Authored by Benjamin Rothove via TheCollegeFix.com,

Federal court case takes aim at Biden-Big Tech partnership…

The National Institutes of Health halted a $154 million research program intended to study “equitable health communication” and combat alleged medical misinformation.

The “pause” came “in the context of the current regulatory and legal landscape around communication platforms,” according to a website for the initiative.

A spokeswoman for the NIH did not answer direct questions about the reason for the pause.

A federal court is considering a lawsuit brought by plaintiffs who allege the federal government colluded with Big Tech companies to silence their speech, often critical of COVID policies or the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.

“The project was still in concept phase and is being paused to reconsider its scope and aims in the context of the current regulatory and legal landscape around communication platforms, as noted on the website,” Emily Ritter told The College Fix via email.

“Our overall assessment will determine the future direction of the concept in terms of if or how it will move forward.”

Discovery in the case, Missouri v. Biden, found federal officials communicated with Big Tech platforms and pressured them to remove content, including a parody Anthony Fauci Instagram account.

The Fix asked how the NIH ensures its programs do not violate the First Amendment and if Missouri v. Biden played a role in the decision to pull the program.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the federal government to continue to work with Big Tech while the lawsuit continues.

The initiative appears to have come from comments made by departing NIH Director Francis Collins in 2021.

“We basically have seen the accurate medical information overtaken, all too often, by the inaccurate conspiracies and false information on social media. It’s a whole other world out there,” Collins said.

“The concept envisioned the development, testing, and sharing of new approaches for effective and equitable health communication,” the NIH website stated.

“Planning for the concept was informed by input from a request for information in April 2022 and a workshop held in May 2022.”

The College Fix contacted the New Civil Liberties Alliance to ask if the cancellation of the initiative was a positive development, if they were concerned about the lack of transparency from the NIH and if they thought Missouri v. Biden played a role in the decision. NCLA is representing plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit.

The legal group said it “won’t be able to comment on this at this time.”

Alta Charo, a bioethicist and University of Wisconsin Law School professor who has advised the NIH, told KFF Health News that the NIH “is caught up in a larger debate about who gets to decide what is truthful information these days.”

The Fix contacted Charo to ask if she was concerned about why the study was canceled, if she knew of previous instances where medical research was halted due to political pressure and the importance of similar projects. She was on vacation and unable to comment.

The Fix also twice contacted Dean Schillinger, a researcher at the University of California San Francisco, in the past two weeks with the same questions. Schillinger has not responded to requests for comment.

Schillinger co-authored an article in JAMA Network Open, which is published by the American Medical Association, criticizing the NIH for canceling the program.

“The NIH’s unfortunate decision to halt the program, which took place in the face of mounting political pressures related to the study of misinformation, represents a serious threat to the integrity of science and to its successful translation,” he wrote.

“With so much at risk, this is precisely the wrong time to back away from research into a critical threat to the health of our country,” Schillinger wrote.

“The chilling effect of the recent political actions to block the NIH and other government agencies from combating all types of health-related misinformation has very broad repercussions.”

“The program was deemed potentially so important that it would be supported through the agency’s Common Fund: a designation for high-priority programs that cut across normal institutional boundaries,” according to the NIH.

While representatives for the NIH have said that the project is on pause, it is listed under “former programs” on the website.

However, the pause does not mean an end to all “misinformation” research.

The NIH grant database lists millions of dollars in funded projects for 2023 alone that deal with “misinformation” and communication.

Projects include “Mitigating the Spread of Misinformation and Disinformation about COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment Initiatives among Hispanics” and “Investigating and identifying the heterogeneity in COVID-19 misinformation exposure on social media among Black and Rural communities to inform precision public health messaging.”

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Republican Senator Mitt Romney gave a big shout out to the Biden Administration Friday, posting a video in which he claims that sending billions in taxpayer dollars to Ukraine is “the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done.”

While the economy at home is dismal, Romney claimed that a “very small amount” of money that the U.S. is sending to Ukraine, more than $200 billion and counting, is benefitting all Americans.

WAR MONGERS GONNA WAR MONGER

— Oh Bette 😈 (@bette_oh) August 26, 2023

“The single most important thing we can do to strengthen ourselves relative to China is to see Russia defeated in Ukraine. Because they are allies, and Russia being weakened weakens their ally, China,” Romney said.

“Being able to take an amount which equals what about 5 percent of our military budget, but actually less than 5 percent of our military budget each year to help the Ukrainians, is about about the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done,” Romney claimed.

He added “We’re losing no lives in Ukraine,” while not mentioning the hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians.

He continued, “the Ukrainians are fighting heroically against Russia that has 1,5000 nuclear weapons aimed at us. It’s like, so, we’re diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money relative to what we spend on the rest of defense.”

“It is very much in America’s national interest in our national interest to help Ukraine. And the best thing we can do for America is to see people who have nuclear weapons and that is getting weaker,” Romney concluded.

Residents of the devastated Lahaina inMaui sure don’t think that sending money to Ukraine is the best form of national defense spending:

Lahaina resident: “I think Biden should take his $700 and get back on the fu*king plane.”

pic.twitter.com/d3mRQaQ2uA

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 25, 2023

*  *  *

Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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Cops had their hands full at the New York City mayor’s mansion on Sunday when black-clad antifa counterprotestors showed up at a demonstration against Mayor Eric Adams’ handling of the 2023 migrant crisis. 

More than 100,000 migrants have poured into New York City since April 2022, overwhelming the government’s capacity to house and feed them. Many residents of the city and surrounding areas are growing increasingly resentful of the measures Adams has approved, from kicking wedding parties out of hotels to shipping migrants to suburban counties and even housing adult men in the gyms of actively-used elementary schools. 

New Yorkers are also alarmed by scenes like these: 

Over the past year, I’ve been covering the migrant crisis in NYC
These last 3 weeks, I have seen Scene that were out of a movie where I found 100s of migrants sleeping on the streets outside the Roosevelt Hotel NYC that racked up millions of views on the internet which forced… pic.twitter.com/KBwFBUacRx

— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) August 21, 2023

The latest flashpoint: The city’s housing of 3,000 migrants in a tent city on Randall’s Island, an expanse along the East River between Northern Manhattan and Queens dominated by parkland and recreational facilities. Taxpayers were already incensed over youth soccer fields and other leisure assets being converted to migrant housing — and then came news that the city is spending $20 million per month on the migrant mini-city.  

Sunday’s protest was headlined by Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who addressed the fed-up crowd with a microphone and PA system:

“These migrants have jumped the queue,” he said. “And by the way, if I were a migrant and you gave me an opportunity to jump the queue and stay in a hotel, give me three square meals … — basically give me more than homeless people born in America have or veterans who are down on their luck have — you’re damn right they’re gonna keep coming!”

Protesters held signs with slogans like “STOP REWARDING, START DEPORTING” and “AMERICANS OVER MIGRANTS.” The New York Post quotes a Trump supporter as shouting “No migrants on Long Island! We pay a lot of property taxes!” 

Counterprotestors held signs reading “NO ONE CHOOSES TO BE A REFUGEE” and “HUMANITY HAS NO BORDERS.” Some yelled “F**k white supremacist NYPD!” 

The highlight of the pre-combat action came when the anti-open-borders crowd taunted the leftists with chants of “PASTY WHITE LIBERALS!” 

Gracie Manson NYC
Protest again migrants being housed is taking place when counter protesters arrive .
Protesters chant “pasty white liberals ” to the counter and.
🎥 by @LeeroyPress
For licensing email viralnewsnyc@gmail.com pic.twitter.com/wdvJt2W72t

— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) August 27, 2023

It wasn’t long before friction between the two groups of protestors inevitably erupted into a series of brawls… 

Just arrived to the Anti-migrant shelter rally outside Gracie Mansion in NYC and immediately see a fight between protesters and antifa who came to counter protest pic.twitter.com/loQqv9EWVP

— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) August 27, 2023

Here, it appears a black-masked antifa-type was in the midst of pummeling an anti-open-immigration protestor when his world was positively rocked by a right-winger flying in to the rescue: 

More ANTIFA violence at Gracie Mansion.

pic.twitter.com/kirv9WaVXI

— Jason Curtis Anderson (@JCAndersonNYC) August 27, 2023

This video shows the challenge facing NYPD cops as the skirmishes ebbed and flowed: 

NYPD moves in to arrest antifa and other far left agitators protesting against the anti migrant shelter protesters outside Gracie Mansion NYC https://t.co/CxDVQ3w3Yn pic.twitter.com/LeFWWSlWgM

— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) August 27, 2023

As he’d promised in advance, Sliwa was eventually arrested for acts of civil disobedience, but not before he was seen intervening to break up some of the fights.

Gracie Mansion, NYC:

Curtis Sliwa and NYPD try to break up scuffles and fights between Antifa antagonizers and protesters at migrant crisis protest. pic.twitter.com/HVHVZDoQ30

— Rebecca Brannon (@RebsBrannon) August 27, 2023

Sliwa wasn’t the only one arrested. Here, cops swoop in and handcuff antifa affiliates: 

NYPD moves in to arrest antifa and other far left agitators protesting against the anti migrant shelter protesters outside Gracie Mansion NYC https://t.co/CxDVQ3w3Yn pic.twitter.com/LeFWWSlWgM

— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) August 27, 2023

With the gates along the southern border literally welded open by the Biden administration, expect more brawls in the months to come… 

Via SchiffGold.com,

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered his annual speech at Jackson Hole on Friday. Peter Schiff broke the speech down in his podcast and said the speech itself was full of holes.

It wasn’t so much what he said, but what he left out.

Very early in the speech, stocks started to sell off, along with gold as the dollar rose when Powell said the Fed still has a very long way to go to get price inflation back to 2%. Peter called that one of the biggest understatements of the year — maybe of the century.

It’s not that they have a long way to go. They have an impossible distance to travel. In fact, the route is so far between where we are and where the Fed thinks it’s going to get that it’s basically a mission impossible. There’s no way that the Fed is going to complete this journey.”

Powell made some other hawkish statements, reiterating that the central bank is going to remain resolute in the inflation fight. He also emphasized that 2% is the target and that the Fed won’t move the goalposts and accept a higher rate.

While the markets initially sold off on the speech, they recovered later in the day.

The markets just totally shrugged it off, which is what the market has been doing. Yes, we’ve had a decent correction off the highs, but the market has basically held up very well in relation to the carnage in the bond market.”

Peter said he expects the bond market carnage to continue and Powell’s Jackson Hole speech reinforces the momentum to the downside that we’re seeing in bonds.

Peter said the most interesting part of the speech wasn’t what Powell said, but what he left out.

The whole point of raising interest rates is to slow down aggregate demand. Raising rates makes borrowing more expensive and theoretically slows down consumption. But Powell never addresses the elephant in the living room — aggregate demand isn’t going down.

It doesn’t matter that the Fed has raised interest rates. It’s done nothing. And one of the main reasons it’s done nothing is because at the same time the Fed is pursuing a higher monetary policy of quantitative tightening and interest rate hikes, the US federal government is pursuing the opposite policy. The US government is now running one of the most expansive, stimulative fiscal policies in our nation’s history.”

Peter noted the massive budget deficits. With two months left to go, the deficit for fiscal 2023 already stood at $1.61 trillion. Based on the deficit, you would think the US economy is in the midst of a deep recession. In fact, the 2023 deficit will be higher than any deficit the Obama administration ran during the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Fed recently upped its Q3 GDP estimate to 5.9%.

According to the Federal Reserve, the economy is booming and Powell is talking about how they’re reducing aggregate demand with their rate hikes. They haven’t reduced anything. But the point I’m making is we’ve got this growing economy, yet despite this growing economy we are running budget deficits that are close to $2 trillion per year. Now, if we’re running deficits of $2 trillion a year when the economy is good — when it’s growing, supposedly, what’s going to happen during the next recession?”

The bottom line is we already have a massive stimulative fiscal policy that is working at cross-purposes with the Fed.

How can the Fed not mention this? How can the Fed not say, ‘Look, we’ve got a problem here. We’re trying to fight inflation but the government is undermining our efforts. We’re trying to reduce aggregate demand by raising rates, and the reason it hasn’t worked, one of the reasons, is because the government is doing the opposite. The government is undermining everything we’re trying to achieve with its stimulative fiscal policy.’”

In just 72 days, the Biden administration added over $700 billion to the national debt.

A few years ago, that was more red ink than we built up in an entire year. … The budget deficits are going up. We’re stimulating more and more. That is going to undermine everything the Fed has done, and nothing that the Fed has done is going to work in the face of this fiscal policy that is so stimulative.”

The Fed is also fighting against the lag effect of more than a decade of easy money.

All the money that the Fed has been creating through QE1, QE2, QE3, QE4, those effects are still being pushed out in the economy. Yes, the Fed is backing off now, but that’s not going to do anything about all the inflation that’s still in the pipeline and what the government is doing now that is ultimately going to cause the Fed to reverse course.”

Peter raises the key question.

How is it that Powell can give this speech with all the world looking at him talking about inflation and ignoring this problem? What Powell should be doing is warning about these big deficits and saying, ‘Congress needs to help out here. I can’t do this all by myself.’”

Last year, Fed economists even admitted the central bank can’t rein in price inflation with monetary policy alone. But Peter said Powell is too big of a wimp to call out the Biden administration.

You can’t ignore fiscal policy when you’re running monetary policy. You can’t say, ‘Hey, there’s a separation here and I don’t want to interfere with what Congress is doing.’ No! He’s got to interfere. In fact, he’s paid to interfere. The idea that there is an independent Fed — it’s supposed to be independent from Congress, not the other way around. It’s not that the Fed is not supposed to point out when Congress is doing something wrong or the president. No, that is the job of the Fed chairman. If Congress is running these big deficits, and it’s creating a problem for inflation, if it’s creating a problem for the Fed and the public, the Fed chairman is supposed to call them out. The Fed chairman is supposed to say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to cut spending. You’ve got to bring down these deficits.”

Peter goes on to parse out some of the economic data, revealing the failure of the Fed’s inflation fight.

Thanks to a UK holiday, it’s a quiet start to what is shaping up as a busy final week of August, and the summer. The main event this week is the August payrolls report on Friday; we also get JOLTS job openings on Tuesday, the Q2 GDP revision on Wednesday, core PCE on Thursday, and the ISM report on Friday. There are several speaking engagements from Fed officials this week, including remarks from presidents Bostic, Collins and Mester.

A day by day analysis of the global key events courtesy of Rabobank:

• Monday: Aussie retail sales for July printed at 0.5%, much stronger than the 0.2% estimate of the Bloomberg survey. Might this be an indication that predictions of an end to the rate hiking cycle are premature? Later today we get the Dallas Fed’s manufacturing activity index, which is expected to be slightly less bad at -19 as well as a number of central bank speakers including Nagel and Holzmann from the ECB and Barr from the Fed.

• Tuesday: Japanese labor market data is first up with the unemployment rate expected to hold at 2.5% in July and the job to applicant ratio also expected to hold at 1.3x. Following that, we have consumer confidence surveys out in Germany and France, July retail sales for Spain (6.7% YoY expected) and a climate-change related speech from current RBA Deputy (soon to be Supremo) Michele Bullock. The big-ticket items of the day will be the Conference Board survey and the JOLTS survey out of the USA. The Fed’s Barr will also be speaking on banking services.

• Wednesday: NZ building permits for July gets the ball rolling ahead of similar data for Australia and the July monthly CPI inflation gauge from the ABS. We will get preliminary August CPI figures for Germany (6% expected) and Spain (expected to accelerate to 2.5% YoY) ahead of the second read of US 2nd quarter GDP.

• Thursday: NZ business confidence is the first print of the day, followed by Aussie private sector credit and CAPEX figures. The major release of the Asian session will be Chinese PMI data for August, where the contraction in manufacturing is expected to worsen to 49.1 and services are seen slowing to 51.1. German July retail sales are expected to have grown by 0.3% MoM, while preliminary French CPI for August is seen accelerating to 4.6% YoY from 4.3% previously. We will also get German labour market data, where the unemployment rate is expected to lift one tick to 5.7%, and Italian preliminary CPI figures for August where price growth is expected to have slowed to 5.6% YoY. The major release of the day will be the US core PCE deflator for July. The Bloomberg survey suggests market expectations of inflation accelerating to 3.3% YoY in July.

• Friday:  NZ consumer confidence figures are the first release of the day ahead of Caixin manufacturing PMI data for China, Nationwide house prices for the UK and manufacturing PMIs for Europe, the UK, Canada and the USA. That data will likely be overshadowed slightly by the US non-farm payrolls report, which should be the highlight of the week. Payrolls are expected to have grown by 168k in August, while the unemployment rate holds steady at 3.5% and average hourly earnings tick lower to 4.3% YoY. Friday will also bring Q2 GDP data for Canada, where growth is seen slowing to 1.2% annualized, as well as the August ISM survey. Central bank speakers include Raphael Bostic and Loretta Mester from the Fed

And here is Goldman, focusing on just the US:

Monday, August 28

• 10:30 AM Dallas Fed manufacturing index, August (consensus -19.0, last -20.0)

• 01:30 PM Fed Vice Chair Michael Barr speaks about banking services: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael S. Barr speaks in roundtable conversation with Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Council. Q&A with moderator is expected.

Tuesday, August 29

• 09:00 AM S&P Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, June (GS +0.9%, consensus +0.80%, last +0.99%)

• 10:00am JOLTS job openings, July (GS 9400k, consensus 9450K, last 9582k)

• 10:00 AM Conference Board consumer confidence, August (GS 116.8, consensus 116.5, last 117.0): We estimate that the Conference Board consumer confidence index edged down to 116.8 in August.

• 10:30 AM Dallas Fed services index, August (consensus n.a., last -4.2)

• 03:00 PM Fed Vice Chair Michael Barr speaks about banking services: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael S. Barr takes part in roundtable conversation with Blackfeet Business Council. Q&A with moderator is expected.

Wednesday, August 30

• 08:15 AM ADP employment change, August (GS 150k, consensus 198k, last 324k): We estimate a 150k rise in ADP payroll employment in August, reflecting solid but sequentially softer Big Data employment indicators. We also note that ADP employment growth has slowed in August in 6 of the last 7 years.

• 08:30 AM Advance goods trade balance, July (GS -$87.0bn, consensus -$90.0bn, last revised -$88.8bn)

• 08:30 AM GDP, Q2 second release (GS +2.6%, consensus +2.4%, last +2.4%): Personal consumption, Q2 second release (GS +1.8%, consensus +1.8%, last +1.6%): We estimate a 0.2pp upward revision to Q2 GDP growth to +2.6% (qoq ar), reflecting upward revisions to consumer spending, government spending, and business fixed investment—partially offset by downward revisions to inventory investment.

• 08:30 AM Wholesale inventories, July preliminary (consensus -0.3%, last -0.5%)

• 08:30 AM Retail inventories, July (consensus +0.5%, last +0.7%)

• 10:00 AM Pending home sales, July (GS +0.5%, consensus -1.0%, last +0.3%)

Thursday, August 31

• 03:15 AM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) gives speech in South Africa: President Bostic will give a speech and participate in a panel discussion at the South African Reserve Bank’s biennial research conference. Speech text will be made available. Q&A with audiences is expected. On August 1, Bostic said in a press briefing that “there has been significant progress in the battle.” and he doesn’t see need for a September hike.

• 08:31 AM Initial jobless claims, August (GS 225k, consensus 235k, last 230k): Continuing claims, August (consensus 1705K, last 1702k)

• 08:30 AM Personal income, July (GS +0.5%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.3%); Personal spending, July (GS +0.7%, consensus +0.7%, last +0.5%); 08:30 AM PCE price index, July (GS +0.21%, consensus +0.2%, last +0.2%); Core PCE price index, July (GS +0.21%, consensus +0.2%, last +0.2%): Based on details in the PPI, CPI, and import price reports, we forecast that the core PCE price index rose by 0.21% month-over-month in July, corresponding to a 4.24% increase from a year earlier. Additionally, we expect that the headline PCE price index increased by 0.21% in July, corresponding to a 3.28% increase from a year earlier. We expect that personal income increased by 0.5% and personal spending increased by 0.7% in July (mom sa).

• 09:45am Chicago PMI, August (GS 45.0, consensus 44.1, last 42.8): We estimate that the Chicago PMI rebounded by 2.2pt to 45.0 in August. Our GS manufacturing tracker rose by 1.4pt to 49.1.

• 09:00 AM Boston Fed President Collins (FOMC non-voter) speaks on community colleges: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan Collins to speak on the role community colleges play in the nation’s essential development of its people and workforce. Speech text will be made available. On July 11, Collins said in her Boston TV interview “my expectation is that we will need to hold rates at a level that will help us to slow demand and realign demand and supply for some time, and so my baseline is that we will need to hold at least through this year and that we’ll start bring rates down next year.”

Friday, September 1

• 06:00 AM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks on US monetary policy: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic takes part in panel discussion with SARB governor Lesetja Kganyago, IMF first deputy managing director Gita Gopinath, and Huw Pill, chief economist and executive director for Monetary Analysis and Research at the Bank of England in Cape Town. The panel discussion will be livestreamed. Q&A with audiences is expected.

• 08:30 AM Nonfarm payroll employment, August (GS +149k, consensus +168k, last +187k); Private payroll employment, August (GS +124k, consensus +150k, last +172k); Average hourly earnings (mom), August (GS +0.20%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.4%); Average hourly earnings (yoy), August (GS +4.25%, consensus +4.3%, last +4.4%); Unemployment rate, August (GS 3.5%, consensus 3.5%, last 3.5%); Labor force participation rate, August (GS 62.6%, consensus 62.6%, last 62.6%): We estimate nonfarm payrolls rose by 149k in August (mom sa). Big Data indicators indicate solid but generally slowing job growth, and August payrolls has exhibited a consistent negative bias in the initial prints (subsequently revised higher in each of the last five years). Our forecast also embeds a 26k one-time drag from the combination of Hollywood worker strikes (-18k) and Yellow trucking layoffs (-8k). We estimate that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.5%, reflecting a modest rise in household employment and unchanged labor force participation (at 62.6%). We estimate a 0.20% increase in average hourly earnings (mom sa) that lowers the year-on-year rate to 4.25%, reflecting waning wage pressures and negative calendar effects (the latter worth -5bps, on our estimates).

• 09:45 AM S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, August final (consensus 47.0, last 47.0)

• 09:45 AM Cleveland Fed President Mester (FOMC non-voter) speaks on inflation:  Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester speaks at European Central Bank and Cleveland Fed’s Center for Inflation Research conference – Inflation: Drivers and Dynamics Conference 2023. The talk will be livestreamed, and the text will be made available. Q&A with audiences is expected. On August 25, Cleveland President Mester said it’s quite possible the central bank will raise rates again and the key issue is to decide how restrictive monetary policy needs to be and how long it needs to stay at those levels.

• 10:00 AM Construction spending, July (consensus +0.5%, last +0.5%)

• 10:00 AM ISM manufacturing index, August (GS 47.0, consensus 47.0, last 46.4): We estimate that the ISM manufacturing index rebounded by 0.6pt 47.0 in August, reflecting the net pickup in US regional surveys but the mixed recovery in East Asian industrial activity. Our GS manufacturing tracker rose by 1.4pt to 49.1.

• 05:00 PM Lightweight motor vehicle sales, May (GS 15.3mn, consensus 15.5mn, last 15.7mn)

Source: Rabobank, Goldman

Forgive us if you’ve heard this one before… but China tried (and failed again) to re-ignte animal spirits in its equity market overnight.

Having strong-armed funds into ‘not selling’ stock last week, then strongly-suggesting that companies escalate their share buyback programs (and then bullying banks into buying yuan to support the currency against the green back), and then clearly stepping with a ‘National Team’ panic bid (that didn’t work) Beijing was faced with the reality that nothing was working with Chinese stocks tumbling still.

Then on Friday, announced property stimulus measures prompted a notably brief pump (and dump) making the 4th attempt in a week to stop the freefall in the struggling nation’s stock market.

So, having achieved nothing, Beijing tried once more with authorities announcing a slew of measures over the weekend, including a slashing of the stamp duty on stock trading and limits on the amount that major shareholders can sell.

It seemed to work as the CSI 300 Index exploded over 5% higher at the open, its largest rise at the open since July 2015.

BUT…just as we warned…

*CHINA’S CSI 300 INDEX JUMPS 5.5% AFTER MEASURES TO BOOST MARKET

this should last about 15 minutes

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 28, 2023

The initial euphoria faded into the session, with the index ending just a little over 1% higher.

Most notably, it was foreign funds that reportedly accelerated their selling through the day, poised to take this month’s outflows to the biggest on record.

Which in turn sent the yuan lower against the greenback…

As Bloomberg notes, today’s reversal in stocks is extremely rare, looking at historical data since 2002.

The only other time something similar occurred was on November 27, 2008, immediately after the gauge had formed a major trough following the Great Financial Crisis.

For context on how poor the price-action was, the ChiNext Index saw its largest intraday drawdown in more than two years, and the biggest ever pullback seen on an overall up-day.

This chart measures the percentage change from intraday highs to closing prices:

Cutting stamp duty is designed to increase market turnover, especially among retail punters.

“The China authorities are clearly stepping up efforts to rebuild confidence in Beijing’s policy commitment to achieve growth and support the market,” said Xiaojia Zhi, chief China economist at Credit Agricole.

“But then a fundamental growth improvement as well as tangible policy action onshore is needed to really turn the mood around, and therefore more time could be needed.”

Convincing the retail crowd to believe in the recent slew of China stimulus measures will make a big difference to daily volumes.

Having seen those measures fail, Beijing tried again, rolling out China’s Minister of Finance who pledged to prevent and resolve local government debt risks and step up fiscal discipline.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that the MoF said it will ramp up and implement active fiscal policies, and improve the transfer of payments to localities.

Additionally, China will enhance adjustments of macro policies to expand domestic demand, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a separate report to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.

So, if at first (or fifth) you don’t succeed, try, try, again?

3M shares gained in premarket trading in New York after Bloomberg reported the company “tentatively agreed” to pay $5.5 billion to settle the largest mass tort in US history, with 300,000 lawsuits by veterans that claim earplugs made for combat failed to protect them from hearing loss. 

Under the discussed terms, people familiar with the settlement said 3M would pay $5.5 billion, resolving the massive lawsuit overhang, which is half of the $10 billion some Wall Street analysts predicted. Shares are up 6% because of this. 

“Sounds like 3M negotiated a pretty good deal for itself, given this litigation has been weighing on them for the better part of a decade,” Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who teaches about product liability cases, told Bloomberg. 

Bloomberg Intelligence projected the possibility that 3M would have had to pay out around $9.5 billion, whereas Barclays analysts estimated $8 billion. 

Commentary from Wall Street analysts was favorable regarding the smaller settlement (list provided via Bloomberg): 

Citi (Neutral, PT $111) 

• The potential settlement is smaller than some investors expected, analyst Andrew Kaplowitz writes in a note; could mark another step in 3M alleviating its legal burden and moving away from litigation noise that has been weighing on the valuation and could be received favorably by investors
• Notes 3M still faces uncertainty regarding its per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances related exposure

RBC (Underperform, PT $100)

• News of any settlement is typically initially seen as good news, since it represents some tangible progress toward resolving what is still expected to be a long litigation road ahead for 3M along multiple fronts, writes analyst Deane Dray
• Positive stock reaction is due to a combination of slightly lower than expected settlement figure and a positive reaction associated with the potential alleviation of one of its two legal headwinds

Bloomberg Intelligence (No rating) 

• Analysts including Joel Levington say, “3 M’s $5.5 billion agreement to resolve 300,000 lawsuits over military earplugs, as reported by Bloomberg News, may not stop the A2/A- rated company’s ratings from being downgraded further”

Bloomberg noted, “3 M’s board still must sign off on the deal.” And comes as the company faces thousands of other lawsuits over PFAS “forever chemicals.” 

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

A U.S. federal official suggested in a recent interview that Americans may be told by officials that they are recommended to have no more than two alcoholic drinks, or beers, per week.

Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) George Koob told the Daily Mail on Thursday that the United States could follow how Canada handles its alcohol guidelines.

The NIAAA’s guidelines currently recommend males up to age 65 limit themselves to two drinks per day, while women up to age 65 should limit themselves to one. Recommendations published under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans (pdf), which are not mandates or requirements, are slated to be reviewed in 2025.

For the NIAAA’s “heavy” drinking limits, it says that men should drink no more than four per day, and no more than 14 beverages per week. For women, according to the guidelines, they should drink no more than three drinks per day and seven per week.

Meanwhile, Canada’s current guidelines recommend people have only two drinks per week. A drink is defined as containing 0.6 fluid ounces of alcohol, or equivalent to one beer, one glass of wine with 12 percent alcohol, or one shot of hard alcohol.

“If there’s health benefits, I think people will start to re-evaluate where we’re at [in the U.S.],” Mr. Koob told the Daily Mail.

When asked about whether the guidelines would change in 2025, he said that it’s likely officials will not recommend that people drink more per day or week, as compared with the current guidelines.

“I mean, they’re not going to go up, I’m pretty sure,” Mr. Koob said. “So, if [alcohol consumption guidelines] go in any direction, it would be toward Canada.”

Mr. Koob added that he believes that there are no health benefits to drinking alcohol. However, he did say that it has social benefits and called it a “social lubricant.”

“Most of the benefits people attribute to alcohol, we feel they really have more to do with what someone’s eating rather than what they’re drinking,” Mr. Koob told the outlet. “So it really has to do with the Mediterranean diet, socio-economic status, that makes you able to afford that kind of diet and make your own fresh food and so forth. With this in mind, most of the benefits kind of disappear on the health side.”

Some industry groups responded to his comments to the Daily Mail, accusing him of trying to make a dramatic change to the dietary guidelines.

“Dr. Koob’s comments calling for a drastic change to the federal recommendations on alcohol before the review of alcohol research has even begun undermines the scientific rigor and objectivity of the entire Dietary Guidelines process,” Distilled Spirits Council vice president of science and health Amanda Berger told Fox News.

Read more here…

Maybe attacking the state of Florida and supporting transgender indoctrination in schools was not the best money-making business model? 

Disney has been injecting far-left propaganda into its film productions and streaming productions for a number of years, but it was not until their very public attempt to undermine Florida’s Parental Rights In Education Bill that larger audiences started applying more scrutiny to the company and withholding their dollars.  In the past, consumers used to let subversive progressive preaching slide, but with the rapid decline in story quality as well as the open hostility shown by companies like Disney towards conservatives, the tide is turning.   

Woke leftist messaging would include – Mary Sue stories designed to bolster false feminist premises while denigrating men.  Critical Race Theory messaging that attempts to exaggerate and exploit negative race relations.  The race swapping of established white characters for the sake of virtue signaling.  The erasure of positive romantic stories featuring straight protagonists; showing only LGBT relationships in a positive light.  LGBT propaganda aimed at young children.  The promotion of trans ideology, often based on anti-science.  Sexualized messaging aimed at children.  Regularly depicting pro-American and pro-free market characters as the villains.  The list goes on…         

When it comes to the “culture war” there are a few important questions that have been begging to be answered for the past several years:

1)  Is there really a market for woke propaganda in popular media?

2)  If so, how much of the population is actually going to spend money to consume that propaganda?

3)  If there is no market and the business model is a money losing prospect, then why are so many major corporations abandoning traditional American audiences and pumping out such garbage anyway? 

For a long time the public has been told that woke entertainment is the wave of the future and that the majority of Americans want to see such stories more often.  They have also been told that anyone who criticizes the social shift in media to the far-left is “probably a bigot or a fascist” and that they should be treated as monsters.  Yet, crashing audience numbers and plummeting profits for Hollywood have indicated the opposite (theater audiences have dropped by 50% in the past four years).  It is a condition they have sought to hide, but the consequences of bad business practices cannot be denied forever.

Consumer boycotts of woke brands have erupted in 2023, leading to the implosion of companies like Bud Light and the continued sales rot of retailers like Target.  Leftists have joked that the public would have to stop shopping almost everywhere just to boycott all the actively woke corporations – Basically admitting that the corporate world they claim to hate is on their side.  However, there’s always small businesses, and the boycotts don’t have to target every single woke perpetrator, they only need to make examples out of a handful to send a message.  

What’s the message?  Leftists are a minority and they are broke bums.  There is no market for what they are selling. 

Disney has learned this lesson the hard way with a string of major box office failures leading to at least $1 billion in losses this year along with their stock crashing to 9-year lows this week.  Disney park attendance is also thinning dramatically with wait times on rides down from 47 minutes to 27 minutes on peak days.  The company is now considering selling off assets to stay afloat, with Amazon in talks to purchase a stake in ESPN streaming.

One could also blame the growing cancer of “stakeholder capitalism,” a notion developed by the World Economic Forum which argues that corporations must engage in social engineering rather than being concerned with making money.  Without ample ESG funding to backstop the losses these companies have to fund their agitprop from their own coffers, and now we are seeing the inevitable results.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle via dlacalle.com,

Are the BRICS a threat to the U.S.?

The summit of the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has closed with an invitation to join the group extended to the Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, and Ethiopia.

The summit has generated a lot of headlines about the impact of this widespread group of nations, including speculation about the end of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency if this group is perceived as a threat to the United States or even the International Monetary Fund.

Several things need to be clarified.

Many political analysts believe that China lends, invests, or supports in return for nothing. China is a major economic power, but it has no interest in being a global reserve currency. Its currency is currently used in only 5% of global transactions, according to the Bank of International Settlements.

China and Russia have capital controls. It is impossible to have a global reserve currency without freedom of capital movement. More requirements are needed than solid gold reserves to have a stable fiat currency. It is essential to guarantee economic freedom, investment, legal security, and the free movement of capital, as well as an open, transparent, and diversified financial system.

China and Russia are much more demanding and rigorous lenders than many politicians think. It seems that some emerging market politicians think that joining China and Russia will be a kind of free money panacea.

Another problem with creating a BRICS currency is that, logically, neither China nor Russia has the slightest intention of losing their national currency to dilute it alongside a group of issuers who have a doubtful track record in controlling their monetary imbalances. Over the past ten years, the currencies of the BRICS guest countries have depreciated significantly against the U.S. dollar. The Argentine peso has fallen by 98%, the Egyptian pound by 78%, the Indian rupee by 35%, the Ethiopian birr by 68%, the Brazilian real by 55%, according to Bloomberg, and the Iranian rial has collapsed by 90%, according to The Economist. Putting together weak currencies does not create a strong currency.

We must not forget that the performance of the Russian ruble (-68% against the U.S. dollar, according to Bloomberg) in the last decade has also been poor despite having a relatively prudent central bank.

The best “BRICS and guests” currency against the U.S. dollar in the last 10 years is the Chinese yuan, with a depreciation of only 14%.

For a fiat currency to be stable, it is necessary that the issuer defend it as a reserve of value, a generally accepted payment method, and a unit of measure. Freedom of capital and independent institutions that provide legal security to domestic and international investors are needed. Having a strong military power does not guarantee a currency accepted as a reserve of value, as demonstrated by the disastrous Soviet kopek, despite the USSR’s influence on half the world.

Moreover, China has no interest in taking on all the challenges required to be a global reserve currency, starting with a financial and monetary system with a high level of independence from political power. Many analysts ignore that what has made the Federal Reserve a success as the world’s central bank is that it is not under total state control or public management. The Fed may not be completely independent, but it is as independent as a central bank for a fiat currency can be.

Joining countries with governments that advocate monetizing uncontrolled public spending and massively increasing monetary imbalances cannot create a stable currency unless they implement the example of the euro. In the euro, Germany, the country with the most prudent and responsible fiscal policy, dictated the main lines of the monetary and fiscal rules for the rest. Unfortunately, the eurozone and the ECB, in trying to play to be the US and the Federal Reserve, have lost most of their options to be a real alternative to the U.S. dollar. And the euro is the greatest fiat monetary success in the post-Bretton Woods era; let us not deprive it of its merit.

The BRICS alternative starts with a major Achilles heel. China and Russia are going to have major difficulties imposing fiscal and monetary policy restrictions on their partners. Let us not forget that several of these partners have joined the group, thinking that from now on they will be able to continue printing money and spending without control, but their monetary imbalances will be distributed to other nations.

The euro has been a success because liberal democracies with independent institutions and broad economic freedom and legal certainty agreed to align their policies for the common good, creating a solid currency that avoided the debacle created by the inflationary spirals that were the norm in Europe historically when governments devoted themselves to transferring their imbalances to citizens’ wages and savings through monetary destruction. This does not seem easily replicable with BRICS and guests.

China, however, can increase its control over all these countries by implementing rigorous monetary and fiscal policies. It is the strongest lender of all the BRICS, but it is unlikely to take on the role of the euro’s Germany, willing to absorb the excesses of others in exchange for a common project. China is going to increase its control over the countries in the group, but it is not likely to jeopardize the stability and security of its enormous population by sinking the currency. The Chinese government is probably analyzing how the euro is losing monetary prudence and reaching the conclusion that it cannot take that same risk with some of these new partners. However, China will probably make the most of its financial strength to lend, increase their domestic and international growth options, and access abundant and cheap commodities.

China is the big winner of the BRICS summit. The Chinese government probably knows that many of its partners are going to continue increasing their imbalances, and this may allow China to strengthen its leadership position. However, I find it hard to believe that China will agree to the creation of a currency that others can use to trigger inflationary imbalances.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the government may jeopardize the credibility of the U.S. dollar if it continues to generate deficits of two trillion dollars a year, more than a $14 billion estimated deficit by 2030, and with an increasing number of irresponsible advisers saying that it can create all the money it wants without risk. The fiscal credibility, institutional independence, and economic freedom of the U.S. dollar, the most widely used currency in the world, cement its leadership. If the government undermines these strengths, the dollar will lose its reserve status.

The end of the U.S. dollar, if it comes, will not arrive through competition from another fiat currency, as the temptation of governments to destroy the purchasing power of the issued currency is too strong. It will probably come from independent currencies.