Category: Economy

Biden Admin in Talks to Potentially Bail Out a Third Bank: Report

Minnesota Sun Staff

The U.S. government is considering backing a potential deal to rescue the struggling First Republic Bank, in a bid by U.S. officials and Wall Street executives to head off the chance of a third major bank failure, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the discussions.

Wall Street investors have expressed an interest in helping stabilize the struggling San Francisco-based bank, which has been selling assets — which lost value amid the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes designed to combat inflation — to pay out a surge in customers pulling their funds from the bank, according to Bloomberg. While the extent of government aid has not yet been decided, the government could cover the cost of First Republic’s losses or offer liability protection to companies involved in a deal.

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Biden Administration Attempting to Bail Out Moderna

Minnesota Sun Staff

The pharmaceutical company Moderna, which has already received over $10 billion in taxpayer funds for the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, could receive even more public money at the request of the Biden Administration.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, lawyers with the Department of Justice (DOJ) offered in court filings last month to “relieve” Moderna of any liabilities it may face as the result of a lawsuit claiming that the company has not paid licensing fees for the technology it utilized to develop its vaccine for the Chinese coronavirus.

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Janet Yellen Says More Bank Bailouts Could Be on the Horizon

Minnesota Sun Staff

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in remarks Tuesday that regulators may ensure all deposits at more banks following the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank depositor bailouts.

Yellen said the bailouts were essential to safeguard the U.S. banking system in prepared remarks at the American Bankers Association Tuesday, referencing the Federal Reserve’s actions in insuring the deposits of SVB’s customers.

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‘Sustainable’ Electric Cars Are Getting Junked Over Minor Damage

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Insurers are being forced to write off many electric vehicles with only minor damage to battery packs, sending the batteries to scrap yards and hindering the climate benefits of going electric, Reuters reported.

Battery packs typically represent roughly half the cost of an electric vehicle, sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars, often making it more economical for insurers to consider a car as totalled than replace a battery pack, according to Reuters. While many carmakers, including Ford and GM, told Reuters that their battery packs were repairable, many are unwilling to share key data with third-party insurers to help assess damage.

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Minnesota Labor Commissioner Accuses Meat Processing Plant of Illegally Employing Minors

The Center Square

The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry is asking a district court to stop a meat processing company from illegally employing minors.

The DLI said in its complaint that Tony Downs Food Company employs at least eight minors at its processing plant in Madelia. According to the department, the company has worked children past midnight, more than eight hours a day, and more than 40 hours in a week, in violation of the Minnesota Child Labor Standards Act. A 14-year-old employee began working for the company at age 13, and, based on injury records Tony Downs produced to DLI, one of the employees who’s a minor has also been injured on the job, the department said.

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Janet Yellen’s Policy Would Destroy Small U.S. Banks While Bailing Out Chinese Depositors, Experts Say

Minnesota Sun Staff

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated during her testimony at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on March 16 that she, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation board, the Fed board, and President Joe Biden would only safeguard uninsured deposits at banks whose failures they determine would pose “systemic risks” to the economy, which will destroy small regional banks, according to experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

On the other hand, it will enable big banks to be more reckless because their depositors will be made whole if they fail. In the case of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), this will include many Chinese companies that will be getting reimbursed by community banks, according to Reuters.

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‘That’s a Lie’: GOP Senator Presses Janet Yellen on Plan to Pay for Social Security

Minnesota Sun Staff

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana accused the Biden administration of lying about its commitment to working with Congress to protect seniors’ social security benefits at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.

Cassidy asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who was testifying about President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024, if the president was aware that “when [Social Security] goes broke in nine years” there would be a 24% cut in benefits for current recipients.

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As Losses Mounted, Silicon Valley Bank Doubled Down on Woke Investments and Left-Wing Rhetoric

Just the News

Long before its epic collapse, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was a darling of the left. It allied in cash and manpower with a liberal nonprofit run by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife and fully embraced the environmental, social and governance (ESG) platform now being banned in some red states, while celebrating its executives’ involvement in the LGBTQ+ movement.

As SVB’s investment failures mounted, the bank doubled down on its ideological commitments by pledging $5 billion in new green tech outlays, despite signs of rising interest rates negatively impacting that sector. Some institutional investors also began to raise concerns about the overall balance sheet.

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Biden Admin Shot Down Purchase Attempts for Failed Bank, Former Trump Official Says

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A former economic adviser to former President Donald Trump said Monday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) prevented several efforts to purchase Silicon Valley Bank. Federal regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank Friday after its stock price collapsed and customers began a bank run following the financial institution’s disclosure of a $1.8 billion loss on asset sales due to high interest rates, CNBC reported. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) also shut down Signature Bank Sunday, citing “systemic risk,” CNBC reported separately.

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Commentary: Despite ‘Strong’ Rhetoric, Biden Administration Signals Gloomy Economic Outlook

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The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the now-released President’s Budget is projecting just 0.6 percent in inflation-adjusted real growth of the U.S. economy in 2023 as the unemployment rate is expected to rise to 4.3 percent in 2023 and peak at 4.6 percent in 2024 after the economy is finished overheating from the continued, elevated inflation, consumers max out on credit and spending falls off a cliff.

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Oil CEOs See Massive Bonuses amid Record Profits

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The pay packages for the chief executives of British oil giants BP and Shell skyrocketed in 2022 after the oil titans posted record profits off the back of high gas prices last year, Reuters reported Friday.

The salary of BP CEO Bernard Looney climbed to roughly £1.3 million, while performance-related bonuses and stock awards climbed to £10.03 million, to a total of £11.33 million in compensation, more than two and a half times the £4.46 million he earned in 2021, the company announced Friday. BP —which lagged behind its American competitors in 2022 despite a record profit of roughly $28 billion — has drawn criticism from activists for cutting its green investments and reinvesting in gas and oil, Reuters reported.

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Treasury Inspector General Audit: 42,000 Federal Employees ‘Repeatedly’ Don’t File Federal Returns

Just the News

Tens of thousands of federal employees have “repeatedly” failed to file their federal tax returns, according to a new federal watchdog report.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration flags 42,000 so-called “federal employee non-filers” and states the government is limited in its authority to punish them, according to the Washington Times.

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Commentary: Climate Policies Will Shut Down Farmers

Minnesota Sun Staff

Belgian and Dutch farmers are protesting because they are losing their livelihoods in the name of fighting so-called climate change as European governments seek to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia, necessary inputs of modern agriculture. Will American farmers and consumers soon face the same fate?

European farmers are being told that because of the aim for “net-zero emissions” of greenhouse gases and other so-called pollutants in 2050, their industry is being phased out if they can’t adapt.

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Slave Labor Clouds Plunging U.S. Solar Market in 2022

Minnesota Sun Staff

U.S. solar panel installations plummeted in 2022 as lingering supply chain issues hindered the industry, although forecasters anticipate a bounceback and significant growth over the next decade, according to a joint report from the industry trade group Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and research analytics firm Woods Mackenzie released Thursday.

The primary cause of the decline was a significant disruption in the solar panel supply chain caused by detentions of Chinese solar panel materials by U.S. Customs and Border Protection over concerns that the products were developed by the forced labor of Uighur muslims, according to the report. While 2022 was a “tough year” for solar, supply chain issues are expected to be resolved in 2023, leading to a 41% surge in installations, Michelle Davis, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie and lead author of the report, said in a press release Thursday.

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Eco-Conscious ESG Investors Among Top Shareholders in Rail Giant Under Fire for Toxic Spill

Just the News

Three of the five top shareholders in Norfolk Southern — the freight rail carrier under the spotlight for its saftey and environmental record following last month’s toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — have been aligned with the eco-conscious, socially aware ESG (environmental, social, governance) investing framework embraced by many leading financial firms in recent years. Asset management firms BlackRock Fund Advisors, JPMorgan Investment Management, and The Vanguard Group were all part of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, a coalition of ESG-minded money mangers committed to channeling investment capital to firms working toward the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as outlined in the Paris Climate Accord.

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Poll: Inflation Has Americans Worried About Covering Expenses After Job Loss

The Center Square

A majority of Americans polled said they couldn’t afford to pay emergency expenses or cover their living expenses for just one month if they lost their primary source of income, according to Bankrate’s latest Annual Emergency Savings Report. The main reason cited is record-high inflation.

The majority surveyed, 68%, said they’re “worried they wouldn’t be able to cover their living expenses for just one month if they lost their primary source of income.”

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Homeless Shelter Sues State Officials Preventing It from Hiring Christian Employees

Minnesota Sun Staff

A Christian homeless shelter filed a lawsuit against Washington state officials Thursday alleging that the state’s anti-discrimination law prevents the shelter from only hiring employees that agree with their faith-based worldview.

Yakima Union Gospel Mission (YUGM) in Yakima, Washington, describes its mission as “helping people move from homelessness to wholeness” on its website and has been working in the community for 35 years, according to a press release by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the world’s largest law firm representing faith and free speech issues. The shelter explains in the lawsuit that the defendants, Attorney General Robert Ferguson and Executive Director of the Washington State Human Rights Commission Andreta Armstrong, have been using Washington’s anti-discrimination law to prevent the organization from hiring in line with their faith, according to the lawsuit.

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