Baltic Dry Index. 591 +02 Brent Crude 65.13
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.”
“Adam Smith” aka George Goodman.
This week is all about Greece and OPEC. Will Athens of Berlin cave in? If neither is it the big default weekend ahead. In the oil patch, is OPEC winning in its war with American frackers? It certainly looks that way to Bloomberg. If Bloomie’s right, or even halfway right, the sky falls in for many US frackers in H2 15. The trouble is, collapsing with the frackers will be Angola, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria and Venezuela, to name just a few. And OPEC still needs to adjust to the high probability of increased production for Iran by year end. Stay long fully paid up physical precious metals as insurance. Suddenly everyone seems to want to play Russian roulette.
Up first, Greece. Is Greece getting ready to slip out the EUSSR door marked exit? If Greece goes, can Britain and others be far behind?
Greek Standoff Takes Another Twist as Duelling Plans Are Drafted
Updated on June 2, 2015 — 6:45 PM
BST
The impasse over Greece’s future
lingered as both sides worked on rival proposals for the conditions of a
financial lifeline with debt payments looming.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras said his government submitted a new plan, while officials from the country’s
creditors were said to have agreed on what would be a final offer to avoid the
country defaulting. While the euro rallied on optimism over a deal, Dutch
Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who leads the euro-area finance
ministers’ group, said institutions are still far from any agreement.
“As long as it doesn’t meet
economic conditions, we can’t come to an agreement,” he told RTL television.
“It’s not right to think that we can meet half way.”
After four months of antagonism
and extended deadlines, there’s evidence now of greater urgency in efforts to
break the deadlock and decide Greece’s fate. At the same time, there were mixed
messages over how final any offer might be and whether any agreement can be
reached this week.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/creditors-said-to-be-wrapping-up-greece-proposal-todayEurope must make up its mind - does it want Greece in or out?
From all sides, the EU is under siege as never before
If it ends in divorce from
Europe, said Norbert Röttgen, a CDU stalwart tipped by some as a possible
successor to Angela Merkel as German Chancellor, “it would break my heart. I
love this country, and
I am strongly convinced...that to signal a Europe which
is falling apart and disintegrating would be a disastrous message of weakness
to send to the world.”
Mr Röttgen might have been
talking about Greece, which is once again teetering on the brink of default,
exit from the eurozone, economic collapse and a deeply uncertain geo-political
future. In fact, he was speaking about the possibility that Britain might leave
the EU. Either way, the European project is under seige on multiple fronts. I
don’t want to stretch the parallels between the British and Greek positions too
far.
Greece is a small country,
accounting for little more than 2pc of eurozone GDP; in the scale of things it
scarcely seems to matter if it goes or stays. The departure of a major economy
from the EU as a whole, on the other hand, would tear at the heart of the
European project much more profoundly.
This is not to argue that a Greek
exit would be an economic non-event. It would be most unwise to underestimate
the financial and economic contagion from such an outcome. A possible foretaste
of what is to come was seen this week in a significant widening of bond market
spreads across the eurozone.
Nevertheless, it is also true to
say that since the last Greek bailout, firewalls have been significantly
strengthened, and the immediate fallout is likely to be a great deal less toxic
than it might have been only a few years back. What’s more, the vast bulk (more
than 80pc) of Greek public debt is now in official hands – bilateral loans from
other eurozone countries, the IMF and the European Central Bank.
Morehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11647361/Europe-must-make-up-its-mind-does-it-want-Greece-in-or-out.html
In other news, will OPEC cut production at their coming meeting? Not if Bloomberg’s right they won’t.
OPEC Is Winning the Oil War
The group may be ahead, but members are still suffering their own casualties.
June 2, 2015 — 11:40 AM BSTAs OPEC ministers meet in Vienna this week they’ll be debating whether the strategy that’s upended oil markets is working.
The last time the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries met, in November, it jolted markets by leaving production unchanged instead of staunching a glut by trimming output. Prices collapsed to the lowest in six years.
OPEC said it wanted to “restore market equilibrium” with stable prices. That means flooding the market so oil drops to a level that forces higher-cost producers to scale back, ultimately pushing prices back up.
Now the 12-member group, which controls about 40 percent of world supplies, has to decide whether to change course or stick to its target. These charts illustrate to what extent the strategy has been paying off.
Producers are cutting back…
----From Canada to Qatar and the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, energy companies are shelving or delaying projects following crude’s collapse. Some of the world’s biggest explorers have cut capital budgets from last year by as much as a third. In the U.S., the number of rigs drilling for oil plunged 60 percent since October to the lowest in almost five years. U.S. shale production started falling in May and the government expects the decline to continue.
…and feeling it in their stock prices
----Investors are punishing U.S. drillers, and their stocks are missing out on the broader rally in U.S. equities. That makes it challenging for companies to continue raising the money they need to keep drilling. OPEC also has to watch its finances: Prices are too low for most member countries to break even, according to the International Monetary Fund and ING Bank NV. While Saudi Arabia, the biggest exporter, is burning through currency reserves, it still has $686 billion in store.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/opec-is-winning-the-oil-price-war
We end with compare and contrast. Is America heading back into recession? Is China coming out of the Great Wobble? My guess is yes and no.
Factory Orders Down 6.5% Y/Y, Below April 2013
by Jeffrey P. Snider •
If there is some small gain to be had from current economic circumstances,
it might be a lesson in what the dollar is and what it is not. Just a few
months ago the idea of the “strong dollar” was almost ubiquitous, scarcely any
shaky economic commentary could be found without mentioning that as the trump
to the upside. It didn’t matter if consumers were seemingly stingy, the dollar
defied that potential and supposedly meant that even financial markets had
finally relented from the “fear bubble.”Now, a matter of only a few months later, the “strong dollar” has disappeared from service, an apparent apparition that no longer serves to bolster those weakened by crashing reality. As if a switch were flipped, the dollar is now the accursed along with everything else that somehow continues to be classified “unexpected.”
New orders for U.S. factory goods unexpectedly fell in April as demand for transportation equipment and a range of other goods weakened, suggesting that manufacturing remained constrained by a strong dollar and spending cuts in the energy sector…
Manufacturing, which accounts for about 12 percent of the U.S. economy, has been hit by the dollar and lower crude oil prices, which are pressuring the profits of multinational corporations and oil firms.
Factory orders have contracted, on a seasonally-adjusted basis, for eight of the past nine months. On a year-over-year basis, not seasonally adjusted, factory orders collapsed by 6.5%, the sixth consecutive decline and the fourth in a row -4% or worse; unexpected is not a word that comes to mind when describing the recent series.
If the economy is not close to recession then factory orders as a data point are now making an uncomfortably close replica. Rather than being an outlier, these results actually fit very well with the atrocious data that has become quite normal, not unexpected, in 2015. Retail sales have been among the worst in the entire series while inventories have grown unrestrained by record amounts for more than a year.
More
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/factory-orders-down-6-5-yy-below-april-2013/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Mailing+List+AM+Tuesday
China May services PMI rises to 53.5, new business up most since 2012
Activity in China's services
sector accelerated in May as new business rose at the fastest pace in three
years, a private survey showed on Wednesday, a rare piece of good news for
policymakers struggling to reviving a cooling economy.
Still, economists remain cautious
on China's overall economic outlook, as credit growth remains weak and
manufacturing stagnates, reinforcing views that authorities will have to roll
out more stimulus to avert a sharper slowdown.
The headline HSBC/Markit
Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for May was 53.5, up from 52.9 in April and
well above the 50-point level that separates expansion from contraction. The
May figure represented the fourth straight month of acceleration.
The new business sub-component
was at 54.4, up from 52.8 in April and the highest reading since 54.7 in May
2012.
Employment at services firms grew at the fastest rate since January 2013, the survey showed, another encouraging sign for policymakers as layoffs continue in the manufacturing sector, China's traditional jobs engine.
"Overall, growth momentum
appears relatively weak, weighed down by an ongoing deterioration in
manufacturing operating conditions," said Annabel Fiddes, economist at
Markit.
"Therefore, further stimulus
measures may be required to keep up with (the government's) annual GDP growth
target of 7 percent."
A news release did not give
specific reasons for the strong pick-up in business in May.
More
"Those entrapped by the herd instinct are drowned in the deluges of history. But there are always the few who observe, reason, and take precautions, and thus escape the flood. For these few gold has been the asset of last resort."
Antony C. Sutton
At the Comex silver
depositories Tuesday final figures were: Registered 58.19 Moz, Eligible 121.60
Moz, Total 179.79 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Ever wonder how wars start. Try this way for one,
albeit any war with Russia is likely to be over in a flash in the pan. American
planes will not smash up Russian cities without Russia smashing up American
ones, to say nothing about wiping out Warsaw and Berlin for a second time. Not
to worry though. Meddling War Party billionaires and their Senators will be
safely hidden away in some bunker. Notice just how free billionaires are about
giving away taxpayers money rather than their own.
From London, it looks like the CIA has just
installed another of its assets in Odessa. No reason to hold an election when
the American War Party controls the state.
Mankind
must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind
J. F.
Kennedy.
Hacked Emails Expose George Soros As Ukraine Puppet-Master
Just days after George Soros warned that World War 3 was imminent unless Washington backed down to China on IMF currency basket inclusion, the hacker collective CyberBerkut has exposed the billionaire as the real puppet-master behind the scenes in Ukraine. In 3 stunning documents, allegedly hacked from email correspondence between the hedge fund manager and Ukraine President Poroshenko, Soros lays out "A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine," expresses his confidence that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force," and finally explained Poroshenko's "first priority must be to regain control of financial markets," which he assures the President could be helped by The Fed adding "I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement."The hacking group CyberBerkut claims it has penetrated Ukraine’s presidential administration website and obtained correspondence between Soros and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko. It has subsequently posted all the intercepted pdfs on line at the following location. More details as RT earlier reported:
The hacktivists have published three files online, which include a draft of “A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine” by Soros (dated March 12, 2015); an undated paper on military assistance to Kiev; and the billionaire’s letter to Poroshenko and Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, dated December 23, 2014.
According to the leaked documents, Soros supports Barack Obama’s stance on Ukraine, but believes that the US should do even more.
He is confident that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force.”
“In poker terms, the US will ‘meet, but not raise,” the 84-year-old businessman explained, supposedly signing one of the letters as “a self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine.”
The Western backers want Kiev to “restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement,” Soros wrote.
Among other things, the leaked documents claim that the Ukrainian authorities were also asked to “restore some semblance of currency stability and functioning banking system” and “maintain unity among the various branches of government” in order to receive assistance from foreign allies.
Soros believes that it’s up to the EU to support Kiev with financial aid, stressing that “Europe must reach a new framework agreement that will allow the European Commission to allocate up to $1 billion annually to Ukraine.”
As for the current state of economy, the billionaire wrote that former Chilean finance minister, Andres Velasco, after visiting Ukraine on his request, returned with “a dire view of financial situation."
“The new Ukraine is literally on the verge of collapse” due to the national bank’s lack of hard currency reserves, Soros warned Poroshenko.
Much
more.
Georgia ex-leader Saakashvili gives up citizenship for Ukraine
1
June 2015
Mr Saakashvili told the BBC a Georgian passport meant "guaranteed imprisonment" there as the authorities pursued criminal charges against him.
The ex-leader was appointed unexpectedly by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Saturday.
He is credited with radical reforms in Georgia but accused of abuse of power.
Mr Saakashvili left Georgia after his term as president ended in 2013. He denies the charges against him, which he says are politically motivated.
The former president, who has been granted Ukrainian citizenship, speaks basic Ukrainian and was recently said to have sung the national anthem with a group of Odessa schoolchildren.
In a BBC interview, Mr Saakashvili said he could not currently go back home.
"The reality is for me today that the Georgian passport means guaranteed imprisonment for me in Georgia," he said.
He added that the governorship was important because Odessa was a "frontline" both against local corruption and against perceived Russian aggression in the region.
More
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section.
Updates as they get reported.
First large-scale graphene fabrication
Date:May 15, 2015
Source:DOE/Oak Ridge National
Laboratory
Summary:One of the barriers to
using graphene at a commercial scale could be overcome using a new method.
Graphene, a material stronger and stiffer than carbon fiber, has enormous
commercial potential but has been impractical to employ on a large scale, with
researchers limited to using small flakes of the material.
One of the barriers to using
graphene at a commercial scale could be overcome using a method demonstrated by
researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Graphene, a material stronger and
stiffer than carbon fiber, has enormous commercial potential but has been
impractical to employ on a large scale, with researchers limited to using small
flakes of the material.
Now, using chemical vapor
deposition, a team led by ORNL's Ivan Vlassiouk has fabricated polymer
composites containing 2-inch-by-2-inch sheets of the one-atom thick hexagonally
arranged carbon atoms.
The findings, reported in the
journal Applied Materials & Interfaces, could help usher in a new
era in flexible electronics and change the way this reinforcing material is
viewed and ultimately used.
"Before our work, superb
mechanical properties of graphene were shown at a micro scale," said
Vlassiouk, a member of ORNL's Energy and Transportation Science Division.
"We have extended this to a larger scale, which considerably extends the
potential applications and market for graphene."
----If Vlassiouk and his team can reduce the cost and demonstrate scalability, researchers envision graphene being used in aerospace (structural monitoring, flame-retardants, anti-icing, conductive), the automotive sector (catalysts, wear-resistant coatings), structural applications (self-cleaning coatings, temperature control materials), electronics (displays, printed electronics, thermal management), energy (photovoltaics, filtration, energy storage) and manufacturing (catalysts, barrier coatings, filtration).
More
"Paper money has had the effect in your state [Rhode
Island] that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open
the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”
George Washington 1787.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
DJIA: +107 Down. NASDAQ: +195 Down. SP500: +139 Down.
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