Last Call For Water We Waiting For, Con't

Climate change means your water bill is going to skyrocket in the years ahead, and for places where water is already scarce out west, you can change that timeframe to "months ahead".

Water is joining gold, oil and other commodities traded on Wall Street, highlighting worries that the life-sustaining natural resource may become scarce across more of the world.

Farmers, hedge funds and municipalities alike will be able to hedge against -- or bet on -- potential water scarcity starting this week, when CME Group Inc. launches contracts linked to the $1.1 billion California spot water market. According to Chicago-based CME, the futures will help water users manage risk and better align supply and demand.

The contracts, a first of their kind in the U.S., were announced in September as heat and wildfires ravaged the U.S. West Coast. They are meant to serve both as a hedge for California’s biggest water consumers against skyrocketing prices and a scarcity gauge for investors worldwide.

“Climate change, droughts, population growth, and pollution are likely to make water scarcity issues and pricing a hot topic for years to come,” said RBC Capital Markets managing director and analyst Deane Dray. “We are definitely going to watch how this new water futures contract develops.”

Two billion people now live in nations plagued by water problems, and almost two-thirds of the world could face water shortages in just four years, Tim McCourt, global head of equity index and alternative investment products at CME, said in an interview. “The idea of managing risks associated to water is certainly increased in importance.”

The futures will be financially settled, as opposed to requiring the actual physical delivery of water, and are based on the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index started two years ago. The index sets a weekly benchmark spot price of water rights in California, underpinned by the volume-weighted average of the transaction prices in the state’s five largest and most actively traded water markets.

Contracts will include quarterly ones through 2022, with each representing 10 acre-feet of water, equal to roughly 3.26 million gallons.

Currently, if a farmer wants to know what water will cost in California six months from now, it’s kind of a “best guess,” Patrick Wolf, senior manager and head of product development at Nasdaq, said in an interview.

The futures will allow market participants to see “what is everybody’s best guess,” he said.

 

How quickly will Republican-controlled states move to peg the price of water for utilities to commodities markets like this?  What happens to cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas when water becomes more expensive than fuel?

And yes, public water agencies will want to lock in prices ahead of time.

And pass those prices along to consumers.

This needs to stop, and the fact it's happening in California first was inevitable, but awful.

 

Lowering The Barr, Con't

Once again, Attorney General Bill Barr is threatening to quit over Trump's antics, and once again, I believe him about as far as he can throw me.

Attorney General William P. Barr is considering stepping down before President Trump’s term ends next month, according to three people familiar with this thinking. One said Mr. Barr could announce his departure before the end of the year.

It was not clear whether the attorney general’s deliberations were influenced by Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede his election loss or his fury over Mr. Barr’s acknowledgment last week that the Justice Department uncovered no widespread voting fraud. In the ensuing days, the president refused to say whether he still had confidence in his attorney general.

One of the people insisted that Mr. Barr had been weighing his departure since before last week and that Mr. Trump had not affected the attorney general’s thinking. Another said Mr. Barr had concluded that he had completed the work that he set out to accomplish at the Justice Department.

But the president’s public complaints about the election, including a baseless allegation earlier last week that federal law enforcement had rigged the election against him, are certain to cast a cloud over any early departure by Mr. Barr. By leaving early, Mr. Barr could avoid a confrontation with the president over his refusal to advance Mr. Trump’s efforts to rewrite the election results.

Mr. Barr’s departure would also deprive the president of a cabinet officer who has wielded the power of the Justice Department more deeply in service of a president’s political agenda than any attorney general in a half-century. Conversely, it would please some Trump allies, who have called for Mr. Barr to step down over his refusal to wade further into Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election outcome.

Mr. Barr has not made a final decision, and the prospect of him staying on through Jan. 20 remains a possibility, the people familiar with his thinking cautioned. Should Mr. Barr step down before the end of the Trump administration, the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, would be expected to lead the Justice Department until President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is sworn in.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. The White House had no comment. 

 

I actually don't care too much at this point what Barr does, this late in the game Trump really doesn't need him if he's going to pardon everybody and shit on the rug on the way out the door, I do care what Jeff Rosen, or whomever Trump appoints to replace Barr, will do under intense pressure to help Trump with his ongoing coup attempts.

 

That part worried me, yeah.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

How long until the Proud Boys or The Base decide this asshole is a martyr who maybe needs to be sprung from jail?

 

The co-owner of a New York City bar that authorities said has been defying coronavirus restrictions was taken into custody early Sunday after running over a deputy with a car, authorities said.

Danny Presti tried to drive away from his bar, Mac’s Public House, as deputies were arresting him for serving patrons in violation of city and state closure orders, Sheriff Joseph Fucito said.

Deputies attempted to arrest Presti as he left the bar early Sunday, but Presti got into his car, struck a deputy and kept driving for about 100 yards as the deputy was left hanging onto the hood, Fucito said.

Presti, 34, was eventually stopped and apprehended, the sheriff said. Charges against him were pending.

Mark Fonte, an attorney for Presti, said he had not yet had an opportunity to speak to his client. Fonte said he expected Presti to be arraigned later Sunday.

The injured deputy was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries. The deputy’s condition wasn’t immediately available.

The Staten Island bar was the site of protests last week after the sheriff’s office arrested Presti on charges of violating restrictions aimed at halting the spread of the coronavirus and obstructing governmental administration.

The tavern is in an area designated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as an orange zone because of spiking COVID-19 rates and was not supposed to be serving customers indoors. But the owners had declared the bar an “autonomous zone,” a nod to protesters who claimed control over a Seattle neighborhood in June.

A spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio said Presti’s actions showed a disregard for human life. “In both of these instances, whether it’s flouting public health laws or ramming a car into a uniformed deputy, this individual has endangered the lives of others,” said the spokesperson, Bill Neidhardt.

Authorities said the bar was still serving patrons Saturday night even though it was ordered closed entirely after Presti’s earlier arrest.

Deputies surveilling the pub saw that the front door to the bar was locked but customers were being directed to a building next door, Fucito said. From there, they were able to enter Mac’s Public House through a back door and order food and beverages, he said.

Staten Island is much more conservative than the rest of New York City and is the only one of the city’s five boroughs that voted for Republican President Donald Trump in November. The borough is home to many police officers and firefighters and is usually seen as supportive of law enforcement.

 

You want to see how quickly Staten Island goes from "Blue Lives Matter" to "All Cops Are Bastards" just wait until this story gets around. It's okay when cops come about Black folk, but when the deputies show up for white bar owners in violation of COVID-19 regulations and closures, all of a sudden it's time for revolution. 

Brutal police murders for everyone else,but they let *us* slide, because laws aren't fair when we have to obey the.

StupidiNews!

• President-elect Joe Biden is expected to name California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to his Cabinet as Health and Human Services Secretary.
• Trump legal advisor Rudy Giuliani is in a Georgetown hospital after being diagnosed with COVID-19 on Sunday.
• With time running out before a December 31 deadline, EU and UK Brexit negotiators return to the table on Monday to try to workout a last-minute trade deal.
• Both the White House and Senate Republicans, including majority leader Mitch McConnell, are reportedly on-board with a bipartisan Senate COVID-19 relief bill.
• A new Dartmouth College study finds climate change is not only affecting oceans and rivers, but streams as well, increasing stream flow, causing erosion, and flash flooding.