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mariacallous · 6 months ago

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America’s first large-scale offshore wind farms began sending power to the Northeast in early 2024, but a wave of wind farm project cancellations and rising costs have left many people with doubts about the industry’s future in the US.

Several big hitters, including Ørsted, Equinor, BP, and Avangrid, have canceled contracts or sought to renegotiate them in recent months. Pulling out meant the companies faced cancellation penalties ranging from $16 million to several hundred million dollars per project. It also resulted in Siemens Energy, the world’s largest maker of offshore wind turbines, anticipating financial losses in 2024 of around $2.2 billion.

Altogether, projects that had been canceled by the end of 2023 were expected to total more than 12 gigawatts of power, representing more than half of the capacity in the project pipeline.

So, what happened, and can the US offshore wind industry recover?

I lead the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Wind-Energy Science, Technology, and Research (WindSTAR) and Center for Energy Innovation, and follow the industry closely. The offshore wind industry’s troubles are complicated, but it’s far from dead in the US, and some policy changes may help it find firmer footing.

A Cascade of Approval Challenges

Getting offshore wind projects permitted and approved in the US takes years and is fraught with uncertainty for developers, more so than in Europe or Asia.

Before a company bids on a US project, the developer must plan the procurement of the entire wind farm, including making reservations to purchase components such as turbines and cables, construction equipment, and ships. The bid must also be cost-competitive, so companies have a tendency to bid low and not anticipate unexpected costs, which adds to financial uncertainty and risk.

The winning US bidder then purchases an expensive ocean lease, costing in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But it has no right to build a wind project yet.

Before starting to build, the developer must conduct site assessments to determine what kind of foundations are possible and identify the scale of the project. The developer must consummate an agreement to sell the power it produces, identify a point of interconnection to the power grid, and then prepare a construction and operation plan, which is subject to further environmental review. All of that takes about five years, and it’s only the beginning.

For a project to move forward, developers may need to secure dozens of permits from local, tribal, state, regional, and federal agencies. The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which has jurisdiction over leasing and management of the seabed, must consult with agencies that have regulatory responsibilities over different aspects in the ocean, such as the armed forces, Environmental Protection Agency, and National Marine Fisheries Service, as well as groups including commercial and recreational fishing, Indigenous groups, shipping, harbor managers, and property owners.

In December 2023, the majority of offshore wind power capacity was in China and Europe. The United States had just 42 megawatts, but it was about to launch two new wind farms. (Data source: WFO Global Wind Offshore Wind Report 2023.)

For Vineyard Wind I—which began sending power from five of its 62 planned wind turbines off Martha’s Vineyard in early 2024—the time from BOEM’s lease auction to getting its first electricity to the grid was about nine years.

Costs Balloon During Regulatory Delays

Until recently, these contracts didn’t include any mechanisms to adjust for rising supply costs during the long approval time, adding to the risk for developers.

From the time today’s projects were bid to the time they were approved for construction, the world dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, global supply chain problems, increased financing costs, and the war in Ukraine. Steep increases in commodity prices, including for steel and copper as well as in construction and operating costs, made many contracts signed years earlier no longer financially viable.

Led by China and the UK, the world had 67,412 megawatts of offshore wind power capacity in operation by the end of 2023. (Source: WTO Global Offshore Wind Report.)

New and rebid contracts are now allowing for price adjustments after the environmental approvals have been given, which is making projects more attractive to developers in the US. Many of the companies that canceled projects are now rebidding.

The regulatory process is becoming more streamlined, but it still takes about six years, while other countries are building projects at a faster pace and larger scale.

Shipping Rules, Power Connections

Another significant hurdle for offshore wind development in the US involves a century-old law known as the Jones Act.

The Jones Act requires vessels carrying cargo between US points to be US-built, US-operated, and US-owned. It was written to boost the shipping industry after World War I. However, there are only three offshore wind turbine installation vessels in the world that are large enough for the turbines proposed for US projects, and none are compliant with the Jones Act.

That means wind turbine components must be transported by smaller barges from US ports and then installed by a foreign installation vessel waiting offshore, which raises the cost and likelihood of delays.

Dominion Energy is building a new ship, the Charybdis, that will comply with the Jones Act. But a typical offshore wind farm needs more than 25 different types of vessels—for crew transfers, surveying, environmental monitoring, cable-laying, heavy lifting, and many other roles.

The nation also lacks a well-trained workforce for manufacturing, construction, and operation of offshore wind farms.

For power to flow from offshore wind farms, the electricity grid also requires significant upgrades. The Department of Energy is working on regional transmission plans, but permitting will undoubtedly be slow.

Lawsuits and Disinfo

Numerous lawsuits from advocacy groups that oppose offshore wind projects have further slowed development.

Wealthy homeowners have tried to stop wind farms that might appear in their ocean view. Astroturfing groups that claim to be advocates of the environment, but are actually supported by fossil fuel industry interests, have launched disinformation campaigns.

In 2023, many Republican politicians and conservative groups immediately cast blame for whale deaths off the coast of New York and New Jersey on the offshore wind developers, but the evidence points instead to increased ship traffic collisions and entanglements with fishing gear.

Such disinformation can reduce public support and slow projects’ progress.

Just Keep Spinnin’

The Biden administration set a goal to install 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, but recent estimates indicate that the actual number will be closer to half that.

Despite the challenges, developers have reason to move ahead.

The Inflation Reduction Act provides incentives, including federal tax credits for the development of clean energy projects and for developers that build port facilities in locations that previously relied on fossil fuel industries. Most coastal state governments are also facilitating projects by allowing for a price readjustment after environmental approvals have been given. They view offshore wind as an opportunity for economic growth.

These financial benefits can make building an offshore wind industry more attractive to companies that need market stability and a pipeline of projects to help lower costs—projects that can create jobs and boost economic growth and a cleaner environment.

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 1 month ago

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School auction in São Paulo draws interest from three bidders

The auctions for two Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) for schools in São Paulo have attracted interest from at least three groups, according to Edgard Benozatti, president of the São Paulo Partnerships Company (CPP). Combined, the two contracts are expected to generate investments of R$2.1 billion to build 33 new schools and operate these facilities for 25 years.

The PPPs will be auctioned on different days but within the same week. The first batch, including 17 schools, will be contested on the 29th (Tuesday), and the second, with 16 schools, on November 1st (Friday). These auctions are part of a series of tenders planned for the last week of this month, involving projects from São Paulo, the state of Piauí, and the federal government.

Sources indicate that the interested parties are consortia composed of a financial partner and a service provider or construction company. Among the financial entities, BTG is mentioned as a potential bidder. On the strategic side, stakeholders from Inova BH, which manages a school PPP in Belo Horizonte, and Integra, which operates a PPP for Unified Educational Centers (CEUs) in São Paulo, have shown interest.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #economy #education #image description in alt #mod nise da silveira

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plethoraworldatlas · 7 months ago

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A new Bureau of Land Management plan to open 40,000 acres of the Wayne National Forest to fracking for oil and gas looks almost identical to one a federal judge rejected in 2020. The public can comment on the plan in writing or during online meetings Monday and Tuesday.

Fossil fuel companies have targeted Ohio’s only national forest for years and in 2016 the BLM first attempted to auction off oil and gas leases in the Wayne. The new proposal, released in late March, is nearly identical to the fracking plan blocked in 2020 after conservation groups challenged it in federal court.

“It’s hugely disappointing that federal officials are sticking with this climate-destroying plan to sell off Ohio’s precious public lands to the oil and gas industry, even as flooding, wildfires and heat waves intensify with climate change,” said Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our government needs to prioritize people, wildlife and our climate over corporate profits and block fracking in the Wayne once and for all. Ohio residents have the chance to speak out over the next few weeks, and I hope land managers get an earful about this reckless fracking proposal.”

Fracking threatens the Wayne’s rivers, forests and endangered plants and animals ― the same things Congress intended to protect when it created the national forest in the 1930s.

“Fracking the Wayne National Forest would seriously jeopardize Ohio’s ability to fight climate change. This single oil and gas project threatens to generate enough greenhouse gas pollution to cancel out all of the Wayne’s carbon storage services for the next 30 years,” said Nathan Johnson, senior attorney with the Ohio Environmental Council. “Leasing the Wayne to the fossil fuel industry will scar this public forest and pollute our air with toxic chemicals. We should be doing everything we can to protect the public’s access to safe and beautiful public lands — especially in Ohio, where public land is in relatively short supply compared to so many other states.”

#us politics #enviromentalism #ecology #biden administration #fracking #bureau of land management #wayne national forest #ohio #oil industry #gas industry

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ammg-old2 · 1 year ago

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In the early 19th century, sailors making their way to Providence, Rhode Island, depended on the signal of the Warwick Neck Light to safely find their way. While it no longer carries the navigational significance it once did, the 51-foot tower continues to preside over Narragansett Bay from its clifftop perch.

Now, this historical property’s dramatic views could be yours.

This year, the General Services Administration (GSA) will give away six of the historic beacons, including the Warwick Neck Light, at no cost. An additional four will be sold via public auction. The goal of the transfers is to preserve the historic buildings, even as technology renders them obsolete.

For hundreds of years, lighthouses have welcomed travelers to the shores of the United States. However, the advent of navigation technologies like GPS has left many of the shore’s sentinels without a practical purpose. Since the passage of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act in 2000, the GSA has been transferring ownership of lighthouses “no longer critical to the U.S. Coast Guard’s mission needs” to groups willing to preserve them, according to a statement from the agency.

“People really appreciate the heroic role of the solitary lighthouse keeper,” says John Kelly of the GSA’s office of real property disposition to Mark Pratt of the Associated Press (AP). “They were really the instruments to provide safe passage into some of these perilous harbors which afforded communities great opportunities for commerce, and they’re often located in prominent locations that offer breathtaking views.”

At many lighthouses, upkeep is challenging: Two of the structures up for auction, the Penfield Reef Lighthouse in Fairfield, Connecticut, and the Stratford Shoal Light in the middle of the Long Island Sound, are accessible only by boat.

“They’re such unusual reflections of our history that it takes a certain kind of person who wants to be a part of that,” Robin Carnahan, administrator of the GSA, tells the New York Times’ Michael Levenson.

For now, the lighthouses won’t be available to just anyone. The GSA is first offering them at no cost to federal agencies, state and local governments, nonprofits, educational agencies and community development organizations. To be eligible, interested buyers must be able to maintain the historic property and allow the public to access it. More than 80 lighthouses have found a new owner—and stable future—through this process so far, according to the GSA.

Several of the lighthouses up for grabs this year are already under the care of nonprofits, which can apply to continue their work, Kelly tells the AP. For example, the Nobska Lighthouse in Falmouth, Massachusetts is maintained by the Friends of Nobska Light, which has applied for the transfer of ownership, according to the Cape Cod Times’ Zane Razzaq.

If no owner is found, the lighthouses will be offered for sale to the public via auction. The GSA has auctioned 70 lighthouses to date, in sales ranging from $10,000 to over $900,000, reports NPR’s Emma Bowman.

Other lighthouses going to auction this year include the Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Light in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Keweenaw Waterway Lower Entrance Light in Chassell, Michigan. The list of transfer-eligible lighthouses includes Lynde Point Lighthouse in Old Saybrook, Connecticut; Plymouth/Gurnet Lighthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts; Little Mark Island and Monument in Harpswell, Maine; and Erie Harbor North Pier Lighthouse in Erie, Pennsylvania.

#current events #lighthouses #usa #I WANT A LIGHTHOUSE............

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oddbookreport · 2 years ago

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Ok this post started as a reply to another post about how numbers were fake and got away from me a bit, strap in.

EDIT: Public Service loan forgiveness is a federal program in the US where if you work in government for 10 years the government will pay off the remainder of your student loans. This is way more important than the rest of this godforsaken screed and I'd appreciate a reblog to get out information on that.

This is a facebook group run by my dad(!) among others with a ton of useful information in case student loans are something you are struggling with and have a public service job or are looking to change careers.

Ok, Autism time.

TLDR: Companies are incentivized to borrow money because they can reliably only pay back a fraction of it while using it to inflate their stock price. You are disincentivized from borrowing money because you will pay back 120-130% of what you borrowed unless (and sometimes even if) you file for bankruptcy. We actually do need a financial sector but it's badly under regulated, and also international finance has no rules and is an imperial power-fest. Also anti-finance is an antisemitic dogwhistle.

Debt is one of the fuckiest things on the planet and I wrote this for my own edification but in case it helps someone make sense of a new concept that'd be pretty cool.

Proof the numbers in the economy are fake:

No debt is repaid in exact numbers. You borrow 10k, and probably you pay back 11-13k over a number of years. The government borrows 1 trillion dollars and pays back 1.1 trillion dollars over a number of years. A company borrows 1 million dollars, they pay back 1.1 million dollars over a number of years. The numbers almost always go up, this is one reason we have inflation. You can pay less than you borrowed, but only under certain conditions. Inflation is one, such that you pay relatively less though absolutely more. Typically the numbers only go down if someone defaults, but that's usually the worst case scenario because it breaks the kind of promise that the whole economy is based on.

If you default, your debt is sold by the bank to someone else. Not for 10k, or whatever is left on the balance, but for probably 1-2k, a fraction of what it's "worth" and then the person who bought it tries to get you to pay the rest of the balance while the bank reports the loss as part of their tax deductible operating expenses.

Then, you're still on the hook for the 11-13k plus whatever fees the debt collector wants to charge. And if you don't pay those, they do it again, selling what they bought for 1-2k for 4-5 hundred, and so on, until you file for chapter 11 bankruptcy and are no longer legally obliged to pay all of the debt. In practice, this means the government negates the lender's right to collect the full balance in exchange for you going on a payment plan based on a new agreement the government brokers between you and the lender.

After this, because you failed to pay back the full balance, you will find it almost impossible to find banks to loan you money, even if in the end you paid way more than the 11-13k you would have paid back if you had made your payments on time.

In general, if you file for bankruptcy, you lose.

This sort of works in reverse with the stock market: You buy stock and the company pays you back with interest because you are loaning them your money. Companies sell stock at an initial price, auctioning it off in lots to find out what people think it's worth, and what it's worth is based on a) its capacity to increase in value and b) the monthly/yearly interest repayment which is based on the IPO price. Higher price means more money raised for the company but only at the IPO rate because once it's on the secondary market the company doesn't actually see any of the money except as good publicity.

The interest payouts are called dividends, although only a few companies actually care about paying them out anymore. Many companies ignore their dividends and instead just try to pump the price of their stock on the secondary market, aka the stock market. The ratio between stock price and dividends gives you an interesting picture of how the company sees its long term strategy: Car companies which don't really grow tend to have low ratios between stock price and dividend. Tech companies, which are looking to blow up and act like they don't know nobody, tend to have very high stock prices and very low dividends.

Crucially, companies tend to see the stock price as a reflection of the company's health, or "consumer confidence" or something, and a lot of executive pay is tied to it because most of them get paid in stock.

But the number doesn't mean anything concrete (to the company) after the IPO.

The upshot of all this is that while you are expected to borrow and pay your balance back with interest, companies are rewarded for borrowing and then artificially increasing the size of their own debt (stock price) because that's how the people making the decisions get paid.

Crucially, and this is also the assumption when an individual takes on debt, the debt is supposed to enable the debtor to make more money than they would have without it. However, unlike the kind of debt most individuals take out, the debt from issuing stock doesn't (usually) pay off the principle. This is why companies can (sometimes) get away with taking on debt without actually paying it off. You could in principle do this too if you registered as an LLC and issued stock for yourself, but this would be weird and paying strangers dividends might be a big financial burden. Or it might work out, go wild. I'd say the odds of this working are fairly comparable to minting yourself as an NFT and trying to sell it, albeit without needing to use the blockchain. Please ask a lawyer first though.

Also, companies can take on way more debt with way less risk because it is significantly less punishing for a company to file for bankruptcy than a person. The LLC in LLC is short for Limited Liability Corporation. If a company files for bankruptcy, it usually gets to keep most of its assets, because the government in general wants it to keep producing whatever it was producing and its debts are restructured accordingly. Sometimes, however, the assets are sold and the creditors just lose out on any debt over and above the selling price of the assets. Companies can try to shed debts by selling their assets for cheap to a new company, filing for bankruptcy, and then leaving creditors with the losses. This is fraud, but sometimes they get away with it and the "limited liability" part means that even if it is fraud it is legally difficult to go after the people responsible. LLCs are why if your company goes bust, you as an employee cannot be sued, which is generally a good thing. However, the structure of LLCs make it very easy for a company to take on more and riskier debt while you, as an individual are expected to pay off everything you borrow.

In general, if a company files for bankruptcy, the creditors lose.

The Government, apart from regulations, mostly cares about finance for two reasons: Economic stability and Retirement savings.

All this shit is made up. It's a game with very complicated rules, but there's no natural reason for it to work in the particular way that it does. In fact, there are countries like Turkey where it works completely differently, mostly because of religious laws about interest collection. Both Christianity and Islam have complicated histories with finance, but I digress. The point it that finance is almost entirely held up by agreements between extremely fickle parties. Like, there are contracts, agreements, balance sheets, and so on but none of this is pegged to any real asset. (This is a good thing, people who tell you that we should go back to the gold standard are morons) What that means is that the government can decide at any time to forgive people's debts. They can just void the contracts, who's going to stop them? (Be careful if you have a banking system powerful enough to go toe to toe with the government. JP Morgan and a bunch of other wall street people actually tried to overthrow the US Government in 1933.) They need to be careful about this because being able to borrow money when you need it is a net positive, and doing it too often disincentivizes people from lending money making borrowing more expensive. But overwhelmingly, rather than forgiving small dollar loans to people, the government forgives giant loans to companies.

This is partially because the stability of the system, ie creditors getting paid in order to keep a steady supply of creditors, matters more than the fate of any particular player within it, and partially because big fish can manipulate the system to insulate themselves from consequence.

For example, in 2008, tons of first time homeowners had gotten "subprime mortgages," meaning they had borrowed more money than they could afford to repay in order to buy a first home. Increased buying meant prices went up, borrowers were unable to afford the increased property taxes from their suddenly valuable homes, and then were forced to sell, producing even more subprime borrowers. These debts were defaulted on, sold, and then bundled into packages where debt buyers could not see the insolvency of the loans. Then, the bubble burst. People suddenly realized that they had taken out a million dollar mortgage, which they could not afford the monthly payments on, on a house that would only sell for 400k. And they were on the hook for the entire million plus interest.

At this point, the government had a choice: they had to do something about the fact that millions of people had borrowed more money than they could afford. They could have bought the debt, and helped the homeowners pay in a situation similar to a chapter 11 bankruptcy where some assets are protected in order to prevent massive foreclosures, or they could have done what they did which was buy out the debt buyers and help the creditors recoup their losses. Instead of virtually slashing housing prices by forgiving mortgage debt in order to help people stay housed, they assumed the debts of the people who had bought subprime mortgage bundles, mostly banks, while refusing to go after the architects of the scheme who had issued the bad mortgages and sold them under false pretenses.

The biggest reason why this stuff really matters is that at least how the US does things right now, almost all retirement securities are tied to stock price. That's your 401ks, your Roth IRAs, etc. With the exception of Social Security and Medicare, almost all the income seniors have is based on the performance of the stock market. This isn't the worst idea, as compared to previous systems like large savings banks or just having parents cared for by their kids this is A) somewhat resistant to inflation and B) does not shackle predominantly young women to permanent unpaid elder care as was the case under past more patriarchal systems. It's good that in general inflation can't wipe out the savings of someone who saved 100,000 1970 dollars only to have that barely cover a week of cancer treatment. Finance makes that happen.

Also, people want to do things that cost more money than they have, like buy houses, start businesses, and go to college. Businesses also want to do things that cost more money than they have, like build factories, conduct research and development, and offer benefits to employees. Finance makes that happen.

We would still need finance even if (like under communism) the government paid for these things, and whether finance should be entirely public (communism) entirely private (anarcho-capitalism) or semi-private (status quo) is a really complicated question. Finance is not this intrinsically evil thing.

Also because of the aforementioned history of Christians making collecting interest illegal most demonization of finance is directly connected to the Jews, who under medieval law were forced into being bankers in order to avoid forcing Christians from committing the sin of usury (interest collection). Much history of antisemitism in Europe is directly connected to these sorts of laws. The stereotype of the greedy jew, for example, comes from the fact that when medieval governments wanted to raise money, such as for a crusade, they would increase taxes but only on the jews. This forced the jews who were legally forbidden from doing any other job to increase interest rates in order to stay financially solvent, demanding higher rates on borrowing and lower interest on savings. This effectively raised taxes on everyone, but looked like the lord was being generous while the jew was being greedy. Anyone who talks about the intrinsic evils of global finance, whether they know it or not, is parroting Nazi talking points. Bear in mind that the Nazis did the same shit as the medieval lords: by raising taxes on Jews and only Jews, as well as seizing the assets of Jewish refugees, expropriating Jewish owned businesses, and using the Jews as slave labor they funded significant social welfare programs and their invasions of neighboring European countries without significantly increasing taxes on anyone but the Jews, at least until ~1940.

But there are still perverse incentives.

Whenever finance (making money by moving money around) overshadows production (making shit people actually need) bad things happen. Enron was a prime example of this: it was a "holding company" (they owned property that other people used for production without being directly involved in that production) that used an asset shell game to boost their stock price to hundreds of times their dividend, then sold out leaving investors with worthless stock they had bought for thousands of dollars.

Crashes can usually be predicted in advance: the problem is that the government is usually lax with enforcing financial crime. Journalists and economists saw 2008, Enron, the Dot Com bubble, the Asian Financial Crisis, and many other financial disasters coming. Karl Marx argued that Capitalism exists in a permanent cycle of boom and bust as a result of its systematic incentives. There is a history of financial crisis going back to the story of Joseph in Genesis. However, even when governments can see it coming, financial prophylaxis, such as regulation, is usually seen as too expensive even when it is cheaper to prevent a disaster than to clean up after one. Worse, the fact that the bankers almost never get prosecuted means that financial mismanagement and crime continue to exacerbate what might be a natural tendency of markets to rise and fall. This is direct consequence of the structure of LLCs. The higher the highs, the lower the lows, but if you're trying to jump out of the market at the top and then buy up everyone else's assets for pennies at the bottom, you want the cycles to be as extreme as possible. That's the position major companies find themselves in, and it's basically only good for them.

I'm not enough of an expert to have specific policy recommendations, except that in the 90s Bill Clinton overturned a law which separated savings banks from investment banks. Savings banks rely on high interest rates, both on loans they issue such as for mortgages, cars, and so on, and on the personal savings you receive from depositing money in them. Once upon a time (the 90s) you could put your money in a normal bank and get 5-6% interest in a savings account. This no longer happens. Investment banks make their money by taking your money, putting it on the stock market, and collecting the difference. Investment banks are more profitable (mostly for the bank) but more risky (mostly for you), like having someone start a casino with your money. House advantage is there, but they can still lose. Before the 90s, it was illegal for your bank to gamble with your savings on the stock market. Now it is not, and this law is something I think we should bring back.

When it comes to governments and the international system things are weirder.

It's really hard to make a government keep a promise, so they get to flaunt these rules. Also, as a rule, Governments only care about their citizens (sometimes defined very narrowly as non-immigrant, non-prisoner, white, etc) and not anybody else. Anything they do on behalf of any other group is only because it also benefits their citizens for some reason. The only real way to make a government keep a promise is by lawsuit, which they can ignore if they don't like, or war, which most people can't really do for fun. This is why The US Debt strategy for its entire history going back to Alexander Hamilton is to run up the credit card like it's Christmas. The plan as far as the USA is concerned is to borrow money and only pay off the interest rather than the principle. The only way someone is going to get the USA to pay off the principle is by beating them in a war. However, those interest payments are the most reliable debt interest payments in the world, unless the republicans in the house are real fucking numbskulls come June. I'm not exactly smart enough to understand the nuance of why all the other countries on earth let us do this but I think it has something to do with beating everyone on the planet in a war in the last century. However, the US always pays its debts in full, even if as a result of inflation what they're paying back is only part of what it was worth when they borrowed it. This is normal, though whether or not it's ethical depends on your views on american empire.

What's important about this is that things like the US debt clock are shameless right wing propaganda. Someone somewhere will tell you that the government has borrowed like three hundred thousand dollars on your behalf and that they expect you to pay it back. This is then used to argue against government spending. I won't get into fiscal policy but this is a lie, and it's better to keep borrowing and paying off debt than to try to achieve fiscal or financial independence internationally.

International finance is also directly used as an oppressive tool for reproducing capitalism in developing countries. The last thing I'll say on the subject is this: countries with less economic power than the G7 are subject to bullying by larger economies. Every country in the world borrows money, and this is generally a good thing. However, Unicef, the World Bank, and other international institutions set terms on the loans that they offer to countries that were robbed under colonialism and refuse to lend money to them unless they comply with various international standards. This sometimes includes things like requiring girls to be able to go to school, and sometimes requires forcing governments to pay license fees for US patents on things like insulin and oh boy if your prescription drug costs are high in the US just imagine how much money you have to pay for drugs with US patents on them after converting non-US money to dollars. Whether or not you agree with these sorts of policy requirements, they are neo-colonialism and do contribute to American domination over these countries. Just because we're loan sharking them for insulin money instead of invading their country for oil doesn't mean that isn't what it is. Intellectual property is one of the most contentious parts of these sorts of fights, where a country would be happy to void a US patent on behalf of its citizens but it can't without losing access to international loans.

There are lots of problems with finance and it's dialed into the entire modern political system so it's extra fucky to understand in greater detail than this, and while it is strictly speaking politically neutral, the more power you have the more you can manipulate it. There unfortunately aren't great tools the average person has to do about the state of the world financially, but I think it's helpful to know and I hope you enjoyed reading this. Maybe you smack a fascist with something from this if they start talking about how globalists run the banks.

#I was inspired by that BDG video about Healthcare #I swear I'm not an econ bro tho #Also this is what I did instead of writing grad school papers #God international relations is fucking depressing it's like a train wreck that started under the fucking mesopotamians and has not stopped #But actually don't worry about the debt though #unless it's your debt in which case vote democrat if you want to see more student loan forgiveness #How the fuck did I black out and write 3500 words about this #That's 10 fucking pages #This is half a journal article

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handeaux · 2 years ago

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Back In The Day, You Might Have Thought Everyone In Cincinnati Loved Fred Trump

People in Cincinnati were raving about Fred C. Trump a full decade before he ever dipped a toe into Cincinnati’s real estate market. Mildred Miller, in her Cincinnati Enquirer “Talk About Women” column [2 March 1954], begged the New York developer to buy some Queen City rental property:

“Sa-ay, why can’t it happen here? We sure could use a few ace-high landlords like Fred Trump of New York! He not only rents to families with children but also provides many extras to make them happy! . . . Such as playgrounds, indoor recreation centers, summer camps and baby sitters!”

Ten years later, Mildred Miller got her wish when Fred Trump purchased the moribund Swifton Village apartments in Bond Hill. Originally constructed with Federal Housing Administration financing at a cost of $10 million in 1954, the complex was half empty in 1964. The FHA foreclosed on the property and put it up for auction when the original developer defaulted. Fred Trump was the only bidder, snatching the complex for $5.7 million. The Cincinnati Enquirer [6 January 1965] was delighted:

“Before ink was dry on the Swifton deed, Mr. Trump said he sent his maintenance crews into the village on a $500,000 reconditioning and redecorating program. A new community center was built; streets and sidewalks were repaved; paint was dabbed here and there; new refrigerators and new laundry machines were installed; window shutters were ordered. New tenants started coming in.”

Although several sections of the complex were reserved for adult tenants, Fred Trump did build playgrounds in the portions of Swifton Village in which children were allowed. He also maintained a private swim club and sun deck for the exclusive use of tenants.

Fred Trump apparently worked overtime to satisfy the folks who lived at Swifton Village. One employee recalled when the owner visited Cincinnati around Mother’s Day and bought 1,000 orchids to distribute to the resident mothers. Trump passed out thousands of pre-stamped, pre-addressed post cards to all his tenants encouraging them to send complaints and suggestions directly to him. Enquirer business editor Ralph Weiskittel enthused [2 October 1966] about the benefit:

“This is the ‘service’ aspect of our plan, Mr. Trump said. When a tenant calls for a service he wants it ‘then’ – not an excuse that workmen are busy and will get to it the first thing tomorrow morning.”

Of course, the New York developer spent a lot of money burnishing his own image. The entire time he owned Swifton Village, every newspaper advertisement specified that the official name of the complex was “Fred C. Trump’s New Swifton Village.” Trump ran advertisements touting his concern for the tenants’ welfare. One advertisement in the Cincinnati Post [25 August 1966] promised a lofty goal:

“Who’s this man Fred C. Trump anyhow? He’s head man of Swifton Village. He loves this place. He’s out here regularly overseeing all the improvements that will make our Swifton Village a veritable paradise of suburban living.”

Another advertisement in the Enquirer [27 August 1966] emphasized his personal touch:

“This man worries a lot. If you lived here, you might be getting a phone call from Mr. Trump. Sound strange? Well, that’s the way Mr. Trump works. Several times a week (in addition to his regular visits) he picks up the phone and makes a long distance call to a tenant in his Swifton Village Apartments. Just to check up and find out if they’re content. Are things being taken care of? Anything he can do to help make living in his apartments a bit more pleasant? He’s the kind of landlord who worries about you.”

As a couple of lawsuits revealed, Fred Trump reserved his worries for his white tenants. In 1969, according to testimony by Trump’s own lawyer, only two or three apartments out of 1,167 in the complex were occupied by Black families.

The Cincinnati lawsuit was filed on behalf of Haywood and Rennell Cash, a young couple living with relatives because they were unable to find an apartment. At Swifton Village, they were told there were no vacancies, but they suspected otherwise. They consulted with the Housing Opportunities Made Equal organization, who sent a white woman out to Swifton Village. She was immediately offered an apartment. When the H.O.M.E. shopper returned with the Cashes, the apartment manager threw all of them out of his office.

A New York case, filed in 1973, involved almost identical circumstances, including allegations that Fred Trump’s managers falsely claimed that no vacancies existed and required higher rents from Black applicants. The New York lawsuit itemized incidents of discrimination at more than 17 Trump properties in New York and Virginia.

As it turned out, Fred Trump had been accused of discriminatory rental practices for years. At one point, folksinger Woody Guthrie lived in one of Trump’s Brooklyn buildings and crafted a new verse for his song “I Ain’t Got No Home” as a protest against the policies that kept that complex exclusively white:

We all are crazy fools As long as race hate rules! No no no! Old Man Trump! Beach Haven ain’t my home!

Despite his advertisements professing love for Cincinnati and his tenants, Fred Trump dropped a few hints indicating he was on the fence about his investment here. He told the Enquirer [6 January 1965] that Cincinnati was “a real disappointment” because the market was “overbuilt.” He described Swifton Village as a “Mexican stand-off,” meaning he expected to do no better than break even on his investment and that the property would mostly function as a tax write-off.

In December 1972, Fred Trump sold Swifton Village to Prudent Real Estate Trust of New York for $6.75 million. He never again entered the Cincinnati real estate market. All of the original Swifton Village apartment buildings were demolished around twenty years ago to make room for a new housing development.

#fred trump #fred c. trump #swifton village #cincinnati housing

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wack-ashimself · 2 years ago

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Every business in capitalism is evil. Every last one, for the most part. Because none (not even on average. Like, 96%) of them are dedicated to ensuring that during every step of the process in manufacturing their product or service as intended, at its' core, to pay and treat everyone fair with whatever they put in, they get out. It's meant to help those at the top, statistically, logically, and historically. That's it.

So no matter where you work, your labor, indirectly, is always going to at least partially help bad people, and/or hurt innocent people*. They'll screw anyone and thing over for a dime: people who mine the resources, the drivers, the refiners, the regular workers, the customers, the quality of the product/service (to where it is dangerous), etc...

However, if the company/business/organization you work for knowingly funds hate groups, misinformation groups, groups that try to deny other people their freedoms, terrorists, or straight up STEAL ARTIFACTS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES AND THEIR CULTURES, your physical labor, DIRECTLY, leads to abuses of humanity. And you should at minimum know that you are doing it.

(at MINIMUM).

*and this includes small, even some out of home, businesses. Simply because: where do you get your supplies? Probably from ANOTHER company (or country) that is fucking over their workers, bad. Few (FEW) can say otherwise...(It IS still a business: you want to save money where you can, but, in doing so, you endorse countries or companies fucking their own people over for that savings...)

#hobbylobby #hobby lobby #racism #sexism #gayism #gayist #lgbqt #chik fil a #business #small business #small businesses #capitalism #capitalist

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starseedfxofficial · 1 day ago

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CPI, Central Banks, and Bond Markets' Tightrope Walk Choppy Waters for Bonds: CPI, Central Banks, and the Market's Next Moves The bond markets are a bit like trying to walk a tightrope while juggling—sometimes you keep it steady, but one misstep, and you're grasping at air. Today, it's the U.S. Treasuries (USTs), German Bunds, and British Gilts trying to find their balance, all influenced by key global events. US Treasuries: CPI Looms, Markets Brace U.S. Treasuries are showing signs of slight recovery, but let’s not get too excited just yet. Imagine buying something online and realizing you've selected the wrong size—that moment of "Oh no," is exactly what traders are feeling right now. Overnight, USTs took a tumble to 109-09 before recovering to a 109-17 peak. The culprit? A lackluster 30-year Japanese Government Bond (JGB) auction and higher-than-expected Japanese corporate goods prices. If this was a bad rom-com, you’d call it “When Japan Met USTs, and They Didn't Hit It Off.” What's keeping everyone on their toes today? CPI data—a potential game changer. Investors are waiting for those magic numbers to see if the Federal Reserve will tone down its hawkish stance or bring in more rate hikes. Inflation data could decide if we get to see an encore of last week’s market rally or a dive into murkier waters. If CPI sings a flat note, expect USTs to revisit Monday's highs around 110-07, but resistance at those levels is still pretty strong. Bunds: Can Scholz Move the Needle? Meanwhile, over in Europe, German Bunds are trying to make sense of a dull morning. After dipping to 131.62, they’ve been inching upwards but struggling to break above 132.00. Maybe they need some extra caffeine, or perhaps they’re just waiting for someone to make a move. Enter Olaf Scholz. Chancellor Scholz is about to address Germany later today, and there are whispers about a potential early confidence vote in December. Nothing like a bit of political drama to shake up an otherwise lackluster bond market! But let’s face it, as far as market excitement goes, this is more like watching the leaves change—not a dramatic show but still worth keeping an eye on. Gilts: Inflation’s Sticky Situation Now, let’s talk about Gilts. Imagine catching a train that’s running late, and instead of catching up, it gets delayed further. That’s pretty much what happened to British Gilts today. The BoE's hawkish Mann decided to remind us that inflation "definitely has not been vanquished." The outcome? Gilts slipped to a 93.19 base after opening lower following overnight UST movements. UK services inflation is "sticky," and traders reacted like they just heard someone refuse to pick up a dinner tab—a slight but unmistakable grumble. Adding more to the mix, the UK auction sold GBP 4 billion in 4.375% 2028 Gilts—it was well-received but didn’t really move the needle on price action. Not exactly the hero of our story today. Elsewhere: Italy and Germany Show Up for the Auctions In other bond news, Italy and Germany were both busy in the auction scene. Italy sold EUR 8.25 billion across multiple maturities, while Germany managed to sell EUR 3.35 billion Bunds—although falling short of expectations. Seems like everyone’s trying to shore up some cash, but traders, much like a cat watching its food bowl, are more interested in CPI data to really decide what comes next. What Does It All Mean for Forex Traders? For traders navigating these choppy waters, keep in mind that bond yields are not just boring government IOUs; they’re the signals of risk sentiment across the globe. With CPI looming and central bank tones shifting, volatility is to be expected. If you're positioning in the Forex market, watch how U.S. yields react to CPI—a higher-than-expected CPI could signal stronger USD, but don’t rule out a hawkish Fed creating risk-off sentiment and pushing JPY higher as a safe haven. On the European side, if Scholz comes out sounding conciliatory, it could inject some temporary strength in the EUR, while the British pound…well, it’s at the mercy of sticky inflation. It’s Not Just About the Bonds Remember, these market moments are not just numbers on a screen. They’re stories, each contributing to the bigger narrative of global finance. Whether you're day trading or looking for a long-term setup, understanding the nuances behind bond movements can be the difference between profiting off a trend or being that trader who accidentally bought the wrong-sized shoes online. So stay tuned, stay sharp, and keep learning. The market’s next big move could be just around the corner. —————– Image Credits: Cover image at the top is AI-generated Read the full article

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louismichaelprieto · 10 days ago

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Car Hauling Unpacked: Navigating the Rewards and Roadblocks in Vehicle Transport

Car hauling is an essential but often overlooked sector within the transportation industry, responsible for moving vehicles across long distances for dealerships, auctions, and private owners. This specialized profession requires a unique blend of skill, safety awareness, and adaptability. For those interested in entering this field, understanding the challenges and rewards can provide valuable perspectives on what to expect in vehicle transport.

The Physical and Technical Demands of Loading

Loading and securing vehicles is a physically demanding car-hauling aspect that requires skill and strength. Each car must be packed carefully to ensure stability during transport, as any shift in weight can make driving hazardous. This requires precise calculations and adjustments to keep the trailer balanced. In some cases, drivers must work with various vehicle types, each with unique requirements for loading and securing.

Beyond the physical demands, there’s a technical side to consider. Drivers must understand the mechanics of their trailers, the proper use of tie-downs, and the best methods for securing different vehicle models. A thorough knowledge of equipment and securement techniques can prevent vehicle damage, avoid costly repairs, and ensure that each transport meets safety standards.

Navigating Industry Regulations and Compliance

Car haulers face a maze of regulatory requirements designed to ensure road safety and environmental protection. Compliance with these rules is crucial, as violations can lead to hefty fines and legal issues. Car haulers must be aware of federal and state regulations concerning weight limits, hours of service, and vehicle inspection standards. Staying up-to-date on these rules requires continuous education and careful attention to detail.

Many haulers invest in compliance tools and software to track hours, monitor weight limits, and ensure all necessary documents are in order. However, unexpected delays—such as those caused by weather, traffic, or equipment malfunctions—can complicate compliance. Experienced drivers learn to build extra time into their schedules for unexpected events and stay flexible to adjust as needed, keeping both client satisfaction and regulatory compliance in balance.

Financial Opportunities in the Car Hauling Industry

Car hauling offers notable financial rewards for those willing to tackle the challenges. Drivers can earn competitive rates, especially on high-value or cross-country hauls. Rates vary based on factors such as the type of vehicle, transport distance, and urgency of the delivery. With experience, car haulers can develop a niche in specialty transport, such as classic or luxury cars, which often command higher fees due to the additional care and security required.

Additionally, there are opportunities to grow within the industry. Many car haulers eventually start their transport businesses, allowing them to control their schedules, take on multiple clients, and hire additional drivers. Drivers can build a solid client base by consistently delivering safe and timely services, leading to more substantial and steady income opportunities.

Building a Reliable Reputation

Reputation is vital in car hauling, where each successful delivery strengthens a driver’s credibility. Clients entrust haulers with valuable assets, so dependability and professionalism are paramount. By maintaining clear communication, meeting deadlines, and promptly addressing issues, drivers can establish themselves as reliable partners. This trust is often rewarded with repeat business and referrals, which are invaluable for long-term success.

Maintaining a good reputation also means investing in equipment upkeep. Keeping trucks and trailers and securing devices reduces the likelihood of breakdowns, ensuring clients’ vehicles remain protected throughout the journey. Drivers prioritizing safety and reliability can expect more consistent work and opportunities to build a loyal clientele.

The Freedom and Satisfaction of the Open Road

One of the unique benefits of car hauling is the freedom that comes with the job. Car haulers enjoy the independence of working on the road, navigating new routes, and experiencing various parts of the country. This career offers flexibility, with many haulers able to set their schedules or choose routes that fit their preferences. For those who enjoy driving and the adventure of travel, car hauling provides a unique way to earn a living.

The sense of accomplishment that comes with each successful delivery adds to the job's satisfaction. Whether navigating tough road conditions or transporting high-value vehicles safely, car haulers can take pride in a job well done. This mix of financial reward, independence, and personal fulfillment makes car hauling a gratifying career choice for those willing to meet its demands and develop the necessary skills.

Car hauling may be challenging, but it offers a blend of independence, financial opportunity, and personal satisfaction that appeals to many. For those prepared to navigate its unique roadblocks, this profession can be a fulfilling way to build a career in vehicle transport.

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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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Matt Stoller recently made the case that Google’s antitrust troubles mean that the company might be broken up. He is enthusiastic about the prospects for innovation if a shrunken Google were confined to a narrow market such as general search.

But he wonders whether our current institutions are up to the task of supervising such a radical restructuring of a tech giant. He notes that, “in a year, we might have three different judges overseeing antitrust consent decrees and/or break-ups over different parts of Google’s business.” He notes that Google has lost a case involving its app store, another on its search monopoly, and that it faces a third challenge from the Department of Justice on its ad tech business. It might be even more complicated than Stoller makes out, as another case against Google on ad tech, led by Texas and a group of state attorneys general, is set to begin in March 2025.

He asks the right questions: “Are those judges going to collaborate? What if they disagree? Will they de facto serve as regulators of Google going forward? What if they set up technical committees to carry out consent decrees? Wouldn’t these simply become an administrative state fostered by the judiciary? Such an institutional set-up could eventually become the basis for a new regulatory regime.” He doesn’t pursue these questions, perhaps because he thinks that a quest for a digital regulator in today’s legislative climate is hopelessly quixotic. But policymakers seeking to instill competition in technology markets might be disappointed in the results of antitrust efforts without a new regulatory structure. Regardless of who wins the upcoming presidential election, congressional leaders, public interest advocates, and tech industry companies and trade associations planning next year’s legislative agenda might want to revisit some of the antitrust proposals that were under consideration several years ago. They could possibly be tweaked to establish a regulatory regime that stands a better chance of establishing and maintaining competitive market structures in tech than the current administrative arrangements.

Antitrust challenges to Google in the U.S.

In December 2023, Google lost an app store antitrust case launched by Epic Games. A jury found that Google had “willfully acquired or maintained monopoly power” in the Android app distribution market. After concluding a series of hearings on the topic in August, Judge James Donato can now determine appropriate remedies. He seems prepared to “tear the barriers down” that prevent rival app stores from emerging to challenge Google’s stranglehold over Android app distribution.

In August of this year, Google lost a search monopoly case brought by the Department of Justice. In his decision, Federal District Court Judge Amit Mehta found that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly” in the general search services market. According to the decision, Google maintained its monopoly not by providing the best search engine, but by purchasing favorable positions on all the relevant distribution platforms through which consumers could access search engines, most notably through $20 billion in payments to Apple in 2022 for default positions on its Safari browsers. These exclusive contracts enabled Google to manipulate text ad auctions to raise prices for text ads without any meaningful competitive restraint. Judge Mehta has asked for comments by the end of the year from the Department of Justice and state attorneys general on remedies, and he plans to decide by August 2025.

A new case against Google, focused on ad tech markets, began in September 2024. The Department of Justice and several state attorneys general allege that Google uses its ownership of dominant companies in each sector of the ad tech infrastructure to thwart the development of competition and impose monopoly prices on online publishers and advertisers. Google owns a major provider of advertising services to publishers and another dominant company providing services on the other side of the market to advertisers. In addition, it controls the dominant marketplace where publishers and advertisers interact to determine prices for the ads that are displayed on websites.

In its separate complaint on the same issue, a group of state attorneys general said that this interlocking set of monopolies would never be tolerated in other markets: “Imagine if the financial markets are controlled by one monopoly company, say Goldman Sachs, and that company then owns the NYSE, which is the largest financial exchange, that then trades on that exchange to advantage itself, eliminate competition, and charge a monopoly tax on billions of daily transactions.”

Rather than attempt a behavioral remedy to protect ad tech competitors in each of these market segments, the Department of Justice asked the court to “order the divestiture” of Google’s publisher ad server, which it acquired from DoubleClick in 2008, and its dominant ad exchange, in addition to “any additional structural relief as needed to cure any anticompetitive harm.”

Types of remedies under current antitrust law

While most attention in antitrust cases is on the decision of whether a company violated antitrust laws, the real effect of these cases comes only with strong and effective remedies. Once a court has determined that a company has achieved or maintained a monopoly using unlawful means, it must then structure a remedy to instill competition into the monopolized market. Behavioral remedies are ongoing injunctions ordering the company to either avoid certain anticompetitive conduct or provide business customers or competitors with services they need to compete fairly. Meanwhile, structural remedies constrain corporate structure through measures like requiring separate subsidiaries or divestiture. They can also constrain corporate operations through line of business restrictions.

Behavioral remedies are unpopular because they are hard to enforce. They deal with day-to-day business operations, where the companies involved have an overwhelming information advantage. Any hope of enforcing business conduct constraints would require courts and antitrust agencies to assume an ongoing supervisory role, which they are ill-equipped to do.

While preferable in theory, structural remedies are rarely imposed. The most famous examples are long in the past and are separated from each other by 70 years. The Standard Oil Trust was broken up into geographically separate units in 1911. In 1982, a modified consent decree broke the unified Bell Telephone System into separate companies providing long distance service, local service, and telecommunications equipment manufacturing.

The remedies in the current Google cases

A wide range of remedies has been suggested to instill competition in Android app distribution, the general search market, and online ad tech. In its Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Union has imposed pro-competitive requirements on companies operating digital lines of business in which they both have a dominant position and act as intermediaries between businesses and consumers. To provide for contestability and fairness under the DMA, app stores, for instance, must allow their customers to use independent payment mechanisms and to obtain apps through rival app stores. The Open App Markets bill that passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2022 and was ready for floor action took a similar approach. But more might be needed. Former Biden administration official and antitrust scholar Tim Wu has suggested a divestiture in which Google would own neither the most popular web browser, Chrome, nor the Android operating system for mobile devices.

The separation of Google from both the Chrome web browser and the Android operating system would help promote app store competition. It would also open up competition in the general search market, since Google makes its own search engine the default in the most popular web browser. A new owner of the browser might make a different search engine the default or install a clear and conspicuous easy-to-use choice screen. To be effective, the divestiture of the browser would have to be accompanied by restrictions on buying access to popular distribution points. Otherwise, Google could simply restore the anticompetitive tie through contract with the new owner, as it did with Apple, rather than through internal administrative arrangements. In addition, it might still be worthwhile to mandate choice mechanisms to give rival search engines public exposure, even though Europe’s experience with these choice remedies suggests that they are ineffective by themselves when operated by a monopolist.

Divestiture is a natural remedy in the ad tech market, since the anticompetitive problems there stem from Google’s control of the infrastructure—ad buying services, ad selling services, and the exchange on which these transactions take place—and these lines of business are easily separable. But, once again, behavioral restrictions would be needed to prevent Google from recreating the anticompetitive arrangements by contract rather than through ownership.

One forward-looking remedy would be to require Google to provide free access to user data it has acquired, while doing business in its various markets. Despite potential privacy issues from this uncontrolled data sharing, this measure could jump-start competitive entry into search by undermining the network effects that allow the largest search engine to improve itself more rapidly than its smaller rivals. It could also ensure contestability in the emerging market for AI products, as companies other than Google would have access to these data for training large language models and other frontier AI systems.

The limits of antitrust remedies

While these remedies have been widely discussed, it is not clear that they can be implemented under current antitrust jurisprudence. One doctrinal limitation is that antitrust law, as currently conceived and practiced, countenances durable monopolies and does not, in general, find antitrust liability for a company that refuses to deal with competitors to preserve or even extend its entrenched monopoly position. One famous Supreme Court case upheld congressional authority to require a duty to deal with competitors in the telecommunications industry but rejected it as a general duty for monopolists under antitrust law. It even endorsed the lure of monopoly profits unconstrained by a duty to aid competitors as the engine of innovation, a theme that has become established in antitrust literature. In a 2021 decision involving the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) challenge to the alleged monopoly of Facebook (now Meta) in social media, a district court reaffirmed this rejection of antitrust liability for a monopolist’s refusal to deal with competitors.

These decisions display a deep suspicion on the part of antitrust courts of a general duty to deal and make it hard to imagine that remedies such as access to data or interoperability could be imposed by courts seeking to install competitive conditions in tech markets. Nevertheless, it is theoretically possible for a court to impose a duty to deal as a remedy once it has found liability for anticompetitive conduct, as discussed in detail by antitrust scholar Herbert Hovenkamp. Judge Mehta has already found Google liable for monopolizing the search market not by refusing to deal with competitors, but by buying up distribution outlets and manipulating text ad bidding markets. In principle, he could impose a duty to deal by requiring Google to share access to its search database as a remedy for this anticompetitive conduct.

But even if the courts were not limited in what remedies they could impose, they are ill-equipped to enforce the detailed structural and behavioral restrictions that would be necessary to jump-start and maintain competition. Without a large supervisory staff, how would a generalist court know if Google provided all its data to competitors? How would it also know whether Google had recreated anticompetitive arrangements through contracts? As I argued in an earlier commentary, creating conditions of contestability and fairness in the app market will inevitably involve extensive industry supervision and even price regulation—capacities that are beyond the institutional competence of generalist judges.

Nor is it possible to say that the antitrust agencies will do the supervisory work. If they are to fulfill their statutory mandate of protecting competition throughout the economy, these agencies must move on to other issues and industries once they have won their court cases. Moreover, even if they were inclined to perform this role, they do not have the institutional expertise to function as industry regulators over time. Invoking the possibility of a “technical committee” to do all the supervisory and enforcement work, as Matt Stoller did in his recent piece, is just handwaving. Would such a committee have the authority to examine books and records, without which it would be unable to play a supervisory role? Even if the presiding judge could grant such inspection powers to a committee, it could not be effective as an ad hoc temporary arrangement. Effective supervision would require substantial resources and long-term institutional commitment to do the job. These are not likely to be forthcoming outside the context of a regulatory agency.

Beyond these issues, there are administrative difficulties in having different courts supervising the same tech giant for compliance with different antitrust remedies. Tensions are possible, such as where a remedy to aid ad tech competition could solidify Google’s hold over search. Even if they could be crafted to emphasize synergies—for instance, by arranging a divestiture of Chrome and Android so that it benefits both app store competition and search competition—supervision would inevitably be splintered without an explicit, and unprecedented, cooperative arrangement among courts.

These difficulties of finding remedies for Google’s violations are not unique to the company: They are emblematic of the difficulties of establishing and maintaining competition in tech more broadly. In addition to Google, antitrust enforcers have brought cases against Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. In 2021, the FTC sued Facebook, alleging that its mergers with WhatsApp and Instagram, in addition to its anticompetitive conditions on software developers, allowed it to monopolize the social media market. In 2023, the FTC brought a case against Amazon, alleging that it had used anticompetitive methods to harm both consumers and merchants in its dominant online store. In 2024, the Department of Justice and a group of state attorneys general sued Apple for monopolizing the smart phone market through anticompetitive practices, such as by blocking the growth of apps that would have made switching phones easier.

Even if these cases result in victory for the antitrust agencies, they all leave the key questions of remedies to be resolved. Should there be divestiture? Line of business restrictions? Data sharing rules? Interoperability and access requirements?

The Bell breakup illustrates the role of a digital regulator

The breakup of the Bell Telephone System provides useful guidance on remedies for creating and maintaining a competitive market structure.

One lesson from this breakup is the need for both structural and behavioral remedies. The consent decree mandated not just a breakup, but also ongoing constraints and requirements. To ensure competitive equity, local telephone companies were required to give all long-distance companies access to their local distribution facilities under equal terms and conditions. And the spun-off local telephone companies were put under line of business restrictions that prevented them from doing anything other than providing local telephone service and local access service as regulated monopolies. For tech industries, the message is clear: Simply ordering a breakup of a tech giant and walking away is not sufficient.

Another lesson from the Bell System breakup is the need for regulatory supervision to maintain competitive conditions. The classical view was that regulation was an alternative to antitrust. For deregulatory czar Alfred Khan, who rejected regulation as the enemy of competition, “the antitrust laws are not just another form of regulation but an alternative to it—indeed, its very opposite.” The lesson from the telecommunications industry, however, is that efforts to promote competition work through regulation. Antitrust scholars Joseph Kearney and Thomas Merrill describe this reversal as the great transformation of regulated industries law. Tim Wu generalizes the approach beyond telecommunications, calling it “antitrust via rulemaking.” The key is that regulators are assigned the task not of preserving industry monopoly, but of implementing regulations designed to establish and maintain competitive conditions.

In 2024, the FTC used this “antitrust through rulemaking” approach through its now suspended noncompete rule, which would have banned companies throughout the economy from enforcing contracts that prevent former employees from working for different companies.

In the past, the Federal Communications Commission attempted to maintain competition through decades of managing the activity of the telecommunications companies it regulated. In 2003, for instance, it adopted a number portability rule that allowed people to take their old phone numbers with them when they switched carriers, thereby enhancing rivalry in the industry.

None of the methods of introducing competition and protecting dependent businesses in telecommunications were self-enforcing decisions that could be made once by an antitrust court and then never revisited: They were tools that had to be used on an ongoing basis through supervision of the industry. Even the consent decree that broke up the Bell System, which apparently relied on non-regulatory structural separation mandates and line of business restrictions, had to have ongoing court supervision which would have been impractical without the backdrop of a regulatory agency. As antitrust scholar Al Kramer put it, “[b]oth a sector-specific regulator and antitrust enforcers were needed” for telecommunications competition to be possible.

For policymakers looking for guidance on what to do about tech monopolies, the lesson is clear: A project to instill competition into the tech industry will need to rely on a strong role for an industry-specific regulatory agency. Thus, as a first order of business, they should create a sectoral regulator that can manage this process of seeking to introduce competition in tech industries.

The way forward in the next Congress

As a first step, that sectoral regulator will be the FTC. It is the only existing agency that has antitrust expertise and some experience in establishing and enforcing industry rules. The FTC certainly has consumer protection rulemaking authority under existing law and might have it for its antitrust mandate. This, in turn, might enable it to play an active role as a pro-competition rule maker.

However, it would be better, if possible, to solidify that authority through congressional action. In 2021 and 2022, bills establishing pro-competitive conditions, such as the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, all assigned implementation, rulemaking, and enforcement duties to the FTC. It is worth remembering that the Senate version of this bill had passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was ready for floor action and that the House version had passed out of the House Judiciary Committee, indicating broad congressional approval of granting the FTC this supervisory role.

As I argue in my book, “Regulating Digital Industries,” providing the FTC with these duties is not ideal. The FTC is essentially an economy-wide law enforcement agency, not a sectoral regulator. Eventually, its limitations would become clear, and Congress would have to transfer digital regulation to a new agency.

It would be better if Congress could move in a single step to a new agency with a pro-competition mission. In 2023, Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) introduced a bill to create a new Digital Platform Commission with the authority to promote digital competition and protect consumers from unjust and unreasonable practices. Later in 2023, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed a bill that would establish a new Digital Consumer Protection Commission to regulate digital platforms with respect to competition, transparency, privacy, and national security.

Either approach would overcome the doctrinal limitations in current antitrust law by empowering regulators to impose pro-competitive requirements even in the absence of demonstrable anticompetitive conduct, as is required under current law. The proposed regulators would do this by imposing rules for interoperability, non-discrimination, and access to data as necessary to foster and sustain competition, regardless of whether these measures are permitted under current antitrust law. These bills also provide for ongoing oversight and rule enforcement through agency supervision of the business practices of tech companies and the ability to issue injunctions to halt anticompetitive conduct that violates agency regulations.

As policymakers think about their tech agenda for next year, moving forward with legislation to instill competitive vigor into tech markets should be near the top of the list. The fate of competition in tech industries should not rest with generalist judges, no matter how well intentioned. Experienced regulators should take the lead in this vital task, and Congress should establish a regulatory agency to oversee the introduction and maintenance of tech industry competition.

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 2 years ago

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Brazil’s power distribution scenario

Brazil’s power distribution companies are facing a tense moment, as distributed generation (DG) capacity expands and consumers migrate to the free (non-regulated) market.

The scenario has worsened a power surplus hired in past auctions (legacy contracts) amid low electricity consumption growth levels.

Meanwhile, the decontracting of Eletrobras’ hydroelectric plants could further increase power supply in the regulated market – combined with the rapid increase of renewable generation capacity – at a time when short-term prices are low.

Additionally, several distribution concessions are about to expire, and uncertainties remain as long as the federal government does not publish the rules regarding the process.

Mines and energy minister Alexandre Silveira recently said the concession renewals should be conditioned on investments in service quality. Energy efficiency and services for low and medium voltage customers must improve in the distribution segment, according to Silveira.

Power utilities such as Light and Enel, in Rio de Janeiro, whose concessions expire in 2026, have registered high energy losses due to illegal connections, and the former faces financial hurdles – factors authorities consider in the renewal process.

The deadline for opening a public hearing on the rules is May 22, according to the mines and energy ministry (MME).

To learn more about the scenario, BNamericas talked to Marcos Madureira (pictured, left), president of distributors association Abradee; Alexei Vivan (center), partner at Schmidt Valois Advogados law firm and CEO of energy companies association ABCE; and Camila Santiago, partner at Villemor Amaral Advogados law firm.

#brazil #politics #brazilian politics #economy #energy #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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classicsubliminalbo · 1 month ago

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Psychology 4: An Offering

Originally published Nov 17, 2017 This series is a non-canon CYOA

What do you do?

Offer Madison

Offer Kelly

Offer a stranger

Fight it!

You've been at Carpenter State for a little over two weeks and here you are, already hypnotized and in the loyal service of a mistress. Congratulations! That's probably a record.

Mistress hands you the watch that she used to enslave you and gives you her first command: bring her another slave. What a pleasant surprise! Even though you've pledged your loyalty to Mistress Fielding, you haven't forgotten why you stopped by Fielding's office. Madison Wells, the reason you were interested in hypnosis to begin with. First you text her, but you get a dismissive, "New phone, who's this?"

But she isn't hard to find. You know that she's a Alpha Delta Theta pledge. The fraternities and sororities are all clumped together on a small web of streets a few blocks from central campus. You hardly seem to notice the hike as your mission to find a new slave drives you forward.

Alpha Delta Theta reside in an old, three-story mansion of certain notoriety. The mansion sat abandoned for over thirty years, burdened by a dark history. The mansion was constructed in the 1920s by wealthy businessman and important Carpenter State donor Horace Bellamy. Bellamy lived there for the next decade with his wife and five children. But deep in the winter of 1939, the neighbors woke up to the sound of the Bellamy family dog barking. The dog's cries continued into the early hours of the morning, and after a few complaints, a pair of cops arrived to find the Bellamies missing, their dog still tied up in the backyard. In the driveway sat their 1939 Ford sedan. In the house, a safe with $10,000 and a dinner table full of food. The Bellamy Rapture, as the papers coined it, was the talk of the state for several months, but even federal police couldn't find a trace of the Bellamy clan, and to this day the story remains unsolved. In the late forties the city of Romero auctioned off the mansion to a young dentist and his new wife. The couple only lived there for six months before they were gruesomely murdered in their bed. That case was quickly solved, but the circumstances remained eerie—a drifter passing through town had broken into the home, claiming that the mansion had spoken to him.

But you're new to Romero, and you don't really know anything about the local legends, do you? To you, the Alpha house is just a creepy old mansion. You don't know that after the murders, the house sat empty for thirty years while local kids dared each other to spend a night in its halls. You don't know that in the seventies, the Carpenter family dumped a fortune into local renovations to create the Greek neighborhood as students know it today. You don't know about the strange things that go on inside that mansion, like the mysterious phone calls, or how living there seems to have a way of changing people.

You don't know any of that, so you don't fret as you step up onto the porch and knock on the door. You hear a muffled, "get the fucking door!" on the other side, and a second later a beautiful red head opens up and she purses her lips. "Yeah?" she asks. "I must to speak to Madison," you say in a vaguely zombie-like cadence. Red doesn't seem amused, and she replies, "Never heard of her," before closing the door on your face.

Okay, maybe you're a little too slave-like. But, you don't really have anything better to do right now but follow Mistress' orders, so you take a seat on the porch swing and wait. Your mind is racing. Between thoughts of obedience, you try to remember what it's like to speak as a normal person. You mouth the words that you plan to say to Madison, and trying to make them sound as natural as possible. Being a slave is actually super hard if you can think about it.

You wait, and you wait, but you have no serious perception of time right now. The sun could fall, and rise, then fall again before you ever realized how long you were waiting for Madison. That's how powerful Fielding's control is over you, that's how much you want to complete her task. And finally, as the street lamps light up, you see Madison down the street. You rise from your seat as she walks up the steps and you say, "Madison Wells."

"Yeah, who wants to know?"

Your mind is hard at work trying to sound as not-brainwashed as possible. "We met at the party last week." "Oh," she said, slipping a strand of hair behind her ear. "I go to a lot of parties." It might actually hurt your feelings to know that Madison has forgotten you, but all you can think about is the mission. "You told me about the stage hypnotist," you add. "We talked about...practicing?"

"Oh, of course!" Madison offers a mischievous smile. "My little psychology major." You tell her your name. "Yeah," she says. "You've got something you want to show me?"

What do you do?

(A) Use the watch

(B) Take her to Dr. Fielding

#thedude11111 #subliminalbo's cyoa

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newsmarketreports · 2 months ago

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Comprehensive Analysis of the U.S. Telecom Operators Market

The U.S. telecom operators market is a dynamic and highly competitive sector, playing a pivotal role in the nation's digital infrastructure. With the increasing demand for high-speed internet, mobile connectivity, and digital services, telecom operators in the U.S. are continuously evolving to meet the needs of consumers and businesses alike. This article provides an in-depth analysis of the U.S. telecom operators market, exploring key trends, growth drivers, challenges, and future prospects.

Buy the full report to gain more information on the United States telecom services market forecastDownload a free sample

Key Market Trends

5G Rollout and Expansion

One of the most significant trends in the U.S. telecom market is the rapid rollout and expansion of 5G networks. Major telecom operators like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are leading the charge, investing billions in infrastructure to bring 5G to consumers and businesses across the country. The promise of faster speeds, lower latency, and the ability to connect more devices simultaneously makes 5G a game-changer for industries ranging from healthcare to entertainment. As 5G coverage continues to expand, it is expected to drive significant growth in the telecom sector.

Consolidation and Mergers

The U.S. telecom market has witnessed a wave of consolidations and mergers in recent years, as companies strive to enhance their market share and competitive edge. Notable examples include the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, which created a stronger competitor against AT&T and Verizon. These mergers are often driven by the need to pool resources, expand network capabilities, and offer more comprehensive service packages to customers. However, consolidation also raises concerns about reduced competition and potential impacts on pricing and service quality.

Shift Toward Digital and Cloud Services

As consumers and businesses increasingly rely on digital communication, telecom operators are shifting their focus toward digital and cloud-based services. This includes the provision of over-the-top (OTT) services, such as streaming platforms, as well as cloud-based solutions for businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend, with more companies seeking to support remote workforces and digital transformation initiatives. Telecom operators are capitalizing on this shift by offering bundled services that include cloud storage, cybersecurity, and digital collaboration tools.

Growth Drivers

Increasing Demand for Mobile Data

The demand for mobile data in the U.S. continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, driven by the proliferation of smartphones, streaming services, and social media platforms. Consumers are using more data than ever before, whether for streaming videos, playing online games, or connecting with others through social media. This increasing demand is pushing telecom operators to invest in network expansion and upgrade their infrastructure to accommodate higher data traffic, thereby fueling market growth.

Emergence of IoT and Smart Devices

The Internet of Things (IoT) and smart devices are becoming increasingly prevalent in both consumer and industrial applications. From smart home devices like thermostats and security cameras to industrial IoT solutions in manufacturing and logistics, the need for reliable and high-speed connectivity is more critical than ever. Telecom operators are positioning themselves to be at the forefront of the IoT revolution, offering tailored connectivity solutions that support the seamless integration of smart devices into everyday life.

Government Initiatives and Spectrum Auctions

The U.S. government plays a crucial role in the telecom market through initiatives that promote network expansion and innovation. Spectrum auctions, in particular, are a significant driver of growth, as they allow telecom operators to acquire the necessary bandwidth to expand their networks. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has conducted several high-profile spectrum auctions in recent years, enabling operators to secure the spectrum needed for 5G and other advanced services. These government initiatives are essential in ensuring that the U.S. telecom market remains competitive and capable of meeting future demands.

Challenges in the Market

High Infrastructure Costs

One of the primary challenges facing U.S. telecom operators is the high cost of infrastructure development. Building and maintaining extensive networks, especially for 5G, requires substantial capital investment. This includes the costs associated with acquiring spectrum, deploying new cell towers, and upgrading existing infrastructure. For smaller operators, these costs can be prohibitive, limiting their ability to compete with larger, more established players. As a result, infrastructure costs remain a significant barrier to entry and growth in the market.

Regulatory and Legal Challenges

The U.S. telecom market is heavily regulated, with operators subject to a complex web of federal, state, and local regulations. These regulations are designed to ensure fair competition, protect consumer rights, and promote network security. However, navigating this regulatory landscape can be challenging for telecom operators, particularly when it comes to issues like net neutrality, data privacy, and spectrum allocation. Legal challenges and regulatory compliance can also lead to delays in network deployment and additional operational costs.

Intense Competition

The U.S. telecom market is characterized by intense competition among the leading operators. While this competition drives innovation and benefits consumers through better services and pricing, it also puts pressure on operators to continuously innovate and differentiate themselves. Smaller operators often struggle to compete with the marketing budgets and network capabilities of the larger players, making it difficult to gain market share. This competitive environment can lead to price wars and margin pressures, challenging operators to maintain profitability.

Future Outlook

Expansion of 5G Use Cases

As 5G networks become more widespread, their applications will extend beyond mobile connectivity to include a wide range of use cases in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation. The low latency and high reliability of 5G will enable innovations such as autonomous vehicles, remote surgeries, and smart cities. Telecom operators that invest in these emerging use cases are likely to see significant growth opportunities, as they position themselves as key enablers of the next wave of technological advancements.

Adoption of Edge Computing

Edge computing is another technology that is expected to shape the future of the U.S. telecom market. By processing data closer to the source, edge computing reduces latency and improves the performance of applications that require real-time processing. Telecom operators are exploring ways to integrate edge computing with their 5G networks, offering enhanced services that cater to the needs of industries such as gaming, finance, and autonomous systems. The adoption of edge computing is set to unlock new revenue streams and create a competitive advantage for forward-thinking operators.

Focus on Sustainability and Green Initiatives

As environmental concerns gain prominence, telecom operators are increasingly focusing on sustainability and green initiatives. This includes efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, optimize energy consumption, and adopt eco-friendly practices in network operations. Consumers and investors are placing greater emphasis on corporate social responsibility, making sustainability a key differentiator in the market. Operators that prioritize green initiatives are likely to enhance their brand reputation and attract environmentally conscious customers.

Conclusion

The U.S. telecom operators market is poised for continued growth, driven by the expansion of 5G networks, increasing demand for mobile data, and the adoption of digital services. While the market faces challenges such as high infrastructure costs and intense competition, the future holds promising opportunities in areas like edge computing, IoT, and sustainability. Telecom operators that adapt to these trends and invest in innovation are well-positioned to thrive in this dynamic and evolving market.

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