Steve Bull's Blog, page 1308
September 21, 2017
The Benefits of Using a Solar Heat Catch
THE BENEFITS OF USING A SOLAR HEAT CATCH
When the weather starts getting warmer we can all start preparing for heating bills to jump up over the next couple months. Whether your heating system runs on electricity or natural gas, you can still expect it to get pretty high. If you heat your home with wood stove, then you may be saving money but you will have to spend near endless hours cutting enough wood for the winter.
However, there is an easy to build, cheap device that you can install that will help offset some of your monthly heating bills. A solar heat catch installs right in any of your homes south facing windows and is made out of cheap and recycled parts.
A wooden housing unit is built which holds in place repurposed soda cans. These soda cans are what do the solar collecting and ultimately heat your house for you. At the top and bottom of each can is a small hole, the cans are then glued together at these holes. When they are all together and placed inside the housing unit they are painted black. This helps them absorb the heat from the sun, and as it rises through the cans it gets even hotter before entering your home. Finally, a piece of fiberglass or glass is placed over the hole structure to focus the sunlight and then placed in your window.
While you prob won’t be able to heat your entire house this way, it can help offset some of the costs.Or you can or heat a small area like a shed. Once installed you can start enjoying all the benefits that come with making a solar catch, such as:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Will The Fed Really “Normalize” Its Balance Sheet?
To begin with, how exactly does one define “normalize” in reference to the Fed’s balance sheet? The Fed predictably held off raising rates again today. However, it said that beginning in October it would no longer re-invest proceeds from its Treasury and mortgage holdings and let the balance sheet “run off.”
Here’s the problem with letting the Treasuries and mortgage just mature: Treasuries never really “mature.” Rather, the maturities are “rolled forward” by refinancing the outstanding Treasuries due to mature. The Government also issues even more Treasurys to fund its reckless spending habits. Unless the Fed “reverse repos” the Treasurys right before they are refinanced by the Government, the money printed by the Fed to buy the Treasurys will remain in the banking system. I’m surprised no one has mentioned this minor little detail.
The Fed has also kicked the can down the road on hiking interest rates in conjunction with shoving their phony 1.5% inflation number up our collective ass. The Fed Funds rate has been below 1% since October 2008, or nine years. Quarter point interest rate hikes aren’t really hikes. we’re at 1% from zero in just under two years. That’s not “hiking” rates. Until they start doing the reverse-repos in $50-$100 billion chunks at least monthly, all this talk about “normalization” is nothing but the babble of children in the sandbox. I think the talk/threat of it is being used to slow down the decline in the dollar.
To justify its monetary policy, Yellen stated today that she’s, “very pleased in progress made in the labor market.” Again, how does one define progress? Here’s one graphic which shows that the labor market has been and continues to be a complete abortion:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Loving Our Debt-Serfdom: Our Neofeudal Status Quo
Democracy (i.e. political influence) and ownership of productive assets are the exclusive domains of the New Aristocracy.
I have often used the words neoliberal, neocolonial and neofeudal to describe our socio-economic-political status quo. Here are my shorthand descriptions of each term:
1. Neoliberal: the commoditization / financialization of every asset, input (such as labor) and output of the economy; the privatization of the public commons, and the maximizing of private profits while costs and losses are socialized, i.e. transferred to the taxpayers.
2. Neocolonial: the exploitation of the domestic populace using the same debt-servitude model used to subjugate, control and extract profits from overseas populations.
3. Neofeudal: the indenturing of the workforce via debt and financial repression to a new Aristocracy; the disempowerment of the workforce into powerless debt-serfs.
Neofeudalism is a subtle control structure that is invisible to those who buy into the Mainstream Media portrayal of our society and economy. This portrayal includes an apparent contradiction: America is a meritocracy–the best and brightest rise to the top, if they have pluck and work hard– and America is all about identity politics: whomever doesn’t make it is a victim of bias.
Both narratives neatly ignore the neofeudal structure which disempowers the workforce in the public sphere and limits the opportunities to build capital outside the control of the state-corporate duopoly.
The book The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 shed some light on the transition to a feudal society and economy. While the author is a fine writer, the subject matter doesn’t lend itself to light reading. The transition from the Roman legacy of centralized governance (empire, monarchy, theocracy, etc.) to feudalism (governance by local lords / aristocracy) was complex and uneven, and the author takes pains to describe the process and many variations that arose in a highly fragmented post-Roman Europe.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Rate Hike Cycles, Gold, and the “Rule of Total Morons”
In response to Janet Yellen’s everything is OK speech following today’s balance sheet reduction notice by the FOMC committee, I received an interesting set of comments from Pater Tenebrarum at the Acting Man Blog regarding rate hike cycles, gold, and stock market peaks.
“Rule of Total Morons”
A new bull market in gold started in late 2015 concurrently with the Fed’s first rate hike. That is no coincidence. The gold market is highly sensitive to future changes in liquidity. The more tightening moves the Fed undertakes (which it does in the face of collapsing money supply growth, because its decisions are based on lagging economic indicators), the more gold bullish and the more stock market bearish the fundamental backdrop becomes. Anyone long stocks should actually ask himself how it is possible that gold is up nearly 30% from its low, despite an ostensibly “gold bearish” rate hike cycle.
But they never do ask the right questions, which is why stocks peak with a big lag, particularly in major bubbles. Economic historians found out that the economy was technically very likely already in recession when the stock market peaked in 1929. In the 2007 to 2009 bust, NBER backdated the beginning of the recession to December 2007, but in May of 2008 Bernanke was still talking about how well the economy was doing and how the high oil price was “creating inflation” (thereafter he began to shut up about all that, but not before demonstrating for everyone to see how utterly clueless he was). And of course, stocks peaked in October of 2007, practically two seconds before the economy fell into recession.
In bubble regimes, the final stage is always characterized by the “rule of total morons”. That’s just how it is.
Missing Inflation
Central banks cannot see inflation because they are totally clueless how to measure it: Central Banks Puzzled as Global Inflation Hits Lowest Level Since 2009: Solving the Puzzle
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
September 20, 2017
“We Are In A State Of Siege”: Spanish Police Arrest Top Catalan Officials In Referendum Raids
Spanish police arrested top-ranking Catalan officials including the region’s junior economy minister Josep Maria Jove, as Madrid launched a crackdown on Catalonia over the upcoming Independence referendum Reuters reported. Jove, who is a senior member of the Republican Left of Catalonia political party, was detained following a Wednesday morning raid carried out by Spain’s Civil Guard, which has the authority of both the Interior and the Defence ministries.
At least a dozen high-ranking local officials were arrested, La Vanguardia newspaper said. Among those detained are Josue Sallent Rivas from the Centre of Telecommunications and Information Technology, Xavier Puig Farré from the Office of Social Affairs and Josep Maria Salvat Tenesa from the Ministry of Economics and Finance.
Police, acting under court orders, have stepped up raids on printers, newspaper offices and private delivery companies in recent days in a search for campaign literature, instruction manuals for manning voting stations and ballot boxes.
On Tuesday, Spain’s Civil Guard, a national police force, seized more than 45,000 envelopes packed in cardboard boxes that the Catalan government was ready to send to notify people around the region about the referendum.
“Catalonia is now in a state of siege ”, Catalonia’s Minister of Labor, Social Affairs and Family Dolors Bassa said on Twitter, confirming that the Civil Guard has also entered her department.
Dolors Bassa @dolorsbassacI ara,a nostre departament també , acaba d’entrar la Guardia Civil.Estem en un estat de setge ! Vergonyós !@govern .Votarem #1dO
2:27 AM – Sep 20, 2017
Meanwhile, the fiercely pro-independence leader of the regional government, Carles Puigdemont, has called an emergency meeting of his cabinet for 10:30 CET (8:30 GMT), the sources said.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Morning After: Mexican Earthquake Leaves Over 248 Dead, Millions Without Electricity
Across central Mexico, rescue workers including soldiers and volunteers worked late into the night Tuesday to free the living who were still trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings following Mexico’s deadliest earthquake in more than 30 years.
The death toll from the 7.1 magnitude quake – which bizarrely occurred on the anniversary of a 1985 quake that left 5,000 dead – has climbed to 248, with more than half of those deaths occurring in the Mexican capital city. It also comes two weeks after another powerful quake left nearly 100 dead in Mexico City. The quake was unusually close to Mexico City, located just 60 miles south of the capital in Chiautla de Tapia, a small town in neighboring Puebla state, according to Mexico’s seismological service.
More are feared dead, including possibly dozens of teachers and schoolchildren feared buried in the rubble of a Mexico City school, one of hundreds of buildings that was destroyed by the quake, according to Reuters.
Additionally, several buildings collapsed in the chic neighborhoods of Roma and Condesa in central Mexico City, where many foreigners live. In Condesa, rescue workers scrambled to find eight to 10 people believed trapped under the debris of a building that collapsed near Mexico Park, one of the city’s most famous parks. Hundreds of volunteers formed a human chain to help clear rubble and bring food and water to rescue workers.
Mexico was also hit earlier this month by Hurricane Katia, which killed two. Even the Popocatépetl volcano southeast of the city sent a large cloud of ash into the sky on Tuesday. “This is too much. It’s like we’re cursed or something,” said Marcos Santamaría, a 62-year-old retiree.
Philippines and the United Nations have offered to support the recovery effort. At least 30 second-grade students are still missing, along with eight adults.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
More Thoughts on Trump’s UN Declaration of War Against Iran and North Korea
Trump’s UN speech makes it clear that Trump’s presidency, in terms of his campaign promise to remove Washington from the “policeman of the world” role, exit the Middle East, and repair the damaged relations with Russia, is over. The CIA and the military/security complex are in full control of the US government. Trump has accepted his captivity and his assigned role as the enforcer of Washington’s hegemony over every other country. Washington uber alles is the only foreign policy that Washington pursues.
At the UN Trump actually threatened to wipe North Korea off of the face of the earth. He added to this threat threats against Venezuela (http://stephenlendman.org/2017/09/trump-threatens-venezuela/) and Iran. He demonized these countries as “rogue states,” but it is Washington that is playing that role. Washington has destroyed in whole or part eight countries in the young 21st century and has 3 to 5 more in its crosshairs.
One question is: why did not the UN audience shout Trump down, a man standing before them telling obvious lies? The answer, of course, is money. The US taxpayers pay roughly one-quarter of the UN’s annual budget, leaving the other 130+ countries a light load. Washington is succeeding in driving the world to Armageddon, because the world’s leaders prefer money to truth, to justice, to survival. The UN diplomats see in their cooperation with Washington the opportunity to make money by sharing in the West’s exploitation of their own countries.
Washington, absorbed in its effort to destroy Syria, left it to its Saudi Arabian puppet to destroy Yemen. The Saudi autocracy, a major sponsor with the US of terrorism, has done a good job, thanks to US supplying the weapons and to the US refueling the Saudi attack airplanes.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Could Kurdish Independence Spark An Oil War?
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As the date of the Kurdish independence referendum approaches, oil industry moguls should be concerned about an oil production war between Iran and headless Iraq.
The Kurds are expected to vote on their political status in late September. A vote in the affirmative would mean that Iraq would lose a chunk of its northern areas, which includes the crucial Kirkuk oilfield and its surrounding reserves.
The latest news from the election committee shows that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is doing the most it can to increase international participation in the election. On Monday, authorities announced that they had removed a key requirement for diaspora voters participating in the elections. Kurds participating in the e-voting platform will no longer be required to present a ration card to be able to cast their vote through September 25th. Iraqis who have been living abroad for several years, even decades, no longer hold a valid version of the United Nations-conferred identification. The new provision just requires that voters prove their current Iraqi citizenship via relevant documentation.
In roughly one week, the election authority will count votes and announce the political and territorial future of Iraq. It has been a rocky 100 years for the country since the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement divided Asia Minor on an imperialist paradigm, without regard for cultural variations within the territory.
Believe it or not, soon after Sykes-Picot, Iraq became a kingdom ruled under a Hashemite monarch related to the current king of Jordan. In 1958, the Iraqi army overthrew the monarchy in a development known as the July 14 Revolution, which brought the rebel leader Abd al-Karim Qasim to power and pulled Iraq closer to the Soviet Union.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Financialization and The Destruction of the Real Economy
Strip an economy of capital, productive incentives, talent and yes, ethics, and what are we left with? An economy spiraling toward an inevitable collapse.
Financialization is destroying the real economy, but few in power seem to notice or care. The reason why is painfully obvious: those in power are reaping vast fortunes from the engines of financialization–for example, former President Obama:Obama Goes From White House to Wall Street in Less Than One Year.
This is not to single out President Obama as a special case; politicos across the spectrum depend on the engines of financialization to fund their campaigns and make them multi-millionaires, and corporate managers and financiers have skimmed billions of dollars in gains not from producing new, better and more affordable goods and services but by playing financialization games such as borrowing billions to buy back stocks, leveraged buyouts, and so on–all of which have reaped the insiders gargantuan fortunes while hollowing out the real economy.
Financialization necessarily hollows out the real economy, as Gordon Long and I detail in this new video program: The Results of Financialization – Part I (34 minutes)
The key dynamic is that financialization creates irresistible incentives to ramp up debt and leverage at the expense of the real economy. Those who fail to exploit financialization will underperform the market and be fired.
As Gordon explains, if a CEO refuses to load a company up with debt, a private-equity financier with access to cheap Federal Reserve credit will scoop up the company in a private buyout, fire the management, extract immense profits by loading the company with debt, then take the hollowed-out shell public again, reaping another windfall of financialized gains.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The real strike price of offshore wind
Hinkley still scores on reliability and low carbon ….. but the extent to which its costs are obscene is now plainer than ever. In Monday’s capacity auction, two big offshore wind farms came in at £57.50 per megawatt hour and a third at £74.75. These “strike prices” ….. are expressed in 2012 figures, as is Hinkley’s £92.50 so the comparison is fair. As for the argument that we must pay up for reliable baseload supplies, there ought to be limits to how far it can be pushed. A nuclear premium of some level might be justified, but Hinkley lives in a financial world of its own, even before battery technology (possibly) shifts the economics further in favour of renewables …..
Thus spake the Guardian in a recent article entitled Hinkley nuclear power is being priced out by renewables.
What the Guardian says is, of course, nonsense. Comparing non-dispatchable wind directly with dispatchable baseload nuclear is not in the least “fair”. Barring Acts of God baseload nuclear is there all the time; wind is there only when the wind blows. We can level the playing field only by comparing baseload nuclear generation with baseload wind generation, and the only way of converting wind into baseload is to store the surpluses generated when the wind is blowing for re-use when it isn’t. To compare offshore wind strike prices directly with nuclear strike prices we therefore have to factor in the storage costs necessary to convert the wind into baseload, and this post shows what happens to wind strike prices when we do this using the “battery technology” favored by the Guardian. It finds that battery technology does not “(shift) the economics further in favor of renewables”. It prices wind totally out of the market instead.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
