Saturday Miscellany

First, this week’s news seems to involve-- the fire this time. Before moving on to the debacle that officials visited on Lahaina, HI, a word about electric battery fires.

This year, there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City. They have injured 66 people and killed 13.

13 is not a large number. The New York Post comments:

And yet the same scaremongers on the left who have zero tolerance and want bans for small risks when it comes to everything from swimming pool diving boards, gas stoves, plastic straws, vaping, fireworks, and so on, have a surprisingly high pain threshold when it comes to people dying or suffering critical injured from “green” electric battery fires.

Second, burn, baby, burn. Yes, indeed that was the fate of the charming town of Lahaina, HI. And yes, I visited the place a couple of times in years past. It was a charming place.

The more we read about it, the more the fire looked like a grotesque failure of local governance:

CBS News has learned Maui’s emergency operations chief had no background in disaster response. It’s his department that is responsible for setting off warning sirens, which rang silent during the fires. 

As you know, he is currently out of a job. But, keep in mind, diversity is our strength. And we would certainly not want to hire people who could do their jobs.

And then, there was the man who was in charge of providing more water for the firefighters. The story is so absurd, you cannot make it up:

As wildfires raged, desperate residents petitioned state officials to send more water for firefighting & to help protect their properties from fire. That request went unanswered for hours, withholding critical aid to islanders. Now we’re learning that the official who delayed the approval is an Obama Foundation "Asia Pacific Leader" & a climate activist who believes water should be “revered” first and foremost. 

The official, who no longer has his job, was named Kaleo Manuel. He was not only a moron; he was a climate activist. He delayed water for five hours because, he claimed: "water requires true conversations about equity".

Hundreds of people died, a town was laid waste, because of some monumental piece of stupidity. But, diversity won out.

Third, the Wall Street Journal editorializes this morning, the Hawaii utilities failed to protect the town from fire hazards because they were hard at work advancing the green climate agenda.

If Hawaiian Electric’s lines did ignite the fires, it would echo the problems of PG&E, the California utility that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019 after getting sued for tens of billions of dollars for damages from fires caused by its equipment. The 2018 Camp Fire killed 84 people and razed the town of Paradise.

What both utilities have in common is that they prioritized growing renewable power to meet government mandates over hardening their systems and reducing fire risk. In 2015 Hawaii lawmakers required that 100% of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2045. California and some other states followed with similar mandates.

Fourth, from, speaking of diversity, equity and inclusion, the Twitter account called @monitoringbias says this:

I messaged with a guy at Microsoft and he described a culture among software engineers that accepted the fact that black employees in their division were rarely able to do high-level work but this wasn't supposed to be talked about. It was a loss the company was willing to bear. 

As our president is wont to say: No comment.

Fifth, adding a bit of perspective to our current Cold War against China, Lawrence Summers remarked this:

Policies that limit commerce with China are surely necessary in some areas on national security grounds. But contrary to what is often asserted, they exacerbate inflation, reduce purchasing power of middle-class incomes & interfere w American competitiveness.

Sixth, also from Summers, a cautionary note, for those who think that talking tough about China is cost free.

I am concerned that we will become the object of China's frustration and that will tempt them to lash out.

Seventh, since most of my favorite stock market prognosticators missed the recent run-up in stocks, we point out that famed strategist, David Rosenberg, has stuck to his bearish guns.

He quotes Robert Farrell, a now retired legendary strategist with Merrill Lynch. 

Bob Farrell’s Market Rule #8: Bear markets have three stages – sharp down, reflexive rebound, and a drawn-out fundamental downtrend. We just moved into the third stage.

Thus,

Every major average I know of has broken below their 50-day moving averages. Including Value-line Arithmetic and the S&P 500 Equal-Weight. Watch equities play some catch-up to Treasuries here … we’re heading into a new bear phase.

Consider it news you can use. 

Rosenberg counts among those strategists who run counter to the current. He is occasionally early in his calls, but time tends to bear him out. Unless you are a short term trader, you should not be too complacent about the market rally or even about Bidenomics.