BG Reads 7.8.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - July 8, 2024

July 08, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

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July 8, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 President Joe Biden to speak in Austin as Republican convention kicks off in Milwaukee (Austin Monitor)

🟣 UT President Jay Hartzell sees bigger role for university in courting businesses, economic development (Austin Business Journal)

🟣 Gov. Abbott announces launch of State of Texas Taiwan (KVUE)

🟣 Supreme Court ethics remain at center stage after hard-right rulings (Washington Post)

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

President Joe Biden to speak in Austin as Republican convention kicks off in Milwaukee (Austin Monitor)

President Joe Biden will deliver remarks at Austin’s Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library on July 15 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, a White House official confirmed on Sunday.

The visit is the first of three stops in three days, starting in Austin, then onto Las Vegas where Biden will speak at the 115th NAACP National Convention on July 16 and then the following day at the UnidosUS annual conference, described as one of the largest gatherings of Latinos in the country.

His appearance in Austin coincides with the opening day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Republicans will discuss their party platform and formally nominate Trump.

The trips to Texas and Nevada follow Biden’s poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump on June 27. The president’s fumbles led some Congressional Democrats, starting with U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, to call on Biden to withdraw from the race for president.

Beryl is expected to hit the Texas coast early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane (KUT)

Tropical Storm Beryl is expected to make landfall in the area of Matagorda Bay early Monday morning, as the storm track shifts east closer to Houston and away from Austin and San Antonio.

Austin is no longer in the storm's cone — the path that weather forecasters believe Beryl will probably take — and rainfall chances along the Interstate 35 corridor have lowered to 0.5-1 inch of rain, the National Weather Service said Sunday afternoon.

Counties to the east of Austin are expected to get higher rainfall totals of 2-4 inches.

The NWS believes Beryl will make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, which means the storm has sustained wind speeds of 74-95 mph. Tropical storm-level winds could arrive to coastal areas as early as Sunday afternoon, the Weather Service said, with hurricane-force winds arriving Sunday night… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin Water tees up to propose rate increases to Council (Austin Monitor)

Austinites can prepare to add their water bill to the list of services getting increasingly more expensive, as a proposal for hikes in utility rates makes its way through City Council’s pipeline.

The proposal, which Austin Water unveiled early last week, would see residential rates increase by 9.5 percent on average, bumping the combined water and wastewater bill for the average customer from $85 to $93.12 per month. Such figures are based on an estimated consumption of 5,800 gallons of water and 4,000 gallons of wastewater each bill cycle.

The proposed rate changes come after a smaller 3.3 percent increase took effect last year, which Austin Water said was needed to cover rising costs of water treatment chemicals, staffing and repairs to aging infrastructure. Now, the utility says a number of more expensive projects are needed to keep up with Austin’s continuing growth.

Chief among these are plans for significant upgrades to the city’s Walnut Creek Treatment Plant, which handles the majority of the city’s wastewater for processing and reintegration to the Colorado River system. The utility plans to expand the plant’s processing capacity from 75 million to 100 million gallons per day, alongside a number of upgrades to its treatment systems and flood resilience infrastructure… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

UT President Jay Hartzell sees bigger role for university in courting businesses, economic development (Austin Business Journal)

Over the last few years, many companies have highlighted the University of Texas as a main reason for locating in the Austin metro, citing the large number of graduates it churns out in key fields like semiconductor design, artificial intelligence and life sciences.

But UT President Jay Hartzell said the university typically hasn't found out it was a key part of the decision-making process until after the fact. He's aiming to change that by taking a more proactive approach to economic development in the region.

In a recent interview with the Austin Business Journal, he said UT is working with local and state governments, economic development groups and others to highlight how it can contribute to corporate growth through research and innovation, help with recruiting or hiring of students for jobs and internships, intellectual engagement and more… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

21-year-old Hays County district clerk resigns, calling job 'incredibly stressful' (Texas Public Radio)

Hays County District Clerk Avrey Anderson resigned Friday amid proceedings over his potential removal. In his resignation letter, Anderson said the job had been “incredibly stressful.”

“It has taken a toll on my life to where I do not enjoy hardly anything anymore,” he wrote. “I do not believe it is good for justice and the courts for me to continue in my role currently.”

His resignation takes effect immediately.

Anderson, who graduated from Dripping Springs High School in 2021, unseated a three-term incumbent at only 19 years old… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Investment firm to develop 150-acre Taylor site next to Samsung plant (Community Impact)

Commercial real estate development and investment firm KDC announced June 26 it will market and develop a 150-acre site in Taylor, next to Samsung’s semiconductor plant going up near Hwy. 79.

KDC “will pursue build-to-suit opportunities for manufacturing office, logistics, warehousing, data center and other uses,” according to a news release. The company is also partnering with real estate agency Transwestern to market the Taylor HQ, which will be located on FR 973 in Taylor.“Taylor HQ offers a one-of-a-kind opportunity for companies working with Samsung or that are interested in having a high-profile neighbor next door,” said Bill Guthrey, KDC senior vice president of land development, said in the release. “Our build-to-suit experience allows us to pivot quickly and develop this acreage for a company seeking any number of uses on this prime spot.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Gov. Abbott announces launch of State of Texas Taiwan (KVUE)

Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Sunday that Texas is working on opening a state office in Taiwan.

The move is an effort to enhance the economic relationship between Texas and Taiwan.

Taiwan is the first stop of Abbott's trip to East Asia. He plans to visit South Korea and Japan next, with a focus on emerging industries like semiconductors and advanced manufacturing.

Abbott is set to return to Texas at the end of next week... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Texas lotteries might not be as fair as you think (Texas Standard)

A lottery is known as a chance for anyone to strike it rich, but it also might now be an investment opportunity for those with enough disposable income. 

In April of last year, the Lotto Texas jackpot sat at $95 million, and someone did the math: At a dollar a ticket and only 26 million possible winning numbers, they could game the system. 

According to a Houston Chronicle investigation, the Texas Lottery Commission not only knew what the person was doing, it helped them. 

Eric Dexheimer, an investigative reporter at the Chronicle, joined Texas Standard to discuss. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

Supreme Court ethics remain at center stage after hard-right rulings (Washington Post)

The Supreme Court term that ended this week played out on a split screen: The justices issued blockbuster rulings that pushed the law sharply to the right, while outside the court some justices were buffeted by new ethics allegations that stoked questions from critics about their impartiality.

The dynamics may not seem related, but legal experts say they have mutually reinforced doubts among a large swath of the country over whether the nation’s highest court can be a neutral interpreter of the law. “They’ve got a potential legitimacy problem,” said Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor and expert on judicial ethics.

“The traditional notion that we will accept the results of the court whether we agree with it or not … is decreasingly the case. A lot of the ethics problems the court confronts fuel the perception that it is an organization more political than legal.”

The court’s defenders, most of them conservative, dismiss such concern as griping from liberals who disagree with the decisions of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority. But an Associated Press-NORC poll released at the end of June crystallized the issue: Nearly 4 in 10 respondents said they have hardly any confidence in the court, and 7 in 10 said they believe the justices’ decisions are motivated by ideology, not fairness and impartiality.

For a second term, headlines have centered on Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., with reports in recent months about politically charged flags and lavish free travel. Democrats and some independent experts have called in vain for the two justices to recuse from certain high-profile cases, and for a new court ethics overhaul. The latter demand will almost certainly remain stalled in Congress unless Democrats wrest control of both chambers in the November election and retain control of the White House. And the outcome of the presidential contest will determine whether any retirements from the court lead to a strengthening or weakening of the 6-3 conservative-liberal split in coming years… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Earnings season to test investors’ faith in big tech stocks (Wall Street Journal)

An elite cadre of tech giants that drove the stock market to records is under pressure to keep the party going this earnings season. The S&P 500 has climbed 17% this year, fueled by investor excitement over artificial intelligence that has sent shares of Nvidia and its fellow tech titans to dramatic heights. The chip maker’s stock has more than doubled this year, pushing its market value above $3 trillion. Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft have surged as well, with all logging double-digit gains. The growing size of the index’s heavyweights means a lot is riding on their ability to deliver profits and guidance in coming weeks that justify their sky-high valuations.

“You have an unusual situation where you have fantastic companies and transformative industries, but is the bar set too high even for them?” said Jim Smigiel, chief investment officer at SEI.

Optimism has abounded even after last year’s AI-fueled rally. The top 10 companies in the S&P 500 make up 37% of the index’s market cap but contribute 24% to its earnings—the widest such gap since the third quarter of 1990, according to data from Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. “The problem for the S&P 500 today is not only the high concentration but also the record-high bullishness on future earnings from a small group of companies,” Slok wrote.

Overall, companies in the S&P 500 are expected to report a fourth straight quarter of earnings growth, with profits projected to have climbed 8.8% from last year’s second quarter, according to FactSet. That would mark the biggest increase since the first quarter of 2022. In the week ahead, investors will get results from banking behemoths JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, as well as Delta Air Lines, PepsiCo and Conagra. They will also get fresh insight on inflation with the release of the consumer-price index for June, which could influence the Federal Reserve’s outlook on interest rates… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[2024 Austin City Council Race Watch]

This fall will see elections for the following Council Districts 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and Mayor.

Declared candidates so far are:

Mayor

District 2

District 4

District 6

District 7 (Open seat)

District 10 (Open seat)

_________________________

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