Washington
Prime Group Inc. , a real estate investment trust that operates enclosed
malls and strip centers across the U.S., filed for bankruptcy after the
Covid-19 pandemic curtailed in-person shopping.
The Chapter 11 filing in Houston will allow Washington
Prime to continue operating while it seeks to implement a restructuring
agreement that it reached with certain creditors, according to a board
resolution filed with the bankruptcy petition. The company, which estimated its
assets at about $4 billion and debt of almost $3.5 billion, secured an up to $100 million
debtor-in-possession loan that would help fund operations during court
proceedings.
The Columbus, Ohio-based firm that operates around 100 malls,
saw its bonds tumble into distressed territory in 2020 as rent collections
dried up and tenants filed for bankruptcy or went out of business. It began
negotiating with its creditors last year and skipped
a $23 million bond interest payment in February. Creditors had been extending a
forbearance agreement amid the talks.
Washington Prime said
it filed the Chapter 11 after executing a restructuring support agreement with
creditors that hold about 73% of the principal outstanding of secured corporate
debt and 67% of the unsecured notes. The firm aims to deleverage its balance
sheet by nearly $950 million, according to a company statement.
Bloomberg News previously reported that Washington Prime was weighing
a bankruptcy filing as talks faltered.
The case is Washington Prime Group Inc., 21-31948, U.S.
Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Houston).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-14/mall-owner-washington-prime-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy?srnd=premium-europe
Aer Lingus to fly certain
services disrupted due to Stobart Air closure ‘Wake up’ to
Irish aviation crisis, Government urged as Stobart Air ceases trading Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 08:49
Aer
Lingus has announced it will step in to provide services for some of its
passengers who have been left stranded as a result of the immediate closure of Stobart
Air .
Aer Lingus Regional had been operated by Stobart Air under a
franchise agreement.
Of the 12 immediately affected by Stobart Air’s decision to
cease trading, Aer Lingus will operate five routes, and for at least the next
week BA CityFlyer will operate two.
Alternative operations for the outstanding routes are still
being determined.
All affected customers are being contacted directly and offered
details of an alternative flight where feasible. Affected customers also have
the option of a full refund.
It is unclear whether Aer Lingus’s move is intended to be
temporary or as a permanent replacement for Stobart Air.
Stobart Air announced on Saturday morning it has ceased trading
and is in the process of appointing a liquidator.
Minister for Transport Eamon
Ryan said the announcement is “concerning news” for the affected workers
and for regional connectivity.
“We will be engaging with all stakeholders today [Saturday] and
over the comings days to restore connectivity to the regional airports affected
by today’s announcement,” Mr Ryan said.
The Department of Transport said it is currently examining the
implications and the cancellation of the Government-funded public service
obligation routes which operate between Kerry and Dublin and Donegal
and Dublin.
Minister of State at the Department of Transport Hildegarde
Naughton said the restoration of regional connectivity is of “critical
importance” and will be prioritised by the Government in the coming days.
----Stobart Air operated a number of routes from Dublin Airport
and Belfast Airport and all passengers booked on the following Aer Lingus
Regional routes are advised to check the Aer Lingus website for up-to-date
information on refund or rebooking options:
Belfast Airport to: Edinburgh ;
Exeter ;
East Midlands ;
Leeds ;
Birmingham and Manchester.
Dublin Airport to: Kerry; Donegal; Edinburgh; Glasgow ;
Newquay ,
and Manchester.
Stobart Air said all 480 staff at the airline have been
informed and apologised to customers “for the inconvenience caused at short
notice”.
“Last April, Stobart Air announced that a new owner had been
identified. However, it has emerged that the funding to support this
transaction is no longer in place and the new owner is now unable to conclude
the transaction,” it added.
More
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/aer-lingus-to-fly-certain-services-disrupted-due-to-stobart-air-closure-1.4591913
Next, more on that
cyberattack on the global food chain.
Ransomware Attack Roiled Meat
Giant JBS, Then Spilled Over to Farmers and Restaurants While plants
were closed, prices of beef and pork climbed and farmers sought new buyers for
their livestock Updated June 11, 2021 10:28 am ET
Employees at the U.S. division of JBS SA, the world’s
largest meat company, noticed something wrong in their computer systems over
Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial kickoff for the busy summer grilling
season.
The culprit, a ransomware attack, didn’t just hit its target—it roiled the U.S. food industry , from hog farms in Iowa to
small-town processing plants and New York restaurants. The hack set off a
domino effect that drove up wholesale meat prices, backed up animals in barns
and forced food distributors to hurriedly search for new suppliers.
The attack was the latest clash between cybercriminals and companies integral to the
functioning of the U.S. economy. It was another disruption to the U.S. food
industry after the Covid-19 pandemic last year forced weeks of plant shutdowns,
and this year, an economic rebound has stretched suppliers’ ability to meet
demand.
After identifying the incursion early on Sunday, May 30,
JBS said it alerted U.S. authorities and set three objectives: determine which
operations could be run offline; restart systems using backup data; and tap
experts to handle negotiations with the attackers. By that afternoon, the
company had concluded that encrypted backups of its data were intact, said
Andre Nogueira, chief executive officer of JBS USA Holdings Inc.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ransomware-attack-roiled-meat-giant-jbs-then-spilled-over-to-farmers-and-restaurants-11623403800?mod=hp_lista_pos4
Next, more on that
illegal, US billionaires confidential tax filings release. Will the Democrats
really go after the guilty?
Billionaire Tax Leak Referred to
FBI as Probe Grows, IRS Says Laura Davison June 11, 2021
(Bloomberg) -- The disclosure of the
personal income and tax data of some of the wealthiest Americans has been
referred to additional federal investigators to probe the leak of confidential
information, an Internal Revenue Service official said.
“Treasury
announced yesterday that they made investigative referrals to their Office of
Inspector General as well as the FBI, and the United States Attorney’s Office
for the District of Columbia,” Douglas O’Donnell, the IRS’s deputy commissioner
for services and enforcement, told a House Ways and Means committee panel
Thursday. “We fully support any investigation under taken and will urge the
investigative authorities to keep Congress appropriately informed of their
findings.”
IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig told
a Senate committee on Tuesday that the agency watchdog had opened an
investigation. O’Donnell said he could not comment further on any of the
investigations.
ProPublica published an article on
Tuesday detailing that several of the world’s most prominent billionaires paid
minimal to no federal income tax in some years, based on confidential tax
records that the media outlet had reviewed. ProPublica said the information was
sent unsolicited to the news outlet by an source whose identity it doesn’t
know.
FBI Director Christopher Wray,
testifying at a separate House hearing Thursday, was asked about the leak to
ProPublica of tax information and whether the FBI has made any arrests or
search warrants issued.
“There’s no such activity that I can
describe at this time,” he said.
A spokesperson for the U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to a
request to comment.
More
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/billionaire-tax-leak-referred-to-fbi-as-probe-grows-irs-says/ar-AAKV0rD?ocid=uxbndlbing
Finally, more on that weather market in North American
grains. To halt or slow food price inflation for all of us, North America needs
a near perfect summer.
End of June Corn Belt rains
better arrive, forecaster says July looks hot and dry, weather expert
says.
By Mike McGinnis 6/11/2021
The Corn Belt's summer weather is becoming predictable. The
question is now whether the trend continues or is it disrupted.
The next 7-days David Tolleris, WxRisk.com, says the next seven days in the
Midwest will be hot, followed by moisture to end the month of June.
“The rest of the next seven days look pretty dry. None of
the weather models show any significant rains,” Tolleris says. Iowa, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, most of Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri are all looking
dry, next week.”
On the other hand, southern Indiana, Ohio, eastern
Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, all get rain next week.
“The areas that have plenty of rain, already, and have
saturated soils, get more rain next week,” he says.
The summer weather pattern has revealed itself, Tolleris
says.
“If you are in the Western Corn Belt and upper Plains, you
have moisture problems. If you are in the lower Eastern Corn Belt, Southeast
and Delta, you have gotten rain,” Tolleris says.
That’s the way it’s been since the beginning of May and
that’s the way it looks going forward, he says.
End of June A big trough is expected to build from Quebec, Canada
southward to Georgia. That means a strong high pressure, next week, shutting
off moisture supply while pushing the heat back toward the Rockies.
“But, for most of next week, everybody from Interstate-35
eastward are going to see very pleasant temperatures, no heat, low humidity and
dry conditions,” Tolleris says.
After June 21, 2021, the Midwest weather pattern turns
wetter.
“The weather models show 1.00-2.00” of rain for the areas
of the Midwest. That rain is important, because after that it turns dry again,”
he says. Plus, there are indications that the heat will return for the first
week of July.”
He added, “That rain, after July 21 is a big deal. If that
rain underperforms, it’s going to make things pretty tough going into July.”
Hot/dry July Tolleris says, “The first half of July looks pretty dry.
Especially for the Midwestern places where it’s been dry. In the places where
it’s been wet, July looks fairly wet. Again, that appears to be the summer
pattern.”
I-80/I-70
Weather There’s an interesting weather story building between the
two U.S. Interstates of I-80 and I-70.
North of Interstate-80, between Nebraska and Detroit,
Michigan, soil conditions are dry.
South of Interstate-70, most of those areas are wet.
In between the two east-west running interstates, there’s
60-70% normal dryness.
“There’s a battle zone going on between those two
interstates. This will determine the overall U.S. crop yields, this year. If
the dryness drops down below I-80, we’re going to have real problems in July
and August,” Tolleris says.
The next several weeks will be very telling, regarding
whether the summer weather pattern continues or not.
https://www.agriculture.com/news/crops/end-of-june-corn-belt-rains-better-arrive-forecaster-says
Global Inflation Watch. Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our
spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Out-of-Control Shipping Costs
Fire Up Prices From Coffee to Toys By Alex Longley ,
Catherine
Bosley , and Deirdre
Hipwell 13 June 2021, 00:01 BST
·
·
The skyrocketing price of shipping goods across the globe
may hit your pocketbook sooner than you think -- from that cup of coffee you
get each morning to the toys you were thinking of buying your kids.
Transporting a 40-foot steel container of cargo by sea from
Shanghai to Rotterdam now costs a record $10,522, a whopping 547% higher than
the seasonal average over the last five years, according to Drewry Shipping.
With upwards of 80% of all goods trade transported by sea, freight-cost surges
are threatening to boost the price of everything from toys, furniture and car
parts to coffee, sugar and anchovies, compounding concerns in global markets
already bracing for accelerating inflation.
“In 40 years in toy retailing I have never known such
challenging conditions from the point of view of pricing,” Gary Grant, the
founder and executive chairman of the U.K. toy shop The Entertainer, said in a
interview. He has had to stop importing giant teddy bears from China because
their retail price would have had to double to add in higher freight costs.
“Will this have an impact on retail prices? My answer has to be yes.”
A confluence of factors -- soaring demand, a shortage of
containers, saturated ports and too few ships and dock workers -- have
contributed to the squeeze on transportation capacity on every freight path.
Recent Covid outbreaks in Asian export hubs like China have made matters worse.
The pain is most acutely felt on longer-distance routes, making shipping from
Shanghai to Rotterdam 67% more expensive than to the U.S. West Coast, for
instance.
Often dismissed as having an insignificant impact on inflation
because they were a tiny part of the overall expense, rising shipping costs are
now forcing some economists to pay them a bit more attention. Although still
seen as a relatively minor input, HSBC
Holdings Plc estimates that a 205% increase in container shipping costs
over the past year could raise euro-area producer prices by as much as 2%.
At the retail level, vendors are faced with three choices:
halt trade, raise prices or absorb the cost to pass it on later, all of which
would effectively mean more expensive goods, said Jordi Espin, strategic
relations manager at the European Shippers’ Council, a Brussels-based trade
group that represents about 100,000 retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers.
“These costs are already being passed to consumers,” he said.
Prices for customers are rising in other ways, too. For
instance, anchovies from Peru have largely stopped being imported into Europe
because with the higher freight costs they’re not competitive relative to
what’s available locally, Espin said. Also, European olive growers can no
longer afford to export to the U.S., he said.
Meanwhile, shipping bottlenecks and costs are hurting the
transport of arabica coffee beans, favored by Starbucks ,
and robusta beans used to make instant coffee, which are largely sourced from
Asia.
EUROPE
INSIGHT: What 400% on Asia Shipping Means for Inflation
Few industry observers expect container rates to retreat much
any time soon. Lars Jensen, CEO of consultant Vespucci Maritime in Copenhagen,
said on a Flexport Inc. webinar last week that there’s “zero
slack in the system.”
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-12/out-of-control-shipping-costs-fire-up-prices-from-coffee-to-toys?srnd=premium-europe
Entry-Level
Lawyers Are Now Making $200,000 a Year Several top law firms have given their youngest lawyers pay
raises after year of record-breaking profits and competition to retain their
workforce Updated June 12, 2021 12:46 pm ET
Salaries for junior lawyers are rising above $200,000 at
many top law firms for the first time, following a year of record-breaking
profits in the legal industry and competition to retain a workforce that has
billed long hours at home during the pandemic.
Corporate law firms are unique among businesses in that
they typically increase pay in tandem, with a few market leaders triggering
moves throughout the industry.
New York firm Milbank LLP on Thursday kicked off the latest
round of salary wars, announcing pay raises of between 4.4% and 5.9% for
lawyers without a partnership stake in the firm. The raises shifted pay for
newly graduated lawyers to $200,000, up from a $190,000 benchmark that Milbank
set in the last widespread round of raises
There were signs Friday the new industry standard is likely
to rise even further, with New York-based Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP telling
its lawyers their pay would climb to between $202,500 for Class of 2021
law-school graduates and $365,000 for those who had been at the firm at least
eight years.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/entry-level-lawyers-are-now-making-200-000-a-year-11623499201?mod=mhp
The Fed could be facing a jobs
headache in its inflation fight Published Fri, Jun 11 2021 2:55 PM EDT Updated Fri, Jun 11 2021 5:19 PM EDT
If the Federal Reserve’s view on inflation prevails, a few
key things have to go right, particularly when it comes to getting people back
to work.
Solving the jobs puzzle has been the most vexing task for
policymakers in the coronavirus
pandemic era, with nearly 10 million potential workers still considered
unemployed even though the number of open positions available hit
a record of 9.3 million in April , according to the latest data from the
U.S. Labor Department.
There’s a fairly simple inflation dynamic at play: The
longer it takes to get people back to work, the more employers will have to
pay. Those higher salaries in turn will trigger higher prices and could lead to
the kinds of longer-term inflationary above-normal pressures that the Fed is
trying to avoid.
“Unfortunately, we see good reasons to think that labor
participation might not return quickly to its
The pace of inflation is of critical importance for
economic trajectory. Inflation that runs too high could force the Fed to
tighten monetary policy quicker than it wants, causing cascading impacts to an economy
dependent on debt and thus critically tied to low interest rates.
---- The Atlanta Fed’s gauge of “sticky” inflation, or
price of goods that tend not to fluctuate greatly over time, rose 2.7% year over year in May for the strongest growth
since April 2009. A separate measure of “flexible” CPI, or prices that do tend
to move frequently, increased a stunning 12.4%, the fastest since December
1980.
In their most recent forecast, Fed officials put core
inflation at 2.2% for all of 2021 ; Shepherdson said the current numbers
suggest something closer to 3.5%.
“That’s a huge miss, and it potentially poses a serious
threat to the Fed’s benign view of medium-term inflation because of its
potential impact of the labor market,” Shepherdson said.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/11/the-fed-could-be-facing-a-jobs-headache-in-its-inflation-fight.html
“Beyond
this, the problem is universal. It is that governments are now held responsible
for the welfare of the people. The aspirations of the people can outrun their
ability to pay for them, and nobody has yet found a way to create answers to
the aspirations out of thin air.”
George Goodman, aka Adam Smith, The Money Game. 1968.
Obsolete, March 2020.
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Covid: Lockdown easing in England
to be delayed by four weeks By Becky Morton BBC News Published 2 hours ago
Senior ministers have signed off a
decision to delay the lifting of all coronavirus restrictions in England beyond
21 June.
Government sources have told the BBC
most current rules will remain for another four weeks after this date.
It means nightclubs will stay closed
and people will be encouraged to still work from home where possible.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is
expected to confirm the delay later at a press conference.
The extension will be put to a
Commons vote this month and could trigger a sizeable Conservative backbench
rebellion.
Stage four of the government's roadmap out of lockdown
would see all legal limits on social contact removed.
But many scientists have called for the reopening to be
delayed to enable more people to be vaccinated and receive second doses amid
rising cases of the Delta variant.
A delay would also allow for more work to be done on
whether vaccines are breaking, or simply weakening, the link between infections
and hospitalisations.
On Sunday Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a final
decision on whether the reopening should be paused had not yet been taken.
All areas of Scotland are due to
move to Level Zero Covid restrictions on 28 June - meaning bigger groups can
gather in cafés, pubs and restaurants, although they will still have to observe
social distancing.
Limits on indoor gatherings in Northern Ireland
are scheduled to be relaxed on 21 June - when the current rules in Wales will also be
reviewed.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57464097
Sweden sees 'dark clouds' with
outbreaks of COVID delta variant by Reuters
Friday, 11 June 2021 11:16 GMT
STOCKHOLM, June 11 (Reuters) -
Swedish health officials warned on Friday of worrying local outbreaks of the
COVID delta variant and urged people to get vaccinated to avoid a fourth wave
of the pandemic.
Sweden, an outlier in the fight
against the pandemic with its no-lockdown policy, has seen a steep decline in
cases and hospitalisations in the past month after surges in infections in the
spring.
Close to half the adult population
has received at least one vaccine shot but the health agency warned that people
who had only received one shot were less protected against the delta variant.
"There are some dark clouds on
the horizon and I think mainly of outbreaks of the delta variant. It is found
in Europe and also locally in Sweden," agency director general Johan
Carlson told a news conference.
The Delta variant, first identified
in India, is believed by UK epidemiologists to be 60% more transmissible than the
Alpha variant which was previously dominant in Britain, in part because
vaccines are less effective against it.
So far, only 71 cases of the variant
have been confirmed in Sweden but it has prompted the agency to step up contact
tracing. The delta variant accounts for around 90% of new cases in the UK.
On Thursday, Sweden reported 831 new
cases and three deaths. The total death toll of more than 14,500 has been
higher than in other Nordic countries but lower than in most European countries
that opted for lockdowns. (Reporting by Johan Ahlander; Editing by Nick Macfie)
https://news.trust.org/item/20210611100743-8vhsc
Next, some vaccine links
kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most
informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World
Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines . https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY
Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker . https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Stanford
Website . https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132
Regulatory
Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker . https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some other useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
https://rt.live/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
The Spectator
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported.
Control over water friction with
2D materials points to 'smart membranes' Dramatic
decrease in friction when water is passed through nanoscale capillaries made of
graphene Date: June 8, 2021
Source: University of Manchester
Summary: The speed of water flow is a limiting factor
in many membrane-based industrial processes, including desalination, molecular
separation and osmotic power generation. Researchers have revealed a dramatic
decrease in friction when water is passed through nanoscale capillaries made of
graphene. In contrast, capillaries made from hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) -
which has a similar surface topography and crystal structure as graphene -
display high friction.
The speed of water flow is a
limiting factor in many membrane-based industrial processes, including
desalination, molecular separation and osmotic power generation.
Researchers at The University of Manchester's
National Graphene Institute (NGI) have published a study in Nature
Communications showing a dramatic decrease in friction when water is passed
through nanoscale capillaries made of graphene, whereas those with hexagonal
boron nitride (hBN) -- which has a similar surface topography and crystal
structure as graphene -- display high friction.
The team also demonstrated that
water velocity could be selectively controlled by covering the high friction
hBN channels with graphene, opening the door to greatly increased permeation
and efficiency in so-called 'smart membranes'.
Fast and selective fluid-flows are
common in nature -- for example, in protein structures called aquaporins that
transport water between cells in animals and plants. However, the precise
mechanisms of fast water-flows across atomically flat surfaces are not fully
understood.
The investigations of the Manchester
team, led by Professor Radha Boya, have shown that -- in contrast to the
widespread belief that all atomically flat surfaces that are hydrophobic should
provide little friction for water flow -- in fact the friction is mainly
governed by electrostatic interactions between flowing molecules and their
confining surfaces.
---- Professor Boya said: "We have shown that
nanochannels covered with graphene at the exits display enhanced water flows.
This can be very useful to increase the water flux from membranes, especially
in those processes where evaporation is involved, such as distillation or
thermal desalination."
Understanding of liquid friction and
interactions with pore materials is vital to the development of efficient
membranes for applications such as energy storage and desalination.
This latest study adds to an
increasingly influential body of work from the researchers at the NGI, as
Manchester reinforces its position at the forefront of nanofluidic research
towards improved industrial applications for sectors including wastewater
treatment, pharmaceutical production and food and beverages.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210608203728.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
NOT even a decade ago, everybody believed. Events
did seem under control. Inflation would creep, not gallop; the New Economics
would fine-tune the economy; productivity would increase; wars would be fought,
but not by us—we were the mediators, understanding but tough; problems would be
articulated, and that articulation was half the solution; we would begin upon
the solutions. Kennedy rhetoric: let us begin; let the word go forth; let us
never negotiate from fear, nor fear to negotiate; let anybody call upon us.
Confident, ambitious, optimistic, even naïve—the very best of the American
tradition. Hail Columbia, happy land.
Then, one thing and another, the John Philip Sousa music
faded a bit. Could rational men make events behave rationally? Maybe they
couldn’t.
George Goodman, aka Adam
Smith, Supermoney, 1972.
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