Baltic Dry Index. 2010 +08 Brent Crude 100.04
Spot Gold 1709 US 2 Year Yield 3.15 +0.02
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 15/07/22 World 565,567,342
Deaths 6,382,488
At each step of the transition from commodity to paper to credit, money became more unreal, and detached from the real goods and services that money can be exchanged for. Money transformed itself from a mechanism for trade into an object in its own right. Modern technology—digital money—further stripped money of corporeality. Money exists as pure information, with no intrinsic value. It is nothing and everything. Making money, lending it, borrowing money, and making money from money is central to human existence and activity. As the Roman poet Horace noted eons ago: “Make money, money by fair means if you can, if not, by any means money.”
Modern money is inherently worthless, but everybody accepts it as real.
Satyajit Das. Extreme
Money. Masters of the
Universe and the Cult of Risk
http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780132790079/samplepages/0132790076.pdf
In the stock casinos, China’s GDP missed expectations and officially grew by only 0.4 percent in the second quarter.
In communist run China where reporting bad news is severely frowned upon, in reality, given all the lockdowns, China’s GDP probably contracted.
A blow up in the stock casinos is likely directly ahead.
But with US wholesale price inflation running out of control at over 11 percent, the US central banksters need to take a hard look at Sri Lanka right now and come up with a plan to prevent a Sri Lanka happening in the “Land between the shining Seas.”
Perhaps
it’s time to bring Bernanke out of retirement to deliver the speech “Sri Lanka:
Making sure it doesn’t happen here.”
Chinese
markets are mixed after China’s GDP misses expectations, retail sales grow
o
SINGAPORE — Chinese markets were mixed Friday as
investors watched for market reaction to China’s second-quarter GDP missing
expectations.
China’s GDP grew 0.4% in the second
quarter, compared with 4.8% in the first quarter and the 1%
that analysts in a Reuters poll predicted.
Retail sales topped expectations,
however, rising 3.1% in June. A Reuters poll of analysts expected no growth
compared with a year ago.
The Shanghai Composite was down 0.24%, while the Shenzhen Component was up 0.196%.
The second-quarter
report is China’s weakest GDP print since the first quarter of 2020 when the
Covid pandemic first hit.
Frederic Neumann,
co-head of Asian economics at HSBC, said it’s not a big surprise given the
severe disruptions in logistics and consumption during Covid lockdowns. Still,
he said the weak GDP report suggests the recovery hasn’t been as strong as
hoped.
----The Hang
Seng index in Hong Kong fell 1.19%, and the Hong Kong Tech
index slipped around 2%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 dropped
0.77%.
South Korea’s Kospi struggled for
direction and was last 0.34% higher, while the Kosdaq lost 0.31%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was
0.59% higher, while the Topix index was about flat.
Shares of Uniqlo-owner Fast Retailing jumped
8.06% after the company posted a record quarterly profit after the close on Thursday,
Reuters reported.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific
shares outside Japan shed 0.33%.
Most major indexes in the region
trended lower this week.
“Inflation and interest rate hikes,
and the fear it will drive recession continued to dominate investment markets
over the last week,” Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital, wrote in a
note Friday.
Separately in China, bank and real estate stocks
were hit Thursday as homebuyers boycott mortgage payments for unfinished
property projects.
The South China Morning Post reported late Thursday that
the boycott has grown, with buyers of more than 230 properties
in 86 cities not making mortgage payments.
China Overseas Land and Investment shares
lost 1.3% and Longfor’s stock dropped 4.52% on Friday.
Alibaba’s U.S.-listed
shares dropped more than 4% overnight after the Wall Street Journal reported
that the company’s executives were summoned by authorities investigating theft
of police data. The tech giant’s shares in Hong Kong fell 3.86%.
U.S. stock indexes slipped Thursday
after bank earnings disappointed.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
shed 0.46%, or 142.62 points, to 30,630.17, while the S&P 500 dipped 0.3%
to 3,790.38. The Nasdaq Composite inched 0.03% higher to finish at 11,251.19.
More
Asia
markets: China GDP grows 0.4%, misses expectations (cnbc.com)
China will fare
the worst if stagflation strikes, says S&P Global Ratings
China will fare the worst if spiking inflation,
slowing growth and rising interest rates lead to stagflation, according to the results of a stress test of 20,000 companies conducted
by credit rating agency, S&P Global Ratings.
Stagflation is
characterized by rising prices and slowing economic growth or high
unemployment.
The company said over 90% of its
sample was made up of unrated companies with debt totaling $37 trillion,
representing 41% of total global corporate debt. The companies were categorized
into four risk tiers: low, moderately low, moderately high, and high.
Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia,”
S&P Global Ratings senior research fellow Terry Chan said the reasons for
China’s vulnerability are historical, a legacy from the years of high growth
which led to Chinese companies becoming highly leveraged, or high in
debt.
“Now that China’s growth is slowing
down, they’re taking a double hit, both from
slowdown in growth and price pressures coming up from overseas because some of
the components are being imported ... And that’s why under the stress test,
they seem to perform the worst,” Chan said.
He added that the
government has been trying to strike a “balancing act.”
“They’re trying to rebalance the
economy [so they can] strengthen some of the state-owned corporations and maybe
reduce the size of the private sector,” he said.
Chan also said both business and consumer sentiment are being
affected by Covid lockdowns in China. The country, unlike the rest of the
world, has pursued a strict zero-Covid policy to contain outbreaks. Though it showed signs of easing such measures in May, regions with new spikes in cases
earlier this month were placed on alert, facing the prospect of more lockdowns.
More
China will worst-hit if stagflation strikes, says S&P Global (cnbc.com)
In
other news, Italy, situation back to normal.
USA gets real producer price inflation.
Italian president
rejects Mario Draghi resignation as Rome plunges into political crisis
Political uncertainty returned to Rome Thursday
with the government in a state of limbo and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi
being urged to rethink his resignation.
Draghi on Thursday
said he would quit as Italian leader, after a political party in his ruling
coalition refused to participate in a confidence vote earlier in the day.
“I will tender my resignation to
the president of the republic this evening,” Draghi told the Cabinet,
according to a statement translated by Reuters, throwing Italian politics back
into a fragile state of affairs.
But the Italian head
of state later on Thursday rejected Draghi’s resignation and asked him to
address Parliament to get a clear picture of the political situation, according
to a statement from President Sergio Mattarella’s office.
The Five Star
Movement, one of the parties in the coalition government led by Draghi, had
earlier opposed a new decree aimed at lowering inflation and battling rising
energy costs. Italy’s lawmakers held a confidence vote on the wide-ranging
policy package, but Five Star boycotted despite Draghi threatening to step down
if the party didn’t back it.
Analysts, however,
contended that the opposition to this policy package is not so much ideological
but a result of internal party disputes.
“The move by the M5S was
largely triggered by turmoil prevailing within the ailing party rather than by
meaningful policy differences with the executive,” Wolfango Piccoli,
co-president of the consultancy firm Teneo, said in a note Thursday.
After Mattarella’s
rejection of Draghi’s resignation late Thursday, the former European Central
Bank chief will now have to go back to Parliament to hold a vote of confidence
in the government itself.
----Draghi has consistently pushed for a reformist agenda and
his work has softened previous concerns among investors regarding the stability
of Italy’s economy. But this new setback risks efforts to secure post-pandemic
funds from the EU and also comes as Europe pushes hard to ween itself off
Russian hydrocarbons.
Italy is due to have
parliamentary elections before June 2023, but the latest uncertainty in Rome
could bring that forward.
More
Italian
PM Mario Draghi says he will resign as coalition government collapses
(cnbc.com)
Wholesale prices
shoot up near-record 11.3% in June on surge in energy costs
Inflation hit hard at
the wholesale level in June, as producer prices surged a near-record amount
from a year ago due to a big jump in energy costs, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported Thursday.
The producer price
index, a measure of the prices received for final demand products, increased
11.3% from a year ago, the highest reading since the record 11.6% in March.
Of that gain, almost
90% came from a 10% increase in final demand energy costs as prices for oil,
natural gas and other products soared during the month.
Excluding energy, as
well as food and trade service prices, so-called core PPI rose 6.4% on a
12-month basis, a deceleration from the 6.8% gain in May.
On a monthly basis,
the core measure increased just 0.3%, below the 0.5% Dow Jones estimate.
Headline PPI rose 1.1% on the month, higher than the 0.8% estimate.
The release comes one
day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index, which measures
final-sale prices in the marketplace, surged 9.1%, the highest 12-month gain
since November 1981.
In a separate Labor
Department report, weekly jobless claims rose to 244,000 for the week ended
July 9, the highest number since Nov. 20, 2021. Continuing claims, which run a
week behind the headline number, fell to 1.33 million, a decline of 41,000.
More.
Producer
price index June 2022: Gain 11.3% on surge in energy costs (cnbc.com)
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its
own.
EU cuts euro zone growth forecasts, revises up inflation outlook
July 14, 2022
It’s official: the European Commission has cut its growth forecasts for the euro area, and hiked its inflation outlook.
In its summer forecasts, just
released, the EC warns that economic shocks are hitting the European economy.
The Ukraine war is the major
factor, along with soaring inflation, China’s latest lockdowns and the slowdown
in America (US GDP shrank in Q1), it says.
The EC warns:
As the reality of a protracted Russian invasion of Ukraine sinks
in, the assessment of its economic consequences for the global economy is
turning grimmer. The shocks unleashed by the war are hitting the EU economy
both directly and indirectly, setting it on a path of lower growth and higher
inflation.
The rapid increase in energy and food commodity prices is
feeding global inflationary pressures, eroding the purchasing power of
households and triggering a faster monetary policy response than previously
assumed. Furthermore, the deceleration of growth in the US is adding to the negative
economic impact of China’s strict zero-COVID policy.
The EU executive now predicts
growth of 2.6% this year for the 19-country currency bloc, slightly less
than the 2.7% it had forecast in May.
The picture for 2023 is
gloomier; growth is now forecast to slow to just 1.4%, instead of the 2.3% previously
estimated, as higher energy prices take their toll.
JP
Morgan profits slide 28% as bad loan provisions rise – business live
(theguardian.com)
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.
With Covid-19 starting to become only endemic,
this section is close to coming to its end.
FDA
finally authorizes Novavax COVID-19 vaccine in US
Rich Haridy July 13, 2022
After months of delays
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finally issued an emergency use
authorization (EUA) for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine. Once doses are available
this will be the first protein-based COVID vaccine authorized in the United
States.
The FDA’s authorization
follows a tumultuous
couple of years, with trial delays and
manufacturing issues slowing the development of a vaccine that in early 2020
was initially announced as part of Operation Warp Speed, next to Pfizer and
Moderna’s mRNA vaccines. Despite the hurdles, Novavax’s vaccine has
been available across the world
for many months. Indonesia, India and the European Union all approved use of
the vaccine late last year, while Australia is already using it as a fourth
booster option.
Peter
Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and
Research, has
previously defended his agency’s delays in authorization of the
vaccine. He has argued the FDA’s standards for authorization are higher than
other countries, particularly in the area of manufacturing.
“After
a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the data, and assessment of the
manufacturing processes and information, as well as input from the FDA’s
committee of external independent advisors, the FDA’s medical and scientific
experts have determined that the vaccine meets the FDA’s high standards for
safety and effectiveness for emergency use authorization,” said Marks in a
statement accompanying the new EUA for Novavax.
----The
Novavax COVID-19 vaccine is a protein subunit vaccine. It is made by growing
modified versions of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on moth cells. Those spike
proteins are then harvested and assembled onto nanoparticles designed to
resemble the structure of the virus. An adjuvant containing extract from a
Soapbark tree is then added to the mixture to boost the body’s immune response.
A few
days before this FDA announcement the US government revealed it has purchased 3.2 million
doses of the Novavax vaccine, enough to treat 1.6 million Americans. The
vaccine is hoped to be accessible within weeks following further approval from
a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory panel.
Source: FDA
FDA
finally authorizes Novavax COVID-19 vaccine in US (newatlas.com)
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.
Energy-saving
MIT tech boosts the boiling of water
Ben Coxworth July 13, 2022
Everyone
knows that the application of heat is necessary to boil water, but thanks to
new research, much less heat may soon be required. A novel surface treatment
allows water to reach a boiling point more easily, thus requiring less energy
to do so.
As water in
a pot or other container approaches the boiling point, numerous bubbles form
along the bottom of that container. The greater the number of bubbles, the more
efficient the boiling process, but only up to a point.
If the bubbles
crowd one another to the extent that they coalesce into one continuous vapor film
along the bottom, that film will slow the transfer of heat from the container's
surface to the liquid water. As a result, it will take more time and energy to
bring the water to a full boil.
Led by postdoctoral
student Youngsup Song and Prof. Evelyn Wang, a team at MIT set out to maximize
bubble formation while avoiding film formation. In order to do so, they created
a treatment that can be applied to the bottom inner surface of containers used
in the boiling of water. The treatment works in three ways.
First of all, it
places an array of microscale dents in the surface. Measuring 10 micrometers
wide and spaced about 2 mm apart, these dents serve as formation/anchoring
points for the bubbles, keeping them held in place so they can't spread into
one another.
Secondly, the
surfaces of the dents are covered in nanoscale ridges. These structures
increase the heated surface area, boosting the rate at which the liquid water
evaporates into bubble-forming vapor.
Finally, each dent
sits within the top its own individual tiny pillar. The pillars have a wicking
effect, drawing water up to the dent where it continuously forms a layer of
liquid between the boiling surface and the bubble. This increases boiling
efficiency by ensuring that the surface is always heating liquid water, as
opposed to passing heat through the vapor in the bubble.
More research still needs to
be conducted, as the current version of the technology has only been tested in
small-scale setups. It is hoped that once developed further, however, the
surface treatment could be used in applications such as the steam-powered
generation of electricity, or the cooling of electronics. And yes, it might
even decrease the amount of time that it takes to make a cup of tea.
A paper on the study was recently
published in the journal Advanced Materials.
Source: MIT
Energy-saving
MIT tech boosts the boiling of water (newatlas.com)
Another
weekend and the useless, unnecessary war in Ukraine drags on. Far from anyone trying
to end the west’s proxy war on Russia, the US, UK, EU and NATO are all busy
trying to ramp it up. Nothing good for mankind lies this way ahead.
Have a
great weekend everyone.
He was a boy when the great earthquake struck San
Francisco at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, one of the worst
natural disasters in U.S. history. The man and his family survived the
earthquake and subsequent fire, managing to get out of the destroyed city by
boat. His father paid the boatman, who would not accept money, in gold,
secreted away for emergencies. Gold, the sweat of the god as the Incas
called it, is hard money. It is the only money when chaos ensues.
Satyajit Das. Extreme
Money. Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk
http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780132790079/samplepages/0132790076.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment