38 Burst results for "Beijing"
Simply Bitcoin
A highlight from Gary Gensler Grilled on Spot Bitcoin ETF Approval | EP 834
"Yo, welcome to another episode of Simply Bitcoin Live, our number one source for the peaceful Bitcoin revolution of current breaking news culture, Matic Warfare. We will be your guide through the separation of money and state today. Speaking of the separation of money and state, today's going to be an interesting episode. We have so many clips that, you know, so many Bitcoin news sources were just posting on Twitter of Gary Gensler being completely annihilated yesterday in Congress. A lot of people were just asking them very basic questions. Is Bitcoin a commodity or is it a security? He couldn't give a straight answer to that. Why are you guys delaying a spot Bitcoin ETF? You guys know our take at Simply Bitcoin. We've been covering this diligently for the last couple months or so. We believe at this point, you know, it might be, there's no, you can't say for sure, but it sure does seem like it could potentially be politically motivated. Why? Because we know how the Biden administration feels about the industry. We had Caitlin Long on Simply Bitcoin IRL and she said that her bank, the custodia bank that she's launching in Wyoming, was denied a federal banking charter. She believes that that order came directly from the White House. Also, not to mention all the other reports that came out, for example, the presidential economic report that came out earlier on this year where they made the case as to why central bank is necessary, why CBDCs are necessary, and so that being said, also we were talking to our guest today backstage and he wanted to talk about Bitcoin potentially returning to China, so we added that into the news lineup. That's gonna be an interesting conversation. All in all, I'm super hyped for today's show. Like always, no more delay. Let's bring Brandon on up on stage. How you doing, Brandon? Brandon from Bitcoin magazine. How you doing, bro? Hey man, it's good to see you. I'm doing well. Welcome to the show, but yeah dude, the conversation we were having, you know, before we went on air just fascinated me because that's something that we've been covering for a couple months now, right? This whole thing where, you know, the CCP China is using Hong Kong as, we make the case that they're using as a test bed, right? To, you know, try to incentivize, you know, industry players to come from overseas to set up shop in Hong Kong and there's been even articles that have admitted that they needed the stamp of approval from Beijing in order for that to happen. I think it's just another example of you can't resist Bitcoin's incentives, but you were telling me some things before that I didn't know, which I'm really, really excited to talk about today. So yeah man, welcome to the show. Anyways, I also want to bring up my legendary co -host, always optimistic. He has something different about him today. How you doing, Opti? I am doing wonderful. What's up, guys? How you doing today? Excited for today's show. I do have a new mic in here. That's what Niko is talking about. We're upgrading here. I'm not sure if I dialed in the settings yet, so tell me in the chat whether I need to dial them in more. But man, what's up everyone? We're back! Good to have you, Niko. As I was telling everyone in spaces, you know, I enjoy doing the hosting duties, but I love being the passenger princess and just hanging out and talking Bitcoin with my friends.
Bloomberg Daybreak Asia
Fresh update on "beijing" discussed on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia
"Senators is now hoping to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping on a visit to China next week the story from Bloomberg's Joanne Wong in Hong Kong senators Mike Craple and Chuck Schumer plan to raise issue the of micron technology and its ability to do business in China micron has been facing an ongoing probe by China cybersecurity administration the senators also plan to meet with the US business community in Shanghai sources say the White House is aware of the senators plans and encourage them to go visit the comes as the US seeks to smooth ties with China after months of escalating tensions separately the US is hoping to arrange a November meeting between presidents Biden and Xi at the apex summit in San Francisco and Hong Kong join one Bloomberg radio we get a monetary policy decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia at two thirty in the afternoon Sydney time today more on that from Bloomberg's Paul Bloomberg economics expects the RBA to keep the cash rate target on hold at 4 .1 % on October 3rd it's been hiked by 400 basis points since April 2022 and that is the largest and fastest tightening in the inflation targeting era so far it's not been to enough push inflation back down to the RBAs two to three percent target recent hotter CPI data raises the risk that Australia's central bank could deliver another hike potentially at its November meeting the Bloomberg economics sees the RBA starting to cut interest rates in the first quarter of next year I'm Paul on Allen Bloomberg Radio Doug I've got a question for you here to start off the show today Jay Powell talking about maintaining a strong labor market is he preparing us for a slight switch on the focus of the dual mandate that's certainly a possibility when you consider how things have changed in the US labor market on the structural side since the pandemic I think that is one of the conundrums that the Fed has to be facing right now but I want to go back to the story that we just unpacked a little bit ago this bipartisan team of US senators visiting China next week one of the issues we told that they will raise with Beijing is the ability of micron technology to do business in China micron obviously the big memory chip maker and I say that because the White House now reportedly has given Beijing some fair warning on plans to update US rules on shipping certain semiconductors to China now basically this is AI chips along with some semiconductor making tools Reuters saying these updates could come as early as October so I think the timing kind is of interesting it is interesting timing they're also really hoping to help arrange a meeting between President Xi and President Biden as Joanne mentioned in if if she goes to APEC we still don't know it hasn't been confirmed it's possible that he won't go because of impressing concerns at home however that doesn't mean that they can't still talk can't still meet they might be looking to way do it but that I think for a lot of people they would like to see a President Xi attending those APEC meetings as far as market market movements go JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley warned again about US stocks today I'm a little curious about this because the Russell 2000 is now negative for the year it's it's down 12 % since the first of August so nothing too frothy there of the S &P equal weight index turned negative year to date today as well most of the US market is not doing all that well valuations not particularly lofty and yet few side Ed Yardeni are positive it's very interesting when you look at today's PMI data both readings and I'm speaking here of the ISM and at the same time S &P global both numbers coming in ahead of estimates so the market now is seeing maybe a 30 % probability of a November rate hike just last Friday Brian that probability was only 18 percent yeah it's very exciting alright now it's time for global news hard right Republican congressman Matt Gates is applying pressure on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Ed Baxter has that story and other global news Ed yeah that's right Brian he's now claiming that there was a side deal between McCarthy and President Joe Biden about funding Ukraine it is going to be difficult for my Republican friends to keep calling President Biden feeble while he continues to take Speaker McCarthy's lunch money in every negotiation now the White House says there's no side deal and overall whether there's enough pressure force to McCarthy out of position is a major question and the move to vacate may be losing steam as a matter of fact Congressman Jim Jordan a member of the Freedom Caucus is exclusively on Bloomberg's balance of power today says he supports McCarthy I know a number of people who were part of that twenty back in January I think I made statements today that they do not support doing moving forward with the motion to vacate I think there's statements out from some of my good friends and colleagues in the Freedom Caucus like Scott Perry, I think Byron Donalds, I think Congressman Roy, so I think that's a good sign. So Matt Gaetz may ultimately be standing whistling into the wind when all of this is done. Now aside from the loud noise over the speakership, Bloomberg's Amory Hordurn says still a lot of work to do. Two big things to watch out for. One is that Ukraine aid. That was not included and President Biden said he hopes McCarthy takes it up quickly. McCarthy though yesterday directly linked it with to the border. He said the border is my priority. And the second thing is of course they should be working on those 12 appropriation bills to fund the federal government. But a massive headache and distraction is about to hit Capitol Hill this week and that's when as Matt Gaetz has vowed to have a motion to vacate for the speakership. Yeah meanwhile the White House is today saying aid for Ukraine is essential. Spokeswoman Corrine Jean -Pierre says continued pressure. What we know is that there's bipartisan support for this deal. Again Speaker McCarthy was on the air multiple times yesterday saying that he wants to he certainly wants to continue support for Ukraine to get the weapons that they need and so we're gonna hold them to that. Jean -Pierre says as bipartisan support for aid for Ukraine and it will pass civil case alleging Donald Trump engaged in a decade -long scheme of persistent acts of fraud to inflate his net worth is on trial. Attorney General Letitia James is arguing. No matter how powerful you are no matter how much money you think you may have no one is above the law. And Donald Trump defiant. Very simply put it's a witch hunt it's a disgrace we have a corrupt Attorney General in this state. And if he loses a case it could be a divorce between him and doing business in New York as well as a 250 million dollar fine. The arguments have a centered on whether they'll be a summary judgment or whether Trump will be able to put up any witnesses. And just a side note regarding Donald the Trump most some damning of statements reported to have been made by Trump confirmed today by John Kelly chief of staff CNN Kelly confirming Trump said that military people shot down our POWs losers are and suckers he's not wanting to be seen with military amputees because quote it doesn't look good for me and that he's not truthful on his views about unborn life women minorities or Jews. Global news fired by more than 2 ,700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. In San Francisco I'm Ed Baxter and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Asia I'm Brian Curtis with Rashad Salamat. guest Our guest is Lorraine Gilbert CEO of WealthWise Financial. Lorraine is diversification more important than ever or are you looking for some highly specific opportunities? Yes thank you I think diversification is key we continue to see volatility in the markets we continue to hear a lot of uncertainty with the Fed and the markets have been responding to that so absolutely diversification which means a combination of equity and fixed income but all across board the keeping quality high I think is as we continue to slow down in the economy quality will be important. Yeah Lorraine are you looking at these open bonds in the treasury market I mean how far can they fall and how high can yields go in the current environment and give us a sense also
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
Hunter Biden's Shady $250K Wire Transfer From Beijing
"Is all over the place, but I'm just going to run with the one from Fox News. Hunter Biden received two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in a wire transfer originating in Beijing with beneficiary address listed as Joe Biden's home. So James Comer of the House Oversight Committee announced that yesterday, two hundred fifty grand in twenty twenty nineteen got sent Beijing to Joe Biden's house. Now I ask you, who among us has not gotten a quarter of a million dollars from Beijing sent to their house randomly? That could happen to anybody. And I am not going to join the mob accusing the president of complicity in Hunter Biden's nefarious schemes to get money sent to the family firm via Delaware simply because a quarter million dollars showed up from Beijing at the Biden family house. I'm not going to join that line. Not going to do it wouldn't be prudent.
News and Perspective with Tom Hutyler
Fresh update on "beijing" discussed on News and Perspective with Tom Hutyler
"Positions quickly when they go back into those fierce battles again. President Biden saying the US will not walk away from supporting Ukraine after Congress stripped $6 billion of funding for the war out of that stopgap spending bill. The president asked when existing US funding for Ukraine will run out. We have time, not much time and there's this overwhelming sense of urgency. This Ukrainian lawmaker saying USA to Ukraine is good value if it avoids a war between NATO and Russia. Ukrainian war cost less than 5 % of the American defense budget. For these 5 % Ukraine managed to stop the second biggest army in the world and destroyed half of this military potential without a single US soldier dying in this battlefield. Ukrainian officials saying they've received assurances that US military aid will continue. They've been meeting defense companies here in Kyiv hoping to ramp up arms production in Ukraine. That's ABC's Tom Sufi Burrage reporting. European Union Foreign ministers have all gathered for a surprise visit to Kyiv and show of support for Ukraine. It was kept secret until the very last minute. The historic first is designed to send a clear message. While US support could be jeopardized by Republican obstruction in Washington and despite Slovakia electing a Kremlin -friendly Prime Minister, EU's the support for Ukraine will be steadfast. Josep Borrell, the EU's top diplomat, said short -term issues would not sway their support and that the bloc would continue to work to put in place permanent and structural support to fend off what he called an existential threat to Europe. Alex Cagier, Brussels but some European states say current the burden supply cannot go on for as long as it takes. Well some countries like Poland and Hungary and soon Slovakia say they can't keep shipping in weapon systems. Others like France want only to replenish ammo. Now Italy says it wants Beijing to step up and help mediate. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tijani had discussions in key. We are pushing hard China also for doing its best in favor of this for pushing Russia. But that view is very different from the one taken by the US administration which doesn't support Chinese involvement. Tom Rivers ABC News at the Foreign Desk. Northwest News Time 2 14. Getting you caught up in all that's happening on
Mike Gallagher Podcast
A highlight from The Mike and Mark Davis Daily Chat - 09/27/23
"Lots of channels. Nothing to watch. Especially if you're searching for the truth. It's time to interrupt your regularly scheduled programs with something actually worth watching. Salem News Channel. Straightforward, unfiltered, with in -depth insight and analysis from the greatest collection of conservative minds. Like Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Sebastian Gorka, and more. Find truth. Watch 24 -7 on SNC .TV and on Local Now, Channel 525. A big hit for the Crystals, girl group, 1963. Just 14 years later, this guy, 19 -year -old Sean Cassidy, busting onto the scene. Was this in the Mike Gallagher record collection when you were 17? Nope. Missed it. Missed it. Don't miss this. Sean Cassidy, who I had on the show, I think, last year. He blows through town in some medium -sized venues and just kind of has a sense of humor about all of his hits and all of his stuff and blah, blah, blah. The great Sean Cassidy is 65 today. I also saw him in a theatrical production of a great musical called Blood Brothers. He has toured in that. I think he might have played it in New York a little bit. Maybe even in the West End in London. He's great. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to him. He just has a lot of energy. And you know what he has? He has gratitude because he knows he's pigeon -holed. He was in the Hardy Boys TV show or some such. He was the kid star and blah, blah, blah. But you know what? If you got that going for you, milk it for your entire life. I'm a big believer in staying in your lane. I am a stay -in -my -lane kind of guy. Let's talk a little bit about my years -long narrative about the crap file on Donald Trump. Oh, yes. Let me tell everybody what it is. The Mike Gallagher theory has been born out true time and time and time and time. Whenever something starts to happen that will create positive attention for Trump or make people empathize with him or vote for him or support him, some kind of story will mysteriously appear so that the media can cover something else. Go. Well, yesterday is a perfect example. Huge news. The House Oversight Committee subpoenas records and discovers that Hunter Biden got wires from China, got transfers from Beijing for more than a quarter of a million dollars. And the wires were sent to Joe Biden's home. The president himself, his home, his home address, not Hunter's address, Joe's address. Now, this is the man, of course, who has insisted all along that he doesn't know anything about his son's business dealings. He just happens to be getting a quarter million dollars sent to his residence, but he didn't know anything about it. Now, hours after that comes this big revelation. A judge in New York, a Trump -hating, maniacal leftist New York City judge ruled that Trump has overstated the value of his properties over the years.
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
Fresh update on "beijing" discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"I think it's going to be a great contrast. And I think the future is bright, but the stakes are high here. So we got to get people involved. I want to close by talking about superpower in peril. One of the reasons I am so excited about your candidacy is we need to send veterans who actually understand the world that we are in right now. And I don't think a lot of Americans fully understand what Beijing is up to. Dave McCormick, lay out what your vision of Beijing is. And it contrasts very sharply with Bob Casey, who as far as I know, has never said anything about China, period. Yeah, well, it's, as you said, China is really an existential threat. We had high hopes in America 20 years ago that if we brought China into the into the world economic system, that it would act as a good partner and the opposite has happened. It's stolen our technology, our intellectual property. It's acted as a check on America's interest around the world. If you need any doubt about that, Xi Jinping was in Russia about a month ago, the same week that the foreign minister was brokering a deal with Iran and Saudi Arabia. So China poses a real military threat and an economic threat. And we need to have a whole of nation strategy for dealing with it. There's two things we need to do. Number one, we need to build muscle at home. We need to fix our education system, which is a disaster. We need to promote and develop the right technologies, the right kind of military capability, things that we're responsible for. We can't blame China for the fact that our economy is weak and our debt is staggering. At the same time, we need to change dramatically our dependence on China. Right now, 90% of the semiconductors in the world that we're so dependent on are made 90 miles from mainland China in Taiwan. Our pharmaceutical supply chains dependent on China. So we need to bring those capabilities home or in the hands of our closest allies. We need to stop investing in China. I know something about investing put restrictions on portfolio investment or direct investment that aids the CCP or the Chinese military. And we need to hold China accountable for bad behavior, bad behavior with the Uyghurs, the human human rights abuse, horrible human rights abuses, but most notably COVID. So here we are, you know, three and a half years later, and we still don't know the origins of COVID, which originated in Wuhan, where the Wuhan lab is. And yet China has blocked every step along the way. So this is the kind of hard-nosed posture. And let me end with a final point. The Biden administration's weakness on the global stage, whether it's Afghanistan and the withdrawal there, or whether it's the ham-handed dealing with Ukraine in the early days where they supported the pipeline and so forth and sent mixed signals, that kind of weakness is what's going to invite further Chinese aggression and provoking us on the global stage. So we need a steady hand. We need a strong hand. And there's a lot we can do, but we need to have a whole nation strategy for doing it. And that would be the kind of leadership that I would back to bring to the Senate. Again, I want to say the world's in turmoil. America's under siege, and Pennsylvania couldn't be more important. And yet here we have a senator that doesn't speak on any of these issues or make a meaningful difference. And that is why I think there's a real opportunity to win this seat, but also to lead on behalf of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This reminds me so much of when John Thune beat Tom Daschle in his second run for Senate, lost the first time, won the second time against an entrenched incumbent about whom the people of the state had grown weary. So Dave McCormick, good luck to you. We'll talk to you early and often. DaveMcCormickPA.com. DaveMcCormickPA.com. Go and volunteer. Send him 10 bucks, send him 20 bucks, but sign up to be the precinct captain in Pennsylvania. I'm on all over the state. You folks in Philadelphia, you folks in Bucks County, you folks in Pittsburgh, you folks in Scranton, wherever you are in Pennsylvania. I know you're listening to me right now. Go to DaveMcCormickPA.com and sign up. Become part of the volunteer force because he's actually doing it the old-fashioned way, building an organization, not just running TV ads because he knows it doesn't work. He's a smart guy. Dave McCormick is a very smart guy. Pennsylvania and the United States would be very lucky if he was in the Senate come 2025. DaveMcCormickPA.com. I'll be right back, America. Stay tuned. I'm Hugh Hewitt.
Mark Levin
Hunter Biden Received $250k From China, Addressed to Joe Biden's Home
"Oversight committee chairman James Comer has been investigating the Biden family dealings and Joe Biden's alleged involvement in those ventures just reading what they wrote as part of the propagation Comer subpoenaed financial records related to a specific bank account and received records of two wires originating from Beijing China and linked to BHR partners that's the joint venture between Hunter Biden's Rosemont Seneca and Chinese investment firm Baha 'i Capital the HR partners is a Beijing backed private equity firm controlled by Bank of China Limited AKA the Communist Party of China Hunter
The Breakdown
A highlight from Could Oil and a Gov't Shutdown Screw Up Powell's Plans?
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Friday, September 22nd, and today we are talking oil, macro, everything that could throw the economy off. But before we get to that, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link at the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, well, we are sort of continuing the macro story today that we picked up around Powell and the FOMC this week. And one of the questions that Powell was asked was about risks that threatened to knock the economy off course. Two that he mentioned that we're going to spend a little time on today include oil prices and a potential government shutdown. Let's start with oil first. The price of crude oil has steadily increased over the past four months. From a low of around $70 in June, oil reached almost $90 a barrel for the US -based WTI benchmark contract and $95 per barrel and $95 per barrel for international Brent crude earlier this week. The price increase for crude has driven US gas prices back above $3 .80 per gallon, the highest level since last October. Overall, gas prices have ramped up by 20 % since the beginning of the year, according to AAA. Now, there are a number of factors all contributing to steadily increasing oil prices since the June lows. The first is OPEC+. The economic group of oil producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia have recently curbed output. Production cuts, which were agreed to late last year, have been gradually implemented over the past six months. In July, Saudi Arabia voluntarily cut an additional 1 million barrels per day from its production quota, about 10 % of its previous output. Existing production cuts across OPEC have already been extended into next year and analysts expect Saudi Arabia to extend their voluntary cuts until March. On Thursday, Russia further constrained supply by banning the export of diesel and petrol. Russia is one of the world's largest suppliers of diesel alongside their status as producing around 12 % of the global supply of crude oil. The International Energy Agency said last year that Russian refineries produce, quote, roughly double the diesel needed to satisfy domestic demand and typically export half their annual production. Analyst opinions focused on the simplest explanation for the ban, retaliation for sanctions. Henning Gloestien of the Eurasia Group said, Russia wants to inflict pain on Europe and the U .S. and it looks like they're now repeating the playbook from gas and the oil market ahead of the winter months. They're showing that they're not finished using their power over energy markets. The Kremlin said the ban was temporary and aimed at addressing rising energy prices in domestic markets. However, they gave no timeline on when the ban might be lifted. U .S. and European policymakers have largely banned the importation of Russian refined fuel since February, which has required Russian supply to be routed through third party regions including Turkey, North Africa and Latin America. Now, OPEC cuts over the past year were predicated on a weakening demand profile heading into this year. At the time they were announced, recessions were expected across Europe and the U .S. China was an open question with the potential of reopening pushed back in the midst of additional pandemic waves. But since then, the European economy is sputtering along, albeit with dismal manufacturing data out of Germany. The sanctioning of Russian supply has caused European demand to be displaced to other regions with refining capacity, largely India and the Middle East. In the U .S., recession has been continuously pushed off into the future and oil demand is now back at all time highs with no signs of slowing. Although the Chinese economy has hit some turbulence recently, oil demand remains robust. Analysts expect China's oil demand to remain high as Beijing secures strategically important resources. What's more, analysts expect China's oil demand to remain high as Beijing secures strategically important resources in part to mitigate geopolitical risks as well as to shore up its manufacturing and transportation industries. So with oil prices spiking, many are wondering whether the White House will once again intervene in markets using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Between November 2021 and September of last year, the White House authorized a number of SPR releases. The final policy saw one million barrels per day provided into the market over six months. A small amount of oil was restocked earlier this year, but the SPR still sits at a little over half its pre -pandemic level. Earlier this week, a headline circulated proclaiming that quote, Biden says depleting SPR is on the table. This was later found to be a hoax with no legitimate source, but it demonstrates how difficult high oil prices could be for the U .S. economy heading into election season. To wit, many saw the SPR release as a political decision rather than an economic decision heading into the 2022 midterms. In the private sector, U .S. oil inventories have recently hit 40 -year lows of 46 -day supply, well below the longer -term average of 65 days. And while August's inflation reports already showed a small uptick due to oil -related prices, the effect is expected to be more profound across this month. Dario Perkins, an economist at T .S. Lombard said, That said, it is important to keep these recent inflationary developments in context. We are not yet in danger of undoing 12 months of solid disinflationary progress, not even close. Others suggested that high oil prices would have a greater impact on growth rather than inflation. Maya Bhandari, head of multi -asset at BNP Paribas Asset Management said, It really impacts the growth side of the Goldilocks equation rather than the inflation side of things over the long term. Theory is that sustained high oil prices begin to eat into disposable income for households alongside higher costs of production for manufacturing and logistics. These combine to reduce growth and potentially tip the economy into recession. Overall, this situation in the oil markets has, to some, many parallels to the liquid natural gas spike in the winter of 2022. Prices in some markets rose more than tenfold, European energy companies scrambled to secure supply at any cost, and multiple firms went bankrupt due to the volatility in markets. This week, Bloomberg reported that the trading arm of French supplier Total Energies has played a major role in bidding up the price of U .S.-based oil. Their source claimed that the firm is paying a premium for physical U .S. barrels, pushing the spread against futures to levels not seen since last November. With all of that said, there are some signs that the oil market is beginning to cool off. On Thursday, Brent crude futures fell to $92 per barrel, which represented the third straight day of price declines, which is the longest streak in almost a month. Warren Patterson, head of Commodity Strategy at ING, said the Fed's hawkish messaging has quote, put some pressure on risk assets, including oil. The dollar index has risen by 0 .8 % since Chair Powell left the podium, a large enough move to weigh on asset markets. Patterson said he still expects Brent crude to move above the $100 mark in the near term, but that he doesn't anticipate the move will be sustainable. So that is the view on oil overall. The thing that I am definitely going to be watching more than anything else is the political dimension of this. We are now entering the period where everything, even more than usual, is going to be completely wrapped up in what it means for the election season. If prices at the pump keep trending up, it seems very likely that the Biden administration will be willing to do what it takes, including SPR releases, to get those prices down. But that's just something we're going to have to keep an eye on. Now what about that other factor that Powell mentioned? Well yes, indeed, my friends, the US government is once again hurtling towards a shutdown after efforts to pass a short term spending bill were scuttled on the House floor on Thursday. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy attempted to marshal Republicans to vote through a package to keep the government funded past the end of September. Closed door negotiations continued late into Wednesday night, but were apparently unconvincing. The bill currently being considered is the $886 billion Defense Appropriations Act. The bill was stifled in the House after five GOP representatives refused to allow debate to begin by voting against a preliminary procedural rule. Democrats also voted against the measure and appeared to taunt Republicans apparently reveling in seeing the GOP's slim majority descend into chaos. Among the Republican dissenters was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who opposed the inclusion of $300 million in funding to the Ukrainian war effort. On Thursday, Politico reported that Pentagon sources have said Ukrainian operations have been exempted from any shutdown, making that part of the dispute rather moot. McCarthy sent House members home on Thursday night to return to Washington on Tuesday. He told reporters after the failed vote, quote, two people flipped, so I got to figure out how to fix that. That wasn't the impression they had given us. Now, this was McCarthy's third attempt at bringing the bill to the House floor. The current proposal on the table is a 31 -day stopgap funding mechanism to forestall a shutdown to begin next weekend. McCarthy remarked on the change in tone in Congress among that extreme element of the Republican Party, stating that, quote, this is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. Now, even if a 31 -day stopgap is passed in the House, it seems unlikely to make its way through the Democrat -controlled Senate. The bill includes a 30 percent temporary cut to domestic agencies and immigration law changes, neither of which are likely to get the seal of approval from Dems. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said instead of decreasing the chance of a shutdown, Speaker McCarthy is actually increasing it by wasting time on extremist proposals that cannot become law in the Senate. House Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries remarked that the situation was playing out as a, quote, Republican civil war. Now, if it comes to pass, this would be the 11th government shutdown since 1980. The logic is that hard -line positions that don't enjoy support in the Congress can be put directly to the American people by shutting down the government and drawing attention to the impasse. Republican Ralph Norman said last week that, quote, we're going to have a shutdown. We believe in what we're doing. The jury will be the country. Still, the record on government shutdowns doesn't really support that strategy. Not one of the 10 previous shutdowns resulted in the dissenting group extracting concessions. Typically, the American people quickly turn on the party they view as blocking access to government services over a petty squabble. Alex Conant, a Republican strategist, said, This is such a dumb fight because there's no principle that we're standing on here. It's just bad tactics. While the dispute is nominally over excessive government spending, with Republican dissenters pushing for funding to be reduced back to 2022 levels, the underlying problem is, of course, the level of discord within the Republican Party. McCarthy was voted in as House Speaker after a record 15 attempts. The process took four days and frequently descended into a farce. This was only the second time in the post -Civil War era that a House Speaker had failed to be elected on the first attempt. Conant noted the terrible optics of a government shutdown of the Republicans' own making heading into election season, stating that, quote, Biden didn't win because of his political skills and soaring oratory. He won because Republicans blew themselves up with Trump. I'm afraid we're seeing history repeat itself, with the GOP once again helping Biden by shooting themselves in the foot. Of course, never one to shy away from controversy, Trump fanned the flames on Wednesday, posting that, quote, Republicans in Congress can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden's weaponized government that refuses to close the border and treats half the country as enemies of the state. He added that, quote, This is also the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other patriots. They failed on the debt limit they must not fail now. Use the power of the person to defend the country. Now, zooming out and trying to get away from the politics of the situation, which obviously is not the focus of this show. The reason that this was brought up at last week's FOMC press conference is that a government shutdown would halt the publication of government data. This would include employment, inflation and growth statistics, which are currently playing a key role in guiding Fed policy. Now, given how much the Fed has said over and over again, their policy is going to be driven by data, presumably not having access to that data would be a fairly big deal. Yet in spite of that, Powell tried to put on a brave face, saying, If there is a government shutdown and it lasts through the next meeting, then it's possible we wouldn't be getting some of the data that we would ordinarily get and we would just have to deal with that. Now, by way of some history, the longest ever government shutdown lasted 35 days. The dispute was around funding for the border wall and quickly turned public sentiment against the Trump administration. Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate, but the administration failed to convince their own party to fund the wall. At the time, Democrat Senator Jon Tester called it the most stupid shutdown I have ever seen in my life. However, if this week's display is anything to go by, that 2019 shutdown could soon have some competition for that title. Now, what does this all have to do with the crypto sphere? Well, I think in many ways these are just exemplary of the state of politics in general. And given that, perhaps it's not surprising that former Senator Pat Toomey is not optimistic about the chances of crypto legislation being passed during this Congress. Just prior to retiring from Congress at the beginning of the year, Toomey introduced his own crypto bill, which focused on stablecoin regulations. Now, the House currently has two major crypto bills eligible to be brought for a vote. One would establish a stablecoin framework while the other introduces more broad crypto regulations. While speaking at a Georgetown Law Seminar on Thursday, however, Toomey said, I don't see a path forward in the Senate regardless of how the vote goes in the House. He added that of the two, he sees the stablecoin legislation as having the best shot. The sticking point will likely be Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown. While Brown has been outspoken about the risks of crypto and the need to bring the industry to heel, he has so far remained extremely quiet on exactly what form of legislation would meet his approval. And of course, any crypto legislation would need the support of Democratic senators to pass a vote to become law. Still, during an interview on Thursday, Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad said that she thinks that Brown's lack of commitment to a legislative position might actually be a good thing. Shirzad said, Now, last week, Brown wrote a letter to head regulators at multiple agencies urging them to use their existing powers to crack down on non -compliant crypto firms. This of course seems to be the clear intention, at least at the SEC. On Tuesday, the head of that agency's crypto assets and cyber unit, David Hirsch, warned that more enforcement actions would be coming against crypto intermediaries, including DeFi protocols. Still, Toomey, who serves now as an advisor to Coinbase, views stablecoin legislation as the solvable problem. At the moment, Democrats are pushing for the Fed to serve a central role in regulating issuers rather than granting oversight power to state regulators. This preference is believed to be driven by the White House. Toomey said, He thinks that senior Democrats will get on board once the White House is satisfied with the stablecoin proposal. Although that proposal might have to wait until after the election, as Toomey said in the next Congress, I think it's quite possible to get something done.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 19:00 09-06-2023 19:00
"Economics to say that it may take another another two decades for China's GDP to beat that of the U .S. and even after that it may fall back behind soon after due to all sorts of different challenges so there you go Brian I mean this is something we have been uh talking about and keeping an eye on and it sort of goes down to these growth goals by the administration in Beijing yeah some interesting comments there by Bloomberg economics uh and runs a little counter to what we thought before demographics a big part of that story as well the next hour of Bloomberg Daybreak Asia begins right now broadcasting 24 hours a day at bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act this is Bloomberg Radio this is Bloomberg Daybreak Asia for this Thursday September 7th in Hong Kong Wednesday September 6th in New York coming up this hour a strong reading on the U .S. services economy bolsters bets on the fed keeping rates higher for longer shares an apple fall on a report that China has barred government staff from using iPhones at work and Chinese chip makers smic may have violated U .S. sanctions by supplying components to Huawei as young leaders disappointed Biden did not attend the summit looks like Biden is clear to go to the G20 though DOJ signals it is ready to indict Hunter Biden I'm Ed Baxter with global news two top five seeds advance to semi -finals at the U .S. Open I'm Dan Schwartzman I'll have that story more coming up in Bloomberg Sports that's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia on Bloomberg 11 30 New York Bloomberg 99 .1 Washington D .C. Bloomberg 106 .1 Boston Bloomberg 960 San Francisco Sirius XM 119 and around the world on Bloomberg Radio .com and via the Bloomberg Business Act we are now an hour away from trading in Tokyo Sydney and Seoul it's hour two of DBA.
The Breakdown
"beijing" Discussed on The Breakdown
"What's more, the story is not much better across the broader housing industry. 34 of China's top 50 private sector developers are delinquent on offshore bond issuance. The remaining 16 credit-worthy firms, which now includes Country Garden, have a combined $1.5 billion in bond payments falling due this month. That's the highest monthly amount since January. Zhiwei Feng, a senior analyst at Loomis Sales Investments Asia, said, Bringing it back to Country Garden, although the securities have benefited from a bounce, they're still trading at deeply distressed levels between 9 and 14 cents on the dollar. A note from Bloomberg Intelligence on Monday said, Country Garden could struggle to avoid a downward spiral in its liquidity even after it dodged a default. The developers' slump in contracted sales, down 72% in August, could persist amid faltering homebuyer confidence. About 92% of its land bank is in low-tier and weaker-tier-2 cities, where the latest policy stimulus is likely to deliver little boost to home sales. And indeed, if the Chinese economy is headed for crisis, the housing market will likely be ground zero. By some counts, the housing sector and related industries make up around 20% of China's In addition, housing is used as a primary investment vehicle by many families, given low transparency in the domestic stock market. This reliance on housing has made support of the property market a key focus of recent interventions. Beijing has massively loosened lending standards for mortgages over the past week. A joint statement issued by the People's Bank of China and the National Administration of Financial Regulation reduced minimum down payments to between 20 and 30% for first-time homebuyers nationwide. Previous lending standards required a down payment of 30 to 40% in tier-one cities like Beijing and Shanghai. A prime mortgage rate for new borrowers was also slashed by 40 basis points. In addition, policymakers have instructed banks to renegotiate loan terms for existing first-time borrowers later this month. This policy will lower repayment costs across some 3.5 trillion worth of outstanding household debt. Now beyond just arresting the two-year slide in Chinese home prices, policymakers are hoping this change will have broader implications as well. The statement from the PBOC said, The drop in the interest rates of existing housing loans can save interest expenses for John Lam, head of China and Hong Kong Property at UBS Investment Bank Research, said, Now the weekend did see a rebound in home sales as the new policies kicked in. 1800 new homes were sold in Beijing on Saturday alone, which is more than half of the sales volume across the entire last month. Second home sales were also robust, doubling compared to the previous weekend. Still, there is a lot of commentary that these interventions are just not big enough to deal with the scale of the problem. Derek Tay, the head of investments at Camet Capital Partners, said, Now another big unsolved problem in the Chinese economy is the potential failure of shadow banking giant, Zhongrong International Trust. The firm is one of the 10 largest trust companies in China and manages over $137 billion. Earlier this month, Zhongrong began defaulting on scheduled payments on dozens of wealth management products. The defaulted payments amounted to around $20 million, but the concern is that missed payments could be just the beginning of a Lehman moment in China. Last week, Beijing asked two of the nation's largest financial firms to investigate the books at Zhongrong, which some insiders view as a prelude to a bailout of the firm. To understand a little bit about how this functions, the $400 billion Chinese trust industry acts as an alternative funding source for weaker borrowers unable to get bank loans. The industry intermediates credit primarily from wealthy lenders to real estate developers and local government financing vehicles. According to Goldman Sachs, the sector could be facing a 10% asset impairment across the board. Trying to sum up where we are, early last week, Ting Liu, the chief China economist at Nomura Holdings, said that the measures so far, quote, unless accompanied by support for the actual economy. The critique of Beijing policymakers so far has been that they are too reluctant to commit to full-blown stimulus efforts to rescue the flailing economy. Specifically, Beijing has been hesitant to deliver support to households. Official explanations have warned of the, quote, trap of welfarism and expressed a preference for tax cuts to businesses rather than transfer payments. Yet some analysts believe that the restriction on stimulus is more economic in nature. The Chinese exchange rate has recently fallen to 7.3 yuan per dollar, which is the lowest level since 2008. Multiple interventions over the past month have failed to drive a rebound in the currency. Many analysts believe that the floor is being heavily defended and that Beijing is working behind the scenes to avoid a devaluation. The latest round of currency interventions occurred on Friday when the PBOC cut the amount of foreign reserves commercial banks must hold on foreign exchange deposits from 6% to 4%. Becky Liu, the head of China Macro Strategy at Standard Chartered, said that the move was largely symbolic but that it, quote, Now there is a lot more that we could get into. Tensions with China around access to AI chips continues to grow, with the US recently forcing Nvidia and AMD to stop selling to certain Middle Eastern countries for fear that those chips will get then routed to China. And there is the constant buzz of policy makers in Washington saying that the administration should be even tougher when it comes to Chinese economic policy. For now, it remains one of the most important economic narratives in the world, and so is something we will keep watching closely. However, that is going to do it for today's episode. I appreciate you listening as always, and until next time, be safe and take care of each other.
The Breakdown
"beijing" Discussed on The Breakdown
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, September 5th, and today we are talking about why China's growth engine may be falling apart. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. Hello friends, welcome back to The Breakdown. I hope all of you who are celebrating the long holiday weekend had a great end of summer and are looking forward to what promises to be a... well, actually, I don't know what fall promises to be. We're in the hinterlands where I believe, on the one hand, the worst of the bear market has ended, but on the other hand, it still feels like we're pretty far away from a bull market beginning. That's, of course, because no one new is coming into the space right now, and that means it's all of us who have sort of stuck around here, just kind of circling around the drain. There was a great example of this this morning where Visa posted some news relating to Solana, and whereas during a bull market that might send prices surging, Solana itself was basically flat from yesterday and is still down 3% on the week. I think, unfortunately, that until new sets of money come in, we're effectively just sideways and down only. But given that lethargy, it's a good time to get away from thinking about crypto asset prices and thinking about bigger topics and issues. In fact, today we are jumping entirely outside of crypto to talk macro and specifically China. Now, obviously, the China story is bigger than just China and even bigger than just general global economics are interconnected. China has been a deterministic actor in the global economy, especially since COVID. Their ongoing lockdowns kept supply chains screwed up and depressed global demand, and by extension, their reopening was supposed to herald a return to normalcy and create some economic buoyancy. Alas, the country finds itself in the midst of a serious economic downturn. In the US, we see article titles like from the New York Times on August 31st, why is China in so much trouble? From Bloomberg yesterday, China slowdown means it may never overtake US economy. From The Economist August 24th, Xi's failing model, why he won't fix China's economy. So given that, let's get into what's actually happening. First of all, last quarter's GDP growth in China came in at 3.2%. That is a significant amount below the government's target of around 5%. Now, in addition to not meeting that 5% target, when that target was announced in March during the National People's Conference, it was recognized as the lowest growth target in the Chinese economy. In a note published last week, Bloomberg Economist wrote that, Now, depending on who you read, you will find a range of explanations for this slowdown. To some, it's about a demographic collapse with a rapidly aging population. To others, it's about shifting trade policy and ongoing US attempts to decouple from China that have led to a slowdown in international investment. Others point out that internally in China, there has been a shift of emphasis from growth at all costs to security and resilience as China prepares for increasing conflict with Western powers. Now, of course, over the shorter term, the explanations for the slowdown are more defined. The Chinese reopening failed to live up to the hype and youth unemployment in particular has soared. It was last recorded above 20% before reporting was suspended in July. Now, the consequences of the economic slowdown have led to issues piling up in a myriad of places across the financial sector. There are now problems bubbling to the surface in housing, financial services, and even the currency. Beijing has begun intervening with assorted rescue packages, although they remain closely targeted at this stage. So far, the government has avoided direct fiscal stimulus of household spending, which might be used to bolster collapse in consumer demand and stave off outright deflation in retail prices. Now, many have questioned why the Chinese government is being so restrained with fiscal support during this downturn. This is because it's a little bit different than the strategy deployed before. During the 2008 crisis and subsequent global economic shocks, there was no lack of willingness to deploy the quote Beijing bazooka and engage in system-wide support and massive infrastructure spending. This time around, we're not seeing that kind of approach, which has puzzled many international commentators. And yet, of course, it's not like the Chinese government is doing nothing. As multiple problems have reached a crisis point over the past few weeks, the government has launched a round of targeted interventions, so let's look at a few of those. The first sign of major interventions came last Sunday, when Beijing announced a package of measures aimed at boosting the stock market. A tax on stock trading was reduced for the first time since 2008, and in addition, the top stakeholders in firms that were trading below their IPO price were restricted from selling shares. Deposit ratios for margin financing were also lowered. Alongside these overt policy decisions, Beijing also leaned on large institutions to support the market. During a seminar held the previous Thursday, the China Securities Regulatory Commission extracted a pledge from assembled pension funds, large banks, and insurers that they would help to stabilize the stock market and boost economic development. These combined actions caused a dramatic pop at last week's Monday Open. Chinese markets began the day up 5.5%, but the euphoria was short-lived, wearing off in just 10 minutes of trading with the market collapsing back down. The primary Chinese index closed that Monday up only 1.2%. By way of comparison, the last time China cut stock trading taxes in 2008, the move triggered a 9.3% rally the following day and kicked off a significant bull run into the following year. Now, the changes were widely anticipated after Beijing pledged last month to, quote, invigorate capital markets and boost investor confidence. The Chinese stock market has been a fairly horrendous place to invest in recent years. The major index is down 4% so far this year on the back of two consecutive years of annual losses. Chinese markets are underperforming a broader sample of Asian equities by about 6% this year and have been one of the worst performing markets in the world. Foreign investors have been fleeing the wreckage. The past few weeks saw over 13 consecutive days of net selling from international firms, which is the longest streak on record. Still, with a little over a week since that Monday intervention, there do appear to be some signs of success. The Shanghai Shenzhen Index, the major onshore market index, is now up 2% since last Monday's close. More importantly, the index has now seen two weeks of a positive trend. The main Chinese index is up 3.6% since this year's low, which was recorded the week prior to the interventions. Now, this recent surge in Chinese stock saw an extra boost from large housing developers during recent trading. The Hang Seng Mainline Properties Index rose by over 8% on the back of good news for the troubled property sector. The biggest headline was generated by Country Garden, which was previously the nation's largest developer. The Chinese property Goliath had missed $22.5 million in interest payments on $2 denominated bonds in early August. Concerns mounted throughout the month that this missed payment would lead to an official default and potentially bankruptcy, which was of course the path that rival developer Evergrande went down over the past two years. However, Country Grand has now caught up with delinquent interest payments on the two bonds within grace periods, avoiding a default. The payment came after successful negotiations surrounding another tranche of bonds which were due to mature on Friday. The firm managed to negotiate with creditors to push the maturity date out until 2026, affecting $537 million in principal repayments. Still, Country Garden remains under pressure, with $2.9 billion in note obligations falling due throughout the rest of the year. Overall, the firm has $187 billion in total liabilities.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Beijing Bazooka: Why China Isn't Being More Aggressive As Economy Deteriorates
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, September 5th, and today we are talking about why China's growth engine may be falling apart. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello friends, welcome back to The Breakdown. I hope all of you who are celebrating the long holiday weekend had a great end of summer and are looking forward to what promises to be a... well, actually, I don't know what fall promises to be. We're in the hinterlands where I believe, on the one hand, the worst of the bear market has ended, but on the other hand, it still feels like we're pretty far away from a bull market beginning. That's, of course, because no one new is coming into the space right now, and that means it's all of us who have sort of stuck around here, just kind of circling around the drain. There was a great example of this this morning where Visa posted some news relating to Solana, and whereas during a bull market that might send prices surging, Solana itself was basically flat from yesterday and is still down 3 % on the week. I think, unfortunately, that until new sets of money come in, we're effectively just sideways and down only. But given that lethargy, it's a good time to get away from thinking about crypto asset prices and thinking about bigger topics and issues. In fact, today we are jumping entirely outside of crypto to talk macro and specifically China. Now, obviously, the China story is bigger than just China and even bigger than just general global economics are interconnected. China has been a deterministic actor in the global economy, especially since COVID. Their ongoing lockdowns kept supply chains screwed up and depressed global demand, and by extension, their reopening was supposed to herald a return to normalcy and create some economic buoyancy. Alas, the country finds itself in the midst of a serious economic downturn. In the US, we see article titles like from the New York Times on August 31st, why is China in so much trouble? From Bloomberg yesterday, China slowdown means it may never overtake US economy. From The Economist August 24th, Xi's failing model, why he won't fix China's economy. So given that, let's get into what's actually happening. First of all, last quarter's GDP growth in China came in at 3 .2%. That is a significant amount below the government's target of around 5%. Now, in addition to not meeting that 5 % target, when that target was announced in March during the National People's Conference, it was recognized as the lowest growth target in the Chinese economy. In a note published last week, Bloomberg Economist wrote that, Now, depending on who you read, you will find a range of explanations for this slowdown. To some, it's about a demographic collapse with a rapidly aging population. To others, it's about shifting trade policy and ongoing US attempts to decouple from China that have led to a slowdown in international investment. Others point out that internally in China, there has been a shift of emphasis from growth at all costs to security and resilience as China prepares for increasing conflict with Western powers. Now, of course, over the shorter term, the explanations for the slowdown are more defined. The Chinese reopening failed to live up to the hype and youth unemployment in particular has soared. It was last recorded above 20 % before reporting was suspended in July. Now, the consequences of the economic slowdown have led to issues piling up in a myriad of places across the financial sector. There are now problems bubbling to the surface in housing, financial services, and even the currency. Beijing has begun intervening with assorted rescue packages, although they remain closely targeted at this stage. So far, the government has avoided direct fiscal stimulus of household spending, which might be used to bolster collapse in consumer demand and stave off outright deflation in retail prices. Now, many have questioned why the Chinese government is being so restrained with fiscal support during this downturn. This is because it's a little bit different than the strategy deployed before. During the 2008 crisis and subsequent global economic shocks, there was no lack of willingness to deploy the quote Beijing bazooka and engage in system -wide support and massive infrastructure spending. This time around, we're not seeing that kind of approach, which has puzzled many international commentators. And yet, of course, it's not like the Chinese government is doing nothing. As multiple problems have reached a crisis point over the past few weeks, the government has launched a round of targeted interventions, so let's look at a few of those. The first sign of major interventions came last Sunday, when Beijing announced a package of measures aimed at boosting the stock market. A tax on stock trading was reduced for the first time since 2008, and in addition, the top stakeholders in firms that were trading below their IPO price were restricted from selling shares. Deposit ratios for margin financing were also lowered. Alongside these overt policy decisions, Beijing also leaned on large institutions to support the market. During a seminar held the previous Thursday, the China Securities Regulatory Commission extracted a pledge from assembled pension funds, large banks, and insurers that they would help to stabilize the stock market and boost economic development. These combined actions caused a dramatic pop at last week's Monday Open. Chinese markets began the day up 5 .5%, but the euphoria was short -lived, wearing off in just 10 minutes of trading with the market collapsing back down. The primary Chinese index closed that Monday up only 1 .2%. By way of comparison, the last time China cut stock trading taxes in 2008, the move triggered a 9 .3 % rally the following day and kicked off a significant bull run into the following year. Now, the changes were widely anticipated after Beijing pledged last month to, quote, invigorate capital markets and boost investor confidence. The Chinese stock market has been a fairly horrendous place to invest in recent years. The major index is down 4 % so far this year on the back of two consecutive years of annual losses. Chinese markets are underperforming a broader sample of Asian equities by about 6 % this year and have been one of the worst performing markets in the world. Foreign investors have been fleeing the wreckage. The past few weeks saw over 13 consecutive days of net selling from international firms, which is the longest streak on record. Still, with a little over a week since that Monday intervention, there do appear to be some signs of success. The Shanghai Shenzhen Index, the major onshore market index, is now up 2 % since last Monday's close. More importantly, the index has now seen two weeks of a positive trend. The main Chinese index is up 3 .6 % since this year's low, which was recorded the week prior to the interventions. Now, this recent surge in Chinese stock saw an extra boost from large housing developers during recent trading. The Hang Seng Mainline Properties Index rose by over 8 % on the back of good news for the troubled property sector. The biggest headline was generated by Country Garden, which was previously the nation's largest developer. The Chinese property Goliath had missed $22 .5 million in interest payments on $2 denominated bonds in early August. Concerns mounted throughout the month that this missed payment would lead to an official default and potentially bankruptcy, which was of course the path that rival developer Evergrande went down over the past two years. However, Country Grand has now caught up with delinquent interest payments on the two bonds within grace periods, avoiding a default. The payment came after successful negotiations surrounding another tranche of bonds which were due to mature on Friday. The firm managed to negotiate with creditors to push the maturity date out until 2026, affecting $537 million in principal repayments. Still, Country Garden remains under pressure, with $2 .9 billion in note obligations falling due throughout the rest of the year. Overall, the firm has $187 billion in total liabilities.
Simply Bitcoin
A highlight from BREAKING: China to Reverse Bitcoin Ban?! | EP 816
"It's all going to zero against Bitcoin. It's going up for everyone. You're against Bitcoin. You're against freedom. Yo, welcome to Simply Bitcoin Live, our number one source for the peaceful Bitcoin revolution of code breaking news culture and medic warfare. We will be your guide through the separation of money and state. Speaking of the separation of money and state, China seems to be reversing course. You wouldn't expect that. I mean, if you've been paying attention, they've been kind of dropping some little hints here and there. We know by some data collected by CNBC, I think it was Mackenzie Segalos who originally dropped the article, that it was estimated to be still 20 % of the Bitcoin hash rate is still located in China even after the China ban. And then the news from Hong Kong started coming out where Hong Kong seems to be trying to attract Bitcoin companies or Bitcoin and altcoin companies to set up shop in Hong Kong. And Hong Kong is a semi autonomous region. You know, supposedly it's a one country, two systems, but they have been cracking down a lot on freedom of speech and all that stuff over there. So they wouldn't be able to do this without Beijing's approval. And that that isn't just simply Bitcoin saying that there's articles that have said that Bloomberg has said that I know I know another publication has said this as well. So I don't think it's a coincidence that literally a couple months later, an article dropped out dropped originally in it was originally in Mandarin. And then Yahoo News published the article late at midnight, midnight today, and it says China court says virtual assets legally protected as properties. So you know, this 180 basically, we know that the CCP, who is, you know, the governing body of mainland China or the governing political party, they absolutely hate Bitcoin. They're all hell bent on pushing forward the central bank digital currency system with the social credit system, all that stuff, you know, like freedom money. But this is something that Alex Gladstein has written about where he wrote an article for Bitcoin magazine called Bitcoin is the Trojan horse for freedom. And he made the case that, uh, NGU technology and freedom enabling technology, they're inextricably inextricably linked. You can't separate the two. I see Afi Opti laughing in the background to my pronunciation. Sorry. Not sorry. Um, but I think this is a testament to Bitcoin's incentives. And even if you are from one of the most totalitarian countries in the world, um, you know, we always hear that a nai mukhelei is a danger to democracy, a dangerous democracy. We never hear that about China for some reason, we don't even have democracy, right? Um, so yeah, it's just, uh, it's, it's just interesting how Bitcoin's incentives are irresistible. And this is actually one of Opti's like famous lines, right? It's like, you can't ban yourself, uh, I forget, let me bring up Opti so that he could actually say the line. Opti, how do you say it? Uh, again, just to be clear, I didn't create this. I just propagate the meme, but you can't ban Bitcoin. You can only ban yourself from Bitcoin. Boom. Exactly. Right. So you can't ban Bitcoin. You can only ban your, uh, you can only, exactly. So, and then we see that with the hash rate, right? People are willing to go to jail on Bitcoin. That's so crazy. Right. Um, and then there are some numbers that were coming out of Binance that apparently it's like 20 % of the exchange volume is still coming out of China, right? So it's, it's, it's some absurd amount and this is Bitcoin's incentives. And this is something that we've been propagating. And this is something that we've been talking about for a very, very long time in the separation of money and stay in this process that we're all kind of living through these days is what they have is coercion. They coerce can people into using state money to using money that has control surveillance inflation built in, but Bitcoiners don't have to rely on coercion. We just have incentives. Our money has a better incentive structure. And I think that's why at the end of the day, we're going to win this thing eventually. The only question is how long is it going to take and how painful is it going to be? And that's just, that's the big question, right? Corey Clipsen from Swan wrote this amazing article, highly recommend it called the race to avoid the war. And he's talking about, we have to, we have to ruin the race. We have to get in a minority of people, an intransigent minority that's not willing to bend on a certain issue that is holding Bitcoiners, that's holding Bitcoin. And they're not willing to bend. They're just saying like, look, like I, this is, you know, like this is my wealth, this is my future, this is the money I decided to use. And then it becomes a voting issue, a policy issue that just doesn't move. The example that I would give for you guys is the gun lobby in the United States. Like look how hard it is to pass a gun, whether you agree with them or not, obviously you guys know we're Freedom Maxis. So I'm a big fan of the Second Amendment personally, but I respect people's different differing of opinions, of course.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 19:00 08-30-2023 19:00
"Beijing, highest ranked British diplomat to visit Beijing in recent times. Well, it comes across the back of Ukraine's troops, now using a US rocket system known as the Vampire to destroy Russian drones, that's according to the Pentagon. Produced by L3Harris Technologies, the weapons are carried on trucks, they allow Ukraine to really try and fend off Russian strikes, that's the idea anyway. We've got a lot more as the next hour of Bloomberg Daybreak Asia continues. Broadcasting 24 hours a day at Bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act. This is Bloomberg Radio. That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia. We'll get trading in Tokyo, Sydney and Seoul underway in about an hour now. It's the Thursday edition of DBA and if you're joining from the APAC region, good morning. I'm Doug Krisner at the Bloomberg Interactive.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 13:00 08-29-2023 13:00
"Turns are being judged on their performance and their ability to think outside the box, because these these positions are so sought after. But mind you, the likes of Metta, others doing similar hiring $120 an hour to translate into that salary. Well, Jessamyn and Simone Foxman here, filling in for Matt Miller and Paul Sweeney. I hear we will be back tomorrow. It'll be lots of fun. But we'll have more coming up. Sound on with Joe Matthews starts right now. Broadcasting 24 hours a day at Bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act. This is Bloomberg Radio. Now from our nation's capital, this is Bloomberg Sound On. President's approval ratings are very low. The majority of Americans think he shouldn't run at all. The four years Donald Trump was in the White House were totally different from the four years that Biden has been there. People are going to say I was doing better then than I am now. Bloomberg Sound On. Politics, policy and perspective from D .C.'s top names. You got to work to get people back to work, but not only that, but to higher paying jobs. The Russian threat is being degraded and unfortunately it's being degraded at the cost of Ukrainian lives, blood, treasure. Bloomberg Sound On with Joe Matthew on Bloomberg Radio. Businesses tell the White House China is becoming uninvestable. Welcome to the fastest show in politics as Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo tells reporters in China that Beijing is driving away American companies because it's an increasingly risky investment. We'll get the latest on the trip this week from Bloomberg National Security reporter Nick Wadhams with insights from Max Baucus, the former senator, former U .S. ambassador to China will be with us in a moment. Later on this hour, one of the Tennessee Three is silenced again and the fight over music on the campaign trail is already on. We'll cover it all with our six -minute show.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 05:00 08-29-2023 05:00
"Investment Advisors switch to interactive brokers for lowest cost global trading and turnkey custody solutions. No ticket charges and no conflicts of your interests at ibkr .com slash ria. Bloomberg Surveillance, Bloomberg Daybreak, Sound On, Bloomberg Business Week and more are also available as podcasts. Listen today on Apple, Spotify, the Bloomberg Business App and anywhere else you get your podcasts. We take you to Beijing where Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo continues her visit to China. Drug chains have a new plan to help you skip that doctor's visit. And Citadel comes through nearly 70 ,000 intern applications to find the next math genius. The NYPD says a family of four was found dead in a Manhattan apartment. Plus the federal judge in the Trump January 6th case has set a trial date. I'm Michael Barr. More ahead. I'm John Stashow on sports. The Yankees won in Detroit. The Mets lost to Texas. Coco Gauff and Novak Djokovic opening night winners at the U .S. Open. That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak. On Bloomberg 1130 New York, Bloomberg 99 .1 Washington, D .C. Bloomberg 106 .1 Boston, Bloomberg 960 San Francisco, Sirius XM 119 and around the world on BloombergRadio .com and via the Bloomberg Business App. Good morning. I'm Nathan Hager. And I'm Karen Moscow with U .S. Dunk Index Futures. Our little change this morning. S &P Futures.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 19:00 08-27-2023 19:00
"It's Michael McKee at the Jackson Hole Symposium in Wyoming at the end of last week. Rashad, thank you so much for spending the hour with us here as we get DBA underway for a Monday. We're about an hour away from trading in Tokyo, Sydney and Seoul. First trading day of the week in Asia and it's the first chance for markets to react to what we heard from the Fed Chairman himself. We'll give you the latest on the price action update markets as well. Hour 2, DBA. It starts right now. Broadcasting 24 hours a day at Bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act. This is Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Asia for this Monday, August 28th in Hong Kong, Sunday, August 27th in New York. Coming up today, markets brace for volatility after key central bankers signal interest rates will likely stay higher for longer. U .S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visits China to expand business ties. Beijing cuts its stock trade tax and pledges to slow the pace of IPOs to boost Chinese markets. Three Marines are killed in a plane crash in Australia. Florida is bracing for a hurricane. Russia confirms the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin. And in sports, Saudi Arabia will try to enter the Champions League. I'm Dan Schwartzman. I'll have news and sports coming up. That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia. On Bloomberg 1130 New York. Bloomberg 99 .1 Washington D .C. Bloomberg 106 .1 Boston. Bloomberg 960 San Francisco. Sirius XM 119. And around the world on BloombergRadio .com and via the Bloomberg Business Act. It's a little past 8 in the morning in Tokyo. Trading will get underway in less than an hour, not only in Japanese equities but in U .S. sovereign debt as well. If you're joining from Japan or anywhere in the U .S.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 18:00 08-27-2023 18:00
"At 6 a .m. in Hong Kong, 6 p .m. on Wall Street. Nathan. All right, thanks Doug. And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Daybreak Weekend. Join us again Monday morning at 5 a .m. Wall Street time for the latest on markets overseas and all the news you need to start your day. I'm Nathan Hager. Stay with us now. Top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now. Broadcasting 24 hours a day at Bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act. This is Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Asia for this Monday, August 28th in Hong Kong, Sunday, August 27th in New York. Coming up today, markets brace for volatility after key central bankers signal interest rates will likely stay higher for longer. U .S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visits China to expand business ties. Beijing cuts its stock trade tax and pledges to slow the pace of IPOs to boost Chinese markets. Three Marines are killed in a plane crash in Australia. Florida is bracing for a hurricane. Russia confirms the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin. And in sports, Saudi Arabia will try to enter the Champions League. I'm Dan Schwartzman. I'll have news and sports coming up. That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia. On Bloomberg 1130 New York, Bloomberg 99 .1 Washington, D .C., Bloomberg 106 .1 Boston, Bloomberg 960 San Francisco, Sirius XM119, and around the world on BloombergRadio .com and via the Bloomberg Business Act. It's a little past six in the evening on Wall Street from Bloomberg World Headquarters. I'm Doug Krisner. This is Bloomberg Daybreak Asia, the Monday edition. I'm joining...
The Breakdown
A highlight from The Next Phase of Stablecoin Competition Begins As Coinbase Invests In Circle
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me and LW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, August 22nd. And today we are talking about updates in the circle and Coinbase relationship around USDC, followed by a number of macro updates. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review. Or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello, friends. Happy Tuesday. So today we are going big picture and we're starting in the crypto sphere with some updates around one of the biggest stable coins in the space. The TLDR is that Coinbase and Circle are dissolving their center consortium partnership and restructuring the relationship between the two firms. The center consortium that governs USDC currently will be wound down and Coinbase will take a minority equity stake in Circle. The size of the equity stake was not disclosed, but one anonymous source said that no cash had changed hands as part of the deal. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in their joint blog post that, quote, The nature of the investment means that Coinbase and Circle will now have even greater strategic and economic alignment on the future of the financial system. So let's take a step back for a moment. The center consortium was founded by Coinbase and Circle in October 2018 to establish the USDC stablecoin. The effort was originally envisioned as an open standards effort which could facilitate additional USDC issuers and broader industry participation. That said, since the consortium's founding, Circle has remained the sole issuer of USDC, with the center consortium acting as a jointly managed self -governance organization. As part of the restructuring, Circle will bring issuance and governance of the stablecoin completely in -house. In their blog post, the two companies explained that, quote, With growing regulatory clarity for stablecoins in the US and around the world, the requirement of a separate governance body like center is no longer needed. They said the move will, quote, Alongside the restructuring, the firms announced that USDC would be issued on six additional blockchains, bringing the total number of supported networks to 15. The firms didn't identify the new blockchains, but Circle had previously announced plans to support Polkadot, NEAR, Optimism, and Cosmos this year. Coinbase's new base blockchain would also make sense as one of the remaining additions, but was not formally announced. Now, revenue sharing of the interest earned on USDC reserves has become an increasingly important driver of profits for Coinbase over the past year. Coinbase earned $151 million in interest income from the revenue sharing agreement in the last quarter alone. The two companies confirmed that revenue sharing would continue under a revised agreement, stating that, will now equally share an interest income generated by the broader distribution and usage of USDC. In a tweet, Coinbase said they, quote, Executives from the two firms reinforced the idea that additional regulatory clarity and competition drove the decision. Circle Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy Dante Despartes said, Of course, in addition to newly arrived competition from PayPal, USDC has also been under recent pressure from crypto -native rivals. Since the March banking crisis, which briefly threatened a small portion of USDC reserves, the stablecoin has lost more than $17 billion in market cap. In the same period, Tether has increased its stablecoin market share by over $10 billion and is now more than three times larger than USDC. Discussions on Twitter around this had a lot to do with this idea of regulatory clarifications. Columbia Business School adjunct professor and former Paxo staffer Austin Campbell wrote, The reality is that Coinbase and Circle have held tightly to the Mint burn control and issuer status rather than expanding into an actual consortium. To some extent, this just validates this is the path forward for this partnership. Second, with more issuers of stablecoins arriving this year, PiUSD, FDUSD, etc., and others on the way, scale is going to become increasingly important, so these firms binding together to leverage that also matters. Third, I don't know what the public pathway is for Circle, but a purchase by Coinbase, which this ultimately sets up, is one pathway to get to that, and essentially allows Coinbase to have more control over cash on platform and cash management. Tommy Shaughnessy from Delphi Digital also brought up this idea of this as sort of a pre -merger. He wrote, Now the flipside interpretation is almost exactly the opposite, that Coinbase might have been coming up against regulatory pressure because of its vertically integrated regulated financial services. There has been a lot of scuttlebutt about how the crypto industry does away with distinctions that exist in traditional markets, such as separating brokerage and custody, and how part of the path forward from a regulatory perspective might be to reimpose those barriers. Bitwise researcher Ryan Rasmussen said, Now one thing to speak briefly to the decoupling of Tether and USDC over the last few months. This is something I've talked about before on this show, but I think has far less to do with a vote of no confidence in Circle and USDC and far more to do with a vote of no confidence in the United States regulatory apparatus. Circle and USDC have gone to pains to be as compliant as possible when it comes to issuing a stablecoin in the US, and the fact that they had a decoupling event and almost got screwed by the failure of a major US bank, even as the US government was putting undue pressure on the crypto industry via Operation Chokepoint 2 .0, I think increased the risk profile of USDC, not because of anything that Circle did, other than try to comply with US regulations. The move towards Tether and away from USDC is, I think, a reflection of the lack of regulatory clarity that we have. Overall, though, I also agree with the point that this just formalizes what has effectively been the case for some time now, and that sort of streamlining usually does make sense. Now, next up, let's move over to a macro update. The US bond market continued to sell off on Monday as long -dated Treasury yields hit fresh multi -decade highs. The 10 -year Treasury yield climbed to nearly 10 basis points to 4 .35%, a level not seen since 2007. Meanwhile, the 30 -year notched up by 7 basis points to reach 4 .45%. 10 -year inflation -protected Treasuries reached 2 % for the first time since 2008, and the 2 -year yield, which is sensitive to changes in Fed policy, moved up to 5%, coming close to previous peaks in March and July. The overwhelming sense in bond markets is that traders are positioning for continued tightness in central bank policy and potentially a re -acceleration in inflation. Recent macro data indicated the risk of another pulse of inflation with GDP estimates coming in scorching hot. Last week, the Atlanta Fed published the results of its GDP Now modeling, which forecast third -quarter GDP growth coming in at an annualized rate of 5 .8%. We haven't seen growth that strong since the final quarter of 2021, when the data came in at 7%. This is a complete reversal from economic concerns over the first half of the year, where below -trend growth and the risk of recession was front of mind. Zachary Griffiths, senior fixed -income strategist at CreditSite, said, Now, of course, one of the underlying narratives of the past 18 months of Fed policy is that the central bank is seeking to close the door on post -GFC zero interest rate policy, returning to most historically normal policy settings. These bond market movements could be a ratification of the Fed's strategy, signaling a growing belief that a return to the zero lower bound won't be required at the conclusion of this hiking cycle. Now, it's also worth putting this in context of upcoming comments. The bond market route comes just ahead of Fed chair Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole, which is scheduled for Friday. Jackson Hole is the annual Fed symposium for the discussion of longer -term monetary policy strategy among central bankers and interested parties. Last year, the conference was punctuated by a brief and terse speech from Powell that had been apparently rewritten just before the event. At the time, the stock market was in the midst of a strong relief rally, and according to reporting, the Fed chair threw his prepared notes in the trash shortly before the speech. Instead, he opted to deliver the simple message that the inflation fight is not over and that it would involve pain to households and businesses. Andrew Brenner of Natalyon Securities thinks that expectations around Powell's speech could already be providing tailwind for bond traders betting on higher yields. He said, Now, lastly today, a brief China update. For more background on this, go listen to my episode from last week, where we did a bit of a primer on the China economic situation, which is increasingly coming to dominate macro conversations in the U .S. as well. Chinese banks have held a key interest rate steady this week in a move that surprised economists. The five -year loan prime rate was held at 4 .2 % on Monday, according to data from the People's Bank of China. Economists had expected a 15 basis point cut to the rate which prices retail mortgages. The choice to keep rates steady represents lenders choosing not to pass last week's cut to central bank policy rates onto borrowers. Now, the decision is highlighting the dilemma facing Beijing. Policymakers are seeking to drive borrowing in an attempt to combat deflation, while at the same time needing to preserve financial stability in the banking sector. Allowing banks to capture a little more of the interest rate spread should preserve banks' revenue and profitability. This concern was highlighted in a report from the PBOC last week, which said banks need to maintain Goldman Sachs economists wrote in a note, Chinese stocks continued to fall on Monday, with the iShares China large cap ETF now reflecting a full retracement of price action dating back to 2006. Offshore yuan pricing also softened by 0 .3%. Ten -year bond yields fell to 2 .55%, the lowest yield since 2020. The Chinese government has signaled more urgency in shoring up lending, urging banks to expand credit growth amid a slump in borrowing demand. Deflation pressures also continue to mount, with simultaneous trouble in the housing sector and an as -yet unresolved liquidity crisis at major shadow bank Zhangji. And really the big theme is the continued lack of decisive action out of Beijing. This policy of cutting central bank rates while allowing mortgage rates to stay flat at commercial banks kind of continues that weirdness. Bloomberg economist Eric Zhu said, Second, it could be a signal that other non -monetary policy support is in the pipeline. These policy settings might indicate that Beijing is attempting to navigate the economic downturn without taking measures that would reaccelerate housing prices. China already has some of the most overpriced property on earth, and President Xi has been clear that he wants to put an end to excessive housing speculation. Bruce Pang, chief economist for Greater China at Jones Lang LaSalle, said that the policy actions send a signal that, In some ways, this more moderate intervention could represent a transition away from the infrastructure -heavy, growth -at -any -cost mindset of a pre -pandemic China. In remarks released over the summer, President Xi expanded the scope of national success outside of growth, emphasizing national security, risk preparation, and lower pollution. Michael Herson, a former U .S. Treasury attaché in Beijing, commented that, that local officials should stay disciplined against financial risks and not chase short -term goals, but now they are also being told to support growth. Many officials are thus likely to see the safe course of actions as taking modest efforts at stimulus, but nothing particularly bold. So, taken altogether, this really still leaves us in a very liminal in -between moment. In crypto, we've got USDC and Coinbase preparing for an anticipated regulatory clarity coming down the pipeline, but which still isn't there. Fed watchers policy are trying to grapple with what might come next, and different and conflicting signals in again another wait -and -see period. And then in China, they continue to thread a needle between political goals and economic goals, while all around, continued global realignment is happening. A quiet August may be in some ways, but with, it seems, a lot of change building under the surface. Anyways, friends, that is going to do it for today's breakdown. I hope you enjoyed, and until tomorrow, be safe and take care of each other.
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
A highlight from Chairman Gallagher on What Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum Should Ask the GOP Candidates About Xi and CCP
"We're proud to announce our brand new ACLJ Life and Liberty Drive. Our legal teams will be focusing on the issues that you, our ACLJ members, have told us matter the most to you, life and religious liberty. Join the ACLJ in the fight to keep America free. Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College, all things Hillsdale, Hillsdale dot edu. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And of course, a listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of them at Q for Hillsdale dot com or just Google Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale. Morning Glory America Bonjour. Hi, Canada. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Tomorrow night, eight Republicans will meet on the stage in Milwaukee for a debate. I am certain that China will come up the Chinese Communist Party, but I'm not sure how. Brett Baer, of course, coming up later in the program. Martha McCollum, two superb professionals, the equal of anyone else in our business, will be asking the question. But I thought I would talk it through with the chairman of the House Select Committee on Engagement with the Chinese Communist Party. Mike Gallagher, congressman. Good morning. Great to have you. Thank you for joining me. It is great to be with you, Hugh. We're going to come back around to this kind of war, which I finished last night on the recommendation of you. It is a remarkable book. And I had no idea how awful the chai comms were to our American prisoners. I just I didn't know. Did you know that before? Did the Marines teach you that when you were in the Marines? No, there's there's two things that I think, well, a lot of actually our modern thinking about how to prepare people for when they get captured. Think survival of Asian resistance and escape school, which I attended when I was in the Marine Corps actually comes out of the experience of the Korean War, particularly some politically sensitive moments when a few American captives refused actually to go home. There was, of course, this controversy during that time period post Korean War in the 50s about this idea of brainwashing. This is prominently expressed in the fictional book The Manchurian Candidate, which became a major American movie. But a lot of our thinking about how to better prepare pilots in particular because they get shot down for resisting in captivity actually comes out of that period. Well, a couple of takeaways I'll never forget. There are no Turks died in the camps. The Turks are the toughest people in the world, and none of them died in the Chinese Communist Party camps. And the Americans didn't eat everything they could eat because they didn't like it and they died of starvation. But the fact that the Chinese communists treated our men that way is a tell because they've reverted to this mode. They were the hardcore Maoist, Leninist mode in 1950 through 1953, and they've reverted. And that's what I want to talk to you about. I want to ask you at length. We got a lot of time this morning and thank you for the time. If you were advising Brett and Martha based upon your six months, what would you tell them are the major takeaways that you've learned as the chairman of the Select Committee? And how would you suggest they be turned into a question? Take your time, because that's a big that's a big question. What have you learned thus far in six months? And how would you convert that into questions for our candidates? Well, I think the overall thing to realize for these candidates and this advice is worth what they're paying me for it is that there is, in my opinion, something called the commander in chief test. It's not you know, you're not graded A through F. I think it's a pass fail endeavor, but it is absolutely critical. Put differently, I'm not myopic enough to believe that foreign policy or a particular issue of foreign policy is going to win the candidate candidate the election, but it could very well lose them the election. The final thing to say about the assumptions going into this when it comes to foreign policy is that the conventional wisdom is that it doesn't really matter from a political electoral perspective. And there's a lot of social science to support that. I just would say it doesn't matter until it does. It doesn't matter until things go haywire on the world stage and suddenly voters are looking to a prospective commander in chief to communicate, if nothing else, a sense of safety that I have the temperament and the plan to keep America safe in a very dangerous world, which leads, I think, to the answer your question more than anything else. I think these candidates need to communicate that they have a clear understanding of the threat we face in the Chinese Communist Party, the scale and scope of this threat. Why this isn't just a matter of some obscure territorial disputes in the South China Sea. This is indeed a global competition. The CCP has global ambitions. What happens in Xinjiang, what happens in Beijing is not going to stay there. They are intent on exporting their model of total techno totalitarian control, which leads to the second point that you need to find a way to contrast that threat to enduring the and inherently superior American values. And I do believe that this is a contest between two fundamentally incompatible systems of government. And it's unlike anything we've seen since, of course, the old Cold War. So communicating the stakes, communicating who we're dealing with in the nature of a Marxist Leninist regime that will stop at nothing to ensure that they survive at the expense of their own people. And that is the enemy of freedom around the world is the most important thing. In fact, I would say even more important than any particular policy position is just communicating that understanding of the threat and the prioritization of the threat, a recognition that as president, the most important issue that you will be dealing with as commander in chief is how to deter a war with the CCP in the short term and win a new Cold War with the CCP over the long term. So let's put that in the form of a question for Brett and Martha, because I think you're right, I am looking at, of course, I've always looked at every one of these debates as an audition to be commander in chief. Eventually, there comes a choice with the Democrat. But right now, when I vote in the Virginia primary, I will vote based on who will be the best commander in chief. And because that's what matter. 9 -11 matters. What is the W do on 9 -11 that matters? What does W do? The Afghanistan and Iraq. What does anyone do on any moment of crisis? What do they do in the situation room? Figuring out how to elicit that about China is a difficult thing. So you've been doing nothing but this for six months. And by the way, recap for our audience and Pittsburgh Steeler fans what you have been doing for six months, because they may never have heard of the select committee. This might be the first day they're listening to the audience. No acronyms or five dollars in the tip jar for food for the poor. Well, the speaker of the House created the select committee on the CCP to do two things. One is to communicate why this matters, why anybody in northeast Wisconsin or Pittsburgh or Ohio should care about the threat posed by the CCP, to shine a light on all the things that they're doing, whether it's threatening to invade Taiwan, whether it's establishing illegal police stations on American soil, whether it's infiltrating American universities or attempting to build spy bases in our near abroad, to explain why it matters and why your average American should care about it. The second thing is to identify policies and pieces of legislation that can pass even in divided government. In the 118th Congress, what is the center of gravity in terms of steps that we can take in order to put ourselves on a better position to beat the CCP in this short and long term competition? So that's what we've been doing. We've broken it down, essentially, as though this isn't a perfect organization into three main lines of effort. And I do think this reflects our overall lines of effort, our grand strategy against China basically has three main components. One is military competition. What are the things we need to do to deter a war over Taiwan in the near term, as well as ensure that we maintain our dominant military position over the long term? The second is what I call economic statecraft. How do we selectively decouple from China so they don't have a coercive leverage over us so they can't threaten, for example, to cut off the export of advanced pharmaceutical ingredients in order to bring us to our knees? And then the third line of effort is what I call ideological warfare or ideological competition, which is not only how do we rediscover a language for talking about American values and incorporate values and human rights back into American grand strategy, but also how do we better defend our institutions from Chinese Communist Party subversion, from something called United Front Work, from traditional espionage, things like that. So we aren't corrupted and divided from within, which is what the Chinese Communist Party is trying to do. Wang Huning, who's Xi Jinping's top lieutenant in the 90s, wrote a book called America Against America, in which he talks about Americans as greedy, factional. And that that title, America against America, I think reflects their overall strategy, which is to divide Americans against Americans and thereby make it impossible for us to compete. So we've been developing policy recommendations along each of those lines. We've put out two reports, one on military competition, one related to human rights. And we're going to be putting out further reports. So, you know, I think those are useful starting points for for candidates who want to prepare for a debate in terms of where's Congress at on this issue? Where's the bipartisan center of gravity? Where can you potentially build on some of our work? But that's what we've been doing for six months. It's trying to understand and explain the threat and then identify policy solutions that help us to combat that threat. How would you put that in the form of a question by Brett or Martha? Well, there's the overall prioritization question, you know, what is the biggest threat to American national security, which is a bit boring, but no, it's not that's not boring. That that is that is the question, isn't it? Shouldn't that just be asked? What is the number one threat to American national security and why? Shouldn't that be it? Yeah, I think that that's table stakes, right? That's a good diagnostic question. And then it also allows the candidates, if they want to use their full time and I forget how much time they get to really articulate the key distinction between them and the Biden administration, because if you read the Biden administration's national security strategy that they talk about China as a pacing threat, although I'm hearing now that the Pentagon is saying don't say pacing threat, say pacing challenge or competitor, because we obviously don't want to provoke the CCP for whatever reason. I've described this as kind of like a Voldemort phenomenon. There's this belief that the more more we say things like New Cold War or say that the CCP is doing bad things, that it will somehow become more true, which I think is absurd. I'll be right back. Sherman Gallagher is going to stay with me through the break and then we're going to bring him back and then we're going to do that again. And we're going to talk to him for 15 minutes this morning about this. I can't believe I'm doing that. 15 minutes with Mike Gallagher coming right at you, America. Stay tuned. I'm back now with Chairman Mike Gallagher. This is the segment between the radio segments, so you don't get to hear this unless you're watching it on YouTube or on the on the television station. Chairman, in terms of what level should we expect of our candidates knowledge? I see your Green Bay Packers thing yet. Do you know the Browns cleared 38 million in cap yesterday by restructuring Joel Bentonio and Miles Garrett's contract? We have no we have the most cap space in the NFL. We are the team to beat. We will see you. I actually I don't think you're making it to the Super Bowl this year. We are going to be in the Super Bowl this year and you are not ready for this. I'm glad this isn't on the air because this is a serious conversation. But you had to do that little thing. And I'll I'll just go get my brown sweater and just put it on during this segment like that. I'm going to wear this all the time now on the air because we're going to the Super Bowl. Chairman, do you know that we cleared Miles Garrett contract yesterday? You know what we do? Do you follow sports at all or do you just do ChaiCom stuff? I don't follow Brown's contract minutia. I'll confess. I'll confess that, though. I was I was yesterday. Someone said that I had the potential to coach for the Browns after I helped them with a constituent case issue, to which I said I would never coach for the Browns on an Intel. All right. Let me get serious again. I'm going to try to go off the off the rail. We'll get back on the rails. How many times have you guys held public hearings? Oh, gosh, I think 10 at this point, approximately 10. You had at least one set of war games. You have more war games coming. We do. We have we have at least one more coming up that's going to be more focused on economic and supply chain issues. OK. Do you think the candidates know anything about that? I really do want to try and use today to focus their attention on China. Do you think they know anything about what the select committee has been doing? Have you been approached by any of them? I think some do. It's part of the reason I wrote an op ed on this that appeared today in The Wall Street Journal just came out was an effort, maybe shamelessly, to draw attention to some of the things we're doing, because I think it creates some unique opportunities. I mean, to me, you know, the most and this reflects my bias in thinking that hard power is the most important variable on the world stage. I think a candidate who can articulate what we need to do to rebuild the military in general, but really the Navy in particular, which is, as you know, Hugh is really struggling right now. It needs to be our priority force in our priority theater. It's not. We're going backwards. There's questions about focus, warfighting prowess. You know, I wrote a report with the help of Admiral Montgomery about the lack of warfighting focus in the surface Navy with Tom Cotton, Dan Crenshaw and others. I mean, I think that's a massive opportunity for a candidate really to take the ball on defense and go a few layers deep beyond just peace through strength, military good, China bad. You go a few layers deep on that and sort of communicate that you have a coherent plan. Doesn't need to be super detailed. Doesn't need to be a 50 page white paper about everything we need to do. But just as an overall strategy for fiction, I'm going to get your comms team in trouble again. I haven't seen this plan that you and Cotton worked on. How can I not have seen this plan? Well, this is a year ago. You got to blame Cotton's comms team for this because he was OK. And usually it's good to blame Tom Cotton. He's on next hour. I'll do that. Is that widely available? Yeah, it's Cotton did it with four of us in the house. It was over a year, a year and a half ago, kind of in response to all of these ship collisions. Some of the reports that we were getting from active duty sailors and just the changes over the years to training in the surface Navy. We did a deep dive drawing on the expertise of Admiral Montgomery and others. I will give him about that in the next hour and I'll get a link and I'll make sure it's posted out to the candidates. Don't go anywhere. I'm coming right back with Chairman Gallagher. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, Chairman Mike Gallagher of the House Select Committee on Engagement, the Chinese Communist Party returns. We talked during the break and we got off course because we did a little football trash talk. But now we're back on course. Chairman Gallagher, have you read this book? You had Kabul, the untold story of Biden's fiasco and the warriors who fought to the end. It it made me furious. It absolutely made me furious. Have you had a chance to read it yet? No, but my friend Commander Salamander, who's great in his podcast, Midrats, I highly recommend, just did a podcast with with the authors. So I listened to it. It's not the same, but I am now looking forward to reading the actual hard copy. Well, the end of the book, which I don't know of Commander Salamander got to because I didn't get to it and I talked to him for a long time. It's about how the chai comms came in as soon as we left. They have designs on Bagram. They know what the air raids mean. They know what the strategic minerals mean. It's just a great example of what happens when we retreat in the world. In fact, in the in the this kind of war book you had me read, I wrote down some notes. A retreat once started as the most difficult of all human actions to reverse. And they were talking about the retreat of the Norcs at that point. And then we would retreat later when they counterattack with the chai comms. But we retreated from Afghanistan and they have come in. Have you focused yet on what they're doing there? It hasn't been, admittedly, a subject of a hearing. You know, we have experts, you know, regional experts and Afghanistan experts. I think the key thing to bring it back to the the presidential debate, obviously the obvious thing to do is to connect the surrender to terrorists in Afghanistan, our abandonment of our position, our abandonment of billions of dollars worth of military equipment to then the collapse of deterrence in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, because I do believe that our feckless position in Afghanistan sent a clear signal of weakness to Vladimir Putin. And no wonder Vladimir Putin ignored all of our warnings leading up to the invasion on February 24th because we look so weak on the world stage and we allowed terrorists to completely take over the country. And I think also that has had a negative impact on our deterrent posture in in the Indo -Pacific, across the Taiwan Strait. You mentioned critical minerals. I also think this is a huge opportunity for presidential candidates to articulate a plausible path towards reducing our dependency on China for critical mineral processing. They control 90 percent of the processing. Right now, I think our attempts to wean ourselves off of our to to establish some form of semiconductor manufacturing independence are not going to be successful, in part because the Biden administration has placed so many onerous regulations on grants for chips, fabrication facilities. But if a Republican candidate, particularly one with a business background or with a gubernatorial background, came in and said, here's our strategy when it comes to advanced pharmaceutical ingredients, critical minerals and rare earth processing, tie that to a robust domestic economic agenda. That's a massive opportunity for someone trying to pass the commander in chief test, because the reality is we are going to have to reclaim our economic independence from China in key areas. The progressives are experimenting with one way to do it. We need to identify a way that is fundamentally free market, but not but nonetheless achieves the actual goal of reducing our dependency on China. Chairman Gallagher, there's only one veteran on the stage, Ron DeSantis. Mike Pence has got a son and a son in law on active duty. Of course, Nikki Haley's husband is deployed. Those three know about this in terms of of why is China a threat? Is it a fair question to ask? Why is China a threat? What is it that worries you about China? Is that a fair question? If so, how would you answer that or suggest they answer that if you are one of the people on the stage? Well, first of all, I do think DeSantis has been really good on China and probably the best in the field. I was watching the forum that they did in Iowa. I forget what it's called, the Iowa Faith and Family Forum. And he proactively brought up China as an issue and talked about what he's done in Florida to combat the threat, talked about the threat in global terms. And so the most of the discussion focused on Ukraine. And I understand that that's more of a politically divisive issue on the stage. And so there is a you know, I think the moderators will want to identify the differences between the candidate thus far. Governor DeSantis has been talking in clear and unapologetic language about why the CCP is a threat and what he would do to combat it, which is greatly appreciated. More to your point, as a Navy veteran, I think he has a huge opportunity to be the Navy guy, be the guy who's going to rebuild the Navy and put it in a position where it can it can deter Xi Jinping from attempting to achieve his lifelong ambition was to take Taiwan by force. So to answer your question, Vivek just told me last week, we'll give them Taiwan after we achieve semiconductor independence. In other words, Vivek understands Taiwan is important for its semiconductor. Your colleague on the committee, Ro Khanna, tweeted at me last night when I was already offline that that doesn't do the trick. That's not why we're worried about Taiwan going down. Who's right? Well, obviously, our interests in Taiwan extend far beyond semiconductors. Our interests predate Taiwan's emergence as a semiconductor powerhouse. And if the concern from Vivek and I think it is that our dependence on TSMC for semiconductor manufacturing needs to be eliminated, I just would say two things. It's highly unlikely that we're going to achieve semiconductor independence by 2028. TSMC is investing far more money than the CHIPS Act is investing right now. Even under a Republican president, we would struggle to wean ourself off our dependency. But if the CCP had control of Taiwan, they would still be able to hold the rest of the world economically hostage. And that is the issue. Semiconductors or other or some sort of domain of economic competition. If they had Taiwan, they would be able to completely dominate the region through which trillions of dollars of international trade go. The other thing I would say, it's I mean, we got to go to break. I'll come back to go to break. We'll be right back with Chairman Gallagher during the break and then one more segment beyond. Don't go anywhere. America, I'm Hugh Hewitt. Portions of The Hugh Hewitt Show are brought to you by Food for the Poor. So I'm back with Chairman Gallagher, Chairman Vivek's answer to that is I'm going to get India to cooperate. And if Taiwan closes the Taiwan Straits, we're going to close the Malacca Straits. Ro Khanna says that's that's crazy. That doesn't work. I don't know what the answer is, but I know what Vivek has told me. I don't think he agrees with you, but I'll let him speak for himself. I don't want to put words in his mouth that we have to worry that much about the Taiwan Strait. Well, he's obviously very smart. I would say this with Marxist Leninist regimes, their appetites grow with the eating. So I think it would be a mistake to think that if we just surrender Taiwan on a date certain that we wouldn't have to worry about the problem. If they're the dominant regional power, they're one step closer to becoming the dominant global power. And that, I think, is the answer to your earlier question. Why? Why is the CCP a threat? Because they're trying to destroy our geopolitical position. Primarily by convincing us to destroy ourselves, they believe, as we mince words about whether they're a competitor or an adversary, they certainly believe that they're in an existential war with the free world led by America and that China will win, rendering America and our constitutional system of self -government subordinate, humiliated and wholly irrelevant on the world stage. So you can sort of think of it as as an assisted suicide. You know, they're trying to expedite our collapse. They provide the chemicals, fentanyl, the collapse in prosperity. Covid, IP theft, economic warfare and the self -loathing and depression via political interference and information warfare. So I think the the the threat would not stop after Xi Jinping had taken Taiwan. I think it would only expedite and become greater. So if you could read Xi Jinping's mind, what is he thinking about us? What does he want to see happen to us? I think he wants us to look inward and to abandon our position on the world stage and to be consumed with internal political battles. I also think he likes seeing us embrace this almost the CCP's narrative that America is an evil country. America is a neo colonial racist hellscape. I mean, this is CCP propaganda that a lot of Americans have embraced. I think ultimately he wants us to lose faith in ourselves as a force for good in the world. And ultimately, over time, he thinks the rest of the world is going to Finland dies more in the CCP's direction as an alternative model of government and world leadership, in part because America has lost faith in itself. That's why I think primarily the hard power is the most important variable. This is an ideological competition overall. And ignoring the role ideology plays in the competition is a fatal flaw. And so we need to find a way to press the candidates on that as well. You know, the we got two minutes before we come back. The ideological competition is quite simply not discussed. And I don't think our media is familiar with it. They're not stupid. They're ignorant of the ideological. They don't even believe it exists anymore. Chairman, have you run into that? Do your Democratic colleagues believe that there are such things like Leninist and that that the 20th century ideological competition is back with a vengeance? Well, I think for two and a half decades, we tried to take the communist out of Chinese Communist Party, and this belief persists that, well, they're not really communist. They're not really Marxist. They've embraced forms of capitalism and they're they're rational actors. And I think this is a dangerous way of thinking to go down, particularly under Xi Jinping. The party has embraced its Marxist Leninist roots. Xi's spirit animal is, in fact, Stalin. He looks to Stalin for guidance on how to operate. And so a candidate who understands that and can articulate that, I think, has a massive opportunity to distinguish themselves. The Democrats sort of come at the ideological competition through human rights. And there are a lot who genuinely believe in the cause of human rights. And though there are times when we have to prioritize between security concerns and human rights, this is when dealing with China, that's not an issue at all. We're coming right back. Stand by, chairman.
The Breakdown
A highlight from A Primer on China's Current Economic Turmoil
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, August 17th, and today we are doing a great, big, what the heck is going on with China episode. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link at the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello friends, we are rumbling on towards the end of the week. And speaking of rumblings, if you have been watching the macro Twittersphere closely, there have been growing rumblings about China. You see it pop up a little bit in mainstream media and on YouTube's and certainly now happening on podcasts. And then yesterday, Preston Pish tweeted, anyone have a really good and recent article or podcast on what's happening with the economy in China right now? Well over here at The Breakdown, that really cinched it that we were going to dig into this. And before we do the usual caveats, one, I am not a China expert, just like basically I'm not an expert on anything we talk about here. But what we try to do well over here at The Breakdown is aggregate sources to help you better understand what's happening at least a little bit better. And number two, to the extent it comes up, apologies in advance for pronunciations or perhaps I should say mispronunciations. With that, let's try to get a sense of what's happening and why it matters. On Tuesday, the People's Bank of China cut rates on one year loans by 15 basis points to 2 .5%. This is the largest cut since 2020 and was an emergency policy adjustment following the release of some truly dismal economic data. July data showed weak consumer spending growth, sliding investment and rising unemployment. Youth unemployment for people between the ages of 16 and 24 hit 21 % in June. I know you guys can do the math, but to put that differently, that means one in five young people are now out of work. In fact, this month, the National Bureau of Statistics didn't actually release data on youth unemployment, stating that they needed to adjust their methodology to exclude students seeking their first job. Now, over in currency land, the yuan has devalued by 6 % over the course of the year, recently reaching the low point it recorded last October of 7 .3 yuan per dollar. That's the weakest exchange rate for the yuan since late 2007. Data from June showed that China have decreased their holdings of U .S. treasuries for three months in a row, bringing them to a 14 -year low. Some analysts believe that these reserves have been mobilized to defend the yuan from devaluing too rapidly. June CPI data released last week showed that the Chinese economy was in outright deflation. Consumer prices fell by 0 .3 % on an annualized basis. Manufacturing activity has now contracted for four months straight, and GDP growth this year has been paltry, recording 2 .2 % in the first quarter and just 0 .8 % in the second quarter. Multiple international banks have now downgraded Chinese growth estimates, forecasting that the economy will fail to achieve the 5 % growth target set by the CCP. And if that target is not hit, it will be the third year in a row with sub -5 % growth, an unprecedented rough patch in the post -Mao era from 1976 onwards. Now, contributing to this are debt problems, credit problems, and social stability problems. But before we get to those, let's do a whistle -stop review of the last few years in China to see how things wound up in this position. You will remember that during the pandemic, China ran one of the strictest and longest -running lockdown regimes in the world. And while the impact of the lockdown on the people of China was of course immense, the disruption it caused was also a major driver in economic dysfunction. Global supply chains became broken, impacting items from semiconductors to gym equipment. While the fragility of supply chains based in Chinese manufacturing had long been a talking point for hawks in the West, the failure of multiple critical supply chains during the pandemic cemented the idea of reshoring manufacturing across the political aisle in the US. Since taking office, the Biden administration has pursued major industrial policy with a view to decoupling critical industries from reliance on China. The financial sector has also been discouraged from investing in China over the past few years, with a range of policies and pressure campaigns ensuring that capital flows into China are crimped. And as a little bit of a self -shill, if you want to hear about how this has been impacting the development of their artificial intelligence field, go check that out. There continues to be incredible pressure on the Biden administration to even increase restrictions on export of AI -related technology to China, even though many of those restrictions are already in place. Anyway, heading back into the COVID era, as the rest of the world opened up and rolled back lockdowns in late 2021, China continued to be locked down into the strict zero COVID era. Many times, even when it appeared that things were on the verge of opening back up, some new outbreak would cause another lockdown, leading ultimately to citizens bristling at the continuation of tough track and trace policies. Another big notable event during this time was that in December of 2021, the massive Evergrande property development group defaulted on an interest payment on its corporate bonds. The property giant had been severely impacted by a crackdown on leverage within the property sector in 2020 and had struggled to refinance its debt. The tightening of credit standards was known as the three red lines policy and was intended to reduce the credit risk of home builders. When it collapsed, Evergrande had over 50 million apartments left unfinished, leaving homeowners to question whether they would ever receive finished units. The Evergrande failure precipitated further economic problems across China in 2022. Protesters staged demonstrations outside banks, with organized groups refusing to make mortgage payments on unfinished homes. In many cases, mortgages had been taken out prior to construction beginning, and so you can only imagine the frustration of people who were continuing to pay for homes that had been further and further delayed and who couldn't actually even live in them. In that same time period, multiple banks and wealth management products failed across the country and Chinese real estate in general entered its most severe downturn in history. Now the government did step in to manage the Evergrande failure and broader economic contagion. They were, however, in a tough position. Government policy around the restriction of credit to the property sector had been a major catalyst for the problems, but officials were reluctant to wind back the regulations entirely. President Xi Jinping has been outspoken about reducing the financialization of housing, stating, quote, houses are for living in, not for speculation. Now diving a little bit deeper into this area of the economy, the property sector is a key part of basically every major economy, but China takes this element to the extreme. China has one of the most overvalued housing markets in the world in relation to income. On average, an apartment cost over 30 times annual income, with major cities like Shanghai bringing this ratio as high as 50 times income. In the US, the ratio between housing costs and income is closer to four times on average and 10 times for major metros like New York and San Diego. Part of the reason housing is so expensive is that Chinese citizens use housing as a primary store of wealth. Again, this is true globally, but it's particularly lopsided in China. Housing accounts for more than 70 % of household wealth in China. Many people invest in property and then hold it vacant to preserve its value as a never lived in home. China has some of the highest rates of homeownership in the world, with as many as 90 % of households owning at least one property. This skew towards the property sector is largely a function of mistrust in other domestic assets, as well as tight capital controls. The Chinese stock market is notoriously opaque and lacking in the disclosure rules that provide a semblance of investor protection in the West. And while managed investment products are popular, they're often just proxies for exposure to the property sector. Analysts typically measure the Chinese property sector as representing around 30 % of Chinese GDP, which compares to the estimates of around 17 % in the US. Now other countries, including Canada and Australia, have similar levels of household wealth and GDP contribution from the property sector. But the key difference for the Chinese housing industry is the sheer scale of the market. Chinese real estate is estimated to be worth $42 .7 trillion. This is slightly larger than the US real estate market in aggregate, and even a few trillion dollars bigger than the total market capitalization of the entire US stock market. Many point to Chinese real estate then as the largest asset class in the world, and it is going down hard right now. Official data has new home prices down 2 .4 % across China since their peak in August of 2021. Existing homes have dropped by 6 % in the same time. This is already a massive drop for a housing market that was generally assumed to go up forever, but these official average figures don't tell the whole story. In China, closing prices for real estate are not public, so the official data is an estimate at best and a political fabrication at worst. The data relies on surveys and has significant smoothing to dampen trends. This makes turning points difficult to capture and could mean the official data is not telling the full story. Private data from property agents shows major markets like Shanghai and Shenzhen falling by at least 15 % in prime neighborhoods. The real estate surrounding Alibaba's headquarters is estimated to have lost a quarter of its value. Goldman Sachs economist Wang Lishang said, Now, alongside the fall in the housing market, more acute problems in the financial sector have also sprung up recently. At the end of July, Zhongrong International Trust Company missed payments across dozens of wealth management products. The company is a gigantic player in the Chinese shadow banking sector, which intermediates loans between individuals and private lenders. They primarily deal in the sale of real estate backed bonds, and at least 30 products are now overdue, and the company have said they have no immediate plans to make clients whole. Chinese authorities have set up a task force to investigate potential contagion, and banking regulators are looking into risks at the firm's part owner, Zhongjie Enterprise Group. Zhongjie managed around $138 billion. Jason Hsu, chief investment officer of Raelient Global Advisors, said, This was one that everyone knew was going to blow up. Overall, there are 106 trust products across the country in default through to July of this year, worth around $6 billion in principle. Real estate investments have accounted for 74 % of default by value. Corporate defaults are also up in recent months. June and July recorded missed payments on more than a billion dollars in domestic notes. That's the worst stretch since last December and January, which was punctuated by the default of Evergrande. This time around, the problem seems centered on an even larger property developer called Country Garden. The firm is considered by most to be the largest home builder in China and has more than four times as many outstanding projects as Evergrande. Country Garden has missed payments on its dollar -denominated bonds and is currently inside a 30 -day grace period prior to a formal default. Trading has been suspended on at least 11 onshore notes, and payment extension proposals are in the works. Country Garden's January 2024 dollar bond issuance traded at 9 cents earlier this week, an implied yield of 2 ,500%, just to give you an idea of how the market is pricing the firm's chance of recovery here. Now, as credit risk rips through domestic markets, China's major state -owned banks have been told to sell dollars to buy yuan in both onshore and offshore markets. According to anonymous sources speaking to Reuters, Chinese banks have been propping up the yuan throughout the week in an attempt to control the decline of the currency. Now, standard caveat on quoting Zero Hedge, but Zero Hedge is also reporting that Beijing have urged investment funds not to sell off Chinese stocks. Taking a step back, up until recently, the Chinese reopening was a major narrative for markets. There had been turmoil across China over the last two years, but many investors consoled themselves that China would reopen strong and provide some much -needed growth to the global economy. What's happened is almost the complete opposite. Chinese growth has come in weak and sputtered along since reopening. It now looks like China is headed for a recession at best, if not a full -blown financial crisis. Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Michael Pettis wrote, It may seem like terrible luck and amazing coincidence that so many things are going wrong in the Chinese economy at the same time. But of course, it is not a coincidence at all. This is how systemic imbalances work themselves out. I've often written about the Minskyan dynamics of long periods in which market variables move persistently in the same direction. When that happens, businesses, banks, local governments, and households who implicitly or explicitly take too much one -direction risk systematically outperform those that don't, until eventually the operations and balance sheets of much of the economy are directly or indirectly leveraged to those variables. That is why, when that variable finally reverses, the damage can often be much greater than anyone expected, mainly because no one understood the extent of the implicit and explicit exposures. Decades of surging property prices, expanding liquidity, and contracting credit spreads in China have created an economy in which balance sheets have highly correlated mismatches and distortions. In that case, the impact of an eventual reversal is brutally hard to predict. What about the response? Well, three weeks ago, when it had become clear that China was entering another period of economic distress, Chinese leaders vowed to provide more support. The Politburo pledged to spur consumer spending, tackle unemployment, and backstop the property sector. However, details were sorely lacking. The Politburo's statement acknowledged that the economic recovery after reopening was making quote torturous progress and that it was necessary to quote actively expand domestic demand and expand consumption by increasing residents' income. Julian Evans -Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics, lamented the lack of a clear plan. He said at the time, Given how bad things are at the moment, it is a bit disappointing that they didn't give us some figures. And while their statement did recognize the risk to the economy, Evans -Pritchard said quote, They are not so desperate that they feel the need to resort to the old -school Big Bang stimulus. What he's referring to is that during prior downturns during the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2012 euro crisis, the CCP was eager to dole out massive stimulus on the supply side. The Chinese government directed the stockpiling of commodities and gigantic infrastructure projects to keep growth ticking over at a fast pace despite global economic turmoil. This time around, as of yet, there is no clear policy, just haphazard emergency interventions. For example, the People's Bank of China has cut rates, but there's a limit to what monetary stimulus can do to support consumption. This time, the problem is deflation, a collapse of demand. Until now, Chinese policymakers have largely been able to keep the economy out of the ditch using only supply -side stimulus, but it's not clear that that will work again. Late on Monday, Kai Fang, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the PBOC, warned that emergency rate cuts would not be enough. He said, Fang joins a growing chorus of economists insisting on direct transfer payments to consumers in order to support spending. This option has been controversial with senior Politburo figures, however, and so far Beijing has ignored the suggestion. Many have suggested instead that tax and fee cuts for companies were the most direct, fair, and efficient way to stimulate the economy. Senior Party members also have a history of warning against the Of course, the concern is that the underlying problem might be a simple lack of capacity. China's government resources are distributed through numerous local governments. These governments typically raise funding through land sales, but with the property sector in trouble, this line of revenue is less viable. There has also been an ongoing dispute between the central party and provincial governments. During the turmoil of the last few years, Beijing has been reluctant to come to the aid of overindebted regional governments. Estimates vary wildly due to the large amount of off -balance sheet liabilities, but Goldman Sachs analysts think there could be as much as $13 trillion in debt held by local governments. China's GDP is around $17 trillion annually, so there could be significantly less fiscal space for stimulus than the publicly disclosed figures imply. Liu Chao, professor of finance at Peking University, said, Now, as you might imagine, overarching all of these economic problems are the very real political considerations. Tensions around the rule of President Xi Jinping have started to come to a head around the financial turmoil of the last two years. For the first time, we've seen evidence of open protests against Xi on the mainland. Now, of course, it's impossible to tell how widespread the antipathy towards Xi is, but it's hard not to view at least some of the events of the last couple years as cracks emerging. And so really where we're left to do a very brief summary is a situation in which a set of challenges are converging all at the same time. And they're a set of challenges not necessarily easily solved by old techniques. Officials are caught between wanting to run back the old playbook and trying to figure out if there's a new playbook that'll work better. Michael Pettis again wrote, What got China into this mess has been over a decade of massive amounts of investment in unnecessary infrastructure and empty apartments. If this investment had been economically justified, rising debt would have been more than matched by rising productive capacity and GDP, which means local government debt would have never become the problem it has clearly become. I understand why many policy advisors are so worried about China's economic slowdown, that they are turning again to the old policies that boosted GDP in the past. But more of the same won't get China out of the mess that more of the same got it into. Now, of course, outside of China, the big questions are how a Chinese recession or slowdown or even financial crisis will impact the global economy. One thing that some observers have noted is that we haven't had a normal business cycle recession in so long. In other words, we haven't had a downturn precipitated by anything other than a financial crisis for so long that we kind of don't know how to handle it. We don't really have a playbook for what to do with it, at least not one that's been updated recently. To some extent, I wonder if the not knowingness of the situation is contributing to the anxiety around it, but as with any macro topic, it is an extremely dense, complex, nuanced intertwined set of issues. And so the best we can do is keep trying to keep track of it and recontextualize as new events teach us more about what's happening. Hope this was a helpful primer, at least a little bit on what's going on. Until next time, peace.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 07:00 08-11-2023 07:00
"659 on Wall Street. Stay with us. Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Kean, Jonathan Farrow, and Lisa Abramowitz starts right now. Broadcasting 24 hours a day at Bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act, this is Bloomberg Radio. It's hard to see where this recession is going to come from. We're going to be in this three to five percent inflation environment for the next three to five years. I do think that there's probably a little bit more disinflation in the pipeline. I think it's appropriate for the Fed to take a pause here and see. I'm so convinced that inflation's going to get down to two percent on its own, with or without any help from the Fed. This is Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Kean, Jonathan Farrow, and Lisa Abramowitz. Let's get you to the weekend. Live from New York City this morning. Good morning, good morning for our audience. Worldwide. Is that three? Yes, that was the third. This is Bloomberg Surveillance on TV and radio alongside Tom Kean and Lisa Abramowitz. I'm Jonathan Farrow. Plenty of feedback in the last five minutes. When I said the show was off the rails this week, this lit up. Only this week. Only this week. Only this week. It's always off the rails. Come on. I'm medicated. Harry's going to Germany. I'm medicated. Medicated. Is that what this is about? Your equity market right now is negative zero point one percent on the S &P 500. Again, we're talking about China. There's some of the recent data out there. Pretty difficult. It's a tough moment for that economy. The question we've all got, what can they do about it, Tom? What are they willing to do about it? A lot of hand wringing about what they're going to do, and the theme today for those overnight is a look of Beijing out to the cities, and the cities are not just the new Hong Kong and Beijing or Shanghai. It's a huge country out to Chengdu to make a generalization of it, of devolving debt tension out to the cities, and that will be, I think, the story point over weekend reading as well. John.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Did the Fed Just Institutionalize Operation Choke Point 2.0?
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, N .L .W. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, August 9th, and today we are talking about what to make of the Fed's new crypto policies. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review. Or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, yesterday was a very interesting day in crypto. As I said, we had some big news from the Fed, which we are going to dig into deeply, but we have to start on the financial side of things. Yesterday was hot fire in the markets. Let's be clear. Bitcoin rose sharply by 3 % to briefly reach over 30 ,000 before moderating into the evening. Ethereum enjoyed a similar, if slightly smaller, bump of 2 .4%, peaking at around 1 ,870. And for both major cryptos, this move represented filling in the trough of the previous weeks and regaining levels from last month. This is the highest Bitcoin has been since July 24th. Now, of course, what's even more interesting to ask than what price Bitcoin was is why it was pumping. Last week, as you know, was a big week for macro, with multiple events causing tailwinds for interest rate sensitive markets. Fitch downgraded the U .S. government, implying higher long term rates for U .S. treasuries, as a new slim but real risk of default gets priced in. Over in Japan, after a confusing policy adjustment, the Bank of Japan settled into its new yield curve control target range. The BOJ allowed 10 year Japanese government bonds to close last week above 0 .5 % for the first time since 2014. Finally, on Friday, a strong jobs report showed a slightly reduced unemployment rate and robust wage growth despite the headline number of new jobs coming in below expectations. At the end of last week, the longest term U .S. government bond, the 30 year, was trading at an implied interest rate of 4 .3%. This matched its 22 year peak from last October and implied that markets believe high inflation is here to stay. Now, moving into this week. On Monday night, China released a dismal set of trade data. July imports recorded a 12 .4 % collapse compared to the previous year. Exports fared no better, with a 14 .5 % year on year drop exceeding the already gloomy expectations. Now that kind of a drop in trade volume hasn't been seen in China since the initial wave of pandemic lockdowns. This implies both a deep recession for China, which has global consequences, as well as eventual stimulus from Beijing. On that news of a major slowdown in China, global bond yields fell. The yield on the 10 year U .S. treasury dropped below 4 % after rising to almost 4 .2 % late last week. And European bonds showed even steeper declines with the 10 year German bond trading at a yield of 2 .45%. Overall, the macro data is beginning to show signs of a much anticipated global slowdown. And while it might be too early to know for sure if the money printers will be switched back on, just the drop in long -term interest rate seems to be enough to bolster crypto markets. Assuming, of course, that macro is driving this. But what else might it be? Well, under the macro headlines, trading has picked up recently, with whales returning to the order books. Crypto Quant CEO, Ki Yong Ju, pointed out that derivatives open interest had increased by $616 million across all pairs on Tuesday price action. More than a 5 % bump. Whales had positioned heavily at $29 ,000 going into the day. According to CoinGlass, over $65 million in short liquidations happened on Tuesday, which was the largest day of short bursting in almost a month. Bitcoin open interest reached a new high for the year. Dan Crypto writes, Now the main narrative driver at the moment is clearly the institutions coming in to take over the industry. Just listen to yesterday's episode about PayPal for more evidence of that. Now, of course, on top of that, speculation that BlackRock will be successful in strong -arming the SEC into approving a spot Bitcoin ETF has only been increasing. Over the past two weeks, 14 futures -based Ethereum ETF applications have been filed, with rumors that the SEC had softened its position on the suitability of Ethereum ETFs. Then Monday's stablecoin announcement from PayPal cemented the idea that large financial firms would not be held back from launching crypto products. Vivian Fang, head of trading products at Bybit, said, Now one person who's getting more convinced of the spot Bitcoin ETF is Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz. During an earnings call on Tuesday, he said, Novogratz also said that Galaxy would Summing up his feelings, yesterday Novogratz tweeted, ETF is when, not if. No insight on finance yet, but still praying.
The Crypto Overnighter
"beijing" Discussed on The Crypto Overnighter
"As we delve into the importance of stablecoins, let's not forget the ongoing legal battles in the crypto world. Gemini and Genesis Global Capital are currently dealing with a lawsuit from the Securities Exchange Commission. Let's take a closer look at the case. Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and bankrupt crypto lender Genesis Global Capital have both filed a joint request for the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the SEC. The suit alleges that Gemini Earn violated securities regulations by offering unregistered securities. Both companies argue that Gemini Earn should not be considered a security. Genesis asserts that the transactions were simply loans and has asked the court to dismiss the complaint or, alternatively, strike the SEC's requests for a permanent injunction and disgorgement. The lawsuit also claims that Gemini, and not Genesis, was responsible for the customer -facing aspects of the Earn program. Gemini, acknowledging its role as a transfer agent for Earn, criticized the SEC's lawsuit as ill -conceived. As a result of this suit in January, Genesis filed for bankruptcy, leading to withdrawal restrictions for Earn users since mid -November 2022. In response, Gemini has filed a comprehensive claim seeking to recover $1 .1 billion in assets for 232 ,000 Earn users on Monday, May 22. Gemini and Genesis' parent company, Digital Currency Group, are engaged in a mediated negotiations to reach a restructuring and settlement agreement. Although a preliminary deal was proposed in February, it has not been finalized. And DCG recently missed a $630 million loan payment to Genesis. Simultaneously, Gemini and other creditors are working together on an amended plan of reorganization. This plan can be pursued independently if the mediation process fails. The aim is to achieve the best possible outcome for Earn users, as stated in Gemini's blog post. While the legal landscape continues to evolve in the United States, let's turn our attention to China. Beijing has recently released a white paper on Web3 innovation and development, signaling a potential shift in its stance towards the crypto industry. Beijing released a white paper on Web3 innovation and development. The goal of the paper is to promote the growth and advancement of the Web3 industry. The document emphasizes that Web3 technology is the inevitable trend for the future development of the internet industry. The white paper was published by the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission. The commission's objective is to establish Beijing as a global hub for innovation in the digital economy. To achieve this, the Chaoyang district of the city plans to allocate a minimum of 100 million yuan, around $14 million, annually until 2025. Yang Hongfu is the director of the management committee, and he shared this commitment at the forum. The white paper sets out Beijing's goals to enhance policy support and to accelerate technological advancements to foster the development of the Web3 industry. The timing of the white paper's release has drawn attention. Binance CEO CZ remarked that it is interesting, considering that Hong Kong's crypto regulations will take effect on June 1st. The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong recently introduced a new rulebook for the crypto industry. This allows retail investors to trade cryptocurrencies starting from June 1st, coinciding with the implementation of a new licensing regime for crypto platforms. While the United States is currently implementing stricter regulations on cryptocurrencies, Hong Kong aims to attract crypto firms to the region. China banned the use of cryptocurrencies in 2021, but with the release of the Web3 white paper, it might be signaling a potential opening to the industry to some capacity. Notably, China Central TV, the state broadcaster, aired a segment about cryptocurrencies earlier this week. That segment featured the Bitcoin logo and showcased a Bitcoin ATM in Hong Kong, along with the option to buy Bitcoins. The coverage also highlighted NFTs. However, the segment has been removed since then. But even though the segment was removed, that's pretty significant. Historically, that kind of coverage has led to increased market activity. Now as we see the potential shifts in China's approach to crypto, let's end with a surprising twist. Peter Schiff, well -known Bitcoin hater, recently unveiled a collaborative NFT project on his own. Let's explore this unexpected development. Economist and crypto skeptic Peter Schiff is known for criticizing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. He surprised the crypto community by unveiling a collaborative NFT art collection on the Bitcoin network. The reaction to this announcement has been mixed. Some are amused. Some are baffled. Some are even welcoming. Others point out the glaring hypocrisy. Schiff introduced the Golden Triumph NFT collection via Twitter. The collection was created in collaboration with one of his favorite artists using the synonym market price. It includes an original painting called Golden Triumph, along with 50 prints and 50 digital versions. And those are inscribed as ordinal NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. Now the physical painting depicts a human hand holding a bar of gold. It's created on an oil -linen canvas. The prints are on archival paper and they feature the same image. The digital versions are unique NFTs that are associated with the artwork on the Bitcoin blockchain. The Golden Triumph collection will be auctioned in two parts, from June 2nd to June 9th. The highest bidder for the ordinal NFTs will receive the number 1 of the collection. The next 49 highest bidders will receive numbers 2 through 50 in descending order. It's worth noting that Schiff's involvement in NFTs does not in any way indicate a complete change in his stance on Bitcoin. However, he seems to recognize the use case for blockchain technology in providing verifiable ownership of assets such as art through NFTs. In response to a tweet questioning the value of inscribing gold on Bitcoin, while considering Bitcoin itself to have no value, Schiff affirmed that it was valuable to put inscriptions on Bitcoin but maintain his view that Bitcoin itself lacks inherent value. Schiff has previously criticized NFTs, he's described them as fake assets in a blog post from March of 2021. He argues that NFTs only offer ownership of a digital image that can be replicated endlessly online without providing control over the access to that image. Interestingly, Schiff's change in sentiment regarding NFTs follows a similar pattern seen with the former United States President Donald Trump. Trump has been a vocal critic of cryptocurrencies, and he surprised many when he became involved with NFTs by launching the Trump Digital Trading Cards collection in December of 2022. And that's going to do it for us tonight. I want to thank you, my listeners, because when you stop listening, I will stop talking. If you enjoyed tonight's show, then please like, follow, subscribe, leave a rating or maybe a review. And in the meantime, we'll see you tomorrow night.
Daily Crypto Report
"beijing" Discussed on Daily Crypto Report
"To take your business to the next level today. This is Possibility, powered by Shopify. Our top story today comes out of Beijing. Officials have released a white paper aimed at promoting the development of the Web3 industry, signaling its interest in embracing the technology. The document titled Web3 Innovation and Development White Paper 2023 recognizes Web3 as an inevitable trend for the future of the Internet industry. The Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission released the white paper with the goal of establishing Beijing as a global hub for digital innovation. The city's Chaoyang District has committed to investing at least 100 million yuan annually until 2025 to support this initiative. The timing of the white paper's release is notable, coinciding with Hong Kong's new crypto rules taking effect on the 1st of June. While China previously prohibited cryptocurrencies, this Web3 white paper suggests a potential shift in the country's approach and represents the second public move in just a few days. Well, Binance and Golf and Nova's joint venture, Golf Binance, has been granted licenses by Thailand's Ministry of Finance to operate an exchange in the country. The partnership aims to launch the exchange and broker by the fourth quarter of 2023. The joint venture between Binance and Golf and Nova was established in 2022. MakerDAO has acknowledged a proposal to raise the DAI savings rate to 3 .33%. The proposal comes in response to the rising interest rate environment caused by the U .S. Federal Reserve's efforts to address inflation. The DSR, which can be adjusted to adapt to market conditions, is funded by the stability fee on the network and paid when DAI is locked into a DSR contract. Raising the DSR in the past has led to increased deposits in DAI. The proposal will go through a formal voting process by the DAO. Members of the community believe that this move could benefit the entire DeFi ecosystem by increasing demand for DAI and boosting the market cap. The proposal is expected to have impact on interest rates across the DeFi landscape as DAI in the DSR is considered a benchmark for safe DeFi stablecoin yield. Libra Finance has experienced a significant increase in total value locked in the past two weeks. The TVL has surged nearly 400 % and is approaching $100 million as of Friday. The protocol launched just one month ago and has seen this growth coincide with LIDO upgrading to its second version, allowing users to unstake their staked ETH and receive ETH in exchange. The native token of the protocol, LBR, has also experienced significant price gains with a 173 % increase in the past seven days. And finally, Platinum Group, the leading ticket issuer for Formula One events, is introducing NFT race tickets, starting with the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend. Platinum Group will mint and sell the NFT tickets on Polygon. These NFTs not only provide access to the race, but also offer additional benefits and discounts for future events to encourage collector loyalty. Certain NFT holders for the Monaco Grand Prix may even receive exclusive party invitations. Well, that's all for us today. Visit us at DailyCryptoReport .io for sources and links and listen to us everywhere else you podcast under Daily Crypto Report. Hey, y 'all, I'm Brandi Zyrus. Wait, are we live? And that's my mom, Tish. Sorry, we're stoned. You're going to have to talk into the mic, Toots. Hey, everybody, it's Tish the Dish here, just ready to dish on all of our hottest topics. And plus, you'll hear crazy family stories, design tips, and oh, so much more. So follow our pod and find us on Instagram at StarryWearStoned so you don't miss an episode. Fast owners. A teddy bear, a worn -in jacket, a bike. We all have an ordinary object that holds extraordinary value in our life and tells something about our story. This universal idea is explored in Ten Thousand Things, a new podcast about modern -day artifacts of Asian America and the people who transform them into something remarkable. Hosted by me, Shen Yi Pai, and produced by.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"beijing" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"The Peterson institute on Beijing's rapidly spreading COVID outbreak and how it will affect the economy. I think a lot of people on the ground are trying to figure out what to do. Of course, for many people the illness is not severe, does not require hospitalization. The big wild card is going to be people over the age of 60. Many of whom do not have a third vaccine or third shot. And it's just a gigantic wild card as to how what kind of protection they actually have against this surging virus. As I said, Mary, you really know economics in China, particularly well. What are the possible ramifications for China and the China economy? If in fact, even after let back out of their apartments in their houses, they can't come out because they've gotten infected. Yeah, I mean, it's a tough story. I think, you know, one of the motivating aspects for the Chinese government was to get the economy growing again. The economy had slowed down tremendously. And that's a very difficult balance between public health and economic health. The November numbers are quite startling. They show that the Chinese economy is continued to slow, retail sales in November shrank by 6% compared to a year earlier. Industrial production growth dropped to a 6 month low. Production fell in very important industries, including autos, electronic devices, chips. So the government has some really stark economic conditions to
Bloomberg Radio New York
"beijing" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"And COVID cases in China decreasing restrictions those staying put it baxters got details If yeah exactly right Paul Beijing will close Jim's in cinemas over the Labor Day weekend holiday Meanwhile Shanghai will keep virus measures in place despite falling cases and continued effect on the economy And this is no new cases reported for the first time outside the lockdown areas since the recent outbreak started Health officials say they're at a crucial and critical stage now U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi has led a congressional delegation on a surprise visit to Ukraine pledging continued support Thank you For your fight for free And says the U.S. will be there until a fighting ceases Ukraine's president of volodymyr zelensky Says Russian commanders lie to their soldiers when they say that they have some serious penalties for refusing to fight and at the same time they do not tell them for example about the preparation of additional refrigerators for storage of corpses of the Russian army Zelensky also said evacuation route has been open so that trapped civilians can make it out of the steel plant in Mary a pool Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S. oksana makarova saying the Russia will not withdraw and that they do have to win the war Even after the courts as early as 16th of March mandated to Russia to stop this operation and leave we do not see the change of their behavior their Dublin down in the south and east of the country And she says they have no choice German Chancellor Olaf Shaw plans to show us I should say plans to invite Indian prime minister Narendra Modi as a special guest to the G 7 as part of the broader effort to force a global alliance against Russia The EU is set to propose a ban on Russian oil by the end of the year with some restrictions Put on until then a decision and a vote could be made this coming week And president Joe Biden the U.S. made an appearance at the correspondents dinner over the weekend Shall we have a little fun see what Joe Biden sounds like as a standup He took he took some shots at his head himself and then of course at Donald Trump This is the first time president attended this dinner in 6 years.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"beijing" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"To check in with Nancy Lyons for an update on world and national news she's standing by in her 99 one newsroom Hey thanks Tim Ukrainian cities continue to be pounded by Russian artillery and the mayor of Kyiv Vitale cliche co says this is not a war against the Ukrainian military but against its people He's the war against civilians It doesn't seem to be people here It's no middle of the base It's just a partner Apartment from civilian Bleach coach says his people are ready to fight but need more weapons President Biden discussed the situation in Ukraine during a two hour call today with Chinese president Xi Jinping Former U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke tells Bloomberg Beijing is in a pickle The longer this conflict goes on the more the Chinese people will be wondering what its own government stands and why they are not trying to bring the halt to the suffering Former ambassador to China Gary Locke China did tell the U.S. today the Russian invasion was not something they want to see What's the happiest place on earth with apologies to Disney Bloomberg's Nathan Hager has the answer It's found in the latest world happiness report out of the United Nations It ranks Finland number one on the list of happiest countries on earth for the 5th year in a row The report uses global survey data for more than a 150 nations to rate them based on GDP per CAPiTA healthy life expectancy generosity social support personal freedom and perceptions of corruption Denmark comes in second place in this year's report followed by Iceland Switzerland and the Netherlands the U.S. jumped three places from last year to come in 16th In Washington I'm Nathan Hager Bloomberg radio Global news 24 hours a day on air and on Bloomberg.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"beijing" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Is the agriculture and rural affairs spokesman So that will be live at 12 noon on prevail d'or radio Right let's get to they think global news with Liam Garrett was gonna Rick good morning to you and you start here in the UK I do indeed roger morning to you too A parliamentary inquiry says the UK government made serious mistakes in its early handling of the COVID pandemic the sharply critical report found many lives would have been saved if a full lockdown had been imposed more quickly it said the country adopted a fatalistic approach to COVID early last year and failed to learn from East Asian countries that halted the spread using swift lockdowns and mass testing Now to more on the global energy crisis in China floods of close 60 of the 806 182 coal mines in shanxi province a region that has produced 30% of the country's fuel supply this year that is adding to a worsening energy crisis that threatens the country's economic growth more than 1000 more than 120,000 people were evacuated as thousands of houses collapsed in the province after flooding and torrential rain Now as tensions rise between the U.S. and China for big brands at sponsor the Olympics the Beijing winter games are posing a dilemma Bloomberg's Lucille Lou has the details Beijing 2022 is at the center of U.S. China tensions For the biggest sponsors including Intel Procter & Gamble Coca-Cola and Toyota the winter games are an important advertising showcase The politicians the human rights groups are pushing these companies to condemn Beijing's treatment of ethnic minorities in St. John sponsors such as Coke and P and G say supporting the Olympics won't undermine human rights In China denies any forced labor and sing down in Beijing on the CO Liu Bloomberg daybreak Europe and Thailand is scrapping quarantine for vaccinated visitors from at least ten countries including the U.S. UK and Germany from next month.
The Ski Podcast
"beijing" Discussed on The Ski Podcast
"On the site, their slopes and ski down 8 o'clock in the evening in the moonlight, I think it's a wonderful thing to do. Whether it's allowed, I think it'll be allowed, I think it will be slightly restricted. Yeah, I mean talking about the owners of apres ski bars, a mutual friend of ours, Andre Russell, who owns their bar Kiba in town to play self had many great evenings. I noticed I don't often go on to Facebook, but he had a post on Facebook a little while ago, which was really a kind of lament to the end of season worker life. And I think there have been a lot of challenges in relation to Brexit and recruitment. I wondered what your insight would be on that? Yeah, it's a minefield, really. I'm not sure the podcast long enough to have all my company to lose. No, the obvious fallout of Brexit is quite quite bad in terms of UK citizens being able to work in Europe. There's been a few things I think in the press that there's the option to be able to do it in France, but that's still a very long winded and quite expensive way with no certainty or guarantee at the end of it. I've actually getting these work permits. We've got the same situation in Austria where they're only issue issuing a certain number of permits for seasonal workers and UK now falls under the third national third nation country or whatever they call it that not part of the EU. So not entitled to come and work there, which obviously takes away tons of jobs. We employ about 40 to 50 people in the Alps each winter. And this year, we're only looking for people with EU passports because it's just such a long, complicated, quite expensive process to go just to get a work permit. And then to be told that they're only going to give work permits probably to qualified qualified applicants so like the chefs, for example, that have an actual qualification for your sort of Shelley host, which is obviously a really important job. That we employ for. They don't class it as a recognized qualification in a job. So they're probably only going to be giving out permits for chefs, maybe maybe managers, maybe people with a particular skill set. But otherwise it's going to be quite tricky. And obviously more expensive for UK based operators to go about it. It almost sounds like the travel situation. Every country seems to have their own rules in place. There's no consistency across all of Europe, which makes it difficult for a company like yours in a gloomy drive away or employing people in France and in austere as well. So a lot of challenges are overall. Well, you know, I hope that with as with the travel within COVID, which has become simpler, maybe we find that as time passes being a third world country in the eyes of a year or third category country in terms of the EU, it will become easier to employ people. Hopefully, Andy you'll come back and give us some snow reports during the season and that data somehow things are going. Love too. Yep. Excellent. Okay, I'm just going to move on now. Regular listeners are recall I hosted a forum at the recent ski launch event for the industry last month. And one of our sessions had a focus on the Olympics. At Graham bell and Emily sarsfield with me, both of whom have been guests on the podcast before. Now the sound quality isn't so good on this, but I think it's still worth listening to. So.
The BreakPoint Podcast
"beijing" Discussed on The BreakPoint Podcast
"Beijing offers further lockdowns on religious conscience. Rights you might say that. They're having a nebuchadnezzar moment for the colson center. I'm john stonestreet. This is breakpoint increasingly threatened with a future of economic and cultural instability. The chinese government has worked hard to guarantee public safety to secure its power and to deliver a kind of domestic tranquility. That only comes when you limit freedom for example. Several sources have reported that yet again. Beijing is increasing pressure on religious groups in new ways beginning this year. All approved religions must conform to their new administrative measures for religious institutions document as cameron. Hilditch put it in national review. The chinese communist aren't trying to extirpate every last trace of theism instead they're attempting to enervate religious opposition to the regime by taming and coopting domestic religious belief turning into another thoroughfare for the regime's agenda of social control in quote despite beijing's formal claims that citizens of china they freely choose and express their religious beliefs. What you're seeing. There isn't freedom at all it isn't even toleration it cannot even be called benign neglect. This is an empty permission to only obey going. Forward religious groups and individuals will only be free practice their faith if that faith actively conforms to and works under state authority under these orders not conspiring against the state or even passively complying with beijing's orders will not be enough to avoid trouble proactive. Supportive tyranny is now required and no way can the precepts of have been be allowed to challenge the mandates of the state. Now of course. Xi jinping's regime like most atallah -tarian powers likes to style itself as a line of innovation but in reality he's just in a long line of tyrants who throughout the ages tried and failed to unseat god by compromising the loyalties of his people think of daniel's friends refusing to bow before nebuchadnezzar thing about daniel himself refusing to kowtow to a persian emperors vanity. Think about the christians facing down roman. Caesar's like g these tyrants didn't care to whom or what god's people prayed as long as that worshiped ultimate worship of the tyrant or the state in rome christians only had to accommodate the state with a little incense offered to the empire alongside their loyalty to christ but that was the line they could not cross they would not subject the claim christ had on their lives and on all of reality in order to meet the demands of rome or the gods of that age and to be clear. It's not just in the ancient world or in communist lands were. Christians are called to conform. Recently the french minister of the interior demanded the churches submission saying of evangelicals quote. We cannot discuss with people who refuse to write on paper that the law of the republic is superior to the law of god an american history pastors who refused to follow the pro slavery or segregation script often found themselves cancelled if not worse and today christians who fail to conform to the new progressive sexual orthodoxy are threatened with dismissal from polite society maybe even dismissal from their jobs whenever christians half as cultural hostilities throughout history. It's whenever there's been a system or a power claiming to be the absolute and final authority. It's not that certain kings and dictators who history were bad men and therefore acted badly toward the church and other dissidents the stories far deeper than that. It's any ruler. In any ideology that presumes the kind of omniscience and omnipotence and only belongs to god and they inevitably see claims to transcendent truth as an existential and then tolerable threat to their rule. Here's how francis schaeffer put it when he was describing the roman era persecution endured by the early church quote notes atallah -tarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions. This applied to the ancient world. It applies to beijing today and it applies to western ideologies that demand our absolute and total allegiance. Now here's the good news. Got has always strengthen preserved and sustained his people. He did it for daniel and daniels friends. He did it for the early church including those persecuted and even martyred. He's doing it right now for our brothers and sisters in china and we can be sure he will.
SpyHards Podcast
"beijing" Discussed on SpyHards Podcast
"I could give a monkey's i also really honed. In on the fact like you could tell that this one was the more the bargain basement of the two because just in terms of the plotting. It's incredibly basic where you have this kidnapping of Nick's girlfriend tatyana and then also plutonium it's just like i could figure out how these things were linked almost immediately and the movie didn't try to pull the rug out for me like the previous one like the. It really felt like with a bullet to beijing. At least trying to make a you know really Heavily encrypted spy film whereas this one they were just like we got these actors What's what's the macguffin. Plutonium sounds good. Let's just run with that. And i can kind of see where rob's coming from though in terms of just like its breezy. It's ninety minutes. You kind of get till like live in this world a little more than i did kind of enjoy because these movies were shot back to back you have all the same supporting characters popping up throughout and i just appreciated getting to revel in sort of the harry palmer world a little bit just because a lot of the other movies they would just drop characters movie to movie and here. We had them all back. Louise's back the russian mafia do the cia agent. They're all back. And i kind of enjoy that aspect but in terms of the plotting i mean by the time. They wound up at that rickety looking film studio which i couldn't help but wonder if that was the film studio mike okay. Complaining about the toilets in. I was suspended out. No doubt i think it was. I think it was. Yeah that was where i just was like. Okay we're really in the dregs here. People that's quite metro at that point. Isn't it it is yeah. Yeah i don't disagree with the point. Said he the race. Like say what. I say it says i prefer the.
SpyHards Podcast
"beijing" Discussed on SpyHards Podcast
"I mean like it was about to fall apart so fair. Choose but what it does for the plot. I'm not shaw. Their positive of it. It's a high store chase move on a on a train so you know this is sort of a certain amount of danger and they both jump pants at one point and and there are. There are some sort of modestly. Good car chases when the cars enlargers moskovitch is rust buckets. It's not like watching the fasten. Fear is you know. His car chases russian style. And so there's a certain company value in that i'm jumping. I think at this point on this film bakary bamba. that's fine. I came to this film knowing that it had a tv film budget. Whatever i can was right in the beginning question to see how harry palm was dealing with the nineties go shafted once again by the five chucked out on the street basically and he goes to walk doing what. He does As a private detective again he was doing a beginning of billion dollar brain. This'll make sense. But the problem with this film stems. And i think it has the same issue as indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull which. I'm sure comparison. Many people have made between these two films but here we. I thought the scene where michael crane crawled out of the fridge after the nuclear bomb was a bit much. It was when they were trying to put jason connery over as an action hero. He was swinging from the vines again. It was just got little much too much. Basically you get carried to this kind of beloved in his own way so indiana and then you put him in a story that's bad and you surround him with characters. He kind of nice from his post at the very interesting. And you just at the beginning of the familiar like oh. We'll scarring indiana jones. And by the end you call white for the film to be finished. There's a lot of scenes of characters like louis for example or the cia guy. Craig dislike running into many and they're like. Oh hey harry. How's it going like. Don't fake that familiarity. I don't know who these people are like. They've referencing a character or they even give you a story or reason as to why it's just like oh. Hey oh hey. What do we get from that. the harry has friends in russia. Clearly what's missing in eastern movies for the first three babies one of the the crucial elements is what you're missing is the by play between harry as a sort of underlying if you will. The sort of lower ranks spy and and his superiors. I mean not least on the russian side at least colonel stock but in terms of major dobie conan. Ross that in the first three movies released the first two where the gold lies in terms of the back and forth party that dialogue and characters. You either of you root for or you're you're turned against input beijing. You don't get a lot of that. I mean the most of Notable puffer act is a russian including nobody. would you get an appearance by bert. Cooke lately of the pink panther movies as the Outrageously stereotypical kim shoe the ultimate buyer of the red death. And he's appearances like you can't get out the fact you can't get out of your mind that it cato. He's not a great actor as is but as general kim soon it promotes a certain sort of maybe loved. Frankly but yet. He's an actor..
SpyHards Podcast
"beijing" Discussed on SpyHards Podcast
"It's in the extended version of the movie. Which i didn't get to see so the movie itself it was boy it was baffling in terms of plotting. I mean there. Are you know as rob alluded. So many double and triple crosses that it was like just head-spinning at a certain point trying to make sense of what was going on I feel like it's the type of movie you wanna whiteboard. When you're watching it just to keep track of all the players and the little red violets being you know it harry's carrying throat what that means and why it's there and who put it there and etc etc so in terms of like a spy plot not great especially when you compare it to the really well honed convoluted you could say story of saint funeral in berlin which is definitely confusing. But i feel like it does. Pay off all make sense. Psychologically within the The world of all these players whereas this one it just felt like doing a lot of those crosses for no reason and with characters who i didn't really even understand who they were like the cia guy. And i also knows this movie had a lot of What i would call cannon films action which cannon films made a lot of kind of be action movies through the eighties and this will be had a ton of those moments where would just cut to a really kind of cheesy shootout where like a character falls onto an electrical wire stuff. Like that sort of thing you'd see in like the death wish sequels but overall like it was not good but i found it somewhat watchable if that makes sense. It's not something. I would recommend anyone really unless you're really into the world of harry palmer but i did find it kind of interesting. I agree you can. You can spend a reasonable ninety minutes with cup of tea into an a snack and just you know it perfectly as you say is watchable what you divide is it. Apart from perhaps harry palmer given that he is played by mccain. You even in. The bad movie is pretty good very few of the characters actually really either understand or care for but it does have some say some sort of strange almost like funny unintentionally elements like you can tell. Basically they had to use for somebody who said we haven't abandoned airport nearby and let's use it because at one point Colonel gretzky used a sort of a pound store version of colonel stock. Says wait a minute. I know somebody in bryansk. And that's they switched to this airfield where they sort of opposite of chasing after this train. And it's it's this bizarre and it has nothing it doesn't really about the plot anyway but it's just like i'm sure it's because they had the use of an airfield for a couple of days you know. I figured it was either that or because they want to work in north by northwest omar. Because you have them on the train and then they get out and they get swooped by a plane. I was like. Oh okay well we got a little bit hitchcock to give the actors that jews. I would not want to be up in the sort of rusty russian bucket that they filmed in..
SpyHards Podcast
"beijing" Discussed on SpyHards Podcast
"Lightly. They certainly save money there and they save money on the acting as well. Take that back about jason culinary. How they well. I mean is there anything else background. Wise socially No let loose on. Okay well get quick five Thoughts on the film as a whole. Rub your guest. You kind of saw telegraph already but but to beijing. What are your thoughts. Yeah it's as. I said up from. It's not a great movie but you know it's sort of watchable. I didn't when i sat watching a couple of evenings go. I didn't tell my hair out has some interesting elements to it has Michael cord number of sort of english character. Actors michael gambon. Alexey does a possible russian. Jason coterie is not a great actor and he's trying to be nice well trying to be nice. Whoa let's let's be. Frank is wooden as a cyborg in this movie but it has the added attraction of the rather attractive mia sara ferris buehler's girlfriend playing the road natasha and even though he's not on the dvd. I got there is a fleeting appearance by sue. Lloyd the actor who plays gene in the original hip chris far so there are some sort of harry potter fans. There are some interesting little sort of law dates back to the original three movies. This is sort of suggestion. That a jason connery's character. Nikolai is possibly harry. Palmer said of the illegitimate son as say. There's the parents from gene. His love chris fall. So you know and the parties you know half chase movie half sit of heist movie this double-crossing triple crossing the drugs involved. The chinese and north koreans. It's like somebody's taking all the sort of ingredients from my. I spy movie cookbook. Throwing them into a pulp got to add some seasoning. That sort of thing. It's this the elements of there but it doesn't really hang together while rob really put the bullet in beijing cam. What about you okay. So this was one that i kind of dreaded going into because it's like how good is this going to be. When compared against a lot of the film craft that was happening on the first three. But it was a movie that i actually found in some ways a little bit entertaining in terms of reintroducing harry palmer into the nineties because like what is that like and where. This character is at being forced into retirement. We see that he's still got kind of that lady's man kind of vibe. We saw in the chris file. You know he's talking to his Girlfriend su Who's played by. Sue lloyd in the original on the phone which is kind of fun. There's a cut scene that rob alluded to it was not in my version. But i'm gonna have to.
SpyHards Podcast
"beijing" Discussed on SpyHards Podcast
"A lot in the movie credits and titles. It's portrayed as len dayton's harry palmer ever asked his overland directly. I'm pretty sure he didn't have a huge to do other than probably writing his signature on a contract and say yeah go ahead. He has had some generally in the past and quite challenging experiences with tb produces so. I didn't think he guy so. I'm sure it's it's definitely not something that i don't think len had a creative into indian creative input into which shows. Yeah the only thing i could find was that he said basically if they get michael caine back he put his name on it. Yeah i think that's without without michael. Cain the movie has nothing a to with harry mccain has something in these and that's not saying much so we're getting a clue to listeners that bullet to beijing And sister filming leads. Berg not shining examples of the spy. Maybe he's on. What are you talking about the best tv movies we've covered so yes my view. Yeah i watched them both over the last Three or four days just to refresh myself. I've watched him a few times. No many they are great for me. The word that came to my mind is that you have curiosity value. One is seeing michael. Cain or harry palmer if you will It is sort of down. He'll dress not in sort of a shop sixties Suit walking down soho. But in sort of anorak walking down some groti street in some petersburg so this is sort of interesting sort of angle about seeing a familiar character. In ritu circumstances plus there is also the sort of again a curiosity value in just seeing the fact that they were filming in russia fairly soon after the fall of communism. Isn't it so interesting. The fact that the product that came out with is not that great is by the by so seeing you know what russia was like in nineteen ninety five and it looks pretty grubby and down at hill. Place has somebody but yeah if you were expecting Looks of action and lots of plot twists and great acting. This isn't your maybe. And that's been i am curious. I'm curious if you have any idea because there are you know. Annette adapted len deighton. Harry palmer spy novels like horse underwater. Or whatever like do you have any idea or like what the thinking was behind. Why these two movies bullet to beijing and the one. We're gonna talk about a few minutes. Were entirely original stories. I don't have any particular insight on there. My suspicion is that as with a law things in the movie business. It was probably money opportunity involved. Somebody saw opportunity with. I imagined that feeling in russia in nineteen ninety five is pretty cheap. I mentioned that there was probably a gap in harry. Michael caine schedule There was probably. Mr towers was at a loose end and you know the fates combined to bring them together in petersburg to film these two movies. I suspect there was no more sort of strategic thinking that makes sense from a financial standpoint. I imagine the amount you have to pay at linda in four making the quiz file goal horse. Underwater is far more than the original script lightly touching on.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"beijing" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"New Beijing security laws not meant a blunt free discussion of issues in an interview with Bloomberg's How's Linda Almond says Things just need to be kept from getting violent as laws. We do not cross the red lines that is, you do not undermine. Territorial integrity, suffering TIA and the country's interest. We welcome a diverse opinion people with different political background who want to argue with the government. Never mind you could still have a role to play. But the red light could not be crossed and that is what we are doing with the national security law. She says she is seeing no exodus. No fear of the law. Hong Kong's future is bright China says it's increased activity near Taiwan is in response to foreign interference and its affairs by the U. S. And calls it an act of war. It says it is expressing concern about relations with abide administration of the U. S. New Zealand is has suggested that its close ally and neighbor Australia should treat China with respect New Zealand Trade Minister Damian O'Connor, noting that his government is maintain cordial ties with Beijing, Australian government officials only comments are that New Zealand is Not being helpful. India's foreign minister, a signal hardening of New Delhi stance toward China and said ties between the two are under exceptional stress in attempts to resolve the once again deadly border conflict. India Says it has yet to get a credible answer As to why China is amassing troops at the border. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expressing major concern that Georgia Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene Has been appointed to the committee on Education and Labor. Green is a Q and on supporter and claimed the school shootings at Sandy Hook and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were fake. I think that they focus has to be On the Republican leadership of this house of representatives for the disregard they have for the death of those Children. She says. She she will fight it, She said. She doesn't know what she can do which he's going to try. U. S. President Joe Biden says he's issuing so many executive orders.
WNYC 93.9 FM
"beijing" Discussed on WNYC 93.9 FM
"But there are still far more seniors eligible in the US than available shots for NPR news. I'm will stone Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he considers the mast attention and sterilization of programs in one of China's regions to be genocide. MPR's Emily Fang has more when asked by NPR What Beijing made of Blinken statements. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said he would emphasize an important point Don't go Naoto media. There is no genocide in China, he said three times, adding the words exclamation point At the end, China has detained hundreds of thousands of mostly ethnic leaguers in the western region of Xinjiang and put others and forced labor programs. The U. S. A sanctioned numerous Chinese companies and officials over these human rights abuses, abuses. China denies. Emily Fang. NPR NEWS Beijing Was futures contracts or trading and mixed territory at this hour, down futures contract up about 1/10 of a percent. NASDAQ futures contracts are down about 4/10 of a percent. You're listening, Tonto, er news. And this is W on my C in New York, four minutes after eight o'clock. Good morning. I'm David first. We're expecting a high today of just 32 degrees. It's 29 degrees now in Central Park. Officials move to step closer to ending a year long impasse between city and state election officials, one that threatened the rollout of ranks choice voting in New York City. W. N. Y. C is Bridget Bergen reports. The state Board of Elections, says the work with the city to certify software for counting ballots in the upcoming special in primary elections. Their decision came hours after W N Y C and Gothamist first reported on a partisan disagreement between the boards. It was forcing the city to shelve its plans to rely on the software. Republican State commissioners question the legality of the city adopting ranked choice voting without state approval for the current special election. The city is expected to still manually count results, but it's now less likely the city would rely on a hand tally in elections later this spring. City acknowledged the state's decision in an email telling them that they already had everything they needed to approve the software. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it's detention center at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey is about 50% over capacity, raising concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. W one Way sees Matt Katz reports. Teenies have staged hunger strikes demanding release, saying they're not able to keep safe from Cove in 19, now a document from ice revealed as part of a class action lawsuit pushing for the release of detainees backs up the complaints. The facility was 71% overcapacity in November and 41% last month. 13 detainees there now have Cove it the most of any area ice detention center. Bring county sheriff who gels the detainees through a multi million dollar price contract, said dorms are actually below capacity at 15 detainees per unit. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy says he has quote sick to his stomach over new allegations of abuse at the state's only women's present. New Jersey Advanced media recently reported that 30 officers and staff were suspended from the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility over alleged beatings and sexual assaults in early January. Murphy said on his monthly call in show, Ask Governor Murphy last night on W. N. Y C that he was ordering an independent investigation. Let me be crystal clear on this. Any individual in state custody. Forget why they're there. They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and that in addition to that, we gotta remember that female inmates have long been uniquely vulnerable to abuse. New Jersey lawmakers have also announced an investigation into the charges..