Destabilising The System

 Baltic Dry Index. 1201 -10 Brent Crude 48.15

Spot Gold 1834

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 03/12/20 World 64,845,240

Deaths 1,499,350

“It is difficult not to marvel at the imagination which was implicit in this gargantuan insanity. If there must be madness something may be said for having it on a heroic scale."

John Kenneth Galbraith. The Great Crash: 1929.

The big story today is in the Covid-19 section, where as we’ve covered before, the fox has been appointed to guard the hen house.

We open today with more of the same in the stock casinos. But the dollar is taking a beating as the world prepares for a profligate Biden presidency.

Big things are expected from the Magic Money Tree forest by Biden supporters, especially in his first hundred days. Will gold finish the year with a 2 handle? Finish the Biden presidency with a 3 handle? Higher?

Asian shares mixed, U.S. dollar near 2-1/2 year lows

December 2, 2020 11:50 PM  By Swati Pandey

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares were mixed on Thursday after a choppy day of Wall Street trade, thanks in part to a disappointing U.S. jobs report, while the greenback languished near 2-1/2 year lows on growing optimism of a coronavirus vaccine.

Britain became the first Western country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine, with 800,000 doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine available for those at high risk starting next week.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is holding its advisory committee meeting next week, while New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said the state’s first delivery, enough for 170,000 residents, is expected on Dec. 15.

Hopes that the pandemic, which has so far killed nearly 1.5 million people globally, will finally be brought under control sparked a risk-on rally in currency markets with the Australian and New Zealand dollars advancing against their U.S. counterpart.

The dollar index slipped to a fresh 2-1/2 year low of 90.948 on Thursday and was last at 90.976. [FRX/]

“Currency investors are taking on more risk following the latest vaccine breakthroughs, options show,” Morgan Stanley said in a note.

Hopes of a fiscal support package in the United States also boosted investor optimism.

But share traders were less enthused.

E-Mini futures for S&P500 were a shade weaker as were Dow futures. Futures for Eurostoxx 50 were down 0.1%, those for Germany’s Dax eased 0.2% and London’s FTSE futures fell 0.4%.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei was unchanged while South Korea’s KOSPI and Australia’s benchmark index were about 0.4% higher each. Chinese shares opened a tad lower, with the blue-chip CSI300 index off 0.2%. New Zealand shares were weaker too.

That left MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of Japan up 0.4% following two straight days of gains.

“Markets are quite likely to muddle through from here,” said Michael Frazis, portfolio manager at Frazis Capital Partners in Sydney.

“The vaccine is increasingly priced in. A couple of months ago, no one knew how deep coronavirus would be, or what the outcome of the election was. Now both sources of uncertainty have been removed.”

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-markets/asian-shares-mixed-u-s-dollar-near-2-1-2-year-lows-idUKKBN28C3IW

David Rosenberg: If we wind up with a double-dip recession the Fed may already be spent

The best advice in this increasingly insane financial asset world, focus on what is real and not artificial

Dec 02, 2020  • 

By David Rosenberg and Ellen Cooper

Cycle after cycle we have watched the United States Federal Reserve become increasingly more aggressive with the tools it deploys to fend off recessions: since the 1980s, the Fed’s target interest rate has been lowered to progressively lower lows, stair stepping its way to near-zero. But given where we are now, with the funds rate at the “effective lower bound” and quantitative easing (QE) expanded to include everything up to junk bonds, what is left in the tank for the next downturn?

Indeed, the Fed may be asking this question again shortly if we wind up with a double-dip recession, as the high-frequency economic data of late has suggested. Daily cases of COVID-19 are surging and, even without full lockdown measures, fear of the virus and hope for vaccines near term will curb mobility and spending.

But there is very little left in the monetary playbook. The Fed quickly responded to the pandemic in March by easing rates 150 basis points over a two-week span and implementing a wide range of new lending and liquidity programs. It launched a new round of asset purchases (QE), which opened the floodgates for the central-bank balance sheet to balloon to more than US$7 trillion by November from approximately US$4 trillion — over 50 per cent of this growth came from purchases of government debt (with more on the way).

By comparison, it took more than five years after the Global Financial Crisis to expand the central bank’s balance sheet by as much as was done in nine months during 2020. And the April decision to expand corporate lending programs to include buying recently downgraded junk bond exchange-traded funds was just another step in pushing the boundaries of unconventional monetary policy.

If we look back to the 1980s, there was significantly more room to manoeuvre in the face of a crisis. The official fed funds rate was close to 10 per cent in 1989, so when the savings and loans industry collapsed, rates were repeatedly slashed in order to calm markets.

---- Essentially, what we’ve seen happen through these past few cycles is that the U.S. is following Europe, which followed Japan down a rabbit hole of low rates and unconventional monetary policy that does not have an easy solution for unwinding. Japan has been grappling with these issues (low inflation, low growth) for decades and already began an expansion into buying equity ETFs in 2011, long before the COVID-19 crisis struck. Indeed, estimates suggest that the BoJ now owns more than 40 per cent of the Japanese Government Bond market and six per cent of the total value of the Japanese stock market.

---- The reality is there just are not that many bullets left in the policy chamber. Remember that back in 2018 when the Fed had the audacity to lift the funds rate up to 2.5 per cent, markets went into a tizzy. The debt situation is so dire that we never did get within striking distance of a “normalized” policy rate even at the peak of the last cycle. And with the even larger debt burden at all levels of society now, yields cannot rise without destabilizing the entire system.

More

https://financialpost.com/investing/investing-pro/david-rosenberg-if-we-wind-up-with-a-double-dip-recession-the-fed-may-already-be-spent

Next, more Hong Kong death of rule of law news. America bans much of China’s cotton.

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai in custody after fraud charge

December 3, 2020 5:15 AM  By Clare Jim

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai was denied bail on Thursday on a charge of fraud related to the lease of a building that houses his Apple Daily, an anti-government tabloid.

Authorities have intensified a crackdown on key opposition figures in the Chinese-ruled city since Beijing circumvented the local legislature and imposed sweeping national security legislation on the global financial centre on June 30.

While Lai’s fraud charge did not fall under the national security law, it marks the latest crackdown on pro-democracy figures in the former British colony, which was handed back to Beijing in 1997 with a promise to maintain the free-wheeling city’s way of life for 50 years.

Critics say the law crushes freedoms in the global financial centre, while supporters say it will bring stability after prolonged anti-China, pro-democracy protests last year.

On Wednesday, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent democracy activists Joshua Wong was jailed for more than 13 months for his role in an unlawful anti-government rally in 2019, the toughest and most high-profile sentencing of an opposition figure this year.

Lai, 73, and two senior executives of his company Next Digital, were charged on Wednesday on suspicion of concealing from and falsely representing the use of their office to their landlord, a public corporation set up by the Hong Kong government.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-hongkong-security-jimmylai/hong-kong-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai-in-custody-after-fraud-charge-idUKKBN28D0HQ?il=0

U.S. bans cotton imports from China producer XPCC citing Xinjiang 'slave labor'

December 2, 2020  9:26 PM Updated 43 minutes ago  By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration expanded economic pressure on China’s western region of Xinjiang, banning cotton imports from a powerful Chinese quasi-military organization that it says uses the forced labor of detained Uighur Muslims.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said on Wednesday its “Withhold Release Order” would ban cotton and cotton products from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), one of China’s largest producers.

The move, which could have a sweeping effect on companies involved in selling textiles and apparel to the United States, is among several the Trump administration has been working on in its final weeks to harden the U.S. position against China, making it more difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to ease U.S.-China tensions.

The targeting of XPCC, which produced here 30% of China's cotton in 2015, follows a Treasury Department ban in July on all dollar transactions with the sprawling business-and-paramilitary entity, founded in 1954 to settle China's far west.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kenneth Cuccinelli, who oversees the border agency, called “Made in China” a “warning label.”

“The cheap cotton goods you may be buying for family and friends during this season of giving - if coming from China - may have been made by slave labor in some of the most egregious human rights violations existing today in the modern world,” he told a news conference.

Cuccinelli said a region-wide Xinjiang cotton import ban was still being studied.

The United Nations cites what it says are credible reports that 1 million Muslims held in camps have been put to work. China denies mistreating Uighurs and says the camps are vocational training centers needed to fight extremism.

While the Treasury sanctions target XPCC’s financial structure, Wednesday’s action will force apparel firms and other companies shipping cotton products into the United States to eliminate XPCC-produced cotton fiber from many stages of their supply chains, said Brenda Smith, CBP’s executive assistant commissioner for trade.

“That pretty much blocks all Chinese cotton textile imports,” said a China-based cotton trader, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Identifying cotton from a specific supplier will sharply raise manufacturing costs, and only the few large companies with fully integrated operations across the complex textile supply chain could guarantee that no XPCC product has been used, the trader said.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china/u-s-bans-cotton-imports-from-china-producer-xpcc-citing-xinjiang-slave-labor-idUKKBN28D0IG

Finally, despite many other ski resorts closing, Swiss ski resorts are opening for Christmas and New Year. But will it all go downhill for the Covid tempting Swiss? Are the Swiss just taking the piste? Apres-ski, Covid-19?

Swiss plough ahead with skiing despite neighbours' fears

December 2, 2020  11:36 AM  By Denis Balibouse

VERBIER, Switzerland (Reuters) - Swiss ski resorts are ploughing ahead with preparations for the year-end holiday season despite pressure from neighbouring Italy, France and Germany to shut until the latest coronavirus wave passes.

Health Minister Alain Berset has proposed limits on the capacity of ski lifts at Christmas and the New Year, but lift operators and mountain regions who already expect many foreign visitors to stay away during the festive period bristle at added restrictions.

Verbier Mayor Eloi Rossier acknowledged feeling the heat from other countries, but said that his town’s ski economy was too important to simply call off the season, especially given measures the resort was taking to keep people safe.

He expects up to 45,000 people over Christmas and New Year, fewer than normal due to “a lot of cancellations.

“There is an economic aspect that we cannot deny, it is extremely important,” Rossier said. “But it is not skiing that’s dangerous for transmitting the virus, but the stuff that comes after skiing, the apres-ski. And here we took extremely strict measures to limit...the risks.”

France, with no skiing before January, plans border checks to deter people, President Emmanuel Macron said, while Germany’s Bavaria state is considering similar spot checks followed by a 14-day quarantine upon return.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was due to present his country’s ski plan on Wednesday. The Swiss government, which has said lifts can stay open if they have strict health measures in place, meets on Friday.

In Verbier in southern Switzerland, lift operator Televerbier was not expecting droves of people, given that foreign visitors who make up as many as half of a typical winter’s crowd are unlikely to travel this year.

“We lost a big part of our clients...from Asia, the Middle East or the Americas, so we don’t think that if the Italians or French remain closed that they will compensate,” Televerbier Chief Executive Laurent Vaucher said.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-ski-verbier/swiss-plough-ahead-with-skiing-despite-neighbours-fears-idUKKBN28C1KB?il=0

Winter Watch.

The Arctic winter sea-ice expansion and northern hemisphere snow cover. From around mid-October, the northern hemisphere snow cover usually rapidly expands, while the Arctic ice gradually expands back towards its winter maximum.

Over simplified, a rapid expansion of both, especially if early, can be a sign of a harsher than normal arriving northern hemisphere winter. Perhaps more so in 2020-2021 as we’re in the low of the ending sunspot cycle, which possibly also influenced this year’s record Atlantic hurricane season.

Update: we seem to have started new sunspot cycle 25 this month , though it’s unlikely to affect 2020-2021s coming winter.

Northern Eur-Asia turned snowy fast in mid-October.  The Arctic sea ice expansion was slow, and from a very low level at the end of September, but with the vastly expanded snow cover, sea ice formation sped up.

With the Laptev sea ice virtually back to normal at the end of  November I’m starting to think that it will likely be a normal to slightly warmer winter ahead for western Europe.

The failure of the Kara Sea ice to return to normal, leads me to bet on a warmer western European winter ahead.

Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

Covid-19 Corner                       

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Pfizer Vaccine Cleared by U.K.; German Deaths Jump: Virus Update

Bloomberg News

December 1, 2020, 11:02 PM GMT Updated on December 2, 2020, 9:20 AM GMT

The U.K. became the first western country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, clearing Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s shot. In Germany, the daily death toll from the virus rose to the highest since mid-April.

Hong Kong plans to raise the fine for people who break social distancing rules fivefold to HK$10,000 ($1,290), a local newspaper reported. The city plans to offer free coronavirus vaccinations for all its residents, a top health official was cited as saying.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s new guidance will cut quarantine time for individuals exposed to the coronavirus by as much as half, people familiar with the matter said. Texas reported a record number of new cases, while Covid-19 hospitalizations in California reached a new high.

Key Developments:

• Global Tracker: Cases reach 63.8 million; deaths top 1.48 million
• U.S. Hot Spots: Northeast is leading nation’s hospitalization surge
• The New Virus Wave in Japan Is Older and More Serious, Data Show
• U.S. states fear shortfall of supplies for vaccine rollout, GAO says
• Factory floors keep global economy chugging along amid virus hit
• Rolling Rebellions May Become a Lasting Scar for U.K.’s Johnson
• The best and worst places to be in the coronavirus era

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/antibody-test-ok-d-fauci-looks-to-herd-immunity-virus-update?srnd=coronavirus

Two Global Efforts Try to Trace the Origin of the Covid Virus

Both teams want to know when—or how often—the virus passed from animals to people. But the trail may have gone cold, and the search has gotten political.

12.02.2020 07:00 AM

With cases soaring in the United States and elsewhere, the Covid-19 pandemic is nowhere near its end—but with three vaccines reporting trial data and two apparently nearing approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, it may be reaching a pivot point. In what feels like a moment of drawing breath and taking stock, international researchers are turning their attention from the present back to the start of the pandemic, aiming to untangle its origin and asking what lessons can be learned to keep this from happening again.

Two efforts are happening in parallel. On November 5, the World Health Organization quietly published the rules of engagement for a long-planned and months-delayed mission that creates a multinational team of researchers who will pursue how the virus leaped species. Meanwhile, last week, a commission created by The Lancet and headed by the economist and policy expert Jeffrey Sachs announced the formation of its own international effort, a task force of 12 experts from nine countries who will undertake similar tasks.

Both groups will face the same complex problems. It has been approximately a year since the first cases of a pneumonia of unknown origin appeared in Wuhan, China, and about 11 months since the pneumonia’s cause was identified as a novel coronavirus, probably originating in bats. The experts will have to retrace a chain of transmission—one or multiple leaps of the virus from the animal world into humans—using interviews, stored biological samples, lab assays, environmental surveys, genomic data, and the thousands of papers published since the pandemic began, all while following a trail that may have gone cold.

The point is not to look for patient zero, the first person infected—or even a hypothetical bat zero, the single animal from which the novel virus jumped. It’s likely neither of those will ever be found. The goal instead is to elucidate the ecosystem—physical, but also viral—in which the spillover happened and ask what could make it likely to happen again.

“This is not a simple case of going to a market and picking up samples and testing,” says Peter Daszak, the president of the nonprofit research organization EcoHealth Alliance, who leads the Lancet commission task force. “This is about what's been changing on the ground in the region, in terms of the ecology of viruses and the social science of contact with wildlife—going back to SARS—and asking what research was done that could have been used to protect us, and was done or was not.”

More

https://www.wired.com/story/two-global-efforts-try-to-trace-the-origin-of-the-covid-virus/?bxid=5cc9e09a3f92a477a0e84d6d&cndid=52110326&esrc=Wired_etl_load&mbid=mbid%3DCRMWIR012019%0A%0A&source=EDT_WIR_NEWSLETTER_0_DAILY_ZZ&utm_brand=wired&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_content=Final&utm_mailing=WIR_Daily_120220&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl&utm_term=list1_p4

Scientists outraged by Peter Daszak leading enquiry into possible Covid lab leak

Published: 23 September 2020

Lead investigator is considered one of the most conflicted and unreliable voices on the issue. Jonathan Matthews reports

Expressions of outrage and incredulity have greeted the announcement that Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, has been chosen to lead a Task Force that will examine the possibility that Covid-19 could have emerged from a lab, as part of an investigation into the origins of the virus.

Daszak has promised to undertake the investigation “with an open mind”. But this is hard to imagine, given his previous dismissals of suggestions that SARS-CoV-2 could have leaked from a lab as “preposterous”, “baseless”, “crackpot”, “conspiracy theories” and “pure baloney”.

Misinformation super-spreader

Daszak’s investigation forms part of the work of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission – a body launched in July to look at the handling of the pandemic and “offer practical solutions”. In a statement, the Commission said it was “extremely important that the research into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 should proceed … in a scientific and objective way that is unhindered by geopolitical agendas and misinformation”.

But Daszak himself is considered a misinformation super-spreader by critics like Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright, who has accused him of lying “on a Trumpian scale”, and the evolutionary theorist Bret Weinstein who has labelled him “Patient Zero for misinformation” on the origins of Covid-19.

There is also the issue of conflicts of interest. Although Daszak declared in The Lancet that he has “no competing interests” on Covid-19, and likewise told the Washington Post he has “no conflicts of interest”, Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute, points out that he is a “long-time friend, collaborator and funder of the Shi lab” – the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) lab led by Shi Zhengli that is most often identified as the probable source of any lab leak.

In fact, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance has helped finance both the WIV’s bat coronavirus surveillance and its bat coronavirus gain-of-function research (research aimed at making a virus more infective), with the help of multi-million dollar grants from the US government. This, of course, means Daszak’s own activities are material to the subject he is investigating: the origins of a bat-derived coronavirus pandemic that broke out in the very city to which he helped lab workers bring bat coronaviruses for storage, analysis and experimentation.

More

https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19538-scientists-outraged-by-peter-daszak-leading-enquiry-into-possible-covid-lab-leak

Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.

World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Stanford Website. https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Some other useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

Covid19info.live 

https://wuflu.live/

Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national

 

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 21^st century onwards.

Today, something different. China lands on the moon and collects expensive rocks. An American telescope crashes to earth, and it wasn’t made in Japan.

China lands probe on surface of the moon and collects lunar soil

By Katie Hunt and Steven Jiang, CNN

Updated 1014 GMT (1814 HKT) December 2, 2020

China has successfully landed a lunar probe on a previously unexplored area of the moon.

The robotic spacecraft, named Chang'e 5 after the mythical Chinese goddess of the moon, drilled into the surface of the moon to collect soil early Wednesday. It will remain on the moon collecting soil and rock samples until Thursday, guided by mission control on the ground, China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

It's the first attempt to collect rocks from the moon by any country since the 1970s.

The samples, expected to weigh about 2 kilograms (4.5 pounds), will be sealed into a container in the spacecraft.

If successful, the mission will make China only the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, following the United States and the former Soviet Union decades ago.

Astronauts from the United States brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of rocks and soil between 1969 and 1972 during the Apollo program, while the Soviet Union collected 170.1 grams (6 ounces) of samples in 1976. 

When the samples are returned to Earth, scientists will be able to analyze the structure, physical properties and material composition of the moon's soil, China's space agency said.

The mission may help answer questions such as how long the moon remained volcanically active in its interior, and when its magnetic field -- key to protecting any form of life from the sun's radiation -- dissipated. 

A Long March-5 rocket carrying Chang'e-5 spacecraft blasted off from Wenchang Spacecraft

Launch Site on the island of Hainan off China's southern coast on November 24.

The spacecraft landed on a previously unvisited area of the moon -- a massive lava plain known as Oceanus Procellarum, or "Ocean of Storms." This large dark spot, stretching about 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) wide, could be a scar from a giant cosmic impact that created an ancient sea of magma, according to NASA. 

The landing marks the third time a Chinese lunar probe has successfully landed on the surface of the moon, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/01/asia/china-moon-change-5-landing-scn/index.html

Arecibo radio telescope collapses in dramatic platform fall

By David Szondy  December 01, 2020

In a dramatic ending, the famous 1,000-ft Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico collapsed this Tuesday at about 7:55 am local time. The 900-ton instrument platform fell and crashed into the dish from a height of 492 ft.

According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), there were no injuries reported. On November 6, an area around what was at one time the largest single-dish telescope in the world had been declared off-limits to unauthorized personnel after a cable failed.

A previous cable failure in August severely damaged the fragile mesh dish. On November 19, the decision to dismantle the giant radio telescope had been announced after an engineering survey found that the structure was dangerously unstable.

This week's collapse occurred when the tops of all three support towers broke away, dropping the platform and its support cables, though the exact cause will require a full investigation. In the collapse, the observatory's learning center is reported to have suffered significant damage.

We are saddened by this situation but thankful that no one was hurt," says NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "When engineers advised the NSF that the structure was unstable and presented a danger to work teams and Arecibo staff, we took their warnings seriously and continued to emphasize the importance of safety for everyone involved. Our focus is now on assessing the damage, finding ways to restore operations at other parts of the observatory, and working to continue supporting the scientific community, and the people of Puerto Rico."

https://newatlas.com/space/arecibo-radio-telescope-collapses/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=09fad9cafd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_12_02_09_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-09fad9cafd-90625829

"Indeed the temporary breaks in the market which preceded the crash were a serious trial for those who had declined fantasy. Early in 1928, in June, in December, and in February and March of 1929 it seemed that the end had come. On various of these occasions the [New York] Times happily reported the return to reality. And then the market took flight again. Only a durable sense of doom could survive such discouragement. The time was coming when the optimists would reap a rich harvest of discredit. But it has long since been forgotten that for many months those who resisted reassurance were similarly, if less permanently discredited.”

J. K. Galbraith. The Great Crash: 1929.