We&#8217;ve been told by virtually every major media outlet that we are now in a soft landing, that inflation has started to decline, that the economy continues to sail along. 
But nobody is feeling like that.
This has been the big, perplexing question for Democrats. Why is it that the economy is so amazing, but nobody actually feels like the economy is so amazing?
One reason is that, contrary to popular opinion, we have not yet defeated inflation. Just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/inflation-march-cpi-report-interest-rate-239b7e5e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Stubborn inflation pressures persisted in March, derailing the case for the Federal Reserve to begin reducing interest rates in June and raising questions over whether it can deliver cuts this year without signs of an economic slowdown.
The consumer-price index, a measure of goods and services prices across the economy, rose 3.5% in March from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That was a touch higher than economists had forecast and a pickup from February’s 3.2%. So-called core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy categories, also rose more than expected on a monthly and annual basis.</blockquote>
This drove the stock market down roughly 500 points. It also meant that bond yields started to go up.
The bottom line is that inflation continues to run almost twice what it is supposed to be running. Year over year, the inflation rate is supposed to be about 2%, and it&#8217;s currently running at 3.5%. When that is added onto the giant inflationary bubble from 2021 and 2022, prices are up roughly 20% for most Americans.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1945-inflation-comes-in-hot-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
Joe Biden&#8217;s economy has not made up those wage losses. Politico is <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/10/inflation-report-interest-biden-00151488#:~:text=President%20Joe%20Biden%20has%20been,news%20is%20reaching%20its%20limits." target="_blank" rel="noopener">sounding the alarm</a>: 
<blockquote>President Joe Biden has been presiding over a good news economy for the past year, with strong growth, low unemployment and falling inflation. 
But that good news is reaching its limits. 
The cost of living rose faster than expected in March, with prices up 3.5 percent from a year ago, according to the latest consumer price index report. And that likely means that Biden will have to live with high interest rates well into an election year, with investor hopes fading fast for a Federal Reserve rate cut in June.</blockquote>
The Federal Reserve has kept those interest rates pretty high by at least the last ten years of standards. That means money is less easy. That means IPOs are less easy. Finding money to actually fund your start-up is less easy. Loans are not as easy to come by.
Typically, that presages some sort of economic slowdown; when interest rates are increased, inflation is supposed to come down — but markets are also supposed to be impacted. An interest rate increase is supposed to drive down prices. That&#8217;s the purpose of the interest rate increase: to drive down prices. And that usually comes along with an economic cooling.
But if the economy is super-heated, that does not happen, and we&#8217;ve poured so much money into the economy in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, that the economy doesn&#8217;t seem like it&#8217;s going to slow down anytime soon.
You can make the case that it used to be supply chain problems that had driven the prices to exorbitant highs, but the supply chain problems — even though they&#8217;re still there in places like the Red Sea — are not nearly what they were during the pandemic. Yet inflation rates are still clocking in far too high.
Even <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/10/economy/cpi-consumer-price-index-inflation-march/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN is admitting</a> inflation is moving in the wrong direction, noting the latest consumer price report shows prices up 3.5% over the same period last year. 
Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, previously predicted there would be a massive inflationary cycle after 2020. People laughed at him because we hadn&#8217;t had a massive inflationary cycle in the United States for 40 years. But he was right.
Everybody is feeling it. Consumers are not confident in their ability to make on-time debt payments because interest rates are so high; if you get behind on your bills, it is very difficult to repay all of that.
All of this is very bad for Biden. When a connection is made between a staggering economy with a completely atrocious foreign policy and a president who is no longer with us, that is a bad indicator for a reelection effort.

President Biden To Promote Student Loan ‘Plan B’ In Wisconsin College Town

Legacy Media Says Economy Is Doing Great. Americans Aren’t Buying It.

Ben Shapiro

Economy

finance

Inflation

Opinion

Readers Pass

Stock Market

Last week’s jobs report, combined with Wednesday’s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/cpi-report-today-inflation-stock-market-04-10-2024">inflation number</a>, shows that we are living in two economies. One, in which the macroeconomic, top line numbers, combined with the stock market points to a robust economy. The second, in which the microeconomic numbers point to Americans struggling to make ends meet.
The United States labor market added more than 300,000 <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/05/heres-where-the-jobs-are-for-march-2024-in-one-chart-in-one-chart.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jobs</a> in March, which on the surface is excellent news. Unfortunately, the top sectors for gains — health care, social assistance, government jobs, and leisure and hospitality — drove the growth, accounting for more than 60% of the gains for the month. 
Conservatives, of course, want the government to be shrinking in size, not growing.
Beneath the surface, the numbers spell bad news for working Americans.
The growth in employment came from part-time, not full-time jobs.
An additional 525,000 part-time jobs were added in <a href="https://pro.thestreet.com/market-commentary/theres-a-serious-catch-in-the-jobs-report-and-no-one-is-talking-about-it" target="_blank" rel="noopener">March</a> and full-time jobs decreased by 222,000, according to The Street.
The <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/immigrants-get-100000-new-jobs-one-month-1887354#:~:text=Diane%20Swonk%2C%20KPMG%27s%20chief%20economist,she%20said%20in%20a%20note." target="_blank" rel="noopener">growth</a> in employment is primarily being driven by foreign-born workers, who have filled more than 1.25 million jobs over the last two months while the number of newly employed native-born Americans only increased by 435,000 over the same time period. As The New York Post noted, this helps to explain why <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/05/business/us-employers-add-303k-jobs-in-march-unemployment-ticks-lower/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wages</a> increased at a modest 4.1% from a year ago, the smallest increase since June of 2021.
It is getting harder to make ends meet.
At the start of 2024, 8.7 million people were working <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/8-7-million-americans-now-193011733.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMdnvpG6jLSb5Ete-vfg-p37rW6obahlKfRMwpoebJ5JKHMbbX3YihV55W49tAb2huZGSKGbHCEyqQ2lBA6_TrVSbGdxxJXLmBleJ6l_k5iSJdNragzOV-lgdRcKxs7KeKLYo2AFzjoFeSGCLQvDYAqdBvEa9SdqyCSa2e4OE8MK" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiple</a> jobs in the United States, in order to fill their cars with gas and put food on the table. A report in USA Today found that at the start of 2024 there were 4.2 million people working <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/01/25/part-time-jobs-hit-record-high/72331112007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">part-time</a>, not by choice, but because their employers reduced hours or they could not find full-time work.
This combination of the growth in part-time work and depressed wages point to a weak job market, not a strong job market. The number of people working multiple jobs also artificially inflates the job numbers, as each job counts, not each person.
The rising tide of a “hot” jobs market and a soaring stock market is not lifting all boats. The <a href="https://www.morningstar.com/markets/is-stock-market-expensive-right-now" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stock market</a> rose nearly 8% in the first quarter of 2024 and is up more than 25% since its October 2023 lows, according to Morningstar.
However, there&#8217;s a marked increase in emergency 401(k) withdrawals, auto repossessions, and record numbers of people backing out of agreements to purchase a home.
Nearly 3.6% of workers who have a 401(k) <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">retirement</a> plan made a hardship withdrawal in 2023, a major increase from the 2.8% in 2022. The pre-pandemic average was 2%. The Federal Reserve <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bank</a> of New York reported that “the annual rate for car owners behind a month or more on their payments was 7.7%, the highest rate since 2010.” And in November 2023, nearly 17% of potential home buyers backed out of their agreement to purchase a home for which they had signed a contract.
Perhaps this explains why Americans are skipping meals to afford housing. A study from Redfin, as reported by <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CBS News</a> shows that half of homeowners and renters have had to make sacrifices to afford their mortgage or rent payment. Homeowners report selling belongings, working overtime, canceling vacations, taking on a second job, and skipping meals in order to make a mortgage payment.
The March 2024 <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Consumer Price Index</a>, the common measure of inflation, was at 3.5%, above expectations, driven by energy, food, and shelter; the basket of needs for all Americans. Core CPI, which excludes volatile variables such as fuel and food was at 3.8%. Both numbers were hotter than expected. 
Dow futures immediately <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dropped</a> over 500 points upon the release of March&#8217;s inflation numbers.
<a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cumulative</a> inflation since January 2021, when Joe Biden took office, is 18%, 6% per year — three times the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.
Working Americans do not care about The Fed’s inflation target, they care that, since Biden took office, it now takes nearly $120 to buy what $100 would buy you at the end of the Trump presidency.
Americans are also seeing <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inflation</a> at the pump, according to NerdWallet. Oil is at $85 per barrel, and the average regular gas price in the United States, as of April 5, was $3.582 per gallon, 22 cents higher than March’s average. The price of a gallon of gas has increased 49 cents since the start of 2024.
Commodity prices are rising, with <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gold</a> at record highs, signaling that people are bearish on the U.S. economy and the U.S. Dollar.
It is no wonder credit card <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debt</a> is at record highs, topping $1.13 trillion. Working Americans are not maxing out their credit cards in order to fly to Paris, pay for massages, or by that 75-inch TV. No, they are buying groceries, gas, and paying their utility bills, and paying nearly 25% <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interest</a> for the privilege of doing so.
More than 33% of Americans have more credit card <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals-surge-another-record-high-inflation-stings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debt</a> than emergency savings and 56 million Americans have been in credit card debt for at least a year.
Nearly one-third of residents in the country’s largest 100 metropolitan cities were behind on at least one debt payment in Q3 2023, and more than 25% had delinquencies of 90-days or more. 
Americans are working more part-time jobs, making less money, losing their cars, and unable to purchase a home. If they can afford a home, lunch becomes a forgotten meal.
Commodity prices are rising, gas is more expensive, and inflation is certainly not transitory. None of the indicators point towards an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve in 2024. In fact, one could argue that we need another quarter-point increase in rates.
Will the Fed play a political role and give Joe Biden the gift of interest rate cuts, or will the Fed fulfill its apolitical charter and guide the economy?

Shopping Trolley Growth

Inflation And The Two Sides Of The American Economy

Federal Reserve

Members of the public will be able to start purchasing shares of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>’s media company under the name “DJT” on Tuesday, giving the former president a major financial boost as he faces a slew of court cases and continues his 2024 White House campaign. 
The move comes after a merger was finalized between Digital World Acquisition (DWAC) and the Trump Media &amp; Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social. The merger <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-25/donald-trump-6-4-billion-net-worth-makes-him-one-of-world-s-richest-people" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> increases Trump’s net worth by over $4 billion and land him on Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the 500 wealthiest people in the world. 
Shares of DWAC <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=DWAC+shares&amp;client=safari&amp;sca_esv=f25fd1d09a6b1709&amp;channel=mac_bm&amp;source=hp&amp;ei=KuwBZt36BN_HkPIPi_qlsA8&amp;iflsig=ANes7DEAAAAAZgH6OmdX7SkH9nsbxTglaxjmltJlNurP&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjdt9SurZCFAxXfI0QIHQt9CfYQ4dUDCBY&amp;uact=5&amp;oq=DWAC+shares&amp;gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IgtEV0FDIHNoYXJlczILEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEyBRAAGIAEMgYQABgWGB4yCxAAGIAEGIoFGIYDMgsQABiABBiKBRiGA0jsAVAAWABwAHgAkAEAmAHSAaAB0gGqAQMyLTG4AQPIAQD4AQL4AQGYAgGgAtsBmAMAkgcDMi0xoAfcAw&amp;sclient=gws-wiz">were</a> just under $50 by late Monday afternoon, up about 186% since the start of the year. On Tuesday, the company will be traded under “DJT” on the Nasdaq stock exchange after merging with Trump Media. 
Bloomberg News <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-25/donald-trump-6-4-billion-net-worth-makes-him-one-of-world-s-richest-people" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> Trump controls about 58% of Trump Media shares and now has a total net worth reach about $6.4 billion. But CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/truth-social-owner-trump-media-will-begin-trading-under-djt-ticker-tuesday.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that the former president will have to sit on his shares for at least six months due to trading rules.
The rapid rise of DWAC shares has been in part attributed to Trump supporters who bought into the company in part to back the former president amid his 2024 campaign and legal battles. The media company is valued <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/business/trump-media-trading-tuesday.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">much higher</a> than the $3.3 million revenue that was reported for Truth Social from January to September 2023. 
The merger was finalized on Monday after months of negotiations with DWAC CEO Eric Swider to join Trump Media as director.
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“As a public company, we will passionately pursue our vision to build a movement to reclaim the Internet from Big Tech censors,” Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes said in a statement. “We will continue to fulfill our commitment to Americans to serve as a safe harbor for free expression and to stand up to the ever-growing army of speech suppressors.”
Members of the board of Trump media include Nunes, the former president&#8217;s son Donald Trump Jr., and former Trump administration officials including Kash Patel, Robert Lighthizer, and Linda McMahon.
The business news comes as a New York appeals court ruled on Monday that Trump can have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-scores-legal-win-as-new-york-appeals-court-allows-him-to-post-lower-bond-in-civil-fraud-judgment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an extra 10 days</a> to post a reduced $175 million bond as he challenges a $464 million civil fraud judgment against him, his sons, and his company.

Former President Donald Trump Surrenders To Fulton County Jail In Election Case

Trump’s Media Company To Go Public, Be Traded Under ‘DJT’ On Stock Market

Trump's Media Company To Go Public, Be Traded Under 'DJT' On Stock Market

2024 Election

Devin Nunes

Donald Trump

Truth Social, the social media company founded by former President Donald Trump, is set to go public as soon as next week after shareholders voted Friday to approve a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-could-make-billions-from-truth-social-stock-as-company-looks-to-go-public" target="_blank" rel="noopener">merger</a> with a shell company.
The merger means those who hold stock in Digital World Acquisition, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), will now be shareholders of Trump Media &amp; Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/business/trump-media-merger-truth-social.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. The deal will also provide Trump Media with more than $300 million, and the company will replace Digital World Acquisition on the stock market under the ticker DJT, Trump&#8217;s initials.
Based on Digital World Acquisition&#8217;s current price of nearly $42 a share, Trump Media will hit the market with a value of around $5 billion, meaning Trump&#8217;s 60% stake in the company will boost his net worth by more than $3 billion. Thanks to Trump supporters turning Digital World Acquisition into a “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/meme-stock-5206762" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meme stock,</a>” shares for the company have skyrocketed since January, moving up from around $17 to where it currently stands at around $42.
While the former president stands ready to make billions of dollars, the merger likely won&#8217;t result in an immediate windfall for him. The former president would have to hold his shares for six months before he could sell any of them unless Digital World Acquisition waives its agreement, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/15/truth-social-trump-merger-sec/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. But even if the agreement were waived, the potential of the company’s largest stockholder dumping his holdings could tank the stock price.
The Truth Social deal, which could provide Trump with an extra source of cash, comes before the Monday deadline set by Judge Arthur Engoron for Trump to post bond in the $454 million civil business fraud judgment against him. However, some remain skeptical about Trump’s chances to rake in billions from the deal even with the Trump Media&#8217;s current valuation of over $5 billion.
University of Florida Finance Professor Jay Ritter told the Post that the current value of the merged company doesn’t line up with the actual performance of the company, Trump Media. Ritter called Trump Media “a money-losing company that generates less than $5 million per year,” adding that Digital World Acquisition appears to be “a classic meme stock, whose price is totally unrelated to the underlying fundamentals.”
Over the first nine months of 2023, Trump Media reported a net loss of $49 million on $3.38 million in revenue, according to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/03/22/trump-truth-social-dwac-merger-public" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Axios</a>.
Earlier on Friday, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-he-has-nearly-500m-in-cash-as-bond-deadline-for-ny-civil-fraud-judgment-approaches" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on Truth Social that he now has $500 million cash on hand ahead of the Monday deadline to post bond for the $454 million judgment.
&#8220;Through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president,&#8221; Trump wrote. “The often overturned political hack judge on the rigged and corrupt A.G. case, where I have done nothing wrong, knew this, wanted to take it away from me, and that’s where and why he came up with the shocking number which, coupled with his crazy interest demand, is approximately $454,000,000. I did nothing wrong except win an election in 2016 that I wasn’t expected to win, did even better in 2020, and now lead, by a lot, in 2024. This is communism in America.”

Shareholders Approve Truth Social Merger; Trump’s Social Media Company To Go Public

Shareholders Approve Truth Social Merger; Trump's Social Media Company To Go Public

Social Media

Wall Street

With a $454 million civil fraud judgment looming over former President Donald Trump, the leading 2024 presidential candidate could be looking at a multi-billion-dollar windfall as his social media company, Truth Social, aims to go public.
Shareholders are expected to vote Friday on a merger to take the platform public, The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/trump-is-in-line-for-a-3-5-billion-windfall-from-his-stake-in-truth-social-eae58c9d?mod=hp_lead_pos5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. The social media company will likely merge with Digital World Acquisition, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which Truth Social could then replace on the stock market with the ticker DJT, Trump’s initials. Trump’s stake in the public company would be around 60%, or $3.5 billion at its current value.
Digital World Acquisition’s shares have skyrocketed since January, moving up from around $17 to more than $42, where it currently stands. The shell company has turned into a “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/meme-stock-5206762" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meme stock</a>” for Trump supporters, which has helped boost Truth Social’s value to $6 billion, according to WSJ. If shareholders approve the deal on Friday, the social media company could go public as soon as next week, but that wouldn’t result in an immediate windfall for Trump. The former president would have to hold his shares for six months before he could sell any of them unless Digital World Acquisition waives its agreement, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/15/truth-social-trump-merger-sec/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. But if the agreement were waived, the potential of the company&#8217;s largest stockholder dumping his holdings could tank the stock price.
Even with the current valuation of $6 billion, some remain skeptical about Trump’s chances to rake in billions. University of Florida Finance Professor Jay Ritter told the Post that the current value of the merged company doesn’t line up with the actual performance of the company, Trump Media.
Ritter called Trump Media “a money-losing company that generates less than $5 million per year,” adding that Digital World Acquisition appears to be “a classic meme stock, whose price is totally unrelated to the underlying fundamentals.”
Trump was fined last month by Judge Arthur Engoron, siding with New York Attorney General Letitia James who charged that the former president inflated his net worth and misled lenders. Engoron ordered Trump to dish up $350 million, which increased to $454 million, including interest. Trump’s co-defendants were also fined in the judgment, raising the combined amount that Trump and his fellow defendants owed to more than $464 million.
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The former president’s lawyers said earlier this week that securing bond for the massive fine is “a practical impossibility,” explaining that their client approached “about 30 surety companies through 4 different companies.” Attorney General James, a Democrat, has said that she will seize the former president’s properties if he cannot come up with the money to pay the fine.
The Wall Street Journal reported that it isn’t clear if insurers that would back Trump’s bond would accept shares of the merged company.

Trump Could Make Billions From Truth Social Stock As Company Looks To Go Public

Business

General

The following excerpt is taken from the new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pits-Rough-Tumble-Exchange/dp/B0CKPNCMQW">Life In The Pits: My Time As A Trader On The Rough-And-Tumble Exchange Floors</a>,&#8221; by Brad Schaeffer (Post Hill Press, December 2023)
<h2>The Big Dog And The Fox</h2>
You have to work pretty hard to lose almost $7 billion in a week. 
Brian Hunter managed to do just that. Although he was coldly indifferent to the devastation his activities had wrought, it was an agonizing experience for Amaranth’s remaining investors, such as county pension funds representing teachers and public servants and others far removed in both geography and understanding of what was happening to their quickly evaporating money. But, once again, as seems to be the mantra of the trading and brokering business, their pain was our gain. The day after Hunter flew back from a golf outing, for example, the hosting broker received a call calmly instructing him to sell tens of thousands of one-year-out strips of call options. And these phone calls and instant messages from Hunter and his assistants were going out all over the broker community. One broker was paid a million dollars in fees for one day’s work … somehow, even though the fund lost billions, they managed to scrape together the money to pay the commissions. 
As lucrative as it was to be a broker in the Big Dog’s pound, being one of the traders on the other side of Hunter’s epic collapse was a far better deal … if you had the deep pockets and diamond-hard testicles to stay the course in the face of his attempts to artificially squeeze you out of your fundamentally correct position in natural gas spreads and other derivatives by relentlessly buying and pushing the market up in your face until you were compelled by margin calls to turn the paper loss into a real one. This happened to one well-respected fund manager who got the trade right but entered just a little too big and a tad too early to withstand the paper losses he was incurring due to Hunter’s Banzai charge of nonstop buying, especially of the March/April spread, known in energy trading circles as “the widow-maker” for its propensity to gyrate wildly with the slightest weather events. Eventually the fund manager’s investors couldn’t take the heat and bailed on him, forcing him to buy back his shorts and lock in his losses in a liquidation to meet a wave of redemptions.
Down in Houston, John Arnold was also taking heavy paper losses as Hunter dug his own grave deeper and deeper by buying gas that no one with any fundamental understanding of the supply/demand dynamic in play would want anywhere close to these inflated prices once he stopped his artificial short squeeze. But Arnold had made his investors a mint already, and they’d learned to trust his judgment. So the ever-calm trader patiently waited for Hunter’s inevitable tumble from the mountaintop once he ran out of bullets and had to turn around and offload his position … to no one. When Amaranth initiated a fire sale of their non-energy positions just to meet Hunter’s rising margin calls, The Street knew there was blood in the water.
<div id="attachment_663539" style="width: 209px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-663539" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-663539 size-medium" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/Life-in-the-Pits-1-199x300.jpg" alt="Cover design: Cody Corcoran/Post Hill Press" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/Life-in-the-Pits-1-199x300.jpg 199w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/Life-in-the-Pits-1-381x576.jpg 381w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/Life-in-the-Pits-1-768x1161.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/Life-in-the-Pits-1-1016x1536.jpg 1016w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/Life-in-the-Pits-1-1355x2048.jpg 1355w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/Life-in-the-Pits-1-1360x2040.jpg 1360w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/12/Life-in-the-Pits-1.jpg 1399w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />Cover design: Cody Corcoran/Post Hill Press</div>
The besieged Canadian’s problems only worsened when on August 29, 2006, the expiration day of the September 2006 contract, he decided to make a huge play by selling more of the September futures and buying the October throughout the course of the day. Since he owned the more expensive leg, he was effectively long the September/October spread starting at 36 ticks October over. By noon, his selling of September and buying of October had pushed the spread to as wide as October trading 50 over September … meaning what Hunter was short (September) was falling more than what he was long (October). The trade was moving in his favor. Or, more correctly, he was muscling it his way.
Given the sheer size Hunter was trading, he inevitably widened the differential between the two months, which in turn prompted him to pay higher and higher prices to keep it moving in his favor. He was caught in a vicious cycle. Still, he figured that, as the September contract would expire in a few hours, he might just run out the clock before any correction occurred. By 1:30 p.m. that afternoon, the September futures had only one hour left until it expired and so its settlement price would be locked in place. Hunter could then sell out his long October position, which wasn’t set to expire for another month, and be flat, with a tidy profit. All would be well…at least for this day.
That’s when Arnold made his move. He sensed from the sudden slowing of trading activity that Hunter had run out of ammo and thus was no longer able to hold his September shorts down relative to the long Octobers to protect his massive bet. This was due to trading limits and the already enormous size of his other positions relative to his total capital. (In some months Amaranth held over half of the total amount of open interest on the exchanges…&#8221;open interest&#8221; meaning the number of contracts or commitments outstanding in futures and options that are trading on an official exchange at any one time.)
Arnold, however, had a deeper reservoir of money, along with a fundamental conviction, based on both weather forecasts and gas in storage going into the end of summer, that the spread should be closer to flat than October trading a full fifty cents over September. So once Hunter was done, with less than an hour to go before the contracts expired, Arnold swooped in and bought thousands of September futures … the very ones Hunter was short and needed to stay low into expiry. His quiver now empty, the Big Dog could only watch helplessly as his enemy — for he saw Arnold as his chief rival — pushed up the September contract in his face with a torrent of unrelenting buying. By the time the clock hit 2:30 p.m. and the September contract’s final settlement was posted, the spread, which had shown Hunter a hefty profit when it was trading at $0.50 to the October just forty-five minutes before, settled at a mere six cents. Arnold had crushed him.
This one episode cost Amaranth another $600 million. Hunter fumed, insisting that he was the victim of market manipulation. But no. He was just on the losing end of a battle he initiated. In short, his ego was now writing checks his dwindling account could no longer cash. The market knew that he was in a bind. And they had no interest in letting him out without a serious, even fatal, exit toll.
Finally, inevitably, with the March/April spread steadily collapsing in the face of a serene winter outlook, once again earning its ominous “widow-maker” sobriquet, with his losses in other overleveraged positions across the board mounting, it was time for Hunter to shut it all down and pay the piper. But his inventory of futures and options was so colossal that there was no way he could ever trade out of them piecemeal. The market would eat him alive. As such, Hunter’s last hope to offload his enormous portfolio that stretched out for years along the curve was to find someone willing to buy the entire decimated book in one trade. It was the only way Amaranth could raise the funds quickly enough to meet its multi-billion-dollar margin calls from anxious clearing firms. In desperation, Hunter went directly to the victorious Arnold—whose inventory of futures and options was the opposite of the defeated Canadian’s now-hemorrhaging natural gas book—and asked him to name a price to take it all off his hands. The bid Arnold showed was both reasonable and devastating. The taciturn Texan was telling Hunter in no uncertain terms that without his artificially moving the market where he wanted it to go, this was the true value of his depleted book. Take it or leave it. Hunter left it. 
As it turned out, another hedge fund, Citadel, and the energy trading group at J.P. Morgan took Amaranth’s losing positions onto their books for a slightly better price than Arnold had shown, if still at a crushing discount. The giant one-off transaction stopped the bleeding. But Amaranth, the once admired hedge fund whom their rogue trader had brought to its knees, was forced to shut its doors for good. There were at least no market repercussions as it was an orderly and contained unwind.
When the hedge fund/IB duo made its final price for buying what remained of Hunter’s demolished position to close out his trades in one massive asset transfer, the losing trader chafed at the great “deal” the buyers were getting at his expense. “Brian was right; it was a good deal for us,” said my Citadel client, who was one of the hedge fund’s chief traders assigned to take the book onto their balance sheet. But he reminded Hunter that “maybe you shouldn’t put yourself in a position to hold a fire sale to begin with.”
After grudgingly accepting the terms of the position transfer — thus locking in what was at the time the largest loss suffered by any single trader in Wall Street history — Hunter asked the Citadel trader with a hint of irritation at surrendering his massive portfolio that had defined him for two years: “You sure you can handle a book this size?” My customer, a math whiz, and as humbly brilliant as the man chafing on the other end of the phone was patronizing, was honest. “No,” he said, “I’ll just have to do my best.” And though he was above ever pointing it out, the irony of the question considering who’d asked it was self-evidently astounding. It certainly showed that even at the very end, after he’d destroyed a business that others worked years to build, and sent investors across the country reeling, he never lost his sense of who he was … the biggest monster trader to ever sling natural gas. He also was finished in the industry.
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As for John Arnold, who’d won the game of high-stakes chicken, Reuters reported that in 2006 his fund returned over 300 percent net of fees. He’s retired now and doing charitable work with his Matterhorn-sized pile of money. Well played.
Interesting side note. Although Hunter’s 2006 losses eclipsed the $4.6 billion lost by bond-trading guru John Meriweather’s hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998, which had been the most sizable nonfraud-related trading loss in history up to that point, astoundingly just two years later, the Big Dog himself would be dethroned as trading’s single biggest losing individual. This accomplishment was courtesy of a relatively unknown credit default swaps trader at the staid white shoe investment bank Morgan Stanley. Howie Hubler managed to sacrifice an astounding $9 billion to the gods of the market, albeit real quiet-like. To my knowledge, all of these men who had, as the phrase went, “blown up their books” managed to walk away from their debacles with tens of millions. Wall Street is one of the only businesses wherein over the course of your career you can be a net loser and still come out on top. I liken it to an architect who may have designed a house or two that stayed up nicely but then designed a skyscraper that came crashing down and still walked away from the rubble with millions. Nice work if you can get it.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader and author. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, National Review, The Federalist, The Hill, The Daily Wire, and Zerohedge among others. 
This excerpt is taken from &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pits-Rough-Tumble-Exchange/dp/B0CKPNCMQW">Life In The Pits: My Time As A Trader On The Rough-And-Tumble Exchange Floors</a>,&#8221; by Brad Schaeffer. Copyright © 2023 by Brad Schaefer. Reprinted by permission from Post Hill Press. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Traders waving arms on Exchange floor

You Have To Work Pretty Hard To Lose $7 Billion In A Week

Books

Chicago

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In 1990, when I was on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, Saddam Hussein sent his 300,000 man army across an invisible surveyor’s line to annex his oil-rich neighbor, Kuwait.
The thought of Saddam Hussein controlling Kuwait’s oil wells was unacceptable. So, President George H. W. Bush cobbled together an international coalition of military power not seen since Vietnam to expel the invaders. Within six months, the decimated Iraqi army was hightailing it out of Kuwait, leaving behind some 35,000 dead soldiers baking in the desert sun.
The coalition victory was heralded as a triumph.
I recount these events in my new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pits-Rough-Tumble-Exchange/dp/B0CKPNCMQW/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1701383926&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Life In The Pits: My Time as a Trader on the Rough and Tumble Exchange Floors</a>.” For me, watching them unfold in real time from the constant news feed scrolling across the digital chyrons that hovered over the chaotic Crude Oil trading rings, the question I wrestled with was, why did we care at all? It certainly couldn’t have been humanitarian concerns alone.
To be sure, Saddam was a terrible man. Yet, during the same time period the world had many other reasons to be outraged, but we were focused on Kuwait. Why?
The answer was as simple then as it is now: The reason the plight of a tiny, wealthy emirate on the Persian Gulf mattered to the point of mobilizing the world to protect it was that Kuwait had oil.
The quest for oil as a catalyst to global upheaval is nothing new.
Why did mighty Japan gamble on going to war with the U.S.? Answer: Oil. For Japan, a nation that imported 90% of its energy, the U.S.-led oil embargo in protest of Dai Nippon’s brutality in China was crippling. Thus the need to strike south into the oil-rich Dutch East Indies to secure their dwindling energy reserves. To accomplish this, the Imperial Navy tried neutralizing its greatest threat to Japanese expansion: the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Four years later, her cities were smoldering ruins, her navy at the bottom of the sea, and U.S. warships were anchored in Tokyo Bay.
Why did Hitler send his Sixth Army surging into southern Russia one year after Pearl Harbor? He wanted to seize the oil fields of the Caucuses. Instead, he watched in a helpless rage as his largest formation in the Wehrmacht was surrounded inside the ruined city of Stalingrad and wiped off the face of the frozen steppe. After Stalingrad, Hitler’s Third Reich was doomed. Once again, the lack of energy independence led to a nation’s ultimate destruction.
And China’s current <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/schaeffer-watch-out-for-china-and-what-theyre-doing-in-africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">economic outreach</a> in Africa is a scheme to grab the energy resources they do not have within their borders.
Indeed, the epicenter of so many modern conflicts, and a source of constant tension and strife to this day, is the global scramble to secure energy.
Which brings us to the continued importance of the Middle East. The reason America remains so involved in a region that a century ago was barely on our radar — and into which we pour tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars each year — is because of the black sludge beneath the Arabian desert and Iranian hills.
We see Putin’s undue influence over powerful NATO members like Germany stemming from Russia being the source of so much natural gas to the E.U., without which they would be plunged into a cold dark winter. And so it goes. Those who have their hands on the crude oil and natural gas spigots exercise disproportionate influence over the world.
With friendly energy producers along both borders, and the oceans as a buffer, the United States is better positioned than any other country on earth to achieve not just energy independence but total self-sufficiency. When that happens, entire priorities regarding foreign affairs will be upended in favor of the interests of the American people over those seeking perpetual war, living under the jackboots of authoritarian regimes.
Regardless of short-term environmental impact, the quest for sustainable energy self-sufficiency should be the goal of any administration or political party that claims to have the interests of the citizenry at heart. This means building new refineries better suited to the new grades of crude coming from the shale revolution. We currently export this sweeter grade and must import a lot of the sour crude.
As I see it, being truly energy independent is more than just importing less than we export. It means not needing to import any at all. With Canada and Mexico sitting atop 174 billion barrels of crude and 88.4 TCF of natural gas, North America need never import another gallon or MMBtu again.
Thanks to the shale boom which began in earnest in the early 2000s, by 2019 the U.S. actually produced more energy than it consumed for the first time since the 1940s. By 2022, even more so, with the U.S. producing 2.5% more than it consumed. This is no fairy tale vision. We simply need the political will to sustain it. 
Shale has provided the keys to unshackle our chains tying us to the Middle East, a region that allegedly prefers we not be there at all. Fine with me. Perhaps we would be better served with our military patrolling the Rio Grande and Gulf of Mexico rather than the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf.
As with so many terror attacks, Hamas’ brutality in Israel — which should repulse all civilized people without any qualifiers — was financed by money gushing from oil-dependent nations to Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and, of course, Iran. In Ukraine, Putin’s military is funded by money flowing through his natural gas pipelines into the E.U.
Speaking before the U.N. in 2018, President Trump warned the Western powers, Germany in particular, of the dangers of dependency on energy courtesy of a potentially hostile foreign power, such as Putin’s Russia. The German diplomats literally laughed at his concerns. They are not laughing now.
The first Gulf War should have been a wake-up call to the U.S. It should have prompted us to embark on a program of complete energy self-sufficiency, so that the plight of ungrateful, duplicitous oil sheiks, maniacal dictators, and fanatical mullahs waging their oil-funded proxy wars against the West should have no influence over our own national security and foreign policy. Iraq. Afghanistan. Iran. All are flashpoints that continue to steer our nation’s inept foreign policy, while dragging us into one quagmire after another, mostly due to our drive to secure commodities of which we have more than we need literally right under our feet. 
The U.S. has been given the gift of nearly 70 billion barrels in proven oil reserves as well as 368 TCF of natural gas. These are resources in abundance the other great powers, save Russia, do not have.
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If a young clerk on the floor of a hectic commodities exchange three decades ago could have the clarity to see our way out of these horrible wars in the Middle East, what prevents us from moving forward now when we are far better positioned to make my pipe dream a reality? One must ask. Had the U.S. never been dependent on foreign oil, would we have needed to ever be involved in one Mideast disaster after another? How much better would our lives be, and the state of this nation, were we to slip free of the yoke of energy dependence?
In time, technology will make green solutions a reality. But until that happens, we must do what is best for the U.S. As history has shown, at least before oil became a factor, what is best for the U.S. ultimately is best for the world. And certainly best for the average American who should never again salute a flag-draped coffin, courtesy of the latest unnecessary war in a far-off land that, but for oil, we should have little use for in the first place.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader and author. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, National Review, The Federalist, The Hill, The Daily Wire, and Zerohedge among others. His newest book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Pits-Rough-Tumble-Exchange/dp/B0CKPNCMQW/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1701383926&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Life In The Pits: MyTime As A Trader On The Rough-And-Tumble Exchange Floors</a> is now on sale everywhere. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Oil well in Oman.

Foreign Oil And The Global Scramble To Secure Energy

Energy

Iran

Middle East

Oil and Gas

Russia

U.S. Military

Target revealed this week that it has reaped the rewards of its Pride Month collection with a dismal quarterly report that showed the company&#8217;s sales falling for the first time in six years.
Target’s quarterly sales sank 5.4% in the second quarter, which ended July 29, compared to the same period last year, the company said in its second quarter earnings <a href="https://corporate.target.com/press/releases/2023/08/Target-Corporation-Reports-Second-Quarter-Earnings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>, released on Wednesday.
The depressing result is that Target has now lowered both its overall sales and profit expectations for the whole year, admitting the cause is “recent sales trends,” which were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/16/investing/target-stock-earnings/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">impacted</a> by the “strong reaction to this year’s Pride assortment.”
The rest of the data doesn&#8217;t look great either. Online sales fell 10.5%. The number of transactions and the average dollar amount of a transaction also dropped. Meanwhile, Target’s total revenue of $24.8 billion was 4.9% lower than last year.
The Minneapolis-based retail behemoth&#8217;s travails are a sobering reminder to other major companies that not everyone is on board with an LGBT agenda being shoved down their throats when they are trying to pick up milk or buy their kids new shoes.
Back in May, Target faced backlash over its “Pride” collection, which <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-target-lgbtq-1203e875adcc7c86f62252d4ace1a738" target="_blank" rel="noopener">included</a> a kids swimsuit with a tag reading “thoughtfully fit on multiple body types and gender expressions.”
Also featured were LGBT-themed books aimed at young <a href="https://www.target.com/p/the-pronoun-book-by-chris-ayala-kronos-board-book/-/A-83978505" target="_blank" rel="noopener">children,</a> <a href="https://www.target.com/p/bye-bye-binary-by-eric-geron-board-book/-/A-84212143" target="_blank" rel="noopener">such as</a> “The Pronoun Book” and “Bye Bye Binary,” a story about a “joyful baby” who “refuses to conform to the gender binary and instead chooses toys, colors, and clothes that make them happy.”
Target offered an adult “Pride” collection as well, which <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-target-lgbtq-1203e875adcc7c86f62252d4ace1a738" target="_blank" rel="noopener">included</a> “tuck-friendly” swimsuits for men who identify as women to tuck their genitals, a t-shirt with the words “Queer Queer Queer Queer,” and a hoodie reading “Not A Phase.”
The discovery that the designer of some of Target&#8217;s “Pride” collection items has also apparently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/target-faces-backlash-over-pride-collection-designer-behind-satan-respects-pronouns-shirts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">created</a> products with Satanic imagery sent customers over the edge.
Customers quickly demanded a boycott, causing Target&#8217;s stock price to fall <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/14/target-shareholder-lawsuit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nearly 20%</a>. It has not recovered.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1790-conservatives-can-win-and-target-s-earnings-prove-it-member-exclusive">WATCH: Ben Shapiro: &#8220;Conservatives CAN Win, and Target&#8217;s Earnings Prove It&#8221;</a></h4>
Eventually, Target <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/24/target-lgbtq-clothing-controversy-boycott/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pulled</a> some of its “Pride” merchandise threats to employees’ safety and moved “Pride” displays to the back of some of its stores.
On Wednesday, Target came right out and admitted that the &#8220;Pride&#8221; collection was a significant negative for the company.
“Traffic and top line trends were affected by the reaction to our Pride assortment,” Target’s CFO Michael Fiddelke <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/08/17/walmart-profits-soar-as-target-takes-hit-over-woke-items/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in an earnings call after the second quarter report was released.
The Pride collection prompted a “negative guest reaction,” CEO Brian Cornell admitted.
However, &#8220;Pride&#8221; is also not Target&#8217;s sole trouble, Cornell said.
Target is also battling an “unacceptable amount” of retail theft, including organized retail crime, that has become increasingly violent and dangerous for workers, according to the company&#8217;s CEO.
Store theft that included “violence or threats of violence” surged 120% during the first five months of the year, Target&#8217;s CEO said.
Organized retail theft has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/san-francisco-stores-are-taking-extreme-security-measures-to-fight-petty-theft" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spiked</a> in cities around the country, with videos from some of the incidents showing hooded figures in dark clothes darting in and out of stores with merchandise, often expensive luxury items.
Critics <a href="https://www.foxla.com/news/zero-cash-bail-blame-brazen-smash-grab-robberies-la-police-union-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blame</a> progressive prosecutors who they say allow criminals to get off without serious consequences, if they face consequences at all.
Inflation is also contributing to Target&#8217;s woes, the company <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/16/target-tgt-earnings-q2-2023.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, with shoppers buying fewer nonessentials like clothing and home decor, opting instead to save their money for food and bills.
Target saw a huge bounce in sales during the pandemic with stock prices <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TGT/target/stock-price-history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">peaking</a> in November 2021, but the company has struggled to maintain that momentum, and the &#8220;Pride&#8221; collection certainly did not help.
Of course, Target is not the only company suffering from &#8220;Pride&#8221; backlash this year.
The brand with the most LGBT woes is probably Bud Light, which faced a massive boycott this year over the company’s partnership with trans-identifying influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch has lost about $395 million in U.S. sales since the boycott. Bud Light has also been bumped out of its spot as the nation’s top-selling beer by Modelo.
Meanwhile, however, other retailers soared in their second quarter sales.
Walmart&#8217;s store sales jumped 6.4% in the second quarter, well above the 4% experts expected, the company <a href="https://corporate.walmart.com/media-library/document/q2-fy24-earnings-release/_proxyDocument?id=0000018a-0045-d2a1-a1ab-ddc7cb770000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Thursday. E-commerce spiked a whopping 24%, mostly thanks to pickup and delivery orders.
Walmart has now raised its annual profit forecast for the second straight quarter after the positive second quarter report this week.
This week, Target concluded that the &#8220;Pride&#8221; backlash is a &#8220;signal for us to pause, adapt and learn.&#8221;
So far, the company appears to be taking that signal seriously. Target <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/16/investing/target-stock-earnings/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plans</a> to make some changes to its “Pride” collection, which could include changing the timing of the products, the placement in stores, and which brands are for sale.
Next year, Target and other companies could potentially opt for more muted &#8220;Pride&#8221; celebration to protect their bottom lines, given the fed up message many of their customers sent them this year.
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In this photo illustration, the American retail corporation

Target Veers Off Target, Reaps Rewards Of Pride Collection

Bud Light

LGBT

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Energy Secretary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/jennifer-granholm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jennifer Granholm</a> disclosed this week that she had owned individual stocks, contradicting previous testimony from the Biden administration official.
Granholm said in a Friday letter that she discovered last month that she owned individual stocks, contrary to <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/granholm-contradicts-testimony-reveals-she-did-own-stocks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">what she testified</a> on April 20. In the letter, she told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the individual stocks she had owned were “non-conflicting,” but that she had divested from them last month to match her testimony.
&#8220;I mistakenly told the Committee that I did not own any individual stocks, whereas I should have said that I did not own any conflicting stocks. In order to make my financial holdings consistent with my testimony, on May 18, 2023, I divested my remaining stock holdings which consisted of stock in six companies, even though these assets were deemed non-conflicting,” she <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-energy-secretary-granholm-admits-false-testimony-owning-stocks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
Granholm said that her husband had owned $2,457.89 worth of shares in Ford, something she also said she did not know. The Ford shares were subsequently sold off.
&#8220;As a public servant, I take very seriously the commitment to hold myself to the highest ethical standards, and I regret the accidental omission of my spouse’s interest in Ford,&#8221; she added. &#8220;This is a commitment I made to you, the President, and most importantly the American people.&#8221;
The letter says that she owned stock in six individual companies, something she had not previously told lawmakers. She said that specific companies will be detailed in a later filing this month.
&#8220;My spouse and I have double-checked our financial assets, and there are no other reportable assets that were omitted from my financial disclosure report,&#8221;  she said.
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Her disclosure was criticized by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), who is on the Senate Energy Committee.
“Secretary Granholm lied to the committee about her family’s stock holdings,&#8221; Barrasso told Fox News. &#8220;This comes after her failure to follow basic ethics and disclosure rules. This is a troubling pattern. It is unacceptable.&#8221;
Granholm has come under fire for her stocks in the past, with <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/20/energy-secretary-jennifer-granholm-violated-stock-disclosure-law-9-times.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNBC reporting</a> in January 2022 that she had violated a stock disclosure law nine times in 2021. The reported violations included stock sales that were not disclosed within the 45-day time period required.
The stock trading of government officials has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, with some lawmakers looking to prohibit elected lawmakers from being able to buy and sell individual stocks.

Energy Secretary Granholm Raises Pride Flag At Department Headquarters

Biden Energy Secretary Admits She Owned Individual Stocks, Contradicting Previous Testimony

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Jennifer Granholm

U.S.

<a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/target" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Target</a> witnessed a $6 billion decrease in the retail behemoth’s market <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/stock-market" target="_blank" rel="noopener">capitalization</a> amid consumer backlash over a designer featured in the company’s most recent “Pride Month” collection who appears to have created products with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/satanic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Satanic</a> imagery.
The company’s stock price has declined from $152.28 on May 19, the day before activist Scarlett Johnson posted a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/target-faces-backlash-over-pride-collection-designer-behind-satan-respects-pronouns-shirts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thread</a> showing that Target had hired the artist to design items for the store, to $139.39 on May 25, marking an 8.5% decrease over the course of a single week. The firm’s market capitalization, which refers to the total value of a publicly traded company&#8217;s outstanding shares, fell from $70.4 billion to $64.4 billion over the same time period.
Abprallen, the artist hired by Target to create the controversial items, had designed a mini messenger bag with the slogan “We Belong Everywhere,” a tote bag with the phrase “Too Queer For Here,” and a sweatshirt emblazoned with “Cure Transphobia, Not Trans People” for the nationwide retailer. Other products featured on the artist’s website, which were not sold by Target, included a T-shirt with the phrase “Satan Respects Pronouns” and a design of a skeleton draped in rainbow colors that said “Trans Witches For Abortion.”
“Satanists don’t actually believe in Satan, he is merely used as a symbol of passion, pride, and liberty,” the artist said on his <a href="https://www.abprallen.co.uk/product/satan-respects-pronouns-tee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, which now appears to be temporarily shuttered. “He means to you what you need him to mean. So for me, Satan is hope, compassion, equality, and love. So, naturally, Satan respects pronouns. He loves all LGBT+ people.”
Target provoked additional controversy with a female swimsuit <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/target-slammed-after-offering-female-swimsuits-that-have-extra-crotch-coverage-are-tuck-friendly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">marketed</a> as “tuck-friendly” and “extra crotch coverage,” permitting men who call themselves women to wear the items. Beyond the swimsuit, which only came in adult sizes, Target unveiled products for kids and babies, such as onesies and small shirts with phrases like “Just Be You And Feel The Love,” as well as rainbow-colored leggings, tutu skirts, jumpers, and a variety of children’s books.
The company made <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bud-light-situation-target-makes-emergency-calls-after-backlash-to-tuck-friendly-female-swimwear-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">calls</a> to managers and senior directors last week amid the backlash, reportedly telling the employees to make their “Pride Month” displays less prominent for fear of provoking another “Bud Light situation,” a reference to the beer brand’s plummeting sales. Conservative customers have decreased purchases of the brew in the weeks after a marketing campaign that featured self-identified transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
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Data now <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bud-light-sales-plummet-for-fifth-straight-week-as-customers-react-against-mulvaney-partnership" target="_blank" rel="noopener">indicate</a> that sales for Bud Light plummeted nearly 24% in the week ended May 6 relative to the same period last year, while other brands from Anheuser-Busch suffered to a lesser extent. The company now seems to have alienated those on both ends of the political spectrum: owners of gay bars have threatened to launch <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/left-wing-activists-furious-at-bud-light-for-backing-away-from-mulvaney-call-for-a-boycott-of-their-own" target="_blank" rel="noopener">boycotts</a> after the firm issued a lackluster attempt to back away from Mulvaney and appease conservatives.
Target has meanwhile <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gavin-newsom-blasts-target-ceo-for-selling-out-lgbtq-community-after-retailer-pulls-trans-themed-merchandise" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pulled</a> the items designed by Abprallen as a result of the backlash. “Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” the firm said in a statement. “Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”

Target Pride

Target’s Stock Market Value Takes $6 Billion Hit Since Backlash Over ‘Pride’ Collection

Target’s Stock Market Value Takes $6 Billion Hit Amid Customer Backlash

satanic

Social Issues

Wokeness

<a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/climate-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Climate</a> activists in London attempted to rush the stage at the annual <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/stock-market" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shareholder</a> meeting for Shell, contending that the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/united-kingdom" target="_blank" rel="noopener">British</a> oil and gas behemoth is complicit in rising global temperatures.
Fossil Free London posted chaotic footage on Tuesday of protesters disrupting the meeting as security prevented them from climbing onto the stage. Some 100 individuals from organizations such as Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion chanted “Go to hell, Shell” and participated in rallies against the firm, according to a <a href="https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/05/23/go-to-hell-shell-activists-crash-oil-giants-agm-as-shareholders-call-out-climate-inaction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from Euronews.
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UPDATE: Climate protesters attempt to storm the stage of Shell AGM!!!
As Shell continues to cause climate chaos, we will continue to do everything in our power to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ShutDownShell?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ShutDownShell</a> <a href="https://t.co/yl2tJlZXUD">pic.twitter.com/yl2tJlZXUD</a>
&mdash; Fossil Free London (@fossilfreeLDN) <a href="https://twitter.com/fossilfreeLDN/status/1660952456291921920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 23, 2023</a></blockquote>
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The protesters delayed the meeting for more than an hour as the various planned disruptions continued to unfold, according to another <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/go-to-hell-shell-and-dont-you-come-back-no-more" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from Morning Star. Shell said in a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65609795" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> to the BBC that the activists were not “interested in constructive engagement&#8221; and noted that the firm has already committed to net zero emissions by 2050.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
BREAKING: Chaos at Shell AGM as climate protesters sing ‘Go to Hell, Shell’!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ShutDownShell?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ShutDownShell</a> <a href="https://t.co/wkFK8LmpGs">pic.twitter.com/wkFK8LmpGs</a>
&mdash; Fossil Free London (@fossilfreeLDN) <a href="https://twitter.com/fossilfreeLDN/status/1660946722082660353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 23, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Individuals associated with Extinction Rebellion have been known to vandalize public monuments and artwork to draw attention to climate change. Activists <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/climate-change-protesters-target-wall-street-pour-blood-over-charging-bull" target="_blank" rel="noopener">poured</a> fake blood on the charging bull statue on Wall Street four years ago, covering themselves with the material and laying on the ground while pretending to be dead.
Activists meanwhile pressured the company to adopt various climate resolutions. Follow This, a network of green shareholders in publicly traded firms, introduced one <a href="https://www.follow-this.org/one-fifth-shell-shareholders-demand-emissions-reductions-paris-voting-for-follow-this-climate-resolution/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">measure</a> that would have decreased emissions by 2030 but failed as only 20% of shareholders voted in favor of the move.
“We have made it easy for investors to use the power of their votes, but many investors have yet to decouple short-term profits from long-term risks for the company and their portfolios,” Mark van Baal, the founder of the network, said in a <a href="https://www.follow-this.org/one-fifth-shell-shareholders-demand-emissions-reductions-paris-voting-for-follow-this-climate-resolution/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>.
The resolution was endorsed by Climate Action 100+, an alliance of asset managers <a href="https://www.climateaction100.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">committed</a> to ensuring that “the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.” BlackRock and State Street, which <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blackrock-executive-grilled-by-texas-lawmakers-over-esg-and-climate-agendas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pressure</a> their respective portfolio companies to adopt various climate initiatives, are members of the alliance.
Many shareholder resolutions at Shell and other publicly traded companies this year have centered on advancing the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, also known as ESG, an investment philosophy that calls for the use of corporate power to promote social agendas in a manner which critics say distracts from the maximization of profits. Shareholders of investment and insurance conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, for instance, overwhelmingly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/berkshire-hathaway-shareholders-overwhelmingly-shoot-down-climate-and-diversity-proposals" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rejected</a> similar climate proposals at an annual meeting earlier this month.
ESG funds saw considerable <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/virtue-signaling-isnt-free-how-woke-investing-fell-apart-once-the-economy-got-bad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">losses</a> amid last year’s underperformance among technology firms, which ESG investors tend to favor because of their emphasis on corporate social responsibility, and overperformance among energy companies, which ESG managers tend to oppose because of their dislike for industries with heavy carbon emissions.
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Opponents of a managed transition toward renewable energy have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wall-street-journal-blasts-joe-biden-john-kerry-for-pushing-self-destructive-green-energy-policies-while-china-burns-more-coal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">observed</a> that increased carbon emissions from China, as well as India and developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, are outpacing emissions declines in the West. China was responsible for 26.1% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions as of 2018, according to <a href="https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the International Energy Agency, surpassing the 13.4% of worldwide emissions produced by the United States and the 7.6% of worldwide emissions produced by members of the European Union.

Climate Protests Outside Shell Annual Meeting

‘Go To Hell, Shell’: Climate Activists Try To Storm Stage At Oil Giant’s Annual Meeting

Climate Activists Try To Storm Stage At Oil Giant's Annual Meeting

Climate Change

Environment

United Kingdom

One of the largest public state pension <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/stock-market" target="_blank" rel="noopener">funds</a> in the nation has routinely accepted <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/business" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shareholder</a> resolution advice from a woke proxy advisory firm based in San Francisco, effectively leveraging its nearly $100 billion in assets to push companies toward adopting leftist <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/esg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">priorities</a> that critics say contradict the conservative state&#8217;s values.
Officials at the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, also known as OPERS, and a senior elected Republican told The Daily Wire the fund is rightly concerned about &#8220;reputational risk,&#8221; but has not delegated its decision-making to Glass Lewis.
Glass Lewis advises investment entities on how they should employ their stakes in public companies to support or oppose various shareholder resolutions. OPERS, which currently <a href="https://www.opers.org/investments/Defined-Benefit/total.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">manages</a> more than $92 billion on behalf of retirees, survivors, and disabled citizens in Ohio, has accepted the firm’s recommendations to support equity audits, carbon emissions reports, and other progressive policies, according to a report created by the American Accountability Foundation and shared with The Daily Wire.
OPERS voted last year, for instance, in favor of proposals at Berkshire Hathaway which called for aligning greenhouse gas <a href="https://viewpoint.glasslewis.com/WD/MeetingDetail/?siteId=OPERS&amp;securityId=18692" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reductions</a> with the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as resolutions which endorsed the publication of climate and diversity reports. The fund also voted for the <a href="https://viewpoint.glasslewis.com/WD/MeetingDetail/?siteId=OPERS&amp;securityId=639499" target="_blank" rel="noopener">creation</a> of a gender and racial pay equity report at Disney, the <a href="https://viewpoint.glasslewis.com/WD/MeetingDetail/?siteId=OPERS&amp;securityId=21592" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release</a> of a net zero emissions analysis at Exxon Mobil, and the <a href="https://viewpoint.glasslewis.com/WD/MeetingDetail/?siteId=OPERS&amp;securityId=23100" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issuance</a> of a racial equity audit at Home Depot.
Similar votes related to social issues were cast at the recommendation of Glass Lewis for Meta, United Airlines, Walmart, and other public companies in which OPERS maintains a stake. Some votes from the fund <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/354950/000035495022000116/hd-2022proxystatement.htm#ic093c1edc810406d92fceac310f5482e_106" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> the “defund the police” movement and condemned contributions to police foundations, while others <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/732717/000119312522081678/d219457ddef14a.htm#toc219457_9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opposed</a> political donations to entities which denounce abortion.
Senior managers at Glass Lewis are overwhelmingly progressive: Glass Lewis President Carrie Busch has made donations to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization; Glass Lewis Chief Operating Officer John Wieck has donated to a number of Democratic candidates; and Glass Lewis Chief Legal Officer lauded a move from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ban the importation of handguns, according to another analysis from the American Accountability Foundation shared with The Daily Wire.
The controversial OPERS votes came even as a number of Republican state lawmakers, treasurers, and attorneys general across the nation severed ties with asset management companies which endorse the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, also known as ESG, an investment philosophy which leverages funds to advance political and social agendas in a manner which critics say distracts from the maximization of profits.
“I&#8217;m troubled by the woke left&#8217;s hijacking and capture of the American corporate sector and OPERS proxy votes for resolutions attacking pro-life lawmakers, promoting abortions, and calling for defunding the police,” former Ohio Republican State Treasurer Ken Blackwell said in comments to The Daily Wire. “I believe OPERS should, exercising independent judgment, make decisions in the best fiduciary interest of its members. Clearly, this is not happening.”
American Accountability Foundation Executive Director Tom Jones emailed the conservative research group’s analysis of proxy votes to OPERS Executive Director Karen Carraher on March 29 but never received a response. “OPERS needs to explain how it has happened and what you are going to do to purge the corrosive influence of Glass Lewis and other woke activists from the system,” he told the official in an email seen by The Daily Wire.
OPERS Communication Strategist Michael Pramik confirmed to The Daily Wire that Carraher did not reply to the inquiry and claimed that the fund “does not permit ideologies to influence our investment or proxy voting decisions.” He insisted that the fund’s investment objective is merely to “maximize returns within a reasonable risk framework, thus supporting the system’s mission of providing secure retirement benefits to our members.”
Jones also contacted Ohio Republican House Majority Leader William Seitz on March 29 with his concerns about the proxy votes. Seitz responded to the email on April 10 with copies of the OPERS corporate governance and proxy voting guidelines, informing Jones that he found the documents to be “very reassuring that OPERS is totally committed to maximizing fund values for its pensioners without regard to pursuing strategies that exalt environmental and social concerns” over the fundamental objective of maximizing returns.
Seitz added that he met with OPERS authorities, who informed him that some of the votes were for policies that board directors for the portfolio companies had recommended, while other votes were executed because the fund was “concerned that reputational risk to the corporation in which OPERS was invested could lead to shareholder losses.”
“I recognize that there is a fine line between making decisions based on perceived reputational risks, many of which are simply ginned up by liberal activists, and treading further into supporting the ESG woke agenda,” Seitz told Jones. “However, as long as the lodestar of OPERS’ policy is as stated in the enclosed, I am fairly comfortable with what they have done.”
Jones responded to Seitz on April 14 with more detailed information about the politically charged shareholder resolutions which OPERS had supported. “I hope you are aware that the woke activists use the ‘risk’ framing as a tool to manipulate lawmakers, press, and investor relations,” Jones asserted, noting that describing resolutions in such a manner “is the cover they give to liberals who want to sound like they actually care about shareholder value but actually want to implement a liberal agenda and attack conservatives.”
Seitz confirmed to The Daily Wire that he did not respond to the second message from Jones, asserting that “at some point, we had to terminate the dialogue to further evaluate how we should regulate the pension funds’ independent proxy decisions.”
The lawmaker later told The Daily Wire through a spokesperson that he has a “legislative effort underway on the issue.” The proposed <a href="https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/hb4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bill</a>, which appears to currently be in draft form, will deal with “financial institutions and other businesses that conduct economic boycotts or discriminate against certain companies or customers based on certain factors.”
The Daily Wire asked Seitz whether the bill would address the votes undertaken at the direction of Glass Lewis. His office said that the bill will &#8220;most likely&#8221; allow Glass Lewis to &#8220;electronically vote the proxies but only in accordance with instructions issued by the pension funds&#8221; with &#8220;no discretion to deviate from what the pension funds instructed them to do.&#8221;
A spokesperson for Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine told The Daily Wire that the official is monitoring legislative proposals and “waiting to see which bill will ultimately be sent” to his desk. When asked whether the bills would impact the relationship between OPERS and Glass Lewis, the spokesperson said that “it is too early to tell what will be in any final bill on this topic.”
Editor&#8217;s Note: This article has been edited to clarify Ohio Republican House Majority Leader William Seitz&#8217;s position on Glass Lewis&#8217; relationship with OPERS.

Ohio Statehouse

Ohio Retirement Fund Votes For Leftist Shareholder Resolutions At Behest Of Woke Advisory Firm

Ohio

Republican

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