Baltic Dry Index. 949 -14 Brent Crude 54.93
“The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.”
“Adam Smith” aka George Goodman.
We open with news from China. As President Trump nears assuming office and a trade war with China, China reverts to communist type. Not a good sign for the future.
Chinese professor sacked after criticizing Mao online
A Chinese professor has been sacked after he criticized Chairman Mao
Zedong on his 123rd birthday in an commentary he posted online that enraged
leftists.
Mao, who died on Dec. 9, 1976, is still officially venerated by the
ruling Communist Party as the founder of modern China and his face appears on
every yuan banknote.
But he is particularly respected by leftists who believe the country has
become too capitalist and unequal over three decades of market-based reforms,
and attitudes towards Mao and his legacy mirror differences between reformers
and traditionalists.
Deng Xiaochao, 62, an art professor at Shandong Jianzhu University in
central China, posted a commentary on his Weibo social media site, dated Dec.
26, Mao's birthday, suggesting Mao was responsible for a famine that led to 3
million deaths and the Cultural Revolution in which 2 million died.
The post was deleted but an image of it has been shared online and seen
by Reuters.
Such public criticism of is rare in China and Mao's supporters took to
the streets to protest against Deng shortly after he made the comments.
Some held banners saying "Whoever opposes Mao is an enemy of the
people", according to videos and photos widely shared on Weibo.
The state-owned tabloid the Global Times reported late on Monday that
Deng was dismissed from his post as counselor of the provincial government last
Thursday, while the university's party committee posted a statement saying Deng
would no longer teach or be allowed to organize social events on campus.
The Global Times did not give a reason for Deng's dismissal.
The Shandong government said on its website Deng had been dismissed for
breaking provincial and national rules on government work, without providing
details, and that local discipline bodies had been informed.
Morehttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-mao-idUSKBN14U0EG?il=0
With just 10 days to go before America’s new broom takes office to “drain the swamp,” JPMorgan’s CEO thinks that US interest rates are headed higher than the market currently thinks. A doom and gloom Remainiac nutter on Brexit, he couldn’t have been more wrong, but is he right on US interest rates under President Trump? A four decade long bull market in the US bond market is over. If Mr. Dimon’s right a new multi-year bear market is just starting.
Dimon Predicts Rising Interest Rates Based on U.S. Growth
by Jared S Hopkins
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon predicted
that interest rates will rise along with a growing U.S. economy.
“I believe America is doing better than people think and therefore
interest rates are probably going to be stronger than people think,” Dimon
said, addressing health investors and executives at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare
Conference in San Francisco.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/dimon-predicts-rising-interest-rates-based-on-u-s-growthIn further developments in the Volkswagen dirty diesel scandal, it looks like the US authorities finally want to put some of the criminals in jail. But will any German VW execs get extradicted?
F.B.I. Arrests Volkswagen Executive on Conspiracy Charges in Emissions Scandal
The Federal Bureau
of Investigation has arrested a Volkswagen executive who
faces charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, two people with
knowledge of the arrest said on Sunday, marking an escalation of the criminal
investigation into the automaker’s diesel emissions cheating scandal.
Oliver Schmidt, who led Volkswagen’s regulatory
compliance office in the United States from 2014 to March 2015, was arrested on
Saturday by investigators in Florida and is expected to be arraigned on Monday
in Detroit, said the two people, a law enforcement official and someone
familiar with the case.
After a study by West Virginia University first raised
questions over Volkswagen’s diesel motors in early 2014, Mr. Schmidt played a
central role in trying to convince regulators that excess emissions were caused
by technical problems rather than by deliberate cheating. Much of the data
presented to regulators was fabricated, officials
of the California Air Resources Board have said.
Mr. Schmidt continued to represent Volkswagen after
the company admitted in September that cars were programmed to dupe regulators.
He appeared
before a committee of the British Parliament in January, telling legislators
that Volkswagen’s behavior was not illegal in Europe.
Lawyers representing Mr. Schmidt did not respond to
requests for comment late Sunday. Officials at the Justice Department also
declined to comment, as did an F.B.I. spokesman in Detroit.
Morehttp://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/business/volkswagen-diesel-emissions-investigation-settlement.html?hpw&rref=business&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
Volkswagen Executives in Germany to Face U.S. Charges in Diesel Case
by Tom Schoenberg, Andrew M Harris, and David McLaughlin
9 January 2017, 14:41 GMT 9 January 2017, 15:08 GMT
U.S. prosecutors are planning to charge high-level Volkswagen AG
executives based in Germany over the automaker’s diesel-cheating scandal,
according to a person familiar with the matter, after arresting a manager in
the U.S. for allegedly misleading regulators.
Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt was arrested in Florida, according
to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit. He was charged with conspiracy to defraud
the U.S., according to a complaint made public on Monday in Detroit.
The person familiar with the situation declined to specify when charges
against more senior-level executives may be filed or whether the executives to
be charged are still employed by the automaker.
Schmidt is accused of participating in a conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
government and Volkswagen customers and to violate the federal Clean Air Act,
according to court papers.
Schmidt began working for the automaker in 1997 and served as general
manager in charge of its Environmental and Engineering Office from 2012 to
2015, according to the complaint. That agency was primarily responsible for
communicating and coordinating with U.S. regulatory agencies, according to
prosecutors. In March 2015, Schmidt was promoted to a more senior management
position within Volkswagen.
Later that
year, after emissions testing discrepancies became known to the U.S.
government, he allegedly misled federal regulators about reasons for the
differing test results, “offering reasons for the discrepancy other than the
fact that VW was intentionally cheating on U.S. emissions test in order to
allow VW to continue to sell diesel vehicles in the United States,” according
to an affidavit filed by the FBI.
Volkswagen is a nearing a multibillion-dollar settlement with the
Justice Department to resolve a criminal investigation into the diesel-cheating
allegations, which could be announced as soon as this week, Bloomberg reported
Friday.
The case is U.S. v. Oliver Schmidt, 16-mj-30588, U.S. District Court for
the Eastern District of Michigan
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/volkswagen-executive-arrested-in-miami-in-u-s-emission-probeIn emerging market news, Paraguay is eating Brazil’s lunch. Sort of “big fleas have lesser fleas upon their backs to bite them…”
Brazil Worries the ‘China of South America’ Is Eating Its Lunch
by Bruce Douglas and Matthew Malinowski
9 January 2017, 10:00 GMT
Brazilians are starting to have second thoughts about the business El Dorado
next door.Low taxes, low wages and low overheads are driving the Paraguayan government’s ambition to become the "China of South America": a low-cost manufacturing hub that attracts investment from across the region.
As Brazil struggles through its worst recession on record, dozens of businesses have set up operations across the border, creating thousands of jobs. Broadly welcomed by the Brazilian government at first, the migration of investment is now facing increasing scrutiny as unemployment rises to unprecedented levels.
"It used to be a joke," said Murillo Onesti of Sao Paulo law firm OLN Advogados, referring to Paraguay’s past reputation in Brazil as a source of cheap knock-offs. "China faced the same resistance at first. But people are seeing now that you can produce better quality goods at a lower price."
In effect since 2000, Paraguay’s "maquila law" aims to replicate the success of Mexico’s maquiladora -- or manufacturing plant -- operations. Goods can be imported tax-free for assembly, then sold locally or exported with only the value-added part taxed at a rate of just 1 percent.
Since 2013 Brazilian companies have started to invest in earnest,
encouraged initially by the vigorous salesmanship of Paraguayan President
Horacio Cartes, and subsequently by the need to cut costs in Brazil’s
dramatically deteriorating business environment.
"The crisis has helped," said Onesti, who offers legal and
strategic advice to Brazilian businesses. "Executives are looking to
reduce costs and increase productivity. Paraguay offers this solution."
Of the 126 businesses currently operating under the maquila law, 80 have
opened since the start of Cartes’s mandate in August 2013, according to
Paraguayan government figures. These companies have created over 11,000 jobs,
with 6,700 coming in the last three years.
Around 80 percent of the foreign businesses set up under Paraguay’s
maquila law are Brazilian-owned, according to Brazil’s National Industry
Confederation, or CNI.
More"Gold would have value if for no other reason than that it enables a citizen to fashion his financial escape from the state."
William F. Rickenbacker
At the Comex silver depositories Monday
final figures were: Registered 28.58 Moz, Eligible 152.10 Moz,
Total 180.68 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, a safe is only as safe as those who know the
combination.
It’s Right in the Name: Safes Are Safe. Except for Two on New Year’s Eve.
They read like descriptions of props from the script
of a Hollywood heist caper, with promises to ward off “attacks” on all six
sides from the usual suspects: hammer, crowbar, drill, blowtorch,
nitroglycerin. That is the language of the brochures and websites of the city’s
safe dealers, a small but longstanding industry that manages fears in and
around the diamond district not only of disasters like fires or explosions, but
also of hypothetical supervillains.
When a safe is breached, word travels quickly. What
happened? Whose safe was it? How did they get in?
Those were the sorts of questions raised last week
after a team of burglars broke into a jeweler’s office on West 36th Street on
New Year’s Eve. The crime was widely reported
for its scope — the thieves made off with $6 million in diamonds and other gems
— and its brazen timing, occurring as the ball dropped six blocks away in a
neighborhood teeming with police officers. Surveillance video showing two
people hitting a sixth-floor door with hammers was taken immediately after
midnight, the police said, when the sound of cheers would have most likely
drowned out any banging.
But
what happened next is, to many in the safe industry, more important than the
forced entry. The two safes that held the valuables, the police said, showed no
sign of forced entry.
The police have not provided further details on the
safes. News reports
have suggested investigators are looking into whether someone working for the
dealer who provided the safes gave the thieves the combinations. A man
answering the telephone at the office of the dealer, Lacka Safe in New Jersey,
said on Friday that the owners declined to comment.
As that investigation unfolds, the burglary — or
“attack,” in high-end security parlance — draws attention to the last line of
defense for the city’s many jewelers, an object that, for all the advances in
technology over the years, remains a box with three sides, a top, a bottom and
a door. High-end safes evoke exciting scenes from the movies, with steely
safecrackers listening for clicks or drilling into dense steel with lasers.
In reality, though, making safes is a hushed trade
built on discretion and trust.
“I get calls all the time, ‘Are your people O.K.?’”
said Richard Krasilovsky of Empire
Safe in Midtown. “How safe is it — all puns intended — for your people to
do the work? The people know where the safe is going. I say it’s a legitimate
question to ask.”
Dealers carry an array of safes and locks, including
digital locks with keypads and time locks that prevent anyone from opening the
door, with or without the combination, while they’re activated. The jewelers of
Manhattan historically prefer more traditional designs for their safes, dealers
said last week, with mechanical combination locks.
“It’s an older industry,” said Dov Israeli of Precision Lock and Safe in Floral
Park, N.Y. “They’re focused on price and less on what’s new.”
More
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?
Volkswagen resurrects the Kombi as an AWD, autonomous electric minibus
Loz Blain 4 hours ago
Electric is the big focus for Volkswagen right now, as it gears
up for a serious push into EVs beginning in 2020. This I.D. Buzz minibus shows
us what we might be in for - including a modular, convertible cabin, augmented
reality HUD, removable dash and speakers and laser-guided self driving.
Volkswagen is
all-in on electric starting in 2020, with a new platform in the works, a full
range of "fully connected, all-electric" vehicles on the drawing
board and rumors circulating that it might even build its own gigafactory-style
battery plant to supply the million-plus electrics it wants to sell per year by
2025. We can't think of a better way to shake off the company's unfortunate
reputation after the dieselgate
scandal.
After showing the I.D compact concept
in Paris, VW has wheeled out a nifty modular electric van concept at this
year's Detroit NAIAS auto show that harks back to the famous Kombi (Type 2)
vans that came to symbolize the hippie and surfie lifestyles from the 1950s
through to the 1980s.
The I.D. Buzz
concept puts a modern twist on that familiar shape, with a more aerodynamically
friendly front profile and a clever converting interior that reflects VW's
intentions for this multi-function vehicle.
The back and middle seats can fold down to take
cargo, or up to take up to six passengers. Well, seven, really, because the
driver can choose to take the wheel, or let the car self-drive and spin the
front seats around to create a moving lounge room experience.
Pushing the
steering wheel in (it's more of a steering panel, with a touchscreen on it)
makes it retract and merge into the dash, switching the I.D. Buzz into an
autonomous I.D. Pilot mode the company says we should see active by 2025. As
well as radars, ultrasonic sensors and cameras, Volkswagen says it'll use laser
scanners to more precisely map the terrain and other road users in self-driving
mode.
The main dash is a large touchscreen unit that sits
on the front console, but can also snap off so you can pass it around the car
or take it out with you.
---- If you do bother to drive yourself, navigation directions are shown via an augmented reality HUD that projects images to look as if they're 23-49 feet in front of the vehicle and overlaid on the scenery. You'll note there are no mirrors poking out the sides either, these are replaced by an e-mirror that shows images from rear and side cameras.
Power and
performance was never really the Kombi's selling point, but an 111
kilowatt-hour battery and all-wheel-drive electric motors form the 369-horsepower
drivetrain platform of the vehicle, and that'll bring a fair bit of pep to the
party. Volkswagen would be just as happy to build one with a smaller 83 kWh
battery and rear wheel drive for a lower price point.
More
+ pics
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished December
DJIA: 19763
+74 Up NASDAQ: 5383 +70 Up. SP500: 2239 +75 Up
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