Saturday, 9 June 2018

Weekend Update 09/06/2018 The G-6 Cowed And Furious.


“Something’s going to happen. I think it will be very positive,” Trump said, without giving details

We open with Reuters reporting from the big fight in Canada between Trump Team America and the six dwarfs. Try as they might the six dwarfs have yet to land a blow on “the Donald,” who seems to be miffed at having to be there at all. As an aside, does anyone know why Italy’s there?

But first this, today is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's official birthday. With two birthdays a year, Her Majesty turns 184 today.

Now back to tha great Canada Car Crash. President Trump suggested that it was time to bring back Russia, forming a G-8 again. Italy started to agree until the other 5 dwarfs ganged up in horror at the idea and blocked it. As an aside, why not China too? A G-9 makes sense in our 21st century world, with Italy remaining if they take charge of the catering.

Below, France speaks for all including President Trump, at least according to France. Probably the most pointless summit ever.

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.”

Dave Barry

June 8, 2018 / 3:51 AM

U.S., EU take small step on trade, but no breakthrough at G7 summit

LA MALBAIE, Quebec (Reuters) - The United States and European Union will establish a dialogue on trade within the next two weeks, a French official said on Friday, signalling a modest step forward for bitterly divided allies at a Group of Seven summit in Canada.

U.S. trading partners have been furious over President Donald Trump’s decision last week to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from Canada, the European Union and Mexico as part of his “America First” agenda. Some countries have retaliated with their own levies on U.S. imports.

“The principle of a dialogue was agreed this afternoon,” the French official told reporters. “Everyone agreed, including President Trump.”

While G7 leaders confronted Trump with a slew of data on imports and exports in a bid to sway his thinking, Trump countered his own numbers and held his position that the United States was at a disadvantage on international trade, an official who followed the talks said.

But Trump struck a more affable tone after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, saying the French leader was helping work out trade issues.

“Something’s going to happen. I think it will be very positive,” Trump said, without giving details.

Macron said it was possible to advance the trade issues that have split the U.S. and its allies.
“I think, on trade, there is ... a way to progress all together,” he told reporters after his meeting with Trump. “I saw the willingness on all the sides to find agreements and have a win-win approach for our people, our workers, and our middle classes.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday floated an idea to set up a way to resolve trade disputes between the United States and its allies. An official described Merkel’s suggestion as a “shared assessment and dialogue” mechanism, but gave no further details. It was unclear if the technical talks were part of her initiative.

The proposal was supported by other leaders present, the official said. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker offered to visit Washington for an assessment of EU-US trade to help resolve the dispute, an official said.

Expectations for a major breakthrough on trade at the summit, however, remain low, with U.S. allies focussed on avoiding rupturing the G7, which in its 42-year history has tended to seek consensus on major issues.

“It’s highly unlikely there will be a final communique,” a G7 official said on condition of anonymity.
More

Sticking with “why is Italy even in the G-7,” below the smart money is fleeing Italy by the boatload. Will Italy still be in the EUSSR this time next year or at next year’s G-7, if there is one?

Capital flight from Italy surges, pushing Target2 imbalances to danger level

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard7 June 2018 • 11:19pm
THE Bank of Italy’s debts to eurozone central banks rocketed to an all-time high of €465bn (£408bn) in May as anti-euro insurgent parties prepared to take power, a clear sign that foreign investors have begun to pull large sums of money out of the country.
The institution’s Target2 liabilities within the European Central Bank’s payment nexus jumped by €39bn in a single month. This was almost certainly precipitated by the shock decision of the alt-Left Five Star Movement and hard-Right Lega nationalists to forge a coalition, armed with a subversive “minibot” parallel currency.
More. Subscription required.

In other news, the Swiss vote tomorrow on taking away the banksters power to create money for banksters. The banksters are moving heaven and earth to make sure that the referendum fails. Still it’s a nice thought. Money is too important to be created only by banksters and their crony bent politicians. 

Swiss sovereign money referendum, 2018

The Swiss sovereign-money referendum of June 2018, also known as the Sovereign-Money Initiative,[note 2] [note 3] aims to give the central bank of Switzerland the sole authority of "creating money."

The proposal for the referendum was initiated by the Monetary Modernisation Association, a Swiss, not-for-profit, non-governmental, non-politically affiliated organization.[3] This association was founded in 2011, and launched the Sovereign Money Initiative in 2014. The collection of signatures began in June 2014 and resulted in over 110,000 valid signatures[4] The initiative was submitted to the Federal Chancellery in December 2015.[5]

On 31 January 2018, the Swiss state decided that a referendum shall be held on 10 June 2018, with two issues on the ballot, one about gambling, and another about money creation by banks.[2] The Sovereign Money Initiative aims to give the Swiss Confederation a monopoly on money creation, including demand deposit (full-reserve banking[4]), by including the creation of scriptural money in the legal mandate of the Swiss National Bank.[5] The name of the initiative was inspired by the book 100% Money of Nobel Prize laureate Irving Fisher.[5][6] The Swiss National Bank is opposed to the referendum.[7]

Background

The Sovereign Money Initiative was conceived amidst and in response to the global financial crisis of 2008 and growing levels of private and public debt in many countries.[5]

According to the initiative's supporters,[3] money is created as debt, and comes into existence by debt creation when commercial banks borrow from central banks, and when governments, producers, or consumers borrow from commercial banks. Proponents do not want money creation to be under private control as this constitutes a "subsidy" to the banking sector. They consider money created by the banks to create significantly adverse effects, such as inflation (since "the more money [the banks] issue, the higher their profits"), and amplification of crises (since borrowing occurs pro-cyclically). Furthermore, they claim that bank deposits are not inherently safe.[3]
More

Finally, while we await news from the big fight in Quebec Canada,  over at the thousand year old Westminster Abbey, a new attraction opens Monday. The Queen’s “new attic” gallery, greatly helped by Canada’s Garfield Weston Foundation, UK branch. Us English (and French) speaking dwarfs ought to stick together. Back in 1940 it was the only alliance that saved the world from Hitler, the American’s as usual showed up late.

One always measures friendships by how they show up in bad weather.

Sir Winston Churchill.

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries to open on 11th June

Monday, 4th June 2018
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries will open at Westminster Abbey on Monday 11th June.

The new Galleries are set more than 16 metres (52 feet) above the Abbey’s floor in the medieval triforium, an area that has never been open to the public before. Displaying 300 treasures from the Abbey’s collection, many for the first time, the Galleries will reflect the Abbey’s thousand-year history.

Visitors will reach the Galleries through a new tower, housing a staircase and lift. Named the Weston Tower, this is the first major addition to the Abbey church since 1745. Designed by Ptolemy Dean, the Abbey’s Surveyor of the Fabric (Consultant Architect), the tower is outside Poets’ Corner, tucked between the Abbey’s thirteenth century Chapter House and sixteenth century Lady Chapel.

The Galleries tell the story of Westminster Abbey in four themes:

Building Westminster Abbey charts the foundations of the first Benedictine monastery in AD 960, through its life as Edward the Confessor’s Church, and the extensive repair programme during Sir Christopher Wren’s role as Surveyor of the Fabric (1698 – 1723). Visitors are able to see for the first time a column capital from the cloister of St Edward the Confessor’s Church (around 1100), along with an intricate scale model of Westminster Abbey (1714-16) commissioned by Sir Christopher Wren with a massive central spire which was planned, but never built.

Worship and Daily Life gives insight into the life of a working church with daily worship at its heart. Artefacts demonstrating the long history of worship in the building include The Westminster Retable, (1259 – 69) the oldest surviving altarpiece in England from Henry III’s Abbey, and the Litlyngton Missal, an illuminated 14th-century service book made for the Abbey’s high altar.
More
The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, announced today that in recognition of the exceptional generosity of The Garfield Weston Foundation towards the funding of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, the access tower to the Galleries has been named The Weston Tower.
The name has been carved in the stone of the tower where the visitor will walk across the high-level bridge linking the tower to the Galleries.
The Dean of Westminster said:
The Garfield Weston Foundation has been wonderfully supportive of the Jubilee Galleries project. There could be no better way of expressing our gratitude than to name the access tower after such a specially generous donor.

“When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.”

Sir Winston Churchill.

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May.

DJIA: 24,416 +201 Down. NASDAQ: 7,442 +276 Down. SP500: 2,705 +180 Down.
All three slow indicators moved down in March and April and continued down in May. For some a new bear signal, for others a take profits and get back to cash signal. 

No comments:

Post a Comment