AUGUST 31/OTC/LBMA OPTIONS EXPIRED TONIGHT//GOLD UP $5.60 TO $1815.60//SILVER UP 2 CENTS TO $23.98//TODAY IS FIRST DAY NOTICE: INITIAL GOLD STANDING 3.9 TONNES//SILVER STANDING 29 MILLION OZ//COVID 19 UPDATES//VACCINE UPDATES//IVERMECTIN UPDATES//TWO SENIOR MEMBERS OF THE FDA SUDDENLY RETIRE//SUPER VARIANT OF DELTA, THE C.1.2 ALREADY PROLIFERATING IN SOUTH AFRICA, CONGO, PORTUGAL,SWITZERLAND AND NEW ZEALAND//CDC WILL NOT BACK PFIZER’S CLAIM FOR A BOOSTER SHOT//CHINA’S SERVICE SECTOR IMPLODES//PRIVATE FUNDS INTO CHINESE STOCKS DRY UP WITH GOVERNMENT WHACKING HIGH TECH//CHINA TO FORCE VESSELS ENTERING INTO THEIR TERRITORIAL WATERS TO DECLARE THEMSELVES: TROUBLE AHEAD ON THAT!! EUROPE INFLATION AT 10 YR HIGHS//AFGHANISTAN UPDATES: HUGE ARTICLE FROM VICTOR DAVID HANSON AND BIRD BRAIN DELIVERS A BIRD BRAIN SPEECH ON HIS SUCCESS IN AFGHANISTAN//SWAMP STORIES FOR YOU TONIGHT//

August 31, 2021 · by · in Uncategorized · 3 Comments

 

GOLD:$1815.60 UP $5.60   The quote is London spot price

Silver:$23.98 UP 2  CENTS  London spot price ( cash market)

 
 
 
 

Closing access prices:  London spot

i)Gold : $1814.40 LONDON SPOT  4:30 pm

ii)SILVER:  $23.92//LONDON SPOT  4:30 pm

We are now in the midst of options expiry week.  The  oTC/LBMA options expire on the 31th of August.  Gold and silver prices will be subdued to this crooked operation.  The spreading operation is now in full swing.
 

PLATINUM AND PALLADIUM PRICES BY GOLD-EAGLE (MORE ACCURATE)

 

 

PLATINUM  $1017.60 UP  $8.40

PALLADIUM: $2471.05  DOWN $26.05  PER OZ.

 

END

Editorial of The New York Sun | February 1, 2021

end

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COMEX DETAILS//NOTICES FILED

JPMorgan has been receiving gold with reckless abandon and sometimes supplying (stopping)

receiving today 226/926

EXCHANGE: COMEX
CONTRACT: SEPTEMBER 2021 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 1,809.000000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 08/30/2021 DELIVERY DATE: 09/01/2021
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED
____________________________________________________________________________________________
118 C MACQUARIE FUT 26
118 H MACQUARIE FUT 100
365 H ED&F MAN CAPITA 2
435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 425
523 H INTERACTIVE BRO 2
657 C MORGAN STANLEY 48 634
661 C JP MORGAN 82 226
661 H JP MORGAN 143
737 C ADVANTAGE 36
905 C ADM 128
____________________________________________________________________________________________

TOTAL: 926 926
MONTH TO DATE: 926

 

issued:  82

Goldman Sachs stopped: 0

 

NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR  dept. CONTRACT: 926 NOTICE(S) FOR 92600 OZ  (2.880 tonnes)

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED SO FAR THIS MONTH:  926 FOR 92,600 OZ  (2.880 TONNES)

 

SILVER//sept CONTRACT

3826 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR  19,130,000   OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month 3826  :  for 19,130,000  oz

 

BITCOIN MORNING QUOTE  $46,500 DOWN 2112  DOLLARS 

 

BITCOIN AFTERNOON QUOTE.:$46,525  DOWN 2087  DOLLARS 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

GLD AND SLV INVENTORIES:

GLD AND SLV INVENTORIES:

Gold

WITH GOLD UP UP $5.60 AND NO PHYSICAL TO BE FOUND ANYWHERE:

NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:

 

THEY REALIZE THAT THERE IS NO GOLD AT THE GLD AND THEY ARE SWITCHING TO PHYSICAL GOLD AT SPROTT(phys)  

 

WITH RESPECT TO GLD WITHDRAWALS:  (OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS)

 

GOLD IS “RETURNED” TO THE BANK OF ENGLAND WHEN CALLING IN THEIR LEASES: THE GOLD NEVER LEAVES THE BANK OF ENGLAND IN THE FIRST PLACE. THE BANK IS PROTECTING ITSELF IN CASE OF COMMERCIAL FAILURE

THIS IS A MASSIVE FRAUD!!

GLD  1001.72 TONNES OF GOLD//

Silver

AND WITH NO SILVER AROUND  TODAY: WITH SILVER UP 2 CENTS

A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/ A DEPOSIT OF 5.002 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV//

 

INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV

WITH REGARD TO SILVER WITHDRAWALS FROM THE SLV:

THE SILVER WITHRAWALS ARE ACTUALLY “RETURNED” TO JPM, AS JPMORGAN CALLS IN ITS LEASES WITH THE SLV FUND.  (THE STORY IS THE SAME AS THE BANK OF ENGLAND’S GOLD). THE SILVER NEVER LEAVES JPMORGAN’S VAULT. THEY ARE CALLING IN THEIR LEASES FOR FEAR OF SOLVENCY ISSUES.

INVENTORY RESTS AT: 

 

550.880  MILLION OZ./SLV

xxxxx

GLD closing price//NYSE 169.72 UP 0.35 OR 0.21%

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

SLV closing price NYSE 22.15 DOWN $.11 OR 0.49%

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 
 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 
 
 

Let us have a look at the data for today

SILVER COMEX OI FELL BY A VERY STRONG 4764 CONTRACTS TO 143,395, AND FURTHER FROM THE NEW RECORD OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020. THE STRONG SIZED LOSS IN OI OCCURRED WITH OUR  $0.07 LOSS IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX  ON MONDAY. WE HAD CONSIDERABLE SPREADER LIQUIDATION
 
 

OUR BANKERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN ,(IT FELL BY $0.07)

AND THEY WERE SUCCESFUL IN KNOCKING OUT SOME SILVER LONGS AS WE ALSO HAD . WE ALSO HADWE HAD A STRONG NET LOSS IN OUR TWO EXCHANGES EQUAL TO 4745 CONTRACTS OR 23.725 MILLION OZI) HUGE  BANKER SHORT COVERING AS THEY ARE VERY ANXIOUS TO GET OUT OF DODGE!!/WE ALSO HAD  SOME ii) REDDIT RAPTOR BUYING//.    iii)  A TINY ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS iiii) A  SMALL INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 27.64 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED  / v)  VI) CONSIDERABLE SPREADER LIQUIDATION; vi))VERY STRONG COMEX OI LOSS,
 
I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL:
 
THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI SILVER TODAY: CONTRACTS – 184
 
  (WE  SWITCHED OVER TO SILVER ON AUGUST  2)
 
SPREADING OPERATIONS(/NOW SWITCHING TO SILVER)

 

 


FOR NEWCOMERS, HERE ARE THE DETAILS:

SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW COMMENCED   AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE  NEW ACTIVE FRONT MONTH OF SEPT

IN SILVER.

HERE IS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HOW THE CROOKS FLEECE UNSUSPECTING LONGS IN THE SPREADING ENDEAVOUR;

MODUS OPERANDI OF THE CORRUPT BANKERS AS TO HOW THEY HANDLE THEIR SPREAD OPEN INTERESTS:
HERE IS HOW THE CROOKS USED SPREADING AS WE ARE NOW INTO THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF AUGUST HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF SEPT FOR SILVER:

YOU WILL ALSO NOTICE THAT THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST  STARTS TO RISE BUT SO IS THE OPEN INTEREST OF SPREADERS. THE OPEN INTEREST IN WILL CONTINUE TO RISE UNTIL ONE WEEK BEFORE FIRST DAY NOTICE OF AN UPCOMING  ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH (AUGUST), AND THAT IS WHEN THE CROOKS SELL THEIR SPREAD POSITIONS BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME OF THE DAY.  THEY WILL USE THE SELL SIDE OF THE EQUATION TO CREATE THE CASCADE (ALONG WITH THEIR COLLUSIVE FRIENDS) AND THEN COVER ON THE BUY SIDE OF THE SPREAD SITUATION AT THE END  OF THE DAY. THEY DO THIS TO AVOID POSITION LIMIT DETECTION. THE LIQUIDATION OF THE SPREADING FORMATION CONTINUES FOR EXACTLY ONE WEEK AND ENDS ON FIRST DAY NOTICE.”

 
 
HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS
 
 
AUGUST
 
ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S SILVER/JPMORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES/STARTING FROM FIRST DAY/MONTH OF AUGUST:
 
28,024 CONTACTS  for 23 days, total 28,024 contracts or 140.120 million oz…average per day:  1218 contracts or 6.092 million oz per day.

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE HUGE SUPPLY THIS MONTH IN SILVER: SO FAR THIS MONTH OF

AUGUST:  140.120 MILLION PAPER OZ HAVE MORPHED OVER TO LONDON

LAST THREE MONTHS TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED  IN MILLIONZ OF OZ

MAY 137.83 MILLION

JUNE 149.91 MILLION OZ

JULY 129.445 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: 140.120 MILLION OZ 

 

 
RESULT: , ...WE HAD A VERY STRONG SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 4764 WITH OUR 07 CENT LOSS SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ///MONDAY THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A TINY SIZED EFP ISSUANCE OF 19 CONTRACTS( 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR SEPT AND 19 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR DECEMBER) WHICH  EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX  TO LONDON  AS FORWARDS.
 
TODAY WE HAD A VERY STRONG SIZED LOSS OF 4745 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES (WITH OUR $0.07 GAIN/THE DOMINANT FEATURE TODAY: /HUGE BANKER SHORTCOVERING AS THEY GET OUT OF DODGE/ZERO  SPREADER LIQUIDATION  AND WE HAVE A  SMALL INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR SEPTEMBER 27.640 MILLION OZ
 

WE HAD  3826 NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR 19,130,000 OZ

GOLD

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A FAIR SIZED 2683  CONTRACTS TO 503,401 _ ,,AND FURTHER FROM OUR NEW RECORD (SET JAN 24/2020) AT 799,541 AND  PREVIOUS TO THAT: (SET JAN 6/2020) AT 797,110. 

 

THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI IN GOLD TODAY: — -XXX CONTRACTS.

THE STRONG SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI CAME WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $3.70///COMEX GOLD TRADING/MONDAY. AS IN SILVER WE MUST HAVE HAD HUGE BANKER/ALGO SHORT COVERING ACCOMPANYING OUR SMALL SIZED EXCHANGE FOR  PHYSICAL ISSUANCE. WE HAD SOME LONG LIQUIDATION AS THE TOTAL LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES TOTALLED  2096 CONTRACTS..  WE ALSO HAD A GOOD INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR SEPT AT 3.586 TONNES 
 
 
 

YET ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $3.70 WITH RESPECT TO MONDAY’S TRADING

 

WE HAD A VOLUME OF 0    4 -GC CONTRACTS//OPEN INTEREST  0//

WE HAD A SMALL SIZED LOSS OF 2096  OI CONTRACTS (6.519 TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

 

E.F.P. ISSUANCE

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A SMALL SIZED 739 CONTRACTS:

CONTRACT  AND JULY:  0; AUGUST: 0 & DEC 739  ALL OTHER MONTHS ZERO//TOTAL: 739 The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 503,401. ALSO REMEMBER THAT THERE WILL BE A DELAY IN THE ISSUANCE OF EFP’S.  THE BANKERS REMOVE LONG POSITIONS OF COMEX GOLD IMMEDIATELY.  THEN THEY ORCHESTRATE THEIR PRIVATE EXCHANGE DEAL WITH THE LONGS AND THAT COULD TAKE AN ADDITIONAL, 48 HRS SO WE GENERALLY DO NOT GET A MATCH WITH RESPECT TO DEPARTING COMEX LONGS AND NEW EFP LONG TRANSFERS. . EVEN THOUGH THE BANKERS ISSUED THESE MONSTROUS EFPS, THE OBLIGATION STILL RESTS WITH THE BANKERS TO SUPPLY METAL BUT IT TRANSFERS THE RISK TO A LONDON BANKER OBLIGATION AND NOT A NEW YORK COMEX OBLIGATION. LONGS RECEIVE A FIAT BONUS TOGETHER WITH A LONG LONDON FORWARD. THUS, BY THESE ACTIONS, THE BANKERS AT THE COMEX HAVE JUST STATED THAT THEY HAVE NO APPRECIABLE METAL!! THIS IS A MASSIVE FRAUD: THEY CANNOT SUPPLY ANY METAL TO OUR COMEX LONGS BUT THEY ARE QUITE WILLING TO SUPPLY MASSIVE NON BACKED GOLD (AND SILVER) PAPER KNOWING THAT THEY HAVE NO METAL TO SATISFY OUR LONGS. LONDON IS NOW SEVERELY BACKWARD IN BOTH GOLD AND SILVER  AND WE ARE WITNESSING DELAYS IN ACTUAL DELIVERIES.

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A SMALL SIZED DECREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 2096  CONTRACTS: 2835 CONTRACTS DECREASED AT THE COMEX AND 739 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS  TOTAL OI LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 2096 CONTRACTS OR 6.519 TONNES.

CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

WE HAD A SMALL SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (739) ACCOMPANYING THE FAIR SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI (2835 OI): TOTAL LOSS IN THE TWO EXCHANGES: 2096 CONTRACTS. WE NO DOUBT HAD 1) HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING ,2.) GOOD INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR SEPT. AT 3.586 TONNES / 3) SOME LONG LIQUIDATION, /// ;4)FAIR SIZED COMEX OI LOSS 5) SMALL ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL

 

 
 
 
 
 

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2021 INCLUDING TODAY

AUGUST

ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST : 70,054, CONTRACTS OR 7,005,400 oz OR 217.89 TONNES (22 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 3184 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE  SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS :  THIS MONTH IN 22 TRADING DAY(S) IN  TONNES: 217.89 TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2020, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS  217.89/3550 x 100% TONNES  6.12% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

 

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2021 TO DATE
 
JANUARY: 265.26 TONNES (RAPIDLY INCREASING AGAIN)
 
FEB  :  171.24 TONNES  ( DEFINITELY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN)..
 
MARCH:.   276.50 TONNES (STRONG AGAIN///IT SURPASSED JANUARY!!)

 

APRIL:      189..44 TONNES  ( DRAMATICALLY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN//GOLD IN BACKWARDATION)

MAY:        250.15 TONNES  (NOW DRAMATICALLY INCREASING AGAIN)

JUNE:      247.54 TONNES (FINAL)

JULY:        188.73 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST:   217.89 TONNES INITIAL ISSUANCE.// DRAMATICALLY RISING AGAIN

 

 

WHAT IS ALARMING TO ME, ACCORDING TO OUR LONDON EXPERT ANDREW MAGUIRE IS THAT THESE EFP’S ARE BEING TRANSFERRED TO WHAT ARE CALLED SERIAL FORWARD CONTRACT OBLIGATIONS AND THESE CONTRACTS ARE LESS THAN 14 DAYS.  ANYTHING GREATER THAN 14 DAYS, THESE MUST BE RECORDED AND SENT TO THE COMPTROLLER, GREAT BRITAIN TO MONITOR RISK TO THE BANKING SYSTEM.  IF THIS IS INDEED TRUE, THEN THIS IS A MASSIVE CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD AS WE NOW WITNESS A MONSTROUS TOTAL EFP’S ISSUANCE AS IT HEADS INTO THE STRATOSPHERE. 

 

First, here is an outline of what will be discussed tonight:

1.Today, we had the open interest at the comex, in SILVER, ROSE BY A VERY STRONG 4764 CONTRACTS TO 143,395 AND FURTHER FROM TO OUR COMEX RECORD //244,710(SET FEB 25/2020).  THE LAST RECORDS WERE SET  IN AUG.2018 AT 244,196 WITH A SILVER PRICE OF $14.78/(AUGUST 22/2018)..THE PREVIOUS RECORD TO THAT WAS SET ON APRIL 9/2018 AT 243,411 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS WITH THE SILVER PRICE AT THAT DAY: $16.53). AND PREVIOUS TO THAT, THE RECORD  WAS ESTABLISHED AT: 234,787 CONTRACTS, SET ON APRIL 21.2017 OVER  3 1/4 YEARS AGO.  

EFP ISSUANCE 19 CONTRACTS

OUR CUSTOMARY MIGRATION OF COMEX LONGS CONTINUE TO MORPH INTO LONDON FORWARDS  AS OUR BANKERS USED THEIR EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TO ISSUE:

  JULY 0  AND SEPT: 0; DEC 19  ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE:  19 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON.  IF WE TAKE THE  COMEX OI LOSS OF 4764 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 19 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,WE OBTAIN A VERY STRONG SIZED LOSS OF 4745 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES WITH MOST OF THE LOSS DUE TO CONTINUATION OF SPREADER LIQUIDATION

 

THUS IN OUNCES, THE LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 23.725 MILLION  OZ, OCCURRED WITH OUR $0.07 LOSS IN PRICE. 

 

 

BOTH THE SILVER COMEX AND THE GOLD COMEX ARE IN STRESS AS THE BANKERS SCOUR THE BOWELS OF THE EXCHANGE FOR METAL..THE EVIDENCE IS CLEAR: HUGE AMOUNTS OF PHYSICAL STANDING FOR BOTH  SILVER AND GOLD .

1/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

(report Harvey)

 

2 ) Gold/silver trading overnight Europe, Gold

(Peter Schiff, Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

 
 
 

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)TUESDAY MORNING/MONDAY  NIGHT: 

SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 15.79  PTS  OR 0.45%   //Hang Sang CLOSED UP 339.45 PTS OR 1.33%      /The Nikkei closed UP 300.25 PTS OR 1.08%   //Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED UP 0.45%

/Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP TO 6.4615  /Oil DOWN TO 68.70 dollars per barrel for WTI and 71.68 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL RED   //  ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED  UP AGAINST THE DOLLAR AT 6.4615. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.4559: /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING BELOW LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING STRONGER AGAINST USA DOLLAR/OFFSHORE YUAN TRADING STRONGER AGAINST THE DOLLAR /TRADE DEAL NOW DEAD..TRUMP  RAISED RATES TO 25%/

 
 
 
 
3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

NORTH KOREA//USA/OUTLINE

END

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

3 C CHINA

OUTLINE

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

6.Global Issues

OUTLINE

7. OIL ISSUES

OUTLINE

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

OUTLINE
 

COMEX DATA//AMOUNTS STANDING//VOLUME OF TRADING/INVENTORY MOVEMENTS

GOLD

LET US BEGIN:

 

THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A FAIR SIZED 2,835 CONTRACTS TO 503,249 MOVING FURTHER FROM THE RECORD THAT WAS SET IN JANUARY/2020: {799,541  OI(SET JAN 16/2020)} AND  PREVIOUS TO THAT: 797,110 (SET JAN 7/2020).  AND THIS COMEX DECREASE OCCURRED WITH OUR LOSS OF $3.70 IN GOLD PRICING MONDAY’S COMEX TRADING.WE ALSO HAD A SMALL EFP ISSUANCE (739 CONTRACTS). …AS THEY WERE PAID HANDSOMELY  NOT TO TAKE DELIVERY AT THE COMEX AND SETTLE FOR CASH. LOOKS LIKE OUR BANKERS ARE FINALLY BAILING OUT!!

 

WE NORMALLY HAVE WITNESSED  EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS ISSUED BEING SMALL AS IT JUST TOO COSTLY FOR THEM TO CONTINUE SERVICING THE COSTS OF SERIAL FORWARDS CIRCULATING IN LONDON. HOWEVER, MUCH TO THE ANNOYANCE OF OUR BANKERS, THE COMEX IS THE SCENE OF AN ASSAULT ON GOLD AS LONDONERS, NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND ANY PHYSICAL ON THAT SIDE OF THE POND, EXERCISE THESE CIRCULATING EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN LONDON AND FORCING DELIVERY OF REAL METAL OVER HERE AS THE OBLIGATION STILL RESTS WITH NEW YORK BANKERS. IT SEEMS THAT ARE BANKERS FRIENDS ARE EXERCISING EFP’S FROM LONDON AND NOW THEY ARE LOATHE TO ISSUE NEW ONES.  

 

(SEE BELOW)

WE  HAD 0    4 -GC VOLUME//open interest REMAINS AT   0

EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE

WE ARE NOW MOVING TO THE  ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF SEPT..  THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A SMALL SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS., THAT IS 739 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED:  ;: ,  JULY 0 & AUGUST:  0  & DEC.  739  & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 739  CONTRACTS 

 

WHEN WE HAVE BACKWARDATION,  EFP ISSUANCE IS VERY COSTLY BUT THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE SCARCITY OF METAL AND IT IS FAR BETTER FOR OUR BANKERS TO PAY OFF INDIVIDUALS THAN RISK INVESTORS ESPECIALLY FROM LONDON STANDING FOR DELIVERY. THE LOWER PRICES IN THE FUTURES MARKET IS A MAGNET FOR OUR LONDONERS SEEKING PHYSICAL METAL. BACKWARDATION ALWAYS EQUAL SCARCITY OF METAL!

ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE LOST  THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A SMALL SIZED 1944 TOTAL CONTRACTS IN THAT 739 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE LOST A FAIR SIZED COMEX OI OF 2835 CONTRACTS.   WE HAVE A GOOD AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR SEPT   (3.856),

 HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 8 MONTHS OF 20201:

AUGUST: 80.489

JULY: 7.2814 TONNES

JUNE:  72.289 TONNES

MAY 5.77 TONNES

APRIL  95.331 TONNES

MARCH 30.205 TONNES

FEB. 113.424 TONNES

JAN: 6.500 TONNES.

 

TOTAL SO FAR THIS YEAR (JAN- JULY)_: 411.289 TONNNES

 

THE BANKERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE  //// (IT FELL $3.70).,AND THEY WERE  SUCCESSFUL IN FLEECING SOME LONGS AS THE TOTAL LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES REGISTERED 6.046 TONNES. ….ACCOMPANYING OUR GOOD GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR SEPT. (3.586 TONNES)..I  STRONGLY BELIEVE THAT OUR BANKER FRIENDS ARE GETTING QUITE NERVOUS.  THE HUGE SIZED GAIN IN COMEX OI IS DUE TO BANKER SHORT COVERING IN A BIG WAY.  THEY ARE LOOKING OVER THEIR SHOULDERS AND WITNESSING MASSIVE SILVER/GOLD SHORTAGES THAT CANNOT BE COVERED. THEY ARE TRYING TO FLEE IN HASTE “FROM DODGE”.

WE HAD -891  CONTRACTS FROM COMEX TRADES. THESE WERE REMOVED AFTER TRADING ENDED LAST NIGHT. 

 

NET LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES :: 2096 CONTRACTS OR 209600 OZ OR 6.519 TONNES

COMMODITY LAW SUGGESTS THAT COMMODITY FUTURES OPEN INTEREST SHOULD APPROXIMATE 3% OF TOTAL PRODUCTION.  IN GOLD THE WORLD PRODUCES AROUND 3500 TONNES PER YEAR BUT ONLY 2200 TONNES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE WEST (THUS EXCLUDING RUSSIA, CHINA ETC..WHO KEEP 100% OF THEIR PRODUCT.
 
THUS IN GOLD WE HAVE THE FOLLOWING:  503,249 TOTAL OI CONTRACTS X 100 OZ PER CONTRACT = 50.33 MILLION OZ/32,150 OZ PER TONNE =  15.63 TONNES

 

THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST REPRESENTS 1563/2200 OR 71.14% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL PRODUCTION OF GOLD.

 

Trading Volumes on the COMEX GOLD TODAY:167,535 contracts//    / volume//awful///

CONFIRMED COMEX VOL. FOR YESTERDAY: 109,013 contracts//worse than awful ////  

// //most of our traders have left for London

 

AUGUST 31

/2021

 
INITIAL STANDINGS FOR SEPT COMEX GOLD
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gold Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory in oz nil oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory in oz
 
32,215.300OZ
 
 
 
BRINKS
1002 kilobars
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Deposit to the Dealer Inventory in oz
nil
OZ
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Deposits to the Customer Inventory, in oz
 
 
 
 
104.15
 
oz
Delaware
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No of oz served (contracts) today
926  notice(s)
92600 OZ
 
2.880 TONNES
No of oz to be served (notices)
227 contracts
22700 oz
 
07060 TONNES
 
 
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month
926 notices
92600 OZ
2.880 TONNES
 
 
Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers inventory this month NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer inventory this month xxx oz
 
 
 
We had 0 deposit into the dealer
 
 
 
 
total deposit: nil   oz 
 

total dealer withdrawals: nil oz

we had  1 deposit into the customer account
i) Into Delaware: 104.15 oz
 
 
TOTAL CUSTOMER DEPOSITS 104.15  oz  
 
 
 
 
 
 
We had 1  customer withdrawals.

 

i) Out of Brinks:  32,215.300 oz

1002kilobars

 

 
 
 
 
total customer withdrawals  32,215.300  oz
     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We had 1  kilobar transactions 1 out of  3 transactions)

ADJUSTMENTS 1// both dealer to customer account

 

Manfra:  4,588.69 oz oz 

 

 
 
the front month of September has an open interest of 1153
thus by definition, the initial amount of gold oz standing for the month for the month of September is as follows
 
 
1153 notices x 100 oz per notice = 115,300 OZ OR 3.586 TONNES
 
 
 
OCTOBER GAINED 244 CONTRACTS UP TO 39,493
.
DEC LOST 2935  TO STAND AT 415,208
 

We had 926 notice(s) filed today for 92,600  oz

FOR THE SEPT 2021 CONTRACT MONTH)Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from JPMorgan dealer account and 82 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equates to 926  contract(s) of which 0  notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 226 notice(s) was (were) stopped/ Received) by J.P.Morgan//customer account and 0  notices received (stopped) by the squid  (Goldman Sachs)

To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the SEPT /2021. contract month, we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (926) x 100 oz , to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of  (SEPT: 1153 CONTRACTS ) minus the number of notices served upon today  926 x 100 oz per contract equals 115,300 OZ OR 3.586 TONNES) the number of ounces standing in this active month of SEPTEMBER.  

 

thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the SEPT contract month:

No of notices filed so far (926) x 100 oz+( 1153)  OI for the front month minus the number of notices served upon today (926} x 100 oz} which equals 115,300 oz standing OR 3.586 TONNES in this  active delivery month of SEPTEMBER.

TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING:  3.586 TONNES

 
 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

NEW PLEDGED GOLD:

427,737.391, oz NOW PLEDGED  march 5/2021/HSBC  13.30 TONNES

229,101.115 PLEDGED  MANFRA 7.12 TONNES

306,347.005, oz  JPM  9.52 TONNES

1,195,064.751 oz pledged June 12/2020 Brinks/37.17 TONNES

104,945.541, oz Pledged August 21/regular account 3.164 tonnes JPMORGAN

54,250.898 oz International Delaware:  1.68 tonnes

169,535.980 oz Malca  5.28 TONNES

2,787.137 OZ  Loomis 0.08 tonnes // added August 27  

total pledged gold:  2,320,243.839oz                                     72.169 tonnes

 

SURPRISINGLY WE HAVE BEEN WITNESSING NO REAL PHYSICAL GOLD ENTERING THE COMEX VAULTS FOR THE PAST YEAR!! ..ONLY PHONY KILOBAR ENTRIES…. WE HAVE 501.07 TONNES OF REGISTERED GOLD WHICH CAN SETTLE UPON LONGS 3.586 tonnes

CALCULATION OF REGISTERED THAT CAN BE SETTLED UPON:

 

total registered or dealer  18,429,809.719 oz or 573.24 tonnes
 
 
 
total weight of pledged: 2,320,243.83 oz or 72.169 tonnes
 
 
registered gold that can be used to settle upon: 16,110,956.0 (501.07 tonnes) 
 
 
 
 
true registered gold  (total registered – pledged tonnes16,110,956.0 (501.07 tonnes)   
 
 
total eligible gold: 15,842,130.334 oz   (492.75 tonnes)
 
 
 
total registered, pledged  and eligible (customer) gold  34,311,940.053 oz or 1,067.24 tonnes
 (INCLUDES 4 GC GOLD)
 
 

total 4 GC gold:   126.34 tonnes

total gold net of 4 GC:  941.90 tonnes

end

 
 

I have compiled  data with respect to registered (or dealer) gold taken on first day notice for each of the past 24 months

The data begins on first day notice for the May month taken on the last day of July 2018. and it continues to present day.

I then took, how many deliveries were recorded by the CME for each and every month.  I also included for reference the price of gold on first day notice.

The first graph is a logarithmic  graph and the second graph, linear.

You can see the huge explosion of registered gold at the comex along with deliveries.

 
 
THE DATA AND GRAPHS:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
END

AUGUST 31/2021

And now for the wild silver comex results

INITIAL STANDING FOR SILVER//SEPTEMBER

Silver Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory
 
nil  oz
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Deposits to the Dealer Inventory
nil OZ
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Deposits to the Customer Inventory
676,815.900
 OZ
CNT
HSBC
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No of oz served today (contracts)
3826
 
CONTRACT(S)
19,130,000  OZ)
 
No of oz to be served (notices)
1702 contracts
 8,510,000oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)  3826 contracts

 

19,130,000 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Dealers inventory this month NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Customer inventory this month
 
We had 0 deposit into the dealer
 
 

total dealer deposits:  nil        oz

i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal

total dealer withdrawals: nil oz

we had  2 deposits into customer account (ELIGIBLE ACCOUNT)

i) Into CNT:  615,589.900 oz

ii) Into HSBC: 60,226.00 oz

 
 
 
 

JPMorgan now has 186.173 million oz  silver inventory or 51.23% of all official comex silver. (186.17 million/362.071 million

total customer deposits today 676,815.900   oz

we had 0 withdrawals

 

 

total withdrawal nil        oz

 

adjustments: 2 dealer to customer
i) Delaware:  14,534/560
ii) Int Delaware; 39,999.06 oz
 
 

Total dealer(registered) silver: 107.436 million oz

total registered and eligible silver:  362.071 million oz

a net 0,676 million oz enters  the comex silver vaults.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 
 
For Sept. we have an open interest of 5528 notices standing and thus by definition, the initial amount of
silver standing in this active delivery month of September is as follows:
 
 
5528 notices x 5,000 oz/notice =  27,640,000 oz
 
very poor for Sept.  I guess the boys know that they are not going to obtain much metal over here 
 
 

OCTOBER GAINED 218 CONTRACTS TO STAND AT 2342

DEC GAINED 2246 CONTRACTS UP TO 123,539

 
NO. OF NOTICES FILED:  3826  FOR 19,130,000 OZ.

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in SEPTEMBER. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at  3826 x 5,000 oz = 19,130,000 oz to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of SEPT 5528) and the number of notices served upon today 3826 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the SEPT standings for silver for the SEPT./2021 contract month: 3826 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for front month of SEPT(5528)  – number of notices served upon today (3826) x 5000 oz of silver standing for the SEPTEMBER contract month .equals 27,640,000 oz. ..POOR FOR SEPT 

 

TODAY’S ESTIMATED SILVER VOLUME  45,164 CONTRACTS // volume poor///

 

FOR YESTERDAY  60,970  ,CONFIRMED VOLUME/ /poor//

COMMODITY LAW SUGGESTS THAT OPEN INTEREST SHOULD NOT BE MORE THAN 3% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL PRODUCTION. THE CROOKS ARE SUPPLYING MASSIVE PAPER TRYING TO KEEP SILVER IN CHECK.

The record level of silver open interest is 234,787 contracts set on April 21./2017 with the price at that day at $18.42. The previous record was 224,540 contracts with the price at that time of $20.44

end

NPV for Sprott

1. Sprott silver fund (PSLV): NAV  RISES TO -1.64% (AUGUST 31/2021)

SILVER FUND POSITIVE TO NAV

no of oz of physical silver held  JULY 8.2021;  150,926,000  (GAIN OF 6.411 MILION OZ IN A MONTH)

No of oz of physical silver held; MAY 24/2021  144,515,694 OZ

No. of oz of physical silver held:  Sept 20/20: 85,907.3616  Oz

No of oz pf physical silver held: Dec 21/2019:  65,073.570 Oz

During the past 8 months Sprott has added: 58,608.30 Oz

So far this year: 53.8 million oz

2. Sprott gold fund (PHYS): premium to NAV RISES TO -0.85% nav   (AUGUST 31)/2021 )

 

3. SPROTT CEF .A   FUND (FORMERLY CENTRAL FUND OF CANADA)

NAV $18.45 TRADING 17.89//NEGATIVE  3.04

 

END

 

And now the Gold inventory at the GLD/(this vehicle is a fraud as there is no gold behind them!

AUGUST 31/WITH GOLD UP $5.60 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1001.72 TONNES./

AUGUST 30/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.15 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1001.72 TONNES/

AUGUST 27/WITH GOLD UP $23.79 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1001.72 TONNES

AUGUST 26/WITH GOLD UP $6.10 TODAY, A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.91 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1001.72 TONNES.

AUGUST 25/WITH GOLD DOWN $17.00 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.03 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1004.63 TONNES

AUGUST 24/ WITH GOLD UP $2.60 TODAY: A MONSTER CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 4.95 TONNES//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1006.66 TONNES.

AUGUST 23/WITH GOLD UP $21.25 TODAY:  NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1011.61 TONNES// 

AUGUST 20/WITH GOLD UP $1.05 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 3.49 TONNES FROM THE GLD //INVENTORY RESTS AT 1011.61 TONNES

AUGUST 19/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.30 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1015.10 TONNES/

AUGUST 18/WITH GOLD  DOWN $2.85 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 5.53 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1015.10 TONNES/

AUGUST 17/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.50 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.16 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1020.63 TONNES

AUGUST 16/WITH GOLD UP $11.50 TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A LOSS OF 1.75 TONNES FROM TH EGLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1021.79 TONNES

AUGUST 13/WITH GOLD UP $26.20 TODAY NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1023.54 TONNES

AUGUST 12/ WITH GOLD DOWN $1.20 TODAY NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1023.54 TONNES

AUGUST 11/WITH GOLD UP $21.20 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1023.54 TONNES

AUGUST 10/WITH GOLD UP $11.50 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.75 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1023.54 TONNES

AUGUST 9/WITH GOLD DOWN $37.10 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1025.29 TONNES

AUGUST 6/WITH GOLD DOWN $44.10 TODAY: TWO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A SMALL WITHDRAWAL OF .36 TONNES TO PAY FOR FEES. ANDLATE IN THE DAY A HUGE 2.32 TONNE WITHDRAWAL//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1025.29 TONNES

AUGUST 5/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.15 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1027.97 TONNES

AUGUST 4/WITH GOLD UP $.45 TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.74 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1027.97 TONNES

AUGUST 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $6.95 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.75 TONNES FROM THE GLD../INVENTORY RESTS AT 1029.71 TONNES.

AUGUST 2/WITH GOLD UP $4.45 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1031.46 TONNES.

JULY 30/WITH GOLD DOWN $17.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1031.46 TONNES

JULY 29/WITH GOLD UP $29.80 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A HUGE PAPER DEPOSIT OF 5.82 TONNES INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1031.46 TONNES

JULY 28/WITH GOLD UP $1.00 TODAY:NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1025.64 TONNES

JULY 27/WITH GOLD UP 90 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.74 TONNES FROM THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 1025.64 TONNES.

JULY 26/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.65 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1027.35 TONNES.

JULY 23/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.20 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.17 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1027.35 TONNES

JULY 22/WITH GOLD UP $2.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1027.38 TONNES

JULY 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.85 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1028.55 TONES/

 

 
 
 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Inventory rests tonight at:

 

AUGUST 31 / GLD INVENTORY 1011.61 tonnes

 

LAST;  1125 TRADING DAYS:   +76.97 TONNES HAVE BEEN ADDED THE GLD

 

LAST 975 TRADING DAYS// +  252.33. TONNES HAVE NOW  BEEN ADDED INTO  THE GLD INVENTORY

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Now the SLV Inventory/( vehicle is a fraud as there is no physical metal behind them!)

AUGUST 31/WITH SILVER UP 2 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 5.002 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV/////INVENTORY RESTS AT 550.880 MILLION OZ

 

AUGUST 30/WITH SILVER DOWN 7 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY REST S AT 545.878 MILLION OZ////

AUGUST 27/WITH SILVER UP 47 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 545.878 MILLION OZ/./

AUGUST 26/WITH SILVER DOWN 22 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 545.878 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 25/WITH SILVER DOWN 11 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 545.878 MILLION OZ/

AUGUST

24/WITH SILVER UP 37 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLSV: ANOTHER PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 3.427 MILLION OZ AND THIS IS HEADING FOR SPROTT//INVENTORY RESTS AT 545.878 MILLION OZ..

AUGUST 23/WITH SILVER UP 50 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV;A HUGE WITHDRAWAL OF 2.641 MILLION OZ//INVENTORY RESTS AT 549.305 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 20/WITH SILVER DOWN 11 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 551.946 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 19/WITH SILVER DOWN 20 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: ANOTHER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.389 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 551.946 MILLION OZ/

AUGUST 18/ WITH SILVER DOWN 25 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.131 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV.INVENTORY REST AT 553.375 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 17/WITH SILVER DOWN 14 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 555.466 MILLION OZ.

AUGUST 16/WITH SILVER UP 8 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 555.466 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 13/WITH SILVER UP 59 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE   SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.038 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 555.466 MILLION OZ.

AUGUST 12/WITH SILVER DOWN 39 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.428 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 11/WITH SILVER UP 13 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.428 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 10.WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.428 MILLION OZ/

AUGUST 9/WITH SILVER DOWN 78 CENTS TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 371,000 OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.428 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 6/WITH SILVER DOWN 86 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.057 MILLION OZ.

AUGUST 5/WITH  SILVER DOWN 17 CENTS TODAY;NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.057 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 4/WITH SILVER DOWN 12 CENTS TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV;A WITHDRAWAL OF 240,000 OZ FORM THE SLV//INVENTORY REST AT 553.057 MILLION OZ//

AUGUST 3/WITH  SILVER UP 4 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.297 MILLION OZ..

AUGUST 2/WITH SILVER UP 5 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.297 MILLION OZ.

JULY 30/WITH SILVER DOWN 23 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.02 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 553.297 MILLION OZ//

JULY 29/WITH SILVER UP 86 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.151 MILLION OZ//INVENTORY RESTS AT 552.277 MILLION OZ..

JULY 28/WITH SILVER UP 20 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 555.428 MILLION OZ//

JULY 27/WITH SILVER DOWN 64 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 555.428 MILLION OZ..

JULY 26/WITH SILVER UP 7 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 555.428 MILLION OZ.

JULY 23/WITH SILVER DOWN 11 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 555.428 MILLION OZ.

JULY 22/WITH SILVER UP 10 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A PAPER WITHDRAWAL OF 1.483 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV/////INVENTORY RESTS AT 555.428 MILLION OZ..

JULY 21/WITH SILVER UP 25 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 556.911 MILLION OZ//

 

 
 

SLV INVENTORY RESTS TONIGHT AT

AUGUST 31/2021      550.880 MILLION OZ

 
 

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER STORIES

Peter Schiff

Peter Schiff: Jerome Powell Tapers The Taper Talk

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 12:50 PM

via SchiffGold (emphasis ours),

Jerome Powell delivered his much-anticipated speech virtually during the Jackson Hole summit on Aug. 27. Peter Schiff talked about the speech during his podcast. Everybody expected a hawkish speech outlining the Fed’s plan to taper quantitative easing. Instead, Powell tapered the taper talk.

The economic summit was titled “Macroeconomics in an Uneven Economy.” Financial analyst Jim Grant suggested a better title would be “Gasoline on Housefire,” or “Hoses in a Hurricane.”

Because $120 billion dollars a month [in asset purchases] in an economy that is bounding and running with good health – the stock market is at all-time highs, 4,000-year lows in interest rates, and on and on – you wonder, why is the Fed still in crisis mode?”

Most people were anticipating Powell would use the moment to unveil the plan to begin a taper of quantitative easing. Up to that point, the taper was only talked about as a hypothetical. Even as the central bankers have hinted at tapering, the Fed has continued to monetize around $120 billion in debt every month. As Peter reminded us, a taper doesn’t mean the Federal Reserve will stop asset purchases altogether. It will just slow them down. A slightly looser monetary policy doesn’t mean tight monetary policy.

Leading up to the speech, several Fed presidents expressed their preference for a fall taper. The expectation was that Powell would echo those sentiments, but also put some teeth in them by clarifying exactly what taper would entail.

At this point, nobody has any idea how much tapering the Fed will actually do, or how long the first taper will go on before it cuts asset purchases further. And there is no hint on how long it will take to wind QE down completely. As Peter pointed out, this is important information to know.

One of the reasons why it’s so important to understand the timetable for the taper and for QE eventually being wound down to zero is that everybody on the Fed, including Powell today [during his speech], has made it perfectly clear the first rate hike will not start before the taper ends and there’s no more QE. Think about that. The Fed is basically assuring the markets that interest rates are going to stay at zero until the Fed stops doing quantitative easing. And we have no idea how long it’s going to take before they ever end their QE program — if they ever end their QE program.”

Why is the Fed doing that? The central bankers keep talking about a strengthening economy. Yet rates are at zero and will likely stay there for months on end. If the Fed intends to raise interest rates, it should already be raising them.

The fact that they’re pretending they’re not going to raise them until some point in the future once they finish their QE program to me says that the Fed knows that they’re never going to raise interest rates.”

The last time the Fed tried to raise rates, they didn’t get anywhere near normal.

Now they’re not even trying because they’re leaving them at zero indefinitely. So, if the Fed created such an enormous problem back in the 2000s because it was too slow in returning rates to normal, think of the enormity of the problems that are being created now when the Fed isn’t even trying to raise interest rates back to normal. In fact, it’s not even trying to raise interest rates at all, and it’s leaving them at zero, which is lower than they were at any point prior to the housing bubble.”

Peter said the only reason the Fed would make this all-or-nothing bet on “transitory” inflation is if they know the bet is already lost. The Fed is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. If it raises rates now, it will create a financial crisis. If it waits until later, it will create an even bigger crisis. It seems the Fed’s only goal is to delay the crisis as long as possible.

As long as crisis is inevitable, just delay it. And that is exactly what they’re doing, by pretending inflation is transitory. And to a lesser extent, that’s what they’re doing by pretending that at some point in the future, they’re actually going to raise rates when they really have no intention of doing that at all.”

Powell’s Jackson Hole speech really confirms this.

Instead of getting this hawkish speech introducing the taper, this was the most dovish speech Powell could have possibly delivered. In fact, the word ‘taper’ wasn’t even spoken once. In fact, there was only one line in the entire speech that referred to the potential for a reduction in asset purchases. And the only thing that Powell said was that a reduction in the asset purchases this year could be appropriate. That’s all he said. He didn’t say it would be appropriate or that it is appropriate now. He simply said that it could be appropriate, which also means it might not be appropriate.”

If the plan was to taper, Powell had every opportunity to clarify that intention. He did no such thing. He spent most of the speech trying to convince everybody inflation really is transitory.

Powell goes on to talk more about Powell’s speech. He also covers gold stocks and the debacle in Afghanistan.

EGON VON GREYERZ//MATHEW PIEPENBERG/JIM RICKARDS/PAM AND RUSS MARTENS

 

OR LAWRIE WILLIAMS

LAWRIE WILLIAMS: Gold and silver

 

ii) Important gold commentaries courtesy of GATA/Chris Powell

Dr Mark Mobius, a very smart guy states that one should gold 10% of his assets in gold

Dr Mobius ran Templeton funds.

(Bloomberg/GATA)

 

Mobius says hold 10% in gold as currencies will be devalued

 

 

Submitted by admin on Mon, 2021-08-30 09:27 Section: Daily Dispatches

 

By Abhishek Vishnoi and Ranjeetha Pakiam 
Bloomberg News
Monday, August 30, 2021

Veteran investor Mark Mobius said investors should have 10% of a portfolio in gold as currencies will be devalued following the unprecedented stimulus rolled out to fight the coronavirus pandemic. 

At this stage, “10% should be put into physical gold,” said Mobius, who set up Mobius Capital Partners after more than three decades at Franklin Templeton Investments. “Currency devaluation globally is going to be quite significant next year given the incredible amount of money supply that has been printed.” …

… For the remainder of the report:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-30/mobius-says-hold-10-in-gold-as-currencies-set-to-be-devalued

END

John Paulson is rapidly becoming a goldbug.  He states that inflation will escort gold to its revival.

(Bloomberg)

Inflation will escort gold to its revival, Paulson says, scorning cryptocurrencies

 

 

Submitted by admin on Mon, 2021-08-30 10:30 Section: Daily Dispatches

 

Billionaire Paulson, Who Shorted Subprime, Calls Crypto ‘Worthless’ Bubble

By Steven Crabill
Bloomberg News
Monday, August 30, 2021

Ever since John Paulson bet against the U.S. housing market more than a decade ago, people keep asking him about his next big trade.

The billionaire hasn’t found anything to rival his massive short, but it’s hard to top the $20 billion that Paulson made for himself and investors when subprime mortgage bonds collapsed and ignited the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Now though, more than 14 years after CDOs and credit-default swaps dominated everyone’s attention, Paulson is again seeing signs of excessive speculation.

Paulson, 65, is increasingly concerned about rising prices, he said in an episode of “Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein.” The rapidly expanding money supply could push inflation rates well above current expectations, he said, and gold, which he has backed for years, is primed for its moment. 

His harshest words are for the hottest investments of this era. SPACs, on average, will be a losing proposition, while cryptocurrencies are a bubble that will “eventually prove to be worthless.” …

… For the remainder of the report:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-30/is-bitcoin-a-good-investment-billionaire-paulson-says-crypto-worthless-bubble

END

Quite a story:  Freedom of information not given as the London’s financial times aids the concealment of gold market rigging

(courtesy Chris Powell/GATA)

Freedom-of-information lament is ironic as FT aids concealment of gold market rigging

 

 

Submitted by admin on Mon, 2021-08-30 14:11 Section: Daily Dispatches

 

2:15p ET Monday, August 30, 2021

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Today’s edition of the Financial Times carries a lament by reporter Chris Cook about the British government’s four-year obstruction of his freedom-of-information request for access to two pages of a ministerial diary. 

The lament is headlined: “UK Officials Are Going to Great Lengths to Keep Their Secrets Secret” and it can be found here:

https://on.ft.com/2WBF5ux

Cook writes: “The contents are easy to find and process. But they refused my request, saying it would cause them ‘a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation, or distress.’

“What is on those two pages?”

Of course the FT is entitled to its opinion about which secret doings in government are important enough to tell readers about. But people who follow the gold sector are entitled to laugh at the FT’s priorities with the news.

For the greatest power of Western central banking long has been not its power to create and deploy infinite money in secret but the refusal of financial news organizations to question how this power is being used.

For example, in May GATA asked the Bank of England and the United Kingdom’s Treasury Department if  they had been involved with gold leasing in the previous 12 months.

GATA consultant Robert Lambourne, a U.K. citizen (or “subject,” as they seem to prefer to call themselves in monarchy land), posed the question in a formal FOI request.

The Bank of England replied to GATA that “there is no further information that can be provided.” The UK Treasury did not reply at all. Lambourne did not get an answer either. See:

https://www.gata.org/node/21024

The UK government’s refusal to answer a simple question about market intervention ordinarily might be pretty interesting to financial journalism. But not here.

Mainstream financial journalism is no better in the United States. 

For more than a year GATA and a member of Congress, Rep. Alex X. Mooney, R-West Virginia, have asked the U.S. Commodity Futures Commission whether it has jurisdiction over manipulative trading in the futures market undertaken by or at the behest of the U.S. government. The commission refuses to answer:

https://www.gata.org/node/20089

Of course any sentient being seeing these refusals to answer might fairly conclude that the governments are concealing something improper or at least disreputable and unfair — that they are striving to deceive and cheat people.

Protecting people against deception and cheating used to be the highest ambition of journalism. But these days mainstream financial journalism’s highest ambition seems to be to protect the government against the people instead. At least in that respect the FT continues to do a great job.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org

END

My goodness: illegal mining in Brazil: 30% of its gold exports are illegal

(Reuters)

Nearly 30% of Brazil’s gold exports are illegal, report says

 

 

Submitted by admin on Mon, 2021-08-30 20:57 Section: Daily Dispatches

 

By Lisandra Paraguassu
Reuters
Monday,August 30, 2021

BRASILIA — Roughly 28% of Brazilian gold exports in 2019 and 2020 likely came from illegal mines, a report by public prosecutors and the Federal University of Minas Gerais found, pointing to widespread forging of documents and lack of effective law enforcement.

The report found indications of illegality related to 48.9 tonnes of gold in the two-year period

Wildcat miners in Brazil often extract gold from areas where no mining is allowed, such as protected nature reserves or indigenous land.

That mining, done without regard to environmental regulations, drives deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and has been shown to poison rivers with mercury. …

… For the remainder of the report:

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/nearly-30-brazils-gold-exports-are-illegal-report-says-2021-08-30/

* * *

END

OTHER PHYSICAL STORIES

Andrew Maguire/Kinesis

a must view….

COMEX Silver Bought Back By Refiners For First Time In History

Kinesis Money's Photo

 

BY KINESIS MONEY
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 5:39

Make sure you catch the next episode of Live from the Vault, where Andrew Maguire shares insights and analysis on the gold and silver markets. Subscribe.

This week, Andrew Maguire explores the unique conditions that have seen refiners buying back COMEX physical silver for the first time in the history of the Silver Futures market. 

With his usual surgical analysis of the markets, the precious metals expert timelines the events that have helped form the perfect base for gold and silver to rally. The long-time wholesaler highlights an intriguing correlation between current market conditions and March’s implosion of the EFP conduit, only adding fuel to the fire. 

 

end

 

FERTILIZER

Now fertilizer prices have hit decade highs as farmers struggle for supply

(zerohedge)

Fertilizer Prices Hit Near Decade High As Farmers Struggle For Supply

 
MONDAY, AUG 30, 2021 – 08:40 PM

North American fertilizer prices are nearing a decade high this week as soaring commodity prices allow farmers to expand crop production, boosting demand for nutrients essential to producing food. 

The fertilizer industry is experiencing supply-side constraints while demand is rising. 

Rabobank’s latest commodity note explained that farmers are expanding plantings and dispensing more fertilizer on fields to increase crop yields since ag prices have jumped due to money printing by the central bank, weather-related issues worldwide, and supply chain issues. The Dutch bank warns, higher prices will curb purchases of fertilizers. 

“Matched against the furor of trade and geopolitics, fertilizer prices will near the equilibrium under which relative value creates demand destruction,” analyst Matheus Almeida said. 

Bloomberg lists several factors driving up the costs of fertilizer, include “elevated freight rates, increased tariffs, higher energy costs and supply constraints for nitrogen, potash, and phosphate.” 

It’s unclear how long fertilizer prices will remain at 9-year highs, but increased farming costs will put upward pressure on food prices. So much for the “transitory” narrative the Federal Reserve and mainstream media continue to pedal. 

In early March, we quoted Citi’s commodity desk who expressed optimism in the agri space. At the time, they pointed out: “We remain positive on all Ag names, and our rank order is MOS, NTR, CF, CTVA, and FMC.”

END
 
ALUMINUM
 
Record high prices

Aluminum Prices Hit Decade High Amid China’s Drive To Cut Carbon Emissions

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 02:20 PM

Aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange hit a 10-year high Tuesday, extending a year-long vertical surge as demand rebounds and supply shrinks, as smelters in top producer China faced tougher power controls, stoking supply worries for the energy-intensive metal. Benchmark three-month aluminum climbed 1.8% to $2,696 a tonne in official trading after touching its highest since May 2011 at $2,726.50, and rapidly approaching all time highs around $3,000.

In China, the most-traded October aluminum contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed up 1.2% at 21,390 yuan ($3,311.09) a tonne, hovering near its highest since August 2008 of 21,550 yuan a tonne hit in the previous session.

Aluminum prices have been supported by production curbs in Chinese smelting regions often aimed at easing the strain on the power grid. The latest price surge comes as the government in China’s Guangxi region, an aluminum and alumina production hub, on Monday called for tougher controls on energy consumption in a statement issued after a teleconference. The region is China’s third-biggest producer of alumina, a primary product of aluminum, with output of 925,500 tonnes in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

A stream of announcements from China about the challenges faced by smelters, combined with soaring global demand, have buttressed prices, said Wood Mackenzie analyst Uday Patel. China’s production would still rise this year compared with last year, albeit at a slower pace, he said, adding that its output is about 500,000-600,000 tonnes lower than was expected at the start of 2021.

Meanwhile, Consultancy Mysteel said that eight aluminium smelting companies in Guangxi will have to keep their September production at a maximum of 80% of average monthly output in the first half of the year. That could equate to a reduction in annual operating capacity of 475,000 tonnes, it said.

“The impact of power and production restrictions in Yunnan is still expanding,” Huatai Futures said in a report, adding the addition of other production areas to the list was not ruled out. Yunnan, as Reuters reminds us, is an aluminum hub and has seen some smelters forced to cut production due to power curbs this year.

The China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association held a meeting of top aluminum smelters on Monday to address what it described as an “irrational surge” in aluminum prices. Paradoxically, also on Monday, local government officials gathered to discuss cutting output of energy-intensive materials in response to Beijing’s campaign to save power and restrain emissions, according to people familiar with the situation. The meeting followed comments last week from Vice Premier Han Zheng, who called for nationwide curbs on industrial activities that produce too much pollution or fail energy-intensity standards.

The problem is that by further shrinking supply, prices will explode even higher. Amid the confusion, analysts are trying to forecast where the demand and supply curves – both of which are in constant flux – will settle:

“A slew of Chinese policies has recently come to affect aluminum output, pushing prices higher,” Wei Lai, an analyst with TF Futures Co., told Bloomberg via phone. “Policies including the power consumption cap are expected to stay through the rest of the year. So the upside momentum remains for aluminum. Prices can hardly retreat as long as demand remains intact.”

The metal, which has wide applications in everything from car pates, appliances, defense weapons, airplanes, and even down to the typical soda can, has faced strong demand since the pandemic after global central banks and governments unleashed trillions of dollars in stimulus. Goldman Sachs’ Jeffery Currie told clients last week: 

As demand improves seasonally from September, aided by reduced lockdown effects and some probable supportive policy adjustments, we expect continued tightness onshore into Q4 and support for higher import volumes of refined metal. This fundamental setup will offer support for a trend higher in both copper and aluminum prices in particular.

Deutsche Bank’s Liam Fitzpatrick expanded more on China’s curtailment of power in industrial hubs that will impact metal outputs: 

Aluminum prices in China have reached the highest levels since 2007, reflecting a range of production disruptions, including emissions-related curtailments and power rationing. The tight power market and recent announcement from the NDRC that a number of provinces missed their power consumption targets in H1’21 increases the risk of further smelter curtailments/ramp-up delays later this year and in 2022. Earlier this month, the Chinese government issued the “Barometer of Completion of the Dual Control Targets” for energy consumption in H1’21. Five provinces with substantial aluminum capacity (~16 mt productions in 2021) received first-level warnings and will face pressure to reduce energy consumption for the rest of the year. 

China produces about 60% of the world’s aluminum and output reductions suggest prices will remain elevated for the foreseeable future, further denting any hopes that the current price surge will be “transitory.”

 

Your early TUESDAY morning currency, Asian stock market results, important USA/Asian currency crosses, gold/silver pricing overnight along with the price of oil Major stories overnight/7 AM EST

i) Chinese yuan vs usa dollar/CLOSED UP AT 6.4615 

 

//OFFSHORE YUAN 6.4559  /shanghai bourse CLOSED UP 15.79 PTS OR 0.45% 

HANG SANG CLOSED UP 339.45 PTS OR 1.33 %

2. Nikkei closed UP 300.45 PTS OR 1.33% 

 

3. Europe stocks  ALL RED

 

USA dollar INDEX DOWN TO  92.43/Euro RISES TO 1.1839

3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: RISES TO. +.026/ !!!!(Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese yen vs usa cross now at 109,87/ THIS IS TROUBLESOME AS BANK OF JAPAN IS RUNNING OUT OF BONDS TO BUY./JAPAN 10 YR YIELD IS NOW TARGETED AT .11%/JAPAN LOSING CONTROL OF THEIR BOND MARKET//CARRY TRADERS GETTING KILLED

3c Nikkei now JUST ABOVE 17,000

3d USA/Yen rate now well below the important 120 barrier this morning

3e WTI:: 68.70 and Brent: 71.68

3f Gold UP/JAPANESE YenUP CHINESE YUAN:   ON -SHORE CLOSED UP-OFF SHORE:UP

3g Japan is to buy the equivalent of 108 billion uSA dollars worth of bond per month or $1.3 trillion. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion usa./“HELICOPTER MONEY” OFF THE TABLE FOR NOW /REVERSE OPERATION TWIST ON THE BONDS: PURCHASE OF LONG BONDS AND SELLING THE SHORT END

Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and by 2018 they will have 25% of all Japanese debt. Fifty percent of Japanese budget financed with debt.

3h Oil DOWN for WTI and DOWN FOR Brent this morning

3i European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund FALLS TO -.397%/Italian 10 Yr bond yield RISES to 0.68% /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD UP TO 0.33%…ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD/GERMAN BUND: 1.08: DANGEROUS FOR THE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM

3j Greek 10 year bond yield FALLS TO : 0.74

3k Gold at $1812.65 silver at: 24.08   7 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00

3l USA vs Russian rouble; (Russian rouble DOWN 30/100 in roubles/dollar) 73.55

3m oil into the 68 dollar handle for WTI and  72 handle for Brent/

3n Higher foreign deposits out of China sees huge risk of outflows and a currency depreciation. This can spell financial disaster for the rest of the world/

JAPAN ON JAN 29.2016 INITIATES NIRP. THIS MORNING THEY SIGNAL THEY MAY END NIRP. TODAY THE USA/YEN TRADES TO 109.88 DESTROYING JAPANESE CITIZENS WITH HIGHER FOOD INFLATION

30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this morning .9129 as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 1.0809 well above the floor set by the Swiss Finance Minister. Thomas Jordan, chief of the Swiss National Bank continues to purchase euros trying to lower value of the Swiss Franc.

3p BRITAIN VOTES AFFIRMATIVE BREXIT/LOWER PARLIAMENT APPROVES BREXIT COMMENCEMENT/ARTICLE 50 COMMENCES MARCH 29/2017

3r the 10 Year German bund now NEGATIVE territory with the 10 year FALLING to –0.397%

The bank withdrawals were causing massive hardship to the Greek bank. the Greek referendum voted overwhelming “NO”. Next step for Greece will be the recapitalization of the banks and that will be difficult.

4. USA 10 year treasury bond at 1.292% early this morning. Thirty year rate at 1.900%

5. Details Ransquawk, Bloomberg, Deutsche bank/Jim Reid.

6.  TURKISH LIRA:  UP  TO 8.30..  VERY DEADLY

Futures Reverse Overnight Ramp After ECB Hints At Its Own Taper

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 07:39 AM

Stock markets set new record highs on Tuesday as investors ended August in a buoyant mood, confident that the Federal Reserve’s eventual tapering of QE would not knock asset prices anytime soon. S&P futures initially hit a new all time high after the underlying index notched its 12th all-time high in August and 53rd for the year, rising as high as 4,542…

…. before dropping after the ECB’s Holzmann said the ECB should start its own tapering debate as the following Bloomberg headlines show.

  • *HOLZMANN: ECB IN POSITION TO THINK ABOUT REDUCING PANDEMIC AID
  • *HOLZMANN: ECB SHOULD DE-LINK GUIDANCE ON RATES, APP BOND-BUYING
  • *HOLZMANN: APP DOESN’T NEED SAME KIND OF FLEXIBILITY AS PEPP
  • *HOLZMANN: WOULD ADVOCATE FOR SLOWDOWN OF PEPP PURCHASES IN 4Q

Nasdaq futures also turned red while Dow Jones futures were modestly in the green at 7am.  Oil also fell, along with the dollar.  In U.S. premarket trading, Chinese gaming-related stocks listed in the U.S. recovered from Monday’s slump, while Zoom dropped 11% after the video-conferencing company’s guidance confirmed the concerns of bears over a slowdown in pandemic-fueled growth even as bullish analysts say this offers a buying opportunity with the company’s long-term attractions intact.  Other notable movers included:

  • Spok Holdings (SPOK) soars 21% to about $9.49 after Acacia Research Corp. proposed acquiring all outstanding shares for $10.75 apiece in cash.
  • New retail trader favorites Vinco Ventures (BBIG) and Support.com (SPRT) gain 5.2% and 2.6% respectively in premarket trading, continuing the recent rallies for both stocks.

Chinese gaming-related stocks listed in the U.S. recovered from Monday’s drop triggered by Beijing’s move to cut back the amount of time children can play online. Among these were Bilibili +3.4%, Kingsoft Cloud +2.1%, Huya +2%.

“While risks remain, and investors should reflect this in their portfolios, we believe the backdrop for equities remains positive, and we advise investors to position for reopening and recovery. We advise investors to position in stocks that should benefit from strong economic growth,” said Mark Haefele, Chief Investment Officer, UBS Global Wealth Management.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 50 countries, rose 0.28%. In Europe, stocks headed for their seventh straight month of gains, their longest monthly winning streak since 2013, as investors embraced a brightening outlook for risk assets on the policy and pandemic fronts.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index initially gained 0.2%, but then quickly turned negative following Holzmann’s comments earlier. The Stoxx 600 Index was supported by gains in utilities and technology shares, while airline stocks slipped after the European Union voted to place fresh restrictions on travelers from the U.S. amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the country. The Stoxx Europe 600 travel and leisure index was down 0.2% dragged down by airlines: Flagship carriers IAG -2.5%, Lufthansa -1.5% and non-SXTP member Air France-KLM -1.1%; low-cost airlines also fall: Wizz Air -2.7%, EasyJet -2.7%, Ryanair -1%. Here are some of the biggest European movers today:

  • Ambu shares jump as much as 9.6%, the biggest gain since January, after the CEO bought stock.
  • Ackermans rises as much as 6%, hitting the highest since August 2018. KBC (accumulate) says the holding company’s 1H results showed a recovery in all divisions.
  • Galapagos gains as much as 6.4%, the most since June 9, after the company said its CEO and co-founder is stepping down.
  • Bunzl falls as much as 3.4%, the most intraday since June 4, following interim results in which the firm said it’s seeing a reversal in pandemic-related sales.
  • IAG drops as much as 3.5% as the European Union voted to place new restrictions on travelers from the U.S. amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the country.

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks climbed, reversing earlier declines and heading for their first monthly gain since May, with Hong Kong technology shares leading the advance. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index jumped as much as 1.2%, erasing an earlier loss of 0.7%.  The Hang Seng Tech Index surged more than 3%, with Meituan rising after reporting better-than-expected quarterly sales. Samsung Electronics boosted South Korea’s Kospi Index, while Sony and Keyence lifted Japan’s benchmark. The Asian gauge is poised to climb more than 2% in August. Hardware technology stocks, led by chipmakers, have been in the spotlight as China’s regulatory onslaught casts a shadow over hot software names. Southeast Asian shares are set for their first monthly gain since April as some concerns ease over the delta variant’s spread. The Asian equity benchmark fell earlier in the day, hurt by data from China showing a “shocking” drop in the service sector. China’s economy took a knock from the delta virus outbreak in August, with the services industry contracting for the first time since February last year and manufacturing disrupted by supply-chain problems.

The CSI information technology sub-index slumped 2.67%. The ChiNext Composite start-up board was 2.51% weaker and Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR50 index fell 2.8%. “The Chinese tech sector is under pressure. Divergence should continue when the market faces a lot of uncertainties over Chinese policies,” said Edison Pun, senior market analyst at Saxo Markets.

Singapore’s stock benchmark was the day’s worst performer in Asia. “The region’s equities are looking super mixed because of the competing themes driving U.S. equities and China right now,” said Kyle Rodda, an analyst at IG Markets in Melbourne. On U.S. tapering, “the markets are betting they’ll take it slow and steady and that’s good for everyone. But really the big regional theme is this Chinese crackdown on its business sector and wealthy.”  Ping An Insurance sank in Hong Kong and Shanghai after Reuters reported that its property investments are being investigated by China’s banking and insurance watchdog. “There’s huge uncertainty about the extent and duration of the crusade, and whether this marks some permanent shift in social and economic policy in the country,” Rodda said. 

Japanese equities gained, reversing an earlier decline, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 bouncing back strongly to stand 1.1% higher despite weak July industrial output data, while the Topix index notching its biggest monthly gain since March. Electronics and chemical makers were the biggest boosts to the benchmark, which rose 0.5%, pushing its August advance to 3.1%. Fast Retailing and Tokyo Electron were the largest contributors to a 1.1% rise in the Nikkei 225. The blue chip gauge closed the month up 3%, its best performance since February. Japanese stocks fell earlier in the day, with both major measures dropping at least 0.6%. Meanwhile, the nation’s factory output fell less than expected in July and the unemployment rate edged lower. Andrew Sullivan, founder of Asian Market Sense, saw signs of “some end of month window dressing or short covering,” noting that stocks were lower in the morning following good Japanese data but then rose in the afternoon despite weak China PMI numbers. With changes to the JPX Nikkei Index 400 becoming effective today, “investors who had been in wait-and-see mode started buying up stocks after the morning drop,” said Eiji Kinouchi, an analyst at Daiwa Securities.

In rates, Treasuries were slightly cheaper, with losses led by the belly and following wider bund-led weakness amid comments from ECB Governing Council member Robert Holzmann. The 10Y yield traded at 1.2869%, slightly higher on the day, and the curve was cheaper by up to 1.5bp across 7-year sector, which underperforms on the curve as 2s7s30s fly extends 2bp on the day; bunds lag by 2.7bp vs. Treasuries in the 10-year sector, while Italian bonds underperform by 4.5bp.  “We are now in a situation where we can think about how to reduce the pandemic special programs — I think that’s an assessment we share,” ECB’s Holzmann says in an interview. Confirming that newsflow no longer matters, Treasuries saw little reaction to a huge miss in China’s non-manufacturing PMI in what was a muted overnight session.  German 10-year yield rise 3bps, and bunds yield curve bear steepens after Euro-Area inflation for August printed a 3% reading, above the estimated 2.7%, the highest since 2011.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell as the greenback declined against all Group-of-10 peers. Options suggest that traders see further topside risks for the dollar in coming months after August’s gain, though exposure should be selective among Group- of-10 peers. The euro rose a third consecutive day against the dollar to touch a day-high of $1.18 after euro-area inflation jumped to 3%, the highest in a decade, in August, and testing policy makers’ insistence that a post-crisis spike in cost pressures should prove temporary. The Australian and New Zealand dollars climbed as the commodity-linked currencies received a boost in risk-on markets; the Kiwi also advanced after Aussie-Kiwi broke below a slew of option-related bids at 1.0400. The yen was little changed and traded in a narrow range as risk-on sentiment dampened bids for the haven currency.

Meanwhile, oil headed for the biggest monthly loss since October as investors weighed factors including the prospect of additional OPEC+ production and the restoration of crude output in the U.S. after Hurricane Ida. Oil prices fell on concerns that power outages and flooding in Louisiana after Hurricane Ida would cut crude demand from refineries at the same time that global producers plan to raise output. U.S. crude reversed losses to stay flat at $69.22 a barrel. Brent fell to $72.85 a barrel, although it was off its weakest of the day as Hurricane Ida weakened into a Category 1 hurricane within 12 hours of coming ashore as a Category 4.

On today’s calendar we get the June FHFA house price index, August MNI Chicago PMI, and the August Conference Board consumer confidence. Joe Biden will deliver remarks on the subject this afternoon

Market snapshot

  • S&P 500 futures up 0.2% to 4,536.25
  • STOXX Europe 600 up 0.2% to 473.83
  • German 10Y yield up 2.2 bps to -0.417%
  • Euro up 0.3% to $1.1827
  • MXAP up 1.1% to 201.48
  • MXAPJ up 1.3% to 663.77
  • Nikkei up 1.1% to 28,089.54
  • Topix up 0.5% to 1,960.70
  • Hang Seng Index up 1.3% to 25,878.99
  • Shanghai Composite up 0.4% to 3,543.94
  • Sensex up 0.7% to 57,262.95
  • Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.4% to 7,534.90
  • Kospi up 1.8% to 3,199.27
  • Brent Futures down 1.0% to $72.71/bbl
  • Gold spot up 0.3% to $1,816.03
  • U.S. Dollar Index down 0.17% to 92.50

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

  • President Joe Biden’s choice of who will lead the Federal Reserve may come down to a debate about regulating Wall Street
  • Chinese President Xi Jinping chaired a high-level meeting that “reviewed and approved” measures to fight monopolies, battle pollution and shore up strategic reserves, all areas that are crucial to his government’s push to improve the quality of life for the nation’s 1.4 billion people
  • China’s securities regulator said it plans to rein in the country’s private equity and venture capital funds, stop public offerings disguised as private placements and fight embezzlement of assets
  • China’s economy took a knock from the delta virus outbreak in August, with the services industry contracting for the first time since February last year and manufacturing hit by supply chain problems. The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index fell to 50.1 from 50.4 in July, the National Bureau of Statistics said, slightly lower than the 50.2 median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists
  • German unemployment fell for a fourth straight month as businesses replenished their workforce and continued to recover from Covid-19 lockdowns. The decline of 53,000 in August was more than economists expected. It pushed down the jobless rate to 5.5%, the lowest since March last year
  • Austria plans to issue its first ever green bond next year, joining the flock of nations looking to issue debt tailored for investors with an environmentally conscious mandate
  • The Taliban called for good ties with the U.S. hours after the last American soldiers flew out of Kabul to end 20 years of war, with the militant group now facing a host of fresh challenges
  • Aluminum charged to a 10-year high in London, extending a year-long rebound as demand surges and supply of the usually abundant metal comes under pressure
  • Polish inflation surged to 5.4% from a year earlier in August, its highest level in two decades, piling pressure on policy makers to ditch their dovish stance and increase interest rates in the coming months. That exceeded the 5.1% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

Asian equity markets traded cautiously as participants digested disappointing Chinese PMI data and with a non-committal tone seen at month-end following the mixed handover from US, where the S&P 500 and Nasdaq extended on record highs led by growth and tech although cyclicals and financials lagged amid a lower yield environment. ASX 200 (+0.4%) was kept afloat by outperformance in tech and health care but with upside limited by soft domestic data releases, as well as ongoing virus restrictions that have been extended in the capital and with Australia’s Victoria State Premier also noting it is too soon to open up from the lockdown. Nikkei 225 (+1.1%) was subdued for most of the session after somewhat varied data releases including a surprise decline in the Unemployment Rate and with Industrial Production back in negative territory albeit at a narrower than expected decline, before staging a late rally to reclaim the 28k level. Hang Seng (+1.3%) and Shanghai Comp. (+0.4%) were initially lower after the miss on key Chinese data in which the headline Manufacturing PMI missed estimates at 50.1 vs exp. 50.2, while Non-Manufacturing and Composite PMI both showed a contraction for the first time in 16 months. The losses in Hong Kong were exacerbated by regulatory concerns with Ping An Insurance the worst hit amid reports China’s banking and insurance regulator is probing the Co.’s property market investments and Tencent is also pressured after China unveiled new restrictions on young people playing online games whereby gaming names are to only allow minors a total of three hours of play for the week. However, as the session progressed and European participants began to enter the fray losses were pared back and bourses ultimately concluded the session positively. Finally, 10yr JGBs were choppy with initial support amid the continued strength in T-notes as Fed Chair Powell’s dovish virtual Jackson Hole appearance continued to reverberate across US treasuries and amid roll activity, although JGBs later gave up their earlier gains as the risk appetite in Japan eventually improved and despite firmer results at this month’s 2yr JGB auction.

Top Asian News

  • China Seeks to Cap Rising Home Rents in Latest Equality Move
  • China Asked Some Big Banks to Raise August Loan Quota: Reuters
  • U.S.’s Kerry on Trip to Japan, China to Discuss Climate Efforts
  • Japan Seeks to Draw Banks, Brokers by Boosting Use of English

Stocks in Europe vary but ultimately hold an upside bias, with the Euro-bourses modestly firmer across the board but the UK’s FTSE 100 posting mild losses on its return from the long weekend (Euro Stoxx 50 +0.3%; Stoxx 600 Unch). European equity futures similarly vary, whilst their counterparts across the board are mildly firmer across the board with the NQ (+0.2%) and RTY (+0.3%) narrowly ahead of the YM (+0.1%) and ES (+0.1%). News flow has once again been light in early European hours, with markets treading water ahead of the US open and in the run-up to this week’s ISM metrics and the crucial US jobs report. Back to Europe, Euro-bourses saw a leg higher in conjunction with the bond decline seen after the above-forecast EZ CPI metrics, with the DAX Sep’21 future and cash eclipsing the 16k mark shortly after. The FTSE 100 (-0.2%) initially narrowly outperformed, but Monday’s declines in crude and yields caught up to heavyweight oil and banking names, with BP (-1.2%) and HSBC (-2.5%) among the laggards, with the latter also weighed on by its exposure to China amidst the ongoing crackdown – with the latest suggesting further measures against violations in the property sector. Sectors in Europe are mixed and do no portray any particular theme. Tech outperforms amid tailwinds from Wall Street whilst basic resources glean support from the price action across some base metals and alloys. Banks resided as the underperformer throughout most of the session, although the EZ CPI metric lifted yields off lows and the banking sector with it. In terms of individual movers, Ambu (+7%) resides at the top of the Stoxx 600, with some attributing the strength to reports that the CEO acquired shares in the firm. Rolls-Royce (-2.5%) failed to gain much traction from the noise surrounding a unit sale as shareholder Causeway Capital Management (9% stake) has called for a board shakeup. Finally, Infineon (+1.8%) and Weir Group (+3.0%) are both near the top of their respective bourses following broker upgrades.

Top European News

  • FTSE Loses Hot Stock With Just Eat’s Exit: Taking Stock
  • Prosus Acquires Additional 2.5% Stake in Delivery Hero
  • German Unemployment Falls to Lowest Level Since Virus Outbreak
  • U.K. Mortgage Approvals Fall to 75,152 in July Vs. Est. 78,000

In FX, the Buck is buckling again, and arguably succumbing to more than mere month end pressure after attempting to stabilise on Monday when the index recovered from a 92.595 low to trade near 92.800 at one stage. However, momentum faded just ahead of the 21 DMA and the index subsequently lost 92.500+ status to probe recent lows, including an effective double bottom either side of a weekend in mid-August (92.468 and 92.480 to be precise on August 13 and 16 respectively) before finding underlying bids at 92.456 vs 92.716 at best in advance of US house price data, Chicago PMI, consumer confidence and a couple of regional Fed surveys.

  • NZD/AUD – Yesterday’s major laggards are taking full advantage of the Greenback’s demise, while the Kiwi also caught the Aussie dwelling on weaker than expected building approvals data plus disappointing Chinese PMIs overnight to the extent that Aud/Nzd hit a 1.0350 trough irrespective of declines in NBNZ’s business outlook and own activity readings. Meanwhile, Nzd/Usd has breached 0.7050 and has the 100 DMA (0.7084) to aim for ahead of NZ terms of trade for Q2 on Wednesday, as Aud/Usd hovers below 0.7350 awaiting August’s manufacturing PMI, Q2 GDP and breakdown, with hefty 1.4 bn option expiry interest at the 0.7400 strike and the 50 DMA (0.7385) also capping the upside.
  • CHF/EUR – Some payback for the Franc and Euro as well following weak starts to the week, with Usd/Chf retreating through 0.9150 and Eur/Usd securing a firm grasp of the 1.1800 handle with some stronger than forecast Eurozone data including preliminary HICP, German jobs and French Q2 GDP.
  • CAD/GBP/JPY – The Loonie is consolidating after outperforming and scaling 1.2600 pre-monthly and quarterly Canadian growth data today, but further appreciation could be stymied by the proximity of 1.2 bn option expiries at 1.2560. Elsewhere, the Pound failed to get any incentive via BoE consumer credit, mortgage approvals or lending that came in sub-consensus across the board, as Cable touched 1.3800 before waning, and Sterling may also have been conscious of the fact that technical resistance lies just beyond the psychological level in the guise of 200 and 50 DMAs (1.3806 and 1.3813). Similarly, the Yen will be wary about an upside chart marker at 109.66 (100 DMA) as it meanders between 109.98-78 following not as bad as feared Japanese ip and an unforeseen dip in the jobless rate, though also underpinned by 50 DMA support if it slips beneath 110.00 as that stands closeby at 110.11 today.

In commodities, WTI and Brent futures are once again softer but still within yesterday’s ranges in the run-up to today’s JTC meeting and ahead of tomorrow’s JMMC/OPEC confabs (Click here for a full preview). The OPEC+ decision-making meeting will be taking place against potential supply threats from a rampant Delta variant and the US’ desire for lower oil prices. The group have several options on the table for September production: 1) stick with the planned +400k BPD monthly hike, 2) defer the hike and maintain current production for at least September, or 3) increase output by a smaller volume. OPEC+ ministers have been relatively quiet since the mid-July meeting, but sources have suggested that the planned 400k BPD hike will likely go ahead. The Kuwaiti oil minister, however, has indicated that producers could mull halting the planned hike, citing COVID as the main factor, although he added that nothing had yet been discussed among participants. In terms of scheduling, the Joint Technical Committee (JTC) will meet on Tuesday at 12:00BST/07:00EDT to assess oil market conditions and examine its developments and trends. The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) will then review this data on Wednesday at 15:00BST/10:00EDT and make a recommendation to OPEC+, with a meeting slated for 16:00BST/11:00EDT. As always with OPEC, timings are indicative and subject to delays. Elsewhere, eyes remain on the damage situation along the Gulf of Mexico following Hurricane Ida’s passing, with focus on whether production can swiftly come back online, with some 1.7mln BPD shuttered according to the latest BSEE release. WTI Sept resides around USD 68.50/bbl (vs USD 68.29-69.34/bbl range) while Brent Nov trades just under 72.00/bbl (vs USD 71.40-72.36/bbl range). Turning to metals, spot gold and silver have largely been moving in tandem with the Buck, with the former still above its 100 and 200 DMAs at USD 1,812/oz and USD 1,809/oz respectively. Turning to industrial metals, LME copper briefly topped USD 9,500/t on its return from the long weekend, although the downbeat Chinese PMI data has capped upside. Elsewhere, aluminium prices hit 10yr highs whilst Japan’s aluminium stocks are three major ports declined 11% M/M in July.

US Event Calendar

  • 9am: 2Q House Price Purchase Index QoQ, prior 3.5%
  • 9am: June S&P/CS 20 City MoM SA, est. 1.80%, prior 1.81%
  • 9am: June S&P CS Composite-20 YoY, est. 18.60%, prior 16.99%
  • 9:45am: Aug. MNI Chicago PMI, est. 68.0, prior 73.4
  • 10am: Aug. Conf. Board Consumer Confidence, est. 123.0, prior 129.1; Present Situation, prior 160.3; Expectations, prior 108.4;

DB’s Henry Allen concludes the overnight wrap

Having spent two weeks on EMR duties whilst Jim’s been away, I’ll finally be handing the reins back tomorrow, which will hopefully give me some much needed time for wedding planning ahead of next summer. Readers may recall our jubilation after my fiancée’s wedding dress came in 50% under budget, but this has since been met by another round of frights on the cost of everything else, with flowers being the latest example. The central bankers might be saying inflation is transitory, but I have to say this experience is struggling to persuade me.

For UK readers coming back to work after the holiday weekend, markets have continued to power forward whilst you’ve been away, with global equity indices reaching new heights thanks to dovish remarks from Fed Chair Powell at Jackson Hole last Friday (more on which below). However, we’re about to approach a much more eventful period on the calendar after a fairly light summer, and the next month alone will feature multiple elections (including Germany and Canada), central bank meetings (including the Fed and ECB), along with fights over US government spending and the debt ceiling. And that comes on top of the regular concerns about the pandemic, which will dominate in the background as the advanced economies approach the limits of where they can get to with their initial vaccination campaigns, and are increasingly debating the use of booster jabs in order to offer their citizens further protection against the virus.

This week, however, the main highlight will be on Friday as we get the August jobs report from the US. This will be in focus after Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole, where he said that there had been “clear progress toward maximum employment”, and that he was in favour of beginning to taper the Fed’s asset purchases this year. In terms of what to expect, our US economists think that the pace of hiring will slow somewhat after the strong report in July, but the +700k increase in nonfarm payrolls that they’re forecasting should be more than sufficient to keep the Fed on track to announce tapering at the November FOMC meeting. In turn, that jobs growth should see the unemployment rate fall to a fresh post-pandemic low of 5.2%.

Ahead of that, however, inflationary pressures in the Euro Area will be in focus, with the flash CPI estimate for August coming out today. Our European economists are of the view that headline HICP should jump up to +2.8% from +2.2% in July, which if realised would be the fastest pace for Euro Area inflation since December 2011, the month after Mario Draghi became ECB President. Furthermore, that follows yesterday’s inflation reading from Germany, which showed HICP rising to +3.4% as expected, which is the highest it’s been since July 2008. The central bankers are still pointing to transitory factors as being behind the inflation spikes lately, but the big worry for them will be that high inflation increases inflation expectations, and it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Staying on Germany, over the weekend and yesterday there were further indications that the centre-left SPD were cementing their newfound hold on first place ahead of the federal election in less than 4 weeks’ time. Firstly, there was an Insa poll that put the party at 25%, ahead of Chancellor Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc on 20% and the Greens on 16.5%, with that 5-point lead being the biggest SPD lead we’ve seen so far in this campaign. Furthermore, that comes on the back of a weekend TV debate between the three chancellor candidates, where a separate Forsa poll afterwards showed that 36% of viewers judged the SPD’s Olaf Scholz to be the winner, ahead of both Annalena Baerbock for the Greens on 30%, and the CDU’s Armin Laschet on 25%.

Turning to the pandemic, part of the market optimism we’ve seen over recent days has stemmed from increasing signs that the growth rate in new cases has been continuing to slow at the global level. Indeed, looking at data for the last 5 weeks from Johns Hopkins University, the global growth rate in cases has slowed down from +9.4%, to +7.0%, to +3.5%, to +1.1%, and last week to just +0.01%. So at this rate we might even see the first weekly decline in cases since early June. The United States has also witnessed a sharp slowdown in case growth, with last week seeing an increase of just under +8%, which is some way down from over +50% in a week last month and marks the slowest growth we’ve seen since June.

Overnight in Asia, sentiment has been weighed down by weaker-than-expected August PMIs from China, where the non-manufacturing PMI fell to a contractionary 47.5, which is below the 52.0 reading expected and down from 53.3 in July. Although the manufacturing reading was relatively resilient at 50.1 (vs. 50.4 last month and 50.2 expected), the composite PMI was below 50 as well as 48.9, which marks the first sub-50 reading since February 2020. A number of factors are behind the slowdown, including the imposition of lockdowns to control the spread of the delta variant, along with flooding in some regions, and the ongoing regulatory changes that have impacted domestic wealth. Speaking of new regulations, yesterday saw China increase its restrictions on online gaming as the regulators reduce the time children can play online each week to just three hours. Against this backdrop, the Hang Seng (-1.44%) and Shanghai Comp (-0.75%), have both lost ground this morning, although elsewhere in Asia, the Nikkei (+0.21%) and Kospi (+0.60%) have both moved higher. Elsewhere, futures on the S&P 500 are also up +0.11%.

Looking back to yesterday now, the main story was a continuation of the post-Jackson Hole price action, with equities higher and bond yields lower. The S&P 500 rose +0.43%, led by megacap tech stocks as the FANG+ index gained +1.58% to reach its highest closing level since mid-February. The gains there were led by Apple (+3.04%), Amazon (+2.15%), Tesla (+2.67%) and Facebook (+2.15%), as technology and healthcare stocks led the S&P higher and took the NASDAQ up +0.90% higher to another record close. On the other hand, airlines (-3.54%) fell back as the EU voted to reimpose restrictions on non-essential travel from the US. European equities saw little change, with the STOXX 600 seeing a limited +0.07% rise given the UK components in the index weren’t trading, whilst the CAC 40 (+0.08%) and the DAX (+0.22%) also saw modest advances.

As stated above, yields continued to fall yesterday with US 10-year yields declining -2.9bps to 1.279%, as those in Europe saw similar price action with yields on 10-year bunds (-1.6bps), OATs (-1.8bps) and BTPs (-2.1bps) all falling further.

In the US, oil prices have risen further after last week’s gains, following the arrival of Hurricane Ida in Louisiana late Sunday night. Many refiners in the areas already closed last week ahead of the storm, which helped see a strong rise in oil prices, and Brent Crude (+0.98%) and WTI (+0.68%) posted further gains yesterday. In terms of the equity impact, both energy (-1.16%) and insurance (-1.15%) stocks fell back in the US with the storm having already caused major damage in the region.

Looking at yesterday’s other data, the European Commission’s final consumer confidence indicator for the Euro Area in August came in at -5.3, in line with the preliminary reading, as Covid-19 and inflation worries continue to weigh on consumers. Separately, pending home sales for the US in July fell -1.8% (vs. +0.3% expected), underwhelming expectations as June’s reading was also revised down a tenth to -2.0% amidst a further tightening in housing supply. Lastly, the Dallas Fed’s manufacturing activity index for August fell some way below estimates at 9.0 (vs 23.0 expected) as the reading saw its biggest monthly decline relative to the previous month since the height of the pandemic last year.

Recapping last week’s events, the main highlight came from the aforementioned speech by Fed Chair Powell on Friday at the Jackson Hole Symposium. The main headline was that Powell was of the view that tapering could begin this year, given that he felt that there’d been “clear progress” towards the Fed’s maximum employment objective, and that the economy had already passed the test of “substantial further progress” on their inflation objective. However, Powell also struck a dovish tone that was picked up by investors, as he stressed that tapering was not a signal for eventual rate hikes, and warned that monetary policy should not respond to transitory inflation pressures, as any moves to tighten prematurely could needlessly slow hiring and keep inflation too low.

Markets reacted bullishly to the dovish developments, with the S&P 500 rising another +0.88% on Friday to finish the week up +1.52% at a fresh record high. It was also the largest one-day rally for the index in just over a month. At the same time, US sovereign bonds benefited as 10yr yields moved -4.2bps lower on Friday, although for the week as a whole, that still wasn’t enough to overcome the rise in yields earlier in the week, which left the 10yr yield +5.2bps higher overall. European equities experienced a similar rise as well, with the STOXX 600 rising +0.76% over the week to get within 1% of its all-time high.

3A/ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)TUESDAY MORNING/MONDAY  NIGHT: 

SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 15.79  PTS  OR 0.45%   //Hang Sang CLOSED UP 339.45 PTS OR 1.33%      /The Nikkei closed UP 300.25 PTS OR 1.08%   //Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED UP 0.45%

/Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP TO 6.4615  /Oil DOWN TO 68.70 dollars per barrel for WTI and 71.68 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL RED   //  ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED  UP AGAINST THE DOLLAR AT 6.4615. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.4559: /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING BELOW LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING STRONGER AGAINST USA DOLLAR/OFFSHORE YUAN TRADING STRONGER AGAINST THE DOLLAR /TRADE DEAL NOW DEAD..TRUMP  RAISED RATES TO 25%/

 

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

/SOUTH KOREA

 

end

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

JAPAN/TAIWAN

 

JAPAN/VACCINE/

 

 
END
 
JAPAN/VACCINE/MONDAY
 

 

end

3 C CHINA

 

CHINA/USA

 

CHINA/ECONOMY

This is a shocker for China:  Their service sector just imploded//2ns worst on record

(zerohedge)

“Absolute Shocker”: China’s Service Economy Unexpectedly Implodes With 2nd Worst Non-Mfg PMI Print On Record

 
MONDAY, AUG 30, 2021 – 11:24 PM

Three months ago when observing the reversal of China’s all-important credit impulse to negative, its first red print in over a year, we warned that China was set to unleash a deflationary wave across the world…

… but first it would be China’s own economy that is impacted.

And sure enough, the country which first emerged from the covid pandemic it created courtesy of a tidal wave of new debt creation which however collapsed right on schedule in July, when China’s Total Social Financing aggregate printed at the lowest level since February 2020…

… has just seen its service sector contract sharply, because moments ago China’s official Services (non-manucaturing) PMI Index unexpectedly collapsed from a healthy 53.3 to a contractionary 47.5 – the second lowest print on record with just the Feb 2020 peak covid print lower, badly missing the 52.0 Bloomberg consensus, and the largest one-month drop (-5.8)outside of the covid recessionary plunge in February 2020.

While China’s service economy is clearly disintegrating, the silver lining was that the Mfg PMI printed just barely in expansion territory, although at 50.1, not only did it miss expectations of a 50.2 number, but dropped from 50.4 in July, and was the lowest print in this data series since Covid. At this rate, China’s manufacturing sector will also be in recession next month.

The PMIs – and especially the Non-mfg print – were bad. So bad that Bloomberg’s Simon Flint wrote after the number was released that it may “increase concern about the health of the global economic recovery, and slightly dampen risk sentiment” (no worry there, Eminis are actually higher on the news because in this idiot market, the worse things get, the better for the 1%).

Although the data bode ill for the yuan, the historical read-across has been very mild. Non-manufacturing was an absolute shocker at 47.5. This is more than 5 standard deviations below Bloomberg consensus, outside the entire forecast range, and the first sub-50 reading since the first Covid wave. Factory PMI came in at 50.1, just a fraction below forecast. This amplifies a run of generally worse-than-expected data from the PMIs.

Over April-July, the average shortfall was 0.3 points for the manufacturing index, and 0.7 for non-manufacturing. That said, PMIs tend to be taken less seriously than the hard data. It’s also possible that the market will look through them given that the slowdown is most likely related to the Covid-19 shock, and the market has a fair degree of confidence in China’s ability to manage the virus.

Here will just add that the “market” will not give a rat’s ass about the China PMI because the only thing that matters for stonks is how many billions in liquidity will Uncle Jerome inject today.

As for China, many are scratching their heads why Beijing is taking so long to address the sharp slowdown in its economy. But while the latest China credit – and now PMI – data is flashing a bright red alarm light that the global reflationary wave is not only over but is going into reverse, the good news is that anyone harboring any expectation that the PBOC may tighten to frontrun the Fed’s tapering or hiking, is now crushed.

END

CHINA

This is a no brainer:  China’s crackdown on big tech has causes private deal flow to dry up completely

(zerohedge)

Beijing’s Big Tech Crackdown Causes Private Deal Flow To Dry Up In August

 
MONDAY, AUG 30, 2021 – 07:20 PM

Just when market watchers think they’ve seen the last headline about China’s ongoing Big Tech crackdown, Beijing finds some new industry to harass. On Monday, it was the video game industry, as Chinese regulators limited online gaming to just 3 hours per week for minors, while requiring companies to use facial recognition technology and verified accounts to ensure nobody skirts the new rules.

The results have been pretty stark: more than $1 trillion has been wiped off the aggregate market capitalization of Chinese domestic markets, along with China-based companies traded in Hong Kong and the US.

But it’s not just the public markets that are feeling the impact. Foreign investors have backed away from financing Chinese startups, as the number and value of private equity deals involving foreign investors has fallen in August to its lowest monthly level since the start of the pandemic.

According to Nikkei, which cited the latest figures from data firm PitchBook, deal flow was set to surpass levels from 2020 – until funding suddenly dried up in August.

Chinese startups have raised $32.6 billion from 634 deals that included foreign VCs this year as of Aug. 25, compared with $18.9 billion from 453 in the first eight months of 2020. So far in August, however, just $800 million has been raised from 67 deals with foreign participation, down from $4.7 billion in July.

What else happened around then? The answer should be obvious to most China watchers: Didi’s ill-fated IPO took place at the end of June. With several days remaining in August, $800 million would be a new low, beating the previous low for the pandemic period – $900 million from January 2020 – by $100 million. But even before the Didi IPO, China’s crackdown on its biggest tech firms was already becoming an issue.

Chinese VCs have also scaled back their deal flow in August, though not as dramatically. The value of all deals signed in the country so far this month is $6.6 billion, down from around $9 billion in each of June and July.

The sudden evaporation of deal flow has certainly gotten the investing community’s attention, but at the end of the day, China is simply too large of a market for PE firms to ignore. So few expect it to last long.

Jeffrey Lee, a partner at China-focused venture capital firm NLVC headquartered in Beijing, said robotics and manufacturing automation has been an increasingly hot sector. While more caution and strategy shifts are warranted, exiting China entirely would be out of the question, he said.

“The hard reality is that you can’t find a replacement for the sheer size of the economy, the next phase of its growth and — despite all of the criticism toward the government — the level of institutional development, whether it’s in roads or bridges, or whether it’s in the banking system,” Lee said. “It just doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world.”

VC interest in consumer-focused businesses that are bearing the brunt of Beijing’s crackdown now is also unlikely to shrivel entirely.

“Ultimately there are a lot of consumers in China, and a lot of rising middle-class consumers who are willing to spend,” said Joshua Chao, senior analyst at PitchBook. “There’s a strong reason to say that consumer businesses are still gonna do pretty well in China.”

But the lessons investors have learned about the unique political risks that arise from investing in China will likely linger on. And from here on out, while most expect Chinese firms will continue to go public abroad, Hong Kong will likely replace New York as the preferred venue. That means lower valuations, especially for giant loss-making tech firms with stellar top-line growth.

That could pull down equivalent private valuations, and there could be a further impact if companies are ultimately steered away from going public via New York’s deep capital markets, toward Shanghai, Shenzhen or Hong Kong.

“I think there will still be a resumption of overseas IPOs, but that will probably mean, most likely Hong Kong, and not New York,” said Lee.

Hong Kong’s institutional and retail investors are less keen to back loss-making consumer companies with big long-term ambitions, he said.

“The best thing about the New York markets was that you could take a company that is generating loss but with great top-line growth and build a narrative that created a very successful public company. That is, with few exceptions, not the case in Hong Kong.”

This means valuations might take time to recover.

end

CHINA/THE GLOBE

This is not good: China will require foreign vessels to report once it enters their “territorial waters”. China wasted zero time once Biden messed up evacuation of Afghanistan.

And the USA has a bird brain for a President.

(zerohedge)

Starting Sept 1 China Will Require Foreign Vessels To Report In Its “Territorial Waters”

 
MONDAY, AUG 30, 2021 – 10:40 PM

China barely wasted any time after Biden’s botched evacuation of Afghanistan to telegraph to the world that things will be a little different going forward: in a move that could have ramifications for the free passage of both military and commercial vessels in the South China Sea, Chinese authorities said on Sunday they will require a range of vessels “to report their information” when passing through what China sees as its “territorial waters”, starting from September 1, The Hindu reported.

Over $5 trillion trade passes through the South China Sea, and numerous US naval vessels cross through contested waters, much to China’s anger. Beijing claims under a so-called “nine dash line” on its maps most of the South China Sea’s waters, which are disputed by several other countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

While it remains unclear how, whether, and where China plans to enforce this new regulation starting Wednesday, the Maritime Safety Administration said in a notice “operators of submersibles, nuclear vessels, ships carrying radioactive materials and ships carrying bulk oil, chemicals, liquefied gas and other toxic and harmful substances are required to report their detailed information upon their visits to Chinese territorial waters,” the Communist Party-run Global Times reported. The newspaper quoted observers as saying “such a rollout of maritime regulations are a sign of stepped-up efforts to safeguard China’s national security at sea by implementing strict rules to boost maritime identification capability.”

That China’s escalation to claim contested waters happens with US international credibility and reputation – even among allies – in tatters, is hardly a coincidence.

The notice said in addition to those vessels, any vessel deemed to “endanger the maritime traffic safety of China” will also be required to report its information, which would include their name, call sign, current position next port of call, and estimated time of arrival. The vessels will also have to submit information on the nature of goods and cargo dead weight. “After entering the Chinese territorial sea, a follow-up report is not required if the vessel’s automatic identification system is in good condition. But if the automatic identification system does not work properly, the vessel should report every two hours until it leaves the territorial sea,” the notice said.

The Global Times noted the Maritime Safety Administration “has the power to dispel or reject a vessel’s entry to Chinese waters if the vessel is found to pose threat to China’s national security.”

How China will enforce these rules remains to be seen, and in which waters of the sea. Indian commercial vessels as well as ships of the Indian Navy regularly traverse the waters of the South China Sea, through which pass key international sea lanes. While China claims most of its waters, marked by the “nine dash line” on its maps, Indian officials say Beijing has generally only sought to enforce its claims in response to the passage of foreign military vessels not in the entire sea but in the territorial waters around the islands, reefs and other features, some artificially constructed, that China claims.

China’s “nine dash line” is deemed by most countries as being inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which only gives states the right to establish a territorial sea up to 12 nautical miles. The requirements of the latest notice will also be seen as being inconsistent with UNCLOS, which states that ships of all countries “enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea”.

The MEA told Parliament in 2017 in response to a question on India’s trade in the South China Sea that over US$ 5 trillion global trade passes through its sea lanes and “over 55% of India’s trade passes through South China Sea and Malacca Straits.” “Peace and stability in the region is of great significance to India. India undertakes various activities, including cooperation in oil and gas sector, with littoral states of South China Sea,” the MEA said.

end

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

EU/GERMANY
Times are changing: expect new leadership and new Government from Germany with next month’s elections
(zerohedge)
 

“The Unthinkable Has Become Possible” – Germany Faces A Political Revolution In 4 Weeks

 
 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 02:45 AM

In a scenario that nobody could have predicted one year ago, Germany is facing a political revolution in less than a month, on September 26, when the country holds its Federal Elections and where the dynastic CDU/CSU appears on the edge of not just losing, but suffering its worst ever election result.

But first, let’s back up one week to August 21, which was supposed to be the turning point for Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats  – the day Angela Merkel threw her weight behind the beleaguered party leader Armin Laschet and turned around his flagging electoral fortunes. Instead, as the Financial Times notes, “it was a day of reckoning.”

A poll that Saturday evening showed that support for the party had slumped to 22%, level with the left-of-centre Social Democrats. Data released earlier today from INSA, suggests the SPD had even pulled ahead significantly, rising to 25% while the CDU/CSU has collapsed to just 20%. This means that if its luck doesn’t turn before polling day on September 26, the CDU could be heading for the worst election result in its history.

So fast forward to today when with less than a month of campaigning to go, the FT reports of a sense of panic spreading through CDU ranks.“The mood is just abysmal,” says one conservative backbencher. “Are we all going to lose our seats now?”

‘All’ maybe not… but many, yes because a party that has ruled Germany for 50 of the past 70 years and began to see the chancellery as its natural birthright is now facing the real prospect of being booted out of power. It would, as the FT puts, it, “be a crushing humiliation for one of Europe’s most successful conservative parties.”

The reason for the party’s dismal plight, according to CDU MPs, advisers and strategists, is clear – its candidate for chancellor, and Angela Merkel’s handpicked successor, Armin Laschet. His approval ratings, never high to begin with, suffered a big drop in July when he was caught laughing on camera while visiting areas devastated by floods. They have never recovered.

Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed Armin Laschet at the launch of the CDU/CSU’s election campaign

Indeed, critics wonder aloud how the CDU, a party with “an unerring instinct for power and a reputation for iron discipline,” could have fielded such a weak candidate in the first place. “CDU people in my constituency say whatever you do, don’t send us any posters with Laschet’s face on them,” said another backbencher. “The fact is he’s a liability, rather than an asset, to our campaign.”

Some believe it was a fatal mistake to nominate Laschet ahead of his rival Markus Söder, leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, a much more popular politician. “The majority of CDU voters . . . did not want Laschet as chancellor-candidate,” Manfred Güllner, head of pollster Forsa, told the FT.

But there is another view: that the CDU’s decline has less to do with Laschet than with the end of the Merkel era. “All the time Merkel was in charge, the CDU was defined by its leader, not its policies,” says Jens Zimmermann, an SPD MP. “And now that she’s finally going, there’s this vacuum it just can’t fill — a void where the policies should be. People just don’t know why they should vote Christian Democrat.”

But one doesn’t have to go back a year to observe the dramatic shift in sentiment: just a few weeks ago, the common wisdom in Berlin was that the CDU/CSU would win the election and form a coalition with the Greens — the first such “black-green” alliance in German history. But the latest polls point to a much messier outcome according to many: an inconclusive election result with no clear winner and a plethora of different potential coalitions. “We will never have had so many government options in Germany’s postwar history,” says Güllner.

The mess is boosting the chances of a new, left-leaning alliance emerging, under a Social Democrat chancellor — the current finance minister Olaf Scholz. A party that has, for the past eight years served as junior partner in a Merkel-led “grand coalition” may be on the point of capturing the chancellery for the first time in 16 years.

 

SPD candidate Olaf Scholz is presenting himself as the natural successor to Angela Merkel. Photo: Reuters

“In the past, people used to smile indulgently when Scholz said he would be Germany’s next chancellor,” Niels Annen, a senior SPD MP and close Scholz ally, told the FT. “But an SPD-led government is no longer a fantasy. It’s a realistic proposition.”

What would such a political avalanche mean in practice? Analysts are confused by the inherent cross-currents in the various platforms – the SPD and Greens want to introduce a wealth tax and massively increase state investments, but they would probably need a third party in their coalition – the pro-business Free Democrats, who want tax cuts and balanced budgets. Such a “traffic light” coalition – as it is called due to the green, yellow, red colors of the constituent parties – could just end up cancelling each other out, and achieving little according to the FT.

No matter the final outcome, it will signal the end of an era. “The idea that the CDU might not win the most seats and not form the next government used to be unthinkable,” says Andreas Rödder, a historian at Mainz University. “Now the unthinkable has suddenly become possible”, a possibility made explicit by the latest Insa poll for Bild which showed extending support for the SPD which blimed one percentage point to 25%, pulling further ahead of Merkel’s conservative bloc which loses one point and falls to 20%; the Green party lost 0.5 points to 16.5%, the business-friendly FDP rose +0.5 points at 13.5%, while the far-right AfD was unchanged at 11% and the Left Party gained one point to 7%.

* * *

Even before the latest polls, it was clear that this would be an election like no other. Merkel said as much at the CDU/CSU event in Berlin’s Tempodrom, when she endorsed Laschet: for the first time in Germany’s postwar history, an incumbent chancellor was not running for re-election. “The cards are being reshuffled,” she said.

That has meant more scrutiny of the three individuals running to succeed her than of their policies or manifestos. As the FT details, “mone of them are as instantly recognizable and widely admired as Merkel herself. And for two of them, the media spotlight has been particularly harsh: Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old Green leader, spent weeks fighting off accusations of plagiarism and of embellishing her CV: meanwhile Laschet, prime minister of the large industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia, has found himself attacked and ridiculed at every turn.”

Frequently, he has only himself to blame. At a recent campaign appearance in the western city of Wiesbaden, he repeatedly referred to the local CDU MP as Ingbert Jung. A murmur went through the crowd. “His name’s Ingmar,” one person shouted.

“It’s sheer sloppiness — just atrocious,” says a CDU politician who witnessed the incident. “Jung probably wanted to die of shame.”

Sometimes, the criticism seemed gratuitous. He has been ripped apart on social media for not wearing rubber boots on trips to flood-affected areas, eating an ice cream on the campaign trail and daring to mention hydrogen technology in a chat with Elon Musk. “Laschet is in this negative spiral now, where everything he does is just slammed,” says Rödder. “And once you’re in it, it’s very hard to get out.”

In contrast, Scholz, who as deputy chancellor steered Germany’s public finances deftly through the pandemic, has not put a foot wrong. “It seems as if voters have already made up their minds about the three candidates,” says one person close to the CDU. “They see Laschet as embarrassing, Baerbock as a fraud and Scholz as the only serious, solid one.”

Scholz’s message to voters has been simple: he is the natural successor to Merkel, a politician who continues to enjoy sky-high approval ratings even after 16 years in power. It is a bold claim: he is, after all, from a rival party. But it is one that SPD strategists have been quietly pushing for months, and the latest polls suggest it is working.

The similarities are, indeed, striking. Like Merkel, Scholz is dispassionate, pragmatic and no great orator: his delivery is so robotic he’s been nicknamed the “Scholz-o-mat”. Asked in a recent interview if he lacked emotion he replied that he was “running for the job of chancellor, not circus director”. Yet like Merkel he is widely seen as dependable and trustworthy.

So transfixed is the potential future premier with piggybacking on Merkel’s halo that Scholz himself shamelessly underscored the similarities by appearing on the cover of the Süddeutsche Zeitung magazine this month with his fingers and thumbs touching to form the Merkel “diamond”, the chancellor’s signature gesture.

“It was sensational, because it finally put the cliché to bed that he doesn’t have a sense of humour,” says Zimmermann.

In a recent FT interview, Scholz tacitly acknowledged that he was trying to target Merkel voters. “A lot of people would see me as the best bet, because I have more government experience than any of the other candidates,” he said. “But it’s much more than that: I also have a clear idea of how to ensure Germany’s prosperity and also more respect in society,” he added.

As the FT explains, the theme of “respect” is at the heart of the SPD campaign, which is built on a battery of simple messages: a €12 per hour minimum wage, more affordable housing and stable pensions.

The party has been unusually united, avoiding the open bickering between left-wingers and centrists that blighted previous campaigns. And because it nominated its candidate for chancellor much earlier than its rivals — more than a year ago — “we were able to create a customized campaign exactly tailored to Scholz”, says Zimmermann.

Still, it’s not all smooth sailing, and things could still turn against Scholz, however. Uncomfortable questions have been raised over his role in the two big financial scandals that have rocked Germany in recent years — the fall of digital payments company Wirecard and the cum-ex tax fraud, a controversial set of share trades that robbed the German exchequer of billions of euros in revenue.

Separately, the Financial Times also notes that SPD critics also increasingly ask whether Scholz really represents his party. A centrist, he lost the 2019 contest for the leadership of the SPD to a pair of leftwingers, Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans, who have kept quiet during the campaign but still have a massive fan base in the party.

“People don’t really know Scholz at all — he’s just a blank canvas they’re projecting all their wishes and desires on to,” says Manuel Hagel, a senior CDU official. “But it’s only a matter of time before he’s subjected to exactly the same scrutiny that Baerbock and Laschet have had to endure.”

For the moment, however, the polls are clearly going Scholz’s way, and the nervousness in the conservatives’ camp is growing. That was clear when Söder followed Merkel on to the stage of the Tempodrom earlier this month. The CDU/CSU is, he said, facing its hardest election campaign since 1998, the year veteran chancellor Helmut Kohl was kicked out of office by the SPD and Greens.

“Let’s be honest for a moment — it’s tight,” he said. The Christian Democrats had for months been speculating about which parties they could form coalitions with. “But the question now isn’t how we should govern, but whether we will govern at all,” he added.

It’s been a painful campaign for Söder. He saw his poll ratings soar during the pandemic, when he emerged as one of Germany’s most effective and decisive crisis managers. Laschet, in contrast, was seen as a poor communicator, unsure what line to take. “His zigzag course really depressed his approval ratings,” says Forsa’s Güllner. Yet in the end, the CDU chose Laschet, the candidate of the party hierarchy, rather than Söder, the favorite of MPs and the party base.

From the start, Laschet’s campaign for chancellor was faulted for its incoherence and its lack of eye-catching policies. He started off promising voters a “decade of modernisation”. “But then people said — well why didn’t you use your past 16 years in power to modernize the country?” says the person close to the CDU. In recent days the slogan has been quietly dropped.

That encapsulates Laschet’s problem: he needs to be Merkel’s natural heir while also signalling a fresh start. “He can’t portray himself as some kind of superhero who will save everyone from the government — because the government is the CDU,” says one person close to him.

Laschet could still save the day by setting out clearly what parts of the Merkel legacy he would preserve and what he would do differently. Some think he could also improve the CDU’s chances by unveiling his dream team — the members of a putative Laschet-led cabinet. “If your top candidate is not performing, you should show the full spectrum of the party,” says the backbencher. “He isn’t doing that.”

Critics, however, say the CDU/CSU’s problem is its fundamental lack of new ideas. “It’s a Potemkin village,” says Oliver Krischer, a senior Green MP. “There’s nothing left behind the facade.”

As the concerns grow, some Christian Democrats are pushing for increasingly desperate measures. In a poll published on August 25, 70% of CDU/CSU voters said they wanted Laschet to step aside in favor of Söder, who remains highly popular among the CDU’s rank and file: “A lot of members are still really peeved about the way Söder was sidelined,” says one CDU MP. He says some local party volunteers had warned him at the time that they would not campaign for Laschet if he was chosen as candidate — “and they have kept their word”.

Then there is history: CDU officials say it would be wrong to underestimate Laschet, a politician renowned for his resilience. “Four weeks before the 2017 elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the CDU was six points behind the SPD, but we still won,” says Hagel. “It shows you can win when you really fight.”

Further adding to his chances of a last-minute miracle, is that many German voters remain undecided. And CDU strategists point to polls that show 30% of the German voting public is essentially conservative — a constituency that could swing the CDU’s way on polling day. “We can still turn things around,” says Hagel. “All elections are decided in the last three weeks of campaigning.” But privately, other Christian Democrats are less optimistic. “The fact is, we weren’t able to come up with a candidate who could really convince voters,” says one backbencher. “And now we’re being punished for it.”

* * *

Laschet’s chances for a rebound took a turn lower on Sunday night when in the first of three TV debates in the campaign leading up to Germany’s federal election on 26 September, Olaf Scholz scored what may be a devastating victory in his race to succeed Angela Markel.

While all three debate participants – Laschet, Scholz and Baerbock – essentially delivered, there was only one clear winner according to the New Stateman: Scholz, who triumphed in a snap poll by Forsa. To the question “Who do you tend to trust to lead the country?” fully 47% named the SPD candidate, with 24% for Laschet and 20% for Baerbock. The question of who won the debate itself was slightly narrower but still clear: 36% called it for Scholz, 30% for Baerbock and just 25% for Laschet. Narrowest was the question of which seemed most sympathetic: here Scholz (38%) was only just ahead of Baerbock (37%), with Laschet trailing far behind on a dismal 22%.

Today’s Bild, a conservative tabloid traditionally close to the CDU/CSU and Germany’s most-read newspaper, is emphatic: “Clear victory for Scholz in TV” runs its front-page headline.

 

end

Euro zone inflation surges to 10-year-high, in headache for ECB

August 31

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Euro zone inflation surged to a 10-year-high in August with further rises likely, challenging the European Central Bank’s benign view on price growth and its commitment to look past what it deems a temporary increase.

Consumer inflation in the 19 countries sharing the single currency accelerated to 3% this month from 2.2% in July, far above expectations for 2.7% and moving well clear of the ECB’s 2% target.

The increase was fuelled by energy costs, but food prices also surged, while there were unusually large increases in the prices of industrial goods too, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency.

Markets mostly shrugged off the data, with stocks rising and yields increasing just a basis point or two, suggesting the narrative of temporary inflation and ultra- easy central bank policy for years to come remains the central one.

Still, the numbers are likely to make for uncomfortable reading at the ECB.

The central bank has repeatedly raised its inflation projection this year only for the actual numbers to beat its forecasts, and price growth now seems likely to peak only in November.

With inflation in Germany, the euro zone’s largest economy and the ECB’s biggest critic, expected to approach 5% in coming months, the bank is likely to come under increasing public pressure to address price developments that are reviving long-dormant memories of runaway prices.

ONE-OFF FACTORS?

The ECB argues that a slew of one-off factors including production bottlenecks related to the economy’s reopening after the COVID-19 pandemic account for the bulk of the inflation surge, and that price growth will quickly moderate early next year.

“The effects of re-opening and supply problems could intensify in the next few months. But we suspect that they will begin to fade next year as global consumption and trade patterns return to something like their pre-pandemic norms,” Capital Economics said in a note.

“We think the headline rate will drop to about 2% in January and trend down throughout 2022 to end next year at around 1%,” it added.

Longer-term market based inflation expectations [EUIL5YF5Y=R] are also holding well below 2%, even if they have moved steadily higher this year.

ECB policymakers agree and predict that inflation will languish well below the bank’s target for years to come, so they even reinforced their commitment last month to keeping monetary policy exceptionally loose to generate price pressures.

Speaking to Reuters last week, ECB chief economist Philip Lane argued that these inflation surprises still did not challenge his views about the temporary nature of price pressures as wage growth, a necessary component of durable inflation, remained muted.

While ECB policymakers are acknowledging that they underestimated price pressures in the near term, they continue to point to weak underlying inflation readings as supporting evidence for loose policy.

Core inflation, however, also surged in August with inflation excluding volatile food and fuel prices accelerating to 1.6% from 0.9%, while an even narrower measure that also excludes alcohol and tobacco, rose to 1.6% from 0.7%.

The ECB will next meet on Sept. 9 and must decide on the pace of its bond purchases over the coming quarter. While some adjustment is possible, Lane argued that it would be at the margins as the ECB is committed to maintaining “favourable financing conditions”.

After Tuesday’s reading, not all observers are quite so sanguine.

“This is not to say that there is no upside risk to the inflation outlook,” ING economist Bert Colijn said. “So hold tight: inflation has the potential to go higher from here

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

 

AFGHANISTAN///USA//

Post mortem on the Afghan nightmare as outlined by Victor Davis Hanson

a must read…

(Victor Davis Hanson)

Our Afghan Nightmare: Tanks For Nothin’

 
MONDAY, AUG 30, 2021 – 08:20 PM

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

Afghanistan has been reinvented as the best-equipped terrorist nation in the world, basking in the prestige of humiliating the world’s superpower…

Joe Biden’s scripted or no-questions press conferences, and the clean-up afterward by Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Jen Psaki, have been some of the most misleading episodes in modern presidential history—mostly in what was not said rather than was exaggerated, warped, and misrepresented. 

Biden as Commander-in-Chief

The more Joe Biden mutters “The buck stops here” or “I take full responsibility,” the more we know he will not – and not just because of his now reduced mental state, but because 1) he repeats the same opportunist messaging that he has for the last 50 years of his political career, and 2) the only true thing he could say was “I ordered a withdrawal in the most reckless manner in U.S. military history.”

When Biden then blames Donald Trump, it raises the immediate questions: 

1) If the Afghanistan deal was so flawed, why did Biden stick with it, given his other radical departures from what he inherited on the border, on fossil fuels, on the Middle East—on just about everything before January 20, 2021? 

2) So, was it good or bad to withdraw all U.S. troops? Was Trump wrong to have bequeathed him a policy of graduated withdrawal, but Biden was right to have continued it for a while—only to have accelerated it into surrender and flight?

3) Why did the violence erupt on Biden’s rather than on Trump’s watch? And was his order for a hasty flight in the dead of night from Bagram Air Base also the inherited Trump departure plan?

When Joe Biden now threatens al-Qaeda, ISIS-K, and others with revenge, he sounds, unfortunately, more like the ridiculous Joe of “Corn Pop” braggadocio with his weaponized chain, or Joe taking Trump behind the gym to womp on him, or young Joe Biden slamming the mouthy kid’s head on the lunch counter. Speaking softly with a club is preferable to being loud with a twig.

We have all heard, ad nauseam, too many of Biden’s He-Man stories. The latest rhetoric does not hide the fact that Biden had opposed the Osama bin Laden raid, criticized the termination of Qasem Soleimani, left Afghanistan in the most shameful retreat in U.S. history, and is now begging the Saudis to pump more oil after cutting back on our ample supplies and trashing Riyadh as part of his return to the Obama pivot to Iran. 

Biden loves appeasement lists. He provided the Taliban with a list of whom we wished to evacuate. (When the Taliban soon knock on the door of an American in Kabul who thinks their message will be, “We’re here to escort you to your flight”?) In the same manner, Biden provided Putin with a helpful list of institutions he wanted Putin’s satellite cyber-criminals to exempt from hacking. 

The blame for this sordid mess is threefold: 

1) The media that knew Biden was debilitated and so covered up that fact to carry the candidate across the finish line in November. 

2) The Democratic apparat that envisioned Biden lasting just long enough (the country be damned) to provide the needed cover of a sharply left-wing agenda. 

3) The Pentagon’s top brass, active and retired, who for years leaked about and obstructed Trump, sought to toady up to the press in its “wokeness,” and posed as speaking truth to power, but have now gone strangely silent when we need public voices to oppose the present Afghanistan nihilism of the administration.

Partnering With the Taliban

The Taliban are to al-Qaeda and ISIS as the Nazis in World War II were to fellow fascists of the Spanish Blue Division, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, and the Romanian Iron Guard—ethnic and ideological variants of the same radical nihilist cause. No act of terror goes on in Afghanistan without someone in the Taliban ordering or allowing it. Their “ring” around the airport is only an obstruction for whom they choose: Americans and their allies. 

The Taliban may for a moment seek plausible deniability of suicide bombings to hasten the U.S. departure in shame, temporarily disavowing credit for slaughtering Americans as they leave. But as soon as U.S. soldiers are gone, the Taliban will give free rein to its hounds al-Qaeda and ISIS, brag that they drove out the United States, and then resume their accustomed murdering and raping of civilians. We should expect lots of silent, under-the-table Bowe Bergdahl-type swaps, trades, and humiliations for the next year or so. We will likely sell out our former friends in the Northern Alliance, pay cash under the table per hostage head, and lie about a “new” Taliban. 

So, should we laugh or cry when General Kenneth McKenzie assures us that the Taliban and the U.S. military have the same agenda: Americans exiting Afghanistan as soon as possible? 

Yes, their agenda is the Pentagon exiting Afghanistan as soon as possible—but with the greatest global humiliation, loss of life, and general sense of defeat. In contrast, our agenda is to leave Afghanistan soberly and methodically, even if that means regaining Bagram for as long as necessary to achieve our own strategic goals.

The Abandoned Arsenal

The administration never mentions the vast horde of U.S. weaponry that was simply abandoned to the Taliban. Why? Is it to be “$80 billion here, thousands of machine guns there—no big deal”?

Estimates of the trove’s value range from $70 billion to $90 billion. The stockpile likely includes 80,000 vehicles, including 4,700 late-model Humvees, 600,000 weapons of various sorts, 162,643 pieces of communications equipment, more than 200 aircraft, and 16,000 pieces of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance equipment, including late-model drones. Especially worrisome are the loss of night-vision equipment, 20,000-plus grenades, and 1,400 grenade launchers, as well as more than 7,000 machine guns—the perfect equipment for jihadist terror operations and asymmetrical street fighting. 

We can look at this disaster in a number of depressing ways. One would be to compare this giveaway to military aid given to Israel over the last 70 years, which more or less has amounted to about an aggregate $100 billion. In other words, in one fell swoop, the Pentagon deposited into Taliban hands about 80 percent of all the military aid that we’ve ever given to Israel since the founding of the Jewish state. In terms of tactical and operational capability, the Taliban may now be the best-equipped terrorist force in Asia and the Middle East.

Assume that for the next quarter-century, Afghanistan will become not just the world’s training haven for Islamic terrorists, but an international, no-questions-asked, cash-on-the-barrel arms market for anti-Western terrorist cliques. 

Or we can assess the damage psychologically. For the immediate future (possibly over the next few days or weeks), American soldiers could face the prospect of being attacked or killed by those who are outfitted in their own mirror image, and they might be blown up by their own former weapons. 

Yet the media never asked for, nor did the Pentagon volunteer, any explanation of why such stocks were simply abandoned, or at least not destroyed before fleeing, or not later bombed. Since nothing makes sense, we must strain the imagination: was the $80 billion in arms given as de facto bribe money to get our own out? 

In addition, the beefed-up U.S. embassy in Kabul reportedly cost nearly $1 billion, comparable to America’s most expensive embassy in London. It will now become a Taliban stronghold. Bagram Air Base—originally built with U.S. help and money during the Eisenhower Administration—has been updated with hundreds of millions of dollars of American investment in the last 20 years, in buildings, a new runway, personnel accommodations, detention facilities, and infrastructure. 

Although it had been the target of several Taliban attacks, Bagram was largely considered defensible. It allowed coalition and Afghan forces to enjoy 100 percent air superiority over the entire country. Biden talks endlessly of the “over the horizon” capability of distant bases and ships, while omitting that he destroyed “right over the target” current capability. Why these vital American investments were simply surrendered in the dead of night to looters first, and Taliban second, will be an object of controversy and investigation for decades to come. To think of anything similar, imagine the British surrender of Singapore in 1942 or a combination of Fort Sumter, the burning of Washington in 1814, and Wake Island, December 1941.

The End of American Stature

Regional countries will no longer wish to join the United States in any war on terror because they know they are always just one election from a radical flip-flop in American foreign policy. There is no such thing anymore as bipartisan foreign affairs, since policy is seen as an extension of the revolutionary agendas here at home. Our allies are concluding that the United States is not a bastion of sobriety and careful deliberation that takes its leadership of the free world seriously, but a mercurial, radical leftist country that in a second may self-immolate, as we did in the woke summer of 2020.

Donald Trump reportedly offended NATO members and weakened the alliance by his bombast. Perhaps, but the record shows a funny type of allied enervation, because his jawboning resulted in a much larger NATO budget, marked gains in military expenditures on the part of NATO members, and a dramatic increase in those nations finally meeting or nearly meeting their two percent of GDP military investment promises. 

And during the Trump Administration, NATO nations could claim that they destroyed ISIS in Syria under U.S. leadership, kept Afghanistan safe while reducing troops, frightened Iran, and taught Russians in Syria not to assault U.S. garrisons. For all the graduated withdrawals of the United States from Afghanistan in 2010-2020, not a single U.S. soldier had died in the 12 months prior to the inauguration of Joe Biden.  

But now? Most of the major NATO nations have condemned the U.S. skedaddle from Afghanistan. They are angry that they were not consulted, and not synchronized in the complex airlift and withdrawal. And they resent the “every man for himself” unilateralism on the part of the United States.  

We cannot expect the European NATO members to stand with the United States in trying to check Chinese aggression. The alliance will no longer badger Germany to cease its new de facto economic alliance with Russia or to stand firm against Russian bullying of frontline NATO states, or to present a unified skeptical front about reentering the flawed Iran deal. Differing views about assistance to Israel will only acerbate. NATO members, rightly or wrongly, feel they were bullied into Afghanistan by the United States, and 20 years later outnumbered the U.S. contingent by nearly fourfold—only to be left stunned as their supposed spiritual and military leader fled first for the exits, after itself surrendering the country to NATO enemies. 

The Future

In an ideal world, Biden would order a nocturnal retaking of Bagram, shift all U.S. evacuation efforts there, and provide air cover for incoming and outcoming flights as well as retaliatory strikes on terrorist enclaves as necessary. He would tell the Taliban that $80 billion of free military stuff was enough of bribes and that any more obstructive efforts will be met with bombs, not more cash and weapons.  

Joe Biden thinks August 31, 2021, is the “end” of Afghanistan. In fact, it is a new beginning of yet another chapter in the much despised “war on terror.” But this time around, the Taliban are victorious. They have been reinvented as the best-equipped jihadist nation in the world, basking in the prestige of humiliating the world’s superpower, and will take ownership of hundreds of billions of dollars of Western investment in infrastructure in Afghanistan’s major cities. 

This disaster can be attributed to Biden’s apparent desire for a 9/11 “no more Afghanistan” anniversary parade—itself to be staged to hide his multifaceted border, economy, energy, and foreign policy failures.

The Chinese are debating now whether to ramp up the assault rhetoric against Taiwan, as more Chinese voices conclude that Biden would support the Taiwanese in meager fashion, as he did U.S. contractors and Afghan interpreters. The Russians are pondering which exposed NATO country or which former Soviet republic might be probed and dissected—in expectation of a tough-guy Biden Corn-Pop lecture but not much else. Kim Jong-un is considering replaying his old role of rocket man, as he calibrates the Biden responses to more missiles launched in Japanese air or water space.  

Watch Iran especially. The theocracy believes this is the most opportune time in 20 years to announce that it is or will soon be nuclear, to unleash Hezbollah, and to step up global terrorist operations on the assumption that Biden will bow his head and declare “We do not forgive; we do not forget” and then retire for an early nap.

end

AFGHANISTAN/USA/USA GENERALS

90 Generals pen a scathing letter calling for Austin and Milley to resign immediately

(zerohedge)

90 Retired Generals Penn Scathing Letter Calling For Austin And Milley To Resign Immediately

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 07:50 AM

Nearly 100 retired generals and admirals are demanding that US Defense Secretary (and former Raytheon board member) Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley resign immediately over the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

“The retired Flag Officers signing this letter are calling for the resignation and retirement of the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) based on negligence in performing their duties primarily involving events surrounding the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan,” reads a Monday letter signed by 90 retired top-ranking military officials.

“As principal military advisors to the CINC (Commander in Chief)/President, the SECDEF and CJCS should have recommended against this dangerous withdrawal in the strongest possible terms,” they wrote.

“If they did not do everything within their authority to stop the hasty withdrawal, they should resign.”

 

Scores of former military officers signed the letter, including Gen. William Boykin (left) and John Poindexter (right). Poindexter served as President Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser (via the Daily Mail).

“The consequences of this disaster areenormous and will reverberate for decades beginning with the safety of Americans and Afghans who are unable to move safely to evacuation points; therefore, being de facto hostages of the Taliban at this time. The death and torture of Afghans has already begun and will result in a human tragedy of major proportions. The loss of billions of dollars in advanced military equipment and supplies falling into the hands of our enemies is catastrophic. The damage to the reputation of the United States is indescribable.  We are now seen, and will be seen for many years, as an unreliable partner in any multinational agreement or operation. Trust in the United States is irreparably damaged. 

Moreover, now our adversaries are emboldened to move against America due to the weakness displayed in Afghanistan. China benefits the most followed by Russia, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and others. Terrorists around the world are emboldened and able to pass freely into our country through our open border with Mexico.”

13 troops were killed last Thursday in an ISIS-K suicide bombing, as the Daily Mailnotes. While President Joe Biden took ‘ultimate’ responsibility for their deaths (checking his watch several times after their remains were flown into Dover Air Force Base), calls have already begun to circulate for Biden to resign or be impeached for his administration’s horrible handling of the withdrawal – which they had seven months to plan for. 

On Tuesday afternoon, Biden will read remarks patting his administration on the back for their handling of the withdrawal.

end

TALIBAN/AFGHANISTAN/USA

TALIBAN assumes control of Afghanistan

(zerohedge)

Taliban Assumes Control Of Afghanistan With 100,000 US Allies And 200 US Citizens Left Behind

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 01:15 PM

After nearly 20 years the American-led war in Afghanistan is finally over (or is it…). The last US forces left last night, and on Tuesday, Taliban forces took control of the airport in Kabul, while Taliban fighters and supporters across Afghanistan rallied to celebrate the return of Islamic rule.

Senior Taliban leaders posed in front of a C-130 transport plane at the Kabul airport, the hub of the chaotic US-led evacuation operation in recent days. Fighters took selfies in the cockpits of Afghan military helicopters, which had been disabled before being abandoned by US troops.

The Taliban’s top spokesman issued a statement calling for the reconstruction of an Afghanistan now firmly under Taliban rule.

“We hope that Afghanistan will not be invaded again, that it will be rebuilt, remain independent, and that a holy Islamic system will rule,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, as uniformed fighters in modern combat gear knelt on the tarmac and chanted “Allahu akbar”.

Speaking to members of the Taliban’s Badri 313 unit, Mujahid continued, via WSJ: “I praise all your sacrifices, congratulate you all on the great victory, and on achieving independence and freedom for Afghanistan.”

While the Taliban offered amnesty to former government officials and soldiers after taking Kabul and tried to project a more moderate image, they are increasingly returning to their old ways. The Taliban-appointed acting minister of higher education has said women and men could no longer attend the same university lectures, women presenters have been banned from radio and TV in the southern city of Kandahar, and dozens, if not hundreds, of former security officials have been executed.

Still, tens of thousands of Afghans who assisted the NATO war effort remain behind in Afghanistan, many still hoping to leave the country before they are imprisoned or executed by the Taliban. Additionally, the US left behind a small contingent of Americans (WSJ says between 100 and 200) and while Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged to do everything in the US’s power to support them, right now, it appears there’s little to be done, as all commercial flights have been suspended temporarily.

Turkey has offered to continue to support the airport’s operation even as NATO ceases its operations there, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Bloomberg Television on Tuesday, but the Taliban have yet to approve this, and right now, the airport remains closed. Stoltenberg also told reporters that NATO is working with EU members to stave off a potential refugee crisis, while also working to ensure Afghanistan doesn’t become a hotbed for terrorism (here’s a rundown of countries willing to take Afghan refugees).

A US-based group advocating for SIVs for qualified Afghans said about 113,000 people left behind by the US and NATO during the withdrawal still want to leave the country. Per Bloomberg, the estimate was produced by the Association of Wartime Allies and based on reports on Afghan employment analyzed by the group and researchers at American University.

In terms of diplomacy, the US and other Western nations and India have cut official ties by closing their embassies in Kabul. Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran and NATO member Turkey, however, have left their embassies open. Although they haven’t formally recognized the Taliban authorities, they are in regular contact with them.

There might be one potential back-channel for the US as rescue operations begin for the Americans still let stranded. The Indian ambassador in Qatar met with the deputy head of the Taliban’s political office on Tuesday to discuss regional security, according to a statement from India’s foreign ministry.

On Tuesday, the Taliban repeated their claim that they want “peace” and a functional diplomatic relationship with the US. Meanwhile, across the country, anti-American celebrations roared as local leaders praised the defeat of the foreign invaders.

One senior Taliban leader in Khost praised the suicide bombers whose attacks on the US during the course of the war helped the Taliban secure victory. “We will establish the Islamic system you yearned for,” he said, according to a recording of the rally. “Your dreams have been realized. We have achieved the dream for which you had blown up your flesh. We congratulate you in your graves.”

The Taliban now control all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces except for one: Panjshir, a narrow valley north of Kabul where anti-Taliban militias and some remnants of the defeated Afghan army continue to be holed up, hoping to establish a permanent base outside of Taliban control.

Though the Taliban and the Panjshiris are negotiating a possible deal, armed skirmishes have continued on the outskirts of the valley.

The question now is how will the Taliban go about running a country of 40MM with few resources at their disposal. Their international reserves have been frozen by the US, and while China and Russia will offer some support, it will be up to the Taliban to make sure sewer systems and electric grids are functioning, as well as the airports. Given the intense international scrutiny, how long might it take for the Taliban to start with the reprisals against any perceived enemies still in the country?

END

Watch Live: Biden Speaks As 20-Year War In Afghanistan Ends In US Defeat

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 02:40 PM

Update (1534ET): President Biden confirms that 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan, almost all of whom are dual citizens. “The bottom line: 90% of Americans in Afghanistan, who wanted to leave, we’re able to leave,” Biden says. For those Americans remaining in Afghanistan, “there is no deadline.”

Some were incredulous that Biden, who shouted and slurred through most of the speech, would brag about this.

Others still can’t get over Biden calling the airlift a “success” as Biden insisted the US will continue to help those who want to leave.

Biden also seemed incapable of modulating his tone, even when asking his audience to join him in prayer.

The Taliban have made “commitments” to provide everybody safe passage, even those who worked for the other side, and the US has “leverage” (ie money) to help hold the Taliban to their word.

* * *

Update (1528ET): Nearly 50 minutes late, President Biden finally took to the podium to read a prepared statement where he declared the withdrawal from Afghanistan an “extraordinary success.”

  • BIDEN: U.S. COMPLETED ONE OF BIGGEST AIRLIFTS IN HISTORY
  • BIDEN CALLS EVACUATION FROM AFGHANISTAN AN EXTRAORDINARY SUCCESS

Then explained why everything went so horribly wrong.

* * *

Update (1520ET): President Biden is once again running inexplicably late. There’s still no hint at when he will start speaking.

* * *

Now that the last American soldier (though not the last American citizen) has left Kabul, President Biden has apparently gotten permission from his handlers to address the American people and remind us all that the disastrous final moments of the nearly 20-year-long war weren’t his fault.

With 90 retired generals signing a letter calling on Biden’s defense secretary and leader of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to quit and take responsibility for the disastrous pullout, the messiest pullout in US history, according to President Trump, it’s hardly a surprise that President Biden feels another face-to-face with the American people is necessary.

He is slated to begin speaking at 1445 (though he has been notably late recently):

//ISIS/SWITZERLAND AND THE GLOBE

Switzerland warns of terror attacks at public vaccination centres

(zerohedge)

Switzerland Warns Of Terror Attacks At Public Vaccination Centers

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 04:15 AM

Swiss authorities are warning the public of potential terror attacks on the country’s pandemic response infrastructure, including vaccination centers, transportation centers, and manufacturing facilities, according to the Straits Times, citing a Sunday report by NZZ am Sonntag.

 

A staff member works in a vaccination centre as part of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccination campaign in Geneva, Switzerland on February 3, 2021. (Reuters File Photo )

“Attacks on such targets would both hit large crowds and generate intensive media coverage,” said Isabelle Graber, spokeswoman for Switzerland’s Federal Intelligence Service.

In particular, the agency is warning of potential attacks from militant groups – though there are no imminent threats they’ve identified.

Switzerland’s vaccine deliveries are coordinated and conducted by the Swiss army. Doses are stored in secret locations.

A spokesman for Lonza Group, a manufacturer of Moderna’s vaccine, told the newspaper the company would not comment “on such sensitive topics”.

Switzerland has suffered a significant increase in Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations in recent weeks. -Straits Times

The warning comes after Health Minister Alain Berset said in a recent interview that mobile vaccination efforts need to be increased, and that travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines for inbound travelers could be re-introduced.

“The cantons must send out a lot more mobile vaccination teams,” he said.

So far, Switzerland has distributed 9.51 million doses of vaccine – enough for 55.6% of the population, and one of the lowest vaccination rates among major European economies.

So – get vaccinated but be afraid the entire time.

END

SAUDI ARABIA/IRAN/HOUTHI

Expect more of this to come:  Iran’s Houthis sends a bomb laden drone into a Saudi Airport

(zerohedge)

Bomb-Laden Drone Slams Into Saudi Airport, Leaving 8 Wounded

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 09:40 AM

With the world’s attention on Afghanistan, another long raging regional conflict has been intensifying. On Tuesday a bomb-laden drone slammed into a commercial airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia, wounding eight people, according to Saudi state TV.

Abha airport has now been hit twice in less than 24 hours, after an earlier drone attack out of Yemen left shrapnel strewn across one of the airport’s runways. A civilian aircraft was also reported damage in the assault.

 

Abha airport, southwestern Saudi Arabia. via AP

Though there have been no claims of responsibility, the attacks are being widely blamed on Shiite Houthi rebels amid the ongoing civil war in Yemen. 

The initial drone attack on the airport was reportedly intercepted just before it reached a civilian terminal. In recent years there’s been Houthi drone and missile attempted attacks that have reached as far into Saudi Arabia as Riyadh.

And further according to the AP:

The attack comes just days after missiles and drones smashed into a key military base in Yemen’s south, killing at least 30 Saudi-backed Yemeni troops and marking one of the deadliest attacks in the country’s yearslong civil war. No one claimed responsibility for the strike, which bore the hallmarks the Iranian-supported rebels.

Typically when fighting intensifies between Houthi rebels and the Saudi coalition, spillover attacks such as against Saudi oil terminals and airports, or against tankers in the Red Sea – tend to increase.

 
 

END

6.Global Issues

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

this is what I was afraid of:  a new highly transmissible variant known as  C 12.  This will not be more deadly but it will be more transmissible into the body.  It will be immune to all vaccines. Ivermectin will be the only cure to stop this. If the spike protein (prions) travel to the brain, you also need Fluvoxamine

(zerohedge)

Scientists Warn About New Hyper-Infectious South African Variant

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 07:00 AM

Scientists in South Africa have identified a new variant that “has all of the signatures of immune escape” and very well could be the source of the next variant-driven wave of COVID cases around the world.

The variant, known a C.1.2 – it isn’t important enough yet to deserve a Greek-letter shorthand – was first identified in May in the provinces of Mpumalanga and Gauteng, where Johannesburg and SA’s capital, Pretoria, are located. As of Aug. 13, the variant has been found in six of South Africa’s nine provinces as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, Portugal and Switzerland. Even New Zealand has reported a case of the variant in its most recent outbreak, per Bloomberg.

The most concerning thing about the new variant is that it possesses certain traits that might be “associated with increased transmissibility” and an increased ability to evade antibodies, the scientists said. “It is important to highlight this lineage given its concerning constellation of mutations.”

C.1.2. evolved from C.1., a lineage of the virus that dominated infections in the first wave of the virus in South Africa in mid-2020. It has between 44 and 59 mutations from the original virus detected in Wuhan in China, which is a surprisingly large number indicating advanced mutation.

The latest preprint research cited by Bloomberg was published by a team of South African groups including KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, known as Krisp, and the National Institute of Communicable Disease. In May, the C.1.2 variant accounted for 0.2% of the genomes sequenced in South Africa. That number rose to 1.6% in June and 2% in July.

“We are currently assessing the impact of this variant on antibody neutralization” in both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, the scientists said.

“It has only been detected in around 100 genomes, a very low number,” he said. “It’s still a very small percentage, but again we are really keeping a good eye on that. It has all of the signatures of immune escape.”

The results are expected within a week, Tulio de Oliveira, the director of Krisp, said at an immunology conference on Monday.

South African has already produced one major variant – the ‘beta’ variant – which spread widely in Europe, the UK, Asia and the US, though it has since been dwarfed by the spread of delta.

How much longer until Dr. Fauci joins in on the fear mongering? Or is he still preoccupied with warning about the threat of the Lambda variant.

While the threat of a new variant threat is nothing to celebrate, we can think of at least one person who might be relieved – at least temporarily – of making a very difficult decision.

END
A good article talking about the media’s addiction to COVID fear is perpetuating an ever worsening cycle of societal damage across the globe
(Bartlett/Ron Paul Institute for Peace)

The Media’s Addiction To COVID ‘Fear Porn’ Is Perpetuating An Ever-Worsening Cycle Of Societal Damage Across The World

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 05:00 AM

Authored by Eva Bartlett via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Over the past year and a half, hysterical media reporting on matters Covid-19 has reduced some people to a fearful state of unquestioning compliance – including a great number of otherwise critically-thinking journalists.

With screaming headlines in bold and large font such as, ”Will this nightmare ever end?” and “Mutant virus skyrockets…” and ”Fear grows across the country: VIRUS PANIC,” and ”Coronavirus horror: Social media footage shows infected Wuhan residents ‘act like zombies’,” it is no wonder many people are in a state of panic.

In times when many are suffering mentally and physically under unnecessary and prolonged lockdowns, the incessant fear porn is causing excessive anxiety, which in turn will affect the health & mental well-being of some, if not many.

In government documents from the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) dated from March 2020 advice was given saying:

 “The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging… This could potentially be done by trained community support volunteers, by targeted media campaigns, social media.”

I’d say the UK media campaigns weren’t so much “targeted” as “blanket” but they certainly did the job, and other Western nations got similar directives. The UK government also became the nation’s biggest advertiser in 2020, make what you will of the potential ramifications that could have on cash-strapped newspapers and their supposed “independence.”

Having myself been deeply focused on exposing war propaganda and other media lies around Syria, Palestine, Venezuela, and elsewhere over the years, my default position has become one of deep cynicism on mass media reporting. Yes, you can find nuggets of truth, or even excellent journalists in mainstream publications, honestly challenging the narratives.

But those are few and far between, generally you find copy-paste propaganda emanating largely from the bowels of the USA and the UK.

A study by Swiss Propaganda Research (SPR) noted, “most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.”

Those agencies are AP, Reuters, and AFP. SPR notes:

The key role played by these agencies means Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.

Given all of this, I’ve come to believe that with regard to media reporting on Covid-19, my cynicism is well-deserved.

Covid-19 reporting has increasingly been utterly absurd, with stories of people dropping dead in the streets, ice rink morgues to cope with the mountains of bodies, footage of an overcrowded New York hospital (that just happened to be of an Italian hospital), claims of animals testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, and more recently reports of people dying post-jab but we are told ”it could have been worse!”

This campaign of fear caused the public to massively overestimate the lethality of Covid-19, which as un-alarmist voices note has a survival rate of over 99 percent.

When months into the outbreak it became apparent that SARS-CoV-2 was far less lethal than first predicted, the media and talking heads moved from talking about “Covid deaths” to “positive cases.”

Although relatively early on a goat and pawpaw tested positive for Covid-19, instead of then scrutinizing the accuracy of the PCR test as a means of “detecting Covid-19,” the media continued to hype the rise in Covid “cases.”

In lockstep, “Covid testing” was increased dramatically using the PCR test (recently revoked by the CDC). This inevitably pumped up the number of “cases,” which mass media have in turn promoted non-stop, this in turn gave ammunition to those enforcing lockdowns and vaccines.

By now hundreds of vocal doctors, nurses, virologists, immunologists, and other professionals actually worth listening to, whose data and experience counter the hype pumped out in media have very quickly disappeared from social media, or otherwise deemed quacks, and are thus largely silenced. This leaves the general public mainly getting their information via hyped-up media.

Alongside this, there have been relentless ad hominem attacks on journalists who pose legitimate questions and uncomfortable truths about the official narratives around Covid-19.

For offering perspectives which contradict the standard narratives around Covid-19, journalists have been deemed conspiracy theorists, pandemic-deniers, right-wingers, selfish… I’m sure I’ve missed quite a few slurs.

When it comes to matters Covid-19, it is suddenly unacceptable to question “The Science,” question the authorities, or question the same media that sold us WMDs in Iraq and chemical attacks in Syria.

Media are the drivers of Covid hysteria, and it is the daily bombardment of fear porn that confuses average people and enables tyrannical powers to be brought in, largely unchallenged.

As it is the responsibility of journalists to expose lies around wars of aggression, it is also the duty of journalists to do so around Covid-19. For some journalists who have stubbornly refused to hold power to account, instead toeing the line on all things Covid, it appears their fear is of losing an audience and not of a virus.

Whether or not you agree with dissenting voices’ questions and criticisms, we have the right to ask and make them. We do so, knowing that remaining silent in the face of the brutal Covid measures is a guaranteed path to tyranny.

end

My goodness, these guys have done something right for a change: They will not back Biden’s booster jab plan. This will save a lot of lives.

(zerohedge)

CDC Advisory Panel Hints It Won’t Back Biden’s Booster Jab Plan

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 08:40 AM

Shares of BioNTech, Moderna and Pfizer will be closely watched on Tuesday after the CDC’s advisory panel, the ACIP, remained circumspect about the need for a booster dose of the vaccine in the US, leaving the door open for the agency to scuttle the Biden Administration’s push for booster jabs.

While Israel is the world leader in terms of the largest percentage of the population to have received a third “booster” dose, other countries, including Turkey, have started doling them out, too. And despite the WHO’s pleas for western nations not to be too greedy with their jabs, the Biden Administration has repeatedly announced that it’s working on approvals for booster jabs eight months after the second dose.

“CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) remains circumspect about the need and timing for additional COVID-19 vaccine doses, despite more aggressive messaging from the White House,” said SVB Leerink analyst Daina Graybosch.

Graybosch believes the meeting indicates that an “uptick in third doses may not come as rapidly as investors have been expecting,”

A Jefferies analyst said ACIP appears to be leaning toward a narrow recommendation for high-risk patients, which doesn’t bode well for the White House’s proposal. 

“We think the ACIP could be leaning toward just a narrow 3rd dose recommendation for high-risk people (healthcare workers, elderly) vs the more blanket recommendation the White House favors.”

In other news, Singapore’s health authorities are reportedly leaning toward allowing patients to receive any vaccine for their third jab, instead of recommending that those who got Moderna jab first time around get the same one this time, too – and vice-versa.

“Both approaches are being considered, with pros and cons to both strategies,”  Associate Professor Lim Poh Lian, director of the High Level Isolation Unit at the National Center for Infectious Diseases, said.

“We have to look at which is more effective in protecting against the current and future virus strains circulating. We have to look at safety issues and different segments of the population.

“What might be good for older adults might have more side-effects in younger persons, so it may not be a one-size-fits-all recommendation. Those kinds of data just take time to be collected, analysed and reported,” said Prof Lim, who is also a member of the Expert Committee on Covid-19 vaccination.

The UK is also looking into mixing its vaccines for booster doses, after results from a recent study showed that patients who received a Pfizer jab after an AstraZeneca jab actually showed higher rates of resistance.

end

a must read….

Jim Quinn: “A Critically-Thinking Person Might Look At The Delta Data & Conclude…”

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 09:30 AM

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.” 

–  George Orwell, Animal Farm

“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” 

– Benjamin Disraeli

It’s amazing how you can lie with statistics when you don’t provide context and/or leave key information out of your false narrative. As of July 4, the entire covid fear narrative was dying out, with cases crashing to new lows and the Big Pharma vaccine profit machine sputtering. That is when those controlling the media narrative began running the stories about the Indian variant and the imminent tragedy. As cases soared over 350,000 per day, the MSM was predicting bodies piling up in the streets.

They failed to give context that India has 1.4 billion people, four times the population of the U.S. On a cases per million basis, India’s surge was still 70% lower than the U.S. peak in January. And then the cases collapsed by 75% in a matter of weeks, with no mass rollout of vaccines. But they did distribute copious amounts of ivermectin. Must just be a coincidence. Everyone knows ivermectin is only for cows and horses, per the “experts” at the FDA.

With the Indian case collapse, the purveyors of fear needed to give the Indian variant a new scary name – Delta Variant. So India, with a 10% vaccination rate has seen a complete collapse in cases. Meanwhile, the UK and Israel, with some of the highest vaccination rates in the world, 64% and 60% respectively, have seen huge surges in Delta cases. It’s almost as if the vaccines have created the Delta surge. You might even conclude the vaccines are a complete and utter failure, with significant numbers of adverse reactions, 5 months of limited efficacy, and unknown long-term health effects.

The U.S. “surge” began shortly after July 4th, with the MSM building the Delta fear narrative day after day. Biden, Fauci, Walensky and the rest of the Big Pharma whores did their daily duty of feeding bullshit to the sheep. They bribed corporations, universities and left wing governors to mandate the jab, since they couldn’t mandate it Federally.

The mask theater opened again. To hell with the fact that masks have done absolutely nothing to slow or stop the spread of this virus. As they began reporting the case totals again, despite the fact the PCR test was already completely discredited, with the FDA pulling its EUA and taking it off the market as of 12/31, I noticed what they were not reporting – number of tests.

The number of reported cases in the U.S. went up by 750% since July 4. Coincidentally, the number of tests grew by over 500% since July 4.

Why the tremendous increase in testing?

If you want more cases, just do more mass testing of people showing no signs of illness. This is why the death rate is 65% lower than when cases were at the same level in February.

A critically thinking individual might look at the data and conclude these vaccines are enhancing the virus and creating the variants.

They might also conclude the Delta variant is far less lethal than the original virus.

They might also conclude the unholy alliance between the government, mass media, social media, and Big Pharma have ramped up the fear in order to force vaccinations into the veins of vaxx resisters, instilling vaccine passports, and attempting to install a digital surveillance system to track those who resist and destroy their lives.

A critically thinking person might wonder why such coercive measures are being used to inject an experimental gene therapy into our bodies for a relatively non-lethal virus with a 99.7% survival rate. Especially, when it is now beyond a doubt the jab doesn’t keep you from contracting the virus, spreading the virus, or dying from the virus.

  • At best, it is a therapy that may reduce the symptoms for some people.

  • At worst, ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement) will begin to rear its ugly head in the Fall.

The current all hands on deck campaign to discredit ivermectin is a sign of desperation, as they have only been able to coerce and scare just over 50% of the population to have this Big Pharma concoction injected into their bodies. With cases peaking at 155,000 per day, the desperation of Fauci and his acolytes is visible for all to see.

I submitted my strongly worded religious exemption to my employer this morning. I should know within a week whether they will buy it. If they deny it, the ball will be in their court, because I will never have that shit injected into my body. They can terminate me and I will be unbowed. They cannot force me to contaminate my body. I’m a free man and will not take the knee. I will not comply. Resistance is not futile. I hope enough of my countrymen will join me in choosing freedom over servitude.

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” 

– Samuel Adams

END

Chris Powell on the virus epidemic in Connecticut:

(Chris Powell)

Fighting the virus epidemic in Connecticut is a judgment call every day

 

As was demonstrated by the crude and disgraceful disruption of last week’s back-to-school forum in Cheshire, many people in Connecticut are sick and tired of the virus epidemic and government’s steps against it, however necessary they may have seemed.

Consumed by their hysteria, the dozen or so people at the forum who shouted down the speakers and cursed Governor Lamont seemed not to realize that the governor and other state and municipal officials are entitled to be more sick and tired of the epidemic than anyone else.

The governor may not have been right about everything since the epidemic began, but he could not be more right than he is about getting children back to school in person.

 

Since “remote learning” works only for the most motivated students with the most motivated parents, a year of education already has been lost for many children — children who were already the most disadvantaged.

The governor was abused in Cheshire last week because he has directed that students should wear masks in school at least until Sept. 30. Yes, children may find the masks annoying, and the medical necessity is questionable. But many parents are nervous about sending their children back to school under any circumstances, and the mask requirement may give them more confidence about it, even as wearing a mask is unlikely to cause substantial harm to anyone.

The school mask requirement may be a political compromise but nearly everyone should be able to live with it.

After all, no matter what the schools do about masks, there will be risk — the risk of contagion, the risk of losing more education, and the risk of getting hit by a car on the way to or from school. Indeed, from the beginning, dealing with the epidemic, for both government and individuals, has been entirely a matter of balancing risk, a daily judgment call. As government officials and individuals gain experience, those judgments evolve.

Anyone who wants perfect safety from the virus can try locking himself in his basement. But eventually he’ll go crazy, and what then?

 

Next year there will be a state election. The governor, state legislators, and Connecticut’s members of Congress may have a lot to answer for, but the people will be able to make them answer for it then.

Even as virus cases spike again in Connecticut, in part because of “breakthrough” infections — infections suffered by people already vaccinated against the virus — there is cause for optimism in the governor’s daily epidemic reports.

While each day lately has brought hundreds more cases, hospitalizations and deaths have not risen correspondingly. On some days hospitalizations even decline as cases rise. This signifies that many cases are milder or asymptomatic and that doctors have found more effective ways of treating the virus than they had when the virus swept the world a year and a half ago and, upon diagnosis, people were sent home without any serious treatment only to come to the hospital critically ill when it was too late.

As the virus mutates into more evasive “variants” and the vaccines lose effectiveness and reveal more side-effects, government and medicine may realize that treatments rather than vaccines may be the best mechanisms for defeating the virus.

Though government in the United States has been distressingly slow to acknowledge some treatments, several treatments are already in use and showing success around the world and just need publicity.

Vaccines can be great and they have often saved humanity, but getting people vaccinated on a worldwide basis takes a long time. The polio vaccines have been around for 60 years and yet that disease is still not eradicated in the developing world. A vaccine’s success in the developed world breeds complacency, the disease seems to vanish there, people lose fear of it and stop getting vaccinated, and then the disease returns, possibly because of contagion from the developing world.

Medicines are far more easily administered than vaccines. But as long as the government and the medical establishment is obsessed with vaccines, the country may miss a big opportunity and sink deeper into the political controversy about individual choice vs. government coercion.

 
 

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer.

end

From the Jerusalem Post

special thanks to Chris Powell for sending this to us:

Does your medicine cabinet have any B cells?

end

 

and the following article  from the Jerusalem Post sent courtesy of Chris Powell:

Two things wrong with this paragraph from the Jerusalem Post

  1. The FDA has not given full approval of the Pfizer vaccine last week.  They gave approval to a vaccine that does not exist yet.  They extended the emergency use EUA vaccine of Pfizer

      2. The Post noted in the press release that information is not yet available about potential long term health                        outcomes. How on earth can they issue approval for uncertainty??

 
 
 
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/israeli-experts-analyze-if-mrna-covid-vaccines-be-dangerous-in-long-term-678171

 

 
paragraph no 2
 
The American Food and Drug Administration provided full approval of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine last week, but noted in its press release that “information is not yet available about potential long-term health outcomes.”
 
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
7 Villa Louisa Road
Manchester, Connecticut 06043-7541
USA
 
Office: 860-646-7383
Mobile: 860-305-4013
 
end
 
this is big news: two senior FDA officials leave and no doubt that they are concerned about the repercussions of their decision to give a fake FDA approval for the Pfizer vaccine with long term uncertainties!
Peter Marks said in the letter.

Two senior FDA vaccine regulators are stepping down

 
Berkeley Lovelace Jr.@BERKELEYJR
 
Meg Tirrell@MEGTIRRELL
SHAREShare Article via FacebookShare Article via TwitterShare Article via LinkedInShare Article via Email
KEY POINTS
  • Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research & Review, and deputy director Phil Krause will exit the agency.
  • Their announced plans to depart come as the Biden administration prepares to begin offering Covid vaccine boosters shots to the general public.
  • The officials were reportedly frustrated with the White House getting ahead of the agency on booster shots.

  • Two senior Food and Drug Administration officials responsible for reviewing Covid-19 vaccine applications are leaving the federal agency this fall, an agency spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

    Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research & Review, and deputy director Phil Krause will exit the agency in October and November, respectively, according to a letter shared with CNBC by FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo.

    The news was reported earlier by the biotech website BioCentury.

    Their announced plans to depart come as the Biden administration prepares to begin offering Covid vaccine booster shots to the general public the week of Sept. 20. Some health experts saw the move as premature and political, especially because the FDA hasn’t finished reviewing data on boosters yet.

    Endpoints News, a biotech industry publication, reported that the officials are leaving because they’re frustrated that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its advisory committee are involved in decisions they think should be up to the FDA.

    The final straw was when the White House got ahead of the agency on booster shots, according to Endpoints News, citing a former senior FDA leader.

     

    When asked at a briefing later Tuesday whether the departures will affect trust in the FDA, White House Covid czar Jeff Zients said the decision to distribute boosters was made by a number of senior health officials, including acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock.

    “As our medical experts laid out, having reviewed all the available data, it is in their clinical judgment that it is time to prepare Americans for a booster shot,” he said.

    end

and then this from Endpoints.com//same subject as above

 
(Endpoints.com)

BREAKING: In a major blow to vaccine efforts, senior FDA leaders stepping down

 
 

 


Two of the FDA’s most senior vaccine leaders are exiting from their positions, raising fresh questions about the Biden administration and the way that it’s sidelined the FDA.

Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research & Review and 32-year veteran of the agency, will leave at the end of October, and OVRR deputy director Phil Krause, who’s been at FDA for more than a decade, will leave in November. The news, first reported by BioCentury, is a massive blow to confidence in the agency’s ability to regulate vaccines.

The bombshell announcement comes at a particularly crucial moment, as boosters and children’s shots are being weighed by the regulator. The departures also come as the administration has recently jumped ahead of the FDA’s reviews of booster shots, announcing that they might be available by the week of Sept. 20.

A former senior FDA leader told Endpoints that they’re departing because they’re frustrated that CDC and their ACIP committee are involved in decisions that they think should be up to the FDA. The former FDAer also said he’s heard they’re upset with CBER director Peter Marks for not insisting that those decisions should be kept inside FDA. What finally did it for them was the White House getting ahead of FDA on booster shots.

FDA’s former acting chief scientist Luciana Borio added on Twitter, “FDA is losing two giants who helped bring us many safe and effective vaccines over decades of public service.”

“These two are the leaders for Biologic (vaccine) review in the US. They have a great team, but these two are the true leaders of CBER. A huge global loss if they both leave,” Former BARDA director Rick Bright wrote, weighing in on the news. “Dr. Gruber is much more than the Director. She is a global leader. Visionary mastermind behind global clinical regulatory science for flu, Ebola, Mers, Zika, Sars-cov-2, many others.”

 


In a letter from Marks to staff, he explained:

The letter of Dr Peter Marks explaining the resignation of Marion Gruber and Phil Krause is at the very end of my commentary.

Please review it.

 

Janet Woodcock told Endpoints that she wishes Gruber and Krause well and thanks them for their significant service.

end

 
A good one: 
The author notes that pancreatitis is becoming prevalent

Who’s Really Being Hospitalized?

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 11:10 AM

Authored by Jennifer Margulis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

 

Mainstream media is reporting that severe COVID cases are mainly among unvaccinated people, but who is counted as having COVID, and who is counted as being unvaccinated muddy the waters. (wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock)

“I’m not going to arm wrestle with the administration about where to put you,” Dr. C., a highly skilled gastroenterologist, said gently to my friend who was in bed in a triage room in the ER. “We just want to get you into a bed so we can figure out what’s wrong and get you treated.”

We were at our small town’s hospital. No one was sure why, but my friend had not been able to keep anything more than a handful of raspberries down since a complicated surgery for a chronic health condition three weeks before. Dehydrated and unable to eat, my friend had been violently vomiting after taking just a sip of water or sucking on an ice chip, and had lost nearly twenty-five pounds.

I was by my husband’s side when he had a gallbladder attack so severe that it left his hands shaking. I’ve had three unmedicated childbirths and attended many more, both as a journalist and a patient advocate. Still, I’ve never seen a human in so much pain.

Diagnosed with a Pancreas Disorder, Admitted as a COVID Patient

After a battery of testing, my friend was diagnosed with pancreatitis. But it was easier for the hospital bureaucracy to register the admission as a COVID case.

Let me explain. This patient had none of the classic symptoms of COVID: No shortness of breath, no fever, no chills, no congestion, no loss of sense of smell or taste, no neurological issues. The only COVID symptoms my friend had were nausea and fatigue, which could also be explained by the surgery. However, nearly three weeks earlier, a COVID test had come back positive.

The mainstream media is reporting that severe COVID cases are mainly among unvaccinated people. An Associated Press headline from June 29 reads: “Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated.” Another, from the same date: “Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, ABC News survey finds.”

Is that what’s really going on? It’s certainly not the case in Israel, the first country to fully vaccinate a majority of its citizens against the virus. Now it has one of the highest daily infection rates and the majority of people catching the virus (77 percent to 83 percent, depending on age) are already vaccinated, according to data collected by the Israeli government.

After carefully reviewing the available data, including the safety and efficacy profiles of the mRNA vaccines, my friend had taken a cautious approach. Though a medical doctor who gives vaccines in the office every day, my friend opted to wait and see. According to WebMD, a “huge number” of frontline hospital workers have also chosen not to get the vaccine. Indeed, various news reports, from California to New York, confirm that up to 40 percent of health care workers have decided the risks of the vaccines do not outweigh the benefits.

After admission, I spoke to the nurse on the COVID ward. She was suited up in a plastic yellow disposable gown, teal gloves, and two masks underneath a recirculating personal respiratory system that buzzed so loudly she could barely hear. The nurse told me that she had gotten both vaccines but she was feeling worried: “Two thirds of my patients are fully vaccinated,” she said.

Data Limitations

How can there be such a disconnect between what the COVID ward nurse told me and the mainstream media reports? For one thing, it is very hard to get any kind of accuracy when it comes to actual numbers. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have publicly acknowledged that they do not have accurate data.

As reported by the Associated Press, “The CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalizations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data.”

At the same time, data collection is done on a state by state basis. In most states, a person is only considered fully vaccinated fourteen days after they have had the full series of the vaccine.

This means that anyone coming into an American hospital who has only had one dose, or who has had both vaccines but had the second one less than two weeks prior, will likely be counted as “unvaccinated.”

So when the South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control released a report about COVID severity on July 23, 2021, they reported higher morbidity and mortality rates in the “not fully vaccinated.” Are these people who have had one vaccine and gotten sick, two vaccines and gotten sick, or no vaccines at all? Without more details, it is impossible to know what is really going on.

“We don’t have accurate numbers,” insists Dr. James Neuenschwander, an expert on vaccine safety based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

But what we do know, Neuenschwander says, is that the vaccines are not as effective as public health officials told us they would be. “This is a product that’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to stop transmission of this virus and it’s not doing that.”

Overcounting COVID

Then there is the problem of attributing severe illness and deaths from other causes to COVID, like in my friend’s case. Health authorities around the world have been doing this since the beginning of the COVID crisis. For example, a young man in Orange County, Florida who died in a motorcycle crash last summer was originally considered a COVID death by state health officials (after Fox News investigation the classification was changed.) And a middle-aged construction worker fell off a ladder in Croatia and was also counted as a death from COVID (whether having COVID played a role in his death is still unclear.)

To muddy the waters further, even people who test negative for COVID are sometimes counted as COVID deaths.

Consider the case of 26-year-old Matthew Irvin, a father of three from Yamhill County, Oregon. As reported by KGW8 News, Irvin went to the ER with stomach pain, nausea, and diarrhea on July 5, 2020. But instead of admitting him to the hospital, the doctors sent him home.

Five days later, on July 10, 2020, Irvin died. Though his COVID test came back negative two days after his death and his family told reporters and public health officials that no one Irvin had been around had any COVID symptoms, the medical examiner allegedly told the family that an autopsy was not necessary, listing his death as a coronavirus case. It took the Oregon Health Authority two and a half months to correct the mistake.

In an even more striking example of overcounting COVID deaths, a nursing home in New Jersey that only has 90 beds was wrongly reported as having 753 deaths from COVID. According to a spokesman, they had fewer than twenty deaths. In other words, the number of deaths was over-reported by 3,700 percent.

Who’s Suffering from Severe COVID, Vaccinated or Unvaccinated?

In countries with the highest numbers of vaccinated individuals, we are also seeing high numbers of infections. Iceland has one of the most vaccinated populations in the world (over 82 percent) and is reporting that 77 percent of new COVID cases are in fully vaccinated Icelanders, according to Ásthildur Knútsdóttir, Director General of the Ministry of Health.

According to news reports, over 85 percent of the Israeli adult population has been vaccinated. But a July report from Israel’s Ministry of Health found that Pfizer’s vaccine is only 39 percent effective. Though Israeli health officials are telling the public that the cases are more mild in vaccinated individuals, this upsurge in COVID cases and deaths is leading Israel’s prime minister to issue new restrictions.

Dr. Peter McCullough, an academic internist and cardiologist in practice in Dallas, Texas, says that a large number of people in the hospitals right now have, indeed, been fully vaccinated. “Fully vaccinated people are being hospitalized, and … 19 percent of them have died,” McCullough says. “This is not a crisis of the unvaccinated. That’s just a talking point. The vaccinated are participating in this.”

Other physicians are seeing the same thing. “In my practice multiple patients who are fully vaccinated have been admitted to local hospitals,” says Dr. Jeffrey I. Barke, a board-certified primary care physician based in Newport Beach, California. Barke believes part of the problem is exaggeration of the efficacy: “If the vaccine works so well, why are we now pushing a booster?”

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist and author of Your Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family. A Fulbright awardee and mother of four, she has worked on a child survival campaign in West Africa, advocated for an end to child slavery in Pakistan on prime-time TV in France, and taught post-colonial literature to non-traditional students in inner-city Atlanta. Learn more about her at JenniferMargulis.net
 
END

All Covid articles in the last few days

special thanks to G.G> for sending this to us:

fda-issues-warning-about-increased-risk-heart-inflammation-caused-moderna-jab — Will the rest finally be revealed !? who will be held responsible? Do your homework read all. G

last night

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fda-issues-warning-about-increased-risk-heart-inflammation-caused-moderna-jab

 

• Informed Consent Disclosure To Vaccine Trial Subjects (NIH) 

• COVID-19 Mandates Will Not Work for the Delta Variant (AIER) 

• The WHO Oversold the Vaccine and Deprecated Natural Immunity (Tucker) 

• Americans Traded Their Freedoms for Safety, And Now We Have Neither (TFTP) 

• UK Gov’t Release 30th Report On Adverse Reactions To Covid-19 Vaccines (Tap) 

• Interleukin-6 and the Covid-19 Cytokine Storm Syndrome (ERJ) 

• Burial Costs Covered For Canadians Killed By Approved Vaccines TSun) 

• Insanity in Vietnam (Berenson) 

• The Delta Scam (Jim Quinn) 

• Fears Over Metal Flakes In Moderna Vaccine After Two Deaths (Times) 

• New Covid Variant Detected In South Africa, Most Mutated Variant So Far (JPost) 

• Australian Truckers Protest Mandatory Vaccines And Lockdowns (ET)
 
 
and now today: special thanks to G.G. for sending this to us:
 

Covid articles — the first article is very interesting and the ivermectin articles — do your homework!!!

Inbox

Gijsbert Groenewegen

3:21 PM (5 minutes ago)

    

to Gijsbert

 

• SARS-COV2, Vaccines Accelerate Biological Age (France Soir)   https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.121.318902

• Open Letter to CDC (Steve Kirsch) 

• Anti-Androgens As Promising Therapies For Covid-19 (Cadegiani)

• Why Covid-19 Is Not So Spread In Africa: How Does Ivermectin Affect It? (medRxiv) 

• Schools Across Europe Must Stay Open, Say WHO And Unicef (G.) 

• Mandatory Vaccines Will Be ‘Applied In Full’ As Deadline Looms (K.) 

• Ohio Judge Orders Hospital To Treat Covid-19 Patient With Ivermectin (JTN)

 

 

Gijsbert Groenewegen

Silverarrowpartners

+1.646.247.1000 

 
GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES
 

end

 
Michael Every on the major stories of the day!
 
 
 
Michael Every….

Rabobank: Brexit Was One Wake-Up Call; Trump Was Another; This Should Be A Third

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 10:20 AM

By Michael Every of Rabobank

“Profound Revolution”

Political developments in China have been front page news in the financial press over the past few months, and are again today. To recap, Beijing’s initial crackdown on Ant Financial, of course dismissed by Wall Street, then spread to China’s version of Uber, Didi, and then on to the broader sectors these firms championed, fin- and transport-tech. Then it grew to encompass whole swathes of the economy, from tech to health to education to property to food delivery to gaming, which Wall Street could not so easily ignore.  

In terms of tech, there are now sharp limits on IPOs in the US (mirrored from the US side) and new algo/pricing and data regulations that require Beijing to hold on to it; the private tuition field has been made non-profit; there has been a sharp reduction in credit to property developers along with the official message that “houses are for living in, not speculation.”; and yesterday under-18s were limited to only 3 hours of computer-gaming a week in allotted weekend evening slots, sending the share price of related firms tumbling.

Beijing has also called for curbs on “excessive” income, and for the wealthy and profitable firms “to give back more to society” –and Tencent has already pledged $15bn– matched by: a social campaign against excessive business drinking, “unpatriotic” karaoke songs, and celebrity/idol culture; ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ being made obligatory at all schools and universities; growing censorship which, as Bloomberg puts it, means “China to Cleanse Online Content that ‘Bad Mouths’ its Economy”; and today China cracked down on private equity funds, saying it will stop public offerings disguised as private equity, weeks after stopping PE from investing in residential property.

This has all taken place under the slogan of “Common Prosperity”. Western market analysts and MSCI, who are far happier dealing with Marks & Spencer than Marks & Engels, have tried to explain away the phrase as a series of technocratic measures or periodic regulatory compliance procedures. MSCI would have a whole lot of egg on its face to say otherwise, of course, as would Western investment banks who just opened wealth management arms in China.

However, commentary reposted by Chinese state media yesterday stated that while Common Prosperity does not entail “killing the rich” (hugely encouraging to MSCI and Wall Street), these changes are a “profound revolution” sweeping the country, and warned that anyone who resisted would face punishment.

It added: “This is a return from the capital group to the masses of the people, and this is a transformation from capital-centred to people-centred,” marking a return to the original intention of the Communist Party, and “Therefore, this is a political change, and the people are becoming the main body of this change again, and all those who block this people-centred change will be discarded.” Notably, a WeChat blogger originally made the post, but it was then reposted by major state-run media outlets such as the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, PLA Daily, CCTV, China Youth Daily, and China News Service, showing high-level, wide-ranging official approval. Marginal tax changes and compliance tweaks this is not.

The author also wrote that high housing prices and medical costs will become the next targets of the campaign – which is crucial given how high and ever-rising property prices matter in most economies, with China no exception. (The vast majority of household wealth is held in that form, for example, and up to 30% of GDP is tied up directly and indirectly in property construction and fitting out.) Moreover, it was also stressed that the government needed to “combat the chaos of big capital,” adding “The capital market will no longer become a paradise for capitalists to get rich overnight. The cultural market will no longer be a paradise for sissy stars, and news and public opinion will no longer be in a position worshiping Western culture.” Underlining a geopolitical element, the post also added that if China relies on “capitalists” to fight “US imperialism” it could suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union. MSCI and Wall Street will no doubt be busy trying to find some way to spin this all as positive.

After having just decried them, the ironic question then flows: what does this mean for markets?

1) If all you understand is neoliberalism, knowingly or unknowingly, then your market calls are not going to be worth much when the really big shifts happen: Brexit in 2016 was one wake-up call; Trump in 2016 was another; this should be a third. Yes, there will still be an army of Wall Street ‘experts’ shilling away or genuinely believing that everyone everywhere is Homo Economicus (rather than Sovieticus) right up until the “profound revolution” is at their door – and then shrugging and saying “geopolitics”, as if that translates into anything other than a collapse in their fund’s value. Yet as I keep trying to stress here, the neoliberal order is hardly smelling of roses right now anywhere, criticisms of it are very valid, and there are other, older “-ism” prisms out there to understand and react to how the very unfair world around us works.

2) This is likely to see Chinese equities (and housing?) to continue to underperform those in the US.

3) It may add to pre-existing downward pressures on Chinese growth – or it may lead to sustained high growth of a more balanced kind… but that still won’t be an economy Wall Street will benefit from. Exporters to China will also be unhappy either way. Try to imagine if this “revolution” fails…. but imagine if it succeeds! What would that say about How the West was Lost?

4) Even though most of the Fed or ECB likely couldn’t find major Chinese cities on a map, this is going to matter to the US and EU economies too. It may mean more “fictitious capital” (i.e., QE), just as China tries to focus on the “productive”. (Again, imagine if China is right…)

5) It is an ironic positive for global bonds, and government bonds in China – as a one-way street for those who get in early to the latter and then realize they are there for the duration of the ride, wherever it eventually leads.

6) it is more likely to be a major long-run negative for CNY. In the short-run, however, the rhetoric on capital markets hardly suggests any appetite in Beijing for FX volatility. If we see a universal move in USD higher, e.g., should the Fed prove they cannot find China on a map by tapering, then CNY will move lower – while staying largely unchanged against every currency except the Dollar.

7) Geopolitical tensions, which flow back to the economy and markets, are only going to worsen. Which is exactly what a world seeing the US defense umbrella blowing away (or providing far less cover) does not want to imagine – but will have to regardless.

Unless it can convince itself that everything that is happening is just technocratic adjustment and periodic regulatory compliance measures. Good luck with that.

end

 

7. OIL ISSUES

Hurricane Ida Shuts Down More Than 90% of Oil and Gas Production in the Gulf of Mexico

Experts say the oil refineries that have been shut down account for 9% of the country’s total.

 

By

 

Jody Serrano
 

As if reversing the course of the Mississippi River, forcing hospitals to hunker down with patients that couldn’t be moved, and nearly shutting off the power and internet in New Orleans wasn’t enough, Hurricane Ida has also disrupted oil and gas production.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Sunday said that 95.6% of current oil production and 93.7% of the gas production in the Gulf of Mexico had been shut down in response to Hurricane Ida, which made landfall as a powerful Category 4 storm in Louisiana. Offshore Gulf operators had to evacuate personnel due to Ida and as of Sunday had moved workers off 288 production platforms, or 51.4% of manned platforms in the area, and 11 rigs, or 100% structures in the area.

In addition, the BSEE reported that 10 dynamically positioned rigs—which are not moored to the seafloor and can change locations in a relatively short period of time—had moved out of the storm’s projected path. They represent 66.7% of the total dynamically positioned rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

 
 

A hurricane making landfall in this area is the one of the worst things that could happen to the oil industry, experts told CNN, and could impact the pipelines that ferry fuel to the East Coast. Andy Lipow, president of the Houston-based consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates, told the outlet that six refineries in New Orleans are currently shut down. These refineries—which include PBF, Phillips, Shell, Marathon, and two Valero refineries—produce 1.7 million barrels per day, or 9% of the country’s total.

Related Stories

Hurricane Ida Is Hitting Louisiana Amid a Covid-19 Surge. It’s a Nightmare in the Making
How to Help Hurricane Ida Victims Right Now
More Than a Million Without Power in the Wake of Ida’s ‘Catastrophic Transmission Damage’

However, Lipow said that there were still three refineries belonging to Exxon, Placid, and Kratz Springs in the Baton Rouge area operating at what appeared to be reduced capacity. These refineries are responsible for roughly 700,000 barrels a day, or 3.5% of U.S. daily consumption. Although these refineries are still operating, some expect oil and gas prices to increase in the storm’s aftermath.

 
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Bose Is Refreshing Its Iconic Noise-Canceling Headphones

“It’s now a waiting game to assess whatever wind and flooding damage will be caused as the hurricane passes through the area,” Lipow said

 

The BSEE said that oil and gas production facilities would need to be inspected after the storm passes. Facilities that are not damaged will “be brought back online immediately,” but others that are damaged will take longer to start back up.

 

END

8 EMERGING MARKET& AUSTRALIA ISSUES

Australia////COVID/VACCINES

end

Your early  currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings TUESDAY  morning 7:30 AM….

Euro/USA 1.1839 UP .0043 /EUROPE BOURSES /ALL RED   

USA/ YEN 109.88  DOWN  0.062 /NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT .11% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…

GBP/USA 1.3785  UP   0.0026  

 

USA/CAN 1.2578  DOWN .0031  (  CDN DOLLAR UP 31 BASIS PTS )

 

Early TUESDAY morning in Europe, the Euro IS UP BY 43 basis points, trading now ABOVE the important 1.08 level RISING to 1.1839 Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED UP 15.79 PTS OR 0.45%

 

//Hang Sang CLOSED UP 399.45 PTS OR 1.33%

 

/AUSTRALIA CLOSED UP  .45% // EUROPEAN BOURSES OPENED ALL RED  

 

Trading from Europe and ASIA

EUROPEAN BOURSES CLOSED ALL RED  

 

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SANG  CLOSED UP 339.45    PTS OR 1.33% 

 

/SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 15,79  PTS OR 0.45% 

 

Australia BOURSE CLOSED UP 0.45%

Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED UP 300.25 pts or 1.08% 

 

INDIA’S SENSEX  IN THE GREEN

Gold very early morning trading: 1812.80

silver:$24.05-

Early TUESDAY morning USA 10 year bond yr: 1.292% !!! UP 1 IN POINTS from MONDAY’S night in basis points and it is trading WELL BELOW resistance at 2.27-2.32%.

The 30 yr bond yield 1.900 UP 0  IN BASIS POINTS from MONDAY night.

USA dollar index early TUESDAY morning: 92.43 DOWN 23  CENT(S) from MONDAY’s close.

This ends early morning numbers TUESDAY MORNING

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx6

And now your closing  TUESDAY NUMBERS 1: 00 PM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 0.22%  UP 5  in basis point(s) yield from YESTERDAY/

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: +.026%  UP 6/10   BASIS POINTS from YESTERDAY/JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 0.34%//  UP 5  in basis points yield from yesterday.

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD:  0.71 UP 6   points in basis points yield from yesterday./

the Italian 10 yr bond yield is trading 37 points higher than Spain.

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: RISES TO –.379% IN BASIS POINTS ON THE DAY//

THE IMPORTANT SPREAD BETWEEN ITALIAN 10 YR BOND AND GERMAN 10 YEAR BOND IS 1.06% AND NOW ABOVE THE  THE 3.00% LEVEL WHICH WILL IMPLODE THE ENTIRE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM. AT 4% SPREAD THERE WILL BE A HUGE BANK RUN…

END

IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES FOR  TUESDAY

Closing currency crosses for TUESDAY night/USA DOLLAR INDEX/USA 10 YR BOND YIELD/1:00 PM

Euro/USA 1.1797  UP    0.0002 or 2 basis points

USA/Japan: 110,06  UP .125 OR YEN DOWN 13  basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.3751 DOWN .0007 DOWN 7   BASIS POINTS)

Canadian dollar DOWN 26 basis points to 1.2634

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The USA/Yuan,  CNY: closed    ON SHORE  (CLOSED UP).. 6.4607 

 

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE:    (YUAN CLOSED UP)..6.4553

TURKISH LIRA:  8.32  EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WISH.

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield  at +0.026%

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield UP  2 IN basis points from MONDAY at 1.300 % //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic USA 30 yr bond yield: 1.925 UP 3 in basis points on the day

Your closing USA dollar index, 92.71 UP 6  CENT(S) ON THE DAY/1.00 PM/

Your closing bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates for TUESDAY: 12:00 PM

London: CLOSED DOWN 28.31 PTS OR 0.40% 

 

German Dax :  CLOSED DOWN 52.22 PTS OR 0.33% 

 

Paris CAC CLOSED DOWN 7.12  PTS OR  0.11% 

 

Spain IBEX CLOSED  DOWN 21.30  PTS OR  0.24%

Italian MIB: CLOSED DOWN 14.95 PTS OR 0.06% 

 

WTI Oil price; 68.93 12:00  PM  EST

Brent Oil: 72.94 12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN /   RUBLE FALLS:    73.31  THE CROSS HIGHER BY 0.21 RUBLES/DOLLAR (RUBLE LOWER BY 21 BASIS PTS)

TODAY THE GERMAN YIELD RISES  TO –.379FOR THE 10 YR BOND 1.00 PM EST EST

END

This ends the stock indices, oil price, currency crosses and interest rate closes for today 4:30 PM

Closing Price for Oil, 4:00 pm/and 10 year USA interest rate:

WTI CRUDE OIL PRICE 4:30 PM : 68.52//

BRENT :  71.56

USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: … 1.303..  UP  2 basis points…

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 1.924  UP 2 basis points..

EURO/USA 1.1807 UP 0.0011   ( 11 BASIS POINTS)

USA/JAPANESE YEN:110.01 UP .069 ( YEN DOWN 7 BASIS POINTS/..

USA DOLLAR INDEX: 92.67 UP 1  cent(s)/

The British pound at 4 pm   Britain Pound/USA: 1.3747  DOWN .0009  

the Turkish lira close: 8.32  UP 6 BASIS PTS

the Russian rouble 73.24   UP   .27 Roubles against the uSA dollar. (UP 27 BASIS POINTS)

Canadian dollar:  1.2616 DOWN 7 BASIS pts

German 10 yr bond yield at 5 pm: ,-0.379%

The Dow closed DOWN 39.24 POINTS OR 0.11%

NASDAQ closed DOWN 6.65 POINTS OR 0.044%

VOLATILITY INDEX:  16,55 CLOSED UP 0.36

LIBOR 3 MONTH DURATION: 0.1199

%//libor dropping like a stone

USA trading day in Graph Form

 

MORNING TRADING

IMPORTANT USA ECONOMIC DATA

Watch out for this as “rental policy shock” will have 750,000 households will be evicted from their apartments.  This wil be deadly to USA economy

(zerohedge)

“Rental Policy Shock”: 750,000 Households Are About To Be Evicted – What Happens To The Economy

 
MONDAY, AUG 30, 2021 – 09:20 PM

With the Supreme Court officially striking down Biden’s eviction moratorium and with most state-level restrictions set to expire over the next month, Goldman has calculated how sharply evictions could rise under current policy in order to estimate the potential impact on the economy.

First some big picture details:

  • Despite the severe recession, evictions actually declined during the coronacrisis due to the national eviction moratorium, with eviction filings declining 65% in Blue states and 61% nationwide.

  • Using rent delinquency data from real estate companies, the National Multifamily Housing Council, and the Census Pulse survey,the bank estimates that  2½-3½ million households are behind on rent, with $12-17bn owed to landlords.

  • Despite the $25bn dispersed from the Treasury to state and local governments, the process of providing these funds to households and landlords has been slow. Only 350k households received assistance in July, and at this pace, 1-2 million households will remain without aid and at risk of eviction when the last 2021 eviction bans expire on September 30.

Next, we jump right to Goldman’s findings before digging deeper into the analysis. According to the bank: 

  • The strength of the housing and rental market suggests landlords will try to evict tenants who are delinquent on rent unless they obtain federal assistance. And evictions could be particularly pronounced in cities hardest hit by the coronacrisis, since apartment markets are actually tighter in those cities.

  • Taken together, Goldman believes roughly 750k households will ultimately be evicted later this year under current policy.

  • Goldman expects that a small drag on consumption and job growth will result from an eviction episode of this magnitude, but the implications for covid infections and public health are probably more severe.

  • The end of the moratoriums would also exert downward pressure on shelter inflation as vacancy rates rise. Under our baseline estimates, post-moratorium evictions will raise the vacancy rate by about 1pp, which on its own would lower shelter inflation by 0.3pp in 2022, partially offsetting the intense upward pressure from the housing shortage.

With that in mind, we next look closer at the underlying causes behind the coming “Rental Policy Shock”, as well as what comes next.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court overturned the federal eviction moratorium that had constrained the ability of landlords to evict tenants adversely affected by the pandemic recession. As shown in the chart below, because most states do not currently have eviction bans in place and because those that do are also set to expire by September, roughly 90% of the country will lose access to these emergency protections by the start of the fourth quarter.

The coming end of the eviction moratorium will result in a sharp and rapid increase in eviction rates in coming months unless Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) funding is distributed at a much faster pace or Congress addresses the issue, for example in the upcoming reconciliation package. These key deadlines are summarized in the table below.

The tenant protection policies listed above significantly reduced evictions during the first 18 months of the pandemic, with eviction rates actually falling instead of rising as typically happens during a recession. Because of the legal gray area and income-eligibility requirements of the federal eviction bans, state and local moratoriums have often been more effective in preventing evictions. As shown in the left panel of the next chart, eviction rates plummeted to near-zero while the strictest eviction bans of spring 2020 were in effect, and on average, eviction filing rates remain less than half their pre-crisis pace.

The right panel above shows that eviction filings have generally fallen more dramatically in liberal states and cities adopting more stringent protections like California and New York (-65% across Blue States). These states are also more likely to interpret the federal moratoriums more generously than Red States.

Economic Impact of the Moratoriums

The eviction moratoriums primarily affected the real economy through their impact on tenant-occupied housing consumption and consumer cash flows, both of which were highly positive: the housing consumption category continued to rise during the crisis in spite of the surge in unemployment (+0.9% in 2020 and +0.8% in 1H21, real basis). However, the category represents only 2.5% of GDP, so the direct impact on GDP levels through this channel was probably small (0.1-0.2% of GDP).

Eviction Backlog

Obviously, the eviction moratorium had extremely favorable consequences for the economy – after all it delayed the realization of true supply and demand at the expense of taxpayers and massive debt monetization. However, this period of involuntary taxpayer generosity is coming to an end and as of this moment, estimates of rental delinquencies run the gamut from under 1mn units to upwards of 15mn, with the wide range reflecting the rapid changes in the labor and rental markets over the last year, as well as the lack of timely and representative data on the subject. Goldman’s estimates, shown below, indicate 1-2mn households at risk of eviction even after next month’s federal aid distributions, of which roughly 750k households would be evicted under the status quo.

As shown in the exhibit above, Goldman estimates that the number of housing units at risk of eviction, based on uncollected tenant revenues in 2021Q2 for large property managers, representing 20mn tenant-occupied housing units, and based on survey data reporting the share of consumers who owe back rent and also “lost employment income” during the pandemic, representing the remaining 25mn units. Because the moratoriums also deferred hundreds of thousands of evictions unrelated to the pandemic, one should also add an additional backlog to reflect these missing filings.

Together, the bank estimates that 2½-3½ million households are significantly behind on rent and at risk of eviction without policy support. Since roughly half of eviction filings historically result in eviction (47% over 2006-2016), Goldman assumes that barring a new eviction ban from Congress or a much faster pace of ERA distribution, 750k households will face eviction in the fall and winter months. With 8-9 million Americans currently unemployed and emergency unemployment programs winding down, the sudden loss of tenant protections could plausibly generate an eviction episode of this magnitude.

Translating these figures to a dollar amount of back rent based on the stock and flow of bad tenant debt among residential REITs, implies 4.4 months of rent payments outstanding on average across tenants who are behind on rent. This is consistent with research from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimating average tenant debt at 3 months’ rent. Taken together, some $12-17 billion of bad tenant debt accumulated during the crisis.

 Yet Another Bottleneck

With $25bn already dispersed from the Treasury to state and local governments and another $20bn available, the size of the Congressional allocation would appear more than sufficient to prevent an eviction crisis. But so far, the process of recovering back rents has been disappointingly slow, in part because doing so requires a significant amount of matching of information from the renter and the landlord. After doubling month-over-month in June to $1.5bn, the pace of distributions plateaued at $1.7bn in July (and $4.5bn cumulatively). Because of this and because utilities and electric bills are absorbing a significant minority of these funds, under current policy, a significant share of the 2½-3½ million households behind on rent could ultimately face eviction later this year.

As shown in Exhibit 6, at the current monthly processing pace of 350k households, 1-2 million delinquent households would remain without ERA aid at the start of Q4 when the last 2021 eviction bans are set to expire (NY, WA).

At the same time, the strength of the housing and rental market suggests landlords will try to evict delinquent units unless they can obtain federal funding. In fact, as shown in the next chart, apartment markets are actually tighter in cities hardest hit by the coronacrisis. This reduces the incentive for landlords to negotiate with delinquent tenants or wait for federal aid.

Economic Consequences

The final question is what would the coming surge in evictions mean for employment, consumption, and inflation?

Here Goldman’s economists write that eviction increases the likelihood of a subsequent unemployment spell by around 2%. Based on 750k units and 1.17 payroll jobs per household, Goldman estimates 20k incremental job losses over the next year as a result of the end of the moratoriums (naturally, that number is far too low).

While the consumption effects of such job losses would be small for economy as a whole, the end of the moratoriums also means that households who skipped rent payments would need to cut back in other areas. Based on a marginal propensity to consume of 0.7 for delinquent units during Q2, Goldman estimates a ¼% drag on Q4 consumption growth from this channel.

We conclude by analyzing the inflation implications of these developments. While small in GDP terms, housing rental prices provide the source data for 17% of the core PCE inflation basket and 40% of the core CPI basket. Here Goldman writes that in its view, eviction moratoriums reduced shelter inflation early in the crisis by increasing the prevalence of rent forgiveness: the CPI statisticians impute a 95% price reduction for such housing units. Updating its previous proxy based on city-level rent declines, Goldman estimates rent forgiveness lowered PCE shelter prices by 0.32% during 2020 and by another 0.1% in 2021.

There is a silver lining: a surge in evictions should create new inventory of available rental housing, partially offsetting rapidly rising housing costs,.

So looking ahead, the end of the moratoriums will likely boost the market supply of rental units, because evicted tenants often move in with family members or leave the urban rental market entirely. Based on the historical relationship between vacancies and shelter inflation (holding unemployment constant), a 500k rise in vacancies would boost the rental vacancy rate by 1pp and exert 0.3pp of downward pressure on shelter inflation in 2022.

Despite this “benefit”, based on the continued improvement in the labor market, robust housing market fundamentals, and the sharp pickup in mid-year rental prices, Goldman still forecast PCE housing inflation to pick up from 2.2% currently to 3.5% at year-end and 4.6% in 2022. That means that housing is about to become completely unaffordably to virtually anyone outside of the top 1%. As for the original American Dream (i.e. owning a house), of all those who are about to get evicted, our advice: aim lower…

end

Bubble forming fast in house prices.  They are rising at the fastest pace on record and as such house prices are just unaffordable

(zerohedge)

Housing Bubble On Steroids: US Home Prices Rise At Fastest Pace On Record

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 09:13 AM

According to the Case-Shiller indices, home prices in America’s 20 largest cities have exploded at 19.08% YoY in June up from 17.14% in May, beating expectations of 18.6%, and the highest pace on record even surpassing the housing bubble days of 2005-2006.

The price in Phoenix is now up almost 30%, followed by San Diego, Seattle, San Fran, Tampa, Dallas, Miami all posting 20% price increases. Meanwhile, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, and Seattle all record their all-time highest 12-month gains.

While there was a modest trace of a slowdown in this insane bubble, as the 20-city SA index rose 1.77% m/m in June after rising 1.81% the prior month, the double digit gains will continue well into 20% Y/Y territory. Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle reported highest year-over-year gains among 20 cities surveyed.

All cities that make up the composite saw home prices appreciate at double digits, just a little higher than The Fed’s 2% “goal”.

But, on a national scale, it gets even crazier – or worse for anyone wanting to buy a house: Case-Shiller’s National Home Price Index rose 18.61% YoY in June, up from 16.78% and the fastest pace of home price inflation on record (back to 1988)

The National home price index rose 1.83% m/m in June after rising 1.81% the prior month.

“June 2021 is the third consecutive month in which the growth rate of housing prices set a record”, said Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P DJI.

“June’s 18.6% price gain for the National Composite is the highest reading in more than 30 years of S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data. This month, Boston joined Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, and Seattle in recording their all-time highest 12-month gains. Price gains in all 20 cities were in the top quartile of historical performance; in 19 cities, price gains were in top decile.”

“The National Composite Index marked its thirteenth consecutive month of accelerating prices with an 18.6% gain from year-ago levels, up from 16.8% in May and 14.8% in April. This acceleration is also reflected in the 10- and 20-City Composites (up 18.5% and 19.1%, respectively). The last several months have been extraordinary not only in the level of price gains, but in the consistency of gains across the country. In June, all 20 cities rose, and all 20 gained more in the 12 months ended in June than they had gained in the 12 months ended in May. Home prices in 19 of our 20 cities (all but Chicago) now stand at all-time highs, as do the National Composite and both the 10- and 20-City indices.”

“We have previously suggested that the strength in the U.S. housing market is being driven in part by reaction to the COVID pandemic, as potential buyers move from urban apartments to suburban homes. June’s data are consistent with this hypothesis. This demand surge may simply represent an acceleration of purchases that would have occurred anyway over the next several years. Alternatively, there may have been a secular change in locational preferences, leading to a permanent shift in the demand curve for housing. More time and data will be required to analyze this question.”

Meanwhile, the question for Jay Powell is – explain how this is “transitory”?

“The forces that have propelled home price growth to new highs over the past year remain in place and are offering little evidence of abating,” Matthew Speakman, and economist at Zillow Group Inc., said in a statement.

“The number of available homes for sale remains historically small, particularly given the elevated demand for housing.”

end

Americans Face A Nightmare Scenario: Record High Home Prices, Record High Rents… And OER Is About To Explode

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 03:40 PM

While the Fed keeps touting the “transitory” nature of runaway inflation, millions of Americans will soon be living under a bridge as both house prices and rents are now rising at a record pace (at least until cities start charging a “bridge habitation” tax).

Earlier today we reported that the latest Case Shiller data showed that home prices across the country had soared at the fastest pace on history, surpassing even the epic surge from the housing bubble, after rising at a record 19.1%.

Needless to say, at the rate home prices are rising, most American will soon be priced out of owning a home – even with record low mortgage rates – if they haven’t been already, which means they will be stuck paying rent for years if not decades to come.

Alas, we have some bad news there too, because as the WSJ reports today, would-be home buyers priced out of the home market are finding little consolation when they turn instead to the single-family rental market. The reason: prices are soaring there as well. Asking rents for houses rose nearly 13% for the year to date through July, the highest annual increase in the past five years as tracked by real-estate data company Yardi Matrix, which analyzed professionally managed properties.

As we discussed extensively two weeks ago in “What Rental Hyperinflation Looks Like: “Soaring Prices. Competition. Desperation“, the sharp rise partly reflects increasing demand from people who can’t afford to buy homes as well as city-dwellers who moved to the suburbs to rent during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the supply of new houses also continues to trail historical levels relative to population growth, and builders in some places remain constrained by zoning laws and available land.

Price increases are more moderate for single-family tenants renewing their leases, said Haendel St. Juste, a real-estate securities analyst at Mizuho Securities USA. “You’ve got to be careful in this industry. You can’t be perceived as gouging.” Apartment asking rents also have risen, but at a slower pace: 8.3% for the year to date through July, Yardi Matrix said. The difference partly reflects weaker demand in downtowns that lost population after Covid-19 hit, although those markets have rebounded in recent months.

A similar picture emerges from the latest data compiled by Apartment List. The real-estate data company revealed that its national index increased by 2.1% from July to August, a slight cool-down from 2.5% the month before, but nevertheless a continuation of rent growth that has persisted since the start of the year. Since January 2021, the national median rent has increased by a staggering 13.8%. To put that in context, rent growth from January to August averaged just 3.6% in the pre-pandemic years from 2017-2019.

With rents rising virtually everywhere, only a few cities remain cheaper than they were pre-pandemic. And even there, rents are rebounding quickly. In San Francisco, for example, rents are still 12 percent lower than they were in March 2020, but the city has seen prices increase by 20 percent since January of this year. At the other end of the spectrum, many of the mid-sized markets that have seen rents grow rapidly through the pandemic are only continuing to boom — rents in Boise, ID are now up 39 percent since March 2020. Rent growth in 2021 so far is outpacing pre-pandemic averages in 98 of the nation’s 100 largest cities.

Last summer, many cities were experiencing elevated vacancy rates coinciding with a sudden decrease in demand as renter households consolidated. This summer, however, demand has been continuously heating up, leading to a supply constricted market. In contrast to this time last year, when households were rapidly consolidating due to the uncertainty of the pandemic, the total number of households in the U.S. is now greater than ever before at over 131 million. Some of these households are likely aspiring homebuyers, but they’re facing a historically unaffordable (and tight) market, which has seen a 48% drop in inventory from last year.

So, as would-be home buyers get priced out of the for-sale market, they continue to rent, likely a driving factor for the increasing incomes and budgets of renters searching on Apartment List. This high demand has created a tight market, resulting in our vacancy index dropping sharply throughout 2021 as prices increase rapidly. Rents are now up more than 13 percent this year, more than doubling the overall rate of inflation.

What’s just as remarkable about the current market, is that unlike previous bubbles, this time the price surge is uniform with no pockets of weakness as the 2021 rent boom is affecting virtually every major market in the country. This is a big change from 2020, when rents fell precipitously in expensive markets while growing quickly in more-affordable ones. In 2021, rents are rising across the board.

The chart below visualizes monthly rent changes in each of the nation’s 100 largest cities from January 2018 to August 2021. The color in each cell represents the extent to which prices went up (red) or down (blue) in a given city in a given month. Bands of dark blue in 2020 represent the large urban centers where rent prices cratered (e.g., New York, San Francisco, Boston), but those bands have quickly turned red as ubiquitous rent growth sweeps the nation in 2021. In 2020, 75 of these cities saw rent prices rise in August, at an average rate of 0.9 percent. This year, all 100 cities got more expensive in August, and average rent growth more than doubled.

And with the August rent prices now in hand, Apartment List concludes that many of the cities that saw dramatic pandemic-era rent drops are finally back to pre-pandemic prices, including the nation’s two largest: New York City and Los Angeles. In New York City, prices went up 5.8% last month, faster than anywhere else in the country. There, the city-wide median rent price is now $2,052, above $2,000 for the first time since March of last year. On the side of the country, Los Angeles experienced 2.5 percent rent growth this month, and the median rent price now stands at $1,874. Other major cities that eclipsed pre-pandemic rent prices this month include Boston, MA; Portland, OR; and St. Paul, MN.

That means that today, “pandemic pricing” is over in most of the country. Rents remain below pre-pandemic levels in just 8 large cities: four California cities in the San Francisco Bay Area (i.e, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Fremont); Minneapolis, MN; Washington, DC; Seattle, WA; and Jersey City, NJ. The chart below visualizes the rapid rent drops and rebounds in each of these places. Oakland and San Francisco consistently made headlines throughout the pandemic for staggering rent drops and today are the only two cities retaining double-digit price reductions. The remainder should be back to pre-pandemic prices before too long.

And the cherry on top, of course, is that as most middle-class Americans become poorer as they spend increasingly more of their disposable income on rent and other staples, Wall Street is getting richer.

As we reported last month, the largest US financial institutions are doubling down on home buying. Investors purchased $87 billion in homes in the first half of 2021, according to real-estate company Redfin, including a record 68,000 houses in the second quarter.

Since June, Blackstone, Invesco and Goldman Sachs alone have committed more than $11 billion to the sector. Meanwhile, other companies are building rental homes from scratch. Tricon Residential, a publicly traded house owner, reported new lease rent increases of around 21% in July, a record for the company. The average hike was a more modest 5% for renewal tenants. In an August earnings call, Gary Berman, Tricon’s chief executive, said in some markets the company could fetch close to 10% rent increases for existing tenants if it didn’t intentionally “hold back”, the WSJ reported.

Wall Street firms also have a hand in would-be buyer woes: one in six home sales went to an investor in the second quarter of 2021, according to Redfin. In Atlanta, Phoenix and Miami, it was one in four.

“The institutional players are chasing some of the same homes that would be starter homes for owner occupiers,” said Desiree Fields, a geography professor at the University of California, Berkeley who researches the single-family rental industry.

We bring this up just in case there is confusion where to direct populist anger.

* * *

OK, fine, rents are soaring, but so what – after all, if the Fed pretends not to notice and if the CPI or PCE do not capture these prices, then prices can keep rising even more and politicians and money printers will keep pretending all is well and inflation is “contained” if a little “transitory” high.

Only, that’s no longer the case – as the chart below show, there is a roughly 4 month lag between the the first real-time Apartment List print and when it registers in the official Owner Equivalent Rent series. And as the next chart shows, which overlays the latest Apartment List data set through August, with the latest CPI data, the record surge in rents will soon appear on official data – unless it is dramatically revised and manipulated – leading to what may may be an OER print north of 5% as soon as December.

At that point, the Fed will have no choice but to taper and taper fast unless it is willing to risk the appearance of an angry – but mostly peaceful – mob at the Marriner Eccles building.

Pay attention to this; consumer confidence crashes amid delta virus fears and inflation

(zerohedge)

Consumer Confidence Crashes Amid Delta Fears As Inflation Fears Hit 13 Year High

 
 
 

There was much confusion earlier this month when the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index even as the Conference Board Consumer Confidence printed at near post-covid high, forming a remarkable divergence and prompting question of which confidence indicator is right. We got the answer moments ago, when the Conference Board reported the number for August… and it was a doozy: coming in at 113.9, it was a plunge from last month’s 129.1 (revised down to 125.1), and missed not only the consensus estimate of 123.0 but also missed the lowest sellside forecast. That said, and as shown in the chart below, the Consumer Confidence index still has a long way to go before it catches down to its UMich peer.

Looking at the components, the Presentation Situation declined from 157.2 to 147.3, while Expectations slumped even more, from 103.8 to 91.4

“Consumer confidence retreated in August to its lowest level since February 2021 (95.2),” said Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board.

“Concerns about the Delta variant—and, to a lesser degree, rising gas and food prices—resulted in a less favorable view of current economic conditions and short-term growth prospects. Spending intentions for homes, autos, and major appliances all cooled somewhat; however, the percentage of consumers intending to take a vacation in the next six months continued to climb. While the resurgence of COVID-19 and inflation concerns have dampened confidence, it is too soon to conclude this decline will result in consumers significantly curtailing their spending in the months ahead.”

Perhaps most concerning is that while the market still remains in thrall to the Fed’s repeat urging that inflation is transitory, the US consumer has now lost hope and the Conf Board reported that 1-year inflation expectations have soared to 6.8% from 6.6%, the highest since 2008!

Some more details from the report on the Present Situation: Consumers’ appraisal of current business conditions declined in August.

  • 19.9% of consumers said business conditions are “good,” down from 24.6%.
  • 24.0% of consumers said business conditions are “bad,” up from 20.0%.

Consumers’ assessment of the labor market eased, indicating that we may have also peaked the record easy job market.

  • 54.6% of consumers said jobs are “plentiful,” down from 55.2%.
  • 11.8% of consumers said jobs are “hard to get,” up from 11.1%.

Drilling down into expectations 6 months from now, consumers’ optimism declined across the board, starting with short-term business conditions outlook which deteriorated in August.

  • 22.9% of consumers expect business conditions will improve, down from 30.9%.
  • 17.8% expect business conditions to worsen, up from 11.9%.

Consumers were somewhat less optimistic about the short-term labor market outlook.

  • 23.0% of consumers expect more jobs to be available in the months ahead, down from 25.5%.
  • 18.6% anticipate fewer jobs, up from 17.8%.

Consumers were less upbeat about their short-term financial prospects.

  • 17.9% of consumers expect their incomes to increase, down from 20.0%.
  • 10.1% expect their incomes will decrease, up from 8.8%.

All of this merely validated Michael Wilson’s recent observations that the collapse in sentiment, coupled with soaring prices and far less spending abilities (absent another stimmy), means that the US consumer is rapidly heading for a double-dip recession…

… which if Wilson is right, will translate into a 10% correction in the market in the coming months.

iii) Important USA Economic Stories

Fires galore in Southern California, Lake Tahoe area

(zerohedge)

All South Lake Tahoe Residents Under Evacuation Orders Amid Menacing Caldor Fire

 
MONDAY, AUG 30, 2021 – 03:33 PM

Update (1415ET): Probably the most shocking video yet from what is now being dubbed ‘Lake Tahell”…

 

Evacuations orders have been extended to the entire South Lake Tahoe as the massive Caldor Fire quickly spread through the region, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, otherwise known as CAL Fire. 

The map below shows the South Lake Tahoe evacuation area in blue and extends to Lake Tahoe’s edge, and even reaches the Nevada state line.

CAL Fire data shows Caldor Fire has already burned 177,000 acres and is 14% contained.

By the hour, evacuation orders have been issued. Today’s new orders for residents to immediately flee their homes or risk burning in an inferno are Tahoe Keys, Tahoe Island, Al Tahoe, Sierra Tract, Bijou, Tahoma, Fallen Leaf, Pioneer, Gardner Mountain, and Trimmer. What this means is that all of South Lake Tahoe is under emergency evacuation orders. 

The National Weather Service in Sacramento has extended Red Flag Warnings for the area through Sept 1. The warning indicates weather conditions, such as hot, dry, and winds, could accelerate the spread of the wildfire. 

Since we last reported on Caldor Fire (last Friday), the blaze’s size has grown 29%, from 139,000 acres to 177,000. We noted at the time that weather conditions were just perfect, low humidity and increasing temperatures, for the fire to spread. 

On Monday, at least 3,500 firefighters are battling the blaze that has destroyed over 650 structures since sparking on Aug 14. Due to heavy smoke, deteriorating air quality impacts human health and makes the air barely breathable in or around Lake Tahoe. 

On the ground, the devastation is absolutely shocking:

A massive traffic jam of cars trying to escape the fire.

 

Reuters provides a recap on the fire. 

The largest fire burning in the state is Dixie Fire, which has scorched 771,000 acres and is 48% contained. Across the US, 85 large fires and complexes have burned 2.5 million acres. 

end

School board members are quitting over “toxic” parents who oppose mask mandates, vaccines and vaccine passports.

(zerohedge)

School Board Members Quitting Over “Toxic” Parents Who Oppose Mask Mandates, Vaccines, And CRT

 
 
MONDAY, AUG 30, 2021 – 06:00 PM

As schools across the country force masks and Critical Race Theory (CRT) on America’s youth, a massive backlash from angry parents has proven to be too much for some school board members to handle.

 

In this Aug. 25, 2021, file photo, people hold signs and chant during a meeting of the North Allegheny School District school board regarding the district’s mask policy, at at North Allegheny Senior High School in McCandless, Pa. Alexandra Wimley/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP

According to the Associated Press, “a growing number are resigning or questioning their willingness to serve as meetings have devolved into shouting contests between deeply political constituencies over how racial issues are taught, masks in schools, and COVID-19 vaccines and testing requirements.“

A Nevada school board member said he had thoughts of suicide before stepping down amid threats and harassment. In Virginia, a board member resigned over what she saw as politics driving decisions on masks. The vitriol at board meetings in Wisconsin had one member fearing he would find his tires slashed.

…

In his letter of resignation from Wisconsin’s Oconomowoc Area School Board, Rick Grothaus said its work had become “toxic and impossible to do.” -AP

“When I got on, I knew it would be difficult,” Grothaus – who resigned Aug. 15, told AP. “But I wasn’t ready or prepared for the vitriolic response that would occur, especially now that the pandemic seemed to just bring everything out in a very, very harsh way. It made it impossible to really do any kind of meaningful work.”

According to National School Boards Association interim executive director, Chip Slaven, the charged political climate ‘has made a difficult job even more challenging, if not impossible.’

It’s not just pissed off parents, either. Earlier this month, a Virginia teacher quit her job at a school board meeting, saying that she refused to “be a cog in a machine” that forces her to transmit their “highly politicized agendas” to children.

“Within the last year, I was told, in one of my so-called equity trainings, that white, Christian, able-bodied females currently have the power in our schools and that ‘this has to change,’” said the elementary school teacher Laura Morris during the public comment portion of the board meeting.

“School board, I quit,” she said.

“I quit your policies, I quit your training, and I quit being a cog in a machine that tells me to push highly politicized agendas on our most vulnerable constituents—the children,” Morris added.

At one Veil, Arizona school board meeting, angry parents alternated between blasting officials over masks, vaccines, and CRT – while the board has no intention of addressing and acting on any of those topics.

After the board attempted to shut down the debate, more angry parents stepped up to drag their noses back on topic.

“There is starting to be an inherent distrust for school boards, that there’s some notion that we are out to indoctrinate children or to undermine parents or things like that, when we are on the same team,” said Vail, AZ board member Allison Pratt, who’s been on the board for six years.

Pratt said she strives to view issues from the perspective of even the most extreme members of the community, and she has no plans to resign. But she has stepped up security at her home.

Police have been called to intervene in places including Vail, where parents protesting a mask mandate pushed their way into a board room in April, and in Mesa County, Colorado, where Doug Levinson was among school board members escorted to their cars by officers who had been unable to de-escalate a raucous Aug. 17 meeting. “Why am I doing this?” Levinson asked himself.

Kurt Thigpen wrote in leaving the Washoe County, Nevada, school board that he considered suicide amid relentless bullying and threats led by people who didn’t live in the county, let alone have children in the schools. “I was constantly looking over my shoulder,” he wrote in July.

In several states, board members who won’t resign are facing recall efforts. According to Ballotpedia, 147 school board members are up for recall across 59 campaigns in 2021. Among them, Vail board president Jon Aitken – whose critics say the mental and physical health of students in his district has declined amid pandemic restrictions.

end

USA regulators not happy with Wells Fargo.  They may face new sanctions

(zerohedge)

Wells Tumbles On Report Troubled Bank Faces New Regulatory Sanctions

 
TUESDAY, AUG 31, 2021 – 03:00 PM

Just when you thought Wells Fargo was finally putting its unpleasant regulatory transgressions behind it once and for all, today Bloomberg reported today that regulators aren’t happy with how quickly the bank is paying restitution and cleaning up its act. This, in turn, could lead to even more regulatory action heading the bank’s way. The news sent Wells stock tumbling more than 5% on the day.

The bank has already paid more than $5 billion due to its various fraudulent cross-selling scandals which cost the former CEO his job, but the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are warning the company that new sanctions could be on their way due to how slowly the bank is fulfilling consent orders it signed about three years ago, according to a new article by Bloomberg.

If new sanctions point out wrongdoing by the company’s new management team, which took over in 2019, it could restart the clock on a Fed cap on the bank’s growth.

The bank has already paid out restitution to millions of consumers, but it is having trouble identifying which customers were affected and how much they are owed, the report says.  Now, regulators are mulling new fines and/or sanctions, or potentially even additional consent orders. 

Clues have started to emerge over the past few months that all wasn’t well with regulators, the report says. The bank disclosed in regulatory filings that it could face new consent orders and Scharf has said there could be “setbacks” in attempting to fulfill the needs of regulators. 

New Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf has said that his sole goal has been satisfying regulators, recently adding that “while what’s required for each is clear, there are numerous complexities with managing this amount of work concurrently. It will take time to consistently accomplish all at the level we and our regulators expect.”

The implications for the bank could be far reaching, should regulators decide to sanction it again. Not only would the optics be ugly, as the bank has spent the last 3 years on a PR campaign to make it look like it is cleaning up its act, but additional sanctions could also throw a wrench in the gears at the other inner-workings of the bank, as we noted on Twitter today.

 
 

iv) Swamp commentaries/

They Openly Mock Us Now: Taliban Hangs “Traitor” by the Throat From US Helicopter in Kandahar Left Behind by Joe Biden (VIDEO)

By Jim Hoft
Published August 30, 2021 at 12:59pm
 

The Taliban is openly mocking the United States now. Today the Islamists used US helicopters to hang “traitors” in Kandahar Afghanistan.

The Taliban was filmed earlier flying US Blackhawk Helicopters over Kandahar.

end

King report/Courtesy of Chris Powell of GATA which includes the major swamp stories./ of the day

end

 

 
Well that is all for today
 
I will see you WEDNESDAY night
 
The letter explaining their resignation of Marion Gruber and Dr Phil Krause