Trump to buy the much-needed personal protective equipment from China. 

They finally got their way: somewhere between March 10 or possibly as late as March 14, Trump gave the go ahead. The press conference of March 16, especially those magical 70 seconds in which Fauci read the words mandating lockdowns because Birx turned out to be too squeamish, was the great turning point. A few days later, Trump was on the phone with Xi asking for equipment. 

In addition, such a lockdown would greatly please the digital tech industry, which would experience a huge boost in demand, plus large corporations like Amazon and WalMart, which would stay open as their competitors were closed. Finally, it would be a massive subsidy to pharma and especially the mRNA platform technology itself, which would enjoy the credit for ending the pandemic. 

If this whole scenario is true, it means that all along Fauci was merely playing a role, a front man for much deeper interests and priorities in the CIA-led intelligence community. This broad outline makes sense of why Fauci changed his mind on lockdowns, including the timing of the change. There are still many more details to know, but these new fragments of new information take our understanding in a new and more coherent direction. 

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

The political left is obsessed with wordplay and the manipulation of definitions, this much is clear.  From their point of view, words are power because words have influence; that is to say, they think if they can control words they can also control perception, control the law and ultimately control the public.  This tactic may be somewhat delusional in that it assumes the public has no ability to discern nuance, but they have had some success with it in decades past so they stick with what they know.  

In terms of illegal immigration, leftists have long sought to change the American vocabulary.  Specifically, they have for years tried to remove the word “illegal” from discourse.  You can call them refugees, you can call them undocumented, you can call them asylum seekers, but you can’t call them illegal.  For a short time (between 2016-2020) using the term “illegal immigrant” was considered cause to demonitize YouTube commentators or get user accounts locked on social media.

The tide has turned back on open borders advocates in the past few years with woke ideology widely exposed as a political cult (according to recent polls the majority of Americans view illegal immigration as an invasion).  This has compelled leftists to try a different angle, in which they use narrow legal categories as a means to muddy the waters on immigrants.

This method involves the use of asylum status as a modifier – In other words, if an illegal immigrant declares they require asylum, regardless of evidence that they actually qualify, they are automatically “legal.”  Therefore, the millions of people that sneak across the US border every year while breaking numerous federal and state laws are absolved through the magical baptism of asylum status. 

By extension, leftists are asserting that these migrants are no different from the honorable foreign applicants who go through normal and traditionally legal immigration channels.  This is the same argument Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes in the following hearing on migrant work permits in New York.

Asylum seekers in New York City are here LEGALLY.

If migrants are in imminent danger, they have the right under U.S. law to seek asylum here. pic.twitter.com/I1ZMRHnWz1

— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) September 27, 2023

AOC is wrong for multiple reasons.  According to federal regulation, anyone who crosses the border illegally is subject to criminal prosecution. As is the case in criminal proceedings – regardless of the immigration status of the criminal offender – the individual being prosecuted will be transferred to federal criminal custody for breaking United States law.  Asylum or DACA status does not automatically protect an illegal immigrant from prosecution or deportation under the law.  They are still, in fact, illegal immigrants until a court reviews their case and deems they have cause.

Options like asylum and DACA are loopholes in the normal legal framework that allow migrants to defer potential prosecution, and Democrats have facilitated the abuse of these loopholes.  The immigration laws have not changed, the Biden Administration chooses not to enforce them and blue states choose to interfere with immigration enforcement.  In fact, Biden has been actively using Border Patrol agents and the National Guard, not to catch and arrest migrants slipping into the US, but to process them and relocate them into the US faster.

Asylum status requires court review, and with record numbers of migrants crossing the border each year (2.76 million in 2022 and 2023 is set to surpass that number) the wait time is two years to as long as four years.  In the meantime, Democrats are trying to achieve general amnesty for millions of embedded illegals, giving them access to welfare programs, giving them access to state licenses and work permits and in the end making their status review meaningless.

Furthermore, the definition if legality is not subject to politically correct filters.  It does not matter if the word “illegal” upsets some sensitive people.  If you walk into almost any country in the world without going through the citizenship process then you are breaking the law, and yes, you are an illegal person in that nation.  This is not “racially charged” language – It does not matter what color of skin the person has.  Legal immigration and the vetting of potential citizens exists for a reason; it prevents dangerous persons from mixing into the population, it prevents economic destabilization that often follows modern mass migrations and it prevents the sabotage of the existing culture by foreign elements with the intent of taking over instead of assimilating.           

Changing the words and definitions does not change the effects.  AOC knows this, she just doesn’t care.  Meanwhile, New York progressives are getting a taste of their own medicine as tens of thousands of illegal migrants bus into the “sanctuary city” and they are not happy about it. 

🚨BREAKING: Rep. Jerry Nadler, AOC and other Democratic congress members press conference in New York City doesn’t go as planned as people shout “Close the Border” and demand action.

pic.twitter.com/PFRBX8S8rA

— Ian Jaeger (@IanJaeger29) September 15, 2023

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Value varies. Invest in what’s valuable.

It’s a well-recognized human bias to feel losses more acutely than gains. Perhaps something similar occurs with inflation. As essentials soar in cost–i.e. non-discretionary expenses such as shelter, food at home, utilities, childcare, healthcare insurance, etc.–our only response is sighing resignation: yes, it’s a ripoff but there’s little we can do about it without making major changes in our lives.

Discretionary purchases are a different matter. The pleasures gained by the purchase are significant enough to be worth the financial cost. But at some point–a point that varies with each individual–the cost is so high that the pain of that expense outweighs the pleasure of the purchase.

This may explain why the public mood is sour despite the rosy statistics of economic expansion. The experiential gains of abstract economic stability do not outweigh the acute pain caused by soaring costs for pleasures that were far more affordable just a few short years ago.

Put another way: economically speaking, what is unseen statistically may have more impact that what is seen. So GDP is rising, blah-blah-blah, but can you believe I just paid $56 for a nothing-special breakfast for two people?

You see and hear these experiential leverage points all the time now: if you take a moment to observe the shoppers in the meat aisle, you see many lookie-loos: people go to the “sale” cooler for steaks, look at the price, shake their heads and walk to the discount bin to paw through what little is left.

Or you hear another shopper mutter, “I’m not paying that!” after glancing at the price.

Even well-off retirees are appalled when a fast-food meal that a few years ago would have been covered by a $20 bill now requires a $20 and a $10.

Millions of households have canceled cable TV service due to the soaring costs and marginal quality of the offerings. “Basic cable” that provided low-cost access to local channels has vanished, replaced by a “basic premium (of course) service” that costs four times more.

As long as the credit card had plenty of spending power, people didn’t seem to feel any pain as costs soared. $400 per day for a nothing-special room in a nothing-special resort, no problem. $100 to change the oil in the car, no problem. And so on.

But once the funds available for discretionary spending dry up, sensitivity to financial pain increases.

But just as consequential as availability of discretionary funding is the internal measure of value. The well-off retiree can easily afford the fast-food meal, but the pain exceeds the pleasure because the meal simply isn’t worth the price.

The perception of value varies significantly. Time, place and individuals all vary. What seems costly in one circumstance may offer high value to someone else. But if we plot all these unseen data points, we sense a change in the tide: a great many discretionary purchases are no longer worth the cost.

Conservative pundit David Brooks recently illustrated these nuances by expressing his discontent with a $78 tab for a meal at an airport restaurant. His online post suggested that his $78 bill for a hamburger meal was an example of why Americans were discontented with the economy.

It was soon revealed that the burger meal was $18 and the balance was comprised of three whiskeys at $20 each. Mr. Brooks apparently felt the price of the three whiskeys exceeded the value of the three whiskeys, but one wonders why he ordered whiskeys two and three if he was so disenchanted with the price of the first one.

This introduces two other psychological factors in inflation: sudden price increases catch our attention, and so they are more likely to trigger an experiential leverage point. The same can be said of serial increases in the cost of services that were previously stable: when the cable TV or utility bill rises inexorably month after month, we notice this and begin considering actions to reduce or eliminate this expense.

The other factor is we like to whine, as if low prices are an entitlement and we’ve somehow been robbed of something we’re entitled to. But value is conditional and contingent. In some cases, we simply can no longer afford the service or product. In other cases, the value has diminished as the cost has risen, or the cost has risen to the point it far exceeds the value.

Having lived on the margins most of my life, frugality was not an option, it was a pressing necessity. It is now a habit and a free-standing value independent of how much money I earn or have. So paying $100 to have the oil in my Civic changed is off the table. We change the oil ourselves, just as we’ve done for decades.

Acute sensitivity to value and price has its rewards. When we do splurge, we do it not out of habit but to reap the gains of some purchase that is well worth the monetary price.

Unlike jetsetters like Mr. Brooks, I can count the number of meals I’ve bought in airports on one hand, and several of those were voucher meals due to delayed flights. Earlier this year, I had a highly enjoyable airport restaurant meal that was worth a great deal more than the price. It was late, and there was only one restaurant still open. It was crowded, and I felt fortunate to get a table. I’d just left my wife in the post-surgery recovery ward of the hospital, grateful she was OK, and I was drained by a very long day of uncertainties.

The hamburger meal and draft beer cost $35. That was a splurge for me but memorably valuable in that time and circumstance. I was grateful to have something to eat, grateful to the overworked servers and for everything good that had happened that day. I remembered my own job serving the public, and how much a decent tip meant. 50 years later, I still recall the rare decent tips. I handed the server a $20 tip, it wasn’t much, but it expressed “thank you.”

Value varies. Invest in what’s valuable.

*  *  *

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Authorities in Baltimore City, plagued with out-of-control crime, “initially withheld details” from the public that a convicted felon raped and set fire to a person last week. For some reason, officials felt the need to leave out the “rape” part of the crime – just calling it an “arson.” The felon went on to murder a young tech CEO on Monday. Adding to the disgust, officials freed the man last fall, having served only seven years of a 30-year sentence. 

Local media outlet Baltimore Banner said registered sex offender Jason Billingsley,32, kicked down the door of a home last Tuesday in West Baltimore and “pointed a gun at two people inside, then handcuffed and duct-taped them.” 

A source told the media outlet, “Authorities believe Billingsley raped the woman and cut her neck. He doused her and the man with some liquid, then set them on fire. The couple survived and were hospitalized along with a child in the house.” 

Police then issued a warrant for Billingsley’s arrest last week but left out one very critical piece of information. They initially called the crime an “arson,” leaving out “rape.” 

Why officials in the crime-ridden city would ever do that is beyond comprehension. 

He raped and tortured a couple, police knew

They withheld details and then he killed this woman https://t.co/6W5gJ9NzB2

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) September 28, 2023

Fast forward to this week, the registered sex offender killed a young tech entrepreneur (Pava LaPere) that sparked national attention in the corporate press. 

“Even as police identified Billingsley as a suspect and warned that he was a dangerous threat, authorities released few details about his involvement in another alleged crime that had occurred days earlier,” Baltimore Banner said. 

We ask again: Why did officials do that? 

It was only until late Tuesday that Acting Police Commission Richard Worley said: “This individual will kill and he will rape. “He will do anything he can to cause harm. Please be aware of your surroundings.”

I can’t stop thinking about what BPD Acting Commissioner Richard Worley said during the news conference announcing the suspect in connection of Pava LaPere’s death.

“This individual will kill and he will rape.”

MORE: https://t.co/EVmW5rbsFq pic.twitter.com/GJqSLOOAWs

— Mikenzie Frost (@MikenzieFrost) September 26, 2023

Billingsley was released from jail in October 2022, only serving seven years of a 30-year prison term for “good conduct and engaging in work programs,” according to Baltimore Banner. 

“By October 2022, he earned enough diminution credits to trigger mandatory release after serving about nine years and three months of his 14-year sentence,” the media outlet said. 

In a separate report, Fox Baltimore said Annapolis lawmakers had several opportunities to pass legislation targeting repeat violent offenders by implementing harsher penalties but failed. 

“We had legislation that we thought was critically important and every single year, leaders from Baltimore City killed it. That’s my biggest frustration as governor – that we couldn’t get that fixed,” former Gov. Larry Hogan said in December 2022. 

Fox Baltimore contacted the Baltimore City Delegation, asking about repeat violent offenders and whether they would support legislation implementing tougher penalties. Only Del. Caylin Young responded:

“I am open to considering any legislation that enhances public safety. However, it’s important to note that simply increasing penalties may not be the sole solution to achieving improved public safety.”

This is more evidence of why residents and companies are panic exiting the imploding city (not entirely because of remote work) for surrounding counties and or other states because soft-on-crime Democrats are enacting disastrous social justice reforms that have sparked a tsunami of violent crime. 

“This is the result of bad policies and soft-on-crime stances from the liberal Democrats. Their policies have created these situations.  We need mandatory sentences for violent criminals, and it is time to reinstate the death penalty for the most heinous crimes,” Republican State Del. Nino Mangione from Baltimore County said. He is also one of the sponsors of the Violent Firearms Offender Act of 2023 that was killed. 

WSJ reported on Thursday that armed and dangerous Billingsley was arrested. 

Authored by Micaela Ricaforte via The Epoch Times,

A San Francisco Bay Area high school district is considering removing honors classes for high school students in an effort to streamline its courses and promote “equity” – a move that has sparked concern among students, parents, and teachers.

The Sequoia Union High School District’s board discussed the move during a six-hour meeting Sept. 20, but did not come to a decision on the matter.

District administration staff annually review courses based on students’ academic outcomes, and “typically in response to low scores … that have not improved over time,” according to a district analysis.

Arguing for equity, the analysis stated that eliminating certain honors courses and merging students taking “advanced” classes with those taking them at “grade-level” would “diversify” the classroom and could improve academic outcomes for students who “have historically experienced barriers” to advanced coursework.

Over the past several years, Sequoia Union has merged advanced freshman science with grade-level science courses and merged advanced freshman math courses with grade-level math districtwide.

At several individual high schools, advanced English, physics, and chemistry have additionally been merged with their respective grade-level courses.

The analysis said its study found such changes had little-to-no effect on the districts’ advanced-placement students—while students that have struggled saw academic improvement and higher rates meeting college entrance requirements.

“When students have greater access to rigorous coursework and are held to high standards, they are more likely to meet those expectations,” the analysis stated.

But SUHSD Students First—an advocacy group made up of students, parents, teachers, and community members—raised concerns about transparency, saying that the school community was not given an opportunity for input on the matter.

The group said they believed the analysis was “biased” toward merging despite their efforts to work with the district to get neutral data.

“We are disappointed the board did not ensure a neutral report and did not have any participation in the review of the data.  It is clear we should have advocated for an external contractor to conduct the research and prepare the report,” the group said in a statement on their website.

District high school student Jacob Yuryev—who also serves as a student trustee on the board—said he opposed merging classes, arguing in a statement that “grade inflation” was the true reason for most of the claimed benefits of removing honors classes.

Jacob also claimed that merging did not affect advanced students because classes are easier and students are not learning as much as they previously did.

“There is zero actual data on the detriments of not offering advanced classes to more academically inclined students,” he stated.

“All the data is saying ‘their grades stayed the same’; this is explained by the fact that the class got easier. Offering [advanced] classes in no way diminishes the opportunity of the [socially-economically disadvantaged] population.”

A top executive at Nestlé, the world’s largest and most diversified food and beverages company, told the audience at the Bernstein conference on Thursday that food and drinks sold globally have been in a slump since the start of the year. 

“People are consuming less, or they’re eating less or they’re wasting less or they’re eating more out of home,” outgoing CFO Francois-Xavier Roger said during the conference, which Bloomberg quoted. He said, “It’s difficult to know. I don’t think it will last.”

Major consumer goods corporations have increased sales recently through substantial price hikes, causing drops in demand. Roger continued, “Nestle hasn’t raised prices much since the start of April.” 

The CFO blamed the end of the Covid-era emergency food stamps and a slide in consumer savings on demand woes. He said Nestle’s China business remains in a slump but is optimistic about Europe. 

For some context, it’s important to note that in the first quarter, more than 30 million Americans across 32 states saw a reduction in their ‘enhanced benefits’ for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Many of the precipitants have since faced a “hunger cliff.”

Roger is correct about weakening consumers due to dwindling savings amid more than two years of high inflation, eating away any wage gains. The Fed’s latest beige book warned consumers “exhausted their savings.” 

Also, the consumer is beginning to hunker down as the credit card binge wanes while paying down debt appears to be the move. Can anyone say the consumer is in the midst of a balance sheet recession?

Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson has stated the consumer is falling off a cliff.

And Roger’s comments about sliding food and drink demand is an ominous sign of a weakening consumer. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Twitter/X owner Elon Musk has fired most of a team at Twitter that was supposedly in charge of maintaining ‘election integrity’, stating that in reality they were doing the exact opposite.

Musk commented on a post from X News Daily, noting that the head of the team was fired, stating “Oh you mean the “Election Integrity” Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.”

Oh you mean the “Election Integrity” Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 27, 2023

According to reports some of the U.S. election integrity team were based in Dublin.

A recent blog post with regards to election integrity states “You may not use X’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes, such as posting or sharing content that may suppress participation, mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process, or lead to offline violence during an election.”

It adds that “Any attempt to undermine the integrity of civic participation undermines our core tenets of freedom of expression and as a result, we will apply labels to violative posts informing users that the content is misleading.”

It appears that Musk believed the election integrity team were promoting the opposite of integrity at X.

Musk has downsized X’s workforce by a whopping 80% since he took over, meaning that there are no more latte sipping TikTok trendies with made up job titles working there.

The post added that “Not all false or untrue information about politics or civic processes constitutes manipulation or interference. In the absence of other policy violations, the following are generally not in violation of this policy: inaccurate statements about an elected or appointed official, candidate, or political party; organic content that is polarizing, biased, hyperpartisan, or contains controversial viewpoints expressed about elections or politics; discussion of public polling information; voting and audience participation for competitions, game shows, or other entertainment purposes; using X pseudonymously or as a parody, commentary, or fan account to discuss elections or politics.”

Meanwhile, Musk posted a link to a video earlier this week that highlights Fauci and others making false claims about the COVID 19 vaccine:

Have you heard dis information?
pic.twitter.com/sHljBLYNfq

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 26, 2023

*  *  *

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It has become a running joke: the “strong” Bidenomics economy comes with an expiration date, as it is only “strong” for about a month, at which point the initial “strength” is downgraded, and the data is revised sharply lower.

That has certainly been the case with US labor data, where as we first reported last month, every single monthly payrolls print in 2023 has been revised lower (see chart below), a 12-sigma probability and virtually impossible unless there was political pressure to massage the data higher initially and then revise it lower when nobody is looking.

But the BLS is not done: as we reported last week, besides the now traditional one-month lookback revisions the ridiculously high monthly payrolls prints accumulated over the past year will also be slowly but surely revised gradually lower at annual benchmark revisions for years to come. As Morgan Stanley chief US economist Ellen Zentner explained (full note available to pro subscribers)…

Payrolls get revised too, and we expect a downward revision. Payrolls have an annual benchmark revision that is published in February each year. The revision adjusts the level of payrolls through March of the prior year. For example, a new revision will be published in Feb-24, adjusting payroll levels from April-22 to Mar-23. And a preliminary estimation of the upcoming revision points to a decrease in payroll YoY% growth rates of -0.2pp.

But while downward payroll revisions under Bidenomics are as certain as death and taxes, what we wanted to discuss here are the just as striking downward revisions to US consumption which hit this morning alongside the comprehensive once every-five-years historical revisions to GDP. As a reminder:

Today’s release presents results from the comprehensive update of the National Economic Accounts (NEAs), which include the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs) and the Industry Economic Accounts (IEAs). The update includes revised statistics for GDP, GDP by industry, GDI, and their major components. Current-dollar measures of GDP and related components are revised from the first quarter of 2013 through the first quarter of 2023. GDI and selected income components are revised from the first quarter of 1979 through the first quarter of 2023.

Earlier today we already noted the disaster that was Q2 Personal Consumption: instead of the 1.7% unchanged print from the second estimate of Q2 GDP, the final number was a dire 0.8%, a 9-sigma miss to estimates…

… and the worst quarterly increase since the Covid collapse in Q2 2020.

But what about other historical data? After all today’s revision impacted all data from Q1 2013?  Therein, as the bard says, lies the rub.

Let’s start with personal consumption, and compare the latest post-revision current data (link) with the most comprehensive pre-revision data as of last month (link). It should come as no surprise to anyone that with the (slight) exception of just Q4 2022, personal consumption in every single quarter since the start of 2022 – when the Fed aggressively started tightening and hiked rates by the most since Volcker – has been revised lower, and in some cases dramatically so.

Bloomberg also picks up on the GDP revision and looking at revisions to the historical data, writes that “the pandemic contraction is seen as being a bit less severe than previously thought: GDP is now reckoned to have dropped at a 28% annual clip in the second quarter of 2020, instead by 29.9%, as the government shut down swathes of the economy to fight the spread of the virus. But the recovery since then has been somewhat slower, according to the update. Growth last year was revised to 1.9% from 2.1%.” And of all GDP components, consumption was the weakest.

So not only was the Fed hiking at a time when personal consumption would grow much less period to period than previously expected, but the US economy was generally weaker than previously expected (as discussed here).

There’s more.

When looking at the composition of the US household’s income statement – the summary of economic accounts – we find just what we had expected: US savings were in fact far lower than previously expected.

In the latest negative revision, US households saved $1.1 trillion less than previously thought over the past six years…

… and indeed as the BEA chart below shows, Americans stashed away an average 8.3% of their disposable income annually from 2017 through 2022, down from a previously estimated 9.4%.

The reduction stems from an accounting adjustment that lowered personal income from mutual funds and real estate investment trusts. Additionally, as Bloomberg notes, much of the reduction in personal savings seen in the revised data occurred prior to the pandemic, so its implications for how much extra cash Americans may feel they still have now is not clear cut.

Whatever the reason for the statistical adjustment, however, one can say goodbye to even the faintest speculation that US households have any excess savings left… why they don’t, of course, because even when using the previous methodology which artificially inflated total savings, JPM calculated that excess savings had already run out…

… which means that if Q3 GDP was bad and consumption was “revised” sharply lower (odd how economic data is never revised higher under Joe BIden), Q4 – when savings are virtually non-existant – and where we also get the i) return of student loan payments; ii) the UAW strike; iii) the government shutdown and iv) oil at almost $100 and gasoline at one year highs, is about to fall off a cliff.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

New restrictions on diesel trucks starts January 1. A rush to buy new diesel trucks is underway.

California’s Zero-Emissions Rule Triggers a Run on Diesel Rigs

The Wall Street Journal reports California’s Zero-Emissions Rule Triggers a Run on Diesel Rigs

The California rule will phase out the use of diesel trucks until the more than 30,000 diesel big rigs that now serve the state’s ports are banned by 2035.

The regulation is already proving a challenge for truckers across California, from the agricultural export hub at the Port of Oakland to the nation’s busiest gateway for containerized imports at the Southern California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Trucking executives say the state’s regulators are getting far out in front of the industry’s ability to deliver zero-emission rigs.

The technology underpinning electric vehicles is still developing, they say, and the zero-emission trucks are triple the cost of diesel trucks, while the vehicles and charging stations are in limited supply. “I have to think every trucker in California is doing all they can to get as many pre-mandate trucks in place as they possibly can,” said Kenny Vieth, president of ACT Research.

Production of the [electric] vehicles is so limited and the cost and complexity of running the trucks so high that there are fewer than 150 zero-emission trucks in service at the Southern California ports today, said Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association trade group. The most advanced of those trucks, say trucking executives, can’t travel more than a few hundred miles between charges, so they can only run short trips between ports and nearby rail yards and warehouses.

The electric trucks themselves are also proving a problem. Nikola and Volvo Trucks North America this summer recalled trucks because of defective parts thought to pose a fire risk. Jim Gillis, president of port trucker Pacific Drayage Services, said he is on his third recall since receiving six Volvo electric trucks in January. Gillis said that when a diesel truck needs repair it is usually in the shop for three to four days. When a $400,000 electric truck is recalled it is usually out of action for longer. “That’s an expensive asset to lose for three to four weeks,” he said.

Manufacturers and California Reach a Deal

On July 6, Cal Matters reported California and Manufacturers Strike Deal Over Zero-Emission Trucks.

California and major truck manufacturers announced a deal today that would avoid a legal battle over the state’s landmark mandate phasing out diesel big rigs and other trucks.

In return, the Air Resources Board will relax some near-term requirements for trucks to reduce emissions of a key ingredient of smog to more closely align with new federal standards.

The powerful Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association as well as 10 manufacturers, including Cummins, Inc., Daimler Truck North America, Volvo Group North America and Navistar, Inc. signed on to the deal.

What About the Truckers?

How nice of the manufacturers and the state to come to an agreement. But it seems like they left the truckers, especially the small independents, out of the discussion.

How many of them can afford to pay two or three times as much for a truck?

Once again, note the huge inflationary madness that the tag team of Biden and California have brought the nation.

‘Impossible’ and ‘Likely to Fail’

Please consider ‘Impossible’ and ‘likely to fail’? Or ‘putting lives over profits’? Behind California’s battle to electrify trucks

“The amount of chaos and dysfunction that is going to be created by this rule will be like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Chris Shimoda, senior vice president of the California Trucking Association, an industry trade group, told CalMatters. “The likelihood that it is going to fail pretty spectacularly is very high. It’s very unfortunate.”

Trucking companies and local government officials call the deadlines in the rule unachievable. They say the new technology still has major drawbacks, including the high cost of electric trucks and their low vehicle range. The state also has not yet developed a charging network to support electric trucks, and the existing chargers can take hours to recharge, industry officials say.

Under the proposal, in 2036, 100% of new sales of medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks must be zero emissions in California, scaling up from phased-in timelines that vary by the type of truck. The rules also would force companies that operate 50 or more trucks to gradually convert their fleets into electric or hydrogen models, reaching 100% zero-emissions by 2042, with these timelines also based on the type of truck.

The earliest requirements would be for drayage trucks, which carry cargo to and from the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland and cause severe air pollution in nearby communities. All of them must be converted to electric models by 2035, and new sales beginning in 2024 must be zero emissions.

“There are many of us in the drayage industry that run our trucks 400 plus miles a day,” Cory Peters, chief financial officer of Best Drayage, a trucking company based in the Central Valley, told the board. “Currently, there is no zero-emission truck available today that can make that trip. You are requiring that all new drayage trucks be zero emissions starting in less than nine months from now. This will have a devastating effect on Central Valley shippers who rely on getting their goods to the rest of the world.”

Local governments call the deadlines ‘impossible’

It’s not just the trucking industry that is vehemently opposed. Local governments are opposed, too, since they own truck fleets. With some exceptions, half of the specified truck purchases for public agencies must be zero emissions by 2024, ramping up to 100% by 2027.

“The vehicles don’t exist, the infrastructure does not exist, grid reliability is sketchy, there’s nothing to protect public agencies from price gouging,” said the League of California Cities and State association of Counties in a letter to the air board.

Golden Powers

It’s the Golden State’s Special Powers that allowed this bargain.

For decades, California has relied on the bureaucratic equivalent of a superpower: It has had special federal permission to make tougher air regulations than the U.S. government.

The origin of this dates back to the smog that began choking Los Angeles in the 1940s.

So when changes to the Clean Air Act decades ago stopped individual states from making their own tailpipe emissions rules, California got a pass. If California’s rules are just as tough, or tougher, than the federal ones, the EPA must grant it a waiver. There are only a few specific circumstances when the EPA can deny the waiver, including if it decides California is being “arbitrary and capricious,” or that California doesn’t actually need the waiver to address “compelling and extraordinary conditions.”

California still needs to ask the EPA for a waiver whenever it wants to make new rules for vehicle exhaust or change existing rules on the books. The state has received dozens of these waivers, covering everything from refrigerated truck trailers to ships at berth in California ports.

Obama sided with California in disputes. Trump reversed Obama. And then Biden promptly reversed Trump.

I suggest this needs to go to the Supreme Court which hopefully will put an end to this silliness.

It’s not that I am a big fan of diesel. In fact, I am no diesel fan at all. But you cannot double or triple costs on the industry when the infrastructure is not even in place.

If the manufacturers want to make a deal with the devil, OK fine. But the costs better not be prohibitive to the truckers.

Unfortunately, the independent truckers are trapped in this Faustian bargain they were not even a part of.

It would be more than a bit fitting if the truckers responded by refusing to make deliveries in California. Let that message roar 10-4.

Huge Backlash Against Climate Change Has Started

Please note The Shocking Truth About Biden’s Proposed Energy Fuel Standards

Also, note A Huge Backlash Against Climate Change and Immigration Madness Has Started

The backlash cannot hit Biden and the state of California fast enough.