NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street banks have been
among the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic-era trading boom, fueled by the
Federal Reserve’s massive injection of cash into financial markets.
October
15, 2021
9:55 PM By David
Lawder , Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supply chain woes and
growing inflation concerns pushed aside a widening gap in COVID-19 vaccinations
and mounting debt problems for developing countries as the top concerns for
global policymakers at International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual
meetings this week.
Relatively
little new progress was made on increasing vaccine supplies to developing
countries, although officials highlighted an increasing divergence between rich
and poor countries as a growing financial and economic risk.
The focus on
the normalization pains that wealthier economies are experiencing and a World
Bank data-rigging scandal that had clouded the future of IMF Managing Director
Kristalina Georgieva proved a disappointment for anti-poverty groups.
“Given how
the pandemic is becoming worse in most of the world’s countries, I’m concerned
by the lack of action at the meetings on vaccine distribution, debt relief and
general pandemic response,” said Eric LeCompte, executive director of the
Jubilee USA Network, a religious development group.
Communiques
issued by G20 finance leaders and the IMF’s steering committee pledged to
increase vaccine supplies, but did not identify specific new goals or
initiatives to expand financing or distribution. Instead, they gave greater
prominence to growing inflation pressures, calling on central banks to monitor
closely whether they are transitory or could unanchor inflation expectations.
---- World Health Organization chief Tedros
Adhananom Ghebreyesus told an IMF forum that the world is falling behind on
goals to immunize 40% of the world’s population by the end of this year, and
criticized wealthy countries for approving third booster shots when much of the
world’s population has yet to receive a single vaccine dose.
---- Some policymakers were more focused on
managing the next phases of economic recovery after unprecedented fiscal
support, and other multilateral issues, such as implementing a deal to revamp
global corporate taxation.
---- But advocacy groups were disappointed
with a lack of progress on debt relief for the poorest countries, especially
since payments on official bilateral debts will resume for 46 countries in
January when the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative expires.
Jean
Saldanha, director of debt and development watchdog group Eurodad, said the G20
and IMF steering committees’ statements on debt were “shameful” for not going
beyond encouraging wider participation in the G20 Common Framework on Debt
restructuring.
https://www.reuters.com/article/imf-worldbank-meetings/analysis-supply-chains-inflation-overshadow-vaccine-debt-woes-at-imf-world-bank-meetings-idUSKBN2H5277
Next,
inflation, stagflation, does it all come down to how the northern hemisphere
winter turns out?
Possibly,
but I think the central banks have opted for deliberate inflation as a policy
to mitigate all the new Magic Money Tree fiat money created since March 2020.
Marketmind:
Chaos, the weatherman and inflation October 15, 20218:04
AM BST
This year's Physics Nobel Prize honoured
scientists working on systems that help decipher the Earth's shifting climate
patterns read
more .
Yet their research won't provide answers
to one key question dominating financial markets: how cold or how warm this
winter will be, how that will play on surging gas and oil prices, and therefore
on inflation.
Brent crude futures stand at $84 a barrel
this morning and Russian President Vladimir Putin reckons prices could well
reach $100. read
more
While the world has indeed moved on from
the 1970s' petrol dependence, the International Energy Agency warned
nonetheless the energy crunch may stoke inflation and slow economic recovery. read
more
Supply chain issues, production
bottlenecks and labour shortages are fuelling fears meanwhile that growth could
falter enough to lead to some sort of stagflationary scenario.
On that note, the number of Americans
filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a 19-month low, suggesting
that a shortage of workers, rather than weakening labour demand was behind
slower job growth. read
more
What the policy response should be, is
being debated between hawks and doves.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard
urged the U.S. central bank to taper fast, while BoE policymaker Silvana
Tenreyro said a rate rises to tackle short-lived effects on inflation such as
energy prices would be "self-defeating". read
more
More
https://www.reuters.com/business/chaos-weatherman-inflation-2021-10-15/
La Niña's back. Here's how it will affect the weather
Colder winter weather expected in
western Canada, more drought in southwestern U.S.
The Associated Press · Posted:
Oct 15, 2021 11:50 AM ET
For the
second straight year, the world heads into a new La Niña weather event.
This
would tend to cool western Canada, dry out parts of an already parched and
fiery American West and boost a busy Atlantic hurricane season.
Just five
months after the end of a La Niña that started in September 2020, the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a new cooling of the
Pacific is underway.
La Niña's
natural cooling of parts of the Pacific is the flip side of a warmer El Niño
pattern and sets in motion changes to the world's weather for months and
sometimes years. But the changes vary from place to place and aren't
certainties, just tendencies.
La Niñas tend to cause more agricultural and drought damage
to the United States than El Niños and neutral conditions, according to a 1999
study. That study found that La Niñas in general cause $2.2 billion to $6.5
billion in damage to U.S. agriculture.
How strong will it be and how long will it last? There's a 57 per cent chance this will be a moderate
La Niña and only 15 per cent that it will be strong, said Mike Halpert,
deputy director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.
He said it is unlikely to be as strong as last year's
because the second year of back-to-back La Niñas usually doesn't quite measure
up to the first.
This La Niña is expected to stretch through spring, Halpert
said.
What does this mean for the weather? ---- The Ohio Valley and Northern Plains could be
wetter and cooler. La Niña winters also tend to shift snow storms more
northerly in winter while places like the mid-Atlantic often don't get
blockbuster snowstorms.
In general,
expect it to be cooler in western Canada, southern Alaska, Japan, the Korean
peninsula, western Africa and southeastern Brazil.
Much of both
southeast Asia and northern Australia are wetter in La Niña — and that's
already apparent in Indonesia, Halpert said. Central Africa and southeast China
tend to be drier.
More
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/la-nina-2021-1.6212257
Finally,
is it all over for China Evergrande? As
goes China so goes the global economy?
EXCLUSIVE Evergrande's $1.7
bln Hong Kong headquarters sale flops as buyer withdraws -sources October
15, 2021 10:54 AM BST
HONG KONG, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Chinese
state-owned Yuexiu Property (0123.HK)
has pulled out of a proposed $1.7 billion deal to buy China Evergrande Group's (3333.HK)
Hong Kong headquarters building over worries about the developer's dire
financial situation, two sources said.
The collapse of the talks for the landmark
building's sale is another setback for cash-strapped Evergrande which has been
scrambling to divest some assets to repay creditors knocking on its doors. With
more than $300 billion in liabilities, it has already missed three rounds of
interest payments on its international bonds. read
more
Yuexiu, based in the southern city of
Guangzhou, was close to sealing a deal in August to acquire the 26-storey China
Evergrande Centre in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district that serves as Evergrande's
local headquarters, said the sources.
The deal, however, faltered after Yuexiu's
board opposed the move over worries that Evergrande's unresolved indebtedness
would create potential complications in completing the transaction smoothly,
they said.
More
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/exclusive-evergrandes-17-bln-hong-kong-headquarters-sale-flops-buyer-withdraws-2021-10-15/
“If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.”
Mark Twain.
Global
Inflation Watch. Given our Magic Money Tree central
banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
“It's easier to fool
people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
Mark Twain.
LME Zinc Hits
14-Year High As European Smelters Halve Output Amid Energy Crunch Friday, Oct 15, 2021 - 04:15 AM
The energy
crisis is bleeding into other parts of the commodity space, such as industrial
metals, as smelters from Asia to Europe are knocked offline, resulting in a
tightening supply with prices for zinc at 14-year highs.
Zinc jumped
as much as 7% on the London Metal Exchange to the highest levels since 2007
after producer Nyrstar announced plans to halve output at three European
smelters due to soaring energy prices.
"It is zinc's turn" to surge as
the energy crisis spreads through Europe and forces large-scale shutdowns or
production cuts at smelters, said Jia Zheng, a trader with Shanghai Dongwu
Jiuying Investment Management Co. She said soaring
coal and natural gas prices have made power
prices astronomically high and uneconomical for energy-intensive smelting
plants to produce the industrial metal.
China has already curbed power to energy-intensive
zinc and aluminum smelting plants
amid an energy crunch fueled by record-high coal prices. In total, 20 Chinese
provinces and regions making up more than 66% of the country's GDP have announced some
form of power cuts.
More
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/lme-zinc-hits-14-year-high-european-smelters-halve-output-amid-energy-crunch
China risks
making ‘big mistakes’ with widespread crackdown, says ex-IMF chief economist Published Fri, Oct 15 2021 4:16 AM EDT
China risks making “big mistakes” as it cracks down on
large swathes of its economy from technology ,
to private
tutoring and real
estate , said a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.
“I worry a lot about China because to some extent they’re
attacking the basis of their growth so far,” Raghuram Rajan told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia ” on Friday.
“At some point they have to abandon that method of growth
and go to a new one. The question is: Are they trying to do it too quickly, and
in the process, leaving less to support growth,” he said.
China has relied on cheap labor and cheap
finance to grow its economy, said Rajan, who was IMF’s chief economist from
2003 to 2006. Moving away from that growth model creates “an enormous amount”
of uncertainties, even though it’s necessary, he added.
The biggest area China is seeking to reform is the housing
market, said Rajan, now a finance professor at The University of Chicago Booth
School of Business.
Chinese authorities have in recent months implemented measures
to tame soaring property prices , including through tightening funding for
highly indebted developers.
Such a move is “perfect in the larger scheme of things” —
but “extremely precarious” in the short term, said Rajan. Chinese real estate
developer Evergrande
is already struggling
to repay its massive debt , and more
developers could face similar troubles , he explained.
----Economic challenges facing China have led major
banks to downgrade their 2021 growth forecasts for the world’s
second-largest economy.
‘Higher for longer’ inflation Rising inflation is one major challenge for the global
economy, Rajan warned.
Inflationary pressures are looking to be less transitory
than what central bankers had thought, said Rajan, who served as the governor
of the Reserve Bank of India from September 2013 to September 2016.
Major central banks such as the Federal
Reserve and the European
Central Bank have suggested that spikes in inflation are temporary and
would eventually subside.
But Rajan said there are signs that higher prices could
last longer than expected.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/15/china-risks-making-big-mistakes-with-crackdown-ex-imf-chief-economist.html
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
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/environmental-disaster-ev-battery-metals-crunch-horizon-industry-races-recycle
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
China Orders
Five Airlines to Halt Some Flights on Virus Cases Bloomberg News
16
October 2021, 03:49 BST
China’s Civil Aviation Administration ordered
five domestic and foreign airlines to suspend some flights from Monday after
multiple coronavirus cases were found on board, it said in a statement.
The carries included Air China Ltd., which had six
infections detected on an inbound flight from Frankfurt to the northeastern
city of Changchun, the administration said in the statement released Friday.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-16/china-orders-five-airlines-to-halt-some-flights-on-virus-cases?srnd=premium-europe
More than
half of COVID-19 survivors in study had 'long-COVID' Oct. 14, 2021 / 4:46 PM
Long-term symptoms of coronavirus infection, known as 'long
COVID,' affects more than half of COVID-19 survivors, and health care systems should be
prepared to treat them, researchers say.
So far, 236 million people worldwide have been diagnosed
with COVID-19, and many have had lingering physical and mental health problems
for six months or longer.
"The burden of poor health in COVID-19 survivors is
overwhelming," said study author Dr. Paddy Ssentongo, an assistant
research professor at the Penn State Center for Neural Engineering in
University Park, Penn.
"Among these are the mental health disorders. One's
battle with COVID-19 doesn't end with recovery from the acute infection,"
Ssentongo said.
To learn more, the researchers reviewed 57 studies that included more than
250,000 unvaccinated adults and children diagnosed with COVID-19 from December
2019 through March 2021.
Most (79%) lived in high-income countries, and the same
percentage were hospitalized.
Patients were assessed at one month (short-term), two to
five months (intermediate-term), and six or more months (long-term) after
recovery. Overall, 50% had long-term symptoms, and rates remained fairly
constant from one month through six or more months after their initial illness.
RELATED FDA
panel unanimously approves booster shots for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine
More than half had weight loss, fatigue, fever or pain.
About one in five had a decrease in mobility. Nearly one-quarter had difficulty
concentrating.
About
one-third were diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorders. Six in 10 had
chest imaging abnormalities. More than one-quarter had breathing problems, and
nearly one in five had hair loss or rashes.
Chest pain
and palpitations were the most commonly reported heart-related symptoms, and
stomach pain, lack of appetite, diarrhea and vomiting were among the commonly
reported digestive conditions.
According to co-lead investigator Vernon Chinchilli,
"These findings confirm what many health care workers and COVID-19
survivors have been claiming, namely, that adverse health effects from COVID-19
can linger."
More
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2021/10/14/covid19-recovery-long-term-symptoms/7281634244051/
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
https://rt.live/
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.
Here are the
best-selling electric cars in China so far this year Published Thu, Oct 14 2021 12:48 AM EDT
Updated Thu, Oct 14 2021 1:57 PM EDT
BEIJING — Tesla took two of the top three spots for best-selling
electric car models in China, industry data for the first three quarters of the
year showed.
That’s well ahead of start-up rivals like Xpeng and Nio , according to
data released by China Passenger Car Association on Wednesday.
Here’s the association’s list of the 15 best-selling new
energy vehicles in China for the first three quarters of 2021:
1. Hongguang Mini (SAIC-GM-Wuling)
Elon Musk’s automaker sold more than 200,000 electric cars
in China during those three quarters — 92,933 Model Ys and 111,751 Model 3s,
according to the passenger car association.
China accounted for about one-fifth of Tesla’s revenue last
year. The U.S.-based automaker began delivering its second China-made vehicle,
the Model Y, early this year. The company also launched
a cheaper version of the car in July.
Tesla’s shares are up nearly 15% so far this year, while
the U.S.-listed shares of Nio are down more than 25% and Xpeng’s lost nearly 7%
during that time.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/china-ev-tesla-xpeng-nio-byd-are-best-selling-electric-cars-in-2021-.html
This weekend’s
musical diversion. Vivaldi again. But
which of his Gloria openings is best? The RV 589 that’s usually heard since it
was rediscovered in the 1920s, or his earlier Gloria RV 588, that’s rarely
heard now? You decide.
Some experts think
Vivaldi composed them almost simultaneously. Both just under 3 minutes.
Vivaldi: Gloria, RV588 - 1. Gloria in excelsis Deo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKNwLNjnfBQ
GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO. Antonio Vivaldi. Director: Antonio
Fauró https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhhYIZJj6rk
This weekend’s chess
update. Approx. 10 minutes.
When Anish Plays For The Crowd! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGSQ_WknuZY
This weekend’s IQ
test. How
mentally agile are we? Approx. 11 minutes.
IQ TEST - 20 real IQ test questions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvvAxG3sxiU
“Heaven goes by favor. If
it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”
Mark Twain.
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