Baltic
Dry Index. 1374 -32
Brent Crude 61.50
Spot Gold 3382 US 2 Year Yield 3.78 unch.
US Federal Debt. 36.822 trillion!!!
Ronald Reagan
As expected, the US central bank left their key interest rate unchanged. Today it’s the Bank of England’s turn at cutting interest rates or not.
In the stock casinos, optimism ahead of a hasty US arranged US and China trade meeting in Switzerland at the weekend, although President Trump seems to have already declared it moot.
If so, expect bad things in the stock casinos
next week.
European stocks set for higher open as traders
brace for more earnings, central bank moves
Updated Thu, May 8 2025 12:42 AM EDT
European stocks are set to open in
positive territory Thursday as investors await more earnings reports and
interest rate decisions from central banks in the region.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index is expected
to open 46 points higher at 8,586, Germany’s DAX up 147 points at
23,263, France’s CAC 45
points higher at 7,662 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 230 points higher
at 37,960, according to data from IG.
It’s a busy day for earnings, with Maersk, Siemens Energy, Heidelberg Materials, Henkel, Infineon, Lanxess, Puma, Rheinmetall, Bosch, Norwegian Air, Swisscom, Zurich Insurance, Adecco Group, InterContinental Hotels Group and Banco Sabadell all due to
report.
Monetary policy announcements are due from
central banks today from Riksbank, Norges Bank and Bank of England on Thursday,
with the latter widely expected to cut interest rates.
U.S. stock futures were relatively
unchanged overnight on the heels of the U.S. Federal Reserve holding
steady on rates as it highlighted rising
inflation and unemployment risks.
The Federal Open Market Committee held its
benchmark overnight borrowing rate in a range of between 4.25% to
4.5%, where it has been since December. The decision was largely expected.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned
in his press conference that if the significant tariff hikes already
announced remain at current levels, they could lead to a slowdown in economic
growth and an uptick in long-term inflation.
Asia-Pacific
markets traded mixed overnight after the Fed’s decision, with
investors awaiting updates on the upcoming U.S.-China trade talks. U.S.
Treasury Secretary Scott
Bessent and his Chinese
counterpart are set to meet in Switzerland this week to address the
countries’ deep trade dispute and economic issues.
European
markets live: stocks, news, data and earnings
Trump digs in on high China tariffs ahead of trade
talks
Published Wed, May 7 2025 2:42 PM ED TUpdated
Wed, May 7 2025 5:35 PM EDT
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he
would not consider lowering the United States’ 145% tariffs on China in
order to spur trade-war negotiations with
Beijing.
Trump flatly answered “no” when asked at
the White House if he was open to pulling back on the steep import duties to
get China to the negotiating table.
Trump’s commitment to his tariffs came
three days before U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was scheduled to meet
with his Chinese counterpart in Switzerland to discuss trade and economic
issues.
China said earlier Wednesday that the U.S.
requested that meeting and that Beijing remained “firmly” opposed to Trump’s
tariff hikes heading into the talks.
Asked what he expected to come out of the
meeting in Europe, Trump said, “We’ll see ... we were losing a trillion dollars
a year, now we’re not losing anything, you know? It’s the way I look at it.”
Trump digs
in on high China tariffs ahead of trade talks
Britain set to become the first country to sign a
trade deal with U.S., The New York Times reports
Published Wed, May 7 2025 11:38 PM EDT
Britain is reportedly set to sign a trade
deal with the U.S., making it the first country to do so after the world’s
largest economy announced stiff “reciprocal” tariffs against friends and foes
alike in April.
The New York Times reported the development after U.S.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday night stateside that there will
be a briefing about a trade deal next day, without
revealing any details.
CNBC did not receive a response from the
White House and the British Embassy in Washington seeking comments on the news.
It was uncertain if both sides will sign a
finalized deal or a framework for an agreement that they would continue
negotiating in the coming months, NYT said.
Britain, which runs a trade deficit with the U.S., was spared the higher
“reciprocal” tariffs when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” duties, although
it was still hit with the baseline 10% levy.
On
April 15, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said that the U.K. has a “good
chance” of securing a trade deal with America.
“I think there’s a good chance that, yes,
we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries,”
he added.
However, on Tuesday, Trump
appeared to contradict White House officials, when he said that the
U.S. does not need to “sign deals” with trade partners, despite top White
House officials claiming for weeks that such deals were
the administration’s top priority.
“We don’t have to sign deals, they have to
sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don’t want a piece of
their market,” Trump said.
Read the full NYT story here.
UK
set to sign a trade deal with U.S.
Fed Waits to See How Trade War Shakes Out
May 7, 2025 at 10:55 PM GMT+1
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome
Powell said he’s not
in a hurry to adjust interest rates in a world where tariffs
could lead to higher inflation and unemployment. Unsurprisingly, the US central
bank voted unanimously Wednesday to keep the benchmark federal funds
rate in a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, where
it’s been since December.
President Donald Trump‘s trade policy
has unleashed a wave of uncertainty across the economy. Economists widely
expect the expansive tariffs to boost inflation and weigh on growth.
That would pit policymakers’ two goals—price stability and maximum
employment—against one another.
With unemployment still low and demand
steady, Fed officials have said they are comfortable keeping rates unchanged
until they have a better
understanding of where the economy is headed. Powell repeated that
sentiment Wednesday, adding that the cost of waiting is fairly low.
“We think we’re in the right place to wait
and see how things evolve,” Powell said. “We don’t feel like we need to be in a
hurry. We feel like it’s appropriate to be patient.” Most US
government debt securities rose, as did stocks. Here’s
your markets wrap. —David
E. Rovella
After weeks of public requests from the
White House to talk,
Chinese leader Xi Jinping finally agreed to discuss a potential resolution of
the trade war Trump launched. But first, Xi sought to buttress the Chinese
economy ahead of planned negotiations in Switzerland, unveiling sweeping
measures to stabilize markets, boost tech innovation and protect small
businesses. On Wednesday, China’s central bank announced across-the-board
rate cuts alongside other steps that could pump 2.1 trillion yuan
($291 billion) into the economy.
One outcome of the talks could be for
Trump to offer Beijing a 90-day pause on all punitive tariffs apart from those
related to fentanyl, bringing the US rate back down to 20% from triple digits.
That would mirror Trump’s approach to other nations and come close to Beijing’s
call for Washington to lift all unilateral levies while negotiations take
place.
Not everyone is that optimistic though.
Economists at HSBC predicted the US would roll back tariffs to 50%, while
Morgan Stanley’s Robin Xing said a “gradual approach” was more
likely. Tariffs at those levels would still threaten to wipe out the bulk of
US-China trade, requiring Xi’s government to unleash more monetary and fiscal
stimulus later this year to hit a growth target of around 5%.
The current situation “is a lose-lose
scenario” for all involved, Citigroup economists including Xiangrong
Yu wrote in a Wednesday note, while still forecasting prohibitively high
tariff levels would remain in place for six to 12 months.
Fed
Waits to See How Trade War Shakes Out: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
EU considers tariffs on Boeing jets, FT reports
7 May 2025
(Reuters) -The European Union intends to
propose tariffs on Boeing jets, as it prepares to retaliate further if trade
talks with Washington fail, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
The European Commission, which oversees EU
trade policy, plans to include civilian aircraft on a list of roughly $100
billion in annual U.S. imports to be targeted, the report said citing two
people familiar with the matter.
Boeing and the European Commission did not
immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comments.
EU considers
tariffs on Boeing jets, FT reports
In other news, does President Trump even want
trade deals?
CNBC Daily Open: Countries want to strike deals
with U.S. — but are also making them without it
Published Wed, May 7 2025 2:30 AM EDT
After U.S. President Donald Trump
shattered — or at least fractured — global trade relationships and supply
chains, there are promising signs of reconstruction in recent days. Indeed,
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday
the country is “very close to some deals.”
On Tuesday, newly elected Canadian Prime
Minister Mark Carney met Trump at the White House, potentially resetting a
bilateral relationship that has been strained since January. And Chinese Vice
Premier He Lifeng is scheduled to meet Bessent in Switzerland this week
for trade talks.
But enter the hurricane that is Trump,
again. “We don’t have to sign deals, they have to sign deals with us. They want
a piece of our market. We don’t want a piece of their market,” Trump said during his
meeting with Carney, contradicting top White House officials’ claim for weeks
that such deals are the administration’s top priority. Markets fell after his
comments.
The growing protectionism of the U.S.,
ironically may help other countries forge closer economic ties with each other.
The U.K. and India agreed on a
bilateral trade agreement that will remove tariffs on most items within a
decade. Meanwhile, ASEAN and China are set to meet on May 19 to negotiate
improvements to a free-trade agreement, according
to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Monday.
They may be new bridges being built in the
aftermath of Trump tariffs. But those connections could bypass the U.S. —
which, according to Trump, does not need deals anyway.
Officials from U.S. and China to meet
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and trade representative
Jamieson Greer will meet with
their Chinese counterparts in Switzerland this week
to discuss economic and trade matters, their offices announced Tuesday. Later
in the day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Vice Premier He Lifeng,
Beijing’s top official for China-U.S. economic and trade matters, will meet
with Bessent in Switzerland, NBC News reported.
CNBC Daily Open:
Countries are making deals without the U.S.
Trump trade tariffs slump widens to 'nearly all
U.S. exports,' supply chain data shows
May 6, 2025
What began as a rapid drop in U.S. imports
as shippers cut
orders from manufacturing partners around the world has now extended
into a nationwide export slump, with the U.S. agricultural sector and top farm
products including soybeans, corn and beef taking the hardest hit.
The latest trade data shows that a slide
in U.S. exports to the world, and China in particular, that began in January
now extends to most U.S. ports, according to trade tracker Vizion, which
analyzed U.S. export container bookings for the five-week period before
President Donald Trump's tariffs began and the five weeks after the
tariffs took effect.
The farming sector has been warning
of a "crisis" and ports data is showing more evidence of lack
of ability to move product out to global markets. The Port of Portland, Oregon,
tops the list with a 51% decrease in exports, while the Port of Tacoma,
Washington, a large agricultural export port, has seen a 28% decrease. Tacoma's
top destinations for corn, soybeans and other ag exports include Japan, China
and South Korea.
Some ports have only seen a small exports
decrease to date, such as the Port of Houston and the Port of Seattle, at 3%
and 3.5%, respectively. But what is clear, according to Ben Tracy, vice
president of strategic business development at Vizion, "is that nearly all
of U.S. exports have taken a hit."
The trade data shows declines of more than
17% at the Port of Los Angeles, while the Port of Savannah, Georgia — the top
U.S. port for exporting containerized agricultural goods in 2025 — is down 13%,
and the Port of Norfolk, Virginia, is down 12%, according to Vizion.
The Port of Oakland, California, also
plays a significant role in exports as the leading port for international
refrigerated goods. U.S. agricultural exports also leave Los Angeles, Long
Beach, California, New York/New Jersey, Houston and Seattle/Tacoma.
The slide in exports is linked to
the decline
in containerships coming
to the U.S., as businesses across the economy cancel manufacturing orders,
sending Chinese factories and freight ships into retreat, as well as changes in
global demand linked to U.S. trade policy. U.S. imports continue to decline,
with port data tracked by Vizion showing a 43% week-over-week drop in
containers from the week of April 21 to the week of April 28.
"We haven't seen anything like this
since the disruptions of summer 2020," said Kyle Henderson, CEO of Vizion.
"That means goods expected to arrive in the next six to eight weeks simply
won't. With tariffs driving costs higher, small businesses are pausing orders.
Products that once moved reliably are now twice as expensive, forcing importers
into tough decisions," he said.
'Lean' retail inventories ahead
Retailers
have been urging consumers to buy sooner rather than later, and data from
Bank of America Global Research suggests why that may be the right move. Its
latest forecast shows that the number of inbound container ships to the Port of
Los Angeles will see a sharp drop in May, with escalating trade disruptions
leading to a 15%-20% decrease in U.S. container imports from Asia in the coming
weeks.
In a note to clients, Bank of America
warned that the ratio of retail inventories to monthly sales was not especially
high, while at the same time, consumers have been buying ahead on expectations
of higher prices and lack of product choice.
Based on data Bank of America reviewed on
retail payments to transportation and shipping companies, there has been no big
ramp in inventories after the front-loading that occurred earlier this year,
and supply disruptions may be looming.
"We think it is possible retail
inventories may actually look 'lean' in coming months," the Bank of
America report stated.
Many retailers only have one to two months
of sales in inventory, it found, and any unforeseen demand or supply
disruptions can quickly impact what goods retailers can offer and the prices
charged, it concluded.
It is a
pivotal time of the year for the holiday shopping season, when orders are
typically being placed. The supply chain's tipping point — where holiday
success is either locked in or left to chance — is June.
More
Trump trade tariffs slump widens to 'nearly all U.S. exports,' supply chain data shows
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.
No
signs of US recession, Treasury Secretary says
May
6, 2025
There
are currently no signs that the United States has entered a recession despite
the world's largest economy recording a contraction in the first quarter, the
US Treasury Secretary said Tuesday.
"I
believe in data, and there is nothing in the data that shows that we are in a
recession," Scott Bessent told lawmakers during an appearance in
Congress.
Bessent's
remarks contrast with those of Trump, who was asked in a recent interview if
the United States could enter a recession.
"Anything
can happen," he told NBC in the interview, which was broadcast on Sunday.
"But I think we're going to have the greatest economy in the history of
our country. I think we're going have the greatest economic boom in
history."
The
technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of economic
contraction, although the National Bureau of Economic Research uses a slightly
broader metric when making official judgements about the US economy.
"As
a matter of fact, the jobs report had a surprise to the upside," Bessent
said, referring to the better-than-expected April jobs report published last
week.
Since
taking office, US President Donald Trump has rolled out steep tariffs against
top trading partners, leading to a surge in volatility in the financial markets
and causing analysts to predict higher inflation and slower growth this year.
Growth
in the first quarter of 2025 unexpectedly contracted, according to initial
government estimates, as consumers and businesses rushed to import more goods
ahead of the rollout of Trump's sweeping "liberation day" tariffs in
early April.
Bessent
told lawmakers the administration was making good progress with top trading
partners ahead of a self-imposed July deadline to reach a deal or face the
prospect of higher tariffs -- with the exception of China, with which the
United States has not yet begun talks.
"Perhaps
as early as this week we will be announcing trade deals with some of our
largest trading partners," he said, echoing recent remarks from the US
president.
"And
what I will tell you is that in negotiating with some of them, they may not
like the tariff wall that President Trump has put up, but they have them,"
he added. "So if tariffs are so bad, why do they like them?"
Once
the negotiations conclude, Bessent said he expects the United States would
"see a substantial reduction in the tariffs that we are being charged, as
well as non-tariff barriers, currency manipulation, and the subsidies of both
labor and capital investment."
No signs of US
recession, Treasury Secretary says
How
Close Is The U.S. To A Recession? Here’s What Key Indicators Say.
May
6, 2025
Topline
As
President Donald Trump’s oft-changing tariff policies work their way through
the economy, fears of a downturn pervade Main Street and Wall Street, with odds
of the U.S. facing a recession still higher than usual.
Key
Facts
Goldman
Sachs reaffirmed its probability of a U.S. recession over the next 12 months at
45%, as the investment bank’s chief economist Jan Hatzius wrote Tuesday there’s
still high probability of an “event-driven downturn.”
Hatzius
noted there’s still “meaningful risk that some of the paused ‘reciprocal’
tariffs will take effect after all,” nodding to the country-by-country levies
Trump announced April 2, before pausing many of those tariffs a week later as
financial markets sold off.
Others
on Wall Street are more optimistic, as Solita Marcelli, UBS Wealth Management’s
Chief Investment Officer Americas, wrote Tuesday she expects the U.S. to dodge
“a full-blown recession this year as trade deals are agreed and tariffs are
reduced.”
What
Needs To Happen To Trigger A Recession?
The
technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative
growth in gross domestic product, a comprehensive measure of all goods and
services produced in a country. The U.S. just recorded its first
quarter of negative GDP growth since 2022. While that estimate was likely
skewed negatively by its methodology, including how it accounts for a surge in
gold imports, some will likely say we have entered a recession if the second
quarter agains registers a negative GDP. However, the National Bureau of
Economic Research is the most commonly cited determiner of recessions, and
it defines one as a
“significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and
lasts more than a few months.” That means the U.S. economy could avoid sinking
into an all-out recession, even if Q2 GDP is negative, if it recovers quickly.
Is
The Labor Market Showing Signs Of A Recession? (and What Is The ‘sahm Rule?)
Not
particularly, at least not yet. Employers added more jobs than
forecasted in April as unemployment rate stood at 4.2%. Goldman forecasts
unemployment will rise to 4.7% by year’s end, but the jobless rate has ranged
between 4% and 4.2% since May 2024. The 4.2% unemployment rate sits well within
the healthy historic norm. One key labor market recession indicator is the Sahm rule, which holds that
when the three-month average of the unemployment rate rises by 0.5% compared to
the lowest of three-month average from the previous year, a recession has
begun. But so far, that gauge flashes a far lower
likelihood of a recession than it did when it peaked last summer, inspiring a
short-lived market selloff in August.
Does
Wall Street Expect A Recession?
Experts
largely view the prospect of a tariff-driven recession as a tossup. Torsten
Slok, the chief economist at asset management titan Apollo Global
Management, wrote last month
he believes there’s a 90% probability the U.S. will fall into a “Voluntary
Trade Reset Recession,” slamming Trump’s trade policies for being “implemented
in a way that has not been effective” after his “administration inherited an
economy with strong growth.” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said his bank’s
baseline economic forecast does not call for a recession this year, while
Morgan Stanley forecasts 40% odds and JPMorgan Chase projects a 60% chance.
Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary during President Bill Clinton’s
term, said in an April editorial podcast in
The New York Times he believes it’s “six in 10 or better that a recession will
start this year,” explaining: “The pause is certainly better than if we had
simply charged along on the catastrophic path that we’re on, but anybody who
thinks the genie is back in the bottle and that it’s all now OK should
reconsider their position.” Summers predicted such a
downturn would leave an additional 2 million Americans unemployed, a more than
28% increase from the 7.1 million unemployed Americans in March, and a $5,000
or greater decline in annual household income.
More
How Close Is The
U.S. To A Recession? Here’s What Key Indicators Say.
Billionaire
Ken Griffin calls tariffs a ‘painfully regressive tax,’ hitting working class
Americans the hardest
Published
Wed, May 7 2025 5:31 PM EDT
Billionaire Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of
the Citadel hedge fund, said working class Americans will bear the
brunt of President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs on U.S. trading
partners.
“Tariffs
hit the pocketbook of hardworking Americans the hardest,” Griffin said on
CNBC’s “Closing Bell”
Wednesday. “It’s like a sales tax for the American people. It’s going to hit
those who are working the hardest to make ends meet. That’s my big issue with
tariffs. It’s such a painfully regressive tax.”
Trump
rolled out shockingly high levies on imports last month, triggering extreme
swings on Wall Street. The president later went on to announce a 90-day pause
on much of the increase, except for China, as the White House sought to strike
deals with major trading partners. Trump has slapped tariffs of 145% on
imported Chinese goods this year, prompting China to impose retaliatory levies
of 125%.
Griffin,
whose hedge fund managed more than $65 billion at the start of 2025, voted for
Trump and was a megadonor to Republican politicians. But he has also
criticized Trump’s trade policy, saying it risks spoiling
the “brand” of the United States and its government bond market.
“The
reason the American voters elected President Trump was because of the failed
economic policies of Joe Biden and the inflationary shock that reduced the real
incomes of every American household,” Griffin said. “The president really does
have to focus on managing inflation, because I think it’s front and center, the
primary score card that American voters are going to think about when it comes
to this midterm election.”
The
Wall Street titan said there is a “modest” risk of stagflation as higher
tariffs create both inflationary pressures and slow down the economy. He said
the trajectory of the economy largely depends on how Trump’s economic policy
develops.
As
laid out by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trump’s economic program takes a three-pronged approach:
trade, tax cuts and deregulation.
“The
question is, will all three of those come together to give us the growth that
we need in our economy?,” Griffin asked. “That’s the real question we’re going
to face over the next two years.”
Griffin
calls tariffs a 'painfully regressive tax,' hitting working class the hardest
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
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.
Today, the BBC on EV battery swapping.
But what about the cost and fire safety issues of the mass storage and
recharging of spent batteries?
A new fully
charged EV battery in five minutes: Are China's swap stations the future of
electric cars?
By Iris Liu 6th
May 2025
China
has been trialling battery swaps for electric cars for years. Are they a viable
solution to range anxiety?
At a
battery swap station near the Beijing Olympics Sports Centre, the owner of a
Nio car watches as a fully charged battery is placed into his vehicle. The
station's staff drive his car onto a platform with an integrated system which
removes the depleted battery from beneath the car and loads it a fresh one. The
whole process takes no more than five minutes.
Behind
him, a few other customers wait in line under an overcast sky, the iconic
Bird's Nest Olympic stadium not far in the distance. Outside the battery swap
station, a slogan reads, "Battery swap stations are equivalent to gas
stations for electric vehicles".
Battery
swapping – which simply means changing out depleted electric vehicle (EV)
batteries for fresh, recharged ones – is an alternative to charging batteries
inside the vehicle, as is used for the vast majority
of the world's electric cars.
While
battery swap is still largely a nascent sector, China has the world's most developed
model by far. While it's mainly used for larger
vehicles – close to half of the electric heavy-duty trucks sold in China in
2023 were equipped with
battery-swap technology – the country is also
seriously experimenting with swaps for personal cars.
Chinese
electric vehicle company Nio has now built over
3,300 battery swap stations in China,
while Catl, China's (and the world's) largest EV battery producer, recently announced
plans with oil giant Sinopec to build a "battery-swapping
ecosystem across the whole nation".
Battery
swapping can have some big advantages, in particular the lower amount of time
it takes compared to recharging a battery while its inside a car. Still, it
faces obstacles in China, which is also developing fast charging infrastructure
at breakneck speed.
In
fact, experts say that it may be in the countries which, unlike China, remain
in the early stage of a switch to EVs that battery swaps prove most useful for
supporting electric car uptake – especially when it comes to addressing range
anxiety among drivers.
Especially
during the early days of electric vehicles, they were difficult to promote on a
large scale due to range anxiety, says Daizong Liu, East Asia director of the
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) in New York. A lack
of charging facilities led to longer waiting times and interruptions during
trips for EV users. Battery swap technology soon entered the field as
a potential solution.
Although
first tested and used
more than a century ago before electric cars fell
out of favour, in more recent decades battery swaps for
electric cars were initially picked up by EV battery swap company Better Place,
which was established in
Israel in 2007. Operating in Denmark and Israel, it
aimed to reduce the cost of batteries as well as reduce range anxiety and
charging times, and received almost $1bn (£760m) in funding. But the company
eventually went bankrupt in 2013, citing difficulties in consumer adoption and
securing sufficient support from automakers, the Times of
Israel reported at the time.
Just
weeks after Better Place declared bankruptcy, Tesla's plans to launch its own
90 second battery swap service were widely
reported, with initial swapping locations along routes between Los Angeles
and San Francisco, and Boston and Washington. But just two years later, it
began phasing swapping out again, citing low market
acceptance.
China's
State Grid – the largest utility company in the world – began researching
battery swaps for electric vehicles around 2006. It
was seen as a way around a large-scale transformation of the power grid, as its
reliance on pre-charged batteries meant charging could be done at more flexible
times and places.
"After
comprehensive consideration, China decided to have a route to do battery
swaps," says Liu.
---- The
ownership question is another thing holding back battery swaps for private
vehicles, both in China and elsewhere. Battery swaps inherently require car
owners to relinquish ownership of a particular battery. If a car owner has just
bought a new car and swaps its battery on the motorway, for example, they will
very likely receive an older battery. Many car companies are aware of this
issue, and some have adopted
a business model of separating the car and the battery:
consumers buy their cars without batteries, which they rent directly from the
company.
More
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Commodus (/ˈkɒmədəs/;[5] 31
August 161 – 31 December 192) was Roman
emperor from 177 to 192, first serving as nominal co-emperor under his
father Marcus Aurelius and then ruling alone from
180. Commodus's sole reign is commonly thought to mark the end of the Pax Romana,
a golden age of peace and prosperity in the history of the Roman
Empire.
----Upon
his ascension, Commodus devalued the Roman
currency. He reduced the weight of the denarius from
96 per Roman pound to 105 per Roman pound
(3.85 grams to 3.35 grams). He also reduced the silver purity from
79 percent to 76 percent – the silver weight dropping from
2.57 grams to 2.34 grams. In 186, he further reduced the purity and
silver weight to 74 percent and 2.22 grams respectively, being 108 to
the Roman pound.[23] His
reduction of the denarius during his rule was the largest since the empire's
first devaluation during Nero's reign.
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