NOTE: For technical reasons, the Wednesday show was a rerun from the previous week. The show broadcast on Thursday, April 27th, is the new show for this week. That is the show saved on this post.

AUDIO:

POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; REGISTER TO VOTE; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; PSA: Gone in seconds: rising text message scams are draining US bank accounts;  Montgomery City Council considers changes to food truck ordinance; Texas House votes to require panic buttons in every classroom and armed guards in every school; Las Vegas-to-California bullet train gets bipartisan backing; New bipartisan bill would let the U.S. Mint alter the metal content of coins to save money; Chilean President Unveils Plan to Slowly Nationalize Lithium Industry; Calls to move away from the U.S. dollar are growing — but the greenback is still king; OPINION—War with China isn’t inevitable: The Pentagon’s budget says otherwise; More.

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

1. Live online at KPFT.org (from anywhere in the world!)
2. Podcast on your phone’s Podcast App
3. Visiting Archive.KPFT.ORG

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EwrSlzZC31w

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
   1. It’s time to snail-mail (no emails or faxes) in your application for mail-ballots, IF you qualify TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   2. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com)
   3. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
   4. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
   5. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
   6. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
   7. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
   8. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
   9. Waller County (TX) Elections
   10. Chambers County (TX) Elections
   11. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
   12. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
   13. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
       1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
       2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
       3. Current utility bill
       4. Bank statement
       5. Government check
       6. Paycheck
       7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
       8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
          1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
          2. Sick or disabled;
          3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
          4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
          5. Make sure you are registered:
          6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
          7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
          8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
          9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL NEW MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2023.
   1. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com)
   2. FYI: The next elections according to HarrisVotes.com are May 9^th. Last day to early vote is May 6.
   3. . There may or not be an election in your particular election precinct, so you may have to go to your local elections clerk or go to http://www.VOTETEXAS.GOV
   4. Just be registered and apply for your mail-in ballot if you may qualify.
   5. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
3. PSA: Gone in seconds: rising text message scams are draining US bank accounts; Sophisticated robotexts are bombarding Americans’ phones, costing unsuspecting people millions of dollars. Erin McCormick in Berkeley | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Sat 22 Apr 2023 06.00 EDT, Last modified on Sat 22 Apr 2023 06.41 EDT
   1. The text message created an instant surge of panic: “Freemsg: Chase, Did you attempt wire transfer amount of $7500. Reply Y if recognized, Or NO to stop fraud.” Q&A
   2. How to spot a text scam – and what to do if one happens
   3. For Ohio resident Kelli Hinton, this was the beginning of a hard-to-detect scam in which a man posing as a Chase Bank fraud investigator ended up clearing two of her bank accounts of $15,000.
   4. And Hinton is hardly alone. Her nightmare is part of a huge surge in sophisticated text message-based scams that now affect hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Sometimes called “smishing”, short for SMS phishing, the scams trick mobile phone users out of their money using messages purporting to be from a familiar person or company that can be almost impossible to tell from the real thing.
   5. While phishing texts have been around for years, data shows they are on the rise. In 2022 US phone users got 157bn robotexts , or more than 440 a person – an 80% increase from 2021, according to the company Robokiller, which offers a scam-blocking service for cell phones. And last year, more than 321,000 Americans reported having fallen for a phone-based smishing scam, with total losses of over $326m, according to data from the US Federal Trade Commission.
   6. The problem has become so bad that last month the federal government demanded that mobile phone companies start blocking spam texts, in what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) described as its first of several planned steps to combat the rampant phone fraud.
   7. Scammers use an unending variety of creative approaches to try to trick people out of their money.
   8. Some pretend to offer jobs, only to ensnare people into transferring money out of their bank accounts for job supplies. Others pretend to be contacting the wrong person in the hopes of striking up a conversation, which may then lead to long exchanges that get the phone user to open their wallet. Another common scam involves gleaning the name of a person’s boss from a directory or website, then impersonating that boss and asking for a favor that involves purchasing gift cards. The scammer then asks for photos of the back of the gift cards, saying they’re needed for reimbursement. This, in turn, allows the thieves to cash the cards and make off with the funds.
   9. Many scam texts pretend to be from a familiar company, like Amazon, UPS or a popular bank.
   10. In Hinton’s case, the scam started with a text message on 3 January, claiming to check whether she had authorized $7,500 being wired out of her account. She hadn’t even had time to respond, before a polite man, identifying himself as “Simon from Chase fraud investigation”, called from a phone number that appeared to exactly match the 800 number on the back of her bank card.
   11. He told her that a scammer had accessed her account and she needed to take prompt action to stop the money being transferred out. Meanwhile, more texts were arriving, announcing more unauthorized wire transfers coming from her account.
   12. The professional-sounding scammer kept her on the phone for over an hour and, at one point, told her she needed to reset her bank credentials and password in order to stop the fraud. This reset of her password apparently allowed the scammers to authorize wire transfers out of her account.
   13. Hinton realized something was amiss when the caller suddenly hung up and she called the bank immediately. But she was transferred from one office to another, she said. In the meantime, the money was gone. …
   14. Stefan Koester, a policy analyst at a Washington DC technology thinktank, was nearly fooled by a different sort of grift. In January, he got a text claiming to be from the US Postal Service, which said there was an issue with a package due to be delivered to him.
   15. When he clicked the link in the text, Koester said it took him to a website with exactly the same design as the USPS homepage. Koester said he was in a rush that day so didn’t think too much about it and began entering his address information to correct the mailing.
   16. It wasn’t until the prompts asked him to put in his credit card number to pay a $3 fee to change his address that Koester stopped in his tracks. …
   17. Text scams can be even harder to avoid than those that come via phone call or email, consumer advocates say, because it’s a communication style with more urgency and one we’re more inclined to trust, since typically people only use texts to communicate with someone they know well. …
   18. The scammers, who may be anywhere in the world, use automated systems to blast the texts out to thousands of phone numbers, often at random, experts said. But all it takes is for one or two people to respond for that scammer to pilfer thousands of dollars a day. And few are ever caught. …
   19. With scams on the rise and criminals acting with seeming impunity, calls for action are mounting.
   20. Some, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, have urged banks to make it more difficult for scammers to drain accounts, using electronic transfer systems, including Zelle. The federal government is also under pressure; the new rule rolled out by the FCC in March will require mobile phone companies to block certain texts before they ever reach consumers and more regulation could be on the way. …
   21. [Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois], has introduced federal legislation that explicitly makes it illegal to use automated telephone equipment to barrage consumers with texts, which would give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stronger enforcement mechanisms to crack down on scammers.
   22. Additional bank protections might have helped Hinton, who said she reported the wire fraud scam that drained her Chase bank accounts just minutes after it happened, while the funds still appeared to be in her accounts, but was unable to get the bank to stop the transfers. …
   23. How to spot a text scam – and what to do if one happens: Text message-based scams can appear to come from a familiar company or person, but experts say these red flags will help you spot them.
   24. Here’s what to look out for:
       1. Requests for gift cards or other hard-to-trace forms of payment including cryptocurrency, PaypPal and Venmo.
       2. Someone asking you to transfer money, or claiming to be from your bank.
       3. Anyone asking for personal information including bank passwords, account or credit card numbers, social security or medicare card numbers.
       4. Messages asking you to click a link to add info to a company website. (Look up the company’s webpage instead.)
       5. Anyone who asks for permission to assume control of your phone or computer or reset account access information
   25. How to handle a scammer:
       1. If any one contacts you that you are not expecting, don’t engage with them.
       2. Assume unexpected contacts are scams, until proven otherwise. If they say they are someone you know, call them back instead at a number you look up independently.
       3. If you suspect you’re talking to a scammer, slow down and refuse to let them rush you. Hang up, then contact the business or requesting party directly, using an independently verified phone number or website.
       4. If you get a call claiming to be from your bank, hang up and call the number on the back of their card to double check the situation.
   26. For a lot more specific information about how to spot and report scam texts see the Federal Trade Commission’s tips
4. Montgomery City Council considers changes to food truck ordinance; By Cassandra Jenkins | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:49 PM Apr 24, 2023 CDT, Updated 3:48 PM Apr 24, 2023 CDT
   1. The Montgomery Planning and Zoning Commission will host a public hearing May 2 regarding recent discussion on mobile food units and mobile food courts. City Council held a special workshop April 11 to discuss potential changes. …
   2. [The topic was last discussed in October, 2021.]
   3. [City Administrator Gary Palmer] said some discussion has taken place regarding new changes, but no action was taken. On April 11, he presented a slideshow laying out main changes that may occur. …
   4. [The main changes revolved around locations, placement, definitions, and fees.]
   5. The planning and zoning commission will hold a public hearing May 2 before making a recommendation to City Council. After the recommendation, a public hearing will be called for City Council and subsequent consideration for approval.
   6. MIKE: I picked this story because food trucks and food carts are surprisingly contentious issues. I was actually surprised that the concerns of local businesses are not mentioned at all in this article.
   7. MIKE: Local food businesses hate food trucks and food carts. They are viewed, with some justification, as cheap ways to steal business from the expensive locations that brick-and-mortar food businesses risk a lot to maintain.
   8. MIKE: I’ll be surprised if no restaurant industry representatives show up for the May 2 hearing.
5. Texas House votes to require panic buttons in every classroom and armed guards in every school; by Brian Lopez | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | April 24, 2023 Updated: 15 hours ago
   1. The Texas House on Tuesday gave final approval to legislation that is calling for significant investments to beef up schools’ safety, including hiring at least one armed security officer at every campus, providing incentives for school employees to get certified to carry a weapon and installing silent panic alert buttons in every classroom.
   2. House Bill 3, authored by Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, passed 119-25. It now heads to the Senate.
   3. The proposal would also require regular safety inspections of school buildings and would give grants to students who want to attend another school district if their current one is not complying with safety standards. In addition, the bill was amended to give schools $100 for each student who regularly attends classes, plus an additional $15,000 each year, to upgrade their security. The change would raise the cost of the bill from $300 million to about $1.6 billion. …
   4. HD Chambers, executive director of the Texas School Alliance, said the state must strike the right balance between making schools safer and not creating environments where children are afraid to go to school. …
   5. MIKE: I think that ship has sailed and been sunk. The rest of the article is about predictably contentious political issues and costs.
   6. MIKE: I think the smartest idea here is a silent panic button. If it’s good enough to protect money in banks, it’s good enough to protect our kids in schools.
   7. ANDREW: I agree. The other aspects of the bill, funding armed guards and encouraging teachers to carry guns, will just increase the amount of guns in schools that an attacker, or even possibly a student, could gain access to.
   8. MIKE: It might also be worth pointing out that the bill as reported seems to be using the term “safety standards” as synonymous with “security standards. That’s sloppy legislating and can lead to problems with judicial interpretation down the line.
6. Las Vegas-to-California bullet train gets bipartisan backing; By KEN RITTER | APNEWS.COM | April 24, 2023
   1. A bipartisan congressional group from Nevada and California asked the Biden administration Monday to fast-track federal funds for a private company to build a high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area.
   2. All six of Nevada’s elected federal lawmakers and four House members from California sent the letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. They said they’re on board with a proposal from Brightline West to spend more than $10 billion to lay tracks along the Interstate 15 corridor.
   3. Traffic jams on the interstate often stretch for 15 miles (24 kilometers) near the Nevada-California line as motorists head home after weekend or holiday travel to Las Vegas.
   4. The Mojave Desert is largely open space, and the electric-powered trains could potentially cut the four-hour trip in half, carrying passengers at speeds of nearly 200 mph (322 kph). …
   5. Brightline West is seeking $3.75 billion in federal funding from the Biden administration-backed federal infrastructure law.
   6. The project could be “the blueprint for how we can connect major city pairs that are too short to fly and too far to drive,” said Mike Reininger, CEO of Florida-based Brightline Holdings LLC, the only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad in the United States. …
   7. In Florida, Brightline West’s sister company began sharing the Florida East Coast freight line between Miami and West Palm Beach in 2014 and is building an extension to Orlando. High-speed trains running through urban areas have drawn criticism for numerous crashes with vehicles at rail crossings. Investigators found deaths were not the railroad’s fault, determining that many were suicides or drivers or pedestrians trying to beat the trains.
   8. Other places where high-speed trains have been proposed include the 240 miles (386 kilometers) from Dallas to Houston in Texas, and a 500-mile (805-kilometer) system linking Los Angeles and San Francisco.
   9. The California line depends on funding and other unknowns. …
   10. In Texas, a study published last month by Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, concluded the state’s fast rail project is stalled by climbing costs, lack of legislative support and opposition from farmers, ranchers, and other landowners “who objected to having their land bisected by a train traveling at 200 miles per hour over 30 times each day.” It noted the Texas Legislature passed a law prohibiting spending any funds on the project. …
   11. MIKE: I come from NYC, which has a pretty mature mass transit system, even with its imperfections. That’s one reason that, over the years, I’ve thought a lot about transcontinental and intercity travel. I even have an AmTrak app on my phone, so I occasionally check what my train options would be to get from Houston to other cities. In my case, often in the northeast.
   12. MIKE: I think one of the problems when high-speed rail is discussed is that there’s no distinction made between something like short-haul intercity high-speed rail versus long-haul transcontinental high speed rail.
   13. MIKE: Intercity short-haul trains, like in the Northeast Corridor, make a lot of sense. The prices are reasonable, the service is frequent enough to be convenient without a train change, and the travel time is appealing. People use them.
   14. MIKE: When I check my AmTrak app for a long-haul trip from Houston to, say, Boston, you have to find days of departure. That’s tricky, because the app will tell you if there’s no service that day, but won’t necessarily tell what days there is When you find a schedule that works, the trip will take you about three days, including train stops along the way, and train changes and lengthy layovers. And by-and-large, it’s pretty expensive for all that time-consuming inconvenience.
   15. MIKE: So how can we get Americans on long-haul trains? My thought is to extend the availability of Auto Trains; these are trains where you take your car with you for an additional price. (I’ve provided a link to an example of the only auto train operating in the US by AmTrak.) For the only auto train operated by AmTrak, you can get a ticket starting at $95 per person for a 17 hour non-stop ride. (Sleeper compartments cost more.) In round numbers, taking your car costs about $300 each way from DC to Orlando, again nonstop. Compare that to renting a car and/or taxis and Ubers.
   16. MIKE: Now imagine high-speed transcontinental train lines going east to west and north to south, with stations spaced 300-500 miles apart. Those distances take good advantage of high-speed rail, and the stops are likely to put passengers withing 3-5 hours of their final destination by car from the train station.
   17. MIKE: If this nation is going to have a discussion about building high speed rail, I would like to see this option on the table.
   18. MIKE: And by the way, I’m not even including a discussion about some kind of rail standardization for these trains.
   19. ANDREW: I think that would help, but as I understand it, there’s a deeper issue. Unlike in most train-friendly countries, rail infrastructure in the US is mostly privately owned by rail freight companies. Legally, those companies do have to prioritize passenger rail, but they rarely do because they rarely get punished when they don’t. They’re also allowed to set windows where passenger trains are allowed to use the lines, and those windows are very short and very inconveniently-scheduled. All this creates a system where passenger services between far-away cities aren’t frequent or convenient, which are the main things people are looking for when deciding whether to use public transit.
   20. ANDREW: Some think the best way to solve this problem is to make railroads publicly owned. Some groups like Railroad Workers United are calling for public ownership across the US, Canada, and Mexico, managed by both those governments and rail workers. While I would love to see public ownership of railroads, including high-speed railroads, I’m not expecting that to happen any time soon. I think the easier-but-still-useful “ask” is new legislation that would mandate equal time on the rails to both passenger and freight services; that would mean more passenger services could be scheduled, and would provide more enforcement of passenger rail’s rights to use the railroads. Together, these policies could make long-haul rail travel convenient enough to truly compete with planes and cars.
   21. REFERENCE: Take Your Car on an Auto Train Road Trip — AMTRAK.COM
   22. REFERENCE: Auto Train Vehicle & Check-In Requirements — AMTRAK.COM
   23. REFERENCE: Are US trains really that bad? It’s complicated — CNET.COM
   24. REFERENCE: 49 U.S. Code § 24308 – Use of facilities and providing services to Amtrak — CORNELL.EDU
   25. REFERENCE: The real reason American passenger trains are so bad — VOX.COM
7. New bipartisan bill would let the U.S. Mint alter the metal content of coins to save money; By Christina Wilkie | CNBC.COM | Published Thu, Apr 20 2023, 3:48 PM EDT, Updated 2 Hours Ago
   1. A pair of senators will introduce a bill to authorize the U.S. Mint to alter the metal content of coins in order to save taxpayers money.
   2. GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, of Iowa, and Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire, seek to cut the soaring cost of minting America’s quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.
   3. A new report from the U.S. Mint revealed that in 2022, costs for raw metals drove the price of minting a single nickel past 10 cents, or more than double the value of the coin itself. …
   4. As party leaders in the House and the Senate work to line up legislation that can pass with bipartisan support as part of an eventual debt ceiling and budget package later this year, proposals like the one from Ernst and Hassan may gain more momentum than usual.
   5. MIKE: As is often the case, nothing is as simple as it looks. The last time a significant change was made in US coinage was 1965, when all silver coins became “copper-clad”. The nickel-zinc exterior wrapped a copper interior. This was deemed durable enough to enter use and was much cheaper than the rising cost of silver. Copper pennies today are mostly zinc with enough copper to make them look copper-colored. Nickels are only 25% nickel.
   6. MIKE: It’s worth noting that the US Mint could also save money by eliminating the dollar bill and concentrating on dollar coins and $2-bills.
   7. MIKE: I can see a case for trying to make cheaper coins, but the research and development of a coin blank that’s cheaper to buy and has the wear and weight characteristics necessary will also cost money, and that’s before even minting anything. And it’s worth remembering that a coin that is cheaper to make but wears out faster is, pardon the expression, pennywise and pound-foolish.
   8. ANDREW: Having lived in the UK, I would be perfectly comfortable using dollar coins instead of bills.
   9. ANDREW: There’s also long been a campaign to just do away with the penny, and mandate prices round up or down to (I believe) the nearest five cents. With the situation this article is describing, the nickel may be joining that list.
   10. ANDREW: It’s also interesting to consider how much less desirable physical money seems in the post- (or really, mid-) COVID era. My mom and I had trouble scrounging up enough dollar bills the other day to pay a tip, because we just hadn’t handled paper money enough to get much change recently. Most places prefer card or contactless now. Maybe the mint can just start reducing their usual order of all physical cash.
   11. MIKE: Your comment about the 1-pound coin reminds me that in Canada they have the $1 “Loonie” coin and the $2 “Toonie” coin.
8. Chilean President Unveils Plan to Slowly Nationalize Lithium Industry; While striving for “a sustainable and developed economy,” the leftist leader must contend with legislative divisions, potential industry opposition, and Indigenous and environmental resistance to large-scale mining. By Jessica Corbett | COMMONDREAMS.ORG | Apr 21, 2023
   1. Leftist Chilean President Gabriel Boric [pron.: BOR-itch] on Thursday announced plans to slowly nationalize the country’s lithium industry, aiming to take advantage of massive reserves of the metal, key to electric vehicle batteries and other technology, while protecting the environment.
   2. “Today we present a national lithium strategy that’s technically solid and ambitious,” Boric declared during a televised address, outlining his plan—which needs congressional approval—to create “a Chile that distributes wealth we all generate in a more just way.”
   3. “This is the best chance we have at transitioning to a sustainable and developed economy,” he argued. “We can’t afford to waste it.”
   4. Reuters reported that “Boric said the country would look to protect biodiversity and share mining benefits with Indigenous and surrounding communities.”
   5. About 60% of the world’s reserves are located in the South American “lithium triangle,” which includes Bolivia (21 million tons), Argentina (19.3 million tons), and Chile (9.6 million tons), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. For now, Chile is leading those nations in terms of production and ranked second globally last year, after Australia.
   6. Currently, Chile’s lithium operations are limited to the Chilean company SQM and the U.S. firm Albemarle. Under Boric’s plan, the government would respect existing contracts with those industry giants—set to expire in 2030 and 2043, respectively.
   7. However, all future contracts for the metal will involve government-controlled public-private partnerships, Boric explained. He ultimately envisions a national company focused on lithium, but because creating one could be delayed by legislative divisions, agreements will initially be led by the state-owned copper mining company, Codelco.
   8. According to The Associated Press, “Boric said that in addition to being involved in mining, the government will promote the development of lithium products with added value, with the goal of becoming the world’s leading lithium producer.”
   9. As the AP pointed out: The minister of mining, Marcela Hernando, recently told Congress that the government cannot advance alone in the exploitation of lithium because “technology and knowledge are in private industry.” A public-private partnership is needed, Hernando said, though he added that “the state is the owner of lithium,” which is an “uncompromisable” position of the government.
   10. Boric’s plan is part of a global trend. Mexican lawmakers voted last year to make lithium reserves federal property. Additionally, as the Financial Times noted, “Zimbabwe banned unprocessed lithium exports” and “Indonesia is curbing exports of commodities including nickel ore, which is used in batteries.”
   11. Thea Riofrancos—an Andrew Carnegie fellow, Providence College associate professor of political science, and Climate and Community Project member—[said in a series of tweets on] Friday that, “Resource nationalism is all the rage in the Global South (Mexico, Indonesia, Bolivia) and North (‘critical minerals’ securitization) albeit from very distinct geoeconomic positions. But there’s more to this.”
   12. “Boric situates this decision in the long sweep of Chilean history, referencing former President Salvador Allende’s nationalization of copper,” Riofrancos explained. “But this isn’t a classic expropriation,” because of the public-private partnership approach.
   13. Riofrancos goes on to say, “Evidence from Latin America’s Pink Tide era shows such partnerships can increase state revenues, which can fund social services and public infrastructure. But whether tech transfer and value chain upgrading occur is an open question,” she said. “Boric flags both as crucial to his vision.”
   14. Riofrancos continued: “Just as importantly, and compared to both mid-century and Pink Tide era nationalizations, Boric cannot ignore the powerful wave of Indigenous and environmental resistance to large-scale mining in Chile and the region, nor the scientific evidence of damage to salt flat ecosystems.
   15. “Boric promises environmentally friendly extraction and conservation of 30% of Chile’s salt flats (the location of lithium deposits), and promises a new model of public participation, including the first step [of] direct dialogue with representatives of Indigenous communities.”
   16. Riofrancos further tweeted, “But these goals are in tension with his other key goal, which is to vastly expand lithium extraction in Chile’s deserts as well as restore Chile to the position of top producer, a status now occupied by Australia (worth noting Argentina may soon overtake Chile for second place).
   17. “And of course,” she added, “all of these plans are subject to congressional approval and what I imagine will be a flurry of lobbying from the incumbent producers, SQM and Albemarle. …”
   18. While Albemarle said that the development would have “no material impact on our business,” Bloomberg highlighted that “SQM and Albemarle shares were down 7% and 4%, respectively, before the start of regular trading in New York on Friday.”
   19. MIKE: Given the history of extractive corporations in less-developed countries, I think that this is an idea worth trying.
   20. MIKE: I was interested to see that almost every single headline reported this as “Chile Nationalizes Lithium Mining”, or something similar. I don’t often use CommonDreams as a source, but after reviewing several other articles, I felt that they had the most fair-minded ‘take’ on this story.
   21. MIKE: I see Boric’s plan as three-fold: First, keep profits from this resource in Chile as much as possible by sharing ownership of the Chile’s birthright resources; Second, honor existing foreign ownership agreements until they expire, but start new lithium extraction investment with the national shared ownership plan; And third, use the profits from national ownership to build a value-added manufacturing economy with privately-owned partners, thus further diversifying and enriching Chile and its citizenry. I see further goals of this policy as environmental protection and land reclamation at mining and refining sites, and consultation and sharing of revenue with indigenous peoples on whose land this work takes place.
   22. MIKE: I think this hybrid policy — somewhere between unbridled capitalist mercantilism and total nationalization — is worth trying, and could become a model for other developing, resource-rich countries that have historically been horribly exploited for the benefit of a few.
   23. MIKE: I think that this policy could fairly be compared to nothing more nefarious than publicly-owned utilities, which we also have in the United States in a limited way. (And personally, I’d like to see more publicly-owned utilities here.)
   24. ANDREW: I agree. While I would like to see less “private” in this “public-private partnership”, rapid changes like that are best left for emergency situations. President Boric’s plan could open the door to further public ownership later on, both in lithium and in other economic sectors.
   25. ANDREW: I also appreciate the concern given to Indigenous rights and environmental impact in this plan. As Professor Riofrancos mentions in the article, these concerns are in opposition with the plan’s ambitions regarding increased lithium production. I think setting goals is good, but I hope that if it comes down to choosing one or the other, Indigenous peoples and the environment will be the priority.
   26. ANDREW: On the subject of setting goals, I would also like to see non-supervisory workers have as much of a voice as the government will in the hypothetical new state-owned lithium company, and for that matter in all state-owned companies. Thankfully, the existing lithium contracts provide plenty of time to get this goal, and the plan’s legislative hurdles, addressed.
   27. REFERENCE: Chile leader wants state to share in any lithium extraction — COM
   28. REFERENCE: Chile’s president aims to nationalize world’s largest lithium supply; By Jameson Dow| ELECTREK.CO | Apr 21 2023 – 1:53 pm PT
9. Calls to move away from the U.S. dollar are growing — but the greenback is still king; By Penny Chen | CNBC.COM | Published Mon, Apr 24 20231:00 AM EDT, Updated Mon, Apr 24 20234:03 AM EDT
   1. Calls to move away from relying on the U.S. dollar for trade are growing.
   2. More and more countries — from Brazil to Southeast Asian nations — are calling for trade to be carried out in other currencies besides the U.S. dollar.
   3. The U.S. dollar has been king in global trade for decades — not just because the U.S. is the world’s largest economy, but also because oil, a key commodity needed by all economies big and small, is priced in the greenback. Most commodities are also priced and traded in U.S. dollars.
   4. But since the Federal Reserve embarked on a journey of aggressive rate hikes to fight domestic inflation, many central banks around the world have raised interest rates to stem capital outflows and a sharp depreciation of their own currencies. …
   5. The U.S. dollar accounted for 58.36% of global foreign exchange reserves in the fourth quarter last year, according to data from the IMF’s Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER). Comparatively, the euro is a distant second, accounting for about 20.5% of global forex [Foreign Exchange] reserves while the Chinese yuan accounted for just 2.7% in the same period.
   6. China is one of the most active players in this push given its dominant position in global trade right now, and as the world’s second largest economy.
   7. Based on CNBC’s calculation of IMF’s data on 2022 direction of trade, mainland China was the largest trading partner to 61 countries when combining both imports and exports. In comparison, the U.S. was the largest trading partner to 30 countries. …
   8. But China isn’t the only country calling for a shift away from the U.S. dollar.
   9. Brazilian President Lula made a state visit to Beijing in April where he reportedly called for reduced reliance on the U.S. dollar for global trade. …
   10. During a recent visit to China, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was said to have suggested setting up an “Asian Monetary Fund” to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar. … Malaysia’s trade minister also acknowledged Malaysia’s concerns about Asia’s dependency on the U.S. dollar.
   11. At the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] finance ministers and central banks meeting in Indonesia in March, policymakers also discussed the idea of cutting their reliance on the S. dollar, the Japanese yen and the euro and “move to settlements in local currencies” instead. …
   12. Trading in local currencies “allow exporters and importers to balance risks, have more options to invest, to have more certainty about the revenues and sales,” former Brazilian ambassador to China, Marcos Caramuru, told CNBC last week.
   13. Another benefit for countries moving away from using the dollar as the middle man in bilateral trade, is to “help them move up the value chain,” said Mark Tinker from ToscaFund Hong Kong told CNBC “Street Signs Asia” early April.
   14. “It isn’t about selling cheap stuff to Walmart, keeping down the prices for American consumers in order to earn dollars to buy its energy. This is now about actually a completely bilateral trade bloc,” Tinker said. …
   15. Geopolitical risks have also accelerated the trend to move away from U.S. dollar.
   16. “Political risk is really helping introduce a lot of uncertainty and variability around how much of a safe haven that U.S. dollar really is,” said Galvin Chia from NatWest Markets told “Street Signs Asia” earlier.
   17. Tinker said what accelerated the calls for de-dollarization was the U.S. decision to freeze Russia’s foreign currency reserves after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
   18. The yuan has reportedly replaced the U.S. dollar as the most traded currency in Russia, according to
   19. So far, the U.S. and its western allies have frozen more than $300 billion of Russia’s foreign currency reserves and slapped multiple rounds of sanctions on Moscow and the country’s oligarchs. This forced Russia to switch trade to other currencies and increase gold in its reserves.
   20. “Now you find that if you disagree with U.S. foreign policy, you risk having those confiscated or frozen. You’ve got to have [an] alternative place to put those assets,” Tinker said. In the Middle East, major oil exporter Saudi Arabia has reportedly signaled it’s open to trade in other currencies other than the greenback. …
   21. Despite the slow erosion of its hegemony, analysts say the U.S. dollar is not expected be dethroned in the near future — simply because there aren’t any alternatives right now.
   22. “[The] Euro is somewhat an imperfect fiscal and monetary union; the Japanese yen, which is another reserve currency, has all sorts of structural challenges in terms of the high debt loads,” Chehab told CNBC.
   23. The Chinese yuan also falls short, Chehab said.
   24. “If you look at the yuan reserves as a share of total reserves, it’s only about 2.5% of total reserves, and China still has current account restrictions,” Chehab said. “That means that it’s going to take a long time for any other currency, any single currency to really usurp the dollar from that perspective.”
   25. Data from IMF shows that as of the fourth quarter of 2022, more than 58% of global reserves are held in U.S. dollar — that’s more than double the share of the euro, the second most-held currency in the world.
   26. The international reserve system “is still a U.S.-reserve dominated system,” said NatWest’s Chia.
   27. “So long as that commands the majority, so long as you don’t have another currency system or economy that’s willing to step up to that international reach, convertibility and free floating and the responsibility of a reserve currency, it’s hard to say dollar will be displaced over the next 3 to 5 years. unless someone steps up.”
   28. ANDREW: I find the idea of moving away from the dollar for international trade perfectly reasonable. For one thing, as the article mentions, it would take some of the risk out of disagreeing with the US on politics, which I often do and am thus a fan of allowing other nations to do.
   29. ANDREW: For another, it just seems more democratic. I don’t know how many people know this, but most of the people in the world don’t live in the US(!) I think it’s fair for those people to want to be more important geopolitically, and having their currencies play a bigger role in global trade seems like a good way to do that. Better than having their governments start wars of conquest.
   30. ANDREW: Finally, reducing the reliance of global trade on one single currency would make the global economy more likely to survive a crisis in that currency’s nation (in this case, the US). Imagine, for example, if the January 6th riot had actually resulted in Trump retaining power. I’m no economist, but I would imagine that the US’ political system being overridden like that would not do the dollar many favors on the international stage, and that would undoubtedly have knock-on effects which would further suppress global trade. I don’t think anybody would enjoy that scenario.
   31. MIKE: Philosophically, I can appreciate many of Andrew’s points, but it’s important to note that the dollar’s so-called “hegemony” is not something imposed on the world by the US. The nations of the world chose the US dollar as the preferred reserve currency from among other options, and continue to use it by their own choice out of economic practicality.
   32. MIKE: The US certainly derives geopolitical benefits from dollar supremacy, as does the American consumer. But the dollar’s reserve status also constrains US domestic and international currency policy, so it’s not all peaches and cream.
   33. MIKE: But one might also ask why China and the European Union, to name just two, are eager to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. You can be assured that it’s not to relieve the US of the burden of being the world’s banker. They want it for the economic and political power it would bring them.
   34. MIKE: As is often the case, the issue boils down the this: If you had to choose a currency to replace the dollar on the world stage, what would it be? And would you prefer the results?
   35. MIKE: For what it’s worth, there will be an inevitable reckoning on the dollar’s status, as happened to the British pound post-WW2 and especially in the 1970s. If it’s gradual, it won’t be catastrophic, but one thing that could bring it about quickly is a US debt default forced by Republican brinksmanship on the debt ceiling, even if the default lasts for only for a few hours.
   36. MIKE: As a layperson and non-economist, I’ve long had issues with how the international monetary system works. Trade flourishes best under a stable currency valuation regime. I’m old enough to remember the Bretton Woods treaty regime. But that’s another story. See the link at the bottom of this article.
   37. MIKE: Bretton Woods was ultimately ended by Richard Nixon in 1971. He detached the US dollar from the price of gold, thus making it free-floating. He also devalued the dollar against the price of gold, which was rising internationally at the time. The reasons for this are complicated, so I’ve put a reference link at the bottom of this story. Those who are curious can use it as a starting point.
   38. MIKE: In any case, the currency regime we have now of currency exchange rates floating daily in the world markets is descended from the end of Bretton Woods. It reduces the chances that any one currency will come under sustained attack by speculators, but introduces different uncertainties into the trade system.
   39. REFERENCE: The 100-year decline of the British pound from five to one dollar — by Alice Guy from interactive investor, 12th October 2022 11:21
   40. REFERENCE: Animated Graph Of Value Of British Pound
   41. REFERENCE: Bretton Woods Agreement and the Institutions It Created Explained — INVESTOPEDIA.COM
10. OPINION — War with China isn’t inevitable: The Pentagon’s budget says otherwise; by Yint Hmu, opinion contributor | THEHILL.COM/OPINION | 04/12/23 2:00 PM ET
    1. A doozy combination of threat inflation and issue conflation is driving a steady drumbeat for war with China, and that rhetoric is becoming policy faster than anyone can even ask the most basic questions. 
    2. The foreign policy establishment, includingsenior U.S. military leadershipand influential members of Congress, appears to have accepted war with China as a foregone conclusion — and their decisions on the federal government’s budget reflect that assumption. 
    3. But contrary to Washington’s consensus, there is little reason to believe that war between our two countries is The reality is thatChina’s military posture is defensiveand the threat it poses to the U.S. has been greatly inflated. The People’s Liberation Army Navy does not have the capability to project power beyond its immediate vicinity. On the other hand, the existing colossal footprint of the U.S. military in the Pacific already serves as a strong deterrent, and then some. 
    4. None of these facts seem to matter in this year’s budget process though, which is shaping up to be a sensational military spending spree. President Biden’s 2024 budget calls for an absurd$886 billion in military spending; 52 percent of the government’s annual discretionary spending. And if recent history stays the course, the actual budget passed by Congress will be even higher — all the whiledefense contractors rake in massive profits. 
    5. The military threat fromChina is the main justificationcited by both the White House and the Department of Defense for their astronomical budget request. But already, the GOP is doubling down on threat inflation and calling this historically high budget inadequate to counter China, priming the pump for an even greater military spending increase. …
    6. Already with existing funding, the Pentagon is opening upfour new bases in the Philippines,increasing its rotational presence in Australia, upgrading and expanding equipment and infrastructure in existing bases and more. If Congress rubber stamps this new budget request, these additional billions of dollars will further escalate tensions by turbocharging the U.S. military’s expansion in the Pacific, leaving critical domestic priorities lacking.
    7. While the intention behind all of this spending is deterrence, it is more likely than not to have the opposite result. Rapidly escalating our military presence in the Pacific increases the risk of accidental conflict due to misunderstanding or miscalculation, especially at a time when tensions between the U.S. and China are extremely high and volatile. 
    8. The grim reality is that any shooting war between the U.S. and China would unleash unthinkable chaos on the global stage andinflict massive casualties on both sides— not to mention the risk of it rapidly spiraling into a nuclear confrontation. Compounding this, the de-escalation mechanisms between our two countries appear broken right now, which makes each crisis even more dangerous. …
    9. A threat inflation tax to prepare for an avoidable war is the last thing people need. At its core, U.S. foreign policy and its accompanying spending should be rooted in conflict prevention, not preparation. 
    10. MIKE: Andrew suggested this story, and it seemed a reasonable counterpoint to many of the articles we’ve read over the past weeks involving China’s military build-up.
    11. MIKE: It’s worth remembering that this is an opinion piece.
    12. MIKE: The author argues that China’s build-up is defensive, but fails to explain at what point it becomes offensive. (To be fair, the same could be said of the US.) Building the infrastructure to build modern weapons, and then the building of them, is a time-intensive affair taking years. China has built considerable industrial infrastructure for weapons manufacture. The US has been letting its mobilizable defense infrastructure atrophy, relying on stockpiles. The assumption was that modern peer wars would be intense but brief. Ukraine has shown us differently.
    13. MIKE: The danger of war with China peaks between about 2025 and 2030. This is a period when Chinese power will be at its highest relative to the US, which will be in a rebuilding phase after retiring many ships, aircraft, and other old weaponry. It will depend largely on what China decides to do about Taiwan over the next 5-10 years. If they decide to invade, that could provoke a direct or proxy war with the US. If things go as they are, we may yet have at least a few more decades of peace between China and the US.
    14. MIKE: As for US military spending, much is made of the dollar amount and the relationship to other national budgets, but as a percentage of GDP, the US is spending less than half of what it was spending in 1960; currently it’s about 3.5%. Current military budgets reflect both constant inflation and increased technological complexity.
    15. MIKE: The author points out that the military budget is 52% of discretionary spending. First of all, that word “discretionary” does a lot of work there. Second, if you want military spending to be a smaller part of discretionary spending, make the rich pay their fair share and increase spending without increasing debt.
    16. MIKE: The current military philosophy of readiness grows out of WW2. In 1941, the US was unprepared militarily in almost every way. Just as the Civil War made US military doctrine sensitive to casualties, Pearl Harbor did the same for preparedness.
    17. MIKE: We live in an increasingly dangerous world. Military spending is better invested in deterrence than in warfighting, as long as that power isn’t abused. If we want to improve our social programs, we need to once again make the rich and megacorporations pay their fair share in taxes.
    18. ANDREW: It won’t surprise regular listeners that I agree strongly with this article.
    19. ANDREW: We discussed another story last week about leaked US intelligence suggesting that China was working on a new spy drone, and we both concluded it was an understandable defensive move rather than an act of aggression. I think this analysis is a very nice compliment to that story. In fact, I think our conclusion from last week can answer one of Mike’s questions: one clear indicator of China’s posture becoming aggressive would be if they appeared to be trying to develop enough fighting force to overwhelm the US, rather than just compete. At the moment, they aren’t doing that.
    20. ANDREW: I agree that taxes need to be increased on the rich, and that it’s better to budget for military deterrence rather than warfighting. But like this article says, deterrence in excess can easily become overwhelming force. And as I just said, overwhelming force can reasonably be considered an aggressive posture, whether that force is on China’s side or the US’. Reducing our own military spending would help relax everyone’s posture.
    21. REFERENCE: Is US defense spending too high, too low, or just right? — BROOKINGS.EDU
    22. REFERENCE: S. Military Spending/Defense Budget 1960-2023 — MACROTRENDS.NET (Useful Graphs and stats)

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