Let's Do Popcorn! News for 1-9-18
Sometimes you have to learn the hard way.
Minimum wage hikes cause job losses.
Seattle Min Wage Hikes Crushing The Poor: 6,700 Jobs Lost, Annual Wages Down $1,500 - UofW Study
Study Finds Higher Min. Wages Bring Crushing Job Losses For Female And Minority Workers
Harvard 'Shock' Study: Each $1 Minimum Wage Hike Causes 4-10% Increase In Restaurant Failures
No amount of empirical evidence will ever be enough to convince some politicians that basic economic concepts governing the relationship between supply and demand also apply to the market for labor.
Tim Horton's is the Starbucks of Canada.
Faced with a 21% hike in minimum wages starting January 1st, hourly rates going to $14 from $11.60, owners of two Tim Horton's restaurants said they had no choice but to cut employee benefits and eliminate paid breaks to offset their higher costs. Per the Financial Post:
Employees at the Tim Hortons locations owned by the children of the co-founders of the franchise say they have reduced employee benefits and cut back paid breaks to help offset Ontario’s $2.40 jump in hourly minimum wage.
Jeri Horton-Joyce and Ron Joyce Jr. wrote a letter to employees at their two Tim Hortons restaurants in Cobourg, Ont., that those who want to continue receiving dental and health benefits will have to pay a portion of the plan’s costs themselves. Those working at the restaurant for more than five years will have to pay half, while those working from more than six months to five years will pay 75 per cent.
Employee breaks will also no longer be compensated, the letter dated December 2017 read. For example, those working nine-hour shifts will be paid for eight hours and 20 minutes, while those on three-hour blocks will be paid for two hours and 45 minutes.
“We apologize for these changes,” the letter, widely circulated on social media, read. “Once the costs of the future are better known we may bring back some or all of the benefits we have had to remove.”
It was that or hike that coffee up 21%. Which would you do?
As soon as Israel's leader said they are with the protesters and want to be friends with them the riots stopped.
They were riots over economic hardship as has been detailed and had nothing to do with wanting 'freedom'. They were young, under 25, hungry, pissed off young people. When you see bread rise 1000% in one week this is what you get. They were pissed at the government as they see it as their fault. They arrested one of their own on initiating these riots.
For the western world, US included, to assume they were crying for freedom is silly.
North Korea said that, following a session of talks with its South Korean neighbors, the country would be sending a delegation of athletes, dignitaries and journalists to the Winter Games in Pyongyang next month.
The heads of Fusion GPS said in their NYT op-ed they wanted transparency. You can read the transcript yourself and see no. They have no interest in being transparent at all. In the op-ed they wanted their testimony released to the public. Since it shows they were not answering and they were not being transparent one has to wonder why they wanted it released.
Senator Dianne Feinstien unilaterally obliged. LOL You do have to wonder now don't you? Here it is for your reading pleasure.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein unilaterally published the full 312-page transcript of Simpson’s testimony to the fury of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who accused her of interfering with the committee’s investigation. But the timing is also curious: Four days ago, two Republican senators asked the DOJ to open a criminal investigation into former MI6 agent Christopher Steele. Steele was hired by Fusion to compile the dossier after Fusion GPS was retained.
Perhaps that request should be widened to include the editors at Buzzfeed and CNN who were responsible for the document’s publication.
Senator Chuck Grassley stated that it is "totally confounding that Senator Feinstein would unilaterally release a transcript of a witness interview in the middle of an ongoing investigation" and that "Her action undermines the integrity of the committee’s oversight work and jeopardizes its ability to secure candid voluntary testimony relating to the independent recollections of future witnesses."
Perhaps that was the point.
As Sean Davis of the Federalist notes, "At the demand of Fusion GPS, @SenFeinstein put Fusion GPS's testimony on her website. In the interest of transparency. While redacting the names of Fusion's partners. Amazing."
Poor Elon. He worries over AI and Terminators and as he does so his world implodes. He is doing this to himself bless his heart.
Following the launch of the secretive Zuma satellite into space aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, reports circulated that the new eye in the sky, which is worth billions, "is presumed to be a total loss after it failed to reach orbit."
The mystery around the launch and the payload continues, as in an emailed statement, company President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, said that the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sunday "did everything correctly."
“For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night. If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately. Information published that is contrary to this statement is categorically false.
"Due to the classified nature of the payload, no further comment is possible.
“Since the data reviewed so far indicates that no design, operational or other changes are needed, we do not anticipate any impact on the upcoming launch schedule. Falcon Heavy has been rolled out to launchpad LC-39A for a static fire later this week, to be followed shortly thereafter by its maiden flight. We are also preparing for an F9 launch for SES and the Luxembourg Government from SLC-40 in three weeks.”
Bloomberg reports that the second-stage booster section of the Falcon 9 failed, said a U.S. official and two congressional aides familiar with the launch, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. The satellite was lost, one of the aides said, and the other said both the satellite and second-stage rocket fell into the ocean.
Tim Paynter, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman Corp., which was commissioned by the Defense Department to choose the launch contractor, said “we cannot comment on classified missions.”
Army Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis, the Pentagon spokesman for space policy, referred questions to SpaceX.
In others words, I know nothing.
Russia air defense systems detected “13 unidentified small-size air targets at a significant distance” swarming towards Syrian military bases. It was the “first time that terrorists massively used unmanned combat aerial vehicles of an aircraft type that were launched from a distance of more than 50 kilometers, and operated using GPS satellite navigation coordinates,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Russian Defense Ministry says the extremists may have been aided by a “technologically advanced state,” as Russian specialist are now attempting to determine where the flight systems of the drones originated from.
The one question that Russia, and others, are asking in this incident: who is supplying the militants with these high-tech, long-range drones?
Houthi rebels have released footage showing the use of a FLIR Systems sensor turret, manufactured by an American defense company, recording the moment a Surface-to-air missile shot down a Royal Saudi Air Force F-15.
Microsoft said that the fixes for security flaws present in most processors may significantly slow down certain servers and hurt the performance of some personal computers. Windows 7 & 8 to be exact due to that chip set. Sounds like a push for Windows 10 to me but that's just me.
Having worked for decades on computers and network systems I assure you that you cannot fix a hardware issue like this with a software patch. You need new hardware.
Markets
Intel - LOL see above
New all time high and patterns suggest more to come.
While they try to tell you this bull market is too old it all comes from when you start the count. They are starting it at the lows of March 2009. We were actually in recovery mode until 2013 so no this market is not ripe to come down.
Cryptocurrencies are in a bubble and hopefully all are out as predicted a couple of weeks ago. This hasn't been and won't be pretty. Bitcoin and a couple of others have crashed. This is the crazy going on in that market.
Kodak announced it would launch Kodakcoin, "a photocentric cryptocurrency to empower photographers and agencies to take greater control in image rights management." The stock rose over 50%.
S&P 500 Resistance – 2752, 2760, 2785, 2805
S&P 500 Support – 2730, 2715, 2682, 2655, 2638, 2607, 2575, 2560
Target 3200 remains.
Take care,
Rita