Serbian officials announced this week that the national army has been put on the highest possible level of alert as border tensions with breakaway Kosovo have soared to boiling point, and after roadblocks were set up by the Serbian minority living within Kosovo, which they don’t recognize as a legitimate state.

Following weeks of at times tit-for-tat clashes between Serbian protesters and Kosovo police, Serbia said Monday its forces have been put on a “full state of combat readiness” – after President Aleksandar Vučić ordered that “all measures be taken to protect the Serbian people in Kosovo.”

“Serbia’s president … ordered the Serbian army to be on the highest level of combat readiness, that is to the level of the use of armed force,” Serbia’s Defense Minister Milos Vucevic announced of the raised alert level.

The president also ordered a special Serbian security response unit to be beefed up, which is to result in thousands of elite troops being positioned near the restive border.

In response, on Wednesday Kosovo authorities closed its biggest border crossing. Serb protesters were already blocking it, including with large trucks, leaving only three entry points between the two sides open. Some entry points have been blocked since early December. 

As a result, thousands of Kosovars who work elsewhere in Europe have been unable to travel home, and are stuck at the border. On the other side, inside northern Kosovo, are some 50,000 ethnic Serbs who say they are persecuted by Pristina authorities, including an attempt to force Kosovo vehicle plates and state documentation on them. 

Serbs on the Serbian side have reportedly been assisting protesters on the Kosovo side of the border in establishing roadblocks, effectively preventing Kosovo border police from establishing control.

The catalyst for this latest flare-up in border tensions started early this month, with the arrest of a popular former Serb policeman Dejan Pantic by Kosovo. Kosovo has accused the Serbian ex-police officer who is now in detention is “of committing terrorist acts and attacking the constitutional order”; however, this enraged the ethnic Serb population there.

Meanwhile, as with many geopolitical flashpoints in eastern Europe and the Balkans, there are allegations of Russian attempts at a destabilization campaign, given its historic support for Belgrade:

Kosovo’s interior minister has accused Serbia, under the influence of Russia, of attempting to destabilize his country via the protests.

Serbia denies it is trying to destabilize its neighbor and says it only wants to protect the Serbian minority living in what is now Kosovan territory but is not recognized by Belgrade.

During a Serbian national security council held two weeks ago under President Vucic, he said he would mull a request for national forces to be sent to Kosovo to protect the Serb minority. While unlikely, such a confrontation would inevitably spark war.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Supreme Court is scheduled next week to look at a case from Florida in which the state, 16 other states, and former President Donald Trump are urging the court to consider whether states have the power to regulate how social media companies moderate content on their platforms.

The case is in the public eye because it pits the right of individual Americans to freely express themselves online against the right of social media platforms to make editorial decisions about the content they host. Lawyers say both rights are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, so the Supreme Court needs to weigh in to resolve the conflict.

Republicans and conservatives have complained for years about being censored by the platforms. They were outraged when platforms acted in concert to ban Trump in January 2021, blocked a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop computer, and silenced dissenting opinions about the origins of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus and on treatments for the disease it causes.

Democrats and liberals, by contrast, claim the platforms don’t do enough to suppress so-called hate speech and alleged misinformation. They have also been angered by new Twitter owner Elon Musk’s recent efforts to reform that platform’s censorship policies, which has led to the reinstatement of many banned conservatives’ accounts, including the page of Trump himself who has so far chosen not to return to posting at Twitter.

Many states are now looking at legislation that would regulate social media platforms to protect users’ free speech.

In the case at hand, Florida is appealing a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that blocked portions of Florida Senate Bill 7072, which requires policy transparency and protects user access to platforms.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the law on May 24, 2021, stating that it makes sure “real Floridians across the Sunshine State—are guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley elites.”

“Many in our state have experienced censorship and other tyrannical behavior firsthand in Cuba and Venezuela. If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable.”

Under the law, platforms are not allowed to ban political candidates and must make public and consistently apply their moderation rules. De-platforming candidates can lead to fines of up to $250,000 a day.

The Atlanta-based 11th Circuit struck down part of the statute, finding that “with minor exceptions, the government can’t tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it.”

Even the “biggest” platforms are “private actors whose rights the First Amendment protects … [and] their so-called content-moderation decisions constitute protected exercises of editorial judgment.”

In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit went in the other direction, finding that a Texas law known as HB 20 was constitutional, rejecting the “idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say.”

The Texas law imposes limitations on the ability of platforms to moderate speech and mandates that the companies provide disclosure to the public.

Trump filed a brief in October urging the court to grant oral argument in the Supreme Court case, Moody v. NetChoice LLC, court file 22-277, as The Epoch Times reported. NetChoice is a coalition of trade associations representing social media companies and e-commerce businesses.

“Recent experience has fostered a widespread and growing concern that behemoth social media platforms” are using their power to suppress political opposition, Trump’s brief states.

“This concern is heightened because Platforms often shroud decisions to exclude certain users and viewpoints in secrecy, giving no meaningful explanation as to why certain users are excluded while others posting equivalent content are tolerated.”

Ohio, Arizona, Missouri, Texas, and 12 other states argue in a brief (pdf) that the internet is the modern-day public square and that social media platforms engaging in censorship “undermine the free exchange of ideas that free speech protections exist to facilitate.” Suppression of ideas threatens “the development of important insights and discoveries, many of which begin as fringe views.”

“[I]f social-media companies are absolutely entitled to censor unpopular views, what is the limiting principle?” the brief states. “The system cannot work if the public lacks access to the means by which citizens may engage with each other. Censorship by social-media companies thus poses a very real threat to effective self-governance.”

In a brief (pdf) urging the Supreme Court to leave the 11th Circuit ruling intact, NetChoice defended platforms’ content-moderation policies.

“[A]nonymity and pseudonymity enabled by the Internet, coupled with the virtually cost-free ability to broadcast all manner of content, has given rise to spam, trolling, and hecklers’ vetoes,” the brief states.

Read more here…

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

New York City Mayor Eric Adams responded to criticism over increasing the use of facial recognition technology by declaring, “Big Brother is protecting you!”

Adams made the comments in response to elected officials who expressed concerns that using such technology could lead to an all-pervasive surveillance state.

Blaming his predecessor Bill de Blasio, Adams asserted that New Yorkers felt they were living in a “state of lawlessness” and that his priority was to “stabilise” the situation.

Facial recognition technology uses surveillance cameras to flag up individuals who appear on databases of criminal suspects when they enter certain public locations, although the technology is far from perfect.

“We will also move forward on using the latest in technology to identify problems, follow up on leads and collect evidence — from facial recognition technology to new tools that can spot those carrying weapons, we will use every available method to keep our people safe,” Adams previously asserted.

The Democrat also brazenly suggested that mass surveillance wasn’t a chilling slippery slide, but in fact a good thing.

“It blows my mind how much we have not embraced technology, and part of that is because many of our electeds are afraid. Anything technology they think, ‘Oh it’s a boogeyman. It’s Big Brother watching you,’” he told Politico.

“No, Big Brother is protecting you.”

As in George Orwell’s 1984 dystopian classic, Adams presumably thinks that New Yorkers will learn to ‘love Big Brother’.

Albert Fox Cahn, the head of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, responded by warning that facial recognition technology would be weaponized to crack down on “every aspect of dissent” in the city.

“These are technologies that would be chilling in anyone’s hands. But to give an agency with such a horrifying record of surveillance abuse even more power, at a time when they face dwindling oversight, is a recipe for disaster,” he said.

Civil liberties advocates have warned that making facial recognition technology ubiquitous could lead to a Minority Report-style society where everyone, whether they have a criminal record or not, is tracked everywhere they go.

In China, authorities expanded the use of the tech as a form of permission slip to decide whether citizens are allowed to get online, an extension of the Communist state’s social credit score program.

“At present, a Chinese citizen will need to show his or her ID card while applying for a landline or the internet,” reported the Daily Mail.

“The facial-recognition test is set to verify that the ID card belongs to the applicant.”

As we previously highlighted, technology that reveals a person’s identity without them even knowing they are being exposed has long been a goal of globalist technocrats.

*  *  *

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After a winter storm and arctic blast pummeled the eastern half of the US, most major airline carriers were able to resolve delays and cancellations. But not Southwest Airlines, which days later still has a large number of flights canceled, stranding tens of thousands of Americans at airports nationwide. 

Bloomberg confirmed a leaked memo dated Dec. 21 via Chris Johnson, the carrier’s vice president of ground operations, who declared a “state of operational emergency” at Denver Airport after “an unusually high number” of employee absences. 

The severe winter weather battered Southwest’s operations nationwide, forcing the carrier to cancel thousands of flights during Christmas weekend. And the chaos continues. As of Wednesday morning, Southwest has scrapped 62% of flights today, plus 58% on Thursday, according to FlightAware data. 

Wednesday

Thursday

Analysts describe Southwest’s meltdown this week as the most significant operational breakdown in its five-decade history. 

“This is the worst round of cancellations for any single airline I can recall in a career of more than 20 years as an industry analyst,” Henry Harteveldt, who covers airlines for Atmosphere Research Group, told the NYTimes.

Southwest’s chief executive, Bob Jordan, apologized Tuesday evening for the operational mishap. He said, “Our plan for the next few days is to fly a reduced schedule and reposition our people and planes.” 

“We’re optimistic to be back on track before next week,” Jordan explained. 

Once Southwest normalizes operations, we assume Jordan will be bombarded with questions from lawmakers and US transportation officials about what went wrong. 

Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

Sausage multi-millionaire Pavel Antov, Russia’s “highest-earning elected politician,” was recently in India celebrating his 66th birthday when he reportedly fell to his death from a hotel window.

(I hate it when that happens.)

In totally unrelated news, Antov had recently criticized Putin’s actions in Ukraine, characterizing air strikes on Kyiv as “terror.”

Oddly, Antov perished shortly thereafter and just two days after a close friend of his unexpectedly died “from a heart attack.”

Antov had highlighted a Russian missile strike, saying:

A girl has been pulled out from under the rubble, the girl’s father appears to have died. The mother is trying to be pulled out with a crane – she is trapped under a slab. To tell the truth, it is extremely difficult to call this anything other than terror.

This led Antov to come under intense pressure… after which he withdrew the comment and issued a sniveling apology, claiming his social media post had been “an unfortunate misunderstanding” and a “technical error.”

Alexei Idamkin, the Russian Consul General in Kolkata, told TASS that Antov “fell” out of a hotel window in Rayagada, Odisha state.

This means Antov joins the expansive ranks of Russian doctors who, in recent years, have also inexplicably met their tragic demise falling out of hospital windows.

[ZH: And follows the death of Ravil Maganov, the vice president and chair of the board of directors of Russian oil giant Lukoil, who died in September after falling out of a sixth floor hospital window in Moscow… who was the latest in a string of unexplained or untimely deaths of Russian magnates connected to the energy industry in the last months.]

Perhaps the Biden administration should start using the same tactic to deal with its perceived enemies? It’s obvious that the Clintons would embrace such measures. And the American mainstream media would love to report that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Lauren Boebert, et. al., “fell out a window” to their deaths.

However, if there were many rational people left on this orb, such preposterous “explanations” for the deaths of our rulers’ political opponents would not go unchallenged.

Vlad should’ve claimed that Antov died as a result of something less preposterous than falling out of a hotel window in the winter. Maybe he should have said Antov was hit by a meteor. Or, better yet, a stray Ukrainian missile. Or that he died of climate change.

But, unfortunately, in today’s world, sanity is out the window.

Just like Antov.

US stock futures edged higher on Wednesday alongside European bourses, as a selloff in tech was set to pause following a drop on the Nasdaq in the previous session, with Tesla shares erasing earlier declines as dip-buyers returned to the stock after a seven-day losing streak. Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.3% at 7:45 a.m. in New York, reversing earlier losses, while S&P eminis were up 0.3%. Treasury yields ticked lower as a global bond selloff eased, and a gauge of the dollar slipped.

Tesla’s brutal 11% plunge on Tuesday following a report of a plan to temporarily halt production at its China factory – which is odd since that will merely result in more output once China reemerges from its final covid lockdown, this time with natural immunity – rekindled worries about growth prospects for the broader technology industry. The shares erased a drop of over 4% in premarket trading to trade higher by 2%, after seven days of declines.

Similarly, Apple shares rose modestly in premarket trading after closing at their lowest level since June 2021 amid concerns over iPhone supply in the key holiday period. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

• Jounce Therapeutics jumpedas much as 95% after drugmaker Gilead agreed to acquire all remaining rights to potential first-in-class immunotherapy GS-1811.
• Prison operators CoreCivic and GEO Group drop after the US Supreme Court ordered pandemic-era border restrictions to remain in effect.

Reports that China would drop quarantine requirements for inbound visitors and begin issuing passports and Hong Kong travel permits to mainland residents may be a boost for the global economy, but they’re also raising concern about inflation pressures which could prompt the Federal Reserve to maintain tight monetary policy for long to keep inflation in check once China fully reopens.

“The stronger the positive impact on growth from Chinese reopening, the faster the global inflation, and the faster the global inflation the more aggressive the central bank actions will be,” Swissquote Bank analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya wrote in a note.  Fears that interest rates might rise further than expected are adding pressure on technology stocks which typically suffer during monetary tightening cycles and are among the biggest stock-market losers of 2022.

The cautious mood has killed hopes for a Sasnta rally in the last trading week of 2022 after a brutal year for financial markets. Global equities have lost a fifth of their value, the largest decline since 2008 on an annual basis, and an index of global bonds has slumped 16%. The dollar has surged 7% and the US 10-year yield has jumped to above 3.80% from just 1.5% at the end of 2021.

“We may get a pivot later on next year from the Fed where they actually start cutting rates, but that’s going to happen when the situation is going to become much more dire than it is now,” Matt Maley, chief market strategist for Miller Tabak + Co., said on Bloomberg TV. “If we just have this slow grind lower, the Fed’s going to keep interest rates at high levels even if they stop raising rates in any kind of way.”

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 index advanced, led by basic-resources companies as prices for industrial metals including copper climbed. Most European bonds gained, with Germany’s 10-year yield falling more than five basis points, after hitting 2.524% yesterday, the highest in over 11 years.

Asian stocks dropped, dragged by losses in technology shares, pausing a two-day gain spurred by China’s border reopening. Hong Kong equities jumped in a catch-up rally after holidays. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index pared most of its earlier losses of as much as 0.6%. Chipmakers Samsung and TSMC were the biggest drivers of the loss. South Korea led declines in the region with the benchmark Kospi sinking more than 2% as Samsung and other key stocks traded without rights to the next dividend. Tesla-related shares including battery suppliers fell after the EV maker sank amid plans to temporarily halt Chinese production. 

Hong Kong stocks defied the broader decline in the region, with the Hang Seng surging as much as 2.6% as investors reacted to China’s removal of tourism barriers. Benchmarks of mainland shares posted drops after climbing for two days. “There are expectations that China’s normalization would work as a buffer to the global economy,” Han Jiyoung, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, wrote in a note. “Markets will become increasingly sensitive to the actual demand recovery in China and how much it could push up inflation.” The key MSCI Asia stock gauge is poised for a December loss of 0.3% after a 15% jump in November. The index is on course for its worst year since 2008 with a 19% drop, in line with an index of global equities.

Japanese stocks fell, following US peers lower, amid growing fears over global inflationary pressure stoked by China’s reopening.  The Topix Index dropped 0.1% to 1,909.02 as of the market close in Tokyo, while the Nikkei declined 0.4% to 26,340.50. SoftBank Group contributed the most to the Topix’s loss, decreasing 1.5%. Out of 2,162 stocks in the index, 947 rose and 1,076 fell, while 139 were unchanged. “If China reopens, the focus will be on the increased demand for energy and goods, which might lead to concerns around inflation and further monetary tightening,” said Tetsuo Seshimo, a portfolio manager at Saison Asset Management.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed in mixed trading. The Australian and New Zealand dollars led Group-of-10 gains while Japan’s yen and Norway’s krone slid. The yen declined for a second day after a Bank of Japan board member said it should continue with monetary easing, while the central bank offered to buy more bonds to cap rising yields. USD/JPY rose 0.5% to 134.17 following Tuesday’s 0.5% gain. End of month flows by Japanese companies and some real-money demand for dollars is starting to emerge, according to Asia-based FX traders.

In rates, treasury yields were mixed in early US trading with curve modestly flatter as long end outperforms. 10-year yields are lower by ~4bp at 3.80%, but near the highest since mid- November and just above 50-DMA level; most euro-zone 10-year yields are lower by 4bp-5bp on the day after leading Tuesday’s global bond selloff. The final coupon auction cycle of the year continues with $43BN 5-year note sale at 1pm New York time; Tuesday’s 2-year stopped through after a selloff into the bidding deadline. UK yields are higher as market reopens after extended holiday. 5s30s curve is flatter by ~1.3bp on the day ahead of 5Y note auction. Bonds in Asia are mostly lower, spurred by a drop in US Treasuries overnight as well as inflation concerns from China’s reopening. Bank of Japan conducted an unscheduled bond-buying operations. 

In commodities, oil dipped amid thin liquidity as investors weighed the fallout from a Russian ban on exports to buyers that adhere to a price cap. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.3% to $79.27 a barrel. Iron ore surged to its highest since early August, while copper gained in New York as China’s rollback of pandemic curbs boosted prospects for commodities demand in 2023. Gold futures fell 0.7% to $1,811.20 an ounce.

It is a slow news day with just the Richmond Fed report on deck (exp. -10, down from -9) and Pending Home Sales.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures little changed at 3,855.25
• STOXX Europe 600 little changed at 428.17
• MXAP down 0.2% to 155.94
• MXAPJ little changed at 507.94
• Nikkei down 0.4% to 26,340.50
• Topix little changed at 1,909.02
• Hang Seng Index up 1.6% to 19,898.91
• Shanghai Composite down 0.3% to 3,087.40
• Sensex little changed at 60,914.68
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.3% to 7,086.41
• Kospi down 2.2% to 2,280.45
• German 10Y yield little changed at 2.48%
• Euro little changed at $1.0638
• Brent Futures down 0.7% to $83.73/bbl
• Brent Futures down 0.7% to $83.76/bbl
• Gold spot down 0.7% to $1,800.97
• U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 104.27

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

• The Bank of Japan’s shock move to double its yield cap was aimed at keeping stimulus on tap, not at changing the trajectory of policy, according to a summary of opinions from the December meeting that contributed to a weakening of the yen Wednesday
• Stocks in Europe struggled for direction along with US equity futures as news of further moves by China to reopen its economy failed to lift investor sentiment in the final week of a dismal year for markets
• Hong Kong will end some of its last major Covid rules, scrapping gathering limits to vaccination checks and testing for travelers, in a sweeping overhaul of policies aimed at reviving its reputation as a global financial center
• Nations across the globe are implementing or considering measures to test or restrict travelers from China as the country of 1.4 billion abandons its Covid Zero policy and prepares to reopen borders in early January

US Event Calendar

• 10:00: Dec. Richmond Fed Index, est. -10, prior -9
• 10:00: Nov. Pending Home Sales YoY, prior -36.7%
• 10:00: Nov. Pending Home Sales (MoM), est. -1.0%, prior -4.6%

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times,

Mississippi could become the nation’s 10th state to eliminate its personal income tax, with Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) backing differing plans to do away with the levy when lawmakers convene their 2023 session on Jan. 3.

Similar 2023 proposals to erase immediately, or phase-out, state income taxes are also expected to be filed in West Virginia, Arkansas, Iowa, Georgia, North Dakota, Utah, and, perhaps, Wisconsin. 

Such measures are not unusual in state houses but are usually symbolic bills lodged by fiscal conservatives who argue taxing individual incomes to fund state—and in some cases, local— governments is counter-productive, especially with an array of alternate assessments available to replace “lost” revenues generated by personal income taxes.

But as legislatures enter their third sessions since the 2020 pandemic pumped trillions in federal recovery and stimulus assistance into state and local government coffers, and with tax revenues rebounding far faster than anticipated, many state budgets are touting temporary surpluses.

Some governors and lawmakers say these surpluses should be funneled back to taxpayers. During 2022 sessions, Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation reports more than half the states approved personal tax rebates, 38 trimmed assorted taxes, and at least 11 debated phasing out personal income levies altogether. 

As state leaders assemble 2023 budget projections, the same issues are on the front burner, with revenue surpluses prodding lawmakers to push for another round of tax cuts despite acknowledging the largesse is temporary and amid calls for prudence in the face of a potential recession, that some economists say the nation is already experiencing. 

Nine states right now don’t assess personal income taxes—Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming—with Mississippi the most likely to join their ranks in 2023.

In 2022, Mississippi lawmakers adopted the largest tax cut in state history, a phased $525 million cut beginning this year before implementing a flat 4-percent income tax by 2026. 

In doing so, Mississippi became the 10th state to adopt a flat tax, meaning the same tax rate is assessed for all earners regardless of income. Flat tax proposals are also a trend in state legislatures. 

Mississippi lawmakers will have $3.9 billion in surplus “unencumbered money” when they convene their 2023 session, with about a third of that emanating from recurring tax revenues. 

Gov. Reeves has vowed to lobby for the full elimination of the state’s income tax in the coming year, telling the Mississippi Economic Council in October that the state is in the best fiscal and financial shape in its history, collecting billions in “excess revenue” that would allow it to eliminate the income tax without cutting expenditures.

Lawmakers have discussed eliminating the income tax during their last two sessions but, in 2022, settled on the phased $525 million cut over the next four years.

Reeves objective is supported by House Speaker Gunn, who does not want tax rebates—as many lawmakers advocate—but “permanent, long-term tax relief.” 

While Reeves and Gunn share the same goal, their proposed paths in replacing “lost” income tax revenues vary and are opposed by Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and GOP Senate leaders, who prefer giving taxpayers one-time rebates from the surplus.

How these proposals play out will be among the top issues debated between January and April in Jackson. Other states will also deliberate similar initiatives.

West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice has supported eliminating the state’s income tax since 2020, but the state Senate “has other ideas,” according to House Del. Amy Summers. (Saul Loe/AFP via Getty Images)

Where Eliminating Personal Income Tax is on Tap

—West Virginia: In 2022, the House passed House Bill 4007, which would have implemented a 10-percent cut to each of the state’s personal income tax brackets as a precursor to whittling the levy away altogether.

The Senate rejected HB 4007 and instead placed a ballot measure before voters that would have accorded lawmakers the capacity to eliminate six categories of tangible personal property taxes, including levies on machinery and equipment, inventory, and motor vehicles. 

 The measure, Amendment 2, was opposed by Republican Gov. Jim Justice, who has called for eliminating the state’s personal income tax since 2020 and was shot down by voters in November.

Del. Amy Summers (R-Flemington), one of HB 4007’s sponsors, told The Epoch Times, “Yes, there absolutely is interest” in the House in proposing a similar bill in 2023.

“We’re hoping to make a good stab at that—a minimum of 10 percent up to 30 percent. The governor will support that,” she said, noting the slash would “draw business and population to the state.”

As of mid-December, no formal proposal had surfaced at the House. “The next step will be to see what the Senate does,” Summers said, noting Senate leaders have “a different idea” centered on “trying to do workarounds. We’re not sure if we’re interested in workarounds” or targeted slashes.

“You will see a bill the first week,” she said,

Del John Paul Hott (R-Petersburg), also an HB 4007 co-sponsor, told The Epoch Times he was unsure what would happen in 2023. 

“We’ll have to wait and see what they (the Senate) move forward with. I have always openly supported a cut in personal income tax,” he said, noting there are “really good ideas” being bantered about for 2023.

Like Summers, Hott said the ultimate goal is to “continue to position West Virginia to compete with neighboring states” and be in “a competitive position with job opportunities and low taxes to allow workers to keep more of what they earn.”

That’s more possible now than ever before, he said, “We have a surplus here in West Virginia of $1 billion—that’s billion with a ‘b,’” he said.

Georgia governor Brian Kemp pictured during a dinner reception in Atlanta, Ga., on June 6, 2022. (Laurie Dieffembacq/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images)

—Georgia: In April, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed HB 1437 into law. The bill replaces Georgia’s income tax brackets with a 5.25 percent flat-rate income tax that will be shaved back to 4.99 percent by 2029. 

Georgia’s top income tax rate was 5.75 percent, which applied to earned income over $7,000 for a single person or more than $10,000 for a married couple or single person with dependents.

Some lawmakers during the 2022 session lobbied to cut personal income taxes further, with several Republicans in both chambers proposing to eliminate the levy altogether.

Among them was former Senate President Pro Tem Sen. Butch Miller (R-Gainesville), who defined income tax “as theft, pure and simple,” and former Sen. Burt Jones, R-Jackson. 

Miller lost his campaign for Georgia secretary of state in November, so he is no longer in the Senate, while Jones was elected lieutenant governor which, under Georgia’s Constitution, makes him Senate President.

House Ways & Means Committee Chair Rep. Shaw Blackmon (R-Bonaire) said he was uncertain how the legislature would proceed in 2023, noting committee assignments—including his leadership of the key House panel—won’t be confirmed until lawmakers convene on Jan. 9.

He is certain taxes, in general, will again be among issues addressed by state lawmakers in 2023 but was hesitant to speculate on specifics until the session convenes.

“I think, generally, our goals would be continue to find ways to relieve the burden on taxpayers,” Blackmon told The Epoch Times.

—Wisconsin: In 2022, Sen. Roger Roth (R-Appleton) introduced a bill that would eliminate Wisconsin’s income tax, which is the nation’s oldest—first levied in 1912—when tax collections exceed expenditures. 

Roth’s bill would have reduced the state’s individual income tax rates by $1.7 billion for the 2022 tax year based on excess revenue in state coffers. The initiative was shelved until the 2023 legislative session after the Republican-controlled legislature rejected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ proposal to dedicate the surplus to education and cut a one-time $150 check for every state resident.

Wisconsin Republican state senator Roger Roth. (The Epoch Times)

The issue will be discussed again in 2023. House Finance Committee Chair Rep. Marl Born (R-Beaver Dam) told The Epoch Times in an email comment

“Wisconsin Republicans have prioritized cutting taxes for over a decade, resulting in over $21 billion of savings for Wisconsinites,” he said. “The budget surplus is another opportunity to implement tax reform in our state, and we will be looking at a variety of options to reduce the tax burden on hardworking taxpayers.”

—Arkansas: Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a bill in August 2022 that trimmed the state’s income tax rate to 4.9 percent, the lowest in state history, but eliminating it altogether was among initiatives incoming Republican Gov. Sara Huckabee Sanders campaigned on in winning her election in November.

Opportunity Arkansas Founder & CEO Nicholas Horton maintains it is possible to gradually eliminate the state’s income tax without devastating state revenues. 

“We are definitely on board and supportive of that idea,” he told The Epoch Times. “There is a lot of legislative interest” in doing so in 2023.

Horton said support for income tax reductions, if not elimination, has become “a litmus test over the last couple of election cycles. There is a lot of consensus that this is something that needs to happen. There is less consensus in how to get there.”

He said Opportunity Arkansas would release a plan in “how to get there” before state lawmakers convene Jan. 9 in Little Rock. The proposal will be prudent and ensure the state can pay its bills.

“We don’t want to end up being compared to the dog who chases the car and gets ahold of the wheel and it’s ‘what do we do now?’” he said.

Eliminating the income tax “is a really simple path. It’s not necessarily easy, but simple,” Horton said. “When you look at the state and federal money in the budget—a little over $32 billion a year—the state income tax only, and I say only in context of government spending, brings in $2.5 billion, less than 10 percent of what the state government spends. You start digging into the details, into where we spent money, where we get money” and doing away with the income tax is feasible.

The Arkansas State Flag and U.S. flag fly in front of the State Capitol in Little Rock on Dec. 1, 2022. (Janice Hisle/The Epoch Times)

One component of the state’s tax structure that should be examined by lawmakers is “special carveouts and exemptions for different groups and corporations—the state gives away about $1.2 billion a year” in exemptions, he said, adding, “Those figures are a few years old. Probably $2 billion now.”

Examples include not assessing sales taxes for the sale of chicks and newspapers. “That’s because somewhere in the past, (lawmakers decided) we shouldn’t tax the sale of baby chickens,” Horton said, saying the exemptions provide lawmakers with a “process of picking who pays and who doesn’t. We could almost pay for the entire state income tax just by getting rid of all state sales tax exemptions.”

By mid-December, no personal income tax bills had been pre-filed “that I have seen,” he said. “There are a lot of tax bills floating around,” however, that propose slashing other taxes, such as property taxes and sales taxes on groceries. 

“In the next couple of months, you’ll hear a lot of chatter. We are going to release our plan before the legislature convenes,” Horton said, noting there are “different camps and different schools of thought.”

Rep. Aaron Pilkington (R-Knoxville), who serves on the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee, said initiatives to “lower the tax burden” will be a featured topic in the 2023 session.

“We have a plan to phase out the income tax in Arkansas over the next 10 years,” Pilkington told The Epoch Times. “We are going to accelerate that,” with Saunders assuming the governorship in January.

—Colorado: Colorado voters in November approved Proposition 121, which trims the state’s flat income tax from 4.55 percent to 4.4 percent. The state’s income tax rate has gradually declined since the late 1980s when it was 5 percent. 

Denver-based Independence Institute and some Republican lawmakers want to eliminate the income tax altogether. The Independence Institute’s Path 2 Zero plan maintains that eliminating the state income tax would induce more productivity from earners now “penalized by an income tax.”

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis supports eliminating the personal income tax but counsels prudence in replacing “lost” income revenues.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis speaks about the American Rescue Plan Act on the one-year anniversary of the law during his visit to the Mi Casa Resource Center in Denver, Colo., on March 11, 2022. (Jason Connolly/Pool/Getty Images)

Independence Institute Fiscal Policy Center Director Ben Murrey told The Epoch Times that he doubts there will be any viable proposals to eliminate the state’s income tax in 2023. 

“We won’t be doing something like that this year” during the legislative session, and a ballot measure proposing such is unlikely for at least two years. “There could be a citizen initiative filed regarding the real estate transfer tax. I don’t know if that is going to go anywhere,” he said.

The Path 2 Zero plan would “eliminate the income tax entirely over time. Last year, a Republican bill that essentially adopted that plan,” but it went nowhere and is unlikely to find traction until 2024 or beyond after November’s elections.

“Democrats won everything that they could win” in the midterms, Murrey said. “Any (state legislature race) that was competitive, they won. They are one seat away from a supermajority in both chambers. The ‘red wave’ certainly didn’t materialize in Colorado, but we have a governor who supports eliminating the income tax based on his rhetoric. He could make an interesting ally for us” in the coming years.

This year has been shaped by uncomfortable macroeconomic headwinds.

Trillions of dollars were erased in public company market capitalizations, investor confidence waned, and cost pressures squeezed consumer pocketbooks.

Taken together, many of the world’s largest companies experienced sharp declines in market share. Still, a few companies in key sectors had positive growth over the year.

As 2022 comes to a close, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld shows the infographic below, the biggest companies in the world, using data from Companiesmarketcap.com.

The World’s Largest Public Companies in 2022

Today, Apple stands as the world’s most valuable company, towering at a $2.3 trillion valuation.

Despite the tech downturn of 2022—driven by rising interest rates and slower sales—Apple maintained its top spot. This was largely thanks to record revenues and healthy consumer demand for iPhones, which drive about half of its total revenue.

Following Apple is Microsoft. Unlike Apple, Microsoft has faced slower earnings over the year due to lower demand for personal computers and the weighing impact of a strong U.S. dollar. Overall, about 50% of the company’s sales take place overseas.

As we show below, there are now only four companies left in the trillion dollar market cap club.

Oil giant Saudi Aramco is the third largest publicly-traded company globally, at $1.8 trillion. It’s also the only non-U.S. company in the top 10.

In May, the state-run company briefly became the most valuable company on the planet as soaring energy prices boosted earnings. Saudia Arabia is the largest exporter of oil in the world, and the country’s economy is forecast to grow 7.6% in 2022—one of the fastest globally.

Overall, 62 companies of the 100 largest are headquartered in the U.S., 11 are based in China, and five are located in France.

Top 10 Performance in 2022

For many of the world’s largest companies, 2022 was a brutal year for performance.

As the above graphic shows, the vast majority of the world’s titans saw their market values decline. Half of these companies saw double-digit drops.

Tesla has witnessed nearly 70% of its market cap being erased this year. Two main factors are behind this drop: falling demand, especially in China, and CEO Elon Musk’s volatile and risky acquisition of Twitter.

On the other hand, UnitedHealth Group has seen the strongest performance among the top 10.

The company, which rakes in a large share of its earnings from employer-backed insurance plans, said that recessionary impacts had not yet begun materializing in 2022.

Biggest Companies in the World, by Sector

Even with sinking market values across the sector in 2022, tech remains dominant.

Among the world’s biggest companies, 20 are in tech, spanning a combined market value of $9.2 trillion. For perspective, that’s about 31% of the market value of the 100 largest companies.

Companies are classified according to the FTSE Russell Industry Classification Benchmark. *As of Dec 12, 2022.

Consumer discretionary and health care sectors fall next in line, with big players such as Amazon and Johnson & Johnson among their ranks.

At the other end of the spectrum is utilities, the smallest sector overall at least pertaining to the largest companies list. NextEra Energy, the sole utilities company among the rankings is one of the world’s largest developers of wind and solar energy. Over the next three years, it plans to invest up to $95 billion in greening its power operations.

Change of Fortune

It comes as no surprise that many of the biggest companies in the world are long-established players in global markets.

Yet within the rankings, some of the notable risers compared to 2021 are UnitedHealth Group, which launched from #19 in 2021 to #8 this year and NVIDIA which has climbed to become the 11th largest company globally, up from #24 last year.

By contrast, some of the biggest losers are Meta (Facebook’s parent company) and Alibaba. Meta has fallen across the rankings to #26 in 2022 from #6 in 2021. Meanwhile, Alibaba was once the ninth largest globally but has tumbled to #36. Both companies have seen considerable value wiped from their market caps—roughly 66% and 28%, respectively​​—amid lagging earnings.

With the year coming to a close, it remains to be seen whether the world’s biggest companies stage a comeback in 2023, or face more challenging conditions ahead.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Mild winter weather in many parts of Europe, rising wind power generation, and lower electricity consumption were dragging European natural gas and power prices lower on Tuesday.

Prices at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF), Europe’s key gas benchmark, were down to a six-month low at midday on Tuesday due to milder winter compared to early December and still comfortable gas storage levels across Europe.  

The TTF natural gas traded close to $85 (80 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh) on Tuesday morning, “a six-month low as mild winter weather lifts the year-on-year storage surplus to 325 TWh, some 25 TWh above what was withdrawn during Q1-2021,” Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Bank, commented on Tuesday.

“It looks like we will enter January with near 90% full storages and mild temperatures,” a trader told Reuters, commenting on the European gas price move today.

Refinitiv meteorologist Georg Mueller expects weather in Europe to be “milder than normal and partially unsettled and windy, with no major colder-than-normal spells before mid-January.”

According to Gas Infrastructure Europe, gas storage levels across the EU were 83% full as of December 25.

Milder weather and higher wind power generation also dragged down the benchmark power prices in Europe on Tuesday.

Day-ahead prices in Germany plummeted amid expectations of high wind power generation and lower demand.

By mid-morning on Tuesday, Germany’s delivery baseload power for Wednesday plunged by 54.3% to $68.20 (64 euros) per MWh, while the day-ahead French contract was trading down by 34.4%.

The natural gas price in Europe is currently well below the price cap the EU endorsed last week, which would be triggered if the month-ahead price on the TTF exceeds $191 (180 euros) per MWh for three working days, and the month-ahead TTF price is $37 (35 euros) higher than a reference price for LNG on global markets for the same three working days. 

Lithium is often dubbed as “white gold” for electric vehicles.

The lightweight metal plays a key role in the cathodes of all types of lithium-ion batteries that power EVs. Accordingly, the recent rise in EV adoption has sent lithium production to new highs.

In the infographic below, Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada and Sam Parker chart more than 25 years of lithium production by country from 1995 to 2021, based on data from BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

The Largest Lithium Producers Over Time

In the 1990s, the U.S. was the largest producer of lithium, in stark contrast to the present.

In fact, the U.S. accounted for over one-third of global lithium production in 1995. From then onwards until 2010, Chile took over as the biggest producer with a production boom in the Salar de Atacama, one of the world’s richest lithium brine deposits.

Global lithium production surpassed 100,000 tonnes for the first time in 2021, quadrupling from 2010. What’s more, roughly 90% of it came from just three countries.

Australia alone produces 52% of the world’s lithium. Unlike Chile, where lithium is extracted from brines, Australian lithium comes from hard-rock mines for the mineral spodumene.

China, the third-largest producer, has a strong foothold in the lithium supply chain. Alongside developing domestic mines, Chinese companies have acquired around $5.6 billion worth of lithium assets in countries like Chile, Canada, and Australia over the last decade. It also hosts 60% of the world’s lithium refining capacity for batteries.

Batteries have been one of the primary drivers of the exponential increase in lithium production. But how much lithium do batteries use, and how much goes into other uses?

What is Lithium Used For?

While lithium is best known for its role in rechargeable batteries—and rightly so—it has many other important uses.

Before EVs and lithium-ion batteries transformed the demand for lithium, the metal’s end-uses looked completely different as compared to today.

In 2010, ceramics and glass accounted for the largest share of lithium consumption at 31%. In ceramics and glassware, lithium carbonate increases strength and reduces thermal expansion, which is often essential for modern glass-ceramic cooktops.

Lithium is also used to make lubricant greases for the transport, steel, and aviation industries, along with other lesser-known uses.

The Future of Lithium Production

As the world produces more batteries and EVs, the demand for lithium is projected to reach 1.5 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) by 2025 and over 3 million tonnes by 2030.

For context, the world produced 540,000 tonnes of LCE in 2021. Based on the above demand projections, production needs to triple by 2025 and increase nearly six-fold by 2030.

Although supply has been on an exponential growth trajectory, it can take anywhere from six to more than 15 years for new lithium projects to come online. As a result, the lithium market is projected to be in a deficit for the next few years.