Connect with us

Government

Disappointing Economic News in Europe, Elevated Geo-Political Risks, and Rising Yields Help the Greenback Recover

Overview:  The dollar has come back bid.  A disappointing and unexpected increase in the US weekly jobless claims pressed yields lower, with the 10-year falling a two-week low and seemingly dragging the greenback with it.  The greenback is trading…

Published

3 years ago

on

Overview:  The dollar has come back bid.  A disappointing and unexpected increase in the US weekly jobless claims pressed yields lower, with the 10-year falling a two-week low and seemingly dragging the greenback with it.  The greenback is trading higher against nearly all the major and emerging market currencies today amid heightened geopolitical risk, a stronger than expected rise in China's inflation gauges, and poor European industrial production data, despite the improvement in the PMI.  The US 10-year yield is around five basis points higher at 1.67% and appears to be dragging European yields higher too. Equity markets have been knocked back.  Japanese stocks bucked the regional trend to post modest gains that pared this week's losses.  European shares are trading a little softer, but barring a dramatic increase in selling pressure, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 will post a gain for the fifth consecutive week.  In fact, it is off only three weeks since mid-December.  US futures indices are narrowly mixed. Coming into today, the S&P 500 is up 3.1% and the NASDAQ, 4.4% on the week.  Gold overcame resistance in the $1750-$1755 area but is pulling back today.  Initial support is seen in the $1730-$1735 area.  After swinging dramatically in the second half of March, May WTI prices have ground down into a narrow range in recent days.  It has not been above $60 since mid-week. It has not been below $58.00 since Monday. 

Asia Pacific

China's March inflation readings were higher than expected.  After negative readings for the past two months and three of the past four, China's CPI poped to 0.4% year-over-year in March.  Food prices fell by 0.7%, while core prices rose by 0.3%.  The more pressing issue is producer prices.  They jumped 4.4% year-over-year, the most since mid-2018.   Commodity prices have surged.  Part of this is a base effect, which is recognized in the US and Europe, but few accounts of Chinese inflation acknowledge this.  Beijing has already moved to slow lending and appears to have reduced its commodity purchases, and maybe looking for cheaper substitutes, such as scrap steel, to reduce imported iron ore.  

Japan is edging toward what could be an inflection point.  Specifically, in the highest reaches of the government, there is interest in selectively moving toward a four-day workweek.  Initially, it is conceived to be voluntary, and the three-day weekends could vary. The main purpose is social, but an experiment at Microsoft in Japan saw an increase in productivity. Japanese policymakers are interested in work/life balance, but a troubling undercurrent led to Prime Minister Suga appointing the first Minister of Loneliness in February.  Last year, Japan experienced the first rise in suicides in 11 years. More people have committed suicide in Japan than have died from Covid-19.  Meanwhile, social restrictions will likely be reinstated for Tokyo, Kyoto, and Okinawa, which could be extended to May 5 or May 11. Restrictions have already been imposed in Osaka, Hyogo, and Miyagi.  Opening ceremonies for the Olympics are slated for July 23.  

The US slapped export controls on several more Chinese companies and government facilities involved with helping China develop a new supercomputer (that will be able to do a million trillion calculations a second).  There are numerous civilian and military applications. It is the latter that draws the US ire.  Biden is extending the approach that began with Trump.  It does not appear to have unwound a single action toward China.  Meanwhile, the US hosts a "chip" summit on Monday as both Ford and General Motors announce more plant closures due to the shortage.  Separately, a bill introduced in the US Senate yesterday and is scheduled to be debated in committee next week (the Strategic Competition Act) represents an escalation of US efforts to curb China's expansion and aggressiveness.  It includes measures to build closer ties with Taiwan, funds to "promote democracy in Hong Kong," and more sanctions.  

The rise in the US 10-year yields coincided with the dollar's recovery against the yen.  Yesterday, as the 10-year yield slipped below 1.62% on the back of the second consecutive unexpected rise in weekly jobless claims (largely skewed by two states, California and New York), the greenback slumped to JPY109, near a two-week low.  It has rebounded with yields today.  It has been up to nearly JPY109.70, and a close above JPY109.90-JPY110.00 would seem to put it in good stead for next week when coupon supply resumes (~$110 bln), and a series of strong US economic reports are expected.  The Reserve Bank of Australia's semi-annual financial stability report elevated concern about house prices and household debt but does not appear set to raise rates, a blunt instrument.  It will likely rely on macroprudential measures.  The Australian dollar was sold to a new low for the week, a little below $0.7590 in Asia, before recovering.  It approached $0.7620 in the European morning.  It finished last week near $0.7610.  The US dollar rose for the third consecutive session against the Chinese yuan.  However, these upticks pared the losses suffered at the start of the holiday-shortened week, and the greenback snapped a six-week advance.  The PBOC set the dollar's reference rate at CNY6.5409, somewhat softer than bank models projected.  

Europe

The dollar was sold yesterday, partly due to the disappointing weekly jobless claims, and today the euro has been big misses in industrial output.  The PMI has suggested the manufacturing sector was proving resilient in Europe, making today's data a shock.  German industrial production was expected to rise by 1.5%.  Instead, it fell by 1.6%.  The upward revision to the January series (-2.0% from -2.5%) did not ease the sting.  French industrial output was expected to rise by around 0.5%, and it slumped 4.7%.  The January gain was shaved to 3.2% from 3.3%. Spain missed too.  Industrial production was expected to have risen by 0.7% in February, and instead, it was flat.  One bright spot among the EMU reports was the 6.6% month-over-month rise in Italian retail sales (2.0% expected), and January's 3.0% decline was pared to -2.7%.  

While we have been tracking China's aerial harassment of Taiwan and stepped-up US military presence, another potential flashpoint is unfolding in east Ukraine, where Russia has been amassing forces. In a call, Merkel reportedly asked Putin to remove the troops.  He seems unlikely to comply.  The US says that the Russian deployment is consistent with training, exercises, and intelligence gathering, but Putin accuses Kyiv of "provocative actions."  He may be referring to Ukraine President Zelenskiy's call earlier in the week for a path toward NATO membership.  Reports suggest the US may send a warship into the Black Sea.  The US Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea.  Sending an extra ship now would ostensibly send a message to Russia.  The rub here is that under a 1936 treaty, a 14-day notice must be given to Turkey who administers access. 

Belfast has experienced the most violence in several years, and nationalists clashed with unionists and the police.  Some link it to the signs of a border between Northern Ireland and the UK with customs checks and new documents required.  Others point to the police not prosecuting Sinn Fein leaders for violating social restrictions at a funeral for a former IRA member.  The UK, Northern Ireland, and the Irish Republic called for order, and the US, a guarantor of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, chimed in too. 

The euro peaked yesterday, a little above $1.1925, and is trading with a softer bias today, but within yesterday's range.  Initial support is seen near $1.1880 and then $1.1860.  There is a 980 mln euro option at $1.1850 that expires today.  The euro settled near $1.1760 a week ago, and it is poised to close higher to snap three consecutive weeks of losses.  Sterling, which reversed lower after testing $1.39 at the start of the week, retired to the lows from the second half of last March (~ $1.3670) in late Asian turnover and recovered above $1.3700 in early European turnover.  It is the fourth consecutive down day for sterling.  It finished last week near $1.3830.  

America

The base effect will be clear in today's US PPI report.  Last March, producer prices fell by 0.5%, followed by a 1.1% plunge in April. Producer prices likely rose by 0.5% last month, so the year-over-year rate is likely to jump toward 3.8% from 2.8% in February. The core is expected to be milder, and a 0.2% rise would lift the year-over-year rate to 2.7% from 2.5%.  Next week, an even more striking jump in consumer prices is expected, with the year-over-year rate jumping toward 2.5% from 1.7%.  

Canada reports March employment figures today.  It lost 1.95 mln full-time jobs last March and April, but people have been returning to work in the past ten months.  Roughly 1.61 mln have, leaving  Canada around 340k full-time positions short.  Canada also reports part-time, but they are more difficult to read.  For example, Canada lost around 16k part-time positions in Q4 19.  In February, about 88k people returned to their full-time jobs and 171k took on part-time work.  Employment growth slowed in March as the virus spread, but employment is expected to rise by around 100k (Bloomberg's survey median), and unemployment is expected to fall to 8.0% from 8.2%.  A robust report will boost official confidence in the economic recovery, helped too by strong US growth as well, and it may allow the Bank of Canada to calibrate its forward guidance to suggest tapering of its C$4 bln a week bond-buying in H2.  

The greenback eased to a three-day low against the Canadian dollar in Asia (~CAD1.2555) before recovering.  It is straddling the CAD1.2600 in the European morning.  Last week and this week's highs were set in the CAD1.2635-CAD1.2650 area.  The US dollar settled near CAD1.2580 last week, and if the Canadian employment report does not spur Canadian dollar buying, it will be the fourth consecutive week of greenback gains. The US dollar was sold to MXN20.0650 yesterday, its lowest level since mid-February.  The jump in Mexico's inflation seems to signal the end of the easing cycle, though the central bank says not necessarily.  Mexico's one-month to six-month bills (cetes) pay 4.11%-4.41%.  The short-term US bills have no yield, while the six-month bill generates a two bp yield.  The greenback is firm against the peso today and is approaching yesterday's high near MXN20.23.  Above there, the week's high was in the MXN21.38 area.  The dollar settled last week close to MXN21.31.



Disclaimer

Read More

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

International

Illegal Immigrants Leave US Hospitals With Billions In Unpaid Bills

Illegal Immigrants Leave US Hospitals With Billions In Unpaid Bills

By Autumn Spredemann of The Epoch Times

Tens of thousands of illegal…

Published

3 hours ago

on

March 15, 2024

By

Illegal Immigrants Leave US Hospitals With Billions In Unpaid Bills

By Autumn Spredemann of The Epoch Times

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are flooding into U.S. hospitals for treatment and leaving billions in uncompensated health care costs in their wake.

The House Committee on Homeland Security recently released a report illustrating that from the estimated $451 billion in annual costs stemming from the U.S. border crisis, a significant portion is going to health care for illegal immigrants.

With the majority of the illegal immigrant population lacking any kind of medical insurance, hospitals and government welfare programs such as Medicaid are feeling the weight of these unanticipated costs.

Apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the U.S. border have jumped 48 percent since the record in fiscal year 2021 and nearly tripled since fiscal year 2019, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

Last year broke a new record high for illegal border crossings, surpassing more than 3.2 million apprehensions.

And with that sea of humanity comes the need for health care and, in most cases, the inability to pay for it.

In January, CEO of Denver Health Donna Lynne told reporters that 8,000 illegal immigrants made roughly 20,000 visits to the city’s health system in 2023.

The total bill for uncompensated care costs last year to the system totaled $140 million, said Dane Roper, public information officer for Denver Health. More than $10 million of it was attributed to “care for new immigrants,” he told The Epoch Times.

Though the amount of debt assigned to illegal immigrants is a fraction of the total, uncompensated care costs in the Denver Health system have risen dramatically over the past few years.

The total uncompensated costs in 2020 came to $60 million, Mr. Roper said. In 2022, the number doubled, hitting $120 million.

He also said their city hospitals are treating issues such as “respiratory illnesses, GI [gastro-intenstinal] illnesses, dental disease, and some common chronic illnesses such as asthma and diabetes.”

“The perspective we’ve been trying to emphasize all along is that providing healthcare services for an influx of new immigrants who are unable to pay for their care is adding additional strain to an already significant uncompensated care burden,” Mr. Roper said.

He added this is why a local, state, and federal response to the needs of the new illegal immigrant population is “so important.”

Colorado is far from the only state struggling with a trail of unpaid hospital bills.

EMS medics with the Houston Fire Department transport a Mexican woman the hospital in Houston on Aug. 12, 2020. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Dr. Robert Trenschel, CEO of the Yuma Regional Medical Center situated on the Arizona–Mexico border, said on average, illegal immigrants cost up to three times more in human resources to resolve their cases and provide a safe discharge.

“Some [illegal] migrants come with minor ailments, but many of them come in with significant disease,” Dr. Trenschel said during a congressional hearing last year.

“We’ve had migrant patients on dialysis, cardiac catheterization, and in need of heart surgery. Many are very sick.”

He said many illegal immigrants who enter the country and need medical assistance end up staying in the ICU ward for 60 days or more.

A large portion of the patients are pregnant women who’ve had little to no prenatal treatment. This has resulted in an increase in babies being born that require neonatal care for 30 days or longer.

Dr. Trenschel told The Epoch Times last year that illegal immigrants were overrunning healthcare services in his town, leaving the hospital with $26 million in unpaid medical bills in just 12 months.

ER Duty to Care

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986 requires that public hospitals participating in Medicare “must medically screen all persons seeking emergency care … regardless of payment method or insurance status.”

The numbers are difficult to gauge as the policy position of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is that it “will not require hospital staff to ask patients directly about their citizenship or immigration status.”

In southern California, again close to the border with Mexico, some hospitals are struggling with an influx of illegal immigrants.

American patients are enduring longer wait times for doctor appointments due to a nursing shortage in the state, two health care professionals told The Epoch Times in January.

A health care worker at a hospital in Southern California, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job, told The Epoch Times that “the entire health care system is just being bombarded” by a steady stream of illegal immigrants.

“Our healthcare system is so overwhelmed, and then add on top of that tuberculosis, COVID-19, and other diseases from all over the world,” she said.

A Salvadorian man is aided by medical workers after cutting his leg while trying to jump on a truck in Matias Romero, Mexico, on Nov. 2, 2018. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A newly-enacted law in California provides free healthcare for all illegal immigrants residing in the state. The law could cost taxpayers between $3 billion and $6 billion per year, according to recent estimates by state and federal lawmakers.

In New York, where the illegal immigration crisis has manifested most notably beyond the southern border, city and state officials have long been accommodating of illegal immigrants’ healthcare costs.

Since June 2014, when then-mayor Bill de Blasio set up The Task Force on Immigrant Health Care Access, New York City has worked to expand avenues for illegal immigrants to get free health care.

“New York City has a moral duty to ensure that all its residents have meaningful access to needed health care, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay,” Mr. de Blasio stated in a 2015 report.

The report notes that in 2013, nearly 64 percent of illegal immigrants were uninsured. Since then, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have settled in the city.

“The uninsured rate for undocumented immigrants is more than three times that of other noncitizens in New York City (20 percent) and more than six times greater than the uninsured rate for the rest of the city (10 percent),” the report states.

The report states that because healthcare providers don’t ask patients about documentation status, the task force lacks “data specific to undocumented patients.”

Some health care providers say a big part of the issue is that without a clear path to insurance or payment for non-emergency services, illegal immigrants are going to the hospital due to a lack of options.

“It’s insane, and it has been for years at this point,” Dana, a Texas emergency room nurse who asked to have her full name omitted, told The Epoch Times.

Working for a major hospital system in the greater Houston area, Dana has seen “a zillion” migrants pass through under her watch with “no end in sight.” She said many who are illegal immigrants arrive with treatable illnesses that require simple antibiotics. “Not a lot of GPs [general practitioners] will see you if you can’t pay and don’t have insurance.”

She said the “undocumented crowd” tends to arrive with a lot of the same conditions. Many find their way to Houston not long after crossing the southern border. Some of the common health issues Dana encounters include dehydration, unhealed fractures, respiratory illnesses, stomach ailments, and pregnancy-related concerns.

“This isn’t a new problem, it’s just worse now,” Dana said.

Emergency room nurses and EMTs tend to patients in hallways at the Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital in Houston on Aug. 18, 2021. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Medicaid Factor

One of the main government healthcare resources illegal immigrants use is Medicaid.

All those who don’t qualify for regular Medicaid are eligible for Emergency Medicaid, regardless of immigration status. By doing this, the program helps pay for the cost of uncompensated care bills at qualifying hospitals.

However, some loopholes allow access to the regular Medicaid benefits. “Qualified noncitizens” who haven’t been granted legal status within five years still qualify if they’re listed as a refugee, an asylum seeker, or a Cuban or Haitian national.

Yet the lion’s share of Medicaid usage by illegal immigrants still comes through state-level benefits and emergency medical treatment.

A Congressional report highlighted data from the CMS, which showed total Medicaid costs for “emergency services for undocumented aliens” in fiscal year 2021 surpassed $7 billion, and totaled more than $5 billion in fiscal 2022.

Both years represent a significant spike from the $3 billion in fiscal 2020.

An employee working with Medicaid who asked to be referred to only as Jennifer out of concern for her job, told The Epoch Times that at a state level, it’s easy for an illegal immigrant to access the program benefits.

Jennifer said that when exceptions are sent from states to CMS for approval, “denial is actually super rare. It’s usually always approved.”

She also said it comes as no surprise that many of the states with the highest amount of Medicaid spending are sanctuary states, which tend to have policies and laws that shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration authorities.

Moreover, Jennifer said there are ways for states to get around CMS guidelines. “It’s not easy, but it can and has been done.”

The first generation of illegal immigrants who arrive to the United States tend to be healthy enough to pass any pre-screenings, but Jennifer has observed that the subsequent generations tend to be sicker and require more access to care. If a family is illegally present, they tend to use Emergency Medicaid or nothing at all.

The Epoch Times asked Medicaid Services to provide the most recent data for the total uncompensated care that hospitals have reported. The agency didn’t respond.

Continue reading over at The Epoch Times

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 09:45

Read More

Continue Reading

International

Fuel poverty in England is probably 2.5 times higher than government statistics show

The top 40% most energy efficient homes aren’t counted as being in fuel poverty, no matter what their bills or income are.

Published

3 hours ago

on

March 15, 2024

By

Julian Hochgesang|Unsplash

The cap set on how much UK energy suppliers can charge for domestic gas and electricity is set to fall by 15% from April 1 2024. Despite this, prices remain shockingly high. The average household energy bill in 2023 was £2,592 a year, dwarfing the pre-pandemic average of £1,308 in 2019.

The term “fuel poverty” refers to a household’s ability to afford the energy required to maintain adequate warmth and the use of other essential appliances. Quite how it is measured varies from country to country. In England, the government uses what is known as the low income low energy efficiency (Lilee) indicator.

Since energy costs started rising sharply in 2021, UK households’ spending powers have plummeted. It would be reasonable to assume that these increasingly hostile economic conditions have caused fuel poverty rates to rise.

However, according to the Lilee fuel poverty metric, in England there have only been modest changes in fuel poverty incidence year on year. In fact, government statistics show a slight decrease in the nationwide rate, from 13.2% in 2020 to 13.0% in 2023.

Our recent study suggests that these figures are incorrect. We estimate the rate of fuel poverty in England to be around 2.5 times higher than what the government’s statistics show, because the criteria underpinning the Lilee estimation process leaves out a large number of financially vulnerable households which, in reality, are unable to afford and maintain adequate warmth.

Blocks of flats in London.
Household fuel poverty in England is calculated on the basis of the energy efficiency of the home. Igor Sporynin|Unsplash

Energy security

In 2022, we undertook an in-depth analysis of Lilee fuel poverty in Greater London. First, we combined fuel poverty, housing and employment data to provide an estimate of vulnerable homes which are omitted from Lilee statistics.

We also surveyed 2,886 residents of Greater London about their experiences of fuel poverty during the winter of 2022. We wanted to gauge energy security, which refers to a type of self-reported fuel poverty. Both parts of the study aimed to demonstrate the potential flaws of the Lilee definition.

Introduced in 2019, the Lilee metric considers a household to be “fuel poor” if it meets two criteria. First, after accounting for energy expenses, its income must fall below the poverty line (which is 60% of median income).

Second, the property must have an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of D–G (the lowest four ratings). The government’s apparent logic for the Lilee metric is to quicken the net-zero transition of the housing sector.

In Sustainable Warmth, the policy paper that defined the Lilee approach, the government says that EPC A–C-rated homes “will not significantly benefit from energy-efficiency measures”. Hence, the focus on fuel poverty in D–G-rated properties.

Generally speaking, EPC A–C-rated homes (those with the highest three ratings) are considered energy efficient, while D–G-rated homes are deemed inefficient. The problem with how Lilee fuel poverty is measured is that the process assumes that EPC A–C-rated homes are too “energy efficient” to be considered fuel poor: the main focus of the fuel poverty assessment is a characteristic of the property, not the occupant’s financial situation.

In other words, by this metric, anyone living in an energy-efficient home cannot be considered to be in fuel poverty, no matter their financial situation. There is an obvious flaw here.

Around 40% of homes in England have an EPC rating of A–C. According to the Lilee definition, none of these homes can or ever will be classed as fuel poor. Even though energy prices are going through the roof, a single-parent household with dependent children whose only income is universal credit (or some other form of benefits) will still not be considered to be living in fuel poverty if their home is rated A-C.

The lack of protection afforded to these households against an extremely volatile energy market is highly concerning.

In our study, we estimate that 4.4% of London’s homes are rated A-C and also financially vulnerable. That is around 171,091 households, which are currently omitted by the Lilee metric but remain highly likely to be unable to afford adequate energy.

In most other European nations, what is known as the 10% indicator is used to gauge fuel poverty. This metric, which was also used in England from the 1990s until the mid 2010s, considers a home to be fuel poor if more than 10% of income is spent on energy. Here, the main focus of the fuel poverty assessment is the occupant’s financial situation, not the property.

Were such alternative fuel poverty metrics to be employed, a significant portion of those 171,091 households in London would almost certainly qualify as fuel poor.

This is confirmed by the findings of our survey. Our data shows that 28.2% of the 2,886 people who responded were “energy insecure”. This includes being unable to afford energy, making involuntary spending trade-offs between food and energy, and falling behind on energy payments.

Worryingly, we found that the rate of energy insecurity in the survey sample is around 2.5 times higher than the official rate of fuel poverty in London (11.5%), as assessed according to the Lilee metric.

It is likely that this figure can be extrapolated for the rest of England. If anything, energy insecurity may be even higher in other regions, given that Londoners tend to have higher-than-average household income.

The UK government is wrongly omitting hundreds of thousands of English households from fuel poverty statistics. Without a more accurate measure, vulnerable households will continue to be overlooked and not get the assistance they desperately need to stay warm.

Torran Semple receives funding from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant EP/S023305/1.

John Harvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Read More

Continue Reading

Government

Looking Back At COVID’s Authoritarian Regimes

After having moved from Canada to the United States, partly to be wealthier and partly to be freer (those two are connected, by the way), I was shocked,…

Published

5 hours ago

on

March 15, 2024

By

After having moved from Canada to the United States, partly to be wealthier and partly to be freer (those two are connected, by the way), I was shocked, in March 2020, when President Trump and most US governors imposed heavy restrictions on people’s freedom. The purpose, said Trump and his COVID-19 advisers, was to “flatten the curve”: shut down people’s mobility for two weeks so that hospitals could catch up with the expected demand from COVID patients. In her book Silent Invasion, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, admitted that she was scrambling during those two weeks to come up with a reason to extend the lockdowns for much longer. As she put it, “I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them.” In short, she chose the goal and then tried to find the data to justify the goal. This, by the way, was from someone who, along with her task force colleague Dr. Anthony Fauci, kept talking about the importance of the scientific method. By the end of April 2020, the term “flatten the curve” had all but disappeared from public discussion.

Now that we are four years past that awful time, it makes sense to look back and see whether those heavy restrictions on the lives of people of all ages made sense. I’ll save you the suspense. They didn’t. The damage to the economy was huge. Remember that “the economy” is not a term used to describe a big machine; it’s a shorthand for the trillions of interactions among hundreds of millions of people. The lockdowns and the subsequent federal spending ballooned the budget deficit and consequent federal debt. The effect on children’s learning, not just in school but outside of school, was huge. These effects will be with us for a long time. It’s not as if there wasn’t another way to go. The people who came up with the idea of lockdowns did so on the basis of abstract models that had not been tested. They ignored a model of human behavior, which I’ll call Hayekian, that is tested every day.

These are the opening two paragraphs of my latest Defining Ideas article, “Looking Back at COVID’s Authoritarian Regimes,” Defining Ideas, March 14, 2024.

Another excerpt:

That wasn’t the only uncertainty. My daughter Karen lived in San Francisco and made her living teaching Pilates. San Francisco mayor London Breed shut down all the gyms, and so there went my daughter’s business. (The good news was that she quickly got online and shifted many of her clients to virtual Pilates. But that’s another story.) We tried to see her every six weeks or so, whether that meant our driving up to San Fran or her driving down to Monterey. But were we allowed to drive to see her? In that first month and a half, we simply didn’t know.

Read the whole thing, which is longer than usual.

(0 COMMENTS)

Read More

Continue Reading

Trending