Steve Bull's Blog, page 188
September 24, 2022
The US Empire Is Accelerating Toward Global Conflict On Two Fronts
Vladimir Putin has announced that referenda will be held in four regions of the eastern part of Ukraine whose populations will now vote on whether to join the Russian Federation, much like the Crimea referendum of 2014 which resulted in Russia’s annexation of that territory. Putin announced that 300,000 additional troops will be mobilized for the war to help facilitate this action, which is a major escalation in the conflict by any measure.
Putin also issued a stern nuclear warning that’s being hysterically spun by empire managers as a shocking and unprecedentedly bellicose threat, but if you read what he actually said it’s clear that he’s really reminding the west of the same principles of Mutually Assured Destruction that have been in place for generations, and isn’t expressing any position that western nuclear powers don’t also hold:
Nuclear blackmail was also launched. We are talking not only about the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is encouraged by the West, which threatens a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction against Russia — nuclear weapons.
To those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the NATO countries. And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Ramping Up Renewables Can’t Provide Enough Heat Energy in Winter
We usually don’t think about the wonderful service fossil fuels provide in terms of being a store of heat energy for winter, the time when there is a greater need for heat energy. Figure 1 shows dramatically how, in the US, the residential usage of heating fuels spikes during the winter months.
Figure 1. US residential use of energy, based on EIA data. The category “Natural Gas, etc.” includes all fuels bought directly by households and burned. This is primarily natural gas, but also includes small amounts of propane and diesel burned as heating oil. Wood chips or other commercial wood purchased to be burned is also in this category.Solar energy is most abundantly available in the May-June-July period, making it a poor candidate for fixing the problem of the need for winter heat.
Figure 2. California solar electricity production by month through June 30, 2022, based on EIA data. Amounts are for utility scale and small scale solar combined.In some ways, the lack of availability of fuels for winter is a canary in the coal mine regarding future energy shortages. People have been concerned about oil shortages, but winter fuel shortages are, in many ways, just as bad. They can result in people “freezing in the dark.”
In this post, I will look at some of the issues involved.
[1] Batteries are suitable for fine-tuning the precise time during a 24-hour period solar electricity is used. They cannot be scaled up to store solar energy from summer to winter.
In today’s world, batteries can be used to delay the use of solar electricity for at most a few hours. In exceptional situations, perhaps the holding period can be increased to a few days.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Say Only What We Want to Hear, or We Will Take Away Your Livelihood
Say Only What We Want to Hear, or We Will Take Away Your LivelihoodThe attacks on free and open discussion are becoming more and more widespread. Now, as Toby Young explains in an article this morning, the payment service PayPal has closed the accounts of the Daily Sceptic, which often publishes criticism of the government policy in various matters.
PayPal has also closed the account of the Free Speech Union, which provides support to people whose freedom of opinion is under attack, for example those fired from their jobs because of their opinions. PayPal has even gone as far as to close the rarely used personal account of Toby Young, who is in charge of both the Daily Sceptic and the Free Speech Union, and is also associate editor of The Spectator, one of the world’s most respected newspapers.
As Toby reports in his article, the company has offered no explanation for this move.
When payment services or banks begin to act in this way, it should dawn upon us what a serious threat to free and open exchange of opinions we are facing. Not only can you be fired from your job, your very possibility to make a living will be taken away also.
Now, there is little doubt that many people think that as long as their own opinions are allowed, everything is fine, even if other opinions are forbidden. But that position, apart from being morally wrong, is based on an utter lack of understanding of the threat we face; the question is not if, but when it will be your own opinions that are censored, your own livelihood taken away.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
September 23, 2022
Brainwashed for War With Russia
Thanks to Establishment media, the sorcerer apprentices advising President Joe Biden – I refer to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jacob Sullivan, and China specialist Kurt Campbell – will have no trouble rallying Americans for the widest war in 77 years, starting in Ukraine, and maybe spreading to China. And, shockingly, under false pretenses.
Most Americans are oblivious to the reality that Western media are owned and operated by the same corporations that make massive profits by helping to stoke small wars and then peddling the necessary weapons. Corporate leaders, and Ivy-mantled elites, educated to believe in U.S. “exceptionalism,” find the lucre and the luster too lucrative to be able to think straight. They deceive themselves into thinking that (a) the US cannot lose a war; (b) escalation can be calibrated and wider war can be limited to Europe; and (c) China can be expected to just sit on the sidelines. The attitude, consciously or unconsciously, “Not to worry. And, in any case, the lucre and luster are worth the risk.”
The media also know they can always trot out died-in-the-wool Russophobes to “explain,” for example, why the Russians are “almost genetically driven” to do evil (James Clapper, former National Intelligence Director and now hired savant on CNN); or Fiona Hill (former National Intelligence Officer for Russia), who insists “Putin wants to evict the United States from Europe … As he might put it: “Goodbye, America. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Absent a miraculous appearance of clearer heads with a less benighted attitude toward the core interests of Russia in Ukraine, and China in Taiwan, historians who survive to record the war now on our doorstep will describe it as the result of hubris and stupidity run amok…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Futures Crash, Stocks At 2022 Lows; Yields, Dollar Explode As UK Stimulus Plan Sparks Global Market Panic
One week after stocks suffered their biggest drop since June, futures are in freefall on Friday with the dollar soaring to the now default daily record high…
… 10Y yields exploding higher, surging more than 10bps so far today…
… in what appears to be the latest bond market flash smash which has pushed 10Y yields to the highest level since 2010…
… and S&P futures plunging over 1.4%, and the S&P set to open at a fresh 2022 low…
… with futures set to drop nearly 5% (or more) for a 2nd consecutive week, and down 5 of the past 6 weeks!
Besides the soaring dollar, two other drivers contributed to today’s widespread market panic:
first, the shocking UK mini budget saw the country’s new administration slash tax rates by the most since 1970s at a time when the country is about to enter recession and is battling with runaway inflation which crashed UK bonds and sent the pound tumbling to a 37 year low as markets priced in a more aggressive pace of tightening to offset the government’s growth plan,second, traders also freaked out over a Goldman research report which slashed the bank’s S&P price-target to just 3,600 from 4,300, making the bank one of the biggest bears on Wall Street.
In premarket trading, Costco shares declined 3.3% as analysts flagged that volatility may remain high for the company’s shares. Analysts mostly welcomed its report of modest improvements in inflation and supply chains. here are the other notable premarket movers:
AMD shares dropped 1.5% in premarket trading as Morgan Stanley trimmed price target to $95 from $102, citing a worsening PC end market and headwinds on the client business, including a collapse in gaming GPUs.…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Germany nationalizes its biggest natural gas importer
Germany is nationalizing Uniper, its biggest importer of natural gas, as part of an €8 billion ($7.9 billion) plan to prevent an energy shortage this winter.
Europe has been hit by soaring natural gas and electricity prices as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its throttling of gas supplies.
The German government will hold around 99% of Uniper after injecting new capital and buying out its Finnish parent company Fortum (FOJCF), German Economy Minister Robert Habeck told journalists in Berlin on Wednesday.
Uniper provides 40% of the country’s gas supply and is crucial for large companies and private consumers in Europe’s biggest economy.
In July, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the government would step in to bail out Uniper with a package worth up to €15 billion ($15.3 billion), after it was brought to its knees by months of Russian supply cuts and soaring spot market prices.
US dollar hits new 20-year high as Russia calls up reservistsUnder the rescue deal, the government committed to provide €7.7 billion ($7.8 billion) to cover potential future losses, while state-run bank KfW agreed to increase its credit facility by €7 billion ($7.1 billion).
But Habeck said the situation had “worsened dramatically” since Russia cut off gas supplies to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline indefinitely on September 1, citing an oil leak.
Russian gas has had to be substituted with costly alternatives, leading to soaring bills for consumers.
Although gas supplies through Nord Stream 1 are suspended, Germany’s gas reserves are filled at more than 90% capacity, European Storage provider GIE AGSI+ said on its website.
Still, the European energy crisis isn’t going away.
Habeck said that the country could “get through winter well” without Russian gas, but warned of “really empty” supply levels in the period thereafter.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
In America, Clean Water Is Becoming a Luxury
Our water system’s collapsing—and I found out the hard way.
Getty
I can’t forget to turn the kettle on before bed. In the morning, I’ll need that water to wash my hands and brush my teeth. The rest I’ll carefully store in the fridge, away from light and bacteria. It’s a routine I shared with at least 1,500 neighbors—for the better part of a week—when E. coli bacteria tainted West Baltimore’s water, bringing risks from stomach bugs to lethal kidney disease. Welcome to life without clean, running water.
Across the country, extreme weather is accelerating breakdowns decades in the making. Storms are battering old water and wastewater networks, many with parts built a century ago or more for vastly different climate conditions. Floods are overwhelming existing facilities, sometimes contaminating water at the source.
Baltimore officials still can’t pinpoint a cause, but storms caused dire flooding here in August, and that’s contaminated the water before. Such storms are getting more common and less predictable, with climate change the likely reason. Rising sea levels make coastal floods even more dangerous, despite mitigation plans. A 2019 storm even flooded our harbor with more than a million gallons of sewage. And Baltimore is far from the only example.
Running water is everything, which you don’t realize fully until you’re without. Your morning coffee? Bottled or pre-boiled water. Pets? They need theirs bottled or boiled, too. Showers? Fine, if you keep your mouth closed throughout. But that’s harder for kids, and the CDC recommends using bottled or boiled water (cooled first!) to bathe them. Are you one of the lucky few who found powdered infant formula? Don’t forget to use bottled water, too. But city officials, after telling us to do just that, set up exactly three bottled-water pickup spots for everybody at risk.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Global Food Supply Crises May Worsen Due to Poor US Harvest
Farmer harvests corn in Princeton, Ind., on Oct. 11, 2021. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)Global Food Supply Crises May Worsen Due to Poor US HarvestU.S. agriculture has been facing a poor harvest this year, aggravating the global food supply crisis, industry executives have said.
The supply of food worldwide has been tight, since Russia’s war in Ukraine cut off vital shipments of resources needed to make fertilizer and grain products from the region.
Several high-level executives from big agricultural firms such as Bayer, Corteva, Archer Daniels Midland, and Bunge, told The Wall Street Journal that it will take at least two more years of good harvests in North and South America to ease the supply pressures.
“The current market expectation is that global grain and oilseeds markets need two consecutive normal crop years to stabilize global supplies,” said Chuck Magro, chief executive of Corteva, at an investor presentation this week.
This year’s grain harvest has fallen below normal yields in the West, hindering efforts to restock global crop supplies he explained.
The United States and South America, two of the world’s major crop exporters, faced persistent drought conditions this summer.
The hot summer worsened drought conditions in states throughout the U.S. Grain Belt, which saw a major reduction in the harvest due to lack of water and a wet spring planting season earlier in the year.
The Agriculture Department announced on Sept. 12, that it had lowered its nationwide corn production estimates to 13.9 billion bushels.
This is 3 percent lower than its projections in August, about 8 percent lower than the total amount harvested last year.
Projections for soybean production estimates in September were down 3 percent from August, down slightly from 2021.
Maintaining a Food Truce
Global recession fears have also weighed on food commodity markets and the prolonged conflict in Ukraine has not helped matters.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
September 21, 2022
Germany To Nationalize Struggling Uniper In Deepening Energy Crisis
Germany on Wednesday announced a move to nationalize struggling natural gas supplier Uniper SE as it strives to keep the industry functioning in the wake of a global energy crisis, according to Reuters.
Uniper is Germany’s largest importer of Russian NatGas and has suffered tremendous losses after Russian energy giant Gazprom slashed Nord Stream 1’s pipeline capacity to zero, forcing the utility to purchase natgas outside contracts on the open market at record high prices.
Berlin agreed to purchase the remaining stake owned by Uniper’s parent company, Finnish utility Fortum Oyj for $1.69 (1.70 euro) per share. Buying Fortum’s stake means Germany will own 99% of Uniper. The cost of nationalization comes as Berlin is set to inject 8 billion euros, equivalent to around $8 billion, into the utility.
The move is to keep the lights on across German homes and businesses as the risk of power rationings increases.
“This step has become necessary because the situation has worsened significantly.
“The state will do everything necessary to keep systemically important companies in Germany stable at all times,” Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, said Wednesday.
Uniper shares crashed by as much as 39% to 2.55 euros. Shares are down 93% on the year…
In July, Berlin injected a whooping 15 billion euros ($14.95 billion) to save the utility though the move to nationalize ahead of winter shows further deterioration in energy security for Europe’s largest economy.
Here’s what Markus Rauramo, CEO and President of Fortum, said about the deal:
“Under the current circumstances in the European energy markets and recognising the severity of Uniper’s situation, the divestment of Uniper is the right step to take, not only for Uniper but also for Fortum.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
