The Blue Moon Arrives.

Baltic Dry Index. 1100 -04   Brent Crude 53.14

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

The bourgeoisie constantly exploits the proletariat for its labour power, creating profit for themselves accumulating capital. However by doing so the bourgeoisie "are its own grave-diggers"; the proletariat inevitably will become conscious of their own potential and rise to power through revolution, overthrowing the bourgeoisie.

Marx or Engels.

It is dress up Friday again, the last trading day of the first month of the second half of 2015. Will Shanghai beat the Fedster’s of Wall Street into second place in dressing up stocks on Blue Moon Friday? What will today’s Blue Moon bring? Good, as in stocks to the moon, or bad, as in stocks get hammered by profit taking, as the  punters and Muppets realize they have to get out first, before the Squids great HFT algo thieves clean them out before the Feds start raising interest rates? I don’t know either, but I do know that I don’t like the recent action. The Great Disconnect has never been more dangerous. The bogus statistics never more bogus. Oh, and did I mention that Greece has been fixed, as in neutered. Bring on Italy! As I write, Shanghai seems to be passing the hot potato to New York.

Commodities, the EUSSR, China, Emerging Markets, are all suggesting a global slowdown is here and it may be a whopper, and not the kind of whopper they know about in central banks. The central bankster, the Great Vampire Squids, all suggest that this time it’s different. The Fed, ECB and PBoC has got everyone covered. “Go on, ignore your eyes, buy more.” 

Yang Chen in China did, investing his “entire life savings—$164,000,” in China’s stocks, at the suggestion of China’s Communist Party. Yes that is the sound of arch-communist, class warrior, Karl Marx spinning in his grave you hear! Then further encouraged, he bought more on margin.  Despite all of the Chinese stock market rigging and fixing, “he now owes roughly what he originally invested after liquidating his portfolio.”  Being a mere farmer and not a bankster or Great Vampire Squid, amazingly he was not bailed out despite asking! “"I don't know what to do. I trusted the government too much. I won't touch stocks again," Yang said.” China’s “China Securities Regulatory Commission” (CSRC) looks like being  a long term holder of supported Chinese stocks. Probably a very long term holder of Chinese stocks until they go all MF Global Corzined.

The only thing to do when a person is wrong is to be right, by ceasing to be wrong. Cut your losses quickly, without hesitation. Don’t waste time. When a stock moves below a mental-stop, sell it immediately.

Jesse Livermore.

Chinese stocks close down after sudden drop

Shanghai's main index recorded a sudden drop at the end of Thursday's trading

By Bloomberg 9:14AM BST 30 Jul 2015

Chinese stocks fell suddenly in the last hour of trading on Thursday, almost wiping out Wednesday’s rally and leaving investors in the dark about reasons for the moves.

The Shanghai Composite Index slumped 2.2pc to 3,705.77 at the close, erasing an earlier gain of 1.5pc

Drugmakers and technology companies led declines. A gauge of 100-day price-swings rose to its highest level in six years.

“There were no major macro developments,” said Gerry Alfonso, a sales trader at Shenwan Hongyuan Group Co. in Shanghai. “The disconnection with fundamentals continues making trading challenging.”

Thursday’s trading was almost a reverse image of the previous day, when the Shanghai Composite surged in the last hour to close 3.4pc higher.

Volatility has increased this week as Monday’s 8.5pc plunge by the benchmark gauge shredded a calm induced by unprecedented state intevention.

More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/11772253/Chinese-stocks-close-down-after-sudden-drop.html

Asia shares edge up, wary of China volatility

Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:39pm EDT

Asian shares inched higher on Friday but were still set to post a loss for the month, while the dollar edged away from highs scaled after U.S. GDP data reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates this year.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was up about 0.2 percent at 3:02 GMT, but recorded a loss of 5.9 percent for the month.

Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 was little changed, but saw a gain of 1.4 percent for July, the only Asian market ending the month in positive territory - excluding Australia and New Zealand.

Japanese economic data published before the open contained some worrying signals, including a drop in household spending, a fall in Tokyo-area consumer prices and a rise in the June jobless rate.

Investors also awaited more earnings from blue-chip companies and looked for signs of whether China's volatile stock markets were starting to take a toll on its economy.

In the latest of several attempts to bolster China's stock market, the securities regulator clamped down on trading accounts that had been found to have abnormal bids for shares or bid cancellations.

China's CSI300 index .CSI300 fell 0.4 percent, contributing to a 15 percent slump this month. The Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC lost 1.2 percent, extending July losses to 13.4 percent.
More
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/31/us-markets-global-idUSKCN0Q501G20150731

China watchdog probes automated trading as stocks slip again

Fri Jul 31, 2015 12:46am EDT

China's securities watchdog is investigating the impact of automated trading on share markets, as authorities step up a crackdown on what they regard as heavy speculative selling that could destabilize the world's second-largest economy.

China's main share markets, both among the world's five biggest exchanges, have lost around 30 percent of their value since mid-June, but authorities have been flailing in efforts over the past three weeks to prevent a further sell-off.

Fearing the turmoil could spill over into the wider economy, which had already been cooling, the ruling Communist Party has enlisted the central bank, the state margin-lender, commercial banks, brokers, fund managers, insurers and pension funds to buy up shares, or help fund their purchase, to keep the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets afloat.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the markets regulator, has also stepped up scrutiny of share traders and their clients, launching investigations of "share dumping" and declaring war on "malicious short-sellers".

The CSRC announced automated trading as the latest focus of its investigations on Friday, as share markets lost more ground.

More

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/31/us-china-markets-idUSKCN0Q50C220150731

Chinese farmer invested life savings in stocks, lost it all

Tom DiChristopher Tuesday, 28 Jul 2015 | 12:42 PM ET

Investors throughout China are waiting for the government to step in and buy more stocks so they can close out their positions, but many are losing hope.

Yang Cheng, a farmer in the remote town of Panzhihua in southwest China, was one of many Chinese citizens who started buying up stocks after the government began promoting equity investment as part of a larger plan to expand the country's economy.

"When the market climbed to 4,000 points, I realized the risks were pretty high. However, public opinion on government policies affected my judgment," he told CNBC.

But after sinking his entire life savings—$164,000—and his relatives' money into shares of a local mining company, he lost everything. Not only that, but Yang's brokerage convinced him to borrow more than $1 million to buy stocks on margin. He now owes roughly what he originally invested after liquidating his portfolio.

Like many Chinese, Yang traveled to the office of the leadership and stock market regulator in Beijing to seek help, but was turned away.

"I don't know what to do. I trusted the government too much. I won't touch stocks again," Yang said.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission said late Monday that the government will increase purchases of stocks in an effort to support the equity market, while the central bank injected cash into money markets and hinted at further monetary easing.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/28/chinese-farmer-invested-life-savings-in-stocks-lost-it-all.html

Below, who knew? Now she tells us! Too late for poor Mr. Cheng, but that’s par for the course with the French run, scandal prone, IMF. There never was such a thing as too much intervention in France, except at Calais.

China 'still learning how stock markets work', says IMF chief

Christine Lagarde says China's stock market had seen an 'extraordinary' rise before it dropped last week

By Telegraph staff, and agencies 5:08PM BST 29 Jul 2015

China's stock market has slumped because investors and authorities are still learning about how public indices work, the head of the IMF has said.

"It's a relatively young market, and there is an element of a learning curve" among investors, companies and the authorities, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said.

However, Ms Lagarde believes China can weather the turmoil on its main stock exchange, which fell 11pc between Friday and Tuesday.

"We believe that the Chinese economy is resilient, and strong enough to withstand that kind of significant variation in the markets," she said.

The index rebounded modestly on Wednesday, and are still up 80pc from a year ago
 ----Ms Lagarde remarked that it should not be surprising that Chinese authorities had moved to restrain the steep daily falls in the capital markets.

China's securities regulator announced probes into share "dumping" and pledged to buy stocks to calm the market, while the central bank hinted at more policy easing.

"The fact that they want to maintain a level of liquidity as well that is commensurate with an orderly process is also quite good."

She pointed to "the very significant reforms" that Beijing is undertaking in the economy even as the authorities try to calm the turmoil in financial markets.

More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/11771308/China-still-learning-how-stock-markets-work-says-IMF-chief.html

In EUSSR news, more of the same. The never ending fiasco, never ends. Germany just got thumped by the French run IMF. Grexit is back on the table again. Brexit keeps looking better with each passing week. Who wants to live as a serf in a German run austerity union, except President Obama?

Greece crisis escalates as IMF witholds support for a new bail-out deal

Talks over new rescue package are derailed after less than a week as IMF seeks explicit assurances over debt relief from the Europeans

By Mehreen Khan 7:10PM BST 30 Jul 2015

Talks over an €86bn bail-out for Greece have been thrown into turmoil after just four days as the International Monetary Fund said it would have no involvement in the country until it receives explicit assurances over debt sustainability.

An IMF official said the fund would withhold financial support unless it has guarantees Greece can carry out a "comprehensive" set of reforms and will be the beneficiary of debt relief from its European creditors.

The comments came after the IMF's executive board was told that the institution could no longer continue pumping more money into the debtor nation, according to a leaked document seen by the Financial Times.

The Washington-based Fund has been torn over its involvement in Greece - its largest ever recipient country.

The world's "lender of last resort' said it would continue talks with its creditor partners and the Leftist government of Athens, but made it clear the onus of keeping Greece in the eurozone now fell on Europe's reluctant member states.

"There is a need for difficult decisions on both sides... difficult decisions in Greece regarding reforms, and difficult decisions among Greece's European partners about debt relief," said the official.

"One should not be under the illusion that one side of it can fix the problem."

The delay could last well into next year, forcing the other two-thirds of the Troika - the European Central Bank and European Commission - to bear the full costs of keeping Greece afloat.

----But Europe's creditor powers - led by Germany - have resisted write-offs, insisting that talks on debt relief can only proceed once the Greek government has satisfied demands to raise taxes, cut pensions spending and privatise assets.

For all Germany's obstinacy, Berlin is determined to keep the IMF involved in a new rescue package. The Bundestag voted to re-start talks over a new Greek deal on the promise that that IMF would remain part of the Troika.

The IMF's position now jeopardises the tentative basis for a new three-year package thrashed out by lenders over a tortuous weekend of talks in mid-July.

----The IMF's position is the latest in a long-line of reports questioning its involvement in an economy with an "unsustainable" and unpayable debt mountain.

More

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11773977/Greece-crisis-escalates-as-IMF-witholds-support-for-a-new-bail-out-deal.html

Blue Moon – second July full moon – on July 31

Blue Moon coming! As seen in the photo above by Patrick Casaert – whose community on Facebook is called La Lune The Moon – the moon has been waxing to full this week. Patrick used a blue filter to create his moon photo, and if you see the moon in tonight’s sky, you’ll see it’s nearly full … but not at all blue in color. Yet, as the second full moon for the month of July, many will call it a Blue Moon.

Calendars will say that this month’s second full moon falls tomorrow – on July 31, 2015. However, for much of North America, the moon will turn precisely full before sunrise on July 31.

Thus many will call tomorrow’s full moon – and probably tonight’s nearly full moon as well – a Blue Moon.

Will either of these moons be blue in color? Nope. The name Blue Moon has nothing to do with the color blue. It’s just a name for the second full moon in a calendar month.
More
http://earthsky.org/tonight/blue-moon-second-july-full-moon-to-occur-on-july-31?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=49db8f167f-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-49db8f167f-394244537

Marx was exiled to London in 1849 and lived the rest of his life there. Much of his time was spent in the reading rooms of the British Museum (which then housed the British Library collection) - this is his entry in the 1873 admissions register. There he worked on his most celebrated book Das Kapital. It puts forward his theory of political economy, with its celebrated phrase 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'.
http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106263.html

The British Library has much to apologise for. Why did they give him an admission ticket? Look at what he/they just did to poor Mr.Cheng.

British Museum Reading Room

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museum_Reading_Room

All through time, people have basically acted and reacted the same way in the market as a result of: greed, fear, ignorance, and hope. That is why the numerical formations and patterns recur on a constant basis.

Jesse Livermore.

At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 56.60 Moz, Eligible 119.67 Moz, Total 176.27 Moz. 

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

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

The only thing dangerous in the next article is the fallen former guru himself. From the fiat money mess he made running the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money for Mammon, he now proposes to set off riots by taking back “entitlements” in the most heavily armed nation on the planet. On fiat, bailouts and bonuses for banksters, the work house for everyone else. It makes the UK’s Irish potato famine policy look enlightened. On fiat money, communist money, all decisions are political. Stay long fully paid up physical gold and silver.

"[A] government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. A fiat money system, like the ones we have today, can produce such claims without limit."

Alan Greenspan.

Alan Greenspan: This is 'extremely dangerous'

14 Hours Ago

While markets hone in on the Federal Reserve's monetary policy hints, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan sees a bigger economic irritant—government spending.

On Wednesday, Greenspan decried a rise in entitlement costs, which he contended have pressured the U.S. economy.

"To me the discussion today shouldn't even be on monetary policy it should be on how do we constrain this extraordinary rise in entitlements," he said in a CNBC "Closing Bell" interview, calling the trend "extremely dangerous."

Social expenditures in the U.S. were 19.2 percent of gross domestic product last year, up from 15.5 percent in 2005, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Still, the portion of GDP spent by the U.S. on social benefits last year was below the OECD average of 21.6 percent. The majority of member nations individually shelled out a higher percentage of GDP, as well.

Greenspan was the head of the U.S. central bank from 1987 to 2006. He declined to characterize the Fed's policy-making committee's assessment of the nation's economy after its most recent meeting Wednesday.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/29/alan-greenspan-this-is-extremely-dangerous.html

We really can't forecast all that well, and yet we pretend that we can, but we really can't.

Alan Greenspan. 

Solar  & Related Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC energy mankind’s future from the 21^st century onwards? A quantum computer next?

New material combines photons for big solar energy gains

By Graham Templeton on July 28, 2015 at 8:30 am

An innovative new approach to solar energy from University of California Riverside could dramatically increase the amount of light available to contemporary solar panel designs. Rather than widening the absorption spectrum of the solar panels themselves, this new study looked at taking currently inaccessible infra-red light and turning it into visible light. They hope that by directing this newly fabricated light onto conventional solar panels, the efficiency of solar power could be greatly improved, for an affordable price.

Infrared light currently passes straight through most silicon solar cell technologies, representing a substantial inefficiency in generating electricity from sunlight. Much of solar research has worked to directly convert infrared light to electricity, but such technologies change the transistor design, and thus the manufacturing process for solar panels. Their impacts tend to be limited by cost concerns, more than anything else.

These researchers chose to accept the absorptive abilities of current silicon transistors, and instead looked to make the light conform to the panels. They created an all-new hybrid material that takes two photons of 980-nanometer infrared light shone onto it and “up converts” them into one photon of 550-nanometer orange/yellow light. This photon has almost double the energy of the originals and, more importantly, it exists in a form that existing solar panels can absorb.

By changing the incoming sunlight into silicon’s favorite for absorption, the material could improve solar panel efficiency by as much as 30%. And while the costs of the material itself are not yet known, there is huge potential in offering such large improvements without the need to completely reinvent the transistor manufacturing process.

More

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/211014-new-material-combines-photons-for-big-solar-energy-gains

Another weekend, and a great weekend too, outside of hellholes like German ruined Greece, Washington ruined Ukraine, Calais, and any place in the Middle East you care to name. It’s not much fun getting “felt by the Fuzz” in your car in America either, but America’s top man is on the case, when he’s not on the golf course or off lecturing Africa. Have a great weekend everyone.

The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake.

Alan Greenspan.

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished June

DJIA: +98 Down. NASDAQ: +192 Down. SP500: +127 Down. 

“All’s Well!”

Baltic Dry Index. 1104 +10   Brent Crude 53.66

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

“So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!”

The “talking chair” with apologies to Peter Pan and J.M. Barrie.

Up first today, yesterday’s “all’s well and getting weller” from the Fed, and a rose tinted glasses spin on today’s release of Uncle Scam’s GDP figures. According to Wall Street’s stock promoting Great Vampire Squids, the GDP figure for Q1 2015 will be revised from down to up, though probably not enough to take Q2 2015s figure from up to down. The HFT algos loved it, especially after someone, probably at the NY Fed’s Liberty Street team of riggers and fix-its, turned their buying attention to the stocks of the Dow Jones Transportation Index causing it to surge. “We have ways of dealing with a Dow Theory sell signal.” Beijing’s team of market riggers and fix-its, can only look on in envy.

Below, and they all lived happily ever after.

“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.”

The “talking chair” with apologies to Peter Pan and J.M. Barrie.

Fed Says Labor Market Improves as It Moves Toward Rate Rise

July 29, 2015 — 7:00 PM BST Updated on July 29, 2015 — 9:20 PM BST

Federal Reserve policy makers said the job market has made further gains, keeping them on a path to raise interest rates this year for the first time in almost a decade without providing a clear signal on the timing of liftoff.

“The labor market continued to improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement Wednesday in Washington. It dropped the modifier “somewhat” from its description of the decline in labor-market slack.

With Chair Janet Yellen and her fellow policy makers saying their decisions are “data dependent,” the focus turns to figures on growth, jobs and inflation that will help determine whether the Fed raises rates in September, as many economists expect, or later in the year.

----Stocks extended gains, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbing 0.7 percent to 2,108.57 as of 4:08 p.m. in New York. Treasuries remained lower, with the 10-year note yielding 2.28 percent, up three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, from late Tuesday.

The Fed made a one-word change to its language on conditions that would justify a rate increase: It needs to see “some further improvement in the labor market,” adding the modifier “some,” and it must be “reasonably confident” inflation will move back to its 2 percent goal over the medium term.
It also dropped a sentence saying energy prices appeared to have stabilized.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-29/fed-says-labor-market-improves-as-it-moves-toward-rate-increase

Here's What to Watch for in the U.S. GDP Report

July 29, 2015 — 8:02 PM BST

----The release from the Commerce Department promises to offer double the usual excitement: One, it'll show how strongly growth rebounded in the second quarter from the inclement weather and West Coast port labor disputes that depressed the economy early in the year. Two, due to revisions that happen once a year and some new adjustments, it'll reveal whether gross domestic product really contracted in the January to March period.

Gross domestic product rose 2.5 percent, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg, following a 0.2 percent drop in the first quarter. Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, probably climbed 2.7 percent.

"There's more uncertainty attached to the numbers this time, which could make things interesting,'' said Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York. "You don’t know what the history is for the prior quarter, so you've got to take everybody's second-quarter estimates with a grain of salt.''

Still, it's clear that a strong job market, healthier finances backed by gains in equities and property values, cheaper gasoline and low borrowing costs are sustaining household purchases, he said.

----The Commerce Department will also tweak data going back to 2012 to take into account new information and to attempt to reduce so-called residual seasonality, which some economists believe persistently depresses first-quarter growth. Economists at BNP Paribas and Societe Generale project GDP for January through March will end up showing a gain instead of a drop.

More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-29/here-s-what-to-watch-for-in-the-u-s-gdp-report

Asian shares, dollar up on Fed's optimism; earnings in focus

Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:50pm EDT

Asian stocks tiptoed higher on Thursday and the dollar consolidated recent gains after the U.S. Federal Reserve painted a relatively bright picture of the world's biggest economy, but a deepening sell-off in commodities kept gains in check.

Prospects of stronger U.S. growth in coming months lifted Asian stocks in early trade, with Japan's Nikkei .N225 up 1.2 percent and Australian shares adding 0.7 percent. But South Korean shares .KS11 fell 0.7 percent.

A dollar-denominated index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.4 percent after Chinese stocks had a quiet opening.

Gains were muted before the earnings season kicks off in full throttle next week, when companies are broadly expected to post disappointing results on the back of weak economic data in recent months, particularly for trade.

---- "The markets still think that the world's economy remains fragile, given a fall in Chinese shares and commodity prices. The Fed surely doesn't want to screw up its exit from zero rates by hastily moving and hitting already fragile commodities market and the world economy," said Tohru Yamamoto, chief fixed income strategist at Daiwa Securities.

Subdued external demand is expected to weigh on corporate earnings, with CLSA strategists expecting first-half earnings growth at Hong Kong and Chinese companies to be weak and guidance for the third quarter unlikely to be better.

More
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/30/us-markets-global-idUSKCN0Q402720150730

Back in the real world where Cecil the Zimbabwe lion once lived, before another unintended consequence of the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money (communist money,) brought his life to an untimely, painful, and 40 hours long lingering death, all is not quite so rosey. In the real world of harsh reality, a slowing global economy, and a dying EUSSR and emerging markets, there’s no “talking chair” with a magic wand to show up to throw pixie dust around, turning down into up.

VW Lowers Sales Forecast as Russia, South America Falter

July 29, 2015 — 7:44 AM BST Updated on July 29, 2015 — 9:49 AM BST

Volkswagen AG lowered its global sales forecast for this year amid growing concern among automakers about the slowdown in China, the world’s biggest car market.

Deliveries will be about at the 2014 level, the Wolfsburg, Germany-based carmaker said Wednesday in a statement that also cited challenging markets in Russia and South America. It had previously forecast a moderate increase in vehicle sales this year.

VW’s deliveries in China dropped for the first time in a decade in the first half. The year is shaping up to be no better for the industry as a whole, as China’s economic slowdown and volatile stock market coincide with curbs on auto registrations in some areas. Carmakers may see Chinese sales drop for the first time since 1998, Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday.

“It had to be expected to some extent that the sales guidance needed to be cut, given the recent market slowdown,” said Juergen Pieper, a Frankfurt-based analyst for Bankhaus Metzler. “The others aren’t faring any better, if you look at Toyota or Peugeot.”

PSA Peugeot Citroen, Europe’s second-biggest carmaker after VW, also cited the tough market in China when it reported results today. Despite more than tripling its first-half earnings, the French company didn’t raise earnings forecasts. Chief Executive Officer Carlos Tavares pinned that on an “unstable international environment,” and the company said it’s focusing on how to adapt to the steep slowdown in China.

VW saw profit from its Chinese joint venture fall 17 percent in the second quarter to 1.15 billion euros ($1.27 billion), based on calculations by Bloomberg News.

“We are keeping a very close watch on global macroeconomic trends, especially where there are uncertainties such as in the Chinese, Brazilian and Russian markets,” VW CEO Martin Winterkorn said in Wednesday’s statement.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-29/volkswagen-lowers-sales-forecast-as-russia-south-america-falter

Mozambique coal: boom to bust to wait it out

28th July 2015

Mozambique's coal rush is officially over and the government is now looking offshore to a gas bonanza, according to analysts at a coal conference this week in the capital Maputo.

Just a few years ago, billions of dollars poured into Mozambique, one of the world's poorest nations, in a twin scramble for inland coal and offshore gas.

The gas rush is intact, but the coal boom has come apart at the seams, hobbled by low prices, overblown expectations, and a rail and port network that remains woefully inadequate.

"At this stage Mozambique is not a coal story any more. It's very expensive, very uncompetitive and they need a lot of added capacity," said Thea Fourie, Africa economist at His, a financial and risk consultancy.

"It's really a liquefied natural gas (LNG) story now and I think the government is shifting its focus from coal to LNG," she told Reuters on the sidelines of a Mozambique coal conference organised by Informa.

In the coal region of northern Tete province, there has been a flurry of exploration permits issued and regular flights now connect this rural backwater to Johannesburg.

But real action is limited. According to Andy Lloyd, an independent geological consultant, as of November 2014, 124 exploration licences had been issued in Tete. There are 11 approved mining concessions - the midway point to getting the green light to start a project.

But only four operating licences exist and the companies involved are mostly stuck in for the long haul with deep pockets.

One is Brazilian mining group Vale, which has a balance sheet that can allow it to hang tough for the long run in a country where it has linguistic and cultural ties formed from a shared Portuguese colonial past.

Another, International Coal Ventures Private Limited (ICVL), is an Indian company which wants to expand the Benga mine it acquired from Rio Tinto in a fire sale after the global mining giant pulled the plug on its ill-fated foray into Mozambique that included a write-down of $3.5-billion.
more

http://www.miningweekly.com/article/mozambique-coal-boom-to-bust-to-wait-it-out-2015-07-28

“I'm not young enough to know everything.”

The “talking chair” with apologies to Peter Pan and J.M. Barrie.

At the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 57.55 Moz, Eligible 118.86 Moz, Total 176.41 Moz. 

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

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

Yes it’s the incredibly stupid, anti-democratic EUSSR again. This time it’s the out of control lefty loonies of Spain. Why would any sane person want to be in a club like this? Why would anyone even want to visit Spain, let alone buy property there? Why would Great Britain want to remain in this neo-communist run, wealth and jobs destroying, backwater just to appease American President Obama who doesn’t himself actually live in the increasingly jobless EUSSR that he wants Great Britain to remain in? Wouldn’t the world be better off if he busied himself instead with stopping US police from acting like Gestapo on the long suffering hapless US public?

“One could mention many lovable traits in Merkel. For instance, after killing Greece, it was her spectacles she wiped instead of her weapon.”

Tsipras, with apologies to Peter Pan and J.M. Barrie.

Spanish man fined up to €600 under new gag laws for calling police 'slackers' in Facebook post

Wednesday 29 July 2015

A young man in Spain has been fined for calling the police lazy in a Facebook post, becoming the first citizen to fall foul of a series of controversial new “gag” laws.

The 27-year-old man, identified only as Eduardo D in national media reports, described the local police force as a “class of slackers” in a series of online posts which he described as humorous.

The Spanish senate approved the Citizen Security Law in March, and its effects came into force at the start of July. It has been widely criticised, including by UN human rights experts who said it would “unnecessarily and disproportionately restrict basic freedoms”.

According to the Spanish daily El Pais, Eduardo made three comments on Facebook criticising the money spent on police facilities in his town of Güímar, Tenerife.

He also accused local authorities of misappropriating a public building, and in a third post suggested local police were so lazy they might as well have “a hammock and a swimming pool” at each station.

Eduardo made the comments on 22 July, according to the Spanish edition of The Local, and that afternoon he received a visit from police accusing him of “making comments on social media that showed a lack of respect and consideration for Güímar’s local police”.

He now faces a fine of between €100 and €600, and told El Pais he had appointed a lawyer to fight the “madness” of the penalisation process.

One of the first uses of the nationwide so-called “gag laws”, Eduardo’s case comes amid a backdrop of a range of bizarre new laws across Spanish municipalities following the sweeping success of left-wing groups at elections two months ago.

They included the introduction of a compulsory siesta in the town of Ador near Valencia, attempts to limit tourists only to the most popular destinations in Barcelona, and the setting-up of a so-called “Ministry of Truth” in Madrid.

More

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spanish-man-fined-up-to-600-under-new-gag-laws-for-calling-police-slackers-in-facebook-post-10424251.html

In fairness to Europe, the Brits of the Upper House can be bonkers and quite dishonest too. Other than comedy and dishonesty, what’s a House of Lords for?

Think Lord Sewel is bad? These are the seven deadliest sinners in the House of Lords

The alleged 'Lord Coke' is not a patch on these womanising, drug-taking, fridge-shooting, whoremongering, heroin-smuggling peers

By Harry de Quetteville 8:22AM BST 28 Jul 2015

Some people, such as the Prime Minister, think that Lord Sewel should quit the House of Lords after apparently being caught in a sex and drugs sting. (Update: he has now resigned.)

What they do not realise is that John Buttifant Sewel was simply upholding the finest traditions of the Upper House.

Indeed his exploits look positively tame compared to some. If you really want to see a rogue in ermine, check out this list - gathered from our extensive obituaries archive - of seven deadly miscreant peers.

More

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11765742/Think-Lord-Sewel-is-bad-These-are-the-seven-deadliest-sinners-in-the-House-of-Lords.html

The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.

Walter Bagehot.

The House of Lords is like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days.

Clement Atlee.

Solar  & Related Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC energy mankind’s future from the 21^st century onwards? A quantum computer next?

Offshore wind power gets foothold in U.S. with Rhode Island project

Mon Jul 27, 2015 7:04am EDT By Richard Valdmanis

NEW SHOREHAM, Rhode Island (Reuters) - Rhode Island's Deepwater Wind will start installing the foundations for North America's first offshore wind farm on Monday, a milestone the company says could pave the way for an industry long established in Europe but that is still struggling with opposition in the United States.

The 30-megawatt wind farm, which will include five turbines located three miles (4.8 km) off the coast of the bucolic summer tourist destination of Block Island, will take more than a year to build and is scheduled to produce electricity for the tiny island community and the mainland by the end of
next year.

"Our belief is once Block Island is up and running, it will bring offshore wind from theory to reality in the United States and open up opportunities to build larger projects," said Jeffrey Grybowski, Deepwater Wind's CEO.

Offshore wind projects have been delivering power in Europe since the 1990s, with nearly 2,500 turbines connected to the grid, but they have struggled to gain a foothold in the United States due to worries about cost, the aesthetics of towering wind turbines within view from the coasts, and the impact on birds and whales.

A rival project, Cape Wind's proposed 130-turbine wind farm off in Nantucket Sound, for example, was for years expected to be America's first such project but stalled in part due to a lack of local support. Other offshore wind projects are in limbo off of Delaware, New Jersey and New York.

Deepwater's project fits a different mold, according to Grybowski and the project's backers, French bank Societe Generale and Ohio-based Key Bank: it was relatively small and therefore easier to finance and is set in a location that has substantial built-in government and local support.

"Rhode Island was very forward-thinking and had designated a specific development area," said Alexander Krolick, Societe Generale's energy project finance director for the Americas. SocGen and Key Bank have provided about $300 million for the project, according to Deepwater, which is based in Providence.

Block Island was chosen as a wind power site by the state in 2007 in part as a solution to the island's own energy woes: it's 1,000 residents have for years relied on costly diesel-fired generators for electricity. Once the wind farm starts up, prices will drop 40 percent, according to a study by the Block Island Utility Task Group.

But about 90 percent of the wind farm's power will be shipped to Rhode Island's mainland via an undersea cable where utility National Grid will buy it for 26 cents/kwh and mix it into the rest of the state's supply, which generally ranges between 6 and 10 cents/kwh. Although it will account for only 1 percent of the state's power supply, the higher cost represents the industry's biggest challenge.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSKCN0Q113020150727?irpc=932

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished June

DJIA: +98 Down. NASDAQ: +192 Down. SP500: +127 Down.