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Coronavirus
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Deaths 6,874,389
"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."
Ronald Reagan.
A week to save the USA from a debt default? Well not quite, though time is fast running out as the USA Labor Day holiday weekend approaches at month-end.
Almost no one believes US Treasury Secretary Yellen’s scaremongering of a US debt default on June 1, but President Bush and the US Congress are fast running out of time to negotiate some sort of compromise to raise the US debt ceiling and get it enacted and signed into law.
In any other country, not that any other G-7 countries are foolish enough to have debt ceilings, a politically contrived debt default would only be a disaster for the nation involved.
But because of the US economy’s importance in the global economy and because of the international role of the dollar reserve standard, any US debt default will act as a giant earthquake across the global economy and international banking system.
If such a US default lasted more than a few days before sanity was restored, an international banking crisis would swiftly follow, with many of the not to big to fail banks likely failing.
Again, no one yet really expects any of this to actually happen. Complacency still rules, but for how long?
Hopefully, we won’t find out if some sanity
returns this week in the District of Crooks.
Asia-Pacific
markets mixed; Thailand’s election results in focus, baht strengthens
UPDATED MON, MAY 15 2023 12:08 AM
EDT
Asia-Pacific markets are trading mixed after two
out of three major U.S. indexes recorded a second
straight week of losses, fueled by concern over the U.S. debt
ceiling and disappointing economic data.
Thailand’s currency strengthened
against the greenback as the country’s
opposition party was on course to secure a win in its general election,
ending nearly a decade of conservative ruled backed by the military.
The country’s Set Composite briefly
traded 0.3% higher at the open on Monday before paring gains and last traded
0.2% lower. Thailand’s gross domestic product grew 2.7% year on year, more than
expected.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell
0.17% alongside South Korea’s Kospi and
Kosdaq, losing 0.52% and 1.61% respectively. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was
up 0.4%, with the Topix also 0.49% higher on Monday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was
marginally down, while mainland Chinese markets were mixed. The Shanghai Composite fell
0.82%, but and the Shenzhen
Component gained 0.11%.
In the U.S., all three major indexes ended
Friday lower, with the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite down
0.35%. The S&P 500 slipped
0.16% while the Dow
Jones Industrial Average inched down 0.03%.
On a weekly basis, the S&P
500 and Dow fell for a second consecutive week, down 0.29% and 1.11%,
respectively. The Nasdaq gained 0.4% as U.S. President Joe Biden and
congressional leaders postponed
a meeting on its debt ceiling set for Friday to the following week.
Asia-Pacific
markets mixed; Thailand's election results in focus, baht strengthens
(cnbc.com)
Stock futures
slip on Sunday night after S&P 500 and Dow post two straight weekly losses:
Live updates
UPDATED SUN, MAY 14 2023 7:02 PM
EDT
U.S. stock futures fell slightly on
Sunday night following back-to-back weekly losses for the Dow Jones Industrial
Average and S&P 500.
Dow futures fell
by 70 points, or about 0.2%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped
0.21% and 0.27%, respectively.
The S&P 500 and Dow lost 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively,
last week. The Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, advanced 0.4%. The broader market
index fell as poor sentiment around the U.S. economy weighed on investor
sentiment.
“The weak parts of the market remain weak and unable to
rally, while the strong parts of the market are extended and vulnerable,”
BTIG’s Jonathan Krinsky said in a Friday note.
Wall Street on Friday absorbed a preliminary reading from the
University of Michigan last week that showed consumer sentiment falling to a
six-month low. Also in
focus were debt ceiling negotiations as the U.S. draws nearer
to the so-called “X date,” or when the government may go into default without a
raise in the debt limit to pay its bills. CNBC reported a meeting between
President Joe Biden and congressional leaders on the topic was rescheduled
to this week.
On Monday, investors are watching for the May
data for the Empire State Index, which will show how New York State
manufacturers feel about the economy. Economists polled by Dow Jones are
expecting a reading of 1.0, which would be lower than the 10.8 level in
previous data.Traders are also anticipating China industrial output and retail
sales data.
Good news for
markets next week. Everyone agrees the debt ceiling ‘X-date’ is not here yet
Washington can hardly agree on anything, but the consensus
everywhere is that the “X date,” when the Treasury can no longer pay the government’s
bills unless the debt ceiling is raised, won’t arrive any
earlier than June 1 — and maybe not for weeks after.
Good news for markets next week: no default, no credit agency
downgrade, no apocalypse. Just further talks between White House and
Congressional staffers, leading to another meeting between President Joe Biden
and Congressional leaders before Biden leaves next Wednesday for a G-7 summit
in Tokyo.
The bad news is that complacency is nigh in the stock market,
as shown by the CBOE Market Volatility Index (the VIX) trading
below 18 on Friday, and having fallen almost 22% in 2023.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Morning
bid: Major macro signals from China, Japan
May
15, 2023 1:30 AM GMT+1
May 15 (Reuters)
- A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever.
Major
economic data from China and Japan, and a central bank rate decision from the Philippines could be the main
regional drivers for Asian markets this week, with investors growing
increasingly nervous about the U.S. and global macro outlook.
World
stocks ended last week on a shaky footing as worries about the U.S. debt
ceiling, credit conditions and the cumulative effect of 500 basis points of Fed
rate hikes overshadowed surprisingly strong U.S. earnings.
---- The
MSCI World index fell 0.5% - not a big deal, perhaps, but the second weekly
decline in a row and the steepest since the U.S. banking crisis blow-up two
months ago.
Asian
shares ex-Japan, however, inched up for a second weekly rise in a row, also
something not seen since early March.
If U.S. tech
stocks are flying - the Nasdaq rose for a third week and Wall Street's rally
this year is entirely thanks to AI-centric stocks, according to SocGen - Asian
tech is stuck in quicksand.
The
Hang Seng tech index fell last week for a sixth straight week, its longest
losing streak since mid-2015 when the first tremors of the Chinese stock market
earthquake were felt and only weeks before Beijing devalued the yuan.
The
latest Chinese economic indicators have been
shocking. Inflation and imports collapsed in April, casting
severe doubt over the strength of the economy's post-lockdown recovery and
ramping up expectations of more policy easing.
Industrial
production, retail sales and fixed asset investment data for April this week
will paint a fuller picture. More sub-par numbers will likely increase the
selling pressure on Chinese stocks - the Shanghai composite had its worst week
since March, while the blue chip index fell for a fifth week and also had its
biggest weekly fall in two months.
Japan's first-quarter GDP figures will be
released on Wednesday, and perhaps more importantly, the latest inflation
numbers are out on Friday.
Core
inflation is far higher than the Bank of Japan would like and is expected to
have re-accelerated to 3.4% in April. Although new BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda
insists he will go slow on reversing the bank's super-loose policy, some
analysts expect the BOJ to abandon yield curve control this
summer.
More
Morning
bid: Major macro signals from China, Japan | Reuters
Finally, more bad news in food price
inflation although some recent rain in parts of Italy and France will have
helped. But by how much?
Drought recedes in
Britain after a wet spring – but much of Europe is parched
Fri, 12 May 2023 at
4:17 pm BST
Be careful what you wish for.
Britain’s seesaw rainfall patterns that began last winter have continued, with
an on-off pattern of dry and then wet months for many areas.
In the south of England, last
year’s drought was still affecting parts of the UK in early December, with stores of water in reservoirs and groundwater
lower than usual. Seemingly endless rain followed over Christmas and January,
before one of the driest Februaries on
record led to renewed warnings of drought.
Hydrologists like me were
pointing to low stocks of water in aquifers and rivers, raising our eyebrows and sucking our teeth like car
mechanics faced with a blown gasket. We need rain, we said, or reservoirs will
dry up, crops will fail, and restrictions on how much water people can use,
like hosepipe bans, may be necessary.
Well, we got it. England and
Wales had their wettest March in 40 years and April continued the wet trend, although
rainfall was more patchy. The reason was that the jet stream, the fast-flowing
and meandering air current high up in the atmosphere which governs a lot of
weather in Britain and north-west Europe, shifted south. This pulled cold air
down from the Arctic in early March.
Much of Britain shivered under
this blanket of cold, with snow and ice blocking roads and closing schools.
Then westerly winds returned, pulling cyclonic weather systems off the ocean in
a stream of wet weather.
In April, the jet stream shifted
north, leading to unsettled weather and lots of the April showers that we tend
to expect of a British spring.
The result is that the hydrology
of England and Wales – the state of the water supply in rocks, soils, rivers
and reservoirs – has bounced back. In some areas, it has bounced back so
quickly that there have been floods. The heavy thunderstorms of recent days in
parts of south-west England caused flash flooding of the kind that
scientists expect to see more of as a result of the warmer atmosphere created by
climate change.
----The
European drought continues
The drought has been broken in
much of the UK. But other parts of western Europe, which the British Isles had
been sharing dry conditions with, remain parched. Spain and Portugal are
seriously water-stressed, as is southern France and northern Africa.
As supermarket shoppers in the UK
can attest, this has hit supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables in recent
months. Spain’s grain harvest, one of its key crops for many farmers, now appears threatened, with soils unable to sustain growth.
The long-running drought across
Europe means that some major rivers continue to have low flows. The Po in north
Italy and the Rhine, the arteries of western European industry, are both still
down on where they should be.
When they are disrupted by flood
or drought, big rivers that flow across international borders can heighten
political and economic tensions. Low water levels in Europe have disrupted
electricity supplies from normally reliable hydroelectric plants and some
transport of materials and goods along the Rhine has had to shift to road and
rail.
As in Britain, the risk of sudden
heavy rain can easily cause dangerous flooding, even while drought continues.
Two people recently died in northern Italy when floods caused by exceptional
downpours saw rivers swell dangerously. Yet, after months of dry conditions
beforehand, the same region may still be in drought.
More
Drought recedes in
Britain after a wet spring – but much of Europe is parched (yahoo.com)
Without water, we are
nothing!': Spain's crippling drought reignites tensions over Tagus river
Issued on: 13/05/2023 - 07:49
An early scorching heatwave across Spain has worsened the impact of the country's long-term drought, causing unprecedented damage to the country's crops. As farmers grow desperate for irrigation, the government's plan to limit the rerouting of water from the nation's longest river – the Tagus – for agricultural purposes lies at the centre of a heated debate. FRANCE 24 reports.
The mathematics of drought are extremely simple for Ricardo Ferri, a Spanish farmer from the Valencian community: after 100 days without rain, he has lost 100% of his crops.
The earth on his 55-hectare
property is deeply desiccated. Wheat plants are only a quarter of the size they
should be – they've basically stopped growing since the last rainfall
in early February. It's as if time has been suspended.
"Wherever you look, the
soil is completely dry, there is not a single drop of humidity! It's the first
time I've lost everything because of the drought ... It's the same for all
cereal farmers in this area," Ferri told FRANCE 24.
The problem is
far from being limited to this single region. The Coordinator of Farmers and
Ranchers Organisations (COAG) warned in mid-April that the country's long-term
drought was causing "irreversible
losses" to more than 5 million hectares of crops in Andalusia (south), Extremadura (east),
Castilla-La Mancha (centre), and Murcia (south-east).
Cereals such
as wheat and barley are the worst impacted because a drastic shortage of water
in spring means that the grain will not be harvested in summer – even
if rain returns. Farmers like Ferri have written the harvest off
completely, hoping to get
some emergency aid to cope with
the financial fallout.
Even crops known for their
adaptation to a dry climate, such as nuts and olives, are now
More
Shame of food price
surge: No one has explained how this 'greedflation' can be justified in an age
of ESG investment, says ALEX BRUMMER
May 14, 2023
----The Government
is pledged to halve inflation from 10.1 per cent by December. The rapid
improvement in annual inflation the Bank of England projected in February to
3.9 per cent was revised upwards to 5.1 per cent in its latest forecast. Under
Andrew Bailey, Bank forecasting is less reliable than the weather.
The reason for
some optimism is the sharp drop in energy prices. Wholesale gas is now 30 per
cent cheaper than at the start of the Ukraine war. As the energy price bubble
comes out of the consumer prices index, the latter should dip. The delay must
be exasperating at the Treasury which had been counting on faster transmission.
The real
sinner in our current cost of living shock is food. It was reported in March
that the price of food was 19.2 per cent higher than a year earlier – and at
its highest level for 45 years. Subsequent surveys from retail monitors do not suggest
a rapid improvement.
There will be an intense
focus on what is going wrong in Britain's food supply chain this week. Rishi
Sunak is due to host a farm summit at Downing Street tomorrow. Elsewhere, the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is to probe how profitability and
risks are shared through the food supply chain. Whether these forums are
capable of coming up with meaningful answers is uncertain.
----Much
of the blame for food inflation rests with the big branded food and
non-alcoholic beverage companies – such as Kraft Heinz, Nestle, Coca-Cola and
Unilever – who have striven to maintain profit margins in the post-pandemic
era.
No one has
explained how this 'greedflation' can be justified in an age of environmental,
social and governance (ESG) investment. The great food price bubble is a moral
and ethical outrage.
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.
Recession Odds Rise to Highest
in 40 Years: Fed
May 13, 2023 Updated: May 13, 2023
The odds that the United States will fall into a
recession at some point over the next 12 months have risen to a 40-year high,
according to a probability model from the New York Federal Reserve.
The probability that the country will enter a
recession within the next year has risen to 68.2 percent, according to the New York Fed, which is the highest
level since 1982.
The Fed’s recession risk indicator is now greater
than it was in November 2007, not long before the subprime crisis, when it
stood at 40 percent.
The recession model is based on the spread between the three-month and
10-year yields on U.S. Treasurys.
For months, the U.S. economy had been projected to show slowing real GDP
growth and labor market softening.
Amid the banking sector turmoil sparked by the collapse of Silicon
Valley Bank, economists at the Federal Reserve have projected a shallow
recession.
“Given their assessment of the potential economic
effects of the recent banking-sector developments, the staff’s projection at
the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this
year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years,” stated the minutes from a March meeting of the Federal
Open Market Committee (FOMC).
There has been a growing chorus of experts who
believe that the odds of a recession are high.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said he
thinks the chances are “probably about 70 percent.”
“The chance that a recession will have begun this
year in the U.S. over the next 12 months is probably about 70 percent,” Summers
said in a recent interview with Foreign Policy.
“As I put together the lags associated with monetary
policy, the credit crunch risks, the need for continuing action around
inflation, the risk of geopolitical or other shocks affecting commodities, 70
percent would be the range that I would be in.”
Economists at Capital Economics published their latest quarterly U.S. economic outlook report, warning that
the “acute bank stress” will result in “further tightening” of credit
conditions, leaving them “even more convinced that the economy will fall into
recession this year.”
ING economists are also “more convinced than ever”
with their prediction of a recession, citing in a research note the financial turmoil and the Fed’s
monetary policy tightening.
A recent poll showed that most Americans believe that
the country is headed for a recession—or has already fallen into an economic
downturn.
More
Recession Odds
Rise to Highest in 40 Years: Fed (theepochtimes.com)
Recession? Corporate
America’s Earnings Say It’s Already Arrived
May
13, 2023
(Bloomberg) --
As the US economy teeters on the brink of recession, Wall Street is already
enduring what could turn out to be the most prolonged corporate profits
downturn in seven years.
With the
first-quarter earnings season drawing to a close, the profits of S&P 500
companies are estimated to have dropped 3.7% on average, compared to a year
ago. While data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence shows that 78% of firms
surpassed forecasts, that’s less impressive than it sounds, given analysts had
slashed their expectations before the season kicked off.
More
crucially, it was the second straight quarter of earnings declines for
corporate America. Bearish earnings forecasts now center around the April to
June period, for which a 7.3% profit slump is penciled in, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. And the pinch from higher interest rates
and wilting consumer demand will extend into the third quarter of 2023,
analysts reckon, backtracking on earlier predictions that earnings recovery
would kick in around then.
That implies a
longer profit recession than during the pandemic. An earnings drop of more than
three quarters was last seen in 2015 to 2016, when the Federal Reserve started
its last interest rate hiking cycle.
Unsurprising
then that the S&P 500 index has posted no gains since major Wall Street
lenders kicked off the earnings season in mid-April.
More
Recession?
Corporate America’s Earnings Say It’s Already Arrived (msn.com)
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Messenger RNA COVID-19 Vaccines
Had No Effect on Overall Mortality: Trial Data Reanalysis
May 13 2023
The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19
vaccines did not impact overall mortality, a reanalysis of clinical trial data
found.
The two vaccines, both based on
messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, protected against deaths from COVID-19 but
that effect was offset by vaccinated trial participants being more likely to
die from cardiovascular problems, Christine Stabell Benn, a health professor
at the University of Southern Denmark, and other researchers reported in
April in the Cell journal.
On the other hand, vaccines that
utilized adenoviruses, such as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, had a
favorable impact on both COVID-19 mortality and overall mortality, according to
the reanalysis.
The research analyzed data from randomized clinical trials (RCTs) reported by the companies that manufacture the vaccines.
“In the RCTs with the longest possible blinded follow-up, mRNA vaccines had no effect on overall mortality despite protecting against some COVID-19 deaths. On the other hand, the adenovirus-vector vaccines were associated with lower overall mortality,” researchers said.
“The differences in the effects of adenovirus-vector and mRNA vaccines
on overall mortality, if true, would have a major impact on global health,”
they added later.
Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca did not respond to requests for comment.
Benn and colleagues took data from three RCTs for the mRNA vaccines and six RCTs for the adenovirus-vector vaccines that had mortality data available. They compared the overall deaths in the vaccinated arms with the placebo arms. They also broke deaths down into different categories: attributed to COVID-19, cardiovascular problems, other non-COVID-19 causes, accidents, and non-accident, non-COVID-19 causes.
“We extracted the number of deaths from the studies that led to approval of the new mRNA and adenovirus-vector COVID-19 vaccines. We calculated the relative risk of dying, overall, and for various causes of death, for each vaccine type,” Benn told The Epoch Times in an email.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the researchers found, were associated with lower COVID-19 mortality but higher cardiovascular and non-accident, non-COVID-19 mortality. There was no difference in overall mortality between the vaccinated arms and the placebo groups.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was associated with lower overall
mortality and with lower non-COVID-19 mortality, with no effect on COVID-19
mortality. AstraZeneca’s shot, never authorized in the United States but
cleared in some other countries, performed well against overall mortality and
other categories across several trials, except for one trial where slightly
more vaccinated people died from non-COVID causes or non-accident, non-COVID-19
causes.
More
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 influence of AI on trust in human interaction
Date:
May 8, 2023
Source: University of Gothenburg
Summary: As AI becomes increasingly realistic, our
trust in those with whom we communicate may be compromised. Researchers at the
University of Gothenburg have examined how advanced AI systems impact our trust
in the individuals we interact with.
In one scenario, a would-be scammer,
believing he is calling an elderly man, is instead connected to a computer
system that communicates through pre-recorded loops. The scammer spends
considerable time attempting the fraud, patiently listening to the
"man's" somewhat confusing and repetitive stories. Oskar Lindwall, a
professor of communication at the University of Gothenburg, observes that it
often takes a long time for people to realize they are interacting with a
technical system.
He has, in collaboration with
Professor of informatics Jonas Ivarsson, written an article titled Suspicious
Minds: The Problem of Trust and Conversational Agents, exploring how
individuals interpret and relate to situations where one of the parties might
be an AI agent. The article highlights the negative consequences of harboring
suspicion toward others, such as the damage it can cause to relationships.
Ivarsson provides an example of a romantic
relationship where trust issues arise, leading to jealousy and an increased
tendency to search for evidence of deception. The authors argue that being
unable to fully trust a conversational partner's intentions and identity may
result in excessive suspicion even when there is no reason for it.
Their study discovered that during
interactions between two humans, some behaviors were interpreted as signs that
one of them was actually a robot.
The researchers suggest that a
pervasive design perspective is driving the development of AI with increasingly
human-like features. While this may be appealing in some contexts, it can also
be problematic, particularly when it is unclear who you are communicating with.
Ivarsson questions whether AI should have such human-like voices, as they
create a sense of intimacy and lead people to form impressions based on the
voice alone.
In the case of the would-be fraudster
calling the "older man," the scam is only exposed after a long time,
which Lindwall and Ivarsson attribute to the believability of the human voice
and the assumption that the confused behavior is due to age. Once an AI has a voice,
we infer attributes such as gender, age, and socio-economic background, making
it harder to identify that we are interacting with a computer.
The researchers propose creating AI
with well-functioning and eloquent voices that are still clearly synthetic,
increasing transparency.
Communication with others involves
not only deception but also relationship-building and joint meaning-making. The
uncertainty of whether one is talking to a human or a computer affects this
aspect of communication. While it might not matter in some situations, such as
cognitive-behavioral therapy, other forms of therapy that require more human
connection may be negatively impacted.
Jonas Ivarsson and Oskar Lindwall
analyzed data made available on YouTube. They studied three types of
conversations and audience reactions and comments. In the first type, a robot
calls a person to book a hair appointment, unbeknownst to the person on the
other end. In the second type, a person calls another person for the same
purpose. In the third type, telemarketers are transferred to a computer system
with pre-recorded speech.
The influence of
AI on trust in human interaction -- ScienceDaily
Wendy's to begin replacing drive-thru staff with AI
chatbots
Loz Blain May 10, 2023
“It’s at
least as good as our best customer service representative, and it’s probably on
average better,” said Wendy's CIO Kevin Vasconi to the Wall
Street Journal. After successful
early tests, the fifth biggest fast food chain in the USA will start using AI
chatbots to interact with drive-thru customers next month.
“It’s at
least as good as our best customer service representative, and it’s probably on
average better,” said Wendy's CIO Kevin Vasconi to the Wall
Street Journal. After successful
early tests, the fifth biggest fast food chain in the USA will start using AI
chatbots to interact with drive-thru customers next month.
“It’s at
least as good as our best customer service representative, and it’s probably on
average better,” said Wendy's CIO Kevin Vasconi to the Wall
Street Journal. After successful
early tests, the fifth biggest fast food chain in the USA will start using AI
chatbots to interact with drive-thru customers next month.
“It’s at
least as good as our best customer service representative, and it’s probably on
average better,” said Wendy's CIO Kevin Vasconi to the Wall
Street Journal. After successful
early tests, the fifth biggest fast food chain in the USA will start using AI
chatbots to interact with drive-thru customers next month.
More
Wendy's to begin
replacing drive-thru staff with AI chatbots (newatlas.com)
"In politics stupidity is not a
handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte, French Dictator.
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