Baltic Dry Index. 2428 -10 Brent Crude 70.84
Spot Gold 1896
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 08/06/21 World 174,376,256
Deaths 3,751,988
8th June 793. Vikings in long ships from modern-day Norway plunder St Cuthbert's monastery on Lindisfarne Island, off the northeast coast of England.
Shouldn’t GB be demanding reparations from Norway?
Today’s big news is in the Covid-19 section where it’s all but proven the SARS-2 virus was lab made most likely in China.
In Asian news, Japan’s revised GDP figure was better than expected, but Asian stocks are largely unchanged.
In US news, privately the Fed seems more worried about inflation than they spin for the public. Perhaps they think “transitory” goes on for a whole lot longer than they’ve been spinning on temporary.
The Republicans threaten to derail that G-7 FinMin corporate tax deal, and they haven’t even been bribed yet!
Asia-Pacific stocks mixed; Japan’s economy shrinks less than expected in the first quarter
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Tuesday morning trade, as investors reacted to the release of Japan’s revised first-quarter gross domestic product figures.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan gained 0.26% while the Topix index traded about 0.3% higher.
Revised government data released Tuesday showed Japan’s economy shrank 3.9% in the first quarter, an improvement from the initial estimate of a 5.1% contraction. The revised gross domestic product compared against economists’ median forecast in a Reuters poll for a 4.8% contraction.
Mainland Chinese stocks slipped in early trade, with the Shanghai composite declining 0.19% while the Shenzhen component dipped fractionally. Over in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index advanced 0.23%.
Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi was roughly 0.1% higher. The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia edged 0.22% higher.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares traded 0.1% higher.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 struggled to reach a record high, slipping roughly 0.1% on the day to 4,226.52. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 126.15 points to 34,360.24 while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.49% to 13,881.72.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 90.007 following an earlier low of 89.955.
The Japanese yen traded at 109.39 per dollar, stronger than levels above 110 seen against the greenback last week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7755, largely holding on to gains after last week’s climb from below $0.768.
Oil prices were lower in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures dipping 0.85% to $70.88 per barrel. U.S. crude futures declined 0.88% to $68.62 per barrel.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/08/asia-markets-japan-first-quarter-gdp-currencies-oil.html
The Fed is in early stages of a campaign to prepare markets for tapering its asset purchases
The Federal Reserve is in the early stages of a campaign to ready markets for reducing its $120 billion in monthly asset purchases to stimulate the economy.
Comments by Fed officials in the past several weeks suggest the issue of tapering looks likely to be discussed as soon as the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting next week, and the Fed may be on track to begin asset reductions later this year or early next year.
At least five Fed officials have publicly commented on the likelihood of those discussions in recent weeks, including Patrick Harker, president of the of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Robert Kaplan of Dallas, Fed Vice Chair for bank supervision Randal Quarles and Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, whose comments to CNBC came after Friday’s monthly jobs report.
“As the economy continues to improve, and we see it in the data, and we get closer to our goals … we’re going to have discussions about our stance of policy overall, including our asset purchase programs and including our interest rates,” Mester said Friday.
While the discussion may take place, an announcement of a decision to actually taper would be several months later, perhaps in late summer or early fall. That announcement would then put the beginning of the asset reduction further out, perhaps by year-end or early next year. Since the Fed will taper its purchases, that is, reduce the amount it buys by some amount each month, that timeline would still see the Fed purchasing billions of dollars of assets well into 2022, though at an increasingly slower pace.
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U.S. Republicans vow to oppose Yellen’s G7 tax deal, casting doubt on its future
June 8, 20215:10 AM BST
Several top U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday rejected Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s G7 deal to impose a global minimum corporate tax and allow more countries to tax big multinational firms, raising questions about the U.S. ability to implement a broader global agreement.
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Finally, barely three hours after posting yesterday’s LIR questioning the merits of Great Leaders G-7 summits, than I got an email from Dominic Raab, HMG’s Foreign Minister.
Like the Prime Minster, he calls me “Graeme” in his email, which while flattering is puzzling, as I don’t recall ever meeting either of them.
I may be 71 but my memory is still quite good, and I always remember high personality meetings. Probably because I get so few of them.
In short:
Graeme,
This weekend Britain will lead on the most critical global issues as we assemble the world’s leading democracies for the G7 summit.
Less than 24 hours later I want you to join me and Liz Truss for an unprecedented event.
We’ll be giving you an understanding of summit diplomacy and discussing how we’re reaffirming Britain’s role in the world post-Brexit.
Chip in any amount to join our virtual Global Britain Grassroots Fundraiser on Monday 14th June >>
Now, call me old fashioned, but I’m always very leery of attending “unprecedented events,” as in the past they always seem to end up before “the Beak” in the local Magistrate’s Court.
Doing unprecedented events with Dominic and Liz, who doesn’t exactly sound like his wife, makes me certain to pass on this dodgy opportunity to “understand summit diplomacy” or of learning “how we’re reaffirming Britain’s role in the world post-Brexit.”
Plus, as a mere, poor, pensioner, who’s missed out on all the helicopter, Magic Money Tree money flooding out of central banks, I am also unable to “Chip in any amount” to their “Grassroots Fundraiser,” though I have emailed back with the email addresses of The Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England, suggesting that both are better able to contribute to fundraisers than myself.
Still, it’s a funny old world, I’d no idea that he was a LIR reader.
21st century adage: Is that true, or did you hear it on the BBC?
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Deutsche Bank warns of global ‘time bomb’ coming due to rising inflation
Inflation may look like a problem that will go away, but is more likely to persist and lead to a crisis in the years ahead, according to a warning from Deutsche Bank economists.
In a forecast that is well outside the consensus from policymakers and Wall Street, Deutsche issued a dire warning that focusing on stimulus while dismissing inflation fears will prove to be a mistake if not in the near term then in 2023 and beyond.
The analysis especially points the finger at the Federal Reserve and its new framework in which it will tolerate higher inflation for the sake of a full and inclusive recovery. The firm contends that the Fed’s intention not to tighten policy until inflation shows a sustained rise will have dire impacts.
“The consequence of delay will be greater disruption of economic and financial activity than would be otherwise be the case when the Fed does finally act,” Deutsche’s chief economist, David Folkerts-Landau, and others wrote. “In turn, this could create a significant recession and set off a chain of financial distress around the world, particularly in emerging markets.”
As part of its approach to inflation, the Fed won’t raise interest rates or curtail its asset purchase program until it sees “substantial further progress” toward its inclusive goals. Multiple central bank officials have said they are not near those objectives.
In the meantime, indicators such as the consumer price and personal consumption expenditures price indices are well above the Fed’s 2% inflation goal. Policymakers say the current rise in inflation is temporary and will abate once supply disruptions and base effects from the early months of the coronavirus pandemic crisis wear off.
The Deutsche team disagrees, saying that aggressive stimulus and fundamental economic changes will present inflation ahead that the Fed will be ill-prepared to address.
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Market bull lists inflation as top risk, warns investors may get a ‘wake-up call’ this summer
Published Sun, Jun 6 2021 5:42 PM EDT Updated Sun, Jun 6 2021 8:16 PM EDT
There’s an overwhelming risk that’s concerning long-time bull Phil Orlando right now.
Inflation, according to the Federated Hermes chief market strategist, could be stickier than the Federal Reserve anticipates. He warns it could spook Wall Street and put investors in the crosshairs of a turbulent summer.
“Inflation levels are going to keep rising,” he told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Friday. “That’s going to raise some questions. Is the Fed going to make a policy adjustment at an FOMC meeting or perhaps at Jackson Hole?”
Orlando cited a significant spike in labor costs over the last two months, commodity costs and consumers’ willingness to spend more as reasons to be on alert.
“We’re happy to do it because we’ve got plenty of money burning a hole on our pocket,” Orlando said. “But those levels of inflation are rising, perhaps at a level a little more aggressive than the Federal Reserve expected.”
According to Orlando, it may push the Federal Reserve and chair Jerome Powell out of the transitory inflation camp by the end of summer and pave the way to tapering sooner than expected. Orlando said he regards it as the biggest market threat.
“That’s the potential risk for the market that interest rates rise because of inflation, and that impacts the discount rate in terms of valuation for stocks,” he said.
Orlando also sees tax uncertainty creating jitters among investors this summer.
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USDA FORECASTS RECORD FARM EXPORTS IN FY 2021
Jun. 7, 2021
Source: USDA news release
Washington - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's quarterly agricultural trade
forecast, released today, projects fiscal year 2021 U.S. farm exports at $164
billion - the highest total on record. This represents an increase of $28
billion, or 21 percent, from last fiscal year's total, and a $7-billion
increase from USDA's previous FY 2021 forecast published in February. The
annual export record of $152.3 billion was set in FY 2014.
"U.S. agricultural trade has proven extraordinarily resilient in the face
of a global pandemic and economic contraction. This strength is reflected in
today's USDA export forecast," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
"As we conclude World Trade Month, it's clear that trade remains a
critical engine powering the agricultural economy and the U.S. economy as a whole.
Today's estimate shows that our agricultural trading partners are responding to
a return to certainty and reliability from the United States. Yesterday's
action regarding the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement also made it clear
that our trading partners must play by the rules. Ensuring that all U.S.
producers and exporters have access to global markets is a key to building back
better and ensuring the continued strength and resiliency of rural
America," said Vilsack.
Key drivers of the surge in exports include a record outlook for China, record
export volumes and values for a number of key products, sharply higher
commodity prices, and reduced foreign competition.
More
https://www.agrimarketing.com/s/136598
George Orwell.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Major Chinese city battles Delta Covid variant first detected in India with lockdowns, mass testing
Published Mon, Jun 7 2021 4:41 AM EDT
GUANGZHOU, China — Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong are carrying out mass testing and have locked down areas to try to control a flare up of coronavirus cases in Guangzhou.
The city has cited the Delta variant of the coronavirus, first detected in India, as a driver behind the uptick in cases it has reported since the latter part of May. The Delta strain is known to be highly transmissible.
Guangzhou, a city of over 15 million people and the provincial capital, has reported 96 of the over 100 cases in Guangdong province in this latest outbreak.
China, where the coronavirus first emerged last year, quickly got the epidemic under control and has had very few cases over the past 12 months. However, clusters have emerged in parts of the country including major cities like capital Beijing and finance hub Shanghai.
The Guangzhou cases are potentially even more concerning because they involve the Delta strain of the coronavirus, which can spread very quickly.
A 75-year old woman in Liwan, a district of Guangzhou in the west of the city, was the first confirmed case of the Delta variant on May 21.She visited a restaurant and ended up infecting her husband. The latest infections began from there and have since spread to other areas of the city.
Liwan, still the worst-hit district, has imposed strict lockdowns on certain streets. Some areas are not letting people in an out of a certain zone and residents are not allowed to leave their building. Twenty-four hour checkpoints have been set up to monitor movement in and out of these areas.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/07/china-guangzhou-delta-covid-variant.html
The Science Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak
The Covid-19 pathogen has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus.
By Steven Quay and Richard Muller
June 6, 2021 11:59 am ET
The possibility that the pandemic began with an escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is attracting fresh attention. President Biden has asked the national intelligence community to redouble efforts to investigate.
Much of the public discussion has focused on circumstantial evidence: mysterious illnesses in late 2019; the lab’s work intentionally supercharging viruses to increase lethality (known as “gain of function” research). The Chinese Communist Party has been reluctant to release relevant information. Reports based on U.S. intelligence have suggested the lab collaborated on projects with the Chinese military.
But the most compelling reason to favor the lab leak hypothesis is firmly based in science. In particular, consider the genetic fingerprint of CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the disease Covid-19.
In gain-of-function research, a microbiologist can increase the lethality of a coronavirus enormously by splicing a special sequence into its genome at a prime location. Doing this leaves no trace of manipulation. But it alters the virus spike protein, rendering it easier for the virus to inject genetic material into the victim cell. Since 1992 there have been at least 11 separate experiments adding a special sequence to the same location. The end result has always been supercharged viruses.
A genome is a blueprint for the factory of a cell to make proteins. The language is made up of three-letter “words,” 64 in total, that represent the 20 different amino acids. For example, there are six different words for the amino acid arginine, the one that is often used in supercharging viruses. Every cell has a different preference for which word it likes to use most.
In the case of the gain-of-function supercharge, other sequences could have been spliced into this same site. Instead of a CGG-CGG (known as “double CGG”) that tells the protein factory to make two arginine amino acids in a row, you’ll obtain equal lethality by splicing any one of 35 of the other two-word combinations for double arginine. If the insertion takes place naturally, say through recombination, then one of those 35 other sequences is far more likely to appear; CGG is rarely used in the class of coronaviruses that can recombine with CoV-2.
In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus.
Although the double CGG is suppressed naturally, the opposite is true in laboratory work. The insertion sequence of choice is the double CGG. That’s because it is readily available and convenient, and scientists have a great deal of experience inserting it. An additional advantage of the double CGG sequence compared with the other 35 possible choices: It creates a useful beacon that permits the scientists to track the insertion in the laboratory.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-suggests-a-wuhan-lab-leak-11622995184
CDC: 2-dose vaccines reduce COVID-19 infection risk by 91%, limit virus spread
June 7, 2021 / 4:46 PM
June 7 (UPI) -- The two-dose COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna reduce the risk for infection by 91% in those fully vaccinated, according to data released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Moreover, fully vaccinated and even partially vaccinated people who become infected with the coronavirus are much less likely to get seriously ill, the data showed.
People are fully vaccinated 14 or more days after receiving the second dose of the two-shot vaccines and partially vaccinated 14 or more days after their first dose or one to 13 days after their second, according to the CDC.
"COVID-19 vaccines are a critical tool in overcoming this pandemic," CDC director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky said in a statement.
"This study add[s] to accumulating evidence that [these] vaccines are effective and should prevent most infections -- [and] that fully vaccinated people who still get COVID-19 are likely to have milder, shorter illness and appear to be less likely to spread the virus to others," she said.
The new findings are based on four weeks of additional data collected during the agency's HEROES-RECOVER study of vaccine effectiveness in healthcare workers, first responders, front-line workers and other essential workers.
These groups are more likely to be exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19 because of their occupations, the agency said.
More
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
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.
Using HPC and experiment, researchers continue to refine graphene production
Date: June 4, 2021
Source: Gauss Centre for Supercomputing
Summary: From touch screens and advanced electronic sensors to better drug delivery devices, graphene has become one of the most promising new materials in recent decades. In an effort to produce cheap, defect-free graphene in larger quantities, researchers have been using GCS HPC resources to develop more efficient methods for producing graphene at the industrial scale.
Graphene may be among the most exciting scientific discoveries of the last century. While it is strikingly familiar to us -- graphene is considered an allotrope of carbon, meaning that it essentially the same substance as graphite but in a different atomic structure -- graphene also opened up a new world of possibilities for designing and building new technologies.
The material is two-dimensional, meaning that each "sheet" of graphene is only 1 atom thick, but its bonds make it as strong as some of the world's hardest metal alloys while remaining lightweight and flexible. This valuable, unique mix of properties have piqued the interest of scientists from a wide range of fields, leading to research in using graphene for next-generation electronics, new coatings on industrial instruments and tools, and new biomedical technologies.
It is perhaps graphene's immense potential that has consequently caused one of its biggest challenges -- graphene is difficult to produce in large volumes, and demand for the material is continually growing. Recent research indicates that using a liquid copper catalyst may be a fast, efficient way for producing graphene, but researchers only have a limited understanding of molecular interactions happening during these brief, chaotic moments that lead to graphene formation, meaning they cannot yet use the method to reliably produce flawless graphene sheets.
In order to address these challenges and help develop methods for quicker graphene production, a team of researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has been using the JUWELS and SuperMUC-NG high-performance computing (HPC) systems at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) and Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) to run high-resolution simulations of graphene formation on liquid copper.
A window into experiment
Graphene's appeal primarily stems from the material's perfectly uniform crystal structure, meaning that producing graphene with impurities is wasted effort. For laboratory settings or circumstances where only a small amount of graphene is needed, researchers can place a piece of scotch tape onto a graphite crystal and "peel" away atomic layers of the graphite using a technique that resembles how one would use tape or another adhesive to help remove pet hair from clothing. While this reliably produces flawless graphene layers, the process is slow and impractical for creating graphene for large-scale applications.
Industry requires methods that could reliably produce high-quality graphene cheaper and faster. One of the more promising methods being investigated involves using a liquid metal catalyst to facilitate the self-assembly of carbon atoms from molecular precursors into a single graphene sheet growing on top of the liquid metal. While the liquid offers the ability to scale up graphene production efficiently, it also introduces a host of complications, such as the high temperatures required to melt the typical metals used, such as copper. When designing new materials, researchers use experiments to see how atoms interact under a variety of conditions. While technological advances have opened up new ways for gaining insight into atomic-scale behavior even under extreme conditions such as very high temperatures, experimental techniques do not always allow researchers to observe the ultra-fast reactions that facilitate the correct changes to a material's atomic structure (or what aspects of the reaction may have introduced impurities). This is where computer simulations can be of help, however, simulating the behavior of a dynamic system such as a liquid is not without its own set of complications.
---- The team published its record-breaking simulation work in the Journal of Chemical Physics, then used those simulations to compare with experimental data obtained in their most recent paper, which appeared in ACS Nano.
Andersen indicated that current-generation supercomputers, such as JUWELS and SuperMUC-NG, enabled the team to run its simulation. Next generation machines, however, would open up even more possibilities, as researchers could more rapidly simulate larger numbers or systems over longer periods of time.
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There can be no such thing as 'fairness in taxation.' Taxation is nothing but organized theft, and the concept of a 'fair tax' is therefore every bit as absurd as that of 'fair theft.'
Murray Rothbard.
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