Baltic Dry Index. 759 -15 Brent Crude 47.12
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Thanks to the idiotic folly of Germany’s Chancellor Merkel in inviting all the world’s economic migrants to come to Germany, the EUSSR is starting to fall apart. Brexit may not be needed after all. Chancellor Merkel seems to be single handedly destroying the EUSSR by herself. Continental Europe seems yet again to be descending towards chaos. In her latest unilateral action, she seems to be offering Turkey’s 75 million population entry into the EUSSR by the back door, if only Turkey will do more to bottle up the genuine Syrian hapless refugees in Turkey. A winter tragedy looms in Balkan Europe.
The real blame shared with Merkel, lies with the American War Party and the CIA that funded and armed ISIS, via Saudi Arabia and the UAE. While the US military ran the failed program seeking to train and arm “moderate” anti-Assad rebels, it apparently produce 5 fighters at a cost of 500 million dollars, the CIA got on with funding and arming the Sunnis against the Shiites. They created ISIS, and the chaos that exists today. The EUSSR should charter ships to ship the migrants on to Boston, New York, and Washington. But there is no leadership in the fast dying EUSSR.
Below, the havoc and tragedy Obama’s folly and the CIA unleashed.
Migrant Crisis Intensifies in Balkans as EU Wrangles on Solution
October 26, 2015 — 12:43 PM GMT
The influx of migrants threatening to overwhelm the tiny Balkan nations on
the European Union’s southeastern edge has intensified, the United Nations
refugee agency said Monday after the trading bloc’s members clashed over how to manage the crisis.As many as 49,000 migrants entered the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia last week, lifting the number since the start of the year to 300,000, Mirjana Milenkovski of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Monday. The daily average number of people entering Serbia increased last week to 7,000 from 5,000 a week earlier, she said. Slovenia’s police said 76,300 people had crossed the nation’s borders since Oct. 17.
“The influx gained pace over the past week rather than slowing done as some expected,” Milenkovski said by phone.
Europe’s migrant crisis is intensifying ahead of the onset of winter, with EU countries wrangling over how to tackle the expected arrival of 1 million refugees or more who are fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East for better lives in Europe. On Sunday, EU leaders agreed to provide emergency shelter to 100,000 people, following complaints by Balkan countries that said their calls for help had gone unanswered.
Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II intensified at the end of summer after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there could be no limit on granting asylum to those who legitimately met the criteria. At around the same time, migrants began shifting from a route that once led mainly through Libya to southern Europe to one winding from Turkey to Greece, through the Balkan states, and then further on to Austria and Germany.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-26/migrant-crisis-intensifies-in-balkans-as-eu-wrangles-on-solution
Italy Says EU's Response `Inadequate' as Refugees Surge
October 26, 2015 — 8:48 AM GMT Updated on October 26, 2015 — 4:26 PM GMT
European Union agreements on the free movement of people may be at risk of
collapse unless the bloc eases the burden for border countries forced to handle
asylum-seekers, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said.Gentiloni, whose country has borne the brunt of the influx from Africa and the Middle East, said that common policies to share the burden would leave the EU much better placed to help people fleeing conflict.
He also called for clear criteria to define so-called safe countries that migrants could be sent back to.
“Europe -- with hundreds of millions of people -- can accept hundreds of thousands of migrants” so long as there is a common policy, Gentiloni said in a television interview. “The idea that EU border countries should solve 80 percent of the problem is completely out of touch with reality.”
Balkan Surge
Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II intensified at the end of summer after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there could be no limit on granting asylum to those who legitimately met the criteria. Migrants also began shifting from a route that once led mainly through Libya to southern Europe to one winding from Turkey to Greece, through the Balkan states, and then further north.With winter approaching and more than a million migrants set to reach the EU this year, the bloc’s leaders are struggling to present a united front as national authorities have tightened their borders and waved asylum seekers through to neighboring countries. Slovenia said at a Sunday meeting in Brussels that Croatia is causing chaos by sending migrants across its frontier with little warning.
In yet another sign of the divisions, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Monday said it was a concern that Poland wasn’t accepting more refugees. “Poland is taking only a limited number of people and I find that disturbing,” he said at an event in The Hague. “Poland gets a lot of subsidies. We help to build Poland -- they should take up asylum seekers in return.”
Gentiloni’s warning came as the United Nations said the influx on the region’s southeastern fringe is growing. As many as 49,000 migrants entered the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which isn’t an EU member, last week, Mirjana Milenkovski of the UNHCR, said on Monday. The daily average number of people entering Serbia increased to 7,000 from 5,000 a week earlier, she said.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-26/europe-tensions-on-refugee-crisis-laid-bare-at-brussels-meeting
Slovenia to hire private security firms to manage migrant flows
Monday 26 October 2015 18.39 GMTSlovenia is planning to employ private security firms to help manage the flow of thousands of migrants and refugees travelling through the country toward northern Europe, a senior official has said. Boštjan Šefic, state secretary at the interior ministry, said 50-60 private security guards would assist the police where necessary.
More than 76,000 people have arrived in Slovenia from Croatia in the past 10 days. More than 9,000 were in Slovenia on Monday, hoping to reach Austria by the end of the day, while many more were on their way to Slovenia from Croatia and Serbia.
The emergency measure was announced by the prime minister, who described the migrant crisis as the biggest challenge yet to the EU. “If a joint solution is not found, [the trade bloc] will start breaking up,” Miro Cerar warned.
About 2,000 migrants waited in a field in Rigonce on the Croatian border on Monday for buses to take them to a nearby camp to be registered before they are allowed to proceed north.
More
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/slovenia-private-security-firms-manage-migrant-flows-refugees
Drone Video Shows Huge Column of Illegal Immigrants in Slovenia
Slovenia PM says crisis may destroy the European Union
October 26, 2015http://www.infowars.com/drone-video-shows-huge-column-of-illegal-immigrants-in-slovenia/
In other news, the commodity crash intensifies.
Asia shares run out of puff, commodities pressured
Bourses across the region were colored red, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slipping 0.7 percent.
China led the way with one of those sudden falls that have become all too common. The CSI300 index .CSI300 of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen and the Shanghai Composite .SSEC both shed 2.2 percent.
Dealers said there was no obvious news behind the fall, though some noted tensions in South China Sea as the U.S. Navy sent a destroyer within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands built by China.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 eased 0.7 percent, though remained near a two-month high.
Risk sentiment had been supported by China's rate cut last week and the prospect of more easing from the European Central Bank in December.
There has been speculation the Bank of Japan might expand its asset buying campaign at a policy meeting on Friday, though recent reports make it less likely.
Even less is expected from the U.S. Federal Reserve when it meets on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Investors are pricing in no chance of a rate hike this week, but could react to how the Fed's statement interprets recent soft U.S. economic data and events in global financial markets.
---- All eyes will be on Apple's (AAPL.O) results later Tuesday with investors anxious to hear how many new phones were sold by the world's most profitable company, and its guidance for the current quarter.
---- Commodity markets continued to be dogged by concerns over plentiful supplies and weak demand. Three-month copper CMCU3 slipped 0.4 percent to $5,170 a metric ton.
Crude oil stayed under pressure after two straight weeks of losses, on
worries that the oversupply in oil products would swell from unseasonably warm
weather and the waning maintenance cycle for U.S. refineries. [O/R]
U.S. crude CLc1 was down 56 cents at $43.42 a barrel, while Brent LCOc1
fell 42 cents to $47.12 a barrel.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/27/us-markets-global-idUSKCN0SL01J20151027We end for the day with a Chinese article found too late for inclusion in yesterday’s LIR update. China’s empty brand new cities are increasingly matched by China’s empty and emptying malls.
Here's why China's malls are closing despite rising consumption
Pete Sweeney and Jessica Macy Yu, Reuters 15h
SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - The Di Mei shopping center in downtown
Shanghai is a surprisingly depressing place to shop.
The underground mall is located in one of the most shopping-mad cities
in China, and yet it is run down and starved of customers.
"Sometimes I cannot sell even one dress in a day," said dress
shop owner Ms Xu, who rents a space in Di Mei.
Rising vacancy rates and plummeting rents are increasingly common in
Chinese malls and department stores, despite official data showing a sharp
rebound in retail sales that helped the world's second-largest economy beat
expectations in the third quarter.
The answer to that apparent contradiction lies in the rising competition
from online shopping and government purchases possibly boosting retail
statistics. Add poorly managed properties into the equation and the empty malls
aren't much of a surprise.
More importantly, the struggles of Chinese brick-and-mortar retailers
amplify a policy conundrum; these malls, built to reap gains from rising
consumption, are instead adding to China’s corporate debt problem, currently at
160 percent of GDP - twice as high as the United States.
Less foot traffic means cash flow of mall owners and developers are
getting squeezed - a potential hazard for an economy growing at its slowest
pace in decades.
Di Mei's owners are trying to refurbish, but it's unclear whether it
will pay off, and others are just closing down. The Sunlight Store in Beijing,
for example, is located in another prime pedestrian hub, but it closed its
blinds this month, with manager Ni Guifang telling Reuters they are seeking
greener pastures online.
"The sales were just OK, but the overall sales were on the downward
trend," Ni said.
Major listed mall operators are also feeling the pain. Dalian Wanda, a
big property developer, said in January it would close or restructure 30 of its
retail venues and in August said more adjustments were underway.
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"As growth in retail sales slows because of the country's lower GDP
growth, and in cities where mall space is abundant, vacancy rates have risen
substantially," said Moody's analyst Marie Lam in a research note.
In its latest efforts to reenergize the economy, China's central bank on
Friday cut interest rates for the sixth time in less than a year.
Tim Condon, an economist at ING in Singapore warned that investors
should not read China's official retail figures as exclusively reflective of
rising household consumption, noting that the data also capture some government
purchases.
----China is currently the site of more
than half the world's shopping mall construction, according to CBRE, a real
estate firm, even though it appears that many of these malls will not produce
good returns for their investors.
A joint report by the China Chain Store Association and Deloitte showed
that by the end of this year, the total number of China's new malls is
projected to reach 4,000, a jump of over 40 percent from 2011.
More
At the Comex silver depositories Monday
final figures were: Registered 43.53 Moz, Eligible 118.93 Moz, Total 162.46
Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Yes it’s the banksters again. When the Dutch banks
aren’t busy enabling mega corporations to evade EU national taxes, on the
Mexican border they look to be suspiciously like laundering drug money.
Cash-Filled Trucks Leaving Calexico Cast Cloud Over Rabobank
October 26,
2015 — 5:00 AM GMT
Rabobank’s Calexico branch had an unusual problem -- too much cash.
Among the Dutch bank’s 119 branches in California, the tiny outpost
along Mexico’s border needed weekly armored truck visits -- sometimes more than
one -- to haul away all the U.S. dollars being deposited.
The deluge, described by a person familiar with the bank’s operations
who said it picked up after 2010, came from businesses just across the border
in Mexicali. While other Rabobank branches needed currency to distribute to
customers, Calexico was shipping it out.
The armored car trips, which persisted for years, offer a clue about what
prosecutors may find in a widening investigation into whether Rabobank Groep
was vigilant enough against money laundering. Rabobank shut the Calexico branch
in January under a cloud as federal investigators sought to determine if the
bank had ignored signs that its California operations may have been used by
drug cartels to launder funds.U.S. investigators now have evidence that some bank officials may have impeded internal efforts to scrutinize customer accounts and to report suspicious transactions, according to the person who described the armored car runs and another person familiar with the investigation. Some of the activity the authorities are said to be looking at occurred under the watch of a compliance officer who Rabobank poached directly from its regulator to get its house in order.
Furthermore, some bank officials may have tried to cover up the alleged activity by withholding documents from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the people said. Federal authorities could view any such actions as obstruction of justice.
Hendrik Jan Eijpe, Rabobank’s spokesman, said the bank is cooperating with investigators, but declined to provide further information. Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment.
A half-dozen U.S. enforcers and regulators are circling Rabobank, a cooperative based in Utrecht that promotes itself as one of Europe’s cleanest and safest banks. Until snared in an industry-wide interest rate-rigging scandal two years ago, the bank had not had a criminal enforcement action or a significant regulatory failing, federal prosecutors said in that case.
Criminal action related to the anti-money laundering probe would be double trouble for Rabobank, which is still bound by its 2013 deal over the manipulation of benchmark interest rates. The deferred prosecution agreement, set to expire Oct. 29, allows Rabobank to escape criminal charges if it avoids further legal trouble in the U.S.
The
Justice Department could file charges for the old rate-rigging allegations if
it finds fresh problems. UBS Group AG was dealt such a blow in May after
officials concluded that the bank had failed to root out misconduct on its
foreign exchange desk while under a similar agreement. In the Rabobank
interest-rate case, U.S. prosecutors said in an Oct. 1 court filing that they
might ask for more time to decide on Rabobank.
More
Solar & Related Update.
With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this new section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards? DC? A quantum computer next?Cobalt atoms on graphene a powerful combo
Catalyst holds promise for clean, inexpensive hydrogen production
Date: October 21, 2015
Source: Rice University
Summary: Cobalt atoms on nitrogen-doped graphene are a
robust solid-state catalyst for hydrogen production. The discovery may be an
effective replacement for more expensive platinum-activated catalysts in fuel
cells and other energy applications.
Graphene doped with nitrogen and augmented with cobalt atoms has proven
to be an effective, durable catalyst for the production of hydrogen from water,
according to scientists at Rice University.
The Rice lab of chemist James Tour and colleagues at the Chinese Academy
of Sciences, the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of
Houston have reported the development of a robust, solid-state catalyst that
shows promise to replace expensive platinum for hydrogen generation.
Catalysts can split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen
atoms, a process required for fuel cells. The latest discovery, detailed in Nature
Communications, is a significant step toward lower-cost catalysts for
energy production, according to the researchers.
"What's unique about this paper is that we show not the use of
metal particles, not the use of metal nanoparticles, but the use of
atoms," Tour said. "The particles doing this chemistry are as small
as you can possibly get."
Even particles on the nanoscale work only at the surface, he said.
"There are so many atoms inside the nanoparticle that never do anything.
But in our process the atoms driving catalysis have no metal atoms next to
them. We're getting away with very little cobalt to make a catalyst that nearly
matches the best platinum catalysts." In comparison tests, he said the new
material nearly matched platinum's efficiency to begin reacting at a low onset
voltage, the amount of electricity it needs to begin separating water into
hydrogen and oxygen.
The new catalyst is mixed as a solution and can be reduced to a
paper-like material or used as a surface coating. Tour said single-atom
catalysts have been realized in liquids, but rarely on a surface. "This
way we can build electrodes out of it," he said. "It should be easy
to integrate into devices."
----They tested nitrogen-doped graphene
on its own and found it lacked the ability to kick the catalytic process into
gear. But adding cobalt in very small amounts significantly increased its
ability to split acidic or basic water.
"This is an extremely high-performance material," Tour said.
He noted platinum-carbon catalysts still boast the lowest onset voltage.
"No question, they're the best. But this is very close to it and much
easier to produce and hundreds of times less expensive."
Atom-thick graphene is the ideal substrate, Tour said, because of its
high surface area, stability in harsh operating conditions and high
conductivity. Samples of the new catalyst showed a negligible decrease in
activity after 10 hours of accelerated degradation studies in the lab.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September
DJIA: +41 Down. NASDAQ:
+138 Down. SP500: +65 Down.
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