Farming, pharmaceutical and health pollution fuelling rise in superbugs, UN warns

Fiona Harvey Environment editor

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, 7 February 2023 


Pollution from livestock farming, pharmaceuticals and healthcare is threatening to destroy a key pillar of modern medicine, as spills of manure and other pollution into waterways are adding to the global rise of superbugs, the UN has warned.

Animal farming is one of the key sources of strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to all forms of antibiotics, through the overuse of the medicines in farming.

Pharmaceutical pollution of waterways, from drug manufacturing plants, is also a major contributor, along with the failure to provide sanitation and control sewage around the world, and to tackle waste from healthcare facilities. Resistant superbugs can survive in untreated sewage.

The findings of the new report, published on Tuesday, show that pollution and a lack of sanitation in the developing world can no longer be regarded by the rich world as a faraway and localised problem for poor people. When superbugs emerge, they quickly spread, and threaten the health even of people in well-funded healthcare systems in the rich world.

Poor sanitation and healthcare, and a lack of regulation in animal farming, create breeding grounds for resistant bacteria, and threaten global health as a result, the UN Environment Programme found in the report. As many as 10 million people a year could be dying by 2050 as a result of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), according to the UN, making it as big a killer as cancer is today.

The rise of superbugs will also take an economic toll, resulting in the loss of about $3.4tn a year by the end of this decade, and pushing 24 million people into extreme poverty.

Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP, said: “Pollution of air, soil and waterways undermines the human right to a clean and healthy environment. The same drivers that cause environmental degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem. The impacts of anti-microbial resistance could destroy our health and food systems.”

She called for urgent action to halt the pollution. “Cutting down pollution is a pre-requisite for another century of progress towards zero hunger and good health,” she said, at the launch of the report at the sixth meeting of the Global Leaders Group on AMR in Barbados on Tuesday.

The report found that sewage, poor sanitation, and the inadequate disposal of waste were all contributors to the problem.

Simon Clarke, microbiologist at the University of Reading, who was not involved with the report, said people often failed to recognise how big a difference antibiotic use made to modern medicine. “Because of the effectiveness of antibiotics, we have perhaps forgotten the deadly impact that many infections had in the past. The risk of doing nothing is that every injury, operation or routine trip to hospital comes with the risk of picking up a lethal infection.”

Superbugs have been associated in the past with hospital acquired infections, such as MRSA. But that was changing, warned Oliver Jones, professor of chemistry at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. “We tend to think of antibacterial resistance as being a problem associated with hospitals. What this report shows is that antibiotics and other medications ending up in the environment is a major factor in the spread of antibiotic resistance and something we need to pay attention to sooner rather than later,” he said.

Governments and private sector investors in the developed world should wake up to the risks and provide the resources to tackle pollution in the developing world, which would be in their own self-interest, the report suggested.

Farming must also be a key focus, added Matthew Upton, professor of medical microbiology at the University of Plymouth. “Although the situation is improving in some parts of the world, vast amounts of antimicrobials are used to treat and prevent infections in food animals. Improved husbandry and other infection prevention and control methods like vaccination should be used to reduce infections and the need for antimicrobial use, which in turn limits environmental pollution with antimicrobials, antimicrobial residues and resistant microbes. This is particularly applicable in aquaculture, which is going to be a major source of aquatic protein by 2050,” he said.

Catrin Moore, senior lecturer at St George’s, University of London, drew parallels with the failure by the UK’s water companies and government to control the widespread release of sewage into rivers and beaches. “This report reminds me that high levels of AMR could ultimately be on my doorstep, and in the water that I swim through with untreated human waste being released into local waterways,” she said. “Although the highest burden of AMR is found in low- and middle-income countries, and resistant bacteria can be spread easily – they show no respect to country borders. Ultimately if resistant pathogens are increasing in my local environment, reducing the burden of mortality and morbidity due to AMR will be an impossible task.”

Codebreakers uncover secrets of lost letters Mary Queen of Scots wrote from jail

Tue, 7 February 2023

Mary, Queen of Scots
Queen of Scotland from 1542 to 1567

Secret letters written by Mary Queen of Scots while she was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth I have been cracked by a team of codebreakers.

For centuries, the contents of the coded correspondence dating from 1578 to 1584 were believed to have been lost.

Mary, who was beheaded on this day 436 years ago, used a complex cipher system to hide her messages, which the codebreakers found include musings about her time in jail, poor health and attempts t negotiate her release.

Why was she imprisoned?

Mary had already been held captive in Scotland by the time she was detained in England - her imprisonment spread across castles from Carlisle to Fotheringhay over the course of 19 years.

The newly decoded letters were written while she was in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

She was jailed by Elizabeth, her cousin, because she was deemed a threat to her power.

Catholics considered Mary to be the legitimate sovereign, and was first in the line of succession.

Eventually, she was executed in 1587, aged 44, for her part in an alleged plot to kill Elizabeth.

What were the letters about?

Most of Mary's letters were meant for the French ambassador to England, Michel de Castelnau de Mauvissiere, who supported her claim to the throne.

They included complaints about her poor health and her captivity conditions, as well as her mistrust and disdain for Elizabeth's principal secretary Sir Francis Walsingham and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

She also expresses distress about the abduction of her son James, the future King, in August 1582.

Mary was known to have communicated with allies from jail - but the range of these letters, from 1578 to 1584, suggested that they were sent earlier and later than previously thought.


How were they decoded?

The team was computer scientist and cryptographer George Lasry, music professor Norbert Biermann, and physicist Satoshi Tomokiyo, who stumbled across 57 letters in the national library of France's online archives.

The library had listed them as from the first half of the 16th century and related to Italian matters - but the authors realised soon after that they were written in French.

The cipher is homophonic with a nomenclature - this means each letter of the alphabet can be encoded using several cipher symbols, making sure no one symbol appears too often.

There are also dedicated symbols for certain words, names, and places.

"The code is quite elaborate, and it took us a while to crack it," said Mr Lasry, of the University of Kassel.

"But after a while, we started to see some plausible fragments of text in French. From those fragments, it emerged that the writer was in captivity, had a son, and was a woman, which could match Mary Stuart."

Their work revealed verbs and adverbs frequently in the feminine form, mentions of captivity, and references to Walsingham - described as the "definitive clue".

It was confirmed by comparing them with the plaintext of letters in Walsingham's papers in the British Library - and successfully revealed dozens of scripts previously unknown to historians.

Their findings have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Cryptologia.

'A historical sensation'

The discovery has been hailed by leading expert John Guy, whose 2004 biography on Mary led to a 2018 film starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie.

"This discovery is a literary and historical sensation," he said.

"This is the most important new find on Mary Queen of Scots for 100 years. I'd always wondered if de Castelnau's originals could turn up one day - buried in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France or perhaps somewhere else - unidentified because of the ciphering.

"And now they have."

Codebreakers crack secrets of Mary Queen of Scots’ lost letters

Launched on the anniversary of Mary’s execution, study reveals 50 new letters in cipher – with some still believed missing – shedding new light on her captivity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

 

VIDEO: INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE LASRY. view more 

CREDIT: TAYLOR & FRANCIS

Secret, coded letters penned by Mary Queen of Scots while she was imprisoned in England by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I have been uncovered by a multidisciplinary team of international codebreakers.

The contents of the letters were believed for centuries to have been lost.
That was until George Lasry, a computer scientist and cryptographer, Norbert Biermann, a pianist and music professor, and Satoshi Tomokiyo who is a physicist and patents expert, stumbled upon them while searching the national library of France’s – Bibliothèque nationale de France’s (BnF) – online archives for enciphered documents.

The trio only discovered Mary was the author after solving her sophisticated cipher system. Their decipherment work of 57 letters, which is presented in the peer-reviewed journal Cryptologia, reveals approximately 50 new scripts previously unknown to historians.

These date from 1578 to 1584, a few years before her beheading on this very day 436 years ago – 8th February, 1587.

Mary’s correspondences expose fascinating insights into her captivity. Most are addressed to Michel de Castelnau de Mauvissière, the French ambassador to England. He was a supporter of Catholic Mary who was under the Earl of Shrewsbury’s custody when she wrote them.  

“Upon deciphering the letters, I was very, very puzzled and it kind of felt surreal,” says lead author Lasry, who is also part of the multi-disciplinary DECRYPT Project – involving several universities in Europe, with the goal of mapping, digitizing, transcribing, and deciphering historical ciphers.

“We have broken secret codes from kings and queens previously, and they’re very interesting but with Mary Queen of Scots it was remarkable as we had so many unpublished letters deciphered and because she is so famous.

“This is a truly exciting discovery.”

He added: “Together, the letters constitute a voluminous body of new primary material on Mary Stuart – about 50,000 words in total, shedding new light on some of her years of captivity in England.

“Mary, Queen of Scots, has left an extensive corpus of letters held in various archives. There was prior evidence, however, that other letters from Mary Stuart were missing from those collections, such as those referenced in other sources but not found elsewhere.

“The letters we have deciphered … are most likely part of this lost secret correspondence.”

One of the 16th century’s most famous historical figures, Mary was first in line of succession to the English throne after her cousin Elizabeth.

Catholics considered Mary to be the legitimate sovereign and Elizabeth had her imprisoned for 19 years because she was seen as a threat. Mary was eventually executed aged 44 for her alleged part in a plot to kill Elizabeth.

During her time in captivity, Mary communicated with her associates and allies through extensive efforts to recruit messengers and to maintain secrecy.

The existence of a confidential communication channel between Mary and Castelnau is well-known to historians, and even to the English government at the time.

But Lasry and his fellow codebreakers provide new evidence that this exchange was already in place as early as May 1578 and active until at least mid-1584.

Using computerized and manual techniques, the study authors decoded the letters which show the challenges Mary faced maintaining links with the outside world, how the letters were carried and by whom.

Key themes referred to in Mary’s correspondence include complaints about her poor health and captivity conditions, and her negotiations with Queen Elizabeth I for her release, which she believes are not conducted in good faith.

Her mistrust of Elizabeth’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham is also apparent, as well as her animosity for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and a favourite of Elizabeth. She also expresses her distress when her son James (future King James I of England) is abducted in August 1582, and her feeling they have been abandoned by France.

Writing in this Special Issue version of Cryptologia, Lasry and his co-authors describe how they first came across the letters. Some were in a large set of unmarked documents in cipher and using the same set of graphical symbols.

The BnF catalogue listed them as from the first half of the 16th century, and related to Italian matters. However, the study authors say they ‘quickly realised’ – after starting to crack the code – they were written in French and ‘had nothing to do with Italy’.

Their detective work revealed verbs and adverbs often in the feminine form, several mentions of captivity, and the name ‘Walsingham’ which arose the suspicion that they might be from Mary, Queen of Scots.

This fact was confirmed by comparing them with the plaintext of letters in Walsingham’s papers in the British Library and through other methods. A search for similar letters in BnF collections uncovered 57 letters with the same cipher.

Commenting on the new paper, Mary Queen of Scots expert, John Guy, who wrote the 2004 biography of Mary Queen of Scots which led to a major Hollywood film, says this is the most significant find about Mary for a century.

“This discovery is a literary and historical sensation. Fabulous! This is the most important new find on Mary Queen of Scots for 100 years. I’d always wondered if de Castelnau’s originals could turn up one day, buried in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France or perhaps somewhere else, unidentified because of the ciphering.

“And now they have.”

Lasry and his co-authors suggest, too, that other enciphered letters from Mary which are known to have existed may still be missing. A physical inspection of documents, as well as online searches, are needed to uncover these, they add.

It is hoped, now too, that the study will lead to future research.

“In our paper, we only provide an initial interpretation and summaries of the letters. A deeper analysis by historians could result in a better understanding of Mary’s years in captivity,” adds Lasry. “It would also be great, potentially, to work with historians to produce an edited book of her letters deciphered, annotated, and translated.”

---

JOURNAL

Cryptologia

DOI

10.1080/01611194.2022.2160677 

ARTICLE TITLE

Deciphering Mary Stuart’s Lost Letters from 1578-1584

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Feb-2023

Former Andalucían bar confirmed as lost medieval synagogue

Sam Jones in Madrid
Tue, 7 February 2023 


Archaeologists in the Andalucían city of Utrera have rediscovered a staggeringly rare Spanish medieval synagogue, which was later used over the course of seven centuries as everything from a hospital and a home for abandoned children to a restaurant and disco-pub.

The find, announced on Tuesday, makes the 14th-century building one of a precious handful of medieval synagogues to have survived the aftermath of the expulsion of Spain’s Jews in 1492.

References to the lost temple go back more than 400 years. In his 1604 history of Utrera, Rodrigo Caro, a local priest, historian and poet, described an area of the city centre as it had been in earlier centuries, writing: “In that place, there were only foreign and Jewish people … who had their synagogue where the Hospital de la Misericordia now stands.”

Caro’s assertion was verified at the end of last year when a team led by the archeologist Miguel Ángel de Dios discovered the Torah ark area and the prayer hall.

“It was like cracking hieroglyphics. Once we had that key, it all came together,” he said.

Related: Could a former bar be one of Spain’s lost medieval synagogues?

Speaking at a press conference at the site on Tuesday morning, Utrera’s mayor, José María Villalobos, said the two-year search had meant “we can now be scientifically certain that we’re standing in a medieval synagogue right now”.

He said the importance of the “extraordinary” find was difficult to overstate.

“Until now, there were only four such buildings in all of Spain – two in Toledo, one in Segovia and one in Córdoba,” he said. “This is an exceptional building that’s been part of Utrera and part of its inhabitants’ lives for 700 years. This building was born in the 1300s and has made it all the way to the 21st century.”

One of the key reasons for its survival, he added, was the fact that it had always been in use for one purpose or another.

He said the discovery had vindicated the city council’s not-always-popular decision to purchase the property for €460,000 (£410,000) four years ago, and that it represented “an opportunity for us to recover our history” and to attract researchers and tourists.

The plan is to open for public visits in parallel with the continuing archaeological works. Although the women’s area and the ritual bath have yet to be discovered, the site could yet give up many more secrets, according to de Dios. The next phase of the investigation would be looking to see if there was a rabbinical house nearby and perhaps a religious school.

But the significance of the find exceeds the merely architectural, he said.

“Apart from the heritage value – this is a building with an important history that was once a synagogue – the thing that makes me happiest is knowing that we can get back a very, very important part of not just Utrera’s history, but also the history of the Iberian peninsula,” he said. “The story of the Sephardic Jews was practically erased or hidden for a long time.”

While people know about Islamic Spain thanks to its myriad cultural, linguistic, gastronomic and architectural legacies, the story of the Jews who once called the peninsula home is far less familiar.

It was only in 2015 that the Spanish government passed a law offering citizenship to the descendants of the Jews expelled in 1492 in an attempt to atone for what the then government termed a historic mistake. More than 130,000 people applied for citizenship under the scheme before it ended in 2019.

De Dios hopes the discovery of the synagogue-cum-hospital-cum-children’s-home-cum-bar will help Spaniards reflect on their past and their present.

“This is like a window, or like a megaphone through which the Sephardic Jews can speak to us,” he said.

“If we’re so minded, we can listen and learn a lot of things about who we are and why we’re where we are. It’s an opportunity to think about where the Sephardic diaspora is now. It’s a unique opportunity and we shouldn’t get too hung up on the building and its four walls.”

Beavers are returning to London - and they might protect a local train station from flooding


Charlotte Elton
Tue, 7 February 2023 


Beavers will return to London for the first time in 400 years - and they could stop flooding at a local train station.

Widely hunted for their fur and meat, beavers went extinct in England during the 16th century.

But after a decade of successful breeding programs, the semi-aquatic mammal is back. Now, they are being reintroduced to London.


At least one male and one female Eurasian beaver will be released in Ealing’s Paradise Fields, an eight-hectare site of woodland and wetlands.

Beavers are now a protected species in England 400 years after they were hunted to extinction

How were these seven animals successfully reintroduced to the wild?

Why are beavers being reintroduced to London?

Beavers can be ‘ecosystem engineers’ generating a habitat for dozens of other species. The wood they bring into water provides food and shelter for insects, who in turn attract fish and birds. Their dams slow water, creating wetlands and marshy meadows.

The reintroduction will greatly benefit the local environment, said Dr Sean McCormack, chair and founder of Ealing Wildlife Group.

“Many people assume beavers to be a wilderness species. In fact, we’ve just forgotten how closely we used to live alongside them.”

“And we’ve forgotten the rich tapestry of life they can bring as engineers of healthy ecosystems.”

Beavers act as 'ecosystem engineers' by building dams on rivers. - Canva

How can beavers help to prevent flooding?

The diligent rodents could also help protect local infrastructure.

Paradise Fields often floods, causing damage to local Greenford Tube station. But beavers could prevent this - not only do they build dams, but they dig out new channels while exploring. This network of ponds can hold water, preventing it from rushing out of park areas.

Findings from the River Otter Beaver Trial in Devon show that the beavers reduced flood flows by up to 60 per cent.

“Rewilding is a crucial tool in the toolbox for tackling the nature and climate emergencies,” says Professor Alastair Driver, Director of conservation charity Rewilding Britain

“Beavers can do much of that rewilding completely free of charge in river and wetland environments.”

Wolves, bears and bison: 50 species make ‘spectacular’ comeback in Europe

Wild baby bison born in the UK for first time in thousands of years after surprise pregnancy

Are beavers protected in England?

There are now hundreds of beavers in the UK. The government has passed legislation protecting them

As of October 2022, it is illegal to deliberately capture, injure, kill or otherwise disturb the creatures.

Other European countries could provide a glimpse into Britain’s beaver future.

Just a century after Eurasian beavers were reintroduced in Sweden, they now number over 150,000. Norway and Germany both reintroduced them in the 1960s, and they now have populations of around 80,000 and 40,000 respectively.

BREXIT
Welsh universities face 1,000 jobs being lost as EU research funding ends

Richard Adams Education editor
Tue, 7 February 2023 

Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Alamy

Universities in Wales face more than 1,000 skilled jobs being lost because of the withdrawal of EU structural funds, with leaders saying that the replacement finance promised by ministers will not match the lost support.

Since 2014 Welsh universities have received about £370m in research projects from EU structural funds but, after the UK’s withdrawal, its support for 60 ongoing projects will end this year.

Prof Paul Boyle, vice-chancellor of Swansea University and chair of the Universities Wales research and innovation network, told MPs that the projects and the jobs could be saved with an urgent injection of £71m in bridging finance to keep them running.

Related: UK curbs on international student visas would be ‘act of economic self-harm’

“Stepping back from the cliff edge would save hundreds of jobs, support a range of cutting-edge innovation projects that are driving economic growth, and provide direct investment in areas that the UK government has stated are at the heart of its own levelling up ambitions,” Boyle said.

“In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, we risk failing to exploit one of this country’s most enduring and internationally recognised strengths.”

One example, funded through the European structural and investment fund, is Swansea University’s Specific project, which aims to create buildings that can store and release heat and electricity from solar energy, including through printable solar cells and material that can store summer heat for use in winter. The project has created seven spin-off companies, and works with hundreds of private sector partners.

Geraint Davies, the Labour MP for Swansea West, said: “These projects are important to our UK ambition to crank up sustainable economic growth, so their sudden loss would be a big blow to our communities our economy and all our longer-term interests.

“That’s why providing immediate bridging funding of just £71m is of such importance.”

The payments from the structural fund comes to an end this year, with the Westminster government promising to cover the funding through its £2.6bn UK shared prosperity fund. But delays and uncertainty over distribution means the current projects may be forced to close down before the funding is allocated.

Cardiff University said 12 of its projects were due to end this year, and a further five projects already in the process of closing after funding ran out last year, with about 100 jobs at risk.

Colin Riordan, Cardiff University’s vice-chancellor, told Research Professional News: “The aim of these projects was to create jobs and stimulate economic activity through innovation, so it’s going to be a big loss not just in terms of the university but also the region.”

UK

Bradford nurses return to the picket line outside hospital


Natasha Meek
Tue, 7 February 2023

Bradford nurses return to the picket line outside hospital (Image: Newsquest)

Bradford nurses have returned to the picket line today (Tuesday, February 7) for another day of strike action.

These were the scenes outside Bradford Royal Infirmary as nurses gathered together with placards and banners.

The upheaval followed the largest strike in NHS history on Monday as tens of thousands of workers in England staged walkouts.


These included members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) alongside GMB and Unite paramedics, call handlers and other staff at ambulance trusts.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: 'Vote for Larry!' - nurses' strike sign reads

'Vote for Larry!' - nurses' strike sign reads (Image: Newsquest, Mike Simmonds)

Bradford nurses go on strike: 'Claps don't pay our bills'

Union leaders have implored ministers to act to prevent further strike action, but ministers in England have indicated that they will not budge on one of the main points of contention – pay for 2022/23.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, said the Government should open negotiations on pay or face a “constant cycle” of walkouts.

'We want to ensure the future of the NHS': Bradford nurses on why they're striking

On 2022/23 pay, Ms Graham added: “They can’t just always sing ‘la la la la la’ and hope that the year goes by and we will forget what’s happened. This year’s pay needs to be addressed.”

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Lucy holds her dog Otis and a placard

Lucy holds her dog Otis and a placard (Image: Newsquest, Mike Simmonds)

But during a visit to Kingston Hospital in south-west London, the Health Secretary appeared to rule out coming to a new agreement on 2022/23 pay.

Mr Barclay said: “We have been discussing this coming year – from April – pay with the unions,” he said.

'If we keep quiet it will stay the same': BRI nurse on why she's going on strike

“We have this process through the pay review body; it’s an independent process and we’re keen to get the evidence so that that reflects the pressure that the NHS has been under and the wider context in terms of inflation.

“I don’t think it’s right to go back to last year, back to April, retrospectively.”

President Biden calls out stock buybacks in State of the Union address

Brian Sozzi
·Anchor, Editor-at-Large
Wed, February 8, 2023 

Just as stock buyback activity heats up as some execs look for easy ways to pump up sagging stock prices, President Joe Biden is pushing back.

"Corporations ought to do the right thing," Biden said in Tuesday night's State of the Union address. "That’s why I propose we quadruple the tax on corporate stock buybacks and encourage long-term investments. They’ll still make considerable profit."

Corporations are back to aggressively buying back stock after taking a pause late in 2022 with markets under considerable pressure. Buying back stock has the effect of reducing shares outstanding, thereby often lifting net profits — which is the lifeblood of stock prices.

Companies have unveiled an astounding $173.5 billion in planned buybacks so far in 2023. That's more than double the pace seen at this time last year, according to the latest data from EPFR TrimTabs.

President Joe Biden talks with Vice President Kamala Harris after the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS

The big buyback announcements this year have come from a who's who of corporate titans flush with cash and visions for a higher stock price.

Meta — dealing with sagging profits due to weakness in the ad market — raised its buyback authorization to $40 billion after purchasing about $28 billion in stock last year.

Oil beasts Chevron and Exxon — both frequent targets by the Democrats — have announced new $75 billion and $35 billion buyback plans, respectively. Chevron and Exxon each spent roughly $15 billion buying back their stock in 2022.

And on Tuesday, social media giant Pinterest announced a new $500 million share repurchase authorization (more on that in the video above).

Despite the push from POTUS, most pros agree a buyback tax is unlikely to pass anytime soon.

"This will not happen, but it shows the Administration is bullish on this particular policy tool when it comes to future revenue debates, and also indicates that populist rhetoric around corporate profits will persist," said EvercoreISI political strategist Tobin Marcus in a client note.

OPPOSED TO GREEN CAPITALI$M

House GOP Is About to Beat the ANTI-ESG Drum Even Harder

Tim Quinson
Wed, February 8, 2023 at 4:00 a.m. MST·3 min read




(Bloomberg) -- In the US, the political onslaught by the right on sustainable investing has begun in earnest at the federal level.

Over the past week, House Republicans have said they plan to vote on a suite of bills by July aimed at undermining those who track environmental, social and governance-risk factors as part of their investment process. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina picked Michigan’s Bill Huizenga on Friday to head a working group focused on investigating and reining in ESG.

In a note, McHenry said he wants his committee to “establish clear rules of the road” to “end the politicization of our financial system.” He also called on members to pursue “rigorous oversight of the Biden administration.”

With the Senate and White House in Democratic hands, any GOP legislation is almost undoubtedly dead on arrival. While the effort can thus be seen as an attempt to mollify the party’s Big Oil donors and motivate its far-right base, that doesn’t mean the negative attention won’t have concrete effects on investors and markets.

“We see ongoing headline risk for asset managers and lending institutions” from all the ESG backlash, said John Miller, an analyst at Cowen Inc.’s Washington Research Group. “The messaging from the Republicans and Democrats will evolve into the 2024 election cycle. We see few off-ramps.”

He separated the GOP’s anti-ESG messaging into four buckets:

Materiality: Climate and social risks are political and pose little financial and material risks. Proxy voting: Third-party shareholder advisory firms are biased towards progressive agendas so their role should be significantly reduced. Antitrust: Investor-led collaboration on sustainability issues leads to collusion by fixing prices and limiting consumer options. Fossil fuels: ESG investors want to defund targeted industries by closing off access to capital.

The strategy is helped by the fact that most ESG-focused stock indexes underperformed in 2022. MSCI Inc., a leading creator of widely tracked market benchmarks, said its ACWI ESG indexes trailed because of “higher oil prices and the associated outperformance of the energy sector.”

Net inflows to ESG-labeled exchange-traded funds dropped to about $2.9 billion in 2022 from a record $36 billion in 2021, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The problem with viewing that data in a vacuum, however, is that the decline in investment occurred during a year when markets suffered their biggest losses since the 2008 financial crisis.

The Republican to watch on Capitol Hill is McHenry, Miller said. He’s “the key player, and his willingness to dig in on ESG, or not, will dictate air time on these topics.”

One rule that’s already under attack is the Biden administration’s decision in November to allow pension plan fiduciaries to consider the climate crisis and other ESG-related factors when they make investment decisions, including voting on shareholder resolutions and board nominations.

Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia who (along with Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona) spent the past two years often voting with Republicans against Biden’s agenda, said he plans to join the GOP again, this time in backing a resolution to overturn the pension rule. Manchin, who represents a coal state and has significant interests in the fossil-fuel industry, contends the rule jeopardizes “retirement savings for more than 150 million Americans for purely political purposes.”

The attack on ESG shouldn’t be seen as new, Miller said, but instead “an extension of longstanding party positions, including conservative views on social issues and climate-change risks.” And it’s going to continue.

“We see little room for a scale-down,” he said. “Democrats and Republicans are speaking past one another.”

I've been a Wall Street economist for 15 years. The deluge of crappy analysis being spouted by so-called 'experts' has never been worse.


Neil Dutta
Wed, February 8, 2023

A new ecosystem of alarmist analysts is using low-quality data to push a narrative of stock market doom and recession gloom.

If an 'expert' is warning you that the market is about to crash, check their math

Beyond popping up as talking heads on cable news, Wall Street analysts and economists serve an important purpose helping to guide the financial decisions of a wide array of investors — from average Americans worried about retirement to large institutions deciding where to put billions of dollars. At its best, Wall Street's coterie of experts is supposed to translate the shifting sands of the economy into a cogent, useful investment view.

I've been a sell-side economist for over 15 years, helping clients and the public understand the shape of the economy and what it means for the markets. I've always tried to be clear and allow the data to shape my thoughts, rather than fit it into my preconceived notions. But over the past few years, and especially since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, I've noticed that more and more analysts are relying on low-quality, prepackaged narratives to drum up fear about the direction of the economy and stock market. Admittedly, stocks haven't done well over the last year, but instead of providing clients and the general public with clear-eyed views, a new ecosystem of hackneyed, alarmist analysts is relying on low-quality data to push people away from steady investments into an alternative ecosystem of products of dubious quality.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Data is at the center of any economist's work; it provides crucial insights on the state of the economy and can be useful in helping to gauge what will happen next in the markets. But there are a few types of data points that investors should look out for when trying to identify shoddy analysis. In many cases these data points seem sophisticated or a perfect catchall, but in reality they paint a deceptive or overly simplistic picture of the economy.

One type of data point to be wary of involves vehicles for confirmation, which use old data to confirm what an analyst already believes. Take the popular Leading Economic Index. The idea behind the LEI is simple: It bundles up a series of disparate economic data points and tracks whether they are getting better or worse — promising to signal coming turns in the business cycle. But all the information in the LEI is already stale. The individual data components are released days or weeks before the composite index is published. For example, the most recent LEI was a summation of data from December, which an analyst could point to as a sign of an impending recession. But if you look at January's data, we've already seen positive signs, so there is good reason to expect the LEI to bounce this month — confirming what we already know.

The index is also revamped after every recession — given new weights and components so the new index perfectly signals the recession that just happened. But if you go back and look at the LEI prior to each recession, it typically doesn't signal a clear peak. Instead of being a useful measure to gauge the future health of the economy, the LEI is simply an index built around the latest recession that provides scary signals based on old data.

Other hackneyed data points are deliberately ambiguous or sweeping to the point of abstraction. Take another popular freak-out indicator: monetary aggregates, a measure of how much money, such as cash and bank deposits, is floating around in the economy. The aggregate is painted as a perfect summation of the economy — what better way to track its health than by measuring all the money changing hands among the government, businesses, and households? But the correlation between money growth and the health of the economy has broken down over the years, and scaremongers have been able to fit any change in the supply of dollars into whatever narrative suits them. Weak money growth is a problem, they argue, because having fewer dollars moving around the economy could signal that the system is seizing up. On the other hand, a rapid growth of the money supply has been used by doomsayers as a sign that the only thing supporting the economy is the Federal Reserve handing out new dollars. When a measure is so broad that it becomes a choose-your-own adventure, it is hardly useful for quality analysis.

The third type of much-loved, often-dubious tool is the overly fickle indicator. These data points are prone to large swings that produce a lot of false signals but make it easy for analysts to spin up a warning of impending catastrophe.

Take the ISM Manufacturing PMI, which has a near-mythical reputation on Wall Street. The ISM is convenient to use: It is released early in the monthly data cycle, broadly tracks the swings of the economy, and is easy to understand. The ISM is a survey of 300 purchasing managers at a wide variety of manufacturing companies who are asked whether conditions are better or worse relative to the prior month. Are customers ordering more or less? Is it easier or harder to find workers? Are prices for parts higher or lower? If the index falls below 50, then things are getting worse — above 50, and things are improving.

Let's assume the ISM signals a turning point in the business cycle when it runs below 50 for three consecutive months. Even with that broad reading, the ISM tends to send more false signals than correct ones. For example, in the 1990s the ISM had several dips below 50 that lasted longer than three months and no recession popped up. In fact, the ISM is three times as likely to be late in signaling a trough as it is early in signaling a peak. A recession prediction indicator this is not. Plus, the ISM is telling us only about the momentum of the economy. If GDP growth is 4% in January and 4% in February, the ISM would be 50 because things are staying exactly the same. Is that bad? No, 4% growth is pretty good. But the ISM would be interpreted by some to mean the economy is on the verge of a major slowdown.

Doomsday preppers

Ultimately statistics are only as good as the analysts and economists using them. Sifting through the hundreds of indexes, surveys, and economic measures requires a discerning eye and willingness to be humble about the unknowns.

One of the most basic tenets of statistics is that correlation is not causation. Most things in the macroeconomy are correlated. When people are getting more jobs, it usually means businesses are selling more products. Just because two lines on a chart are moving in a similar direction doesn't mean they explain everything happening in the wide world.

I cannot tell you the number of analysts I have come across in this industry who believe they have stumbled on something groundbreaking by publishing a chart of industrial production — a measure of how active factories are — against the ISM — which is, again, a measure of how factory executives feel about the economy. In many cases, the folks who break everything down into one or two "simple" explanations tend to have a conclusion in mind first.

A lot of this low-quality research is also tilted toward a negative bias — the economy is getting worse, the markets are about to tank, a recession is around the corner. Research shows that humans are hardwired to think negativity sounds smarter, and financial media is also tilted toward a focus on the downside. This makes a perverse incentive for lazy analysts to consistently beat the doom-and-gloom drum. It also makes it hard to discount them. In a bull market, when rising stocks lift all boats, these analysts are still making money while arguing the downside just "hasn't happened yet." And when the market shifts and stocks sink, they can crow "I told you so!" Heads I win; tails you lose.

In the end, the people most hurt by this are ordinary investors. People just trying to save for retirement or sock some of their paycheck away are discouraged from making solid, stable investments and pushed into more defensive positions — or in the most extreme cases away from investing altogether. The people who fall prey to these low-quality analysts end up leaving gains on the table and end up with a smaller stable of savings.

In my view, what makes someone worth listening to is whether their thought process makes sense. It is not enough to point to this indicator or that one. Rather, is the analyst laying out a sequence of events that follows logically? For example, if retail sales cratered in a month but gas prices fell, employment rose, and confidence picked up, would it make sense that sales sank? No, it's more likely to be an anomaly since all of the indicators point to Americans having more cash in their pocket. A good analyst would note those other trends and attempt to explain the discrepancy; a cheap analyst would declare that a recession is nigh. In this business, it is important to take a holistic approach.

There is no single summary statistic that gets you the right "call" — if it sounds too easy to be true, that's because it probably is. No single data point is a substitute for good judgment, which is the best leading indicator of all.

Neil Dutta is Head of Economics at Renaissance Macro Research.

REACTIONARY PETTY BOURGEOIS
Farmers drive tractors to Paris to protest pesticide ban

Wed, February 8, 2023 



PARIS (AP) — Hundreds of farmers drove their tractors through Paris on Wednesday to amplify their demand to be allowed to use banned pesticides on sugar beets and other crops to ensure “food sovereignty” for France.

Entering the French capital through a southern gateway, the farmers' convoy rolled to the gold-domed Invalides monument, site of Napoleon’s tomb.

The farmers were protesting what the national farming union FNSEA claims will be the disappearance of French farmers who are competing with cheaper imported products and facing multiple other challenges.

THE PESTICIDE KILLS BEES!!
The French government decided last month to ban the use of neonicotinoids, which are chemicals used to killing insects that eat plants, following a decision by the European Court of Justice to end a dispensation granted for the class of insecticides. Farmers notably fear for their sugar beet crops.

The European Union's executive commission wants to ensure that at least 25% of agricultural land across the 27-nation bloc is reserved for organic farming, compared to 8% in 2020.

“At this rate, French agriculture will disappear,” France 3, a regional television station, quoted Damien Greffin, FNSEA president for the Paris region, as saying.

Greffin noted that Napoleon’s tomb, with a large field stretching before it, was not just a practical site for tractors to gather. He said it was also symbolic because Napoleon imported sugar beets from Poland to ensure France’s sugar independence.

The Associated Press