Latest News
See the latest news and get GPT analysis of articles
A marquee GOP Senate recruit and ex-Navy SEAL admits he lied about how he received a gunshot wound 2024-04-07 18:15:06+00:00 - Montana GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy told WaPo he lied about how he got a gunshot wound. Sheehy told a park ranger in 2015 that he was shot after his firearm accidentally discharged. But Sheehy recently admitted he was shot in uncertain circumstances while serving in Afghanistan. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time. Advertisement Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and one of GOP's star recruits of the 2024 election cycle, admitted to The Washington Post that he lied to a National Park Service ranger about being shot during a 2015 incident at the state's Glacier National Park. The admission comes after Sheehy, a wealthy aerospace executive who's aiming to take on three-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, had previously given inconsistent statements about how he was shot in his right arm. In October 2015, Sheehy informed a ranger that he had shot himself in the right arm after his Colt .45 revolver fell to the ground and discharged, according to records filed in the US District Court for the District of Montana. According to the Post, a description of the incident contained within a federal citation noted that the gunshot left a bullet in Sheehy's right arm. The written details of the citation, which was issued by the ranger, were based on Sheehy's recounting of the incident. Advertisement Sheehy ended up paying a $525 fine over his gun discharging in a national park, a decision that at the time was based on his report to the ranger. When asked by the Post about the ranger's citation, Sheehy said he fabricated the story about the gun discharging to shield himself and his former platoon members from being probed over a gunshot wound that he said he received while in Afghanistan in 2012. Sheehy told the newspaper that he fell and injured himself during a 2015 hike at Glacier National Park, which prompted a hospital visit. While at the hospital, he informed the staff that there was a bullet lodged in his arm, which led to him being questioned by the ranger. "I guess the only thing I'm guilty of is admitting to doing something I never did," Sheehy told the Post, affirming that his gun never went off at the national park. Advertisement And Sheehy defended what he said was his attempt to keep his former platoon members out of any investigations. He told the Post he was unsure if his bullet wound was the result of friendly fire or from an enemy. Related stories "It was a small price to pay to make sure that a whole team of really great Americans didn't get dragged through the mud over this," he told the newspaper. While it is a crime to lie to a federal officer, the Post reported that the statute of limitations regarding the incident has expired. Daniel Watkins, an attorney for Sheehy, said Sheehy had not impeded a law enforcement probe because no crime had taken place at the national park, according to the Post. Advertisement Sheehy's admission came as inconsistencies piled up regarding how he was shot while serving in Afghanistan. The Sheehy campaign provided an x-ray to the Post with the condition that it could be sent to experts but not published by the newspaper. A professor and longtime trauma surgeon who reviewed the x-ray told the newspaper that he found it "doubtful" that Sheehy's wound came from an assault weapon — and that it likely came from a handgun. In Sheehy's 2023 memoir, "Mudslingers," he wrote that he had been shot once while serving in Afghanistan. But in another passage, he wrote that he had been shot multiple times, according to the Post. Sheehy was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for separate events for serving in combat overseas, and neither award is in dispute, according to the newspaper. Advertisement In a statement to The Daily Beast, Sheehy's campaign said that the GOP candidate "won't ever let any of this slander stop him from fighting every day as your next US Senator." "While Montanans respect his selfless sacrifice for our country and commend it, because he is a Republican running for office, the liberal elite misinformation machine is going to great lengths to question and attack it," the statement continued. Business Insider reached out to the Sheehy campaign for further comment. Sheehy is heavily favored to win the June 4 GOP Senate primary and has been highly touted by Washington Republicans as one of their strongest candidates to date against Tester, who for nearly two decades has withstood the political headwinds for Democrats in conservative-leaning Montana. Advertisement A Survey USA poll conducted in February showed Tester leading Sheehy 49%-40%, while an Emerson College survey released in March showed Tester with a narrower 44%-42% lead over the GOP candidate.
Many cancer drugs remain unproven 5 years after accelerated approval, a study finds 2024-04-07 18:06:10+00:00 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s accelerated approval program is meant to give patients early access to promising drugs. But how often do these drugs actually improve or extend patients’ lives? In a new study, researchers found that most cancer drugs granted accelerated approval do not demonstrate such benefits within five years. “Five years after the initial accelerated approval, you should have a definitive answer,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a cancer specialist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the research. “Thousands of people are getting those drugs. That seems a mistake if we don’t know whether they work or not.” The program was created in 1992 to speed access to HIV drugs. Today, 85% of accelerated approvals go to cancer drugs. It allows the FDA to grant early approval to drugs that show promising initial results for treating debilitating or fatal diseases. In exchange, drug companies are expected to do rigorous testing and produce better evidence before gaining full approval. Patients get access to drugs earlier, but the tradeoff means some of the medications don’t pan out. It’s up to the FDA or the drugmaker to withdraw disappointing drugs, and sometimes the FDA has decided that less definitive evidence is good enough for a full approval. The new study found that between 2013 and 2017, there were 46 cancer drugs granted accelerated approval. Of those, 63% were converted to regular approval even though only 43% demonstrated a clinical benefit in confirmatory trials. The research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and discussed at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in San Diego on Sunday. It’s unclear how much cancer patients understand about drugs with accelerated approval, said study co-author Dr. Edward Cliff of Harvard Medical School. “We raise the question: Is that uncertainty being conveyed to patients?” Cliff said. Drugs that got accelerated approval may be the only option for patients with rare or advanced cancers, said Dr. Jennifer Litton of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who was not involved in the study. It’s important for doctors to carefully explain the evidence, Litton said. “It might be shrinking of tumor. It might be how long the tumor stays stable,” Litton said. “You can provide the data you have, but you shouldn’t overpromise.” Congress recently updated the program, giving the FDA more authority and streamlining the process for withdrawing drugs when companies don’t meet their commitments. The changes allow the agency “to withdraw approval for a drug approved under accelerated approval, when appropriate, more quickly,” FDA spokesperson Cherie Duvall-Jones wrote in an email. The FDA can now require that a confirmatory trial be underway when it grants preliminary approval, which speeds up the process of verifying whether a drug works, she said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
White House says Israeli troop reduction does not signal new strategy: 'They're tired' 2024-04-07 17:15:00+00:00 - U.S. national security spokesperson John Kirby speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 25, 2024. National Security Spokesman John Kirby on Sunday said that Israel's decision to pull some troops out of Southern Gaza does not appear to indicate a shift in military strategy. "As we understand it, and through their public announcements, it is really just about rest and refit for these troops that have been on the ground for four months, and not necessarily — that we can tell — indicative of some coming new operation," Kirby said in an interview on ABC's "This Week." "The word we're getting is they're tired, they need to be refitted." The Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday that it had "concluded its mission" in the Southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and that it would reduce its military troops in that region "in order to recuperate and prepare for future operations." The move comes six months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. The Biden administration has heated up its rhetoric against Israel's military conduct, sparked by an Israeli air strike that killed seven aid workers with the charity World Central Kitchen. In a phone call on Thursday, President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the strikes and the humanitarian circumstances in the war are "unacceptable," according to a White House summary. He also emphasized that the future of U.S. policy would be determined by Israel's "immediate" action on addressing civilian harm and humanitarian suffering. "We have been increasingly frustrated," Kirby said Sunday. However, he added in a separate interview, that after the IDF forces leaving Khan Younis have finished its "rest and refit," the White House does not know what the next military step would be. Some national security experts see this as a possible inflection point in the war, though the direction of that turn remains unclear. "I think this is a turning point in the campaign in Gaza," Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence at security consultancy Le Beck International, told NBC News. He said that currently, troops are not going in to replace the departing forces in Khan Younis, possibly signaling a more targeted military approach, which the U.S. has demanded for months. He added that replacing those troops might mean "Israel launches a new offensive, against Rafah, for instance." "What they'll do with those troops after the rest and refit, I can't speak to," Kirby said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "All I can do is say what I said before: We don't support a major ground operation in Rafah. That has not changed."
Yemen’s Houthis say they targeted Western ships 2024-04-07 17:15:00+00:00 - CAIRO — Houthi forces in Yemen said on Sunday they had launched rockets and drones at British, U.S. and Israeli ships, the latest in a campaign of attacks on shipping in support of Palestinians in the Gaza war. The Iran-aligned group said it had targeted a British ship and a number of U.S. frigates in the Red Sea, while in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean it had attacked two Israeli vessels heading to Israeli ports. The operations took place during the last 72 hours, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised statement. He did not give further details of the attacks. Earlier, British security firm Ambrey said it had received information indicating that a vessel was attacked on Sunday in the Gulf of Aden about 102 nautical miles southwest of Mukalla in Yemen. “Vessels in the vicinity were advised to exercise caution and report any suspicious activity,” the firm said. It did not say who was responsible for the attack or give further details. Separately, a missile landed near a vessel in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday but there was no damage to the ship or injuries to crew in the incident, 59 nautical miles southwest of the Yemeni port of Aden, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said. “The Master of the vessel reports a missile impacted the water in close proximity to the vessel’s port quarter,” UKMTO said in an advisory note. “No damage to the vessel reported and crew reported safe,” it added. It did not say who fired the missile or give further details. It was not immediately clear if the attacks reported by the British agencies were the same as the latest incidents claimed by the Houthis. Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping through the Suez Canal, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa. The United States and Britain have launched strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
U.S. Money Supply Is Doing Something No One Has Witnessed Since the Great Depression, and It Foreshadows a Big Move to Come in Stocks 2024-04-07 17:06:00+00:00 - When examined over long stretches, the stock market can't be beat. While other asset classes have produced solid nominal gains for investors, including gold, oil, housing, and Treasury bonds, none have come close to matching the annualized average returns that stocks have brought to the table over the last century. But when the lens is narrowed to just a few years or an even shorter timeline, predicting the directional moves of the ageless Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI), benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC), and growth-powered Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) with any sustained accuracy becomes practically impossible. Image source: Getty Images. However, this doesn't stop investors from trying to do the impossible. Though there's no economic data point or indicator that can concretely predict which direction the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite will head next, there are a very select group of metrics and forecasting tools that have strongly correlated with moves higher and lower in the major stock indexes throughout history. One of these metrics, which appears to be foreshadowing a massive move in stocks, is U.S. money supply. U.S. money supply hasn't done this in nine decades Among the five measures of money supply, M1 and M2 tend to garner most of the focus from economists and the investing community. M1 is a measure of cash and coins in circulation, as well as demand deposits in a checking account. It's money you have easy access to that can be spent immediately. On the other hand, M2 money supply accounts for everything in M1 and also adds in savings accounts, money market accounts, and certificates of deposit (CDs) below $100,000. This is still money you can access, but you'll have to work a bit harder to get to it. This is also the money supply metric that's raising eyebrows right now for all the wrong reasons. Most economists and investors tend to pay very little attention to M2 money supply because it's grown with such consistency over time. Since the U.S. economy expands over long periods, it's only natural that more cash and coins are needed to complete transactions. Story continues But in those extremely rare instances where a notable contraction in M2 money supply has been observed, trouble has historically followed for the U.S. economy and stock market. US M2 Money Supply Chart Two years ago, in March 2022, M2 money supply reached approximately $21.71 trillion. Based on the latest monthly data release from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, M2 clocked in at $20.78 trillion in February 2024. As you can see in the chart above, this represents a relatively minor 0.5% year-over-year decline, but a more pronounced 4.29% drop-off since March 2022. It's also the first meaningful move lower anyone has witnessed in M2 since the Great Depression. In one respect, this 4.29% retracement in U.S. money supply may simply be a reversion to the mean after M2 expanded by a historic 26% on a year-over-year basis during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple rounds of fiscal stimulus flooded the U.S. economy with cash and consumers who were more than willing to spend it. On the other hand, more than 150 years' worth of history has been pretty clear about what happens when M2 money supply retraces by more than 2% from a record high. Last year, Reventure Consulting CEO Nick Gerli shared the post you see below on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter). Gerli leaned on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Reserve to track M2 movements since 1870. WARNING: the Money Supply is officially contracting. 📉 This has only happened 4 previous times in last 150 years. Each time a Depression with double-digit unemployment rates followed. 😬 pic.twitter.com/j3FE532oac -- Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1) March 8, 2023 Gerli noted five instances where M2 money supply declined by at least 2% on a year-over-year basis, including the significant year-over-year move lower observed in 2023. The previous four instances where M2 fell by at least 2% -- 1878, 1893, 1921, and 1931-1933 -- were associated with periods of depression and high unemployment for the U.S. economy. To evaluate this data agnostically, it must be noted that the nation's central bank didn't exist in 1878 or 1893. Further, monetary and fiscal policy have come a long way since the Great Depression. The probability of a depression occurring today given the wealth of fiscal and monetary tools available is low. But this data set is pretty clear: If the amount of cash accessible to consumers is declining, and the prevailing/core rate of inflation is at or above historic norms, there's a good chance consumers will pare back discretionary purchases. In short, it's a historic blueprint for a U.S. recession. Even though stocks don't move in lockstep with the health of the U.S. economy, a recession would be expected to adversely impact corporate earnings. History shows that the lion's share of drawdowns in the S&P 500 have occurred after an official recession has been declared. Image source: Getty Images. Patience and perspective are money-in-the-bank attributes for investors Considering how resilient the U.S. economy has been in the face of rapidly rising interest rates, the prospect of the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite being knocked off of their respective pedestals may not be something you want to hear or talk about. Thankfully, history is a two-way street that very much favors investors who can take a step back and appreciate the power of perspective. As an example, let's take a closer look at the course most economic cycles have taken. Although recessions are perfectly normal and inevitable, they've historically come and gone in the blink of an eye. Since the end of World War II in September 1945, only three of 12 U.S. recessions lasted at least 12 months. Further, none of the remaining three surpassed 18 months. With few exceptions, expansions have endured multiple years. In fact, two periods of growth since the mid-1940s hurdled the 10-year mark. While recessions may be unwelcome in the short run, they've given way to long-lasting periods of economic and corporate growth. It's much the same story when it comes to Wall Street. Data from market research company Yardeni Research shows there have been 40 separate double-digit percentage declines in the S&P 500 since the start of 1950. Even though we're never going to precisely know ahead of time when these downturns will start, how long they'll last, or how steep the decline will be, history shows that the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq Composite eventually recoup their losses and push to new highs. It's official. A new bull market is confirmed. The S&P 500 is now up 20% from its 10/12/22 closing low. The prior bear market saw the index fall 25.4% over 282 days. Read more at https://t.co/H4p1RcpfIn. pic.twitter.com/tnRz1wdonp -- Bespoke (@bespokeinvest) June 8, 2023 In June 2023, market insights company Bespoke Investment Group took things one step further and published data on just how disproportionate bull markets have been, relative to bear markets, in the S&P 500. The researchers at Bespoke examined nearly 94 years' worth of bear and bull markets in the S&P 500, beginning with the start of the Great Depression in September 1929. While the 27 bear markets were noted as lasting an average of 286 calendar days (about 9.5 months), the 27 bull markets in the S&P 500 stuck around for an average of 1,011 calendar days (roughly two years and nine months), or 3.5 times as long. To add to the above, the longest bear market in the S&P 500's history was just 630 calendar days (Jan. 11, 1973 - Oct. 3, 1974), by Bespoke's measure. Comparatively, 13 of the 27 S&P 500 bull markets were longer than the lengthiest bear market. No matter how unpredictable things may seem in the short term, or how dire a picture historically accurate money-based metrics may paint, time is the undisputed ally of investors. If you have a long-term investment horizon and trust in the undeniable expansion of the U.S. economy over time, even a historic move lower in M2 money supply is nothing to worry about. Where to invest $1,000 right now When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has nearly tripled the market.* They just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now… See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of April 4, 2024 Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. U.S. Money Supply Is Doing Something No One Has Witnessed Since the Great Depression, and It Foreshadows a Big Move to Come in Stocks was originally published by The Motley Fool
Hardwood flooring manufacturer taking over 2 West Virginia sawmills that shut down 2024-04-07 16:53:38+00:00 - CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A hardwood flooring manufacturer has agreed to acquire two sawmills from a West Virginia lumber company that shut down. Mountville, Pennsylvania-based AHF Products said it will purchase Allegheny Wood Products sawmills in the Greenbrier County community of Smoot and the Randolph County community of Norton. AHF said in a statement that about 80 jobs will be saved at the two mills. More jobs are expected to be created in the region for loggers, truckers and suppliers. The sawmills will augment the supply of lumber to AHF’s solid wood flooring manufacturing facility in the Randolph County community of Beverly, the statement said. The supply of eastern U.S. hardwood lumber is currently 65% of what it was prior to the coronarivus pandemic and 40% of that before 2007. The sawmill purchases will supply 25 million board feet annually and recover all of the lumber supply that AHF would have lost due to the closure of Allegheny Wood Products, the statement said. “The purchase of these two sawmills is a wonderful and smart investment,” AHF President and CEO Brian Carson said. Founded in 1973, Allegheny Wood Products grew to eight sawmills in the state and touted itself as one of the largest producers of eastern U.S. hardwoods before shutting down in February. An official for the state’s unemployment agency told lawmakers that about 900 workers were affected. A federal lawsuit filed by a former employee accuses the company of failing to give the required 60-day notice before ordering mass layoffs. Allegheny gained widespread attention last year when its attempt to build a log fumigation facility in picturesque Hardy County drew fierce opposition. The company eventually dropped the bid.
Donald Trump Says It Would Be A 'Great Honor' If He Were Jailed For Breaching Gag Order: 'I Will Gladly Become A Modern Day Nelson Mandela' 2024-04-07 16:49:00+00:00 - Loading... Loading... On Saturday, former President Donald Trump said that it would be a “great honor” to be jailed for breaching a gag order in his hush money trial. Trump equated the potential imprisonment to becoming a "Modern Day Nelson Mandela," marking yet another instance where he has compared his legal battles to notable historical figures. This statement was made in a Truth Social post targeting New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the New York trial that begins on April 15. In that case, the former president faces allegations of falsifying business documents related to a hush money payment. “If this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the ‘clink’ for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela — It will be my GREAT HONOR,” Trump wrote. “We have to Save our Country from these Political Operatives masquerading as Prosecutors and Judges, and I am willing to sacrifice my Freedom for that worthy cause.” Trump's recent posts on Truth Social attacking New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan and invoking comparisons to historical figures have amplified tensions around the trial. Also Read: Donald Trump Reportedly Hid Billionaire's Bond Offer From Court To Save Millions The statements have led to expanded gag orders to restrict Trump's public comments about the judge's family and related legal parties. Trump has been critical of Merchan, accusing him of bias due to his daughter's connection to a progressive consulting firm. Following Trump's continued attacks, including on Merchan's family, the judge expanded the initial gag order to restrict Trump from targeting the families of court staff, the Manhattan District Attorney's office, and specifically, Merchan's and District Attorney Alvin Bragg's families. This is not Trump's first rodeo with gag order violations. In a separate civil case, Judge Arthur Engoron had previously threatened Trump with jail time for a similar offense, ultimately imposing a $10,000 fine. President Jo Biden's reelection campaign criticized Trump's recent comments, with spokesperson Jasmine Harris remarking on Trump's self-centered nature of comparing himself to figures like Christ and Mandela. Now Read: Marjorie Taylor Greene Claims She Has Proof That Votes For Donald Trump In 2020 Were 'Lost In The Mail': 'I Think He'll Be Vindicated Easily' This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
How car buyers thinking hybrid over EV should make the decision 2024-04-07 16:21:00+00:00 - A range of new and growing options exist on the car dealer lot when it comes to hybrid and electric vehicles, but if you've been following the headlines lately, decisions made by major automakers reflect a market tilting more hybrid than EV. Ford just announced it's delaying an EV pickup and in the short-term focusing more on its North American hybrid lineup. "EV euphoria is dead," with the idea of "consumer choice" back in among car companies from Ford to General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin, which are all scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans. GM's EV sales remained insignificant in the most recent quarter. But finding the best bang for your buck can be complicated. These decisions often turn on factors such as upfront cost, driving habits, how long you plan to own the car, likely costs over time and even what area of the country you live in. The answer isn't always straightforward even amid headlines screaming hybrid. Here are some tips to help car buyers make the right decision. Figure out how much you drive Before you start comparing costs, it makes sense to think about how you plan to use the vehicle. Are you just driving five or 10 miles to work and back each day, or are you planning on taking the car on long road trips? If you drive long distances frequently, consider the availability of fast-charging stations along your route. If fast-charging stations are scarce, as they are in many areas of the country, you might be better served with a hybrid where you just pull into a gas station and keep driving, said Sandeep Rao, lead researcher for Leverage Shares, which offers investment funds including several focused on the stocks of EV and traditional automakers. The federal government's initiative to create a vast charging network across the U.S. hasn't yet materialized on a widespread basis. Instead, the focus has been on pockets of the country like California, the New York tri-state area, Florida and Texas, but the vast majority of people live in between these places. "Most Americans don't have access to EVs because there's not enough charging infrastructure," Rao said. He also said to consider how long you plan to own the vehicle, the car's potential service needs and what nearby options exist for maintenance. Other factors include your home set-up. Do you have the right conditions to charge an EV quickly and conveniently? And what would the upfront costs be to upgrade your system to allow for faster charging, if desired? Do the math on upfront cost, EV vs. hybrid If it's still a toss up between an EV and a hybrid, next consider upfront costs. The average price of the top-ten best selling electric vehicles in the U.S. is about $53,758, with an average of $48,430 for the low-end version of each model and $64,936 for the high-end version of each model, according to Find My Electric, an independent EV marketplace. Prices for these 10 EVs range from $26,599 for the Chevrolet Bolt EV to $99,000 for the most expensive version of the Rivian R1S, according to its data. By contrast, the average starting price for a hybrid car is $33,214, according to iSeeCars.com, a car search engine. If you have specific models in mind, the Department of Energy offers a tool to compare up to four vehicles at once. You can also compare different models based on fuel efficiency. Search for available auto rebates and incentives If you're leaning toward an EV, but still find the upfront cost daunting, look for possible rebates. There are subsidies from the federal government — up to $7,500 maximum — but it's getting harder to qualify for as more manufacturers are becoming ineligible, Rao said. Also look for state and local incentives. Buyers can visit the Electric for All website, maintained by the nonprofit organization Veloz, to search for incentives such as vehicle tax credits and rebates, charging rebates, local utility incentive programs and other special driving perks for going electric. "Depending where you live, you might be able to walk off the lot with an EV that's similar in price to a hybrid or internal combustion vehicle," said Steve Christensen, executive director of the Responsible Battery Coalition, a nonprofit coalition of companies committed to the responsible management of the batteries. Consider a plug-in hybrid Another option people could look at is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, which offers an attractive option for those who are transitioning from gas and diesel-driven cars to battery-powered vehicles, Rao said. The biggest differences between full hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars are the size, cost and purpose of their electric batteries, according to an online Q&A from Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Also, a plug-in hybrid's electric battery can be recharged at home or a public charging station whereas a full hybrid car uses its gas-powered engine to recharge. If you are considering a plug-in hybrid, the Department of Energy has a calculator that can help estimate personalized fuel use and costs based on your driving habits, fuel prices, and charging schedule. Focus on overall cost of ownership, not just upfront costs Generally, the upfront costs of an EV will be higher, but you still might be better off over time. For example, smaller EVs like compact cars or sedans with a range of about 200 miles break even with a similarly sized traditional hybrid in five years or less, according to a recent University of Michigan study. And that's without incentives, said Maxwell Woody, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan and lead author of the study. However, larger vehicles like midsize SUVs, pickup trucks or other vehicles with a larger, up-to 400-mile range battery do not break even with hybrids, even if incentives are applied, the study found. It's worth noting that the data is based on a longer history of battery prices, which have decreased dramatically in recent years, and are expected to continue falling, so electric vehicles generally will perform better in the near future, Woody said. Doing the math on a plug-in hybrid is more complicated because the cost to run the car can vary widely on how much you charge versus refueling with gas. If you operate it all-electricity for city driving, for instance, your costs could be close to an EV, Woody said. If you take it on long trips, the costs for refueling could be more similar to a gas vehicle, he said. When considering the overall cost of ownership, be sure to factor in maintenance costs, said Albert Gore, executive director of ZETA, an industry-backed coalition that advocates for full EV adoption. He points to a study by Argonne National Lab that shows scheduled maintenance costs per mile are significantly lower for an EV versus a traditional hybrid or plug-in hybrid. Also be sure to compare apples-to-apples in terms of features, model, year, quality and use cases, Woody said. For example, someone considering a Nissan Leaf, which is fully electric, might look at the comparable data for a Honda Civic hybrid, he said.
The billionaires join Bernie Sanders in weighing in on four-day workweek. Here's what CEOs who actually made the move say 2024-04-07 15:47:00+00:00 - Corporate wellness company Exos, which works with large organizations such as JetBlue, says burnout has gone down significantly among employees at firms which have made Fridays more flexible. But even at companies which don't have the option to eliminate a workday, like an airline, there are methods of breaking up every workday in ways that increase employee productivity, building "recovery breaks" into the day, its CEO Sarah Robb O'Hagan said during a recent "Squawk Box" interview. Calling the range of work-from-home and in-person combinations that many companies are navigating "madness," Diller said, "I think that is going to be the sensible evolution of all this, but it has to be standardized. You can't have 17,000 different programs, because how do you deal with all the things around it?" "Not necessarily a four-day work week, but four days in the office, and Fridays you can work from home or work at your own schedule," Diller said Thursday on "Squawk Box." But don't count peer billionaire Barry Diller, the IAC and Expedia chairman, among the believers. He said while he doesn't see a four-day workweek happening, he is predicting that many companies will shift to a different form of flexible work moving forward — with work time concentrated even more so on in-person appearances. There are two factors driving the push for a four-day workweek, according to Josh Bersin, a research analyst whose firm focuses on human resources. "People are still burned out from the pandemic, believe it or not, and they're looking for more flexibility in their lives," he said. Another is that top management is pushing productivity — Cohen cited among his reasons for expecting more companies to adopt the move that productivity levels are generally lower on Fridays. That was a point made last week by Steve Cohen, the billionaire hedge fund manager and owner of the New York Mets, who said on CNBC he does see a future where a true four-day workweek becomes a reality for most workers (not his own though, as long as the stock market remains open five days). Cohen thinks the increasing presence of artificial intelligence — which has already saved his firm $25 million — would lead him to bet on more companies adopting the approach. While relatively few companies have shifted to a four-day workweek, the advent of artificial intelligence apps like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini could hasten the shift. A recent survey by Tech.co of 1,000 U.S.-based business leaders found that the companies that had extensive experience using AI were more than twice as likely to be open to a four-day workweek than those who didn't. Business leaders are worried about productivity, even though it's been on a recent rise for three quarters. A recent PriceWaterhouseCooper survey of 4,702 CEOs found that the C-suite is worried about inefficiency at work. And in early 2024, as many companies prepare for an economy that could slow down, everyone is looking for productivity advantages, Bersin said. "So you've got business leaders telling their teams to be more productive and employees saying, 'I'm burned out and I want my life back.'" While the movement towards a four-day workweek picked up as far back as 2018 and then gained steam as a result of Covid, according to Brendan Burchell, a sociology professor at the University of Cambridge, the gap between workers and leaders on the issue remains wide. "I think maybe one of the things that's really made it catch on is that people in Covid realize that work their working lives could be very different," he said. But institutional opposition to change is significant. "Lots of people just assume that working five days a week is normal," Burchell said. "It's almost like it was written in the book of Genesis and was never going to change. [But] with modern technologies, we have no doubt we can be a lot more productive than our grandparents." Mike Neundorfer, the CEO and owner of Advanced RV in Willoughby, Ohio — which builds custom RVs using a Mercedes Sprinter chassis — took his company to a four-day workweek about 18 months ago. He said it has made a big difference. "It's huge," he said. "It's enabled people to just improve the things they do in their lives, whether it's a gardening, spending time with kids, with family. It's just been great." Neundorfer acknowledges that there are some downsides. "We're still not quite 100 percent of what we did in 40 hours, but we're really close," he said. "So you could argue that if we made those same improvements in productivity, and stayed with a 40 hour week, we, you know, we might have another 10 or 20 percent return. I think we'll get to that point where we're at 10 or 20 percent on 32 hours, but we're not quite there now." Mike Arney runs Halftone Digital, a digital product design studio headquartered in Minneapolis, which has nine full-time employees scattered across the U.S. Two years ago, he decided to switch Halftone to a four-day week. There have been a few hiccups since then, but not enough to change his mind. "If we do have to do something on Friday, then we spend a few hours here in there on Fridays, but it's very rare. ... It's been quite a quite a ride for the last two years," he said. "I don't think we're going back." Stepan Solovev, CEO & Co-founder of software company SOAX, agreed. "This whole journey has shown us that embracing a four-day work week isn't just a nice-to-have," he said. "It's a powerful strategic move. It forces us to cut the fluff and focus on what matters." Around the world, the idea is becoming more popular. Panasonic — based in Japan, where the government encouraged the shift — has experimented with the concept. Iceland piloted a 36-hour workweek in 2015 with 2,500 people and since then, 90 percent of the country's population has cut their hours back. Germany, Finland and Portugal have experimented with a four-day workweek and the United Arab Emirates initiated a four-and-a-half day workweek in 2023. Lamborghini announced it is moving ahead with a four-day workweek for its production workers in Italy. In February, 45 companies in Germany said they will introduce a four-day workweek for half the year and the Dominican Republic has announced a four-day workweek trial, also for a half year. The fact that disparate nations have embraced the four-day workweek "gives us a little confidence that this is not a movement that is going to be confined to one kind of political system or one sort of labor market," said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, program director for 4 Day Week Global, an organization charged with "changing the future or work through working smarter, not longer," according to its charter. In 2022, a study in the UK of 2,900 workers revealed that a four-day workweek significantly increased work-life balance and job satisfaction and reduced employee stress. Reducing the workweek also meant fewer absences and sick days, the study found. ThredUp , the online consignment and thrift company, shifted to a four-day workweek in 2021. An employee survey in 2022 found that 93 percent of respondents said the four-day workweek increased their productivity. Natalie Breece, ThredUp's chief people and diversity officer, said that new technology "will enable companies that are interested in a four-day workweek to challenge the status quo." "I think people will become just even more efficient in how they get work done, which I think is going to allow employees to focus on higher impact work," said Breece. "They'll be able to get more done in a shorter amount of time."
Top Wall Street analysts like these 3 dividend stocks for passive income 2024-04-07 14:57:00+00:00 - A Walmart Supercenter cart sits outside of the store on February 20, 2024, in Hallandale Beach, Florida. When markets get rocky, dividend-paying stocks can give investors' portfolios the cushioning they need to ride out volatile times. Finding the right dividend payers can be difficult, though. Investors can turn to the expertise of Wall Street analysts who can identify stocks with long-term growth potential and the ability to generate the solid cash flows needed to support continued dividends. Here are three attractive dividend stocks, according to Wall Street's top experts on TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their past performance. OneMain Holdings This week's first dividend pick is OneMain Holdings (OMF), a financial services company focused on the needs of non-prime customers. OMF stock offers an attractive dividend yield of 8.1%. Aside from regular dividends, the company also boosts shareholder returns with share repurchases. In the fourth quarter, OneMain repurchased 531,000 shares for $20 million. Recently, RBC Capital analyst Kenneth Lee updated his model and estimates for OMF stock and raised the price target to $55 from $50 to reflect a more favorable macro outlook. The analyst reiterated a buy rating on the stock, citing the company's reliable business model and capital generation ability. Lee said that OMF's new price target is based on a price-to-tangible book value (2025 estimate) multiple of 2.9x. He thinks that the company warrants a premium multiple as it can deliver a very high return on tangible common equity of more than 40%, with the cost of equity (under normalized conditions) estimated in the range of 9% to 10% and finance receivables expected to grow by mid- to high-single digits. "In our view, there could be meaningful opportunities for further growth in the non-prime personal loan markets, as the loans only form 16% of total non-prime unsecured credit," said Lee. Lee ranks No. 76 among more than 8,700 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 68% of the time, with each delivering an average return of 17%. (See OneMain Holdings Financials on TipRanks) Walmart We move to big-box retailer Walmart (WMT), which recently announced about a 9% increase in its annual dividend to 83 cents per share, representing its largest hike in over a decade. The announcement marked the company's 51st consecutive year of dividend raises. Walmart pays a dividend yield of 1.4%. Following a meeting with Walmart's management, Jefferies analyst Corey Tarlowe reiterated a buy rating on WMT stock with a price target of $70. Among the key highlights of the meeting was the analyst's observation that the company is witnessing some signs of consumer stability. For one, the customer experience score rose 140 basis points in fiscal 2024, which ended Jan. 31. Tarlowe also noted increasing private label penetration, enhanced e-commerce shopping experience, better order economics with improved e-commerce margins in fiscal 2024, and an impressive rise in Sam's Club's membership levels that is expected to boost the top-line growth. Additionally, the analyst is upbeat about the prospects of Walmart's international segment. He expects its sales to see high-single-digit growth on an annual average basis and projects profits to more than double by fiscal 2028 compared to fiscal 2023. Commenting on WMT's advertising business, Tarlowe said, "Last year, WMT's global advertising business grew 28% to ~$3.4B and we believe that advertising remains a significant opportunity for WMT ahead." Tarlowe holds the 537th position among more than 8,700 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 65% of the time, with each delivering an average return of 14.6%. (See Walmart Ownership Structure on TipRanks) SLB This week's third dividend pick is oilfield services company SLB (SLB). Earlier this year, the company announced better-than-anticipated fourth-quarter results and increased its quarterly cash dividend by 10%. SLB stock offers a dividend yield of 2%. On April 1, Goldman Sachs added SLB to its U.S. Conviction List with a price target of $62, as analyst Neil Mehta thinks that that the company is a leading energy services provider. It is also the preferred stock to gain exposure to international and offshore oil services growth, at an attractive price-to-earnings multiple of 13x (based on 2025 earnings estimates). Mehta also highlighted SLB's ability to generate strong free cash flow, which can drive capital returns and growth investments. The analyst expects management to return more than 60% of its free cash flow via share buybacks and dividends. Furthermore, the analyst thinks that SLB's digital business is underappreciated. He stated, "We believe SLB is uniquely positioned to expand its digital business given the industry is not as digitized and SLB is the only digital provider in the space that carries competitive moat." Mehta ranks No. 176 among more than 8,700 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been successful 67% of the time, with each delivering an average return of 12.7%. (See SLB Stock Buybacks on TipRanks)
Oracle's Larry Ellison thinks every government will want to build a 'sovereign' AI cloud in the future 2024-04-07 14:31:00+00:00 - Some analysts are skeptical of Ellison's talk as being anything more than typical C-suite rallying for a key business unit. Oracle shares are up about 21% YTD, but Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow expressed concern about lower OCI growth during its latest earnings, which could "worry investors, as this is the main investment story." "It took Serbia eight years to harmonize their laws to be able to join the E.U.," Ellison said. "Albania is facing the same thing, but with generative AI, we can read the entire corpus of the Albanian laws and actually harmonize their laws with the EU in probably more like 18 months to two years." Oracle, which works with Nvidia and Microsoft on generative AI capabilities, has already helped use cloud tech to cut red tape for countries. One example Ellison gave was Albania. It is trying to ascend to the European Union with the help of chatGPT , with the generative AI helping to decipher and summarize its laws and aid the country in what it needs to change in order to be compliant with E.U. regulations. But Ellison went further in his prediction when speaking with analysts on the recent earnings call , saying "Every government, pretty much every government, is going to want a sovereign cloud and a dedicated region for that government." Major tech companies vying for massive government contracts in the cloud are nothing new. Microsoft and Amazon had a lengthy battle over a cloud deal with the Department of Defense, and both those AI players as well as Oracle and Google ended up all in on a $9 billion DoD contract in 2022. "We talk about, you know, winning business with companies. For the first time, we're beginning to win business for countries," Ellison said. "We have a number of countries where we're negotiating sovereign regions with the national government." The Oracle founder, former CEO and current chairman and chief technology officer, sees national and state government applications being run on platforms like Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to a much greater degree than today, and indicated that it's starting to happen in a variety of ways. Every tech company is talking up its AI opportunity. Oracle is no exception. But during an earnings call in March, Oracle's Larry Ellison laid out a future market opportunity focused on a major customer that investors may think about less often that Fortune 500 companies. A version of future featuring cloud services and artificial intelligence-powered solutions can make government more efficient. Ellison said for starters, redundancy is a focus for government, in the case of disaster and disaster recovery. But it's also moving into health care information and internet access projects. Countries including Serbia are standardizing on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and using generative AI for processes like automating health care. Deals related to delivery of internet services in partnership with Elon Musk's Starlink to remote areas are taking place in Kenya and Rwanda, where OCI and Starlink are mapping rural farms to see which crops are growing in what area, and if they are getting enough nutrients like nitrogen and water. "These maps are AI-assisted, help them plan their agricultural output and predict their agricultural output, predict markets, the logistics of the agricultural output, doing all of all of those things as next-generation national applications," Ellison said. Food security, rural school and rural hospital internet access, are other examples of what Ellison said are among the "all sorts of interesting new AI applications out there that you've probably never heard of before, at least I hadn't heard of before until these last 12 months now that we've worked on and we're now in the process of delivering." He also mentioned automation of vaccination programs, and other healthcare program "across the board." "We're living in a world where like data and information is the gold of the future," said Dan Gardner, CEO of digital strategy agency Code and Theory. "If the government can get access and action on that their data faster, why would we want to slow that down? We want that to be as efficient as possible. A lot of that is like mundane human resources, that maybe those people could be doing something else that is way more valuable." Cloud and generative AI applications allowing countries to give rural areas internet access could increase educational opportunities and create more economic value. It could also allow citizens to have more insight into government processes, said Tapan Parikh, Cornell University associate professor. "One thing technology's always been good at is potentially making bureaucracies more efficient, or at least more transparent internally," he said. 'Black Mirror' governments But the push to move more government processes to the cloud is also opening the door to new risks, especially as countries trust newly developed generative AI systems. While they may make processes faster than ever, there are bound to be mistakes as the technology develops and could make citizen data accessible to cyber criminals. "We shouldn't use these technologies as an excuse to not maintain oversight and control over political processes," Parikh said. "Certainly, I think that's a very important thing, particularly when you're dealing with countries that may not have the same kind of governance capacity." Oracle did not respond to a request for additional comment on Ellison's earnings call discussion. "There's the 'Black Mirror' bad side of it: Big Brother, data wars, AI warfare and all that stuff," Garder said. "As far as like removing red tape and being more efficient and getting better use out of crops across the country, that's incredible. That's the multiplier of humanity that could really improve because of AI." AI raises a host of concerns. Gardner pointed to the proliferation of more generative content in an election year around the world and all the issues related to tech-enabled interference. "Maybe it's not like chips on the ground. But it's data security, authentication of who you are, who governments are, what content you're viewing, all the connection points between financial systems, and AI governance. Using AI as a tool of destruction is quite scary." "No big government in the world can afford to move all of their services and especially critical ones like defense, taxes, health care, completely into the cloud and into the hands of gen AI," said Simone Bohnenberger, chief product officer at cloud company Phrase. "It's just not in the realm of, I think it's not responsible to do that. The potential risks outweigh the benefits of doing that." OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, is mostly trained on existing content on the internet. That could pose a problem, especially when text from lesser known languages like Albanian need to be analyzed, Bohnenberger said. "If you look at the World Wide Web or the internet, the vast majority of content there's English, I think a quarter of the content is English, followed by Chinese," she said. "Albanian is a minority. It's very questionable for me how well that actually works for a small country like Albania and like an outlier language, because there's just not much data you can train a model on. And if you don't have much data, then the outputs will be very messy." Then there's security and data risks with allowing foreign companies access to citizen data, Parikh said. Even the U.S., with all its resources, has been vulnerable to data hacks, including a recent February incident with contractor CGI Federal which exposed personally identifiable information on employees. The recent battle between the U.S. and China over TikTok is an example of how control of sensitive consumer data can be interjected into geopolitics. "I think certainly that's a concern going forward for countries who are working with vendors from different countries," Parikh said.
Mark Cuban says everyone has the potential to be ‘world-class great’ at one thing—here’s how to identify yours 2024-04-07 14:11:00+00:00 - Mark Cuban believes you're capable of greatness — as long as you stay open-minded enough to discover your strengths. "I'm a hardcore believer that everybody has something that they're really, really, really good at — that could be world-class great. Every single human being on this planet," Cuban recently told the "Lex Fridman Podcast." "The hard part is just finding what that [greatness] is and, in some places, having resources to enable it," he added. "But be curious so you can find out what it is." He has a point, according to psychologists. Curiosity can help you learn more while keeping you better engaged in your career or hobbies, research shows — which will make you happier, and more likely to succeed. Even if you don't unlock "world-class" greatness, cultivating your own curiosity throughout life can have long-term benefits. Cuban shared an example from his own personal experience. Despite the fact that he's now a tech billionaire, he said he never showed an affinity for — or even an interest in — technology until after he'd graduated from college. "I [only] took one technology class in college, Fortran programming, and I cheated on it," Cuban said. It wasn't until after he'd finished school and started working for Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh that Cuban discovered his interest in technology while learning the computer programming language RAMIS. "I realized, 'Oh, this is interesting to me and I like it,'" said Cuban. "And that's what got me a job selling software, and going on from there." At age 23, Cuban left Mellon and moved to Dallas, sleeping on the floor of an apartment he shared with five friends. He got a job selling software, and realized his skill and affinity for sales and technology. "I could go seven hours, eight hours [of coding] without taking a break, thinking it was 10 minutes, because I was concentrating so hard and so excited and really loved it," Cuban said on ABC's "Shark Tank" in 2016. "That's when I realized that I can be really, really good at technology." After getting fired from that sales job, Cuban started a software company called MicroSolutions, which he sold to CompuServe for $6 million in 1990. Five years later, he became a co-founder of AudioNet, which turned into Broadcast.com. That company sold to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999, making Cuban a 40-year-old billionaire. His advice to young people, he said on the podcast: Don't panic if you haven't yet discovered your biggest strengths. Instead, stay curious and open-minded. "You just don't know what that's going to be until you go out and experience different things," he said, adding: "Enjoy your life, find things to smile about, be curious, read, watch, expose yourself to as many different ideas as you can, because something's going to click at some point. You may be 15, you may be 25, you may be 55, but it can happen." Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank." Want to make extra money outside of your day job? Sign up for CNBC's new online course How to Earn Passive Income Online to learn about common passive income streams, tips to get started and real-life success stories. Register today and save 50% with discount code EARLYBIRD.
World Bank’s funding of ‘hog hotel’ factory farms under fire over climate effect 2024-04-07 12:01:00+00:00 - The private sector arm of the World Bank is facing claims that it contributes to global heating and the undermining of animal welfare by providing financial support for factory farming, including the building of pig farming tower blocks in China. A coalition of environmental and animal welfare groups is calling on the World Bank to phase out financial support for large-scale “industrial” livestock operations. More than $1.6bn was provided for industrial farming projects between 2017 and 2023, according to an analysis by campaigners. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, is owned by 186 member countries including the UK, which has a 4.5% shareholding. Andrew Mitchell, the minister for development, is a governor of the IFC. Kelly McNamara, a senior research and policy analyst at Friends of the Earth US, said there was a “mismatch” between the World Bank’s commitments on the climate crisis, sustainable development and animal welfare, and its financing of intensive farming. “Expanding industrial livestock production is a threat to climate, sustainable development and food security,” she said, adding that investing in such projects put smallholders out of business and increased meat consumption, fuelling global heating. In June last year, the IFC approved a $47.3m (£37.4m) loan to the Chinese company Guangxi Yangxiang providing capital for four multistorey industrial pig-rearing complexes and a feed mill. “There are big advantages to a high-rise building,” a company manager told Reuters during early construction of the blocks at Yaji Mountain in southern China in 2018. “The land area is not that much, but you can raise a lot of pigs.” The farms, known as “hog hotels”, can be 13 floors high. The Yangxiang group says it has combined “internet technologies such as artificial intelligence [and] cloud computing” with the traditional pig-rearing business. The company says on its website: “Yangxiang has created an industrial model with multifloor pig farming as the core and strives to build a high-end intelligent ‘meat factory’.” Peter Stevenson, chief policy adviser at Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), said: “I’m appalled by some of these developments, which have limited space and barren conditions. They are not just damaging for animal welfare, but also for food security and the environment.” Stevenson said intensive agriculture undermined food security because animals converted cereal feed inefficiently into meat and milk. He said it would be better to produce more crops for direct human consumption and reduce the amount of cereals used for animal feed. Other IFC-funded projects include intensive chicken production in India and Uganda, pig production in Ecuador and dairy production in Pakistan. In June 2022, the IFC granted a loan of up to $200m to agribusiness giant Louis Dreyfus Company to purchase soy and corn in Brazil. IFC said it would only source crops from farmers committed to zero deforestation, but campaigners said it should “stop funding the wasteful use of such crops as animal feed”. Friends of the Earth US, CIWF and other groups will be signing a letter to Ajay Banga, the World Bank’s president, for the bank’s spring meeting later this month. It will say the organisation must acknowledge that industrial farming is a “major contributor to the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss” and phase out the funding. World Bank officials say the environment and animal welfare are central to the IFC’s financing of farming projects, with policies and guidelines to ensure sustainable businesses. They say large-scale projects can be used to develop more efficient, environmentally friendly practices. Officials also say they strive to reduce greenhouse emissions in every project for which finance is provided. The Yangxiang group and Louis Dreyfus Company were contacted for comment.
People are poorer than at the last election and all Hunt can do is hope | Larry Elliott 2024-04-07 11:49:00+00:00 - Some chancellors are sacked. Some are forced to resign. Some exchange the green benches of the House of Commons for the red benches of the Lords. But not in living memory has a chancellor lost his seat at a general election. If opinion polls are accurate, Jeremy Hunt will break that tradition, with the Liberal Democrats on course to take his newly created Godalming and Ash seat in Surrey. The last time the Conservatives were on the wrong end of a landslide, Kenneth Clarke, then chancellor, held his Nottinghamshire seat reasonably comfortably. Hunt has a real fight on his hands. The state of the economy is not helping the chancellor’s survival chances. Growth figures, out later this week, are likely to show activity was flat in February and on course to expand marginally in the first three months of 2024. That will be enough for the UK to emerge from its shallow recession in the second half of last year but it is unlikely many voters will notice. The Bank of England is not helping Hunt, either. Most members of Threadneedle Street’s nine-strong monetary policy committee want to see more evidence that the battle against inflation has been decisively won before cutting interest rates, a needlessly cautious approach that is hampering the economy’s ability to bounce back after two years of flatlining. When the Bank announced the last of its 14 interest-rate increases in August last year, taking official borrowing costs to 5.25%, the annual inflation rate stood at 6.7%. That meant real interest rates – interest rates adjusted for inflation – were slightly negative. Since then the fall in inflation has meant real interest rates have turned positive and the Bank’s policy stance has become ever-more restrictive. Inflation currently stands at 3.4% and is expected to fall to about 3% when the March figures are released later this month, and to about 2% in April. In real terms, borrowing is getting more expensive month by month. The impact of rising real interest rates is already evident in the housing market. Mortgage demand and property prices had both been rising since the last few months of 2023, in expectation that the Bank would cut rates this year. Financial markets still think the MPC will reduce borrowing costs but have become less optimistic about the timing and the scale of the reductions. Put simply, markets now believe that rate cuts will come later in 2024 and that there will be fewer of them. As a result, mortgage rates have started to edge higher and house prices have started to soften. Spring normally marks the moment when the property market emerges from its winter hibernation, but both Nationwide and Halifax reported falls in prices in March. That’s good news for potential first-time buyers struggling to get on the housing ladder, but not especially welcome for a chancellor desperate for the feelgood factor that rising property prices usually generates among owner-occupiers. The Bank is highly unlikely to announce a rate cut when the MPC next meets in early May, although it will probably signal that one might be on the way in June. Further rate cuts can be expected in the second half of 2024 but policy will remain restrictive and the economy will suffer as a result. Hunt’s argument is that the economy is on the mend, the cost of living crisis is coming to an end and that voters are becoming better off. Having inherited a terrible mess from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng in the autumn of 2022, the chancellor will say that he has stabilised the economy, taken steps to repair the public finances and found scope to cut taxes. All these things are true. Despite the Bank of England’s inaction, the economy is over the worst. Inflation will be below its 2% target within months. Wages have been growing faster than prices for several months. The average worker will be almost £1,000 a year better off as a result of the cuts in national insurance in the autumn statement and last month’s budget. Unfortunately for Hunt, while people might be better off than they were a year ago, they are poorer than they were at the time of the last election. Likewise, tax as a share of national income is still on course to be its highest since the late 1940s despite the cuts in NI. Food prices may now have started to fall slightly but they remain 25% higher than they were two years ago. Things are getting better but with an election rapidly looming they are not getting better quickly enough for the Conservatives. The government has had to grapple with two massive external shocks in the past four years, first the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine, and attempted to cushion the blow by increasing public spending. The furlough scheme and energy price caps prevented mass unemployment in the first half of the parliament, while energy price caps helped to temper the impact of the cost of living crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is unlikely a Labour government would have acted that much differently. But politics is a rough old business. Voters seemed to quite like Boris Johnson’s upbeat message at the 2019 election, but the optimism lasted only a matter of months before the pandemic arrived. The period since has been tough, with lockdowns and the war leaving deep economic scars. Political scandals, most notably Partygate, have further soured the mood, but the fundamental problem is that people know they are poorer and think the government is to blame. There is not a lot Hunt can do about this apart from wait and hope.
How immigrants are helping boost the U.S. job market without affecting inflation 2024-04-07 11:17:00+00:00 - Blockbuster job growth continues to power the U.S. economy, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting 303,000 payrolls added in March. Usually, such strong growth might signal that inflation could pick up. If employers see more demand for goods and services, they need to hire more workers — and if there aren’t enough workers, they have to increase pay, which increases the overall cost of running the business. But while annual price growth, at more than 3%, remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, it is still well below the 9% peak seen in the summer of 2022. Economists increasingly believe that the post-pandemic surge in immigration is a key reason the economy has been able to grow steadily without pushing inflation higher, as the new arrivals have helped employers fill roles at levels of pay that have kept a lid on overall price growth. In a note to clients published Friday, titled “Why we have both strong growth and lower inflation,” Goldman Sachs chief U.S. economist David Mericle said rising immigration had boosted labor force growth. As a result, the strong demand that consumers continue to exhibit elsewhere is unlikely to raise prices by much, “if at all,” he said. In fact, so far, measures of labor market “tightness,” like wages, “have continued to fall or move sideways, not rise,” Mericle said. “Won’t stronger growth prevent inflation from falling or even reignite it?” he wrote. “We don’t think so.” The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan federal agency, was the first to cite the immigration surge that began in 2022 as the primary factor helping to expand the overall size of the U.S. labor force. This year, the agency increased its projection of how large the U.S. labor force could be in 2033 by 5.2 million people. Most of that increase is expected to be a result of higher projected net immigration. The Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank, came to a similar conclusion earlier this month, saying the economy can now tolerate a more brisk pace of job growth without adding to cost concerns. “Faster population and labor force growth has meant that employment could grow more quickly than previously believed without adding to inflationary pressures,” Brookings said. Wendy Edelberg, a former Federal Reserve economist now serving as director of Brookings’ Hamilton Project, told NBC News the net effect of immigration on inflation is not entirely obvious — but is likely marginal. Indeed, Fed Chair Jay Powell has expressed similar observations, saying the effect of the new wave of arrivals is “broadly neutral.” What is clear, Edelberg said, is that the immigration surge will allow the economy to tolerate higher levels of job growth without overheating. “Without immigration, if I’d seen an increase of 300,000, I would have been utterly baffled that wages were not higher,” she said, citing the March jobs report released on Friday. Wage data shows the annual pace of average hourly pay growth has declined to 4.1% in March after hitting a post-pandemic peak of 5.9% in March 2022. If the supply and demand for labor were truly out of sync, the pace of wage growth would be much higher, likely translating into higher overall inflation. Instead, thanks to the immigration surge, businesses in the aggregate can tap into the newly growing labor pool to meet continued demand for their goods and services, without having to raise wages significantly to compete for workers. For many parts of the economy, from federal Social Security payments all the way down to local businesses that may be looking for workers or new customers, immigration is usually a net good, Edelberg said. At the same time, it tends to put a strain on state and local budgets, she said. Immigration now ranks as the most volatile domestic issue facing President Joe Biden, with Gallup survey respondents ranking it as the country’s “most important problem,” the first time it has held that position since 2019. Republicans have called on Biden to take extreme measures to stem the entry of migrants, while former President Donald Trump has referred to them as “not humans” and “animals.” Big cities like New York and Chicago, meanwhile, have faced crises stemming in part from political stunts by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that have involved sending migrants to those cities at a pace they’re not equipped to handle. But while the focus of the debate has been on undocumented immigration, the majority of immigrants arriving are actually authorized to work in the U.S., Edelberg said. Plus, they’re more likely to spend a greater share of their labor income. “So they’re increasing the demand for goods and services, and helping to supply labor,” she said. “So the net effect on inflation is actually small.”
Aslef says more train strikes likely as drivers’ pay row continues 2024-04-07 11:04:00+00:00 - Passengers on Britain’s railways should expect more strikes to follow the current round of industrial action within months, the boss of the train drivers’ union Aslef has warned ahead of a third day of disruption amid a simmering row over pay. Mick Whelan, the general secretary of Aslef, said the union was scheduled to enter negotiations this month with some rail operators over future pay levels, and that a failure to strike a deal would mean it would look to launch a fresh round of industrial action to run alongside the current dispute. He added that this was likely, as the current breakdown in talks over a pay agreement for drivers for the last two years would make it hard to strike any future agreement. The union leader was talking ahead of the third and final day of rolling strikes carried out by the union on Monday, which is expected to close most of London’s commuter lines because of the 24-hour action carried out by Aslef members. On Friday and Saturday, the union carried out action on the other parts of the network, causing widespread disruption for travellers. The industrial action is the latest in an almost two-year dispute over pay between the union and rail companies, which has resulted in a series of strikes that have completely shut down the network. Union officials are due to begin a fresh round of talks with some rail operators from this month, and others throughout the year, which would be aimed at reaching an agreement over pay levels for the next two years. Whelan said: “The reality is, we are going to ask for a pay rise, they are going to say: ‘We can’t give you a pay rise if we haven’t been able to settle the previous two years,’ but they are not going to settle for the previous two years, so what are we going to do? “We don’t want another dispute but at this moment in time, it is very much heading along that line again.” He said this would probably lead to “further action” that could run in tandem with the current dispute, with the union having to ballot separately and secure a separate mandate. However, this would probably still be months away as the talks would need to conclude and then go through various union committees before reaching ballot stage. There seems no prospect of an end to the current dispute between rail companies and Aslef, with Whelan conceding that drivers were “in it for the long haul”. Last year, Aslef rejected a deal from operators through the Rail Delivery Group, the body that represents all rail companies, which would have led to drivers’ salaries increasing to £65,000 for a four-day week. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Talks have completely stalled, with Aslef’s last meeting with the RDG coming in April last year. It said its last meeting with the rail minister Huw Merriman was in January 2023. Whelan said: “We don’t want to be here, we don’t want to be standing on picket lines, losing money. We want a better, safer, cleaner railway.” A RDG spokesperson said: “Nobody wins when industrial action impacts people’s lives and livelihoods, and we will work hard to minimise any disruption to our passengers. “We want to resolve this dispute, but the Aslef leadership need to recognise that hard-pressed taxpayers are continuing to contribute an extra £54m a week just to keep services running post Covid. We continue to seek an agreement with the Aslef leadership and remain open to talks to find a solution to this dispute.” A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Aslef is the only rail union continuing to strike, targeting passengers and preventing their own members from voting on the pay offer that remains on the table.”
Israeli military pulls troops from southern Gaza 2024-04-07 11:01:00+00:00 - The Israeli military says it has reduced the number of ground troops in the southern Gaza Strip following the conclusion of its monthslong operation in the city of Khan Younis, raising questions about the future of its offensive in the enclave amid pressure from the U.S. to reduce the war’s humanitarian toll. In a statement on Sunday, the IDF said it was pulling its 98th commando division “to recuperate and prepare for future operations,” as Israeli army vehicles were seen heading to a base in southern Israel. "The achievements made by the IDF’s Division 98 and its units, are extremely impressive," Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said. "They have eliminated terrorists and destroyed terror targets including warehouses, weapons, headquarters, communication centers and more. Their activities enabled the dismantling of Hamas as a functioning military unit in this area.” The Nahal Brigade and the 162nd Division remain in Gaza, which the IDF describes as “a significant force” that will continue to “operate in the Gaza Strip, and will preserve the IDF’s freedom of action and its ability to conduct precise intelligence based operations.” An Israeli brigade is typically made up of a few thousand troops. On Saturday, four Israeli soldiers were killed in Khan Younis. It was not clear from the IDF’s statement if the withdrawal constituted a planned rotation of the troops, or signaled a turning point in Israel’s strategy for its military offensive in Gaza. In response to a clarification request from NBC News, the IDF said it can’t comment on the deployment of its forces for security reasons. Michael Horowitz, the head of intelligence at Le Beck International, a security and risk management consultancy, said, “I think this is a turning point in the campaign in Gaza.” “The IDF contingent in Gaza will be the lowest since the ground invasion started in late October last year, made of only two brigades along an axis that cuts Gaza into two,” Horowitz said. “Essentially, this means the IDF is probably moving to a more long-term counterterrorism campaign of more target raids. This is something the U.S. had been asking for months.” The move also does not appear to be a simple troop rotation, Horowitz said, as no troops are entering southern Gaza to replace the forces being pulled out. “Operations in Khan Younis also appear to have been completed, and there is no logic in replacing troops in southern Gaza unless Israel launches a new offensive, against Rafah for instance,” he said, adding that Israel has been waving the threat of such an offensive, but has encountered a lot of pushback. “The Gaza war is entering a new phase, one that will still last long, but may be of lesser intensity,” he added. The National Security Council's John Kirby said Sunday "it's hard to know exactly what [the troop reduction] tells us." "It is really just about rest and refit for these troops that have been on the ground for four months, and not necessarily that we can tell, indicative of some coming new operation for these troops," Kirby said on ABC's This Week. A ground offensive in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which is sheltering some 1 million people, has become an increasingly contentious point with the U.S., Israel’s strongest ally. Last month, President Joe Biden suggested that an invasion of Rafah was a qualified red line. And last week, sources said a meeting about Israel’s plans to evacuate the city erupted into yelling, as the U.S. criticized Israel’s plans as insufficient. The timing of the announcement raises questions about whether it was in response to a pronounced change in rhetoric from the United States, following the killing of seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen last week, among them a U.S.-Canadian dual national. In a call Thursday in the aftermath of the killings, which have sparked international condemnation, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that U.S. policy going forward would hinge on Israel immediately addressing civilian harm and reducing humanitarian suffering. Kirby on Sunday reiterated that there shouldn’t be a ground invasion in Rafah and said that too many aid workers have been killed in the Israel-Gaza conflict. It also comes amid mounting international pressure for a cease-fire, and ongoing negotiations for a hostage deal. Hamas has sent a delegation to join talks in Cairo on Sunday, with CIA Director Bill Burns also expected to take part. In comments to Israel’s war Cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu did not directly address the withdrawal, nor did he appear ready to stand down, despite growing international isolation. “I made it clear to the international community: There will be no cease-fire without the return of abductees. It just won’t happen,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel intends to continue fighting into Rafah. At a time of increased tensions, he also connected Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks to Iran, as well as the widening hostilities with Hezbollah, the Houthis, and militias in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. has expressed concern that Iran could strike targets in Israel in retaliation for the killing of several top Iranian officials in the bombing of its embassy in Damascus last week. “Our war is ongoing,” Netanyahu said. Meanwhile, the withdrawal has allowed Palestinians to move into areas that had previously been restricted by Israeli forces, with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reporting that the departure of the IDF troops from the center of Khan Younis has allowed it to retrieve the body of one of its staff, who the group said had been killed during the siege on Khan Younis’ Al-Amal Hospital. Sunday marks six months since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,200 people and has led to Israel’s deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 33,000 and sparked a humanitarian crisis that has brought an estimated 1 million people to the brink of famine.
Is Corporate America in Denial About Trump? 2024-04-07 09:04:10+00:00 - “I will be prepared for both,” he said. “We will deal with both.” Dimon presides over the largest and most profitable bank in the United States and has done so for nearly 20 years. Maybe more than any single individual, he stands in for the Wall Street establishment and, by extension, corporate America. With his comments at Davos, he seemed to be sending a message of good will to Trump on their behalf. But he also appeared to be trying to put his fellow globalists at ease, reassuring them that America, long a haven for investors fleeing risk in less-stable democracies, would remain a safe destination for their money in a second Trump administration.
Can Minor League Baseball Survive Its Real Estate Problems? 2024-04-07 09:02:34+00:00 - Ed Willson has a jar filled with dirt sitting on his desk. For more than 40 years, Mr. Willson has been a fan of the minor league baseball team in Eugene, Ore., the Emeralds, and a season-ticket holder for 22 seasons. He was crushed when Civic Stadium, the longtime home of the team, burned to the ground in 2015. “It was a serious heartbreak,” Mr. Willson said. After the fire, Mr. Willson made a pilgrimage to the scorched diamond, where he filled a plastic bag with dirt from the pitcher’s mound that he considered sacred. He planned to give it to the team when it began construction on its new stadium. Nine years later, the dirt is still on Mr. Willson’s desk. The Emeralds are still without a permanent home. And there’s a risk that the team, after 69 seasons, may leave town altogether. Although the Emeralds (also known for their Sasquatch mascot, Sluggo) have survived wildfires, losing seasons, recessions, Major League Baseball’s 2020 reorganization of the minor leagues and Covid, they are a team without a ballpark.
Planning to Combine Business and Leisure Travel? You’re Not Alone. 2024-04-07 09:00:47+00:00 - On a Sunday in late January, Melinda Buchmann, who lives in Florida and supervises client relations for RevShoppe, a 30-person remote company advising organizations on sales techniques and strategies, arrived in Banff, Alberta, to help set up a four-day company meeting. The last day of the event, her husband, Josh, a director of strategic partnerships for the delivery company DoorDash, who also works remotely, joined her. They spent two leisurely days hiking in Banff National Park and visiting Lake Louise. “I take advantage, because I don’t know when I’m going to return,” Ms. Buchmann said of the decision to combine downtime with a business trip. As postpandemic work life has changed, and arrangements now include full-time office attendance as well as hybrid and remote work, so, too, has business travel. The phenomenon known as bleisure, or blended business and leisure travel, was initially embraced largely by digital nomads. But such combined travel is now also popular with people outside that group. Allied Market Research, a subsidiary of Allied Analytics, based in Portland, Ore., estimated that the bleisure travel market was $315.3 billion in 2022 and would reach $731.4 billion by 2032.