Will RFK, Jr. & Tulsi Gabbard Get Confirmed? Plus, Is It Possible To Sue China For COVID?
Story #1: Quick Takes with The Crew: Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is tired of 'White Males Tears' and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL side with the DEI crazies. Plus, will President Donald Trump get all of his remaining cabinet nominees and is New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy harboring an illegal immigrant?
Story #2: Is it actually possible to bring a lawsuit against the nation of China for their role in the Covid-19 pandemic? A conversation with Missouri Attorney General, Andrew Bailey.
Story #3: Will responds to the insane reaction of some Lefty sports fans over his appearance on the podcast of his old colleague, Ryen Russillo. Are these sports fans the norm? Or have the bros won out?
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Chicago Tribune
39 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
How the Vatican manages money and where Pope Leo XIV might find more
VATICAN CITY — The world's smallest country has a big budget problem. The Vatican doesn't tax its residents or issue bonds. It primarily finances the Catholic Church's central government through donations that have been plunging, ticket sales for the Vatican Museums, as well as income from investments and an underperforming real estate portfolio. The last year the Holy See published a consolidated budget, in 2022, it projected $878 million, with the bulk paying for embassies around the world and Vatican media operations. In recent years, it hasn't been able to cover costs. That leaves Pope Leo XIV facing challenges to drum up the funds needed to pull his city-state out of the red. Anyone can donate money to the Vatican, but the regular sources come in two main forms. Canon law requires bishops around the world to pay an annual fee, with amounts varying and at bishops' discretion 'according to the resources of their dioceses.' U.S. bishops contributed over one-third of the $22 million collected annually under the provision from 2021-2023, according to Vatican data. The other main source of annual donations is more well-known to ordinary Catholics: Peter's Pence, a special collection usually taken on the last Sunday of June. From 2021-2023, individual Catholics in the U.S. gave an average $27 million (23.7 million euros) to Peter's Pence, more than half the global total. American generosity hasn't prevented overall Peter's Pence contributions from cratering. After hitting a high of $101 million in 2006, contributions hovered around $75 million during the 2010's then tanked to $47 million during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many churches were closed. Donations remained low in the following years, amid revelations of the Vatican's bungled investment in a London property, a former Harrod's warehouse that it hoped to develop into luxury apartments. The scandal and ensuing trial confirmed that the vast majority of Peter's Pence contributions had funded the Holy See's budgetary shortfalls, not papal charity initiatives as many parishioners had been led to believe. Peter's Pence donations rose slightly in 2023 and Vatican officials expect more growth going forward, in part because there has traditionally been a bump immediately after papal elections. The Vatican bank and the city state's governorate, which controls the museums, also make annual contributions to the pope. As recently as a decade ago, the bank gave the pope around $62.7 million a year to help with the budget. But the amounts have dwindled; the bank gave nothing specifically to the pope in 2023, despite registering a net profit of $34.2 million, according to its financial statements. The governorate's giving has likewise dropped off. Some Vatican officials ask how the Holy See can credibly ask donors to be more generous when its own institutions are holding back. Leo will need to attract donations from outside the U.S., no small task given the different culture of philanthropy, said the Rev. Robert Gahl, director of the Church Management Program at Catholic University of America's business school. He noted that in Europe there is much less of a tradition (and tax advantage) of individual philanthropy, with corporations and government entities doing most of the donating or allocating designated tax dollars. Even more important is leaving behind the 'mendicant mentality' of fundraising to address a particular problem, and instead encouraging Catholics to invest in the church as a project, he said. Speaking right after Leo's installation ceremony in St. Peter's Square, which drew around 200,000 people, Gahl asked: 'Don't you think there were a lot of people there that would have loved to contribute to that and to the pontificate?' In the U.S., donation baskets are passed around at every Sunday Mass. Not so at the Vatican. The Vatican has 4,249 properties in Italy and 1,200 more in London, Paris, Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland. Only about one-fifth are rented at fair market value, according to the annual report from the APSA patrimony office, which manages them. Some 70% generate no income because they house Vatican or other church offices; the remaining 10% are rented at reduced rents to Vatican employees. In 2023, these properties only generated $39.9 million in profit. Financial analysts have long identified such undervalued real estate as a source of potential revenue. But Ward Fitzgerald, the president of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation, which finances papal charities, said the Vatican should also be willing to sell properties, especially those too expensive to maintain. Many bishops are wrestling with similar downsizing questions as the number of church-going Catholics in parts of the U.S. and Europe shrinks and once-full churches stand empty. Toward that end, the Vatican recently sold the property housing its embassy in Tokyo's high-end Sanbancho neighborhood, near the Imperial Palace, to a developer building a 13-story apartment complex, according to the Kensetsu News trade journal. Yet there has long been institutional reluctance to part with even money-losing properties. Witness the Vatican announcement in 2021 that the cash-strapped Fatebenefratelli Catholic hospital in Rome, run by a religious order, would not be sold. Pope Francis simultaneously created a Vatican fundraising foundation to keep it and other Catholic hospitals afloat. 'They have to come to grips with the fact that they own so much real estate that is not serving the mission of the church,' said Fitzgerald, who built a career in real estate private equity.
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
OPEC head lashes out at net-zero targets, tells Calgary audience oil demand will keep growing
There is no peak in oil demand on the horizon and global demand could surpass 120 million barrels per day by 2050, says the head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Secretary general Haitham Al Ghais also took aim at net-zero targets during his keynote address at the Global Energy Show Canada in Calgary on Tuesday, and reiterated his previous criticism of the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s prediction that global oil demand could peak before 2030. He said global demand for all forms of energy will increase by 24 per cent between now and 2050. 'OPEC's forecasts are not based on ideology. They are based on data and analysis of data,' he said. 'And they clearly indicate that oil will remain an integral part of the energy mix, at around 30 per cent, still in 2050. Simply put, ladies and gentlemen, there is no peak in oil demand on the horizon.' Total global demand for oil in 2024 was a bit less than 103 million bbl/d, according to IEA figures. Al Ghais also praised Canada as a major global oil supplier and said Alberta and OPEC share similar perspectives on technology and innovation. He is set to meet with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on the sidelines of the Global Energy Show this week. 'This will provide an opportunity to improve our understanding of the recent changes to the OPEC+ supply philosophy, ensuring Alberta is prepared for any implications it may have on global oil production and budgets,' a spokesman for Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean said. Global oil prices plunged to a four-year low in April after OPEC and its allies surprised markets by hiking output by 411,000 barrels per day for May — an amount that was three times more than what was previously planned for the month — in a move that coincided with the launch of United States President Donald Trump's sweeping 'Liberation Day' tariffs on trading partners. Similar-sized production hikes planned for June and July continue to depress oil prices as OPEC+ accelerates plans to revive production that has been off-line for more than two years. The eight OPEC+ members aim to gradually restore around 2.2 million barrels per day of production that was idled in 2022 in order to stabilize prices amid fears of a COVID-19-induced economic slowdown. The latest hikes are also aimed at punishing overproduction by OPEC+ members Kazakhstan and Iraq, though Bloomberg News has also reported that Saudi Arabia is seeking to regain lost market share. More to come… Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Forget about the Fed's dual mandate—this investment advisor says they've added a third mandate, and won't be cutting rates anytime soon
After running interest rates near zero for a decade and a half, the Federal Reserve has turned cautious and is unlikely to cut anytime soon, according to Jeff Klingelhofer, a managing director and portfolio manager for Aristotle Pacific Capital. That's because the central bank is concerned about social stability and inequality following its brush with record-high inflation—and low rates make inequality worse. Most everyone knows about the Federal Reserve's dual mandate. Set by Congress, the charge for the U.S. central bank is twofold: Create the conditions for stable prices (i.e., low inflation) and maximum employment. (The third mandate—to moderate long-term interest rates—flows naturally out of keeping inflation steady.) Increasingly, though, the third mandate is changing, according to Jeff Klingelhofer, a managing director and portfolio manager for Aristotle Pacific Capital, an investment advisory. And that new task is social cohesion. It's a tough call for an entity that has seemed somewhat battered in recent years, bruised by its failure to catch COVID-era inflation in time and, increasingly, in a fight with the president of the United States, who is pressing on the Fed's nominally independent head to lower interest rates. 'It's out with the old—financial stability—and in with the new: social stability,' Klingelhofer told Fortune. Klingelhofer notes that, before the 2007–2009 Global Financial Crisis, the Fed used to be very proactive in raising interest rates, hiking them well before any sign of inflation. Post-crisis, when unemployment was stubbornly slow to fall, critics accused the Fed of hiking rates too quickly and stymieing the recovery. (The Fed's first rate cut came in late 2015, with unemployment at 5% and the Fed's preferred measure of inflation at just 1%.) Inflation didn't come close to hitting the Fed's 2% target for seven years after the hike. Years later, two Fed governors admitted they got the balance wrong and should have kept rates lower for longer. In 2020, that shifted. The Fed, by keeping rates low, 'learned the biggest wage gains went to the lowest earners,' Klingelhofer said. 'Coming out of COVID, the third mandate was social stability, compression of the wage gap.' But the central bank also got burned with its prediction that inflation would be 'transitory.' That miss, coupled with the fastest and steepest rate-hiking cycle in modern history, has made the central bank loath to move too quickly on cutting rates this time. This shift is evident in the tenor of Chair Jerome Powell's speeches, starting at Jackson Hole, Wyo., in 2022. 'Without price stability, the economy does not work for anyone,' Powell said in 2022, adding that the Fed was 'taking forceful and rapid steps to moderate demand…and to keep inflation expectations anchored.' 'We will keep at it until we are confident the job is done,' he said. That experience has pushed the Fed from proactive to reactive, Klingelhofer said. 'They'll need to see inflation below 2%, and think it'll stay there.' If a recession hits, 'I don't think the Fed will step in as they have in the past,' he added. 'Maybe if it's a deep recession, with high unemployment, and inflation falls below 2% dramatically—maybe.' Historically low interest rates had another effect—they redistributed wealth upward by encouraging asset bubbles. In this way, as a recent body of economic research has shown, low rates have contributed to skyrocketing wealth inequality. Low interest rates tend to juice stock-market appreciation, benefiting the 10% of the population that owns more than 90% of stock, and encourage investors to create novel assets as they chase bigger returns. These benefits accrue most to those who have the biggest financial assets—i.e., the wealthiest—while doing little for the poor. And while low rates encourage higher employment, 'the 1% of Americans who own 40% of all the assets just get tremendous gains before that first job is created for the middle class,' said Christopher Leonard, who criticized the Fed's ultra-low-rate policies in The Lords of Easy Money, a 2022 book describing this dynamic. In this way, he said, the Fed exacerbates the gap between the ultrarich and the rest of us, which he called 'the defining economic dysfunction of our time.' It's another argument against cutting rates, in addition to the risk of reigniting inflation—whose burdens, as Powell repeatedly notes, '[fall] heaviest on those who are least able to bear them.' 'The alchemy of low interest rates is over,' Klingelhofer says. He isn't convinced the Fed has that much influence on rates like the 10-year Treasury, which closely influences mortgage rates. These bonds trade in international markets where investors buy or sell them based on how they perceive the risks of U.S. debt. 'Where should 10-year Treasuries be? With inflation at 3%, and the government running 6%–7% deficits, 4.5% feels roughly correct,' he said. In fact, some economists say the Fed cutting rates would be perceived as a recession indicator—and would have the opposite effect, sending bond yields and interest rates soaring. As Redfin economics research head Chen Zhao told Fortune previously, 'the Fed only controls that one Fed funds rate. Everything else is determined by markets.' This story was originally featured on
