Baltic Dry Index. 1598 +03 Brent Crude 45.26
Spot Gold 1990
Coronavirus Cases 18/8/20 World 21,972,432
Deaths 781,502
Milton Friedman once put
it, if you’re spending your own money on yourself, you care about price and
quality. If you’re spending someone else’s money on yourself, you only care
about quality. If you’re spending your own money on someone else, you care only
about price. And if you’re spending someone else’s money on someone else, you
don’t care about either.
We open with life in the central bankster fuelled, stock
casinos on Easy Street, where no billionaire is left behind.
Asia shares sluggish after Wall Street's tech-inspired rally
August 18, 2020 /
1:05 AM
HONG
KONG/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asian stocks inched up on Tuesday as Sino-U.S.
tensions weighed on optimism generated by Wall Street’s tech-driven rally,
while the dollar dropped against almost all major currencies.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS gained 0.19%, to sit not far short of its pre-pandemic late January high.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 dipped 0.52%, while most markets traded in a narrow band with Chinese blue chips .CSI300 dropping 0.25%. The Australian benchmark index rose 0.12%.
E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 ESc1 were flat.
The Nasdaq surged to a record high close on Monday and the S&P 500 approached its own record level, with both indexes lifted by technology stocks.
---- The U.S. dollar =USD softened against most currencies after disappointing manufacturing and mortgage data, Commonwealth Bank of Australia analyst Joseph Capurso wrote in a note.
But moves were small ahead of Wednesday’s release of the Federal Reserve
minutes, with speculation that the Fed will adopt an average inflation target,
which would seek to push inflation above 2% for some time.
---- Brent crude LCOc1 was down 6 cents, or 0.1%, at $45.31 a barrel, after gaining 1.3% on Monday. U.S. crude CLc1 was down 0.2%, at $42.81 a barrel, having risen 2.1% in the previous session
Safe haven gold closed higher after Berkshire Hathaway also disclosed a stake in Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp (ABX.TO), one of the world’s largest mining companies.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-markets/asia-shares-sluggish-after-wall-streets-tech-inspired-rally-idUKKCN25E005?il=0
Nasdaq hits new record as tech stocks rise, SP 500 misses all-time high
Aug. 17, 2020 /
5:05 PM
Aug. 17 (UPI) -- The Nasdaq Composite hit an intraday high to start the
week behind strong performances by tech stocks, while the S&P 500 failed to
achieve a record high despite slight gains.
The Nasdaq increased 1% at the end of trading on Monday, while the
S&P 500 gained 0.27% remaining short of its Feb. 19 record close of
3,386.15. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, fell 85.57 points -- or
0.31% -- to end the day.
The S&P 500's consumer discretionary sector rose 1.2% to lead the market higher, while the materials sector gained 0.4%.
Boeing stock fell 3.4% and American Express stock dropped 2.85%, contributing to the Dow's decline.
Markets were also impacted by Republicans and Democrats in Congress indicating that they remain separated on a deal for another round of coronavirus stimulus and disagreements over funding the U.S. Postal Service.
More
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/08/17/Nasdaq-hits-new-record-as-tech-stocks-rise-SP-500-misses-all-time-high/8571597694984/
But back in the real US economy on Hard Street, there is no sign of the Fed’s “no billionaire left behind” punchbowl. Is the Fed driving the USA to Democratic socialism? It looks that way from faraway London.
300 U.S. Pizza Hut restaurants will close after franchisee bankruptcy
Aug. 17, 2020 /
4:51 PM
Aug. 17 (UPI) -- As many as 300 U.S. Pizza Hut restaurant locations will close
permanently in the wake of the bankruptcy of the chain's largest franchisee,
the company announced Monday.NPC International, based in Leawood, Kan., said it had reached an agreement with Yum! Brands, the parent company of Pizza Hut, to close one-quarter of its 1,227 Pizza Hut locations and make arrangements to sell the rest. NPC is the largest and oldest franchisee of Pizza Hut restaurants and operates most of the stores on the East Coast and in the Midwest.
The company didn't specify which locations would be closed, but said they would be locations with an attached restaurant. Pizza Hut has moved away from the dine-in restaurant business model to an emphasis on take-out and delivery through an app.
Pizza Hut said the 300 locations were identified as those that "significantly underperform." The chain said it would relocate employees to other Pizza Hut locations, CNN reported.
NPC filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July. Shutdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic, along with a $1 billion debt burden and rising costs of labor and food contributed to the bankruptcy, CNN reported. But even in February, the company was looking at bankruptcy, Bloomberg reported.
More
Judge hands a win to businesses demanding insurance coverage for lost income due to coronavirus
Published: Aug. 16, 2020 at 8:21 p.m. ET
A group of Kansas and Missouri hair salon and restaurant
owners can proceed with a lawsuit trying to make their insurance company pay
for the income they missed out on during COVID-19 government shutdown orders, a
judge ruled Wednesday. The businesses adequately alleged — for now at least — that they ought to be covered by their “all-risk” insurance policies, Western District of Missouri Judge Stephen Bough ruled after combing through insurance policy wording.
The ruling could have broad implications as more businesses sue their insurance carriers for denying similar claims, observers say.
Business interruption insurance replaces lost income when a business has to temporarily close its doors. The policies kick in when there’s “direct physical loss or damage.” That typically applies to events including burst pipes, fires or damage from a nasty storm.
So does it kick in when businesses close their doors under government orders to slow the spread of an invisible, communicable virus? And does it apply when many policies might contain coverage exclusions related to fallout from a virus?
In the first few decisions on business interruption coverage amid the pandemic, three judges have sided with carriers and dismissed the cases.
Bough’s decision marks the first time a judge has decided to let businesses go ahead with their case.
The Cincinnati Insurance Company’s policies covered “physical loss” or “physical damage,” the businesses emphasized in court papers.
But Bough noted the carrier didn’t define “physical loss,” so he had to
make his own interpretation.
“COVID-19 allegedly attached to and deprived Plaintiffs of their
property, making it ‘unsafe and unusable, resulting in direct physical loss to
the premises and property,’” the judge wrote.
These policies had no exclusion for economic fallout from viruses, he
noted.
More
New York City is ‘dead forever,’ according to one proud New Yorker
Published: Aug. 16, 2020 at 5:42 p.m. ET
Will the city that never sleeps ever wake up?Not according to James Altucher, a best-selling author and former hedge-fund manager, who says that New York City is “dead forever” as its residents come to grips with the reality of the coronavirus pandemic and what it means for the fate of the Big Apple.
“I love NYC. When I first moved to NYC, it was a dream come true. Every corner was like a theater production happening right in front of me. So much personality, so many stories,” he wrote in a blog post explaining why his temporary relocation might become more permanent.
Altucher isn’t alone, of course. The New York Times back in June asked the “agonizing” question: “Is New York City worth it anymore?” amid a mass exodus of an estimated 420,000 residents between March and May, when the coronavirus was really blowing up.
In July, there were a record 13,117 vacant apartments across Manhattan, according to a report by Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants. A year ago, that number was a 5,912. Also, new lease signings fell by about 23%, resulting in a drop in rental prices.
To be fair, New York may be feeling the most profound impact, but several cities have been hit hard. Check out the staggering stats on San Francisco, for example:
---- “These times of crisis, when things get tough in the city, it’s where I want to be, it’s where my neighbors are,” one local photographer told the paper. “I’ve been walking around and exploring, and the city is becoming even more fascinating during a time like this.”
But Altucher doesn’t see it that way. Will the city bounce back? “No.
Not this time.” Will it remain the center of the financial universe? “Not this
time.” New York has experienced worse? “Not it hasn’t.”
He pointed to several reasons as to why this time it’s different.
First, the center of the city is empty. Even though people are allowed
to go back to work, they’re not, he said, citing the fact that the Time-Life
building is almost a complete ghost town.
“Businesses have realized that they don’t need their employees at the
office,” said Altucher, who is now in South Florida. “They’ve realized they are
even more productive with everyone at home.”
Morehttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-york-city-is-dead-forever-according-to-one-lifelong-new-yorker-2020-08-16?mod=home-page
Finally, good old fashioned, high seas piracy returns,
led by the USA. An October Iran war next?
The U.S. Brings State-Sponsored Piracy Into the 21st Century
America seizing cargoes from four oil tankers conjures images of British privateers attacking Spanish treasure fleets in the late 1500s.By Julian Lee August 16, 2020, 6:00 AM GMT+1
It was definitely the 21st century when I went to sleep Thursday night, but by Friday morning it was starting to feel as though I’d slipped back in time a few hundred years, to an age of state-sponsored piracy.
News that the U.S. had seized the cargoes of four oil tankers, allegedly carrying Iranian gasoline from the Persian Gulf to Venezuela, conjured images of British privateers — in essence, state-sponsored pirates — attacking Spanish treasure fleets carrying gold, silver and precious stones from the New World back to Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.
----Just like the British back then, the U.S. has given itself the right to seize property on the high seas that it believes to be owned by entities it considers foreign terrorist organizations.
The methods have certainly changed though.
The U.S. isn’t licensing acts of piracy by private individuals. Nor, in this case, has it resorted to military action. A senior U.S. official told The Associated Press that no military force was used in the seizures. Instead, threats of potentially crippling sanctions against the owners, insurers and captains of the vessels persuaded them to hand over the cargoes.
But the concept has altered little in 440 years — we still have one of the world's preeminent naval powers passing its own laws allowing it to seize treasure from its enemies in the ocean.
A day earlier, the U.S. had decried the boarding of a small oil tanker in international waters by Iranian forces, who remained on the vessel for several hours before allowing it proceed on its way. “This type of reckless, aggressive behavior by Iran destabilizes the region and threatens the rules-based international order,” said the U.S.-led International Maritime Security Construct in a statement.
Make no mistake, the latest U.S. action was no more based on international rules than was the Iranian one. Both moves served the countries’ respective interests. Neither had the backing of the United Nations or another international body. Iran now may feel compelled to respond.
The combined cargoes seized by the U.S. from the four ships — about 1.16 million barrels of Iranian gasoline, according to the complaint for forfeiture — is worth about $61 million dollars. The funds realized from the sale of the cargoes will in part be directed to the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund. Almost 80% of the claims on that fund are related to the heinous attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. Yet Iran was not implicated in that event.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-08-16/the-u-s-brings-state-sponsored-piracy-into-the-21st-century?srnd=premium-europe
“I
sometimes get the impression that many U.S. media outlets work according to a
principle which was common in the Soviet Union. Back then, people used to joke
that the newspaper Pravda [Truth] had no truth in it, and the Izvestia [News]
paper has no news in it. I get the impression that many U.S. media operate in
the same way.”
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. May 2017.
Covid-19 Corner
New Jersey Transmission Rate Suggests Virus Is Spreading Again
By Elise Young
The Covid-19 transmission rate for New Jersey has again risen above 1,
the state reported Monday, just days after Governor Phil Murphy said he would
order the November general election to be conducted mostly through mail-in
voting because of virus concerns.
The rate is now at 1.03, the state reported. Any number above 1 suggests
the virus is spreading. The rate has been unstable since the state began
reviving its economy.
South Korea battles worst coronavirus outbreak in months, warns of crisis
August 17, 2020 /
6:53 AM
SEOUL
(Reuters) - South Korea warned on Monday of a looming novel coronavirus crisis
as new outbreaks flared, including one linked to a church where more than 300
members of the congregation have been infected but hundreds more are reluctant
to get tested.
The outbreak linked to the Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul is the country’s
biggest in nearly six months and led to a tightening of social distancing rules
on Sunday.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 197
new cases as of midnight on Saturday, mostly in the Seoul metropolitan area,
marking the fourth day of a three-digit tally.
South Korea has been one of the world’s coronavirus mitigation success
stories but it has nevertheless battled persistent spikes in infections. The
latest cases brought its total infections to 15,515 including 305 deaths.
“We’re seeing the current situation as an initial stage of a large-scale
transmission,” KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyeong told a briefing.
“We’re facing a crisis where if the current spread isn’t controlled, it
would bring an exponential rise in cases, which could in turn lead to the
collapse of our medical system and enormous economic damage.”
More
Hong Kong records 44 new coronavirus cases as social distancing restrictions extended
August 17, 2020
/ 9:48 AM
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong reported 44 new coronavirus cases on
Monday as the government announced an extension to social distancing measures
aimed at controlling further spreading of the virus, which has seen a
resurgence in the Asian financial hub since early July.
While the number of daily cases have come down from triple digits in
recent weeks, authorities have cautioned residents from becoming complacent,
warning that the situation remained “severe”.
Restrictions including a ban on dining at restaurants from 6pm and the
mandating of masks in all outdoor public areas are set to remain in force for a
further seven days until August 25, the government said in a statement on
Monday.
Out of the 44 cases recorded on Monday, 31 of them were local transmissions.
Since
late January, over 4500 people have been infected in Hong Kong, 69 of whom have
died. Monday’s figure was down from Sunday’s 74 cases.
Philippines records 3,314 new coronavirus cases, 18 deaths
August 17, 2020
/ 9:33 AM
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines has recorded 3,314 new coronavirus
cases and 18 additional deaths from the disease, the health ministry said on
Monday.
The country has so far registered a total of 164,474 infections and the
death toll from COVID-19 has risen to 2,681, according to ministry data.
Indonesia reports 1,821 new coronavirus cases, 57 deaths
August 17, 2020
/ 9:28 AM
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia reported 1,821 new coronavirus cases on Monday,
bringing its infection total to 141,370, data from government’s COVID-19 task
force showed.
The Southeast Asian country also added 57 new deaths, taking its
fatalities to 6,207, the highest coronavirus death toll in Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia Detects Mutated Virus Strain Sweeping the World
By Yudith Ho and Claire Jiao
Updated on August 17, 2020, 11:00 AM GMT+1
Southeast Asia is facing a strain of the new coronavirus that the
Philippines, which faces the region’s largest outbreak, is studying to see
whether the mutation makes it more infectious.
The strain, earlier seen in other parts of the world and called D614G,
was found in a Malaysian cluster of 45 cases that started from someone who
returned from India and breached his 14-day home quarantine. The Philippines
detected the strain among random Covid-19 samples in the largest city of its
capital region.
More
We Don’t Have to Despair
Medical research director Eric Topol sees light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel.
By Robert Bazell August 12, 2020
The Twitter feed of Eric Topol, with nearly
300,000 followers, has become one of the go-to places for reliable updates on
the COVID-19 pandemic. Topol is the founder and director of the Scripps
Research Translational Institute, professor of molecular medicine, and
executive vice president of Scripps Research.
---- What about “Long COVID,” the name now applied to serious symptoms that strike almost any organ in the body following recovery from acute COVID infection? In many people, the disability has lasted for months, and because the disease is new, nobody knows how long these symptoms might persist.
I’m upbeat we’ll have less deaths, but, yes, Long COVID is very worrisome. Healthy, young people are suffering from long COVID and have pretty debilitating symptoms. This is really vital to understand now. How can the virus affect many different organs for long periods of time? It’s quite disconcerting.
Have you ever seen a virus like this? One that can be asymptomatic, kill people quickly, allow some to recover, and give others a range of chronic, debilitating problems?
No, I haven’t. We now see this multi-system, inflammatory condition can be fatal for kids, who average 8 years old. Almost 2 percent of the kids diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States, who have developed multi-system, inflammatory condition, have died from it, and the majority of them wind up in an ICU in a hospital.1 We see it in some adults. It’s debilitating, not requiring hospitalization, but they have difficulty breathing and joint aches—which are really telling—chest pain, and other symptoms that affect brain function.
With so many organ systems involved, it sounds like it could be an
immune disorder or some kind, right?
Yes. We think there’s some immune and inflammatory reaction. That raises
the question, should we be thinking of using a non-steroidal or some other type
of drug as a preventive of Long COVID? The incidence of it is anywhere from 10
to 80 percent, even in young people who recover from a mild attack of COVID-19.
So, yes, we need to understand the immune and inflammation background and
hopefully prevent this.
What does this dangerous inflammatory response say about possible side
effects of a vaccine?
A good immune response fights the infection and helps prevent it from
ever getting legs. But a vaccine does introduce another set of concerns. It
could set off an immune reaction of a different kind. Hopefully the tradeoff is
favorable, but we’re not out of the woods. It’s something we have to keep in
the front of our minds when we get to the vaccine stage, which I’m convinced we
will probably next year sometime. We have to keep a close eye on the risk that
you rev up the immune system in a dangerous way. After somebody has gotten a vaccine—weeks
or months later—they can have an untoward immune reaction. It’s a big unknown.
More
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.
Black silicon photodetector hits record-breaking 132% efficiency
Michael Irving August 16, 2020
Researchers
at Aalto University have developed a photovoltaic device that has an external
quantum efficiency of 132 percent. This impossible-sounding feat was achieved
using nanostructured black silicon, and could represent a major breakthrough
for solar cells and other photodetectors.
If
a hypothetical photovoltaic device has an external quantum efficiency of 100
percent, that means that every photon of light that strikes it generates one
electron, which exits through the circuit and is harvested as electricity.
This new device is the first to not only reach 100-percent efficiency, but exceed it. At 132 percent, that means you get on average 1.32 electrons for every photon. It was made using black silicon as the active material, with nanostructures shaped like cones and columns, absorbing UV light.
Obviously you can’t have 0.32 of an electron, but put another way you have a 32-percent chance of generating two electrons from a single photon. On the surface it might sound impossible – after all, physics dictates that energy can’t be created from nothing. So where are these extra electrons coming from?
It all comes down to how photovoltaic materials work in general. When a
photon of incoming light strikes the active material – usually silicon – it
knocks an electron out of one of its atoms. But under certain circumstances,
one high-energy photon could bump two electrons out, without violating any laws
of physics.
It goes without saying that tapping into that phenomenon could be
extremely helpful for improving the design of solar cells. In many photovoltaic
materials efficiency is lost in several ways, including photons being reflected
away from the device, or electrons recombining with the “hole” they left in the
atom before they can be collected by the circuit.
But the Aalto team says it’s largely removed these barriers. Black
silicon absorbs far more photons than other materials, and the cone and column
nanostructures reduce electron recombination at the surface of the material.
Together, these advances made for a device with 130-percent external quantum efficiency. The team even had these results independently verified by the German National Metrology Institute, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB).
The researchers say that this record efficiency could improve the performance of basically any photodetector, including solar cells and other light sensors, and that the new detectors are already being manufactured for commercial use.
The research has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Source: Aalto University
A
permanent Governor of the Bank of England [your central bank here,] would be one of the greatest men in England. He would be a
little 'monarch' in the City; he would be far greater than the 'Lord Mayor.' He
would be the personal embodiment of the Bank of England; he would be constantly
clothed with an almost indefinite prestige. Everybody in business would
bow down before him and try to stand well with him, for he might in a panic be
able to save almost anyone he liked, and to ruin almost anyone he liked. A day
might come when his favour might mean prosperity, and his distrust might mean
ruin. A position with so much real power and so much apparent dignity would be
intensely coveted.
Walter
Bagehot. Lombard Street. 1873.
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished July
DJIA: 26,428 -1 Up. NASDAQ: 10,745 +243 Up. SP500:
3,271 +89 Up.
The NASDAQ
has remained up. The DJIA and SP500 have turned up. With stock mania running
fueled by trillions of central bankster new fiat money programs, I would not
rely on the indicators.
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