Quick Overview is up to date

John Auther's: China’s Evergrande Moment Is Looking More LTCM Than Minsky. The Chinese government's likely response implies a nasty and messy market, but not an all-out implosion.

Volcano erupts on the Spanish island of La Palma, September 19

Hollywood fantasy? Tidal wave disaster is just waiting to happen

Median US new home price divided by median US houshold income

The median price of a new home in the US is now 5.8x higher than the median household income.

Bloomberg: The Global Housing Market Is Broken, and It’s Dividing Entire Countries

 

Expensive Food

 

Apple and Google cave to Putin.

Never thought I’d see the day.

Later

 Quick Overview is up to date

The cartoon I drew 20 years ago --   Mike Luckovich 

No comment

Why nations that fail women fail 

And why foreign policy should pay more heed to half of humanity

There is growing evidence that Hillary Clinton was on to something when she said, a decade ago, that “The subjugation of women is…a threat to the common security of our world.”

That index of sexist customs, had it existed 20 years ago, would have warned them how hard nation-building would be in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, it suggests that stability cannot be taken for granted in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or even India.

U.S. Housing Consumer Price Index YoY change at 10 + year high..

Notes today: 

• Salesforce offers to relocate thousands employees and their families from Texas if they’re concerned about the ability to seek reproductive care..

• A new U.S. government study found unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die of Covid-19 as the delta variant continues to kill thousands of them daily while also triggering so-called breakthrough cases among the vaccinated. 

• A Florida appeals court said Friday that  Ron DeSantis’s ban on school mask mandates can be enforced for now – 

• Bloomberg: Almost "all" the top Wall Street banks have come out this week with a nervous message “a storm is brewing” in the U.S. stock market.  (I find “ALL” a bit encouraging)

• Bloomberg: The Biden administration is weighing a new investigation into Chinese subsidies and their damage to the U.S. economy as a way to pressure Beijing on trade – (further frosty China relations). 

• Corn: USDA's September Crop Production report showed a yield of 176.3 bu. per acre, which is 1.7 bu. per acre higher than the August report, and 4.3 bu. per acre above last year’s crop. 

• Soybeans:  The report forecast soybean production to increase 1% from the August forecast, at 4.37 billion bushels. That’s 6% higher than last year’s final production number. 

• The biggest production increase by USDA Friday came to cotton. USDA adjusted its all cotton production forecast 7% higher, now at 18.4 million, 480-pound bales.  

• Bloomberg: Apple was ordered by a federal judge to allow app developers to steer consumers to alternative payment methods. The ruling for plaintiff Epic Games may shrink a key revenue stream for the world’s most valuable company, which faces a range of antitrust suits. Analysts estimate Apple’s App Store takes in more than $20 billion a year with a profit margin above 75%. Apple is expected to appeal.

 

  

Facebook’s New Camera Glasses Are Dangerously Easy to Use

FACEBOOK IS NOTORIOUS for borrowing ideas from other tech companies, then taking advantage of its massive global platform and its expertise in building sticky apps to bring those ideas into the mainstream. 

(FT) These glasses look almost identical to the classic Ray-Ban model, except for one thing: they have Facebook embedded in them. But the barely visible recording apparatus is likely to raise privacy concerns. Would you buy a pair?

 

Notes today:

• Among California’s likely voters, 54% of respondents support keeping Newsom and 41 % want to see him replaced, according to a SurveyUSA poll released Thursday.
• 41% would evidently prefer Elder – astonishing! 

• Hospitals in California’s Central Valley (the extra RED part of CA) have been increasingly overwhelmed by the fourth surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, with officials scrambling to transfer some critically ill patients more than 100 miles away because local intensive care units are full.

• Conab sees Brazil’s corn output at 4-year low on 'most challenging crop' 
• USDA is expected to raise its estimate for the U.S. corn crop by about 1.3% from a previous forecast, to 14.94 billion bu., based on a Reuters survey of analysts.

Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole

 Quick Overview is up to date

Notes today:

 

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler put the crypto business on notice of how far he’ll go to bring it to heel. -- He is threatening to sue Coinbase if the exchange lets customers earn interest on digital tokens and sent a warning to other firms offering similar stuff. 

• Bloomberg: More than half of the United States now offers legal sports betting, just three years after it was allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court. -- East Rutherford, New Jersey, just outside New York City, said one trend is clear. “A lot of people having a lot more money," he said. "They’re getting unemployment or stimulus checks and they want to double or triple their money. They say that all the time: ‘I just got a check and I’m going to make itdouble.’” 

• George Soros criticized BlackRock Inc.’s China push as a risk to clients’ money and U.S. security interests, in the billionaire financier and philanthropist’s latest broadside against investment in the world’s second-largest economy. 
• Cinas income per person, at slightly over $10,000 a year, is about one-sixth of Americas standard of living.

• Yellen said that the Treasury Department would likely run out of cash and exhaust “extraordinary” measures to keep the federal government within its legal borrowing limit at some point next month. 

• U.S. job openings raced to a new record high in July while layoffs rose moderately, suggesting last month’s sharp slowdown in hiring was due to employers being unable to find workers rather than weak demand for labor

• Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalises abortion..

 

Later

Notes today:

• U.S. hiring dropped abruptly in August with the smallest jobs gain in seven months, complicating any decision by the Fed to begin scaling back monetary support by the end of the year. 

• Hurricane Ida knocked out at least a tenth of U.S. grain export capacity, and in the process wiped away optimism that corn and soy prices would rise. 

• Lyft and Uber vowed to pay legal fees for drivers who are sued under Texas’s new insane abortion law. Meanwhile, Republicans in as many as six states are falling all over themselves to follow the lead of Texas in adopting this extreme bs. 

• ‘You’repoisoning us’: Ida brings fresh hell for Cancer Alley residents already battling pollution.

• The Florida Department of Health has issued a notice indicating it will start issuing $5,000 fines to businesses, schools, and government agencies that require Floridians to show proof of COVID

• 
  
  Oklahoma hospitals deluged by ivermectin overdoses, doctor says. “Some people taking inappropriate doses have actually put themselves in worse conditions than if they’d caught Covid. The scariest one that I’ve heard of and seen is people coming in with vision loss.

 

Disaster-proofing the latest growth industry: Sump Pumps, Wet Vacs and Generators are Climate Change Must-Haves.

Chart of Generac Holdings (GNRC) below.

 Later

 

 

Later

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

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

 

Later

Boolmberg: America is again one of the worst hotspots for coronavirus infection on Earth. Covid-19 patients are dying in U.S. hospitals at levels not seen since February—and the numbers are expected to keep climbing. In Alabama, the entire state is out of intensive care beds. Florida, Mississippi, Georgia and Texas’s ICUs are at 90% capacity. Complicating the fight, a new study showed vaccines are less effective against the now-dominant delta variant, and lose effectiveness over time. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has condemned President Joe Biden’s plan to dole out boosters to U.S. adults when much of the world has yet to get one shot. —Margaret Sutherlin

Back from Costco (COSTnew all time high today), hardly anyone is wearing a mask. Some people are wearing one but around the chin – very helpful.  At Starbuck’s some 50 people sitting around, close together– not one mask in sight.

Library of Congress bomb suspect livestreamed on Facebook for hours before being blocked

Why is the Plague on Humanity still in business?

 Quick Overview is up to date

Notes today:

• The T-Mobile Breach Is Much Worse Than It Had to Be

• 
  The vast majority of victims weren’t even T-Mobile customers. Now their information is for sale on the dark web...Those roughly 48 million users had their full names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and driver’s license information stolen.
  

• Deutsche Telecom (DTEGY) owns 43.16% of T-Mobil (TMUS)

• Fed officials felt their employment yardstick for decreasing support for the economy "could be reached this year," but appeared to disagree on other key aspects of where monetary policy should turn next in the transition from the pandemic crisis…

• Some 250 ETF's  have launched this year… is this  ridiculous?. Why would the US market need 250 “MORE” ETFs? Of course, it keeps Wall Street clowns with their computers occupied. 

• Florida & COVID in the news AGAIN:  Florida’s largest school district voted Wednesday to defy  Ron DeSantis and require masks for students when classes begin next week.👍👍
• With more than 121,000 COVID-19 pediatric cases reported in the U.S. last week, Dr. Peter Hotez warns this is likely just the start of what is to come. 

• CME has denied press reports of a $16 billion bid for the  Cboe. 

 

• 
  
  (Reuters) - The frost events that hit coffee fields in Brazil in recent weeks will cause a loss of around 4% to production in the next season, according to forecaster Tropical Research Services (TRS) in a webcast organized by Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N). "The frosts were moderate events, not as severe as we saw in 2001 and 1994," said Steve Wateridge, the company's global head of research. (TRS' loss estimate is one of the lowest seen so far in the market...other forecasters had a loss of some 11%)
• 
  
  California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder is vowing to reverse any COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates Gov. Gavin Newsom has put in place if he’s chosen to replace the Democrat. 
• In case you missed it above: With more than 121,000 COVID-19 pediatric cases reported in the U.S. last week, Dr. Peter Hotez warns this is likely just the start of what is to come. 
• If you are pro-life - wear a damn mask ! 

• 
  
  Mike Lindell:  Cyber experts who disproved Mike Lindell’s voter fraud claims sue for $5 million reward he offered

• Landlords from Tampa, Florida, to Memphis, Tennessee, and Riverside, California, are jacking up rents at record speeds. For each listing, multiple people apply. Some renters are forced to check into hotels while they hunt after losing out too many times.  (ESS,INVH,AMH   ??)

Crypto is ‘95% fraud, hype, noise and confusion,’ says Fed’s Neel Kashkari

The central banker said he doesn’t see any use case for bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.20%, the world’s No. 1 crypto, and referred to the broader digital-asset sector as one that is largely tied to fraud and hype.

Cryptocurrency is 95% fraud, hype, noise and confusion,” Kashkari said, speaking at the Pacific Northwest Economic Regional Annual Summit in Big Sky, Mont.

Notes today: 

• Climate change is exacerbating extreme and freak weather events so rapidly that even the insurance industry is struggling to keep up.

• Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has used executive orders and court rulings to combat mask mandates and other anti-pandemic measures, has tested positive for a breakthrough case of Covid-19.

• Some 30% of Millennials and GenZers say they have cut ties with friends, family members etc. because they wouldn’t get the Covid vaccine.

• New Zealand will enter a nationwide lockdown on Tuesday over a single Covid case

• Glencore has acquired a stake in Britishvolt, (privat) the battery start-up behind plans for a gigafactory to equip the UK for an electric car future.

Florida in the news AGAIN: Several states hit hardest by the recent surge in infections have reported increased vaccinations, including Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. However, Florida, which broke a record for weekly cases on Friday, reported vaccinations falling week over week.

In case you’ve been wondering what palm oil is doing, - well it’s in new all-time high ground.

 

Finding the Will to Stave Off a Darker Future

Notes today: 

• The Taliban now rule  Afghanistan.

• Germany's wholesale prices rose 11.3% YoY in Jul vs +10.7% in June. This was the highest monthly annual rate of change since Oct1974 after the first oil crisis.

 

• The American University Hospital in Beirut was once the best in the Middle East. It will close on Monday unless somehow somewhere it gets fuel to run the generator.

• CDC: Making the seals tighter to prevent air leakage can reduce people’s exposure by more than 95 percent in laboratory tests. And cover your nose!!

•  Economists now expect annual growth of around 7% in Britain

• Biden hailed the Senate's passage of a $1 trillion infrastructure bill which aims to bring long-awaited improvements to America’s roads and bridges, broadband internet, drinking water and school facilities.

  
  

Nixon Broke With Gold 50 Years Ago. What Comes Next?

There have been four post-gold standards, and all of them can be understood by looking at the ratio of share prices (which rise on optimism) to gold (which rises on pessimism). When the stocks-to-gold ratio is rising, confidence is high, but when it falls, there is fear of inflation.

Oats closed limit up last Friday. Will be interesting where to from here.

As of tonight, so far, Oats are in backwardation. Sep is at 504 Dec at 500

 

 

Headlines of this sort are usually a pretty good indicator that the exact opposite may ensue.

 109 years ago

Should have read decades not centuries.

Pondering Earth's Distant Future

The word has been out for decades: We were born on a damaged planet careening toward environmental collapse.