Quick Overview

• Republicans are pushing legislation that would dramatically expand offshore drilling before mandating new safety requirements.

• The ECB raised the benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.25%.

• The surge of hot money that has vexed many emerging markets may slow dramatically once the U.S. Federal Reserve begins raising interest rates, the International Monetary Fund said.

• The U.S. appears to have an off-balance-sheet, unrecorded debt burden of close to 500% of GDP! We are out-Greeking the Greeks -- Bill Gross, PIMCO.

• U.S. jobless apps fell 10,000 to 382,000.

• Costco (CSCO) sales rose 13% in March.

• Disputes over abortion and environmental issues pose late hurdles to a  budget agreement.

• The expanding dry conditions in the Southern United States are causing pastures to deteriorate and dimming prospects for a wheat crop. According to some experts, sufficient precipitation could salvage the wheat crop. However, others think that it is already too late and that the crop is in too poor a condition for even that prospect.

• More than 25% of Japan's domestic pork, 18% of its beef and 22% of its poultry production comes from areas affected by the earthquake, tsunami or radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Quick Overview

• Boehner: No deal yet on avoiding shutdown.

• Household saving rate at 9.1% in Austria.

• Australian employment at 4.9%.

• China has halted approvals for construction of nuclear-power plants in marine areas.

• Portugal said that it needs to ask for financial aid from the European Union.

• UK Labour predicts Government cuts introduced today will wipe up to £1,560 a year from the income of families with two children.

• Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, has been given a date in June for his appeal against extradition to Sweden.

• (TI) After notching a rare victory by stopping highly radioactive water from flowing into the Pacific today, workers at Japan's flooded nuclear power complex turned to their next task: injecting nitrogen to prevent more hydrogen explosions.

• Dylan, who will turn 70 in May, played 17 songs ending with "Forever Young" to a nearly packed audience at downtown Beijing's Workers Gymnasium.
  
  
• France  launched the most ambitious engineering project in Western Europe since the Channel tunnel, a scheme to link Paris to the North Sea by a canal as wide as a football pitch.
• Japan keep its overnight call rate at zero to 0.1%,

Quick Overview

• China raised rates to 6.31% from 6.06%.

• The ISM index decreased to 57.3 from 59.7 in February

• The Supreme Court opened the door to a new form of state support for religious schools, upholding special tax credits in Arizona for those who give money to church schools.

• The Fed's Bernanke is watching inflation “extremely closely” for evidence that rising commodity costs are having more than a temporary impact on consumer prices.

• TEPCO: radioactive seawater 7.5 mln times the legal limit.

• Global economy is forecast to grow by a solid pace of 4.3 percent this year and 4.5 percent next year, the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics said

• The U.S. is going to reach the current debt limit of 14.3 trillion U.S. dollars no later than May 16, 2011. A failure to raise the debt limit would bring “severe hardship” for Americans -- Geithner said.
• The White House has ordered top officials at multiple federal agencies to ensure contingency plans are ready for the partial federal shutdown that could take place if lawmakers don't reach a deal on spending levels by midnight Friday.
  
  
• YoY Commercial activities in Brazil rose 8.5 % in Q1
  

  
  
• Chile's economy is expected to grow between 5.5% and 6.5% in 2011, Central Bank President Jose de Gregorio said.
• US corn futures extend gains on supply concerns."Somebody's going to have to give up their usage if we're going to see a supply left here at the end of the summer," says Keith Gehling, marketing specialist at AgriSource  
• Arlan Suderman: The US Grains Council just concluded a tour of China that revealed a greater than expected need for corn. It says that China's corn stocks are probably 390 to 472 million bushels smaller than previously reported. As a result, it believes that China will import another 80 to 120 million bushels of corn ahead of this year's harvest. Sources within China told the Council that they would like to import 200 to 275 million bushels, but realizes that global stocks are simply too tight.
• Global ocean container traffic reached an all-time high of 560 million 20-foot equivalent units in 2010, driven by surging volume at Chinese ports, according to Alphaliner.

No update today

Quick Overview

• Chinese buyers stopped new orders of scrap steel from Japan and blocked some existing cargoes because of concern over radiation from a crippled nuclear plant, researcher Umetal.com said.

• As part of a plan to revamp the state's Medicaid program, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced that she is proposing fees for adults who lead unhealthy lives.

• If given the choice between eating a hot dog or enjoying some rotisserie chicken, consider the hot dog. That’s because hot dogs, as well as pepperoni and deli meats, are relatively free of carcinogenic compounds, according to Kansas State University research. But it’s a not-so-happy ending for bacon and rotisserie chicken--especially chicken skin--because both have higher levels of cancerous material.

• Japanese big manufacturers expect conditions to worsen significantly in the next three months, responses to a Bank of Japan survey collected after the March 11 earthquake showed

• The monetary base in Japan surged 16.9% in March from a year earlier, rising for the 31st consecutive month from a 5.6% annual increase booked in the previous month, the BOJ said Monday.

• Australia's inflation rose 0.6% in March

• The e-mails and names of customers of Citigroup Inc, Walgreens and other large U.S. companies were exposed in a massive and growing data breach, after a computer hacker penetrated online marketer Epsilon.

• Helen Hodge, Maplecroft's natural hazards analyst, said: "Although Japanese nuclear facilities are particularly exposed, other countries could also face similar risks. South Korea, Taiwan, southern China, India, Pakistan and the west coast of the US have operating or planned nuclear facilities on tsunami-exposed coastlines, while nuclear sites in areas of high or extreme risk of earthquakes can be found in western US, Taiwan, Armenia, Iran and Slovenia."

• Transocean gave its top executives bonuses for achieving the "best year in safety performance in our company's history" - despite the explosion of its oil rig that killed 11 people and spilled 757 million liters of oil into the Gulf.

Atomic Moron George Monbiot
Monbiot and his cult of technofascism either fail to understand the difference between radiation that is outside the body vs. radiation that is trapped internal to the body, or else they know full well and just don't give a damn.

Dr. Caldicott: "You don't understand internal emitters. I was commissioned to write an article for the New England Journal of Medicine about the dangers of nuclear power. I spent a year researching it. You've bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it's low-level radiation. That's absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it's an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that's true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia."

Quick Overview

• The U.S. unemployment rate fell to to 8.8% last month, the lowest level since March 2009.

• (AP) NASDAQ is teaming up with Intercontinental Exchange to make an $11.3 billion counteroffer for the parent of the New York Stock Exchange.

• Unemployment in the EU 17 fell below 10% in February down to 9.9% — the lowest since December 2009.

• Japans car makers sold 279,389 cars in Japan last month, down 37% — the biggest YoY drop.

• In Q1 117 companies in the S&P 500 said they intend to raise or start paying dividends -- a record amount.

• Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday said China should explore and utilize ocean resources scientifically and quicken the development of the marine economy.

• YoY Koreas CPI jumped 4.7 % in March after gaining 4.5% in February

• The Austrian budget deficit in 2010 reached a 15-year record high, accounting for 4.6% of GDP
  
  
• Russian GDP rose an annual 4.5 % after a revised 3.1 in the previous three months
• Macau's gambling revenue  up 48% YoY.

Quick Overview

• More than 61 feet of snow has fallen in the 400-mile-long Sierra Nevada mountain range this season, second only to the 1950-51 season when a total of 65 feet fell, according to records kept by the California Department of Transportation.

• China to build cotton reserves to encourage output. The announcement comes as farmers across China are becoming increasingly concerned that cotton prices could tumble from historic highs

• (FT) US farmers, reaping record receipts for crops this year, are also harvesting $10.6bn in government payments.

• Danish unemployment was 4.0% in February, down from a revised figure of 4.1% in January.

• French budget deficit reached 7% of GDP in 2010, pushing up the country's debt-to-GDP ratio to 81.7%. France has said it will cut the deficit to 4.6% of GDP in 2012 and to the agreed EU limit of 3% of GDP by 2013.

• (Bloomberg) -- Essar Group exercised an option to sell a 33 percent stake in Indian joint venture Vodafone Essar Ltd. to partner Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) for $5 billion, Vodafone said.

• (Bloomberg) -- Radiation “far below” levels that pose a risk to humans was found in milk from California and Washington, the first signs Japan’s nuclear accident is affecting U.S. food, state and Obama administration officials said.

• (Bloomberg) -- Coffee, sugar and cocoa prices will rise five- to 10-fold by 2014 because of shortages that will mean consumers getting “swamped” by food inflation, according to Superfund Financial. 

• The speculation that an estimated 500,000 to 1 million tons of copper is hidden from the market in China is  likely inflated --  so says Commerzbank.
  
  
• (Dow Jones) The USDA's lower-than-expected estimate for corn inventories as of March 1 fuels fears that season-end supplies will drop to a record low. Government could slash 50M-75M bushels from the latest season-end supply estimate of 675M in a crop report next week, says Rich Nelson at Allendale. Season-end supplies are already at a 15-year low, representing 18 days worth of corn, he notes.
• New orders for U.S. manufactured goods fell by 0.1% in February

• The Chicago PMI fell to 70.6% in March from 71.2% in February

• First-time U.S. jobless claims drop 6,000  prior week's total revised up to 394,000

• Chinas Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 53.4 in March from 52.2 in February

Weather warning America's housing market is in the doldrums
IF AMERICA'S housing market acts as a bellwether for its economy, then new monthly data released on March 29th by Standard & Poor's makes for particularly glum reading.

Kill teams in Afghanistan: the truth

Quick Overview

• China may raise its five-year goal for solar power capacity to 10 gigawatts from 5 GW as its nuclear power development may slow, Xinhua said.
• FSLR ,TSL, YGE, LDK, STP, SOLR, MY, JASO, SPWRA, STRI, JKS, CSIQ, EMKR.

• (FT)Russia plans to extend an export ban on cereals for several months in a move that will tighten further stretched agricultural commodities markets.
• (FT) Nowhere is the unbridled enthusiasm for silver clearer than at the level of coins and small bars – the type of product most accessible to smaller investors.
• (DJ)--The rally in the price of silver is running largely on ballooning investment and speculative interest rather than any improving fundamental picture.
• Russia's gold output this year is likely to increase by 4.5% compared with 2010, to 211.4 metric tons, the gold producers union said.
• (Bloomberg) -- Optimism among U.S. chief executive officers surpassed the highest level reached before the recession.
• (Bloomberg) -- About 1.8 million homes that are delinquent or in foreclosure loom as additional supply.
•  U.S. private-sector companies added 201,000 jobs in March
• Crude oil stocks rose by 2.9 million barrels in the week ending March 25,
  
  
  Gasoline stocks fell by 2.7 million.
  
  Distillate fuel stocks rose 0.7 million barrels
  
  
  

  
  

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Living and Dying Downwind  The unleashed isotopes of concern from the damaged Japanese reactors - Iodine-131, Cesium-137, Strontium-90 and Plutonium-239 - are well known to the Marshall Islanders living downwind of the testing sites at Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the central Pacific, following sixty-seven A- and H-bombs exploded between 1946-58.

Quick Overview

• U.S. monetary tightening will return as the key issue in 2011 and policy cannot stay loose indefinitely, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said

• UK current account deficit grew to GBP10.5 billion in the final three months of the year, the biggest since the second quarter of 2009.

• Hutchison Whampoa’s 2010 profit rose 47% YOY.

• Bloomberg: Managers at U.K. oil giant BP PLC could face manslaughter charges for decisions made before the Gulf of Mexico explosion that killed 11 workers and triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history last spring.

• Bloomberg: The cost of shipping liquefied natural gas may advance 67 percent to a five-year high as Japan replaces its crippled nuclear industry with power plants burning fossil fuels.
• Japan's recent earthquake and tsunami and its ongoing nuclear crisis haven't affected the government's schedule for tenders to import grains.
• Japan's jobless rate drops to 4.6% in February
• Radiation levels in Fukushima No 2 were strong enough to prevent crews entering the area, stalling efforts to restore the unit’s electrical and fuel-cooling systems. Doses of 1,000 millisieverts per hour were detected in the water, Tepco and nuclear safety officials said.
• Goldman Sachs: Japan's tsunami and nuclear reactor scare have put up to 20% of its meat production at risk.
• Bloomberg: Copper will lead a rally in base metals this year as increased consumption in China reduces inventories and higher prices encourage stockpiling, according to researcher Brook Hunt, a Wood Mackenzie company.

• Israel raises rates to 3%

• Biggest restaurant chain? Sandwich group Subway is the new leader with 33,749 locations around the world, compared to 32,737 for McDonald’s, according to Subway spokesperson Les Winograd.

• The prices of single-family homes in 20  cities fell 1.0% in January, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. This is the sixth straight monthly decline.

• S&P cut Portugal's credit rating to BBB- from BBB
  

Quick Overview

• All Japanese ports affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the northeastern part of the country on March 11 have now reopened, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
• (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s ruling party is considering abandoning a proposed corporate-tax cut and boosting levies on individuals to help pay for earthquake reconstruction and reduce the need to step up bond sales.
  
  
  

• U.S personal income rose 0.3% in February
• U.S personal consumption expenditures rose by 0.7%
• The average American family's household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said.
• The National Association of Realtors reported that its pending home sales index rose 2.1% in February, but down 8.2 YoY.

• South Korea's business sentiment plunged to 99.3 in April from 113.5 the previous month.

• China's mobile phone operators added 19.83 million new subscribers in the first two months of this year, bringing the number of the country's cell phone users to 878.83 million.

Quick Overview

• A surge in radioactive contamination reportedly was detected Saturday in seawater near Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
• Nuclear experts from Greenpeace have started monitoring radiation near the stricken Fukushima No. 1 atomic power plant. Greenpeace said it believed Japanese authorities may have been underplaying the scale of the disaster.
• Germans throughout Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne participated in what are thought to be the country's largest-ever protests against nuclear power
• The first signs of radioactive materials from the quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan was found in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on Thursday, China's nuclear authorities said on Saturday.
•  RADIOACTIVE IODINE RELEASES FROM JAPAN’S FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI REACTORS MAY EXCEED THOSE OF THREE MILE ISLAND BY OVER 100,000 TIMES  Vermont Yankee, for example, contains more spent fuel in its pool than all four stricken pools at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Yet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not ordered any additional actions to protect this material.
  

• The Department of Commerce revised its Q4 2010 estimate of GDP upward to 3.1%, up from its previous estimate of 2.8%. (You may want to get the antacids ready for the year ahead)

• The U.S consumer-sentiment index fell to 67.5 in March

• The USDA's confirmation of a large corn sale of 49 million bushels to unknown, China?

• (Bloomberg) “The economy is looking pretty good,” Bullard told reporters in Marseille, France, today. “It is still reasonable to review QE2 in the coming meetings, especially this April meeting, and see if we want to decide to finish the program or to stop a little bit short.”
• Charles Plosser: The Fed should hike interest rates from the current range near zero to 2.5% within a year.

• The White House said Obama is committed to corporate tax reform, after the New York Times reported that GE owed no U.S. taxes in 2010.
• GE's tax filing is apparently 24,000 pages long........................................................................

What They're Covering Up at Fukushima

They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. I want to say the reverse. Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body. What happens? Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. That’s a thousand times a thousand: a thousand squared. That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.” Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

KO's Special Comment: Libya, Obama and the Five-Second Rule

Quick Overview

• China is hiking taxes on the mining of rare earth elements amid moves to mitigate environmental damage, control production levels and limit exports. Taxes will rise to either 30 Yuan ($4.5) or 60 Yuan ($9) per ton, depending on whether the elements are categorized as light or heavy.
• China, which controls about 95 percent of global shipments of rare earths, may start importing some of the material to meet rising domestic demand, according to Liu Junhua, a Chinese official.
• MCP

• The U.S. Interior Department said it would open up to mining land in Wyoming estimated to contain 758 million tons of low sulfur coal, in a move praised by the coal industry and condemned by environmental groups.

• A collapse of the euro currency was not "unthinkable" if it comes under too much strain, Buffett said.

• U.K retail sales fell by 0.8% in February - weaker than expected.

• A 7.0-magnitude earthquake rattled Myanmar.

• U.S. durable goods in February posted the biggest drop in four months, falling 0.9%.

• The IGC estimates world grain production to rise 4.6% to an all-time high of 1.805bn tonnes. However, even this estimate, which assumed a 4% rise in sowings to a 13-year high of 537m hectares, would be insufficient to restore production above demand.

• (WSJA) China may not be able to meet sharply rising food demand from its domestic resources, a senior Chinese agriculture official said, indicating room for further growth in imports.
  
  
  
  
  

Worst Texas Drought in 44 Years Eroding U.S. Wheat, Beef Supply
“Each day we don’t get rain, our potential yield goes down,” Anderson said. “If things turn perfect, I think we could have an average crop, but I’m talking about perfect from here on out. The odds of that are pretty slim.”

Quick Overview

• Global refined copper supply was in a deficit of 305 thousand tons in 2010, according to International Copper Study Group (ICSG).
• Rio Tinto expects global copper consumption, over the next 20-30 years, to exceed the total historical consumption to date.
• Copper demand will exceed supply by 889,000 metric tons this year, Barclays estimated in a March 15 report.

• Global merchandise trade grew 17% in Q4 of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009 reaching US$4.1 trillion, slightly up on previous quarter, reflected in air freight and sea freight volume increases. Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) led the way.

• Starbucks Digital Network, debuts new content providers: The Economist, ESPN Insider and Mediabistro with Marvel Digital Comics coming soon.

• A piece of drill pipe trapped inside the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer kept the device from sealing the BP well, U.S. investigators said Wednesday.

• U.S. Crude oil stockpiles rose 2.1 million barrels to 352.8 million barrels, compared with an average survey estimate calling for a 1.7-million-barrel increase.
• U.S. Gasoline stockpiles fell 5.3 million barrels to 219.7 million barrels.

• U.S. sales of new homes fell 17% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000, a record low. (The housing numbers are notoriously unreliable on a MoM basis) The median sales price was $202,100, while the average sales price was $246,000
  Inventories are at an 8.9 month supply.

• (Bloomberg) Meltzer, who has written a two-volume history of the central bank, said “inflation is coming.” Although price increases are currently “buried,” Meltzer said inflation “will come out as soon as housing prices stop falling.”