By Lucia
Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number
of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a 14-month
low last week as companies held onto their workers amid a growing labor
shortage that helped to curb employment growth in April.
The scramble for workers comes as
the reopening economy is experiencing a boom in demand, resulting in widespread
shortages of inputs at factories and fanning inflation. Producer prices
increased more than expected in April, leading to the biggest annual gain since
2010, other data showed on Thursday.
The worker shortage is despite
nearly 10 million Americans being officially unemployed, a disconnect that
economists expect will resolve in the coming months as increased vaccinations
ease COVID-19 stress and enhanced unemployment benefits expire, allowing some
workers to return to the labor market.
“With demand for workers high and
layoffs relatively low, we should see strong hiring in the months to come, as
barriers to employment, such as lack of childcare, lessen,” said Robert Frick,
corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union in Vienna, Virginia. “For
many, especially low-wage workers, returning to a job is a puzzle in which
several pieces, such as transportation, wage levels and benefits must fall into
place.”
Initial claims for state
unemployment benefits dropped 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 473,000 for the
week ended May 8, the Labor Department said. That was the lowest since
mid-March 2020, when mandatory closures of nonessential businesses were
enforced to slow the first wave of COVID-19 infections.
Economists polled by Reuters had
forecast 490,000 applications for the latest week. The decrease in claims was
led by Michigan, New York and Florida.
Claims have dropped from a record
6.149 million in early April 2020, but remain well above the 200,000 to 250,000
range that is viewed as consistent with a healthy labor market.
Some economists believe the enhanced
unemployment benefits programs, including a weekly $300 government subsidy,
could be encouraging some people to attempt to file a claim for assistance,
though not every application is approved.
The economy created 266,000 jobs in
April after adding 770,000 in March, which was partly blamed on the generous
unemployment benefits. There are a record 8.1 million open jobs.
Several states in the South and
Midwest, such as Tennessee and Missouri, that have unemployment rates below the
national average of 6.1% have recently announced they will end federally funded
pandemic unemployment benefits next month.
Economists cite the still-bloated
jobless rolls as supporting the thesis that unemployment checks were keeping
some workers home.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy/u-s-weekly-jobless-claims-at-14-month-low-inflation-heating-up-idUSKBN2CU1A8
In other news,
Colonial Pipeline encourages more ransom hacking.
Alibaba swings to a
quarterly loss.
Japan’s doctors say
call off the Olympics.
Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers
Nearly $5 Million in Ransom By William
Turton and Michael Riley
13 May 2021, 15:15 BST
·
·
Colonial Pipeline Co . paid nearly $5 million to
Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week
that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore
the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the
transaction.
A representative from Colonial declined to comment.
The hackers, which the FBI said are linked to a group called
DarkSide, specialize in digital extortion and are believed to be located in
Russia or Eastern Europe.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-13/colonial-pipeline-paid-hackers-nearly-5-million-in-ransom
Alibaba records first quarterly
operating loss since IPO Associated
Press May 13, 021
HONG KONG (AP) — Alibaba had its
first quarterly operating loss since it went public in 2014 after Beijing
slapped a record $2.8 billion fine on the nation’s largest e-commerce company
for abusing its market position.
The loss tied to the anti-monopoly
fine was 7.66 billion yuan ($1,170 million) for the quarter that ended in
March, though revenue growth was 64%, reaching 187.4 billion yuan ($28.6
million).
At the opening bell on the NYSE
Thursday, shares tumbled more than 6%.
Authorities launched an
investigation into Alibaba last year and abruptly halted the $37 billion
initial public offering of shares from its financial affiliate Ant Group as
Beijing grew increasingly concerned over the growing influence of technology
giants in China.
Beijing has fined multiple
technology firms over antitrust violations and has since launched a probe into
Alibaba rival Meituan over suspected anti-competitive behavior.
“We have stated that we accept the
penalty with sincerity and will ensure our compliance with determination,” said
Alibaba chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang in an earnings call Thursday.
“The penalty decision motivated us
to reflect on the relationship between a platform economy and society as well
as our social responsibilities and commitments,” he said.
The company said Thursday that it
expects revenue in this fiscal year, which ends in March 2022, to grow by more
than 30%, reaching over 930 billion yuan ($144 billion). That is better than
most industry analysts are expecting. .
It also reported a total of 811
million annual active users for the quarter ended March.
Alibaba
Group Holding’s New York-listed stock has fallen 14% since Beijing announced
that its investigation into the company.
https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-7146029b5c09728448b63f5a1962b813
'Impossible' to hold Olympics
during pandemic, Japan doctors union warns Issued on: 13/05/2021 -
13:06
Holding the Tokyo Olympics safely as
the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage would be "impossible", a
union of Japanese hospital doctors warned on Wednesday.
"We strongly oppose holding the
Tokyo Olympics at a time when people around the world are fighting the new
coronavirus," the union said in a statement submitted to the government.
"It is impossible to hold a
safe and secure Olympics during the pandemic." DVERTISING
The union, which represents staff
doctors at hospitals, is one of a number in Japan for different medical
professionals. It does not list the size of its membership.
"We can't deny the danger that
many kinds of new virus variants will bring to Tokyo from around the
world," the union statement added.
The statement comes as Japan battles
a fourth wave of virus infections, with several areas including the capital
under a state of emergency.
The surge has put pressure on the
country's healthcare system, with medical professionals repeatedly warning
about shortages and burnout.
In recent days, several governors
have said they will not allocate hospital beds for athletes.
And plans for teams to train in
Japan before the Games have in some cases been scrapped.
With just over 10 weeks until the
Games open on July 23, public opinion remains opposed, with most favouring a
further delay or cancellation.
But organisers say they can safely
hold the Games thanks to virus countermeasures and point to a string of
successful recent test events, including some featuring overseas athletes.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210513-impossible-to-hold-olympics-during-pandemic-japan-doctors-union-warns
Everything
is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as
a joke.
Will
Rogers
Global Inflation Watch. Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our
spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Another inflation gauge comes in
hot with producer prices jumping 6.2% in April from a year ago Published Thu, May 13 20218:31 AM EDT
Companies paid much higher prices to producers in April for
everything from steel to meat in another sign of inflation in an economy
rapidly recovering from the pandemic. The new data comes a day after a sharp
gain in consumer prices sent the stock market reeling.
The Producer Price Index rose 0.6% from March, according to
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Year over year, the PPI spiked 6.2%, the
largest increase since the agency started tracking the data in 2010.
Economists polled by FactSet were expecting a 0.3% monthly
increase in April and 3.8% year over year.
----The core PPI, which excludes volatile items like foods,
energy and trade services, rose 0.7% in April from the previous month and
jumped 4.6% year over year. The increase from a year ago was the biggest jump
since 2014 when the department first calculated the data.
The Producer Prices Index came into focus after Wednesday’s
consumer prices report showed hotter-than-expected inflation and triggered a
big sell-off in the stock market.
---- Producer prices measure the prices paid to producers as opposed to
prices on the consumer level.
A sharp jump in steel mill products
contributed to the leap in producer prices in April, the Labor Department said.
Prices for beef and veal, pork, residential natural gas, plastic resins and
materials and dairy products also moved higher last month.
Prices for steel products jumped
18.4% in April from a month earlier, while foods prices edged up 2.1%.
In addition to rising prices, one of
the main reasons for the big annual pace was because of base effects, meaning
inflation was very low at this time in 2020 as the Covid pandemic shut down big
parts of the economy. Year-over-year comparisons are going to be distorted for
the next few months, and the Federal Reserve has warned about these headline
numbers, saying the spikes will be transitory.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/producer-prices-april-2021.html
McDonald’s Is the Latest Company
Raising Wages Published: May 13, 2021 at 9:56 a.m. ET
McDonald’s said it would raise wages at its U.S. stores,
the latest company to do so amid a tight labor market.
The fast-food chain (ticker: MCD) said that it has already
begun boosting wages for more than 36,500 employees at company-owned
restaurants in the U.S. The raises, on average of 10%, will lift the pay of
entry-level crew members to at least $11 to $17 an hour. It will put the
starting range for shift managers at a minimum of $15 to $20 an hour.
While that may not be as high as the $15 an hour that other
retailers and restaurants have begun offering, McDonald’s expects the average
hourly wage for its company-owned restaurants will reach that level by 2024. It
said some restaurants already have reached that level, or will hit it this
year.
McDonald’s
expects to bring on 10,000 new employees ahead of the summer season, during
which many indoor dining rooms are expected to reopen as the threat of Covid-19
fades.
----The
decision was announced just days after Chipotle
Mexican Grill (CMG) said it would raise
average wages to $15 an hour . Several
high-profile consumer
companies have made similar moves in recent months, including Walmart (WMT)
and Costco
Wholesale (COST. Others, such as Target (TGT) and Amazon.com
(AMZN,) did
the same last year .
https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/mcdonalds-is-the-latest-company-raising-wages-51620914192?mod=mw_latestnews
Silver is up over 70% in a year.
Here’s why experts say it could have further to go Published Thu, May 13 2021 6:09 AM EDT
It’s often overlooked in favor of its lustrous cousin gold , but the price of silver has jumped over 70% in the
last year, with commodity strategists saying the rally is likely to continue as
the global economy reopens.
Demand for the precious metal has shot up in the past 12
months. Silver was trading around $27 an ounce on Wednesday, a 74% rise from a
year ago when the spot price was around $15.5 per ounce. In comparison, gold
prices have risen 6.4% in a year.
From electronics to photography, jewelry and coins, silver
is integral to numerous everyday products.
Its high electrical conductivity and durability gives it
industrial and technological applications, with almost every computer, mobile
phone, automobile and appliance containing silver, according
to the Silver Institute . The association’s data show there has been more
demand than supply of the semi-precious metal so far in 2021.
But Ole Hanson, head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Bank,
told CNBC that although around 50% of the demand for silver was industrial, the
rest came from investors. Still, its uses in industry was one of the main
reasons driving its recent rise in value, he said.
“Industrial demand is probably the main reason why we’ve
seen silver outperform gold, as it has over the last year ... part of that
(rise) is definitely coming from industrial metals which have really been on a
tear. If you look at copper prices, they’ve more than doubled since hitting a
low-point last year,” he added.
Additional factors have also played into silver’s rise,
Hanson said, such as the shift towards green technologies which have spurred a
rise in demand for industrial metals such as silver which are used in solar
panel production, for instance.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/silver-price-rockets-as-investment-and-industrial-demand-continues.html
Used car and truck prices soar by
most on record Prices spiked
10% in April May 12, 201
Used car
and truck prices in April surged by the most since recordkeeping began in 1953,
boosted by pent-up demand among consumers, many of whom had more cash to spend
thanks to government stimulus measures.
Used car and truck prices rose 10% last month and were up
21% versus the same period last year.
"People have a lot of extra money that the government
is giving them, so they are going out and buying cars," said Steve
Moore, senior economic contributor at FreedomWorks, a grassroots organization
that advocates for smaller government.
He
noted the increased demand comes amid supply chain disruptions that have resulted
in fewer new cars being produced. New vehicle inventory at dealerships was down
36% year over year in March, according to online car-shopping guide
Edmunds.
That was before automakers, including Ford Motor Co. and
General Motors Co., deepened production cuts in order to further navigate the
semiconductor chip shortage that developed in the wake of COVID-19. Those
output cuts came about a year after automakers were forced to temporarily shut
production in order to comply with stay-at-home orders aimed at slowing the
spread of COVID-19.
The jump in used car and truck prices accounted for more
than one-third of the consumer price index’s 0.8% monthly increase. Consumer
prices rose 4.2% year over year in April, making for the biggest annual
increase since September 2008.
The annual data has a "base effects" skew due to
the decline in prices that occurred at the start of the pandemic.
"Inflation is likely to head even higher over the next
couple of months as price levels in a vibrant, strengthening economy that has
supply constraints, contrast starkly with those of twelve months ago when the
economy was in lockdown and prices were being slashed in order to generate
cashflow," said James Knightley, ING’s chief international
economist.
More
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/used-car-truck-prices-soar-most-on-record
U.K. Estate Agents Plead for More
Supply as Housing Boom Rages By David
Goodman 13 May 2021, 00:01 BST
·
·
U.K. house prices marched higher again in April as rising
demand and a dearth of properties for sale added fuel to a booming market.
In a report published Thursday, the Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors said a lack of new listings was now the
biggest concern as demand for property increased in every region of the
country. That’s stoking prices in a market already buoyed by a temporary tax
cut and lockdown-inspired searches for extra space. Real-estate agents expect
prices to keep rising over the next year.
“Housing supply, or more pertinently, the shortfall in supply
relative to demand is the key theme coming through loud and clear,” said Simon
Rubinsohn, chief economist at RICS. On average, agents now have just 40
properties for sale on their books.
The findings come amid a brightening economic outlook and
suggest prices will continue to rise once Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi
Sunak’s stamp-duty holiday on purchases is gradually withdrawn from the end of
June. Nationwide Building Society said last month that
house prices rose 2.1% in April, their fastest monthly pace for 17 years.
Here’s a roundup of comments made by agents in the RICS
survey:
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-12/u-k-estate-agents-plead-for-more-supply-as-housing-boom-rages?srnd=premium-europe
Make
crime pay. Become a lawyer.
Will
Rogers.
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Blood Expert Says He Found Why
Some Covid-19 Vaccines Trigger Rare Clots A
scientist in Germany thinks he has found an answer as researchers around world
examine AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson shots Updated May 13, 2021 6:18 am ET
-----In Germany, one researcher thinks he has found what is
triggering the clots. Andreas Greinacher, a blood expert, and his team at the
University of Greifswald believe so-called viral vector vaccines—which use
modified harmless cold viruses, known as adenoviruses, to convey genetic
material into vaccine recipients to fight the coronavirus—could cause an
autoimmune response that leads to blood clots. According to Prof. Greinacher,
that reaction could be tied to stray proteins and a preservative he has found
in the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Prof. Greinacher and his team has just begun examining
Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine but has identified more than 1,000 proteins in
AstraZeneca’s vaccine derived from human cells, as well as a preservative known
as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, or EDTA. Their hypothesis is that EDTA,
which is common to drugs and other products, helps those proteins stray into
the bloodstream, where they bind to a blood component called platelet factor 4,
or PF4, forming complexes that activate the production of antibodies.
The inflammation caused by the vaccines, combined with the
PF4 complexes, could trick the immune system into believing the body had been
infected by bacteria, triggering an archaic defense mechanism that then runs
out of control and causes clotting and bleeding.
Prof. Greinacher has compared the activation of the dormant
response—which has been supplanted in the evolution of the human immune system,
but still lurks in its foundations—to “awakening a sleeping dragon.”
Prof. John Kelton of McMaster University in Canada, whose
outfit runs Canada’s reference lab for testing patients with blood-clotting
symptoms after vaccination, said the lab replicated some of Prof. Greinacher’s
research and confirmed his findings.
Yet the cause was unclear. “[Prof. Greinacher’s] hypothesis
could be right, but it could also be wrong,” Prof. Kelton said.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-hunt-for-a-link-between-some-covid-19-vaccines-and-rare-blood-clots-11620898201
India Covid: Do reinfections pose
a challenge to vaccines? 12 May, 2021
Three weeks after he had been fully
vaccinated against the coronavirus, a science journalist in Delhi developed
high fever, a sore throat and a general feeling of discomfort.
On 22 April, Pallava Bagla tested
positive for the coronavirus. Four days later, a chest scan showed his clear
lungs turning white, a sign of infection.
As the fever persisted, he was
admitted to hospital - eight days after his first symptoms.
At the All India Institute of
Medical Sciences, doctors put Mr Bagla, 58, through blood tests and
administered steroids. As he had an underlying condition - diabetes - his blood
sugar soared. Luckily, his oxygen levels never fell perilously low.
Before he left the hospital after
eight days, doctors showed him a scan of the lungs of an unvaccinated,
diabetic, male Covid-19 patient of his age, and compared it to his scan.
"The difference was clear. The
doctors told me that if I had not taken the vaccine I would have probably
landed up on the ventilator in critical care. Timely and full vaccination saved
my life," Mr Bagla says.
Although India has fully vaccinated
a paltry 3% of its 1.3 billion people, breakthrough cases - people contracting
the infections two weeks after being fully vaccinated - appear to be rising.
Health workers - doctors, nurses, hospital and clinic
workers - have borne the brunt of such infections so far. Mr Bagla appeared to
be an exception to the rule, so scientists took swabs from his nose and throat
to crack the genetic code of the virus which infected him.
The aim is find answers to a question scientists are
grappling with: Are our existing vaccines - two in the case of
India - protecting us enough from newer and often more transmissible
variants of the coronavirus?
Coronavirus vaccines are
indisputably effective. Although they don't prevent infection, they protect
most people against severe illness and death by even the most dangerous
variants of the virus. But vaccines are not 100% perfect, and they have to work
particularly hard during a fast-growing epidemic.
So "vaccine breakthrough
infections" are not unexpected.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57084572
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/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
The Spectator
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.
Scaling down Ionic Transistors to
the ultimate limit Date: May 12, 2021
Source: The University of Hong Kong
Summary: Researchers have developed an atomic-scale
ion transistor based on electrically gated graphene channels of around 3
angstrom width which demonstrated highly selective ion transport. They also
found that ions move a hundred times faster in such a tiny channel than they do
in bulk water. This breakthrough leads to highly switchable ultrafast ion
transport that can find important applications in electrochemical and
biomedical applications.
The human brain is a vast network of
billions of biological cells called neurons which fires electrical signals that
process information, resulting in our sense and thoughts. The ion channels of
atomic scale in each neuron cell membrane plays a key role in such firings that
opens and closes the ion flow in an individual cell by the electrical voltage
applied across the cell membrane, acting as a "biological transistor"
similar to electronic transistors in computers. For decades, scientists have
learned that biological ion channels are life's transistors capable to gate extremely
fast and precisely selective permeation of ions through the atomic-scale
selectivity filters to maintain vital living functions. However, it remains a
grand challenge to date to produce artificial structures to mimic such
biological systems for fundamental understanding and practical applications.
Researchers led by Professor Xiang
Zhang, the President of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), have developed an
atomic-scale ion transistor based on electrically gated graphene channels of
around 3 angstrom width which demonstrated highly selective ion transport. They
also found that ions move a hundred times faster in such a tiny channel than
they do in bulk water.
This breakthrough, recently reported
in Science , not only provides fundamental understanding of fast ion
sieving in atomic scale, but also leads to highly switchable ultrafast ion
transport that can find important applications in electrochemical and
biomedical applications.
---- The atomic scale graphene channel was made of a single flake of reduced
graphene oxide flake. This configuration has the advantage of intact layer
structures for fundamental property investigation and also preserves large
flexibility for scaling-up fabrication in the future.
The selection sequence of alkali
metal ions through the atomic-scale ion transistor was found to resemble that
of biological potassium channels. This also implies a controlling mechanism
similar to biological systems, which combines ion dehydration and electrostatic
interaction.
This work is a fundamental breakthrough
in the study of ion transport through atomic scale solid pores. The integration
of the atomic-scale ion transistors into large-scale networks can even make it
possible to produce exciting artificial neural systems and even brain-like
computers.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210512115558.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
Another weekend
and time to start stocking up ahead of the coming Great Inflation. Since we are
only at the start of the coming GI, we still have the luxury of time on our
side but for how long?
With the
Fedster’s promising to stay asleep at the inflation switch all the way out to
2023, my guess is that our luxury of time runs out before the end of 2021. Have
a great weekend everyone.
I
am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
Will
Rogers.
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