Baltic Dry Index. 4410 +106 Brent Crude 75.13
Spot Gold 1776
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20
World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 22/09/21
World 230,318,726
Deaths 4,722,782
There
are only three ways to meet the unpaid bills of a nation. The first is
taxation. The second is repudiation. The third is inflation.
Herbert
Hoover.
The big news today
comes about 5:30 pm UK time, when Fed Chairman Powell lets us in on the decisions
of the rest of his gang as to tapering bond purchases, when and by how much. Favouring
stocks and inflation or tackling inflation and busting stocks.
He might just also
give a hint as to when he and his gang of know-all interest rate fixers, might
start fixing US interest rates higher, but my guess is that he won’t and that
he’ll favour stocks and fuel inflation.
In other, “better”
news yesterday, China Evergrande Group promised to pay the coupon payment due
on its domestic bonds on Thursday, after negotiations with the bond holders. We
shall very soon see if this is a real payment, or more of a smoke and mirrors
payment, some form of extend and pretend.
Below, the wobbly
stock casinos put their faith in Chairman Powell, and Evergrande not blowing up
until after the month-end and end of quarter bonuses.
European stocks head for higher
open as markets prepare for Fed update Published
Wed, Sep 22 2021 12:21 AM EDT
European stocks are expected to open higher on Wednesday as
global investors await the outcome of the latest meeting of the U.S. Federal
Reserve and as tensions ease over embattled Chinese property developer
Evergrande.
Britain’s FTSE
is seen opening 16 points higher at 6,985, Germany’s DAX 52 points higher at 15,364,
France’s CAC 40 up 28
points at 6,566 and Italy’s FTSE
MIB 11 points higher at 25,059, according to IG.
Top of the agenda for investors on Wednesday is the
conclusion of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s highly anticipated September meeting
with investors looking out for any indications about the Fed’s tapering of its
easy monetary policy.
The Fed will release a policy statement with economic
and interest rate forecasts, then Chairman Jerome Powell is expected to speak
to the media at 2:30 p.m. ET. Powell has said previously that tapering could
occur this year, but investors are waiting for more details, particularly after
mixed economic data released since Powell’s last comments.
Evergrande
developments European markets saw a solid rebound on Tuesday after a
nervous start to the week, largely caused by investor fears surrounding
embattled property developer China Evergrande Group and concerns about the
contagion risk for the wider Chinese and global economy.
Investor sentiment may have been soothed on Wednesday after
Evergrande unit Hengda announced it will make a coupon payment on its domestic
bonds on Thursday. Still, questions remain over whether the interest on Evergrande’s
offshore U.S.-dollar denominated bond — also due Thursday — will be
made.
That could be the reason behind caution in the U.S. and
Asia-Pacific markets overnight; U.S. stock futures opened slightly lower
Tuesday night and
Asia-Pacific markets are mixed, with investors keeping a close watch on China
markets , which reopened for trade on Wednesday after a two-day holiday.
Markets in mainland China fell more than 1% on Wednesday’s open before bouncing
back slightly.
Key
data releases also on the agenda for Europe include flash consumer confidence
data for the euro zone in September, Italian industrial sales figures for July
and Dutch consumer spending numbers for July. There are no major earnings
releases Wednesday.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/22/european-stocks-head-for-higher-open-as-markets-prepare-for-fed-update.html
China Evergrande unit will make
onshore bond coupon payments on Sept 23 September 22, 2021
3:01 AM
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China Evergrande
Group’s main unit said on Wednesday that it would make a bond interest payment
on Sept. 23 after private negotiations with bondholders, as global investors
worry over a possible default by China’s No. 2 property developer.
In a Shenzhen exchange filing,
Hengda Real Estate Group Co Ltd said the company would make a coupon payment on
its Shenzhen-traded 5.8% September 2025 bond on time on Thursday.
The company did not detail its plan
for interest payments, saying only that the bond “has already been resolved
through private negotiations.”
The company’s coupon payment totals
232 million yuan ($35.88 million), according to Refinitiv data.
Evergrande is also due to make an
$83.53 million coupon payment on an offshore dollar bond on Thursday. The
Shenzhen exchange filing did not mention the offshore bond.
https://www.reuters.com/article/china-evergrande-debt-bonds-payment/update-2-china-evergrande-unit-will-make-onshore-bond-coupon-payments-on-sept-23-idUSL1N2QO03J
U.S. House approves bill to
suspend debt limit, fund government September
22, 20216:17 AM BST
WASHINGTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) -
Democrats in the House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday to fund the
U.S. government through Dec. 3 and suspend the nation's borrowing limit until
the end of 2022, sending it to the Senate where Republicans have vowed to block
it.
The House vote was 220-211 along
party lines. It was unclear how soon the Senate would act.
If Republicans stick by their
refusal to support the measure in the Senate, Democrats will have to come up
with a new strategy or quickly face the twin problems of a government in
partial shutdown that is unable to pay its bills and the risk of a default for
the first time in modern history.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set the stage on Monday for a showdown
with Republicans when they said they would combine spending and debt measures
in one bill, despite Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's vow to block an
increase in the $28.4 trillion debt ceiling.
On Tuesday, McConnell reiterated
that vow. But he also said: "I want to repeat once again: America must
never default. We never have and we never will."
Speaking to reporters, McConnell
repeated an argument he has made for weeks, that it is the majority party's
responsibility to raise the debt ceiling. That would have the effect of letting
Republicans avoid voting for a debt limit increase ahead of next year's
congressional elections.
More
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-vote-tuesday-fund-govt-through-dec-3-raise-debt-limit-2021-09-21/
Finally, buy now
pay later (BNPL,) as endorsed by the US House of Representatives. What could
possibly go wrong?
How buy now, pay later became a
$100 billion industry Published Tue, Sep 21 2021 4:50 AM EDT
Buy now, pay later is having a moment.
Millions of shoppers now use a buy now, pay later, or BNPL,
service to finance their purchases. And the options are more varied than ever —
Klarna, Affirm
and Afterpay
are just a few of the many providers in the space.
Meanwhile, big companies are jumping on the bandwagon, with
PayPal launching
its own product, Amazon
and Apple
partnering up with Affirm, and Square agreeing to buy Afterpay in a $29 billion deal.
BNPL companies tout their service as a better alternative
to credit cards. But critics are worried many people are spending more than
they can afford and that some may not even realize they’re getting into debt.
So what is buy now, pay later? And why is it suddenly
booming?
What is BNPL? BNPL plans, also known as point-of-sale loans, let shoppers
pay for their items over a period of instalments.
The concept isn’t new. Instalment plans have been around
for years, known as “layaway” in the U.S., or “lay-by” in Australia. These
agreements let people spread the cost of items over a certain amount of time.
BNPL is similar in that consumers get the product upfront
and pay for it in incremental amounts, often interest-free.
Buyers can opt to use a BNPL service when checking out
online with just a few clicks. They typically pay the first instalment then,
and get invoiced the remaining sum during a period of three to four months.
BNPL providers often add a checkout button to a retailer’s
website and then take a cut from the merchant on each transaction. Experts say
retailers are incentivized to agree to this as it often leads to higher average
order value and better conversion rates.
Some BNPL firms also generate income from late payment fees
and interest on longer-term instalment plans.
The advantage for shoppers is that they can buy a more
expensive item than they might normally be able to pay for in one go — say, a
$300 jacket — and spread the cost of their purchase over monthly
instalments.
Why is it so
popular? One word: coronavirus.
The pandemic resulted in many brick-and-mortar retailers
being forced to temporarily shut down and saw consumers spend much more of
their time at home.
This accelerated the growth of online shopping. According
to a report from Worldpay, the payment processing firm owned by FIS , global
e-commerce transactions totaled $4.6 trillion last year, up 19% from 2019.
BNPL accounted for 2.1% — or about $97 billion — of that
sum. This figure is expected to double to 4.2% by 2024, according to Worldpay.
While BNPL plans had already been growing in popularity
prior to the pandemic, a shift in consumer spending habits and surging
e-commerce adoption gave the market a significant lift.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/21/how-buy-now-pay-later-became-a-100-billion-industry.html
"I'll gladly pay
you Tuesday for a hamburger today".
House Speaker Pelosi, with apologies to J. Wellington Wimpy.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our
spendthrift politicians, inflation now
needs an entire section of its own.
Despite obvious signs that barring a severe recession,
inflation is anything but “transitory or temporary,” the OECD does its best to
spin the great central bankster lie of “transitory.”
And then they wonder why they lack credibility with the
general public and are held in universal contempt.
If economists could manage to get
themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists,
that would be splendid.
John Maynard Keynes.
OECD lifts inflation forecasts and cautions on risk of
prolonged rises
Paris-based
club of nations says serious harm can be avoided if policymakers make the right
calls
Chris
Giles in London 21 September, 2021
Inflation
will continue to rise over the next two years, according to a revised
projection by the OECD, which expects price increases to be significantly
higher in 2021 and in 2022 than it had previously forecast for most G20
countries.
Laurence Boone, OECD chief economist, said
managing inflation would be “a very difficult balancing act” for policymakers.
Publishing
largely optimistic growth projections for advanced economies, the Paris-based
club of nations predicted activity would reach the levels forecast before the
pandemic by the end of 2022.
“The speed of the recovery has increased
inflationary pressures, quickly pushing up prices to where we expected them to
be before the pandemic,” said the OECD in its outlook. “Policymakers in
advanced economies should monitor these developments without delay.”
The
OECD forecasts that the average inflation rate across the G20 leading economies
would hit 4.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of the year, with 1.5 percentage
points of that figure caused by the effects of higher shipping costs and
commodity prices.
Since its last forecasts in June, the OECD has
revised up inflation predictions for 2021 and 2022 by more than 0.3 percentage
points for most countries. The US forecast for inflation in 2021 has risen from
2.9 per cent in June to 3.6 per cent.
For
the UK, the equivalent figures were 1.3 per cent in June and 2.3 per cent this
month. For 2022, the inflation forecasts have also risen sharply since June. In
France and Germany, the forecast rose from 0.8 and 1.6 per cent, respectively,
to 1.4 and 2.6 per cent.
More
https://www.ft.com/content/55300c7b-ab06-40c4-a5f4-ed02ddb31374
Europe’s
power crisis is an expensive reminder that renewable energy has its limits September 19, 2021
Europe’s power crisis was just a
matter of time – and that time has come.
Natural gas and electricity prices
are setting record highs virtually every day, and businesses and households
have gone from getting annoyed to being terrified as the bills land like hand
grenades.
The continent’s power system was an
accident waiting to happen, in good part because its purported virtues – vast
amounts of climate-friendly renewable energy and waning numbers of
climate-unfriendly coal-fired plants – were less robust than advertised.
Of course, other factors conspired
to jack up prices at an alarming rate, notably alleged manipulation of the gas
markets by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But the wind not blowing when it was
supposed to was certainly a big part of the problem.
Europe, including the United
Kingdom, normally has a pretty sturdy power system, with ample interconnection
between countries, allowing power buyers to shop around for the best prices. At
the same time, there seemed to be ample diversification of electricity-generation
methods – nuclear, coal, gas, wind, solar, hydro, biomass. As any portfolio
manager knows, diversification ensures protection. When, say, the gas supply is
down and wind power is up, the system adjusts in minutes, and everyone keeps
the lights on.
Not
so this time, because Europe’s energy diversification hid deep flaws. The
upshot: There is not enough cheap power to meet periods of peak demand when air
conditioners are turned on to beat the heat and economies are roaring back
after pandemic shutdowns. Coal plants, which can be turned on and off quickly,
are being torn down because they spew out too much planet-heating carbon
dioxide, plus a nasty array of pollutants – there is no such thing as “clean”
coal. Germany is phasing out its nuclear plants even as it pushes coal out of
its power-generation portfolio.
----
The tight supplies for gas and the motionless wind turbines are triggering
enormous business and household pain across Europe. In the U.K., soaring gas
prices – they are up sixfold in the past year in that country – have forced at
least two large fertilizer plants to close. In Spain, the government is
planning a €3-billion raid on the “excess” profits of energy companies. In
Italy, Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani this week warned that
electricity bills could rise as much as 40 per cent in the next quarter, on top
of the 20-per-cent rise in the last quarter, as prices for gas and traded
carbon credits go through the roof.
More
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-europes-power-crisis-is-an-expensive-reminder-that-renewable-energy/
Historically,
gold has always been a safe haven against inflation and a safe haven in times
of political instability.
John
Paulson.
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Today, if we’re going to start
vaccinating children as young as 5 with a non immunising short-lived vaccine,
shouldn’t we have the long term studies data first, rather than use the
children, the most vulnerable to adverse long term effects/problems, as expendable
guinea pigs?
Shouldn’t Pfizer be on the
financial hook for coverage down the road if this blows up like Thalidomide?
Since there are no long-term
studies on these vaccines at all, neither in animals, adults nor children, why
not treat children prophylacticly with vitamin D boosters, Ivermectin child
dosages, and zinc boosters, rather than semi-tested vaccines? Cui bono?
Pfizer says vaccine safe,
effective for kids 5-11, will apply for EUA
“Over the past nine months, hundreds of millions of people
ages 12 and older from around the world have received our COVID-19 vaccine,”
said company CEO Albert Bourla in a release.
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 17:16
Pfizer is planning to request Emergency Use
Authorization (EUA) for its coronavirus vaccine from the US Food and Drug
Administration and the European Medicines Agency as soon as possible, the
company announced Monday, reporting positive results from its Phase II/III
trial.
“Over the past nine months, hundreds of millions of
people ages 12 and older from around the world have received our COVID-19
vaccine,” said company CEO Albert Bourla in a release. “We are eager to extend
the protection afforded by the vaccine to this younger population, subject to
regulatory authorization, especially as we track the spread of the Delta
variant and the substantial threat it poses to children.
“Since July, pediatric cases of COVID-19 have risen by
about 240% in the US – underscoring the public health need for vaccination,”
Bourla continued. “These trial results provide a strong foundation for seeking
authorization of our vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old, and we plan to
submit them to the FDA and other regulators with urgency.”
The
company is also planning to submit the data from the full Phase III trial to a
peer-reviewed scientific journal.
In
Israel, the Health Ministry reported on Monday that 40% of the cases in recent
days have been children under the age of 11. Among the Arab population, where
schools have been running in full since September 1, the situation is even more
acute.
Some
2,268 children between the ages of five and 11 received two doses of 10
micrograms of the company’s coronavirus
vaccine , each 21 days apart. Within one month after the
second dose, the antibody responses of the participants were comparable to
those recorded in previous studies of people ages 16 to 25, the company said.
The older cohort, however, received 30 micrograms.
“The
10 micrograms dose was carefully selected as the preferred dose for safety,
tolerability, and immunogenicity in children 5 to 11 years of age,” Pfizer
explained.
It
added that the vaccine was “well-tolerated,” with side effects comparable to
those experienced by the older cohort.
The
company said that it will continue to accumulate the safety and efficacy data
required to file for full FDA
approval in this age group.
The
original Phase I/II/III trial initially enrolled 4,500 kids ages 6 months to 11
years in the US, Finland, Poland and Spain for more than 90 clinical trials. It
was designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of the
vaccine in three age groups: 5 to 11 years, 2 to 5, and 6 months to 2 years.
Topline readouts for the other two age cohorts from the trial are expected as
soon as the fourth quarter of this year, Pfizer said.
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-topline-results-from-trial-of-covid-19-vaccine-in-children-5-to-11-679870
Thalidomide scandal
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the use of thalidomide
in 46 countries by women who were pregnant or who subsequently became pregnant,
resulted in the "biggest man‐made medical disaster ever," resulting
in more than 10,000 children born with a range of severe deformities, such as phocomelia ,
as well as thousands of miscarriages.[1] [2]
Thalidomide was introduced in 1956 and was aggressively
marketed by the German pharmaceutical company Chemie Grünenthal under the trade name
Contergan as a medication for anxiety , trouble sleeping ,
"tension", and morning
sickness .[3] [4] morning
sickness without having been tested on pregnant women.[5] [3] [6]
More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal
J&J says Covid booster shot
is 94% effective in the U.S. when given two months after first dose Published Tue, Sep 21 2021 6:30 AM EDT
Johnson
& Johnson said Tuesday its Covid-19 booster shot is 94% effective when
administered two months after the first dose in the United States. It also said
the booster increases antibody levels by four to six times compared with one
shot alone.
A J&J booster dose given six months out from the first
shot appears to be potentially even more protective against Covid, the company
said, generating antibodies twelvefold higher four weeks after the boost,
regardless of age.
When given as a booster, the vaccine remained well
tolerated, with side effects generally consistent with those seen after the
initial dose, according to J&J.
“We now have generated evidence that a booster shot further
increases protection against COVID-19 and is expected to extend the duration of
protection significantly,” J&J chief scientific officer Dr. Paul Stoffels
said in a statement.
The new data, provided in a press release, helps J&J
make a case to the Food and Drug Administration to authorize a booster shot to
some 14.8 million Americans who have received the company’s single-dose
vaccine.
The Biden administration announced plans last month to roll
out booster shots for people who received the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. An
FDA advisory committee on Friday unanimously
recommended Pfizer booster shots to people age 65 and older and other
vulnerable Americans. A final decision from the agency is expected any day now.
U.S. health officials said they needed more data on
the J&J vaccine before they can recommend boosters of those shots.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/21/jj-covid-vaccine-booster-shot-is-94percent-effective-when-given-at-two-months.html
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
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.
Sunlight and
salt water join forces in electricity-free cooling system By Ben Coxworth September 20, 2021
There are many parts of the world which lack
infrastructure, but that get a lot of sunlight ... which makes buildings
uncomfortably hot. A new system could help, as it uses a combination of
sunlight and salt water – but no electricity – to produce a cooling effect.
Currently being developed at Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah
University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the experimental setup takes
advantage of a natural "phase-change" phenomenon in which energy is
absorbed as salt crystals dissolve within water. This means that if salt is
added to warm water, that water rapidly cools as the salt dissolves.
After some experimentation with different types of salt, it
was found that one known as ammonium nitrate worked best. Mainly because it's
highly water-soluble, its cooling power is four times greater than that of the
next-best salt, ammonium chloride. As an added bonus, ammonium nitrate is
already widely utilized in fertilizer, and is quite inexpensive.
Besides its use in cooling systems for buildings, the
system could also be utilized to refrigerate food. In lab tests, water with
added ammonium nitrate was placed in a metal cup, which was in turn put inside
a sealed polystyrene foam box. As the salt dissolved and the water cooled, the
temperature of the cup dropped from room temperature (about 25 ºC/77 ºF) to 3.6
ºC (38 ºF) within approximately 20 minutes. It proceeded to stay below 15 ºC
(59 ºF) for over 15 hours.
Additionally, once all of the salt had dissolved, solar
heat was used to evaporate the water. The salt was left behind in the form of
crystals which formed on the cup – those crystals could then be collected and
reused in the cooling system. And while allowing water to evaporate in parched,
arid environments might seem wasteful, most of that water could be reclaimed
and reused if a solar still
A paper on the research, was was led by Prof. Peng Wang,
was recently published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science
Source: KAUST AlphaGalileo
https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/sunlight-salt-water-electricity-free-cooling-system/
The
way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of
taxation and inflation.
Vladimir
Lenin.
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