>>> Weekend Papers Summary

Weekend Papers Summary

NEW YORK TIMES
-A list of files taken from former President Trump’s Florida home includes materials marked as top secret and meant to be viewed only in government facilities.
Agents who executed the warrant did so to investigate potential crimes associated with violations of the Espionage Act and an obstruction law.
-Former President Trump claimed he declassified all the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Even if true, it may not matter.
Three criminal statutes show the inquiry goes beyond classified information.
-The House of Representatives has passed a sweeping Climate, Tax and Health Care Package. The passage of the bill, which appeared dead just weeks ago, caps a Democratic effort to deliver on major components of President Biden’s agenda. It was a victory for Biden, and a bet on America’s future.
-President Biden is poised to deliver the latest in a series of legislative victories that will ripple across the country for decades.
-Salman Rushdie is on a ventilator after being stabbed in western New York. The novelist, who has faced death threats since 1989, was attacked in Chautauqua as he prepared to talk on the US as a haven for exiled writers.
-The Southern Baptist Convention says it faces federal investigation for sexual abuse. Church leaders disclosed that multiple Southern Baptist entities were under investigation and said that all would cooperate.
-The Russian economy contracts sharply as war and sanctions take hold. The country’s gross domestic product from April through June declined 4 percent from a year earlier, new government data shows.
-The shelling of Ukraine nuclear plant raises fears and outrage. President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “nuclear blackmail” as the two sides traded blame.
-Positive economic signs have sent the S&P 500 higher for four consecutive weeks, but some investors worry about how long the rally can last.
-The detection of the polio virus in NY City’s sewage suggests it is circulating there, New York’s health authorities said.

THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-Donald Trump is under investigation for potentially mishandling information related to US national defence in violation of the Espionage Act, along with other possible violations related to the handling of government documents, according to the FBI’s warrant to search the former president’s home.
-After navigating through the mines in and around the Ukrainian Black Sea ports, the Razoni cargo ship never arrived at its originally stated destination, Tripoli in Lebanon. The shipment’s buyer rejected the 26,500 tonne corn cargo on quality grounds and the vessel remained stranded until new buyers were found and 1,500 tonnes of the grain were unloaded in Turkey.
-Spain has said an additional link in a gas pipeline from the Iberian peninsula to France could be ready within nine months after Germany backed the idea of linking the region to central Europe to improve the continent’s energy security.
-Salman Rushdie, the author who has lived under a death threat from Iran for several decades, was stabbed on stage during a literary event in the US on Friday morning. The Booker Prize-winning author was still in surgery on Friday afternoon, police said.
“The news is not good. Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged,” Rushdie’s agent Andrew Wylie said in a statement to Reuters on Friday evening. Rushdie, 75, was still on a ventilator, he said.
-Russia has said it will not yet allow international inspectors to access Europe’s largest nuclear power plant despite fears over the state of the Ukrainian facility under Moscow’s occupation. Moscow and Kyiv have traded accusations of targeting the Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine, which has been under Russian control since March following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
-Five Chinese state-owned companies have announced plans to delist voluntarily from Wall Street before the US forces them out in 2024 over an audit dispute, marking an escalation in the financial decoupling of the world’s two largest economies.
-Swedish manufacturer Volvo AB surprised investors this week by borrowing €500M — a rare deal in Europe’s parched corporate bond markets that are pin-drop quiet even by summertime standards.
-Colombia’s first leftist government in modern history has targeted the country’s wealthiest residents and its commodities exports in a tax proposal that represents a significant shift for the traditionally conservative nation.
The proposed tax overhaul “should not be viewed as a punishment or a sacrifice”, Gustavo Petro, the country’s new president, said during his inauguration speech on Sunday, a day before sending the bill to Congress. “It is simply a solidarity payment that someone fortunate makes to a society that has enabled them to generate wealth.”
-In the year to July 2021, more Americans moved to Florida than any other state — 220,890 of them, according to census data. The influx included billionaires and hedge funds unmoored from their Wall Street offices who flocked to South Florida for its low taxes and year-round sunshine.

NY POST
-Reporting on the documents taken from former President Donald Trump’s property — as well as the release of the search warrant by the judge who approved it — has filled in some more outlines of the story, although there is too much we still don’t know. The quagmire underlines what seems, at the very least, the unbelievable imprudence of the search. If an FBI action is going to be so inflammatory that the attorney general of the United States can’t maintain a judicious silence about the matter more than a couple of days before publicly jousting with the target, it’s a pretty good indication it shouldn’t have been taken to begin with.
-Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) has reportedly finalized rules that prevent health care providers from billing the state’s Medicaid program for gender-affirming medical treatments. The agency reportedly added new language to Medicaid program rules stating that it would not cover services for the treatment of gender dysphoria, including sex reassignment surgery, puberty blockers or hormone therapies. This action comes after the state’s AHCA announced in June that it had determined those services were “not consistent with generally accepted professional medical standards and are experimental and investigational with the potential for harmful long-term effects.”
-Pharmacists are in such high demand that Walgreens is offering a hefty signing bonus of up to $75,000. Due to pandemic-related staffing challenges, the signing bonus can reportedly be up to $75,000 in certain markets across the US – usually their range is half that amount.

TechCrunch : Digital pensions platform Penfold raises $8.5M Series A led by Brid

Penfold, a digital pensions platform, has closed a £7m ($8.49m) Series A funding round led by Bridford Group, an investment group.

Also participating in the round was Jeremy Coller, Chief Investment Officer and Chairman of Coller Capital. Penfold also raised additional funding via a crowdfund amongst its customer base. The cash will be used to expand Penfold’s workplace pension division.

Chris Eastwood, Co-Founder at Penfold, commented (in a statement): “It’s been a big year for Penfold – from launching our workplace pension offering, to reaching £100m AUA.”

Bridford Group, lead investor, commented: “The pensions industry represents a huge market – with £8trn in savings in the UK alone. Despite this, many people remain uninterested and unengaged in their pensions. With so many people not saving enough, there’s a real opportunity for a new provider to step in.”

(CrunchBase) The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: CleverTap Raises $105M To Hel

The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: CleverTap Raises $105M To Help Companies Retain Customers, Overtime Scores Big

Another slow week on the funding front as far as large rounds go. Only two rounds broke the $100 million mark, and it didn’t take too big of a raise to crack the top 10 this week. Investment was also all over the place, from analytics to sports to smart water coolers. August has been a slow, sleepy month so far in the venture capital world. Perhaps the second half of the month will see an uptick.
1. CleverTap, $105M, analytics: While getting customers can be hard, retaining customers is the key to any sustainable growing business. Investors know that. That’s why investors such as Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, IIFL AMC’s Tech Fund, Tiger Global and Sequoia India poured $105 million into Mountain View, California-based CleverTap this week. The startup offers cloud-based customer engagement and retention tools that not only help companies keep customers, but also increase their spend. While the company was founded in India, it has steadily moved into the U.S. market, bolstered by its acquisition of San Francisco-based Leanplum in June. The new round values the company at $775 million, TechCrunch reported. Founded in 2013, the company has raised more than $181 million, according to Crunchbase data.

2. Overtime, $100M, sports: Sports fans have a lot of alternatives as to where they get their fix. However, a lot of big backers are putting their cash behind New York-based startup Overtime, which closed a $100 million Series D valuing the company at $500 million. The round was led by Liberty Media Corp. and included participation from Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global, Winslow Capital, Bezos Expeditions, Blackstone and Sapphire Sport. The company is also backed by several pro sports stars, including Kevin Durant and Trae Young. The startup is trying to create a large sports community—mainly focused on Gen Z and millennials—around sports video and highlights on social media channels. The company also has recently started to launch its own sports leagues—Overtime Elite (basketball) and OT7 (football). Overtime says it currently has more than than 65 million followers and its content receives more than 2 billion video views each month. The new cash brings the total amount raised by the 6-year-old company to more than $250 million, per the company.

3. (tied) Boulevard, $70M, software: Keeping track of appointments can be a nightmare for any business. However, that can be especially true for appointment-based personal care businesses, such as spas, salons and barbershops. Many are small, with only a handful of employees, and have to manage appointments and payments on pen and paper. Boulevard is one of a few tech startups that have emerged in recent years to help digitize that market and bring it into the 21st century. The Los Angeles-based startup closed a $70 million Series C led by Point72 to help self-care shops digitize booking appointments, messaging clients and even accepting payments. The company will use the new cash to expand its product and move deeper into the wellness and beauty sector. Founded in 2016, Boulevard has now raised $108 million, per Crunchbase.

3. (tied) Bevi, $70M, food and beverage: The pandemic has forced many to work from home, so the time-honored tradition of gathering around the water cooler has somewhat been lost. However, that didn’t stop Boston-based Bevi from locking up a $70 million Series D from Cowen Sustainable Investments. The company makes smart water coolers that provide filtered, flavored and sparkling water on demand. In addition to the choices it offers, it also is an environmentally sustainable alternative to bottled water. Bevi says it has helped customers save over 300 million single-use bottles and cans to date. Founded in 2013, the company has raised more than $130 million, according to Crunchbase data.

5. Disc Medicine, $53.5M, biotech: Watertown, Massachusetts-based Disc Medicine had a busy week. The clinical-stage biotechnology firm announced it would merge with ​​publicly traded Gemini Therapeutics and start trading on Nasdaq after shareholders approve the deal. However, the company also announced it secured a $53.5 million round led by Access Biotechnology. The company focuses on treatments for serious hematologic diseases. Founded in 2017, Disc Medicine has raised more than $193 million, according to Crunchbase data.

6. Truework, $50M, fintech: San Francisco-based income and employment verification platform Truework raised a $50 million Series C led by G Squared. Founded in 2017, the company has raised nearly $95 million, per Crunchbase.

7. REVA Medical, $45M, medical devices: San Diego-based medical device maker REVA Medical closed a $45 million Series B led by strategic investor BioStar Capital. Founded in 1998, the company has raised more than $146 million, according to Crunchbase.

8. (tied) Injective, $40M, crypto: New York-based smart contract platform Injective raised a $40 million funding round led by Jump Crypto. Founded in 2017, the company has raised nearly $57 million, per Crunchbase.

8. (tied) Nightfall AI, $40M, cloud data services: San Francisco-based cloud data-loss prevention platform Nightfall AI closed a $40 million Series B led by WestBridge Capital. Founded in 2018, the company has raised more than $60 million, per Crunchbase.

10. Superblocks, $37M, software: New York-based Superblocks raised $37 million in a round led by Kleiner Perkins, Greenoaks, Spark and Meritech. Founded last year, the company has created a platform for developers to build custom internal tools. This is the company’s first funding, according to Crunchabse.


Big global deals
With few large rounds going to U.S.-based startups, the largest round went to a Korea-based company this week.
  • Seoul-based cloud optimization startup Megazone Cloud raised more than $345 million in a Series C.

FT : European nations take differing approaches to shield citizens from surge in

European nations take differing approaches to shield citizens from surge in energy bills
From price freezes to cheap public transport, countries are turning to a variety of measures to reduce costs

Soaring energy prices could mean an even colder and darker winter across Europe, with governments racing to find new ways to protect households facing huge utility bills.

Wholesale gas prices are hovering around €200 per megawatt hour — eight times higher than the average level of recent years, wholesale electricity prices have risen sharply in response to generation difficulties in many countries, and the gloom is mounting.

In the UK, where households bills are expected to rise to £4,400 a year in early 2023, around four times the level of the period between 2018 and 2021, the consumer rights campaigner Martin Lewis has described the situation as “a national crisis on the scale that we saw in the pandemic”.

The UK is hard hit because it relies heavily on gas for both home heating and electricity generation, and because it, unlike many European countries, allows wholesale prices to flow straight to consumers — albeit with a delay.

While Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss battle publicly over energy prices in the race to succeed Boris Johnson as the UK’s next prime minister, governments of all stripes are facing the same challenges across the continent.

Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday that his government would “do everything to ensure that the citizens get through this difficult time” of high inflation.

European countries differ in their spending on gas, electricity, coal and road fuels, but almost all have used the power of the state to protect customers from part of the increase in bills.


The IMF estimated in July that the median high income European country had already spent an additional 1 per cent of annual national income on energy price support — a figure it says is almost certainly an underestimate and that is likely to rise. Poorer European countries, where energy is a larger proportion of budget share, had spent 1.7 per cent of their national income already.

Most worrying was that much of the money spent so far has gone on stopping energy companies passing on higher prices to customers — a tactic which the fund said did not “incentivise energy savings”.

In France, the government will this year spend around €22bn to shield its citizens from surging energy costs, with a freeze on gas prices for consumers as well as its four per cent cap on electricity price increases — both of which were introduced in February this year.

Norway’s government pays 90 per cent of households’ electricity bills when wholesale prices exceed prescribed thresholds. But even with its big hydropower capacity, Oslo has faced growing political and public pressure over its inability to curb high prices.

Germany has agreed a €15bn bailout of Uniper, a large gas purchaser, although the higher costs of gas will eventually be passed on to customers.

Most European countries have lowered taxes on petrol and diesel, ranging from a 5p cut per litre in the UK to a temporary lowering of 29.55 cents per litre in France and Germany.

The price of gas canisters, a common way of heating Spanish homes, has been fixed by the government in Madrid until next year.

While these measures have been popular with the public, economists and governments have recognised they also need to offer support that encourages households and businesses to use less energy.

High industrial power prices in the Netherlands led to a 30 per cent reduction in use in the first five months of this year compared to last year. Looking at these results, one government official in The Hague said: “The energy market works.”

Lump sum payments have proliferated in other parts of Europe. All households in the UK will receive a subsidy of £400 towards energy bills this winter. In central and eastern Europe, households spend more on fossil fuels as a proportion of their household budgets because the goods are necessities and incomes are lower. This has led to significantly higher support being offered, mostly in the form of measures that have protected consumers from higher prices.

For the first time since the end of communism, each household in Poland can apply for a one-time subsidy of up to 3000 zlotys (€640) to purchase coal, which still heats many of the country’s households.

Germany has offered lump sum reductions in income tax and raised allowances, while Italy has put in place a €200 “cost of living bonus” for the majority of salaried workers, self-employed workers and pensioners.

As the costs mount, countries are increasingly targeting support for poorer households — a policy which the IMF thinks is a better way to cut overall energy usage.

Italy’s poorest — defined as those earning less than €12,000 a year — have had their household energy bills frozen under the outgoing government of Mario Draghi, who sought to walk a tightrope between providing relief to families and keeping to its declared public deficit target of 5.6 per cent of GDP.

Lower income consumers in the Netherlands will receive an energy allowance of around €1,300, while in the UK, households receiving means-tested support from the government will receive £650.

In Spain, the government has been less generous to poorer working age households, with one-off payments of just €200 to people earning less than €14,000 a year. More generous support has gone to those receiving the lowest state pensions, where payments have been increased by 15 per cent, equivalent to about €60 more a month.

Some governments have also taken to innovation and distraction in a bid to keep households happy amid the energy crisis. The most visible policy, billed as a means to reduce road use, was Germany’s €9 a month public transport pass for June, July and August. The policy has seen huge uptake, with politicians under pressure to extend the scheme, probably with less government subsidy, in some form into the future.

For Oya Celasun, assistant director of the IMF’s European department, governments should focus their efforts on helping lower-income households, which suffer the most from higher energy bills. “Policy should shift from broad-based support to targeted relief,” she said.

FT : Gaming tapers off post-pandemic as players return to the real world

Gaming tapers off post-pandemic as players return to the real world
Companies across the industry have reported weakening sales and player engagement in recent months

Gaming companies have been hit with weakening sales and engagement in recent months, as players returned to real-world pursuits post-pandemic and began cutting back on their spending amid a cost of living crisis.

Console producers, video game publishers and gaming chipmakers across the industry have reported a fall in demand in the latest quarter, challenging the belief that gaming is one of the most recession-proof forms of entertainment.

The slowdown comes after the sector saw a surge in demand and bumper profits during the pandemic, as global lockdowns drove a spike in consumers’ appetite for virtual entertainment and which, in turn, saw dealmaking rise sharply within the industry.

Console makers Sony and Microsoft were the harbingers of a downturn in gaming, posting sales declines from their gaming businesses. Last month, Sony reported a 15 per cent drop in PlayStation engagement year-on-year.

On Monday Nvidia, which is a heavyweight in gaming chip production, reported lower second-quarter revenue because of weakness in its gaming business. Gaming revenue in the second quarter fell 44 per cent from the previous quarter and 33 per cent from a year earlier to $2.04bn.

Strauss Zelnick, chief executive of Take-Two Interactive, the company behind Grand Theft Auto, told investors this week that he does not believe “the entertainment business is recession proof or even necessarily recession resistant”. On Monday it released forecasted sales for the second quarter and the full year which fell short of analysts’ estimates, causing its share price to fall by 5 per cent.

“If you are feeling the pinch of inflation, specifically with regard to non discretionary expenditures like fuel and food, you could imagine that if you’re playing a game, you might choose to spend a bit less or spend a bit less frequently,” said Zelnick.

This month Activision Blizzard, which is currently being bought by Microsoft for $69bn, posted a 15 per cent drop in adjusted sales in the second quarter compared to the same period last year, driven in large part by weaker demand in the console and PC market and a poor response to the latest release of its iconic Call of Duty shooter game.


Meanwhile, Electronic Arts, famous for its Fifa franchise as well as Sims, last week gave a revenue forecast for the second quarter that missed analyst estimates.

As restrictions have eased, the pandemic-fuelled boom for gaming has waned. But it comes amid a difficult economic backdrop, with consumers around the world looking to reduce their discretionary spending in the face of rising inflation.

The biggest impact appears to be on the mobile segment of the gaming market, which has been the focus of dealmaking in recent years. Take-Two completed a $13bn acquisition of Zynga earlier this year, while EA bought a 3D mobile gaming company called Glu for $2bn last year.

EA said mobile bookings were down 2.5 per cent from the previous quarter, with legacy titles — excluding Fifa Mobile — performing quite poorly.

Andrew Wilson, chief executive at EA, told analysts there was one “open question” the industry was facing: “in a world where you can engage deeply without spending, how will we see spending through this period?”


On Wednesday, the game-making platform Roblox, behind Jailbreak and MeepCity, saw its shares slide more than 12 per cent after it reported a 4 per cent drop in net bookings and a slowdown in daily user growth. The company has lost more than 50 per cent of its value since the start of the year.

Roblox’s chief executive David Baszucki refuted the impact of a gaming downturn on the company’s results however, asserting that it is more of a “future human experience platform” than a gaming company and adding “we’ve been through these cycles before, and we’ve been relatively immune to them.”

Game development platform Unity, which is the engine behind over 70 per cent of mobile games globally, lowered its full-year guidance on Wednesday on the back of revenue growth that was slower than previously modelled, and attributed the revision in part to “recent negative macroeconomic factors”.

Groups have also been let down by weak game releases — normally the catalyst behind stellar growth figures — in part because the pandemic unsettled pipelines. EA is still suffering from a weak release of its hotly anticipated Battlefield 2042 game in November, while Take-Two pushed back one of its most significant title releases.

Activision Blizzard has also struggled after its flagship title Call of Duty received a lacklustre reception late last year, which it attributed to the choice of a second world war setting that failed to resonate with its audiences.

“For growth to accelerate in the industry, you need compelling games,” said Neil Campling an analyst at Mirabaud Equity Research, noting that audiences have become more selective now that they have a more diverse option of leisure pursuits. “In reality we are still waiting for the next must-have blockbuster game.”

Patrick O’Luanaigh, chief executive of NDreams, a virtual reality publisher, agreed there has been a “marked slowdown in big releases”, adding: “It’s relatively sparse which is frustrating for some people.”


Nonetheless, executives have sounded a positive tone about their mid to long term prospects, pointing to steady growth in the number of gamers worldwide.

Wilson from EA highlighted how an expansion into mobile gaming, irrespective of whether they are opting for free games right now, “represents a way for us to access players in markets that our traditional business does not”, pointing to an estimated 3.5bn players worldwide.

Zelnick agreed, noting that evidence suggests the next generation of gamers are “more engaged and they play more”.

“So I have to believe that interactive entertainment will continue to grow disproportionately to the rest of the audiovisual entertainment businesses”, he added.

FT : Italian asset manager plans flow of deals to reduce water waste

Italian asset manager plans flow of deals to reduce water waste
Ambienta investing in pumps as Europe battles severe drought

An Italian asset manager has launched plans to create a European champion for reducing water waste, as large swaths of the continent battle severe droughts.

Ambienta, which invests in private and listed companies with an environmental focus, is stepping up its exposure to groups whose products limit water waste. Although the war in Ukraine has put energy security front and centre for European companies and policymakers, the alternative asset manager has warned that water scarcity risks being overlooked.

“Seventy one per cent of the planet is made up of water but only a small fraction is accessible and renewable,” said Nino Tronchetti Provera, Ambienta’s founder and managing partner. “Already today 10 per cent of the global population lacks access to the water it needs and the figure risks rising to 40 per cent by 2040 if we don’t make the right choices.”

The group, which has €3bn of assets under management, has recently made a series of investments linked to water with the aim of creating a leading European group in the sector.

Last month it acquired Calpeda, a high-tech water pumps manufacturer based in northern Italy, which it is planning to integrate in its water investments holding company, christened Wateralia. Water pumps such as Calpeda’s reduce water dispersion in businesses and households, leading to energy and water savings.

Wateralia also includes Caprari, another Italian family-owned business specialising in water pumps in which Ambienta took a majority stake last year. It now plans to buy more such businesses and increase its exposure to the sector.

Almost half of continental Europe and the UK are currently exposed to severe drought risks, with unusual heatwaves being exacerbated by little rainfall during the winter, according to a study by the European Commission.

Italy is one of the most affected countries with the northern region experiencing its worst drought in decades.

“This is not surprising in a world where economic growth has outpaced the ability of the planet to digest pollution and produce enough resources for everyone,” said Tronchetti Provera. “We need practical solutions to traditional business models. If there are water pumps that allow industries that consume large amounts of water to save some, that’s a good investment.”

According to the UN, half of the global population could be living in regions facing water scarcity by as early as 2025.

Water has emerged as a niche investment theme in recent years, spurred by wider interest in sustainable investing. Global investment companies such as Amundi and Fidelity have launched exchange traded funds on water-related themes.

Ambienta invests through its own hedge fund and by taking stakes in public and private companies, sometimes buying the latter outright.

The asset manager has made over €1bn in revenues across 148 countries since it began investing in 2007. In 2021 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation grew 18 per cent compared with the previous year.

The firm has invested in 54 companies across Europe including in Italy, Germany and France. These countries had many successfully family-run companies that needed outside investment to grow further, said Tronchetti Provera.

One former investee company, German water-based paint manufacturer Oskar Nolte, expanded globally after being bought by Ambienta and is now Sweden’s Ikea’s paint supplier. Water-based paints are significantly less pollutant than the traditional solvent-based ones.

“Companies won’t solve the world’s environmental issues by planting trees or installing solar panels on their roofs,” said Tronchetti Provera. “If you don’t update your traditional industrial processes, the market will eventually sweep you away.”

>>> World Economic Forum Calls For Merging of Human and AI Intel to Censor ‘Hate



World Economic Forum Calls For Merging of Human and AI Intel to Censor ‘Hate Speech’ & ‘Misinformation’
Maybe they should just stick to the economy.

Despite the fact that no one asked, the World Economic Forum is now advocating for the merger of human and artificial intelligence systems to censor “hate speech” and “misinformation” online before it is even allowed to be posted.
A report published to the official WEF website ominously warns about the peril of “the dark world of online harms.”
But the globalist body, run by comic book Bond villain Klaus Schwab, has a solution.
They want to merge the ‘best’ aspects of human censorship and AI machine learning algorithms to ensure that people’s feelings don’t get hurt and counter-regime opinions are blacklisted.
“By uniquely combining the power of innovative technology, off-platform intelligence collection and the prowess of subject-matter experts who understand how threat actors operate, scaled detection of online abuse can reach near-perfect precision,” states the article.
After engaging in a whole host of mumbo jumbo, the article concludes by proposing “a new framework: rather than relying on AI to detect at scale and humans to review edge cases, an intelligence-based approach is crucial.”
“By bringing human-curated, multi-language, off-platform intelligence into learning sets, AI will then be able to detect nuanced, novel abuses at scale, before they reach mainstream platforms. Supplementing this smarter automated detection with human expertise to review edge cases and identify false positives and negatives and then feeding those findings back into training sets will allow us to create AI with human intelligence baked in,” the article rambles.

In other words, your free speech will probably get censored before you’re even able to post it on social media sites. Some are calling it “preemptive censorship.”
Or as the WEF puts it, “Trust and safety teams can stop threats rising online before they reach users.”
No doubt that a central part of such “misinformation” will be strident denunciation of the WEF itself, given that the organization is notorious for blocking its critics on Twitter.
Many would ask why the World Economic Forum, amidst a cost of living crisis, upcoming energy rationing and a global recession, is concerning itself with any of this.
Why don’t they just stick to the economy?

“It’s never a sure bet if this Davos-based elite’s mouthpiece comes up with its outlandish “solutions” and “proposals” as a way to reinforce existing, or introduce new narratives; or just to appear busy and earn its keep from those bankrolling it,” writes Didi Rankovic
“No – it’s not the runaway inflation, energy costs, and even food security in many parts of the world. For how dedicated to globalization the organization is, it’s strangely tone-deaf to what is actually happening around the globe.”

(ZH) A Worrying Signal From Oil Traders Of A European Recession

A Worrying Signal From Oil Traders Of A European Recession

  • While politicians and economists might debate exactly what constitutes a recession, the reality of an economic slowdown is impossible to ignore.
  • The most recent signal that Europe may soon face a recession comes from oil traders, who are selling European gas oil futures while buying U.S. diesel futures.
  • It is not surprising that Europe is more at risk of a recession than the U.S. as it is hugely vulnerable to an energy shortage and will have to pass the high prices on to consumers.
Recession has always been a politically sensitive word. Today, it has become so sensitive that some economists and politicians are trying to redefine it to make it lose some of its sting. The reality of a recession, however, is impossible to redefine. In Europe in particular, consumers are feeling the slowdown in economic growth in their wallets, and so are traders. There is one big difference between the two though. When a recession is looming, consumers curb spending. Traders, on the other hand, begin selling.
Reuters’ John Kemp reported in his latest hedge fund column that hedge funds and other institutional traders sold the equivalent of 1 million barrels of European gas oil futures over the past three weeks. While this may not sound like a lot, over the last six weeks, total sales have added up to 20 million barrels. A significant reduction in the net position of traders.
Across the Atlantic, hedge funds and money managers have been buying U.S. diesel futures and options, increasing their position by 13 million barrels over the last three weeks. Kemp suggests this is a signal that the economic outlook of U.S. traders is brighter than that of their European peers.
It might be that U.S. traders are simply looking to profit from the diesel shortage Kemp himself wrote about earlier this month. He noted that U.S. distillate fuel inventories have fallen to critical levels, and it would take a recession to remedy things by destroying demand. Otherwise, diesel prices will only continue rising and traders would buy diesel futures.
Be that as it may, the danger of recession in Europe is certainly a lot more serious from an energy perspective. Unlike the U.S., which is rather self-sufficient when it comes to natural gas, Europe has revealed itself to be as embarrassingly dependent on imports of the commodity. A dash for gas has followed, where Europe is scouring the world for friendly gas, under a spot contract, if possible. It has not always been possible.
As a result of this, Europe is now diverting cargoes from Asia, which is not making it any friends there, and trying to consume less energy. Thanks to excessive prices, it is consuming less energy. Germany is preparing for energy rationing for industrial users and encouraging household austerity. Spain is mandating air-conditioners be kept at 27 degrees or above. And Norway just announced that it would curb its electricity exports to the EU.
Norwegian electricity normally goes to the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. However, hydropower output, which accounts for the bulk of Norway’s total electricity output, has been low this year, and the country is trying to secure local sufficiency. More bad news for struggling Europe, where renewable power output remains uneven.
The picture is not pretty, and earlier this month, the IMF signaled it could become even worse as it advised European governments to pass on the additional energy costs to consumers to encourage energy savings. The fund argued that financial aid only keeps energy consumption high when it should be going down.
Meanwhile, Nomura analysts recently forecast that the eurozone, along with the UK, the U.S., South Korea, Australia, and Canada, are among the countries facing recession in 2023.
“Right now central banks, many of them have shifted to essentially a single mandate — and that’s to get inflation down. Monetary policy credibility is too precious an asset to lose. So they’re going to be very aggressive,” Nomura’s head of global markets research, Rob Subbaraman, said last month.
Add to this central bank aggressiveness the equally aggressive stance the EU is taking in its standoff with Russia, and there’s a recipe for recession right there.
Reuters’ Kemp predicted that at least four European economies will fall into a recession before the year’s end. Unfortunately, it’s the four largest - Germany, France, Italy, and Britain - which means the pain will be felt across the bloc and the rest of Europe, too. The silver lining: fuel prices might begin to fall once a recession settles in.

WSJ : Affirm CEO Says Next Recession Will Silence Fintech Lender’s Doubters

Affirm CEO Says Next Recession Will Silence Fintech Lender’s Doubters
With shares of the buy now, pay later company down 77% from November, Max Levchin says firm's lending models will set it apart

Max Levchin says the market is wrong about Affirm Holdings Inc., the buy now, pay later company he co-founded a decade ago. It might just take a recession to prove it.

Affirm’s AFRM 6.00% stock is down 77% since hitting its peak in November, compared with a 9% decline in the S&P 500 during the same period. Investors are worried about future costs of borrowing, growing competition and whether Affirm’s borrowers will fall behind on payments during a downturn. The company’s total valuation stands at about $11 billion, down from a peak of $47 billion.

Mr. Levchin is confident that Affirm has safely cracked the code to underwriting more consumers than banks would. Like many lenders, Affirm tightened underwriting standards early in the pandemic. Last year, it began loosening them.

“I can swear on a stack of Bibles or your preferred book of choice, until we get through a full recession, I will get partial credit when I show the numbers that I said I will,” he said in a June interview with The Wall Street Journal. “But once we’re back in a rapidly expanding economy and we’re still here, still lending money, still controlling our delinquencies, I think I’ll get full recognition.”

Affirm is one of the largest buy now, pay later companies in the U.S., offering payment plans that enable consumers to divide the cost over time for purchases big and small, including makeup, clothing, furniture, travel and workout equipment. Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are among the hundreds of thousands of merchants that offer Affirm plans to shoppers.

Unlike credit cards, buy now, pay later plans are for a specific item, and the payments have a clear end date. Some plans don’t charge interest, helping to fuel a rise in their popularity over the past few years. Affirm said it doesn’t charge late fees.

Affirm grew rapidly in recent years while touting its ability to approve more people who might be shut out by traditional lenders, including those with limited or no credit histories. The stock closed Friday at $39.19, up from a low of $14.63 in May but still well below its peak of $168.52 in November.

Mr. Levchin said investors are lumping in his company with other fairly new fintechs despite big differences in their overall lending models.

Affirm underwrites consumers based partly on their credit reports and scores. It also analyzes other information, including where they are shopping and what they are trying to buy. Items such as jewelry are potentially more prone to fraud, because a buyer could resell it at a profit and then default on the loan. Furniture and other big items that are used every day tend to be lower-risk.

The company typically charges merchants higher fees if they want Affirm to approve somewhat-riskier consumers. Those who miss a payment on an Affirm plan typically can’t be approved for another one until they have caught up. Riskier borrowers or those financing an expensive item can be required to make a down payment on an Affirm loan, but others can walk away with a new mattress for $0 down.

Affirm has been offering more payment plans for small-ticket purchases. That move, as well as easing underwriting standards since last year, helped increase Affirm’s volume growth—and placed the company at the center of mounting concern regarding consumer credit. While missed consumer-loan payments overall have hovered near record lows for much of the pandemic, they recently began rising at a sizable clip at Affirm and other fintech lenders.

Rising interest rates are another challenge. Because Affirm isn’t a bank, it can’t fund itself with deposits. Instead, it relies on securitization deals, warehouse lines mostly from banks and selling loans to a range of investors, including insurance companies and asset managers. About 20% of its funding has variable interest rates, the company said.

Cushioning the impact of rising rates and delinquencies is that most of its payment plans are short-term, according to Affirm. They range from six weeks to five years, but average five months.

The stakes are high if delinquencies surge. Affirm borrows from roughly 20 banks, pension funds and other companies, and its most-conservative lenders generally require that its three-month average for payments that are late by at least 30 days doesn’t exceed 6%. That figure was around 2% as of May, up from roughly 1% during its 2021 fiscal year, and in line with where it was prepandemic.

That is “my primary thing that I watch like a hawk,” Mr. Levchin said.

Competitors include Afterpay, Klarna Bank AB and PayPal Holdings Inc. Some big banks have introduced programs that look like installment plans. Mr. Levchin said Apple Inc.’s recent decision to enter the sector confirms that these types of payment plans will gain more traction.

Affirm remains committed, Mr. Levchin said, to the same broad vision it had when it launched: to chip away at credit-card use. “I think the biggest ill in this world is revolving credit,” he said.

A slowdown in retail sales could pose another challenge, especially since buy now, pay later firms often charge merchants higher fees than credit-card companies do. Merchants also have to pay more to offer Affirm payment plans that charge no interest, especially when rates are rising.

Mr. Levchin said merchants and manufacturers will continue to want the Affirm plans as a way to boost their sales.

“In a recession,” he said, “0% is very attractive.”

FT : Volvo dips in to Europe’s ‘seized up’ bond markets

Volvo dips in to Europe’s ‘seized up’ bond markets
Truckmaker borrows €500mn, a rare case of raising funds at a time when deals have dried up far beyond the summer norm

Swedish manufacturer Volvo AB surprised investors this week by borrowing €500mn — a rare deal in Europe’s parched corporate bond markets that are pin-drop quiet even by summertime standards.

Investors placed €3.2bn worth of orders for the deal, from the financing arm of the truck and bus maker, whose bond deal was one of just a handful to hit the market in several weeks. The amount raised in European corporate bonds so far this year has fallen to the lowest level in nearly 20 years, down 18 per cent compared to the same time last year. European governments have raised 47 per cent less than the same period last year, according to Refinitiv data.

Equity markets are even more muted. The amount raised from companies hitting stock markets for the first time has plunged by 92 per cent compared to last year, Refinitiv data shows.

The slowdown shows how wobbly markets, a dark economic cloud from Russia and rapidly rising interest rates are all making it tougher for companies to tap markets that have been generous sources of funds for years.

“Primary markets have been quite seized up because of the volatility [and] liquidity has been very challenged,” said Snigdha Singh, co-head of European fixed income, currencies and commodities trading at Bank of America.

Years of low interest rates, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, encouraged a glut of corporate and government debt deals as executives raised new funds and pushed existing debt repayment obligations further in to the future.

But with energy price shocks and global supply chain issues, global central banks’ priorities have shifted from stimulating inflation to hosing it down. The European Central Bank has halted its decade-long bond-buying programme which had acted as a safety net and provided comfort to markets since the financial crisis.

The bank has now lifted interest rates to zero, ending a decade of negative rates and following the US Federal Reserve in increasing borrowing costs.

As the ECB has removed its safety net and recession looms across Europe, investors have shied away from funding riskier corners of the market. The amount raised by the lowest-rated, high-yield companies has plunged 79 per cent so far this year compared to the same period in 2021, according to Refinitiv.

“We had a pretty substantial pipeline late spring [but said] ‘let’s put down the pen’,” said Tomas Lundquist, head of European corporate debt capital markets at Citi, adding that “in May and the beginning of June, the confidence level that we had to get the best possible pricing wasn’t that high”.

Additionally, the rush of bond market activity over the past two pandemic years meant that “most companies had already termed out debt and didn’t have imminent funding needs”, he said.

Volvo’s move was more opportunistic. Lundquist at Citi, which led the deal, said the truckmaker’s timing was “very good” after US inflation data was somewhat tamer than investors had feared and that the company “reacted very quickly when they saw this attractive window”.

That has underscored bankers’ reliance on central bank policy to underpin activity for the rest of the year. Investors and analysts are trying to navigate the uncertain outlook using new data releases, aiming to paint a picture of whether and when inflation will cool and to forecast the trajectory of major central banks’ interest rate changes.

US inflation rose by 8.5 per cent year on year in July, a slower increase compared with June and a lower figure than economists had anticipated — raising hopes that the pace of price rises in the world’s biggest economy has peaked.


The data had been closely watched by investors searching for clues about how far the Fed will raise interest rates to curb rapid price growth.

Markets feel “on a slightly firmer footing” now compared to July, one banker said, “with some more stability and even some new corporate deals in Europe [in August]. There is more optimism.”

Equity markets may be slower to rebound. The valuation of companies that listed in the market frenzy over the past two years have been slashed. For example, food delivery service Deliveroo’s valuation has plunged to about £1.7bn from more than £5bn when it listed in London last year. That has put off fund managers.

“Companies that were contemplating [listing] are taking time to see how things settle, and sellers may also need to adjust valuation expectations,” said Tom Johnson, co-head of European capital markets at Barclays.

“After a market fall there is always a bit of ‘who wants to be the first to step off the pavement?’ A lot of issuers would prefer to see data points from other people first.” 

Debt bankers remain more positive and say they are encouraged by recent bond market rebounds. Total returns from Europe’s riskiest debt is down almost 10 per cent this year, but returns have recovered by over 6 per cent since a low in June, according to ICE Bank of America data. An index tracking higher grade debt has also recovered by over 5 per cent since a June trough.

Bankers are hopeful that a couple of successful deals might encourage more to jump in.

“We should not underestimate the herd mentality,” said Josh Presley, managing director at Credit Suisse. “One good deal will open the door for others to follow.”