Category: Economy

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Economy Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Lordstown Motors files bankruptcy, sues Foxconn

Down but not dead?

Lordstown Motors files bankruptcy, sues Foxconn

NEW YORK, June 27 (Reuters) – Lordstown Motors (RIDE.O) filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday and put itself up for sale after the U.S. electric truck manufacturer failed to resolve a dispute over a promised investment from Taiwan’s Foxconn.

Shares of Lordstown tumbled 35.6% in trading before the bell.

The automaker, named after the Ohio town where it is based, filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware and simultaneously took legal action against Foxconn.

In a complaint filed in bankruptcy court, Lordstown accused the electronics company of fraudulent conduct and a series of broken promises in failing to abide by an agreement to invest up to $170 million in the electric-vehicle manufacturer.

Foxconn previously invested about $52.7 million in Lordstown as part of the agreement, and currently holds an almost 8.4% stake in the EV maker. Lordstown contends Foxconn is balking at purchasing additional shares of its stock as promised and misled the EV maker about collaborating on vehicle development plans.

Foxconn, formally called Hon Hai Precision Industry (2317.TW), (2317.TW) and best known for assembling Apple’s (AAPL.O) iPhones, has said Lordstown breached the investment agreement when the automaker’s stock fell below $1 per share. Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The twin filings set up an international business clash that could intensify scrutiny of Foxconn’s EV ambitions and partnerships, not only with Lordstown but also other automakers.

The lawsuit portrays Foxconn as consistently shifting goal posts in its collaboration with Lordstown on the automaker’s future vehicles, which included failing to meet funding commitments and refusing to engage with the company on initiatives Foxconn allegedly directed and purported to support.

Lordstown, a startup launched in 2018, said in a regulatory filing earlier this month that it had planned to sue Foxconn after receiving a letter from the company that led Lordstown to believe Foxconn was unlikely to make its additional expected investment.

Lordstown accused Foxconn in that regulatory filing of engaging in a “pattern of bad faith” that caused “material and irreparable harm” to the company. Even in May, Lordstown warned it might be forced to file for bankruptcy amid uncertainty over the Foxconn investment.

The automaker’s main product is the Endurance electric pickup truck, which is built at a former General Motors small-car factory in Lordstown, Ohio, for commercial customers such as local governments. Lordstown sold the plant to Foxconn in 2022.

Lordstown paused production of the Endurance earlier this year and since April has resumed building the trucks at a low rate after resolving quality issues with suppliers. The automaker’s shares have plunged since February and currently trade under $3.

Should Lordstown fail to find a rescuer willing to re-start full production of the Endurance, the Ohio factory now owned by Foxconn could be a draw for overseas automakers looking for a quick way to build vehicles in the United States.

Lordstown filed for bankruptcy with plans to seek a buyer. It does not have an initial offer in hand, known in bankruptcy parlance as a stalking-horse bidder, which sets a minimum price other suitors can top in an auction.

Lordstown Chief Executive Edward Hightower told Reuters the Endurance business could prove attractive to another automaker looking for a fast entry into the EV market at a time the Biden administration’s policies are attempting to move away from gasoline-powered cars.

Lordstown’s bankruptcy is not the first among the crop of EV startups that went public during the pandemic-era SPAC boom. But Lordstown was a high-profile member of that class because it was challenging the core of the legacy Detroit automakers’ business of high-margin pickup trucks, and because of its location.

The Lordstown factory in Northeast Ohio was formerly a GM (GM.N) small-car factory that GM decided to close in November 2018. Then-U.S. President Donald Trump and other Ohio political leaders put pressure on GM CEO Mary Barra to reverse the decision, or find a buyer. GM agreed to sell the plant to a newly-formed entity called Lordstown Motors founded by the former top executive at an electric truck maker called Workhorse Group.

Lordstown went public in October 2020 through a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company DiamondPeak Holdings, joining a flock of EV startups that went public through such deals in that period.

Like several others, including truck maker Nikola (NKLA.O), Lordstown has struggled to live up to the high expectations of early investors. In 2021, its chief executive and founder, Stephen Burns, resigned after the automaker acknowledged it had overstated pre-orders for its electric trucks.

Lordstown’s finance chief at the time also resigned. Burns has since sold his entire stake in Lordstown, according to a June regulatory filing.

As Lordstown wrestled during 2021 and 2022 with investigations by regulators and the U.S. Justice Department, Ford Motor (F.N) was launching its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck, aiming at commercial customers.

EV startup Rivian (RIVN.O) launched its luxury electric pickup in 2022. GM and Stellantis have announced plans for electric pickups. Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA.O) has promised it will begin producing its Cybertruck late this year.

Lordstown struggled to ramp up production of its Endurance trucks over the past several months amid the dispute with Foxconn, challenging market conditions and the cost-intensive nature of its business, the company has said.

The few trucks that the company assembled had material costs that were “substantially higher than our selling price,” Lordstown said in a May regulatory filing.

Reporting by Mike Spector in New York, Joseph White in Detroit and Dietrich Knauth in New York Editing by Nick Zieminski and Dhanya Ann Thoppil

 

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Back Door Power Grab Corruption Economy How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Medicine Privacy Reprints from others. The Courts The Law

National Digital ID System: It is Already Here — And You thought Real ID was Bad!

The only question is when, not if…

Reposted from Who is Robert Malone on substack (with comment by TPR.)

Robert W Malone MD, MS Jun 5, 2023

The National Digital Health ID is being implemented by the Federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

Most US Citizens have no idea it is being implemented.
The National Digital Health ID system is in direct conflict with the US Constitution Bill of Rights.

Please carefully review the following slides. An essay on this subject will be forthcoming shortly From Dr. Malone.

First Real ID, now THIS. How soon until they institute a SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE? Welcome to the Peoples’s Republic of Sino-America — TPR

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Biden Pandemic Economy Links from other news sources.

Here’s what you get with Wind and Solar. 2/3 of the country may suffer blackouts.

A newly released report says that two-thirds of the United States are at a higher risk this summer for rolling blackouts if there are heat waves. (Getty Images)

Here’s what you get with Wind and Solar. 2/3 of the country may suffer blackouts. Large swathes of the U.S. could suffer blackouts this summer, according to the annual assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

So as we continue to shut down coal and Natural Gas plants the threat gets greater for summer black outs. Wind and Solar just aren’t reliable. They say wind and solar are less expensive but you see the cost rising nation wide.

Those regions include the entire continental U.S. from Texas to the West Coast, along with large portions of the Midwest and New England.

(Courtesy: NERC)Have we so soon forgotten what happened in California and Texas? Now with more electric vehicles, the strain will be greater.

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Economy Links from other news sources.

Shell Faces Lawsuit Over ‘Pollution Events’ at Cracker Plant

The Shell ethane “cracker” plant sits on 800 acres along the Ohio River.

Source for this article can be found here.

Shell Faces Lawsuit Over ‘Pollution Events’ at Cracker Plant. Shell did receive about 1.6 billion in state funds, but spent six billion dollars of their own money to build this plant that sat on  800 acres of old steel mill land.

So now seven years later the environmental kooks want to cause issues. Every time there was a pollution issue, Shell responded and fixed it. But that’s not good enough for the loons.

The plaintiffs want the court to order Shell to “take all actions necessary” to obey federal and state law, asses civil penalties of up to $117,468 per day for each violation of the Clean Air Act, assess penalties of $25,000 per day, per violation, of the Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act and enjoin Shell from operating the plant unless it is compliant with the CAA and the APCA, the complaint states.

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Economy Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Who really pays to phase out diesel in California?

A big rig driver adds diesel fuel at the ARCO Travel Zone Center near the 215 Freeway in Perris on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

By 

If the United Nations passed a resolution requiring California residents, and only California residents, to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per year in fees in order to show leadership to the rest of the world on an issue of importance, we would hope Californians’ elected representatives would raise an objection to that.

After all, the cost of “leadership” shouldn’t be borne by the people of one state, especially when the cost hits low- and middle-income families hardest.

Yet that is exactly what’s happening, except the dictate isn’t coming from the United Nations. It’s coming from California’s own state government.

California prides itself on its leadership on the issue of climate change, but perhaps officials should spend less time bragging and more time adding up what their decisions are actually costing California households.

The unanimous vote by the California Air Resources Board to impose a forced phase-out of diesel trucks is the latest example.

“Ten years from now, when we look back to this day … we can say that California has changed the world,” said Gideon Kracov, a Los Angeles-based environmental attorney who sits on the air resources board.

The price of changing the world now includes a ban on the sale of new diesel trucks in California starting in 2036 and a requirement for large trucking companies to convert their fleets to electric models by 2042.

During a seven-hour meeting ahead of the board’s vote, officials of city and county governments spoke out against CARB’s zero-emissions deadlines, calling them “impossible.”


The cost of “leadership” will put new pressure on already stressed city and county budgets. Local governments will have to replace fleets of trucks used for every government service from garbage pick-up to street repair. Charging stations will add additional costs. Who will pay for it all? Taxpayers, of course.

CARB’s mandated conversion to zero-emissions trucks will also raise the price of commercial transportation, with UPS and Amazon just two examples of companies that will incur significant additional expenses to operate in California.

Even the air board staff had to acknowledge that California’s charging infrastructure is inadequate to support all-electric truck fleets statewide. Significant upgrades will be needed, posing challenges for utility companies. Who will pay for it?

The cost of upgrading charging infrastructure on the utility side will be borne by all ratepayers. Under a new rate structure mandated by state law, customers of investor-owned utilities including Southern California Edison will pay a higher fixed charge on their monthly bills, a charge that will include the cost of infrastructure upgrades. The law requires income-based tiers for the fixed charges, in an effort to lessen the burden on lower- and middle-income households.

Another way to lessen the burden on lower- and middle-income households is to stop pretending that Californians can afford this accelerated transition to all-electric transportation.

Southern California Edison CEO Steven Powell told our editorial board recently that California by itself cannot affect the global climate, but said the state’s leadership will have an impact.

Californians deserve transparency and accountability for the cost of the measures the state is taking to provide that leadership, but state lawmakers have delegated too much authority to unelected regulators. Elected officials must do more to oversee agency decisions that will have significant consequences for consumers and taxpayers.

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COVID Economy Reprints from others. Uncategorized Unions

Unions destroy the California housing market.

An excavator operates at the Quito Village Development Project in Saratoga on Apr. 13, 2023. Photo by Martin do Nascimento, CalMatters

This editorial board routinely decries the failure of state lawmakers to address some of the biggest issues that confront California, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the state’s continuing commitment to loosen the encrusted housing-construction rules that create years-long delays to build important new projects.

The latest two governors have signed dozens of housing-related bills — the most significant of which reduce housing regulations and zoning requirements. One of the earliest ones is 2017’s Senate Bill 35 by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. Although we generally disagree with his politics, we can’t deny that Wiener has been a force of nature on the housing front.

SB 35 created a template for housing reform. It gives developers have a right to build their properties without going through the long and subjective local approval process provided the projects meet some basic standards.

For instance, the streamlined projects must be multi-family projects located on an urban infill site and conform to general zoning and design standards. The projects also must contain certain levels of affordability and conform to a long list of other standards. Developers also were required to pay their workers union-level wages.

Obviously, we prefer a wider loosening of standards, but negotiating any serious reform that might actually pass in the state Capitol means confronting the vested interests that hold sway. SB 35 passes our test of offering far more good than bad, even if we have to hold our collective noses at the bad.

Prominent research already has detailed the specific ways that SB 35 has helped cities build affordable-housing and homeless-related projects. However, SB 35 will sunset in 2026 and Wiener has introduced a new bill, Senate Bill 423, to make its provisions permanent.

The legislative sausage-making process never is pleasant, but it’s dismaying to see major unions throw a wrench in that process to achieve self-interested provisions. The bill would eliminate certain union-only hiring regulations because, as CalMatters explained, “there aren’t enough unionized construction workers to build all the new housing California requires.”

Two major unions have admirably backed the bill even though some of the more politically powerful construction unions oppose it, the article adds. Former Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez — author of disastrous Assembly Bill 5, which largely banned independent contracting — attacked the proposed change in her usual class-warfare manner.


Unfortunately, local governments also opposed the law’s extension. Transparently slow-growth efforts by cities such as Huntington Beach to stymie housing construction, however, only reinforce the need for state regulatory pre-emptions.
Regarding union opposition, construction trades already enjoy many government-granted privileges. Trade unions tout the benefits that they offer builders in terms of training and apprenticeship programs. So union workers will naturally grab the lion’s share of new construction jobs, but they want to use the government to grab it all.

“We say, represent and raise all workers up,” Northern California Carpenters Regional Council executive secretary Jay Bradshaw told CalMatters. “It’s an organizing opportunity and we’ll produce housing at all income levels.” We wholeheartedly agree.

Housing streamlining rules such as SB 423 will help the state meet its desperate housing needs – and help all workers in the process. They help cities, too.

It would be a shame if narrow interests derail one of the rare areas where the state has the right idea.

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Economy Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Happy but getting the heck out of California.

Folks leaving California.

California lost a net of more than 114,000 residents during the last year and about 500,000 over the last three years.

So why are Californians who stayed and those who arrived during that same time among the happiest folks in America?

It might be that they are among the select who can afford to live in this state, where the median housing price of more than $700,000 puts California among the top three priciest places in the nation. Its most populous county, Los Angeles, even tops the statewide median price figure by about $100,000.

Strikingly, research indicates it’s not the most expensive places in California that are happiest. Atherton, whose people average out as America’s wealthiest, does not make the top 10 list of the happiest spots in the nation, while six other California cities are on that list, as reported by the website smartassett.com.

Those six include the happiest city, Sunnyvale, hard by the headquarters of Apple and Google in the heart of the Silicon Valley; Fremont, where most Teslas are built, ranked fourth; with the Sacramento suburb Roseville seventh, San Jose eighth, the Los Angeles bedroom suburb of Santa Clarita ninth and Irvine in Orange County rounding out the top 10.

Among the happiness measures the study used were the percentage of individuals earning more than $100,000 per year, living costs as a percentage of income, violent crime rates, life expectancy and the number of poor mental health days reported.

Sunnyvale ranked first because 62.5% of its residents earned more than $100,000 (highest in the nation) and only 5% lived below the poverty level, third lowest nationally.

No. 10 Irvine ranked high in every category, with more than 45% of residents earning more than $100,000 and living costs consuming just 38% of income. Violent crime is also very low there, at 51 incidents per 100,000 population for the last year, and citizens reporting poor mental health on just 11.3% of their days, with average life expectancy almost 83 years.


By contrast, the happiest place in Texas, the Dallas suburb of Plano, with 288,000 population (about double the size of the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance), saw about one-third of its populace earn more than $100,000 and cost of living expenses eat up 40.3% of income, even though housing prices are far lower than in Irvine.

Some might say that there’s too much emphasis on money in this study. But a 2021 University of Pennsylvania study found a direct link between happiness and income growth.

Another major factor in happiness, as shown by many studies, is marriage: The higher the percentage of married people in a locale, the happier the average person will be.

And among the top 10 happiest cities in the smartasset.com report, the majority of adults were married in all but one — Arlington, Virginia, which came in second on the overall happiness index.

Still, despite its strong showing on happiness, California has seen slightly more than 1% of its people depart for other states over the last three years. Again, the primary factor is money, if the state’s Finance Department is to be believed.


That department hangs responsibility for most of the population loss on housing prices. Prices are too high for most Americans to buy in, even if they sell off fully paid-off homes in other places.
High prices also cause many Californians to sell and move to larger, cheaper homes elsewhere, in many cases pocketing hundreds of thousands in the process. It’s hard to argue with buying larger quarters surrounded by more open space, all at lower cost.

These moves have been eased by the great workplace shift that’s occurred almost simultaneously with California’s largest-ever population losses. With vast numbers of white collar workers now able to work remotely from almost anywhere, and still keep their high-paying jobs, it’s completely expectable that some will move out of state, and some have.

But if legislative strategies designed to make housing here denser come to reality, it’s also expectable that some prices will drop and allow more people to move here and enjoy the lifestyle that makes this state dominate the list of happy places.

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Economy Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

US Regional Bank Stocks Crash – PacWest Down 30%, Western Alliance Down 25%, Metropolitan Bank Down 21%

Pacwest and other Banks crashing. GP Photo.

Thanks to Gateway Pundit for this awesome article.

On Monday JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon announced the banking crisis was over.

This was after JPMorgan Chase was allowed to purchase the assets from failed First Republic Bank.

On Tuesday, stocks plunged for several regional banks.

1. PacWest, $PACW: -30%

2. Western Alliance, $WAL: -25%

3. Metropolitan Bank, $MCB: -21%

4. HomeStreet, $HMST: -15%

5. Zions Bank, $ZION: -10%

6. KeyCorp, $KEY: -7%

7. HarborOne, $HONE: -6%

8. Citizens Financial, $CFG: -5%

Via The Kobeissi Letter.

 

 

The worst is NOT over.

 

It was another rough day for banks.
Via Reuters.

Los Angeles-based PacWest tumbled by more than 27%. It is ranked 53rd among U.S. lenders with $41.2 billion in assets as of the end of last year, according to Federal Reserve data.

Phoenix, Arizona-based lender Western Alliance, the No. 40 U.S. bank with $68 billion in assets, sank 15% while Cleveland, Ohio-based KeyCorp (KEY.N), the 20th largest bank with $188 billion in assets, fell 9%.

Comerica (CMA.N), a Dallas, Texas-based bank ranked 37th among U.S. lenders with $86 billion in assets, shed 12%. Columbus, Georgia-based Synovus Financial Corp (SNV.N), with $60 billion in assets and ranked the 42nd U.S. biggest bank, lost nearly 7%.

Valley National Bankcorp (VLY.O), which owns Valley National Bank based in Passaic, New Jersey and is the 43rd largest lender with $57 billion in assets, closed 3% lower after shedding more than 20% on Monday.

 

 

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Economy Links from other news sources.

Thanks Joey Boy. Joe Biden and a loon said the economy is great. Only 8% of Americans agree with them.

70% of Americans all stressed out. CNBC Photo
  • CNBC’s Financial Confidence Survey, conducted in partnership with Momentive, found most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
  • More women than men admit feeling financially stressed.

Joe Biden and a loon said the economy is great. Only 8% of Americans agree with them. CNBC did a recent survey on people personal finances. Only 8% aren’t worried or stressed out. 70% are totally stressed. The rest are somewhat stressed.

Majority living paycheck to paycheck. Two biggest worries are Inflation and the Economies instability. 59 and 43%. You even have a loon from California claiming they’re able to buy more fried chicken and flavored drinks.

SMH.

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Economy Just my own thoughts Life Links from other news sources. Science

Why Progressives way of doing Green Energy makes no sense.

Past climate much hotter. NOAA-Climate.gov.

Why Progressives way of doing Green Energy makes no sense. China uses coal to puts more toxic gasses in the atmosphere than the US and all the European nations combined. So what does the US and European nations do? Buys Solar Panels from China.

China doesn’t only benefit from not having to pay so-called climate reparations. But they benefit from the entire UN Green New Deal [and] net-zero agenda because the world is going to be looking to China. The U.S. buys over 80 percent of our solar panels currently from China. We rely on China for all the rare earth mining for lithium and cobalt. China is expanding mining operations in Africa — places like the Congo with allegations of underage labor of children of 8, 9 years old by international human rights groups.