Friday 16 December 2022

The Great Biden Bust Of 2023?

 Baltic Dry Index. 1528 +127    Brent Crude 81.05

Spot Gold 1779         US 2 Year Yield 4.23 unch.

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,103

Coronavirus Cases 15/12/22 World 656,370,129

Deaths 6,667,609

“It is difficult not to marvel at the imagination which was implicit in this gargantuan insanity. If there must be madness something may be said for having it on a heroic scale."

John Kenneth Galbraith. The Great Crash: 1929.

Yesterday the BOE, ECB and Swiss National Bank all raised their key interest rates as expected, putting more pressure on the global stock casinos now well over priced in the likelihood of a severe 2023 recession.

The central banks fuelled “everything” bubble is now getting replaced with the Great Biden Bust.

Run, do not walk to the exits. Getting out first always beats getting carried out last.

Great bargains lie ahead later in 2023 for those cash rich and patient.

Asia-Pacific markets trade lower as recession fears grow

UPDATED FRI, DEC 16 2022 12:27 AM EST

Asia-Pacific markets traded mostly lower as recession fears grow. Disappointing U.S. retail sales for November suggested inflation is taking a toll on consumers and raising fears that the Fed’s rate hikes are tipping the economy into a recession.

The Nikkei 225 in Japan fell 1.98%, leading losses in the region, while the Topix lost 1.16%. The Kospi in South Korea also fell 0.48%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.78%.

The Hang Seng index gained 0.2% while the Shenzhen Component fell 0.82% in mainland China. The Shanghai Composite fell 0.3% as the second day of China’s annual Central Economic Work Conference reportedly took place behind closed doors.

Hong Kong will release its unemployment rate reading for the September-November period later in the day.

The U.S. Commerce Department slapped restrictions on Chinese companies over their efforts to use advanced technologies to help modernize China’s military. That comes just two months after the Biden administration curbed China’s access to advanced semiconductors.

Asia-Pacific markets trade lower as recession fears grow (cnbc.com)

Stocks Plunge as Recession Fears, Federal Reserve Dash Investor Hopes

By Andrew Moran December 15, 2022 Updated: December 15, 2022

The U.S. stock market suffered one of its worst days of 2022 as the leading benchmark indexes fell sharply on Dec. 15, dashing hopes for a year-end Santa Claus rally.

Investors engaged in a broad-based selloff toward the end of the trading week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ended 764 points lower on Dec. 15. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index plunged by 3.2 percent, while the S&P 500 Index lost nearly 2.5 percent.

Year to date, the Nasdaq has lost nearly 32 percent, the S&P 500 has tumbled by more than 18 percent, and the DJIA has slumped by 9.2 percent.

Some of the biggest names on the New York Stock Exchange endured steep losses. Shares of Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple lost more than 4 percent. Meta shed close to 6 percent, while Netflix plummeted by 8.6 percent. Bank shares also slumped, with Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase declining by nearly 2 percent.

----Traders sought shelter in traditional safe-haven assets. The benchmark 10-year yield shed roughly 6 basis points to about 3.44 percent. The U.S. Dollar Index, which gauges the greenback against a basket of currencies, surged above 104.

Weak economic data spooked markets.

According to the Census Bureau, retail sales tumbled by 0.6 percent month-over-month in November. That’s down from the 1.3 percent increase in October and worse than the market projection of a 0.1 percent drop. It represented the largest slide this year, led by declines in sales for furniture (negative 2.6 percent), building materials (negative 2.5 percent), motor vehicles (negative 2.3 percent), and electronics (negative 1.5 percent).

Manufacturing numbers also added to widespread recession concerns. Last month, industrial and manufacturing production slid by 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. The New York Empire State Manufacturing Index weakened to negative 11.2, while the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index came in at a worse-than-expected negative 13.8.

Labor numbers were mixed as initial jobless claims tumbled to 211,000 for the week that ended on Dec. 10, Department of Labor numbers show (pdf). But continuing jobless claims edged up to 1.671 million.

The latest statistics prompted the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to trim its fourth quarter GDPNow model to 2.8 percent, down from the previous estimate of 3.2 percent.

More

Stocks Plunge as Recession Fears, Federal Reserve Dash Investor Hopes (theepochtimes.com)

The big story on the market downturn: The wealth bubble is popping

While recent crashes in British bond pricesreal estate in China, and stocks in the U.S. were driven by different catalysts, they all reflect a common cause largely ignored: the popping of a worldwide wealth bubble.

The implications are huge for economies, fiscal and monetary policy, investors and savers everywhere. Even if the Federal Reserve succeeds in deflating the rate of growth in consumer prices in the U.S., it needs to be careful about how much it re-inflates this huge wealth bubble when it starts lowering interest rates.

Before 1990 in the U.S., asset price inflation and income followed similar trajectories. The aggregate value of all households’ net assets, including homes and retirement accounts, grew in line with economic output. That connection was long ago broken through a combination of loose fiscal and monetary policy and a worldwide glut of savings.

In the 1947 to 1990 period, the net worth of all households and nonprofit institutions on average equaled about four times the annual economic output; at the end of 2021, the ratio equaled about six and a half times an output of $23 trillion. By the end of 2021, the excess growth in asset prices by itself had added more than $50 trillion to the measured net worth of households.

Put another way, every $100,000 you might have had in home equity and retirement saving on Dec. 31, 2021, would have been worth only about $60,000 without this excess asset price inflation. The drop in stock values during 2022 has taken away only a small fraction of that $40,000 gain.

Looking to restore this 1990-to-2021 world might stimulate the economy in the short run, but the long-term consequences can no longer be ignored, as recent British and Chinese examples warn us.

One is rising wealth inequality. We’ve already seen how the Fed’s re-inflation of asset prices during the Great Recession, however necessary, led to greater wealth inequality than existed before then.

But it’s not just rich versus poor; it’s old versus young. Today, many like myself who bought a home decades ago have seen gains that made our cost of housing almost free. Not so for our children and grandchildren buying at today’s inflated prices. In many ways, the young should want the bubble to burst so that they can buy homes and retirement assets at lower prices.

The wealth bubble also adds significant structural risks to the overall economy.

Years of low nominal interest rates gave investors extraordinary incentives to get some of the “free money” created by negative costs of borrowing once adjusted for taxes, inflation and bankruptcy protections. Despite rising nominal interest rates, today’s real borrowing costs continue to be negative just by subtracting out inflation. Buying unproductive assets becomes profitable when negative asset returns are less than negative borrowing costs. The large tax shelter market in the 1970s and early 1980s provides one example of what happens when borrowing costs become negative. Only when Paul Volcker got nominal interest rates above 20 percent did the real cost of borrowing become positive and stagflation come to a halt.

More

The big story on the market downturn: The wealth bubble is popping | The Hill

Finally, Professor of Finance at Kings College London, Patrick Boyle on the multiple fraud and conspiracy and money laundering cases against SBF. Approx. 26 minutes.  Can SBF roll on CZ? Probably not, but given Patrick’s gloomy analysis and facing a 115 year sentence, it might be worth a try for SBF.

The Case Against Sam Bankman-Fried

The Case Against Sam Bankman-Fried - YouTube

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.

Analysis-Investors bet Fed will blink if recession hits despite 'higher for longer' mantra

December 15 2022

(Reuters) - Some investors believe an expected recession will force the Federal Reserve to loosen monetary policy next year, even as the central bank projects it will raise rates higher than it previously anticipated and keep them there longer as it fights to crush inflation.

The dynamic came into stark focus after the Fed's monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, when it delivered a widely expected 50 basis point rate increase and projected borrowing costs will rise by an additional 75 basis points by the end of 2023 - half a percentage point higher than officials forecast in September.

Such a move would take the fed funds rate to around 5.1%, according to the median estimate in the Fed's quarterly summary of economic projections - a level not seen since 2007. The fed funds rate currently stands in the 4.25%-4.50% range.

Rates futures markets told a different story, however, with investors late Wednesday betting the Fed would continue raising rates in the first half of 2023 before cutting them back to around 4.4% by year end.

"The Fed is struggling to convince markets to move in their direction," said Ed Al-Hussainy, senior global rates strategist at Columbia Threadneedle, who is betting that 10-year Treasuries will continue a recent rebound. "There's ... lack of belief in the Fed's ability to move rates significantly above 5 percent."

How much higher borrowing costs will rise and whether restrictive monetary policy will plunge the economy into recession are questions that have consumed investors for months, as the Fed embarks on its most aggressive rate increases since the 1980s to defeat surging inflation.

While Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that the Fed's projections don't necessarily mean the economy will fall into a recession, he suggested the risk is worth it and that policymakers have no plans to cushion the blow by cutting rates - echoing a message he has delivered on previous occasions.

Nonetheless, hopes that inflation will peak and allow the Fed to stop raising rates sooner have reverberated throughout markets in recent weeks, sparking a rally in the S&P from its recent lows, toppling the U.S. dollar from a two-decade high and fueling a sharp rebound in battered Treasuries.

More

Analysis-Investors bet Fed will blink if recession hits despite 'higher for longer' mantra (msn.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

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/environmental-disaster-ev-battery-metals-crunch-horizon-industry-races-recycle

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: Jack Last died as result of AstraZeneca vaccine – coroner

14 December 2022

A man died of a blood clot that was a "direct result" of having the AstraZeneca Covid jab, a coroner said.

Jack Last, 27, from Stowmarket, was vaccinated on 30 March 2021 and a week later was admitted to hospital after experiencing headaches and sickness.

A scan on 10 April revealed a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) and he died 10 days later.

Senior coroner Nigel Parsley recorded a narrative conclusion at Suffolk Coroner's Court.

He said: "Jack Last died of a blood clot to the brain, caused as a direct result of his body's reaction to the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccination which he had received on March 30, 2021."

Speaking after the two-day inquest, the solicitor working on behalf of the family said they would be pursuing a clinical negligence case against the hospitals involved in Mr Last's care.

The hearing in Ipswich was told engineer Mr Last was otherwise a "fit and well" man.

It was told Mr Last was initially diagnosed with a migraine at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds before further tests identified CVST.

Mr Last was given anticoagulation to thin the clot, but he developed a bleed on the brain.

He was transferred to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge for further treatment but later died.

During the hearing, it was heard Mr Last was unable to have a CT venogram scan at the first opportunity because the out-of-hours radiographer did not have the "technical expertise" to perform the scan.

This has since been changed, the inquest was told, and there was now 24-hour provision, seven days a week.

After the hearing, Michael Portman-Hann, representing the family, said that had the hospital been able to do the correct scan, "treatment would have been started sooner and Jack might have survived".

He said: "On behalf of Jack's family, we will now be pursuing a clinical negligence case against the hospitals that could and should have been able to do more to try to save him."

More

Covid: Jack Last died as result of AstraZeneca vaccine – coroner - BBC News

 

Australian Cardiologist Calls to Halt mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines, Citing Heart Damage


Dec 14 2022

 

----COVID-19 Vaccines Cause Myocarditis and Pericarditis

A growing body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence links heart issues with the mRNA vaccines. 

 

So much so that the CDC and other government authorities in the United States and around the world now recognize that the COVID-19 vaccines are causing myocarditisheart inflammation which is considered more severe than pericarditis because it causes inflammation of the heart muscle. 

In June 2022, the FDA’s Tom Shimabukuro, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., identified as part of the CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Coordination Unit, reported that: “Current evidence supports a causal association between mRNA COVID-19 vaccination and myocarditis and pericarditis.”

Six months later, as of Dec. 2, 2022, there have been a total of 35,718 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis reported to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.

 

An Australian Cardiologist Speaks Out

After witnessing as many as 70 cases of vaccine-related heart conditions similar to Eskandar’s, Australian Cardiologist Dr. Ross Walker is now saying publicly that he believes there should be a ban on the use of mRNA booster vaccines.

According to Walker, the mRNA vaccines are “very pro-inflammatory,” he told Daily Mail Australia. “ He contended that The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization should never have mandated mRNA vaccines.

More

Australian Cardiologist Calls to Halt mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines, Citing Heart Damage (theepochtimes.com)

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.

H3 debuts all-in-one hydrogen powertrain pods for long-range flight

Loz Blain  December 14, 2022

France's H3 Dynamics has presented its self-contained hydrogen propulsion pods for retrofit or line fit to drones and airplanes. They deliver enormous range and endurance figures without heavy batteries, and they mirror the approach Airbus and others are taking with commercial airliners.

Batteries weigh aircraft down, they can heat up, and they take a long time to charge – but they're very simple, easy to use, and they store enough energy for many use cases. Hydrogen is a pain in the butt at every step of the way, but used in a fuel cell powertrain it carries so much more energy than lithium batteries for the weight it costs that you can keep your aircraft flying for ridiculous lengths of time.

To illustrate, back in 2020, we compared the world record endurance flights of multicopter drones running on pure battery power (1 hour, 51 minutes), a 16-liter gasoline-electric hybrid system (10 hours, 14 minutes), and a hideously ugly hydrogen fuel cell system fed by 6 liters of gas (12 hours, 7 minutes). If range and endurance are your priority, batteries don't come close to hydrogen.

And while it's possible to stick the hydrogen tanks and fuel cells in the middle of an airframe, where the combustion powertrain or battery pack would normally live, there's a few reasons why you might not want to. Hydrogen weighs less than batteries, but takes up a lot of volume. You might want to dedicate that space to cargo, for starters. Or, if you're talking about a bigger airframe, passengers. If you're talking about passengers, there might be some psychological value in having the hydrogen stored well away from the cabin, and putting the whole system out on the wing probably helps with cooling and airflow as well.

Thus, Airbus is looking at self-contained end-to-end hydrogen propulsion systems for its future zero-emissions airliners. Fully swappable units that can be popped on and off for maintenance and whatnot without disrupting an aircraft's flight schedule.

And it's a similar concept here with H3 Dynamics. These guys have developed a lightweight, aerodynamic hydrogen propulsion nascelle containing a hydrogen tank, fuel cell system, electric motor and propeller; the whole powertrain. You can piggyback it on top of a fixed-wing fuselage, or you can stick multiple units out along the wings for distributed propulsion.

More

H3 debuts all-in-one hydrogen powertrain pods for long-range flight (newatlas.com)

Another weekend and another weekend of missing billions at FTX/Alameda. The last weekend of boom before the Great Biden Bust of 2023? Have a great weekend everyone.

"Indeed the temporary breaks in the market which preceded the crash were a serious trial for those who had declined fantasy. Early in 1928, in June, in December, and in February and March of 1929 it seemed that the end had come. On various of these occasions the [New York] Times happily reported the return to reality. And then the market took flight again. Only a durable sense of doom could survive such discouragement. The time was coming when the optimists would reap a rich harvest of discredit. But it has long since been forgotten that for many months those who resisted reassurance were similarly, if less permanently discredited.”

J. K. Galbraith. The Great Crash: 1929.

 

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