March 23, 2024

DWAC stock shares close nearly 14% down after Trump social media merger approved by shareholders

The price of shares in Digital World Acquisition Corp. closed trading Friday nearly 14% lower than their opening price after the shell company's shareholders approved a merger with the social media company owned by former President Donald Trump.

DWAC had opened the trading day at $44.20 per share, but quickly tumbled on the heels of the vote.

A total of 11% of the tradable shares of DWAC are being sold short, FactSet data shows.

This means investors holding these positions are betting the price will fall before they have to buy the shares back and return them to the entities who loaned the shares to them.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/22/trump-social-dwac-stock-falls-after-merger-approved.html

March 20, 2024

The Real Reason No One Is Giving Biden Credit for How Good the Economy Is Right Now

Much of this scenario can be laid at the feet of the Democratic Party. Not the official fundraising and administrative apparatus that runs conventions and formulates policy platforms, but the broad constellation of think tanks, nonprofits, academic experts, and journalists that collectively regulates the liberal intellectual atmosphere. For much of his presidency, Biden has been the victim of a centrist revolt against his economic program that the progressive wing of the party has been either unable or unwilling to put down. Everyone expects Republicans to give a Democratic president a hard time, but sharp and sustained economic criticism from Biden’s ostensible allies established a narrative of failure that has proved alarmingly resistant to reality.

And so the economic commentary field remained open to Summers and other expert doomsayers—including some with politics well to Summers’ left. Economics dominated the news cycle in a way that it hadn’t since the banking crash, and seemingly everyone had something terrible to say about it. Biden wasn’t creating enough union jobs. His spending was really just a corporate welfare extravaganza. He was stealing jobs from Europe. There were too many regulations on manufacturers. There weren’t enough regulations on manufacturers. A recession was coming. A recession was already here. Some high-profile Democrats even insisted that a recession was necessary—on CNBC, former Obama and Clinton adviser Jason Furman argued that millions of workers would have to be laid off to get inflation back under control. Summers even floated the possibility of 10 percent unemployment.

The layoffs, however, refused to materialize. When inflation peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022, the unemployment rate stood at 3.6 percent. Today, using the same metrics, inflation is just 3.2 percent, and unemployment is at just 3.9 percent. For 12 of the previous 19 months, the jobless rate has held steady at or below its June 2022 level, while inflation has been running below 4 percent since June 2023. Economists are still debating why the Fed’s higher rates didn’t translate into job losses, but the important point is that millions of people were not, in fact, fired. Moreover, millions of people did not need to be fired in order to fix inflation. As Mike Konczal concluded in a report for the Roosevelt Institute in September 2023, the vast majority of inflation during the Biden years was driven by pandemic-related supply problems. Whatever was going wrong in 2022, it wasn’t because you were too rich.

There is some evidence that the economic commentariat is coming to its senses as the 2024 election approaches. Some of the same centrists who ripped Biden’s stimulus package in 2021 are now applauding his recovery. The anti-Biden left has largely abandoned the economic playing field, finding cleaner grounds for criticism on other subjects. Contrary to the narrative abuse directed at Biden over the past few years, the economic numbers across his presidency tell a simple, optimistic story about the art of government in the democratic world. The American economy is strong today for the same reason that the labor market has been strong throughout Biden’s presidency: the U.S. government spent a ton of money to support workers and their families. Biden has not only established a blueprint for successful crisis management, but he has achieved something on the economy that pessimists across the ideological spectrum have been declaring impossible for much of the 21st century: He learned from the government’s prior mistakes and found a way to govern better.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/biden-economy-voters-polling-numbers-covid-recovery.html

[Really great article, which includes an excellent summary of how Biden saved the economy. I just picked 4 paragraphs to give you the main conclusions, but the whole thing is well worth a read.]

March 20, 2024

Rep. Katie Porter Says She Regrets Calling California Senate Race 'Rigged'

“Obviously, I wish I had chosen a different word,” Porter said in a Tuesday episode of the podcast “Pod Save America.”

“At no time and in no way would I ever suggest that there’s anything other than a careful, thoughtful, amazing election system that actually should be the model for a lot of the country,” she said in the “Pod Save America” interview.

Porter said she was trying to call attention to what she views as problems with laws around election spending.“Outcomes are manipulated and distorted when you have people coming in spending millions and millions of dollars at the last minute, and that money is not disclosed until after the election,” she said.

Both Porter and Schiff rejected all corporate PAC money for their Senate campaigns, as did other Senate hopeful Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) However, Schiff fundraised more than all his election opponents combined.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/katie-porter-senate-race-rigged_n_65f9e007e4b0d47c510044ee

March 16, 2024

The $10k Chinese EV that could blow away the competition.

Ford Authority reported last week, Ford CEO Jim Farley recently stated that he views not only Chinese EVs in general as a threat, but specifically pointed to one, in general – the BYD Seagull. These comments don’t come as a huge surprise, per say, given the fact that the Chinese automaker recently lowered the price of this entry-level EV to a mere 69,800 yuan ($9,700), which is far, far cheaper than any all-electric vehicle currently sold in the U.S. Recently, Autoline Network took a closer look at the BYD Seagull, and came away with some important notes on what makes it tick.

This particular BYD Seagull has a sticker price of $11,500 and comes equipped with the larger 38.8 kWh battery pack. Looking around, one can find a few areas where cost-cutting measures are evident, but overall, it’s a pretty nice-looking vehicle that doesn’t appear to be some kind of bargain-basement build. There are things like a single windshield wiper instead of two, and there’s no rear wiper, but nothing terribly major.

Even the interior presents quite nicely and is not what one would expect in such a cheap car, and the Seagull even has contrast stitching and features like cruise control and wireless charging, coupled with four-wheel disc brakes. It reportedly rides comfortably and drives well, though it obviously won’t blow anyone away in terms of performance. Throw in the fact that it has 252 miles of range, and it’s pretty clear why people like Jim Farley are worried about the BYD Seagull making it to the U.S. market.
https://fordauthority.com/2024/03/heres-an-overview-of-the-ev-ford-ceo-says-is-threat-video/

March 9, 2024

UK judge orders Trump to pay $380K to man who penned infamous "Steele Dossier"

Former President Donald Trump's escalating legal penalties are a little larger after a judge in the United Kingdom ordered him to pay more than $380,000 to a firm run by Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy who penned the infamous 2016 dossier accusing Trump of harboring close ties to the Russians.

Trump sued Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, in a London court in 2022 over claims that the series of memos known as the "Steele Dossier" harmed his reputation and violated British data privacy laws.

But in February, Justice Karen Steyn tossed the suit -- without determining whether the allegations in the dossier were true or false -- and ordered Trump to compensate Steele for his legal fees.

According to the judge's order, which was made public Thursday, the judge gave Trump 28 days to execute the payment of GBP 300,000, which equates to roughly $384,000.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/uk-judge-orders-trump-pay-380k-man-penned/story?id=107902444

March 9, 2024

UK judge orders Trump to pay $380K to man who penned infamous 'Steele Dossier'

Source: ABC News

Former President Donald Trump's escalating legal penalties are a little larger after a judge in the United Kingdom ordered him to pay more than $380,000 to a firm run by Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy who penned the infamous 2016 dossier accusing Trump of harboring close ties to the Russians.

Trump sued Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, in a London court in 2022 over claims that the series of memos known as the "Steele Dossier" harmed his reputation and violated British data privacy laws.

But in February, Justice Karen Steyn tossed the suit -- without determining whether the allegations in the dossier were true or false -- and ordered Trump to compensate Steele for his legal fees.

According to the judge's order, which was made public Thursday, the judge gave Trump 28 days to execute the payment of GBP 300,000, which equates to roughly $384,000.



Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/uk-judge-orders-trump-pay-380k-man-penned/story?id=107902444

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Last I checked, the Steele Dossier has yet to be disproven.

March 5, 2024

Elon Musk responds to Tesla Cybertruck crash into Beverly Hills Hotel sign

The incident happened just before midnight on Mar. 3. The famous hotel is at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and North Beverly Drive.

The nearly 7,000-pound stainless steel vehicle hopped the curb and came to a stop with its two front wheels on top of a concrete landscaping wall. The truck sustained significant damage to its front left wheel, as well as damaging the poles that hold the sign.

On X, formerly Twitter, Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform, responded to the crash.  “Cyberbeast is faster than a Porsche 911, but looks like a truck, so perhaps the valet wasn’t expecting so much acceleration,” he said.  

Initial reports about the crash claimed the Tesla was being driven by a hotel valet, but that later turned out to be untrue.

 https://ktla.com/news/local-news/elon-musk-responds-to-tesla-cybertruck-crash-into-beverly-hills-hotel-sign/