It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, September 04, 2022
Volkswagen boards to discuss Porsche listing on Monday LA Auto Show in Los Angeles
Sat, September 3, 2022 By Victoria Waldersee
BERLIN (Reuters) -Volkswagen's management and supervisory boards will meet on Monday to discuss whether the long-anticipated listing of sports car brand Porsche should go ahead in late September or early October, the carmaker said on Saturday.
A decision will also be made on whether Volkswagen approves of the sale of 25% plus one share of ordinary shares in Porsche AG to Porsche SE, as laid out in a framework agreement by the two parties in February.
That would give the Porsche and Piech families, which control Porsche SE, a blocking minority - a step that would bolster their push for greater control of the carmaker that was founded by their ancestor Ferdinand Porsche in 1931.
Porsche SE, which owns 31.4% of Volkswagen and holds 53.3% of voting rights, confirmed Monday's meeting in a separate statement, adding that the listing's launch was still subject to market developments and further board discussions.
Even that could raise up to 10.6 billion euros ($10.55 billion) if the brand's valuation reaches the higher end of investor estimates at about 85 billion euros, according to Reuters calculations.
That would make the listing among the largest in German history and the biggest in Europe since Enel SpA in 1999, according to Refinitiv data.
Ordinary shares, which would be solely owned by Volkswagen and Porsche SE under the plans, would not be publicly listed.
Some investors have questioned the timing of a stock market debut that would test the appeal of Europe's largest automaker at a time when the valuations of leading companies have shrunk amid the instability of war and record energy costs.
"It is becoming increasingly clear that the shareholder families are putting their interests first," said Henrik Schmidt, governance expert at Volkswagen investor DWS.
($1 = 1.0049 euros)
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa and Victoria WalderseeEditing by Helen Popper)
FTC wants more information on Amazon's One Medical purchase
Ken Martin Sat, September 3, 2022
The first Amazon deal made under new CEO Andy Jassy is getting Federal Trade Commission scrutiny.
The investigation could delay the completion of the deal.
A request for additional information was received by both One Medical and Amazon on Friday in connection with an FTC review of the merger, according to a filing made with securities regulators by One Medical's parent, San Francisco-based 1Life Healthcare Inc.
Last week, the e-commerce giant said it would shut down its own hybrid virtual in-home care service called Amazon Care, a One Medical competitor, because it wasn’t meeting customers' needs.
Groups calling for stricter antitrust regulations quickly urged the FTC to block the One Medical merger, arguing it would further expand the company’s massive market power.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.
The FTC has already been investigating the sign-up and cancellation practices of Amazon Prime and has issued civil subpoenas in that case.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
COMPASSIONATE CAPITALI$M
‘Social Bonds’ Help People. Investors in Them Get Paid.
When Rook Soto lost his law enforcement job in 2010 for health reasons, he had big medical bills and had to take temporary jobs to survive. For a month, he was homeless and lived out of a van.
Soto had heard about coding academies that help people become software engineers, but couldn’t afford the tuition. Then he found Pursuit, a nonprofit group that offers coding classes for free as long as he shares a percentage of his future earnings.
After 10 months of training at Pursuit, Soto got a job in 2018 with a $85,000 salary a year. He now makes $200,000 a year and owns a house in Norwalk, Conn. “From being homeless to owning a decent home, that would never have happened without this career,” he tells Barron’s.
Pursuit’s program is one of the thousands of new bonds aiming to finance socially beneficial causes while delivering financial returns to investors. Typically issued by government agencies and financial institutions, these so-called “social bonds” use their proceeds to fund job training, healthcare, affordable housing, among other projects.
Singapore’s Women’s Livelihood Bond offers microloans to women entrepreneurs in southeast Asia, while the Tokyo government is planning to sell a bond to help the city prepare for the next big earthquake. The pandemic has also spurred a lot of bonds around the world that helped expand hospital capacity, produce protective gear, or support healthcare workers.
Social-bond issuance jumped from just $20 billion a year pre-Covid to well above $200 billion annually since 2020. There’s also been a rise of the so-called “sustainability bonds,” which package environmental and social projects in a bundle.
When social bonds were first introduced a decade ago, investment returns were usually tied to the success of the program they funded. The world’s first social bond in the U.K. raised £5 million to fund a program that helps reduce the reoffending rate of prisoners. The program reached its goal seven years later, which translated to an annual return of 3%.
An opposite example was a similar program at New York’s Rikers Island backed by Goldman Sachs
Because the recidivism rate didn’t drop as much as expected, Goldman and Bloomberg Philanthropies, a partner in the project,both lost money.
To avoid such high risks, many social bonds issued in recent years aren’t linked to any specific performance target. Just like regular bonds, investors are guaranteed to get their money back, plus fixed-term income, unless the issuer becomes insolvent. There might be some bonus payment if the program is extra successful.
“These social metrics are very hard to compute, and the market is not ready for that yet,” says Candace Partridge, social and sustainability bonds data manager at Climate Bonds Initiative, a London-based organization.
This doesn’t mean social bonds can use the money unmonitored. Issuers usually release a framework describing how they plan to use the proceeds. A group of independent “verifiers”, such as Sustainalytics and Moody’s, then evaluates whether the program meets their criteria to be labeled as a social bond.
“For us, impact investing has to have a direct and measurable outcome associated with it,” says Steve Liberatore, who manages Nuveen’s ESG-focused fixed-income strategies, “The direct knowledge of where that capital is being deployed has always been critical.” Nuveen holds socials bonds in many of its portfolios.
Nonetheless, the system is largely based on voluntary guidelines. There is currently no relevant regulation in the U.S. The European Union is developing a “social taxonomy” that officially defines which economic activities are contributing to the bloc’s social goals, but the progress has been stalled this year.
It will be a difficult task, since there is no universal standard about what’s socially good.
For example, some affordable housing programs aim to help low-income buyers finance their first house, but critics question whether it’s just a different way of selling mortgages. “These people already have a down payment,” says Partridge, “It really isn’t about poverty, as opposed to projects that put people in city housing, who legitimately have no home.”
Things can become even trickier if investors consider the environmental impact of a project as well. Some infrastructure projects, for example, might not be climate friendly or energy efficient—even though they are beneficial for local communities.
Another problem: Companies, institutions or even countries might have alleged misconduct on some issues while making positive contribution to others. For example, some fashion brands have funded many sustainable programs, but are accused of human rights negligence in their supply chains. This makes it difficult to draw a clear line.
Generally speaking, social bonds aren’t expected to make profits, as their economic benefits are usually long-term and wide-reaching. There are exceptions. By investing in people and upping their skills, programs like Pursuit’s could generate foreseeable cash flow for investor return.
Pursuit issued a new bond in 2020, raising $12 million to help 1,000 low-income workers move up the social ladder. And its investors, led by Switzerland-based Blue Earth Capital, will take a 5% to 15% cut from the fellows’ salaries—only if they get a new job in tech—for four years. That translates to a 7% estimated annual return.
“The financial success of the fellows is linked to the success for us as the lender,” says Amy Wang, Blue Earth’s head of private debt, “This model ensures that the accountability is always there.”
Unlike philanthropic work that relies on external donations, the bond structure allows such programs to become self-sustaining and scalable, says Stuart Spodek, a portfolio manager at
Social Impact Bonds Investing in positive social outcomes
Social impact bonds are unique public-private partnerships that fund effective social services through performance-based contracts. Impact investors provide the capital to scale the work of high-quality service providers. Government repays those investors if and when the project achieves outcomes that generate public value.
Whether they are focused on helping mothers experiencing poverty achieve healthy births, supporting immigrants and refugees through job training, or retrofitting homes, social impact bonds transfer risk from the public to the private sector and align project partners on the achievement of meaningful impact.
HOW IT WORKS
GOVERNMENT
1 PARTNER
INTERMEDIARY 2 DEVELOP & FINANCE
SERVICE PROVIDER 3 DELIVER SERVICES
PEOPLE IN NEED 4 ATTAIN POSITIVE RESULTS
INDEPENDENT EVALUATOR 5 MEASURE OUTCOMES
IMPACT INVESTORS Form partnership. Government identifies the social issue and the objective. To achieve the objective, they partner with an intermediary, like Social Finance, and high-performing service providers—organizations with track records of success and evidence that their programs work.
Develop project and mobilize capital. Social Finance works with the government and the provider to drive the design, negotiation, and financial structure of the project. We then raise capital from impact investors to provide upfront, flexible funding.
Deliver services. The provider delivers services to the target population, with ongoing support from Social Finance, including governance oversight, performance management, course corrections, and financial management and investor relations.
Achieve outcomes. With the support of high-quality services, people in need achieve life improvements—having healthy births, raising children ready for kindergarten, staying out of prison, and finding and keeping good jobs.
Measure results. An independent evaluator measures the impact of the project according to predetermined outcome metrics. If the project is successful, government repays project investors. However, government pays only at the level of outcomes achieved.
What is Pay for Success? >> The first social impact bond was launched by Social Finance UK in 2010. There are now over 160 impact bonds across 28 countries, with more than 25 in the United States.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M Indian agency searches fintech Paytm, Razorpay and Cashfree offices in Chinese loan apps probe Manish Singh Sat, September 3, 2022
India's financial crime fighting agency searched the offices of fintech unicorns Paytm and Razorpay as well as Cashfree on Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into fraudulent Chinese loan apps, it said Saturday, the latest in a series of probes in recent months.
The Enforcement Directorate said its searches at high-profile Indian firms and businesses controlled by Chinese personnel were prompted by 18 complaints made to the Cyber Crime Police in Bengaluru. The complaints alleged the businesses' involvement in "extortion and harassment of the public who had availed small amount of loans through the mobile apps."
"During enquiries, it has emerged that these entities are controlled/operated by Chinese persons. The modus operandi of these entities is by using forged documents of Indians and making them as dummy directors of those entities, they are generating proceeds of crime," the agency said in a statement (PDF).
"It has come to notice that the said entities were doing their suspected/illegal business through various merchant IDs/accounts held with payment gateways/banks," the agency added.
The entities operated by Chinese personnel were generating "proceeds of crime through merchant IDs/accounts held with payment gateways/banks," the agency said. There were discrepancies in the addresses where they were operating and what they had disclosed to the local authority, the agency said.
The agency said it seized an amount of $2.13 million from Chinese personnel-controlled entities and its searches are ongoing.
The government agency has performed over half a dozen probes into tech firms this year, including at Chinese smartphone vendors Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi and seized more than $1 billion of capital that it said firms had evaded in fraudulent tax computations.
Last week, it also searched the premises of CoinSwitch, a top local crypto exchange backed by Andreessen Horowitz and alleged the Indian firm acquired shares of over $200 million in violation of local forex laws, TechCrunch reported earlier.
The Enforcement Directorate also froze assets worth over $8 million from WazirX last month, citing suspected violation of foreign exchange rule, and $46 million from the local entity of Vauld for facilitating “crime-derived” proceeds from predatory lending firms.
Indian authorities are cracking down on lending apps that are charging exorbitant fees and using unethical means to collect the payments back. India's central bank is moving ahead with new guidelines for digital lending that will mandate firms to provide more disclosure and transparency to benefit consumers as well as restrict several business practices.
"We extended our diligent co-operation to the ED operations, providing them the required and necessary information on the same day of enquiry. Our operations and on-boarding processes adhere to the PMLA and KYC directions, and we will continue to do so in the time to follow," a Cashfree spokesperson said in a statement.
Explainer-Will Germany introduce a windfall tax on energy firms? By Riham Alkousaa Sat, September 3, 2022
BERLIN (Reuters) - As rising energy prices and a new gas levy in Germany are expected to triple fuel bills for consumers from autumn, pressure is mounting on the government to introduce a windfall tax on energy firms to fund further relief measures.
Italy and the United Kingdom have implemented similar taxes, while Spain has introduced a temporary one.
But taxing "excessive" profits of energy companies has been a thorny issue for Germany's ruling coalition, with political resistance from a junior party and constitutional barriers.
Why a windfall tax in Germany?
Germany's coffers have already been drained this year with two relief packages to mitigate the impact of rising energy prices on citizens, plus funds to upgrade the military and battle climate change.
As such, Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader, has said that further significant aid for the population - in the double digits of billions of euros - should have to wait until next year.
But advocates of the windfall tax say more money for hard-pressed citizens could come from a levy on companies making profits deemed "excessive" during the energy crisis.
"Where else is the money supposed to come from? From tax increases for the general public or from additional debt? Hardly likely," Andreas Bovenschulte, mayor of Bremen, one of Germany's poorest states, told Reuters.
Can a windfall tax pass parliament?
There is a dispute within the ruling coalition. The Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens are generally in favour. But the FDP is against it.
A tax on excess profits is not, in principle, foreseen in the German government's coalition agreement signed last year, a government spokesperson said in June.
Lindner said there were legal, economic and budgetary barriers against taking such a step.
"You have to be very careful with this instrument ... It is not a panacea," Lindner said, adding that the measure would interfere with market forces and undermine confidence in the justice of Germany's tax system.
A motion by the states of Bremen, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia to introduce such a tax failed to get a majority at the upper house of parliament earlier in July.
What do Germans think of a windfall tax?
Some 76% of Germans support it, a survey by pollster Infratest dimap showed in August. The biggest support comes from SPD and Greens supporters with 88% and 84% respectively. But even among FDP voters, 58% were in favour.
A Civey poll for Germany's Stern magazine in June showed 72% of Germans were in favour.
Which companies would it affect?
The tax would hit energy groups that have benefited from surging oil and gas prices.
But not all German energy firms have made windfall profits this year as firms that were particularly dependent on Russian gas imports, such as Uniper, have been pushed to procure the fuel at significantly higher market prices without being able to pass the increase to clients.
"RWE, Wintershall, BP, Shell, E.ON: These are the big ones and the classics that immediately come to mind and it's about them," Maurice Hoefgen, an economist and Bundestag financial policy researcher, told Reuters.
Folker Trepte, energy leader at PwC Germany, said a windfall profit could impact conventional electricity firms that generate power with coal or other conventional power sources where the prices were not locked in through long-term contracts.
In July, both RWE and Wintershall raised their 2022 outlook, after reporting strong results. RWE half-year adjusted net income rose 80% year-on-year while Wintershall reported a 262% jump in second quarter adjusted net income.
Would a windfall tax ease financial bottlenecks?
The windfall tax in Italy is expected to bring in between 10 and 11 billion euros ($9.95 - $10.95 billion) in revenue while former British finance minister Rishi Sunak said a similar tax would raise 5 billion pounds ($5.76 billion) in the next 12 month.
A study by Berlin-based Tax Justice Network published in August said the tax could bring between 11 to 40 billion euros in revenues over a year for Germany.
Andreas Peichl, head of the Ifo Center for Macroeconomics and Surveys, said although such a tax would bring money to the government in the short term, it did not make sense strategically as it would hit future investments.
"It is a populist option that appears politically opportune in the short term," Peichl told Reuters, adding that corporate taxes in Germany were already very high in international comparison and that he did not expect the tax to be implemented. What are the legal challenges?
The German constitution only permits new taxes within very narrow limits and an excess profit would have to be integrated into income and corporation tax, said Till Meickmann, a tax law expert at the University of Passau.
"Unjustified unequal treatment (of companies) would be a violation of the general principle of equality and therefore unconstitutional," Meickmann told Reuters.
However, two reports by the scientific service of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, argue that a windfall tax is legally possible in Germany, the Tax Justice Network study said.
($1 = 0.8675 pounds)
($1 = 1.0049 euros)
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
Samsung says personal data of some U.S. customers exposed in breach
Published: Sept. 4, 2022 By Mike Murphy Samsung Electronics Co. is warning some U.S. customers that their personal data was exposed in a recent breach.
Samsung announced the breach in a brief statement late Friday, as Americans were about to start the long Labor Day holiday weekend.
The company stressed the breach did not involve Social Security numbers or credit- or debit-card numbers, but said data such as name, contact and demographic information, date of birth, and product registration information may have been affected. It was unclear exactly what “demographic information” may include.
In a separate statement, Samsung said the hacker acquired the data in late July, and the breach was discovered Aug. 4. The company said it has since secured its system, engaged with a leading cybersecurity company and is coordinating with law enforcement.
Samsung 005930, -0.87% said it emailed customers who were affected by the hack. It did not say how many customers were affected, nor why it waited nearly a month before informing them.
The South Korean tech giant said users’ devices are not at risk, and that affected users do not need to take any immediate actions, though it did warn to remain cautious of unsolicited emails asking for personal information and to avoid clicking on links in suspicious emails.
A deglobalising world will be an inflationary one
Rana Foroohar - The Financial Times
For the last few decades, globalisation and disinflation have gone hand in hand. As multinational companies grew far beyond the confines of individual nation states, they were able to use technology, outsourcing and economies of scale to drive down prices. Cheap labour, cheap capital and cheap commodities kept them down.
Three humans figures standing on the globe, each with a balloon of
a different shape, but all shaped like donuts
Now war in Ukraine has put an end to cheap Russian gas. The global push towards carbon neutrality will ultimately add a permanent tax on fossil fuel usage. Decoupling between the US and China means an end to “efficient” (aka cheap) but fragile supply chains. The end of quantitative easing and the Federal Reserve’s rate rises are putting a cap on easy money.
Aspects of this new reality are welcome. Counting on autocratic governments for crucial supplies was never a great idea. Expecting countries with wildly different political economies to abide by a single trade regime was naive.
Polluting the planet to produce and transport low-margin goods around the world doesn’t make as much sense when you tally in the true cost of labour and energy, not to mention changing geopolitics. More than three decades of falling real interest rates have resulted in unproductive and dangerous asset bubbles; we desperately need some price discovery in markets.
All this said, there is no getting around the fact that a deglobalising world will also be a more inflationary one, at least in the short term. This will present a major challenge for both the US economy and the wider world.
As Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar told clients in a recent note, “war means industry”, be it hot war or economic war, and growing industry means inflation. This is the exact opposite of the paradigm we’ve experienced for the last half century, during which “China got very rich making cheap stuff . . . Russia got very rich selling cheap gas to Europe, and Germany got very rich selling expensive stuff produced with cheap gas.” The US, meanwhile, “got very rich by doing QE. But the licence for QE came from the ‘lowflation’ regime enabled by cheap exports coming from Russia and China.”
All this is now changing. And that means even hawkish central bankers may not be able to control the inflationary environment. That’s a topic that was front and centre at the central bankers’ Jackson Hole conference recently, when economists Francesco Bianchi of Johns Hopkins University and Leonardo Melosi from the Chicago Fed released an important paper questioning how much monetary policy can do to bring down inflation if the fiscal position of the country is deteriorating.
The core idea is that if rate hikes lead to recession, tax receipts go down and in lieu of spending cuts to the big stuff — such as entitlements and defence — or a default on Treasury bills, you get rising debt. When the debt picture deteriorates significantly, it gets harder and harder for monetary policy alone to curb inflation, so you get a snowball effect. The upshot? Unless monetary policy is accompanied by a more stable fiscal situation, rising inflation, economic stagnation and increasing debt will be the result.
Central bankers have been begging politicians of both stripes to supplement their monetary efforts with appropriate fiscal policy for years. Now, the rubber is hitting the road. When interest rates rise, you ideally want less debt. That requires increased taxes or reduced spending. The first option relies on Democrats controlling Congress; it’s unclear how long they will, as November midterms loom. The second option is unlikely, given the fiscal investments inherent in a deglobalising, decarbonising world.
Consider, for example, the cost of more secure supply chains. The US has just passed an act giving chipmakers $52bn in subsidies. Germany is spending $100bn on modernising its armed forces. The west is likely to spend $750bn rebuilding Ukraine, and the G7 recently announced plans to pump $600bn into infrastructure to counter China’s own massive Belt and Road Initiative. All that is, in the short term at least, inflationary.
Then there are the challenges of ensuring production. “Inventory for supply chains is what liquidity is for banks,” says Pozsar, and “in the context of supply chains, leverage means excessive operating leverage.” He notes, for example, that some $2tn of German value-added production relies on $20bn worth of gas from Russia. What happens if that stops flowing entirely this winter? We may be about to see.
There are important caveats to this story. Productive spending on things like infrastructure, high value goods and services and the transition to clean energy may be inflationary in the short term but ultimately bolsters a country’s fiscal position by fuelling longer-term growth. Indeed, these types of “productive bubbles” — in which the public sector provides incentives for investment into crucial technologies and new markets — enable periods of widely shared, sustainable growth.
The question is how much of today’s spending will be productive, and whether governments will have the ability to cut what is not. Either way, in the near term, the end of the neoliberal globalisation era will be a tailwind to higher trend inflation. Just like deglobalisation itself, that represents a massive economic shift, which will herald all sorts of unexpected consequences.
The US should cancel a lot more than $10,000 in student debt Nate DiCamillo
QUARTZ Sat, September 3, 2022
On paper, US President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation plan looks pretty good.
The government will forgive $10,000 worth of student debt for those making under $125,000. That’s nearly a third of the average amount owed by student debt holders.
According to White House estimates, the policy wipes out the remaining balances for 20 million Americans—nearly half of all borrowers. This is great given that a third of them have student debt but no college degree, according to the Department of Education.
But these overall numbers obscure one key downside of the plan: It will do little to help borrowers who need it the most, those who hold large amounts of debt and have low incomes.
Though they only make up a small share of student loan holders, their plight is a result of everything that’s wrong with higher education. To address this, many loan reduction advocates were pushing the government to take into account racial disparities and offer more generous relief, said Fenaba Addo, an associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
But could the economy handle any more debt forgiveness without increasing consumer demand and pouring fuel on the inflation fire, like some opponents of debt forgiveness opponents argue? Isn’t Biden’s plan like giving a $10,000 check to millions of Americans? There are millions of Americans who need way more than Biden’s $10k forgiveness
Most of the 43 million student debt holders account for a small amount of the $1.6 trillion pie, with a small share of borrowers who owe more than $100,000—7%— accounting for nearly 40% of overall student debt, according to College Board data. The result: Biden’s policy gives a big number of people with small burdens a big reprieve, while it barely helps a smaller group of students with large balances.
More than 8 million borrowers who are on income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which are determined by the borrower’s discretionary income rather than the amount of student debt they hold, will experience little financial impact from the cancellation.
If a borrower has a middle-class income of $60,000 and $40,000 in student debt, subtracting $10,000 from the balance won’t change their situation. They are still not on track to pay off their debt because their income is so low, making payments under an IDR plan means that the principal of the loan will continue to grow.
While another plan from Biden will put 7.5 million student debt borrowers that are in default back in good standing, nearly a third of all student loan holders have experienced default in the past two decades.Within this group many borrowers have defaulted several times. This is a large portion of the $1.6 trillion overall outstanding amount that the government wouldn’t see even if it wasn’t forgiven.
Student loan borrowers aren’t ready to spend
Claims that canceling student loans will only help rich people or increase inflation ignore what caused the student loan crisis in the first place.
“People are defaulting and being delinquent on their debts because they didn’t have the money to pay for it,” Addo said. “If you don’t have income or wealth, discharging $10,000 doesn’t mean you have income to spend.”
No one has been paying interest on their debt since the federal government paused payments at the start of the pandemic, and the current inflationary environment hasn’t been driven by student loan borrowers buying more stuff than the rest of the population.
Meanwhile, student loan debt has a crushing effect on a person’s financial future—creating a ripple effect across the economy. Economists at the New York Federal Reserve Bank found that student loan holders are less likely to move into higher paying jobs, more likely to default on other types of debt, and more likely to have lower credit scores.
When covid-19 hit the US, these borrowers were in the sectors that were hardest hit by the disease. They are well aware of their precarious financial position. According to the survey of consumer expectations, Americans with student debt are much more likely to fret about defaulting on debt than other Americans.
Many economists believe that cancellation encourages long-term economic decisions (i.e. moving) versus short-term decisions (i.e. buying a new TV). Debt forgiveness improves a borrower’s debt-to-income ratio, so they can borrow more for long-term expenditures like a car, a house, or a small business—in turn stimulating the broader economy.
“Anything that would help people answer some job openings, I think, would be good for the economy,” said Mike Konczal, director of macroeconomic analysis at the Roosevelt Institute.
LOOKING FOR A HANDOUT
EV Battery Maker ProLogium Considers UK for $8 Billion Factory
Siddharth Philip and Danny Lee Sun, September 4, 2022
(Bloomberg) -- Taiwanese battery maker ProLogium Technology Co. is considering the UK among the potential sites for an $8 billion factory that would build a promising but unproven new generation of cells for electric vehicles.
The solid-state battery startup is evaluating 90 sites across countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK, it said in a statement. Locations will be evaluated based on availability of skilled labor, transport links and incentives being offered -- even proximity to customers.
A final decision is planned early next year, a Taiwan-based ProLogium spokesman said by phone. Other locations in the US, China and Southeast Asia are also being contemplated. The company has hired consulting firm Accuracy to help with the search.
The UK is pushing hard to attract battery makers as the auto industry phases out the internal combustion engine. The country’s car production has steadily declined over decades, and uncertainty about the future of Britain’s trading relationship with the European Union has added to the industry’s woes.
Solid-state batteries promise reduced charging times, longer driving ranges and -- unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries -- no fire risk. While the technology offers vast potential improvements to accelerate EV adoption, it hasn’t yet been produced at scale. In January, ProLogium signed a cooperation agreement to develop sold-state battery cells with Mercedes-Benz Group AG, which also invested in the startup.
ProLogium has earmarked $8 billion for an overseas factory it will build in three phases over the course of a decade, with an ultimate capacity of 120 gigawatt hours.
Ozone layer crossed a significant milestone towards recovery in 2022
Scott Sutherland - ACCUWEATHER
As of this year, the levels of ozone-depleting chemicals in the stratosphere reached a major milestone on the path to recovery, dropping by more than half of what's needed for the ozone layer to fully recover.
Back in the 1980s, it was discovered that chemical gases used in air conditioning, refrigeration, and aerosol cans — collectively known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or ozone-depleting substances (OSDs) — were damaging the stratospheric ozone layer. This protective layer, located high up in the atmosphere, essentially acts as a natural shield against harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. The depletion of ozone by CFCs was resulting in a large ozone hole over Antarctica, which was detected by satellites each year. It was also causing a thinning of the ozone layer over the mid-latitudes.
Ozone layer crossed a significant milestone towards recovery in 2022
The Antarctic ozone hole is shown here, as it was measured on October 7, 2021. Also visible on the map are thin regions of the ozone layer farther north, in the mid-latitudes. (NOAA Climate.gov)
When the Montreal Protocol came into effect in 1989, it banned the production and use of ozone-depleting substances. The goal was to reduce the concentration of these chemicals back to the levels they were at in 1980. Since then, there have been noticeable improvements. For example, concentrations of these gases have been falling fairly steadily since the early 1990s. Also, the size and duration of the Antarctic ozone hole have mostly stabilized, and there are signs that it is slowly recovering.
According to NOAA, as of early 2022, we have now reached a significant milestone towards the goal of the Montreal Protocol.
The concentration of ozone-depleting chemicals in the mid-latitude stratosphere has now dropped by more than half of what is necessary to reach 1980 levels.
"It's great to see this progress," Stephen Montzka, the senior scientist for NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory, said in a press release. "At the same time, it's a bit humbling to realize that science is still a long way from being able to claim that the issue of ozone depletion is behind us."
The same research found that the concentration of ozone-depleting chemicals over Antarctica has only fallen by 26 per cent over the same period.
NOAA says that there are multiple reasons for this, but mainly it is because the rate at which these chemicals break down depends on the "age" of the stratospheric air; Or, to put it another way, how much exchange of air there is between the troposphere and the stratosphere over time.
According to the latest report of The NOAA Ozone Depleting Gas Index: Guiding Recovery of the Ozone Layer, the average age of stratospheric air over the mid-latitudes is roughly three years, while over the Antarctic, it tends to be around 5.5 years. Thus, mid-latitude concentrations of OSDs are falling faster than over the Antarctic.
Based on the latest findings, NOAA scientists estimate that mid-latitude concentrations of OSDs will reach 1980 levels sometime around 2049. In the Antarctic stratosphere, levels should drop to that point by 2076.
Archeologists discovered a 17th-century Polish 'vampire' with a sickle across her neck meant to prevent a return from the dead
Female "vampire" with a sickle across her throat found in Pień, Poland.
The skeleton of female "vampire" was discovered in a 17th-century Polish graveyard, the Daily Mail reported.
Professor Dariusz Poliński said the skeleton was found restrained to prevent her returning from the grave.
The remains had a sickle laying across the throat and a padlock on her big toe.
The skeletal remains of a female "vampire" were found in a 17th-century Polish graveyard — with a sickle across her neck to prevent her rising from the dead. Professor Dariusz Poliński from Nicholas Copernicus University headed the archaeological dig that led to the discovery of the remains, which were found wearing a silk cap and with a protruding front tooth, the Daily Mail reported Friday.
Female "vampire" with protruding tooth and a sickle across her neck.
"The sickle was not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up… the head would have been cut off or injured," Poliński told the Daily Mail.
In the 11th century, citizens of Eastern Europe reported fears of vampires and began treating their dead with anti-vampire rituals, according to Smithsonian magazine, believing that "some people who died would claw their way out of the grave as blood-sucking monsters that terrorized the living."
By the 17th century, Science Alert reported such burial practices "became common across Poland in response to a reported outbreak of vampires."
Padlock wrapped around toe of female "vampire" skeleton.
"Other ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them, and smashing them with a stone," Poliński told the New York Post.
Though other common anti-vampire burial methods included a metal rod hammered through the skeleton, the remains in Poland were found with the sickle across the neck and a padlocked toe to restrain her.
The padlocked big toe attached to the skeleton's left foot, Poliński told the Daily Mail, likely symbolized "the closing of a stage and the impossibility of returning."
Poliński did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Photos Mirosław Blicharski
POLISH VAMPIRES HAVE A LONG TRADITION IN FOLKLORE
1% SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT Triple H Named WWE’s Chief Content Officer, Gets Salary Bump Along With Three Other Top Execs in Wake of Vince McMahon Exit DUE TO PAYOUTS FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Todd Spangler Fri, September 2, 2022
WWE exec and pro wrestler Paul “Triple H” Levesque has officially taken the title of chief content officer, and he’s also received a hike in compensation along with three other top company executives.
In addition, the company said it promoted chief financial officer Frank Riddick to the position of president, continuing in his role as CFO, effective Sept. 2. WWE disclosed the info in an SEC filing Friday.
The changes come after Vince McMahon, formerly WWE’s chairman and CEO, resigned from the company on July 22, amid an investigation by the board of directors into misconduct allegations.
With Vince McMahon’s departure, the company named as co-CEOs Stephanie McMahon (Mr. McMahon’s daughter, who was formerly chief brand officer) and Nick Khan (previously president and chief revenue officer). The company had already announced that Levesque, formerly EVP of talent relations, would take over leadership of the creative team. (Ms. McMahon and Levesque are married.) Mr. McMahon had previously headed the creative team that develops storylines and characters for WWE’s programming.
Because of the changes in the responsibilities of Levesque, Ms. McMahon, Khan and Riddick, the compensation and human capital committee of WWE’s board “determined on August 31, 2022, that it is appropriate to provide certain enhancements to [their] compensation,” per the filing. Ms. McMahon’s annual base salary increased from $730,000 to $1.35 million, and she will continue to receive payments including the $750,000 guaranteed minimum under her booking agreement. Levesque’s annual base salary increased from $730,000 to $900,000, and he also will continue to receive payments including $1.0 million guaranteed minimum under his booking agreement. Khan’s salary increased from $1.2 million to $1.35 million per year and Riddick’s increased from $850,000 to $950,000.
WWE disclosed new performance-based annual bonus targets for the execs, as a percentage of base salary: for Ms. McMahon and Khan, that’s 160%; for Riddick, it’s 125%; and for Levesque, it’s 100%. They will also receive annual stock grants beginning in 2023 with the following target values: Ms. McMahon and Khan, $3.575 million; Riddick, $2.4 million; and Levesque, $1.6 million.
In addition, Ms. McMahon will receive a one-time special stock grant of $10 million and Levesque will receive $8 million in a one-time stock grant around Oct. 3, 2022, with a three-year vesting period contingent on certain performance metrics. WWE also added new severance-payment terms to the four executives’ contracts in the event of a change in control of the company, according to Friday’s filing. Mr. McMahon remains a stockholder with a controlling interest in WWE. On Aug. 16, WWE said the board’s investigation into his alleged misconduct was “substantially complete” and the company restated earnings going back to 2019 to account for personal payments Mr. McMahon made during his tenure. That included $14.6 million in payments that Mr. McMahon allegedly made to women to keep quiet about affairs and other misconduct. EMBEZZLEMENT Last month, WWE disclosed that it had subsequently identified $5 million in additional payments Mr. McMahon made in 2007 and 2009 — unrelated to the misconduct allegations — that the company said should have been reported on its financial statements. The $5 million in payments made in 2007 and 2009 were charitable donations to the now-defunct Donald J. Trump Foundation, the Wall Street Journal reported. In 2007 and 2009, Trump had appeared in WWE TV events.
WWE leadership change won’t ‘hold the company back at all,’ analyst explains
Longtime WWE frontman Vince McMahon has stepped down as CEO and chairman, leaving behind a void in the most electrifying circus on television.
But one analyst argued the leadership change appears to be coming off smoothly.
"I don't think it'll hold the company back at all," Brandon Ross, media and technology analyst at LightShed Partners, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "I think that the company has had a succession plan in place for a very long time. They have a management team in place that they are very confident in, and frankly, we are too."
Apr 3, 2022; Arlington, TX, USA; Pat McAfee (center) is attacked by Austin Theory (right) during his match with WWE owner Vince McMahon (left) during WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
The modern World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) is the culmination of almost 70 years of constant expansion and absorption of smaller, regional wrestling franchises helmed by McMahon and his father, Jess McMahon.
However, the WWE image was slammed after reports surfaced that the SEC and federal prosecutors were investigating the entertainment company over hush money payoffs and sexual misconduct allegations levied against Vince McMahon that led to a hastened retirement.
WWE stock rose more than 5% in the month after McMahon announced his resignation on July 22.
McMahon's daughter Stephanie McMahon now serves as the acting co-CEO alongside former chief revenue officer Nick Khan.
"I think in terms of their relationships with their licensing partners and sponsorship partners, as soon as Vince was removed from the equation, the pressure there actually eased," Ross said, later adding that "the co-CEO thing is a little bit unusual. It's something that WWE has done in the past with co-presidents."
The structure will allow each executive to play to their strong suits, like a tag-team duo, Ross added.
“What you'll see is Stephanie is going to be in charge of everything that has to do with the branding and image of the company and a lot of stuff on the operations side,” he said. “Whereas Nick's main role is going to be revenue. And integral to revenue is cutting deals with third parties, whether it's the licensing deals for RAW or SmackDown or their pay-per-view events which are, in the United States, largely NBC.”
Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H attend the UFC 276 event at T-Mobile Arena on July 02, 2022 in Las Vegas. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC, Getty Images)
Stephanie McMahon is the company's second female CEO, following in the footsteps of her mother Linda McMahon, who was appointed president in 1993 and served as CEO from 1997 until 2009.
The CEO's husband and former WWE star Paul "Triple H" Levesque has also been given creative responsibilities as executive vice president by his father-in-law.
"I don't think we're going all the way back to the Attitude Era, but clearly the new head of creative... 'Triple H' is from an era where that resonated," Ross said on fan excitement.
WWE's production crewmen reported that they have felt a "massively night and day" shift in the company's workplace atmosphere since Vince McMahon's departure. McMahon was accused of quashing unionization efforts by wrestlers during his tenure at WWE.
'No shortage of potential buyers'
The new management brings into question just how much the company's public-facing leaders matter to its future.
The family-owned enterprise has evolved with each passing decade, expanding from simple broadcasting to live events, video games, and film production. With McMahon's retirement, many investors questioned whether the business would be sold.
WWE Superstars Edge dives off the ropes to take down Alberto Del Rio in front of a sold-out, record crowd of 71,617 during WrestleMania XXVII at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday, April 3, 2011. (Paul Abell/AP Images for WWE)
"There's clearly no shortage of potential buyers for this asset as media companies and platforms look for owned content, especially live content," Ross stated. "Do we believe that it's true that this business is going to get sold? Probably not in the near term. We think that Stephanie and Paul and Nick really want to run this business."
"It's important, especially to Stephanie, to continue the legacy of her father and maybe put her own imprint on the business," Ross continued. "So we don't think it's actually going to get sold, but what we do think is that there's operational improvements that might come out of this."
Ross noted that the WWE may look to elevate its mid-card talent which has garnered fan excitement.
"Fans have been clamoring to get back towards more technical wrestling — a little bit more of the blood," Ross said. "So I think you'll move a little more in that direction. There will be other changes.”
"Generally if fans are excited, in the media industry — it's all about eyeballs — that means investors should be excited, too," he added.
Luke is a producer for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @theLukeCM.
