Once Again China’s Pig Farmers Are Mired in Boom-Bust Cycle

Bloomberg News
Sun, June 12, 2022



(Bloomberg) -- Once every three to four years, hog farmers in the world’s largest producing country find themselves trapped in an unforgiving market that pushes some over-leveraged breeders to the brink of a debt crisis.

Jiangxi Zhengbang Technology Co., the second-largest hog supplier among Chinese listed companies in 2020, just reported 542 million yuan ($81 million) of overdue commercial bills, becoming the latest producer to show the financial stress of the boom-bust cycle. The nonpayment comes after it lost about three billion dollars since the start of last year as local hog prices halved.

“Zhengbang expanded its capacity too aggressively at the wrong time and found it hard to manage the situation when hog prices tumbled,” said Lin Guofa, head of research at consultancy Bric Agriculture Group.

With pork the most popular protein on Chinese tables, hog breeding can be very profitable with gross margins rising above 30% for some producers when there’s a shortage, driving farmers to expand capacity despite soaring costs. Still, even for the top producers, it’s not always easy to follow the right beat.

China’s top five listed hog breeders recorded more than 39 billion yuan of net losses last year alone. Zhengbang represented just under half of that, while Wens Foodstuffs Group contributed about a third. Other companies that posted losses included Tech-Bank Food Co. and New Hope Liuhe Co.

Tight liquidity is a common challenge in the industry. In Zhengbang’s case, a 1.6 billion yuan convertible bond maturing in 2026 is facing requests for early redemption this week. In addition, Tech-Bank Food told investors at the end of April that it was negotiating with a key supplier to delay some payments and that the top priority will be ensuring secure capital flows.

Zhengbang Technology sold about 5.5 million hogs back in 2018, when a long price slump hurt breeders, leading Chuying Agro-Pastoral Group for instance to default and offer to pay bondholders with ham. Chuying was eventually delisted from the stock market and its bondholders are yet to get their money back.

Just three years later, Zhengbang had almost tripled its output capacity to 15 million hogs with total assets doubling after the company built and leased more farms and increased the amount of livestock it was breeding.

Share Slump

Still, the expansion didn’t bring the intended good fortune, only trouble. The boom in hog prices after African swine fever devastated herds faded earlier than farmers expected. Zhengbang not only had to grapple with declining revenue, but it also booked losses from asset and inventory depreciation.

Zhengbang Technology’s shares slumped to the lowest intraday level since 2018 on Friday, but have since recovered some poise. The company did not reply to a Bloomberg email seeking comment on its debt issue.

In December, Zhengbang signed a debt-to-equity swap with the Jiangxi branch of China Cinda Asset Management Co., a leading distressed debt manager. And three months ago, a key Jiangxi state-owned company agreed to provide 5 billion yuan of financial support to Zhengbang Technology’s parent.

Despite those efforts, the company still had 40.7 billion yuan of liabilities on its balance sheet at the end of March, only just covered by its total assets, according to its financial report. While hog prices are now recovering, offering a chink of light, the future may hinge on whether it can obtain more cash from asset disposals and receive timely government support.

“Don’t be obsessed with pig prices and gamble over them,” said Lin from the Bric consultancy. “Focus on how to raise pigs more scientifically, on how to cut costs and optimize management. That’s the way to live through the cycle.”

(Updates to add industry liquidity concerns from sixth paragraph)

‘The IMF is evil’: Rich countries take aim at nations adopting crypto


Salvador Melendez/AP Photo

Ben Schreckinger
Mon, June 13, 2022

When Argentina’s central bank issued a de facto ban on trading digital assets, enraged cryptocurrency investors quickly fingered a culprit: As part of a bailout negotiation with the International Monetary Fund, the South American nation had recently promised to crack down on cryptocurrencies.

“The IMF is evil,” was one typical Twitter response to last month’s move, punctuated with an emoji of an extended middle finger.

Across four continents, tensions over the future of money have mounted in recent weeks. As Western investors and developing world leaders pursue new initiatives that encourage countries to adopt Bitcoin as an official currency — and the Central African Republic joins El Salvador in doing so — the stewards of the global financial system are increasingly pushing back.

At stake is whether the issuance and flow of money will be dominated by the central banks of the developed world or the rules coded into a new kind of software program invented 13 years ago.

Officials from the U.S., IMF, World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements argue that by adopting cryptocurrencies, nations could facilitate money laundering and undermine capital controls, while exposing their citizens to severe price volatility.

Dong He, Deputy Director of the IMF's Monetary and Capital Markets Department, said the prospect of a sudden drop in the price of Bitcoin — which has lost more than half its value since November — made it unsuitable as a national currency.

“What would happen to the tax revenue? What would happen to your obligations to spend on social services?” said He, who declined to address the anti-crypto provisions in Argentina’s letter to the fund. “This is a very risky proposition.”

Activists and investors who support such experiments argue that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin offer an escape from rapidly inflating currencies in places like Argentina and Nigeria, while allowing poor countries to explore alternatives to a global financial framework that was designed to benefit rich countries.

They contend that the reservations of the world’s monetary stewards have less to do with protecting the well-being of citizens of the developing world than with preserving a system in which the central banks and governments of rich countries dominate the global monetary system.

“Bitcoin stands against everything the IMF stands for,” said Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer of the Human Rights Foundation, an NGO that supports Bitcoin adoption. “It’s an outside money that’s beyond the control of these alphabet soup organizations.”

This spring, the scope of the long-simmering conflict has broadened, even as a steep fall in Bitcoin’s price has highlighted the risks of such experiments.

In April, the Central African Republic passed a law making it the second country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a legal currency. The move has drawn opposition from the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the regional central bank that oversees the country’s existing currency, the central African CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro as part of a system overseen by France.

That body, the Bank of Central African States, has called on the Central African Republic to undo its Bitcoin law. It has also cracked down on cryptocurrency generally, issuing new rules that force financial institutions within its remit to cut ties with payments platforms that use the digital currencies.

But the small country has plowed ahead with its initiative, announcing plans to build a “Crypto Island” to attract international investment.

Meanwhile, in the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a currency, El Salvador, the initiative continues to exacerbate a broader rift with Western powers that has opened under the leadership its popular, autocratic president, Nayib Bukele.

In November, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in San Salvador, Jean Manes, said that the U.S. had put its relations with El Salvador on “pause,” citing anti-American rhetoric from the Bukele regime and a power grab that saw the dismissal of an attorney general and supreme court justices.

As Bukele has continued his authoritarian turn, the Bitcoin project has become a symbol of his defiance of international institutions.

In a statement provided by a spokesman, the State Department did not address a query about El Salvador specifically but urged caution on countries pursuing cryptocurrency adoption.

“We share the concerns expressed publicly by the IMF, the World Bank, and others that adopting a cryptocurrency as a legal tender raises a host of potential complications,” said the statement, which called on countries to comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism standards when experimenting with cryptocurrencies. The statement also acknowledged the use of cryptocurrencies by human rights activists to evade financial controls in repressive regimes and its role in facilitating financial assistance to Ukraine.

A bipartisan duo of senators has lodged a more pointed response to El Salvador’s experiment. In February, citing concerns over sanctions evasion, Senate foreign relations chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and ranking member Jim Risch (R-Idaho) introduced a bill, which remains under consideration, that would require the State Department to complete a report on the impact of the county’s Bitcoin law on the U.S. financial system.

But Bukele and the Bitcoin investors urging him on remain undeterred by the pushback.

In April, Samson Mow, a Canadian entrepreneur involved in El Salvador’s experiment, announced that he had raised $21 million to fund a new company — called JAN3, in honor of the date of Bitcoin’s launch — with the goal of bringing about “hyperbitcoinization,” or the replacement of existing national currencies with Bitcoin. Mow did not respond to requests for comment.

A few weeks later, Bukele used a pre-scheduled gathering of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion — a group of dozens of central banks and other policymaking bodies from the non-Western world — in San Salvador to showcase the country’s Bitcoin experiment and urge other nations to follow suit.

The Alliance for Financial Inclusion did not respond to requests for comment, though a press release on its website hints at the sensitive nature of the subject. The release announces that during the May gathering, members of the group visited El Zonte, a coastal area south of the capital that has earned the nickname “Bitcoin Beach,” to learn about the uses of cryptocurrency. But the release also recites a long list of concerns, like money laundering, that echoes the warnings of Western powers, and states, “adoption is not a possibility in the majority of countries.”

Undeterred by the setbacks that have marred the early phases of his own experiment, Bukele cast the gathering in a more momentous light. On Twitter, he bragged that it had brought together 44 nations. That would be same number the U.S. convened to overhaul global financial system at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944.

Bukele’s posture is especially audacious because of his country’s precarious financial situation. Since last year, it has been seeking a $1.3 billion loan from the IMF, which in turn has called on El Salvador to strip Bitcoin of its legal tender status. Last month, the ratings agency Moody's downgraded the country’s sovereign debt as risk grew of a default. Such financial stress often forces countries to seek help from the IMF, but El Salvador’s experiment poses a potential obstacle.

“This is an incredible gamble with a nation’s money, and you can't at the same time come to the IMF and say, ‘We need your support,’” said Josh Lipsky, director of the Geoeconomics Center at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. “You can do one, but you can’t do both.”

Even some of the world’s most outspoken Bitcoin advocates worry that the rush to make Bitcoin serve as a national currency could backfire. In recent years, Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor has become a face of the Bitcoin phenomenon after buying billions of dollars worth of it for the treasury of his publicly traded software company. In April, he met with Argentina’s former president Mauricio Macri, to talk about the cryptocurrency.

In an interview, Saylor said national leaders who wanted to encourage adoption would face less blowback if they promote it as a vehicle for savings, rather than as a substitute for existing currencies.

“I wouldn’t try to change my medium of exchange. I would try to introduce Bitcoin as a store of value,” he said, calling the latter approach “a better evolutionary strategy that’s less likely to ruffle feathers.”

At a national level, the adoption of cryptocurrency has been most attractive to countries that lack their own sovereign currencies or suffer from runaway inflation.

El Salvador gave up its sovereign currency, the colón, in 2000, and adopted the U.S. dollar, losing its ability to pursue independent monetary policy in the process.

In February 2018, the Marshall Islands, a tiny republic in the equatorial Pacific that uses the U.S. dollar, passed a law authorizing the creation of a new sovereign cryptocurrency, the SOV, with a fixed growth rate of 4 percent. The IMF has repeatedly raised concerns about the initiative, citing volatility, financial integrity issues and a lack of reliable infrastructure to support a digital currency. The SOV has yet to be issued, and last month, the IMF reiterated its concerns about the project.

The Central African Republic also lacks direct control over monetary policy. Instead, it participates in a regional monetary union overseen by the Bank of Central African States, as part of a larger currency system, the CFA franc, designed by France after its former African colonies achieved independence. The system, which pegs the CFA franc to the euro and requires member countries to deposit much of their currency holdings in France, has provided currency stability but also been criticized as a neocolonial arrangement.

In Argentina, a runaway inflation rate that is now close to 60 percent has led citizens to embrace cryptocurrency. It also led President Alberto Fernández to openly toy with making Bitcoin legal tender before the government’s recent commitment to the IMF to crack down on cryptocurrency.

The IMF, whose work on cryptocurrency includes recent consultations with India on that country’s forthcoming policy framework, has called for a coordinated international government response to the rise of cryptocurrency. Though the fund has discouraged the use of a crypto network like Bitcoin as a currency, it has encouraged national central banks to explore the use of Bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology for digital upgrades to their own sovereign currencies. A transition to central bank digital currencies, knowns as CBDCs, would be less disruptive to existing monetary arrangements than the changes sought by cryptocurrency backers.

On Tuesday, the Bank for International Settlements, an international body owned by the world’s central banks, launched its own latest salvo against cryptocurrency with a new report arguing that fragmentation in the world of cryptocurrency means that “crypto cannot fulfil the social role of money.”

Instead, the report called for updating the national and supranational currencies overseen by its members. “There is more promise,” it states, “in innovations that build on trust in sovereign currencies.”

In the meantime, the conflicts brewing between developing countries and global financial powers over digital money are also exposing the rifts within each.

In El Salvador, the rollout of Bitcoin last fall was met with street protests, and opposition leaders in the Central African Republic have panned the country’s new law.

There is disagreement, too, within the world’s reigning financial powers, about the appropriate role of cryptocurrency, if any, in the monetary system. U.S. global leadership on the subject remains tentative while a lively debate about the technology continues to play out in domestic politics.

In March, IMF deputy managing director Gita Gopinath, previously the fund’s chief economist, told the Financial Times that Western sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would likely lead to wider adoption of cryptocurrency as actors around the world sought alternatives to the established financial system. But last month, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, herself a former IMF chief, opined that cryptocurrencies are “worth nothing.”

Within individual institutions like the IMF, no single school of thought prevails. The pronouncements of the “the big honchos at the top” do not always reflect the views of rank-and-file staffers, many of whom have wholeheartedly embraced cryptocurrency, according to John Kiff, who left his job as a financial sector expert at the IMF last year and now works as a managing director of the newly formed CBDC Think Tank.

“In terms of what comes out in public under the IMF banner, it has to filter through the IMF management and not fly in the face of the board of directors, which is made up of the member countries,” he said. “Even if the Fund were somewhat anti-crypto, there’s people in the bowels like myself who are buying and selling crypto.”

Ben Schreckinger covers tech, finance and politics for POLITICO; he is an investor in cryptocurrency.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Google agrees to pay $118M in gender discrimination settlement


A sign on the Google campus in Mountain View.

By Cromwell Schubarth – TechFlash Editor, Silicon Valley Business Journal
Jun 13, 2022

Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a lawsuit that claimed it had discriminated against women in pay and promotions.

The settlement in San Francisco Superior Court ends a lawuit brought in 2017 by three female former employees. It covers about 15,500 female employees in California who worked in 236 job titles after September 2013, according to plaintiffs’ lawyers in the case.

The three women who brought the suit said the Mountain View tech giant gave them lower-jobs than similarly qualified males and paid them less. They also said they had been denied the promotions or transitions to teams that would have better advanced their careers.

Google didn’t admit wrongdoing in the settlement, which needs to be approved by a judge.

"While we strongly believe in the equity of our policies and practices, after nearly five years of litigation, both sides agreed that resolution of the matter, without any admission or findings, was in the best interest of everyone, and we’re very pleased to reach this agreement," Google spokesman Chris Pappas told the Wall Street Journal.

As part of the settlement, the law firms representing the women said that Google has agreed to let third-party experts assess how it could improve its pay equity process and be fairer when establishing rank and pay for new hires. They said that the company will also let an external monitor assess whether it is following the experts’ recommendations.

The law firms representing the women are Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP and Altshuler Berzon LLP. "I'm optimistic that the actions Google has agreed to take as part of this settlement will ensure more equity for women," Holly Pease, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in the announcement of the agreement. She worked for more than 10 years at Google in a number of management roles.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/06/oracle-women-stumble-in-pay-bias-suit.html

The great white shark mystery: In Southern California, they're being spotted more than ever


Image Source via Getty Images

Dennis Wagner, USA TODAY
Tue, June 14, 2022, 12:19 PM·17 min read

CARPINTERIA, Calif. – The Shark Lab team is chasing shadows: dull, dark blurs that skulk in the turbid waters offshore as surfers navigate waves a hundred yards away.

The sun and fog wage their perpetual battle for control of Southern California’s coastline.

Heavy swells and a stiff breeze eliminate the prospect of spotting dorsal fins slicing along the water’s surface. A drone is launched and buzzes overhead, looking for targets.

After a minute, the pilot radios to others: “We’ve got a tagged one. Just north of the rock pile.”

It is a great white shark.

A boat moves in. Yamilla Samara Chacon leans over the bow, lowering a pole camera into the water. The shadow swirls away as she retrieves the pole and views the creature's tag on a video monitor: “A 9-footer. It says 12212, Raw B.”

The pursuit renews to get a tissue sample. The shark moves away, spooked. “I’ll see if I can be very quiet,” lab director Chris Lowe says, maneuvering the boat.

“Like a shark whisperer,” Samara Chacon laughs.

The great white vanishes into the depths. Within seconds, the drone has found another one, and the game of tag is on.

Similar scenarios play out regularly along beaches of Southern California from Santa Barbara to San Diego, where researchers locate great white sharks with remote-controlled air support. They track them with tags, underwater monitors and satellite signals. They dart them to secure muscle tissue, analyzing isotopes to learn what they eat. They gather seawater to measure DNA, calculating the concentration of sharks and prey fish.

The researchers use advanced technology not merely to track an iconic species. They're attempting to solve a mystery.

Here, along a sandy beach inhabited by Hollywood stars and frequented by tourists, nearly everyone seems to agree that great whites appear in greater numbers than anyone has seen before. They are nearly all young sharks, 4 to 10 feet long and less massive than the monster adults.

From 2017-21, California lifeguards reported a fivefold increase in great white shark sightings – nearly all of them youngsters.

Along one stretch of beach, Lowe and his team from California State University, Long Beach, encountered 40 juvenile great whites within 2 miles, hanging out in areas the researchers describe as “nurseries.”

Most researchers say the sharks don't pose a risk to humans. The question is why so many have appeared, and what it means for the future of the species, and the ocean.

Scott Fairchild, a shark enthusiast and drone hobbyist who shoots videos of young sharks swimming among people, says he can usually locate a great white within 45 seconds of launching his aircraft.

He’s given nicknames to some of the critters based on their markings: Scar Face has old head wounds, possibly from a boat propeller; Rudolph has a white nose.

Though the sharks are juveniles, the species carries an ancient allure. “They’re literally older than time,” Fairchild says with unabashed awe. “They’re actual dinosaurs.”
'Jagged teeth'

Scientists linked the modern white shark to megaladon, a big-toothed, prehistoric monster fish that plied the oceans 60 million years ago, but that theory has been displaced by findings that the great white descended later from a different species. A research paper published this year suggests the megaladon may have gone extinct because it lost a food-competition battle with white sharks.

No matter the history, great whites are the world’s largest predator fish, roaming throughout the seven seas.

Like muscle-bound torpedoes, they can hit speeds near 20 mph during an attack, preying mostly on marine mammals but also fish, birds and an occasional whale. An average adult specimen may be 15 feet long; large females sometimes exceed 20 feet and 4,000 pounds.

Even the Latin name, Carcharodon carcharias, seems ominous. (Carcharodon literally means “jagged teeth.”)

Ralph Collier, director of the Global Shark Attack File, says an adult white shark’s jaws, about 2½ feet wide, contain 24 upper teeth and 28 lower ones, each backed by seven rows of developing replacements. The main teeth fall out every two or three weeks, he says, meaning a shark might go through 30,000 during its life.

That intimidating image was brought to cinematic life in the movie "Jaws," which may have forever villainized great whites in the public eye.

In some measure, the fear they inspire is deserved: White sharks have accounted for more human fatalities than any other oceanic creature.

Yet, by scientific accounts, attacks on people are extremely rare and almost always reflect a “test bite” rather than an attempt to kill, and most victims survive. Worldwide, there are fewer than 10 fatal, unprovoked shark attacks each year.

As Collier sees it, "Jaws" unfairly maligned the creatures, though he agrees with one of its most famous lines. The marine biologist portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss described the great white as an evolutionary miracle: “All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks.”

The great white can smell 1 part blood per 20 million parts water.

Its head and snout are filled with receptors, known as ampullae of Lorenzini, which detect electromagnetic pulses emitted by potential prey – even a heartbeat.

A unique metabolism gives great whites a temperature roughly 15 degrees warmer than water they swim through. That provides for greater speed but requires massive calories.

Fat from mammals satisfies that need and is stored in the liver. Collier says an adult white shark’s liver may account for 30% of body mass. Filled with an oil known as squalene, it makes the fish buoyant and allows for weeks between meals.

Collier says he opened a 4,745-pound great white and found a liver weighing 1,500 pounds. Another specimen’s gullet contained 800 pounds of elephant seal.

White sharks are migratory, traveling thousands of miles in deep ocean and bearing young during spring or summer in relatively warm, shallow coastal waters. No one has witnessed a birth.

Collier notes that great whites are cannibalistic, but a hormonal release during delivery suppresses the mother’s appetite, protecting the newborn until she’s moved on.

Baby whites, about 4 feet long, remain in shallow waters along sandy beaches for the first few years, more than doubling in size as they chomp stingrays, halibut and other fish.

Researchers stress there is no way to know how many roamed the oceans in past epochs. Few attempts were made to count them, and those efforts were unsophisticated compared with the electronic tagging, drone surveillance and other technologies used today.

A prevailing theory coalesced by the 1970s that great white populations were plummeting, at least off California's coast. Human hunters and death in commercial fishing nets had taken a toll.

The danger was not just to sharks but to their food supply. Marine mammals known as pinnipeds – such as sea lions, seals and elephant seals – are a primary food for adult sharks. And their numbers had been depleted.

The crisis with pinnipeds was so dire that in 1972 – three years before "Jaws" came out – Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act to conserve the animals.

In 1994, California enacted a ballot measure that prohibits the use of gill nets within state waters, 3 nautical miles from the shore. That year, the taking of great whites was banned in state waters; the prohibition was extended to all U.S. waters in 2005.

After those provisions, populations of pinnipeds are flourishing. Pacific white sharks are migratory, spending much of their lives in obscure, unprotected depths from the northern Hawaiian Islands to Mexico. What's happening with the overall population is less certain.

"White sharks are hard to study," notes Barbara Block, a Stanford University professor of marine sciences. "And we don't really understand how to protect them in that environment."
A baby shark boom?

Lowe grew up on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where "Jaws" was filmed. Surfing and fishing drew him into marine biology, but he had no interest in studying great whites.

“They were overrated,” he says. “The prima donnas of the shark world. But then I started seeing the little ones (off California beaches), and that changed me. They’re so cute when they’re small.”

Lowe became intrigued by the number of small sharks hanging out by public beaches. Other researchers suggested great white populations in the Pacific Ocean were dwindling. Checking data from commercial fisherman who inadvertently capture sharks, Lowe found an opposite trend: The population seemed to be increasing.

“Even I was a little skeptical,” he recalls. “How can a species that everybody says is going down be coming back?”

The population question emerged as a controversy in the ichthyology world.

Twelve years ago, Block estimated there were 219 adult and sub-adult great whites off California's central coast. (For the past eight years, she's been part of a team identifying and counting specimens based on unique dorsal fin markings. Block now estimates the central California coast has a "stable and robust" population of about 300 nonjuvenile white sharks.)

In 2014, George H. Burgess, then director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, estimated there were roughly 2,000 great whites along the California coast, while a state Fish and Game study concluded the white shark population for the entire northern Pacific was somewhere between 339 and 3,000.

As more shark nurseries were detected along California's shoreline, Lowe grew convinced the population was surging.

“Thirty years ago, when I first started doing this work, hearing about a white shark along the beach was really rare,” he says.

Lowe set about identifying nurseries, counting junior sharks and trying to figure out what drew them to particular places. He's especially curious about a sandy stretch along Padaro Lane in Santa Barbara County, which drew more young sharks for more years than any other.

"Why this beach?” he asks, surveying a coastline of multimillion-dollar mansions owned by Hollywood stars.

Farther south, another puzzler: Until 2018, Lowe says, "you very rarely saw juvenile sharks in San Diego, and now they are there daily."

Lowe and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest that laws adopted over the past half-century to protect sharks and their main food sources may have reversed a population decline. “To me, this is actually a conservation success story,” Lowe says.

If the count is growing, when did it start and why?

To understand the dynamics, and as a safeguard for the public, California’s Legislature ponied up $3.75 million in 2018 for the White Shark Population Monitoring and Beach Safety Program, with Cal State Long Beach as the ramrod.
'Just big toddlers'

Like detectives, Lowe and students try to plot out the creatures' behavior – in part to help lifeguards keep beaches safe.

What are the sharks eating? Why have nurseries suddenly proliferated along California beaches? Why do adults sometimes bite humans but almost never consume them?

Like most researchers, Lowe finds himself thrust into a balancing act, recognizing that great whites account for more human deaths than any other oceanic creature while explaining that attacks are rare, people are not natural prey, and the juveniles pose no threat.

“They, by and large, treat people like flotsam,” Lowe says of nursery sharks. “They just don’t care. … They’re just big toddlers.”

Every day, swimmers and surfers frolic next to young white sharks, which visit waist-deep water.

In videos, the humans are mostly oblivious. Fairchild says that when his drone buzzes overhead, surfers know what it means. “They put their hands in the air like, ‘What? Where?’”

In the past decade, Lowe says, there have been five bite incidents around the nurseries. In the lone fatality, teeth impressions indicated an adult shark – not a juvenile.

In the big picture, Lowe says, great whites get a bad rap. Over the past 50 years, fewer than a dozen deaths have been recorded along California's coast. Humans kill far more great whites than vice versa, Lowe says, and far more people are injured by stingrays than by sharks.

As Lowe talks about the unknowns, it becomes clear that research discoveries create as many riddles as they solve.

The Diablo Canyon power facility near San Luis Obispo is a curious example. Seawater used to cool nuclear generators flows from the plant into a cove, creating a warm area of ocean. Lowe says tracking systems show adult great whites hang out near the plant for days, then head to the Farallon Islands for seal meals before returning.

Though researchers have not figured out the dynamics, he says, “It’s literally like an outdoor spa where they’re gathering.”
Do not harass the seals

This year, as San Diego City Council members mulled an ordinance to keep people out of a sea lion rookery in La Jolla, opponents came up with an interesting argument:

If the seals and sea lions are protected, they said, the colony will grow larger and attract sharks, which might attack tourists.

The controversy boiled over as visitors hassled the wildlife or got too close taking selfies. A Sierra Club group and others pressed for emergency shore closures, especially around newborn sea lions, for the safety of people and animals.

In a letter published by the newspaper La Jolla Light, Kurt Hoffman of Ocean Access Advocates – a coalition of divers, swimmers and surfers – contended Point La Jolla was not a natural breeding ground for pinnipeds, so white sharks hadn't been in the area. Then last summer, Hoffman claimed, he encountered 25 sharks along beaches north of the rookery.

“It may take a serious shark attack on a La Jolla Cove swimmer … to get this issue recognized,” he wrote. “That will be tragic for the family of the swimmer or diver.”

Hoffman’s letter triggered a rebuttal from sea lion protectors who accused him of using “scare tactics” while offering “misleading and inflammatory statements" with “no scientific facts for readers.”

Sierra Club critics quoted Lowe, who collaborates with the nearby Scripps Institution of Oceanography, explaining that sharks along beaches north of La Jolla are juveniles that don’t eat mammals or pose a threat to people.

Lowe says no great white sightings have been recorded near the rookery. Though the California population seems to be growing, he says, bite incidents declined even as beach recreation increased.

“Some people aren’t really looking at the science,” Lowe concludes. “We just don’t really see big (white) sharks there.”

In April, the California Coastal Commission approved San Diego’s request to protect the Point La Jolla rookery from late May to mid-September for the next seven years, during pupping season.

Fences and warning signs block access to the mammals as they sunbathe on the rocks, belching and flipping their fins. On a Friday in late May, a young man approached and began to step over the chain barrier. One of his friends urged him to reconsider.

“What, this is still America, isn’t it?” the man replied before returning to the sidewalk.
Shark attacks and facts

In 1987, Craig Rogers, 40, paddled out to catch some waves near Half Moon Bay when he noticed that his surfboard had stopped moving. It wasn’t bobbing in the waves or flowing with a current.

Rogers glanced down and found himself eyeball to eyeball with a 17-foot shark. It had gently clamped its teeth into the surfboard, missing Rogers' dangling legs. He remained frozen, aware that the area has a history of adult shark attacks, then slid into the water. The giant fish released its grip, slashing Rogers' fingers before it slipped away, a pair of teeth embedded in the board. Rogers caught a wave to shore.

Some shark experts contend that when a great white chomps on a human, it is not attacking or eating – just inspecting. “We don’t know exactly why they bite,” Lowe says. “What we do know is very few people get consumed. … At best, we think the shark has probably made a mistake.”

Collier uses the Rogers incident to explain his belief that such events are expressions of curiosity.

Great whites employ vision, smell, electronic receptors and taste to identify food, he says: “These aren’t accidents. They’re decisions a shark is making on a cerebral level to bite something. It’s investigation.”

Collier has collected data on human-shark “interactions” going back to 1900. There were 232 incidents along the coast of California, Oregon and Washington. Of those, 124 occurred in the past 22 years, including seven fatalities.

Collier says the increase is not a function of more sharks or greater aggression; it reflects a dramatic surge in human recreation.

He recalls visiting La Jolla in the 1960s and finding only a handful of snorkelers and almost no paddleboarders or kayakers. “You go down there on a Saturday now, and there’s hundreds of divers and people swimming,” he says. “There are people everywhere in the ocean today.”

Collier speculates that juvenile sharks near popular beaches grow familiar with humans, reducing the number of bites because they “learn very quickly that we’re not really anything of interest.”
Swimming with the sharks

Two Shark Lab students, Samara Chacon and Patrick Rex, set up remote underwater cameras.

Samara Chacon studies the diet of juvenile whites. Rex is researching the volume of marine recreation and how the young sharks behave when they come into contact with humans.

Other students analyze the nursery habitat and water conditions where young sharks roam and their morphometrics (length, girth, weight). A sample title: “The Role of Water Temperature and Social Dynamics in Nursing Beach Site Fidelity of the Juvenile White Shark.”

The cameras are baited with squid to attract fish, which in turn may lure sharks into view. “Think of it like video cameras on a city street,” Lowe says. “This is our version for sharks, only we’re setting ’em up with a doughnut shop.”

Cameras are plunked down beyond the surf.

Moments later, Samara Chacon dons a wetsuit and plunges into the water, swimming with great whites. She brings one end of a net to colleagues on the beach, so they can drag it in. The idea is to capture and count whatever fish the sharks may be eating. Each bit of information is a puzzle piece, helping to build a portrait of great whites – their behavior, vulnerabilities and threat.

At Santa Barbara's harbor, after fieldwork is completed, Lowe allows that, as his team tries to solve scientific problems, he's working as a PR man for one of the most maligned creatures in God’s blue seas.

“We do this because it’s really fun and cool,” he says, “but if we don’t get it out to the public … just because you see a shark, you don’t have to worry that it’s going to bite you. They really don’t seem to pay much attention to people.”

As Lowe finishes that sentence, an amphibious tour bus rolls down the harbor ramp and into the ocean, music blaring and people waving. Lowe nods toward the vessel, which has its name spelled out on the bow in giant, threatening letters: “Land Shark.”

“That’s what we’re battling, right there,” Lowe says.

For all his efforts to assure people they're safe around sharks, the mysteries persist. A few weeks after the marine fieldwork off Padaro Lane, Lowe sends an email update:

"Unfortunately, all the shark(s) left Padaro beach last week and we're not sure why "

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Great white sharks at California beaches: What scientists are finding

Immigrants are only 3.5% of people worldwide – and their negative impact is often exaggerated, in the U.S. and around the world


Ernesto Castañeda, Associate Professor of Sociology, American University
Mon, June 13, 2022,

Academic research plays an important role in helping dispel myths and misconceptions about migration. Spencer Platt/Getty Images News via Getty Images

-Ernesto Castañeda is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at American University and the Director of the Immigration Lab. Castañeda explains why immigration is an important force counteracting population decline in the U.S. and why that matters to the economy and America’s global power. Below are highlights from an interview with The Conversation. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

What do you study?

I direct the Immigration Lab where we conduct research around migration – in all its aspects. For example, emigration – people leaving their countries of origin; or internal migration – people moving within a country. There are millions of people living in a different province or state than where they were born, such as in China or the U.S. We also study international migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, people that cross borders looking for economic opportunities or trying to reunite with family.

We have studied refugees from Central America in Washington D.C., as well as from Afghanistan. We have also compared immigrants from Latin America in New York and those from North Africa in European cities. I’ve been studying migration since 2003, so almost 20 years.

Immigration is a hot topic now. How different are they than when you started studying it 20 years ago?

It’s funny because in the media we always highlight the new things, and there are indeed new twists and turns, new characters. But the story, the dynamics, the human drama, the structural issues are basically the same. So, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s why it’s easier to understand new crises, because immigration researchers have seen something similar happening in the past.

How politicized is immigration?

Immigration is something that has been with us for a long, long time. It’s something that is going to keep happening. It’s something that no one state can fully stop forever. But unfortunately, since as long as I can remember, it is something that has been politicized. There are a lot of misunderstandings by people in the public. Especially because politicians have, for a long time and in different places, used this topic for their short-term political advantage. So it’s something that is recurrent. Nonetheless, when I meet immigrants every day, the realities of their lives and what they are going through are very different from what you hear from the mouths of politicians and from a lot of media outlets.

My research has tried to understand what happened in the past and what’s going on right now in the streets in order to try to improve our understanding about immigration. If you look at all types of data, there are way more opportunities born of migration than problems.

The latest census shows that if it wasn’t for immigration, the US population would actually be in decline. So there’s a lot on the line as far as available workers, yes?

Yes, although some people think that the decline of immigration is not a bad thing, especially if it means maintaining a white majority. Yet immigration is not about a “great replacement” conspiracy but about the maintenance of a successful trajectory of economic growth, cultural vibrancy, scientific and technical innovation. In the economic system that we live in, one of the main ways that the economy keeps growing is by bringing in new labor. Cultural differences disappear across time and family generations. Furthermore, we are talking about changes around the edges. The great majority, over 80%, of the U.S. population has been and will likely continue to be U.S.-born.

Early in the pandemic, people were scared, and rightly so. It made sense to reduce air travel, border crossings and refugee resettlement. In the last couple of years, because of Title 42, which allows the government to prohibit the entry of persons who potentially pose a health risk at ports of entry, even asylum seekers have been sent back to Mexico and made to wait there.

Nevertheless, just in the U.S., we have lost over a million people because of COVID-19. People are also worried about inflation. But inflation has also been made worse by COVID deaths, people staying out of the workforce and by declining immigration, all resulting in a scarcity of workers.

So in the last couple of years we’ve seen an important decrease in migration while American couples have on average two children, keeping the population barely growing. So, the current population will not grow without immigration. Declining population growth also means a decrease in economic growth and the influence of the U.S. abroad. If this occurs, then you’d have to be ready to make less money and spend more in goods and services. I don’t think we’re ready for that to be the norm. If we stop taking immigrants in, innovations, population and economic growth will take place in a different part of the globe.

In your almost 20 years of research, what’s one thing that would surprise someone who is not in the field you’re studying?

It’s important for everyone to know that most people do not want to leave their hometown. Most people want to stick around because that’s where their loved ones, family members and friends are. It is the place they know, and they have an attachment to the place. It takes a lot – like an invasion, hunger, a great educational or professional opportunity – to want to leave your home.

Another thing that’s important to know is that only around 3.5% of the world population lives in a different country than where they were born. There are as many people moving within China as through international borders. So, international migration is a very important phenomenon for immigrants themselves – we’re talking about the futures of many individuals and families. But in terms of the global population, it’s a very small proportion. And this is not because of immigration deterrence and border fences.

So we’re talking about an exception. Unfortunately, politicians and people make it sound like it’s the main problem.

People may think that immigrants are more likely to commit crime, yet it is the opposite. Immigrants are much less likely to commit any crimes than the U.S.-born. They are also less likely to use drugs.

The border wall is a monument to intolerance and racism that actively stigmatizes people in the area. Anti-immigrant policies and speech are driven by national politics, scapegoating, misinformation, and dramatic images about caravans, border camps, and border crossers without providing the full context and actual descriptions of reality. There are a lot of myths around migration, but when you look at the data qualitatively, quantitatively, in different societies, in different periods, it is almost the opposite from what people think. That is why academic research on immigration is very important to rectify the story.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Ernesto Castañeda, American University.

Read more:

Giving refugees money instead of stuff can lead to price gouging – but it doesn’t have to

Migration to the US is on the rise again – but it’s unlikely to be fully addressed during the Summit of the Americas, or anytime soon

Ernesto Castañeda has received funding from NIH, NSF, and American University.

The end of clouds? How climate change could alter the sky


Cassidy Ward
Sat, June 11, 2022

Our brains are scary good at finding patterns where none actually exist. It’s why we see a face on the surface of Mars, and it’s the basis for the cloud gazing game many of us played as kids. The shifting nature of condensing water vapor in the sky makes perfect fodder for finding silhouettes of passing pirate ships or rampaging dinosaurs, if you’re willing to let your imagination loose. It’s even good inspiration for SNL skits.

Cloud gazing has very likely been a favored pastime for as long as humans have been around and looking up. In most climates, clouds can be counted on to streak slowly across the heavens, or else gather ominously in advance of a storm. As climate change progresses, however, that might change. While humans are great at finding patterns in individual clouds, understanding their long-term patterns and their contribution to the larger climate isn’t quite as easy.

Getting a decent picture of the world at large is comparatively simple, while getting the granular data of shifting clouds and other high-definition, ever-shifting processes is difficult. When it comes to modeling the climate, it seems we can either get the big picture or high definition on a small scale, but not both. To solve the cloud puzzle we’re going to need new tools.

Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and colleagues are working to build new climate models which will give us both the big and small pictures we’re going to need in order to more accurately predict how climate will change in the future. Their findings were published in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.

Anthropogenic climate change is drastically changing the face of our planet and our ability to live comfortably on it. Seas are rising, ecosystems are shifting, and species are changing or disappearing. Above it all, the clouds continue to drift idly by, but that might not always be the case. Climate change will very likely leave its mark on the sky, we’re just not sure how.

As average global temperatures continue to rise, it’s likely that the formation of clouds will be impacted. They could shrivel and disappear, or they could become even denser and more abundant. Which of these two scenarios is borne out is of critical importance for understanding how climate change will evolve in the future. Fewer or thinner clouds would mean more sunlight reaching the surface of the planet and, potentially, more rapid heating. More and denser clouds would block sunlight, be more reflective, and have the opposite effect of delaying some of the effects of climate change.

The problem is that accurately reproducing cloud formation in our climate models is currently beyond the ability of even our most powerful computers. Instead, climate scientists approximate the presence and shifting behavior of clouds to make best guesses. Our current models have a resolution — you can think of it as pixels on a massive planetary screen — of about 4 kilometers. That means that for anything happening on scales of less than 4 kilometers, the data just isn’t there. When you back up and look at the model as a whole, it looks pretty good, but we’re missing a lot of the granular detail which feeds that picture.

In order to get the data we would really need in order to know how clouds will evolve and contribute to future climate change, we’d need to have a resolution of about 100 meters, about 40 times more definition than we currently have. Taking current technological trends as a guide, we’ll eventually get there, but it might be too late for us to make good use of the data by then.

The process outlined in this new paper involves running two separate models and getting them to talk to one another. They start with a low-resolution model which looks at the planet with 100-kilometer resolution to get the broad strokes. A second model builds patches of information at 100-to-200-meter resolution. This allows scientists to capture the complex mechanics at work in cloud formation. The two models then trade information every 30 minutes to make sure neither of them has drifted too far from reality and course correct.

This lets a supercomputer use its limited resources more efficiently by splitting the cost between the large and small, gaining the best of both worlds.

The fate of the clouds and, consequently, the rest of our planet remains unclear, but now scientists have additional tools for glimpsing into the future. Hopefully the clouds will part — or thicken — before it’s too late.

Occidental Petroleum Is Making Strides to Capture This $5 Trillion Opportunity

SO WHY ARE WE SUBSIDIZING  CCS

By Matthew DiLallo - Jun 11, 2022 -Motley Fool 

KEY POINTS

Occidental sees an upwards of $5 trillion future opportunity in carbon capture and storage.

The oil giant is taking several steps to capitalize on that market.

These early moves could pay off down the road.

The oil giant has signed several deals this year, positioning it to capitalize on the enormous opportunity it sees for carbon capture and storage.

Occidental Petroleum (OXY -5.76%) sees tremendous potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS). The process that extracts carbon dioxide from the air and stores it underground could help significantly reduce climate-impacting carbon emissions in the future. CCS is not only good for the environment, but it also represents a potentially lucrative market opportunity.

Occidental believes that CCS could become a $3 trillion to $5 trillion global market in the future. Because of that, the oil company estimates that it could eventually generate as much in earnings and cash flow from its CCS business as it currently makes by producing oil and gas. That's leading the company to take several steps to capture this massive opportunity.


Leveraging its expertise in carbon dioxide

Occidental Petroleum has a long history of utilizing carbon dioxide to produce more oil through a process known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

As oil wells pump crude out of a reservoir, the pressure falls, causing the production rate to decline. Oil companies have found that if they inject carbon dioxide into oil wells, they can increase the production rate. Occidental is a leader in EOR. It operates carbon dioxide production fields, transportation pipelines, and injection wells, primarily in the Permian Basin.

The company wants to leverage its expertise in transporting and injecting carbon dioxide to capitalize on the enormous need for CCS. It formed a new subsidiary, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, to pursue commercial opportunities in this emerging sector. In 2020, the company partnered with a private equity firm to form 1PointFive to finance and deploy large-scale direct air capture (DAC) technology. These systems can pull carbon dioxide out of the air so it can be used or stored underground.

The company is building its first DAC facility in the Permian Basin. It will be able to capture up to 1 million metric tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide annually. Occidental will inject this carbon dioxide into its oil fields to sequester it and increase the oil output from those wells.

Working to develop a leading platform

That plant is only the beginning of Occidental Petroleum's CCS vision. The company has signed a slew of deals this year, positioning it to capitalize on the growing demand for CCS services by large carbon emitters.

One aspect of Occidental Petroleum's strategy is securing access to infrastructure and land to support future CCS development. For example, in March, Occidental signed a lease with timberland-focused real estate investment trust (REIT) Weyerhaeuser (WY -5.04%) to develop and operate a carbon sequestration hub on more than 30,000 acres of subsurface pore space controlled by the timberland REIT in Louisiana.

Occidental Petroleum also signed deals with two midstream companies to provide infrastructure to transport captured carbon to sequestration hubs. In April, it signed an agreement with Enterprise Products Partners (EPD -5.14%) to support a potential transportation and sequestration solution for the Texas Gulf Coast. Enterprise Products Partners would develop the carbon dioxide aggregation and transportation network using new and existing pipelines. Meanwhile, 1PointFive would develop the DAC facilities to capture the carbon that would move through pipelines to a sequestration hub. Occidental signed a similar deal with EnLink Midstream (ENLC -6.96%) to provide carbon dioxide transportation services along the Mississippi River corridor. EnLink's extensive pipeline infrastructure in the region would help transport captured carbon to a sequestration hub on Weyerhaeuser's land.

Occidental is also starting to line up customers to support its CCS ambitions. Airbus (EADSY -2.46%) purchased 400,000 tons of carbon removal credits from Occidental's DAC facility in the Permian Basin. Meanwhile, SK Trading International agreed to purchase up to 200,000 barrels of net-zero oil annually for five years. Occidental will create that net-zero oil by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at its DAC facility in the Permian Basin. Occidental will capture and store 100,000 tons of atmospheric carbon per year, equal to the expected emissions produced during the lifecycle of that oil. These deals are the first steps toward monetizing the company's bold CCS investments.

Positioning to capture a potentially massive opportunity

Occidental Petroleum has long used carbon dioxide to produce more oil. It's using that expertise to its advantage by taking steps to capitalize on the enormous market opportunity it sees ahead for CCS. That bold strategy could pay off for Occidental in the coming years if the CCS market develops as it envisions.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS 

Voices: How one suspended HSBC executive admitted the chilling truth behind greenwashing


Donnachadh McCarthy
Mon, June 13, 2022


This evoked the ultimate left-wing caricature of evil, scruples-free capitalism (AFP/Getty)

Climate protectors around the world owe Stuart Kirk, the suspended head of “Responsible Investment” at HSBC Asset Management, a huge thank you.

In an extraordinary speech to the Moral Money Conference, organised by the FT a few weeks ago, he admitted the chilling truth behind greenwashing. He declared HSBC’s “commitment” to net-zero carbon emissions in 2050, while simultaneously pouring billions into expanding fossil fuel infrastructure. His speech on Youtube is a must see.

For me this evoked the ultimate left-wing caricature of evil, scruples-free capitalism.

Kirk complained that “unsubstantiated, shrill, partisan, self-serving apocalyptic warnings were always wrong”, citing the Millenium bug crisis as an example. He declared that despite all the dire warnings, nothing happened, conveniently ignoring the decade-long global work and billions of investment to stop the crisis.

Stuart Kirk whined that “there is always some nutjob telling me about the end of the world,” and went on to say at one point: “Who cares if Miami is 6 feet underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been for years and it’s a really nice place.”

He dismissed the destruction from California wildfires as just a 1 per cent cost of the state budget. He asserted there was no extra financial benefit from investing in renewable energy over coal, and dismissed the threat of stranded financial assets if governments actually acted on carbon emissions.

As he chillingly put it “At a big bank like ours, the average loan term is 6 years. What happens to the planet in year 7 is actually irrelevant. I don’t care.”

Kirk thus provides clear evidence for the infuriated UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s accusation that our governments and businesses are disastrously lying to us on climate action.

HSBC, despite its “commitment” to net-zero, invested $130 billion in fossil fuels since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2016, according to a RAN report. Their 2021 investment of $19.9 billion, was exactly the same as the $19.9 billion in 2016.

I asked HSBC some questions.

Were any executives who publicly dissociated themselves from Kirk’s remarks, among those who signed off on the presentation? Which HSBC executives were on Kirk’s appointment panel? Was Kirk appointed because he held views opposed to reducing coal and fossil fuel investments?

Don’t HSBC investments of $130 billion since 2016 not demonstrate that Kirk was telling the truth, and that HSBC CEO Noel Quinn was dissembling when he dissociated himself with Kirk’s remarks?

They refused to answer my specific questions.

But they sent a response back saying: “The remarks made do not reflect the views of HSBC Asset Management nor HSBC Group in any way. HSBC regards climate change as one of the most serious emergencies facing the planet, and is committed to achieving net zero by 2050.”

As Kirk specifically attacked Mark Carney, the founder of GFANZ, the UN climate banking initiative, I also asked GFANZ:

“The fact that HSBC invested the same in fossil fuels in 2021 as it did in 2016, indicates HSBC’s de facto actions more likely reflect Kirk’s presentation. Therefore, does HSBC’s presence on the GFANZ Board of Principals not make a mockery of the project?”

They responded by saying: “HSBC’s strategy and Mr Kirk’s remarks are a matter for HSBC. It would be inappropriate to comment, given the ongoing disciplinary process.”

Just Stop Oil, hundreds of whose climate protectors have been arrested calling for a ban on new fossil fuels, told us that : “Why does he [Kirk] think NASA scientists are freaking out? No previous market trends, no agricultural yields, no fire or flood event can be used as a yardstick for what is coming down the line”.

Kirk’s speech is a siren call to move our bank accounts away from banks funding fossil fuelled destruction, as an urgent moral imperative.

But individual action is not enough. Demand that your local council, and any businesses or charities that you are connected with, do likewise. Last week, I persuaded a foundation to move its £45 million reserves away from HSBC, following the RAN report on their fossil investments.

Who could you persuade to move their bank accounts this year?

GLOBALIZATION 2.0

Apple suppliers are fighting over 160,000 Vietnamese workers as more Chinese competitors set up shop in the Southeast Asian country

Weilun Soon
Mon, June 13, 2022

Young Liu, chairman and CEO of Foxconn.

Ceng Shou Yi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Apple's top iPhone maker Foxconn said its Chinese rivals were poaching its workers in Vietnam.

Vietnam has 31 companies that employ 160,000 workers to manufacture and assemble Apple products.

Apple wants to reduce reliance on China and has been urging suppliers there to expand into Vietnam.

A battle for talent is heating up for the 160,000 workers who assemble Apple's products in Vietnam, with a top iPhone assembler crying foul over how its Chinese rivals are attempting to attract cheap labor in the Southeast Asian country.

Young Liu, the CEO and chair of Foxconn, the world's largest iPhone maker, told reporters on Saturday he noticed the company's Chinese competitors were setting up campuses near its base in Vietnam to get closer to its workers.

"When our competitors found out where Foxconn was building our factory, they went to buy a piece of land next to ours, so that they could ride on our coattails and poach our talents with high salaries," Liu said, according to Bloomberg.

Per the outlet, Liu said that the company's Bac Ninh City campus currently employs around 60,000 workers, but that he plans to "significantly" increase that number over the next two years.

Foxconn did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comments.

China-based manufacturers have been grappling with increasing production costs in the country, and many are attracted by Vietnam for its abundance of cheap and skilled labor, according to an investment report from AXA Investment Management released in September.

At least three Chinese suppliers plan to assemble more Apple products in Vietnam. BYD will begin producing iPads in Vietnam this month, per Nikkei Asia. Luxshare ICT and Goertek are also setting up shop in Vietnam to assemble AirPods, Apple analyst Kuo Ming-Chi said in a tweet in May.

They'll join the current crop of 31 companies — employing around 160,000 workers — that currently produce Apple products in Vietnam, according to Saigon Online.

For Apple, there are strategic considerations as it looks to reduce its reliance on China for product assembly. In 2020, Apple requested Foxconn to start making MacBooks and iPads in the Southeast Asian country, citing a need to minimize the impact of US-China trade tensions, per Reuters.

China's tough stance on COVID-19 was another reason for Apple's push into Vietnam, according to a Wall Street Journal report last month. The company recently said that China's COVID-19 restrictions in China could cost it $4 billion to $8 billion in revenue for the current quarter ending June. Foxconn had to shut down operations in Shenzhen for a few days in March as the city tried to tackle a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Opinion: Right to bear arms does not include assault-style weapons

Michael C. Burton

Austin American-Statesman
Sun, June 12, 2022


In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in Texas that snuffed out the lives of 19 children and two adults, our state leaders have told us deadly combat-style weapons had little to do with the massacre. NRA officials claim limitations on the Second Amendment will infringe on the right of law-abiding citizens to own weapons, but they oppose any restrictions on dangerous people from legally purchasing these weapons.

In Texas, an 18-year-old boy not old enough to drink alcohol can go to a nearby sporting goods store and buy a semiautomatic assault-style weapon designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible (Gov. Abbott doesn’t distinguish the difference between a hunting rifle or shotgun and a rapid-fire, semi-automatic weapon like the AR-15 that can fire either 30 or 60 rounds a minute).

What these gun advocates believe, ingrained in the NRA culture, is that the right to bear arms is absolute. Before 2008, when a conservative US. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that there was an individual right under the U.S. Constitution to own a firearm, courts had consistently ruled that this right belonged to a state-organized militia. But in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, the conservative Supreme Court majority concluded that the amendment protected a private right of individuals to own a firearm for self-defense.

Reggie Daniels pays his respects at a memorial to the 21 people klled at Robb Elementary School, Thursday, June 9, in Uvalde

In that majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the individual right to bear arms was not unlimited and has restrictions:

“We do not read the Second Amendment to protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation, just as we do not read the First Amendment to protect the right of citizens to speak for any purpose,” Scalia stated.

Scalia went on to say the Second Amendment does not grant citizens to carry any weapon they wish. States can still ban prohibit “the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” or forbid “the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling concluded the right to bear arms does not include the right to carry “dangerous” weapons. And that ruling has been upheld by courts ever since.

Semiautomatic weapons with detachable high-capacity magazine clips designed for rapid-fire and combat use (sometimes referred to as “assault weapons”), once banned under U.S. law, are certainly dangerous and deadly, as they were designed for “maximum wound effect.” Put simply, these weapons are civilian versions of military assault weapons developed for a specific combat purpose: laying down a high-volume of fire over a wide killing zone. Sporting rifles don’t have this feature. This is why more deaths occur in mass killings with these type of weapons. In the decade after the federal assault weapons ban lapsed, America saw a 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent in fatalities.

Interestingly, the NRA claims there is no such thing as civilian assault weapons, but the gun lobby, in marketing these weapons to adults and juveniles, have in the past enthusiastically described these civilian versions as “assault rifles,” “assault pistols” and “military assault weapons” to boost sales. Now they claim that the only true assault weapon is an automatic weapon like a machine gun, which is already banned for civilian use.

High-capacity, semi-automatic assault weapons are dangerous, military-style guns that are designed to kill or wound the maximum number of people in the shortest amount of time, and have no legitimate sporting use. The majority of Americans favor a ban on the sale of these military-style assault weapons and a ban on the sale of large-capacity magazines.

We just need the political will to do so.

Burton is a freelance writer living in Garland and author of John Henry Faulk: The Making of a Liberated Mind, a biography of Texas folklorist and First Amendment champion John Henry Faulk.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Opinion: Right to bear arms does not include assault-style weapons