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Looks like it's the new desert of the day. Feasting upon the fad.
https://www.newsweek.com/melania-trump-launches-nft-sale-melanias-vision-1660090
Melania Trump Launches NFT For Sale Called 'Melania's Vision'
BY EMMA NOLAN ON 12/16/21 AT 9:05 AM EST
Melania Trump is jumping on the NFT craze as the former first lady has announced she will sell her first non-fungible token this holiday season.
Titled "Melania's Vision" the digital asset will be available to purchase for a limited period this month. The token features watercolor art that "embodies Mrs. Trump's cobalt blue eyes, providing the collector with an amulet to inspire."
The wife of former president Donald Trump released a statement explaining that the launch of her NFT is a continuation of her "Be Best" initiative.
"I am proud to announce my new NFT endeavor, which embodies my passion for the arts, and will support my ongoing commitment to children through my Be Best initiative," Melania Trump said in a press release posted to Twitter.
"Through this new technology-based platform, we will provide children computer science skills, including programming and software development, to thrive after they age out of the foster community."
The piece of digital artwork is limited edition and will cost 1 SOL in cryptocurrency, which is approximately $150.
It also includes an audio recording from Melania Trump with a "message of hope."
The announcement confirms that this is not a once-off and that the former first lady plans to release more NFTs at "regular intervals" on the Parler-powered platform.
The tokens will be "a one-of-a-kind auction of historical importance scheduled in January 2022, including three elements: digital artwork, physical artwork, and a physical one-of-a-kind accessory."
Melania Trump stated that a portion of the proceeds will "assist children aging out of the foster care system by way of economic empowerment and with expanded access to resources needed to excel in the fields of computer science and technology."
Trump's foray into the world of non-fungible tokens comes amid a discussion about their potential for political fundraising.
NFTs have become increasingly popular over the course of 2021 as artists and public figures have explored alternative ways to make income or invest during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paris Hilton recently revealed that she is "obsessed" with NFTs, telling Bloomberg: "I launched my first NFT drop in March 2020, and have been obsessed with NFTs and the never-ending possibilities of this technology ever since.
"NFTs are the future for creators, creatives and collectors, and this is just the beginning."
NFTs use cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to sell different assets online, such as concert tickets and pieces.
Upon purchasing, customers are provided with a digital file of the asset connected to their private key which proves the individual's ownership, which allows only them to access the NFT through a particular app or platform.
However, because NFTs have no tangible real-world object, critics say that they can easily be digitally shared and accessed by people who didn't purchase them.
Still have the half of shares I didn't sell with BRDS. In some part, an emotional want for this kind of company being successful, but realizing reality would have to take precedence over any emotional needs. I fed of the bottom for only technical play, but looking more into it, they actually might succeed and reason that I put some over to another long term account. BRDS didn't go back to the old lows recently made around where I picked them up, but have held pretty good considering the market volatility recently and are now up from where I sold half.
BRDS is about a third owned by institutions and has about a 56% volatility with minuscule short interest and about 2.3B market cap with 274.4 shares outstanding.
Newest news for BRDS is an encouraging sign for our increasing electric mobility and Bird Global expansions.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211216005204/en/
December 16, 2021 09:04 AM Eastern Standard Time
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bird Global, Inc. (NYSE:BRDS), a leader in environmentally friendly electric transportation, today released new data revealing that Bird riders contributed an estimated $100 million in incremental spending at local businesses in 2021 as a result of access to micromobility. Together, these riders also helped save an estimated 1.1 million gallons of gasoline by opting for eco-friendly transportation over gas-powered cars this year alone.
“Obviously cities have many factors to consider when choosing to partner with Bird or others in the micromobility industry, but the economic benefit to local businesses should not be understated.”
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“Bird was founded to make cities more livable for all,” said Travis VanderZanden, Founder and CEO of Bird. “While we continue to make measurable progress toward our goal of reducing reliance on carbon emitting transportation such as gas-powered cars, it is remarkable to also see the positive impact our riders are having on local economies, specifically, local businesses that were very heavily impacted by the global pandemic. We are grateful to all who chose eco-friendly transportation in 2021 and look forward to continuing this positive trend in 2022 as cities increase adoption of micromobility and support expanded services with our shared bikes and scooters.”
The new data shows Bird riders saved an estimated 1,125,000 gallons of gasoline, about two Olympic-sized swimming pools, from being burned in 2021. According to the methodology published by the Arbor Day Foundation, the environmental impact of the modeshift in behaviors is comparable to the amount of CO2 absorbed by nearly 460,000 mature trees in one year. The data from Bird complements a July 2021 survey from the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility, which found that nearly 70% of respondents were willing to use micromobility to commute to work, further demonstrating that people are shifting toward smaller and more sustainable transportation options for their everyday needs.
Bird’s micro-electric vehicles also had a significant economic impact in the more than 350 cities that it serves globally, especially as cities worked to support their local businesses. Conservative estimates show that Bird scooters added more than $100 million in incremental spending, predominantly at local food and beverage companies, across its partner cities in 2021. According to a six-month study from Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business, each deployed scooter in a city spurs a given amount of additional incremental spending relative to cities of comparable size that do not offer this type of micromobility option.
“All the data points to the same conclusion: e-scooters drive consumer spending and likely provide a significant financial boon to local economies,” said Assistant Professor of Marketing Daniel McCarthy, who co-authored the study along with Emory University PhD student Kyeongbin Kim. “Obviously cities have many factors to consider when choosing to partner with Bird or others in the micromobility industry, but the economic benefit to local businesses should not be understated.”
Beyond the environmental and economic impacts, 2021 was a milestone year for Bird and the broader micromobility industry. Other notable data and trends from 2021 include:
The Thousand Ride Club. Around the world, riders relied on Bird for thousands of trips in their home cities. The top five Bird riders globally, hailing from Austin, Lisbon, Rome, San Jose and Madrid, combined have taken more than 20,000 trips in 2021 or on average 5,000 trips per person.
Going the distance. The launch of Bird Three in 2021, with its increased battery capacity, has enabled longer rides than ever before. On September 7, a rider in Munich, Germany, took their Bird Three to the limit, covering 28.5 miles on a ride that lasted 2 hours and 48 minutes. This was just over one tenth of a mile longer than a Bird Three rider in Tampa, Florida, who rode 28.4 miles on October 10, during a trip that lasted 2 hours and 39 minutes.
Extending the trend. The average Bird ride length reached a new record high in 2021. It’s now 58% longer worldwide when compared to 2019 as riders continue the trend of leveraging micromobility for longer and more varied trips.
Bridging the gender gap. An increase in women’s scooter ridership emerged in 2021, particularly in the southern United States. In Memphis, 41% of riders in 2021 identified as female, while in Atlanta, that number is nearly 46%. The trend is also present in smaller cities such as Yuma, Arizona, where 42% of riders in 2021 identified as female.
About Bird
Bird is an electric vehicle company dedicated to bringing affordable, environmentally friendly transportation solutions such as e-scooters and e-bikes to communities across the world. Founded in 2017 by transportation pioneer Travis VanderZanden, Bird is rapidly expanding. Today, it provides fleets of shared micro electric vehicles to riders in more than 350 cities globally and makes its products available for purchase at www.bird.co and via leading retailers and distribution partners. Bird partners closely with the cities in which it operates to provide a reliable and affordable transportation option for people who live and work there.
Contacts
Investor
Andrew Tom
investor@bird.co
Media
Rebecca Hahn
press@bird.co
"Honestly it would be weird if there wasn’t insider trading in this SPAC."
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-13/the-trump-spac-pipe-is-free-money?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=view&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-view&sref=TBDibEcD
The Trump SPAC PIPE Is Free Money
Also Peloton and a Bored Ape fat finger.
By Matt Levine +Sign Up
December 13, 2021, 10:50 AM MST
We talked last week about the Trump SPAC PIPE. A quick recap: Donald Trump has a vague sketch of a media company called Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). TMTG is a private company and there is almost no public information about its business, finances, executives, etc. In October, TMTG announced a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), which will contribute about $293 million of cash to TMTG in exchange for TMTG stock. DWAC is currently a public company; it raised stock from the public by selling shares at $10 each, and upon the announcement of the TMTG deal its stock shot up. It closed at $56.02 on Friday.
Traditionally SPAC deals are accompanied by private investments in public equity (PIPEs), in which big institutional investors agree to buy stock in the combined company at the time of the SPAC merger. Often the PIPE investors invest on the same terms as the SPAC investors, buying stock in the new company at $10 per share, but where (as here) the stock is up a lot in anticipation of the merger, the PIPE investors might agree to a higher price.
TMTG and DWAC announced a $1 billion PIPE on Saturday, Dec. 4. The price was a bit weird. Nominally it is $33.60 per share: The PIPE investors put in $1 billion and get back 29.8 million shares ($1,000,000,000 divided by $33.60). But it is subject to downward adjustment: The actual number of shares that the PIPE investors get is only fixed after the SPAC merger closes.
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A lot will happen between now and when the SPAC merger closes. TMTG and DWAC will have to file a merger proxy with extensive financial and business information about TMTG. Perhaps that information will be, you know, bad. Perhaps investors will read the proxy and say “huh this company has no real business plan” and the stock will drop. Or not, I don’t know, I am not sure I’d bet on the stock dropping due to a lack of business plan; you can read TMTG’s current investor deck here, and it is not exactly replete with business planning. Still the point is that there is some risk of the stock dropping.
But the PIPE investors are protected against this in two ways. First, TMTG and DWAC have promised the PIPE investors that they’ll be able to sell the stock the minute the merger closes. Ordinarily in SPAC deals, the company agrees to file a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and work to get the SEC to approve it, so that the PIPE investors can legally resell their shares. But usually that happens after closing, and you can't count on rushing the SEC. In this deal, TMTG and DWAC have promised to get the registration statement effective before closing, and in fact it is a condition to the closing of the PIPE. The PIPE investors only have to put up their money if they can immediately turn around and resell their shares.
The second protection is that the price of the PIPE is “subject to downward adjustment.” When the merger closes and TMTG is public, it will look at the average closing price over the next 10 trading days, and use that to compute the final price of the PIPE. If the stock trades at $56 or above after closing, there will be no adjustment, and the PIPE investors will buy stock at $33.60 per share. If it trades below $56, though, the PIPE investors will buy stock at a 40% discount to whatever the average price is: If it trades at $45, they’ll pay $27 per share. (Effectively, they'll get more shares — 37 million, at $27 per share — for their billion dollars.) But this is floored at $10: If the stock trades at $16.67 or below (including if it trades below $10), the PIPE investors will buy at $10 per share.
The result is that the PIPE investors are committing $1 billion of money, but taking very little risk and getting very richly rewarded. They can — and, I expect, will — sell their stock as soon as the merger closes and TMTG is public, and they’ll sell at a huge guaranteed profit because they will buy their stock at a 40% discount to the stock price at the time they pay for it. Still, some risk: If the stock is below $10 by the time the deal closes, they will lose money on the trade.
Or that is what I said last week, but the trade is actually even better for the PIPE investors? Because here is the trade they can do:
Short DWAC stock now, locking in a sale price of about $56 per share.
Buy back the stock at closing, from TMTG/DWAC, at a maximum purchase price of $33.60.
Make $22.40 per share guaranteed.
Ordinarily, if you short stock in Trump’s thing at $56, you run the risk that it will go up to $100 and you’ll lose a ton of money. But if you have committed to the PIPE, TMTG and DWAC have agreed to sell you shares at $33.60 (subject to downward adjustment), so that risk is off the table. If the stock goes up, you buy at $33.60. If the stock stays flat, you buy at $33.60. If the stock goes down, you buy at a 40% discount to the market price. If it goes down to $20, you buy at $12. If it goes down to $16.67, your price is floored and you buy at $10, but that’s fine if you already sold at $56.
Let’s say you have committed $100 million to the PIPE. At the cap price, this means you will get about 3 million shares ($100 million divided by $33.60). So you sell all those shares today, at about $56 per share, for $167 million. Then at the closing of the PIPE you put in your $100 million, get back at least 3 million shares, and deliver them to your stock lenders to close out your short position. You are left with a $67 million profit. If the stock goes down, and is below $56 after the merger closes, you will get more shares — as many as 10 million, if the stock is at $16.67 or below — and then you can sell those too for some extra cash. 1 But the $67 million is guaranteed no matter what the stock does.
I want to point out that this is explicitly contemplated by the deal documents. Here is Section 3.1(bb) of the Securities Purchase Agreement that the PIPE investors signed with DWAC (emphasis added):
Acknowledgment Regarding Purchaser’s Trading Activity. Anything in this Agreement or elsewhere herein to the contrary notwithstanding (except for Sections 3.2(g), 4.12 and 4.15 hereof), it is understood and acknowledged by the Company that: (i) none of the Purchasers has been asked by the Company to agree, nor, to the knowledge of the Company, has any Purchaser agreed, to desist from purchasing or selling, long and/or short, securities of the Company, or “derivative” securities based on securities issued by the Company or to hold the Securities for any specified term, (ii) past or future open market or other transactions by any Purchaser, specifically including, without limitation, Short Sales or “derivative” transactions, before or after the closing of this or future private placement transactions, may negatively impact the market price of the Company’s publicly-traded securities, (iii) after the execution of this Agreement, any Purchaser, and counter-parties in “derivative” transactions to which any such Purchaser is a party, directly or indirectly, may have a “short” position in the Common Stock and (iv) each Purchaser shall not be deemed to have any affiliation with or control over any arm’s length counter-party in any “derivative” transaction.
That is, DWAC agreed that the PIPE investors can short DWAC stock right now. 2 This is a very unusual provision in SPAC PIPEs; most purchase agreements specifically say that the investors are not allowed to short. 3 In the Trump SPAC PIPE, they specifically are allowed to.
Now! A couple of things. First, there are risks to this trade. One risk is that it might be expensive to borrow DWAC stock, it’s a meme stock, the price could go up, borrow could be recalled, and you could be forced to cover your short at a loss before the merger closes. If you make it to closing, you’re guaranteed to be able to buy the stock for $33.60 for a risk-free profit, but you had better be sure that your stock borrow is locked up until then. And closing — which requires writing a public disclosure document that satisfies SEC rules — could be a long way away.
Another risk is, I say “you’re guaranteed to be able to buy the stock for $33.60,” but that depends on DWAC and TMTG honoring the commitments in the contract and, you know, who knows. Donald Trump has been known to re-trade on deals. 4
Beyond the risk of perhaps getting short a meme stock and then being forced to cover prematurely, there are legal risks. The main one is: If TMTG hired an investment bank to sell $1 billion of stock into the market right now, today, with the extremely limited public information about TMTG’s business and finances that is currently available, that investment bank would definitely be breaking the law. (Specifically it would be violating Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, which requires sales of stock to be registered.) If this transaction consists effectively of TMTG hiring a bunch of PIPE investors to sell $1 billion of stock into the market right now, with the delivery of the stock to the investors in a few months, there is a risk that those investors are also legally underwriters of unregistered stock, and will get in trouble. (Not legal advice!) The fact that the transaction explicitly acknowledges that they might be doing this suggests that they’re not too worried about the legal risk, but the SEC — which doesn’t like SPACs anyway — might disagree.
And in fact short interest in DWAC stock does not seem to be especially high — certainly not the full 29.8 million shares underlying the PIPE — and the volume over the past week also does not suggest that the PIPE investors have been selling all that heavily.
Still! It seems like they could; it seems like the deal was specifically set up so they could. It was specifically set up to let them buy stock at $33.60 and lock in a sales price, today, in the $40s or $50s. It was specifically set up to be guaranteed free money for the PIPE investors.
There has been a lot of writing about the Trump SPAC PIPE that suggests that the investors in this PIPE are somehow doing Donald Trump an under-the-table favor, that this is a story about secret money in politics. For instance:
Not only was a big PIPE investment not announced when the partnership with Trump was revealed, now that it has been announced, the names of the investors have not been made public. That’s because each investor has been limited to controlling no more than 4.99 percent of the voting stock, just under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s threshold requiring anyone controlling 5 percent or more to be identified publicly in filings.
“This PIPE is structured so that the identity of the PIPE investors may not be known for a long time, if ever,” Rodrigues says.
While the public and general shareholders don’t know who the PIPE investors are, Trump apparently does. In fact, Reuters reported last week that Trump has been personally calling certain potential PIPE investors, trying to get them to commit to a $100 million investment, which heightens a potential for a conflict of interest—only Trump would know what other interests he might have to serve.
“Are they individuals or companies or countries that have a stake in something that he could affect as president?” Kathleen Clark, a professor of legal ethics at Washington University in St. Louis says. “Yes, of course they are, whoever they are, but I think the bigger question right now, is: Will we ever know their identities?”
Well, first of all, yes, of course we will know their identities: The PIPE investors will all be listed as selling shareholders in the registration statement, which will be filed before the merger closes. 5
But second, I think the whole premise here is wrong. If you agreed to invest in Donald Trump’s $1 billion SPAC PIPE, it is not because you want to donate money to Donald Trump, to do him a favor. It is because, in exchange for your investment, you will get Donald Trump meme stock that you can immediately sell to retail investors at a huge guaranteed profit. He is doing you a favor! I assume that the PIPE investors include a lot of Trump friends who are very grateful to be in the deal. Because it’s free money!
Meanwhile the warrants
Because DWAC is a SPAC, it has warrants outstanding. Each warrant represents the right to buy one share of stock, after the merger with TMTG closes, for $11.50. The warrants (ticker DWACW) closed on Friday at $18.35. The stock (DWAC) closed at $56.02.
Some simple arithmetic reveals that $11.50 + $18.35 = $29.85, and $29.85 < $56.02. If you want to get exposure to DWAC/TMTG, you can buy one share for $56.02, or you can buy one warrant (to buy one share for $11.50) for $18.35. The total per-share cost of the warrant, $29.85, is $26.17 lower than the going price of the stock.
This is anomalous! But not that anomalous, for meme-y SPAC warrants. (We talked about a similar situation in Nikola Corp. warrants last year.) The basic situation is that the stock is meme-y, salient, beloved by retail investors, and high, while the warrants are a bit weirder, more niche, traded by hedge funds, and lower. You’d think that there'd be an arbitrage between them, but it’s imperfect. You can’t exercise the warrants now — you have to wait until after closing — so you can’t just capture the $26.17 difference now. The classic way to capture the difference is to buy a warrant and short a share of stock, 6 but that is risky for the reasons it’s risky for the PIPE investors (limited expensive stock borrow that might be recalled, etc.). I suppose the point is that there are lots of Trump-SPAC trades that look like free money, but be careful with them.
Elsewhere in Trump-SPAC warrant trades that look like free money, but be careful:
A few weeks before Digital World Acquisition announced a deal to merge with a fledgling social media company backed by former President Donald J. Trump, it was at the center of a sudden trading frenzy. ...
About 350,000 warrants of Digital World traded in the first two days. But on the third day — Oct. 4, a week after Digital World and Trump Media & Technology Group entered into formal talks that were not disclosed at the time — trading in the warrants exploded. More than 2.5 million changed hands that day.
The surge was unusual, especially for a little-known SPAC that hadn’t publicly identified a merger target, experts said. And with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority now scrutinizing the merger deal — particularly trading activity that took place before the companies announced their agreement on Oct. 20 — warrants could be under a microscope.
Honestly it would be weird if there wasn’t insider trading in this SPAC.
I don't have to good of opinion on MOUs and don't give too much validity to them, at least until something more substantial works out, but I think this one is showing that the intent and focus is there anyways.
This is the latest notice out DOE;
DOE and DOT Launch Joint Effort to Build Out Nationwide Electric Vehicle Charging Network
DECEMBER 14, 2021
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-and-dot-launch-joint-effort-build-out-nationwide-electric-vehicle-charging-network
Two Cabinet Secretaries to Establish Joint Office to Support National Network of 500,000 Electric Vehicle Chargers
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg today signed a memorandum of understanding to create a Joint Office of Energy and Transportation to support the deployment of $7.5 billion from the President's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build out a national electric vehicle charging network that can build public confidence, with a focus on filling gaps in rural, disadvantaged, and hard-to-reach locations. This is a critical component of the President’s plan to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, address the climate crisis and support domestic manufacturing jobs. President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law directs both agencies to collaborate on new programs and initiatives, including the new joint office, that will support the transition of the nation's transportation systems, which currently accounts for 29% of all U.S. carbon pollution, to electric vehicles and other zero-carbon technologies.
“We are embarking on a transformative path to modernize the way we get to around in this country, making sure all Americans have the option to choose electric vehicles and spend less at the pump while making our air healthier,” said Secretary Granholm. “Our two agencies will work together to deliver on President Biden's historic investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, starting today with a joint project to build hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle charging stations, to tackle the climate crisis and create manufacturing and construction jobs at the same time.”
“Transportation is responsible for the most greenhouse gas emissions of any sector in our economy - so it can and must be a big part of the solution to the climate crisis,” said Secretary Buttigieg. “With this announcement by DOT and DOE, we are taking a big step forward on climate by helping make the benefits of EVs more accessible for all Americans.”
The Joint Office will help to accelerate effective deployment of a convenient, reliable, affordable, and equitable national network of charging stations. The Office will provide technical assistant to States and localities so that they can strategically build electric vehicle charging stations and other infrastructure. This assistance will include helping states develop comprehensive plans for charging station networks to guide the implementation of the $7.5 billion program.
Both agencies are tasked with implementing investments in zero-emission vehicle passenger, transit and heavy-duty vehicles that create cleaner and more affordable transportation options for all Americans. These investments support President Biden’s executive order in August setting a national goal of half of all new vehicles sold in the United States being electric by 2030.
The early work of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation will be largely centered on EV charging provisions of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including:
Supporting the development of guidance and standards for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s electric vehicle charging programs.
Providing technical assistance to State and localities to strategically deploy EV charging infrastructure and provide the data and tools needed to help develop State EV charging plans. Providing technical expertise and assistance to other transportation electrification programs.
In response to the lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in traditionally underserved communities, the Joint Office will provide technical assistance and analytical support to states as they develop electric vehicle charging plans to ensure this investment contributes to the Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which requires delivering at least 40% of the benefits from Federal climate and clean energy investments to underserved communities. To grow the clean transportation workforce and accelerate the construction of charging stations across the country, the Office will support career training and certification programs to strengthen career pathways for Americans and create good-paying jobs that will lead the transition to cleaner, more sustainable future.
###
The "rocket" or "space" industry isn't any hot topic or fad right now. Especially now with a bear market being the worst time for any space IPOs (and others also). Other than a limited group that has interest in it right now, with most of that group always being interested, it doesn't have the necessary "crowd" of over exuberance or "hot topic" ratings. I believe that will change sometime next yr and/or into 2023 when more attention goes to all the satellites needed for our ever advancing internet, data analysis, military and orbital space control.
And then when we develop a ring similar to Saturn's ring with ours being comprised totally of space junk (it is already in the process), we'll see space garbage scows developing IPO's in that sector. But that will probably take some junk piercing the space station with lives lost or enough of important satellites destroyed to effect cost to our individual lives to happen (not if, but when).
I look at all "space" stocks at the ground floor currently with some becoming the leaders and some disappearing to the wayside as we evolve into this industry. The ones who take the more risk now, will be the ones with the most profit acquired in the future. That also goes to the failures with the most loss. It's only speculative at this point with individual space stocks, but not speculative that the industry itself is about to grow exponentially in the coming years.
https://dialogochino.net/en/extractive-industries/argentina-future-of-lithium-sector/
Argentina at crossroads over the future of the lithium sector
The Fernández government wants to boost the state's role in lithium extraction and electromobility, but conflicts remain with local communities
Javier Lewkowicz October 1, 2021
Argentina is facing a dilemma over the future of its lithium. President Alberto Fernández and his government want to boost the sector’s development, and for the state to play a prominent role in both the extraction of the mineral and the development of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). However, social and environmental tensions over such ambitions remain.
The government’s desire for expansion has an international dimension. Globally, the transportation sector is estimated to be responsible for nearly a quarter of CO2 emissions, and moving away from combustion engines in favour of EVs is seen as a prerequisite for the energy transition. This is where lithium plays a central role as a key mineral – and one that Argentina has an abundance of.
The salt flats of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile account for almost 60% of global lithium resources. Argentina is home to 9% of the world’s total reserves – resources whose exploitation has been proven to be viable in technical and economic terms – and these are the third-largest behind Chile and Australia.
Lithium in Argentina
There are currently two projects producing lithium for export in Argentina. On the Salar del Hombre Muerto salt flat in the northwestern province of Catamarca, the US company Livent, now associated with BMW, has a production capacity of 20,000 tonnes of lithium equivalent per year, and plans to double this with an investment of US$640 million. The second project is Sales de Jujuy in the Salar de Olaroz flats of Jujuy province, with a capacity of 17,500 tonnes of lithium per year. It is managed by Australia’s Orocobre, in partnership with Japan’s Toyota Tsusho and the provincial company Jujuy Energía y Minería Sociedad del Estado (JEMSE). Sales de Jujuy sells lithium to Toyota in Japan and to other battery manufacturers in Korea and China.
Argentina lithium future 2
The only project currently in the pipeline is Caucharí-Olaroz, also in Jujuy province, operated by Minera Exar and co-owned by the Canadian company Lithium Americas and China’s Ganfeng Lithium, with JEMSE holding a minority stake. Production is due to start next year and, once construction is complete, it will have a capacity of 25,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate per year. Caucharí-Olaroz has contracts with Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW.
According to official figures from the Mining secretariat, last year 31,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate were exported from Argentina for US$134 million, down from US$184 million in 2019. With full production from Caucharí-Olaroz, the country’s total capacity would increase from the current 37,500 tonnes per year to 85,000 tonnes.
Elsewhere, the French company Eramet has seen its project at the Salar de Centenario-Ratones flats in Salta province stalled by the pandemic and Argentina’s broader economic uncertainty. Working in the same vein are the South Korean firm Posco, which plans to build a lithium carbonate and hydroxide plant in Salta, and the Australian companies Galaxy and Orocobre’s investment in Catamarca.
31,500
Tonnes of lithium carbonate exported from Argentina in 2020
Practically all the concessions to salt flats in Argentina are in the hands of between 50 and 60 firms. Martín Obaya, a researcher at the National University of General San Martín, argues that the regulatory framework for mining activity favours speculation on such projects, with companies buying a concession but then selling it to obtain income.
Argentina’s mining investment law and its mining code, which regulate lithium activity, allow for duty-free imports of equipment, include tax breaks and fiscal stability, and establishes royalties of just 3% for exports. It does not establish mechanisms for dialogue with communities, nor does it include tools to advance value addition.
The situation is different in Chile and Bolivia, where lithium is considered a strategic resource. In Chile, private companies operate under contracts with the state, with flexible royalties of between 6% and 40% paid, and resources are earmarked to finance research centres. Meanwhile in Bolivia, the system is public and pilot projects have been developed but are not yet at the industrial phase.
Environmental conflicts
In a contested field, one area in which conflicts can arise is over water. “Lithium mining competes for a critical resource such as water, as these [salt flats] are areas of extreme aridity,” explains María Laura Castillo Díaz of the Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN). “The little fresh water that is available is underground and is a basic resource for communities and biodiversity.”
To extract the mineral from the ground, the companies drill a well between 200 to 400 metres deep to extract water along with minerals. The liquid is then left to stand for one to two years in huge pools, from which the water evaporates due to solar energy. The resulting compound thus requires large quantities of fresh water in order to form lithium carbonate.
In the Olaroz salt flat and in Catamarca, the lithium sector is advancing, despite some tension with surrounding communities. This is not the case, however, in Salinas Grandes, a basin straddling Salta and Jujuy provinces, and in which 33 different communities live. Several exploratory projects have been halted here due to conflicts, and as a result there is practically no active business presence at this moment in time.
Alicia Chalabe, a lawyer for these communities of Salinas Grandes, describes how they are “organised” and that “conflict will continue to exist as long as indigenous rights are not recognised.” She adds that “provincial legislation does not contemplate the right to prior consultation. The communities are not properly informed, nor are they asked for their consent in cases where biodiversity conditions are affected.”
Conflict will continue as long as indigenous rights are not recognised
The communities’ claim is based on the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention 169, which concerns the protection of indigenous and tribal peoples’ lands, and which has been ratified by Argentine law. The Escazú Agreement, the first environmental treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean, is also in force, and establishes regional standards for environmental access rights.
However, with demand for lithium expected to soar, legal conflict over these lands and resources may intensify – particularly given inefficiencies in the lithium extraction process. As Ernesto Calvo, director of the Instituto de Química Física de los Materiales, Medio Ambiente y Energía (INQUIMAE) at the University of Buenos Aires, explains: “The current method of lithium extraction is not sustainable because of the volume of water it requires and the waste it generates. It is also very inefficient in economic terms, which means that it will not be able to meet the 35-fold increase in demand that is expected in a scenario where electric vehicles become widespread.”
Calvo himself and his team have developed a new extraction method that is competing with projects from companies and governments around the world to reach an industrial scale. “Sooner or later there will be a technological change in favour of a more efficient, cost-effective and environmentally friendly direct extraction method,” he told Diálogo Chino.
Plans for lithium in Argentina
Alberto Fernández’s government is studying a bill that aims to consolidate a public company for lithium production, along with a self-sufficient and comprehensive commission that would function across scientific, technical, commercial and industrial levels. The commission would invite the participation of the national and provincial governments, indigenous communities and universities. It would also facilitate a new agency aimed at stimulating scientific development in lithium. Sources among pro-government deputies argue that this new public entity should resemble YPF, the national oil company, but highlight that the concessions of salt flats represent a problem in this regard.
Argentina lithium future 3
Workers handle lithium carbonate after processing at the Rincon Mining plant in Salta, Argentina (Image: Agustin Marcarian / Alamy)
Federico Nacif, a lithium specialist at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), says that “the first thing that should be regulated are the projects that are currently underway. In any case, the plans to produce lithium with a state-owned company could take effect in eight years’ time.”
Nacif and other specialists argue that lithium should be removed from the scope of Argentina’s mining investment law and declared a strategic resource. But as a federalised country, in which provinces have control over their resources, moving in that direction would entail considerable political conflict.
Electromobility in Argentina
In the short term, the government is expected to send a bill to Congress to promote electromobility. The details are not yet known, but it would seek to encourage the industrialisation of lithium, as well as the manufacture of EVs with domestically made components, and expanding the market for sales of these new models.
To this end, the province of Jujuy and the national government signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Ganfeng Lithium to study the installation of a lithium battery factory, while the national government agreed a further MOU with another Chinese company, Jiangsu Jiankang Automobile, to produce urban EVs and batteries in Argentina.
The promotion of electromobility is a bone of contention with car manufacturers, who warn that the possibility of mass production of EVs in the country is remote, as Brazil, the main buyer, does not seem to be transitioning towards electric cars but hybrids, in order to take advantage of their large resources of ethanol as a fuel. In addition, carmakers argue that the Argentine industry specialises in the manufacture of utility vehicles, which do not adapt well to current electric technology given their power and range requirements. They are therefore pushing for the first step to be support for hybrids that combine petrol or gas with electric.
In the short term, the market for EVs could open up in public transport and by importing certain vehicles for urban use. Chinese companies appear to be the only actors capable of setting up factories, but questions arise as to the degree that these will link with and benefit local industry.
Of course there is debate over which administration is at fault for all of the pain that we are creating for ourselves, but again that's better discussed on a just politics or policy board due to it would get in way too much off topic for the LAC board.
There is so much talk about North American gov policies (US policy and gov especially), but I would argue that South American gov policies (especially Argentina) would have as much as and even more direct effect on LAC and should be heavily considered and analyzed with LAC and not so much with US policy or admin. Along with that fact, is that this move to a more sustainable environment is a world involvement and it is argued that the US isn't even the leader in market share, but nevertheless is only part of the whole.
A couple of articles to that effect (there are many) follows.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-interprovincial-treaty-concerning-2198404/
The Interprovincial Treaty Concerning the Regional Development of the Lithium Sector
On October 5, 2021, the leading provinces of the lithium industry in Argentina, Salta, Jujuy, and Catamarca, signed the interprovincial treaty (the “Treaty”) which creates the Lithium Mining Region to promote the economic and social development resulting from the extraction, production, industrialization and commercialization of the mineral, its products, and derivatives.
The interprovincial treaties are provided in article 125 of the National Constitution as an instrument that enables the provinces to create regions for the economic and social development and establish the competent bodies to fulfill their purposes.
In this context, the Regional Lithium Committee (Mesa Regional del Litio) was created as a result of prior efforts to establish a forum to outline uniform strategies, encourage regional competitiveness and investments, and develop the supply chain of lithium. It will serve as a common space for the academic, institutional, and corporate sectors to discuss the applicable regulations and standards as well as the lithium’s price evolution in the local and foreign markets. The federal government has endorsed the initiative and integrates the Regional Lithium Committee.
Thus, the joint efforts of the three neighboring provinces that have a prominent role in the lithium sector will create the appropriate conditions to promote investments across the Lithium Mining Region by setting clear rules and stable regulations.
Argentina is the fourth world lithium producer and could become the main world’s producer due to its large existing reserves and a favorable legislation which provides a limited intervention of the State. Moreover, there is an increased demand for lithium due to the global need for electric transportation and renewable energies, among others, in accordance with the international agreements. Hence, the Treaty can increase Argentina's potential to become the first global lithium provider.
Finally, the Treaty will enter into force after being ratified by the legislatures of the signatory provinces and approved by the National Congress. It should be noted that on November 16, 2021, the Chamber of Deputies of the Province of Salta passed the law approving the Treaty.
I don't believe it. You just noted a positive outlook for LAC!
There were some top players in the dot.com era and all the little players were either bought up or overcome and bankrupt. Now look at where the top players are now and how much they are worth. Of course that's true with many of the things that are "hot" in the market.
Fads change and the big players take out the small players. EVs will overtake the CEs, just not as fast as the ones creating the "fad" want or expect, but still will happen just like the internet and dot.com took over our way of life today. Just evolution of humanity.
LAC is one of the top players in lithium and will be part of the ever changing evolution away from CE's and into more sustainable environments while the smaller players disappear. EV's will not disappear just like the internet didn't and only grew and advanced exponentially and is continuing to. EV's will be the same.
Also right now, there are many overrated, overpriced, and fad play stocks. Eliminating many of those factors is what they call a correction and a bear market which you have the start of going on right now. The market will use any excuse to get to those means, but the underlining cause is the irrational exuberance over basic stock analysis.
Thanks for the positive outlook for LAC.
I believe that manipulated shorting is a big part of this DWAC scam.
"Honestly it would be weird if there wasn’t insider trading in this SPAC."
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-13/the-trump-spac-pipe-is-free-money?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=view&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-view&sref=TBDibEcD
The Trump SPAC PIPE Is Free Money
Trump SPAC PIPE
We talked last week about the Trump SPAC PIPE. A quick recap: Donald Trump has a vague sketch of a media company called Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). TMTG is a private company and there is almost no public information about its business, finances, executives, etc. In October, TMTG announced a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), which will contribute about $293 million of cash to TMTG in exchange for TMTG stock. DWAC is currently a public company; it raised stock from the public by selling shares at $10 each, and upon the announcement of the TMTG deal its stock shot up. It closed at $56.02 on Friday.
Traditionally SPAC deals are accompanied by private investments in public equity (PIPEs), in which big institutional investors agree to buy stock in the combined company at the time of the SPAC merger. Often the PIPE investors invest on the same terms as the SPAC investors, buying stock in the new company at $10 per share, but where (as here) the stock is up a lot in anticipation of the merger, the PIPE investors might agree to a higher price.
TMTG and DWAC announced a $1 billion PIPE on Saturday, Dec. 4. The price was a bit weird. Nominally it is $33.60 per share: The PIPE investors put in $1 billion and get back 29.8 million shares ($1,000,000,000 divided by $33.60). But it is subject to downward adjustment: The actual number of shares that the PIPE investors get is only fixed after the SPAC merger closes.
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A lot will happen between now and when the SPAC merger closes. TMTG and DWAC will have to file a merger proxy with extensive financial and business information about TMTG. Perhaps that information will be, you know, bad. Perhaps investors will read the proxy and say “huh this company has no real business plan” and the stock will drop. Or not, I don’t know, I am not sure I’d bet on the stock dropping due to a lack of business plan; you can read TMTG’s current investor deck here, and it is not exactly replete with business planning. Still the point is that there is some risk of the stock dropping.
But the PIPE investors are protected against this in two ways. First, TMTG and DWAC have promised the PIPE investors that they’ll be able to sell the stock the minute the merger closes. Ordinarily in SPAC deals, the company agrees to file a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and work to get the SEC to approve it, so that the PIPE investors can legally resell their shares. But usually that happens after closing, and you can't count on rushing the SEC. In this deal, TMTG and DWAC have promised to get the registration statement effective before closing, and in fact it is a condition to the closing of the PIPE. The PIPE investors only have to put up their money if they can immediately turn around and resell their shares.
The second protection is that the price of the PIPE is “subject to downward adjustment.” When the merger closes and TMTG is public, it will look at the average closing price over the next 10 trading days, and use that to compute the final price of the PIPE. If the stock trades at $56 or above after closing, there will be no adjustment, and the PIPE investors will buy stock at $33.60 per share. If it trades below $56, though, the PIPE investors will buy stock at a 40% discount to whatever the average price is: If it trades at $45, they’ll pay $27 per share. (Effectively, they'll get more shares — 37 million, at $27 per share — for their billion dollars.) But this is floored at $10: If the stock trades at $16.67 or below (including if it trades below $10), the PIPE investors will buy at $10 per share.
The result is that the PIPE investors are committing $1 billion of money, but taking very little risk and getting very richly rewarded. They can — and, I expect, will — sell their stock as soon as the merger closes and TMTG is public, and they’ll sell at a huge guaranteed profit because they will buy their stock at a 40% discount to the stock price at the time they pay for it. Still, some risk: If the stock is below $10 by the time the deal closes, they will lose money on the trade.
Or that is what I said last week, but the trade is actually even better for the PIPE investors? Because here is the trade they can do:
Short DWAC stock now, locking in a sale price of about $56 per share.
Buy back the stock at closing, from TMTG/DWAC, at a maximum purchase price of $33.60.
Make $22.40 per share guaranteed.
Ordinarily, if you short stock in Trump’s thing at $56, you run the risk that it will go up to $100 and you’ll lose a ton of money. But if you have committed to the PIPE, TMTG and DWAC have agreed to sell you shares at $33.60 (subject to downward adjustment), so that risk is off the table. If the stock goes up, you buy at $33.60. If the stock stays flat, you buy at $33.60. If the stock goes down, you buy at a 40% discount to the market price. If it goes down to $20, you buy at $12. If it goes down to $16.67, your price is floored and you buy at $10, but that’s fine if you already sold at $56.
Let’s say you have committed $100 million to the PIPE. At the cap price, this means you will get about 3 million shares ($100 million divided by $33.60). So you sell all those shares today, at about $56 per share, for $167 million. Then at the closing of the PIPE you put in your $100 million, get back at least 3 million shares, and deliver them to your stock lenders to close out your short position. You are left with a $67 million profit. If the stock goes down, and is below $56 after the merger closes, you will get more shares — as many as 10 million, if the stock is at $16.67 or below — and then you can sell those too for some extra cash. 1 But the $67 million is guaranteed no matter what the stock does.
I want to point out that this is explicitly contemplated by the deal documents. Here is Section 3.1(bb) of the Securities Purchase Agreement that the PIPE investors signed with DWAC (emphasis added):
Acknowledgment Regarding Purchaser’s Trading Activity. Anything in this Agreement or elsewhere herein to the contrary notwithstanding (except for Sections 3.2(g), 4.12 and 4.15 hereof), it is understood and acknowledged by the Company that: (i) none of the Purchasers has been asked by the Company to agree, nor, to the knowledge of the Company, has any Purchaser agreed, to desist from purchasing or selling, long and/or short, securities of the Company, or “derivative” securities based on securities issued by the Company or to hold the Securities for any specified term, (ii) past or future open market or other transactions by any Purchaser, specifically including, without limitation, Short Sales or “derivative” transactions, before or after the closing of this or future private placement transactions, may negatively impact the market price of the Company’s publicly-traded securities, (iii) after the execution of this Agreement, any Purchaser, and counter-parties in “derivative” transactions to which any such Purchaser is a party, directly or indirectly, may have a “short” position in the Common Stock and (iv) each Purchaser shall not be deemed to have any affiliation with or control over any arm’s length counter-party in any “derivative” transaction.
That is, DWAC agreed that the PIPE investors can short DWAC stock right now. 2 This is a very unusual provision in SPAC PIPEs; most purchase agreements specifically say that the investors are not allowed to short. 3 In the Trump SPAC PIPE, they specifically are allowed to.
Now! A couple of things. First, there are risks to this trade. One risk is that it might be expensive to borrow DWAC stock, it’s a meme stock, the price could go up, borrow could be recalled, and you could be forced to cover your short at a loss before the merger closes. If you make it to closing, you’re guaranteed to be able to buy the stock for $33.60 for a risk-free profit, but you had better be sure that your stock borrow is locked up until then. And closing — which requires writing a public disclosure document that satisfies SEC rules — could be a long way away.
Another risk is, I say “you’re guaranteed to be able to buy the stock for $33.60,” but that depends on DWAC and TMTG honoring the commitments in the contract and, you know, who knows. Donald Trump has been known to re-trade on deals. 4
Beyond the risk of perhaps getting short a meme stock and then being forced to cover prematurely, there are legal risks. The main one is: If TMTG hired an investment bank to sell $1 billion of stock into the market right now, today, with the extremely limited public information about TMTG’s business and finances that is currently available, that investment bank would definitely be breaking the law. (Specifically it would be violating Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, which requires sales of stock to be registered.) If this transaction consists effectively of TMTG hiring a bunch of PIPE investors to sell $1 billion of stock into the market right now, with the delivery of the stock to the investors in a few months, there is a risk that those investors are also legally underwriters of unregistered stock, and will get in trouble. (Not legal advice!) The fact that the transaction explicitly acknowledges that they might be doing this suggests that they’re not too worried about the legal risk, but the SEC — which doesn’t like SPACs anyway — might disagree.
And in fact short interest in DWAC stock does not seem to be especially high — certainly not the full 29.8 million shares underlying the PIPE — and the volume over the past week also does not suggest that the PIPE investors have been selling all that heavily.
Still! It seems like they could; it seems like the deal was specifically set up so they could. It was specifically set up to let them buy stock at $33.60 and lock in a sales price, today, in the $40s or $50s. It was specifically set up to be guaranteed free money for the PIPE investors.
There has been a lot of writing about the Trump SPAC PIPE that suggests that the investors in this PIPE are somehow doing Donald Trump an under-the-table favor, that this is a story about secret money in politics. For instance:
Not only was a big PIPE investment not announced when the partnership with Trump was revealed, now that it has been announced, the names of the investors have not been made public. That’s because each investor has been limited to controlling no more than 4.99 percent of the voting stock, just under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s threshold requiring anyone controlling 5 percent or more to be identified publicly in filings.
“This PIPE is structured so that the identity of the PIPE investors may not be known for a long time, if ever,” Rodrigues says.
While the public and general shareholders don’t know who the PIPE investors are, Trump apparently does. In fact, Reuters reported last week that Trump has been personally calling certain potential PIPE investors, trying to get them to commit to a $100 million investment, which heightens a potential for a conflict of interest—only Trump would know what other interests he might have to serve.
“Are they individuals or companies or countries that have a stake in something that he could affect as president?” Kathleen Clark, a professor of legal ethics at Washington University in St. Louis says. “Yes, of course they are, whoever they are, but I think the bigger question right now, is: Will we ever know their identities?”
Well, first of all, yes, of course we will know their identities: The PIPE investors will all be listed as selling shareholders in the registration statement, which will be filed before the merger closes. 5
But second, I think the whole premise here is wrong. If you agreed to invest in Donald Trump’s $1 billion SPAC PIPE, it is not because you want to donate money to Donald Trump, to do him a favor. It is because, in exchange for your investment, you will get Donald Trump meme stock that you can immediately sell to retail investors at a huge guaranteed profit. He is doing you a favor! I assume that the PIPE investors include a lot of Trump friends who are very grateful to be in the deal. Because it’s free money!
Meanwhile the warrants
Because DWAC is a SPAC, it has warrants outstanding. Each warrant represents the right to buy one share of stock, after the merger with TMTG closes, for $11.50. The warrants (ticker DWACW) closed on Friday at $18.35. The stock (DWAC) closed at $56.02.
Some simple arithmetic reveals that $11.50 + $18.35 = $29.85, and $29.85 < $56.02. If you want to get exposure to DWAC/TMTG, you can buy one share for $56.02, or you can buy one warrant (to buy one share for $11.50) for $18.35. The total per-share cost of the warrant, $29.85, is $26.17 lower than the going price of the stock.
This is anomalous! But not that anomalous, for meme-y SPAC warrants. (We talked about a similar situation in Nikola Corp. warrants last year.) The basic situation is that the stock is meme-y, salient, beloved by retail investors, and high, while the warrants are a bit weirder, more niche, traded by hedge funds, and lower. You’d think that there'd be an arbitrage between them, but it’s imperfect. You can’t exercise the warrants now — you have to wait until after closing — so you can’t just capture the $26.17 difference now. The classic way to capture the difference is to buy a warrant and short a share of stock, 6 but that is risky for the reasons it’s risky for the PIPE investors (limited expensive stock borrow that might be recalled, etc.). I suppose the point is that there are lots of Trump-SPAC trades that look like free money, but be careful with them.
Elsewhere in Trump-SPAC warrant trades that look like free money, but be careful:
A few weeks before Digital World Acquisition announced a deal to merge with a fledgling social media company backed by former President Donald J. Trump, it was at the center of a sudden trading frenzy. ...
About 350,000 warrants of Digital World traded in the first two days. But on the third day — Oct. 4, a week after Digital World and Trump Media & Technology Group entered into formal talks that were not disclosed at the time — trading in the warrants exploded. More than 2.5 million changed hands that day.
The surge was unusual, especially for a little-known SPAC that hadn’t publicly identified a merger target, experts said. And with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority now scrutinizing the merger deal — particularly trading activity that took place before the companies announced their agreement on Oct. 20 — warrants could be under a microscope.
Honestly it would be weird if there wasn’t insider trading in this SPAC.
'Natural immunity' can be dangerous — try 'hybrid immunity'
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/585576-natural-immunity-can-be-dangerous-try-hybrid-immunity
BY DR. MARC SIEGEL, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 12/14/21 08:30 AM EST 369THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
All immunity is “natural,” Dr. Carlos Del Rio, president-elect of the Infectious Disease Society of America, told me recently on Sirius XM’s Doctor Radio. However you signal the immune system to make neutralizing antibodies, T cells and memory B cells against SARS-CoV-2 is natural, whether it’s due to encountering the virus itself or receiving a signal from a messenger RNA molecule to make the virus’s spike protein.
Vaccines are “natural” too.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed with this in a subsequent interview with me for Fox News. The problem with using the term “natural immunity” isn’t just one of accuracy, it’s also the message it sends to the public — namely that one kind of immunity may be better than another.
This can be dangerous, especially since many people may not realize that the potential long-term side effects from COVID — including loss of smell and taste, cognitive changes, and lung and heart issues — far outweigh the benefits in terms of the immunity you do develop, which appears to be temporary and variable. Though this is also true for the vaccine, as boosters are required to maximize protection, it is very clear that the side effects of the vaccine are much less than the side effects from COVID.
In fact, a new study among young athletes who have recovered from COVID showed a 2.3 percent incidence of myocarditis. By contrast, the risk of myocarditis associated with the vaccine is extremely low — less than 5 per 100,000 for teenage males.
The main problem with extolling natural immunity at the expense of vaccinated and boosted immunity is that it may encourage people to believe they have already had COVID even if they really didn’t. You can check people who feel they were infected for COVID antibodies, but this test can’t be used to reliably track either infection or immunity after infection. Almost every patient I have can recall a time over the past two years when they’ve had congestion, fatigue, cough, or fever that might have been COVID. If you lack those antibodies, it doesn’t mean you didn’t have COVID at some point.
This is why I like Israel’s system of confirming COVID infection with nasal swabs or a documented positive antibody test before considering a person as immune from infection.
But what about vaccinated immunity? A study just out from Israel, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, demonstrates a 90 percent decrease in death among those who have received Pfizer boosters. And previous studies have shown a marked decrease in severity and risk of getting COVID after being boosted (more than six months after the second vaccine).
Is there a way to measure this response, and tell people that based on a blood test it is their time to receive a booster? The answer is no, because the spike antibody protein test measures antibodies to this protein whether they effectively neutralize the virus or not. So the test is most helpful when it is low, which is likely an indication that a boost is needed.
Based on the data from Israel and elsewhere, I believe in boosting everyone who received a vaccine more than six months ago. At this time, the variants (Delta and especially Omicron) appear to partly evade the immune response, and re-infection from Omicron is increasing both among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Early data from the UK demonstrates that boosters still protect you to a large extent from Omicron.
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This is also why we can’t count on so-called “natural immunity” to protect us. I prefer instead “hybrid immunity,” meaning a recovery from COVID plus at least one MRNA vaccine. Studies show that this type of immunity may be the most substantial, and it makes sense — think of a hybrid car. The gas engine is COVID recovery, and the big battery is vaccine-induced immunity. They work together well; the “mileage” is better.
No one should wish for COVID because the risks are real. But if you already had it, and then add a vaccine, the benefits are also very real.
Marc Siegel, M.D., is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health. He is a Fox News medical correspondent and author of the new book, "COVID; the Politics of Fear and the Power of Science."
It's true, but only indirectly. It's really the AI birds. 5g is the network the birds run on now. The AI birds were running on only the 4g network previously when the bird flu was unleashed and of course the SARS big success with 3g. Now the gov/corp has learned to control the new tech more with their birds having a faster and badder 5g with the newer tech, hence they were able to unleash the Covid. Simple equation and deduction of the facts.
Leading-Edge Science Using Planet Data Presented At AGU 2021
Tanya Harrison | December 10, 2021
https://www.planet.com/pulse/leading-edge-science-using-planet-data-presented-at-agu-2021/
It’s that time of year again: Nearly 30,000 geoscientists from around the world gather every December for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the largest of its kind. Planet is always excited to see what innovative science applications researchers have discovered using our data! This year, 70 abstracts were submitted from researchers accessing data through pathways such as our Education and Research program, the NASA Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program, and Norway’s International Climate and Forests Initiative (NICFI). The conference will run as a hybrid virtual and in-person event this year from December 13 through 17.
Some of the highlights of presentations this year featuring Planet data:
The combined high spatial and temporal resolution of PlanetScope provides the unprecedented ability to perform phenological analysis of ecosystems at the individual tree level from orbit. Yasmin Fitts and colleagues at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and GET Géosciences Environnement Toulouse did such an analysis across the Sahel in West Africa.
A team led by Hannah Friedrich at the University of Arizona used sensor fusion across PlanetScope, Landsat, Sentinel-2, and MODIS, along with radar and passive microwave data, to perform automated flood mapping via machine learning.
Utilizing PlanetScope Basemaps via the NICI program, Nyein Soe Thwal of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center and colleagues developed a transfer learning approach for automated mapping sugarcane in Thailand—the world’s second largest exporter of the resource.
Sarah Wegmueller of the University of Wisconsin Madison is giving an invited talk on a time-series-based early detection and monitoring system that uses PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to map abnormal mortality in forests.
Anders Bjork of University of Copenhagen will discuss mapping over new land being exposed as the Greenland ice sheet retreats due to climate change.
Planet is convening an entire session on data fusion for Earth observation science.
Additionally, a few Planeteers will be presenting at the conference:
I’ll be giving an invited talk about how U.S. federally-funded researchers can access Planet data through NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program.
Rasmus Houborg, Principal Geospatial Fusion Engineer, will be presenting a poster on Planet Fusion monitoring.
Our exciting recently-announced Carbon Mapper project will be presented by Sara Shivers, Product Manager, Hyperspectral Imaging.
Solutions Architect Samapriya Roy will be discussing details of the NICFI program.
You can view the entire scientific program for the AGU Fall Meeting online. Be sure to check out the talks and/or posters mentioned here, and browse the schedule for more amazing science in the works that will help us better understand our ever-evolving Earth.
Seeking Alpha did a condensed piece today, but a fuller text came out last Fri with the news;
https://www.planet.com/pulse/planet-to-acquire-vandersat-to-deliver-advanced-agriculture-data-products-to-customers/
Planet To Acquire VanderSat To Deliver Advanced Agriculture Data Products To Customers
Robbie Schingler | November 10, 2021
We are excited to announce that Planet has entered into an agreement to acquire VanderSat, a leading provider of advanced earth data and analytics. Vandersat’s innovative products help customers better measure and understand water management and crop health in major markets. Planet intends to leverage VanderSat’s technologies and products in further pursuit of bringing to market next-generation solutions that combine the best of commercial and public satellite data to provide clear and actionable information to help industries, non-profits, and governments around the world.
VanderSat has world-class expertise in providing insights to customers by drawing from NASA, ESA and JAXA satellite data, and has built a suite of novel products that report on key conditions on the Earth’s surface, like soil moisture, land surface temperature, vegetation optical depth, and biomass. VanderSat’s unique algorithms deliver daily, global data products with great accuracy, unhindered by changing cloud-cover and atmospheric conditions.
“VanderSat is a mission-driven company with the goal to serve one billion hectares of land in 2024. By joining Planet, our mission and impact will be dramatically accelerated and together, we aim to reach that goal in 2022,” said Dr. Thijs van Leeuwen, CEO of VanderSat.
“We’re thrilled to be welcoming the VanderSat team to Planet. We expect VanderSat’s analytics and industry expertise will help Planet provide solutions ‘up the stack’ to bridge the gap from complex remote-sensing science to products that offer improved data to the ecosystem and our customers. And when one combines their new data with Planet’s, the value is far greater than the sum of its parts,” said Will Marshall, CEO and Co-Founder of Planet. “We believe VanderSat’s products will add value in Planet’s core verticals of agriculture, and civil government, and will help us open up to others such as insurance and banking, to help grow our business.”
At Planet, one of our goals is to bridge the gap between real-world problems and the complexity of remote-sensing science. VanderSat is another step towards that goal with their advanced analytics. We believe their products will accelerate and expand our position in one of our most important verticals – agriculture – and help mature our offerings for others such as insurance, civil government, and finance. For example, easier-to-consume data can enable modeling to help financial institutions and insurers quantify climate impacts on water availability and crop production.
Adding VanderSat’s unique, all-weather data products to Planet’s high-cadence and high-resolution global monitoring will bring even greater value to users in agriculture, civil government and insurance by providing them with richer insights and more precise measurements. Plus, Planet’s unique platform and integrations will make these products more accessible than ever before.
The VanderSat team is based in Haarlem, Netherlands and will further increase Planet’s commitment to the European ecosystem. The entire team, including their founder Dr. Richard de Jeu and CEO Dr. van Leeuwen, will be joining Planet.
Under the agreement, Planet is set to acquire VanderSat for approximately $28 million, which consists of $18 million in shares of Class A common stock of Planet Labs PBC, valued at a per share price equal to the closing price of Class A common stock of Planet Labs PBC on the NYSE on the last trading day prior to the consummation of the acquisition of VanderSat, and approximately $10 million in cash.
The transaction is expected to close in Q4 2021 and is subject to customary closing conditions, as well as the closing of Planet’s business combination with dMY Technology Group, Inc. IV (“dMY IV”). This will be Planet’s fourth acquisition (BlackBridge ‘15, Terra Bella ‘17, and Boundless ‘19).
We are thrilled to welcome VanderSat to the Planet family!
Important Information and Where to Find It
This press release may be deemed solicitation material in respect of the proposed Business Combination between dMY IV and Planet. The Business Combination will be submitted to the stockholders of dMY IV and Planet for their approval. In connection with the vote of dMY IV’s stockholders, dMY IV has filed a Registration Statement with SEC, which includes a proxy statement/prospectus and certain other related documents. dMY IV has also commenced mailing the definitive proxy statement/prospectus and a proxy card to each stockholder of record as of October 19, 2021 entitled to vote at the special meeting relating to the Business Combination. dMY IV also will file other documents regarding the proposed transaction with the SEC. This communication does not contain all the information that should be considered concerning the proposed Business Combination and the other matters to be voted upon at the special meeting and is not intended to provide the basis for any investment decision or any other decision in respect of such matters. dMY IV’s stockholders and other interested parties are urged to read the definitive proxy statement and any other relevant documents that are filed or furnished or will be filed or will be furnished with the SEC carefully and in their entirety in connection with dMY IV’s solicitation of proxies for the special meeting, as these materials will contain important information about Planet and dMY IV and the proposed Business Combination and other related matters. Stockholders will also be able to obtain copies of these materials, without charge, once available, at the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov, at the Company’s website at https://www.dmytechnology.com or by written request to dMY Technology Group, Inc. IV at 1180 North Town Center Drive, Suite 100, Las Vegas, Nevada 89144
Participants in the Solicitation
dMY IV, dMY Sponsor IV, LLC, Planet and their respective directors and executive officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from dMY IV’s stockholders with respect to the Business Combination. A list of the names of those directors and executive officers and a description of their interests in dMY IV is included in the the definitive proxy statement of dMY IV for the Business Combination and is available at www.sec.gov. You may obtain free copies of these documents as described in the preceding paragraph.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to the proposed transaction between dMY IV and Planet and the proposed acquisition of Vandersat by Planet, including expected benefits of that transaction. Actual results may differ from these forward-looking statements and you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as “expect,” “estimate,” “project,” “budget,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “would,” “believes,” “predicts,” “potential,” “strategy,” “opportunity,” “continue,” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Most of these factors are outside dMY IV’s and Planet’s control and are difficult to predict. Factors that may cause such differences include, but are not limited to the risks and uncertainties indicated from time to time in the proxy statement/prospectus relating to the Business Combination, including those under “Risk Factors” therein, and in dMY IV’s other filings with the SEC. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the proxy statement/prospectus discussed above and other documents filed by dMY IV from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address or will identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Nothing in this communication should be regarded as a representation by any person that the forward-looking statements set forth herein will be achieved or that any of the contemplated results of such forward-looking statements will be achieved. dMY IV and Planet caution readers not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. dMY IV and Planet do not undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in its expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
No Offer or Solicitation
This press release is for informational purposes only and shall not constitute a solicitation of a proxy, consent or authorization with respect to any securities or in respect of the Business Combination. This press release shall also not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any states or jurisdictions in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or an exemption therefrom.
There is something very, very dangerous happening in this country and too many are being complicit of it, ignoring it, conditioned to accept and believe, or just plain unaware the magnitude of it. Some think this is just an anomaly and it too will pass. It isn't and it won't. Others see it, but are helpless to stop it, and when the ones who don't see it become aware, it will be too late. The growing faction of the new GOP and followers that absolutely know what they are doing, intentionally aid and abet the takeover, and even now will have detrimental effects for generations to come if society doesn't do some drastic changes and realizations immediately to combat the traitors of our democracy as we know it.
They will continue, giving no heed to any collateral damage or lives taken or destroyed, or laws broken, all in the name of just raw power grabbing and greed. The new GOP will just continue by any means to fraudulently divide, lie, misinform, obstruct, suppress or control the vote, and apply Judicial control (becoming no longer three separations of power). What they can't do with all of that, they will just use brute force as they are doing now. Creating a modern day type civil war that will not go anywhere good for most.
One would have to do more than just suspect that the number of retiring politicians are for reasons other than what is commonly portrayed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/11/republicans-repeatedly-point-violent-threats-key-trumps-gop-rein/
The role of violent threats in Trump’s GOP reign, according to Republicans
Tim Alberta is out with his latest must-read this week — a profile of freshman Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.). Meijer joined Congress just days before the Capitol insurrection and almost immediately jeopardized his political career by supporting Donald Trump’s impeachment.
It’s a must-read, but a tough read. That’s because it describes an exceedingly ugly situation: one in which lawmakers are disregarding private principle in their votes and often doing so out of literal fear. Not only does Meijer describe members who advocated for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office later voting against impeachment, but he cites fears of physical violence directly impacting such votes:
On the House floor [on Jan. 6], moments before the vote, Meijer approached a member who appeared on the verge of a breakdown. He asked his new colleague if he was okay. The member responded that he was not; that no matter his belief in the legitimacy of the election, he could no longer vote to certify the results, because he feared for his family’s safety. “Remember, this wasn’t a hypothetical. You were casting that vote after seeing with your own two eyes what some of these people are capable of,” Meijer says. “If they’re willing to come after you inside the U.S. Capitol, what will they do when you’re at home with your kids?”
...
At one point, Meijer described to me the psychological forces at work in his party, the reasons so many Republicans have refused to confront the tragedy of January 6 and the nature of the ongoing threat. Some people are motivated by raw power, he said. Others have acted out of partisan spite, or ignorance, or warped perceptions of truth and lies. But the chief explanation, he said, is fear. People are afraid for their safety. They are afraid for their careers. Above all, they are afraid of fighting a losing battle in an empty foxhole.
Meijer’s comments build upon what he told Reason shortly after the Capitol riot on the same certification votes.
Meijer, though, is hardly the first to describe things this way. In fact, he’s merely the latest in a long line to cite how much fear of violence — violence which became very non-hypothetical on Jan. 6 — is an animating principle in Trump’s hold on the GOP and the decisions people make.
The role of physical threats in Trump’s domination of the GOP
Below are some others who have raised this issue.
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio)
The retiring Ohio lawmaker insisted that threats weren’t why he announced his retirement after voting for impeachment, but he also indicated to the New York Times’s Jonathan Martin that they have weighed on him greatly:
[Gonzalez] made clear that the strain had only grown worse since his impeachment vote, after which he was deluged with threats and feared for the safety of his wife and children.
Mr. Gonzalez said that quality-of-life issues had been paramount in his decision. He recounted an “eye-opening” moment this year: when he and his family were greeted at the Cleveland airport by two uniformed police officers, part of extra security precautions taken after the impeachment vote.
“That’s one of those moments where you say, ‘Is this really what I want for my family when they travel, to have my wife and kids escorted through the airport?’” he said.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)
A third impeachment supporter who has gone on to head up the Trump resistance within the GOP (and has lost her GOP leadership position as a result), Cheney has described a similar situation.
“If you look at the vote to impeach, for example, there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives,” she told CNN in May. “And that tells you something about where we are as a country, that members of Congress aren’t able to cast votes, or feel that they can’t, because of their own security.”
Pennsylvania GOP leader: ‘I’d get my house bombed tonight’
In an interview with the New York Times in December, the Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania state Senate, Kim Ward, was perhaps the bluntest of all:
Asked if she would have signed it [a letter urging the state’s congressional delegation to reject President Biden’s win], she indicated that the Republican base expected party leaders to back up Mr. Trump’s claims — or to face its wrath.
“If I would say to you, ‘I don’t want to do it,’” she said about signing the letter, “I’d get my house bombed tonight.”
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.)
A week after the insurrection, Crow said some of the Republicans who confided in him broke down over their dilemma.
“The majority of them are paralyzed with fear,” Crow said on “Meet the Press.” “I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues last night, and a couple of them broke down in tears — saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment.”
This is, of course, a Democrat. But his version matches up with Meijer, Cheney and others.
Anonymous GOP members
A week after the Capitol riot, anonymous GOP lawmakers pointed to the threat of violence impacting both impeachment votes and decisions about whether to remain in Congress at all, according to The Hill’s Juliegrace Brufke:
“Yea — I think a lot of people are making political decisions here,” one member said when asked if threats of violence affected how members of the conference will vote.
A second GOP lawmaker said they believe the threats could lead to an influx in retirement announcements, with some weighing whether remaining in Congress is worth the risk.
“Without a doubt [it’s a factor]. Watch for a large number of members to resign early or not run again after this term,” the member said.
It’s not clear who these lawmakers were, and there’s a chance they overlap with the others mentioned here. But Meijer was already on the record by this point.
‘Trump’s made them think this is the Alamo’
One anonymous GOP member of Congress told Politico that those who voted against rejecting the election results in Congress were soon confronted by reality — and the threat of violence that accompanied it.
“Both parties have extremists,” the lawmaker said. “There’s a difference in our crazy people and their crazy people. Our crazy people have an excessive amount of arms. They have gun safes. They have grenades. They believe in the Second Amendment. They come here and Trump’s made them think this is the Alamo.”
The Trump allies’ own version of this
While these lawmakers have described specific instances in which lawmakers might well have voted or acted out of fear of violence, some Republican allies of Trump have also pointed in this general direction, albeit more gently. They’ve effectively argued that voting to impeach Trump would lead to more violence — suggesting it was a reason not to impeach.
During the impeachment debate, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said: “I really do believe that you pushing this is going to further divide our country, further the unrest, and possibly incite more violence.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) echoed the point, saying, that supporting Trump’s impeachment “under these circumstances will do great damage to the institutions of government and could invite further violence at a time the president is calling for calm.”
It’s to be expected that a lawmaker might worry about the societal impact of a divisive impeachment — particularly an impeachment that they themselves might oppose on principled grounds. A less-charitable reading would be that they were arguing for considering a repeat of what was then a demonstrated threat of violence as a factor in any repercussions. One could certainly argue that this would reward those who resorted to violence in the first place.
By Aaron Blake
Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper.
I don't know, the market has it's ways that can be disappointing. There was over 2.5 million shares traded today, so there has to be many who wanted to buy. There has been a change of money toward value instead of growth or speculative, along with tax selling and other factors making for a pretty volatile market. PL has only got a few days under it's belt, so can't even get any bead on the chart, and we don't have any fundamentals acquired or the normal valuation analysis yet as a public company. It doesn't have the "crowd" behind it for a meme stock, or dine and dash spikes, so I would expect a boring slow going effect at first and for the rest of year. But you never know, it could surge upward or downward any time for no obvious reason.
We do know that Planet is not just a new company, has some big names/money behind this and a partnership with Google. They also own the largest fleet of satellites around the world with paying customers. We also know that the space industry will be growing at a pretty high rate in the next few years with a rush to claim and gain as much control over the "final frontier" real estate. PL has a pretty good start in that endeavor.
It's all speculative and higher risk, but I'm looking toward next year a few months from now to start seeing progress and the chance for them to use that “sizable war chest to really think about strategic moves,” that they have with the half a billion in capitol they got from listing. Space is an expensive business.
So we'll have to see what the future will bring, whether the air goes completely flat or gets pressurized. But I do think we need to give a bit more than a few days and look past the current market volatility or corrections.
The only ratings I've seen is rating a buy, that's all I can say, and everyone will have to make their own analysis.
I wonder what problems could be addressed better if almost 3/4 a million dollars, time, and efforts spent went to solving them instead of contributing to them.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/10/new-york-hotel-reopens-homeless-shelter-billionaires-row
Manhattan hotel reopens as homeless shelter despite protest from Billionaires Row residents
The residents spent over $300,000 in lawsuits claiming ‘crime and loitering’ by the occupants would lead to ‘irreparable injuries’
Just a few steps away from the horse-drawn carriages that whisk tourists through New York’s Central Park and the opulence of the Plaza Hotel is an unassuming building on a quiet block in midtown Manhattan.
The building is marked by an awning that reads “Park Savoy Hotel”. Nestled in between a 24-hour parking structure and an apartment building on a predominantly residential street, the Park Savoy blends in with the other hotels in the neighborhood.
A sign on the front window of the building that says “Welcome to the Park Savoy rapid re-housing program” is the only marker that indicates it is a homeless shelter, built in one of the most pricey neighborhoods in New York. One that rich locals fought for years, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars campaigning against the crime and “irreparable injuries” they said it would bring – fears that appear to have been unfounded.
The shelter quietly opened its doors in early November. It is designed to house up to 80 men and is known as an “employment shelter” meant for those who are seeking employment or who are actively employed, especially in midtown Manhattan. The shelter has been taking in about five new occupants a week since it opened 8 November, according to a city spokesperson.
The men will be neighbors with some of Manhattan’s wealthiest residents: the shelter abuts Billionaires Row, a nickname given to the cluster of super-tall luxury “pencil towers” that were constructed within the last decade. The penthouse of One57, the tower that is directly behind the shelter, was bought by billionaire Michael Dell in 2014 for $100m – the most expensive piece of real estate ever sold in the city at the time.
New York City has the highest homeless population in the US with more than 122,000 homeless adults and families – including more than 39,000 children – living in the city’s shelter system in 2020.
In 2017, a year before the shelter was supposed to open, de Blasio announced a new initiative to address homelessness in the city which included plans to build about 90 new shelters. “They’ll be in every kind of neighborhood,” de Blasio said.
The Park Savoy shelter was slated to open in spring 2018, but the city entered a lengthy legal battle with residents and business owners in the area who vehemently opposed the shelter and formed a group, called the West 58th Street Coalition to block it.
The once low-budget Park Savoy hotel, a homeless shelter near Billionaires row, sparked a real-estate turf war with opponents fearing a threat to property values.
The once low-budget Park Savoy hotel, a homeless shelter near Billionaires row, sparked a real-estate turf war with opponents fearing a threat to property values. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
An online petition created in 2018 against the hotel, calling it a threat with “an enormous impact on our densely populated, narrow, high pedestrian-traffic street” garnered nearly 3,500 signatures. Members of the coalition argued that the city did not receive community input when starting plans to open the shelter and called the building “a dangerous fire trap”.
Suzanne Silverstein, a leader of the coalition, told the New York Times that residents believed that the city was trying to make a statement at their expense.
“[Mayor Bill de Blasio] is not sticking it to billionaires, he’s sticking it to people like myself who work 100 hours a week. We’re not bad people. We’re just trying to get ahead,” she said.
Determined to stop the shelter, the West 58th Street Coalition filed a lawsuit in 2018 that argued the building was too “unsafe” for occupants and that “crime and loitering” caused by the shelter would lead to “irreparable injuries”. The coalition also spent at least $287,000 toward lobbyists advocating against the shelter, according to non-profit news site The City. They spent another $100,000 on billboards in Iowa meant to prod de Blasio during his brief run for president in 2020.
Despite the coalition’s efforts, a state appellate court gave the final green light to the city in May to open the shelter. The group did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Steve Banks, commissioner for the city’s Department of Homeless Services, told The City that the campaign against the shelter was “the longest and the most-well-funded litigation” against the opening of any shelter.
Battles against homeless shelters have erupted across the city in recent years. Manhattan’s Upper West Side was embroiled in a debate over a luxury hotel that temporarily became an emergency homeless shelter during the pandemic as the city attempted to space out occupants in shelters. Most recently, residents of a neighborhood in Queens have voiced concerns over multiple homeless shelters that have opened within a few blocks of each other.
Advocates for the homeless say that fears of homeless shelters are typically overblown, creating a hostile environment for those who need a place to live.
“Usually it’s a lot of fears and anxiety that don’t actually materialize once the shelters open,” said Jacquelyn Simone, policy director for the homeless advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless. Simone noted that the court’s ruling in favor of the city shows that the city can prevail in lawsuits against homeless shelters.
The shelter says we are willing to give people an opportunity to move on, to improve their lives, and to have a safe place to live
John Sheehan
“One must ask who would have benefited from the Park Savoy shelter if it hadn’t been stalled for this many years,” she said.
While many new homeless shelters are met with opposition, some have been met with indifference and even community support. Despite vocal opposition against shelters on the Upper West Side in Manhattan and Kensington in Brooklyn, residents of both neighborhoods organized donation drives for local shelters.
On a Tuesday morning almost a month after the Park Savoy shelter opened, the block seemed like any other street in midtown Manhattan, full of fast-walking office workers and groups of tourists heading to Times Square.
Despite the legal battle that took place over the Park Savoy, residents of the neighborhood told the Guardian that the shelter’s opening has so far caused no problems.
“I was very apprehensive about it for various reasons,” said John, who lives in a neighboring building and wished to be referred to only by his first name. “I had a feeling there would be these real bums moving in, but I’ve seen no problems at all.”
“I see one or two people going in, but they look harmless.”
One woman walking her dog who moved to the neighborhood a few months ago said she did not realize a homeless shelter had opened.
John Sheehan, who lives in the neighborhood and works in advocacy for homeless living on the street, said he hopes the community will eventually embrace the shelter once people realize it will not affect the quality of the neighborhood.
“I think the shelter is a statement that says we are willing to give people an opportunity to move on, to improve their lives, and to have a safe place to live,” Sheehan said. “That should be something we should be proud of.”
That's similar to what I have although a little different methods. The break to "blue sky" and confirmation of that is a classic trading plan and would also match to my personal 5 rule. Might not be until beginning of next yr if and when, dependent on how the general market goes and reactions to that volatility and any effects that it may have or not to GMG. Never know, might not happen at all, or just have a spike and withdraw, or continuance of a trend. Would rather see the latter, but I have alerts set for notifications of things happening. I'll address it at that point. I think it would be better for any positive catalyst to go to next year. More bang for the buck and better chance for a permanent trend after the general market calms down and continuance to the upward trend of the market. Next year there will be more money wanting in than out and what we have right now. But what do I know, I'll just try to be ready to play it any way it goes.
Adam Schiff
@RepAdamSchiff
Yesterday, a Republican said he’d be excited if I would share the facts of Trump’s Russia collusion with him.
I was more than happy to take him up on his offer.
He was less happy when I did.
video clip;
Yesterday, a Republican said he’d be excited if I would share the facts of Trump’s Russia collusion with him.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 10, 2021
I was more than happy to take him up on his offer.
He was less happy when I did. pic.twitter.com/D74zC044at
I bought a few of F yesterday.
December 10, 2021 01:00 PM ET (BZ Newswire) -- Technicals
Ford Motor Co (NYSE:F) and Tesla, Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) have both formed weekly chart patterns that could provide clues to their future direction for the long-minded trader and investor.
Ford has formed a bull flag pattern while Tesla has settled into a bearish downtrend. As more and more legacy automakers continue the switch to electric vehicles, there is a possibility Tesla will lose its sector dominance and stocks such as Ford and General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) have begun to decouple from Tesla’s price movements.
It should be noted, however, that events affecting the direction of the general markets, positive or negative reactions to earnings prints and news headlines about a stock can quickly invalidate patterns. As the saying goes, "the trend is your friend until it isn't" and any trader position should have a clear stop set in place and manage their risk versus reward.
On Thursday, Ford CEO Jim Farley, appearing on CNBC’s "Investing Club" with Jim Cramer, said the Detroit-area automaker has the framework in place to bridge the gap between Ford and Tesla by increasing its EV production. Ford has a fair bit of catching up to do, however, because the automaker sold just 11,116 electric vehicles in November compared to Tesla, which sold 52,859 vehicles in China alone.
See Also: EV Sales Are On The Rise, But Tesla's Global Market Share Is Shrinking: Analyst
The Ford Chart: Ford has created a weekly bull flag pattern with the pole formed between the week of Sept. 20 and Nov. 8 and the flag between Nov. 8 and Friday.
On Friday, Ford was attempting to break up bullishly from the upper descending trendline of the flag pattern on high volume, which indicates the pattern is likely recognized.
Ford will need to break up through a resistance level at $20.51 to power higher.
There is a gap on the daily chart bullish traders should be aware of between $15.92 and $16.55 because it is likely Ford will trade down into the range in the future, although it could be an extended amount of time before that happens.
The Tesla Chart: After reaching an all-time high of $1,243.49 on Nov. 4, Tesla entered into a downtrend on the weekly chart, although the trend is less clear on the daily.
The most recent lower high was printed the week of Nov. 22 at the $1,201.95 level and the most recent lower low of $950.50 was created this week.
The weekly candle looks to be a doji, which indicates Tesla may trade higher next week although the stock will need to pop up over the $12,50 level to negate the downtrend.
There are two gaps on Tesla’s chart that are likely to fill in the future, with the first falling between $910 and $944.20 range and the second between $1,197 and $1,208.
Well you didn't think it was being done out of the kindness of his heart, did you? LOL
December 10, 2021 01:04 PM ET (BZ Newswire) -- Penny Stocks
A new exchange traded fund offers investors the chance to own a basket of companies that are considered “meme stocks.” Here’s the details and holdings on the new Roundhill MEME ETF (NYSE:MEME).
Roundhill MEME ETF: Launched as the first ETF explicitly designed to track the performance of meme stocks, MEME will rebalance on a biweekly basis.
The ETF will be based on the Solactive Roundhill Meme Stock Index, which holds 25 equal-weighted U.S-listed stocks.
The holdings in the index and ETF are based on “elevated social media activity and high short interest.” Data for social media activity and short interest will be provided by third-party data providers, Roundhill said.
The fund, which has an expense ratio of 0.69%, could experience higher volatility than other ETFs, the company said.
Why Meme Stocks: Roundhill launched a meme-themed fund due to the rise in commission-free trading and retail trading volume growth.
Retail accounts for 21.3% of equity volume in 2021, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, which is more than double its market share back in 2010.
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), Reddit (r/WallStreetBets), Discord and Stocktwits have helped boost the amount of research and investment ideas shared and used by retail traders, Roundhill said. WallStreetBets has over 11 million users, up from 1 million at the start of 2021.
“After witnessing the likes of GameStop, AMC, DWAC and even Dogecoin become crowd favorites overnight, we thought it made sense to create an ETF that could allow for investors to gain exposure through a diversified vehicle,” Roundhill Investments co-founder and CEO Will Hershey told Benzinga.
Roundhill secured the MEME stock ticker back in April, according to Hershey.
“It’s a lot of work to keep up with what’s trending each day or week on social media and MEME intends to do that for investors that want to be a bit more passive but still be exposed.”
While some may see meme stocks as a fad or short-term investing item, Hershey said meme stocks are here to stay.
“The impact of social media on trading and investing isn’t going anywhere.”
Hershey cites items like Scottrade and Yahoo! Finance message boards being places for investment ideas several years ago. The emerging companies like Reddit, Twitter, Discord and Robinhood add to the strength of social media and community investment ideas, he said.l
“I think commission-free trading, the ease of access for options trading and even fractional share trading have all contributed as well.”
Related Link: What To Know About MVP, The New Professional Sports ETF From Roundhill
MEME Holdings: The initial 25 holdings in the meme stock ETF are listed as followed:
AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE:AMC), Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Blackberry (NYSE:BB), Chegg Inc (NYSE:CHGG), Clover Health Investments (NASDAQ:CLOV), Crowdstrike Holdings (NASDAQ:CRWD), DraftKings Inc (NASDAQ:DKNG), Digital World Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ:DWAC), GameStop Corp (NYSE:GME), Canoo Inc (NASDAQ:GOEV), Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD), Lucid Group (NYSE:LCID), Moderna Inc (NASDAQ:MRNA), Cloudflare Inc (NYSE:NET), Palantir Technologies (NYSE:PLTR), Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ:PTON), Roblox Corp (NYSE:RBLX), Roku Inc (NASDAQ:ROKU), Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP), SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ:SOFI), Square Inc (NYSE:SQ), Teladoc Health (NYSE:TDOC), Tilray Inc (NASDAQ:TLRY), Upstart Holdings (NASDAQ:UPST) and ContextLogic Inc (NASDAQ:WISH).
About Roundhill: Thematic ETFs like MEME are nothing new to Roundhill Investments. The company has launched several first-to-market ETFs, including the first pure play sports betting ETF with Roundhill Sports Betting & IGaming ETF (NYSE:BETZ) and the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF (NYSE:META), an ETF tracking the growing metaverse industry.
“In being first, you are able to become the ‘benchmark’ and it becomes difficult for copycats to replicate that success in terms of trading volumes and assets under management,” Hershey said.
Other themes from Roundhill include subscription-based companies, sports teams and leagues, esports and digital infrastructure.
When asked what’s next for Roundhill, Hershey told Benzinga that the company is working on new ideas and plans to issue more ETFs.
Disclosure: Author is long shares LCID and SOFI.
Copyright © 2021 Benzinga (BZ Newswire, www.benzinga.com/licensing). Benzinga does not provide investmentadvice. All rights reserved. Write to editorial@benzinga.com with any questions about this content. Subscribe to Benzinga Pro (http://pro.benzinga.com).
And it will, obviously given what we are enduring today and tomorrow.
Another factor in inflationary issues is the fact that many, probably most if not all, mark up an additional amount for more profits. Sometimes an additional 10,15, 20% on top of the increase in supply costs. Grocery retailers are notorious for doing such, so are the manufactures and suppliers. We see this with smaller amounts packaged effectively inflating the actual cost for what you get. These actions are one of the largest causes to inflation.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/18/business/grocery-store-inflation-kroger-albertsons/index.html
Grocery stores are excited to charge you higher prices
By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Business
Updated 11:52 AM ET, Fri June 18, 2021
New York (CNN Business)You might not be excited about paying higher prices for meat and vegetables, but your grocery store is thrilled.
The rising prices for staples like milk and pork affect grocery stores too, as they have to pay more to their suppliers. But while they are raising prices under the guise of increasing supplier costs, they're adding a little extra on top of that.
When grocery stores' costs rise, stores will "mark up the full rate of inflation plus a little bit more," said Burt Flickinger, the managing director of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group. For example, if the price of meat that a store pays to its suppliers goes up 6 cents a pound, the store might raise the price it charges for that same meat by 10 cents.
Stores are betting most customers won't balk at price increases because they need to buy groceries, after all, and will still consider shopping a bargain compared to eating out at restaurants. Prices for food at restaurants are growing faster than prices at grocery stores, according to Labor Department data, giving grocers more flexibility to charge you extra.
Dollar stores are starting to offer fresh food after years of criticism
Dollar stores are starting to offer fresh food after years of criticism
And once the stores feel like they're safe raising prices a little — well, are you really going to notice if that gallon of milk you're buying has gone up to $3.85 instead of the $3.76 that the store could charge if it wanted to keep its margins steady? Nine cents on a single gallon probably makes little difference to anyone who isn't on a tight budget or doesn't want to do math in the milk aisle, but a store selling a lot of those gallons will eventually see a nice boost.
Inflation is the "greatest gift the supermarket sector could get," said Flickinger. "They have not had these inflation benefits in years."
Soaring demand, coupled with supply chain issues and materials shortages as the economy ramps up, is driving prices higher. Food prices for consumers increased 2.2% in May from the same month last year, according to the Labor Department. Pork prices rose 3.2%, fish and seafood prices rose 1.9% and milk prices rose 4.6%. Prices for fruit and vegetables grew 2.9%, including a 9% jump for citrus fruits.
Leading grocery chains such as Kroger (KR) and Alberstons have said in recent days that they expect to benefit from rising prices. Sales boomed at these chains and other grocers during the early stages of the pandemic, but have slowed down in recent months as more people return to eating meals out.
"Our business operates the best when inflation is about 3% to 4%," Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said on an earnings call with analysts Thursday. "A little bit of inflation is always good in our business."
Kroger can pass off costs to consumers when inflation hovers around that mark, McMullen said, and "customers don't overly react to that."
"Businesses like ours have done well when in periods where the inflation was 3% to 4%," Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said at an investor conference Tuesday.
Sankaran did not specify why inflation would help Albertsons, but his "sense is this inflation will just be passed through" to customers. Albertsons did not respond to a request for further comment.
There is a risk to grocery stores from inflation running too high though.
If prices on an item rise above 4%, customers may skip buying it, hurting grocers' sales, said Joseph Feldman, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group. Consumers may also trade down to cheaper brands or buy smaller pack sizes if inflation runs too hot, both analysts and grocers noted.
Sankaran said customers will be able to afford higher prices because the economy is growing and consumers have cash to spend.
"We've never had an environment like this with such a strong consumer where inflation goes higher," he said. "And inflation will have to go really high for it to start mattering where the consumer starts clamping down on purchases."
Other retailers have also said they expect to benefit from rising inflation, but for different reasons.
Discount toy chain Five Below (FIVE), for instance, expects budget-conscious consumers will increasingly turn to discount stores as prices go up around them.
"As far as inflation goes...I think it's an advantage for a value retailer like us," Five Below CEO Joel Anderson said this month.
CNN Business' Anneken Tappe contributed to this article.
SEC chair Gensler seeks tougher SPAC disclosure, liability rules
PUBLISHED THU, DEC 9 202112:36 PM ESTUPDATED THU, DEC 9 20214:38 PM EST
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/09/sec-chair-gensler-seeks-tougher-spac-disclosure-liability-rules.html
KEY POINTS
SEC Chair Gary Gensler on Thursday floated several potential SPAC rules he hopes the regulator will consider as it works to oversee the popular take-public option.
Among the ideas Gensler pitched were new rules around marketing practices, tougher disclosure requirements and liability obligations.
Gensler said he is concerned by a disconnect between the information that companies are required to provide through a traditional IPO versus the disclosures required from SPACs.
His comments come days after news broke that federal regulators are investigating a planned SPAC merger involving former President Trump’s media firm.
Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021.
Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021.
Bill Clark | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler on Thursday floated several potential SPAC rules he hopes the regulator will consider as it works to oversee one of Wall Street’s up-and-coming ways to take companies public.
Among the ideas Gensler pitched were new rules around marketing practices, tougher disclosure requirements and liability obligations for SPAC “gatekeepers,” which could include sponsors, financial advisors and other bookkeepers.
Specifically, the SEC chief said he’d like to see new rules that compel SPACs to provide investors with more information about fees, expected equity dilution and conflicts, as well as better ways to access that information before an investment is made.
SPACs, or special-purpose acquisition companies, have been around for decades without much fanfare.
Also known as a blank-check company, a SPAC is a shell company that raises money and trades on public markets while looking to merge with a private company. Their eventual marriage will bring the private firm into the public marketplace, meaning that investors in the public SPAC will have an opportunity to own a piece of the still-private target.
The public push for new SPAC rules comes days after news broke that the SEC and other federal regulators are investigating a SPAC merger involving former President Trump’s fledgling media company.
The SPAC, called Digital World Acquisition Corp., disclosed in a filing earlier this week that regulators began asking for information about certain stock trades “that preceded the public announcement of the October 20, 2021 Merger Agreement” with Trump’s firm.
Gensler said Thursday that he is concerned by a disconnect between the amount of information that companies are required to provide through a traditional initial public offering versus the disclosures required from SPACs.
“Currently, I believe the investing public may not be getting like protections between traditional IPOs and SPACs,” the SEC chair said in remarks at the virtual Healthy Markets Association Conference. “Due to the various moving parts and SPACs’ two-step structure, I believe these vehicles may have additional conflicts inherent to their structure.”
Appointed by President Joe Biden earlier this year, Gensler said added rules clamping down on marketing prior to proper disclosure may also be needed to help anchor the value of the SPAC’s shares closer to the business’s actual worth.
Glitzy corporate presentation decks, hyped press releases and celebrity endorsements can balloon a SPAC’s equity well beyond a reasonable value long before proper disclosures are filed, Gensler said.
There are still billions of dollars in Covid relief funds the government hasn’t spent
Rupert Murdoch buys $200 million Montana ranch from Koch family
The SEC chairman wants to get tougher on SPACs
In the past two years, SPACs have blossomed into a popular alternative to traditional initial public offerings and a way to invest in start-ups.
The allure of possibly finding the next Amazon or Apple, prior to a young company’s entrance to public markets, has drawn billions from Wall Street in 2021. SPACs have raised as much money as traditional IPOs this year thanks to the support of big banks and investment firms.
But Gensler and others worry that insufficient SPAC disclosures leave investors open to steep losses in the future.
While Gensler did not offer more specific details on the rules he wants to see from SEC staff, his speech reinforces Wall Street’s belief that his tenure will result in a hands-on approach and that the chairman will serve as a stricter “cop on the beat” toward Wall Street.
He said he wants the SEC to ensure SPAC directors, officers, sponsors and financial advisors aren’t misleading investors with inflated financial projections only to stiff them with a backlog of bills — or a mediocre business — after the merger is complete.
“In traditional IPOs, issuers usually work with investment banks,” he said. “Thus, a lot of people think the term ‘underwriters’ solely refers to investment banks.”
“There may be some who attempt to use SPACs as a way to arbitrage liability regimes,” Gensler continued. “Many gatekeepers carry out functionally the same role as they would in a traditional IPO but may not be performing the due diligence that we’ve come to expect.”
While some take-public SPACs have seen success on Wall Street — electric-vehicle maker Lucid Group or personal-finance company SoFi, for example — others have seen mixed trading among investors.
Some of the well-known public companies resulting from SPAC mergers include space-tourism firm Virgin Galactic and online real-estate company Opendoor. Both have seen their equity slide more than 30% this year.
The proprietary CNBC SPAC Post Deal Index, which is comprised of the largest SPACs that have already completed a SPAC merger within the last two years, is down more than 33% in 2021.
A Surge in Trading Preceded Trump’s SPAC Deal
Trading in the merger partner’s warrants, which allow holders to buy shares later, spiked several times before the Trump Media agreement was made public.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/business/trump-spac-stock.html
Dec. 9, 2021
A few weeks before Digital World Acquisition announced a deal to merge with a fledgling social media company backed by former President Donald J. Trump, it was at the center of a sudden trading frenzy.
Digital World, a special purpose acquisition company, began allowing the trading of warrants — potentially lucrative contracts that give the holder the right to buy shares of a stock at a predetermined price at a future date. Such securities are typically offered to investors or executives as sweeteners, allowing them to buy additional shares of a company cheaply if the stock rises.
About 350,000 warrants of Digital World traded in the first two days. But on the third day — Oct. 4, a week after Digital World and Trump Media & Technology Group entered into formal talks that were not disclosed at the time — trading in the warrants exploded. More than 2.5 million changed hands that day.
The surge was unusual, especially for a little-known SPAC that hadn’t publicly identified a merger target, experts said. And with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority now scrutinizing the merger deal — particularly trading activity that took place before the companies announced their agreement on Oct. 20 — warrants could be under a microscope.
“FINRA may see something in the high volume of warrant trading that makes it wonder whether something improper drove the volume burst,” said Erik Gordon, a law and business professor at the University of Michigan.
Daily business updates The latest coverage of business, markets and the economy, sent by email each weekday. Get it sent to your inbox.
Digital World disclosed the investigation by regulators in a corporate filing this week, but it did not specify what kind of trading was being examined. The filing said the “inquiry should not be construed as an indication that FINRA has determined that any violations of Nasdaq rules or federal securities laws have occurred.”
The company also disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission has requested information about some of Digital World’s investors and communications it has had with Trump Media. The investigation comes after The New York Times reported that the chief executive of Digital World, Patrick Orlando, had talks with representatives of Trump Media as far back as March.
Digital World declined to comment.
Warrants are one of Wall Street’s more esoteric securities, and have become a staple feature of special purpose acquisition companies like Digital World, which go public first and raise money with the intention of finding a merger target. Since the beginning of 2020, about 820 SPACs have gone public, according to Dealogic, and almost all have issued warrants along with shares.
Warrants cost only a fraction of what a share does because they can’t be exercised right away, but are a valuable commodity if share prices rise sharply. In the case of Digital World, a warrant is redeemable 30 days after the merger closes and can be used to buy a share at $11.50. Warrants were trading at roughly 50 cents each before the merger was announced, and closed at $21.50 on Wednesday. The price of a single share of Digital World was $65.42.
When a SPAC goes public, its shares and warrants initially trade as a single security, unless a company decides to trade them separately. Digital World announced its plan to separate them on Sept. 27, the same day it signed a letter of intent formalizing the merger talks, a person who was briefed on the matter said. The announcement did not mention the talks.
Few analysts closely track trading in warrants, so analyzing trading patterns can be difficult. Data compiled by FactSet shows that, on average, about 200,000 warrants in Digital World were traded daily during the three weeks before the merger was announced. That’s in line with how warrants in other SPACs traded after decoupling from their shares.
But there were unusual spikes in the trading of Digital World’s warrants: 2.5 million on Oct. 4, 900,000 on Oct. 7 and one million on Oct. 20, the day of the merger announcement, which happened after the market closed for the day.
Trading in actual shares of Digital World was far more tepid over that same period: Daily volume exceeded 600,000 shares just twice, and fewer than 50,000 traded hands on some days. Digital World’s highest volume in stock trading before the announcement was 1.3 million shares on Sept. 16, before the warrants could be traded on their own.
Mike Stegemoller, a finance professor at Baylor University who studies SPACs, said the trading volume in warrants on Oct. 4 was “particularly abnormal.” That may not indicate any wrongdoing, he said, but the handful of high-volume days coupled with the early deal discussions “are reason enough for FINRA to take a look.”
Mr. Gordon agreed that there might be nothing amiss in the trading. “These inquiries often fizzle out because nobody did anything wrong,” he said.
The flood of SPACs into the market has caught the attention of regulators.
In a speech on Thursday, the S.E.C. chair, Gary Gensler, said he had asked his staff to look into ways of making sure SPAC investors are adequately protected. Speaking before the Healthy Markets Association Conference, Mr. Gensler said investor protections with SPACs should be on par with traditional I.P.O.s “with respect to disclosure, marketing practices, and gatekeeper obligations” in order to reduce the potential for “information asymmetries, conflicts, and fraud.”
FINRA has already been looking closely at warrants because of the way SPACs have exposed more average investors to the once-obscure securities. The regulator issued an advisory in August cautioning investors to be mindful that warrants can become worthless if an investor misses a company’s deadline for redeeming them. FINRA said retail investors should be aware of “the risks associated with these speculative securities.”
The trading in warrants of Digital World has often been even more frenzied than the company’s stock.
On Oct. 21, the day after Digital World announced its merger deal, the stock rose more than 350 percent. But its warrants went from about 50 cents to $7 — a nearly 1,300 increase.
David Enrich contributed reporting.
Matthew Goldstein covers Wall Street and white collar crime and housing issues. @mattgoldstein26
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 10, 2021, Section B, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: Trading Surge, Now Scrutinized, Preceded Trump’s SPAC Deal. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Am I sure about a might (maybe, possibility not any probability stated)? For sure and might are kind of opposite, so not sure of how to answer other than what I stated in the first place.
I know I was ready to get ready by the end of last year when I realized what the previous administration was creating, causing, and starting. It was obvious to me what was going to transpire with inflation (it was already started). Not sure about everybody else. But again, what policies and actions certain political factions caused and how they continue to focus on degrading the people's financial abilities are for another board. Suggest going to a just politics board maybe or other place to discuss inflationary subjects.
But inflation, Covid Wars, different countries government policies, etc effect every stock for the most part. This is a LAC board, how SPECIFICALY will it effect LAC other than general fact that ALL companies are effected in an overall way.
As far as I know Musk selling shares or the fact he got an OK from the public (not that he needed that) doesn't have anything to do with LAC. Maybe that's a comment and discussion for that board, just a thought.
Also, I would say that is adhering to full disclosure, something I like to see. Unlike some other scam SPAC stocks that we see for example. Talk about insider enrichment, fraud, and lack of ANY disclosures, oh boy, examples like that are in the extreme.
They didn't increase anything but what they already stated they were going to do. Didn't you read the original filing? It wasn't that long or complicated, which I posted here.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=166966894
Here's the part that states it;
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1440972/000117625621000316/lithiumamericas6knr.htm
November 30, 2021 – Vancouver, Canada: Lithium Americas Corp. (TSX: LAC) (NYSE: LAC) (“Lithium Americas” or the “Company”) today announced that it proposes to offer US$225,000,000 aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2027 (the “Notes” and the “Offering”), subject to market conditions and other factors. The Company intends to grant the initial purchasers of the Notes an option to purchase up to an additional US$33,750,000 aggregate principal amount of Notes, exercisable in whole or in part at any time until 30 days after the closing of the Offering.
I'm not sure if OTC:GMGMF US follows just an exact exchange rate or what with GMG. I know that Canada:GMG trades at times when GMGMF does not, then there is the Australian ASX:GMG. Not sure how they correlate and reconcile on the chart. OTC:GMGMF closed today at $4.19 (+6.89%). No trading in extended hrs but showing 3.90 bid 4.43 ask currently.
Pull up your chart with OTC:GMGMF and see what the comparisons are.
The SEC might stop the DWAC within months, but not after all the shenanigans profiting greatly. But for the rest, that's just everyday life of Rump. He lives and makes his spoils within the court system. He probably has court papers on his wall displayed like some musicians have their gold records. Most of his losses in court are just a win in his world.
New York attorney general seeks Trump’s deposition as part of civil fraud investigation
By Josh Dawsey and David A. Fahrenthold
Today at 9:37 a.m. EST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-letitia-james-deposition/2021/12/09/01b10140-587f-11ec-a219-9b4ae96da3b7_story.html
New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking a deposition from former president Donald Trump early next year as part of her investigation into potential fraud inside the Trump Organization, according to people familiar with the matter.
James has requested to take his testimony on Jan. 7 at her New York office as part of a civil investigation into whether Trump’s company committed financial fraud in the valuations of properties to different entities, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is ongoing.
One of the people familiar with the investigation said James is examining whether widespread fraud “permeated the Trump Organization.”
In a statement, the Trump Organization decried the move as politically motivated.
July: Weisselberg, Trump Organization face charges in New York
The Post’s David Fahrenthold explained what we knew on July 1 about the charges against the Trump Organization and its CFO, Allen Weisselberg. (The Washington Post)
“This is another political witch-hunt,” the statement said. “The only focus of the New York AG is to investigate Trump, all for her own political ambitions ... This political prosecution is illegal, unethical and is a travesty to our great state and legal system.”
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for James, declined to comment. Ronald Fischetti, an attorney who has been representing Trump in investigations into his New York financial practices, also did not respond.
The deposition marks an escalation in the probe of the former president’s company and a critical moment for James. While the attorney general had declared a run for governor, she said on Thursday that she’s suspending her campaign.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James has been conducting a civil investigation into possible fraud by Trump’s company.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James has been conducting a civil investigation into possible fraud by Trump’s company. (Joy Malone/Reuters)
Both the attorney general and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office are scrutinizing whether Trump’s company broke the law by providing low values to property tax officers, while using high ones to garner tax breaks or impress lenders, as The Washington Post previously reported.
James has said she is considering filing a lawsuit over the matter, and Manhattan prosecutors have convened a new grand jury to consider potential criminal charges related to the company’s financial practices, according to the people familiar with the investigations.
N.Y. prosecutors set sights on new Trump target: Widely different valuations on the same properties
Trump has not been personally accused of wrongdoing. He has previously attacked James and her probe into his businesses as a “witch hunt” being driven by a prominent New York Democrat who has promised to use her perch to investigate him and his company.
Privately, the former president has regularly expressed frustration about the investigation, according to people close to him.
If Trump refuses to appear for the deposition, James and her office could take him to court and try to force him to comply.
Last year, James’s investigators subpoenaed the former president’s son, Eric Trump — a longtime executive at the Trump Organization — seeking to depose him as part of the same investigation. Eric Trump initially refused to comply, with his lawyers citing “those rights afforded to every individual under the Constitution,” according to a legal filing from James’s office.
He later agreed to comply and was questioned in October 2020.
Earlier this fall, the former president sat for a 4½ -hour deposition in another case. In that lawsuit, he was questioned by lawyers for a group of protesters who have sued him, alleging that Trump’s security guards assaulted them in 2015.
Before taking office, Trump sat for numerous depositions as part of civil litigation, at times forced to acknowledged facts that he had previously denied.
“He can’t be scripted, and he’s injudicious, and he often doesn’t understand that the process is about events and facts, rather than being performance art,” said Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer who battled him in a lawsuit. In the 2007 deposition taken for that suit, Trump was confronted by O’Brien’s lawyers with 30 false statements or misstatements.
In their inquiries, New York prosecutors are examining financial statements related to several of Trump’s properties, including his California golf club, for which he valued the same parcel of land at $900,000 and $25 million depending on the intended audience, and an estate in suburban New York, for which Trump’s valuations ranged from $56 million to $291 million. The valuations were all given in the five years before Trump won the presidency.
Appraisers have said it is highly unusual for a company to provide such widely different valuations of the same properties at the same time.
I'm waiting for GMGMF to hold solid above $5 US again. Had to let go of it due to my adherence to my own rules of holding above that price mark. Was breaking it a little, but went back to adhering to it. I figure any "disrupting tech" should hold above that mark and there is so much out there above five to keep me busy.
LWLG I went out of today at about 19.50. That stock is paying me to own it with all the flipping I've done with it. My average cost is below zero and that's after taxes. It's basically trading on exuberance of the crowd that always results in volatility worth flipping.
Here's hoping all of the "disrupting tech" shakes the world. There is so many stated "disrupting" stocks out there, if even half of what's out there disrupts, the tremors will have the ass blasters running wild. LOL
GOP Covid Wars continues and according to plan.
www.newsweek.com/town-hall-gop-senator-ron-johnson-says-standard-gargle-mouthwash-kills-coronavirus
In Town Hall, GOP Senator Ron Johnson Says 'Standard Gargle Mouthwash' Kills Coronavirus
BY DANIEL VILLARREAL ON 12/8/21 AT 11:01 PM EST
https://www.theguardian.com/us
December 8, 2021 06:34 PM ET (BZ Newswire) -- Politics
A former hedge fund manager is speaking out against the SPAC taking Donald Trump’s media company public.
What Happened: Whitney Tilson issued an update on Digital World Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ:DWAC), the SPAC that announced a merger with Trump Media & Technology.
“To be clear, my view that this is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen and that this stock is going to implode, likely within days, has nothing to do with my political views,” Tilson said in his Empire Financial email.
The bear case for the stock is based on fundamentals, of which Tilson says there are none and that TRUTH Social "is nothing more than an idea at this point.”
One of the biggest reasons Tilson remains bearish is a belief the SEC could block the merger, which would send the stock back down closer to its $10 net asset value.
“If the SEC acts, the reason it will cite is that there were discussions between DWAC’s CEO and representatives of Trump before DWAC’s initial public offering, which is forbidden,” Tilson wrote, citing a New York Times article.
Related Link: 7 Key Takeaways From The Donald Trump SPAC Deal
Tilson also said the SEC could block the deal because of the way the $1 billion PIPE was structured, giving large investors shares at a discount to the current market price. DWAC PIPE investors are able to resell their stock after the merger closes, instead of a typical SPAC lockout period, according to Tilson.
“This is an indirect way to do a big meme-stock offering to retail investors, with some hedge funds standing in the middle and getting a cut," he said.
Tilson calls the deal a scam and said retail investors could get hurt in the short and long term: “Mark my words, there’s no way the SEC allows this to go through.”
Why It’s Important: Tilson issued reports on DWAC on Oct. 4 and Oct. 22, warnings investors to stay away from the company.
One new detail from the DWAC SPAC that was released this week was the company confirming the SEC requested information on the merger deal, including the identities of some investors.
Tilson highlighting the potential risks that are now in front of the SEC on the deal could provide a cautionary tale of a deal not being official until the merger vote goes through.
The market has seen several SPAC deals called off in recent weeks, with some being due to timing and delays based on filings with the SEC.
Price Action: DWAC shares were up 28% to $65.42 on Wednesday. Shares have traded between $9.84 and $175 since going public in September.
Copyright © 2021 Benzinga (BZ Newswire, http://www.benzinga.com/licensing). Benzinga does not provide investmentadvice. All rights reserved. Write to editorial@benzinga.com with any questions about this content. Subscribe to Benzinga Pro (http://pro.benzinga.com).
I'm sure it will end just fine for Nunes. In all the dirty scam stocks, the CEO gets a megaton of shares and options for basically free and DWAC is the head of the class of that group. He's in line to make millions upon millions of $ I'm sure. That's the deal he couldn't refuse. The way DWAC is set up, Nunes and others will win big even if DWAC fails and bigger if it doesn't. Just wait until all the millions of shares hits the market and watch the plunging rape of retail shareholders.
Along with that, he could be saying that he's retiring from congress, but then doesn't. It will be what ever is the most advantageous to him at the particular moment. He has no qualms in lying and conniving for his own means, just like Rump.
The only hope is that the SEC or somebody shuts it all down quick. That's the only way that it won't end well for Nunes, but even that he probably is already making $ in some nefarious way. But I'm not holding my breath for the "law" to come down anytime soon. Hope I'm wrong, but I just see a bunch of sheep about ready to be sheared and a bunch of babies without any candy, paying the criminality of it all.
Not everybody is happy about the new space industry. Progress is unstoppable, but we should do it responsibly. Of course, Musk hasn't really been known for that and I think the focus is on just launching the biggest rocket known to man, not really concerned for a few birds or wildlife (or the people that enjoy them).
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/disgruntled-neighbors-dwindling-shorebirds-jeopardize-spacex-expansion-rcna7792
Disgruntled neighbors and dwindling shorebirds jeopardize SpaceX expansion
Explosions, noise and beach closings have disrupted the peace and harmed wildlife in Boca Chica, Texas, residents and environmentalists say.
Dec. 8, 2021, 4:00 AM MST / Updated Dec. 8, 2021, 5:36 AM MST
By Olivia Solon
Celia Johnson, a retired social worker in her mid-70s, can still vividly describe childhood trips to the slender, sandy beach in Boca Chica Village, Texas. There she and her family spent their days running into crashing waves and collecting shells while feasting on sandwiches and watermelon.
“My dad couldn’t afford to take us to the movies,” Johnson said. “That was our entertainment.”
Thirty years ago, Johnson made sure to pass that dream on to her children by buying a three-bedroom brick ranch for her to retire there. Then she bought a second ranch house nearby to rent out to support her in retirement. For years, she spent her winters in Boca Chica, mainly driving from Michigan to escape the cold and welcome the ocean air that brought relief to her asthma.
Image: Celia Johnson.
Celia Johnson, a retired social worker in her mid-70s, right, spent her winters in Boca Chica.Courtesy Celia Johnson
“It was so peaceful, and at night it was so dark you could see a billion stars,” she said. “You are surrounded by nothing but nature. The beach was pristine and there were tons of different species of birds.”
But the idyll was disrupted when SpaceX, the aerospace company, came to town in 2014 to build a commercial spaceport. The company’s presence, while welcomed by local politicians lured by the promise of taxable income and employment opportunities, has become a nightmare for many residents and wildlife conservationists attempting to protect the sensitive habitat surrounding the development.
Since SpaceX started construction in late 2015 and testing rockets in 2019, explosions have showered debris across previously unspoiled tidal flats and blown out residents’ windows, including Johnson’s. Rare species of birds like the piping plover and mammals have dwindled, and intense periods of construction and testing have closed off public access to the beach for more days than were authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration, which has federal oversight of the development. The company has also installed bright floodlights to illuminate the road and construction site.
“You can’t see the stars anymore,” Johnson said.
Now, the FAA is reviewing SpaceX’s plans to significantly expand the spaceport to allow for launches of the largest rocket known to man, an expansion that has alarmed many residents, environmentalists and wildlife conservationists.
Image: SpaceX facilities near Boca Chica Village in Brownsville, Texas on Dec. 5, 2021.
SpaceX facilities in Boca Chica Village, Texas, on Sunday. Verónica G. Cárdenas for NBC News
SpaceX declined to respond to a detailed list of questions and allegations that it is lowballing homeowners and harming the environment, stating that the company did not have anyone available.
“As you can imagine, it’s an incredibly demanding time for the team,” according to an unsigned email from SpaceX’s communications team.
Neither Elon Musk, who founded the company and is its chief executive, nor his chief of staff responded to a request for comment.
Mushroomed scope
When SpaceX pitched its spaceport, dubbed Starbase, to residents and environmentalists in 2012, the company described a modest facility with a “small, eco-friendly footprint” that would launch a maximum of one rocket per month, according to a SpaceX presentation delivered at the time, seen by NBC News.
Over time, however, the project has mushroomed to accommodate the development of a new type of launch vehicle, Starship, which at 21 stories tall and with 29 rocket engines will be the largest space vehicle and rocket system known to man. Early this year, Musk announced his desire to turn Starbase and Boca Chica Village into a city with a private spaceport to the moon, Mars and beyond. The accompanying expansion plan, whose environmental impact, outlined in a 150-page draft assessment, is currently being reviewed by the Federal Aviation Authority. It includes the construction of a 250-megawatt power plant -- capable of generating enough power for 100,000 homes -- desalination plant, and liquid natural gas plant. If approved, the expanded Starbase would pave the way for humans to travel to and potentially live on Mars, but would make Boca Chica Village uninhabitable for humans and many animals due to the tenfold increase in the testing of rocket components and launches, and the associated risk of “anomalies” -- a space industry euphemism for explosions.
“We are interested in space exploration like many other people and are not trying to be obstructionist,” said Mike Parr, president of the American Bird Conservancy, which has been monitoring the decline of bird species around the spaceport. “But the scope of the project has changed and it feels like a bait and switch.”
SpaceX has bought out many of the villagers, offering them money for their homes that the company said in letters to the owners were three times an independently appraised valuation. But some villagers have said these offers are too low to buy an equivalent property away from the blast zone. Some residents felt pressure to accept SpaceX’s offer, which came with the looming threat of eminent domain. Residents like Celia Johnson and Maria Pointer, whose home now forms part of the SpaceX property, said that threat was communicated verbally by a real estate intermediary representing SpaceX. Eminent domain allows the government -- in this case the county through the Cameron County Spaceport Development Corp. -- to seize their property.
Cameron County did not respond to a request for comment.
Johnson, whose silvery-gray schnauzer Flash accompanies her everywhere, held out. The offer for her home was $150,000. She said that was insultingly low, based on valuations of inferior properties without ocean views. She would need about three times that much to buy a similar oceanfront property nearby. She had dreamed of leaving the two Boca Chica homes to her sons.
Image: Celia Johnson’s home in Boca Chica Village in Brownsville, Texas on Dec. 5, 2021.
Celia Johnson’s home in Boca Chica Village, Texas. Verónica G. Cárdenas for NBC News
“That dream was destroyed by Elon Musk,” she said, noting that since SpaceX arrived, Cameron County changed its rules around how it handled residents’ utilities. Before, they could stop water deliveries and shut off electricity if they were away during the summer months. Now, however, residents must either pay to maintain utilities even if they are not there -- which Johnson said costs about $150 per month -- or risk being permanently disconnected, as happened with her rental home. Without access to water, owners lose their occupation license, which allows the county to condemn the property.
Image: Celia Johnson’s rental home in Boca Chica Village in Brownsville, Texas on Dec. 5, 2021.
Celia Johnson’s rental home in Boca Chica Village, Texas.Verónica G. Cárdenas for NBC News
“I worked double jobs and whatever was required so that one day I would have a good retirement,” she said. “Then here comes SpaceX and they take my income away.”
Blame game
Some of SpaceX’s displaced neighbors are more sanguine. Pointer, a retired navigation officer in the Alaska Marine Highway System, said that she and her husband, Ray, decided to make “lemonade out of lemons” after the SpaceX development subsumed their Boca Chica home.
“When they first came to town I kind of welcomed it. I like technology. We loved the Apollo program, the moonwalks and felt like it was going to help Brownsville. We didn’t feel like they were going to impede on us except maybe a bit of noise,” she said. “They never mentioned they’d work 24/7 around the clock and have lights so bright you couldn’t sleep without plywood boards on your windows.”
The disturbance took a toll on the Pointers, who were both suffering from serious health issues. Ray had cancer and Maria was dealing with paralysis on one side of her body due to a latent spinal deformity. Neither could sleep because of the noise and the lights. “We were walking zombies half the time,” she said.
Maria started documenting the construction of the spaceport and launch vehicles outside her bedroom window, in the early days with her Samsung smartphone camera and in the last few years with a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, posting photos and videos to social media.
“If I’m going to be an independent lens, I’m going to show you what I see,” she said. “If there are birds dying and they are dropping down to the side of me from overpressures, I get to film it. I don’t get to fix it.”
Image: Maria Pointer, who used to own a home with her husband between the SpaceX facilities and Boca Chica Village, poses for a photo in her new home in Port Isabel, Texas on Dec. 5, 2021.
Maria Pointer, who used to own a home with her husband between the SpaceX facilities and Boca Chica Village, in her new home in Port Isabel, Texas, on Sunday.Verónica G. Cárdenas for NBC Universal
In 2019, after Musk gave a presentation to residents about his vision for Starship, Pointer said she and her husband “knew we were toast.”
Pointer said she didn’t like the way SpaceX tried to buy residents out through what she called a “ruthless” third-party real estate firm called JLL.
“They used very intimidating language on some of these poor folks,” she said, noting that properties in Boca Chica Village should have been appraised based on how much it would cost to buy an equivalent beach-bay home somewhere like South Padre Island. “SpaceX hired the right people because they got some of those old folks so scared that they gave it away for far less than it was worth.”
JLL did not respond to a request for comment.
The Pointers held out, having initially been told their property was worth just $70,000 and being offered $210,000.
Pointer said they eventually sold for “substantially more.” Their Boca Chica home is now part of SpaceX’s production shipyard and has been converted into an office dedicated to hazardous environmental safety.
But Pointer blames state and county officials, not Musk or SpaceX.
“You don’t blame a corporation for what governments propose and what greedy commissioners and boards allow,” she said, adding that she’s excited about the prospect of space travel and the technology that enables it.
“There’s no way you can stand in the way of progress you want to see to bring us to an interplanetary world,” she said. “I hope I get to live long enough to see us back on the moon and on Mars. The idea brings tears to my eyes.”
Economic incentives
When SpaceX was first shopping around for locations for its private commercial spaceport in 2011, it negotiated tax breaks and other sweeteners with local and state officials in Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico and Texas.
By 2014, Texas won the company’s business and associated promise of jobs and economic development. State and local officials offered Musk’s company about $20 million in financial incentives, including a 10-year county property tax abatement, legal protection from noise complaints and laws altered to close the public beach at Boca Chica during launches, as reported by The Dallas Morning News in 2014.
While the project has brought construction jobs to the Brownsville area, one of the poorest urban areas in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, many community activists question whether it’s bringing sustainable economic development.
“How many of these jobs are long term? Most of the folks are doing contracting work,” said Michelle Serrano, a Brownsville resident and activist. “Is this going to have a sustainable economic impact for our community, or is it more trickle-down economics?”
Image:
The SpaceX facilities can be seen from Boca Chica Village, Texas.Verónica G. Cárdenas for NBC News
In a document outlining SpaceX’s environmental and community impacts on the region, submitted to the FAA this year as part of the licensing process, the company states that the proposed development would employ up to 450 full-time workers, many of whom would move to the area from elsewhere, depending on when the expansion is approved. More than a quarter of those in Cameron County, where the spaceport is, live below the poverty threshold, which is more than twice the national average, according to Census Bureau data.
The document suggests that the main benefit to the community will come from trickle-down effects from SpaceX workers spending part of their earnings on housing, goods and services in the area. Transient SpaceX workers would also spend money on hotels, food and rental vehicles.
Image:
The SpaceX facilities are seen behind Airstreams adjacent to the homes in Boca Chica Village, Texas, on Sunday. Verónica G. Cárdenas for NBC News
“While the population under the poverty threshold may not directly benefit through employment and income, it may indirectly benefit as regional economic health is improved through the proposed increase in employment for commercial space exploration activity,” it states.
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“Even if it does result in some local hires, it doesn’t undo the destruction in the community,” said Bekah Hinojosa, another community activist, pointing to the regular closures of the “poor people’s beach” and the displacement of those living in Boca Chica Village.
Hinojosa pointed to comments made by Musk in 2018, during a news conference after the launch of SpaceX’s reusable Falcon Heavy vehicle. The billionaire was asked by a reporter how soon flights would be going to the moon or Mars. Musk said that test flights would need to take place first, most likely in Boca Chica, “because we’ve got a load of land with nobody around and so if it blows up, it’s cool,” he said.
The comments grated on some of Boca Chica’s residents, who have dealt with shattered windows and debris strewn across the beach and wildlife refuges after these explosions.
Hinojosa went further, characterizing Musk’s position as “environmental racism.” Musk has an estimated personal wealth of about $310 billion and is the world’s richest man, according to Bloomberg.
“We’re a poor community and a people of color community,” she said, “But he’s trying to erase us and claim that we’re not there.”
Environmental impact
Musk’s comments also irked conservationists tasked with protecting the wildlife in the surrounding area, one of America’s most biologically diverse coastal wetlands.
“Musk is a very smart man. But he either was ignorant of the ecology out there or he felt his project was so much more important that it really didn’t matter what he did to the area,” said local environmentalist Jim Chapman.
Chapman said he is alarmed to see rocket tests and launches taking place in such a “fragile and biologically important area,” adding that while tidal flats “are not very exciting to look at to the casual observer,” there’s a “whole web of life out there,” from algae to tiny crustaceans, that a food chain of birds and animals rely upon.
“This is a very important area for migratory birds as it’s a huge stopover area,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, who submitted comments to the FAA questioning the legality of the SpaceX expansion. “Even a power plant would be concerning. But here you have giant rockets powered by methane that tend to explode, causing debris and noise impact, and we want to make sure the impacts are mitigated.”
While the SpaceX launch site is relatively small, covering about 75 acres, it’s sandwiched between delicate, protected tidal flats, wetlands and a much-loved public beach. Not only does the area provide a habitat for migratory birds, including endangered species such as piping plovers and red knots, it’s also one of the only places where the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, the most critically endangered sea turtle in the world, comes ashore to nest.
Amid the constant construction noise, truck traffic, enormous floodlights over the site and debris from explosions, some species have already dwindled at an alarming rate, said David Newstead, director of the Coastal Bird Program for the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, a nonprofit group that works to protect the area's bays and estuaries.
Newstead conducted a study of the local population of piping plovers, sparrow-sized shorebirds that nest and feed in coastal sand and are protected under the Endangered Species Act. He found that the population halved from 2018 to 2021, correlating closely with the intensity of SpaceX operations in the area.
In addition to the piping plover, the FAA has identified at least nine other endangered species that would be adversely affected by the SpaceX expansion, including the red knot shorebird, northern aplomado falcon, Gulf Coast jaguarundi (a rare wildcat), ocelot and five types of sea turtle.
There are also plenty of unknown impacts to small mammals, reptiles and the marine worms the shorebirds forage from the sediment because of the reverberations through the land from launches and construction activity, Newstead added.
When one of the Starship prototypes exploded above the launchpad in March, it threw rocket debris five miles away, to the jetties at the southern tip of South Padre Island, as documented by local news media at the time. That prototype had just three Raptor engines. The Starship that SpaceX hopes to get approval to launch from Boca Chica will have at least 29 of them.
A swarm of more than 40 earthquakes in 24 hours is causing a buzz in the northwest US
By Pedram Javaheri
Updated 10:32 AM ET, Wed December 8, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/08/weather/earthquake-swarm-oregon/index.html
One of North America's most active fault lines sprung to life on Tuesday after a swarm of more than 40 earthquakes -- ranging from a magnitude 3.5 to 5.8 -- rattled off the coast of Oregon, catching the attention and concern of millions in the region.
The series of quakes, which began early Tuesday morning and continued into Wednesday, were all clustered between 200-250 miles west of the coastal town of Newport, OR, far enough to be mostly undetected on land, but given the area's seismic history, it is creating quite a buzz.
"If you had asked me yesterday where on Earth would be most likely to produce a bunch of magnitude 5.0+ quakes in a single day, this would have been high on my list," Harold Tobin, Director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington, told CNN.
The fault line responsible for the quakes is the Blanco Fracture Zone. According to an analysis by Oregon State University, it is more active than the infamous San Andreas Fault in California, having produced more than 1,500 quakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater since the 1970s.
Not all quakes are created equal
What has been most impressive about this week's quakes is the swarm has included at least 9 tremors reaching a magnitude 5.0 to 5.8, with the majority occurring at a shallow depth of only 10 km.
The sheer number of magnitude 5.0 or greater quakes in the region triples the annual average (three 5.0+ quakes per year) since 1980, according to the USGS database.
When it comes to earthquakes, size matters but so does the terrain
When it comes to earthquakes, size matters but so does the terrain
Fortunately, according to the US National Tsunami Warning Center, none of this week's quakes have triggered a tsunami alert.
However, the activity has heightened the concern level for some, as the region is among the most earthquake-prone areas in North America and has already produced one of the largest quakes in the continental United States on January 26, 1700. The quake occurred on the neighboring Cascadia Subduction Zone, a megathrust fault much closer to land, where the Juan de Fuca plate dives underneath the North American Plate. This fault can not only trigger devastating tsunamis but also destructive shaking.