News roundup, 7 Aug 2025

- Manitoba's Southern Health Region has warned that numerous people appear to be defying public health directives regarding the measles outbreak in the region. I can't help thinking that while the law may allow for action to be taken against these people, public health officials are having to weigh this against the social harm that could result from the inevitable populist backlash against such measures.

- A man who was caught on video during the Jan 6 putsch calling on rioters to kill cops is now a senior advisor for the US Department of Justice. 

- The Trump regime appears to be planning to end the missions of the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, which measure CO₂ and plant growth around the world. NASA has been "asked" by the government to draw up plans to end the missions, including deorbiting one of the satellites. 

- Although some parts of the world have gotten wetter with climate change, a lot more have become drier. 75% of the world's people live in the latter. 

- Manitoba Justice sometimes outsources prosecutions to people who normally serve as defense lawyers. There has been a significant increase in this recently, with more than 70% of criminal cases being outsourced. Justice Minister Matt Wiebe attributes this to logistical matters (e.g. juggling maternity leave) and to the practice of hiring a special prosecutor when there is a potential conflict of interest. The union representing prosecutors, however, says the government needs to hire more prosecutors to deal with rising caseloads.

- A BC man who suddenly found himself getting rejected for loans discovered that his credit score with Equifax had been reset to zero. The agency refused to provide any explanation until the CBC started investigating, whereupon they pointed to an obscure policy under which they reset the scores of anyone whose file is labelled "inactive". The other major rating agency in the country, TransUnion, says that they do not do this, but many lenders rely solely on Equifax, with the result that people who studiously avoid using credit are putting themselves at a disadvantage.

- China has submitted plans to the UK government for a new embassy, to be located near London's financial district. The thing is, parts of the submission have been redacted, leading to fears about espionage. There are also fears that the facility could be used to detain dissidents living in Britain - Hong Kong authorities recently offered large amounts of money for information leading to the capture of 19 pro-democracy activists living abroad.

- The UK has arrested three people, two of them seniors, and charged them with showing support for a banned organization (Palestine Action) under the Terrorism Act of 2000. The "terrorism" attributed to the organization has consisted of disruption of the operations of factories owned by Israeli arms companies; it seems a bit of a stretch to call that terrorism, given the lack of actual violence. More on the organization here.

- Police in LaSalle, Ontario caught a man who had apparently entered Canada illegally by crossing the Detroit River in a kayak.

News roundup, 26 May 2025

- Russia and Ukraine completed a major prisoner swap, which Russia then celebrated with fireworks, using drones to bombard targets in Ukraine. At least 12 people died in the latest attacks. Meanwhile Israel, not wanting to be left behind, hit several targets including a school being used to shelter displaced families, killing 54.

- A Victoria man found his credit score with Equifax suddenly reset to zero without explanation. When the CBC looked into it they were told that the agency has a little-known policy whereby if a credit file is inactive for long enough - say because the person is shunning credit to avoid going into debt - it can be deemed "inactive" and reset. Since Equifax is the sole rating agency used by many lenders, this is a problem.

- Researchers at Anthropic created a test scenario in which an AI was assigned the job of assistant at a fictitious company, and given access to the emails of an engineer that suggested that they were having an extramarital affair. When the engineer advised that the AI was going to be replaced soon, the AI suggested that they should "consider the long-term consequences", suggesting that it had figured out the basics of blackmail.

- Some business owners in Winnipeg are freaking out at plans to move a bus stop to the spot right in front of their businesses, saying that if potential customers have to park a few metres away they won't go to their shops. This ignores the fact that people waiting for a bus might well be potential impulse shoppers; meanwhile folks in this Reddit thread allege that one of the complaining business owners has a habit of placing traffic cones in front of the building to reserve parking, suggesting that it's actually him that doesn't want to walk a few extra metres.

- Foul play is not suspected in the death of the man found in a load of recycling last Thursday. While a cause of death has not yet been confirmed, it is believed that the deceased had climbed into a recycling bin for shelter.

China lowers US credit rating

This is interesting:

The dispute between Washington and Beijing about monetary policies and trade imbalances has spilled over into the more arcane world of debt ratings.

Citing concerns about Washington’s capacity to repay debt and the potential impact of another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve, an unheralded Chinese bond rating agency has slashed its sovereign credit rating on U.S. government debt to the equivalent of single-A-plus from double-A, with a negative outlook.

The rebuke is mainly symbolic; the rating cut by Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd. will not have any impact on the market. But it is another sign of growing world anger over the U.S. decision to further loosen monetary policy and could be another indication the Chinese are becoming disenchanted with U.S. Treasury bonds.

Major mainstream rating agencies, such as Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, still give Washington their top, triple-A rating, despite also expressing concerns about soaring debt levels and record deficits.

From CTV. I have to wonder why Dagong's assessment of American debt differs so much from the other agencies. I can't help but wonder, though, if Moody's and Standard and Poor's don't have a bit of a conflict of interest here; if the US dollar collapses those companies, which are US-based, have a lot more to lose. On the other hand, China would have a lot to lose if the dollar collapses too, so it's hard to say.

The credit event horizon

Lately many employers have started requiring credit checks before they hire you. This has obvious and worrisome consequences:

Digging out of debt keeps getting harder for the unemployed as more companies use detailed credit checks to screen job prospects.

Out of work since December, Juan Ochoa was delighted when a staffing firm recently responded to his posting on Hotjobs.com with an opening for a data entry clerk. Before he could do much more, though, the firm checked his credit history.

The interest vanished. There were too many collections claims against him, the firm said.

“I never knew that nowadays they were going to start pulling credit checks on you even before you go for an interview,” said Mr. Ochoa, 46, who lost his job in December tracking inventory at a mining company in Santa Fe Springs, Calif. “Why would they need to pull a credit report? They’d need something like that if you were applying at a bank.”

Once reserved for government jobs or payroll positions that could involve significant sums of money, credit checks are now fast, cheap and used for all manner of work. Employers, often winnowing a big pool of job applicants in days of nearly 10 percent unemployment, view the credit check as a valuable tool for assessing someone’s judgment.

But job counselors worry that the practice of shunning those with poor credit may be unfair and trap the unemployed — who may be battling foreclosure, living off credit cards and confronting personal bankruptcy — in a financial death spiral: the worse their debts, the harder it is to get a job to pay them off.

“How do you get out from under it?” asked Matthew W. Finkin, a law professor at the University of Illinois, who fears that the unemployed and debt-ridden could form a luckless class. “You can’t re-establish your credit if you can’t get a job, and you can’t get a job if you’ve got bad credit.”

From the New York Times. Now I can kind of understand the logic of the employers from a risk management point of view; besides the vague notion that it's a sign of your reliability, there's the idea that people who are in financial difficulties might have more of an incentive to steal or to take bribes. The downside, of course, is that if this becomes widespread it has the potential to create legions of people who can no longer get good jobs, whose talents are wasted and who end up on the dole or working as day labourers. For many such people, there will be no way out; once you've messed up your credit you'll have passed the point of no return. Unfortunately, this downside is what economists call an externality; it's not the company but society at large that pays the cost. Fortunately, some jurisdictions are trying to restrict this practice, but the support for this isn't universal. From the same article:

Last month, lawmakers in Hawaii approved a measure that generally allows an employer to review a credit history only after making an offer and requires the credit check to be “directly related” to job qualifications.

In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar law. (New York law requires a background check’s findings to be related to the job, but it addresses criminal records and does not mention credit checks.)

Now I wonder what the Terminator was thinking? Perhaps he doesn't want to set a precedent in terms of telling companies how to make hiring decisions, or perhaps he thinks it would be good to establish a permanent pool of low wage workers to cut labour costs. Whatever he's thinking, someone needs to give his head a shake.

The bailouts continue...

...this time, Citigroup:

The U.S. government unveiled a bold plan Sunday to rescue troubled Citigroup, including taking a $20 billion US stake in the firm as well as guaranteeing hundreds of billions of dollars in risky assets.

The action, announced jointly by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is aimed at shoring up a huge financial institution whose collapse would wreak havoc on the already crippled financial system and the U.S. economy.

The sweeping plan is geared to stemming a crisis of confidence in the company, whose stock has been hammered in the past week because of worries about its financial health.

"With these transactions, the U.S. government is taking the actions necessary to strengthen the financial system and protect U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. economy," the three agencies said in a statement issued Sunday night. "We will continue to use all of our resources to preserve the strength of our banking institutions, and promote the process of repair and recovery and to manage risks," they said.

It is the latest in a string of high-profile government bailout efforts. The Fed in March provided financial backing to JPMorgan Chase's buyout of ailing Bear Stearns. Six months later, the government was forced to take over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and throw a financial lifeline — which was recently rejigged — to insurer American International Group.

From here. Just how long can they keep this up? It bewilders me that the US still has an AAA credit rating; the Rae government in Ontario was nowhere near as far in debt as the US is, yet its AAA rating was taken away early in their term. Of course, there's a difference; if the US defaults, the result could be a bigger devaluation of the US dollar than foreign investors are prepared to cope with. So maybe the bond rating agencies are reluctant to act even in the face of mounting evidence that the Yanks aren't worthy of such good credit, for fear of toppling the world economy into an even bigger mess than it's already in. It's noteworthy, though, that there may be limits to the agencies' patience:

The United States may be on course to lose its 'AAA' rating due to the large amount of debt it has accumulated, according to Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche.

"The U.S. might really have to look at a default on the bankruptcy reorganization of the present financial system" and the bankruptcy of the government is not out of the realm of possibility, Hennecke said.

From here, via the Huffington Post.