“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”

Yesterday, in the stock casinos, was like the day before, which was like the day before that. Stocks bubble on cashing in on all the anticipated Biden bailout stimulus packages.

Reuters reported yesterday on the Democrats plans for yet more billions for infrastructure, billions more for crashed airlines, and billions more for state and local governments. All of it, if it actually happens, paid for by issuing new US debt that round trips via the banks into the Fed’s bond buying support programs.

The US bond market and some major commodity markets are starting to fret over inflation.

I think that we will get a big burst of inflation, due to too much newly created Magic Money Tree cash chasing too few goods and services, but not yet.

We still have to deal with massive official and hidden unemployment; a retail bricks and mortar bust; a rent and mortgage deferral economic drag; plus the continuing coronavirus pandemic, now changing shape due to all the new more contagious mutant strains.

My guess is that the inflation will be more 2022-2023 than 2021, but I could be wrong, and 2021 turns into stagflation. Prices rise, but employment and the economy doesn’t. I hope to be wrong on that.

Asian stocks hit record high, as earnings, stimulus boost recovery hopes

February 10, 2021 12:20 AM By Hideyuki Sano, David Henry

TOKYO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asian stocks hit a record high on Wednesday, as upbeat earnings, hopes of a large U.S. fiscal stimulus and progress in vaccinations fanned optimism about a global recovery from the pandemic.

MSCI’s ex-Japan Asian shares index rose 0.8%, rising above its January peak to reach its highest level ever.

In mainland China’s CSI300 rose 1.3% to a 13-year high and the Shanghai Composite hit a five-year high on the last trading day before the week-long Lunar New Year holidays.

Japan’s Nikkei eked out gains of 0.1% while e-mini futures for the U.S. S&P 500 rose 0.35%.

Corporate earnings have been beating expectations in many places including the United States and Japan.

In the latest example, shares of Lyft Inc rose as much as 11.8% while Twitter Inc climbed 3.5% in aftermarket trading on their latest quarterly results.

“Globally investors are raising weightings on stocks as the Biden administration looks set to spend pretty much close $1.9 trillion on its stimulus,” said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

---- On Wall Street, major stock indexes closed little changed on Tuesday, though the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite eked out a record high on a gain of 0.14%. The S&P 500 lost 0.11%.

The S&P had climbed the previous six sessions and is up 5.3% for the month, underpinned by the prospects of the large U.S. relief package.

The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury notes was last at 1.16%, not far off Monday’s 10 1/2-month high of 1.20%.

Higher bond yields also reflect rising inflation expectations, with break-even inflation calculated from inflation-protected Treasuries rising to 2.20 percent, the highest since 2014.

The Fed has said it would tolerate inflation rising beyond 2% temporarily.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/asian-stocks-hit-record-high-as-earnings-stimulus-boost-recovery-hopes-idUSKBN2AA010

Recovery in global trade to stall again in first quarter: U.N. report

February 10, 2021 6:10 AM

GENEVA (Reuters) - A recovery in global trade is expected to slow again in the first quarter of 2021 as the coronavirus pandemic keeps disrupting the travel industry after world trade contracted 9% in 2020, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.

After lockdowns caused trade to shrink 15% in the first half of 2020, it rebounded in the second half, with global trade in goods up about 8% in the fourth quarter compared with the third, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said.

That was largely due to developing countries, particularly those in East Asia, with trade in goods originating from the region up 12% in the fourth quarter year-on-year.

“East Asian economies have been leading the recovery process with strong export growth and gains in global market share,” UNCTAD said, adding that most manufacturing sectors rebounded in the fourth quarter, apart from energy and transport.

However, trade in services stagnated at levels seen in the third quarter, the report said, adding that exports of services from China, and to a lesser degree India, had fared relatively better than other countries.

For the first quarter of 2021, UNCTA projects a 1.5% fall in trade in goods versus the previous quarter, and a 7% drop in trade in services, although it said its forecasts were uncertain due to the pandemic and uncertainty about stimulus packages.

https://www.reuters.com/article/trade-un/recovery-in-global-trade-to-stall-again-in-q1-un-report-idUSL8N2KF2KO

Finally, is inflation really starting to come back? I think it’s premature, although many year-on-year price comparisons will get distorted by pandemic hit 2020 figures.

But with giveaway socialists now in charge of the US government, and as someone who remembers the 1970s, a fiat money disaster lies ahead if inflation does return.

Global Markets See Inflation Breaking Out to Multiyear Highs

Elizabeth Stanton, Stephen Spratt and John Ainger February 8, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Global markets from U.S. and European bonds to stocks and oil are sending a clear signal: inflation is finally coming back.

The market-implied pace of U.S. consumer-price increases briefly accelerated to the fastest since 2014, and 30-year Treasury yields temporarily topped 2% for the first time in a year as rising expectations for an economic recovery fueled an oil rally. Over in Europe, a swap-market gauge of future inflation is close to its highest level since 2019.

Treasury Long Bond Reaches 2% Milestone as Global Yields Awaken

The S&P 500 index of U.S. equities has notched fresh highs, while the Stoxx Europe 600 Index built on its best weekly gain since mid-November. Brent crude futures rallied more than 1% on Monday, adding to last week’s 6.2% advance. It’s all coming ahead of a report Wednesday that’s forecast to show U.S. consumer prices rising at a quickening pace.

The market moves signal that investors are more bullish on inflation than they have been for years, betting on the global economy bouncing back as huge fiscal stimulus programs spur demand and the vaccine rollout gathers pace. That’s causing a dramatic repricing of bonds most sensitive to rising prices, raising longer-term borrowing costs.

“It’s hard to resist this reflation trade at the moment,” said Christoph Rieger, head of fixed-rate strategy at Commerzbank AG. “With policy all one-way and U.S. refunding coming up this week, we may require some more concessions.”

Of course, for central bankers, there’s good inflation and bad inflation. A shortage of the chips that fuel everything from smartphones to cars and TVs could be an early indicator of problematic price rises on the horizon, but for now markets aren’t differentiating.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/global-markets-see-inflation-breaking-out-to-multiyear-highs/ar-BB1dtIc4

Inflation is an old, old disease. We’ve had thousands of years of experience of it. There is nothing simpler than stopping an inflation—from the technical point of view.”

Milton Friedman.

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Today, the World Health Organisation. Well they would say that wouldn’t they.

WHO Rules Out Lab Theory on Virus, Saying Animals Likely Source

Bloomberg News

9 February 2021, 11:24 GMT

· Animal host, frozen wildlife products are possible routes

· Expert group probing virus origins concludes mission in Wuhan

A World Health Organization investigation in China found that the coronavirus most likely jumped to humans through an animal host or frozen wildlife products that carried the pathogen, and that there was no evidence of significant outbreaks in the country before December 2019.

The theory the virus came from a laboratory leak was “extremely unlikely,” Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO official, told reporters Tuesday at a joint WHO-China briefing in Wuhan, the city where Covid-19 first mushroomed at the end of 2019. He said no further research or study is needed into this theory, which has been promulgated by some, including former U.S. President Donald Trump.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-09/who-rules-out-lab-theory-on-virus-saying-animals-likely-source?srnd=premium-europe

Does the world need new COVID vaccines? 'Jury is out', Oxford's Pollard says

February 9, 2021 8:34 AM By Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - It is not yet clear whether the world needs a new set of vaccines to fight different variants of the novel coronavirus but scientists are working on new ones so there is no reason for alarm, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said on Tuesday.

South Africa has paused a planned rollout of AstraZeneca’s vaccines after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild infection among young people from the dominant variant there, stoking fears of a much longer battle with the pathogen.

AstraZeneca and Oxford University aim to produce a next generation of vaccines that will protect against variants as soon as the autumn before the Northern Hemisphere winter, AstraZeneca’s research chief said this month.

“There are definitely new questions about variants that we’re going to be addressing. And one of those is: do we need new vaccines?,” Andrew Pollard, Chief Investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial, told BBC radio.

“I think the jury is out on that at the moment, but all developers are preparing new vaccines so if we do need them, we’ll have them available to be able to protect people.”

Vaccines are seen as the swiftest path out of the COVID-19 crisis which has killed 2.33 million people and turned normal life upside down for billions.

Researchers from the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Oxford said in a prior-to-peer analysis that the AstraZeneca vaccine provided minimal protection against mild or moderate infection from the South African variant among young people.

Protection against moderate-severe disease, hospitalisation or death could not be assessed in the study of around 2,000 volunteers who had a median age of 31 as the target population were at such low risk, the researchers said.

“I think there’s clearly a risk of confidence in the way that people may perceive you. But as I say I don’t think that there is any reason for alarm today,” Pollard said.

“The really important question is about severe disease and we didn’t study that in South Africa, because that wasn’t the point of that study, we were specifically asking questions about young adults.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccine/does-the-world-need-new-covid-vaccines-jury-is-out-oxfords-pollard-says-idUSKBN2A90Y7

California surpasses New York as U.S. state with most COVID-19 deaths

February 9, 20218:49 PM By Sharon Bernstein, Lisa Shumaker

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California surpassed New York on Tuesday as the U.S. state with the most coronavirus deaths, a grim reminder of the pandemic’s toll even as the vaccine rollout and a sharp drop in new cases buoyed hopes of life eventually returning to normal.

More than 45,000 people have died as of late Tuesday from COVID-19 in California, the most populous of the 50 states and one of the hardest hit in recent months. New York, severely stricken in the early stages of pandemic last spring, has reported 44,693 lives lost, according to a Reuters tally. here

“This is a heart-wrenching reminder that COVID-19 is a deadly virus, and we mourn alongside every Californian who has suffered the tragic loss of a loved one during this pandemic,” Dr Mark Ghaly, the state’s health secretary, said of the milestone in an email to Reuters.

California, home to some 40 million people, emerged as a main U.S. epicenter of the pandemic during a year-end surge of infections and hospitalizations that swept much of the country, pushing many healthcare systems to their limits.

When considered in terms of per capita deaths, California, with 113 deaths per 100,000 people, ranks 32nd in the nation in COVID-19 mortality. By comparison, New York, with 248 deaths per 100,000, ranks second only to New Jersey, which has logged about 230 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 residents.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa/california-surpasses-new-york-as-u-s-state-with-most-covid-19-deaths-idUSKBN2A92VO

The Mystery Of India's Plummeting COVID-19 Cases

February 1, 2021 3:29 PM ET

Last September, India was confirming nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day. It was on track to overtake the United States to become the country with the highest reported COVID-19 caseload in the world. Hospitals were full. The Indian economy nosedived into an unprecedented recession.

But four months later, India's coronavirus numbers have plummeted. Late last month, on Jan. 26, the country's Health Ministry confirmed a record low of about 9,100 new daily cases — in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people. It was India's lowest daily tally in eight months. On Monday, India confirmed about 11,000 cases.

"It's not that India is testing less or things are going underreported," says Jishnu Das, a health economist at Georgetown University. "It's been rising, rising — and now suddenly, it's vanished! I mean, hospital ICU utilization has gone down. Every indicator says the numbers are down."

Scientists say it's a mystery. They're probing why India's coronavirus numbers have declined so dramatically — and so suddenly, in September and October, months before any vaccinations began.

They're trying to figure out what Indians may be doing right and how to mimic that in other countries that are still suffering.

"It's the million-dollar question. Obviously, the classic public health measures are working: Testing has increased, people are going to hospitals earlier and deaths have dropped," says Genevie Fernandes, a public health researcher with the Global Health Governance Programme at the University of Edinburgh. "But it's really still a mystery. It's very easy to get complacent, especially because many parts of the world are going through second and third waves. We need to be on our guard."

Scholars are examining India's mask mandates and public compliance, as well as its climate, its demographics and patterns of diseases that typically circulate in the country.

----Aside from mask compliance, there's also India's climate: Most of the country is hot and humid. That too has deepened the mystery. There's some evidence that India's climate may help reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. But there's also some evidence to the contrary.

A review of hundreds of scientific articles, published in September in the journal PLOS One, found that warm and wet climates seem to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Heat and humidity combine to render coronaviruses less active — though the certainty of that conclusion, the review says, is low. Previous research has also found that droplets of the virus may stay afloat longer in air that's cold and dry.

----Two new scientific papers support that thesis, though they have yet to be peer-reviewed: One study by Indian scientists from Chennai and Pune, published in October, found that low- and lower-middle-income countries with less access to health care facilities, hygiene and sanitation actually have lower numbers of COVID-19 deaths per capita. Another study by scientists at India's Dr. Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, published in August, found that COVID-19 deaths per capita are lower in countries where people are exposed to a diverse range of microbes and bacteria.

But experts warn that these two studies are preliminary and should serve only as a springboard for more investigation.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/02/01/962821038/the-mystery-of-indias-plummeting-covid-19-cases?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB&t=1612867996476

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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.

'Magnetic graphene' forms a new kind of magnetism

Date: February 8, 2021

Source: University of Cambridge

Summary: Researchers have identified a new form of magnetism in so-called magnetic graphene, which could point the way toward understanding superconductivity in this unusual type of material.

Researchers have identified a new form of magnetism in so-called magnetic graphene, which could point the way toward understanding superconductivity in this unusual type of material.

The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, were able to control the conductivity and magnetism of iron thiophosphate (FePS3), a two-dimensional material which undergoes a transition from an insulator to a metal when compressed. This class of magnetic materials offers new routes to understanding the physics of new magnetic states and superconductivity.

Using new high-pressure techniques, the researchers have shown what happens to magnetic graphene during the transition from insulator to conductor and into its unconventional metallic state, realised only under ultra-high pressure conditions. When the material becomes metallic, it remains magnetic, which is contrary to previous results and provides clues as to how the electrical conduction in the metallic phase works. The newly discovered high-pressure magnetic phase likely forms a precursor to superconductivity so understanding its mechanisms is vital.

Their results, published in the journal Physical Review X, also suggest a way that new materials could be engineered to have combined conduction and magnetic properties, which could be useful in the development of new technologies such as spintronics, which could transform the way in which computers process information.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210208114309.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

“There is no way of slowing down inflation that will not involve a transitory increase in unemployment, and a transitory reduction in the rate of growth of output. But these costs will be far less than the costs that will be incurred by permitting the disease of inflation to rage unchecked.”

Milton Friedman.

London Irvine Report

Pages

Wednesday 10 February 2021

Stocks Bubble On. Inflation Fears.

Asian stocks hit record high, as earnings, stimulus boost recovery hopes

Recovery in global trade to stall again in first quarter: U.N. report

Global Markets See Inflation Breaking Out to Multiyear Highs

Covid-19 Corner

WHO Rules Out Lab Theory on Virus, Saying Animals Likely Source

Does the world need new COVID vaccines? 'Jury is out', Oxford's Pollard says

California surpasses New York as U.S. state with most COVID-19 deaths

The Mystery Of India's Plummeting COVID-19 Cases

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

'Magnetic graphene' forms a new kind of magnetism

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