Week in Review

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Week in Review

10/19/2024

For the week 10/14-10/18

[Posted 4:30 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,330

It was another historic week, as Israeli soldiers took out Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a firefight late Wednesday in Gaza, his fate confirmed Thursday, a massive win for the Israeli people and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  I have details below, but it’s always important to know what your enemies are saying, and Iran’s Mission to the United Nations issued a statement in response, honoring Sinwar:

“When U.S. forces dragged a disheveled Saddam Hussein out of an underground hole, he begged them not to kill him despite being armed.  Those who regarded Saddam as their model of resistance eventually collapsed.  However, when Muslims look up to martyr Sinwar standing on the battlefield – in combat attire and out in the open, not in a hideout, facing the enemy – the spirit of resistance will be strengthened.  He will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forth his path for the liberation of Palestine.  As long as occupation and aggression exist, resistance will endure, for the martyr remains alive and a source of inspiration.”

Recall, Iranians weren’t real fans of Saddam, since he launched an invasion of their country in the 1980s that led to a war that killed more than 1 million people on both sides, according to the best estimates.  [Saddam’s forces also killed 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds.]

Today, with this week’s events, it is a critical time for Israel.  Israel won the war in Gaza, even as Netanyahu says it isn’t over yet.  As David Ignatius of the Washington Post observes, however, the “‘day after’ is ahead, and if Israel doesn’t prepare wisely for it, a new generation of Sinwars might be coming, too.”

Foreign policy and geopolitics have been little discussed in our presidential campaign, and this deeply concerns those of us who spend at least part of their day pondering the topic.

George F. Will / Washington Post

“Beginning Jan. 20, 2025, the next president will cope with today’s axis: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.  U.S. participation in World War II actually began with aggressive, and hardly neutral, Navy patrolling of the North Atlantic shipping lanes on which Britain depended.  And U.S. participation in World War III began before this week’s decision to send to Israel an advanced missile defense system and about 100 troops to operate it....

“On Monday, the Financial Times reported that the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service said that this year a parcel burst into flames before it was to be loaded on a plane at a DHL freight center in Leipzig. The official said that if the fire had started in flight, the plane would have crashed.  He described this episode while detailing a dramatic increase in ‘aggressive behavior’ by Russian agents.

“The Wall Street Journal said the head of Britain’s domestic security agency MI5 reported a ‘staggering rise’ in attacks in Europe, coordinated by Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. They are aimed at disrupting arms production, intimidating politicians and sowing panic in the streets....

“The MI5 head also said, according to the Journal, that Russia and Iran are using criminals in targeted nations to commit arson, sabotage, and attack Russian and Iranian dissidents abroad. The paper noted that a Spanish politician who supports an Iranian opposition group ‘was shot in the face in broad daylight late last year.’

“North Korean military engineers are assisting Russian launches of ballistic missiles at Ukrainian targets.  [Ed. more on this topic below] ....

“From Russia’s western border to the waters where China is aggressively encroaching on Philippine sovereignty, the theater of today’s wars and almost-war episodes spans six of the globe’s 24 time zones. This is what ‘the gathering storm’ (the title of the first of six volumes of Winston Churchill’s World War II memoirs) of a world war looks like.

“The U.S. presidential campaign is what reckless disregard looks like.  Neither nominee has given any evidence of awareness of, let alone serious thinking about, the growing global conflagration.

“This world disorder, more than spending extravaganzas (defense not included), will define the Biden-Harris administration’s reputation. And this year Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Putin-adjacent prime minister, who opposes aiding Ukraine, visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago twice in 125 days.

“What gathering storms gather is strength. Then they expend their stored violence.”

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Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran...as it went down....

--A Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in central Israel killed four soldiers (all age 19) and severely wounded seven others Sunday, the military said, in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon over two weeks ago.

Hezbollah called the attack near Binyamina city retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut last Thursday that killed 22 people.  It later said it targeted Israel’s elite Golani brigade, launching dozens of missiles to occupy Israeli air defense systems during the assault by “squadrons” of drones.

Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61.  With Israel’s advanced air defense systems, it’s rare for so many people to be injured by drones or missiles.

It was the second time in two days that a drone has struck in Israel.  On Saturday, during the Israeli holiday of Yom Kippur, a drone struck a suburb of Tel Aviv, causing damage but no injuries.

--An Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in northern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 18 people, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.  The strike hit a building in the village of Aito, far from Hezbollah’s main strongholds in the south and east of the country.

The strike came after Hezbollah’s drone attack on the Israeli base.

Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed at least 15 in the southern Lebanese town of Qana, which has long been associated with civilian deaths after Israeli strikes during previous conflicts with Hezbollah.  Israel then struck Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in nearly a week.

The strikes on Beirut came as Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States had given him assurances that Israel would curb its strikes on the capital.

--The Washington Post first reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu has told the Biden administration he is willing to strike military rather than oil or nuclear facilities in Iran, according to two officials familiar with the matter, suggesting a more limited counterstrike aimed at preventing a full-scale war.  Other media outlets then confirmed the report.

But why would Israel telegraph what its true intentions were?

The sources were supposedly in on the call between President Biden and Netanyahu last Wednesday, where the prime minister reportedly said he was planning to target military infrastructure in Iran.

The White House hasn’t commented.  The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement that “we listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest.”

The Post reported, “The retaliatory action would be calibrated to avoid the perception of ‘political interference in the U.S. elections,’ the official familiar with the matter said, signaling Netanyahu’s understanding that the scope of the Israeli strike has the potential to reshape the presidential race.”

But Netanyahu wants Trump to win.

On the other hand, the apparent softening of the prime minister’s stance “factored into Biden’s decision to send a powerful missile defense system to Israel, both officials said,” the Post reported.

On Sunday, the Pentagon announced that it was deploying its anti-ballistic THAAD battery system to Israel, along with 100 U.S. military personnel to man it.  The system, which was expected to arrive in days, “underscores the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

As an aside, the Financial Times reported Tuesday that Israel “faces a looming shortage of interceptor missiles as it prepares itself for attacks from Iran and its proxies.”

--An Israeli airstrike on a hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip early Monday killed at least four people and triggered a fire that swept through a tent camp for people displaced by the war, leaving more than two dozen with severe burns, according to Palestinian medics.

The IDF said it targeted militants hiding out among civilians, without providing evidence.  Israel has time and time again struck crowded shelters and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks.

Late last Friday night, an Israeli strike killed at least 30 people and injured 110 in Jabalia, a city in northern Gaza, according to Gazan authorities.  Medecins sans Frontieres, a charity, warned that thousands of people were trapped in a refugee camp there amid an Israeli ground offensive.

The Biden administration then put Israel on notice that it could risk losing access to U.S. weapons unless it allows more humanitarian aid to flow to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a letter to their counterparts in Israel on Sunday warning that Israel must take steps within the next 30 days to allow more food and other humanitarian assistance into Gaza or face restrictions on U.S. military aid.

The letter follows a recent drop in humanitarian assistance reaching the people of Gaza, said John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman.

Kirby said making sure Palestinians have access to humanitarian assistance “is obviously something we’ve been very, very concerned about since the beginning of the conflict.”

The letter was not intended as a threat, Kirby said, but “was simply meant to reiterate the sense of urgency we feel and the seriousness with which we feel it, about the need for an increase, a dramatic increase, in humanitarian assistance.”

--But then on Thursday, dramatically, the IDF confirmed that Yahya Sinwar, the powerful and elusive militant leader who has been the No. 1 target for Israel since the beginning of the war, had been killed in battle.

Sinwar was the architect of the Oct. 7 massacre that set off the 13-month war that plunged the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian crisis and the war widened, including the fighting in Lebanon.

Israeli soldiers were in a firefight with Hamas fighters on Wednesday outside of Rafah, with Israel not knowing at that moment that Sinwar was involved.  A sample of his DNA was tested to confirm his identity, while police in Israel said they had also used Sinwar’s dental records and fingerprints, both of which were on file, for identification purposes.

Since last October, no target loomed larger for Israel than Sinwar himself.  Over the past year in hiding in the devastated enclave, he was believed to still be closely overseeing Hamas military operations.

Israel’s military and intelligence services, with help from the U.S., dedicated vast resources in their search for Sinwar, but in the end, a unit of trained squad commanders unexpectedly encountered him while on a routine operation, according to Israeli defense officials.

So Sinwar’s death raised hopes for an end to the conflict, but Prime Minister Netanyahu stopped short of declaring total victory against Hamas in a statement and vowed to get the remaining hostages in Gaza released. He made an offer to those holding hostages, promising to let them “leave and live” if they set aside their weapons and returned the captives.

“While this is not the end of the war in Gaza, it’s the beginning of the end,” Netanyahu said in a video Thursday.  If the remaining Hamas militants lay down their arms and return the remaining 101 hostages, the war can be over this weekend, he said.

President Biden said that the killing of Sinwar is a “good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” and called it an “opportunity” to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas and end the yearlong war in Gaza.

Biden said with Sinwar’s death “there is now the opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

A Hamas political leader, Khalil al-Hayya, on Friday confirmed the death of Sinwar.  In a televised statement, al-Hayya reiterated the group’s stance that no hostages will be released until there is a ceasefire.

--Sunday, the Israeli military took a group of reporters into Lebanon to see two tunnel shafts that were about 300 feet from a UN peacekeeping observation post.  The IDF claims the shafts were among hundreds of tunnel entrances and underground bunkers used by Hezbollah to store weapons and hide fighters, west of the Lebanese village of Labbouneh.

Israel has faced criticism from the UN and European capitals for injuries to peacekeepers as Israeli forces engage in their ground offensive against Hezbollah. 

Israel said the presence of the tunnels was evidence that Hezbollah had built military infrastructure around UN and civilian settlements, using them as cover.  They also said that the peacekeepers, who are supposed to monitor and prevent militant activities along the border, weren’t doing their job.

The death toll in Lebanon over the past year is at least 2,350, according to the health ministry, with more than 1.2 million displaced. The death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes hundreds of women and children.

The IDF issued evacuation warnings for residents of the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, focusing buildings in three towns/villages where it said Hezbolah maintained facilities.

The mayor of a major town, Nabatieh, in South Lebanon was among 16 people killed on Wednesday when an Israeli airstrike destroyed its municipal headquarters.

Following the death of Sinwar, Hezbollah said Friday it is entering a new phase in its fight against invading Israeli troops, adding that it has introduced new types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones for the first time.

The statement appears to refer to a drone laden with explosives that evaded Israel’s multilayered air-defense system and slammed into a mess hall at a military training camp deep inside Israel, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens.

--Last week I wrote that the commander of the elite Quds Force in Iran, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, had disappeared and was said to be under suspicion for Iran’s recent intelligence failures, and whether Ghaani was connected to Israel in some fashion.

But Ghaani appeared in video footage broadcast by Iranian state news media on Tuesday.

According to IRNA, an Iranian state news agency, General Ghaani was at a ceremony at an airport in Tehran in the early hours of Tuesday to receive the body of Maj. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior Iranian commander who was killed in the strike on Hassan Nasrallah.

--The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, warned Israel on Thursday against attacking Iran in retaliation for the missile barrage of Oct. 1,

“We tell you (Israel) that if you commit any aggression against any point we will painfully attack the same point of yours,” Salami said in a televised speech, adding that Iran can penetrate Israel’s defenses.

--Israel struck Syria’s port city of Latakia early on Thursday, Syrian state media reported.

--U.S. B-2 bombers attacked weapons caches belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen late Wednesday, in a strike that appears to be the first such use of the strategic stealth bomber against the militia.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement the operation was ordered by President Biden to “further degrade” the Houthis’ ability to launch attacks on commercial and military ships in the Red Sea. The strikes are also a warning to Iran as it appears on the verge of a full-blown war with Israel.

The B-2 bomber is the only warplane in the U.S. arsenal that can carry 30,000-pound so-called bunker busting bombs.  Austin said this “was a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened or fortified.  The employment of U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate U.S. global strike capabilities to take actin against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere.”

Five “hardened” underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen were targeted.  CENTOM, U.S. Central Command, said it was assessing “battle damage” but its initial findings “do not indicate civilian casualties.”

Some analysts wonder what took the administration so long to strike in such a fashion?  The Houthis certainly have given us multiple reasons for such a strike far earlier.

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Russia-Ukraine....

--Russia is strengthening its military ties with North Korea, Ukrainian President Zelensky warned, as he reiterated a plea for more sustained supplies for his country’s forces.

“We see the alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea is growing,” Zelensky said in his daily address to the nation Sunday evening without providing any other details.  “This concerns not only the transfer of weapons, this is about the transfer of people from North Korea to the army of the occupier,” he said.

During the same address, Zelensky urged Ukraine’s partners to provide more military support “to prevent Russia and its allies from adapting to our capabilities.”

But South Korean and other Ukrainian officials said that North Korean soldiers are supporting Russian troops on the ground, and some may have already been killed and injured, signifying the military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow has advanced to a new stage.

A Ukrainian military intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive security matter, said “several thousand” North Korean infantry soldiers are undergoing training in Russia now and could be deployed to the front line in Ukraine by the end of this year.

The official said North Korean officers are already on the ground in Russia-occupied Ukraine to observe Russian forces and study the battlefield, but Kyiv hasn’t seen any North Korean units fighting yet.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed such claims of Pyongyang sending military personnel to fight in Ukraine as a “hoax.”

South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun called the reports of North Korean troops helping Russians “highly likely” during a National Assembly meeting on Tuesday, adding that Seoul expects Pyongyang to send more personnel to support Russia’s war effort.

Friday, South Korean intelligence officials confirmed that North Korea had sent around 10,000 special forces soldiers to help Russia fight Ukraine, the troops beginning their journey 10 days ago, beginning with 1,500 or so traveling via various ships owned by Russia.  There are stories already out that some of the soldiers are deserting.

--The head of Ukraine’s Odesa region said its three ports are “not possible” to fully protect because they span such a large area and Russia has intensified its missile attacks.

He was speaking to the BBC after a 16-year-old girl, two women and a man were killed in a Russian strike on a two-floor building to the northwest of Odesa city.

It was the fourth such attack on the Black Sea coastal region in five days, and regional head Oleh Kiper said “probably a ballistic missile was targeting an infrastructure facility, but it hit nearby instead – into this place.”

It was the prior Thursday that nine people were killed in an attack on a cargo ship.

Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said Russia had carried out 60 such attacks in just three months, damaging or destroying almost 300 port facilities.  He said 79 people had been killed or wounded and 22 civilian vessels hit.

Kiper said Russia was attacking civilian vessels now to harm Ukraine’s economy and to scare the world with what it could do.

“They hit [the ships in Odesa] so that the insurance companies and the ship owners refuse to enter our ports, into the combat zone,” Kiper said.

--Wednesday, President Zelensky presented parliament with a long-awaited “victory plan” that aims to strengthen his country’s position enough to end the war with Russia.

Zelensky told the MPs in Kyiv the plan could finish the war next year.

Key elements include a formal invitation to join NATO, the lifting by allies of bans on long-range strikes with Western-supplied weapons deep into Russia, a refusal to trade Ukraine’s territories and sovereignty, and the continuation of the incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region.

The Kremlin dismissed the plan with a spokesman saying Kyiv needed to “sober up.”

Zelensky, in his address to parliament, also criticized China, Iran and North Korea for their backing of Russia, and described them as a “coalition of criminals.”

He also said Vladimir Putin had “gone mad,” describing him as bent on waging wars.

Zelensky then presented the victory plan to an EU summit at week’s end.

--Robert Kagan / Washington Post

“As the war in Ukraine continues to drag on with no obvious good end in sight for Ukrainians, folks who are not Ukrainian have begun talking about and yearning for a negotiated settlement. As National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recently put it, ‘a negotiated end is the most likely outcome here.’  And we know what that means for Ukraine. As Czech President Petr Pavel, a longtime supporter of Kyiv, bluntly put it: Ukrainians ‘will have to be realistic’ and understand that ‘the most probable outcome of the war will be that a part of Ukrainian territory will be under Russian occupation, temporarily.’

“The irony of a Czech leader urging this course on Ukraine will not be lost on those with a sense of history – it was exactly the advice offered to Czech leaders in 1938 by the ‘realists’ of the day. As George F. Kennan explained it just after the Munich conference, which ceded control of part of then-Czechoslovakia to Hitler’s Germany, ‘Czechoslovakia is, after all, a central European state.  Its fortunes must in the long run lie with – and not against – the dominant forces in this area.’  But, he continued, the Munich settlement had at least ‘left the heart of the country physically intact ...which would undoubtedly have been sacrificed if the solution had been the romantic one of hopeless resistance rather than the humiliating but truly heroic one of realism.’

“As we now know, the ‘heart of the country’ did not remain ‘physically intact.’  Within months of the Munich agreement, the German army marched in and took the rest of Czechoslovakia.

“Today, it is the Ukrainians who are being urged to abandon the romantic path of hopeless resistance and pursue the heroic path of realism.  But if they do, what is to stop Russia from taking the rest of Ukraine whenever it is ready?

“Advocates of a negotiated settlement with territorial concessions by Ukraine do not deny this danger and attempt to address it in various ways.  All seem to assume the postwar Ukraine will have full access to American and NATO weaponry, training and other forms of military assistance, and substantial reconstruction aid....

“The common assumption is that the Ukrainians are the biggest obstacle to such a settlement because they refuse to give up on the territory they have lost.  That’s wrong. If the United States and NATO wanted to force Kyiv to accept it, they could. Brave and determined as the Ukrainians may be, they cannot continue fighting without U.S. and Western support and so must eventually accept the West’s dictation, just as the Czechs did in 1938.

“But what about Vladimir Putin?  Little thought seems to have been given as to whether the Russian president would accept that kind of peace settlement advocates of negotiations have proposed.  Consider what such a settlement would look like from Moscow’s perspective: Before the war, Russia faced a relatively weak and politically divided Ukraine trying with only modest success to force closer ties with a hesitant Europe and an ambivalent United States.  At the end of 2021, Ukraine had a little over 200,000 active-duty soldiers, while Russia had more than 900,000.

“Three years later, the war has transformed both Ukraine and the military balance in central and Eastern Europe.  Today, Ukraine has more than 900,000 active-duty soldiers and hundreds of thousands of trained and battle-tested reserves.  It has become, in fact, larger than the forces of Britain, Germany and Poland, combined....

“This well-armed postwar Ukraine, moreover, is going to be an intensely hostile neighbor.  Ukrainians won’t soon forget the death, destruction, murder and torture suffered at Russia’s hands during the war....

“For Putin...it would be hard to mask the magnitude of the strategic failure.  Not only will this war have created this monster on his borders, but it also will have brought Finland and Sweden into NATO. Russia will have to enhance its defenses across the full length of its western front, with special requirements on the border with Ukraine. After three years of war, more than 600,000 casualties, and widespread economic suffering, Putin will have succeeded only in tightening the circle of containment around Russia, brought hostile forces closer to Russia’s border and substantially increased even peacetime defense requirements.  Putin wants to see himself as a 21st-century Peter the Great, but with that outcome he will look more like the 20th  century’s Nicholas II, who took Russia into a war that fractured its army, dismembered its empire and, incidentally, led to the czar’s overthrow and murder and the end of the more than 300-year-old Romanov dynasty....

“(But as things stand today, Russia making gains in the east), Putin has good reason to believe that Ukraine and its Western supporters are more likely to crack before his army does.  The Biden administration’s very public fear and reluctance to give Ukraine more long-range weapons without constraints, combined with Donald Trump’s evident desire to be rid of Ukraine altogether, can only strengthen Putin’s perception that it is the West, not Russia, which is short of breath.

“Whoever wins the coming presidential election, therefore, is likely to face an intransigent Putin sticking to his current demands, which amount to the end of Ukraine’s sovereignty.  Putin has not budged, for instance, in demanding Ukraine’s ‘denazification,’ by which he means a change of government in Kyiv, as well as insisting on control of territory Russian forces have not even conquered yet.  Advocates of talks suggest this is just an opening gambit and that he will be compelled to compromise.  But compelled by what?

“The Biden administration promises only more of what it has already been doing, which obviously has not been enough.  Historians might conclude that the Biden administration lost this war in the first year or 18 months, as it continually refused to give Ukraine weapons that might have made a difference when Russian forces were in disarray.  Absent a substantial change of course soon, there might be no salvaging Ukraine’s chances, and no prospect for getting any kind of deal with Putin short of Ukraine’s effective surrender.

“Trump’s supporters think the mere return of their man to the presidency will be sufficient to frighten Putin into giving up his interests in Ukraine.  This is what passes for ‘realism’ in Republican foreign policy circles these days.  But the opposite is closer to reality....

“Trump will indeed be left with the choice of ramping up American involvement in the war or backing down and accepting a truly ‘neutral’ and therefore indefensible Ukraine. Which course do you think Trump will take?

“The present course, in short, is unlikely to lead to a stable settlement, and certainly not the kind of peace agreement that advocates of talks assure us is possible.  This is not one of those ‘win-win’ situations.  Unless something dramatic changes, this is a war that, like most wars, will be won or lost on the battlefield. We are not going to be rescued by a peace deal.  Americans need to decide soon whether they are prepared to let Ukraine lose.”

Meanwhile, no wonder why President Zelensky must be worried sick about the prospects of another Trump presidency.  In a podcast with conservative Patrick Bet-David, released Thursday, Trump, in a rambling, muddled answer, was criticizing President Biden’s leadership when he abruptly brought up his skepticism over the administration’s continued military aid to Ukraine.

“I think Zelensky is one of the greatest salesmen I’ve ever seen,” Trump said, repeating a statement he has made frequently. “Every time he comes in, we give him $100 billion. Who else got that kind of money in history?  There’s never been. And that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him, because I feel very badly for those people. But he should never have let that war start. That war is a loser.”

Trump has suggested before that blame for the widespread destruction caused by the Russian invasion rests with the Ukrainian president.  Zelensky, he has said, should have cut a deal with Putin to avoid the invasion.

Trump then denigrated Biden’s intelligence by claiming that with a smarter president, the war “would have been easy to settle.”

Unbelievable.

Reminder, Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and then backed pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine’s east in a proxy war, before the full invasion Feb. 24, 2022, that was designed to capture the capital, Kyiv, within days.

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Wall Street and the Economy

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller, a permanent voting member on the Open Market Committee, on Monday called for “more caution” on interest-rate cuts ahead.

“Whatever happens in the near term, my baseline still calls for reducing the policy rate gradually over the next year,” Waller said in remarks prepared for delivery to a Shadow Open Market Committee conference at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.  The Fed’s policy rate is restrictive, the labor market remains healthy even as labor demand is moderating, and inflation is “in the vicinity” of the Fed’s 2% target.

But after the Fed cut the policy rate by a bigger-than-expected half-of-a-percentage point in September, the Fed should now proceed at a “deliberate pace” as long as the labor market doesn’t deteriorate suddenly and inflation continues to head downward as he expects, Waller said.

“I view the totality of the data as saying monetary policy should proceed with more caution on the pace of rate cuts than was needed at the September meeting,” Waller said, noting recent revisions in the economic data show households still spending resources and that lower rates may release “pent-up demand” for big-ticket items.  “I will be watching to see whether data, due out before our next meeting, on inflation, the labor market and economic activity confirms or undercuts my inclination to be more cautious about loosening monetary policy.”

Waller warned that in the near term, the recent hurricanes and the strike at Boeing could make job market readings difficult, stripping perhaps 100,000 from monthly job gains in October, he estimated.  But looking ahead, he predicted job growth should moderate gradually, with the unemployment rate drifting upward but staying historically low.

If inflation rises unexpectedly, he said, the Fed could pause rate cuts; it if falls below the Fed’s 2% target or the job market cracks unexpectedly, the Fed could front-load rate cuts.

But if all goes as he expects, “we can proceed with moving policy toward a neutral stance at a deliberate pace” so as to avoid slowing the economy unnecessarily.

The message from him and most of his fellow policymakers, he said, is that “there is a considerable extent of policy accommodation to remove, and if the economy continues in its current sweet spot, this will happen gradually.”

On the economic data front, the September retail sales figure was stronger than expected, up 0.4%, ex-vehicles 0.5%.  Further evidence that the economy is just fine and giving bond traders pause when it comes to their expectations for the next two Fed meetings.

September industrial production fell 0.3%, a little weaker than forecast, while September housing starts were a bit weaker as well, at a 1.35 million annualized pace.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer for third quarter growth is at 3.4%.

Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is at 6.44%, up from 6.08% three weeks ago.

Lastly, the National Retail Federation unveiled its estimate of sales for the 2024 holiday season on Tuesday, saying it expects spending to grow between 2.5% and 3.5% from last year.

That equates to between $979.5 billion and $989 billion in total holiday spending in November and December, compared with $955.6 billion during the same period last year.  It dovetails with the NRF’s previous forecasts, which call for annual retail sales to be up between 2.5% and 3.5% for the whole year, compared with 2023.

But holiday sales growth hasn’t been below 3.5% since 2018, before the pandemic, when spending climbed 1.8% from 2017. By contrast, 2020 and 2021 saw spending surge 9% and 12.4%, before dropping to yearly growth of 4.7% and 3.9% in 2022 and 2023, respectively. It grew 3.7% in 2019.

The NRF estimates that online and other nonstore holiday sales will increase between 8% and 9% to a total of between $295.1 billion and $297.9 billion from $273.3 billion last year.  Nonstore sales climbed 10.7% in 2023.

Thanksgiving is late this year, meaning 2024’s holiday shopping season will be six days shorter than 2023’s. 

Europe and Asia

Eurostat reported that inflation for the euro area in September fell to 1.7%, its lowest level in more than three years and below the ECB’s target of 2%.  A year earlier, the rate was 4.3%.  The core rate, ex-food and energy was 2.7%, down a tick from August’s 2.8%, and 5.5% a year earlier.

Headline inflation....

Germany 1.8%, France 1.4%, Italy 0.7%, Spain 1.7%, Netherlands 3.3%, Ireland 0.0%.

Inflation in the UK slowed to 1.7% in September from 2.2% in August, the lowest reading since April 2021, as reported by the Office for National Statistics, bolstering bets on a November interest rate cut and helping finance minister Rachel Reeves before her first budget.

The European Central Bank lowered interest rates for the third time this year on Thursday, with the first back-to-back rate cut in 13 years, marking a shift in focus for the eurozone’s central bank from bringing down inflation to protecting economic growth.  The benchmark interest rate is now 3.25%.

The ECB said it would continue to determine interest rates meeting by meeting based on incoming economic data.

“We certainly do not see a recession,” ECB President Christine Lagarde said.  “We are still looking at that soft landing.”  However, escalating trade tensions between major economies could weigh on the region’s exports and growth, she warned, in an apparent reference to a potential return of Donald Trump to the White House.

Separately, industrial production at the EA20 in August was up by 1.8%, compared with July, and up just 0.1% vs. a year ago.

Turning to Asia...we had a slew of economic data from China, and it was telling.

GDP in the third quarter expanded 4.6%, annualized, down from 4.7% prior and the least in six quarters, and not the government’s targeted 5%.  China’s central bank moved to support markets, signaling it was going to continue a stimulus push to draw a line under the slowdown.

The People’s Bank of China disclosed more details, flagging the real estate and stock markets as key challenges in the economy that require targeted policy support.

While the GDP figure wasn’t great, there was better than expected other data for September...with retail sales up 3.2% year-over-year, industrial production 5.4% Y/Y, and fixed asset investment 3.4% (year-to-date), all of the above courtesy of the National Bureau of Statistics.

The retail sales figure was actually a four-month high, largely on the back of a government trade-in program that incentivizes purchasers of cars and appliances.

But September new home prices fell 6.1% from a year ago in 70 mainland cities, widening from a 5.7% slump in August.

Meanwhile September exports rose just 2.4% year-over-year, lower than the 6% forecast and down from a 17-month high of 8.7% in August, amid weak global demand.

Exports to the U.S. rose 2.2%, with shipments to the EU up 1.3%.  For the first nine months of 2024, exports grew to the U.S. by 2.8%, 0.9% to the EU and 10.2% to the ASEAN countries, according to the General Administration of Customs. 

Imports were also far less than consensus, up just 0.3% Y/Y.

September inflation rose a mere 0.4% from a year ago, while producer prices fell 2.8% Y/Y.

Japan reported September inflation rose 2.5%, down from 3% prior, and 2.1% ex-food and energy, so good news for the Bank of Japan.

September exports fell 1.7% year-over-year, worse than expected.  August industrial production fell 4.9% Y/Y.

Street Bytes

--More record highs...a sixth straight week of gains.  The economy is fine.  Earnings thus far are OK.  And the Dow Jones and S&P 500 closed at a record 43275 and 5864, respectively, up 1.0% and 0.8% on the week.  Nasdaq rose 0.8% and is just shy of its record.

More big earnings next week, and then the biggie the following one...all the major tech players.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 4.44%  2-yr. 3.95%  10-yr. 4.07%  30-yr. 4.38%

Consider that the Friday before the September rate cut the yield on the 10-year was 3.65%.  In five weeks, it is up to 4.07% (actually, in four weeks it was 4.08%...last week’s close), and you saw above what that means for mortgage rates.

Asked whether he would seek to remove Jerome Powell as head of the Federal Reserve, during an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago, Donald Trump sidestepped the question, instead mocking the chairman’s job.

“I think it’s the greatest job in government.  You show up to the office once a month and you say, ‘let’s say flip a coin’ and everybody talks about you like you’re a god,” Trump said.  He defended the right of the president to jawbone the Fed into raising or lowering rates – but then complained that Powell dropped rates too low after Trump expressed his displeasure at higher rates.

--Oil prices fell hard on Tuesday following reports suggesting that Israel might avoid targeting Iran’s oil infrastructure, alleviating fears of a major supply disruption in the region.

Also, the IEA (International Energy Agency) cut its demand growth forecasts, citing near-record spare capacity in OPEC+ and slowing demand in major markets like China.  World oil demand is projected to increase by just under 900,000 bpd in 2024 and 1 million bpd in 2025, marking a slowdown from the 2 million bpd growth seen after the pandemic.

Chinese oil demand is particularly weak, with consumption falling by 500,000 bpd in August for the fourth consecutive month.  Meanwhile, crude production in the Americas is expected to rise by 1.5 million bpd this year and next.

Monday, OPEC lowered its global oil demand forecast for 2024 and 2025 for the third consecutive month; demand to grow by 1.93 million bpd this year and 1.64 million in 2025, from 2.03m and 1.74m previously.

By week’s end, West Texas Intermediate was at $69.25...down $6 on the week.

--Gold topped $2,700 an ounce for the first time, now $2730, as concerns over escalating conflicts in the Middle East and a tight U.S. election race prompt investors to flock to safety. 

And silver had a major breakout to a nearly 12-year high, $33.60, so sell Mom’s sterling silver dinner flatware, kids!  Go into the pawnshop and say, “I know how valuable this is so don’t screw me....”  Or maybe not.

--Goldman Sachs’ third-quarter profit beat estimates, fueled by a rebound in bond sales, stock offerings and mergers, though the shares were largely unchanged on the release before rallying some the rest of the week.

“Our performance demonstrates the strength of our world-class franchise in an improving operating environment,” CEO David Solomon said in a statement on Tuesday.

Robust U.S. jobs and wage growth have underscored the resilience of the economy, while an interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve has also encouraged companies to pursue deals.

Investment banking fees jumped 20% to $1.87 billion.  Leveraged finance, which refers to loans made to risky ventures like funding buyouts, and investment-grade activity powered a jump in debt underwriting.

Equity underwriting also fetched higher revenue, thanks to a slew of secondary share sales.

Revenue from fixed income, currency and commodities trading fell 12%, while equities trading jumped 18%.

The bank also scored a key victory in the quarter, advising Cheez-it maker Kellanova on its nearly $36 billion acquisition by family-owned candy giant Mars, the biggest deal in the U.S. so far this year.

And GS benefited from easier comparisons with the year earlier, when it took sizeable writedowns on the consumer business and real estate investments.

Total profit jumped 45% to $2.99 billion, or $8.40 per share, for the three months ending Sept. 30, higher than expectations of $6.89 per share.

--Bank of America performed better than expected in the third quarter as the company reaped the benefits of volatile markets while net interest income topped analysts’ estimates.

BofA reported third-quarter earnings of 81 cents per share, beating consensus of 76 cents.  Net income for the nation’s second-largest bank dropped from a year ago, but at $6.9 billion handily beat expectations of $6.1 billion.

Revenue from equity and fixed income, currencies and commodities trading rose 12% to $4.93 billion in the third quarter, the company said in a statement Tuesday.  Investment banking revenue, up 15%, also outperformed expectations, another sign that the long-awaited rebound in dealmaking is taking hold.

The company benefited from “year-over-year growth in investment banking and asset management fees, as well as sales and trading revenue,” CEO Brian Moynihan said in a statement.

The second-largest U.S. bank said that net interest income fell 2.9% to almost $14 billion, but analysts had forecast a steeper drop.

Last month, Bank of America announced plans to open 165 new bank branches by the end of 2026.

The Merrill Lynch unit closed the third quarter with $3.5 trillion in client assets, up 18% from the same period in 2023.

--Citigroup posted a smaller-than-expected drop in profit for the third quarter thanks to gains in investment banking, sending its shares a bit higher Tuesday.

The third-largest U.S. lender’s dealmakers joined rivals at JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo in benefiting from a rebound in capital markets as corporate clients issued more debt and equity.

Investment banking revenue jumped 31% to $934 million. But bond trading revenue lagged, falling 6% to $3.6 billion.  The wealth management division, a key part of CEO Jane Fraser’s growth strategy, posted revenue growth of 9% in the quarter to $2 billion.

“In a pivotal year, this quarter contains multiple proof points that we are moving in the right direction and that our strategy is gaining traction,” Fraser said in a statement.

Total operating expenses declined 2% in the third quarter.

Citi’s total allowance for credit losses rose to about $22.1 billion at the end of the quarter, compared with $20.2 billion a year earlier.  That led to net income dropping to $3.2 billion, or $1.51 per share, compared with $3.5 billion and $1.63 a year earlier.

--Morgan Stanley said Wednesday that its profit for the third quarter surged 32% from a year ago, lifted by more activity out of its investment bank, notably across fixed-income underwriting work for clients. 

CEO Ted Pick said in a statement that the bank’s institutional securities division – where the investment banking and trading businesses sit – reflected momentum in the markets and underwriting businesses “on solid client engagement.”

“I’m bullish on IPOs and M&A coming back. It may take some time. And the size of the companies, when they come, will be likely larger.  So there will be slower unit volume than the sort of the heyday of post-Covid stimulus and quick listings,” Pick told analysts on the earnings call.  “But I think these are going to be global, mature companies, which very much need our advice.”

The bank’s net income rose 32% to $3.2 billion, or $1.88 a share, from $2.4 billion, or $1.38, during the third quarter of 2023.  Those results and revenue of $15.4 billion all topped the Street’s expectations.

The shares rose 6.5% on the news.

The company’s wealth business is among the largest in the world and manages nearly $6 trillion of client assets.

--Boeing, continuing to burn through cash, secured a new credit line and moved to raise at least $10 billion by selling new shares, in hopes of demonstrating that it can weather its current crisis.

The once mighty manufacturer has been hobbled this year by quality problems that surfaced after a midair mishap in January on a 737 MAX and more recently the machinist strike that has halted production of most Boeing planes.

The company’s regulatory filing told investors it could issue up to $25 billion in shares or debt during the next three years while also entering into a new $10 billion credit agreement with lenders.

The strike, which began last month, is exacerbating financial woes at the jet maker, which last turned a profit in 2018!

“Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a message to employees last week about the layoff plan.  “We need to be clear-eyed about the work we face and realistic about the time it will take to achieve key milestones.”

Separately, Boeing announced plans to cut as much as 10% of its workforce, or about 17,000 staff, as part of the company’s attempt to rebuild the finances.

Ortberg said in a memo: “The workforce reductions are what we have seen across smaller suppliers earlier this week [last week], signaling more to come across” the industry.

The company is delaying the rollout of a new plane, the 777X, to 2026 instead of 2025.

--U.S. authorities imposed a $4 million fine on German airline Lufthansa on Tuesday for denying boarding to 128 Jewish passengers on a flight in 2022, concluding they were discriminated against as part of the airline’s effort to handle the alleged misbehavior of some passengers.

The Department of Transportation said it was the largest civil rights fine it has ever imposed on an airline.

The passengers were traveling from New York to Budapest via Frankfurt in May 2022 for an event honoring an Orthodox rabbi.  Most of the passengers did not know each other and booked tickets individually or in small groups, according to investigators.

On the first leg of the trip, the crew alleged that some passengers had to be reminded not to congregate in aisles and galleys and had not complied with rules requiring masks that the German government imposed at the time.  But rather than determine who had failed to follow the rules, the transportation department said Lufthansa decided to deny boarding on a connecting flight to the 128 – many of whom officials said were men wearing distinctive Orthodox Jewish outfits.

Passengers interviewed by investigators said Lufthansa denied boarding “to everyone for the apparent misbehavior of a few, because they were openly and visibly Jewish.”

U.S. authorities concluded they had the power to investigate the incident because the flight originated in the United States.  Airlines can deny boarding to passengers who present a security risk but are not allowed to discriminate based on race or religion.

The videos of the episode were pretty awful, including one of a Lufthansa employee telling a passenger that “it was Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems.”

--United Airlines reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings after the close on Tuesday, $3.33 a share on revenue of $14.84 billion.  Analysts expected the legacy carrier to post an adjusted profit of $3.17, from sales of $1.48 billion.

UAL’s revenue rose 2.5% from the year-ago quarter, while its net income fell 15% to $965 million.

As the airline industry exited its unprofitable capacity trends in mid-August, where the volume of available seats exceeded demand, CEO Scott Kirby said United saw its revenue and demand improve.  Corporate revenues grew 13% year-over-year in September, premium revenues rose 5%, and basic economy revenue increased 20%.

For the fourth quarter, United projects adjusted earnings of $2.50 to $3.00 per share.

The shares ended up a whopping 12% on Wednesday.

--TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2023

10/17...104 percent of 2023 levels
10/16...102
10/15...105
10/14...105
10/13...99
10/12...101
10/11...106
10/10...92

I was kind of surprised how strong the week was, relatively.

--Airbus is cutting up to 2,500 workers from its struggling defense and space division as the European aerospace giant battles with program delays, increased costs and competition from the likes of SpaceX.

The division makes satellites and spacecraft to jet fighters and drones.  The cuts represent about 7% of the roughly 35,500 workers employed at the unit, according to its latest annual report.

--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. raised its target for 2024 revenue growth after quarterly results beat estimates, allaying concerns about global chip demand and the sustainability of an AI hardware boom.

The main chipmaker to Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc. now expects sales to climb roughly 30%, up from previous projections for about a mid-20% rise.  That’s after TSMC reported better-than-predicted earnings for the September quarter. And it foresees capital expenditure rising in 2025 from roughly $30 billion this year.

TSMC’s outlook should help tamp down concerns that investors misjudged AI and semiconductor demand.  Those fears crystallized after chip industry linchpin ASML Holding NV stunned markets by reporting about half the orders investors had expected.  On Thursday, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei sought to dispel those doubts.

“The demand is real and I believe it’s just the beginning,” Wei said, echoing a number of executives including Nvidia’s CEO.  In terms of overall chip demand, “everything’s stabilized and start to improve.”

TSMC’s American depositary receipts rose more than 10% in trading Thursday.  Netherlands-based ASML, which manufactures semiconductor equipment systems, had fallen over 20% Monday thru Wednesday.

--Netflix shares rose 9% after the streaming giant beat third quarter earnings and revenue estimates and projected sales for the current quarter that came in ahead of Wall Street’s expectations.

Revenue beat consensus of $9.78 billion to hit $9.83 billion in Q3, an increase of 15% compared to the same period last year, as the streamer continued to lean on revenue initiatives like its crackdown on password sharing and ad-supported tier, in addition to last year’s price hikes on certain subscription plans.

Netflix guided to fourth quarter revenue of $10.13 billion, a beat compared to the Street’s estimate of $10.01 billion.

For full-year 2025, the company sees revenue hitting between $43 billion and $44 billion compared to consensus estimates of $43.4 billion.  This would represent growth of 11% to 13% from the company’s expected 2024 revenue guidance of $38.9 billion.

EPS beat estimates in the quarter, with the company reporting $5.40, above consensus of $5.16 and well ahead of the $3.73 figure it reported in the year-ago period.  Netflix guided to fourth quarter EPS of $4.23, ahead of the Street’s $3.90.

Net income in the quarter rose to $2.3 billion.

Subscribers also came in strong with another 5.07 million subscribers added on the heels of breakout programming like “The Perfect Couple” and “Nobody Wants This.”  Netflix had 8.05 million net additions in Q2, and now has 282.7 million subscribers globally.

“We expect paid net additions to be higher in Q4 than in Q3’24 due to normal seasonality and a strong content slate,” the company said, citing upcoming releases like “Squid Game” Season 2, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, and two NFL games on Christmas Day.

Meanwhile, its ad tier continues to gain traction, accounting for over 50% of sign-ups in the countries where it’s offered during the third quarter.

Many analysts expected the company to raise the price of its standard subscription, which is $15.49 in the United States and hasn’t increased since Nov. 2022, but the company appears to be standing firm on its pricing structure in the U.S., though it has raised prices in some other countries.

--Blackstone beat Wall Street’s expectations on its key quarterly earnings metric on Thursday, as the world’s largest alternative investment firm’s assets under management hit a record $1.1 trillion and the value of its funds rose.

Over the past few quarters, high interest rates had been a drag on some aspects of Blackstone’s business.  With the Fed now entering into an easing cycle, the firm saw that weight starting to lift.

CEO Steve Schwarzman hailed the results as “broad-based acceleration across our business.”

Blackstone’s distributable earnings, which represent cash that can be used to pay dividends, totaled $1.3 billion in the third quarter, up 6% from the previous year.  This translated into distributable earnings per share of $1.01, surpassing analysts’ average estimate of $0.92.

--UnitedHealth Group’s third-quarter medical costs exceeded Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, as the insurer paid out more due to persistently high demand for healthcare services and received lower reimbursements on government-backed insurance plans.

Demand for healthcare services under the government’s Medicare plans – for people aged 65 years and older or those with disabilities – has surged since late last year as many older adults opted for procedures they had delayed during the pandemic.

UNH also trimmed the higher end of its annual adjusted profit forecast by 25 cents to $27.75 per share. This was partially due to an increased hit of 10 cents per share from a cyberattack on UnitedHealth’s technology unit, Change, in February.  UNH issued billions in loans to providers affected by the ransomware attack, and incurred costs related to notifying customers of the breach.

For the third quarter, UnitedHealth’s medical loss ratio – the percentage of premiums spent on medical care – stood at 85.2%, higher than the 82.3% reported a year earlier, as well as analysts’ estimate of 84.2%.

The company reported revenue of $100.8 billion, beating consensus of $99.28bn.

The shares fell 8% on the news, Tuesday, but rallied back some the rest of the week.

--Walgreens Boots Alliance said on Tuesday it would shut 1,200 stores over the next three years as new CEO Tim Wentworth plots a turnaround at the struggling pharmacy chain operator hit by sluggish consumer spending and low drug reimbursement rates.

The company narrowly beat Wall Street’s lowered estimates for fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted profit and forecast fiscal year earnings that were mostly in line with expectations.

Pharmacy chains face multiple challenges as consumers avoid high-priced grocery items and pressures mount on payments they receive from drug middlemen for filling prescriptions.

As a result, Walgreens’ stock is trading near 30-year lows and down over 60% for the year.

Walgreens had over 8,000 stores in the United States as of Aug. 31 last year.

--Walgreens rival CVS Health on Friday named company veteran David Joyner as new CEO, succeeding Karen Lynch who stepped down after an agreement with the board.  Shares of the company tumbled 6% on the new.

Joyner is president of the company’s pharmacy benefit manager CVS Caremark.  The changes comes on the back of repeated profit forecast cuts this year as the company’s insurance segment has struggled with rising medical costs.

“The board believes this is the right time to make a change, and we are confident that David is the right person to lead our company,” said Chairman Roger Farah.

The company also slashed third-quarter guidance today to $1.05 to $1.10 per share, down from an expected $1.69.  Yikes.

--Johnson & Johnson raised its 2024 profit and sales forecasts on Tuesday after reporting strong sales of oncology drugs and quarterly results that beat Wall Street expectations.

The company said it expected to post sales of between $89.4 billion and $89.8 billion for the year, but this was just a nudge up from previous guidance of $89.2bn to $89.6bn, with earnings per share between $9.86 and $9.96 for the year, including charges related to mergers and acquisitions, having previously forecast a range of $10 to $10.10.

J&J earned $2.42 per share on an adjusted basis in the third quarter, falling 9% on the previous year but beating consensus of $2.21.  Quarterly sales of $22.5 billion also beat expectations of $22.16bn.

Sales of J&J’s oncology drugs rose nearly 19% worldwide for the quarter, driven by sales of its cancer treatment Darzalex of more than $3 billion. 

Sales of J&J’s blockbuster psoriasis drug Stelara fell 6.6% to $2.68bn in the third quarter.  While sales for the year of Stelara should be over $10 billion, sales could fall to $7 billion in 2025 when as many as six close copies of the drug launch in the U.S.

--The cost of employer health insurance rose 7% for a second straight year, according to an annual survey by the healthcare nonprofit KFF (formerly The Kaiser Family Foundation).

--Procter & Gamble reported third-quarter earnings (first fiscal quarter) that beat earnings expectations, but fell short on revenue.

As an indicator of what is going on with the spending habits of the average shopper, net sales of $21.7 billion fell 1% from the year-ago quarter. Volume was flat, while prices rose 1%.

P&G maintained its outlook for 2025 all-in sales growth to a range of 2% to 4% from a year ago.

--The average selling price of a three-year-old electric vehicle in September was $28,400, according to car-shopping website Edmunds, a 25% drop from the start of 2023.  While the sharp decline could attract budget-conscious buyers, many current owners with auto loans who paid a premium for their cars now owe more than what they’re worth.

Employers have been absorbing this year’s higher premium costs, as they are sensitive to the limits of what workers can afford, according to KFF.

--SiriusXM shares rallied after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway raised its stake in the satellite radio company.  Berkshire now holds a stake of nearly one-third, though the shares have lost about half their value so far in 2024.

In August, SiriusXM signed a multi-year agreement with Alex Cooper to bring her popular “Call Her Daddy” show to its platform starting in 2025. The deal is reportedly for three years and worth $125 million, double her current arrangement with Spotify.

The move is part of a “comprehensive programming development strategy for exclusive content with SiriusXM, expected to begin rolling out in 2025,” the company said.

--The nationwide recall of meat and poultry products potentially contaminated with listeria expanded to nearly 12 million pounds and now includes ready-to-eat meals sent to U.S. schools, restaurants and major retailers, federal officials said this week.

The updated recall included prepared salads, burritos and other foods sold at stores including Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, Walmart and Kroger.  The meat used in those products was processed at a Durant, Oklahoma, manufacturing plant operated by BrucePac.

The same type of bacteria is responsible for an outbreak tied to Boar’s Head deli meat that has killed at least 10 people since May.

--I missed the passing of India’s leading industrialist, Ratan Tata, 86, on Oct. 9.

How big was this man?  Twenty-six Tata companies, employing more than a million people, are listed on India’s stock exchange.

Tata graduated with an architecture degree from Cornell University in the early 1960s, returning to a largely robust and profitable enterprise started by his great-grandfather.  Tata then consolidated the parts and prepared the company for globalization.

In his more than two decades at the helm, profits at Tata Group, owned by Tata Sons, multiplied 50 times, with most revenue coming from sales abroad.

One of the companies was Tata Starbucks, with founder Howard Schultz writing after learning of Tata’s death: “One of the great privileges of Starbucks expansion to India was meeting – and then building a personal friendship – with Ratan Tata, the visionary leader of the Tata conglomerate, a man of uncommon wisdom and character who helped turn his nation into a global economic power.”

Ratan Tata was a generous philanthropist, highly popular in his country.  Tata Memorial Hospital, for example, is India’s largest cancer center, and is famous for providing free treatments in a country with the most poor people in the world, where 800,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year.

Tata, who was unmarried and had no children, was Cornell’s largest-ever international donor.

One of his life lessons was, don’t lose empathy, even in the presence of great wealth.  [Karishma Vanjani / Barron’s]

Foreign Affairs, Part II

China: China’s military carried out snap drills Monday encircling the democratic island of Taiwan, and it did so with no 24-hour notification, no specific locations announced, and no end date for what it referred to as its Joint Sword 2024B exercises – the ‘A portion’ having occurred this past May.

Beijing’s stated objectives included a “blockade of key ports and areas,” and practicing an “assault on maritime and ground targets.”  China’s Coast Guard also patrolled the waters surrounding Taiwan over the course of the 12-hour exercise.

And Beijing set a new record for aerial pestering around Taiwan, using 153 aircraft (including warplanes, helicopter and drones) – 111 of which entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, according to the Taipei Defense Ministry.  It is the highest single-day total ever recorded, as reported by Defense News.

Taiwan’s defense ministry condemned China’s actions as “irrational and provocative” and vowed to “deploy appropriate forces to respond and defend our national sovereignty.”  It also distributed a map purporting to show China’s operating areas around the island.

The drills occurred four days after Taiwan President William Lai delivered his “National Day” speech I noted last week in which he said officials in Beijing have “no right to represent Taiwan” and that the democratic island is “not subordinate” to Beijing, the Taipei Times reports.

A Chinese military spokesman, Senior Captain Li Xi, said in a statement that the exercises are “a stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” and “a legitimate and necessary operation for safeguarding national sovereignty and national unity.”

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said in a statement Monday: “This military pressure operation is irresponsible, disproportionate, and destabilizing.  It is a long-standing tradition for Taiwan’s president to deliver remarks on [Oct. 10],” he said.  “It is a routine, domestic-focused address that has historically prompted little response from the [People’s Republic of China]. Still, the PRC has chosen this opportunity to take provocative, military action.”

President Xi Jinping then visited a coastal island in the province of Fujian (directly across from Taiwan), the strategic importance of which I’ve talked about before as I’ve traveled there a number of times.

Separately, from the Wall Street Journal:

“Beijing is conducting espionage activities on what Western governments say is an unprecedented scale, mobilizing security agencies, private companies and Chinese civilians in its quest to undermine rival states and bolster the country’s economy.

“Rarely does a week go by without a warning from a Western intelligence agency about the threat that China presents.

“Last month alone, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said a Chinese state-linked firm hacked 260,000 internet-connected devices, including cameras and routers, in the U.S., Britain, France, Romania and elsewhere.  A Congressional probe said Chinese cargo cranes used at U.S. seaports had embedded technology that could allow Beijing to secretly control them.  The U.S. government alleged that a former top aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was a Chinese agent....

“Western spy agencies, unable to contain Beijing’s activity, are raising the alarm publicly, urging businesses and individuals to be on alert in their interaction with China. But given the country is already deeply entwined in the global economy, it is proving a Sisyphean task, said Calder Walton, a national security expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  Western governments ‘are coming to terms with events, in many ways, after the events,’ he said.”

North Korea: A week after announcing it would block all roads from South Korea to North Korea, Pyongyang blew up the northern section of unused roads once linking it with the South, with the rivals exchanging threats days after the North claimed the South flew drones over its capital.

The roads’ choreographed demolition underlines North Korea’s growing anger against South Korea’s conservative government.  Kim Jong Un has vowed to sever relations with South Korea and abandon the goal of achieving peaceful Korean unification.

Observers don’t expect Kim to launch a preemptive, large-scale attack on South Korea because of fear that a massive retaliation, which would be a certainty, which come from the much more superior forces of South Korea and the United States and threaten Pyongyang’s survival.

North Korea then confirmed Thursday that its recently revised constitution defines South Korea as “a hostile state” for the first time.

Canada: Canada ordered six Indian diplomats to leave the country in notices that were sent Monday, after Canadian authorities identified them as being directly involved in gathering detailed intelligence on Sikh separatists who were then killed, attacked or threatened by India’s criminal proxies – in Canada – part of a broader campaign of violence against Indian dissidents directed by a senior official in the Indian government and an operative in the country’s spy agency.

India then issued a conflicting statement saying it had withdrawn the diplomats over concerns for their safety.  India later announced it had expelled six Canadian diplomats, including Canada’s top diplomat in New Delhi.

Canada has been conducting an ongoing investigation since the 2023 death of Hardeep Singh Niijar and other attacks stemming from an ongoing investigation that Canadian authorities said has uncovered extensive evidence linking a larger outbreak of violence in Canada to the administration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  The expelled Indian diplomats were described as “persons of interest” in their investigation.

A statement by India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Monday said that Modi’s government “strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda” of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Modi, a champion of Hindu nationalism, has revived concerns about the supposed threat posed by Sikhs living abroad.  Modi and his cronies have frequently accused Canada, which has the world’s largest population of Sikhs outside India, of harboring terrorists.

Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department charged an Indian official with orchestrating a “murder-for-hire” scheme in New York.  Prosecutors said the “senior field officer” paid a hitman $100,000 to assassinate an American-Canadian activist who was campaigning for an independent Sikh state in India.

Georgia: The big parliamentary election here is Oct. 26.  The ruling Georgian Dream party, an authoritarian, pro-Russian group, has threatened to ban all opposition parties if it wins a majority.  This could be the final call for Georgia’s democracy.

Georgian Dream rammed through a repressive “foreign agent” law earlier this year, modeled after legislation pioneered by Vladimir Putin.  Georgia’s citizens took to the streets in protest of what they called the “Russian law,” but in the end, Georgian Dream prevailed, overriding a presidential veto, and the legislation took effect.  It requires any nongovernmental or media organization receiving more than 20 percent of its funds from abroad, as many of Georgia’s 10,000 or so nonprofits do, to register with a public database that suggests they are “organizations serving in the interests of a foreign power.’

Polls show that nearly two-thirds of Georgians believe that the country is on the wrong track and that it is time for a change from Georgian Dream’s rule.  We’ll see what happens.

Moldova: This nation, which borders Ukraine (and Romania on the other side) is holding a contentious referendum, Sunday, on whether to amend its Constitution to enshrine the “irreversibility” of its “European course,” i.e., making EU membership a “strategic objective.”

But the country’s police chief said Russia is behind a massive disinformation campaign, with posters suddenly appearing overnight bearing a blunt message: “No EU,” Moscow trying to derail the referendum.

The police chief believes the operation was the work of Ilan Shor, a fugitive Moldovan oligarch sheltering in Moscow.

Mr. Shor was sentenced to 15 years in jail in connection with the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from the country’s banking system, and for years he has worked to promote Russia and stoke hostility to the West, but he’s ramped up the intensity of the campaign in recent months.

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings....

Gallup: New numbers...39% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 56% disapprove; 33% of independents approve (Oct. 1-12).  This is a big shift from the Sept. 16-28 survey that had the split 45-52, 43.  Not good for Kamala Harris.

Rasmussen: 42% approve, 56% disapprove (Oct. 18).

--According to USA TODAY and RealClearPolling, on October 10 in 2016, Hillary Clinton led Donald Trump, nationally, by 5.8 points.

In 2020, Joe Biden on Oct. 10 led Trump by 10 points.

On Oct. 10, 2024, Kamala Harris leads Trump by 1.8 points, a terrific sign for the Trump campaign, as Republicans are counting on what some pollsters have called the “hidden Trump vote,” although pollsters also say there’s no certainty that group still exists.

--In a new CBS News/YouGov national poll, Harris led by 3 points, 51%-48%.

A new NBC News national survey had Harris and Trump tied at 48% each.

A September NBC News poll had Harris leading Trump by 5 points, 49%-44%.

Both the CBS and NBC surveys were for head-to-head matchups.  In the NBC survey, if you added third-party candidates, Trump receives 47%, Harris 46% and a combined 7% picked other candidates or said they’re undecided.

The CBS/YouGov poll also found most Americans having a dour view of how “things in America are going,” with 36% saying they are going “very badly,” 30% saying they are going “somewhat badly,” 27% saying they are going “somewhat well” and 6% saying they are going “very well.”

The NBC poll found Harris with her biggest advantages over Trump among Black voters (84%-11%), young voters ages 18 to 34 (57%-37%), and white voters with college degrees (55%-41%).

Trump, meanwhile, leads among rural voters (75%-23%), white voters (56%-42%) and whites without college degrees (65%-33%).

Women support Harris (55%-41%), while men back Trump (56%-40%). 

Independent voters in this poll are essentially split...Harris receiving 44%, Trump 40%.

But in a bad sign for Harris, in the September NBC News poll, conducted after the Harris-Trump debate on Sept. 10, Harris’ popularity compared to earlier in the summer shot up, with 48% viewing her positively, and 45% negatively, a +3 net rating.

In the latest poll, Harris’ rating stands at 43% positive, 49% negative (-6), with the erosion coming mainly from independents and young voters.

Trump’s ratings on this front remain underwater, 43% positive, 51% negative (-8). But the 43% positive rating is Trump’s highest in the NBC News poll since he left office.

--In a Wall Street Journal survey of 4,200 swing-state voters in the seven major battleground states, overall, Trump gets 46% support and Harris 45%, on ballots that include third-party candidates where they will be offered as an option.

Independent voters are evenly divided as well, 40% for Harris and 39% for Trump

Individually...also including third-party candidates....

Arizona...+2 Harris
Georgia...+1 Harris
Michigan...+1 Harris
Nevada...+5 Trump
North Carolina...+1 Trump
Pennsylvania...+1 Trump
Wisconsin...+1 Harris

All of these, except Nevada, in the margin of error.

--In a New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll of two battleground states, among likely voters....

Arizona...51%-46% Trump
Pennsylvania...50%-47% Harris

The Times and Wall Street Journal surveys differ on these two states, albeit it’s a tie no matter how you look at it.

--A new Quinnipiac swing state poll among likely voters has....

Georgia: Trump 52%, Harris 45%, other candidates 2%
North Carolina: Harris 49%, Trump 47%, other candidates 1%

North Carolina Governor Race: Stein 52%, Robinson 40%, other candidates 4%

Trump leads on the ‘economy’ and ‘immigration’ in both Georgia and North Carolina.  Harris leads on ‘abortion.’

--In a Times/Siena poll of Hispanic voters, Kamala Harris only captures 56% to Donald Trump’s 37%...a 19-point margin.

This compares unfavorably to 2016, when Democrats had a 68%-28% margin with this bloc, and 2020, when it was 62%-36%.  [These last two figures based on post-election studies by the Pew Research Center, looking at exit polls.]

When it comes to likely Black voters...a Times/Siena poll has Harris at 78%, Trump 15%, or a 63-point margin.

But in 2016, Democrats voted 92%-7% for Hillary Clinton, an 85-point margin, and in 2020, 90%-9%, or 81 points.

So you see the huge issue for the Harris campaign among these two critical groups.

--Lance Morrow / Wall Street Journal

“The 2024 election isn’t a contest between the past and the future. It feels, instead, like a struggle between the past and the past.  If Mao Zedong were among us, he would call it the Conflict of the Two Olds.

“Donald Trump has been around for too long – an old man with the pouting grievances of a child.  He is a miracle of unassimilated experience.  His entire lifetime has gone by, yet he remains about 10 years old.  Every day is Groundhog Day – raucously repetitious and transactional.  He has never glimpsed his own shadow.  He doesn’t know it exists.

“A less interesting case psychiatrically, Kamela Harris is burdened with the reflexes of the Democratic past.  She’s been in office as Joe Biden’s vice president for nearly four years.  Before that, she preached the gospels of California’s sclerotic leftism.  As a senator and presidential candidate, she was undistinguished.  Now she rummages for ideas through the archives of the New Deal and the Great Society; she has the party’s bureaucratic elves give them a fresh coat of paint.  She endorses policies that got old in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time.  FDR tried and failed to pack the Supreme Court nearly 90 years ago.

“Ms. Harris stands above all for the Democrats’ master premise that ever-increasing government spending and interference in people’s lives – and in the energies of free enterprise – will, by force of bureaucratic inertia, amount to progress.

“People get sick of the choice between living inside Mr. Trump’s noisy mind and submitting to the Democrats’ bad old ideas.  It would be nice if one could think of Ms. Harris – 19 years younger than Mr. Trump, black and East Asian, and a woman – as the path to the future.

“But she is archaic.  It is even hackneyed to say that the next president must be elected for no better reason than that she is a woman of color....

“It has dawned on saner American voters that there is nothing inherently magical or necessary about having a woman of color as president.  Ms. Harris was a failed presidential candidate in 2020, dropping out before a single primary vote was cast; for more than three years, she was a mediocre vice president. She owns the Biden record, although she would rather not....

“Among skeptical voters, Mr. Trump’s refusal to discipline himself and be serious in spelling out his policy goals for a second term leaves an impression of someone frivolous, unstable.  Mr. Trump could solve the problem, but he won’t.

“Ms. Harris, on the other hand, is such a creature of her party’s habits – she has dwelt so long and comfortably in its landscape of exhausted ideas – that there isn’t much hope of her breaking through to a truly imaginative and original dimension worthy of the 21st century.

“In Mr. Trump’s favor, memories of his first term include a better economy, more-orderly borders, and the projection of American strength. But there is also a fear of signing on for four more years of his sinister childishness – or maybe, considering his advancing years, something worse....

“As the leaves turn, there’s that atmosphere of Saturday morning cartoons – or professional wrestling – that Mr. Trump brings with him everywhere. The real world is darkened by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and by assassination attempts in Pennsylvania and Florida. Rarely has history seemed so silly and so ominous at the same time....

“There may be a deeper reason for all this. As mankind penetrates further into the 21st century, the future becomes ever more difficult to manage or even to imagine – politically, biologically, electronically, environmentally, existentially.  No one knows what lies ahead, or what it will mean, or where it will wind up. The possibilities are extreme. At the far edge of the moral imagination, we hear the future’s sucking sound, pulling the world toward God knows what.”

--Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” last weekend that he is worried about the prospect of unspecified actions by what he dubbed “radical left lunatics” on Election Day, urging that the National Guard or U.S. military be deployed on American soil against those he labeled “the enemy from within.”

Host Maria Bartiromo asked Trump whether he was “expecting chaos on Election Day,” then listed what she called “outside agitators,” such as people on the terrorist watch list or migrants who have committed crimes.

“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” Trump replied.  “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics.”

Trump added: “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

The “enemy from within,” Trump argued in a later part of the interview, “is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries.”  He also singled out California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff for being more dangerous than Russia or China.

Kamala Harris, at a campaign rally in Erie, Pa., Monday, played a clip of Trump’s interview and said: “A second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous.  Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged,” Harris told the crowd.

--In an hour-long interview with Bloomberg News editor in chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club in Chicago, Trump did not directly respond to a question about whether he would respect and encourage a peaceful transfer of power after the election, and he falsely claimed that “you had a peaceful transfer of power” in 2021 when a violent mob assaulted the Capitol.

“It was love and peace,” Trump said of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump continued to falsely assert that the 2020 election was stolen and inaccurately described the reason for his failures to prove his claims in court.

“If you think an election is crooked, and I do 100 percent, if you think the day it comes when you can protest, you take a look at the Democrats, they protested 2016,” Trump said, veering off topic as he repeatedly did on questions throughout the event, which I watched in full.  “We want to have honest elections.”

Hillary Clinton accepted the results of the 2016 election.

Trump pushed falsehoods about Jan. 6.  He said the attack involved about 500 to 700 people, when more than 1,500 have been charged with federal crimes involving the attack, according to the Justice Department.

He said no one died from the violent riot except Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, but Babbitt was one of five people who authorities said died as a result of the siege.

Trump maintained that it was a peaceful transfer of power because he left Washington on Jan. 20, breaking with precedent and skipping the inauguration of his successor.

“I left the morning that I was supposed to leave.  I went to Florida.  And you have a very peaceful transfer,” he said.

When Trump said the transfer of power in 2021 was peaceful, Micklethwait said it was peaceful “compared with Venezuela, but it was by far the most, the worst transfer of power for a long time,” drawing boos from the audience, which was pathetic.

--In a combative interview with Fox News on Wednesday, which I didn’t watch live, Kamala Harris sought to deflect criticism over the administration’s handling of the border crisis, and her ties to President Biden.

“Let me be very clear, my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences and fresh and new ideas,” Harris said.

Of course, the vice president had said on “The View” that she couldn’t think of a decision she would have approached differently than the current president.

Interviewer Bret Baier opened the interview by pressing Harris on immigration, and Harris argued that the administration has taken the issue of immigration seriously and that many of the problems they were facing pre-dated her and Biden taking office and hit at Trump for his role in blocking a bipartisan bill that would have surged resources to address the border surge.

“We’ve had a broken immigration system transcending by the way Donald Trump’s administration even before.  Let’s all be honest about that.  I have no pride in saying that this is a perfect immigration system,” she said.

Harris said, “Our focus has been on fixing a problem.”

As Archie Bunker would have said, this is a bunch of crapola.

But Baier, in defending Trump when discussing the treatment for transgender inmates, that Trump didn’t actively advocate same, got Harris to respond that candidates had to take responsibility “for what happened in your administration.”

That line provides a convenient soundbite for Trump at a moment Harris’ campaign is seeking distance from Biden.

Harris devoted significant time during the interview to arguing she represented “a new generation of leadership,” but when asked what voters should turn the page from – particularly with polls showing many unhappy with the direction of the country – Harris focused her response on her opponent: “The last decade in which we have been burdened with the kind of rhetoric coming from Donald Trump.”

The vice president ticked off Fox and Bret Baier by showing up late for the interview and then her staff said her time was limited, in a ploy to pare down the allotted time to reduce the chance for mistakes.

Meanwhile, in a Univision town hall with Latino voters, Trump double-downed that Haitians were eating household pets in Springfield, Ohio, and “other things.”

When questioned on the events of Jan. 6, 2021, Trump said nothing improper happened that day.

“Nothing done wrong at all.  Nothing done wrong.  And action was taken. Strong action. Ashli Babbitt was killed.  Nobody was killed,” he said.

The audience reaction was almost comical, the looks of disbelief at what they were hearing, as well as disgust.

--A judge has blocked a new rule that requires Georgia Election Day ballots to be counted by hand after the close of voting.  The ruling came a day after the same judge ruled that county election officials must certify election results by the deadline set in law.

The State Election Board last month passed the rule requiring that three poll workers each count the paper ballots – not votes – by hand after the polls close.

But late Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote, that the so-called hand count rule “is too much, too late” and blocked its enforcement while he considers the merits of the case.

McBurney on Monday had ruled in a separate case that “no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance.”  When they are entitled to inspect the conduct of an election and to review related documents, he wrote, “any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to certify the election results or abstaining from doing so.”

Early in-person voting in Georgia began Tuesday and huge numbers turned out.

--WIRED magazine, an excellent publication, reviewed reports by the Department of Homeland Security, with analysts at DHS warning law enforcement that election deniers may attempt to bomb Drop Boxes.

Should this happen even once, I would love to see what Donald Trump would then say.

--Tom Nichols / The Atlantic:

“Last November, during a symposium at Mount Vernon on democracy, John Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general who served as Donald Trump’s second chief of staff, spoke about George Washington’s historic accomplishment – his leadership and victory in the Revolutionary War, his vision of what an American president should be.  And then Kelly offered a simple, three-word summary of Washington’s most important contribution to the nation he liberated.

“‘He went home,’ Kelly said.”

--Donations to Harvard University fell nearly 15% to $1.17 billion in the year that ended June 30, down from $1.38bn in the same period the year before, per the school’s financial report released Thursday.  Some high-profile donors said they would stop giving money to the school over its handling of antisemitism on campus.

--There is still a lot of misery in Florida following Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the death toll in Milton rising to 24, with hundreds of thousands still without power.

The death toll from Helene hit 250, with 124 confirmed in North Carolina, 72 of which are from Buncombe County, home to Asheville.  But Gov. Roy Cooper of N.C. said at least 80+ were still unaccounted for.

Meanwhile, federal emergency response workers (FEMA) were directed to stop operating last Saturday in hard-hit Rutherford County, N.C., because of concerns over “armed militia” threatening the workers in the region. That same day, law enforcement officials confirmed Monday, the sheriff’s office arrested an armed suspect for making such threats.

National Guard troops working in the area “had come across...trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA,” the U.S. Forest Service, working alongside FEMA, alerting federal agencies, as first reported by the Washington Post.

Relief operations resumed Sunday.

Misinformation and disinformation have been rampant in the area, including a rumor spread on social media that government officials planned to seize the devastated village of Chimney Rock, in Rutherford County, and bulldoze bodies under the rubble.  Authorities and news outlets debunked the assertion, but people still took to social media imploring militias to go after FEMA.

--The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest, has agreed to pay $880 million to 1,353 people who say they were sexually abused as children by Catholic clergy. The settlement, which experts said was the highest single payout by a diocese, brings L.A.’s cumulative total in sex abuse lawsuits to more than $1.5 billion.

--A SpaceX Starship rocket successfully landed upright Sunday alongside a massive metal landing tower as it was caught by two converging “chopstick” arms – another historic engineering breakthrough for the world’s largest and most powerful rocket.

Sunday’s launch marked the fifth test flight for Starship, which stands nearly 400 feet tall and is composed of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. The system is central to founder Elon Musk’s hopes to eventually colonize Mars and to NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon.  Musk still plans to launch about five uncrewed Starship missions to Mars in the next two years, with possible crewed missions to follow.

SpaceX said the spacecraft itself also experienced a successful flight and splashed down “precisely on target.”  But it was the booster’s safe landing that marked not only a historic feat of engineering but also a major milestone for SpaceX’s goal of full reusability for its rockets, which would enable more ambitious space missions, and with greater frequency.

“Big step toward making life multiplanetary was made today,” Musk posted on X after Sunday’s launch.

--NASA launched a rocket Monday on a quest to explore Jupiter’s tantalizing moon Europa and reveal whether its vast hidden ocean might hold the keys to life.

It will take Europa Clipper 5 ½ years to reach Jupiter, where it will hang out in orbit around the giant gas bag and sneak close to Europa during dozens of flybys.  [On average, Jupiter is 444 million miles from Earth.]

SpaceX launched the spacecraft on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center.

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Pray for the men and women of our armed forces...and all the fallen.

Pray for Ukraine...and the remaining hostages in Gaza.

God bless America.

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Gold $2734
Oil $69.25

Bitcoin: $68,590 [4:00 PM ET, Friday]

Regular Gas: $3.19; Diesel: $3.60 [$3.57 - $4.46 yr. ago]

Returns for the week 10/14-10/18

Dow Jones  +1.0%  [43275]
S&P 500  +0.8%  [5864]
S&P MidCap  +1.4%
Russell 2000 +1.9%
Nasdaq  +0.8%  [18489]

Returns for the period 1/1/24-10/18/24

Dow Jones  +14.8%
S&P 500  +22.9%
S&P MidCap  +15.0%
Russell 2000  +12.3%
Nasdaq  +23.2%

Bulls 57.6
Bears 22.0

Hang in there.

Brian Trumbore

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