Baltic Dry Index. 609
-01 Brent Crude 49.91
Brexit odds checker.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-referendum/referendum-on-eu-membership-result
Brexit Quote of the Day.
UK Chancellor Ozzie and his dismal science lads
and ladettes at the Treasury are operating on Virtual Reality = Artificial
Intelligence x Chaos Theory. His results speak for themselves. Chaos = his
Virtual Reality divided by his Artificial Intelligence.
We
open today with the silliest, most embarrassing, dumbest ever threat yet on
Brexit by a European apparatchik, as the Remainiacs panic. Step forward and take a bow Poland’s Donald
Tusk, one of the EUSSR’s gaggle of five, yes five, overpaid and tax free, useless EUSSR
presidents. According to the delusional Tusk, British freedom from the wealth
and jobs destroying EUSSR “could be the beginning of the destruction of not
only the EU but also of western political civilization in its entirety."
Did this version of the EUSSR presidency just spend too long at breakfast with
scotch liquid breakfaster, EC president J. C. Juncker.
Western civilisation, at least that part of it in continental Europe is
under threat, but from all Migrant Mad Merkel’s new economic immigrant friends
with no background in Europe’s Christian heritage, history, and since 1945
tolerance.
But if the dumbest EUSSR president in a pretty dumb gaggle really feels that way,
why didn’t he speak up for Dodgy Dave’s renegotiation attempt, during Dodgy
Dave’s brown nose, continental, EU renegotiation, surrender tour? After all,
“the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilization
in its entirety" does sound like something that probably isn’t a very good
idea. Who knew that John Bull was the keystone of “western political civilization
in its entirety.” I wonder if anyone has told the English football hooligans
rioting in Marseilles or rotting in a French jail, that they are the salt of "western political civilisation in its entirety?"
I'm a white male, age 18 to
59. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.
Donald Tusk, with apologies
to Homer Simpson
EU's Tusk says Brexit could threaten western political civilization
If Britons vote to leave the European Union in a June 23 referendum it
could be the beginning of the end for the 28-nation bloc and for western
political civilization more generally, European Council President Donald Tusk
said.
In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Tusk said a so-called Brexit
vote would provide a major boost to radical anti-European forces who he said
would be "drinking champagne".
"Why is it so dangerous? Because no one can foresee what the
long-term consequences would be," Tusk said. "As a historian I fear
that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but
also of western political civilization in its entirety."
Everyone in the European Union would lose out economically if Britain
left, Tusk said.
"Every family knows that a divorce is traumatic for everyone.
Everyone in the EU, but especially the Brits themselves, would lose out economically,"
he said.
The latest polls show Britons are almost evenly split over whether to
stay or go.
Although he expressed hope that the EU would survive in the event of a
Brexit, Tusk said the price would be high.
Europe Stocks Slide for Fourth Day as Brexit Concerns Intensify
June 13, 2016 — 8:22 AM BST Updated on June 13, 2016 — 4:58 PM BST
European stocks slid to their lowest in almost four months as investor
anxiety that the U.K. will leave the European Union deepened.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 1.8 percent to 326.8 at the close of trading. Shares Friday slumped the most since the nadir of the February selloff as risky assets were shunned before a slew of monetary-policy and political events. The equity gauge has traded in a range of less than 25 points since March, struggling to hold on to gains after surging 16 percent from its February low to an April 20 high. A measure of stock volatility jumped 14 percent today, for its biggest four-day increase since August.
The U.K. holds a referendum on June 23 to determine whether or not to stay in the European Union. Optimism that it will choose to remain has given way to fear in global financial markets since the middle of last week as polls indicated the vote is too close to call. Investors are also bracing for the Federal Reserve’s rate decision and Chair Janet Yellen’s commentary afterward, as well as looking to Spain’s general election scheduled for June 26.
“There
are many uncertainties, so we could continue seeing declines and touch new lows
in the days to come,” said John Plassard, a senior equity-sales trader at
Mirabaud Securities in Geneva. “Even though nobody is expecting a rate hike,
everyone will look at what Yellen will say at the press conference. We are 10
days from the Brexit vote, and also days away from the election in Spain, while
oil is lower and volatility is the highest in months.”
Italy’s Banca Popolare di Milano Scarl and Banca Monte dei Paschi di
Siena SpA slipped at least 9.1 percent, leading a measure of lenders to the
worst performance of the 19 industry groups on the Stoxx 600.
Carmakers were also among the biggest decliners. BMW AG fell 1.9 percent
after its sales chief told Automobilwoche newspaper that the U.S. market “will
stagnate at best” in 2016. Technip SA and Amec Foster Wheeler Plc led energy
companies lower as Bank of America Corp. said there is still no reason to turn
positive on oil-service providers.
More
Asian shares slip as Fed, Brexit loom
Asian stocks slipped on Tuesday ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's
two-day meeting that begins later in the day, amid growing worries this month's
referendum in Britain could see it exit the European Union.
The pound and euro have suffered in recent sessions as economists fear a
so-called Brexit would tip Europe back into recession. Voters appear divided
ahead of the June 23 referendum, with the "Out" campaign widening its
lead over the "In" camp, according to two opinion polls published by
ICM on Monday.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.6
percent, after Wall Street lost ground for the third straight session.
Japan's Nikkei stock index skidded 1.5 percent after tumbling 3.5
percent on Monday.
"Short-term hedge funds have started betting on Brexit, and futures
players will likely dominate the market's move today," said Norihiro
Fujito, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley
Securities.
The benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yield fell to as low as
minus-0.175 percent, a fresh record, before edging back to minus-0.170 percent.
Uncertainty over this week's Federal Reserve policy meeting has weighed
on markets, though the U.S. central bank is widely expected to leave rates
unchanged after the much weaker-than-expected May nonfarm payrolls report.
More
Up
next, Italy and immigration. I rest my Brexit case, M’lud.
Italy’s failure to thrive puts the boot into eurozone goal
Roger Bootle12 June 2016 • 4:57pm
To elucidate some of the major issues about the European Union, I sometimes
find it useful to look at the performance of individual states. Two weeks ago, I
discussed the French economy, whose woes have cast a pall over the Euro
2016 football championships. For reasons which should soon become clear, today
I turn my attention to Italy.Although the relevant numbers aren’t as large, in many ways the economic failure of Italy is more striking than Greece’s economic implosion – and definitely more dangerous. Italy is the eighth largest economy in the world and has a major presence in important industrial sectors. When a country like this gets into trouble, the consequences are pretty big.
Since the formation of the euro in 1999, the Italian economy has hardly grown at all. The total increase in GDP has been about 3pc. Yes, I do mean the total increase and not the annual average. To put this into perspective, over this period, Spain has managed to grow by 30pc, and the US and the UK by 35pc.
As you might expect, this appallingly weak performance manifests itself in several ugly ways. Unemployment is running at more than 11pc nationwide. But in the south, it is very nearly 20pc. And youth unemployment for the country as a whole is more than 35pc.
Whereas Greece’s government debt is at about 180pc of GDP, Italy’s is
just over 130pc of GDP. This is still a horrific number and, because Italy’s
economy is much bigger, the absolute amount of Italian government debt is much
larger.
The consequences of the weak economy are also evident in the poor
quality of bank assets. Something like 17pc of bank loans are “non-performing”,
compared to about 2pc in Germany and 4pc in France. Several possible sources of
crisis exist in the eurozone but the Italian banking system is a leading
candidate. A major blow-up would have dire consequences for all.
Why is Italy in such a mess? Most of its problems are home-grown. In
particular, the labour market, the housing market and the legal system all
function badly. Moreover, the Italian political system seems incapable of
delivering radical reform. In these various malfunctionings the EU has played
next to no role.
The one area where the EU is to blame, of course, is the euro, which has
been a complete disaster for the Italian economy. In Italy’s heyday, it always
had a tendency to inflate faster than the Germanic countries to its north. This
periodically landed it with a problem of uncompetitiveness, which damaged its
international trade and hence its overall GDP. But the escape route was always
close at hand – namely a weaker exchange rate for the lira. This mixture of
exchange rate weakness and relatively high inflation was far from ideal. But if
costs and prices are going to increase rapidly, the ability to depreciate the
currency is absolutely critical.
---- One clear lesson from this is that the EU is far from being the only
factor affecting economic performance in Europe. Within the EU, it is possible
to do things relatively well, and it is also possible to do things relatively
badly. (The same is true for countries outside the EU.)But the Italian experience also makes it clear that the various things the EU supposedly does to improve economic performance aren’t worth very much. Yes, Italy is in the single market and enjoys all the much-vaunted advantages of that arrangement: it has a seat at the table when regulations and standards are framed; these rules apply both in Italy and across the single market; no customs forms are needed when Italian goods head northward; no tariffs are encountered.
Similarly, when Italian goods and services are sold to other eurozone countries there are no problems about exchange rate uncertainty or the cost of changing money.
Yet Italy has not been carried forward on a wave of prosperity brought about by the absence of form-filling at borders and the convenience of operating in a common currency. Funny that.
It may have had some very successful companies, but Italy has rarely been blessed with stable and effective government. This is why Italy has traditionally been an extremely europhile country. Most Italians felt quite relaxed about Rome ceding power to Brussels.
But now, in reaction to recent appalling economic performance, coupled with the EU’s imposition of an unelected “technocratic” prime minister in 2011, more and more Italians are thinking radically about the future. In a recent opinion poll, 58pc of Italians said they wanted a referendum on EU membership and 48pc said that they would vote to leave the EU.
More
UK faces net migration of over a quarter of a million if it stays in EU, according to Migration Watch
Monday 13 June 2016 9:58am
Britain
will face annual net migration of over a quarter of a million for the next
twenty years if the country remains in the EU, according to a report from
Migration Watch released today.The report describes its findings as a "cautious estimate", saying that net migration could be 265,000 in 2035. Sixty per cent of this would come from the EU, and the report "notes that there is widespread complacency and denial about both the likelihood and the impact of rapid population growth".
James Brokenshire, the government's immigration
minister who is pro-EU, said that leaving the EU was "not the answer to
the complex issues of immigration".
Lord
Green of Deddington, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: "This report is
a final wake up call. Even leaving aside the prospect of Turkey joining the EU,
it shows that net migration could still be running at 265,000 a year in 20
years time.
"This
would bring our population to 80m within 30 years. If we remain in the EU there
will be nothing to stop a continuing rapid increase in our population.
"This
would change our country for ever against the express wishes of a very large
majority of our fellow citizens."
The
report comes as the issue of
Turkey joining the EU
has become a hot-topic in the debate, with Ian Duncan
Smith saying the government is "perpetuating an enormous deceit on the
British public"
over visa-free travel for people from Turkey.
More
You tried your best and you
failed miserably, Dave. The lesson in the EUSSR is 'never try'.
Donald Tusk, with apologies
to Homer Simpson.
At
the Comex silver depositories Monday final figures were: Registered 22.48 Moz, Eligible 128.56 Moz, Total 151.04 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
What do we need a
psychiatrist for? We know the EUSSR is nuts.
Nigel Farage, with
apologies to Homer Simpson
Brexit vote is about the supremacy of Parliament and nothing else: Why I am voting to leave the EU
Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard12 June
2016 • 6:00pm
ith sadness and tortured by doubts, I will cast my vote as an ordinary
citizen for withdrawal from the European Union.
Let there be no illusion about the trauma of Brexit. Anybody who claims
that Britain can lightly disengage after 43 years enmeshed in EU affairs is a
charlatan, or a dreamer, or has little contact with the realities of
global finance and geopolitics.
Stripped of distractions, it comes down to an elemental choice: whether
to restore the full self-government of this nation, or to continue living under
a higher supranational regime, ruled by a European Council that we do not elect
in any meaningful sense, and that the British people can never remove, even
when it persists in error.
For some of us - and we do not take our cue from the Leave campaign - it
has nothing to do with payments into the EU budget. Whatever the sum, it is
economically trivial, worth unfettered access to a giant market.
We are deciding whether to be guided by a Commission with
quasi-executive powers that operates more like the priesthood of the 13th
Century papacy than a modern civil service; and whether to submit to a European
Court (ECJ) that claims sweeping supremacy, with no right of appeal.
It is whether you think the nation states of Europe are the only
authentic fora of democracy, be it in this country, or Sweden, or the
Netherlands, or France - where Nicholas Sarkozy has launched his presidential
bid with an invocation of King Clovis and 1,500 years of Frankish unity.
My Europhile Greek friend Yanis Varoufakis and I both agree on one
central point, that today's EU is a deformed halfway house that nobody
ever wanted. His solution is a great leap forward towards a United
States of Europe with a genuine parliament holding an elected president to
account. Though even he doubts his dream. "There is a virtue in
heroic failure," he said.
I do not think this is remotely possible, or would
be desirable if it were, but it is not on offer anyway. Six years into the
eurozone crisis there is no a flicker of fiscal union: no eurobonds, no
Hamiltonian redemption fund, no pooling of debt, and no budget transfers. The
banking union belies its name. Germany and the creditor states have dug in
their heels.
Where we concur is that the EU as constructed is not
only corrosive but ultimately dangerous, and that is the phase we
have now reached as governing authority of crumbles across Europe.
The Project bleeds the lifeblood of the national institutions, but fails
to replace them with anything lovable or legitimate at a European level. It
draws away charisma, and destroys it. This is how democracies die.
---- Nobody has ever been held to account
for the design faults and hubris of the euro, or for the monetary and fiscal
contraction that turned recession into depression, and led to levels of youth
unemployment across a large arc of Europe that nobody would have thought
possible or tolerable in a modern civilized society. The only people ever
blamed are the victims.
There has been no truth and reconciliation commission for the greatest
economic crime of modern times. We do not know who exactly was responsible for
anything because power was exercised through a shadowy interplay of elites in
Berlin, Frankfurt, Brussels, and Paris, and still is. Everything is deniable.
All slips through the crack of oversight.
Nor have those in charge learned the lessons of EMU failure. The burden
of adjustment still falls on South, without offsetting expansion in the North.
It is a formula for deflation and hysteresis. That way lies yet another Lost
Decade.
Has there ever been a proper airing of how the elected leaders of Greece
and Italy were forced out of power and replaced by EU technocrats, perhaps not
by coups d'etat in a strict legal sense but certainly by skulduggery? On
what authority did the European Central Bank write secret letters to the
leaders of Spain and Italy in 2011 ordering detailed changes to labour and
social law, and fiscal policy, holding a gun to their head on bond purchases?
More
"Gold
was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold
had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the
commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium." Murray N. Rothbard
Brexit The Animated Movie.
Brexit
Quote of the week.
We hold these
truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness outside of the EUSSR.”
With grateful
thanks to the writers of the US Declaration of Independence.
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this
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?
Solar installations overtaking all other conventional energy sources in the U.S.
Published: June 10, 2016 6:11 a.m. ET
In the first quarter of 2016, there were more solar installations, and the price became more affordable
It looks like 2016 may be solar energy’s time in the sun.
Not only did the U.S. have more new solar capacity additions — mainly
installations of solar photovoltaic panels — in the first quarter than all
other energy sources combined, but going solar is becoming more affordable.
In the three months ending March 31, there were 1,665 megawatts (MW) of
solar power plants — accounting for 64% of total capacity additions — more than
coal, natural gas and nuclear combined, according to a joint report by the
Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) and GTM Research, the research arm
of Greentech Media, an energy and greentech company.
This growth comes on the heels of a record 2015, in which solar exceeded
natural gas capacity additions on an annual basis for the first time ever, the
report said.
Also during the quarter, overall system pricing fell by up to 8.8% with
residential system prices falling 8.3%, the report said. This decrease was due
to continued reduction in hardware cost, or the costs of actual solar panels,
and an increased focus on tackling soft costs such as installation, obtaining
permits and labor.
Over the rest of the year, the country is expected to install 14.5
gigawatts (GW) of capacity, a 94% jump over the 7.5 GW in capacity installed in
2015.
“While it took us 40 years to hit 1 million U.S. solar installations,
we’re expected to hit 2 million within the next two years,” Tom Kimbis, SEIA’s
interim president, said in the report. “The solar industry is growing at warp
speed, driven by the fact that solar is one of the lowest cost options for
electricity and it’s being embraced by people who both care about the
environment and want access to affordable and reliable electricity.”
The U.S today has 27 gigawatts of installed capacity — enough to power
5.4 million average American homes.
The residential PV segment added over half a gigawatt for the fourth
consecutive quarter. Despite some policy hurdles, the segment continued its
track record of quarterly growth, although at a much slower rate due to a
typical seasonal dip during the late winter months, the report said.
MoreThe monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
DJIA: 17787
-20 Up NASDAQ: 4946 +04 Down. SP500: 2097 -18 Up.
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