Baltic Dry Index. 1366 -16 Brent Crude 78.98
Politics have no relation to
morals.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Later today,
President Trump is widely expected to impose the next 200 billion round of
punitive trade tariffs on China. “We are looking forward to a
more beautiful counter-attack and will keep increasing the pain felt by the
U.S.,” China’s Global Times retorts.
Trump’s unwise Great Global Trade War on friend and for alike looks set
to go nuclear later this week or next.
And so an unnecessary minor drag on global trade up
to now, is about to become the trigger for the next global recession. The
Baltic Dry (shipping) Index already seems to be sinking in anticipation.
Below, Trump about to
load another chamber in our new insane, global trade game, of Russian roulette.
The promise given was a
necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
Niccolo Machiavelli
September 17, 2018 / 4:53 AM
China won't just play defense in trade war, Global Times says
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China will not be content to only play defense in an escalating
trade war with the United States, a widely read Chinese tabloid warned, as
President Donald Trump was expected to announce new tariffs on $200 billion in
Chinese goods as early as Monday.
Beijing
may also decline to participate in proposed trade talks with Washington later
this month if the Trump administration goes ahead with the additional tariffs,
the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing Chinese officials.
The Journal report quoted one senior Chinese advisory official saying
China would not negotiate “with a gun pointed to its head.”
The United States and China have already levied duties on $50 billion
worth of each other’s goods in an intensifying row that has jolted global
financial markets in the past few months.
Last week, the world’s two biggest economies appeared to be making
progress on the trade snag after the U.S. Treasury Department invited senior
Chinese officials including Vice Premier Liu He for more talks.
However, a senior administration official told Reuters over the weekend
that Trump is likely to announce the new tariffs as early as Monday.
“It is nothing new for the U.S. to try to escalate tensions so as to
exploit more gains at the negotiating table,” the Global Times, which is
published by the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily, wrote in an editorial
on Monday.
“We are looking forward to a more beautiful counter-attack and will keep
increasing the pain felt by the U.S.,” the Chinese-language column said.
Besides retaliating with tariffs, China could also restrict export of
goods, raw materials and components core to U.S. manufacturing supply chains,
former finance minister Lou Jiwei told a Beijing forum on Sunday, according to
an attendee.
Lou is chairman of the National Council for Social Security Fund.
One person, who attended the event and is familiar with the White
House’s thinking, said such a move would likely attract sharp retaliation from
Washington, which has studied its own limits on exporting key technologies to
China.
More
Asian Stocks Decline as Trade Concerns Resurface: Markets Wrap
By Adam Haigh
Updated on 17 September 2018, 04:53 GMT+1
Stocks in Asia tumbled at the beginning of the week after the latest
U.S. move to place a further tranche of tariffs on Chinese goods. The dollar
maintained gains.
Shares in Hong Kong and China led declines, with Japanese markets closed
for a holiday, after news that President Donald Trump instructed aides to
proceed with tariffs on about $200 billion more in Chinese products. Copper and
nickel dragged industrial metals lower. The S&P 500 Index finished flat on
Friday as financial and energy shares rose, while the 10-year Treasury yield
hit 3 percent.
Equities
in Asia had made an attempt to rebound at the end of last week amid some signs
the U.S. and China will enter talks and calm trade concerns. That was upended
Friday when people familiar with the matter said Trump gave his aides
instructions to proceed with more tariffs despite his Treasury Secretary’s
attempt to restart talks with Beijing. China is considering declining the Trump
administration’s offer of trade talks later this month after this fresh threats
of tariffs from Washington, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Elsewhere,
oil pared gains from Friday ahead of an OPEC meeting in Algiers. Russian and
Saudi Arabian energy ministers met in Moscow at the weekend and both confirmed
a commitment to stability in the market.
More
In other news,
hurricane Florence turned into a biblical rain event. Damage assessment is just
starting.
September 16, 2018 / 8:53 AM
North Carolina devastated as floodwaters rise from deadly storm Florence
WILMINGTON/WILSON,
N.C. (Reuters) - Deadly storm Florence drenched North Carolina with more
downpours on Sunday, cutting off the coastal city of Wilmington, damaging tens
of thousands of homes and threatening worse flooding as rivers fill to the
bursting point.
The death toll rose to at least 17.
Florence, a onetime hurricane that weakened to a tropical depression by
Sunday, dumped up to 40 inches (100 cm) of rain on parts of North Carolina
since Thursday, and continued to produce widespread heavy rain over much of
North Carolina and eastern South Carolina, the National Weather Service said.
The storm has never been more dangerous than it is right now,” North
Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told a news conference. Many rivers “are still
rising, and are not expected to crest until later today or tomorrow.”
Some rivers were not expected to crest until Monday or Tuesday, the
National Weather Service said.
More than 900 people were rescued from rising floodwaters and 15,000
remained in shelters in the state, Cooper said.
Many of those rescues took place on swift boats in Wilmington, a
historic coastal city of about 117,000 people on a peninsula between the Cape
Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean.
-----The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the area until at least Monday morning and said up to 8 inches (20 cm) more rain could fall in some areas, creating an elevated risk for landslides in Western North Carolina.
Officials urged those who had evacuated to stay away.
----In
Leland, a low-lying city north of Wilmington, homes and businesses were
engulfed by water that rose up to 10 feet (3 meters) over Highway 17,
submerging stop signs in what local people called unprecedented flooding.
-----More than 641,000 homes and businesses were without electricity in North and South Carolina and surrounding states, down from a peak of nearly 1 million.
Florence set a record in the state for rain from a hurricane, surpassing
the previous record of 24 inches (61 cm) set by Hurricane Floyd, which killed
56 people in 1999, said Bryce Link, a meteorologist with private forecasting
service DTN Marine Weather.
More
Coal Ash and Sewage Spill Over as Florence Floods the Carolinas
By Mark Niquette and Christopher Flavelle
15 September 2018, 15:26 GMT+1 Updated on 16 September 2018, 16:07 GMT+1
A Duke Energy Corp.
landfill near Wilmington, North Carolina, failed under the assault of Tropical
Depression Florence, spilling about 2,000 cubic yards of coal ash that can
carry toxic mercury, arsenic and lead. Authorities said they would investigate
whether the pollutant had reached the Cape Fear River, but said it wasn’t yet
safe to inspect the site.As the weakening storm plodded agonizingly across the Carolinas on Sunday, officials warned of even more catastrophic flooding. The deluge has already killed at least 13 people, washed partially treated sewage into waterways and left entire communities under water.
----Stretches of I-95 and other roads were closed, and drivers were advised to avoid North Carolina in general. “This is an extremely long detour, but it is the detour that offers the lowest risk,” the state’s Department of Transportation said in an advisory.
Florence, the first major hurricane of the Atlantic season, is expected to cause an estimated $18 billion in damage.
-----About 40,000 utility workers from at least 17 states are ready to restore power, according to the federal energy department. Besides Duke Energy, utilities in the Carolinas include South Carolina-owned Santee Cooper, Brunswick Electric Membership Corp., Jones Onslow Electric Membership and Lumbee River Electric Membership.
Residents wondered whether crucial infrastructure and industrial emplacements would survive. Of particular concern were environmentally precarious facilities for processing waste from North Carolina’s massive hog industry and for containing the byproducts of power generation.
More
than 60 swine operations house more than 235,000 hogs that generate almost 202
million gallons of waste per year within the floodplain of North Carolina’s
coast, according to Waterkeepers, a watchdog group. Environmental organizations
are preparing to inspect waterways for toxic spills from lagoons once the storm
subsides.
More
Finally, another “Russian”
Novichok poisoning in Salisbury? How many Russians are there in Salisbury? Why?
September 16, 2018 / 8:27 PM
Two people fall ill in restaurant in poison attack city - UK police
LONDON (Reuters) - Two people fell ill on Sunday while eating at a
restaurant in Salisbury, the English city where former Russian agent Sergei
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in March, police said.
In a statement, Wiltshire Police said there was nothing to suggest the
incident at the Prezzo restaurant involved the nerve agent Novichok, and that
it was not clear whether a crime had been committed. Enquiries were continuing,
police said.
One of the two people taken ill at the restaurant is Russian, Sky News
said, citing sources.
Officers were called to Prezzo in the evening in response to a “medical
incident” involving a man and a woman, Wiltshire Police said, adding that the
restaurant and surrounding roads were cordoned off as a precautionary measure.
Britain has said Russian officers used Novichok to attack the Skripals.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement.
Police have said a nerve toxin had been left on the front door of the
Skripals’ home. They were found slumped in Salisbury city centre after visiting
the Bishop’s Mill pub and Zizzi, another Italian restaurant.
The former Russian spy and his daughter survived the murder attempt, but
an unconnected woman, Dawn Sturgess, died in July and her partner Charlie
Rowley fell ill after Rowley found a perfume bottle containing the same nerve
agent.
More
The first method for
estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, life in the EUSSR.
Brexit now.
It is double pleasure to
deceive the deceiver.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Why Did EU Commission Chief Go Silent in Border Dispute?
The president of the European Commission is
ignoring his own legal staff's advice to issue a position statement in the
long-simmering border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia. Has he gone quiet
to help the Croatian prime minister, who is a member of the same political
party?
September 14, 2018
06:24 PM
It's
really only about a few fishing boats and territorial claims in the Adriatic
Sea. But when Jean-Claude Juncker raised the matter in the European Parliament,
he became passionate. The dispute between Slovenia and Croatia about their land
and sea borders "must be resolved," the European Commission president
told Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who had taken his seat in the
plenary hall back in February as the guest of honor. After all, he said, it is
not just a problem for the two EU members, but "a European problem."
In a strange twist, a good six months after Juncker's firm words, it's
now the European Commission chief himself who is delaying a solution. The
Commission had several opportunities to act as an arbitrator in the conflict,
but Juncker decided to stay out of it, even though his own staff has no doubt
that Slovenia's position is largely correct in the matter. When the European
Commission's legal service recently suggested that a "Reasoned
Opinion" should be adopted, Juncker suddenly grew very stubborn. So far,
the European commissioners responsible for the issue have yet to see the legal
opinion DER SPIEGEL has obtained. Now the dispute is escalating, with Slovenia
having moved in mid-July to file a lawsuit against Croatia at the European
Court of Justice.
The president's decision is another example of how Juncker envisages the
work of a more "political commission." On Wednesday, he presented his
agenda for the coming months. With just a year to go until the end of his term
in office, Juncker also wanted his State of the Union speech in Strasbourg to
send out a message against growing populism in Europe.
The only problem with this is that the president himself has recently
been helping fuel the populists, sometimes by not applying the rules of the
Stability and Growth Pact given Italy's election, and at others by expressing
indifference to the opinions of his own lawyers, as he is now doing in the
border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia.
The
dispute has become particularly charged. Croatian Prime Minister Plenkovic is
said to have personally pleaded with Juncker during a meeting in mid-February
for the European Commission to stay out of the dispute -- a request he
considered to be entirely reasonable. If the commission had backed Slovenia,
the damage to Croatia's image would have been tremendous. It's no wonder that
conspiracy theorists in Slovenia are now having their day, arguing there may be
some kind of deal brewing between the two politicians. Like Juncker,
Plenkovic's party is also a member of the conservative European People's Party
at the EU level.
The dispute itself is as complicated as it is bizarre. Croatia and
Slovenia have spent years quarreling over a few square kilometers of water. And
it's not as if they are fighting over attractive stretches of coast the Gulf of
Piran, either -- it's a corridor to which both are allowed access and is used
by a few fishermen.
Slovenia only abandoned its veto against Croatia's accession to the EU
in 2009 because Croatia agreed to submit to arbitration in the dispute. As a
result of that arbitration, the Slovenes were awarded three quarters of the
bay, including access to international waters, in the middle of last year.
Croatia still hasn't accepted the judgment, partly because a Slovenian
diplomat was caught in 2015 colluding with a court member from her home
country; a circumstance that had no influence on the result, as the court
noted.
It's the kind of conflict that Europeans thought had long since been
overcome. At times, Croatian fishermen in the zone claimed by Slovenia have
been escorted by police boats to do their work.
More
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?
Tesla Model 3 Stolen From Mall of America Using Only a Smartphone
A little bit of social engineering can go a long way.
By Rob StumpfSeptember 14, 2018
With cars becoming more connected than ever, cybersecurity is a hot-button
topic that extends past your computer screen and into your car. Using a bit of
technology, an alleged car thief was able to get his hands on a Model 3 at the
Mall of America and drive away without needing a key. The alleged crime was
reportedly committed via smartphone.A computer forensics specialist who commented on the happenings of the incident was able to narrow down just how the alleged stolen Tesla was taken with such reported ease. The person allegedly responsible for taking the car is believed to have reached out to Tesla's customer support to add the stolen Model 3 to his Tesla account by its vehicle identification number. Once the vehicle was accessible on a smartphone that was signed into this person’s account, he was reportedly able to unlock the car and drive away without ever needing a key.
Several days later, the alleged car thief was tracked down and arrested in the stolen car in Waco, Texas, more than 1,000 miles south of its starting point in Minnesota. Since this person disabled GPS tracking on the car, the owner had to utilize a different method of tracking down the alleged crook.
The owner tracked the location of the car's Supercharging and provided it to local authorities where they promptly located the car and arrested the man behind the wheel.
The Tesla is owned by a company called Trevla, a Tesla rental company located inside of the Mall of America. The 21-year-old alleged car thief had previously rented vehicles from the company at least six times prior to the alleged theft, confirmed a local news station with the owner of the company.
The owner also recalled this same person supposedly bragging about the extensive knowledge he held regarding Tesla's security systems, ultimately leading the rental company to suspect this particular regular customer when the vehicle came up missing.
The automaker told Electrek that the alleged car thief likely had previously rented the vehicle and had an already-authenticated phone as a result. The owner of Trevla reportedly refuted this claim, stating that he had removed the phone's access following this person’s prior rental. At the time of writing, Tesla did not respond to The Drive's request for comment.
Tesla has enabled keyless entry and driving in its vehicles for quite some time, enabling the convenience of driving using only one's phone is a luxury which most people have yet to experience just how insanely convenient it can be. Unfortunately, convenience can also be a point of entry from a cybersecurity perspective. The Model 3's primary use of entry and driving is a linked smartphone, using only a backup keycard to keep handy in a wallet or purse in case of emergencies.
More
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/23599/tesla-stolen-from-mall-of-america-using-only-a-smartphone
On some great and glorious day
the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the
White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H. L. Mencken
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August.
DJIA: 25,965 +207 Down. NASDAQ:
8,110 +265 Up. SP500: 2,902 +168 Up.
All
three slow indicators moved down in March, but the S&P and NASDAQ have now turned
up. September will be critical for
confirmation of this change.
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