(FREE) PAINE IN THE MORNING: 8 things you need to know this Tuesday – May 10, 2022

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“A Recession Is Necessary” To Lower Demand As ‘Real Economy’ Routed By Soaring Fuel Prices – If you are the owner of an oil refinery, then crude is trading happily just a little above $110 a barrel – expensive, but not extortionate. If you aren’t an oil baron, I have bad news: it’s as if oil is trading somewhere between $150 and $275 a barrel.

The oil market is projecting a false sense of stability when it comes to energy inflation. Instead, the real economy is suffering a much stronger price shock than it appears, because fuel prices are rising much faster than crude, and that matters for monetary policy. – READ MORE

Millions of workers staying home ‘thanks to the Biden administration’ – These days, storefronts are adorned with “Now Hiring” and “Help Wanted” signs. Local family-owned businesses and restaurants are announcing reduced business hours and even closures, often citing a lack of employees. And many post signs imploring customers to be patient as fewer workers mean longer wait times.

A new jobs report released this week shows there are now more than 11 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. Where have the workers gone? Thanks to the Biden administration, millions are staying at home, where they’re given financial incentives not to return to the workforce. What started off as temporary measures to alleviate the pains of the pandemic have instead become a nearly two-year economic reality. – READ MORE

EU ‘Almost There’ On Reaching Russian Oil Ban As It Negotiates Giving Hungary More Time – EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell has confirmed on Friday that the European Commission is considering agreeing to Hungary and other countries’ request for more time and money to find alternatives to Russian oil amid the mulled embargo, according to FT. He also claimed EU negotiators are ‘almost there’ on an agreement for a new anti-Russia sanctions package.

This after the unbending words from Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán saying “We cannot accept a proposal that ignores this” in a state media interview. He said Hungary would be “happy to negotiate” a compromise that would take into serious account its demands. – READ MORE

Grid operators warn of electricity shortage amid switch to renewables: Report –Electric-grid operators from across the country are warning of the potential for blackouts as companies attempt to transition to green energy sources.

“I am concerned about it,” MISO Chief Executive John Bear told the Wall Street Journal in a report Sunday. “As we move forward, we need to know that when you put a solar panel or a wind turbine up, it’s not the same as a thermal resource.” – READ MORE

California Needs More Power to Keep the Lights on This Summer – Incredibly, California is warning that unless it can find more power, the state will be unable to keep the lights on this summer if heatwaves, wildfires, and other extreme weather events happen.

It’s incredible when you consider that California, at one time, had five working nuclear power plants. Now they have one. The state used to have 242,000 oil wells. They now have a little more than half that number. – READ MORE

US “Running Low” On Javelin Missile Stockpiles After Supplying Ukraine, Warns Congressman – The Biden administration has transferred 5,000 Javelin, or Advanced Anti-Tank Weapon System-Medium, missiles to Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion. Such a large transfer has alarmed politicians Stateside, who warns the US is running low on weapons stockpiling.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, told Fox News the US is dangerously depleting Javelin missiles stockpiles when more hotspots could erupt across the world. – READ MORE

Your Face Is Now a Weapon of War – Who owns your face? You might think that you do, but consider that Clearview AI, an American company that sells facial recognition technology, has amassed a database of ten billion images since 2020. By the end of the year, it plans to have scraped 100 billion facial images from the internet. It is difficult to assess the company’s claims, but if we take Clearview AI at face value, it has enough data to identify almost everyone on earth and end privacy and anonymity everywhere.

As you read these words, your face is making money for people whom you’ve never met and who never sought your consent when they took your faceprint from your social media profiles and online photo albums. Today, Clearview AI’s technology is used by over 3,100 U.S. law enforcement agencies, as well as the U.S. Postal Service. In Ukraine, it is being used as a weapon of war. The company has offered its tools free of charge to the Ukrainian government, which is using them to identify dead and living Russian soldiers and then contact their mothers. – READ MORE

The Psychology Of Manipulation: 6 Lessons From The Master Of Propaganda –Edward L. Bernays was an American business consultant who is widely recognized as the father of public relations. Bernays was one of the men responsible for “selling” World War 1 to the American public by branding it as a war that was necessary to “make the world safe for democracy”.

During the 1920s, Bernays consulted for a number of major corporations, helping to boost their business through expertly crafted marketing campaigns aimed at influencing public opinion. – READ MORE