KPMG freezes pay for 12,000 employees amid market downturn


Adam Mawardi
Fri, 24 November 2023

kpmg office

KPMG has frozen the salaries for 12,000 workers across the UK as “Big Four” firms continue to grapple with the sharp slowdown in the deals market.

The accountant reportedly told staff that it will only give pay rises to those who were promoted this year.

The pay freeze hits thousands of workers who had been eligible for pay rises after moving into a higher seniority rank without receiving an official promotion.


More than half of KPMG’s partners, who were paid an average of £717,000 last year, will avoid the pay freeze as they receive a share of company profits instead of a salary.

The professional services firm, which employs 17,000 in the UK, will also slash bonuses, the Financial Times first reported.

A KPMG spokesman said: “To attract and retain the best talent, we benchmark our salaries each year to remain competitive and we continue to invest in our people. In light of softened market demand this year, any pay increases have prioritised those who have been promoted.

“We will be rewarding eligible colleagues for their efforts this year with a bonus. However, reflecting the challenging economic and market environment, this will be lower than in previous years.”

The cost-cutting measures will reportedly see those in KPMG’s tax and legal division, made up of 2,900 employees, receive only 55pc of their potential bonuses.

Bosses in KPMG’s company’s tax and legal business blamed the pay freeze on ongoing “market uncertainty” in a pre-recorded video message reportedly sent to staff earlier this month, after the division failed to meet revenue expectations for 2023.

It is understood that the pay freeze will not target the 3,000 graduates and apprentices employed by KPMG.

It comes as a slowdown in advisory work has left Big Four accountants overstaffed, with clients cancelling projects and demanding lower fees.

KPMG has already begun cutting hundreds of jobs in its UK deal-making and consulting divisions, and last month internally announced a pay freeze for advisory teams.

Meanwhile, KPMG last month unveiled plans to merge its UK consulting and deal advisory divisions to create a new practice called Advisory.

It follows similar moves by rivals Deloitte, EY and PwC, which have each launched redundancy rounds targeting hundreds of staff in their advisory and consulting businesses.

Amazon hit by 'Black Friday' strikes in Europe

AFP
Fri, 24 November 2023 

More than 1,000 workers went on strike at an Amazon hub in Coventry, England 

(Darren Staples)

Amazon was hit by strikes at various locations in Britain, Germany and Italy during the annual "Black Friday" shopping extravaganza as workers demand higher wages and better working conditions.

UNI Global Union said Amazon would face strikes and protests in more than 30 countries around the world, including the United States, as part of a "Make Amazon Pay" campaign.

"Workers know that it doesn't matter what country you're in or what your job title is. We are all united in the fight for higher wages, an end to unreasonable quotas and a voice on the job," said Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union.


"That's what workers in Coventry are striking for and that is why workers around the world are standing up to Make Amazon Pay," Hoffman said.

Held the day after the US Thanksgiving holiday, "Black Friday" has been increasingly adopted in Europe and beyond, with stores offering big discounts to kick off shopping for the holiday gift-giving season.

More than 1,000 workers went on strike at an Amazon hub in Coventry, England, which employs 2,300 people and supplies other warehouses, said Stuart Richards, spokesman for the GMB union.

In Germany, the industrial action called by Union Verdi began overnight Thursday, affecting five out of the US e-commerce giant's 20 logistics sites in Europe's biggest economy.

Amazon said the strikes in the UK and Germany would have no impact on customers.

Workers at the Amazon hub in Castel San Giovanni, between Piacenza and Milan, joined the strike.

Citing trade unions, Italy’s Ansa news agency reported that 60 percent of permanent employees and 50 percent of temporary workers at the site took part in Friday’s strike.

"The mood music is souring for Amazon over this important time as industrial action over pay and conditions by warehouse staff could threaten performance," said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

This "will be something monitored closely by investors," she added.

- 'Turning point' -

In Britain, the GMB union said Amazon has refused to talk to the workers.

"The pressure GMB members have put on the company has led to Amazon offering pay rises across the board but what they offer is still a long way short of what workers want," Richards said.

Workers want their pay to rise from £12 ($15) per hour currently to £15 per hour.

An Amazon UK spokesman said the company regularly reviews its pay "to ensure we offer competitive wages and benefits".

He said starting pay in the UK will rise to between £12.30 and £13 per hour depending on the location, from April -- a 20-percent increase over two years and 50 percent since 2018.

In Germany, Amazon said workers already had a "fair wage and good additional benefits".

Starting wages are at 14 euros ($15.30) and above per hour, the company said, higher than Germany's minimum wage of 12 euros.

But Verdi is pushing for the company to recognise the regional collective agreements of the retail and mail order sector.

In Italy, the union complained about "unacceptable" pay increases as well as a failure by Amazon to raise the amount of meal vouchers and a lack of attention to health issues, among other reasons.

The actions in Italy coincided with a strike called across the whole of northern Italy against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s budget. In Spain, one-hour work stoppages are planned for "Cyber Monday" on November 27 and the following day, according to the CCOO union, which pointed to poor working conditions and "persistent problems" with human resources at the company's Spanish sites. "Today will go down as a turning point in Amazon's history," said GMB official Amanda Gearing.

"With industrial action escalating and workers joining strike action in Europe and the USA, it's clear this strike is inspiring Amazon workers worldwide to fight to force the company to change its ways," Gearing said.

In France, there were no strikes at any Amazon facilities, according to the company.

burs/lth/rl/gv/pvh

Labour loses local London by-election as grassroots anger at Gaza ceasefire continues

Rachael Burford
Fri, 24 November 2023

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has attempted to play down splits in the party over Gaza (PA Wire)

Labour has suffered a surprise by-election defeat in east London as grassroots anger at Sir Keir Starmer's stance on a ceasefire in Gaza continued.

Sophia Naqvi, who quit her Labour membership last month, won the Plaistow North ward on Newham council at Thursday night's election.

She gained 46% of the vote to Labour's 27%. There are now four Independents on Newham council.

Ms Naqvi said: "A few weeks ago I was still a Labour Party member desperately trying to get our Mayor and councillors to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Labour leader’s disgraceful comments to LBC was for me the final straw...like many others I left the Labour Party and as a result was persuaded by Newham Independents to be their candidate in the Plaistow by-election.

"We fought a campaign on local issues. People are fed up of record council tax bills, crumbling infrastructure and the filthy state of our streets."

Ms Naqvi's win follows Newham councillor Zuber Gulamussen quitting Labour earlier this week to become an Independent.

He joined more than 60 other UK Labour councillors who have resigned over the Sir Keir's comments on the Israel - Hamas war.

Nationwide polls by YouGov show that the row has not changed the party's national vote share, with Labour about 20 points ahead of the Conservatives.

It comes as a temporary ceasefire appears to be holding in the fighting in Gaza.

Hamas pledged to free at least 50 of the estimated 240 hostages that it took on October 7, when they massacred 1,200 people in an attack targeting kibbutzim, a music festival and Israeli border guards.

Israel was expected to free 150 Palestinian prisoners, with women and children the first to come out on both sides.

Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron will meet with Palestinian leaders and commit a further £30 million in aid for people in Gaza following the announcement.

Putin Appears To Forget He Started The 'Tragedy' Of War In Ukraine In Bizarre G20 Appearance


Kate Nicholson
Wed, 22 November 2023 

This pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik shows Russia's President Vladimir Putin taking part in a virtual G20 leaders' summit in Moscow on November 22, 2023.

Vladimir Putin seemed to forget he initiated the war in Ukraine during his surprise appearance at a virtual G20 summit on Wednesday.

In his first address to the leaders of the world’s largest economies since the Ukraine-Russia conflict began in 2022, the Russian president called for leaders to “stop the tragedy” occurring in the neighbouring country.

After some leaders said they were shocked by the Russian “aggression” in Ukraine, Putin replied: “Yes, of course, military actions are always a tragedy.

“And of course, we should think about how to stop this tragedy. By the way, Russia has never refused peace talks with Ukraine.”

Why was this comment so surprising?

Putin’s remarks omit his own role in starting the conflict.

Back in February 2022, after weeks of growing aggression and building up troops near the Ukrainian border, the Russian president ordered his forces into Ukraine.

He claimed it was important to “demilitarise” the country, and made baseless neo-Nazi allegations about the Ukrainian government to justify the invasion.

It was part of what he dubbed the “special military operation” – he has only referred to the 21-month long fight as a “war” sparingly.

So it was also pretty surprising when Putin used the word “war” to describe the conflict in Ukraine during his G20 meeting.

He said: “I understand that this war, and the death of people, cannot but shock.”
Who did Putin blame for the war, then?

Putin pivoted the G20′s attention to pre-war tensions, by claiming Ukraine had been persecuting people in the east of its country.

This is a reference to the separatist movement which started to gain traction in eastern Ukraine after Ukraine’s 2013 Maidan Revolution and Putin annexed Crimea in 2014.

According to the UN, approximately 14,000 people were killed in the subsequent conflict as Russian-backed separatists fought Ukrainian forces.

Putin also pivoted the conversation towards the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, saying: “And the extermination of the civilian population in Palestine, in the Gaza Strip today, is not shocking?”

The Russian president has positioned himself as a potential mediator in the Middle East conflict since it broke out last month.

This pool photograph distributed by Russian state agency Sputnik shows Russia's President Vladimir Putin taking part in a virtual G20 leaders' summit in Moscow on November 22, 2023.

What else did Putin’s comments reveal?

Putin’s remarks were correct in that there really is a tragedy still unfolding in Ukraine – it’s Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War 2.

The UN Human Rights Office said on Tuesday that more than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded, although the real toll is expected to be “significantly higher”.

According to Reuters, Danielle Bell from the head of the UN monitoring mission, said the “severe human cost” in Ukraine right now is “painful to fathom.”

Russia has been accused of targeting civilian structures in Ukraine too, although Moscow has denied this.

Ukraine has also only agreed to peace negotiations if Russia agrees to hand back all of the Ukrainian land (one fifth of its total land mass) it has illegally annexed since 2014 – which includes the peninsula of Crimea.

But Putin claims this area now belongs to Russia.

He also broke international law by illegally annexing four other regions in eastern Ukraine in September 2022.

Putin’s words also come after a senior Russian official said Moscow could not co-exist with the current government in Ukraine.
Why was Putin’s appearance at the virtual summit a surprise?

The Russian leader has barely left Russia since the the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

He did visit Iran back in July and ventured to Belarus last December, but has steered clear of any NATO country since February 2022 – so his virtual appearance at the summit was a big deal.

He sent his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to the last two G20 meetings in India and Indonesia, and has not attended a summit meeting in person since 2019.

WORKERS CAPITAL VS VULTURE FUNDS

The £5 trillion ‘pyramid scheme’ threatening to wreck your retirement

Ben Marlow
Fri, 24 November 2023 

Pyramid Scheme

The collapse of Southland Royalty, a private equity-backed oil-and-gas explorer that owned fields in Wyoming’s Green River basin and New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, in early 2020, was unremarkable in many ways.

On the one hand, it was merely the latest shale driller to fall victim to a double-whammy of a near-halving of oil prices from highs of nearly $100 (£80) a barrel in the middle of 2014, together with a four-year low in gas prices.

It faced other headwinds too. Recent drilling results had been disappointing and the company’s banks had cut its borrowing facilities. In a downturn that was sweeping through America’s shale industry, Southland was the 43rd bankruptcy in 12 brutal months.

Yet to others, Southland was more than just another casualty of the boom and bust of the energy sector’s latest gold rush.

As recently as the September before Southland went bust, its owners, an $18bn Houston-based buyout firm called EnCap, had valued its slice of the business at nearly $780m – almost the same amount as it had ploughed into Southland up until that point.

Yet, by the end of the year, EnCap had written down the investment to zero. Weeks later, Southland collapsed – an extraordinary example of value destruction even by the notoriously go-go standards of private equity.

Critics of the industry say the fate of Southland and hundreds of others like it, is indicative of a dangerous mismatch between over-inflated paper valuations of buyout-backed companies and their true worth – a discrepancy that its most fierce detractors insist has become more pronounced as a decade of record low interest rates has come screeching to a halt.

What’s more, they say, it is an imbalance that could have potentially devastating consequences for millions of people’s retirement savings pots as pension funds funnel even greater pools of capital into private equity funds at artificial prices.

“Eventually all these funds filter back to someone’s pension fund,” one City adviser says.

Jeff Hooke, a former investment banker-turned-academic at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Washington DC, describes the way in which private equity values its investments as “the Wild West”.

“Maybe it was okay 15 years ago – you could say it was a niche part of the financial markets, a very narrow part of institutional portfolios, and the regulators could say we have bigger fish to fry. But in some cases, the big state pension plans have 25pc to 30pc of their assets sitting in these alternative investment vehicles.”

Such concerns are increasingly shared by regulators and policymakers. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has begun what has been described as “a sweeping review” into valuations of the whole spectrum of private assets from private equity and venture capital, to commercial property and hedge funds.

Its investigation has been prompted by growing fears over the impact of a sharp reversal in interest rates.

Nikhil Rathi, chief of the FCA, which is investigating valuations of private assets - Eddie Mulholland

“The macro economy has moved from a period of low interest rates for a very lengthy period of time, and markets are now expecting . . . higher interest rates for longer,” the watchdog’s chief Nikhil Rathi said last month. “At some point, you might expect that risk will crystallise in valuations of assets.”

His comments were interpreted in some quarters as a warning to auditors that their work with private equity is under the spotlight.

It is understood the Bank of England has given its full backing to the FCA’s interrogation, having warned repeatedly of the risks from stresses in the private equity market, as well as the even more opaque private credit arena.

In its March Financial Stability Report, the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) expressed fears that “illiquidity and infrequent re-pricing of private credit assets created uncertainty…and might expose investors to sharp revaluations and losses”.

Then in July, the FPC cautioned that “riskier corporate borrowing in financial markets – such as private credit and leveraged lending – appeared particularly vulnerable.”

“Signs of stress in the leveraged loan market…due to a worsening macroeconomic outlook, could cause a rapid reassessment of risks by investors, potentially resulting in sharp revaluations and fire sales,” it went on.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has similarly warned of “hidden risks” in private markets from the sharp spike in rates.

“When you combine that kind of vulnerability with a lack of transparency, and a changing macro-financial environment, you have a cause for concern,” IOSCO chair Jean-Paul Servais told the Financial Times. Servais is also concerned about market complacency. “There is…a little too much confidence that all will be fine,” he said.

Rock bottom interest rates were a double boon for the private equity industry: the borrowing that underpins its model became cheaper than ever; and institutional investors, seeking higher yields, poured money into buyout firms promising both generous and less volatile returns than the stock market.

Calpers, the biggest public pension fund in America, plans to up its allocation to private equity from 8pc to 13pc of its nearly $450bn of assets under management.

BT’s pension fund, which is among the largest corporate retirement plans in Britain, has sunk a growing proportion of its investments in more illiquid, privately-held assets, as its exposure to equities has rapidly shrunk. It has £1.1bn of £38bn of assets in private equity and a further nearly £9bn in property, credit, and infrastructure.

Even smaller investors have become converts to private equity. The Scott Trust, the owner of The Guardian, allocated nothing to private investments in 2015. Its most recent disclosures show a quarter of its £1.2bn endowment backing buyouts.

As part of reforms unveiled in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, managers of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) have been asked to more than double its allocation to private equity, from less than 5pc to 10pc, to help boost economic growth. The LGPS, which is administered by 86 town hall pension funds, oversees £360bn of assets.

Prior to the pandemic, the high watermark for Wall Street’s buyout barons was the deal boom of 2006 and 2007 that immediately preceded the financial crisis. Fuelled by dirt-cheap and plentiful credit, private equity embarked on an astonishing shopping spree – in many instances teaming up in club deals to go after targets previously considered to be out of reach.

More than a decade and a half later, the ten biggest private equity takeovers in history contain seven from that dizzying period.

Yet, it was nothing compared to the frenzy that was unleashed during the chaos of Covid as stock prices collapsed and central banks slashed interest rates to an all-time low in a desperate attempt to prop up the global economy.

In 2021 alone, more than 1,500 British companies – many of them household names – vanished into private hands including supermarket chain Morrisons, defence supplier Ultra Electronics, and security giant G4S.

Private equity chalked up $1.3tr worth of deals worldwide – shattering the previous high of $670bn set in the year before Lehman Brothers imploded.

Lots were snapped up at bombed out prices and are therefore more likely to have held their value. However, thousands of others bought during more benign times when stock prices were high and debt was both abundant and cheap are likely to be worth significantly less now the music has suddenly stopped.

Yet this isn’t properly reflected in the figures that the industry has reported, Hooke says.

“In 2022, when the US stock market dropped 20pc, the private equity industry said their holdings fell 0pc, which defies rationality. It also defies all financial theory about the value of private assets versus public assets.”

There isn’t a major industry where buyout funds haven’t made inroads. Globally, the private equity industry controls assets worth more than $6tn, according to a McKinsey report published earlier this year.

But it’s the so-called “leveraged buyouts” (LBO), where the balance sheets of the companies that are being bought are loaded with large debts to fund their own takeover, that are most vulnerable to wild swings in value.

In the US, there are around 700 LBO funds, controlling more than 7,000 companies and with roughly $1tr of equity invested. They make up an estimated two thirds of the American private equity market.

It is these that are likely to be the most overvalued, Hooke believes. “In 2008, the American stock market dropped something like 35pc and private equity – principally LBOs – only fell 20pc. That’s just laughable.”

He estimates that in the case of a 31pc fall in the public markets, the value of highly-leveraged private companies should tumble as much as 67pc because of “the magnifying effect of leverage on equity returns”.

The chief concern is that when it comes to valuing the companies they own, private equity is effectively allowed to mark its own homework. A spokesman for the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association says: “Private capital firms deliver robust valuations to ensure global institutions can invest confidently in the asset class.

“The methodologies and processes underpinning valuations are subject to regulation and annual external audits, follow relevant accounting standards, and are undertaken at a frequency to meet the demands of investors.”

Yet, it is more art than science. Owners are required to hold assets at “fair value” under accounting rules. The practice is known as “mark to market” but is often derided as “mark-to-myth” because mostly, private equity firms decide how to value their investments and when to change those valuations, in contrast with the real-time valuations provided by the stock market.

A paper produced by Hooke and economist Eileen Appelbaum of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research describes these as little more than “guesstimates”.

They point out that unsold companies are illiquid assets, which means their “true value won’t be known until they are sold”. Worse, they are likely to be “optimistically high” because the fund managers that set the prices “have little incentive to reassess their value”.

Private equity houses typically buy a company with the intention of selling it within three to five years. Yet, it is not uncommon at the very biggest funds for as much as half of their investments to still be unsold even after more than a decade.

“The question then becomes, if the fund’s underlying investments are valuable, how come no one wants to buy them after so many years?” Hooke asks.

Appelbaum points to a seemingly never-ending procession of failed stock market floats from private equity owners as further evidence of overzealous valuations. Some have been so disastrous that private equity firms are resorting to buying back companies they only recently took public.

Some major investors are starting to ask questions too. Vincent Mortier, chief investment officer of French fund giant Amundi, with close to €2 trillion of assets, has compared parts of the buyout world to “a pyramid scheme” because of “circular” deals in which companies are sold between private owners at high valuations. “Just because there’s no mark to market doesn’t mean there’s no risk,” Mortier says.

This weekend Mortier told The Telegraph he had not intended to imply fraud.

But he says: “True value is known with certainty only when there are exits through IPO or sale to non-private equity owners.”

His counterpart at the Wellcome Trust, Nick Moakes, recently warned of a “shakeout” in private equity that could result in painful losses for investors who piled into the sector without properly understanding the risks of holding illiquid assets.

Moakes calls it “tourist capital” – people who have invested in assets with “inappropriate risk profiles for them”. With £38bn under management, the Wellcome Trust is one of the world’s largest charitable foundations.

America’s financial policeman is attempting to impose tough new rules on private equity, the property sector and hedge funds. In what would be one of the toughest clampdowns in its history, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) argues that its reforms, including detailed quarterly performance reports, will provide better protection for investors.

Gary Gensler, boss of America’s financial policeman the SEC, faced a barrage of opposition to financial reforms - Ting Shen/Bloomberg

SEC boss Gary Gensler has expressed concerns about transparency and the potential for financial stability risks but his efforts have run into fierce opposition after a powerful coalition of fund management trade bodies launched a lawsuit to block the rule changes, accusing it of “a vast power grab”.

Hooke says it’s “hard for the man on the street to comprehend” but ultimately any correction ends one of three ways with retirement benefits being cut, taxes going up, or employees having to pay more into their pension to make up the shortfall.

There are fears that a series of increasingly popular tactics are delaying private equity’s “price discovery” moment even further.

The use of “continuation funds” where a fund effectively sells a company to itself has come under particular scrutiny. They mask “an unpleasant truth”, Appelbaum says, by enabling the private equity firms to keep doing deals that shelter their companies from valuations in the public markets.

Mikkel Svenstrup, chief investment officer at the Danish pension giant ATP, has compared the practice to “a pyramid scheme”.

Mortier says: “Marked-to-market valuations are less reliable since these are often based on management forecasts, and the availability of continuation funds to extend the life of an investment asset – all these have the potential to delay the uncovering of problems.”

With the public markets perceived effectively closed for new share issues after a series of disastrous listings, and mergers and acquisitions activity subdued, the tendency will be to hold on to investments even longer.

Yet, in the case of the most financially-stretched companies, that will often depend on whether they can persuade their lenders to give them more time to repay their loans. Restructuring advisers call it “amend and extend” or “kicking the can down the road”.

But as one puts it: “It’s kicking the can down the road with the biggest boot and down the longest road ever. It’s in no one’s interest to fiddle with any of this.”

Elon Musk should face an SEC probe over his claims that no monkeys died as a result of Neuralink implants, lawmakers say

Neuralink founder Elon Musk has previously said no monkeys have died as a result of the company's brain implant. 



Tom Carter
Thu, November 23, 2023 

Elon Musk is facing scrutiny over his comments related to the Neuralink monkeys, per a Wired report.


Lawmakers are calling for an investigation after he said no monkeys had died due to the brain chip.


Neuralink is set to begin human trials next year, with thousands signing up to get the implant.

Elon Musk is facing renewed scrutiny over the deaths of Neuralink's test monkeys as the company prepares to begin human trials.

Four members of the House of Representatives have written to SEC chair Gary Gensler asking the regulator to investigate the Tesla CEO for securities fraud over statements he made about Neuralink's brain chip, according to a report from Wired.

The news comes after reports that a dozen monkeys experienced a range of health issues after having the implant installed, before they were eventually euthanized.

Musk has long faced intense controversy over claims that the monkeys Neuralink tested its brain interface technology on had experienced "extreme suffering."

The billionaire wrote in a reply on X in September that "no monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant," and that the monkeys used by the company to test its first implants were "close to death already."

The letter, signed by Representatives Earl Blumenauer, Barbara Lee, James McGovern, and Tony Cárdenas, reportedly says that Musk knew this statement was false, and that he misled investors over the safety of Neuralink's implant.

In September, the non-profit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine also wrote a letter to the SEC asking it to investigate Musk for securities fraud.

The PCRM previously obtained veterinary records that they said showed that Neuralink had been forced to euthanize at least 12 "previously healthy" monkeys after they experienced symptoms including infections and brain swelling.

Neuralink received permission to begin human trials from the FDA in May, and thousands of people have signed up to have Musk's chip implanted in their brains.

The company reportedly plans to operate on 11 people next year, and 22,000 by 2030.

Musk has made several claims about the potential of the Neuralink implant, which the startup aims to use to help people with paralysis and quadriplegia regain full-body movement, saying that it could help save humanity from being wiped out by AI.

Neuralink did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

Business Insider

Elon Musk's X could lose $75 million in ad revenue following antisemitic content backlash

Airbnb, Netflix and Microsoft reportedly pulled millions worth of advertising.

Mariella Moon
·Contributing Reporter
Updated Sat, November 25, 2023 
ASSOCIATED PRESS

X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, typically earns the most money in the last months of the year, as brands ramp up their advertising campaigns for the holiday shopping season. According to The New York Times, though, the company's earnings report for this quarter might look different than usual. Based on internal documents The Times has seen, over 100 brands and even other types of advertisers, such as political candidates, have fully paused their ads on the website, while dozens more are considering pulling their campaigns. If advertisers don't come back, X could lose up to $75 million in ad revenue earnings this year.

The documents reportedly track how X would be affected by brands leaving the website, including the first ones that paused their ads shortly after Elon Musk's controversial tweet, wherein he agreed with an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Shortly after he posted his tweet, media watchdog Media Matters published a report showing ads on the website right next to antisemitic content. In response, X filed a lawsuit against the organization, accusing it of "knowingly and maliciously [manufacturing] side-by-side images depicting advertisers' posts on X Corp.'s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white national fringe content."

X said in its complaint that Media Matters deliberately created an environment to show ads from some of the platform's biggest advertisers next to "extreme, fringe content." Linda Yaccarino, the company's CEO, defended X in a post and said that only two users saw Apple's ad next to unpalatable content on the platform. One of them was Media Matters, she added. The organization called X's lawsuit "frivolous" in a statement to Engadget and said it looks forward to winning in court.

IBM, Apple and Disney were among the brands that quickly pulled their ads from X after the incidents. Lionsgate specifically cited Musk's tweet as its reason for suspending its advertising campaigns, while Ubisoft was one of the first video game companies to withdraw its ads from X. According to The Times' report, Airbnb has halted over $1 million worth of advertising on X, and Netflix has pulled $3 million in ads. X could also lose $4 million in ad revenue due to Microsoft's subsidiaries pausing their campaigns. Uber and Coca-Cola are two other well-known brands that have chosen to put their advertising on X on hold.

In a statement to the publication, the company said the figures it viewed were either outdated or "represented an internal exercise to evaluate total risk." It also said that the revenue at risk was only around $11 million and that the exact amount keeps fluctuating as some advertisers return or increase their ad spending.

Tesla is under investigation for Elon Musk’s alleged ‘secret project’: ‘Shareholders need to give him the boot’

Jeremiah Budin
Thu, November 23, 2023 

Yet again, Tesla could be facing some serious legal trouble, as it is being investigated by the federal government. But this time it’s not for allegations of lying to customers about the ranges of its electric vehicles, or for crashes caused by its Autopilot feature, or for its seat belts falling off.

The most recent federal investigation is a result of Tesla allegedly misappropriating company funds to build CEO Elon Musk a new mansion.

The story first emerged last year after an executive at Tesla who was known as Musk’s “top lieutenant” was fired from the company after placing an order for “special glass” for a “secret project,” which triggered an internal investigation, Electrek reported. The executive was apparently later rehired at SpaceX.

At the time it was not known what the “secret project” was, but now, reporting from The Wall Street Journal has revealed that the project, known internally as “Project 42,” is a new glass mansion for Musk being built near Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas.

That reporting has triggered investigations from both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as it goes against several rules for the CEO of a publicly traded company to use company funds for a private project.

“This is a weird situation; Elon is the richest man on Earth. He certainly doesn’t need Tesla to build him a house,” Electrek’s Fred Lambert wrote. “If true, it could be a sign that the CEO is becoming disconnected from reality and thinks he is above the rules. It’s not like there were no other signs of that lately.”

Musk, whose recent antics include spreading COVID-19 conspiracy theories and promoting transphobia (among many other offensive and controversial behaviors), was cited in a recent survey as the most prominent reason why Tesla owners are turning away from the brand.

“It’s no secret that Elon hasn’t done Tesla any favors given his erratic behavior over Twitter and the like, but if there is any truth at all to this, then the shareholders need to give him the boot before he tarnishes Tesla’s reputation for good,” wrote one commenter.

“Musk is the richest man alive ON PAPER,” another commenter speculated. “The actual amount of cash he has on hand is extremely small compared to his overall wealth. On top of that he’s likely trying to get around paying taxes on these types of purchases and attempting to claim it as a business expense.”

Elon Musk calls Tesla strike in Sweden 'insane' as 9 unions target company, leaving cars without license plates

Yoonji Han
Updated Fri, November 24, 2023

Elon Musk called a growing wave of strikes against Tesla in Sweden 'insane.'


The strikes began in late October, when the trade union IF Metall announced a walkout.


The union representing postal service workers have joined in solidarity, meaning no new license plates for Tesla cars.

Elon Musk called a mounting wave of strikes against Tesla in Sweden "insane" as unions continue to pressure the electric carmaker to sign a collective bargaining agreement with its mechanics.

The labor battle began on October 27, when mechanics in the Swedish union IF Metall walked out.

The union is seeking a collective agreement on wages and benefits for the approximately 120 employees who work at Tesla's Swedish service facilities, saying it wants "the same decent and safe working conditions at the members at other similar companies in Sweden."

Eight other unions have since joined the strike in solidarity with IF Metall.

In the latest move, Swedish postal services joined the strikes, dealing what could be a major setback. Their sympathy strike means that new Tesla cars won't receive any license plates — signaling an impending pause on new car registrations in an important market for the company.

"This is insane," Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, early Thursday.

Earlier in November, dockworkers at dozens of ports in Sweden refused to unload cars from ships, and electricians ceased repair work at Tesla's charging stations. Unions representing cleaners have also stopped work at Tesla facilities.

"It is both important and obvious that we help, to stand up for the collective agreement and the Swedish labor market model," the Swedish Transport Workers' Union, whose members work at the docks, said in a statement.

Tesla is facing pressure from its other factories, too. In Germany, where the automaker produces its Model Y cars at its Berlin gigafactory, where union leaders have sought to organize the roughly 11,500 employees.

Musk gave the Berlin gigafactory workers a 4% pay raise amid the mounting pressures.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Elon Musk brands Sweden’s unions ‘insane’ after strikes cripple Tesla operations—but caving to any demands may open the floodgates in the U.S. and Germany

Christiaan Hetzner
Fri, November 24, 2023 

Organized labor ranks among Elon Musk’s least favorite things, right up alongside Wall Street short sellers and the mainstream media.

The world’s wealthiest man built Tesla into the industry’s dominant automaker despite what he believes has been fierce opposition from all three. Yet it is his steadfast refusal to play ball with trade unions that is his biggest headache of late.

Only weeks after labor leader Shawn Fain threatened to raise working conditions at Tesla with the help of his United Auto Workers, Sweden’s own industrial union IF Metall is bringing the company’s operations to a complete standstill in the Scandinavian country.

It’s the first time that Tesla’s operations have been hit by a strike.

“This is insane,” the entrepreneur grumbled.

Sweden is a major destination for Tesla cars, vying with the Netherlands as the fourth-largest market for electric vehicles in the European Union after Germany and France. More than 90,000 EVs have been sold through October, according to the industry's own data.



More importantly, Sweden punches way above its weight when it comes to EV adoption, where it is currently the undisputed EU leader.

Nearly 39% of all new cars sold in the Scandinavian country are fully electric, triple the overall adoption rate in the EU through the first ten months. It is by far the most popular powertrain choice among Swedes, with conventional gasoline-only cars only amounting to 52,000 during the first ten months.

Tradition of collective bargaining

Even though Stockholm enjoys a higher per capita number of tech startups valued at $1 billion-plus in Stockholm than almost anywhere else in the world, the country still has a long tradition of collective wage bargaining.

As a result, when Tesla refused to agree to a wage deal with 120 mechanics at seven different workshops, IF Metall declared a strike in late October.

This has since spiraled out of control as more unions have since joined in, including dockworkers that now refuse to unload imported Tesla cars arriving in ports and even workers from the state-owned postal service responsible for delivering license plates.

In the short term, Musk can ill-afford sales in a key market to dry up. Investors are becoming increasingly anxious that his company cannot maintain the breakneck speed of growth, to which they have long become accustomed.

On the other hand, giving in could have long-term implications as he has thus far refused to play ball with unions.

Any compromise in Sweden would likely only embolden labor leaders in the U.S. and Germany to increase the pressure.

Responding to Musk's frustration, Swedish parliamentarian Annika Strandhäll corrected the centibillionaire.

“This is the Swedish labor market model agreed on since almost a hundred years between employers and employees,” she wrote. “In Sweden all serious companies sign collective agreements.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com


Elon Musk Calls Swedish Tesla Strikes ‘Insane’ as Impact Spreads

Jonas Ekblom
Thu, November 23, 2023

berg) -- Elon Musk said it’s “insane” how a labor dispute in Sweden affecting seven repair shops has spread to hamper Tesla Inc.’s operations in the largest Nordic country.

Dockworkers, garbage collectors, electricians and postal workers now refuse to do any tasks related to Tesla, after their trade groups stepped in to support the Swedish industrial workers’ union IF Metall that’s been striking since Oct. 27. Nine unions are now part of the blockade on the maker of electric vehicles.

Swedish labor unions have wide-ranging rights, enshrined in law, to join action on behalf of their peers. In contrast, similar moves are tightly regulated or outright banned in several other European countries.

The postal workers’ protest specifically ired Musk. It’s preventing the Swedish Transport Agency from delivering license plates to new Tesla cars as regulations allow no other delivery than by post. That means no new Teslas can be taken into use in Sweden.

The chief executive officer and co-founder of the automaker was made aware of the fact in a post on X, the platform he owns that was previously known as Twitter, prompting his response: “This is insane.”

His intervention underscores how the parties to the dispute are digging in.

As the repair-shop strikes are about to enter their fifth week, negotiations have ground to a halt. The chief mediator between the two parties told Swedish business daily Dagens Industri on Tuesday that Tesla’s subsidiary in Sweden has “zero maneuvering room” to sign any deal with the union, and said it is on “orders straight from Elon Musk.”

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk call Swedish strikes 'insane'

Brad Smith and Eyek Ntekim
Fri, November 24, 2023 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (TSLA) says it is "insane" how a strike that started with seven repair shops has started to spread in the country, with postal workers now refusing to deliver to Tesla offices. This strike is on the heels of discussion by UAW President Shawn Fain to target Tesla next. Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith and Brad Smith report on this story and the ripple effects this strike will have throughout Europe.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Video Transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

BRAD SMITH: Keeping an eye on Tesla this morning. The company dealing with an escalating strike by a group of Swedish unions with Elon Musk branding the fallout as quote, "insane." This comes amid mounting pressures on the EV maker as it faces a pricing war with EV competitor, shares moving higher by about 7/10 of a percent. You know, I think for Tesla, this is not perhaps the best time for any news around a strike to really ensue, especially considering the fact that they are in the sight not just of some of the labor regulators that are overseas, but also here in the US as well, as that is the UAW's next target as Shawn Fein talked about.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, certainly. We know that Tesla has been facing some pressure here just in terms of their workforce. And what we could exactly see play out here over the coming months, given the UAW strike and how effective many, I think, would say that they were in terms of reaching more favorable pay benefits for what the union was pushing for in terms of what the strike means for Tesla.

So the strike in Sweden, right now it affects seven repair shops. With this expansion, with postal workers now involved, dock workers, the list goes on, it now totals about nine unions are part of the strike on Tesla. So it has started affecting Tesla operations within Sweden.

We did hear from Elon Musk. He weighed in on X about this strike, calling it insane. Obviously, he's not happy with exactly what this means for Tesla over in Sweden and more specifically with the post workers now being part of the strike. It has now prevented a Swedish transport agency from delivering license plates to new Tesla cars, which means that then Tesla cannot deliver the vehicles. So obviously, having a real impact there.

And this comes at a time when Tesla has been under a tremendous amount of pressure. We talk about the number of price cuts that have already taken place, the pressure that that has placed on margins. Yes, in some way, it has been a boost for demand, which many analysts, I think, would agree is short-term pain for long-term gain. But that short-term pain, especially when you're facing work stoppage or any sort of pushback here from union workers overseas, the potential that could then trickle here into the US is just another headwind that Musk needs to keep on his radar.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the other things to track continuously with this as well is where this perhaps permeates into other areas in Europe. Particularly, I think about that Berlin-Brandenburg factory that is the first Gigafactory that they brought online in Europe. And they really prioritized manufacturing hundreds of thousands of Model Y vehicles and their battery cells there. And that is going to be a huge footprint in order for them to be able to deliver into other parts of the European region and member countries.

Now, all of that said, we've been in the midst of the year of some of the most tense labor negotiations across health care, across entertainment, and across autos as well. And that's why for Tesla to continue to be within this conversation or at least in the orbit of this conversation could spell out something that investors have to watch as it could impact the margins even as they have been-- well, imploring or I should say just rolling out a lot of those different pricing options and cutting the prices in order to make sure that more sales are done in this interim period of time. But those sales could come at a risk, especially if you do see successful labor negotiations and strikes move forward, which then move higher some of the costs to produce and then ultimately impacts the margins that they're able to see at the end for each vehicle sold as well.

SEANA SMITH: All right, we will see. Tesla certainly has been one of the winners this year. But it has been under some pressure here as we take into account all the pressure that margins have been under--

BRAD SMITH: Yeah.

SEANA SMITH: --because of the price cuts that we've seen play out.

HERESIOLOGIST

RIP
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, French pioneer of ‘microhistory’ whose study of Montaillou was a bestseller – obituary

 Obituaries
Thu, 23 November 2023

Ladurie: a ‘truffle hunter’ who broke conventions of historical research

 - Louis MONIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty

Professor Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, who has died aged 94, was director of the French Bibliothèque nationale, Professor at the Collège de France and a leading exponent of the “annales” school of history; he was best-known for Montaillou (1975), a reconstruction of 15th-century peasant life in a Pyrenean village that became an international bestseller.

Ladurie once divided historians into two groups – “truffle hunters” and “parachutists”. Truffle hunters are miniaturists, lovingly recounting histories of minor and exotic events, case studies of the strange, novel and unexpected that, despite their uniqueness, cast light on their times.

Parachutists take a panoramic view, highlighting the grand sweep and emphasising big trends rather than particulars. Since he was a gourmet with a French appreciation of haute cuisine, there was little doubt as to which school of history Ladurie belonged.

Montaillou is a hamlet high up on the French slopes of the Pyrenees which, in the early 14th century, had about 400 inhabitants. Many of them were Cathars – devotees of a heresy which taught that the world had been created by the Devil as his battleground with God.

In the previous century a succession of crusades had been proclaimed against its adherents and the heresy had all but disappeared. But in the early 14th century, a Bishop of Pamiers called Jacques Fournier (later Pope Benedict XII) decided to have another go at eliminating Catharism, which had experienced a sudden revival in his diocese in the area around Montaillou.

The bishop set up his own personal inquisition which sat for eight years. The whole population of Montaillou was clapped into jail and interrogated one by one. Subsequently, he had his inquisitorial register, containing their depositions and confessions, transcribed into folio volumes which he kept with him when he became Pope and which remain in the Vatican library.

Jacques Fournier’s register had been known to scholars for many years, but to the prevailing “parachutist” school it seemed to be of no more than antiquarian interest. Ladurie saw its scholarly value in illuminating a little known period of history, and its popular potential in satisfying public curiosity about the lives of ordinary people in the distant past.

Montaillou: history from below

Fournier’s register offered vivid insights into almost every aspect of village life in the late middle ages – not just the religious beliefs of the villagers but their social relations, their work, their food, their superstitions, their recreations and their often scandalous sex lives.

“The study of Montaillou,” Ladurie wrote, “shows us on a minute scale what took place in the structure of society as a whole. Montaillou is only a drop in the ocean. Thanks to the microscope provided by the Fournier Register, we can see the protozoa swimming about in it.”

The arch-villain of Montaillou, the colourful and roguish Pierre Clergue, priest of the village, helped himself to a large number of the local women, not excluding his own sisters and sisters-in-law, on occasion even in church. When he encountered resistance, he sometimes found it useful to mention the Inquisition.

Ladurie’s Montaillou became a celebrated publishing success, was translated into many languages and sold hundreds of thousands of copies in France and abroad. It established a vogue for “microhistory” in universities around the world. Eamon Duffy’s Voices of Morebath (2001) is a more recent example of the genre.

Emmanuel Bernard Le Roy Ladurie was born at Moutiers-en-Cinglais in the Calvados region of Normandy on July 19 1929. Educated by an order of friars whom he sometimes referred to as the Ignorant Brothers, he sat a baccalaureat from which History had been suppressed by the Vichy authorities.

His family was divided by the Second World War. His father, Jacques, served as a minister of agriculture in the Vichy regime and remained loyal to Pétain. Other members of his family worked for the Resistance.

The aftermath of war brought on an intense personal crisis in which Ladurie felt compelled, while studying History at the Sorbonne, to question the values of his family, his religion and his country. He joined the Communist Party, becoming a firm adherent of Marx and Durkheim.

Events such as the death of Stalin and Khrushchev’s “secret speech” of 1956 helped precipitate his detachment from the party, but it was also a growing commitment to historical professionalism that estranged him and gave him a new basis for understanding the world. He wrote of his shock when he realised that a disgraced French Communist leader had been airbrushed from a historical photograph in a party publication.

After graduating from the Sorbonne, Ladurie worked as a teacher at the Lycée de Montpellier for two years before becoming a resident assistant at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and then at the Faculté des Lettres de Montpellier. In 1963 he became a lecturer and director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, then lecturer at the Faculté des Lettres de Paris.

In 1970 he was appointed professor at the Sorbonne. He served as Administrateur Général of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (1987-94) and was appointed Professor of History of Modern Civilisation at the Collège de France in 1979.

If Ladurie moved away from communism, he retained a zeal for “quantitative” history and “history from below”, in which the lives of ordinary people have as much value as those of kings and statesmen. His first major study, The Peasants of Languedoc, was hailed as a pioneering work of “total history” when it was published in France in 1966.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, second from right, being addressed by Francois Mitterrand in the television programme Apostrophes with other guests, Paris, 1978 - Alain MINGAM/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

It combined elements of human geography, historical demography, economic history and folk culture in an account of the problems of a traditional peasant society in which the rise in population was not matched by increases in wealth and food production.

Ladurie retained a rebel’s delight in breaking the conventions of historical research. On one occasion he bombarded 16th-century coins with neutrons to test whether they originated from the silver mines of Potosi. In 1973 he wrote a History of Climate since 1000, using the science of dendrology to assess periods of warmer and cooler weather.

In later life he became a fervent advocate of European federalism. At a low point in Anglo-European relations in 1994, he suggested that reconciliation could be achieved if the British only admitted the “prodigious advantage” their language gave them in the fields of culture, trade and science, and compensated for this boon by “agreements on the price of artichokes and lobster”.

He traced Britain’s hostility to the idea of a federal Europe to the “papist” origins of the movement in the 1950s. He described Robert Schuman, the French foreign minister who, together with Jean Monnet, is considered the architect of the European integration project, as “almost a saint for the Catholic Church because he died a virgin”.

Ladurie’s numerous other works include Le Territoire de l’historien (two volumes, 1973 and 1978), Carnival in Romans (1980), an account of uprising and subsequent slaughter of commoners during the Mardi Gras of 1580 and The Beggar and the Professor (1997), a rags-to-riches non-fiction tale set during the religious ferment of the 16th century. His last book, Brève histoire de l’Ancien Régime, was published in 2017.

Ladurie was a Grand Officer of the Légion d’honneur, and a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

He married, in 1956, Madeleine Pupponi; they had a son and a daughter.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, born July 19 1929, died November 22 2023

Pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu

https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1189&context=orspeakers

"Carnival in Romans (Lecture 2)" - PDXScholar 

Oct 23, 1979 ... Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: pdxscholar@pdx.edu. Page 2. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. “Carnival in Romans” 

Web Results

Archive.org

https://archive.org/details/carnivalinromans00lerorich

Carnival in Romans : Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel - Internet Arc... 

Sep 29, 2009 ... No suitable files to display here. 14 day loan required to access EPUB and PDF files. IN COLLECTIONS. Texts to Borrow Books for People with ...

Thenewcarnivalcompany.com

http://www.thenewcarnivalcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Mardi-Gras-20-The-Story-of-Carnival-FINAL.pdf

Mardi-Gras-20-The-Story-of-Carnival-FINAL.pdf 

Dec 13, 2019 ... Many centuries later, after Alexander the. Great had conquered. Egypt, the Ancient. Greeks adopted the festival. The Romans copied the festival ...

Truthout.org

https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2022/08/yelenakalinsky-intro-layouts-02-10-2021-final2.pdf

Behind the Masks, The Politics of Carnival - Truthout 

Although the origins of carnival are commonly traced to twelfth-century Rome, the medieval pre-Lenten celebration likely descended from “carnivalesque” (i.e., ...