Novo Nordisk makes it to the $500 billion market-value league
Europe’s top 10 stocks are still dwarfed by US tech behemoths
Weight-loss drug maker Novo Nordisk A/S hit a big milestone, becoming the second-ever European company to reach $500 billion in market value. And yet, it’s just another reminder that even the booming healthcare and tech shares of the region are no match for the growth that Wall Street stocks offer.
Denmark’s Novo surpassed the half-trillion mark for the first time on Wednesday, following luxury giant LVMH last year. While the feat stands out, Novo added $100 billion over the last four months during which AI powerhouse Nvidia Corp. rallied by $500 billion.
Scott Rasmussen has done America an enormous service. He and his team have identified the driving forces behind the destructive radicalism which is pushing us into a cultural civil war.
While doing their two weekly national surveys, Rasmussen and his team noticed an anomaly. Out of every 1,000 or so respondents, there would always be three or four who were far more radical than everyone else. After several months of finding these unusual responses, Rasmussen realized they all shared three characteristics.
The radical responses came from people who had graduate degrees (not just graduate studies), family incomes above $150,000 a year, and lived in large cities (more than 10,000 people per zip code).
When Rasmussen aggregated the responses from more than 20 surveys, he realized these people made up a unique elite 1 percent.
When all other voters gave President Joe Biden a 41 percent job approval, the elite 1 percent rated him at 82 percent approval.
The elite 1 percent are surprisingly young. Sixty-seven percent are between 35 and 54 years old. They are 86 percent white. Almost half of them (47 percent) favor “Sanders-like policies.” They are overwhelmingly Democrats (73 percent).
The gap between the elite 1 percent and the rest of America is startling. While 57 percent of all voters say there is not enough individual freedom in America, 47 percent of the elite 1 percent say there is too much freedom. If you ask the section of the group that is politically obsessed (people who talk politics every day), 69 percent say there is too much individual freedom in America.
Given this, it’s not surprising that the elite 1 percent have great faith in government. Some 70 percent trust government to do the right thing most of the time.
Rasmussen said that this project has revealed the scariest single polling number he has seen in nearly 35 years of studying popular opinion. According to his data, 35 percent of the elite 1 percent (and 69 percent of the politically obsessed elite 1 percent) said they would rather cheat than lose a close election. Among average Americans, 93 percent reject cheating and accept defeat in an honest election. Only 7 percent reported they would cheat.
While only 6 percent of most voters have a very favorable opinion of members of Congress, 69 percent of the elite 1 percent have a very favorable view (this is almost unimaginable). While 10 percent of all voters have a favorable view of journalists, the elite 1 percent really like them (71 percent favorable). While 17 percent of all voters have a favorable view of college professors, the elite 1 percent just love them (76 percent). This tracks, because many of the elite 1 percent may be college professors.
To illustrate the scale of the gap between the elite 1 percent and the rest of the country, consider the elite 1 percent’s views on climate issues (and understand that these ideas are opposed by 63 percent to 83 percent of most Americans).
77 percent of the elite 1 percent would like to impose strict restrictions and rationing on the private use of gas, meat, and electricity.
72 percent of the elite 1 percent favor banning gas powered vehicles.
69 percent of the elite 1 percent favor banning gas stoves.
58 percent of the elite 1 percent favor of banning sport utility vehicles.
55 percent of the elite 1 percent favor banning non-essential air travel.
53 percent of the elite 1 percent favor banning private air conditioning.
As Rasmussen noted, the degree to which the elite 1 percent think their views represent those of the average American is astonishing.
According to Rasmussen, the most radical of the elite 1 percent were educated at what he calls the “dirty dozen:” Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, John’s Hopkins, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Cornell, MIT, and the University of Chicago.
The elite 1 percent who graduated from these schools deeply believe in government. Fifty-five percent believe there is too much individual freedom in America and that Americans should obey government and follow government leadership.
Rasmussen’s identification of the elite 1 percent begins to explain the depth of the tension between most Americans and the tiny group of elitists who control what Vladimir Lenin called “the commanding heights,” the elements of power which control the rest.
It is the elite 1 percent who dominate the universities, news media, judiciary, intelligence agencies, giant foundations, and most major corporations. Although they are relatively few, they marry each other, their children go to the same schools, and they hire and promote each other.
Charles Murray in his classic work, “Coming Apart,” analyzed zip codes and proved that graduates from “dirty dozen” universities that Rasmussen described live, work and play in the same zip codes. They are an isolated set and create a “power aristocracy” that has no knowledge of the rest of us – and contempt for most of us. This perfectly explains Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” line.
Biden family associate Eric Schwerin told congressional impeachment investigators Tuesday that he provided free financial services to President Biden during his vice presidency while doing business with his son Hunter.
A source familiar with Schwerin’s testimony said he described performing without charge money-related tasks including bookkeeping, paying bills, and preparing taxes and official financial disclosure forms for the then-VP.
The rarely seen Schwerin didn’t address the press during his trip to Capitol Hill for a closed-door deposition with House members and lawyers looking into alleged corruption in the first family.
Schwerin testified that despite being one of Hunter Biden’s closest associates, he knew little about the details of payments from benefactors in China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia and Ukraine, the source said.
However, Schwerin’s testimony still could advance Republican claims that Joe Biden misrepresented his distance from his relatives’ business dealings.
Biden family business associate Eric Schwerin arrived Tuesday morning to testify to Congress in a deposition.Rod Lamkey – CNP for NY Post
As a candidate in 2019, Biden said: “What I will do is the same thing we did in our administration. There will be an absolute wall between personal and private [business] and the government. There wasn’t any hint of scandal at all when we were there.”
A second person familiar with Schwerin’s remarks said that he insisted he provided his services to Joe Biden as a friend and that the favors were unrelated to his work with Hunter Biden.
Some details of Schwerin’s testimony were not immediately known — such as what he may have said about communications with Joe Biden using email addresses registered to pseudonyms for the then-vice president.
Joe Biden swapped emails at least 54 times with Schwerin during his vice presidency, according to prior disclosures — as then-second son Hunter Biden courted business from countries where his father held sway, such as China and Ukraine.
Some of the emails were sent at roughly the same time that Joe Biden was making official trips to Ukraine as the head of US policy — while Hunter was earning a $1 million salary sitting on the board of natural gas company Burisma Holdings beginning in the spring of 2014
Schwerin managed money for both Hunter and Joe Biden during the Obama-Biden administration.Rod Lamkey – CNP for NY Post
Schwerin was president of Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca Partners, which was created in 2009 and served as one vehicle through which Hunter earned foreign income.
Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry were expected to ask Schwerin about whether any foreign funds flowed even indirectly to Joe Biden, as well as about the contents of their emails, which are not fully known.
In a prepared opening statement, Schwerin said that he was “not aware of” Joe Biden receiving foreign money.
“I performed a number of administrative and bookkeeping tasks for then-Vice President Joe Biden related to his household finances. I also helped him and his accountants in their preparation of his taxes and his annual financial disclosure statements,” the prepared statement said.
Schwerin emailed at least 54 times with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to prior disclosures.Rod Lamkey – CNP for NY Post
“In the course of performing these duties, I had the ability to view transactions both into and out of Vice President Biden’s bank accounts while he was Vice President. Based on that insight, I am not aware of any financial transactions or compensation that Vice President Biden received related to business conducted by any of his family members or their associates nor any involvement by him in their businesses.”
Legal experts say that a government official doesn’t necessarily have to receive compensation directly if their relatives were being paid.
Schwerin also handled “almost every aspect” of the financial affairs of Hunter Biden’s family, the first son’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle wrote in her 2022 memoir.
Schwerin was president of Hunter Biden’s foreign-focused Rosemont Seneca Partners.REUTERS
The elder Biden’s links to Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company, include attending an April 2015 dinner in DC with company board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi and Hunter’s associates from Russia and Kazakhstan.
Hunter Biden, joined by Pozharskyi and Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky, also stepped away from a Dubai gathering in December 2015 to “call DC” shortly before one of the then-VP’s trips to Ukraine, former Biden family associate Devon Archer testified in July.
Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry are expected to ask Schwerin about whether any foreign funds flowed to Joe Biden, as well as about the contents of their emails, which are not fully known.
Some of the emails were sent at roughly the same time that Joe Biden was making official trips to Ukraine as the head of US policy — while Hunter was earning a $1 million salary sitting on the board of natural gas company Burisma Holdings beginning in the spring of 2014
Republicans are expected to ask Schwerin about whether Joe Biden received foreign funds from Hunter Biden.
The elder Biden’s links to Burisma include attending an April 2015 dinner in DC with company board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi and Hunter’s associates from Russia and Kazakhstan.
Hunter Biden, joined by Pozharskyi and Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky, also stepped away from a Dubai gathering to “call DC” shortly before one of the then-VP’s trips to Ukraine, former Biden family associate Devon Archer testified in July.
Archer said he understood the comment to mean they were calling Joe Biden.
Schwerin has been out of the public eye during Joe Biden’s presidency as Republicans lead an impeachment inquiry.
Zlochevsky allegedly told a paid FBI informant in 2016 that he was “coerced” into paying $10 million in bribes to the Bidens in exchange for the vice president’s help in ousting Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the company for corruption. The allegation has not been proven.
Joe Biden also interacted multiple times with Kyiv’s longtime mayor Vitali Klitschko, who was the “core shareholder” and a participant in a Hunter Biden-chaired subsidiary called Burisma Geothermal, according to records from Hunter’s abandoned laptop that were corroborated to The Post by a former business associate.
Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry are expected to ask Schwerin about whether any foreign funds flowed to Joe Biden.
Schwerin’s deposition follows last week’s testimony by Biden family associate Rob Walker, who revealed that Joe Biden met in 2017 with Ye Jianming, chairman of CEFC China Energy, which paid Hunter Biden and his uncle James millions of dollars shortly after Joe Biden left office as vice president.
Prior testimony revealed that Joe Biden, despite claiming he “never” discussed business with his son or brother and “did not” interact with their partners, engaged with their foreign associates in most high-profile dealings abroad.
Archer further testified that Joe Biden was on speakerphone during roughly 20 business meetings between his son and foreign associates.
Archer also said the then-VP had coffee during a 2013 trip to Beijing with Jonathan Li, the incoming CEO of BHR Partners — a state-backed Chinese investment fund in which Hunter held a 10% stake through at least 2021. Joe Biden subsequently greeted Li over speakerphone, Archer said, and wrote college recommendation letters for his children.
