Baltic Dry Index. 3285 -53 Brent Crude 76.06
Spot Gold 1787
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 05/07/21 World 184,573,165
Deaths 3,993,577
Our overriding goal in restructuring our financial architecture should be that taxpayers never again have to save a failing financial institution.
Henry Paulson. 2008.
With July 4th falling on a Sunday, the US markets are closed today celebrating US Independence Day.
Usually that makes for a quiet trading week in the major stock casinos, but this week might be an exception.
Today OPEC meets to finalise Friday’s delayed meeting following a standoff between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. How/if this gets resolved today might have an impact on crude oil prices. That in turn, might have an impact in our usually quiet week in the stock casinos.
Adding to the potential “excitement,” on Wednesday we get the release of the minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting, while unlikely, if there’s a surprise indication of an earlier tightening than 2023, it just might disturb a holiday shortened week in the stock casinos too.
Topping it all off, a tropical storm is heading towards Florida with an outside chance of developing into a small hurricane before it arrives.
Not our usual post 4th of July trading week.
UAE rebuffs plan by OPEC, allies to extend production pact
UAE energy ministry says OPEC Plus proposal to extend pact to cut oil production until end of 2022 is ‘unfair’.
4 Jul 2021 Updated: 8 hours ago
The United Arab Emirates has pushed back against a plan by the OPEC oil cartel and allied producing countries to extend the global pact to cut oil production beyond April 2022, a rare statement revealing the country’s frustration with the group.
The Emirati Ministry of Energy called the proposal to extend the agreement for the entirety of 2022 without raising its production quota “unfair to the UAE,” according to the state-run news agency WAM.
One of the group’s largest oil producers, the UAE is seeking to increase its output – setting up a contest with ally and OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia, which has led a push to keep a tight lid on production.
Video conference talks were held on Friday between the 13 members of OPEC proper, followed by a technical meeting and discussions between the 23 members of OPEC Plus.
But the combined OPEC Plus grouping of members led by Saudi Arabia and non-members, chief among them Russia, failed to reach an agreement on oil output. Negotiations over the dispute are set to resume on Monday.
The UAE said it supported plans for output increases over the summer, believing the market to be “in dire need of higher production”.
The country suggested deferring the whole discussion of the agreement’s extension to a later meeting and appealed for an updated production quota that “reflects our current production capacity”.
Later on Sunday, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said the supply pact due to end in April 2022 should continue for longer, Saudi-owned Asharq television reported.
Asharq also quoted the prince as saying there should be an increase in production to meet an expected decline in oil supply during the summer period.
Iraq Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar also backed the OPEC Plus proposal to extend the pact on output curbs until December 2022, adding he expected oil prices to remain at $70 per barrel or above until then.
Iraq also agreed with a proposal that the group should increase its output by 400,000 barrels per day from August.
More
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/7/4/uae-rebuffs-plan-by-opec-allies-to-extend-production-pact
Asia markets mixed; China tech shares in Hong Kong fall after Didi app suspension
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Monday morning trade as Brent crude futures hovered close to $76 ahead of another meeting between OPEC and its allies.
Tech shares in Asia were mostly lower. Shares of Chinese tech firms in Hong Kong fell in Monday morning trade as regulatory fears resurfaced.
Tencent shares fell 1.65% while Alibaba dropped 2% and Meituan slipped 3.42%. The broader Hang Seng TECH index in Hong Kong also declined 0.92%.
Stocks of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group also plunged more than 5% in Monday morning trade.
The losses came after Chinese regulators claimed SoftBank-backed Didi illegally collected users’ personal data and ordered app stores to stop offering Didi’s app. The move came just days after the ride-hailing giant’s market debut on the New York Stock Exchange.
“The app can no longer be downloaded in China, although existing users who had previously downloaded and installed the app on their phones prior to the takedown may continue using it,” Didi said in a Sunday release. The company had earlier announced Friday that it had suspended new user registration in China.
Data from China and Australia
Investors were also watching economic data from Australia and China.
The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia rose 0.1%. Australia’s retail sales data rose 0.4% in May on a seasonally adjusted basis, final retail trade figures released Monday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed. That was higher than the May preliminary result of a 0.1% rise.
Mainland Chinese stocks edged higher as the Shanghai composite rose 0.16% while the Shenzhen component advanced 0.327%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was near flat.
A private survey on China’s services sector activity in June showed growth slowing sharply in June to a 14-month low. The Caixin/Markit services Purchasing Managers’ Index for June, released Monday, came in at 50.3 — a significant decline from May’s reading of 55.1.
Still, it held above the 50-level in PMI readings indicating growth on a monthly basis.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.54% while the Topix index shed 0.42%. South Korea’s Kospi edged 0.42% higher. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.31% higher.
More
Fed could be a surprise catalyst for the markets in holiday week
The quiet holiday week ahead could hold some fireworks for investors if the Federal Reserve reveals its thinking on its bond buying program.
The four-day trading week could see stocks drift, after hitting new highs this past week. The closely watched 10-year Treasury yield has held under 1.5%, a positive for tech which outperformed with a 3.2% gain for the week.
There are very few economic reports of note, aside from ISM services data on Tuesday. But the Fed’s minutes from its last meeting will be released Wednesday afternoon, and there is potential for the market to learn more about the central bank’s behind-the-scenes discussions on winding down its quantitative easing program.
“Our base case is that rates drift higher, but in order to that get that move higher you need a catalyst to get there,” said Brian Daingerfield, head of G10 FX strategy Americas at NatWest Markets. “Either the Fed has to move forward aggressively on tapering, or you have to get the data really rocking, and you don’t have either.”
Friday’s report that 850,000 jobs were added in June was better than expected. However, the unemployment rate missed expectations after rising by 0.1 percentage points to 5.9%. Economists expected the rate to fall to 5.6%. The report was not seen as strong enough to encourage the Fed to step away sooner from its easy policies. It was, however, seen as a positive — yet largely incomplete — picture of the labor market.
Daingerfield said there is the potential for the Fed’s June meeting minutes to surprise the market, similar to the way April minutes did.
“Remember, Powell said they were not talking about talking about tapering,” he said, referring to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments right after the April meeting. “Remember, Powell was very dismissive, and then the minutes revealed a kind of drift to the committee.”
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/02/fed-could-be-a-surprise-catalyst-for-markets-in-holiday-week-.html
In other news, yet another “train wreck ahead” warning from “Dr. Doom.” In effect, he’s right, but when is all important. Our bent central banksters can’t keep pouring out trillions and trillions of Magic Money Tree fiat money forever without triggering a massive wave of permanent inflation, or worse hyperinflation leading to fiat money revulsion, yet the everything boom is now dependent on MMT forever.
One way or another MMT forever ends in disaster.
Economist Nouriel Roubini warns of ‘train wreck’ stock market crash and ‘stagflation’
By Paula Froelich July 3, 2021
The economist who correctly predicted the 2008 financial collapse is waving a red flag about another imminent disaster.
Nouriel Roubini, an economist at NYU Stern School of Business, writes in The Guardian that “the same loose policies that are feeding asset bubbles will continue to drive consumer price inflation” and that “conditions are right” for a double whammy of the stagnation of the 1970s and the stock market implosion of 2008.
“The warning signs are there for global economy, and central banks will be left in impossible position … today’s extremely loose monetary and fiscal policies, when combined with a number of negative supply shocks, could result in 1970s-style stagflation (high inflation alongside a recession),” Roubini wrote.
Arguing that the debt ratios were much lower in the 1970s than they are now, Roubini says the upcoming crisis will be much worse.
“Debt ratios are much higher than in the 1970s, and a mix of loose economic policies and negative supply shocks threatens to fuel inflation rather than deflation, setting the stage for the mother of stagflationary debt crises over the next few years,” Roubini wrote.
“For now, loose monetary and fiscal policies will continue to fuel asset and credit bubbles, propelling a slow-motion train wreck,” Roubini continued. “The warning signs are already apparent in today’s high price-to-earnings ratios, low equity risk premia, inflated housing and tech assets, and the irrational exuberance surrounding special purpose acquisition companies, the crypto sector, high-yield corporate debt, collateralised loan obligations, private equity, meme stocks, and runaway retail day trading. At some point, this boom will culminate in a Minsky moment (a sudden loss of confidence), and tighter monetary policies will trigger a bust and crash.
“(At the same time) the same loose policies that are feeding asset bubbles will continue to drive consumer price inflation, creating the conditions for stagflation whenever the next negative supply shocks arrive.
“More broadly, the Sino-American decoupling threatens to fragment the global economy at a time when climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are pushing national governments toward deeper self-reliance,” he continued. “Add to this the impact on production of increasingly frequent cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure, and the social and political backlash against inequality, and the recipe for macroeconomic disruption is complete.
“Making matters worse, central banks have effectively lost their independence because they have been given little choice but to monetize massive fiscal deficits to forestall a debt crisis,” Roubini wrote. “With both public and private debts having soared, they are in a debt trap. As inflation rises over the next few years, central banks will face a dilemma. If they start phasing out unconventional policies and raising policy rates to fight inflation, they will risk triggering a massive debt crisis and severe recession; but if they maintain a loose monetary policy, they will risk double-digit inflation – and deep stagflation when the next negative supply shocks emerge.”
More
In other news, GM’s shaking the trees to see who in the emergent lithium industry is going to fall out. If GM’s ploy really works as they think it will, a whole lot of high cost, low rule of law potential lithium producers are in for a crash landing.
GM shakes up lithium industry with California geothermal project
Ernest Scheyder July 2, 2021
(Reuters) - General Motors Co is investing in a U.S. lithium project that could become the country’s largest by 2024, making the automaker one of the first to develop its own source of a battery metal crucial for the electrification of cars and trucks.
The deal, announced on Friday, comes as automakers around the world scramble for access to lithium and other electric vehicle (EV) metals as internal combustion engines are phased out.
Detroit-based GM said it will make a “multimillion-dollar investment” in and help develop Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) Ltd’s Hell’s Kitchen geothermal brine project near California’s Salton Sea, roughly 160 miles (258 km) southeast of Los Angeles.
“This will supply a sizeable amount of our lithium needs,” said Tim Grewe, GM’s director of electrification strategy.
The company declined to be more specific on its investment amount, but said the project’s lithium will be used to build EVs in the United States and that GM engineers and scientists will visit the site once pandemic-related travel restrictions end.
While other automakers, including China’s Great Wall Motor Co and BYD, have invested in lithium producers before, none appear to have taken such an aggressive step to be part of the production process, as GM is taking with CTR.
The move could spark other automakers to follow suit with similar partnerships, especially as demand for the metal is expected to outstrip supply by 20% within four years, according to industry consultant Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
The Hell’s Kitchen project could be producing 60,000 tonnes of lithium - enough to make roughly 6 million EVs, depending on design - by mid-2024 if all goes as planned, said Rod Colwell, CTR’s chief executive. The company expects to obtain federal environmental permits by the end of next year.
That output would make CTR’s Hell’s Kitchen the largest U.S. producer of the white metal, with production roughly twice as much planned by a rival Nevada project from Lithium Americas Corp.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSKCN2E8189
Finally, more on that latest US ransomware attack.
EXPLAINER: Ransomware and its role in supply chain attacks
July 3, 2021
Another holiday weekend in the U.S., another ransomware attack that has paralyzed businesses around the world.
This time it’s affecting an untold number of small and big companies that use IT software from a company called Kaseya.
High-profile ransomware attacks in May hit the world’s largest meat-packing company and the biggest U.S. fuel pipeline, underscoring how gangs of extortionist hackers can disrupt the economy and put lives and livelihoods at risk.
WHAT IS RANSOMWARE? HOW DOES IT WORK?
Ransomware scrambles the target organization’s data with encryption. The criminals leave instructions on infected computers for negotiating ransom payments. Once paid, they provide decryption keys for unlocking those files.
Ransomware crooks have also expanded into data-theft blackmail. Before triggering encryption, they sometimes quietly copy sensitive files and threaten to post them publicly unless they get their ransom payments.
WHAT’S A SUPPLY-CHAIN ATTACK?
The latest attack affecting Kaseya customers combines a ransomware operation with what’s known as a supply-chain attack, which typically involves sneaking malicious code into a software update automatically pushed out to thousands of organizations.
Kaseya says the ransomware affected its product for remotely monitoring networks; but because many of its clients are providers of broader IT management services, a large number of organizations is likely to be affected.
“What makes this attack stand out is the trickle-down effect, from the managed service provider to the small business,” said John Hammond of the security firm Huntress Labs. “Kaseya handles large enterprise all the way to small businesses globally, so ultimately, it has the potential to spread to any size or scale business.”
Until now, the best-known recent supply-chain attack was attributed to elite Russian hackers and targeted software provider SolarWinds. But the motive was different; it was a massive intelligence operation targeting government agencies and others, not an attempt to extort money.
HOW DO RANSOMWARE GANGS OPERATE?
More
https://apnews.com/article/europe-hacking-technology-business-d83a29f1eb997f465d057af20d5435b9
The only thing useful banks have invented in 20 years is the ATM.
Paul Volcker.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Citigroup boosts base pay for junior bankers
Saturday 3 July 2021 12:18 pm
Junior investment bankers at American bank Citigroup are set to receive a pay boost, the firm announced on Friday.
In a memo distributed to staff yesterday, the bank said analysts, associates and programme vice-presidents working in the Wall Street firm’s banking, capital markets and advisory arm would receive the pay fillip from 1 July.
The move comes after rival JPMorgan Chase announced wage increases for its junior bankers.
Wall Street banks have been strengthening incentives for younger workers after junior staff reported poor mental wellbeing due to severe workloads since the onset of the pandemic.
Read more: Staffing crisis: Exodus of junior bankers as burnouts force 70 per cent to quit
A group of first-year analysts at Goldman Sachs leaked a presentation to senior staff stressing they had routinely been working 80-hour weeks over the last year, sometimes rising to 100-hour weeks during busy deal periods.
Recent research shows burnout is becoming a major problem in the City of London, with banks and financial services firms possibly facing labour shortages if they fail to change working practices to account for younger workers’ wellbeing.
Up to 70 per cent of analysts and associate teams left their role at banks and financial institutions in recent months, despite firms stepping up their efforts to retain young talent.
Companies have offered wage top ups of up to 20 per cent and one-off bonuses of almost $40,000. But, this is having little impact on junior staffers’ decision to leave.
Wall Street banks have come down harder on asking staff to return to the office compared to their UK counterparts.
More
https://www.cityam.com/citigroup-boosts-base-pay-for-junior-bankers/
The government’s 2035 electric vehicle mandate is delusional
Eric Reguly July 3, 2021
Whether or not you want one, can afford one or think they will do essentially nothing to stop global warming, electric vehicles are coming to Canada en masse. This week, the Canadian government set 2035 as the “mandatory target” for the sale of zero-emission SUVs and light-duty trucks.
That means the sale of gasoline and diesel cars has to stop by then. Transport Minister Omar Alghabra called the target “a must.” The previous target was 2040.
It is a highly aspirational plan that verges on the delusional, even if it earns Canada – a perennial laggard on the emission-reduction front – a few points at climate conferences. Herewith, a few reasons why the plan may be unworkable, unfair or less green than advertised.
Sticker shock: There is a reason why EVs remain niche products in almost every market in the world (the notable exception is in wealthy Norway): They are bloody expensive. Unless EV prices drop dramatically in the next decade, Ottawa’s announcement will price the poor out of the car market. Transportation costs are a big issue with the unrich. The 2018 gilets jaunes mass protests in France were triggered by rising fuel costs.
While some EVs are getting cheaper, even the least expensive ones are about double the price of a comparable product with an internal combustion engine. Most EVs are luxury items. The market leader in Canada and the United States is Tesla. In Canada the cheapest Tesla, the Model 3 (“standard range plus” version), costs $49,000 before adding options and subtracting any government purchase incentives. A high-end Model S can set you back $170,000.
To be sure, prices will come down as production volumes increase. But the price decline might be slow for the simple reason that the cost of all the materials needed to make an EV – copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel among them – is climbing sharply and may keep climbing as production increases, straining supply lines.
Lithium prices have doubled since November. Copper has almost doubled in the past year. An EV contains five times more copper than a regular car. Glencore, one of the biggest mining companies, estimated that copper production needs to increase by a million tonnes a year until 2050 to meet the rising demand for EVs and wind turbines, a daunting task given the dearth of new mining projects.
More
Insight: Why Houston's energy transition is unlikely to be smooth
Shelby Webb , Staff writer Updated: July 2, 2021 8:45 a.m
Greentown Labs — North America’s largest clean-energy-tech incubator — opened its second location in Midtown at the beginning of May. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm visited in late May to highlight green energy and Houston’s potential role in leading the industry. Several multinational companies have announced plans to erect giant solar arrays across the state, including one in Fort Bend County. Last week, the Greater Houston Partnership unveiled a blueprint for how the region can pivot toward newer energy sources.
But despite the optimism from local officials, major roadblocks stand in the way.
Among them: Texas’ troubled electric grid.
Replacing gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles will increase demand for power, and while that may seem like a boon for renewable energy projects, Texas’ grid lacks the transmission capabilities to bring a decent portion of electricity generated by renewables to the largest population areas. And without more batteries to store power when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, it will be difficult for renewables to become a stable source of electric generation.
More
See below, why the coming Cop-26 conference, notwithstanding, a “green energy” economy may not be possible, and if it is, won’t be quick and will be very inflationary. Also, get ready to eat poorly and do a lot of walking.
The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
Mines, Minerals, and "Green" Energy: A Reality Check
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Indonesia faces oxygen crisis amid worsening Covid surge
5 July, 2021
Indonesia's government has ordered oxygen producers to prioritise medical needs as a surge in Covid cases has led to shortages in a number of cities.
Hospitals say they are struggling at the limit of their capacity, with one reporting that 63 patients died as it grappled with depleting oxygen.
The country is currently recording more than 25,000 new cases every day.
The crisis is attributed to increased travel and the more contagious delta variant spreading through the country.
Indonesia has had the worst Covid outbreak in South East Asia, with about 2.3 million positive cases and more than 60,000 deaths so far.
However, experts warn that the overall numbers are potentially much higher because of severely inadequate testing outside the capital Jakarta.
A lockdown was announced in the country's main island Java, as well as in the tourist island of Bali last week.
Over the weekend, emergency services and intensive care units of public hospitals in the cities of Bandung, Surakarta, and Pamekasan said they were struggling with an influx of people seeking admission with some having to turn away patients.
Others have set up tents outside.
"It's a war-like emergency," a woman seeking treatment for her elderly mother told the BBC's Indonesia service. Her mother had been first been rejected at a hospital that had run out of beds, and was only able to get admitted to a makeshift tent at another.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57717144
Russian Deaths and Indonesian Cases Hit Records: Virus Update
Bloomberg News2 July 2021, 23:25 BST Updated on 3 July 2021, 10:52 BST
Russia reported record deaths from Covid-19 for a fifth consecutive day, while new cases in Indonesia reached the highest levels to date. Belgium had its first increase in infections in months.
The head of the World Health Organization warned of “a very dangerous period,” with the delta variant detected in at least 98 countries. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease official, said he doesn’t expect another nationwide spike despite the spread of the variant.
Tokyo reported the highest number of infections since May, less than three weeks before the start of the Olympic Games. South Africa, which is seeing record daily cases, gave conditional approval for use of the CoronaVac vaccine manufactured by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd.
Key Developments:
- Global Tracker: Cases top 183 million; deaths pass 3.96 million
- Vaccine Tracker: More than 3.1 billion doses administered
- U.K. and EU try to ease travel fears over India’s Astra vaccine
- Covid was a boon to heists, hoaxes, scams, cons and mischief
- Nevada leads U.S. in cases as 300,000 descend on Vegas
- From alpha to delta, why virus mutations cause alarm: QuickTake
Europe in vaccination race against COVID-19′s delta variant
LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Countries across Europe are scrambling to accelerate coronavirus vaccinations and outpace the spread of the more infectious delta variant, in a high-stakes race to prevent hospital wards from filling up again with patients fighting for their lives.
The urgency coincides with Europe’s summer holiday months, with fair weather bringing more social gatherings and governments reluctant to clamp down on them. Social distancing is commonly neglected, especially among the young, and some countries are scrapping the requirement to wear masks outdoors.
Incentives for people to get shots include free groceries, travel and entertainment vouchers, and prize drawings. The president of Cyprus even appealed to a sense of patriotism.
The risk of infection from the delta variant is “high to very high” for partially or unvaccinated communities, according to the European Centre for Disease Control, which monitors 30 countries on the continent. It estimates that by the end of August, the variant will account for 90% of cases in the European Union.
“It is very important to progress with the vaccine rollout at a very high pace,” the ECDC warned.
The World Health Organization is also concerned. The variant makes transmission growth “exponential,” according to Maria Van Kerkhove, its technical lead on COVID-19.
Daily new case numbers are already climbing sharply in countries like the United Kingdom, Portugal and Russia.
In the U.K., cases of the delta variant have increased fourfold in less than a month, with confirmed cases Friday up 46% on the previous week.
Portuguese health authorities this week reported a “vertiginous” rise in the prevalence of the delta variant, which accounted for only 4% of cases in May but almost 56% in June. The country is reporting its highest number of daily cases since February, and the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals has surpassed 500 for the first time since early April.
----In some countries, the virus is spreading much faster among younger people. In Spain, the national 14-day case notification rate per 100,000 people rose to 152 on Friday. But for the 20-29 age group, it shot up to 449.
Those numbers have triggered alarm across the continent.
More
Fiji braces for more Covid-19 deaths as outbreak worsens
Issued on: 03/07/2021 - 10:20
Fijian authorities have warned of a rising death toll from Covid-19 as an outbreak of the Delta variant threatened to overwhelm the South Pacific nation's health system.
Two more deaths were reported Saturday, along with hundreds of new infections just days after the country recorded its biggest-ever daily increase.
"The steady increase in average daily case numbers in combination with other indicators suggest higher daily numbers of cases, hospitalisations, and deaths in the coming weeks," Permanent Health Secretary James Fong said in a statement on Friday.
Fiji went an entire year without recording any community coronavirus cases until April when it was hit by a second wave of the quick-spreading Delta variant, which was first identified in India.
Since May, cases have rocketed from just over a hundred to more than 5,600, with the death toll now 27.
The wave has forced an indoor sporting complex in the capital Suva to be converted into a field clinic, as Fiji's largest hospital is already overflowing with cases.
The national university has also become a temporary hub for frontline workers fighting the outbreak, with its campus hostel now housing hospital staff and medical students enlisted to help contract tracers.
Fiji's largest island, Viti Levu, has so far been the epicentre but two cases were recently found on Vanua Levu, and Gau Island went into lockdown earlier this week.
The government has resisted calls for a national lockdown, with Fong previously questioning whether the country could adequately enforce it in remote communities.
"I don't believe we can sustain the benefit of a lockdown, not economically and not in terms of saying the virus will stop moving," he said.
Only about one percent of Fiji's 930,000 people have been fully vaccinated, with the Red Cross blaming misinformation spread online for hampering the rollout.
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.
Instant water disinfectant 'millions of times more effective' than commercial purification
July 1, 2021 / 5:28 PM
July 1 (UPI) -- The creators of a new instant water disinfectant, made using only hydrogen and the surrounding air, claim their invention is "millions of times more effective" at ridding water of viruses and bacteria than commercial purification methods.
In addition to revolutionizing municipal water cleaning, the inventors of the novel technique suggest their disinfectant can help safely and cheaply deliver potable water to communities in need.
Around the world, an estimated 780 million people are without reliable access to clean water, and millions more experience water scarcity at least once a month.
The technique -- described Thursday in the journal Nature Catalyst -- uses a catalyst of gold and palladium to instantly turn hydrogen and oxygen into hydrogen peroxide, a common disinfectant.
Every year, millions of tons of hydrogen peroxide are synthesized in factories. The disinfectant is then shipped and stored until it's ready to be used.
To keep it shelf stable and prevent degradation, other chemicals are added. Unfortunately, some of those additives limit commercial hydrogen peroxide's disinfecting abilities.
Commercial water purification systems sometimes supplement hydrogen peroxide with chlorine, but in large quantities, chlorine can react with naturally occurring compounds in water to produce toxins harmful to humans.
The new disinfectant, which can be made and used on site, eliminates the safety issues associated with commercial hydrogen peroxide and chlorine purification methods.
In lab tests, researchers found their catalyst yielded not only hydrogen peroxide, but a variety highly reactive compounds called reactive oxygen species, or ROS.
It turned out that these novel compounds were responsible for the majority of the new disinfectant's impressive antibacterial and antiviral abilities.
"The significantly enhanced bactericidal and virucidal activities achieved when reacting hydrogen and oxygen using our catalyst, rather than using commercial hydrogen peroxide or chlorination shows the potential for revolutionizing water disinfection technologies around the world," study co-author Graham Hutchings said in a press release.
"We now have proven one-step process where, besides the catalyst, inputs of contaminated water and electricity are the only requirements to attain disinfection," said Hutchings, a professor of chemistry at the Cardiff Catalysis Institute.
When compared to commercially produced hydrogen peroxide, scientists found their instant disinfectant was 10 million times more potent against viruses and bacteria.
The disinfectant not only surprisingly effective, but also exceptionally efficient, the researchers said.
"Crucially, this process presents the opportunity to rapidly disinfect water over timescales in which conventional methods are ineffective, whilst also preventing the formation of hazardous compounds and biofilms, which can help bacteria and viruses to thrive," Hutchings said.
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2021/07/01/wales-instant-water-disinfectant/7311625156929/
The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.
Alan Greenspan.
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