There’s an old saying that you can never go home again, yet nearly half of all adults would do just that… if they could only afford it.

A survey from Zillow had found that 44% of Americans would buy their childhood home if cost were not an issue, yet only half of all adults say they could afford it at today’s prices. An even larger share of millennials and Gen Z adults would buy their childhood home today. It suggests that the nostalgia craze that has swept pop culture, social media, fashion and marketing has reached housing.  

“It appears younger generations aren’t just nostalgic for low-rise jeans and Barbie, but for a simpler time in their lives when home was a place of comfort and safety,” said Manny Garcia, a senior population scientist at Zillow who conducted this research. “They may associate positive memories with their childhood home, having lived there without the burdens of rent, mortgage payments, maintenance, insurance or other housing hurdles. Today, a comparable home can feel out of reach, especially for younger adults who aspire to buy, but face steep affordability challenges.” 

Children of the 1980s and 1990s are the most likely to say they would buy their childhood home today — 62% and 55% respectively. Yet almost half of those born in the ’80s (47%) and nearly two-thirds of those born in the ’90s (62%) say they couldn’t afford it at today’s prices.

Those would-be buyers now need to earn a six-figure income to afford the typical U.S. home. Younger generations may long for the housing market of their youth when prices were lower, but their parents likely faced similar, if not worse, affordability challenges in the early 1980s. In 1981, mortgage rates soared above 18%, taking the typical monthly mortgage payment amount up to 55% of a median income at the time. Today, a new mover’s mortgage burden represents nearly 40% of a typical income — still well beyond the 30% threshold considered affordable.  

Buyers today have easier access to affordability resources. Home shoppers can see down payment assistance programs they may be eligible for on for-sale listings on Zillow. They can tap into online affordability tools to better understand how much they can comfortably spend on a home, and then shop for homes by monthly payment, instead of by purchase price. 

While many adults aspire to buy their childhood home today, they likely envisioned a very different dream home in childhood. The largest shares of adults say that, as a child, their dream home included a pool (77%) and/or a home theater (73%). Today, 72% of adults would still include a pool, and 76% would include a home theater in their current dream home, suggesting some dreams never die.

When reality sets in, practical features prevail. A vast majority of adults now dream of a home with air conditioning (89%), a walk-in closet (89%) and a laundry room (85%). However, that inner child lives within a significant share of adults, who still want a bowling alley (43%), a frozen yogurt or soft serve machine (34%), and a soda vending machine (24%) in their present-day dream home.  

Not all generations grew up pining for the same dream home features. Elevators reveal the largest generational divide: 58% of those born in the ’90s say their childhood selves dreamed of having a lift in their home versus only 21% of those born in the ’50s and earlier. There is an almost equally large 35-point gap for Jacuzzis and hot tubs. Conversely, 38% of children of the ’50s and earlier dreamed of a home with a white picket fence in their childhood, while only 21% of those born in the ’90s say the same.

Authored by Rob Bluey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Victor Davis Hanson tackles a topic related to military history in his new book, “The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation.” (Courtesy of The Heritage Foundation)

Victor Davis Hanson is well known for his intelligent commentary and astute analysis of current events. But for his latest book, he tackles a topic related to his work on military history. It’s called “The End of Everything: How Wars Descend Into Annihilation.”

Mr. Hanson studied four historical examples of wartime extinction that he features in the book. Then he applies those lessons to contemporary society to examine our own vulnerabilities. The book is on sale now, and Mr. Hanson spoke with The Daily Signal to share his observations along with some advice about what’s at stake for the United States in the short term.

Listen to the full interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or read the transcript—edited for length and clarity—below.

Rob Bluey: Could you share with our listeners your motivation for doing this book?

Victor Davis Hanson: I’ve written a lot of books on military history and I’ve come across cases where the defeated didn’t just become occupied or surrender unconditionally or have change of governments or suffer grievous losses, but they were completely wiped out.

And by that, I mean it wasn’t just their physical space, their populations—of course, in the ancient world, they enslaved anybody they didn’t kill—but their language, their culture, their civilization, their religion disappeared within a generation. So, for today, we don’t know much about Punic culture in North Africa or the Aztecs in Mexico.

It didn’t happen frequently, but what were the conditions under which it occurred? And then, I have a long epilogue trying to speculate if that could still happen given that the agents of annihilation—nuclear, bio, chemical, AI (artificial intelligence)—are much easier to use than muscular labor of the past.

Mr. Bluey: In what ways are we today vulnerable to the threat of extinction?

Mr. Hanson: I tried to look at a pattern—if there was a pattern. In all these cases, these societies did not realize they were in decline. They did not realize that, in the past, when they had wars, there were usually negotiations between the victor and the defeated, they had no idea who Cortés was, who Scipio was, who Mehmed II was, or Alexander, that these were killers, and they were different sorts than they had encountered before.

They also had this kind of naive egocentric idea that allies would come to their rescue—the Spartans will come and save us, the Venetians will come to Constantinople, the Macedonians will attack the Romans from the rear. And they didn’t really understand that all allies are self-interested.

And then, finally, they didn’t understand that these killers, the destroyers, were not like Genghis Khan or Tamerlane, they were men of education. Alexander was tutored by Aristotle. Scipio Aemilianus had Polybius at his side, the great Roman historian, when he destroyed the city. Mehmed had the largest library in the Islamic world. Cortés was a man of letters.

So they didn’t realize that they had thought deeply about how to destroy. They didn’t just come in, kill, rape women, and leave. They really had an existential plan to erase these cities.

And when you look at today, there’s the same idea that no one would ever do that, it couldn’t happen here, this is in the past.

So I went through in the epilogue and looked at all the threats of extinction that we have seen in, say, the last 15 years. I was shocked.

It wasn’t just Kim Jong Un saying that he wanted to wipe out South Korea, and he would, but it was people like [Turkish President] Recep Erdogan. He has threatened, he said not too long ago, about eight months ago, that the Athenians, the modern Athenians, would wake up one morning and there would be a barrage of rockets to wipe them out. That was anger over his attempt to take back islands that are Greek off the coast of Turkey.

He said to the Armenians at Nagorno-Karabakh—a year ago, they ethnically cleansed every Armenian out of Azerbaijan. And they had been there for a thousand years. And he said, “We are going to deal with Armenia itself in the way that our grandfathers did.” And that was, of course, the destruction of Armenian culture in Turkey.

We know what the Iranians have said. There was a very controversial statement by [Former Iran President Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani about 20 years ago, but more that’s been reiterated lately, in a variety of contexts, that the idea of Israel as the home of devout Jews is actually a gift to Iran because it concentrates devout Jews in one place.

Half the world’s Jewry is now in Israel, but more importantly, these are the observant Jews, and they are at what Rafsanjani called a one-bomb state, that one nuclear weapon could erase Jewish civilization itself.

[Russian President Vladimir] Putin, of course, says that Ukraine is an aberration that doesn’t really exist, it was a province of the Soviet Union, and the language should be obliterated, it should be reincorporated into Russia. I’ve counted about 16 statements in the press that Russian generals, Russian media, or Russian government officials have said if the war were to continue, they would use nuclear weapons.

In the case of China, they have threatened to wipe out Taiwan and destroy the bastard idea of a Taiwanese civilization; they say it doesn’t exist. And they’ve threatened to nuke, as well, Japan if it aids Taiwan.

I only mentioned that because I’ve had pretty good luck with Chinese publishers buying books on military history. I wrote a book on World War II they purchased, but they sent a letter to my publisher and basically said if I didn’t take that sentence out of the book, then they were going to cancel the publication agreement. And, of course, I couldn’t take it out. Instead, I sent back not just one threat of Taiwan, I found about 15 others, and I said, “This is ridiculous, you’ve done this more than—” And so they’ve canceled the Chinese translation. But it’s pretty prevalent.

And also, the denial. People on the walls of Constantinople said: “We can work with a sultan. He won’t kill everybody.” And people said, “Alexander the Great is a philosopher; he won’t obliterate us like Philip did,” … or something like that.

And when you see the same denial, people get very angry when you mention Putin’s threats, they say: “Oh, he’s just bluster. He would never do that.” And, “Kim Jong Un would never do that.” And, “I’m not sure that’s true.” History says that the odds are they won’t, but it’s happened and there’s no second chances when that happens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLMLGbQYhyo

Mr. Bluey: What role do you think technology is playing in either facilitating or even [exacerbating] the potential for these actors to destroy other societies?

Mr. Hanson: I think we learned with COVID gain-of-function research that the technology was accelerating much more rapidly than the social, political, economic, cultural analysis of how to handle it. And there were people who were freelancing, like EcoHealth, for example, that was giving expertise to the Wuhan lab. I think the same thing is true of AI.

Unfortunately, I work at Stanford right next to Silicon Valley, so when I go out and eat dinner at night, I often listen to conversations of techies and I know people who give to Stanford, et cetera. I have very little confidence on their moral sense. I have a great deal of confidence that they’re very adept in high-tech research like AI.

So my point is that when we see things like the FBI hiring Twitter contractors to suppress news about a laptop in the last election, these are the same people, the same mentalities that will be in charge of AI.

And there was, I mentioned in the book, a Pentagon simulation in which they used a computer launch completely directed by an AI program. And so, they sent a missile on a computer and they programmed every defense mechanism in it possible. So as it went into the computer, they launched computer simulations of air attacks from aircraft, from anti-ballistic missile systems, weather problems, et cetera. And then, when it was almost over, they had the computer kill the launch because it was over.

Well, the launch didn’t kill, it turned around and went back at the launch person because it had been programmed to think spontaneously about a threat. So the person who launched the missile had never thought that the missile would attack him.

And so, they shut down the entire experiment because they realized that they didn’t have the capability in the real world of ensuring that an AI couldn’t reason or analyze a threat, including the person who launched the missile, which would be the greatest threat of all if he canceled the missile and aborted it.

So things like that are pretty scary, just like the COVID and the biochemical, et cetera.

And I think if you look at what these people said in the past, I was just shocked about the denial.

Montezuma said, “We’re going to be here forever.” He had visions of the Cortés were some type of deities maybe, but he thought he could appease them.

And the same thing was true of the Carthaginians, they said: “You know what? We will give up our elephant. We’ll do everything. The Romans won’t do this.” And they had no intention of doing anything else other than destroying them.

So I do think there’s people—like the Chinese Communist government, like the government in North Korea, like the government in Turkey, like the government in Iran—who are in a whole different moral universe than what we think they’re in.

Mr. Bluey: Do you think that some of that denial exists here in the United States today?

Mr. Hanson: Absolutely.

I don’t think the average American understands that the Chinese are producing four ships per year to our one ship. Or that if you took any of our $15 billion carriers and you put them in the straits between Taiwan and China, they wouldn’t last more than an hour given the Chinese have developed missile batteries where they could launch 5,000 or 6,000 small missiles that would go about 6 inches above the water and hit the waterline at night. And you couldn’t stop that.

They are building nuclear weapons at a phenomenal rate. They’re working on anti-missile defense. They’re back up to probably 250,000 students in the United States; if 1 percent are engaged in espionage—and the FBI says it’s more than that—you’ve got thousands of people who are appropriating technology.

I don’t think anybody understands that it’s going to take us six years to replenish Javelin stocks and maybe we can’t. North Korea is producing more 155-mm shells than we are. At least they sent 2 million of them to the Russians.

So we are not armed, and yet, our strategic responsibilities, our strategic confidence, our arrogance has not lessened commensurately with our reduced defense capacity.

We’re 40,000 recruits short now in the military—never happened before. And when you analyze who is not joining the military, it’s not blacks, it’s not Latinos, it’s not gays, it’s not women, it’s not trans people, all of those numbers are the same … the largest group are white males from the lower and middle classes whose families fought in Vietnam, first Gulf War, Afghanistan, but this third and fourth generation are not joining up.

And unfortunately, for the military, if you look at the casualty or the fatality rates in Afghanistan and Iraq, that demographic dies at twice their demographics—72 percent to 74 percent of all the dead in Afghanistan, in Iraq are white males from the middle and lower classes.

And yet, this is the very demographic that [retired Gen.] Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and [Defense Secretary] Lloyd Austin, in testimonies, have suggested suffer from white rage or white privilege. And the Pentagon was investigating just those kind of slanders about that demographic, and they found, of course, in December, they quietly issued a report, there was no cabal of white supremacists.

But the point is, you can’t really have a successful military when you’re 40,000 recruits short in just a year.

Mr. Bluey: What do you suggest that societies today, including the United States, learn from those historical examples you gave us earlier in the interview to maybe mitigate some of the risks that we might find ourselves in in the future?

Mr. Hanson: I would not put much confidence in international bodies or even in so-called close allies. The Spartans came all the way up to the Thebans and they heard the Macedonians, they turned right back. On the last day of the existence of Constantinople, they were looking out at the walls at the Hellespont thinking that Venetian galleys en masse would come up and save them.

So … I support NATO. I don’t really think the U.N. (United Nations) is of much value. The only thing that will save the United States is a deterrent military, and we don’t have that now, an overwhelmingly large, successful, smart military. And if we don’t have that, we’re going to see more of what we saw in Afghanistan, what we saw with the Chinese balloon, what we see in Gaza.

And I think Americans don’t realize that we’re on a back of a tiger and we can’t get off because we set up the postwar world, and we had the pretensions of saying to the world, “You can go in the Red Sea, you can go in the Black Sea, you can go in the Strait of Hormuz, you can do all that and you won’t be injured.” That was a wonderful thing to do. But if you’re going to have those pretensions that you’re going to have a postwar order, you have to have a military that, from time to time, takes care of the Houthis or gets rid of Soleimani.

And it doesn’t mean you’re going to be a neocon interventionist, but I think under [former President Donald] Trump and [former State Secretary Mike] Pompeo, they had a, I guess you would call it a Jacksonian idea that there would be no better friend than United States and no worse enemy. And we did not want to get involved in optional military adventures, but we would be very, very tough on our enemies. And then, the tougher we were, the less we would have to do it once we reestablished deterrence.

So, we’ve lost deterrence, and that can be achieved militarily, economically, politically, but we’ve lost it in every category and it’s going to be very, very dangerous to reestablish it.

Mr. Bluey: How much is at stake this year as it pertains to the future of this great country?

Mr. Hanson: Everybody says each election is the most important, but I can tell you that this election is more important than 2016 and 2020 because, in my lifetime, we’ve never seen the Democratic Party—they always say the Republican Party was taken over by MAGA, but you look at 90 percent of the MAGA agenda, and it’s traditionally low taxes, small government, strong defense, closed borders.

But the Democratic Party, as we’re seeing with Columbia [University] and all these student protests, they are a revolutionary party. It’s not that they believe in a porous border; they believe in no border. It’s not that they believe in light sentencing; they don’t want to sentence anybody. They don’t want to have bail. They don’t believe that there is such a thing as deterrence, the way we got out of Afghanistan. They believe in radical climate change. You can show them data, you can show them all sorts, they don’t care, they want to ban combustible engines, they don’t want fossil.

So this is a group of people, as we’re seeing in this split screen with Donald Trump charged with these ridiculous misdemeanors bootstrapped onto felonies. At the same time, people are entering with violence into a Columbia building. And as one of them said the other night, “They will be out in 24 hours.” I don’t think they’re even in jail as we speak, they’re already out.

I guess what I’m saying is we’re in a revolutionary Jacobin period, kind of a Reign of Terror. And I don’t see it stopping unless—I don’t think the election of Donald Trump will be enough. You’ll have to elect the Senate, Donald Trump, and enlarge the House majority. And then they’re going to have to act very quickly to stop it, to restore the border, to restore deterrence, to restore deterrence against criminals, to get back our preeminent position economically, to stop this $1 trillion borrowing every 100 days.

We’re in bad shape in every category. And I think, whether we like it, I know there’s a lot of Never-Trumpers out there, but whatever problem they have with Trump’s temperament, it just pales in comparison with the ideological revolutionaries that are in there now…

If [President Joe] Biden is reelected, what we saw the first term will be nothing, it’ll be enhanced to a magnitude, it’ll be so much greater. So I’m really worried about this election, especially the integrity of the balloting and turnout and all of those other issues.

Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Ford is cutting battery orders in yet another sign that the EV market, despite a constant tailwind from the U.S. taxpayer, is starting to slow. 

The company is cutting the orders to curb electric-vehicle losses as it scales back its EV strategy in a slowing plug-in market, according to insiders who spoke to Bloomberg.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has said the company’s EV unit “is the main drag on the whole company right now” and CAT said its “cooperation with Ford is moving forward as normal”. 

The company responded by saying it wouldn’t comment on relationships with suppliers. 

Bloomberg notes that with plummeting EV prices and weakening demand, Ford’s losses per electric vehicle exceeded $100,000 in the first quarter, doubling last year’s deficit.

Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that Ford’s projected EV unit losses this year will nearly offset profits from its Ford Blue division, which produces traditional internal combustion engine vehicles like the Bronco SUV and gas-electric hybrids such as the Maverick truck.

BI analysts said of the results: “That raises questions about the prudence of investing heavily in EVs.”

Ford’s order reductions highlight industry challenges as U.S. automakers face weaker-than-expected EV demand and battery makers in South Korea, China, and beyond struggle with unsold inventory.

Making a great electric car at a great price is extremely difficult

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 10, 2024

This has affected prices for key metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, leading to multiyear lows and stalling new projects. Ford has reduced EV production costs but had to cut prices to stay competitive with Tesla.

Ford CFO John Lawler said in April: “We’ve seen prices coming down quite dramatically and that’s why we haven’t been able to keep up from a cost reduction standpoint.”

He continued: “But we’re targeting to take out as much cost this year as we can on Model e and all in the spirit of driving toward that contribution margin positive.”

He concluded: “Model e has to stand on its own. It needs to be profitable and it has to provide a return on the capital we’re investing.”

Thus, its no surprise to us (or to our readers, we’re sure) why, exactly Ford is cutting back on its EV investments.

Recall we noted from the Epoch Times just days ago that on April 24, Ford reported it lost $132,000 for each of its 10,000 electric vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2024, according to CNN. The sales were down 20 percent from the first quarter of 2023 and would “drag down earnings for the company overall.”

The losses include “hundreds of millions being spent on research and development of the next generation of EVs for Ford. Those investments are years away from paying off.” Ford is the only major carmaker breaking out EV numbers by themselves. But other marques likely suffer similar losses.

By Linda Schadler of PhysOrg

The income of many people around the world has considerably increased due to the economic globalization of the last 50 years. However, these income gains are unevenly distributed. A study by Dr. Valentin Lang, junior professor of political economy at the University of Mannheim, and his co-author Marina M. Tavares of the International Monetary Fund shows that the top 10% of the national income distributions, in particular, have benefited from this development.

In their study, published in The Journal of Economic Inequality, the researchers tried to answer the questions if and how the globalization of the last 50 years has affected inequalities between people worldwide.

Their research found that globalization has led to greater income inequalities within many countries. The gap between rich and poor has widened particularly in countries that have become more integrated into the global economy, such as China, Russia and some Eastern European countries. At the same time, globalization has reduced inequality between countries. The differences between countries therefore play an increasingly minor role in the global inequality rate.

“The influence of globalization on income inequalities worldwide was greater than we had expected,” summarizes Valentin Lang, junior professor of International Political Economy at the University of Mannheim and author of the study. “We were particularly surprised that these differences were mainly due to the gains of the richest and that the lower income groups benefited little or not at all.”

Increasing skepticism towards globalization

The study also shows that globalization in its early and middle stages led to considerable income increases in the individual countries but that the growth effects diminish as the degree of globalization increases. “The benefits of globalization become smaller during the integration process, while the costs of distribution become higher. This matches the increasing skepticism towards globalization which can be observed in countries with a high level of economic integration,” Lang concludes.

For analyzing economic globalization, the authors used a new empirical approach: They combined data on trade, financial flows and regulation from the past 50 years and related these to the different speeds and regional concentrations of economic liberalization measures in the individual countries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest reaction to President Biden earlier in the week threatening that the US could withhold offensive weapons from Israel if its military escalates a ground offensive against Rafah has been to vow that his country is ready to “stand alone” and “fight with fingernails” in Gaza.

“If we must, we shall fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than our fingernails, and with that strength of spirit, with God’s help, together we shall be victorious,” he said. Netanyahu is vowing to move forward with the ground offensive against the southern Gaza city where some 1.3 Palestinian refugees are located. Washington has long warned that there are not adequate enough civilian evacuation plans in place. The Rafah offensive is now official, per Axios: 

Amid growing U.S. concerns about the humanitarian situation in Rafah, the Israeli security cabinet approved last night the “expansion of the area of ​​operation” of the Israel Defense Forces in the southern Gaza city, according to three sources with knowledge of the details.

Image via Associated Press

The prime minister in his latest remarks described that the country largely stood alone in the 1948 war that established Israel when it was “victorious” despite that it was fought by a “few against the many…and did not have weapon.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant echoed something similar: “We will stand strong, we will achieve our goals,” he said. He asserted that “enemies as well as … best of friends” must know that Israel “cannot be subdued”.

Already the US has paused a shipment of 2,000- and 500-pound bombs to Israel, but officials say there is still ample defense aid still in the pipeline. Perhaps Biden’s ‘threats’ are just political posturing in order to keep more Democratic voters from jumping ship over his Gaza policy ahead of November? 

A fresh Times of Israel headline issued Friday reads: Despite Biden’s pause, billions of dollars in US arms for Israel still in pipeline…

Billions of dollars worth of US weaponry remains in the pipeline for Israel, despite the delay of one shipment of bombs and a review of others by US President Joe Biden’s administration, which says it’s concerned the Israel Defense Forces could use them in densely populated Rafah, as is has in other parts of Gaza.

So the current paused shipment is likely merely symbolic, or a show of ‘doing something’ without actually doing it in any meaningful way, and in the end Israel’s military will have whatever it needs to continue its offensive on Rafah.

“A wide range of other military equipment is due to go to Israel, including joint direct attack munitions (JDAMS), which convert dumb bombs into precision weapons; and tank rounds, mortars and armored tactical vehicles, Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters,” Times of Israel continues.

“Risch said those munitions were not moving through the approval process as quickly as they should be, noting some had been in the works since December, while assistance for Israel more typically sails through the review process within weeks.”

Again, it’s more likely that this talk of halting defense aid is a ruse to get the political pressure turned down on the Biden White House, amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests across US college campuses and Progressive outrage.

Senator Bernie Sanders in a recent CNN interview aptly stated that “This may be Biden’s Vietnam” which both could cost him the election and be a black stain on his legacy.

“I understand that a lot of people in this country are less than enthusiastic about Biden for a number of reasons and I get that. And I strongly disagree with him, especially on what’s going on in Gaza,” he commented on the president’s waning popularity even among Dems.

Meanwhile Israel’s Security Cabinet has just approved a strategy of the IDF’s “measured expansion” of the Rafah operation. This seems to simply mean that Israel will push the offensive up to the extent where Washington can still comfortably stomach it on a public and international level.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Roxanne Mathai in a file photograph. (Courtesy of Roxanne Mathai)

A sheriff’s deputy fired for protesting in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, has secured a large settlement from Bexar County in Texas.

Roxanne Mathai, a lieutenant with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) at the time she traveled to Washington, will receive $395,000 in a settlement reached after she sued her former employer, the parties in the case told The Epoch Times.

“We’re very pleased with the resolution,” Mark Anthony Sanchez, an attorney representing Ms. Mathai, told The Epoch Times. He said the settlement was “nothing short of vindication for Roxanne.”

“I am grateful for the unwavering support of my attorney … and the countless individuals who stood by me throughout this challenging ordeal,” Ms. Mathai said in a statement. “This settlement not only provides closure for me personally but also sends a powerful message that wrongful termination will not be tolerated.”

Monica Ramos, a spokeswoman for Bexar County, told The Epoch Times in an email that the county’s insurer decided to settle.

“Bexar County continues to deny that any acts of discrimination or retaliation occurred,” Ms. Ramos said. “Nothing about the insurer’s decision to settle both claims can be construed as an admission of any wrongdoing or liability by Bexar County, which is expressly denied.”

Ms. Mathai posted images and videos on Jan. 6, 2021, from a rally for then-President Donald Trump in Washington, held just before people began breaching the U.S. Capitol. Ms. Mathai went over to the building after the rally. She included captions in her posts, such as “Today has been amazing!”

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said a day later that he was aware of the materials and that he intended to make sure Ms. Mathai never entered a sheriff’s office building again.

He said that Ms. Mathai was allowed to exercise her First Amendment rights but should have left once crimes began being committed.

There is no indication Ms. Mathai entered the Capitol and she has not been charged. She has said she left around 3 p.m., that she could not see any doors or windows from her position, and that she saw people climbing the walls at the Capitol but didn’t think that was illegal.

The sheriff’s office discharged Ms. Mathai in June 2021 after officials determined she failed to report crimes and engaged in conduct unbecoming of an officer, according to documents reviewed by The Epoch Times.

An arbitrator upheld the termination, finding in part that while near the Capitol she “knew or should have known she was observing illegal activity (trespass, barricades down, people climbing walls and scaffolding); that tear gas in the area and later a curfew were signs of trouble; that her social media would disseminate her pictures, video and comments to the public; and, that as an officer with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office the last place she should be or remain or come back to was the scene of this so-called ‘rally.’”

Ms. Mathai sued in 2022, alleging violations of her constitutional rights. She noted she had received permission from a superior to attend the pro-Trump rally and described herself as a “law-abiding citizen” who wanted to attend a peaceful event in support of the president.

Ms. Mathai said she recorded video footage and photographs because she believed she “was a witness to history” and wanted to “create a record for posterity,” according to the lawsuit.

“Ms. Mathai proudly and unapologetically voiced and displayed her lawful and constitutionally protected support of President Trump in person and through social media,” it stated.

The suit said Ms. Mathai was “shocked and appalled” when she returned to her hotel room on Jan. 6 and watched what was unfolding at the Capitol.

Bexar County is in southern Texas and includes San Antonio.

An attempt in 2023 by Bexar County officials to have the case thrown out was rejected by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, who was overseeing the case. He ruled that Ms. Mathai did not waive her rights to bring a federal claim.

The Bexar County Commissioners Court in April approved a $100,000 payment to an outside insurance carrier to allow the carrier to take over the defense in the case. That was the deductible required under the insurance policy, so the insurer is covering the remainder of the settlement, according to the county.

The parties entered a stipulation of dismissal in federal court and Judge Rodriguez dismissed it on Tuesday.

“The termination in this case was done within policy and was upheld by an arbitrator. The decision to issue a settlement was made outside the BCSO,” Mr. Salazar, the sheriff, told The Epoch Times in an email. “There was no wrongdoing on the part of the administration, and I stand by our actions.”

The Biden administration on Friday announced its third tranche of new aid for Ukraine since President Biden signed into effect Congress’ $95 billion foreign aid package, which includes $60 billion total funding for Ukraine.

This newest authorized package is for $400 million and is to include High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, Patriot missiles, and various munitions including anti-aircraft and anti-tank ammo, and armored vehicles like Bradleys.

“It will also provide a number of coastal and riverine patrol boats, trailers, demolition munitions, high-speed anti-radiation missiles, protective gear, spare parts and other weapons and equipment,” according to further details in the Associated Press. “The weapons are being sent through presidential drawdown authority, which pulls systems and munitions from existing U.S. stockpiles so they can go quickly to the war front.”

Anadolu via Getty Images

It’s as yet unclear if this particular package will include the longer range Army Tactical Missile System, which can hit targets up to 190 miles away. Moscow has been warning the West that parties supplying Ukraine with weapons used against Russian territory will be seen as direct participants in the war.

Ironically this new $400 million package has been announced the very same day that Russia has launched a rare, major cross-border offensive into the Kharkiv region, seeking to establish a ‘buffer zone’ some 10km deep inside Ukraine territory, ostensibly to prevent cross-border shelling from harming Russian citizens and to more easily intercept threats like drones.

Currently, Ukrainian soldiers are resorting to literally trying to find leftover, unexploded artillery shells scattered in the ground at prior battle sites. The Wall Street Journal has underscored this severe lack of ammo along Ukraine’s front lines in writing that “Kyiv’s ammunition shortage is so acute that a soldier who hunts for Russian shells—and makes his own bombs—has become an important supplier for some units.” 

On Thursday, David Sacks pointed to the significant depletion in artillery shell production in the US as a sign that Kiev’s external backers are growing weaker, not stronger amid the continued escalation…

I warned that America didn’t produce enough artillery shells to supply both Ukraine and Israel; now Biden has cut off Israel. Some of those most outraged were strong advocates for giving Ukraine everything it wanted. They have no one to blame but themselves for depleting… https://t.co/uZvDSun7nb

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) May 9, 2024

“As the shortage of artillery shells has grown more acute in recent weeks, brigades have started sending their de-miners to Polyukhovich, hoping he’ll teach them how to find more ammunition,” the report said.

“It is dangerous work. Several months ago, while Polyukhovich was out, his team tried to deactivate an antipersonnel mine, which is more sensitive than the antitank mines they normally work with,” WSJ detailed. “It went off, killing one of them and pockmarking the side of Polyukhovich’s house.”

* * *

Meanwhile, a shocking stat and reminder that the proxy war in Ukraine has in the end weakened America’s ability to defend itself…

Even if the Ukraine War ended tomorrow, it would take over 5 years to replenish our stockpiles of artillery shells, Javelins and Stingers. But Biden sees no tradeoffs between helping Ukraine and Israel. And he wants to rattle the saber against China while he’s at it. pic.twitter.com/4xv0aNQWLi

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) October 25, 2023

By Rabobank

The Bank of England left the Bank Rate unchanged at 5.25% yesterday, but the clear signal from the record of votes, and Governor Bailey, is that cuts aren’t far away. This time around the vote split 7-2 in favour of holding (previously 8-1), with arch-dove Dhingra being joined by former hawk Ramsden in plumping for a cut.

The BOE’s Monetary Policy Report lowered inflation forecasts, but the policy Summary warned on uncertainties around the persistence of high services inflation and the spotty ONS labour market data. Governor Bailey commented that a cut in June is “neither ruled out nor a fait accompli”, while our own BOE watcher Stefan Koopman favors an August cut, owing to sticky services inflation and uncertainties around the impact of the recent 9.8% minimum wage decision.

So, the Bank of England is now in a similar place to the ECB, and a similar place to where the Fed was earlier in the year: cuts are coming, we just need to see some more data to be assured on the timing. In spending so much time talking about cutting rates before actually cutting them, central bankers are doing their best Abe Lincoln impersonation: “give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

A dovish Bank of England follows Sweden’s Rijksbank delivering a 25bps cut earlier in the week (the first in 16 years) and a 25bps cut from the Brazilian central bank yesterday (though four Board members wanted to cut by 50). The RBA doved-it-up on Tuesday by keeping the cash rate unchanged at 4.35% and maintaining their neutral bias – despite a big upside surprise in inflation in Q1 and half-percentage point upward revisions to their inflation forecasts for the remainder of this year. We think the RBA’s ‘hold and hope’ strategy will ultimately get waylaid by economic reality and that they will end up hiking twice more this year, albeit reluctantly.

Banxico might have been the closest thing to a hawkish central bank this week. They opted to pause the cutting cycle that was initiated in March, while revising inflation forecasts substantially higher and warning of persistence in inflationary shocks. USDMXN dropped below 16.80 following the meeting despite small gains in the DXY index. Nevertheless, Rabobank’s Christian Lawrence and Molly Schwartz are expecting Banxico’s policy rate to continue falling later in the year, ultimately hitting 10% by Christmas.

Over in the United States we saw a continuation of the theme established by a soft non-farm payrolls report last Friday that the US jobs market may be beginning to crack. Initial jobless claims this week printed at 231,000, well up on the expected 212,000 and last week’s upwardly-revised 209,000. This follows a recent run of soft data, including the lacklustre payrolls report, below expectations JOLTS job openings, and ISM reports showing employment contracting for both the manufacturing and services sectors.

While the labor market is starting to look creaky, the prices paid components of those ISM reports pumped higher. This chimes nicely with a strong run of PCE and CPI data, which we might see continued next week when we get the April PPI and CPI reports for the United States. Could another upside surprise be on the cards there? [ZH: a downside surprise is far more likely]

So, the jobs market looks to be weakening, inflation has picked up and growth unexpectedly slowed to just 1.6% annualized in Q1 figures reported the week before last. Nevertheless, Jay Powell isn’t bothered. He recently told reporters that he couldn’t see the ‘stag’ or the ‘flation’ in the economy at the moment.

The BOE and the ECB might be channelling one former President in softening us up for rate cuts, but in light of the recent run of data it stretches credulity to suggest that Powell is channelling another: “Father, I cannot tell a lie…”

While the economic picture appears to be softening in North America, in Europe things seemed to turn for the better this week. PMIs indicated a faster rate of expansion for Spain, France and Germany, and Italian industry also remains in expansion (albeit at a slightly reduced rate). German factory orders remained dreadful, but both imports and exports showed unexpected strength. French wage growth accelerated and German industrial production was less bad than feared. All of this follows on from stronger than expected Q1 growth figures for the Eurozone last week.

Europe might be looking better, but it isn’t time to break out the bunting just yet. Growth is still weak, and it would be a brave call to suggest that inflation has been routed – even if it may be in retreat at the moment. There’s also plenty of potential for further shocks. Just this morning we saw news that Joe Biden plans to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs and other strategic sectors as early as next week. Such moves raise the risk of China dumping those products into other markets (like Europe), which might prompt action from the Europeans to protect already fragile German industry.

There’s also the issue of the Israel-Hamas (/Hezbollah/Iran) war bubbling away in the background. Brent crude has stabilised around $83-84/bbl after the recent tit-for-tat between Israel and Iran momentarily petered-out, but tensions remain high and the war is moving into a new phase that introduces new potential catalysts for regional potshots.

Israel this week cut off the crossing from Rafah into Egypt as a precursor to a ground offensive. Hamas tried to accept a ceasefire deal that Israel hadn’t offered. Joe Biden wound-back long running bipartisan support of Israel by threatening to halt shipments of offensive weapons if Israel pushes into Rafah. That latter development was almost certainly electorally-driven, with the campus youth vote, and the large Muslim population in Michigan of crucial importance to Biden’s chances of re-election. Netanyahu remains undeterred, declaring that “if we must, we shall fight with our fingernails.”

So, all in all, it was another week where there were plenty of problems that we can point to, but both stocks and bonds went higher (at least as of time of writing). Perhaps there is some truth to an observation a trader once made to me: “bears sound smart, but bulls make money

Authored by Simon White. Bloomberg macro strategist,

Hedge funds seem to have taken the old adage about selling in May to heart. From being very long for most of this year, aggregate positioning now looks to have gone short – right as the stock market bounces. Hedge funds that are offside might now chase the market higher through the rest of the month.

We can estimate how hedge funds are positioned in stocks by looking at the beta of hedge-fund indices (in this case HFR’s Macro/CTA index) to the S&P 500. As the chart below shows, it looks like funds are now short the stock market in the aggregate.

We can use the DBi Managed Futures ETF to get a flavor of what CTAs have been doing. As the table below shows, this ETF came out of the S&P in April and started adding to the MSCI EAFE, with its overall developed-market equity position trending lower. As of last week, it is long futures in MSCI EAFE, MSCI EM, oil and gold.

Hedge funds (CTAs and macro funds) now having a short exposure to stocks comes at a time when the good side (for long-only investors at least) of a positive stock-bond correlation is in play – stocks and bonds rising together, as yields trend lower in response to recent weaker economic data. The bear steepening in the yield curve that is typically pernicious for risk assets has given away to a more asset-friendlier bull flattening for now.

With US stocks less than a percent off their all-time highs, there’s a good chance funds who now find themselves offside help push the stock market to a new peak. This would match the previous patterns of a change of stock leadership marking the near-end of a correction.

Nonetheless, even though a new high would likely see some follow-through buying, the bull trend is not going to be as plain sailing as it was.

Liquidity conditions are less conducive to rising risk assets. Reserves and the reverse repo facility (RRP) continue to trend lower. Tapering of quantitative tightening will take some of the edge off, but reserve liquidity will be less buoyant. Furthermore, the government’s interest bill will incrementally eat more reserves and reserve velocity.

Selling in May maybe doesn’t look like a good idea now, but by St Leger’s Day in September, hedge funds who get back in the market might find they have experienced a lot of volatility without a whole lot of upside to compensate.
 

Given that Ricky Gervais has been the only good thing about the Oscars in years, if not decades…

…the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has launched a $500 million fundraising initiative in an effort to offset the Oscars dramatic drop in viewership – which went from nearly 44 million in 2014, to just 19.5 million in the latest ceremony, according to Statista.

Bill Kramer, the Academy’s Chief Executive, revealed in an interview with the Financial Times that the organization has already raised about $100 million, with contributions from high-profile donors like billionaire Leonard Blavatnik. The campaign is further bolstered by sponsorship agreements with renowned luxury brands, including the Dorchester Collection.

The timing of this fundraising drive is crucial as the Academy’s current broadcasting agreement with ABC, a Walt Disney-owned network, is set to expire in 2028, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Oscars. Negotiations for renewal are expected to commence shortly, with Kramer describing the existing deal as “very healthy” and lauding the partnership with Disney as “amazing.” However, the shift towards streaming and the upheavals in the television and film industry have prompted the Academy to pursue what Kramer calls a “revenue diversification campaign.”

“No healthy company or organization should rely on one source of support to a degree that could cause concern if that support decreases,” he told the outlet.

The move comes amid broader financial struggles within the non-profit arts sector. Notable institutions like the Metropolitan Opera in New York have had to draw emergency funds from endowments due to cash shortfalls, and the Sundance Film Festival has faced significant challenges recovering post-Covid-19 disruptions.

Going forward, the Academy is trying to position itself to appeal to a broader, more international donor base, reflecting a shift in its audience and membership demographics. Approximately 30 percent of its membership now resides outside the U.S., a significant increase from a decade ago.

As the Academy seeks to broaden its appeal and financial stability, the success of this global fundraising campaign could be pivotal. With the film industry and its audiences undergoing radical transformations, these efforts might not only reshape the Academy’s financial landscape but also its cultural footprint on a global scale – with the campaign set to be launched in Rome on Friday.

Good luck. As Gervais put it best in 2020:

No one cares about movies anymore. No one goes to cinema, no one really watches network TV. Everyone is watching Netflix. This show should just be me coming out, going, “Well done Netflix. You win everything. Good night.” But no, we got to drag it out for three hours…

…Seriously, most films are awful. Lazy. Remakes, sequels. I’ve heard a rumor there might be a sequel to Sophie’s Choice. I mean, that would just be Meryl just going, “Well, it’s gotta be this one then.” All the best actors have jumped to Netflix, HBO. And the actors who just do Hollywood movies now do fantasy-adventure nonsense. They wear masks and capes and really tight costumes. Their job isn’t acting anymore. It’s going to the gym twice a day and taking steroids, really. Have we got an award for most ripped junky? No point, we’d know who’d win that.