Wednesday Potpourri

First, Columbia University set up a task force to study the incidence of anti-Semitism on campus. The interim president read the report and decided to do nothing.

The New York Post reports:

Jewish students at Columbia University were chased out of their dorms, received death threats, spat upon, stalked and pinned against walls, as the Ivy League school devolved into a cesspool of antisemitic hate in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 murderous raid on Israel.

The new and disturbing details emerged from the lengthy, 91-page document released Friday by the school’s faculty-led antisemitism task force, which revealed the extent to which the hate permeated the institution.

“Students described being shoved, pushed to the ground, berated for showing support for Zionist causes, and watching Israeli flags burned,” the task force’s authors wrote.

“They recounted seeing drawings of swastikas in their dorms, students yelling pro-Hamas chants, and being denied access to public spaces and opportunities simply because they were Jewish or Israeli.”

Faculty members went along for the ride:

One faculty member leading a class that delved into the Israel-Hamas conflict called a student who previously served in the IDF a murderer. Another professor extensively said a pair of Jewish donors to the university had “laundered” “dirty money” and “blood money.” 

During the spring, as protests and encampments roiled the school’s Morningside Heights campus, protesters, including outsiders and members of the university community, bellowed death threats at Jewish students. Demonstrators who held Israeli flags, meanwhile, recalled being assaulted. 

“There is a sense of personal threat, and we keep looking over our shoulders,” master’s student Omer Lubaton Granot, an Israeli veteran and father of a toddler, told an Israeli radio station in the wake of protesters seizing the academic building Hamilton Hall in April.

The report recommended anti-bias training and a new system for reporting complaints.

The truth is, as long as the perpetrators of this hate continue to be allowed to enroll in the university or even to stay in the country, nothing will change.

Keep in mind, not a word from the Biden Justice Department. No action from the administration. The only political leaders who went to Morningside Heights to meet with Jewish students and to express their support were Congressional Republicans, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Second, in the meantime Great Britain is still undergoing labour pains. This time, the culprit is the new tax proposal offered up by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. It will sound familiar to Americans. She wants to raise taxes, especially on capital gains. 

The result, wealthy people are moving their money out of the country. This is from the London Telegraph:

Wealthy individuals and entrepreneurs are already fleeing Britain as fears grow over a raft of tax rises in Rachel Reeves’s first Budget.

An exodus is being reported by bankers, financial advisers and business chiefs with experts warning that the Chancellor risks ruining hopes of faster economic growth with a widely expected increase in capital gains tax (CGT).

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer warned last week that those with the “broadest shoulders” would carry the burden of fixing Britain’s ailing public finances.

Ceri Vokes, a partner at law firm Withers Worldwide, who works with entrepreneurs and private equity executives, said a number of her wealthy clients had already moved overseas this year, with the election “the main driver”.

She added: “People with hundreds of millions of pounds [are leaving] because changes can be more impactful for them.”

Those packing their bags and moving overseas are typically entrepreneurs and private equity executives in the top income bracket, she said. Italy, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland are among the most popular destinations.

Third, I assume that this is not news, but we have experts on reading body language. What would we do without them? Among them, one Susan Constantine, analyzed Kamala Harris’s body language during her CNN interview. 

The conclusion, not very encouraging to the Kamala team. From Matt Margolis on PJ Media:

But it should come as no surprise that a body language expert who analyzed Kamala's performance during the interview told Fox News Digital that Harris lacked both confidence and a presidential demeanor. 

According to Susan Constantine, Harris frequently looked down during the CNN interview, which suggested that she was “not confident in what she’s saying.” Constantine explained that Harris did not project the “presidential appearance” required to command her position, adding, “She definitely needs to make some tweaks into her body language to appear more confident.”

"The fact that she's looking down a lot removes a lot of the fluidity and the authenticity," she added. 

Throughout the interview, Constantine noticed that Harris struggled to deliver clear answers, particularly when asked about her “day one” agenda. This led to what Constantine described as “head bobbling,” a sign that Harris was searching for the right answers but couldn’t confidently deliver them.

“When you bobble and waffle like that, that’s another signal that she’s not really… prepared.” Constantine also highlighted Harris’s tendency to break eye contact, which she described as “a form of deflection,” further indicating a lack of confidence. 

 

Overall, you know, as one woman to another, I would say if you're going to be a woman in power, you have to look like a woman in power," Constantine concluded. "And she doesn't at this time." 

Dare I say that Constantine was not the only one who noticed that the Harris posture does not command respect. It is more posturing than posture.

Fourth, if you believe that sentiment indicators are a good contrary indication of the stock market’s future, you probably noticed this story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday:

Americans have rarely been this giddy about the stock market.

They are piling into stocks as major indexes reach new highs and placing bets that the rally that has driven the S&P 500 up 18% this year has more room to run. 

According to contrary opinion, this signals that we are approaching a market top. Beware.

Footnote-- apparently, I was not the only one who read the signal.

Fifth, and then there is Kevin O’Leary, serial entrepreneur, star of a television show called Shark Tank. Apparently, O’Leary has ceased investing in blue states. The tax situation and the regulatory environment makes them uninvestible.

Who knew?

Matt Margolis has the story on PJ Media:

According to O'Leary, states like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California have become increasingly hostile to businesses, driving investment and jobs to more business-friendly locations, which, not coincidentally, happen to be red states.

“I don’t put companies here in New York anymore or in Massachusetts or in New Jersey or in California,” O'Leary stated. “Those states are uninvestable. The policy here is insane. 

The taxes are too high.” He highlighted Fargo, N.D., as a prime example of where his businesses are now relocating, noting that 40% of the workforce there operates remotely, including employees in Boston.

"New Jersey, what a mess. New York, uninvestable," he said.

The panel then asked O'Leary why New York was "uninvestable" and if it was just because of high taxes. The hosts were clearly not happy with O'Leary's characterization. 

“The regulatory environment is punitive,” he explained, explaining how a global data center project near Niagara Falls eventually moved to Norway due to the state's oppressive policies. “Thousands of jobs coming out of that... that’s New York. Uninvestable.”

It brings to mind the fact that more and more of the banking business has been moving from Wall Street to Dallas.

Sixth, the Wall Street Journal reported last month on the banks that are moving to Dallas.

Ross Perot Jr. gestured out the window as his helicopter circled a 4.5-acre pit alongside the skyline of downtown Dallas. Texas and U.S. flags hung from a crane within it.

The site is where Perot’s real-estate investment company, Hillwood, is partnering to build a $500 million  tower for more than 5,000 bankers and investors. That will make it the financial firm’s second-largest office, behind New York. As the helicopter swung northwest, windows glinted from two unfinished Wells Fargo office towers, scheduled to open next year. A bit farther away: a fourth office building under construction for Charles Schwab, which moved its headquarters from California to the Dallas area five years ago, and the footprint of a Deloitte campus doubling in size.

The sprawling landscape illustrates an expansion that has brought to North Texas a presence in financial services that now sits second only to New York City in the U.S. And growth of so-called Y’all Street is accelerating.

Or else, by the numbers:

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Texas investment-banking and securities employment has increased 111% over the past 20 years and 27% since the pandemic, compared with 16% and 5%, respectively, in New York. The number of people employed in finance overall has risen 13% in Texas since 2019, compared with 2% in New York and 3% nationally.

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