Baltic Dry Index. 1009 +58 Brent Crude 57.06
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
The whole history of civilisation is strewn with creeds and institutions that were invaluable at first and deadly afterwards.
Walter Bagehot.
Forget “whatever it takes.” Goldie’s man running the ECB has gotten cold feet. Earlier this week it was the IMF bailing out from the wealth and jobs destroying dying euro project. Yesterday it was Mario Draghi, the ECB’s big banana heading towards the exit! The Bilderberger euro project to replace the continental Europe hated dollar, is dying before our eyes every day. No one in continental Europe trust anyone else. No one in Club Med trusts Germany to do the right thing when they need a bailout. Germany trusts no one in Euroland to pay back their debt. Germany still seems to be orchestrating a Greek exit from the euro. Draghi now seems to think that this will happen followed by others. After weeks of dire euro news, the only good news around is the unnoticed rebound in the Baltic Dry (shipping) Index back above 1000.
Below, continental Europe on the verge of a nervous breakdown! Note, Marketwatch seems to misstate below the ECB’s ELA assistance to Greece. Later today it is likely to confirm that ELA funding to Greece will rise by 7 billion euros to about 900 billion euros.
Mario Draghi issued a resounding indictment of the ‘fragile euro’
Published: July 16, 2015 12:25 p.m. ET
Whatever happened to doing “whatever it takes?”
That was European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s pledge to hold
the European shared currency together back in 2012, as the market was panicking
about the possibility that a fiscally stressed European country might be forced
out of the bloc.
While Draghi had previously proclaimed that the euro was “irreversible,”
the ECB chief’s comments on Thursday were much less emphatic, with Draghi
stating that it wasn’t up to the central bank to determine whether or not
Greece remains part of the shared currency.
“This is a damning indictment of Europe’s single currency area from the
individual who almost single-handedly averted a breakup of the bloc three years
ago,” Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy, a
London-based advisory firm, in a note.
Had Draghi talked similarly in 2012, “all hell would have broken loose
in the markets,” Spiro said.
On Thursday, the market either didn’t notice Draghi’s rhetorical shift
or didn’t care to fret about it, with the focus squarely on shoring up Greece’s
teetering banking sector.
According to a tally by Danske Bank, 18 out of the 23 questions Draghi
took during his news conference were about Greece. Draghi used the opportunity
to emphasize that the ECB always operated under the assumption that Greece
would remain a part of the euro.
The most crucial news was the ECB president’s decision to raise
emergency liquidity assistance to Greek banks by 900 billion euros ($982
billion) without toughening the rules governing the collateral the banks must
post in return for the funding. That gives Greek banks, which have been closed
for more than two weeks, some breathing room, though capital controls are
likely to remain in place for some time.
Morehttp://www.marketwatch.com/story/mario-draghi-issued-a-resounding-indictment-of-the-fragile-euro-2015-07-16
EU Said to Agree On Balance to 7 Billion-Euro Greece Loan
July 16, 2015 — 10:45 AM BST Updated on July 16, 2015 — 1:03 PM BST
Euro-area finance ministers authorized a 7 billion-euro ($7.6 billion)
bridge loan to Greece, according to Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, paving the
way for a third bailout that may allow Europe’s most indebted nation to stay in
the common currency.
The financing deal is expected to be announced on Friday after national
parliaments have voted on the aid accord that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras
pushed through his legislature on Monday, according to an official with
knowledge of the discussion, who asked not to be named because the talks are
private. Member states also must consider whether to move ahead with the full
bailout proposed for Greece.
The short-term financing is needed so that Greece can meet a 3.5
billion-euro payment due to the European Central Bank on Monday, and keep the
country afloat while Tsipras negotiates the details of a three-year bailout of
as much as 86 billion euros. That aid package would come from the euro-area’s
permanent firewall fund, the European Stability Mechanism.
“I would expect that Mario Draghi will consider now turning on the tap
to some extent of emergency liquidity to keep the banks in Greece having money
for their customers,” Kenny said in an interview with Irish broadcaster RTE,
referring to the president of the ECB.
The bridge loan will come from the European Financial Stabilisation
Mechanism, the European Union’s rescue fund, the official said. The EU is still
working on safeguards to shield non-euro nations from Greek bailout risk,
European Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt told reporters in Brussels.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-16/euro-area-said-to-agree-in-principle-to-eu7-billion-greece-loanGerman finance minister Wolfgang Shaeuble on Grexit: Perhaps temporary exit from the Eurozone would be better for Greece
16 July 2015 10:04am
Never one to mince his words, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has
suggested that, despite the Greek parliament's overwhelming support for its
creditors' reform proposals, a "temporary Grexit" might be a better
option.This morning Schaeuble told Deutschlandfunkradio that "perhaps [Grexit] would be the better way for Greece".
Given the fact that negotiating a deal took not only six months, but a substantial amount of work on Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' part when it came to persuading his parliament to vote for the measures, that's going to go down like a ton of bricks with his Eurozone counterparts.
He
also hinted at supporting the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) assertion that
Greece's lenders will need to take significant writedowns, or its debts
will become unsustainable.
"We
will now see in the negotiations whether there is even a way to get to a new
programme taking into account (Greece's) financing needs, which have risen
incredibly," he said.
http://www.cityam.com/220297/german-finance-minister-wolfgang-shaeuble-grexit-perhaps-temporary-exit-eurozone-would-be?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Email&utm_campaign=150716_CMU
Desperate Greeks scour UK for jobs to escape debt crisis
Recent developments in the debt crisis have exacerbated raging unemployment in the stricken country and prompted a rush in online searches for jobs in the UK
The number of Greeks looking for jobs in the UK has soared in the last two weeks as the debt crisis comes to a head, placing further pressure on the country's crippling unemployment levels.CV-Library, the UK's largest jobs board, said that traffic to its website from Greece reached a record high in July, eclipsing June's searches after only two weeks.
Projections from the recruitment site show that the number of visitors in July is on track to double last month's traffic, as Greek people grasp at employment opportunities overseas.
Greece has been in the clutches of a job crisis for years as it struggles to recover from the global financial meltdown. It has the highest unemployment and underemployment rates in Europe at 26.5pc and 72.1pc respectively.
But the situation has worsened in recent weeks after the country failed to meet a deadline at the end of June to repay €1.6bn worth of debt to the IMF.
The country's leftist Syriza-led government has since imposed capital controls, closing banks and limiting daily withdrawals from ATMs and pension funds. It has accepted even tougher bail-out measures despite the Greek public voting overwhelmingly to reject creditors' demands that more austerity measures be introduced.
"It’s alarming but not surprising that interest from Greek workers looking for jobs in the UK is increasing so rapidly," said Lee Biggins, managing director of CV-Library. "There is clearly an interest amongst Greek workers to look for work outside of Greece, in anticipation of what lies ahead."
Greek web traffic to CV-Library over each of the last two weeks has surpassed the year's previous peak in late January.
"Historically, job searches start to slow [at the start of] summer, so the fact that these numbers have exceeded the highest number in January, the busiest time of year, shows that this movement is clearly related to the current situation in Greece," Mr Biggins said.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/11741492/Desperate-Greeks-scour-UK-for-jobs-to-escape-debt-crisis.html
Greece should seize Germany's botched offer of a velvet Grexit
The Versailles terms imposed on Germany in 1919 were vindictive and narrow-minded, but not beyond reach. Greece is being told to do the impossible
One day we will learn the full story of what went on at the top levels of the German government before the villenage of Greece last weekend.We already know that the EMU accord - if that is the right word – is an economic and diplomatic fiasco of the first order. It does serious damage to the moral credibility of the EU but resolves nothing.
There is not the slightest chance that Greece will be able stabilize its debt and return to viability under the Carthaginian settlement imposed on Alexis Tsipras - after 17 hours of psychological “water-boarding”, as one EU official put it.
The latest paper by the International Monetary Fund has torn away the fig-leaf. The country needs a 30-year moratorium on debt payments and probably outright subsidies to recover from the devastation of the past six years.
Instead it gets pro-cyclical fiscal contraction of 2pc of GDP by next year.
Some are already comparing the terms to the Versailles Treaty but this does not quite capture the depravity of it. The demands imposed on Germany in 1919 were certainly vindictive and narrow-minded – as Keynes rightly alleged – but they were not, on the face of it, beyond reach.
----What Greece is being asked to do is scientifically impossible. Almost everybody involved in the talks knows this. Yet the lie goes on because the dysfunctional nature of EMU politics and governance makes it impossible to come clean. The country is dishonestly kept in a permanent state of crisis.
More
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11744305/Greece-should-seize-Germanys-botched-offer-of-a-velvet-Grexit.html
"The paper standard is self-destructive."
Hans F. Sennholz
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday
final figures were: Registered 58.96 Moz, Eligible 119.45 Moz, Total 178.41
Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
No crooks today just yet more sign of mounting
global economic and political trouble. Time to head for the hills.
North American rail layoffs on the rise amid slump in cargo and profits
THOMAS BLACK Bloomberg News
Tuesday, Jul. 14, 2015 4:17PM EDT Last updated Tuesday,
Jul. 14, 2015 11:33PM EDT
Additional railway layoffs loom on top of more than 1,000 job cuts this
year as North American carriers including Union Pacific Corp. and Canadian
National Railway Co. try to cushion a second-quarter earnings slump.
The reason: Shipments of grain and energy products are weakening, with
carloads in North America falling 2.3 per cent in the three months ended June
30, according to Bloomberg data based on Association of American Railroads
(AAR) statistics.
The cargo decline reverses the patterns of 2014, when railways
hired as fast as possible to handle a record grain harvest, oil gushing at $100
(U.S.) a barrel and a surprise rebound in coal. The companies may have been too
slow to adjust when times turned bad – putting jobs on the line now.
----Rail
analysts and investors could start getting a glimpse of the new reality as soon
as Tuesday, when CSX Corp. reports second-quarter earnings. It will be the
first of the major North American carriers to release results. “Selective
furloughing” was part of the railway’s strategy, chief financial officer
Fredrik Eliasson said in a May 14 presentation.
More than 1,000 workers likely will be furloughed at Union Pacific, the
largest U.S. railway by sales, Mr. Seidl said. In May, CN said it had laid off
400 people and Kansas City Southern cut 110 jobs.
BNSF Railway Co., the railway owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire
Hathaway Inc., has made cuts this year to adjust to lower cargo volumes, said
Mike Trevino, a spokesman. He declined to provide numbers.
More
China warns Manila over repairs to ship on Spratly reef outpost
BEIJING
China on Wednesday condemned the Philippines for doing repairs to a
rusting ship it ran aground on a South China Sea reef, demanding Manila remove
the vessel while adding that Beijing "reserved the right to take further
measures".
The Foreign Ministry did not elaborate on those measures in a statement
that called Manila the "real regional trouble maker" for reinforcing
the ship, which has sat on Second Thomas Shoal since 1999. The wording of the
warning mirrors what China has said in the past when it's particularly angry
with other countries.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that the Philippine navy had been using
wooden fishing boats and other small craft to move cement, steel and welding
equipment to the BRP Sierra Madre since late last year for repair work aimed at
stopping the ship from breaking apart.
Manila regards Second Thomas Shoal, which lies 105 nautical miles (195
km) southwest of the Philippine region of Palawan, as being within its
200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone. China, which claims virtually all
the South China Sea, says the reef is part of its territory.
The 100 meter-long (330-foot) BRP Sierra Madre, a tank landing ship, was
built for the U.S. Navy during World War Two.
It was eventually transferred to the Philippine navy, which deliberately
grounded it on Second Thomas Shoal to mark Manila's claim to the reef in the
Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea. A small contingent of Philippine
soldiers are stationed onboard.
China's Foreign Ministry said it was "extremely dissatisfied with
and resolutely opposed to" the repairs.
Manila had promised many times to remove the ship, but the repair work
showed it was "two faced", it said.
More
Japan military chief says South China Sea surveillance possible
Washington
|
Japan's top military commander, Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, said on
Thursday he expected China to become increasingly assertive in the South China
Sea and it was possible Japan would conduct patrols and surveillance activities
there in the future.
Speaking in Washington, Kawano said there had been "talk" of
Japan conducting such patrols in the South China Sea, including anti-submarine
activities.
"But our position on this is that we consider this as a potential
future issue to be considered depending on how things pan out,” he told the
Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
Kawano earlier met with his U.S. counterpart, General Martin Dempsey,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and discussed implementation of updated
bilateral defense guidelines agreed this year, a joint statement said.
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. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC energy
mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards? A quantum computer
next?
Today, tires for
the coming EV revolution.
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand,
more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the
lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
Nicolo Machiavelli
Hankook Tire’s Future-oriented Tire Succeeds High-speed Driving without Air Pressure
July 13, 2015 (Seoul, Korea) – Hankook Tire announced that
it had successfully completed its ride and handling tests for its latest
non-pneumatic tire (NPT) Hankook iFlex, which is made using eco-friendly
materials.
The iFlex is the latest example of Hankook Tire’s continued technology
leadership. The company’s ability to push the boundaries of driving
capabilities is a direct result of its robust foundation in R&D as well as
the following world-class technological prowess.
As the name suggests, NPTs do not require air pressure. Hankook Tire has
continued researching on the new tire technologies particularly for NPT since
2011. Crucially, the company has been working toward the development of NPTs
that achieve all of the practical benefits of conventional air pressure tires
while simultaneously enhancing their high speed tire characteristics. The
iFlex, which is the fifth NPT concept tire that Hankook Tire has released, is
the culmination of that effort.
The company put the iFlex through a serious of rigorous tests designed
to push the tires to their limits in five categories: durability, hardness,
stability, slalom (zigzag) and speed. In the speed test, the electric car
equipped with iFlex tires reached 130km/h. The impressive results in all five
categories demonstrated that the NPTs could match conventional tires in terms
of performance. At the same time, these results are expected to help the
company solidify its position as a global top-tier tire company and, give new
momentum to its future-oriented R&D capabilities.
Construction of the iFlex is centered on a new type of uni-material
designed to maximize the tire’s eco-friendly potential. From a manufacturing
standpoint, the material used during product construction significantly
enhances the energy efficiency. From a product standpoint, the material allows
the iFlex to be recycled with greater ease. Hankook Tire then went one step
further, integrating new tire construction techniques to simplify the
manufacturing process from eight stages to just four, thus further reducing the
company’s carbon footprint.
“The Hankook iFlex’s ability to deliver the perfect high-speed driving
performance is the result of Hankook Tire’s longstanding commitment to
independently developing progressive, innovative tire technology. Aiming to
strengthen our technological leadership in the global tire market, we will
continue to develop cutting edge eco-friendly and future-oriented tires” says
Mr. Seung-Hwa Suh, Vice Chairman and CEO of Hankook Tire.
Hankook Tire currently has a number of projects underway that are
centered on developing future-oriented tire products. For example, ‘The Next
Driving Lab,’ a brand campaign that was initiated in 2013, is operated
primarily to let talented engineers and designers bring to life their wildest
futuristic dreams for innovative driving experiences. Likewise, Hankook Tire
collaborates every two years with world-renowned design schools to host the
‘Design Innovation’ project. This project allows students to propose and study
future tire concepts designed at generating safer, more reliable, and more
advanced tire performances.
http://www.hankooktire.com/global/about-hankook-tire/media-center/press-room.54727.html
Michelin opens first plant dedicated to production of airless tires
A punctured tire is the definition of a bad day, but
Michelin is taking some of the sting out as it announces the opening of its
newest North American plant, which the company says is the first in the world
dedicated to the manufacture of airless tires called "Tweels". The US$50 million plant
will be used to make the Michelin X Tweel Airless Radial Tire and others for
commercial and agricultural applications.
The Tweel is a combined tire and wheel that was introduced by Michelin
as a concept in 2005. It consists of a molded-tread rubber band similar to that
of a conventional tire mounted on a steel shear beam that acts as a contact
patch. Between this and the hub is a series of energy-absorbing polyurethane
spokes connected to an inner rim structure, which can be adjusted based on the
expected loads with the tread also able to be customized.
According to Michelin, the Tweel lasts three times as long as
conventional tires. Unlike conventional tires, the tread can be replaced
without having to replace the entire unit, so there is less waste of material.
In addition, since the design doesn't need to retain air, it can be made to
shed water quickly, which reduces hydroplaning. The company says that the Tweel
is easy to install, damage resistant, and provides increased operator comfort.
More
Just because something doesn’t do what you planned
it to do, doesn’t mean it’s useless.
Thomas Alva Edison.
Have a great weekend everyone.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished June
DJIA: +98 Down. NASDAQ:
+192 Down. SP500: +127 Down.
No comments:
Post a Comment