China Finds New Way to Hurt US; Migrant Crisis at Breaking Point

happy Tuesday everybody and thank you very much for being here with me appreciate you tuning in so I want to start off today's episode with China's property sector and I think you already know what I'm going to say it's not looking good it's taking hit after hit after hit and the latest one to China's property industry is credit ratings agency S&P Global putting one of the country's largest property developers on a downgrade warning the ratings agency labeled the Chinese developer of vanka's credit Outlook to negative now previously the real estate giant had a stable Outlook this move is adding fuel to the flame for the troubled developer because Vanka was downgraded to junk status by another ratings agency Moody Vanka is one of the few remaining Chinese property developers with a positive credit rating by International firms but it's actually precisely because of this reason that any debt repayment trouble could further decimate property Market confidence in China so circumstances appear very dire for the real estate giant because has even caught the attention of the Chinese regime authorities so in a very rare move China is asking major Banks to intervene in the situation big Chinese financial institutions are reportedly scrambling to bail out state-backed Vanka to prevent something similar from happening that resembles China evergr and Country Garden which both have defaulted on their debts and are at risk of being liquidated Chinese State media reported that 12 major Banks including the six largest state-owned lenders were in talks to provide a loan for Vanka worth as much as 11 billion and the goal here is of course to help the company meet upcoming repayment deadline V's sales have collapsed in recent months pummeled by a deterioration in demand for apartments in China's property sector as well as the slump in home prices vanka's contracted sales declined 10% in 2023 and in January 2024 its sales dropped by a whopping 32% investors as well have been dumping Bank of shares in the past few months its Hong Kong listed stock has lost nearly 30% since November which is very significant Beijing has been scrambling to fix its real estate prices since 2001 but the stimulus measures rolled out by Chinese authorities have so far failed to revive the sector but besides property sector Wows new loans in China last month dipped more than expected data shows Chinese Banks extended just 1.4 trillion Yan in loans in February that is down sharply from a record high in January household loans mostly mortgages and corporate loans both dropped compared to January outstanding loans Grew From A year earlier and stands at the lowest on record and now let me explain why this is very Troublesome for China reduced credit and liquidity in the economy means reduced purchasing power and investment opportunities credit Powers businesses to expand which then leads to more jobs and more consumption the decline in loans would have the opposite effect the decline loans comes despite the central bank trying to spark the sluggish economy and fight deflationary pressures meanwhile it seems like China has found new ways to hurt the United States while the US has tried to cut off China from sophisticated chip technology China has responded by cutting itself off Beijing is now directing domestic electric vehicle manufacturers to avoid a foreign semiconductors if at all possible and this is according to sources who spoke with Bloomberg us chip makers like nedia stand to lose a major source of Revenue this is part of China's campaign to reduce dependence on Western Imports and boost its own semiconductor industry and now on to Wall Street main indexes closed higher yesterday with mega cap growth stocks like alphabet and Tesla supporting a rebound in the technology heavy NASDAQ and this this is all while investors also waited anxiously for the US federal reserves meeting this week here's a quick recap of markets wall Street's main indexes ended higher on Monday led by Mega cap growth stocks such as alphabet and Tesla while investors also awaited this week's Federal Reserve policy meeting the Dow ticked up 2/10 of a percent the S&P 500 gained more than 6/10 while the tech heavy NASDAQ climbed 8/10 of a percent Google parent alphabet gained nearly 45% after a media report that apple is in talks to build Google's Gemini AI engine into the iPhone that's a partnership investors would welcome says Chris Cary portfolio manager at Carnegie investment Council apple is one of the last major tech companies that is yet to really talk about their Endeavors into the world of world of AI they've been very kept very uh they kept their details very close to their chest on this one so I think it's very encouraging that they've chosen to partner with Google a company that they have a longlasting relationship with in terms of Google being the default provider for search and so I think that this is quite encouraging to investors to see that alet is so apple is trying to take this seriously in other AI news shares of Nvidia added more than half a percent but closed well below their session High the world's leading AI chip maker kicked off its annual developer conference Monday with Chief Executive Jensen hang unveiling the new flagship AI chip the Blackwell b200 Tesla shares finished up more than 6% after the electric car maker said it would soon increase the price of its model yevs in parts of Europe and shares of server maker super micro computer which joined the S&P 500 on Monday gave up earlier gains to close down nearly 65% making it the bigest percentage decliner on the day in The Benchmark index its shares however are up roughly 280% so far this year investors now look to the Federal Reserve for updates on when possible rate Cuts May begin with the central bank's March policy meeting concluding on Wednesday now on to Nvidia chief executive Jensen hang on Monday kicked off his company's annual developer conference with the slew of announcements designed to keep the chipmaker in a dominant position in the artificial intelligence industry here's more information Nvidia unveiled a new speedier AI chip on Monday that may help it extend its lead in artificial intelligence I would like to introduce you to a very very big GPU chief executive Jensen Wong unveiled the chip called the b200 Blackwell at the company's annual developer conference it takes two squares of silicon each the size of the company's current must have chip the h100 and binds them together into a single piece Nvidia said the b200 is 30 times speedier than its previous chip at tasks like serving up answers from chatbots but Wong did not give specific details on price or how well it performs when training those chatbots which has generally been nvidia's bread and butter the company also said major customers including Amazon Google Microsoft and open AI are expected to use the chip for their own AI offerings still the news seem to fail to provide new fuel for a rally which has seen Nvidia sore to become the third most valuable company in the US over the past year an Nvidia stock dipped 1.4% during the keynote what Nvidia announced Monday will help it decide whether the company can maintain its 80% share of the market for AI chips many analysts expect nvidia's market share to drop several points this year as new products from competitors come to Market and nvidia's largest customers make their own chips and creators on YouTube will soon have to label anything that is not actually their own creation so what I mean is the video sharing platform has ruled out new rules for AI generated content users will have to disclose if their content Alters a real person's actions or words or Alters a real place or an event now if there are realistic scenes that aren't real they have to label that as well the platform will add a label in the description on the screen for noting that the video contains altered or synthetic content and in a post online YouTube said that violators could have their content removed or even be suspended from the partner platform now this is how actually most creators make money from their videos so it's very significant Here YouTube added that any content that breaks its Community guidelines labeled or not will be removed meanwhile Arizona migrant shelter Network that has housed thousands of Asylum Seekers plans to Halt most operations in 2 weeks when funding from Washington runs out this is a problem for towns along the border where officials fear a surge in homelessness and extra costs here's more on the situation this migrant shelter in Tucson Arizona is one of five in a network in Pima County that is collectively served and estimated 180,000 Asylum Seekers over the last decade but these families sleeping on spots could soon find themselves homeless once federal funds for migrant shelters run out at the end of the month in the Kasa leaders network of shelters says it will soon be forced to Hal most operations after March 31st M of for FS are going to go to a cliff Suzanna seelig is the associate director for Casa Litas my main concern after March 31st is what is going to happen to those other 960 people per day that are coming through the Border or daily average brid is about 1,000 people but we have had days like in November where we receive up to 100 1,800 people in just one day at one of the casalita shelter sites last week migrants rested on cats and received meals clean clothes toiletries and assistance planning onward travel Sarah Vasquez Gonzalez came with her husband and three of her six children from chapas Mexico where cartel violence has driven Mexican families to flee to the US what we experienced in chapus was not easy because two criminal organizations arrived and we saw shootings my husband stayed there taking care of our things and he would just hide behind the doors my house was completely shot at my mom lives in another area and that's where we found Refuge Pima County estimated 400 to a th000 migrants with nowhere to stay could start arriving daily in Tucson beginning in April Jan leer the Pima County Administrator TR said the county simply cannot afford the roughly $1 million per week that previously would have been covered by federal funds $48 million a year is not something that can be easily absorbed into a puma County budget particularly in a year where we're all looking at making budget cuts we refer to it as homelessness on steroids we're going to take individuals who are already homeless in the community we have that population uh who are uh houselessness homeless in this in this area and adding to that an additional thousand people a day funding predicaments similar to Puma counties are playing out in other border regions and Far Away cities like New York City Chicago and Denver that have received migrants as in Tucson local governments anticipate that without federal dollars communities will face significantly more migrants living on their streets putting a greater Demand on police hospitals and sanitation services Congress faces a Friday deadline to fund the US Department of Homeland Security which pays for migrant services along with other federal agencies current money could be temporarily extended as a stop Gap measure to keep DHS and other federal agencies running now buying and selling homes will soon look very different under a $418 million settlement made with the National Association of Realtors now a major change is the L held 6% split between the buyers and broker and sellers Brokers being cut out the commission can be negotiated and sellers can shop around for rates buyers will enter an agreement with their broker and pay directly instead of financing that commission as part of the mortgage commissions will no longer be disclosed on listing services either which critics say kept commissions artificially high and led Brokers to push for more expensive homes industry experts expects home to be cheaper as real estate commissions come down if a judge approves the settlement it's expected to take effect around July now there can be as many as five generations in the office right now and in some cases workplace attitudes don't align but there are some takeaways from older workers here's the story the house a high-profile example of five generations in a workplace the silent generation Boomers Gen X Millennials and gen Z we have more Generations in the workplace than ever before because people are living and working longer that on its own creates workplace challenges but multi-generation work expert Lindsay Pollock says the covid-19 pandemic's disruptions added more layers especially for Gen Z they just don't have that experience of being in some of the situations that maybe older Generations might take for granted amid talk of their more casual approach to interviews even to showing up on time career strategist Julie bowy says gen z may have other priorities because they have so many career options so they are less likely to follow the edicts the Declarations of an employer because they see work as a collaborative experience not as a top down you tell me what to do and I do it well that might hurt co-workers balky says genz workers are taking a firmer stance on work life balance than older Generations it appears the us could be working on a spy satellite network with the help of SpaceX according to sources who spoke to Reuters the sources said SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with the US intelligence agency the national reconnaissance office the sources explained that if this is successful the US government and Military will be able to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere in the world in a statement that nro acknowledged that it's developing a sophisticated satellite system but declined to comment on spacex's involvement the sources said spacex's star Shield business unit signed the nearly $2 billion contract in 2021 this is separate from spacex's starlink which is working to provide internet all over the world and an unwelcome Milestone at the gas pump prices are higher now than they've ever been all year according to Triple A the national average price for regular gas climbed to $347 a gallon on Monday that's up from $345 a year ago this is the first time since December that prices have been up on a year-over-year basis industry experts say while demand usually increases as the weather warms up other factors are causing prices to Skyrocket specifically recent drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and refiner outages as well caused by extreme cold over the winter apple is in talks to build Google's Gemini artificial intelligence engine into the iPhone Bloomberg News reported on Monday side add people familiar with the situation take a look at this Apple's iPhone could be getting a Google AI upgrade Bloomberg reported on Monday the two Tech Giants are in talks to build Google's artificial intelligence engine Gemini into the iPhone citing people familiar with the situation the report said Apple's upcoming iPhone software update is set to include new capabilities based on its own AI models but that the company is Seeking a partner to power generative AI features including functions for creating images and writing essays based on simple prompts the two parties are still discussing terms of the partnership and Bloomberg added it was unlikely that any deal would be announced until Apple's annual worldwide developers Conference in June the world's biggest phone maker has also held discussions with Microsoft backed open Ai and considered using its model according to the report Apple Google and open aai did not immediately respond to a reuter's request for comment outside business hours Apple has been slower in rolling out generative AI than Rivals Microsoft and Google which are already weaving them into products last month Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company will disclose more about its future plans for generative AI later this year adding that the company is investing quote significantly in the area and shell weakened its 2030 carbon reduction Target and scrapped a 2035 objective citing expectations for strong gas demand and uncertain cty in the energy transition even as it affirmed a plan to cut emissions to Net Zero by 2050 take a look at this report energy giant shell scaled back climate Targets on Thursday it weakened its carbon reduction Target for 2030 and cancelled an objective set for 2035 CEO W saan told Reuters this was because the outlook for the global energy transition was still uncertain he further said trying to be for forensic about Shell's emissions in 2035 was perilous but the firm stuck to its plan to cut emissions to Net Zero by 2050 the changes are a key part of San's strategy revamp to boost returns he wants to focus on higher margin projects steady oil output and growth in the production of natural gas rival BP made a similar move last year when it pulled back on oil production and emission reduction targets the companies have faced growing investor pressure to boost returns shell said it will Target a 15 to 20% reduction in net carbon intensity of its energy products by 2030 compared with 2016 intensity levels it had previously aimed for a 20% cut shell said it believed gas and liquefied natural gas will play a critical role in the energy transition and sees it replacing more polluting carbon in power plants shell also maintained its Target to half emissions from its own oper operations by 2030 un lever plans to spin off its ice cream unit home to popular brands like Magnum and Ben and Jerry's into a standalone business as the consumer goods group announced a new cost Savings Program on Tuesday and this program would cut 7,500 jobs take a look at this major job cuts and a big divestiture is on the way for the maker of Ben and Jerry's and magnet Unilever announced Tuesday it plans to spin off its ice cream unit into a standalone business the consumer goods giant also revealed a new cost savings program that would cut 7,500 jobs unil lver said the spin-off will begin immediately and expected to complete by the end of next year the company said it aims to deliver mid singled digit underlying sales growth and modest margin Improvement after the split unil launched a program expected to deliver total cost Savings of around $869 million over the next 3 years the proposed changes would impact around $7,500 mostly office-based roles globally total restructuring costs are now anticipated to be around 1.2% of its turnover During the period in October CEO hin schumacker laid out plans to simplify the business as he admitted Unilever had underperformed in recent years schumacker had earlier said the company would focus on 30 key brands which account for 70% of its sales he also aimed to work on improving its gross margin and not undertake any major or transformational Acquisitions investors liked what they heard on Tuesday and shares jumped over 5% before scaling back and that is all for today's NTD business thank you very much for watching and I'll see you next time