WORKERS CAPITAL

U.S. high court set to hear state teacher-pension case

by Frank E. Lockwood | March 29, 2021 

This Nov. 5, 2020 file photo, shows the Supreme Court in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in the case of Goldman Sachs Group v. Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, which pits the state's largest public pension fund and others against one of the nation's largest banking and financial services companies.

Defending itself against a securities fraud lawsuit, Goldman Sachs argues that the courts should consider the "exceptionally generic nature" of the allegedly false statements in question before deciding whether to certify a massive class action lawsuit brought by the pension fund and other investors.


It also asks the Supreme Court to determine which side bears the "burden of persuasion" at a key stage of the proceeding.

It's important to resolve these matters before granting class action status, Goldman Sachs says. Otherwise, it is a "boon for plaintiffs (and their lawyers), given that the vast majority of securities class actions settle once class certification is granted," it stated in its petition to the Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty in New York has already certified the class, clearing the way for the case to proceed. A panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, upheld the most recent ruling by Crotty, who was placed on the bench by then-President George W. Bush.

Judge Richard C. Wesley, another Bush appointee, and Judge Denny Chin, one of then-President Barack Obama's nominees, sided with the retirement system.

Judge Richard Sullivan, appointed by then-President Donald Trump, dissented.

In its suit, the roughly $20 billion Arkansas retirement fund alleges that Goldman Sachs made false statements about its business practices, causing harm to investors.

Goldman Sachs says the suit lacks merit.

In Securities and Exchange Commission filings, annual reports and conference calls between 2006 and 2010, Goldman Sachs told investors that:

• "[W]e have extensive procedures and controls that are designed to identify and address conflicts of interest."

• "We are dedicated to complying fully with the letter and spirit of the laws, rules and ethical principles that govern us. Our continued success depends upon unswerving adherence to this standard."

• "Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business."

• "Our clients' interests always come first. Our experience shows that if we serve our clients well, our own success will follow."

Those claims were called into question by the retirement system and others, after Goldman Sachs ran afoul of the SEC.

On April 16, 2010, the SEC brought a securities fraud action against Goldman Sachs, alleging the company had misled investors about an investment instrument that plummeted in value during the 2007-8 financial crisis.

Eventually, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay a $550 million fine after admitting that it had provided investors with "incomplete information" about the deal's origins.

Specifically, it failed to reveal that the portfolio had been assembled at the behest of Paulson & Co. Inc., a company that stood to make money if the value subsequently fell.

Goldman Sachs reached the settlement "[w]ithout admitting or denying the allegations" that were made against it, the settlement noted.

At the time, it was "the largest-ever penalty paid by a Wall Street firm," the SEC stated.

Goldman Sachs stock, which was trading at $184.27 on April 15, fell to $160.70, the day the SEC took action.

STATE SYSTEM SUES

Soon after, Goldman Sachs was sued by the Arkansas retirement system, the West Virginia Investment Management Board and the Plumbers and Pipefitters National Pension Fund.

In court filings, Goldman Sachs has denied deceiving the retirement system and other investors.

The statements cited in the suit would not have affected its stock price, it says, because they were merely "aspirational and generic," the sort of assurances "that virtually all companies make."

In nonsecurities fraud contexts, it would be difficult for plaintiffs to prove that a specific misstatement led them to make specific buying or selling decisions.

Under existing Supreme Court case law, however, there is a basic presumption that plaintiffs have relied on a company's public statements if they purchased or sold securities between the time a false, material statement was made and the time the truth becomes public.

Defendants can rebut that presumption by showing that the disputed statements had no effect on the stock's price.

Goldman Sachs is seeking to do just that.

Rather than waiting until after class action status is granted, however, Goldman Sachs wants the court to consider, at the outset, whether the alleged misstatements were so generic that they couldn't have influenced the market.

Goldman Sachs also has evidence it says disproves claims that the statements affected stock prices.

Once that evidence has been produced, Goldman Sachs says the onus, or burden of persuasion, should be on the plaintiffs to show otherwise.

The investors say they should be able to rely on Goldman Sachs' assurances and that the company should be held accountable for misleading them.

In a friend of the court brief "supporting neither party," the U.S. Department of Justice argued that defendants "may rely on the generic nature" of alleged misstatements as evidence the statements "had no actual price impact."

The fact that the statement is generic, on the other hand, is not enough, on its own, to resolve the matter, the department said.

Investors who held onto their Goldman Sachs stocks, despite the SEC action, eventually saw their shares recover in value. Goldman Sachs was trading at $327.39 at Friday's close.

Because of covid-19, the justices will hear today's arguments on a telephone conference, rather than gathering in the Supreme Court chambers.

Typically, a ruling would be handed down by the end of June.

In a written statement, retirement system Deputy Director Rod Graves portrayed Monday's hearing as significant.

"While we generally do not comment on ongoing litigation, we are very excited to have the United States Supreme Court hear our securities class action case against Goldman Sachs," he said. "The case raises important questions for us and public pension funds generally as we continue our efforts to protect shareholder rights."

Goldman Sachs did not respond Friday or Saturday to requests for comment.

JUDGES VIEW PLAYERS AS 'WORKERS'

US supreme court notes 'disturbing' trends in colleges' treatment of athletes

• Student athletes’ dispute with NCAA reaches supreme court
• Liberal and conservative justices appear sympathetic to athletes

College sport is a multibillion dollar industry in the US. Photograph: Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports

Associated Press

Wed 31 Mar 2021 

The US supreme court on Wednesday seemed ready to give college athletes a win in a dispute with their governing body, the NCAA.

With the March Madness basketball tournament in its final stages, the court heard arguments in a case about how colleges can reward athletes who play basketball and football in Division I, the highest level of college sports. Under current NCAA rules, students cannot be paid, and the scholarship money colleges can offer is capped at the cost of attending the school. The NCAA defends its rules as necessary to preserve the amateur nature of college sports.

'I signed my life to rich white guys': athletes on the racial dynamics of college sports

Read more

But the former athletes who brought the case, including former West Virginia football player Shawne Alston, say the NCAA’s rules are unfair and violate federal antitrust law designed to promote competition.

The outcome will help determine how college athletes are compensated and whether schools can offer tens of thousands of dollars in education benefits for things such as postgraduate scholarships, tutoring, study abroad opportunities and vocational school payments.

During an hour and a half of arguments both liberal and conservative justices sounded sympathetic to students.

Justice Elena Kagan suggested that what was going on sounded a lot like price fixing. “Schools that are naturally competitors ... have all gotten together in an organization,” she said, and used their power to “fix athletic salaries at extremely low levels.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed. He told a lawyer for the NCAA that “it does seem ... schools are conspiring with competitors ... to pay no salaries for the workers who are making the schools billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing.” Kavanaugh said that was “somewhat disturbing.”

A ruling for the former players would not necessarily mean an immediate infusion of cash to current college athletes. It would mean that the NCAA could not bar schools from sweetening their offers to Division I basketball and football athletes with additional education-related benefits. Individual athletic conferences could still set limits.

Still, if the athletes were to win, there would be pressure on schools to offer additional benefits, and that could create bidding wars for the best players. The NCAA says that could turn off fans and erase the distinction between professional and college sports.
Whatever happens at the high court, changes seem on the way for how college athletes are compensated.

The NCAA is in the process of trying to amend its rules to allow athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses. That would allow athletes to earn money for things like sponsorship deals, online endorsement and personal appearances. For some athletes, those amounts could dwarf any education-related benefits.

The former college athletes have some big-time supporters. The players associations of the NFL, NBA and WNBA all urged the justices to side with the ex-athletes, as did the Biden administration. So far, the former players have won every round of the case.

A decision in the case is expected before the end of June, when the high court traditionally breaks for summer.

The invisible shield: how qualified immunity was created and nearly destroyed the ability to sue police officers in America Pt. I

HERB BOYD and DAMASO REYES | 4/1/2021, midnight

Artwork by Amanda Ulloa

In the aftermath of the Civil War an America broken by bloodshed and riven by racial strife began slowly putting itself back together. In little more than five years a nation that had been founded on chattel slavery passed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, bringing the country to the precipice of being able to, for the first time in its history, live up to those famous words in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” In the South, where the memories of slave auctions were still fresh, Black men were elected and appointed to state legislatures, the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. America, it seemed, was changing.

But the true believers in the “Lost Cause” would not, or could not, accept this. Throughout the country, but especially in the South, justice was denied to Black Americans despite the new protections enshrined in the Constitution. The KKK was formed and often local members and government officials were one and the same. And they used their official positions to mete out their own brand of justice when they couldn’t use a rope and a tree.

It was in this context that the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, was passed. It stated very clearly, “Every person who, under color of any statute…subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law.” (Emphasis added.)

Put simply, government officials who violate the constitutional rights of citizens or anyone else in the United States while performing their official duties can be sued by that person. As Reconstruction ended, this ability to sue was essential to provide at least civil relief to the victims of those who would misuse their offices but were rarely held accountable. But over the course of the 20th century this very clear statute was redefined and reinterpreted not by Congress which passed it but by unelected judges who twisted its meaning into the doctrine we now know as qualified immunity.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” the novelist William Faulkner wrote. And those words are given fresh currency in two instances that set the course of creating the concept of qualified immunity as we know it. These cases allowed a law designed to protect Americans, especially Black Americans, against the misuse of official power to instead become a shield for government officials, especially law enforcement.

In order to understand where we are today we must travel back to September 1961.

Freedom Riders lose the freedom to sue

At that time the Rev. Robert L. Pierson was traveling with a delegation of priests as part of the Mississippi Freedom Rides when he was arrested, along with 14 others—three of them Black—for a “breach of peace,” a Mississippi statutory code violation.

The interracial group, bound for Chattanooga, Tennessee, was arrested in a coffee shop in a Trailways bus terminal in Jackson, Mississippi. They faced a misdemeanor charge after refusing to move on when ordered to do so by police officers. Local judge James Spencer found them guilty and sentenced them to four months and a $200 fine and, according to several published accounts, the judge and the captain had arrested and sentenced countless Freedom Riders on similar “breach of peace” charges. The clerics were soon out on bail, filed an appeal, and exhaled when the case was dismissed on a directed verdict. Judge Russell Moore concluded there was no violation of the law.

Believing they were falsely arrested and imprisoned, the priests sought damages in the Jackson district court. The jury in the case found in favor of the police, who had asserted they were merely acting to prevent violence. The priests took their case to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit where they also found no redress. The Appeals Court ruled that Judge Spencer could not be held liable for his decision, even though the Court also ruled that the Mississippi law the priests had been convicted under was unconstitutional. It was their opinion that the law does not require the officers “to predict at their peril which state laws are constitutional and which are not.” This was the first crack in the dam that would unleash qualified immunity.

Finally the plaintiffs reached the Supreme Court. The defendants were captain J.L. Ray, the police chief; the two arresting officers David Allison Nichols and Joseph David Griffith; and Judge Spencer, the municipal police justice who had originally convicted the priests.

At the core of Pierson v. Ray was the issue of whether the Civil Rights Act of 1871 truly guaranteed citizens the ability to sue any government official who caused a deprivation of rights under the Constitution. Eight of the nine of the Supreme Court Justices affirmed the lower court’s ruling that Judge Spencer could not be held liable for damages under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, extending a long-standing legal principle that judges are immune from lawsuits for damages, established in Bradley v. Fisher (1872). Moreover, the majority added that while the police officers who arrested the priests did not have total immunity from lawsuits, they did have protection in the same way that an officer who unknowingly arrests an innocent person based on probable cause is not guilty of false arrest.

With the Pierson v. Ray case in 1967, the Supreme Court extended a “good faith defense” to police officers. This protected police officers, judges and other government officials who made good faith errors from being sued, an exception not provided by the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Despite this exception government officials who acted in bad faith were not protected by qualified immunity, for the moment.

But less than 20 years later the Supreme Court’s Harlow v. Fitzgerald decision in 1982 allowed the “good faith defense” to morph into what is now called qualified immunity and later deemed distinct from absolute immunity.

The dam breaks

Arthur Ernest Fitzgerald was a deputy for management systems in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. When he discovered $2 billion in cost overruns and technical problems in the Lockheed C5 program that had been concealed by Pentagon officials, he revealed it during his testimony before the Joint Economic Committee in Congress. For this, Fitzgerald claimed in his suit that he was blacklisted, denied any further roles of significance, and mentioned in the Watergate tapes by President Nixon, who took responsibility for firing Fitzgerald.

In response, Fitzgerald filed a lawsuit against government officials in 1969, charging he lost his job because he was a whistleblower. All of the Pentagon officials involved claimed absolute immunity, including Nixon and a few of his aides. Nixon, as president, was found to have absolute immunity; the Harlow v. Fitzgerald case examined whether the same immunity extended to his aides. While denying Nixon’s aides absolute immunity it did provide them with qualified immunity from lawsuits. With Harlow v. Fitzgerald qualified immunity became a kind of legal shield for government officials, who while “performing discretionary functions,” are “generally shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate… clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,” according to the Supreme Court ruling.

The term “clearly established” would be pivotal to the future of qualified immunity. It said, in essence, that unless a previous court ruling had clearly established a type of abuse which was unconstitutional, then the government official could be protected under qualified immunity.

“Fifteen years later in the early ’80s, the court stripped out the bad faith part of it, so it was no longer a question of whether the officer was acting in bad faith,” stated Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU of Washington, D.C. “The officer could be acting in bad faith and still, if the court found that the officer’s mistake about the Constitution was reasonable, the officer would still get immunity.”

Flood damage

“That was a major shift in the doctrine because what it meant was, even if its officer subjectively acted in bad faith, intentionally violated someone’s rights, they may be protected by qualified immunity, so at that point it no longer becomes a doctrine about protecting the officer who acted in good faith, as the court had initially said,” Amir Ali, deputy director of the Supreme Court and Appellate Program at the MacArthur Justice Center, said in an interview. Over the course of 100 years America went from a law that clearly allowed any government official to be sued by someone whom they deprived of their constitutional rights, to a system where police officers who were acting in good faith were protected against being sued to finally a system that by default protects police officers, even when it is clear they were acting in bad faith.

“It denies people whose constitutional rights have been violated an opportunity to bring their claims in a civil rights case, which is often the only available path toward justice for people whose rights have been violated,” Joanna C. Schwartz, professor of law at the UCLA School of Law, said of qualified immunity. “The doctrine makes bringing these claims much more expensive and complicated and time-consuming than they would be without it, which means that lawyers are less likely to bring these cases, which is another reason that people are denied justice when their rights have been violated.”

Since the Harlow decision the Supreme Court has expanded the reach of qualified immunity in a way that some say has emboldened police officers to violate people’s rights.

“The decisions themselves send a very dangerous message to police. As Justice Sotomayor said in an opinion, it suggests that police can shoot first and think later. The doctrine makes it harder for courts to explain what the Constitution requires and so creates more confusion than there would be otherwise about constitutional protections, which means that police departments can’t write policies and train their officers in compliance with the Constitution,” Professor Schwartz added.

In our next articles we will learn exactly how this judicially created doctrine has been used to protect law enforcement and why, as Amir Ali says, “Qualified immunity really eliminates the individual’s ability to hold law enforcement and correctional officials accountable.”

This series was made possible by grants from the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the Solutions Journalism Network.

FOR PART II GO HERE

The invisible shield: how qualified immunity was created and nearly destroyed the ability to sue police officers in America Pt. I | New York Amsterdam News: The new Black view

 ONLY THE STATE CAN TAKE IT FROM YOU

AG issues guidance to protect New Yorkers’ stimulus payments from debt collectors

AmNews Staff Reports | 4/1/2021, midnight

Cash, money, credit card PIXABAY
New York Attorney General Letitia James recently took action to block debt collectors from seizing billions of dollars in emergency stimulus payments authorized by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

James issued official guidance to New York state banking institutions, creditors and debt collectors, making clear that financial relief provided through stimulus payments are exempt from garnishment under New York law.

The American Rescue Plan Act authorized the U.S. Department of Treasury to send billions of dollars to Americans struggling as a result of the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. James says the emergency stimulus payments were not designated as exempt from garnishment, allowing debt collectors to potentially benefit before consumers.

The guidance does not apply to any actions taken by the state of New York, including, 

but not limited to, any actions to collect past due child support.

Imprisoned Palestinian leader's entry shakes up planned vote

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territory — A popular Palestinian leader imprisoned by Israel has registered his own parliamentary list in May elections, his supporters said Wednesday, in a last-minute shakeup that could severely weaken President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party and help its militant Hamas rivals.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Marwan Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, registered the list hours before the deadline set by the election commission. Polls indicate it would split the vote for Fatah, potentially paving the way for another major victory by Hamas. That increases the likelihood that Abbas will find a way to call off the first Palestinian elections in 15 years.

Barghouti, 61, a former Fatah militant commander, is serving five life sentences in Israel following a 2004 terrorism conviction. But he remains a popular and charismatic leader, and by breaking with Abbas he could reshape Palestinian politics and potentially replace him as president.

His entry reflects growing frustration with Abbas, who has presided over an increasingly authoritarian and unpopular Palestinian Authority that has failed to achieve national unity or advance Palestinian hopes for an independent state.

It's unclear how Barghouti's rise would affect relations with Israel. Both he and Abbas want a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, but there have been no substantive peace talks in over a decade. Israel is unlikely to release Barghouti regardless of his political fortunes, and may refuse to engage with a leader it views as a terrorist.

Abbas has decreed parliamentary and presidential elections for May and July this year, the first since 2006, when the Islamic militant Hamas won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. That precipitated a crisis that led to Hamas’ seizure of Gaza from Abbas’s forces the following year, leaving the West Bank and Gaza divided between rival governments.

Abbas decreed the election in January in a step meant to help heal the division. It now remains to be seen whether the elections will actually be held, given the long-running feud between Fatah and Hamas — and the widening divisions within Fatah.

An opinion poll carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research earlier this month found that a separate list endorsed by Barghouti would split the Fatah vote and potentially garner more support than the official list.

“Barghouti running would dramatically change the outcome,” the centre's director Khalil Shikaki said last week when the results of the poll were published.

If Barghouti runs for president in elections planned for this summer, he would easily defeat both Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,200 Palestinians with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Barghouti, 61 has flirted with a run in the past but eventually ended up endorsing Abbas, who was elected to a four-year term in 2005 but has remained in power since then.

This time Barghouti will partner with Nasser al-Kidwa, the 67-year-old nephew of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for a list called “Freedom.” Al-Kidwa was kicked out of Fatah in early March after announcing he would run on his own 

“We hope that this list will lead to democracy," Fadwa Barghouti said. "We registered this list and we hope it will succeed.”

Earlier, senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub submitted the party's official list.

He said the elections would be held in “all the Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem,” which Israel annexed and considers part of its capital. He also predicted the elections would lead to a national unity government that would end the rift.

“We seek to win the elections in the spirit of democracy, and we will respect the results,” he added.

Another list, known as “Future,” has been registered by supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, a former senior Fatah official who had a falling-out with Abbas and is now based in the United Arab Emirates. He is also expected to drain support from Fatah.

The fracturing of Fatah severely weakens Abbas and could pave the way for the far more disciplined and unified Hamas — which is running on one list — to emerge as the largest Palestinian party. Abbas could postpone or cancel the elections, but that would risk censure from the United States and European nations, which provide vital aid to the Palestinian Authority and have long called for free and fair elections.

East Jerusalem could provide a pretext for cancelling or postponing the elections. Israel bars the PA from operating there and has not said whether it will allow voting in the city.

Tensions are already rising in the occupied West Bank. In the Qalandia refugee camp near Jerusalem, dozens of Fatah gunmen fired automatic weapons into the air Wednesday night to protest the expected makeup of the official party list, which they said did not represent them.

Barghouti led Fatah’s militant wing during the intifada, or uprising, that erupted in 2000 amid the breakdown of the peace process. He condemned attacks targeting civilians inside Israel, though Israel says he is responsible for civilian deaths.

The uprising saw Palestinians carry out suicide bombings and other attacks against Israeli civilians as the Israeli military launched deadly raids in the West Bank and Gaza. More than 6,000 Palestinians and over 1,000 Israelis were killed, with the unrest tapering off after 2005.

Israeli troops arrested Barghouti in 2002, at the height of the uprising, and two years later a military court convicted him of orchestrating attacks that killed five people, giving him an equivalent number of life sentences. Barghouti refused to recognize the Israeli military court or offer any defence.

Many Palestinians view Barghouti as a revolutionary leader in the mould of Nelson Mandela or Fidel Castro, unsullied by the corruption of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority or the long-running feud between Fatah and Hamas. As a long-jailed militant, he is seen as having sacrificed his freedom for the cause of Palestinian independence.

From behind bars, he has continued to call for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel seized in the 1967 war. Polls consistently show him to be the most popular Palestinian leader, with support from across the political spectrum.

In 2017, Barghouti led more than 1,500 prisoners in a 40-day hunger strike to demand better conditions inside Israeli jails. Most Palestinians view prisoners held by Israel as heroes to their cause, and the strike bolstered Barghouti’s image.

Israel considers Barghouti and other Palestinians jailed for security offences to be terrorists and has given no indication it would free him. He was not included in a group of more than 1,000 high-profile prisoners who were released in 2011 in a deal with Hamas in exchange for an Israeli soldier captured by militants and held in Gaza for more than five years.

Joseph Krauss, The Associated Press

NO FOOLING

US jobless claims rise to 719K as virus still forces layoffs


WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose by 61,000 last week to 719,000, signalling that many employers are still cutting jobs even as more businesses reopen, vaccines are increasingly administered and federal aid spreads through the economy.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of claims increased from 658,000 the week before. Though the pace of applications has dropped sharply since early this year, they remain high by historical standards: Before the pandemic flattened the economy a year ago, jobless claims typically ran below 220,000 a week.

Still, the four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week gyrations, fell by 10,500 to 719,000 — the fewest since mid-March 2020, just before the pandemic began to cause widespread layoffs.

All told, 3.8 million people were collecting traditional state benefits during the week ending March 20. If you include federal programs that are meant to help the unemployed through the health crisis, 18.2 million people were receiving some type of jobless aid in the week that ended March 13. That's down from 19.7 million in the previous week.

Economists monitor weekly applications for unemployment aid for early signs of where the job market is headed. Applications generally reflect the rate of layoffs, which normally fall steadily as a job market strengthens. During the pandemic, though, the numbers have become less reliable as states have struggled with application backlogs and allegations of fraud have clouded the actual volume of job cuts.

Even so, measures of the overall economy show clear improvement from the collapse last spring, with the rising number of vaccinations encouraging people to return to airports, shopping centres, restaurants and bars. The number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases has dropped from an average of about 250,000 a day in early January to below 70,000, though it has begun to rise again in recent days.

Last month, consumer confidence reached a post-pandemic peak. And the $1,400 checks in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief plan have sharply lifted consumer spending, according to Bank of America’s tracking of its debit and credit cards. Spending jumped 23% in the third week of March compared with pre-pandemic levels, the bank said.

And even with the pace of layoffs still relatively high, hiring has begun to accelerate. In February, employers added a robust 379,000 jobs across the country. Last month, they are believed to have added even more: According to the data firm FactSet, economists expect the March jobs report being released Friday to show that the economy added a sizable 614,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate fell from 6.2% to 6%. Less than a year ago, the jobless rate had hit 14.8%.

Some economists are even more optimistic: Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the tax advisory firm RSM, is predicting 1 million added jobs for March.

The Federal Reserve’s policymakers have substantially boosted their forecast for the economy this year, anticipating growth of 6.5% for 2021, up from an estimate in December of just 4.2%. That would be the fastest rate of expansion in any year since 1984.

“With vaccination efforts increasing seemingly by the day, hope may finally be on the horizon," said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “Getting the public health situation back to normal is the only way to stop coronavirus’ economic damage. A robust recovery will only be able to flourish once the virus is under control.”

Still, the economic impact of the pandemic lingers. The data firm Womply reports that 63% of movie theatres and other entertainment venues were closed last week, as were 39% of bars and 39% of hair salons and other beauty shops.

Paul Wiseman, The Associated Press

Proposed Canadian gun bill will create U.S.-style patchwork of firearms laws

Noah S. Schwartz, PhD Candidate, Political Science, Carleton University


Canadians have a lot to be proud of. A vast wilderness to protect and explore, universal health care, a historical record of peacekeeping and diplomacy, and most of all, according to many of us: not being American.

© (Logan Weaver/Unsplash)

 Canadian gun laws should not replicate the chaotic system in the United States.

That last point seems to form the bedrock of our national identity. Canadians go to great lengths to distinguish ourselves from our southern neighbour. That’s why it seems odd that the federal government is trying to bring American-style gun politics to Canada.

I am talking about Bill C-21, the government’s latest gun control foray. It’s managed to unite proponents of gun control and gun rights in their condemnation while even simultaneously politicizing the largely apolitical airsoft community, made up of those who enjoy participating in the paintball-like game and whose toy firearms will be banned by the bill.

The strangest thing about the bill, however, is its attempt to copy and paste failed American-style gun laws into the Canadian context.

If the phrase “American-style” gun laws seems like an oxymoron, I don’t blame anyone for thinking so, especially in the aftermath of two recent, horrifying mass shootings south of the border. The popular perception is that America has no gun laws. While that’s not true, federal gun laws in the United States are modest when compared to Canada.

Constitutional and political considerations have made it difficult for American legislators to institute national gun control measures, leaving states, counties and municipalities to create their own confusing patchwork of stop-gap measures. This results in a legal mess, makes gun control a polarizing issue at all levels of government and does little in the way of dissuading criminals from driving to the next state or county to acquire firearms.

So far, Canada has avoided this sort of legislative quagmire; most of our gun laws are housed in the Firearms Act. This means they are largely consistent across all Canadian provinces and territories.

Confusion to ensue

This will change if Bill C-21 passes and gives the municipalities the power to ban handguns. Assuming — and this is a big if — these laws survive a constitutional challenge, they could result in an American-style snafu, creating confusion not only for licensed gun owners but police forces, courts and lawyers.

Given that most guns involved in crime in Canada are already being smuggled across the U.S. border, it is highly questionable to think that the “Welcome to Toronto” sign would deter gang members who rely on unlicensed firearms to conduct illicit business.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette Police officers from different agencies arrive for a news conference on an investigation into trafficking of illegal firearms and illegal drugs in the Greater Toronto and Golden Horseshoe areas of Ontario in December 2018.

The law also puts in place American-style Red Flag Laws by expanding the conditions under which a licensed gun owner can be subject to an Emergency Prohibition Order. This might make sense in the American context, since the U.S. doesn’t have a national gun licensing system and it can be difficult to remove guns from the hands of those who pose a risk to public safety.

But Canada already has provisions in place that allow police to conduct searches of gun owners’ homes without a warrant to respond to public complaints, and remove guns from the hands of people in crisis.

Frivolous complaints

The provisions contained in Bill C-21 will make it easier for frivolous complaints to be brought against gun owners, dragging harmless people into the court system at a personal cost of thousands of dollars.

While Red Flag Laws implemented in some American states may be a necessary workaround in the absence of better gun laws, they have had mixed success in reducing gun crime and preventing mass killings. Worse still, these laws create an alarming number of false positives and have hauled people into the legal system for posting internet memes or making childish statements.

Canada already has strict gun laws. The gun problem in Canada stems from sharing the world’s longest undefended border with the country that has the largest number of guns in civilian hands. There is no need to replicate American stop-gap gun laws here.

Lawmakers should instead focus on tackling the social determinants of crime, invest money in chronically underfunded programs to trace guns used in crimes and increase funding for community-based organizations like the One by One Movement, an advocacy group founded by former gang members to fight gun and gang violence.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Noah S. Schwartz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

CLOSING BARN DOOR 

Taiwan chip maker TSMC to invest $100B

 to grow capacity



TAIPEI, Taiwan — Major Taiwan computer chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to invest $100 billion in the next three years in expanding its manufacturing capacity and supporting research and development, the company said Thursday

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The world’s biggest contract producer of semiconductors, TSMC said it anticipates faster growth thanks to long-term trends like the introduction of next-generation telecommunications and high-performance computing. The coronavirus pandemic, meanwhile is revving up demand for electronic devices as the world relies increasingly on digitalization.

“TSMC is working closely with our customers to address their needs in a sustainable manner," the company said in an emailed statement. It did not give further details about planned investments.

TSMC makes processor chips for major brands like Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. Surging demand pushed its revenue 18% higher in January-February from a year earlier, it reported earlier.

Intel, South Korea's Samsung Electronics and other chip makers also have been boosting investments to meet rising demand and joust for market share in advanced semiconductors.

Most semiconductors used in smartphones, medical equipment, computers and other products are made in Taiwan, South Korea and China.

Last week, Intel announced plans to pour $20 billion into expanding production, building two new factories in Arizona. The company is building up its foundry business but lags behind TSMC in developing a next-generation chip-making process.

TSMC operates a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility in Camas, Washington, and design centres in San Jose, California, and Austin, Texas.

It has announced plans to invest $3.5 billion in a second U.S. manufacturing site, in North Phoenix, Arizona, as concern grows over heavy American reliance on sources in Asia for high-tech components.

The Associated Pres

U.S. trade war pushing China to steal tech, talent, Taiwan says

TAIPEI (Reuters) - The China-U.S. trade war is pushing Beijing to step up its efforts to steal technology and poach talent from Taiwan to boost China's semiconductor industry's self-sufficiency, the government of the tech-powerhouse island said on Wednesday.

Washington has taken aim at China's tech industry during the bitter trade dispute, putting sanctions on firms including telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies Ltd, saying they are a threat to national security, angering Beijing.

Chinese-claimed Taiwan is home to a thriving and world-leading chip industry, and the government has long worried about China's efforts to copy that success, through fair means or foul.

Speaking at a parliamentary committee meeting on how to respond to the "red supply chain" - a reference to the colour of China's ruling Communist Party - Taiwan Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua said the trade war had created new risks.

"Affected by the U.S.-China technology war, the development of mainland China's semiconductor industry has been obstructed, but they are still committed to the industry's development," she said.

"In order to achieve self-sufficiency in the supply chain, poaching and infiltration are the quickest way for mainland China to do this," Wang added.

Taiwan's chip workers have deep experience and speak the same language, meaning they are a "natural target for poaching China has latched onto", she added.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hu Mu-yuan, deputy head of Taiwan's National Security Bureau, said China's efforts were a threat to not just Taiwan, but also Japan and South Korea, threatening global trade and fair competition.

"Moreover, the Chinese communists are stealing other countries intellectual property to boost their own power," he added.

Taiwan has strict laws to try and prevent this from happening, but officials have warned China tries to skirt them by setting up front companies on the island, using Taiwanese headhunters and other methods.

"Preventing Taiwan's key technology and high-tech personnel from being infiltrated by the 'red supply chain' has become an important task to protect our industry's competitiveness and ensure our economic security," Hu said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

MEET THE NEW BOSS SAME AS THE OLD BOSS, SERIOUSLY

From the bottom up: CP Rail's Keith Creel steps out from Hunter Harrison's shadow to cement his own legacy

AS YOU WILL READ HARDLY BOTTOM UP

Joe O'Connor

POSTMEDIA

APRIL 1,2021

Keith Creel was just a relatively raw kid from Alabama when Hunter Harrison summoned him to the 21st floor of the NBC Tower in Chicago for a meeting in 1996. It’s a day vividly imprinted on his memory 26 years later, because days like that were not supposed to happen to people like him

A GUY IN A REALLY BAD SUIT, 

BUT NOT DON CHERRY BAD

.

© Provided by Financial Post 

Keith Creel, chief executive of Canadian Pacific Railway.

Harrison, a brash southerner, with a rich baritone voice, a taste for Marlboro Red cigarettes and stiff drinks, and a reputation as a master storyteller, was chief executive of Illinois Central Railroad and already a legend in railroad circles.

Creel was a nobody. A new frontline hire, soon bound for Memphis, Tenn., and a job as trainmaster. He couldn’t really fathom why the boss would want to meet him. His nerves were hopping all over the place as he walked into an office anteroom with bookshelves and a couch, comfy chairs and a million-dollar view of Lake Michigan. He found himself thinking, “Somebody must live here.”

Around a corner sat Harrison. He told the kid to “sit down,” and he started telling stories of growing up in the South, of sports and railroading.

“I spent three hours with Hunter,” Creel, now 52 years old, said. “And I heard a lot and I learned a lot, and I realized then that this wasn’t just a CEO in a suit, and no disrespect to CEOs in suits, but this was a guy who understood the business from top to bottom.”

Harrison also recognized, for whatever reason, something in Creel, and would pull him along from railroad to railroad, dispatching him to towns along the way to sort out operational kinks and learn the business just as he had: from the bottom up.

© Chris Goodney/Bloomberg files

 Hunter Harrison in 2015. RAN BOTH CN & CP

Until, that is, the protege appeared at the top, and succeeded Harrison as chief executive at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. in January 2017. Harrison died later that same year, but were he alive today, Creel could tell him a story of his own, about that kid from Alabama being the driving force behind CP’s US$25.2-billion deal to purchase Kansas City Southern.

The merger is a whopper in an industry where whoppers rarely happen, and it positions a Canadian railway, one started in 1881 that now connects the country from coast to coast, to drive a stake into an expansive network stretching from northern Alberta deep into the Mexican industrial heartland.

Regulators will have their say, no doubt, but most everybody else — the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commission, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Alberta’s premier, Kansas City Southern’s board, analysts and the stock market, where CP is trading at record highs — are cheering the purchase.

Should it ultimately go through, Creel’s name, as Harrison’s typically is, may never again appear without the word “legend” practically affixed to it.

“This has been a transaction that has been talked about for the last 15 years.” Steve Hansen, an analyst at Raymond James Ltd., said of the deal. “It is massive.”

Chances are, though, it never would have happened were it not for another guy named Steve, who worked at Food World in Atlanta in the early 1980s. That Steve, whose last name has been lost to time, worked alongside Creel, a high school sophomore, wrestler and impressionable teen with car payments to make.

Steve had been to U.S. Army boot camp. He had a brush cut. He could talk.

“What he told me inspired me,” Creel said.

No one in Creel’s family had a military background. (No one in his family worked for the railroad, either). But he heard enough to enrol in an officer’s training program while pursuing a marketing degree at Jacksonville State University in Alabama.

Midway through university, Creel was called up for active duty during the Persian Gulf War, and the wet-behind-the-ears 21-year-old lieutenant got his first taste of leading others while stationed in Saudi Arabia.

The army was about teamwork, order, logistics, troubleshooting problems, following rules and believing in a mission greater than oneself. It was also about motivating people to do their best.

“I learned that I had a huge love for leadership in the military,” Creel said. “When I came back, the military opportunity was what led to the railroad.”

NEO LIBERALISM, CONTIENTALISM, JUST IN TIME DELIVERY

And the railroad led to that first meeting with Hunter Harrison in Chicago. Before Harrison came along, railroads were notoriously unreliable. Major delays were the industry norm. Punctuality was but a rumour.

Harrison set out to fix things, evolving his philosophy of “precision scheduled railroading” along the way. In short: his trains were going to leave on time and they were going to arrive on time. Locomotives would pull more cars to maximize loads and boost profits. Reducing transit times between point A and point B was paramount. Providing fast and reliable service would attract more customers, and more customers would mean more profitable railroads. A culture of slow and inefficient would become a culture of quick.

© Peter J. Thompson/National Post files Keith Creel, left, 

and Hunter Harrison at a CP Rail annual meeting in 2016.

“PSR is basically doing what you say you are going to do for your customers,” Hansen said. “If you say you are going to leave at 2 p.m., then you leave at 2 p.m., where, historically, it was always, ‘Let’s just wait a little bit longer before we leave.’”

Canadian National Railway Co. bought Illinois Central in 1998, and brought in Harrison as its chief operating officer, later promoting him to CEO. Now running a Canadian railroad, he would send Creel to Winnipeg, in -40 C weather, among other stops, to implement his precision-guided philosophy.

“Keith and Hunter were a lot alike in that they were both extremely focused,” said Andy Reardon, former chair of CP’s board and a 40-year industry veteran. “They strove for perfection.”

Reardon first met Harrison in the 1970s. He describes Creel as having a softer touch, and an uncanny talent for soaking up the best parts of the best people he has ever worked for and applying them to his own leadership style. As another person phrased it: no one finds Keith Creel “intimidating.”

Creel likens Harrison to a coach, or a father figure, someone who could be tough but caring, someone you hated to disappoint.

“When you needed it, Hunter would knock you down in the dirt,” he said from his home in Florida. “But he would also stick out his hand and dust you off, and tell you to go get them again.”

The question for Creel always seemed to be: go where? In learning the business from the bottom up, he uprooted his family 13 times in 14 years to live in places such as Battle Creek, Mich., Wichita Falls, Texas, and Edmonton.

“I became a fix-it guy,” he said. “Hunter put me in some very challenging locations and terminals. I would parachute in, stay for a year, get things turned around and going the right way, and then he would have another project to send me to.”

Living out of a suitcase wasn’t easy. Harrison may have been the boss, but Creel’s most “trusted adviser” was his wife, Ginger. Somewhere along the way, the former high school wrestler also became that most Canadian of things: a hockey parent.

Creel’s son, Tanner, was a goaltender at the University of Connecticut, while their daughter, Caitlin, competed in equestrian at Auburn University in Alabama.

“Often, I was by myself,” Creel said of watching Tanner’s games from the stands. “I sort of internalize, because that was the only healthy way to do it, or maybe it wasn’t healthy. But the stress of (watching Tanner) was more than the stress of work.”

Harrison retired from CN at the end of 2009, but came out of retirement to run CP in 2012. A year later, he poached Creel from CN under cantankerous circumstances to sign on as president and chief operating officer.

As close as the two men were, they didn’t agree on everything. The CP beaver is a case in point.

© Courtesy Library and Archives Canada The Last Spike, 1895.

Canadians may recall a black-and-white photograph of a small man with a white beard driving home the last spike of CP’s railway in November 1885. For a young country just finding its way, post-Confederation, the railway proved transformational. Goods and people could get around, as could a budding narrative of a nation, from sea to shining sea, united by a feat of engineering know-how.

The small man with the beard in the “Last Spike” photograph was a financier, political arm twister and philanthropist named Donald Alexander Smith, a Scotsman. More than a century later, it was an Alabaman, Creel, who twigged onto the idea that there was an opportunity to rebrand the company by reconnecting it to its roots.

CP first adopted the industrious beaver as a logo when it began running transcontinental trains out of Montreal and Toronto in 1886. The critter was tossed onto the metaphorical tracks in 1968, revived for a spell in the late 1990s, and then sidelined again. Harrison had no use for the beaver. The past was the past.

But Creel brought it back almost immediately after taking over as CEO, incorporating it into a snazzy new company logo — albeit one with a retro feel — and painting it in gold on CP trains. He even helped sketch out the logo.

“I literally sat at my desk in Calgary with a colleague and started scratching out some thoughts,” he said. “And I said, ‘This is it, we will just combine the past and the present, and it will carry us into the future.’”

The logo overhaul was a small touch, a clever bit of marketing from a guy with a marketing degree. To customers and the world outside, it was a nod to the past, sure, but it also pointed directly at the future.

© Alex Ramadan/Bloomberg files A Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive painted with the company logo at a rail yard in Calgary.

Here was a fresh look for a new CP: a railway that leaves and arrives on time, gets goods to where they need to go, has a strong safety record and happy shareholders, and one that was still looking to grow.

But Creel hoped an internal shift in tone, even more than the external messaging, would resonate with employees. The Harrison era at CP, with Creel as chief lieutenant, was a painful exercise in righting a business that had a weak bottom line and was teetering toward potential bankruptcy and break-up.

Hundreds of locomotives were parked, railyards were closed and about 8,000 jobs were chopped from the payroll during Harrison’s five years at the helm.

“PSR is a cultural, financial and operational principle, and it can be wrenching for some people, particularly for those accustomed to doing things one way, and who don’t want to change,” former chair Reardon said.

Harrison may have invented PSR, but Creel, in his role as implementer-in-chief, perfected it. Travel times between Toronto and Calgary were reduced by 22.5 hours. Another 12 hours was cut from the Calgary-to-Vancouver leg. The culture of fast won out, though not without friction.

In February 2015, 3,000 conductors and engineers walked off the job, protesting poor working conditions such as extreme fatigue and unreliable schedules. Harrison’s response to the two-day strike was to keep the trains running by putting white-collar executives on the rails.

“I can tell you that when a train comes running by at 60 miles per hour, pulling 20,000 tonnes with the manager blowing the whistle at them, their eyes get awful big,” Harrison reportedly said of the striking workers.

© Crystal Schick/Calgary Herald files A CP Rail train passes as dozens of employees wear signs and walk the edge of the Ogden rail yard as they strike in Calgary, on February 15, 2015.

By the time Creel officially took over, the mandate was growth, not more cuts, and the logo refresh was, in part, his way of extending an “olive branch” to employees. He describes the company’s 13,000 employees as “family.” It probably doesn’t hurt that the family generates about $8 billion a year in revenue.

The kinder approach has mostly paid off. A source among the CP rank and file, who requested anonymity, said there are some guys who “come to work with a smile on their face,” while others are “constantly looking over their shoulders, and feel as though they are being watched.”

Things are not perfect, Creel allowed, but no family is. What is beyond dispute is CP’s and Creel’s reputation for getting the job done.

“CP are unmatched, they are the gold standard,” Hansen, the analyst, said.

Now, it is poised to get a whole lot bigger.

But the merger with KCS was another thing that Creel and Harrison could never quite agree upon. Harrison disliked the idea; Creel had long been intrigued by it.

The younger man visited his mentor several times as he lay dying in a Florida hospital. Harrison was on oxygen, vulnerable — human — and it was tough to see. But two days before he died, he was back to being Hunter Harrison: lucid, funny and eager to tell stories with his protégé.

They thanked one another for “doing right” by one another. Harrison held forth, just like in the old days, coaching Creel on whom he could trust and who he couldn’t. They talked for three hours.

Creel knows just what Harrison would say, if he could see him now.

“He would be proud,” he said. “He would be extremely proud. I know that he would.”

Financial Post

CP’s ‘historic and transformational’ merger could be the last of the big rail deals

CP deal could be easier sell in wake of continental trade deal and pandemic’s economic shifts

Some 136 years after the Last Spike, CP Rail aims to connect north and south

CP Rail to buy Kansas City Southern to create first rail network connecting Canada, the United States and Mexico