#and how moving from the reservation to the city only exacerbated the speed of it

[fakezircon]

Hello?

Ok important to the story he was on a reservation in the dead of winter. One of his neighbours (his sister/my grandmother's mom) had recently gotten a gas lamp for the first time and was showing it off to him so he decided to get one for himself. My great grandma had stayed over to help him get it set up but was turning in for the night before he was, and so she just told him to turn out the light when he was done.

The issue is that they were speaking Cree and the specific wordage used was more akin to "blow out the light" and so when my great granduncle tried to blow it out like a standard lamp, nothing happened. He then panicked and chucked the thing out into the snow, then went to bed.

[callmeakumatized]

Fish Funk - ch. 2

ao3 ff.net prev ch. next ch.

Mermay Day Two - Prompt: Petty Crime

A mass moved overhead, temporarily covering the light peeking through the holes in the ceiling. Expecting some type of big fish or whale of some sort - and hoping it wasn't something more menacing - Adrien tore his eyes away from his latest ship find - a soft, pink something - and looked up. His eyes did a double-take before widening.

It wasn't a fish, or any type of underwater life. The details of the whatever-it-was was swallowed in shadow, but the way it cut through the water instead of gliding with the flow of it, leaving a massive trail in its wake, gave it a decidedly inorganic feeling. Plagg joined his side, glancing in the direction Adrien was silently staring. His whiskers twitched.

"Is that…?" Adrien asked his companion, words so quiet in pent-up excitement they were nearly lost to the current. His grip tightened around his coral-colored find, his tail propelling him upward to peer at the dark shape through the hole.

"A ship?" Plagg responded. Adrien nodded. "Yeah, that's a ship."

A ship. A real ship!

A million questions raced around Adrien's brain. Looking to Plagg, the start of his sure-to-be-lengthy interrogation on the tip of his tongue, Adrien faltered. For one thing, Plagg's answers were sure to be short and unhelpful. The way Plagg moved now, twitched his body and whiskers and gazing at the fleeing ship only backed his theory. Whether the overgrown fish would simply be unresponsive - or in mild distress - if asked any questions about it, Adrien didn't know. But there wasn't time to debate about asking or not. Before the dark bulk could leave his vision, Adrien darted after it.

Until a hard slap on his tail caused him to flip around.

Plagg looked serious for the first time since Adrien had known him. His wide lips were tight, his body seeming to curl up on himself and back again in clear agitation. The stance caused Adrien to float back down to his friend, though he continued to glance back wistfully toward the ship's direction.

"They're humans."

Adrien turned to look Plagg straight on.

"What?"

"Humans. They look like merpeople, but they don't have tails. They have no fins of any sort, nor scales." He wiggled his own flippers briefly to accentuate the point.

The description left much to be desired, the mental picture it painted enough to cause an uneasy sick feeling in the merboy's stomach.

How could someone with half a body even survive!?

"B-But how - ?" Adrien wondered aloud, twirling his forgotten find around in his hands. "H-How do they swim?"

Plagg's whiskers twitched again, though Adrien couldn't quite read his expression (slightly understandable, since it was just a wide blubbery mass).

"They don't," Plagg spoke flatly.

"Don't - ?"

"They don't swim, 'kid. There's no water up there to swim in." Plagg swam in a circle out of the hold, gesticulating with his tail as he came back to Adrien, belly facing the light.

It was a concept that, as a merperson, Adrien was, quite literally, unable to understand.

Plagg "laughed", a short sputtering snort he seemed to reserve for when Adrien looked or did or said something particularly stupid. The merboy was about to reprimand him, but Plagg, with a flash of his eyes, spun around Adrien and took off suddenly, moving faster than Adrien would have believed possible. With only a moment of surprised hesitation, Adrien, with his "treasure" still gripped in his hand, darted after Plagg.

(Where had this speed been when they were chased by a shark just a few days ago!?)

Plagg dove into the collection of jagged rocks that lay next to the open space where the ships were. There was a brasher rushing in the ocean here than Adrien had ever heard before. The countless currents pushed and pulled, tugging at everything that passed through. It was difficult to muscle through, a task made harder by the flighty light of the sun. At times the sun shone brighter, and in other parts, its light was doused completely. At those times, Adrien struggled to get his eyes to adjust fast enough to see where Plagg had gone. It was an irony he didn't find funny at all; having lived in darkness his entire life, Adrien's eyes still struggled to readjust to it after being somewhere lighter.

After a long while, Plagg finally slowed, almost to a stop, and Adrien swam passed him with a yelp before spinning in the water and backtracking. He wanted to say something, wanted to reprimand Plagg for doing this, but his gills at the side of his neck were sucking in water too strongly to eke out any sound. Plagg, who, despite being constantly lazy, hadn't any trouble from the ferocious swim, spoke instead.

"Adrien," Plagg started, voice low and tight. "This is the most important thing to remember: humans can be dangerous." Plagg had been noticeably more agitated this trip than on any other. The subject, and perhaps where they were (wherever this was) seemed to exacerbate the black creature's emotions. His forked tail whipped so hard and fast after his admission to Adrien, it made a loud snap! in the water. Adrien startled at the sound.

"They eat fish."

The disturbing depiction Adrien had painted in his mind from earlier now had a few added rows of shark teeth.

Adrien had no doubt he would have nightmares the next time he slept.

"Plagg…" So many questions, so many things he wanted to know, and Adrien didn't seem to be able to articulate anything. One question, though, had continuously nagged at the back of his mind since their first meeting, and seemed to be the only thing he could ask now.

"Plagg, why are you sharing all this with me?"

All at once, Plagg paused in his movements. He obviously hadn't been expecting this question, but the catfish's lip turned up in the corner a bit. It was almost his signature smile, but the sadness there, the hardness in his blank eyes, made Adrien wonder, not for the first time, not only how old Plagg was, but all the experiences that he had been privy to.

"Because your people have lived in darkness for too long, merprince."

Merprince.

That wasn't actually a word, but Adrien didn't say anything. Plagg had to know that, using it to show Adrien that he, at some point or another, had found out who he really was…or perhaps that he had known all along. Adrien let this realization, and Plagg's confession, sink in, along with its obvious implications.

Like that the merpeople were, or would be, Adrien's responsibility.

And that the prince was meant to bring the light back to them all.

It was something that Adrien had mused over through the years. The plans to do so ranged from daring to secretive, from bringing Plagg in to meet his father, or bringing pieces of the ships to show the merpeople. Every plan, no matter how dumb it sounded, or how well-thought out it was, all ended when Adrien would come face-to-face with his father.

Gabriel was made king years before Adrien was born. No one really knew how old he was. After his victory over the great oppressor, Hawkmoth, Gabriel was granted a trident from Neptune himself, or so the stories went. Among other magical powers, the object seemed to also grant immortality. The new king, upon reviewing their world to be corrupt and dangerous, moved the entire civilization from their previous home of Atlantis - a legend in its own right - to Ferro Papilio, a place buried deep in the mountain regions of the open ocean. It was where they had lived ever since.

It was here, though years later, he had met Adrien's mother, the first woman in his long reign he had ever fallen for.

Adrien was born soon after their marriage, and, according to his private tutor, the kingdom had rejoiced to have a prince. Though he acknowledged his role as a father, Gabriel never seemed to take a real liking to Adrien. Nothing spoke from him of admiration or acceptance, but where Gabriel failed, Emilie, his mother, picked up the slack. From her he learned the value of a soul, of making others happy, or helping others feel loved. Though Adrien was often kept at home for weeks at a time, his mother was there with him, and he really couldn't find a fault in his little world because of it.

Mere weeks before Adrien's 13th birthday, however, his mother died, the love and comfort in Adrien's world perishing along with her.

There were no real threats to them in Ferro Papilio, Gabriel always drawled on. But their protected city didn't stop Adrien from feeling incredibly vulnerable that day. He had wanted to escape, wanted to see something rather than everything here that reminded him of his mother. But Adrien was never let out of the house after that, and never knew why. When trying to talk to his father about it, the merman would never want to see him. The only companion he was left with was a small crab named Nathalie, who, he learned quickly, was more into spilling his secrets to Gabriel than being a confidant. In was in this stretch of time when Adrien had finally seen his home for what it was. Although living in Ferro Papilio kept them safe, it also left the merpeople in endless darkness, figuratively and literally, and they had no idea.

There was one time Adrien had, after a particularly heart-wrenching day feeling the ghost of his mother's love and fearing he would never feel happiness again, went directly to his father to touch on the subject of what was out there. Adrien was looking for hope. But while the suffering merboy had only asked, in his love-starved state, what was beyond the borders Gabriel had raged at Adrien with a maniacal ferocity that made him retch for days. Unable to stand the mention of Adrien any more, Gabriel had sent him out to join the school. It was the first day that Adrien had been out of the house in weeks, and was, perhaps not so coincidentally, when he felt the warmth, when he met Plagg.

It was, perhaps, why he had so willingly followed.

How would he ever succeed the task now laid before him?

Adrien wasn't sure. But he would never give up trying.

The feel of something hard within the smooth texture of his stolen treasure from the ship suddenly caught Adrien's attention. Turning the billowing bulk through the water in front of him, Adrien let it flutter out fully to really look at it while feeling for the hard part that had passed his fingers a moment before. It moved softly in the current, mimicking a jelly-fish in some ways. While their colors were certainly similar, the feel of it resembled a dolphin's sleek body, smooth to the touch. He could see the small bulge now. Something was hidden in a pocket - like a seahorse's - on the side of his treasure. With tentative fingers, Adrien pulled it out, wondering what it was.

It was smooth and round, made out of a shiny substance that Adrien thought he had seen before, though covered with flecked of black and red. The color of this was unmarred, though a subtle pattern seemed etched into its surface: a wonky circle with four smaller circles on the top or bottom, depending on which way he looked at it.

Plagg's voice at his shoulder made Adrien suddenly jump.

"It's a ring. Put it on your finger."

At the same moment Adrien slipped the ring on, another mass passed over their heads. This time, when Adrien started upward, Plagg nodded his encouragement.

Neither saw the eels that had followed them. Nor the bright purple that glowed from their eyes.

[[ A/N: I add in more author’s notes and stuff on my ff.net and ao3 stories, just fyi. Thanks for reading!! :3 ]]

[georgecmatthews]

The pressure is growing for the US economy

Last Friday, my oldest child graduated from high school. Late July is not normally associated with graduations, but we are living in a time of COVID, and so what was supposed to occur two months earlier in the New York area was postponed and rescheduled. We were incredibly grateful to our son’s high school for putting on five separate graduation ceremonies in the course of a day to comply with New York State regulations that allow a maximum of 150 people to attend gatherings. Given the need to fit in five ceremonies in one day, the event felt like one part important milestone and one part fast food drive thru — which made it the first high school graduation I ever attended that was efficiently run and ended before you actually started wishing it could end. I was struck by the commencement speaker and his very honest words to the graduates. He told them that he couldn’t imagine having to miss out on the many important senior-year milestones that the class of 2020 missed because of the pandemic. He told them that this year has created a wound that will take years to heal.

Hearing those words, my mind couldn’t help but wander a bit, thinking about all the economic wounds created by the pandemic. The second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) reports for a number of major economies came to mind. I thought of the many wonderful small businesses that have closed permanently, and the large companies that survived other economic crises over the years only to have filed for bankruptcy during this pandemic. And I thought about my youngest child’s school, which was one of a number of schools permanently closed by our diocese because of the very difficult economic climate.

Some economic wounds may be avoidable

I also thought about the potential for self-inflicted wounds that could exacerbate an already-difficult situation. For example, last Friday marked the day many Americans would begin losing federal unemployment benefits. We are already starting to see a stalling of economic data, and families losing their benefits could make August’s data even worse.

I know I have shared this statistic before, but I will share it again: 37% of American households do not have enough savings to meet a $400 emergency expense — and that statistic comes from a Federal Reserve survey conducted before the pandemic hit the US.1 In addition, other households — with mostly white collar employees who are able to work from home — are not spending much and instead continue to hold elevated levels of cash, as seen in a relatively high personal savings rate of 19% for the month of June.2 This isn’t a good sign for businesses that rely on consumer spending — and I believe that the savings rate is likely to move higher if the virus is not controlled. 

The US Senate still seems far from reaching a deal — at least one that addresses all the pressing needs facing America, including state and local government funding. I suspect August will be something of a “Great Stall” for the US economy if high unemployment and rising virus cases persist without adequate fiscal stimulus. As Fed Chair Jay Powell stressed last week: “The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus.”3 Powell also felt it important to add that, in this environment, more fiscal stimulus is critically needed (and, of course, the Fed will remain extremely accommodative).

Could schools set off a ‘second wave’ of virus cases?

Of course, that raises an important question: Will the virus persist? It certainly appears that the virus may have peaked in a number of “hot spot” states and could be in the process of being tamed. However, we are now entering back-to-school season, which carries with it the potential for many “super-spreading” occasions. I am more concerned about this possibility after reading a report released on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) about a COVID-19 outbreak at a sleepaway camp in northern Georgia in late June. Campers and staff had to meet safety protocol — including a negative COVID-19 test — before being able to stay at the camp. Staff members were required to wear masks, but campers were not. They participated in normal camp activities until a camp counselor became ill just a few days after camp began, and later tested positive for COVID-19. More than half of those at the camp were tested for COVID-19, and a stunning 76% tested positive.4

I, like many of you, am the parent of several school-age children, and I was happily preparing them to go back to school in September, but this report gave me pause. While the Georgia camp did not require campers to wear face masks (perhaps the simplest action to help prevent the spread of the virus without impacting the economy), most states will likely require students to wear face masks.  Even so, that was an incredibly high rate of transmission, and so if schools do open for in-person classes, I fear it could hasten a second wave of infections. And this in turn could lead many Americans to return to “self-quarantine” — sheltering in place whether or not government officials direct them to.

Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, has also warned about how widespread the virus has become; in many ways, it is now more dangerous than it was in March and April when it was concentrated in a few big cities in the US because it is now in both rural and urban areas around the country.5  She also warned about “super-spreading events,” which I fear could include sending students back to school — at least in areas where the virus has not been sufficiently tamped down. This could prove to be another self-inflicted wound to the US economy — but hopefully I will be wrong.

The US is not alone in its potential to inflict wounds upon itself. Re-opening economies too quickly or becoming less disciplined about following safety protocol threatens to cause unnecessary wounds to any economy. Some countries such as Spain are facing virus resurgences that could prove economically damaging if they are not able to control them in the near term. Even British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is worried about this and has warned the UK not to create a self-inflicted wound through lack of vigilance: “… I have to tell you that we are looking at a resurgence of the virus in some other European countries and you can see what’s been happening in the United States, and so it is absolutely vital as a country that we continue to keep our focus and our discipline.”6

What does this mean for the US economy?

Given all of these concerns, I anticipate a short-term decoupling of the US economy (and other economies that aren’t able to control the virus) from most other major economies that are likely to see continued improvement. Recent economic data has borne this out. Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data for China7 showed slow but continued improvement in June, while industrial production in South Korea showed significant growth after disappointment in May.8 And I expect Eurozone PMI this coming week to show improvement. Not only is large fiscal stimulus coming to the eurozone, but there is already a significant social safety net there — unlike the US. Last week, the US saw a second week of rising initial jobless claims after 15 weeks of declining initial jobless claims.9 And I expect that the July jobs report for the US will be disappointing as well.

This all suggests that in the near term, US dollar weakness is likely to persist while US Treasuries and gold are likely to remain popular. I think US stocks might underperform other regions modestly. However, earnings season has been positive thus far, which should be mildly positive for US stocks. And, more importantly, US stocks have the Fed supporting them and other risk assets.

If economic data does weaken and the virus is not well-controlled in the US, I expect secular growth stocks, especially in the technology sector, to outperform.  However, I expect a dramatic shift in leadership to cyclical stocks and away from “safe haven” asset classes such as Treasuries and gold once economic data begins to improve significantly again or an effective vaccine is introduced. And that may not be far off.

It’s clear that significant progress is being made toward a vaccine based on clinical trials being conducted by a number of pharma/biotech companies: Five companies are already in Phase 3 clinical trials or will be starting by the end of September, according to Dr. Moncef Slaoui, an immunologist and chief advisor to the US’ Operation Warp Speed — the project to create a COVID-19 virus. He expects to have millions of doses of effective vaccine by December 2020 or January 2021.10  Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who has devoted his long career to the treatment of infectious diseases, recently said he is “cautiously optimistic” a vaccine could be available by January.11 Until then, we will be following a wide range of data closely, given that the economic outlook is impacted by medical and scientific progress, fiscal stimulus and consumer and corporate behavior.

1 Source: Federal Reserve, “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019,” published May 2020 2 Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, July 31, 2020 3 Source: Federal Reserve, Federal Open Market Committee statement, July 29, 2020 4 Source: CDC, “SARS-CoV-2 Transmission and Infection Among Attendees of an Overnight Camp — Georgia, June 2020,” July 31, 2020 5 Source: CNBC.com, “Dr. Birx warns U.S. in new phase of coronavirus pandemic with ‘extraordinarily widespread’ cases,” Aug. 2, 2020 6 Source: Reuters, “UK PM Johnson: We cannot delude ourselves that pandemic is over”, July 30, 2020 7 Source: China’s National Bureau of Statistics 8 Source: Statistics Korea 9 Source: US Department of Labor 10 Source, CNN.com, “Operation Warp Speed leader says he expects coronavirus vaccine to be highly effective,” July 31, 2020 11 Source: NBCnews, com, “Fauci ‘cautiously optimistic’ coronavirus vaccine could prove effective by ‘late fall or early winter,’” July 31, 2020

Important information

Blog header image: Klaus Vedfelt / Getty

The Eurozone PMI® (Purchasing Managers’ Index®) is produced by IHS Markit and is based on original survey data collected from a representative panel of around 5,000 companies based in the euro area manufacturing and service sectors. National manufacturing data are included for Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, the Republic of Ireland and Greece. National services data are included for Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Republic of Ireland. The flash estimate is typically based on approximately 85% to 90% of total PMI survey responses each month and is designed to provide an accurate advance indication of the final PMI data.

China’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) is compiled by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, summarizing the results of a monthly survey of purchasing managers.

Fluctuations in the price of gold and precious metals may affect the profitability of companies in the gold and precious metals sector. Changes in the political or economic conditions of countries where companies in the gold and precious metals sector are located may have a direct effect on the price of gold and precious metals.

Many products and services offered in technology-related industries are subject to rapid obsolescence, which may lower the value of the issuers.

The risks of investing in securities of foreign issuers can include fluctuations in foreign currencies, political and economic instability, and foreign taxation issues.

The opinions referenced above are those of the author as of Aug. 3, 2020. These comments should not be construed as recommendations, but as an illustration of broader themes. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions; there can be no assurance that actual results will not differ materially from expectations.

from Expert Investment Views: Invesco Blog https://www.blog.invesco.us.com/the-pressure-is-growing-for-the-us-economy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-pressure-is-growing-for-the-us-economy

[husheduphistory]

The Riches and Rise of Sarah Rector

On January 15th 1914 The Kansas City Star newspaper ran an unusual story. At least four men from Germany were writing letters to Oklahoma, desperate to grab the attention and approval for marriage to a resident they had never met. Up until recently, they would not have even known she existed but unexpectedly coming into possession of a fortune would ensure that her name would remain in headlines for decades to come. None of the proposals would be followed up on for many reasons, but the biggest one probably was the fact that the person they were all clamoring for was a twelve year old African-American girl named Sarah Rector. A twelve year old African-American girl that had an income of $15,000 a month.

Sarah Rector was born in Oklahoma on March 3rd 1902 to Joseph and Rose Rector, both descendants of slaves of the Creek Nation. Long before she was born, in 1866 a treaty was signed between the United States Government and the Creek Nation promising emancipation to their 16,000 slaves and the incorporation of them into their nation as citizens that were entitled to “equal interest in the soil and national funds.” Because these people were formerly enslaved under the Muskogee Creek tribe they were referred to as "Creek Freedmen minors" and they were entitled to land under the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 with 160 acres of land being granted to approximately 600 black children. This was very different from African-Americans enslaved by people outside of Native American tribes who were granted citizenship after slavery but were never given land. When Rector was born in 1902 she was officially a resident of Indian territory because Oklahoma was not yet a state and because she was a descendant of slaves who had been owned by Creek Indians before the Civil War, she also was entitled to a parcel of land. Notoriously the land granted to former slaves and their descendants was rocky, hilly, and ill-suited for any agricultural endeavors but despite the land being less than optimal, the family still had to pay an annual property tax of $30. Sarah's piece of land was located sixty miles from the Rector home in Glenpool, Oklahoma and when faced with another round of paying property taxes, Sarah's father petitioned the Muskogee County Court to sell the parcel, but his request was denied because of restrictions requiring that he continue to pay the taxes on the land. Desperate for a way to escape the financial cost of keeping it, he began to look for other options. In 1911 Sarah's father decided to lease her parcel of land to the Standard Oil Company. It turned out to be the best decision of his and his daughter's life.

Two years after Sarah's piece of land was leased to the oil company an independent driller hit a massive reserve of oil capable of producing 2,500 barrels of oil and today's equivalent of $7,000 for Sarah's pockets every day. The land became part of the famous Cushing-Drumright Oil Field and it propelled Rector into both spotlight and scandal.

Young Sarah Rector at approximately age twelve.

Law at the time required that Native American and African-American adults and children who were citizens of Indian Territory with any significant accumulation of wealth and property be "assigned" to a guardian, a white person, who was seen as being more responsible and capable of handling their finances. Sarah's financial guardianship was switched to a man named T.J. Porter but fortunately for Rector, Porter was well known by her family and she was able to escape the fate of massive financial loss, swindling, and even kidnapping or murder that often befell people at the hands of their "guardians.” The unlawful and horrific actions of many of the "guardians" was so prevalent that it was easy for people to believe when rumors began to circulate about Rector's well being. By 1914 just some of the speculation swirling around was that she actually a white immigrant being kept in poverty, that her estate was being totally destroyed by her "ignorant" parents and Porter, and that she wore rags and lived in a shack. In June of 1914 James C. Waters Jr., a special agent for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), wrote a letter to W. E. B. DuBois about his concern for the welfare of her and her estate writing of her white financial guardian:

"Is it not possible to have her cared for in a decent manner and by people of her own race, instead of by a member of a race which would deny her and her kind the treatment accorded a good yard dog?"

The accusations of Rector living her days in squalor were untrue and she was found to be living a good life with she and her siblings attending school in Taft, Oklahoma before she enrolled in a boarding school for teenagers at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. 

Newspaper clipping reporting Rector was “found at home in good health.”

Her family lived modestly but comfortably in a five-room cottage that they owned along with a car. The accusation of Rector actually being white was only exacerbated by the Oklahoma Legislature which, because of her massive wealth, actually did legally declare Rector white to enable her to ride the railroad as a first class passenger.

Newspaper clipping reporting on Rector being “made white” in order for her to ride first class on the railroad.

By the time Rector was eighteen years old she was a millionaire who owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a bakery ,a restaurant, and over 2,000 acres of land. She and her entire family moved to Kansas City, Missouri where she purchased a mansion on Twelfth Street and after she married her husband Kenneth Campbell in 1922 the home and a restaurant they owned became the sites of many lavish partied with attendees the likes of Duke Ellington and Count Baise. 

Wedding announcement for Sarah Rector and Kenneth Campbell via Kansas City Call.

She and Campbell had three children together but the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Four years later she remarried a man named William Crawford.

Unlike her early years where her name and story was plastered across the headlines, as an adult Rector kept a low profile enjoying her wealth and spending it freely on clothing, jewelry, cars, and the speeding tickets she would often get from her travels. She remained in the Kansas City area for the remainder of her life until she passed away on July 22nd 1967 at the age of sixty-five. Her remains were buried in the city cemetery of Taft, Oklahoma along with her parents.

The story of Sarah Rector is more than a simple tale of rags to riches. It is a story that illustrates the complex issues of race, citizenship, identity, the role of wealth and how one girl defied all odds, lived life her way, and triumphed in the aftermath of a still deeply divided country being nearly torn down around her.  

A later portrait photograph of Sarah Rector.

[ramialkarmi]

TRANSPORTATION AND LOGISTICS BRIEFING: Tesla falls short of Model 3 production goals — Ola raises $2 billion to combat Uber — Walmart acquires Parcel for same-day delivery push

Welcome to Transportation & Logistics Briefing, a new M-W-F morning email providing the latest news, data, and insight on how digital technology is disrupting transportation and delivery, produced by BI Intelligence.

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Have feedback? We'd like to hear from you. Write me at: jcamhi@businessinsider.com .

TESLA FAILS TO MEET MODEL 3 PRODUCTION GOALS: Tesla built only 260 of its much-hyped Model 3s in Q3 2017, far below its production target of 1,600 Model 3s for the quarter, The Wall Street Journal reports. Tesla has a history of missing its own production targets, but the miss indicates that the company faces enormous challenges ahead with its first foray into mass-market vehicles.

The Model 3 is the linchpin in Tesla’s strategy to transition from a niche, luxury automaker to a mass-market one that competes with the likes of GM and Ford. Tesla’s Model S sedans and Model X SUVs are luxury vehicles priced well out of the reach of the average consumer, and Tesla has yet to make more than 100,000 vehicles in a single year. In contrast, the $35,000 Model 3 is a mass market sedan that Tesla plans to produce at much higher volumes than the Model S or Model X.

Tesla has said that it expects Model 3 deliveries to follow a sharp S curve, just as Model S and Model X deliveries did after those vehicles were launched.  The electric automaker’s previous guidance said that it expected to produce only 100 Model 3s in August and 1,500 in September, with production increasing sharply to reach 5,000 per week by the end of the year. Following that production timeline, the company advised customers placing Model 3 reservations this past summer to expect at least a year-long wait for their vehicles. For context, more than 450,000 customers have paid a $1,000 deposit to reserve one already.

The miss raises serious questions about when those customers will receive their Model 3s. Tesla said that some manufacturing subsystems at its California and Nevada factories took longer to get up and running than expected, and added that it is confident it can deal with the issues in the near term. Even if that’s the case, the company will have to accelerate production efforts to meet its guidance — a tall task given its ambitious targets. That will make Q4 production crucial to ensuring the company doesn’t fall too far behind its customers’ delivery expectations, particularly as mainstream automakers like Ford and GM start to accelerate their own electric vehicle production efforts. More than 63,000 customers have already cancelled their reservations, and further production delays could make that number rise in the coming months.

INDIAN RIDE-HAILING COMPANY OLA CLOSING IN ON NEW FUNDING: Ola, India’s largest ride-hailing company, is close to completing a new $2 billion funding round, according to Bloomberg. Investors in the funding round reportedly include Chinese internet holding company Tencent, Japanese telco Softbank, and a handful of US institutional investors. It’s not yet known what this new funding round would value the company at.

Founded back in 2010, Ola quickly rose to the top of the Indian ride-hailing market and cracked into the market’s immense potential. The firm was founded in Mumbai by a pair of former Microsoft employees, and by late 2014 it counted 40,000 cabs in its network, 33,000 registered users, and $250-$300 million in gross bookings on an annualized basis. Since then, the company has expanded to other cities, helping it earn about $120 million USD in 2016.

However, the company faces immense competition from Uber, which regards India as its second most important market. The world’s largest ride-hailing company moved into the country in 2013. Since then, Uber has risen to become Ola’s chief competitor, and numbers suggest it has pulled nearly even with the domestic company. Ola had 5.9 million monthly active users in the country in May 2017, while Uber had 5.5 million MAU, according to App Annie. Uber has achieved this growth through aggressive driver recruitment, expanding into smaller cities, and undercutting Ola’s prices.

The new funding could help Ola fight back against Uber’s expansion and move towards more sustainable growth. Ola lost about $350 million USD last year, a figure it’s trying to reduce by scaling back incentives for drivers and discounts to customers. With this new funding, the firm will likely look to broaden its reach within India — the country’s top seven or eight cities account for much of the company’s growth. Attracting users in smaller cities could help the company expand its customer base and put it on a more sustainable path for growth, rather than engaging in a price war with Uber in the country’s largest metropolitan areas.

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WALMART ACQUIRES SAME-DAY DELIVERY STARTUP PARCEL: Walmart announced that it is acquiring Brooklyn-based startup Parcel in order to offer same-day delivery in New York City, Recode reports. Parcel handles same-day deliveries for a variety of companies in New York City, including Bonobos, which Walmart recently acquired, as well as meal-kit delivery companies like Chef’d. Walmart and Parcel did not disclose the price for the acquisition, although one source told Recode the price tag was less than $10 million.

 Parcel offers a software platform for managing last-mile deliveries in New York, allowing companies to deliver goods more quickly and efficiently. The acquisition will allow Walmart and Jet.com customers in New York City to get same-day delivery on grocery orders and general merchandise. Parcel’s platform allows companies and their customers to receive real-time updates on delivery times. Additionally, Parcel has compiled data about every building the company has delivered to in New York City that can help speed up deliveries by giving couriers information such as the location of service entrances. Deliveries are made from Parcel’s warehouse in Brooklyn and carried out by the company’s fleet of leased delivery trucks operated by professional couriers.

Same-day delivery is becoming a competitive advantage for retailers. One study released earlier this year by research firm L2 found that one quarter of US consumers surveyed would abandon a shopping cart if same-day delivery was not offered. Additionally, a recent McKinsey report predicted that same-day delivery will account for more than $200 billion in online sales — nearly 25% of the entire US e-commerce market — by 2025. Walmart could expand Parcel’s platform and services to more cities to grow its same-day delivery network to match Amazon Prime Now, which provides two-hour deliveries in more than 30 US cities. Walmart’s move follows Target’s recent acquisition of Grand Junction, another company that offers a platform for managing last-mile deliveries. The data and analytics capabilities in these platforms can help these retailers optimize their urban deliveries for speed and efficiency, making same-day delivery more viable and cost-effective.

In other news...

GM will introduce two new electric vehicles (EVs) in the US over the next eighteen months and 20 around the world within six years, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, it’s unknown what type of vehicles they would launch, or what they’d cost. The move comes as rival Ford created a new team to help it form partnerships with suppliers for EVs, a sign that the largest automakers in the US are significantly ramping up their efforts to expand their EV lineups.

Arity, an automotive data analytics startup owned by Allstate, launched Shared Mobility Solutions, a new software platform designed to help car-sharing, ride-sharing, and ride-hailing companies boost the efficiency of their services. The tool can analyze vehicle data on fuel consumption, miles driven, and maintenance costs, as well as consumer mobility behavior such as the time, location, and length of rides. The company hopes Shared Mobility Solutions will help clients reduce costs, decrease the down time between rides, and improve driver retention.

US trucking demand has been surging, straining fleet capacity at large operators and leading to rapid increases in pricing. Booming demand is being driven by several factors including e-commerce growth, higher manufacturing output, and and increased activity in the housing and construction sectors. The hurricanes that hit Texas and Florida last month only exacerbated shortages, causing major volatility in spot trucking rates. Per mile rates for shipments from Charlotte to Florida jumped 42 cents to $3.32 the week of September 16. With capacity at large truck operators dwindling, shippers need to tap into the growing number of small operators with just a handful of trucks. This could lead to growing use of platforms like Uber Freight and Convoy that can help connect shippers with these smaller trucking fleets.

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