Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price

USD oz AM1971.34

PM1969.78

Historical SGE Fix

New York price at the time: $1944.00

premium $27.00

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Bitcoin morning price:, $27,244 DOWN 6 Dollars

Bitcoin: afternoon price: $27,250 DOWN 702 dollars

Platinum price closing $980,45 DOWN $2.95

Palladium price; $1227.60 DOWN $30.19

END

Due to the huge rise in the dollar, we must look at gold and silver in currencies other than the dollar to understand where we are heading

I will now provide gold in Canadian dollars, British pounds and Euros/4: 15 PM ACCESS

CANADIAN GOLD: $2,622.56 DOWN 7.25 CDN dollars per oz (ALL TIME HIGH 2,775.35)

BRITISH GOLD: 1531.75 UP 4.35 pounds per oz//(ALL TIME HIGH//CLOSING///1630.29)

EURO GOLD: 1789.14 UP 10.32 euros per oz //(ALL TIME HIGH/CLOSING//1861.21)//

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EXCHANGE: COMEX

CONTRACT: SEPTEMBER 2023 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 1,944.300000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 08/30/2023 DELIVERY DATE: 09/01/2023
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED

118 C MACQUARIE FUT 820
132 C SG AMERICAS 197
323 H HSBC 822
363 H WELLS FARGO SEC 545
365 H MAREX CAPITAL M 2
435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 252
624 H BOFA SECURITIES 931
657 C MORGAN STANLEY 41
661 C JP MORGAN 1037 52
686 C STONEX FINANCIA 36
690 C ABN AMRO 25 44
709 C BARCLAYS 500
726 C CUNNINGHAM COM 5
732 C RBC CAP MARKETS 85 7
737 C ADVANTAGE 38
905 C ADM 29

TOTAL: 2,734 2,734
MONTH TO DATE: 2,734

JPMorgan stopped 52 /2754 contracts.

FOR SEPT.:

GOLD: NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR SEPT/2023. CONTRACT: 2754 NOTICES FOR 275,400 OZ or 8.503 TONNES

total notices so far: 2754 contracts for 275,400 oz (8.503 tonnes)

FOR SEPT:

SILVER NOTICES: 1863 NOTICE(S) FILED FOR 9,315,000 OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month : 1863 for 9,315,000 oz

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END

GLD

WITH GOLD DOWN 5.20

INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL (PHYS) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD/HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /A DEPOSIT OF 87 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.

INVENTORY RESTS AT 890.10 TONNES

Silver//

WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS AT THE SLV// SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.21 MILLION OZ OZ SILVER OUT OF THE SLV//

INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV.

CLOSING INVENTORY: 440.000 MILLION OZ

Let us have a look at the data for today

SILVER//OUTLINE

SILVER COMEX OI FELL BY A HUGE SIZED 3180 CONTRACTS TO 131,813 AND FURTHER FROM THE RECORD HIGH OI OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND THIS HUGE SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI WAS ACCOMPLISHED DESPITE OUR TINY $0.02 LOSS IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON WEDNESDAY. TAS ISSUANCE WAS A STRONG SIZED 751 CONTRACTS. THESE WILL BE USED FOR MANIPULATION LATER THIS MONTH/AS WELL AS TODAY. CRAIG HEMKE HAS POINTED OUT THAT THE CROOKS USE THE MID MONTH FOR MANIPULATION AS THEY SELL THEIR BUY SIDE OF THE CALENDAR SPREAD FIRST AND THEN KEEP THE SELL SIDE TO LIQUIDATE AT A LATER DATE. THUS WE HAVE TWO VEHICLES THE CROOKS USE FOR MANIPULATION AND BOTH ARE SPREADERS: 1) AT MONTH’S END/SPREADERS COMEX AND 2/ TAS SPREADERS, MID MONTH. TOTAL TAS ISSUED ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT: 751 CONTRACTS. DESPITE MANY COMPLAINTS THAT THE CROOKS HAVE VIOLATED POSITION LIMITS DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE TAS ISSUED HAVE A VALUE OF ZERO (AS TO POSITION LIMITS FOR OUR CROOKED BANKERS). THE PROBLEM OF COURSE IS THAT THE CROOKS DO NOT LIQUIDATE THE TAS TOGETHER BUT SELL THE BUY SIDE FIRST AND THEN LIQUIDATE THE SELL SIDE TWO MONTHS HENCE. IT IS OBVIOUS MANIPULATION TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE BUT IT NATURALLY FELL ON DEAF EARS WITH OUR REGULATORS (OCC) WHEN THEY RECEIVED OUR COMPLAINTS. IT THUS LOOKS LIKE THE FED (GOV’T) IS BEHIND ALL OF THESE TRADES.

WE HAVE NOW SET ANOTHER RECORD LOW AT 114,102 CONTRACTS ///JULY 3.2023// OUR BANKERS WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT FELL BY $0.02). BUT WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING SOME SILVER CONTRACTS AS WE HAD A STRONG SIZED LOSS OF 700 CONTRACTS ON BOTH EXCHANGES ALONG WITH HUGE T.A.S.LIQUIDATION THROUGHOUT THE COMEX SESSION.

WE MUST HAVE HAD:

A GIGANTIC ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS( 2145 CONTRACTS) iiii) AN INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 14.875 MILLION OZ (FIRST DAY NOTICE) / // HUGE SIZED COMEX OI LOSS/ GIGANTIC SIZED EFP ISSUANCE/VI) STRONG SIZED NUMBER OF T.A.S. CONTRACT ISSUANCE (751 CONTRACTS)/

I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL 335 CONTRACTS

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS AUGUST. ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S SILVER/JPMORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES/STARTING FROM FIRST DAY/MONTH OF AUGUST:

TOTAL CONTRACTS for 23 days, total 34,286 contracts: OR 171.430 MILLION OZ (1490 CONTRACTS PER DAY)

TOTAL EFP’S FOR THE MONTH SO FAR: 171.43 MILLION OZ

LAST 23 MONTHS TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED IN MILLIONS OF OZ:

MAY 137.83 MILLION

JUNE 149.91 MILLION OZ

JULY 129.445 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: MILLION OZ 140.120

SEPT. 28.230 MILLION OZ//

OCT: 94.595 MILLION OZ

NOV: 131.925 MILLION OZ

DEC: 100.615 MILLION OZ

YEAR 2022:

JAN 2022-DEC 2022

JAN 2022// 90.460 MILLION OZ

FEB 2022: 72.39 MILLION OZ//

MARCH 2022: 207.140 MILLION OZ//A NEW RECORD FOR EFP ISSUANCE

APRIL: 114.52 MILLION OZ FINAL//LOW ISSUANCE

MAY: 105.635 MILLION OZ//

JUNE: 94.470 MILLION OZ

JULY : 87.110 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: 65.025 MILLION OZ

SEPT. 74.025 MILLION OZ///FINAL

OCT. 29.017 MILLION OZ FINAL

NOV: 134.290 MILLION OZ//FINAL

DEC, 61.395 MILLION OZ FINAL

TOTALS YR 2022: 1135.767 MILLION OZ (1.1356 BILLION OZ)

JAN 2023/// 53.070 MILLION OZ //FINAL

FEB: 2023: 100.105 MILLION OZ/FINAL//MUCH STRONGER ISSUANCE VS THE LATTER TWO MONTHS.

MARCH 2023: 112.58 MILLION OZ//FINAL//STRONG ISSUANCE

APRIL 118.035 MILLION OZ(SLIGHTLY GREATER THAN THAN LAST MONTH)

MAY 66.120 MILLION OZ/INITIAL (MUCH SMALLER THIS MONTH)

JUNE: 110.395 MILLION OZ//MUCH LARGER THAN LAST MONTH

JULY 85.745 MILLION OZ (SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)

AUGUST: 171.43 MILLION OZ (THIS MONTH IS GOING TO BE HUGE //2ND HIGHEST ON RECORD

RESULT: WE HAD A HUGE SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 3180 CONTRACTS WITH OUR LOSS IN PRICE OF $0.02 IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX//WEDNESDAY.,. THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A GIGANTIC EFP ISSUANCE CONTRACTS: 2145 ISSUED FOR SEPT AND 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX TO LONDON AS FORWARDS./ WE HAVE A GOOD INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR SEPT OF 14.875 MILLION OZ /// WE HAVE A STRONG LOSS OF 700 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES. THE TOTAL OF TAS INITIATED CONTRACTS TODAY: A STRONG 751 CONTRACTS//CONSIDERABLE FRONT END OF THE TAS CONTRACTS WERE LIQUIDATED//ALONG WITH COMEX SPREADER LIQUIDATION, DURING THE WEDNESDAY COMEX SESSION . THE NEW TAS ISSUANCE WEDNESDAY NIGHT (751) WILL BE PUT INTO “THE BANK” TO BE COLLUSIVELY USED AT A LATER DATE., .

WE HAD 1863 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 9,315,000 OZ

THE SILVER COMEX IS NOW BEING ATTACKED FOR METAL BY LONDONERS ET AL.

GOLD//OUTLINE

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A STRONG SIZED 5100 CONTRACTS TO 447,906 AND CLOSER TO THE 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: – REMOVED: 349 CONTRACTS

WE HAD A STRONG SIZED INCREASE IN COMEX OI ( 5449 CONTRACTS) WITH OUR $8.15 GAIN IN PRICE//WEDNESDAY. WE ALSO HAD A RATHER STRONG INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR SEPT. AT 12.656 TONNES ON FIRST DAY NOTICE + /A FAIR (AND CRIMINAL) ISSUANCE OF 1239 T.A.S. CONTRACTS /// ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR $8.15 GAIN IN PRICE WITH RESPECT TO WEDNESDAY’S TRADING.WE HAD A VERY STRONG SIZED GAIN OF 7195 OI CONTRACTS (23.46 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES.

E.F.P. ISSUANCE

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A FAIR SIZED 2095 CONTRACTS:

The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 447,906

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A VERY STRONG SIZED INCREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 7195 CONTRACTS WITH 5100 CONTRACTS INCREASED AT THE COMEX// AND A FAIR 2095 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 7195 CONTRACTS OR 22.38 TONNES. WE HAD THE FOLLOWING TAS CONTRACTS INITIATED (ISSUED): A FAIR 1239 CONTRACTS)

CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

WE HAD A FAIR SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (2095 CONTRACTS) ACCOMPANYING THE STRONG SIZED GAIN IN COMEX OI (5100) //TOTAL GAIN FOR OUR THE TWO EXCHANGES: 7195 CONTRACTS. WE HAVE ( 1) NOW RETURNED TO OUR NORMAL FORMAT OF BANKERS GOING SHORT AND SPECULATORS GOING LONG ,2.) FAIR INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR SEPT. AT 12.656 TONNES F/// 3) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION WITH CONSIDERABLE TAS LIQUIDATION DURING THE COMEX SESSION //4) STRONG SIZED COMEX OPEN INTEREST GAIN/ 5) FAIR ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL PAPER///6: FAIR T.A.S. ISSUANCE: 1239 CONTRACTS

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2023 INCLUDING TODAY

AUGUST

ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF AUG :

TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED: 62,783 CONTRACTS OR 6,278,300 OZ OR 195.28 TONNES IN 23 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 2727 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 23 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES 195.28 TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2022, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 195.28/3550 x 100% TONNES 5.44% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2021 TO 2023

JANUARY/2021: 265.26 TONNES (RAPIDLY INCREASING AGAIN)

FEB : 171.24 TONNES ( DEFINITELY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN)..

MARCH:. 276.50 TONNES (STRONG AGAIN/

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 FINAL ISSUANCE.

SEPT 142.12 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE ( LOW ISSUANCE)_

OCT: 141.13 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE (LOW ISSUANCE)

NOV: 312.46 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE//NEW RECORD!! (INCREASING DRAMATICALLY)//SIGN OF REAL STRESS//SURPASSING THE MARCH 2021 RECORD OF 276.50 TONNES OF EFP

DEC. 175.62 TONNES//FINAL ISSUANCE//

TOTALS: 2,578.08 TONNES/2021

JAN:2022 247.25 TONNES //FINAL

FEB: 196.04 TONNES//FINAL

MARCH/2022: 409.30 TONNES //FINAL( THIS IS NOW A RECORD EFP ISSUANCE FOR MARCH AND FOR ANY MONTH.

APRIL: 169.55 TONNES (FINAL VERY LOW ISSUANCE MONTH)

MAY: 247.44 TONNES FINAL//

JUNE: 238.13 TONNES FINAL

JULY: 378.43 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST: 180.81 TONNES FINAL

SEPT. 193.16 TONNES FINAL

OCT: 177.57 TONNES FINAL ( MUCH SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)

NOV. 223.98 TONNES//FINAL ( MUCH LARGER THAN PREVIOUS MONTHS//comex running out of physical)

DEC: 185.59 tonnes // FINAL

TOTAL: 2,847,25 TONNES/2022

JAN 2023: 228.49 TONNES FINAL//HUGE AMOUNT OF EFP’S ISSUED THIS MONTH!!

FEB: 151.61 TONNES/FINAL

MARCH: 280.09 TONNES/INITIAL (ANOTHER STRONG MONTH FOR EFP ISSUANCE)

APRIL: 197.42 TONNES

MAY: 236.67 TONNES (A VERY STRONG ISSUANCE FOR THIS MONTH)

JUNE: 172.667 TONNES (WEAKER ISSUANCE THIS MONTH)

JULY: 151.69 TONNES (WEAKER THAN LAST MONTH)

AUGUST: 195.28 TONNES (A STRONGER MONTH)//FINAL

SEPT:

SPREADING OPERATIONS

(/NOW SWITCHING TO GOLD) FOR NEWCOMERS, HERE ARE THE DETAILS

SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW COMMENCED AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE NEW ACTIVE FRONT MONTH OF SEPT. WE ARE NOW INTO THE SPREADING OPERATION OF GOLD

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 MAY HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JUNE., FOR BOTH GOLD:

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 (SEPT), 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.”

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.

The crooks also use the spread in the TAS account (trade at settlement). They buy the spot TAS (e.g. June) and sell the future TAS two months out (e.g. August). Then they unload the front month (i.e. unload the buy side first so the price of gold/silver falls. This occurs in the middle of the front delivery month cycle. They unload the sell side of the equation, two months down the road. The crooks violate position limits as the OCC refuse to hear our complaints.

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

1.Today, we had the open interest at the comex, in SILVER FELL BY A HUGE SIZED 3180 CONTRACTS OI TO 131,813 AND FURTHER FROM OUR COMEX HIGH 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 5 YEARS AGO. HOWEVER WE HAVE NOW SET A NEW RECORD LOW OF 114,102 CONTRACTS JULY 3.2023

EFP ISSUANCE A GIGANTIC 2145 CONTRACTS

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

SEPT 2145 and ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 2145 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 2845 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 2145 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,

WE OBTAIN A STRONG LOSS OF OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES OF 1035 CONTRACTS

THUS IN OUNCES, THE LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES TOTAL 5.175 MILLION OZ

OCCURRED DESPITE OUR $0.02 LOSS IN PRICE …..

END

OUTLINE FOR TODAY’S COMMENTARY

1a/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

(report Harvey)

b, ) Gold/silver trading overnight Europe,//GOLD COMMENTARIES

(Peter Schiff)

c) Commentaries from: Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, Pam and Russ Martens

ii a) Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

b. Other gold/silver commentaries

c. Commodity commentaries//

d)/CRYPTOCURRENCIES/BITCOIN ETC

2.ASIAN AFFAIRS//

THURSDAY MORNING//WEDNESDAY NIGHT

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 17.91 PTS OR 0.54% //Hang Seng CLOSED DOWN 100.80 PTS OR 0.55% /The Nikkei CLOSED UP 285.80 PTS OR 0.88% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED UP 0.15 % /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed UP 7.2870 /OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN UP TO 7.2952 /Oil UP TO 82.34 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT UP AT 85.81 / Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL MOSTLY GREEN// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING STRONGER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE STRONGER

a)NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA

outline

b) REPORT ON JAPAN/

OUTLINE

3 CHINA

OUTLINE

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

6.Global Issues//COVID ISSUES/VACCINE ISSUES

OUTLINE

7. OIL ISSUES

OUTLINE

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

9. USA

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

GOLD

LET US BEGIN:

THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST ROSE BY A STRONG SIZED 5100 CONTRACTS TO 447,906 WITH OUR GAIN IN PRICE OF $8.15 ON WEDNESDAY.

EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE

WE ARE NOW IN THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF AUGUST… THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A FAIR SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS.,

THAT IS 2095 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: : DEC 2095 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 2095 CONTRACTS

ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE GAINED THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A VERY STRONG TOTAL OF 7195 CONTRACTS IN THAT 2095 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A STRONG SIZED GAIN OF 5100 COMEX CONTRACTS..AND THIS GAIN ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES HAPPENED WITH OUR ADVANCE IN PRICE OF $8.15//WEDNESDAY COMEX. AS PER OUR NEWBIE TRADE AT SETTLEMENT (TAS) MANIPULATION OPERATION (WHICH CRAIG HEMKE HAS POINTED OUT HAPPENS DURING MID MONTH IN THE DELIVERY CYCLE), THE CME REPORTS THAT THE TOTAL T.A.S. ISSUANCE FOR WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS A FAIR 1239 CONTRACTS. THROUGHOUT THE PAST WEEKS, THE BANKERS SOLD OFF THE LONG SIDE OF THE SPREAD WHICH OF COURSE CONTINUES TO MANIPULATE THE PRICE OF GOLD SOUTHBOUND. (THEY KEEP THE SHORT SIDE OF THE CALENDAR SPREAD WHICH WILL BE LIQUIDATED TWO MONTHS HENCE)//

// WE HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING: SEPT (12.656) ( NON ACTIVE MONTH)

HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS OF 2021-2022:

DEC 2021: 112.217 TONNES

NOV. 8.074 TONNES

OCT. 57.707 TONNES

SEPT: 11.9160 TONNES

AUGUST: 80.489 TONNES

JULY: 7.2814 TONNES

JUNE: 72.289 TONNES

MAY 5.77 TONNES

APRIL 95.331 TONNES

MARCH 30.205 TONNES

FEB ’21. 113.424 TONNES

JAN ’21: 6.500 TONNES.

TOTAL YEAR 2021 (JAN- DEC): 601.213 TONNES

YEAR 2022:

JANUARY 2022 17.79 TONNES

FEB 2022: 59.023 TONNES

MARCH: 36.678 TONNES

APRIL: 85.340 TONNES FINAL.

MAY: 20.11 TONNES FINAL

JUNE: 74.933 TONNES FINAL

JULY 29.987 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST:104.979 TONNES//FINAL

SEPT. 38.1158 TONNES

OCT: 77.390 TONNES/ FINAL

NOV 27.110 TONNES/FINAL

Dec. 64.000 tonnes

(TOTAL YEAR 656.076 TONNES)

2023:

JAN/2023: 20.559 tonnes

FEB 2023: 47.744 tonnes

MAR: 19.0637 TONNES

APRIL: 75.676 tonnes

MAY: 19.094 TONNES + 1.244 tonnes of exchange for risk = 20.338

JUNE: 64.354 TONNES

JULY: 10.2861 TONNES

AUGUST: 38.855 TONNES(INCLUDING .6842 EXCHANGE FOR RISK)

SEPT: 12.656 TONNES

THE SPECS/HFT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE( IT GAINED $8.15) //// AND WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING ANY SPECULATOR LONGS AS WE HAD A STRONG GAIN OF 7195 TOTAL CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES. WE HAD LITTLE T.A.S. LIQUIDATION ON THE FRONT END OF WEDNESDAY’S TRADING. THE T.A.S. ISSUED ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT WILL BE “PUT INTO THE BANK” TO BE USED AT A LATER DATE AT THE COLLUSIVE CHOOSING OF OUR BANKERS.

WE HAVE GAINED A TOTAL OI OF 22.38 PAPER TONNES FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES, ACCOMPANYING OUR INITIAL GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR AUGUST. (12.656 TONNES) ON FIRST DAY NOTICE // ALL OF THIS WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH OUR GAIN IN PRICE TO THE TUNE OF $8.15.

WE HAD – REMOVED 349 CONTRACTS TO THE COMEX TRADES TO OPEN INTEREST

NET GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 7195 CONTRACTS OR 719,500 OZ OR 22.38 TONNES.

Estimated gold volume today:// 140,596 really awful

final gold volumes/yesterday 186,088 awful//speculators have left the gold arena

//AUGUST 31/ FOR THE SEPT. 2023 GOLD CONTRACT

Gold	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory in oz*	nil
Withdrawals from Customer* Inventory in oz*	32.151 OZ BRINKS 1 KILOBARS .
Deposit to the Dealer* Inventory in oz*	nil
Deposits to the Customer* Inventory, in oz*	nil oz
No of oz served (contracts) today	2734 notice(s) 273,400 OZ 8.503 TONNES
No of oz to be served (notices)	1325 contracts 132,500 oz 4.1213 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month	2734 notices 273400 OZ 8.503 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*	x

0 dealer deposit:

total dealer deposits: NIL oz

customer deposits: 0

total customer deposits: nil oz

we had 1 customer withdrawals

i) Out of bRINKS: 32.151 ONE KILOBAR

total withdrawals 32.151 oz

Adjustments; 1 dealer TO CUSTOMER

1)outof JPMorgan 13,503.402 oz

CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR SEPTEMBER.

For the front month of SEPTEMBER we have an oi of 4069 contracts having GAINED 120 contracts.

So my definition, the initial amount of gold standing for Sept is as follows:

4069 contracts x 100 oz per contract = 406900 oz or 12.656 tonnes

This is huge for a non active delivery month.

Oct GAINED 611 contracts to 29,402 contracts.

We had 2734 contracts filed for today representing 273,400 oz

Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from J.P.Morgan dealer account and 1037 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equate to 2754 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 52 notice(s) was (were) stopped received by J.P.Morgan//customer account and 0 notice(s) received (stopped) by the squid (Goldman Sachs)

To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the SEPT /2023. contract month,

we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (2,734 x 100 oz ), to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of SEPT (4069 CONTRACT) minus the number of notices served upon today 2734 x 100 oz per contract equals 406.900 OZ OR 12.656 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this non active month of SEPT.

thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the SEPT contract month: No of notices filed so far (2734) x 100 oz + (4069) {OI for the front month} minus the number of notices served upon today (2734) x 100 oz) which equals 406,900 oz standing OR 12.656 TONNES

TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING: 12.656 TONNES WHICH IS SMALL FOR AN INACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

COMEX GOLD INVENTORIES/CLASSIFICATION

NEW PLEDGED GOLD:

241,794.285 oz NOW PLEDGED /HSBC 5.94 TONNES

204,937.290 PLEDGED MANFRA 3.08 TONNES

83,657.582 PLEDGED JPMorgan no 1 1.690 tonnes

265,999.054, oz JPM No 2

1,152,376.639 oz pledged Brinks/

Manfra: 33,758.550 oz

Delaware: 193.721 oz

International Delaware:: 11,188.542 oz

total pledged gold: 2,011,076.496 OZ 62.55 tonnes

TOTAL OF ALL GOLD ELIGIBLE AND REGISTERED: 21,389,738,459 OZ

TOTAL REGISTERED GOLD 10 ,854.431 (337.61 tonnes)..

TOTAL OF ALL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 10,535,307.318 OZ

REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 8,843355 OZ (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD) 275.06 tonnes//dropping like a stone

END

SILVER/COMEX

AUGUST 31

//2023// THE SEPT 2023 SILVER CONTRACT

Silver	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory*	NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory	1,064,524,00 oz Brinks JPMorgan .
Deposits to the Dealer* Inventory*	586,113.500 oz ASAHI
Deposits to the Customer Inventory	607,700.840oz CNT
No of oz served today (contracts)	1863 CONTRACT(S) (9,315,000 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)	1051 contracts (5,255,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)	1863 Contracts (9,315,000 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*

i) 0 dealer deposit

total dealer deposit: 1

i)Into ASAHI 586,113.500 oz

i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal

total dealer withdrawals: 0 oz

We had 1 deposit customer account:

i) Into CNT 607,706.840 oz

total customer deposits: 607,706.840 oz

JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 138,660 million oz/277.734 million = 49,96% of comex .//

Comex withdrawals 2

i) Out of Brinks 455,110.410 oz

ii) Out of JPMorgan: 609,413.966 oz

total 1,064,524.00

adjustments: 2 : customer to dealer

i) CNT 488,260.300 oz

ii) Manfra: 581,263.743

TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 44.350 MILLION OZ//.TOTAL REG + ELIGIBLE. 277,734 million oz

CALCULATIONS FOR THE NEW STANDING FOR SILVER FOR August:

silver open interest data:

FRONT MONTH OF SEPT /2023 OI: 2914 CONTRACTS HAVING LOST 3233 CONTRACT(S).

THUS BY DEFINITION, THE INITIAL AMOUNT OF SILVER STANDING IN THIS ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH IS AS FOLLOWS:

2914 CONTRACTS X 5000 OZ PER CONTRACT = 14,570,000 OZ WHICH IS QUITE LOW FOR SEPT.

OCT GAINED 144 CONTRACT TO STAND AT 1147.

DEC. LOST 319 CONTRACTS TO STAND AT 117,421 .

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 1863 for 9,315,000 oz

Comex volumes// est. volume today 71,696 strong

Comex volume: confirmed yesterday 106,407 huge

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in SEPT. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 1862 x 5,000 oz = 9,315,000 oz

to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of SEPT (2914) and the number of notices served upon today 1863x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the standings for silver for the SEPT/2023 contract month: 1863 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for the front month of SEPT (2914) – number of notices served upon today (1863 )x 500 oz of silver standing for the SEPT contract month equates to 14.570 million oz.

There are 44.350 million oz of registered silver.

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

END

GLD AND SLV INVENTORY LEVELS

AUGUST 31/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.20 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 0.87 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 890.10 TONNES

AUGUST 30/WITH GOLD UP $8.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 2.59 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 889.23 TONNES

AUGUST 29/WITH GOLD UP 17.05 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 2.6 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD.: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 886.64 TONNES

AUGUST 28/WITH GOLD UP $6.90 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: / //INVENTORY RESTS AT 884.04 TONNES

AUGUST 25/WITH GOLD DOWN $6.05 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .87 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 884.04 TONNES

AUGUST 24/WITH GOLD UP $0.65 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD //INVENTORY RESTS AT 884.91 TONNES

AUGUST 23/WITH GOLD UP $21.35 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.32 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 884.91 TONNES

AUGUST 22/WITH GOLD UP $2.95 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.87 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 889.23 TONNES

AUGUST 21/WITH GOLD UP $7.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF 2.60 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 890.10 TONNES

AUGUST 18/WITH GOLD UP $1.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 6.92 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 887.50 TONNES

AUGUST 17/WITH GOLD DOWN $12.80 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: //: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 894.42 TONNES

AUGUST 16/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.00 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.44 TONNES FORM THE GLD//: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 894.42 TONNES

AUGUST 15/WITH GOLD DOWN $7,45 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.76 TONNES FORM THE GLD//: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 895.87 TONNES

AUGUST 14/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.10 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.75 TONNES FORM THE GLD//: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 899.63 TONNES

AUGUST 11/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.10 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .31 TONNES FORM THE GLD//: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 903.31 TONNES

AUGUST 10/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 903.69 TONNES

AUGUST 9/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.75 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 903.69 TONNES

AUGUST 8/WITH GOLD DOWN $9.60 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.31 TONNES FORM THE GLD /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 903.69 TONNES

AUGUST 7/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.45 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: /// //INVENTORY RESTS AT 906.00 TONNES

AUGUST 4/WITH GOLD UP $7.25 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.18 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD/// .///INVENTORY RESTS AT 906.00 TONNES

AUGUST 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.25 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD //: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 909.18 TONNES

AUGUST 2/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.45 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 3.75 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 909.18 TONNES

AUGUST 1/WITH GOLD DOWN $28.45 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.89 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.93 TONNES

JULY 31/WITH GOLD UP $9.50 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.89 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.93 TONNES

JULY 28/WITH GOLD UP $14.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.44 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 915,82 TONNES

JULY 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $21.80 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.74 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD//: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.26 TONNES

JULY 26/WITH GOLD UP $6.35 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.00 TONNES

JULY 25/WITH GOLD UP $2.45 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: //: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.00 TONNES

JULY 24/WITH GOLD DOWN $4.65 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 5.20 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.00 TONNES

JULY 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.80 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 913.80 TONNES

JULY 20/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.70 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.73 TONNES FROM THE GLD/ .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 913.80 TONNES

GLD INVENTORY: 890.10 TONNES

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

AUGUST 31/WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.834 MILLION OZ OF SILVER OUT OF THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 443.210 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 30/WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.834 MILLION OZ OF SILVER OUT OF THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 443.210 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 29/WITH SILVER UP 49 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 183,000 OF SILVER INTO THE THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 445.044 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 28/WITH SILVER UP 3 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.281 MILLION OZ OZ FROM THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 444.861 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 25/WITH SILVER UP ONE CENT TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.751 MILLION OZ OZ FROM THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 446.145 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 24/WITH SILVER DOWN 16 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.651 MILLION OZ OZ FROM THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 448.896 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 23/WITH SILVER UP 94 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 826,000 OZ FROM THE SLV// /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 450.547 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 22/WITH SILVER UP 12 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: /.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.373 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 21/WITH SILVER UP 59 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 917,0000 OZ FROM THE SLV//.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.373 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 18/WITH SILVER UP 4 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.290 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 17/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//.////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.290 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 16/WITH SILVER DOWN 13 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.275 MILLION OZ INTOTHE SLV/: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.290 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 15/WITH SILVER DOWN 6 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A WITHDRAWAL OF 0.275 MILLION OZ INTOTHE SLV/: / .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.290 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 3 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A DEPOSIT OF 0.459 MILLION OZ INTOTHE SLV/: //////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.565 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 11/WITH SILVER DOWN 6 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A DEPOSIT OF 1.926 MILLION OZ INTOTHE SLV/: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.106 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 10/WITH SILVER UP 6 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A WITHDRAWAL OF 8,807 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV/: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 450.180 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 9/WITH SILVER DOWN 7 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV A WITHDRAWAL OF 8,807 MILLION OZ OUT OF THE SLV/: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 450.180 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 8/WITH SILVER DOWN 40 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 458.987 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 7/WITH SILVER DOWN 46 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: // OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 458.987 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 4/WITH SILVER UP 1 CENT TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.294 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV// OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 458.987 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 3/WITH SILVER DOWN 16 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 189,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.281 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 2/WITH SILVER DOWN 43 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 275,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.471 MILLION OZ

AUGUST 1/WITH SILVER DOWN 61 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 184,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.746 MILLION OZ

JULY 31/WITH SILVER UP 45 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 184,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.746 MILLION OZ

JULY 28/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 550,000 OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV// .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 451.930 MILLION OZ

JULY 27/WITH SILVER DOWN 59 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.480 MILLION OZ

JULY 26/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: .////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.480 MILLION OZ/

JULY 25/WITH SILVER UP 24 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A SMALL WITHDRAWAL OF 826,000 OZ FROM THE SLV..////INVENTORY RESTS AT 452.480 MILLION OZ/

JULY 24/WITH SILVER DOWN 23 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 453.306 MILLION OZ/

JULY 21/WITH SILVER DOWN 14 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.101 MILLION OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 453.306 MILLION OZ/

JULY 20/WITH SILVER DOWN 38 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.468 MILLION OZ OF SILVER FROM THE SLV ////INVENTORY RESTS AT 454.107 MILLION OZ/

CLOSING INVENTORY 440.000 MILLION OZ//

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

1:Peter Schiff/Mike Maharrey

end

2 Commentaries from: Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, Pam and Russ Martens//JAMES RICKARDS//JOHN RUBINO

END

3,Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

My goodness, these guys are good! They are already at 2.4 miles deep (12,672 feet) and they are going deeper?

It must be soooo hot at that level

(Reuters)

South Africa’s Harmony plans to take world’s deepest gold mine deeper

Submitted by admin on Wed, 2023-08-30 18:14Section: Daily Dispatches

By Felix Njini
Reuters
Wednesday, August 30, 2023

NAIROBI, Kenya — Harmony Gold Mining, South Africa’s biggest gold producer by volume, said it will seek board approvals on deepening its flagship Mponeng mine, which buoyed a rebound to profit in the year through June.

The Johannesburg-based firm aims to extend the life of the world’s deepest gold mine and will seek board approvals when studies are completed this year, CEO Peter Steenkamp said.

Harmony said Mponeng delivered a “stellar” performance with output up 22% as the miner rebounded to an annual profit of $275 million from a net loss of $48 million a year earlier. …

… For the remainder of the report:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/south-africas-top-gold-miner-harmony-returns-profit-output-rises-2023-08-30/

END

4, OTHER IMPORTANT GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

ALERT! US Mint Panics Making 3M Silver Eagles in AUGUST! Too Late…Us Mint Trust is GONE!(Bix Weir)

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Wow! US Mint Director, Ventris Gibson, must have gotten the message that “We the People” are NOT HAPPY with the performance of the US Mint. After years of NOT making Silver Eagles to meet demand there has been an explosion in SAE production at the MINT! 3M ounces in August alone and now premiums are coming back from their trip to the moon. Knowing that the Mint was making 4-5M per month under the previous Mint Director, David Ryder, I expect that will be the target for Ventris going forward. Now let’s stop the US Mint from using their silver derivative hedge book from assisting the COMEX Silver Price Riggers! ALERT! US Mint Panics Making 3M Silver Eagles in AUGUST! Too Late…Us Mint Trust is GONE!(Bix Weir)https://youtu.be/DAD0rgPhsSA

END

5 a. IMPORTANT COMMENTARIES ON COMMODITIES:

end

5 B GLOBAL COMMODITY ISSUES/FOOD IN GENERAL//FREIGHT

END

6.CRYPTOCURRENCY//DIGITAL CURRENCY// COMMENTARIES/

1.YOUR EARLY CURRENCY VALUES/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN AND EUROPEAN BOURSE MOVEMENTS/AND INTEREST RATE SETTINGS THURSDAY MORNING.7:30 AM

ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED UP TO 7.2870

OFFSHORE YUAN: UP TO 7.2952

SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 17.91 PTS OR 0.54%

HANG SENG CLOSED DOWN 100.80 PTS OR 0.55%

2. Nikkei closed UP 285.80 OR 0.88%

3. Europe stocks SO FAR: ALL MOSTLY GREEN

USA dollar INDEX UP TO 103.55 EURO FALLS TO 1.0858 DOWN 71 BASIS PTS

3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: FALLS TO. +.638 Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese YEN vs USA cross now at 145.90/JAPANESE YEN FALLING AS WELL AS LONG TERM 10 YR. YIELDS RISING //EVENTUALLY THIS WILL BREAK THE JAPANESE CENTRAL BANK

3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000

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

3e Gold DOWN /JAPANESE Yen UP CHINESE ON SHORE YUAN: UP// OFF- SHORE: UP

3f Japan is to buy INFINITE TRILLION YEN’S worth of BONDS. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion USA

Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and NOW they will have OVER 50% of all Japanese debt.

3g Oil UP for WTI and UP FOR Brent this morning

3h European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund DOWN TO +2.4915***/Italian 10 Yr bond yield DOWN to 4.129*** /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD FALLS TO 3.503…**

3i Greek 10 year bond yield FALLS TO 3.735

3j Gold at $1945.65 silver at: 24.56 1 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00

3k USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 0 AND 13 /100 roubles/dollar; ROUBLE AT 96.35//

3m oil into the 82 dollar handle for WTI and 85 handle for Brent/

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

JAPAN ON JAN 29.2016 CONTINUES NIRP. THIS MORNING RAISES AMOUNT OF BONDS THAT THEY WILL PURCHASE UP TO .5% ON THE 10 YR BOND///YEN TRADES TO 146.35// 10 YEAR YIELD AFTER FIRST BREAKING .54% LAST YEAR NOW EXCEEDS THAT LEVEL TO 0.638% STILL ON CENTRAL BANK (JAPAN) INTERVENTION

30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this 0.8822 as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 0.9579well 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.

USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: 4.095 DOWN 2 BASIS PTS…

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 4.213 DOWN 2 BASIS PTS/

USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 4.863 DOWN 2 BASIS PTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 26.68…(TURKEY SET TO BLOW UP FINANCIALLY)

GREAT BRITAIN/10 YEAR YIELD: DOWN 8 BASIS PTS AT 4.4015

end

2.a Overnight: Newsquawk and Zero hedge:

USA EARLY MORNING REPORT

Futures, Global Markets Rise As Yields Drops Ahead Of PCE Data

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 08:14 AM

US stock futures, European bourses and Asian markets all rose, while the 10-year Treasury yield traded near a three-week low and the USD eeked out its first gain of the week as traders reacted to a modest improvement in China’s mfg PMI and looked ahead to Thursday’s PCE data and Friday’s jobs report. At 7:45am ET, S&P futures rose 0.25% to 4,535 while Nasdaq 100 futures reversed earlier losses. Europe’s Stoxx 600 benchmark stayed in the green, buoyed by record profits at UBS as a result of its emergency takeover of Credit Suisse. Commodities are stronger led by oil and metals with natgas and wheat the biggest laggards. Today’s macro data focus includes jobless claims, income/spending and the PCE Deflator. Chicago PMI, expected to rise to 44.2, may point to a stabilization in mfg. Tomorrow we cap off the week with NFP.

In premarket trading, the retail rout continued with Dollar General plunging more than 13% after the company cut its 2024 net sales and profit forecast; Chewy also fell 5.3% as analysts say the pet products company’s customer growth disappointed in the second quarter amid macro uncertainties. Evercore ISI downgraded its rating. Okta jumped 11% after it reported second-quarter results that beat expectations and raised full-year forecast. Analysts highlight improvement in margins and the company’s sales strategy. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

Arista Networks gains 2.3% after Citi upgraded the communications-equipment company to buy from neutral, citing an expected 400G cloud spend recovery into next year.
CrowdStrike climbed 1.4% as it again delivered strong results with consistent execution and outperformance across metrics, analyst Matthew Hedberg says he likes the continued momentum and the opportunity to consolidate security spend, seeing this as a building tailwind.
Palantir declines 4% after Morgan Stanley cut its rating, saying that near-term optimism about the AI product cycle and valuation premium make for an “unfavorable risk-reward.”
Salesforce rises 5.6% after the software firm reported second-quarter results that beat expectations and gave an outlook that is seen as strong.
Shopify’s US shares rise 5.6% after Amazon announced an app integration to allow merchants to offer Buy with Prime on Shopify stores.
UGI jumps 7.3% after the natural gas and electric power distribution company said its board is reviewing strategic alternatives to unlock shareholder value.
Victoria’s Secret falls 5.3% after the lingerie retailer’s second-quarter results fell shy of estimates and it forecast a sales decline ahead.

Sentiment was modestly boosted after China’s NBS PMIs showed that Manufacturing came in at 49.7 (up from 49.3 in Jul and ahead of the Street’s 49.2 forecast) and Manufacturing new orders back in expansion mode for the first time in 5 months; on the other hand, Non-Manufacturing ticked down to 51 (down from 51.5 in Jul and below the Street’s 51.2 forecast).

The S&P 500 was headed for the worst month since February, while the Nasdaq 100 is set for the largest decline this year. Asian and global stocks are also on pace for the biggest monthly losses since February.

Traders are closing out the month with economic data and China’s bruised markets center stage. Thursday’s mixed moves come after stocks and bonds pared their August losses in the past week. US jobless numbers picked up slightly to 235,000 according to economists polled by Bloomberg ahead of initial claims data due Thursday. Friday’s non-farm payrolls are seen at 170,000 in August versus 187,000 in July, while hourly wage growth is predicted to slow slightly. Weaker-than-expected economic numbers supported predictions for the Fed to ease back on interest-rate hikes on Wednesday.

“The big market catalyst we’re looking for in September is the Fed meeting,” Hugh Gimber, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, said by phone. “Tomorrow’s payrolls data will be hugely relevant for that meeting. Without a slowdown in wages, a soft landing is impossible.”

European stocks were higher with the Stoxx 600 rising 0.4%. The financial services, retail and real estate sectors are leading gains. The euro dropped 0.5% versus the dollar as euro-zone inflation stopped slowing in August, according to data on Thursday. That presents European Central Bank officials with a quandary as they weigh the possibility of tighter policy against signs of flagging growth. Here are the biggest European movers:

UBS shares climb as much as 7.2% to their highest level since October 2008 after the bank posts 2Q net income of $29 billion, bolstered by negative goodwill from Credit Suisse acquisition
Rockwool rises as much as 6.5%, making it the biggest gainer on Europe’s Stoxx 600 index, after the Danish insulation firm increased its guidance for the second time in two months
Dormakaba shares soar as much as 13%, most since April 2015, after the Swiss access and security company reported Ebitda for the full year that beat average estimates
Grafton shares rise as much as 3.5% as analysts highlight optionality from the UK construction and materials company’s strong balance sheet, as evidenced by a new share buyback
Pernod Ricard falls as much as 5.3%, the most in more than a year, after the maker of Absolut Vodka reported results that were hit by negative FX effects and said it expected a “soft” quarter ahead
Eiffage drops as much as 2.6% after the construction and concessions company delivered 1H results which Jefferies describes as “soft,” highlighting an increase in net debt and a miss on profit
Adevinta shares fall as much as 2.7%. The Norwegian classifieds company said on an earnings call its German vehicle marketplace may merely see “more normal” growth rates going forward
Recticel shares slumped as much as 15% after the Belgian company’s first-half earnings missed estimates due to challenging conditions in the European construction markets
Ion Beam Applications plunged 15%, the most since March 2020, after the Belgian medical technology company reported first-half earnings that analysts say were below expectations

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks were mixed, heading for their worst monthly drop since February, as the rally in Chinese equities faltered amid worries about growth and the property crisis in Asia’s largest economy.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index erased earlier gains of as much as 0.4% to trade little changed. Benchmarks in Japan and Singapore rose, while those in South Korea, Taiwan and Australia were lower. Equities in mainland China were set to extended their losses for another session after factory output contracted again, with the onshore stock benchmark poised for its biggest monthly decline since October. Gauges in Hong Kong fluctuated.

After suffering most of August on China’s growth concerns, the main Asian stock benchmark was on course for about a 5% drop this month, even after the recent recovery in Chinese stock markets helped narrow the loss. Equities rebounded earlier this week on the mainland following Beijing’s latest steps to shore up investor confidence in capital markets on Sunday but the rally lost steam after mid-week.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 saw mild gains although the machinery sectors were in the red following the dire Japanese industrial output data, with a Japanese government official highlighting a decline in demand both domestically and abroad, with output falling in several areas including production machinery.
Australia’s ASX 200 was flat on either side of 7,300 as the gains in the Telecoms and Financial sectors were offset by losses in Energy and Consumer Staples.
Stocks in India posted their biggest decline this week, weighed by a regional selloff. Investors will look forward to release of quarterly GDP data due after close of markets. The S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.4% to 64,831.41 in Mumbai, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index declined 0.5%, their biggest single-day declines since Aug. 25. For the month, the gauges fell more than 2.5% each, their first retreat since February. The selloff in India has come on the back of rising worries over inflation and insufficient rains in many regions.

Asian stocks have been driven by “a combination of what’s happening in the US macro cycle and what’s happening in the Chinese macro cycle,” as well as the “ongoing AI bubble,” Mixo Das, Asia equity strategist at JPMorgan Securities, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose to session highs and after falling as much as 0.2% earlier. The yen rose the most among the Group-of-10 currencies. The greenback is likely to be “somewhat” volatile over the data release as PCE is the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, said Richard Grace, a senior currency analyst at InTouch Capital Markets Pte. “The market appears to still trying to work out the recent pattern of stronger-than-expected US economic data for a number of weeks, and now a pattern of weaker-than-expected US economic data for a number of days”

The euro fell as traders bet the ECB will hold off on raising rates next month, even as recent data shows inflation is still running above target. The repricing in ECB rates comes after policymaker Isabel Schnabel highlighted the mounting risks to growth and said she can’t say how long rates will remain in restrictive territory. “If the weakness we have seen so far is not enough to bring inflation down, the economy needs to weaken even more,” said Athanasios Vamvakidis, head of G-10 FX strategy at Bank of America. “That’s the main concern for the euro.” AUD/USD rose 0.2% to 0.6488, paring an earlier rise of as much as 0.5%.

In rates, treasuries held small gains in early US trading, paced by UK and euro-zone bond markets, with yields mostly inside Wednesday’s ranges. TSY yields are lower across the curve by 1bp-3bp; Wednesday’s ranges included lowest levels in more than two weeks for all benchmarks except the 30-year. Month-end index rebalancing at 4pm will extend its duration by an estimated 0.12 year as Treasuries issued during the month are added. Bunds are higher while the euro has extended declines as traders seem to focus on the slowdown in euro-area core inflation rather than the headline rate which held steady. Market pricing now suggests a less than 30% chance the ECB raises rates in September, down from ~40% before the data. German 10-year yields are down 5bps at 2.49% while two-year yields drops 9bps. The US economic calendar includes weekly jobless claims and July personal income and spending at 8:30am New York time and August MNI Chicago PMI at 9:45am. Focal points of US session include personal income and spending data that includes PCE deflator, Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, and month-end index rebalancing.

In commodities, Brent crude oil advanced for a third day with WTI rising 0.5% to trade around $82. Spot gold rises 0.1%.

Bitcoin was under modest pressure holding around the USD 27k mark within fairly narrow ranges above the figure. Pressure which eminates from the firmer USD in European trade.

Looking to the day ahead now, and data releases include the Euro Area flash CPI print for August, as well as the unemployment rate for July. In the US we’ve got the weekly initial jobless claims, PCE inflation for July, and the MNI Chicago PMI for August. From central banks, we’ll hear from the Fed’s Bostic and Collins, ECB Vice President de Guindos and the ECB’s Schnabel, and the BoE’S Pill. We’ll also get the ECB’s accounts of their June meeting. Finally, earnings releases include Lululemon, Dollar General and Broadcom.

Market Snapshot

S&P 500 futures up 0.1% to 4,529.00
MXAP little changed at 161.98
MXAPJ down 0.4% to 507.25
Nikkei up 0.9% to 32,619.34
Topix up 0.8% to 2,332.00
Hang Seng Index down 0.5% to 18,382.06
Shanghai Composite down 0.6% to 3,119.88
Sensex down 0.2% to 64,966.59
Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.1% to 7,305.27
Kospi down 0.2% to 2,556.27
STOXX Europe 600 up 0.3% to 460.38
German 10Y yield little changed at 2.52%
Euro down 0.3% to $1.0886
Brent Futures up 0.2% to $85.99/bbl
Gold spot up 0.2% to $1,945.26
US Dollar Index up 0.23% to 103.39

Top Overnight News

China’s NBS PMIs are mixed for Aug, with Manufacturing coming in at 49.7 (up from 49.3 in Jul and ahead of the Street’s 49.2 forecast) and Manufacturing new orders back in expansion mode for the first time in 5 months, but Non-Manufacturing ticked down to 51 (down from 51.5 in Jul and below the Street’s 51.2 forecast). RTRS
Chinese president Xi Jinping is not planning to attend the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi next weekend and is expected to be replaced by the country’s premier, according to western officials briefed on the situation. FT
Toyota Motor seeks to shatter its production record this year, aiming to manufacture 10.2 million vehicles globally, the Nikkei has learned, and cross the eight-figure milestone for the first time. Nikkei
Europe’s CPI in Aug szx mixed, with headline running hot at +5.3% Y/Y (unchanged vs. Jul and above the Street’s +5.1% forecast) while core was +5.3% (down from +5.5% in Jul and inline w/the Street). BBG
UBS soared to the highest since 2008 after it posted the biggest-ever quarterly profit for a bank and CEO Sergio Ermotti said inflows are climbing across the board. The bank sees positive underlying pretax profit in the second half and will cut about 3,000 jobs as it targets cost savings of $10 billion by end-2026 from its takeover of Credit Suisse. BBG
The EU’s agriculture chief has proposed that the EU subsidize the cost of transiting Ukrainian grain through the bloc after Russia pulled out of an initiative to allow exports via the Black Sea. FT
Fed’s Bostic warns that US monetary policy should avoid overtightening (“I think we should be cautious and patient and let the restrictive policy continue to influence the economy, lest we risk tightening too much and inflicting unnecessary economic pain”). BBG
Facing the prospect of a politically damaging government shutdown within weeks, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is offering a new argument to conservatives reluctant to vote to keep funding flowing: A shutdown would make it more difficult for Republicans to pursue an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, or to push forward with investigations of him and his family that could yield evidence for one. NYT
Visa and Mastercard are planning to increase credit-card fees. The changes could result in merchants paying an additional $502 million annually in fees, according to a consulting company. WSJ

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks eventually traded mostly negatively following a marginally positive handover from Wall Street, which saw an equity bid underpinned by dovish US economic data. ASX 200 was flat on either side of 7,300 as the gains in the Telecoms and Financial sectors were offset by losses in Energy and Consumer Staples. Nikkei 225 saw mild gains although the machinery sectors were in the red following the dire Japanese industrial output data, with a Japanese government official highlighting a decline in demand both domestically and abroad, with output falling in several areas including production machinery. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp varied at the open but later succumbed to losses, whilst Baidu soared 4.6% after winning Chinese approval for its AI model. The Mainland was more cautious from the start following mixed PMI data which saw Manufacturing topping expectations but remaining in contraction.

Top Asian News

Baidu (BIDU/9888 HK) is reportedly among the first firms to win China approval for AI models, according to Bloomberg. Baidu rolled out its Chat GPT-rival AI app to the public, according to a statement cited by AFP
PBoC said it will continue to step up loans to private firms and will use stocks and bonds to deal with risks of private property developers in a prudent way, according to Reuters. PBoC added it will encourage and guide institutional investors to buy bonds of private firms and will support IPO and refinancing of private firms.
PBoC injected CNY 209bln via 7-day reverse repos with the rate at 1.80% for a CNY
The Japanese government cut its assessment of industrial production and noted industrial output is seesawing, according to Reuters.
Japanese government official on industrial output said demand fell both domestically and abroad in July, and noted that output fell in many areas including production machinery. The official said the decrease in chip manufacturing machinery is due to weak demand abroad, the outlook appears to be severe; chip shortage is easing in autos, which is on a steady recovery, according to Reuters.
Japanese government official said the electronics device market in China is in a severe state; Domestic material industries are partially affected by China’s real estate concerns, according to Reuters.
BoJ Board Member Nakamura said the BoJ must patiently maintain easy policy for the time being, and need more time to shift to monetary tightening; Japan’s economy is no longer in deflation; tweaks to policy must be cautious. Was not against making YCC flexible, opposition was re. timing. July decision was not part of any exit from ultra-loose policy. BoJ will closely watch impact on Yen moves on economy and prices. FX is not driven by interest rate differentials alone.
Japanese PM Kishida said to be considering lifting the minimum wage to JPY 1500/hr by mid 2030s, via NHK.
Japan’s major five banks are to increase housing loan interest rates by 0.1% to 0.2%, according to Jiji News.
Fitch affirms China at A+, outlook stable; revises lower 2023 China GDP Growth forecast to 4.8% (prev. 5.6%).

European bourses are modestly firmer, Euro Stoxx 50 +0.1%, having trimmed initial upside throughout a session of significant Central Bank updates. Downside which has occurred despite a dovish-shift to pricing for the ECB post-HICP & Schnabel; within Europe, Real Estate leads the sectors while Banking names lag as both areas of the economy take impetus from yield action. Though, the Banking pressure is offset somewhat by marked upside in UBS +4.5% post-earnings; SAP modestly firmer after CRM earnings, CRM +5.5% in pre-market. Stateside, futures are mixed around the unchanged mark with some slight underperformance in the NQ -0.1% ahead of key data and despite the broader European-driven yield action.

Top European News

ECB’s Schnabel says outlook for the Euro Area remains highly uncertain, activity has moderated visibly, and forward-looking indicators signal weakness ahead. Cannot predict where the peak rate is going to be, or for how long rates will have to be held at restrictive levels, cannot commit to future actions. Within the remarks, Schnabel is very balanced and holds open the door for a hike or a skip at the September gathering. For reference, the remarks were published pre-HICP
ECB’s Holzmann says August inflation data is a conundrum for the ECB; we are not yet at the highest level for rates, another hike or two is possible. ECB should consider needing PEPP reinvestments before the end of next year. Based on current data, would not exclude a rate hike in September but hasn’t made mind up yet. Much closer to terminal rate but likely not there yet. Remarks published after the HICP data
BoE’s Pill says the UK faces second-round inflation effects and inflation is too high, cases for caution on inflation despite the declines in the headline. There is a lot of policy in the pipeline to come through. There is the possibility of doing too much when it comes to the fight against inflation. Policy needs to be sufficiently restrictive for long enough.. Adds, one option for policy is to hold rates steady for longer; tends to favour that approach.
UK PM Sunak is expected to announce a new Defence Secretary to replace Ben Wallace on Thursday, according to government officials cited by the FT. Grant Shapps is a surprise frontrunner for the role, according to insiders.

DXY rebounds firmly from 103.000 to 103.550, while Euro reels from 1.0939 to 1.0865 vs the Buck after mixed EZ data and less hawkish remarks from ECB’s Schnabel.
Yen relishes softer yields as it continues consolidation against Greenback either side of 146.00 irrespective of mixed Japanese macro releases.
Sterling buffeted as BoE’s Pill warns against complacency on inflation given second round effects, but backs a steady for longer strategy rather than overtightening.
Cable wanes around 1.2700 pivot, EUR/GBP eases from 0.8598 towards 0.8560.
PBoC sets USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1811 vs exp. 7.2765 (prev. 7.1816)
China’s major state-owned banks seen selling USD in onshore spot foreign exchange market; Banks spotted swapping CNY for USD in onshore forwards market, via Reuters citing sources.
Brazil’s 2024 Budget Law revenue measures will reportedly reach BRL 168bln, according to Estadao sources. The revenue package will consider ending the deductibility of Interest on Equity for all sectors.

Fixed Income

Bonds approaching month end on the up, but not before overcoming several wobbles.
Bunds towards top of 132.87-131.83 range and perhaps latching on to soft EZ core inflation and less hawkish vibes from ECB’s Schnabel.
Gilts also bid between 95.28-94.66 parameters as BoE’s Pill states preference for a longer period of steady rates rather than overtightening.
T-note more restrained within 111-00/110-24+ confines awaiting PCE, IJC, Fed’s Collins and Chicago PMI.
Following the European data and ECB speakers, pricing for a 25bp hike at the September meeting has dropped to a 30% probability from over 60% in recent sessions.
UK DMO intends to hold 15 Gilt auctions between October-December, and a syndicated sale of a new long-dated conventional in November.

Commodities

Crude benchmarks are a touch firmer on the session with specific details light as we await an update from the BSEE on how much, if any, production has been lost due to Hurricane Idalia.
Gas markets are bid but off highs while spot gold is little changed and torn between the softer risk tone and stronger USD.
For Ags., Reuters citing Turkish sources reported that President Erdogan is to meet Russia President Putin in Sochi on September 4th to discuss Ukraine and the grain deal. As a reminder, earlier in the week reports indicated that the nation’s Foreign Ministers are to speak in today’s session as Turkey looks to bring Russia back to the Black Sea grain deal.

Geopolitics

US approves first arms to Taiwan under foreign aid program, according to AFP citing an official.
US reportedly restricts the export of some AMD (AMD) chips to Middle Eastern countries, according to Reuters sources.
North Korea conducted full-force command training in response to the SK-US joint exercise, according to Yonhap.
Japanese PM Kishida has requested top LDP lawmaker Nikai to visit China to resolve the Fukushima water issue, according to local press.
Australia and EU to resume free-trade deal talks on Thursday via teleconference, a month after the sides failed to reach a deal, according to Reuters.

US Event Calendar

07:30: Aug. Challenger Job Cuts 266.9%; YoY, prior -8.2%
08:30: Aug. Initial Jobless Claims, est. 235,000, prior 230,000
- Continuing Claims, est. 1.71m, prior 1.7m
08:30: July Personal Income, est. 0.3%, prior 0.3%
- Personal Spending, est. 0.7%, prior 0.5%
- Real Personal Spending, est. 0.5%, prior 0.4%
08:30: July PCE Deflator MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.2%
- PCE Deflator YoY, est. 3.3%, prior 3.0%
- PCE Core Deflator MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.2%
- PCE Core Deflator YoY, est. 4.2%, prior 4.1%
09:45: Aug. MNI Chicago PMI, est. 44.2, prior 42.8

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Markets had plenty to chew on yesterday, as the latest round of data offered support to both sides of the hard vs soft landing debate. We again had some underwhelming US releases which suggested that growth and inflation were slowing further which could be used to support either side of the debate. However for yesterday the soft landing argument continued to win out with yields on 10yr Treasuries (-0.7bps) inching down to a 3-week low of 4.11% and the S&P 500 (+0.38%) hitting a 3-week high. But in Europe, markets saw a clear underperformance thanks to resilient inflation numbers from Germany and Spain, which added to speculation that the ECB might deliver a 10th consecutive rate hike next month.

With the conflicting releases, all eyes are now on tomorrow’s US jobs report to see if that can shift the narrative one way or the other. Our US economists are expecting nonfarm payrolls to slow down further to 150k, and yesterday we had some further evidence of a softening labour market from the ADP’s report of private payrolls. That showed growth of +177k in August (vs. +195k expected), which is the smallest gain since March. On top of that, there was a continued slowdown in pay growth, with the rate among job-changers down to +9.5% year-on-year, which is the slowest since June 2021, whilst the rate among job-stayers fell to the slowest since September 2021, at +5.9%.

That ADP report came just before the second estimate of Q2 GDP growth, which indicated that the economy was a bit weaker than previously thought. For instance, overall growth came in at an annualised rate of +2.1%, which was down from the initial estimate of +2.4%. And more promisingly for the Fed, both PCE and core PCE for Q2 were each revised down a tenth, with the latest estimate putting them at +2.5% and +3.7% respectively.

These indications of a slowing economy led to a fresh rally among US markets. The main reason for that is because expectations of another rate hike from the Fed have continued to come down, and now stand beneath 50% for the first time since last week. So bad news on the economy is still being treated as good news (for now), since optimism about fewer rate hikes is outweighing the prospects of slower growth. In turn, that led to a rally among US Treasuries, although one that lost steam during the day with yields on 2yr Treasuries (-1.0bps) and 10yr Treasuries (-0.7bps) down only a little by the close. The 2yr yield had traded as much as -6bps lower shortly after the US data in the morning. As discussed, equities put in another decent performance as well, with the S&P 500 (+0.38%), advancing for a 4th consecutive session. On a sectoral basis, it was tech stocks that led the advance once again, and the NASDAQ (+0.54%) hit a 4-week high.

Over in Europe it was a rather different story, since the latest data suggested that inflation was proving more resilient than expected. In particular, the German flash CPI print for August only fell back to +6.4% on the EU-harmonised measure (vs. +6.3% expected). At the same time, Spanish inflation ticked up three-tenths to +2.4%, whilst Irish inflation was also up three-tenths to +4.9%. That sets the stage for the Euro-Area wide print this morning, which is out at 10am London time. Following yesterday’s prints, our European economists see both the headline and core inflation prints coming in at between +5.3% and +5.4%. This would represent a near stable headline reading (+5.3% prev.) and a slight easing in core (+5.5% prev.).

Those CPI numbers led to growing expectations that the ECB might proceed with another hike at their next decision in two weeks’ time. Indeed, market pricing is now suggesting a 55% chance of a 25bp hike at the September meeting, so back up to its level prior to the underwhelming flash PMI data last week. It also led to a significant underperformance among European sovereign bonds, with yields on 10yr bunds (+3.4bps), OATs (+3.7bps) and BTPs (+4.4bps) all moving higher on the day, whilst the STOXX 600 fell -0.15%. The big concern now is that the European outlook is looking increasingly stagflationary, with inflation remaining stubborn whilst there’s few signs of growth either. On the topic of European inflation, our economists yesterday published the results of their latest dbDIG consumer survey, which has shown an uptick in inflation expectations during July and August. See their note here.

Overnight in Asia, several equity markets have lost ground this morning, which follows the release of the official PMIs from China. They showed that manufacturing contracted for a fifth consecutive month, with a 49.7 reading but it was higher than the 49.2 reading expected by the consensus, and above the 49.3 reading in June. However, the non-manufacturing PMI fell a bit more than expected to 51.0 (vs. 51.2 expected).

Against that backdrop, most of the major indices have struggled this morning, with declines for the CSI 300 (-0.54%), the Shanghai Comp (-0.53%), the KOSPI (-0.36%) and the Hang Seng (-0.26%). The main exception is in Japan, where the Nikkei (+0.80%) and other indices including the TOPIX (+0.79%) have seen a decent advance this morning. That comes amidst better-than-expected retail sales data overnight, which grew by +2.1% in July (vs. +0.8% expected). That said, industrial production fell by -2.0% (vs. -1.4% expected).

Looking at yesterday’s other data, there were further signs of resilience in the US housing market, as pending home sales unexpectedly grew by +0.9% in July (vs. -1.0% expected). That said, the July data was before the most recent rise in mortgage rates into August, and separate data from the MBA yesterday showed that the 30yr average fixed rate remained at 7.31% in the week ending August 25.

To the day ahead now, and data releases include the Euro Area flash CPI print for August, as well as the unemployment rate for July. In the US we’ve got the weekly initial jobless claims, PCE inflation for July, and the MNI Chicago PMI for August. From central banks, we’ll hear from the Fed’s Bostic and Collins, ECB Vice President de Guindos and the ECB’s Schnabel, and the BoE’S Pill. We’ll also get the ECB’s accounts of their June meeting. Finally, earnings releases include Lululemon, Dollar General and Broadcom.

2 B) NOW NEWSQUAWK (EUROPE/REPORT)/

ECB pricing shifts dovishly post-HICP/Schnabel; Focus turns to PCE & IJC – Newsquawk US Market Open

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 06:08 AM

European bourses are mostly firmer after a packed morning ahead of an equally busy US agenda, ES +0.1%
EUR & EZ yields slump after Flash HICP and balanced commentary from Schnabel on a hike/skip for upcoming meetings
Pricing for a 25bp hike by the ECB in September down to a 30% chance from over 60% in recent sessions
DXY bid as a result and pressuring peers, Cable dented further by Pill backing a steady for longer strategy vs overtightening
Crude continues to climb while XAU is near unchanged and torn between the risk tone & USD upside
APAC traded negative despite the firmer handover with mixed Chinese PMIs influencing
Looking ahead, highlights include US PCE Price Index (Jul), IJC & Challenger Layoffs, speeches from Fed’s Collins, ECB’s de Guindos.

EUROPEAN TRADE

EQUITIES

European bourses are modestly firmer, Euro Stoxx 50 +0.1%, having trimmed initial upside throughout a session of significant Central Bank updates.
Downside which has occurred despite a dovish-shift to pricing for the ECB post-HICP & Schnabel; within Europe, Real Estate leads the sectors while Banking names lag as both areas of the economy take impetus from yield action.
Though, the Banking pressure is offset somewhat by marked upside in UBS +4.5% post-earnings; SAP modestly firmer after CRM earnings, CRM +5.5% in pre-market.
Stateside, futures are mixed around the unchanged mark with some slight underperformance in the NQ -0.1% ahead of key data and despite the broader European-driven yield action.
Click here for more detail.
Click here and here for a recap of the main European equity updates.

FX

DXY rebounds firmly from 103.000 to 103.550, while Euro reels from 1.0939 to 1.0865 vs the Buck after mixed EZ data and less hawkish remarks from ECB’s Schnabel.
Yen relishes softer yields as it continues consolidation against Greenback either side of 146.00 irrespective of mixed Japanese macro releases.
Sterling buffeted as BoE’s Pill warns against complacency on inflation given second round effects, but backs a steady for longer strategy rather than overtightening.
Cable wanes around 1.2700 pivot, EUR/GBP eases from 0.8598 towards 0.8560.
PBoC sets USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1811 vs exp. 7.2765 (prev. 7.1816)
China’s major state-owned banks seen selling USD in onshore spot foreign exchange market; Banks spotted swapping CNY for USD in onshore forwards market, via Reuters citing sources.
Brazil’s 2024 Budget Law revenue measures will reportedly reach BRL 168bln, according to Estadao sources. The revenue package will consider ending the deductibility of Interest on Equity for all sectors.
Click here for more detail.
Click here for the Option Expires for the NY Cut.

FIXED INCOME

Bonds approaching month end on the up, but not before overcoming several wobbles.
Bunds towards top of 132.87-131.83 range and perhaps latching on to soft EZ core inflation and less hawkish vibes from ECB’s Schnabel.
Gilts also bid between 95.28-94.66 parameters as BoE’s Pill states preference for a longer period of steady rates rather than overtightening.
T-note more restrained within 111-00/110-24+ confines awaiting PCE, IJC, Fed’s Collins and Chicago PMI.
Following the European data and ECB speakers, pricing for a 25bp hike at the September meeting has dropped to a 30% probability from over 60% in recent sessions.
UK DMO intends to hold 15 Gilt auctions between October-December, and a syndicated sale of a new long-dated conventional in November.
Click here for more detail.

COMMODITIES

Crude benchmarks are a touch firmer on the session with specific details light as we await an update from the BSEE on how much, if any, production has been lost due to Hurricane Idalia.
Gas markets are bid but off highs while spot gold is little changed and torn between the softer risk tone and stronger USD.
For Ags., Reuters citing Turkish sources reported that President Erdogan is to meet Russia President Putin in Sochi on September 4th to discuss Ukraine and the grain deal. As a reminder, earlier in the week reports indicated that the nation’s Foreign Ministers are to speak in today’s session as Turkey looks to bring Russia back to the Black Sea grain deal.
Click here for more detail.

NOTABLE US HEADLINES

Salesforce Inc (CRM) Q2 2023 (USD): Adj. EPS 2.12 (exp. 1.90), Revenue 8.60bln (exp. 8.52bln). Shares +5.6%, in pre-market.
US officials are reportedly mulling a pathway to let more firms tap the Federal Home Loan Banks, according to Bloomberg.
Fed’s Bostic (2024 voter) says US monetary policy is appropriately restrictive, enough to bring inflation to 2% over a reasonable time frame; Fed should be cautious, patient and resolute. Says inflation is still too high, is not for easing policy any time soon.
Click here for the US Early Morning Note.

NOTABLE EUROPEAN HEADLINES

ECB’s Schnabel says outlook for the Euro Area remains highly uncertain, activity has moderated visibly, and forward-looking indicators signal weakness ahead. Cannot predict where the peak rate is going to be, or for how long rates will have to be held at restrictive levels, cannot commit to future actions. Within the remarks, Schnabel is very balanced and holds open the door for a hike or a skip at the September gathering. For reference, the remarks were published pre-HICP
ECB’s Holzmann says August inflation data is a conundrum for the ECB; we are not yet at the highest level for rates, another hike or two is possible. ECB should consider needing PEPP reinvestments before the end of next year. Based on current data, would not exclude a rate hike in September but hasn’t made mind up yet. Much closer to terminal rate but likely not there yet. Remarks published after the HICP data
BoE’s Pill says the UK faces second-round inflation effects and inflation is too high, cases for caution on inflation despite the declines in the headline. There is a lot of policy in the pipeline to come through. There is the possibility of doing too much when it comes to the fight against inflation. Policy needs to be sufficiently restrictive for long enough.. Adds, one option for policy is to hold rates steady for longer; tends to favour that approach.
UK PM Sunak is expected to announce a new Defence Secretary to replace Ben Wallace on Thursday, according to government officials cited by the FT. Grant Shapps is a surprise frontrunner for the role, according to insiders.

NOTABLE EUROPEAN DATA

EU HICP Flash YY (Aug 2023) 5.3% vs. Exp. 5.1% (Prev. 5.3%)
EU HICP-X Food & Energy Flash YY (Aug 2023) 6.2% vs. Exp. 6.3% (Prev. 6.6%); X Food, Energy, Alcohol & Tobacco Flash YY (Aug) 5.30% vs. Exp. 5.30% (Prev. 5.50%)
French CPI Prelim YY NSA (Aug) 4.8% vs. Exp. 4.60% (Prev. 4.30%); MM NSA (Aug) 1.0% vs. Exp. 0.80% (Prev. 0.10%)
Italian Consumer Price Prelim YY (Jul 2023) 5.5% vs. Exp. 6.1% (Prev. 6.4%); MM (Aug 2023) 0.4%
German Retail Sales YY Real (Jul 2023) -2.2% vs. Exp. -1.0% (Prev. -1.6%); MM Real (Jul 2023) -0.8% vs. Exp. 0.3% (Prev. -0.8%)
German Unemployment Change SA (Aug 2023) 18.0k vs. Exp. 10.0k (Prev. -4.0k); Rate SA (Aug 2023) 5.7% vs. Exp. 5.7% (Prev. 5.6%)

GEOPOLITICS

US approves first arms to Taiwan under foreign aid program, according to AFP citing an official.
US reportedly restricts the export of some AMD (AMD) chips to Middle Eastern countries, according to Reuters sources.
North Korea conducted full-force command training in response to the SK-US joint exercise, according to Yonhap.
Japanese PM Kishida has requested top LDP lawmaker Nikai to visit China to resolve the Fukushima water issue, according to local press.
Australia and EU to resume free-trade deal talks on Thursday via teleconference, a month after the sides failed to reach a deal, according to Reuters.

CRYPTO

Bitcoin is under modest pressure holding around the USD 27k mark within fairly narrow ranges above the figure. Pressure which eminates from the firmer USD in European trade.

APAC TRADE

APAC stocks eventually traded mostly negatively following a marginally positive handover from Wall Street, which saw an equity bid underpinned by dovish US economic data.
ASX 200 was flat on either side of 7,300 as the gains in the Telecoms and Financial sectors were offset by losses in Energy and Consumer Staples.
Nikkei 225 saw mild gains although the machinery sectors were in the red following the dire Japanese industrial output data, with a Japanese government official highlighting a decline in demand both domestically and abroad, with output falling in several areas including production machinery.
Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp varied at the open but later succumbed to losses, whilst Baidu soared 4.6% after winning Chinese approval for its AI model. The Mainland was more cautious from the start following mixed PMI data which saw Manufacturing topping expectations but remaining in contraction.

NOTABLE ASIA-PAC HEADLINES

Baidu (BIDU/9888 HK) is reportedly among the first firms to win China approval for AI models, according to Bloomberg. Baidu rolled out its Chat GPT-rival AI app to the public, according to a statement cited by AFP
PBoC said it will continue to step up loans to private firms and will use stocks and bonds to deal with risks of private property developers in a prudent way, according to Reuters. PBoC added it will encourage and guide institutional investors to buy bonds of private firms and will support IPO and refinancing of private firms.
PBoC injected CNY 209bln via 7-day reverse repos with the rate at 1.80% for a CNY
The Japanese government cut its assessment of industrial production and noted industrial output is seesawing, according to Reuters.
Japanese government official on industrial output said demand fell both domestically and abroad in July, and noted that output fell in many areas including production machinery. The official said the decrease in chip manufacturing machinery is due to weak demand abroad, the outlook appears to be severe; chip shortage is easing in autos, which is on a steady recovery, according to Reuters.
Japanese government official said the electronics device market in China is in a severe state; Domestic material industries are partially affected by China’s real estate concerns, according to Reuters.
BoJ Board Member Nakamura said the BoJ must patiently maintain easy policy for the time being, and need more time to shift to monetary tightening; Japan’s economy is no longer in deflation; tweaks to policy must be cautious. Was not against making YCC flexible, opposition was re. timing. July decision was not part of any exit from ultra-loose policy. BoJ will closely watch impact on Yen moves on economy and prices. FX is not driven by interest rate differentials alone.
Japanese PM Kishida said to be considering lifting the minimum wage to JPY 1500/hr by mid 2030s, via NHK.
Japan’s major five banks are to increase housing loan interest rates by 0.1% to 0.2%, according to Jiji News.
Fitch affirms China at A+, outlook stable; revises lower 2023 China GDP Growth forecast to 4.8% (prev. 5.6%).

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DATA RECAP

Chinese NBS Manufacturing PMI (Aug 2023) 49.7 vs. Exp. 49.4 (Prev. 49.3); Services PMI (Aug 2023) 51.0 (Prev. 51.5)
Chinese Composite PMI (Aug) 51.3 (Prev. 51.1)
Japanese Retail Sales YY (Jul 2023) 6.8% vs. Exp. 5.4% (Prev. 5.9%)
Japanese Industrial O/P Prelim MM SA (Jul 2023) -2.0% vs. Exp. -1.4% (Prev. 2.4%)
Japanese IP Forecast 1 Month Ahead (Aug 2023) 2.6% (Prev. -0.2%); 2 Month Ahead (Sep 2023) 2.4% (Prev. 1.1%)
Japanese Foreign Invest JP Stock (W 26 Aug) w/e -603.8B (Prev. -740.7B); Foreign Bond Investment (W 26 Aug) w/e 425.1B (Prev. -263.2B)
South Korean Industrial Output YY (Jul 2023) -8.0% vs. Exp. -5.2% (Prev. -5.6%); Growth (Jul 2023) -2.0% vs. Exp. -0.4% (Prev. -1.0%)
South Korean Service Sector Output Growth (Jul 2023) 0.4% (Prev. 0.5%)
New Zealand ANZ Business Outlook (Aug 2023) -3.7% (Prev. -13.1%); Own Activity (Aug 2023) 11.2% (Prev. 0.8%)
Australian Capital Expenditure (Q2 2023) 2.8% vs. Exp. 1.2% (Prev. 2.4%)
Australian Plant/Machinery Capex (Q2 2023) 1.9% (Prev. 3.7%); Building Capex (Q2 2023) 3.5% (Prev. 1.3%)
Australian Private Sector Credit (Jul 2023) 0.3% (Prev. 0.2%); Housing Credit (Jul 2023) 0.3% (Prev. 0.2%)

2 c. ASIAN AFFAIRS

THURSDAY MORNING/WEDNESDAY NIGHT

2 d./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA/

////SOUTH KOREA/NORTH KOREA/

END

2e) JAPAN

JAPAN

3 CHINA /

CHINA/

end

4.EUROPEAN AFFAIRS//UK /SCANDAVIAN AFFAIRS

FRANCE

France’s largest retailer, Carrefour, witnessing a non spending tsunami as consumers are forced to make massive spending cuts on essentials

(zerohedge)

“We Are Seeing A Non-Spending Tsunami”: Largest French Retailer Warns Consumers Forced To Make “Massive Spending Cuts” On Essentials

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 06:55 AM

Living in the US has become a full blown paradox: courtesy of Brandonomics, the worse the economy gets, the more praise the incompetent administration demands. Indeed, while most middle-class Americans are gradually and painfully realizing that inflation is never going to go back to pre-covid levels, and in fact in absolute terms it will hit new record highs every month until the economy and markets crash in a second great depression …

… the admin is taking Goebbels 101 to such an extreme level, repeating the ridiculous lie that things have never been better so many times that people may just start believing.

Normal American on TikTok: “I can’t go to the grocery store and get a week’s worth of f*cking groceries without spending $300, $400.”@RBReich: “The economy is great. It’s the Goldilocks economy. I don’t recall an economy that is this good.” https://t.co/ODWMJeRXJs— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 30, 2023

Meanwhile, as we reported earlier, “Poor Americans Skip Meals, Can’t Afford Power Bills, Miss Rent Payments, In Era Of ‘Bidenomics’.” So there’s that. But that’s not to say that things are better elsewhere.

Yes, while the US is sliding fast toward terminal socialist (and communist-cum-klepto-fascist according to some) collapse, the socialist paradise that is France is already there, and has the receipts to prove it.

According to the CEO of the largest French supermarket chain, Carrefour, high prices have forced consumers to make “massive cuts” to spending on essential goods, and urged the government to delay a law putting a cap on promotions retailers can offer.

Speaking on Tuesday, Carrefour Chairman and Chief Executive Alexandre Bompard warned “we are seeing a non-spending tsunami in France,” adding that “when essential staples are no longer accessible, when people go without essential goods, one must act.”

The comments, which were cited by Reuters, which sent Carrefour shares down more than 4%, were the latest salvo in a blame game between the French government and retailers on who is responsible for the increase in the cost of living.

As Europe’s inflation shock eases – however briefly – France is seeing less of a drop in prices than many countries due to a surge in food inflation since March after annual price negotiations between retailers and producers.

The French government is eager to get food inflation – more than twice the overall French inflation rate of 5.1% in July – on a downward path, fearing that such high levels will undermine fragile consumer confidence. And while household confidence remained stable for the third month in a row in August – one can only imagine the “seasonal adjustment” gymnastics to gaslight the population that everyone is happy – it was well below its long-term average, according to a monthly survey from the INSEE statistics agency.

Bompard, who was among French retail executives due to meet Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday to discuss how to lower prices, said he would ask for a one-year moratorium on the application of the law, which is currently scheduled to take effect next March. The so-called Descrozaille law, which was passed in March this year, extends a limit of 34% on promotions that retailers can apply to food items to beauty, hygiene and care products.

Bompard, who has slashed prices to win back shoppers in the face of stiff competition, said that while today Carrefour is free to sell washing powder at a 60% discount, it would no longer be able to do so when the law takes effect.

The law’s stated aim was to protect small producers in price negotiations with retailers; however, giant retailers like Carrefour say it limits their bargaining power with large suppliers, and Bompard on Tuesday said the new rules benefit only global multinationals like Procter & Gamble, Henkel and Unilever. Almost as if this was yet another government ploy to benefit corporations at the expense of ordinary people.

“They see their margins increase while the French are in a situation of deprivation,” Bompard told Franceinfo. P&G, Unilever and Henkel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Le Maire in March secured pledges from 75 food producers to cut prices on hundreds of products, but a junior minister last month said that only about 40 had made good on their promise. On Tuesday, Le Maire vowed to step up pressure on retailers and producers to accelerate price cuts.

“We are on the right track,” he said. “Prices are now falling because we have intervened, because we put pressure on retailers and producers and because we will continue to do so.”

“I am meeting retailers tomorrow and the producers the day after tomorrow … with one objective: accelerate the fall of prices.”

Le Maire said he would ask them to widen the range of products on which prices can be cut, and also said he wanted more producers to play ball.

“There are 35 today. I think we can have more producers joining us in this fight against the high cost of living,” he said.

end

EUROPE/STAGFLATION

Europe is heading for stagflation and that could certainly endanger their economy

(Bloomberg)

Stagflation Could Endanger Any Rebound In Europe

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 03:30 AM

By Sagarika Jaisinghani, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

As European stocks nurse their first monthly decline in three, there’s one risk that could cast a shadow over prospects for a year-end rebound: stagflation.

While investors have cheered signs of slowing inflation and a resilient economy in the US, the picture in Europe remains more challenging. Figures this week are expected to show core inflation in the euro area only dipped a touch in August, at a time when a contraction in private-sector activity has unexpectedly worsened.

Add in the downbeat recovery in China — a big market for sectors such as mining, luxury goods and autos — and there are few takers for regional stocks, even with valuations near a record low relative to US peers.

“Cheap is just one criterion for whether something is an attractive investment,” says Andrew Bell, chief executive officer of Witan Investment Trust, whose overweight on the region reflects the appeal of individual quality stocks. “European growth is going to remain in a longer-term declining trend compared with the US and emerging markets, and if a broad-based rally in Europe lifts valuations, that could see more investors shift to emerging markets.”

The impact of weaker growth is already showing up in the performance of sectors whose fortunes are most closely linked to the economy. After beating defensive stocks until early-August, the so-called cyclical sectors have fallen behind in the past few weeks. JPMorgan strategists expect the underperformance to worsen as they don’t see a “meaningful recovery” in business activity in the near term.

Autos, capital goods, retail, chemicals, banks, semiconductors and travel and leisure stocks are particularly at risk, the JPMorgan team led by Mislav Matejka says, as they also miss out on a boost from a recent surge in bond yields. Typically, higher yields correlate with a rally in cyclical sectors, but this time around the move has been driven by “the wrong reasons” — a downgrade of US government debt by Fitch Ratings and lower demand for bonds, rather than just receding calls for an American recession, according to Matejka.

For cross-asset investors, bonds are proving to be more attractive than stocks as real yields rise given “investors’ impatience” for core inflation to cool as quickly as overall price pressures, Deutsche Bank strategists say. US Treasuries have now recorded inflows for 28 straight weeks — the longest streak since 2010, according to a note from Bank of America citing EPFR Global data. By contrast, money has exited European stock funds for 24 weeks in a row.

The Deutsche Bank team including Maximilian Uleer and Carolin Raab says the move in German bunds presents “an interesting entry point” as the current yield is already above their rates strategists’ target for 2023. “We expect bunds to be negatively correlated to equities and to offer a positive real yield,” they say.

That move could prompt European stocks to fall further behind their US peers into the year end. The Stoxx 600 has now underperformed the S&P 500 for four straight months in dollar terms — erasing a lead from earlier this year — and market strategists don’t expect any further gains in the European index for the rest of 2023.

Morgan Stanley’s Graham Secker also has a bearish view on the outlook for European stocks as he says optimism around a soft landing is overdone. He expects weak macro data to lead to earnings downgrades through the rest of 2023, while stocks suffer from the “unusual double whammy of (much) higher rates and (much) tighter credit conditions.”

END

5 RUSSIA//UKRAINE AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

Robert H to us;

RUSSIA/UKRAINE// .

Fwd: SITREP 8/30/23: Ukraine Smokescreens Failures With Meaningless Deep-strikes

The Sandy truth is NATO needs Russia to have a purpose. Neocons need war to have purpose, especially in America where they will sacrifice anyone and everyone for agenda.

Meanwhile the Euro diminishes as a settlement currency exposing its flawed inception whereby yes there is one currency for all but not debt as debt is by country. And debt values trade against one another. By the end of 1st quarter the Euro will experience a defining moment and there is no certainty that it will survive. Settlement in dollars is growing creating a downwards pressure on the Euro and its relevance.

Be sure the Neocons in DC who have captured America do not care.

From: Simplicius The Thinker’s Lyceum <simplicius76@substack.com>
Date: August 30, 2023 at 11:58:28 PM EDT

END

SYRIA/USA/KURDS

Rare uprising against uSA backed forces in Syria by Eastern Arabs fighting the Kurds

(zerohedge)

Rare Uprising Against US-Backed Forces In Syria Leaves Many Killed

WEDNESDAY, AUG 30, 2023 – 10:00 PM

There’s been a rare armed uprising in a region of Syria currently occupied by American forces, which has resulted in dead and wounded. Regional reports have tallied at least 13 to as many as 25 people, both militants and civilians, have been killed.

It happened Wednesday in Deir Ezzor province, which for years has had some 1,000 or more US soldiers occupying what is Syria’s only oil and gas rich province. The US has trained and supported Kurkish-led “Syrian Democratic Forces” while also cutting off Damascus and most of the Syrian population from its own resources. AFP file image

Al Jazeera reports of the Wednesday violence, “Clashes in eastern Syria between Arab tribal fighters and US-backed Kurdish-led fighters have left several people, including civilians, dead and others wounded, opposition activists and pro-government media have said.”

It’s being called the worst violence there since 2015, when there were still fierce counter-terror operations against ISIS.

According to more details:

The clashes first broke out on Monday, a day after the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) detained the commander and several members of the Deir Az Zor Military Council, a group that had been allied with the SDF, at a meeting they invited them to in the northeastern city of Hassakeh.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that 10 Arab tribesmen and three SDF fighters were killed in clashes in the villages of Hrejieh and Breeha.

Additionally there were reports of at least eight civilians, including a child, killed in the village of Hrejieh.

Much of the Arab component of the US-backed forces in the region has long been in tension with the area’s Kurdish leadership. The Syrian Kurds dominate the SDF, while the Arabs tend to be made up of remnant “Free Syrian Army” factions. While Washington has long sought to present the SDF as a broad coalition of anti-Assad “opposition” fighters, the reality is that the Kurds and their interests totally dominate.

This has led to fears among the tribes near the Iraq border that the SDF and US will in the end “erase” the eastern region’s “Arab identity.”

There’s also the possibility that pro-Assad forces are covertly encouraging the Arab tribes to rise up and throw off the American occupation. For years, the Pentagon’s chief enemy in the region has been ‘pro-Iran’ and Shia aligned forces, but if there’s a broader push to overthrow the US occupation from the Arab tribes, Washington’s days occupying Syria are numbered.

6.GLOBAL ISSUES//MEDICAL ISSUES

end

GLOBAL VACCINE/COVID ISSUES

END

GLOBAL ISSUES

They are correct: there is no climate emergency as Carbond Dioxide is beneficial to mankind

(EpochTimes)

Over 1,600 Scientists Sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ Declaration

WEDNESDAY, AUG 30, 2023 – 09:40 PM

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

International scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth, contrary to the popular alarmist narrative.Children take part in a climate change protest in Montreal on Sept. 26, 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

“There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”

A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.

The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.

“Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming,” the declaration said.

Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools,” the coalition said, adding that these models “exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases” and “ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.” For instance, even though climate alarmists characterize CO2 as environmentally-damaging, the coalition pointed out that the gas is “not a pollutant.”

Carbon dioxide is “essential” to all life on earth and is “favorable” for nature. Extra CO2 results in the growth of global plant biomass while also boosting the yields of crops worldwide.

CLINTEL also dismissed the narrative of global warming being linked to increased natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and droughts, stressing that there is “no statistical evidence” to support these claims.

“There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are,” it said.

“To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. Should not we free ourselves from the naive belief in immature climate models?”

Climate Models and Sunlight Reflection

Among the CLINTEL signatories are two Nobel laureates—physicists John Francis Clauser from the United States and Ivan Giaever, a Norwegian-American.

Mr. Clauser has made a significant addition to climate models to dismiss the narrative of global warming: the visible light reflected by cumulus clouds which, on average, cover half of the earth.Young demonstrators hold placards as they attend a climate change protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London on Feb. 15, 2019. (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

Current climate models vastly underestimate this aspect of cumulus cloud reflection, which plays a key role in regulating the earth’s temperature. Mr. Clauser previously told President Joe Biden that he disagreed with his climate policies.

In May, Mr. Clauser was elected to the board of directors at the CO2 Coalition, a group focusing on the beneficial contributions of carbon dioxide in the environment.

“The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people,” Mr. Clauser said in a May 5 statement.

“Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills.”

“It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis.”

False Doomsday Predictions, a Presidential Issue

CLINTEL’s declaration against the climate change narrative counters propaganda spread by climate alarmists who have long predicted doomsday scenarios triggered by global warming—none of which have ever come true.

In 1970, some climate scientists predicted that the earth would move into a new ice age by the 21st century. Pollution expert James Lodge predicted that “air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the new century,” according to The Boston Globe.Participants hold placards as they take part in a demonstration demanding the government take immediate action against climate change in Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 10, 2020. (Mohammed Farooq/AFP via Getty Images)

In May 1982, Mostafa Tolba, then-executive director of the United Nations environmental program, said that if the world did not change course, it would face an “environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust” by 2000.

In June 2008, James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Sciences, said that within five to 10 years, the Arctic would have no ice left in the summer.

As climate alarmists continue to spread propaganda about global warming, the topic has become an issue in the 2024 presidential race, with multiple candidates openly dismissing it.

In a July 13 post on X, Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that climate change “is being used to control us through fear.”

“Freedom and free markets are a much better way to stop pollution. Polluters make themselves rich by making the public pay for the damage they do,” he said.

During the first 2024 GOP presidential debate, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called climate change a “hoax.”

“The reality is, the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy. And so the reality is, more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change,” he said.

High Temperatures, Biden’s Appliance Crackdown

Climate activists have insisted that global warming is responsible for the soaring temperatures across the United States, even claiming that temperatures are hitting record highs.

In a recent interview with The Epoch Times, John Christy, a climatologist and professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, dismissed the narrative of record high temperatures.

“Regionally, the West has seen its largest number of hot summer records in the past 100 years, but the Ohio Valley and Upper Midwest are experiencing their fewest,” he said.

“For the conterminous U.S. as a whole, the last 10 years have produced only an average number of records. The 1930s are still champs.”

Climate change policies have been used to justify sweeping lifestyle changes across the United States by the Energy Department, like restricting home appliances, and sometimes, even outright banning them.

In June, the Energy Department proposed rules that would require ceiling fans to become more energy efficient, a development that could lead to manufacturers having to shell out $86.6 million per year in “increased equipment costs.”

In February, the DOE proposed energy efficiency rules targeting gas stoves that would affect half of all new models of such stoves sold in the United States while making most of the existing ones noncompliant.

In July, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission proposed a policy that would remove nearly all existing portable gas generators from the market.

The Biden administration has already implemented a ban on incandescent light bulbs, which came into effect on Aug. 1.

END

BRICS/DEDOLLARIZATION

Expanded BRICS Set To De-Dollarize The World, Control Global Energy Supply

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 02:00 AM

Authored by Darren Taylor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

“The expansion of BRICS has made it clear that the de-dollarization of the international finance system is inevitable.”

This view, from economist William Gumede—who’s also executive chairperson of the Democracy Works Foundation in South Africa—has been echoed around the world since BRICS leaders announced the expansion of the bloc on Aug. 24 at a summit in Johannesburg. A large screen shows a news programme featuring Chinese leader Xi Jinping speaking via video at the opening of the virtual BRICS Summit being hosted by India, on a street in Beijing on Sept. 10, 2021. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)

Current BRICS members are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

In January, BRICS—originally established in 2009 to represent the world’s strongest emerging market economies—will add Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to its ranks.

Mr. Gumede, one of South Africa’s leading academics and thought-leaders, has been researching the potential impacts of de-dollarization since 2014.

He told The Epoch Times the average per capita GDP of the G7 economies was currently six times that of BRICS economies. But, the unexpectedly swift expansion of BRICS would increase the trade bloc’s share of the global economy much faster than earlier predictions.

“These forecasts did not take into account that BRICS would expand its membership very quickly. A larger BRICS will mean the world will increasingly use U.S. dollars less,” he said.

Mr. Gumede said the bigger BRICS alliance would eventually rival the Group of Seven (G7) large industrial economies of the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy, and Canada, which together are home to 16 percent of the world’s population and account for 62 percent of the global economy.

Welcoming the new members in Johannesburg last week, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva said their addition would mean BRICS would represent 46 percent of the global population and 37 percent of the world GDP.

The expansion means BRICS now consists of some of the globe’s largest oil producers: Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt. Nigeria, another major oil exporter, is set to join when the bloc gets even bigger, probably at its next summit in Russia in 2024.

“BRICS is going to dominate the world’s energy supply,” said Mr. Gumede. “The strength of the U.S. dollar is also partially based on the currency as underpinning oil trade—the so-called petrodollar—and members of OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) settle their accounts in U.S. dollars.

“Therefore, enlarging BRICS to also include the oil producers and persuading them to use a new BRICS currency, rather than the U.S. dollar, to settle their accounts, will be a game-changer. It is likely to accelerate the de-dollarization of the world.”

Jakkie Cilliers, Head of the African Futures and Innovation program at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, attributed the unexpectedly rapid expansion of BRICS, and its moves towards de-dollarization, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its consequences.

“BRICS has seen the West hit Russia with all kinds of financial sanctions, and threaten sanctions against South Africa for supposedly supporting Russia, and as a result it wants to end, or at least ease, its dependence on the dollar,” he told The Epoch Times.

“De-dollarization, first mooted by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, is a potent symbol of a shift away from a Western-led global order towards a new era of more uncertain and fluid multipolar connections. Change is in the air, and the next three decades will see the steady unfolding of this trend.”

Mr. Cilliers said BRICS was “cloaking itself in resentment” against the West.

“It’s quite easy for Russia and China to take advantage of the ill-feeling that still exists across much of the developing world because of colonialism, imperialism and sanctions by leading Western countries.

“Never mind the fact that Russia and China show similar imperialistic tendencies,” he commented.

He said the Global South was “particularly unhappy” with international finance institutions, and with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

“When the Fed hikes interest rates, it sometimes sends smaller economies into turmoil. They’re subjected to shocks for no domestic reason. So they see the dollar as providing the United States with a very powerful weapon to use in its interests,” said Mr. Cilliers.

“This is what unites BRICS in its desire to move away from the dollar-backed international financial system.”

But, he added, de-dollarization was going to be a slow process.

“Trade among BRICS countries is too small to sustain a common currency, and it only makes sense to trade in national currencies if the trade balance between the countries is more or less equal, which it most definitely is not likely to be in the near future,” said Mr. Cilliers.

Mr. Gumede pointed to a recent example of Russia selling a lot of oil to India.

“They dealt in rupees. But because India exports much less to Russia than it imports, Moscow now sits with rupees it cannot spend or convert, except to buy goods from India.”

Mr. Cilliers said China’s renminbi also wasn’t sufficiently convertible and lacked deep capital markets, market transparency, independent central banks and supporting financial institutions of Western banks.

He said there were also “perceptions of risk” associated with China’s future.

“It is, after all, a repressive autocracy. It’ll battle to maintain stability in the face of slower economic growth. I’d also be very surprised if India supported a common BRICS currency, given its concerns about China as a regional and potential global competitor.”

Mr. Gumede added: “The euro, a common currency, is stable because it’s underpinned by stable political regimes in a stable part of the world. Wherever you look in BRICS, there’s instability, like in Russia because of the Ukraine war. What would happen to the BRICS currency if China invades Taiwan?”

Mr. Cilliers predicted that rather than a single alternative to the dollar, “new currency blocs” would emerge.

“These will be based on bilateral and multilateral trade among the Middle East and China, South America, West Africa and elsewhere. And so we’ll see the power of the dollar slowly wane,” he said.

Mr. Cilliers said the most important shift in the power of the greenback would happen once oil and gas prices were no longer set in U.S. dollars.

“This is probably the motivation behind the inclusion of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the expanded BRICS,” he postulated.

Mr. Gumede said demand for U.S. dollars would remain high as long as U.S. GDP was close to 25 percent of the global economy.

He said President Putin—supported by China’s leader Xi Jinping—was pushing so hard for de-dollarization “because it’s key to the economic survival of Russia” following Western sanctions.

The West froze $300 billion of Russia’s foreign trade reserves after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and its foreign trade transactions, including those with some emerging markets, have been blocked.

Seven of Russia’s banks have been excluded from the world’s leading international payment messaging system, SWIFT. The ban means Russian banks cannot do digital cross-border transactions.

However, Russian banks doing transactions connected to oil and gas are exempt from the SWIFT ban, and this is preventing the Russian economy from collapsing, said Mr. Gumede.

Russia is the world’s third-largest oil producer, but its the largest exporter of oil.

“BRICS countries have been buying oil and gas from Moscow, insulating Russia against isolation by the United States and the EU,” Mr. Gumede explained.

For example, Indian imports of Russian oil in May 2023 reached record levels of about 1.95 million barrels per day.

According to the International Energy Agency, China and India bought 80 percent of Russia’s oil in May 2023, with China buying 2.2 million barrels per day.

Leslie Maasdorp, Chief Financial Officer of the BRICS financial mechanism, the New Development Bank, told The Epoch Times BRICS countries were prepared to conduct business with one another in domestic currencies.

But, he added, they were not yet ready to issue a common currency that could challenge the dollar.

“The creation of a global alternative currency to the dollar is a medium-to-long-term ambition, rather than an immediate possibility,” said Maasdorp.

“Even the Chinese renminbi is very far from becoming a global reserve currency.”

Mr. Cilliers said it was also likely that intensifying rivalry between China and India would slow de-dollarization.

“India has already said it wants to focus on strengthening its own currency ahead of anything else,” he said.

Mr. Cilliers suggested that the expansion of BRICS, now and in the future, should not be seen as an “automatic sign” that developing countries were uniting behind a “simplistic, common vision” of overthrowing the West.

“Many people have this view that if Russia and China, in particular, snap their fingers and say, ‘de-dollarize now,’ that other BRICS countries are just going to listen to the master’s voice.

“Believe me, there is deep resentment within BRICS and within the wider Global South about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the harm it continues to sow in developing countries, causing inflation spikes, for example, and even grain shortages.

“Countries’ motivations for wanting to join BRICS differ but what stays the same is that few, if any, Global South nations will exchange one hegemon with another.”

end

DR PAUL ALEXANDER

Never will we comply! No mas! ‘We Will Not Comply’: Trump Warns ‘COVID Tyrants’ Are Eyeing Lockdowns to Interfere with 2024 Election; “The left-wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back COVID

lockdowns and mandates with all of their sudden fear-mongering about the new variants that are coming. Gee-whiz, you know what else is coming? An election,” Trump aka ’45’ warned

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERAUG 31

READ IN APP

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/08/30/we-will-not-comply-trump-warns-covid-tyrants-are-eyeing-lockdowns-to-interfere-with-2024-election/

“They want to restart the COVID hysteria so they can justify more lockdowns, more censorship, more illegal drop boxes, more mail-in ballots, and trillions of dollars in payoffs to their political allies heading into the 2024 election. Does that sound familiar?” Trump states.

COVID Tyrants want to take away our Freedom.

Hear my words— WE WILL NOT COMPLY. pic.twitter.com/Kql1YaxuO0
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) August 30, 2023

end

Why lockdown lunatic and COVID failed surgical & cloth mask madness talk again for EG.5, BA.2.86, FL COVID variants? NOTHING that CDC, NIH, FDA, HHS, Health Canada, PHAC, SAGE etc. did worked! They

KILLED people with their COVID lunatic policies! All our governments and medical doctors did was KILL us, KILL people! CRIMINALS IMO. This deadly mRNA technology gene based shot!

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERAUG 31

READ IN APP

We wrote prior:

How Did We Get Here?

Let us start with a core position that just because there is an emergency situation, if we cannot stop it, this does not provide a rationale for instituting strategies that have no effect or are even worse. We have to fight the concept that if there’s truly nothing we can do to alter the course of a situation (e.g., disease), we still have to do something even if it’s ineffective! Moreover, we do not implement a public health policy that is catastrophic and not working, and then continue its implementation knowing it is disastrous. Let us also start with the basic fact that the government bureaucrats and their medical experts deceived the public by failing to explain in the beginning that everyone is not at equal risk of severe outcome if infected. This is a key Covid omission and this omission has been used tacitly and wordlessly to drive hysteria and fear. Indeed, the public still does not understand this critically important distinction. The vast majority of people are at little if any risk of severe illness and yet these very people are needlessly cowering in fear because of misinformation and, sadly, disinformation. Yet, lockdowns did nothing to change the trajectory of this pandemic, anywhere! Indeed, it’s highly probable that if lockdowns did anything at all to change the course of the pandemic, they extended our time of suffering.

BOOM, Cornel West over the target, this leftist academic, someone I respect ‘at times’ when he is lucid, now is one! “‘Beyond Redemption:’ Cornel West Says the Democrat Party is Unable to Meet the

Needs of the Poor'”; Democrat party has historical link to slāvery and rācism. Time to tear it down and start over. To start. Just look at what they did with vaccine, they killed thousands of blacks!

DR. PAUL ALEXANDERAUG 31

READ IN APP

Third party presidential candidate Cornel West claims that the Democrat party is “beyond redemption,” accusing the party of being unable to “speak to the needs of poor and working people.”

The explosive commentary from West during an interview with the Hill TV’s Rising comes after Bernie Sanders endorsed President Joe Biden for a second term at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics. According to Sanders, President Biden is America’s only hope for preserving democracy against the Republican party’s front-runner, former President Donald Trump.’

“They are dominated by the corporate wing, they’re dominated by the militarists when it comes to foreign policy, and that [Sanders] and AOC and the others are going to be, in a certain sense, window dressing at worst, and at best, people to appeal to every four years,” West said. “But the Democratic Party is beyond redemption at this point, when it comes to seriously speaking to the needs of poor and working people.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/08/30/beyond-redemption-cornel-west-says-democrat-party-unable-meet-needs-poor/

END

SLAY NEWS

The latest reports from Slay NewsCDC Faked 99% of Reported ‘Covid Deaths,’ Data Shows The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has just quietly published new data that reveals a staggering 99% of reported “Covid deaths” were not actually caused by the virus.READ MORE Hungarian Leader Overrules Biden: ‘Call Back Trump’ – He ‘Is the Man Who Can Save the Western World’Tucker Carlson had Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on his Twitter show.READ MORE Climate Change Committee: Public Must Stop Heating Homes at Night to Meet ‘Net Zero’ Goals Britain’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) is calling for the public to stop heating homes at evening and night times in order to meet the “Net Zero” goals of the globalist green agenda.READ MORE Al Sharpton Gets Desperate as Mugshot Backfires, Accuses Rappers of ‘Being Seduced by Trump’Al Sharpton threw a temper tantrum about all the rappers who came out in support of President Donald Trump after his mugshot was released.READ MORE Trump Issues Warning To Hillary Clinton & Biden: ‘You Have No Choice Because They’re Doing It to Us’President Donald Trump issued a warning to Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden while talking to The Blaze founder Glenn Beck.READ MORE Matt Gaetz Catches Biden Weaponizing DOJ For Political Reasons, Demands “Sworn Statement of the Attorney General”GOP Rep Matt Gaetz put Merrick Garland on notice for weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes against Elon Musk and SpaceX. Matt wrote: “Last week, while much of America was fixated on the unlawful election interference in Fulton County, Georgia, your Civil Rights Division (CRD)—the lead election-law component at the Department of Justice (DOJ)—had other, apparently more important business …READ MORE Tucker Carlson Breaks Media’s Code of Silence on Obama: ‘In 2008 It Became Really Clear’Independent news anchor Tucker Carlson has broken the media’s code of silence and come clean about former President Barack Obama.READ MORE Trump Vows to ‘Lock Up’ the ‘Evil’ Democrats When Re-Elected: ‘These Are Sick People’President Donald Trump has put Joe Biden and several other top Democrats on notice, warning he now has “no choice” but to lock them up when he’s re-elected.READ MORE Gold Star Father: Biden Is a ‘Disgrace to This Nation’A Gold Star father has dropped the hammer on Joe Biden over the Democrat president’s handling of the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.READ MORE MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Says Bank Cut Off His Line of Credit MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has revealed that his bank has canceled his line of credit.READ MORE Kari Lake ‘Seriously Considering’ a Senate Run to Take On ‘Marxist Liberals Who Vote with Biden’GOP rock star Kari Lake has revealed that she’s “seriously considering” a run for the U.S. Senate next year.READ MORE Audiotape That Will End Biden’s Career to Be Released to Public Soon: Newsmax Host Newsmax host Greg Kelly claimed an audiotape containing “incontrovertible evidence” of Democrat President Joe Biden’s “corruption” exists and will be released to the public in the coming weeks.READ MORE Coroner Confirms WWE Star Bray Wyatt Died Suddenly of ‘Heart Attack’WWE star Bray Wyatt died suddenly last week, leaving his fans, colleagues, and devastated family stunned.READ MORE

EVOL NEWS

Biden administration announces additional $250 million in Ukraine aidREAD MORE…

LATEST NEWS:

Officials Caught Covering Up Deaths of 2400 Children in Maui WildfiresRead more…House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Accuses Trump of Pushing GOP Into ‘Illegitimate Impeachment’ of BidenRead more…Biden Impeachment Would Be ‘illegitimate,’ Says Two-Time Trump Impeachment Voter Hakeem JeffriesRead more…Explosive New Hunter Biden Emails Reveal What He Did to Help Take Down Ex-Ukrainian Prosecutor: ReportRead more…Anti-abortion activists, including one who kept fetuses, convicted of blocking DC clinicRead more…WATCH: The Many Names And Faces Of Joseph R. Biden…Read more…Biden Admin Rolling Out Pandemic 2.0 Preparations as CNN Barks ‘Break Out the Masks’Read more…Kari Lake ‘Seriously Considering’ a Senate Run to Take On ‘Marxist Liberals Who Vote with Biden’Read more…

NEWS ADDICTS

MICHAEL EVERY/PHIL MAREY/OR OTHER EXECS //RABOBANK

end

7//OIL ISSUES//NATURAL GAS ISSUES/USA AND GLOBE

END

8. EMERGING MARKETS//AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND ISSUES

GABON/

END

YOUR EARLY CURRENCY/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN CLOSING MARKETS AND EUROPEAN BOURSE OPENING AND CLOSING/ INTEREST RATE SETTINGS THURSDAY MORNING 7;30AM//OPENING AND CLOSINGS

EURO VS USA DOLLAR: 1.0858 DOWN 0.0071

USA/ YEN 145.90 DOWN 0.186 NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT 1.00% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…//YEN STILL FALLS//

GBP/USA 1.2669 DOWN 0.0042

USA/CAN DOLLAR: 1.3555 UP .0020 (CDN DOLLAR DOWN 20 BASIS PTS)

Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED DOWN 1.25 PTS OR 0.04%

Hang Seng CLOSED DOWN 100.80 PTS OR 0.55%

AUSTRALIA CLOSED UP 0.15 % // EUROPEAN BOURSE: ALL MOSTLY GREEN

Trading from Europe and ASIA

I) EUROPEAN BOURSES: ALL MOSTLY GREEN

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SENG DOWN 100.80 PTS OR 0.55%

/SHANGHAI CLOSED DOWN 17.91 PTS OR 0.54%

AUSTRALIA BOURSE CLOSED UP 0.15%

(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED UP 285.88PTS OR 0.88%

INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE RED

Gold very early morning trading: 1944.75

silver:$24.53

USA dollar index early THURSDAY morning: 103.53 UP 43 BASIS POINTS FROM WEDNESDAY’s CLOSE.

THURSDAY MORNING NUMBERS ENDS

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And now your closing THURSDAY NUMBERS 11: 30 AM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 3.171% DOWN 8 in basis point(s) yield

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: +0.631% DOWN 1 AND 0//100 BASIS POINTS /JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 3.470 DOWN 8 in basis points yield

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD 4.109 DOWN 2 points in basis points yield ./ THE ECB IS QE’ ING ITALIAN BONDS (BUYING ITALIAN BONDS/SELLING GERMAN BUNDS)

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: 2.4540 DOWN 9 BASIS PTS

END

IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES FOR THURSDAY

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

Euro/USA 1.0837 DOWN 0.0093 or 93 basis points

USA/Japan: 145.52 DOWN 0.567 OR YEN UP 57 basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.2660 DOWN 0.0051 OR 51 BASIS POINTS //

Canadian dollar DOWN .0016 OR 16 BASIS pts to 1.3551

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The USA/Yuan, CNY: closed ON SHORE CLOSED (UP) …7.2589

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: (YUAN CLOSED (UP)…. (7,2814)

TURKISH LIRA: 26.68 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WATCH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.//ON DEATH WATCH

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield at +0.631…VERY DANGEROUS

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield DOWN 4 in basis points from WEDNESDAY at 4.079% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic

USA 30 yr bond yield 4.175 DOWN 5 in basis points ON THE DAY/12.00 PM

USA 2 YR BOND YIELD: 4.865 DOWN 0 BASIS PTS.

Your 12:00 AM bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates THURSDAY: CLOSING TIME 12:00 PM

London: CLOSED DOWN 34.54 POINTS or 0.46%

German Dax : CLOSED DOWN 47.70 PTS OR 0.65%

Paris CAC CLOSED UP 55.15 PTS OR 0.35%

Spain IBEX DOWN 45.20 PTS OR 0.47%

Italian MIB: CLOSED DOWN 85.18 PTS OR 0.29%

WTI Oil price 82.55 12: EST

Brent Oil: 85.63 12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN ROUBLE /// AT: 96,02; ROUBLE UP 0 AND 12//100

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; +2.454 DOWN 9 BASIS PTS

UK 10 YR YIELD: 4.395 DOWN 9 BASIS PTS

CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM

Euro vs USA: 1.0849 DOWN 0.0079 OR 79 BASIS POINTS

British Pound: 1.2671 DOWN .0040 or 40 basis pts

BRITISH 10 YR GILT BOND YIELD: 4.4040% DOWN 7 BASIS PTS//

JAPAN 10 YR YIELD: .631%

USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 145,44 DOWN 0.637 //YEN UP 64 BASIS PTS//

USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.3508 DOWN .0026 CDN dollaR UP 26 basis pts)

West Texas intermediate oil: 82.42

Brent OIL: 86.69

USA 10 yr bond yield DOWN 3 BASIS pts to 4.091%

USA 30 yr bond yield DOWN 4 BASIS PTS to 4.191%

USA 2 YR BOND:DOWN 4 PTS AT 4.57 %

USA dollar index: 103.54 UP 45 BASIS POINTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 26.68 (GETTING QUITE CLOSE TO BLOWING UP/

USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIA//// ROUBLE: 96,02 UP 0 AND 20/100 roubles

GOLD 1940.25

SILVER: 24.43

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: DOWN 169.03 PTS OR 0.48%

NASDAQ 100 UP 38.64 PTS OR 0.25%

VOLATILITY INDEX: 13.45 DOWN 0.43 PTS (3.10)%

GLD: $180.02 DOWN 0.30 OR 0.87%

SLV/ $22.39 DOWN 0.18 OR 0.18%

end

USA AFFAIRS

USA TRADING IN GRAPH FORM

Bonds, Stocks, Commodities, & Crypto Hit In ‘Hawkish’ August As Dollar Soared

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 04:00 PM

August saw the landing narrative shift from ‘soft’ to ‘more aggressive’ as macro data serially disappointed as the month wore on – to make the biggest monthly decline since May 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

Of course tomorrow’s payrolls print is all that matters now (until next week’s CPI), but this week saw the ‘core services’ inflation print at the second highest since 1985, while durable goods prices dropped most since 2017 MoM. GDP growth was revised lower (and is negative based on GDI). The labor market is clueless as JOLTS, ADP, Challenger-Gray, and Continuing Claims all worsened significantly while initial jobless claims fell to 2023 lows.

The last two months have seen ‘soft’ survey data improving while ‘hard’ data has disappointed…

Source: Bloomberg

Slowing growth and persistent inflation used to be the makings of a ‘stagflation’ scare and a reason to de-risk portfolios.

Source: Bloomberg

Nevertheless, despite the very recent dovish decline, rate-change expectations rose (hawkishly) on the month…

Source: Bloomberg

But the market is still pricing in 110bps of rate-cuts by the end of next year…

Source: Bloomberg

The slight hawkish bias sent the dollar higher – biggest monthly jump since Feb – but it has broadly speaking gone nowhere for the last two weeks…

Source: Bloomberg

And despite the rebound of the last few days, left stocks lower on the month (with Nasdaq suffering its worst monthly return since Dec 2022). Small Caps were the worst on the month…

Source: Bloomberg

The Energy sector was the only one to close green in August with Utilities weakest…

Source: Bloomberg

At one point in August, the S&P 500 was down almost 5% for the month as yields on 10-year US Treasuries hit 4.34% – their highest level since BEFORE the Great Financial Crisis – an event that ushered in a decade of ultra-low inflation and rates.

Spot the difference…

Source: Bloomberg

Most of the Treasury market was lower in price (higher in yield) on the month but, the short-end of the yield curve outperformed in August (2Y -2bps, 30Y +19bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities were broadly lower on the month with copper ugly, PMs weak, but energy was higher (with Nattie best and WTI managing to get green

Source: Bloomberg

It was an ugly month for cryptos with Bitcoin and Ethereum both down over 10% with an ugly day to close it out…

Source: Bloomberg

Today saw a wave of selling in Bitcoin, erasing the GBTC-SEC win spike, back down to $26k…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, stocks remain decoupled from bank reserves at The Fed…

Source: Bloomberg

Maybe the consumer finally tapping out will bring the two back together again in September.

LATE MORNING/EARLY AFTERNOON TRADING//

TUCKER CARLSON…

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/tucker-warns-trump-assassination-hot-war-russia

Tucker Warns Of Trump Assassination, Hot War With Russia

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 11:20 AM

Tucker Carlson says that if legal efforts to block Donald Trump from running for president again fails, the next steps could be assassination and a hot war with Russia to maintain power and unite the population.

“No one will say that but I don’t know how you can’t reach that conclusion. Do you know what I mean? They have decided, permanent Washington and both parties, have decided that there’s something about Trump that’s so threatening to them, they just can’t have it,” Carlson said on the Adam Carolla show.

“If you begin with criticism, then you go to protest, then you go to impeachment, now you go to indictment, and none of them work, what’s next? Graph it out, man. We are speeding towards assassination, obviously,” he continued.

“Once you start indicting your political opponents, you know that you have to win or else they’re going to indict you if they win. So they can’t lose. They will do anything to win. So how do they do that? They’re not going to do Covid again, I know everyone on the right is afraid they’re going to do Covid and mask mandates — they can’t do that. They’re already been exposed. That won’t work,” he continued. “What are they going to do? They’re going to go to war with Russia is what they’re going to do. There will be a hot war between the United States and Russia in this next year.”

And what might precipitate WW3? According to Carlson, “I think we could Tonkin Gulf our way into it where all of a sudden missiles land in Poland and “the Russians did it” and we’re going to war. I could see that happening very easily.”

Carlson then urged the GOP-held Senate to rally behind de-escalation, particularly in Ukraine, arguing that the stakes have never been higher for avoiding an apocalyptic scenario.

Watch:

Tucker Warns Of Trump Assassination, Hot War With Russia

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 11:20 AM

Carlson then urged the GOP-held Senate to rally behind de-escalation, particularly in Ukraine, arguing that the stakes have never been higher for avoiding an apocalyptic scenario.

Watch:https://www.zerohedge.com/political/tucker-warns-trump-assassination-hot-war-russia

Carlson also opined on former president Barack Obama, who the former Fox News host says was smoking crack and having sex with men, but the media was too afraid to report it ahead of the 2008 presidential election.

Carlson was referring to repeated claims by a man named Larry Sinclair, who maintains that Obama bought and smoked cocaine before they had sex in 1999.

“A guy came forward, Larry Sinclair, and said “I’ll sign an affidavit” and he did, “I’ll do a lie detector” and he did,” said Carlson. “‘I smoked crack with Barack Obama and had sex with him”, that was obviously true.”

According to Tucker, nobody dared repeat the accusation due to threats from the Obama campaign.

“‘Nobody reported it not because they were squeamish about sex or drugs but because the Obama campaign said anyone who reports on this gets no access to the Obama campaign,” he said. “So, they didn’t report on it.”

“It’s not going to change the world that Barack Obama likes dudes, I think this was well-known,” Carlson continued, adding that Obama himself acknowledged his gay impulses in a letter to a former girlfriend.

Amazing…Zerohedge.com/political/tucker-warns-trump-assassination-hot-war-russia

end

II USA DATA

This should be very concerning to the Fed

(zerohedge)

Fed’s Favorite Inflation Indicator Jumps Higher In July, Wage Growth Slowed

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 08:41 AM

One of The Fed’s favorite inflation indicators – Core PCE Deflator – rose 4.2% YoY in July (as expected but higher than June’s +4.1%). Headline PCE jumped up to +3.3% YoY (also as expected) – the biggest jump in YoY prints since June 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

Even more focused, is the Fed’s view on Services inflation ex-Shelter, and the PCE-equivalent shows that is very much stuck at high levels…

Source: Bloomberg

Services inflation accelerated in July but Goods saw the biggest MoM deflation since 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

Personal Income growth slowed for the 2nd month in a row as Spending accelerated for the 2nd month in a row…

Source: Bloomberg

On a year-over-year basis, spending accelerated as income growth decelerated…

Source: Bloomberg

Wage growth slowed:

Private workers wages and salaries 4.6%, down from 5.9%
Govt workers wages and salaries 6.0%, down from 6.1%

Adjusted for inflation, ‘real’ personal spending was higher in July (up 3.0% YoY)…

Source: Bloomberg

But real disposable income fell 0.2% MoM – its biggest decline since June 2022…

Putting all that together, we see that the savings rate plunged to 3.5% – the lowest since Oct 2022 – down from 4.3% – the biggest drop since Jan 2022….

It appears the American consumer is completely tapped out – consumer credit has flatlined (maxx’d out) and now savings are plunging again.

end

The initial jobless claims at 2023 lows (which I find hard to believe) despite the huge job cuts

(zerohedge)

Initial Jobless Claims At 2023 Lows Despite Surge In Job Cuts

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 08:52 AM

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time last week fell to 228k (from 232k), near 6-month lows. However, on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, initial jobless claims are the lowest since early November…

Source: Bloomberg

New York saw the biggest jump in claims while ‘fraud central’ Ohio continues to be the outlier to the downside (as that fraud is ‘removed’)…

Continuing Claims rose back above 1.7mm last week (1.725mm to be exact) as that trend is re-appearing…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we note that Challenger, Gray reported a 217% MoM increase in job cuts in August (up 267% YoY).

Warehousing led all industries in August with 32,123, primarily on the bankruptcy of Yellow Corp. It is now the fifth-leading industry in job cut announcements this year with 42,768, a 456% increase from the 7,689 cuts announced through the same period in 2022.

“Job openings are falling, and American workers are more reluctant to leave their positions right now. The job market is resetting after the pandemic and post-pandemic hiring frenzy,” said Andrew Challenger, labor expert and Senior Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

“The increase in job cuts is not surprising as technological disruption and companies taking a cost- savings approach on the economy claim positions,” he added.

So take your pick – ADP weak, JOLTS weak, Challenger-Gray weak, continuing claims weak BUT initial claims strong.

So presumably, none of those 30,000 laid-off Yellow workers filed for initial claims.

END

USA consumer in trouble: last month’s spending spree came about because of a huge burn through of $150 billion in savings

(zerohedge)

US Consumers Paid For July Spending Spree By Burning Through $150BN In Savings

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 12:40 PM

Ahead of the August consumer debacle which saw – and continues to see – most retailers report dismal earnings and plunge by double digits on the back of dreadful “recent trends” commentary…

“This is about credit card balances. This is about student loans, which we know is going to come into focus in the next month or two, auto loans, mortgages,” said Adrian Mitchell, who is Macy’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer. “So we just believe that the customer is coming under pressure because these are new realities that they have to continue to deal with as we get through the back half of this year and move into next year.” – Macy’s Crashes As Consumer Situation Deteriorates

… July was a blockbuster month for retail names, or as Goldman put it “the best month for the quarter“, with the Dept of Commerce reporting stellar retail sales data, including the biggest monthly increase since January, largely on the back of Amazon’s record sales on Prime Day.

What we didn’t know is where all the purchasing power to fund this blow-off top spending spree had come from: recall that at the start of the month, we reported the latest consumer credit data showed that in the month of June, there was a shocking reversal in credit card spending (in fact, consumers were net paying down their credit card debt for the first time in two years) which suggested that US consumers had just maxed out their credit cards and would no longer be able to fund their purchases on credit, which prompted us to caution that households are now aggressively tapping into their savings.

We were right: as today’s household income and spending data showed, in July the US household savings rate collapsed by a whopping 0.8% from 4.3% to 3.5%, the biggest one-month drop since the start of 2022.

In dollar terms, the total amount of personal savings collapsed by almost $150BN from $852BN to $706BN SAAR, the biggest one month drop since Jan ’22.

Worse, this rapid savings depletion comes at a time when according to JPMorgan the “excess savings” from the post-covid stimmy bonanza, all $2.1 trillion of them, have finally been depleted.

In our kneejerk comment on the data, we said that “this is where the July spending spree came from: US Savings rate COLLAPSED from 4.3% to 3.5% in July, lowest since Nov 22, and biggest drop since Jan 22.”

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Two hours later, Obama’s top economist Jason Furman echoed what we said, tweeting that “Falling real disposable income and rising consumption in July are reconciled by a step down in the saving rate. I like to smooth over 3 months, is still quite low.”

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The bigger problem, as we have repeatedly warned, and as Furman also echoed is that “It is not just lower saving rates but other measures of consumer stress are worsening: higher borrowing, more delinquencies. I keep expecting real consumer spending growth to slow more than it has–but so far is holding up remarkably well.”

Indeed, however once consumers realize they have to spend several hundred dollars each month on their student loans which are again due and payable, expect all hell to break loose as soon as next month.

III) USA ECONOMIC STORIES

The state of affairs in the USA with respect to Bidenomics

(zerohedge)

Poor Americans Skip Meals, Can’t Afford Power Bills, Miss Rent Payments, In Era Of ‘Bidenomics’

WEDNESDAY, AUG 30, 2023 – 08:40 PM

Amidst the chaos and disinformation being pumped out of the White House and echoed by corporate media cheerleaders, we all remember this headline:

We all know every politician lies. Some tell half-truths, while others, such as the Biden administration, attempt to convince folks it is daylight while it’s midnight. An increasing number of Americans can see right through the propaganda, hence why Oliver Anthony’s blue-collar anthem “Rich Men North Of Richmond” continues to rank number one on Billboard Hot 100.

Or that is why President Biden’s approval ratings remain cratered.

This leaves us with a Bloomberg report citing fintech startup Propel, an app aimed at Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients, that reveals an increasing number of Americans are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table.

Among households using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s boosted pandemic benefits, 42% skipped meals in August and 55% ate less because they couldn’t afford food, more than double last year’s share, according to a Wednesday report from Propel Inc., a benefits software developer.

Bloomberg said:

The data also highlight that households were worse off in August from just a month ago. Since July, an increasing share of low-income households had utilities shut off, couldn’t afford the prior month’s utility bill or couldn’t afford rent. More than two-thirds of those surveyed who were receiving boosted SNAP payments said they had some form of debt.

Propel’s alarming report is an eye-opener, considering we’ve pointed out that mid/low tier consumers have depleted savings and racked up insurmountable credit card debt to make ends meet in the era of ‘Bidenomics’ inflation. Factor in a cooling labor market (read: Job Openings Crater, Prior Data “Unexpectedly” Revised Sharply Lower). These folks have limited safety nets as social support expires. Just wait until student loan payments kick in in several weeks.

end

San Francisco: Norstrom and Dollar store

Nordstrom closes its operation in San Francisco while dollar store locks up merchandise (dollar items?)

(Jung/EpochTimes)

Rise In Crime: Nordstrom Closes Shop In SF, Dollar Store Locks Up Merchandise

WEDNESDAY, AUG 30, 2023 – 08:20 PM

Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)Pedestrians walk by a closed Whole Foods store in San Francisco on April 12, 2023. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A nationwide crime wave is forcing many retailers, large and small, to close their doors or lock up their merchandise.

One example is Nordstrom, which made an announcement in May that it’s closing its flagship store in downtown San Francisco after 35 years in business.

The location inside Westfield Mall said goodbye to its last customers on Aug. 27, after opening in October 1988.

The store at the corner of Fifth and Market Streets once occupied five floors and spanned more than 312,000 square feet but is now closing like many other retailers because of a surge in crime and poor sales.

San Francisco Centre has suffered from a rise in shoplifting, homelessness, and public drug use.

A Popular 35-Year Store Location Closes Its Doors

A former shopping staple in downtown San Francisco, the neighborhood’s “unsafe conditions for customers, retailers and employees,” made operations difficult to sustain, a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors, Matt Dorsey, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The now-empty Nordstrom location has been described by local media outlets as desolated with countless empty displays and mannequins packaged away.

Other major retailers in the area, including Old Navy Whole Foods, AT&T, Anthropologie, AmazonGo, Office Depot, and Saks Off Fifth Avenue, closed earlier this summer.

Remaining stores have been forced to lock up their stock to deter shoplifters.

Nordstrom Rack, across the street from the flagship location, shut down operations in June.

Even the Westfield Mall announced in June that it would be closing, after operating on Market Street for more than 20 years, local TV news station KRON4 reported.

The future viability of the San Francisco Centre shopping district is uncertain.

San Francisco Swamped With Crime And Empty Store Fronts

In addition to the rampant drug use, homelessness, and crime, the city has lost thousands to remote work after the COVID-19 pandemic, which has decimated vast areas of its commercial neighborhoods.

Office vacancies in San Francisco reached a record high of 31 percent in May, enough space for 92,000 workers, according to the Daily Mail.

The loss of office workers is expected to contribute to a budget shortfall of $1.3 billion in five years, while a decline in property tax revenue alone may cost nearly $200 million per year, according to the city’s chief accountant.

Sales tax revenue for South of Market, or SoMA, where the stores were located, has seen a 25 percent decline from the first quarter of 2019.

Ms. Breed’s office announced that it was working on changing laws and tax reforms that would bring more businesses to the area.

IKEA’s opening of a new location at 945 Market Street on Aug. 23 was touted as a sign by Ms. Breed that things weren’t too bad, calling IKEA’s move “a game changer.”

Mr. Dorsey said that the city will “have some serious issues to work on.”

“San Francisco has always had ups and downs, but I’m going to tell you we always come back,” he said. “And I’m not going to lose my optimism about my district or my city.”

Last week, city authorities announced 17 new pop-up shops that will move into empty storefronts in the downtown Financial District in late September, according to ABC7 News in San Francisco.

Shoplifting Hits Democrat-Run Regions Across the US

Shoplifting has become a problem for retailers in major metropolitan regions nationwide, with even discount stores being hit.

On Aug. 24, Dollar Tree Chairman and CEO Rick Dreiling said the discount retailer would start locking up items to prevent growing theft.

Mr. Dreiling has blamed shrink, an industry term for stolen items and damages, for causing the company to miss its earnings forecasts and cut its outlook in May.

The retailer’s gross profit margins tumbled to 29.8 percent in the second quarter of 2023 from 32.7 percent in the second quarter of 2022.

“We are now taking a very defensive approach to shrink,” Mr. Dreiling said, noting that inventory losses had “advanced a little further than what we had anticipated.”

The spree of store theft has already forced larger stores such as CVS and Target to lock up entire isles of items.

The CEO also suggested that some items with the highest rates of theft would be removed from stores altogether but wouldn’t specify any in particular.

Representatives for Dollar Tree and Nordstrom didn’t respond by press time to requests by the Epoch Times for comment.

end

If these guys go, then you know that the economy is in trouble. They sell one dollar items

(zerohedge)

Dollar General Plunges On Missed Earnings, Outlook Slashed; A Warning Sign Consumer Cracks

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 09:20 AM

Dollar General Corp. shares plummeted in the New York premarket trading following a weaker-than-expected second-quarter earnings report. The discount retailer faces its first annual decline and has lowered its profit forecast for the second quarter in a row amid “softer sales trends.” Troubles at Dollar General mirrors challenges faced by other retail businesses, pointing to the potential cracking of low/mid-tier consumers.

The discount retailer posted earnings of $2.13 a share on revenue of $9.8 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet forecasted $2.47 a share on sales of $9.9 billion. Same-store sales declined .1%, while analysts were expecting a .9% rise, driven by a slowdown in consumer traffic

Dollar General’s second-quarter highlights:

Comparable sales -0.1% vs. +4.6% y/y, estimate +0.92%
EPS $2.13 vs. $2.98 y/y
2-year same-store sales stack +4.5% vs. -0.32% y/y, estimate +5.37%
Net sales $9.80 billion, +3.9% y/y, estimate $9.91 billion
Gross margin 31.1% vs. 32.3% y/y, estimate 31.7%
SG&A as a percentage of revenue 24% vs. 22.6% y/y, estimate 23.5%
Operating profit $692.3 million, -24% y/y, estimate $785.1 million

“This gross profit rate decrease was primarily attributable to lower inventory markups and increased shrink, markdowns, and inventory damages, as well as a greater proportion of sales coming from the consumables category, which generally has a lower gross profit rate than other product categories,” Dollar General said.

CEO Jeff Owen wrote, “While we are not satisfied with our overall financial results, we made significant progress in the second quarter improving execution in our supply chain and our stores, as well as reducing our inventory growth rate and further strengthening our price position.”

The retailer slashed its fiscal 2023 outlook as it takes “certain actions to accelerate the pace of its inventory reduction efforts and making additional investments in targeted areas, such as retail labor, to further elevate the in-store experience and better serve its customers.” It noted, “softer sales trends and an increase in expected inventory shrink for the second half of 2023” are some of the reasons for revising its outlook for fiscal year 2023 that was last provided on June 1 (read: here).

Shares crashed as much as 16% in the premarket session.

What’s alarming about the “softer sales trends” comment from the retailer is that 40% of its customer base earns less than $40,000 a year. This clearly indicates that no matter how much the White House tries to spin the ‘best economy ever ‘ — ‘Bidenomics’ is failing the working poor.

Sales headwinds are being reported at many US retailers. We outlined this in a note titled Do Plunging Retail Stocks Signal The US Consumer Is Finally Done. Our short answer: most likely.

With Covid helicopter cash evaporated, personal savings drained, insurmountable credit card debt, and the lack of financial safety nets, the average consumer in the Biden era has been crushed after two years of negative real wages.

Just wait until student debt repayments begin come October… CEOs are already panicking (read: Corporate America Panics As ‘Student Loan’ Chatter Hits Record On Earnings Calls).

None of this should be a surprise after this morning’s plunge in the savings rate…

The emergence of a consumer spending cliff has arrived.

Musk states that video and audio calls coming to X as he wants a super app

(zerohedge)

Musk Says “Video & Audio Calls Coming To X” As Super App Emerges

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 08:25 AM

Around the time Elon Musk bought Twitter last October, he tweeted that purchasing the social media platform is an “accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”

Earlier this year, a video surfaced of Musk talking about “super apps,” such as Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat. He said, “WeChat is kickass — and we don’t have anything like WeChat outside of China.”

Then, in July, Musk tweeted, “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”

This brings us to an early Thursday morning post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by Musk, who announced the expansion of services on the social media platform that will soon be much more than the limit of 280 to 4,000-character messages.

“Video & audio calls coming to X,” Musk said.

So what else lies ahead for X? Cointelegraph noted days ago X was “granted currency transmitter license” by Rhode Island’s regulators as it moves into financial services sector.

There have been rumors Musk has started a new AI firm called X.AI Corp. The puzzle pieces for Musk’s “everything app” are coming together.

Oh yes, and then there’s this: As Twitter X Hits New High In Monthly Users, Zuck Admits Threads Failing In Leaked Audio.

Sorry, Zuck.

USA// COVID//VACCINE/

It should be all 50 states

(Philips/EpochTimes)

“Never Going Back”: Governor Refuses To Implement COVID Mask Mandates

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 09:00 AM

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Amid chatter about the possible return of COVID-19 mask mandates, at least one governor said that they will not return to his state under any circumstances.

“Mississippians will not and should not submit to fear again,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said in a recent statement.

“In the early days of COVID, there was understandable uncertainty. We did not yet know what we were facing. As the months unfolded, it became clear that there were two pandemics. A disease that was easy to spread and that was deadly for many vulnerable people, and a pandemic of fear stoked by ‘the expert class’ that demanded total subjugation.”

He added that the “simple answer” to mandates is “no,” adding, “We will not return to widespread masking or COVID rules.” That statement was issued as he pointed to a CBS News report that asked if mask mandates are coming back.

There has been a small uptick in COVID-19 cases across the United States, according to data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But the increase is a considerably smaller than previous so-called COVID-19 “waves” since 2020.

“An upswing is not a surge; it’s not even a wave,” Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer for Tufts Medicine, told ABC News last week. “What we’re seeing is a very gradual and small upward trajectory of cases and hospitalizations, without deaths really going along, which is great news.”

The federal government, including the CDC and Transportation Security Administration (TSA), do not currently have any mask mandates in effect. A TSA spokesperson told The Epoch Times several days ago that rumors suggesting mask mandates or lockdowns will come back later in the fall are false, while the CDC told NBC News that there have been no discussions to bring back masks.

But some businesses have reimplemented mask mandates in recent days—namely hospitals in California and New York. Several hospitals have made masking mandatory for anyone entering the premises, including visitors and patients, while several have only implemented mask-wearing for staff, nurses, and physicians.

In one instance, Kaiser Permanente’s location in Santa Rosa, California, said it would mandate masks for anyone coming into the hospital. However, several days later, the hospital told a local paper the statement was erroneous and that the rule only applies to staff, not patients or visitors.

“Our intent was to communicate that as of Tuesday, we have expanded the masking requirement for our employees and physicians to medical offices and clinic settings; we apologize for any confusion among Press Democrat readers,” the hospital’s updated statement said.Students and parents arrive masked for the first day of the school year at Grant Elementary School in Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 16, 2021. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

“Visitors, patients, and members are strongly encouraged to also wear masks in these settings,” it continued. “We have not changed our masking requirements in the hospital, which have been in effect since April: employees and physicians are required to wear masks and we ask visitors to wear masks when in the hospital.”

Meanwhile, a historically black college in Atlanta as well as Hollywood studio Lionsgate said they, too, would re-implement mask mandates. However, Lionsgate said it had rescinded its mandate this week, saying that it was the Los Angeles Department of Health that forced its hand.

“The LA County Department of Public Health notified us yesterday that we could lift the mask requirements, effective immediately, and we have,” the Hollywood film studio told news outlets over the past weekend.

The statement also said: “Lionsgate never changed its own mask policy. The LA County Department of Health ordered us to institute the temporary masking requirement after we reported a cluster of COVID cases to them and we have an obligation to comply with their orders.”

Meanwhile, on Monday, Mr. Reeves said that if people want to, they have the right to put on masks in the state of Mississippi.

“If you want to take extraordinary measures to protect yourself from getting sick, God bless you. That is your right and you should do what you think is best,” the governor said.

“Maybe you’re the smartest of all of us. But we’re never going back to 2020.”

Other than Mr. Reeves, some Republican lawmakers have expressed concern about reports of masks coming back. Among them, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) said in a recent interview that “it’s alarming that the mandates are kicking in again” and again said that masks “didn’t work, particularly for children.”

The comment also comes as President Joe Biden on Aug. 25 told reporters that he signed a proposal “to present to Congress a request for additional funding for a new vaccine that is necessary, that works.” He did not provide any further details about the plan.

Is the Biden Administration Preparing for Lockdowns? What YOU Can Do to be Prepared

BY THE WELLNESS COMPANY

Independent media outlets are confirming one of our biggest fears: the Biden administration is preparing for the possibility of new COVID lockdowns in response to rising COVID numbers.

As Dr. Peter McCullough wrote this week, “there is no doubt we are starting another outbreak of COVID-19, this time Omicron variants EG.5 and FL.1.5.1 taking the lead in proportions.”

Dr. McCullough warns that this surge could last 3 to 6 months. As we learned time and time again during the pandemic, our government will use any increase in COVID numbers as a justification to force masks, lockdowns and vaccine passports on the American public.

From The Gateway Pundit to Steve Bannon’s War Room to InfoWars, the independent media sources you learned to trust during the last COVID outbreak, are warning that lock downs could be returning:

The Biden regime has begun procuring COVID-19 equipment and hiring advisors on safety protocols, according to an exclusive report from War Room.

This comes amidst increasing speculation that the White House might be preparing to reinstate pandemic-era lockdowns and mandates.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that the Biden regime is preparing to reinstate full COVID-19 lockdowns, beginning with masking mandates for TSA and airport employees reportedly as early as mid-September, Infowars first to report.

We know that lockdowns, masks and vaccine passports don’t work – and it’s clear that despite the failure of the policies before, that our government is planning a repeat of this catastrophic failures.

What are liberty-loving patriots to do? First – do not comply. Second – be prepared.

That’s where The Wellness Company comes in.

You know the Wellness Company: their courageous doctors – like Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Jim Thorp – are regularly in the media speaking out against the broken medical establishment.

Dr. Thorp, one of the nation’s leading critics of the corrupting influence of Big Pharma, believes that now – more than ever – people should be prepared for the next pandemic:

“I’ve strongly recommended “stock piling” critical medications including antibiotics since the turn of the century. This has been an incredible investment as many friends, family and patients have benefited. Now, in summer of 2023, this recommendation is even more crucial.”

The Wellness Company and their doctors are medical professionals that you can trust and their new medical emergency kits are the gold standard when it comes to keeping you safe and healthy. Every American should have one in their medicine cabinet.

This prescription medical emergency kit contains an assortment of live-saving medications – including ivermectin and Z-pak. The medical emergency kit provides a guidebook to aid in the safe use of all of these life-saving medications.

From anthrax to tick bites to COVID and even to a bioweapon like the plague – the Wellness Company’s Medical Emergency kit is exactly what you need to have on hand to be prepared. The Wellness Company’s telemed doctors are standing by to write your prescription today.

Rest assured knowing that you have emergency antibiotics, antivirals and anti-parasitics on hand to help keep you and your family safe from whatever the globalists throw at us next!

The Wellness Company Medical Emergency Kit includes:

Amoxicillin-Clavulanate (generic Augmentin) 875/125 mg – 28 tablets
Azithromycin (generic Z-Pak) 250 mg – 12 tablets
Doxycycline Hyclate 100 mg – 60 capsules
Metronidazole (generic Flagyl) 500 mg – 30 tablets
Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole (generic Bactrim) 800/160 mg – 28 tablets
Ivermectin 18mg – 7 compounded capsules
Fluconazole (generic Diflucan) 150 mg – 2 tablets
Ondansetron (generic Zofran) 4mg – 6 tablets
1 virtual consult for the kit prescription from a doctor you can trust
1 Emergency Medication Guidebook written by our Chief Medical Board for safe use.

The Wellness Company Medical Emergency Kit treats:

Anthrax
Bacterial Vaginosis
Bite Wounds
Bronchitis
Chlamydia
Clostridioides difficile
Colitis
COVID – 19
Gonorrhea
Giardiasis
Lice
Nausea & Vomiting
Pharyngitis
Pinworms
Plague (bioterror)
Pneumonia
Rickettsial Infections
Scabies
Shigella Infection
Sinusitis
Skin Infection
Strep Throat
Syphilis
Tetanus
Tick Exposure
Tonsillitis
Traveler’s Diarrhea
Trichomoniasis
Tularemia (bioterror)
Urinary Tract Infection
Vaginal Candidiasis
Viral Upper Respiratory Infection

Don’t be caught unprepared. Don’t be reliant on the broken and corrupt medical industrial complex. Don’t regret not acting today.

Order The Wellness Company’s Medical Emergency Kits today and book your 5 minute prescription appointment!

end

SWAMP STORIES

Turbulence: Republicans Demand Records Of Hunter Biden’s AF2 Travel

WEDNESDAY, AUG 30, 2023 – 05:00 PM

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire,

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have requested that the National Archives turn over all documents and flight manifests regarding trips that Hunter Biden took on Air Force Two, as well as Marine Two, during his father’s time as vice president.

It is the latest in the ongoing probe of how the younger Biden made millions of dollars overseas and whether his father, the current president, improperly benefited from those dealings. For months, Republicans have searched for a connection to tie the two men together.

The White House has alternately insisted that President Biden never discussed business with his son and also that he was never in a business relationship with him. And there is not yet evidence that the president either profited from Hunter Biden’s overseas business activity or took actions in his official capacity because they would benefit the Bidens.

But Oversight Chairman James Comer believes he may soon find a link: flight manifests.

“Devon Archer, a longtime Biden family associate, has stated it is ‘categorically false’ that Joe Biden played no role in his son’s foreign business dealings,” Comer wrote in a Wednesday letter to the Archives obtained early by RealClearPolitics.

“Flights on Air Force Two around the world to seal business deals,” he said, “are evidence of that role.”

Throughout his father’s time as vice president, Hunter Biden often tagged along on domestic and international flights. A Fox News report cited in Comer’s letter found that he traveled to at least 15 different countries during that time. After founding the consulting firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, he flew with his father on Air Force Two to Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, and Mexico.

“I can catch a ride with him,” Hunter Biden wrote a business associate who was reportedly a foreign agent ahead of an official trip to Belgium and Spain in April of 2010, according to emails contained on the laptop that the president’s son abandoned at a repair shop.

Flying with his father was so frequent that Hunter Biden often informed staff to make room for him on Air Force Two at the last minute. “Plan on me being in plane,” he wrote Kathy Chung, a former aide to the vice president, less than 12 hours before a 2012 cross-country flight to California.

Family members of presidents and vice presidents often tag along during official travel, but it is rare that those next of kin are also employed as international business consultants – a fact that Obama administration officials reportedly worried would invite questions that Hunter Biden was “leveraging access for his benefit.”

One trip was of particular concern to Democrats in 2013 – and now to Republicans in 2023.

When the vice president stepped off Air Force Two onto a Beijing tarmac, he waved to the photographers. His son was by his side that year, dressed in a black overcoat. Hunter Biden had asked his father if he could travel with him during a state visit to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The vice president agreed, and Hunter Biden used the trip to meet with representatives from BHR Partners, a private investment firm controlled by the Bank of China.

On the ground in Beijing, Hunter Biden arranged for his father to meet Jonathan Li, who ran a Chinese private equity fund called Bohai Capital. After the vice president departed, they reportedly had a meeting. He later told the New Yorker, who first reported the incident, he couldn’t understand the fuss over the meeting.

“How do I go to Beijing, halfway around the world,” Hunter Biden told the magazine of his meeting with his Chinese business associates, “and not see them for a cup of coffee?”

Republicans don’t find the foreign travel on government jets, and subsequent private business, so innocent. The Oversight Committee points to that travel as an obvious abuse.

“Then-Vice President Biden’s misuse of Air Force Two and Marine Two is indicative of yet another way in which the President has abused his various offices of public trust and wasted taxpayer money to benefit his family’s enterprise, which consisted of nothing more than access to Joe Biden himself,” Comer wrote in the letter.

Oversight wants the National Archives to pass along “all documents and communications” regarding Hunter Biden’s travel on Air Force Two and Marine Two as well as “all Air Force Two and Marine Two manifests.”

They are also seeking any records related to the president’s business associates, namely Devon Archer, who previously testified before Congress; Eric Schwerin, who was frequently admitted into the Obama White House; and Jeffrey Cooper, who reportedly handled the Biden family finances.

Unlike Hunter Biden, however, there aren’t any public records of those individuals flying with the former vice president.

Curiously, the committee is also requesting documents “referring to or relating to any security incidents on Air Force Two or Marine Two” during Biden’s time as vice president.

“The walls are closing in on the Biden Family due to consistent and diligent efforts by House Republicans who’ve followed the money, conducted meticulous interviews and hearings, and uncovered undeniable corruption,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, who co-signed the letter with Comer, in a statement.

“The American people deserve to know how much their former Vice President and current President abused his power to shake down foreign governments and enrich his family to the tune of millions of dollars,” he added.

end

What would you expect if you continue to open your borders?

(EpochTimes)

White House Confirms ISIS-Linked Smuggler Helped Migrants Enter US From Mexico

THURSDAY, AUG 31, 2023 – 05:00 AM

Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The White House confirmed on Tuesday a report that a smuggler with ties to ISIS helped migrants enter the United States from Mexico, setting off alarm bells throughout the government.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House on Aug. 29, 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

CNN earlier reported that the FBI is investigating more than a dozen Uzbek nationals who entered the country through the southern border earlier this year. The investigation was launched after U.S. intelligence officials discovered that the migrants traveled with the assistance of a smuggler with connections to ISIS, according to the CNN report, citing multiple U.S. officials.

The incident was so alarming that an urgent classified intelligence report was included in the morning briefing book for President Joe Biden’s top Cabinet members, the report said. It also prompted a flurry of emergency meetings between the top national security and administration officials.

“The intelligence alerted us to a human smuggling network. We moved fast and successfully to disrupt it,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday. “We are very grateful to law enforcement for their quick work and their vigilance on this.”

The smugglers had been detained overseas, according to the press secretary, with one having ties to ISIS. She did, however, note that there is no evidence linking the migrants to terrorism.

According to the report, officials were still working to “identify and assess” all individuals who entered the United States, but no specific ISIS plot has been identified.

“There’s no sign that anyone moved by the smuggling network has a terrorist connection,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said.

Additionally, as a precaution, people brought here by the smuggling network are subject to extra vetting and are all in removal proceedings, she added.

Furthermore, anyone crossing the border outside of the network who matches the profile of those in the smuggling network is subject to additional scrutiny, detention, and expedited removal proceedings, she said.

While no specific ISIS plot has been identified, authorities have not yet located all of those who traveled as part of the network. And the FBI is still investigating more than 15 of the migrants as potential criminal threats.

“This is a White House that is committed to making sure that we are protecting our homeland and also protecting the American people. That is our commitment. We will continue to be vigilant on that,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said.

Republicans were quick to express their reaction to the news on social media, criticizing President Biden’s response to the border crisis.

“Smuggler with ties to ISIS helped illegal aliens enter the US from Mexico,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

“Why doesn’t the Biden administration care about the disaster at the southern border?”

“The crisis at our border isn’t just a humanitarian crisis—it’s also a national security crisis,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) wrote on X.

“It’s way past time for the Biden Administration to work with us on border security. This is just the latest example of why we need to secure the border.”

end

THE KING REPORT

The King Report August 31st, 2023 Issue 7066

Independent View of the News

BOJ policymaker signals chance of policy tweak early next yearSustained achievement of price goal ‘clearly in sight’ – TamuraBOJ must keep low rates for now, scrutinise wage and price dataBOJ may have more clarity Q1 next year on wage, price outlookEnding negative rate among future policy options – Tamurahttps://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/boj-policymaker-signals-chance-policy-tweak-early-next-year-2023-08-30/ German Aug CPI increased 0.3% m/m & 6.1% y/y; 0.3% m/m and 6% were expected. CPI EU Harmonized increased 0.4% m/m and 6.4% y/y; 0.3% m/m & 6.3% y/y were consensus. North Rhine Westphalia CPI jumped to 0.5% m/m & 5.9% y/y from 0.2% m/m & 5.8% y/y.German 10-year bund yields jumped as much as 7bps to 2.58%. US Q2 GDP was revised to 2.1% from 2.4%, another instance of Team Obama/Biden beancounters revising economic data lower! GDP would have been revised another 0.2 lower if not for the dubious lowering of the GDP Price Index to 2.0% from 2.2%. Personal Consumption 1.7% from 1.6%, 1.8% expected; Core PCE 3.7% from 3.8% (also expected) The BEA: Compared to the first quarter, the acceleration in GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected a smaller decrease in inventory investment and an acceleration in business investment. These movements were partly offset by a downturn in exports and decelerations in consumer spending and federal government spending. Imports turned down. Prices: Gross domestic purchases prices, the prices of goods and services purchased by U.S. residents, increased 1.7 percent in the second quarter after increasing 3.8 percent in the first quarter. Excluding food and energy, prices increased 2.4 percent after increasing 4.2 percent… Profits decreased 0.4 percent at a quarterly rate in the second quarter after decreasing 4.1 percent in the first quarter… Profits of domestic financial corporations decreased 12.1 percent after decreasing 2.3 percent. Profits of domestic nonfinancial corporations increased 0.9 percent after decreasing 5.0 percent… https://www.bea.gov/news/blog/2023-08-30/gross-domestic-product-second-estimate-corporate-profits-preliminary-estimate Table 2. Contributions to Percent Change in Real Gross Domestic ProductNonresidential 0.80; Government 0.85; Household consumption expenditures (for services) 1.01Motor vehicles and parts -0.30; Net exports of goods and services -0.22 with Exports -1.26https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2023-08/gdp2q23_2nd.pdf The ADP Employment Change for August is 177k; 195k was consensus. US July Pending Home Sales increased 0.9% m/m; -1.0% m/m was expected. Y/y sales declined 13.8%; -15.7% y/y was expected. @dlacalle_IA: Want to know why you may perceive a recession when official data says otherwise?U.S. GDP vs GDI. 2Q GDP growth revised down to 2.1% annualized from 2.4%. GDI (gross domestic income) +0.5% annualized. GDI fell 3.3% in 4Q22 and 1.8% in 1Q23. GDP +2.5% in last 12 monthsGDI -0.5% in last 12 months. That is one possible reason you may perceive a recession, but official data says there is none. (Note: The BEA did NOT report Q2 GDI. They left it blank.) Visa and Mastercard are planning to increase fees that many merchants pay when they accept customers’ credit cards (This is inflationary.) https://t.co/3hhySzMnu5 Labor Department Proposes New Federal Overtime Salary ThresholdThe Department of Labor has proposed an increase to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s annual salary-level threshold to $55,068 from $35,568 for white-collar exemptions to overtime requirements. The department also is proposing automatic increases every three years to the overtime threshold…Under the new rule, approximately 300,000 more manufacturing workers would be entitled to overtime pay, the Labor Department reports. A similar number of retail workers would be eligible, along with 180,000 hospitality and leisure workers, and 600,000 in the health care and social services sector. (Election pandering that is inflationary) https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/new-federal-overtime-proposal.aspx Biden proposal would give overtime pay to 3.6 million more US workers https://trib.al/otkISwj Russia to cut oil exports by 300,000 barrels per day in SeptemberRussia has already pledged to reduce its oil output by around 500,000 bpd, or some 5% of its oil production, from March until year-end…https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-cut-oil-exports-by-300000-bpd-september-2023-08-03/ ESUs traded modestly positive but flat during early Asian trading. They moved higher near 21:30 ET. After hitting 4516.25 at 22:15 ET, ESUs sank to 4499.25 (-6.75 for the day) at 3:23 ET. Bulls quickly pushed ESUs back above 4500. ESUs hit a peak of 4507.25 near 4 ET. The rebound was abetted by dip buying after the down Euro opening. After ESUs got slightly positive near 4 ET, they sank to 4496.25 at 5:40 ET. A rally then materialized that took ESUs to 4530.00 by 10:13 ET. ESUs then plunged to 4501.00 by 10:27 ET. Bulls quickly marshalled forces to keep ESUs from breeching 4500. Persistent buying pushed ESUs to a marginal new high of 4530.75 at 12:43 ET. After a slow rollover, ESUs sank near 13:41 ET. A 17-handle ESU decline ended at 14:25 ET. A 14-handle rebound ended at 15:07 ET. A slow decline took ESUs 9 handles lower by 15:52 ET. The late manipulation pushed ESUs 6 handles high at the close. Positive aspects of previous session.Stocks and bonds rallied modestly Negative aspects of previous sessionGovernment econ statisticians are playing game with US economic data, which impairs the Fed Ambiguous aspects of previous sessionWhat will happen when volume increases back to normal levels? First Hour/Last Hour Action [S&P 500 Index]: 1st Hour from NYSE Open: Down; Last Hour: Down Pivot Point for S&P 500 Index [above/below indicates daily trend to traders]: 4510.04Previous session S&P 500 Index High/Low: 4521.65; 4493.59 US Officials Weigh Pathway to Let More Firms Tap FHLB BackstopThe closed-door discussions, which are part of a regulatory review of the sprawling $1.4 trillion FHLB network, may be a first step to giving many more companies access to a coveted financial backstop now reserved mostly for banks… (Trial balloon to bailout ‘non-bank mortgage’ companies) The Financial Stability Council, which includes the heads of the FHFA, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, has flagged mortgage originators and services among the types of firms that could pose a potential risk to financial stability… (BS! ‘They’ already know the firms that are at risk threats!)https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-30/us-officials-weigh-pathway-to-let-more-firms-tap-fhlb-backstop Rising Stock Prices Threaten Progress on Powell Inflation GaugePrices of services excluding housing and energy, a category Powell flagged in his Aug. 25 Jackson Hole speech, may have risen as much as 0.5% in July, following more moderate 0.2% increases in each of the prior two months, according to forecasters including Omair Sharif of Inflation Insights LLC and Skanda Amarnath at Employ America. They expect prices of portfolio management and investment advice services, a component of the basket that largely tracks movements in stock prices, to be responsible for almost all of the acceleration…https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-30/rising-stock-prices-threaten-progress-on-powell-inflation-gauge Today – Bulls got the S&P 500 Index above 4500 and fought to keep it there. Traders are bullish and will be aided and abetted by August performance gaming. Ergo, barring bad news, equity traders will buy dips and try to force stuff higher to embellish August performance. The thin markets of the week before the Labor Day Weekend make it easy for a determined few to manipulate ESUs and stocks to game August performance. ESUs are +3.25 and USUs are +2/32 at 20:30 ET. Expected econ data: Initial Jobless Claims 253k, Continuing Claims 1.706m; July Personal Income 0.3%, Spending 0.7%; PCE Deflator 0.2% m/m & 3.3% y/y, PCE Core Deflator 0.2% m/m & 4.2% y/y; Aug Chicago PMI 44.2; Atlanta Fed Pres & Dove Bostic 3:15 ET in So. Africa, Boston Fed Pres Collins 9 ET S&P 500 Index 50-day MA: 4464; 100-day MA: 4325; 150-day MA: 4226; 200-day MA: 4155DJIA 50-day MA: 34,695; 100-day MA: 35,150; 150-day MA: 33,807; 200-day MA: 33,760(Green is positive slope; Red is negative slope) S&P 500 Index – Trender trading model and MACD for key time framesMonthly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 3752.81 triggers a sell signalWeekly: Trender and MACD are negative – a close above 4586.76 triggers a buy signalDaily: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 4392.22 triggers a sell signalHourly: Trender and MACD are positive – a close below 4483.18 triggers a sell signal Daily Mail Exclusive: Merrick Garland underling (Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheime) contacted IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley to discuss his Hunter Biden allegations before he testified – then immediately struck sweetheart deal with president’s sonhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12458523/Merrick-Garland-underling-contacted-IRS-whistleblower-Hunter-Biden-sweetheart-deal.html DOJ contacted Hunter Biden, whistleblower teams over Weiss’ head: repA senior Justice Department official’s contact with lawyers for both Hunter Biden and IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley shows that DOJ headquarters — not Delaware US attorney David Weiss — controlled the federal investigation of the first son, Shapley’s legal team said Wednesday… Weinsheimer, a subordinate of Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, spoke on the phone with Shapley’s attorney Mark Lytle on April 25 and said that he wanted to understand his claims against other department officials, to which Shapley alluded one week prior in a letter to Congress, according to Lytle. One day later, on April 26, Weinsheimer met with Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark and Weiss, who purportedly was in charge of the case, according to a report by Politico… “When we followed-up with the Deputy Attorney General’s Office on May 16 about this obvious retaliation, Mr. Weinsheimer’s tone had taken a dramatic turn from claiming interest in the whistleblower disclosures to being completely unwilling to engage and referring us to Mr. Weiss,” Lytle said. The change of tone and failure to follow up with a written assurance that Shapley’s disclosures to him would be lawful prompted the whistleblower team to question the reason for Weinsheimer’s original outreach and whether it was a sincere attempt to understand and rectify alleged wrongdoing, or a fact-finding mission for other purposes…https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/doj-contacted-hunter-biden-whistleblower-teams-over-weiss-head-rep/ Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer): Then-VP Joe Biden abused Air Force Two by allowing his son to jet set around the world to sell “The Brand” to enrich the Biden family. I’m now seeking documents, communications, & manifests related to VP Biden’s misuse of Air Force Two & Marine Two from @USNatArchives. https://twitter.com/RepJamesComer/status/1696870855991603248?s=02 Biden says his Delaware home ‘almost collapsed’ from small kitchen fire nearly 20 years ago while discussing Maui wildfire crisis – At a fire prevention summit in October, he claimed “we almost lost a couple firefighters” during the blaze… (Repeats the same lies because the MSM enables him!)https://trib.al/zYveGQu Oversight Committee Seeks Flight Logs For Every Time Hunter Biden Used Air Force Two To Further The Family Business – Comer is asking the archivist for access to the unredacted email and attachments. And no wonder why: The publicly available information shows that “at 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 2016, Vice President Biden took a call with the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko,” and that a document referencing that call was sent to the email for “Robert L. Peters,” which was one of the several pseudonyms used by then-Vice President Biden. Hunter Biden, who had no official government position, was copied on that email… https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/30/oversight-committee-seeks-flight-logs-for-every-time-hunter-biden-used-air-force-two-to-further-the-family-business/ @PhilipWegmann: “That’s a ridiculous assumption to make,” @PressSec says of new reporting that Biden has told aides he is “tired” and that’s why there aren’t morning events. @HannahPThomas: Sen. Mitch McConnell appearing to have another scary episode in the media gaggle in Covington today. Aides had to step in to help him out and repeat questions. He was eventually led away. We’ll have the full video on @WLWThttps://twitter.com/HannahPThomas/status/1696936240040321474 Here’s more of what we saw at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Government Forum. Hoping Sen. McConnell is able to take some time to rest @WLWThttps://twitter.com/HannahPThomas/status/1696937240281178518 Mitch McConnell freezes AGAIN: Senate Minority Leader, 81, doesn’t respond to questions for 30 seconds in another worrying episode https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12462405/Mitch-McConnell-freezes-Senate-Minority-Leader-81-doesnt-respond-questions-30-seconds-worrying-episode.html @mirandadevine: Why on earth did this minder allow him to continue to answer questions on this state. He needed a doctor instead of some staffer treating him like a special needs patient. @TheBabylonBee: Furious McCarthy Promises to Respond to Biden Corruption with Strongliest-Worded Letter Ever GOP @RepAndyBiggsAZ: I thought the Babylon Bee was supposed to be satire! Trump fundraising spikes after Fulton County mugshot, surpassing $20M in August https://t.co/zk5K31t2nW

GREG HUNTER

SEE YOU FRIDAY

Bix Weir via aweber.com	12:56 PM (2 minutes ago)
to me