BOXER47 USAF C-40C sw from JBA depart
New Shepard Mission NS-18 Webcast
quick hold muh breath..
Port Of Los Angeles Prepares For 24/7 Operations To Tackle Massive Cargo Backlog
With more than 80 container ships at anchor and 64 at berths across the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, congestion at the nation's top ports continues to snarl supply chains. To alleviate bottlenecks threatening the holiday shopping season, the White House has released a memo stating the twin ports will be operating on a 24/7 basis to counter the backlog.
The shipping industry is in complete chaos, and bottlenecks at Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, a point of entry for 40% of containers, continue to experience massive backlog that is disrupting the time it takes goods to reach store shelves, creating price inflation for consumer goods and shortages. President Biden is expected to meet with "business leaders, port leaders, and union leaders to discuss the challenges at ports across the country and actions each partner can take to address the delays and congestion across the transportation supply chain," according to the White House. "The President will meet with the leadership from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) to discuss the actions they are each taking to address these challenges in Southern California," the White House continued. To solve such a crisis, it appears the Biden administration, businesses leaders, and port officials will "announce a series of public and private commitments to move more goods faster, and strengthen the resiliency of our supply chains, by moving towards 24/7 operations at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach" at a press conference this afternoon.
Snarled supply chains first became an issue earlier this year for the administration when automakers began to experience production difficulties because of the lack of semiconductor chips. This forced Biden to announce a review of the problem in February.
Since then, the administration has done very little to alleviate shortages and bottlenecks as they push for more fiscal stimulus, one of the culprits of a massive demand-pull of overseas goods from Asia, straining logistical networks.
Here are the White House's commitments to resolve the shipping crisis:
The Port of Los Angeles is expanding to 24/7 operation. The Port of Long Beach expanded operations in mid-September. The Port of Los Angeles is now joining them by adding new off-peak night time shifts and weekend hours. This expansion means the Port of Los Angeles has nearly doubled the hours that cargo will be able to move out of its docks and on highways.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced its members are willing to work those extra shifts. This will add needed capacity to put towards clearing existing backlogs. This is an important first step, now the private businesses along the supply chain need to move their operations to 24/7. Large companies are announcing they will use expanded hours to move more cargo off the docks, so ships can come to shore faster. Unlike leading ports around the world, U.S. ports have failed to realize the full possibility offered by operation on nights and weekends. Moving goods during off-peak hours can help move goods out of ports faster. For example, at the Port of LA, goods move 25 percent faster at night than during the day. These commitments will help unlock capacity in the rest of the system—including highways, railroads and warehouses—by reducing congestion during the day.
*The nation's largest retailer, Walmart, is committing to increase its use of night-time hours significantly and projects they could increase throughput by as much as 50% over the next several weeks.
*UPS is committing to an increased use of 24/7 operations and enhanced data sharing with the ports, which could allow it to move up to 20 percent more containers from the ports.
*FedEx is committing to work to combine an increase in night time hours with changes to trucking and rail use to increase the volume of containers it will move from the ports. Once these changes are in place, they could double the volume of cargo they can move out of the ports at night.
*Samsung is committing to move nearly 60% more containers out of these ports by operating 24/7 through the next 90 days. 72% of U.S. homes have at least one Samsung product, from appliances to consumer electronics.
*The Home Depot is committing to move up to 10% additional containers per week during the newly available off-peak port hours at the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach.
*Target, which is currently moving about 50 percent of its containers at night, has committed to increasing that amount by 10 percent during the next 90 days to help ease congestion at the ports.
moar
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/port-los-angeles-prepares-247-operations-tackle-massive-cargo-backlog
they've been better about muh masks 'round here.
Still seeing the kids wif them on...no likey that.
"dad" had a painters mask on the other day and kids wif the paper ones.
JPMorgan edges closer to leaving pandemic behind, its earnings show
JPMorgan Chase & Co beat analysts’ profit estimates on Wednesday, thanks to record revenue in some investment banking businesses and a sunnier economic outlook that allowed the largest U.S. bank to release money it had set aside for potential loan losses during the coronavirus pandemic.
JPMorgan’s third-quarter profit was 24% higher than the same period last year due to those factors, but analysts were most enthusiastic about signs that customers are getting back to spending and investing. The bank’s average loans and deposits rose, as did credit-card spending, helping JPMorgan’s lending income rise 2.5% from the second quarter.
Executives were cautiously optimistic that the economy is finally on a healthy path after 19 months of pandemic-related illness, business closures, travel restrictions and stay-at-home tendencies. They predicted loan demand may not substantially change until next year, the earliest, but were encouraged by early signs that the world is getting back on track. “We don’t know the future any better than you do,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said on a call with journalists. “What we really want is good growth right now. These are great numbers. By the end of 2022 people are forecasting 4% unemployment, wages are going up, jobs are plentiful. Getting out of COVID, we should all be thanking our lucky stars.”
Investors often see JPMorgan not just as a big American bank, but as a symbol of how well the global economy and markets are doing. It has a substantial presence in almost all conventional lending businesses – from mortgages to commercial loans – one of the largest investment banks on Wall Street and insights into multinational corporations through its capital markets and treasury services operations. The highlight for JPMorgan’s third quarter was its Corporate & Investment Bank division, where advisory fees almost tripled due to strong performance in M&A and equity underwriting, fueled partly by a spate of initial public offerings.
During the quarter, JPMorgan maintained its position as the second-biggest provider of worldwide M&A advisory after Goldman Sachs Group Inc, based on fees, according to Refinitiv. JPMorgan’s decision to release $2.1 billion from credit reserves also bolstered its profit. Dimon and many analysts and investors tend to remove reserve fluctuations from “core” their earnings analyses, because they are based on accounting standards and do not reflect new money coming in the door. Overall, JPMorgan’s profit rose to $11.7 billion, or $3.74 per share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with $9.4 billion, or $2.92 per share, a year earlier. Excluding the reserve release and an income tax benefit, its profit would be $9.6 billion, or $3.03 per share. Analysts on average had expected earnings of $3.00 per share, according to Refinitiv.
JPMorgan’s revenue rose 2% to $30.4 billion in the quarter. Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $29.8 billion. The bank maintained its guidance that it sees net interest income for the year to come in around $52.5 billion. JPMorgan’s shares were down 2.3% in morning trading, with other major banks falling as well. Its shares rose about 5% in the weeks leading up to results, along with other major banks, on hopes of higher interest rates following commentary from the Federal Reserve.
https://www.reuters.com/article/jpmorgan-results/update-4-jpmorgan-edges-closer-to-leaving-pandemic-behind-its-earnings-show-idUSL4N2R92DA
Social Security payments to jump most in 39 years as inflation surges
Social Security cost-of-living adjustment highest since 1982.
Millions of retirees and other Americans receiving Social Security benefits in 2022 are set to receive the biggest payment increase in four decades, following a pandemic-driven inflation spike.
The Social Security Administration said Wednesday that next year's cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, will be 5.9%. That amounts to a monthly increase of $92 for the average retired Wednesday, bringing the amount to $1,657, the administration said. A typical couple's benefits would climb by $154 to $2,754 per month. The increase – the steepest annual adjustment since 1982, when recipients saw a 7.4% bump – marks an abrupt end to low inflation that saw years of meager COLA increases. Over the past 12 years, the average COLA increase has been just 1.4%. In 2021, recipients received an increase of just 1.3%, or about an extra $20 a month for retirees. The adjustment will affect about 70 million people, including Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees. About half of seniors live in households where Social Security benefits provide at least half of their income, while roughly 25% rely on the monthly payment for nearly all of their earnings.
The Senior Citizens League, a non-partisan advocacy group, called the decades-high increase "welcome," but warned that years of modest COLA increases had made it "next to impossible to cope with the rampant inflation of 2021."
"Over the past 21 years, COLAs have raised Social Security benefits by 55 percent but housing costs rose nearly 118 percent and healthcare costs rose 145 percent over the same period," said Mary Johnson, an analyst at the group. "Even worse, it appears that inflation is not done with us yet, and the buying power of Social Security benefits may continue to erode into 2022."
The annual Social Security change is calculated based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or the CPI-W. Consumer prices have climbed dramatically over the past few months, an increase that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has attributed to pandemic-induced disruptions in the supply chain, a shortage of workers that's pushed wages higher and a wave of pent-up consumers flush with stimulus cash. Everything from gasoline to toilet paper to groceries costs more now with the highest inflation rate in more than a decade.
Still, Powell and other Fed officials have mostly said they expect elevated inflation to be transitory and to fade as the economy continues to recover from the pandemic.
Since 2000, Social Security benefits have lost roughly 30% of their purchasing power due to inadequate adjustments that underestimate inflation and rising health care costs, according to the Senior Citizens League. The group has pushed Congress to adopt legislation that would index the adjustment to inflation specifically for seniors, such as the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, or the CPI-E. That index specifically tracks the spending of households with people aged 62 and older.
On the campaign trail, President Biden said he supported shoring up Social Security solvency by tethering the annual adjustment to the CPI-E, rather than the CPI-W.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/social-security-payment-increase-inflation-rises
SAME50 USAF NC-135W Constant Phoenix departed Majors Airport Greenville TX after an extended stay...most likely being upgraded
BOXER47 USAF C-40C continues west from JBA depart earlier
The aircraft is a modified C-135B or EC-135C platform. The Constant Phoenix's modifications are primarily related to its on-board atmospheric collection suite, which allows the mission crew to detect radioactive "clouds" in real time. The aircraft is equipped with external flow-through devices to collect particulates on filter paper and a compressor system for whole air samples collected in holding spheres. The cockpit crew is from the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and special equipment operators are assigned to Det. 1, Air Force Technical Applications Center at Offutt AFB. General Dwight D. Eisenhower commissioned the Constant Phoenix program on Sept. 16, 1947, when he charged the Army Air Forces with the overall responsibility for detecting atomic explosions anywhere in the world. In September 1949, a WB-29 flying between Alaska and Japan detected nuclear debris from Russia's first atomic test--an event thought not possible until mid-1950.
Beginning in August 1950, WB-50 aircraft were converted for the air-sampling mission over a two-year period. WC-135 aircraft began replacing the WB-50s in December 1965 and became the workhorse of the atmospheric collection program.
moar
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104494/wc-135-constant-phoenix/
>>100679 pb
SAM516 USAF C-32A departed Seattle Boeing Field after an overnight
EXEC1F USAF C-32A departed Midway Airport Chicago after an overnight back to JBA
Jill Biden tours community college, chats about Latino identity
On day two of her visit to Chicago, Biden appeared with U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona for a charla at the Arturo Velasquez Institute. Jill Biden felt “right at home” on day two of her Chicago visit, stopping at a West Side community college to learn about some of the programs offered and to talk about Latino identity as Hispanic Heritage month comes to an end. Biden joined U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona for a charla, which is Spanish for conversation or chat, at the Arturo Velasquez Institute, a satellite campus of Richard J. Daley College in Little Village. Her visit was part of events celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, which concludes Friday.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2021/10/13/22724212/jill-biden-tours-community-college-latino-identity-arturo-velasquez-institute
Looks like a stop at Lehigh Valley, PA prior to returning to JBA
Jill Biden To Visit Allentown On Wednesday For Listening Event With Hispanic Community
Dr. Jill Biden will visit the Lehigh Valley on Wednesday. Dr. Biden made a stop Wednesday morning in Chicago to host a “Charla,” which is Spanish for chat, to listen to the concerns of the Latino community. Dr. Biden will hold another listening event Wednesday afternoon in Allentown. The chat sessions coincide with the final week of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which ends on Friday.
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2021/10/13/jill-biden-allentown-charla-listening-events-national-hispanic-heritage-month/
gotta stop for nao.
back later