Sun: Debunking Debanking

Debunking Debanking

His statement looks like word salad if you’re not steeped in MAGA world, but there are two stories behind Trump’s torrent of words. The first is that Trump always blurts out whatever is uppermost in his mind, suggesting he is worried by the fact that large banks will no longer lend to him. The Trump Organization’s auditor said during a fraud trial in 2022 that the past 10 years of the company’s financial statements could not be relied on, and Trump was forced to turn to smaller banks, likely on much worse terms. Now the legal case currently underway in Manhattan will likely make that financial problem larger. The judge has already decided that the Trump Organization, Trump, his two older sons, and two employees committed fraud, for which the judge is currently deciding appropriate penalties.

The second story behind his statement, though, is much larger than Trump.

Since 2023, right-wing organizations, backed by Republican state attorneys general, have argued that banks are discriminating against them on religious and political grounds. In March 2023, JPMorgan Chase closed an account opened by the National Committee for Religious Freedom after the organization did not provide information the bank needed to comply with regulatory requirements. Immediately, Republican officials claimed religious discrimination and demanded the bank explain its position on issues important to the right wing. JPMorgan Chase denied discrimination, noting that it serves 50,000 accounts with religious affiliations and saying, “We have never and would never exit a client relationship due to their political or religious affiliation.”

But the attack on banks stuck among MAGA Republicans, especially as other financial platforms like PayPal, Venmo, and GoFundMe have declined to accept business from right-wing figures who spout hate speech, thus cutting off their ability to raise money from their followers.

Forget Infinity and Beyond.  Just Getting to the Moon is Hard.

Japan’s recent lunar landing, becoming the fifth nation to complete a soft landing after India last August, showcased the challenges of returning to the moon. The moon lacks air, of course, making parachute deployment impossible. Only rocket engines can be used, requiring precise adjustments to achieve a near-zero speed touchdown. Landing on the moon is a complex task that requires radar and laser measurements to monitor altitude and carefully manage fuel consumption. The objective is to avoid premature depletion while ensuring a safe landing without any horizontal displacement. And the delicate onboard instruments must be protected from potential damage upon impact.

The challenge is such that NASA has chosen to delay the Artemis program, pushing back its crewed lunar landing until at least 2026. Uncrewed landers have also met with frequent failure. In the past decade, no privately-funded attempts have succeeded, with only China and India making successful soft landings.

Who Won the Week?

Special election winner Tom Keen, for flipping from red to blue the state House District 35 seat in Florida

Judge Lewis Kaplan, for tolerating no shenanigans during the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, and swiftly shutting down stalling tactics by Trump's incompetent lawyer

Voters in Taiwan, for electing pro-democracy candidate Lai Ching-te despite lots of whining and complaining from China that he's “a troublemaker”

President Biden: targets excessive bank overdraft fees; leads response to shipping attacks by Houthis; forgives $5B in student debt; record-setting $97 million reelection haul in 4th quarter

Ukraine, for downing half a billion dollars worth of Russian command-and-control aircraft while sending drones to strike oil depot and buzz Putin's residence in St. Petersburg

Elton John, for joining the coveted EGOT club Monday night by adding an Emmy to his Grammy, Oscar, and Tony

Wisconsin Judge Ann Peacock for informing MAGA election deniers in the legislature that Elections administrator Meagan Wolfe is legally holding her position and they can all go pound sand

The throng of protesters, including a small army of grandmas, who showed up at the "Moms For Liberty" town hall in Manhattan to let the hate group know they weren't welcome there

House Democrats, for being the grownups in the chamber yet again by preventing MAGA saboteurs from shutting down the government (You're welcome, Speaker Johnson)

Dropping Leaflets Is Better than Bombs

Israeli forces have dropped leaflets in Gaza asking residents for help finding hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, as bombardment of the besieged strip continues.

The leaflets dropped in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza strip, on Saturday featured photos of 33 hostages with their names written in Arabic.

"Do you want to return home? Please make the call if you recognize one of them," the leaflets read, per Reuters.

Hamas took around 240 hostages to Gaza from Israel after its surprise attack in October. Since then, more than 100 hostages have been released as part of temporary cease-fire agreements.

Israel says that 132 hostages remain unaccounted for, of which around 27 are believed to be dead, per Reuters.

The leaflets were dropped in Rafah, where over a million Palestinians are taking shelter amid intense bombing and fighting between Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian fighters in the enclave.

"They are asking people's help because they are unable to get to their hostages because of the resistance," Abu Ali, a north Gaza resident, told Reuters. "End the war, Netanyahu, and get your people back."
Meanwhile, more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its aerial bombardment campaign and ground invasion, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its death toll but says around two-thirds of those killed were women and children, which is supported by United Nations estimates.

Maybe They Should Offer Cheeseburgers for Tips

It's Shrinking!  It's Shrinking!

2024 is the year of the incredible shrinking China.

The country's growth has been treated like an inevitability for decades. Everything was getting bigger — its cultural influence, geopolitical ambition, population — and seemed poised to continue until the world was remade in China's image. The foundation for this inexorable rise was its booming economy, which allowed Beijing to throw its might around in other areas. But now China's economy is withering, and the future Beijing imagined is being cut down to size along with it.

The clearest sign of this diminishment is China's worsening deflation problem. While Americans are worried about inflation, or prices rising too fast, policymakers in Beijing are fretting because prices are falling. The consumer price index has declined for the past three months, the longest deflationary streak since 2009. In the race for global economic supremacy, deflation is an albatross around Beijing's neck. It's a sign that the Chinese economic model has well and truly run out of juice and that a painful restructuring is required. But beyond the financial problems, the sinking prices are a sign of a deeper malaise gripping the Chinese people.

"China's deflation is the deflation of hope, the deflation of optimism. It's a psychological funk," Minxin Pei, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College, told me.

The fallout won't be contained to China's shores. Because the country's growth sent money stampeding around the globe over the past few decades, its contractions are creating a seesaw effect in global markets. The foreign investors who helped to power China's rise are running to avoid catching the funk on their balance sheets, and governments the world over are starting to question the narrative of China, the dauphin. What Beijing does — or fails to do — to fight this malaise will determine the course of humanity for decades to come.

China's rapidly dwindling future will shape the world for decades to come