Baltic Dry Index. 3018 +137 Brent Crude 70.57
Spot Gold 1780
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 01/12/21 World 263,057,111
Deaths 5,233,340
The first requisite of a sound monetary system is that it put the least possible power over the quantity or quality of money in the hands of the politicians.
Henry Hazlitt.
For a view of our future on fiat money when politicians control the quantity and quality of fiat money, scroll down to the Global Inflation/Stagflation section.
How long before all the “free” Magic Money Tree fiat money gets the USA, GB and EU into Turkey’s predicament is hard to forecast, but just as night follows day, that’s where we’re headed since the discovery of the Magic Money Tree forests back in March 2020.
In the casinos, meanwhile, confusion over the omicron
variant and just how dangerous it is, plus did Fed Chairman Burns Powell
just suddenly become an interest rate hawk? Well maybe, talk is cheap after
all, but if he did, President Carter Biden will soon be suffering buyers
remorse at reappointing him Chairman.
Below, how omicron is blowing up the Santa Claus rally. With Germany heading towards lockdown and a record number of new Covid infections in South Korea, punters in the global stock casinos can now get better odds in Macau, Monte Carlo, London and Las Vegas.
Asian shares bounce from year low but Omicron, Fed in focus
December 1, 2021 5:51 AM GMT
HONG KONG, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Asian stocks rose from a one-year low on Wednesday as U.S. share futures and oil recovered from the previous day's selloff, but uncertainty over the impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant kept investors on edge.
U.S. Treasury yields rose, supporting the dollar after U.S. Fed chair Jerome Powell overnight came close to indicating the Fed will speed up the pace of its asset purchases at its meeting later this month.
"At present the market focus has been on Omicron and the potential that that can disrupt the world, but the real focus should be on the Fed and the rate policy. That's the biggest shock to come out of the last day or so," said Kerry Craig global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) rose 0.6%, as traders felt Tuesday's declines, which sent the benchmark to its lowest since November 2020, had gone a little far. Gains were largely shared across the region.
Japan's Nikkei (.N225) rose 0.7%, also helped by a pick-up in factory activity, while U.S. S&P 500 futures rose 0.6% and Nasdaq futures rose 0.7% as sentiment turned after Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), the S&P 500 (.SPX) and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) had all closed down over 1.5%.
Powell said U.S. central bankers in December will discuss whether to end their bond purchases a few months earlier than had been anticipated, pointing to a strong economy, stalled workforce growth, and high inflation that is expected to last into mid-2022. read more
That pushed U.S. Treasury yields higher, especially at the short end of the curve. The yield on two-year notes , which reflects short-term interest rate expectations, last stood at 0.6025%. That was up from as low as 0.4410% on Tuesday, when traders were speculating the new variant could lead to a more dovish Fed.
Benchmark 10-year notes also sold off , last yielding 1.4919%, up from Tuesday's two-and a half month low of 1.4443%.
----The potential for the Omicron variant to slow the pace of Fed tapering had been limiting the dollar's safe haven status in the days since news of the new strain emerged last Friday.
More
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/global-markets-wrapup-1-2021-12-01/
European markets set to rebound after tumultuous session due to omicron Covid variant
LONDON — European stocks are expected to open higher on Wednesday after struggling to regain ground amid fears around the new omicron Covid variant.
The U.K.’s FTSE index is seen opening 30 points higher at 7,106, Germany’s DAX 58 points higher at 15,198, France’s CAC 40 up 39 points at 6,775 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 157 points higher at 25,943, according to data from IG.
The positive start to the first trading day of December comes after global markets were rattled at the start of the week and into Tuesday by concerns surrounding the new omicron Covid-19 variant amid fears that it could evade vaccines.
Major markets across Asia-Pacific bounced back Wednesday and U.S. stock futures were higher in overnight trading following a sell-off on Wall Street on Tuesday, due to both fears about the new variant and the Federal Reserve mulling a quicker-than-planned taper.
U.S. stocks hit their session lows when Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank will discuss speeding up the bond-buying taper at its December meeting.
Despite the potential disruption of omicron, the Fed chief said he thinks reducing the pace of monthly bond buys can move quicker than the $15 billion-a-month schedule announced earlier this month.
Hopes are pinned on vaccine makers’ ability to develop effective shots against the strain but there are still many unknowns about the new variant. The World Health Organization has said it will take several weeks to gain a full picture of how omicron’s mutations affect its response to existing vaccines.
Markets nosedived Tuesday morning following comments from Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, who told the Financial Times that he expects vaccines to be less effective against the new strain.
Bancel also told CNBC on Monday that it could take months to develop and ship a vaccine that specifically targets the omicron variant.
There are no major earnings releases on Wednesday. Data releases include final purchasing manager’s index (PMI) data for the euro zone in November, Ireland’s unemployment rate for November and German retail sales for October.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/01/european-markets-set-to-rebound-from-omicron-fears.html
Oil climbs over 2% ahead of OPEC meeting amid Omicron concerns
December 1, 2021 5:30 AM GMT
SINGAPORE, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose more than 2% on Wednesday, recouping some of the steep losses from the previous session, as major producers prepared to discuss how to respond to the threat of a hit to fuel demand from the Omicron variant.
Brent crude futures rose $1.90, or 2.7%, to $71.13 a barrel at 0504 GMT, after a 3.9% slump on Tuesday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose $1.71, or 2.6%, to $67.89 a barrel, after a 5.4% drop on Tuesday.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will meet on Wednesday after 1300 GMT and ahead of a meeting on Thursday of OPEC+, which groups OPEC with allies including Russia. read more
While some analysts expect OPEC+ to pause plans to add 400,000 barrels per day of supply in January in light of the potential hit to demand from travel curbs to rein in the spread of the Omicron variant, several OPEC+ ministers have said there was no need to change course.
"Since (the) U.S. and other countries agreed on releasing emergency stocks to control the price rise... also since the prices have already corrected from $85 a barrel to close to $70, OPEC+ may revisit their strategy," said Sunil Katke, head of commodities retail business at Kotak Securities.
"There is a possibility of that happening, considering the new coronavirus variant and its impact on global demand, especially in the aviation sector."
Even if OPEC+ agrees to go ahead with its planned supply increase in January, producers may struggle to add that much.
A Reuters survey found OPEC pumped 27.74 million bpd in November, up 220,000 bpd from the previous month, but that was below the 254,000 bpd increase allowed for OPEC members under the OPEC+ agreement. read more
More
There are millions receiving government payments who have come to consider them as an earned right, who of course find them inadequate, and who are outraged at the slightest suggestion of a critical re-examination of the subject. The political pressure for constant extension and increase of these benefits is almost irresistible.
Henry Hazlitt.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
‘Our Money Has No Value’: Frustration Rises in Turkey at Lira Crisis
November 30, 2021
ISTANBUL — Lines outside bread stores and gas stations; farmers defaulting on loans; impromptu street demonstrations. The signs of economic distress in Turkey are all too clear as the lira continues a dizzying slide.
Sporadic protests have broken out around Turkey and the opposition parties have called for a series of rallies to demand a change of government after the lira crashed sharply last week. The latest week of turmoil follows months of worsening economic conditions for Turkish citizens. The currency has lost more than 45 percent of its value this year, and nearly 20 percent in the last week, continuing its downward trend on Tuesday.
Economists have tied the currency crisis to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s direct interference in monetary policy and his determination to lower interest rates.
The latest crash in the currency came after Mr. Erdogan gave a speech last week outlining his determination to keep rates low as a way of promoting economic growth. He reaffirmed his opposition to raising rates again in comments to reporters aboard his plane as he returned from a visit to Turkmenistan on Monday.
“I have never defended raising interest rates, I don’t now and will not defend it,” he told the reporters. “I will never compromise on this issue.”
There are rumblings of public dissent, unusual for a country where only officially sanctioned demonstrations are permitted and the main television channels and newspapers follow the government line.
Scores of people have been detained for joining street protests. The police detained 70 people in several districts of Istanbul last Wednesday who were protesting the government’s management of the economy, after a record drop in the lira the day before.
The Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions issued a blunt statement on Wednesday. “That’s enough. We want to make ends meet,” it read. “Unemployment, high living costs, price increases, and bills are breaking our backs.”
Necla Sazak, an 80-year-old retired bank employee heading home with a bag of groceries, said she was surviving on credit cards.
“Our purchasing power dropped — our money has no value anymore,” she said.
Business has stalled around the country as inflation scares away domestic shoppers and causes producers to hoard goods.
More
https://dnyuz.com/2021/11/30/our-money-has-no-value-frustration-rises-in-turkey-at-lira-crisis/
Biden Joins the Lumber Trade Wars
Nov. 29, 2021 6:34 pm ET
President Biden says he feels your pain regarding inflation, and he’s made public-relations moves to show it, begging ports to move goods faster and OPEC to produce more oil. Too bad his Administration’s policies reveal different priorities. Witness the Commerce Department’s decision to raise tariffs on lumber, which will raise building costs in an already strained housing market.
The Commerce Department said last week that it will double the average tariff on Canadian softwood lumber to 17.9% from 8.99%. Softwoods like spruce and pine are the backbone of light construction, and a steady supply is key to restraining the rising cost of home building. For decades U.S. sawmills haven’t been able to meet domestic demand, but they’ve leaned on government to protect their market share.
Now the Biden Administration is taking up their cause, squeezing imported wood. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has framed the decision as a bargaining move, pressuring Canada to curb its lumber subsidies. But the U.S. lobby admits the tariffs are a boon to American producers.
“This is exactly what must happen for further expansion of U.S. softwood lumber manufacturing and jobs,” said U.S. Lumber Coalition co-chair Jason Brochu when the tariff hike was proposed in May. That’s what tariff beneficiaries always say as they charge customers more amid limited supply.
There’s rarely a good time for trade restrictions, but the timing of this one is tragicomical. The same month Commerce revealed its tariff plan, lumber hit a record price of $1,650 per thousand board-feet, more than three times the level before pandemic supply shortages began. Restored production drove prices down over the summer, but prices have risen in recent months amid rising construction demand, and now stand more than 75% above their pre-pandemic level.
The shortage would be much worse if not for Canadian lumber, which backs up U.S. output. Canada’s provincial governments give a guaranteed price to timber growers, so U.S. producers have a point when they say the playing field is uneven. But Canada’s subsidies are a small and likely shrinking part of its competitive footing. According to Working Forest, a trade publication, U.S. production has topped out at some 70% of domestic demand since the 1990s. Foreign producers fill the gap, led by Canada with a roughly 26% share.
More
Once the idea is accepted that money is something whose supply is determined simply by the printing press, it becomes impossible for the politicians in power to resist the constant demands for further inflation.
Henry Hazlitt.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
South Korea reports daily record of over 5,000 new COVID-19 infections
December 1, 2021 3:58 AM GMT
SEOUL, Dec 1 (Reuters) - South Korea reported a new daily record of 5,123 new coronavirus cases, as it battles to contain a sharp rise in patients with severe symptoms and stave off the Omicron variant, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Wednesday.
The government on Monday shelved plans to further relax COVID-19 curbs because of the strain on its healthcare system from rising hospitalisations and deaths as well as the possible threat posed by the new variant. read more
Hospitals were treating 723 patients with severe COVID-19, a record number, as the authorities scrambled to secure more ICU beds. Severe cases have seen a steep rise compared with just under 400 in early November.
ICU bed capacity in the greater Seoul area stood at 89.2%, Son Young-rae, a senior health official told a briefing.
To ease the strain on hospitals and care centres, South Korea this week began making at-home treatment the default for people with mild infections, with only more severe cases transferred to hospitals. Residential treatment centres will also be expanded.
More than 84% of the severely ill COVID-19 patients were aged 60 and above. Experts had pointed to waning antibody levels from the vaccines and urged the elderly to get booster shots.
More
U.S. tightens COVID-19 travel rules as countries race to quell Omicron threat
December 1, 2021 4:18 AM GMT
SYDNEY/TOKYO, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Air travellers to the United States will face tougher COVID-19 testing rules as several countries moved to seal-off their borders amid growing uncertainty around the virulence of the Omicron variant and its ability to dodge existing vaccines.
In Asia-Pacific, Hong Kong and Japan said they would expand travel curbs, while Australia was bracing for more Omicron cases after at least two people visited several locations in its biggest city while likely infectious. read more
In an attempt to stave off hasty global border restrictions, the World Health Organization called on countries to apply "an evidence-informed and risk-based approach" to travel measures. Blanket travel bans will not prevent the spread, and they "place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods", the WHO said.
More than 50 countries were reportedly implementing travel measures aimed at potentially delaying import of Omicron as of Nov. 28, the WHO added. read more
Investors remained on edge on Wednesday, even as financial markets came off lows plumbed a day earlier following remarks by the CEO of Moderna (MRNA.O) that raised questions about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines against Omicron.
Global health officials have since sought to offer reassurances and reiterated calls for people to get vaccinated.
More
Will the Vaccines Stop Omicron? Scientists Are Racing to Find Out.
Mon, November 29, 2021, 12:47 PM
As nations severed air links from southern Africa amid fears of another global surge of the coronavirus, scientists scrambled Sunday to gather data on the new omicron variant, its capabilities and — perhaps most important — how effectively the current vaccines will protect against it.
The early findings are a mixed picture. The variant may be more transmissible and better able to evade the body’s immune responses, both to vaccination and to natural infection, than prior versions of the virus, experts said in interviews.
The vaccines may well continue to ward off severe illness and death, although booster doses may be needed to protect most people. Still, the makers of the two most effective vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are preparing to reformulate their shots if necessary.
“We really need to be vigilant about this new variant and preparing for it,” said Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
“Probably in a few weeks, we’ll have a better sense of how much this variant is spreading and how necessary it might be to push forward with a variant vaccine,” Bloom said.
---- Scientists have reacted more quickly to omicron than to any other variant. In just 36 hours from the first signs of trouble in South Africa on Tuesday, researchers analyzed samples from 100 infected patients, collated the data and alerted the world, said Tulio de Oliveira, a geneticist at the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine in Durban.
Within an hour of the first alarm, scientists in South Africa also rushed to test coronavirus vaccines against the new variant. Now, dozens of teams worldwide — including researchers at Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — have joined the chase.
They won’t know the results for two weeks, at the earliest. But the mutations that omicron carries suggest that the vaccines most likely will be less effective, to some unknown degree, than they were against any previous variant.
“Based on lots of work people have done on other variants and other mutations, we can be pretty confident these mutations are going to cause an appreciable drop in antibody neutralization,” Bloom said, referring to the body’s ability to attack an invading virus.
Omicron has about 50 mutations, including more than 30 in the spike, a viral protein on its surface that the vaccines train the body to recognize and attack.
Some of these mutations have been seen before. Some were thought to have powered the beta variant’s ability to sidestep vaccines, while others most likely turbocharged delta’s extreme contagiousness.
“My best guess is that this combines both of those elements,” Penny Moore, a virus expert at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa, said of the new variant.
Moore’s team is perhaps the furthest along in testing how well the vaccines hold up against omicron. She and her colleagues are preparing to test blood from fully immunized people against a synthetic version of the omicron variant.
Creating such a “pseudovirus” — a viral stand-in that contains all of the mutations — takes time, but results may be available in about 10 days.
To more closely mimic what people are likely to encounter, another team led by Alex Sigal, a virus expert at the Africa Health Research Institute, is growing live Omicron, which will be tested against the blood of fully immunized people, as well as those who were previously infected.
Those results may take longer but should provide a fuller picture of the vaccines’ performance, Sigal said.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/vaccines-stop-omicron-scientists-racing-124745156.html
Approx. 5 minutes.
Omicron Variant – NEW COVID Variant Worse Than Delta?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KPpskbCFmY
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.
Green ammonia electrolysis breakthrough could finally kill Haber-Bosch
Loz Blain November 29, 2021
Scientists at Australia's Monash University claim to have made a critical breakthrough in green ammonia production that could displace the extremely dirty Haber-Bosch process, with the potential to eliminate nearly two percent of global greenhouse emissions.
Ammonia is one of the most heavily-produced industrial chemicals in the world, and absolutely vital to modern society. Currently, the majority of ammonia is used as an agricultural fertilizer, but it's also used in plastics, fibers, explosives, pharmaceuticals and other areas.
The global ammonia industry pumps out upwards of 230 million tonnes of ammonia annually, and demand may be set to rise as the race to net zero emissions progresses; ammonia stores so much energy that it's being proposed as a high-density green fuel for hard-to-decarbonize sectors like shipping and aviation.
Virtually all the ammonia produced today is made using the Haber-Bosch cycle. Natural methane gas is used to produce hydrogen (releasing six tons of carbon dioxide for every 1.1 tons of hydrogen), then this hydrogen is reacted with atmospheric nitrogen to produce ammonia, typically burning more natural gas to provide the necessary heat and pressure for the reaction.
Not only does this result in an estimated 1.8 percent of global CO2 emissions, it's also responsible for nitrate pollution of ground water and puts vast amounts of dangerous nitrous oxide emissions into the atmosphere. Not to mention, it consumes between three to five percent of global natural gas production totals, and the gas extraction process itself spews methane emissions directly into the air, where it acts as an extremely potent greenhouse gas.
Long story short, Haber-Bosch has to be put to bed if we're to get to net zero emissions. And researchers at Monash University say they've more or less stumbled upon a way to remove natural gas from the equation altogether, while still producing ammonia "at room temperature, at high, practical rates and efficiency."
While working on a separate project attempting to make bleach out of salt water through electrolysis, Dr. Bryan Suryanto was working with Professor Doug MacFarlane, an expert on phosphonium salts, and decided to run some side experiments to see if these ionic liquids could be used to produce ammonia in an electrolytic process. To everyone's surprise, they could.
“To be honest, the eureka moment was not really ‘Eureka!’, it was more like, ‘Are you sure? I think you need to do that again,’” Professor MacFarlane says. “It takes a long time to really believe it. I don’t know that we’ve yet really had a proper celebration. The launch of our spin-out company will possibly be the time that we genuinely celebrate all of this.”
The process, says collaborator Dr. Alexandr Simonov, is "very similar to what happens in a water electrolyzer to produce hydrogen – the difference being that we use electrolytes that are familiar in the lithium battery world. When current is applied across an electrolytic cell containing such electrolytes and also dissolved nitrogen gas, a compound called lithium nitride (Li₃N) is found at the cathode surface. The electrolyte should also contain a carrier of the hydrogen ions, or protons ... [in our paper] we have shown that phosphonium salts can act as such proton carriers to produce ammonia in a highly efficient manner."
When the hydrogen ions arrive at the cathode, they displace the lithium atoms in each lithium nitride molecule, creating NH₃ – or ammonia. This is released from the cathode surface and captured. "The phosphonium cycles between the two electrodes," says Simonov, "delivering its protons at the cathode, and being replenished with a fresh proton at the anode, creating a continuous process that we can run for as much as four days."
The process is as clean as the electricity used to power it, and produces around 53 nanomoles of ammonia per second, at Faradaic efficiencies around 69 percent. The highest reported previous efficiencies for ammonia electrolysis sat around 60 percent, according to Hollevoat et al. in 2020, with the exception of one other lithium cycling approach that managed around 88 percent, but required high temperatures around 450 °C (842 °F).
The team says it's massively scalable, capable of operating either at industrial scale, or in extremely small on-site operations. "They can be as small as a thick iPad," says MacFarlane, "and that could make a small amount of ammonia continuously to run a commercial greenhouse or hydroponics setup, for example."
More
The only way government bureaucrats know of keeping prosperity going is to inflate some more - to increase the deficit or to pump more money into the system.
Henry Hazlitt.
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