Baltic Dry Index. 1162 -37 Brent Crude 79.51
Every decision on trade, on
taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American
workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of
other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our
jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.
Donald Trump
Bunker time! After taking heat from left and
right over his trade team’s climb down with China, President Trump moved
yesterday to try to change the rules of his trade war, tossing the weekend “agreement”
and truce into doubt. Can America under President Trump, make any agreements
that last longer than President Trump’s whim? Does his negotiating team have
any real power?
Below, is the Great Global Trump Trade War
back on again, as the USA heads for it’s long weekend that kicks off summer and
America’s driving season? From London, this rainy morning, it looks like it is,
with President Trump adding a gratuitous pot-shot at German auto exports. Meanwhile
Canada got in some China thumping too. Much more of this and a summer of massive
global wealth destruction lies directly ahead.
May 24, 2018 / 5:50 AM
Trump urges a new "structure" for U.S.-China trade deal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President
Donald Trump has signalled a new direction in U.S.-China trade talks and said
any deal would need “a different structure,” fuelling uncertainty over current
negotiations.
In an early Wednesday morning post on Twitter, Trump said the current
track appeared “too hard to get done” and cited difficulties such as
verification, but he gave no other details about what he or his administration
was looking for amid ongoing negotiations.
Representatives for the White House did not respond to a request for
more information about the president’s statement.
“Our trade deal with China is moving along nicely, but in the end we
will probably have to use a different structure in that this will be too hard
to get done and to verify results after completion,” Trump wrote in his post.
U.S. stocks slipped after his comments, but ended Wednesday up after
release of the minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting, which indicated a
gradual approach to interest rates hikes.
On Thursday, the Trump comments on China trade
talks and the launch of a U.S. national security probe into U.S. auto imports
dented shares of Asian automakers.
Trump’s statement comes amid the negotiations between the world’s two
largest economies after potential tariffs on both sides raised fears of a trade
war, even as some tensions have eased over signs of some possible progress.
Both sides claimed victory on Monday and pledged to continue talking
after last week’s round in Washington produced pledges that China would import
more American energy and agricultural commodities so as to trim the $335
billion annual U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China, although there
were no specifics.
“China unswervingly defends its core interests, and did not make any
promise on cutting its trade surplus with the U.S. by a specific figure,” Gao
Feng, spokesman at the Chinese commerce ministry, said on Thursday.
But both sides are willing to strengthen cooperation in agricultural,
energy, medical, high-tech products as well as the financial sector, Gao told
reporters at a regular briefing in Beijing.
More
May 24, 2018 / 1:29 AM / Updated
30 minutes ago
Asia share markets hit by U.S. auto tariff threat, dollar pulls back
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on
Thursday after the U.S. government launched a national security probe into auto
imports that could lead to new tariffs, and President Donald Trump’s comments
indicated fresh setbacks in U.S.-China trade talks.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was 0.1 percent higher, but Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 fell 1.2 percent as auto shares slumped. South Korea's KOSPI lost 0.3 percent.
A broad MSCI index of automobile and auto components firms .MIWO0AC00PUS was down 0.9 percent. Tokyo’s SE TOPIX transportation equipment index .ITEQP.T was 2.6 percent lower.
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday that it would launch a national security investigation into car and truck imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, a move that could lead to tariffs like those imposed on steel and aluminium in March.
Adding to market jitters, Trump on Wednesday called for “a different structure” in any trade deal with China, fuelling uncertainty over the negotiations.
On Thursday, China’s Commerce Ministry said it had not pledged to cut China’s trade surplus with the U.S. by a certain figure, and that it hopes the U.S. implements measures promised during trade negotiations as soon as possible.
China's blue chip CSI 300 index .CSI300 was 0.1 percent lower.
Prompting further uncertainty, Trump on Wednesday cast doubt on plans
for an unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying he
would know next week whether the meeting would take place.
“There’s a lot of noise around Donald Trump, China-U.S. trade, the auto
imports now, and then the Korean summit, and all these things are just weighing
on investors at the moment,” said Shane Oliver, chief economist & head of
investment strategy, AMP Capital, Sydney.
“I think we probably would have seen a decent day in Asian markets were
it not for these ongoing geopolitical worries because the minutes from the
Fed’s last meeting were relatively benign.”
While the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s May 1-2 meeting indicated
that policymakers expect another interest rate increase would be warranted
“soon” if the U.S. economic outlook remains intact, they helped to ease market
concerns that the Fed would accelerate the pace of interest rate increases.
More
May 24, 2018 / 1:36 AM
U.S. Commerce Department will probe whether auto imports hurt national security
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce
Department said on Wednesday it will open a so-called Section 232 investigation
into whether imports of vehicles and auto parts harm national security.
“There is evidence suggesting that, for decades, imports from abroad
have eroded our domestic auto industry,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in
a statement.
“The Department of Commerce will conduct a thorough, fair, and
transparent investigation into whether such imports are weakening our internal
economy and may impair the national security,” he said.
May 24, 2018 / 3:39 AM
China says has not promised to cut trade surplus with U.S. by a certain amount
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Commerce
Ministry said on Thursday that it had not pledged to cut the country’s trade
surplus with the United States by a certain figure, and hopes the United States
implements measures promised during trade negotiations as soon as possible.
Ministry spokesman Gao Feng made the
comments at a weekly news briefing.
Canada blocks Chinese bid for construction company, citing national security
By Paul
Vieira Published: May 23, 2018 10:58
p.m. ET
OTTAWA — Canada’s Liberal government said Wednesday that it would block a
nearly billion-dollar Chinese-led deal for a construction company on
national-security grounds.The decision came as U.S. lawmakers in Congress push legislation that would give Washington greater power to block deals between American and Chinese companies that could risk national security.
Canada in February ordered a national-security review of CCCC International Holding Ltd.’s plan to buy Toronto-based Aecon Group Inc. ARE, +0.52% for 1.22 billion Canadian dollars ($947 million), based on the C$20.37 a share offer the Chinese company made last fall.
“We listened to the advice of our national-security agencies throughout the multistep national security review process” under Canadian law, Navdeep Bains, Canada’s Innovation Minister, said in a statement issued to The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. “Based on their findings, in order to [protect] national security, we ordered [the Chinese firm] not to implement the proposed investment.”
Finally, in Trump’s escalating
trade war on NATO, especially Germany, Germany is desperately playing its China
card. Like us or lose us, is Merkel’s none too subtle implied message. A
delighted China is only too happy to play along.
May 24, 2018 / 5:29 AM
Germany's Merkel says China and Germany standing by Iran nuclear deal
BEIJING
(Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday China and Germany
are standing by the existing nuclear deal with Iran after the United States
left the 2015 accord earlier this month.
Merkel
made the comment during a joint news briefing with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang
at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People during a two-day visit to China.
May 24, 2018 / 4:49 AM
China's Premier Li says China and Germany uphold free trade
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China’s Premier Li Keqiang said on Thursday China has always
supported a unified and prosperous Europe and that China and Germany uphold
free trade.
Li
said at a joint news briefing at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People with
visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel there was huge potential for
cooperation between China and Germany.
Trade wars can be ‘fantastically disruptive,’ the IMF’s historian warns
Published 8:17 AM ET Tue, 1 May 2018
As countries around the world face the possibility
of escalating tariffs, history serves as a reminder that trade wars are
nothing new.Harold James is a professor at Princeton University and an official historian of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In an interview at the IMF in Washington, he recalled the lessons learned, and perhaps forgotten, by the international community in recent trade wars.
More
No nation was ever ruined by
trade.
Benjamin Franklin
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
No crooks today. Today we posit that the vast US Southwest area is
entering the latest phase of the roughly 22 year US drought cycle. Vastly over
simplifying, but 2018 -2020 fits into the cycle 1910-12, 1932-35, 1954- 55,
1974-76, 1996-98.
Of course, the US drought cycle isn’t just confined to the Southwest,
and it doesn’t precisely match up to 22 years, or two sunspot cycles, but it’s
close enough to warrant serious computer study.
Not all droughts have the same severity either but using the very latest
available data from all across the USA and Canada, I suspect that today’s AI
pattern matching computers would get a more precise fit than my back of the
envelope effort, triggered long ago by the drought of 1976-77. The general idea
was to make money in grain and cattle futures.
Drought on tap to intensify over US Southwest
May 23, 2018 12:21 AM
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Rivers are drying up, popular mountain
recreation spots are closing and water restrictions are in full swing as a
persistent drought intensifies its grip on pockets of the American Southwest.
Climatologists and other experts are scheduled Wednesday to provide an
update on the situation in the Four Corners region — where Arizona, New Mexico,
Colorado and Utah meet.
The area is dealing with exceptional drought — the worst category. That
has left farmers, ranchers and water planners bracing for a much different
situation than just a year ago when only a fraction of the region was
experiencing low levels of dryness.
With the region's water resources strained, a top federal official has
resumed pressure on states in the Southwest to wrap up long-delayed emergency
plans for potential shortages on the Colorado River, which serves 40 million
people in the U.S. and Mexico.
"We face an overwhelming risk on the system, and the time for
action is now," Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman said
Tuesday. She spoke before the Imperial Irrigation District in Southern
California, one of the biggest single users of the Colorado River.
The drought has hit the Colorado River hard. Forecasters say the river
will carry only about 43 percent of its average amount of water this year into
Lake Powell, one of two big reservoirs on the system.
There's a 52 percent chance that Mexico and the U.S. states of Arizona
and Nevada will take a mandatory cut in their share of water in 2020 under the
agreements governing the river, forecasters have said.
In New Mexico, stretches of the Rio Grande — another of North America's
longest rivers — have already gone dry as federal biologists have been forced
to scoop up as many endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows as possible so they
can be moved upstream.
The river this summer is expected to dry as far north as Albuquerque,
New Mexico's most populous city. The area saw its first major dose of rain
Tuesday, bringing an end to a 54-day dry spell. It wasn't enough to make up for
months without meaningful precipitation.
Evidence of a 22-year Rhythm of Drought in the Western United States Related to the Hale Solar Cycle since the 17th Century
Abstract
Families of Drought Area Indices (DAI) have been derived from
tree-ring data for the entire U.S. west of the Mississippi River, for each year
back to either 1700 or 1600 A.D., depending on the data base used. Each DAI is
expressed in terms of the relative area in which the Palmer Drought Severity
Index (PDSI) lies below a specified threshold value between −1 (mild drought)
and −4 (extreme drought). Three families of DAI are considered in the analysis
reported in this paper. Each DAI family is based on reconstructions from a
selection of between 40 and 65 tree-ring sites ranging from Canada to Mexico
and from the west coast to the Plains states. Variance spectrum analysis of the
DAI series shows a concentration of variance at periods near 22 yr, at
significance levels ranging from 5 to 0.1% (relative to a pink noise
continuum). Band-pass filters tuned to periods near 22 yr are used in a form of
harmonic dial analysis proposed by G. W. Brier to verify the extent of phase
locking between the drought area variations and the Hale sunspot cycle since
1700 A.D.
Phase locking is confirmed at significance levels of order 1
to 0.1% for all DAI families and all drought severity limits except extreme
drought (PDSI < −4). A tendency is found for the amplitude of the 22 yr
drought rhythm to vary systematically in parallel with the amplitude (envelope)
of the Hale sunspot cycle, on the Gleissberg time scale of about 90 yr. This
relationship is statistically significant between the 5 and 1% levels, and is
independent of the phase locking found within the Hale cycle. The DAI series
that extend back to 1600 A.D. reflect a well-defined 22 yr drought rhythm
during the early stages of the Maunder Minimum of solar activity, but a very
weak rhythm near the end of the Maunder Minimum. The average areal extent of
drought was relatively low, and remained low for a prolonged period, during the
Maunder Minimum.
This analysis strongly supports earlier evidence of a 22 yr
drought rhythm, or “cycle,” in the U.S. and suggests that the drought rhythm is
in some manner controlled by long-term solar variability directly or indirectly
related to solar magnetic effects. The solar control is best described as a
modulation of terrestrial drought-inducing mechanisms, such that it alternately
encourages and discourages the development of major continental droughts which
are set up by evolutionary climatic processes unrelated to solar activity.
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?
Researchers One Step Closer to Building Carbon-Recycling System
Published on May 17, 2018 at 10:15 AM
A unique carbon-recycling system, which can harvest solar energy to transform water and CO2 into liquid fuels, could soon become a reality. Scientists are now exploring this method to develop such a system. According to them, by improving various parts of the system, they can presently drive two-electron chemical reactions, which are a significant development over the energy inefficient one-electron reactions.
Published in the journal Nature Chemistry, the study will help those hoping to discover a method to convert surplus amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide into useful energy sources, stated Prashant Jain, who headed the latest study and is a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois.“Scientists often look to plants for insight into methods for turning sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into fuels,” he said.
When plant leaves are hit by solar energy, the electrons present in chlorophyll are stimulated. It is these excited electrons that eventually drive the chemistry, which converts water and carbon dioxide into glucose.
“Many of these chemical reactions are multiproton, multielectron reactions,” Jain said.
However, instead of depending on biodegradable plant pigments to transform light energy into chemical energy, researchers are now turning to electron-rich metal catalysts like gold, which provides a better alternative. At certain light intensities and wavelengths, gold is capable of transferring photoexcited protons and electrons to reactants without being used up or degraded.
“In our study, we used spherical gold particles that are 13 to 14 nanometers in size,” Jain said. “The nanoparticles have unique optical properties, depending on their size and shape.”
For instance, when the nanoparticles are coated with a polymer and suspended in water, they reflect a deep red color after absorbing green light. These nanoparticles, under light excitation, transfer electrons to probe molecules, which subsequently change color. This enables researchers to determine the level of efficiency at which the electron-transfer reactions take place.
Researchers have managed in the past to use photochemistry and these light-absorbing materials to transfer one electron at a time. But in the new study, we’ve identified the principles and rules and conditions under which a metal nanoparticle catalyst can transfer two electrons at a time.
Prashant
Jain, Chemistry Professor at the University of Illinois
Jain and his coworkers varied the intensity of laser light employed in the experiments and observed that at four to five times the intensity of solar energy, the gold nanoparticles present in the system were able to transfer a pair of electrons from ethanol to an electron-hungry probe molecule at one particular time.
According to Jain, two-electron reactions are much more preferred to one-electron reactions.
You need a pair of electrons to make a bond between atoms. When you don’t provide a pair of electrons – and a pair of protons to neutralize the loss of electrons – you end up making free radicals, which are highly reactive and can back-react, wasting the energy you used to create them. They also can react with other chemicals or destroy your catalyst.
Prashant Jain, Chemistry Professor at
the University of Illinois
Jain
also informed that experiments which were recently performed in his laboratory
using the same system also involved multiproton, multielectron transfers.
During those experiments, CO2 was converted to ethane. Compared to
methane, which contains just a single carbon, ethane is a two-carbon compound
that is more energy-rich. Ultimately, Jain and his team are hoping to produce
butane, which has a four-carbon backbone, and propane, which has a three-carbon
backbone.
More
https://www.azocleantech.com/news.aspx?newsID=25588
If the present Congress errs
in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send
one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield
nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April.
DJIA: 24,163 +255 Down. NASDAQ:
7,066 +282 Down. SP500: 2,648 +188 Down.
All
three slow indicators moved down in March and continued down in April. For some
a new bear signal, for others a take profits and get back to cash signal.
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