Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, caused a stir last week by announcing a major philanthropic initiative that will devote $2 billion to address homelessness and education. Called the Day One Fund, the project has two priorities: funding existing nonprofits that serve homeless families, and creating a network of new, nonprofit preschools in low-income communities.
Two billion dollars is an enormous amount of money, enough to transform many lives. The good that Bezos will do is commendable. Unfortunately, he might achieve a lot less than he could.
By starting out already committed to two causes, Bezos undermines his fund’s ability to answer the question he launched it with: “Where are the opportunities to make things better?”
We’ve been trying for a long time to do early childhood

China scotched trade talks with the U.S. that were planned for the coming days, according to people briefed on the matter, further dimming prospects for resolving a trade battle between the world’s two largest economies.
On Monday, President Trump announced new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to retaliate with levies on $60 billion in U.S. goods. Mr. Trump then vowed to further ratchet up pressure on China by kicking in tariffs on another $257 billion of Chinese products.
“Nothing the U.S. has done has given any impression of sincerity and goodwill,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a news briefing Friday. “We hope that the U.S. side will take measures to correct its mistakes.”
The latest exchange of tariffs, which take effect this

“There’s only one ‘look’ that is a requirement in Judge Kavanaugh’s chambers for men and women,” he said. “And that is that a suit is required every day. It’s a formal chambers in a formal courthouse.”
“Otherwise, the racial, ethnic and ideological diversity of his clerks is unmatched in the entire federal judiciary, including the diversity of his Yale clerks recommended by professor Chua,” Lenkner said.

Apple’s iPhone is one of the most successful consumer products in history, and one of the most globalized. The iPhone 7’s camera is Japanese, its memory chips South Korean, its power management chip British, its wireless circuits Taiwanese, its user-interface processor Dutch and the radio-frequency transceiver American, according to a study of the value added in smartphones by Jason Dedrick of Syracuse University and Kenneth Kraemer of the University of California at Irvine.
The factory workers who assemble iPhones in China contribute just 1% of the finished product’s value. Apple’s shareholders and employees, who are predominantly American, capture 42%.
The economics of the iPhone’s competitors are quite similar: Assembly represents only 1% of the value of Samsung Electronics Co.’s

Procter & Gamble, the maker of familiar brands like Tide, Pampers, Gillette and Bounty, has been knocked around the past few years by lackluster sales and new competitors.
Its latest headache is President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. Two weeks ago, the company lobbied to have more than a dozen imported goods left off the list of more than $200 billion worth of Chinese products subject to the trade penalty, which takes effect next week.
Like hundreds of other companies, it was brushed off.
Tariffs bite P&G, the country’s leading consumer products manufacturer, at a challenging moment for the industry. Raw material costs are rising. Profit margins are declining. Pricing power is under pressure from retailers. Upstart home and grooming brands are hot. And sales growth has stalled in

[unable to retrieve full-text content]GeoFred and the St. Louis Fed data repository (Fred) put together a set of interesting trade maps.

The EU has killed off the Chequers plan for good. May needed Chequers to ensure that the Irish backstop in the withdrawal treaty would never be triggered. Her plan‘s formal rejection means that the Brexit choices have become starker. In our view no-deal may now be the single most likely outcome, alongside with what some UK commentators are calling the blind Brexit – one with an Irish backstop in the withdrawal agreement and a fudged political declaration.
The DUP [Northern Ireland MEPs backing May] has no reason to support a deal that could leave Northern Ireland permanently decoupled from the mainland. The opposition parties will also reject it – for different reasons. Could the Tory party unite behind this? It is possible, but such an outcome cannot be taken for granted.
The EU‘s formal

No. 1-13Dsgn15 minsPravda on the Potomoc, Izvestia on the Hudson. Now the Communists are actually fascist billionaires and their buddies. (Hmmm – analogous?) Maybe this time there is something going on behind the scenes that is so dangerous (nooses) to their "deep" state merger that they need to do ANYTHING to stop any Supreme’s appointment.I’m actually surprised the evil Dems aren’t proffering pics of Kavanaugh porking Pepe in Kekistan. Perhaps the Dem circle jerk audience are so geriatric they wouldn’t get it?All they have to do is stop the nomination, and their Pop-up-Bimbo can go home with a few hundred g’s after her 15 minutes and be forgotten. And the Continuing Circus restarts after the sElection, when the Dems and their Full Spectrum Dominance Election Fraud and apathetic

A suburban manufacturer has announced plans to invest $26 million into a new facility in Hobart, Indiana, while shuttering its two Illinois plants.
Wynright Corporation, a subsidiary of Japan-based Daifuku, operates facilities in the villages of Oak Lawn and Elk Grove. Both facilities are set to close this fall after the storage equipment manufacturer accepted a deal from Indiana officials that included $6 million in state subsidies and a $100,000 training grant, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. The city of Hobart and Northern Indiana Public Service Company, the region’s gas supplier, are also providing economic incentives to the company.
A spokesperson for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation told Crain’s that the new Indiana plant will replace both of the manufacturer’s

Kinuachdrach13 hrsOn second read — a puzzle: How does Whelan know where the unidentified other schoolgirl lived, and can show her house on the map? She is unidentified!Similar photos be damned! If a girl went upstairs with someone, and now he is lying on top of her, she is close enough to identify him properly — unless either she had not seen the boys before and did not know them (and therefore cannot identify the one on top of her reliably), or she was totally under the influence of alcohol (and therefore cannot identify the guy she was with reliably).Whelan’s map does make the point that Chrissie was a long, long way from home when she claims she ran out of the house. Back to the unanswered question of how did she get home? Or did she just go down the street to another

On Tuesday evening, Ed Whelan, a conservative activist and legal commentator, posted a remarkable claim about the charge of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
“By one week from today, I expect that Judge Kavanaugh will have been clearly vindicated on this matter,” Whelan wrote. “Specifically, I expect that compelling evidence will show his categorical denial to be truthful. There will be no cloud over him.”
In a follow-up tweet, he added for good measure: “Senator [Dianne] Feinstein will soon be apologizing to Judge Kavanaugh.” Feinstein is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the first senator to learn about the accusation against Kavanaugh.
Whelan, who is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, has since remained

It was a disappointment, but at least it wasn’t a loss. Existing home sales, which were expected to increase in August after four straight months of declines instead remained unchanged from July. In fact, almost the entire report on August’s existing home sales can be summarized by the word, "flat."
Said sales of single-family homes, townhouses, condos, and cooperative apartments were at the seasonally adjusted rate of 5.34 million, identical to the July rate. Sales in July had fallen 1.5 percent below those from a year earlier, and that too was unchanged in the August to August comparisons. Existing home sales were selling at an annual rate of 5.42 million in August of last year.
Econoday said the analysts it polls were expecting at least a modest increase after months of lagging sales

More than 5,500 pigs and 3.4 million chickens and turkeys have been killed in Hurricane Florence, mostly by drowning in record-breaking floods in North Carolina, says the state’s agriculture department.
That number is expected to rise in the coming days, says North Carolina Department Agriculture and Consumer Services, as many farm owners have not had the opportunity to properly account for their losses, and millions of farm animals are still stranded in high-risk flooded areas.
Hurricane Florence, which made landfall in North Carolina on September 14, claimed at least 37 human lives and cost $17 billion in damages. But the storm has also taken a brutal toll on some of the country’s biggest livestock suppliers.
Sanderson Farms, the third largest poultry supplier in the US, has alone lost

No. 1-7Stuki26 minsNot really sure what is so bizarre.You have to remember, always, that in any country, the opposition is not between national level political parties.It’s not CDU/CSU vs SPD. Or vs AfD, or what have you. Just as in America, it’s not Democrats vs Republicans.Instead, in every country, it is The Government vs The People. The former doing whatever it takes, to be able to continue living high, and ever higher, off of the work of the latter.While doing whatever it takes to obfuscate this, in order to keep the latter sufficiently pliant and indoctrinated to not recognize this basic, invariable fact of all government of all time; past, present and future.Pretension of "opposition" between two or more "parties," is nothing more than one of the more popular and successful ways for

Two decades ago, while pregnant with my first child, I was running in Northern Virginia when I was attacked by a man much larger and stronger than myself. I survived the attempted rape — but I’ll never forget it, in fact I remember every detail all these years later.
Twenty years after Bill Clinton — then the attorney general and highest ranking law enforcement officer in the state of Arkansas — allegedly raped Juanita Broaddrick, she remembered every detail as she told NBC’s Lisa Myers during a prime time interview. She even remembered Clinton biting her lip during the attack and smirking as he left the room — arrogantly telling her she needed to take care of it.
Ford can’t remember the year the incident happened, she can’t remember how she got to the house party, or how she got home.

In June, Canada announced it will legalize recreational marijuana use effective Oct. 17, sparking a series of industry moves. Soon after Canadian marijuana producer Tilray filed for an initial public offering, which occurred in July.
In August, Molson Coors said it will partner with The Hydropothecary Corporation to develop cannabis-infused beverages for the Canadian market. Later that month beer maker Constellation Brands invested an additional $4 billionin Canadian-cannabis producer Canopy Growth.
Tilray shares are up more than 800 percent through Wednesday morning since its first day of trading after its July IPO and rose nearly 600 percent in the past month. The stock is also up nearly 50 percent Wednesday, a day after its CEO Brendan Kennedy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer that pharmaceutical

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Housing starts are up but permits are down. The current overall level of activity is less than occurred in 1962.

No. 1-1mpowerOR24 minsEarly public cannabis plays like Tilray are going to get killed after this initial hype run-up… industry winners will be private, not public. And margins will NEVER support these valuations – never. B/t taxes & regulation, there will be little left for "investors"… the states will make sure of it.ReplyQuote

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Normally when I do "Tweets of the Day" they are from different people. Here is a set of Tweets from Charlie Bilello.

The vagaries of memory are well known, all the more so when they emerge in the cauldron of a therapy session to rescue a marriage. Experts know that human beings can come to believe firmly over the years that something happened when it never did or is based on partial truth. Mistaken identity is also possible.
The Post reports that the therapist’s notes from 2012 say there were four male assailants, but Ms. Ford says that was a mistake. Ms. Ford also can’t recall in whose home the alleged assault took place, how she got there, or how she got home that evening.
This is simply too distant and uncorroborated a story to warrant a new hearing or to delay a vote. We’ve heard from all three principals, and there are no other witnesses to call. Democrats will use Monday’s hearing as a political

Ten years ago, in September 2008, plunging home prices pushed Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy, fueling a financial crisis that sent the United States, and much of the world, into a deep recession.
One metric that signaled trouble in the years leading up to the crisis was an expanding gap between the growth in home prices and household income—as shown in the left-hand shaded circle above. When income can’t keep pace with home prices, the latter must come down. Overleveraged home “owners” default on their mortgages, creating a housing glut that drags prices down further. Falling home values slow consumer spending, and therefore GDP growth, by way of the so-called wealth effect—that is, consumers cut spending when their assets fall in value. In the United States, according to one Federal

Federal prosecutors opened a fraud investigation after Musk tweeted last month that he was contemplating taking Tesla private and had “funding secured” for the deal, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss a confidential criminal probe. The tweet initially sent the company’s shares higher.
The investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of California follows a subpoena issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking information from the maker of electric cars about Musk’s plans to go private, which he has since abandoned.
The criminal inquiry is in its early stages, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Justice Department probes, like the civil inquiries undertaken by the SEC, can take months. They sometimes end with prosecutors

President Trump, emboldened by America’s economic strength and China’s slowdown, escalated his trade war on Monday, saying the United States would impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as punishment over Beijing’s trade practices.
The fresh round of tariffs comes on top of $50 billion worth of Chinese products already taxed earlier this year, meaning nearly half of all Chinese imports into the United States will soon face tariffs. The new wave is scheduled to go into effect on Sept. 24, with tariffs starting at 10 percent before climbing to 25 percent by the end of the year. The timing will partially reduce the toll of price increases for holiday shoppers buying Chinese imports in the coming months.
The White House also said that the United States was prepared to

Wagner_42 hrs> Volkswagen plans to sell some 150,000 electric cars, including 100,000 ID. models made in Germany, by 2020Only naive investors who have not been following EVs news for the last several years believe that.VW, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Audi, GM, Ford should have less credibility w.r.t their EV production promises than Tesla. Admittedly, Tesla has slipped behind ~ year on their aspirational Model 3 production goal. However, these other manufacturers have been aspirationally promising "EVs in 2 years for the last several years" and done ALMOST NOTHING. Just few example:https://insideevs.com/oft-delayed-audi-a3-e-tron-pushed-back/

Perhaps this has something to do more with investor psychology that VW & others have anonymous PR departments and general public don’t hold them

It looks like Brett Kavanaugh’s mother, Judge Martha Kavanaugh, ruled against the parents of Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accuses Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Court documents show the losing party in a foreclosure case Martha Kavanaugh heard to be Ralph and Paula Blasey of Potomac, Maryland. They appear to be Christine Blasey Ford’s parents.
The fact that Kavanaugh’s mother ruled against Ford’s parents doesn’t prove Ford is lying about the conduct of the son. Her allegation, coming so many years after the fact and without a description of when or where the event supposedly occurred, is probably not susceptible to being ruled out conclusively. But there now seems to be a motive, beyond partisan politics, for Ford to make up or significantly embellish her story so long after

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Do you think the government can spend your money wisely, better than you? Think carefully.

2banana42 minsAny manufacturing program will have:R/D – Prototypes – Factory initialization
Initial Production
Production Ramp up
Sustainment
Modernization – Factory upgradesYou can’t ignore sustainment while ramping up. You can’t ignore modernizing your product while ramping up.ReplyQuote

No. 1-2Irondoor1 hrRead some Chinese history. They starved millions (on purpose) during Mao’s reign of terror just to harvest grain to pay off foreign debts. They burned houses and anything else they could find to fire their rudimentary backyard kilns to make materials for "steel" production so as to be in control of their supply or to sell to generate foreign exchange. People were living and dying outdoors with no clothes or food just to satisfy the "cadres" and their quotas, all of which came down from Mao and his senior people.This is the mentality of the Chinese now joined with their desire for world domination by any means necessary. They will resort to whatever tactics necessary, which will eventually include the takeover, by violence/war, of Taiwan to show us and the world that

Year-ahead inflation expectations remained steady at 3.0 percent over the month while three-year-ahead expectations ticked up by 0.1 point to 3.0 percent. Expectations about household income and spending growth were stable at 2.8 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. Home price growth expectations retreated by 0.1 point to 3.6 percent since July, while expectations about the growth in government debt rose sharply to 7.9 percent, up from 6.9 percent in the prior month, marking the highest such reading since November 2015.

Caradoc-again2 hrsAd-hoc = guess in my book. Worth a read, below. No winners."The European Banking Authority calculates that to comply with the new framework, E.U. banks will need to raise another 12.9% of tier 1 capital to meet the minimum requirements, amounting to €39.7bn.This EBA assessment is based on an “ad hoc monitoring exercise” it undertook using data from 88 E.U. banks. The impact will be greatest on the 36 biggest banks in the survey: collectively they will have to raise an additional 14.1% tier 1 capital – a significant sum. However, the other 52 will only have to raise another 3.9% – which is less significant.Mr Hills says “it remains to be seen as to whether there will be winners and losers amongst individual banks”. However, the situation already seems clear cut – there