REUTERS
"TSMC wins $6.6 bln US subsidy for Arizona chip production"
By David Shepardson and Stephanie Kelly
April 8, 2024
WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday it would award Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co's U.S. unit a $6.6 billion subsidy for advanced semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona and up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.
TSMC agreed to expand its planned investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona fab by 2030, Commerce said in announcing the preliminary award.
The Taiwanese company will produce the world's most advanced 2 nanometer technology at its second Arizona fab expected to begin production in 2028, the department said.
"These are the chips that underpin all artificial intelligence, and they are the chips that are necessary components for the technologies that we need to underpin our economy, but frankly, a 21st century military and national security apparatus," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement.
TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple and Nvidia, had previously announced plans to invest $40 billion in Arizona.
TSMC expects to begin high-volume production in its first U.S. fab there by the first half of 2025, Commerce said.
The $65 billion-plus investment by TSMC is the largest foreign direct investment in a completely new project in U.S. history, the department said.
Congress in 2022 approved the Chips and Science Act to boost domestic semiconductor output with $52.7 billion in research and manufacturing subsidies.
Lawmakers also approved $75 billion in government loan authority.
TSMC Arizona has also committed to support the development of advanced packaging capabilities through partners in the U.S. to allow customers to purchase advanced chips that are made entirely on U.S. soil, the department said, adding 70% of TSMC customers were U.S. companies.
TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said the company would help U.S. tech firms "unleash their innovations by increasing capacity for leading-edge technology through TSMC Arizona."
Commerce expects the projects will create 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs and 20,000 construction jobs.
The department said 14 direct TSMC suppliers plan to construct or expand U.S. plants.
At full capacity, TSMC's three fabs in Arizona will manufacture tens of millions of leading-edge chips in 5G/6G smartphones, autonomous vehicles, and AI data center servers, the department said.
Through its Arizona fabs, TSMC will support key customers like Apple, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm "by addressing their leading-edge capacity demand, mitigating supply chain concerns, and enabling them to compete effectively in the ongoing digital transformation era," the department added.
TSMC said in a separate statement that its Arizona factories aim to achieve a 90% water recycling rate, adding that the company has started the design phase of building a water reclamation plant with a goal of achieving "near zero liquid discharge".
Commerce last month announced $8.5 billion in grants and up to $11 billion in loans for Intel to subsidize leading-edge chip production from the same program.
The department is expected to unveil an award for South Korea's Samsung Electronics as soon as next week, sources said.
Commerce declined to comment.
Samsung did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper, and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Jamie Freed, Kirsten Donovan
https://www.reuters.com/technology/tsmc ... 024-04-08/
AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
REUTERS
"US to award Samsung up to $6.6 billion chip subsidy for Texas expansion, sources say"
By Alexandra Alper
April 9, 2024
WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) - The Biden administration plans to announce it is awarding more than $6 billion to South Korea's Samsung next week to expand its chip output in Taylor, Texas, as it seeks to ramp up chipmaking in the U.S., two people familiar with the matter said.
The subsidy, which will be unveiled by Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo, will go toward construction of four facilities in Taylor, including one $17 billion chipmaking plant that Samsung announced in 2021, another factory, an advanced packaging facility and a research and development center, one of the sources said.
It will also include an investment in another undisclosed location, the source said, adding that Samsung will more than double its U.S. investment to over $44 billion as part of the deal.
The Commerce Department and Samsung declined to comment.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office did not respond to requests for comment.
One of the sources said it would be the third largest of the program, just behind Taiwan's TSMC, which was awarded $6.6 billion on Monday and agreed to expand its investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona factory by 2030.
The announcement will cap off a string of major Chips and Science grants in quick succession as the U.S. seeks to expand domestic chip production and lure away capital that might have been used to build plants in China and the region.
Congress in 2022 approved the Chips and Science Act to boost domestic semiconductor output with $52.7 billion in research and manufacturing subsidies.
Lawmakers also approved $75 billion in government loan authority, but one of the sources said Samsung plans to take no loans.
The CHIPS Act's goal is to reduce reliance on China and Taiwan, as the share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the U.S. has fallen from 37% in 1990 to 12% in 2020, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
U.S. President Joe Biden will not attend the event, the two people said.
He faces a tough fight to win a second term in November against former President and Republican rival Donald Trump.
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas was invited to attend, one of the people added.
While both TSMC and Intel, which was awarded $8.5 billion to expand its U.S. chip output last month, will expand production in the key swing state of Arizona, Samsung' expansion in reliably Republican Texas is seen as less likely to help Biden at the polls.
Reporting by Alexandra Alper; additional reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Marguerita Choy and David Gregorio
https://www.reuters.com/technology/sams ... 024-04-08/
"US to award Samsung up to $6.6 billion chip subsidy for Texas expansion, sources say"
By Alexandra Alper
April 9, 2024
WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) - The Biden administration plans to announce it is awarding more than $6 billion to South Korea's Samsung next week to expand its chip output in Taylor, Texas, as it seeks to ramp up chipmaking in the U.S., two people familiar with the matter said.
The subsidy, which will be unveiled by Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo, will go toward construction of four facilities in Taylor, including one $17 billion chipmaking plant that Samsung announced in 2021, another factory, an advanced packaging facility and a research and development center, one of the sources said.
It will also include an investment in another undisclosed location, the source said, adding that Samsung will more than double its U.S. investment to over $44 billion as part of the deal.
The Commerce Department and Samsung declined to comment.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office did not respond to requests for comment.
One of the sources said it would be the third largest of the program, just behind Taiwan's TSMC, which was awarded $6.6 billion on Monday and agreed to expand its investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona factory by 2030.
The announcement will cap off a string of major Chips and Science grants in quick succession as the U.S. seeks to expand domestic chip production and lure away capital that might have been used to build plants in China and the region.
Congress in 2022 approved the Chips and Science Act to boost domestic semiconductor output with $52.7 billion in research and manufacturing subsidies.
Lawmakers also approved $75 billion in government loan authority, but one of the sources said Samsung plans to take no loans.
The CHIPS Act's goal is to reduce reliance on China and Taiwan, as the share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the U.S. has fallen from 37% in 1990 to 12% in 2020, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
U.S. President Joe Biden will not attend the event, the two people said.
He faces a tough fight to win a second term in November against former President and Republican rival Donald Trump.
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas was invited to attend, one of the people added.
While both TSMC and Intel, which was awarded $8.5 billion to expand its U.S. chip output last month, will expand production in the key swing state of Arizona, Samsung' expansion in reliably Republican Texas is seen as less likely to help Biden at the polls.
Reporting by Alexandra Alper; additional reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Marguerita Choy and David Gregorio
https://www.reuters.com/technology/sams ... 024-04-08/
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 9, 2024 AT 8:42 PM
Paul Plante says:
When I was young, some years back now in a different century and millennium than the one I am stuck in today in this trying time of DEMOCRAT autocrat Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, himself the descendent of Irish royalty from back in the time of Brian Boru and a long line of Delaware Bay watermen after that, before Joe was a hardhat union coal miner in Scranton, where Joe was dirt poor before he got into politics and became filthy rich, and this is in the fifth grade, there was a series of books on the lives of the presidents from Washington up to Truman, and I sat down and read them all, but I have to say that when I got to Harding and especially Coolidge, it was a real slog to keep turning pages because I found absolutely nothing in the least inspirational in the life stories of either of them, which had my young mind wondering how on earth it is that people like these become the president of this country when there is nothing in their life story that would seem to recommend them for the position.
So when I read the political essays of H.L. Mencken who was covering the political campaigns of both of them, Harding first, and then Coolidge, who became president when Harding decided to drop dead instead of running again, what I am reading is contemporary American political history as seen through his eyes, just as I today write about contemporary American history today as seen through my eyes, since it is quite impossible that I should be able to see clearly through any other, just as Mencken saw life through his own eyes and reported it as he saw it, which takes us back to the Baltimore Evening Sun on October 6, 1924 and “The Coolidge Buncombe” by H.L. Mencken, where we have some of what I will call “comparative politics” between his time and ours, and more importantly, a basis of comparison of Joe Biden with both Harding, who before Joe Biden took the crown from him was deemed the worst American president, and Calvin Coolidge, or “Silent Cal,” as he was known, to wit:
One of the chief arguments made for Dr. Coolidge is that the majority of businessmen are for him.
If this were true, then it would be fair to conclude, not only that businessmen can put their private profits above the public good — which they probably do in fact, precisely like the rest of us — but also that they are singularly lacking in sense and prudence.
For if anything is plain today, it must be that another Coolidge administration, if it is inflicted upon us, will end inevitably in scandal and disaster.
end quotes
Knowing history as it happened thereafter, which was the stock market crash, the GREAT DEPRESSION. WWII as a result of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, and on through Korea and Viet Nam up to our times today, when I read those words of Mencken’s from October 6, 1924 about scandal and disaster, my mind flashed forward to today and where it is that Joe Biden, and his crowd are taking the nation as they keep running up the debt like there is no tomarrow, which crowd includes Janet “TOODLES” Yellen who has been in China lecturing the Chinese on how to run their country when it is crystal clear to the Chinese, who are keeping this country functioning by buying up the debt “TOODLES” has to issue to pay for Joe Biden’s fiscal profligacy, that neither Joe nor “TOODLES” have a clue when it comes to running this country, as opposed to running it into the ground, which takes us back to 1924 and Cal Coolidge as seen through the eyes of H.L. Mencken, to wit:
The day good Cal is elected every thieving scoundrel in the Republican party will burst into hosannas, and the day he is inaugurated there will be song and praise services wherever injunctions are tight and profits run to 50 per cent.
Then will follow, for a year or two, a reign of mirth in Washington, wilder and merrier, even, than that of Harding’s time.
And then there will come an explosion.
How all this will benefit legitimate business I can’t make out.
The only businessmen who will gain anything by it will be the one who manages to steal enough while the going is good to last him all the rest of his life.
All the others will get burnt in the explosion, as they always do when political dynamite is set off.
end quotes
And five years later, in 1929, that political dynamite did explode, and down came Wall Street in flames, which has me wondering, as I follow the economic news each day, about the explosion that is waiting in the wings as a result of the fiscal profligacy and irresponsibility of the Joe Biden regime and its Stalinistic CENTRAL PLANNING, which according to the Reuters article titled “TSMC wins $6.6 bln US subsidy for Arizona chip production” by David Shepardson and Stephanie Kelly on April 8, 2024, just handed TSMC, a Taiwanese company, a fistful of American taxpayer coin, to wit:
WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) – The U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday it would award Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s U.S. unit a $6.6 billion subsidy for advanced semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona and up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.
end quote
In that same article, it was stated as follows:
Commerce expects the projects will create 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs and 20,000 construction jobs.
end quote
Oh, really?
Then where are all these jobs?
I go through the job reports each month, and I fail to see where all that money is going, except into corporate coffers, where it seems to get swallowed up, as we see by going to the Reuters article titled “Strong US labor market underpins economy in first quarter” by Lucia Mutikani on April 5, 2024, where we have the latest job figures from Joe’s own government, to wit:
The healthcare sector led the broad increase in employment, adding 72,000 jobs that were spread across ambulatory services, hospitals as well as nursing and residential care facilities.
Government payrolls increased by 71,000 jobs, boosted by local and federal government hiring.
The construction sector added 39,000 jobs, about double the average monthly gain of 19,000 over the last 12 months.
Leisure and hospitality payrolls rose 49,000, returning employment to its pre-pandemic level.
There were also increases in employment in the social assistance, retail and wholesale trade sectors.
Financial activities reported modest gains in payrolls as did mining and logging, transportation and warehousing.
Professional and business services employment rose slightly, with temporary help – seen a as harbinger for future hiring – posting a small decline.
But manufacturing added no jobs last month as did the information sector.
Utilities shed 400 jobs.
Wages increased 4.1% on a year-on-year basis, the smallest gain since June 2021, after advancing 4.3% in February.
end quotes
And that subsidy (a sum of money granted by the government to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive) to TSMC is on top of $8.5 billion in grants and up to $11 billion in loans for Intel to subsidize leading-edge chip production from the same program, while Joe is expected to unveil an award for South Korea’s Samsung Electronics as soon as next week, sources said.
But this is as much about character of presidential candidates in America as it is policy, which takes us back to Mencken in 1924, to wit:
Do they quake today before the menace of La Follette?
end quote
There he is talking about Robert Marion “Fighting Bob” La Follette Sr. (June 14, 1855 – June 18, 1925) who was an American lawyer and politician that represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the governor of Wisconsin from 1901 to 1906, and then ran for president of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 presidential election that Mencken is writing about above.
As Wikipedia tells us, with the Republican and Democratic Parties each nominating conservative candidates in the 1924 presidential election, left-wing groups coalesced behind La Follette’s third-party candidacy, and with the support of the Socialist Party, farmer’s groups, labor unions, and others, La Follette briefly appeared to be a serious threat to unseat Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
La Follette won 16.6% of the popular vote, one of the best third party performances in U.S. history, which takes us back to Mencken, to wit:
If so, let them consider how La Follette came to be so formidable.
Three years ago he was apparently as dead as Gog and Magog.
The Farmer Labor party snored beside him in the political morgue; Socialism was already in the dissecting room.
Then came, in quick succession, the oil scandal, the Veterans’ Bureau scandal and the intolerable stench of Dougherty.
In six months La Follettism was on its legs again, and now it is so strong that only a miracle can keep the election out of the House.
end quotes
And let’s pause here for station identification before going back to 1924, to see if we can learn anything at all about where we are today with Joe Biden in the white house, but stay tuned and don’t touch that dial, because we will be right back with more.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/paul-p ... ent-916339
Paul Plante says:
When I was young, some years back now in a different century and millennium than the one I am stuck in today in this trying time of DEMOCRAT autocrat Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, himself the descendent of Irish royalty from back in the time of Brian Boru and a long line of Delaware Bay watermen after that, before Joe was a hardhat union coal miner in Scranton, where Joe was dirt poor before he got into politics and became filthy rich, and this is in the fifth grade, there was a series of books on the lives of the presidents from Washington up to Truman, and I sat down and read them all, but I have to say that when I got to Harding and especially Coolidge, it was a real slog to keep turning pages because I found absolutely nothing in the least inspirational in the life stories of either of them, which had my young mind wondering how on earth it is that people like these become the president of this country when there is nothing in their life story that would seem to recommend them for the position.
So when I read the political essays of H.L. Mencken who was covering the political campaigns of both of them, Harding first, and then Coolidge, who became president when Harding decided to drop dead instead of running again, what I am reading is contemporary American political history as seen through his eyes, just as I today write about contemporary American history today as seen through my eyes, since it is quite impossible that I should be able to see clearly through any other, just as Mencken saw life through his own eyes and reported it as he saw it, which takes us back to the Baltimore Evening Sun on October 6, 1924 and “The Coolidge Buncombe” by H.L. Mencken, where we have some of what I will call “comparative politics” between his time and ours, and more importantly, a basis of comparison of Joe Biden with both Harding, who before Joe Biden took the crown from him was deemed the worst American president, and Calvin Coolidge, or “Silent Cal,” as he was known, to wit:
One of the chief arguments made for Dr. Coolidge is that the majority of businessmen are for him.
If this were true, then it would be fair to conclude, not only that businessmen can put their private profits above the public good — which they probably do in fact, precisely like the rest of us — but also that they are singularly lacking in sense and prudence.
For if anything is plain today, it must be that another Coolidge administration, if it is inflicted upon us, will end inevitably in scandal and disaster.
end quotes
Knowing history as it happened thereafter, which was the stock market crash, the GREAT DEPRESSION. WWII as a result of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, and on through Korea and Viet Nam up to our times today, when I read those words of Mencken’s from October 6, 1924 about scandal and disaster, my mind flashed forward to today and where it is that Joe Biden, and his crowd are taking the nation as they keep running up the debt like there is no tomarrow, which crowd includes Janet “TOODLES” Yellen who has been in China lecturing the Chinese on how to run their country when it is crystal clear to the Chinese, who are keeping this country functioning by buying up the debt “TOODLES” has to issue to pay for Joe Biden’s fiscal profligacy, that neither Joe nor “TOODLES” have a clue when it comes to running this country, as opposed to running it into the ground, which takes us back to 1924 and Cal Coolidge as seen through the eyes of H.L. Mencken, to wit:
The day good Cal is elected every thieving scoundrel in the Republican party will burst into hosannas, and the day he is inaugurated there will be song and praise services wherever injunctions are tight and profits run to 50 per cent.
Then will follow, for a year or two, a reign of mirth in Washington, wilder and merrier, even, than that of Harding’s time.
And then there will come an explosion.
How all this will benefit legitimate business I can’t make out.
The only businessmen who will gain anything by it will be the one who manages to steal enough while the going is good to last him all the rest of his life.
All the others will get burnt in the explosion, as they always do when political dynamite is set off.
end quotes
And five years later, in 1929, that political dynamite did explode, and down came Wall Street in flames, which has me wondering, as I follow the economic news each day, about the explosion that is waiting in the wings as a result of the fiscal profligacy and irresponsibility of the Joe Biden regime and its Stalinistic CENTRAL PLANNING, which according to the Reuters article titled “TSMC wins $6.6 bln US subsidy for Arizona chip production” by David Shepardson and Stephanie Kelly on April 8, 2024, just handed TSMC, a Taiwanese company, a fistful of American taxpayer coin, to wit:
WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) – The U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday it would award Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s U.S. unit a $6.6 billion subsidy for advanced semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona and up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.
end quote
In that same article, it was stated as follows:
Commerce expects the projects will create 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs and 20,000 construction jobs.
end quote
Oh, really?
Then where are all these jobs?
I go through the job reports each month, and I fail to see where all that money is going, except into corporate coffers, where it seems to get swallowed up, as we see by going to the Reuters article titled “Strong US labor market underpins economy in first quarter” by Lucia Mutikani on April 5, 2024, where we have the latest job figures from Joe’s own government, to wit:
The healthcare sector led the broad increase in employment, adding 72,000 jobs that were spread across ambulatory services, hospitals as well as nursing and residential care facilities.
Government payrolls increased by 71,000 jobs, boosted by local and federal government hiring.
The construction sector added 39,000 jobs, about double the average monthly gain of 19,000 over the last 12 months.
Leisure and hospitality payrolls rose 49,000, returning employment to its pre-pandemic level.
There were also increases in employment in the social assistance, retail and wholesale trade sectors.
Financial activities reported modest gains in payrolls as did mining and logging, transportation and warehousing.
Professional and business services employment rose slightly, with temporary help – seen a as harbinger for future hiring – posting a small decline.
But manufacturing added no jobs last month as did the information sector.
Utilities shed 400 jobs.
Wages increased 4.1% on a year-on-year basis, the smallest gain since June 2021, after advancing 4.3% in February.
end quotes
And that subsidy (a sum of money granted by the government to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive) to TSMC is on top of $8.5 billion in grants and up to $11 billion in loans for Intel to subsidize leading-edge chip production from the same program, while Joe is expected to unveil an award for South Korea’s Samsung Electronics as soon as next week, sources said.
But this is as much about character of presidential candidates in America as it is policy, which takes us back to Mencken in 1924, to wit:
Do they quake today before the menace of La Follette?
end quote
There he is talking about Robert Marion “Fighting Bob” La Follette Sr. (June 14, 1855 – June 18, 1925) who was an American lawyer and politician that represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the governor of Wisconsin from 1901 to 1906, and then ran for president of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 presidential election that Mencken is writing about above.
As Wikipedia tells us, with the Republican and Democratic Parties each nominating conservative candidates in the 1924 presidential election, left-wing groups coalesced behind La Follette’s third-party candidacy, and with the support of the Socialist Party, farmer’s groups, labor unions, and others, La Follette briefly appeared to be a serious threat to unseat Republican President Calvin Coolidge.
La Follette won 16.6% of the popular vote, one of the best third party performances in U.S. history, which takes us back to Mencken, to wit:
If so, let them consider how La Follette came to be so formidable.
Three years ago he was apparently as dead as Gog and Magog.
The Farmer Labor party snored beside him in the political morgue; Socialism was already in the dissecting room.
Then came, in quick succession, the oil scandal, the Veterans’ Bureau scandal and the intolerable stench of Dougherty.
In six months La Follettism was on its legs again, and now it is so strong that only a miracle can keep the election out of the House.
end quotes
And let’s pause here for station identification before going back to 1924, to see if we can learn anything at all about where we are today with Joe Biden in the white house, but stay tuned and don’t touch that dial, because we will be right back with more.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/paul-p ... ent-916339
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
CNBC
"The ‘supercore’ inflation measure shows Fed may have a real problem on its hands"
Brian Evans @BRIANSYNDICATES
PUBLISHED WED, APR 10 2024
KEY POINTS
* Markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading.
* The gauge measures services inflation excluding food, energy and housing and has been roaring higher lately, up 4.8% year over year in March and more than 8% at a 3-month annualized pace.
* The picture is more complicated because some of the most stubborn components of services inflation are household necessities like car and housing insurance as well as property taxes.
A hotter-than-expected consumer price index reading rattled markets Wednesday, but markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading.
Along with the overall inflation measure, economists also look at the core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to find the true trend.
The supercore gauge, which also excludes shelter and rent costs from its services reading, takes it even a step further.
Fed officials say it is useful in the current climate as they see elevated housing inflation as a temporary problem and not as good a gauge of underlying prices.
Supercore accelerated to a 4.8% pace year over year in March, the highest in 11 months.
Tom Fitzpatrick, managing director of global market insights at R.J. O’Brien & Associates, said if you take the readings of the last three months and annualize them, you’re looking at a supercore inflation rate of more than 8%, far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal.
“As we sit here today, I think they’re probably pulling their hair out,” Fitzpatrick said.
An ongoing problem
CPI increased 3.5% year over year last month, above the Dow Jones estimate that called for 3.4%.
The data pressured equities and sent Treasury yields higher on Wednesday, and pushed futures market traders to extend out expectations for the central bank’s first rate cut to September from June, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
“At the end of the day, they don’t really care as long as they get to 2%, but the reality is you’re not going to get to a sustained 2% if you don’t get a key cooling in services prices, [and] at this point we’re not seeing it,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Santander U.S.
Wall Street has been keenly aware of the trend coming from supercore inflation from the beginning of the year.
A move higher in the metric from January’s CPI print was enough to hinder the market’s “perception the Fed was winning the battle with inflation [and] this will remain an open question for months to come,” according to BMO Capital Markets head of U.S. rates strategy Ian Lyngen.
Another problem for the Fed, Fitzpatrick says, lies in the differing macroeconomic backdrop of demand-driven inflation and robust stimulus payments that equipped consumers to beef up discretionary spending in 2021 and 2022 while also stoking record inflation levels.
Today, he added, the picture is more complicated because some of the most stubborn components of services inflation are household necessities like car and housing insurance as well as property taxes.
“They are so scared by what happened in 2021 and 2022 that we’re not starting from the same point as we have on other occasions,” Fitzpatrick added.
“The problem is, if you look at all of this [together] these are not discretionary spending items, [and] it puts them between a rock and a hard place.”
Sticky inflation problem
Further complicating the backdrop is a dwindling consumer savings rate and higher borrowing costs which make the central bank more likely to keep monetary policy restrictive “until something breaks,” Fitzpatrick said.
The Fed will have a hard time bringing down inflation with more rate hikes because the current drivers are stickier and not as sensitive to tighter monetary policy, he cautioned.
Fitzpatrick said the recent upward moves in inflation are more closely analogous to tax increases.
While Stanley opines that the Fed is still far removed from hiking interest rates further, doing so will remain a possibility so long as inflation remains elevated above the 2% target.
“I think by and large inflation will come down and they’ll cut rates later than we thought,” Stanley said.
“The question becomes are we looking at something that’s become entrenched here?"
"At some point, I imagine the possibility of rate hikes comes back into focus.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/10/the-sup ... hands.html
"The ‘supercore’ inflation measure shows Fed may have a real problem on its hands"
Brian Evans @BRIANSYNDICATES
PUBLISHED WED, APR 10 2024
KEY POINTS
* Markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading.
* The gauge measures services inflation excluding food, energy and housing and has been roaring higher lately, up 4.8% year over year in March and more than 8% at a 3-month annualized pace.
* The picture is more complicated because some of the most stubborn components of services inflation are household necessities like car and housing insurance as well as property taxes.
A hotter-than-expected consumer price index reading rattled markets Wednesday, but markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading.
Along with the overall inflation measure, economists also look at the core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to find the true trend.
The supercore gauge, which also excludes shelter and rent costs from its services reading, takes it even a step further.
Fed officials say it is useful in the current climate as they see elevated housing inflation as a temporary problem and not as good a gauge of underlying prices.
Supercore accelerated to a 4.8% pace year over year in March, the highest in 11 months.
Tom Fitzpatrick, managing director of global market insights at R.J. O’Brien & Associates, said if you take the readings of the last three months and annualize them, you’re looking at a supercore inflation rate of more than 8%, far from the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal.
“As we sit here today, I think they’re probably pulling their hair out,” Fitzpatrick said.
An ongoing problem
CPI increased 3.5% year over year last month, above the Dow Jones estimate that called for 3.4%.
The data pressured equities and sent Treasury yields higher on Wednesday, and pushed futures market traders to extend out expectations for the central bank’s first rate cut to September from June, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
“At the end of the day, they don’t really care as long as they get to 2%, but the reality is you’re not going to get to a sustained 2% if you don’t get a key cooling in services prices, [and] at this point we’re not seeing it,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Santander U.S.
Wall Street has been keenly aware of the trend coming from supercore inflation from the beginning of the year.
A move higher in the metric from January’s CPI print was enough to hinder the market’s “perception the Fed was winning the battle with inflation [and] this will remain an open question for months to come,” according to BMO Capital Markets head of U.S. rates strategy Ian Lyngen.
Another problem for the Fed, Fitzpatrick says, lies in the differing macroeconomic backdrop of demand-driven inflation and robust stimulus payments that equipped consumers to beef up discretionary spending in 2021 and 2022 while also stoking record inflation levels.
Today, he added, the picture is more complicated because some of the most stubborn components of services inflation are household necessities like car and housing insurance as well as property taxes.
“They are so scared by what happened in 2021 and 2022 that we’re not starting from the same point as we have on other occasions,” Fitzpatrick added.
“The problem is, if you look at all of this [together] these are not discretionary spending items, [and] it puts them between a rock and a hard place.”
Sticky inflation problem
Further complicating the backdrop is a dwindling consumer savings rate and higher borrowing costs which make the central bank more likely to keep monetary policy restrictive “until something breaks,” Fitzpatrick said.
The Fed will have a hard time bringing down inflation with more rate hikes because the current drivers are stickier and not as sensitive to tighter monetary policy, he cautioned.
Fitzpatrick said the recent upward moves in inflation are more closely analogous to tax increases.
While Stanley opines that the Fed is still far removed from hiking interest rates further, doing so will remain a possibility so long as inflation remains elevated above the 2% target.
“I think by and large inflation will come down and they’ll cut rates later than we thought,” Stanley said.
“The question becomes are we looking at something that’s become entrenched here?"
"At some point, I imagine the possibility of rate hikes comes back into focus.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/10/the-sup ... hands.html
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
CNBC
"Consumer prices rose 3.5% from a year ago in March, more than expected"
Jeff Cox @JEFF.COX.7528 @JEFFCOXCNBCCOM
PUBLISHED WED, APR 10 2024
KEY POINTS
* The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 3.5% in March, higher than expectations and marking an acceleration for inflation.
* Shelter and energy costs drove the increase. Energy rose 1.1% after increasing 2.3% in February, while shelter costs were higher by 0.4% on the month and up 5.7% from a year ago.
* Following the report, traders pushed the first expected rate cut out to September, according to CME Group calculations.
The consumer price index accelerated at a faster-than-expected pace in March, pushing inflation higher and likely dashing hopes that the Federal Reserve will be able to cut interest rates anytime soon.
The CPI, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the economy, rose 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.5%, or 0.3 percentage point higher than in February, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% gain and a 3.4% year-over-year level.
Excluding volatile food and energy components, the core CPI also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.
Stocks slumped after the report while Treasury yields spiked higher.
Shelter and energy costs drove the increase on the all-items index.
Energy rose 1.1% after climbing 2.3% in February, while shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the weighting in the CPI, were higher by 0.4% on the month and up 5.7% from a year ago.
Expectations for shelter-related costs to decelerate through the year have been central to the Fed’s thesis that inflation will cool enough to allow for interest rate cuts.
Food prices increased just 0.1% on the month and were up 2.2% on a year-over-year basis.
There were some big gains within the food category, however.
The measure for meat, fish, poultry and eggs climbed 0.9%, pushed by a 4.6% jump in egg prices.
Butter fell 5% and cereal and bakery products declined by 0.9%.
Food away from home increased 0.3%.
Elsewhere, used vehicle prices fell 1.1% and medical care services prices rose 0.6%.
Increasing inflation was also bad news for workers, as real average hourly earnings were flat on the month and increased just 0.6% over the past year, according to a separate BLS release.
The report comes with markets on edge and Fed officials expressing caution about the near-term direction for monetary policy.
Central bank policymakers have repeatedly called for patience on cutting rates, saying they have not seen enough evidence that inflation is on a solid path back to their 2% annual goal.
The March report likely confirmed worries that inflation is stickier than expected.
Markets had expected the Fed to start cutting interest rates in June with three reductions in total expected this year, but that shifted dramatically following the release.
Traders in the fed funds futures market pushed expectations for the first cut out to September, according to CME Group calculations.
“There’s not much you can point to that this is going to result in a shift away from the hawkish bent” from Fed officials, said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab.
“June to me is definitively off the table.”
The Fed also expects services inflation to ease through the year, but that has shown to be stubborn as well.
Excluding energy, the services index increased 0.5% in March and was at a 5.4% annual rate, inconsistent with the Fed’s target.
″This marks the third consecutive strong reading and means that the stalled disinflationary narrative can no longer be called a blip,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.
“In fact, even if inflation were to cool next month to a more comfortable reading, there is likely sufficient caution within the Fed now to mean that a July cut may also be a stretch, by which point the US election will begin to intrude with Fed decision making.”
Later Wednesday, the Fed will release minutes from its March meeting, providing more insight into where officials stand on monetary policy.
Multiple Fed officials in recent days have expressed skepticism about lowering rates.
Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic told CNBC that he expects just one cut this year, likely not coming until the fourth quarter.
Governor Michelle Bowman said an increase may even be necessary if the data does not cooperate.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/10/cpi-inf ... march.html
"Consumer prices rose 3.5% from a year ago in March, more than expected"
Jeff Cox @JEFF.COX.7528 @JEFFCOXCNBCCOM
PUBLISHED WED, APR 10 2024
KEY POINTS
* The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 3.5% in March, higher than expectations and marking an acceleration for inflation.
* Shelter and energy costs drove the increase. Energy rose 1.1% after increasing 2.3% in February, while shelter costs were higher by 0.4% on the month and up 5.7% from a year ago.
* Following the report, traders pushed the first expected rate cut out to September, according to CME Group calculations.
The consumer price index accelerated at a faster-than-expected pace in March, pushing inflation higher and likely dashing hopes that the Federal Reserve will be able to cut interest rates anytime soon.
The CPI, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the economy, rose 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.5%, or 0.3 percentage point higher than in February, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% gain and a 3.4% year-over-year level.
Excluding volatile food and energy components, the core CPI also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.
Stocks slumped after the report while Treasury yields spiked higher.
Shelter and energy costs drove the increase on the all-items index.
Energy rose 1.1% after climbing 2.3% in February, while shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the weighting in the CPI, were higher by 0.4% on the month and up 5.7% from a year ago.
Expectations for shelter-related costs to decelerate through the year have been central to the Fed’s thesis that inflation will cool enough to allow for interest rate cuts.
Food prices increased just 0.1% on the month and were up 2.2% on a year-over-year basis.
There were some big gains within the food category, however.
The measure for meat, fish, poultry and eggs climbed 0.9%, pushed by a 4.6% jump in egg prices.
Butter fell 5% and cereal and bakery products declined by 0.9%.
Food away from home increased 0.3%.
Elsewhere, used vehicle prices fell 1.1% and medical care services prices rose 0.6%.
Increasing inflation was also bad news for workers, as real average hourly earnings were flat on the month and increased just 0.6% over the past year, according to a separate BLS release.
The report comes with markets on edge and Fed officials expressing caution about the near-term direction for monetary policy.
Central bank policymakers have repeatedly called for patience on cutting rates, saying they have not seen enough evidence that inflation is on a solid path back to their 2% annual goal.
The March report likely confirmed worries that inflation is stickier than expected.
Markets had expected the Fed to start cutting interest rates in June with three reductions in total expected this year, but that shifted dramatically following the release.
Traders in the fed funds futures market pushed expectations for the first cut out to September, according to CME Group calculations.
“There’s not much you can point to that this is going to result in a shift away from the hawkish bent” from Fed officials, said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab.
“June to me is definitively off the table.”
The Fed also expects services inflation to ease through the year, but that has shown to be stubborn as well.
Excluding energy, the services index increased 0.5% in March and was at a 5.4% annual rate, inconsistent with the Fed’s target.
″This marks the third consecutive strong reading and means that the stalled disinflationary narrative can no longer be called a blip,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.
“In fact, even if inflation were to cool next month to a more comfortable reading, there is likely sufficient caution within the Fed now to mean that a July cut may also be a stretch, by which point the US election will begin to intrude with Fed decision making.”
Later Wednesday, the Fed will release minutes from its March meeting, providing more insight into where officials stand on monetary policy.
Multiple Fed officials in recent days have expressed skepticism about lowering rates.
Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic told CNBC that he expects just one cut this year, likely not coming until the fourth quarter.
Governor Michelle Bowman said an increase may even be necessary if the data does not cooperate.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/10/cpi-inf ... march.html
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
REUTERS
"After issuing factory capacity warning to China, Yellen faces tariff decisions"
By David Lawder
April 10, 2024
BEIJING, April 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hammered home a stern warning to China's economic leaders that their overinvestment in factory capacity for clean energy goods is unacceptable throughout her four-day visit to Guangzhou and Beijing.
She did it while appearing to charm her Chinese hosts this past week, but now comes the hard part: deciding whether to advise U.S. President Joe Biden to move toward raising U.S. tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, solar panels and other clean energy goods to protect U.S. producers and workers.
U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday after hotter-than-expected inflation data threw cold water on hopes the Federal Reserve would begin cutting interest rates as early as June.
Her other option is to press for time to allow a new U.S.-China dialogue on the issue to generate other solutions.
Yellen and her main counterpart, vice premier He Lifeng, launched the talks on "balanced growth," including industrial capacity and weak Chinese and global demand, on Saturday in the southern factory hub of Guangzhou.
Previous U.S.-China dialogues, including one launched in 2006 by former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson and a successor forum during Barack Obama's administration, largely failed to persuade China to shift away from its state-driven, investment-led economic model to a more market-driven path despite years of regular meetings.
On what may be her last trip to China as Treasury chief, Yellen saw pushback on her core complaint that a massive export wave of cheap EVs and solar panels, fuelled by state-supported production capacity that far exceeds domestic demand, was threatening competitors all over the world.
China trade experts say that the new dialogue may need to take place alongside a new Biden administration trade action, such as a new "Section 301" tariff investigation or World Trade Organization complaint.
Former president Donald Trump used Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which covers unfair trade practices, to impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports in 2018.
The Biden administration is now nearing completion of a lengthy review of whether to renew those duties.
"This dialogue isn't meant to be a negotiation, so I don't expect the U.S. to sit on its hands," said Scott Kennedy, a China economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"Washington will continue to amass evidence to be prepared to take action."
SOCIAL MEDIA STAR
While in China, Yellen won plaudits from Chinese officials, academics and social media users.
She publicly savoured Chinese cuisine and culture, sipping a beer made with American hops at a Beijing microbrewery and showing off her chopstick skills at a Cantonese restaurant in Guangzhou, the southern export hub.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang took note of the social media attention, telling Yellen: "The Chinese 'netizens' have been following your trip since the moment you landed in Guangzhou, and that shows the high expectations they have for the outcome of your visit."
They spoke for nearly three times the 30 minutes scheduled for their bilateral meeting on Sunday.
Unlike her first trip to China in July 2023, Yellen took time out to socialize with her hosts and visit cultural sites, including Beijing's Forbidden City on a private, after-hours tour.
Yellen and He exchanged gifts on a Pearl River boat cruise, in the southern export hub of Guangzhou.
She received a ceramic platter with an image of her official photo, and presented him with a signed painting print of cherry blossoms at Washington's Tidal Basin, an attendee said.
"She has a particularly high level of credibility within the Chinese government," American Chamber of Commerce in China Chair Sean Stein said of Yellen.
"She maintains a focus on economics and talks about things in a dispassionate way."
WHAT PROBLEM?
While the goodwill opened doors, pushback from state media and Chinese officials show disagreement with Yellen's core assertion that China's green energy manufacturing capacity far outstrips local demand and is flooding global markets with cheap exports from money-losing firms.
Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao on Monday called such claims baseless and said Chinese EV makers' success is due to innovation, not subsidies.
A Chinese government adviser told Reuters that industrial overcapacity is a topic for discussion with U.S. officials, "but not something that can be resolved."
"There will be no global trade if there is no overcapacity" and assertions of excess output in new energy sectors are "outrageous," the adviser said on condition of anonymity.
Still, Yellen's trip and the growing relationship with Chinese officials give her an "elevated voice" in the Biden tariff debate, said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator who heads the Asia Society Policy Institute.
But Cutler said it would be hard for Yellen to argue in favour of more time for dialogue during a hotly contested U.S. presidential election year amid rising anti-China sentiment in the United States.
Reporting by David Lawder in Beijing; additional reporting by Kevin Yao and Joe Cash in Beijing and Marius Zaharia in Hong Kong; editing by Shri Navaratnam, William Maclean
https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/af ... 024-04-10/
"After issuing factory capacity warning to China, Yellen faces tariff decisions"
By David Lawder
April 10, 2024
BEIJING, April 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hammered home a stern warning to China's economic leaders that their overinvestment in factory capacity for clean energy goods is unacceptable throughout her four-day visit to Guangzhou and Beijing.
She did it while appearing to charm her Chinese hosts this past week, but now comes the hard part: deciding whether to advise U.S. President Joe Biden to move toward raising U.S. tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, solar panels and other clean energy goods to protect U.S. producers and workers.
U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday after hotter-than-expected inflation data threw cold water on hopes the Federal Reserve would begin cutting interest rates as early as June.
Her other option is to press for time to allow a new U.S.-China dialogue on the issue to generate other solutions.
Yellen and her main counterpart, vice premier He Lifeng, launched the talks on "balanced growth," including industrial capacity and weak Chinese and global demand, on Saturday in the southern factory hub of Guangzhou.
Previous U.S.-China dialogues, including one launched in 2006 by former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson and a successor forum during Barack Obama's administration, largely failed to persuade China to shift away from its state-driven, investment-led economic model to a more market-driven path despite years of regular meetings.
On what may be her last trip to China as Treasury chief, Yellen saw pushback on her core complaint that a massive export wave of cheap EVs and solar panels, fuelled by state-supported production capacity that far exceeds domestic demand, was threatening competitors all over the world.
China trade experts say that the new dialogue may need to take place alongside a new Biden administration trade action, such as a new "Section 301" tariff investigation or World Trade Organization complaint.
Former president Donald Trump used Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which covers unfair trade practices, to impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports in 2018.
The Biden administration is now nearing completion of a lengthy review of whether to renew those duties.
"This dialogue isn't meant to be a negotiation, so I don't expect the U.S. to sit on its hands," said Scott Kennedy, a China economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"Washington will continue to amass evidence to be prepared to take action."
SOCIAL MEDIA STAR
While in China, Yellen won plaudits from Chinese officials, academics and social media users.
She publicly savoured Chinese cuisine and culture, sipping a beer made with American hops at a Beijing microbrewery and showing off her chopstick skills at a Cantonese restaurant in Guangzhou, the southern export hub.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang took note of the social media attention, telling Yellen: "The Chinese 'netizens' have been following your trip since the moment you landed in Guangzhou, and that shows the high expectations they have for the outcome of your visit."
They spoke for nearly three times the 30 minutes scheduled for their bilateral meeting on Sunday.
Unlike her first trip to China in July 2023, Yellen took time out to socialize with her hosts and visit cultural sites, including Beijing's Forbidden City on a private, after-hours tour.
Yellen and He exchanged gifts on a Pearl River boat cruise, in the southern export hub of Guangzhou.
She received a ceramic platter with an image of her official photo, and presented him with a signed painting print of cherry blossoms at Washington's Tidal Basin, an attendee said.
"She has a particularly high level of credibility within the Chinese government," American Chamber of Commerce in China Chair Sean Stein said of Yellen.
"She maintains a focus on economics and talks about things in a dispassionate way."
WHAT PROBLEM?
While the goodwill opened doors, pushback from state media and Chinese officials show disagreement with Yellen's core assertion that China's green energy manufacturing capacity far outstrips local demand and is flooding global markets with cheap exports from money-losing firms.
Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao on Monday called such claims baseless and said Chinese EV makers' success is due to innovation, not subsidies.
A Chinese government adviser told Reuters that industrial overcapacity is a topic for discussion with U.S. officials, "but not something that can be resolved."
"There will be no global trade if there is no overcapacity" and assertions of excess output in new energy sectors are "outrageous," the adviser said on condition of anonymity.
Still, Yellen's trip and the growing relationship with Chinese officials give her an "elevated voice" in the Biden tariff debate, said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator who heads the Asia Society Policy Institute.
But Cutler said it would be hard for Yellen to argue in favour of more time for dialogue during a hotly contested U.S. presidential election year amid rising anti-China sentiment in the United States.
Reporting by David Lawder in Beijing; additional reporting by Kevin Yao and Joe Cash in Beijing and Marius Zaharia in Hong Kong; editing by Shri Navaratnam, William Maclean
https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/af ... 024-04-10/
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
The New York Post
"Kathy Hochul goes all in — with NY taxpayer cash — on Biden’s new feed-the-rich program"
Opinion by Paige Terryberry
11 APRIL 2024
AOC wants to tax the rich.
Bernie Sanders wants to eat the rich.
Now President Biden wants taxpayers to feed the rich with a free-for-all school-lunch program that includes six- and seven-figure income earners.
When governments shuttered schools in 2020, state agencies mailed Electronic Benefits Transfer cards to families whose children qualified for taxpayer-funded meals during the school year.
The federal government then extended the program into the summer months as “temporary” assistance.
The Pandemic-EBT program stacked on top of the food-stamp program, already available to needy families year-round, amounts to nearly $1,000 per month for a family of four.
Like most “temporary” government programs, Pandemic-EBT, now called Summer EBT, is here to stay.
The decision to implement Summer EBT is ultimately up to states.
Gov. Hochul, of course, took the bait.
This is a federal-government program, but New York will still be on the hook for half the state’s administrative costs.
Team Biden’s new plan would drastically expand who is eligible for free school lunch during summer months by using the Community Eligibility Provision, not individual income as the food-stamp program uses.
In fact, students who attend a qualifying school would not need to submit an application for free meals at all.
CEP says if a certain number of students in a school qualify for free lunch based on their families’ low incomes, all students in that school qualify, even those whose higher family incomes would normally make them ineligible.
Since Biden bureaucrats just months ago lowered this eligibility level, a school needs to have only one-quarter of students eligible for a taxpayer-funded lunch to make the entire school eligible — down from 40%.
The US Department of Agriculture admits this expansion won’t be financially viable for many schools.
Hochul recently committed $134 million in state taxpayer funds to push schools to implement CEP.
Under these new guidelines, more than 70% of public-school children — 35 million students — could be eligible for taxpayer-funded summer lunches with no application or income requirements.
These students are already newly eligible for a taxpayer-funded lunch during the school year, no matter their family’s income.
USDA “stands ready” to apply this unfettered standard to Summer EBT.
It’s clear the Biden administration wants the Summer EBT program’s relaxed criteria to mirror those of the Pandemic-EBT — which would mean sending EBT cards to high-income families.
The true cost is still unknown.
Team Biden knows permanently expanding welfare means expanding the Democratic voter base in an election year.
And in the rush to cast a wider net to entice voters with free food, high-income families will get scooped up into a now-permanent free-lunch program originally pitched to help needy families forced into remote learning.
Thirty-seven states and Washington, DC, have opted into Summer EBT, the reincarnation of a provision from Biden’s failed Build Back Better plan.
That count could change, with some state lawmakers fighting legislatively to force adoption of the taxpayer-funded meal program that would send an extra $40 per child per month to families each summer.
And the Biden administration, along with prominent Democrats, has resorted to bullying GOP-led states that aren’t playing along, with those like Nebraska changing their minds about joining the expanded federal program.
Truly needy families already qualify for generous food-stamp benefits year-round.
And under the Biden administration, those recipients received a 27% raise in a move that circumvented Congress and drove up grocery prices.
Many states also have their own summer-meal programs, and state budgets give substantial money to food banks.
The reality is Summer EBT is not about childhood hunger.
The plan all along has been universal taxpayer-funded meals to students, regardless of income.
Permanent Summer EBT, along with lowering CEP eligibility, has been on Biden’s agenda since his Build Back Better failure.
Conditioning students to receive pre-loaded EBT cards before they leave the nest will create a new generation of dependency rather than helping those who truly need it.
Unfortunately, standing up for policies that promote self-sufficiency and independence has always been more difficult than selling “free” money.
The 13 holdout states deserve a tremendous amount of credit for rejecting Biden’s plan to use tax dollars to feed high-income families.
It’s welfare expansion at its worst.
Too many of their peers have forgotten that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Paige Terryberry is a senior research fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... f1c9&ei=75
"Kathy Hochul goes all in — with NY taxpayer cash — on Biden’s new feed-the-rich program"
Opinion by Paige Terryberry
11 APRIL 2024
AOC wants to tax the rich.
Bernie Sanders wants to eat the rich.
Now President Biden wants taxpayers to feed the rich with a free-for-all school-lunch program that includes six- and seven-figure income earners.
When governments shuttered schools in 2020, state agencies mailed Electronic Benefits Transfer cards to families whose children qualified for taxpayer-funded meals during the school year.
The federal government then extended the program into the summer months as “temporary” assistance.
The Pandemic-EBT program stacked on top of the food-stamp program, already available to needy families year-round, amounts to nearly $1,000 per month for a family of four.
Like most “temporary” government programs, Pandemic-EBT, now called Summer EBT, is here to stay.
The decision to implement Summer EBT is ultimately up to states.
Gov. Hochul, of course, took the bait.
This is a federal-government program, but New York will still be on the hook for half the state’s administrative costs.
Team Biden’s new plan would drastically expand who is eligible for free school lunch during summer months by using the Community Eligibility Provision, not individual income as the food-stamp program uses.
In fact, students who attend a qualifying school would not need to submit an application for free meals at all.
CEP says if a certain number of students in a school qualify for free lunch based on their families’ low incomes, all students in that school qualify, even those whose higher family incomes would normally make them ineligible.
Since Biden bureaucrats just months ago lowered this eligibility level, a school needs to have only one-quarter of students eligible for a taxpayer-funded lunch to make the entire school eligible — down from 40%.
The US Department of Agriculture admits this expansion won’t be financially viable for many schools.
Hochul recently committed $134 million in state taxpayer funds to push schools to implement CEP.
Under these new guidelines, more than 70% of public-school children — 35 million students — could be eligible for taxpayer-funded summer lunches with no application or income requirements.
These students are already newly eligible for a taxpayer-funded lunch during the school year, no matter their family’s income.
USDA “stands ready” to apply this unfettered standard to Summer EBT.
It’s clear the Biden administration wants the Summer EBT program’s relaxed criteria to mirror those of the Pandemic-EBT — which would mean sending EBT cards to high-income families.
The true cost is still unknown.
Team Biden knows permanently expanding welfare means expanding the Democratic voter base in an election year.
And in the rush to cast a wider net to entice voters with free food, high-income families will get scooped up into a now-permanent free-lunch program originally pitched to help needy families forced into remote learning.
Thirty-seven states and Washington, DC, have opted into Summer EBT, the reincarnation of a provision from Biden’s failed Build Back Better plan.
That count could change, with some state lawmakers fighting legislatively to force adoption of the taxpayer-funded meal program that would send an extra $40 per child per month to families each summer.
And the Biden administration, along with prominent Democrats, has resorted to bullying GOP-led states that aren’t playing along, with those like Nebraska changing their minds about joining the expanded federal program.
Truly needy families already qualify for generous food-stamp benefits year-round.
And under the Biden administration, those recipients received a 27% raise in a move that circumvented Congress and drove up grocery prices.
Many states also have their own summer-meal programs, and state budgets give substantial money to food banks.
The reality is Summer EBT is not about childhood hunger.
The plan all along has been universal taxpayer-funded meals to students, regardless of income.
Permanent Summer EBT, along with lowering CEP eligibility, has been on Biden’s agenda since his Build Back Better failure.
Conditioning students to receive pre-loaded EBT cards before they leave the nest will create a new generation of dependency rather than helping those who truly need it.
Unfortunately, standing up for policies that promote self-sufficiency and independence has always been more difficult than selling “free” money.
The 13 holdout states deserve a tremendous amount of credit for rejecting Biden’s plan to use tax dollars to feed high-income families.
It’s welfare expansion at its worst.
Too many of their peers have forgotten that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Paige Terryberry is a senior research fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets ... f1c9&ei=75
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
REUTERS
"Hot inflation may put Fed rate cut in thick of election season"
By Howard Schneider
April 11, 2024
WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) - Hot U.S. inflation data has put the Federal Reserve's debate over a first interest rate cut on a potential collision course with the presidential election calendar, although a parade of top-level Fed-watching economists also predict the Fed won't make its move until after Americans go to the polls.
Rate futures markets now show investors see a first rate cut as most likely occurring at the Fed's Sept. 17-18 meeting after data showed inflation through the entire first quarter of 2024 was stiffer than expected and had demonstrably slowed progress on bringing it back to the Fed's 2% target.
A rate cut then - just seven weeks before Election Day - would shine a spotlight on the Fed, which goes to pains to keep itself out of the political tussle.
Not cutting by then won't necessarily dim that light, though.
Fed officials are adamant their policy decisions are fully divorced from political concerns or influence - be it incumbent President's Joe Biden's hope for a soft landing of low inflation and low unemployment to carry into heart of the campaign season this autumn, or presumptive Republican nominee - and former president - Donald Trump's brewing argument that if the Fed cuts rates it will only be doing so to help his Democratic rival.
No Fed official has offered a potential start date, but policymakers' projections last month indicated on balance they still expected to deliver three, quarter-percentage-point rate cuts this year, an outlook first presented last December.
With that as a guide, investors for months had settled on June for a first cut, with the two other reductions staggered over the rest of the year.
It was a timetable that had seemed well-phased around the hottest moments of the presidential campaign, but was thrown off this week when Consumer Price Index data for March extended a streak of unexpectedly strong readings, leading a growing number of Fed officials to say there would likely be no near-term move on rates.
At the same time, a core of professional Fed watchers now see an outcome where the Fed misses the presidential election cycle entirely, though that doesn't mean the central bank won't be a campaign focus.
In the hours since March inflation data came in hot, analysts from JP Morgan, Bank of America, Jefferies, Deutsche Bank and others tore up their prior predictions that rate cuts would be well underway by the election - a possible boon to Biden - and some pushed them back to year end or even 2025.
"We do not think the Fed will gain the confidence it needs to start cutting rates until December," Bank of America economists wrote, meaning Biden would be campaigning against the stigma of both higher borrowing costs and persistent inflation.
Biden, for his part, said he felt the Fed's baseline outlook for rate cuts this year would prove correct, even if recent data have thrown it into doubt.
"We don’t know what the Fed is going to do for certain," Biden said after Wednesday's inflation report, but "I do stand by my prediction that before the year is out there will a rate cut."
Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hot-in ... 024-04-11/
"Hot inflation may put Fed rate cut in thick of election season"
By Howard Schneider
April 11, 2024
WASHINGTON, April 11 (Reuters) - Hot U.S. inflation data has put the Federal Reserve's debate over a first interest rate cut on a potential collision course with the presidential election calendar, although a parade of top-level Fed-watching economists also predict the Fed won't make its move until after Americans go to the polls.
Rate futures markets now show investors see a first rate cut as most likely occurring at the Fed's Sept. 17-18 meeting after data showed inflation through the entire first quarter of 2024 was stiffer than expected and had demonstrably slowed progress on bringing it back to the Fed's 2% target.
A rate cut then - just seven weeks before Election Day - would shine a spotlight on the Fed, which goes to pains to keep itself out of the political tussle.
Not cutting by then won't necessarily dim that light, though.
Fed officials are adamant their policy decisions are fully divorced from political concerns or influence - be it incumbent President's Joe Biden's hope for a soft landing of low inflation and low unemployment to carry into heart of the campaign season this autumn, or presumptive Republican nominee - and former president - Donald Trump's brewing argument that if the Fed cuts rates it will only be doing so to help his Democratic rival.
No Fed official has offered a potential start date, but policymakers' projections last month indicated on balance they still expected to deliver three, quarter-percentage-point rate cuts this year, an outlook first presented last December.
With that as a guide, investors for months had settled on June for a first cut, with the two other reductions staggered over the rest of the year.
It was a timetable that had seemed well-phased around the hottest moments of the presidential campaign, but was thrown off this week when Consumer Price Index data for March extended a streak of unexpectedly strong readings, leading a growing number of Fed officials to say there would likely be no near-term move on rates.
At the same time, a core of professional Fed watchers now see an outcome where the Fed misses the presidential election cycle entirely, though that doesn't mean the central bank won't be a campaign focus.
In the hours since March inflation data came in hot, analysts from JP Morgan, Bank of America, Jefferies, Deutsche Bank and others tore up their prior predictions that rate cuts would be well underway by the election - a possible boon to Biden - and some pushed them back to year end or even 2025.
"We do not think the Fed will gain the confidence it needs to start cutting rates until December," Bank of America economists wrote, meaning Biden would be campaigning against the stigma of both higher borrowing costs and persistent inflation.
Biden, for his part, said he felt the Fed's baseline outlook for rate cuts this year would prove correct, even if recent data have thrown it into doubt.
"We don’t know what the Fed is going to do for certain," Biden said after Wednesday's inflation report, but "I do stand by my prediction that before the year is out there will a rate cut."
Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hot-in ... 024-04-11/
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
REUTERS
"Soaring insurance costs hit as US buyers get a break on car prices"
By Timothy Aeppel
April 11, 2024
April 11 (Reuters) - A new form of sticker shock has hit American car buyers like Darin Davis.
In January, when the 56-year-old Dallas real estate agent renewed the insurance on the pearly-white 2024 Cadillac XT4 that he bought just a few months earlier, the rate nearly doubled.
"It takes the fun out of owning a new car when you’re paying so much money," said Davis, adding that if he’d known such a massive increase was coming, he might have opted for a less expensive model.
But by then it was too late.
In one of the cruel twists of an inflation-weary U.S. economy, car prices are coming down after surging by record amounts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But at least part of those gains for consumers are getting gobbled up by rising auto insurance rates that for some models now account for more than a quarter of the total cost of owning a vehicle.
Car prices have eased as the supply chain snarls of the pandemic -- especially shortages of vital computer chips -- have untangled and automakers boost inventories on their lots.
Meanwhile, factors including rising costs associated with repairing increasingly complicated vehicles and more storm damage amid climate change is pushing insurance rates higher.
And car buyers aren't the only ones with an axe to grind over insurance inflation.
For Federal Reserve policymakers working to lower inflation overall, it's an example of the unwelcome surprises that have conspired to slow their progress.
HURTING AFFORDABILITY
The Consumer Price Index rose 3.5% last month from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.
But auto insurance costs were up 22.2% over the same period, the biggest increase since the 1970s.
Car prices, meanwhile, continued to moderate.
New vehicle prices declined 0.1%, compared to a year earlier, while used prices slipped 2.2%.
Car dealers are offering more incentives to buyers, which helps bring down up-front costs.
The degree to which insurance rates are weighing on buying decisions is unclear, but there are signs it’s become a bigger factor, especially for consumers on tight budgets.
"We’re hearing from a number of shoppers that they’re declining to buy a car - or returning one - because they can afford the car, but not the insurance for it," said Sean Tucker, a senior editor at Kelley Blue Book, a car valuation and research company in Irvine, California.
Tucker said Kelley Blue Book recently added insurance guidance to its list of buying tips, urging shoppers to get an insurance quote before they put down any money.
Car insurance rates vary widely across the country and are influenced by everything from the cost local collision repair shops charge to the potential for damage from tropical storms and wildfires.
According to the insurance shopping site Insurify, the average cost in the U.S. for full auto coverage rose 24% last year and now stands at just over $182 a month.
The company said 63% of drivers it surveyed saw rates increase in 2023 and predicts rates will rise another 7% in 2024.
But that figure could rise.
"We’re seeing a lot of activity in (the first quarter) that indicate to us it may increase even more," said Jessica Edmondson, a data specialist at Insurify.
TOTAL COST
Insurance seems poised to continue to grow as a share of the so-called total cost of owning of a vehicle, which factors in things like routine maintenance, taxes, depreciation, and fuel, as well as insurance.
According to Kelley Blue Book, insurance accounted for an average 16% of this gauge for a compact car in 2019 and will grow to 26% in 2024.
For a compact SUV, it was 13% in 2019, but will be 20% this year.
Multiple forces have combined to fuel the current surge in rates.
More cars are being totaled than in the past and quality issues mounted during the production disruptions caused by the pandemic that can lead to insurance claims.
A shortage of mechanics has meant it takes longer to fix a car, which in turn drives up the cost to insurance companies that provide rental cars to policyholders waiting for those repairs.
A typical car is also increasingly laden with electronics that can make them costlier and more difficult to repair.
"A bumper is just a bumper - but a bumper full of sensors costs more to repair," said Kristin Dziczek, a policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago who is an expert in automotive industry trends.
She noted that electric cars, on average, cost 30% more and can take longer to repair.
There are also changes in how carmakers are producing cars that carry insurance implications.
For instance, Tesla has pioneered a process called gigacasting, which involves casting a single part that can replace 30 or more separate pieces of metal in a traditional vehicle.
That reduces production costs but can make it costlier to repair a vehicle involved in an accident.
Other carmakers are following suit.
Cadillac makes one model now that uses 16 gigacastings.
Meanwhile, Davis -- the Dallas real estate agent who bought a new Cadillac -- said he eventually found a cheaper option by bundling his car and homeowners insurance and increasing the deductible.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/soar ... 024-04-11/
"Soaring insurance costs hit as US buyers get a break on car prices"
By Timothy Aeppel
April 11, 2024
April 11 (Reuters) - A new form of sticker shock has hit American car buyers like Darin Davis.
In January, when the 56-year-old Dallas real estate agent renewed the insurance on the pearly-white 2024 Cadillac XT4 that he bought just a few months earlier, the rate nearly doubled.
"It takes the fun out of owning a new car when you’re paying so much money," said Davis, adding that if he’d known such a massive increase was coming, he might have opted for a less expensive model.
But by then it was too late.
In one of the cruel twists of an inflation-weary U.S. economy, car prices are coming down after surging by record amounts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But at least part of those gains for consumers are getting gobbled up by rising auto insurance rates that for some models now account for more than a quarter of the total cost of owning a vehicle.
Car prices have eased as the supply chain snarls of the pandemic -- especially shortages of vital computer chips -- have untangled and automakers boost inventories on their lots.
Meanwhile, factors including rising costs associated with repairing increasingly complicated vehicles and more storm damage amid climate change is pushing insurance rates higher.
And car buyers aren't the only ones with an axe to grind over insurance inflation.
For Federal Reserve policymakers working to lower inflation overall, it's an example of the unwelcome surprises that have conspired to slow their progress.
HURTING AFFORDABILITY
The Consumer Price Index rose 3.5% last month from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.
But auto insurance costs were up 22.2% over the same period, the biggest increase since the 1970s.
Car prices, meanwhile, continued to moderate.
New vehicle prices declined 0.1%, compared to a year earlier, while used prices slipped 2.2%.
Car dealers are offering more incentives to buyers, which helps bring down up-front costs.
The degree to which insurance rates are weighing on buying decisions is unclear, but there are signs it’s become a bigger factor, especially for consumers on tight budgets.
"We’re hearing from a number of shoppers that they’re declining to buy a car - or returning one - because they can afford the car, but not the insurance for it," said Sean Tucker, a senior editor at Kelley Blue Book, a car valuation and research company in Irvine, California.
Tucker said Kelley Blue Book recently added insurance guidance to its list of buying tips, urging shoppers to get an insurance quote before they put down any money.
Car insurance rates vary widely across the country and are influenced by everything from the cost local collision repair shops charge to the potential for damage from tropical storms and wildfires.
According to the insurance shopping site Insurify, the average cost in the U.S. for full auto coverage rose 24% last year and now stands at just over $182 a month.
The company said 63% of drivers it surveyed saw rates increase in 2023 and predicts rates will rise another 7% in 2024.
But that figure could rise.
"We’re seeing a lot of activity in (the first quarter) that indicate to us it may increase even more," said Jessica Edmondson, a data specialist at Insurify.
TOTAL COST
Insurance seems poised to continue to grow as a share of the so-called total cost of owning of a vehicle, which factors in things like routine maintenance, taxes, depreciation, and fuel, as well as insurance.
According to Kelley Blue Book, insurance accounted for an average 16% of this gauge for a compact car in 2019 and will grow to 26% in 2024.
For a compact SUV, it was 13% in 2019, but will be 20% this year.
Multiple forces have combined to fuel the current surge in rates.
More cars are being totaled than in the past and quality issues mounted during the production disruptions caused by the pandemic that can lead to insurance claims.
A shortage of mechanics has meant it takes longer to fix a car, which in turn drives up the cost to insurance companies that provide rental cars to policyholders waiting for those repairs.
A typical car is also increasingly laden with electronics that can make them costlier and more difficult to repair.
"A bumper is just a bumper - but a bumper full of sensors costs more to repair," said Kristin Dziczek, a policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago who is an expert in automotive industry trends.
She noted that electric cars, on average, cost 30% more and can take longer to repair.
There are also changes in how carmakers are producing cars that carry insurance implications.
For instance, Tesla has pioneered a process called gigacasting, which involves casting a single part that can replace 30 or more separate pieces of metal in a traditional vehicle.
That reduces production costs but can make it costlier to repair a vehicle involved in an accident.
Other carmakers are following suit.
Cadillac makes one model now that uses 16 gigacastings.
Meanwhile, Davis -- the Dallas real estate agent who bought a new Cadillac -- said he eventually found a cheaper option by bundling his car and homeowners insurance and increasing the deductible.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/soar ... 024-04-11/
Re: AMERICA'S FIGHTING BULLDOG JOE BIDEN
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 11, 2024 AT 8:44 PM
Paul Plante says:
Cause and effect, people!
Yes, they still exist.
Something that happened yesterday is inextricably linked to something that will happen tomarrow, such as the policies of the Roaring Twenties resulted in the GREAT DEPRESSION, or BIDE-O-NOMICS yesterday has resulted in sticky BIDENFLATION today, but, if people are confused, or scared, or have short memories, or are distracted, or busy doing something else, all of which politicians since time immemorial have counted on as they gull and swindle and hornswoggle the populace for their benefit and that of their cronies, they fail to connect the dots, which of course is the hope and goal of the politicians feeding off the taxpayers, because in America, at least, feeding off the taxpayers is not a crime, and hey, it is what they are there for in the first place, to serve as a food source for the politicians to feed off of, which takes us for the moment back in time to back to the Baltimore Evening Sun on October 6, 1924 and political essay “The Coolidge Buncombe” by H.L. Mencken, where we have a basis of comparison of the character of Joe Biden with that of both Warren Gamaliel Harding, who before Joe Biden took the crown from him, was deemed the worst American president, and Calvin Coolidge, or “Silent Cal,” as he was known, to wit:
What I contend is that the Coolidge Administration, if it is inflicted on us, is bound to be quite as bad as the Harding Administration, and that the chances are that it will be a great deal worse.
In other words, I contend that it is bound to manufacture radicalism in a wholesale manner, and that this radicalism will be far more dangerous to legitimate business than the mild stuff that Dr. La Follette now has on tap.
I believe that the Coolidge Administration will be worse than that of Harding for the plain reason that Coolidge himself is worse than Harding.
Harding was an ignoramus, but there were unquestionably good impulses in him.
end quotes
Why don’t we have people in the main-stream and legacy media today who have the guts and courage to label Joe Biden an ignoramus?
Because they think he is a brilliant genius statesman, instead?
Going back to Mencken on Harding, who as bad as he was, was actually a far better president than is Joe Biden, we have more, as follows, as we ponder the question of just how is it that we end up with these kinds of people as our “leaders,” which makes the term American president into a mockable term, to wit:
He (Harding) had a great desire to be liked and respected; he was susceptible to good as well as to bad suggestions; his very vanity, in the long run, might have saved him from the rogues who exploited him.
Behind Harding the politician there was always Harding the businessman — a man of successful and honorable career, jealous of his good name.
Coolidge is simply a professional politician, and a very petty, sordid and dull one.
end quotes
ENTER JOSEPH ROBINETTE BIDEN, JUNIOR!
He (Coolidge) has lived by job-seeking and job-holding all his life; his every thought is that of his miserable trade.
end quotes
That description, people, also fits Joe Biden to a tee, which takes us back for more, to wit:
When it comes to a conflict between politicians and reputable folk, his instinctive sympathy always goes to the politicians.
He showed this sympathy plainly in the Denby and Daugherty cases.
end quotes
“Denby,” of course, is Edwin Denby (February 18, 1870 – February 8, 1929), who was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of the Navy in the administrations of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge from 1921 to 1924, and he is famous for playing a notable role in the infamous Teapot Dome scandal which took place during the Harding presidency, where Denby got Harding’s approval to transfer control of the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior, headed by Albert B. Fall, who then proceeded to lease these oil fields to friends who were heads of oil companies in exchange for over $400,000 in personal loans.
Despite attempts to keep the deal secret, The Wall Street Journal leaked news of the leasing, and the Senate decided to launch an inquiry into the matter, which investigation began in October 1923 after Harding’s death, and the Senate Committee on Lands and Public Surveys, which carried out the inquiry, concluded in 1924 that the Teapot Dome and Elk Hills leases to the oil companies had been fraudulent and corrupt, so that both Denby and Fall were forced to resign from office as a result.
“Daugherty” was Harry Micajah Daugherty (January 26, 1860 – October 12, 1941) and he was an American politician best remembered for his service as Attorney General of the United States under presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, as well as for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal during Harding’s presidency.
Daugherty remained an influential figure behind the election of several U.S. representatives and senators and he was Harding’s campaign manager at the 1920 Republican National Convention.
Following Harding’s successful election, Daugherty was named attorney general.
Twice the subject of federal corruption investigations, Daugherty was forced in 1924 to resign his post as attorney general by Coolidge.
Which takes us back to Mencken and 1924, to wit:
To say that he (Coolidge) was not strongly in favor of both men is to utter nonsense.
He not only kept them in office as long as he could, despite the massive proofs of their unfitness; he also worked for them behind the door, stealthily and ignominiously.
To this day he has not said a single word against either of them; all his objurgations have been leveled at those who exposed them and drove them out.
He kept the asinine Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., in office until a week or so ago, and then gave him a parting salute of twenty-one guns.
He is even now trying to promote Captain Robison, the man who arranged the Doheny oil grab.
end quotes
“Doheny” is Edward Laurence Doheny (August 10, 1856 – September 8, 1935) who was an American oil tycoon who, in 1892, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field.
In the 1920s, Doheny was implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal and accused of offering a $100,000 bribe to United States Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall.
Doheny was twice acquitted of offering the bribe, but Fall was convicted of accepting it.
In 1922 Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased the oil field at Elk Hills, California, to the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, and around the same time, the Teapot Dome Field in Wyoming was leased to Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation.
Both oilfields were part of the US Navy’s petroleum reserves and neither lease was subject to competitive bidding.
In 1924 rumors about corruption in the deals escalated into the Teapot Dome scandal, and Doheny’s reputation was somewhat tainted by a bribe paid to the Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall in 1921.
He (Doheny) made the “gift” of $100,000 in connection with obtaining a lease of 32,000 acres (13,000 ha) of government-owned land used for the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve near Taft, California, and the resulting scandal broke soon after that, over similar bribes Fall accepted for leasing Teapot Dome in Wyoming.
Doheny was charged with bribing Fall but, in 1930, was acquitted.
His son, Ned, who had delivered the money, and assistant Hugh Plunkett were also charged, but died before they could be tried.
Nevertheless, Fall was convicted of accepting the bribe.
end quotes
Which again takes us back to Mencken on Coolidge, to wit:
Who has forgotten that he wanted to appoint Daugherty to “investigate” that colossal steal?
Or that he was in close and constant communication with Ned McLean, Dougherty’s and Fall’s friend, during the whole of the inquiry?
No amount of campaign blather will suffice to wipe out this discreditable record.
Coolidge pulled against the oil investigation from the start; he pulled against the Dougherty investigation from the start; he let Daugherty and Denby go at last only under pressure, and after trying to hit their opponents below the belt.
His sympathy has been with such oppressed patriots all his life, and it is with them today.
If he is elected for four years every professional politician in the Republican party will rejoice, and with sound reason.
There will be good times for the boys — and Fall, Daugherty and company will be safe.
But will the country be safe?
It is not so certain.
Those businessmen who think only of easy profits tomorrow might do well to give a thought or two to the day after.
They have seen a very formidable radical movement roll up under their noses.
If they have any sense, they will not be deceived by the argument that it has been set in motion by “agitators.”
What agitators?
Who and where are they?
I can find no such persons.
La Follette stumped the country for years and got nowhere.
Only his own State heeded him.
But last winter he began to get a response, and soon it was immense and vociferous.
That response came from men and women who had become convinced at last, and with good logic, that government by professional politicians was intolerably and hopelessly rotten — that the only remedy was to turn them out, and then make laws to prevent them coming back.
Personally I doubt that such laws, if made, will work.
In other words, I am not a radical.
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
But that is certainly not the common American view; the majority of Americans are far more hopeful.
When they see an evil they try to remedy it — by peaceful means if possible, and if not, then by force.
In the present case millions of them tire of the degrading Coolidge farce, with its puerile evasion of issues, its cloaking of Denby and Daugherty, its exaltation of such political jugglers as Slemp and Butler, its snide conspiracy to rob La Follette of honest votes in California.
They tire of it and want to end it.
What now, if they are forced to stand four years more if it?
What if they must see it grow ever worse and worse?
To timorous businessmen, in this year 1924, La Follette may look dangerous.
But let them ask themselves what sort of radicalism will probably be afoot in 1928, after four more years of Coolidge.
end quotes
And let us ask ourselves what sort of radicalism will probably be afoot in 2028, after four more years of Joe Biden?
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/paul-p ... ent-917018
Paul Plante says:
Cause and effect, people!
Yes, they still exist.
Something that happened yesterday is inextricably linked to something that will happen tomarrow, such as the policies of the Roaring Twenties resulted in the GREAT DEPRESSION, or BIDE-O-NOMICS yesterday has resulted in sticky BIDENFLATION today, but, if people are confused, or scared, or have short memories, or are distracted, or busy doing something else, all of which politicians since time immemorial have counted on as they gull and swindle and hornswoggle the populace for their benefit and that of their cronies, they fail to connect the dots, which of course is the hope and goal of the politicians feeding off the taxpayers, because in America, at least, feeding off the taxpayers is not a crime, and hey, it is what they are there for in the first place, to serve as a food source for the politicians to feed off of, which takes us for the moment back in time to back to the Baltimore Evening Sun on October 6, 1924 and political essay “The Coolidge Buncombe” by H.L. Mencken, where we have a basis of comparison of the character of Joe Biden with that of both Warren Gamaliel Harding, who before Joe Biden took the crown from him, was deemed the worst American president, and Calvin Coolidge, or “Silent Cal,” as he was known, to wit:
What I contend is that the Coolidge Administration, if it is inflicted on us, is bound to be quite as bad as the Harding Administration, and that the chances are that it will be a great deal worse.
In other words, I contend that it is bound to manufacture radicalism in a wholesale manner, and that this radicalism will be far more dangerous to legitimate business than the mild stuff that Dr. La Follette now has on tap.
I believe that the Coolidge Administration will be worse than that of Harding for the plain reason that Coolidge himself is worse than Harding.
Harding was an ignoramus, but there were unquestionably good impulses in him.
end quotes
Why don’t we have people in the main-stream and legacy media today who have the guts and courage to label Joe Biden an ignoramus?
Because they think he is a brilliant genius statesman, instead?
Going back to Mencken on Harding, who as bad as he was, was actually a far better president than is Joe Biden, we have more, as follows, as we ponder the question of just how is it that we end up with these kinds of people as our “leaders,” which makes the term American president into a mockable term, to wit:
He (Harding) had a great desire to be liked and respected; he was susceptible to good as well as to bad suggestions; his very vanity, in the long run, might have saved him from the rogues who exploited him.
Behind Harding the politician there was always Harding the businessman — a man of successful and honorable career, jealous of his good name.
Coolidge is simply a professional politician, and a very petty, sordid and dull one.
end quotes
ENTER JOSEPH ROBINETTE BIDEN, JUNIOR!
He (Coolidge) has lived by job-seeking and job-holding all his life; his every thought is that of his miserable trade.
end quotes
That description, people, also fits Joe Biden to a tee, which takes us back for more, to wit:
When it comes to a conflict between politicians and reputable folk, his instinctive sympathy always goes to the politicians.
He showed this sympathy plainly in the Denby and Daugherty cases.
end quotes
“Denby,” of course, is Edwin Denby (February 18, 1870 – February 8, 1929), who was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of the Navy in the administrations of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge from 1921 to 1924, and he is famous for playing a notable role in the infamous Teapot Dome scandal which took place during the Harding presidency, where Denby got Harding’s approval to transfer control of the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior, headed by Albert B. Fall, who then proceeded to lease these oil fields to friends who were heads of oil companies in exchange for over $400,000 in personal loans.
Despite attempts to keep the deal secret, The Wall Street Journal leaked news of the leasing, and the Senate decided to launch an inquiry into the matter, which investigation began in October 1923 after Harding’s death, and the Senate Committee on Lands and Public Surveys, which carried out the inquiry, concluded in 1924 that the Teapot Dome and Elk Hills leases to the oil companies had been fraudulent and corrupt, so that both Denby and Fall were forced to resign from office as a result.
“Daugherty” was Harry Micajah Daugherty (January 26, 1860 – October 12, 1941) and he was an American politician best remembered for his service as Attorney General of the United States under presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, as well as for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal during Harding’s presidency.
Daugherty remained an influential figure behind the election of several U.S. representatives and senators and he was Harding’s campaign manager at the 1920 Republican National Convention.
Following Harding’s successful election, Daugherty was named attorney general.
Twice the subject of federal corruption investigations, Daugherty was forced in 1924 to resign his post as attorney general by Coolidge.
Which takes us back to Mencken and 1924, to wit:
To say that he (Coolidge) was not strongly in favor of both men is to utter nonsense.
He not only kept them in office as long as he could, despite the massive proofs of their unfitness; he also worked for them behind the door, stealthily and ignominiously.
To this day he has not said a single word against either of them; all his objurgations have been leveled at those who exposed them and drove them out.
He kept the asinine Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., in office until a week or so ago, and then gave him a parting salute of twenty-one guns.
He is even now trying to promote Captain Robison, the man who arranged the Doheny oil grab.
end quotes
“Doheny” is Edward Laurence Doheny (August 10, 1856 – September 8, 1935) who was an American oil tycoon who, in 1892, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field.
In the 1920s, Doheny was implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal and accused of offering a $100,000 bribe to United States Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall.
Doheny was twice acquitted of offering the bribe, but Fall was convicted of accepting it.
In 1922 Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased the oil field at Elk Hills, California, to the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, and around the same time, the Teapot Dome Field in Wyoming was leased to Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation.
Both oilfields were part of the US Navy’s petroleum reserves and neither lease was subject to competitive bidding.
In 1924 rumors about corruption in the deals escalated into the Teapot Dome scandal, and Doheny’s reputation was somewhat tainted by a bribe paid to the Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall in 1921.
He (Doheny) made the “gift” of $100,000 in connection with obtaining a lease of 32,000 acres (13,000 ha) of government-owned land used for the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve near Taft, California, and the resulting scandal broke soon after that, over similar bribes Fall accepted for leasing Teapot Dome in Wyoming.
Doheny was charged with bribing Fall but, in 1930, was acquitted.
His son, Ned, who had delivered the money, and assistant Hugh Plunkett were also charged, but died before they could be tried.
Nevertheless, Fall was convicted of accepting the bribe.
end quotes
Which again takes us back to Mencken on Coolidge, to wit:
Who has forgotten that he wanted to appoint Daugherty to “investigate” that colossal steal?
Or that he was in close and constant communication with Ned McLean, Dougherty’s and Fall’s friend, during the whole of the inquiry?
No amount of campaign blather will suffice to wipe out this discreditable record.
Coolidge pulled against the oil investigation from the start; he pulled against the Dougherty investigation from the start; he let Daugherty and Denby go at last only under pressure, and after trying to hit their opponents below the belt.
His sympathy has been with such oppressed patriots all his life, and it is with them today.
If he is elected for four years every professional politician in the Republican party will rejoice, and with sound reason.
There will be good times for the boys — and Fall, Daugherty and company will be safe.
But will the country be safe?
It is not so certain.
Those businessmen who think only of easy profits tomorrow might do well to give a thought or two to the day after.
They have seen a very formidable radical movement roll up under their noses.
If they have any sense, they will not be deceived by the argument that it has been set in motion by “agitators.”
What agitators?
Who and where are they?
I can find no such persons.
La Follette stumped the country for years and got nowhere.
Only his own State heeded him.
But last winter he began to get a response, and soon it was immense and vociferous.
That response came from men and women who had become convinced at last, and with good logic, that government by professional politicians was intolerably and hopelessly rotten — that the only remedy was to turn them out, and then make laws to prevent them coming back.
Personally I doubt that such laws, if made, will work.
In other words, I am not a radical.
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
But that is certainly not the common American view; the majority of Americans are far more hopeful.
When they see an evil they try to remedy it — by peaceful means if possible, and if not, then by force.
In the present case millions of them tire of the degrading Coolidge farce, with its puerile evasion of issues, its cloaking of Denby and Daugherty, its exaltation of such political jugglers as Slemp and Butler, its snide conspiracy to rob La Follette of honest votes in California.
They tire of it and want to end it.
What now, if they are forced to stand four years more if it?
What if they must see it grow ever worse and worse?
To timorous businessmen, in this year 1924, La Follette may look dangerous.
But let them ask themselves what sort of radicalism will probably be afoot in 1928, after four more years of Coolidge.
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And let us ask ourselves what sort of radicalism will probably be afoot in 2028, after four more years of Joe Biden?
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