Baltic
Dry Index. 2523 +39
Brent Crude 98.09
Spot Gold 4804 Spot Silver 79.19
US 2 Year Yield 3.78 +0.02
US Federal Debt. 39.127 trillion
US GDP 31.333 trillion.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill
Is reality in the stock casinos about to set in?
In the USA, someone in the intelligence mafia needs to tell the increasingly odd President Trump that Iran ceased work on a nuclear bomb project in 2003.
Russia long ago offered to remove and take in Iran’s enhanced Uranian stockpile, but was rejected by President Trump.
If I didn’t know better I might think that the Washington-London War Party was trying to start World War Three, but with nukes.
Asia markets mostly fall as fragile Middle East
ceasefire tempers sentiment
Published Thu, Apr 16 2026 7:59 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets opened lower Friday,
as cautious optimism over the Middle East conflict tempered sentiment,
diverging from Wall Street’s record-setting rally.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said
that the war in Iran “should be ending pretty soon,” reiterating rosy
predictions about the end of the conflict.
Hours earlier, Trump confirmed that
Israel and Lebanon had agreed
to a 10-day ceasefire, starting at 5 p.m. ET. Iran’s parliament speaker has
said that Israel halting attacks on Lebanon is a key
condition for U.S.-Iran negotiations to start.
The next round of in-person talks between
the U.S. and Iran may occur “probably,
maybe, next weekend,” Trump said Thursday. A two-week ceasefire between the
U.S. and Iran will expire on April 21.
West Texas Intermediate fell
1.29% to $93.47 per barrel as of 11:45 p.m. ET, while Brent crude fell 1.14% to
$98.26 per barrel.
Japan’s export credit agency, the Japan
Bank for International Cooperation, will set up an investment window of up to
600 billion yen ($3.8 billion) to help Asian countries secure energy supplies,
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said.
She added that oil market volatility is
affecting foreign exchange markets.
Investors are also digesting comments by
Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda on Friday, who said the central bank
must take Japan’s low real rates into account when setting policy.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 saw some
profit-taking after hitting a record
high on Thursday, slipping 0.91%, while the Topix was down 0.98%.
South Korea’s Kospi traded choppy and
declined 0.87% while the small-cap Kosdaq rose 0.26%. Australia’s S&P/ASX
200 dropped 0.27%.
Mainland China’s CSI300 index traded 0.30%
lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang
Seng index extended early losses and declined 1.37%. Shares of
Hangzhou-based developer Manycore Tech tripled on its Hong Kong Exchange
debut, opening at HK$20.7 versus its offer price of HK$7.62, in a $156 million
listing.
India’s Nifty 50 was marginally higher.
The S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were
trading around the flatline. Futures
tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 71 points, or more
than 0.1%.
During Thursday’s regular session,
the S&P 500 gained
0.26% to close at 7,041.28, while the Nasdaq gained 0.36% to
settle at 24,102.70.
The tech-heavy index posted its 12th
consecutive positive session, notching its longest winning run since 2009. Both
averages logged intraday and closing records.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added
115 points, or 0.24%, and ended at 48,578.72.
Asia
markets today: Nikkei 225, Hang Seng Index, Kospi
Trump says war in Iran is going ‘swimmingly’ and
‘should be ending pretty soon’
Published Thu, Apr 16 2026 8:20 PM EDT
President Donald Trump on Thursday
said that “the war in Iran is going along swimmingly.”
“It should be ending pretty soon,” Trump
said at an event in Las Vegas, echoing similarly rosy predictions about the end
of the war that he has made since the United States and Israel launched attacks
on Iran in late February.
“It was perfect. It’s perfect. It was the
power we have,” the president said. “We had the most powerful military anywhere
in the world.”
The president’s appearance was to promote
his “no tax on tips” policy, which eliminated the federal income tax on
tip-based wages for many workers.
Hours earlier, Trump said that Israel
and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire. Iran has complained about
Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon during its own 10-day ceasefire with the
United States.
Trump earlier Thursday said that a second
round of face-to-face negotiations between Americans and Iranian officials
could take place “probably, maybe, next weekend.”
Trump:
Iran war 'should be ending pretty soon'
Trump says gas prices ‘not very high’ as most U.S.
voters blame him for price spike
Published Thu, Apr 16 2026 4:05 PM EDT Updated
Thu, Apr 16 2026 4:51 PM EDT
President Donald Trump on Thursday
brushed aside concerns about much higher
gas prices because of the Iran
war, even as a new poll showed that most U.S. voters blame him for the pump
price spike.
“Well, they are not very high,” Trump told
a reporter at the White House after
she asked how much longer Americans would continue to see high gas prices.
Trump said those prices are not as high as
what was expected they would be as a result of the war, which he said was aimed
at denying Iran the ability to produce a nuclear
weapon.
“Gas prices have come down very much in
the last three or four days,” Trump said. Gas prices have risen 49% since the
beginning of 2026, according to prices tracked by AAA. They dropped by an
average of 7 cents a gallon after a two-week ceasefire was announced last week.
A Quinnipiac
University national poll of registered voters released Wednesday found
that 65% of respondents blame Trump either “a lot” or “some” for the recent
rise in gas prices.
The same poll found that just 38% of
respondents approve of how Trump is handling the economy, which matches the
all-time low for both of his terms in the White House reached in March and in
October 2025.
The poll of 1,028 self-identified
registered voters has a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.
The price of gas has soared since the U.S.
and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28.
At the beginning of 2026, the average
price of regular gasoline was just above $2.75 per gallon. On Thursday, the
average price was $4.093 per gallon, according to AAA.
The average price of diesel fuel, which
had been just above $3.50 per gallon in January, is now around $5.65 per
gallon.
Trump on Thursday said, “The fact is, if
you look at, the stock market’s up, everything’s doing really well, and the big
thing we had to do is make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.”
“Because if they do, you want to talk
about problems, you’d have problems,” he said.
Trump
says gas prices not very high; Americans disagree
Energy chief warns Europe has '6 weeks of jet fuel
left' as flight cancellations 'soon'
16 April 2026
International travel maybe thrown into
chaos after a warning has been issued that Europe has "maybe 6 weeks or so
(of) jet fuel left," according to the the head of the International Energy
Agency (IEA).
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told
the Associated Press today (April 17) that possible flight cancellations will
be made "soon" if oil supplies remain blocked by the Iran war.
Birol painted a sobering picture of the
global repercussions of what he called "the largest energy crisis we have
ever faced," stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital
supplies through the Strait of Hormuz.
"In the past there was a group called
`Dire Straits.' It's a dire strait now, and it is going to have major
implications for the global economy. And the longer it goes, the worse it will
be for the economic growth and inflation around the world," he said.
The impact will be "higher petrol
(gasoline) prices, higher gas prices, high electricity prices," Birol told
AP.
Economic pain will be felt unevenly, with
some countries "hit worse than the others," he said, naming Japan,
Korea, India, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh as being on the front line of the
energy crisis.
"The countries who will suffer the
most will not be those whose voice are heard a lot. It will be mainly the
developing countries. Poorer countries in Asia, in Africa, and in Latin
America," he said.
"Then it will come to Europe and the
Americas," he added, speaking from his Paris office looking out over the
Eiffel Tower.
If the Strait of Hormuz isn't reopened, he
said that for Europe, "I can tell you soon we will hear the news that some
of the flights from city A to city B might be canceled as a result of lack of
jet fuel."
Birol spoke out against the so-called
"toll booth" system that Iran has applied to some ships, letting them
travel through the strait for a fee. He said that allowing that to become more
permanent would run the risk of setting a precedent that could then be applied
to other waterways, including the vital Malacca Strait in Asia.
"If we change it once, it may be
difficult to get it back," he said. "It will be difficult to have a
toll system here, applied here, but not there."
"I would like to see that the oil
flows unconditionally from the point A to point B," he said.
Energy chief warns
Europe has '6 weeks of jet fuel left' as flight cancellations 'soon'
In other news a stagflation shock coming.
Tesco boss issues food cost warning as Iran war
'creating uncertainty' for Brits
16 April 2026
The boss of Tesco pledged to do “whatever
we can” to combat the threat of higher food bills in the wake of the Middle
East war.
Chief executive Ken Murphy said the war
was “creating further uncertainty for consumers and the economy more
broadly.” It came as Tesco announced
annual sales rose 5.4% to more than £73billion, with operating profits edging
up to over £3.1billion.
Murphy said it was "impossible to
speculate" how much food inflation could rise by because of the fall out
from soaring energy costs due to the conflict, although we played down
speculation from the Institute for Grocery Distribution that prices could jump
b as much as 10% later this year.
"We don't know," he said.
adding: "We are not seeing any meaningful inflation coming through at this
stage."
It follows reports that Britain risks
facing shortages of chicken, pork and other supermarket supplies this summer if
the Iran war drags on.
Government officials are said to have
drawn up emergency plans for a “reasonable worst case scenario” in the event of
the closure of the key Strait of Hormuz leading to shortages of carbon dioxide.
CO2 is used to increase the shelf life of
food such as salad , packaged meats and baked goods, and is also critical in
the process of slaughtering nearly all pigs and more than two thirds of
chickens. The gas is also used to make drinks fizzy.
According to the Times, plans - codenamed
“Exercise Turnstone” - have been drawn up where farming and hospitality would
likely be hit were the strait to not reopen and there was a lack of a peace
deal longer term.
Murphy said: "We are in constant
contact with the government at various levels to assist in any scenario
planning that might be required." However, in a bid to reassure shoppers,
he added: "We have no issues in our supply chain at this point and so far
no flagged concerns from any of our suppliers."
The planning for possible food shortages
comes amid separate concerns over a risk to fuel supplies as another consquence
of the war. Murphy insisted t was in "good shape in terms of fuel stocks.
We have seen elevated demand. We are very competitively priced so that is
unsurprising."
Tesco boss issues
food cost warning as Iran war 'creating uncertainty' for Brits
Britain faces food shortages because of Iran war
16 April 2026
Britain is facing a summer of food
shortages because of the Iran war. A shortage of carbon dioxide could mean chicken, pork
and fizzy drinks are in short supply if the conflict continues, secret
government contingency planning for a “worst-case scenario” reveals.
Senior officials from departments
including No 10, the Treasury, and the Ministry of Defence rehearsed scenarios
examining the potential impact of the war on British industry in an event
codenamed Exercise Turnstone.
The contingency plans, seen by The Times,
were based on a scenario where the Strait of Hormuz has not reopened and no deal to end
the war has been reached by mid-June. Farmers were warned of potential
disruption and hospitality businesses, already squeezed by Labour’s tax rises,
could be hit first by a shortage of CO2.
This is because CO2 is used in the process
of slaughtering pigs and chickens and making drinks fizzy. It also improves the
shelf life of foods such as salads, packaged meats and cakes.
Officials also believe a collapse in CO2
supplies could endanger lives by making dry ice used to cool blood supplies,
organs and vaccines scarcer. Under a reasonable worst-case scenario, CO2
supplies would fall to just 18 per cent of current levels, and factories would
be ordered to stop other manufacturing to boost supplies by up to 100 per cent.
Emergency legislation to compel factories
to co-operate has been discussed, with suppliers being compensated for stopping
production of their main products.
The worst-case scenario involved an
important UK plant suffering a mechanical error, while high gas costs led to
lower production of ammonia and fertiliser, which produces CO2 as a by-product
across Europe.
Critical food shortages are not expected,
but shoppers could see fewer variety of goods on supermarket shelves.
Britain is expected to be hit hard by the
economic fallout from the war.
More
Britain
faces food shortages because of Iran war
Big energy shock will push up prices, Bank boss
tells BBC
15 April 2026
The world is facing a "very big
energy shock" that will push up prices, the governor of the Bank of
England has told the BBC.
Speaking at the meeting of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, Andrew Bailey said despite
this the UK's central bank would not rush to make a decision on interest rate
rises.
The increased cost of oil and gas would
certainly feed through to prices, but other factors made a decision on rates
"very, very difficult", he said ahead of the Bank's next meeting on
30 April.
The IMF warned on
Wednesday that
central banks should not rush to hike borrowing costs in the wake of the Middle
East conflict.
Bailey said the Bank of England was taking
into account the IMF's "serious advice".
Before the US-Israeli attacks on Iran six
weeks ago, the Bank of England was widely expected to lower rates over the
course of this year. However the threat of higher prices, due to rising energy
costs, has prompted speculation rates will be held steady or even rise this
year.
When inflation runs higher central banks
usually raise interest rates to choke off demand. But when economic activity
slows they will lower interest rates to encourage borrowing and spending.
The impact of higher energy prices could
be both to boost prices and knock growth, making the Bank's job harder.
"There's really difficult judgments
to be made," said Bailey. "We're not going to rush to judgments on
those things, because there are a lot of uncertainties around this, not just
how it's going to play out, but also how it's going to pass through into the UK
economy."
Before the conflict there had been signs
that the labour market was softening and that businesses were finding it harder
to pass on price rises to customers, Bailey said, factors suggesting that
inflation is less likely to become a persistent problem.
However, the Bank was still waiting for
any "meaningful data" or evidence on how the conflict was feeding
through to the UK economy, or how it was going to affect prices or activity,
Bailey said.
"It's really too early to form strong
judgments on that," he said.
The UK's "strong dependency on
gas" as a source of energy meant there would be a significant impact, but
"the real determinant here is the duration of [the conflict]," he
said.
On Tuesday the managing director of the
IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, raised concerns over the supply of other products
crucial to the global economy, including sulphur, urea, helium and naphtha, in
addition to oil gas and fuels.
Bailey said he understood that there was
"a certain amount of resilience in the system" but that it could run
out if the conflict persisted.
"The faster there is a resolution to
this situation - I particularly mean in terms of the supply of energy coming
out of the out of the Gulf - the easier and better the outcome will be. And
that's really critical at this moment," he added.
However, he said there was one piece of
"very positive news" Bailey said.
"I do not have concerns about the
banking system," he said. Some people had argued there had been
over-regulation of the financial system, he added, but that his view was that
"success is when nothing happens and it is resilient".
More
Big energy shock will push up prices, Bank of England boss tells BBC - BBC News
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians.
UK
economy grew faster than expected ahead of Iran war
16
April 2026, 07:12 BST
The
UK economy saw its biggest monthly rise in February in more than two years,
official figures show.
The
Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the economy grew by a
faster-than-expected 0.5%, while it revised its estimate for January up to 0.1%
after previously saying the start of the year had seen no growth.
The
figures cover a period before the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran on
28 February, which has caused a major energy shock and experts warn risks a global
recession if
it is prolonged.
This
week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its estimate for UK growth this
year, warning it was set to be the hardest hit of the world's advanced
economies.
Most
economists had forecast GDP to rise by just 0.1% in February. The monthly
increase is the biggest in just over two years - January 2024 also saw the
economy grew by 0.5%.
The
ONS said the key services sector - which accounts for more than three-quarters
of the economy - grew by 0.5%, which was the fourth consecutive monthly rise.
Production
output also grew by 0.5% in the month, and construction rose by 1.0%.
In
the three months to February, a less volatile measure in comparison to the
monthly numbers, GDP also grew by 0.5% - up from 0.3% in the three months to
January.
The
National Institute of Economic and Social Research called the latest expansion
in the economy "sizeable" but said it expected slower growth in
March.
Associate
economist Fergus Jimenez-England said: "Unfortunately, the latest energy
price shock has likely pulled the rug on this momentum, with another year of
above-target inflation and a softening labour market likely to come."
Ruth
Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said the
"bumper" growth in February was "probably already
extinguished" by the Iran war.
But
she said it was encouraging that some of the sectors most exposed to the rise
in energy prices had performed well, such energy-intensive mining, transport
and retail.
James
Murray, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said growth "only happens when
the economy is on solid ground".
More
UK economy grew
faster than expected in February ahead of Iran war - BBC News
China economic growth accelerates to 5% in first
quarter — but Iran war clouds outlook
Published Wed, Apr 15 2026 10:04 PM EDT
China’s economy gathered steam in the
first quarter, as robust exports offset sluggish domestic consumption, though
an energy shock stemming from the Iran war threatens to sap global demand and
undercut that momentum.
Gross domestic product grew 5% in the
three months to March, data from the National Statistics Bureau showed
Thursday, accelerating from 4.5% in the prior quarter and exceeding economists’
forecast for a 4.8% growth in a Reuters poll.
Beijing had lowered its growth target this
year to
a range of 4.5% to 5%, the least ambitious goal on record going back to the
early 1990s, in a tacit acknowledgement of demand slowdown and lingering trade
tensions with the U.S.
“We should be aware that the external
environment is becoming more complex and volatile,” the statistics bureau said
in a statement, warning of “acute” imbalance between “strong supply and weak
demand.”
Separately, urban fixed-asset investment,
including in real estate and infrastructure, climbed 1.7% in the first quarter
from a year earlier, missing expectations for a 1.9% growth in a Reuters poll.
Real estate downturn persisted, with investment falling 11.2% this year as of
March, steepening from a 9.9% drop during the same period last year.
In March, China’s retail sales grew 1.7%
from a year earlier, slowing from a holiday-boosted 2.8% increase in February
and undershooting economists’ forecast for a 2.3% growth. Industrial output
expanded 5.7% last month from a year ago, stronger than analysts’ expectations
for a 5.5% rise, and compared with 6.3% expansion in February.
Retail sales showed pockets of strength in
the quarter, buoyed by Lunar New Year demand and government subsidy programs
that spurred consumer upgrades, said Yuhan Zhang, principal economist at think
tank The Conference Board, boosting spending in communication equipment, gold
and jewelry.
Meanwhile, auto sales declined from a year
earlier, signaling that consumers remained cautious with big-ticket consumption
amid recent swings in oil prices, Zhang added.
---- For the first quarter,
industrial production jumped 6.1% year on year, outpacing retail sales’
quarterly growth of 2.4%, underscoring manufacturing’s continued dominance as
the economy’s primary growth engine even as consumption lags.
In the first quarter, China’s exports grew
14.7% from a year earlier in terms of U.S. dollars, the fastest pace since
early 2022, according to EUI.
That said, that growth has stalled as the
Middle East conflict rages on.
As the world’s largest oil importer and a
heavily export-reliant economy, China is vulnerable to an oil shock that’s
already slowing trade, pushing up factory costs, and darkening the outlook for
the rest of the year.
In March, the country’s
export growth slowed to 2.5%, down sharply
from 21.8% in the January-to-February period as the Iran war pushed up
energy and logistics costs, weighing on global demand.
More
China economic
growth accelerates to 5% in first quarter, beating expectations
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 true cost of green energy.
Move over wind farms: why some argue
cutting costs is the best way to cut carbon
Published15 April 2026
"I'm an early adopter of new technology,"
says Gavin Tait, a 69-year-old from Glasgow, with a hint of pride.
So when he received a lump
sum on retirement a decade or so ago, he invested in renewable energy: solar
panels on the roof, a home battery and a heat pump. "It seemed like a
no-brainer," he recalls. "I could save money and help the environment
- why wouldn't I?"
At first, it worked. His
well-insulated home stayed warm and his energy bills fell. But over the past
couple of winters, things began to change. "I noticed my electricity bills
were going through the roof," he says.
This winter, he and his wife
switched it off and went back to their gas boiler, which they had kept as a
backup.
Gavin - who wrote in to BBC
Your Voice about his experiences - says he knows what the problem was. At best
gas delivers nearly one unit of heat for each unit of energy put in; his heat
pump can deliver up to three or four units of heat for every unit of power. But
as heat pumps run on electricity, he is now paying around 27p per
kilowatt-hour, compared with less than 6p for gas that powers a boiler - more
than four times as much.
"It's simple," he
says. "Economically, it just doesn't stack up."
His experience is not
unusual. A survey of 1,000 heat pump owners last summer, carried out by
Censuswide for Ecotricity, found two-thirds said their homes were more
expensive to heat than before.
For critics of government
policy, stories like Gavin's point to a deeper problem.
Heating and transport account
for over 40% of the UK's emissions but they say that progress on replacing gas
boilers and petrol cars is lagging well behind targets because ministers have
got the wrong focus.
In their view, the government
is obsessed with cleaning up electricity generation, even though it accounts
for a far smaller total of our emissions - around 10%. So that obsession is
pushing up the price of electricity and making it more expensive for people to
switch to a heat pump or electric vehicle.
The issue has taken on new
urgency as conflict in the Middle East pushes up oil and gas prices, raising
fears that high energy costs could persist.
The government insists that
focusing on renewables will ultimately deliver greater energy security by
reducing reliance on imported gas, lowering emissions and - crucially - cutting
bills.
Are they right? Or by
prioritising cleaner electricity while progress on heating and transport lags
behind, is the government chasing the wrong targets?
The hidden cost of clean power
The issue is that while
generating renewable electricity can be cheap, the system needed to deliver it
is not. When I ask Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at Oxford
University, for his definitive answer on the cost of renewables, he laughs.
"It all depends what you
choose to measure," he says. Sir Dieter says focusing only on the cost of
generating electricity misses a larger issue: the cost of the system as a
whole.
Electricity has to be
available all the time - not just when the wind is blowing or the sun is
shining. That means back-up generation, additional capacity and a more
extensive network.
Sir Dieter gives me a
simplified example. The UK's peak electricity demand is around 45 gigawatts
(GW), he says. In the past, this could be met with roughly 60GW of capacity
from coal, gas and nuclear power stations.
As the system shifts towards
renewables, far more capacity is needed - not just wind and solar, but back-up
for when they are not producing. In Sir Dieter's estimate, the UK is moving
towards something closer to 120GW. At the same time, the grid must also be
expanded to carry electricity from offshore wind farms to where it is needed.
More
Why some argue cutting costs is the best way to cut carbon - BBC News
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
Another
weekend and another “ceasefire” weekend too, if you ignore Israel’s war on
Lebanon, now supposedly ceasefired. Have a great weekend everyone.
Below,
the Daily Mail assesses in depth Iran’s counter attack on US forces in the
Gulf. Approx. 21 minutes.
Secret
Damage of the Iran War Revealed | Photo Evidence
Secret Damage of
the Iran War Revealed | Photo Evidence
In
tomorrow’s LIR, how Israel came to be via the UK’s muddled (perfidious?)
diplomacy in World War One.
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
Milton Friedman
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