Category Archives: markets

Airbus Thinks It’s Special

Posted on by
Reply

Or at least, more important than the existence of a nation.

Airbus is pushing against sanctions on Russian titanium sales, amid a flurry of restrictions on the export of other Russian goods ranging from vodka to steel.

After all,

About 65% of Airbus’s titanium supply comes from Russia, according to consulting firm AlixPartners.

Of course, Russia should be let off the hook regarding its naked and barbaric invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine should be made to pay with its existence for Airbus’ consciously developed business decisions. Airbus Chief Executive Guillaume Faury:

This is a preview of Airbus Thinks It’s Special. Read the full post (308 words, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

Pulling Patriotic Products

Posted on by
Reply

Harris Teeter, a supermarket chain, used to sell, among other things, products that were distinctly pro-American—things with slogans like “Give me liberty or give me death” and “America, love it or leave it.”

Then a customer complained about their presence on store shelves—they were insensitive, after all, in light of recent mass shootings. Apparently, being pro-American, being patriotic, is insensitive today. Never mind that slogans like these have been around for decades and all the way back to the runup to our Revolutionary War.

Harris Teeter promptly folded.

This is a preview of Pulling Patriotic Products. Read the full post (285 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

Another Example of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Racism

Posted on by
Reply

This time, it’s in the housing market, via the Federal government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The plans released last week [by FHFA, which regulates Fannie and Freddie] might have been written by California Representative Maxine Waters (D). Central to Fannie’s plan are “Special Purpose Credit Programs” that increase access to credit and encourage “sustainable homeownership for Black consumers.”
One program would assist black borrowers with down payments. Most home-buyers are required to put down at least 20% of the cost of a new home to reduce the risks of default. Fannie’s plan would effectively require taxpayers to subsidize down payments for black borrowers.

This is a preview of Another Example of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Racism. Read the full post (188 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

The Putin Inflation

Posted on by
Reply

A short word on President Joe Biden’s (D) allegation wherein he shifts the blame for our high inflation to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. This graph is from Trading Economics:

May 2022’s year-on-year inflation rate is 8.6%, and it’s been in that range since March 2022. Putin invaded Ukraine on 24 Feb 2022.

The January 2022 year-on-year inflation rate was 7.5%. February’s was 7.9%; Putin’s invasion was too late in the month to have materially affected that month’s rate.

87% of May’s inflation rate was already occurring in January, two months before Putin invaded Ukraine.  By February, that had risen to 92%.

This is a preview of The Putin Inflation. Read the full post (182 words, 1 image, estimated 44 secs reading time)

Government Industrial Policy

Posted on by
Reply

This one EU-style. Which fits, since Europe has such long experience with the failure of economies, especially industry-driven, when dictated from the top. See, for instance, France, Germany, Italy of the last century, and France and Germany today.

One company’s (Apple, but the principle is much broader) phone charger, and the cell phones dependent on it, would become illegal throughout the EU if proposed legislation goes through. The legislation is

aiming to set a common charging standard for mobile phones and other portable electronic devices….

And

The planned legislation…is aimed at reducing electronic waste and improving consumer convenience.

This is a preview of Government Industrial Policy. Read the full post (235 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

More Government Overreach

Posted on by
Reply

And by the SEC, yet, which already has its extra-judicial structure of accuser, judge, punisher administrative law judge system in the Federal courts over the legitimacy of such an arrangement.

Now it’s the SEC-proposed rule that would require private enterprises—which by definition are outside the purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission—to open their books to public scrutiny and SEC approval.

Worse, a broad range of elites are supporting this naked overreach:

University endowments, insurance funds, and retirement funds serving teachers and firefighters are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to move forward with a proposed rule that would ensure private-fund investors receive annual audits and quarterly statements.

This is a preview of More Government Overreach. Read the full post (345 words, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

That’s Their Goal

Posted on by
Reply

The Progressive-Democratic Party is pushing bills in the House and Senate—the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act is the House version—that would attach price controls to gasoline sales. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance says, correctly, that such a move could lead to a return to the gas lines of the 1970s. That’s the period of then-President Richard Nixon’s (R) price control regime which he implemented in response to OPEC’s oil embargo against us.

But gasoline lines and limited supply of oil- and gas-based (and coal-based) energy are Party’s and President Joe Biden’s (D) purpose. Those are intended to drive us off hydrocarbon-based energy altogether in favor of the Left’s phantasmal “green energy” utopia.

This is a preview of That’s Their Goal. Read the full post (335 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

Don’t Let the Door…

Posted on by
Reply

The Communist Party of China is instructing PRC senior government officials to not own foreign assets.

China’s Communist Party will block promotions for senior cadres whose spouses or children hold significant assets abroad, people familiar with the matter said, as Beijing seeks to insulate its top officials from the types of sanctions now being directed at Russia.
…
Senior officials and members of their immediate families would also be barred from setting up accounts with overseas financial institutions unless they have legitimate reasons for doing so—such as study or work—the people said.

Now the CPC just needs to extend the directive to PRC business enterprises.

This is a preview of Don’t Let the Door…. Read the full post (172 words, estimated 41 secs reading time)

Kind of the Purpose

Posted on by
Reply

The European Union’s antitrust bureaucrats demur from Apple’s seeming dominance in the no-contact payment market, and they may or may not have a case. They don’t, though, have one based on this sham argument from EU Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, who also serves at the EU’s Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age (because if the title is long enough the incumbent can be made to feel important enough):

Apple has built a closed ecosystem around its devices and its operating system. Apple controls the gates to this ecosystem, setting the rules of the game for anyone who wants to reach consumers using Apple devices.

This is a preview of Kind of the Purpose. Read the full post (235 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

What Did They Expect?

Posted on by
Reply

Russia has cut off natural gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria as Putin prosecutes his invasion of Ukraine.

European officials denounced the move, which threatens the continent’s energy supply, as blackmail by Russia.

This is war. What did these “European officials” expect when they made the conscious decision to create themselves dependents on the energy good offices of an enemy nation? And how could they not recognize Putin’s Russia as an enemy nation, given his years of rhetoric laying out his plans for and goal of restoring the Russian empire that was the Soviet Union—an empire that includes Eastern European nations, many of which are part of NATO, and one of which has been absorbed into a NATO member nation?

This is a preview of What Did They Expect?. Read the full post (353 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)