Saturday 29 May 2021

Special Update 29/05/2021 Demand Pull Inflation Meet Cost Push.

 Baltic Dry Index. 2596 -92 Brent Crude 69.63

Spot Gold 1904

Covid-19 cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Covid-19 cases 29/05/21 World 170,152,361

Deaths 3,537,906

“He who becomes a Prince through the favour of the people should always keep on good terms with them; which it is easy for him to do, since all they ask is not to be oppressed”

Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.

In looking at the terrifying global inflation picture, it’s hard to see which type of inflation is winning the 2021 Great Inflation War.

Is demand pull inflation, from all the free Magic Money Tree money driving pent up demand for relatively scarce goods and services, or is cost push inflation winning out in the wage chain?

Could it be both?  Does it really matter given the outcome is equally bad?

Perhaps it does if inflation turns out this time, to be driven by both.

Cutting off the free Magic Money Tree money will likely bring an eventual end to demand pull inflation, but by then cost push wage inflation will probably be running out of control.

Besides, cutting off all the Magic Money Tree forests money discovered only in March 2020 and flooding out ever since, is far easier said than done.

Quite a lot of people have grown very fat and comfortable on Magic Money Tree money and would be very antsy about giving any of it up. Pitchforks and lampposts, politicians and central banksters, come to mind.

All the while, the Prince in exile on his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, will be making nice with the very antsy people, as one will.

Once you appease the mob, the mob takes all the new bribes as a divine right of life. It’s a very brave or foolish politician that takes the lead in removing such “rights.”

Still, with the Biden Big Spending Budget announced yesterday, Big Government is back in spades, hand in hand with Big Inflation.

Not to worry though, says Fed Chairman Powell and most obsequious economist experts, this big inflation is only “transitory.” But what if they’re wrong?

U.S. consumer inflation surges in April

May 28, 2021 1:50 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer prices accelerated in the year to April, with a measure of underlying inflation blowing past the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, reflecting pent-up demand as the economy reopens, supply constraints and technical factors.

Consumer prices as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, excluding the volatile food and energy components, increased 0.7% last month after gaining 0.4% in March, the Commerce Department said on Friday. In the 12 months through April, the so-called core PCE price index vaulted 3.1%. That followed a 1.9% year-on-year gain in March.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the core PCE price index rising 0.6% in April and surging 2.9% year-on-year. The core PCE price index is the Fed’s preferred inflation measure.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-spending/u-s-consumer-inflation-surges-in-april-idUSKCN2D91EF

Pent-up demand, shortages fuel U.S. inflation

May 28, 2021

Don’t tell Costco executives that inflation is low.

The big-box club chain said it’s been seeing accelerating prices across a range of products, including shipping containers, aluminum foil and a 20% spike in meat prices over the past month.

“Inflationary factors abound,” CFO Richard Galanti said on the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings call Thursday.

“These include higher labor costs, higher freight costs, higher transportation demand, along with the container shortage and port delays … increased demand in various product categories some shortages, various shortages of everything from chips to oils and chemical supplies by facilities hit by the Gulf freeze and storms and, in some cases, higher commodity prices,” he added.

----Like other companies, Costco wrestled with passing costs onto customers. The firm expects there could be some margin pressures, though the degree remains to be seen and there haven’t been any significant impacts so far.

Economists largely see the current spate of inflation — one closely followed gauge released Friday estimated the annual pace at 3.1% — as temporary.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/28/costco-is-seeing-inflation-abound-impacting-a-slew-of-consumer-products.html

Summer's about to start in America. So is sticker shock

May 28, 2021 11:15 AM  By Ann Saphir

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - With coronavirus cases plummeting and 1.8 million U.S. residents getting vaccinated each day, more Americans plan this upcoming Memorial Day weekend to get back to old pleasures like friends over, evenings out, travel and afternoons at a ball game.

They will also encounter something new and less pleasant: rising prices.

Overall, U.S. prices in April were up about 3.1% compared with February 2020, the month before the pandemic shut down the economy.

And prices are expected to keep rising for much of the summer, pushed up by, among other things, bottlenecks crimping supply of both materials and labor, and surging consumer demand.

But what about inflation in the things and indulgences particular to the start of summer?

Reuters put together a “Memorial Day Weekend price index” to capture the rising cost of an imaginary basket of goods and services particular to the summer’s first long weekend, which this year is May 29-31.

The index, comprised largely of leisure expenses and excluding the cost of housing and doctor’s visits among other mundane items, rose about 4.3%, faster than the overall consumer price index.

---- As Americans venture out to do and buy things many haven’t for a long while, they’ll find price changes are anything but uniform. Here’s a sampling:

Going shopping: Memorial Day sales are an enduring feature of summertime’s opening three-day weekend, with deals on big-ticket items like washing machines and mattresses. But with demand up, parts scarce, and inventories low, prices for durables are up 7.5% from February 2020.

Weekend getaway: Despite a sharp rise recently, including a 10% increase from March to April, airfares are still 18% below pre-pandemic levels, meaning that an air ticket today is going for around what it might have done about 15 years ago. Lodging has similarly risen dramatically in recent months, but the price index tracking hotels, motels and Airbnbs, among others, is still about 5% below pre-pandemic. Car rental is another matter: the index tracking automobiles and truck rental prices is up 45%.

Dinner, beer: Overall, the rise in prices is in line with the average across all goods and services since the pandemic’s onset, with the price of full-service meals and snacks up about 3% since February 2020, the same as that for alcoholic beverages away from home.

Backyard cookout: Throwing food on the grill for friends or family? Ground beef prices are up 7%; hotdogs are up 11%. Vegetables have risen only 2% since February 2020, and the price of a fresh or frozen pie for dessert has fallen 1%.

More

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-inflation/summers-about-to-start-in-america-so-is-sticker-shock-idUSKCN2D9107

Finally, this holiday weekend, more on that growing Greensill, Gupta, GFG Fintech scandal, that involves former UK Prime Minister, Dodgy Dave Cameron.

U.K. Fraud Probe Unravels Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Refinancing Plans

By Ellen Milligan, Lucca De Paoli, and Eddie Spence

14 May 2021, 10:08 BST Updated on 14 May 2021, 17:07 BST

·         Prosecutors are starting to circle Gupta, Greensill companies

·         White Oak pulls out of deal to provide new loans to GFG

The U.K.’s fraud prosecutor opened a probe into Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance over suspicions of fraud and money laundering, causing a potential lender to the group to withdraw from agreements to provide new financing.

The Serious Fraud Office is investigating “suspected fraud, fraudulent trading and money laundering in relation to the financing and conduct of the business,” according to a statement. The probe includes the financing arrangements with Greensill Capital UK Ltd. The SFO has been looking at GFG since Greensill’s collapse in March and decided to open a formal probe, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

As a result, White Oak Global Advisors LLC is pulling out of discussions to provide loans to Gupta’s businesses. “As with any regulated financial institution, we are not in a position to continue discussions with any company that is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office for money laundering,” a spokesperson for the group in London said.

The Financial Times first reported that White Oak was pulling out of financing talks. A representative for GFG declined to comment on White Oak’s decision.

Last week, Bloomberg reported Gupta had agreed a 200 million pound ($282 million) facility with the San Francisco-based lender to provide working capital to his U.K. steel businesses. He had also secured the refinancing of one of his Australian units.

It’s a massive setback for the tycoon, who appeared to be just on the cusp of securing a lifeline for his beleaguered metals empire. He now faces the extremely difficult task of negotiating new loans while being subject to a fraud probe.

Prosecutors are starting to round in on both Gupta and Greensill, after months of scrutiny from lawmakers and the media over its financing practices. Earlier this week, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority said it was also investigating Greensill and cooperating with counterparts in other U.K. enforcement and regulatory agencies.

It’s also working with German, Australian and Swiss authorities. The FCA and SFO probes are completely separate although inevitably will involve cross-over and information sharing, according to the person familiar with the investigation.

Read More: Lex Greensill Says His Investors Knew What They Were Buying

“GFG Alliance will co-operate fully with the investigation,” a GFG spokesperson said. Grant Thornton, Greensill’s administrators, declined to comment.

While the SFO has collected billions in fines in recent years from companies with deferred prosecution settlements, its track record in the criminal courts is patchy. Last month a trial into two Serco Group Plc directors collapsed and the agency lost a mammoth case against Barclays Plc bankers in 2020.

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-14/u-k-fraud-prosecutor-opens-investigation-into-gfg?srnd=premium-europe

Credit Suisse’s Greensill Funds Strayed From Tame Invoice Loans

By Lucca De Paoli, Luca Casiraghi, and Giles Turner

15 March 2021, 10:16 GMT

·         Funds slowly moved to financing future sales as assets grew

·         The shift could now leave fund investors facing losses

Credit Suisse Group AG marketed its popular supply chain finance funds as among the safest investments it offered, because the loans they held were backed by invoices that would be paid in a matter of weeks.

But as the funds grew into a $10 billion strategy, they strayed from that pitch and much of the money was lent through Greensill Capital against expected future invoices, for sales that were merely predicted, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Now, investors in the frozen funds are left facing the potential of steep losses as the assets are liquidated.

The suspension of the strategy this month, amid uncertainties about the value of the assets, has kicked off a chain reaction across the globe that forced Greensill Capital to file for insolvency and could cost thousands of jobs at companies it financed. For Credit Suisse and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Gottstein, who only last year ordered a probe into the funds that subsequently failed to prevent their collapse, the reputational hit is only just beginning to unfold as clients wait for their money.

Read more: Credit Suisse Missed Many Warnings Before Greensill’s Collapse

The Greensill-linked funds were among the fastest-growing at Credit Suisse’s asset management unit, attracting money from yield-starved investors seeking alternatives to money markets, in a region that has to contend with negative interest rates. They offered “stable and uncorrelated returns” by investing in “buyer-confirmed trade receivables / buyer payment undertakings, supplier payment undertakings and account receivables,” according to fund documents.

Credit Suisse rated the flagship fund the safest on a scale of one to seven, in part because many of the assets were insured. A high-octane version of the fund that didn’t use insurance was given the second-safest rating in investor documents.

Receivables financing is viewed as relatively safe because it simply relies on waiting on a company to pay for goods already received. Greensill also offered what it called “future accounts receivable” financing and touted its ability to project what revenue would come in.

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-15/credit-suisse-s-greensill-funds-strayed-from-tame-invoice-loans?srnd=premium-europe

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”

Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.

Global Inflation Watch. 

Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift populist politicians,  inflation now needs an entire section of its own.

“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.”

Machiavelli Niccolo, The Prince.

Biden budget includes his big-ticket spending plans, would boost health, education funding

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden released his fiscal year 2022 budget request to Congress on Friday, the first formal budget of his presidency and a sharp departure from his predecessor Donald Trump. 

Biden’s budget incorporates his two signature domestic proposals, the American Families Plan and the American Jobs Plan, neither of which has been seriously debated by Congress yet. 

It also illustrates how different Biden’s priorities are from Trump’s. For example, it requests an increase of 41% for the Department of Education over last year, plus 23% more for the Department of Health and Human Services, and 22% more for the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which carried out Trump’s aggressive immigration policies, would decrease by a tenth of a percent. Another Trump priority, the Department of Defense, would see an increase in funding of just 2%. 

On a personal level, Biden views his budget as a reflection of his values. He often quotes his own father as having said, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”

The topline budget request for 2022 is $6 trillion. But of this, only $300 billion is new spending requested for next year. Instead, as in every presidential budget, the vast majority of the money in it will be spent on programs the government is obligated by law to fund, such as Medicare, Social Security and interest on the national debt. 

----On the pay-for side, Biden’s budget incorporates a wide variety of changes to the tax code that the White House says can fund his multitrillion-dollar domestic spending plans. Chief among these are an increase in the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, as well as increased IRS enforcement and higher taxes on the wealthiest taxpayers. 

The tax changes also include a set of “Made in America” tax changes that penalize U.S. companies for offshoring jobs, especially to make goods that are then sold back to American consumers. 

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/28/biden-budget-includes-spending-plans-boost-in-health-education-funds.html

Biden goes on offensive against economic critics, argues rising wages show his agenda is working

Published Thu, May 27 20218:44 PM EDT

WASHINGTON — After weeks of defending his economic policies against critics who blame them for overheating the economy, President Joe Biden went on the offensive Thursday, arguing that rising wages are a sign his agenda is boosting the fortunes of working Americans.

“The bottom line is this: The Biden economic plan is working,” said the president in a speech at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio. “We’ve had record job creation, we’re seeing record economic growth, we’re creating a new paradigm. One that rewards work — the working people in this nation, not just those at the top.”

Republicans and business groups claim that the enhanced federal unemployment benefits in Biden’s American Rescue Plan, his signature domestic accomplishment, are to blame for a “labor shortage” that has forced corporations like McDonald’s and Bank of America to raise their minimum hourly wage.

Biden rejected this view of the economy: “When it comes to the economy we’re building, rising wages aren’t a bug, they’re a feature,” he said.

The president on Thursday renewed his call for Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Biden credited the American Rescue Plan and his ambitious vaccination program with jump-starting a U.S. economy battered by the Covid pandemic.

---- As Biden seeks to build support for more than $3 trillion in additional economic stimulus programs, Republican opposition is solidifying.

As the economy improves, conservatives are arguing that Biden’s proposed stimulus is no longer necessary.

Private sector wages rose 3% in the first quarter of this year, the fastest pace in at least 25 years, according to economist Mark Zandi. This has made it harder for employers to attract workers willing to work for minimum hourly wages.

“We want to get something economists call full employment, where instead of workers competing with each other for jobs that are scarce, we want employers to compete to attract workers,” Biden said.

Biden rejected the growing alarm among some businesses and economists that higher wages and full employment will lead to runaway inflation. Instead, he said, corporations can afford to pay workers more without passing on higher prices to consumers.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/27/biden-says-rising-wages-are-a-sign-his-economic-agenda-is-working-.html

New round of $1,400 stimulus checks brings total amount sent to about $391 billion

Published Wed, May 26 20213:37 PM EDT Updated Thu, May 27 202110:20 AM EDT

A new batch of $1,400 stimulus checks has been sent, bringing the total number of payments to almost 167 million, for a total amount of approximately $391 billion.

Since the American Rescue Plan Act was passed by Congress in March, the IRS, Treasury Department and Bureau of the Fiscal Service have announced new sets of direct payments issued to Americans.

While those announcements usually come weekly, this new deployment represents two weeks’ worth of cash.

This tranche includes more than 1.8 million payments worth more than $3.5 billion. More than 900,000 of those checks were sent via direct deposit, and the rest were delivered via paper checks.

Most of the checks that continue to be issued are directed at taxpayers who are due additional money — so-called “plus-up” payments — now that their tax returns have been processed. In addition, new checks are also being sent to Americans who typically do not file taxes, but recently did so in order to claim the stimulus money.

This round included more than 900,000 “plus-up” payments, representing more than $1.6 billion. To date, the government has sent almost 7 million of those payments.

In addition, the government also sent more than 900,000 payments, for a total of about $1.9 billion, to people whom it did not previously have on record but whose tax returns it recently processed.

The legislation that was passed in March allocated about $410 billion to the third round of checks.

In total, about 472 million payments through the first, second and third stimulus rounds have been delivered, for a total of more than $807 billion, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said during testimony on Capitol Hill last week.

---- Payments that are still outstanding mostly represent people who are more difficult to reach, such as those who have no incomes or bank accounts, York said.

The IRS recently issued guidance for those who are homeless explaining that they may still qualify for stimulus check money, as well as the expanded child tax credit, even if they do not have a permanent address or bank account. Others may miss out on the earned income tax credit if they don’t file.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/26/new-round-of-1400-stimulus-checks-brings-total-sent-to-391-billion.html

Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and other firms are using free food to lure workers back to the office

Published Fri, May 28 20217:01 AM EDT

There’s no such thing as a free lunch – except when big companies want to get their employees back to the office during a pandemic.

Employers including banks and asset managers, technology companies and law firms are ramping up back-to-work plans as more Americans get vaccinated and New York Mayor Bill De Blasio targets a July reopening for the city.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has summoned his U.S. workers back to the office, at least on a part-time basis, by July. At Goldman Sachs, employees were told to be ready to return by mid-June. Other companies are targeting a return date for after the Labor Day holiday.

For some firms, like Goldman, free meals began last year as a necessary convenience because so many local restaurants had shuttered, giving employees few lunchtime options. For others, the perk is a way to make offices more appealing for those who have grown used to remote work, according to Dilip Rao, CEO of a food-ordering platform called Sharebite with nearly 200 corporate clients.

“A lot of these firms are reopening their offices and they’re using food as the carrot to bring people back,” Rao said. “Oftentimes when we talk to companies, they’re like, ’I don’t care if it’s $20 a day [in food subsidies], I just want people back in the office.”

Companies are grappling with how to safely welcome back the thousands of workers who have been toiling from their homes for more than a year. They’ve had to walk a tightrope in terms of convincing employees it’s safe to return while not yet outright mandating vaccinations. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that almost two-thirds of employees were uncomfortable with returning to work.

Part of that equation is figuring out how employees will feed themselves, so companies have reconfigured cafeterias or signed up for software platforms like Sharebite that streamline orders.

That makes free food, once a perk more common at tech giants like Alphabet and Facebook, one of the tools in getting workers to embrace office life again, says Rao.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/28/goldman-sachs-credit-suisse-using-free-food-to-lure-workers-back.html

This Bonkers 19-Foot Rolls-Royce Boat Tail May Be the Most Expensive New Car in History

Jeremy Taylor  Thu, May 27, 2021, 1:02 PM

Rolls-Royce is notoriously coy about the price of its truly bespoke limousines, yet since this new, outrageously decadent Boat Tail was inspired by the $13 million Rolls-Royce Sweptail from 2017, but with increased complexity, it may easily be the most expensive new car to date. (That title currently resides with Bugatti’s La Voiture Noire, which sold for a reported $18.7 million after taxes.) The stunning cabriolet is named after the tapered rear end—a style which dates back to the 1920s, when cars like the Auburn 851 Speedster and Bentley Speed Six Boat-Tail were the talk of the town.

In the very early days of boat-tail design, engineers would simply fix the hull of a boat onto the rolling chassis of a car, creating a streamlined automobile with a nautical theme. It’s a design which disappeared gracefully into the history books, until now.

The new Rolls-Royce Boat Tail measures an ocean-going 19 feet in length and is based on the aluminum spaceframe platform shared by the Phantom, Cullinan and new Ghost models, and it shares the same 6.75-liter V-12 engine. Otherwise, this remarkable car is decked out like no other Rolls-Royce on the planet.

The example showcased is one of three different Boat Tail versions that have been recently hand-built as customer commissions, this one for a mystery man and his wife living Stateside—both believed to be in the music industry. And I was recently granted a sneak preview before the car is ceremoniously handed over.

More

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/rolls-royce-boat-tail-may-120200931.html

“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”

Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.

Covid-19 Corner             

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Physician warns Tokyo Olympics could spread variants

TOKYO (AP) — A physician representing a Japanese medical body warned Thursday that holding the postponed Tokyo Olympics in two months could lead to the spread of variants of the coronavirus.

Dr. Naoto Ueyama, chairman of the Japan Doctors Union, said the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government had underestimated the risks of bringing 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes into the country, joined by tens of thousands of officials, judges, media and broadcasters from more than 200 countries and territories.

“Since the emergence of COVID-19 there has not been such a dangerous gathering of people coming together in one place from so many different places around the world,” he said, speaking in Tokyo at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “It’s very difficult to predict what this could lead to.”

Ueyama continually likened the virus to a “conventional war” situation, and said he was speaking from his own experience as a hospital physician who works just outside Tokyo. He has not been involved in any of the Olympic planning.

---- The IOC and local organizers say they have been relying on the World Health Organization for public-health guidance. They say the Olympics and Paralympics will be “safe and secure,” focused on extensive testing, strict protocols, social distancing, and keeping athletes largely isolated in the Olympic Village alongside Tokyo Bay.

The IOC has said it expects more than 80% of the people living in the village to be vaccinated. This contrasts with a very slow rollout in Japan where less than 5% of the public has been vaccinated.

Ueyama, who is the chairman of a body that represents 130 physicians, joins other medical experts in Japan in voicing opposition to holding the Olympics. On Wednesday, Japan’s mass-circulation Asahi Shimbun newspaper called for the Olympics to be canceled.

More

https://apnews.com/article/tokyo-olympic-games-coronavirus-pandemic-health-sports-793b0a9b231b2a148e38beb924f0000a

New imaging tech finds hidden lung damage in long COVID patients

Rich Haridy  May 26, 2021

A new type of imaging technology has detected lung damage in patients suffering from the long-term effects of COVID-19. The weakened lung function was not visible on standard MRI or CT scans and its detection will help clinicians understand the persistent breathing impairments seen in patients with long COVID.

The phenomenon of long COVID is still a bit of a mystery, with researchers only just beginning to grasp the long-term implications of infection with this novel coronavirus. Fatigue and breathlessness are two of the most commonly reported lingering symptoms in COVID-19 patients following discharge from hospital. Yet standard MRI and CT scans often deliver normal results leaving many clinicians unable to empirically explain these patient symptoms.

An ongoing study in the UK, called PHOSP-COVID, is tracking a large number of patients closely for many months following hospitalization, and a small arm of that study is investigating long-term lung problems in this cohort.

The research is using a new kind of imaging technology called hyperpolarized xenon MRI (129Xe MRI). The technology offers incredibly detailed insights into lung function and gas transfer into the bloodstream.

“The 129Xe MRI is pinpointing the parts of the lung where the physiology of oxygen uptake is impaired due to long standing effects of COVID-19 on the lungs, even though they often look normal on CT scans,” says Jim Wild, head of imaging at the University of Sheffield.

The study is small, involving scans from nine long COVID patients, averaging around six months post-hospitalization. All nine subjects reported persistent breathlessness and all nine subjects returned normal CT lung scans.

“Our follow-up scans using hyperpolarized xenon MRI have found that abnormalities not normally visible on regular scans are indeed present, and these abnormalities are preventing oxygen getting into the bloodstream as it should in all parts of the lungs,” says Fergus Gleeson, a radiologist working on the new study.

The revolutionary imaging technique is offering some of the first empirical signs of lung damage in long COVID patients, affirming this is not merely a hypochondriacal condition. The findings also offer researchers a useful way to monitor lung damage, with future studies now able to track how long the damage may last for, and whether any particular interventions can help.

“We have some way to go before fully comprehending the nature of the lung impairment that follows a COVID-19 infection,” adds Gleeson. “But these findings, which are the product of a clinical-academic collaboration between Oxford and Sheffield, are an important step on the path to understanding the biological basis of long COVID and that in turn will help us to develop more effective therapies.”

The new study was published in the journal Radiology.

Source: University of Sheffield

https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/xenon-mri-lung-damage-long-covid-patients/

Next, some very useful 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 vaccineshttps://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

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

Stanford Websitehttps://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

FDA informationhttps://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download

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

Some more useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

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

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

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 21st century onwards.

From powerful tidal turbines to huge wave machines, Scotland is becoming a hub for marine energy

Published Tue, May 25 20217:34 AM EDT Updated Tue, May 25 202110:41 PM EDT

LONDON – In mid-May, a prototype wave energy converter weighing 38-metric tons arrived in Orkney, an archipelago located in waters north of mainland Scotland.

Later this summer the bright yellow, 20 meter long piece of kit — dubbed Blue X — will be transported to one of the European Marine Energy Centre’s test sites, where it will undergo initial sea trials.

Developed by a firm called Mocean Energy, the Blue X will be the latest piece of technology to be put through its paces at Orkney-based EMEC.

Many other companies have undertaken testing at the site over the years. They include Scotland’s Orbital Marine Power, which is working on what it describes as the world’s most powerful tidal turbine, Spain-based tidal power firm Magallanes Renovables and ScottishPower Renewables, part of the Iberdrola Group.

There are many reasons why businesses come to Orkney — but two in particular are key: strong waves and tides.

“Those kind of natural resources are … second to none,” Matthew Finn, EMEC’s commercial director, told CNBC in a phone interview.

“What’s really unique about Orkney is you’ve got these high energy bits next to quite sheltered harbors and inlets,” he went on to add.

“And right in the middle of Orkney is Scapa Flow, which is one of the largest sheltered anchorages in Europe, if not the world, so you can go from these … high energy resources to quite benign, protected environments.”

This is important when it comes to the research and development phase of projects, Finn noted: “If you need to do maintenance cycles or you need to do something with your device, it’s quite quick to get from the ports and harbors to the test sites and back, so I think that’s a massive natural advantage.”  

Since its inception in 2003, EMEC has become a major hub for the development of wave and tidal power, helping to put the U.K. at the heart of the planet’s emerging marine energy sector.

“EMEC was created as a bit of a flagship organization, with the idea that if you could put a lot of investment into one facility it would reduce the time, the cost and the risk for these technologies to come to market,” Finn explained.

£36 million ($50.98 million) has been invested in EMEC so far. Financial backers include the Scottish government, U.K. government, European Union, Orkney Islands Council, The Carbon Trust and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.  

As well as miles of coastline and abundant natural resources, facilities such as EMEC also draw upon the U.K.’s long history of marine-based industries and leading academic institutions.  

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/25/tidal-power-wave-machines-scotland-becoming-a-hub-for-marine-energy.html

“Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.”

Niccolò Machiavelli.

This weekend’s musical diversion. Austria’s Franz von Suppe again. This time Chicago’s combined Youth Symphony Orchestra does Chicago proud. Not something that can be said often about Chicago. Some in the great orchestra are very young, yet very, very talented. Approx. 10 minutes.

Poet and Peasant Overture | CYSO's Philharmonic Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xj44aH3NFk

This weekend’s chess masterclass. Approx. 8 minutes.

Magnus Doesn't Agree With My Last Title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K56VGZuqHk4

This weekend’s maths masterclass. Who really discovered calculus? Approx. 9 minutes.

Parabolas and Archimedes - Numberphile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAcUZ3my6E0

“To defeat Fortune, men must anticipate such evils before they arise, and take prudent steps to avoid them. When the waters have already risen, it is too late to build dikes and embankments.”

Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.

 

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