Steve Bull's Blog, page 1159
March 19, 2018
The Perfect Storm for 2020: Weidmann at the ECB, Trump’s trade war, Macron’s failure, Italy’s turmoil
Clouds are gathering: Weidmann will end QE while Macron’s reform will not solve any problem whatsoever. It’ll be the final push for a Eurosceptic Italy, where plans for parallel currencies are popping up. Add Trump’s trade war to the soup and 2020 promises to turn nasty.
It is becoming increasingly clear that at the end of 2019 Jens Weidmann, current President of the Bundesbank, will replace Mario Draghi at the helm of the European Central Bank. The change in terms of economic beliefs will be radical and, combined with the other developing issues in Italy and the US, which will be discussed later in the text, might as well put an end to the misery of the Eurozone.
What does Jens Weidmann believe in?
As a typical post-Weimar German, he believes in strong currency and low inflation. The Financial Times carried an interesting interview with him a few weeks ago,1)in which the German financier expressed his opposition to everything that Mario Draghi has stood for in the last few years and made known his wish to stop the quantitative easing program and replace it with raised interest rates. What happens when interest rates increase? If they go up too fast, markets crumble. Low interest rates offered for too long have contributed to the subprime mortgages debacle of 2007-8. In 2012, at the peak of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, Draghi promised to do ”whatever it takes” to preserve the European common currency. Weidmann was the only one on the board of the ECB who was opposed to this too. Draghi’s statement had a therapeutic effect on financial markets which quickly calmed down after it. Once he’s gone, however, Weidmann is unlikely to show the same resolve to indeed do whatever it might take to keep the currency together. Finally, just like most Germans, he is not a fan of Emmanuel Macron’s idea of creating a Eurozone budget because the money transfer is seen as too much of a concession towards “lazy Southerners”. Maybe in the end Weidmann will opt to preserve the status-quo, but if he sticks to his beliefs, rates will increase, markets will fall and it’ll be the end of the Eurozone.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Externalities of Energy Production Systems
The economics term externality is a cost or benefit accrued by a third party from the actions of others where the third party did not choose to acquire said costs or benefits. The term has been widely adopted by the environmental lobby to describe negative impacts of energy production systems. What is all too often overlooked are the externalised benefits the same energy production systems provide. This post aims to summarise both internal and external costs and benefits of 12 electricity production systems employing 12 different measures.
[Inset image: The proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon power station. The proponents of the scheme were keen to emphasise the external recreational benefits offered by an afternoon stroll around the 9.5 km wall of the lagoon and sailing and boarding in the sheltered waters. But what about the environmental costs to migrating sea trout? And to changing the hydrology of the coastal ecosystem? How do you begin to compare the costs and benefits of a scheme like Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon with a nuclear power station?]
In the environmental impact of energy systems, the term externality is used to describe harm done by the combustion of fossil fuels, particularly greenhouse gas emissions. The argument goes that the fossil fuel producers and consumers do not currently pay for this harm and should do so. The inevitable consequence of adopting these measures will be higher energy prices that spread energy poverty and hold back economic growth. It is therefore very difficult to understand why many OECD governments are preparing to introduce measures like a carbon tax that will simply impoverish their citizens and national economies.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Secret Empires – Corruption Beyond Belief
I have written many times about the deep corruption among the political class. The way they have always taken bribes is through their families. I have written how Hillary’s brother magically got the gold mining contract from Hati when he wasn’t a gold miner. The Clinton Foundation which was supposed to be a real charity shut down after she lost the elections as all the foreign government withdrew because they were simply bribing Hillary to get influence. Obama back in 2013 was forced to sign the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act into law at a celebratory ceremony attended by a bipartisan cast of lawmakers. That was exposed in 2011 on CBS 60 Minutes News Program. Then CNN ran a story on this loophole in 2012, and suddenly there was an Act in 2013.
Now the author of Clinton Cash has come out with a new book exposing all the shenanigans going on in Washington. I previously wrote: The collapse in the rule of law is so vital for sustaining the economy that it is often overlooked. This latest book covers BOTH Republicans and Democrats. In the Secret Empires, Peter Schweizer exposes Joe Biden and John Kerry have been the cornerstone of Democrats in the Washington establishment for more than 30 years. The sons of Kerry and Biden formed an investment fund dealing with countries overseas with whom the US was negotiating contracts. This is where Hillary was doing the same thing – selling influence via the Clinton Foundation.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Eurozone Banking Crisis – ECB Delays Rules for Bad Loans until 2021
The European Central Bank (ECB) has postponed its new guidelines for banks because if it did not, the Italian banking system would simply collapse. The ECB has given Eurozone area banks more time to adapt to new guidelines on how to deal with bad loans. The deadline has been postponed from 2018 off into 2021. The new rules require banks to increase their capital for all loans, which are now classified as risk-taking. Bad loans are systemic in Europe as they increased after the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
After almost 10 years of Quantitative Easing to help banks, nothing has been achieved. Because of the Quantitative Easing, Europe has become very aggressive in collecting taxes. That is deflationary and Southern Europe still suffers from joining the Euro as a whole. The Quantitative Easing has simply kept governments on life-support while failing to stimulate the economy. Mario Draghi moved to negative interest rates in an effort for force people to spend. Instead, the bought safes and withdrew cash from the banks.
This latest move is once again trying desperately to keep the Eurozone afloat until Draghi ends his term next year. Then Draghi could care less what happens, for he will not be blamed if he can just get out the door before it all comes crashing down.
The troubling realities of our energy transition
I recently asked a group gathered to hear me speak what percentage of the world’s energy is provided by these six renewable sources: solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tidal, and ocean energy.
Then came the guesses: To my left, 25 percent; straight ahead, 30 percent; on my right, 20 percent and 15 percent; a pessimist sitting to the far right, 7 percent.
The group was astonished when I related the actual figure: 1.5 percent. The figure comes from the Paris-based International Energy Agency, a consortium of 30 countries that monitors energy developments worldwide. The audience that evening had been under the gravely mistaken impression that human society was much further along in its transition to renewable energy. Even the pessimist in the audience was off by more than a factor of four.
I hadn’t included hydroelectricity in my list, I told the group, which would add another 2.5 percent to the renewable energy category. But hydro, I explained, would be growing only very slowly since most of the world’s best dam sites have been taken.
The category “Biofuels and waste,” which makes up 9.7 percent of the world total, includes small slivers of what we Americans call biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel), I said, but mostly represents the deforestation of the planet through the use of wood for daily fuel in many poor countries, hardly a sustainable practice that warrants vast expansion. (This percentage has been roughly the same since 1973 though the absolute consumption has more than doubled as population has climbed sharply.) The burden for renewable energy expansion, I concluded, would therefore remain on the six categories I mentioned at the outset of my presentation.
As if to underline this worrisome state of affairs, the MIT Technology Review just days later published a piece with a rather longish title: “At this rate, it’s going to take nearly 400 years to transform the energy system.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Is Profit-Maximizing Data-Mining Undermining Democracy?
If targeting political extremes generates the most profit, then that’s what these corporations will pursue.
As many of you know, oftwominds.com was falsely labeled propaganda by the propaganda operation known as ProporNot back in 2016. The Washington Postsaw fit to promote ProporNot’s propaganda operation because it aligned with the newspaper’s view that any site that wasn’t pro-status quo was propaganda; the possibility of reasoned dissent has vanished into a void of warring accusations of propaganda and “fake news” –which is of course propaganda in action.
Now we discover that profit-maximizing data-mining (i.e. Facebook and Google) can–gasp–be used for selling ideologies, narratives and candidatesjust like dog food and laundry detergent. The more extreme and fixed the views and the closer the groups are in size (i.e. the closer any electoral contest), the more profitable the corporate data-mining becomes.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the data-mining gets all the important stuff wrong. As correspondent GFB explains, oftwominds.com was identified as “propaganda” by data-mining, which concluded that any site that posted content that wasn’t pro-Hillary was automatically propaganda:
At least we now know why your site was flagged as a source of Russian disinformation:
Cambridge Analytica is hired by the Russians to data mine to find the most efficacious targets for their disinformation campaign – and in the course of doing research, they find that a number of individuals who visit your site have shown – in other social media actions – to have anti-Hillary, or anti-powers-that-be tendency. They conclude the number of visitors that have that data profile would suggest that it is likely most, if not all visitors to your site would likely have the same view – and so any visitor to your site gets flagged to be targeted, if possible, by the disinformation campaign.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Trump and the Federal Reserve
Many of us would rather not think about the possibility of President Trump getting reelected, but there is little doubt that he is thinking about it.
If Trump is serious about winning reelection, he may want to reconsider the sort of people he is appointing to the Federal Reserve. Virtually all political experts agree that a central factor in a president’s reelection prospects is the state of the economy in the year he or she is running. But Trump is appointing people who are likely to support rapid increases in interest rates, which very well could slow economic growth.
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t pay much attention to the Fed. People usually perceive its decisions about interest rates and inflation as affecting only Wall Street and big investor types. But the Fed has an enormous impact on the lives of ordinary workers. When it chooses to raise interest rates, as it has been doing for the last 15 months, it is making a conscious decision to slow the economy.
Higher interest rates discourage people from buying new cars and homes. Fewer home owners refinance mortgages. Businesses and state and local governments are less likely to borrow to invest in new factories, equipment and infrastructure. When growth slows, the economy has fewer jobs. The unemployment rate could stop falling and even rise. People with jobs also are worse off because they have less bargaining power in a weaker labor market. Their wages rise less rapidly and may not keep up with inflation.
The Fed and its leadership should matter to all of us, in other words.
Until the beginning of February, the central bank was led by Janet L. Yellen. Over the previous 15 months, Yellen, an Obama appointee, went along with four interest rate hikes, but she was much more cautious about rate increases than many other economists.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
March 17, 2018
Russia Claims US Deploys Warships For Imminent Attack On Syria, Trains Militants For False Flag Attack
Last April, in one of the Trump administration’s first “diplomatic” ventures, the US fired 59 Tomahawk missiles on Syria, in retaliation for the latest alleged chemical attack by the Assad regime, the same “false flag” excuse which was used by the US to officially enter the conflict back in 2013 when military tensions between the US and Russia nearly resulted in a regional war.
ABC News
@ABCMORE: U.S. official after U.S. missiles fired at Syrian airbase: “We’re done until another decision is made.” http://abcn.ws/2oOXE8K
9:45 PM – Apr 6, 2017
US launches military strike on Syrian air base
Responding to a Syrian chemical weapons attack on Tuesday that left scores dead, the United States initiated a military strike Thursday on an airbase in Syria, multiple U.S. officials have confirmed,…
abcnews.go.com
Well, it appears that Assad is a relentless glutton for punishment, because not even a year later, the WaPo reported two weeks ago that the US is considering a new military action against Syria for – what else – retaliation against the latest and greatest chemical attack, which took place two months ago.
How do we know Assad (and apparently, Russia) was behind the attack? We don’t: in fact, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a moment of brutal honesty, admitted that he really doesn’t know much at all about “whoever conducted the attacks.” But hey: just like it is “highly likely” that Russia poisoned the former Russian double agent in the UK – with no proof – so it is “highly likely” that a clearly irrational Assad was once again behind an attack which he knew would provoke violent and aggressive retaliation by the US.
And so we now wait for that flashing, red headline saying that US ships in the Mediterranean have launched a missile attack on Syria, just like a year ago. Only this time Russia – which is allied with the Assad regime – is not planning to be on the defensive, and according to Russia’s Defense Ministry, “US instructors” are currently training militants to stage false flag chemical attacks in south Syria, i.e., the catalyst that will be used to justify the US attack on Assad. The incidents, the ministry said, will be used a pretext for airstrikes on Syrian government troops and infrastructure.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
10 Gardening Tips for Growing Market-Worthy Tomatoes
There is nothing like seeing clumps of repining super-sized tomatoes on the vine – That’s the sign of a happy, growing garden. But tomatoes can be problematic and prone to certain issues. Blossom end rot, nutritional deficiencies, blight, and invasive hornworms are just a few of the problems a gardener may have when growing tomatoes. Many of these issues can be corrected early on by giving the tomato the right growing conditions.
10 Gardening Tips for Growing the Juiciest Tomatoes
Some of the most popular types of tomato varieties planted are the beefsteak tomato, Celebrity, Early Girl, and the Cherry Tomatoes. The tomato plant can grow up to 6 feet tall and requires trellising or support. Tomatoes typically take about 85 days to harvest. And to get those big, delicious red orbs to grow, it requires a lot of nutrients.
Choose a fertilizer that has a balanced ratio of the three major elements, such as 10-10-10, or where the middle number (phosphorus) is larger than the first number (nitrogen), such as 2-3-1. Tomatoes are heavy feeders and usually do need fertilizer unless your soil is very rich.
Use some o these gardening tips to ensure your tomato harvest is the best one yet!
1. Choose the right varieties.
There are many types of tomato varieties to choose from. One that I always recommend is the heirloom varieties. These seeds have been around for generations and were bred for flavor, adaptability and growing performance. As well, many of these seeds are open-pollinated and the seeds can be saved for the next harvest. This ensures you have plenty of tomatoes to eat fresh, preserve or make delicious sauces with.
2. Location, location, location!
Tomatoes love bright locations where they receive 10 hours or more of sunlight. Full morning sun is always the best location, but tomatoes will do well with some afternoon sun too. As well, ensure that you have properly spaced your plants.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
1984 Is Not The Future
Jacobello Alberegno The Beast of the Apocalypse 1360-90
The Guardian ran an article yesterday by one of its editors, David Shariatmadari, that both proves and disproves its own theme at the same time: “An Information Apocalypse Is Coming”. Now, I don’t fancy the term apocalypse in a setting like this, it feels too much like going for a cheap thrill, but since he used it, why not.
My first reaction to the headline, and the article, is: what do you mean it’s ‘coming’? Don’t you think we have such an apocalypse already, that we’re living it, we’re smack in the middle of such a thing? If you don’t think so, would that have anything to do with you working at a major newspaper? Or with your views of the world, political and other, that shape how you experience ‘information’?
Shariatmadari starts out convincingly and honestly enough with a description of a speech that JFK was supposed to give in Dallas right after he was murdered, a speech that has been ‘resurrected’ using technology that enables one to make it seem like he did deliver it.
An Information Apocalypse Is Coming. How Can We Protect Ourselves?
“In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason, or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality, and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.”
John F Kennedy’s last speech reads like a warning from history, as relevant today as it was when it was delivered in 1963 at the Dallas Trade Mart. His rich, Boston Brahmin accent reassures us even as he delivers the uncomfortable message. The contrast between his eloquence and the swagger of Donald Trump is almost painful to hear.
Yes, Kennedy’s words are lofty ones, and they do possess at least some predictive qualities. But history does play a part too. Would we have read the same in them that we do now, had Kennedy not been shot right before he could deliver them? Hard to tell.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
