Baltic Dry Index. 2067 +30 Brent Crude 107.02
Spot Gold 1742 US 2 Year Yield 3.12 +0.09
"There
is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit
expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the
result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a
final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
Ludwig
von Mises.
Yesterday’s
US employment report stunned and confused just about everyone. According to the official employment numbers,
America’s booming. But is it really or are the employment statistics just
lagging a stalling economy, or just reflecting a pandemic induced shortage of
labour?
I
suspect we will not have to wait long to get a much clearer picture, especially
if the central banksters continue raising interest rates into a global economy
that’s moving on from boom to bust.
US employers add a solid 372,000 jobs in sign of resilience
WASHINGTON (AP) — A strong
hiring report for June has assuaged fears that the U.S. economy might be on the cusp of a
recession — and highlighted the resilience of the nation’s job
market.
Yet
the figures the government released Friday also spotlighted the sharp divide
between the healthy labor market and the rest of the economy: Inflation has soared to 40-year
highs, consumers are increasingly gloomy, home sales and
manufacturing are weakening and the economy might actually have shrunk for the
past six months.
The
contrasting picture suggests an economy at a crossroads. Strong hiring and wage
growth could help stave off recession. Or, conversely, painful inflation and
steadily higher borrowing rates engineered by the Federal
Reserve could discourage consumer and business spending and
weaken growth, eventually leading businesses to scale back hiring or even cut
jobs.
For
now, at least, the latest jobs data from the
Labor Department shows that many businesses still want to keep
hiring. Employers added 372,000 jobs in June, a surprisingly robust gain and in
line with the pace of the previous two months. Economists had expected job
growth to slow sharply last month given the broader signs of economic weakness.
The
unemployment rate remained 3.6% for a fourth straight
month, matching a near-50-year low that was reached before the
pandemic struck in early 2020.
“For
all the doom and gloom that’s in the markets right now, companies themselves
still seem pretty upbeat on their own progress,” said James Knightley, chief
economist at ING, a bank. “It sort of dampens the near-term fear that we’re
heading into an impending recession.”
Still,
there’s plenty of uncertainty clouding the economy’s outlook. Consumers cut
back on their spending, when adjusted for inflation, in May for the first time
this year. Home sales have fallen 9% from a year ago. And the Federal Reserve
is raising its key interest rate at the fastest pace in
three decades, with the goal of cooling consumer and business
spending and curbing inflation but heightening the risk that it will eventually
cause a recession.
“The economic tea leaves get
harder to read when the economy is at a turning point,” said Daniel Zhao, senior
economist at employment website Glassdoor. “Or, put another way, turning points
are only obvious in hindsight.”
Jason
Furman, a Harvard economist who was a top economic adviser to President Barack
Obama, said the gap between the healthy jobs data and the overall economic
picture is the widest it’s been in 70 years. In the first half this year,
employers added 2.7 million jobs, even while other data suggests that the
overall economy contracted during that time.
More
A
robust June jobs report clouds outlook for US economy | AP News
In
other news, the Musk Twitter deal collapsed, along with the technology market
and Twitter’s stock.
Crypto
continues being crypto to no one’s great surprise.
Musk abandons deal
to buy Twitter; company says it will sue
Elon Musk announced Friday
that he will abandon his tumultuous $44 billion offer to
buy Twitter after the company failed to provide enough information about the
number of fake accounts. Twitter immediately fired back, saying it would sue
the Tesla CEO to uphold the deal.
The
likely unraveling of the acquisition was just the latest twist in a saga
between the world’s richest man and one of the most influential social media
platforms, and it may portend a titanic legal battle ahead.
Twitter
could have pushed for a $1 billion breakup fee that Musk agreed to pay under
these circumstances. Instead, it looks ready to fight to complete the purchase,
which the company’s board has approved and CEO Parag Agrawal has insisted he
wants to consummate.
In a
letter to Twitter’s board, Musk lawyer Mike Ringler complained that his client
had for nearly two months sought data to judge the prevalence of “fake or spam”
accounts on the social media platform.
Musk also said the
information is fundamental to Twitter’s business and financial performance, and
is needed to finish the merger.
In
response, the chair of Twitter’s board, Bret Taylor, tweeted that the board is
“committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon” with
Musk and “plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are
confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
The
trial court in Delaware frequently handles business disputes among the many
corporations, including Twitter, that are incorporated there.
Former
President Donald Trump weighed in on his own social platform, Truth Social:
“THE TWITTER DEAL IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE ‘TRUTH’”. Musk said in May that he
would allow Trump, who was banned from Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot
at the U.S. Capitol, back onto the
platform.
Much
of the drama surrounding the deal has played out on Twitter, with Musk — who
has more than 100 million followers — lamenting that the company was failing to
live up to its potential as a platform for free speech.
On
Friday, shares of Twitter fell 5% to $36.81, well below the $54.20 that Musk
agreed to pay. Shares of Tesla, meanwhile, climbed 2.5% to $752.29. After the
market closed and Musk’s letter was published, Twitter’s stock continued to
decline while Tesla climbed higher.
“This
is a disaster scenario for Twitter and its board,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives
wrote in a note to investors. He predicted a long court fight by Twitter to
either restore the deal or get the $1 billion breakup fee.
More
Musk
abandons deal to buy Twitter; company says it will sue | AP News
Embattled crypto lender
Celsius is a ‘fraud’ and ‘Ponzi scheme,’ lawsuit alleges
Published Fri, Jul 8 2022 5:02 AM EDT
Crypto lender Celsius artificially inflated the price of its own digital
coin, failed to hedge risk and engaged in activities that amounted to fraud, a
lawsuit alleges.
Celsius on Thursday was sued by former investment manager Jason Stone, as
pressure continues to mount on the firm amid a crash
in cryptocurrency prices.
The lawsuit in New York state court comes after Celsius, which offers
customers interest for depositing their crypto, was
forced to pause withdrawals for its users as it faces a liquidity crisis.
Celsius was not immediately available for comment on the lawsuit when
contacted by CNBC.
Stone’s
relationship with Celsius
Celsius acts like a bank in that it offers customers yield, sometimes as
high as nearly 19%, if they deposit their crypto with the company. The firm
then lends that crypto out to others willing to pay a high interest rate to
borrow. Then it tries to pocket that money in order to give the yield back to
customers.
Stone founded a company called KeyFi which specialized in crypto trading
strategies. Celsius and KeyFi cut a “handshake deal” whereby the latter firm
would “manage billions of dollars in customer crypto-deposits in return for a
share of the profits generated from those crypto-deposits,” the lawsuit alleges
More
Global
Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Retailers
scale back hiring as worry about a slowdown grows
NEW YORK (AP) — After going
on a frenzied hiring spree for a year and a half to meet surging shopper
demand, America’s retailers are starting to temper their recruiting.
The
changing mindset comes as companies confront a pullback in consumer spending,
the prospect of an economic downturn and surging labor costs. Some analysts
suggest that merchants have also learned to do more with fewer workers.
The
nation’s top employer, Walmart, said it recently over-hired because of a
COVID-related staffing shortage and then reduced its head count through
attrition. In April, Amazon said it, too, had decided that it had an excess of
workers in its warehouses. And FedEx, whose customers include big retailers,
said late last month that it was hiring fewer people.
In
addition, new data shows that retailers in recent months have been scaling back
sign-on bonuses and are no longer relaxing job
requirements — a sign that they no longer feel compelled to
expand their applicant pool, according to the labor analytics company
Lightcast. And Snagajob, an online marketplace for hourly work, reports that
job postings in retailing have been slowing in the past couple of months,
though they remain up from a year ago.
Retailers “are going to take
a conservative view of what’s possible and what’s necessary, because the price
they will pay for being wrong will be minimum if they run out of goods and
don’t have enough staff, and massive if they wind up with an inventory glut and
they have too many people employed,” said Mark Cohen, director of retail
studies at Columbia University and a former CEO of Sears Canada.
The
easing of retail hiring is happening in a labor market that has undergone
volatile swings throughout the recovery from the pandemic recession of 2020.
Early on, companies like Amazon, Target and Walmart that provide necessities
and goods for the home stepped up their hiring to meet a crushing demand from
online shoppers. At the same time, stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom whose
clothing lines were considered non-essential by many at the time, temporarily
laid off workers during nationwide lockdowns.
The
pullback in retail hiring comes against the backdrop of a still-robust national
job market. On Friday, the government is expected to report that America’s
employers added 275,000 jobs in June, according to economists surveyed by the
data provide FactSet. That would amount to a solid gain, though it would be the
smallest monthly total in more than a year. It would suggest that the pace of
hiring may be easing — something the Federal Reserve has been hoping for as it
looks to slow the economy and curb high inflation.
More
Retailers
scale back hiring as worry about a slowdown grows | AP News
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.
COVID
Boosters Might Be Less Than 20% Effective After a Few Months: Study
An
Italian review of COVID studies found that boosters restore vaccine
effectiveness against omicron initially, but that protection falls off quickly
July 8, 2022 at 8:20 am’
COVID booster shots appear to be
less than 20% effective against infection with the omicron variant of the virus just
a few months after the booster is given, a new study found this week.
The
Italian study, which is a pre-print review and re-analysis of prior studies and
has not been peer-reviewed, suggests boosters are effective in the short term
to restore protection against the virus. But over just a few months, that wanes
quickly.
"Booster
doses were found to restore the VE [vaccine effectiveness] to levels comparable
to those acquired soon after administration of the second dose; however, a fast
decline of booster VE against Omicron was observed, with less than 20% VE
against infection and less than 25% VE against symptomatic disease at 9 months
from the booster administration," the authors wrote in the paper
released Wednesday.
It's a
crucial question to understand, given that boosters widely became available
about 9 months ago in the United States, and that a new
surge is now happening with the BA.5 variant of omicron --
which appears to be better
at reinfecting people than any past strain of the virus.
Overall, the researchers found that nine months after
administration, two doses of a vaccine were less than 5% effective at stopping
a symptomatic omicron infection, and three doses were no more than about 22%
effective.
According
to the CDC, less than a third of Americans have had a first booster
dose at any point since they became available, and only about 5% of Americans
have had a second booster dose.
COVID
Vaccine Booster Effectiveness Drops Quickly, Study Says – NBC New York
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
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.
Record-setting quantum
entanglement connects two atoms across 20 miles
Michael
Irving July 07, 2022
Researchers in Germany have demonstrated
quantum entanglement of two atoms separated by 33 km (20.5 miles) of fiber
optics. This is a record distance for this kind of communication and marks a
breakthrough towards a fast and secure quantum internet.
Quantum entanglement is the uncanny phenomenon
where two particles can become so inextricably linked that examining one can
tell you about the state of the other. Stranger still, changing something about
one particle will instantly alter its partner, no matter how far apart they
are. That leads to the unsettling implication that information is being
“teleported” faster than the speed of light, an idea that was too much for even
Einstein, who famously described it as “spooky action at a distance.”
Despite its apparent
impossibility, quantum entanglement has been consistently demonstrated in
experiments for decades, with scientists taking advantage of its bizarre nature
to quickly transmit data over long distances. And in the new study, researchers
from Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU) and Saarland University have
now broken a distance record for quantum entanglement between two atoms over
fiber optics.
In their experiments, the
team entangled two rubidium atoms kept in optical traps in two different buildings
on the LMU campus. They were separated by 700 m (2,297 ft) of fiber optics,
which was extended out to 33 km with extra spools of cable. Each atom was
excited with a laser pulse, which causes it to emit a photon that’s quantum
entangled with the atom.
More
Record-setting
quantum entanglement connects two atoms across 20 miles (newatlas.com)
This
weekend’s music diversion. The almost forgotten Benedictine monk at
Peterhausen. Approx. 12 minutes.
Alfons
Albertin (1736-1790) - Sonata à 4 Organi con Stromenti (1787)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjKdfFtk1P4
This
weekend’s chess update. Approx. 14 minutes.
"Total
Annihilation" || Ding vs Radjabov || FIDE Candidates (2022) R12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeExQayQ8Dw
This
week’s maths update. Approx. 4 minutes.
Distance
between two inscribed circles in a rectangle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBLPzBuEaPc
“But it [the boom] could
not last forever even if inflation and credit expansion were to go on
endlessly. It would then encounter the barriers which prevent the boundless
expansion of circulation credit. It would lead to the crack-up boom and the
breakdown of the whole monetary system.”
Ludwig
von Mises.
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