Tuesday, 9 June 2015

A New Chicken In Every Pot.



Baltic Dry Index. 610 unch.       Brent Crude 62.92

LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000.  Revised due to QE programs.

“I can detach myself from the world. If there is a better world to detach oneself from than the one functioning at the moment I have yet to hear of it.”

 President Nero, with apologies to P. G. Wodehouse.

Trapped in a Bavarian fantasy land with some of the most boring people on the planet, but surrounded by thousands of German troops and police making escape impossible, President Nero and the six dwarfs, together with their cast of hundreds of flunkies and water fetchers, got down to the pressing problem of the age. No not saving the world from corrupt gambling banksters, nor ending poverty, nor providing food and clean water to all who want it in Africa and California. Not even sorting out the Middle East where a bunch of murderous, moslem, fascist fanatics, have set about slaughtering and enslaving all and sundry, turning the clock back to the 7th and 8th centuries.

No, our Bavarian Bubbleites, got down to the pressing work, in 5 star luxury, at taxpayer expense, of saving the planet in the 22nd century.  Well it’s tough work, but someone’s got to do it I suppose. Below, the Triumph of Schloss Elmau. No word yet if President Nero got his lederhosen.

G-7 Calls for Zero Fossil-Fuel Emissions by End of 21st Century

June 8, 2015 — 4:04 PM BST
Some of the world’s richest nations threw their weight behind a plan to stamp out fossil-fuel emissions by the end of the century in an unprecedented show of unity on climate change.

The Group of Seven is pushing to “decarbonize,” meaning any polluting gases from burning oil, gas or coal must be canceled out by carbon-capture or other technologies by 2100. Nations should aim for emission cuts near 70 percent of 2010 levels by mid-century, the G-7 said Monday in a statement.

“Deep cuts in global greenhouse-gas emissions are required with a decarbonization of the global economy over the course of this century,” the group said following a summit in Germany hosted by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The G-7 has been under pressure to act on climate change after the world’s biggest polluter, China, took steps to curb its carbon output. The group’s solidarity on the issue is significant ahead of a United Nations meeting in Paris in December, where more than 190 nations will aim to broker the first global emissions-reduction deal that’s binding for all countries.

“This long-term decarbonization goal will make evident to corporations and financial markets that the most lucrative investments will stem from low-carbon technologies,” said Jennifer Morgan, global director of the climate program at the World Resources Institute in Washington. “Today G-7 leaders have stepped up to the plate with serious climate commitments.”

Those commitments include expanding renewable energies in Africa and getting 400 million people access to insurance against the negative effects of climate change, the G-7 said.

The group also called for greater efforts to provide climate aid. Wealthy nations and private investors agreed in 2009 to hand $100 billion a year to developing nations by 2020 to nudge them toward greener development. Few rich countries have set out exactly how they will reach that goal.
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But that wasn’t all they decided, of course, since without China and India present, and Russia banned from attending, the only global polluter attending was America. So it was back to the business of issuing threats, bossing the non-attenders around, and pressing on with the fantasy that it was Russia not America that staged the botched coup in Kiev, that led to the Ukraine civil war. You have to wonder about what kind of cigarettes they pass round at Schloss Elmau?

G7 leaders wrap up summit with pledges and warnings

Ukraine crisis, global security threats, climate change and Greek economy dominated two-day meeting in Bavarian Alps.

World leaders have wrapped up a G7 summit in Germany, addressing major issues including the crisis in Ukraine, climate change, the Greek economy and global security threats.

In a joint communique issued on Monday, following a two-day summit in the Bavarian Alps, the leaders of the most powerful countries warned Russia it would face stepped-up sanctions for its "aggression" in Ukraine.

"We ... stand ready to take further restrictive measures in order to increase cost on Russia should its actions so require," said the communique. "We recall that the duration of sanctions should be clearly linked to Russia's complete implementation of the Minsk agreements and respect for Ukraine's sovereignty."

For the third time, Russia's President Vladimir Putin was barred from a G7 summit due to what US President Barack Obama termed his "aggression in Ukraine", as the Group of Seven top powers closed ranks against Russia.

----Meanwhile, ahead of United Nations climate summit in Paris, the leaders stressed that "deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions" were required with "a decarbonisation of the global economy over the course of this century".

The aim was to send a clear signal to push other nations taking part in the Paris meeting to commit to reducing dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, which threaten to melt ice caps and glaciers, raise sea levels and bring more violent storms and floods.

Another pressing problem was the haggling between debt-hit Greece and its international creditors - the EU, ECB and IMF - and the fear that a messy default could lead to Greece exiting the eurozone, with unknown repercussions for the world economy.
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In Greek news, it was more of Germany reverting to type. Chancellor Merkel demanded a new Polish Corridor from Greece. Those tax and work shy Greeks without jobs, which is to say most of them, yawned and went back to scavenging, or begging for help from Syrian migrants passing through on their way to Berlin. And so the G-7 wrapped up, in time for most to head home before heading on to the secretive Bilderberger junket in Telfs-Buchen, Austria. This year they get to pick next year’s American president.

Merkel Demands Action From Greece to Cement Euro Membership

June 8, 2015 — 2:43 PM BST Updated on June 8, 2015 — 3:47 PM BST
German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded urgent action from the Greek government to cement its position as a member of the single currency.

Merkel said that fellow Group of Seven leaders meeting at Schloss Elmau, southern Germany, shared her goal of keeping Greece in the currency bloc and also backed her insistence that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras must deliver an economic program that can satisfy the country’s creditors.

“There isn’t much time left, that’s the problem,” Merkel said at a press conference on Monday following the meeting. “Every day counts now.”

Creditors are growing increasingly exasperated with Tsipras’s negotiating tactics after he rejected the terms of an aid package last week that could prevent Greece being forced out of the euro. Tsipras’s government last week used a technicality to postpone a payment of about 300 million euros ($336 million) to the International Monetary Fund, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the Greek leader had misrepresented the creditors’ position in the talks.

The Greek stock market fell 2.7 percent to reach its lowest level since April. The Athens stock market’s benchmark index has lost 26 percent in the past six months. Greece’s 10-year bond yields rose for a third day to 11.42 percent.

Bilderberg 2015: Full Attendee List & Agenda

Elitist confab to discuss artificial intelligence

June 8, 2015
The official Bilderberg Group website has released the full attendee list and agenda for this year’s conference. As ever, the list of topics to be discussed is so vague as to almost be meaningless. Infowars will have full coverage of Bilderberg’s detailed agenda later today and for the rest of the week.

63rd Bilderberg conference to take place from 11 – 14 June 2015 in Telfs-Buchen, Austria.
Telfs-Buchen, 8 June 2015 – The 63rd  Bilderberg conference is set to take place from 11 – 14 June 2015 in Telfs-Buchen, Austria. A total of around 140 participants from 22 countries have confirmed their attendance. As ever, a diverse group of political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media have been invited. The list of participants is available on www.bilderbergmeetings.org 

The key topics for discussion this year include:
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Cybersecurity
  • Chemical Weapons Threats
  • Current Economic Issues
  • European Strategy
  • Globalisation
  • Greece
  • Iran
  • Middle East
  • NATO
  • Russia
  • Terrorism
  • United Kingdom
  • USA
  • US Elections
More



Slummin it again! With ex-Labour MP Ed Balls, if they let him in, after last year’s spot of recognition bother at the door.

Interalpen-Hotel Tyrol: luxury resort in Austria

The Interalpen-Hotel Tyrol is a spacious luxury resort in a unique, secluded location near by the popular holiday resort Seefeld in Tyrol. It’s not just the dimension of the five-star superior residence that impresses visitors; its “intrinsic values” impress them to the smallest detail. As part of the internationally successful family business Liebherr, the hotel near Seefeld stands for the highest quality, best service and attentive hospitality.

“The ideas of debtor and creditor as to what constitutes a good time never coincide.”

P. G. Wodehouse.

At the Comex silver depositories Monday final figures were: Registered 57.84 Moz, Eligible 121.03 Moz, Total 178.87 Moz.  

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.

Today, is China’s “Wobble” really an implosion? It looks that way from far off London.

China's Cement Alley in decline as the country's economy falters

NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE  SHIJIAZHUANG, CHINA — The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Jun. 07, 2015 5:54PM EDT Last updated Monday, Jun. 08, 2015 6:36AM EDT
Yang Zengkui climbs a hill behind his small restaurant on the industrial outskirts of Shijiazhuang. Under a blue sky that was once rare here, he looks out over China’s Cement Alley. Twenty, maybe 30, cement plants are visible. It’s hard to count them all: tucked into hillsides, standing tall beside a reservoir, wedged between wheat fields.

Easier to count is how many are still operating.

“Two,” Mr. Yang says, squinting against the sun. The rest are closed, some already razed and reduced to pits of wrecking ball rubble.

Mix together limestone, calcium, silicon and a few other ingredients at 1,500 C and you have cement. You also have one of the single most important ingredients in China’s remarkable rise.

Factories built China’s exports to the world. But cement built China: the vast forests of high-rises that populate its new cities, the innumerable roads and bridges that connect them and the endless bullet-train lines that propelled the country’s race away from poverty. China famously used more cement in three years than the U.S. in the entire 20th century.

But as China’s economy falters and its leadership scrambles to find new foundations for growth, cement’s seemingly unstoppable reign is suddenly in question. This year, for the first time since 2000, Chinese cement output is falling. In April, cement output fell 7.3 per cent from last year, and the decrease appears to be gaining speed. To date in 2015, cement is down 4.8 per cent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. Prices in some places have been cut in half, sapping momentum from an industry that until recently enjoyed 11-per-cent profit rates. Now, the industry says most companies in northern China are losing money.

It’s a startling change. Even last year, Chinese cement output was up 1.8 per cent, capping a roaring expansion that saw China rise from just over a third of the world’s demand in 2002 to nearly two-thirds in 2012, when it used 27 times more cement than the U.S.

The most recent years were so ebullient that Gao Zhi calls it the “crazy time.”

Now it looks to be over, said Ms. Gao, the dean of the cement industry consultancy at the China Development Strategy Institute for Building Materials Industry, which both helps set national policy and monitors the industry. She uses a pen to sketch a line graph that rises quickly before levelling off and then plunging. It’s meant to show concrete demand over time. She points to the apex. China is now here, she says, and may experience a brief plateau. Over the next two decades, she expects a big decline. “The fall in demand could be 30 per cent, or even 50 per cent,” she said.
More
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/chinas-cement-alley-in-decline-as-the-countrys-economy-falters/article24836941/

Solar  & Related Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section. Updates as they get reported.

Today, welcome to another US “fracking” style bubble, this one in “green” energy.  Just like fracking, this one’s central bankster driven by ZIRP and QE forever.  Just like fracking, this bubble ends when the “free money” runs out. Wall Street’s Squids are forever looking for the next Muppet, even a green one.

“Ebenezer Squid had one-way pockets. He would walk ten miles in the snow to chisel an orphan out of tuppence.”

With apologies to the Duke of Dunstable and P. G. Wodehouse.

Green Bonds Sprout as Wall Street Embraces Renewable Energy Debt

NEW YORK — Bonds backing clean energy and other sustainable initiatives are booming.
Investors are snapping up green bonds at the fastest pace on record, as big banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp. pile in with new issuance to feed the growing appetite for socially responsible investments.

More than $16 billion of green bonds have been sold this year worldwide following issuance of $32.6 billion in 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Newcomers like Morgan Stanley are raising the debt to finance solar- and wind-powered projects fueling issuance in the U.S. and putting the market on a path to grow by more than 50 percent by the end of the year, according to Standard & Poor’s.

“What is called clean or alternative energy now is just going to be called energy in the future, and we want to be a part of that,” said Matthew Duch, a money manager at Calvert Investments in Bethesda, Maryland, which oversees more than $13 billion in assets, after purchasing Morgan Stanley inaugural green bond offering on Wednesday. “The bonds are attractive and you get to be a part of progress.”

Green bonds, which have been sold to back restoration of waterways in Chicago and help Toyota Motor Corp. finance vehicles that are powered by hybrid or alternative fuel, are gaining popularity with companies, attracted to a growing investor base looking to buy securities backing renewable projects. Morgan Stanley will use its debut $500 million green bond to fund the development and construction of wind farms and solar energy generation, according to a regulatory filing.

Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank, issued a $600 million in green bond to fund energy-efficiency and renewable-power projects in May, Bloomberg data show. The lender sold its first green-bond with a $500 million offering in 2013. The securities are part of a pledge to commit $50 billion over 10 years for low-carbon projects through funding and banking services.

Despite their growth rate, green bonds are still about one- fifth of 1 percent of the global bond market.
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The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May

DJIA: +107 Down. NASDAQ: +195 Down. SP500: +139 Down.  

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