Baltic Dry Index. 1056 +01 Brent Crude 72.32
Spot Gold 1961 US 2 Year Yield 4.55 -0.04
Coronavirus
Cases 01/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 13/06/23 World 690,295,159
Deaths 6,890,598
With most countries now only reporting weekly or monthly or not updating at all, the LIR will drop the daily update at the end of this week.
In the long run commodity prices are governed by one law – the economic law of demand and supply.
Jesse Livermore.
In the stock casinos, the big bet that the punters have the Fed trapped over a barrel. The Fedsters won’t dare raise its key interest rate tomorrow because doing so will blow up the latest bull market stock bubble.
Besides, everyone knows that inflation is now coming down if not actually in food prices.
Well maybe, but I suspect that any food price inflation relief this summer will turn out to be “transitory.”
For now though, the AI led, consumer debt fuelled stock bubble should roar on for at least one more day.
But what if Fed Chairman Powell pulls a Volker? He wouldn’t dare do that would he?
Japan’s Nikkei tops 33,000 points; Asia markets
mostly rise ahead of U.S. Fed meeting
UPDATED TUE, JUN 13 2023 12:27 AM
EDT
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose
2% in Tuesday’s afternoon, topping the key psychological mark of 33,000 points
for the first time since July 1990. The Topix was 1.46% higher.
Asia-Pacific markets largely rose
ahead of the U.S. inflation report and Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting later
in the day – the central bank is widely expected to hold rates for the first
time in 15 months while inflation’s
annual outlook marked a two-year low in the latest New York Fed survey.
South Korea’s Kospi rebounded and
rose 0.6%, with the Kosdaq also up 1.1%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 returned
from a public holiday and rose marginally.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index snapped
a four-day winning streak to start Tuesday down 0.47%, while mainland Chinese
markets were more mixed. The Shanghai
Composite was down 0.2%, while the Shenzhen Component was
up marginally.
Overnight
in the U.S., the S&P
500 jumped to its highest level in 13 months on Monday as
traders looked ahead to the Fed’s
June meeting.
The S&P 500 added 0.93%,
while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed
0.56% on Tuesday. The Nasdaq
Composite led gains and popped 1.53%, also reaching its highest
levels since April 2022.
Japan's Nikkei tops
33,000 points; Asia markets mostly rise ahead of U.S. Fed meeting (cnbc.com)
European markets head for higher open as
investors gear up for central bank decisions
UPDATED TUE, JUN 13 2023 12:30 AM
EDT
European markets are heading for a higher open as investors prepare for the
latest meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve that begins Tuesday.
The U.S. Federal Reserve will announce its latest monetary
policy move Wednesday and, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, there’s a 81% chance
that the Fed will pause rate hikes in this June meeting.
Ahead of the rate decision, market attention will also turn
toward May’s
consumer price index report in the U.S. Economists surveyed by Dow
Jones expect inflation to show signs of easing, forecasting 0.1%
month-over-month rise in prices, versus a 0.4% increase in April. On a yearly
basis, economists expect a 4% jump.
Data releases in focus in Europe today include Germany’s
final inflation figure for May.
European
markets live updates: central bank decisions in focus (cnbc.com)
CNBC Daily
Open: Everyone’s expecting inflation to slow down
- All major
stock indexes in the U.S. rose
Monday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite enjoying the
biggest jump. European markets traded higher Monday too. The pan-European
Stoxx 600 inched
up 0.16%, helped by a 1.14% increase in UBS shares after the
Swiss bank announced it had completed
its takeover of Credit Suisse.
- JPMorgan
Chase’s prepared to pay $290 million to settle
a lawsuit brought against it by a victim of late sexual
predator Jeffrey Epstein, a source told CNBC. However, the bank’s
litigation with the U.S. Virgin Islands and its claims against Jes Staley,
a former executive who was friends with Epstein, are still ongoing.
- Goldman
Sachs CEO David Solomon told CNBC his bank will write
down bad loans and dropping valuations in Goldman’s
commercial real estate holdings. That’ll have a negative impact on the
bank’s earnings report in the current quarter.
- The
Federal Trade Commission filed an injunction Monday to block
Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The FTC is worried that Microsoft could prevent Activision Blizzard from
launching games on rival game consoles, like Sony’s PlayStation.
- PRO Last year was awful for
initial public offerings, with only $7.7 billion raised, compared to the
10-year average of $55 billion. But there are
signs the IPO freeze is thawing — thanks to markets
rallying and interest
rates stabilizing.
The bottom line
Hopes for a pause
in interest rates helped to send stocks higher Monday. The technology sector,
which is more sensitive to rate fluctuations, especially benefitted. (Higher
rates today lower the value of tech’s growth tomorrow.)
Traders are betting there’s a 72% chance the
Federal Reserve will keep rates unchanged at this week’s meeting, according to
the CME Group’s FedWatch tool. That’s because economists think the consumer
price index, coming out later today, will show May’s inflation slowing
to just 0.1% from the previous month, or 4% year over year. That’s a
“headline number [that] is going to feel good,” said Mark Zandi, chief
economist at Moody’s Analytics.
More
Stock
Markets: Everyone’s expecting inflation to slow down (cnbc.com)
In other news, easy come easy go in our brave
new Covid-19 world of free fiat money for everyone including crooks.
The Great Grift: How billions in COVID-19 relief aid
was stolen or wasted
June 12, 2023
WASHINGTON (AP) — Much of the theft was brazen, even
simple.
Fraudsters used the Social Security numbers of dead
people and federal prisoners to get unemployment checks. Cheaters collected
those benefits in multiple states. And federal loan applicants weren’t
cross-checked against a Treasury Department database that would have raised red
flags about sketchy borrowers.
Criminals and gangs grabbed the money. But so did a U.S.
soldier in Georgia, the pastors of a defunct church in Texas, a former state
lawmaker in Missouri and a roofing contractor in Montana.
All of it led to the greatest grift in U.S. history, with
thieves plundering billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief aid intended to combat the
worst pandemic in
a century and to stabilize an economy in free fall.
An
Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than
$280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or
misspent. Combined, the loss represents 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S.
government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid.
That number is certain to grow as investigators dig
deeper into thousands of potential schemes.
How could so much be stolen? Investigators and outside
experts say the government, in seeking to quickly spend trillions in relief
aid, conducted too little oversight during the pandemic’s early stages and
instituted too few restrictions on applicants. In short, they say, the grift
was just way too easy.
“Here was this sort of endless pot of money that anyone
could access,” said Dan Fruchter, chief of the fraud and white-collar crime
unit at the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of
Washington. “Folks
kind of fooled themselves into thinking that it was a socially acceptable thing
to do, even though it wasn’t legal.”
The U.S. government has charged more than 2,230
defendants with pandemic-related fraud crimes and is conducting thousands of
investigations.
Most of the looted money was swiped from three large
pandemic-relief initiatives launched during the Trump administration and
inherited by President Joe Biden. Those programs were designed to help small
businesses and unemployed workers survive the economic upheaval caused by the
pandemic.
More
The Great Grift: How billions in COVID-19 relief aid was stolen or wasted | AP News
Finally, in food price inflation news, no relief is in sight in 2023. In fact, with an El Nino weather event just starting in the Pacific Ocean, food scarcity looks possible in early 2024.
Ukraine's
dam collapse is both a fast-moving disaster and a slow-moving ecological
catastrophe
Sun, 11 June 2023 at
7:24 am BST
KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — The destruction
of the Kakhovka Dam was a fast-moving disaster that is swiftly
evolving into a long-term environmental catastrophe affecting drinking water,
food supplies and ecosystems reaching into the Black Sea.
The short-term dangers can be
seen from outer space — tens of thousands of parcels of land flooded, and more
to come. Experts say the long-term consequences will be generational.
For every
flooded home and farm, there are fields upon fields of newly planted
grains, fruits and vegetables whose irrigation canals are drying up. Thousands
of fish were left gasping on mud flats. Fledgling water birds lost their nests
and their food sources. Countless trees and plants were drowned.
If water is life, then the
draining of the Kakhovka reservoir creates an uncertain future for the region
of southern Ukraine that was an arid plain until the damming of the Dnieper
River 70 years ago. The Kakhovka Dam was the last in a system of six Soviet-era
dams on the river, which flows from Belarus to the Black Sea.
Then the
Dnieper became part of the front line after Russia's invasion
last year.
“All this territory formed its
own particular ecosystem, with the reservoir included,” said Kateryna Filiuta,
an expert in protected habitats for the Ukraine Nature Conservation Group.
----
Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry estimated 10,000 hectares (24,000 acres) of
farmland were underwater in the territory of Kherson province controlled by
Ukraine, and “many times more than that” in territory occupied by Russia.
Farmers are already feeling the pain
of the disappearing reservoir. Dmytro Neveselyi, mayor of the village of
Maryinske, said everyone in the community of 18,000 people will be affected
within days.
“Today and tomorrow, we’ll be able to
provide the population with drinking water,” he said. After that, who knows.
“The canal that supplied our water reservoir has also stopped flowing.”
----
It will take a decade for the flora and fauna populations to return and adjust
to their new reality, according to Filiuta. And possibly longer for the
millions of Ukrainians who lived there.
In Maryinske, the farming
community, they are combing archives for records of old wells, which they'll
unearth, clean and analyze to see if the water is still potable.
“Because a territory without
water will become a desert,” the mayor said.
Further afield, all of Ukraine will
have to grapple with whether to restore the reservoir or think
differently about the region's future, its water supply, and a large swath of
territory that is suddenly vulnerable to invasive species — just as it was
vulnerable to the invasion that caused the disaster to begin with.
“The worst consequences will
probably not affect us directly, not me, not you, but rather our future
generations, because this man-made disaster is not transparent,” Filiuta said.
“The consequences to come will be for our children or grandchildren, just as we
are the ones now experiencing the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, not
our ancestors.”
Canadian Prairies farmers
try to adapt to a warming world
Issued on:
But it's
unclear, they are the first to admit, if their slogging will bear fruit.
Squatting in
the middle of a canola field in Alberta, on the western edge of Canada's vast
Prairies region, Ian Chitwood surveys the shoots sprouting between long furrows
of black soil.
His battle
with the heat has been starting earlier every year.
By planting
his crops earlier in the season, in May, Chitwood aims to "move up the
flowering window," during which the plants are most vulnerable, in order
to protect them from the heat in June.
But what his
crops really need in the wake of a devastating drought in 2021, he
acknowledges, is mild weather and humid soil.
That drought
was a "once in 100 years event," says Curtis Rempel of the Canola
Council of Canada.
That year, the
west of the country sweltered under record high summer temperatures, with the
mercury reaching 49.6 degrees Celsius (121.3 Fahrenheit).
"It sure
had an impact on yields," reducing them by 50 percent, according to
Rempel.
Such hits have
had significant impacts on international markets, as Canada exports 90 percent
of its canola harvest -- used mostly for cooking oil and biodiesel fuel.
More
Canadian
Prairies farmers try to adapt to a warming world (france24.com)
The scarcity of water is emerging as a global
economic threat. With China and India looking the most at risk
Water scarcity is
seen as the most significant and potentially most impactful component of the
wider climate crisis, and researchers say that large Asian economies like India
and China will be the most affected from these water shortages.
Asia is an industrialization
hub that is experiencing the most rapid rates of urbanization, and this would
require a copious amount of water, Arunabha Ghosh, the CEO of the Council on
Energy, Environment and Water, told CNBC on the sidelines of Singapore’s annual
Ecosperity Week last Tuesday.
“It’s not just the
old industries like steel making, but newer ones like manufacturing
semiconductor chips and the transition to clean energy that are going to
require a lot of water,” Ghosh said. “Asia is the growth engine of the world,
and these industries are new drivers for its economic growth.”
Global fresh water demand is
expected to outstrip supply by 40% to 50% by 2030. Ghosh warned that
water scarcity must not be viewed as a sectoral issue, but one that “transcends
the entire economy.”
Asian economies “must understand
that it is a regional common good and it is in their own interest to mitigate
the risks that come their way in order to prevent the economic shocks that
severe water scarcity will impose,” he said.
India, now the world’s most
populous nation, will be the hardest hit from water scarcity. Despite
holding 18% of the world’s population, it only has enough water resources for
4% of its people, hence making it the world’s most water-stressed country, the World Bank said.
The South Asian nation relies
tremendously on its monsoon season to meet its water demands, but climate
change has caused more floods and droughts to hit the country, and has
exacerbated its water shortage.
More
Water scarcity: China and India look the most threatened from shortages (cnbc.com)
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.
May’s inflation footprints
flowing in
This week, May’s
inflation numbers will be flowing in throughout the week. We have already seen
the flash estimates in Poland and Slovenia (inflation dropped to 13.0% y/y and
8.4% y/y, respectively), while in Hungary, headline inflation in May eased to 21.5%
y/y.
We expect to see the
easing trend across the region this week, as Czechia and Serbia will publish
inflation on Monday, Romania on Tuesday, Slovakia on Wednesday. Details on
inflation drivers in Poland will be released on Thursday, while Croatia will
see the local inflation footprint on Friday, which should come in line with the
initial estimate published at the beginning of the year within the Eurozone.
More
May’s inflation
footprints flowing in (fxstreet.com)
Bank of England ‘cannot
rule out’ further interest rate rises to fight inflation – business live
12 Jun 2023
UK borrowers face further interest
rate hikes this year as the fight against inflation continues.
A Bank of England policymaker is
warning this morning that the UK central bank may need to make “further
increases” to borrowing costs as it tries to ease the cost of living crisis.
Jonathan Haskel,
a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, suggests that more than one
increase in interest rates may be needed.
Writing in The Scotsman today, Haskel
says the BoE mustn’t allow inflation to become ‘embedded’ in the economy,
saying:
We are monitoring
indicators of inflation momentum and persistence closely.
My own view is that
it’s important we continue to lean against the risks of inflation momentum, and
therefore that further increases in interest rates cannot be ruled out.
As difficult as our
current circumstances are, embedded inflation would be worse.
Expectations of higher interest rates
has caused turbulence in the mortgage market in recent weeks.
Ian Stuart, CEO of HSBC UK Bank,
told Radio 4’s Today programme that inflation is looking sticky, and probably
won’t fall “quite as fast” as hoped.
That means that borrowing costs are
unlikely to start falling again soon.
Stuart explains:
Well, I don’t have
a crystal ball. But…. inflation is not falling as quickly as a lot of people
have predicted.
So as long as that
is the case, then our house view is that rates will probably increase a little
bit more and will probably stay a little bit higher for longer.
Bank of England base rate is
currently 4.5%, the highest level since 2008.
The money markets are anticipating
that rates could hit 5.5% by the end of the year, meaning people who must
remortgage their loans face higher repayment costs.
More
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Covid-19 Created In Wuhan
Lab Through Classified Bioweapons Program: US Investigators
MONDAY, JUN 12, 2023 - 03:00 AM
Researchers in Wuhan, China working with the Chinese military were genetically manipulating the world's deadliest coronaviruses to create a new mutant virus right around the time that the Covid-19 pandemic began, according to the Sunday Times, which has reviewed hundreds of documents, "Including previously confidential reports, internal memos, scientific papers and email correspondence that has been obtained through sources or by freedom of information campaigners in the three years since the pandemic started."
more
Covid-19 Created In Wuhan Lab Through Classified Bioweapons Program: US Investigators | ZeroHedge
Subscription required.
What
really went on inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid erupted
What really went on inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid erupted (thetimes.co.uk)
Zuckerberg: Establishment Asked
to Censor COVID-19 Posts That Ended Up Being True
June 10, 2023 Updated: June 10, 2023
Big Tech firms were asked to censor COVID-19 information
that ended up being true, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has assessed.
“Just take some of the stuff around COVID earlier in
the pandemic where there were real health implications, but there hadn’t been
time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions,” Zuckerberg, whose
company is the parent of Facebook and Instagram, said during a discussion with
podcaster Lex Fridman that was released on June 8.
“And unfortunately, I think a lot of the kind of
establishment on that kind of waffled on a bunch of facts and asked for a bunch
of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or
true,” he added. “That stuff is really tough, right? Really undermines trust.”
U.S. officials pressured Facebook and Instagram to censor posts,
emails disclosed in court cases and through Freedom of Information Act requests
have shown.
Rob Flaherty, a White House official, pressured
Facebook to take action against “mis- and -disinformation” as well as
“hesitancy-inducing content,” one email showed.
One Facebook official said in one of the messages
that the company’s goal was “to help organizations to get their safety message
out to the public, remove misinformation, and support overall community
efforts in areas where we can be of help.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), meanwhile, showed executives with Facebook and other social media
companies specific posts that were described as misinformation.
---- Facebook’s actions included
shutting down groups aimed at supporting people injured by the COVID-19
vaccines over alleged misinformation, according to a lawsuit filed
this month by people with suspected or confirmed vaccine injuries. Facebook
told Flaherty in early 2021 that the company was removing groups that contained
“often-true content” that “can be framed as sensation, alarmist, or shocking.”
Meta did not respond to a request for comment on Zuckerberg’s new
remarks, including a request for examples of censored information that turned
out to be true.
Zuckerberg elsewhere in the interview said he is “very pro-freedom of
speech” and that Facebook was aimed at allowing people to “express as much as
possible” while describing government requests to censor content as “obviously
bad” and that, ultimately, “it’s Facebook’s call” on how to handle such
requests.
Zuckerberg also said that some of the censorship requests were “punitive
or vengeful,” as in “I want you to do this thing, and if you don’t, then
I’m going to make your life difficult in a lot of ways.”
More
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 happens when an
electric car runs out of battery charge?
June 12, 2023
Just like running out of fuel
in a conventional car, letting your EV’s battery run flat should be avoided if possible. The headache it
causes will be major – and could affect the long-term health of the battery.
Indeed, with an electric car,
there will be no friendly good Samaritan with a can of kilowatts to pour into
your tank. Or give you a quick jump-start. Your vehicle may need to be lifted
onto a flat-bed trailer and towed to a charging point.
You will then have another
inconvenient delay before the batteries have charged sufficiently to continue
your journey.
Frankly, the chance of being
left stranded should be slim. The range display or battery gauge on the dashboard will give you plenty of warning, and your sat-nav,
Google Maps or the Zap Map app will point you to the nearest charging point
when you need it.
The majority of electric cars
also have an integrated de-powering system. If the electronics detect you are
close to running flat, the power available to drive the car will be decreased
and its speed limited. This should give you the best possible chance of
reaching a charging point.
Many
electric cars can’t be towed in the old-fashioned sense, with a rope or bar
behind another vehicle. This is because of how the electric motors are
connected to the wheels, including the absence of a neutral gear.
Some
modern EVs do have a tow mode, but most need to be loaded onto a flatbed
trailer. Some can also be towed on a ‘dolly’ where the front wheels are raised
and the rears remain on the road. Check your car’s handbook carefully before
taking action.
Breakdown recovery companies have responded to the growth of
electric cars. RAC patrol vans, for example, are now fitted with a lightweight
5kW electric car chargers that give a
10-mile boost help drivers reach the next charging point.
It
doesn’t require the vans to lug around heavy batteries, either. Power is
generated from a second alternator fitted to the engine. The 10-mile top-up
could take just 10 minutes by the roadside.
Vans
carry ‘EV Boost’ branding and a bright green logo. This alone, hopes the RAC,
might play a part in helping motorists overcome range anxiety, by knowing help is at hand
in an emergency.
What happens when an electric car runs out of battery
charge? (msn.com)
If a man is both wise and lucky, he will not make the same
mistake twice. But he will make any one of the ten thousand brothers or cousins
of the original. The mistake family is so large that there is always one of
them around when you want to see what you can do in the fool-play line.
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