Baltic Dry Index. 765 -09 Brent Crude 64.28 Spot Gold 1540
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.
Protectionism will do little to create jobs and if foreigners
retaliate, we will surely lose jobs.
Alan Greenspan
We are one day away from the signing of that trade war
truce between America and China, and a few of the details are starting to leak
out.
Any deal is better than a continuing trade war, though
China seems to be doing fine in the latest statistics.
While there are no winners in trade wars, so far this
trade war hasn’t really produced any big losers outside of America’s farming
sector. The nearest thing to a winner seems to be the Vietnam economy.
It’s a funny old world, I suppose, but was a trade war
really the best way to tackle a trade imbalance? Is this trade deal “lite”
phase one, really worth all of the global disruption and uncertainty? Probably
not, despite all the inevitable spin and hype about to flow out of Washington.
Below, a trade deal that promises jam tomorrow.
Asian markets mixed after U.S. elevates China from currency manipulator
By Marketwatch
Published: Jan 13, 2020 11:25 p.m. ET
Asian markets were mixed in early trading Tuesday, after
the U.S. said China is no longer a currency manipulator ahead of the signing of
a “phase one” trade agreement this week.The U.S. Treasury Department stepped back from the decision it made last year, saying in a statement that it “has determined that China should no longer be designated as a currency manipulator at this time.”
The U.S. and China are expected to sign a “phase one” trade deal Wednesday in Washington, which the Treasury Department said will include enforceable commitments by China to refrain from currency devaluation and not target its exchange rate for competitive purposes.
“Investors’ unquenchable appetite for stocks is in hyperdrive, triggered by a further thawing in U.S.-China trade tension,” Stephen Innes, chief Asia market strategist for AxiTrader, wrote in a note.
Japan’s Nikkei NIK, +0.73% gained 0.7% as traders returned from a holiday Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, -0.25% gave up early gains and was last down about 0.2%, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -0.11% was about flat and the Shenzhen Composite 399106, +0.09% dipped slightly after data showed China’s exports rose 5% in 2019 on yuan terms, the slowest growth in three years. South Korea’s Kospi 180721, +0.44% rose 0.4%, while benchmark indexes in Taiwan Y9999, +0.55% , Singapore STI, +0.45% , Malaysia FBMKLCI, -0.75% and Indonesia JAKIDX, +0.22% were mostly positive. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.85% advanced 0.7%.
More
China to pump up U.S. car, aircraft, energy purchases in trade deal - source
January 14, 2020
/ 5:37 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China has pledged to buy nearly an additional $80
billion (61.56 billion pounds) of manufactured goods from the United States
over the next two years, plus just over $50 billion more in energy supplies,
under a trade deal with China to be signed on Wednesday, a source briefed on
the agreement said on Monday.
Beijing would also boost purchases of U.S. services by about $35 billion
over the same two-year period, the source said, aiding a sector that enjoys a
rare trade surplus with China.
The Phase 1 agreement calls for Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural
goods to increase by some $32 billion over two years, or roughly $16 billion a
year, the source said.
When combined with the $24 billion U.S. agricultural export baseline in
2017, the total gets close to the $40 billion annual goal touted by U.S.
President Donald Trump.
U.S. Treasury drops China currency manipulator label ahead of trade deal signing
January 13, 2020 /
10:28 PM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday dropped its designation of
China as a currency manipulator days before top officials of the world’s two
largest economies were due to sign a preliminary trade agreement to ease an
18-month-old tariff war.
The widely expected decision came in a long-delayed semi-annual currency
report, reversing an unexpected move by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last
August at the height of U.S.-China trade tensions.
Mnuchin had accused China of deliberately holding down the value of its
yuan currency to create an unfair trade advantage, just hours after President
Donald Trump, angered at the lack of progress in trade negotiations, had also
accused China of manipulating its currency.
The Treasury Department had not labeled China a currency manipulator
since 1994. Beijing had recently met just one of the department’s three criteria
needed for such a designation - a large bilateral trade surplus with the United
States.
---- Chinese Vice Premier Liu He arrived in
Washington on Monday for a White House ceremony to sign the trade deal with
Trump. People familiar with the negotiations said that although the manipulator
designation had no real consequences for Beijing, its removal was an important
symbol of goodwill for Chinese officials.
More
China posts strong December exports as world awaits Sino-U.S. trade deal signing
January 14, 2020 /
4:59 AM
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China’s exports rose for the first time in five months in December
and by more than expected, signaling a modest recovery in demand as Beijing and
Washington agreed to defuse their prolonged trade war.
The world’s largest economies are set to sign a Phase 1 trade deal on
Wednesday, marking a significant de-escalation but not an end to a dispute that
has rattled financial markets and weighed heavily on global business
confidence.
China’s December exports rose 7.6% from a year earlier, customs data
showed on Tuesday. The median forecast from a Reuters poll of analysts had been
for a 3.2% rise in shipments, following November’s 1.3% drop.
Imports also surpassed expectations, jumping 16.3% from a year earlier
and boosted in part by higher commodity prices. The Reuters poll had forecast
9.6% growth versus 0.5% in November.
While comparisons with a weak December last year flattered both figures,
they also pointed to improving demand, both globally and in China, analysts
said.
China posted a trade surplus of $46.79 billion in December, compared
with the poll’s forecast for a $48 billion surplus, up from November’s surplus
of $37.93 billion.
For all of 2019, its exports proved remarkably resilient to trade
tensions, rising 0.5%, while imports fell 2.8%.
CHINA-U.S. TRADE
China’s trade surplus with the United States for December stood at
$23.18 billion, according to Reuters calculations based on customs data, down
from November’s surplus of $24.60 billion.
China exports to the United States fell 12.5% in 2019, compared with a
rise of 11.3% in 2018. Imports from the United States fell 20.9%, versus a 0.7%
rise in the previous year.
---- China’s Vice Premier Liu He is in Washington from Jan. 13-15 to sign the interim agreement.
However, analysts say the deal does not spell the end of trade tensions
and the risk of further complications and re-escalation remains.
“Our judgment is Phase 1 will not put an end to Trump Trade Wars,”
analysts with MUFG Bank wrote in a research note prior to the data.
China's 2019 iron ore imports edge up to second-highest on record
January 14, 2020
/ 5:19 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s iron ore imports rose 0.47% in 2019 to hover
just below their all-time annual peak, fuelled by strong demand at steel mills
and a second-half recovery in shipments from big miners after disruptions
earlier in the year.
The world’s top steel producer brought in 1.069 billion tonnes of iron
ore in 2019, rising from 1.064 billion tonnes a year earlier, data from the
General Administration of Customs showed on Tuesday. The record remains 2017’s
1.075 billion tonnes.
In December, purchases of the steelmaking ingredient surged 11.8% from a
month earlier to 101.3 million tonnes, the data showed - the highest monthly
import level in 27 months.
The jump in iron ore imports came despite shipments from big miners
being cut in the first half of 2019, when a tailings dam collapsed at a
Brazilian mine while a tropical cyclone hit miners in west Australia.
“Purchases from non-mainstream suppliers increased amid soaring iron ore
prices,” said Wu Shiping, analyst with Tianfeng Futures, noting smaller mines
in Brazil and Australia and countries including South Africa and India
increased shipments.
More
In other news, there’s no respect between America’s Trump
and Canada’s Trudeau. Ahead of Trump’s impeachment fight, Trudeau adds fuel to
the Democrats fire.
The Sussexes are welcome in Canada, sort of. But who’s
going to foot their security bill?
Trudeau says Canada wasn’t warned of Soleimani strike, says crash victims would be alive if not for U.S.-Iran tensions
0
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he received no advance warning from
U.S. officials of the drone strike that killed a top Iranian general and days
later led to Iran shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet carrying dozens of
Canadians.
Mr. Trudeau said he “obviously” would have preferred to receive notice
of the Trump administration’s plan to assassinate Iranian General Qassem
Soleimani. Canada has several hundred troops stationed in Iraq, including at a
U.S. air base that Iran targeted in retaliation for the killing of Gen.
Soleimani.
“The U.S. makes its determinations,” Mr. Trudeau told Global News on
Monday. “We attempt to work as an international community on big issues. But
sometimes countries take actions without informing their allies.”
He blamed escalating tensions between the United States and Iran for the
Jan. 8 missile strike that brought down Ukraine International Airlines Flight
752, killing all 176 aboard, including 57 Canadians.
“I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently
in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families,” he
said. “This is something that happens when you have conflict and war. Innocents
bear the brunt of it.”
There’s a growing political battle south of the border over the
rationale for the Jan. 3 drone strike that killed the Iranian military leader.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo doubled down on Monday on an
assertion that Gen. Soleimani was planning to attack U.S. targets. "There
was, in fact, a set of imminent attacks that were being plotted by Qassem
Soleimani,” he told former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice during an event
at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on Monday morning. “It was
unmistakable.”
He said unspecified U.S. intelligence gathered over the previous 12
months persuaded Trump administration officials to recommend the assassination.
“It was [the] view [of U.S. intelligence agencies] that the risks were real and
growing and that the actions that we took that day reduced the risk,” he said.
Mr. Pompeo is at the centre of a debate over the administration’s
shifting explanations for the death of Gen. Soleimani, and its response to the
crash of Flight 752.
Congressional Democrats confirmed on Monday that Mr. Pompeo had refused
to testify before a House foreign affairs committee hearing this week into the
Trump administration’s policies toward Iran.
----President
Donald Trump has said repeatedly that the Iranian general was planning to
attack as many as four U.S. embassies. But on the weekend, Defence Secretary
Mark Esper told CBS he had not seen evidence detailing any specific target,
saying only that he believed Iran would likely have focused on U.S. embassies.
More
Canada hasn't decided if it would cover security costs for Harry and Meghan: Morneau
Cost of protecting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has been pegged at $1.7 million a year
CBC News ·
Finance Minister Bill Morneau said today the federal
government hasn't decided if Ottawa would help to cover the security costs
associated with a move by Prince Harry and his wife Meghan to Canada.A report in the London-based Evening Standard Monday said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told the Queen already that Canada would assume some of the costs associated with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex taking up residence here part-time.
Morneau said the government has not yet held any formal talks on the matter.
"No, we haven't spent any time thinking about this issue," Morneau told reporters in Toronto.
"We obviously are always looking to make sure, as a member of the Commonwealth, we play a role. We have not had any discussions on that subject at this time."
The Evening Standard said Trudeau has "agreed taxpayers in his country should pick up the huge bill for the couple's round-the-clock protection while they are in the country ... Trudeau has privately assured the Queen that Harry, Meghan and Archie's safety will not be jeopardised while they reside there."
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office declined to comment on the prospect of Canada paying for the family's protection.
The royal couple would not automatically be granted Canadian citizenship, said Mathieu Genest, a spokesperson for Immigration Minster Marco Mendicino, in an emailed statement.
"In order to become legal permanent residents of Canada, they would need to apply through our normal immigration processes. However, members of the Royal Family are not required to seek
authorization to come to and stay in Canada as visitors," the spokesperson said.
"There are no provisions in the Citizenship Act that confer Canadian citizenship status to members of the Royal Family by virtue of their status as a member of the monarchy."
Under Canadian immigration law, most British visitors to the country can stay visa-free for up to six months.
----Security costs incurred by the royals have been covered by the British taxpayer — but the status of that funding for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is in doubt in light of their stated intention to withdraw from public life.
Canada has paid the costs associated with past royal tours. In 2010, for example, Canadian taxpayers spent $2.8 million to protect the Queen during her nine-day tour of Canada. Protecting Prince William and his wife Kate during a 2011 visit cost Canada about $1.2 million.
The Queen, Prince Charles, William and Harry met Monday at the Queen's winter residence, Sandringham House, to discuss Harry's future in the House of Windsor.
More
Finally, for America’s champagne drinkers life is about
to get far more expensive. There’s always Korbel Brut, California champagne, I suppose.
U.S. Champagne drinkers should expect costs to pop with new tariffs
January 13, 2020 /
11:08 AM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Lovers of Champagne and other French sparkling wines should brace
for big cost increases if the United States makes good on a threat to impose
100% tariffs on French goods in a dispute over the country’s planned digital
services tax.
A $70 bottle of Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage could surge to $130,
for example, said David Parker, chief executive of Benchmark Wine Group, the
largest U.S. supplier of fine and rare wines for wine retailers.
The U.S. government said in December it may slap duties of up to 100% on
$2.4 billion in imports from France of Champagne, handbags, cheese and other
products over the tax, which it concluded would harm U.S. tech companies.
The Trump administration had already imposed 25% tariffs on many
non-sparkling European wines in October in a dispute with the European Union
over aircraft subsidies. It is separately reviewing whether to increase those
duties and expand the list of products affected.
Washington did not specify an effective date for the proposed duties,
but the two countries have given themselves two weeks to try to resolve the tax
row before officials meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in
late January.
While the industry has largely absorbed the cost of the 25% tariffs
imposed in October, it won’t be able to do that if tariffs rise to 100%,
industry executives say.
EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan will discuss these issues with U.S.
Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer when he visits Washington this week.
If those efforts fail, the USTR’s office could announce a new list of
goods facing tariffs by late January, said Warren Maruyama, a partner at Hogan
Lovells and former USTR general counsel.
The looming tariffs pose the greatest threat to the wine industry since
Prohibition, industry officials said in Washington last week, referring to the
U.S. ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.
---- “Because of the way Prohibition was repealed, essentially, every business in the wine business is a small business,” said Benjamin Aneff, managing partner with Tribeca Wine Merchants.
An importer pays about $30 for a bottle of Moet & Chandon, plus
transport, said Parker, who is also a member of the board of the National
Association of Wine Retailers, adding a 25% markup before handing off to a
distributor.
Distributors generally add an additional 25% markup, he said, then
retailers tack on 20%, for the current price of $70.
If the original import price doubles to $60, U.S. wine businesses would
be forced to pass along the increase, wine industry experts say.
More
An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one
issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense... that gold
and economic freedom are inseparable.
Alan Greenspan
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, a lesson from GB’s past. How not to run a war. The Crimean War to
be precise.
It created such a scandal that the government fell, and the British Army
was reorganised as regards supplies. The “great British boot scandal,” wasn’t
taught in British schools, and at my school we learned about it from an
Australian teacher, whose schools did teach about it.
Starving Their Own Men: Britain’s Epic Supply Failure in the Crimea
Feb 7, 2016 Andrew Knighton
The very least a soldier expects when sent on a campaign is
to be fed, clothed and given the necessary equipment to carry out their mission.
Without these basics of survival, combat becomes even more difficult than it
might already be. Yet one of the most successful armies of the nineteenth
century, the British, could not provide these necessities for their own troops
fighting in the Crimean War (1853-1856). The failures were so terrible and
so avoidable that it became something of a national scandal.An Imbalanced Diet
Food supplies for British troops in the Crimea were poor. Half rations were common, and it was not unknown for men to receive no food at all, as happened to Colonel Bell’s troops on Christmas Day 1854.Much of the food that was provided consisted of biscuits and salt meat. This diet ravaged digestive systems, and some men could not eat the meat because it gave them such bad diarrhoea. When fresh meat could be found, salt meat was sometimes given out instead as those distributing it found this less hassle. Most men’s ration of vegetables for the month was two potatoes and an onion.
The biscuits were little more pleasant to eat than the salt meat, being
so hard that they caused pain to troops whose gums were inflamed from scurvy.
The French, Britain’s allies, had started providing their troops with bread by
setting up military bakeries. The British, who had bakers among their troops,
never seem to have considered the option.
The diet of these soldiers was worse than that of Scottish prisoners at
the same time, who received more generous rations, including milk, vegetables
and fish.
Lack of supplies was made worse by the pedantic behaviour of some supply
officers. 150 tons of vegetables were shipped out in November 1854 and arrived
at Balaclava without the right paperwork. Without the correct forms, no-one
would take responsibility for the cargo. The food rotted and had to be thrown
overboard.
At one point, Lord Raglan tried to help the troops’ troubled bowels by
ordering that each man be given two ounces of rice a day. Nobody remembered to
renew the order when it came to its end, and so the rations stopped. The
Commissariat, which still had rice at Balaclava and Scutari, claimed to have no
way of getting it to the troops, and so the rice remained uneaten.
----The Wrong Boots
When marching and fighting, decent footwear is of critical importance.
Yet manufacturers, looking to save money and add to their profits on a
government contract, had made the boots of the British soldiers as cheaply as
they could. Not only were these shoddy shoes not up to the cold and damp of the
Crimea, but they start to fall apart after a week’s hard use. On one occasion,
the soldiers of the 55th Regiment lost the soles of their shoes, as
they stuck better to the mud of the parade ground than to the uppers of the
shoes.
Not only were the shoes poorly made, but they had been ordered in
unsuitable sizes. In the cold and damp of the Crimea, men’s feet swelled up,
and they wore extra pairs of socks to try to stay warm and dry. But the
Commissariat had set ideas about what sizes were needed and didn’t send the
larger boots that would now fit the men.
Many British officers switched to wearing boots taken off dead and
captured Russians, rather than suffer in their regulation footwear.
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?
Experiments into amorphous carbon monolayer lend new evidence to physics debate
Date:
January 8, 2020
Source:
Vanderbilt University
Summary:
A new study into two-dimensional amorphous carbon is providing answers to
long-standing questions regarding the atomic makeup of bulk amorphous
materials, opening the door to exciting device possibilities in the future.
Plastic, glass and gels, also known as bulk amorphous materials, are
everyday objects to all of us. But for researchers, these materials have long
been scientific enigmas -- specifically when it comes to their atomic makeup,
which lacks the strict ordered structure of crystals found in most solids such
as metals, diamonds and salts.
Although generally believed by the scientific community to be continuous
random networks of atoms, a long-standing, fundamental question existed: Are
amorphous materials truly continuous random networks or do they have
nanocrystallites embedded within them?
Now, we finally have answers -- thanks to a new study detailing the
first successful experiments growing, imaging with atomic resolution, and
investigating the properties of two-dimensional amorphous carbon. The paper
appears today in Nature and is published by an international team of
researchers, including Sokrates Pantelides, University Distinguished Professor
of Physics and Engineering at Vanderbilt University.
"For the first time, thanks to the discovery of this monolayer
material, we're able to confirm the composition of an amorphous structure as a
random network containing nanocrystallites, lending strong evidence to one side
of the primordial debate," said Pantelides. "But this work not only
provides answers; It presents a physical, two-dimensional carbon material,
distinct from the lauded graphene, with potentially promising applications well
into our future."
Future device applications of the material, according to Pantelides,
could include anti-corrosion barriers for magnetic hard discs in future
computers and for current collector electrodes in batteries.
The questions regarding amorphous material composition persisted for
years due to long-standing technological issues for researchers, which included
limitations in small-scale microscopy that prevented physicists from accurately
imaging three-dimensional amorphous materials at the atomic scale. And while
researchers were able to accurately image amorphous monolayers, such monolayers
were until now fabricated by using high-energy electron beams to disorder
crystalline monolayers.
The first-ever stable monolayer of amorphous carbon, grown by a team led
by Barbaros Özyilmaz of the National University of Singapore and imaged by the
group of Kazu Suenaga in Tsukuba science city, Japan, makes these issues
problems of the past.
More
History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted
periods of low risk premiums.
Alan Greenspan
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished December
DJIA: 28,538 +91 Up. NASDAQ: 8,973 +125 Up.
SP500: 3,231 +114 Up.
All higher again, but it’s
not a buy signal I would take. The rally is all down to the Fed monetizing at a
rate of about 100 billion a month. I continue to look on the Fed’s latest stock
bubble as an exit rally.
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