HINDUISTS ARE FASCISTS

Modi to Open Controversial Temple, Keeping Decades-Old Vow

Bibhudatta Pradhan and Sudhi Ranjan Sen
Thu, September 14, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is poised to open a Hindu temple in January where a centuries-old mosque once stood, achieving a pledge made by his nationalist party and that’s now aimed at reinvigorating his base ahead of elections next year.

Modi, 72, is expected to preside over the installation of the god Ram’s idol in the northern riverside town of Ayodhya, which is widely believed by devotees to be the Hindu deity’s birthplace. The Supreme Court handed custody of the religious site to the Hindus in 2019 after decades of bitter disputes that came to a head with deadly riots in the 1990s.

“The ceremonies to move the idol to the temple starts on January 14 and is likely to take 10-12 days,” Nripendra Misra, chairman of the temple construction committee, told reporters.

The construction of the temple and the surrounding complex, slated to be completed in 2025, is estimated to cost 15 billion rupees ($181 million), said Misra. Donations of about 30 billion rupees were collected so far for the building complex and the government didn’t give any funds, he added.

The inauguration of the temple comes about three months ahead of elections expected to be held by April and May. This helps the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party make the case to voters that Modi should be elected for a third straight term as prime minister.

It’s a full political circle for Modi, who in 1990 was one of the main organizers of nationwide push to build a Hindu temple to replace a mosque on the site — a campaign that marked the emergence of his party as a national electoral force. The mosque’s destruction by a Hindu mob two years later sparked riots that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.

The BJP used the temple issue to gain support among Hindus, increasing its vote share from two members of parliament in 1984. It led a coalition government by 1998 before losing power in 2004. It now controls more than 300 lawmakers in 543-member lower house of parliament.

The temple is the most visible manifestation of the BJP’s Hindu-first agenda. Modi’s opponents say the BJP has made the South Asian country less tolerant of minorities in the nine years it has been in control of government. This was recently exemplified by the ethnic violence in the remote, northeastern state of Manipur and communal clashes in Delhi.

Modi last week used the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi to burnish his credentials as a statesman with global diplomats and voters back home. India’s opposition parties are trying to counter Modi’s popularity by forming an alliance to ensure there won’t be many-cornered fights in the parliamentary elections.

“The opposition was never able to tackle this, and neither is it prepared now,” said Mujibur Rehman, who teaches politics at the Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi. “The BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have never been shy of using the Ayodhya Ram temple politically, and have been honest about leveraging it for elections.”

 Bloomberg Businessweek

Ornate Indian Hindu temple will open on old mosque site, fulfilling Modi’s election promise

Rhea Mogul and Vedika Sud, CNN
Fri, September 15, 2023 

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is close to fulfilling a decade-old election promise months out from nationwide polls with the announcement that a controversial new Hindu temple will open on disputed land in January.

The first detailed descriptions of the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir were released on Thursday, showing the lavishly decorated structure that is being built on the site of the Babri Masjid that was destroyed by right-wing Hindu mobs in 1992.

Located in the holy city of Ayodhya in the electorally significant state of Uttar Pradesh, the temple’s interiors will be adorned with gold bars and artwork that celebrates India’s diversity, according to Nripendra Misra, chairman of the temple’s construction committee.

Hindu fundamentalists demolish the wall of the 16th century Babri Masjid mosque in the city of Ayodhya in 1992. - Douglas E. Curran/AFP/Getty Images

Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP has campaigned for decades to construct a temple at the site, widely believed by devotees to be where Lord Ram, one of the most revered deities in Hinduism, was born.

Muslims claim the land because the mosque was built there in 1528. But many Hindus believe the Babri Masjid was built on the ruins of a Hindu temple, which was allegedly destroyed by Babar, the first Mughal emperor of South Asia.

The temple’s opening is expected to give Modi’s party a boost in the lead up to the election, making true on a promise he made to his supporters nearly a decade ago.

However, Misra said the date of its inauguration has got “nothing to do whatsoever” with the upcoming national elections.

“We are moving to January because the sun is on the south,” he said, adding its an auspicious time for the shrine to open.

Disputed land

The site of the temple, previously claimed by both Hindus and Muslims, has long been the center of controversy.

It was once home to the Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque that was infamously desecrated by right-wing Hindus mobs with hammers and their bare hands in 1992, triggering communal violence that killed more than 2,000 people nationwide.

Dozens of temples and mosques were targeted in a series of revenge attacks after the mosque was destroyed, prompting outbursts of sectarian violence – some of the worst since India’s hasty and bloody partition following the exit of its British colonial rulers in 1947.

Hindu fundamentalists climb the dome of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya to demolish the structure on December 6, 1992.

 - Sondeep Shankar/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In the following years, Hindu nationalists rallied to build the Ram Mandir on the land, setting the stage for an emotional and politically charged showdown that lasted nearly three decades.

Among the most vocal groups that pushed for the creation of the temple was Modi and his BJP, who used the topic to gain support among Hindus, who make up around 80% of the country’s 1.4 billion people.

In 2019, after a lengthy legal battle, India’s Supreme Court granted Hindus permission to build the temple on the contested site, ending the dispute. It was seen as a victory for Modi and his supporters, but came as a blow to many Muslims for whom the destruction of the Babri Masjid remains a source of tension.

When the Supreme Court delivered its verdict four years ago, Modi said the decision “has brought a new dawn” for the nation.

“The dispute may have affected generations,” Modi said. “But after this verdict, we need to resolve that a new generation, with a new start will join in the creation of a new India. Let us begin afresh and establish a new India.”
The new temple

In his briefing on Thursday, Misra gave detailed descriptions of the design of the Ram Janmabhoomi Madir, from the idols that will be placed inside the building to the source of materials used to build the shrine.

Indian engineering group Larsen and Toubro is constructing the temple on a 2.67 acre (1.08 hectares) site within a 70-acre (28 hectares) complex, Misra said, adding artists from across the country have been selected to create artwork and murals that showcase the country’s diversity.

Three sculptors have been entrusted with carving murals of Lord Ram, one of which will be picked to reside inside the sanctum sanctorum, and the temple will be adorned with gold bars created by well-known Indian jewelers, he said.

Misra said that about 100,000 devotees are expected to visit the temple everyday, meaning an individual might only be allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum for about 20 seconds, due to demand.

An artist's impression of the temple's interior provided to CNN by the temple's committee on September 14, 2023.

 - Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust

The temple’s construction is expected to cost about 15 billion rupees ($180 million), Misra said.

The government has not provided funds for its establishment, he added, saying donations of about 30 billion rupees ($361 million) have been collected for the complex.

Ayodhya, an ancient city of about 76,000 people in Uttar Pradesh, is an important Hindu pilgrimage site and sees millions of visitors each year.

Ayodhya has recently undergone a large infrastructural makeover, including the construction of a new international airport set to open in November, according to Misra. Some of the city’s historic and religious sites have also been restored, according to local media reports, while its roads and railways are expected to get a facelift.

Analysts say Uttar Pradesh’s BJP chief minister, the hardline Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath, has relied on a mixed strategy of economic reform and religious polarization to attract votes.

At the same time he has implemented policies that critics say favor Hindus and discriminate against minorities, particularly Muslims.

CNN 

Dominican Republic closes all borders with Haiti as tensions rise in a dispute over a canal

MARTÍN ADAMES ALCÁNTARA

 and DÁNICA COTO

Updated Fri, September 15, 2023

DAJABON, Dominican Republic (AP) — The Dominican Republic shut all land, air and sea borders with Haiti on Friday in a dispute about construction of a canal on Haitian soil that taps into a shared river, as armed Dominican soldiers patrolled entry points and military planes roared overhead.

Flights were canceled and border towns usually teeming with vendors and Haitians crossing daily to work in the Dominican Republic were subdued. Crowds of people on the Haitian side gathered under the shade of trees as they observed the scene on Friday. Nearby, a white flag fluttered in the breeze under a Haitian flag in a sign of peace.

It was unclear how long the rare closure of the borders will last, with Dominican President Luis Abinader saying the measure will remain in place “as long as necessary.” The country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the canal project violates a 1929 treaty and “must be halted immediately before pursuing any other dialogue.”

Abinader ordered his administration to buy all perishable goods normally exported to Haiti, including chicken, onions, beans and eggplants. The food will be used for government programs that offer free meals to students and others, according to Joel Santos, minister of the presidency.

“Producers should know that the government is going to support them in this situation, because the measure taken by the president represents an issue of security and defense of national sovereignty,” he said.

The diplomatic crisis began earlier this month when workers in Haiti resumed construction of a canal near the Massacre River that runs along the border, to help alleviate a drought that hit Haiti’s Maribaroux plain. The river is named after a bloody clash between Spanish and French colonizers in the 18th century, and was the site of a mass killing of Haitians by the Dominican army in 1937.

Abinader says the canal will divert water and negatively affect Dominican farmers and the surrounding environment, while Haiti’s government insists that building the canal falls within its sovereign right to decide how to use its natural resources.

The closure will represent a significant economic hit for both countries that share the island of Hispaniola, although Haiti is expected to feel it more acutely.

“It’s really a very drastic measure that doesn’t make sense economically for either the Dominican Republic or Haiti,” said Diego Da Rin with the International Crisis Group. “This will clearly have very bad consequences economically in the Dominican Republic, and it will very likely worsen the humanitarian situation mostly in the areas close to the border.”

Haiti is the Dominican Republic’s third biggest trading partner, with $1 billion in exports to Haiti last year and $11 million in imports, according to the Dominican Republic's Export and Investment Center.

Meanwhile, a study by the Dominican Republic’s Central Bank found that $430 million in informal border trade was conducted in 2017 between the countries. Of that amount, more than $330 million consisted of exports to Haiti.

Officials from the two countries met on Wednesday to discuss the situation, and were still meeting on Thursday when Abinader announced he would close all borders on Friday, prompting the Haitian government to criticize what it called a “unilateral” decision.

Da Rin called Abinader's actions an overreaction and noted that he confirmed last month he is running for re-election, and appeared to be staking out tough stance on migration. “Maybe Abinader thinks this is a way to portray himself as a strong nationalist leader who will be the only one ... able to really stop the ‘Haitian invasion’ as he always calls the growing migration influx.”

Authorities were still allowing people to cross into Haiti on Friday, although the long lines from Thursday had diminished.

Among those debating whether to leave the Dominican Republic was Jhon Alberto, who sells purses and men’s clothing in the northern city of Santiago de los Caballeros.

“My parents are asking me to leave. They don’t want me to have a problem here,” he said, adding that he was concerned for his safety if he stays.

Many Haitians, like Julián Jean, 50, who works at a chicken farm in the Dominican Republic that exports animals to Haiti, questioned why the borders were closed.

“Over a little canal so we can gather a bit of water?” he said. “(It’s) so we can progress and see if we find a bit of food for the stomach because we are going through a lot of hunger and a lot of work.”

On Friday, Haiti's Support Group for Returnees and Refugees condemned Abinader’s moves, and said the canal work should continue.

“Closing the border will bring big consequences for Haitian migrants,” coordinator Ketia Bronté said.

She warned that more people are going to cross the border illegally and that the number of cases of human trafficking and contraband would likely increase.

“Haiti and the Dominican Republic are two nations whose history is intertwined,” she said. “Their destiny is linked to living together on an island.”

Abinader announced this week that he has stopped issuing visas to Haitians and closed the border near the town of Dajabon. He also has pushed to limit the number of Haitians migrating to the Dominican Republic and has expelled tens of thousands of them and those of Haitian descent. Bronté noted that in August alone, some 22,000 Haitians were deported — twice the usual monthly number.

The Dominican Republic also has started building a 118-mile (190-kilometer) wall along the Haitian border that he announced early last year.

___

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press videographer Pierre-Richard Luxama in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed.

Dominican Republic soldiers stand on the bank of the Massacre River, a natural border with Haiti, as they look toward others constructing a canal on the Haitian side, seen from Dajabon, Dominican Republic, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. The Dominican Republic shut all land, air and sea borders with Haiti on Friday in a dispute about construction of a canal on Haitian soil that taps into the shared river.

(AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)

HINDU RAJ

Inside Vivek Ramaswamy's intense, high-maintenance, and highly air-conditioned empire

Katherine Long,Jack Newsham,Meghan Morris,Jake Swearingen
Updated Fri, September 15, 2023 

Chelsea Jia Feng

• Vivek Ramaswamy got rich in finance and pharma before declaring war on "wokeness."

• Former staff say he could be finicky and paranoid, and treat staff more like servants than workers.

• Rooms had to be set to 64 degrees or below, with three Army Rangers tasked with keeping him cool.

Inside Vivek Ramaswamy's intense, high-maintenance, and highly air-conditioned empire

Biotech executive-turned-presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, has pitched himself to voters as a truth-teller, an ace debater, and someone who can "handle the heat."

And if the Republican were to actually nab the GOP nomination, things could get pretty warm: Ramaswamy has ticked off a litany of extreme, attention-grabbing policies that would radically shake up the nation.

He wants to invade Mexico to attack drug cartels; fire 75% of federal employees; scrap the majority of federal regulation; and abolish the Department of Education, the FBI, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He's also proposed gutting the Federal Reserve; increasing reliance on fossil fuels; and pegging the dollar to gold, silver, and agricultural commodities.

 

The bombast has made a fan out of Donald Trump, who sits atop the Republican field and has called Ramaswamy a "very, very, very intelligent person." While Ramaswamy broke away from most of Trump's other primary challengers in the wake of a feisty debate performance in August, he is still a long shot to become the Republican nominee.

With single-digit polling figures, Ramaswamy is battling former vice president Mike Pence and former diplomat Nikki Haley for third place behind Florida governor Ron DeSantis. The much-indicted Trump is far away in the lead, according to national polling averages from FiveThirtyEight, with roughly half of registered Republicans saying they'd vote for him.

The debate introduced Ramaswamy to voters as a confident, charismatic, brash, and meme-able entrepreneur who thrives on conflict and won't back down. But seven people who worked with Ramaswamy at Roivant Sciences and Strive Asset Management, two companies he founded, told Insider that the real Vivek's self-assuredness comes with an entitled edge in private.

Behind closed doors, some of these former employees said he can be a neurotic, mercurial, and paranoid leader. He takes pains on the campaign trail to come across as salt of the earth. But a person who worked closely with Ramaswamy said, "He thinks people are put on this earth to serve him."

Ramaswamy has cast himself as the child of penniless immigrants who worked hard and scrapped harder to make it in business. But while his parents may have come from humble beginnings, Ramaswamy was raised in affluence. His father worked as an engineer and patent attorney at General Electric, and his mother worked as a psychiatrist in private practice.

Ramaswamy was the valedictorian of his prestigious private boys' school. In 2011, he received a fellowship from a foundation started by George Soros' brother to attend Yale Law School, a move he later defended in the conservative media because he "didn't have the money." But he was also working at a hedge fund at the same time, earning nearly $500,000 the year he applied for the fellowship and $2.2 million the next year, his tax returns show.

Some aspects of his management style are quirky: he'd order Taco Bell for the office on his birthday, according to former employees. But he's also been known to demand white-glove service from staffers, these people said, insisting that they follow an often bizarre laundry-list of rules and procedures to suit his every need.

Chief among them: A relentless fixation on temperature. Not only can Ramaswamy not stand the heat, these people said — he dictated that the office thermostats at Roivant and Strive had to be set to 64 degrees or below. The workspaces were so frigid, former employees told Insider, that coworkers resorted to using space heaters at their desks and wearing their Roivant-branded Patagonia fleeces to ward off the chill.

"Yes, Vivek likes it chilly," campaign spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed.

When he traveled, he'd insist on booking backup flights, and backups to the backups, and a handful of backup hotel rooms, a former employee said, describing him as obsessive about ensuring his travel went smoothly. (On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy makes duplicative travel arrangements out of "utmost respect" for the "time and effort" of primary voters who come to his events, McLaughlin said.)

When he ordered takeout for lunch, he had his assistant plate it and serve it with a napkin before he ate, one person said. Another former employee said he asked that cottage cheese be waiting on his desk every morning.

"Curious you find this newsworthy," McLaughlin said, adding that on the campaign trail, "we eat takeout every day," and that Ramaswamy serves himself and others. To say he forced subordinates to serve him food is "false," she said.

Ramaswamy was so concerned about his safety — long before he began running for president -— that he hired a former Army Ranger as a personal security guard. The former Ranger would regularly sweep the Strive offices for security threats, a former employee said. (McLaughlin said the security is necessary because Ramaswamy and his family have received death threats.) At one point, his presidential campaign employed three former Army Rangers, including Ramaswamy's current body man, according to financial disclosures.

The Rangers were also responsible for rushing ahead of him to his hotel room when he traveled to cool down the room and ensure it was a "sufficient temperature" before he entered.

Ramaswamy's campaign disputed the characterization of him as entitled and unusually demanding. "Vivek applies the same standards to himself as to those around him," McLaughlin said, saying he works around 18 hours a day "on average" and calling him "unusually respectful" in light of his relatively rapid rise to immense wealth: Forbes estimates his net worth at around $950 million.

"Vivek doesn't believe that people are put on this earth to serve him, but that they are supposed to serve whatever mission they've signed up for," she added

.

Vivek Ramaswamy at a Republican primary debate.

An intense leader of fast-growing companies

Ramaswamy's colleagues and business partners described him as intense, smart, energetic, and the consummate salesman. He worked at the hedge fund QVT after graduating from Harvard and attended Yale while still with the fund.

He founded the pharmaceutical company Roivant at age 28, despite having limited experience in drug development, on the principle that not every drug that major pharma companies abandoned was necessarily a bust.

People who worked there said he fostered an environment more akin to a fast-moving tech startup than a pharmaceutical company. He encouraged employees to second-guess the decisions of larger companies in the industry, and gave employees equity stakes in the drug-development subsidiaries – or "Vants" – that Roivant incubated.

Ramaswamy is "masterful" at raising money, said a former Vant executive, who asked not to be named discussing his former boss. Roivant attracted investors including Masayoshi Son's SoftBank Vision Fund, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, and the hedge fund Viking Global Investors. Ramaswamy "deeply understands the content of what he is selling and that he is very forthright about the risks and opportunities," McLaughlin said, characterizing him as "far more detail-oriented than ordinary CEOs."

Ramaswamy's latest venture, the anti-woke asset management company Strive, was kickstarted last year with $20 million from investors including Thiel, JD Vance, and Bill Ackman. Strive passed $1 billion in assets under management this month.

Former Roivant employees said Ramaswamy worked hard and expected the same of others. When a colleague asked about cutting out early on "summer Fridays" at a town hall meeting, Ramaswamy ridiculed the idea, two of them said.

"He lost his cool completely and went off on a rant about summer Fridays and how dare anyone ask about that," one of the former employees said.

McLaughlin called the employee's recollection "inaccurate," adding that Ramaswamy "has never once raised his voice or used bad language with employees."

Roivant has brought several drugs from development into the market, including a skin cream that could eventually generate more than $1 billion a year in sales, the threshold for a blockbuster treatment, according to an estimate from analysts at Leerink Partners — particularly if FDA approval comes through for broader applications. But even when his ventures failed, Ramaswamy managed to benefit personally.

Roivant's first big bet was on an Alzheimer's drug it bought from GlaxoSmithKline for an up-front cost of just $5 million. Ramaswamy spun the drug's promise into a new company, Axovant, that was valued at $2.2 billion shortly after its IPO. He drummed up interest in the company on CNBC's Mad Money and in business magazines. Forbes, which had named him to its 30 Under 30 list while he was still at QVT, profiled him twice.

Two years after the IPO, poor results on clinical studies for the Alzheimer's drug sent Axovant's share price plunging 95%, hurting those who'd bought Ramaswamy's pitch that he could upend the pharmaceutical industry by liberating wonder drugs from the greedy claws of Big Pharma. Ramaswamy laid off 67 people, trade publication FierceBiotech reported.

He told employees "the layoffs came from a place of strength and this is the A-team," one former employee recalled, and then tossed in another sports metaphor about there being "blood on the court." Ramaswamy does not recall using those words, McLaughlin said, but does not dispute the employee's recollection, adding that he is a "strong believer in cutting underperformers and retaining only the top talent — as he expects to do in the federal government." 

But despite the Axovant bloodbath, Ramaswamy's 2015 tax returns show $37 million in capital gains. (McLaughlin said it was from selling "a tiny portion" of Roivant stock.) He made $18.8 million more from 2016 to 2019.

Ramaswamy had a second big payday in 2020, after Roivant struck a $3 billion deal with Japan's Sumitomo Pharma Co. Ltd. Ramaswamy reported $174 million in capital gains the year of the deal.

"Roivant did better under Ramaswamy than most similarly-sized drug companies," said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business school professor. "It could have been his innovative approach to managing drug development or luck despite his missteps with the FDA, and probably was a little of each."

Ramaswamy was "visionary," a third former Roivant employee said. Apart from his prodigious ability to win over investors, he chose a strong successor before stepping down as Roivant's CEO in 2021 "to take the company into the next phase of professionalization," this person said.

"He deserves credit for all those things."



Vivek Ramaswamy rapping Eminem's "Lose Yourself" at the Iowa State Fair.

Getty Images

Hype man in chief

But there's a flip side to Ramaswamy's ease at schmoozing investors. His critics see him as a hype man, wielding a megawatt smile and "debate me" rapid-fire eloquence to pump the value of the two companies he founded — and now his presidential prospects.

At Roivant, Ramaswamy kept his politics largely to himself, former employees said. But some felt his political ambitions were obvious. While he worked five days a week in New York when he wasn't traveling, he maintained a residence in Ohio. Some employees thought he would one day run for US Senate there, as his friend and Yale Law classmate Vance ended up doing.

In 2020, he gained a toehold in the conservative movement via the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page, where he emerged as a crusader against the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing movement, which seeks to convince investors to put their money in environmentally and socially conscious enterprises. He left Roivant and founded Strive a year later.

Building on Ramaswamy's tirades against ESG, Strive promises to advocate loudly against diversity and climate initiatives at the companies where it invests its clients' money.

The firm also gives investors the option to put their money into exchange-traded funds (ETF) made up of explicitly anti-woke companies, such as in the fossil fuels and military manufacturing sectors. (Strive's biggest ETF offers investors broad market exposure to the largest US companies.)

The firm has ridden a backlash to the ESG movement from pension fund managers in red states, according to reporting from The Lever and the nonprofit Documented. The Texas Employees Retirement Fund has invested $100 million in a Strive ETF that omits Chinese companies, while Indiana signed a $150,000 agreement with Strive to review the state retirement system's investment policies. Strive has also pitched Republican political institutions on a Strive 401(k), a former employee said. 

McLaughlin said that in pitching state pension funds, Strive has behaved no differently than any asset manager. "The real problem," she added, is that major asset managers like BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard "have captured the state pension fund system in a way that blocks out new entrants and competitors."

Meanwhile, two former employees, John Phillips and Joyce Rosely, have alleged in separate lawsuits that Ramaswamy asked them to violate securities laws by using unapproved marketing materials and pitching investors on Strive's ETFs before they could legally do so.

In his suit, Phillips said Ramaswamy gave the impression he'd stay involved with the business even though he was preparing to run for president. He also claimed that Strive, Ramaswamy, and co-founder Anson Frericks misled him about commitments they'd gotten from investors, the number of ETFs he'd have to sell, and their ability to hire more employees to support his work.

Rosely also said the company's HR head and Frericks did nothing to investigate allegations that another executive was harassing a younger woman employee.

"When Ms. Rosely brought up the issue with defendant Frericks, his only response was that it was none of his business," her lawsuit said. Strive has disputed the allegations in both lawsuits and said it follows the law. The company said Phillips was fired for underperformance and Rosely failed to meet her sales goals.

Strive doesn't appear to have any special sauce except its anti-ESG stance, two experts who reviewed the firm's offerings told Insider.

"They're basically making exact replicas of the BlackRock funds, but they're just saying, 'Trust us to vote just for profits and for the company to be excellent,'" said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas.

Strive said its management fees are similar to those of its competitors. But it charges slightly higher fees than BlackRock, which Todd Rosenbluth, the head of research at ETF data company VettaFi, said should give investors pause.

Investors are "likely not eager to pay more money to get exposure to the corporate efforts of the asset manager," Rosenbluth said — something which holds true for both pro and anti-ESG funds.

Some employees resented being pigeonholed as an "anti-ESG" investment firm, according to a former Strive employee. So, to some extent, does the company itself: in a statement to Insider, a spokesperson said Strive has sought to position itself as "apolitical," with a focus on "prioritizing shareholders," not stakeholders.

Christopher Lenzo, Rosely's lawyer, was more blunt. "It seems fairly apparent that the company was established merely as a talking point for Ramaswamy's presidential campaign," he said in an email.

Strive dismissed talk that it was created as a political stunt.

"Vivek was under no obligation to give real-time updates to prospective employees of his desire to serve his country," the company said in a statement

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Vivek Ramaswamy cheers with supporters at the Jalapeno Pete's bar at the Iowa State Fair.Brandon Bell/Getty Images

A stump speech that works as a sales pitch

Ramaswamy's run for president can appear from certain angles to be the sales pitch of a lifetime.

Ramaswamy stepped away from Strive this spring, but as he's progressed in the polls, Strive too has seen success. The firm passed $1 billion in assets under management in early September, it announced on social media, up from roughly $600 million when Ramaswamy announced his run in March, a higher level of growth than typical for a fund of Strive's size, said Rosenbluth.

"In a crowded ETF market, Strive's investment approach has gained visibility due to Vivek Ramaswamy's public persona," Rosenbluth said. (Strive's "fast growth started long before" Ramaswamy announced his campaign, McLaughlin said, noting that the fund has only existed for a year.)

Ramaswamy owns a stake in Strive worth roughly $40 million, according to disclosure forms, somewhere between 50% to 75% of the company, according to SEC documentation. "An asset manager's value typically increases in tandem with its asset base," said Rosenbluth.

In other words, as Strive's fortunes continue to rise, so do Ramaswamy's. But to some people who knew him, the notion that Ramaswamy is running for vice-president — or to juice his business prospects — is absurd.

"I think he's going to win," a former Roivant employee said. "He doesn't play for second place."

A mausoleum for transgender women is inaugurated in Mexico's capital as killings continue

FERNANDA PESCE
Thu, September 14, 2023 




Mexico Transgender Violence

Mexican trans rights activists Andrea Luna, left, and Kenya Cuevas visit the grave of their friend Paola Buenrostro, a trans woman who was murdered in 2016, during a visit to the newly opened mausoleum for trans women in Mexico City, Thursday, Sep. 14, 2023.

 (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican transgender rights activists Kenya Cuevas and Andrea Luna sat in front of their longtime friend Paola Buenrostro’s pink grave in Mexico City.

“You don’t have to pay rent anymore. You will have your own home now,” Luna sadly joked to her late friend, a transgender woman slain in front of Cuevas in 2016.

Buenrostro will be the first woman to be moved to a mausoleum a short distance away entirely dedicated to transgender women that was inaugurated on Thursday. Many of the dead transgender women were victims of hate crimes.

Built in Iztapalapa, the most populous borough of Mexico's capital, the burial site is the first one of its kind in the country. In some cases, no relatives claimed their bodies. Some died of natural causes, while others suffered violent deaths. Cuevas wanted them all to have a dignified resting place.

“Thank you Paola, because in your name we were able to reach an important milestone for the trans community,” Cuevas told a cheering crowd during the official inauguration.

Mexico currently has the world’s second highest toll after Brazil for the killings of transgender people, with 25 transgender women slain from January to July 2023, according to the LGBTQ+ rights group Letra S.

From 2017 to July 2023, at least 586 murders of LGBTQ+ people were recorded by the group. More than 58% were transgender women.

Cuevas became an activist in 2016, when her friend Buenrostro, a fellow transgender sex worker got into a client’s car and was fatally shot multiple times.

Cuevas managed to grab the man and held him until police arrived, but despite multiple witnesses to the killing and a video that Cuevas took with her phone, the man was released from custody a few days later.

She soon quit sex work and founded the organization Casa de Muñecas to campaign for protections for transgender women. The organization founded the mausoleum.

The burial site will have space for 149 women, including Buenrostro and Indigenous transgender rights activist Guadalupe “Lupilla” Xiu, who died alone on Sept. 9 after having fled her native Oaxaca and suffered torture and kidnapping.

Of the 60 transgender women who Cuevas has accompanied after their deaths, 48 have already been handed over to their families. Twelve other bodies will soon be exhumed from graves with the help of the capital’s Attorney General’s Office and moved to the mausoleum.

“Today, after a long time, I feel this is an act of reparation,” said Cuevas.

Moroccans in earthquake-hit tourist area grieve losses, fret about future

Fri, September 15, 2023 

Aftermath of a deadly earthquake, in Talat N'Yaaqoub

By Ahmed Eljechtimi

OUIRGANE VALLEY, Morocco (Reuters) - The Kasbah La Dame Bija guesthouse in Morocco's picturesque Ouirgane Valley escaped unscathed from an earthquake that devastated the area, but the owner's bookings collapsed and he worries about whether the region can revive its tourist appeal.

"The earthquake killed people and destroyed villages on which our tourism activity depends," said Abderrahim Bouchbouk, owner of the nine-room guesthouse that was once run by his grandfather.

Coping with the human tragedy of a Sept. 8 tremor that killed more than 2,900 people is everyone's immediate concern, but for a region that relied on tourists trekking along stunning valleys and mountain passes, buying local handicrafts or visiting now devastated sites, the economic future looks bleak.

"No tourists, no job, no income," said Mohamed Aznag, a waiter in a café in the shattered village of Tasa Ouirgane who lost his daughter in the earthquake and now fears for his livelihood that supported the rest of his family.

He spoke as he observed the ruins of Dar Izergane guesthouse, which collapsed in the quake, close to the damaged and now empty cafe where he works.

Whole villages, many dominated by homes and buildings made of mud brick, crumbled into mounds of dirt when the 6.8 magnitude quake struck, burying those inside and destroying businesses in a region that depended on the tourist trail.

Tourism offered vital extra earnings for many, with few other work opportunities outside tilling the land on smallholdings.

"That was a way for many local farmers to make additional revenue," said Bouchbouk, whose Kasbah La Dame guesthouse employs 14 people.

Ahmed Bassim, a tourist guide in the Ouirgane area who has been forced to live in a tent for shelter since the earthquake, said the region was in desperate need of reconstruction. "But I hope tourists would still visit in solidarity with us," he said.

The region, one of Morocco's poorest, lies close to Marrakech, a popular tourist destination with luxurious hotels, fancy shopping centres and a historic souk.

Many hope plans for a gathering of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, scheduled for Oct. 9-15 in Marrakech, will not be disrupted by the earthquake.

Lahcen Zelmat, head of the Morocco's tourism industry federation, said the long-planned event "would be a chance for Morocco to promote Marrakech destination again after the earthquake."

Mike Bloomberg might actually have a point with his absurd claim that remote workers are all playing golf every Friday

Jane Thier

FORTUNE
Thu, September 14, 2023 

Tracy Wilcox - Getty Images

When workers aren’t at their desks, they may as well be not working at all. That’s what many anti-remote CEOs have said, in one way or another, since the earliest pandemic lockdowns. But media titan, billionaire, and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg took it a step further last weekend during an interview with Mo Rocca for CBS Sunday Morning segment. They’re not just not-working; remote workers are essentially on vacation.

“If you think [work] can be done at home, I don't know,” Bloomberg said. “But every golf course that I've heard about in the last three years has had record summers, okay? It is funny, but it's tragic.”

It’s certainly a reach to suggest that any stressed out remote worker can simply head to the golf course to blow off steam without their manager taking note or disciplining them. But in terms of data, Bloomberg’s not too far off.

Earlier this year, a Stanford University research paper by economists Alex Finan and Nick Bloom found that remote work, indeed, has created a golfing boom, as post-pandemic golf course visits have skyrocketed during weekday mid-afternoons.

The most reasonable explanation is that, with the newfound freedom from oversight that remote work allows, some workers are using golf as a way to break up the day and recharge during slow periods. It’s all a bit ironic, however, given the well-documented affinity for golf—even at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday—among those in the corner offices.

But, contrary to what Bloomberg seemed to suggest, Bloom and Finan said the triple-digit growth in golf during work hours hasn’t directly led to a drop in productivity. So long as employees make up their time on the putting green later in the day, “then [golfing] does not reduce productivity. Indeed, national productivity during/post pandemic has been strong.”

The anti-remote cohort is standing strong

That’s not enough for Bloomberg, a steadfast critic of flexible work. Golf or no golf, Bloomberg counts himself among other big-name CEOs (including JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, Twitter’s Elon Musk, and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai) in his resolute stance that in-person work is critical.

In early August, Bloomberg penned a Washington Post op-ed expressing his dissatisfaction with government workers logging on remotely, even claiming that taxpayers foot the bill for empty offices. (He also claimed that 80% of his own employees at his eponymous company show up at least three days a week, and he’s since pushed that mandate to four.)

Bloomberg, who is worth over $96 billion, said remote work has made Washington, D.C. a “shadow of its former self” and that the tax money wasted on empty office space has decimated public resources.

“This has gone on too long. The pandemic is over. Excuses for allowing offices to sit empty should end, too,” he wrote. "Our managers have seen the benefits of returning to in-person work, and we have heard about those benefits from their teams, too, especially from young people just starting their careers.”

By eliminating opportunities for mentoring and upskilling, remote work hurts an organization’s future outlook—to say nothing of its impact on the young workers themselves, Bloomberg said. Remote workers are also proven likely to suffer from the impacts of proximity bias, in which their bosses subconsciously prefer and prioritize the workers they see most often. On the other hand, remote workers can benefit from saved commute time and more valuable family time.

Bosses are losing patience with the remote work war

Bloomberg’s opinion is shared by Jefferies CEO Rich Handler, who has said permanently remote roles are just for short-term goals and a paycheck, not for a career. Hybrid work may well stick around, Handler told Fortune, but “the reality is, if you are in the office, you get pulled into a lot of interesting ‘real time’ situations because physical presence matters.”

On that point, even the most pro-remote experts agree. “Bottom line, personal interactions among colleagues diminish by a significant amount when someone works from home,” the researchers behind the WFH Research consortium, Bloom and Jose Maria Barrero, wrote in April. “That is a cost workers and firms pay in terms of slower on-the-job learning, in exchange for the flexibility and personal autonomy gained when working from home.”

That’s no small cost, but some workers clearly value a round of golf a tiny bit more. Too bad for them, it appears that thanks to the Labor Day return-to-work mandates, weekday golf rounds— much like the vast availability of fully remote roles—might have already become a thing of the past.

“Human beings probably don't change very quickly in what they do; I can't work with you if it's over Zoom," Bloomberg went on in the CBS interview, explaining why remote work would never take the long-term upper hand over in-person work. "You can't do the same thing via Zoom that you can do face-to-face. Period."

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

FORTUNE IS A COMPETITOR WITH BOTH BLOOMBERG AND FORBES

WWE Hit With Dozens of Layoffs Following UFC/Endeavor Merger

Mike Roe
Fri, September 15, 2023

Getty Images

A number of layoffs of WWE office staff took place Friday, TheWrap has learned.

There were more than 100 WWE employees reportedly let go Friday, industry news outlet PWInsider reports, out of approximately 800 overall. The news comes following WWE and UFC merging to become TKO Group Holdings, under new parent company Endeavor. That deal closed earlier this week.

The layoffs did not include any of the wrestlers themselves, who are also generally classified as independent contractors. Layoffs were expected, as with most mergers. That’s due to both cost-cutting and to people at both companies in similar roles no longer having a place in the new corporate structure.

WWE declined TheWrap’s request for comment. We have reached out to TKO for comment.

Those laid off include Dana Warrior, wife of the late wrestler Ultimate Warrior, according to PWInsider. She served as a WWE public ambassador and previously worked on the company’s creative team. (She previously took on the last name Warrior, matching her husband, who legally changed his name.)

The layoffs hit the executive ranks, including Catherine Newman, executive vice president and head of marketing, as well as Jamie Horowitz, EVP of development and digital.

Horowitz’s team in Los Angeles was also among those laid off Friday, TheWrap learned. He is set to work with Omaha Productions, which Horowitz cofounded with Peyton Manning before joining WWE. Horowitz left WWE on good terms and he remains close with WWE President Nick Khan, sources tell TheWrap.

WWE also officially filed paperwork with the SEC on Friday noting that its chief financial officer, Frank Riddick, will be leaving the company at the end of the month.

Amanda Bloom, who’d served as WWE’s director of enterprise master data and governance, announced her departure on LinkedIn. She noted that she’d been with WWE for eight years and expressed her surprise, writing that the day she left WWE was one “I’m not sure I thought would ever come.”

Alexa Gotthardt, who worked as a digital campaign manager for WWE, also posted about her departure on LinkedIn. “I was on the WWE/TKO list nobody wanted to be on today,” Gotthardt wrote.

A number of their colleagues also publicly voiced messages of support and offered help getting them new work.

An email was sent to staff Thursday by WWE president Nick Khan announcing the impending layoffs. According to a copy obtained by PWInsider, it read, “As part of WWE’s transition into the newly formed TKO Group Holdings, we are evaluating our existing operations and systems to identify potential synergies across the business. This effort includes workforce reductions.” Staff was asked to work remotely to “insure all conversations are handled privately and respectfully.”

For comparison, when Endeavor acquired UFC, about 15% of the staff of the fighting promotion was let go.

The post WWE Hit With Dozens of Layoffs Following UFC/Endeavor Merger appeared first on TheWrap.

As prices fall, two thirds of global car sales could be EVs by 2030- study


A parking bay reserved for electric car charging can be seen on display in London

Thu, September 14, 2023 
By Nick Carey

LONDON (Reuters) - Spurred by falling battery prices, electric vehicles could hit price parity with fossil-fuel models in Europe in 2024 and the U.S. market in 2026, and account for two thirds of global car sales by 2030, according to new research.

A report by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) on Thursday predicts battery costs should halve this decade, from $151 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2022 to between $60 and $90 per kWh, making EVs "for the first time as cheap to buy as petrol cars in every market by 2030 as well as cheaper to run."

Batteries are expensive and account for around 40% of an EV's price tag, a cost that has so far made them unaffordable for many consumers.

But those prices are steadily coming down as carmakers invest in new battery chemistries, materials and software to make more efficient EVs, RMI senior principal Kingsmill Bond told Reuters.

According to RMI's analysis, the rapid growth of electric models in Europe and China "implies that EV sales will increase at least six-fold by 2030, to enjoy a market share of 62% to 86% of sales."

EV sales in the European Union jumped almost 61% in July versus the same month in 2022, accounting for 13.6% of all car sales.

The European Union aims to ban the sale of new fossil-fuel models from 2035.

The United States has not yet committed to a date for ending sales of combustion engine models, but California and New York are both targeting 2035 to switch to selling only zero-emission models.

"It's not radical whatsoever to see the continued exponential growth of electric vehicles," RMI's Bond told Reuters. "This is what one should expect."

According to the RMI research, oil demand for cars peaked in 2019 and will fall by at least 1 million barrels per day every year after 2030.

Research released concurrently from Exeter University's Economics of Energy Innovation and System Transition (EEIST) project also predicts exponential growth in EV sales.

It suggests EVs will reach a "tipping point" in price parity with fossil-fuel models as early as 2024 in Europe, 2025 in China, 2026 in the U.S. and 2027 in India "for medium-sized cars, and even sooner for smaller vehicles."

(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Christina Fincher)