Yet Again Big Banks Are Short of Cash 

Ominous signs that at least one of America’s “Too Big to Fail” banks is yet again seriously short of cash emerged this weekend in documents examined by James Henry, DCReport’s economics correspondent.

For the past two months the Federal Reserve has been silently injecting tens of billions of dollars of cash into banks. No one announced this. Henry found the evidence in public records that few, if any,  Wall Street journalists consult, but that we routinely review at DCReport.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (NYFed), acting like a financial Santa Claus to recklessly naughty bankers, delivered $17 billion in cash to an unknown bank or banks at 8 AM the morning after Christmas.

That’s just the latest scary development that has gone unreported until now.

The sudden spate of cash shortfalls raises serious concerns about the stability of the largest banks and the utter failure of 21^st Century regulators to identify problems and protect the public.

The sudden demands for cash to cover shortfalls began on Halloween. That day the NYFed injected more than $50 Billion into one or more unnamed banks. Since then, it has injected tens of billions into banks 14 times, delivering greenbacks galore roughly every third business day.

Contrast this with the five years beginning in July 2020. Virtually no such cash infusions were made during that time, as the graphic below from the NYFed website shows.

While the NYFed doesn’t identify which banks benefitted, other records Henry found indicate that major beneficiaries are Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, HSBC, UBS, and likely of greatest concern the nation’s largest bank holding company, JP Morgan Chase & Co.

There’s more. Cash infusions are likely to grow enormously—and soon.

In a vaguely worded NYFed policy change on Dec. 10—which not one of the major financial news organizations has reported—the Fed flung its vaults wide open to troubled banks. The only reason the NYFed would do this is because it has good reason to expect that cash infusion demands are about to balloon.

Unlimited Cash

“Going forward, standing overnight repo operations will no longer have an aggregate operational limit,” the NYFed said.

The vaguely worded announcement seems to tell bankers that they can get up to $240 Billion in cash each day to cover shortfalls. Even if read narrowly, the policy would allow cash infusions twice per day, so up to $80 billion per bank on any one day with no overall banking industry limit.

To give you an idea of how much money is involved consider this: together the six biggest banks earned $152 billion in profits last year, less than any two of them could get in cash on a single day by a narrow reading of the new policy.

To get the cash, banks hand over Treasury notes and bonds, mortgages, and other securities, known as a “repo.” Then they get to borrow cash at face value.

The banks also pay super-low interest rates, noted Bill Black, who as a banking regulator uncovered the savings and loan scandals three decades ago that resulted in almost 900 high-level bankers going to prison. And, Black notes, should their corporate parents seek refuge in bankruptcy courts the normal rules don’t apply, another little-known government favor for misbehaving bankers.

Recurring Problem

“This comes up about every five years,” Black said of banks turning to the Fed for cash. Indeed, other Fed records we examined basically confirm this pattern.

But why? Henry and Black both argue, reasonably, that banking regulators aren’t doing their job. Previously Black showed that the much ballyhooed “stress tests” for banks are designed to ensure that no bank fails. Henry has shown that big banks flout rules and even court orders that conditioned forgiveness for past misconduct on no repeats.

American banking has what I call the appearance of regulation, an issue I explored in my 1992 casino industry expose´ Temples of Chance.

Both Henry and Black should be hailed as a national heroes for looking out for the public’s wallets. Instead, Black is persona non grata on Capitol Hill and at banking regulatory functions while I’ve dealt with public officials and academics who snarl at the mention of Henry’s decades of work without citing any flaw.

Inside Job

Black later developed a whole new field of criminology and wrote a fascinating book about what he uncovered:  The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One.

During the Great Recession of 2008-10, JPMorgan got billions in bailout money. The bank says federal rules forced it to take the money.

Should America face a new Wall Street debacle, JP Morgan would likely get all the help it wants, perhaps even by forcing it to accept cash infusions.

Tons of Silver

JPMorgan Chase & Co. , the bank’s parent, is of particular concern because in mandatory disclosures, that few journalists examine but our Jim Henry did, the company revealed it is on the hook to deliver more than 5,900 tons of silver it doesn’t have. Tradeable silver is relatively scarce right now, government data shows.

The bank sold contracts for silver it didn’t own, expecting the price would fall. Then it planned to buy the contracts back for less, making a profit by selling high and buying low. This risky practice is known as “short selling.”

Buying stocks or other assets and holding them in the hope the price will rise is called “going long,” which is what most investors do because its less risky.

JP Morgan got caught in a squeeze because the spot price of silver has nearly tripled since Donald Trump took office, creating an exposure that I calculate at up to $13.7 billion, roughly equal to the profits JP Morgan earns every 90 days, though likely just a costly fraction of that.

Silver Squeeze

A big problem is that there’s not enough actual silver available for trading to get JP Morgan out of the squeeze it got into through unbridled greed. The more silver prices rise the more JP Morgan gets hurt.

Compounding this, Samsung has developed a powerful  battery for electric vehicles that can go a thousand miles and recharge in under ten minutes. It requires roughly a kilo of silver for each car or truck. And while EV sales are falling in America, they are soaring in China, the world’s largest car market, and other places. About 90% of new cars sold in Norway are electric.

A smaller problem arises from the Trump administration, which on Christmas Day alone lobbed at least a dozen Tomahawk missiles at supposed Muslim extremists in Nigeria. Each Tomahawk used about 500 ounces of silver, currently priced at about $80 per ounce or $40,000 per missile.

DCReport emailed and texted five JPMorgan spokespeople on Sunday afternoon but has not heard back. That’s what we experienced in the past, but if the bank gets in touch we will promptly give you a full report on their stance.

Bad Bets

JP Morgan has a well-documented history of making wildly bad speculative bets, including a 2012 deal that ballooned into a loss of $6 Billion or so, a disaster it initially passed off to leading financial journalists as a minor matter.

The bank claimed that a hedge that was meant to reduce risk had “morphed” into a speculative and unauthorized bet by a London office trader,  who was cashiered.

The reality, as I reported at the time, is that a hedge—a complex legal contract—can no more “morph” into a speculative bet than my marriage can morph into a dog. But go-along-to-get-along Wall Street journalists faithfully repeated the bank’s nonsense.

Deep concerns

The sudden spate of cash shortfalls raises serious concerns about the stability of the largest banks and the utter failure of 21^st Century regulators to identify problems and protect the public.

Will Wall Street soon seek another huge bailout of the kind that the George W. Bush administration forced on the public in its final months? Congressional leaders from both parties insisted in 2008 and 2009 that such a debacle would never again be allowed or become necessary. Do you believe that?

If you think there’s little to no chance that the Trump Administration will give Wall Street whatever it wants, keep in mind that Donald Trump just blew nearly $40 billion dollars of your money bailing out Argentina.

There’s an obvious question raised by the sudden need for serial and now unlimited cash infusions now: are we facing a repeat of the economic collapse of 2008, which by some measures caused deeper and more lasting harm than the Great Depression?

Huge Cost

The Great Recession cost America the value of two years of economic output, known as Gross Domestic Product, according to Prof. Alexander J, Field of Santa Clara University’s business school. His estimate fits my own back-of-the-envelope calculations back then when I was one of the few journalists critical of the bailout terms.

Ponder Prof. Field’s assessment for a moment – two years of all the economic activity of economic everyone in America down the drain, tens of millions of people wiped out financially with many yet to recoup, while instead of being prosecuted, or at least fired, the top bankers remain in power, their gigantic pay packages growing larger each year.

Henry calls these cash infusions “bankster socialism.” Henry is referring to the de facto policy of letting banks reap outsized profits when their speculative bets win big and shoving the losses onto the rest of us when they sour.

I agree. So long as shareholders aren’t at risk of being wiped out, top bank executives will keep engaging in financially dangerous behavior, aided by dubious accounting, and so called “stress tests” that were designed to ensure that the banks would pass no matter how shaky their financial condition. The winning bets, and Fed bailouts, increase the value of executive and board stock and stock options, the losses cost them noting.

Moral Bankers?

In a heads-we-win, tails-the-public picks up the losses, who but that rarest of rarities, a deeply moral banker, would do otherwise?

Henry views the recent cash infusions as eerily reminiscent of the NYFed bail-out of child rapist Jeffrey Epstein’s strange offshore firm Liquid Capital Funding 17 years ago. When Epstein’s capital evaporated, the New York Federal Reserve Bank stepped in with cash. Epstein’s firm failed anyway.

But why did NYFed intrude into a routine business failure? After all, capitalism is based in good part on the idea that businesses fail while better managed operations prosper. And why try to save an offshore firm?

Henry, a Yale University Global Justice Fellow who has spent decades exposing illicit financial transactions, notes that Bear Stearns, a venerable Wall Street investment house, owned 40% of the illiquid Liquid Funding. JP Morgan was also involved in the firm, which was partly a criminal tax dodge. Bear Stearns soon collapsed, costing many investors the bulk of their fortunes, as did the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In both cases rampant speculation, weak  internal financial controls, and see-no-evil regulators bear the blame.

Let’s hope Wall Street journalists, and politicians, get onto this story now that DCReport has broken it. But don’t hold your breath.

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The post Big Banks Enjoy Stealth Bailouts – A DCReport Exclusive appeared first on DCReport.org.

Let’s see now…I’m trying to figure out how long Donald Trump has been a household name. At least since he began his 14-season run on “The Apprentice,” I’d say, although if you lived in New York City back in the 70’s and 80’s, he was arguably a household name then, appearing in the gossip columns almost daily, or at least he tried as hard as he could to make it seem that way.

In 2015, he decided to make his run for the Republican nomination for president, and his visibility picked up considerably. Remember the clown-car “debates” with a dozen or more Republican candidates on the stage? Trump was the star of the show, dominating the proceedings with a tease of how he would dominate the news cycle when he won the White House – with name-calling and nastiness and demonstrably false claims about his opponents.

But who was fact-checking? Nobody even called him a liar until September of 2016, an event so momentous that New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet saw fit to do an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep to explain the reasoning behind his decision to deploy the “L-word” about Donald Trump, the candidate for president.

How quaint it seems now. How chickenshit it was not to scream LIAR from every headline, every day.

I’m retracing a few of many steps through the Trump saga trying to understand why the man is so fucking unhappy now. I mean, he’s been dominating the national conversation, so to speak, for 10 years. He got himself elected President of the United States twice. He has used that position this time around to enrich himself by extorting billions of dollars, according to every estimate I’ve read, from everyone he comes in contact with, from tech oligarchs to television networks to Ivy League universities to white-shoe law firms to foreign countries. He gets to do his favorite thing in the world, playing golf, practically every weekend he’s not traveling to sit down for mezze-burgers with berobed leaders of desert states and make deals to further enrich himself.

So why on Christmas, the jolliest day of the year, did he post this insane screed on his Truth Social account:

“Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his Island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth, only to ‘drop him like a dog’ when things got too HOT, falsely claimed they had nothing to do with him, didn’t know him, said he was a disgusting person, and then blame, of course, President Donald J. Trump, who was actually the only one who did drop Epstein, and long before it became fashionable to do so. When their names get brought out in the ongoing Radical Left Witch Hunt (plus one lowlife “Republican,” Massie!), and it is revealed that they are Democrats all, there will be a lot of explaining to do, much like there was when it was made public that the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax was a fictitious story - a total Scam - and had nothing to do with ‘TRUMP.’ The Failing New York Times, among many others, was forced to apologize for their bad and faulty Election ‘Reporting,’ even to the point of losing many subscribers due to their highly inaccurate (FAKE!) coverage. Now the same losers are at it again, only this time so many of their friends, mostly innocent, will be badly hurt and reputationally tarnished. But sadly, that’s the way it is in the World of Corrupt Democrat Politics!!! Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas!”

The name, “Donald J. Trump” appears as a digital signature just below the extra-loony completely unexplained yet deeply threatening last line quoted above.

Wait a minute! I’ve got an idea! Could his frantic blatherings have had anything to do with what happened the night before, on Christmas Eve, when the Department of Justice announced that they had found another one million documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that they would need more time to review and “redact” before the documents could be released?

What could possibly be in the new million pages, is what I’m asking. The DOJ – yes, the DOJ controlled by Trump’s hand-picked hit-woman, Pam Bondi – has made I don’t know how many announcements about the so-called “Epstein files” before this without generating an earthquake rant like that one. Do you remember when Bondi ordered Kash Patel to call 1,000 FBI agents back to Washington D.C. so they could go through the Epstein files that she suddenly discovered the DOJ had? There were complaints by law enforcement experts all over the place that so many FBI agents had been removed from posts where their job was actual crime fighting to devote themselves to combing through Epstein documents. Everybody knew what they were looking for: the name, Trump.

Then there were the leaks of stuff that they found in the documents, and then there were leaks by the DOJ itself to right-wing “influencers” of supposed gems from the documents that turned out to be newspaper clips and other public information.

Then along came the months-long Congressional clusterfuck about the discharge petition that would bring to the floor of the House a vote on a bill that would force the Trump DOJ to release the allegedly full Epstein files. There was the vote in the House, followed by the Senate, followed by Trump signing the bill in a dark room with no one looking somewhere in the White House, followed by 30 days the DOJ was given to release the files, followed by the first trickle they let out last week, along with explanations of how much work it was to go through the documents to make certain none of the victims’ names would appear, as if they hadn’t been searching for Trump’s name in those files ever since the thousand FBI agents checked into Motel 8’s and Comfort Inn’s on the outskirts of DC and started going through them.

I think I’m getting a picture of what’s bothering Donald Trump. He won the presidency back in 2016, and won again in 2024 thinking he was going to be in charge of the DOJ and that he could bury all this Epstein stuff, because who is in charge of the DOJ? Donald Trump is in charge of the DOJ, and as he has told us, he’s president and “I can do anything I want.”

Except for the fact that there is a problem, and it’s a big one. Jeffrey Epstein’s business of trafficking underage girls to wealthy and powerful men generated more than one thousand victims. That’s a lot of women who remember the names of the men who raped them.

We don’t know the number of men who raped underaged girls, but it must be one hell of a lot, because it’s got the President of the United States all worked up on Christmas Day – worked up enough that he wrote the equivalent of a signed confession, and then spent the next 12 hours or so posting unhinged lies and craziness 100 more times.

Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump first met and became acquainted in the late 1980’s. Epstein was reportedly Donald Trump’s best friend from the early 90’s through the early 2000’s. They visited each other’s Palm Beach mansions. Trump flew multiple on Epstein’s private jet, which was known to the wealthy men who flew with him as “The Lolita Express.” We also know that sentences from the novel “Lolita” were written in ink on female ankles and legs, because we have seen photos found in the latest batch of Epstein files…or was it the first batch? It’s hard to keep up, isn’t it?

And now we have learned that the number of times Trump flew with Epstein was more than the DOJ and investigators for the Southern District of New York had suspected when they began investigating Epstein in 2018, when it took them three months to present evidence and testimony to the grand jury they had empaneled. And this has caused us to recall that among the many, many lies told by Donald Trump over the last 10 years was this one: I have never been on Epstein’s private jet.

We know all kinds of new things about Trump and Epstein, including that Trump accused Epstein of “stealing” an underaged girl named Virginia Giuffre working as a masseuse for Donald Trump in his Mar a Lago spa, who was subsequently trafficked by Epstein to Prince Andrew, who raped her and otherwise sexually abused her. We know this in part from Giuffre’s book, which she wrote before committing suicide, and in part because Prince Andrew is no longer a Prince, having been fired from the British Royal Family by his brother, King Charles.

Donald Trump knows all the stuff we know, and he knows more. He knows what he did with Epstein. He knows where they went on Epstein’s private jet. He knows what he and Epstein’s pimp, Ghislaine Maxwell, were talking about in the photos found in the Epstein files that show them together.

You know, just social occasions, like everyone hangs out at nightclubs and parties with women who pimp little girls for your best friend to his friends…and your friends.

But to hear it from Trump, he hardly knew this guy Epstein, with whom he is seen chatting and laughing in photos and videos that come from the Epstein files or were already in the public record.

This tiny man, Epstein, is casting a very, very long shadow over the life of Donald Trump. He looks extremely depressed and angry in every photo that has been taken of him lately. He was unhappy on Christmas Eve when he was photographed with his wife, Melania, talking on the phone to children who were calling NORAD trying to figure out when Santa Claus would get to their house. He was unhappy the next day when he wrote the post on Truth Social attacking himself for having befriended Epstein and taken all those flights on his private jet, before patting himself on the back for unfriending him.

Pipsqueak Epstein’s long shadow is ruining Donald Trump’s Christmas. He’s ruining Donald Trump’s presidency.

Bwwwaaahhh…sob…sob…

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There’s a sort of parlor game that the economically-minded sometimes play around the Christmas holiday, related to A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. Was Dickens writing his story as an attack on economics, capitalism, and selfishness? After all, his depiction of Ebenezer Scrooge, along with his use of phrases like “decrease the surplus population” and the sarcastic use of “a good man of business” would suggest as much, and a classic example of such an interpretation is here. Or was Dickens just telling a good story with distinct characters? After all, Scrooge is portrayed as an outlier in the business community. The warm portrayal of Mr. Fezziwig certainly opens the possibility that one can be a successful man of business as well as a good employer and a decent human being. And if Scrooge hadn’t saved money, would he have been able to save Tiny Tim?

It’s all a good “talker,” as they say about the topics that get kicked around on radio shows every day. As part of my own holiday break, I republish this essay each year near or on Christmas day.

I went looking for some other perspectives on how Charles Dickens perceived capitalism that were not embedded in a fictional setting. In particular, I checked the weekly journal Household Words, which Dickens edited from 1850 to 1859. Articles in Household Words do not have authors provided. However, Anne Lohrli went through the business and financial records of the publication, which identified the authors and showed who had been paid for each article. The internal records of the journal show that Dickens was the author of this piece from the issue of February 11, 1854, called “On Strike.” (Lohrli’s book is called Household Words: A Weekly Journal 1850-59, conducted by Charles Dickens, University of Toronto Press, 1973. Household Words is freely available on-line at a site hosted by the University of Buckingham, with support from the Leverhulme Trust and other donors.)

The article does not seem especially well-known today, but it is the source of a couple of the most common quotations from Charles Dickens about “political economy,” as the study of economics was usually called at the time. Early in the piece, Dickens wrote: “Political Economy was a great and useful science in its own way and its own place; but … I did not transplant my definition of it from the Common Prayer Book, and make it a great king above all gods.” Later in the article, Dickens wrote: “[P]olitical economy is a mere skeleton unless it has a little human covering and filling out, a little human bloom upon it, and a little human warmth in it.”

But more broadly, the article is of interest because Dickens, telling the story in the first person, takes the position that in thinking about a strike taking place in the town of Preston, one need not take the side either of management or labor. Instead, Dickens writes, one may “be a friend to both,” and feel that the strike is “to be deplored on all accounts.” Of course, the problem with a middle-of-the-road position is that you can end up being hit by ideological traffic going in both directions. But the ability of Dickens to sympathize with people in a wide range of positions is surely part what gives his novels and his world-view such lasting power. The article goes into a fair amount of detail, and can be read on-line, so I will content myself here with a substantial excerpt.

Here’s a portion of the 1854 essay by Dickens:

“ON STRIKE”

Travelling down to Preston a week from this date, I chanced to sit opposite to a very acute, very determined, very emphatic personage, with a stout railway rug so drawn over his chest that he looked as if he were sitting up in bed with his great coat, hat, and gloves on, severely contemplating your humble servant from behind a large blue and grey checked counterpane. In calling him emphatic, I do
not mean that he was warm; he was coldly and bitingly emphatic as a frosty wind is.

“You are going through to Preston, sir?” says he, as soon as we were clear of the
CharPrimrose Hill tunnel.

The receipt of this question was like the receipt of a jerk of the nose; he was so short and sharp.

“Yes.”

“This Preston strike is a nice piece of business!” said the gentleman. “A pretty piece of business!”

“It is very much to be deplored,” said I, “on all accounts.”

“They want to be ground. That’s what they want to bring ’em to their senses,” said the gentleman; whom I had already began to call in my own mind Mr. Snapper, and whom I may as well call by that name here as by any other. *

I deferentially enquired, who wanted to be ground?

“The hands,” said Mr. Snapper. ” The hands on strike, and the hands who help ’em.”

I remarked that if that was all they wanted, they must be a very unreasonable people, for surely they had had a little grinding, one way and another, already. Mr. Snapper eyed me with sternness, and after opening and shutting his leathern-gloved hands several times outside his counterpane, asked me
abruptly, ” Was I a delegate?”

I set Mr. Snapper right on that point, and told him I was no delegate.

“I am glad to hear it,” said Mr. Snapper. “But a friend to the Strike, I believe?”

“Not at all,” said I.

“A friend to the Lock-out?” pursued Mr. Snapper.

“Not in the least,” said I,

Mr. Snapper’s rising opinion of me fell again, and he gave me to understand that a man must either be a friend to the Masters or a friend to the Hands.

“He may be a friend to both,” said I.

Mr. Snapper didn’t see that; there was no medium in the Political Economy of the subject. I retorted on Mr. Snapper, that Political Economy was a great and useful science in its own way and its own place; but that I did not transplant my definition of it from the Common Prayer Book, and make it a great king above all gods. Mr. Snapper tucked himself up as if to keep me off, folded his arms on the top of his counterpane, leaned back and looked out of the window.

“Pray what would you have, sir,” enquire Mr. Snapper, suddenly withdrawing his eyes from the prospect to me, “in the relations between Capital and Labour, but Political Economy?”

I always avoid the stereotyped terms in these discussions as much as I can, for I have observed, in my little way, that they often supply the place of sense and moderation. I therefore took my gentleman up with the words employers and employed, in preference to Capital and Labour.

“I believe,” said I, “that into the relations between employers and employed, as into all the relations of this life, there must enter something of feeling and sentiment; something of mutual explanation, forbearance, and consideration; something which is not to be found in Mr. M’CulIoch’s dictionary, and is not exactly stateable in figures; otherwise those relations are wrong and rotten at the core and will never bear sound fruit.”

Mr. Snapper laughed at me. As I thought I had just as good reason to laugh at Mr. Snapper, I did so, and we were both contented. …

Mr. Snapper had no doubt, after this, that I thought the hands had a right to combine?

“Surely,” said I. ” A perfect right to combine in any lawful manner. The fact of their being able to combine and accustomed to combine may, I can easily conceive, be a protection to them. The blame even of this business is not all on one side. I think the associated Lock-out was a grave error. And
when you Preston masters—”

“I am not a Preston master,” interrupted Mr. Snapper.

“When the respectable combined body of Preston masters,” said I, ” in the beginning of this unhappy difference, laid down the principle that no man should be employed henceforth who belonged to any combination—such as their own—they attempted to carry with a high hand a partial and unfair impossibility, and were obliged to abandon it. This was an unwise proceeding, and the first defeat.”

Mr. Snapper had known, all along, that I was no friend to the masters.

“Pardon me,” said I; ” I am unfeignedly a friend to the masters, and have many friends among them.”

“Yet you think these hands in the right?” quoth Mr. Snapper.

“By no means,” said I; ” I fear they are at present engaged in an unreasonable struggle, wherein they began ill and cannot end well.”

Mr. Snapper, evidently regarding me as neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, begged to know after a pause if he might enquire whether I was going to Preston on business?

Indeed I was going there, in my unbusinesslike manner, I confessed, to look at the strike.

“To look at the strike!” echoed Mr. Snapper fixing his hat on firmly with both hands. “To look at it! Might I ask you now, with what object you are going to look at it?”

“Certainly,” said I. ” I read, even in liberal pages, the hardest Political Economy—of an extraordinary description too sometimes, and certainly not to be found in the books—as the only touchstone of this strike. I see, this very day in a to-morrow’s liberal paper, some astonishing novelties in the politico-economical way, showing how profits and wages have no connexion whatever; coupled with such references to these hands as might be made by a very irascible General to rebels and brigands in arms. Now, if it be the case that some of the highest virtues of the working people still shine through them brighter than ever in their conduct of this mistake of theirs, perhaps the fact may reasonably suggest to me—and to others besides me—that there is some little things wanting in the relations between them and their employers, which neither political economy nor Drum-head proclamation writing will altogether supply, and which we cannot too soon or too temperately unite in trying to
find out.”

Mr. Snapper, after again opening and shutting his gloved hands several times, drew the counterpane higher over his chest, and went to bed in disgust. He got up at Rugby, took himself and counterpane into another carriage, and left me to pursue my journey alone. …

In any aspect in which it can be viewed, this strike and lock-out is a deplorable calamity. In its waste of time, in its waste of a great people’s energy, in its waste of wages, in its waste of wealth that seeks to be employed, in its encroachment on the means of many thousands who are labouring from day to day, in the gulf of separation it hourly deepens between those whose interests must be understood to be identical or must be destroyed, it is a great national affliction. But, at this pass, anger is of no use, starving out is of no use—for what will that do, five years hence, but overshadow all the mills in England with the growth of a bitter remembrance? —political economy is a mere skeleton unless it has a little human covering and filling out, a little human bloom upon it, and a little human warmth in it. Gentlemen are found, in great manufacturing towns, ready enough to extol imbecile mediation with dangerous madmen abroad; can none of them be brought to think of authorised mediation and explanation at home? I do not suppose that such a knotted difficulty as this, is to be at all untangled by a morning-party in the Adelphi; but I would entreat both sides now so miserably opposed, to consider whether there are no men in England above suspicion, to whom they might refer the matters in dispute, with a perfect confidence above all things in the desire of those men to act justly, and in their sincere attachment to their countrymen of every rank and to their country.

Masters right, or men right; masters wrong, or men wrong; both right, or both wrong; there is certain ruin to both in the continuance or frequent revival of this breach. And from the ever-widening circle of their decay, what drop in the social ocean shall be free!

The post Charles Dickens on Management and Labor first appeared on Conversable Economist.

Donald Trump’s gut bias towards erasing wind farms easily won whatever debate may have played out, if any, in the nation’s energy future.

In a single stroke, Trump on Monday walked away from five huge wind farm projects along the East Coast – and with it, once again struck a blow for a fossil-fueled based future. The move leaves two large already operational ocean wind farms, but leaves construction and energy workers jobless, strikes against climate change policies, and abandons the Eastern coastal areas without access to an alternative source of power.

Not insignificantly, the projects that Trump tossed already have eating up  $25 billion towards machinery to capture the wind and sources power more than 2.5 million homes and businesses.

In Trump’s view, the ugly, costly and inefficient. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum added that they create noise that can interfere with military radar, and labeled these wind projects a national security risk that never arose in earlier reviews, including by the Defense Department.

By contrast, Burgum and Trump were silent about the rising demands for electricity from burgeoning AI data centers, cyber currency businesses and consumer use of more electronic products in everyday life.

The New York Times reminded us that Trump has disparaged the clean energy source ever since he failed 14 years ago to stop an offshore wind farm visible from of one of his golf courses in Scotland.

It’s never made sense. If we need that much more electricity, why t not get it from all sources, not just oil and gas?  Of course, those industries handsomely reward Trump, but somebody in these stories has to be able to add up the demands and compare them with the available resources.

Trump’s personal obsessions are setting climate change back years with a move that neither increases electricity sources or deals with rising prices. It is unclear what problem Trump has solved – other than scratching his personal itch to overturn anything Joe Biden did and assert that climate change is a hoax..

The Order

Specifically, Trump withdrew approval for the federal leases that were signed by the Biden administration – once again leaving open the questions of law, contracts, government commitments and related state and federal legalisms.

From the cheap seats, it appeared that this was another foregone Trump conclusion for which Cabinet members went searching for justification. The wind farms are off New York, Rhode Island and Virginia – now all with Democratic governors. Trump did not move to shut down wind farms when Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, was still governor.

Some of the projects already were in serious financial trouble after an earlier Trump order to halt work for this review. Most were supported by their states. That halt order itself was overturned in the courts.

Wind and solar energy projects had been among the fastest growing job categories in the country. With jobless figures rising, one might have thought that Trump would think again about the impact of stopping these projects. But then he could have stopped future projects without affecting those already underway.

We have a growing list of unneeded projects that Trump wants and on which he spends our money or private donations from the wealthy circle he then is allowing to dictate policy. Those include building renames, a new gilded ballroom taking over the White House campus, an out-of-control deportation program and an uncomprehensive foreign policy. The list of projects that American voters say they need – from health care and housing to business stability and everyday spending sanity — go unaddressed.

Why do his supporters think Trump is a great politician?

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The post Blowing Away Wind Farms appeared first on DCReport.org.

Charles Dickens wrote what has become one of the iconic stories of Christmas day and Christmas spirit in A Christmas Carol. But of course, the experiences of Ebenezer Scrooge are a story, not a piece of reporting. Here’s a piece by Dickens written for the weekly journal Household Words that he edited from 1850 to 1859. It’s from the issue of January 26, 1856, with his first-person reporting on “A Nightly Scene in London.” Poverty in high-income countries is no longer as ghastly as in Victorian England, but for those who take the time to see it in our own time and place, surely it is ghastly enough. Thus, I repeat this post each year on Christmas Day.

Economists might also wince just a bit at how Dickens describes the reaction of some economists to poverty, those who Dickens calls “the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school.” In the following passage, Dickens writes: “I know that the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school, demented disciples who push arithmetic and political economy beyond all bounds of sense (not to speak of such a weakness as humanity), and hold them to be all-sufficient for every case, can easily prove that such things ought to be, and that no man has any business to mind them. Without disparaging those indispensable sciences in their sanity, I utterly renounce and abominate them in their insanity …” 

Here’s a fuller passage from Dickens:

A NIGHTLY SCENE IN LONDON

On the fifth of last November, I, the Conductor of this journal, accompanied by a friend well-known to the public, accidentally strayed into Whitechapel. It was a miserable evening; very dark, very muddy, and raining hard.

There are many woful sights in that part of London, and it has been well-known to me in most of its aspects for many years. We had forgotten the mud and rain in slowly walking along and looking about us, when we found ourselves, at eight o’clock, before the Workhouse.

Crouched against the wall of the Workhouse, in the dark street, on the muddy pavement-stones, with the rain raining upon them, were five bundles of rags. They were motionless, and had no resemblance to the human form. Five great beehives, covered with rags— five dead bodies taken out of graves, tied neck and heels, and covered with rags— would have looked like those five bundles upon which the rain rained down in the public street.

“What is this! ” said my companion. “What is this!”

“Some miserable people shut out of the Casual Ward, I think,” said I.

We had stopped before the five ragged mounds, and were quite rooted to the spot by their horrible appearance. Five awful Sphinxes by the wayside, crying to every passer-by, ” Stop and guess! What is to be the end of a state of society that leaves us here!”

As we stood looking at them, a decent working-man, having the appearance of a stone-mason, touched me on the shoulder.

“This is an awful sight, sir,” said he, “in a Christian country!”

“GOD knows it is, my friend,” said I.

“I have often seen it much worse than this, as I have been going home from my work. I have counted fifteen, twenty, five-and-twenty, many a time. It’s a shocking thing to see.”

“A shocking thing, indeed,” said I and my companion together. The man lingered near
us a little while, wished us good-night, and went on.

We should have felt it brutal in us who had a better chance of being heard than the working-man, to leave the thing as it was, so we knocked at the Workhouse Gate. I undertook to be spokesman. The moment the gate was opened by an old pauper, I went in, followed close by my companion. I lost no
time in passing the old porter, for I saw in his watery eye a disposition to shut us out.

“Be so good as to give that card to the master of the Workhouse, and say I shall be glad to speak to him for a moment.”

We were in a kind of covered gateway, and the old porter went across it with the card. Before he had got to a door on our left, a man in a cloak and hat bounced out of it very sharply, as if he were in the nightly habit of being bullied and of returning the compliment.

“Now, gentlemen,” said he in a loud voice, “what do you want here?”

“First,” said I, ” will you do me the favor to look at that card in your hand. Perhaps you may know my name.”

“Yes,” says he, looking at it. ” I know this name.”

“Good. I only want to ask you a plain question in a civil manner, and there is not the least occasion for either of us to be angry. It would be very foolish in me to blame you, and I don’t blame you. I may find fault with the system you administer, but pray understand that I know you are here to do a duty pointed out to you, and that I have no doubt you do it. Now, I hope you won’t object to tell me what I want to know.”

“No,” said he, quite mollified, and very reasonable, ” not at all. What is it?”

“Do you know that there are five wretched creatures outside?”

“I haven’t seen them, but I dare say there are.”

“Do you doubt that there are?”

“No, not at all. There might be many more.”

”Are they men? Or women?”

“Women, I suppose. Very likely one or two of them were there last night, and the night before last.”

“There all night, do you mean?”

“Very likely.”

My companion and I looked at one another, and the master of the Workhouse added quickly, “Why, Lord bless my soul, what am I to do? What can I do ? The place is full. The place is always full—every night. I must give the preference to women with children, mustn’t I? You wouldn’t have me not do that?”

“Surely not,” said I. “It is a very humane principle, and quite right; and I am glad to hear of it. Don’t forget that I don’t blame you.”

“Well!” said he. And subdued himself again. …

“Just so. I wanted to know no more. You have answered my question civilly and readily, and I am much obliged to you. I have nothing to say against you, but quite the contrary. Good night!”

“Good night, gentlemen!” And out we came again.

We went to the ragged bundle nearest to the Workhouse-door, and I touched it. No movement replying, I gently shook it. The rags began to be slowly stirred within, and by little and little a head was unshrouded. The head of a young woman of three or four and twenty, as I should judge; gaunt with want, and foul with dirt; but not naturally ugly.

“Tell us,” said I, stooping down. “Why are you lying here?”

“Because I can’t get into the Workhouse.”

She spoke in a faint dull way, and had no curiosity or interest left. She looked dreamily at the black sky and the falling rain, but never looked at me or my companion.

“Were you here last night?”

“Yes, All last night. And the night afore too.”

“Do you know any of these others?”

“I know her next but one. She was here last night, and she told me she come out of Essex. I don’t know no more of her.”

“You were here all last night, but you have not been here all day?”

“No. Not all day.”

“Where have you been all day?”

“About the streets.”

”What have you had to eat?”

“Nothing.”

“Come!” said I. “Think a little. You are tired and have been asleep, and don’t quite consider what you are saying to us. You have had something to eat to-day. Come! Think of it!”

“No I haven’t. Nothing but such bits as I could pick up about the market. Why, look at me!”

She bared her neck, and I covered it up again.

“If you had a shilling to get some supper and a lodging, should you know where to get it?”

“Yes. I could do that.”

“For GOD’S sake get it then!”

I put the money into her hand, and she feebly rose up and went away. She never thanked me, never looked at me— melted away into the miserable night, in the strangest manner I ever saw. I have seen many strange things, but not one that has left a deeper impression on my memory than the dull impassive way in which that worn-out heap of misery took that piece of money, and was lost.

One by one I spoke to all the five. In every one, interest and curiosity were as extinct as in the first. They were all dull and languid. No one made any sort of profession or complaint; no one cared to look at me; no one thanked me. When I came to the third, I suppose she saw that my companion and I glanced, with a new horror upon us, at the two last, who had dropped against each other in their sleep, and were lying like broken images. She said, she believed they were young sisters. These were the only words that were originated among the five.

And now let me close this terrible account with a redeeming and beautiful trait of the poorest of the poor. When we came out of the Workhouse, we had gone across the road to a public house, finding ourselves without silver, to get change for a sovereign. I held the money in my hand while I was speaking to the five apparitions. Our being so engaged, attracted the attention of many people of the very poor sort usual to that place; as we leaned over the mounds of rags, they eagerly leaned over us to see and hear; what I had in my hand, and what I said, and what I did, must have been plain to nearly all the concourse. When the last of the five had got up and faded away, the spectators opened to let us pass; and not one of them, by word, or look, or gesture, begged of us.

Many of the observant faces were quick enough to know that it would have been a relief to us to have got rid of the rest of the money with any hope of doing good with it. But, there was a feeling among them all, that their necessities were not to be placed by the side of such a spectacle; and they opened a way for us in profound silence, and let us go.

My companion wrote to me, next day, that the five ragged bundles had been upon his bed all night. I debated how to add our testimony to that of many other persons who from time to time are impelled to write to the newspapers, by having come upon some shameful and shocking sight of this description. I resolved to write in these pages an exact account of what we had seen, but to wait until after Christmas, in order that there might be no heat or haste. I know that the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school, demented disciples who push arithmetic and political economy beyond all bounds of sense (not to speak of such a weakness as humanity), and hold them to be all-sufficient for every case, can easily prove that such things ought to be, and that no man has any business to mind them. Without disparaging those indispensable sciences in their sanity, I utterly renounce and abominate them in their insanity; and I address people with a respect for the spirit of the New Testament, who do mind such things, and who think them infamous in our streets.

The post Charles Dickens on Seeing Poverty first appeared on Conversable Economist.

Over the past few years, I’ve been consumed with what feels like an impossible task: Ridding my life of plastics (or at least radically decreasing their use).

Reader, this is hard, if not impossible. I live in Hanoi, where the tap water isn’t always potable, which means I use filtered water that comes in giant plastic jugs (I do send these back to be re-filled which cuts down on the waste problem, but doesn’t solve the microplastics problem). The food I buy at the grocery store is wrapped in plastic. My leggings have microplastics in them. I go out of my way (and often spend more money) to avoid buying and throwing out plastics. But it takes extra effort, almost every day.

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But plastic-skepticism also comes at a strange political moment. As a person who is basically MAHA-lite, I often feel politically homeless: Conservatives have taken up the mantle of “health,” and while I’m happy to see any movement to better regulate things like ultra-processed foods, ubiquitous plastics, and potentially dangerous and unnecessary food dyes, tying common-sense health policies to a movement that opposes childhood vaccines and rejects decades of life-saving scientific consensus is… very very very bad. Watching Democrats negatively polarize also effectively cedes the important stuff (cracking down on the companies that are making the public very sick by selling ultra-processed foods for cheap, requiring actually nutritious school lunches, imposing regulations to cut plastics, and so on) to the MAHA crazies and the MAGA right, who are happy to use the power of government to pull funding to the American Academy of Pediatrics while letting Big Food run amok. I want Democrats to return to their roots as a party that challenges corporate power in defense of consumer safety, and I’d like it if they put public health at the top of that list, which has to include the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the plastics that are increasingly in our blood, brains, and bones.

So I was pleased to get a copy of The Problem with Plastic in my inbox. It’s written by Bennington College professor and Beyond Plastics founder Judith Enck, who has also worked on environmental issues for the Obama administration and the New York Governor’s Office, and co-authored by environmental justice reporter Adam Mahoney. It’s a hard look at how we became so plastic-dependent so quickly, who that’s benefitting, and who is paying the price.

Judith Enck very kindly answered some of my questions about the actual risks of microplastics, how to keep MAHA from having a monopoly on American health, and why you should leave plastic water bottles on the shelf. Our conversation, which was conducted over email, is below.

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1. I was so excited to read this book, as someone who has only recently gotten on board with plastic-skepticism and has tried, and utterly failed, to cut plastics out of my life. It also seems like there’s a lot of mixed information about microplastics and their impacts on human health. So help me cut through the noise: For people who aren’t living near plastics facilities but who are, say, putting their food in Tupperware and drinking their coffee through plastic coffee lids and handing their kids plastic toys, what are the actual risks? What should we be afraid of here? And how much do we not yet know?

The hard truth is that everyone is eating, drinking, and breathing plastic every day in the form of microplastics — the smaller bits of plastic that shed off of larger, plastic products. Think of plastic like your skin. Just like your skin is constantly flaking off in tiny pieces, plastic is constantly shedding tiny bits that break off into the product. This can happen, for example, when you open a plastic clamshell container of lettuce, unwrap a slice of cheese that is encased in plastic film, turn the bottle cap on a bottle of soda or water, or, yes, open your Tupperware container of leftovers. When you eat and drink products that were packaged in plastic, you’re eating and drinking the tiny plastic particles that come with it.

Microplastics are little shards of plastic that are 5mm or less. Nano plastics are even smaller.

Knowing all that, it should surprise no one that microplastics have been found in just about every part of the human body, including the lungs, blood, testicles, placenta, brain, and breast milk. It’s even been found in the feces newborn babies. Think about that: Babies are being born pre-polluted with plastic.

The confusion around plastic’s health effects is partly because there are two conversations to have: the health risk of the plastic itself and the health risk of the chemicals found in plastic. The plastic particles themselves can irritate, inflame, and even puncture cells, but equally worrisome impacts come from the plastic’s chemical additives, which can leach out of the plastic and into the body. Over 16,000 chemicals are found in plastic. At least 4,200 of those are considered to be highly hazardous to human health and the environment, and thousands more haven’t even been tested for their safety. The chemicals known to be hazardous have been linked to cancer, nervous system damage, hormone disruption, obesity, diabetes, and fertility problems.

Plastic’s human health impacts have been steadily coming to light as researchers uncover the extent of our exposure. A study published earlier this year in The Lancet found that plastic is responsible for at least $1.5 trillion a year in health-related damages worldwide. Last year, a study found that people with plastic in their carotid arteries were nearly five times more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke. Though there’s still much to learn, findings from the past five years are alarming enough to warrant legislative and regulatory action — something we are not going to see from Washington, so state and local governments will need to lead.

2. I am always stunned to go into the grocery store and see how much of our food supply comes wrapped in plastic. When consumers are shopping, what should we know about plastics and food?

Companies have decided to put many food and beverage products in plastic, whether the use is practical or not. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never needed my potatoes to be individually wrapped in plastic. The same goes for a bag of bananas. And even though everyone knows what pasta looks like, manufacturers added a little plastic window on the box so we can scope out our spaghetti before buying it. Not only is this plastic unnecessary; it’s also not non-recyclable and toxic.

The best thing consumers can do when shopping is buy products not packaged in plastic, when possible. The less plastic packaging, the better — for our health and for our planet.

3. In our current highly polarized political environment, do you see a risk that plastic-skepticism will become MAHA coded? How can follow-the-science liberals follow the science here, when there’s so much we still don’t know?

I think the more people who become aware of the extent of the plastic pollution problem and are motivated to do something about it, the better. This is a bipartisan issue that affects everyone’s health, planet, and future. The MAHA movement has expressed concern over certain toxic chemicals used in plastics, like phthalates, and their potential health impacts on children. This is a very valid concern that everyone should agree on. The science shows phthalates have been linked to cardiovascular disease, premature death, hormone disruption, and even lower IQ scores in children. This is one of the many reasons why our government — on the local, state, and federal level — should pass policies to reduce the production and use of plastic, as well as ban certain chemicals from being used in consumer products.

It’s critical that people get their information from sources that don’t profit off of plastic or its chemical additives. You’re right in that there’s still a lot we don’t know when it comes to plastic’s impacts on human health, but there’s a lot we do know too — and it’s not good. New, independent, peer-reviewed studies on this topic come out every couple of months — microplastics found in a new organ, or associations discovered between microplastics in the body and human health. It’s enough for me to want to limit my own exposure as much as possible and urge policymakers to do more to protect us. We have science for policymakers to take action.

4. There seems to be growing skepticism of recycling from the left — whether it even does what it promises. So: Is recycling worth it?

People should absolutely continue to recycle their paper, cardboard, aluminum, and glass. And compost your yard waste and food waste. The skepticism around plastic recycling is justified — it’s not the magic wand the plastics industry has spent decades telling us it is. Less than 6% of plastic is recycled in the United States, and that’s because plastic is just an inherently non-recyclable material.

In order to recycle plastic, all the different types — with their different combinations of chemicals, colors, and polymers — have to be separated. You can’t just throw a milk jug and a soda bottle into the same recycling batch and expect a usable product. It doesn’t work like that — they are two different types of plastic and have to be recycled separately. The countless variations of plastics, colors, and chemicals make the sorting and recycling of every plastic product financially untenable and technically unviable.

Plastics companies have known this for decades, but they have spent millions of dollars telling us not to worry about all of the single-use plastic in our kitchens. “Just toss it in the recycling bin!” This is deceptive. The deception is so serious that in September 2024, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the nation’s biggest plastic maker, ExxonMobil, for deceptive statements about the recycling of plastics.

We can’t recycle our way out of this mess. Companies need to stop using so much plastic in the first place — and it’s up to policymakers to hold them accountable, because companies will not change simply because it makes sense.

5. The long-time narrative about plastics and the environment has been pretty simplistic — the sea turtle with the straw up his nose, the bird tangled in the plastic six-pack rings. Your book paints a more complicated picture. How are plastics fueling climate change and extreme weather? What are the less-visible impacts on our environment?

Plastic is made from fossil fuels, so it makes sense that the plastic pollution issue goes hand in hand with climate change. Many people don’t realize the extent of plastic’s impact on our climate, and one stat in particular usually hits home for them: Plastic production generates four times more greenhouse gas emissions than aviation. Think about that for a second: Plastic is FIVE TIMES worse for climate change than air travel!

Plastic contributes to climate change at every stage of its life cycle. This starts when greenhouse gases escape during extraction and refining of fossil fuels. It continues with more emissions from the energy-intensive process used to make plastic. And then there are even more emissions when plastic is transported, laying in landfills, or incinerated.

As we’ve seen in Los Angeles and other places, wildfires are becoming much more common as previously less dense areas get developed and hot temperatures and drought conditions fueled by climate change get worse. A May 2023 peer-reviewed study found that nearly 40% of the burned forest area in Western Canada and the United States can be attributed to 88 major fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers, including ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell — some of the primary corporations behind plastic production. Essentially, the extraction and burning of fossil fuels — which are the foundation of plastic — have raised global temperatures and amplified dry conditions across the West, thereby increasing the amount of land burned by wildfire.

The climate crisis and the plastics crisis are one in the same.

6. One of the simplest changes you encourage readers to take on is getting rid of plastic water bottles. Why? What makes single-use plastic bottles so awful?

I strongly encourage people to use reusable cups and bottles whenever possible. Unless clean water is inaccessible, there are few reasons to use single-use plastic water bottles. You’re paying for plastic — not the water you can get for free — and that plastic is used for just a moment before polluting the planet for centuries to come.

On top of the environmental toll, an alarming amount of microplastics have been found in bottled water. A 2024 study found that bottled water can contain 10 to 100 times more plastic particles than previous estimates. One liter of water — the equivalent of two standard-size bottled waters — contained an average of 240,000 plastic particles from seven types of plastics!

7. I appreciate how you focus the book on the fact that we need political change, not just individual — forgoing plastic water bottles is not going to solve this problem. If you had a policy wishlist, what would be on it?

Unfortunately, companies have added plastic to so many products that it’s impossible for consumers to avoid it, and thus it’s impossible for individuals to avoid exposure. That’s why it’s on policymakers on all levels of government to pass policies limiting the production and use of plastic, as well as incentivizing reusable and refillable alternatives. Plastic pollution is a problem created by companies, and it’s up to policymakers to hold them accountable and curb their reliance on plastic.

For individuals wanting to do something to effect change, listen up: Don’t underestimate the power of your voice. Whether you’re writing a letter to the editor urging your elected officials to pass a plastic bag ban in your county or participating in a rally to pass a state bill reducing unnecessary packaging, your voice makes a difference. Speak up. Get involved.

If I had a policy wishlist — and who’s to say I don’t — it would be for the New York state legislature to pass the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act when legislators reconvene in January. When passed, this bill will reduce packaging across New York state by 30%, require the remaining packaging to be reusable or truly recyclable, require companies to pay modest fees on packaging, and require companies creating the waste to foot the bill for managing it. This is the kind of comprehensive policy we need on all levels of government to effectively rein in the plastic pollution problem. New York has an opportunity to lead the country and set a blueprint for other states. We’ll be joining countless New Yorkers next year in urging New York state legislators to pass the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, and for Governor Kathy Hochul to sign the bill into law. I hope this is the year they’ll put people over plastic.

Thanks for reading. And here’s to all of us resolving to use fewer plastics in the new year.

xx Jill

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