Baltic Dry Index. 1381 +79 Brent Crude 90.03
Spot Gold 1792
On Friday in the global stock casinos, it was the worst of times it was the best of times, depending on your news source, your book, and your need to dress up the market for Monday’s coming month-end.
In reality, European war still looms, with the Washington-London War Parties still pressing on with trying to provoke Moscow into making the first move. Interestingly, Kiev seems to be back peddling frantically unwilling to be Washington and London’s killing ground.
In reality, US and global interest rate hikes are coming, as is a scaling back of all the free fiat money and public welfare support that fuelled the stock casinos, inflation and kept the official figures out of a covid induced recession. If the central banksters are to be believed, Easy Street is about to become Skid Row.
In the USA, if it happens, crushing the Democrats in the coming mid-term elections, turning aging President Biden into a one term, lame duck president and probably setting off the Great Stagflation.
But for now, only rallying the stock casinos ahead of Monday’s month-end counts. Anyway, Russia seems willing to wait out China’s New Year and Winter Olympics before starting Washington and London’s next European war.
European stocks post fourth straight week of losses amid Fed jitters; Signify up 11%
LONDON — European stocks fell sharply on Friday, wrapping up another volatile week for markets amid fears over the direction for central bank policies.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed down by 1%, with mining stocks shedding 2.8% to lead losses as almost all sectors bar retail and travel slipped into the red.
It marks the fourth consecutive week of losses for equity markets in Europe — and the first time this has happened since March 2020.
Earnings were a key driver of individual share price movement on Friday. Dutch lighting company Signify jumped nearly 11% after a strong set of results, while Swedish clothing giant H&M gained 5% after beating profit expectations.
At the bottom of the European blue chip index, German chemicals company Henkel dropped more than 11% after its earnings report.
Markets have whipsawed throughout the week as investors reacted to the Fed’s indication on Wednesday that it could soon raise interest rates for the first time in more than three years, and to rising geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine.
After a sharply negative open on Thursday, European stocks clawed back losses and closed 0.7% higher after U.S. GDP figures came in stronger than expected. They’re still down over 1.5% in the past five days.
Shares in Asia-Pacific closed mostly higher on Friday, while on Wall Street, U.S. stocks were mostly higher, boosted by gains for Apple after the company reported its largest ever single quarter in terms of revenue.
----Economic data releases included flash German, French and Spanish fourth-quarter GDP numbers, Italian inflation prints and a euro zone business climate survey.
France’s economy grew by 0.7% in the fourth quarter, Friday’s preliminary figures showed, bringing the full-year growth rate to a five-decade high of 7% in 2021 following an 8% contraction in 2020.
Spanish GDP grew 2% quarter on quarter, also exceeding consensus expectations and bringing annual growth to 5%.
The German economy contracted by more than expected in the fourth quarter as renewed Covid-19 measures weighed on activity. GDP shrank 0.7% quarter-on-quarter. Europe’s largest economy grew 2.8% in 2021, Friday’s figures showed.
The European Commission’s monthly economic sentiment index fell to 112.7 in January from a revised 113.8 in December, as industrial and services morale waned.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/28/european-markets-open-to-close-end-of-a-wild-week-of-volatility.html
Strong U.S. earnings lift global equities amid inflation, geopolitical concerns
By Katanga Johnson January 28, 2022 11:23 PM GMT
WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - World stocks rallied on Friday as investors turned their eyes toward corporate earnings and ignored geopolitical turmoil and Federal Reserve tightening concerns.
Strong earnings from tech firms including Apple (AAPL.O), which rose nearly 7% after reporting record sales over the holiday quarter, buoyed U.S. markets during the session. read more
All three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher. However, the pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX) index closed down 0.99% on the day for a fourth week of losses, weighed down by worries over the situation in Russia and Ukraine. EU
Economic data helped eased inflation fears, with U.S. data showing consumer spending and labor cost rises were weaker than expected in December. read more
"The widely-watched employment cost index came in a touch softer than expected suggesting wages may start to cool some from here," said Stephanie Roth, a senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.
Mounting inflation pressures could force the Fed to rapidly hike interest rates, stifling growth, economists have warned.
"Hot wage growth has been a key factor behind the Fed's pivot, so if this trend continues that would relieve some pressure," said Roth.
MSCI's 50-country main world index (.MIWD00000PUS) rose 1.49% but remained on the brink of its worst January since the 2008 global financial crisis after shedding roughly $7 trillion in value.
The dollar, meanwhile, consolidated gains and posted its biggest weekly rise in seven months as markets priced in a year ahead of aggressive hikes in U.S. interest rates /FRX.
More
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/global-markets-wrapup-1-2022-01-28/
Biden's Ukrainian Albatross
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell is given credit for popularizing the “Pottery Barn” rule of foreign policy. Though he denies using that exact phrase, in arguing against what became the disastrous 2003 US attack on Iraq Powell made the point that, as in Pottery Barn, “if you break it, you own it.”
Bush and his neocons – ironically with the help of Colin Powell himself – did indeed break Iraq and the American people as a result “owned” Iraq for the subsequent 22 years (and counting). It was an idiotic war and, as the late former NSA chief Gen. Bill Odom predicted, turned out to be “the greatest strategic disaster in American history.”
Attacking and destroying Iraq – and executing its leader – not only had no value in any conceivable manner to the United States, it had negative value. In taking responsibility for Iraq’s future, the US government obligated the American people to pick up the tab for a million ransacked Pottery Barns.
There was no way out. Only constant maneuvering and manipulation to desperately demonstrate the impossible – that the move had any value or even made any sense.
So it is with Ukraine. In 2014 the Obama/Biden Administration managed to finish what Bush’s neocons started a decade before. With the US-backed overthrow of the Ukrainian government that year, the US came to “own” what no one in their right mind would ever seek: an economic basket case of a country with a political/business class whose corruption is the stuff of legend.
Rather than admit what a colossal blunder the whole thing had been, the US foreign policy establishment doubled down.
“Oh, this might be a neat tool to overthrow our own election: let’s pretend Trump is Putin’s agent!”
In fact Trump was impeached because a certain Col. Alexander Vindman – himself of Ukrainian origin and doing the bidding of a Ukrainian government installed by Washington – solemnly testified to Adam Schiff and his Democrat colleagues in charge of the House that Trump was clearly Putin’s puppet because his lack of enthusiasm for continuing to “own” Ukraine went against “the Inter-Agency Consensus.”
We “own” Ukraine and there is no way back – at least if the US foreign policy establishment has its way.
That is why our hapless State Department today continues to peddle the fiction that Russia is about to invade – and thus “own” – Ukraine. US foreign policy is one of projection: accuse your rivals of doing what you yourself are doing. No sane country would want to “own” Ukraine. Except the Beltway Think Tank class, thoroughly infused with military-industrial complex money.
That is why the US government, though its Embassy in Kiev, is bragging about the arrival of $200 million in lethal aid, all pointed directly at Russia.
More
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/01/daniel-mcadams/bidens-ukrainian-albatross/
Finally, in other news, H.M.G. looks to shake up UK financial services.
The City of London Corporation, gives itself top billing, naturally.
Exclusive: Brexit financial services regulation bonfire set to be in next Queen’s Speech
Friday 28 January 2022 11:28 am
An overhaul of the UK’s financial services regulation is set to be included in the next Queen’s Speech as the government speeds up its push to make the City more competitive post-Brexit.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak gave an update to the cabinet on Tuesday about the UK’s plans to shed EU rules for financial services, with Treasury sources telling City A.M. that the package of measures is set to be put to parliament later this year.
Many Tory Brexiteers have called for an overhaul of the City’s rulebook, now that the UK no longer needs to follow the EU’s regulatory regime, in a bid to boost global competitiveness.
This includes former Cabinet Office minister Lord David Frost.
Frost sent a “gushing note” about the work Sunak was doing on shedding regulations just before he quit the cabinet last month, according to an ally of the chancellor.
A Treasury source said Sunak’s push for a regulatory overhaul shows he is “capturing the mood and that he’s on top of these things … at a time when there needs to be potential Brexit dividends”.
---- The long expected regulatory changes, which Sunak last year said would help herald a “Big Bang 2.0” in the City, are now in the final stages of being finalised as the Treasury wraps up its Future Regulatory Framework (FRF) Review consultation on 9 February.
The package of measures will include an easing of capital requirements for the insurance industry, which are a part of the EU’s Solvency II directive, in order to free up money for firms to invest with.
Another proposal being considered is a change to share-listing rules to make London a more attractive destination for tech start-ups to go public.
More
Post-Brexit boost for the City as London takes top spot in global financial powerhouse rankings
Thursday 27 January 2022 11:06 am
London continues to hold the top spot for financial and professional services in terms of overall offer when compared to other global destinations, including New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris and Frankfurt, according to new figures published this morning.
London received an overall competitiveness score of 61, followed by New York (58) and Singapore (53). The rankings were rounded out with Frankfurt (45), Hong Kong (39) and Tokyo (36).
For the first time, the research included Paris as a second European comparator centre, with a competitiveness score of 41.
More
To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.
President George W. Bush.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Key Fed inflation gauge rises 4.9% from a year ago, fastest gain since 1983
Published Fri, Jan 28 2022 8:32 AM EST
A gauge the Federal Reserve prefers to measure inflation rose 4.9% from a year ago, the biggest gain going back to September 1983, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
The core personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy was slightly more than the 4.8% Dow Jones estimate and ahead of the 4.7% pace in November. The monthly gain of 0.5% was in line with expectations.
Along with the inflation numbers, personal income rose 0.3% for the month, a touch lower than the 0.4% estimate. Consumer spending declined 0.6%, less than the 0.7% estimate.
A separate Labor Department data point that Fed officials also watch closely showed that total compensation costs for civilian workers increased 4% over the past 12 months. That is the fastest pace in history for the employment cost index, a data set that goes back to the beginning of 2002.
However, the seasonally adjusted quarterly increase of 1% was less than the 1.2% forecast, putting some balm on fears of a wage-price inflationary spiral.
The numbers come as rampant inflation is pushing the Fed into an aggressive pace of policy tightening.
More
An invasion of Ukraine could drive up global food prices and spark unrest far from the front lines
January 28, 2022
More than 100,000 Russian troops are massed near Ukraine amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts to defuse the prospect of conflict. Should peace not prevail, western-gazing Ukrainians would pay the highest price. But in a worst-case scenario, the cost of a major Russian invasion of Ukraine — one of the world’s largest grain exporters — could ripple across the globe, driving up already surging food prices and increasing the risk of social unrest well beyond Eastern Europe.
As tensions mount, one focus of economic concern is the global impact of extreme Western sanctions on Russia — a major exporter of agricultural goods, metals and fuel, particularly to Western Europe and China. Should the crisis escalate to the point of triggering staggering sanctions, the blow could spike prices and worsen global supply chain woes by tightening markets for commodities including natural gas and metals such as nickel, copper and platinum used in the manufacturing of everything from cars to spacecrafts.
Yet perhaps just as crucially, a major Russian incursion would also affect the flow of goods from Ukraine, the world’s fourth-largest supplier of wheat and corn. A major disruption of Ukrainian exports — especially in conjunction with any interruption in even larger Russian grain exports — could pile onto a global inflationary cycle that in many countries is already the worst in decades.
Concern is especially focused on fuel and food. Last year, global food prices surged 28.1 percent to their highest level in a decade, according to the United Nation’s food agency. Worries of war have already driven U.S. corn futures to their highest levels since June and sent wheat futures to two-month highs before a recent easing.
Over the past 20 years, bountiful Ukrainian harvests boosted the country’s role as a global breadbasket. Some of its biggest clients are economically battered, war-torn or otherwise fragile states in the Middle East and Africa, including Yemen, Lebanon and Libya, where grain shortages or cost surges could not only deepen misery but churn up unpredictable social consequences.
More
Below, why a “green energy” economy may not be possible, 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
A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.
W. C. Fields.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
The latest Covid variant is 1.5 times more contagious than omicron and already circulating in almost half of U.S. states
There are already dozens of cases across almost half of the U.S. of a new Covid subvariant that’s even more contagious than the already highly transmissible omicron variant.
Nearly half of U.S. states have confirmed the presence of BA.2 with at least 127 known cases nationwide as of Friday, according to a global data base that tracks Covid variants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a statement Friday, said although BA.2 has increased in proportion to the original omicron strain in some countries, it is currently circulating at a low level in the U.S.
The subvariant is 1.5 times more transmissible than the original omicron strain, referred to by scientists as BA.1, according to Statens Serum Institut, which conducts infectious disease surveillance for Denmark.
The new sublineage doesn’t appear to further reduce the effectiveness of vaccines against symptomatic infection, according to the U.K. Health Security Agency.
“Currently there is no evidence that the BA.2 lineage is more severe than the BA.1 lineage,” CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said.
BA.2 overtook the original omicron as the dominant variant in Denmark over the course of a few weeks, said Troels Lillebaek, the chairman of the Scandinavian nation’s committee that conducts surveillance of Covid variants.
BA.1 and BA.2 have many differences in their mutations in the most important areas. In fact, the difference between BA.1 and BA.2 is greater than the difference between the original “wild strain” and the Alpha variant, which was the first major mutation to take root across the world.
More
US scientists who downplayed COVID-19 lab leak origins theory sang a different tune in private, emails show
Scientist said of COVID-19: 'I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature'
January 28, 2022.
U.S. scientists who publicly attributed the COVID-19 pandemic to natural origins rather than human engineering were far less confident in private, transcripts and notes from previous meetings show.
However, conversations between public officials seem to indicate that some experts may have consciously chosen to suppress evidence that could fuel "conspiracists."
"I really can't think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus ... to nCoV where you insert exactly four amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function," Dr. Robert Garry from Tulane's School of Medicine said, according to notes from a February 2020 meeting released by House Republicans.
NEW INTEGRAL DOCUMENTS REVEAL COVID ORIGINS DOWNPLAYED
"I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature," Garry added in his group comments at the time. "Don't mention a lab origin, as that will just add fuel to the conspiracists."
Now, fresh questions are being raised about what American scientists and federal health officials knew about the origins of the coronavirus and whether conflicting evidence was suppressed and hidden from the public.
White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci was warned as early as Jan. 27, 2020, that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) he oversaw was indirectly linked to the infamous Wuhan lab through EcoHealth, a U.S.-based scientific nonprofit that had been working with novel coronaviruses.
NIAID Principal Deputy Director Hugh Auchinloss floated the idea to Fauci that the research partially tied to the U.S. government may not have gone through the appropriate biosafety evaluations, saying that he will "try to determine if we have any distant ties" to the facility.
Dr. Kristian Anderson, a prominent virologist at the Scripps lab, told Fauci Jan. 31 2020, that "the genome is inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory," an observation that points to synthetic manufacturing.
After Fauci was made aware of Anderson's observations, a conference call with dozens of expert virologists around the world was organized.
More
EU watchdog approves Pfizer COVID pill
January 27, 2022
The EU's drug watchdog approved Pfizer's coronavirus pill on Thursday, making it the first oral antiviral treatment for the disease to be authorised in Europe.
Studies showed the drug called Paxlovid reduces hospitalisation and death in patients at risk of severe COVID, and may also be effective against the Omicron variant.
Pills are seen as a potentially huge step in ending the pandemic as they can be taken at home, rather than in hospital.
"Paxlovid is the first antiviral medicine to be given by mouth that is recommended in the EU for treating COVID-19," the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a statement.
The United States, Canada and Israel are among a handful of countries to have already given the green light to the Pfizer treatment.
The European Commission must now formally authorise the drug but that is a rubber-stamp procedure that usually takes hours or days.
"Paxlovid is the first oral antiviral for home use in our portfolio, and has the potential to make a real difference for persons at high risk of progression to severe COVID," EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said in a statement.
"We have also seen the promising evidence regarding Paxlovid's effectiveness against Omicron and other variants."
The Pfizer treatment is a combination of a new molecule, PF-07321332, and HIV antiviral ritonavir, that are taken as separate tablets.
The EMA said it "recommended authorising Paxlovid for treating COVID-19 in adults who do not require supplemental oxygen and who are at increased risk of the disease becoming severe".
More
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-eu-watchdog-pfizer-covid-pill.html
Ivermectin: enigmatic multifaceted ‘wonder’ drug continues to surprise and exceed expectations
---Antiviral (e.g. HIV, dengue, encephalitis)
Recent research has confounded the belief, held for most of the past 40 years, that ivermectin was devoid of any antiviral characteristics. Ivermectin has been found to potently inhibit replication of the yellow fever virus, with EC50 values in the sub-nanomolar range. It also inhibits replication in several other flaviviruses, including dengue, Japanese encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitis, probably by targeting non-structural 3 helicase activity.97 Ivermectin inhibits dengue viruses and interrupts virus replication, bestowing protection against infection with all distinct virus serotypes, and has unexplored potential as a dengue antiviral.98
Ivermectin has also been demonstrated to be a potent broad-spectrum specific inhibitor of importin α/β-mediated nuclear transport and demonstrates antiviral activity against several RNA viruses by blocking the nuclear trafficking of viral proteins. It has been shown to have potent antiviral action against HIV-1 and dengue viruses, both of which are dependent on the importin protein superfamily for several key cellular processes. Ivermectin may be of import in disrupting HIV-1 integrase in HIV-1 as well as NS-5 (non-structural protein 5) polymerase in dengue viruses.99, 100
More
https://www.nature.com/articles/ja201711
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.
Nuclear fusion milestone creates "burning plasma" for the first time
Nick Lavars January 26, 2022
For the prospect of limitless, clean energy produced through nuclear fusion to become a reality, scientists need the reactions at the heart of the technology to become self-sustaining, and newly published research has edged them closer to that goal. Scientists using a high-powered laser at the National Ignition Facility in the US have achieved "burning plasma" for the first time, demonstrating for a fleeting moment how the fuel can provide much of the heat needed to keep the reactions going.
Scientists have been pursuing nuclear fusion technology at the National Ignition Facility since it came online in 2009, using 192 lasers housed inside a 10-story building to deliver 1.9 megajoules of ultraviolet energy onto a fuel capsule roughly the size of a ball bearing. This creates tremendous pressure and temperature that causes separate atoms to fuse into helium, a reaction that releases vast amount of energy.
This mimics the reactions that take place inside the Sun, but the trouble is creating them here on Earth requires huge amounts of energy to initiate the process. The overarching objective in this field is to have the fusion reactions become the primary source of heat instead, creating a self-sustaining form of nuclear fusion and ongoing energy production.
The results of experiments undertaken at the National Ignition Facility in November 2020 and February 2021 confirm small but critical steps toward this aim. The scientists made a few tweaks to the setup that included scaling up the amount of laser energy focused on the fuel, while changing the geometry of the target and the way energy is transferred between the laser beams. The result of this was a novel way to control the implosion process that compresses and heats the fuel, enabling the creation of self-heating plasma.
“In these experiments we achieved, for the first time in any fusion research facility, a burning plasma state where more fusion energy is emitted from the fuel than was required to initiate the fusion reactions, or the amount of work done on the fuel,” said lead author Annie Kritcher.
Though the lifetime of the plasma was measured in just nanoseconds, the achievement of burning plasma is a step toward nuclear ignition, where the process continues to fuel itself to produce energy. That reality is likely still decades away, but the scientists see these short-lived snippets of self-heating plasma as an important proof-of-concept.
“Fusion experiments over decades have produced fusion reactions using large amounts of ‘external’ heating to get the plasma hot," said lead author Alex Zylstra. "Now, for the first time, we have a system where the fusion itself is providing most of the heating. This is a key milestone on the way to even higher levels of fusion performance.”
The research was published in the journal Nature.
Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
This weekend’s anonymous musical diversion. Approx. 13 minutes.
Anonymus (18th Century) - Trumpet Concerto Es-Dur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa-ysmhn_ts
This weekend’s chess update. Approx. 9 minutes.
Spectacular Checkmates Still Happpen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHslUMwifOM
This weekend’s maths update. Approx. 18 minutes.
Fermat’s HUGE little theorem, pseudoprimes and Futurama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9fbBSxhkuA
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
Abraham Lincoln.
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