2024-03-12 05:05:11
U.S. media recently revealed that Biden’s biggest financial backers are a couple who invest in artificial intelligence and are optimistic regarding virtual currencies.
As the U.S. election moves toward a “Biden-Trump showdown,” the U.S. media begins to analyze who is the more powerful “financier” behind the two, and who is better able to gain political voice in the coming months.
Trump and Biden. AP pictures
CNN reported on the 10th that political election activities in the United States mainly raise and allocate campaign funds through political action committees (PAC). The most important political action committee behind Biden and the Democratic Party is called Future Forward. According to reports, in 2022, the largest source of funds for “Future Forward” will come from the “Open Society Foundation”, the donation organization of financial giant Soros, with a donation amounting to US$15.2 million.
Screenshot of CNN report
The second largest financial backer following Soros attracted the attention of CNN. This non-profit organization called “BEMC 4 Association” will donate US$7.2 million to “Future Forward” in 2022, and the only two executives of the organization are a “husband and wife team”, the husband is named James McCleve, and the wife Their name is Emily Berger, and they work for a trading company in Manhattan, New York.
CNN found that this “upstart” couple is not only an investor in artificial intelligence companies, but also keen on virtual currency trading. In recent years, they have become very interested in the federal government’s digital currency policy and even called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to include Bitcoin in the New York Stock Exchange. Place. The media also discovered that the two have gradually increased their political investment in recent years, contributing millions of dollars to a series of Democratic groups or candidates in various political elections, and are the “number one donors” to some progressive Democrats.
Big donors who provide “black money” to the U.S. Republican Party have also surfaced recently. CNN disclosed that the American pharmaceutical company Searle, through its foundation, has contributed a total of US$200 million in political donations to various conservative non-profit organizations in the United States in the past 10 years. Its latest beneficiaries include a nonprofit run by former Trump administration officials that is laying the groundwork for a second Trump term by developing plans and drafting potential executive orders.
The American “Daily Beast” once reviewed former President Trump’s “black gold business” and said that behind it was a non-profit organization called “America First Works” (AFW), which is a typical “black gold organization.” During the 2020 election, AFW raised $51 million, a huge amount of money that was transferred to a series of “brotherly units.” After the election season, its book capital plummeted from tens of millions of dollars to $33.
CNN said that although Biden himself criticized the influence of “black money” and supported legislation requiring organizations that spend money on elections to promptly disclose large donors, the millions of dollars flowing into institutions such as “Future Forward” exposed the “black gold group”. ” How American politics is quietly shaped behind the scenes. According to reports, this pattern will continue this year, and Future Forward has announced plans to launch the largest political advertising campaign in the history of a political action committee in 2024.
“The amount of money Americans spend on elections is shocking.” The US website “The Conversation” reported that in the 2016 presidential election cycle, candidates spent a total of US$1.6 billion. In the 2020 cycle, that number rose to $4.1 billion, and it’s likely to be even higher in the current campaign. As of February this year, U.S. Federal Election Commission data shows that candidates have raised a total of just over $397 million for the 2024 presidential campaign. In terms of spending, Republicans have currently spent $191 million on the 2024 campaign, while Democrats have spent $48 million. The difference is largely due to the larger number of Republican candidates.
The existence of “black gold” further raises concerns. Massoglia, a researcher at the campaign data watchdog Open Secrets, said that deliberately concealing political funds is equivalent to keeping voters in the dark. They have no way of knowing what interests are behind the politicians they support. Garin Hall, a scholar at the University of Michigan, said that under such a fundraising system, “rich people can still have a profound impact on politics even following they have been dead for many years.”
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U.S. Navy Secretary Toro, who visited shipyards in Japan and South Korea earlier, once once more criticized the construction speed of U.S. shipyards and called on allied companies to increase investment in U.S. shipyards.
Mainland Observer quoted USNI News as reporting that Toro said at the McAleese Defense Planning Conference on the 7th that U.S. shipyards “can learn from Pacific Shipyards on how to retain employees.” During his trip to the Western Pacific at the end of last month, Toro visited major shipbuilding companies in the two countries, including South Korea’s HD Hyundai and Hanwha Marine, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Japan Marine Union (JMU), and worked with local allies and partners In the statement, shipbuilding companies of both countries were encouraged to invest in the construction of American merchant ships and military ships.
Nikkei Asia reported on Toro Shipbuilding’s trip that the United States is seeking to restart closed or idle U.S. shipyards with the help of capital, engineers and technical experts from Japan and South Korea because it found It is “difficult to keep up with the development pace of China’s shipbuilding industry.”
Toro visited the Hanwha Marine Group shipyard during his visit to South Korea.U.S. Navy pictures
Toro said that what he gained from this trip to the Western Pacific was that all opportunities must be explored to “expand the United States’ own shipbuilding capabilities” through competition in “innovation and industrial capabilities.” He also said that the shipyards (those inspected in Japan and South Korea) “actually set up various facilities such as hospitals, schools (including kindergartens), bowling alleys, and “everything else imaginable” in an attempt to provide shipyards with Attract workers and retain them”.
An employee nursery (kindergarten) established by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at the Nagasaki Shipyard.Mitsubishi Heavy Industries pictures
In the past month, Toro has been criticizing U.S. shipyards, saying that they are behind schedule and cost overruns, resulting in delays in ship delivery nodes clearly stipulated in the contract. He once said in a speech that the United States The Navy’s current suppliers are not investing enough in basic production facilities, and while these companies are asking U.S. taxpayers to support more public investment, they are using stock buybacks, deferring capital investments and other accounting tricks to drive up stock prices. In the eyes of some, boosting stock prices and executive compensation through these operations seems to be a higher priority than making necessary basic investments in industrial infrastructure at a pressing moment when “the United States needs to be far ahead.” On the other hand, according to data provided by shipbuilders to USNI News, these companies overall “have invested approximately $5 billion to improve the infrastructure of the seven largest (military) shipbuilding companies in the United States.”
The report mentioned that as the older generation of workers retires, it is difficult for shipyards across the United States to recruit workers, and it is also difficult to retain new workers. For example, in order to achieve the goal of building seven Virginia-class nuclear submarines every three years to meet the needs of the U.S. Navy and AUKUS framework partner countries, it is estimated that the workforce of the U.S. submarine industry must increase by another 100,000 people.
Toro was also asked regarding the supply chain and labor issues of many shipping companies at the meeting on the 7th. He continued to emphasize the topic of infrastructure, saying that the key is to increase investment, because the required (investment) level has not been reached at all. Companies that have problems retaining talent should provide better conditions for their employees. For example, if they cannot rent housing locally, they can work with local governments to build housing for workers in local communities to solve the problem. This is what people who can solve problems should do.
At the meeting, he also called on overseas allies to invest in the U.S. shipbuilding industry, and cited several cases: such as the Fincantieri Marinette shipyard invested by Italian Fincantieri in Wisconsin, which built the “Freedom” class for the United States. Littoral combat ships are currently building a new generation of “Constellation” class guided missile frigates; and the Australian-invested Austal American Shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, which is based on Austal’s catamaran and multi-body High-speed ship technology has built the “Independence” class littoral combat ship and the “Vanguard” class expeditionary fast transport ship (EPF) for the U.S. Navy. Toro said competition is always good, and he believes there are smaller U.S. shipyards that are “already dormant” or “struggling” and might benefit from an infusion of capital from international investors.
Toro is not the only one calling on allies to invest in shipyards. When accompanying Toro to visit Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Yokohama plant, Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, told Nikkei Asia that there is currently a closed shipyard in Philadelphia and one in Long Beach. There was one naval shipyard, and there were several others, and he wanted to know if Mitsubishi or other Japanese companies would be interested in investing in one of the yards to get it operational once more and participate in the construction of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships and U.S. merchant ships. It is currently unclear what kind of ship platforms the new shipyard will build. The shipbuilding budget in fiscal year 2025 is expected to be the same as in fiscal year 2024, and the US Navy will purchase 8 to 9 ships. As for merchant ships, due to the influence of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1920 (or the Jones Act), currently most of the merchant ships built in the United States are only used for coastal transportation between U.S. territories (including overseas territories). Therefore, foreign-invested shipyards build The outlook for the merchant shipping market remains unpredictable.
Paxton, chairman of the American Shipbuilders Council, told USNI News that using existing shipyards can better serve the Navy and does not necessarily require the construction of new shipyards. He said the committee believed a more strategic approach would be to invest in each shipyard to maximize capacity, build faster and repair ships on time, which is entirely possible with existing shipyards.
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