Why US is a live underdog vs. favored England in World Cup battle
This is the play to make in Friday’s US-England World Cup showdown: Bet USA on the moneyline at +525.
https://nypost.com/2022/11/25/take-a-shot-on-this-bet-in-us-england-world-cup-showdown/
Taxes After Marriage: How to Navigate the Confusing Consequences
The marriage penalty and marriage bonus still exist. Here’s who is affected.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/taxes-marriage-penalty-bonus-11668797436?mod=rss_markets_main
Review: Christmas movies galore decorate streaming services
Justin Hartley, Lindsay Lohan and Freddie Prinze Jr. headline Netflix holiday lineup; Peter Billingsley returns as Ralphie in ‘A Christmas Story Christmas” on HBO Max
Netflix’s steamy ‘Lady Chatterley’ tells a story of liberation — through clothes
From the moment Emma Corrin appears on screen in the titular role of Netflix’s new adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” her clothing mirrors the emotions of her character.
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/lady-chatterley-costumes-emma-fryer-culture-queue/index.html
“The Marxist Irony Today Is That The Blacker The Friday, The Happier Markets Will Be”
“The Marxist Irony Today Is That The Blacker The Friday, The Happier Markets Will Be”
By Michael Every of Rabobank
It’s Black Friday, where the world waits with bated breath for Americans to click the global economy back to health while fighting off heartburn: and I mean the world, because little that is clicked is currently made in America. (Though that is inexorably changing.)
The focus on those retail numbers, and the heartburn, is even more intense this year because the Institute of International Finance (IIF) warns the world economy will be as weak in 2023 as it was in 2009, as the war in Ukraine may become a “forever war”. Their global GDP growth forecast is just 1.2%, with the Eurozone -2%, the US up 1%, Latin America 1.2%, and the hope being China will loosen Covid curbs – which seems a big call to make with panic buying in Beijing and just plain panic around the world’s largest iPhone factory.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports clickmeister Amazon “faces Black Friday protests and walkouts in 40 countries as thousands of warehouse workers plan to take part in protests. Employees in India, Japan, Australia, the US, South Africa and across Europe want better pay and conditions in a campaign led by trade unions.”
What is this – workers of the world uniting or something? Is that kind of thing still allowed? Isn’t this all passé when we all really want to day-trade for a living? (He asks, as US railroad unions say December 9 is when we find out if they will paralyze the US economy or not.)
The Marxist irony today is that the blacker the Friday, the happier the financial markets will be. If sales are dismal, stocks and bonds will both rally, and the dollar will wobble even further, which temporarily sits alongside lower, not higher, commodity prices.
Yes, a crisis of capitalism would loom – again.
But magical, all-healing rate cuts must then loom too –and only in the US(?)– right? The deeper the crisis, the greater the expectation that central banks will not allow it to happen – despite the BOE just underlining that they would do just that, and the Fed, and the ECB, and the RBNZ, and the BOC, and the BOK: basically, everyone except the BOJ, the RBA, and the PBOC.
Of course, markets overlook all that because markets. And because an infinite number of new frauds like FTX are just sitting there waiting to be launched once a pivot happens, which is pretty tempting. If you thought the last round of monetary policy easing generated some doozies, and boy did it, just wait for the next iteration!
Full disclosure: despite my very evident scepticism about crypto, and total lack of surprise at what has happened to it over the past few months, I was playing with the idea of creating my own NFTs at one point last year on a purely ‘if you can’t beat them, join them/I feel low retiring early’ basis.
I was actually going to make “Dinofarts”: a series of funny, farting dinosaur pictures such as “Ty-rip-osaurus Rex”; “Too-much-dip-lodocus”; “Terror-dactyl”, etc. Fed Funds at 5% is an asteroid that has wiped that idea out, as it was intended to, but I’m just waiting for rates to look like they will go back to zero again to dust those masterplans off. And if *I* am thinking like that, what do you think the rest of the markets, who thrive on such stupidity rather than mocking it, are planning on doing? That was a twinge of heartburn, I think.
Conversely of course, if Black Friday sales are reasonable or even good, then markets will be in a black mood. Economic strength and consumer resilience are the last thing they want to see! Economic collapse and consumers crumbling are what is required to ensure that monetary policy does what monetary policy needs to do in order to artificially jack asset prices higher again.
I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m not: that really is how many in the markets see things, most so after the battering they have taken this year to date, and which they would like to cover up with a nice year-end rally, no matter how fake.
But thinking back to striking workers, indebted American consumers, and the off-shored production they rely on across single-point-of-failure global supply chains now ‘healing’ due to looming recession, I turn back to Marx.
Does his focus on the means of production rather than producing farting dinosaurs memes leave him spinning in the grave? Can we all just cut rates, get rich from crypto, and avoid crisis forever?
Sadly, no.
It’s not clear whose surplus labour is being exploited by me creating a stupid NFT and selling it for millions if the Fed pivots and the dollar becomes a joke. Yet Marx was clear on the ludicrous excesses of “fictitious capital” over “productive capital“. He was also a goldbug for those who don’t know: we only associate him with fiat and soft budgetary constraints because of Soviet experience, not his actual doctrine, which nobody reads. Because markets.
On a related note, please see ‘Political Economy through the Looking Glass: Imagining Six Impossible Things about Finance before Breakfast’, which utterly dismisses the Pollyanna attempts of some economists, who don’t understand Marx, to argue that because the finance sector is so big, it can no longer be dismissed as “fictitious” or separate from the “real” economy. Let’s just say that their anti-Marx arguments are blown away by actual Marxist taxonomy as if by a herd of Dinofarts trumping in tandem. Which is my follow-up NFT by the way – am I a tech genius yet? Surely with rates at zero again, we all will be(?)
Of course, any actual pivot is only going to exacerbate all the underlying structural problems that have led us to the point where people are actually going on strike again for real.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, third as beyond-farcical get-rich-quick Dinofarts, as Marx almost said.
Anyway, Happy Black Friday, and get ready to trade that ‘cure-all pivot’ if people haven’t clickety-clicked enough.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/25/2022 – 10:00
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/marxist-irony-today-blacker-friday-happier-markets-will-be
World Cup 2022 squads betray divide between haves and have-nots
While the biggest European leagues are thriving, it’s a much different story in Africa and South America. This inequality is visible in World Cup squads as few players from these two continents play for domestic clubs.
Detroit police officers will not be charged in death of man suffering from mental illness
Detroit police officers who fired 38 rounds at a 20-year-old Black man wielding a knife will not be charged for his death, a county prosecutor said.
Porter Burks, who police said had schizophrenia, was believed to be experiencing a mental health crisis when he was fatally struck 19 times during a confrontation with officers early on the morning of Oct. 2.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced her decision not to prosecute responding officers Wednesday, saying they had minimal time to “eliminate the threat,” the Detroit Free Press reported.
“The police spent a significant amount of time trying to get him to drop his weapon,” Worthy wrote in a statement. “He suddenly ran at them with the knife and covered the distance between them in approximately three seconds. Eyewitnesses to the shooting were interviewed and indicated that the police did all that they could to de-escalate the situation before Mr. Burks charged at the police.”
2 DETROIT TEENAGERS SHOT WHILE WALKING AWAY FROM HENRY FORD HIGH
Body camera footage shows law enforcement pleading with Burks to drop the 3 1/2-inch blade he was carrying on a dimly lit Detroit street.
“Drop the knife for me, man. Come here real quick. You’re OK,” said a member of the Detroit Police Department’s crisis intervention team about 5 a.m. on the city’s west side. “You’re not in any trouble. Can you just talk to me and drop the knife?”
“You’re not in any trouble, OK?” the officer continued. “I just want to help you. I just want to help you, man. OK? Can you just drop the knife for me please? Please? Whatever you’re going through I can help you.”
But Burks — who had a history of struggling with mental illness — didn’t drop the knife and after pacing in the middle of the street suddenly sprinted toward officers, who fired 38 shots in three seconds, hitting him 19 times. Burks was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The decision not to prosecute the officers who killed Burks “devastated” his family, said Michelle Wilson, Burks’ aunt.
The family’s lawyer announced earlier this month that they are suing the city for $50 million in a wrongful death lawsuit claiming gross negligence, assault and battery, and more.
DETROIT MAN CHARGED AFTER ALLEGEDLY STEALING, ABUSING EX-GIRLFRIEND’S DOG
“He was a smart, loving person. He was a human. That’s a life. He didn’t deserve to be murdered,” Wilson said.
“It feels like (Burks’ death) is happening all over again. We are hurt, words do not describe the pain.”
Demonstrators near the site of Burks’ death called for change in the way police respond to mental health calls.
Detroit Police Chief James White called the shooting a “very tragic situation.”
“Not the desired outcome. This is not what we wanted,” said White, who later added “our mental health crisis in this country is real. Our mental health crisis in our city is real.”
https://www.foxnews.com/us/detroit-police-officers-not-charged-death-man-suffering-mental-illness
World Cup: Iran rallies to beat Wales 2-0 for chance at knockout stage
Iran ignored the distractions that have overshadowed the team since they landed in Qatar to get their World Cup campaign up and running as they rallied to beat sloppy Wales 2-0 on Friday, giving themselves a chance of reaching the knockout stage.
Turkey inches closer to invasion of northern Syria as Islamic State terror threat grows
There is significant concern that Turkey’s planned ground invasion into Syria to root-out the U.S.-allied Kurds could open the floodgates for the release of thousands of imprisoned Islamic State terrorists.
Syrian Kurdish forces have incarcerated thousands of ISIS terrorists from more than 50 countries in prisons in northeastern Syrian.
Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said on Wednesday, “Recent air strikes in Syria directly threatened the safety of U.S. personnel who are working in Syria with local partners to defeat ISIS and maintain custody of more than 10,000 ISIS detainees.”
CENTCOM CHIEF BELIEVES SYRIA IS ‘BREEDING GROUND’ FOR NEXT GENERATION OF ISIS
Turkey recently launched air strikes targeting the Syrian Kurdish military organization—The People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Syria and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared “This is not limited to just an air campaign,” adding, “We will consult with our defense ministry and general staff and decide together to which our land forces needs to contribute, then take our steps accordingly.” Earlier, Turkey’s defense minister was quoted by the country’s media as saying the operation continues with some 326 enemy combatants killed so far.
Combating a resurgence of the terrorist movement Islamic State remains a top priority for the U.S. military. The U.S. formed an alliance with the YPG to oust ISIS, while conflict between Erdogan and the Kurdish forces in Syria may be moving from a localized conflict to a full-blown war.
Ryder noted that an “Immediate de-escalation is necessary to maintain focus on the defeat-ISIS mission and ensure the safety and security of personnel on the ground committed to the defeat-ISIS mission.”
Turkish Embassy officials in Washington told Fox News Digital that, “We have time and again pointed out threats against our national security, posed by the PKK/YPG terrorist network in Syria and Iraq. We have always called for unequivocal and genuine solidarity in the face of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.”
ISTANBUL EXPLOSION RIPS THROUGH POPULAR STREET MARKET, KILLING 6, 81 INJURED: REPORTS
The Turkish diplomat added, “Notwithstanding, the terrorist organization continued its attacks, recently targeting innocent civilians in the heart of Istanbul. As a result of the attack perpetrated on Nov. 13, 2022, 6 civilians were killed and 81 injured.”
The U.S. government has classified the PKK as a terrorist organization, but views the YPG as valuable partner in the fight against the Islamic State.
Ned Price, the U.S. State Department spokesman recently said, “We express our sincere condolences for the loss of civilian life that has occurred in Syria and Turkey” and urged an “immediate de-escalation.”
Intensive Turkish air and drone strikes have killed Syrian Kurds and pulverized critical industries in northern Syria. Sinam Mohamad, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council to the U.S., told Fox News Digital.
Mohamad said the region’s Arabs, Christians and Kurds, who make up the area’s 5 million people, are “suffering.”
SYRIAN KURDISH FORCES MOVE IN ON ISLAMIC STATE-CONTROLLED PRISON
She added Turkey has bombed the region 47 times from Nov. 19 through Nov. 23, and the air strikes killed six soldiers from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), including two anti-terror soldiers trained by the U.S. military.
Mohamad, who is in contact with Syrians on the ground in the conflict zone, said Turkish forces killed 15 civilians since the start of this round of air strikes. “Turkey is now targeting vital infrastructures, power stations, grain silos, and oil and gas infrastructures.”
She claimed the Turks attacked a hospital and they, “targeted very close to an ISIS prison. Imagine if they targeted the prison and the people escaped. It is a very critical situation. The international community and U.N. should take action to prevent Turkey from destabilizing the region.”
A leading expert on Turkey, Hay Etyan Cohen Yanarocak, from the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, cast significant doubt on Turkey’s rationalization for launching its most recent attacks.
He claimed that, “The latest terror attack against Istanbul was carried about by Syrian forces who were dissatisfied with Turkey’s U-turn because Turkey signaled it was willing to normalize relations with [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad,” he told Fox News Digital.
He added that, “Erdogan knows very well that it would be a lot easier to punish the Kurds instead of punishing Syrians. We know the Free Syrian Army is considered an ally of Turkey. If the Free Syrian Army was tagged as responsible [for the terror attack in Istanbul], his foreign policy doctrine would collapse.”
The pro-Kurdish party, The People’s Democratic Party, in the Turkish parliament submitted a motion requesting an inquiry into the Istanbul attack. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party along with his ally, the Nationalist Movement Party, rejected the investigation.
All Kurdish military forces in Syria, as well as the PKK, have flatly denied responsibility for the Istanbul terrorism attack. The commander of the SDF, General Mazloum Abdi, speaking exclusively to Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, claimed the Istanbul bomber was from the Islamic State.
Turkey has captured a Syrian Arab woman who Turkish authorities said confessed to the bombing. Erdogan has faced accusations of showing sympathy for radical Islamists operating in northern Syria.
Uzay Bulut, a Turkish political analyst and research fellow for the Philos Project, told Fox News Digital, “If Kobane falls to Turkey, Turkey will occupy it alongside jihadists organizations, as they also do in other Syrian cities such as Idlib and Afrin. Naturally, these Turkish military attacks against the SDF will weaken the counter ISIS campaign in the region.”
According to Bulut, “The Turkish regime must be fully aware of that such an occupation only helps ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliated terror groups in the region.”
A Turkish official rebuffed such an argument and told Fox News Digital that “We are the only NATO ally that has boots on the ground and fought DAESH [Islamic State] chest-to-chest since the outset.”
Turkey’s foreign policy stature has gained greater currency within the Biden administration since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute, said, “Turkey is helping Ukraine militarily” against Russia.
Turkey furnished Ukraine with 50 mine-resistant vehicles. Erdogan’s government has also sold the Bayraktar TB2 drone to Ukraine. The unmanned aerial vehicle carries laser-guided bombs. The Turkish drone has been a powerful weapon in pounding Russian forces.
Even in light of Turkey’s improved international reputation, Cagaptay does not see the Biden administration leaving the Syrian Kurds out to dry. “Turkey’s importance to the U.S. has increased, and it does not mean [the] U.S. has completely abandoned YPG.”
Court rejects San Diego school district’s COVID vaccine mandate
The California 4th District Court of Appeal ruled against the San Diego Unified School District’s COVID-19 student vaccine requirement this week.
On Tuesday, the appellate court agreed with a lower court’s ruling from last year that the school district does not have the authority to establish its own mandate.
The court rejected the district’s several defenses of its mandate, including that it is in line with the responsibility to keep students safe, that programs can be created to meet “local needs” and that the mandate is not actually a mandate because it allows for students to do at-home independent study should they choose not to comply.
“We doubt that students and their parents perceive a real choice. For some, independent study would likely be a step backwards,” it wrote.
WHITE HOUSE SHUTS DOWN REPORTER’S FAUCI QUESTION ON COVID ORIGIN: ‘I’M DONE’
San Diego Unified is examining the appeals court ruling and “will consider its next steps,” district spokesperson Mike Murad said in an email to the Los Angeles Times.
In May, the district decided to stay the mandate – which would have immediately required students ages 16 and up to get the shots in order to attend school in person and participate in extracurricular activities – until at least July 2023.
There were exemptions allowed for medical reasons, but not based on personal beliefs.
CALIFORNIA HOMELESS WOMEN RETURN THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOUND IN BURNED VAN TO OWNER
The mandate faced a legal challenge from the parent group “Let Them Choose,” whiled filed a lawsuit in October 2021.
The group argued that the decision to mandate vaccines must be made at the state level and also needs to include a “personal belief exemption” – unless the state legislature acted to eliminate the exemption.
The district first adopted its vaccine mandate for students in September 2021.
It is one of several large school districts in California to announce such a mandate. Those with similar mandates include the Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and West Contra Costa Unified school districts.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.