Baltic Dry Index. 3833 +176 Brent Crude 67.47
Spot Gold 1779
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 19/08/21 World 210,131,857
Deaths 4,405,890
When I announced our drawdown in April, I said we would be out by September, and we’re on track to meet that target.
President Biden. July 8, 2021. Mission Accomplished.
In the stock casinos, rising dread. What will the consensus be at next week’s annual Fed junket at Jackson Hole Wyoming? When is transitory inflation no longer transitory? What if food price inflation, shortages and wage inflation are here to stay?
How long before a power vacuum in Afghanistan descends into anarchy? What if a shooting civil war breaks out?
How long do the stock casinos have until the reality of last week’s US disaster hits home?
Up first, another wobble that threatens to become something much more.
Asian shares fall, dollar gains after Fed minutes
BEIJING — American investors’ shock at an ongoing regulatory crackdown in China points to a fundamental difference between the two countries that many didn’t seem to grasp: When it comes to making the rules, corporations don’t have as much influence in China as they do in America.
U.S. investors in Chinese companies have been caught off guard this summer by a slew of actions Beijing has taken against homegrown tech companies, including several whose shares trade in the United States. Among the surprises was an order that app stores remove Chinese ride-hailing app Didi, just days after its massive U.S. IPO. in late June.
Authorities then suspended new user registrations for Chinese job search app Boss Zhipin and subsidiaries of Full Truck Alliance, which both listed in the U.S. in June. In late July, two U.S.-listed after-school tutoring companies plunged after a mandate telling the industry to restructure its businesses and remove foreign investment through a commonly used overseas listing structure.
Behind the dramatic shift is emerging political rhetoric around “common prosperity,” which analysts say means companies will be scrutinized for their contributions to the broader population, rather than rapid creation of wealth for a few.
---- “In the U.S., the government often acts as a servant to business interests, whether it’s tech or other sectors,” said Gabriel Wildau, senior vice president at Teneo, a firm that does consulting for corporate clients. “In China, the party-state wants the business community to serve its development objectives and is willing to sacrifice corporate profits to make that happen.”
More
In Afghanistan, the Taliban may have won but who is running the country? The economy? The police? The courts? The hospitals? The schools? The airports?
For how long?
How long before anarchy or civil war breaks out? How long before the currency crashes?
How long before Kabul airport becomes unworkable? How long before the evacuations stall?
How long before a Covid-19 regional pandemic occurs?
Wanted, a US President! US leadership!
Taliban blocking Afghans from reaching Kabul airport breaking commitments, State Department says
The Taliban is reportedly blocking Afghans from reaching Kabul’s international airport to flee the country, breaking their commitments to the U.S., a Biden administration official said Wednesday.
That acknowledgement at a press briefing came shortly after the U.S. Embassy in Kabul alerted people there that it “cannot ensure safe passage” to the airport for the capital city, where Islamist militants had overthrown the U.S.-backed Afghan government with astonishing speed.
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) urged the U.S. not to forget journalists and support staff in Afghanistan.
In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, they said there are still about 200-plus journalists and support staff as well as their families in Afghanistan seeking to evacuate. “Please ensure that as evacuation flights continue, journalists and support staff are not forgotten,” the senators said.
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said at the briefing Wednesday afternoon that “we have seen reports that the Taliban, contrary to their public statements and their commitments to our government, are blocking Afghans who wish to leave the country from reaching the airport.”
The U.S. military in Kabul and a team in Qatar are “engaging directly with the Taliban to make clear that we expect them to allow all American citizens, all third-country nationals and all Afghans who wish to leave, to do so safely and without harassment,” Sherman said.
She added that “so far, it appears that the Taliban’s commitment for safe passage for Americans has been solid,” though she noted that she doesn’t know about “every case.”
But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged Wednesday that the military currently lacks the capability to safely escort Americans in Kabul to the airport for evacuation.
“I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul,” Austin said.
---- The Biden administration has come under intensifying criticism over the chaos in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have seized control just weeks before the U.S. ends its military presence there after nearly two decades of war.
Even President Joe Biden’s Democratic allies have called for investigations into the government’s handling of the withdrawal.
More
US, India step up evacuations from Kabul as Taliban vows 'safe passage' for civilians
Issued on: 18/08/2021 - 08:00
The US and several countries stepped up efforts to airlift their nationals and Afghan staffers Wednesday as the Taliban promised "safe passage" for civilians travelling to the Kabul airport amid increasing concerns over the security of Afghan nationals attempting to reach the city’s main exit point.
The White House on Tuesday said around 3,200 people were evacuated by the US military so far, including US citizens, permanent residents and their families on 13 flights.
But White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday acknowledged reports that some civilians were encountering resistance – “being turned away or pushed back or even beaten” – as they tried to reach the Hamid Karzai International Airport.
Sullivan however maintained that “very large numbers” were reaching the airport and the problem of the others was being taken up with the Taliban following Monday’s chaotic scenes of Afghans desperately trying to flee the Taliban takeover.
The US wants to complete evacuations before its August 31 withdrawal deadline, and thousands of US soldiers were at the airport as the Pentagon planned to ramp up flights of its huge C-17 transport jets to as many as two dozen a day.
---- Also being airlifted are Afghans granted US refugee visas, mostly for having worked as translators for American and NATO forces, other foreign nationals, and other unspecified "at risk" Afghans.
'Difficult and complicated' exercise
India, France, Germany and Australia have also organised evacuations over the past few days.
India on Tuesday night evacuated around 150 people, including the Indian ambassador and all other diplomats from Afghanistan, according to the foreign ministry.
They were flown out in a special military flight to the Hindon airbase near capital New Delhi.
France, Germany and some other countries have also been able to pick up their nationals and Afghans qualified to travel to those countries.
France began its evacuations early Tuesday with military aircraft ferrying French and Afghan nationals to a base in the United Arab Emirates, said Defence Minister Florence Parly.
A second French military flight carrying evacuees left Kabul overnight for Abu Dhabi, witnesses at the airport said Wednesday.
Afghans plead for faster US evacuation from Taliban rule
WASHINGTON (AP) — Educated young women, former U.S. military translators and other Afghans most at-risk from the Taliban appealed to the Biden administration to get them on evacuation flights as the United States struggled to bring order to the continuing chaos at the Kabul airport.
President Joe Biden and his top officials said the U.S. was working to speed up the evacuation, but made no promises how long it would last or how many desperate people it would fly to safety “We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Wednesday, adding that evacuations would continue “until the clock runs out or we run out of capability.”
Afghans in danger because of their work with the U.S. military or U.S organizations, and Americans scrambling to get them out, also pleaded with Washington to cut the red tape that they say could strand thousands of vulnerable Afghans if U.S. forces withdraw as planned in the coming days.
“If we don’t sort this out, we’ll literally be condemning people to death,” said Marina Kielpinski LeGree, the American head of a nonprofit, Ascend. The organization’s young Afghan female colleagues were in the mass of people waiting for flights at the airport in the wake of days of mayhem, tear gas and gunshots.
---- Taliban fighters and checkpoints ringed the airport — barriers for Afghans who fear that their past work with Westerners makes them prime targets of the insurgents. Afghans who made it past the Taliban reached Americans guarding the airport complex, and thrust documents at some of the 4,500 U.S. troops in temporary control.
One of the last windows of escape from Taliban threatens to close when Biden’s planned pullout by Aug. 31 is complete.
More
Taliban pledge to be 'different', as Afghans flee
Issued on: 18/08/2021 - 06:42
The Taliban have offered a pledge of reconciliation, vowing no revenge against opponents and to respect women's rights in a "different" rule of Afghanistan from two decades ago.
The announcements came on Tuesday night shortly after the return to Afghanistan of their co-founder, crowning the group's astonishing comeback after being ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001.
With huge concerns globally about the Taliban's brutal human rights record -- and tens of thousands of Afghans still trying to flee the country -- they held their first press conference from Kabul.
"All those in the opposite side are pardoned from A to Z," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told foreign and local reporters, revealing his identity for the first time.
"We will not seek revenge."
Mujahid said the new regime would be "positively different" from their 1996-2001 stint, which was infamous for deaths by stoning, girls being banned from school and women from working in contact with men.
"If the question is based on ideology, and beliefs, there is no difference... but if we calculate it based on experience, maturity, and insight, no doubt there are many differences," Mujahid told reporters.
He also said they were "committed to letting women work in accordance with the principles of Islam", without offering specifics.
A spokesman for the group in Doha, Suhail Shaheen, told Britain's Sky News that women would not be required to wear the all-covering burqa, but did not say what attire would be acceptable.
---- President Joe Biden's administration gave a non-committal response to the Taliban's pledges of tolerance.
"If the Taliban says they are going to respect the rights of their citizens, we will be looking for them to uphold that statement and make good on that statement," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
Russia and China have quickly signalled their willingness to work with the Taliban.
Russia said Tuesday that the Taliban's initial assurances had been a "positive signal" and that the militants were behaving in a "civilised manner".
More
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210818-taliban-pledge-to-be-different-as-afghans-flee
Finally, a conservative opinion of what went so badly wrong.
Hurrah! Washington’s Pointless Sojourn in the Graveyard of Empires Is Finally Over
David Stockman Posted on August 18, 2021
This weekend’s momentous events cry-out for a reformulation of Earnest Hemingway’s famous five word quip in “The Sun Also Rises”.
Per his description of the route to bankruptcy: How did the dismal Afghan outpost of Washington’s Potemkin Empire collapse?
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
Less than three months ago, Afghanistan’s puppet President, Ashraf Ghani, inadvertently crystalized 20-years worth of lies, delusions, misdirection and malfeasance by Imperial Washington’s policy-makers and proconsuls in response to a question from the press:
Q: How long can your government last without US support?
A: Forever.
Yet by midday Sunday Ghani had fled the presidential palace with four cars and so many pallets of greenbacks that they could not all be stuffed into his helicopter. And, of a sudden, there was nothing left of the Empire’s $2 trillion folly to bring peace, democracy, Coca-Cola, long pants and coed schools to this godforsaken expanse of the Hindu Kush.
More
David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan.
“If there is a significant deterioration in security … I don’t think it’s going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday.”
Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State. July 21, 2021.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Japan’s imports, exports grow on overseas economic rebound
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s exports in July jumped 37% from a year ago, the government said Wednesday, highlighting an overseas recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Imports also grew, rising 28.5%, according to Finance Ministry data, for the second straight month of a trade surplus for the world’s third largest economy.
Japan’s exports grew to the U.S., Asia and Europe; while imports increased from Brazil, Belgium and Kuwait. By category, exports grew in food, iron and steel products, and electronic parts. Imports rose in food, auto parts and oil. Japan marked a trade surplus with the U.S., but a deficit with China in July.
The strong trade numbers come even as Japan is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases that are causing some hospitals to turn away patients.
The government state of emergency” was extended Tuesday through Sept. 12. It had previously been set to end this month.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga also expanded the regions under emergency and a less strict quasi-emergency to about two-thirds of the nation. He promised hospital systems will be reorganized to increase wards to care for COVID-19 patients.
Japan has been trying to balance curbing infections while keeping the economy going. Japan’s economy grew at an annual rate of 1.3% in the April-June quarter.
More
China Port Congestion Worsens as Ningbo Shuts for a Week
By Kevin Varley and Ann KohUpdated on 18 August 2021, 14:13 BST
· Local authorities to assess re-opening Meishan terminal: CMA
In nearby Shanghai and in Hong Kong, congestion is once again increasing after dropping due to the reopening of Yantian port in Shenzhen, which shut in May for a seperate outbreak. The number of container ships anchored off Xiamen on China’s southeast coast rose to 24 Tuesday from 6 at the start of the month, according to shipping data compiled by Bloomberg.
More
California drought takes toll on world’s top almond producer
FIREBAUGH, Calif. (AP) — As temperatures recently reached triple digits, farmer Joe Del Bosque inspected the almonds in his parched orchard in California’s agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley, where a deepening drought threatens one of the state’s most profitable crops.
Del Bosque doesn’t have enough water to properly irrigate his almond orchards, so he’s practicing “deficit irrigation” — providing less water than the trees need. He left a third of his farmland unplanted to save water for the nuts. And he may pull out 100 of his 600 acres (243 hectares) of almond trees after the late summer harvest — years earlier than planned.
“We may have to sacrifice one of them at the end of the year if we feel that we don’t have enough water next year,” said Del Bosque, who also grows melons, cherries and asparagus. “That means that our huge investment that we put in these trees is gone.”
A historic drought across the U.S. West is taking a heavy toll on California’s $6 billion almond industry, which produces roughly 80% of the world’s almonds. More growers are expected to abandon their orchards as water becomes scarce and expensive.
---- California almond production grew from 370 million pounds (nearly 168 million kilograms) in 1995 to a record 3.1 billion pounds (1.4 billion kilograms) in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During that period, land planted with almond trees grew from 756 square miles (1,958 square kilometers) to 2,500 square miles (6,475 square kilometers).
In May, the USDA projected that California’s almond crop would hit a record 3.2 billion pounds (1.5 billion kilograms) this year, but in July, it scaled back that estimate to 2.8 billion pounds (1.3 billion kilograms), citing low water availability and record heat.
---- Almonds are California’s top agricultural export. The industry ships about 70% of its almonds overseas, fueled by strong demand in India, East Asia and Europe, according to the board.
---- The Newman, California-based company processes about 60 million pounds (27 million kilograms) of almonds annually from more than 31 square miles (80 square kilometers) of orchards, including some 3 square miles (8 square kilometers) of its own.
“The profitability of growing almonds is not the same as it was in the past,” said owner Jim Jasper, whose father co-founded the company in 1948. “The world is going to start to see less almonds.”
Jasper estimates that about a third of California’s orchards are planted in areas with unreliable water supplies, and many of them won’t survive the drought. Some of his neighbors have stopped irrigating their orchards, and they’re letting the trees die.
More
Palantir bought $50 million in gold bars in August as cash pile grows
Published Tue, Aug 17 2021 1:47 PM EDT
While some companies such as Tesla are diversifying into bitcoin, data analytics software company Palantir is betting on gold. Palantir bought $50 million in gold bars in August, the company disclosed in its latest earnings statement.
The move reflects a growing company stashing cash in an unconventional asset in response to economic uncertainty spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and governments’ response to it.
The price of an ounce of gold crossed the $2,000 mark for the first time last year as the pandemic worsened and U.S. government stimulus efforts continued. This year investors have more loudly voiced concerns about inflation, and gold is sometimes viewed as a hedge against inflation, although prices are down 7% for the year. Some investors have thought cryptocurrencies might also serve that role.
“During August 2021, the Company purchased $50.7 million in 100-ounce gold bars,” Palantir said in the Aug. 12 earnings statement for its fiscal second quarter. “Such purchase will initially be kept in a secure third-party facility located in the northeastern United States and the Company is able to take physical possession of the gold bars stored at the facility at any time with reasonable notice.”
Palantir did not respond to a request for comment on the investment.
After completing a direct listing and debuting on the New York Stock Exchange in September, Palantir is now debt-free, the company’s finance chief, Dave Glazer, told analysts on a conference call last week. Revenue has accelerated for two consecutive quarters, with 20 new customers joining in the fiscal second quarter.
Palantir is investing to grow, bringing on more than 100 salespeople in the past two quarters, and plans call for hiring to continue at a fast pace, Glazer said.
The company remains unprofitable, as it was as a privately held company. Meanwhile, its supply of cash has been increasing, in part thanks to stock issuance and proceeds from the exercise of stock options.
That has given Palantir an opportunity to invest in its own customers, including early stage companies, which are very different from existing government customers such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Among the investments are companies that have gone public through mergers with special-purpose acquisition companies, such as AdTheorent, Fast Radius, FinAccel and Tritium, according to the earnings statement.
More
Below, why a “green energy” economy may not be possible anyway, and if it is, it won’t be quick and it will be very inflationary, setting off a new long-term commodity Supercycle. Probably the largest seen so far.
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
by Tyler Durden Monday, Aug 02, 2021 - 08:40 PM
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Vaccines show declining effectiveness against infection overall but strong protection against hospitalization amid delta variant
Three studies published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that protection against the coronavirus given by vaccines declined in the midsummer months when the more contagious delta variant rose to dominance in the United States.
At the same time, protection against hospitalization was strong for weeks after vaccination, indicating the shots will generate immune fighters that stave off the worst effects of the virus and its current variations.
Data from these studies persuaded the Biden administration to develop a plan for additional doses to bolster the immune systems of people vaccinated months earlier. The Biden administration will begin offering coronavirus booster shots to fully vaccinated adults who received the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots the week of Sept. 20, top health officials announced Wednesday, after concluding that a third shot is needed to fight off waning immunity.
“Examining numerous cohorts through the end of July and early August, three points are now very clear,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House covid-19 news briefing Wednesday. “First, vaccine-induced protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection begins to decrease over time. Second, vaccine effectiveness against severe disease, hospitalization and death remains relatively high. And third, vaccine effectiveness is generally decreased against the delta variant.”
The trio of reports, published Wednesday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the CDC’s scientific digest, also reinforce the idea that vaccines alone will be unable to lift the nation out of the pandemic.
Masks and other precautions should be part of “a layered approach centered on vaccination,” wrote researchers from the New York State Department of Health and the University at Albany School of Public Health in their study of vaccine effectiveness across New York state.
All three reports measure vaccine effectiveness, which compares the rates of infection or hospitalization among vaccinated people with the rates among people who had not been vaccinated. Twenty percent of new infections and 15 percent of hospitalizations from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, were among vaccinated people.
More
The Latest: Pope appears in video promoting vaccination
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is adding his voice to a campaign to overcome vaccine skepticism, issuing a public service announcement insisting that vaccines are safe, effective and an “act of love.”
The video message released Wednesday is aimed at a global audience but directed particularly at the Americas. It features six cardinals and archbishops from North, Central and South America as well as the Argentine-born pope. It was produced by the Vatican and the Ad Council, which has produced a series of pro-vaccine ads in a bid to get more people vaccinated.
In his comments, Francis said: “Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love. And contributing to ensure the majority of people are vaccinated is an act of love.”
He added: “Vaccination is a simple but profound way of promoting the common good and caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable.”
Francis had emphasized at the start of the pandemic the need to ensure equal access to the vaccine, especially for the poor. But faced with increasing skepticism about vaccines especially among religious conservatives, the Vatican has vowed an all-out effort to overcome hesitancy and encourage widespread vaccination.
The Vatican has declared that it is morally acceptable for Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines, including those based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses.
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.
Nuclear scientists hail US fusion breakthrough
Issued on: 18/08/2021 - 00:50
Nuclear scientists using lasers the size of three football fields said Tuesday they had generated a huge amount of energy from fusion, possibly offering hope for the development of a new clean energy source.
Experts focused their giant array of almost 200 laser beams onto a tiny spot to create a mega blast of energy -- eight times more than they had ever done in the past.
Although the energy only lasted for a very short time -- just 100 trillionths of a second -- it took scientists closer to the holy grail of fusion ignition, the moment when they are creating more energy than they are using.
ADVERTISING
"This result is a historic advance for inertial confinement fusion research," said Kim Budil, the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which operates the National Ignition Facility in California, where the experiment took place this month.
Nuclear fusion is considered by some scientists to be a potential energy of the future, particularly because it produces little waste and no greenhouse gases.
It differs from fission, a technique currently used in nuclear power plants, where the bonds of heavy atomic nuclei are broken to release energy.
In the fusion process, two light atomic nuclei are "married" to create a heavy one.
In this experiment scientists used two isotopes of hydrogen, giving rise to helium.
This is the process that is at work in stars, including our Sun.
"The NIF teams have done an extraordinary job," said Professor Steven Rose, co-director of the center for research in this field at Imperial College London.
"This is the most significant advance in inertial fusion since its beginning in 1972."
But, warned Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the same center in London, making this a useable source of energy is not going to be easy.
"Turning this concept into a renewable source of electrical power will probably be a long process and will involve overcoming significant technical challenges," he said.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210817-nuclear-scientists-hail-us-fusion-breakthrough
Reporter: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
President Biden: No, it is not.
Reporter: Why?
President Biden: Because you – the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped – as well-equipped as any army in the world – and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.
July 8, 2021.
No comments:
Post a Comment