Baltic Dry Index. 1924 -05 Brent Crude 60.51 Spot Gold 1489
Never ending Brexit now October 31,
maybe. 19 days away.
Trump’s Nuclear China Tariffs
Now In Effect.
The USA v EU trade war starts October
18. Just 6 days away.
Democracy is the art and
science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
H. L. Mencken.
Desperate for a USA v China trade deal at any price, President Trump declared victory yesterday, and grasped at the straws of an all but “invisible” trade deal. Details to come later, perhaps in five or six weeks.
According to Reuters, “Trump, who is eager to show farmers in political swing states that he has their backs, lauded China for agreeing to buy as much as $50 billion in agricultural products.” However no time frame was mentioned.
Well maybe, but China was always a willing buyer of US beans and corn before President Trump started out on his lose – lose anti-China trade war. Much of the produce is used as animal feed especially for pigs. China has the world’s largest pig herd by far.
With an African swine fever epidemic underway in China and much of east Asia wiping out up to 50 percent of China’s pig herd, does China now need $50 billion of US agricultural products? Besides, US farmers are having a terrible weather year.
I suspect the markets will eventually be underwhelmed by yesterday’s “trade deal.”
October 11, 2019 / 9:55 AM
U.S. outlines 'Phase 1' trade deal with China, suspends October tariff hike
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday outlined the first phase of a deal to end a trade war with China and suspended a threatened tariff hike, but officials on both sides said much more work needed to be done before an accord could be agreed.
The emerging
deal, covering agriculture, currency and some aspects of intellectual property
protections, would represent the biggest step by the two countries in 15 months
to end a tariff tit-for-tat that has whipsawed financial markets and slowed
global growth.
But Friday’s
announcement did not include many details and Trump said it could take up to
five weeks to get a pact written.
He
acknowledged the agreement could fall apart during that period, though he
expressed confidence that it would not.
“I think we
have a fundamental understanding on the key issues. We’ve gone through a
significant amount of paper, but there is more work to do,” U.S. Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin said as the two sides gathered with Trump at the White
House. “We will not sign an agreement unless we get and can tell the president
that this is on paper.”
With Chinese
Vice Premier Liu He sitting across a desk from him in the Oval Office after two
days of talks between negotiators, the president told reporters that the two
sides were very close to ending their trade dispute.
“There was a
lot of friction between the United States and China, and now it’s a lovefest.
That’s a good thing,” he said.
Liu took a
different tone in his remarks, however.
“We have
made substantial progress in many fields. We are happy about it. We’ll continue
to make efforts,” Liu said.
China’s
official state-owned news organization Xinhua said that both sides “agreed to
make the efforts towards a final agreement.”
In an
editorial published online by the state-run People’s Daily newspaper on
Saturday, China called the latest round of talks constructive, frank and
efficient and noted that while the two sides were moving toward a resolution,
“it is impossible to resolve the problem by putting arbitrary pressure on the
Chinese side.”
----“I’m unsure that calling what was announced by President Trump an agreement is justified,” said Scott Kennedy, a China trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“If they couldn’t
agree on a text, that must mean they’re not done. Wishing an agreement does not
one make. This isn’t a skinny deal. It’s an invisible one.”
Mnuchin said
the president had agreed not to proceed with a hike in tariffs to 30% from 25%
on about $250 billion in Chinese goods that was supposed to have gone into
effect on Tuesday.
But U.S.
Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Trump had not made a decision about
tariffs that were subject to go into effect in December.
----The world’s two largest economies have made progress in their trade dispute before without sealing a deal. In May U.S. officials accused China of walking away from a sweeping agreement that was nearly finished over a refusal to make changes to Chinese laws that would have ensured its enforceability.
Trump had
said previously he would not be satisfied with a partial deal to resolve his
effort to change China’s trade, intellectual property and industrial policy
practices, which he argues cost millions of U.S. jobs. On Friday he said he had
decided that a phased approach was appropriate.
Morehttps://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china/u-s-outlines-phase-1-trade-deal-with-china-suspends-october-tariff-hike-idUKKBN1WQ10Z
Oct. 11, 2019 / 3:41 PM
Fall blizzard hits Great Plains before harvest, burying crops
Livestock in pastures could face food shortages.
EVANSVILLE,
Ind., Oct. 11 (UPI) -- A rare fall blizzard this week has buried thousands of
acres of crops from Montana to Minnesota.
Farmers
across the Great Plains were scrambling to get their crops out of the fields
earier this week before the potentially record-setting snowfall began Thursday.
"We were out Monday and Tuesday, and we were hoping to get out Wednesday but we got rain that day," said Tysen Rosenau, a corn and soybean grower in Carrington, N.D. "Then the snow hit. I got about a third of [my crop] out. Some guys got a lot less."
With more than a foot of snow blanketing parts of the parts of North and South Dakota and surrounding states, farmers are predicted to lose much of their soy and corn harvests. Unharvested cereal crops, like wheat and barley, are lost. And regional potato and sugar beet harvests are also in jeopardy.
"We're really looking at a tough situation," said Daryl Lies, the president of the North Dakota Farm Bureau.
The unseasonable blizzard comes after an already poor growing year.
Historically heavy rains and flooding pummeled the Midwest and Great Plains in the spring. Many farmers were prevented from planting entirely, and of those who did planted late in the season. That meant the crops had to be harvested later than normal.
Then, before harvest could begin this fall, historic rain and flooding returned to the Great Plains.
"Everybody has been too wet," said Scott Vanderwal, a corn and soy grower in Volga, S.D., Dakota who serves as the South Dakota Farm Bureau president. "It's harvest time and the weather is not cooperating. We can't get out there."
As of Monday, only 15 percent of the nation's corn and 14 percent of the soybeans, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In addition
to the planted crops, the region's livestock face possible food shortages.
"Cattle
are out in their pastures yet," said Lies, who also is a livestock
producer. "When you get all that wet snow, it buries the grass and makes
it hard for the cows to get to it. There are guys who are going to have to try
and get hay out to feed them."
This is a
tall order during a blizzard, when it is easy to get lost or stuck in the snow,
Lies said. What's more, hay is in short supply across much of the Great Plains
because the unusually wet spring and fall have prevented many farmers from
planting and harvesting that, as well.
Morehttps://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/10/11/Fall-blizzard-hits-Great-Plains-before-harvest-burying-crops/7291570818176/?ls=4
Between President Trump’s trade wars, US agriculture’s war with the weather, the General Motors strike, and now much of California suffering from power cuts, how long before all this economic drag starts to show up in the wider general US economy?
California outages ease after wind, fire danger move south
By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The lights were back on Friday for most of
the nearly 2 million Northern California residents who lost electricity when
the state’s largest utility switched it off this week in an effort to prevent
wildfires.
The threat of widespread outages loomed in Southern California
after the winds moved to the Los Angeles area, where a wildfire fueled by
strong Santa Ana winds prompted officials to order the
evacuation of 100,000 people from their homes in the foothills of
the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County.
In that fire, one man went into cardiac arrest and died at the
scene.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. restored power in Northern
California after workers inspected power lines to make sure it was safe. The
winds had increased the possibility of transmission lines toppling to the
ground or being hit by tree branches and starting wildfires.
The utility said it found 30 instances of weather-related damage
to its equipment during the shutdown.
By Friday evening, PG&E said it had restored power to
97% of the 738,000 homes and businesses affected by the deliberate blackout
that began Wednesday. About 21,000 customers remained without power.
Experts have said there are between two and three people for
every electrical customer.
----Some
people in the largely rural Butte, Plumas and Yuba counties and in Northern
California’s wine country counties were in their third day without electricity.
Butte County is where a fire started by PG&E equipment
last year decimated the town of Paradise and killed 85 people. In Napa and
Sonoma counties north of San Francisco, the outages began on the two-year
anniversary of deadly wildfires that killed 44 and destroyed thousands of
homes.
PG&E faced hostility and second-guessing over the
shut-offs, which prompted runs on supplies like coolers and generators and
forced institutions to shut down.
Ryan Fisher, a partner in consumer goods and retail practice at
global consultancy A.T. Kearney estimated $100 million in $200 million in fresh
food was likely lost because of the outages along with $30 million a day in
consumer spending.
Morehttps://apnews.com/5fe83d4daed64b5daa67ef5e5d81a936
Finally, some cryptocurrencies news. Was
it Black Friday for Libra and “Grams?” When it comes to issuing funny money,
governments don’t like any competition.
October 11, 2019 / 8:57 PM
Facebook's Libra currency abandoned by major financial companies
(Reuters) - Facebook Inc’s ambitious
efforts to establish a global digital currency called Libra suffered severe
setbacks on Friday, as major payment companies including Mastercard and Visa
Inc quit the group behind the project.
The two companies
announced they would leave the association Friday afternoon, as did EBay Inc,
Stripe Inc. and Latin American payments company Mercado Pago. They join PayPal
Holdings Inc which exited the group a week ago, as global regulators continue
to air concerns about the project.
The latest
exodus leaves the Libra Association without any remaining major payments
companies as members, meaning it can no longer count on a global player to help
consumers turn their currency into Libra and facilitate transactions.
The
remaining association members, including Lyft and Vodafone, consist mainly of
venture capital, telecommunications, blockchain and technology companies, as
well as nonprofit groups.
“Visa has
decided not to join the Libra Association at this time,” the company said in a
statement. “We will continue to evaluate and our ultimate decision will be
determined by a number of factors, including the Association’s ability to fully
satisfy all requisite regulatory expectations.”
Facebook’s
head of the project, former PayPal executive David Marcus, cautioned on Twitter
against “reading the fate of Libra into this update,” although he acknowledged
“it’s not great news in the short term.”
Libra will press ahead with plans to
formally charter the association in three days despite the setbacks, Dante
Disparte, its head of policy and communication, said in a statement.
----Facebook announced plans to launch the digital currency in June 2020 in partnership with other Libra Association members. Almost immediately afterwards, the project faced relentless scrutiny from global regulators, who said it raised a host of serious questions that the group had yet to answer.
France and
Germany last month pledged to block Libra from operating in Europe and backed
the development of a public cryptocurrency instead. And U.S. Federal Reserve
Chairman Jerome Powell suggested the project could not advance before
addressing serious privacy, money laundering, consumer protection and financial
stability concerns that must be addressed.
The rapid
succession of exits by major financial companies Friday afternoon suggested
that scrutiny was taking its toll.
More
October 11, 2019 / 11:02 PM
U.S. SEC halts Telegram's $1.7 billion digital token offering
NEW YORK
(Reuters) - U.S. authorities said on Friday they have halted a $1.7 billion
unregistered digital token offering by the messaging service Telegram Group Inc
and its TON Issuer subsidiary.
The
Securities and Exchange Commission said it had received a temporary restraining
order against the two offshore entities, which the regulator said had failed to
register to sell 2.9 billion digital tokens called “Grams” to initial investors
globally, including 1 billion to U.S. buyers. The move marks the latest effort
by the agency to crack down on the fledgling cryptocurrency industry.
The SEC has
taken the position that initial coin offerings are securities offerings and
therefore subject to SEC offering rules, which require firms to file registration
and disclosure documents.
“Our
emergency action today is intended to prevent Telegram from flooding the U.S.
markets with digital tokens that we allege were unlawfully sold,” Stephanie
Avakian, co-director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement.
Telegram
promised to give the coins to buyers when it launched its blockchain by Oct.
31, when the purchasers and the company would be able to sell them into U.S.
markets, the SEC said.
A lawyer for
the companies did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
If a politician found he
had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for
dinner.
H. L. Mencken.
This weekend’s musical diversion. Boccherini again. The top Italian composing in
Spain. Turn up the volume and enjoy.
Luigi Boccherini / Luciano Berio: Ritirata notturna di Madrid (1975)
12th October 1492, Christopher Columbus's expedition made landfall on a Caribbean island he named San Salvador (possibly Watling Island, Bahamas). Columbus believed he had reached East Asia (Gregorian, 21st October.)
Just post, I loved its style and content. I discovered this blog on Google and have now added it to my personal bookmarks. I’ll be sure to visit once again quickly. Crypto news
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