Baltic Dry Index 1231 -50 Brent
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“Rather go
to bed supperless, than rise in debt.”
Benjamin
Franklin
It is the final day
of the Great Pow Wow in Argentina, although this year’s big even happens after
the great and the not so good’s gathering has ended. This year’s big event is the dinner later
today between President “Trade War” Trump, leader of the world’s biggest debtor
and President Xi, leader of the world’s biggest creditor.
Which President will
leave Argentina the winner? As things stand, the chances are high that both
Presidents will head home as losers. President Trump will pass on the
opportunity to declare trade war victory, and drop his punitive tariffs on
China’s goods, due to jump from 10 percent to 25 percent on January 1st.
President Xi will threaten some kind of punitive retaliation.
Below, how the BRICS
isolated “Trade War Trump” without actually rudely naming him. There will
probably be another update on Sunday.
“Tis against
some men’s principle to pay interest and seems against others interest to pay
the principle.”
Benjamin
Franklin
BRICS slam protectionism as China-U.S. spat overshadows G20 talks
November
30, 2018 / 9:22 AM
BUENOS
AIRES (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping and the leaders of major
developing economies condemned protectionism at a G20 summit in Argentina on
Friday overshadowed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to escalate tariffs
on China.
This year’s
two-day gathering is a major test for the Group of 20 industrialized nations,
whose leaders first met in 2008 to help rescue the global economy from the
worst financial crisis in seven decades.
With a rise
in nationalist sentiment in many countries, the G20 - which accounts for
two-thirds of the world population - faces questions over its ability to deal
with trade tensions, which have roiled global markets.
Hanging over
the summit in Buenos Aires is the trade dispute between the United States and
China, the world’s two largest economies, which have imposed tariffs on
hundreds of billions of dollars worth of each other’s imports after Trump
launched an effort to correct what he views as China’s unfair commercial
practices.
Global
financial markets will take their lead next week from the outcome of talks
between Trump and Xi over dinner on Saturday, aimed at resolving differences
that are weighing on global economic growth.
Xi and other
leaders from the BRICS group of leading emerging economies - Brazil, Russia,
India, China and South Africa - issued a statement calling for open
international trade and a strengthening of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
“The spirit
and rules of the WTO run counter to unilateral and protectionist measures,”
they said. “We call on all members to oppose such WTO-inconsistent measures,
stand by their commitments undertaken in the WTO.”
Beijing
hopes to persuade Trump to abandon plans to increase tariffs on $200 billion
(156.8 billion pounds) of Chinese goods to 25 percent in January, from 10
percent at present.
More
In technology news,
what do you get when you combine jute with graphene? Something interesting.
Graphene, jute fibers combine to create strong, sustainable building material
Nov. 29, 2018 / 2:09 PM
Nov. 29 (UPI) -- Scientists
have combined graphene and jute to form a new composite material that is
strong, durable and cheap to make. Researchers think the fiber-based composite
material could be used to build cars, ships, wind turbine blades and even
low-cost housing.
Jute are fibers sourced from
the bark of the white jute, Corchorus capsularis, a shrub species cultivated in
South America and Asia. The fiber is eco-friendly, as it is biodegradable and
easily recycled.
Because it is relatively cheap
and readily available -- the second most abundant natural fiber after cotton --
jute is ideal for use in commercial manufacturing.
Other natural fiber composites
aren't particularly strong, but lab tests proved the addition of graphene
significantly improves jute's material qualities.
"This
is an example of judicious combination of low-value, carbon-neutral commodity
fibers with an extremely small volume fraction of high-value graphene in order
to create a material system that could replace energy-intensive carbon and
glass fibers in a number of light-weight structural applications," Prasad
Potluri, researcher at the University of Manchester, said
in a news release.
Researchers at Manchester's National Graphene Institute created the new composite material by coating jute with graphene oxide and graphene flakes. The small additive resulted in a 200 percent increase in the material's shear strength and a 100 percent increase in its bend strength.
Scientists detailed their new material in the journal Applied Materials and Interfaces.
More
Finally, this G-20
weekend, the strange story of when the US Philly Mint came to issue GB gold
sovereign substitutes. Not quite fakes like the German £5 notes the Germans
printed up in World War Two, but gold sovereign substitutes. I suspect that
later this century, to sort out the massive debt time bombs and an even larger
unfunded pension and other liabilities problem, we will end up back on some
sort of a gold standard once again.
“The second
vice is lying, the first is running in debt.”
Benjamin
Franklin
Why the US Mint once issued gold discs to Saudi Arabia - JP Koning
26 Nov 2018 23:46
I stumbled on some strange gold discs earlier this year.
They’re pictured below
----As you can see, the front of the gold disc has been stamped with the emblem of the U.S. Mint, specifically that of the Philadelphia mint. On the reverse side, contains details about weight and purity. But while they are shaped like a typical coin, the discs are curiously anonymous. Unlike a typical coin they have no date, denomination, issuing country, or the face of some dead President or royal. What are these odd discs and why were they produced?
My curiosity about these coins took me through on a fascinating tour of monetary history. Along the way I also learnt some troubling details about the coin collecting industry. The value of any coin is driven in part by its mythology, but this mythology is not always factual. In this post I’ll share what I learnt with you.
The ARAMCO connection
A quick Google search reveals all sorts of websites that sell the gold discs. APMEX, one of the world’s largest online precious metals dealer,thusly:
“This Gold disk was made by the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia for ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company). ARAMCO needed them to pay royalties to Saudi Arabia for the right to start drilling for the vast oil reserves known to be there, and to help alleviate the shortage caused by the record consumption during World War II.”
The reference to ARAMCO immediately jumps out. This is one of the most provocative and persistent details of the discs’ mythology: that they were produced for the Arabian American Oil Company, or ARAMCO, in the 1940s so that it could pay the Saudi government for oil. Comprised of a consortium of U.S. oil companies that included Standard Oil of California, Texaco, Exxon, and Mobil, ARAMCO explored and developed oilfields in Saudi Arabia.
----The ARAMCO story is certainly plausible, but I don’t think it is
factual. The Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research, or, a relatively new archive,
houses several documents that shed light on the discs, including a number of
classified discussions between officials from the Federal Reserve and the U.S.
Treasury about the gold market between the end of the war up till 1950. This
information would not have been available to Boosel when he was doing his
research.
Boosel is certainly correct
that ARAMCO needed gold to pay for oil. When the Saudi monarch Ibn Saud and
ARAMCO inked their deal in 1933, the terms of the deal stipulated that for each
ton of oil produced, ARAMCO owed the Saudi government a royalty of four gold
shillings. This amount was payable in gold sovereigns, a British coin that
circulated widely in the Middle East at the time. Each sovereign contained
0.2354 ounces of gold.
----The sovereign, however, had been discontinued. For the most part, the
Brits ended these coins by 1917, and so their supply was limited. The FRASER
documents provide us with several snapshots of ARAMCO desperately negotiating
for old gold sovereigns. In 1948, it approached the Central Bank of Argentina
with an offer to buy up its inventory of sovereigns1 while 1950
finds it knocking on the doors of the South African government to do the same.2
It seems logical, therefore,
that in light of the rarity of sovereigns, ARAMCO might have contracted with
the U.S. Treasury for gold discs. That the discs were stand-ins for sovereigns
is underlined by the fact that the Philadelphia Mint had produced the 1947
issue with the exact same specifications as a British sovereign.3
Both sovereigns and discs contained 0.2354 ounces of gold and were of a
fineness or purity of 0.9167.
Despite the attractiveness of
Boosel’s ARAMCO theory, the FRASER documents do not bear it out. In each
instance where discussions about the discs occur, they specify that the discs
were made for the Saudi government, not ARAMCO.
-----There is a much easier answer to Boosel’s frustrated plea for “the Why”
behind the discs. Like most nations in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia didn’t
have its own banknotes. Its monetary system was entirely reliant on precious
metals coins. But it didn’t produce its own coinage. For smaller transactions,
Saudis relied primarily on foreign silver coins including the ubiquitous, a coin minted in Austria.
The Indian rupee, which circulated widely in the Middle East, was equally
important. For larger exchanges, Saudis used British gold sovereigns.
It therefore made perfect
sense for the Saudi government to call upon the U.S. Treasury for help. As I
pointed out earlier, the Brits no longer made sovereigns. Given the inevitable
shortage this must have caused, Saudi officials would have been desperate to
supply the nation with a workable gold substitute for circulation within
national borders. Turning to the U.S. made sense. The U.S. Treasury was
the largest owner of gold in the world, and the U.S. Mint could turn this gold
into coins. Unfortunately for the Saudis, British officials had refused to
release the original dies for making sovereigns to the U.S. Mint.8
The unadorned discs that the Mint offered to produce in their place were thus a
decent second-best option for the Saudi government. Apart from their markings,
the discs were exactly similar to sovereigns.
More
“Creditors have better memories
than debtors.”
Benjamin
Franklin
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November.
DJIA: 25,538 +157 Down. NASDAQ:
7,331 +205 Down. SP500: 2,760 +129 Down.
Though a
strong attempt was made of Friday to dress up the month-end figures to prevent
November becoming a second down month in a row, the Coppock Indicators still
moved down suggesting that there’s still more of the correction to come. But
was the month-end dress up enough to prevent a massive wave of year-end stock
fund redemptions? That probably depends on what happens between Presidents Trump
and Xi at their dinner, and what happens next at the December Fed meeting.
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