Baltic Dry Index. 1221 -60 Brent
Crude 66.23 Spot Gold 1477
Never ending Brexit now January 31.
Trump’s Nuclear China Tariffs Now in effect.
The USA v EU trade war started October 18. Now in effect.
"We have
reason to believe you have committed an offence."
City of London, parking ticket circa 1960.
As someone who was privileged to be working in America
during the Nixon Watergate scandal, that led to Nixon’s presidential
resignation, rather than face an impeachment trial he was certain to lose, this
current impeachment of President Trump seems like very small beer indeed.
Back then there were break-ins, cover ups, Saturday night
massacres, talk of kidnapping people and flying them into the Mexican desert, and
wiped sound recordings of Oval office dodgy conversations. President Nixon and his gang, knew
how to do high crimes in spades.
Unlike President Nixon’s alleged high crimes, President
Trump’s high crime seems to be that of dethroning the coronation of Hillary
Clinton in the 2016 election, something east and west coast Democrats have
never come to terms with. A tantrum impeachment, totally lacking any drama.
Seen from afar, this party political impeachment seems
destined to end in a fast acquittal in the Senate early next year, though a
very bad political precedent will have been set for the future.
Below, unlike 1973-1974, markets seem to be taking
President Trump’s impeachment as a non event.
"When a President does it, that means
that it is not illegal."
Richard
M. Nixon, 37th United States President.
Asian shares ease from highs, reaction to impeachment muted
December 19, 2019
/ 12:54 AM
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Asian shares pulled back from a one-and-a-half year peak on
Thursday as investors booked profits ahead of holiday trade and awaited further
data on the state of the global economy.
Investors were also watching proceedings in Washington where the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Republican U.S. President Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Market reaction, however, has so far been limited as the Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected not to vote to remove Trump from office.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS briefly touched the highest since June 2018 but then fell 0.2%.
Australian shares erased early gains to trade 0.14% lower due to declines in the mining sector, while Chinese shares .CSI300 drifted 0.06% lower.
The pound nursed heavy losses due to concerns Britain could still crash out of the European Union without a trade deal in place after a transition period ending in December 2020.
Traders also await a Bank of England (BoE) policy meeting later Thursday. No change in policy is expected, but the meeting could pose further downside risks for sterling if more policymakers swing to the dovish camp and vote for an interest rate cut.
Overall sentiment was supportive of equities and riskier assets, but less favorable for safe-haven assets like bonds due to expectations that economic growth will start to pick up next year after a tumultuous 2019.
“Data has been generally supportive of an improvement in economic performance,” said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP Capital Investors in Sydney.
“Investors can look forward to stronger growth next year, but a lot of this has already been reflected in share markets.”
More
Trump impeachment: What happens next?
December 18, 2019
/ 12:09 PM
(Reuters)
- Donald Trump on Wednesday became the third U.S. president to be impeached as
the House of Representatives formally charged him with abuse of power and
obstruction of Congress.
The votes set up a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate, where
lawmakers must decide whether to convict Trump and remove him from office.
Here is what could happen in the coming days:
Thursday, Dec. 19
The House must still name “managers” to present the case against Trump
to the Senate. They might name those lawmakers on Thursday before leaving
Washington for the holidays - or they could wait until next year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, just after the House approved the two
articles of impeachment, told reporters she needed more information from the
Senate before naming the managers.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and the chamber’s top Democrat,
Chuck Schumer, have staked out dramatically different views on how the trial
should play out. Expect them to negotiate in private and through the news media
in the coming days.
Pelosi did not say when she formally would submit the articles of
impeachment to the Senate, which is necessary before a Senate trial can begin.
By saying she wants a fairer Senate process than one McConnell has been
hinting at, Pelosi could be applying pressure on McConnell to speed up talks
with Schumer and allow administration witnesses to testify during the trial.
Early January
Barring unexpected developments, Trump will face a trial in the Senate
to determine whether he should be convicted and ousted from office when
Congress returns to Washington in early January.
The Senate is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, who have shown
little sign they will find him guilty. A two-thirds majority of those present
in the 100-member chamber would be needed to convict Trump.
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts would preside over the trial. House
managers would present their case against Trump, and the president’s legal team
would respond. Senators would act as jurors. A trial could involve testimony
from witnesses and a gruelling schedule in which proceedings occur six days a
week for as many as six weeks.
McConnell has said a majority of the Senate could approve a shorter
process by voting on the articles of impeachment after opening arguments,
without witnesses.
The illegal we do immediately; the
unconstitutional takes a little longer."
Henry Kissinger.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, another “winner” from Softbank. Why is a builders merchant a
technology company? Does the Softbank business model work?
"The
tragic lesson of guilty men walking free in this country has not been lost on
the criminal community."
Richard
M. Nixon, 37th United States President.
Warped lumber, failed projects: TRD investigates Katerra, SoftBank’s $4B construction startup
TRD investigation finds that firm has failed
to complete roughly a dozen projects, and some of its biggest clients are tied
to its executives
December 16, 2019 06:00 PM
In an email to employees last week, Katerra CEO Michael Marks had a few uplifting thoughts on the year gone by.
His startup, which seeks to transform the $12 trillion global construction industry through technology and automation, has grown to more than 8,000 employees, is nearing profitability and will soon open a new state-of-the-art factory in California. Clients are returning, he wrote, and the company has more than $15 billion worth of building projects in a pipeline spanning the United States to Saudi Arabia.
“We can say with pride,” Marks wrote of the company’s feats, “that once we begin a project, we never walk away from that job.”
But his message glossed over a few key facts. In the last month, Katerra’s co-founder quietly left the firm’s board, the company closed its first factory and hundreds of employees have been laid off.
And the firm’s patchy track record of delivering projects stands in stark contrast to Marks’ assertion. In fact, The Real Deal found, Katerra has failed to complete roughly a dozen projects and could only name one that was delivered on time (the company says 26 prefab projects will be delivered by the close of 2019). All the while, logistical and technology-based issues have chipped away at the company’s image as a revolutionary tech startup.
Despite the turbulence, Katerra continues to grow rapidly in the U.S., having acquired at least eight general contractors and architecture firms in the past two years and more than 20 companies total since its founding.
“Katerra is nothing but a developer on steroids,” said one former employee, who was among more than a dozen people interviewed for this article that worked with, or for, Katerra. Many signed non-disclosure agreements and did not want to be identified.
According to Katerra, the company has raised more than $2 billion from investors, including a recent $700 million funding round led by SoftBank. Though multiple news organizations reported that the funding was pending, Katerra never publicly announced its completion, an unusual move for a company that is able to command capital of that size. (That infusion did not appear in public filings, a company spokesperson said, because it was part of a private placement. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Katerra raised a little more than $2 billion by the end of 2018.)
With this kind of hype, the Silicon Valley company’s rise follows a similar narrative to that of other SoftBank-backed startups, including WeWork, Compass and Uber: Break down the walls of an industry, grow at all costs and figure out the metrics later.
“Think of any startup in the last 20 years. Katerra has grown faster than most and got to unicorn status,” said Mark Randall, Katerra’s first CEO. “So I think there’s a cleanup happening.”
As the company has sought to bolster its reputation in the U.S., Katerra has inked massive deals overseas, in Saudi Arabia and India, where it has committed to building hundreds of thousands of homes. In an email to employees, Marks said the Saudi Arabia deal is valued at $40 billion.
“While we have realigned resources in our company this year, overall Katerra has grown,” Katerra spokesperson JZ Rigney said in a statement.
Rigney also clarified Marks’ email to employees sent last week to say that the company takes pride in completing its jobs “once construction begins.”
Executive fractures
Over three decades, Marks has worked his way to the top ranks of Silicon Valley’s elite. In the 1990s, he steered electronic components manufacturer Flextronics from the brink of bankruptcy, went on to briefly lead Tesla as CEO and served on GoPro’s board of directors.
“He’s a pretty amazing deals guy, and the respect for Michael in Silicon Valley is off the charts,” said Randall, who said he left Katerra on good terms to return to consumer electronics.
In forming Katerra in 2015, Marks’ friend and longtime business partner, Fritz Wolff, suggested they create a Flextronics for construction — effectively a vertically integrated company that controlled the entire building process; instead of hiring an architect, an engineering firm, a general contractor and subcontractors, Katerra could do it all.
To do this, Marks’ tapped his relationships in Silicon Valley to launch a web of companies that propped up Katerra, some serving as its investors, others as customers, or sometimes both, TRD has learned. The arrangement is reminiscent of ownership structures at WeWork, where its former CEO Adam Neumann personally owned buildings that he leased back to his company — a friction point for investors ahead of its failed public offering.
For example, Wolff, who joined Katerra as co-founder, owns a private equity firm with a massive construction arm that was Katerra’s sole customer in its initial years, providing it with more than a dozen projects.
In addition to Marks and Wolff, renowned tech investor James Davidson also joined Katerra as a co-founder. Together, the three launched a separate firm known as Paxion Capital, which they used to invest in other Katerra customers.
Through Paxion, the trio invested in candy store retailer, Lolli & Pops. The retailer, which filed for bankruptcy in August, lists Katerra as one of its creditors, with $2.9 million owed for renovation work. (Paxion’s CFO Duncan Roberts, who at one time served as Katerra’s CFO, is listed as a member of Lolli & Pops’ board of directors.)
“With a group of people, who are also the customers, that’s where a potential conflict of interest emerges,” said Richard Morris, a partner at Allegaert Berger & Vogel, who specializes in securities law. “That’s a question of how it’s disclosed and dealt with.”
A Katerra representative said in a statement that it “values good corporate governance and has policies and procedures that align with public company reporting standards.”
“No one understood from the beginning why
we had the Phoenix factory.” — former Katerra employee
The co-founders also launched an investment fund called Kandle, which in part allowed them to take an equity position in some of Katerra’s projects. While it’s not clear exactly how much Kandle has raised, internal documents seen by TRD show that Katerra has forecasted that the fund’s capital could nearly double Katerra’s development starts to $2.1 billion by 2022.
Last month, however, fractures began to appear in Katerra’s leadership after Wolff quietly left the company’s board. People who have spoken with Wolff since his departure described the split as acrimonious, and it has raised questions about the potential impact on Katerra’s portfolio.
According to Katerra, Wolff left to “concentrate on other professional pursuits,” but remains a shareholder and supporter of the company. Both Wolff and Katerra maintain that they will continue working together. In an email to employees last week, Marks said that Wolff represents only 15 percent of Katerra’s customer base.
“Katerra has continued to improve its processes since launching, and we continue to support their vision,” a spokesperson for the Wolff Company said in an email. “We currently have 17 projects under construction with Katerra and continue to assess new opportunities to work together.”
Tech trials
Katerra has said its mission is to deliver construction projects that are “better, faster and cheaper.” Through tech, the company says, it can streamline the antiquated processes that plague the construction industry.
Such claims are a hallmark of a generation of startups that aim to disrupt their respective industries by replacing byzantine systems with tech. Katerra says it has applied for almost 60 patents, the bulk of which have been filed in the past 18 months. A handful of those have been approved, though they relate to electrical systems and mass timber production.
But like other firms in the SoftBank portfolio, Katerra has faced questions about whether its tech-enabled business model is deserving of the firm’s massive valuation.
More
"It is always the best policy to speak
the truth, unless of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.”
Jerome K. Jerome, 19th century English
novelist. The Idler Magazine 1892
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?
New water-splitting process could kick-start "green" hydrogen economy
Loz Blain December 17, 2019
Australian
scientists claim they've worked out a much cheaper, more efficient way to split
hydrogen out of water, using easily sourced iron and nickel catalysts instead
of expensive, rare ruthenium, platinum and iridium catalysts favored by current
large-scale hydrogen producers, which are literally thousands of times more
expensive.
Much is being made of the developing "hydrogen economy" idea, in which compressed hydrogen fuels will become an energy source as common as gasoline, and fuel cell cars will take a place alongside combustion engines and electric vehicles in the transport mix.
Yesterday, we wrote about the world's first liquid hydrogen transport ship, designed to take Australian-produced hydrogen across the water to be used in Japan as clean energy. Right now, though, Australia is producing hydrogen in one of the dirtiest possible ways: using brown coal, a process which requires 160 tonnes of coal to produce three tonnes of compressed liquid hydrogen, with a monstrous 100 tons of carbon dioxide as a by-product.
The "clean energy" hydrogen pie, particularly in Japan and Korea, is estimated to be worth trillions of dollars in the coming decades, so plenty of prospectors are smelling massive energy exporting opportunities, but realistically, until the math starts to stack up on greener ways of producing hydrogen, the environmental costs of producing this stuff in bulk could be overwhelming.
The "green" way to make hydrogen is to split it out of water using electrolysis. You put water in a container with a pair of electrodes in it, and apply power. Oxygen gathers at the anode, hydrogen at the cathode, and if the electricity you put into this process was sustainably generated, then congratulations, you've got yourself some properly green hydrogen – as long as you don't cart it around in diesel trucks and ships, and the energy you use to compress and super-cool it is green as well.
The trouble thus far has been that splitting water is expensive and inefficient, making it hard for green hydrogen to compete against brown hydrogen, or indeed gasoline. All of which makes this recent development from a research team spread across three major Australian universities – UNSW, Griffith and Swinburne – an interesting and significant one.
In a paper published in Nature Communications, the team said it had managed to replace the expensive platinum on the carbon catalyst using a "Janus nanoparticle catalyst with a nickel-iron oxide interface" – and that the resulting circuit had been able to split water with "to the best of our knowledge, the highest energy efficiency (83.7 percent) reported to date."
“What we do is coat the electrodes with our catalyst to reduce energy
consumption,” says UNSW School of Chemistry’s Professor Chuan Zhao. “On this
catalyst there is a tiny nano-scale interface where the iron and nickel meet at
the atomic level, which becomes an active site for splitting water. This is
where hydrogen can be split from oxygen and captured as fuel, and the oxygen
can be released as an environmentally-friendly waste.”
“The nanoscale interface fundamentally changes the property of these
materials,” he continues. “Our results show the nickel-iron catalyst can be as
active as the platinum one for hydrogen generation. An additional benefit is
that our nickel-iron electrode can catalyse both the hydrogen and oxygen
generation, so not only could we slash the production costs by using
Earth-abundant elements, but also the costs of manufacturing one catalyst
instead of two."
It remains to be seen how this development could affect the cost of
large-scale hydrogen production, but Zhao is highly optimistic: “We’ve been
talking about the hydrogen economy for ages, but this time it looks as though
it’s really coming.”
More
"You
can get much farther with a kind word and a gun, than you can with a kind word
alone."
President
Trump, with apologies to Alphonse Capone, gangster.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA: 28,051 +76 Up. NASDAQ: 8,665 +94 Up. SP500: 3,141 +90 Up. All higher again, but it’s
not a buy signal I would follow. I would wait for the next sell signal.
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