Baltic Dry Index. 757 +16 Brent Crude 56.15
Protectionism
will do little to create jobs and if foreigners retaliate, we will surely lose
jobs.
Alan
Greenspan
We open today, six weeks in to OPEC’s
six month long oil production cutback, with another look at the oil industry.
So far so good, but month three will likely bring forth the cheaters in the
liars and cheaters cartel.
Russia Overtakes Saudi Arabia as World's Largest Crude Producer
by Claudia Carpenter
20 February 2017, 09:11 GMT
Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest crude producer in
December, when both countries started restricting supplies ahead of agreed cuts
with other global producers to curb the worst glut in decades.
Russia pumped 10.49 million barrels a day in December, down 29,000
barrels a day from November, while Saudi Arabia’s output declined to 10.46
million barrels a day from 10.72 million barrels a day in November, according
to data published Monday on the website of the Joint Organisations Data
Initiative in Riyadh. That was the first time Russia beat Saudi Arabia since
March.
Saudi Arabia and fellow producers from the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries decided at the end of November to restrict supplies by 1.2
million barrels a day for six months starting Jan. 1, with Saudi Arabia
instrumental in the plan. Non-member producers, including Russia, pledged
additional curbs. Brent crude prices have climbed about 20 percent since the
end of November.
The U.S. was the third-largest producer, at 8.8 million barrels a day in
December compared with 8.9 million barrels a day in November, according to
JODI.
Saudi Arabia’s crude exports declined to 8 million barrels a day in
December, from 8.26 million barrels a day, the biggest outflow for any month
since May 2003, according to JODI data.
Saudis Kick Off $50 Billion Renewable Energy Plan to Cut Oil Use
by Anthony DipaolaBidders seeking to qualify to build 700 megawatts of wind and solar power plants should submit documents by March 20, and those selected will be announced by April 10, Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry said Monday in an e-mailed statement. Qualified bidders will be able to present their offers for the projects starting on April 17 through July.
“This marks the starting point of a long
and sustained program of renewable energy deployment in Saudi Arabia that will
not only diversify our power mix but also catalyze economic development,”
Khalid Al-Falih, the energy minister, said in the statement. The ministry’s
Renewable Energy Project Development Office intends to set up “the most
attractive, competitive and well executed government renewable energy
investment programs in the world,” he said.
Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco are developing renewable energy to either curb their fuel imports or conserve more valuable oil that could otherwise be exported. Saudi Arabia plans to develop almost 10 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2023, requiring investment of $30 billion to $50 billion, Al-Falih said last month in Abu Dhabi.
More
In Asian news, yet another red flag from China. President Trump has
picked a poor time to start a trade war with China.
China’s economy is dangerously close to unraveling
By Ivan Martchev Published: Feb 20, 2017 6:54 a.m. ET
The country’s debt is rising dramatically, while growth in gross domestic product is slowing
It came not with a bang but a whimper.
The January data from China finally confirmed that the country’s
foreign-exchange reserves fell by $12.3 billion to $2.998 trillion, which
compares with the all-time high of $3.993 trillion in June 2014 (see chart).
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon we’re talking real
money, right?
What the official reserve data do not show is that massive
borrowings outside China have accumulated over the past 15 years, bringing net
reserves down to about $1.7 trillion, according to statistics prepared by Kynikos Associates.
That much smaller reserve
amount is not necessarily large enough to support the yuan exchange rate, particularly
if foreign-exchange outflows accelerate again as the Chinese credit bubble has
now burst, in my opinion.
China has a total debt-to-GDP ratio of
close to 400%, if one includes the infamous unregulated shadow banking system
that is habitually omitted from official statistics. In 2000, China’s total
debt-to-GDP ratio stood near 100%. As Chinese GDP grew from $1.094 trillion at
the end of the 20th century to $11.75 trillion at the end of 2016, the
country’s total leverage ratio ballooned. China’s economy grew 11-fold, and
total credit in the financial system surged by over 40-fold.
----This credit metric includes off-balance
sheet financing outside the conventional bank lending system, such as initial
public offerings, loans from trust companies and bond sales. If Chinese GDP
continues to slow (and there are many observers, myself included, that do not
believe the official 2016 GDP growth rate of 6.7%), and total credit in the
economy continues to surge, then the Chinese economy will in effect be running
as fast as it can just to stand still. An acceleration in borrowing with a
slowing economy is the classic definition of a burst credit bubble.
More
Prospects for more BOJ stimulus fading, economists split on next move: Reuters poll
The likelihood of more monetary stimulus in Japan is diminishing,
according to a Reuters poll of economists who were largely split on the central
bank's next policy move, signaling a possible turning point in expectations for
its easing cycle.
The latest Reuters survey of economists conducted Feb. 13-17 showed the
outlook for growth and inflation for the world's third-largest economy broadly
in line with the January poll.
However, economists have pared back their expectations for the Bank of
Japan to ease its already ultra-accommodative monetary policy, as the outlook
for global growth improves and the yen weakens.
While the analysts don't expect any change soon, 15 of those surveyed
said it will pull back from its ultra-easy monetary policy when the BOJ does
decide to alter its policy, while 17 said its next move will be to ease.
That compares with 12 to 18 in the January poll and 10 to 21 in
December.
More
We close with the wealth and jobs destroying EUSSR.
Why would anyone want to remain in a dead end club like this.
"If the EU cannot
resolve a small problem the size of Greece, what is the point of Europe?"Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission, former Italy Prime Minister.
After seven years of bailouts, Greeks sink yet deeper in poverty
Greek pensioner Dimitra says she never imagined a life reduced to food
handouts: some rice, two bags of pasta, a packet of chickpeas, some dates and a
tin of milk for the month.
At 73, Dimitra - who herself once helped the hard-up as a Red Cross food
server - is among a growing number of Greeks barely getting by. After seven
years of bailouts that poured billions of euros into their country, poverty
isn't getting any better; it's getting worse like nowhere else in the EU.
"It had never even crossed my mind," she said, declining to
give her last name because of the stigma still attached to accepting handouts
in Greece. "I lived frugally. I've never even been on holiday. Nothing, nothing,
nothing."
Now more than half of her 332 euro ($350) monthly income goes to renting
a tiny Athens apartment. The rest: bills.
The global financial crisis and its fallout forced four euro zone
countries to turn to international lenders. Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus all
went through rescues and are back out, their economies growing again. But
Greece, the first into a bailout in 2010, has needed three.
Rescue funds from the European Union and International Monetary Fund
saved Greece from bankruptcy, but the austerity and reform policies the lenders
attached as conditions have helped to turn recession into a depression.
More
History
has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk
premiums.
Alan
Greenspan
At the Comex silver depositories Friday
final figures were: Registered 30.08 Moz, Eligible 154.15 Moz,
Total 184.23 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, Alan Greenspan on
the fate of the euro. He may have been almost 100% wrong as Fed Chairman from
1987 to 2006, but what are the chances of his being wrong yet again?
The
United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do
that. So there is zero probability of default.
Alan
Greenspan
Euro to COLLAPSE – people rush to buy gold as trust in single currency DISAPPEARS
THE former head of the US federal reserve has warned the euro is on the verge of collapse saying he has "grave concerns" about its future.
05:23, Mon, Feb
20, 2017 | UPDATED: 07:38, Mon, Feb 20, 2017
And revered economist Alan Greenspan says it's time the European Central
Bank (ECB) came clean about the state of the economy as the bank's chief Mario
Draghi scrambles to save the flailing institution.
Mr Greenspan, 90, was the chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United
States from 1987 to 2006, and predicted the scale of the US subprime mortgage
scandal which precipitated the global financial collapse.
Now as investors turn to gold to try to stem their losses Mr Greenspan
says it's only a matter of time before the eurozone collapses.
He told Gold Investor magazine: "The European Central Bank (ECB)
has greater problems than the Federal Reserve.
"The asset side of the ECB’s balance sheet is larger than ever
before, having grown steadily since Mario Draghi said he would do whatever it
took to preserve the euro.
"And I have grave concerns about the future of the Euro
itself.
"Northern Europe has, in effect, been funding the deficits of the
South; that cannot continue indefinitely. The eurozone is not
working."
The euro has been plagued with scandal after scandal with a stress test
last year showing that many of the 19 countries which took on the currency from
2002 are facing unprecedented debts.
Greece is currently in the midst of yet another financial crisis with
withdrawals from bank accounts indicating the public is prepping for a crash.
Meanwhile Europe's oldest bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, in
Italy is on the verge of oblivion and needs a bail out to survive.
Even Germany's largest lender Deutsche Bank is facing a crisis of
gargantuan proportions as it struggles with its shadowy assets book which is
plagued with non performing loans (NPLs).
Mr Greenspan said Brexit is almost certainly set to trigger a collapse
of the ECB despite the UK not having signed up to take on the currency.
MoreBond Traders Are Placing Euro-Breakup Bets Again
by Stephen Spratt
20 February 2017, 09:09 GMT
Hidden under the surface of European bond markets, traders are placing
bets that will pay out if the risks in the euro zone severely escalate.
Markets across the continent have started to price in the increased
potential for anti-euro candidates to win elections in France and Italy. Recent
positioning in German and Italian bonds are hedges against a blow-up in the
risk of a breakup in the common currency, said traders in London and New York,
who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak
publicly.
Six-month German securities have rallied more than benchmark tenors this
month and open interest in two-year note futures has surged, suggesting
investors are building up long positions in assets that are the closest to cash
in terms of safety. The yield spread between Italian low- and high-coupon bonds
has widened as traders bet against the latter, which would fall much more if
the country’s creditworthiness is called into question.
More
An
almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites
statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense... that gold and economic
freedom are inseparable.
Alan
Greenspan
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?
How to roll a nanotube: Demystifying carbon nanotubes' structure control
Date:
February 15, 2017
Source:
Institute for Basic Science
Summary:
A key advancement in the design of high performance carbon-based electronics
has been made by scientists, outlines a new report.
Pioneering research published in Nature by Professor Feng Ding's
team from the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials, within the
Institute for Basic Science (IBS), in collaboration with Professor Jin Zhang's
team, at Peking University and colleagues, has demonstrated how to control the
synthesis of special tiny carbon cylinders known as carbon nanotubes (CNTs), in
order to synthesize horizontal arrays of CNTs with the same structure.
Due to their exceptional mechanical, electrical and thermal properties,
CNTs are considered an excellent alternative to silicon for next generation
microelectronics. However, since CNTs' electronic properties are structure
dependent, finding a reliable way to synthesize CNTs with the same structure,
rather than a mix of different types, have kept scientists puzzled for the last
20 years.
CNTs resemble sheets of graphene rolled up to form tiny tubes, 100,000
times thinner than a human hair. In reality, however, no rolling is involved in
the synthesis process, and CNTs usually grow from the surfaces of tiny metal
particles, called catalysts, via catalytic chemical vapor deposition. Beyond
being a supportive structure, the catalyst decomposes hydrocarbon molecules
into carbon atoms that form the carbon nanotubes and facilitates the insertion
of carbon atoms into the growing cylinder. In 2014, Ding and his collaborators
discovered that using solid metal alloy catalysts, such as W6Co7, can lead to
the synthesis of CNTs with specific structures. In their most recent paper,
they expanded this knowledge much further.
Like in a battleship game where the position of the boats is defined by
two numbers, the structure of CNTs is defined by a pair of indices. IBS
scientists found they could grow both conducting (12, 6) and semiconducting (8,
4) CNTs with very high selectivity. These structures are highly desired for
possible applications in transistor devices.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished January
DJIA: 19864
+92 Up. NASDAQ: 5615 +95 Up. SP500: 2279 +95 Up.
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