Alstom Flags Cash Burn From Lingering Bombardier ‘Skeletons'

Tara Patel
Tue., July 6, 2021, 




(Bloomberg) -- Alstom SA Chief Executive Officer Henri Poupart-Lafarge expects costly and painful months ahead as the rail-equipment maker works to turn around the flagging operations of the Canadian rival it acquired.

Alstom is detailing on Tuesday a path for improving profitability for the combined group after the Bombardier deal was sealed in January. The French company is forecasting a cash drain in the first half of this year and a return to pre-acquisition margin levels only in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, according to a statement.

The shares fell as much as 8.2% in early trading in Paris, the steepest intraday drop since March last year.

There will be “no more skeletons” going forward, the CEO said in an interview, saying provisions for problematic contracts related to Bombardier have been capped at the roughly 1.08 billion euros ($1.3 billion) already announced. “The key element is to turn around Bombardier.”

Alstom has won major train orders in recent months, benefiting from a wave of investment in carbon-free transport across the globe. But integrating Bombardier’s business following the 5.5 billion-euro takeover has been a rocky process right from the start.

Negative Surprise

The cash outflow “is clearly a negative surprise,” Morgan Stanley analysts Katie Self and Ben Uglow wrote in a note, calling the forecast “an effective kitchen sink” that could mark a low point for integration of Bombardier.

Alstom is forecasting negative cash flow in the first half of this fiscal year of between 1.6 billion euros and 1.9 billion euros, according to the statement. This will lead to “significant” negative free cash flow for the full year.

The cash burn is due to higher spending needed to make up for delivery delays and mismanagement related to ex-Bombardier orders, Poupart-Lafarge said. These are in countries like the U.K. and Switzerland and will require Alstom to raise train deliveries by 35%.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says

Alstom’s guidance of negative cash flow of 1.6-1.9 billion euros in 1H of fiscal 2022 relates to Bombardier’s loss-making projects, yet it should mark a low point in the company’s integration. The magnitude came as a surprise, as it far exceeds the 1 billion-euro size of these problematic programs. Ebit margin may take three years to reach pre-deal targets.

-- Mustafa Okur, BI industrials analyst

Click here for the report

On the brighter side, Alstom is looking at additional spending in the U.S. on infrastructure under the Biden administration as “upside potential,” he said. “It could definitely be a game changer.”

In Europe, the biggest markets will be Germany along with Italy, Spain and Portugal -- southern countries set to spend under the region’s post-pandemic economic stimulus package.

Key Highlights

Alstom sees significant negative free cash flow this fiscal year including between negative EU1.6 billion and negative EU1.9 billion in the first half“Stabilization” of Bombardier legacy contracts in two or three yearsAdjusted Ebit margin to reach between 8% and 10% from 2024-25 onwards vs 5% pro formaYearly positive free cash flow toward mid-term targetOrder backlog stands at 74.5 billion eurosGoal to expand global market share by 5 percentage points to 36%: CEO

(Adds shares in third, analyst comment in fifth paragraph)

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Airlines to Be Charged More for Polluting in EU Green Push

Ewa Krukowska and Alberto Nardelli
Mon., July 5, 2021, 9


(Bloomberg) -- Airlines in the world’s biggest carbon market will eventually have to pay for all the pollution from their planes as the European Union strengthens its climate policies under the Green Deal.

A proposal by the European Commission includes a gradual phase out of emission allowances for carriers, and will be part of measures to be announced on July 14, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The package will also introduce stricter demands on companies in the transport sector to use cleaner fuel.

The EU aims to make its Green Deal and the ambitious environmental overhaul a new growth strategy as its economy recovers from the pandemic. The planned clean push also includes strengthening and expanding the bloc’s carbon market, creating a new emissions-trading program for buildings and road transport and setting new emissions standards for cars.

The Commission wants to oblige fuel suppliers to blend an increasingly high level of sustainable aviation fuels into existing jet fuel sold at EU airports, said the person, who asked not to be identified because talks on the the draft laws are private. In addition, the EU executive is planning to encourage the uptake of synthetic low-carbon fuels under the so-called Fit for 55 package.

Cleaner fuels will also get preferential treatment under EU’s new energy taxation framework.

The legislative push is aimed at aligning the European economy with a new goal to reduce greenhouse gases by at least 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels. The previous objective was a cut of 40%.

That package will also include proposals to increase the share of renewable energy, boost energy efficiency and toughen national emissions-reduction goals. The Commission will aim to make the transition in a “fair, cost-efficient and competitive way,” it said in the draft document that will be sent to national governments and the European Parliament next week.

A Climate Action Social Facility Fund will be launched to help the most vulnerable households offset the costs of the transition. To help allay concerns of poorer member states, the EU also wants to bolster carbon market’s Modernization Fund. which supports lower-income countries and to re-distribute one-tenth of carbon allowances for auctions.

Solar Is Dirt-Cheap and About to Get Even More Powerful

Dan Murtaugh
Tue., July 6, 2021,

Solar Is Dirt-Cheap and About to Get Even More Powerful

(Bloomberg) -- The solar industry has spent decades slashing the cost of generating electricity direct from the sun. Now it’s focusing on making panels even more powerful.

With savings in equipment manufacturing hitting a plateau, and more recently pressured by rising prices of raw materials, producers are stepping up work on advances in technology — building better components and employing increasingly sophisticated designs to generate more electricity from the same-sized solar farms.

“The first 20 years in the 21st century saw huge reductions in module prices, but the speed of the reduction started to level off noticeably in the past two years,” said Xiaojing Sun, global solar research leader at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. “Fortunately, new technologies will create further cost-of-electricity reductions.”

A push for more powerful solar equipment underscores how further cost reductions remain essential to advance the shift away from fossil fuels. While grid-sized solar farms are now typically cheaper than even the most advanced coal or gas-fired plants, additional savings will be required to pair clean energy sources with the expensive storage technology that’s needed for around-the-clock carbon-free power.

Bigger factories, the use of automation and more efficient production methods have delivered economies of scale, lower labor costs and less material waste for the solar sector. The average cost of a solar panel dropped by 90% from 2010 to 2020.

Boosting power generation per panel means developers can deliver the same amount of electricity from a smaller-sized operation. That’s potentially crucial as costs of land, construction, engineering and other equipment haven’t fallen in the same way as panel prices.

It can even make sense to pay a premium for more advanced technology. “We’re seeing people willing to pay a higher price for a higher wattage module that lets them produce more power and make more money off their land,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar researcher at BloombergNEF.

Higher-powered systems are already arriving. Through much of the past decade, most solar panels produced a maximum of about 400 watts of electricity. In early 2020, companies began selling 500-watt panels, and in June, China-based Risen Energy Co. introduced a 700-watt model.

“More powerful and highly-efficient modules will reduce costs throughout the solar project value chain, supporting our outlook for significant sector growth over the next decade,” Fitch Solutions analysts said in a research note last month.

Here are some of the ways that solar companies are super-charging panels:

Perovskite

While many current developments involve tweaks to existing technologies, perovskite promises a genuine breakthrough. Thinner and more transparent than polysilicon, the material that’s traditionally used, perovskite could eventually be layered on top of existing solar panels to boost efficiency, or be integrated with glass to make building windows that also generate power.

“We will be able to take solar power to the next level,” said Kim Dohyung, principal researcher on a perovskite project team at Korea Electric Power Corp., one of several companies experimenting with the material. “Ultimately, this new technology will enable us to make a huge contribution in lowering greenhouse gas emissions.”

Adoption of perovskite has previously been challenged by costs and technical issues that prevented commercial-scale production. There are now signs that’s changing: Wuxi UtmoLight Technology Co. in May announced plans to start a pilot line by October with mass production beginning in 2023.

Bi-facial Panels

Solar panels typically get their power from the side that faces the sun, but can also make use of the small amount of light that reflects back off the ground. Bi-facial panels started to gain in popularity in 2019, with producers seeking to capture the extra increments of electricity by replacing opaque backing material with specialist glass. They were also temporarily boosted by a since-closed loophole in U.S. law that exempted them from tariffs on Chinese products.

The trend caught solar glass suppliers off-guard and briefly caused prices for the material to soar. Late last year, China loosened regulations around glass manufacturing capacity, and that should prepare the ground for more widespread adoption of the two-sided solar technology.

Doped Polysilicon

Another change that can deliver an increase in power is shifting from positively charged silicon material for solar panels to negatively charged, or n-type, products.

N-type material is made by doping polysilicon with a small amount of an element with an extra electron like phosphorous. It’s more expensive, but can be as much as 3.5% more powerful than the material that currently dominates. The products are expected to begin taking market share in 2024 and be the dominant material by 2028, according to PV-Tech.

In the solar supply chain, ultra-refined polysilicon is shaped into rectangular ingots, which are in turn sliced into ultra-thin squares known as wafers. Those wafers are wired into cells and pieced together to form solar panels.

Bigger Wafers, Better Cells

For most of the 2010s, the standard solar wafer was a 156-millimeter (6.14 inches) square of polysilicon, about the size of the front of a CD case. Now, companies are making the squares bigger to boost efficiency and reduce manufacturing costs. Producers are pushing 182- and 210-millimeter wafers, and the larger sizes will grow from about 19% of the market share this year to more than half by 2023, according to Wood Mackenzie’s Sun.

The factories that wire wafers into cells — which convert electrons excited by photons of light into electricity — are adding new capacity for designs like heterojunction or tunnel‐oxide passivated contact cells. While more expensive to make, those structures allow the electrons to keep bouncing around for longer, increasing the amount of power they generate.

(Adds analyst comment in ninth paragraph)

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Blast rocks Caspian Sea area near Azerbaijani gas field


Mon., July 5, 2021, 



MOSCOW (AP) — A strong explosion shook the Caspian Sea area where Azerbaijan has extensive offshore oil and gas fields. A column of fire rose from the area, but the state oil company said none of its platforms were damaged.

The state oil company SOCAR said the blaze late Sunday may have come from a mud volcano.

The Caspian Sea has a high concentration of such volcanoes, which spew both mud and flammable gas.

SOCAR spokesman Ibrahim Ahmadov told the Interfax-Azerbaijan news agency on Monday that the company staff found a mud volcano ablaze on the uninhabited island of Dashly, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) off the coast of Azerbaijan between the towns of Alat and Neftchala.

Azerbaijan's Emergency Ministry said that the volcano continued to burn on Monday morning, but the fire “doesn't pose a threat either to the sea oil and gas infrastructure and other objects, or to people's lives.”

The Associated Press

Thailand chemical factory fire out;

 health concerns remain

Tue., July 6, 2021, 

BANGKOK (AP) — Firefighters finally extinguished a blaze at a chemical factory just outside the Thai capital early Tuesday, more than 24-hours after it started with an explosion that damaged nearby homes and then let off a clouds of toxic smoke that prompted a widespread evacuation.

Little was left of the Ming Dih Chemical factory other than the twisted metal frames and charred remains of its warehouses that were destroyed in the explosion and fire, which broke out at about 3 a.m. Monday.

More than 60 people were injured in the disaster, including a dozen emergency responders, and more than 30 of them were hospitalized. One man, identified as an 18-year-old volunteer firefighter, was killed in the blaze.

Even though fire was entirely put out by 3:40 a.m. Tuesday, firefighters continued to douse water and foam over the site to prevent the highly inflammable chemical styrene monomer from reigniting. The cause of the disaster was still under investigation.

Authorities ordered a 5 kilometer (3 mile) area around the foam and plastic pellet manufacturing factory, near Bangkok's main airport, evacuated as the factory burned, telling residents to avoid inhaling any fumes and warning that if breathed in it could cause dizziness and vomiting, and cancer in the long term.

On Tuesday, Attapol Charoenchansa, who heads the country's pollution control department, said teams were testing the air quality and water in the area of the factory, and were considering narrowing the evacuation zone to allow some residents to return home.

He cautioned, however, that if the forecast rain comes, it could wash the chemicals into water sources, which would be difficult to control.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said he had ordered authorities to gather as much information as possible on the extent of contamination to soil, ground water, the city's drinking water and air so as to “mitigate the health impact in both the short and long term.”

“Although the fire is under control, our work has not yet been completed,” he said in a statement posted on Facebook.

In addition to the casualties, officials said shockwaves from the initial explosion also damaged about 100 houses and 15 cars.

Styrene monomer is used in the production of disposable foam plates, cups and other products, and can produce poisonous fumes when ignited.

The chemical itself also emits styrene gas, a neurotoxin, which can immobilize people within minutes of inhalation and can be fatal at high concentrations. Last year in the Indian city of Visakhapatnam, a leak of styrene gas from a chemical factory killed 12 people and sickened more than 1,000.

The area around the factory is a mixture of older industrial complexes and newer housing developments that were built after the opening of the airport in 2006.

___

Associated Press writer Chalida Ekvittayavechnukul contributed to this report.

David Rising, The Associated Press

 

Despite jobs rebound, economists warn ‘She-cession’ still lingers

Dani Romero

Mon., July 5, 2021, 7:24 a.m.·3 min read

The U.S. labor market, having rebounded strongly from COVID-19, still has pockets of weakness in spite of a worker shortage throttling multiple industries.

Most notably, economists cite the continued struggles of the leisure and hospitality sector, where millions of laid-off women helped to create what some observers have recently called a “she-cession.” Lockdowns exacerbated racial and gender employment gaps that existed before COVID-19 walloped the global economy.

The hospitality industry — which includes restaurants, hotels, museums, spectator sports, and more — accounted for 10% of the entire workforce pre-pandemic, the National Women’s Law Center said in May. Even amid the broad economic rebound, the NWLC found that the sector is still lagging its size in February 2020.

And between February 2020 and May 2021, women lost nearly 1.4 million leisure and hospitality jobs, a NWLC analysis revealed. The net female job losses represented more than half of those lost in the entire sector between February 2020 and May 2021, the organization said.

The answer to healing a still damaged jobs market lies with closing the workforce’s gender gap, labor policy experts say.

“Certain occupations, certain industries that are dominated by women have seen a traumatic loss in jobs and massive layoffs,” Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, said in an interview.

At the height of the COVID-19 outbreak in June 2020, women over the age of 20 had an unemployment rate of 11.3%, Bureau of Labor Statistics survey data show, higher than the male unemployment rate of 10.3%. Since that spike high, female joblessness has gradually normalized, dropping to 5.5% in the most recent jobs data.

Still, the NWLC argues that women have a lot of lost ground to recapture.

“It's important for us all to remember that we are not actually out of this crisis yet,” Julie Vogtman, director of job quality at the NWLC, told Yahoo Finance Live in a recent interview.

'Alarming rate'

Sandra Presley, 57, is interviewed at a job fair for restaurant and hotel workers, after coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions were lifted, in Torrance, near Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 23, 2021. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Female-dominated sectors, like leisure and hospitality, were heavily scaled back during the pandemic, and have yet to fully recover, economists say.

Even the C-suite has not been spared, with Challenger Gray tracking data noting high female executive turnover at the start of 2021.

“Women are leaving the workforce at an alarming rate,” the firm said in February. “The pandemic has hit industries primarily employing women hardest, and child care and compensation issues which continually plague women are being exacerbated by the pandemic.”

According to UCLA’s Wong, women are more likely to bear the responsibilities for caregiving at home — be it children, parents, in-laws, or other family members. They are also more inclined to shoulder most of the responsibilities associated with balancing work and family.

“We need to think about how they can attract and retain folks by creating jobs that will actually support women, support their families and support our economy, rather than keeping people hanging on by a thread,” Vogtman said.

And now that most states are moving to curtail COVID-era unemployment benefits, state and federal laws still allow employers to pay less than $5 an hour to people working for tips, said Vogtman.

Within that segment, “nearly one in five Black women” live in poverty, he said - underscoring how the recovery could leave scores of women — particularly those of color — behind.

Vogtman warned that policymakers and employers should guard against a return “to a status quo that wasn’t working for millions of people well before the pandemic.”

Dani Romero is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @daniromerotv

 

Israel blocks law that keeps out

Palestinian spouses

Tue., July 6, 2021, 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s parliament early on Tuesday failed to renew a law that bars Arab citizens from extending citizenship or residency rights to spouses from the occupied West Bank and Gaza, in a tight vote that raised doubts about the viability of the country’s new coalition government.

The 59-59 vote, which came after an all-night session of the Knesset, marked a major setback for Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

The new Israeli leader, who had hoped to find a compromise between his hard-line Yamina party and the dovish factions in his disparate coalition, instead suffered a stinging defeat in a vote he reportedly described as a referendum on the new government. The vote means the law is now set to expire at midnight Tuesday.

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law was enacted as a temporary measure in 2003, at the height of the second intifada, or uprising, when Palestinians launched scores of deadly attacks inside Israel. Proponents said Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza were susceptible to recruitment by armed groups and that security vetting alone was insufficient.

Under it, Arab citizens, who comprise a fifth of Israel’s population, have had few if any avenues for bringing spouses from the West Bank and Gaza into Israel. Critics, including many left-wing and Arab lawmakers, say it’s a racist measure aimed at restricting the growth of Israel’s Arab minority, while supporters say it’s needed for security purposes and to preserve Israel’s Jewish character.

The law has been renewed annually and appeared to have the support of a large majority in parliament, which is dominated by hard-line nationalist parties. But former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party and his allies decided to oppose it to embarrass Bennett and harm his coalition, which includes a collection of eight parties across the political spectrum, including a small Islamist Arab party.

Interior Minister Minister Ayelet Shaked, a member of Bennett's Yamina party, said the opposition move to block the law's renewal would lead to thousands more applications for citizenship. She accused Netanyahu and his allies of choosing "petty and ugly politics, and let the country burn.”

Amichai Chikli, a renegade member of Yamina who voted with the opposition, said the outcome was a sign of deeper issues.

“Israel needs a functioning Zionist government, and not a mismatched patchwork that is reliant on” the votes of Arab lawmakers, said Chikli. He was the only member of his party to oppose the new coalition-led government last month.

Netanyahu, ousted by the new coalition after 12 years as prime minister, made clear his political goals.

“With all due respect for this law, the importance of toppling the government is greater,” Netanyahu said Monday.

Bennett reportedly proposed a compromise with liberal members of the coalition that would have extended the law by six months while offering residency rights to some 1,600 Arab families, a fraction of those affected. But the measure was defeated, in part because two Arab members of the coalition abstained. The vote exposed the deep divisions and the fragility of the new government.

The decision, however, gave some hope to Arab families that have been affected by the law. The law has created an array of difficulties for thousands of Palestinian families that span the war-drawn and largely invisible frontiers separating Israel from east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories it seized in the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for a future state.

“You want your security, it’s no problem, you can check each case by itself,” said Taiseer Khatib, an Arab citizen of Israel whose wife of more than 15 years, from the West Bank city of Jenin, must regularly apply for permits to live with him and their three children in Israel.

“There’s no need for this collective punishment just because you are Palestinian,” he said during a protest outside the Knesset on Monday ahead of the vote.

The law has been continually renewed even after the uprising wound down in 2005 and the number of attacks plummeted. Today, Israel allows more than 100,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank to enter on a regular basis.

Male spouses over the age of 35 and female spouses over the age of 25, as well as some humanitarian cases, can apply for the equivalent of a tourist permit, which must be regularly renewed. The holders of such permits are ineligible for driver’s licenses, public health insurance and most forms of employment. Palestinian spouses from Gaza have been completely banned since the militant Hamas group seized power there in 2007.

The law does not apply to the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank, who have full Israeli citizenship. Under Israel’s Law of Return, Jews who come to Israel from anywhere in the world are eligible for citizenship.

Israel’s Arab minority has close familial ties to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and largely identifies with their cause. Arab citizens view the law as one of several forms of discrimination they face in a country that legally defines itself as a Jewish nation-state.

Palestinians who are unable to get permits but try to live with their spouses inside Israel are at risk of deportation. Couples that move to the West Bank live under Israeli military occupation.

The citizenship law also applies to Jewish Israelis who marry Palestinians from the territories, but such unions are extremely rare.

Laurie Kellman, The Associated Press

Supercar maker Bugatti taken over by Croatian company Rimac


Mon., July 5, 2021, 

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Croatia’s electric supercar maker, which started in a garage a decade ago, is taking over the iconic French manufacturer Bugatti in a deal that is rorted to be worth millions of euros.

The Croatian car producer Rimac Automobili said Germany’s Volkswagen Group, including the Porsche division — which owns a majority stake in Bugatti — plans to create a new joint venture. The new company will be called Bugatti-Rimac.

Rimac Automobili announced Monday that it will be combining forces with Bugatti to “create a new automotive and technological powerhouse.”

Rimac has progressed in 10 years from a one-man garage startup to a successful company that produces electric supercars. Mate Rimac, who founded the company in 2009, says the venture is an “exciting moment” and calls the combination of the companies “a perfect match for each other.”

Porsche will own 45% of Bugatti-Rimac while Rimac Automobili will hold the remaining 55% stake, according to Croatian media reports. Financial details of the deal were not published.

Bugattis will continue to be assembled in eastern France, where the company was established in 1909. The vehicles will use engines developed and made in Croatia.

“In an industry evolving at ever-increasing speed, flexibility, innovation and sustainability remain at the very core of Rimac’s operations," the company said. “Uniting Rimac’s technical expertise and lean operations with Bugatti’s 110-year heritage of design and engineering prowess represents a fusion of leading automotive minds."

The Associated Press

Report finds extremist right-wing rhetoric in the US is going down a darker path
Alex Henderson, AlterNet
July 03, 2021

Fox News host Tucker Carlson

Because the right-wing media are so competitive, countless pundits are resorting to increasingly over-the-top rhetoric in the hope of juicing their ratings or traffic. The conservative pundits of the 1970s and 1980s — most famously, George Will and the late National Review founder William F. Buckley — were downright tranquil compared to the far-right extremism one finds on Newsmax TV or One America News on a daily basis. And journalist Adam Gabbatt, in an article published by The Guardian this week, reports that critics of this inflammatory rhetoric fear it will lead to violence at a time when political tensions are extremely high in the United States.

According to Gabbatt, "The extremist rhetoric from right-wing news networks and some elected Republicans is 'intensifying,' experts have warned, after a Republican congressman compared Democrats to Nazis and a hard-right news host suggested tens of thousands of Americans should be executed. Right-wing TV personalities, including Fox News' Tucker Carlson, and Republican politicians have seized every opportunity to rail against Democrats and liberals in recent months, with race increasingly coming to the fore."

Gabbatt notes that Fox News' Tucker Carlson has said that Democrats want the U.S. to "become Rwanda," and Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania compared Democrats to Nazis and said, "They are not the loyal opposition…. They want to destroy the country."
Chris Matthews talks to Raw Story: Who would you bet on in 2024, Trump or Kamala?

Gabbatt quotes Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, as saying, "The rhetoric is both intensifying and it's more widespread. It's not like this is the first time right-wing media has had moments or flare-ups of intense or inflammatory rhetoric. But typically, it would have been limited to one show or personality. What happened, especially without (former President Donald) Trump having social platforms, is that it did create this pretty big vacuum."

Carusone continued, "What you've seen is jockeying to get as much of that audience share, but also, influence share. Everyone is kind of scrambling right now to grab as much as they can. That's why they hit as many themes as they possibly can; you're not just going to get more racial inflammatory rhetoric — there's more conspiratorial stuff."

Newsmax TV and OAN are cable news competitors of Fox News, and both of them have been jumping through hoops to show that they are even more right-wing and more pro-Trump than Fox. For example, OAN's Pearson Sharp called for mass executions during a late June broadcast. Making the false and debunked claim that thousands of election officials helped now-President Joe Biden steal the 2020 election, Sharp told OAN viewers, "In the past, America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors: execution."

OAN CEO Robert Herrin has defended Sharp's rhetoric, saying, "He was only telling what could happen if you try to overthrow America.... He gave the laws that would apply."
Report Advertisement

CNN's Brian Stelter has had a lot to say about right-wing media trends on his Sunday program "Reliable Sources." Stelter, Gabbatt notes, recently told the Washington Post, "People want to be lied to, and it's above my head to know what to do about that. What do we do about that, when millions of people want to be lied to every day?"

Belarus jails former presidential contender Babariko for 14 years

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A court in Belarus on Tuesday sentenced former Belarusian presidential contender Viktor Babariko to 14 years in prison on corruption charges, local media and Russian news agencies reported

.

© Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko FILE PHOTO: Presidential challenger Babariko attends a news conference in Minsk

Babariko's team said before the ruling that the charges against their client had been fabricated to thwart his political ambitions.

Babariko, the former head of Belgazprombank, was arrested last June as he was trying to register as a candidate to run against veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko in a presidential vote critics and observers say was massively rigged.

Prosecutors had requested that Babariko, who maintains his innocence, be sentenced to 15 years in jail for his alleged offences.

After Babariko was barred from running and detained, Maria Kolesnikova, one of his allies, joined forces with two other women - Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo - to lead the opposition's campaign.

Kolesnikova is now jailed in Belarus, Tsepkalo has fled abroad, and Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko and has since emerged as the opposition's most prominent figure at liberty, is trying to undermine Lukashenko from neighbouring Lithuania.

Belarusian authorities have cracked down on the anti-government protests that erupted in the wake of the vote, prompting a flurry of Western sanctions against Minsk.

Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, denies electoral fraud.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova/Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Scion of Richest Thai Family Prepares for Bad Debt Bonanza


(Bloomberg) -- Just three months after Thailand threw a $11 billion lifeline to businesses struggling to survive the pandemic, a scion of the nation’s wealthiest business dynasty is betting the bailout won’t be enough to stanch a deluge of distressed assets.

Schwin Chiaravanont -- whose family controls the 100-year-old Charoen Pokphand Group -- is planning to raise $500 million for his flagship private-equity venture 9 Basil, which aims to use most of the new money to step up purchases of distressed assets. The fund is positioning itself to benefit from bad loans soaring from a 16-year high as Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy battles its worst recession since the Asian crisis of the late 1990s.

“Policies around distressed debt management are unsustainable,” Schwin, 29, said in a phone interview last week. “The question is more ‘when’ than ‘if’ there will be a lot of distressed debt that floods the market.”

The grandson of CP Group’s Co-Vice-Chairman Wallop Chiaravanont is doubling down on soured loans when stimulus packages around the world help companies weather the slump and shrink the pool of distressed assets. Even Thai lenders are scaling back sales: Last month, Bangkok Commercial Asset Management Pcl -- the nation’s biggest manager -- said it managed to buy only 500 million baht ($15.6 million) of bad debt this year, well short of its 2021 target of 9 billion baht.

As a slow vaccination drive, more virulent coronavirus strains and clusters of outbreaks hinder plans to throw open the $544 billion economy, Schwin is betting on delays to a quick recovery from the devastation. Countless factories, hotels, restaurants and retailers have shut down. Non-performing loans at all Thai lenders jumped 15% since end-2019 to 537 billion baht, the most since 2005, according to Bank of Thailand data.

Asset quality outlook across banks in most Southeast Asian markets will remain clouded into 2022, as extended loan relief plans are likely to keep credit costs high in the near term, Fitch Ratings said June 25. The normalization of credit costs may take longer in markets where relief has been extensive but economic outlooks remain under pressure, such as in Malaysia and Thailand, Fitch said.

While Rathanon Fookiat, a manager at Bangkok Commercial Asset Management, has echoed Schwin’s views on the likelihood of more distressed assets coming to market, he warned investors against haste.

“The current economic crisis will increase the supply of distressed loans and assets being offered for sale by banks,” Rathanon said last month. “Still, there must be some caution in rushing to buy those assets, because prices may fall further with possible worsening of the pandemic.”

9 Basil more than doubled its asset value by betting on rural-focused micro-lender Ngern Tid Lor Pcl, which raised 33 billion baht in April in an initial public offering, Schwin said. The fund now holds 5% of the company, he said, whose current market value is about $2.9 billion.

Most of the new money raised by 9 Basil will be used to boost the holdings of distressed-asset manager Alpha Capital Asset Management Co., in which 9 Basil owns 49%, he said. Alpha Capital is planning a listing next year.

Red Ocean

“The distressed asset industry is a red ocean and would be hard for any newcomer,” said Bunyong Visatemongkolchai, executive chairman of Bangkok Commercial Asset Management. “Competition is very intense. You have to bid at high prices, while risks to recovering debt or selling those assets are very high too.”

After graduating with a master’s degree in business from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014, Schwin worked in his family office before venturing into two startups that later failed. His family fortune is estimated at $32 billion, according to a Bloomberg News report in November.

Though a novice in distressed-asset management -- a career move to step out of the shadow of his clan’s business empire -- Schwin said he would be drawing from the experiences of his own family back in the 1990s. During the Asian financial crisis, the CP Group had to divest some parts at fire-sale prices to stay afloat. While it survived -- and has thrived since -- many other Thai businesses and banks collapsed.

“Management of distressed assets is one sector that’s done very well in most business cycles,” Schwin said. “Despite the slowdown last year due to political pressure, we’ve more than doubled our portfolio size over the last 12 months through new portfolio acquisitions and secondary portfolio acquisitions.”

Many small and medium-sized enterprises, the backbone of Thailand’s economy, are struggling with crushing debt loads that could force them out of business, according to the Federation of Thai SME. Bank loans to smaller businesses total 3.5 trillion baht, including 240 billion baht that are nonperforming. Another 440 billion baht are rated scarcely higher and may turn bad by the end of the year if the economy doesn’t improve, according to the federation.

(Adds SME bad loan situation in last paragraph.)

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Austria's former far-right leader on trial for corruption
AFP 

Austria's former vice-chancellor and longtime leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) stands trial for alleged corruption on Tuesday, in a case linked to a scandal that brought down the government.

© ALEX HALADA The trial concerns charges that Heinz-Christian Strache helped to change a law for an FPOe donor when he was in a coalition government

One of Europe's most high-profile far-right leaders, Heinz-Christian Strache was forced to resign as vice-chancellor in 2019 after the publication of a video that showed him offering public contracts in return for electoral campaign support from a woman posing as a Russian investor.

The scandal, dubbed "Ibiza-gate" as the video was secretly filmed on the Spanish party island, spawned a sweeping corruption investigation which uncovered several different accusations of wrongdoing.

Tuesday's trial concerns charges that Strache helped change a law for an FPOe donor when he was in a coalition government with the centre-right People's Party (OeVP) of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

The donor, Walter Grubmueller, owns a private clinic in Vienna and told a parliamentary committee that he had invited Strache aboard his yacht and on a vacation at his holiday home on the Greek island of Corfu in 2016.

While negotiating the coalition agreement with the OeVP, Strache directly asked the clinic owner "which amendment to the law" he would need for his "clinic to finally be treated in a fair manner", according to chat messages uncovered in the investigation and which were later leaked to the media.

In the messages, the donor also reportedly said that he'd deliver a draft law to the FPOe's party headquarters.

After Strache took office in 2017, the far-right took charge of the health ministry and went on to oversee a change in the law that widened the category of establishments that were eligible for public funding.

According to expert estimates, this means clinics like Grubmueller's were allowed to apply for as much as 2.2 million euros (US$ 2.6 million) in funding in 2019 alone.

Grubmueller has also been charged, but denies any wrongdoing or that he profited from the amendment.

When contacted by AFP last week, Strache's lawyer Johann Pauer said: "Neither my client nor I will make a statement before or during active proceedings."

- Far-right infighting -

When the "Ibiza-gate" footage emerged in 2019, the coalition between the FPOe and the People's Party collapsed.

In the video, Strache claimed that several high-profile billionaires and international gambling company Novomatic had been funding political parties through off-the-books donations to associations, some owned by high-ranking OeVP politicians.

All those named by Strache deny any wrongdoing.

The claims triggered an array of investigations, including a probe into the appointment of Thomas Schmid -- a civil servant and Kurz ally -- as head of the Austrian state holding company OeBAG.

Kurz told a parliamentary committee that he had no hand in the appointment, but leaked chat messages have suggested otherwise.

Prosecutors have now put him under investigation for the possible offence of making false statements to the committee.

Kurz, who returned as Chancellor after a snap 2019 election, denies the allegation.

But if he is indicted, he faces going on trial for an offence which can be punished by a prison sentence of up to three years.

Strache was at the helm of the FPOe for 14 years before having to resign in disgrace when the scandal erupted.

Since then he has also been accused of embezzling party funds to pay for his luxurious lifestyle.

The revelations disillusioned many of the party's voters, and the FPOe slumped from 26 percent of the vote in the 2017 general election to just 16 percent in 2019.

Last year Strache attempted a comeback in Vienna municipal politics with a bid for mayor, but his list gained just three percent of the vote.

The FPOe has spent much of the time since the scandal consumed by infighting.

Last month Strache's successor as leader, Norbert Hofer, resigned after weeks of tension with party colleague and former Interior Minister Herbert Kickl.

Kickl, seen as a party ideologue and mastermind of some of its anti-Islam and anti-migrant campaigns, swiftly took over as leader.

deh/jsk/mbx

The next insurrection: They don't have the votes, but they've got the guns
Lucian K. Truscott IV, Salon
July 03, 2021




Pro-Trump protesters trying to enter Capitol building. (lev radin / Shutterstock.com)

You want to know what has doomed Nancy Pelosi's attempts to get a bipartisan agreement to investigate the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6? Every time she has talked about why we need a bipartisan commission or the select committee, she said they were necessary "so nothing like this will ever happen again."

This article first appeared in Salon.

Republicans aren't against investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection because they fear it will make them look bad. They're against doing anything to make sure that such an insurrection doesn't happen again.

The assault on the Capitol is already damaging to the Republican Party image, at least to outsiders. The Capitol was attacked by a violent mob of Trump supporters. It's doubtful there were any Democrats among them. The assault took place immediately after a Trump rally on the Ellipse and was incited by the then-president. Several Republican members of Congress joined Trump in addressing the crowd, along with other famous party stalwarts like Rudy Giuliani. It was a Republican rally with a Republican crowd. So was the mob at the Capitol.

Republican members of Congress know it was their supporters out there beating down the doors of the Capitol, ransacking the well of the Senate and looting congressional offices. Republicans don't want to investigate the violence at the Capitol because they want to leave the door open for it to happen again.

Most of them come from safe seats in Republican-majority congressional districts, many of them in Republican-controlled states. Republican senators, not all of them but most, come from Republican states in the South and Midwest. But every one of them can read census numbers, and every one of them understands that their days are numbered, even in states that have been Republican strongholds for decades, like Arizona and Texas. They saw the Election Day returns which showed previously Republican suburbs falling to the Democrats all over the country. They read the depressing voting numbers for millennials and younger voters that show them strongly leaning Democratic. Even a dull, lumbering beast like the Republican Party can tell when a water hole runs dry.

They can read the polls showing how popular Democratic issues are, including improved access to health care, the pandemic rescue bill, the infrastructure bill and the American Family Plan. How many calls have you heard Republicans make lately for repealing Obamacare? How many speeches have you heard them make saying we don't need to spend money on crumbling bridges, obsolete airports and ancient, failing mass transit like the Long Island Railroad or the Chicago Transit Authority or the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority? They don't dare oppose spending that is in any way grounded in reality. All they can come up with is screaming about "socialism" and "Democratic Party wish-lists," because their constituents drive across cracking bridges and commute on failing transit systems and pay a third of their income on rent and a third on child care and way more than they can afford on health care.

Electorally, Republicans are hanging on by their fingernails. In 2020, in the midst of the worst pandemic since 1918, before a single American had received a life-saving vaccination, with 230,000 already dead from the coronavirus and more deaths on the way, voters turned out in record numbers. And Republicans lost. They lost the White House. They lost the House of Representatives. After a runoff election, they lost control of the Senate. They did well locally in Republican-controlled states, maintaining control of state houses and governorships, but they lost ground in the areas where the country is growing. They lost the big cities. They lost the suburbs. They lost in population centers in the South and Midwest and West. They lost in the places where people are moving, where young people are getting jobs when they graduate from college, where many seniors are choosing to retire.

After the 2020 election, Gallup found in a December poll that 31 percent of Americans identified as Democrats, 25 percent as Republicans and 41 percent as independents. When independents were asked whether they were "Democratic leaners" or "Republican leaners," 50 percent said they leaned Democratic, and 39 percent leaned Republican. These were not good numbers for the Republican Party. Nobody knows better than Republicans that there are fewer of them than there are of us.

You've heard chapter and verse from me and others about how Republicans are passing voter suppression laws to make it more difficult for Democrats to vote. They know they don't have the votes. They don't have them now, and they'll have even fewer of them in the future.

That's why they've started to concentrate their efforts at the state level on laws that change how votes are counted and who counts them, moving the center of power from elected officials like secretaries of state and appointed officials like election administrators to state legislatures, inherently political bodies where the counting can be managed and controlled politically.

It's why they're clinging to Trump's lie that the election was stolen from him, and it's why their own efforts to "audit" the 2020 election results in places like Arizona are so shambolic and absurd. They know that if honest assessments are done of how the election turned out in battleground states, they will come to the same conclusions that a 55-page report by the Michigan state Senate did last week: There was no election fraud in the 2020 election. None. Zero. Nada.

They've been downplaying the assault on the Capitol, calling it "a normal tourist visit" as Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia did during a hearing a few weeks ago. He is among a growing number of Republicans in Congress who are making the case that nothing really bad happened on Jan. 6, so there's no need to investigate it. They blocked the creation of a nonpartisan 9/11 style commission to investigate the insurrection, and they're in the process of undercutting Pelosi's select committee by labeling it as a Democratic exercise in blame-laying.

Furthermore, they're absolutely right. When the select committee issues its report, it's going to lay the blame where Republicans want it least: on Trump for inciting the riot, and on their own constituents for committing insurrection against the government. And the select committee will likely produce evidence that Republicans are not interested in seeing in the light of day: detailed accounts of the violence committed by the mob and reports of the preparations some of the mob had taken that we haven't seen yet, such as evidence of weapons caches — and planning by some insurrectionists to use them.

Republicans don't want a report that basically comes out and says, Here's how close we came to a coup against our government, and here is what they are planning next. Laws that put partisan political bodies like legislatures in charge of counting votes make it much more likely that an upcoming election will end up in a political wrangle — not down in the states where the counting takes place, but in Washington.

Think about it: there were no controls whatsoever on that mob in Washington on Jan. 6. Estimates of the size of the crowd at Trump's rally on the Ellipse ran as high as 30,000. More than 800 rioters are estimated to have broken through police barricades and entered the Capitol, with as many as 10,000 outside. They outnumbered police by the thousands.

What if that crowd had been armed? What if instead of carrying iron pipes and bear spray and flag poles they had been carrying AR-15s and pistols? What if some of them were carrying the kinds of bombs that were found outside the Democratic and Republican headquarters? Capitol police couldn't stop them from overwhelming barricades and gaining entrance to the Capitol. Do you think they could have searched that mob for hidden weapons and bombs?

This is why Republicans don't want to see an intensive investigation of the insurrection on Jan. 6. If an investigation proves how bad the insurrection was this time, it might predict what will be possible if a mob of 100,000 or more assault the Capitol or other governmental buildings in Washington, and what that mob might be capable of if they're organized and armed next time.

The Republican Party has reached the point where it does not recognize the legitimacy of elections unless it wins them. Democratic political victories are per se illegitimate in Republican eyes. Republicans are lapping up their own lawlessness and ramping up the insanity. They are turning right-wing lunatics like Kyle Rittenhouse into folk heroes. He is the shooter in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who killed two people and wounded a third during Black Lives Matter protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Republican state legislatures in Oklahoma and Iowa have passed laws granting immunity to drivers who hit protesters with their cars during demonstrations on public streets. Multiple states already have laws allowing both open and concealed carry of firearms without a license, with more such laws on the way.

These are the kinds of laws that not only allow insurrection, but encourage it. The Proud Boys and the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers and their ilk aren't the right's political fringe anymore. They are the Republican base — and the Republican future.

EXPLAINER: 

Why China is investigating tech firms like Didi


HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese regulators have clamped down on the country’s largest ride-hailing app, Didi Global Inc., days after its shares began trading in New York. Authorities told Didi to stop new registrations and ordered its app removed from China’s app stores pending a cybersecurity review. The government said it was acting to prevent security risks and protect the public interest. Didi is the latest company to face intensified scrutiny in a crackdown on some of China’s biggest technology giants.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

WHAT IS DIDI?

China’s Didi Global Inc. is one of the world’s largest ride-hailing apps. Three-quarters of its 493 million annual active users are in China. Beijing-based Didi operates in 14 other countries including Brazil and Mexico.

Years ago, Didi and Uber competed in China. In 2016, after a two-year price war, Didi bought Uber’s China operations.

Didi raised $4.4 billion in a June 30 initial public offering in New York. The company has a market capitalization of about $74.5 billion.

WHY DIDI IS IN TROUBLE

China’s cyberspace watchdog said it suspects Didi was involved in illegal collection and use of personal data. It did not cite any specific violations.

The state-owned newspaper Global Times said in an editorial Monday that Didi has the “most detailed personal travel information” of users among all large technology firms. It said the company could conduct big data analysis of users' habits and behavior, posing a potential risk for individuals.

THE WIDER CONTEXT

It's unclear if there are other reasons the Chinese government might be focusing on Didi. Officials have expressed growing concern about use of user data by large technology companies.

China’s Cyberspace Administration announced Monday that it was also launching cybersecurity reviews of truck logistics platforms Huochebang and Yunmanman, and online recruitment platform Boss Zhipin. Registrations of new users were halted pending those reviews.

Full Truck Alliance, which operates the Huochebang and Yunmanman platforms, and Kanzhun Ltd., which runs Boss Zhipin, also recently listed shares in the U.S.



Video: China Widens Probe Beyond Didi, Roiling Global Investors (Bloomberg)


A sweeping Data Security Law enacted in June requires companies and individuals to get approval from relevant authorities to transfer any data stored in China to overseas entities, such as law enforcement agencies. The law takes effect Sept. 1.

Violators can be fined between 2 million to 10 million yuan (about $310,000-$1.5 million) and could have their business suspended.

WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON?

China's Communist Party leaders are uneasy with the growing influence of big technology firms. Key issues are monopolistic practices and handling of user data.

Until recently, tech firms operated in a regulatory gray zone, with relative freedom to create their business models, demand merchants and vendors sign exclusive contracts with their platforms and collect user data to better understand their customers.

After China introduced health monitoring and quarantine apps during the pandemic, it became clear that tech companies like e-commerce giant Alibaba and gaming company Tencent controlled huge amounts of data, said Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai.

“I think it was in the last year and a half that you can start to see just how much power these technology companies have,” said Rein.

Alibaba Group Holding recently was fined a record $2.8 billion over antitrust violations. Other big tech companies have been fined or investigated for alleged anti-competitive behavior and lapses in financial disclosure.

“Two years ago Chinese consumers didn’t care, they thought the convenience of apps outweighed any negative benefits,” Rein said. “But now Chinese people are quite concerned about data privacy, because Alibaba and Tencent have so much data – even more data than the government.”

Rein believes stricter oversight of the technology industry will make it more sustainable, with fairer competition that will benefit consumers.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT ON DIDI?

Didi said in a statement that having its app removed “may have an adverse impact on its revenue in China.“

It promised to fix any problems, “protect users’ privacy and data security, and continue to provide secure and convenient services to its users.”

The app can no longer be downloaded in China, although those who already downloaded and installed the app can still use it, Didi said.

Didi's stock price sank 5.3% on Friday after the cybersecurity review was announced.

Zen Soo, The Associated Press

How the Reagan Revolution collapsed America and the Florida condo

Thom Hartmann
July 02, 2021

Ronald Reagan painting (Edalisse Hirst/Flickr)


The collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Florida, the deterioration of infrastructure all across America, and our failure to plan for or respond to the threat of climate change all have the same source: greed. And it's killing us.

This article was originally published at The Hartmann Report

Prior to the 1980s, Americans understood the need to keep a healthy cash-flow going or set aside reserves to cover the future cost of maintaining things. We had a top personal federal income tax bracket on the morbidly rich of around 74% and an almost-50% top corporate income tax bracket for those corporations that were essentially money machines.

As a result, infrastructure dating all the way back to the transcontinental railroad system built during the administration of Abraham Lincoln were well-maintained and reliable. Roads, schools and hospitals were shiny-new and state-of-the-art; even the older buildings constructed during and before FDR's New Deal were well-maintained. And, although we hadn't yet heard of the need to concern ourselves with climate change, our government was able to fund itself to deal with crises.

When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, for example, the US budget deficit stood at a mere $908 billion; we funded things with taxes and mostly maintained a necessary national debt so savers and federal and state agencies would have a safe place to park cash in treasuries.

And we understood that investing in America produced great returns on that investment. When World War II ended and our national debt was 119% of GDP (about where it is now), President Dwight Eisenhower borrowed even more money to build the interstate highway system, which produced such an explosion of economic activity that the added tax revenues paid down the national debt to 60% of GDP by the end of his presidency.

Similarly, the GI Bill that gave 7.8 million mostly young men free college and low-interest home loans proved a fabulous investment.

Since college graduates make so much more than people who only have a high-school education, and higher-income people pay higher tax rates, every $1 invested in the educational part of the GI Bill during its life from 1944 to 1956 produced an additional $7 dollars in tax revenue to our government over the lifetime of those now-well-educated veterans.

Condos have a slightly more checkered history, but it parallels the mentality of the "greed is good" Reagan Revolution. While the idea of condominiums goes back to the 19th century, the first modern condo built in America was Graystone Manor in Utah in 1960.

When a developer builds and then sells condo units, there are two parts to the selling price that buyers take into consideration: the sale price and the HOA (Home-Owners Association) fee. That fee covers maintenance and operation of the condo, from painting and landscaping to replacing carpeting to fixing leaky pipes, and is typically a few hundred dollars a month.

From a buyer's point of view, the monthly HOA fee is mentally added to the monthly mortgage payment to determine how much they can afford to borrow to buy the condo. Thus, the lower the HOA fee, the higher the mortgage the buyer can afford and the higher the initial price the developer can charge — money that the developer walks away with.

Therefore, for most of the 80 years developers have been selling condos, they've ignored long-term maintenance costs when calculating HOA fees to keep them low, making the sale of the condos more profitable to the developer. And, for similar reasons, HOA boards are often reluctant to raise monthly fees to build a reserve for future major maintenance projects because it lowers their own resale values.

The problem comes 20, 30 or 40 years down the road when the condo needs a new roof or major repairs and there's nothing in the reserves to pay for it. Which is why the residents of Champlain Towers South were, just in the past few months, hit with an $80,000-per-unit one-time assessment to pay for the structural deterioration the 2018 survey found.

The developer walks away with the initial cash, previous homeowners got a free ride, and people who bought-in during later years get hit with the costs of major repairs, particularly when HOA boards choose to run the condo with no consideration of the future like Republicans have run the country since 1981.

Which is pretty much the same thing that Reaganomics brought us with the entire nation. The billionaires who owned Reagan didn't want to continue paying a 74% top tax rate, so they got him and Congress to drop that top rate all the way down to 25%.

To deal with the loss of revenue, we essentially stopped maintaining the country while Reagan and the first President Bush subsidized the wealthy by more than tripling the national debt to $2.6 trillion in their 12 years.

Which is why today our rail system can't support a fast train, our water systems are polluted and unreliable, our schools and bridges are collapsing, and our electric grid can't handle a winter storm or summer heat in Texas.

Meanwhile, the billionaires of the fossil fuel industry have known for over 50 years that their product would produce a global climate emergency that would cost trillions (indeed, has already cost America trillions).

Instead of planning to shift to green power over time, though, they funded a multi-decade national campaign to lie about global warming so they could keep churning their profits, leaving future generations — and us, now — to deal with the costs and consequences, including millions of annual deaths worldwide.

Several states have changed their condo rules to either require (Florida has not) or "recommend" that developers write HOA rules that require a reserve fund for future major repairs, although enforcement is rare and these rules simply don't apply for substantial long-term needs in most states. (Hopefully the Champlain Towers South experience will cause some states to wake up and change these laws and rules.)

Similarly, some states (almost exclusively Blue States) have raised state taxes enough over the years to be able to continue to repair and rebuild their states' infrastructure, given that the federal government has largely abdicated that responsibility ever since 1981's Reagan Revolution.

Red states, with their infamously low taxes, have become sacrifice zones when it comes to infrastructure and, ironically, will benefit the most from President Biden's infrastructure proposals.

Looking forward, condo developers should be required to set HOA fees high enough to build long-term reserves, our nation and the world need a carbon tax on the fossil fuel industry, and federal and red-state governments have to raise taxes on wealthy people and corporations back to pre-1981 levels to cover improvements and long-term maintenance.

If we fail to reverse the Reagan Revolution and again plan/build for the future, this 40-year con by wealthy developers, fossil fuel companies, and morbidly rich billionaires who'd rather shoot themselves into space than pay their taxes will continue.

And more people will die.

With ‘Lovecraft Country’ Canceled at HBO, Misha Green Teases Her Big Season 2 Pitch

After HBO confirmed it will not continue the fantasy-adventure series, the showrunner posted part of the plan for what could've been.

Ben Travers
Jul 3, 2021 
@BenTTravers



Erica Tazel and Jonathan Majors in “Lovecraft Country”

Eli Joshua Ade / HBO


Despite strong reviews and Emmy nominations on the horizon, HBO confirmed late Friday, July 2, that the network would not be renewing “Lovecraft Country” for Season 2.

“We will not be moving forward with a second season of ‘Lovecraft Country,'” HBO confirmed in a statement. “We are grateful for the dedication and artistry of the gifted cast and crew, and to Misha Green, who crafted this groundbreaking series. And to the fans, thank you for joining us on this journey.”

Given how long it took for the news to break (“Lovecraft Country” aired its finale in October 2020), the cancellation isn’t a complete surprise, though it also wasn’t a sure thing. On one hand, the first season covered most of the source material in Matt Ruff’s novel of the same name, while featuring multiple deaths of significant characters.

“Lovecraft Country” focused on Atticus Black (Jonathan Majors), who embarks on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. In Season 1, he was joined by Leti (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance), but [spoiler alert] Atticus and Uncle George did not survive Season 1. The fantasy-horror series is filled with magic, so the characters could have returned despite their apparent demise, but if not, HBO may have been less interested in a follow-up season without two of its top-billed stars

Still, unlike other one-and-done book adaptations like “Big Little Lies,” “Lovecraft Country” was always intended to continue, as evidenced by the multiple storylines left open in the finale, multiple interviews about plans for a second season, and one tweet sent out by showrunner Misha Green post-cancellation, teasing a sweeping expansion.

Featuring a screenshot of the Season 2 Bible, the writing near the top states that Season 2 “begins in a new world, and that the new world is a country that sits precisely where The United States used to sit — welcome to the ‘Sovereign States of America.'”

Beneath, there’s a map showing a map of the U.S. divided into new regions, including the Tribal Nations of the West, the Whitelands, the New Negro Republic, and the Jefferson Commonwealth.

The new season would’ve included a subtitle, making it “Lovecraft Country: Supremacy.”

Green posted the first page of the Bible on Friday, before publishing a clarifying tweet about The Whitelands on Saturday afternoon.

The new screenshot from another section of the Season 2 Bible states that the Whitelands territory is “completely overrun by zombies — most of them the slower variety, but with pockets of fast-moving zombies, too.” Zombies, which did not appear in Season 1, were an unintended effect of “The Origin” spell and were eventually corralled into one location in the center of America after a unified effort by the three other territories.

No other details have yet to emerge, nor is it clear if the series could be revived at another network. The visual effects and period setting make it a costly show to produce, and it’s unclear how long the existing cast will remain under contract. Emmy nominations will be announced Tuesday, July 13. “Lovecraft Country” received continued support during voting season, including an official FYC event at the Television Academy in mid-May.

“Lovecraft Country” is streaming now on HBO Max.

HK leader says 'ideologies' pose security risk, teenagers need to be monitored

By Sharon Abratique and Jessie Pang

© Reuters/TYRONE SIU FILE PHOTO: Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam attends a news conference in Hong Kong

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Tuesday "ideologies" posed risks to national security and urged parents, teachers and religious leaders to observe the behaviour of teenagers and report those who break the law to the authorities.

The financial hub has taken a swift authoritarian turn since China's imposition of a sweeping national security law last year and changes to its political system to reduce democratic participation and oust people deemed disloyal to Beijing.

At her weekly news conference, Lam expressed dismay at some residents mourning the death of a 50-year-old who stabbed a policeman before killing himself on July 1, the anniversary of the former British colony's return to Chinese rule and the Chinese Communist Party's centenary.

"For a long time, citizens have been exposed to wrong ideas, such as achieving justice through illegal means," Lam told reporters, adding that national security risks stemmed not only from "public order" acts, but also from ideology.

About an hour after Lam spoke, police said they had arrested nine people, including six secondary students, on suspicion of terrorist activities.

Police said they seized triacetone triperoxide (TATP) in a hostel room they described as a laboratory for bomb-making equipment to deploy at a cross-harbour tunnel, railways, court rooms and rubbish bins.

The city has been polarised since protesters took to the streets in 2019 demanding greater democracy and accountability for what activists called police violence. Authorities have said the protests were fuelled by foreign forces and exposed risks to national security.

Since the security law was introduced, the most prominent government opponents have been jailed or fled abroad. Critics say the legislation has crushed the city's wide-ranging rights and freedoms, while supporters say it has restored stability.

Government departments "shouldn’t allow illegal ideas to filter through to the public through education, broadcasting, arts and culture, beautifying violence and clouding the conscience of the public," Lam said.

"I also call on parents, principals, teachers, and even pastors to observe acts of teenagers around them. If some teens are found to be committing illegal acts, they must be reported."

Police and security officials said the stabbing of the 28-year-old policeman was a "terrorist," lone-wolf attack, based on unspecified materials found on the attacker's computer.

People went to the scene of the attack on Friday, some with children, to pay their respects to the attacker and lay flowers, drawing condemnation from Lam and other officials.

Lam said residents should not be deceived by messages circulating online suggesting the government had any responsibility for the violence, or by slogans such as "there's no violence, only tyranny."

"Do not look for excuses on behalf of the violent," Lam said.

(Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Stephen Coates)