Baltic Dry Index. 608
-01 Brent Crude 49.18
Brexit odds checker.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-referendum/referendum-on-eu-membership-result
Brexit Quote of the Day.
Prime Ministers Major, Broon, and Blair,
The Three Remainiac Stooges.
Major: "Gimme a 3 letter word
meaning 'rat'." "Meaning 'rat'?" "Yeah." (Broon points
to Blair) "H-i-m." With apologies.
With Dodgy Dave’s Remainiac surrender team in a
deep panic as the polls show Leave leading, Project Fear is now going into Warp
Drive. Yesterday it was even rumoured that “happy, slappy” J.C. Junker is
heading to London next week to read the Brussels Riot Act to GB voters.
In a
time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George
Orwell.
Osborne Warns of Brexit Tax Toll as ‘Leave’ Gains in Polls
June 15, 2016 — 12:13 AM BST Updated on June 15, 2016 — 4:43 AM BST
Reduced trade and investment would leave a 30 billion pound ($42
billion) “black hole” that would have to be plugged by increased taxes and cuts
to spending on health, education and defense, Osborne will say in a speech on
Wednesday. He’ll share the platform with Alistair Darling, his predecessor from
the opposition Labour Party, who’s also urging Britons to vote “Remain” in the
June 23 referendum.
The joint appearance by two political adversaries is a sign of how
rattled the anti-Brexit campaign has become, after a slew of opinion polls
showed a lead for those wanting to leave the EU. Markets are showing signs of
alarm too. The pound has slid 2.9 percent in a week and the S&P 500
Index fell for a fourth day on Tuesday. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced
about 0.2 percent Wednesday after shedding more than 4 percent in the previous
four sessions.
The latest survey, published Tuesday evening, contained slightly better news for Osborne and his boss, Prime Minister David Cameron. But the ComRes phone poll for the Sun newspaper still showed momentum is on the other side. It found 46 percent backing “Remain” and 45 percent percent for “Leave,” narrowing a gap that had been 11 points a month earlier. Nine percent said they were undecided. Before that, five polls in two days had shown Leave ahead, by between 1 and 7 points.
As he seeks to reverse the tide, Osborne will slam a key financial argument often made by his opponents.
“Far from freeing up money to spend on public services as the Leave campaign would like you to believe, quitting the EU would mean less money, billions less,” the chancellor will say, according to speech extracts released by his office. That would mean “an emergency budget where we would have to increase taxes and cut spending.”
He’ll also point to signs of growing anxiety in the business world. France’s largest insurer warned Tuesday that there’s an “extremely high” probability of a Brexit. Investors would then face “a true landscape of uncertainties,” because no one’s prepared for the negotiations that would follow a vote to leave, Axa SA Chief Executive Officer Henri de Castries said at a conference in Paris.
More
Rather deceitfully, Bloomberg fails to point out that Axa SA Chief Executive Officer Henri de Castries, was
the lead Bilderberger at their recent secret meeting in Dresden, so he would
say that sort of thing for his fellow Bilderberger pal Chancellor Ozzie
Osbourne. Still if Draghi & Co. at the ECB keep pushing interest rates
negative, French mega insurer Axa will soon have a hard time meeting its
liabilities, and de Castries and Axa may have a parting of ways.
Below, more on the
duplicitous EUSSR.
Everything the EU Is Hiding Until After the Referendum
By Kieran
Corcoran | 3:22 am, June 14, 2016
The Brexit debate has been full of dishonesty – not least that of
EU officials, and our own, who have been quietly shelving controversial plans
until just after the vote.Fresh Plans for an EU Army
A secret paper on “foreign and security policy”, which pushes to expand the EU’s defence capability, is being kept under wraps until June 24 – the day after Britain decides.Diplomats can read them but are banned from making copies.
The Times was passed hand-written notes on the plans, which envision a major cash injection for EU defence, and its own headquarters.
Scheme to Hand Out 1million UK Visas to Turks
Turkish accession to the EU has become a flashpoint in the referendum, bringing with it the prospect of even more mass migration to the UK.David Cameron – who once promised to “pave the road from Ankara to Brussels” – now insists it won’t join the bloc until the year 3000.
But this weekend The
Sunday Times revealed there is no need for Turkey to join the EU to trigger
mass migration.
Under a scheme floated by British diplomats, the UK Government could hand
out some 1,500,000 visas as part of a sweetheart deal to thank Turkey for
holding back refugees from crossing into Greece.Ruling on Muzzling British Anti-Terror Police
The European Court of Justice has been sitting on a ruling on the so-called Snooper’s Charter, which could hobble plans to give police more powers.Danish judge Claus Christian Gulmann was due to give a ruling in April, but kicked his decision back until July – just a few weeks after the vote.
A decision to curb the UK powers could have given extra ammo to the Leave campaign’s argument that strict EU laws stop Britain fighting terror properly.
Demands for Even More Cash
Proposals for the EU’s 2017 budget were due in late May, but have been suspiciously punted back a month.Inevitably, the plan will be to spend even more of member states’ public money.
According to The Times, cash has been earmarked for dealing with the migrant crisis, upgrading Brussels buildings and funding regional projects.
More
Back in the Bilderberger people’s paradise of the
EUSSR, things continue to go from bad to worse.
Sub-Zero German Yields Risk Creating Vicious Cycle for Investors
June 15, 2016 — 12:01 AM BST
he rally in Germany’s bonds is creating a headache for investors.
The yield on the nation’s 10-year bund dropped below zero for the first
time on record on Tuesday, leaving some investors balking at the lack of return
on offer for holding Europe’s benchmark securities. Meanwhile, the surge in
bunds has pushed yields on more than half of the $1.13 trillion Bloomberg
German Sovereign Bond Index below the European Central Bank’s minus 0.4 percent
deposit rate, making almost $600 billion of the bonds ineligible for its
quantitative easing plan.
That risks creating a scarcity of bonds for the ECB, forcing it to purchase a higher proportion of longer-dated securities, and in doing so push down yields further, according to BlueBay Asset Management LLP. That will require investors to accept ever lower yields for the privilege of holding the debt, seen as a haven in times of turmoil. German bonds due in more than 10 years have returned 14 percent this year, according to Bank of America Corp. indexes, compared with a 0.2 percent return for shorter-dated debt.
“Central banks have become dominant players in bonds in order to fulfil their economic objectives,” said Salman Ahmed, chief strategist at Lombard Odier, which oversees about $150 billion. “For investors, that is a serious problem. It means taking greater risk for very low returns in a stressed liquidity situation.”
Demand for German bonds has surged as polls showed the U.K. may be on course to quit the European Union following a June 23 referendum. The securities have also been the biggest beneficiary among major European bond markets of the ECB’s buying, according to Bloomberg World Bond Indexes. The ECB’s quantitative easing plan was boosted to 80 billion euros ($90 billion) per month earlier this year.
Bill Gross, the manager of the $1.4 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, said in a tweet last week that central banks have created “a supernova that will explode one day.” In April 2015, when bund yields were also at record lows, Gross, a former chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co., said the securities were the “short of a lifetime,” presaging a selloff which saw 10-year yields climb by more than a percentage point within two months.
More
With Brexit looking more likely with each passing
day, Dodgy Dave is about to get a visit from his EUSSR boss. Apparently, Dodgy
Dave’s boss is less than pleased.
Dodgy Dave Cameron: "Juncker, I
haven't tasted food for 3 days."
Juncker: "Well, I wouldn't worry about it... it still tastes the
same."
How the EU helps out. With apologies to
Curly, Moe, and Larry.
Juncker To Head to London.
June 14 2016A well-sourced article in the leading German news magazine Der Spiegel reports that Jean-Claude Juncker is set to make a major intervention in the referendum next week. They say Cameron made an extraordinary deal with Juncker whereby the Commission would keep quiet during the campaign, on the condition that he could intervene in the last few days if the polls had Brexit ahead:
“Juncker had to promise British Prime Minister David Cameron that the EU executive branch would stay out of the Brexit debate… Juncker only managed to convince Cameron to give him a small loophole: If Brexit supporters have a clear lead in polls in the week prior to the June 23 referendum, the Commission president will be allowed to make his voice heard. That, of course, would be too late to significantly shift public opinion, but it would mean that Juncker could not be accused of having done nothing to prevent a Brexit. Under no circumstances does Juncker want to go down in history as the first Commission president to preside over a member state departing the EU.”
The report also confirms Guido’s story from last month that the PM has asked Merkel to stay out of the campaign:
“an appeal from Cameron that Chancellor Angela Merkel stay out of the referendum debate. Even comments intended to provide support are not helpful, the Chancellery was informed”
Run Juncker, run Juncker, run,
run, run
Run Juncker , run Juncker,
run, run, run
Bang, bang, bang, bang goes
the Brexit gun
Run Juncker, run Juncker, run,
run, run, run
At
the Comex silver depositories Tuesday final figures were: Registered 22.48 Moz, Eligible 128.57 Moz, Total 151.05 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, yet more trouble in China.
Careening Toward Disaster——China’s Consumers Can’t Make Up The Slack For Slumping Malinvestment
by Jeffrey P. Snider • June 13,
2016
As always, there is the attempt to put a brave
face on what is shaping up to be the worst year yet. China’s “big 3” economic
data were all disappointing in the context of what the last “brave face” was
supposed to suggest – where weakness at the start of the year was only due to
“global turmoil” and would quickly recede. Instead, industrial production
stayed at 6% while retail sales expanded at only 10%, matching the worst growth
rate (April 2015) of the last ten years.The real problem, however, is as noted last month: fixed asset investment. FAI was the heart of both the Chinese “miracle” as well as the government efforts to deal with the fallout from its curious end coincident to the eurodollar system’s. The latest figures are suggesting a growing disaster. Total FAI, which includes fiscal activities (“stimulus”), grew by just 9.6% in the January to May period (the National Bureau of Statistics reports FAI in accumulated totals). That was the first rate below 10% since December 2000!
For just the private economy, the accumulated growth rate was 3.9% in the first five months of 2016, down sharply from 5.2% in the four months including April and 10.1% for 2015 as a whole. By my calculation, private FAI in May was up just 1.0% from May 2015 leaving the Chinese economy careening toward disaster.
The mainstream is finally acknowledging the precarious state of Chinese fortunes but once again being careful to “balance” it all out with hopes placed squarely upon consumers.
A slowdown in private investment is particularly worrisome because it indicates that companies are holding off spending, signaling limited confidence in the future and denying the economy what is often more effective and sustainable investment than government spending.
Sheng Laiyun, a spokesman with the country’s National Bureau of Statistics, cited overcapacity and a difficulty in obtaining financing as reasons private companies are reluctant to invest, though he said China’s economic fundamentals remain sound. “The slowdown in private investment shows that economic growth momentum needs to be strengthened,” he said.
“Though…China’s economic fundamentals remain sound”? These are just words stripped of all meaning as the first quoted paragraph devastates any idea of a “sound” economy. The spokesman basically claimed that the economy is sound except for all the primary and basic foundations which are not. The Wall Street Journal does its orthodox job of trying to put consumers at the leading edge of Chinese growth rather than at the end where the economy actually places them. The article starts off by claiming that “other, more upbeat economic data” were overshadowed by all this weakness, including the proper reference to “difficulty in obtaining financing.” That last part is the key which brings together the entire global transition.
---- Not only will the Chinese consumer need to overcome the global “headwind” of the collapse in global trade, the non-industrial economy now has the job of further convincing Chinese firms to start reinvesting for all this advertised consumer demand. The service/consumer economy will not only have to grow at a robust enough rate to propel the whole economy, it must now do so that much more intensely to offset this further export/industrial setback. Retail sales continually slowing with a lag to IP is still in the wrong direction. That would suggest a far different interpretation of private FAI in 2016 as opposed to even 2015. In other words, it is far more likely, in my view, that Chinese firms have given up on the consumer economy of late due to the events of the past year and in full view of nothing but further slowing everywhere.
More
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?
Scientists design and build new energy-carrying particles
In the mysterious microscopic realm where the electromagnetic fields of
light and matter intimately intermingle as they exchange energy, plasmons,
excitons, and other particles with unexpected and usual properties abound. Now
physicists have created a new set of energy-carrying particles to add to this
range. Dubbed "topological plexcitons," these new particles show
promise in greatly enhancing energy flows for solar cells and nanoscale
photonic circuitry.
Scientists at UC San Diego, MIT and Harvard University have engineered
these particles to help improve a process known as exciton energy transfer
(EET). Created as a conjunction of plasmons (a quantity of collective electron
oscillations) and excitons (excited electrons bound to the hole produced by
their excitation), topological plexcitons specifically aid better direct energy
flows in the EET.
"When light and matter interact, they exchange energy," said
Joel Yuen-Zhou, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San
Diego. "Energy can flow back and forth between light in a metal (so called
plasmon) and light in a molecule (so called exciton). When this exchange is
much faster than their respective decay rates, their individual identities are
lost, and it is more accurate to think about them as hybrid particles; excitons
and plasmons marry to form plexcitons."
EET has previously only been possible over picayune distances, in the
order of about 10 nanometers (a 100 millionth of a meter), and rapidly
disappeared as the excitons' energy fields intermingled – then dissipated – as
they encountered other particles and molecules along the way.
One method physicists used to solve this problem was to combine excitons
in a molecular crystal with the collective excitations within metals to create
plexcitons. This improved the problems of rapid dissipation, and increased the
distance for EET to around 20,000 nanometers (about the width of a human hair).
Whilst this may seem a tad small, it was in fact a vast improvement at such
minuscule scales.
Unfortunately, whilst plexcitons helped increase the distance of energy
transfer, the direction in which they did so was uncontrolled, which tended to
negate any real gains. The solution to this, the researchers found, was to
create the new topological plexcitons designed around the properties of
materials known as "topological insulators" that act as insulators
internally, but have surfaces that conduct, so that electrons are only able to
move along the surface of the material.
"Topological insulators are materials that are perfect electrical
insulators in the bulk but at their edges behave as perfect one-dimensional
metallic cables," said Yuen-Zhou. "The exciting feature of
topological insulators is that even when the material is imperfect and has
impurities, there is a large threshold of operation where electrons that start
traveling along one direction cannot bounce back, making electron transport
robust. In other words, one may think about the electrons being blind to
impurities."
The directionality created on plexcitons by adding a toplogical
component to the mix means that one day "plexcitonic" switches could
be created to selectively distribute energy across the microscopic components
of new types of solar cells or other light-harvesting devices to greatly
improve power flows and efficiencies.
'You
just never know. That unpredictability is the great thing about life. You
change. The world changes. You live in a country where we are still blessed
with enormous opportunity. Leave yourself open to the world of possibility. You
have the ambition, you have the smarts and you have the toughness. So, turn the
page on your biography - you have just started a new chapter in your lives.'
Lloyd
Blankfein CEO of Goldman Sachs unintentionally backs Brexit in a US speech to
graduates.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
DJIA: 17787
-20 Up NASDAQ: 4946 +04 Down. SP500: 2097 -18 Up.
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