Baltic Dry Index. 1239 -34 Brent Crude 79.35
“If
you're not gonna pull the trigger, don't point the gun.”
James
Baker. United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan,
and U.S. Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff under President
George H. W. Bush.
With phase one of the
Great Trump Trade War against China over, who won? While the jury’s still out,
from London the winner seems to be China. But that doesn’t make the USA the
loser. The loser seems to be Germany. NATO member Germany seems to have replaced China in
the firing line of Trump’s global trade war.
Trump’s German
ambassador has already ordered German firms out of Iran. Team Trump has ordered
Germany to drop the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia or face sanctions.
Apparently, Germany must be stopped from getting secure access to low priced
natural gas.
Below our now very
different, fractious, America First world.
Asian Stocks Edge Lower, Oil Hovers Near 2014 High: Markets Wrap
By Andreea Papuc
Updated on 22 May 2018, 04:41 GMT+1
Most Asian stocks dipped in a holiday-hit trading session Tuesday, with
the dollar and U.S. Treasuries little changed as crude oil held around its
highest New York level since 2014.
Companies selling baby products saw gains after news that China plans to
abandon its policy on childbirths, though the advances weren’t enough to hold
up even domestic Chinese equity benchmarks. Japan’s Topix Index edged lower,
while Australian shares fell. Without fresh news on U.S.-China trade talks,
investors may turn their attention later this week to minutes of the Federal
Reserve’s May policy meeting for clues on the likely number of interest-rate
hikes remaining this year.
While the S&P 500 Index climbed overnight thanks to easing trade
tensions, that optimism appeared to have played out by the time Asian trading
began Tuesday. Hong Kong and South Korean markets are shut for Buddha’s
Birthday.
“Markets are going through a bumpy ride,” Bank of Singapore Investment
Strategist James Cheo said on Bloomberg Television. “This trade truce is still
in the early days. It’s really a ceasefire, it’s not a peace treaty as yet. The
implementation details are still unclear. There is still some caution among
Asian investors.”
Plenty
of other topics may capture investors’ attention. Along with the Fed, the
European Central Bank is releasing its latest meeting minutes, and there is a
slew of debt sales from the U.S.
More
May 22, 2018 / 4:51 AM
U.S., China nearing deal to remove U.S. sales ban against ZTE: sources
BEIJING
(Reuters) - Washington and Beijing are nearing a deal that will remove an
existing order banning U.S. firms from supplying telecommunications firm ZTE
Corp (000063.SZ) (0763.HK), two people briefed on the talks
said.
The
sources, who declined to be identified because the negotiations were
confidential, also told Reuters the deal could include China removing tariffs
on imported U.S. agricultural products as well as buying more of them.
May 21, 2018 / 3:57 AM
China praises positive steps in U.S. trade row, says didn't give in
BEIJING
(Reuters) - Chinese state media on Monday praised a significant dialling back
of trade tension with the United States, saying China had stood its ground and
the two countries had huge potential for win-win business cooperation.
A trade war was “on hold” after the world’s largest economies agreed to
drop their tariff threats while they work on a wider trade agreement, U.S.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday.
The previous day, Beijing and Washington said they would keep talking
about measures under which China would import more energy and agricultural
commodities from the United States to narrow the $335 billion annual U.S. goods
and services trade deficit with China.
The official China Daily said everyone could heave a sigh of relief at
the ratcheting down of the rhetoric, and cited China’s chief negotiator, Vice
Premier Liu He, as saying the talks had proved to be “positive, pragmatic,
constructive and productive”.
“Despite all the pressure, China didn’t ‘fold,’ as U.S. President Donald
Trump observed. Instead, it stood firm and continually expressed its
willingness to talk,” the English-language newspaper said in an editorial.
“That the U.S. finally shared this willingness, means the two sides have
successfully averted the head-on confrontation that at one point seemed
inevitable”, it said.
During an initial round of talks this month in Beijing, the United
States demanded that China reduce its trade surplus by $200 billion. No dollar
figure was cited in the countries’ joint statement on Saturday.
But some analysts in Beijing warned that trade tension would persist,
and that China should prepare for more action on trade from the Trump
administration.
More
Bannon Condemns Mnuchin’s Trade Truce as China Giveaway
By Kevin Cirilli
Former Trump political strategist Steve Bannon condemned a weekend truce
in the U.S. trade dispute with China as a capitulation, signaling
dissatisfaction among the president’s allies.
Bannon targeted Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. banker, for his role in the trade talks. President Donald
Trump “changed the dynamic regarding China but in one weekend Secretary Mnuchin
has given it away,” Bannon said in an interview.
The Trump administration said it would hold off on tariff threats after
the two nations agreed to “substantially” reduce the U.S. merchandise trade
deficit with China, which last year hit a record $375 billion. Beijing promised
to “significantly” increase purchases of U.S. goods and services, but there was
no dollar figure attached, despite White House assurances that China would cave
to its demand for a $200 billion annual reduction in the trade gap.
----“We’re putting the trade war on hold,” Mnuchin said Sunday after the two sides released a joint statement a day earlier. “Right now, we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we execute the framework.”
Bannon said the comment from Mnuchin, who took the lead in trade talks
with Chinese vice premier Liu He, showed the Treasury secretary “misses the
central point” of the economic competition.
“They’re in a trade war with us and it hasn’t stopped,” Bannon said.
“Mnuchin has completely misread the geopolitical, military, and historical
precedence and what President Trump had done was finally put the Chinese on
their back heels.”
A Treasury spokeswoman didn’t immediately answer a request for comment.
More
Trump's Backtracking on Chinese Tariffs Prompts Hope and Despair
By Jenny Leonard
President Donald Trump’s trade truce with China was met with a mixed bag
of reactions, from farm country breathing a small sigh of relief to China hawks
in Congress sounding alarms.
Over the weekend, the world’s two largest economies averted escalating a
trade dispute by backing off their threats to impose tariffs as they try to
re-balance commerce. While the easing of tensions boosted stocks, the dollar
and oil prices early Monday, critics warn the Trump administration has
squandered its chance to force meaningful economic reforms from Beijing.
----Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from the agriculture-heavy state of Iowa, said on Twitter there was a “little bit of light at the end of the tunnel on Chinese U.S. trade fight.”
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who has co-sponsored a bill that would
ban Chinese telecom-equipment maker ZTE Corp. from federal government
contracts, said on Twitter that “China is winning the negotiations.”
“Their concessions are things they planned to do anyways. In exchange
they get no tariffs, can keep stealing intellectual property & can keep
blocking our companies while they invest in the U.S. without limits. If we are
desperate for a deal China is going to kills us in negotiations,” Rubio said.
Hardliners on the Democratic side also bashed Trump for what they see as
letting China off the hook and failing to address the root problems.
More
Washington Threatens Sanctions For Nord Stream 2
While Germany tries to make sure Ukraine will not suffer too badly from
the addition of Nord Stream 2 to the European natural gas pipeline network, a
senior State Department official has threatened sanctions for the controversial
project.
Speaking to media in Berlin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
Energy Diplomacy Sandra Oudkirk said Washington deemed the pipe as a security
threat because it would give Russia the chance to install “undersea
surveillance equipment” such as “listening devices” in the Baltic. Oudkirk did
not go into detail about the surveillance equipment that she suspected Russia
might put on the seabed.
What she did make a point of noting was that the threat of sanctions was
motivated by Washington’s strong desire to curb Russia’s influence in Europe
and had nothing to do with the fact that U.S. LNG is one alternative to Russian
gas. Oudkirk also said Washington did not believe there was a way to enforce
guarantees for Ukraine’s transit fee revenues from current Russian pipeline exports
to Russia.
These revenues have turned into a sticking point between Russia and
Germany, with the latter showing genuine concern for Ukraine’s revenues,
although it was clear from the beginning that an expanded Nord Stream would
mean diverting part of current gas transit from Ukraine.
----For Germany, Nord Stream 2 means more gas amid nuclear and coal power plant phasing out. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is today meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Russia to discuss, among other things, the pipeline, whose construction in Germany just started earlier this week. She has been stalwart in her support for the pipeline, just as she has been stalwart about EU sanctions against Russia for its involvement in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, President Trump is applying pressure on Merkel: German, EU,
and U.S. government officials told the Wall Street Journal that Trump has
offered Merkel a trade deal for the EU if she cancels Nord Stream 2.
----Should
the U.S. go ahead with the threat and impose sanctions on the pipeline, under a
bill passed in 2017 with relation to the allegations of Russian meddling in the
2016 U.S. elections, the companies that might fall within their scope would
include Shell, Wintershall, Uniper, OMV, and Engie, who are Gazprom’s partner
in Nord Stream 2.
More
Finally, in other
news, Hawaii’s geothermal plant is about to get covered in lava. Bad sighting
or bad luck? Tesla’s run of bad luck continues, but is it more than bad luck?
May 21, 2018 / 8:40 PM
Lava creeps to edge of geothermal plant on Hawaii's Big Island
PAHOA,
Hawaii (Reuters) - Molten lava from the erupting Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii’s
Big Island crept to the edge of a geothermal power plant on Monday, as workers
rushed to shut down the facility to prevent the uncontrollable release of toxic
gases.
The race to cap three geothermal wells at the site marked the latest
challenge facing authorities as they cope with what geologists rank as one of
the biggest upheavals in a century from one of the world’s most active
volcanoes.
The Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) plant, which provides about 25 percent
of the Big Island’s power, has been closed since shortly after lava began
erupting on May 3 through newly opened fissures in the ground running through
neighborhoods and roads on the far eastern flank of Kilauea.
Within a week, some 60,000 gallons (227,124 liters) of the highly
flammable chemical pentane, which was stored at the plant, were moved from
harm’s way.
Workers are now trying to shut down the plant’s three wells, which run
6,000 to 8,000 feet (1,829-2,438 meters) underground to tap into extremely hot
water and steam used to run turbines and produce electricity.
“We do want to shut down the wells so that we would eliminate the
broader risk of uncontrolled release (of gases and steam from the plant),”
Hawaii Governor David Ige told reporters on Sunday.
A stream of lava from one nearby fissure reached the PGV grounds late on
Sunday or early Monday but stalled behind a berm built on the boundary of the
property to hold back the molten flow, said Hawaii County Civil Defense
spokeswoman Janet Synder.
She said the leading edge of the lava flow had stopped about 300 yards
(meters) from the nearest well pad at the plant, as plant workers were in the
final stages of capping two wells. She said they were having difficulty
quenching the third.
The state said last week it was pumping cold water into the wells and
would cap them with iron plugs. Authorities are looking at alternative measures
to kill the third well, Snyder added.
May 21, 2018 / 3:50 PM
Tesla Model 3 fails to get Consumer Reports nod due to 'big flaws'
(Reuters)
- Influential U.S. magazine Consumer Reports will not recommend Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) Model 3 sedan, saying on Monday it
braked slower than a full-sized pickup truck, taking the shine off a day of
gains for shares in Elon Musk’s electric car company.
Musk had driven shares in Tesla as much as 4 percent higher with weekend
tweets showing the Silicon Valley company was aiming initially to deliver
higher-priced, more profitable fully-loaded editions of the Model 3.
The car is seen as crucial to Tesla’s profitability at a time when it is
battling to reverse production shortfalls, confronting reports of crashes
involving its vehicles and facing increased skepticism over its finances.
On Twitter, Musk said the fully-loaded Model 3, with all-wheel drive, a
dual motor and a 310-mile (499-km) range - but excluding its vaunted Autopilot
feature - would cost $78,000. The company has not yet begun to make the $35,000
base price version that Tesla originally claimed would make it a mass-market
vehicle.
Consumer Reports, however, declined to recommend the Model 3 and
criticized it for having overly long stopping distances and a difficult-to-use
center touchscreen.
The magazine, which provides an annual rating of vehicles sold in the United States, said even though its tests found plenty to like about the Model 3 and it was a thrill to drive, it had “big flaws.”
Tesla’s stopping distance of 152 feet (46 m) when braking at 60 miles per hour (100 km per hour) was “far worse” than any contemporary car tested by the magazine and about seven feet longer than the stopping distance of a Ford (F.N) F-150 full-sized pickup, it said.
Tesla said its own testing had found braking distances of 133 feet on average using the 18” Michelin all season tire, and as low as 126 feet with all tires currently available.
----Also over the weekend, a Model S sedan crashed and killed the driver in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of a recent spate of crashes, some of which involved fire and some of which took place while the company’s semi-autonomous Autopilot technology was engaged.
In the latest case, the car launched off a rural county road into a
nearby pond more than 60 feet from the road, state and local law enforcement
said.
The car appeared to be going faster than the posted 35 mph limit, but
authorities had not yet determined its speed and whether Autopilot was engaged,
a California Highway Patrol spokesman said.
More
Freedom
is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
George
Orwell.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, more fraud and scandal in the eurozone’s top nation, Volkswagen’s
Germany, the nation that started World Wars One and Two. Surely not, I’m
shocked.
Below, Migrant Mad Merkel’s growing migrant scandal. Could Hungary,
Poland and Italy’s new government be right all along. Brexit now before anymore
wheels come flying off the EUSSR!
German ‘asylum fraud’ scandal probe widens to include 10 more migration offices
Published time: 21 May, 2018 04:20 Edited time: 21 May, 2018
09:19
German migration authorities have widened their probe into asylum
application fraud and are now investigating 10 additional field offices on
suspicion of granting refugees permissions to stay in the country without
proper grounds.
On Friday, the German Federal Office for Migration and Asylum (BAMF)
announced that it would review some 18,000 refugee cases in the city of Bremen
going back as far as 2000, after the regional office discovered the approval of
up to 2,000 asylum stays between 2013 and 2016, which did not match the
government’s sanctuary criteria.
On Sunday, the scandal deepened with 10 more asylum decision offices added to the investigation list. BAMF announced that it will examine those branches where the average quotas of asylum applications accepted or rejected in comparison with other offices deviated by 10 percentage points or more, a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior said, following a request from the DPA news agency. A total of an additional 8,500 cases from 2017 would be reviewed, she added.
In addition, BAMF will review a complaint from a Rhineland-Palatinate Bingenan office employee, who on February 6 asked the Nuremberg headquarters to evaluate “divergent assessments of asylum procedure” at the office.
The new development follows a scandal in April, when it was revealed that a former BAMF official at the Bremen office was under investigation on suspicion of taking bribes from at least 1,200 asylum seekers between 2013 and 2016. Five other officials at the workplace are now also being probed for possibly taking part in the scheme. They include an interpreter and three lawyers. Amid the corruption scandal, the Supreme Audit Institution was tasked by Interior Minister Horst Seehofe on Thursday to probe the BAMF and the Interior Ministry.
In the meantime, BAMF denied claims that the government had been aware of the asylum fraud as early as February 2017. Suddeutsche Zeitung and the NDR reported on Sunday that, back then, authorities received emails asking the migration authorities to look at the Bremen branch, including a refugee lawyer who worked for the Lower Saxony office.
More than 1.6 million refugees, mostly from Africa and the Middle East, have arrived in Germany since 2014, due to the so-called 'open door' policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The influx of migrants has divided the country and significantly boosted support for the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which secured third place in September's elections and entered parliament for the first time. The rise of the far-right in Germany came after a number of terrorist attacks involving refugees, as well as sexual harassment incidents across the country.
In October of last year, Merkel's CDU and its Bavarian CSU sister party eventually agreed to cap Germany's intake of asylum seekers at 200,000 a year. Over the next two years, Germany plans to spend €78 billion on migration-related issues, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Saturday, citing the Finance Ministry's document.
https://www.rt.com/news/427271-german-asylum-fraud-scandal-probe/
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?
Air conditioner use will triple worldwide by 2050, new report suggests
May 16 2018.During sweltering New York City summers, the local power utility warns that for every degree you lower the thermostat, your energy bill goes up by 6 percent.
Air conditioners in every form — from window units to central air — gulp energy. There are some 1.6 billion A.C. units worldwide, accounting for around 10 percent of the world's electricity consumption. And a new report from the International Energy Agency predicts that over the course of the next 30 years, this number will triple globally, to 5.6 billion buzzing, cooling appliances.
For perspective, the agency says this amounts to "10 new ACs sold every second for the next 30 years."
The looming surge in air conditioning can't be stopped, as billions more people in improving economic circumstances will want to purchase the units.
Plus, they'll have increased motivation to use them.
"We know we can expect heating over the next decades, and this will require billions of people who will need access to livable conditions," Jeff Deyette, the director of state policy and energy analysis for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an interview. Deyette had no involvement with the report.
As the potent heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide continues to accumulate in Earth's atmosphere, emitted by human industry and activity, scientists expect that the Earth will continue to warm.
Seventeen of the last 18 years have been the warmest on record.
“With rising incomes, air conditioner ownership will skyrocket, especially in the emerging world," Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, said in a statement. "While this will bring extra comfort and improve daily lives, it is essential that efficiency performance for ACs be prioritized."
The agency hopes that the 92-page report will not discourage the use of air conditioners — everyone has the right to use one — but will emphasize the need to make them more efficient.
Today, air conditioners in Japan and Europe are about 25 percent more efficient than those sold in the U.S. and China, the report says. Plus, many people aren't buying the most energy efficient air conditioners available, according to the report.
"We have the technology available today to produce incredibly efficient-energy units," said Deyette. "The challenge is it's not required in most parts of the world."
Although many nations are transitioning to renewable energy like solar and wind, globally, cities will largely still run on coal and natural gas to meet a surging energy demand. China, for example, plans to build 700 coal-powered plants around the world, many of which are being constructed for developing countries in need of energy.
But if there's a global standard requiring the appliances to be more efficient, the total energy usage of these appliances could be slashed by close to 50 percent, argue the report's authors. This plan, which the report calls the "Efficient Cooling Scenario," would require a global mandate, similar to the Paris Climate Agreement or the more recent plans to dramatically clean up the shipping sector.
Requiring that wasteful appliances like refrigerators be more efficient has had considerable societal effect in the past. Michael Picker, the president of the California Public Utilities Commission, called the state's 1970s-era standards on appliances "brilliant." Picker credited these standards for keeping the state's energy demand "flat," while the rest of the nation's demand doubled.
By 2050, however, California expects that it will be powered almost entirely on renewable energies, and in two years, half of the state's energy usage may come from renewables.
The primary need is getting efficient AC units into places that don't already have them, and that may run mostly on fossil fuel-generated energy. Many of these areas, it appears, happen to be some of the hottest on Earth.
"Most homes in hot countries have not yet purchased their first AC," the report says.
More
https://mashable.com/2018/05/15/air-conditioner-use-2050-climate-change/?utm_cid=hp-r-1#aKGQziiv6iqV
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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