With Centuries-Old Ohio Paper Mill Set To Close, Locals Hope For A Miracle

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Judy Sowers is the matriarch of a family that has seen generations work at “the Mead,” which is what the paper mill in Chillicothe is known as by many locals.

On May 8, Sowers gathered around a kitchen table with two of her daughters, her brother, and her son-in-law in a house across the street from the mill and its red-and-white striped tower.

Their conversation was on a topic that is on the minds of residents, business owners, and local officials in this community of 21,895 in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio.

Pixelle Specialty Solutions—and its parent, private equity firm H.I.G. Capital—announced on April 15 that it would be shutting down its paper mill in Chillicothe.

The company said the closure was necessary as part of its effort to “align its operation footprint with long-term business objectives.”

Jobs are on the line for around 830 workers. The company originally intended to shut down the mill in phases over the weeks that followed the announcement.

The decision was delayed after freshman Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) secured a commitment from H.I.G. Capital, which bought the mill in 2022, to pause the facility’s closure until the end of the year.

Chillicothe is known as the “Paper City.” The mill was opened in 1812.

Sowers’s grandparents worked at the Mead. So did John Angus Sr., Sowers’s father. Several other family members have spent their careers at the mill.

“If you didn’t work there, you had family work there, or you knew someone who worked there. Kids grow up hearing stories from generations of family members about working at the mill,” Sowers, 74, said.

John Angus Jr., Sowers’s brother, recalled his 42-year career that stretched from his early 20s to retirement age.

“It took me five years to get on there after I graduated from high school. At the time, it was a job many people wanted to have if they wanted to stay here,” John Angus Jr. told The Epoch Times.

“I worked shift work for almost 43 years, so I missed a lot of stuff with the family, but it put bread and butter on the table. It would be a shame to see it close.”

Chillicothe became the first capital of the Northwest Territory in 1800 and Ohio’s first capital in 1803.

Chillicothe’s downtown has been revitalized over the past decade and serves as the centerpiece of the city, featuring an ambience reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Downtown Chillicothe, Ohio, on May 8, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Restaurants, antique shops, coffeehouses, taverns, and Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop occupy historic buildings reflecting an architecture from a bygone era.

With its downtown and attractions such as the amphitheater, where an outdoor drama about Shawnee Indian Chief Tecumseh still plays every summer, Chillicothe draws outside visitors.

Most of the businesses rely on local traffic, though, provided by major employers such as Adena Regional Medical Center, two state prisons, a VA Medical Center, a Kenworth semi-truck manufacturing plant, and the mill.

Trent Fannin and his wife opened Rost Coffee in downtown Chillicothe in 2016. The shop buzzes with traffic from mill workers, employees from downtown businesses, and high school and college students.

“Downtown Chillicothe has a lively pulse that downtowns in most towns across southern Ohio don’t have. It’s a destination, and hopefully, we don’t find out the impact of losing the mill. We’re concerned, but hopeful,” Fannin said.

Residents and local and state legislators are hopeful that Pixelle finds a way to keep the mill open long term or sell it to a company committed to making a long-term commitment to Chillicothe.

It was purchased by Col. Daniel Mead of Dayton, around 75 miles northwest of Chillicothe, in 1890. The Mead was one of the largest paper manufacturers in the country for more than 100 years.

In 2002, the Mead merged with Westvaco in a $3 billion stock transaction.

The headquarters of MeadWestvaco was relocated from Dayton to Connecticut, and then to Richmond, Virginia.

After learning about the plan to shutter the mill, Moreno wrote a letter to H.I.G. CEO Sami Mnaymneh, charging the executive with “selfish business decisions and corporate greed.”

“H.I.G. Capital is an investment firm with $69 billion of equity capital under management, riddled with Wall Street executives, including Mr. Mnaymneh, a billionaire five times over and one of the wealthiest people in the world,” Moreno wrote.

The firm’s business model is “to suck the proverbial blood out of companies it acquires until the companies declare bankruptcy, leaving the employees and communities it decimates behind,” Moreno said, pointing to the outcomes of some of the other transactions the private equity firm has made.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 21:45

What Happened To Harvard?

Authored by Robert Curry via RealClearEducation,

Harvard has rejected common sense.

When Lord Acton, the great nineteenth-century historian and champion of liberty, visited Harvard in 1853, he found that the college’s philosophy was common sense realism. Acton wrote that by “the third year, Reid becomes a textbook.” The Reid in question was Thomas Reid, author of An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764). The common sense realist philosophers—especially Reid, Adam Smith, and Francis Hutcheson—fundamentally shaped the thinking of America’s Founders and provided the foundation for teaching and learning in American colleges until Acton’s visit and beyond.

Harvard was not alone in its dedication to Reid and common sense realism. In fact, as Arthur Herman notes, common sense realism was “virtually the official creed of the American Republic.” Allen Guelzo puts it this way:

“Before the Civil War, every major [American] collegiate intellectual was a disciple of Scottish common sense realism.”

In his book Scottish Philosophy in America, James Foster states that it provided the “philosophical orientation… at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, as well as newly founded colleges stretching from Rhode Island to Texas.”

By the time of Acton’s visit to Harvard, although it was then—and is still today—referred to as Scottish, America had become the real home of common sense realism and the center of its continued development. James McCosh, president of Princeton from 1868 to 1888, is a prime example of this trend. McCosh published prolifically, was admired for his clear and readable style, and was one of many American thinkers who kept common sense realism strong in the nineteenth century.

The core idea of common sense realism is that self-evident truths exist and can be known through common sense; common sense enables us to recognize what is self-evidently true. Read the Founders, and you will find them constantly referring to self-evident truths. They drew their understanding of self-evidence from Reid. Because the Founders’ thinking relied on Reid’s conception of self-evident truth, Harvard, Princeton, and other institutions at the time aimed to teach American college students how to think like Americans.

We have heard and read these words— “We hold these Truths to be self-evident…”—all our lives. To understand the Founders’ conception of self-evident truth is to approach the very heart of the American founding. Jefferson and the other Founders held that “all men are created equal” is self-evidently true. According to Lincoln, it is “an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times.” For more than a hundred years, American colleges dedicated themselves to teaching the philosophy that the Founders and Lincoln relied on in making that declaration.

Things have changed at Harvard and virtually every other American university. As in the early days of the Republic, American universities today share a philosophical orientation.

Postmodernism rejects truth and common sense. This explains how a Supreme Court Justice can declare that she does not know what a woman is; Justice Jackson received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and her law degree from Harvard Law School. But postmodern academics are often not content simply to teach their students to reject truth and common sense—the foundation of the Founders’ idea of America. They also frequently indoctrinate students in Progressivism, the systematic rejection of the Founders’ idea of America itself. This is the explanation for all those fabulously privileged young Americans demonstrating their violent rejection of the American way of life by rioting in the streets and chanting anti-American slogans. They could not make their anti-Americanism any clearer—and, for the most part, they were taught this anti-Americanism in American schools and universities.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 20:55

DHS Removes Sanctuary City List After Criticism From Sheriffs

Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on June 1 removed a previously published list of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States, which were accused of failing to comply with federal immigration law.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks in Washington in a file photograph. Manuel Balce Ceneta/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

The move comes following criticism from a national sheriffs’ group that has mostly been supportive of Trump’s tough-on-crime policy approach.

In a statement, National Sheriffs’ Association President Sheriff Kieran Donahue said, “This list was created without any input, criteria of compliance, or a mechanism for how to object to the designation. Sheriffs nationwide have no way to know what they must do or not do to avoid this arbitrary label.”

On May 29, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, acting under the direction of President Donald Trump, published a list encompassing jurisdictions across 35 states—including city, county, and state government—that Noem said were “endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.”

Following the criticism, the page where the list had been published was taken offline.

According to Donahue, DHS and other officials had not provided sufficient details on the methodology and criteria used to determine which jurisdictions qualified as sanctuaries.

The publication of the list “has not only violated the core principles of trust, cooperation, and partnership with fellow law enforcement, but it also has the potential to strain the relationship between Sheriffs and the White House administration,” the statement said.

During meetings between the group and administration officials, “no political appointee for the administration could explain who compiled, proofed, and verified the list before publication,” Donahue said.

The list came in response to an April 28 executive order signed by Trump requesting that the DHS produce “a list of States and local jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of Federal immigration laws.” Jurisdictions identified as sanctuaries could be eligible to lose federal funding.

In some cases, entire states were marked sanctuaries, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.

Some of the jurisdictions labeled sanctuaries fell in traditionally Republican states.

These include Anchorage, Alaska; Atlanta and surrounding counties; Boise, Idaho; Monroe County, Indiana; Douglas County and Lawrence, Kansas; Louisville, Kentucky, and four counties in the state; New Orleans; 10 counties in Nebraska; five counties in North Carolina; seven counties in North Dakota; and Nashville and one county in Tennessee.

Other states identified as having at least one county or city in violation of federal law include Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Trump’s earlier executive order called for department chiefs and other relevant officials to “identify appropriate federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, including grants and contracts, for suspension or termination, as appropriate.”

It also called on the attorney general and DHS secretary to “pursue all necessary legal remedies and enforcement measures to end these violations and bring such jurisdictions into compliance with the laws of the United States.”

The push to strip these jurisdictions of federal funds aligns with a long-held Republican objective to tighten border security and enforce immigration law.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 20:30

Rep. Jasmine Crockett Says Democrats Will Subpoena Musk If They Retake House

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

A House Democratic lawmaker said that if Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives, they will likely issue a subpoena to former Trump administration special government employee and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Musk, who departed the administration last week in accordance with the expiration of his special government employee status, appeared alongside President Donald Trump in a news conference in the Oval Office on May 30. The tech billionaire played a key role in the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose mission is to root out fraud and cut wasteful government spending. So far, it reports it has helped save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, but aims to raise that to more than $1 trillion.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) told MSNBC on Sunday that Democrats had “tried to subpoena Elon Musk before” but it was blocked by Republicans, who control the House and its committees.

“I think that unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait until the Democrats are in the majority—which will hopefully be in the midterms—and then we can absolutely bring Elon Musk in,” Crockett said.

Democrats, if they control the lower chamber, “can have him under oath, and we can have him tell us about everything that he did,” she added.

As he departed his Trump administration advisory position last week, Musk had spent 130 days as a special government employee. During his press conference with the president, both Trump and Musk indicated they were on good terms and that DOGE’s work would continue.

Earlier this year, Democrats had signaled on multiple occasions they weren’t pleased with government cuts that were requested by Musk, DOGE, and the White House since Trump took office in January.

In April, top Democrats on the Senate and House appropriations committees criticized Musk and Trump for blocking what they said was $430 billion in congressionally appropriated funding.

“Instead of investing in the American people, President Trump is ignoring our laws and ripping resources away,” said the Democrats in a statement. They said the funding that was cut or frozen by the Trump administration had been approved by Congress.

Since taking office in January, Trump has said that he wants to reduce overspending in the federal government and terminate various programs that don’t align with American priorities.

In a statement issued by the White House, Trump said at the time that DOGE is designed to bring “accountability and transparency to federal spending, ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and effectively,” which he said, “has already saved taxpayers billions of dollars.”

After DOGE was established via an executive order in January, its website has reported that more than $175 billion in contracts, grants, and leases have been cut so far. That amounts to more than $1,080 per taxpayer, according to the site.

When he was working in the government, Musk framed his work overhauling the federal government in existential terms.

“If it’s not possible now, it will never be possible. This is our shot,” he told reporters in the Oval Office in February. “This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have. If we don’t take advantage of this best hand of cards, it’s never going to happen.”

In a CBS News interview published Sunday, Musk suggested that he wanted to slash funding to federal agencies because he views them as inefficient and wasteful, likening the federal government to an oversized Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), an area of government infamous for its inefficiency.

“But my frank opinion of the government is that, like, the government is just, like, the DMV that got big, okay? So, when you say it like, ‘Let’s have the government do something,’ you should think, ‘Do you want the DMV to do it?’” he asked.

The Epoch Times contacted the White House and Musk’s company, X, for comment on Sunday.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 20:05

Schools In China Reportedly Isolate Students As COVID Cases Surge

Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Doctors and residents across China continue to report more infections and deaths as the latest wave of COVID-19 continues, portraying a far more severe situation than the Chinese regime is letting on.

Health workers take swab samples from a students to be tested for COVID-19 in Beijing on June 7, 2022. Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images

Schools in various provinces are reportedly suspending classes and placing students in quarantine, leading to growing concerns among the public of a return of lockdowns, according to information provided to the Chinese language version of The Epoch Times and on social media.

A “home quarantine notice”—issued by a primary school in Guangzhou and circulated by Chinese netizens on China’s TikTok equivalent, Douyin, before it was posted to social media platform X on May 26 before CCP censors could delete it—has attracted widespread attention.

The notice said that a third grade student was ordered to undergo quarantine for seven days after being diagnosed with COVID-19. After the quarantine period, health certificates from a clinic and community health service agency were required for the student to return to school.

Schools in Shaanxi and Jiangsu also suspended classes after some students exhibited fevers, which were suspected to be COVID-19 infections.

The Chinese communist regime’s official data show that the COVID-19 infection rate doubled in April, with 168,507 cases, including 340 severe cases and nine deaths. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) said that infection rates in China’s southern provinces were higher than those in the north.

Chinese state media Xinhua reported on May 28 that, according to health officials, the upward trend of COVID-19 infections has slowed, and in most provinces the epidemic has reached a peak or is on a downward trend.

However, residents across the country told The Epoch Times that the situation is far worse and that official data continue to not match their lived experience.

Because of the CCP’s history of covering up information and publishing unreliable data, including the underreporting of COVID-19 infections and related deaths since early 2020, accounts from local medical doctors and residents can offer valuable information for understanding the situation on the ground in the totalitarian country.

Kang Hong, a doctor at a clinic in Guangzhou city in China’s south who used a pseudonym for safety concerns, told The Epoch Times on May 29 that most of those infected with COVID-19 in this wave have been adults, although it has also affected children.

“Their symptoms are far more severe than the common cold,” including the white-lung symptom often seen in COVID-19 patients, he said.

Kang said that most patients came to the clinic for cold symptoms and fevers. They are not being tested for COVID-19 “because hospitals in China had not conducted large-scale nucleic acid testing for a long time because it was worried about causing social panic,” he said.

Many patients are also unwilling to take a COVID-19 test, Kang said, “because they know they are infected with the COVID-19 [based on their symptoms] and were unwilling to spend more than 100 yuan [about $13.90] for testing.”

He said that a doctor in a tertiary hospital in Guangzhou, where his daughter works, has died from COVID-19 in recent days. “It’s a senior doctor who only got tested when his symptoms became serious, and the result was COVID-19,” Kang said.

Although COVID-19 infections have increased, the local health bureau has told doctors that they do not need to report confirmed cases, he said.

Mr. Li, a resident of Guangzhou city who gave only his last name out of safety concerns, told The Epoch Times that there are many people around him who have had cold-like symptoms recently, including his whole family. Li said these people were diagnosed with COVID-19 several times before, and they believe that their symptoms are another round of COVID-19.

Mr. Guo, a resident in the adjacent Shenzhen city, told The Epoch Times that during the May Day holiday (May 1 to May 4), many people traveled and started to show cold symptoms that were likely those of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, residents in northern China also reported a spike in COVID-19 infections.

Liu Kun, owner of a private clinic in Hohhot city in Inner Mongolia who gave a pseudonym for safety concerns, told The Epoch Times on May 30 that COVID-19 infections are ongoing, “with many experiencing symptoms of coughing, sputum, vomiting, and diarrhea.”

He said there are many patients whose “symptoms last for a long time—some even for months.” He predicted that based on the characteristics of this infectious disease, “there may be an explosive growth in infections in June and July.”

People wearing masks wait at an outpatient area of the respiratory department of a hospital in Beijing on Jan. 8, 2025. Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images

Mr. Xu, a resident in Benxi city in Liaoning Province who gave only his surname out of safety concerns, told The Epoch Times that some of his friends and relatives have recently caught colds.

“We have already realized that it may be COVID-19 caused by a mutated virus,“ he said. ”The symptoms have been dragging on and not getting better. It cannot be cured by medicine at all.”

Xu said there have been sudden deaths, especially concentrated in people in their 40s and 50s.

The infections have also been rapidly spreading in Shanxi Province, Mr. Luo, a resident of Changzhi city who gave only his surname, told The Epoch Times. “My family members—including my wife, daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter—have all been infected,” he said.

Fear of Zero-COVID Restrictions

The school suspensions and quarantines have heightened public concern that the regime’s draconian zero-COVID restrictions employed from 2020 to the end of 2022—during which communities were locked down, mass testing was mandatory, travel was restricted, and residents were forcefully sent to quarantine centers—could make a comeback.

Dr. Jonathan Liu, director of Liu’s Wisdom Healing Centre and a professor at Canada Public College, told The Epoch Times on May 30 that although mainland China is experiencing another wave of COVID-19 infections, the official data haven’t indicated a serious spread that requires the lockdown of cities.

“Following the continuing strategy of concealment, the Chinese regime does not want to shut down the cities or implement the zero-COVID policy at the moment because that will seriously affect its economic development. Now, stimulating economic development is the regime’s top priority,” Liu said.

Sean Lin, assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Feitian College and a former U.S. army microbiologist, shared a similar assessment.

“The authorities won’t immediately adopt the lockdown measure because they also know that if they implement the strict zero-COVID policy, it will cause a huge backlash from the public,” Lin told The Epoch Times on May 30.

“So the government is now building mobile cabin hospitals or temporary isolation facilities in various regions to quietly take people away. There may not be major changes in policy announced to the public.”

The Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times reported earlier this year that, according to insiders in some parts of China, local governments were building large-scale mobile cabin hospitals to quarantine patients with respiratory infections, including COVID-19, such as in Urumqi in the Xinjiang region and in several provinces.

Employees work at a makeshift hospital that will be used for COVID-19 patients in Guangzhou, in China's eastern Guangdong Province, on April 11, 2022. AFP via Getty Images

Lin said that some places may have adopted measures to let people stay at home for quarantine, “but it will not turn into a large-scale policy unless the regime is unstable and the authorities have to take such measures.”

The China CDC has yet to release its COVID-19 data for May, but it did update its weekly influenza report, in which the number of infections had increased significantly in the week.

According to the weekly influenza report for epidemiological week 21 (May 19 to May 25), released on May 29, a total of eight influenza-like outbreaks have been reported nationwide. In comparison, only one influenza-like outbreak was reported nationwide in week 20, and no influenza-like outbreaks were reported in week 19.

Lin said that the authorities continue to cover up real COVID-19 data in China.

“The people do not know the real situation and the severity of the wave of outbreak, especially the severity rate and mortality rate. The authorities don’t tell the people,” he said.

Lin said that China’s situation is more complicated and severe, because “it involves multiple respiratory pathogens co-circulating and co-infections, with three or four respiratory pathogens infecting at the same time, not just this NB.1.8.1 strain.”

“But the officials have not revealed the real situation, so I think it is difficult for the international community to understand,” he said.

NB.1.8.1

Chinese health authorities announced on May 23 that Omicron variant NB.1.8.1 is currently the primary variant spreading across China, as detection of the variant increased in the international community.

NB.1.8.1 is a sixth-generation sub-branch of the XDV variant.

“The current data does not show that the NB1.8.1 variant has a significant breakthrough in pathogenicity, but it has an almost 1.8-fold improvement in immune escape capability. If it replaces the previous dominant variant that caused COVID-19, it’s because its transmission ability is enhanced,” Lin told The Epoch Times.

He pointed out that new COVID-19 variants have frequently emerged in the past three years.

“Often new strains quickly replace old ones to be the dominant one,“ Lin said. ”This has become routine.”

A person receives a COVID-19 vaccine at Los Angeles International Airport on Dec. 22, 2021. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified NB1.8.1 as a “variant under monitoring,” which means that it’s on “a watchlist,” Lin said.

“At present, the international community does not regard this variant as worthy of special attention,” he said.

As the wave of infections in China continues, neighboring Asian countries and the United States have reported COVID-19 cases caused by NB1.8.1, including in international travelers at airports.

However, Lin said there is no sign of a ban of travelers or flights from China by other countries “because the WHO does not have accurate data from China.”

“According to the current monitoring of countries around the world, there has not been a rapid, large-scale increase in infections like in the one in 2020,” he said.

Lin said that because the Chinese regime does not reveal true data, “it’s not possible to track virus spreading routes.”

“This also brings about a greater danger,” he said. “China often covers up many things until they can no longer be covered up. When they come out, the situation is already quite serious and may be out of control. This is actually the biggest concern.”

Luo Ya, Fang Xiao, and Xiong Bin contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 19:40

Leaked Test Confirms Boxer Who Won Gold Medal Competing Against Women At Paris Olympics, Is Indeed A Man

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

The results of a chromosome test on Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif at the World Boxing Championships in March 2023 confirm the Algerian boxer is, as many have suspected, a biological male.

In 2023, Khelif was disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for “failing gender eligibility tests.”

The leaked medical report, first published by 3 Wire Sports on Sunday, showed Khelif’s DNA showed “markers with male karyotypes.”

A separate medical report in June 2023 found that Khelif was born with a deficiency in his sexual organs known as “5-alpha reductase type-2,” showing XY chromosomes, internal testes and a “micropenis.”

The results of a hormone test showed that Khelif had a “male-type testosterone level of 14.7.”  In females, testosterone does not exceed the level of 3.

According to the National Library of Medicine, many people with 5-alpha reductase are “assigned female at birth,” but are in fact, “genetically male.”

Despite this, Khelif was deemed eligible to compete at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, where he “won” the women’s boxing gold medal representing Algeria.

World Boxing on Friday declared that in the future, Khelif will need to undergo sex screening to be eligible for any further boxing matches against women.

Khelief had previously expressed interest in competing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

World Boxing, which is set to run testing for the Los Angeles Games, requires any person over 18 required to undergo PCR testing to determine their sex. The tests will reportedly be “conducted by nasal/mouth swab, saliva or blood.”

In a letter to the Algerian Boxing Federation, World Boxing stated that Khelif will not be able “to compete in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup or any World Boxing event” until he undergoes the sex testing.

“Imane Khelif may not participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup, 5-10 June 2025 and any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes genetic sex screening in accordance with World Boxing’s rules and testing procedures,” the letter read.

“To all the people that insisted Imane Khelif was a woman because his passport said so, you were wrong. We were right. Sincerely, People with functioning eyes and a shred of honesty,” wrote women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines on X.

Author JK Rowling posted on X that Khelif’s ban from boxing is “a win for women because they won’t be battered to death in the ring by men.”

“I never said and never believed Khelif was trans. I knew* he was a man. The gender activists who created a political climate in which sex testing was seen as ‘bigoted’ are as culpable as the IOC for the travesty that ensued. *via a highly credible source who saw his test results,” Rowling wrote.

Broadcaster Piers Morgan also weighed in on X: “The biology-denying woke brigade abused and shamed me for saying it was outrageous and dangerous for Khelif to be beating up women at the Olympics. I’m ready for their apology, but won’t hold my breath.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 19:15

Alberta Wildfires Disrupt 7% Of Canada's Oil Production

Wildfires in Alberta, Canada — the country’s energy hub — have shuttered 344k barrels per day of oil sands production, or about 7% of national output. 

Cenovus Energy, MEG Energy, and Canadian Natural Resources have halted output because of a 61,500-hectare blaze near the Saskatchewan border. 

One of the 26 active wildfires is about 6 miles from 470k barrels bpd of oil sands production. 

What's critical to know:

• Affected companies include Cenovus Energy, MEG Energy, and Canadian Natural Resources.

• Roughly 470k bpd of production is within 6 miles of active fires.

• Cenovus halted its Christina Lake site (238k bpd) last Thursday, expecting to restart soon

• MEG Energy delayed restarting part of its 70k bpd site due to power outages.

• Canadian Natural shut 36k bpd at its Jackfish 1 site after evacuations.

Important context: Canada produces 4.9 million bpd. It's the largest foreign oil supplier to the U.S., accounting for approximately 60% of total crude imports, with the vast majority of that coming from Alberta's oil sands.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on Monday that some 400,000 hectares have burned across the province, up from about 9,000 as of last week. 

Any major disruption to Alberta's oil production will tighten North American supply, push prices higher, and may force U.S. refiners to source costlier supplies elsewhere. It's a risk worth monitoring—something Goldman analyst Adam Wijaya flagged late last week.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 18:50

Trans-Identifying Athlete Wins 2 Girls' Track Events In California

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

A transgender-identifying athlete won two girls’ events at the California high school championship on May 31, despite President Donald Trump threatening to rescind federal funding over the state’s failure to abide by his order banning male athletes from competing in girls’ sports.

A.B. Hernandez, a male high school student in Southern California who identifies as transgender, won the high jump and triple jump and placed second in the long jump at the California high school track and field championship, competing in the girls’ division.

The event took place after the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), which governs the state’s high school sports, changed its rules on May 28. Under the new rule, a “biological female student-athlete” who would have earned a particular placement in track events would still receive the placement and medal she qualified for.

Following the rule changes, Hernandez shared first place in the high jump with co-winners Jillene Wetteland and Lelani Laruelle, and in the triple jump with Kira Gant Hatcher, who trailed by just more than a half-meter.

“The CIF values all of our student-athletes and we will continue to uphold our mission of providing students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete while complying with California law and Education Code,” the organization said in a May 28 statement.

The statement came after Trump warned California on May 27 that “large scale” federal funding would be withheld, “maybe permanently,” if the state does not comply with his Feb. 5 executive order that banned male students who identify as female from competing in girls’ sports.

In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom for allowing a male athlete to compete against female athletes at an event.

He stated that the male athlete “won everything” and advanced to the state finals. Trump did not name the athlete, but it was widely presumed to be Hernandez.

“As a Male, he was a less than average competitor. As a Female, this transitioned person is practically unbeatable,” Trump stated. “THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has also launched a civil rights investigation into California’s law that has allowed males to compete in girls’ sports.

The DOJ announced on May 28 that its investigation aims to determine whether California, along with its senior legal, educational, and athletic organizations, was “engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on sex.”

At the heart of the probe is AB 1266, a 2014 California law that permits students to participate in school sports in accordance with their gender identity and not their sex.

The DOJ contends this policy may unlawfully allow males to displace females from team rosters, scholarships, and podium finishes—outcomes that DOJ officials argue run afoul of Title IX, the landmark federal civil rights law.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 15:05

Never Forget Their Excuses For Lockdowns

Authored by John Tamny via The Brownstone Institute,

The worst arguments against the lockdowns inspired by the coronavirus were medical and statistical.

To see why, it’s worth remembering that as humans we’ve evolved to protect ourselves from death and disease.

The taking of freedom to protect us is always and everywhere excess. 

The above statement of the obvious requires mention as free thinkers and free-thinking organizations continue to either ignore how they sat out the lockdowns, or worse, excuse their inaction amid a massive bludgeoning of freedom back in 2020.

Let’s start with those trying to excuse their inaction.

The not-infrequently offered excuse is that since most organizations and individuals in the libertarian space either weren’t staffed by medical doctors or weren’t medical doctors themselves, how could they have made credible cases against the lockdowns? Instead, and rather than take a stand, they adopted “wait and see” approaches so that medical verdicts could be rendered. About those verdicts, some libertarian types are now saying that those who were publicly against the lockdowns back in 2020 were correct, but they made their cases obnoxiously and blindly given their lack of medical knowledge. The only response to this kind of dissembling is nonsense, utter nonsense. See this write-up’s introductory paragraph to see why.

Just as the worst arguments against the lockdowns were medical and statistical, the medical and statistical arguments made in favor of lockdowns were, if possible, even worse. As stated above, no one requires force to avoid sickness or death. About this point, more on it in a bit.

For now, it should just be said that even if the medical consensus had been correct, that millions and millions of Americans would die absent being forced out of work and into their homes, then any lockdown orders foisted on us by nail-biting politicians would have read as tame relative to the precautions taken by free people. The more threatening anything is, the more superfluous is any kind of policy reaction to the threat.

The simple, overwhelming truth is that people should never have their individual freedom to protect themselves taken from them, period. End of story.

Applying the previous assertion to organizations like Cato, Students for Liberty, and others that seemingly took a “wait and see” approach to the lockdowns, their stances were wrongheaded. Lest they or readers forget, the organizations mentioned were founded on the notion of individual freedom as the foremost ideal. In which case a “wait and see what the science or medical establishment says” is dangerously wrong.

It is simply because, as Brownstone Institute founder Jeffrey Tucker has pointed out, politicians at the local, state, and national levels did not take a “wait and see” approach. That they didn’t calls into serious question organizations and individuals sitting on their hands. How could they? Since we know government will never wait and see on anything, what an odd excuse or piece of internal reasoning to explain away a lack of action. It implies that freedom should always be the loser in times of uncertainty, or when politicians are feeling particularly hysterical. 

At which point it should be said that freedom is easily the best way to turn the unknowns and uncertainty into true knowledge. So, while libertarian groups and individuals who sat out the lockdowns should reflexively defend freedom every time government is in the process of taking it, it’s useful to add that free people crucially produce information.

Which brings us back to the earlier assertion in this write-up that people don’t need to be forced to avoid sickness or death. Some no doubt responded as they read the latter that some people would in fact have lived, worked, and run their businesses without regard to a spreading virus. To which the answer here can only be precisely.

Precisely because free people will respond in all manner of ways (including disdain) to fears driven by unknowns, we need them to be free. Without millions of different responses, or realistically hundreds of millions of different responses in the US, people (including “experts”) will be blinded to the truth about whatever it is that threatens us, or not. Since free people once again produce information, the only answer to uncertainty about what we don’t know is freedom. 

It’s just something to keep in mind in the here and now. Four years ago this month, over 40 million Americans lost their jobs, and hundreds of millions around the world found themselves hurtling toward starvation amid a global panic among politicians. Shamefully and tragically, some of the foremost organizations and individuals devoted to liberty sat out the tragedy and seemingly defend their inaction to this day by hiding behind medicine, science, and a lack of information. The excuses and internal justifications are wholly insufficient. Freedom is its own always and everywhere virtue, period.

Republished from RealClearMarkets

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 14:25

Trump-Endorsed Nationalist Narrowly Wins Polish Presidential Election

In Poland's extraordinarily tight and closely-watched presidential run-off election, a staunch nationalist conservative on Sunday defeated a pro-EU liberal in an outcome that promises economic and geopolitical implications. With 100% of the precincts reporting, conservative historian Karol Nawrocki had 50.9% of the votes, compared to 49.1% for leftist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who prematurely declared victory on Sunday evening after the first exit polls showed him at 50.3%. 

Among the key issues in the election were immigration, abortion, support for Ukraine, and Polish integration with the rest of Europe. When he takes office on August 6, Nawrocki -- a former boxer who leads the Institute for National Remembrance -- will succeed term-limited President Andrzej Duda. Like Nawrocki, Duda is associated with the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Karol Nawrocki was endorsed by President Trump, who hosted him at the White House in May

Before the final tally, Nawrocki was optimistic, saying “I believe we will all wake up tomorrow morning with President Nawrocki putting the broken Poland back together.” He also quoted the Bible, saying God would "heal the land" of good people who “turn away from wicked ways."

Voicing Poland-first sentiments, Nawrocki previously said:

"We cannot afford actions that harm our economy, agriculture, people’s wallets or the functioning of our social welfare systems. All decisions regarding the future of our good economic and political cooperation, including with Ukraine, will be based solely on the interests of Poland and Poles."

He has also warned against Ukrainian accession to NATO anytime soon, saying "It would be dangerous for Ukraine to be allowed into NATO as it would mean that the whole of the alliance would straight away be in a war with Russia.” He also said “The discussion about Ukraine’s entry to NATO is pointless...[Given its corruption], the Ukrainian state is not ready for many processes.” However, he's also said, "we will continue, when I become president, to support Ukraine in the face of the Russian Federation’s threat, which is also hostile to us. That is self-evident." 

He's also hammered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: 

“The Ukrainian president behaves in an indecent manner toward his allies, including Poland. He claimed that Ukraine was left alone at the start of the war, which shows he failed to recognise the significant efforts of the Polish people and the Polish president”

President Trump endorsed Nawrocki, welcoming him to the White House in May and dispatching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to a May 27 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting in Warsaw where she implored Poles to put Nawrocki in office: "I just had the opportunity to meet with Karol and listen -- he needs to be the next president of Poland. Do you understand me?” Noem also trashed Trzaskowski as “an absolute train wreck of a leader.” 

Heading into the runoff, the Polish stock market had rocketed ahead by 27% over the year to date, and 61% in dollar terms since the last parliamentary election, while government bonds returned 28%. Many observers expected a Nawrocki win to be a negative for the country's markets. "It's possible that the more NATO-skeptic Nawrocki may position Poland in a less favorable position when the time comes to rebuild Ukraine - a theme that has attracted investors to the Warsaw bourse of late," noted Dow Jones' Jamie Chisholm last week. Polish equities are trading at an average 9.7 PE ratio relative to estimated earnings for the coming 12 months, compared to 14.7 for the Euro STOXX 50. 

Victorious nationalist presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki speaks to supporters after the polls closed on Sunday (AP Photo - Czarek Sokolowski)

Political power in Poland is concentrated in the parliament and the prime minister, but, critically, presidents have the power to veto legislation and nominate the leader of the central bank. Nawrocki campaigned on the need for a check on what he called Tusk's political "monopoly" over national policy. Duda has thwarted Tusk's effort to fulfill campaign promises to loosen abortion restrictions and allow civil partnerships for homosexual couples. 

As the race headed down the home stretch, several members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen alleging possible foreign interference in the election, in the form of illegal spending on ads by an Austrian company with ties to the US Democratic Party, and by an NGO that's received money from George Soros-funded organizations. The letter also demanded answers about liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government’s "monthslong refusal to release tens of millions of dollars in public campaign funding that PiS is legally entitled to receive."

Turnout Polish presidents are elected to five-year terms, and they can only be re-elected once. The next major milestone in the country will come with 2027's parliamentary elections. Nawrocki's victory comes amid a string of elections across Europe pitting EU- and NATO-catering leftists against conservative nationalists. In mid-May, nationalist Romanian presidential candidate George Simion lost to centrist Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, following an election saga that saw the leading nationalist candidate banned from running and arrested. Simion endorsed Poland's Nawrocki, as did nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Upcoming contests of note include Norway's parliamentary elections on Sept. 8, Italy's regional elections on Sept. 21-22, and Moldova's parliamentary races on Sept. 28.   

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 14:11

American Retail Giants Demand Chinese Suppliers Cover Up To 66% Of US Import Tariffs

Last week we showed that contrary to conventional wisdom, inflation - so widely and erroneously expected to soar after Trump's tariffs - had not only continued to decline, but the Fed's most closely watched metric, supercore PCE, just posted its biggest monthly drop since the covid crash.

And it's about to get even worse for the inflation fanatics: according to the South China Morning Post, American retail giants are now demanding that their Chinese suppliers shoulder half to 66% of the cost of US import duties, as the ongoing US-China trade war ramps up pressure on businesses’ bottom lines.

Amid widespread confusion over who will shoulder the burden of import tariffs, US retailers have been quietly locked in talks with Chinese producers for weeks over how to handle the additional costs caused by the trade war, with the firms facing intense political pressure at home to “eat the tariffs” and keep prices stable.

While Walmart and several other major US retail groups previously agreed to bear the full cost of the tariffs when they asked their Chinese suppliers to resume shipments in late April, global brands including several US retail giants are now pushing suppliers in both China and parts of Southeast Asia to absorb a large chunk of the cost of the levies, according to sources from suppliers serving companies including Walmart, Target, Nike, Puma and Adidas.

“Most of our customers, the garment vendors exporting to major retailers and brands, are being asked to cover 50 to 66 per cent of the current tariffs,” said an executive at a fashion supplier, which produces and sources from China and Southeast Asia and then sells across the United States and Europe.

While negotiations remain fluid, the details of how the tariff costs will be divided have not yet been finalized, the SCMP sources stressed, as both sides remain in constant contact as they try to navigate a “tough time” for the industry.

But many Chinese suppliers said they would struggle to bear the additional costs being demanded of them – especially if the current 90-day truce in the US-China trade war expires without Beijing and Washington reaching a deal.

In mid-May, Beijing and Washington agreed to drastically scale back tariffs on each other’s products for 90 days, with the US reducing its additional duties on Chinese goods from 145 per cent to 30 per cent and China slashing its levies on US products from 125% to 10%. But absent a deal, the tariffs will skyrocket back to three-digit levels in August. Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted on Thursday that talks between Beijing and Washington were currently “a bit stalled”.

A source with a stationery maker in eastern China’s Zhejiang province told the Post that the company had been in discussions with Walmart and other US retailers over “a backup plan” for what may happen after the tariff truce ends in August.

Walmart agreed to cover the full cost of any tariffs until August in its previous deals with the stationery maker, but the US retailer has yet to place any orders beyond August.

According to the source, the Zhejiang manufacturer is capable of footing about 30 per cent of the additional costs from the tariffs, but there is “no room” to go up to 50 per cent or higher. The company has yet to reach an agreement with Walmart.

“We agree to get prepared for the worst situation, while hoping for the best,” the person said, referring to a potential return to triple-digit tariffs.

When contacted by the Post for comment, a spokesperson for Walmart said: “We have always worked to keep our prices as low as possible. We’ll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins.”

Puma declined to comment, while Target, Nike and Adidas did not immediately respond to the Post’s inquiry.

Bessent said on Thursday that there was “likely” a need for US President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping to intervene to get a deal over the finishing line before August 12.

In keeping with Beijing's protecionist tradition, there has been a focus in China on mitigating the impact of the trade war by helping exporters pivot to the domestic market. But that often is not possible for Chinese factories that make products on a contract basis for foreign brands, according to a report by Christopher Beddor, deputy China researcher at analysis firm Gavekal.

“One executive at a large online retailer notes that pants made for the US market run much longer than those in China,” he wrote. “There’s also less domestic demand for oven gloves – as fewer housing units in China have ovens – and no buyers for some products such as bulk Christmas cards.”

Chinese exporters “will almost certainly be forced to curtail output and divert supply to other markets”, Beddor noted, hinting at a wave of deflationary exports by China.

In the US, meanwhile, retailers are coming under political pressure not to raise prices. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon warned on May 15 that the retail giant was unable to absorb all the costs of the trade war and would need to hike some prices. Two days later, Trump posted on social media that Walmart and China should “eat the tariffs”.

On May 21, Nike announced that it would start raising prices to offset the high costs brought by US tariffs. German sportswear brand Puma, meanwhile, has adapted its supply chain by cutting the volume of goods being shipped directly from China to the US, but has not ruled out the possibility of price rises.

Fellow German sportswear giant Adidas said in a company statement on April 29 that it “cannot make any ‘final’ decisions” on what to do, but added that “cost increases due to higher tariffs will eventually cause price increases”.

Target CEO Brian Cornell said on May 21 that price hikes were a “very last resort” for the company as it sought to deal with the cost of higher tariffs.

On Sunday, Trump said his tariff policies were aimed at promoting the reshoring of hi-tech products, rather than clothing and footwear, to America. “We’re not looking to make sneakers and T-shirts,” he said. “We can do that very well in other locations. We are looking to do chips and computers and lots of other things, and tanks and ships.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 14:05

Court Blocks Government From Terminating Immigration Documents Of 5,000 Venezuelans

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The federal government cannot invalidate immigration documents that allow roughly 5,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the United States to remain in the country until October 2026, a federal court in California ruled on Friday.

In February, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem terminated Venezuela’s 2023 designation for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a temporary immigration status granted when foreign nationals cannot return to their home countries due to safety concerns, such as ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, or epidemics.

A TPS designation protects individuals from deportation and allows them to apply for authorization to work in the United States.

The National TPS Alliance, representing TPS holders from across the United States, sued the government, with a federal judge in California issuing an injunction in March blocking the termination of TPS for Venezuelans. On May 19, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the injunction order, affirming Noem’s decision.

Plaintiffs then approached the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asking for relief, specifically seeking that certain Venezuelans be allowed TPS protections, resulting in the May 30 court order ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.

The court observed that on Jan. 17, the Biden administration had extended the TPS designation for Venezuela from April 2 this year to Oct. 2, 2026. On Feb. 3, Noem vacated the extension. She then terminated Venezuela’s 2023 TPS extension on Feb. 5. The termination came into effect on April 7.

The plaintiffs asked the court to recognize the validity of TPS documentation issued following the Jan. 17 extension and maintain the rights of Venezuelans who received TPS documents that are valid until Oct. 2, 2026. They argued Noem exceeded her statutory authority when she canceled TPS documents on Feb. 3 even though the documents were valid until October next year.

“Plaintiffs’ position is meritorious,” the court said. “Nothing in the TPS statute allows the Secretary to take such action.”

Venezuelans who received documentation based on the Oct. 2, 2026, date are “especially likely to suffer irreparable injury” since they have relied on such documentation to make their plans regarding staying in the United States, the court said.

As such, the court granted relief to Venezuelans with TPS-related documentation issued up to and including Feb. 5, the date when Noem published the TPS termination notice.

“The relief here would not extend to all Venezuelan TPS holders but rather a discrete subset—somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 individuals in the government’s estimation,” the court said.

Protecting National Interests

Noem’s Feb. 5 order ending the 2023 TPS designation for Venezuela said that such a step is necessary “because it is contrary to the national interest to permit the Venezuelan nationals (or aliens having no nationality who last habitually resided in Venezuela) to remain temporarily in the United States.”

In the TPS statute, Congress “expressly prohibits” the secretary of homeland security from designating a country for TPS or extending this designation if the secretary determines that “permitting the aliens to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States,” the order states.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Ludmila Padrino, a U.S.-based lawyer who works closely with the Venezuelan immigrant community, said that many innocent Venezuelans were being penalized for a small group of individuals who have committed crimes.

“Companies are sending out notifications that people have only a few days to continue working,” she said. “People can’t renew their licenses. It’s complicated, it’s distressing. ... The biggest challenge is supporting their families.”

The 2023 TPS designation applies to 350,000 Venezuelans living in the United States.

In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Trump administration’s policies are justified because TPS is, “by definition, temporary, and is committed to the discretion of the DHS Secretary.”

“District courts have no right to prevent the Executive Branch from enforcing our immigration laws,” she said. “The Trump Administration will continue to deliver on the President’s promises every day for the American people.”

The May 19 Supreme Court judgment affirming Noem’s decision to cancel the 2023 Venezuela TPS designation is “an important inflection point in the ongoing saga of lawless lower court decisions that flout plain law and legislate from the bench,” Jackson said.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 13:45

Chinese Communist Officials Call Harvard Their "Party School"

The Trump Administration's latest effort to reduce foreign influence in US institutions has led to Harvard University, the oldest university in the country.  It's a fair target considering Harvard's enrollment is nearly 30% foreign nationals, many of them from China.  A common criticism of the US is that American schools produce a limited number of graduates in STEM and leadership related fields, inspiring the claim that the US "needs skilled foreign workers" to continue its edge in business and technology. 

This is a fallacy - It's not that the US doesn't have enough students interested in STEM or leadership.  Rather, the problem is that top US universities have been bought and paid for by NGOs and foreign investors; by extension, they allow foreign students to steal spots that should be reserved for American citizens.  

Furthermore, Harvard is widely considered a stepping stone to a successful career in various areas of law and government, but many positions within the school's political enrollment are taken by foreigners (as well a DEI students).

One blaring example of this is the influence of China and the CCP over Harvard, which enrolls around 2300 Chinese scholar per year making up around 20% of the total international student body. 

Harvard receives hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign funding from numerous countries, but China is the most generous source, providing around $70 million per year to the Ivy League college.  

In a recent expose, The Wall Street Journal examined the CCP's extensive presence at Harvard and their view of the university as their "party school".  As the WSJ notes:

"Harvard enjoys a sterling reputation among Chinese officials thanks to its record in training high-flying bureaucrats who went on to take senior government roles and, in some cases, join the party’s elite Politburo. Some observers dubbed Harvard a de facto “party school,” as the party’s own training academies for promising bureaucrats are known. 

“If we were to rank the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘overseas party schools,’ the one deserving top spot has to be Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in the U.S.,” said a 2014 commentary published by Shanghai Observer, an online platform run by the city’s main party newspaper."

The problem, however, goes well beyond the issue of foreign nationals taking American seats in American schools.  The CCP is notorious for using US universities as a training ground for CCP spies, not to mention using them as vehicles for the dissemination of communist propaganda.

Stanford recently addressed the threat within their own halls, noting the exposure of a Chinese spy operating under the alias "Charles Chen" who posed as a student and attempted to glean information from other students and possibly recruit them for CCP operations.  These operations extend to Chinese nationals studying abroad, as The Stanford Review states:

"Transnational repression, $64 million in Chinese funding, and allegations of racial profiling have contributed to a pervasive culture of silence at Stanford and beyond. 

It is this pervasive silence that has compelled us to write. After interviewing multiple anonymous Stanford faculty, students, and China experts, we can confirm that the CCP is orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford. In short, there are Chinese spies at Stanford..."

Chinese communist propaganda operations in colleges started with the proliferation of the "Confucious Institute" in 2004.  The program latched onto dozens of US schools like a parasitic organism, posing as an effort to foster understanding of Chinese culture.  In reality, it was designed to influence US education to favor CCP ideals, recruit American students to CCP causes and keep an eye on the activities of Chinese students abroad. 

Harvard was, of course, one of those schools.  After the exposure of Confucious Institute and its motives, the CCP shifted into different programs with different names but the same overall goals.  As mentioned, the amount of cash flowing from China into these colleges is extensive, which creates incentives for schools like Harvard to keep their eyes down and their mouth shut. 

Donald Trump placing Harvard under a microscope helps to illuminate the wider problem across all of America's top universities.  It's common to point out the influence of NGOs and woke activism in undermining higher education in the US, but what about foreign interests?  This danger is far less understood. 

Trump's freeze on more than $3 billion in research grants and his actions to ban foreign enrollment at Harvard for Chinese communist party members are an opening salvo in a war that is long overdue.  The fact of the matter is, US colleges have not served the American public in a very long time.  Rather, they have served foreign masters and globalist NGOs, indoctrinating America's youth with deconstruction cultism and communist ideology that poisons the academic nest. 

Drastic measures would have to be taken if the damage is ever to be reversed. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 13:25

Pew Finds BlueSky's 'News Influencers' Aren't Influencing Anyone

Following last fall's U.S. presidential election, a wave of left-leaning X accounts—some of which self-proclaimed themselves as "news influencers"—announced their plans to abandon Elon Musk's social media platform in favor of the woke Bluesky platform.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of 500 top news influencers (each with over 100,000 followers) shows that Bluesky's adoption surged after the 2024 presidential election, rising from 21% to 43% by March 2025. Nearly half of the Bluesky accounts were created after the election, with a sizeable spike in the final weeks of November.

Despite Bluesky's rise as a digital 'safe space' for progressives, X remains one of the most influential platforms for online conversation:

Many news influencers on Bluesky joined during the platform's recent wave of growth. About half of sampled news influencers with a Bluesky account (51%) created that account after the 2024 election, including 42% who did so in the last three weeks of November 2024.

Even with Bluesky's growth, X remains popular among the 2024 sample of news influencers. As of early 2025, 82% have an account there, about the same share as in summer 2024 (85%).

And most of these news influencers with a Bluesky account also have an X account. Only 6% of the influencers we studied have a Bluesky account but not an X account, while 37% have both. The largest share (46%) have an X account but not a Bluesky account.

Pew's findings will disappoint rage-fueled leftist news influencers: 

 At the same time, most news influencers across the political spectrum have not left X. Three-quarters of left-leaning news influencers have an X account, as do 87% of right-leaning news influencers and 83% of those without a clear political orientation.

Pew also noted that most influencers continue to post regularly on X rather than on Bluesky.

The left relentlessly tried to dismantle X, with their army of PR propagandists staging a mass exodus. Months later, realizing Bluesky has zero influence at all, these crazed leftists have returned to X.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 12:45

 

 

The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Tom Barkin, Richmond Federal Reserve President & CEO, is below.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

~~~

00:00:02 [Speaker Changed] Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. This is Masters in business with Barry Riol on Bloomberg Radio

00:00:16 [Speaker Changed] This week on the podcast, another extra special guest, Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin. He’s been a member of the Richmond Fed since 2018. He is also on the Federal Open Markets committee and is responsible for a variety of Richmond Fed Tech technology and bank supervision. Previously, Tom had spent 30 years at McKinsey, where eventually he became chief risk Officer and then Chief Financial Officer. I found this conversation absolutely fascinating. He’s a super intelligent, thoughtful guy, very well versed in business economics and monetary policy. I think you will find this conversation to be both timely and fascinating. With no further ado, my conversation with FOMC committee member and president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, Tom Barkin.

00:01:14 [Speaker Changed] Barry, thanks for having me here.

00:01:15 [Speaker Changed] What a perfect resume and a perfect person to talk about the state of the world today. Before we go there, let’s just dip into your background. You’re a triple threat, bachelor’s, MBA and jd, all from Harvard. What was the original career plan?

00:01:33 [Speaker Changed] Well, it wasn’t that I grew up in Tampa, went to a public school there, applied to a few southern schools and Harvard ’cause it had a good name and I thought it was sort of a neat idea. And then I got in, which was kind of a surprise. And when I went there I was gonna be a lawyer and I was gonna major in mathematics and I took my freshman year math and that all went great. And my sophomore year I ended up in a class called Basic Algebra one that was not basic and was not any algebra that I knew anything about. And it turned out that half of that class had been the US National Math team and they had all competed internationally and they knew stuff I didn’t. And I was at the time taking introductory to economics, which I really liked ’cause it combined history and politics and math and economics.

00:02:20 And so I, I moved my major into economics and had a great experience as an economics major. Undergrad, I was still gonna go to law school and I applied to law school and got in. But a bunch of my roommates were applying to business school. And it felt to me like that was a neat way to get a master’s in something related to economics that I was interested in. And so I applied also to business school and got into that and then started that program once into law school and business school. I was able to compare two sets of professions. One, the law and the second being going into business. And it just felt like the second was much more vibrant, much more interesting, learned a lot more. And so I made that transition. But I wouldn’t have made that transition if I hadn’t been an economics major. I wouldn’t have made that transition if I hadn’t applied to business school. I just wouldn’t have the confidence to do it.

00:03:06 [Speaker Changed] So I know Wharton has like a joint, CPA JD MBA program. Did you, were you enrolled as a full-time JD and a full-time MBA student at Harvard? Or were these, was this sort of a combined program?

00:03:19 [Speaker Changed] It is a combined program. You take a year at law school, a year at business school and two years combined. I didn’t realize there was a program where you could also get a CPA, maybe that would’ve been a third degree. Just for extra credit.

00:03:30 [Speaker Changed] I believe that’s Wharton. So you come out of Cambridge with three degrees. What’s the first first job you take?

00:03:39 [Speaker Changed] I went to work at McKinsey. I mean, I done

00:03:40 [Speaker Changed] Summer jobs. That was literally your first, yeah. So you go to work at McKinsey in 87 and you stay for 30 years.

00:03:47 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, and and I, I was lucky, lucky, lucky to go there. I, I joined an office that had about 25 people in Atlanta. It felt like an entrepreneurial opportunity to build something, made a lot of friends there, enjoyed the work, really enjoyed my clients, and the opportunity to help a bunch of great leaders improve the performance of their organizations. Fell in love with McKinsey people, smart, talented, idealistic. And the combination just worked great for me.

00:04:13 [Speaker Changed] You’ve held a number of roles there eventually becoming a senior partner, but the two that are most fascinating and relevant to your current situation is chief risk officer and Chief Financial Officer. Tell us a little bit about the career path to two very important roles at a very important company.

00:04:34 [Speaker Changed] Well, starting in 99, I started leading the Atlanta office, which eventually became the southern offices of McKinsey. So from Texas through Virginia, it was sort of our territory. And we had, I don’t remember the number, 60, 70, 80 partners plus another several hundred associates. And we were serving clients in that geography. So I’ll, I’ll point to that as a role that I really enjoyed. And one where I got to spend so much time with so many business people about what was happening in their business and, and opportunities for McKinsey to help. You know, we worked our way through nine 11. That was a very difficult time for our business. And I think coming out of it, the folks at McKinsey thought, you know, I knew how to manage a bottom line. And our office got through quite nicely. And when a new managing partner was named around the financial crisis, they asked me to be the CFO to help navigate McKinsey through that, which I’m very, you know, pleased with how well we navigated through that. I did that for six years and then spent three years trying to help institutionalize some risk processes at McKinsey, including a lot of the stuff that has been done to defend against cyber and in whatever role. And there are others that I’m not gonna bore you with. You know, the opportunity to try to take a partnership and influence it to become better is a challenge. And also a lot of fun,

00:05:52 [Speaker Changed] Huh? That, that sounds really interesting. So you’re at McKinsey for three decades. How do you end up on the Richmond Federal Reserve?

00:06:03 [Speaker Changed] First of all, I was very involved civically in Atlanta and in lots of different organizations. And at some point I met the president, the, my equivalent in Atlanta, who then was Dennis Lockhart, who’s a great guy. And Dennis at some point invited me to join his board from, so from oh nine to 14 I was on the board and then eventually the chair of the board of the Atlanta Fed and I stepped down term limited. And three years later I was in the process of leaving McKinsey. McKinsey is a mandatory retirement age. I’m very young in my own mind, but not that young at McKinsey. And I had signed the papers and agreed to retire, and I got a call from a headhunter suggesting that I interview for the Richmond job. And of course I called Dennis and asked if he thought this made sense.

00:06:48 And, you know, he encouraged me to do it. And so for me it just seemed like a great opportunity to, well, let me take a step back. I’ve really been impressed with the Atlanta Fed from oh nine to 14, and the Federal Reserve in general, navigating through the financial crisis, all the innovations that happened in the early 2010s. It reawakened an interest in economics that I’d had, you know, since being an undergrad. But I never thought that that’s a job I would do. It just didn’t occur to me until the combination of the headhunter and the, and Dennis encouraged me to do it, and then I interviewed and was offered the job.

00:07:22 [Speaker Changed] So maybe perhaps this is a touch of hindsight bias, but 30 years at McKinsey, cybersecurity Chief Risk Officer, chief Financial Officer, the dotcom implosion, September 11th, the financial crisis. Sounds like your tailor made to be sitting on the Fed that just never popped into your, into your mind. Like what was the moment that you said, oh, I, I have skills that seem to apply to this.

00:07:51 [Speaker Changed] You know, you described me as a very modest person. I’m not sure that’s true, but I, I’ll just say, I’ll just say that I was so impressed with the grounding and the experience of the people that make monetary policy, that it wouldn’t have occurred to me that, you know, I should go stick my hand up and do that. And, and even when you walk into the room of the FOMC, you’ve got 19 people there. They’re very impressive. Probably two thirds are academic economists. They’ve spent their entire career working and studying in that. And of course I had taken four years of economics, you know, 40 years, well, I guess 35 years earlier. And so I think it would’ve been, you know, pretty arrogant to imagine that that would’ve place that was natural for me. Now, you know, when I got into the process and started thinking about it, you know, I, I was able to articulate a model for how I thought I could add value to the room.

00:08:47 And I think, you know, if you’re performance oriented or even competitive, what you really wanna do is add value to whatever job you’ve got. And so, for that job, for this job, you know, I, I asked myself what could I do that would be valuable? And what I thought I can do and what I spend my days doing is trying to understand what’s actually happening on the ground with businesses, because that’s what I did for 30 years. I think that’s a differential skill within the FOMC because anyone can tell you they’re raising prices or lowering prices, but to understand why and how things are gonna play out and to spend enough time with people and feel comfortable enough with their businesses that you could understand the context that is behind whatever choices they’re making, I think that is a place where I can add real value. And I, I convinced myself that and, and I guess I convinced the board of that as well.

00:09:35 [Speaker Changed] You know, people often talk about how much they wish the government was run more like a business, and for better or worse, that doesn’t always apply, but it really feels like the Federal Reserve is sort of halfway between a private sector entity and a full governmental agency almost has a foot in each camp. Tell us how your private sector experience helped to drive fed policy and especially at the Richmond Fed, how it affects just the everyday operation of a large influential central bank like that regional central bank.

00:10:15 [Speaker Changed] Well, lemme start by saying, one of the things that was very attractive to me about the Federal Reserve when I got to know it in Atlanta was these banks are private sector entities, which means you have, you know, a value proposition to highly talented people who have freedom to, to work hard and do what they know is right. But in addition, you’ve got very mission oriented people, so very talented and very mission oriented. That’s a nice combination for, for something that’s working for the public interest. And so I I, I was, that was definitely an attraction to me. I’m not trying to mess that up. So I’m not coming in and saying, all right, now, you know, here’s what we’re gonna do because I was in the private sector, you know, I’m actually, I respect the institution and trying to figure out how to operate within it as opposed to disrupt it.

00:11:01 And so operationally, the Richmond fed overseas technology for the system and I oversee, saw technology in my old life. And so, you know, making sure we’re better and working better and delivering better. I think we’ve done a great job in that. I’m also chairing the committee that oversees payments within the Federal Reserve, which is the one business, the Federal Reserve runs and trying to make that a good and even better business. Those are, there are places I bring my business skills to bear talent management, all all of that stuff. In addition, as I said, I think, you know, being able to bring some insight, for example, on how businesses are gonna behave in the context of volatility and tariff announcements. That’s something that I think I can bring, you know, my, my business experience has a lot of benefit in the room and that’s, it’s good to just say that you bring that benefit, but I try to reinforce that by spending literally five days a week in the market talking to businesses throughout my district, trying to truly dig into what’s happening. I think that’s a place I can also add value.

00:12:04 [Speaker Changed] So you joined the Fed in 2018 and it was a very consequential seven years. Q4 of 2018 people were very nervous about a recession market dropped about 20% in the quarter, some of which was related to tariff induced slowdowns back then, 2020, obviously the pandemic once in a generation, maybe even once in a hundred years event 2022 first, not only is the fastest rate increase in modern memory, first time, I wanna say since 80, 81, 82 we’re both stocks and bonds down double digits. That was 2022 and then 2025, obviously all this volatility and sterman drang with, with tariffs. What is the biggest occupier of your mental bandwidth? Is it the day-to-day operations or is it all of these seemingly unprecedented disruptions that just turn the whole world upside down, whether it’s just a quarter like it was in in 2018 or a couple of years, like, like the pandemic?

00:13:14 [Speaker Changed] Well, so I joke sometimes I was on the board of the Atlanta Fed from oh nine to 15 and during that six year period, interest rates did not change once

00:13:23 [Speaker Changed] Nothing happened,

00:13:24 [Speaker Changed] Right. And, and look at where we’ve been here from, you know, raising it in 2018 to lowering it in 2019, to really lowering it in 2020, then to raising it again in 2022 and then lowering it again. So

00:13:34 [Speaker Changed] Are you saying it’s your fault since you joined the Fed, everything went upside. Now

00:13:38 [Speaker Changed] I’ll take whatever credit or fault you want. I, I would say the thing I’ve been reflecting on is the question of did we in our working careers just benefit from a period that with hindsight is an, was an unbelievably low volatility period. You know, the wall fell while there were conflicts globally, there weren’t very many. Nine 11 felt like a big deal at the time, but you know, Lehman Brothers was obviously a big deal. But it, but over a 30 year period it’s pretty calm. And you know, stat I like to throw out there is in the 2010s, inflation was between one and 2% every single cycle. We added jobs every month in the 2010s. GDP was in the very narrow range of sort of two to 3%. We just had a very stable long-term expansion with very low inflation. And that was a very friendly environment, you know, I’d say for policymakers, but maybe that vol, if you look at, you know, through the sands of time, that kind of stability is not what you should expect. And so we’ve had significant volatility. The pandemic obviously being an example, the inflation episode being another one. And maybe that’s gonna be more like reality.

00:14:47 [Speaker Changed] You know, it’s so funny you say that we, we did a study in house and and looked at the 15 year period from the financial crisis forward. So somewhere in the middle of last year was the third best 15 year rolling period on record. You’d have to look at the 15 years post World War II and then the 15 years up until late 99, which were 18 and 17% a year respectively. The 15 year period ending last year was 16% annually. And all anybody did was complain about, or at least a lot of market participants complained about the Fed, complained about deficits, complained about the economy each the single best decade and a half in modern era for asset prices. So in the face of that sort of, you know, criticism of the Fed and Carping about all sorts of policy, how do members of the FOMC, how do members of the Fed respond when the data says, Hey, things are pretty good, but the sentiment which continues to just get worse and worse says things are terrible.

00:15:55 [Speaker Changed] Well, I’d start, you know, to the people who complain, I’ll start by saying, we’re given a privilege by Congress, which is the, you know, ability and the independence to set monetary policy on behalf of the economy of this country. And we take that very seriously. I do think part of the trade there is that people on both sides get to critique what we do. And that just is what it is. And I think you just keep your head down and do the job you’ve been assigned and you don’t spend time, you know, worrying about the critiques. So that’s, that’s that part of it. In terms of uncertainty and volatility, I think it, in sentiment, it’s quite pronounced now. I think business sentiment and consumer sentiment’s different. I mean, business sentiment feels to me like very tied to outcomes. If businesses are highly uncertain, they’re not gonna invest, they’re not gonna hire, they’re gonna defer growth plans.

00:16:43 We saw that in 2019, as you referenced earlier. I think we’re seeing that right now. Certainly the businesses I’m talking to, I, I’ve described it as trying to drive through a really dense fog. It, it’s hard to put your foot on the gas ’cause you don’t know where the next cliff is. You don’t wanna put your foot on the brake ’cause you don’t know who’s behind you. And so the only rational strategy is to pull over and put on the hazards. And that’s what I hear businesses doing, which is pulling and pulling over the hazards, pulling over and putting on the hazards. Now it’s different on the consumer side. Historically consumer sentiment has been a leading indicator of consumer spending. But we didn’t see that two or three years ago when consumer sentiment got negative and consumer s got very negative again recently. I think the reason we haven’t seen that is inflation.

00:17:24 It, it turns out, I mean we all knew this in the seventies, but we’ve relearned it in the last three years. It turns out consumers really hate inflation. Now it doesn’t stop ’em from spending, you know, if your wages go up and your prices go up, you have the same spending capability, but you’re just much less happy. And that’s what we’ve seen. And I think today we’ll see if we have more inflation. But I think the kind of relentless noise about tariffs is leading people to think that that’s gonna lead to higher prices, which is leading people to be more negative about the expectations. And you can see that in the expectations, let’s say one year price expectations have elevated significantly and that’s what’s driving sentiment. But so far that doesn’t seem to be affecting spending on the consumer side. I think it, it does on the business side,

00:18:09 [Speaker Changed] Yeah, very much businesses have to plan much longer term. First of all, I love the foggy metaphor. Driving in the fog is really perfect. But you mentioned inflation expectations and I always wonder, does the Fed put too much emphasis on expectations? At least in the modern era, if we look at 20 21, 20 22, inflation expectations were at their lowest just as inflation spiked. And of course they were at their highest just as inflation peaked in 22 and began coming down. My experience with sentiment is it’s always backward looking. You ask people how they feel about anything, the markets, the economy, inflation, and they’re always telling you, here’s what the past six months have been like. Even if you say, what do you see going forward? How much, how significant, how important are inflation expectations to FOMC policy?

00:19:07 [Speaker Changed] Well I think the theory is very straightforward, which is that if inflation expectations long-term in particular stay anchored, then that means that, you know, businesses will quickly return even after inflationary episode to prior levels of, of price increases. I really believe in it. I mean, in my business experience, I think the expectations of what inflation would be absolutely governed how businesses behaved, both in terms of their pricing and their wage setting. You know, if you showed up at your retailer with a 8% price increase and inflation was 2%, they would say, why are you doing that? And if you didn’t have the world’s greatest reason, you weren’t even walking in the door. And so I I, I think I, I think the, the concept of inflation expectations is a very powerful concept. I really believe in it and I believe it’s what happens in, in the world.

00:19:59 What I don’t believe is that we have any good way to measure it. And so, you know, you talked about market-based inflation expectations, there’s a lot going on in those market-based expectations, including liquidity and a bunch of other things. You know, survey-based expectations. It turns out, you know, if you ask someone a survey question and you bias it in any way, then they end up with different biases and different surveys have different ways of managing that. And so I think it really matters, but I don’t think our metrics are very good. And my, my shorthand for whatever it’s worth is, I think there are two competing things in every business’s mind and every consumer’s mind about inflation. One is, what is it today? Because the best indicator of tomorrow is today. And the second is, do you trust the Fed will return it to 2% in the long term?

00:20:50 And it’s almost that simple of a question, do you trust? And as long as you trust the Fed in the long term and market expectations are a reasonable proxy for that, then I think what you should expect for near term inflation is some combination of today versus tomorrow. And you get there over time. And if, if you go back to the eighties and nineties after Volcker and through Greenspan, you know, we didn’t go to 2% inflation in 1986 or 87 or 88, we were at four and then we were at three and a half and then we were at three and then we were at two and a half. I think you get there over time, you don’t get there quite as quickly as sort of a purist model would suggest.

00:21:24 [Speaker Changed] So, so lemme get a little wonky with you since you brought up the 2% target. Former Federal Reserve vice chairman, Roger Ferguson, I believe did a paper on the 2% inflation target. And he was kind of critical of it saying it’s a made up round number that comes from New Zealand in the 1980s. It’s not relevant to a modern era versus it was, but, but to, to kind of flesh out his thoughts a little more. Hey, the post financial crisis period, really the post nine 11 period was driven in large part by very low monetary policy, very low rates. And then the pandemic led to the single biggest fiscal stimulus, at least as a percentage of GDP since World War ii. So we had that regime change from monetary to fiscal is 2% still the right target? We couldn’t get up to 2% during the 2010s where deflation was a bigger concern. Now we have the, okay, admittedly the pig is mostly through the python, but we still have all this fiscal stimulus around is 2%. Like why, why two, why not two and a half or three?

00:22:37 [Speaker Changed] So I, I would ask the first question is, is it a good idea to have a target? And I’d wanna make the case that it’s a really good idea to have a target because it anchors the public in terms of where you’re trying to go. And it builds commitment and credibility among the FOMC that you’ll take the initiatives you need to take when you’re absent from a target in terms of what should the target be. The original debate in the nineties was actually between zero and two. Zero was price stability. That’s price stability, right? And, and two was a, an alternative that gave you a little bit of room. Eventually they settled onto our predecessors and as you were suggesting, pretty much every central bank in the world has settled on two. And by the way, we’ve delivered two or just around two for almost all of the last 30 years.

00:23:22 And so it doesn’t strike me that it’s a ridiculous target, it’s an achievable target, it’s a global target. It makes sense to people. By the way, you know, we’re at 2.3% I think headline right now, so we’re not even very far away from it. So I, I see no reason to move the target. Of course you could argue about whether two’s the right number, 2.2 or 1.8 or some other number. I’ll say two things about that. One is one of the reasons why you go with two as opposed to zero is you don’t like deflation. Deflation is when prices go down every year and then no one wants to buy anything ’cause it’s gonna be cheaper tomorrow. And two gives you a little bit of room against deflation. It’s also the case that there’s some mismeasurement, take encyclopedias for example, let’s assume encyclopedias were in the, the index in the nineties.

00:24:07 Well they’re free today, they’re on your phone. And so that’s deflation that doesn’t show up in the numbers and so it just gives you a little bit of room there. So that’s why two, you know, you sort of said we’re not at two today, we weren’t at two a decade ago. And I, I think I personally do think of false precision as being a concept worth considering here, which is, I I definitely didn’t criticize myself that much when we were at 1.8. I mean, you’re trying to get to two, the economy is not something that you manage so finely that in each and every month of each and every year, inflation comes in in exactly two. That’s something that doesn’t exist. Two’s a target. And if you’re off to on the above or on the below, you try to manage yourself toward it and you recognize that you’re not always gonna be right on it.

00:24:48 [Speaker Changed] Right. It reminds me of the old joke. Economists use decimal points to reveal, they have a sense of humor, so Right,

00:24:55 [Speaker Changed] Right. Something has to, something has to make that case.

00:24:58 [Speaker Changed] So, so let’s pivot a little bit to, to the Richmond Federal Reserve. The, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond District covers South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, dc, West Virginia, and Maryland. That seems like a fairly unique group of states, especially with the nation’s capital right in the middle. Tell us a little bit about what makes that region so special.

00:25:25 [Speaker Changed] So three things I like about it. One is DC Metro unique, there’s no other place in the country like that obviously, and all that’s implied there. Second is we have nine or 10, I’ll call ’em really fast growth New South regions, communities, cities, Charlotte, Greenville, Raleigh, Richmond, you know, you put Northern Virginia, they’re really very, very vibrant and fast growing. You know, north and South Carolina, for example are two of the four fastest growing states in terms of population, in terms of housing growth over the last several years. And then you’ve got a lot of rural markets and, and that would be, you know, west the Appalachian part of the district in North Carolina, West Virginia and Western Virginia. But that would also include up and down, you know, I 95, there are a lot of small towns there. And so I kind of think about it as three different economies and I think it’s very interesting to be able to represent a community with three so very different economies.

00:26:27 [Speaker Changed] You know, you mentioned Charlotte. My office has, you know, we have dozens of offices across the country, but we have three hubs, New York, Chicago, and Charlotte. And every time I visit Charlotte, it feels like the city is twice the size. It was a year earlier. The, the area, it’s become a finance center and a banking center. How, how do you look at such a diverse area where some parts are a little more rural, a little more sleepy, and growth is just normal agricultural progression and other areas are just absolute boom towns?

00:27:03 [Speaker Changed] Well the biggest thing I try to do is show up in all of them. And so as you go, you

00:27:06 [Speaker Changed] Go to a lot of parts of, of your district all the time, right? Ev

00:27:10 [Speaker Changed] Everywhere. And if you’re, you know, bored on the website, they’ve even got a map kind of a where’s Waldo. But no, every, I mean last week I was in Marion and Roanoke, Virginia, then I was in Arlington, Virginia, then I was in DC and I’m trying to get into the big cities and the small towns because you actually do hear about the economy differently in big cities versus small towns. For example, labor markets, you know, the, the labor markets in the small towns are unbelievably stressed still. And if you have a national conversation, you say, hey, the labor market’s sort of imbalance, unemployment’s 4.2% wage growth, sort of moderate. It’s still the case in these small towns that they can’t find workers at restaurants. And certainly in in manufacturing facilities you also hear, you know, you, you get a lot easier access to small businesses when you’re in the small.

00:27:57 So when I was in Marion last week, I actually spent an hour and a half just wandering up and down Main Street and I talked to every small business on Main Street about, you know, what does demand look like? Are you seeing any impact from tariffs? What are you gonna do with your pricing? So it’s a forcing device to help you see that part of the economy, which of course employs so many. And so I, I think if, if you’re on the ground, you’ll see, and I’ve got red parts and blue parts and purple parts of the districts. You, you hear what’s on people’s minds in very different ways based on, based on where you are. And, and I really appreciate that part of my district.

00:28:29 [Speaker Changed] How do you balance the anecdotes you hear from the man or woman in the street, the business owner, the shopkeeper, whatever, with the hard data that, that, you know, both the Richmond Fed and the Federal Reserve proper have an enormous staff of researchers crunching numbers. How do you, how do you balance data versus anecdote? Well,

00:28:51 [Speaker Changed] So the data’s better than the anecdotes because you know, it’s a bigger sample. It’s done in a, a serious and appro statistically appropriate way. It also comes in about six weeks late and is revised three times. And so the data really matters, but if you just count on the data, you’re gonna miss turning points and you’re gonna miss explanations. And so I don’t make the mistake of talking to one company and saying, oh, okay, everything in the data’s wrong. But I do try to understand what the data’s telling me by testing, you know, with the, the conversations we’re having in the field. And so, you know, a good example would’ve been May 1st, 2020 when I talked to a real estate developer in Western Virginia who was telling me that Tennessee has just opened the malls in Bristol and they’re packed. And of course Virginia was still closed down and that was my first indicator that you’re gonna see this big wave of spending when the lockdowns started to, to to open up.

00:29:46 And so that’s a turning point that you wouldn’t otherwise have gotten if you weren’t in the markets. We heard the same thing with household furnishings. You know, there’s a big boom in furniture during COVID, but about 2022 it backed off. We heard that from the furniture manufacturers well before you saw that in the data. And then I think explanations matter a lot too. And if you’re trying to understand how it could be that we’ve had all this news from Washington, yet the unemployment statistics don’t seem to show that much of a tick up in unemployment in Washington. Well there are lots of explanations including how those programs have been rolled out and what the timing of it is. And, and so if you’re in the market talking about, we actually understand the data in, in a fundamentally more sophisticated way,

00:30:28 [Speaker Changed] Since you mentioned the pandemic, let, let’s talk about two issues post pandemic wages and real estate. And we’ll just start with there have been substantial wage gains across every economic strata and, and impressively very much so in the bottom half of of earners since the pandemic, although that is now starting to slow down, how do you look at the wage situation as part of employment and what’s happening with that trend towards wage pressures beginning to ease off? Well

00:31:04 [Speaker Changed] I do think you’ve described accurately, you know, what’s happened to wages, it’s definitely bigger increases at the lower end and less at the higher end. You know, I should add that inflation also hits lower income earners the hardest because they spend the greatest amount of their pay. And so nobody has this mental ledger that says my wages went up X percent and my prices went up Y percent. And so I’m, you know, it’s not like operating margin for a business. Those are two different ledgers and humans minds. And so to a lot of lower income people, it doesn’t feel like their wages have gone up as much because inflation’s gone up and also because they don’t, they discount the wages when they measured against inflation. You know, going forward it definitely looks like we’ve got a labor market that is much more in balance, maybe even starting to loosen than the one we had a year or two or or three years ago.

00:31:50 You still hear tightness, as I said, in small towns. You definitely hear it in skilled trades. I think there are a set of professions out there that used to be a wash with employees that now seem to be systemically short of employees. And you know, a lot of that’s skilled trades. But I’d also put a lot of the care professions, nurses, teachers, elder care, childcare, a lot of people found those professions to be pretty unattractive during COVID and moved into other jobs. And there hasn’t been a way, you know, to replace ’em and that and there’s not that much money to increase available to increase the compensation to account for it. So you hear shortages there, you hear shortages in state and local government still. So there, there’s still places where the impact of the pandemic on the labor market has not yet. We’re not back to where we were at the beginning and you know, know some combination of training and development of people and compensation of people is gonna have to happen if we’re gonna staff these appropriately.

00:32:46 [Speaker Changed] So let’s talk about remote work and both commercial real estate space and residential real estate. The US continues to have a substantial number of workers that are either hybrid or full-time remote. I used to be in the city four or five days a week, now I’m in the city two or three days a week. If you were in Bloomberg today, I would’ve been in Bloomberg. But it didn’t make sense to come in to have a remote conversation. And the US continues to have a higher level of remote work than other. Similar in industrialized societies like like Europe. What’s going on with remote work, what does this mean for fed policy? What does this mean for a variety of different aspects? It seems to be fading as a topic, but it’s still a pretty significant issue.

00:33:40 [Speaker Changed] We have flexibility we didn’t know we had, that’s where it started and you can’t, you can’t bury that. And so I think there’s a whole bunch of workers and a whole bunch of days who found out that like you and like me, you could work from home this day as opposed to working somewhere else. It’s also true that there’s a bunch of employees who discovered that they actually prefer to be at home rather than come into the office. By the way, there’s another set that would prefer to come in the office, but there’s certainly a segment there. And so we’re in a marketplace, people will compete it out and there are executives who believe passionately that their business is not going to deliver unless their people are there five days a week every week. And there are businesses who believe they’ll get access to better people if they just allow ’em to be remote.

00:34:26 And those two, often those two are in the same sector and so they’ll compete it out. One will have lower property costs, one will have higher collaboration. We’ll see, we’ll see what happens. One thing I tried to look at when all this started was how did we ever end up with the five hour, five day a week, 40 hour work week? And the answer is that was General Motors and Alfred Sloan back in the mid twenties just decided it and five or 10 years later everybody was doing it. But none of us who were doing it thought that was perfect if we stopped to think about it. It’s just what we did. And so, you know, different sectors, different businesses, they’ll evolve toward different models. I do think their implications, as you say on on real estate on the residential side, if some set of people are gonna spend more of their time in their house, then they’re gonna value their house more, they’re gonna value their office, they’re gonna value their space, their garden, whatever.

00:35:16 And so, and we saw that during COVID, people got shut up in their house. They decided they no longer like their house. They also decided they didn’t like their roommates. They, so the economists call that household formation. So you have a lot more households out there for the same amount of houses. And that’s what’s led to the price increase that we’ve had in housing. And unless we build a lot more housing, you’re gonna have that out there for some time. It’s a bigger part of the basket and maybe, you know, public transit or parking is a lower part of the basket, but housing will be a bigger part of the basket on the commercial real estate side. You know, folks are still trying to adapt and you know, it’s much less flexible than the housing side ’cause some of the space is very much built for purpose built for an institution at least for 15 years as you know. And so I think we’re still midway through an adjustment process where some amount of that commercial real estate is used more because people come back to the office. Some is redeployed into other uses, whether it be, you know, anything from data centers to residential and some has eventually taken off the market. But I, I think, I think we’re still very much mid-process on that.

00:36:19 [Speaker Changed] So let’s talk a little bit about real estate and and particular residential real estate. We seem to have this chicken and egg problem where prices are up because there’s so little supply on the market. And while some of that is a little bit of NIMBY and some of that has been post-financial crisis builders tilted towards multifamily and apartments versus single family homes. But the largest chunks seems to be the golden mortgage handcuffs. Something like 60, 70% of people have mortgages under 5% and some huge crazy number under 4% mortgage rates. So on the one hand, if we lower infl or yields too fast, well that could set off another round of inflation. On the other hand, all of this supply is locked up and either we’re gonna wait for those people to age out or if rates come down enough they could trade up or trade to a downsize or whatever, but move to a different property. How does the Fed think about this? You know, sort of conundrum where damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Well

00:37:32 [Speaker Changed] I, I I think I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t buy, I do buy your story that there are a lot of people who have decided not to move ’cause they can’t give up their mortgage. But I don’t buy the story that if all we did was lower rates then they would all give up their mortgage and the housing market would free up because every one of those people who moved is a seller and a buyer. And so they’re gonna be increasing their demand at the same time that they’re increasing supply. So you’re still gonna have a shortage of supply versus demand. I should also note that just ’cause we raise lower short-term rates doesn’t necessarily lower mortgage rates as we learned in the fourth quarter of last year. But, but, but I think it, again, the demand for housing is much higher and it’s much higher because the generations decided they want a house and household formation as I talked about earlier, and people valuing their house.

00:38:19 As you say, we underbuilt housing for a generation coming out of the great recession and so we have more demand than supply. The answer to that is to build more supply. And as in my district, I, if you drive down 95 and you look at Wilson or Smithfield or Clayton or Rocky Mount, you know these are exurban areas that are not Raleigh but not that far from Raleigh. You see, you know, development after development of 275 to $325,000 houses, you know, going up in what used to be farmland there. If you drive to Exurban Charlotte or Greenville or Richmond, you’ll see the same thing. I mean houses are getting built but there are communities, you know, metro DC would be one of ’em where you don’t see housing getting built. And so, you know, you have to ask the question of why that is part of it’s cost, part of it’s land and and part of it’s, you know, resistance to growth by the inhabitants of various markets. And it again, one of the benefits of having the six states that have is you can see places that are growing and housing’s getting built and you can see places where it’s not.

00:39:22 [Speaker Changed] So is it fair to say the, the headwind for putting up more houses is not a national set of policies, but mostly state, local, regional, both regulations and just hey, you know, they, the fewer houses that are built, the more my house is worth. There’s a little bit of self-interest amongst the people who oppose more home construction.

00:39:49 [Speaker Changed] Well what I keep saying is we’re in a competition for developers. There are only so many, there are only so many construction people and you want them to come to your neighborhood and build houses and your places. So how do you do that? Well, all of your local regulation and policies matter, permitting, zoning, you know, amount of time to, to get approvals certainty as to construction time. So that’s one big piece of it. Another big piece of it is land availability and, and once you start thinking about land availability, you almost don’t stop. I mean I drive into some community colleges and they’ve got huge plots of land and then I find out that the state doesn’t allow the building of dorms on community college campuses. And you go now, okay wait a second, you can get student housing built, why can’t we get that built? You go to some of these older rural towns that have been depopulated over the years and they’ve got all this land that’s d dilapidated housing, but they can’t fix it ’cause there’s absentee landowners. I mean, once you start thinking about the role of land in making this attractive for developers, you almost can’t stop thinking about it. And I think that really is the lever. If communities can, you know, provide real assurance that they can provide land and that land can get built on at a predictable and reasonable time period, I think then it works.

00:41:01 [Speaker Changed] Hmm, really, really interesting. So now let’s pivot to your work on the FOMC and, and the state of monetary policy today. Starting with, let’s talk a little bit about that fiscal stimulus during COVID. If, if you total all the programs up cares, act one and two under president Trump Cares Act three under President Biden, all the infrastructure bill, all the other 10 year legislative acts that passed some form of fiscal stimulus, you know, you could get that up to about $4 trillion or more. That’s a huge, huge amount of, of money coursing through the system. How did that impact inflation and and is it fair to say that maybe transitory has gotten a bad rap? ’cause it seemed to be kind of transitory, it just transitory took longer than everybody expected.

00:41:58 [Speaker Changed] Well though there’s been a lot of papers written about what drove the inflation. You know, to me it’s an all of the above. I mean, you had a surge in demand that came from fiscal policy and monetary policy and vaccines, you know, as people got out of their house and felt the freedom to spend, you had constraints in supply, which came from, you know, labor constraints. People driven by the, the crisis, by the health crisis, maybe labor constraints caused by policy and supply chain constraints as demands sort of overwhelm supply. And so then you saw, you know, demand surge well in excess of supply that led prices up. I think the most interesting question for monetary policy is why did it last so long? Because, you know, to your point on transitory, okay, that’s fine. You have more demand than supply expectations are anchored. So price went up, they should have come back down.

00:42:48 And, and I just think it goes back to what I described earlier is how I think about people’s inflation expectations, which is it’s part today and part tomorrow and it just takes time to get back to tomorrow after you’ve had a surge today the, the real life way to think about it is, okay, now you’re, you know, somebody’s lawn service and you don’t really have big cost increases, but everybody else has raised their price. Maybe you look around and you go, huh, maybe I can raise my price. And so there’s a lot of attempts to raise prices that go through in the aftermath of an inflationary episode that might not have been, they might not have the courage to do without an inflationary episode. And so I I think it was this, the inflation wave that we saw was definitely time bound. I mean, we have seen the supply chains heal. We have seen people back in the workforce and we have seen prices come down. But the question of what the definition of transitory is is challenging because the word first got used I think in March 21 or April 21, and now it’s four years later. And so a lot of people think transitory means like a minute where in fact the original meaning of it was in our lifetimes. And so probably the right definition is somewhere between those two

00:43:58 [Speaker Changed] On a long enough timeline. Everything is transitory. Exactly. You have a quote from earlier this year that I’m a big fan of because I have a buddy who’s a commodities trader and he says the exact same thing all the time. And the quote is, the cure for high prices is high prices. Explain that because I’m just such a fan of that, that line.

00:44:20 [Speaker Changed] Well so it it’s a, it’s a great economist line. It it has two meanings and both of ’em matter. One is that if you as a consumer get high prices, the first thing you wanna do is look for an alternative. Maybe you go to private label, maybe you go to from beef to chicken. Maybe you go from a department store to a Walmart, but you’re looking for some are alternative. And so if a company raises its prices too high, then its customers are gonna do something else and that’ll teach the company that that price is too high. The other version of it is a supply side point, which is that if prices are high and successfully passed on, then new competitors will come in, you know, to either increase capacity or lower prices. And so, and and, and I really wanna say this has happened.

00:45:05 I mean this has happened in, in this economy. If you look at earnings reports from all the major retailers, you know, you’ll hear this, you know, customers are tapped out, customers are trading down. You can see a big move in terms of where people are buying their groceries today. Private label, e-commerce, like I said, beef to chicken, all these things are happening. And I think it’s because, you know, consumers having gotten through the COVID period where they were exhausted, it was all coming at once. And by the way, they had lots of money because of repressed spendings during COVID or elevated stock market or stimulus checks. They just spent it and they paid it. And that’s what we got the inflation in 2022. We’re not in a period where consumers feel like they have extra money. And so those people who are out there trying to raise prices for whatever set of good or bad reasons they’re facing a consumer that doesn’t want to pay it now and has got the time and the mental energy to make choices. And I, and so I think, you know, that does, that will fix high prices over time. So

00:46:01 [Speaker Changed] During the pandemic we kind of pivoted from a service driven economy to very much a stuck at home, can’t travel, go to restaurants, go to sporting events, so we’re going to consume more goods. That very much was a key driver of inflation along with all these other issues including snarled, supply chains, feels like that’s mostly return back to normal. The summer of revenge travel, everybody seems to be out and about, at least in my area. I I book restaurant reservations three weeks in advance. So we seem to be in a place that’s kind of normalized. How is the FOMC looking at the state of the economy today? Are we in a normal post inflation environment or is there something else that we going on that we should be aware of?

00:46:54 [Speaker Changed] Well, I think there’s, today and tomorrow, today we’re in the closing stages of bringing the economy back to normal. That’s how I’d put it. I mean, unemployment’s 4.2, that’s a historically low number inflation headline, 2.3 that’s very close to a 2% target gp, if you adjust for the one timers that we’re in the first quarter is still growing in the 2.5% range. So think of it as a, a very strong, stable economy. The the challenge we all have is the uncertainty about, you know, where we’re headed and you know, you or I could articulate a upside to that or a downside to that. I’m not making a comment on it, but it is elevated uncertainty. It’s what I was describing as the fog. And so, you know, we’re sort of on the brink of a different environment and that different environment, we’ll have different tariff rates and different levels of immigration and different levels of government spending and different levels of regulation and different energy policy y you know, all that is, I I think locked in. I mean we know the direction, we just dunno the destination. And it turns out people kind of wanna know where they’re headed before they pack. And so that’s, that’s the challenge we’ve got right now is just determining what’s the destination so that you know, businesses and consumers can make the choices they make.

00:48:11 [Speaker Changed] So given this fog driven in large part by uncertainty over tariffs, how does the FOMC make policy if there’s such a lack of clarity as to we understand today, but really tariffs are on, tariffs are off. Wait, European tariffs, oh wait, we’re gonna put ’em on hold until mid July. That must be incredibly challenging to make long-term policy decisions in light of these very short term policy swings.

00:48:44 [Speaker Changed] I’d say sometimes our job is very straightforward and sometimes it’s not. It’s very straightforward when unemployment’s high and inflation’s low ’cause you know which direction to go and it’s, you know, relatively straightforward when the forecast seems pretty clear that you have stability and confidence in the forecast. You know, in today’s world, neither one of those is true. I mean, inflation has come down but is not yet at our target employment. Unemployment is low, but you know, there risk to it and the forecast is unclear. And so you have to reflect on where you are. You know, where I think we are is modestly restrictive. In other words, a 4.3% overnight rate is constrained the economy. A modest amount, but not a significant amount at a time where inflation is still over our target and unemployment is low. And then you just have to, I, I mean you could choose if you had conviction in the forecast, then you might choose to move whichever way you felt you had to move given that forecast. But if like me, you don’t have that much conviction in the forecast, then you say, let’s wait and see where we go.

00:49:44 [Speaker Changed] So let’s talk about conviction. Another quote of yours that I’m fond of is monetary policy. And I’m gonna paraphrase, monetary policy needs to balance both conviction and humility. Discuss,

00:49:59 [Speaker Changed] Well, my dad said, used to say, Tom, I I want you to be humble because I know you well and you have a lot to be humble about.

00:50:06 And I think the point he was making is, don’t be too full of yourself here. And so you could, you know, stand up, pound the table and say, you know, by God I see where this is going and inflation’s rising or unemployment’s rising and therefore we need to move, you know, left or move right in support of one of those parts of our mandate. I mean, I listen to my colleagues who have many different points of view on this. I’m humble enough about my own forecasting ability. It just makes me think that, you know, I’ll learn more, I’ll learn more with time.

00:50:39 [Speaker Changed] So talking about your colleagues and, and the rest of the folks on the FOMC board, one of the things I’ve noticed through history is that they are very deliberate. They don’t surprise the markets with anything. Everything is always very calculated. And hey, we’re gonna be raising rates in a few months. Hey, next month look at the dot plot. We’re looking at PCE and CPI. Okay, here it comes. There are never shocks to the market. At the same time, the criticism has been, seems to be a little late to the party sometimes. We saw that spike of inflation late 2020, early 21. It took the fed a while before they began raising rates. And then CPI peaked June, 2022, took a while before we went on to pause and then cutting. How do you balance the lack of clarity, the need for humility with the latest da noisy data and trying to be not too far behind what you’re actually is happening on the ground?

00:51:50 [Speaker Changed] Well, so you started with, you know, being methodical and that’s probably accurate. Bernanke had the insight, which he published back in the early two thousands, that markets can do a lot of work for us. If they have a good sense of the path, then we don’t have to do as much in policy because they’ll, you know, work the rate path for you. And I think there is some effort made to try to communicate clearly, certainly why, you know, I and my peers try to talk as much as we do to see if we can’t, you know, bring some clarity to that situation. And so I think it’s fair to say, you know, trying to do it, but we will move faster than people expect when we need to as we proved in 2022 in terms of getting it right. I’ll just go back to what I said about false precision a little bit ago, which is I think we’re always gonna be wrong. I, I mean, you know, you’re never gonna precisely, you know, get the peak of inflation or the peak of unemployment or the trough of either you make your best efforts. And I think if the standard is that, you know, every decimal on every forecast actually played out, then I think we’re all guilty of, of missing that.

00:52:55 [Speaker Changed] Yeah. To say, say the very least. We talked earlier about transitory. Let, let’s talk for a moment about the 1970s, which was clearly very structural. How similar are the 2020s to the 1970s, and how different are they? As someone who was a kid during that era, I kind of remember just being parents, being freaked out about stuff. I remember going to get gas, I had a little side business mowing lawns, and the guy at the gas station asked me, are you, do you have an even license plate or an odd license plate? I don’t know. I’m 12, I just need a gallon of gas to mow the lawn. Yeah. So how, how similar is, is are the 2020s and what are the key differences? So

00:53:40 [Speaker Changed] There’s a chart that makes the rounds that, you know, adjust the scales, but sort of puts the sixties and seventies up against, you know, the last five years and says there’s just about to be another big bout of inflation. And, and you know, I find that chart annoying, but you know, I understand the fear. You know, a reminder for all your listeners that in the early seventies there’s a strong historic sense that there was a set of mistakes made by the Fed of not being tough enough on inflation that were then exacerbated in the middle and late seventies by two big oil spike price spikes. And, you know, I can’t predict an oil price spike and neither can anybody else. And so who knows, you know, how that’ll play out. The fact that I’ve found interesting about the seventies is how elevated long-term bond rates were and how high the term premium was, and basically how much inflation expectations were embedded in long-term rates.

00:54:36 And that’s an interesting thing to look at because it sort of gets to this question of expectations that we had price shocks, like the oil price spike in 74 or the one in 78, and who knows whether we’ll have those again. But those price shocks didn’t just affect today’s prices, it also affected the market’s views on tomorrow’s prices. And I say, I would just say that’s a huge difference between the seventies and today’s, that, you know, metrics of long- term expectations feel, you know, very grounded, even if you do have short-term price spikes. I think that’s because of an expectation that the Fed will do what we need to do. If you were to see that inflation, which I hope we validated in 2022,

00:55:16 [Speaker Changed] So it seems like the Street, wall Street in particular, the Wall Street and the bond market in particular have been erroneously forecasting fed rate cuts for, I don’t know, two, three, maybe even almost back to when the Fed started raising rates this cycle. What is the Fed looking for in order to feel comfortable? Okay, we’ve, we’ve wrestled inflation into submission and the economy is starting to show a little signs of some minor stress. Let’s, let’s take rates down one or two more times. I’m not asking you for a date, I’m asking you for, what are you looking at? What is the FOMC looking at that would make them comfortable saying, all right, we could, we could ease a little bit off the break and, and tap the accelerator a little bit.

00:56:07 [Speaker Changed] Okay, so first of all, I wouldn’t be so tough on the professional forecasters. Another joke is that, you know, economic forecasting was created to make weather forecasting look good. I,

00:56:17 [Speaker Changed] I think we’ve done that. I heard it to make, to make astrologists look good, but another good one, either another one, and actually the weather forecasters are getting better and better. That’s the difference

00:56:26 [Speaker Changed] As are the economics. But whenever, whenever you look at the market, quote unquote market’s view on the number of rate cuts, you have to remember that in that assessment includes tail risks. And so, you know, if you think at any given point in time there’s a 20 or 25% of a recession, at which point the Fed might re you know, respond, then that’s embedded in that. So when the, you know, the, the SEP forecast has two rate cuts, let’s say, and the market has three. I’m not sure I view that as a difference. I just think one’s got, one’s a modal and one’s a weighted average. And I, I think those aren’t the same things just in defensive economic forecasters.

00:57:06 [Speaker Changed] But if we look, you know, look at 23, 24, 25, no,

00:57:10 [Speaker Changed] Sometimes they’re different. Sometimes they’re different 00:57:13 [Speaker Changed] And wildly different.

00:57:14 [Speaker Changed] I was gonna say, in terms of your other question, what would I want to see? You’d wanna see inflation sustainably under control or you’d wanna see, you know, the economy, you know, tipping to a level that, that amount of downturn would have an impact on inflation and bring it under control. And so, you know, you can get inflation under control through rates and you can get it through economic, you prefer to do it through rates, but we’ll see.

00:57:36 [Speaker Changed] And I only have you for another two minutes, so let me throw you a curve ball question. Okay. I was just out in La Jolla on Tory Pines. I know you are an avid golfer in your Federal Reserve district. What are some of your favorite courses? You used to be on the USGA board, I’m assuming you still play. Where do you like to play in? What’s your home course?

00:58:00 [Speaker Changed] I play Kid Lock in Richmond and we have a place in Paul’s Island where I play the Deba Duke Club, which is a Pete Die course down there. And thank you for mentioning, you know, golf, golf is a lot like monetary policy and that I wish I were better at both of them.

00:58:16 [Speaker Changed] Well, that’s the perfect quote on which to end this. Thank you, Tom for being so generous with your time. We have been speaking with Tom Barkin. He is president and CEO of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, as well as a member of the federal Open Market committee that helps set federal reserve rates. If you enjoy this conversation well be sure and check out any of the 546 we’ve done since 2013. You can find those at Bloomberg, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I would be remiss if I not thank the crack team that helps me put these conversations together. My audio engineer is Steve Gonzalez. Anna Luke is my producer, Sean Russo is my researcher. Sage Bauman is the head of podcasts at Bloomberg. Be sure and check out my new book, how Not to Invest the ideas, numbers, and Behaviors that destroys Wealth and how to avoid them wherever you buy your favorite audio, e and hardcover books. I’m Barry Riol. You’ve been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

~~~

 

 

The post Transcript: Tom Barkin, Richmond Federal Reserve President & CEO appeared first on The Big Picture.

Steel Yourself For Cracking

By Benjamin Picton of Rabobank

Steel yourself for cracking

Jamie Dimon made headlines over the weekend by saying that a crack in the bond market is “going to happen” due to accumulated fiscal and monetary profligacy (which he repeated again this morning). While that’s certainly an incendiary comment in itself, most of the newspapers seem to have weirdly glossed over Jamie’s more blockbuster bromides at the same event, where he noted that the “tectonic plates [of geopolitics] are shifting” and “trade is [only] a part” of that. The JP Morgan CEO was unequivocal that the USA would no longer be the issuer of the reserve currency in 40-years’ time if it did not retain its position as the pre-eminent economic AND military power, and that the biggest threat that the nation faces is “the enemy within”. Yikes.

The man responsible for financing the US government doesn’t seem too worried. Scott Bessent told a hearing of the House of Representatives that the United States “will never default” on its debts. The fact that the question is even being asked seems place a few asterisks around that answer, with some of those perhaps relating to the USA inflating its way out, or engaging in financial repression to make the debt ‘sustainable’, or raising additional revenue through tariffs and/or the provisions of the Section 899 ‘Revenge Tax’. The latter is designed to punish foreign capital flowing from countries that do not comply with US wishes on trade (EU digital services tax, I’m looking at you).

Is it time to question the sacred cow of globalized capital markets?

As if to highlight Jamie’s point on the primacy of geopolitics, Ukraine managed to sneak a bunch of drones into cargo containers and then use them to take down fully one third of Russia’s long-range nuclear bombers. Some analysts are calling this a Russian Pearl Harbour (which might gloss over how the USA responded after the attack on Pearl Harbour) but the event surely highlights the changed nature of modern warfare, and the extent to which ‘small and cheap’ can defeat ‘big and expensive’. We might have learned that lesson after rag-tag Houthis managed to confound the assembled forces of Western capitalism in the Red Sea, or after the war in Afghanistan took twenty years to replace Taliban with Taliban, but here it is highlighted for us once again.

On the subject of the Middle East, the USA has reportedly sent Tehran a proposed “detailed and acceptable” nuclear deal with the strong suggestion that Iran should take it. According to reports, the deal would involve Iran foregoing all nuclear enrichment capabilities – which the Iranian leadership says it won’t do – in favor of a regional enrichment consortium that will likely involve Saudi Arabia (Iran’s major regional competitor). This comes at a time when the IAEA has just released a new report claiming that Iran has secretly enriched uranium to 60% purity, well beyond the levels required for civilian applications. If that stock were to be further enriched to 90% purity it would be enough for 9-10 nuclear weapons. That news will likely make it all the harder for President Trump to deter Israeli leadership from a pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The USA had placed “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iranian oil exports to give the nuclear deal negotiations a help-along, but the WSJ notes in an editorial today that a White House directive was delivered last week to pause all new sanctions activity. The WSJ suggests that this is handing off some of the leverage that the USA currently has, and also represents a free-kick to the USA’s principal geopolitical competitor, China, who is by far the largest buyer of Iranian oil cargoes. The lighter touch on sanctions arrives at a time when OPEC+ has agreed to ramp up production by an additional 411,000 bbl/day. So, although crude oil prices are rallying today and face plenty of geopolitical risks on the road ahead, in the absence of a major risk event coming to fruition any rallies are likely to be capped by the plentiful supply outlook.

Turning to Asia, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ruffled some feathers in the Indo-Pacific by suggesting at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that China could be credibly seen as preparing to use military force to alter the balance of power in the region. Hegseth said that “the threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent” in an apparent reference to US intel that Xi Jinping told the Peoples Liberation Army to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027. In a meeting with Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles, Hegseth reportedly urged Australia to up its military spending to 3.5% of GDP. Marles (who is from the Right faction of the ruling Labor Party) seemed open to the idea. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (a man of the Left), less so. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blasted Hegseth over his comments.

Kevin Hassett of the Council of Economic Advisors and Scott Bessent have been suggesting that Donald Trump might hold a call with Xi Jinping this week in an attempt to progress a trade deal. China has reportedly been withholding export licenses for critical rare earth materials, in contravention of the agreement to reduce tariffs for 90-days. After a reporter seemingly bruised the President’s ego with a question about the TACO trade ( TACO = Trump Always Chickens Out) Trump announced a doubling of steel and aluminium tariffs to 50% from June 4th.

Could we be about to see Trump get tough on China again?

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 12:25

Recession? Atlanta Fed Hikes US Q2 Growth Outlook To Highest Since 2021

Having 'adjusted' their model for gold imports, and on the heels of ongoing calls from the 'establishment' that a recession is coming... because OrangeManBadEconomist, The Atlanta Fed has hiked its GDPNOW forecast dramatically higher (to 4.6% from +3.87% prior) after this morning’s releases from the US Census Bureau and the Institute for Supply Management.

That would be the best growth since Q4 2021...

The swing is being driven in large part by volatility on the import front (so expect some more 'adjustments'...

Additionally, the nowcasts of second-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real gross private domestic investment growth increased from 3.3 percent and -1.4 percent, respectively, to 4.0 percent and 0.5 percent.

We look forward to the likes of Liesman explaining to us why this is not real.. and just you wait and see what will happen next.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 11:49

'Free' Government Money Accounts For 19% Of All Personal Income

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Free money includes Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security, and more, discussed below.

Some may object to the term “free money” but the definition of Personal Current Transfer Receipts (PCTR) is “Payments to individuals for which no current services are performed, representing a component of personal income.”

I don’t want to get into a debate over “free” based on “current services”. Instead, let’s focus on the sustainability of the current path.

Personal Current Transfer Receipts Billions of Dollars Detail

PCTR as Percent of Personal Income

PCTR as a percent of PI is now 19.29 percent and rising.

Q: What if we adjust for inflation?
A: The numbers in billions change, but the percentages don’t. They are nearly identical.

Real vs Nominal Explanation

Medicare is indexed for inflation in several ways. The income thresholds for income-related monthly adjusted amounts (IRMAA) surcharges for Parts B and D premiums are adjusted annually for inflation. Additionally, certain payment rates for providers and other aspects of Medicare, such as Part D out-of-pocket caps, are also indexed for inflation.

Social Security benefits are indexed for inflation through a process called a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA). This adjustment ensures that benefits keep pace with the rising cost of living.

Medicaid is indexed for inflation to a degree. Specifically, certain aspects of Medicaid, like the federal poverty level (FPL) used to determine eligibility, are updated annually for inflation. Additionally, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded Medicaid eligibility to non-elderly adults with incomes up to 138% FPL, and the federal government provides 90% financing for this expansion.

Since benefits are indexed to inflation, there is no difference in the nominal vs real percentage numbers.

Demographics

Please consider 65…What It Means for You

The year 2025 marks a significant milestone in the United States. Why? Because a record number of people will reach the age of 65. On average about 11,400 Americans will turn 65 every day of the year 2025 a phenomenon referred to as Peak 65. This demographic shift, largely driven by the baby boomer generation, will have implications for retirement planning, healthcare, and the economy at large.

By 2025, approximately 73 million baby boomers will be 65 or older, making up more than a fifth of the U.S. population. This milestone represents not only an achievement in longevity but also a shift in how we think about aging, retirement, and more. As baby boomers reach retirement age in record numbers, many will be looking at new opportunities, while others may face unexpected hurdles.

Looking Ahead

Social Security payment are poised to skyrocket. Medicare will do the same.

There are fewer replacement workers and even less with skills. Those who support “deport them all” madness need to reconsider quickly.

Deportations or not, we are on a very unsustainable path with fewer workers with no wage guarantees who support more retirees with inflation-indexed benefits.

What’s Trump Doing?

As with Biden, and every preceding president, the answer is making it worse.

Trump is angry with Republicans for wanting to cut Medicaid. And Trump wants to make Social Security payments tax free.

And on the revenue side, the latest tax bill is a monstrosity. It’s expected to add $22 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 11:40

GOP Megabill Moves To The Senate, But Rand Paul Says 'Math Doesn't Really Add Up'

The narrowly passed "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" makes its way to the Senate this week, where it faces a handful of GOP spending hawks who say it's far too expensive to pass. 

One holdout, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), said that he would support the bill if the debt ceiling hike was removed - telling CBS' Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan that he and three other GOP senators will hold out against the bill unless it's modified.

"I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction," said Paul. "I want the tax cuts to be permanent. But at the same time, I don't wanna raise the debt ceiling five trillion," he continued, adding "The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this."

The American people, like the Great People of Kentucky, do not support Biden spending levels and $5T in new debt. Therefore, I will not. It’s simple. pic.twitter.com/m9sTuDiGZK

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 1, 2025

According to Paul, there are more holdouts... 

"I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction," he told CBS News. 

On Saturday, President Donald Trump warned Paul that he would be "playing into the hands of the Democrats" if he votes against he bill.

"If Senator Rand Paul votes against our Great, Big, Beautiful Bill, he is voting for, along with the Radical Left Democrats, a 68% Tax Increase and, perhaps even more importantly, a first time ever default on U.S. Debt," Trump wrote on Truth social Saturday afternoon. 

"Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him! The GROWTH we are experiencing, plus some cost cutting later on, will solve ALL problems. America will be greater than ever before!" 

The bill will move through Congress under a budget process known as reconciliation, which allows Senate Republicans to pass legislation with a simple majority vs. the a 60-vote threshold. While this would normally allow the GOP-controlled Senate to pass legislation without any support from Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) can only afford to lose three members of his party. 

In addition to Rand Paul, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Fox News that the bill was "completely unsustainable," and he plans to hold a hearing on it before a full Senate vote. 

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the bill's tax provisions concluded that the package's tax provisions - which include an extension of President Trump's 2017 tax cuts - would raise the deficit by an estimated $3.8 trillion over the next decade - something both JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and billionaire Elon Musk have spoken out about, with Dimon predicting a "crisis" in the bond market from undermining public confidence. 

According to Sen. Johnson, "I agree with Jamie Dimon here," adding that he wants to return spending to pre-pandemic levels and break the House bill into two separate Senate bills. 

When asked if he was willing to 'blow up' the Trump agenda, Johnson said "My loyalty is to the American people, to my kids and grandkids," adding "We cannot continue to mortgage their future."

Ron Johnson makes the case against the House GOP spending bill: "The transfer of wealth from old people like me to young people is literally immoral. It has to stop." pic.twitter.com/tAkjsDpJMA

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 1, 2025

 

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 10:40

GOP Megabill Moves To The Senate, But Rand Paul Says 'Math Doesn't Really Add Up'

The narrowly passed "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" makes its way to the Senate this week, where it faces a handful of GOP spending hawks who say it's far too expensive to pass. 

One holdout, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), said that he would support the bill if the debt ceiling hike was removed - telling CBS' Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan that he and three other GOP senators will hold out against the bill unless it's modified.

"I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction," said Paul. "I want the tax cuts to be permanent. But at the same time, I don't wanna raise the debt ceiling five trillion," he continued, adding "The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this."

The American people, like the Great People of Kentucky, do not support Biden spending levels and $5T in new debt. Therefore, I will not. It’s simple. pic.twitter.com/m9sTuDiGZK

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 1, 2025

According to Paul, there are more holdouts... 

"I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction," he told CBS News. 

On Saturday, President Donald Trump warned Paul that he would be "playing into the hands of the Democrats" if he votes against he bill.

"If Senator Rand Paul votes against our Great, Big, Beautiful Bill, he is voting for, along with the Radical Left Democrats, a 68% Tax Increase and, perhaps even more importantly, a first time ever default on U.S. Debt," Trump wrote on Truth social Saturday afternoon. 

"Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him! The GROWTH we are experiencing, plus some cost cutting later on, will solve ALL problems. America will be greater than ever before!" 

The bill will move through Congress under a budget process known as reconciliation, which allows Senate Republicans to pass legislation with a simple majority vs. the a 60-vote threshold. While this would normally allow the GOP-controlled Senate to pass legislation without any support from Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) can only afford to lose three members of his party. 

In addition to Rand Paul, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Fox News that the bill was "completely unsustainable," and he plans to hold a hearing on it before a full Senate vote. 

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the bill's tax provisions concluded that the package's tax provisions - which include an extension of President Trump's 2017 tax cuts - would raise the deficit by an estimated $3.8 trillion over the next decade - something both JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and billionaire Elon Musk have spoken out about, with Dimon predicting a "crisis" in the bond market from undermining public confidence. 

According to Sen. Johnson, "I agree with Jamie Dimon here," adding that he wants to return spending to pre-pandemic levels and break the House bill into two separate Senate bills. 

When asked if he was willing to 'blow up' the Trump agenda, Johnson said "My loyalty is to the American people, to my kids and grandkids," adding "We cannot continue to mortgage their future."

Ron Johnson makes the case against the House GOP spending bill: "The transfer of wealth from old people like me to young people is literally immoral. It has to stop." pic.twitter.com/tAkjsDpJMA

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 1, 2025

 

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 10:40