Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a pervasive problem among women of reproductive age. It causes hormonal imbalance, fluid-filled cysts, and over time, infertility.
Other symptoms, while not limited to PCOS, include acne, irregular periods, weight gain or obesity, insulin resistance, and facial hair. Unfortunately, there is no known cure yet for PCOS.
And since PCOS does not go away on its own, its health risks and symptoms can be lifelong. However, studies show that you can manage PCOS symptoms and feel better with certain drugs and lifestyle modifications.
Here’s a guide to what treatments are available for PCOS and those that come as close as possible to a cure.
Is There a Cure for PCOS?
PCOS is a complex endocrine-metabolic disorder affecting nearly 4%–20% of women worldwide. Most women with PCOS wonder how to cure it permanently, but there is no such cure for it yet. The biggest reason is that medical science has not yet found the exact cause of the condition.
There is currently no cure for PCOS, though it is manageable through nutrition, exercises, yoga, health supplements and specific ayurvedic remedies.
A common myth is that losing weight can get rid of PCOS, but this is not the case. Losing weight can help manage the condition, but it is not a permanent cure.
The HealthifyMe Note
There is no cure for PCOS, but you can take steps to improve your symptoms. A healthy lifestyle is the best way to manage PCOS, but medication may sometimes be necessary. Birth control pills are a common PCOS medication, but many other options exist. Remember that every person with PCOS is different, so the best treatment plan for an individual may differ from what works for someone else.
Strategies to Manage PCOS Symptoms
Weight Loss
One way to manage PCOS symptoms is through weight loss. If you are overweight or obese, your doctor might advise you to lose weight by following a low-calorie diet and moderate exercise.
Even losing a small percentage of your total body weight, like 5%, can improve your condition. Moreover, losing weight can assist with infertility and may boost the effectiveness of PCOS drugs.
Dietary Modifications
A crucial component of controlling PCOS is modifying your diet. People with PCOS frequently have insulin resistance, making it challenging to maintain a healthy weight. Therefore, avoid foods with a lot of sugar or simple carbs to maintain ideal insulin levels and normalise blood sugar levels.
Follow the given do’s and don’ts for following PCOS friendly diet:
Consume healthy carbs like fruits, seeds, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and legumes.
Do not eat processed carbs, including cake, pasta, fried foods, pizza, and pastries.
Cut down on your red meat consumption and include lean meats like chicken and fish.
Boost your daily fibre and antioxidant intake by eating lots of fruits and veggies.
Please note that dietary regulations may differ for every individual. Hence, it is better to consult an expert nutritionist. You may seek advice from nutritionists at HealthifyMe to manage your PCOS symptoms well.
Increased Iron Intake
Those experiencing heavy bleeding during menstruation may risk developing anaemia or iron deficiency. Speak to your physician about increasing iron intake through supplements and iron-rich foods.
Some examples of iron-rich foods include spinach, eggs, and broccoli. However, you must consult your doctor before increasing your iron intake, as too much iron can lead to other problems.
Exercise
There are many reasons to exercise to manage PCOS.
Exercise can help to regulate insulin levels, which can, in turn, help to regulate hormone levels and improve fertility.
Exercise can help to reduce stress levels, which can be a trigger for PCOS symptoms.
Exercise can help to reduce weight, which can also help to improve fertility and reduce the risk of complications associated with PCOS.
Probiotics
Changes in the gut microbiome lead to various illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
As per studies, this shift may even impact sex hormones like androgens and oestrogen, which worsen PCOS. Therefore, probiotics such as yoghurt and fermented foods may help with PCOS symptoms.
Medication for Ovulation
Hormone therapy and medications like Clomid (clomiphene) help with ovulation and follicle development.
Women with PCOS can also take follicle-stimulating hormones (FSH) or progesterone (only on doctor’s advice) to affect oestrogen production. Birth control pills that contain oestrogen and progestin decrease androgen production and regulate ovulation.
Ensure Sound Sleep
PCOS can trigger sleep apnea, a condition when breathing stops for short periods during sleep. As per studies, sleep disturbances are twice as common in PCOS women.
Avoid fatty foods, caffeine, and sleep-disturbing stimulants before bed to minimise the impact of PCOS on sleep. In addition, make sure to follow a regular bedtime routine with 8-10 hours of sound sleep.
Conclusion
Since PCOS is a complicated condition, more study is required to determine its precise mechanism and root cause. Because no medicine or surgical operation can cure PCOS permanently, you should focus on combating the symptoms.
Controlling the symptoms is crucial to preventing the condition from worsening. Make all the necessary lifestyle changes, such as a nutritious diet, exercise, sleep, and medicines, to bring balance.
Because the severity of PCOS can vary from person to person, talk to your doctor first about all potential treatments and options.
Using a paintbrush and a spatula, Alex Vanegas smeared cleaning solution over a brass bust of the Nicaraguan poet and national idol Rubén Darío.
The bust, stationed in a park south of downtown L.A., had been marred with rust that had spread across its backside. Gray stains tarnished Darío’s brocaded waistcoat, and a long, staggered crack ran along his head.
Vanegas first glimpsed the statue days after arriving in Los Angeles less than a year ago. One of the best-known dissidents against the Nicaraguan government, he is part of a growing community of Nicaraguans who have fled violence, poverty and corruption and found refuge in California.
Venegas already felt dazed and disoriented as an asylum seeker in a new land. Then he saw the monument.
“It made me so sad to see it in such a state,” he said.
He resolved to restore the statue of Darío, his nation’s symbol of prosperity and identity.
“He’s one of those figures that give us hope while we learn to orient ourselves in a new country,” he said. And that is why he was slathering cleaning solution onto the bust, determined to make it shine again.
::
Before he fled,Vanegas made headlines as Nicaragua’s “maratonista” — marathon man — by jogging through the streets of Managua, Leon and Chinandega to protest the autocratic rule of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo.
The 65-year-old Vanegas ran in blue-and-white basketball shorts, festooned with flowers, balloons and Nicaraguan flags, and worea T-shirt that read, “I run to force Ortega out.”
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, lead a rally in Managua in 2018.
(Associated Press)
Vanegas did laps around his neighborhood and a traffic circle calledthe Rotonda Rubén Darío. He’d cry out lines from one of Darío’s most notable works, “Si la patria es pequeña…” — If the homeland is small — until pedestrians and motorists shouted back, “Uno grande la sueña!” — then one dreams big.
“It’s what I knew how to do best, and therefore became my method of trying to raise awareness and call the government out,” Vanegas said.
Column One
A showcase for compelling storytelling from the Los Angeles Times.
But the marathon man’s protests landed him in prison for four months until he was released in February 2019.
Shortly after arriving in the U.S., Vanegas made contact with German Peña, who founded the Nicaraguan American Opportunity Foundation, a 26-year-old L.A.-based organization that provides services and acts as a cultural space for Nicaraguan immigrants.
Peña took him to Maywood Riverfront Park, where he saw the Darío monument, the bust topping a structure of black marble.
He got to work. He patched cracks and holes and lathered on a fresh coat of copper paint. Gradually, the monument began to shine.
Vanegas discovered the Rubén Darío monument in Maywood soon after his arrival in Los Angeles.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
All the while, Peña helped Vanegas with his immigration and political asylum paperwork. In recent years, such work by the foundation has become more essential than ever. Economic and political turmoil across Latin America has pushed tens of thousands of people to emigrate.
There are more than 400,000 people of Nicaraguan descent living in the United States, far fewer than the number of Salvadorans (about 2.3 million) and Guatemalans (1.4 million), the two largest Central Americansub-groups. In the greater Los Angeles area, the Nicaraguan population of about 40,000 is second only to south Florida’s, according to census data.
The majority of those who flee Nicaragua venture to neighboring Costa Rica or Panama, where there is a far greater chance of finding jobs and asylum than in the United States.Those who make the costly and dangerous trek to the U.S. have an intense purpose for doing so.
“Those who end up coming [here] are the most determined to do so,” said Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, an associate professor in the UCLA Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and an expert on migration.
But for Nicaraguans feeling isolated and overwhelmed in Los Angeles, the foundation fosters a sense of community and belonging.
“It’s spaces like these where I can find people who look and speak as I do,” said Vanegas, who regularly attends the group’s cultural events. “It’s a little reminder of home.”
::
Like Vanegas and most Nicaraguan refugees, Peña fled as his homeland slid from revolution into a regional war that cost tens of thousands of lives.
He left in 1983 as violence escalated between the Soviet-supported Sandinista National Liberation Front, which in 1979 had ousted the U.S.-backed right-wing dictator, Anastasio Somoza, and allied rebel groups collectively known as the Contras.
At the time, Peña couldn’t afford to bring his two children along and left them with their grandmother; his wife had died a few years earlier. So, all alone, Peña took a bus to Mexico.
“It tortured me from the minute I left,” Peña said. “I cried every day for them.”
‘It tortured me from the minute I left. I cried every day for them.’
— German Peña, on leaving his children behind in Nicaragua when he fled in 1983 for the United States
The isolation didn’t stop once he reached Los Angeles (and where his children would reunite with him two years later). The majority of Latinos in L.A. are of Mexican descent, and Nicaragua’s cultural traditions are starkly different.
During his first weeks in Los Angeles, Peña walked into a Mexican restaurant and ordered what a nearby patron had on his plate: birria tacos with rice and beans. He took comfort in the latter — staples of Nicaraguan cuisine — but wasn’t prepared for the birria, meat stewed with a heavy concentration of chile. He fell ill for several days.
He realized just how far he was from home.
“They’re tiny differences that can often make someone suffer,” he said.
Peña later attended a personal and professional growth seminar and realized what he wanted to do: help Nicaraguan refugees living in Los Angeles. Though L.A. didn’t have many pinoleros — as Nicaraguans call themselves — he saw a need. He also pledged to serve his homeland.
When Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in 1998, it caused thousands of deaths across Nicaragua and more than $1 billion in damage.
Through the foundation, Peña collected donations and tried to raise awareness about the tragedy. When the United States announced that Nicaraguans and residents of other hurricane-ravaged countries would be able to receive temporary protected status and live in the U.S. legally, California became one of several states that saw an influx of migrants from the small nation.
::
Yelba Quintana met Peña while he was collecting hurricane relief supplies and came to her with the idea of creating a series of seminars and cultural events aimed at highlighting Nicaraguan heritage, which he dubbed Peñas Culturales Nicaraguense.
“There wasn’t a space for us where we could even convene for social gatherings,” recalled Quintana, 42. “I was really motivated to be part of something that reflects our culture and convene amongst ourselves.”
She had fled Nicaragua to prevent her son, Armando, then 17, from being pressed into military service by the Sandinista-dominated government.
At the cultural series debut, she was thrilled to hear a familiar mix of dialects and accents and to see the blue-and-white Nicaraguan flag on the wall of the organization’s Beverly Boulevard office. They talked about why they left Nicaragua and shared stories from their lives back home they had recounted only to their children or other relatives.
“I felt so nervous to talk so openly about those emotions that we carry within us,” Quintana said.
At the cultural events, people would meet to watch Nicaraguan movies and documentaries and bond over plates of gallo pinto and cacao. They also discussed works by Nicaraguan authors, and that, of course, led to Darío and his work as a poet and journalist in Latin America and Europe.
Sculptures and parks across Latin America honor him. There’s a metro station in Madrid named after Darío, as are streets in Mexico, Panama, El Salvador and Honduras. In Miami there is Rubén Darío Middle School.
For Nicaraguans, Darío serves as a reigning symbol of pride, as well as a voice of resistance to colonialism and imperialism across the hemisphere.
The foundation eventually formulated the idea of erecting a monument to Darío. Although the majority of Central American residents live in the downtown L.A. area, Peña set his sights on Maywood, the third-smallest incorporated city in Los Angeles County. The monument was unveiled the day the park opened to the public: May 27, 2008.
“I’d say Maywood is the No. 1 cultural city in the world. Why? Because that’s where the Rubén Darío monument is located,” Peña said.
::
It was 2018 when Vanegas saw on the news that 15-year-old Alvarito Conrado had been shot in the neck by police while the boy carried water to college student demonstrators at a barricade in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua. His death was one of the hundreds during protests that initially began as a push for social security reform but erupted into a larger movement against the government itself.
Vanegas, who had taken up running in his 40s, felt compelled to show his anger over Alvarito’s death somehow. Running would be his method, he decided. He went into the street and ran.
A single lap turned into dozens, and over the course of several months, he had run hundreds. Local media regarded him as the nation’s Forrest Gump, the peripatetic hero of the 1994 film starring Tom Hanks.
“It became bigger than myself,” Vanegas said.
It was a twist of fate he hadn’t predicted.
Like millions of mainly poor Nicaraguans, he had supported the Sandinista National Liberation Front when it overthrew the Somoza dynasty that had ruled the nation for decades. Daniel Ortega, then the Sandinistas’ revolutionary young leader, was imprisoned and jailed for four months as an urban guerrilla fighting for the opposition party.
But over the course of four decades, his opponents — as well as many foreign governments and human rights advocates — say that Ortega has turned into the sort of dictator he once fought to oust, persecuting political enemies and the media.
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, at least 325 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded over the course of the unrest, and more than 50,000 refugees have fled Nicaragua.
Vanegas was arrested more than a dozen times. In one instance, he was forced into a police car after spending an hour running in Managua, according to a video of the incident. His arms dangling out of the car, he cried out in protest as officers fought to restrain him.
At two prisons, he was starved and beaten by guards while sharing quarters with rats, scorpions and cockroaches, according to multiple accounts from Nicaraguan media outlets following his case.
Pablo Cuevas, legal advisor for the Permanent Commission on Human Rights in Nicaragua, said in a 2018 news conference that Vanegas continued to reel from the physical and emotional torment he underwent in prison.
“He sends the message that he was only trying to fulfill and do what was within his own constitutional rights of protest,” he said while Venegas was imprisoned at El Chipote, widely known for housing Nicaragua’s political prisoners and described by prison health experts as abusive for inmates.
He went on to be placed under house arrest. His wife was warned not to see or contact him. His four children sometimes visited and brought him food. A local alliance that had helped gain his release warned Vanegas they could no longer help him.
“I truly felt as though I had no place in the country I’ve called home all my life,” Vanegas said.
And so he hoped to reach his brother, who was living in Los Angeles.
Although the foundation has refrained from civil protest since its founding, the organization was present in June outside the Ninth Summit of the Americas, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The group’s protest hoped to shed light on Ortega’s authoritarian rule, holding up signs that read, “Rescatemos Nicaragua” (“Save Nicaragua”).
“From here on out, we will use the prestige of NAOF to fight for the liberation of Nicaragua,” Peña said. (The U.S. government, reacting to the Ortega government’s crackdown on dissent, in October imposed new economic sanctions against Nicaragua’s gold industry.)
Vanegas, who took part in the L.A. protest, said he will continue to spread awareness of the troubles in Nicaragua. And he can still be found scrubbing lint, graffiti and scratches off the brass bust of Darío.
“He is my hope,” he said.
Vanegas can still be found scrubbing lint, graffiti and scratches off the brass bust of Darío.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
And if Darío, his nation’s symbol of pride and resilience, can remain in pristine condition, then maybe Nicaraguans seeking refuge in L.A. like Vanegas can find solace and peace in their new home.
And maybe his homeland, though small, will someday realize its big dream.
WASHINGTON — The global economic outlook is even gloomier than projected last month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Sunday, citing a steady worsening in purchasing manager surveys in recent months. It blamed the darker outlook on tightening monetary policy triggered by persistently high and broad-based inflation, weak growth momentum in China, and ongoing supply disruptions and food insecurity caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The global lender last month cut its global growth forecast for 2023 to 2.7% from a previous forecast of 2.9%.
In a blog prepared for a summit of G20 leaders in Indonesia, the IMF said recent high-frequency indicators “confirm that the outlook is gloomier,” particularly in Europe.
It said recent purchasing manager indices that gauge manufacturing and services activity signaled weakness in most Group of 20 major economies, with economic activity set to contract while inflation remained stubbornly high.
“Readings for a growing share of G20 countries have fallen from expansionary territory earlier this year to levels that signal contraction,” the IMF said, adding that global fragmentation added to “a confluence of downside risks.”
“The challenges that the global economy is facing are immense and weakening economic indicators point to further challenges ahead,” the IMF said, adding that the current policy environment was “unusually uncertain.”
A worsening energy crisis in Europe would severely harm growth and raise inflation, while prolonged high inflation could prompt larger-than-anticipated policy interest hikes and further tightening of global financial conditions.
That in turn posed “increasing risks of a sovereign debt crisis for vulnerable economies,” the IMF said.
Increasingly severe weather events would also harm growth across the globe, it said. — Reuters
The weekend marked a moment of vindication for President Joe Biden, whose party defied history by staving off a midterm election drubbing, and a moment of truth for some Republicans who had tethered themselves to Trump’s election fraud lies.
And even with the GOP appearing to slowly march toward House control – promising to make Biden’s life deeply uncomfortable for the rest of his term with investigations into his administration and even his son, Hunter – the probable Republican majority will be smaller, and therefore more fractious, with the most radical lawmakers having more leverage.
As Trump presses on with a campaign launch set for Tuesday, the GOP’s loss of the Senate and competitive races nationwide raised new questions about his chances of winning back the White House. Meanwhile, the defeat of several high-profile election deniers boosted Biden’s global campaign for democracy – a central part of his 2022 campaign message – as he heads into talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Cambodia and prepares for a possible rematch with his predecessor.
Political parties are pointless unless they win power. So it’s obvious why Democrats are celebrating the come-from-behind victory of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada Saturday night that handed them their 50th seat and control of the Senate.
They wouldn’t have held on at this point, though, without John Fetterman’s win last week in Pennsylvania, where Democrats picked up a GOP-held seat. Had Republicans held that seat, Senate control would have come down to the Georgia runoff in December, which, while still massively important for shaping the balance of power, will matter less than the 2021 runoffs that handed Democrats the Senate in the last election.
Senate control is huge for multiple reasons, not least because by pulling it off in deeply unpromising political conditions, Democrats cemented the most stunning showing for an incumbent president’s party in a first-term midterm election since George W. Bush in 2002.
“I think one thing that pundits and prognosticators missed was that in all the incendiary ads that blanketed the airwaves for weeks, people knew the Democrats were getting things done for them,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters on Saturday night after CNN and other media outlets projected the Nevada race.
The failure to pick up Nevada and Senate control is already having reverberations inside the Senate GOP, with calls from Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of Senate Republicans campaign arm, and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham to delay Wednesday’s leadership elections until after the Georgia runoff. Scott said he’d been approached by “a lot of people” about standing against Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, with whom he’d had significant messaging disagreements during the midterms. Still, it likely won’t be lost on many lawmakers that the party fell short on Scott’s watch.
More importantly, the Democrats’ continued hold on power gives Biden two more years to remake the judiciary and to counter the influx of conservative judges confirmed during Trump’s presidency. In the event that a vacancy arose on the Supreme Court, a Democratic-led Senate would have a good chance of installing a new justice to start to weaken the current conservative majority.
The failure of Republicans to capture control means that the White House will be spared a relentless onslaught of Senate investigations and subpoenas to match those likely to be pouring out of the House if, as expected, the GOP finally clinches a majority in that chamber. This represents a significant personal and political benefit for Biden.
And while a Republican House would mean few legislative wins for the president, Schumer will be able to protect his senators from tough votes that could hurt them in reelection campaigns in 2024, when they’ll be defending seats in tough states like Montana, Ohio, Nevada and Arizona.
The unexpectedly strong Democratic performance, which will leave both chambers essentially split down the middle, means that the 2024 presidential election is even more critical. A popular candidate on either side could have strong coattails and sweep their party into a monopoly in power in Washington.
The final numbers in the Senate will not be known until the runoff in Georgia on December 6 between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican nominee Herschel Walker. If Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, hangs on, Democrats will have a 51-49 majority.
A two-seat margin is clearly better for Democrats than having to rely on the tie-breaking vote wielded by Vice President Kamala Harris. It also gives them a small cushion if one of their members becomes sick or incapacitated and lessens the chance they will lose their majority at some point in the new Congress.
A 51-49 margin would also be a Joe Manchin-proof majority, meaning that the West Virginia moderate Democratic senator might not enjoy the veto he has held the past two years over Schumer’s intentions. If Manchin decides to run for reelection in 2024 in a state where Trump won big twice, he’s likely to become an even tougher vote for Democratic leadership. Earlier this month, for instance, the coal state senator lashed out at the president over his climate change policies.
And a clear majority for Democrats means that Schumer would not need a deal with McConnell on parceling out committee assignments and would have far more control over the process – a fact former veteran senator Biden noted in reacting to the Senate win in Phnom Penh over the weekend.
In a moment of bravado late on Election Night, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy assured activists who put a victory party on hold, “When you wake up, we’ll be in the majority.” Six embarrassing days later, he’s still waiting. Final results now hinge on races in California, Arizona and Oregon that may not be finalized for days, underscoring the disappointing GOP performance. Republicans currently have 212 House seats and Democrats have 204. A total of 218 is needed for a majority.
It’s still most likely that the Republicans will control the House with a narrow majority. Democrats need an improbable near-perfect run through remaining seats to stay in power. But McCarthy’s predictions of a huge win backfired and are making his expected smooth path to the speakership rather rocky.
Hard-liners in the House Freedom Caucus are demanding large concessions – which could render his leadership toothless – in return for supporting him for the top job. Those more extreme lawmakers would also be able to leverage the thin majority in the GOP to weaponize the House in the service of Trump’s 2024 campaign. CNN reported Sunday that Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs is considering a challenge to McCarthy in the House leadership elections on Tuesday – a move that could ultimately weaken the current minority leader and expose anger over the GOP’s performance, even if his team insists he will have the votes to be speaker.
While the pro-Trump radical right will seek to dominate the House GOP if the party does get a majority, Republicans did pick up some key Democratic-held House seats, with some of those incoming Republicans likely to be among the party’s most vulnerable members in 2024. How McCarthy will reconcile their needs with the Trump caucus, which is itching to impeach Biden, is unclear.
While a battle is emerging over the Republican House leadership, the current limbo means an expected Democratic tussle to succeed Nancy Pelosi is frozen. The speaker said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that she was making no decisions while the destiny of the House was undecided. After the brutal attack on her husband, the 82-year-old speaker said family and political considerations could weigh on her future. But she’s not tipping her hand.
“I’m not asking anybody for everything. People are campaigning. And that’s a beautiful thing,” the California Democrat quixotically told CNN’s Dana Bash when asked whether she might feel motivated to stay on as leader. “I’m not asking anyone for anything. My members are asking me to consider doing that. But, again, let’s just get through the election.”
Trump is being blamed by a broad group of Republican leaders and political analysts for saddling his party’s extreme, untested candidates with a failed message – an obsession with his 2020 election fraud falsehoods.
“I think it’s basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race. And it’s like, three strikes, you’re out,” Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan said on “State of the Union” on Sunday.
The problem with Hogan’s analogy is that even when Trump has been down politically – after the 2018 blue wave in the House, his 2020 election loss and the 2021 Capitol insurrection – he’s never struck out with the fervent grassroots Republican base that set him on the way to the White House in 2016 and still adores him.
Trump had expected to ride out of this weekend on a wave of Republican euphoria after a bumper election he’d hoped to claim as his doing and enlist it to power his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nod.
Yet some of Trump’s favored candidates, including Pennsylvania’s Mehmet Oz in the Senate race and Doug Mastriano in the gubernatorial race, lost. One of the most high-profile election deniers, Kari Lake, is still locked in a close contest with Democrat Katie Hobbs in Arizona’s governor’s race, which CNN has not yet projected.
Voters might have been unhappy with the Democrats and Biden’s record on inflation. But they balked at handing power to Republican radicals in Trump’s election-denying and chaos-causing image.
Yet Trump, true to form, is powering ahead. His adviser Jason Miller confirmed on Steve Bannon’s podcast that the ex-president’s planned big announcement on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago will be the launch of a new presidential campaign – even before the 2022 midterm election will be finalized. Trump’s recent rallies suggest he’s only doubling down on his election fraud lies, even though they were rebuffed by midterm voters.
One new wrinkle now is that there may be alternatives to Trump in the GOP. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for instance, showed he knows how to build a strong majority with his thumping reelection victory. In 2021, Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin won the governorship in a state that Biden took by 10 points the year before.
Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t won an election since 2016. Logically, and as Republicans try to woo a national electorate in 2024, there are better choices than Trump. But the former president retains an emotional hold over the party grassroots that will decide the nominee. And Tuesday’s launch, and the immediate aftermath, will offer early clues over whether the staggering resilience to scandals that would have doomed ordinary political careers is beginning to fade.
Let’s say you wanted to design a program to lower inflation. Wouldn’t you do exactly what Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is doing? You would be raising rates aggressively, and I defy you to say that he isn’t doing just that. You would ignore positive numbers like the weak consumer price index print last week by sending out Chris Waller — one of the more hawkish Fed governors — this past weekend to say that the interest rate hikes are far from over. You would claim no victories whatsoever, including the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which filed for bankruptcy on Friday. You would just stay mum, enabling investors to expect another raise of 75 basis points, especially if retail sales this week come in above expectations.
There are many ways to measure a Fed chief. Most people who comment vociferously and viscerally against the Fed tend to be rich folks who want their wealth preserved, but somehow actually come off as altruistic. Or people in the media regard them as such because they are such prized bookings. That’s probably why they are esteemed in the eyes of the viewers.
The old me would say, “What a bunch of selfish bastards.” The new me simply says, “I know where they are coming from, but they are ill-advised.”
But let’s use this view as a litmus test. You have to wonder where are all the rich castigators? Maybe they realize that Powell is tougher than they thought? I think so.
Their silence is louder than their protestations. Powell is the real deal and he’s not done until he softens our economy, shrinks our portfolios, reduces our purchasing power, drops our wages, and makes our goods cheaper. The good news so far: He is doing all of that. The amazing news? He’s not hurting corporate earnings in the process. They are shining.
Consider: Last Thursday and Friday were back-to-back winners, something that’s very rare in this year-old bear market. If you bought at the market high on Thursday, you are still up. I can count on one hand how many times that has happened since the peak.
Could it be as significant as many believe?
That’s a tough question, because in order for the Fed to get all of its boxes checked, Powell needs wages to level off and that has not happened. He needs to see weakness in the CPI beyond the handful of line items that softened things in last week’s reading. Most importantly, he needs to see our purchasing power diminished, and we are most definitively not there yet.
But let me throw you a bizarre curveball. Part and parcel with the spending power reduction is speculation. The speculators overspend because it’s in their nature is borrow too much. What then do we make of the crypto meltdown? How much money is being lost in crypto really? How big are the losses? I am so sick of the Lehman moment nonsense (the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 was the key moment of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis). I don’t even like the comparisons to the fall of Enron in 2001. As my late mother would say, comparisons are odious — had she lived longer, she might say irrelevant.
What matters is that financial cataclysms like the ruination of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried do make people reassess wealth and spend less — and I don’t just mean those who actually lost and will lose a lot more money in these often worthless crypto coins.
Take it a step further: Another unknown is the amount of money invested in FAANG/M (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft). If you are in the S&P 500, you are certainly feeling punished, but if you are mostly in FAANG/M, you are feeling broke.
Why does this all matter? Because the Fed would ideally like to stall for time while the supply chains get more efficient, something we are seeing with the lowering costs of logistics. It would sure help, however, if we slowed down spending as a nation. We need both more goods coming to market and fewer goods being sold. Any glut will cause both lower prices and layoffs.
Does it matter if the layoffs are largely concentrated in anything technology, including fintech and real estate tech and retail tech?
At one time I thought these sectors were too small to make a difference. You would need mass layoffs in retail, autos, housing, you name it — all but the insatiable health sector.
Now I am not so sure. Maybe Silicon Valley layoffs have more of an impact on the economy than we thought. Just as tech became a larger part of the S&P, it also became a larger part of the economy. Sure, it’s not nationwide, but tends to be concentrated just in Northern California and Seattle. But the layoffs will be in the tendrils that aren’t in those areas.
Anything that lessens the velocity of spending, coupled with the reduced price of logistics, might lead to lower prices and wages — which should result in slower and smaller rate hikes. That’s why the 2-year Treasury yield has such a hard time staying above 4.5%.
I don’t want to say we are out of the woods when Fed officials are saying we are smack in the woods. I do want to say that Thursday and Friday felt significant to me because they were actually based on softer numbers that seemed unassailable and yet, at the same time, did not portend earnings shortfalls.
Sure, it seems ridiculous that we could get through this whole process with giant earnings blowups. But we have seen the hottest sectors of the economy — tech and the internet — revealed as far more vulnerable than we thought. It’s amazing how much Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) and even Amazon (AMZN) depend on advertising for their revenue growth and that’s in a tailspin as retailers feel the Fed’s pinch. Microsoft (MSFT) has felt the last of the PC Armageddon. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA) have been walloped by the undeniable weakness in gaming — even as the gaming companies deny the weakness.
Netflix (NFLX) is coming back, but it was never that big. Apple (AAPL) is hanging in there, even as that seems impossible to last. But you know my feeling on Apple: own it, don’t trade it.
I am not including the hundreds of other technology stocks that have collapsed. But if I did, the decline can only be considered seismic.
Which leads to a logical question: What if tech of all sorts and crypto turn out to be larger than we think? What if they can cause the slowdown that we need to keep the Fed at bay? Do we really need old-line companies to miss their numbers to see the end of the tightening? Maybe the voracious spending that came from these hot sectors cools while the logistical nightmare ends. It could be enough make us wonder if we aren’t further along in the process of breaking inflation than we thought.
As I think about what to say at Thursday’s monthly meeting, remember we will have some really amazing retail sales data to help solve the quandary. The best that can be said, though, is that the two days up to end last week seem significant — especially in light of the collapse of FTX.
Those two days seem to be saying that the Fed is catching a break. Although I would say it is a break of its own making.
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JERUSALEM: Israel’s president on Sunday is set to formally designate Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government, a victory for the former veteran prime minister who had vowed to return to power. After a period of unprecedented political gridlock that forced five elections in less than four years, polls on November 1 gave Netanyahu and his far-right allies a clear majority in the 120-seat parliament. The result has all but sealed Netanyahu’s comeback, paving the way for him to form a government that could be the most right-wing in the country’s history. President Isaac Herzog will formally assign him the task at around midday (1000 GMT), after 64 lawmakers recommended Netanyahu be tapped for the job. The veteran right-winger, who is on trial over corruption allegations that he denies, will have at least 28 days to build a coalition with his allies — two ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties a rising extreme-right alliance called Religious Zionism. The 73-year-old Netanyahu is expected to deliver a speech following Herzog’s announcement. His moves over the coming weeks will be closely scrutinised, as unease mounts in some quarters over Netanyahu’s policy plans and the goals of his controversial governing partners. The new government is widely expected to pass sweeping judicial reforms, a long-held priority of Israel’s right. That could include a so-called “override clause,” giving parliament the right to overrule the supreme court any time it declares legislation to be illegal. Netanyahu’s government may also take full control over appointing supreme court judges, a role currently held by a panel of lawmakers, sitting judges and lawyers. “It is difficult for me to exaggerate the damage and danger” of the proposed reforms, said Suzie Navot, a constitutional law professor at the Israel Democracy Institute think tank. Netanyahu can seek a two-week extension to his initial mandate, but is expected to announce a coalition deal reasonably quickly, given broad ideological unity within the incoming government. Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, co-leaders of the Religious Zionism bloc, have publicly demanded control of two key ministries — public security and defence. Ben-Gvir, a firebrand known for anti-Arab rhetoric and incendiary calls for Israel to annex the entire West Bank, has repeatedly urged for the security services to use more force in countering Palestinian unrest. Violence has soared between Israel and the Palestinians, and recent months have been the deadliest period in years in the Israeli-occupied West Bank according to the United Nations, with near daily army raids and an increase in clashes and attacks on Israeli forces. Netanyahu’s previous terms in office saw what little remained of the Middle East peace process collapse in a surge of Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. Herzog, whose role is largely symbolic, was reported to have tried to convince outgoing premier Yair Lapid and his defence minister Benny Gantz to form a unity cabinet with Netanyahu, in order to keep Ben-Gvir from entering government. The presidency publicly denied the claims. But Herzog this week told Ben-Gvir that he had received “questions from Israeli citizens and world leaders… very sensitive questions on human rights”. “There is a certain image of you and your party which seems, and I’ll say it in all honesty, worrying in many regards,” he added.
NCP leader Jitendra Awhad with supporters after bail on Saturday, November 12.
Mumbai:
Jitendra Awhad, a legislator from Sharad Pawar’s NCP, has tweeted that after “two false cases against me in 72 hours… I have decided to resign as MLA”.
On bail after his arrest last week for disrupting a show of Marathi film ‘Har Har Mahadev’ in Thane over “distorting the history of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj”, the former minister is now accused of assaulting a woman. A case registered under the Indian Penal Code Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) has been registered as he allegedly pushed her during a public event at the opening of a bridge in Mumbra on November 13.
“I will fight against this police brutality. I cannot simply watch this murder of democracy,” said Mr Awhad, MLA from Mumbra-Kalwa constituency in Thane, in his tweet in Marathi.
पोलीसांनी माझ्या विरुद्ध ७२ तासात २ खोटा गुन्हा दाखल केला आणि तोही 😭३५४ ,., मी ह्या पोलिसी आत्याचारा विरुद्ध लढणार … मी माझ्या आमदारकीचा राजीनामा देण्याचा निर्णय घेतो आहे,,. लोकशाहीची हत्या .. उघड्या डोळ्यांनी नाही बघू शकत
The woman has alleged that MLA Jitendra Awhad “forcefully pushed” her when she was moving towards Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to meet him as he’d come to participate in the inauguration.
Angry over the FIR, NCP workers protested at the Mumbra police station and burnt tyres.
Earlier, over forcibly shutting the screening of ‘Har Har Mahadev’, Mr Awhad was arrested on Friday and released on Saturday. He is charged with sections 323 (assault) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace).
Mr Awhad said the orders to arrest him had come from “higher authorities” — seen as a reference to the Eknath Shinde-BJP government — adding that he had saved a man who was allegedly manhandled at the multiplex on November 7.
His party leader leader and MP Supriya Sule also accused the police of being under “pressure from above”. Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Aaditya Thackeray criticised the state government, too: ‘’Jitendra Awhad has done the right thing. We are ready to go to jail with him.”
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde denied any politics behind the arrest and said the police must have taken action as per law.
On November 7, Mr Awhad and his supporters allegedly gatecrashed a multiplex in Thane to disrupt the show. When people demanded a refund and passed comments regarding the disruption, Mr Awhad and his supporters allegedly assaulted some of them.
A day later, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said beating up moviegoers will not be tolerated and action will be taken against people involved in such incidents. “People are permitted to register their opposition democratically. I have not seen the movie and I am not aware of the controversy,” he’d said.
Mr Awhad was arrested three days later.
He was Housing Minister in the previous Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government under Uddhav Thackeray until Eknath Shinde divided the Sena and took the chair with the BJP’s backing.
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Football icon Cristiano Ronaldo has said he feels “betrayed” by Manchester United and claims he is being forced out of the club.
In a 90-minute interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored, which will be broadcast next week on TalkTV, the Portugal star claimed head coach Erik ten Hag and others want him out of Old Trafford.
When asked if United‘s hierarchy were trying to force him out of the club, Ronaldo said: “Yes, not only the coach, but another two or three guys around the club. I felt betrayed.”
The 37-year-old said in the interview: “I don’t care. People should listen to the truth.
“Yes, I felt betrayed, and I felt like some people don’t want me here, not only this year but last year too.”
Ronaldo revealed he did not respect boss ten Hag, saying: “I don’t have respect for him because he doesn’t show respect for me. If you don’t have respect for me, I’m never gonna have respect for you.”
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner also claimed there has been “zero progress” at the club since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 and criticised their “lack of sympathy” for him when his baby daughter fell ill and was hospitalised in July.
More on Cristiano Ronaldo
United have been contacted for comment on the allegations.
Ronaldo has had a turbulent time since rejoining Manchester United in the summer of 2021. He has struggled to get playing time recently, was left on the substitute’s bench despite being 4-0 down against Manchester City, and against Tottenham, he refused to come onto the pitch as a substitute and stormed down the tunnel before full-time.
Wayne Rooney commented on the walkout and in the incendiary interview with Morgan, Ronaldo hit out his former United teammate.
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0:58
Erik ten Hag on Ronaldo’s Spurs walkout
‘Cannot be in the team now’
Writing in The Sun newspaper, Morgan revealed Ronaldo said: “I don’t know why he criticises me so badly… probably because he finished his career, and I’m still playing at a high level.
“I’m not going to say that I’m looking better than him. Which is true…”
When news broke on Sunday night, about the interview, player turned Match Of The Day 2 pundit Jermaine Jenas said he was “totally baffled” as to why he had done it, and he believed it had made it now impossible for ten Hag to play him any more.
“He can’t be in the team now,” said Jenas.
Former Liverpool and England player Jamie Carragher said in a tweet he thought “99% of United fans will be on the side of ETH (Erik ten Hag)”.
Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani (C front) attends the G20 Finance Ministers Meeting in Nusa Dua, on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali, on July 16, 2022.
SONNY TUMBELAKA | POOL | AFP via Getty Images
World leaders are kicking off a meeting Tuesday on the holiday island of Bali, Indonesia as the global economy grapples with a looming recession, central banks’ jumbo rate hikes and historically high inflation.
The annual meeting of leaders from the world’s major economies, known as the Group of 20 nations, is also taking place as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on and relations between Washington and Beijing remain tense.
The gathering of officials that represent more than 80% of global GDP and 75% of exports worldwide marks the 17th meeting since the the platform kicked off after the Asian financial crisis in 1999 as a meeting for finance ministry officials and central bank leaders.
Who’s attending?
Nineteen countries and one economic region, the European Union, will attend this year’s two-day G-20 meeting.
This year’s in-person attendee list has been in the spotlight as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues his unprovoked war in Ukraine.
Putin will not be attending the summit and will instead be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who walked out of a G-20 foreign minister meeting in July as his global counterparts called for an end to the war in Ukraine. Reuters reported Putin may join virtually.
U.S. President Joe Biden is also scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping ahead of the G-20.
Other attendees include newly appointed U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman, who recently led an OPEC+ initiative to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day to shore up prices.
Expectations are ‘not very high’
Not much progress is expected from Biden and Xi’s meeting, according to Andrew Staples, Asia Pacific director of Economist Impact, the policy and insights arm of The Economist Group.
“Expectations are not very high,” he told CNBC’s Martin Soong, adding that ongoing geopolitical tensions are dragging down global growth. He highlighted China’s stance on the war in Ukraine as one of many signs of eroding relations between the U.S. and China.
“There’s a lot of concern for the business community globally that these geopolitical tensions is impacting negatively … we have in Ukraine, which China has been unfortunately been somewhat ambivalent about when it comes to President Putin, is really damaging the global economy,” he said.
“Finding some floor to this relationship — which is what Biden is looking to do — will be a positive, not only for the business community but for the global economic sentiment as well,” he said.
The role of Russia
Russia’s latest move to constantly flip its stance on the United Nations-led Black Sea Grain initiative is “likely to overshadow all other negotiations in Bali,” Laura von Daniels, head of the Americas research at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said in a Council on Foreign Relations report.
The agreement, reached earlier this year, sought to ease Russia’s naval blockade and reopen key Ukrainian ports to deliver crops through a humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea. It expires on Nov. 19.
“To agree would not cost Russia anything,” said von Daniels. “It would, though, allow both Xi and Putin — as leaders of authoritarian states — to be applauded on the world stage for providing food security.”
Reopening strategy
The meeting takes place as a vast majority of the world reopens borders and lifts Covid-related restrictions — leaning into the post-pandemic era with its slogan, “Recover Together, Recover Stronger.”
Members agreed that “policy stimulus needs to be withdrawn appropriately during the recovery,” the Indonesia G-20 Presidency said in a July note released ahead of the meeting. It referred to a survey of member states that it conducted.
It said the potential for longer-lasting impact from the coronavirus pandemic on global growth would be a key topic of the meetings taking place in November.
“Risks stemming from supply disruption, rising inflation, and weak investment are the top three risks to be addressed urgently in relation to scarring from the pandemic,” it said, highlighting the need for global cooperation including the gradual reopening of borders to support revival of trade.
“We’ve all got some version of an inflation problem and rising interest rates as well, so the whole world has an interest in making progress here,” Australia Treasurer Jim Chalmers told CNBC’s Martin Soong. “Conditions are high risk and they are volatile,” he said.
Michael Lewis’ next book is about FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and the best-selling author has been embedded with the disgraced crypto mogul for the past six months. That’s according to reporting from The Ankler on Sunday.
Lewis, of course, has seen several of his books turned into movies. For instance Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt, was based on the author’s 2003 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
The location of Bankman-Fried has been a matter of intense interest this weekend, after he resigned as FTX’s CEO on Friday as it declared bankruptcy. Many in the crypto world speculated that he fled on a private jet to Argentina, but he replied to a Reuters journalist on that with a simple “nope” via text message. Bloomberg reporting now suggests he’s in the Bahamas, where FTX is based.
Either way, his rapid rise and sudden fall feels like movie material, and many are wondering who will get the rights to the story.
If an author of Lewis’ stature has been embedded with Bankman-Fried, that’s big news not only in book publishing, but in Hollywood, too.
At the center of The Ankler’s reporting is an email it says it obtained from Matthew Snyder, an agent at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles. Snyder reportedly sent the email to potential buyers on Friday.
According to The Ankler, the email reads:
“For the past six months or so, Michael has been traveling with and interviewing Sam Bankman-Fried. His childhood, early success at Wall Street, embrace the effective altruism and the creation of a crypto empire that catapulted him in record time into the ranks of the richest people in the world seemed more than sufficient for a signature Michael Lewis book.
“Of course, the events of the past week have provided a dramatic surprise ending of the story. It also highlighted the rivalry between Bankman-Fried and Binance head Chnagpeng Zhao. Michael Lewis likens them to the Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader of crypto.
“Michael hasn’t written anything yet, but the story has become too big for us to wait.
“Let me know if I’ve piqued your interest.”
It seems unlikely Bankman-Fried will be viewed as a Skywalker-type hero after the events of this week, but his rivalry with Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, founder and CEO of crypto exchange Binance, is well established.
Last weekend, a tweet from from the Binance CEO that he was dumping FTX-linked coins helped spark a wave of withdrawal requests from FTX customers. Concern about FTX’s solvency spread quickly. Binance signed a letter of intent to acquire FTX, then backed out just a day later, stating that the company’s issues “are beyond our control or ability to help.” By week’s end FTX declared bankruptcy.
“At some point I might have more to say about a particular sparring partner, so to speak,” Bankman-Fried said in a 22-tweet thread on Thursday. “But you know, glass houses. So for now, all I’ll say is: well played; you won.”
Dramatic stuff, indeed.
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