Baltic Dry Index. 2861 +56 Brent Crude 82.95
Spot Gold 1852
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 11/11/21 World 252,153,722
Deaths 5,088,521
I think that if you don't do the full analysis of what the origin of the electrical power is, where it comes from, how you get batteries into these cars, what the cost is in terms of CO2 and the environment, I think the analysis that we are going to save the planet with electric cars is nonsense.
Sergio
Marchionne.
How could Chairman Powell and US Treasury Secretary Yellen get inflation so wrong?
But did they get inflation so wrong? After all they’re supposedly smart people, supported by the finest economic brains money can buy.
Is it possible both deliberately set out to lie and deceive the pubic, while with malice aforethought, actually embracing a policy of using inflation to inflate away the worst effects of their Magic Money Tree free money policies, following the discovery of the Magic Money Tree forest in March 2020?
They wouldn’t do that would they? I mean, aren’t they supposed to be honourable people?
So, inflation dummies it is.
U.S. Inflation Hit 31-Year High in October as Consumer Prices Jump 6.2%
Core index was up 4.6% as pandemic-related supply shortages, strong consumer demand continue
Updated Nov. 10, 2021 6:57 pm ET
U.S. inflation hit a three-decade high in October, delivering widespread and sizable price increases to households for everything from groceries to cars due to persistent supply shortages and strong consumer demand.
The Labor Department said the consumer-price index—which measures what consumers pay for goods and services—increased in October by 6.2% from a year ago. That was the fastest 12-month pace since 1990 and the fifth straight month of inflation above 5%.
The core price index, which excludes the often-volatile categories of food and energy, climbed 4.6% in October from a year earlier, higher than September’s 4% rise and the largest increase since 1991.
On a monthly basis, the CPI increased a seasonally adjusted 0.9% in October from the prior month, a sharp acceleration from September’s 0.4% rise and the same as June’s 0.9% pace.
Price increases were broad-based, with higher costs for new and used autos, gasoline and other energy costs, furniture, rent and medical care, the Labor Department said.
Food prices for both groceries and dining out rose by the most in decades. Prices fell for airline fares and alcohol.
U.S. stocks fell and bond yields rose as investors digested the impact of price pressure on the global economy.
Persistently higher inflation—triggered by a faster-than-anticipated but uneven economic recovery, trillions of dollars in pandemic-related government stimulus and other factors—is hitting consumers’ wallets. At the same time, a rebounding economy and healthy household balance sheets are both stoking demand and cushioning price increases.
The inflation surge is complicating the Federal Reserve’s strategy for unwinding easy-money policies the central bank imposed early in the pandemic. It has also emerged as a political factor affecting the Biden administration’s economic agenda.
The reading renewed GOP criticism of Democrats’ roughly $2 trillion social spending and climate plan as wasteful and likely to fuel inflation. The plan includes funding for expanded child care, free prekindergarten, an enhanced child tax credit and other items, along with provisions to bring down prescription drug prices.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-inflation-consumer-price-index-october-2021-11636491959
Asian stocks slump, dollar shines as inflation fears flare
November 11, 2021 2:06 AM GMT
TOKYO, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Inflation fears pressured Asian stocks and buoyed the dollar on Thursday after data overnight showed U.S. consumer prices surged at the fastest pace since 1990 last month, boosting the case for faster Federal Reserve policy tightening.
Nominal U.S. Treasury yields shot higher, with that on the benchmark 10-year note leaping by the most since February, while real yields, which take inflation into account, dipped to record lows.
Gold jumped to a five-month high and bitcoin hit a record as investors sought inflation hedges.
Oil pulled back sharply from near seven-year highs after U.S. President Joe Biden said his administration was looking for ways to reduce energy costs.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) was down 0.85%, led by a 1.19% slide in Australia's benchmark (.AXJO).
Chinese blue chips (.CSI300) slipped 0.09%.
Japan's Nikkei (.N225) bucked the trend by rising 0.24%, supported by the yen's weakness against a resurgent dollar and as U.S. stock futures ticked up slightly.
Overnight though, the S&P 500 (.SPX) tumbled 0.82%, its worst day in more than a month. That marked the first back-to-back declines in a month, after the index closed at a record peak to start the week.
The dollar index , which gauges the currency against six major peers including the yen and euro, hovered just below the high reached on Wednesday of 94.905, a level not seen since July of last year.
The greenback added 0.13% to 114.04 yen , up from as low as 112.73 at the start of the week.
The U.S. consumer price index surged 6.2% on an annual basis, with gasoline leading a broad-based increase that added to signs that inflation could stay uncomfortably high well into 2022 amid snarled global supply chains. read more
Inflationary pressures are also brewing in the labor market, with other data on Wednesday showing the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to a 20-month low.
Both the White House and the Fed have maintained that prices will fall once supply bottlenecks start easing, with the central bank only last week reiterating that high inflation is "expected to be transitory" as policy makers urged patience.
"The Fed's resolve is facing a testing time," Rodrigo Catril, a senior foreign-exchange strategist at National Australia Bank in Sydney, wrote in a client note.
"Supply constraints may well turn out to be transitory, but the rise in core drivers increases the pressure on the Fed to trigger a monetary policy response."
The money market now prices a first Fed interest rate increase by July.
More
https://www.reuters.com/business/global-markets-wrapup-1-2021-11-11/
European stocks head for uncertain open after hotter-than-expected U.S. inflation data
European stocks are expected to open flat to lower on Thursday as global markets digest the latest U.S. inflation data which showed faster-than-expected price rises.
The U.K.’s FTSE index is seen opening 4 points higher at 7,318, Germany’s DAX 43 points lower at 16,019, France’s CAC 40 down 22 points at 7,021 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 83 points lower at 27,304, according to data from IG.
Global markets are digesting the latest U.S. inflation data released on Wednesday which showed that October’s consumer price reading jumped at the hottest annual pace in more than three decades.
The consumer price index jumped 6.2% from a year ago, well above the 5.9% estimate from economists polled by Dow Jones. On a monthly basis, the CPI increased 0.9% against the 0.6% estimate.
Major indexes on Wall Street fell following the inflation data release while U.S. Treasury yields climbed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note last stood at 1.5699%. Yields move inversely to prices.
Following the CPI data, traders moved up their expectations for when the first Fed rate hike would occur. The Fed funds futures market now sees greater odds of the central bank’s first full rate hike coming in July 2022.
Asia-Pacific stocks were mixed in Thursday trade after the U.S. data, while U.S. stock futures were steady in overnight trading on Wednesday.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/11/european-stocks-after-hotter-than-expected-us-inflation-data.html
Finally, China offers an olive branch, but will any of the the west accept it?
China's Xi warns of 'Cold War-era' tensions in Asia-Pacific
Issued on:
Wellington (AFP) – Chinese President Xi Jinping warned on Thursday against a return to Cold War-era tensions in the Asia-Pacific, urging greater cooperation on pandemic recovery and climate change.
Amid growing tensions with the United States over Taiwan, partially offset by a surprise deal between Beijing and Washington on climate, Xi said all countries in the region must work together on joint challenges.
"Attempts to draw ideological lines or form small circles on geo-political grounds are bound to fail," he told a virtual business conference on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
"The Asia-Pacific region cannot and should not relapse into the confrontation and division of the Cold War era."
The Chinese leader called for a joint effort to close the "immunisation gap", making Covid-19 vaccines more accessible to developing nations.
"We should translate consensus that vaccines are a global public good into concrete actions to ensure their fair and equitable distribution," he told the New Zealand-hosted summit.
Xi said the region should ensure that developing countries can access and afford Covid-19 vaccines.
China on Wednesday said it had reached an understanding with the United States at a summit in Glasgow on climate change, a key area on which the Biden administration sees the potential for cooperation.
Xi did not mention the deal with the US directly but said "all of us can embark on a path of green, low-carbon sustainable development".
"Together, we can usher in a future of green development," he said.
"China will stay committed to promoting win-win cooperation and contribute to the economic development of the Asia-Pacific region."
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Inflation has taken away all the wage gains for workers and then some
What looked like a big jump in workers’ wages during October turned into just another gut punch after accounting for inflation.
The Labor Department reported Friday that average hourly earnings increased 0.4% in October, about in line with estimates. That was the good news.
However, the department reported Wednesday that top-line inflation for the month increased 0.9%, far more than what had been expected. That was the bad news – very bad news, in fact.
That’s because it meant that all told, real average hourly earnings when accounting for inflation, actually decreased 0.5% for the month. So an apparent solid paycheck increase actually turned into a decrease, and another setback for workers still struggling to shake off the effects of the Covid pandemic.
“For now, inflation is going to continue to run above very solid wage growth,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist for the Americas at Natixis and former chief economist for the National Economic Council during the Trump administration. “This is why when you look at consumer confidence, it’s really taking a beating. Households do not like the inflation story, and rightly so.”
Indeed, while consumer confidence leaped higher from the lows of the pandemic around April 2020 for a solid year after, it has come down substantially since, coinciding with the rise of inflation to its highest pace in more than 30 years. The University of Michigan’s closely watched index of consumer sentiment for August slumped to around its lowest level in nearly a decade.
Wages, though, have swelled during the period, with average hourly earnings up 4.9% year over year in October. However, compared with inflation, real hourly wages actually have declined more than 1.2% during the same time frame, according to the Labor Department.
Real weekly earnings have been even worse, dropping 1.6% during the period when accounting for the 0.3% decrease in the average workweek.
More
ECB member says inflation could be nearing the bank’s taper target
Published Wed, Nov 10 2021 4:07 AM EST
The European Central Bank could be approaching its inflation target of 2% over the medium term, a member of the executive board told CNBC as market players anxiously await a new policy meeting in December.
ECB watchers are expecting the central bank to outline plans on how it will adjust monetary stimulus following its meeting next month. Speaking in October, ECB President Christine Lagarde said the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program, known as PEPP, will end in March as previously planned. But the question for market players is how the central bank will recalibrate its policy after that.
“I don’t want to speculate at this point, as you will understand, on the outcome of the December deliberations,” Frank Elderson, a member of the ECB’s executive board, told CNBC.
However, he added: “What we have seen is that the range of possible outcomes has shifted upwards, has widened, and therefore, possibly also the most plausible outcome has come closer, or will prove to have been come closer to our inflation aim of 2% in the medium term.”
The ECB will revise its growth and inflation forecasts in December — these will support any decision within the central bank about how much stimulus the euro area needs going forward.
Members of the central bank have sought to downplay expectations that there could be a rate increase in the latter part of 2022. This is despite the recent spike in inflation, which is currently at a 13-year high in the euro area.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/10/ecb-elderson-inflation-could-be-nearing-the-banks-taper-target.html
China Oct new bank loans fall less than expected on stagflation concern
November 10, 2021 9:25 AM By Judy Hua, Kevin Yao
BEIJING (Reuters) - New bank lending in China fell sharply in October from the previous month, but not quite as badly as forecast by analysts who expect the central bank to ease monetary policy cautiously due to risks of stagflation.
Data released on Wednesday by the People’s Bank of China showed banks extended new loans of 826.2 billion yuan ($129.27 billion) in October, down sharply from 1.66 trillion in September but better than the 800 billion expected in a Reuters poll of analysts.
The new loans were higher than 689.8 billion yuan a year earlier.
“There are some signs that PBOC policy is turning more supportive in response to strains in the property sector. As such, we think this might be the trough in credit growth,” Capital Economics said in a note.
“But the usual lags mean that tight credit conditions will remain a headwind to economic activity for a while.”
Outstanding yuan loan grew 11.9% from a year earlier, in line with expectations and hovering at the lowest since May 2002.
---- The PBOC is likely to move cautiously on loosening monetary policy to bolster the economy, as slowing economic growth and soaring factory inflation fuel concerns over stagflation, policy sources and analysts said.
More
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Today, Ivermectin. Why is Big Pharma and the governments they control, still blocking Ivermectin’s use in treating SARS-CoV-2 and the Covid-19 infection it causes?
It couldn’t be money, could it? I mean people are dying for the lack of effective treatment. Over 5 million, officially, but in reality far more. Big Pharma and the political lackeys they support, wouldn’t do that, would they. My best guess is that they would and did.
Approximately 22 minutes, but worth it.
New Pfizer antiviral and ivermectin, a pharmacodynamic analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufy2AweXRkc
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
Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.
Not the usual update today. Today some reality about Norway and Electric vehicles.
Diane Francis: The problem with electric cars
EVs should not be seen as some sort of panacea for dealing with climate change
Nov 09, 2021
The hype and mythologizing over electric vehicles (EVs) afflicts policy-making and leads to costly subsidies that produce little environmental benefits, according to Danish climate expert Bjorn Lomborg.
“In Norway, there are more EVs per person than anywhere in the world and studies show that people have two cars — a (subsidized) EV car to go `virtue signalling’ and the real car for use for real stuff,” said Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus think tank and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, in an interview with the Financial Post. “Norwegians use the gasoline car a lot more and drive less in a green car. A new study from a select group showed they only drove 5,000 miles a year, on average. This estimate was based on their electricity usage.”
That’s because, while EVs are fuel efficient, they are not always practical. “The main problem is that they have to pay more to buy it, then sit around and wait 40 minutes when recharging it,” he said. “It’s great if you have a house and can get a high voltage hookup, but 40 per cent or more people live in apartment blocks.”
Nor should EVs be seen as some sort of panacea for dealing with climate change. “Even if everyone switched, it would solve very little of the problem regarding CO2 emissions,” Lomborg said. “The International Energy Agency (IEA) says EVs effectiveness depend on the power source as to whether they reduce emissions. In Norway (with hydroelectricity), they generate 24 per cent fewer emissions than a gasoline car, but in China they contribute more emissions because they run on coal power.”
The head of the IEA, Fatih Birol, famously said , “If you think you can save the climate with electric cars, you’re completely wrong.” China is the world’s biggest EV manufacturer — an industrial strategy designed to reduce its dependency on gasoline made from foreign oil. But around 60 per cent of its power is generated by burning dirty coal, which means that EVs driven in China are “coal” cars that contribute to the emissions problem more than gasoline cars.
Besides that, many countries suffer from brownouts or power disruptions, making EVs untenable. Norway’s power comes solely from hydroelectricity, but the country is wealthy mostly because of its fossil fuel exports.
“Subsidies to make EVs cheaper are not going to cut all that much CO2, according to the IEA,” Lomborg said. “This uses tons of financial resources to allow rich people to virtue signal: 75 per cent of all subsidiaries to green energy are given to the richest quarter of all people for EVs and solar panels.”
More
Did anyone at COP26 successfully recharge a subsidised EV in the great Glasgow rains without getting a shock, and I don’t mean from the recharging bill.
Electric cars are the future.
Prince
Albert II of Monaco, impoverished motorist, virtue signaler.
Thanks for republishing my EV article. You may be interested in my Newsletter https://dianefrancis.substack.com/p/vlads-euro-war -- Mr. Irvine Please forward me your email and I will gift you a subscription.
ReplyDeleteThanks Diane. It was a great article that deserved to be read and shared.
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