Which City Has The Most Billionaires In 2024? Some cities seem to attract the rich. Take New York City for example, which has 340,000 high-net-worth residents with investable assets of more than $1 million. But there’s a vast difference between being a millionaire and a billionaire. So where do the richest of them all live? Using data from the Hurun Global Rich List 2024, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao ranks the top 20 cities with the highest number of billionaires in 2024. A caveat to these rich lists: sources often vary on figures and exact rankings. For example, in last year’s reports, Forbes had New York as the city with the most billionaires, while the Hurun Global Rich List placed Beijing at the top spot. Ranked: Top 20 Cities with the Most Billionaires in 2024 The Chinese economy’s doldrums over the course of the past year have affected its ultra-wealthy residents in key cities. Beijing, the city with the most billionaires in 2023, has not only ceded its spot to New York, but has dropped to #4, overtaken by London and Mumbai. In fact all Chinese cities on the top 20 list have lost billionaires between 2023–24. Consequently, they’ve all lost ranking spots as well, with Hangzhou seeing the biggest slide (-5) in the top 20. Where China lost, all other Asian cities—except Seoul—in the top 20 have gained ranks. Indian cities lead the way, with New Delhi (+6) and Mumbai (+3) having climbed the most. At a country level, China and the U.S combine to make up half of the cities in the top 20. They are also home to about half of the world’s 3,200 billionaire population. In other news of note: Hurun officially counts Taylor Swift as a billionaire, estimating her net worth at $1.2 billion. Tyler Durden Sat, 04/27/2024 – 19:15

Chinese Nationals Charged With Conspiracy to Export US Technology Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times, The Department of Justice has arrested two Chinese nationals who allegedly plotted to export U.S. technology to advance the People’s Republic of China’s military operations. Han Li, 44, and Lin Chen, 64, have been charged with several counts of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), in addition to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), for attempting to export a machine used to process silicon microchips. “The export restrictions at issue in this case were put in place to prevent the illicit procurement of commodities and technologies for unauthorized military end use in the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Ismail Ramsey said in a press release on the arrests. “This office will continue to vigorously enforce the nation’s export laws, including those pertaining to advanced technologies, to protect our national security.” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olson explained that the defendants “sought to evade export controls to obtain U.S. semiconductors” that they were then going to ship to a Chinese company. In 2014, the Department of Commerce placed restrictions on the Chengdu GaStone Technology Company (CGTC) based in China, which made it “ineligible to receive exports of certain U.S. technologies and services.” “As alleged in the indictment, between at least May 2015 and August 2018, Li and Chen conspired to evade the export restrictions imposed by the Department of Commerce on CGTC by using intermediary companies,” the DOJ said. “Specifically, the defendants sought to illegally obtain for CGTC a DTX-150 Automatic Diamond Scriber Breaker machine from Dynatex International, a Santa Rosa, California company.” The DOJ said the defendants purposefully avoided getting the Department of Commerce’s authorization to export the CGTC, the DOJ said. “The defendants sought to obtain the machine through an intermediary company called Jiangsu Hantang International (JHI), which they fraudulently represented as the purchaser and end user, a proxy they fraudulently represented as the purchaser and end user,” the DOJ said. “To avoid detection, Li and Chen instructed Dynatex International to ensure that the export information associated with the sale did not list CGTC as the ultimate consignee of the shipment.” Li, the DOJ said, is suspected to be in China. Both Li and Chen are charged with counts of conspiracy to violate IEEPA, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, and a count of false electronic export information activities, which carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. They are also charged on a count of smuggling, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and IEEPA violations, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and the DOJ’s National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control department will prosecute the case. “This arrest highlights the importance of interagency collaboration in preventing illegal exports that could compromise sensitive technologies and our national security as well as undermine our American economy,” said Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Tatum King.   Brent Burmester, a special agent in charge with the Department of Commerce, said stopping “the flow of U.S. semiconductor technology” that goes to advance the People’s Republic of China’s “military modernization efforts” is key to protecting the country’s national security. FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Tripp suggested that businesses in the U.S. should establish a relationship with their local FBI field office “to help protect against the pervasive threat of criminals looking to steal American technology.” “We will aggressively pursue anyone who violates export control laws designed to protect our national and economic security,” Mr. Tripp said. In a 2023 report on FBI Director Christopher Wray’s roundtable discussion on CBS News, Mr. Wray called the Chinese Communist Party “the defining threat of this generation.” He said in the discussion that the FBI has 2,000 active investigations “just related to the Chinese government’s effort to steal information.” “There is no country that presents a broader, more comprehensive threat to our ideas, our innovation, our economic security, and ultimately our national security,” he said. Tyler Durden Sat, 04/27/2024 – 18:40

These Are The Countries That Have Become ‘Sadder’ Since 2010 Can happiness be quantified? Some approaches that try to answer this question make a distinction between two differing components of happiness: a daily experience part, and a more general life evaluation (which includes how people think about their life as a whole). The World Happiness Report – first launched in 2012 – has been making a serious go at quantifying happiness, by examining Gallup poll data that asks respondents in nearly every country to evaluate their life on a 0–10 scale. From this they extrapolate a single “happiness score” out of 10 to compare how happy (or unhappy) countries are. More than a decade later, the 2024 World Happiness Report continues the mission, and Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao visualizes the latest findings below to show which countries have become sadder in the intervening years. Which Countries Have Become Unhappier Since 2010? Afghanistan is the unhappiest country in the world right now, and is also 60% unhappier than over a decade ago, indicating how much life has worsened since 2010. In 2021, the Taliban officially returned to power in Afghanistan, after nearly two decades of American occupation in the country. The Islamic fundamentalist group has made life harder, especially for women, who are restricted from pursuing higher education, travel, and work. On a broader scale, the Afghan economy has suffered post-Taliban takeover, with various consequent effects: mass unemployment, a drop in income, malnutrition, and a crumbling healthcare system. Nine countries in total saw their happiness score drop by a full point or more, on the 0–10 scale. Noticeably, many of them have seen years of social and economic upheaval. Lebanon, for example, has been grappling with decades of corruption, and a severe liquidity crisis since 2019 that has resulted in a banking system collapse, sending poverty levels skyrocketing. In Jordan, unprecedented population growth—from refugees leaving Iraq and Syria—has aggravated unemployment rates. A somewhat abrupt change in the line of succession has also raised concerns about political stability in the country. Tyler Durden Sat, 04/27/2024 – 18:05

Office Market Availability Rate Hits Record High In San Francisco Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times, A confluence of factors continues to impact San Francisco’s office market, with vacancy and availability rates reaching record highs in the first quarter of 2024, according to commercial real estate analysts at global companies Avison Young and CBRE. Availability – the combination of vacancy and sublease opportunities in the market – reached 36.7 percent of all office square footage from January to April, according to recently released market analyses from the leading commercial real estate firms. “We’re at mostly record levels, and I say that kind of cautiously optimistic,” Dina Gouveia, west region market intelligence manager for Avison Young, told The Epoch Times April 25. According to Ms. Gouveia vacancies only saw a “slight uptick” during the first quarter which might mean such is slowing. “[I]f we can continue that slower velocity of additional vacancies … then it would be a very good indicator of us being near a bottom,” she said. Much of the issue, experts say, is the city’s reliance on the tech industry, with more than 44 percent of its office space housing technology companies. Additionally, tech firms lead the list of upcoming lease expirations—accounting for 45.8 percent, according to Avison Young. San Francisco’s office market was deeply affected as the number of work-from-home employees skyrocketed during the pandemic, though recent trends show a slight return to the office. Remote job postings fell more than 5 percent to 22.2 percent in the first quarter compared to the end of last year, according to the Avison Young report. Job postings increased 22.7 percent in the first quarter following seven consecutive quarters of decline. The listings were led by legal services, engineering, consulting, research, accounting, and recruiting companies. Media and tech industries, however, both experienced declines, according to the report. Unemployment, however, ticked up to 4.4 percent in the first quarter, a sharp increase from its low of 2.3 percent in June 2022. According to the report, slightly less than 1 million total square footage was leased in the first quarter—a 63.3 percent drop from the five-year pre-pandemic average. Analysts noted signs they deemed optimistic, including Netherlands-based payment company Adyen’s sublease of space at 505 Brannan Street—in the city’s South of Market district—and multinational accounting company KPMG’s lease renewal at 55 2nd Street, in the city’s financial district. Combined, those leases total 300,000 square feet, experts said. Sublease opportunities offer lower rents than signing new leases that require build outs and significant capital to develop properties, which is spurring the sector of the market, while also allowing businesses with existing leases to rent out some of their vacant space. “The amount of sublease activity that we’ve seen has increased a lot because tenants are looking for plug-and-play opportunities,” Ms. Gouveia said. “A lot more activity is happening because tenants … want to take advantage of pre-built spaces and lower rents.” High interest rates are making it harder for companies with limited cash to refinance loans. At the same time, rates are also slowing down new purchases, according to analysts. With an uncertain market—in part due to conflicting signals from the Federal Reserve about the future of interest rates—prospective tenants are seeking flexibility when looking to renew leases or relocate. “Interest rates are a huge catalyst,” Ms. Gouveia said. “We’re hearing a little bit of two different stories that interest rates are going down and then they’re not. If the interest rates do come down … that will stimulate the commercial market quite a bit.” In response, the highest quality properties have seen lease term lengths decrease from quarter-to-quarter to make them less risky. Such wariness from tenants is forcing some landlords to lower rents and offer concession packages to attract business, though a disparity still remains between what tenants want to pay and what landlords can offer given their current debt load. Many landlords are working with their lenders to restructure debt before loans come due, and analysts expect rent prices to become more favorable for tenants once such is realized. “Rents will definitely come down,” Ms. Gouveia said. “And once that debt workout happens, there’s going to be a larger reset.” Distressed properties at risk of default are creating buying opportunities of which private buyers are increasingly taking advantage. Industrial investors and real estate investment trusts, however, are on the sidelines, with 100 percent of all investment activity coming from private buyers in the first quarter, according to the report. On the other hand, the percentage of private sellers also increased to begin the year compared to prior years, with analysts pointing to uncertainty that their debt can be restructured due to high interest rates and limited financing opportunities. Refinancing has proven challenging because lenders are reluctant to write loans for office buildings because defaults are looming and valuations are plummeting, with true market values unclear, according to analysts. A pending election is also slowing activity, as many firms want more certainty before making large capital decisions. “Because we’re coming up on an election year, a lot of companies go dormant on their expansion plans, and servicers are also in that wait-and-see mode,” Ms. Gouveia said. Another global commercial real estate leader, CBRE, found that San Francisco’s office market is facing unique challenges given crime and homelessness impacting the city. According to Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center, more office tenants are signing new leases, showing a willingness to recommit to the city, but are still somewhat tentative when doing so. “This dynamic is still somewhat tenuous as employers and their employees still have concerns about public safety and the cost of doing business,” he told The Epoch Times by email. Noting that some workers are returning to the office for more days a week he suggested such is not enough for a recovery, which, he said, will require a desire to compete in a robust economic environment. “Additional mandates are unlikely to increase office attendance materially at this point, but rather a booming economy will compel more people to want to be in the office and be better connected to the next growth cycle,” Mr. Yasukochi said. While artificial intelligence could play a significant role in buoying the tech sector that the city relies on, a fast recovery, he said, is not anticipated. “The San Francisco office market is beginning to transition out of its four-year downturn,” Mr. Yasukochi said. “While it will take many years to rebalance supply and demand, we are starting to see positive signs.” Tyler Durden Sat, 04/27/2024 – 17:30

Putin Did Not Order Alexei Navalny’s Death, US Intelligence Finds In a surprising turn, The Wall Street Journal has issued a new weekend report saying that US intelligence agencies do not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin planned or ordered the death of opposition activist and politician Alexei Navalny. “U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Putin likely didn’t order Navalny to be killed at the notoriously brutal prison camp in February, people familiar with the matter said, a finding that deepens the mystery about the circumstances of his death,” writes the Journal. Via Associated Press “The assessment doesn’t dispute Putin’s culpability for Navalny’s death, but rather finds he probably didn’t order it at that moment,” WSJ continues. “The finding is broadly accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department’s intelligence unit, the people said.” And yet it must be recalled that Western officials and media pundits alike had immediately upon reports of the 47-year old Navalny’s death rushed to declare that he had been ‘assassinated’ by Russian authorities upon Putin’s order. This led to a new wave of US-led sanctions on Russia, and even disrupted momentum toward a hoped-for prisoner swap between Moscow and Kiev at the time. President Biden had asserted in a statement issued on the very day of his Feb.16 death that “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death” and that it was “proof of Putin’s Brutality” – but ultimately that the ‘democratic future’ Navalny believed in was worth “dying for” – according to the president’s words at the time. Russian prison authorities had officially listed his demise as from “sudden death syndrome,” which is how natural causes such as heart attacks are typically described. Navalny’s team is not happy with the fresh WSJ report which is being seen as essentially an exoneration of Putin: In a statement to the Journal, Leonid Volkov, a longtime Navalny ally, rejected the U.S. intelligence assessment and said those who assert that Putin wasn’t aware of Navalny’s death “clearly do not understand anything about how modern day Russia runs.” “The idea of Putin being not informed and not approving killing Navalny is ridiculous,” he said. You will find more infographics at Statista Below, journalist and geopolitical commentator Aaron Maté explains that despite news of Navalny’s life and death having driven world headlines, he was still largely an unknown within broader Russian politics and society especially on a national level [emphasis ZH]. * * * Navalny was a marginal opposition figure who polled at around 2%. Putin didn’t fear him; it served Putin to have him seen in the West as his main opposition. The Russian gov’t meanwhile has just barred anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin. A Russian court has also issued a draconian prison sentence to anti-war sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky. We don’t hear about people like Nadezhdin and Kagarlitsky in the West nearly as much for one reason: unlike Navalny, they don’t collaborate with Western governments. Navalny worked with NATO intel cutout Bellingcat and went through the “Yale World Fellow” program, a regime change training ground. For this reason, we also don’t hear that Navalny was an unrepentant xenophobe who compared Muslim immigrants to cockroaches and rotten teeth.  His death is a tragedy. He was undoubtedly mistreated. But because he served US interests, US state media will make him into someone he was not. And just compare their fawning coverage to their silence on, or even support for, the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange. Or their complete silence on the mistreatment and death of US citizen Gonzalo Lira in Ukrainian custody — universally ignored in US media. Tyler Durden Sat, 04/27/2024 – 16:55