Saturday, 15 February 2025

Special Update 15/02/2025 De Gaulle Says Get Gold! Vance Rocks Europe’s Elite.

Baltic Dry Index. 792 +12              Brent Crude 74.74

Spot Gold 2883                  U S 2 Year Yield 4.26 -0.05

US Federal Debt. 36.481 trillion.

The dollar is our currency but your problem. 

US Secretary of the Treasury, John Connolly, 1971.

In the stock casinos, another week of great disconnect from global economic reality. Though not for much longer I suspect.

S&P 500 closes little changed on Friday, but Wall Street notches weekly gains: Live updates

Updated Fri, Feb 14 2025 5:12 PM EST

The S&P 500 was little changed on Friday in a pause from a strong performance this week, as investors weighed the latest on the global trade and inflation fronts.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 165.35 points, or 0.37%, closing at 44,546.08. The S&P 500 ticked down 0.01% to 6,114.63, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.41% to close at 20,026.77.

The three major averages ended the week in the green, as sentiment improved after investors got more certainty around President Donald Trump’s tariff plans, while new inflation data wound up being more constructive than first thought. Traders also shrugged off data released Friday that reflected a 0.9% slump in retail sales for January, worse than the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% decline.

This week, the S&P 500 added about 1.5%, while the Dow advanced roughly 0.6%. The Nasdaq was 2.6% higher on the week.

A chunk of the week’s advance came Thursday after Trump signed a memorandum on laying out a plan to impose levies on goods from countries with duties on U.S. products, instead of implementing immediate tariffs.

Sentiment appeared to calm after January’s producer price index report, released Thursday, as well as the consumer price index report released Wednesday, suggested a softer reading for the personal consumption expenditures price index. The PCE price index, which is due later this month, is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge.

“It looks like the economy and inflation aren’t runaway accelerating, causing pressure on rates,” said Matt Stucky, chief portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company. He said the recent move downward in the 10-year Treasury yield is “improving breadth, but it’s also lifting asset prices on the equity side because of that correlation dynamic.”

The 10-year Treasury yield continued to slide Friday, recently dropping nearly 5 basis points lower to 4.478%.

Stock market news for Feb. 14, 2025

Europe stocks close lower but notch eighth weekly gain

Updated Fri, Feb 14 2025 12:09 PM EST

European stock markets closed lower on Friday after hitting record highs earlier this week.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed 0.24% lower, snapping a four-session winning streak that has marked a series of record highs. The index nonetheless marked its eighth consecutive week of gains, which have taken it around 9% higher so far this year.

Investors have been reacting to a flurry of corporate earnings and the prospect of a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced peace talks were set to begin after he spoke with his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts.

Corporate earnings remained in focus in Europe on Friday. British lender NatWest reported its full-year earnings, beating estimates on profit and revenues. The company, which is still partly owned by the state, said that the U.K. government had reduced its stake in the bank from 7.98% to 6.98%. Shares were 3% lower during early afternoon deals.

Haute couture fashion house Hermes also reported better-than-expected earnings on Friday. Its shares moved 1.7% higher by 3:43 p.m. London time.

Asia-Pacific markets were mixed Friday, while U.S. stocks were little changed on the last day of the week as investors considered the global trade outlook as President Donald Trump signed a reciprocal tariffs plan, but did not enact the levies immediately.

Europe stocks lower after hitting highs on Ukraine peace deal hopes

Retail sales slumped 0.9% in January, down much more than expected

Published Fri, Feb 14 2025 8:52 AM EST

Consumers sharply curtailed their spending in January, indicating a potential weakening in economic growth ahead, according to a Commerce Department report Friday.

Retail sales slipped 0.9% for the month from an upwardly revised 0.7% gain in December, even worse than the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% decline. The sales totals are adjusted for seasonality but not inflation for a month in which prices rose 0.5%.

Excluding autos, prices fell 0.4%, also well off the consensus forecast for a 0.3% increase. A “control” measure that strips out several nonessential categories and figures directly into calculations for gross domestic product fell 0.8% after an upwardly revised increase of 0.8%.

With consumer spending making up about two-thirds of all economic activity in the U.S., the sales numbers indicate a potential weakening in growth for the first quarter.

Receipts at sporting goods, music and book stores tumbled 4.6% on the month, while online outlets reported a 1.9% decline and motor vehicles and parts spending dropped 2.8%. Gas stations along with food and drinking establishments both reported 0.9% increases.

Retail sales slumped 0.9% in January, down much more than expected

HSBC Plans Fresh Round of Investment Bank Job Cuts Next Week

February 14, 2025 at 6:37 AM GMT

HSBC plans new investment bank job cuts next week, starting in Asia, people familiar said. It’s unclear how many employees will be dismissed, with the layoffs being based on performance, duplication of jobs, and simplification of operations. They will be staggered over several weeks and months.

President Donald Trump signed a measure to propose reciprocal tariffs on a country-by-country basis that may be implemented as soon as April. The US is said to have told the UK and Europe that they should buy American arms to maintain the NATO alliance. Trump separately claimed the European Union is “very difficult” and taxes the US heavily. The president also agreed with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to begin to address the US trade deficit.

---- Apple and Google will restore TikTok to their app stores following assurances that the US ban wouldn’t immediately be enforced. Apple plans to overhaul its phones in China with AI features by the middle of this year, with Baidu as a partner for features including Visual Intelligence, people familiar said. 

Doing things differently. Minotaur Capital, a hedge fund startup using AI to do analysts’ work, posted a 13.7% return in its first six months, outperforming the MSCI All-Country World Index’s 6.7%. Separately, ICE will develop new data products with Reddit, which will help inform trading strategies and algorithms, while gauging public sentiment of markets in real time.

More Trump: He proposed a meeting with his Russian and Chinese counterparts to discuss cutting defense spending in half. The president said his call with Vladimir Putin this week lasted 1 1/2 hours, though they won’t meet when top officials including from Ukraine gather in Saudi Arabia. He also said he’d love to bring Russia back into the G-7.

HSBC Plans Fresh Round of Investment Bank Job Cuts Next Week - Bloomberg

Porsche to cut almost 2,000 jobs in Germany as EV demand declines

14 February 2025

The luxury carmaker Porsche will cut 1,900 posts by the end of the decade as its profit margins are hit by rocky market conditions.

The cuts will see a reduction in overall staffing numbers by 15% by 2029 at its main sites in southwestern Germany, Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and Weissach.

This process began back in 2024 when 1,500 fixed-term contracts expired.

Now, another 500 fixed-term contracts are expiring, although the 1,900 cuts will come on top of this.

Employees will be encouraged to leave voluntarily by accepting early retirement or severance packages, and Porsche will take a “restrictive approach” to hiring, the firm confirmed this week.

The carmaker blamed the job losses on “the delayed ramp-up of electromobility” and “challenging geopolitical and economic conditions”.

“Now it is a matter of setting the course at an early stage and taking a close look at the adjustments we need to make in order to be successful in the future,” the firm told Euronews. It added: “In addition to a number of other measures, this also includes personnel costs.”

Porsche’s investments in electric vehicles have notably backfired as weak demand has prompted the firm to walk back its EV targets.

Last week, the manufacturer announced it would ramp up production of its combustion engine vehicles and hybrids, which will cost Porsche €800m this year.

The carmaker’s Taycan vehicles saw a 49% decline in sales in 2024.

Porsche also saw an overall sales decline of 28% year-on-year in China, which the firm attributed to “the continuing challenging economic situation in this region”.

More

Porsche to cut almost 2,000 jobs in Germany as EV demand declines

In other news. Good news for John Bull, maybe. Worse news for Meta. In long overdue, very bad news for PC woke Europe and UK, VP J. D. Vance spoke truth to power, Europe’s squirming, socialist entrenched elite.

Huge gas field found under Lincolnshire ‘could fuel UK for decade’

14 February 2025

A huge gas field has been found under Lincolnshire that could reportedly fuel the UK for a decade.

However, there are fears the discovery near the town of Gainsborough could spark a row as the gas would need to be extracted via fracking, with critics arguing the practice distracts from net zero goals.

The energy company behind the findings, which is set to officially announce the discovery at a conference this month, claimed the Gainsborough Trough field will boost the British economy by more than £100 billion and lead to less reliance on energy imports. Egdon Resources added that it will lead to the creation of tens of thousands of jobs.

Consultants Deloitte, who analysed the test drilling results on behalf of Egdon, argued that using gas from the field rather than from abroad would have significantly less environmental impact.

The newly found field has around 480 billion cubic metres of gas – roughly seven times what the country consumes each year – which it is suggested could cover the UK’s gas needs for the next 10 years, due to declining consumption, reported LBC.

However, energy secretary Ed Miliband is among the many Labour MPs as well as others across the UK who are opposed to fracking, the technique that would need to be used to extract the gas.

Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing and refers to the practice of drilling deep down into the earth to extract shale gas and oil from porous subterranean rock formations by blasting them with a mixture of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure.

While the practice enables energy firms to access and exploit hard-to-reach resources and creates jobs, it has been the target of regular protests by green activists as another example of finite fossil fuels being exhausted when renewable energy alternatives should be being prioritised in the interests of sustainability and arresting the progress of climate change, with Britain committed to net zero by 2030.

However, after previous reliance on its North Sea gas fields, which are now in decline, the UK has found itself importing more than half of its natural gas from overseas, including from the US, Norway and Qatar.

The country also has one of the highest energy bills in the developed world, which hits households and business.

Egdon’s chief executive Mark Abbott argued the test results from the Gainsborough Trough, which extends north-west towards Doncaster and Sheffield, are “potentially world class”, adding: “We could access all that energy from drilling pads on the ground above, each roughly the size of one or two football fields. The land take would be far smaller than for solar farms and the energy produced would be far greater.”

A government spokesperson told The Independent: “We intend to ban fracking for good and make Britain a clean energy superpower to protect current and future generations.

More

Huge gas field found under Lincolnshire ‘could fuel UK for decade’

Meta purportedly trained its AI on more than 80TB of pirated content and then open-sourced Llama for the greater good

13 February 2025

Meta is facing a class-action lawsuit alleging copyright infringement and unfair competition over the training of its AI model, Llama.

According to court documents released by vx-underground, Meta allegedly downloaded nearly 82TB of pirated books from shadow libraries such as Anna’s Archive, Z-Library, and LibGen to train its AI systems.

Internal discussions reveal that some employees raised ethical concerns as early as 2022, with one researcher explicitly stating, “I don’t think we should use pirated material” while another said, “Using pirated material should be beyond our ethical threshold.”

Meta made efforts to avoid detection

Despite these concerns, Meta appears to have not only ploughed on and taken steps to avoid detection. In April 2023, an employee warned against using corporate IP addresses to access pirated content, while another said that “torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right,” adding a laughing emoji.

There are also reports that Meta employees allegedly discussed ways to prevent Meta’s infrastructure from being directly linked to the downloads, raising questions about whether the company knowingly bypassed copyright laws.

In January 2023, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly attended a meeting where he pushed for AI implementation at the company despite internal objections.

Meta isn't alone in facing legal challenges over AI training. OpenAI has been sued multiple times for allegedly using copyrighted books without permission, including a case filed by The New York Times in December 2023.

Nvidia is also under legal scrutiny for training its NeMo model on nearly 200,000 books, and a former employee had disclosed that the company scraped over 426,000 hours of video daily for AI development.

And in case you missed it, OpenAI recently claimed that DeepSeek unlawfully obtained data from its models, highlighting the ongoing ethical and legal dilemmas surrounding AI training practices.

Meta purportedly trained its AI on more than 80TB of pirated content and then open-sourced Llama for the greater good

JD Vance stuns Munich conference with blistering attack on Europe’s leaders

US vice-president questions whether European values are worth defending as he rails against ‘threat from within’

Fri 14 Feb 2025 18.36 GMT

The US vice-president, JD Vance, has launched a brutal ideological assault on Europe, accusing its leaders of suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs.

In a chastising speech on Friday that openly questioned whether current European values warranted defence by the US, he painted a picture of European politics infected by media censorship, cancelled elections and political correctness.

Arguing that the true threat to Europe stemmed not from external actors such as Russia or China, but Europe’s own internal retreat from some of its “most fundamental values”, he repeatedly questioned whether the US and Europe any longer had a shared agenda. “What I worry about is the threat from within,” Vance said.

----Vance said: “For years we have been told everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values, everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy, but when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others we ought to ask ourselves if we are holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.”

Banning politicians representing populist parties was wrong, he argued. “We do not have to agree with everything or anything people say, but when political leaders represent an important constituency it is incumbent on us to listen.”

----In remarks that will delight the German far right days before elections there, Vance said: “Of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration.”

His speech came a day after a 24-year-old Afghan man was arrested in Munich over a car-ramming attack that injured 36 people. Vance seized on the case to reinforce his point. “How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilisation in a new direction?” he asked.

Instead, he claimed, “in Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat”. He listed a string of cases that he claimed were evidence of this, railing against Romania for cancelling presidential elections and Sweden for arresting a man for burning a Qur’an in public. Britain was singled out for arresting a man praying near an abortion clinic.

Attempting to underplay Moscow’s role in the rise of the populist right, he said it was wrong for Russia to buy social media to influence European elections, but “if your democracy can be destroyed by a few thousand dollars of digital media from a foreign country it was not very strong to begin with”.

JD Vance stuns Munich conference with blistering attack on Europe’s leaders | JD Vance | The Guardian

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Charles de Gaulle.

Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession Watch.        

Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,  inflation/recession now needs an entire section of its own.

This weekend “get gold.”

President Charles de Gaulle at the Palais de l’Élysée calling for the return of a ‘gold exchange standard’; February 4, 1965

The currencies of the countries of Western Europe have today been restored, to such an extent that the total gold reserves of the Six is today equivalent to that of the Americans. They decided to convert all the dollars that they had in their account into precious metals. In other words, the convention that gives the dollar an over-riding value as an international currency no longer has its initial basis, namely the possession by America of the great majority of the gold in the world. But in addition, the fact that a large number of countries accept, out of principle, dollars in the same way as gold to compensate, when appropriate, any deficits that arise to their advantage from the American balance of payments, leads the United States to become voluntarily indebted to foreign countries. Indeed, what they owe them, they pay them at least in part, with dollars that they hold just for these payments, instead of paying them totally in gold, the value of which is real, that you can only possess if you have earned it and that you cannot transfer to others without risk and without sacrifice. This unilateral facility which America has been given contributes to the idea that the dollar is an impartial and international symbol of foreign exchanges being blurred, while it is an appropriate means of credit for a country.

Obviously, there are other consequences to this situation. There is, in particular, the fact that the United States, for want of having necessarily to pay in gold, at least totally, for their negative balances of payment in accordance with the old rules, that required countries to take the required steps, sometimes rigorously, to remedy their imbalance, is suffering year after year from a deficit balance. No less because the total of their commercial exchanges is to their disadvantage. Quite the opposite! Their material exports always exceed their imports. But that is also the case for dollars, exports of which are always in excess of imports. In other words, capital sums are being built up in America, by means of what should really be called inflation, which, in the form of dollar loans granted to countries or to private individuals, are being exported. As, in the United States itself, the increase in currency circulation that results from this makes investments within the country less remunerative, there is an increasing trend there to invest abroad.

This leads, for certain countries, to a sort of expropriation of some of their companies. Certainly, such a practice has greatly facilitated, and still encourages to a certain extent, the multiple and considerable aid that the United States is providing to a large number of countries, to be used for their development, and from which we, on other occasions, have ourselves widely benefited. But circumstances are such today that we can even wonder how far the problem would go if the countries that hold dollars wanted, sooner or later, to change them into gold? Although such a general movement would never take place, it is still the fact that there is an imbalance that is, to a certain extent, fundamental.

For all these reasons, France is in favor of the system being changed. We know that France said this, in particular, at the Tokyo Monetary Conference. Given the universal jolt that a crisis in this field would probably cause, we have every reason to hope that the steps to avoid it are taken in time. We therefore believe it to be necessary for international exchanges to be established, as was the case before the world’s great misfortunes, on an unquestionable monetary basis, that does not carry the mark of any particular country.

What basis? Indeed, we cannot see that, in this respect, there can be any other criterion, any other standard, than gold. Oh, yes! Gold, which never changes its nature, which can be shaped into bars, ingots or coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally-accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence. Moreover, despite everything that could be imagined, said, written, done, as huge events happened, it is a fact that there is still today no currency that can compare, either by a direct or an indirect relationship, real or imagined, with gold. Without doubt, we could think of imposing on each country the way it should behave within its borders. But the supreme law, the golden rule — we can truly say — that should be reapplied, with honor, to international economic relationships, is an obligation to make up, between one monetary zone and the next, by effective deliveries and withdrawals of precious metals, the balance of payments resulting from their foreign exchanges.

Below, the UK sells out of gold. Approx. 50 minutes.

"The Gold isn't There" - Alasdair Macleod on the Collapsing Paper Gold Market

"The Gold isn't There" - Alasdair Macleod on the Collapsing Paper Gold Market - YouTube

Betting against gold is the same as betting on governments. He who bets on governments and government money bets against 6,000 years of recorded human history.

Charles de Gaulle.

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

What is the FDA trying to hide about the Pfizer covid vaccine?

FDA Misled the Judiciary about Pfizer’s Vaccine Documents

Maryanne Demasi   February 11, 2025 

On December 6, 2024, a federal judge ordered the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release documents related to the emergency use authorisation of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. These documents had been hidden from public view.

The legal battle traces back to September 2021, when attorney Aaron Siri filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on behalf of the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency. The plaintiffs sought access to the vast trove of documents the FDA relied on to approve Pfizer’s vaccine.

Initially, the FDA proposed a slow release schedule. In November 2021, the agency stated it would release just 500 pages per month—a pace that would have stretched the full disclosure process to 75 years. 

However, in January 2022, District Judge Mark Pittman of Texas rejected the FDA’s proposal, ordering the agency to expedite its release to 55,000 pages per month, aiming to complete the disclosure of all 450,000 pages by August 2022.

As the documents trickled out, researchers began uncovering glaring gaps that prevented a systematic review of the data. These gaps fueled suspicions about what else the FDA might be withholding. 

It became evident that the FDA had withheld records directly tied to its emergency use authorisation of Pfizer’s vaccine, estimated to be over one million pages. 

These documents, which the FDA had full knowledge of, were excluded from earlier disclosures, effectively misleading the judiciary and undermining public trust.

Siri didn’t mince words. 

“The FDA has been hiding a million pages from the Court, the plaintiff, and the public. Only those concerned about the truth seek to conceal evidence,” said Siri in an interview.

“The FDA here is clearly concerned about the truth and lacks confidence in the review that it conducted to license Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine because it is doing everything possible to prevent independent scientists from conducting an independent review,” he added.

Judge Pittman’s latest court order to expedite the full disclosure of documents acknowledges the public’s right to scrutinise the data that underpin one of the most significant public health interventions in history. 

In his ruling, Judge Pittman invoked a powerful reminder from American revolutionary Patrick Henry: “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” 

Pittman concluded, “The COVID-19 pandemic is long passed, and so has any legitimate reason for concealing from the American people the information relied upon by the government in approving the Pfizer vaccine.”

More

FDA Misled the Judiciary about Pfizer's Vaccine Documents Brownstone Institute

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.

Scientists Just Unlocked a New Way to Supercharge Wireless Speeds With Graphene

By Paul Logothetis, University of Ottawa February 13, 2025

Researchers have made a breakthrough in THz frequency conversion using graphene, opening new possibilities for ultra-fast wireless communication and advanced signal processing.

Their work focuses on overcoming previous limitations in nonlinear THz optics, a crucial step toward efficient 6G technology.

Unlocking the Power of THz Waves in Communication

A research team from the University of Ottawa has developed new methods to improve the frequency conversion of terahertz (THz) waves in graphene-based structures. Their work could lead to faster, more efficient wireless communication and signal processing technologies.

THz waves, which exist in the far-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, have a wide range of applications. They can penetrate opaque materials, making them valuable for non-invasive imaging in security and quality control. Additionally, they hold great potential for wireless communication. Advances in THz nonlinear optics—techniques that alter the frequency of electromagnetic waves—are crucial for the development of high-speed wireless networks, including future 6G systems.

THz technology is advancing rapidly and is expected to play a key role in healthcare, communication, security, and quality control. Jean-Michel Ménard, Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Ottawa, and his team have developed devices that convert electromagnetic signals into higher oscillation frequencies. This breakthrough helps bridge the gap between traditional GHz electronics and emerging THz photonics, bringing us closer to next-generation communication systems.

Breakthroughs in Graphene-Based THz Frequency Conversion

These findings – published in Light: Science & Applications – demonstrate innovative strategies for enhancing THz nonlinearities in graphene-based devices. “The research marks a significant step forward in improving the efficiency of THz frequency converters, a critical aspect for multi-spectral THz applications and especially the future of communication systems, like 6G,” says Professor Ménard, who collaborated on the project with fellow uOttawa researchers Ali Maleki and Robert W. Boyd, plus Moritz B. Heindl and Georg Herink from the University of Bayreuth (Germany) and Iridian Spectral Technologies.

Harnessing Graphene’s Unique Optical Properties

This new research showcases methods to leverage the unique optical properties of graphene, an emerging quantum material made of a single layer of carbon atoms. This 2D material can be seamlessly integrated into devices, enabling new applications for signal processing and communication.

Previous works combining THz light and graphene primarily focused on fundamental light-matter interactions, often examining the effect of a single parameter in the experiment. The resulting nonlinear effects were extremely weak. To overcome this limitation, Professor Ménard and his colleagues have combined multiple innovative approaches to enhance nonlinear effects and fully leverage graphene’s unique properties.

More

Scientists Just Unlocked a New Way to Supercharge Wireless Speeds With Graphene

Next, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.

World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)

This weekend’s music diversion. Mr Beer, aliases Bähr, Baer, or Behr.  Approx. 10 minutes.  

Johann Beer (1655-1700) - Concerto à 4

Johann Beer (1655-1700) - Concerto à 4

This weekend’s chess diversion.  Approx 11 minutes.

He's Not Stopping! || Keymer vs Caruana || FINALS - Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Weissenhaus (2025)

He's Not Stopping! || Keymer vs Caruana || FINALS - Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Weissenhaus (2025)

This weekend’s final diversion. US trucks v European trucks. Why Europe doesn’t buy US trucks.  Approx 9 minutes.  

Why American Trucks Are Worse Than European Trucks

Why American Trucks Are Worse Than European Trucks - YouTube

Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French.

Charles de Gaulle.

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