Baltic Dry Index. 1701 -15 Brent Crude 94.34
Spot Gold 1843 US 2 Year Yield 5.03 -0.01
October 2, 1187
In 1186/87 the Crusader prince Reginald of Châtillon broke a truce with Saladin, who responded by declaring war. Saladin slaughtered the Crusader army (and executed Reginald) in July 1187 at the Horns of Ḥaṭṭīn. Jerusalem, now undefended, surrendered to him in October.
To no one’s surprise, a last minute
compromise deal was worked out by the Washington weasels (unfair to
weasels,) politicians averting for up to 45 days a Federal Government closure.
Same old District of Crooks, same old crooked ending. More de-dollarisation incentivisation, unfortunately. Thankfully, no alternative is within sight, although a central bank digital currency [CBDC] issued by the Bank for International Settlements, Basel Switzerland, might work if it ever becomes available.
Still, in the US stock casinos, at least,
there ought to be a relief rally of sorts, though it may not last very long.
Dow futures jump more than 100 points after
lawmakers avert government shutdown: Live updates
UPDATED SUN, OCT 1 2023 6:59 PM
EDT
Stock futures jumped at the open of trading
after U.S. legislators were able to come to a temporary agreement that staved
off a government shutdown.
Futures
tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose
122 points, or 0.4%. S&P 500
futures gained
0.4%, while Nasdaq 100 futures added
0.6%.
The Senate passed a continuing
resolution with just hours to spare before a midnight deadline
Saturday, which was then signed by President Joe Biden into law. The bill keeps
the government open for 45 more days, an extended period that lawmakers can use
to finalize funding legislation.
“Investors don’t like to be run
to the edge of the cliff constantly,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at
Harris Financial. With “not having a shutdown, we should see a very positive
reaction in markets.”
Futures gains were limited as
investors feared lawmakers were headed for another shutdown fight eventually as
Saturday’s agreement did nothing about brewing disagreements on overall
government spending levels, the border and Ukraine.
“Markets are going to start to
discount this being a 2024 event, as opposed to a 2023,” Cox said. “They’re
just going to continue to kick the can down the road and push this into an
election year.”
The looming threat of a
government shutdown weighed on investors last week, which also marked
the end of the trading month and quarter. Investors feared a
shutdown could further weigh on a U.S. economy already seeing slowing growth
under the weight of the highest interest rates in 15 years.
September marked the worst
monthly performance of the year for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite.
The broad S&P 500 index finished the month down 4.9% and the quarter 3.7%
lower, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.8% in the month
and 4.1% in the quarter. The blue-chip Dow ended
the month 3.5% lower and the quarter 2.6% in the red.
But the indexes are still up on
the year despite the pullback, underscoring the strength of the rally seen in
the first half of the year. The S&P 500 is down about 6% from its 2023 high
close in July, but still up 11% for the year.
Investors will watch for economic
data due Monday on purchasing and construction spending. Later in the week,
attention will turn to a string of reports offering insight into the health of
the labor market, including Friday’s all important monthly payrolls data.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Asia-Pacific stocks mixed as China’s factory
activity expands for the first time in six months
UPDATED MON, OCT 2 2023 12:29 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific stocks opened mixed after manufacturing data out of China
bounced back to expansion territory.
China’s factory activity in September expanded for the first
time in since April, according to official data over the weekend.
China’s PMI climbed to 50.2 in September from 49.7, beating Reuters’
expectations of 50.0.
China’s markets are closed for the weeklong Golden Week
holiday. South Korean and Hong Kong’s markets are also closed for holidays.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 traded
1.50% higher, while the Topix inched up 1.1%.
Sentiment of Japan’s big manufacturers improved
to a score of 9 in the third quarter, up from 5 in the previous three months,
the closely-watched central bank tankan survey showed.
Australia’s S&P/ASX
200 was down 0.23%.
On Friday
in the U.S., the three major indexes were mixed. The Dow and S&P 500 finished
the session lower by 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively, capping off a negative week
for the two indexes. The Nasdaq
Composite finished up 0.1%.
Over the weekend, U.S. legislators were able to reach a
temporary agreement that averted a government shutdown.
Asia-Pacific
stocks, China PMI, Japan Tankan (cnbc.com)
In other news, China’s booming says Goldie. Well, if they say so, just don’t say that in China or at the World Bank.
Italy plans to reduce its debt by asset
sales. Well, if they say so, but Italian asset sales in the past have never
lived up to expectations.
China’s demand for oil and copper is
‘booming,’ says Goldman Sachs
China’s demand for
many major commodities has been growing at “robust rates,” Goldman Sachs said
in a recent note.
The investment bank
observed that China’s demand for copper has risen 8% year on year, while
appetite for iron ore and oil are up by 7% and 6%, respectively, all beating
Goldman’s full-year expectations.
“This strength in
demand has largely been tied to a combination of strong growth from
the green economy, grid and property completions,” the Goldman report
observed.
While China’s
embattled property sector is still struggling to recover, the investment bank
noted that China’s green economy has shown “significant strength” so far this
year, resulting in a demand surge for metals related to the green transition,
such as copper.
Goldman’s economists
attributed China’s green copper rush largely to its onshore solar
installations, which in 2023 so far have “amounted to the level of all previous
years’ installations.”
China’s operating solar capacity has reached 228
GW, more than the rest of the world combined, a June report by the Global Energy Monitor said.
And the world’s second-largest economy is on track to double its wind and solar
capacity five years ahead of its 2030 goals.
According to data collated by
Goldman Sachs, China’s green copper demand rose 71% in July from a year ago.
“The most significant strength has
come on the renewables side where related copper demand is up 130% y/y
year-to-date, led by surging solar related demand,” Goldman wrote in a separate
report dated Aug. 25.
Recovery in China’s manufacturing
sector is also boosting demand for base metals like aluminum.
“The improvement in manufacturing
trends so far in Q3 has also coincided with stronger import levels of base
metals,” the report stated.
China’s industrial
production grew by 4.5% in August compared to a year ago,
beating expectations for 3.9% growth. And within that category, the value added
of equipment manufacturing grew 5.4% year on year.
Goldman predicted demand
growth for these metals is set to continue.
More
China
demand for oil and copper is 'booming,' says Goldman Sachs (cnbc.com)
World Bank downgrades developing East Asia
growth forecast, weighed by a slowing China
The World Bank trimmed its growth forecast for
developing East Asia and Pacific, citing a sluggish China and global demand
amid still-high interest rates and dampened trade.
The World Bank said it now expects
developing economies in East Asia and the Pacific to grow 5% in
2023, according to its October report published Monday in Asia. That’s slightly
less than the 5.1% it had forecast in April.
For 2024, the Washington-based multilateral bank now expects 4.5% growth for
the region, down from its forecast of 4.8% in April.
The World Bank left its 2023
economic growth forecast for China unchanged at 5.1%, but lowered its 2024
estimate to 4.4% from 4.8% previously. The organization cited “longer-term
structural factors,” elevated debt levels in the world’s second-largest economy
and weakness
in its property sector as reasons for its downgrade.
“While domestic factors are likely to be the
dominant influence on growth in China, external factors will have a stronger
influence on growth in much of the rest of the region,” the World Bank said.
Even though East
Asian economies have mostly recovered from the series of shocks since 2020 —
including the Covid-19 pandemic — and will continue to grow, the World Bank
said the pace of growth will likely slow.
Growing debt levels
The World Bank
flagged the significant increase of general government debt, as well as the
rapid jump in corporate debt levels, particularly in China, Thailand and
Vietnam.
It warned that high
government debt levels can limit both public and private investment. Elevated
debt could lead to higher interest rates, which would increase the cost of
borrowing for private businesses, it said.
According to the World Bank’s calculations, a
10-percentage-point increase in general government debt to GDP is associated
with a 1.2 percentage point decline in investment growth. Similarly, a
10-percentage-point increase in private debt to GDP is associated with a
1.1 percentage point decline in investment growth, it said.
More
World Bank downgrades developing East Asia growth forecast (cnbc.com)
Evergrande chairman
investigated over offshore asset transfers - WSJ
October 2,
20233:52 AM GMT+1
Oct
2 (Reuters) - China Evergrande Group (3333.HK) Chairman Hui Ka Yan is being
investigated on suspicion of transferring assets offshore while the indebted
property developer struggles to complete unfinished projects, the Wall Street
Journal reported on
Monday.
Evergrande has
been working to get creditors' approval to restructure its offshore debt but
the process grew more complicated last week when the company said it could not
issue new debt due to an investigation into its main China unit.
Adding
to the embattled developer's woes, it said on Friday that its chairman was
under police watch and was suspected of committing unspecified crimes.
Reuters reported last week that a group of offshore
creditors was planning to join a court petition to liquidate the developer if
it did not submit a new debt restructuring plan by the end of October.
Evergrande did
not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment during week-long
National Day holidays.
With
more than $300 billion in liabilities, Evergrande has become the poster child of a debt crisis in China's property
sector, which contributes to roughly a quarter of the economy.
Trading in the
shares of Evergrande and two of its units was suspended on Thursday after media
reported that Hui had been taken away by police and was being monitored at a
designated location.
Evergrande
chairman investigated over offshore asset transfers - WSJ | Reuters
Italy plans 21-billion euro asset sell-off to keep debt in
check
By Giuseppe Fonte September 30, 202311:59 AM GMT+1
ROME, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Italy aims to
raise at least 1% of gross domestic product (GDP), or roughly 21 billion euros
($22.2 billion), through asset sales between 2024 and 2026, the Treasury said
in its Economic and Financial Document (DEF) published on Saturday.
The plan is part of Prime Minister
Giorgia Meloni's efforts to keep in check the euro zone's second-largest debt
pile as a proportion of GDP, while investors keep a close eye on Rome's
creaking public finances.
Italy's debt-to-GDP ratio is seen
edging down to 139.6% in 2026, from 140.2% this year.
The new targets factor in the proceeds
of asset disposals expected in the next three years, the DEF said, showing that
without the sell-off plans the debt burden would probably rise.
Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti
said in the document that the stake sales would involve companies that are
subject to privatisation commitments already agreed with the European
Commission.
This is a reference
to bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) (BMPS.MI),
which was bailed-out in 2017 at a cost of 5.4 billion euros for taxpayers.
The Treasury is expected to hire
advisers for the bank's re-privatisation process, bankers said, though
Giorgetti recently poured cold water on the prospect of quick action by saying
the government had no urgent need for cash.
Italy will also sell shares in
companies in which the Treasury's stake "exceeds that necessary to
maintain an appropriate coherence and unity of strategic direction",
Giorgetti added, without providing further details.
More
Italy plans 21-billion euro asset sell-off to keep
debt in check | Reuters
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.
Today,
more inflation ahead. Someone thinks it’s a good idea to end the US central
bank and its theiving forever inflation. Good luck with that. Politicians and
banksters actually want inflation, that’s why they abandoned gold in August
1971.
Under new contract, United Airlines pilots could see
salaries soar 40% higher
SEPT. 29, 2023 / 7:40 PM
Sept.
29 (UPI) -- United Airlines pilots approved a new contract Friday that
provides up to a 40.2% increase in pay over the course of the four-year deal,
union representatives announced.
The
Air Line Pilots Association said 82% of the pilots who voted on the contract
approved of the deal, which amounts to about $10 billion. In total, 97% of all
United pilots voted.
"This
industry-leading contract brings substantial benefits to our pilots and could
not have happened without their unity and steadfast resolve," said Garth Thompson, chairman of the ALPA's
United master executive council. "I am proud that our pilot group will be
recognized for their contributions to the company's success. United Airlines
cannot thrive without the hard work of its labor groups."
Flight-deck
crew members will receive between a 34.5% to 40.2% increase in pay as well as
signing bonus pay that will be retroactive to January 2020.
United
Airlines CEO Scott
Kirby applauded the new
contract in a statement on LinkedIn.
"We
are the largest and best airline in the world because of our people, and I'm
happy to give them a great contract that ensures we can continue the United
Next growth that is creating great careers for everyone here at United Airlines
-- and a great route network and customer service for our large and growing
customer base," he said.
Other major airlines -- Delta Airlines,
FedEx, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Spirit Airlines and WestJet -- have
also recently reached agreements with pilots represented by the ALPA.
Under new contract, United Airlines pilots could see salaries
soar 40% higher - UPI.com
Time to End the
Fed and Its Mismanagement of Our Economy
9/29/2023 Updated: 9/29/2023
----Central banking dates to 1694, when the Bank of
England was founded for the purpose of creating the hidden tax of inflation to
provide cheap money to government—above all, for Britain’s many foreign wars.
In exchange, the central bankers were paid well with interest.
Like any
government-favored bank, the Bank of England lent money it didn’t have, lending
far more than the silver in its vaults. The British government endorsed this
fraud because the king and Parliament wanted the money.
But the fraud
went further still: The Bank of England was allowed to use its new
government bond holdings to back private loans, which meant creating even more
money with no silver behind it to lend to private banks. This, too, earned
interest, even though the money was created out of nothing.
----Central banking was imported to the
New World before the Constitution was even written. The Bank of North America,
our first central bank, copied the Bank of England and created
hyperinflation under the Articles of Confederation. At that point, the Founding
Fathers scrapped both the Articles of Confederation and the bank.
Thinking that the bank needed a
replacement, Congress created the
First Bank of the United States in 1791 to consolidate the various currencies
and debts from the states and to provide short-term loans to the government.
The
First Bank was forbidden from buying government bonds to avoid its
predecessor’s hyperinflation. But when the government needed more revenue,
Congress decided to sell its shares in the bank, and the charter wasn’t
renewed. The central bank was dead, and the U.S. economy boomed until the War of 1812.
To finance
that war, the government borrowed heavily from regional banks, which created
money out of nothing for the government. That meant that much more paper money
was in circulation than gold and silver in bank vaults. When people tried to
redeem their paper for specie, the banks didn’t have enough, and many failed.
To bail out the
banks, Congress created another central bank in 1816, the Second Bank of the
United States.
The Second Bank
curtailed excessive lending by regional banks, but only after first encouraging
it. The result was a debt-fueled boom followed by a bust in 1819 that sparked
the nation’s first depression.
Many in
Congress were tolerant of the violent economic spasms caused by the central
bank because it provided money for them to spend without overtly raising taxes.
But the people were not fooled and would not tolerate it. They elected Andrew Jackson to do battle with the beast, and he
ensured the bank’s charter wasn’t renewed in 1836.
That ushered
in some of America’s greatest decades of economic growth.
The Golden Age
came to an end in 1907 when mismanagement by major banks touched off a bank
crisis that required a herculean rescue effort by J.P. Morgan and Co. In response,
J. Pierpont Morgan wanted the government to sanction a private “bank for
bankers” to respond to such crises.
More.
Time to End the Fed and Its Mismanagement of Our
Economy | The Epoch Times
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
The Great British Parliament Scandal. MPs gross contempt of the voters over excess deaths. Approx.14 minutes.
Excess
deaths debate in parliament
Excess
deaths debate in parliament - YouTube
COVID
Vaccines Causally Linked to Increased Mortality, Resulting in 17 Million
Deaths: Scientific Report
Data
suggest COVID-19 vaccines haven’t saved lives, but instead, have resulted in 17
million deaths and increased all-cause mortality in 17 countries.
9/28/2023 Updated: 9/30/2023
A new scientific report challenges the idea that COVID-19 vaccines have
prevented deaths after researchers assessed all-cause mortality in 17 countries
and found COVID-19 vaccines did not have any beneficial effect on reducing
mortality. Instead, researchers found that unprecedented peaks in high
all-cause mortality in each country—especially among the elderly population
when COVID-19 vaccines were deployed—coincided with the rollout of third and
fourth booster doses.
The report, published
Sept. 17 by Correlation Research in the Public Interest (pdf) (not yet peer-reviewed), quantified
the vaccine-dose fatality rate (vDFR) for all ages—which is the ratio of
inferred vaccine-induced deaths to vaccine doses delivered in a given
population. After analyzing mortality data, the researchers calculated a mean
all-ages fatal toxicity by injection of vDFR of one death per 800 injections
across all ages and countries. This equates to 17 million COVID-19
vaccine-related deaths worldwide from 13.25 billion injections as of Sept. 2,
2023.
"This would correspond to a mass iatrogenic event that killed (0.213
± 0.006) % of the world population (1 death per 470 living persons, in less
than 3 years), and did not measurably prevent any deaths," the authors
said. The overall risk of death induced by COVID-19 vaccines is 1,000 times
greater than previously reported in data from clinical trials, adverse event
monitoring, and cause-of-death statistics obtained from death certificates.
All-cause mortality is the death rate from all causes of death for a population in a specific time period. This is the most reliable data for detecting and epidemiologically characterizing events driving death and for measuring the population-level impact of any surge or collapse in deaths from any cause.
---- The researchers conducted an analysis of all-cause mortality using data from the World Mortality Dataset for 17 equatorial and Southern Hemisphere countries, including Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Suriname, Thailand, and Uruguay. Equatorial countries have no summer and winter seasons, so there are no seasonal variations in their all-cause mortality patterns.
These
countries comprise 9.1 percent of the global population and 10.3 percent of
worldwide COVID-19 injections—with a vaccination rate of 1.91 injections per
person of all ages—and include nearly every COVID-19 vaccine product and
manufacturer across four continents.
Key
findings from the 180-page report include:
More
COVID-19
linked to more sepsis cases than previously thought
SEPT. 29, 2023 / 1:15 PM
The life-threatening infection sepsis was more common than once thought
among COVID-19 patients
early in the pandemic.
Massachusetts researchers linked SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes
COVID-19, to about 1 in 6 sepsis cases at five Boston hospitals during the
pandemic's first 2-1/2 years.
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital said their findings
suggest healthcare workers should rethink how they treat sepsis. The use of
electronic health data also provides a framework for future sepsis
surveillance, they said.
"Most people, including medical professionals, equate sepsis with
bacterial infections," said lead author Dr. Claire Shappell, a specialist in pulmonology and
critical care medicine. "This is reflected in treatment guidelines and
quality measures that require immediate antibiotics for patients with suspected
sepsis."
But "viral infections, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes
COVID-19, can trigger the same dysregulated immune response that leads to organ
dysfunction as in bacterial sepsis," Shappell added in a hospital news
release.
For the study, her team used health records from five Mass General Brigham
hospitals to track the rate of COVID-associated sepsis. Their criteria included
testing positive for COVID-19 and clinical signs of organ dysfunction.
"Previous efforts to quantify the burden of SARS-CoV-2-associated
sepsis have been limited by inconsistent definitions and under-recognition of
viral sepsis," said senior author Dr. Chanu Rhee, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and
Women's.
"Our prior research has shown that [electronic
health record-based] surveillance can provide more accurate estimates of sepsis
incidence and outcomes compared to administrative datasets, but this method had
not previously been applied specifically for sepsis associated with SARS-CoV-2
or other viruses," Rhee said in the release.
Using data for March 2020 through November 2022,
the researchers found more than 430,000 hospitalizations among more than
260,000 people.
About 5.4% of hospitalizations were due to COVID-19
infections. Among those patients, 28.2% had COVID-associated sepsis.
The death rate for patients with COVID-19 and
sepsis was initially high -- about 33% -- in the pandemic's first three months,
the study showed. Over time, that declined and was similar to the death rate
for bacterial sepsis, which is about 14.5%.
More
COVID-19 linked to more sepsis cases than previously
thought - UPI.com
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.
BP meets AI as oil giant seals big UK battery power
deal
Supermajor says agreement first of its kind since tech
acquisition as transition plans come under scrutiny following Looney exit
26 September 2023 10:20 GMT Updated 26 September 2023 10:20 GMT
BP sealed a power trading deal to handle energy stored by two
large-scale battery systems in the UK, in a first-of-a-kind deployment of specialist
AI-enabled software technology acquired by the company.
The UK-based supermajor will provide physical power trading and
optimisation for 80MW/160MWh of storage under development by Harmony Energy
Income Trust that is due to come online in the first half of next year.
The two battery arrays – with enough capacity to power about 200,000
homes for two hours – will store grid electricity during periods of low demand
for discharge when needed to meet peaks or help smooth out supply from variable
renewables as more take their place on the UK network.
BP said the deal is the first outing with new battery assets for
AI-driven technology it has been integrating since 2021 when it bought Open
Energi, a specialist real-time software platform to optimise energy management
and help connect more effectively with power markets.
Hormoz Ala, senior manager in European power for BP said: “This deal
represents a significant opportunity to combine BP’s established experience in
power trading with Harmony’s track record in battery development to help
safeguard the stability of the GB power grid.”
The Open Energi deal was part of a wider push by BP into the power
sector that also includes major forays into generation assets such as onshore
wind and solar, billed by the supermajor as a key plank of a broader integrated
energy strategy.
The future direction of BP’s energy transition agenda is under
intense scrutiny as the oil giant lines up a permanent replacement for former
CEO Bernard Looney, who launched its net zero push in 2020 but earlier in
September quit amid a company probe into personal
relationships with colleagues.
Finance chief Murray Auchincloss has stepped up to be acting CEO
following Looney's departure.
BP meets AI as oil giant seals big UK battery power
deal | Recharge (rechargenews.com)
God was/is a Scotsman, who knew?
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