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Today we remember, honour and respect all those who died or were traumatised in the atrocity of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
Today, as we reflect on the 20th anniversary of the atrocity of 9/11, have we reached a global inflection point?
Are the central bankster fuelled stock casinos pulling back ahead of a central bankster change of direction. From easy money boom, to tighter money bust?
Tech slide pulls S&P 500 down for its 5th straight loss
Wall Street capped a choppy day of trading Friday with another pullback for stocks and the S&P 500′s first weekly loss in three weeks.
The benchmark index fell 0.8%, its fifth straight decline, and ended 1.7% lower for the holiday-shortened week. That’s it’s biggest weekly drop since June. The other major U.S. stock indexes also posted weekly losses.
The selling was widespread, though technology, health care and communications stocks weighed most heavily on the S&P 500. Smaller company stocks also fell broadly. Treasury yields mostly rose. The price of U.S. crude oil rose 2.3%.
Stocks have traded in a narrow range for several weeks as most investors are sitting on the sidelines waiting to get a fuller understanding of where the economy is headed and how the pandemic is impacting corporations.
“There isn’t any new good news coming, and that’s important because we’ve gotten a decent amount of good news that has flowed up until this point this year,” said Liz Young, head of investment strategy at personal finance company SoFi.
The S&P 500 fell 34.70 points to 4,458.58. The index is now within 1.8% of the all-time high it set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 271.66 points, or 0.8%, to 34,607.72. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite shed an early gain, dropping 132.76 points, or 0.9%, to 15,115.49.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies gave up 21.58 points, or 1%, to 2,227.55.
Investors mulled a negative piece of inflation data Friday. Inflation at the wholesale level climbed 8.3% last month from August 2020, the biggest annual gain since the Labor Department started calculating the 12-month number in 2010.
Federal Reserve policymakers have said they believe inflation this year would be temporary and is a result of the economy recovering from the pandemic. However, persistently high inflation could force the Fed’s hand to start pulling back on its bond-buying program and low interest rate policy sooner than anticipated.
More
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-china-asia-tokyo-health-60edb4ecb7ae62ddc1fdd0a915324856
In other news, in a poorly thought out policy, did President Biden just make finding US workers worse? Will willing workers now demand a vaccine premium and if they do, how much cost push inflation will result?
Plus, doesn’t this skew employers to try to stay below that hundredth employee? What about making some hires independent contractors?
How long before transitory inflation becomes permanent?
Vaccine mandate spawns new fear: finding and keeping workers
The new federal vaccine requirement announced by President Joe Biden has created another worry for large businesses: With help wanted signs up almost everywhere, some could lose valuable employees or won’t be able to find new ones.
Biden announced sweeping new orders Thursday that will require employers with more than 100 workers to mandate vaccinations against COVID-19 or offer weekly testing. The new rules could affect as many as 100 million Americans, although it’s not clear how many of those people are currently unvaccinated.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says the vaccine mandate could go a long way to boost the economy.
“The evidence across countries is that more vaccinations means fewer infections, hospitalizations and deaths, which in turn means a stronger economy,” he said.
But even those who favor Biden’s decision as a way to stop the coronavirus from spreading further are afraid that vaccination-averse workers will quit, or job seekers won’t apply for their openings. Some workers may also switch to smaller companies where shots in the arm aren’t required.
“In a tight marketplace, it’s very difficult to find employees, much less to keep our current employees,” said Jonathan Chariff, CEO of South Motors, a group of 12 auto dealerships in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area with more than 1,100 workers. “It’s easy for them to go and find another job elsewhere.”
To be sure, the mandate could make some employees more comfortable working with others in tight spaces. Indeed, Chariff said his company supports Biden’s move and wants to make sure all workers are vaccinated to keep them safe, especially after two employees died from the virus. However, the company decided against requiring them because of the labor shortage. Right now, Chariff has 80 to 100 openings.
Karl Wadensten, CEO of Richmond, Rhode Island-based VIBCO Vibrators, was an early adopter of masks, weekly virus testing and temperature checks at his manufacturing business and has encouraged vaccinations, but fears he’d lose employees if he forced them to get the jab.
Wadensten, whose company makes industrial vibrators used in dump trucks and other applications, said Friday he is waiting for more clarity about what the Biden orders will mean for his business, which has a small number of government contracts. His workforce has been hovering just above and below 100 employees, of whom about 85% are vaccinated.
“For that other 15%, it would be detrimental to their beliefs and values that they have,” he said.
Conversely, smaller companies see being exempt as an advantage. Like other businesses, Alan Dietrich, CEO of Crater Lake Spirits in Bend, Oregon, is facing staff shortages. He has a 36 workers, with an immediate need for two or three more.
“Being left out of the mandate is helpful for hiring,” he said. “We are still finding that a small but meaningful number of people in our area are vaccine hesitant, and staffing is so tough that even one person is significant to us.”
More
Finally, a day to remember and respect the privilege of life.
US honors 9/11 dead on 20th anniversary of attacks
Issued on:
America marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11 Saturday with solemn ceremonies given added poignancy by the recent chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and return to power of the Taliban.
Heart-wrenching commemorations will unfold at each of the three sites where 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers -- mostly from Saudi Arabia -- crashed packed airliners, striking the cultural, financial and political hearts of the United States and changing the world forever.
The memorials come with US troops finally gone from Afghanistan, but national discord -- and for President Joe Biden, political peril -- are overshadowing any sense of closure.
In a video posted on the eve of the anniversary, Biden urged Americans to show unity, "our greatest strength."
"To me, that's the central lesson of September 11th. It's that at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength," Biden said in a six- minute message from the White House.
At New York's Ground Zero, where two pools of water now stand where the Twin Towers used to, relatives will read out the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed, in a four-hour-long service starting at 8:30 am (1230 GMT).
Six moments of silence will be observed, corresponding with the times the two World Trade Center towers were struck, and fell, and the moments the Pentagon was attacked and Flight 93 crashed.
Monica Iken-Murphy, who lost her 37-year-old husband Michael Iken in the World Trade Center, says this will be a "heightened" anniversary for many Americans.
But for her, as for many other survivors, the pain has never wavered.
"I feel like it just happened," she told AFP.
A whole generation has grown up since the morning of September 11, 2001.
More
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210911-us-honors-9-11-dead-on-20th-anniversary-of-attacks-1
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Producer inflation accelerated in August, as wholesale prices rose record 8.3% from a year ago
Prices that producers get for final demand goods and services surged in August at their highest annual rate since at least 2010, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The producer price index rose 0.7% for the month, above the 0.6% Dow Jones estimate, though below the 1% increase in July.
On a year-over-year basis, the gauge rose 8.3%, which is the biggest annual increase since records have been kept going back to November 2010. That came following a 7.8% move higher in July, which also set a record.
The data comes amid heightened inflation fears fed by supply chain issues, a shortage of various consumer and producer goods and heightened demand related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Federal Reserve officials expect inflationary pressures to ease through the year, but they have remained stubbornly persistent, with Friday’s numbers indicating that the trend likely will continue.
more
High Natural Gas Prices Strain Europeans, Weighing on Recovery
Sept. 8, 2021
LONDON — As the world struggles to recover from the pandemic, soaring natural gas prices threaten to become a drag on the economies of Europe and elsewhere. Wholesale prices for the fuel are at their highest in years — nearly five times where they were at this time in 2019, before people started falling ill with the virus.
The high costs feed into electric power prices and have begun showing up in utility bills, weighing on consumers whose personal finances have already been strained by the pandemic. The price jumps are unusual because demand is typically relatively low in the warmer summer months, raising alarms about the prospects for further increases when demand jumps in the winter.
Spanish households are paying roughly 40 percent more than what they paid for electricity a year ago as the wholesale price has more than doubled, prompting angry protests against utility companies.
“The electricity price hike has created a lot of indignation, and this is of course moving onto the streets,” said María Campuzano, spokeswoman for the Alliance against Energy Poverty, a Spanish association that helps people struggling to pay energy bills.
The pain is being felt across Europe, where gas is used for home heating and cooking as well as electric power generation. Citing record natural gas prices, Britain’s energy regulatory agency, Ofgem, recently gave utilities a green light to increase the ceiling on energy bills for millions of households paying standard rates by about 12 percent, to 1,277 pounds, or $1,763, a year.
Several trends are to blame for soaring prices, including a resurgence of global demand after pandemic lockdowns, led by China, and a European cold snap in the latter part of winter this year that drained storage levels. The higher-than-expected demand and crimped supply are “a perfect storm,” said Marco Alverà, chief executive of Snam, the large gas company in Milan.
The worry is that if Europe has a cold winter, prices could climb further, possibly forcing some factories to temporarily shut down.
---- On the other hand, the turbulence in prices may also be a harbinger of volatility if energy companies begin to give up on fossil fuel production before renewable sources are ready to pick up the slack, analysts say. In addition, the closure of coal-fired generating plants in Britain and other countries has reduced flexibility in the system, Mr. Alverà said.
Gas prices in the United States have risen as well, but they are only around a quarter of those being paid in Europe. The United States has a big price advantage over Europe because of its large domestic supply of relatively cheap gas from shale drilling and other activities, while Europe must import most of its gas.
The immediate worry for markets in Europe is that suppliers have not followed their usual practice and used the summer months to fill storage chambers with cheap gas that will be used during the winter, when cold weather more than doubles the consumption of gas in countries like Britain and Germany.
Instead, suppliers responded to the cold weather late last winter by draining gas storage facilities. Subsequently, they have been reluctant to top them up with high-priced gas. As a result, European storage facilities are at the depleted levels usual in winter rather than the peaks of fall.
More
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/business/europe-natural-gas-prices.html
U.K. GDP expands a mere 0.1%, sparking worries about stagflation
Published: Sept. 10, 2021 at 3:53 a.m. ET
London stocks inched higher on Friday, bouncing back from sharp losses, but investors were facing downbeat data that showed the economy struggling against continued fallout from the pandemic.
Gross domestic product rose just 0.1% in July, and remains 2.1% below its pre-pandemic peak, said the Office for National Statistics. It also fell short of consensus forecasts for 0.6% growth.
“This reading on the health of the economy is significantly worse than expected and a particular worry is that many of the supply chain issues have exacerbated since July, with companies in industries right across the board warning of problems,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown, in a note to clients.
“If fewer cars roll off production lines, if drivers aren’t available to deliver goods and if shelves go bare, then the only way for output to go is down,” said the analyst, who added that the struggle to find workers, driving up wages and inflation.
“All this raises the unpalatable possibility that stagflation could take hold, where there is a drag on economic growth and knock on higher unemployment, amid the headache of rising prices,” she said.
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.
Today, all you ever need to know about Ivermectin. A definitive review. Approx. 37 minutes.
Ivermectin Toxicity Reviewed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATiX0-2PEr4
So why all the deliberate misinformation put out on ivermectin by the left wing, Democrat mass media? Cui bono?
Who gains from preventing early-stage infected victims from getting treatment? If ivermectin is effective in India, why wouldn’t it be effective in GB, the USA, Europe, in treating early-stage SARs sufferers too?
How many were forced into hospitals that didn’t need to be? How many might have been prevented from developing serious Covid-19 and complications?
Next, some very useful 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
FDA information. https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download
Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some more useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
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.
Perovskite crystals given new job as nuclear radiation detectors
Michael Irving September 02, 2021
Perovskite crystals are quickly gaining a name for themselves in the solar energy field, thanks to their impressive ability to convert photons into electricity. But scientists have now tweaked this process to pick up neutrons instead, making an effective detector for leaks from radioactive materials.
Perovskites are a class of minerals with a crystalline structure that makes them very effective at interacting with photons. The most notable application is in perovskite solar cells, which have exploded in efficiency in a little over a decade, reaching up to 25.5 percent alone or 29.15 percent when paired with silicon.
But their uses could extend beyond generating electricity from light. This same mechanism could be used as a light sensor – if the device gives off a jolt of electricity, then light is coming in from somewhere. And now, a team of researchers has adapted this process beyond photons to a new type of subatomic particle, the neutron. Free neutrons are emitted through nuclear reactions, so a perovskite-based device could be used to detect leaks in nuclear power plants, or radioactive materials that are being improperly stored or transported.
The particular perovskite used in this study was a compound called methylammonium lead tri-bromide. Crystals of this material were exposed to a neutron source, and sure enough tiny electric currents were produced. The neutrons penetrate into the nucleus of the crystal atoms, exciting them into a higher energy state. This quickly decays into gamma rays, which charge the perovskite and create the measurable current.
The problem was, this current was too small to be of much practical use. So the team boosted it by adding a thin layer of gadolinium metal, which reaches a higher state of energy than perovskite alone, thus producing more gamma photons and creating a more powerful electric current. This can then be transported through a carbon electrode into a voltmeter or current meter.
In the final version of the detector, the researchers grew the perovskite crystal around the gadolinium foil, so that the latter was completely engulfed by the former. This boosted the signal even more, and even allowed the direction and size of the neutron flow to be measured. The materials used offer other advantages too.
“It’s simple, it’s cheap, and it’s cost-effective,” says László Forró, an author of the study. “This is a proof of principle, that it works. And now we can think about configuration for a very efficient detector.”
The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Source: EPFL
This weekend’s musical diversion. Staying with over talented Italian genius Luigi Boccherini, who spent most of his creative life in Spain. Lucky Spain! Approx. amazing 13 minutes.
Boccherini-Quintetto n. 4 G 448 - Fandango (III-parte II)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLOmwmwPMxY
This weekend’s chess update. Approx. 10 minutes.
Nepo Has Landed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OUEd-yTRsU
This weekend’s maths update. Johnny Ball is back talking about Hippocrates, Lunes, and a Fancy Q. Approx. three and a half minutes.
Area of the Q - Numberphile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO2yMdU0Rq4
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