Minnesota Vikings ruthlessly cut a player on his birthday... and their fans are all predicting the same thing
President-elect Donald Trump has yet to make his decision for Treasury secretary. Wall Street is still waiting for the official announcement as market watchers speculate who could be chosen for the high-level position. Scott Bessent, a billionaire financier, and Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve Board member, are the heavy favorites to lead the Treasury Department. Kyle Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, believes Bessent is the right person for the job because he has invested across the globe for decades and already maintains relationships with global finance ministers and central bankers. “He has a masterful knowledge of the architecture of the global financial system and its players,” Bass told The Epoch Times. “To be an effective Treasury Secretary, you have to deeply understand the U.S. bond market, trade, tariffs, the political process, how to properly sanction America’s enemies, and the U.S. budget. Bessent has the gravitas one needs to operate on day one.” The president-elect has concentrated his economic agenda on tariffs, something that Bessent supports. Trump has proposed a 10 to 20 percent universal tariff and levies between 60 and 100 percent on Chinese imports. Despite his advocacy of tariffs as a trade policy negotiating tool, Bessent has recommended a more conservative approach. Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in October, the Wall Street veteran said the economic measure can be “layered in gradually” to ensure higher prices appear over time and will be offset by disinflationary policies. Additionally, speaking to the Financial Times, Bessent stated that Trump’s “maximalist” positions on trade can be watered down. “My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” Bessent said. “It’s escalate to de-escalate.” Billionaire Elon Musk, however, preferred Howard Lutnick, who was selected to helm the Department of Commerce. Warsh is a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley. He was an economic adviser to President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2006 and is presently working on Trump’s transition team, shaping economic policy and staffing. Since resigning from the Fed, Warsh has been a member of the board of directors at UPS. He is also a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. While Warsh is a favorite on the betting website Polymarket, he has garnered mixed perceptions from market experts. Economist Mohamed El-Erian said he would bring two things to the table: solid proficiency in economics and better economic communication. Bass says that Warsh “will be more ‘business as usual.’” Even if Trump were to select Warsh for chairman of the Federal Reserve, Bass said he would not “have confidence that Warsh ... has what it takes to be Fed president.” While serving on the Federal Reserve Board as a governor from 2006 to 2011, Warsh helped craft the central bank’s response to the global financial crisis. He was a staunch critic of then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke’s endeavors, expressing skepticism that the central bank could stimulate the economy and bolster the labor market by lowering long-term interest rates. Instead, he urged his colleagues to pull back on their monetary policy easing in September 2009. After Trump’s 2016 election victory, Warsh was considered a frontrunner to helm the Federal Reserve. Jerome Powell was eventually chosen as the central bank chief. “The central bank needs to be very clear about its reaction function, be clear about its goals, and not look like it’s lurching. That’s what put us in the mess we have,” Warsh told the business news network. In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, the Fed purchased trillions of dollars in Treasury and mortgage-backed securities and corporate bonds to cushion the economic blows of the public health crisis. The central bank’s balance sheet reached nearly $9 trillion. Since March 2022, when the Fed launched its tightening cycle, the balance sheet has fallen to about $7 trillion. Warsh also raised inflation concerns, stating that the Fed will rekindle the inflation flame if it does not continue reducing its balance sheet, which is equal to about 25 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. “Price stability would be more easily achieved if the Fed continues to shrink its holdings,” Warsh said. He co-founded private equity titan Apollo Global Management in the 1990s, an investment giant with approximately $700 billion in assets under management. Rowan presently serves as the CEO. In the past, Rowan has stated that he would be open to serving as head of the Federal Reserve or secretary of the Treasury if asked. When he appeared at the Economic Club of Washington in February, Rowan stopped short of declaring whether he was a Republican or Democrat. “I don’t even know what the labels mean anymore. We are in a very confusing time, politically, but at the same time, when the dust settles from this election, something tells me we will need as a country to turn our attention to the fiscal disorder of our house,” he said. Rowan has expressed optimism surrounding the president-elect’s team and its proposal to fundamentally overhaul the government. Musk has been tapped by Trump to lead the proposed new Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE, one of the Trump team’s leading projects. The billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors believes DOGE could eliminate about $2 trillion from the federal government’s budget. “Our financial situation is fixable,” Rowan said. “It is fixable in a way that is positive for the base that the president-elect has said that he wants to help. But it is not fixable by small amounts of tinkering. It is about wholesale change.” The U.S. government’s annual budget is about $7 trillion. Rowan has also criticized the Federal Reserve’s recent unwinding of restrictive monetary policy. “To the extent we accelerate the economy and have to go in the other direction, that would not be a good day,” Rowan told Bloomberg Television . A former private equity investor, he recently accompanied the president-elect to the Nov. 19 SpaceX launch in Texas. He served as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development from 2011 to 2014. He was also the ambassador to Japan in Trump’s first term.Pep Guardiola denies rumours of a rift with Kevin De Bruyne
On Football analyzes the biggest topics in the NFL from week to week. For more On Football analysis, head here . ___ Saquon Barkley has become the Shohei Ohtani of the NFL. There’s no better home run hitter playing football right now. Barkley had touchdown runs of 72 and 70 yards for the Philadelphia Eagles in a 37-20 victory over the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night. He now has five runs of 50-plus yards this season and is on pace to break Eric Dickerson’s single-season record of 2,105 yards set in 1984. Barkley’s historic performance against the Rams — his 255 yards set a team record — captivated a national audience and turned him into a fan favorite for the AP NFL MVP award. He’s not the betting favorite, however. Josh Allen has the best odds at plus-150, according to Bet MGM Sportsbook. Two-time MVP Lamar Jackson is next at plus-250 followed by Barkley at plus-400. Running backs have won the award 18 times, including three-time winner Jim Brown, who was the AP’s first NFL MVP in 1957. Quarterbacks have dominated the award, winning it 45 times. Only three players who weren’t QBs or RBs have been MVP. It takes a special season for a non-QB to win it mainly because the offense goes through the signal caller. Quarterbacks handle the ball every offensive snap, run the show and get the credit when things go well and the blame when it doesn’t. Adrian Peterson was the most recent non-QB to win it when he ran for 2,097 yards and 12 touchdowns for the Minnesota Vikings in 2012. Playing for a winning team matters, too. Nine of the past 11 winners played for a No. 1 seed with the other two winners on a No. 2 seed. The Vikings earned the sixth seed when Pederson was MVP. Barkley is a major reason why the Eagles (9-2) are leading the NFC East and only trail Detroit (10-1) by one game for the top spot in the conference. Does he have a realistic chance to win the MVP award? Kicker Mark Moseley was the MVP in the strike-shortened 1982 season when he made 20 of 21 field goals and 16 of 19 extra points in nine games for Washington. If voters once selected a kicker, everyone has a chance, especially a game-changer such as Barkley. Defensive tackle Alan Page was the MVP in 1971 and linebacker Lawrence Taylor won it in 1986. Running back Christian McCaffrey finished third in voting last year and wide receiver Justin Jefferson placed fifth in 2022. The Offensive Player of the Year award and Defensive Player of the Year award recognize the best all-around players on both sides of the ball, allowing voters to recognize non-QBs if they choose. Wide receivers and running backs have won the AP OPOY award seven times over the past 11 seasons. McCaffrey was the 2023 winner. The AP’s new voting format introduced in 2022 also gives non-QBs a better opportunity to get MVP recognition. Voter submit their top five picks for each award, with a weighted point system. Previously, voters made one choice for each award. A nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the league vote for MVP and seven other awards. The awards are based on regular-season performance. The Chiefs (10-1) and Bills (9-2) already are in position to lock up postseason berths right after Thanksgiving. Kansas City clinches a playoff berth with a win over Las Vegas on Black Friday and a loss by Miami on Thursday night, or a win plus a loss by Denver on Monday night. Buffalo can wrap up a fifth straight AFC East title with a victory over San Francisco on Sunday and a loss by the Dolphins. It’s not a given that the Dallas Cowboys will be looking for a new head coach after this season. Owner Jerry Jones said Tuesday on local radio that Mike McCarthy could end up getting a contract extension. “I don’t think that’s crazy at all. This is a Super Bowl-winning coach. Mike McCarthy has been there and done that. He has great ideas. We got a lot of football left,” Jones said. McCarthy led the Cowboys (4-7) to three straight 12-win seasons, but they went 1-3 in the playoffs and haven’t reached the NFC championship game since winning the Super Bowl 29 years ago. Injuries have contributed to the team’s struggles this season, but Dallas was just 3-5 before Dak Prescott was lost for the rest of the season. The Cowboys upset Washington last week and their next four games are against teams that currently have losing records. If they somehow end up 9-8 or even 8-9, Jones could make a case for keeping McCarthy. ___ AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflHALIFAX — An influential United States Republican senator delivered some blunt criticism of Canada's military spending on Friday, telling a major security conference in Halifax the federal government has to do better to please president-elect Donald Trump. In a panel discussion on the first day of the Halifax International Security Forum, Republican Sen. James Risch — who may become the next chair of the U.S. Senate's foreign relations committee — said he wasn't speaking for the incoming president. But he reminded delegates that Canada is failing to reach military spending levels equivalent to two per cent of its GDP — a commitment of the 32 NATO countries — leaving Canada one of a minority of alliance members no longer meeting the target. "My good friends in Canada say, 'We're working on this.' And we say, 'What does that mean?' And they say, 'We're kind of looking at (meeting the spending goal) by 2032,'" the Idaho senator said. "I don't speak for the president-elect of the United States, but if he were in this room, you would get a very large guffaw from him ... talking about 2032. It's got to be better than that. It really, truly has to be better than that." About 300 policy analysts, politicians and defence officials from 60 countries are participating in the 16th annual forum, which runs until Sunday. The gathering comes just under three weeks after the U.S. election that returned Trump to power with Republican majorities in the U.S. Senate and Congress. Earlier in the day at the conference, Defence Minister Bill Blair said his government knows it needs to increase defence spending, both to help Ukraine in its war with Russia, and to protect Canadian territory. But, Blair said, he has to ensure Canada gets "good value" for its investments. “When our allies say they want us to meet the commitment, I've told them the answer is ‘Yes,’ and I’ve told them you’re pushing on an open door," he said. "We are going to make those investments." Some of the American criticism is unfair, Blair said, as the Liberal government committed during a July NATO summit to "a credible and realistic plan" of spending two per cent of GDP on its military by 2032, as it buys a fleet of up to 12 new submarines. He said there are examples in which Canada can "accelerate" its spending by making purchases that mesh with its allies, citing Ottawa's announcement it would replace CP-140 Aurora maritime patrol aircraft with the Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft. The defence minister also announced that a surface-to-air defence system Canada bought two years ago has arrived in Ukraine to help protect the country against Russian missiles, though he would have liked the aid to have reached the war theatre sooner. “There's a lot in some of our procurement processes that have really slowed us down," he said. NATO's 32-member nations agreed to each spend the equivalent of at least two per cent of their GDP on defence, but Canada is among the nine members that aren't going to do that this year. The alliance's figures project that Canada will spend the equivalent of 1.37 per cent of its GDP on defence, placing it at the back of the pack. The Defence Department projects the figure to tick upward over the coming years, rising to 1.76 per cent by 2030. However, the Liberal government is also facing domestic criticism for not being clear on how it will make military spending one of its top priorities. Retired Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie — a former Liberal MP — told the House of Commons defence committee two days after the U.S. election that he detects "no sense of urgency" from the government to meet those commitments. Nicolas Todd, who is attending the security forum as vice-president of government relations with the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries, said in an interview Friday that if the Liberal government wants to advance more rapidly on military spending, it needs to clearly signal its spending plans. "What we've seen so far is an expectation to hit two per cent. That's not a plan. We need a detailed, year-over-year money plan on what it will take," he said. He contrasted the government's announcement Thursday — a pause of the federal sales tax on a long list of items, at a cost of $6.3 billion — with a slow growth in military spending. Peter Van Praagh, president of the forum, said during the opening news conference that a path to world peace still depends on Ukraine defeating Russia, which will require continued support from the United States and its allies. “If Russia gets away with this naked aggression, we are entering a world where might makes right. That’s a world that is not safe for anybody,” he said. While military spending will be key to assisting Ukraine, Admiral Rob Bauer, chair of the military committee of NATO, told the conference in a separate panel that procurement remains a major issue. The Dutch military officer said, "there isn't yet enough focus when it comes to defence production," as Russia has put its economy on a war footing. Bauer said that more than 1,000 days into the war in Ukraine, he's hearing from military chiefs of staff in the NATO alliance they have funds available to buy ammunition and armaments, but the defence industry can't deliver the munitions in a timely way. "We cannot support Ukraine at the pace that is necessary," he said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 22, 2024. — With files from The Associated Press. Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press
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