Baltic Dry Index. 1385 +24 Brent Crude 55.76
There can be few
fields of human endeavour in which history counts for so little as in the world
of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is
dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to
appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
The big news stories
this week will likely be President Trump’s address to the United Nations in New
York. The outcome of the two day Federal Reserve meeting this week. Any further
arrests in the London Underground bombing of last Friday. Any escalation or de-escalation
by President Trump in the rhetoric over North Korea. Next weekend’s German
election, and yes, yet more Atlantic hurricane worries. The Atlantic-Caribbean
hurricane season doesn’t end until November 30. This week Brexit gets a walk.
Up first, Asian
markets bubble on. After all, this time it’s different to 2008, isn’t it?
“The
U.N. is a place where governments opposed to free speech demand to be heard.”
Mad
Magazine.
September 18, 2017 / 1:30 AM
Asia stocks hit decade high, dollar firm before Fed meeting
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares hit decade highs on Monday and the dollar held firm early in a week in which the U.S. Federal Reserve is likely to wrestle with its bloated balance sheet as part of a long reversal of super-cheap money worldwide.
There was relief the weekend passed with no new provocation
by North Korea, though Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions will be centre stage when
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses world leaders at the United Nations on
Tuesday.
Some details of Trump’s tax plans may also emerge this week,
while elections in Germany and New Zealand will add extra political uncertainty
to the mix.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
.MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.9 percent to reach heights not visited since late 2007.
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS)
led the gains, along with healthcare and financial stocks.
Australia's main index added 0.6 percent while Japan's
Nikkei .N225
was closed for a holiday. E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 ESc1 rose 0.2
percent.
For markets, this week’s main event will be the Fed’s policy
meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, where it is likely to take another step
toward normalisation on what is rapidly becoming a global trend.
More
In EUSSR news, the
news ought to be about next weekend’s German election, but Spain seems to be
flirting with other lunatic ideas.
Spain Won't Rule Out Jailing Separatist Chiefs, Maza Tells Mundo
By Todd WhiteAt the same time, the state will try not to go too far to stop disobedience by officials, who are supported by thousands of people in pro-independence rallies, Jose Manuel Maza said.
“These gentlemen are looking for a reaction from the state that’s
disproportionate, which would serve them very well,” Maza said. “You have to
act with caution.”
The prosecutor’s office has ordered police to seize ballot boxes and is
probing more than 700 mayors in the Catalonia region for supporting the vote,
possibly with public funds. It hasn’t decided yet if it will seek jail for any
officials, Maza said.
“Right now, what matters most is energy and firmness in defending the
law, but also caution. We will act gradually, and in a measured manner.”
Merkel Coalition Conundrum: Best Chance Isn't Best for Economy
By Andre Tartar and Samuel Dodge
Three of the four most likely German governing coalitions in coming
elections will produce suboptimal economic results, according to a Bloomberg
survey of economists.
Conversely, the coalition that’s seen as the best for jobs, growth,
trade and taxes ranks only third in combined voter support in polling ahead of
the vote on Sept. 24.
One common element: the three top scenarios all feature Angela Merkel as
chancellor. But the economist survey shows that, even in an election that
Merkel’s party has a high probability of winning, policy can vary greatly
depending on her partners.
“Do not underestimate the German elections and do not call them boring,”
cautioned Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING-Diba AG in Frankfurt, in
responding to the survey. He said he sees a lot more at stake than just
Germany’s economic policy. “Ms. Merkel’s choice of coalition partner will
determine the future of the Eurozone.”
The configuration that would most easily command a majority in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, is a continuation of the existing so-called grand coalition between Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union alliance and the rival Social Democratic Party.
Also polling as a potential parliamentary majority, though unprecedented as a national government, is a CDU/CSU alignment with its traditional Free Democrat partners and the environmentalist Green party. (Germans call this the Jamaica coalition, based on the respective parties’ black, yellow and green colors.) Neither takes the top score on any of the policy outcomes in the survey.
Still, the grand coalition scored several points higher than the Jamaica coalition on their respective abilities to boost growth, jobs, wages and exports. It would also be better at improving relations with Turkey, which have soured in recent years, and be more likely to abandon a balanced budget, the survey showed.
More
Merkel's Potential Ally Floats Russian G-7 Return Ahead of Vote
By Tony Czuczka
Germany’s
Free Democrats, a potential coalition partner for Chancellor Angela Merkel,
rejected expanding the euro area and suggested that Russia be readmitted to the
Group of Seven as parties jockey for position ahead of next Sunday’s national
election.
With
polls showing the chancellor’s Christian Democrat-led bloc with a lead and
Martin Schulz’s Social Democratic Party second, the race for third place will
help determine the makeup of the new government if Merkel wins a fourth term on
Sept. 24. Free Democratic Party head Christian Lindner sought to make his mark
on Sunday in part with a swipe at Merkel over her handling of Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
“What’s the point to excluding Russia from the G-8 so the seven leaders
then talk among themselves about how evil the eighth one is?” he said in a
speech to a party convention in Berlin. “It makes more sense to talk with the
eighth one about what you can do to return to cooperation.”
Russia, with Merkel’s support, was suspended from the G-8 club of
advanced economies in 2014 for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Merkel
says she’s maintaining a channel of communication with Putin even while
upholding economic sanctions on Russia, penalties that Lindner said he wouldn’t
lift “without something in return" from Putin.
Lindner, 38, signaled a willingness to challenge other euro-area
countries and European Central Bank policies if his party rejoined Merkel as
junior coalition partner, a role it had during her second term from 2009 to
2013. When Europe’s debt crisis spread from Greece, Merkel faced down an FDP
revolt over sovereign bailouts during that period.
More
We close for today
with yet more hurricane news. The Atlantic hurricane season is far from over in
mid-September.
September 17, 2017 / 9:07 PM
Hurricane Maria seen strengthening into major hurricane in next two days
(Reuters) - A second powerful storm in as many weeks was bearing down on
a string of battered Caribbean islands on Sunday, with forecasters saying Maria
would strengthen rapidly into a major hurricane in the next two days and rip
into the Leeward Islands on Monday night.
Maria’s strength was building as it approached the Lesser Antilles, the
U.S. National Hurricane Center said, estimating its winds at near 85 miles per
hour (140 kph)
”Maria is expected to become a major hurricane as it moves through the Leeward Islands,” the forecaster said.
Maria is approaching the eastern Caribbean less than two weeks after
Irma hammered the region before overrunning Florida.
That storm, one of the most powerful ever recorded in the Atlantic with
winds up to 185 miles per hour (298 kph), killed at least 84 people, more than
half of them in the Caribbean.
Hurricane conditions were expected for Guadalupe, Dominica, Martinique
and St. Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat, and the hurricane centre warned Puerto
Rico to monitor the storm.
The British Virgin Islands and St. Martin, which was devastated by
Hurricane Irma, were under a hurricane watch, as were the U.S. Virgin Islands
and Anguilla.
More than 1,700 Residents of Barbuda, where Irma damaged nearly every
building, braced for Maria on Antigua, now under a tropical storm watch, said
Ronald Sanders, the country’s ambassador to the United States.
More
09.17.17
Where Do They Put All That Toxic Hurricane Debris?
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma left a hell of a mess—millions of tons of debris, much of it toxic. Houston officials said this week it will cost at least $200 million to dispose of 8 million cubic yards of storm debris. More than 100,000 homes in Houston are damaged. Irma caused billions of dollars of damage across the Caribbean and southeastern United States.
Wood, plaster, drywall, metal, oil, electronics—all of it
waterlogged. Put it into unlined landfills and it can contaminate groundwater.
The gypsum in drywall decomposes into hydrogen sulfide gas. And it might all
get thrown away together anyway.
“No one is interested in separating garbage after a
hurricane,” says Elena Craft, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense
Fund in Austin. “But there are real threats that exist from this process.”
Craft and other environmental advocates met with
representatives of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality this week to
talk about debris disposal. “It sounded like [the state] was relying on
landfill operators to be vigilant,” Craft says. “The state does not do the best
job of active surveillance. It’s nice to think that everyone is doing the right
thing, but sometimes they don’t.”
More
In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative
tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results
far much less.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today banksterism, presented without need for
comment, but with a question, how do these banksters still have banking
licences?
Jamie Dimon Knows a Fraud When He Sees It – Outside of His Bank
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 13, 2017
Jamie Dimon became Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase on December 31,
2005. An inordinate amount of frauds have been perpetrated inside his bank
since that time, none of which the eagle-eyed Dimon spotted. But Dimon says he
knows a fraud when he sees one outside of his bank. Yesterday, he took
on the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin, calling
it a fraud. At a banking conference on Tuesday, Dimon said that “Bitcoin
will eventually blow up. It’s a fraud. It’s worse than tulip bulbs and won’t
end well.”We’re not saying Dimon is wrong about Bitcoin. In fact, more than three years ago Wall Street On Parade compared Bitcoin to the tulip bulb bubble and explained in crystal clear terms how it differs from a real currency, such as the U.S. dollar. But we are saying that Dimon’s super sleuth nose for fraud has the uncanny knack of serially failing him when it comes to Ponzi schemes and mortgage frauds and rogue derivative and commodity traders operating inside his own bank – a taxpayer subsidized institution that has richly rewarded Dimon despite the fact that his sniffer can only catch the scent of fraud outside the doors of JPMorgan Chase. (As of June 30, 2017, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, JPMorgan Chase held more than $1.5 trillion in deposits, the majority of which are insured by the Federal government and backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer.)
On March 22, 2016, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that noted that the U.S. Justice Department had earlier assigned a $1.7 billion forfeiture against JPMorgan Chase “for its failure to detect and report the suspicious activities of Bernard Madoff,” the largest fraud ever perpetrated against the investing public. The GAO stunningly found that because the bank “failed to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program and report suspicious transactions in 2008, it contributed to its own bank customers “losing about $5.4 billion in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.”
Justice Department investigative material, much of which came from Irving Picard, the trustee for the Madoff victims’ fund, showed that JPMorgan Chase had relied on unaudited financial statements and skipped the required steps of bank due diligence to make $145 million in loans to Madoff’s business. Lawyers for Picard wrote that from November 2005 through January 18, 2006, JPMorgan Chase loaned $145 million to Madoff’s business at a time when the bank was on “notice of fraudulent activity” in Madoff’s business account and when, in fact, Madoff’s business was insolvent. The JPMorgan Chase loans were needed because Madoff’s business account, referred to as the 703 account, was “reaching dangerously low levels of liquidity, and the Ponzi scheme was at risk of collapsing,” according to Picard. JPMorgan, in fact, “provided liquidity to continue the Ponzi scheme,” the Picard investigators found.
In November 2013, Picard had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appellate court’s ruling that barred him from suing JPMorgan and other banks for aiding the Madoff fraud in order to recover additional funds for victims. In his Supreme Court petition, Picard stated that JPMorgan Chase stood “at the very center of Madoff’s fraud for over 20 years.” This assertion was based on Picard’s lower court filing that demonstrated that the bank was aware that Madoff was claiming to invest tens of billions of dollars in a strategy that involved buying large cap stocks in the Standard and Poor’s 500 index while simultaneously hedging with options. But the Madoff firm’s business account at JPMorgan, which the bank had access to review for over 20 years, showed no evidence of payments for stock or options trading.
Picard’s petition to the Supreme Court noted:
“As JPM [JPMorgan] was well aware, billions of dollars flowed from customers into the 703 account, without being segregated in any fashion. Billions flowed out, some to customers and others to Madoff’s friends in suspicious and repetitive round-trip transactions. But in the 22 years that JPM maintained the 703 account, there was not a single check or wire to a clearing house, securities exchange, or anyone who might be connected with the purchase of securities. All the while, JPM knew that Madoff was using the account to run an investment advisory business with thousands of customers and billions under management and knew that Madoff was using its name to lend legitimacy to his enterprise…”
According to evidence obtained by Picard, JPMorgan Chase invested over $250 million of its bank’s money with Madoff feeder funds while it simultaneously created structured investment products that allowed its customers to make leveraged bets on the returns of the feeder funds invested with Madoff.
In September 2008, just two months before Madoff confessed to running an unprecedented investment fraud, JPMorgan conducted a new round of due diligence and decided it was time to get out of its own $250 million investment with the Madoff feeder funds.
On October 28, 2008, JPMorgan Chase sent a “suspicious activity report” not to the U.S. government, the country backstopping its insured deposits and where its primary regulators were based, but to the United Kingdom’s Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA). The document stated:
More. Much, much,
more.
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2017/09/jamie-dimon-knows-a-fraud-when-he-sees-it-outside-of-his-bank/
Why did I take up stealing? To
live better, to own things I couldn't afford, to acquire this good taste that
you now enjoy and which I should be very reluctant to give up.
NYC Banksters, with
apologies to Cary Grant. To Catch A Thief.
Technology 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?
Apparent macroscopic violation of the second law of thermodynamics in a quantum system is discovered
Date:
September 11, 2017
Source:
Research Center for Computational Simulation
Summary:
Researchers have encountered a partial violation of the second law of
thermodynamics in a quantum system known as Hofstadter lattice. This partial
violation has no place within the framework of classical physics.
Researchers at UCM and CSS have encountered a partial violation of the
second law of thermodynamics in a quantum system known as Hofstadter lattice.
This partial violation has no place within the framework of classical physics.
A Hofstadter lattice is a theoretical model with a square
two-dimensional network through which quantum particles like electrons or
photons circulate. Moreover, when one of these particles completes a closed path
in the network, the particle acquires a quantum phase.
This system models a class of two-dimensional materials (similar to
graphene) with properties so unusual that they are outside the typical
classification of conductors or insulators, and are instead described as
topological insulators.
One of the most striking properties displayed by this system is the
presence of edge currents, while the interior does not allow for any
conduction. In addition, these edge currents are remarkably strong even in the presence
of impurities in the material, which has put them on the scientific community's
radar for applications in spintronics, photonics and quantum computing.
In an article published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers
Ángel Rivas and Miguel A. Martin-Delgado of the Department of Theoretical
Physics at UCM and CCS explain that they have studied the thermodynamic
properties of this system by placing it in the presence of two heat sources,
one hot and one cold. To do so, they have formulated a quantum theory that
describes this situation and solved the dynamical equations.
What predicts the theoretical calculations is that the transport of heat
presents a behavior far beyond the typical features of classical
thermodynamics. Specifically, on one edge of the material a current is induced
that flows from a cold spot to a hot spot. This is contrary to thesecond law of
thermodynamics, under which it is not possible for heat to flow spontaneously
from a cold body to a warmer one.
From a technological point of view, the second law of thermodynamics
limits the practical energy efficiency of devices such as engines, batteries,
refrigerators, solar cells, etc.
A Partial Violation
However, when the remainder of the edges and the interior of the
material are taken into account, the second law is restored. This
"partial" violation is an effect of this type of exotic quantum
system that does not fit within the framework of classical physics.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August
DJIA: 21,948 +215 Up. NASDAQ: 6,429 +266 Up. SP500: 2,472 +174 Up.
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