• The U.S. government’s debt will increase over the next 30 years to double the size of the economy, raising the risk of a fiscal crisis or a drop in the value of Treasuries, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday. The nonpartisan agency, in its long-term budget outlook, projected debt will reach 195% of gross domestic product in 2050. Currently US debt to GDP is 114%. 

 

• Meanwhile, it’s getting more unlikely that Congress will pass a second bailout.
• And US covid deaths are at 204,801

 

• Bloomberg: A whistle-blower at Boeing is urging aviation regulators to add additional protections to the grounded 737 Max, warning that a proposal to mandate fixes to the defective jet doesn’t address multiple hazards identified in the two Boeing Max disasters that killed 346 people.

 

• Airbus has announced plans for the world’s first zero-emission commercial aircraft models that run on hydrogen and could take to the skies by 2035.

 

• Just 5 years ago GE doubled down on coal when it acquired Alstom’s coal fueled turbine business. Well, GE has slowly begun to see the future and announced that it is exiting the coal power market.

 

• Norway’s government has put is support behind a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project with Nkr17.1 billion ($1.8 billion) in backing to secure the world’s first full-scale CCS value chain.

• In August Musk suggested on Twitter that Tesla may be able to mass produce batteries with 50% more energy density in three to four years, which could even enable electric airplanes.

 

Chart Book Is up To Date  check it out!

After some years of neglect, InvestmentTools.com is again up to date. Expect chart book. Chart book to follow in a  couple of days. If you detect a missing, incorrect, or overlooked item - let me know.

THX

•  U.S. Consumer sentiment ticked up a bit.

 

• Reuters: The Commerce Department said on Friday the currentaccount deficit, which measures the flow of goods, services and investments into and out of the country, jumped 52.9% to $170.5 billion last quarter. That was the biggest gap since the third quarter of 2008 when the economy was working its way through the Great Recession.

 

• The Fed said it would keep interest rates near zero for as long as it takes to get inflation back above 2%. The Fed seems to think that’ll be 2023 at the earliest.  

 

• Brazil buys Argentine soybean oil as tightness persists 

 

• Reuters: Trump announced a new round of pandemic assistance to farmers of about $13 billion at a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Thursday night, delivering aid to an important sector in a crucial battleground state. (Not much money in beans I suppose - see above)

 

• The White House on Friday announced a $13 billion aid package for Puerto Rico, three years after the territory was hit by Hurricane Maria.

 

• Copper moving right along, on hopes that China's stimulus would spur demand.

 

• Reuters: Investment between the US and China tumbled to a nine-year low in the first half of 2020, hit by bilateral tensions that could see more Chinese companies come under pressure to divest U.S. operations, a research report said.
• Bloomberg: China’s trade surplus with the U.S. has grown almost 25% since the start of the Trump presidency, exceeding $300 billion on an annualized basis.

 

• How quickly, realistically, can a vaccine be produced and distributed in enough quantity to vaccinate 25 million Americans? The “super forecasters” of Philip Tetlock’s Good Judgment project see the probabilities like this.

More bad news for our planet, as Magazine covers are famously good contrarian indicators.

 

• Economist: The director of the FBI warned that Russia is actively interfering in America’s presidential election, with the Democratic party’s nominee as its primary target. Russian agents are producing what Christopher Wray called a “steady drumbeat of misinformation” intended to undermine Joe Biden and voters’ confidence in the results. President Donald Trump has continuously downplayed Russian interference.

 

• A German laboratory detected traces of Novichok on a water bottle apparently retrieved from the Siberian hotel room in which Alexei Navalny stayed before falling ill on a plane.

 

• Citigroup placed a senior member of IT staff on leave after revelations that he was running a website dedicated to QAnon. This conspiracy theory holds that President Donald Trump is battling a powerful paedophile ring enmeshed in American high politics. Jason Gelinas was disciplined for running an undisclosed side business; he is thought to have earned around $3,000 a month. AND QAnon conspiracy theory gaining ground in UK, per Guardian.
• The Guardian tracked five slogans associated with QAnon shared by UK-run Facebook..(AKA the plague on humanity)

 

• COVID Plans, Game Theory, and the Problem of A**holes
• In other words, the physicists made the same mistake as many attempts to model human behavior: they didn’t account for assholes.

•  Deaths per 1 Million Population (reminder)
• New Zealand    5
• South Korea     7
• Japan                12
• Austria             85
• Germany         113
• US                     613              ( 203,000 Total - so far)

 

 Quick Overview is up to date

 

• In August, a study showed that Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra-warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover California in more than 4 feet of water. 

 

• WTO finds Washington broke trade rules by imposing tariffs on China. WTO future is in danger just when we need it most

• Shipping orders of corn and soybean out of the US

•  Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now…

 

• 
  Two of BP’s latest scenarios predict that crude demand will fall by half or more over the next 30 years.
• (I am prognosticating crude demand to fall  by 80% and more over the next 30 years) 

 

• Oregon GOP state senator Fred Girod was one of 11 Republicans who made headlines when they walked out of the senate – some even leaving the state – so that a quorum could not be achieved for a climate change bill. Now the wildfires have claimed his home

 

• WSJ: says the FTC is prepping a  possible  antitrust suit against Facebook

 

• Japans exports fell 14.8% YoY in August

• Bloomberg: Out west of Sydney it gets hot. Really hot. Like 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) hot. Stand in a car park and the radiant heat from the tarmac can push the mercury to 80C—approaching the temperature of a slow cooker. 
• It’s these new suburbs that the government is banking on to accommodate almost half of the 1.8 million people ..

• The chart showing German exports to China would indicate a German need to be agreeable with China.

 

 

The 7-day average of US Corona Virus Death is looking a bit better. Hopefully, it can take out the lower yellow line.