A majority of Americans support the idea of new stimulus checks to combat inflation, according to a poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek.

The survey found 63 percent of respondents said they agree—with 42 percent saying they "strongly agree"—when asked if the federal government should issue new stimulus checks to tackle inflation.

Eighteen percent of respondents disagreed, while 15 percent said they neither agree nor disagree. Three percent said they do not know in response to the question.

The poll, conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies between October 23 and 24, surveyed 1,500 eligible voters in the U.S.

Inflation and economic concerns have been key issues for Americans as they begin voting in midterm elections, where Democrats' control of Congress is at stake.

Inflation reached a higher than expected rate of 8.2 percent in September, and Republicans have heaped blame on President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats for the skyrocketing prices that American households across the country are grappling with.

Democrats got a boost earlier this week as the economy grew at a 2.6 percent annual rate from July through September, giving the Federal Reserve room to continue aggressively raising borrowing costs to combat inflation.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned in August that the Fed's hikes will bring "pain" to households and businesses, but said "a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain."

And while some states have been sending out direct payments to help struggling Americans, economists have argued that stimulus checks could make inflation worse rather than better.

"In this economic environment, stimulus checks cause inflation, they do not reduce it," Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a scholar at The Heritage Foundation and former chief economist for the Department of Labor, told Newsweek.

"This is because America has 10 million job openings that need to be filled. This drives up the cost of labor as employers compete for workers. It makes goods more expensive because firms are producing less than they prefer. It makes services more expensive because service-providing organizations, such as restaurants, hotels and airline companies cannot provide all the services that consumers demand."

Furchtgott-Roth said prior stimulus payments had "encouraged people to stay home and reduced their incentive to take a job."

"The labor force participation rate is about one percentage point below its pre-pandemic level because more people are staying home," she said.

"America already has 3 to 4 million people fewer working than would be the case if it had the same labor force participation rate as in January 2020. The last thing that America needs as Chairman Powell tries to fight inflation is more stimulus payments."



https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-back-stimulus-checks-inflation-poll-1755636

Amazon’s fleet of Rivian-made electric delivery vans is growing. Since first rolling out earlier this year, the retail giant’s new zero-tailpipe emission vehicles have made more than 5 million deliveries in the US, with its fleet-size exceeding 1,000 EDVs (electric delivery vans).

That’s still only a fraction of the company’s overall transportation fleet, which is comprised 30,000 Amazon-branded delivery vehicles and 20,000 branded trailers. But the electric-portion is growing, with Rivian eventually expecting to deliver 100,000 vans to the company.

Starting in July, the EDVs first rolled out in Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, San Diego, and Seattle. Since then, they’ve been put into service in a bunch of new cities, including Austin, Boston, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Madison, Newark, New York, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Portland, Provo, and Salt Lake City.

The vans have been making their way into Amazon’s service, as Rivian’s manufacturing pace slowly accelerates. The EV company said it made 7,363 R1T pickup trucks, R1S SUVs, and EDVs during the three-month period that ended on September 30 — though it didn’t say how much of each. Rivian also said it delivered 6,584 vehicles during the same span. (The company is expected to report its third quarter earnings later this week.)

Of course, supply chain woes and inflation, as well as other hurdles, have conspired to stymie Amazon and Rivian’s goals of an electrified delivery fleet. When then-CEO Jeff Bezos announced a deal with the EV startup in 2019 to buy 100,000 vans, he said they should be on the road by 2024. Now, Amazon projects to hit 100,000 vans on the road by 2030.

“We’re always excited for the holiday season, but making deliveries to customers across the country with our new zero-emission vehicles for the first time makes this year unique,” said Udit Madan, vice president of Amazon Transportation. “We’ve already delivered over 5 million packages with our vehicles produced by Rivian, and this is still just the beginning—that figure will grow exponentially as we continue to make progress toward our 100,000-vehicle goal.”


https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/7/23443995/amazon-rivian-electric-delivery-van-fleet-ev

Amazon is making its own containers and bypassing supply chain chaos with chartered ships and long-haul planes

December 4 2021

For years, Amazon has been quietly chartering private cargo ships, making its own containers, and leasing planes to better control the complicated shipping journey of an online order. Now, as many retailers panic over supply chain chaos, Amazon’s costly early moves are helping it avoid the long wait times for available dock space and workers at the country’s busiest ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/04/how-amazon-beats-supply-chain-chaos-with-ships-and-long-haul-planes.html

CNN — “Mattress Mack” had reason to celebrate the Houston Astros’ World Series win on Saturday – and not just because he’s an Astros superfan.

Houston furniture store owner Jim McIngvale, known as “Mattress Mack,” made a series of bets amounting to $10 million on the Astros to win the World Series.

And when his team won the franchise’s second World Series title with a 4-2 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies, McIngvale took home $75 million – widely reported to be the largest payout in the history of sports betting.

“This last week has been especially… beyond words,” McIngvale said in a statement on social media, where he also posted a photo of himself with a suitcase full of cash.

McIngvale told CNN last year that he made the huge wagers on a potential World Series title for the Astros to cover another gamble of sorts: customers who bought certain mattresses costing $3,000 or more will get their money back if the Astros win.

He told FOX 26 on Saturday that the $75 million will mostly be paid out to customers as part of the Gallery Furniture chain’s promotion.

“The Astros did all the work, all I did was bet the money,” McIngvale said.

The 71-year-old is famous for the huge bets he has placed on sports games over the years – including a $3.35 million stake placed in June 2021 on the Astros winning last year’s World Series – and was filmed celebrating wildly during his team’s championship-winning game at Minute Maid Park.

In the Houston community, McIngvale is well known in for his charitable work, turning his stores into shelters to help people displaced by severe weather events, such as Hurricane Harvey.

“I’m so proud to be part of this city and will ALWAYS stand up for what’s right … [and] will always do my best to act QUICKLY and on the side of the people,” he added in his statement.

McIngvale also threw out the first pitch ahead of Saturday’s game, which he described as “an honor.”

The Astros’ 4-1 win against the Phillies was the first time since 2013 that a team has claimed the World Series title at its home field.


https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/sport/mattress-mack-houston-astros-world-series-spt-intl/index.html

How do you think online casinos and sports betting platforms are adjusting to manage the situation?

Apple supplier TSMC believes that US efforts to rebuild chip manufacturing at home are doomed to fail, as it finds itself caught between China and the United States in a tech cold war.
Morris Chang founded TSMC in 1987 when Taiwan recruited him from the US to help build an electronics industry. The contract manufacturer rose to become the top chipmaker in the world, commanding 20% of global wafer fabrication and 92% of advanced chip capacity.

US share in global chip manufacturing shrunk from 37% in 1990 to 12% in 2020, but the country wants to regain its dominance. In particular, US Department of Defense is worried that the country's dependence on Taiwan could put chip supplies for the defense industry at risk.

In response, President Biden signed the CHIPS Act into law on August 9, 2022. It provides over $52 billion to help US companies build new semiconductor facilities, fund research, and expand existing manufacturing.

Taiwan isn't happy about the move because it sees its semiconductor dominance as a "silicon shield." The government believes that if China were to attack the country, the US would come to its aid to prevent China from seizing the industry.

When US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, she met with Morris Chang and Mark Liu, chair of TSMC. Chang told Pelosi that Washington's efforts to rebuild its chip manufacturing were doomed to fail, according to Taiwan's Financial Times.

But the United States may not have much choice. Analysts at investment bank Credit Suisse have estimated that if the world loses access to Taiwan's chip plants, it will disrupt the production for everything from computers to cars.

Apple would be impacted too, as it relies heavily on TSMC for chip production. While it has expanded some of its manufacturing to other countries such as Vietnam and India, those moves do not diversify Apple's chip supply at all.

Still, TSMC remains a major supplier for Apple and other companies, and its future between the US and China is uncertain.

"The monopoly in semiconductor production creates instability," said Brad Martin, director of the National Security Supply Chain Institute at the Rand Corporation. "If the US is faced with a need to make a decision between protecting its economy and defending Taiwan, that starts to become a very stark decision."

TSMC has made some efforts to help the US by planning a semiconductor facility in Arizona, the first such chip facility it will develop outside of its home country. TSMC expects it will reach its production start in early 2024.


https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/10/24/tsmc-says-efforts-to-rebuild-us-semiconductor-industry-are-doomed-to-fail

So you expect them being actually pro-US after all those sanctions? "No hard feelings"?  
No. I don't expect them ever been in the "anti russian front"; at least not for real.

So Iran is pretty much the most sanctioned country (maybe after Russia, now) and you're surprised that Iran is doing all they can to enrage USA? Wow.

Maybe I'm wrong. But from what I know, even China (and Turkiye too) advised Putin calm down and stop the madness. And imho it makes sense, because Russia showing weakness means the (war) power shifting from RU+CN (plus maybe TR) towards US (plus maybe EU). Friends? Maybe. But only with (if) huge benefits.

• Amazon reported third-quarter results on Thursday that missed analysts’ estimates.
• It also gave a disappointing sales forecast for the fourth quarter.
• The stock sunk in extended trading.

Amazon shares plummeted 13% in extended trading on Thursday after the company issued a disappointing fourth-quarter forecast and missed on revenue estimates.

Here are the key numbers:

• Earnings: 28 cents per share
• Revenue: $127.10 billion vs. $127.46 billion, according to Refinitiv estimates

Here’s how the other key Amazon segments did during the quarter:

• Amazon Web Services: $20.5 billion vs. $21.1 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
• Advertising: $9.55 billion vs. $9.48 billion expected, according to StreetAccount

Amazon said it expects to post fourth-quarter revenue between $140 billion and $148 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 2% to 8%. Analysts were expecting sales to come in at $155.15 billion, according to Refinitiv.

Revenue grew 15% in the third quarter, marking a return to double-digit sales expansion, but it still fell short of Wall Street’s projections.

Like the rest of Big Tech, Amazon has had a rocky year so far as it confronts macroeconomic headwinds, soaring inflation and rising interest rates. Those challenges have coincided with a slowdown in Amazon’s core retail business, as consumers returned to shopping in stores.

It’s the second time this year Amazon’s results have been disappointing enough to spark a double-digit percentage selloff. In April, a weak forecast for the second quarter led to a 14% drop in the stock.

Under CEO Andy Jassy, who took the helm from founder Jeff Bezos in July 2021, Amazon has responded to rising expenses by aggressively cutting costs across numerous divisions in recent months. It shed warehouse space, halted some experimental projects, shuttered its telehealth service and froze hiring for corporate roles in its retail business.

“There is obviously a lot happening in the macroeconomic environment,” Jassy said in the press release. “And we’ll balance our investments to be more streamlined without compromising our key long-term, strategic bets.”

Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said the company cut its capital expenditures budget for this year by a third after it spent heavily over the last two years on things like ramping its fulfillment and logistics network to meet pandemic-induced demand.

The company is now taking steps to “tighten our belt, including pausing hiring in certain businesses and winding down products and services where we believe our resources are better spent elsewhere,” Olsavsky said.

He added that the economic environment in Europe was worse in the quarter than in North America, because the “Ukraine war and the energy crisis issues have really compounded in that geography.”

Amazon’s gloomy forecast doesn’t bode well for the holiday shopping period. Analysts are already girding for a humdrum season, with online sales expected to grow just 2.5%, according to Adobe.

Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale, held earlier this month, could help juice year-end sales. Data collected by third-party analysts signaled the event may have been lackluster, as shoppers feel the pressure of inflation. Jassy said in the release that customer response to the new discount event, and Prime Day, hosted in July, was “quite positive.”

Amazon is rounding out a disappointing earnings week for Big Tech. Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta both posted earnings that fell short of expectations as they navigate challenges in the digital ad market. Microsoft wasn’t immune, reporting softer-than-expected cloud revenue and weak quarterly guidance.

Apple, which also reported on Thursday, beat on earnings and revenue but came up short in core product categories including the iPhone business and the services unit. The stock is trading lower after hours.

Operating income at Amazon fell by almost half from a year earlier to $2.53 billion from $4.85 billion. Amazon Web Services accounted for all of the company’s profit, plus some, as the cloud unit generated operating income of $5.4 billion. Still, AWS posted the slowest revenue growth since 2014, when Amazon began breaking out results for the unit.

Amazon’s advertising business was one bright spot in the results, bucking the trend of its digital ad peers Facebook, Google and Snap, whose ads businesses have gotten whacked due to the economic environment and Apple’s iOS privacy changes last year. Ad revenue surged 25% year over year to $9.55 billion during the quarter, which handily topped analysts’ estimates of $9.48 billion.

Analysts have taken different approaches to their per-share earnings estimates because of Amazon’s hefty investment in electric-vehicle maker Rivian, which went public late last year. Amazon reported net income of $2.9 billion in the third quarter, which includes a gain of $1.1 billion in non-operating income from its Rivian stake. In the prior two quarters, the Rivian investment resulted in total markdowns of $11.5 billion.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/amazon-amzn-earnings-q3-2022.html

Buried deep in a 61-page recent report by the U.S. Attorney General, the Biden Administration called for a dramatic expansion in the federal government’s ability to seize and keep cryptocurrency. If enacted, the proposed changes would bolster both criminal forfeiture, which requires a conviction to permanently confiscate property, as well as civil forfeiture, which doesn’t require a conviction or even criminal charges to be filed.

Notably, the report’s release was coupled with the announcement of a new Digital Asset Coordinator Network. This nationwide network is staffed with more than 150 federal prosecutors who will be trained on “drafting civil and criminal forfeiture actions.”

Due to crypto’s pseudonymous nature, it’s sometimes assumed to be immune from government confiscation. But the reality is quite different. Last year, the U.S. Marshals—the custodians for Justice Department seizures—managed almost 200 cryptocurrency seizures worth $466 million.

Since fiscal 2014, the FBI, Secret Service, and Homeland Security Investigations have collectively seized almost $680 million worth of crypto (valued at the time of seizure), with hundreds of still active investigations involving digital assets. But even those amounts pale in comparison to IRS Criminal Investigation, which has confiscated a staggering $3.8 billion in virtual currency between fiscal 2018 and 2021.

Nevertheless, the Justice Department argued that crypto has “revealed limits on the forfeiture tools used” by federal law enforcement and recommended “several updates to existing law.” First, the Attorney General wants to broaden the most abusive form of civil forfeiture, which occurs without any independent or impartial judicial oversight.

Under “administrative” or “nonjudicial” forfeiture, the seizing agency—not a judge—decides whether a property should be forfeited. The federal government can use administrative forfeiture to take almost anything, aside from real estate and property valued at more than $500,000.

That $500,000 limit currently applies to cryptocurrency, but the Attorney General wants to “lift the $500,000 cap for cryptocurrency and other digital assets.” This would eliminate one of the very few limits on administrative forfeiture. Even if Congress refuses to act, thanks to a law enacted last year, the Secretary of the Treasury could simply end the cap by adopting new regulation.

This proposal is deeply concerning. Administrative forfeiture provides shockingly scant protection for property owners. After seizing property, the government need only send notice of an administrative forfeiture. If an owner fails to quickly file a claim for their own property, it’s automatically forfeited.

Since the seized property may be the owner’s most valuable asset, owners often don’t have the means to fight back. Yet even when a claim is filed, the owner still might not get their day in court. According to a report by the Institute for Justice, federal agencies have rejected more than one-third of all filed claims for seized cash as “deficient,” with most claims denied due to “technical reasons.”

Unsurprisingly, since administrative forfeiture cases are significantly easier for the government to win, administrative forfeitures accounted for almost 80% of all forfeitures conducted by the Department of Justice and 96% of the Treasury Department’s forfeiture activity.

Although the Justice Department praises administrative forfeiture for being “efficient” and for reducing “undue burdens” in the court system, in reality, administrative forfeiture has burdened the lives of thousands of victims who’ve done nothing wrong.

Just ask Ken Quran. After coming to America from the Middle East, he opened a small convenience store in Greenville, North Carolina. But in June 2014, IRS agents barged into his store and told Ken they had a warrant to seize $570,000 and had already seized every penny in his bank account—$153,907.99. That money was Ken’s entire life savings, earned over nearly 20 years of long hours running his business.

Less than three months later, Ken’s bank account was administratively forfeited. Without those savings, Ken was driven to the financial breaking point. He struggled to support his family, pay off his mortgage, and cover a line of credit he had to take out to keep his store afloat. Ken was never charged with a crime.

“I never believed this could happen in America,” Ken lamented. “I do not understand how, in this country, the government can take an honest businessman’s entire bank account without proving that he did something wrong.”

Fortunately, with help from the Institute for Justice, Ken later filed a “petition for remission or mitigation” (basically a pardon for forfeited property). After a media firestorm, in February 2016, the IRS agreed to return all of the money they had wrongfully taken from Ken. Although he lost fiat currency rather than crypto, as Ken’s story shows, there is absolutely no need to make administrative forfeiture easier to use.

In addition to expanding administrative forfeiture for crypto, the Justice Department “would welcome amendments to provide criminal and civil forfeiture authority for commodities-related violations.” Allowing criminal forfeiture after a conviction for fraud or manipulation in crypto markets would be a valuable tool to crack down on scammers.

Currently, most cryptocurrencies are considered commodities rather than securities. So under federal laws governing commodities, prosecutors can “charge fraud and manipulation in the cryptocurrency markets.” But unlike securities, those statutes “do not permit forfeiture of ill-gotten gains from criminal activity involving commodities.”

But extending civil forfeiture casts far too wide a net and would make it much more likely for innocent holders to lose their crypto to government confiscation. After all, civil forfeiture lacks a conviction requirement, unlike criminal forfeiture. Moreover, there is a direct financial incentive for federal agencies to pursue forfeiture cases: Once property has been forfeited (either civilly or criminally), the seizing federal agency can retain up to 100% of the proceeds.

Unfortunately, the proposed expansions in asset forfeiture are part of a broader assault on cryptocurrency, including attacks on the financial privacy cryptocurrency can otherwise afford. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is currently considering a rule that would extend intrusive reporting requirements to custodial wallets (i.e. those managed by a third-party)—the same reporting requirements that led the IRS to seize Ken’s cash.

If adopted, the wallet’s host would have to send detailed reports to FinCEN for every transaction with an unhosted wallet over $10,000, including personal information like the names and physical addresses of both parties involved in the transaction. Since the blockchain is inherently public, a single report on a single transaction would effectively become a digital skeleton key, letting the federal government snoop on all of the wallet’s other transactions.

This is moving in precisely the wrong direction. No matter how the midterms shake out, Congress must reject the proposed crypto crackdown and rein in civil forfeiture.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2022/10/25/biden-administration-wants-to-make-it-easier-to-seize-crypto-without-criminal-charges/

Someone with a strict budget of gambling with $10, decides to start online gambling after been told by a friend, but on signing up discovers that the minimum deposit accepted is above the amount budgetted for gambling. Does high minimum deposit fees from online casino discourage gamblers who want to stick to a budget and influences them to gamble with bigger amounts?

Does minimum withdrawal encourage players to try again and keep gambling if they don't win up to the minimum withdrawal?

What do you mean?
The UK is already sending weaponry to Ukraine and UK officers are training Ukraine soldiers.

Putin is doing more than any European leader has managed to do for the Union, he got two brand new countries into NATO when everyone was not thinking of anything military-related, he has managed to get former CIS countries more interested in joining both the EU and NATO, now if the UK comes back he will become the laughing stock of the century.