If Trump were to defeat President Joe Biden in November, the SEC under his administration would likely start by curtailing many of the rules recently put in place tied to the environment, according to experts and people close to the former president. An initial target of the SEC under a second Trump administration would be to roll back the new climate disclosure rules, these people explained.
Gensler and the SEC adopted a rule in March requiring large publicly traded companies to disclose their levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The largest companies are required to make climate disclosures as early as fiscal 2025, with specifics on greenhouse gas emissions as soon as fiscal 2026.
Gensler argues greenhouse gas emission levels and other climate related data have a material impact on businesses, and investors deserve to know this information.
But an SEC chaired by a Trump appointed Republican would likely remove these Biden-era disclosure requirements, these people said.
The rule “costs companies and investors a tremendous amount of money, and provides them no benefit,” said a person advising Trump on SEC related matters. Like others in this story, they were granted anonymity in order to recount private conversations.
The prospect of a Trump pullback on the SEC’s climate disclosure rules is also tied to the former president’s dislike of environmental, social and governance investment standards, some of these people explained.
During his term in office, Trump issued an executive order that made it harder for employers to offer ESG funds in employees’ 401(k) retirement plans. The Biden administration later softened the Trump rule.
In February, he said in a Truth Social post that if he is elected to a second term, he would reinstate his previous rule.
Category: Economy
Californians Shocked at Food Prices After Government Forces Wage Increases
Greg LaVay, a 79-year-old retired entrepreneur from San Diego, says he used to visit McDonald’s a few times a month — but recently decided to switch to sit-down restaurants for dinner instead.
Why? LaVay noticed the price of hamburgers in his area inching up to $2.50 apiece, with a Big Mac going for $5.39 today.
“I feel ripped off a little,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
Since September’s ruling that California fast food franchisees would be required to increase its minimum wage for employees to $20 starting in April, several eateries have embarked on cost-cutting measures such as raising menu prices.
A recent analysis from market research firm Datassential reveals the Golden State’s fast-food and fast-casual restaurants, like McDonalds, Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut, have lifted prices by about 10% overall since September. This growth far surpasses that of the U.S. as a whole, which has seen chains inflate prices by just over 5%.
Several fast food chains have said they’re raising menu prices in response to the minimum wage hike.
Americans Dipping into Savings as Inflation Rages
Our consumer culture continues to rage despite rising prices.
In the aggregate, Commerce Department indexes that the Fed relies on for inflation signals showed prices continuing to climb at a rate still considerably higher than the central bank’s 2% annual goal, according to separate reports this week.
Within that picture came several salient points: An abundance of money still sloshing through the financial system is giving consumers lasting buying power. In fact, shoppers are spending more than they’re taking in, a situation neither sustainable nor disinflationary. Finally, consumers are dipping into savings to fund those purchases, creating a precarious scenario, if not now then down the road.
WIAA considers implementing NIL
My full column for the Washington County Daily News is below. I was delighted to see that the WIAA rejects NIL in its meeting yesterday. Well done.
On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, the voluntary governing body for high school sports in the state, will take up the question of whether high school athletes should be allowed to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) as in college sports. I strongly urge the WIAA to reject this proposal.
To date, 31 other states have already allowed NIL in high school sports. Wisconsin’s high school athletic directors, who comprise the membership of the WIAA, have been reluctant to follow suit, but it appears that such reluctance may have been overcome.
At issue is the definition of “amateur.”
The simple definition is that if one is not directly paid to compete in a sport, then one is an amateur. For decades, high school and college sports insisted that their athletes be true amateurs to preserve the competitive balance of sports. We did not want rich schools to pay professional athletes to dominate a sport. The loophole in the system was that wealthy school supporters would give gifts or highly paid noshow/ low-show jobs to talented athletes to attract them to a particular school. To combat this, the WIAA, NCAA, and other athletic governing bodies banned athletes from profiting from the fact that they are athletes. These governing bodies tended to over-enforce the rules to the point that athletes were wary of even having a regular job for fear of losing their amateur status.
A push began several years ago to allow athletes at the college level to profit from their NIL. I was a supporter of this. The rationale is simple. College athletes are adults competing within a highly profitable athletic monopoly and it is unfair for everyone to make money off of their talent except them. The vast majority of college athletes do not receive scholarships and will never compete as professionals. If they can make a few bucks supporting the local car dealership because they are a popular track star at the local college, then we should not stand in their way.
The implementation of NIL is currently ruining college sports. Between the transfer portal and lucrative NIL contracts, the competitive and rooting nature of college athletics is being gutted. While I still support NIL for college athletics for the reasons above, it needs significant reform to preserve college sports. The National Collegiate Athletics Association should, for example, reinstitute the rule whereby college athletes must sit on the bench for a year if they transfer to a different school.
While I support NIL for college sports, high school sports are different for one significant reason. The athletes are minors.
They are dependents of their parents who are responsible for their care. Money made from the athletes’ NIL does not go to the athlete, but to the athlete’s parent or guardian.
This fact makes NIL at the high school level take on the attributes of exploitation of a minor rather than freeing the athlete from exploitation.
The other movement in sports that corrupts this issue is the spread of legal sports gambling. Americans have always gambled on sports, but it was relegated to shadowy corners of society. We shunned it from the light because of the corrosive nature of gambling on competition. The availability of online sports betting and a growing cultural acceptance has made sports betting a big business and many people participate.
The corrosive effect of gambling is already seeping into high school sports. Infusing NIL money and influences into high school athletics will only increase the incentives and abilities of bad actors to corrupt the games.
It is not difficult to imagine someone with a betting interest in a high school sport using NIL influence to change the outcomes. We have a long history of cheating on sports to win a bet.
It is important for high school athletes to be able to work a job or receive reasonable gifts without jeopardizing their amateur status and ability to compete. The WIAA should work to clarify those rules so that athletes can work and compete without fear. But the WIAA should reject implementing NIL in Wisconsin. The risks to the athletes and their sports are not worth the rewards.
Biden Rule To Exacerbate Inflation
Why is everything getting so expensive?
Millions of salaried workers will soon qualify for overtime pay under a final rule released by the US Department of Labor on Tuesday.
The new rule raises the salary threshold under which salaried employees are eligible for overtime in two stages. The threshold will increase to the equivalent of an annual salary of $43,888, or $844 a week, starting July 1, and then to $58,656, or $1,128 a week, on January 1, 2025.
About 4 million more workers will qualify for overtime when the rule is fully implemented in January, the agency estimates. In its first year, the rule is expected to result in an income transfer of about $1.5 billion from employers to workers, mainly from new overtime premiums or from pay raises to maintain the exempt status of some affected employees.
Retail Stores Ditching Self-Checkout Due to Theft
Walmart is continuing to remove self-checkout machines from its stores in what it claims is an effort to improve the ‘in-store experience’ for customers.
In two stores – in Shrewsbury, Missouri, and Cleveland, Ohio – the retailer said it would replace kiosks with staffed checkout lanes which will ‘give our associates the chance to provide more personalized and efficient service.’
In reality, many retailers are ditching self-checkout kiosks because they are especially vulnerable to shoplifters – and the biggest retailer in the world’s U-turn could be a landmark moment.
Although the company is ditching the cashier-less checkout system at its Amazon Fresh grocery stores, it plans to sell the technology to more than 120 third-party businesses by the end of the year. Reaching that goal would double the number of non-Amazon enterprises that use Just Walk Out compared to last year.
The cashier-less system is the perfect antidote to the theft problem of self-checkout. I used the automated system in the San Francisco airport a while ago. It’s really simple. You scan your card when walking into the store. You can’t get into the store without scanning your card. When you have what you want, you just leave. The products all have RFID chips and are scanned on the way out with no effort. Theft is near impossible without an RFID blocker big enough for the products. I suppose you could bring in a lead-lined tote, but that’s a lot of effort for your average shoplifter.
The problem is cultural. I don’t want to scan my card before I know if I’m going to actually buy anything. Also, there is no “appeal process” if the price is wrong or it scanned wrong or whatever. I don’t want to have to call some number to resolve a $2 mistake.
With labor rates continuing to rise, retailers will continue to seek ways to reduce labor spend and expensive automated technologies will continue to evolve.
WIAA considers implementing NIL
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:
On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, the voluntary governing body for high school sports in the state, will take up the question of whether high school athletes should be allowed to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) as in college sports. I strongly urge the WIAA to reject this proposal.
To date, 31 other states have already allowed NIL in high school sports. Wisconsin’s high school athletic directors, who comprise the membership of the WIAA, have been reluctant to follow suit, but it appears that such reluctance may have been overcome.
At issue is the definition of “amateur.”
The simple definition is that if one is not directly paid to compete in a sport, then one is an amateur. For decades, high school and college sports insisted that their athletes be true amateurs to preserve the competitive balance of sports. We did not want rich schools to pay professional athletes to dominate a sport. The loophole in the system was that wealthy school supporters would give gifts or highly paid noshow/ low-show jobs to talented athletes to attract them to a particular school. To combat this, the WIAA, NCAA, and other athletic governing bodies banned athletes from profiting from the fact that they are athletes. These governing bodies tended to over-enforce the rules to the point that athletes were wary of even having a regular job for fear of losing their amateur status.
[…]
While I support NIL for college sports, high school sports are different for one significant reason. The athletes are minors.
They are dependents of their parents who are responsible for their care. Money made from the athletes’ NIL does not go to the athlete, but to the athlete’s parent or guardian.
This fact makes NIL at the high school level take on the attributes of exploitation of a minor rather than freeing the athlete from exploitation.
The other movement in sports that corrupts this issue is the spread of legal sports gambling. Americans have always gambled on sports, but it was relegated to shadowy corners of society. We shunned it from the light because of the corrosive nature of gambling on competition. The availability of online sports betting and a growing cultural acceptance has made sports betting a big business and many people participate.
The corrosive effect of gambling is already seeping into high school sports. Infusing NIL money and influences into high school athletics will only increase the incentives and abilities of bad actors to corrupt the games.
It is not difficult to imagine someone with a betting interest in a high school sport using NIL influence to change the outcomes. We have a long history of cheating on sports to win a bet.
It is important for high school athletes to be able to work a job or receive reasonable gifts without jeopardizing their amateur status and ability to compete. The WIAA should work to clarify those rules so that athletes can work and compete without fear. But the WIAA should reject implementing NIL in Wisconsin. The risks to the athletes and their sports are not worth the rewards.
China is the Green Energy Giant
The “green” energy push from the Biden Administration is a lifeline to China’s economy at the expense of the American consumer.
But now the old industrial pillars of furniture, clothing and electrical goods are struggling, Beijing is looking to its “new productive forces”: solar panels, lithium batteries and electric cars.
“We are exporting to the UK, Belgium, Germany, mostly European countries, but also to Africa, Australia, South America, North America and also South East Asia,” salesperson Yan Mu says as he shows off the company’s storage batteries.
His is one of the stalls at an exhibition held by hundreds of green energy storage companies in a refurbished and repurposed steel plant on the edge of Beijing.
Ford Drops Prices to Lure EV Buyers
DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford Motor is lowering the starting prices of some all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup trucks as it prepares to resume shipping the vehicles after quality issues.
[…]
The cost reductions are the latest electric vehicle price changes for the broader automotive industry amid slower-than-expected consumer adoption. Ford’s cuts come three months after it adjusted Lightning prices, including increasing some model prices.
Auto Insurance Up 45.8% Since December of 2021
Auto insurance costs have been on the rise for some time, growing every month as part of the index since December 2021. Since then, costs have increased by 45.8%, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, auto insurance remains a small portion of the CPI, with a 2.85% weighting.
The uptick comes on top of historically high prices for new and used vehicles since the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also become increasingly more expensive to repair vehicles due to supply chain shortages, mechanic wage increases and additional technologies in vehicles such as microprocessors, cameras and other sensors — all of which contribute to higher vehicle and insurance costs.
Biden’s Inflation Continues to Hammer Americans’ Paychecks
Ouch. It’s frustrating that the media continues to push the notion that the Federal Reserve is the only entity that has a lever to manage inflation without even mentioning the root cause of inflation – massive government spending. As long as Biden continues to spend, inflation will continue. It really is that simple. If you want to pull inflation back, start ending government programs and reduce spending.
A hotter-than-expected consumer price index report rattled Wall Street Wednesday, but markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading.
Along with the overall inflation measure, economists also look at the core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to find the true trend. The supercore gauge, which also excludes shelter and rent costs from its services reading, takes it even a step further. Fed officials say it is useful in the current climate as they see elevated housing inflation as a temporary problem and not as good a measure of underlying prices.
Supercore accelerated to a 4.8% pace year over year in March, the highest in 11 months.
[…]
Further complicating the backdrop is a dwindling consumer savings rate and higher borrowing costs which make the central bank more likely to keep monetary policy restrictive “until something breaks,” Fitzpatrick said.
The Fed will have a hard time bringing down inflation with more rate hikes because the current drivers are stickier and not as sensitive to tighter monetary policy, he cautioned.
Renting Is Much Cheaper Than Buying
The powers that be want a nation of renters.
Buying a house in the United States is considerably more expensive than renting right now, and the real estate market is expected to stay that way for at least the next five years, according to a new analysis.
The analysis out Thursday from CBRE, a firm that tracks real estate prices, shows the average monthly payment on a new apartment lease in the U.S. is $2,165. The average monthly payment on a mortgage for a new home is $2,997, meaning it costs households, on average, 38% more to buy than to rent, according to the analysis.
Notably, the gap between buying and renting will continue to be a big hurdle for aspiring homeowners for at least five years, the analysis found — mortgage payments are still expected to cost 11% more than rent in the year 2030.
Higher mortgage rates and a nationwide housing shortage are key factors behind persistently high home prices, according to the CBRE report. The report estimates there is a shortage of 3.8 million housing units in the U.S., mainly in single-family homes and smaller multi-unit dwellings.
Of course, even though renting is cheaper in terms of monthly expense, you will pay it forever and never own anything. Buying a home is still the #1 way that most families build wealth. That’s what they want you to rent and build their wealth.
Aramco CEO Says We Should Abandon Fantasy Energy Goals
Yes. This has been obvious for a while, but what is different here is that there is a major energy company CEO saying it so forcefully. Major energy companies have been unwilling to voice these views for fear of regulatory punishment and because they wanted a slice of the taxpayer pie being doled out for alternative energy schemes. Nasser’s comments mark a break in the SOP.
HOUSTON — Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said Monday that the energy transition is failing and policymakers should abandon the “fantasy” of phasing out oil and gas, as demand for fossil fuels is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.
“In the real world, the current transition strategy is visibly failing on most fronts as it collides with five hard realities,” Nasser said during a panel interview at the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston, Texas.
“A transition strategy reset is urgently needed and my proposal is this: We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions,” the CEO said to applause from the audience.
[…]
Nasser said the world should focus more on reducing emissions from oil and gas in addition to renewables. The CEO said efficiency improvements alone over the past 15 years have reduced global energy demand by almost 90 million barrels per day oil equivalent. Wind and solar, meanwhile, have substituted only 15 million barrels over the same period, he said.
“We should phase in new energy sources and technologies when they are genuinely ready, economically competitive and with the right infrastructure,” Nasser said.
BLS Revises Job Gains Down
This is the only part worth noting in the BLS jobs report today. They revise the previous month’s numbers to be worse every single time. Every. Single. Time. So whatever they report today, you can count on it actually being worse. One might begin to suspect that the BLS has been corrupted into a propagandist mouthpiece of the administration.
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised down by 43,000, from +333,000 to +290,000, and the change for January was revised down by 124,000, from +353,000 to +229,000. With these revisions, employment in December and January combined is 167,000 lower than previously reported. (Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.)
Debt Rising by $1 TRILLION Every 100 Days
This is a nation killer. Nothing else will matter when this crushes our economy.
The debt load of the U.S. is growing at a quicker clip in recent months, increasing about $1 trillion nearly every 100 days.
The nation’s debt permanently crossed over to $34 trillion on Jan. 4, after briefly crossing the mark on Dec. 29, according to data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It reached $33 trillion on Sept. 15, 2023, and $32 trillion on June 15, 2023, hitting this accelerated pace. Before that, the $1 trillion move higher from $31 trillion took about eight months.
35% of Gen Z Spends Compulsively
If they want to spend their way to bankruptcy, that’s their business. It becomes my business when they are asking me, a taxpayer, to bail them out for their bad decisions.
On a recent episode of Caleb Hammer’s YouTube show, Financial Audit, Abigail admitted the student loan she took out wasn’t necessary. “I don’t need to use them like I use them, I know that,” she said.
“You’re borrowing from the government, potentially from taxpayers,” Hammer responded. “You’re going about this in such an irresponsible way and your actions are showing that you just don’t give a s–t.”
However, according to a recent survey, Abigail isn’t alone in her addiction to spending money or misallocating funds.
35% of American Gen Z’s surveyed by Credit Karma admitted to “doom spending,” which it described as a pattern of compulsive spending (think: clothing or high-end skincare products) that helped people cope with anxieties about the economy and world affairs.
Abigail seemed to be on a similar path when she appeared on Financial Audit.
Her college is relatively close to where she lives and is, as Hammer described, “insanely cheap.” Nevertheless, she managed to accumulate $11,000 in student loans — all of which were allocated to fund her lifestyle choices.
In addition, she has $8,000 in auto loans for a car she admitted she didn’t need to buy in the first place.
She also has thousands of dollars in credit card debt, which could have been avoided because her cost of living is lower than the national average. She currently lives with her parents and doesn’t pay for groceries or utilities.
When Hammer asked Abigail if she’d “just given up” she said “probably.”
She added, “That’s been my problem for the past few years: knowing I’m hurting myself and just not doing anything about it. I just feel like I don’t have any self-esteem.”
Homeowners Increasingly Underinsured as Premiums Skyrocket
Mark Friedlander, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group, said home insurance premiums had cumulatively risen 32% from 2019 to 2023, while rebuilding and replacement costs had gone up 55%. Analysts for the group estimated that in 2023, home insurers experienced their biggest underwriting loss — the difference between collected premiums and paid-out claims — since 2011. Behind the loss were huge storms that caused more than $50 billion in damage that insurers had to pay for.
A survey last year by the institute and researchers for Munich Re, a reinsurer, found that 88% of U.S. homeowners had property insurance, down from 95% in 2019. Only 4% had flood insurance, even though 90% of the country’s natural disasters involve flooding.
Once insurers raise premiums, many homeowners are discovering that their lenders are willing to explore ways to make their payments more affordable. Banks that collect mortgage payments must ensure that borrowers’ coverage meets requirements set by the government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing agencies, but are open to owners tweaking it within those requirements, said Pete Mills, the chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, the trade group for the mortgage industry.
Amy Bach, the executive director of United Policyholders, a nonprofit advocacy group that helps insurance consumers navigate tricky claims processes, said she found herself recommending a multitude of strategies these days to keep policies affordable.
“For most consumers, what they’re facing now is: What is the least worst option for me, given the pricing?” she said. She advises lowering the coverage on the contents of a house or cutting coverage for outbuildings like garages, sheds, pools or retaining walls.
“We had been saying, ‘Raise your deductible,’ but now, what does that mean?” Bach said. “My parents’ home on Long Island has a $33,000 wind deductible,” meaning they would have to pay that much out of pocket — a huge share of the cost of a new roof — before getting any help from their insurer.
And before you tell me that it isn’t Bidenomics, it absolutely is. The key number is, “rebuilding and replacement costs had gone up 55%.” Some of that is due to the demand for new housing and remodeling while corporations restrict supply by purchasing homes, but a huge contributor is the inflationary economy and high interest rates that are pervasive elements of the Biden economy. Yes, if it costs 55% more to replace your home whose value is already inflated, insurance rates are going to go way up.
Japan Enters Recession
Oof.
Japan’s economy dipped into a technical recession, after unexpectedly contracting again in the October-December period, provisional government data showed Thursday. High inflation crimped domestic demand and private consumption in what’s now the world’s fourth-largest economy.
The latest gross domestic product print complicates the case for interest rate normalization for Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda and fiscal policy support for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. It also means Germany took Japan’s place as the third-largest economy in the world last year in dollar terms.
Provisional gross domestic product contracted 0.4% in the fourth quarter compared with a year ago, after a revised 3.3% slump in the July-September period. This was way below the median estimate for 1.4% growth in a Reuters poll among economists. The GDP deflator in the fourth quarter stood at 3.8% on an annualized basis.
The Japanese economy also contracted 0.1% in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter, after shrinking a revised 0.8% in the third quarter from the second. This was also weaker than expectations for 0.3% expansion.
January Jobs Numbers Out
There’s really no point reacting to the BLS job numbers in real time anymore. They are always… ALWAYS… revised negatively in the subsequent months. This is statistically improbable. It points to intention.
Car Insurance Rates Skyrocket
Inflation becomes a snowball effect.
Car insurance rates have climbed 36% since January 2020, according to an ABC News analysis of consumer price data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Within the past year alone, rates for car insurance have soared more than 20%, BLS data shows.
“Prices for a lot of things have gone up over the last few years,” Tom Simons, an economist at Jefferies who studies the auto industry, told ABC News. “The difference with car insurance is that it’s still going up while others have subsided.”
[…]
The rate increases tie directly to the surge in vehicle prices, analysts told ABC News, noting that the elevated car prices left owners more likely to seek repairs for their current vehicle than opt to buy a new one.
In turn, a spike in demand for car repairs sent up the price of such services, which led to ballooning insurance rates, analysts added. Those rates have continued to rise as repair shops weather expenses like pay increases for in-demand workers and high costs for parts, even as the supply shortages have begun to ease.