Baltic Dry Index. 773 +28
Brent Crude 48.67
The whole history
of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at
first, and deadly afterwards.
Walter Bagehot.
Despite 8 years
of ZIRP, QE forever, and a year of rising insanity of negative interest rates, we
seem to be back with the air running out of the global economy again. According
to the central banksters, we were supposed to be in the promised land of milk
and honey long before now. But then again what do they know. They never saw the
great crash of 2008 coming, to a man said if
John Bull voted for Brexit, the UK economy would collapse, and a legion
of accursed dangerous gambling banksters, would trek off to Amsterdam, Frankfurt,
Paris and Zurich. So far we haven’t got rid of a single dangerous bankster. UK
taxpayers are still on the hook for every last one of them, when the next
Lehman hits, which is getting closer with every passing day on NIRP. Now the
EUSSR is proposing more taxes.
Bigger share of EU budget could come from national taxes: advisory group
The European Union could raise more funds from national taxes specially
earmarked to finance particular programs under plans flagged on Wednesday by an
advisory group hoping to make the bloc more transparent and closer to citizens.
Under the plan, the EU could raise more revenues directly from member
states' taxes, which currently constitute only about 10 percent of its total
budget.
This could help reduce the bitter wrangling among the EU's 28 member
states that regularly mars negotiations over the calculation of national
payments to the EU budget, which currently account for more than two-thirds of
EU revenues and are based on the countries' wealth.
The EU is keen to consider alternative revenues, especially in view of
the planned exit of Britain, one of the largest contributors to its budget,
following its June 23 referendum.
The current EU budget, totaling around one trillion euros, runs from
2014 till 2020 inclusive.
Mario Monti, a former Italian prime minister and chair of the advisory
group, suggested increasing the share of EU revenues coming from taxes at the
expense of the payments from national budgets.
He also proposed a direct link between taxes raised at the national
level and spending on specific policies such as security.
"There are certainly ways to devise 'own resources' (EU revenues)
linked to an objective, a priority or a policy. This would make the financing
of the EU more understandable to our citizens," Monti told lawmakers in
the European Parliament.
Monti said his group was studying the possibility of raising funds from
national taxes on motor fuel, financial activities or carbon emissions.
More
First Factories, Now Services Signal Cracks in U.S. Economy
Some cracks could be starting to appear in the picture of an otherwise
resilient U.S. economy.
An abrupt drop in the Institute for Supply Management’s services
gauge on Tuesday to a six-year low is the latest in a string of
unexpectedly weak data for August. Other less-than-stellar figures include an
ISM factory survey showing a contraction in manufacturing; a cooling of hiring;
automobile sales falling short of forecasts; and an index of consumer sentiment
at a four-month low.
While there is hardly any evidence that growth is falling off a cliff,
the run of disappointing figures make it tougher to argue that the underlying
momentum of the world’s largest economy is holding up. It also potentially
complicates the task of Federal Reserve policy makers, who are debating whether
to raise interest rates as soon as this month; traders’ bets on a September
move faded further after the report on service industries, which make up almost
90 percent of the economy.
“The latest set of ISM numbers is shockingly weak,” said Joshua Shapiro,
chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc. in New York. “It certainly
gives the doves at the Fed more ammunition. It makes the Fed’s conversation at
the September meeting that much more contentious.”
The ISM’s non-manufacturing index slumped to 51.4, the lowest since
February 2010, from 55.5 in July, the Tempe, Arizona-based group
reported. The figure was lower than the most pessimistic projection in a
Bloomberg survey.
More
Saudi Cost-Cutting Drive May Cancel $20 Billion of Projects
September 6,
2016 — 2:30 PM BST Updated on September 7, 2016 — 12:38 PM BST
Saudi Arabia is weighing plans to cancel more than $20 billion of
projects and slash ministry budgets by a quarter to repair finances
squeezed by low oil prices, people familiar with the matter said, efforts that
analysts expect to slow economic growth.
The government is reviewing thousands of projects valued at about 260
billion riyals ($69 billion) and may cancel a third of them, three people said,
asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. The measures would
impact the budget for several years and may include transport, housing and
healthcare projects, according to two of the people. The government plans to
carry out the review within six months, they said.
A separate plan includes merging some government ministries and
eliminating others, two people said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
The benchmark stock index dropped the most among Middle East markets monitored
by Bloomberg.
More
Elsewhere it was no one bring up the elephant in the room.
Asia leaders tiptoe around South China Sea tensions
Asian leaders played down tensions over the South China Sea in a
carefully worded summit statement on Thursday, but even before it was issued
Beijing voiced frustration with countries outside the region
"interfering" in tussles over the strategic waterway.
The heads of 10 Southeast Asian nations, as well as U.S. President
Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang among six other leaders, "reaffirmed
the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security and freedom of
navigation in and over-flight in the South China Sea".
But the draft of a statement to be issued in Vientiane, Laos, tiptoed
around the regional strains caused by competing claims to areas of the
strategically important sea.
"Several leaders remained seriously concerned over recent
developments in the South China Sea," said the draft.
The statement, seen by Reuters, made no reference to a July ruling by a
court in The Hague that declared illegal some of China's artificial islands in
the sea and invalidated its claims to almost the entire waterway.
Obama said on Thursday the ruling had helped clarify maritime rights.
"I recognize this raises tensions but I also look forward to discussing
how we can constructively move forward together to lower tensions," he
said at a summit meeting.
Officials said that talks on Wednesday between leaders of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China's Li had gone
smoothly.
But in a statement later from China's Foreign Ministry, Li was
paraphrased as saying China was willing to work with Southeast Asian countries
in "dispelling interference ... and properly handling the South China Sea
issue".
He did not elaborate, but such wording is typically used by Chinese
leaders to refer to not allowing countries from outside the region with no
direct involvement in the dispute, like the United States, from getting
involved.
More
“It is hard for us, without being flippant, to even see a scenario
within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing one dollar in any
of those [Credit Default Swap] transactions.”
Joseph J. Cassano, former head
of A.I.G. Financial Products, London, August 2007. AIG was bailed out with 85
billion September 2008, after Cassano’s riskless CDS blew up.
At the Comex silver depositories Tuesday final figures were: Registered
28.80 Moz,
Eligible 134.06 Moz, Total 162.86 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, those dirty killer diesel cheats at Volkswagen are getting
ready to rollout their first battery powered, commercial van. If they catch on,
at least they might offset some of the killer pollutants in our cities, spewing
out from their cheating diesel engines.Volkswagen says van drivers' electric eureka moment yet to come
"If electric drives offer no distinct benefits to cost-oriented entrepreneurs, they will not join in," Eckhard Scholz, chief executive of VW's commercial vehicle unit said.
Scholz said practical issues with the day-to-day use of electric vans as well as concerns about the total costs of ownership make it harder for battery-powered vans and commercial vehicles to take off.
"The typical customer for commercial vehicles has yet to be convinced," he added in emailed comments to Reuters.
VW, facing billions of dollars in fines and customer compensation linked to its tainted diesel engines, is cutting costs across group to fund a transformation focused on electric cars and on-demand mobility services.
Electric vehicles have become the holy grail for carmakers, with new entrants such as Tesla and technology giants like Alphabet's Google posing a competitive threat.
The van division, accounting for no more than about 2 percent of VW's 213 billion euros ($239 billion) of annual group sales, will use the Sept. 21-22 Hanover trucks show to present its first battery-powered model, the e-load up! mirco van.
Scholz complained that representatives and owners of mainly privately-run small businesses such as electricians and plumbers had been excluded from talks between the German government and carmakers such as VW and Daimler, who earlier this year agreed on sales incentives and more charging stations to spur demand for electric cars in Europe's biggest auto market.
VW is making an aggressive push into electric cars at its core namesake brand and its Audi and Porsche premium divisions, with the goal of launching more than 30 zero-emission cars across the group by 2025.
More
"Those entrapped by the herd instinct are drowned in the deluges of history. But there are always the few who observe, reason, and take precautions, and thus escape the flood. For these few gold has been the asset of last resort."
Antony C. Sutton
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?
Nanotubes morphed into tougher carbon for spacecraft, satellites
Date:
September 6, 2016
Source:
Rice University
Summary:
Researchers turn nanotubes into nanodiamonds and other forms of carbon by
smashing them into a target at hypervelocity. The results will help in the
design of light, strong materials for aerospace applications.
Superman can famously make a diamond by crushing a chunk of coal in his
hand, but Rice University scientists are employing a different tactic.
Rice materials scientists are making nanodiamonds and other forms of
carbon by smashing nanotubes against a target at high speeds. Nanodiamonds
won't make anyone rich, but the process of making them will enrich the
knowledge of engineers who design structures that resist damage from high-speed
impacts.
The diamonds are the result of a detailed study on the ballistic
fracturing of carbon nanotubes at different velocities. The results showed that
such high-energy impacts caused atomic bonds in the nanotubes to break and
sometimes recombine into different structures.
The work led by the labs of materials scientists Pulickel Ajayan at Rice
and Douglas Galvao at the State University of Campinas, Brazil, is intended to
help aerospace engineers design ultralight materials for spacecraft and
satellites that can withstand impacts from high-velocity projectiles like micrometeorites.
The research appears in the American Chemical Society journal ACS
Applied Materials and Interfaces.
Knowing how the atomic bonds of nanotubes can be recombined will give
scientists clues to develop lightweight materials by rearranging those bonds,
said co-lead author and Rice graduate student Sehmus Ozden.
"Satellites and spacecraft are at risk of various destructive
projectiles, such as micrometeorites and orbital debris," Ozden said.
"To avoid this kind of destructive damage, we need lightweight, flexible
materials with extraordinary mechanical properties. Carbon nanotubes can offer
a real solution."
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August.
DJIA: 18401
+18 Up NASDAQ: 5213 +16 Up. SP500: 2171 +18 Up.
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