Another Republican President, Another Recession.

It will come as no surprise to the regulars around here that I have soured to the point where I can barely pucker up to the work being done by our corporate, national media these days.

My love affair with the profession I gave most of my life to has ended in hurt and disappointment. Our national press too often presents as incompetent fools who are more interested in being led around by the nose than they are sniffing out stories, including the biggest one of our lives.

Our democracy is under attack RIGHT NOW in America, but I bet if you took off and went running to find that reported in any of our newspapers of record in this nation at this very moment, you’d be hard-pressed to locate it in any proper form. There’s a political horse race to run you see, and anything that gets in the way of that, like the biggest story in America since the Civil War, is simply not fit for print.

Imagine my surprise then, while lapping up coffee Sunday morning and poking around all the likely and unlikely places for news, I came across what we used to called a “blockbuster story” in The Washington Post.

I’ll guess they have a paywall on the thing, so I’ll be glad to help you through it here. It’s a damn important story, and one of those you might want to politely shove in the face of that certain Republican in our life, who thinks their party, and the orange huckster who is running it into the ground, gives a single shit about them.

Fact: They don’t.

I was also surprised that when I went looking for the story to share 24 hours later, I had to scroll through several screens to find it. These damn newspapers are so anxious to get back to their horse race, they are putting their own game-changing stories out to pasture.

This one needs some stubborn attention and sharing, though, so let’s begin …

Headline: INSURANCE LOBBYISTS BLOCK FEDERAL CRACKDOWN ON COSTLY RETIREMENT ADVICE

It’s backed with this subhead: The financial services industry has blocked the Biden administration from requiring brokers to put retirees’ needs first — above lucrative commissions.

Here’s the lede. I have highlighted a few passages for emphasis:

"To protect older Americans’ life savings, President Biden pledged in October to crack down on financial advisers who recommend investments just because they pay higher commissions. Then the insurance industry got to work."

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Here’s the red meat backing that strong lede:

"Lobbying groups representing New York Life, Lincoln Financial Group, Prudential Financial and other companies first pushed back against the newly proposed regulations before suing to topple them entirely."
"Now the government’s latest attempt to protect retirees is in political and legal limbo, facing the possibility that it may never take effect."
"It is the latest example of a pervasive pattern: As the Biden administration tries to impose new restrictions on powerful industries, those businesses successfully turn to (Republican) Congress and courts for a reprieve. This time, the resulting clash centers on a basic question: Should federal law require more financial professionals to put retirees’ needs above all else — including their own paychecks — when they offer advice about how to invest?"

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This is stunning, folks, it really is, and another direct attack on retirees by Republicans and the courts who own them. I say again: Anybody who tells you Republicans care about protecting you from financial predators is just flat lying, and might have some golden sneakers they’d like to sell you.

Further, they have absolutely no problem preying on hardworking people who spent their lives working their fingers to the bone and would like a few years to enjoy the fruits of that labor before limping into the sunset.

That’s a lot of necessary metaphors right there to drive home a point: If you are in, or nearing retirement and are not voting Democratic, you are very much voting AGAINST yer own interests.

Back to the story real quick. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) was asked to comment on these heinous Republican actions, and said this:

“What they’re (GOP and these financial predators) saying is, the only way they can operate is by giving you advice that is not in your best interest. “If they hung that on their shingle … no one would go to that financial adviser.”

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Dang, eh? Their success depends on screwing you.

Read that again:

Their success depends on screwing you.

So Republicans are busy little bees making it OK for your financial advisor to look you in the eyes and pick your pocket.

Back to the story:

In April, the Labor Department finalized rules that would subject a wide array of brokers to a higher legal standard, requiring them to act as fiduciaries. The effort primarily aims to protect the millions of Americans who leave their jobs, or otherwise need to roll over their retirement savings, and opt for tax-advantaged accounts such as IRAs — transactions that exceeded $770 billion in 2022 alone, according to federal estimates.
These savers face critical, one-time decisions about what to do with their money, and a miscalculation caused by conflicted investment advice could cut deeply into their retirement funds. But the Biden administration’s attempts to ensure Americans receive the best guidance have sparked immense political backlash, as financial services and insurance professionals try to avert what they see as costly, illegal federal mandates.
In July, the industries scored a string of critical early victories: Republicans in Congress took the first step toward invalidating the new rules, while judges in two federal courts blocked the government from implementing the proposal nationwide in September, as planned, potentially setting the stage for the regulations to be scrapped.

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That’s a lot of evil to chew on, so here’s the nut: Republicans are actively working to protect these wolves, so they can eat YOUR savings. If this isn’t an abomination, I’m not sure what is.

Here’s some reaction to that crime:

Micah Hauptman, the director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, predicted additional delays as the fight winds its way to the Supreme Court— adding to the high stakes for Americans who already face confusing choices about what to do with their retirement money.
“Conflicted advice is very costly to retirement savers,” he said. “It can mean the difference between tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost savings over time.”

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Again I say: DANG. Because when this all gets to the bought-off, radical-Right Supreme Court, you KNOW which way this is certain to go.

No surprise, the corporate bastards either refused to comment for this story, or churned out fatty propaganda like this:

The American Council of Life Insurers, one of the organizations that sued (the Biden Administration), declined to comment. But it cheered the court ruling in an unsigned statement last month, adding that the new fiduciary requirements threaten to “deprive millions of consumers [of] access to much needed retirement financial guidance and protected lifetime income products.”

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Sorry, but this is a projection in the highest order, so a correction: “The fiduciary requirement threatens to deprive these corporate predators of access to the retirement funds of these retirees so they can pad their own fat pockets.”

Again, the Republican Congress and their chummy courts are on the take, and it is all right there for everybody to see.

Here’s something else that everybody needs to see. There has been a lot of talk about the safety of OUR social security and Medicare. Republicans don’t seem to like these programs much because they’d rather feed the thieves I alluded to above more of OUR money.

Don’t believe me? Well, slide this fact in front of that Trump-lover in your family:

In Trump’s final 2020 budget, before he left the White House, he proposed spending $1.5 trillion less on Medicaid, $25 billion less on Social Security, and $845 billion less on Medicare.

Facts are, this convicted felon and fraudster WILL cut retirement programs if God forbid he ever gets the chance. He cares as much about you, as he does the truth, which is to say, not at all.

Look, for a variety of reasons, you have to be nuts to vote for a Republican right now. They probably don't care about you or our country. They probably care only about the filthy-rich bastards who are funding their campaigns and lifestyles and the bought-off courts who are protecting them.

Isn't that right, Clarence?

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July, the latest sign that the worst price spike in four decades is fading and setting up the Federal Reserve for an interest rate cut in September.

Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices rose just 0.2% from June to July after dropping slightly the previous month for the first time in four years. Measured from a year earlier, prices rose 2.9%, down from 3% in June. It was the mildest year-over-year inflation figure since March 2021.

The government said nearly all the increase in the monthly inflation figure reflected higher rental prices and other housing costs, a trend that, according to real-time data, is easing.

Inflation has taken a central role in the presidential election, with former President Donald Trump blaming the Biden administration’s energy policies for the price increases. Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday said she would soon unveil new proposals to “bring down costs and also strengthen the economy overall.”

In July, grocery prices rose just 0.1% and are a scant 1.1% higher than they were a year earlier, a much slower pace of growth than in previous years. Yet many Americans are still struggling with food prices, which remain 21% above where they were three years ago, though average wages have also sharply increased since then.

Gas prices were unchanged from June to July and have actually fallen 2.2% in the past year. Clothing prices also dropped last month; they’re nearly unchanged from 12 months earlier. New and used car prices fell in July, too. Used car prices, which had skyrocketed during the pandemic, have tumbled nearly 11% in the past year.

Some food prices, including for meat, fish and eggs, are increasing faster than before the pandemic. Dairy and fruit and vegetable prices, though, fell in July.

For nearly a year cooling inflation has provided gradual relief to America’s consumers, who were stung by the price surges that erupted three years ago, particularly for food, gas, rent and other necessities. Inflation peaked two years ago at 9.1%, the highest level in four decades.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core prices climbed a mild 0.2% from June to July, after a 0.1% increase the previous month. And compared with a year earlier, core inflation slowed from 3.3% to 3.2% — the lowest level since April 2021. Core prices are closely watched by economists because they typically provide a better read of where inflation is headed.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said he is seeking additional evidence of slowing inflation before the Fed begins cutting its key interest rate. Economists widely expect the Fed’s first rate cut to occur in mid-September.

When the central bank lowers its benchmark rate, over time it tends to reduce the cost of borrowing for consumers and businesses. Mortgage rates have already declined in anticipation of the Fed’s first rate reduction.

At a news conference last month, Powell said that cooler inflation data this spring had strengthened the Fed’s confidence that price increases are falling back to a 2% annual pace. Another inflation report will be issued next month before the Fed’s Sept. 17-18 meeting, with economists expecting that report to also show that price increases remained mostly tame.



Inflation has eased substantially in the past two years as global supply chains have been repaired, a spate of apartment construction in many large cities has cooled rental costs and higher interest rates have slowed auto sales, forcing dealers to offer better deals to potential car buyers.

Consumers, particularly lower-income ones, are also becoming more price-sensitive, forgoing high-priced items or shifting to cheaper alternatives. This has forced many companies to rein in price hikes or even offer lower prices.

Prices are still rising sharply for some services, including auto insurance and health care. Auto insurance costs have shot up as the value of new and used vehicles has soared compared with three years ago. Economists, though, expect those costs to eventually grow more slowly.

As inflation continues to decline, the Fed is paying increasingly close attention to the job market. The central bank’s goals, as defined by Congress, are to keep prices stable and support maximum employment.

This month, the government reported that hiring slowed much more than expected in July and that the unemployment rate rose for a fourth straight month, though to a still-low 4.3%. The figures roiled financial markets and led many economists to boost their forecasts for interest rate cuts this year. Most analysts now expect at least three quarter-point rate cuts at the Fed’s September, November and December meetings. The Fed’s benchmark rate is at a 23-year high of 5.3%.

Still, the rise in the unemployment rate has reflected mainly an influx of job-seekers, especially new immigrants, who haven’t immediately found work and so have been classified as unemployed. That is a much more positive reason for a higher unemployment rate than if it came from a jump in layoffs. Measures of job cuts remain low.
On Thursday, the government will release its latest data on retail sales, which are expected to show that consumers increased their spending modestly in July. As long as shoppers are willing to spend, businesses are likely to hold onto their workers and may even add staff.

CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
Chris Rugaber covers the economy and the Federal Reserve

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hanimmal said:

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is zeroing in on high food and housing prices as her campaign previews an economic policy speech Friday in North Carolina, promising to push for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries and laying out plans to cut other costs as she looks to address one of voters’ top concerns.

Year-over-year inflation has reached its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are 21% above where they were three years ago. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pointed to inflation as a key failing of the Biden administration.

The cost of housing is another major driver of inflation, and Harris plans to use federal resources to promote the construction of 3 million new housing units if elected, pass legislation to slow rent increases, and provide a $25,000 in down-payment assistance for first time homebuyers.

Harris is drawing closer to President Joe Biden’s legislative and economic record, casting her initiatives as an extension of the work their administration has done over the last three and a half years.

The Harris housing plan includes establishing a tax credit for homebuilders who construct starter homes for first-time homebuyers, and doubling a $20 billion Biden administration “innovation fund” for housing construction. The down-payment assistance would significantly expand on a Biden proposal to provide federal support to first-time buyers.

Earlier Thursday, Biden and Harris celebrated their efforts to cut prescription drug prices at an event in Maryland as she made her first joint speaking appearance with Biden since she replaced him at the top of the Democratic ticket nearly four weeks ago.

They announced that drug price negotiations will knock hundreds of dollars — in some cases thousands — off the list prices of 10 of Medicare’s most popular and costliest drugs. The program was created through the 2022 health care- and climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act. Harris’ vote Senate vote, as vice president, helped Democrats overcome unanimous GOP opposition to make the bill law.

“The tiebreaking vote of Kamala,” Biden told the audience, “made that possible.”

He added that Harris is “gonna make one helluva president.”

Biden undertook his own efforts to contain rising food prices, including creating a “competition council” that tried to reduce costs by increasing competition within the meat industry, part of a broader effort to show his administration is trying to combat inflation.

Asked Thursday if he was concerned Harris would seek to distance herself from his economic record, Biden told reporters, “She’s not going to.”

Americans are more likely to trust Trump over Harris when it comes to handling the economy, but the difference is slight: 45% say Trump is better positioned to handle the economy, while 38% say that about Harris. About 1 in 10 trust neither Harris nor Trump to better handle the economy, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

Trump, speaking Thursday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, argued Harris is proposing “communist price controls” that would lead to shortages, hunger and more inflation. He was flanked by popular grocery store items as he sought to highlight the rising cost of food.

Harris, in her housing plan, also wants to crack down on data-sharing and price-setting tools that landlords to set rents, and to remove a tax incentive that has led investment firms to purchase wide swaths of the country’s housing stock. She intends to contrast her plan with Trump, who was sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination five decades ago.

Consumer confidence surveys show that high prices remain a persistent source of frustration for shoppers, particularly among lower-income Americans, even as inflation has cooled. Overall prices are about 21% higher than before the pandemic. Average incomes have risen by slightly more than that, boosting spending even as Americans report a gloomy outlook on the economy.

Some meat prices have risen by even more than overall inflation: Beef prices have increased nearly 33% in the 4 1/2 years since the pandemic began, while chicken prices have jumped 31%. Pork is 21% more expensive, according to government data.

Supply disruptions during the pandemic were one reason prices rose. Many meat processing plants closed temporarily after COVID-19 outbreaks among their workers.

But the Biden administration has charged that corporate consolidation in the meat processing industry has played a larger role by enabling a small number of companies to raise their prices by more than their their costs.

Four large companies control 55% to 85% of the beef, chicken, and poultry markets, the White House said in late 2021, including Tyson Foods and JBS. Several of the biggest meat companies have collectively paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to settle lawsuits accusing them of fixing prices for chicken, beef and pork, but they didn’t admit any wrongdoing.

Some economists have argued that large food and consumer goods companies took advantage of pandemic-era disruptions. Economist Isabella Weber at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, called it “seller’s inflation.” Others referred to it as “greedflation.”

Harris’ proposals on price gouging come as there is some evidence that “sellers’ inflation” is fading. Consumers have become more discriminating, and are passing on some higher-price purchases while seeking out cheaper alternatives.

Grocery prices, on average nationwide, have risen just 1.1% in the past 12 months, in line with pre-pandemic increases, the government said Wednesday.

The meat industry has been fending off allegations of price gouging and price fixing for years, and the major players dispute the notion that the extreme consolidation in the industry is to blame for high prices.

Kansas State University agricultural economist Glynn Tonsor said “the cost of raising the animal, the cost of converting it into meat, and the cost of getting that meat to people is higher than it was.”

“Yes, consumers are seeing higher prices, but it doesn’t necessarily mean somebody is gouging them,” Tonsor said.

The head of the Meat Institute trade group, President and CEO Julie Anna Potts, said Harris’ idea would not solve the problems of inflation driving up the price of everything.

“Consumers have been impacted by high prices due to inflation on everything from services to rent to automobiles, not just at the grocery store,” Potts said. “A federal ban on price gouging does not address the real causes of inflation.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is out with a string of new economic proposals focused on food prices, taxes, housing and medical costs that she says will empower the middle class.

The plans constitute the first major policy proposals that Harris has released in the nearly four weeks since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed his vice president.

A look at what Harris is proposing:

Food prices
After years of polling showing that Americans are worried about inflation, Harris is aiming to contain prices where they have often been most conspicuously felt — at the grocery store. She’s promising to, during her first 100 days in office, send Congress proposed federal limits on price increases for food producers and grocers. Harris also is seeking new authority for the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in states across the country to enact steeper punishments for violators. She also wants to use government regulators to crack down on mergers and acquisitions among large food industry businesses that the vice president argues have contributed to higher prices.

Housing
Harris is calling for the construction of 3 million new housing units over four years, which she says will ease a “serious housing shortage in America.” She also plans to promote legislation creating a new series of tax incentives for builders who construct “starter” homes sold to first-time homebuyers.

She also wants a $40 billion innovation fund — doubling a similar pot of money created by the Biden administration — for businesses building affordable rental housing units. Harris also wants to speed up permitting and review processes to get housing stock to the market more quickly.

Harris further says she can lower rental costs by limiting investors who buy up homes in bulk, as well as curbing the use of price-setting tools that she argues encourage collusion to increase profits among landlords. She also wants to expand a Biden administration plan providing $25,000 in potential down payment assistance to help some renters buy a home, so that it will include a much larger swath of first-time home buyers across the country.

The vice president also has endorsed repurposing some federal land to make room for new affordable housing, an idea that Biden endorsed while still running for president and that Trump has also spoken about favorably.

Taxes and medical costs
Harris wants to speed up a Biden administration effort that has allowed Medicare and other federal programs to negotiate with drugmakers to lower the cost of prescription medications, aiming to cut the price tags of some of the most expensive and most commonly used drugs by roughly 40% to 80% starting in 2026. She’s also promised to promote competition with steps to increase transparency within pharmaceutical company pricing practices.

Harris also pledged to work with state entities to cancel $7 billion of medical debt for up to 3 million qualifying Americans.

The vice president also proposed to make permanent a $3,600 per child tax credit approved through 2025 for eligible families, while offering a new $6,000 tax credit for those with newborn children. She says a Harris administration would work to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to cut taxes for some frontline workers by up to $1,500 and reduce taxes on healthcare plans offered on the marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act.

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NEVADA, Iowa — Harold Beach, a northeast Missouri farmer who runs a row-crop operation and raises hogs and cattle, traveled to central Iowa last weekend to urge one of the nation’s top regulators to stop a multibillion-dollar takeover of a Lee County fertilizer plant he and other rural advocates say will further erode competition in agriculture and increase costs for one of modern farming’s essential inputs, nitrogen.

“I would like you to be fearless and courageous and be a Teddy Roosevelt,” Beach told Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan.

Khan spoke to an audience of about 100 people that featured farmers, rural leaders and some state legislators. But her main mission for the 90-minute session in downtown Nevada, the county seat of Story County and a 15-minute drive from the center of agricultural research in the state, Iowa State University, was to gather facts from the brewing storm over Koch Industries’ planned purchase of OCI Global’s nitrogen fertilizer plant in Wever, a small town in southeastern Iowa.

Over a decade ago, during the administration of Gov. Terry Branstad, the state provided $240 million in tax incentives for the development of the plant — one of the largest economic-development efforts in the history of the state, and one designed to bring jobs and access to more affordable fertilizer for a wide swath of Iowa.

Koch plans to buy the plant for $3.6 billion.

“I am concerned about the greed-flation that permeates everything,” said Susie Petra, an Ames educator who spoke at the event.

Here is how Koch Industries sees it in a news release:

WICHITA, Kan., Dec. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Koch Ag & Energy Solutions (KAES), a global provider of solutions for the agriculture, energy and chemical markets, today announced an agreement to acquire OCI Global’s fertilizer plant in Wever, Iowa, for $3.6 billion.
The transaction, once finalized, will give KAES 100% ownership of the state-of-the-art facility, which was opened in 2017 and has the capacity to produce 3.5 million metric tons of nitrogen fertilizers and diesel exhaust fluid annually.
“Today’s announcement is an important step forward for KAES as we continue to invest in our fertilizer business,” said Mark Luetters, president of Koch Ag & Energy Solutions. “This investment complements our existing business and we look forward to advancing this transaction with OCI to completion.”
A parade of farmers and legislators urged Khan, one of the more highly visible FTC chairs in history, and a regulator not afraid to drop lawsuits on major American companies, to halt the purchase. The detractors say the Koch takeover is bad for farmers, and is a toss-away of hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from the state.

“We are losing it,” David Weaver, who farms in Boone and Greene counties, said of capitalism and democracy itself.

Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said the concern is easily understood: Farmers fear getting gouged on fertilizer costs by a consolidated industry with increasingly less competition.

Added Iowa Falls farmer John Gilbert, “Iowa agriculture is addicted to nitrogen.”

Khan said the direct public input gives her a better understanding of challenges facing farmers. She said the FTC can investigate whether the Koch deal is restricting markets. If so, the government agency can go to court to block it, she said.

“The anti-trust laws prohibit mergers if they may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly,” Khan said. “So when deals are proposed we can investigate them and try to understand: is this going to eliminate competition in a way that’s going to harm farmers, harm communities, harm customers?”

Bottom line, she said, the Biden administration wants markets to work for regular people.

“If we see monopolistic practices in the marketplace we’re going after them,” Khan said.

Koch Industries is aware of the listening session in Nevada, a Koch Fertilizer spokesperson, Greg Lemon, said in a statement.

“We have received support from many customers and are confident the Federal Trade Commission will allow our transaction to proceed after they have concluded their analysis and customer outreach,” Lemon said. “This acquisition builds on the $2 billion in investments we have made in our North American facilities to increase production, enhance safety and reliability, and improve our customers’ access to the products and service they need to feed and fuel the world. ”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit Friday against real estate software company RealPage Inc., accusing it of an illegal scheme that allows landlords to coordinate to hike rental prices.

The lawsuit, filed alongside attorneys general in states including North Carolina and California, alleges the company is violating antitrust laws through its algorithm that landlords use to get recommended rental prices for millions of apartments across the country.

Rents across the U.S. saw a huge spike in 2021 and 2022, and though their growth has since tapered off, they remain stubbornly high for many tenants, thanks in part to a huge lack of housing supply.

Justice Department officials allege that RealPage is another reason for the high rents since the algorithm allows landlords to align their prices and avoid competition that would otherwise keep rents down.

“Americans should not have to pay more in rent simply because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters.



In a statement, RealPage said the Justice Department’s claims were “devoid of merit and will do nothing to make housing more affordable.”

“We are disappointed that, after multiple years of education and cooperation on the antitrust matters concerning RealPage, the DOJ has chosen this moment to pursue a lawsuit that seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years,” the company said.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Dom Beveridge, a longtime expert in the revenue management field who is not connected to the lawsuit, gave a detailed, vociferous defense of revenue management software and said prosecutors have fundamentally misunderstood how such products work.

“If it were true that the software enabled price-fixing, I would 100% be on the side of the lawsuits — but it’s simply not what the software does,” said Beveridge, who briefly worked for RealPage when his company’s software was acquired by the firm in 2017. “These algorithms are only functionally capable of optimizing one property at a time. They can’t say, ‘I’m going to take property A, B and C and figure out collectively what they should do together,’ which is the allegation being made.”

He emphasized that property managers are incentivized to maximize revenue, which means keeping occupancy high, rather than constraining supply, as critics have alleged. Rather than being like an Uber “surge price,” revenue management tools help apartment managers align their inventory as if it were a game of Tetris, thereby actually increasing the supply available, Beveridge said.

RealPage came under scrutiny after a 2022 ProPublica investigation into the company’s practice suggested that it could be to blame for some of the rapid increases in rents. Since then, RealPage has drawn the ire of Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who in February introduced a bill to bar companies from using algorithms to collude and fix prices.

White House National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard said the White House had no comment on the lawsuit, but added that President Joe Biden’s administration “has made clear that no one should pay higher prices because of corporate lawbreaking and continues to support fair and vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws to prevent illegal collusion.”

RealPage is not the only company that offers an algorithmic tool to help property managers set prices. But the lawsuit says the company is by far the biggest in the industry, controlling 80% of the market.

The use of data to help property managers set their rents isn’t new or, on its face, illegal. But officials argue that RealPage is different.

According to lawsuits filed in the past year by the attorneys general for Arizona and Washington, D.C., RealPage doesn’t just use publicly available data — it uses confidential data that RealPage’s clients have agreed to privately share to help RealPage’s software to determine the highest price.

That amounts to cartel-like illegal price collusion, authorities say. Only this time, instead of cartel members meeting inside a proverbial “smoke-filled room,” the price-fixing is done by AI, they say.

The Justice Department points to RealPage executives’ own words about how their product maximizes prices for landlords. One executive said, “There is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down.”

RealPage has noted that landlords are free to reject the price recommendations generated by its software. But the Justice Department alleges that doing so often requires a series of steps, including a conversation with a RealPage pricing adviser who can “stop property managers from acting on emotions.”

Beveridge argued that property managers’ adherence to the RealPage algorithm is not actually very high — about 40-50% of the rents that ultimately get posted fall within 1% of the algorithm’s recommendation, prosecutors said.

“That’s essentially a coin flip,” he said. “You should want people to be accepting about 90% of your recommendations because most price recommendations are really small.”

The case is the latest example of the Biden administration’s aggressive antitrust enforcement.

The Justice Department sued Apple in March and in May announced a sweeping lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its owner, Live Nation Entertainment. Antitrust enforcers have also opened investigations into the roles Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI have played in the artificial intelligence boom.

Among those celebrating the lawsuits against Realpage is Lee Hepner, legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, an organization that advocates for government action against business concentration.

“There’s a temptation for courts to turn a blind eye to this harm because algorithms tend to conceal the existence of an agreement between competitors,” Hepner said. “It’s not as straightforward as an email between competitors agreeing to fix prices. I think it is very important that our courts address the use of these software algorithms as if it is any other form of price-fixing.”

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Governor Kristi Noem’s administration recently turned down more than $70 million of federal funds from energy efficiency and environmental programs, according to her top budget official.

The Home Energy Rebates program would have provided the state with $69 million to give South Dakotans rebates for energy-efficient home retrofits and high-efficiency electric appliances. The deadline for indicating intent to participate was last week. Earlier this year, the state passed up $1.8 million to help administer and set up the program.

Kelly Moore is a consumer advocate from Piedmont who planned to use the rebate to offset the bill for a new heat pump.

“South Dakotans will see no direct return on their federal taxes,” Moore said. “Other states will benefit from our contributions.”

South Dakotans grow frustrated waiting for state to apply for $69 million in energy rebate funding

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During a July 30 legislative budget committee meeting, Noem’s Bureau of Finance and Management Commissioner Jim Terwilliger explained the decisions, citing administrative burdens, limited staff capacity and policy disagreements as factors for turning down the funding.

“These are federal taxpayer dollars. We know the situation of the federal budget right now. I don’t think I need to go down that path,” Terwilliger said. “And so, with good faith, we did look into this. We just don’t believe that it’s the right thing for South Dakota.”

The funding comes from the 2022 federal Inflation Reduction Act, which the Biden administration described as the most significant action ever taken by Congress to address climate change. The legislation includes provisions to raise revenue through increased taxes on corporations and high-income individuals.

Some lawmakers on the legislative budget committee disagreed with the decision to pass up the money.

“We’re missing out on some funds that could help our people,” said Sen. Larry Zikmund, R-Sioux Falls.

Other programs declined
Terwilliger said the administration also turned down money from the federal Fenceline Monitoring program. He said it would have provided $406,000 to monitor air quality around industrial areas.

And the state passed up its potential share of $1 billion allocated for states to adopt the latest optional building energy codes.

Over the course of 30 years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, that program could have reduced South Dakota’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 42 million metric tons and resulted in estimated consumer cost savings of $9,027 per South Dakota home.

The federal government would have provided funding to cover administrative costs. There was no requirement for the state to contribute.

“This is something that we did not apply for,” Terwilliger said. “I think the application period may have come and gone for that already.”

Additionally, Terwilliger mentioned how the administration passed up on the Climate Pollution Reduction grants program. The program allocated a total of $5 billion for states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sioux Falls also passed up the funding. Rapid City applied and received a $1 million planning grant but was not awarded an implementation grant.

Policy differences
Terwilliger said the one-time dollars associated with the programs would create long-term funding commitments for the state after the federal dollars run out. The state’s Energy Management Office currently has one full-time employee.

“Secondly, what’s the underlying policy that is kind of being encouraged, or pushed through with some of these programs?” Terwilliger said. “And I think, generally, we just kind of disagree with some of those policies as well.”

Some Republican state lawmakers on the budget committee support the state’s decision.

“It’s not manna from heaven,” said Rep. Chris Karr, R-Sioux Falls. “These are taxpayer dollars that somebody paid in.”

Some lawmakers expressed concerns that declining the federal dollars would negatively impact South Dakota residents, particularly those struggling with rising energy costs and the impacts of recent severe weather events. They said if staffing is the issue, the state should use some of the funds for contractors to help run the programs. Terwilliger told lawmakers about 20% of the funds could be used to run the programs.

One of the lawmakers making those criticisms was Rep. Linda Duba, D-Sioux Falls.

“I think it’s extremely unfortunate that we made the decision for the people of South Dakota not to apply for this opportunity,” Duba said, referring to the $69 million in energy efficiency rebates.

Not all Inflation Reduction Act funding opportunities were dismissed. Terwilliger said the state has participated in the Forest Legacy Program, securing $1.5 million in funding to purchase a 250-acre parcel in collaboration with the Game, Fish and Parks Department. The land preserves some forested areas along the Big Sioux River near Newton Hills State Park.

Plus, Sioux Falls successfully applied for $3 million in funding under the Urban and Community Forestry Program, with another $600,000 allocated to other communities across the state, according to Terwilliger. The $3 million will help mitigate damage caused by emerald ash borer in an area spanning 25 square miles.

Noem has often said ‘no’
There are several prior examples of the Noem administration declining federal funding.

Duba was a vocal critic of the administration passing up $7.5 million to feed low-income kids while school is out for the summer.

Noem is one of six governors who did not apply for a federal grant programto support solar energy projects around the nation. She also passed on a share of $1 billion in nationwide cybersecurity grants for county and city governments.

In 2020, the administration rejected extra unemployment benefits, provided by then-President Trump during the pandemic. The measure provided an additional $300 in unemployment benefits per week, but required states to kick in another $100.

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The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell to its lowest level in two months last week, signaling that layoffs remain relatively low despite other signs of labor market cooling.

Jobless claims fell by 5,000 to 227,000 for the week of Aug. 31, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the fewest since the week of July 6, when 223,000 Americans filed claims. It’s also less than the 230,000 new filings that analysts were expecting.

The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 1,750 to 230,000. That’s the lowest four-week average since early June.

Weekly filings for unemployment benefits, considered a proxy for layoffs, remain low by historic standards, though they are up from earlier this year.

During the first four months of 2024, claims averaged a historically low 213,000 a week. But they started rising in May. They hit 250,000 in late July, adding to evidence that high interest rates were finally cooling a red-hot U.S. job market.

Employers added just 114,000 jobs in July, well below the January-June monthly average of nearly 218,000. The unemployment rate rose for the fourth straight month in July, though it remains relatively low at 4.3%.

Economists polled by FactSet expect Friday’s August jobs report to show that the U.S. added 160,000 jobs, up from 114,000 in July, and that the unemployment rate dipped to 4.2% from 4.3%. The report’s strength, or weakness, will likely influence the Federal Reserve’s plans for how much to cut its benchmark interest rate.

Last month, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March this year than were originally reported. The revised total supports evidence that the job market has been steadily slowing and reinforces the Fed’s plan to start cutting interest rates later this month.

The Fed, in an attempt to stifle inflation that hit a four-decade high just over two years ago, raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. That pushed it to a 23-year high, where it has stayed for more than a year.

Inflation has retreated steadily, approaching the Fed’s 2% target and leading Chair Jerome Powell to declare recently that it was largely under control.

Traders are forecasting the Fed will cut its benchmark rate by a full percentage point by the end of 2024, which would require it to cut the rate by more than the traditional quarter of a percentage point at one of its meetings in the next few months.

Thursday’s report also showed that the total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits declined by 22,000 to 1.84 million for the week of Aug. 24.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS has collected $1.3 billion from high-wealth tax dodgers since last fall, the agency announced Friday, crediting spending that has ramped up collection enforcement through President Joe Biden’s signature climate, health care and tax package signed into law in 2022.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel traveled to Austin, Texas, to tour an IRS campus and announce the latest milestone in tax collections as Republicans warn of big future budget cuts for the tax agency if they take over the White House and Congress.

Yellen said in a speech in Austin that in 2019, the top one percent of wealthy Americans owed more than one-fifth of all unpaid taxes, “leaving ordinary Americans to shoulder the burden.”

“To fix this, we’ve channeled IRS funding toward significant investments to combat tax evasion,” she said.

In 2023 and 2024 the IRS launched a series of initiatives aimed at pursuing high-wealth individuals who have failed to pay their tax debts. The IRS said the campaign is focused on taxpayers with more than $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt.

Agency officials said since the program’s launch, almost 80% of the 1,600 millionaires targeted by the IRS for failing to pay a delinquent tax debt have now made a payment, leading to over $1.1 billion recovered. And in the first six months of a new February 2024 initiative, the IRS collected $172 million from 21,000 wealthy taxpayers who have not filed tax returns since 2017.

Republicans have called for funding for the IRS to be cut.

Donald Trump’s campaign for president said he would drastically reduce spending on federal agencies — and that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris “cast the tiebreaking vote to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to go after your tip income.”

That debunked claim comes from a plan the Treasury Department proposed in 2021 to bring on that many IRS employees over the next decade if it got the money. At least 50,000 IRS employees are expected to retire over the next five years.

The National Taxpayer Advocate, the independent IRS watchdog, issued a 2023 annual report stating that the IRS employs roughly 681 armed agents.

In its efforts to modernize, the agency this year also launched a program called Direct File, which allows people with very simple W-2s to calculate and submit their returns directly to the IRS. The IRS said in April that those using the program claimed more than $90 million in refunds.

While the program included 12 participating states in the 2024 tax filing season, more states have joined in for the 2025 tax season, including Maryland, Oregon, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Connecticut, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Maine.

Hussein reports on the U.S. Treasury Department for The Associated Press. She covers tax policy, sanctions and any issue that relates to money.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Mike Johnson postponed a vote Wednesday on a temporary spending bill that would keep federal agencies and programs funded for six months as opposition from both parties thwarted his first attempt at avoiding a partial government shutdown in three weeks.

The legislation to continue government funding when the new budget year begins on Oct. 1 includes a requirement that people registering to vote must provide proof of citizenship. Johnson, R-La., signaled that he was not backing off linking the two main components of the bill.

“No vote today because we’re in the consensus building business here in Congress. With small majorities, that’s what you do,” Johnson told reporters. “We’re having thoughtful conversations, family conversations within the Republican conference and I believe we’ll get there.”

Congress needs to pass a stopgap spending bill before Oct. 1 to avoid a federal shutdown just weeks before the election. The measure had been teed up for a vote on Wednesday afternoon, but Democrats are overwhelmingly opposed and enough Republicans had voiced opposition to raise serious doubts about whether the measure would pass.

The stopgap bill would generally continue existing funding through March 28. The GOP opponents of the bill argue that it continues spending at levels they consider excessive. And some Republicans simply won’t vote for any continuing resolution, arguing that Congress must return to passing its 12 annual spending bills separately rather than through the one or two catchall bills that have become the norm in recent decades.

Despite the dim prospects for the bill, Johnson had said just the day before he would push ahead with the vote. He has embraced concerns that some of the migrants who have entered the country at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years could swing the elections, though it’s illegal for noncitizens to vote and research has shown that such voting is extremely rare.

“Congress has a lot of responsibilities, but two primary obligations — responsibly fund the government and make sure that our elections are free and fair and secure,” Johnson said. “And that’s what we’re working on.”

The House approved a bill with the proof of citizenship mandate back in July.Republicans believe there is value in revisiting the issue and making Democrats in competitive swing districts vote again.

Democrats are calling on Johnson to “stop wasting time” on a bill that will not become law and to work with them on a short-term spending measure that has support from both parties. At the end of the day, they say no spending bill can pass without bipartisan support and buy-in from a Democratic-led Senate and White House.

“Speaker Johnson, scrap your plan. Don’t just delay the vote. Find a better one that can pass in a bipartisan way,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in response to Johnson’s announcement.

But Johnson wasn’t giving up on his proposal yet, saying House leadership would work on building support over the weekend. He said that ensuring that only U.S. citizens vote in federal elections is “the most pressing issue right now and we’re going to get this job done.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday seemingly encouraged a government shutdown if Republicans in the House and Senate “don’t get assurances on Election Security.” He said on the social media platform Truth Social that they should not go forward with a stopgap bill without such assurances.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., disagreed when asked about Trump’s post.

“Shutting down the government is always a bad idea, no matter what time of the year it is,” McConnell said.

With an election in just a few weeks, lawmakers are wanting to avoid flirting with a partial government shutdown. They’re anxious to get home and campaign, which would indicate the two sides will work out a spending deal before the end of the month.

In addition to the proof of citizenship question, the other sticking point is how long to extend funding while negotiating terms of a full-year bill. Some House Republicans want to continue funding for six months in the belief that Trump will become president and give them a better chance at passing their priorities in the full-year bill. But others don’t want to saddle the next president, regardless of party, with the spending battle.

Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Johnson “fought the fight he needed to fight.”

“I think it reassures people on the right. He said, ‘look, I’m trying to do what you want. You just didn’t give me the votes that I needed,’” Cole said.

Cole also suggested that the GOP’s failure to rally around Johnson’s proposal will result in a shorter extension. That’s what Democrats are seeking. Many Republicans, including Cole, also prefer going that route, saying the next president, regardless of party, already has enough work to do.

“They’ve got plenty on the table. They’ve got to get their team in place. They’ve got a budget. They have to deal with all the taxes,” Cole said. “Why should we give them a chance of a government shutdown in a matter of weeks after they’re inaugurated?”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Federal Reserve officials agreed last month that they would likely cut their benchmark interest rate at their next meeting in September as long as inflation continued to cool.

The minutes of the Fed’s July 30-31 meeting, released Wednesday, said the “vast majority” of policymakers “observed that, if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting.”

In July, the policymakers kept their benchmark rate at 5.3%, a near-quarter-century high, where it’s stood for more than a year.

Wall Street traders had already considered it a certainty that the Fed will announce its first interest rate cut in four years when it meets in mid-September, according to futures prices. A lower Fed benchmark rate would lead eventually to lower rates for auto loans, mortgages and other forms of consumer borrowing and could also boost stock prices.

The minutes of the Fed’s meetings sometimes reveal key details behind the policymakers’ thinking, especially about how their views on interest rates might be evolving. Further guidance on the Fed’s next steps is expected when Chair Jerome Powell gives a highly anticipated speech Friday morning at the annual symposium of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

A rate cut in September, coming less than two months before the presidential election, could bring some unwelcome political heat on the Fed, which seeks to avoid becoming entangled in election-year politics. Former President Donald Trump has argued that the Fed shouldn’t cut rates so close to an election. But Powell has repeatedly underscored that the central bank would make its rate decisions based purely on economic data, without regard to the political calendar.

Several Democratic senators, led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, had urged Powell to cut rates at the Fed’s July meeting and have argued that delaying a cut when it’s warranted by the inflation data would itself be a political act.

Inflation, according to the Fed’s preferred measure, has tumbled from a peak of 7.1% in 2022 to just 2.5% now. In recent interviews with The Associated Press, two Fed officials noted that as inflation slows, inflation-adjusted interest rates — which businesses closely track — rise. That trend supports a rate cut in the near term, according to both Raphael Bostic, president of the Fed’s Atlanta branch and Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago branch.

“We might need to shift our policy stance sooner than I would have thought before,” Bostic said.

Most analysts think Powell will signal in his speech Friday that the Fed has become confident that inflation is headed back to its 2% target and might even give some hint about how many rate cuts could happen this year. When he held a news conference after last month’s Fed meeting, Powell had suggested that a broad range of policy moves were possible, from “zero cuts to several cuts,” by year’s end.

Two days after the Fed met late last month, the government released a jobs report for July that showed that hiring was far weaker than expected and that the unemployment rate rose for a fourth straight month, to a still-low 4.3%. The sluggish hiring data triggered a sharp two-day drop in the stock market, with traders suddenly fearing that a recession might be nearing.

But last week, the government reported that sales at retail stores and restaurants rose at a healthy pace in July, evidence that consumers were still willing to spend and help power the economy. And a separate report showed that the number of people seeking unemployment benefits — a proxy for layoffs — slipped during the previous week, a sign that most businesses are still holding on to their workers.

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