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Coronavirus Cases 23/7/20
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Deaths 629,526
The
future will be better tomorrow.
Dan Quayle, US Vice President.
Whether the future
will be better or not tomorrow is an open question, but what won’t be open
after tomorrow is China’s consulate in
Houston Texas. And so we enter the latest round in the Trump v Xi prize fight,
with the prize being President Trump’s re-election in November.
China has already
said it will retaliate, but will they close America’s consulate in Wuhan, Hong
Kong or Shanghai? All three?
Any of the three
will be damaging to US interests. Wuhan is at the centre of the Sars-Cov-2
corona virus mystery. The USA going blind there is unhelpful, to use British
understatement.
Getting kicked out
of Hong Kong or Shanghai would have a far more serious impact on US businesses
than China getting kicked out of Houston.
Somehow, I doubt
that the future will be better tomorrow nor even the day after.
“When a country (USA) is losing
many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business
with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
President Trump.
Asian shares drop as China consulate closure fans Sino-U.S. tensions
July 23, 2020 /
12:49 AM
SHANGHAI/NEW
YORK (Reuters) - Asian shares slipped on Thursday as investors’ worries over
rising tensions between Washington and Beijing overcame hopes for more
stimulus, after the United Sates ordered the closure of China’s consulate in
Houston amid accusations of spying.
China said the order was an “unprecedented escalation” by Washington,
and a source said Beijing was considering shutting the U.S. consulate in Wuhan
in retaliation.
U.S. President Donald Trump said that other consulate closures were “always
possible”.
After ticking higher earlier in the morning session, MSCI’s broadest
index of Asian shares ex-Japan was last down 0.3%, weighed down by slumping
Chinese stocks. The Shanghai benchmark dropped 1.67% following four days of
gains.
Australian shares were flat and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index reversed
earlier gains to lose 0.08%.
Nikkei futures shed 0.13% to 22,755, with Japanese markets closed for a
holiday.
S&P mini-futures slipped 0.08%.
Further escalation of Sino-U.S. tensions was increasingly likely, said
Kay Van-Petersen, global macro strategist at Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore.
“The biggest near-term risk to me ... is Trump going further and
breaking on the Phase One deal,” he said.
But he said unprecedented stimulus measures to boost pandemic-battered
economies would continue to provide structural support for riskier assets.
“The forces of liquidity are just unparalleled ... we’re seeing what
happened post the GFC, but we’re seeing it on steroids,” he said.
More
U.S. gives China 72 hours to shut Houston consulate, Trump says other closures 'always possible'
July 22, 2020 /
8:59 AM / Updated 3 hours ago
BEIJING/WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The United States gave China 72 hours to close its consulate in
Houston amid accusations of spying, marking a dramatic deterioration in
relations between the world’s two biggest economies.
The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday the Chinese mission in
Houston was being closed “to protect American intellectual property and
Americans’ private information.
”
President Donald Trump said in answer to a question at a news briefing
it was “always possible” other Chinese missions could be closed too.
“We thought there was a fire in one that we did close,” Trump said. “I
guess they were burning documents, or burning papers, and I wonder what that’s
all about.”
Overnight in Houston, firefighters went to the consulate after smoke was
seen. Two U.S. government officials said they had information that documents
were being burned there.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the consulate was
operating normally.
The ministry said Washington had abruptly issued the demand to close the
consulate on Tuesday and called it an “unprecedented escalation.”
The Chinese Embassy in Washington had received “bomb and death threats”
because of “smears & hatred” fanned by the U.S. government, spokeswoman Hua
Chunying wrote in a tweet.
“The U.S. should revoke its erroneous decision,” she said. “China will
surely react with firm countermeasures.”
Communist Party rulers in Beijing were considering shutting the U.S.
consulate in the central city of Wuhan in retaliation, a source with knowledge
of the matter said.
U.S.-based China experts said Beijing could also opt to target more
important consulates in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Guangzhou, something that could hurt
American businesses.
More
Next,
commodities news. Is China interfering in the US election to get Trump
re-elected? That’s how the BBC would report it, if the BBC ever bothered to
report real news.
But
after China getting kicked out of Houston, will China be a buyer of any more US
beans and corn?
China puts US tensions aside to boost phase one trade deal, food security with record corn purchase
·
China bought 1.762 million tonnes of corn for
delivery in the 2020-21 marketing year beginning in September, which was its
largest-ever daily purchase of US corn
·
It has also bought large quantities of soybeans
amid a backdrop of escalating tensions over the coronavirus, Xinjiang and the
national security law in Hong Kong
Amanda Lee Published:
5:30pm, 17 Jul, 2020
China has been able to put aside its growing tensions with the United
States at least in the area of agricultural purchases, with a record purchase
of US corn reinforcing the phase one trade deal as well as Beijing’s need to
bolster its food security.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Tuesday that China
bought 1.762 million tonnes of corn for delivery in the 2020-21 marketing year
beginning in September, its largest-ever daily purchase of US corn and the
fourth-largest US sale overall.
Having started to make purchases in March, China has ramped up its
purchase of US corn since the start of July, having not made any in June,
placing orders totalling 4.19 million tonnes this year for delivery over the
next two years.
China also bought 1.17 million tonnes of US soybean this month, after
having bought the same amount in June, according to data from the USDA.
These most recent purchases have been made amid a backdrop of escalating tensions which started with the coronavirus, and have escalated over Xinjiang and
the national security law in Hong Kong.
“Market participants were sceptical about the future of the phase one deal because of
rising US-China tensions, so recent record sales came as a surprise for many of
them. However, it should be noted that the news failed to underpin the market,
which has been under pressure from expectations for a huge US crop,” said
Alexander Karavaytse, an analyst with the International Grain Council.
Analysts believe China is likely to stick with its pledges for buying US
farm products, including corn, which is a key ingredient for animal feed,
driven by a depleting inventory at home as its hog population recovers from the
deadly African swine fever.
More
In
other news, the global economy is still in reverse.
South Korea enters recession as exports plunge by most since 1963
July 23, 2020 /
12:10 AM
SEOUL
(Reuters) - South Korea plunged into recession in the second quarter in its
worst economic decline in more than two decades as the coronavirus pandemic
battered exports and social distancing curbs paralysed factories.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy shrank by a seasonally adjusted 3.3% in
the June quarter from three months earlier, the Bank of Korea said on Thursday.
That is the sharpest contraction since the first quarter of 1998 and steeper
than a 2.3% fall seen in a Reuters poll.
South Korea joins Japan, Thailand and Singapore in technical recession,
defined as two straight quarters of decline, as the pandemic slams Asia’s
trade-reliant economies.
---- “It’s possible for us to see China-style rebound in the third quarter as the pandemic slows and activity in overseas production, schools and hospitals resume,” South Korean finance minister finance minister Hong Nam-ki said after the data was released, referring to China’s return to growth in the second-quarter after a deep slump earlier in the year.
South Korea’s gross domestic product fell 2.9% in year-on-year terms,
the biggest fall since the fourth quarter of 1998 and worse than a 2.0% decline
seen in the poll.
Exports, which account for nearly 40% of the economy, were the biggest
drag on growth, dropping by 16.6% on-quarter to mark the worst reading since
1963.
More
Australia warns economy to shrink record 7% in Q2
Issued
on:
Australia warned on Thursday that its economy will shrink at its fastest
pace in history during the second quarter, while the budget deficit will be the
biggest since the Second World War as the country battles to contain the impact
of the coronavirus.
The government has stumped up tens of billions of dollars to fight the
pandemic, which has ravaged global trade and forced the shutdown of much of the
country earlier in the year, crippling the economy.
The reimposition of a six-week lockdown on five million people in
Melbourne, the second-biggest city, has added to the struggles for a country
already reeling from a prolonged drought and massive bushfires before the
disease struck.
Officials said gross domestic product would contract seven percent in
April-June, pushing the economy into recession for the first time in nearly
three decades.
A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction and
the economy shrank 0.3 percent in the previous three months.
More
Warning over UK theatre closures due to virus lockdown
Issued
on:
Britain's world-leading theatre industry faces mass redundancies and
venue closures because of the effect of the coronavirus lockdown, lawmakers
said on Thursday.
Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee said in
a new report that more than 15,000 theatrical performances were cancelled in
the first 12 weeks of shutdown from March 23.
More than £303 million ($386 million, 333 million euros) in box office
revenue was lost but when additional income was factored in, losses could be
£603 million.
"We are witnessing the biggest threat to our cultural landscape in
a generation," the committee said.
"The failure of the government to act quickly has jeopardised the
future of institutions that are part of our national life and the livelihoods
of those who work for them."
The government earlier this month announced £1.57 billion in emergency
funding for the creative industries, after weeks of pressure.
But while widely welcomed, there remains concern the money will not go
far enough, particularly if social distancing guidelines are maintained through
the popular Christmas period, which is normally a money-spinner, and into next
year.
More
Finally,
more economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Public transport woes.
Covid Is Pushing Some Mass Transit Systems to the Brink
Riders are skittish. Cleaning costs are
soaring. Some, like the Bay Area's Caltrain system, face an existential crisis.
07.21.2020 07:00
AM
On March 1, the Bay Area’s Caltrain rail system was in the midst of a $2 billion plan to electrify its tracks, replace its aging diesel locomotives, and run more trains between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Now, officials warn that without serious funding help—about $100 million annually—Caltrain could shut down altogether.
There are plenty of reasons why Caltrain is sui generis. Many stem from the strange—some might say perverted—governance structure of Bay Area transit. Caltrain is managed by a board representing the three counties through which the rail line travels, and a ballot measure to request new funding needs to be approved by the boards of supervisors of each county, plus four separate transit boards.
Last week, San Francisco supervisors declined to place a ⅛-cent sales tax on the ballot in November, a measure that would keep the rail line—which has lost 95 percent of its riders since pandemic shutdowns began in the spring—afloat.
The causes of Caltrain’s woes are unusual, but its predicament may be a harbinger for other transit systems in the Covid-19 era. “Transit is being stretched to the brink everywhere,” says Steven Higashide, director of research at the research and advocacy organization TransitCenter. “It’s not just in the Bay Area that agencies are facing these existential questions of how to triage service.”
Public transit faces a near-perfect storm. Ridership—and fare revenue—have dropped dramatically, as many people work from home and others avoid mass anything. Each transit system is different, but even before the pandemic, fares generally covered only 20 to 25 percent of system operating costs. The rest comes from taxes. But tax receipts are falling at all levels of government amid the coronavirus-induced economic downturn. Meanwhile, agencies are shelling out more in cleaning costs, to protect riders and workers. And no one knows when Americans who have a choice will get back on the bus.
The federal pandemic relief bill passed in April gave agencies a lifeline, in the form of $25 billion. But that money won’t last forever. A TransitCenter analysis finds that the money allocated to the country’s 10 biggest systems will last between five and eight months; some smaller systems could survive up to two years. New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which alone carries 38 percent of the country’s transit passengers, projects a funding shortfall of $3.9 billion for 2020. Los Angeles Metro says it will lose $1.8 billion by 2022.
More
If we do not succeed, we run the risk of failure.
Dan Quayle US Vice President.
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
U.S. records over 1,000 new coronavirus deaths for a second day in a row
July 23, 2020 /
4:09 AM
(Reuters) - U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus rose by more than
1,000 for a second day in a row on Wednesday, including a record one-day rise
in fatalities in Alabama, Nevada and Texas, according to a Reuters tally.
The United States has not seen back-to-back days with over 1,000 lives
lost since June 5-6. Weeks after cases began to surge, 23 states are now seeing
fatalities also rise, according to a Reuters analysis of deaths for the past
two weeks compared with the prior two weeks.
While deaths are rising in the United States for a second week in a row,
they remain well below levels seen in April, when on average 2,000 people a day
died from the virus.
One hard-hit Texas county is storing bodies in refrigerated trucks after
COVID-19 deaths doubled in the span of a week.
Hidalgo County, at the southern tip of the state on the U.S. border with
Mexico, has seen cases rise 60 percent in the last week, according to a Reuters
tally, with deaths doubling to more than 360.
Crematoriums in the Hidalgo County area have a wait list of two weeks, a
local official said, forcing the county to use five refrigerated trucks that
can hold 50 bodies each.
Over 142,000 lives have been lost to the virus in the United States over
the last five months, the highest in the world. Among the 20 countries with the
largest outbreaks, the United States ranks sixth highest globally for deaths
per capita, according to a Reuters analysis.
More
Australia reports highest coronavirus deaths in three months, infections climb
July 23, 2020 /
5:30 AM
SYDNEY (Reuters) -
Australia reported its highest daily number of coronavirus-related deaths in
three months on Thursday as new infections continued to climb in its second
most populous state.
Victoria state said it had confirmed another 403 infections, while five
people had died from the virus in the last 24 hours.
The fatalities, including a man in his 50s, mark the country’s biggest
one-day rise in COVID-19 deaths since late April.
“This demonstrates the growing toll this terrible virus is taking on our
community,” Health Minister Jenny Mikakos told reporters in the state capital,
Melbourne.
With authorities unable to bring new infections below triple digits,
residents in Melbourne and most of the state are now required to wear masks
outside of their homes.
Nationally, Australia has recorded about 13,000 coronavirus cases with a
death toll of 128.
---- While the social distancing rules - which limited mobility of residents and shuttered businesses - slowed the spread of COVID-19, Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it has taken a heavy toll on the economy.
The government reported its biggest budget deficit since World War Two
on Thursday after committing to fiscal stimulus of around A$289 billion, or
14.6% of gross domestic product (GDP).
The budget swung into a massive deficit of A$85.8 billion ($61.3
billion) in the year-ended June 2020 compared with an earlier forecast for a
surplus, Frydenberg said.
The shortfall will climb further next
year, hitting A$184.5 billion in 2020-21.
“Australia is experiencing a health and
economic crisis like nothing we have seen in the last 100 years,” Frydenberg
told reporters in Canberra.
More
Global coronavirus cases exceed 15 million - Reuters tally
July 22, 2020 /
6:53 AM
SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - Global
coronavirus infections surged past 15 million on Wednesday, according to a
Reuters tally, with the pandemic gathering pace even as countries remain
divided in their response to the crisis.
In the United States, which has the highest number of cases in the world
with 3.91 million infections, President Donald Trump warned: “It will probably,
unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.”
The top five countries with the most cases is rounded out by Brazil,
India, Russia and South Africa. But, the Reuters tally shows the disease is
accelerating the fastest in the Americas, which account for more than half the
world’s infections and half its deaths.
Globally, the rate of new infections shows no sign of slowing, according
to the Reuters tally, based on official reports.
After the first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan, China, in early
January, it took about 15 weeks to reach 2 million cases. By contrast, it took
just eight days to climb above 15 million from the 13 million reached on July
13.
Health experts stress that official data almost certainly underreports
both infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity.
The official number of coronavirus cases at 15,009,213 is at least
triple the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to
World Health Organization data, while the death toll of more than 616,000 in
seven months is close to the upper range of yearly influenza deaths.
More
How Deadly Is Covid-19? Researchers Are Getting Closer to an Answer
Research suggests the new coronavirus kills about five to 10 people for every 1,000 that it infects, though rate varies based on age and access to health care
Updated July 21, 2020 1:00 pm ET
Six months into the pandemic, researchers are homing in on an
answer to one of the basic questions about the virus: How deadly is it?Researchers, initially analyzing data from outbreaks on cruise ships and more recently from surveys of thousands of people in virus hot spots, have now conducted dozens of studies to calculate the infection fatality rate of Covid-19.
That research—examining deaths out of the total number of infections, which includes unreported cases—suggests that Covid-19 kills from around 0.3% to 1.5% of people infected. Most studies put the rate between 0.5% and 1.0%, meaning that for every 1,000 people who get infected, from five to 10 would die on average.
Covid-19 Fatality: Analyzing the Evidence
A comparison of 26 studies that estimate the disease's infection
fatality rate* found varying results but pinpointed an overall rate of around
6.8 deaths per 1,000 infections.
Infection fatality rate by study
----The estimates suggest the new coronavirus
is deadlier than the seasonal flu, though not as lethal as Ebola and other
infectious diseases that have emerged in recent years. The coronavirus is
killing more people than the deadlier diseases, however, in part because it is
more infectious.
Some useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
Rt Covid-19
Covid19info.live
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.
Better wastewater treatment? It's a wrap
by Rice
University July 21, 2020
Think of the new strategy developed at Rice University as
"wrap, trap and zap."The labs of Rice environmental scientist Pedro Alvarez and Yalei Zhang, a professor of environmental engineering at Tongji University, Shanghai, introduced microspheres wrapped in graphene oxide in the Elsevier journal Water Research.
Alvarez and his partners in the Rice-based Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) have worked toward quenching antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" since first finding them in wastewater treatment plants in 2013.
"Superbugs are known to breed in wastewater treatment plants and release extracellular antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) when they are killed as the effluent is disinfected," Alvarez said. "These ARGs are then discharged and may transform indigenous bacteria in the receiving environment, which become resistome reservoirs.
"Our innovation would minimize the discharge of extracellular ARGs, and thus mitigate dissemination of antibiotic resistance from wastewater treatment plants," he said.
The Rice lab showed its spheres—cores of bismuth, oxygen and carbon wrapped with nitrogen-doped graphene oxide—inactivated multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli bacteria and degraded plasmid-encoded antibiotic-resistant genes in secondary wastewater effluent.
The graphene-wrapped spheres kill nasties in effluent by producing three times the amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as compared to the spheres alone.
The spheres themselves are photocatalysts that produce ROS when exposed to light. Lab tests showed that wrapping the spheres minimized the ability of ROS scavengers to curtail their ability to disinfect the solution.
The researchers said nitrogen-doping the shells increases their ability to capture bacteria, giving the catalytic spheres more time to kill them. The enhanced particles then immediately capture and degrade the resistant genes released by the dead bacteria before they contaminate the effluent.
We
don’t want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.
Dan Quayle US Vice President.
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished June
DJIA: 25,813 -2 Down. NASDAQ: 10,059 +196 Up.
SP500: 3,100 +75 Down.
The NASDAQ has remained up.
The S&P and the DJIA still remain down despite the best efforts of the Fed
to get them to go higher. The Dow has now gone negative.
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