Tag Archives: Bloomberg News

What An Incredible Coincidence

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On Wednesday, The New York Post posted an article about the new minimum wage law in California.

The article reports:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that exempts Panera Bread from a new $20-an-hour minimum wage hike for fast food chains after the billionaire owner of several of the chain’s locations donated to his campaign, according to a report.

In September, Newsom, a Democrat, signed into law a measure that raises the minimum wage of food fast workers from $16 an hour to $20 an hour.

But the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act (FAST Act) includes an unusual carve-out that exempts “chains that bake bread and sell it as a standalone item,” according to Bloomberg News.

Newsom reportedly sought the exemption, which benefits among others Greg Flynn, the billionaire CEO of Flynn Restaurant Group, the company that owns some two dozen Panera Bread locations in the state.

Flynn, who attended the same high school as Newsom, has been involved in business dealings with the California governor, according to Bloomberg News.

He has also contributed to Newsom’s political campaigns.

…The governor’s office told Bloomberg News that the law was the “result of countless hours of negotiations with dozens of stakeholders over two years.”

Flynn was publicly critical of the legislation when it was first floated in 2022.

He said that raising the minimum wage of fast-food employees would have an adverse business effect on franchise owners.

Flynn quietly lobbied Newsom’s aides to reconsider whether Panera Bread can be considered fast food, according to Bloomberg News.

The exemption for bread sellers was inserted into the legislation after the union that was pushing for the hike in minimum wage accepted it as a concession aimed at getting the governor’s support, the report stated.

I would not be disappointed if In-N-Out Burger decided to get out of California and come east!

Cherry Picking The Facts

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I belong to a few liberal groups on Facebook–it helps me understand some of the thinking that is going on among liberal Americans. Sometimes I am amazed by what I read. Today was one of those times.

The following comment appeared:

Proof positive that leftist policies and socio-cultural norms (both legislatively and socially)are not only ideal, but a proven success.
That’s right republicans, states you run are economic failures , that’s a proven fact.
Toss that bible and take a lesson from the left coast. We moving on up to 4.

The comment was in reference to an article that appeared in Bloomberg with the following headline:

California Poised to Overtake Germany as World’s No. 4 Economy

Contrary to popular belief, the Golden State has proven resilient, outperforming its US and global peers.   

Note–the article at Bloomberg is an opinion piece–not a news article!

The article notes:

Gavin Newsom is as familiar as anyone with the media narrative of earthquakes, persistent wildfires, droughts, homelessness and companies fleeing California to Texas for a tax- and regulation-free lifestyle. This is nothing new. California’s governor recalls a 1994 Time Magazine cover story citing “a string of disasters rocks the state to the core, forcing Californians to ponder their fate and the fading luster of its golden dream.”

And yet, “the California dream is still alive and well,” the state’s 40th governor said in a Zoom interview a month before his probable reelection.

Attention–gaslighting alert!

Please follow the link if you choose to read the rest of the article. Meanwhile, here are a few facts.

The California Department of Justice reports:

Facts for 2021:

Crime Rates per 100,000 Population
* The violent crime rate increased 6.7
percent in 2021 (from 437.0 in 2020 to
466.2 in 2021) (Table 2).
* The property crime rate increased 3.0
percent in 2021 (from 2,114.4 in 2020 to
2,178.4 in 2021) (Table 2).
*The homicide rate increased 9.1 percent
in 2021 (from 5.5 in 2020 to 6.0 in 2021)
(Table 2).
* The burglary rate decreased 5.3 percent in
2021 (from 365.4 in 2020 to 346.2 in 2021)
(Table 2).
* The rape rate increased 8.6 percent in 2021
(from 33.8 in 2020 to 36.7 in 2021) (Table
2).
* The motor vehicle theft rate increased 8.2
percent in 2021 (from 422.4 in 2020 to
457.1 in 2021) (Table 2).
* The arson rate decreased 4.4 percent (from
29.6 in 2020 to 28.3 in 2021) (Table 2).

In January 2022, Channel 10 News in San Diego reported:

A story you may have seen claims so many people are leaving California that U-Haul ran out of trucks in our state.

It’s apparently true.

U-Haul put out a news release in which it said California was the state that saw the biggest loss of one-way U-Haul trucks in 2021.

…California’s population has been steadily declining as more people leave the state while the number of people moving here has dropped.

The California Health Care Foundation reported the following in June 22:

The number of people experiencing homelessness served by California’s homelessness response system (Continuums of Care) increased from 188,000 in 2017 to 255,000 in 2020.

The Public Policy Institute of California reports:

The gap between high- and low-income families in California is among the largest in the nation—exceeding all but four other states in 2020. Families at the top of the income distribution earned 11 times more than families at the bottom ($270,000 vs. $25,000 for the 90th and 10th percentiles, respectively).

None of this sounds like a great place to live. Between crime, homelessness, and the income gap, it doesn’t sound like a socialist paradise. California is beautiful and has a wonderful climate–why do you think so many people are leaving?

One Result Of The Supreme Court Ruling On Mandatory Vaccines

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Yesterday The Daily Wire reported that General Electric has suspended its vaccine mandate and testing requirements due to the Supreme Court decision on vaccine mandates. After the Court decision, President Biden requested that companies keep the vaccine mandates in effect anyway. I guess General Electric realized the potential lawsuits and loss of employees keeping the mandates would bring.

The article reports:

“The maker of jet engines, wind turbines and medical scanners confirmed the decision Friday via email,” Bloomberg News reported. “GE is the first major company to announce a halt after the court’s decision Thursday to block the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s push to boost Covid-19 vaccinations.”

The article concludes:

“I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block common-sense life-saving requirements for employees at large businesses that were grounded squarely in both science and the law,” Biden said. “This emergency standard allowed employers to require vaccinations or to permit workers to refuse to be vaccinated, so long as they were tested once a week and wore a mask at work: a very modest burden.”

“As a result of the Court’s decision, it is now up to States and individual employers to determine whether to make their workplaces as safe as possible for employees, and whether their businesses will be safe for consumers during this pandemic by requiring employees to take the simple and effective step of getting vaccinated,” Biden continued. “The Court has ruled that my administration cannot use the authority granted to it by Congress to require this measure, but that does not stop me from using my voice as President to advocate for employers to do the right thing to protect Americans’ health and economy. I call on business leaders to immediately join those who have already stepped up – including one third of Fortune 100 companies – and institute vaccination requirements to protect their workers, customers, and communities.”

Adhering to President Biden’s suggestion will only create more chaos in the supply chain and more lawsuits in the workplace. I suspect a lot of companies realize that. It is a shame that the President either doesn’t realize that or doesn’t care.

Incredible Coincidence?

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Yesterday The New York Post reported the following:

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sold between $1 million and $5 million in stocks at the beginning of October 2020 — a month that turned out to be the worst for Wall Street since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The transaction, which is noted on a public disclosure form Powell signed off on in May and was first reported Monday by The American Prospect, is an uncomfortable echo of activities that led to the recent resignations of two regional leaders of America’s central bank.

The disclosure form indicates that Powell sold the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund shares on Oct. 1, 2020. Ten days earlier, a separate sale of shares from the same fund netted the Fed chair between $50,000 and $100,000.

As Powell played the market, he was calling on Congress to pass a second COVID-19 relief bill even as negotiations between lawmakers and the Trump administration were in a stalemate. The American Prospect, citing Powell’s public schedule, reported that he had spoken with then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin four times on Oct. 1, as well as with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The article concludes:

Separately, Bloomberg News reported on Oct. 1 of this year that Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Richard Clarida had moved between $1 million and $5 million out of one mutual fund and into two other funds on Feb. 27, 2020, the day before Powell signaled a potential interest rate cut due to the pandemic.

The disclosures have drawn the ire of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who wrote to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this month to ask for an investigation into whether Rosengren, Kaplan or Clerida had violated insider trading rules. In a Senate floor speech Oct. 5, Warren called out Powell and said he had “failed as a leader.”

However, other lawmakers have lined up behind Powell as President Biden nears a decision about whether to nominate him for a second four-year term that would begin in February. Fox Business Network reported Monday that at least eight Republican senators have said they would vote to confirm Powell for a second term.

The Federal Reserve did not respond to requests for comment about Powell’s transactions.

Mr. Powell’s biography notes that he is a lawyer who has worked in the investment banking field. I suppose this would give him the knowledge to make the kind of stock trade he made at the time he made it. However, I do think we need to take a really good look at the financial transactions of those in government. It seems as if there are a lot of people in government who seem to have an uncanny knack for buying and selling stock and stock options at exactly the right time.

Important Information, Despite The Spin

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Yesterday Bloomberg posted an article citing how some major corporations are dealing with the issue of whether or not to require the coronavirus vaccine.

The article reports:

Covid-19 vaccination requirements are fast becoming facts of life in the U.S., spreading business by business even as politicians and privacy advocates rail against them.

Brown, Notre Dame and Rutgers are among universities warning students and staff they’ll need shots in order to return to campus this fall. Some sports teams are demanding proof of vaccination or a negative test from fans as arenas reopen. Want to see your favorite band play indoors in California? At bigger venues, the same rules apply. A Houston hospital chain recently ordered its 26,000 employees to get vaccinated.

Yet it’s another matter how people prove they’ve had their shots or are Covid-free. Republican politicians and privacy advocates are bristling over so-called vaccination passports, with some states moving to restrict their use.

At this point you have to wonder why the article cites only Republicans and privacy advocates as being against vaccination passports. If you read this carefully, you realize that we are being set up to believe that anyone who opposes a vaccine passport is somehow out of the mainstream of American politics.

The article reports:

Public-health measures became a partisan issue as soon as former President Donald Trump began downplaying the pandemic, and fierce debate arose over its severity, the wearing of masks and government-enforced lockdowns. Vaccine requirements and passports have become the latest flash points.

“Idahoans should be given the choice to receive the vaccine. We should not violate Idahoans’ personal freedoms by requiring them to receive it,” said Idaho’s Republican Governor Brad Little on Wednesday, after signing an executive order banning the vaccination requirement for people seeking public services. The governors of Florida and Texas have issued similar orders.

“Vaccine passports create different classes of citizens,” Little said.

And yet, New York state has unveiled its “Excelsior Pass” smartphone app to quickly prove vaccination or a clean test. The widely used Clear airport check-in system will soon offer its own version.

Again, watch the spin. Remember the outcry when President Trump stopped airline flights from China from coming to America? To me, that seemed to be an example of someone taking the virus seriously. Someone who did not take the virus seriously would not have mobilized the medical research community to find a vaccine in record time.  Actually, I don’t think it was President Trump who politicized the vaccine.

The article concludes:

For some, their approach is dictated by the states in which they operate. The Mets and the Yankees, for example, didn’t decide that their fans would need proof of vaccination or a negative test to attend a Major League Baseball game -– New York state did. It’s the same with California concert venues that are finally being allowed to reopen.

On Friday, the San Francisco Giants played their home opener under similar restrictions, requiring proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test within 72 hours of the game. The team’s chief executive officer, Larry Baer, told local television station KTVU that the restrictions would help fans feel comfortable as they return to Oracle Park. “We will have the safest spot on Planet Earth,” he said. “When you’re coming to a game, you know you’re going to be safe — you’ll feel good.”

As I have previously stated, my husband and I have had the coronavirus. We do not necessarily see the need to take the vaccine. Yesterday we had our antibodies tested and discovered that we have the coronavirus antibodies. I wonder where proof of antibodies fits in with the scenario of proof of vaccine.

How To Navigate The Media Spin

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The Epoch Times posted an article yesterday about the report of the Justice Department Inspector General. The report found that the FBI failed to document facts correctly in 29 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications that were reviewed. A rational person would take that as an indication that all was not well at the FBI and that Americans were being unlawfully surveilled. However, the mainstream media did not necessarily see it that way.

Eli Lake posted the following comments at Bloomberg News:

In the twisted politics of the Trump Era, some of bureau’s defenders might actually view this report as good news: It shows that the investigation of the Trump campaign was not necessarily politically motivated. The bureau made the same kinds of mistakes with suspects who were not connected to the Trump campaign.

That’s hardly reassuring — and the malpractice that the report uncovers is a much larger problem than the FBI and its defenders may wish to admit. So far, the response to Horowitz’s December report has been a series of administrative reforms, such as a requirement that FBI field offices preserve their “Woods files” and a mandate for new FISA training for FBI lawyers and agents. That’s all well and good. But one need not go back to the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover to see that the bureau has been careless in its monitoring of U.S. citizens.

The Woods procedures were issued in 2001 after Congress obtained a memo from the FBI’s counterterrorism division detailing surveillance abuse in the late 1990s. One target’s cell phone remained tapped after he gave it up and the number was reassigned to a different person. Another FBI field office videotaped a meeting, despite a clear prohibition on that technique in its FISA warrant. In 2003, an interim report from the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded that the 2001 memo showed “the FBI was experiencing more systemic problems related to the implementation of FISA orders” than a problem with the surveillance law itself.

Very little has changed in the intervening 17 years. That’s why it’s foolish to expect new and better procedures will work this time. A better approach would be an aggressive policy to prosecute FBI agents and lawyers who submit falsehoods to the surveillance court. The best way to prevent future violations is to severely punish those who commit them in the present.

Scott Johnson posted an article today at Power Line Blog that included the following quote (follow the link to the article for the audio of the answer to the question):

The New York Times is illustrative of “the twisted politics of the Trump era.” Daniel Chaitin covers the Times angle in his Examiner article “‘Biased and out of control’: Devin Nunes rips New York Times reporting on FISA memo.” Chaitin reports on Rep. Devin Nunes’s interview with Larry O’Connor:

Radio host Larry O’Connor read a passage from the [Times’s] report [on the Horowitz memo] to Nunes during the Examining Politics podcast on Tuesday. It said DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report “helps the FBI politically because it undercuts the narrative among President Trump and his supporters that the bureau cut corners to surveil the adviser, Carter Page, as part of a politically motivated conspiracy.”

“So, the good news for the FBI is that they trampled on people’s rights all over the place, not just people who worked with Donald Trump’s campaign,” O’Connor said. “Is that the takeaway we should have here congressman?”

I agree with Eli Lake–severe punishment for those guilty of illegal spying on American citizens is the only way to prevent future abuse by the FBI.

 

In The Long Run, This Would Not Have Mattered, But It Was Still Irresponsible

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about the shortage of N95 protective respirator masks. Some of the media have stated that President Obama chose not to replenish the stockpile of these masks after the 2009 H1N1 virus epidemic. That is true, but there is more to the story. At this point I would like to note that the masks have a shelf life of five years–even if President Obama had replenished the stockpile, in order for the stockpile to be any good it would have had to have been replenished again in 2014 and 2019. The responsibility for the shortage of these masks rests of both the Obama and Trump administrations. However, I think that the blame actually rests on the bureaucrats running the CDC and other health agencies inside the government.

The article notes:

H1N1, also known as the swine flu, drew down about 100 million N95 protective respirator masks.

Afterward, an H1N1 task force recommended that the Obama administration replace the masks in the national stockpile, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News.

“If the Obama administration didn’t respond to a request for additional masks, and if they did not communicate that need to the incoming [Trump] administration, that would certainly make the present situation more difficult,” Amy Anderson, a registered nurse and co-founder of the Global Nurse Consultants Alliance, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

…The Los Angeles Times reported March 20 that the U.S. government ignored warnings in 2009, making no reference to Obama’s being president at the time. 

The CDC, under the George W. Bush administration, published a “National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza” in 2005. In that case, the government heeded the agency’s advice to stockpile medical supplies. 

…The International Safety Equipment Association and the federal H1N1 task force recommended replacing the N95 masks after the response to the swine flu drew down 100 million masks from the federal stockpile, the paper reported.

However, association President Charles Johnson told the Times: “Our association is unaware of any major effort to restore the stockpile to cover that drawdown.”

The problem with a medical emergency is that you generally don’t see it coming. Blaming any administration for current supply problems is not helpful. Finding a solution to those problems is helpful. It would be nice if the mainstream media would attempt to unite us rather than divide us. The reporting during the Wuhan Flu epidemic has been horrendous and very unhelpful.

The Search For Truth

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If you are trying to find real news, I suggest that you explore One America News and NewsMax. The mainstream media has forgotten how to tell the truth. The Washington Examiner posted an article today titled, “Four major journalistic errors in just 10 hours.”

The article reports:

1. The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman, for example, tweeted the following falsehood at around 5:30 p.m. Monday evening: “Republican voter registration in NH is down roughly 20k voters from 2016 to now. It’s a reminder that Trump’s increased GOP popularity is in part because in some places, the GOP registration rolls have shrunk.”

This is not only false, but it has been debunked several times. At some point, repeating the lie becomes a choice.

2. “When I ask people if they’re voting for Donald Trump, I hear about their 401(k)s a lot,” she (MSNBC’s Katy Tur) said during a live broadcast from New Hampshire, “but there are those out there who don’t have a 401(k), and there are those out there who this economy is not really working for them.”

Tur added, “They might have a job, but it’s not a job that pays their bills. They can get a car, but it’s a loan that will take 30 years.”

I have no idea what she is talking about. I don’t think even she knows. (What else is new?) Car loans can take anywhere between 12 and 84 months to pay off. Who are these people agreeing to 30-year car loans? (Follow up question: Are they looking to finance a new car? No reason.)

3. Earlier that morning, CNN’s Cristina Alesci warned viewers to be wary of recently surfaced audio of 2020 Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg proudly promoting the stop-and-frisk policies he championed as mayor of New York City. After all, the CNN reporter claimed, as we don’t have the full audio of the former mayor’s remarks, we don’t have the full context. But this is not true. The full audio of Bloomberg’s comments has been available online since 2015.

“So, here’s the thing, important context here,” she said. “We don’t have the full tape.”

Alesci, who, by the way, is an alumna of the Bloomberg News empire, continued, “So, this is obviously snippets that have been released, the podcaster and the writer that released this sound is clearly a Bernie supporter, if you look at his twitter feed, he’s very anti-Bloomberg. He’s promoting a hashtag ‘#BloombergIsARacist.'”

A simple Google search brings up the full audio, which was posted shortly after Bloomberg delivered his address in 2015 at the Aspen Institute. Also, all that stuff about the alleged political affiliations of the person who posted the audio online Monday evening is irrelevant to the content of the surging 2020 candidate’s past remarks.

4. Lastly, and relatedly, there is NBC News’s Heidi Przybyla. She shared a conspiracy theory at around 7:30 a.m. alleging that the Kremlin is responsible for making the hashtag “#BloombergIsRacist” a top-trending news topic on social media. The hashtag, which is definitely organic, cropped up Tuesday morning following the release of the Bloomberg audio. Przybyla later deleted her tweet promoting the conspiracy theory, which she had not even bothered to double-check before sharing with her 145,000 Twitter followers.

All of that misinformation occurred within a 10-hour span. If you are depending on those sources for accurate information, you might want to reconsider.

Good News From The Medical Sector

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Bloomberg News is reporting today that a blood test that may be able to detect breast cancer up to five years before symptoms develop could be available by 2025 if development is fully funded, U.K. researchers said. This is wonderful news. Breast cancer can be cured if it is detected early.

The emedicinehealth website includes the following chart:

The article at Bloomberg News reports:

“A blood test for early breast cancer detection would be cost effective, which would be of particular value in low and middle income countries,” Daniyah Alfattani, a PhD student at the University of Nottingham said in a statement. “It would also be an easier screening method to implement compared to current methods, such as mammography.”

About 2.1 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, according to the World Health Organization. It killed an estimated 627,000 women last year, accounting for 15% of all cancer deaths among women.

…“We need to develop and further validate this test,” Alfattani said. “However, these results are encouraging and indicate that it’s possible to detect a signal for early breast cancer. Once we have improved the accuracy of the test, then it opens the possibility of using a simple blood test to improve early detection of the disease.”

The research was presented at the U.K. National Cancer Research Institute cancer conference in Glasgow.

Wow. Wonderful news.

The Sad Story Behind Electric Cars

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As the production of electric cars increases, the demand for cobalt for those cars increases. On Monday, Bloomberg News posted an article on some of the mines that supply that cobalt.

The article reports:

The appetite for electric cars is driving a boom in small-scale cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where some mines have been found to be dangerous and employ child labor.

 Production from so-called artisanal mines probably rose by at least half last year, according to the estimates of officials at three of the biggest international suppliers of the metal, who asked not to be named because they’re not authorized to speak on the matter. State-owned miner Gecamines estimates artisanal output accounted for as much as a quarter of the country’s total production in 2017.

That’s a concern for carmakers from Volkswagen AG to Tesla Inc., who are seeking to secure long-term supplies of the battery ingredient but don’t want to be enmeshed in a scandal about unethical mining practices. Tech giants including Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. endured bad publicity after a 2016 Amnesty International report said children were being sent down some Congolese mines to dig for cobalt destined for their gadgets. Pit and tunnel collapses killed dozens of workers in 2015, the advocacy group said.

The article also notes that as much as $2.5 billion of cobalt a year is being smuggled across the border into Zambia.

I am sure there are safer ways to mine cobalt. The fact that children are being used in these mines in this dangerous work is horrendous. I realize that the culture of the countries involved may allow for children to do this work, but this is one situation where the United Nations might be useful. There are organizations within the United Nations that are supposed to protect children–they need to at least make a statement on the use of children to mine cobalt.

The idea of electric cars is intriguing; however, we need to look at the cost of creating this technology.