Category Archives: markets

Did He Do It?

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Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley stands accused by the journalists Bob Woodward and his co-author Robert Costa of having made apparently treasonous calls to his counterpart in the People’s Republic of China government to assure them that an attack was not imminent and promising to give them a heads up if the US were about to attack.

He’s also accused by these journalists of having illegally inserted himself into the chain of command, instructing the generals involved to not act on the Commander-in-Chief’s (i.e., the President of the United States) order to launch our nuclear weapons under any circumstance without first involving him, Milley, in the decision.

These are plainly treasonous actions, and Milley deserves serious sanctions, as do those Generals who meekly went along with his illegal actions.

If Milley did the deeds.

However, the accusations are made by journalists who chose to cite only unnamed, carefully hidden, sources. Two hundred of them.

Which raises the question, as put by Huntsman, a logistician and founder of Fortis Analysis:

I want to know about the 200 sources who apparently corroborate this account about Milley and the PLA…
….And subsequently didn’t step forward to report it.
They leaked to Woodward, but didn’t say boo until now?
Something is way off here.

In addition to that, I want to know why Woodward and Costa, individually or together, chose to sit on these seemingly treasonous actions until they were ready to release their book and make some bucks.

Maybe the something is that the “sources” don’t exist. Maybe the something—8-10 months after the supposed deeds occurred—was intended to keep alive the Irrational Trump idea that is the lead conspiracy theory of the Left. And a source of book sales.

 

H/t Ralph Schwartz

California’s Regulations

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Do they impact other States?

One regulation, in particular, concerns California’s potential regulation, under the upcoming Proposition 12, which seeks to control the amount of space hog farmers devote to each hog.

Nominally, Prop 12 is causing non-California hog farmers (and, presumably, the two or three California hog farmers) confusion, according to Tasha Bunting, the Illinois Farm Bureau’s Assistant Director of Commodities & Livestock Programs:

Prop 12 really doesn’t have all of their rules implemented yet. What exactly it is going to look like hasn’t been finalized. It is really putting our producers behind the eight ball from the get-go[.]

And then California finalizes its rules—however late in the game—and confusion supposedly disappears, and hog farmers around the US begin to adjust.

Or not.

Prop 12’s impact spreads beyond California’s borders only to the extent other States, hog farmers domiciled in other States, allow it to. There are plenty of markets, domestic and foreign, for hog producers. They don’t have to sell into California at all.

Government Fiat

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This is what the Progressive-Democrats in charge of our Federal Government are plotting [sic] in the way of drug pricing under Medicare Part D (the drug provision of Medicare), per the Tax Foundation.

Under HR 3 [the Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act], if drug manufacturers do not agree to participate in negotiations, or do not agree to the negotiated price, they would be subject to an escalating excise tax on the sale of the drug in question. The tax would kick in at 65 percent and would rise by 10 percentage points each 90 days the manufacturers are in “noncompliance,” reaching a maximum tax rate of 95%.

What “negotiation?” This is the price we’re negotiating for, says the Health and Human Services Secretary, the Government official that HR3 says will represent the Government.

Here’s our counteroffer, says the drug manufacturer.

No, no, that’s too high, says SecHHS, repeating his original offer. Then he says, Here’s your noncompliance tax.

This isn’t negotiation, yet that’s what will occur, with the Government holding all the cards. Targeted drug manufacturers and sellers would not even be allowed to opt out of Medicare under HR3.

The Tax Foundation is concerned about drug innovation, and rightly so.

I’m also concerned about the fate of free enterprise and of individual freedom.

Is Biden at it Again?

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Is this another dangerous failure of the Biden/Harris administration?

US officials have approved license applications worth hundreds of millions of dollars for China’s blacklisted telecom company Huawei to buy chips for its growing auto component business, two people familiar with the matter said.

Apparently, it’s been going on behind our backs since shortly after Biden took office.

But in recent weeks and months, people familiar with the application process told Reuters the US has granted licenses authorizing suppliers to sell chips to Huawei for such vehicle components as video screens and sensors.

It’s true enough that these moves are only claimed by Karen Freifeld’s childhood invisible “people familiar with” friend, but Biden’s actions here, if true, would be of a piece with his empirically demonstrated timidity in the face of our enemies.

Moving

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No, I’m not. That’s the name of my new Peter Hunt novel: Moving, and it’s available through Amazon’s Kindle store: https://amzn.to/3xHhhBW

A man wanted Peter Hunt to investigate his much younger wife, and Hunt doesn’t like domestic cases. On top of that, from the moment he came into Hunt’s office, the man rubbed Hunt the wrong way.
Hunt took the case, though. Go figure. When he and his friend and partner, Rachel Wellington-Smythe—Rick—plussed up his retainer and rate because the man also behaved badly toward Rick, the man didn’t bat an eyelash; he just signed and wrote out the check for the retainer. That raised red flags.

As part of investigating the wife, Hunt talked to her. “I’m here on behalf of your husband.”
“And what behalf would that be?”
“He thinks you’re being ‘unfaithful.’ That was the word he used.”
“‘Unfaithful.’ Unfaithful, he says?”
“From last night, I’d say he says right.”
“He doesn’t like to dance. He doesn’t like to go out. I do.”
“Let’s get to it. You like to do more than party.”
“We have an arrangement—I take care of his needs, I take care of mine.”

Only her needs turn out to be much broader than that.
So, it turned out, did the husband’s. Neither understood that about the other.
Then a local Ukrainian oligarch wannabe got involved. Two representatives came to Hunt’s office and encouraged him to walk away from his investigation. When he didn’t, the threat became explicit, and Rick’s apartment got…raided. When that didn’t persuade Hunt, the two reps called on Hunt at his home, and they attacked him, injuring his cat in the process.
Then another oligarch wannabe got involved. Then the husband came up dead. Then two more men—the wife’s bodyguards, it turned out—came up dead.
Then things started going downhill.

I hope you like it.