Category: Economy

Commentary: Loan Forgiveness Hurts Taxpayers

Virginia Star Staff

A few weeks ago, I argued the Biden Administration would use the new SAVE plan to enact student loan forgiveness with or without the approval of the Supreme Court. Since then, the administration has announced details which highlight the SAVE plan offers even more generous forgiveness terms.

This talk about student loans has brought about a question for Ask an Economist this week. Garrett from Ohio says,“One of the most prominent arguments against student loan forgiveness is that the borrowers are forcing the greater population to pay off their debts for them.

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Program Continues to Support International Expansion of Virginia Companies

The Center Square

Eleven companies graduated, and 13 joined Virginia Leaders in Export Trade on Thursday, a two-year Virginia Economic Development Partnership program representing 12 counties and eight independent cities across the commonwealth.

Only 25 companies are accepted into the VALET program each year, and 375 have graduated since it was established in the late 90s. Candidate organizations must demonstrate “firmly established domestic operations” and “[commitment] to international exporting as a growth strategy” to be accepted into the program, according to a press release from VEDP.

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DEI Disaster: Wells Fargo Employees Say Bank Targeted Hispanics with Predatory Lending Practices

ADN America

Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the United States is facing a lawsuit from its Hispanic employees that accuses the centuries old bank of engaging in predatory lending practices against customers of the same ethnic origin.

The lawsuit, filed June 30 in a Texas federal court, accuses Wells Fargo of pressuring Hispanic employees in San Antonio to redirect Latino customers away from home equity lines of credit to more expensive but profitable refinancing options without furnishing the usual disclosures, according to a complaint filed in court.

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It Could Take ‘Decades’ to Refill America’s Oil Reserves Drained by Biden, Experts Say

Virginia Star Staff

It may take decades to refill the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) after President Joe Biden released unprecedented amounts from its supply in 2022, according to Bloomberg News.

Aging infrastructure, higher oil prices and budget constraints have impeded the administration’s efforts to substantially replenish the SPR after Biden tapped its supply to tame spiking energy prices in the lead up to the 2022 midterms, according to Bloomberg. The massive underground salt caverns that hold the SPR oil now sit half-empty with no easy route to replenishment, and experts say it could take decades to refill the reserves, according to Bloomberg.

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Cycling Officials Boot Men from Competing in Women’s Division

Virginia Star Staff

The International Cycling Union (UCI), the world cycling governing body, announced Friday that it will bar biological males who transition after puberty from competing in the women’s division, the Associated Press reported.

Recent public outcry over transgender athlete Austin Killips, the first openly transgender athlete to win a U.S. race in the female division, prompted the cycling officials to review the transgender athlete policy and ban males from the woman’s division.

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‘Anti-Woke’ Alternative to Amazon to Go Public This Month

Virginia Star Staff

A new online marketplace that promotes itself as a conservative and patriotic alternative to Amazon is preparing to ring the bell on the New York Stock Exchange and take the company public.

According to the Daily Mail, the San Diego-based PublicSq, which first launched in August of 2022, has already drawn the support of prominent America First figures such as Donald Trump Jr. and former Arizona Senate nominee Blake Masters. The company plans to attract more investors by highlighting its status within the so-called “parallel economy” of conservative alternatives to larger, left-wing businesses, according to excerpts from an investor call on Tuesday.

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Largest U.S. Bank Notches Massive Profits Following Government-Assisted Acquisition

Virginia Star Staff

The biggest bank in America announced huge profits Friday after previously striking a deal with federal regulators to buy the failed First Republic Bank.

JPMorgan Chase reported $14.5 billion in net income for the second quarter of 2023, which is up 67% compared to the previous quarter and 40% excluding First Republic, according to JPMorgan’s earnings release. First Republic failed in May after a bank run, requiring federal regulators to seize the bank and have other large banks bid on its sale, leading JPMorgan to acquire the bank and maintain funds for depositors.

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Study: Virginia Ranks No. 2 for Business

The Center Square

Virginia ranked second in the nation in CNBC’s America’s Top States for Business study – up from third in 2022 and scoring first in education.

The survey released Tuesday is likely to be music to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s ears, as the businessman-turned-politician has often touted the commonwealth’s business-friendly policies.

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‘Real Wage Destruction’: Small Business Leader Reacts to Latest Inflation Report

Virginia Star Staff

An economist says “American families are having to eat the rotten fruit from the tree of government overspending” after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday that the consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, rose 0.2% in June.

“It’s great news for the consumer that inflation has slowed dramatically from 40-year highs, but we’re still in terrible shape,” EJ Antoni, a research fellow for regional economics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a written statement. (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.)

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Gender Clinic Doctors Use Genital Surgery Robot to Crank Out ‘High Volume’ of Sex Changes

Virginia Star Staff

Surgeons at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) are using a medical robot to assist with vaginoplasties, or the surgical construction of a vulva and vagina, according to various posts on the organization’s website.

OHSU’s gender program, urological program and reconstructive urology referral center all boast of a high volume of clients on their respective web pages, and Dr. Blair Peters, a surgeon leading the gender program, boasted that the gender surgery clinic had “the highest volume on the West Coast” and could operate two robot-assisted vaginoplasties daily, according to a recent report from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. In addition to vaginoplasty, OHSU offers phalloplasty (the surgical construction of a penis), non-binary genital “nullification” surgeries and mastectomies.

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Electric Cars Increasingly Going Unsold

Virginia Star Staff

Despite increasing mandates from various state governments to produce and purchase more electric vehicles, many of the new cars are simply sitting on the dealers’ lots as consumers refuse to buy them.

According to Axios, research from Cox Automotive has highlighted the struggles that electric vehicle (EV) producers face as customers are reluctant to make the switch from gas-powered vehicles to electric. Cox carried out a midyear industry review which was presented to journalists and stakeholders, showcasing the uneasy future for EV manufacturers.

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Commentary: Biden’s Latest Green Energy Scheme

Virginia Star Staff

In a move eerily reminiscent of the failed Solyndra, President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy has doled out massive loans in green energy initiatives to corporations.

Remember Solyndra? Way back in 2009, the administration of Barack Obama, newly inaugurated and stoked with the ideological fire of environmental zeal, greenlit a $535 million loan guarantee to a company by that name to mass produce easy-to-install cylindrical solar units.

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Commentary: As Hiring Slows Down, So Does the Economy

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.

Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from COVID notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.

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2022 National Food Stamp Payment Error Rates Hit Nearly 12 Percent

The Center Square

For the first time since the COVID pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the fiscal year 2022 national payment error rate for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The PER measures how accurately SNAP agencies determine benefit amounts and eligibility. A payment error means the agency either underpaid or overpaid the recipient, which can result from an error by the agency or a recipient or fraud. 

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Southern States Are Booming as Wealth Flees Democrat-Run Northeast

Virginia Star Staff

Six states in the south are seeing rapid growth in the share of national gross domestic product (GDP) as people flock to the region, while states in the northeast are faltering, Bloomberg reported.

Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Tennessee are in the middle of a $100 billion wealth migration that started during the COVID-19 pandemic as businesses and people moved south, according to Bloomberg. States in the northeast lost approximately $60 billion in 2020 and 2021, falling behind the six southern states in collective GDP for the first time.

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OPEC Seeks New Members

Virginia Star Staff

OPEC, the world’s largest oil cartel, is looking for new members, the group’s secretary general told reporters Wednesday, according to CNBC.

Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais told reporters at a Vienna conference that he is actively working to grow OPEC — currently comprised of 13 members based primarily in the Middle East, Africa and South America — noting that he had recently visited several oil-producing countries including Malaysia, Brunei, Azerbaijan and Mexico, although he stressed that he was not suggesting those countries in particular had been invited to join OPEC, according to CNBC. The cartel has been working alongside Russia and other nonmember nations in the larger OPEC+ alliance to prop up oil prices via a string of production cuts, to mixed results.

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Commentary: As Hiring Slows Down, So Does the Economy

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.

Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from Covid notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.

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Mark Levin: Target Refuses to Sell Book Critical of Democrats

Virginia Star Staff

Mark Levin, author and host of “Life, Liberty & Levin” on Fox News, claimed in a Wednesday tweet that Target told him it will not carry his new book because customers may be offended by the title.

Target reportedly informed Levin’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, that the retail giant will not carry his new book, “The Democrat Party Hates America,” which is set to be released on Sept. 19, because the title may offend customers, Levin said on Twitter. Target has been the center of several recent controversies that include selling LGBTQ merchandise for children during Pride Month and funding an anti-militarization group.

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Commentary: On Independence Day, Remember Why Economic Liberty Matters for America

Admin

I’ve often thought there is something providential about the Declaration of Independence being drafted and promulgated throughout the American Colonies the same year that Adam Smith’s book “The Wealth of Nations” was published.

After all, both texts were revolutionary, and both were fundamentally concerned with protecting and promoting liberty.

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TikTok’s CCP-Linked Parent Company Is Trying to Break into a Whole New Industry

Admin

ByteDance, the CCP-linked parent company of popular shortform video platform TikTok, is trying to enter the book publishing industry, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The company filed in late April for a U.S. trademark for a publishing firm, 8th Note Press, and has already begun reaching out to some independent authors for the rights to sell their books, the NYT reported. TikTok has helped some books become bestsellers in the past several years, posts using the #Booktok hashtag have been viewed more than 91 billion times and the combined sales of 100 authors with large BookTok followings eclipsed $760 million in 2022, a 60% surge from the year prior.

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Independence Day Cookout Spending to Hit Record High Amid Inflation

Admin

Individual spending on Fourth of July food items has risen to $93.34 on average across the U.S., the highest the National Retail Federation (NRF) has recorded since it began collecting this information in 2003.

The cost of one person’s July Fourth foods rose about 10 percent over the past year from $84.12, according to NRF. Inflation remained twice as high as the Federal Reserve’s target in May, according to a Labor Statistics (BLS) report, and the price of energy and food increased 4.0 percent on an annual basis last month.

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Republican AGs Push Back Against ‘Reckless’ Plan from Biden’s EPA That Could Further Hobble American Coal

Admin

by Nick Pope   Several state attorneys general are engaging in legal battles against President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine whether or not his administration will be able to impose its costly plan for implementing a regulation designed to further incapacitate the American coal industry. Multiple states…

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Lumber Company Expanding in Southwest Virginia

The Center Square

Southwestern Virginia is set to benefit from a $7.5 million expansion of Musser Biomass and Wood Products, bringing new, high-paying jobs to the area and more than doubling its production of dried hardwood chips and sawdust. 

Musser’s parent company, Musser Lumber Company, has contributed to the Wythe County economy since 1968 when it was founded, and today has customers across the country and worldwide. The company specializes in preparing hardwood lumber for flooring and paneling, and sources lumber from dozens of regional sawmills. 

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Virginia Ranks First for Customized Workforce Training

The Center Square

Virginia ranked first in the nation in customized workforce training, according to the recently released annual State Rankings Report by Business Facilities magazine. 

The Virginia Talent Accelerator Program earned the commonwealth its coveted ranking in the report by Business Facilities, a national publication that serves as a resource for corporate site selection.  

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Commentary: Radical Green Groups Are Attacking American Energy Independence at the Source

Virginia Star Staff

by Daniel Turner   Although America’s energy producers are already under daily attack from the Biden administration, the eco-left is not content to limit their crusade to Washington DC. They are funding local groups in energy producing states to put in place endless hurdles to responsibly extracting energy. While the…

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Commentary: ‘Bidenomics’ Are Leaving Americans Behind

Virginia Star Staff

“When you think about wages going up, when you think about inflation at its lowest by more than 50 percent than it was a year ago, that’s because of the work that this President has done.  And he’s going to continue to focus on what we can do to lower cost for the American people.  And so, that is incredibly important.”

That was White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on June 26, outlining President Joe Biden’s views on the current state of the U.S. economy, which have seen a diminution of the purchasing power of American households as high inflation set in following the more than $6 trillion that was printed, borrowed and spent into existence for Covid coupled with the economic lockdowns and production halts—literally too much money chasing too few goods.

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Commentary: Does Anyone Buy That the Head of BlackRock Is ‘Ashamed’ of ESG?

Virginia Star Staff

The big news in energy this week is that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he is no longer using the term “ESG” in his business communications. Even more, Mr. Fink is now “ashamed” to be a participant in the debate on the issue. At least, that’s what he initially said on Sunday to an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where he was a speaker.

“I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation,” Fink said as quoted by Axios. But almost as soon as he made the admission, Fink took it all back when pressed by his session’s moderator. “I never said I was ashamed,” he said, even though he had just actually said that very thing. “I’m not ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism.”

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U.S. Home Prices Sink Under Weight of Higher Interest Rates

The Center Square

The median existing-home price for all housing types declined 3.1% in May from the same month in the prior year – the biggest drop in more than a decade.

The national median existing-home price was $396,100 in May, down 3.1% from $408,600 in May 2022, the National Association of Realtors said.

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Energy Corporation Says Up to 30 Percent of Its Wind Turbines Could Be Malfunctioning

Admin

Siemens Energy announced Thursday that it will be undergoing a technical review after it was found that up to 30% of its wind turbines could have faulty components, according to statements made by the company.

Siemens Energy, an international energy company that seeks to “decarbonize global energy systems,” announced that it is withdrawing its profit guidance for the year after subsidiary Siemens Gamesa found that there was a “substantial increase in failure rates of wind turbine components.” The company believes that between 15% and 30% of its installed fleets are suffering from component failures, Jochen Eickholt, CEO of Siemens Gamesa, said during a Friday morning analyst call.

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Global Shipping Container Company Announces Virginia Expansion

The Center Square

A global shipping container company announced plans to expand its headquarters in Virginia with a $30 million investment.

ZIM American Integrated Shipping Services Company, a subsidiary of the publicly held international cargo shipping company ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd, based in Israel, chose the Hampton Roads region to relocate and expand its U.S. headquarters.

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BlackRock Recruiter Says $10k ‘Can Buy a Senator,’ Calls Ukraine War ‘Good for Business’: Video

Just the News

A recruiter for BlackRock said that the asset management firm is able to “buy a senator” for $10,000 and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “good for business,” according to a video recorded by an undercover journalist.

“You could buy your candidates. First, there is the senators. These guys are f***ing cheap. Got 10 grand? You can buy a senator. I’ll give you 500k right now. It doesn’t matter who wins, they’re in my pocket,” BlackRock Recruiter Serge Varlay said in a video published Tuesday by the O’Keefe Media Group, which was founded by guerilla journalist James O’Keefe.

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Remote Workers Leaving Democratic Cities in Droves

Virginia Star Staff

A new study shows that employees who are still working remotely are actively fleeing Democrat-run cities in the thousands.

As reported by the Washington Free Beacon, the data from American Community Survey showed that a number of the largest cities in the country, all controlled by Democrats, continue to be the hardest-hit by an ongoing exodus of remote workers. The most severe net migration loss was in New York City, which lost approximately 116,000 remote employees. Los Angeles lost 53,000, while San Francisco saw an exodus of 32,000, and at least 29,000 left Chicago.

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Mayo Clinic Professor Michael Joyner Suspended after Saying Testosterone Improves Athletic Performance

Admin

A Mayo Clinic College of Medicine professor was recently suspended — and remains under the threat of termination — after he told a news outlet his stance on trans-athletes in women’s sports and plasma treatments for COVID-19.

Administrators suspended Professor Michael Joyner without pay for a week, citing his “use of idiomatic language” and comments he made in a June 2022 New York Times article as justification for the disciplinary actions, according to a March 5 disciplinary letter that recently came to light.

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Commentary: Energy Companies Are Finally Backtracking on Their Absurd Green Goals

Admin

Is the public finally waking up to the inherent absurdities taking place in the energy space in the U.S. and across the Western world in recent years? Recent votes taken on ESG and climate change-related shareholder initiatives at major oil company annual board meetings indicate that may well be the case.

Though it has received scant attention across the legacy news media in general, the Financial Times reported recently that such shareholder initiatives were overwhelmingly rejected by shareholders of both ExxonMobil and Chevron, with most receiving less than 10 percent support. Similar initiatives in the previous few years would typically generate support in the 30-40 percent range, with a handful even gaining majority support.

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Commentary: Recent Headlines Claiming Sucralose ‘Damages DNA’ Are Scary, But What Does the Study Really Say?

Admin

When I went back to the U.S. for the first time in several years last year, I made an incredible discovery. It’s called Sparkling Ice and is sold separately or in 12-packs of 17 ounces (curious size) and has a ton of flavors that mostly taste alike but taste very good. Sparkling ice contains the artificial sweetener sucralose and is also lightly carbonated (low carbon footprint!) so that I didn’t drink it like water; I essentially drank it instead of water.

But lo! Newsweek headline: “America’s Most Popular Artificial Sweetener Damages Our DNA, Scientists Say.” You know, like atomic bomb victims. The alleged result is a leaky gut, and you don’t have to know exactly what that means to know it’s probably not good. Except it may not even be real; but we’ll get to that.

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Commentary: California’s War Against Prosperity

Admin

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, generating 44 percent of all business activity. Take them out of the equation, and the economy collapses. But that is exactly what’s happening. The cards are stacked against small businesses in America today, and nowhere is it worse than in the state of California. 

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UPS Unionized Workers Vote to Authorize a Strike

Just the News

As contract negotiations continue, UPS workers who are part of the Teamsters union voted overwhelmingly to organize a strike that could start as soon as the beginning of August. 

The union wants better pay, elimination of surveillance cameras in the trucks and more full time jobs, according to CBS News. To bolster their case, the Teamsters point to record profits for UPS in 2022, saying the company paid out more that $8 billion in shareholder dividends. 

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Gov. Youngkin Announces Famed Fireworks Maker Pyrotechnique by Grucci Expansion in Virginia

The Center Square

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the commonwealth beat out New York in a bid for a new location of a sixth-generation pyrotechnic company that contracts with the Department of Defense to expand in Pulaski County.

The New York-based Fireworks by Grucci, has an existing presence in the commonwealth through its manufacturing arm, Pyrotechnique by Grucci. The former is an American company that has supplied thousands of celebrations with its pyrotechnic arts since 1850, notably eight presidential inaugurations and four Olympic Games.

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Watchdog: Feds Wasted $683 Million Per Day in Improper Payments in 2022

The Center Square

The federal government wasted over a half a trillion dollars in improper payments during the first two years of the Biden administration, a new analysis from a spending watchdog group found.

The analysis comes from Open The Books, which reports that 82 programs across 17 agencies made improper payments in fiscal year 2022 alone, averaging $20.5 billion per month, or $683 million per day.

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USDA to Crack Down on False Labeling in Meat and Poultry Industry

The Center Square

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will be cracking down on false claims on labeling of meat claiming it is “grass-fed,” “free-range,” “raised without antibiotics,” or “no antibiotics ever.”

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has received petitions, comments and letters asking the agency to boost oversight of marketing claims made by the meat and poultry industry, the agency said Wednesday in a news release. The agency will then determine if it needs to do more rulemaking on the industry’s claims.

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Inflation Rises Slightly in May

The Center Square

The latest federal data released Tuesday showed that inflation rose slightly last month.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Consumer Price Index for May, a federal marker of inflation that rose 0.1% last month, part of a 4% increase in the previous 12 months. Most economists say 2% to 3% inflation is healthy for the economy.

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Virginia Employees of Federally-Contracted Call Center Go on Strike

The Center Square

Hundreds of employees of the country’s largest federally-contracted call center went on strike in Virginia last week to protest claims of “unfair layoffs,” poor pay, lack of career advancement opportunities and racial inequality in the workplace.

Maximus is contracted with the Department of Health and Human Services to supply call center services for the federally-mandated health care marketplace, Medicaid and Medicare enrollees, and the CDC-INFO line. Maximus employees handle millions of calls on behalf of HHS every year.

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America’s Biggest Public Pension Has No Plans to Pull Investments from China as Others Flee

Admin

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has no plans to divest from Chinese assets despite other large pensions pulling funds due to geopolitical risks, according to a statement given to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

CalPERS, which is the largest U.S. public pension and covers California’s public employees, has “no [sic] new initiatives to announce at this time,” a spokesperson told the DCNF when asked if CalPERS would divest from Chinese assets. The DCNF calculated over $3.6 billion in Chinese investments across numerous Chinese companies in the pension’s portfolio from its 2022 fiscal year report.

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Commentary: Credit Card ‘Processing Fee’ Legislation Only Benefits the Woke Corporations

Virginia Star Staff

Woke retailers like Target are lining up in support of what last year I called ‘smash and grab’ legislation worth billions of dollars by mandating changes to how credit cards are processed. Senator Dick Durbin succeeded in getting language put into the 2010 Dodd-Frank bill that imposed massive new regulations on the banking industry which changed the processing of debit card transactions.  Guess who got and kept the windfall in lower processing fees?  If you answered the big box retailers, you are right.

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Jobless Claims Soar to Highest Levels Since 2021

Virginia Star Staff

The number of Americans who filed new unemployment claims increased more than expected to 261,000 in the week ending June 3, the Department of Labor (DOL) reported Thursday.

Claims rose 28,000 compared to the previous week’s revised level, the highest number since October 2021, when it was 264,000, according to the DOL. This substantially exceeded the median forecast, which was 236,000, according to MarketWatch.

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Bud Light Sponsoring ‘All Ages’ Drag Queen Pride Party

Virginia Star Staff

Bud Light is sponsoring an all-ages Pride event and after-party featuring drag queens in Flagstaff, Arizona, according to advertisements.

The June 17 after-party features several famous drag queens and will take place after Flagstaff’s 27th annual Pride in the Pines, and both events list Bud Light as a sponsor. The after-party is open to “all ages,” and participants under 16 years old require a guardian to attend, according to an online flyer.

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