Baltic Dry Index. 1560 -43 Brent Crude 95.20
Spot Gold 1773 US 2 Year Yield 3.24 +0.21
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 08/08/22 World 589,587,346
Deaths 6,436,694
“Until death
it is all life”
Don Quixote.
Another week in the silly season and an iffy start to the week too.
In the stock casinos, more nervousness over rising global interest rates and a bellicose war of words between China and America. Hopefully it will remain just that.
In the energy sector, Australia is threatening to reduce LNG exports in favour of their domestic market needs next year. If it were to happen at a time that Russia’s gas supply to Europe is greatly diminished, a frantic scramble to obtain LNG supply for the coming northern hemisphere winter will commence.
Most of Europe faces sky high prices for gas and electricity as it is. Already a winter heating or eating crisis looms, with governments all across Europe scrambling to print up money to try to head off a winter fuel poverty disaster if Europe gets a normal winter. But all that money printing is inflationary in itself.
The old order 1945-2005 is rapidly departing and a new disorder is starting to replace it. Think Sri Lanka, Argentina, Turkey and more.
The benefits of the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money were all front loaded and long ago spent and dissipated, now increasingly comes the reckoning.
Printing more and more free money works, until one day suddenly it doesn’t. That day gets closer by the day.
“Every victory
is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem.
Asia-Pacific
markets slip in early trade; SoftBank earnings ahead
SINGAPORE — Shares in
the Asia-Pacific traded lower Monday, with SoftBank set to report earnings
after the market close.
The Nikkei 225 in
Japan were about flat with energy stocks gaining but real estate stocks
falling, while the Topix index slipped 018%.
SoftBank shares were
1.45% higher ahead of the earnings announcement.
In Australia,
the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.21%.
Shares of Oz
Minerals spiked 34.91% after the company rejected BHP’s 8.34
billion Australian dollar ($5.76 billion) takeover bid.
South Korea’s Kospi declined
0.29% and the Kosdaq shed 0.41%.
Chipmaker SK Hynix
slipped 2.44% on Monday after the Korea Herald reported that a South Korean
city, Yeoju, wants more compensation in exchange for letting the company build
pipes to transport huge amounts of water to its plant in a different city.
Hong Kong’s Hang
Seng index slid 0.76%, with the Hang Seng Tech index dipping 1.82%.
Mainland China
markets were lower. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.16% and the Shenzhen
Component shed 0.23%.
MSCI’s broadest index
of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 0.57%.
Over the weekend, China reported
trade data for July that showed dollar-denominated exports grew 18% compared to
a year ago.
That’s the fastest pace of growth
this year and beat analysts’ expectations for a 15% increase, Reuters
reported.
China’s dollar-denominated
imports increased 2.3% in July compared to the same period in 2021, lower than
the expected 3.7% gain.
On Friday in the U.S., nonfarm
payrolls came in at 528,000, far above expectations. Treasury yields rose
strongly.
“Noise in the seasonal adjustment
factor could feed into downward surprises in coming months, all else equal; but
there’s no question that the U.S. labor market is extremely tight,” according
to an ANZ Research note dated Monday.
“The payrolls data validated Fed
speakers’ efforts in the past week to correct the market’s impression that
Powell’s ‘data dependent’ take is dovish,” the note added.
More
Asia
markets: China trade data, SoftBank earnings, currencies, oil (cnbc.com)
Potential curb on
Australian LNG exports is another blow to Asia-Pacific gas markets
The Asia-Pacific gas market has suffered another
blow after major natural gas producer Australia signaled it could potentially
cut down liquified natural gas exports as the region battles tight gas
supplies, high prices and competition from gas-short European buyers.
Australia is looking to trim its
overseas sales in favor of domestic consumption ahead of a projected shortfall
in local supplies next year
As energy protectionism takes hold
globally, last week, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission called
on Canberra to protect domestic gas supplies and curb LNG — cooled natural gas
— exports after projecting the east coast of the country could face a shortfall
of 56 petajoules of gas next year.
For months, Asia-Pacific region has
faced competition for fuel from European buyers looking to replace restricted
Russian gas.
These
European countries, in scrambling for LNG to mitigate a
shortage of pipeline gas ahead of the northern winter, have outbidded some less
developed Asian countries.
“To protect energy security on the
east coast we are recommending the Resources Minister initiate the first step
of the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM),” ACCC Chair Gina
Cass-Gottlieb said last week.
“We are also strongly encouraging
LNG exporters to immediately increase their supply into the [local] market.”
Most of the gas used
on Australia’s east coast is produced by companies that are also LNG exporters
to Asia-Pacific and other countries. The ADGSM stops these producers from
exporting LNG if there is a shortfall domestically.
While most LNG sales
to overseas buyers are made through long-term contracts, Australian LNG
producers also sell ad-hoc and non-contracted LNG on the spot
market. Countries without the ability to strike competitive long-term contracts
are forced to buy them on the spot market.
It is this LNG supply
that the ACCC says producers should avoid selling to the overseas market —
currently flushed with gas-starved buyers — and save it for local consumers.
More
Potential
curb on Australian LNG exports is another blow to Asia-Pacific gas markets
(cnbc.com)
Fed Governor
Bowman sees ‘similarly sized’ rate hikes ahead after three-quarter point moves
PUBLISHED SAT, AUG 6 202212:15 PM
EDT
Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman said
Saturday she supports the central bank’s recent big interest rate increases and
thinks they are likely to continue until inflation is subdued.
The Fed, at its last two policy meetings, raised benchmark borrowing rates by 0.75 percentage point, the largest increase since
1994. Those moves were aimed at subduing inflation running at its highest level
in more than 40 years.
In addition to the hikes, the rate-setting Federal
Open Market Committee indicated that “ongoing increases ... will be
appropriate,” a view Bowman said she endorses.
“My view is that similarly sized increases should
be on the table until we see inflation declining in a consistent, meaningful,
and lasting way,” she added in prepared remarks in Colorado for the Kansas
Bankers Association.
Bowman’s comments are the first from a member of
the Board of Governors since the FOMC last week approved the latest rate
increase. Over the past week, multiple regional presidents have said they also expect rates to continue to rise aggressively until inflation falls from its current
9.1% annual rate.
Following Friday’s jobs report,
which showed an addition of 528,000 positions in July and worker pay up 5.2%
year over year, both higher than expected, markets were pricing in a 68% chance
of a third consecutive 0.75 percentage point move at the next FOMC meeting in
September, according to CME Group data.
Bowman said she will be watching upcoming inflation data closely to gauge precisely how much she thinks rates should be
increased. However, she said the recent data is casting doubt on hopes that
inflation has peaked.
More
“We have 2
classes of forecasters: Those who don't know and those who don't know they
don't know. “
John Kenneth
Galbraith.
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.
“The issues are too important to be left for
the voters.”
Climate, war and inflation jolt reinsurers into action
Price
of coverage is going up and options are shrinking for insurers looking to pass
on risks
7
August, 2022
Life
has not been easy for reinsurers in the past few years. Claims for natural
catastrophes and pandemic-related losses have wiped out a large part of their
profits.
But
the latest set of global problems — war in Ukraine, galloping inflation and the
ever-increasing risks of climate change — have jolted them into action. In some
areas, they are putting up the price of coverage, in others they are retreating
altogether.
“What looked like . . . a gradual change is
increasingly looking like a knee-jerk change,” said Stephen Catlin, an industry
veteran and chief executive of insurer Convex.
Reinsurers
play a vital role in trade and the global economy, offering insurance to
insurers to reduce the risk that a big claim will wipe them out. This backstop
against a whole range of financial risks — which is underpinned by $700bn in
capital — gives insurers the confidence to provide cover to a much wider
market.
Among
the biggest reinsurance groups are the four major European players, Munich Re,
Swiss Re, Hannover Re and Scor, as well as the Lloyd’s of London market and
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Swiss
Re’s chief executive Christian Mumenthaler told the Financial Times that
“timid” price rises in natural catastrophe reinsurance in recent years had now
accelerated after three years of higher costs from losses.
For
contracts renewing in July, Swiss Re implemented a 12 per cent rise in premiums
across its property and casualty business, which includes natural catastrophe
cover and other types of insurance. “It’s very big, because it’s [across]
everything . . . I can’t remember a rise like that,” said Mumenthaler.
Executives
attribute the market tightening to robust demand — fuelled by inflation driving
up the value of what is being insured — and a fall in supply after investor
pressure caused some reinsurers to pull back, in particular from the natural
catastrophe business.
There
has also been reduced appetite, they say, from institutional investors to take
on reinsurance risks through insurance-linked securities, partly after losses
on these sorts of investments and partly because yields on bonds have
increased.
“We think the [reinsurance] market is turning, we are now seeing momentum,”
said Aki Hussain, chief executive of Hiscox, one of the biggest insurers on the
London market, which has its own reinsurance unit.
“In the past five years [reinsurance] prices
have lagged and now for the first time they are going up faster than they are
for insurance.”
Another factor in rising prices today is big claims
arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Insurers in areas such as aviation
now expect billions of dollars of claims from the owners of the hundreds of
planes left stranded by the war.
More
Climate, war and
inflation jolt reinsurers into action | Financial Times (ft.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 infections
continuing to fall around the UK
06 August 2022
Covid infections are continuing
to fall in the UK, dropping by more than half a million in a week, according to
the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Roughly 2.6
million people had the virus in the week to 26 July, compared to 3.2 million
the previous week.
The number of
people in hospital with the virus is also decreasing.
But experts
warn there is still a lot of Covid around, with data estimating one in 25
people in England currently have the virus.
Vaccines are
helping protect people from severe illness, however.
The ONS data is
collated by testing thousands of people from UK households - whether or not
they have symptoms - to estimate how much virus is circulating.
'Continued
decreases'
In the latest
ONS report, for the week ending 26 July , the estimated Covid rates were:
- One in 25 in
England - down from one in 20 the week before
- One
in 30 in Wales - down from one in 19
- One
in 17 in Northern Ireland - down from one in 16 (although experts say the
trend is uncertain)
- One
in 20 in Scotland - down from one in 19
"Our most
recent data suggests that infection rates have continued to decrease across
much of the UK, although rates still remain high," said Dr Rhiannon Yapp,
co-lead for the ONS survey.
"We have
seen continued decreases in all regions and age groups in England.
"With the
summer holidays and more people travelling, we will continue to closely monitor
the data," she added.
Many of the
recent cases have been linked to fast-spreading sub-variants of Omicron, called
BA.4 and BA.5.
People are
still able to become infected, even if they have had Covid before - but
vaccines are helping to protect people from becoming severely ill.
The government
announced last month that everyone aged 50 and over in the UK will be offered
another Covid
booster vaccine this autumn.
Covid infections
continuing to fall around the UK - BBC News
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.
The bacteria powering a truly
green revolution in personal electronics
Team engineers biofilm
capable of producing long-term, continuous electricity from your sweat
Date: August 2, 2022
Source: University of Massachusetts
Amherst
Summary: Researchers recently
announced that they have figured out how to engineer a biofilm that harvests
the energy in evaporation and converts it to electricity. This biofilm has the
potential to revolutionize the world of wearable electronics, powering everything
from personal medical sensors to personal electronics.
AMHERST, Mass. –
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced that
they have figured out how to engineer a biofilm that harvests the energy in
evaporation and converts it to electricity. This biofilm, which was announced
in Nature Communications, has the
potential to revolutionize the world of wearable electronics, powering
everything from personal medical sensors to personal electronics.
“This is a very exciting
technology,” says Xiaomeng Liu, graduate student in electrical and computer
engineering in UMass Amherst’s College of Engineering and the paper’s lead
author. “It is real green energy, and unlike other so-called ‘green-energy’
sources, its production is totally green.”
That’s because this biofilm—a
thin sheet of bacterial cells about the thickness of a sheet of paper—is
produced naturally by an engineered version of the bacteria Geobacter
sulfurreducens. G. sulfurreducens is known to produce
electricity and has been used previously in “microbial batteries” to power
electrical devices. But such batteries require that G. sulfurreducens is
properly cared for and fed a constant diet. By contrast, this new biofilm,
which can supply as much, if not more, energy than a comparably sized battery,
works, and works continuously, because it is dead. And because it’s dead, it
doesn’t need to be fed.
“It’s much more efficient,”
says Derek
Lovley, Distinguished Professor
of Microbiology at UMass Amherst and one of the paper’s senior authors. “We’ve
simplified the process of generating electricity by radically cutting back on
the amount of processing needed. We sustainably grow the cells in a biofilm,
and then use that agglomeration of cells. This cuts the energy inputs, makes
everything simpler and widens the potential applications.”
The secret behind this new
biofilm is that it makes energy from the moisture on your skin. Though we daily
read stories about solar power, at least 50% of the solar energy reaching the
earth goes toward evaporating water. “This is a huge, untapped source of
energy,” says Jun Yao, professor of electrical and computer engineering at
UMass, and the paper’s other senior author. Since the surface of our skin is
constantly moist with sweat, the biofilm can “plug-in” and convert the energy
locked in evaporation into enough energy to power small devices.
“The limiting factor of wearable
electronics,” says Yao, “has always been the power supply. Batteries run down
and have to be changed or charged. They are also bulky, heavy, and
uncomfortable.” But a clear, small, thin flexible biofilm that produces a
continuous and steady supply of electricity and which can be worn, like a
Band-Aid, as a patch applied directly to the skin, solves all these problems.
What makes this all work is
that G. sulfurreducens grows in colonies that look like thin
mats, and each of the individual microbes connects to its neighbors through a
series of natural nanowires. The team then harvests these mats and uses a laser
to etch small circuits into the films. Once the films are etched, they’re
sandwiched between electrodes and finally sealed in a soft, sticky, breathable
polymer that you can apply directly to your skin. Once this tiny battery is
“plugged in” by applying it to your body, it can power small devices.
“Our next step is to increase the
size of our films to power more sophisticated skin-wearable electronics,” says
Yao, and Liu points out that one of the goals is to power entire electronic
systems, rather than single devices.
More
“In short, to sum up all in a few words, or in
a single one, I may tell you I am Don Trump of
Mar-a-Lago, otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance;' for
though self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that
is to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me.”
With
apologies to Don
Quixote.
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