Baltic Dry Index. 1603 -128 Brent Crude 96.98
Spot Gold 1791 US 2 Year Yield 2.95 -0.15
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 05/08/22 World 586,959,732
Deaths 6,431,061
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
The economic news today will focus mostly on the US labour report later today and what if anything it might mean for the Fed’s next meeting next month on September 22nd.
In reality, the markets are trying to ignore China’s sabre rattling around the shores of Taiwan, hoping that after four days of bluster the whole Pelosi Affair blows over.
Four or five days of some shipping delays isn’t really going to have a big impact on the global economy. Rising global interest rates will have a far bigger impact and one our still over priced stock casinos will have a far harder time trying to ignore.
But if China escalates the Pelosi Affair over the weekend, or if there’s a miscalculation leading to an “incident”, the stock casinos will head into a very difficult week ahead.
From faraway London, it doesn’t look to me that China is about to move on back to business as usual, but what do I know about China? But if the USA and NATO think they can defeat and occupy 1.4 billion vast China, I have a bridge I’d like to sell them first.
Asia markets
trade higher; RBI rate decision, U.S. jobs report ahead
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific traded higher
Friday as investors look ahead to the Reserve Bank of India’s interest rate
decision and the U.S. jobs report.
Markets appear unfazed by China’s
military drills around Taiwan, though Japan’s Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said
Chinese missiles landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone and called the
military drills a “serious problem,” according to an NBC News report.
Taiwan’s jumped 1.74%,
with chipmaker TSMC rising 2%.
The in Japan
rose 0.45% and the Topix index gained 0.46%.
Australia’s increased
0.14%.
In South Korea, the advanced
0.68% and the Kosdaq added 0.61%
Hong Kong’s climbed
0.14%.
Alibaba’s Hong Kong shares dropped
around 1% after the
company reported flat revenue growth, though fiscal first-quarter earnings beat
expectations.
Mainland China markets were higher.
The was
up 0.21% and the gained
0.48%.
MSCI’s broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.66%.
The Reserve Bank of India will
announce its interest rate decision later Friday.
Out of 63 respondents to a Reuters
poll, 26 expect a 50-basis-point hike to 5.4%, while 20 predict a
35-basis-point increase.
“We think optimal policy anchoring
will require at least another 50bp hike,” Vishnu Varathan, head of economics
and strategy at Mizuho Bank, wrote in a Friday note. He pointed to underlying
inflaton risks and a hakwish Fed.
“All said, it is in the
interest … of the RBI to front-load a 50bp than to spare 15bp-25bp but
squander macro-stability derived from May/June hikes,” he said.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones
Industrial Average lost 85.68 points, or 0.26%, to 32,726.82. The S&P 500
was about flat at 4,151.94 at the close. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.41% to
12,720.58.
Friday’s jobs report is expected to
show that 258,000 jobs were added in the U.S. last month, according to Dow
Jones economist estimates. That’s fewer than the 372,000 added in June.
More
Asia
markets: Stocks trade higher, RBI interest rate decision ahead (cnbc.com)
China's Taiwan war games
threaten more global supply chain disruption
Issued
on: 04/08/2022 - 06:42
Beijing (AFP) – Chinese military exercises around Taiwan are set
to disrupt one of the world's busiest shipping zones, analysts told AFP,
highlighting the island's critical position in already stretched global supply
chains.
The drills -- China's
largest-ever around Taiwan -- are a major show of strength after US House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi infuriated Beijing by visiting the island.
The manoeuvres kicked off
Thursday and will take place along some of the busiest shipping routes on the
planet, used to supply vital semiconductors and electronic equipment produced
in East Asian factory hubs to global markets.
The routes are also a key
artery for natural gas.
Nearly half the world's
container ships passed through the narrow Taiwan Strait -- which separates the
island from the Chinese mainland -- in the first seven months of this year,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
"Given that much of the
world's container fleet passes through that waterway, there will inevitably be
disruptions to global supply chains due to the rerouting," said James
Char, an associate research fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies.
'Incredibly busy waterway'
Even a small disruption in
global supply chains, already battered by the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's
invasion of Ukraine, could prove costly.
"China's planned live-fire
exercises are occurring in an incredibly busy waterway," Nick Marro, the
Economist Intelligence Unit's lead analyst for global trade, wrote in a note.
"The shutting down of
these transport routes -- even temporarily -- has consequences not only for
Taiwan, but also trade flows tied to Japan and South Korea."
The uncertainty dragged the
Taiwan Taiex Shipping and Transportation Index, which tracks major shipping and
airline stocks, down 1.05 percent on Thursday.
The index was down 4.6 percent
since the beginning of the week.
Taiwan's Maritime and Port
Bureau has warned ships in northern, eastern and southern areas to avoid the
areas being used for the drills.
But several shipping companies
contacted by AFP said they were waiting to see the impact of the drills before
rerouting.
The ongoing typhoon season made
it riskier to divert ships around the eastern coast of Taiwan through the
Philippine Sea, some added.
Others said they would stick to
their schedules.
"We don't see any impact
during (this) period and we don't have any plan on re-routing our
vessels," said Bonnie Huang, a spokesman for Maersk China.
The drills have also hit air
routes.
Over the last two days, more
than 400 flights were cancelled at major airports in Fujian, the Chinese
province closest to Taiwan, signalling that the airspace could be used by the
military.
Taiwan's cabinet meanwhile, has
said the exercises would disrupt 18 international routes passing through its
flight information region (FIR).
More
China's Taiwan war games threaten more global supply
chain disruption (france24.com)
Taiwan’s trade
with China is far bigger than its trade
with the U.S.
BEIJING — Data show that Taiwan depends more on
China for trade than it does on the U.S., even if U.S.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw her weight behind Taiwan this
week in a high-profile visit.
Taiwan came under military and
economic pressure from Beijing this week, after the democratically self-ruled
island allowed the visit of Pelosi — the highest-ranking U.S. official to set
foot on Taiwan in 25 years.
The visit came despite warnings
from China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory and
maintains the island should have no right to conduct foreign relations.
The U.S. recognizes Beijing as the sole legal government of China, while
maintaining unofficial relations with Taiwan.
Still, Taiwan’s business and
economic ties with mainland China and Hong Kong have grown so large that the
region is by far the island’s largest trading partner.
Many large Taiwanese companies in
high-tech industries such the world’s
biggest chipmaker — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or . — operate
factories in mainland China.
Last year, mainland
China and Hong Kong accounted for 42% of Taiwan’s exports, while the U.S. had a
15% share, according to official Taiwan data accessed through Wind Information.
In all, Taiwan
exported $188.91 billion in goods to mainland China and Hong Kong in 2021. More
than half were electronic parts, followed by optical equipment, according to
Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance.
Taiwan’s exports to
Southeast Asia were even greater than those to the U.S. — at $70.25 billion to
the region, versus $65.7 billion to the U.S., the data showed.
As a source of
Taiwan’s imports, mainland China and Hong Kong again ranked first with a 22%
share. The U.S. only had a 10% share, ranking behind Japan, Europe and
Southeast Asia.
More
Taiwan's
trade with China is far bigger than its trade with the U.S. (cnbc.com)
‘Ugly,’ ‘Shameless,’
‘Evil’: China Blasts G-7, EU Attempts to Deescalate Taiwan Crisis
The military
buildup around Taiwan continues as China disregards Western attempts to ease
tensions following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s high-profile trip.
By Paul D. Shinkman
Aug. 4, 2022, at 12:12 p.m.
Beijing on
Thursday slammed an attempt by members of the G-7 and EU to ease tensions
around Taiwan following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip,
dismissing their joint statement as “ugly,” “shameless,” “evil” and reminiscent
of century-old attempts by Western powers to impose imperialist control over
China.
“What is ugly? What is
shameless? The statement of the G7 foreign ministers and EU High Representative
for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is a living specimen of all that,” the
spokesperson said. “They collude, do evil and call white black.”
The series of statements from diplomats and spokespeople
around the globe came in response to a joint text from Secretary of
State Antony Blinken and other members of the economic bloc meeting Thursday
morning in Cambodia. Their call for China to “remain calm, exercise restraint,
act with transparency, and maintain open lines of communication to prevent
misunderstanding” comes at a time of near unprecedented military tensions
around Taiwan as Beijing lashes out at Pelosi’s 18-hour stopover in Taipei to
meet with local officials during a broader Asian tour.
The California Democrat’s departing flight from Taiwan on
Wednesday aboard a U.S. military aircraft appears only to have begun the broad
and provocative Chinese response.
----The
White House has definitely attempted to distance itself from Pelosi’s trip,
saying the decision to make the stop rested solely with the speaker. National
Security Council spokesman John Kirby has also attempted to downplay the
furious Chinese response, telling Fox News in an interview that so far it “is
exactly what we would expect the Chinese to do in the wake of, or even during,
Speaker Pelosi's trip.”
“This is pretty much the playbook we expected,” Kirby
said.
Yet the fervor of China’s response so far has been unseen
in years and has the capacity to create significant economic and diplomatic
disruptions globally.
More
What we learn from History is that no one learns
from History
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its
own.
Driest July on record sparks fears of European crop
shortages
August 3, 2022
As much of Europe bakes in a
third heatwave since June, fears are growing that extreme drought driven by
climate change in the continent's breadbasket nations will dent stable crop
yields and deepen the cost-of-living crisis.
The European
Commission on Wednesday urged EU member states to re-use treated
urban waste water as irrigation on the continent's parched farms, after France and parts of England saw their driest July on record.
In France, where an intense drought has hammered
farmers and prompted widespread limits on freshwater use, there was just 9.7
millimetres (0.38 inches) of rain last month, Meteo France said.
That was 84 percent down on the average levels seen
for July between 1991 and 2022, making it the driest month since March 1961,
the agency added.
Farmers nationwide are reporting difficulties in
feeding livestock because of parched grasslands, while irrigation has been
banned in large areas of the northwest and southeast due to freshwater
shortages.
Environment Minister Christophe Bechu said July's
rainfall represented "just 12 percent of what's needed".
France is the fourth-largest exporter of wheat and
among the top five exporters of maize globally. Poor harvests due to drought
may heap further pressure on grain supplies after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
caused global shockwaves.
"Our food system has been under stress for a
while, and with the supply issues from Ukraine, that has only gotten
worse," said Shouro Dasgupta, environmental economist at the
Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change.
More
Driest July on record sparks fears of European crop shortages (msn.com)
French MPs approve 20
billion-euro package to help with soaring inflation
Issued
on: 04/08/2022 - 07:23
French lawmakers on Wednesday approved a
20 billion-euro ($20.3-billion) package of measures to help struggling
households cope with rising energy and food prices.
The 395-to-112
vote came after a heated debate at the National Assembly, where French President Emmanuel
Macron no longer has a majority. The Senate also approved the text
on Wednesday evening.
The bill was a
key promise from Macron, who was
reelected for a second term in April. It was also a crucial test of the
government’s ability to govern — and opposition forces’ ability to weigh in on
the lawmaking process.
Macron’s
centrist alliance won the most seats at the National Assembly in June but lost its absolute
majority as a leftist coalition and the far right both made big gains, becoming
strong opposition forces.
Annual inflation has reached a record 8.6% for the 19 countries using the shared euro currency, swollen by a huge increase in food and energy costs fueled partly by the war in Ukraine. In France, annual inflation is estimated to be running at 6.5%.
“Your
purchasing power is our priority,” French government spokesperson Olivier Veran tweeted.
“To protect you from inflation, we maintained the price cap on gas and
electricity and set a price cap to limit rent increases to 3.5%.”
The bill also includes
increasing pensions and some welfare payments by 4%. On fuel, a current
state-financed rebate of 18 cents per liter will be increased to 30 cents in
September and October. Private companies are also being encouraged to offer
employees an annual tax-free bonus of up to 6,000 euros ($6,080).
The text was
backed by members of Macron’s centrist alliance, the conservative The
Republicans party and the far-right National Rally.
It has been debated at parliament alongside an updated version of the budget
law, which is to be voted on later this week.
The leftist Nupes coalition —
the largest opposition force, composed of the far-left, Communists, Socialists
and the Greens — criticized the measures as not going far enough and widely
voted against the bill on Wednesday.
More
French MPs approve
20 billion-euro package to help with soaring inflation (france24.com)
Shipping firm
Maersk, a barometer for global trade, warns of weak demand and warehouses
filling up
PUBLISHED WED, AUG 3 2022 9:46 AM
EDTUPDATED WED, AUG 3 20227:53 PM EDT
AP Moller-Maersk on
Wednesday predicted a slowdown in global shipping container demand this year
amid weakening consumer confidence and supply chain congestion.
The Danish shipping and logistics
company — one of the world’s largest and a broad barometer for global trade —
said it loaded 7.4% fewer containers onto ships in the second quarter when
compared to the same period in 2021, prompting it to revise the full-year
outlook for its container business.
Maersk now expects demand to be
at the lower end of its range, between -1% and 1% in 2022, as rising inflation
and energy prices darken the global economic outlook.
“Geopolitical uncertainty and higher inflation via
higher energy prices continued to weigh on consumer sentiment and growth
expectations,” the company said in a statement.
“Given this background, in 2022 global container
demand is now expected to be at the lower end of the -1% to +1% forecasted
range,” it said.
Stockpiles build-up
Maersk warned that the slowdown was especially
pronounced in Europe, where stockpiles have been building up at ports and in
warehouses as consumer demand wanes.
Russia’s war in Ukraine and Covid-19 lockdowns in
China have only exacerbated such congestion woes, it added.
“In Europe, supply chain congestion remained as
retailers and manufacturers kept containers in ports and warehouses due to weak
final demand. Port lockdowns in China due to the Covid-19 zero-tolerance policy
as well as consequences from the war in Ukraine also caused strains in key
areas of the logistics network,” the company said.
More
Shipping firm Maersk warns of weak demand and
warehouses filling up (cnbc.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.
COVID-19 Vaccines Hinder the Immune System,
Lead to More Severe Illness: Dr. Robert Malone
By and August 2, 2022 Updated: August 2, 2022
A study out of the United Kingdom has shown that health care workers who
received multiple COVID-19 vaccine boosters after initially being infected
with the original virus strain from Wuhan are more prone to chronic reinfection
from the Omicron
variant.
This may help explain why the people who have received several COVID-19
vaccine boosters are increasingly the ones who end up in the hospital with
severe COVID-19 symptoms, sometimes resulting in death, said scientist and
physician Dr. Robert
Malone.
In a July 21 interview for EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program, Malone, an inventor of mRNA
vaccine technology, said this phenomenon is the result of a process called
“immune imprinting,” whereby initial exposure to a virus strain may
prevent the body from producing enough neutralizing antibodies against a newer
strain.
He added
that this process is reinforced by multiple inoculations.
“All over
the world, we are seeing these datasets that show that, unfortunately, the
people that are dying and being hospitalized are overwhelmingly the highly
vaccinated,” he said. “It is not those that have natural immunity.”
The COVID-19 vaccines currently in circulation are based on the Wuhan strain
of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as
SARS-CoV-2, which causes the illness now identified as COVID-19.
A number of strains have emerged and become dominant since the Wuhan strain
was prevalent, including the currently dominant Omicron variant.
The problem is that COVID-19 vaccines use only one of the components of the
whole virus, which is a spike protein, so the immune system of a person who
received an mRNA vaccine becomes trained to respond to only that component,
Malone explained.
“If that antigen has changed slightly, if that virus has
changed slightly, [the immune system] still reacts as if it’s the old one,” he
said.
More
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.
What’s next in the commercial phase of graphene
By Dr
Richard Collins, Principal Analyst, IDTechEx, Cambridge, UK August
3, 2022
To date, the
commercialization of graphene has been more of a ‘material push’ rather than a
‘market pull’; a solution looking for a problem. In this first phase, there
were numerous technical and commercial barriers to overcome, which in materials
science does not happen overnight. IDTechEx believes that this is changing,
with graphene entering the next stage, the growth phase, of its commercial
journey.
In the latest
version of a longstanding independent market report on graphene, IDTechEx
brings the latest developments across the industry, as well as looking at
historical progression and a critical view of the application outlook. Despite
the hype, from a revenue and sales volume perspective, the graphene material
market is small, however significant growth is occurring, and IDTechEx’s latest
forecast expects the market to narrowly exceed US$1 billion by 2032.
The graphene
market is very complex, it is not a single product nor being proposed for a
single application. Products and processes are at varying stages of technology
readiness with engagement from many players spanning the various value chains.
The technology also continues to evolve not only for graphene but also in the
larger emerging 2D material family.
Technology overview and trends:
• Understanding the broad graphene family and production processes:
- Processes: Exfoliation, oxidation-reduction, CVD, epitaxial,
plasma, and more
- Types: Mono- and bilayer graphene, few-layer graphene (FLG),
graphene nanoplatelets (GNP), graphene oxide (GO), reduced graphene oxide
(rGO), and functionalized graphene related materials
- Forms: Graphene powders, sheets, films, wafers, fibers, membranes;
various intermediates including masterbatches and liquid dispersions
- Assessment of emerging manufacturing processes, including
alternative sustainable solutions
• Benchmarking studies for critical graphene properties
• Analysis of 2D materials beyond graphene, including boron nitride, transition metal dichalcogenides (MoS2, WSe2 etc), MXenes, phosphorene, and more
More
Another weekend and a nervous
weekend at that. Apart from the unfolding Pelosi Affair in the far east, in
Ukraine both sides seem to be squaring up for new offensives around Kherson.
Have
a great weekend everyone.
Never fight with
Russian. On your every stratagem they answer unpredictable stupidity.
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