Baltic Dry Index. 3344 +55 Brent Crude 113.42
Spot Gold 1855
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 23/05/22 World 527,715,878
Deaths 6,300,913
People don't realize that we cannot forecast the future. What we can do is have probabilities of what causes what, but that's as far as we go. And I've had a very successful career as a forecaster, starting in 1948 forward. The number of mistakes I have made are just awesome. There is no number large enough to account for that.
Alan Greenspan.
Today we are spoilt for choice. The Lords of the Universe, the World Economic Forum, are holding their delayed coven in Davos again, planning how to take from the poor what little they have.
In Tokyo, the “Quad” are holding a meeting tomorrow of the leaders of the USA, Japan, India and Australia. It isn’t mentioned of course, but the purpose of the meeting is to isolate China and prepare for war with China if necessary.
Newbie Aussie Prime Minister Albanese is making his debut on the world stage after promising the voters to make Australia a global leader in green issues, plus leading Australia into the promised land of a republic.
In Germany last week, the G-7 finance minsters met, agreed that inflation is now a global problem, correctly identified other problems from a growing foodstuffs crisis to an energy problem, but didn’t seem to have any plan to fix them let alone have a road map out of the Magic Money Tree swamp into which they have driven us after mistaking it for a forest all the way back in March 2020.
Below, the casinos this late May as we approach the start of summer. The good news, in Texas and parts of Oklahoma, the first of the US winter wheat harvest will be getting underway.
Asia-Pacific stocks mixed as global concerns persist; Xpeng shares plunge ahead of earnings
SINGAPORE — Shares in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed on Monday as global concerns continued to plague investors.
In Japan markets, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.7%, while the Topix climbed 0.74%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 struggled for direction around the flatline and was last down 0.02%.
Greater China markets dropped, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index falling 1.88% and the Hang Seng Tech index sliding 3.13%. Bilibili was 4.56% lower and Alibaba’s Hong Kong shares fell 4.6%.
The Shanghai Composite slipped 0.47% and the Shenzhen Component declined 0.71%.
Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng is set to report its first-quarter earnings on Monday. The company’s shares in Hong Kong fell nearly 9% in Asia trade.
In other markets, South Korea’s Kospi struggled for direction and was last 0.08% higher, while the Kosdaq was up 0.29%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.42%.
Stocks stateside have been taking a battering as markets grow fearful over whether there will be a recession.
In the U.S., the S&P 500 briefly fell into bear market territory during Friday’s session, but recovered slightly to close almost flat. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 8.77 points to 31,261.90 after reversing losses of more than 600 points.
The Nasdaq Composite is already deep in bear market territory, 30% off its highs, and fell 0.3% on Friday. All three indexes have posted at least a seven-week losing streak.
A market bottom could be some way away, depending on how aggressive the Fed is, according to Isaac Poole, chief investment officer at Oreana Financial Services.
“I think at the moment, the market is expecting a Fed that’s just going to keep hiking and crush inflation, get it right back down, stomp it down, and that is hurting,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”
Once the Fed signals that it will take things meeting by meeting, there is likely to be “quite a lot of upside to markets,” he added.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/23/asia-markets-stocks-economic-growth-earnings.html
Global leaders warn of economic dangers as crises multiply
May 21, 2022
BONN, Germany — The financial leaders of the world’s most powerful countries warned this week of the potential for a global economic slowdown, as the threats caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued to multiply.
Globally, the war is sending energy and food prices soaring. In the United States, Britain and Europe, central banks determined to curb inflation are moving to hike interest rates, which risks pushing nations into recession. The developing world faces an emerging debt crisis on top of a growing hunger problem sparked by the war.
In the United States, as in much of the rest of the world, gasoline prices surged and stock markets plunged, with the S&P 500 index nearing a bear market, closing the week down 18 percent off its early January peak after a late Friday rally. Large retailers, including Target and Walmart, have reported worse than expected earnings and profits this week, blaming higher costs and excess inventory that piled up in response to supply chain problems.
“If I had to sum it up: more uncertainty, more inflation, less growth,” François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Bank of France, said of the impact of the war, at a conference here of finance minsters and central bankers from the powerful Group of Seven industrial nations.
U.S. may be barreling toward recession in next year, more experts say
After approving trillions of dollars in fiscal stimulus to avert the downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, world economic leaders are now grappling with the threat of “stagflation” — slow, or negative, economic growth, coupled with rising inflation.
The risks abroad may be even greater than in the United States, economists say. In Europe, the euro zone only grew by 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2022, suggesting a potential slowdown. Some economies within Europe even shrank: Italy’s, for example, contracted slightly in the first quarter of this year.
The war poses a more serious economic threat to Europe than to the United States, particularly given the continent’s dependence on Russian energy, said Jason Furman, a former Obama administration economist. China’s efforts to contain the coronavirus also continue to rattle the global economy, with the latest data from Beijing showing a major decline in retail spending and a drop in gasoline output.
More
A $5 Trillion ‘Wealth Shock’ Is Cracking Americans’ Nest Eggs
(Bloomberg) -- The world’s richest nation is waking up to an unpleasant and unfamiliar sensation: It’s getting poorer.
Americans’ collective net worth had been climbing at a dizzying rate for the past two years, even as families and businesses contended with the ravages of Covid-19. Households piled up an extra $38.5 trillion from early 2020 to the end of last year, bringing their collective net worth to a record $142 trillion, the Federal Reserve estimates.
Just as the US is learning to live with the virus and spending shifts back toward pre-pandemic normal, it faces a new scary threat: A plunge in wealth since the start of 2022 that JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimates totals at least $5 trillion -- and could reach $9 trillion by year-end.
So far, the richest Americans have borne the brunt, with US billionaire fortunes down almost $800 billion since their peak amid the sharp losses in stocks, crypto and other financial assets. But surging interest rates are also starting to rattle the housing market, where middle- and working-class families have the bulk of their wealth.
It all adds up to the sudden removal of a major prop to confidence: ever-bigger nest eggs. And it’s by design. To stamp out the highest inflation in decades, the Fed needs Americans to curb their spending, even if it requires an economic slowdown to get there.
“It’s painful to get back to normal after really being in a fantasy world last year,” said John Norris, chief economist at Oakworth Capital Bank. “It’s going to feel a lot worse than it actually is.”
Since the start of the year, the S&P 500 Index is down 18%, the Nasdaq 100 has lost 27% and a Bloomberg index of cryptocurrencies has plunged 48%.
That all amounts to “a wealth shock that is set to drag on growth in the coming year,” JPMorgan economists led by Michael Feroli wrote in a note Friday.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues have repeatedly said they’re actively aiming for such a slowdown, leaving it unlikely policy makers will move to address the Great Wealth Drop of 2022.
More
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/5-trillion-wealth-shock-cracking-132734925.html
Is a recession coming? Signs the economy is beginning to crack
Recessions are notoriously difficult to predict, but here are signs of a looming slowdown
May 21, 2022
Wall Street is increasingly convinced that the Federal Reserve is going to drag the economy into a recession with its war on inflation.
Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs are among the most notable firms forecasting the possibility of a downturn within the next two years, as the U.S. central bank moves to aggressively tighten monetary policy in order to cool consumer demand and bring inflation back down to its 2% target.
There are growing signs the banks may be right, although recessions are notoriously difficult to predict.
Here is a closer look at some signs the economy is beginning to splinter.
GDP unexpectedly shrank in the first quarter
Economic growth in the U.S. is already slowing.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported earlier this month that gross domestic product unexpectedly shrank in the first quarter of the year, marking the worst performance since the spring of 2020, when the economy was still deep in the throes of the COVID-induced recession.
ONE OF BIDEN'S FAVORITE ECONOMISTS SEES A HIGH CHANCE OF RECESSION IN NEXT 2 YEARS
GDP contracted by 1.4% on an annualized basis in the three-month period from January through March, according to the government's first reading of the data. That was sharply below Refinitiv economists' expectations for growth of 1.1%, and suggested that dark clouds are looming on the horizon.
"The shock drop in GDP is a wake-up call that the economy isn’t as strong as we all thought," said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance. "It’s possible that GDP gets revised higher next month, as this is just the first release and there will be two revisions, but it is a warning sign."
Morehttps://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/recession-signs-inflation-rate-hikes
Tesla’s golden moment is over
The EV company's share price has taken a beating in the last 12 months
by Philip Pilkington Friday, 20 May 2022
Even before yesterday’s embarrassing revelations about Elon Musk, Tesla was having bad year. Its stock price has fallen nearly 41% since 2021 and it is showing no sign of slowing down. For reference, Ford — America’s largest car manufacturer — has seen its stock price rise by around 6% in the same period. Clearly, the problem is not the car market. So, what is going on?
Tesla has followed a similar trajectory to another Silicon Valley start-up: Uber. The taxi company has seen a decline in its stock price of almost 55% in the last year, even though Medallion Financial, a company that provides loans to purchase taxi medallions in the US, is only down around 19%. This shows that, like Tesla, the issue is the company, not the market.
These companies have a lot in common: both are experimental business models and neither one has proven itself to the market. Uber has been around for 13 years and has never turned a consistent profit, while Tesla has been around for 14; any profit the company makes is completely reliant on carbon credits — and occasionally on Bitcoin trading.
Uber, meanwhile, has serious problems with its business model. Hubert Horan, an analyst of the taxi industry, argues that “the widespread belief that it is a highly innovative and successful company has no basis in economic reality”. While I would not go quite that far in describing Tesla, I have laid out problems with its business model on this site before.
The two companies’ stock prices are falling in line with the broader tech stock market crash. Technology is where most of the entrepreneurship — and therefore risk — has been in the market this cycle. Markets basically think of companies like Uber and Tesla as tech companies and price them accordingly.
But Tesla has even deeper problems. This week, it was announced that Tesla would be dropped from the top ten ESG rated companies in the S&P500. This is problematic for Tesla because it markets itself as a green investment and, as mentioned, relies on carbon credits for its survival. The outrage over Tesla having its ESG rating downgraded has itself provoked a lot of backlash and, in the medium-term, may have investors questioning exactly what these criteria are based on. Ultimately though, given the general market turmoil and Tesla’s until-now impeccable green credentials, in the immediate-term the pain will be felt by the company.
More
https://unherd.com/thepost/teslas-golden-moment-is-over/
Next, is anyone surprised? Fools and money comes to mind.
Miami’s mayor backed MiamiCoin crypto—then its price dropped 95%
Published May 16, 2022
On Feb. 2, the city of Miami cashed out its cryptocurrency MiamiCoin for the first time, depositing $5.25 million into city coffers. Miami mayor Francis Suarez hailed it as a “historic moment” and predicted the cryptocurrency could one day even replace municipal taxes as the government’s primary source of funding.
MiamiCoin’s creator, an organization called CityCoins, has been no less enthusiastic, portraying the coin as a financial experiment that will empower citizens with a “community-driven revenue stream” while spurring new digital city services.
Miami is not the only city with big cryptocurrency dreams. CityCoins announced a similar cryptocurrency for New York in November 2021, and plans to release a coin for Austin, Texas, soon. Other cities have launched their own crypto ventures: Fort Worth, Texas, for example, will soon be running bitcoin mining rigs in city hall.
But only Miami’s mayor has thrown his full endorsement behind a CityCoin-branded cryptocurrency so far. After promoting MiamiCoin to residents and investors since its launch in August, the city of Miami received millions of dollars through its agreement with CityCoins.
Over the last nine months, however, MiamiCoin has lost nearly all of its value, falling about 95% from its September peak to just $0.0032 as of May 13. Its rapid descent has burned investors on the way down, muting the dreams of Miami’s city leaders, and possibly raising red flags for regulators now investigating cryptocurrency transactions.
MiamiCoin is the first in what CityCoins, a Delaware-based company with a mailing address in a Los Angeles strip mall, has promised will be a series of US city-branded cryptocurrencies. New York City mayor Eric Adams tweeted his approval of NYCCoin on Nov. 8, shortly after his election, welcoming CityCoins to “the global home of Web3” (Web3 is a crypto-optimist idea of a decentralized internet built on blockchains and cryptocurrencies). But Adams hasn’t spoken of NYCCoin since taking office on Jan. 1 of this year, and the coin has fallen 68% since then. Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s government has explored the CityCoins idea, but announced in April it would not proceed.
More
https://qz.com/2165639/miamis-mayor-backed-miamicoin-then-its-price-dropped-95-percent/
Finally, via the NY Times, an extreme case makes the case for why we need an International Bank for Slavery Reparations. Nearly all of the world’s existing nations would be contributors. Long overdue healthcare, infrastructure, education, and energy improvements would be the main beneficiaries. Politicians need not apply.
The Ransom
The Root of Haiti’s Misery: Reparations to Enslavers
Catherine Porter, Constant Méheut, Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan
Published May 20, 2022Updated May 21, 2022
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Finally, a good news Monday or maybe not. Subsidising food is a bad idea, but only works if the food was actually produced. Right now we have grains scarcity bordering on grains catastrophe depending on what happens to wheat production In North America, Europe and rice production in China and much of Southeast Asia.
So whose idea was it to force Russia into a proxy war in Ukraine rather than reaching a security solution via diplomacy?
Indonesia president declares end of palm oil export ban from Monday
May 19, 2022 1:23 PM GMT+1
JAKARTA, May 19 (Reuters) - Indonesia will lift its three-week-old palm oil export ban from Monday due to improvements in its domestic cooking oil supply, its president said, a move applauded by farmers amid mounting calls for its removal.
The world's top palm oil exporter on April 28 halted shipments of crude palm oil and some derivative products to try to tame soaring prices of domestic cooking oil, surprising markets that were already rattled by earlier government intervention measures.
President Joko Widodo on Thursday said the supply of bulk cooking oil had now reached a level greater than needed, although bulk prices had not yet receded to the targeted 14,000 rupiah per litre.
"In several regions I know prices of cooking oil were still relatively high, but I believe in coming weeks they will be more affordable," Jokowi, as the president is known, said in a video statement.
Industry groups had warned that the palm oil sector could grind to a halt in coming weeks if the export ban were to remain in place.
In taking the decision, the government was considering the welfare of 17 million workers, he said.
"Although exports are being reopened, the government will continue to closely supervise and monitor (the market) to ensure demand is being met with affordable prices," Jokowi added.
Palm oil's benchmark contract in Malaysia closed 0.98% lower and was expected to fall further following Indonesia's announcement.
More
Governments should subsidise food and energy, says IMF boss
By Jonathan Josephs Business reporter, BBC News 22 May 2022
Governments need to subsidise the cost of food and energy for the poorest members of society, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has told the BBC.
People around the world are struggling with the rising cost of living.
Kristalina Georgieva said support needs to be provided "in a very targeted manner, preferably by providing subsidies directly to people".
Many governments are providing some help but critics argue it's not enough.
When it comes to the cost of living crisis, Ms Georgieva said: "There are two priorities, one the very poor people, segments of society that are now struggling with high food and energy prices".
The second, she added, is to support those businesses that have been "most damaged" by the war in Ukraine.
The IMF's role is to work with governments to stabilise the global economy and enhance prosperity.
However, that's proving challenging because food prices have hit record highs this year, whilst oil and gas prices have also risen sharply.
This is largely because of the twin shocks of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Between them Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of crops and hydrocarbons.
Recession fears
The importance of these commodities to the global economy has led the annualised inflation rate to reach its highest point in decades in many countries: 9% in the UK, 8.3% in the US and 7.4% in the Eurozone.
Central banks are lifting interest rates to try and slow the increase in prices, which has led some influential figures such as Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein to warn of the risk of recession.
Ms Georgieva is concerned about the impact those higher borrowing costs will have on governments who have to repay huge debts they took on to get through the pandemic.
She said governments needed to be "very careful" about how much money they spent and what they spent it on.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61523624
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
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
To err once is bad but to err consistently suggests some sort of agenda, but the NYT wouldn’t have a hidden agenda for misinformation, would they?
New York Times issues correction after wrongly reporting 4,000 children have died from COVID-related condition
Gray Lady clarified that the children have been ‘diagnosed’ with the syndrome
May 20, 2022 10:19am EDT
The New York Times issued a correction Thursday after falsely reporting the number of children who have died from a COVID-related condition in a piece about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending a third dose of the vaccine to kids.
The piece by Times health and science reporter Apoorva Mandavilli initially declared that nearly 4,000 children ages 5-11 died, but in reality that number was diagnosed with a coronavirus-related syndrome.
"But record numbers of children were hospitalized during the Omicron surge this winter. Nearly 4,000 children aged 5 to 11 have been died from a Covid-related condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome during the pandemic," the Times reporter wrote in the original story.
The Gray Lady eventually issued a correction noting the children were diagnosed, not deceased.
"An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the numbers of children aged 5 to 11 with multisystem inflammatory syndrome. About 4,000 have been diagnosed, not died, with the syndrome," the paper wrote beneath the updated report.
The Times was swiftly mocked on social media for the "unbelievable mistake," as one user put it. It was at least the second major correction to a Mandavilli story related to children and COVID in recent memory.
Last year, the Times issued a massive correction after severely misreporting the number of COVID hospitalizations among children in the United States by more than 800,000.
A report headlined "A New Vaccine Strategy for Children: Just One Dose, for Now," also by Mandavilli, was peppered with errors before major changes were made to the story. The Times initially reported "nearly 900,000 children have been hospitalized" with COVID since the pandemic began, when the factual data in eventually-corrected version was that "more than 63,000 children were hospitalized with Covid-19 from August 2020 to October 2021."
More
https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-correction-children-covid-died
Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada.
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
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, among other things, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.
Synthesis of two-dimensional holey graphyne
Date: May 18, 2022
Source: Institute for Basic Science
Summary: A new type of carbon allotrope, holey graphyne, has semiconductor properties and is applicable in various fields such as photoelectronics, sensors, and water purification.
Diamond and graphite are two naturally occurring carbon allotropes that we have known for thousands of years. They are elemental carbons that are arranged in a manner so that they consist of sp3 and sp2 hybridized carbon atoms, respectively. More recently, the discovery of various other carbon allotrope materials, such as graphene, fullerene, carbon nanotube, graphyne, and graphdiyne, has been revolutionalizing modern nanomaterials science. In particular, graphene research has made significant advances in modern chemistry and physics because of its fascinating properties.
Graphene has been touted as a wonder material that can potentially revolutionize the semiconductor industry, owing to its exceptional electron mobility properties. Despite the hype, it appears our civilization is still far from transitioning from the silicon age to the graphene age. The main challenge of using graphene in electronics is the zero-bandgap electronic structure of graphene. This makes it impossible to switch off graphene-based transistors, which limits their application in the semiconductor industry. While it is possible to overcome this limitation by doping or functionalizing the graphene, there is also much interest in the search for new types of 2D carbon allotropes that have exceptional semiconducting properties, such as a proper energy bandgap and high mobility.
Recently, researchers discovered that it is possible to endow many characteristics suitable for a semiconductor to graphene or graphene oxides by creating many holes in its structure. This new type of material is called "holey graphene." Compared to graphene, γ-graphyne, or graphdiyne, holey graphene not only has the ideal 2D semiconducting properties but also has nonlinear sp bonding and a special π-conjugated structure, which offers promising applications in optoelectronic, energy harvesting, gas separation, catalysis, water remediation, sensor, and energy-related fields.
So far, holey graphene has been produced in laboratories by first synthesizing graphene, then subjecting the graphene to physical, chemical, or hydrothermal treatment to puncture many holes in the structure. However, such a top-down approach for production has its limitations because the size and distribution of the 'holes' are uneven and difficult to control.
Led by Associate Director LEE Hyoyoung, researchers from the Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics (CINAP) within the Institute for Basic Science, South Korea, developed a bottom-up approach for creating such material. For the first time, the group devised a method to construct topologically 2D carbon material atom by atom.
This new two-dimensional single-crystalline material was dubbed "holey-graphyne" (HGY) by the group. HGY consists of alternately linked between benzene rings and C≡C bonds, composed of a pattern of six-vertex and highly strained eight-vertex rings and an equal percentage of sp2 and sp hybridized carbon atoms.
----This new discovery not only demonstrates the first synthesis of the ultrathin single crystalline HGY but also introduces a new concept for the design and synthesis of such a new type of 2D carbon allotrope. It is hoped that the future application of HGY in the semiconductor industry will pave the wave for a new generation of electronics beyond the silicon age.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Institute for Basic Science. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense... that gold and economic freedom are inseparable.
Alan Greenspan.
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