Fertilizer Markets Roiled by Belarus Potash Force Majeure


Elizabeth Elkin, Jen Skerritt and Tarso Veloso Ribeiro

Thu, February 17, 2022



(Bloomberg) -- A Belarusian potash miner that accounts for a major chunk of global supply has declared force majeure, shaking up a market that’s already contending with soaring prices.

JSC Belaruskali said around Feb. 16 that it won’t be able to meet its contracts, according to a letter from an exporter addressed to clients seen by Bloomberg. U.S. and European sanctions have also resulted in a halt of shipments.

The absence of Belarusian supplies will have big consequences. Potash is a key nutrient for major commodity crops like corn and soybeans, as well as produce. Fertilizer prices have already skyrocketed as soaring natural gas costs forced some European plants to halt or curtail production, and U.S. spot prices for potash in the Corn Belt have nearly doubled in the last year. Expensive fertilizer is making food more costly to produce and contributing to rising global inflation for consumers.

“Global potash contracts have settled at the highest price since 2008, ensuring another year of pricey inputs for farmers and strong earnings for producers,” Alexis Maxwell, an analyst Green Markets, a company owned by Bloomberg, said in an email. “U.S. sanctions on Belarus eliminated a key competitor” with no readily available alternative supplier.

Read More: U.S. Potash Sanctions May Push Belarus Deeper into Putin’s Arms

Belarus exports about 10-12 million metric tons annually, according to Green Markets data. The country accounts for about a fifth of global supply. It’s a major shipper to Brazil, as well as to India and China.

The U.S. Sanctions against Belaruskali OAO, Belarus's only potash miner, came into force on Dec 8, while penalties against Belarusian Potash Company, that exports all the potash from the country, should become effective April 1.

The sanctions may result in shifting trade flows and some demand rationing, Nutrien Ltd.’s interim Chief Executive Officer Ken Seitz said in an interview. Customers who have historically purchased from Belarus are trying to secure supplies elsewhere. For example, Russia is doubling fertilizer quantities offered to Brazil, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said during an interview to Radio Jovem Pan Thursday.

Nutrien has an additional half million tons of capacity that would be available in the latter half of 2022 if needed, Seitz said. Grower margins are strong, so higher potash prices won’t result in less demand.

The company could also ramp up potash output, but first, it would need to see a prolonged impact on the market for “years” to bring on additional sustained capacity, Seitz said. Nutrien increased its potash capacity by 1 million tons in 2021 and additional volumes are expected to come online in 2022 from other companies, he said.

“We’re not standing around saying we’re not doing anything,” Seitz said, noting the company doesn’t want to be left with additional cost if supply challenges go away quickly. “We are bringing on volumes.”

Nutrien anticipates global potash shipments will be between 68 million tons and 71 million tons in 2022.

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KAPITALI$M IS KRISIS
Allianz Hedge Fund Implosion Results in $4.2 Billion Charge

Stephan Kahl
Fri, February 18, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- The price tag for one of the biggest trading debacles during the pandemic-fueled market meltdown of early 2020 is beginning to emerge.

Allianz SE, facing multiple lawsuits and regulatory probes tied to the collapse that year of its Florida-based hedge funds, took an unprecedented, 3.7 billion-euro ($4.2 billion) charge to cover a settlement reached Friday morning with the vast majority of investors in the funds.

In a sign of more pain to come, the German insurance and financial-services firm, which also owns bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co., warned that ongoing probes by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice are at a “sensitive” stage and that it couldn’t yet estimate the final price tag.

“There are still ongoing conversations with remaining plaintiffs,” Chief Financial Officer Giulio Terzariol said in an interview on Bloomberg TV Friday. “We are in conversations with the DOJ, and this conversation is very constructive.”

Investors -- including public pension funds, Blue Cross & Blue Shield and New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- claimed they lost billions of dollars from the collapse of the hedge funds, which were designed to withstand a market crash yet incurred steep losses during the tumultuous early days of the pandemic. Allianz liquidated two of the vehicles in March 2020 and has been unwinding the others.

The lawsuits accuse Allianz of abandoning a stated investment mandate and downside risk protections of its Structured Alpha Funds, and then doubling down on risky strategies in an attempt to recoup losses during the market volatility -- a move that some plaintiffs derided as an “extraordinarily risky and self-interested gamble.”

In its defense, Allianz told a judge last year that the plaintiffs are sophisticated investors that chose high-risk private funds with open eyes.

Allianz, as a result of the one-time charge, posted a 292 million-euro loss for the fourth-quarter, overshadowing an otherwise strong rebound from the pandemic. The company also announced plans to repurchase as much as 1 billion euros of stock and proposed increasing the annual dividend 12.5% to 10.80 euros a share.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote in a note. “However, management did mention that it expects to incur additional expenses before the matter is finally resolved, which does imply some litigation-related overhang to persist.”

Shares of the insurer fell 1.4% at 11:41 a.m. in Munich, paring gains this year to 5.7%.

Chief Executive Officer Oliver Baete told reporters that management would see a significant impact on compensation from the hedge fund debacle. He has been tying to persuade investors that the company is strong enough to shoulder the extra legal and regulatory costs, boosting the insurer’s medium-term performance targets last year.

The firm hadn’t set aside reserves earlier because it couldn’t estimate the price tag. In a Feb. 8 note to clients, Berenberg analysts pegged the total cost at 5.8 billion euros, describing the unresolved disputes as the “main overhang” for the company.

Allianz warned in August that the hedge funds’ implosion could “materially impact” earnings, after the Justice Department launched its probe into the funds, joining the fray with the SEC and investors, who alleged losses of about $6 billion.

Asset Management

In October, Allianz appointed the CEO of its life-insurance unit, Andreas Wimmer, as the head of asset management, succeeding Jackie Hunt. Wimmer indicated in an interview last month that the company plans to push further into alternative asset classes and continue its focus on active fund management.

Senior executives have remained supportive of the unit that offered the funds, Allianz Global Investors, while pledging to take a close look at its product offerings. Of the roughly 450 active investment strategies that existed at the end of 2019 at the unit, about 140 were discontinued or merged with others in the past two years, Wimmer said in the interview.

Despite the debacle, AGI saw third-party clients add 9.5 billion euros in the fourth quarter. Its bigger sister unit Pimco recorded 11.1 billion euros in net inflows.

“It was a very isolated event at AllianzGI U.S. We are very comfortable with the current team and are happy with the trajectory the business is taking,” Baete told Bloomberg in a phone interview.

Allianz cuts bonuses, settles some lawsuits after funds debacle

Tom Sims and Alexander Hübner
Fri, February 18, 2022


By Tom Sims and Alexander Hübner

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Allianz announced on Friday big bonus cuts for its CEO and board, and a settlement with the "vast majority" of investors, as it braces for the outcome of U.S. regulatory investigations into a multibillion-dollar trading debacle at its funds arm.

Speaking at a news conference, CEO Oliver Baete said the issue would have a significant impact on compensation for himself and all board members, but declined to give details.


Baete's pay in 2020 totalled 6.39 million euros ($7.27 million), and the entire board's was 32 million euros.

Baete also said the German insurer and asset manager had settled U.S. lawsuits with the "vast majority of investors," without giving details of the agreement.

But the fallout continues, with investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission underway, and settlements still pending with other investors.

"Ongoing governmental and litigation matters remain at a sensitive stage," Baete said.

The issue centres around Allianz funds that used complex options strategies to generate returns but racked up massive losses when the spread of COVID-19 triggered wild stock market swings in February and March 2020.

The matter has cast a shadow over Allianz, one of Germany's most valuable companies and one of the world's biggest money managers with 2.6 trillion euros of assets under management.

On Thursday, Allianz announced that it would earmark 3.7 billion euros to deal with investigations and lawsuits in the wake of the funds' collapse and said more expenses were likely.

The company as a result posted a fourth-quarter loss, and its 2021 profit was the lowest since 2013.

Investors in the so-called Structured Alpha set of funds have claimed some $6 billion in damages from the losses in a slew of cases filed in the United States.

The $15 billion set of funds catered in particular to normally conservative U.S. pension funds, from those for labourers in Alaska to teachers in Arkansas to subway workers in New York.

After the coronavirus sent markets into a tailspin early in 2020, the Allianz funds plummeted in value, in some cases by 80% or more. Investors in their lawsuits alleged Allianz strayed from its stated strategy.

Baete declined to specify which investors had settled.

Allianz shares were down 1% at 1031 GMT.

Ingo Speich, head of sustainability and corporate governance at Deka, a top Allianz investor, who once called the issue a "massive setback" for the insurer, expressed some relief.

He said the amount and timing of the provision were a positive for Allianz and investors.

Allianz has publicly disclosed the SEC and DOJ investigations. It previously said it intended to defend itself "vigorously" against the investors' allegations. Baete has said "not everything was perfect in the fund management."

($1 = 0.8794 euros)

(Reporting by Tom Sims; editing by Mark Potter and Jason Neely)

SO HE SAYS
USDA Supervisor Was Threatened Over Uncertified Avocado Shipment

Leslie Patton
Thu, February 17, 2022



(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it’s maintaining a ban on avocados from Mexico for now, adding to concern that supply of the popular fruit may run low at some restaurants and grocery stores.

The USDA halted avocado imports from Michoacán, a coastal state west of Mexico City, on Feb. 11 after a supervisor received a “credible” phone threat to himself and his family because an inspector questioned the integrity of a particular shipment and refused to certify it.

“We will resume inspections as soon as possible,” the agency said in a Thursday statement. “We must have assurances that our employees’ lives are not at risk.”

The ban is happening during peak growing season for avocados in Mexico, which runs January through March. The U.S. gets more than 80% of its avocados from Mexico, so the disruption is already driving prices up across the country as restaurants and grocery stores race to secure extra stock from elsewhere.

Grocery-chain and distributor SpartanNash Co., based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is looking to California for more of the superfruit. Meanwhile, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. can get avocados from Peru, Chief Restaurant Officer Scott Boatwright said.

“We use so many avocados. We source them from everywhere,” he said in an interview.

Avocados are inspected to ensure agricultural products from Mexico are complying with certification and export requirements that protect U.S. producers from pests and disease.

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Can Norwegian Natural Gas Solve Europe's Energy Crisis?

Editor OilPrice.com
Thu, February 17, 2022

Norway’s Equinor will maintain maximum natural gas production rates through the spring and summer to help the European Union fill its gas storage facilities, the company’s chief executive said this week.

The pledge comes amid continued concern about gas supplies into the warmer months of the year, which is typically the time storage is filled up for the peak demand period of winter. Last year, most of Europe failed to make sure it had enough gas for the winter, which sparked the gas crunch.

Speaking to Bloomberg this week, Equinor’s Anders Opedal said that Norway had always been a reliable partner of Europe and will continue to supply as much gas as it can to the continent as possible. The problem for Europe is that what’s possible is less than half of the gas it needs. Much less, in fact.

According to Eurostat, the EU imported 46.8 percent of its natural gas from Russia in the first half of last year. Norway, for its part, accounted for 20.5 percent of natural gas imports during that period—less than half of what Russia sent the EU’s way.

According to Bruegel, a European economics think tank, Norway exported over 2.9 billion cu m weekly to the EU in late 2021. This compared with a little over 2.3 billion cu m for Russia. During the first half of the year, however, Gazprom kept flows above 3 billion cu m weekly while Norway never reached that level.

The situation highlights the biggest problem that the EU has with its gas supply security. It has been over-reliant on Russia for years, and this has bred complacency and the certainty that whatever happens, Russia will continue shipping gas to Europe.

Russia shares the sentiment, but the recent events around gas prices and Ukraine have shaken it among European governments, which are now in a rush to find alternative suppliers in case they are needed. The task is proving more challenging than perhaps they had expected.

Norway can probably keep pumping at maximum for a while longer, although it would need to stop for maintenance at some point. Yet Norway clearly cannot cover the whole amount of gas that Russia supplies to Europe right now. Also, it can’t cover the additional demand that will be coming from Germany as it closes its coal and nuclear power plants.

This was the point of the Nord Stream route expansion, by the way—ensuring supply for nuclear-free and, later, coal-free Germany. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline currently ships more than a third of Russian gas exports to Europe. Doubling its capacity with Nord Stream 2—unless the Biden administration makes good on its threat to kill it, of course—will make it fit to handle more than two-thirds of Russia’s gas exports to Europe.

What other options does Europe have besides Norway? Central Asia is an option, and more specifically Azerbaijan, which is already shipping some gas through the Southern Gas Corridor ending in Italy. The only other alternative is LNG.

Europe has been the top destination for U.S. liquefied natural gas for three months amid the energy crunch, despite limited LNG import terminal capacity. According to data from Refinitiv reported by Reuters, as much as 75 percent of U.S. LNG exports went to Europe last month. So far this month, half of all U.S. LNG cargos have been sent to Europe.

Qatar and Australia are also LNG options for the EU. The union even suspended an antitrust investigation into Qatar Petroleum—recently renamed QatarEnergy—this month in what might be a sign Brussels is willing to make concessions in exchange for gas.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

Big Oil Is Spending Serious Money On Clean Energy

Editor OilPrice.com
Wed, February 16, 2022

With the energy transition now in full swing, the green and low-carbon energy sectors have been seeing record investment inflows as governments as well as public and private sectors double down on climate goals. In 2021, global spending on green energy climbed 27% Y/Y to a record $755B as per a Bloomberg New Energy report. That compared favorably with annual global energy investments which are estimated to have increased 10% Y/Y to USD 1.9 trillion, in line with pre-crisis levels.

In the past, fossil fuel companies have been repeatedly lambasted for ‘greenwashing’ and dedicating only minuscule amounts of their huge capex budgets to renewable energy. But that trend now appears to be turning around.

According to a report by energy investment navel-gazer Evaluate Energy, global upstream M&A hit a record $144 billion in 2021 with Woodside Petroleum (OTCPK:WOPEF), Santos (OTCPK:STOSF), and BHP Group (NYSE:BHP) undertaking multibillion-dollar international mergers while Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD), ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) and Continental Resources (NYSE:CLR) made huge Permian acquisitions and scores of gas companies joined the consolidation wave in the U.S.

But an even more interesting trend has emerged: last year, traditional oil and gas companies were among the most active when it came to striking green energy deals and investments.

Upstream oil and gas producers struck a total of 81 green energy deals in 2021, the most active of which were Shell Plc. (NYSE:RDS.A), Eni S.p.A (NYSE:E), BP Plc. (NYSE:BP), TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE), and Chevron (NYSE:CVX). Another interesting finding was that a greater number of emerging sectors have been gaining traction, including hydrogen production projects, electric vehicle charging, and biofuels.

Source: Evaluate Energy

#1. Shell Plc

According to Evaluate Energy, Shell agreed to 10 green/low carbon energy deals

in 2021, making it the single most active company among all oil and gas producers.

The company’s investments were highly diverse, with no more than three deals related to any individual sector. Half of its deals revolved around wind and solar energy but it also had deals in the electric vehicle, biofuel, and retail power sectors globally.

Shell agreed to four new deals in Q4 alone, of which two were in the U.S. solar services sector. First, it acquired a cleantech solar power service company, Cleanloop, via a U.S. solar subsidiary. Then it acquired a large utility-scale solar and energy storage developer, Savion LLC, from Macquarie’s Green Investment Group. The other two Q4 deals were in the Australian retail power sector and the Irish offshore wind sector.

Shell has accelerated the pace of divestiture of its oil and gas assets and is preparing to sell stakes in two natural gas-producing clusters in the British North Sea, according to Reuters.

The Clipper Hub and Leman Alpha complex could fetch as much as $1b for the supermajor.

Shell has sold a number of aging upstream assets in the North Sea in recent years, including a $3.8b sale to Harbour Energy (OTCPK:PMOIF) in 2017.

#2. Eni S.p.A

Italy’s largest integrated oil and gas company, Eni S.p.A, closed nine green energy deals in 2021, with six being in wind or solar. The deals could potentially result in Eni’s combined wind and solar portfolio across Italy, France, Spain, and the U.K. growing by over 5 GW in annual capacity, should all related projects reach completion.

Eni agreed to two of its deals in Q4. It acquired a 20% stake in the U.K.’s Dogger Bank Wind Farm C project from Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) and SSE for £70 million apiece. The combined stake represents around 240 MW overall capacity. The project is the third phase of the world’s largest offshore wind farm (3.6 GW) and is currently under construction. Production of this particular phase is slated to start in 2025.

In separate news, Var Energi, a private North Sea oil and gas producer owned by Eni and HitecVision, is set to go public in Oslo on February 16th at an ~$8.0b valuation.

Eni owns 70% of Var, having contributed their North Sea assets to Var in exchange for equity in 2018. Rumors of the IPO have been in the market for weeks, as Bloomberg flagged listing plans in January at a $10b valuation.

#3. BP Plc

Evaluate Energy notes that BP has been extremely active in the electric vehicle space in recent years compared to its peers. In March, the British major acquired a stake in German firm Digital Charging Solutions GmbH alongside BMW Group (OTCPK:BMWYY) and Daimler Mobility AG. DCS is one of Europe’s leading developers of digital charging solutions for automotive manufacturers and vehicle fleet operators.

In June, BP led a $13.2 million investment round and invested $7 million in U.S.-based EV charging firm IoTecha. BP completed its EV activity for the year in December, agreeing to acquire another U.S.-based EV charging firm, AMPLY Power.

#4. TotalEnergies SE

French energy multinational TotalEnergiesSE completed six low-carbon deals in 2021. The bulk of TotalEnergies’ green energy investments came in the first half of 2021, with arguably the highest-profile of these deals taking place in the solar sector.

In January, the company acquired a 20% stake in Adani Green Energy Ltd. (AGEL) in India and then completed another significant acquisition a week later, this time in the United States. Both deals are key to Total’s plans to reach 35 GW of gross production capacity from renewable sources by 2025 while adding 10 GW per year from that point going forward. AGEL has over 14.6 GW of contracted renewable capacity, with an operating capacity of 3 GW, plus 3 GW under construction and 8.6 GW under development. The company aims to achieve 25 GW of renewable power generation by 2025.

The acquisition in the United States saw Total acquire a development pipeline of 2.2 GW of solar projects and 600 MW of battery storage assets in Texas from SunChase Power.

#5. Chevron Corp.

Chevron Corp. stands out as the only non-European to feature on this list. The U.S. supermajor has been especially active in the more emerging sectors that make up the green energy industry. Among its highlights for the year, Chevron made two investments in hydrogen-based projects in the U.S.

The first was an investment in Raven SR Inc. with a handful of industry partners. Later, Chevron agreed to acquire ACES Delta LLC, which was previously a joint venture between Mitsubishi Power Americas Inc. and Magnum Development LLC.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

Charlie Munger: We are never going back to a five-day work week in the office

Alexandra Semenova
·Reporter
Wed, February 16, 2022,

Will we ever return to a five-day in-office work week? Charlie Munger doesn’t think so.

Even as COVD-19 restrictions ease across the U.S. and employers call on workers to resume in-person workdays, the famed investor said Wednesday during The Daily Journal’s annual shareholders meeting that he does not expect white-collar employees will ever return to in-person work full-time again.

“It’s amazing the percentage of people in computer science that don’t want to be in the office for a normal life,” Munger said. “They want to do a lot of it from locations that are more convenient for them — I think that’s going to remain forever.”

His view comes amid a broad push by leaders in corporate America to get staff back to the physical workplace as states increasingly drop mask mandates and lift pandemic-related restrictions. Most recently, Microsoft told U.S. employees to begin returning to their offices starting Feb. 28 in an attempt to resume normal operations as virus case numbers recede.

Corporate employers have played back-and-forth for months on office policies amid changing guidelines from local government leaders and the ebbs and flows in coronavirus case counts across the country, with the Delta and Omicron variants disrupting plans for broader returns this past year.

As the latest Omicron-driven wave appears to abate, on Wall Street, office attendance at financial giants including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America have risen in recent weeks, while American Express said earlier this month it would ask New York employees to work from their offices at least once a week starting in March, embracing a hybrid model.

The J.P. Morgan logo sign on the entrance of a glass office building in Midtown Manhattan, New York, USA on 23 January 2020. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company has the headquarters in New York City. NY, USA

 (Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

But many employees who have become accustomed to working remotely over the past two years have resisted calls for full-time onsite returns, especially as some companies continue to embrace at-home work and experiment with hybrid schedules.

A recent survey conducted by the Advanced Workplace Associates, global management consulting firm, of nearly 10,000 people working in the finance, technology and energy sectors around the world found that only 3% of white-collar employees are willing to return to full-time office hours.

In the U.S., 84% of survey participants said they want to work from home two or more days a week.

“Employers have to realize that the genie is out of the bottle,” AWA managing director Andrew Mawson said in a statement. “Workers have seen that flexibility can work and bosses who are not sensitive to their employees’ needs will suffer accordingly.”

At The Daily Journal meeting, Munger also suggested that a full recovery in business travel was unlikely.

“I don’t think the average corporation is going to fly its directors around so they can sit at the same table for every meeting of the year,” Munger said.

“The Berkshire Hathaway directors have met face-to-face twice a year and done everything else on the telephone or with consent minutes, and it’s worked fine,” he added. “I don’t think we needed all these goddamn meetings and airplane flights.”

While Munger argued that completing business activities remotely has made certain components of work “simpler, cheaper, and more efficient,” he argued, on the other hand, that federal stimulus for workers sidelined during the pandemic has been too liberal.

“What makes capitalism work is the fact that if you’re an able-bodied young person, if you refuse to work, you suffer a fair amount of agony, and because of that agony, the whole economic system works,” he said, adding effective, prospering economies have traditionally imposed hardship on young people who don’t want to work.

“You take away that hardship and say ‘you can stay home and get more than if you come in to work,’ that’s quite disruptive to an economic system like ours,” Munger added. “The next time we do this, I don’t think we ought to be so liberal.”

Facing Texas pushback, BlackRock says it backs fossil fuels

Ross Kerber
Thu, February 17, 2022, 


Lease Operator Jeremy Jay walks through an oil production facility owned by Parsley Energy in the Permian Basin near Midland

BOSTON (Reuters) - At the risk of being dropped from Texas pension funds, BlackRock Inc has ramped up its message that the world's largest asset manager is a friend of the oil and gas industries.

As a large and long-term investor in fossil fuel companies, "we want to see these companies succeed and prosper," BlackRock executives wrote in a letter that a spokesman confirmed was sent at the start of the year to officials, trade groups and others in energy-rich Texas.


"We will continue to invest in and support fossil fuel companies, including Texas fossil fuel companies," states the memo, signed by Dalia Blass, BlackRock's head of external affairs, and copied to Mark McCombe, BlackRock's chief client officer.

Although the message is consistent with its other statements, the emphasis is new after years in which BlackRock has stressed its efforts to take climate change and other environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into account in its investment and proxy voting decisions.

BlackRock faces a balancing act as some pension funds and endowments move to divest from fossil fuel stocks over climate-change concerns, and because of its size. Like rivals, BlackRock has declined to follow suit.

The U.S. securities regulator is developing a new rule on corporate climate-change disclosures.

In Texas, new legislation requires the state's comptroller, Glenn Hegar, to draw up a list of financial companies that boycott fossil fuels. Those firms could then be barred from state pension funds like the $197 billion Teacher Retirement System of Texas, which has about $2.5 billion with BlackRock.

A spokesman for Hegar, a Republican, said via email his agency is "currently working to establish suitable candidates for the divestment list."

BlackRock in its letter wrote that "we have not and will not boycott energy companies," and cited holdings in Texas-based companies like Exxon Mobil Corp, ConocoPhillips and Kinder Morgan Inc.

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, a Republican, has called on Hegar to put BlackRock first on the list, citing among other things BlackRock's statements in support of "net zero" targets for companies to reduce emissions. That amounts to a boycott under the new Texas law, Patrick wrote in a Jan. 19 letter, by invoking environmental standards beyond federal and state laws.

Many other top asset managers including Vanguard Group and State Street Corp have embraced similar efforts such as signing on to the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.

Patrick's office did not respond to questions.

BlackRock's letter was first made public online on Twitter by Alex Epstein, author of a book backing the use of fossil fuels.

(The story corrects third paragraph to show letter was copied to McCombe, not signed by McCombe.)

(Reporting by Ross Kerber; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

'Morally Obscene': Sanders Blasts GOP, Manchin Over 41% Spike in Child Poverty

"How did this happen? Fifty Republicans and one corporate Democrat allowed the $300-a-month Child Tax Credit to expire," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Children and teachers complete a mural in celebration of the launch 

of the expanded child tax credit on July 14, 2021 in Washington, D.C. 

(Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Community Change)

JAKE JOHNSON

February 18, 2022

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday castigated the GOP and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for killing the boosted Child Tax Credit after new research showed that child poverty spiked by 41% in January—the first month since July 2021 that eligible families didn't receive the popular benefit.

"In January, the child poverty rate increased by 40% in just one month—jumping from 12.1% to 17% as 3.7 million children slipped into poverty," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a Twitter post. "How did this happen? Fifty Republicans and one corporate Democrat allowed the $300-a-month Child Tax Credit to expire. That is morally obscene."

The new figures come from a study released Thursday by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, which found that the December lapse of the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) helped push child poverty to "the highest rate since the end of 2020."

"On its own, the monthly Child Tax Credit kept three million children from poverty in July; by December, it was keeping 3.7 million children from poverty and reducing monthly child poverty by 30%," the center noted in a policy brief. "A roundup of the available research reveals that the monthly Child Tax Credit payments buffered family finances amidst the continuing pandemic, increased families’ abilities to meet their basic needs, reduced child poverty and food insufficiency, and had no discernable negative effects on parental employment."



The study was published as Democratic lawmakers' efforts to extend the boosted CTC remained stalled due to the continued opposition of every Senate Republican and Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has reportedly told colleagues in private that he believes some parents used the monthly benefit payments to buy drugs.

"One U.S. senator 'heard stories' about people allegedly using the Child Tax Credit 'for drugs' without any evidence or data to back it up," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted Thursday. "He then used that as justification to nuke the entire national program, causing millions of kids to fall into poverty in weeks. Horrifying."

"Meanwhile," she added, "the press talks about it like it’s some beltway drama without ever showing the people who are sleeping in bubble jackets with no heat or the kids going hungry waiting for some guy in a yacht to decide if they are fully human or not. It’s just shameful, all of it."

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a lead sponsor of ambitious new legislation that would cut child poverty by an estimated two-thirds, said Thursday that "it is beyond revolting how little attention is given to the fact that the wealthiest nation in the history of the world can afford endless wars and trillions in tax cuts to the 1%, but cannot feed, house, or care for its own children."

Related Content

'Manchin Has Probably Doomed the Party': Support for Dems Dips After Child Tax Credit Killed

With the entirety of its Build Back Better agenda—including a proposed CTC extension—stuck in the Senate, the Biden White House has shifted its focus in recent days to urging recipients of the credit to file their tax returns, which will allow them to get the other half of the benefit.

The first half of the CTC payments—$300 per child under the age of six and $250 per child between the ages of six and 17—were delivered on a monthly basis in 2021.

"If you are one of the more than 30 million families who have already received the Child Tax Credit, you still need to file your taxes," Vice President Kamala Harris said during an event earlier this month. "That is the only way to receive the second half of what you are owed. So, remember: You are owed more, but you still need to file your taxes."

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 The Emergencies Act and double standards

"Freedom Convoy" protesters and Ottawa Police face off in a confrontation on Friday. Credit: Ottawa Police RABBLE.CA The top story this week was of course Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s invoking of the federal Emergencies Act on Monday February 14. As we produce this newsletter, after weeks of inaction as described by Karl Nerenberg and Robin Browne, police forces have begun to end the occupation in Ottawa. As we continue to monitor events in Ottawa closely, the question everyone is asking - particularly residents who find themselves confined to “red zones” with limited movement - is how has this been permitted to go on for as long as it has? Writers on rabble.ca argue, because that’s what the police do: uphold white supremacy in Canada.  Monia Mazigh writes that "If there is a lesson to be drawn from the ongoing occupation of Ottawa’s downtown, it is that anti-terrorism legislation is unconstitutional and ultimately, useless in protecting public safety. It is time to repeal these laws and hold a public debate about the meaning of freedom. Instead of laws that curtail our civil liberties, we should reflect on the importance of respecting our human rights to ensure both our safety and our security." Rachel Snow agrees that the Ottawa convoy exposes the racism that First Nations have long known. When the truckers and supporters first descended on Ottawa in January, there was “practically a red-carpet welcome” from the police forces, writes Snow. Live footage posted on social media sites point to joviality between the police and protestors.  When the issue of all-night honking went to court, the judge was slow to grant an injunction at first. He maintained he could not issue anything because there was no surety in exactly “who was making the noise – the trucks or their supporters” so the honking noise was “indistinguishable.”  This sort of slow-moving justice has never been granted for Indigenous peoples. “What happens to First Nation people standing against injustice? They are beaten, cuffed and thrown into jail,” she writes. “This is your Canada. There is a rule of law for the First Nations and a rule of law that applies to non-First Nation people.”  Robin Browne observes that, “the Ottawa Police Service, like all police forces in Canada, has always had one mandate: protect the powerful – or at least don’t get in their way. And the thousands of convoy protesters, with their millions in the bank, are the powerful.” Become a monthly sustainer

In some cities, residents have taken it upon themselves to stop the convoys. Archana Rampure reports from the frontlines in Ottawa this week as 4,000 people marched in support of vaccines, mask mandates, and democracy. “We take care of ourselves. We have been abandoned by the police,” she writes. “What does it say about the state of affairs in the nation’s capital when ordinary people step up to what the police won’t?”  Meanwhile in Edmonton, a small group of counter-demonstrators managed to blockade a parade of “Freedom Convoy” supporters on their way to the city’s downtown last Saturday. The blockade had managed to stop a line of pickup trucks, SUVs and four semi-trailers cabs in the eastbound lane of River Valley. Wildly, police told the counter-demonstrators to remove themselves from the area and threatened them with application of Alberta’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act.

AOC Hasn't Given Up on Her Vision for Social Change

After three years in the halls of power, she’s seen the “shit show” up close—and hasn’t given up on her vision for how to change it.

February 17, 2022 David Remnick 

THE NEW YORKER

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat representing parts of Queens and the Bronx (including Rikers Island), quickly became the most prominent progressive voice in the House of Representatives after she defeated a twenty-year incumbent, Joe Crowley, and went to Capitol Hill in January, 2019. In Congress, she is hardly alone in her advocacy for issues ranging from Medicare for All to the Green New Deal; she belongs to the Bernie Sanders wing of the Party. But few in the history of the institution have so quickly become a focus of attention, admiration, and derision.

Elected when she was twenty-nine, the youngest woman ever to serve in the House, Ocasio-Cortez has proved herself an effective examiner in committee hearings and a master of social media. In other words, she offers both substance and flair, and this combination seems to drive her critics to the point of frenzied distraction. Fox News, the Post, and the Daily Mail, along with a collection of right-wing Republican foes in Congress, obsess over her left-wing politics and her celebrity. In November, Paul Gosar, a Republican representative from Arizona who has spoken up for white-nationalist leaders and voted against awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021, posted an anime sequence that depicted him killing Ocasio-Cortez with a sword. More recently, a former Trump campaign adviser, Steve Cortes, went online to mock Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend, Riley Roberts, for his sandalled feet, prompting her to fire back, “If Republicans are mad they can’t date me they can just say that instead of projecting their frustrations onto my boyfriend’s feet. Ya creepy weirdos.”

When we spoke earlier this month, by Zoom, Ocasio-Cortez talked at length not only about the impasse the Democrats now face but also the general atmosphere of working in Congress. “Honestly, it is a shit show,” she said. “It’s scandalizing, every single day. What is surprising to me is how it never stops being scandalizing.”

The interview, which was prepared with assistance from Mengfei Chen and Steven Valentino, took place on February 1st, and has been edited for length and clarity.

Much of the Biden Administration’s agenda in Congress has pretty much stalled. A term that began with lofty F.D.R.-like ambitions is now at a standstill. How would you rate the President’s performance after a year?

There are some things that are outside of the President’s control, and there’s very little one can say about that, with Joe Manchin and [Kyrsten] Sinema. But I think there are some things within the President’s control, and his hesitancy around them has contributed to a situation that isn’t as optimal.

My concern is that we’re getting into analysis paralysis, and we don’t have much time. We should really not take this present political moment for granted, and do everything that we can. At the beginning of last year, many of us in the progressive wing—but not just the progressive wing—were saying we don’t want to repeat a lot of the hand-wringing that happened in 2010, when there was this very precious opportunity in the Senate for things to happen.

People in the Biden White House would argue that the margins are the margins and Manchin’s politics are what they are. He comes from a state that is dominated by a much more conservative vote. And Sinema is . . . unpredictable. They would argue that they made concession after concession and still got nowhere.

The Presidency is so much larger than just the votes in the legislature. This is something that we saw with President Obama. I think we’re seeing this dynamic perhaps extend a little bit into the Biden Administration, with a reluctance to use executive power. The President has not been using his executive power to the extent that some would say is necessary.

Where would you move first?

One of the single most impactful things President Biden can do is pursue student-loan cancellation. It’s entirely within his power. This really isn’t a conversation about providing relief to a small, niche group of people. It’s very much a keystone action politically. I think it’s a keystone action economically as well. And I can’t underscore how much the hesitancy of the Biden Administration to pursue student-loan cancellation has demoralized a very critical voting block that the President, the House, and the Senate need in order to have any chance at preserving any of our majority.

What is in the realm of the achievable, the realm of the possible, between now and the election?

That’s why I kind of started off by talking about the executive powers of the President, because I don’t think that there’s any guarantee of getting something through that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will approve of that will significantly and materially improve the lives of working people. It’s a bit of a dismal assessment, but I think that, given an analysis of their past behavior, it is a fair one. The President has a responsibility to look at the tools that he has.

You had some political experience before you were elected, but it was from some distance. You weren’t a member of Congress. You weren’t “in the room.” What do you see in the room? What is it like, day to day, being a member of this institution, which, I have to say, from outside, looks like a shit show?

Honestly, it is a shit show. It’s scandalizing, every single day. What is surprising to me is how it never stops being scandalizing. Some folks perhaps get used to it, or desensitized to the many different things that may be broken, but there is so much reliance on this idea that there are adults in the room, and, in some respect, there are. But sometimes to be in a room with some of the most powerful people in the country and see the ways that they make decisions—sometimes they’re just susceptible to groupthink, susceptible to self-delusion.

Sketch it out for us. What does it look like?

The infrastructure plan, if it does what it’s intended to do, politicians will take credit for it ten years from now, if we even have a democracy ten years from now. But the Build Back Better Act is the vast majority of Biden’s agenda. The infrastructure plan, as important as it is, is much smaller. So we were talking about pairing these two things together. The Progressive Caucus puts up a fight, and then somewhere around October there comes a critical juncture. The President is then under enormous pressure from the media. There’s this idea that the President can’t “get things done,” and that his Presidency is at risk. It’s what I find to be just a lot of sensationalism. However, the ramifications of that were being very deeply felt. And you have people running tough races, and it’s “he needs a win.” And so I’m sitting there in a group with some of the most powerful people in the country talking about how, if we pass the infrastructure bill right now, then this will be what the President can campaign on. The American people will give him credit for it. He can win his Presidency on it. If we don’t pass it now, then we’ve risked democracy itself.

Who’s in the room? You say the most powerful people.

You’re talking about everybody from leadership to folks who are in tough seats, but all elected officials in the Democratic Party on the federal level. And people really just talk themselves into thinking that passing the infrastructure plan on that day, in that week, is the most singular important decision of the Presidency, more than voting rights, more than the Build Back Better Act itself, which contains the vast majority of the President’s actual plan. You’re kind of sitting there in the room and watching people work themselves up into a decision. It’s a fascinating psychological moment that you’re watching unfold.

It’s not to say that all these things that they’re saying are a hundred-per-cent false. But I come from a community that is often discounted in many different ways, because, you know, these are “reliable Democrats.” Like, what she has to say doesn’t matter, etc. What does she know about this political moment? The thing that’s unfortunate, and what a lot of people have yet to recognize, is that the motivations and the sense of investment and faith in our democracy and governance from people in communities like mine also determine majorities. They also determine the outcomes of statewide races and Presidential races. And, when you have a gerrymandered House, when you have the Senate constructed the way that it is, when you have a Presidency that relies on the Electoral College in the fashion that it does, you’re in this room and you see that all of these people who are elected are truly representative of our current political system. And our current political system is designed to revolve around a very narrow band of people who are, over all, materially O.K. It does not revolve around the majority.

You’ve used a phrase “if we have a democracy ten years from now.” Do you think we won’t?

I think there’s a very real risk that we will not. What we risk is having a government that perhaps postures as a democracy, and may try to pretend that it is, but isn’t.

What’s going to bring us to that point? You hear talk now about our being on the brink of civil war—that’s the latest phrase in a series of books that have come out. What will happen to bring us to that degraded point?

Well, I think it has started, but it’s not beyond hope. We’re never beyond hope. But we’ve already seen the opening salvos of this, where you have a very targeted, specific attack on the right to vote across the United States, particularly in areas where Republican power is threatened by changing electorates and demographics. You have white-nationalist, reactionary politics starting to grow into a critical mass. What we have is the continued sophisticated takeover of our democratic systems in order to turn them into undemocratic systems, all in order to overturn results that a party in power may not like.

The concern is that we will look like what other nation?

I think we will look like ourselves. I think we will return to Jim Crow. I think that’s what we risk.

What’s the scenario for that?

You have it already happening in Texas, where Jim Crow-style disenfranchisement laws have already been proposed. You had members of the state legislature, just a few months ago, flee the state in order to prevent such voting laws from being passed. In Florida, where you had the entire state vote to allow people who were released from prison to be reënfranchised after they have served their debt to society, that’s essentially being replaced with poll taxes and intimidation at the polls. You have the complete erasure and attack on our own understanding of history, to replace teaching history with institutionalized propaganda from white-nationalist perspectives in our schools. This is what the scaffolding of Jim Crow was.

So there are many impulses to compare this to somewhere else. There are certainly plenty of comparisons to make—with the rise of fascism in post-World War One Germany. But you really don’t have to look much further than our own history, because what we have, I think, is a uniquely complex path that we have walked. And the question that we’re really facing is: Was the last fifty to sixty years after the Civil Rights Act just a mere flirtation that the United States had with a multiracial democracy that we will then decide was inconvenient for those in power? And we will revert to what we had before, which, by the way, wasn’t just Jim Crow but also the extraordinary economic oppression as well?

Do you think many Republicans share your concern about the fate of democracy? Do you have those kinds of conversations?

It’s a complex question because there’s so many different kinds of Republicans. But I’m reluctant to get into the navel-gazing of it, because, at the end of the day, they all make the same decisions. You might be able to appeal to the good natures or even a sense of charity of a handful, but ultimately we have what we have. At the end of the day, you know, who cares if they’re true believers or if they’re just complicit? They’re still voting to overturn the results of our election.

We’re constantly told, if you could only hear what’s being said in the cloakrooms, a lot of Republicans find Donald Trump repulsive but know that they’re going to lose their seats if they say so. Is being in Congress such a great job that you will trade your principles and soul for that job?

What I think some Republicans struggle with, the very few that are in that position, is a concern that they will be replaced by someone even worse. You know, O.K., externally I might look like a good soldier, I might look like I’m falling in line, but, if I lose my primary and I get replaced with ten more Marjorie Taylor Greenes, we’ll be in an even worse situation.

That’s perhaps where they may be coming from. And, to a certain extent, you do have these critical moments. You have January 6th, and, if Mike Pence had made a different split-second decision that day and done what President Trump was asking of him, we would be in a very different place right now.

When you are asked questions about whether or not Nancy Pelosi should stay as Speaker, when you’re asked questions about the rather advanced ages of Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, and Chuck Schumer, does it make a difference? You’re saying it’s structural. It’s not generational.

It’s both. The reason we have this generational situation that we do is also, in part, due to our structures. The generational aspect of things is absolutely pertinent to the kind of decision-making. There is this world view, this appeal, of a time passed that I think sometimes guides decision-making. President Biden thought that he could talk with Manchin like an old pal and bring him along. And, frankly, that was what the White House’s strategy was, in terms of what they communicated to us. That’s how they tried to sell passage of not even half a loaf but a tenth of the loaf. It was “We promise we’ll be able to bring them along.” There is this idea that this is just a temporary thing and we’ll get back to that. But I grew up my entire life in this mess. There’s no nostalgia for a time when Washington worked in my life.

Is it healthy or not for the Democratic Party for Nancy Pelosi to remain in place as the Speaker, as leader of the Democratic caucus in the House?

It’s really all about a specific moment that we’re in. We are in such a delicate moment of the day-to-day, particularly with the threats to our democracy. I believe that, at the end of the day, there’s going to be a generational change in our leadership. That is just a simple fact. Now, when that particular moment happens? I think it’s a larger question of conditions and circumstance.

You don’t want to go near this one.

It’s a tough question. It’s not even just a question of the Speaker. It’s a question of our caucus. I wish the Democratic Party had more stones. I wish our party was capable of truly supporting bold leadership that can address root causes.

Is it that the representatives don’t have the stones, or do you want a different public opinion, as it were? In other words, for example, take “defund the police” as a policy demand. Certainly, in New York City, no one is talking about that now. As a matter of protest? Yes. As activism? Yes. But we have a new mayor, Eric Adams, who is anything but “defund the police.” Who are you disappointed in?

I still am disappointed in leadership and in my colleagues, because, ultimately, these conversations about “defund,” or this, that, and the other, are what is happening in public and popular conversations. Our job is to be able to engage in that conversation, to read what is happening, and to be able to develop a vision and translate it into a course of action. All too often, I believe that a lot of our decisions are reactive to public discourse instead of responsive to public discourse. And so, just because there was this large conversation about “defund the police” coming from the streets, the response was to immediately respond to it with fear, with pooh-poohing, with “this isn’t us,” with arm’s distance. So, then, what is the vision? That’s where I think the Party struggles.

Aren’t you seeing the response in City Hall now in the shape of Eric Adams?

Well, I think you also see it in the shape of the City Council that was elected. You have a record number of progressives. People often bring up the Mayor as evidence of some sort of decision around policing. I disagree with that assessment. I represent a community that is very victimized by a rise in violence. (And I represent Rikers Island!) What oftentimes people overlook is that the same communities that supported Mayor Adams also elected Tiffany Cabán. What the public wants is a strong sense of direction. I don’t think that in electing Mayor Adams everyone in the city supports bringing back torture to Rikers Island in the form of solitary confinement. What people want is a strong vision about how we establish public safety in our communities.

One of the ways that we engage is by backing some of the only policies that are actually supported by evidence to reduce incidents of violent crime: violence-interruption programs, summer youth employment. When we talk about the surge of violence happening right now, when I engage with our hospitals, doctors, social workers, everyone’s telling me that there’s so many things we’re not discussing. The surge in violence is being driven by young people, particularly young men. And we allow the discourse to make it sound as though it’s, like, these shady figures in the bush, jumping out from a corner. These are young men. These are boys. We’re also not discussing the mental-health crisis that we are experiencing as a country as a result of the pandemic.

Because we run away from substantive discussions about this, we don’t want to say some of the things that are obvious, like, Gee, the child-tax credit just ran out, on December 31st, and now people are stealing baby formula. We don’t want to have that discussion. We want to say these people are criminals or we want to talk about “people who are violent,” instead of “environments of violence,” and what we’re doing to either contribute to that or dismantle that.

I’ve never seen anybody so quickly become a lightning rod for right-wing criticism and obsession. Why do you think there’s such a fixation on you personally?

I think there’s just some surface-level stuff. And, to be honest, it’s not just the right wing. I was laughing because a couple of months ago someone showed me some of the news footage and coverage from the night that I was elected. And, obviously, I didn’t see any of it because I was, like, losing my mind.

But there was this footage, I think it was Brian Williams. And it was, like, breaking news: the third-most-powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives seems to have been unseated by this radical socialist. All the buzzwords that the right wing uses now were also completely legitimized by mainstream media on the night of the election. I never had a chance. People act as though there was something I could have done. There really wasn’t. It was kind of baked in from the beginning, and my choice was how to respond to that.

And I think because I respond to it differently, that increases a certain level of novelty, which then increases interest. But then there’s also just the basic stuff. I’m young, I’m a woman, I’m a woman of color. I’m not liberal in a traditional sense. I’m willing to buck against my own party, and in a real way. And I’m everything that they need. I’m the red meat for their base.

Do you worry sometimes that you take the bait too much or poke the bear in a way that might not be, in retrospect, something you should’ve done? Like, for example, the Met Gala, the “Tax the Rich” dress, or your response to the really weird tweet about your boyfriend’s feet?

All the time. Every day you make decisions, and you have to make decisions about whether it’s a good idea to go after this or if it’s a bad idea to go after it. Sometimes you make good decisions. Sometimes you make less-than-optimal ones. And then you reflect on them and you try to kind of sharpen your steel.

What were the less-than-optimal ones?

Everything has a different goal, right? And so, if you’re at home on Twitter, or if you’re at home on TV, there are some things that are not for you. There are some things I do that you don’t like that are not intended for you to like, such as what happened with the Met Gala. There are a lot of folks who did not like that. There were some “principled leftists” who didn’t like that. But, when you look at my community, it’s not a college town, a socialist, leftist, academic community. It’s a working-class community that I’m able to engage in a collective conversation about our principles. And, honestly, there’s a response to that in some circles online that may be negative, but in my community the response was quite positive.

The response to the Met Gala was positive in your community? How did you feel it?

Yeah. Because sometimes you just need to give a little Bronx jeer to the rich and to the spectacle. You need to puncture the façade. My community and my family—we’re postal workers, my uncle is a maintenance man, my mom’s a domestic worker. Sometimes you just need to have that moment.

It is a bizarre psychological experience to live specifically now in 2022. We’re not even talking about a culture of celebrity. We’re talking about a culture of commodification of human beings, from the bottom all the way to the top. And there’s absolutely a bizarre psychological experience of this that also plays into these decisions. For example, like what happened in responding to these bizarre things, like about my boyfriend’s feet. I’ve felt for a long time that we need to talk about the bizarre psychological impulses underpinning the right wing.

It’s not “politically correct” to be able to talk about these things, but they are so clearly having an obvious impact on not just our public discourse but the concentration of power. We have to talk about patriarchy, racism, capitalism, but you’re not going to have those conversations by using those words. You have to have those conversations by really responding in uplifting moments. I don’t really care if other people understand it. Sometimes what seems to some folks a moment that’s gauche or something, I often do it with the intention of exposing cultural or psychological undercurrents that people don’t want to talk about. Which, by the way, is why I think sometimes people read these moments as gauche or low-class or whatever they may be. And sometimes how I feel is, if I’m just going to be this, like, commodified avatar thing, then I’m going to play with it, like a toy.

It’s a rough thing to deal with.

Yeah. It’s awful.

One of the cudgels used by the right these days, and not only the right, is fear about cancellation and “wokeness.” We’ve even heard members of the House give speeches about the dangers of so-called cancel culture. And, at the same time, it does seem like norms around speech are changing around fears of online backlashes. I know you’ve criticized that term, “cancel culture,” even dismissed it, but you did so in a tweet.

You look at the capture of power in the right wing, the ascent of white nationalism, the concentration of wealth. You cannot really animate or concentrate a movement like that—you can’t coalesce it into functional political power—without a sense of persecution or victimhood. And that’s the role of this concept of cancel culture. It’s the speck of dust around which the raindrop must form in order to precipitate takeovers of school boards, pushing actual discourse out of the acceptable norms, like in terms of the 1619 Project or getting books banned from schools. They need the concept of cancel culture, of persecution, in order to justify, animate, and pursue a political program of takeover, or at least a constant further concentration of their own power.

You talk about cancel culture. But notice that those discussions only go one way. We don’t talk about all the people who were fired. You just kind of talk about, like, right-leaning podcast bros and more conservative figures. But, for example, Marc Lamont Hill was fired [from CNN] for discussing an issue with respect to Palestinians, pretty summarily. There was no discussion about it, no engagement, no thoughtful discourse over it, just pure accusation.

Last month, an ex-staffer of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s told the New York Post that you could mount “a very, very credible challenge and quite likely beat her.” How do you feel about that? How do you view your political future?

I’m not trying to be, like, “I’m not like the other girls.” I’m not trying to position myself in that way. But I don’t think that I make these kinds of decisions as if I’m operating with some sort of ten-to-fifteen-year plan, like a lot of people do. Half this town, if not more, has been to a fancy Ivy League school. And so, as a consequence, everyone is, like, what chess pieces are being put down for what specific aspiration? I make decisions based on where I think people are and what we’re ready for, particularly as a movement. I think a lot of people sometimes make these decisions based on what they want, right? What I want is a lot more decentralized. I think it’s a lot more rooted in mass movements.

Could you see yourself walking away from public office entirely and going to a life of mass movements?

I think about it all the time. When I entertain possibilities for my future, it’s like anybody else. I could be doing what I’m doing in a little bit of a different form, but I could also not be in elected office as well. It could come in so many different forms. I wake up, and I’m, like, what would be the most effective thing to do to advance the power and build the power of working people?

Well, do you wake up sometimes in your Capitol Hill apartment and say, What the hell am I doing here? I’m one representative out of hundreds. I’m in a gridlocked situation. I’m not effecting the change I want to, and I’d rather join, or lead, or help lead a movement outside of government?

I’ve had those thoughts, absolutely. We all have different options in front of us. And the choice of what option we take at any given point is a reflection of all of those conditions, our motivations, all of those things. And there are times when I’m cynical and I sometimes fall into that. I’m just, like, “Man, maybe I should just, like, learn to grow my own food and teach other people how to do that!”

But I also reject the total cynicism that what’s happening here is fruitless. I’ve been in this cycle before in my life, before I even ran for office, before it was even a thought.

The social-media folks at The New Yorker invited people to propose questions for you via Instagram. Hope is the theme that is the center of almost all of these. If I can distill them, the most basic question is, What would you say to people, particularly young people, who have lost hope?

I’ve been there. And what I can say is that, when you’re feeling like you’ve lost hope, it’s a very passive experience, which is part of what makes it so depressing.

And that’s what I had to go through. There was all this hope when Obama was elected, in 2008. And, at the end of the day, a lot of people that had hope in our whole country had those hopes dashed.

I graduated. My dad died. My family had medical debt, because we live in the jankiest medical system in the developed world. My childhood home was on the precipice of being taken away by big banks. I’d be home, and there’d be bankers in cars parked in front of my house, taking pictures for the inevitable day that they were going to kick us out.

I was supposed to be the great first generation to go to college, and I graduated into a recession where bartending, legitimately, and waitressing, legitimately, paid more than any college-level entry job that was available to me. I had a complete lack of hope. I saw a Democratic Party that was too distracted by institutionalized power to stand up for working people. And I decided this is bullshit. No one, absolutely no one, cares about people like me, and this is hopeless. And I lost hope.

How did that manifest itself?

It manifested in depression. Feeling like you have no agency, and that you are completely subject to the decisions of people who do not care about you, is a profoundly depressing experience. It’s a very invisibilizing experience. And I lived in that for years. This is where sometimes what I do is speak to the psychology of our politics rather than to the polling of our politics. What’s really important for people to understand is that to change that tide and to actually have this well of hope you have to operate on your direct level of human experience.

When people start engaging individually enough, it starts to amount to something bigger. We have a culture of immediate gratification where if you do something and it doesn’t pay off right away we think it’s pointless.

But, if more people start to truly cherish and value the engagement and the work in their own back yard, it will precipitate much larger change. And the thing about people’s movements is that the opposite is very top-down. When you have folks with a profound amount of money, power, influence, and they really want to make something happen, they start with media. You look at these right-wing organizations, they create YouTube channels. They create their podcast stars. They have Fox News as their own personal ideological television outlet.

Legitimate change in favor of public opinion is the opposite. It takes a lot of mass-public-building engagement, unrecognized work until it gets to the point that it is so big that to ignore it threatens the legitimacy of mass-media outlets, institutions of power, etc. It has to get so big that it is unignorable, in order for these positions up top to respond. And so people get very discouraged here.

Going forward, what do you think is the optimal role for you to play?

With the Climate Justice Alliance, some communities here at home say that they don’t talk about leadership, they talk about being leaderful. And I think that people’s movements, especially in the United States, are leaderful. And we’re getting more people every day. The untold story is actually the momentum of what is happening on the ground. You have Starbucks that just unionized its first shops in Buffalo. I went up there to visit them. Sure, I went over there to support a mayoral election which didn’t ultimately pan out, but also to support a lot of what was going on. I would argue that if it wasn’t for that mayoral election and the amount of intensity and organizing and hope and attention, a lot of these workers who were organizing may have given up.

There is no movement, there is no effort, there is no unionizing, there is no fight for the vote, there is no resistance to draconian abortion laws, if people think that the future is baked in and nothing is possible and that we’re doomed. Even on climate—or especially on climate. And so the day-to-day of my day job is frustrating. So is everyone else’s. I ate shit when I was a waitress and a bartender, and I eat shit as a member of Congress. It’s called a job, you know?

So, yes, I deal with the wheeling and dealing and whatever it is, that insider stuff, and I advance amendments that some people would criticize as too little, etc. I also advance big things that people say are unrealistic and naïve. Work is like that. It is always the great fear when it comes to work or pursuing anything. You want to write something, and, in your head, it’s this big, beautiful Nobel Prize-winning concept. And then you are humbled by the words that you actually put on paper.

And that is the work of movement. That is the work of organizing. That is the work of elections. That is the work of legislation. That is the work of theory, of concepts, you know? And that is what it means to be in the arena.

[David Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker since 1998 and a staff writer since 1992. He is the author of “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama.”]