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"To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite
media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you
want to. The lady's not for turning."
Margaret Thatcher. 1980.
In yet another bizarre U-turn at the weekend,
President U-turn ordered his Commerce Department to reverse its actions he
ordered last month against China’s giant telecoms company ZTE, effectively
putting it and its workers out of business, and instead to get it “back into
business, fast.”
Given that last month’s sanctions against ZTE
were allegedly imposed because of an alleged threat to US national security,
this latest U-turn is the most bizarre and erratic yet. Whether ZTE stays in
business, as a threat to US national security or not, remains to be seen. The damage has already been done. Its global
partners and customers have just had their faith in ZTE shaken to the core.
Once bitten twice shy.
But at a stroke, last month and now this,
President Trump just turned America and American companies into the most
unreliable and untrustworthy suppliers on planet Earth. Their contracts can be
turned off or on again at the whim of the occupant of the White House,
irrespective of alleged national security issues. The rest of the world has
been massively incentivised to replace US components and software, something
they will now increasingly do for decades to come. Once almost bitten twice
shy.
Below, Reuters covers President U-turns
“irrational exuberance.” Thankfully,
China will not now have to retaliate against Apple.
May 13, 2018 / 4:28 PM
In concession, Trump will help China's ZTE 'get back into business'
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President
Donald Trump pledged on Sunday to help ZTE Corp “get back into business, fast”
after a U.S. ban crippled the Chinese technology company, offering a job-saving
concession to Beijing ahead of high-stakes trade talks this week.
“Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to
get it done!” Trump wrote on Twitter in the first of two tweets about U.S.
trade relations with China. It said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping were
working together on a solution for ZTE.
Shortly after Trump’s tweet, a Democratic lawmaker questioned the move
to help the Chinese company, given numerous warnings about ZTE’s alleged threat
to U.S. national security.
ZTE suspended its main operations after the U.S. Commerce Department
banned American companies from selling to the firm for seven years as
punishment for ZTE breaking an agreement reached after it was caught illegally
shipping U.S. goods to Iran.
The Commerce Department, ZTE and the Chinese embassy in Washington could
not immediately be reached for comment.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters confirmed that U.S. officials
were in contact with Beijing about ZTE. She said Trump’s tweet underscored the
importance of “free, fair, balanced and mutually beneficial” relations between
the United States and China on issues involving the economy, trade and
investment.
Trump expects Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “to exercise his
independent judgment, consistent with applicable laws and regulations, to
resolve the regulatory action involving ZTE based on its facts,” Walters said.
U.S. officials are preparing for talks in Washington with China’s top
trade official Liu He to resolve an escalating trade dispute.
Trump’s proposed reversal will likely ease relations between the world’s
two biggest economies. Washington and Beijing have proposed tens of billions of
dollars in tariffs in recent weeks, fanning worries of a full-blown trade war
that could hurt global supply chains and dent business investment plans.
In trade talks in Beijing this month, China asked the United States to
ease crushing sanctions on ZTE, one of the world’s largest telecommunications
equipment makers, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
----Claire Reade, a Washington-based trade lawyer and former assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China affairs, said the ZTE ban was a shocking blow to China’s leadership and may have caused more alarm in Beijing than Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods.
“Imagine how the United States would feel if China had the power to
crush one of our major corporations and make it go out of business,” Reade
said. “China may now have strengthened its desire to get out from a under a
scenario where the United States can do that again.”
Even though ZTE was probably “foolish” in not understanding the
consequences of violating a Commerce Department monitoring agreement, she said
the episode made it less likely that China would make concessions on U.S.
demands that it stop subsidizing efforts to develop its own advanced
technology, she said.
More
Elsewhere, how do you spell trouble? Iraq? Iran?
Syria? Israel?
May 13, 2018 / 8:57 AM
Firebrand nationalist cleric Sadr leads Iraq election
BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Moqtada al-Sadr was leading in Iraq’s
parliamentary election with over half of the votes counted, the electoral
commission said on Sunday, a surprise comeback for the powerful nationalist
Shi’ite cleric who had been sidelined by Iran-backed rivals.
Shi’ite militia leader Hadi al-Amiri’s bloc, which is backed by Tehran,
was in second place, according to the count of over 95 percent of the votes
cast in 10 of Iraq’s 18 provinces.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi appeared to be running third. Security
and commission sources had earlier said he was leading the election, which was
held on Saturday and is the first since the defeat of Islamic State militants
inside the country.
Turnout was 44.52 percent with 92 percent of votes counted, the
Independent High Electoral Commission said - that was significantly lower than
in previous elections. Full results are due to be officially announced on
Monday.
Sadr and Amiri both came in first in four of the 10 provinces where
votes were counted, but the cleric’s bloc won significantly more votes in the
capital Baghdad, which has the highest number of seats.
The commission did not announce how many seats each bloc had gained and
said it would do so on Monday after announcing the results from the remaining
provinces.
Abadi, a rare ally of both the United States and Iran, came in third in
six provinces but ran fifth in Baghdad.
Sadr has led two uprisings against U.S. forces in Iraq and is one of the
few Shi’ite leaders to distance himself from Iran.
The results unexpectedly showed former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was touted as a serious challenger to Abadi, lagging behind.
The ranking of these blocs can still change with results yet to be announced from eight provinces, including Nineveh, which has the second-largest number of seats after Baghdad.
Abadi was viewed as a frontrunner before the election. His rivals were seen as Maliki and Amiri, both closer than Abadi to Iran, which has wide sway in Iraq as the primary Shi’ite power in the region.
A Sadr victory or second-place finish would mark a surprise comeback by the cleric, who has a zealous following among the young, poor and dispossessed but has been sidelined by influential Iranian-backed figures.
Sadr has formed an unlikely alliance with communists and other independent secular supporters who joined protests he organised in 2016 to press the government to see through a move to stem endemic corruption.
He derives much of his authority from his family. Sadr’s father, highly respected Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, was murdered in 1999 for defying Saddam Hussein. His father’s cousin, Mohammed Baqir, was killed by Saddam in 1980.
More
May 13, 2018 / 8:23 PM
Most foreign envoys absent as Israel, U.S. launch embassy festivities
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel
launched celebrations on Sunday for the U.S. Embassy’s relocation to Jerusalem,
a move whose break with world consensus was underscored by the absence of most
envoys to the country from a reception hosted by Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
Monday’s slated opening of the new embassy follows U.S. President Donald
Trump’s recognition in December of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a decision he
said fulfilled decades of policy pledges in Washington and formalised realities
on the ground.
The Palestinians, who want their own future state with its capital in
east Jerusalem, have been outraged by Trump’s shift from previous
administrations’ preference for keeping the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv pending
progress in peace efforts.
Those talks have been frozen since 2014. Other major powers worry that
the U.S. move could inflame Palestinian unrest in the occupied West Bank and on
the Gaza Strip border, where Israel reinforced troops in anticipation of the
embassy opening.
Most countries say Jerusalem’s status should be determined in a final
peace settlement, and say moving their embassies now would prejudge any such
deal.
Addressing dignitaries at the Foreign Ministry, including U.S. Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka
Trump and Jared Kushner, the Israeli prime minister urged others to follow
Washington’s lead.
“Move your embassies to Jerusalem because it’s the right thing to do,”
Netanyahu said. “Move your embassies to Jerusalem because it advances peace,
and that’s because you can’t base peace on a foundation of lies.”
Netanyahu said that “under any peace agreement you could possibly
imagine, Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital”.
Jerusalem, which is sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians, was
decorated with roadside flowerbeds in the design of the U.S. flag and posters
reading “Trump make Israel great again”.
More
You and I come by road or
rail, but economists travel on infrastructure.
Margaret Thatcher
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
In EUSSR news, Italy gets a populist,
anti-Brussels, spendthrift government. Let the games begin! Now it’s Brussels v
Italy, Poland, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Holland. Plus
Brexit. Euros anyone?
Italy’s populist 5 Star, League parties reach deal on government program
Published: May 13, 2018 8:39 p.m. ET
ROME—Italy’s antiestablishment 5 Star Movement and hard-right League party
have reached an agreement on a government program, likely clearing the way for
the formation of a governing coalition between Italy’s two largest
antiestablishment parties.The formation of a new government—which is expected in the coming days—between the two groups marks one of the biggest wins yet for the political insurgencies shaking Europe’s establishments.
Read: Italian bonds take a beating on expected ‘tail risk’ from populist government
The two parties struck a deal Sunday evening on a pact that would underpin a government coalition between the two. Leaders of the two groups, however, are still negotiating the members of a government cabinet, including the prime minister. An announcement of those names should come early this week, according to weekend statements by leaders of both groups.
5 Star and League leaders are slated to meet Monday with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, whose responsibility it is to guide the formation of a new government.
The coalition must then win votes in both houses of parliament. The League and 5 Star together enjoy a comfortable majority in each house.
The coalition agreement includes measures such as a universal basic income for the unemployed, a rock-bottom flat tax and the revocation of a sweeping pension reform introduced in 2011.
If you want something said,
ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.
Margaret Thatcher
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?
Broken nanodiamonds are forever: Self-generating dry lubricant for industry
Date:
May 10, 2018
Source:
DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Summary:
Researchers have created a self-generating, very-low-friction dry lubricant
that lasts so long it could almost be confused with forever.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National
Laboratory are combining nanodiamonds with two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide
layers and breaking them to create a self-generating, very-low-friction dry
lubricant that lasts so long it could almost be confused with forever. The
substance could have hundreds of industrial applications and can be used
virtually wherever two pieces of metal rub together in dry conditions.
The most commonly used solid lubricants on the market today take the
form of graphite paste. We use these lubricants to grease doorknobs and bike
chains, among other things.
In 2015, Anirudha Sumant of the Nanoscience and Technology division and
his colleagues achieved a breakthrough in solid lubrication technology by
demonstrating superlubricity (near-zero friction) at engineering scale for the
first time by using graphene combined with nanodiamonds. This approach was
revolutionary, and since then his group has continued to further develop the
technology.
Most recently, Sumant replaced the graphene in the process with
molybdenum disulfide, to see how other 2-D materials would behave. He was
expecting the process to resemble the one observed with graphene-nanodiamond
lubricant. However, the team was surprised when Diana Berman, the lead author
and Argonne post-doctoral fellow, couldn't see nanodiamonds in the material.
Instead, she found balls of onion-like carbon.
What was happening? The molybdenum disulfide was breaking up into
molybdenum and sulfur and reacting with the nanodiamonds to convert them into
onion-like carbon.
"We knew that the culprit must be sulfur damaging the nanodiamonds,
but for us it actually helps," Sumant said.
The Argonne team, which included Sumant, Diana Berman, Subramanian
Sankaranarayanan, Badri Narayanan, Mathew Cherukara, Ali Erdemir and Alexander
Zinovev, realized that sulfur diffusion was increasing the strain in the
nanodiamonds, subsequently breaking them and converting them into onion-like
carbon.
This was a blessing in disguise, said Sankaranarayanan, since their
efforts also unlocked another secret of how other 2-D materials will interact
with nanodiamonds with the same result.
The friction in this new combination is 10 times lower than that of some
nonstick coatings including fluoropolymers, which means less heat and less wear
and tear on parts and equipment.
More
“My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on
things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day’s work for an
honest day’s pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day;
pay your bills on time; support the police.”
Margaret Thatcher.
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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