Baltic
Dry Index. 1261 +20 Brent Crude 66.90
Spot Gold 3375 US 2 Year Yield 3.81 +0.04
US Federal Debt. 36.751 trillion!!!
"The dollar is our currency, but your problem.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary, John Connally, November 1971.
Today, some of the likely downside of President Trump's tariff wars on friend and foe alike and why I think meaningful trade deals are unlikely, at least with any economies large enough to make a difference.
Using a UK trade deal as an "easy" example, any deal from a US perspective has to cover chicken. But the USA uses chlorinated chicken and has lower animal welfare standards than the EU, so US chicken exports are effectively excluded from Europe. The UK meets the EU standards to allow UK chicken exports to the EU, so I cannot see a USA-UK trade deal happening unless chicken is left out, which would be politically difficult, if not impossible. for President Trump to accept. The UK exports almost no chicken to the USA.
On a wider basis, President Trump is attempting to undo 50 years of US deindustrialisation and outsourcing US manufacturing to cheap labour countries, and trying to achieve this in a matter of weeks and months before next year’s mid-term US elections in November 2026. I don't think that is achievable or likely to happen.
Much international trade will now increasingly be disrupted by tariffs, resulting in higher US prices, less available goods, a weaker dollar probably requiring Fed support, and a drop in rest of the world’s willingness to purchase US debt. Also likely requiring Fed support.
Over time, there is likely to be less international travel to and from the USA, further weakening the global economy.
In short, I see only a very difficult few months ahead for the US, UK, and global economies. Stagflation at best, a debt depression at worst, as greatly indebted US consumers and corporations struggle to keep up debt service. Legal immigrants working in the US economy, will likely remit fewer depreciating US dollars back to the Latin American economies, further hurting the global economy.
I can't see 50 years of outsourcing undone in just a few weeks and months, even if there were goodwill all round, which there isn't. Probably not even in President Trump's final four-year term.
A long-term dollar international retreat is now just getting underway. Coming next, Central Bank Digital Currencies in place of the fiat dollar reserve standard plus gold and silver.
Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed as China keeps
benchmark lending rates steady
Updated Mon, Apr 21 2025 11:52 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Monday
as China’s central bank held rates at a time when the yuan has come under
pressure due to Beijing-Washington trade tensions.
Mainland China’s CSI 300 rose 0.15% after the
People’s Bank of China kept its key
loan prime rates unchanged at 3.10% for 1-year loan maturities and
3.60% for 5-year loan maturities, in line with the expectations of economists
polled by Reuters.
India’s benchmark Nifty 50 moved up 0.56% in
early trade while the broader BSE Sensex added 0.73%.
Japan’s
benchmark Nikkei 225 fell
1.33%, while the broader Topix index declined 1.3%.
In South Korea, the Kospi index was down 0.16%
while the small-cap Kosdaq fell 0.51% in choppy trade.
Australian and Hong Kong markets were
closed for the Easter holiday.
Investors are focused on U.S. President
Donald Trump’s trade policies, as they continue to roil global markets.
Last week, Trump called for the U.S.
Federal Reserve to cut interest rates while adding that the termination of Fed Chair Jerome Powell
“cannot come fast enough.” Trump’s comments came after
Powell cautioned that ongoing trade tensions could challenge the central bank’s
goals of controlling
inflation and spurring growth.
U.S.
futures fell after all three major benchmarks logged their third
weekly decline, in the last four trading weeks.
The broad-based S&P 500 ended Thursday’s
session higher, but still finished the holiday-shortened week 1.5% lower.
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite posted
their third consecutive losing session, each declining over 2% in the four-day
trading week.
Asia
markets live: Stocks trade mixed
Stock futures fall after Wall Street posts another
losing week: Live updates
Updated Mon, Apr 21 2025 12:23 AM EDT
Stock futures fell on Monday morning
following yet another negative trading week for Wall Street.
S&P 500 futures pulled
back 0.79%, while also Nasdaq-100
futures dropped 0.82%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average also tumbled 318 points, or 0.81%.
The moves come after each of the three
major averages logged a third weekly decline in the last four trading weeks.
While the S&P 500 closed
out Thursday’s session higher, the broad market index still finished the
holiday-shortened week 1.5% lower. Additionally, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite posted
their third consecutive losing session, each finishing the week with a more
than 2% pullback for the four-day period. The U.S. stock market was closed on
Friday in observance of Good Friday.
A major sell-off in shares of UnitedHealth weighed on the
Dow on Thursday. The stock sank more than 22% after the insurer cut
its full-year forecast and posted disappointing quarterly results.
The market also came under pressure
Thursday from a nearly 3% loss in Nvidia shares, which came on
top of the chipmaker’s almost 7% fall in the prior session. The artificial
intelligence darling disclosed Tuesday that it will record
a quarterly charge of about $5.5 billion due to controls around
exporting its H20 graphics processing units to China and other destinations.
Meanwhile, heightened concern surrounding
President Donald Trump’s tariffs continued to weigh on the market. Over the
weekend, Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said in a CBS
interview that the tariffs could lead U.S. economic activity to “fall
off” by the summer. That follows Fed Chair Jerome Powell expressing concern
Wednesday that the president’s levies could present
difficulty for the central bank in controlling inflation and spurring
economic growth.
While uncertainty persists, some on Wall
Street believe the worst
could be over. In fact, Mike Dickson of Horizon Investments said
“perpetual” swings in the market may be less frequent now even if volatility
remains.
“Continued uncertainty will likely cap
stock market valuations and weigh on investors until greater clarity emerges,”
the firm’s head of research and quantitative strategies said. “Although the
tariff situation remains fluid, we believe the roughly 10% daily and weekly
market swings seen in recent weeks are behind us for now.”
Investors are looking ahead to a key
earnings week, as more than 100 S&P 500 companies are due to report over
the coming days. That includes “Magnificent Seven” names Alphabet and Tesla, and others like aerospace
giant Boeing
Stock
market today: Live updates
China vows retaliation against countries
that follow U.S. calls to isolate Beijing
Published Sun, Apr 20 2025 10:29 PM EDT
BEIJING — China on Monday warned it will
retaliate against countries that cooperate with the U.S. in ways that
compromise Beijing’s interests, as the trade war between the world’s two
largest economies threatens to embroil other nations.
China’s warning comes as U.S.
President Donald Trump’s
administration is reportedly planning to use tariff negotiations to pressure U.S.
partners to limit their dealings with China. Trump this month paused
major tariff increases on other countries for 90 days, while hiking duties
further on goods from China to 145%.
“China firmly opposes any party reaching a
deal at the expense of China’s interests. If this happens, China will not
accept it and will resolutely take reciprocal countermeasures,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said, according to a
CNBC translation.
The ministry cautioned about the risk to
all countries once international trade returns to the “law of the jungle.”
The statement also sought to cast China as
willing to work with all parties and “defend international fairness and
justice,” while describing the U.S. actions as “abusing tariffs” and
“unilateral bullying.”
In
a shift toward a harder stance this month, China retaliated against U.S.
tariffs with levies of 125% on imports of American goods. Beijing has also
restricted critical minerals exports and put several, mostly smaller, U.S.
companies on blacklists that restrict their ability to work with Chinese
companies.
Analysts don’t expect the U.S. and China
to reach a deal anytime soon, although Trump on Thursday said he expected
an agreement could be reached in the next three to four weeks.
Chinese President Xi Jinping last week visited
Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia in his first overseas trip of 2025. In official
Chinese readouts of his meetings with the three countries’ leaders, Xi called
for joint efforts to oppose tariffs and “unilateral bullying.”
Since Trump imposed tariffs on China
during his first term, the Asian country has increased its trade with Southeast
Asia, now China’s largest trading partner on a regional basis. The U.S. remains
China’s largest trading partner on a single-country basis.
Last week, China’s Ministry of
Commerce replaced
its top international trade negotiator with Li Chenggang, who also
became a vice minister and has been the country’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization. China has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. with the WTO over
Trump’s latest tariff increases.
China
to retaliate against nations that work with U.S. to isolate Beijing
Tariff Pain Is Contagious
Plus: VC retreats to US coasts and AI
bosses are sitting in on Zoom.
April 20, 2025 at 9:00 AM GMT+1
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More
Forecast: Will
Trump’s Tariffs Hurt Global Economic Growth? - Bloomberg
'Genuine animosity towards us': Is the world
losing faith in the almighty U.S. dollar?
Donald Trump's trade war is forcing
investors to confront the possibility that the dominance of the U.S. currency
might fade — or even end
Published Apr 19, 2025
On Aug. 15 1971, President Richard Nixon
interrupted an episode of Bonanza to announce “a new economic
policy” to American families gathered in front of their television sets that
Sunday evening. Among the myriad measures the president outlined was a 10 per
cent import tariff — and the suspension of the U.S. dollar’s convertibility
into gold.
Nixon himself was more worried about the
political backlash from Americans expecting to spend their evening with the
Cartwright family at Ponderosa Ranch than the nefarious “international money
speculators” his announcement targeted. Yet the consequences were enormous.
Although couched as a temporary measure, the United States would never again
return to the so-called gold standard.
What became known as the “Nixon shock”
marked the end of one financial era and the beginning of a new one. The global
monetary framework thrashed out at the Mount Washington Hotel in New
Hampshire’s Bretton Woods in 1944 — with the gold-backed U.S. dollar as the Sun
around which every other currency circled — was dead.
The Nixon shock helped usher in a new age of freely traded floating currencies, rapid credit creation and global capital flows, untethered by gold and increasingly unrestricted by governments.
More than half a century later, the world is grappling with a shock of similar magnitude. Earlier this month the U.S. administration of Donald Trump unveiled an aggressive tariff regime where both the size of the levies and the facile methodology underpinning them shocked even many supporters.
Faced with a revolt in financial markets,
the president announced a 90-day partial pause, but investors remain on edge.
The dollar, which normally strengthens at times of financial and economic
strife, has instead nosedived.
Coming amid an increasingly bellicose
attitude towards historical allies and an ambivalent attitude to the dollar’s
hegemony by some key figures in the administration, it has forced investors and
analysts around the world to confront the possibility of a new era where the
U.S. dollar’s dominance might fade — or even end.
“The trade war is just the
latest example of this administration’s contempt for the rest of the world,”
says Mark Sobel, U.S. chair of OMFIF, a financial think tank, and a former
senior Treasury official. “Being a trusted partner and ally is a key pillar of
the U.S. dollar’s dominance, and has been tossed to the wind.”
There are two related but subtly different questions now being asked around the world’s financial centres after this “Trump shock.” First, how far can the dollar’s recent decline go? Foreigners own US$19 trillion of U.S. equities, US$7 trillion of U.S. Treasuries and US$5 trillion of U.S. corporate bonds, according to Apollo’s chief economist, Torsten Sløk. If even some of these investors start to trim their positions, the dollar’s value will come under sustained pressure.
Second, if the outflows gather pace, could
it eventually even erode the dollar’s unique role in the global economy and
financial system? Although the dollar’s value has always waxed and waned, and
critics have constantly sought to tear it down, the greenback’s primacy has
remained undiminished. Yet some analysts and investors now think the scale of
the Trump shock could end a near-century of dollar dominance.
----This enormous international demand for dollars translates into an embedded premium to U.S. assets and means that the U.S. borrows more cheaply than it would otherwise do — what France’s former president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, once famously referred to as America’s “exorbitant privilege.” It also gives the U.S. the power to sabotage another country’s financial system through sanctions.
However, many in the Trump administration
argue that the costs of the dollar’s reserve status outweigh the benefits, by
making the U.S. currency unduly strong and hurting American exporters.
More
Is the world
losing faith in the almighty U.S. dollar? | Financial Post
Is the US dollar at risk of a ‘confidence crisis’?
Fears about unpredictable policy are
prompting investors to question their faith in the US dollar.
19 Apr 2025
Amid the financial market fallout which followed
Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff
announcement on April 2, the value of the US dollar has plunged.
But while United States stock markets
have largely recovered since then,
the greenback – which typically gains in value during periods of financial
turbulence – has continued its downward trajectory.
This is because the severe nature of
Trump’s international trade policies has raised the possibility of a US
recession later this year, denting demand for America’s currency.
Trump’s tariff blitz is also forcing
investors to confront the possibility that the dominance of the dollar might be
fading, or even coming to an end.
“The world is facing a dollar confidence
crisis as the repercussions of ‘Liberation Day’ continue to reverberate,”
Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a recent note to clients.
For close to a century, the US has been
the world’s investment “safe haven”. Dozens of countries still maintain a peg
to the greenback, meaning their currency prices are correlated.
But investors are now starting to worry
about the long-term safety of the dollar, and the consequences could be
dramatic.
What has happened to the dollar?
On April 2, the Trump administration
unveiled punishing tariffs on imports from dozens of countries around the
world, denting confidence in the world’s largest economy and causing a selloff
of US financial assets.
More than $5 trillion was erased from the
value of the benchmark S&P 500 index of shares in the three days after
“Liberation Day”.
US Treasuries – long considered the
archetypical safe investment – also saw selloffs, lowering their
price and sending debt costs for the US government sharply higher.
Faced with a revolt in the financial
markets, Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs,
except for exports from China, on April 9. But
investors remain wary about holding dollar-linked assets.
So far in April, the dollar has fallen by
3 percent relative to a basket of other currencies to reach its lowest level in
three years, compounding an almost 10 percent slide since the start of 2025.
“Investors have been selling US assets,
and the value of the dollar has fallen,” Karsten Junius, chief economist at
Bank J Safra Sarasin told Al Jazeera.
“But the dollar hasn’t gone up as much [as
US equity prices since April 9] because there’s been a loss of trust in US
economic policymaking,” he added.
---- In large part, the dollar emerged as the
commanding global currency due to the first and second world wars. As Europe
and Japan descended into chaos, the US was making money.
Then, in 1971, when Richard Nixon
de-linked gold from the value of the US dollar, the greenback’s role in
supporting the global financial system grew. So did its demand.
Following the “Nixon shock”, most
countries abandoned gold convertibility but didn’t adopt market-determined
exchange rates. Instead, they pegged their currencies to the dollar.
Owing to its dominance in trade and
finance, the dollar became the standard currency anchor. In the 1980s, for
instance, many Gulf countries began pegging their currencies to the greenback.
Its influence didn’t stop there. While the
US only accounts for one-quarter of global gross domestic product (GDP), 54
percent of world exports were denominated in dollars in 2023, according to
the Atlantic Council.
Its dominance in finance is even greater.
About 60 per cent of all bank deposits are denominated in dollars, while nearly
70 percent of international bonds are quoted in the US currency.
Meanwhile, 57 percent of the world’s
foreign currency reserves – assets held by central banks around the world
– are held in dollars, according to the IMF.
But the dollar’s reserve status is largely
supported by confidence in the US economy, its financial markets and its legal
system.
Trump is changing that. “He doesn’t care
about international norms,” said Junius, and “investors are beginning to
realise they’re over-exposed to US assets.”
Indeed, foreigners own $19 trillion of US
equities, $7 trillion of US Treasuries and $5 trillion of US corporate bonds,
according to Apollo Asset Management. That’s roughly 30 percent of global GDP.
If even some of these investors start to
trim their positions, the dollar’s value could come under sustained pressure.
What are the consequences of a lower-value
dollar?
Many in the Trump team argue that the
costs of the US dollar’s reserve status outweigh the benefits by making it
overvalued – raising the cost of US exports.
Stephen Miran, chair of Trump’s Council of
Economic Advisers, recently said that high
dollar valuations place “undue burdens on our firms and workers, making their
products and labour uncompetitive on the global stage”.
“The dollar’s overvaluation has been one
factor contributing to the US’s loss of competitiveness over the years, and…
tariffs are a reaction to this unpleasant reality,” he added.
At first blush, a lower dollar would make
US goods cheaper to overseas buyers, supporting domestic manufacturing and
helping to reduce the country’s trade deficits.
“It will also make imports more expensive,
hurting consumers,” Colombia’s former finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo told
Al Jazeera. “The general view is that US inflation will increase.
“Elsewhere, the price of gold has also
gone up,” Ocampo said. “It seems there’s a growing preference among central
banks to hold gold instead of US Treasuries.”
More
Is the US dollar at risk of a ‘confidence crisis’? | Business and Economy News | Al Jazeera
CBDCs.
In other news, will Trump’s tariff wars be
good or bad for the US economy?
April 17, 2025 | APPEARED IN THE NATIONAL
POST
Trump’s war on property rights may backfire badly
To the extent that the Trump
administration has provided any rationale for its trade war, with its dramatic
twists and turns, it is that U.S. tariffs will encourage increased capital
investment (particularly in manufacturing) in the United States, create jobs
and generate more tax revenue for the government.
To be sure, Trump’s tariffs will
encourage some foreign
companies to relocate production to the U.S., especially companies that would
struggle to sell their exported goods at higher tariff-induced prices in the
U.S., and that have some flexibility to rearrange their supply chains. In
effect, these companies will hurdle Trump’s tariff wall by expanding production
and distribution facilities stateside.
However, in the long run, it’s likely that
Trump’s tariffs and his other recent policies will ultimately discourage both
foreign and domestic investment in the U.S., hurt U.S. economic growth and job
creation, and reduce personal and corporate tax revenues. In other words,
Trump’s policies will backfire.
For example, the Trump administration’s
increasing contempt for legal contracts and private property rights. With its
tariffs, the administration is unilaterally and illegally violating the
Canada-United States-Mexico Trade Agreement (CUSMA), indirectly weakening the
property rights of businesses that made major investments to structure their
operations in accordance with CUSMA. Trump’s tariffs also arguably violate the
Constitutional rights of U.S. business owners seeking to profit from their
investments (although Trump’s claim that the tariffs are needed to address a
national security emergency might make it difficult for U.S. businesses to win
a legal challenge of the tariffs).
The fact that a U.S. administration would
attack property rights, with limited recourse on the part of businesses to
legally protect their rights, might be the most profound and longest lasting
legacy of Trump’s trade war. It’s also a stark repudiation of the small
government/strong property rights tradition of the Republican Party.
The Trump administration is also
undermining the rule of law in the U.S. by threatening to impeach federal
judges who rule in favour of legal challenges to specific administration
policies such as firing federal employees. Obviously, a strong and reliable
property rights regime relies on an independent judiciary.
And the Trump administration has used
executive actions to punish law firms in the U.S. that worked for Democratic
Party candidates or worked on court cases where Trump was a defendant. These
actions include stripping security clearances from lawyers working for the
firms and barring the firms from doing any legal work for the government.
Trump’s attempt to intimidate the U.S. bar from representing clients who want
to challenge his illegal actions further undermines an already declining
confidence in the U.S. legal system’s ability to protect the property rights of
businesses and individuals.
Of the various institutions that make a
jurisdiction attractive to investors, none are more important than a government
that offers property rights and an independent judiciary that protects those
rights.
As the Trump administration increasingly
threatens private property rights and judiciary independence, it will continue
to sow uncertainty, which comes with a clear economic cost. Indeed, due to
Trump’s policies, well-governed countries including Canada will attract an
increasing share of business investment that would otherwise have gone to the
U.S. Trade wars hurt all parties, but where investment is concerned, Trump’s
policies may backfire badly.
Trump’s war on
property rights may backfire badly | Fraser Institute
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.
Trump's
tariff policy has raised fears of a recession. Here are economic warning signs
April
19, 2025
Story
Summary
- Several
economic indicators suggest a potential recession, including declining
stock prices and weakening consumer sentiment.
- While real
estate and unemployment figures remain relatively stable, concerns exist
about rising foreclosures and potential job losses.
- The
Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators has declined for
three consecutive months, signaling further economic deterioration.
The scent of
recession is in the air, with tariffs likely to cause some painful adjustments
and slow the economy. Hardly a day goes by when some economist isn’t raising
his or her recession odds. We aren’t in a recession yet, but several worrisome
signs have emerged — some that might flash false alarms but others that could
signal a slump ahead.
Look for more
going-out-of-business liquidations, "for sale" signs lingering longer
on homes in your neighborhood, spreading homeless encampments and other
indicators of stress if the economy weakens from here. However, these
conditions have also been apparent during good times and are not among the
relatively few early warning signals tracked by economists.
Even bankruptcy
filings can be misleading as a recession harbinger. Filings do increase during
recessions, but they have been rising for the past three years. Perhaps more
telling, consumer inquiries about bankruptcy surged during the first quarter of
2025 to the highest level since early 2020, reports LegalShield, which predicts
“a potential wave” of bankruptcy filings this summer.
So, what do
economists rely on to predict recessions? Much key information can be found in
the index of leading economic indicators compiled by the Conference Board, a
nonprofit business-research group. This index includes 10 indicators, several
of which had been weakening even before President Trump announced his tougher
tariff policy in early April. Here are some areas that bear close watching:
More
Have Trump tariffs
pushed us into recession? Here are warning signs
How
a dollar crisis would unfold
If investors keep selling American assets, a grim fate awaits the world economy
Apr
16th 2025
THE
DOLLAR is meant to be a source of safety. Lately, however, it has been a
cause of fear. Since its peak in mid-January the greenback has fallen by
over 9% against a basket of major currencies. Two-fifths of that fall has
happened since April 1st, even as the yield on ten-year Treasuries has crept up
by 0.2 percentage points. That mix of rising yields and a falling currency is a
warning sign: if investors are fleeing even though returns are up, it must be
because they think America has become more risky. Rumours are rife that big
foreign asset managers are dumping greenbacks.
For
decades investors have counted on the stability of American assets, making them
the keystones of
global finance.
The depth of a $27trn market helps make Treasuries a haven; the dollar
dominates trade in everything from goods and commodities to derivatives. The
system is buttressed by the Federal Reserve, which promises low inflation, and
by America’s sturdy governance, under which foreigners and their money have
been welcome and secure. In just a few weeks President Donald Trump has
replaced these ironclad assumptions with stomach-churning doubts.
This
crisis-in-the-making was created in the White House. Mr Trump’s reckless trade
war has raised tariffs by roughly a factor of ten and created economic
uncertainty. Once the envy of the world, America’s economy is now courting
recession, as tariffs rupture supply chains, boost inflation and punish
consumers.
This
comes as America’s historically bad fiscal position is becoming even worse. Net
debts stand at about 100% of GDP; the budget deficit over the past
year, of 7%, was astonishingly high for a healthy economy. Yet in its quest to
renew and extend tax cuts from Mr Trump’s first term, Congress wants to borrow
still more. On April 10th it approved a budget blueprint that could add $5.8trn
in deficits over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget, a think-tank. That would boost the deficit by another 2
percentage points and exceeds the combined total value of Mr Trump’s first-term
tax cuts, the extra spending in the covid-19 pandemic and Joe Biden’s stimulus
and infrastructure bills. It could double the pace at which the debt-to-GDP ratio
rises in the coming years.
What
makes this economic downturn and the loss of fiscal discipline so explosive is
the fact that markets are starting to doubt whether Mr Trump can govern America
competently or consistently. The shambolic, incoherent way the tariffs were
calculated, unveiled and delayed was a mockery of policymaking. On-again,
off-again exemptions and sectoral tariffs promote lobbying. For decades America
has carefully signalled its dedication to a strong dollar. Today some White
House advisers are talking about the reserve currency as if it were a burden to
be shared—using coercion if necessary.
Inevitably,
this puts the Federal Reserve under strain. Mr Trump is pressing the central
bank to cut interest rates. The courts are likely to stop him sacking Fed
governors at will, but he will be able to nominate a pliant new Fed chair in
2026. Meanwhile, the president’s other policies—such as shipping undocumented
migrants to El Salvador without a hearing, or harassing law
firms that displease him—make it possible to think that foreign creditors’
rights could suffer.
All
this has created a risk premium for American assets. The shocking thing is that
a full-blown bond-market crisis is also easy to imagine. Foreigners own $8.5trn
of government debt, a bit under a third of the total; more than half of that is
held by private investors, who cannot be cajoled by diplomacy or threatened
with tariffs. America must refinance $9trn of debt over the next year. If
demand for Treasuries weakens, the impact will quickly feed through to the
budget, which, owing to high debts and short maturities, is sensitive to
interest rates.
More,
subscription required.
How a dollar crisis would unfold
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
Trump
turns COVID information website into promotion page for lab leak theory
Sat,
April 19, 2025 at 3:22 AM GMT+1
A
federal website that used to feature information on vaccines, testing and
treatment for COVID-19 has been transformed into a page supporting the theory
that the pandemic originated with a lab leak.
The covid.gov website
shows a photo of President Donald Trump walking between the words “lab” and
“leak” under a White House heading. It mentions that Wuhan, China, where the
coronavirus first began spreading, is home to a research lab with a history of
conducting virus research with “inadequate biosafety levels.”
The
web page also accuses Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of pushing a “preferred
narrative” that COVID-19 originated in nature.
The origins
of COVID have
never been proven. Scientists are unsure whether the virus jumped from an
animal, as many other viruses have, or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S.
intelligence analysis released
in 2023 said there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory.
It’s
common for government websites to get a makeover from one administration to the
next, but the latest overhaul has been more extensive than usual. Public health
data was
scrubbed,
particularly any information involving transgender people. The Pentagon
also removed
photos that
were believed to celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion.
The
covid.gov site used to include information on how to order free COVID tests and
described how to stay up to date with your COVID-19 vaccine, saying it’s “the
best way you can protect you and your loved ones.” It advised people how to get
treatment right away if they get sick and added links to learn more information
about long COVID.
About
325 Americans have died from COVID
per week on
average over the past four weeks, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. As of April 5, less than a quarter of adults in the
U.S. have gotten an updated COVID vaccine. Millions worldwide have had long
COVID,
with dozens of widely
varying symptoms,
including fatigue and brain fog.
Trump turns COVID information website into promotion page for lab leak theory
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.
Scalable
Method for Porous Graphene Membranes for CO2 Capture
18
April 2025
In a
study published in Nature Chemical Engineering, researchers at EPFL
developed a scalable method for producing porous graphene membranes that
efficiently separate carbon dioxide.
The
development could significantly reduce the cost and footprint of carbon capture
technologies.
Capturing
CO₂ from industrial emissions is essential in addressing climate change.
However, current methods, such as chemical absorption, are both expensive and
energy-intensive. Graphene, a thin, ultra-strong material, has long been
considered a potential alternative for gas separation. However, producing
large, efficient graphene membranes has been challenging.
Led by
Professor Kumar Agrawal of the Gaznat Chair in Advanced Separations,
researchers at EPFL have developed a scalable approach to create porous
graphene membranes that selectively filter CO₂ from gas mixtures. This
method reduces production costs while improving membrane quality and
performance, which could facilitate real-world applications in carbon capture
and other areas.
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Graphene
membranes can be engineered with specific pores that allow CO₂ to pass through
while blocking larger molecules like nitrogen, making them ideal for gas
separation. These properties make them suitable for capturing CO₂ emissions
from power plants and industrial processes. However, producing these membranes
at scale has been both difficult and costly.
Most
existing techniques use expensive copper foils to produce high-quality
graphene, and the delicate handling often results in fractures that compromise
membrane performance. The challenge has been developing a cost-effective,
consistent method for producing large, high-quality graphene membranes.
The
EPFL team tackled these challenges by developing a method to grow high-quality
graphene on low-cost copper foils, significantly reducing material costs. They
also refined a chemical process using ozone (O₃) to etch microscopic pores into
the graphene, enabling highly selective CO₂ filtration.
The
researchers enhanced the interaction between the gas and graphene, resulting in
uniform pore development across large areas. This is a crucial step toward
making the technology commercially scalable.
To
address the issue of membrane fragility, the team also developed a unique
transfer method. Instead of floating the delicate graphene sheet onto a
support, which often leads to cracks, they employed a direct transfer technique
within the membrane module. This approach eliminates handling challenges and
reduces failure rates to nearly zero.
Using
this novel method, the researchers successfully created 50 cm² graphene
membranes with near-perfect integrity, surpassing previous limitations. These
membranes demonstrated strong gas permeance and CO₂ selectivity, effectively
allowing CO₂ to pass through while blocking other gases.
More
Scalable Method
for Porous Graphene Membranes for CO2 Capture
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