Baltic Dry Index. 5526 -124 Brent Crude 82.39
Spot Gold 1757
Mr. Masson suggests that used vehicle buyers will need to start asking questions such as “when was this EV last virus checked?” – something that the industry is not yet prepared for.
The US employment report from the Bureau of Lying Statistics (BLS) released yesterday was shocking, yawn.
New jobs came in at just +194,000 rather than the 500,000 the “experts” predicted. With experts like that who needs fools?
Happily, though, America’s central banksters can use that as cover to delay tapering their monthly bond purchases, give up on spin about raising interest rates to tackle soaring inflation. Let the stock casinos bubble on.
Unhappily, “Despite the weak jobs total, wages increased sharply. The monthly gain of 0.6% pushed the year-over-year rise to 4.6% as companies use wage increases to combat the persistent labor shortage.” The Fed will ignore this sign of a growing wage-price spiral.
The BLS also revised higher July’s jobs number by 38,000 and August’s by 131,000. The US central banksters will gladly ignore these numbers too.
If these numbers are accurate, with the emphasis on the if, stagflation it is to be. Higher prices, higher wages, higher energy bills, weak new employment.
September’s jobs creation comes up short with gain of just 194,000
Published Fri, Oct 8 2021 8:30 AM EDT Updated Fri, Oct 8 2021 10:45 AM EDT
The U.S. economy created jobs at a much slower-than-expected pace in September, a pessimistic sign about the state of the economy though the total was held back substantially by a sharp drop in government employment.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by just 194,000 in the month, compared with the Dow Jones estimate of 500,000, the Labor Department reported Friday. The unemployment rate fell to 4.8%, better than the expectation for 5.1% and the lowest since February 2020.
The headline number was hurt by a 123,000 decline in government payrolls, while private payrolls increased by 317,000.
The drop in the jobless rate came as the labor force participation rate edged lower, meaning more people who were sidelined during the coronavirus pandemic have returned to the workforce. A more encompassing number that also includes so-called discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons declined to 8.5%, also a pandemic-era low.
“This is quite a deflating report,” said Nick Bunker, economic research director at job placement site Indeed. “This year has been one of false dawns for the labor market. Demand for workers is strong and millions of people want to return to work, but employment growth has yet to find its footing.”
----Despite the weak jobs total, wages increased sharply. The monthly gain of 0.6% pushed the year-over-year rise to 4.6% as companies use wage increases to combat the persistent labor shortage. The available workforce declined by 183,000 in September and is 3.1 million shy of where it was in February 2020, just before the pandemic was declared.
“Labor shortages are continuing to put severe upward pressure on wages ... at a time when the return of low-wage leisure and hospitality workers should be depressing the average,” wrote Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
Leisure and hospitality again led job creation, adding 74,000 positions, as the unemployment rate for the sector plunged to 7.7% from 9.1%. Professional and business services contributed 60,000 while retail increased by 56,000.
----There was some good news in Friday’s report from previous months.
July’s already-strong gains were revised higher by 38,000 to 1.0913 million, while August’s big letdown also was revised up, to 366,000 from the initially reported 235,000.
The employment-to-population level increased to 58.7%, its highest since March 2020.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/08/september-jobs-report.html
Dow closes near the flat line on Friday after jobs report miss, but notches winning week
Published Thu, Oct 7 2021 6:03 PM EDT Updated Fri, Oct 8 2021 4:16 PM EDT
The Dow was little changed on Friday, notching a winning week as optimism about a short-term debt ceiling deal trumped a disappointing jobs report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 8.69 points to 34,746.25. The S&P 500 fell about 0.2% to 4,391.34. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite fell 0.5% to 14,579.54.
The major averages all ended in the green for the week. The Dow rose 1.2% for its best week since June. The S&P 500 rose about 0.8% for its best week since August. The Nasdaq rose just shy of 0.1% since Monday.
Energy stocks plowed higher on Friday as West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, crossed $80 per barrel on Friday for the first time since November 2014. WTI crude settled at $79.35. Exxon Mobil rose 2.5%, Chevron advanced 2.2% and ConocoPhillips added nearly 4.8%.
---- A bleaker labor picture could stall the Federal Reserve, as it prepares to slow its $120 billion-per-month bond-buying program.
“This jobs number could call into question the starting point for taper late this year,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group. “There are lots of positives in the report, like an uptick in average hourly earnings, but not enough to sugar coat the fact the employment picture remains murky with all the Covid related cross currents.”
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/07/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html
Next, start praying for the mildest winter ever in Europe. Even with Nord Stream 2 in service, against Uncle Scam’s wishes, Russia might not be able to send much more natural gas to Europe and US LNG export supply is limited and expensive.
I hope no one is Dreaming of a White Christmas! If we get only a normal European winter Dream instead of a Black Christmas using restarted Old King Coal, but even coal is now in short supply and expensive.
Below, Europe bet on Green but Black turned up.
Russia offered to pump more gas to Europe. But analysts doubt that’s ever going to happen
Published Fri, Oct 8 20211:16 AM EDT
LONDON — Winter isn’t even upon us yet and Europe is already experiencing a gas market crisis with bumper demand and limited supply, prompting a squeeze on prices in the region.
So when Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in on Wednesday, offering to increase Russia’s gas supplies to Europe, regional gas prices (up a staggering 500% so far this year) fell and markets breathed a sigh of relief.
Market analysts quickly suspected that the offer to increase supplies to Europe was likely intended to put pressure on Germany to certify the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline (which will take Russian gas supplies to Germany via the Baltic Sea) for use, as Russia is waiting on Germany’s energy regulator to authorize the $11 billion pipeline, a process that could take several months.
Experts warned that Russia’s offer demonstrated that Europe is increasingly vulnerable to Moscow’s ability to turn on — and off, more importantly — gas supplies as and when it wants.
While Russia’s apparent largesse might have offered gas markets some respite, analysts have since noted that Russia might not even be able to deliver on promises to supply more.
“Comments from Mr. Putin appear to have provided some comfort to the market. However, whether these additional gas supplies depend on a quick approval of Nord Stream 2 or not may not be the main issue,” Adeline Van Houtte, Europe analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said in a note Thursday.
“Currently, the Russian domestic gas market remains tight, with its inventories running low, output already near its peak and winter looming in Russia as well, limiting gas export capacity,” she said.
“There is also little sign that Gazprom — the Russian gas export pipeline monopoly, which supplies 35% of European gas needs — is attempting to pump more gas to Europe’s spot buyers via existing routes, and overall given its small room for manoeuver, it is unlikely that Gazprom could deliver more than around 190bcm (billion cubic meters) to Europe this year,” she said, warning it meant “European prices are unlikely to cool substantially in 2021.”
Mike Fulwood, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, expressed doubts that Russia is able to supply more gas to Europe too, noting that production is already at record levels.
“Russia’s been faced with the same demand pressures” as elsewhere, he noted.
“It was [a] very cold winter in Russia last winter, and Russian production is actually at record levels,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.” “It’s well up on last year of course when demand was down, but it’s also up on 2019 levels, and they’ve been having to refill their own storage as well, which was depleted badly because of the cold weather.”
“So it’s extremely doubtful whether they could supply more gas, whatever the route,” he added.
More
There is no quick fix for Europe’s self-manufactured energy crisis
Eric Reguly Published October 8, 2021
---- A bit more than a decade ago, a concerted effort was launched within the European Union countries and a few others on the continent to phase out their coal-fired generating plants to clean the skies and slow the pace of global warming.
For the most part, the effort worked and governments congratulated themselves for a green job well done. Coal plants everywhere died an undignified death. Across Europe, about half are gone or slated to close soon. In the mid-naughts, a third to a half of the U.K.’s electricity came from coal; today, practically none does. Ditto with Denmark.
That’s the good news. The bad is that the Europeans are guilty of spectacularly bad planning. What was lost – coal-fired plants and their ability to meet peak demand fairly quickly – was never adequately replaced. Yes, loads of solar and wind power came on stream, but not enough. And – surprise! – solar and wind power became utterly useless when the sun did not shine and the wind did not blow.
At the same time, Germany made the ill-fated decision to close its nuclear plants and failed to store enough natural gas to keep the gas plants amply fed.
The result is a genuine energy crisis, sending electricity bills soaring, eating into disposable income, shuttering some factories and energy wholesalers (mostly in the U.K.), triggering inflation and threatening the post-lockdown economic recovery. Blackouts are not out of the question as winter approaches and the demand for gas to heat homes and keep the lights on climbs.
In effect, the Europeans manufactured their own energy crisis. An energy system that was greener but less resistant to supply and price shocks was bound to trigger a crisis at some point.
The price increases are truly astounding. According to Bloomberg, electricity prices across Europe were still setting record highs until earlier this week – they have levelled off in the past few days as Russia, which supplies 40 per cent of Western Europe’s gas, and Qatar tried to talk down the gas market. In Germany, day-ahead electricity prices reached €300 per megawatt hour. In Spain, they hit €288; in Italy, €308. Those prices are more than 500 per cent above their 2010-2020 average.
The really bad news is that there is no quick fix for this mess.
Only the gods can make the wind blow hard to spin the wind turbines in the North Sea, where the winds have been weak for months. Coal is back in demand – big time – for Europe’s remaining coal burners. Prices for Newcastle coal have reached US$280 a tonne; only half a year ago, the price was US$70 to US$80. (Newcastle is the benchmark price for thermal coal exported from Newcastle, Australia, one of the world’s biggest coal export terminals.)
But astronomical coal prices will not magically increase supply, because Big Mining is getting out of the coal game to meet its net-zero emissions commitments.
Prices should remain much higher than normal because the Chinese and Indian governments have told their energy companies to secure coal and gas supplies at any cost before the winter sets in. This week, Beijing ordered coal mining companies in Inner Mongolia to ramp up production – and damn the emissions consequences.
Ten or 15 years ago, when greening the European energy system was getting under way, the shortcomings of wind and solar power were hardly a secret. Government energy planners must have known they were taking an enormous risk by phasing out the coal burners and gambling that renewables, as well as virtually unlimited supplies of gas from Russia, would fill the gap.
The gamble went against them. While Russia does have plenty of gas, it has been accused of withholding new supplies. The Great Energy Reset was entirely flawed.
More
Finally, more on our series, so you really, really, really want to drive an EV. Apart from the slight risk of getting electrocuted if the charging station malfunctions in wet weather or some malicious person’s tampered with it, what happens if it’s been hacked to attack your vehicle or credit card or both?
Experts express concerns over security of electric vehicle charging stations
October 8, 2021.
As more drivers get behind the wheel of electric vehicles, researchers and cybersecurity experts are expressing concern over the security of the systems that people use to charge them.
Canada now boasts a network of more than 6,000 public electric vehicle charging stations, according to Natural Resources Canada, with more being announced almost daily.
Public charging stations consist of a charger that plugs into the electric vehicle and a computer system that accepts payments from the user, all of which is connected to the public electricity grid and the internet. If you are an EV driver, or are contemplating becoming one, these public stations are key to giving you full use of your vehicle by allowing battery fill-ups while away from home.
Concerns exist at several levels about the security of public charging. David Masson, the Toronto-based director of enterprise security at Darktrace, a cybersecurity software provider, says that if you think of your car as a computer, and you plug it into a charging station that’s connected to the internet, you’re opening it up to being hacked. “As soon as you plug anything into anything else in the cyberworld, the thing that’s just been plugged in can either hack, or be hacked, by something else,” he says.
Beyond the car and the charger, he says, the user and any networks their phone is connected to may also be at risk.
Mr. Masson says most hackers are in it for the money, and foresees two likely scenarios. First, hackers could hold your car ransom by taking control of its systems. This could be an extremely effective strategy when employed on EV drivers, he says, because if you are “in the middle of nowhere, guess what you are going to do? You’re going to pay the ransom.” Second, a fleet of EVs and charging stations could provide a fertile ground for cryptojacking, which uses hacked computers to mine for cryptocurrency. With EVs, “you get a ready supply of battery power, which is going to get charged up regularly, and computing power in the car,” he says.
Mitra Mirhassani, co-director of the Shield Automotive Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Windsor says that in addition to these threats, malicious actors or terrorists could also use hacked charging stations to misdirect public transit, and disrupt transportation by disabling charging stations.
She says a threat also comes from the potential for damage to the electricity network itself. If chargers can be hacked and controlled remotely, the built-in overrides that prevent them from overloading circuits can be breached, opening the possibility of damage to the power grid.
More
“At gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.”
Casino Royale.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
UK starting pay jumps by most on record as staff shortages bite - survey
October 8, 2021 1:19 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - British employers increased pay for new staff by the most since at least the 1990s, according to a survey that will be studied by the Bank of England as it tries to assess how persistent the recent jump in inflation might be.
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation said firms were still seeking to hire in September but staff availability fell sharply again, pushing up starting salaries for permanent and temporary workers by the most in the survey’s 24-year history.
REC Chief Executive Neil Carberry said competition for staff was widespread, from food processing and logistics - including the acute shortage of truck drivers which led to Britain’s recent fuel supply crisis - to office-based jobs.
“We have all seen how labour shortages have affected our everyday lives over the past few weeks, whether that’s an empty petrol station or fewer goods on supermarket shelves,” he said.
More
Energy prices: Significant rises to come, says regulator Ofgem
8 October, 2021
Households will again see "significant rises" in energy prices next spring, regulator Ofgem has warned.
Its chief executive, Jonathan Brearley, said the price cap, which limits how much energy providers can charge per unit, would go up again because of the "unprecedented" rise in gas prices.
The cap is revised twice a year and is next due to be changed in April.
Natural gas prices are at record highs as economies around the world begin to recover from the Covid crisis.
As a result, firms that supply gas to householders are running into trouble because they have agreed to sell energy at less than the price it now costs them to buy it.
Last month, nine of those companies went out of business, forcing 1.7 million customers to move to new suppliers.
Ofgem's Mr Brearley told the BBC that the price cap was there to stop firms making unfair profits, but "legitimate costs have to be passed through".
He said it was too early to say how much the rise in April would be or whether Ofgem would have to review the price cap more frequently in future.
However, he added that the regulator might have to look at the formula according to which the cap was set.
---- The energy crisis falls into three broad stages for UK consumers and businesses.
Firstly, the here and now. Domestic customers have seen a rise in direct debit demands and bills from suppliers. They are, however, protected from the extreme cost of gas on the wholesale markets by the price cap. Businesses are not. Many are seeing instant and large increases in their energy bills.
Secondly, as Ofgem confirms, significantly higher energy prices in the spring are inevitable, potentially adding hundreds of pounds to an annual household bill. That is something which customers can do nothing to stop.
Thirdly, a review by the regulator will consider the extent to which the price cap protects customers versus the extra burden it places on all bill payers picking up the cost if the cap causes suppliers to fold.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58840537
World food prices continue to rise, hit 10-year peak, U.N. agency says
Posted October 7, 2021 8:09 am
World food prices rose for a second consecutive month in September to reach a 10-year peak, driven by gains for cereals and vegetable oils, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also projected record global cereal production in 2021, but said this would be outpaced by forecast consumption.
FAO’s food price index, which tracks international prices of the most globally traded food commodities, averaged 130.0 points last month, the highest reading since September 2011, according to the agency’s data.
The figure compared with a revised 128.5 for August. The August figure was previously given as 127.4.
On a year-on-year basis, prices were up 32.8 per cent in September.
Agricultural commodity prices have risen steeply in the past year, fueled by harvest setbacks and Chinese demand.
The FAO’s cereal price index rose by two per cent in September from the previous month. That was led by a near four per cent increase for wheat prices, with the UN agency citing tightening export availabilities amid strong demand.
“Among major cereals, wheat will be the focus in the coming weeks as demand need to be tested against fast rising prices,” FAO Senior Economist Abdolreza Abbassian said in a statement.
World vegetable oil prices were up 1.7 per cent on the month and showing a year-on-year rise of about 60 per cent, as palm oil prices climbed on robust import demand and concerns over labor shortages in Malaysia, FAO said.
More
https://globalnews.ca/news/8249917/world-food-prices-rise-10-year-peak/
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
"An Environmental Disaster": An EV Battery Metals Crunch Is On The Horizon As The Industry Races To Recycle
by Tyler Durden Monday, Aug 02, 2021 - 08:40 PM
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Ivermectin - Truth and Totalitarianism
Oct 4, 2021
"Merck stock surged 10% Friday after it said its investigational pill cuts the risk of hospitalization and death in COVID-19 patients...The pill reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by about 50%,” Merck and its partner, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, said in a statement Friday.
"This is a phenomenal result. This is a profound game-changer to have an oral pill that had this kind of effect, this magnitude of effect in patients who are at high risk who are already symptomatic," former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Friday on CNBC about results of the interim analysis.
"Meanwhile, shares of COVID vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna fell 2.5% and 10%, respectively."
This puts Dr. Scott Gottlieb between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, as a member of Pfizer's Board of Directors, he is paid handsomely to attend a few board meetings per year, yet on the other hand, he must not be too glowing in his praise of the antiviral, which might lead people away from the Pfizer vaccine. Moreover, it could affect sales just as it has already dropped the stock price.
In 2020, Gottlieb was paid $338,587 by Pfizer. In 2020, he also earned $525,850 as a director of Illumina. Due to his former FDA Chief status, Gottlieb is in high demand as one word of favor from him can send a stock price soaring.
https://www.erieri.com/executive/salary/scott-gottlieb-3bpl
https://www1.salary.com/ILLUMINA-INC-Executive-Salaries.html
He has served on multiple other boards, including Tempus Labs, National Resilience, and the Mount Sinai Health System. It must be a daunting task to walk the line by promoting one corporate interest while not offending any of the others.
But the good news is that soon, Pfizer, too, will be peddling their antiviral drug, which should make up for any drop in their vaccine sales.
"Pfizer is testing whether its pill—PF-07321332—can prevent infection in people exposed to the virus or benefit patients who have not been hospitalized with COVID-19."
Roche and Atea are not far behind with their antiviral pills, and soon all of Big Pharma can get in on the action. They have timed it perfectly.
While shutting down any competition from repurposed drugs like HCQ or Ivermectin, they deftly rolled out the vaccines first, making sure not to confuse the consumer with antiviral pills that would only be allowed AFTER the majority of the population had been vaccinated.
The one glitch is that Merck's Molnupiravir only surfaced AFTER a prominent scandal involving Merck lying three times.
Just as Peter would disown Christ three times before the cry of the rooster, Merck would turn their back on their creation with three lies about Ivermectin before they would accept the payoff from the United States government.
On February 4, 2021, Merck, the corporation behind the monumental Mectizan Program, which rescued the world from River Blindness, told three untruths about Ivermectin.
https://www.merck.com/news/merck-statement-on-ivermectin-use-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Lie #1: No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from preclinical studies;
FALSE: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011
Lie #2: No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease.
Lie #3: A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.
FALSE: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/36858/pdf/
However, the Monash preclinical study disproved the first statement showing a massive 99.98% reduction in viral load with a single Ivermectin treatment in cell culture.
More. Much, much more.
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
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.
Novel quantum effect discovered in naturally occurring graphene
International research team finds atomically-thin carbon generates its own magnetic field
Date: October 6, 2021
Source: University of Göttingen
Summary: Under special circumstances, the electrical resistance of a material can adopt a fixed value that is independent from the basic material properties and 'quantized'. This 'quantization' normally occurs within strong magnetic fields at very low temperatures when electrons move in two-dimensions. Now, a research team has succeeded in demonstrating this effect at low temperatures in the almost complete absence of a magnetic field in naturally occurring double-layer graphene, just two atoms thick.
Usually, the electrical resistance of a material depends very much on its physical dimensions and fundamental properties. Under special circumstances, however, this resistance can adopt a fixed value that is independent of the basic material properties and "quantised" (meaning that it changes in discrete steps rather than continuously). This quantisation of electrical resistance normally occurs within strong magnetic fields and at very low temperatures when electrons move in a two-dimensional fashion. Now, a research team led by the University of Göttingen has succeeded in demonstrating this effect at low temperatures in the almost complete absence of a magnetic field in naturally occurring double-layer graphene, which is just two atoms thick. The results of the study have been published in Nature.
---- The reason this effect is special, is not just that it only requires an electric field, but also that it occurs in eight different versions that can be controlled by applied magnetic and electric fields. This results in a high degree of control, because the effect can be switched on and off and the direction of movement of the charged particles can be reversed. "This makes it a really interesting candidate for potential applications, for example, in the development of innovative computer components in the field of spintronics, which could have implications for data storage," says Weitz. "In addition, it is an advantage that we can show this effect in a system comprising a simple and naturally occurring material. This is in stark contrast to the recently popularised 'heterostructures', which require a complex and precise composition of different materials."
First, however, the effect must be further investigated and ways to stabilize it at higher temperatures need to be found, because currently it only occurs at up to five degrees above absolute zero (the latter being 273 degrees below 0oC)."
This weekend’s musical diversion. France’s Marc-Antoine Charpentier (*1643 ~1704) again. Approx. 5 minutes.
CHARPENTIER, M-A : Marche de Triomphe (H.547)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLWX6vd9F0g
This weekend’s chess update.
That's Just Too Much!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKXO3Oez__s
This weekend’s logic update. Approx. 5 minutes. I‘ll stick to commodities trading!
Solving an incredibly difficult logic puzzle from Oxford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVFwUGE6mBU
Finally, our Icelandic volcano update. Approx. 9 minutes.
Iceland Volcano Update And Increasing Seismic Activity By Keilir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoG3XUMYz_I
Part of the $10 million I spent on gambling, part on booze and part on women. The rest I spent foolishly.
George Raft.
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