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.

 

Quick Overview is up to date

BDI Baltic Exchange Dry Index is moving right along 

First time in a  while that the CCFI is down a little.

Florida in the news again: Florida added 151,415 new COVID cases from Friday through yesterday.  1,071 more deaths were also reported by the state

Preventable!!!!!!!

Notes today: 

• The Senior Citizens League estimates that US Social Security could be increase by as much as 6.1% 

• US Census shows US growth driven by minorities; white pop falls under 60 percent. 

• US Inflation remained at 5.4% in July, the same YoY level reported in June. 

• The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 1.0 percent in July, as prices for final demand services advanced 1.1 % and the index for final demand goods rose 0.6%. The final demand index moved up 7.8% for the 12 months ended in July. 

• The world’s currently home to about 7.9 billion people, but this number’s growing constantly.
• The UN thinks there’ll be 9.7 billion people on the planet by 2050. 

• The FDA is reportedly planning to authorize booster shots for immunocompromised Americans. 

• California became the first state to require all school employees to either be vaccinated or submit to regular testing. 

• The Chinese Communist Party announced a new five-year economic plan that will strengthen its grip on crucial sectors, signaling that its corporate regulatory crackdown will extend for years. 

• Britain’s economy grew by 4.8% between April and June compared with the previous quarter.

• The US spent $88 billion $ training the Afghan Army for 20 years. It collapsed in 1 month.

Hundreds of students in Florida are already in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 in the classroom, just a few days into the new
school year.

August U.S. consumer sentiment is at the lowest level in about ten years.  Americans grew more worried about the economy’s scenarios, inflation and the recent surge in coronavirus cases.

Nearly half of American workers do not earnenough to rent a one-bedroom apartment, according to new data. 

 

Listen to the latest USDA comments by Steve Freed 

here

Dec. Wheat

Sep.Oats

Spreads for muni hospital bonds are near the lowest in a decade. Delta variant causing hospitals to start canceling profitable elective surgeries - again!

 Global Fire Emissions

 

Later

Sugar: Weather woes have triggered downward revisions in the Center-South production estimates to levels as low as 490 million metric tons, a 19% decline versus the previous crop. In the second half of July, sugar content in cane declined in the region from a year ago, while cane yield dropped 18%, the nation’s sugar-cane industry group Unica said in report Tuesday. 

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Business groups were eager to start giving to Sedition Caucus members in the wake of the January 6th.

The flow of money from corporate PACs and industry groups to political committees allied with the Sedition Caucus started just days after the insurrection, and within the first few months after the deadly attack, their total contributions had already climbed into the millions of dollars.

Austin warns of ‘catastrophe’ as Texas again becomes center of pandemic

Meanwhile, local officials who want to implement proven public health measures to mitigate the spread have been hamstrung by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, 

who has implemented a sweeping order restricting vaccine and mask mandates.

With the Continental Army constantly threatened by smallpox, Washington ordered all soldiers to be inoculated. It was good enough for George Washington!

CODE RED: United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has just proclaimed a code red for humanity.” The unequivocal consensus of the world’s top climate scientists—unveiled in a landmark report Monday—is that not only are humans responsible for the catastrophes befalling the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice packs and the forests, but that without drastic moves by the planet’s leaders to eliminate greenhouse gas pollution, things are going to get a lot worse, and quite soon. (Blooomberg)

 US Share buybacks very strong!

..investing more and more at higher and higher prices as our confidence increases...

and round and round it goes.

Notes today:

•  Investor morale in the euro zone fell in August to a three-month low on a sharp drop in expectations due to concerns that new lockdown restrictions could loom in the autumn and beyond, a survey showed on Monday. Sentix’s index for the euro zone fell to 22.2 points in August from 29.8 in July. 

• Economists and financial professionals are at least 20 times more likely to believe that climate risk is underestimated by asset markets as opposed to overestimated. 

• The Dallas Independent School District on Monday announced that "to protect staff and students from the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, Dallas ISD is temporarily requiring all staff, students and visitors to wear masks when on district property."👍
• 
  
  The decision is in direct opposition to Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott's (R) ban on mask mandates in public schools and government entities in the state. Abbott announced the ban in May, saying that any government entity that required people to wear masks would face fines of up to $1,000 per offense.👎

Florida COVID cases in the news - again!
Entirely preventable

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” — Albert Einstein

 Moderna (MRNA) today (so far)

Major climate changes inevitable and irreversible – IPCC’s starkest warning yet

Florida in the news again!

• The worse COVID conditions in Florida become, the more Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) balks at policies designed to help address the pandemic. 

• COVID cases are surging so much in Florida now that if Florida was a separate country the US would ban travel from it. (Robert Reich)

• Florida will take a stand against a federal judge's decision to side with the Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. lawsuit challenging the state's vaccine passports ban, according to a spokeswoman for the Florida governor's DeSantis office.  

• If COVID could vote DeSantis would be Governor for life - and beyond!

Gold recovering nicely from a flash crash that had dropped the price by some $80 +

Argentina’s Soybean Super-Highway is Drying Up

Snaking its way through thousands of miles of South American rainforest and pampas and past sprawling soybean and corn farms, the Parana River is the main thoroughfare for Argentine commerce. Some 80% of the country’s crop exports flow through its muddy waters en route to the Atlantic Ocean.

(Reuters) - China has switched from driving global demand for major commodities to being a drag on growth, with July's customs data confirming the weakening trend for imports of crude oil, iron ore and copper.

Gold, checking out the recent lows on a slow Sunday afternoon...

I suppose the market is betting on early Fed taper.

Silver  does not seem to have liked  it BELOW the recent low - so far...

 US core inflation exeeding expectations  MoM...

BoA's view of  Emerging Markets vs S&P500

Sugar:

Brazil has been hit with an unusually harsh winter with temperatures dropping to freezing levels for several days, hurting crops from corn to coffee and sugar cane. The frost follows one of the country's worst droughts in decades.

Therefore, StoneX now sees the global 2021/22 sugar supply balance swinging to a deficit of 1 million tonnes, from a surplus of 1.7 million tonnes seen in May.

And Karim Salamon, Wilmar Sugar head of analysis, said that the widespread frosts will result in lower agricultural yields leading to a cane crush of around 490-500 million tons. Brazil's CS crushed 605 million tons last season.

Wheat:

The U.S. spring wheat harvest is expected to drop 41% from a year ago to the lowest production in 33 years, according to the USDA

Canada’s spring wheat crop is expected at between 16 and 20 million tons, well off last year’s 25.8 million

Minneapolis

 

Portland

Chicago

Kansas City