Baltic Dry Index. 1688 -30 Brent Crude 63.34
Spot
Gold 4518 Spot Silver 79.79
U
S 2 Year Yield 3.54 +0.05
US
Federal Debt. 38.568 trillion US GDP 30.050
trillion
In the
history of modern capitalism, crises are the norm, not the exception.
Nouriel
Roubini
No need for my input
this weekend, the articles below shout loudly for themselves.
President Trumps interference
in the US and global economy is fast starting to end badly and hastening the end
of the dollar reserve standard. Dollar debasement, now starting on steroids.
Get more gold and
silver as insurance, held outside of the USA, UK and their dodgy banksters.
U.S.
payrolls rose 50,000 in December, less than expected; unemployment rate falls
to 4.4%
Published
Fri, Jan 9 2026 8:31 AM EST
The
U.S. labor market ended 2025 on a soft note, with job creation in December less
than expected, according to a report Friday from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
Nonfarm
payrolls rose
a seasonally adjusted 50,000 for the month, lower than the downwardly revised
56,000 in November and short of the Dow Jones estimate for 73,000.
At
the same time, the unemployment rate fell to 4.4%, compared to the forecast for
4.5%.
A
more encompassing measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding
part-time jobs for economic reasons dropped to 8.4%, down 0.3 percentage point
from November. The household survey, which is used to calculate the
unemployment figures, showed an increase of 232,000 while the labor force
participation rate edged lower to 62.4%.
The
report presented a muddy view of the labor market, with companies reporting a
low level of hiring but households showing employment gains.
Stock market
futures gained
following the release while Treasury yields were stable.
In
addition, revisions brought totals down for the prior months. The November
total saw a slight downward revision of 8,000 to the payrolls number, while
October’s loss was even more than originally reported, now at 173,000 compared
to the prior estimate of 105,000.
For
the full year, payroll gains averaged 49,000 a month, compared to 168,000 in
2024, according to the BLS.
“The
jobs report is a mixed bag, with both positive and negative aspects,” said Art
Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth. “We continue to see an
environment where companies are slow to hire and slow to fire. The overarching
takeaway in today’s report is that there is more good news than bad in the
first on-time jobs report in three months.”
Prior
reports had been delayed due to the government shutdown, which saw data
collection and reports suspended during the 43-day impasse.
Restaurant
and bar jobs led the month, rising 27,000, while health care added 21,000 and
social assistance increased by 17,000. Retail reported a decline of 25,000.
Government added just 2,000 jobs for the month.
Average
hourly earnings rose 0.3% for the month, in line with the forecast, although
the annual increase of 3.8% was 0.2 percentage point higher than expected.
Federal
Reserve officials have been watching the jobs picture closely for guidance on
the future path of interest rates.
The
annual payrolls gain of 584,000 for 2025 is the worst year outside of a
recession since 2003, according to Heather Long, chief economist at Navy
Federal Credit Union.
“It’s
fair to say that 2025 was a hiring recession in the United States,” Long wrote.
“The United States is experiencing a jobless boom where growth is strong, but
hiring is not. It’s a great scenario for Wall Street, but an uneasy feeling on
Main Street.”
More
Big
Oil Is Not Convinced About Venezuela
January
9, 2026 at 11:19 PM GMT
Thanks,
but maybe no thanks? Donald Trump this week quickly pushed aside alleged
drug trafficking in favor of oil revenue as his main reason for launching a
surprise attack on Venezuela and renditioning President Nicolas Maduro. The US
president has repeatedly pledged that oil majors would be stepping over each
other for a piece of the action.
But
they aren’t
that excited. Trump convened almost 20 industry representatives at the
White House Friday, predicting they could come to an agreement “today or very
shortly thereafter” to restart operations in the oil-rich country. But the
executives expressed caution about reentering the impoverished South American
nation, let alone spending the $100 billion it might take to revive its
oil production. Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, for
example, said Venezuela is currently “uninvestible.” —David
E. Rovella
Big
Oil Not Convinced About Venezuela: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
Supreme
Court holds off on Trump tariff ruling for now — what’s at stake for economy
Published
Thu, Jan 8 2026 2:25 PM EST Updated Fri, Jan 9 2026 11:59 AM EST
The Supreme Court did not
rule Friday on the legality of broad tariffs imposed
by President Donald Trump,
leaving markets still awaiting a decision poised to have far-reaching impacts
on trade policy and the
U.S. fiscal situation.
There
had been speculation that the tariff ruling would be issued on Friday, but
the Supreme Court released just one opinion for the day,
and it was unrelated to tariffs.
It
is unclear when the tariff ruling will be released. The court will release its
next rulings Wednesday.
When
it does come, the decision will address two issues: whether the administration
can use provisions
under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to levy the
tariffs, and if it isn’t proper, if the U.S. will have to reimburse those
importers who already have paid the duties.
However,
the final decision could also fall somewhere in between.
The
court has the option to grant limited powers under the IEEPA and require only
limited repayment, along with multiple other options for how it handles a
touchy matter that is being closely watched on Wall Street.
Moreover,
even should the White House lose the case, it has other
tools in its chest to implement tariffs that don’t require the
emergency powers cited under the act.
More
Supreme
Court: No Trump tariff ruling on Friday
Trump's
grand plan to reshape the world order leaves Europe with a difficult choice to
make
9
January 2026
For
80 years, what bound the United States to Europe was a shared commitment to
defence and a common set of values: a commitment to defend democracy, human
rights and the rule of law.
That
era was inaugurated in March 1947 in an 18-minute speech by President Harry
Truman, in which he pledged US support to defend Europe against further
expansion by the Soviet Union.
America
led the creation of Nato, the World Bank, the IMF and the United Nations. And
it bound itself into what became known as the "rules-based
international order", in which nation states committed to a series
of mutual obligations and shared burdens, designed to defend the democratic
world against hostile authoritarian powers.
Now,
the new US National Security Strategy (NSS), published in December, signals
that, for the White House, that shared endeavour has ended; that much of what
the world has taken for granted about America's role is over.
The
review refers to the "so-called 'rules-based international order'",
putting the latter phrase in inverted commas: a kind of delegitimisation by
punctuation mark.
Vice-President
JD Vance warned America's European allies that this was coming in a speech at
the Munich Security Conference in February 2025.
He
told them bluntly that the real threat to Europe did not come from Russia but
from within - from those censoring free speech, suppressing political
opposition and therefore undermining European democracy. And he was damning
about the "leftist liberal network".
The
French newspaper Le Monde said the speech was a declaration of
"ideological war" against Europe.
Last
month's NSS codifies Vance's remarks, and, in black and white, elevates them to
the status of doctrine.
"Certainly
America is no longer the country that promoted the global values that have been
in place since the end of the Second World War," says Karin von Hippel,
who previously held senior positions in the US State Department and is a former
Director of the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), a Whitehall think tank.
"It
is shifting to a very different place."
So,
if the world is indeed moving away from that order, what is it moving towards?
And what does it mean for the rest of the world and in particular for Europe?
More
What Trump's vision of
the new world order means for Europe - BBC News
The
Donald’s Open Mouth Trade Bluster And Squirrely Economic Growth Numbers
david stockman Jan 10, 2026
Let’s
start with some basics. The very idea that the Donald’s wild-ass TariffPalooza
could actually be working is just plain nuts. It’s not worthy of serious
consideration because you can’t tax your way to prosperity. Period.
But
first we need to treat with the insane hoopla that erupted Thursday AM when
CNBC reporter Rick Santelli got all hot and bothered about a big drop of $18.8
billion in the October trade deficit. Alas, even a 10-second peek under the
hood tells you it wasn’t real—just a screaming statistical anomaly.
To
wit, fully 80% or $15.1 billion of the drop was owing to a seemingly mysterious
plunge in pharma imports from Ireland in October versus September, which
actually wasn’t so mysterious at all. About a week before the end of the month
in September the Donald had informed the world on Truth Socialthat
a 100% tariff on branded or patented pharmaceutical products would be effective
on October 1st.
Since
most of the big pharma companies source product in Ireland owing to its low
corporate tax rate and also have the streets of Washington crawling with
lobbyists and spies, they already knew another Trump tariff bomb was coming and
therefore had the sluice-gates on airfreight to the US wide-open.
The
Donald is supposedly the savvy businessman that America needs to get the
government running right, but the truth is he doesn’t know squat about 95% of
the economic issues he is dealing with. In this case, according to Grok 4, the
average value for the branded and patented drugs which come out of Irish pharma
plants is about $300 per pound, while the cost of air freight is about $3 per
pound.
So
you don’t even need a hand-calculator or degree from the Harvard Business
School to work your decision matrix. Spend $3 and save the tariff increase from
the existing rate of 15% in September to the Donald’s swell new 100% levy
starting on October 1st. That computes to a $255 per
pound savings or 85X your investment. So in a relative
nanosecond the planes were chock-a-block with Pharma cargo from Ireland.
For
want of doubt, note the anomalies in the table below, which shows the monthly
level of pharma imports from Ireland. The September pre-emptive surge to $17.9
billion amounted to a 460% rise
over the negligible shipments of $3.2 billion in
August.
So
the subsequent plunge to just $2.8 billion in October
is not evidence that the Donald’s tariff nonsense is working: It’s actually
proof that Trump and his cadre of protectionist dufus’ led by Peter Navarro and
Howard Lutnick have no clue about what they are doing.
More
The
Donald’s Open Mouth Trade Bluster And Squirrely Economic Growth Numbers
Next, so Brexit was
good after all. Who knew?
City
pushes back against closer ties with EU
Friday 09 January 2026 7:50 am
Keir Starmer’s plan to foster closer economic ties
with the European Union is likely to exclude financial services after senior
City figures pushed back against the reintroduction of EU regulations.
The prime minister has called for “closer ties” with the EU in a bid to boost economic growth, with senior cabinet members
including justice secretary David Lammy mooting a proposal for a new customs
union.
But senior City figures have expressed concern about
the move, calling for carve-outs for financial services in any future
negotiations to give the Square Mile greater regulatory freedom.
Steven Fine, chief executive of investment bank Peel
Hunt, told the Financial Times: “The UK has made substantial
progress on financial services reform over the past few years and most
regulatory lawyers will tell you that we have significantly less friction in
our regulatory framework
compared with most jurisdictions in Europe.
“You don’t want to create potential uncertainty just
as the City is recovering its mojo.”
City
adapts to post-Brexit conditions
In the run-up to and the immediate aftermath of the
UK’s Brexit vote in 2016, there had been fears of an exodus of European bankers
and financial services professionals from London in light of the UK’s
withdrawal from the single market, which introduced fresh trade barriers with
the EU.
But those fears would later turn out to have been overblown, with only a small number of financial services roles relocated to other
European financial centres such as Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
Instead, many firms have taken advantage of the
increased regulatory flexibility afforded to the Square Mile, with top banks
offering greater London pay packages following the abolition of the EU’s bonus cap rule in the UK, which
set limits on banker bonuses as a proportion of their salaries.
The government has also backed Bank of England
reforms to raise the MREL threshold – the minimum amount of money and certain types of debt that a bank
must have – to £25–40bn, in a move which could free up billions for lending and
investment.
Concerns have also been raised that submitting to EU
rules on financial services could see Brussels steer its regulatory framework
in a direction that could be harmful to London, risking sacrificing its crown
as Europe’s biggest financial centre.
Mats Persson, macro strategy leader at EY-Parthenon,
told the Financial Times companies “are seeing the
benefits of the UK’s ability to regulate in a nimble and innovative way,
particularly in relation to emerging technology and access to global markets”.
City pushes back against closer ties with EU
In other news, are UK
consumers running out of cash, credit and buy now, pay later?
FTSE 100 Live: Sainsbury’s and Unite dish
shareholders cash; Mining merger talks
Friday 09 January 2026 6:45
am | Updated: Friday 09 January 2026
7:39 am
It was Britain’s retail sector taking
centre stage yesterday amid a fresh influx of corporate updates that gave a
snapshot of the industry’s December performance.
Tesco came out swinging, revealing its
market share had climbed to the highest in 10 years after a Christmas sales
bump.
Still, the grocer’s shares tumbled seven
per cent in yesterday’s trading session amid price war pressures as Asda
strengthened its price promise.
Greggs found itself in a similar boat as
the baker shed seven per cent after warning shareholders it was still facing a
“challenging market”.
Christmas sales grew for the baker, but at
a far sluggish pace than they might have hoped and the firm was quick to point
the finger to subdued consumer spending.
Fresh figures released today from
the British Retail
Consortium (BRC)
and Sensormatic showed total UK footfall was down 2.9 per cent over the month
year-on-year in December.
“In the face of rising bills and food
costs, many consumers held off for post-Christmas sales, with the week after
Christmas the only one to see a significant uplift,” BRC chief executive Helen
Dickinson said.
Though it wasn’t all glum in the FTSE 100
and wider City market yesterday, Marks and Spencer finished the day in the
green as the retail giant began putting its cyber attack story behind it and
eyed being “back on track” come the Spring.
Today Sainsbury’s will round off a week of
retail updates as it provides its own snapshot of festive trading.
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.
Some
interesting correlations, but isn’t it this time different? Approx. 6 minutes.
I have no connection to Bravos Research.
In
6 Months, It's All Over.
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Volkswagen’s new EV SUV boasts 425-mile range, but you can't get
one
January 06, 2026
VW’s ID.UNYX sub-brand has adopted an “in China, for China”
strategy, and the new ID.Unyx 08 carries that baton forward as an electric SUV
built exclusively for the Chinese market – for now. That means readers in the
West can’t have it, and here’s why that's a bit of a bummer.
For starters, there’s the range. The SUV will be offered with two
LFP battery options: 82 kWh and 95 kWh. Depending on the trim, these deliver a
claimed range of 391 miles (630 km) and 425 miles (730 km), respectively. And
that’s not all.
Thanks to an 800-V electrical architecture, the ID.Unyx 08
supports lightning-fast charging. Depending on the battery, it can handle 300+
kW DC fast charging, allowing a 10 to 80% top-up in around 20 minutes. Not bad
at all. Power comes from a drivetrain producing up to 230 kW (308 hp), with
buyers able to choose between single-motor rear-wheel drive and dual-motor
all-wheel drive configurations.
VW co-developed the midsize SUV’s hardware with Xpeng, and the
styling clearly departs from traditional Volkswagen design language. A
coupe-like roofline, flush door handles, a closed-off front end, and slim
daytime running lights all align with current EV design trends.
At roughly 5 meters (16.4 ft) in length, the ID.Unyx 08 lands
squarely in the midsize-to-large SUV category by US standards That's right
in Jeep
Wagoneer S territory and just a few millimeters shorter than the Kia
EV9. A 119-inch (3,030-mm) wheelbase suggests the cabin should be
roomy.
On the tech front, CarNewsChina reports that the ID.Unyx 08 will
feature park-to-park assisted driving, an AI assistant powered by a large
language model, a comprehensive L2++ driver-assistance suite, and full
over-the-air update capability.
More
New VW electric
SUV has 425-mile range but is China-only
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Exponent
Calculator
Enter
values into any two of the input fields to solve for the third.
This
weekend’s music diversion. Another long forgotten German composer.Approx.11
minutes.
Gottfried
Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749) - Concerto grosso a quattro Chori
Gottfried Heinrich
Stölzel (1690-1749) - Concerto grosso a quattro Chori
Next,
fun with numbers. Approx. 8 minutes.
UNCRACKABLE?
The Collatz Conjecture - Numberphile
UNCRACKABLE? The
Collatz Conjecture - Numberphile - YouTube
Finally, Scotland’s Edinburgh Castle. Approx.
5 minutes.
Edinburgh, Scotland: Iconic Castle - Rick
Steves’ Europe Travel Guide - Travel Bite
Edinburgh,
Scotland: Iconic Castle - Rick Steves’ Europe Travel Guide - Travel Bite
What we need to understand is, one, that there are market
failures; and two, that there are things like asset bubbles and irrational
exuberance. There are periods of booms, bubbles, and manias. These things, if
left to themselves, can lead to crashes, to busts, to panics.
Nouriel Roubini
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