Harvard University has granted a fellowship in public health to former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who recently became the first Chicago mayor to lose a re-election bid in 40 years after a controversy-ridden tenure as the Windy City’s top boss.
In her role as the Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow, Lightfoot “will teach a course in the fall at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health,” the Ivy League institution recently announced.
The June 1 announcement lists several of Lightfoot’s achievements as mayor, such as leading the citywide response to the pandemic and creating a “Racial Equity Rapid Response Team.”
Global Test
Apparently its OK to shake the hand of an accused narco-terrorist on the DEA’s most wanted list, but disagreeing with Kerry about climate change makes you worst than Hitler.
A sweetheart deal
When central banks started hiking short term interest rates in recent months, banks with balance sheets full of supposedly “safe” long-term treasury bonds suddenly found themselves staring at serious capital losses. But not to worry. Troubled banks can now offer up these assets as loan collateral at the Fed at purchase value instead of market value. And no one needs to know that they’re doing it. What could possibly go wrong?
https://twitter.com/JoeConsorti/status/1666946804892532738
Liberation struggles
What’s the root cause of Robert Mugabe’s destruction of Zimbabwe, and the fact that it went on for as long as it did without anyone making a serious effort to stop it? It has a lot to do with ideas originating in the West and an academic and political culture that actively promoted the worst of them.
Smith’s fears were not based on century-old horror stories about Reconstruction. If he believed that white minorities would be run out by the new regime in spite of all prior reassurances to the contrary, it was because that’s exactly what had happened in Algeria. If he worried that the country’s economy would be knocked back to subsistence, with famine following, it was because post-colonial Africa (with the exception of oil-boom Nigeria) had seen negative per capita economic growth in the 1970s. By the time of UDI, the world already had before it the examples of Ghana (Afro-fascism), Tanzania (police state), and the Congo (civil war). Instead of asking why Smith thought Zimbabwe would go the same way, we should ask why anyone thought it would be the exception.
Our Moral And Intellectual Superiors
It’s Probably Nothing (Bumped)
US regulators were working into the night to resolve First Republic Bank crisis late Sunday after midday deadline passed for submitting final bids to take over struggling lender.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. had asked banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., PNC Financial Services Group Inc., and Citizens Financial Group Inc. to submit offers, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Bank of America Corp. and US Bancorp were also invited but decided against bidding, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential talks.
If no agreement is reached, regulators would have the option of seizing First Republic and taking ownership of the bank.
Spokespeople for JPMorgan, PNC, Citizens Financial, US Bancorp, Bank of America and the FDIC declined to comment.
Based on reports from multiple sources, the sale of First Republic Bank, $FRC, should have already happened.
However, futures opened and Asian markets are trading but no deal has been announced.
US markets open in 13 hours and the FDIC is completely silent.
What is happening?
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 1, 2023
Morning update @FDICgov: To protect depositors, we entered into an agreement with JP Morgan Chase Bank to purchase and assume all deposits and assets of First Republic Bank.
3 out of the 4 largest bank failures in history have occurred in the last two months.
Foreign investors begone!
It was the elder Trudeau who instituted the Foreign Investment Review Act which was thankfully jettisoned during the Mulroney years. Fast forward to the present era, and we now find the current leader of the Conservatives agreeing with Trudeau the younger that it should at least be resurrected on an ad hoc basis.
Why is a party allegedly dedicated to a free market economic system suddenly embracing this kind of mercantilist thinking? This is supremely ironic for a man who is campaigning on removing “gatekeepers” from the economy.
Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative party, is calling for the federal government to block Glencore Plc’s bid to buy Canada’s largest diversified miner, Teck Resources Ltd., adding yet another political voice against the potential takeover.
Under FIRA, foreign investors were at least well aware of the hurdles they faced when trying to invest capital in Canada. Now, the hurdles are invoked on a whim and can apparently come from any political direction.
The not gold standard
As part of Zimbabwe’s ongoing struggle to stave off a return to the dark ages, it recently began minting and selling gold coins. Some pundits are claiming that this heralds a return to a gold standard, but that would require paper currency denominated in a weight of gold with redemption for gold upon request. So far, these clowns seem to have all that completely backwards. Is there any hope for this train wreck of a nation?
The “Mosi-oa-tunya” coin, named after Victoria falls, can be converted into cash and be traded locally and internationally, the central bank said.
Last week, Zimbabwe more than doubled its policy rate to 200% from 80% and outlined plans to make the U.S. dollar legal tender for the next five years to boost confidence.
Annual inflation, which hit almost 192% in June, cast a shadow over President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s bid to revitalise the economy.
Sparky cars for the masses!
Whoever calls this an investment with a straight face is utterly delusional. An investment implies an identifiable return related to the profitability of the company. In this case, taxpayers can kiss the money goodbye. In a race with the United States to see who can go bankrupt first, Canada is obviously not going to win, but we seem to think it shows character to die trying.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government agreed to subsidies that may top $13 billion over a decade to land an electric-vehicle battery plant by Volkswagen AG, the company’s first gigafactory outside Europe.
The money is provided through an unprecedented contract negotiated by Trudeau’s industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne. Canada will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory’s capital cost — effectively matching what the German automaker could have received via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the U.S., according to government officials.
Crisis Factory
We’ve all heard the term Military Industrial Complex, but economist Peter St. Onge has come up with a new term for the actions of central banks as they vainly attempt to “manage” the economy: the Crisis Industrial Complex.
In essence, the Fed plays venture capitalist to the crisis industrial complex. Financing each crisis in that vulnerable early stage when voters might not be up for paying $14 trillion to run around Afghanistan, or $7 trillion to pay people not to work, or the $50 to $90 trillion — not a joke — they want for a New Green Deal.
This bridge financing is important in that start-up stage of a new crisis, when the product’s not off the ground yet. Like offering a free trial to get somebody to subscribe, it has to be free long enough for the parasitic supporting infrastructure of academics, activists, media, and crony companies to build up, to metastasize. That venture stage manufactures the consensus, identifies and censors the dangerous conspiracy theories, keeps the money flowing to the opportunists who will sustain it as a permanent parasite.
The Gore Effect
He’s baaack…
Just The Woman For The Job
My fondest wish is that Jacinda Arden will be our next UN Secretary General.
— Louise Blais (@blais_louise) January 19, 2023
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
As a miner for 40 years I have worked in various mines around the world. Gold, platinum, copper, coal, lead, zinc, oil and salt. I’m going to tell you something, and here it is. We will destroy the earth in the name of “Green Energy” Follow along and I will explain.
Ban All The Things
@RealAndyLeeShow – This “bombshell” study on the possible harms of gas stoves was funded by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) – a WEF partner that makes money off of consulting on low-carbon solutions and pushing green energy transitions.
Y2Kyoto: Net Zeroed
Bloomberg: Vanguard Quits Net-Zero Group, Marking Biggest Defection Yet
Vanguard Group Inc. is walking out of the world’s largest climate-finance alliance, marking the coalition’s biggest defection to date as US Republicans step up their threats against firms deemed hostile toward the fossil-fuel industry.
Vanguard’s decision followed a “considerable period of review,” according to a company statement Wednesday. Withdrawing from the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, which is a sub-unit of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, “will help provide the clarity our investors desire” about everything from the role of index funds, to financial risks in the context of climate change, the firm said.
Creepy Mark Carney, chief architect of GFANZ “said earlier this year the alliance has enjoyed considerable growth…”
Related, via Steve Milloy – Britain approves first new coal mine — to operate for 50 years. “The mine seeks to be net zero in its operations.”🙄 So 50 years of lying coming up.
The Liberal/Media Industrial Complex
In typical fashion, the liberals have been cynical and dishonest about this. but the same media that's now acting so outraged ignored the story at first, and acted as enablers. reporting on it stsrted only when social media blew up so completely that they had no other option.
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) October 18, 2022
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
They’re not wrong. A majority of Americans say the U.S. government is corrupt and almost a third say it may soon be necessary to take up arms against it, according to a new poll from the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.
It’s So Cute
When Jagmeet pretends to be mad at the liberals.
The cost of living is skyrocketing
Canadian families are struggling to put food on the table and can barely afford the gas it takes to get to work
This Liberal government has abandoned them — people are being left to make ends meet on their own https://t.co/QUSw1GXTvF
— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) July 20, 2022
“Just kidding Justin”. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Banging your head against the wall
Since the last two centrist/Red Tory federal leaders got nowhere electorally, one could reasonably expect that a different approach might be warranted. But not according to those whom Margaret Thatcher famously referred to as “the wets”. Mimic the Liberals, they say, or else…
“There will not be a new political party or anything until the next election because this leader has to be given a shot, right? But if we fail for the fourth time in a row, if we lose the next election, then, you know, all the cards are off the table,” predicted Peterson.
The only way to win, he argued, is to find a way to appeal to “moderate, pragmatic, middle-of-the-road Canadians” who do not see themselves in the other more progressive parties.”
Y2Kyoto: Thou Shalt Not Dissent
HSBC executive Stuart Kirk gave a presentation at an investor conference last week, taking banking regulators to task for overbaking the financial risk of climate change. What was he thinking? As punishment for his heresy, the British bank has sent him to re-education camp.