Baltic Dry Index. 1569 -15 Brent Crude 93.80
Spot
Gold 1924 US
2 Year Yield 5.12 unch
The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.
Alan Greenspan.
Is the anti-inflation fight over at the world’s leading central banks? With this week’s inaction on interest rates at four of the leading global central banks it certainly looks that way.
I would add not a moment too soon, given what looks to me at least, as a growing recession in China’s economy, the second largest economy on planet Earth.
I would also go further to argue that despite a never ending proxy war on Russia in Ukraine stoking up food price inflation, what’s rapidly coming towards the global economy is stagflation at best, deflation at worst.
On the Great Nixonian Error of Fiat Money, communist money, the benefits of fiat money were all front loaded, 1971 to roughly 2008-2010. As the GNE of fiat money went into overdrive 2010 to 2019, but especially fiat money excess 2020 to 2022, the seeds of fiat money destruction entered its end game.
Now a property collapse in China is joining
up with a manufacturing collapse in China leading into a Great Global Slowdown
at best, a Great Global Debt default at worst.
The Great Stock Casino Everything Mania is
coming to its end. 2024 – 2030 will not be like 1971 – 2019, 2024 – 2030 will
be closer to 1929 – 1934.
Asia markets
slide as Bank of Japan leaves monetary policy unchanged
UPDATED THU, SEP 21 2023 11:24 PM
EDT
Asia-Pacific
markets slid as the Bank of Japan left its monetary policy unchanged after its
latest meeting concluded on Friday.
The central bank
kept rates at -0.1%, and capped the 10-year Japanese government bond yield
around zero.
BOJ Governor Kazuo
Ueda has maintained that an ultra-easy monetary policy is needed until Japan
sees a sustained inflation at 2%. Japan’s headline inflation figures have
remained above this target since April 2022, with the latest reading coming in
at 3.2% for August.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell
0.95%, while the Topix slid 0.69%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed
1.08%, leading losses in Asia. South Korea’s Kospi saw a smaller loss, dropping
0.55%, while the Kosdaq slipped 0.59%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped
0.24%, while mainland Chinese markets were also in negative territory, with the
CSI 300 inching down 0.11%.
On Thursday in the U.S., all three major indexes
notched a third straight day of losses as Treasury yields popped to multiyear
highs and investors grew worried that lawmakers would be unable to prevent a
shutdown.
The Nasdaq Composite led
losses and retreated 1.82%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped
1.08%. The S&P 500 slid
1.64%.
Asia
stock markets today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Stock
futures are flat as the market heads for big weekly losses: Live updates
UPDATED THU, SEP 21 2023 6:07 PM
EDT
Stock futures were flat in overnight trading
Thursday as the market is poised to end the week with steep losses.
Futures on the Dow Jones
Industrial Average were little changed. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100
futures were also flat.
The overnight action followed a
three-day losing streak for all three stock averages as investors reacted to a
signal from the Federal Reserve that it intended to keep
interest rates higher for longer. These lofty levels could put
pressure on risk assets like equities.
The S&P 500 and the
tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite are down 2.7% and 3.5% this week, respectively, on
track for their worst week since March and their third negative week in a row.
The blue-chip Dow has dipped 1.6% in the meantime.
Bond yields surged after the
central bank forecast one more rate hike for 2023. The benchmark 10-year
Treasury yield popped 15 basis point to hit a
high of 4.498%, its highest level since 2007. Meanwhile, the 2-year
rate topped 5.2%, touching its highest level since 2006.
Investors also became concerned
about a
government shutdown, which could dent consumer confidence and slow
down the economy further. House Republican leaders sent the chamber into recess
on Thursday.
“Risk-off resumed as markets
grappled with the ‘higher for longer’ signal,” George Goncalves, head of U.S.
macro strategy at MUFG, said in a note. “The weak close opens the door to more
losses into month-end, especially with a potential government shutdown ahead
(during a period of the year that is seasonally the most volatile for risk
assets).”
Stock
futures today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Bank of Japan leaves rates unchanged,
maintaining ultra-loose monetary policy
Japan’s central bank maintained its ultra-loose
policy and left rates unchanged on Friday, mindful of the “extremely high
uncertainties” on the growth outlook domestically and globally.
In a policy statement after its
September meeting, the Bank of Japan said it would maintain short-term interest
rates at -0.1%, and cap the 10-year Japanese government bond yield around zero,
as widely expected. The Japanese central bank is scheduled to hold a press
conference later Friday, where Governor Kazuo Ueda could offer more forward
guidance.
“With extremely high uncertainties surrounding economies and financial
markets at home and abroad, the Bank will patiently continue with monetary
easing, while nimbly responding to developments in economic activity and prices
as well as financial conditions,” the Bank of Japan said in its policy statement Friday.
The Japanese central bank’s
ultra-loose monetary position though, marks Japan as an outlier among major
central banks, which have raised interest rates in the last two years to
control spiraling inflation.
Partly as a result of this policy
divergence between the BOJ and the rest of the world, the Japanese yen slipped
about 0.4% to about 148.16 against the dollar after Friday’s decision, while
10-year Japanese government bond yields were largely unchanged. The yen has now
weakened more than 11% against the greenback this year to date.
The BOJ’s policy decision Friday came at the end
of a week that was dotted with a flurry of other central bank policy decisions,
including the U.S. Federal Reserve’s pledge to hold
high rates for longer and the Bank of England ending
a run of 14
straight interest rate hikes.
At its
previous policy meeting in July, the BOJ loosened its yield curve
control to allow longer term rates to move more in tandem with rising inflation
in Ueda’s first policy change since assuming office in April.
The yield curve control is a policy tool where the central bank targets an
interest rate, and then buys and sells bonds as necessary to achieve that
target.
More
BOJ leaves rates unchanged, maintaining ultra-loose monetary policy (cnbc.com)
Finally, in other news, Canada and India are in a sudden unexpected diplomatic war, that seems to have blindsided the USA, UK, Australia and the EU.
Did President Prime Minister Trudeau brief
any of his supposed allies first before dropping his bombshell in Canada’s
Parliament? PM Trudeau has hinted that much of the eavesdropping came from US spooks.
Still, if true, does India’s MI6 have a licence to kill?
How this fight ends is anyone’s guess.
India
suspends visa services for Canadians, demands parity in diplomatic staffing as
bilateral crisis deepens
India suspended visa applications in Canada on
Thursday due to unspecified security threats, while demanding Ottawa reduce its
diplomatic staffing in India on grounds of interference in domestic affairs in
an escalation of the festering diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
The feud was sparked Monday by the
Canadian government’s announcement of “credible
allegations” the Indian government orchestrated the extra-judicial
slaying of a Sikh separatist in Canada. New Delhi had slammed Canadian Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau’s claims as “baseless” and “absurd” and accused Ottawa
of being sympathetic to anti-India causes.
“The issue is not about travel to India — those who have valid visas and
other kinds of document like OCI are free to travel to India — but the issue is
of incitement of violence and the creation of an environment that disrupt the
functioning of our high commission and consulates,” Arindam Bagchi, the
official spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said
at a regular news conference in New Delhi on Thursday.
OCI is short for Overseas
Citizenship of India, a form of permanent residence for people of Indian origin
that grants a lifetime of entry into the country, along with some
benefits.
The move will curtail Indian travel for Canadians,
even if they apply in third countries, Bagchi said, adding that this temporary
suspension will involve all visas, including e-visas. He said this situation
will be reviewed on a regular basis.
This suspension
follows a travel advisory urging Indian nationals to “exercise
utmost caution” while traveling in Canada and a
reciprocal expulsion of senior diplomats.
“We have seen
Canadian diplomatic interference in our internal affairs, this is a factor
that’s been taken into account for seeking parity in strength and rank
equivalence ... in our mutual diplomatic presence,” Bagchi added, without
elaborating. “Their numbers here are very much higher than ours in Canada. The
details are being worked out.”
Bagchi’s announcement came hours after the
Canadian High Commission in New Delhi said it would “temporarily adjust staff
presence” in the country after some of its diplomats received threats on social
media platforms.
No specific information
Thursday’s
developments represent a significant escalation in tensions between India and
Canada as New Delhi pressed its case.
The Canadian
government is investigating allegations that
Indian government agents may be connected to the murder of Hardeep Singh
Nijjar, a naturalized Canadian and prominent advocate for an independent Sikh
homeland known as Khalistan.
“No specific information has been shared by Canada
on this case,” Bagchi said. “We have conveyed to the Canadian side, made it
clear to them that we are willing to look at any specific information provided
to us, but so far we haven’t received any specific information.”
Speaking
to reporters Thursday on the sidelines of the United Nations
General Assembly in New York, Trudeau repeated assertions he first shared
Monday.
“I think it’s extremely important
that as a country with a strong and independent justice system, that we allow
those justice processes to unfold themselves with the utmost integrity,” said
the Canadian leader.
“But I can assure you the decision
to share these allegations on the floor of the House of Commons Monday morning
was not done lightly ... it was done with the utmost seriousness,” Trudeau
added.
More
India
suspends visa services for Canadians, demands parity in diplomats (cnbc.com)
Canada's Trudeau
wants India to cooperate in murder probe, declines to release evidence
By Michelle Nichols September 22, 20231:02 AM GMT+1
NEW YORK, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday called on India to cooperate with an
investigation into the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia
and said Canada would not release its evidence.
Trudeau said on
Monday that Ottawa had credible allegations linking Indian government agents to
the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June,
prompting an angry reaction from New Delhi. Nijjar, 45, was a Canadian citizen.
The Canadian government has amassed
both human and signals intelligence in a months-long investigation into the
Sikh separatist leader's murder, CBC News separately reported on Thursday
citing sources.
Traditional Canadian
allies have so far taken a relatively cautious approach to the matter.
Political analysts said this was partly because the United States and other
major players see India as a counterweight to the growing influence
of China.
"There
is no question that India is a country of growing importance and a country that
we need to continue to work with ... and we're not looking to provoke or cause
problems," Trudeau said in a press conference in New York on the sidelines
of the annual high-level United Nations General Assembly. "But we are
unequivocal around the importance of the rule of law and unequivocal about the
importance of protecting Canadians."
---- The CBC report said, citing
Canadian sources, that no Indian official, when pressed behind closed doors has
denied the allegation that there is evidence suggesting Indian government
involvement in Nijjar's death. India's Ministry of External Affairs did not
immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the CBC report.
The report said the intelligence
included communications involving Indian officials, among them Indian diplomats
present in Canada, adding that some of the intelligence was provided by an
unidentified ally in the Five Eyes alliance.
More
Canada's
Trudeau wants India to cooperate in murder probe, declines to release evidence
| Reuters
Remember what we're looking at. Gold is a currency. It is still, by all evidence, a premier currency, that no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match.
Alan Greenspan.
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.
Time Lags And Model Uncertainty Raise Risk Of
Recession, Inflation
Sep 20, 2023,08:25pm EDT
The Federal Reserve’s
September 2023 decision not to change interest rates highlights two problems in
monetary policy: time lags and uncertainty of economic models and forecasts.
They try to keep inflation low and employment high, but their job is inherently
difficult.
In Jerome Powell’s press conference, he mentioned the Fed’s attention to time lags in
monetary policy as well as this telling statement: “We have covered a lot of
ground, and the full effects of our tightening have yet to be felt.”
As a rough rule of
thumb, the time lag between monetary policy and changes in employment,
production and income is about one year. That’s an oversimplification, but a
useful one. The actual pattern is for small initial effects, gradually
increasing to a peak effect, and then dwindling down to zero. That interacts
with the gradual implementation of Fed policy. They began in March 2022 with a
single quarter percentage point increase in the Federal Funds rate. Later that
year they did several three-quarter point moves.
But time lags, as
Milton Friedman observed, are “long and variable.” So at any moment in time,
the Fed has had some impact already, plus some impact yet to come. But nobody
knows for sure the magnitude of the future impacts. That argues for humility
about our knowledge of just what the best policy is.
Chair Powell in answering reporters’ questions also emphasized “these are highly uncertain forecasts.” That is not a criticism of the forecasters, he pointed out, but of the difficulty of the task. We assess the impact of monetary policy on the economy by looking at past cases. But those past cases were in a different time. The economy evolves in many ways, some that we understand and some that we don’t. In the 1970s and ‘80s, international trade played a smaller role, and the ratio of goods production to services production was higher. These are some of the obvious changes, but there are probably other changes not so obvious. Perhaps we should not gauge current policy using older business cycles. But since the 1982 recession, there have only been five periods of Fed tightening. That’s a pretty small sample.
In addition to the gradual evolution of the economy, every period has
unique occurrences. The Fed’s tightening in 1988-89 coincided with the collapse
of the savings and loan industry and shortly thereafter the First Gulf War. The
tightening in 1999-2000 came with the dot-com stock collapse, followed shortly
thereafter by the 9/11 attacks. Figuring out the pure effects of monetary
policy is difficult when other big changes are going on.
More
Time Lags And Model Uncertainty Raise Risk Of
Recession, Inflation (forbes.com)
The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.
George W. Bush.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Covid vaccine adverse reactions compared to other vaccines. Why no WHO or other investigations? Approx. 14 minutes.
VAERS data made transparent
Modified version.
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.
Molybdenene—the 'metallic' relative
of graphene
SEPTEMBER 20, 2023
Two-dimensional
materials like graphene show fascinating properties such as superconductivity,
extraordinary strength and exotic quantum phenomena. Scientists at
Forschungszentrum Jülich, together with partners from the Indian Institute of
Technology in Patna and the Australian University of Newcastle, have now
created a special material of this kind that exhibits a metallic character. It
consists of just one atomic layer of molybdenum atoms and is also referred to
as "molybdenene."
The scientists succeeded in producing a thin sheet of the metal
molybdenum, which is just one atomic layer thick. The new material is thus
similarly thin as graphene, probably the best-known 2D material. The latter
consists of carbon and was first isolated in 2004. The discovery aroused great
attention because graphene conducts electricity and heat far better than copper
and is a hundred times more stable than steel.
At the same time, it is exceptionally light and flexible. Due to
its special 2D structure, graphene also exhibits some unusual electromagnetic
effects that could enable groundbreaking innovations in the field of quantum
technology.
In recent years, other 2D materials such as phosphorene or
germanene have been introduced. Like molybdenene, they exhibit some impressive
properties, while the latter still differs from other 2D materials in some
aspects. "Many 2D materials are sensitive to heat, but molybdenene is not.
Moreover, this is the first metallic 2D material where free-standing layers
could be prepared," explains Prof. Ilia Valov from the Peter Grünberg
Institute (PGI-7) at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
The researchers created the new 2D material using a microwave, in
which they heated a mixture of molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) and
graphene to incandescence at a temperature of around 3000 degrees Celsius. In a
reaction driven by the microwave electric field, finely branched hair
structures were formed in which the tapered molybdenum layers can be found.
These are also called "whiskers."
In first tests, the scientists could already observe a variety of
useful properties. "Molybdenene is mechanically extremely stable. It could
be used, for example, as a coating for electrodes to make batteries even more
powerful and robust," explains Ilia Valov.
The researchers expect that the material has further exotic
electronic properties, similar to graphene,
because of its special 2D structure. Due to its metallic character, it also has
freely moving electrons. These accumulate on the two side sides of the
molybdenene, which makes the material an interesting candidate for catalysts to
accelerate chemical
reactions.
More
Molybdenene—the 'metallic' relative of graphene
(phys.org)
Another weekend and an interesting
weekend to say the least. Did the USA’s spooks just blow up President Biden’s
plans on India? Will India now seek closer ties with China? Have a great
weekend everyone.
The
abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to
use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. In the
absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from
confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. Deficit
spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands
in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property
rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the
statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.
Alan Greenspan.
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