Budgets, Train Tycoons, A Billionaire Tax, & The Olympics
July 29, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Monday! Today, we’ll be talking about the U.K. budget, a rail magnate, the U.S. and China, a billionaire tax, the Park Fire, climate change funding, and the Olympics.
Here’s some good news: Backpack-wearing dogs are being enlisted to “act like wolves” and re-seed the landscape to help rewild an urban nature reserve in the East Sussex town of Lewes. Also, bipartisan legislation to ban octopus farming was introduced in Congress to protect them from being used for meat.
“No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.” – George Washington Carver
Emo Song Title, Or Political Analysis?
Most governments run with budget deficits, meaning they have more debt than revenue on their books. The U.K., unfortunately, stands out from the pack, with its new Labour Party leadership describing the country as not just in debt, but “broke and broken.” The comments came from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office, which rose to power just three weeks ago, and is a critique of the Conservative Party which ran the country for the past 14 years.
Starmer’s government has released a department-by-department assessment of the country’s finances to outline the problems it’s facing, and will likely seek to raise taxes in order to push the government into “less-broke and mostly working” territory. The assessments show that the outgoing Tories made large financial commitments before leaving office “without knowing where the money would come from.” The releases also describe the military as “hollowed out” and the National Health Service as “broken,” with 7.6 million patients on waitlists to receive care. On the campaign trail, Labour politicians promised to raise taxes without adding more burden for “working people,” but we’ll just have to wait and see where the new government will get its money from.
All Aboard The Trump Train
Another transportation-related billionaire is now giving massive sums to the Trump campaign. Timothy Mellon, the heir of the Mellon Bank and a former railroad baron, has apparently donated over $75 million to get Trump re-elected while also sending $25 million to the Robert F. Kennedy campaign. Those two sums make him the largest individual backer of each campaign, but they’re just a fraction of the $227 million he’s given in political contributions since 2020.
Mellon, 81, largely avoids the public eye, but we all know money talks, so let’s hear what his has to say. His political donations show a slow rightward shift in his views – as do his business practices. Before he sold it for $600 million in 2022, his railway and airline conglomerate Pan Am Railways was involved in one lawsuit regarding a coverup of an oil spill and another regarding two fatal employee accidents.
The reclusive billionaire also has an apparent fixation on Amelia Earhart. In 2012, he donated $1 million to help fund a search for the lost pilot, and eventually sued the expedition because he thought they’d deliberately ignored the plane’s wreckage. His proof? Old underwater footage of the crash site, where he said he could make out the pilot’s head in a plastic bag. The saga spans hundreds of posts on an Amelia Earhart online forum, and Mellon even spent $150,000 of his own money to fund private investigators to (unsuccessfully) prove his theory.
Old Friends Meet Again
- In the spirit of friendly competition sparked by the Olympics, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi over the weekend. The two officials met on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers’ meeting on Saturday and discussed key issues including China’s trade with Russia and establishing high-level security talks between the two superpowers.
- The main bone that the Biden administration has to pick with Beijing is its continued trade with Russia during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Blinken said that China’s export of machine tools and microelectronics to Russia is helping the country keep up its industrial output for its war effort, and explained that U.S. tariffs on Chinese companies were a consequence of that equation. Wang told him to end the tariffs, adding that China would not give in to “pressure and blackmail.”
- In terms of cooperation, the two agreed to collaborate more on countering the global narcotics trade and promised to hold more security talks in the face of rising political tensions between the pair of superpowers. They also touched on the war in Gaza, though it’s unclear whether the two countries will work together to end the conflict.
That’s A Rio Interesting Proposal
- This weekend was filled with diplomatic meetings across the globe. Finance ministers from the G20 group of nations met in Brazil over the weekend to discuss the climate crisis and global inequality. The biggest ticket issue at the summit, though, was Brazil’s proposal for a 2% wealth tax on people with assets over $1 billion – the policy could yield up to $250 billion per year, all of which would be used to fight climate change and wealth inequality.
- “Our feeling is that, morally, nobody’s against,” said Brazil’s national secretary for climate change in an interview. “But the level of support from some countries is bigger than others.” The U.S. is one of those less-supportive countries – U.S. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said that she “did not see the need” for a global tax, an issue which Brazil’s climate secretary recognized herself, saying, “there is a question over how you implement global taxes.”
More Mixed Nuts
- Hungary’s nationalist leader warns of EU’s demise, backs Trump in anti-Western speech (AP)
- As F-16s Arrive, Ukraine Still Faces Steep Challenges in the Skies (NYT, $)
- RIMPAC: US Air Force B-2 bomber used in exercise to sink surface ship with low-cost bomb (CNN)
- Putin warns US against deploying long-range missiles in Germany (Guardian)
- US to revamp military forces in Japan in ‘historic’ move as regional tensions mount (CNN)
- Meloni vows to ‘relaunch’ Italy’s cooperation with China (Reuters)
Middle East Mixed Nuts
- Wave of Israeli airstrikes kills at least 50 people in Gaza (Guardian)
- Israel sends Gaza hostage and ceasefire proposal to U.S. (Axios)
- Israel says Hezbollah will ‘pay the price’ after blaming it for attack on soccer field that killed 12 (CNN)
Hitting The Brakes On The Park Fire
- The Park Fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in California, grew to more than 350,000 acres yesterday and was only 12% contained. The blaze sparked on Wednesday when a man pushed a flaming vehicle into a gulley filled with dried brush at a park in Chico, authorities allege. Cal Fire officials said the Park Fire had so far destroyed 134 structures.
- The good news is that a cold front is expected to move through the state this week, which should help firefighters battling the flames. Nationwide there were 102 large active wildfires this weekend, mostly on the West Coast. The blazes were blamed for burning more than 2 million acres, the National Interagency Fire Center said.
Yellen About Climate Change
- Over the weekend, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that $3 trillion in new capital is required each year to combat climate change (though apparently, she doesn’t want a billionaire tax to fund it). “Neglecting to address climate change and the loss of nature and biodiversity is not just bad environmental policy. It is also bad economic policy,” she said.
- Yellen was speaking at an event by the Inter-American Development Bank regarding a project intended to promote sustainability in the Amazon region and prevent deforestation. Yellen urged coordination between the U.S. and countries like Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador to achieve global climate and economic goals
More Nuts In America
- Election 2024: Harris raised $200M in first week of White House campaign (AP)
- Sean Grayson, who killed Sonya Massey, was removed from the Army for serious misconduct, had DUIs and needed ‘high stress decision’ classes, records show (CNN)
- Robert Menendez Elementary School will change its name after the senator’s conviction (NPR)
- One of the biggest cartel busts in recent memory began with an act of betrayal (CNN)
- Trump vows to keep doing outdoor campaign rallies after shooting (Axios)
It’s A Party In Paree
- The Paris Olympics kicked off on Friday, with the opening ceremony featuring a lit-up Eiffel Tower and some very flamboyant performances from French dancers and singers. One performance involved an almost-naked man covered in blue body paint singing about various body parts, while another controversial performance appeared to depict the scene from Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper,” angering some Christians who described it as making a “mockery” of their religion.
- On the sports side of things, the U.S. teams for women’s gymnastics, men’s basketball, and swimming all seem to be performing to their usual high standards, despite the gymnastics squad being America’s oldest-ever Olympic offering in the sport and some drama over the basketball team’s roster. Japan currently leads the gold medal race with four golds (2 in judo, 1 in skateboarding, and another in fencing), while the U.S. has the most overall hardware with 3 golds, 6 silvers (thanks, swimming!), and 3 bronze medals. The Paris games will continue for another two weeks, with the closing ceremony taking place on Sunday, August 11.
More Loose Nuts
- Irish sisters christen US warship bearing name of their brother, who was lauded for heroism (AP)
- Two meteor showers will flash across the sky around the same time in late July (ABC)
- SpaceX returns to flight with weekend Falcon 9 triple header (CBS)
- Glass shards reveal what was inside a Renaissance alchemist’s demolished laboratory (CNN)
- Marvel Cinematic Universe Crosses $30 Billion at Global Box Office (Variety)
