monarch Archives - The Automatic Earth

The World Health Organization (WHO) has commended China’s swift response to a rapidly moving virus gripping the country, but despite a quick-climbing infection tally, the agency is reluctant to classify it a global health threat. “What they are doing is a very, very strong measure and with full commitment,” WHO director-general Tedros Ahanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday, referring to Beijing’s shutdown of all public transportation in and out of the city of Wuhan, the viral epicenter. As of 10am local time, all trains, buses, railways and ferries traveling to and from Wuhan have halted operations until further notice in an effort to slow the spread of the virus, with the government calling on the city’s 11 million residents to refrain from leaving without “special reasons.”

Medical personnel were also posted at toll gates and checkpoints along major roadways to screen commuters for the illness. The comments followed an emergency WHO meeting in Geneva on Wednesday, where the health agency mulled whether to declare the novel coronavirus – now dubbed “2019-nCoV” – a worldwide emergency. Still unsure after a day of deliberation, however, WHO will meet again Thursday, with Tedros saying he took the decision “extremely seriously.” China’s National Health Commission (NHC), meanwhile, has provided the latest figures tracking the impact of the dangerous pathogen, with 131 newly confirmed infections bringing the total to 571 across some 25 Chinese provinces.

Seventeen people have died from the illness thus far, all in central China’s Hubei province, with another 95 in critical condition with severe pneumonia-like symptoms. There are also now 393 suspected infections in China – 257 of them registered on Wednesday alone – with 5,897 additional cases of “close contact,” the NHC said.

Couldn’t find any relevant write-ups of Schiff’s marathon, so here’s the text -not sure it covers all 3.28 minutes of it. But who cares? He had nothing new and what he had, he repeated 20+ times. Including the very dead: “The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that they can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”

The Hunter Biden/Burisma story has not been debunked as Schiff repeats ad nauseum, what has been debunked -by Mueller- is Russiagate. But who cares?

Michael Tracey: “Counted at least 57 references to Russia or Putin in today’s impeachment trial which is why it’s a total fallacy to separate this episode from the Russiagate narrative which has dominated US politics for 3+ years. What’s happening now is just its inevitable culmination..”

• Adam Schiff’s Opening Argument At Senate Impeachment Trial (Pol.)

Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, counsel for the President, and my fellow House managers: “When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”

Those words were written by Alexander Hamilton in a letter to President George Washington, at the height of the Panic of 1792, a financial credit crisis that shook our young nation. Hamilton was responding to sentiments relayed to Washington as he traveled the country, that America, in the face of that crisis, might descend from “a republican form of Government,” plunging instead into “that of a monarchy.” The Framers of our Constitution worried then—as we worry today—that a leader could come to power not to carry out the will of the people that he was elected to represent, but to pursue his own interests. They feared that a president could subvert our democracy by abusing the awesome power of his office for his own personal or political gain. And so they devised a remedy as powerful as the evil it was meant to combat: Impeachment.

Go Tulsi. Someone has to break the DNC, or the Democrats are finished as a party..

• Gabbard Suing Clinton For Defamation Over ‘Russian Asset’ Comments (Hill)

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is suing Hillary Clinton for defamation over the former secretary of State’s remarks on a podcast characterizing the Democratic presidential candidate as a Russian asset. Gabbard filed the defamation lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Gabbard’s lawyers allege that Clinton’s comments have “smeared” Gabbard’s “political and personal reputation.” “Tulsi Gabbard is a loyal American civil servant who has also dedicated her life to protecting the safety of all Americans,” Gabbard’s lawyer Brian Dunne said in a statement. “Rep. Gabbard’s presidential campaign continues to gain momentum, but she has seen her political and personal reputation smeared and her candidacy intentionally damaged by Clinton’s malicious and demonstrably false remarks.”

Gabbard’s campaign referred all questions on the lawsuit to Dunne. In response to the lawsuit, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said “that’s ridiculous.” [..] The lawsuit claims that Clinton is a “cutthroat politician” and “sought retribution” for Gabbard endorsing Clinton’s 2016 Democratic primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Gabbard is now facing Sanders in the crowded 2020 Democratic primary. “Clinton’s false assertions were made in a deliberate attempt to derail Tulsi’s presidential campaign,” it says. Gabbard’s lawyers claim Clinton’s “peddling of this theory” has harmed Gabbard, voters and “American democracy.” “Tulsi brings this lawsuit to ensure that the truth prevails and to ensure this country’s political elites are held accountable for intentionally trying to distort the truth in the midst of a critical Presidential election,” the lawsuit says.

Congresswoman & Presidential candidate @TulsiGabbard on why she’s suing Clinton pic.twitter.com/nm8PWGm0jm

— The Convo Couch (@theconvocouch) January 23, 2020

No. 1 for DNC: dump Biden. He’s roadkill.

• Black South Carolina Elected Official Now Backing Sanders Over Biden (AP)

A South Carolina elected official who endorsed Joe Biden last month is switching her allegiance to Bernie Sanders in the state’s first-in-the-South presidential primary, saying she had viewed the former vice president — whose support in the state is considered deep — as “a compromise choice.” Dalhi Myers told AP on Wednesday that she was making the change in part because she values what she sees as Sanders’ strength in being able to go toe-to-toe with President Donald Trump in the general election. “I looked at that, and I thought, ‘He’s right,’” said Myers, a black woman first elected to the Richland County Council in 2016. “He’s unafraid and he’s unapologetic. … I like the fact that he is willing to fight for a better America — for the least, the fallen, the left behind.”

Sanders, a Vermont senator, frequently calls out what he sees as Trump’s dishonesty, referring on the campaign trail to the president as a “pathological liar.” Biden, whose relationships in South Carolina go back decades, has led polling in the state, particularly among the black voters who make up most of the state’s Democratic primary electorate. Sanders, whose 47-point loss to Hillary Clinton in 2016 in South Carolina blunted the momentum generated in opening primary contests and exposed his weakness with black voters, has focused on strengthening his ties in the state’s black community. In December, Myers, a corporate lawyer in Columbia, was among more than a dozen South Carolina elected officials to endorse Biden, saying at the time in a release from the Biden campaign that he was “the only candidate with the broad and diverse coalition of support we need to win” against Trump in the general election.

No, really. Dump Biden.

• Hunter Biden Ordered To Appear In Court Next Week For Contempt Hearing (ZH)

Hunter Biden has been ordered to stand in front of an Arkansas judge next Tuedsay to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt of court for failing to produce a laundry list of financial and personal information in his ongoing child support dispute with stripper Lunden Alexis Roberts. Roberts asked the court on Tuesday to hold Biden in contempt for failing to disclose financial information, contact information, and “a list of all companies he currently owns or in which he has an ownership interest,” as well as “all companies in which he has had an ownership interest in the past five years.” Also sought are a copy of Biden’s 2017 and 2018 tax returns, deeds to properties he owns, and an executed copy of a financial records release Biden has been avoiding filing unless the court allows him to do so under seal.

“The defendant continues to act as though he has no respect for this Court, its orders, the legal process in this state, or the needs of his child for support,” reads the filing, which adds “This is but another example of the defendant’s unnecessary actions to frustrate prompt adjudication of this matter and increase the plaintiff’s litigation costs.” Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer agreed, ordering Biden to appear in person to explain his failure to produce the requested information which was due in August, 2019. In November, a DNA test revealed Hunter to be the father of the unnamed child with Roberts. In order to determine what Biden can cough up, Roberts has sought extensive financial records for periods which include his time on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while his father was the Obama administration’s point-man on Ukraine.

Still don’t quite get this. Did MbS pose as a Nigerian prince? Will the UN get involved if your phone is hacked? Are the UN and Bezos trying to seek vengeance for Khashoggi in a roundabout way?

• UN Demands US Probe Of Alleged Saudi Hack of Bezos’ Phone (ZH)

Despite the Saudi Embassy’s denial of the “absurd” claims that MbS hacked Jeff Bezos’ phone, United Nations experts have called for an “immediate investigation” by the United States. Independent experts Agnes Callamard, UN Special Rapporteur on summary executions and extrajudicial killings, and David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, said in a statement Wednesday: “The information we have received suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in surveillance of Mr. Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia.” “The circumstances and timing of the hacking and surveillance of Bezos also strengthen support for further investigation by U.S. and other relevant authorities of the allegations that the Crown Prince ordered, incited, or, at a minimum, was aware of planning for but failed to stop the mission that fatally targeted Mr. Khashoggi in Istanbul.”

“The alleged hacking of Mr. Bezos’s phone, and those of others, demands immediate investigation by U.S. and other relevant authorities, including investigation of the continuous, multi-year, direct and personal involvement of the Crown Prince in efforts to target perceived opponents.” The U.N. experts reviewed a 2019 digital forensic analysis of Bezos’ iPhone, which they said was made available to them as U.N. Special Rapporteurs. The experts said that records showed that within hours of receipt of a video from the crown Pprince’s WhatsApp account, there was “an anomalous and extreme change in phone behavior” with enormous amounts of data from the phone being transmitted over the following months.

Oh cut it out.

• Boeing CEO Expects To Resume 737 MAX Production Before Mid-Year (R.)

Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told reporters on Wednesday the U.S. planemaker expects to resume 737 MAX production months before its forecasted mid-year return to service and said it did not plan to suspend or cut its dividend. The company announced a production halt in December, when the global grounding of the fast-selling 737 MAX following two deadly crashes in five months looked set to last into mid-2020 — a timeline pushed back after Boeing endorsed new simulator training for pilots. Calhoun said the company is not considering scrapping the MAX and expects it will continue to fly for a generation.

“I am all in on it and the company is all in on it,” Calhoun said, adding Boeing will not launch a marketing campaign to get customers to get back on 737 MAX planes. The company said on Tuesday it now expects regulators to approve the plane’s return to service in the middle of the year. Calhoun said he did not see recent issues raised about wiring or software as “serious problems.” The production delay threatens to cut U.S. GDP by as much as 0.5 percentage points. President Donald Trump on Wednesday told CNBC Boeing is a “very disappointing company.” United Airlines said Wednesday it does not expect to fly the Boeing 737 MAX this summer.

Subtitle: US Fracking Gushes Bankruptcies, Defaulted Debt, and Worthless Shares

• The Great American Shale Oil & Gas Bust (WS)

Following the sharp re-drop in oil and natural gas prices in late 2018, bankruptcy filings in the US by already weakened exploration and production companies , oilfield services companies, and “midstream” companies (they gather, transport, process, or store oil and natural gas) jumped by 51% in 2019, to 65 filings, according to data compiled by law firm Haynes and Boone. This brought the total of the Great American Shale Oil & Gas Bust since 2015 in these three sectors to 402 bankruptcy filings. The debt involved in these bankruptcies in 2019 doubled from 2018 to $35 billion. This pushed the total debt listed in these bankruptcy filings since 2015 to $207 billion. The chart below shows the cumulative total debt involved in these bankruptcies since 2015.

But this does not include the much larger losses suffered by shareholders that get mostly wiped out in the years before the bankruptcy as the shares descend into worthlessness, and that then may get finished off in bankruptcy court. The banks, which generally had the best collateral, took the smallest losses; bondholders took bigger losses, with unsecured bondholders taking the biggest losses. Some of them lost most of their investment; others got high-and-tight haircuts; others held debt that was converted to equity in the restructured companies, some of which soon became worthless again when the company filed for bankruptcy a second time. The old shareholders took the biggest losses.

The Great American Fracking Bust started in mid-2014, when the price of WTI dropped from over $100 a barrel to below $30 a barrel by early 2016. Then the price began to recover, going over $70 a barrel in September and October 2018. But then it began to re-plunge. By the end of 2018, WTI had dropped to $47 a barrel. [..]

And 2020 is starting out terrible for natural gas producers. The price of natural gas has plunged to $1.90 per million Btu at the moment, a dreadfully low price where no one can make any money. Producers in shale fields that produce mostly gas, such as the Marcellus, are in deeper trouble still, because oil, even at these prices, would be a lot better than just natural gas. Producing areas with constrained takeaway capacity (it takes a lot longer to build pipelines than to ramp up production) are subject to local prices, which can be lower still. In some areas, such as the Permian in Texas and New Mexico, the most prolific oil field in the US, where natural gas is a byproduct of oil production, limited takeaway capacity has caused local prices to collapse, and flaring to surge.

Sent to WIkiLeaks yet?

• Ghislaine Maxwell’s Personal Emails Were Hacked (DM)

Ghislaine Maxwell’s personal emails have been hacked, and damaging information, including the names of individuals linked to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case, are at risk of being publicly released. The revelation was made in a letter filed by the British socialite’s lawyers in the defamation case brought against her by Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Guiffre, DailyMail.com has learned. The letter was sent by Maxwell’s attorney, Ty Gee, on December 5 to New York federal court Judge Loretta A. Preska but made public last week. The letter addresses the materials that should remain sealed or redacted in the case. It notes ‘the difficulty and complexity’ of the process as there are more than 8,600 pages, adding that it is ‘difficult-to-overstate importance to the lives of Ms. Maxwell and the non-parties’.

Gee’s letter says that the project ‘could not be accomplished by scanning or speed-reading’ as each page had to be carefully analysed to redact, for example, ‘a surname or an email address’. He refers to details that were released in error in the 2,000 pages that were made public in August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Those filings revealed allegations that Maxwell procured underage girls for Epstein. She has denied those charges. ‘Despite the Second Circuit’s best efforts, it made serious mistakes. For example, it redacted a non-party’s name in one location but not another; so the media immediately gained access to that name,’ Gee wrote.

‘As another example, it redacted Ms. Maxwell’s email address (which linked to her own domain name) in one location but not another; shortly afterward hackers breached the host computer.’ The hack may have implications for Prince Andrew after it was revealed in December that the Duke of York exchanged emails with Maxwell in 2015 about Giuffre. In that email, revealed on Panorama, Maxwell and the British royal discussed Giuffre – despite denials from Prince Andrew that he had never met the then-teenager and that a photo of them together was a fake. ‘Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts,’ Prince Andrew wrote in an email to Maxwell. She replied: ‘Have some info – call me when you have a moment.’

Make that 70.

• TEPCO Estimates It Will Take 44 Years To Decommission Fukushima No. 2 (JT)

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. has outlined plans for the decommissioning of its Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power station, estimating that the process will take 44 years. Tepco presented the outline of decommissioning plans to the town assembly of Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, one of the two host towns of the nuclear plant, on Wednesday. According to the outline, the decommissioning process will have four stages, taking 10 years for the first stage, 12 years for the second stage and 11 years each for the third and fourth stages.

Tepco will survey radioactive contamination at the nuclear plant in the first stage, clear equipment around nuclear reactors in the second, remove the reactors in the third and demolish the reactor buildings in the fourth. Meanwhile, the plant operator will transfer a total of 9,532 spent nuclear fuel units at the plant to a fuel reprocessing company by the end of the decommissioning process, and 544 unused fuel units to a processing firm by the start of the third stage.

Like it behooves a major charity. When interviewing such a CEO, always ask what their salaries are.

• Australia Red Cross: $11 Million ‘Administration Cost’ For Bushfire Help (7N)

The Australian Red Cross has admitted it may spend as much as $11 million processing the millions of dollars people from across the globe have donated to its bushfire appeal. However, in the face of public outcry, the charity has been forced to revise an earlier statement that suggested a large proportion of the $95 million raised could be quarantined for future natural disasters. The charity also pledged on Thursday to speed up the rate of its delivery of emergency funds to bushfire ravaged communities. “We’re now paying a million dollars a day and we’re keen to continue to speed that up, we know the assistance is needed now,” Red Cross’s director of emergencies, Noel Clement, told 7 NEWS.

Clement said the charity had already dispensed 700 grants of $10,000 each, totalling $7 million. He conceded however that of the revised total of $115 million donated so far – up from yesterday’s figure of $95 million – as much as $11 million could be spent on administration costs. Such a figure – roughly 10 per cent of total revenue raised – is generally considered to be the uppermost limit of acceptable administrative costs among large charitable organisations.

1980s: 4.5 million. 2019: 29,000.

• Monarch Butterfly Population Critically Low On California Coast – Again (G.)

The western monarch butterfly population wintering along California’s coast remains critically low for the second year in a row, a count by an environmental group released Thursday showed. The count of the orange-and-black insects by the Xerces Society, a not-for-profit environmental organization that focuses on the conservation of invertebrates, recorded about 29,000 butterflies in its annual survey. That’s not much different than last year’s tally, when an all-time low 27,000 monarchs were counted. “We had hoped that the western monarch population would have rebounded at least modestly, but unfortunately it has not,” said Emma Pelton, a monarch conservation expert with the Xerces Society.

By comparison, about 4.5 million monarch butterflies wintered in forested groves along the California coast in the 1980s. Scientists say the butterflies are at critically low levels in the Western US due to the destruction of their milkweed habitat along their migratory route as housing expands into their territory and use of pesticides and herbicides increases. Researchers also have noted the effect of climate change. Along with farming, climate change is one of the main drivers of the monarch’s threatened extinction, disrupting an annual 3,000-mile migration synced to springtime and the blossoming of wildflowers.

Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

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Debt Rattle September 21 2016

Sep 212016

September 21, 2016 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:16 am Finance Tagged with: BoJ, deflation, Deutsche, Exxon, monarch, oil, recession, refugees, rigs, Wells Fargo Comments Off

Harris&Ewing Preparations for the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, Court of Honor before White House 1913

• Unlike in 1986, This Time US Might Not Dodge a Recession: Deutsche Bank (BBG)

• Get Ready For The Mother Of All Stock Market Corrections (Tel.)

• Japan Exports Fall 11th Straight Month, 9.6% YoY, Imports Plunge 17.3% (R.)

• Bank of Japan Overhauls Policy Framework, Sets Yield Curve Target (R.)

• Bank of Japan Introduces Rate Target for 10-Year Government Bonds (WSJ)

• Could Germany Allow Deutsche Bank To Go Under? (Golem XIV)

• Keynesian Deflation Humbug (Mish)

• Nobody Has Ever Shut Down The World’s Best Drilling Rigs – Until Now (BBG)

• Crude Slips As Venezuela Says Market Is 10% Oversupplied (Dow Jones)

• SEC Probes Exxon Over Asset Valuation, Climate Change Accounting (WSJ)

• Court Says Hanjin Shipping Rehab Plan ‘Realistically Impossible’ (R.)

• Elizabeth Warren to Wells Fargo CEO: Resign, Return Earnings, Face Inquiry (G.)

• Mexico Police Raid Sawmills To Rescue Monarch Butterfly Refuge (AFP)

• Italy PM Renzi: Merkel Is ‘Lying To The Public’, Europe Is a ‘GHOST’ (Exp.)

• EU: Refugees Must Stay On Greek Islands Despite Lesbos Fire (AP)

There are few things more nonsensical than ‘experts’ saying things like “..there’s a 30% probability that the U.S. will succumb to a recession over the next 12 months..” Yet, people keep listening.

• Unlike in 1986, This Time US Might Not Dodge a Recession: Deutsche Bank (BBG)

Falling corporate margins, weakness in the U.S. labor market and rising corporate default rates — all features of the U.S. economy in 1986, a year it avoided a recession. Even if this year markets are largely shrugging off the deterioration in those key indicators and betting grim readings are down to temporary forces, Deutsche Bank strategists say to take little hope from a 30-year old precedent. Investors jittery over bleak readings on a slew of macro and corporate data have seized on 1986, when the same signals for a U.S recession were in place but the economy ended up growing 3.5% after inflation.

But bets on the continued expansion in U.S. output over the next year might be misplaced, according to European equity strategists at Deutsche Bank, since the economy is on a significantly weaker footing compared to the year that saw the release of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. They restate the bank’s call that there’s a 30% probability that the U.S. will succumb to a recession over the next 12 months. That compares pessimistically with the 20% that is the average expectations of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg — and even with other analysts at the bank.

…when central banks stop printing…

• Get Ready For The Mother Of All Stock Market Corrections (Tel.)

[..] According to Chris Watling at Longview Economics, a wide range of indicators confirm the message: recession risks are rising. And if a recession is indeed looming, it almost certainly means a bear market in equities. Looking at all the US recessions of the last 77 years, Mr Watling finds that there is only one (1945) which has not been accompanied by a stock market correction. Complicating matters further is an ever more worrisome phenomenon – that both bond and equity markets are being artificially propped up by central bank money printing. Further easing this week from the Bank of Japan would only deepen the problem. Yet eventually it must end, and when it does, share prices globally will return to earth with a bump. Only lack of alternatives for today’s ever rising wall of money seems to hold them aloft.

Over the last year, central bank manipulation of markets has reached ludicrous levels, far beyond the “quantitative easing” used to mitigate the early stages of the crisis. Through long use, “unconventional monetary policy” of the original sort has become ineffective, and, well, simply conventional in nature. To get pushback, central banks have been straying ever further onto the wild-west frontiers of monetary policy. Today it’s not just government bonds which are being bought up by the lorry load, but corporate debt, and in the case of the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank (SNB), even high risk equities. [..] For global corporations at least, credit has never been so free and easy, encouraging aggressive share buy-back programmes.

This in turn further inflates valuations already in danger of losing all touch with underlying fundamentals. By the by, it also helps trigger lucrative executive bonus awards. Where’s the real earnings and productivity growth to justify the present state of stock markets? As long as the central bank is there to do the dirty work, it scarcely seems to matter. In any case, the situation seems ever more precarious and unsustainable. Conventional pricing signals have all but disappeared, swept away by a tsunami of newly created money. Globally, the misallocation of capital must already be on a par with what happened in the run-up to the financial crisis, and possibly worse given the continued build-up of debt since then.

World trade summed up.

• Japan Exports Fall 11th Straight Month, 9.6% YoY, Imports Plunge 17.3% (R.)

Japan’s exports fell 9.6% in August from a year earlier, posting an 11th straight month of decline, Ministry of Finance data showed on Wednesday, underscoring sluggish external demand. The fall compares with a 4.8% decrease expected by economists in a Reuters poll. It followed a 14.0% drop in July, the data showed. Imports fell 17.3% in August, versus the median estimate for a 17.8% decline. The trade balance swung to a deficit of 18.7 billion yen ($184 million), versus the median estimate for a 202.3 billion yen surplus. It was a first trade deficit in three months.

Who says Kuroda has no sense of humor? After failing to lift inflation for years, he now says he will “..allow inflation to overshoot its target..

• Bank of Japan Overhauls Policy Framework, Sets Yield Curve Target (R.)

The Bank of Japan added a long-term interest rate target to its massive asset-buying program on Wednesday, overhauling its policy framework and recommitting to reaching its 2% inflation target as quickly as possible. The central bank also said it will allow inflation to overshoot its target by maintaining an ultra-loose policy – beefing up its previous commitment to keep policy easy until the target was reached and kept in a stable manner. At the two-day rate review that ended on Wednesday, the BOJ maintained the 0.1% negative interest rate it applies to some of the excess reserves that financial institutions park with the central bank.

But it abandoned its base money target and instead adopted “yield curve control” under which it will buy long-term government bonds to keep 10-year bond yields at current levels around zero %. The BOJ said it would continue to buy long-term government bonds at a pace that ensures its holdings increase by 80 trillion yen ($781 billion) per year. Under the new framework that adds yield curve control to its current quantitative and qualitative easing (QQE), the BOJ will deepen negative rates, lower the long-term rate target, or expand base money if it were to ease again, the central bank said in a statement announcing the policy decision. “The BOJ will seek to lower real interest rates by controlling short-term and long-term interest rates, which would be placed as the core of the new policy framework,” it said.

But seriously, historians will look back on today wondering how on earth we could have all swallowed this continuing gibberish.

• Bank of Japan Introduces Rate Target for 10-Year Government Bonds (WSJ)

Japan’s central bank took an unexpected step Wednesday, introducing a zero interest-rate target for 10-year government bonds to step up its fight against deflation, after an internal review of previous measures that fell short of expectations. he adoption of a long-term target, the first such attempt in the BOJ’s history, came as global central banks struggle to find ways to get prices rising. Financial markets gyrated following the Bank of Japan’s announcement of what it called a “new framework” to overcome deflation. Some thought it illustrated the limits of the BOJ’s powers, since the decision didn’t include any direct new stimulus measures, while others were encouraged by the BOJ’s tone.

“Investors are showing a positive response as they got the feeling that the BOJ will do whatever it can do to tackle deflation,” said Kengo Suzuki at Mizuho Securities in reference to the yen’s fall following the BOJ action. The dollar was around 102.60 yen in afternoon Tokyo trading, compared with around 101.90 yen before the decision. The 10-year Japanese government bond yield had already been near zero in recent weeks. It was minus 0.06% just before the decision and was minus 0.03% in Tokyo afternoon trading hours after the decision. The new framework puts 10-year interest rates at the center of policy, a contrast to the BOJ’s approach for the last 3 1/2 years under Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda, when asset purchases and expanding the monetary base were the key policy tool.

Smart from Golem.

• Could Germany Allow Deutsche Bank To Go Under? (Golem XIV)

[..] public bail outs are supposed to be strictly temporary. No holding 80% of RBS for most of a decade. Really? But that’s not the point which is important for Deutsche Bank. The important point is that in any sale of the viable parts of Germany’s only G-SIB, the brutal fact of the matter is that there is no other German financial institution that could afford to buy any of it. Commerzbank? Allianz? Letting an insurer buy a bank? So imagine the situation for Germany. They lose their seat at the top table and then they watch as France, England, American or perhaps China buy the crown of German financial might. So I don’t think it will ever happen. Or at least it will only happen when Germany is truly out of any other options. So if Deutsche is not going to be declared “no longer viable” what are the alternatives?

One option is the UniCredit route. UniCredit was a trillion euro bank. It was Italy’s flag carrier. It had bought Bavaria’s banks and some of Austria’s as well. And yet it’s share price was always paltry. Just 7.6 Euros at the market top in May ’07. And since then it has been a hollow and enfeebled giant. Lumbering and ineffectual. It has been the laughing stock of European banks. But Italy doesn’t seem to mind. They seem content to let UniCredit be the quintessential Zombie bank. Would Germany be as sanguine to leave Deutsche to go the same way? This would, I suggest, be almost as injurious to German pride and industrial policy as letting Deutsche go down completely.

But if Germany decided it could not face the financial consequences of obeying the letter of the resolution law nor leave the bank to be a bloated and useless zombie then the alternatives bring in their train even greater political upheavals. Imagine the German government decides that not bailing out Deutsche just inflicts too much damage on Germany – potentially reducing Germany from the front rank of globally significant nations to something lesser. It becomes a matter of national pride if not of survival. So Germany ignores all the FSB rules and regulations and bails Deutsche bringing it into government ownership/protection – call it what you like. In so doing it demolishes the entirety of European policy regarding bail outs, government debts and austerity.

Where then all the German insistence on fiscal discipline it has forced upon Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy? The Bundesbank, Berlin and the ECB would have no authority at all. Every country would have a green light to do the same for their flag carriers. It would be the end the European experiment. Or the European system would have to try to continue without Germany. And that could only happen if all debts to Germany were repudiated. I realise all this is speculation. But Deutsche has lost 90% of its value. Only RBS has lost more. Deutsche has 7000 legal cases against it. Frau Merkel is losing her grip, Brexit rocked the complacent rulers of Euroland and Madame Marine Le Pen would like to push France to do the same.

Mish restates the obvious: “Keynesian theory says consumers will delay purchases if prices are falling. In practice, all things being equal, it’s precisely the opposite.”

• Keynesian Deflation Humbug (Mish)

Hip, hip, hooray! The CPI is up more than expected, led by a huge 1.1% month-over-month surge in medical care supplies. Medical care services jumped 0.9%, and shelter jumped 0.3%. This will not help the economy. And it will subtract from consumer spending other than Obamacare and rent, but economists are cheering.

Real World Happiness

Food at home -1.9%

Energy -9.2%

Gasoline -17.3%

Fuel Oil -12.8%

Electricity -.07%

Used cars -4.0%

Unreal World Happiness

Food Away From Home +2.8%

Medical Care Commodities +4.5%

Shelter +3.4%

Transportation Services +3.1%

Medical Care Services +5.1%

Keynesian Theory vs. Practice Keynesian theory says consumers will delay purchases if prices are falling. In practice, all things being equal, it’s precisely the opposite. If consumers think prices are too high, they will wait for bargains. It happens every year at Christmas and all year long on discretionary items not in immediate need.

Reality Check Questions

If price of food drops will people stop eating?

If the price of gasoline drops will people stop driving?

If price of airline tickets drop will people stop flying?

If the handle on your frying pan falls off or your blow-dryer breaks, will you delay making another purchase because you can get it cheaper next month?

If computers, printers, TVs, and other electronic devices will be cheaper next year, then cheaper again the following year, will people delay purchasing electronic devices as long as prices decline?

If your coat is worn out, are you inclined to wait another year if there are discounts now, but you expect even bigger discounts a year from now?

Will people delay medical procedures in expectation of falling prices?

If deflation theory is accurate, why are there huge lines at stores when prices drop the most?

Bonus Question

If falling prices stop people from buying things, how are any computers, flat screen TVs, monitors, etc., ever sold, in light of the fact that quality improves and prices decline every year?

Anyone who thinks soaring Obamacare and rent is a good thing and will help the economy is crazy.

Forget the OPEC output cut talks, here’s what’s really happening in oil.

• Nobody Has Ever Shut Down The World’s Best Drilling Rigs – Until Now (BBG)

In a far corner of the Caribbean Sea, one of those idyllic spots touched most days by little more than a fisherman chasing blue marlin, billions of dollars worth of the world’s finest oil equipment bobs quietly in the water. They are high-tech, deepwater drillships – big, hulking things with giant rigs that tower high above the deck. They’re packed tight in a cluster, nine of them in all. The engines are off. The 20-ton anchors are down. The crews are gone. For months now, they’ve been parked here, 12 miles off the coast of Trinidad & Tobago, waiting for the global oil market to recover. The ships are owned by a company called Transocean Ltd., the biggest offshore-rig operator in the world. And while the decision to idle a chunk of its fleet would seem logical enough given the collapse in oil drilling activity, Transocean is in truth taking an enormous, and unprecedented, risk.

No one, it turns out, had ever shut off these ships before. In the two decades since the newest models hit the market, there never had really been a need to. And no one can tell you, with any certainty or precision, what will happen when they flip the switch back on. It’s a gamble that Transocean, and a couple smaller rig operators, felt compelled to take after having shelled out millions of dollars to keep the motors running on ships not in use. That technique is called warm-stacking. Parked in a safe harbor and manned by a skeleton crew, it typically costs about $40,000 a day. Cold-stacking – when the engines are cut – costs as little as $15,000 a day. Huge savings, yes, but the angst runs high.

OPES helps the US bring Maduro to his knees.

• Crude Slips As Venezuela Says Market Is 10% Oversupplied (Dow Jones)

Oil prices dipped to a new one-month low Tuesday as hopes for any deal between OPEC countries and Russia to freeze production continued to fade. U.S. crude for October delivery recently fell 14 cents, or 0.3%, to $43.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The October contract expires at settlement, and the more actively traded November contract recently fell 27 cents, or 0.6%, to $43.59 a barrel. Brent, the global benchmark, fell 42 cents, or 0.9%, to $45.53 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. Recent trade has been marked by fears that more OPEC members are intent on increasing production, even as leaders discuss the possibility of an output cap. Libya, Iran and Nigeria combined want to increase their output by about 1.5 million barrels a day this year.

Even Venezuela is raising exports, despite financial and production troubles, and the moves from all these countries are a clear message that none would be interested in agreeing to a cap, said Bjarne Schieldrop from Sweden’s SEB bank. He added that any deal would probably allow exceptions for Nigeria, Libya, Venezuela and Iran to lift production, possibly nullifying any agreement. “It doesn’t seem like any oil producers outside of North America are doing anything to control their production levels,” said Gene McGillian, research manager at Tradition Energy. Oil has been in a steady downtrend for the better part of two weeks with concerns over lingering oversupply. Prices are down 9.4% since they hit a high point for nearly the past month on Sept. 8.

The biggest drop came in two days last week after the International Energy Agency said a slowdown in global oil demand growth accelerated this quarter, sinking to 800,000 barrels a day – 1.5 million barrels a day lower than the third quarter of 2015. Despite that and talks of an output cap, data show OPEC members broadly producing near-record amounts of crude. “Fundamentals suggest the oil market is likely to remain in surplus for longer than many expected,” strategists at ING Bank said in a note.

Exxon has not: 1) written down valuations of reserves as prices plunged, and 2) accounted for the financial consequences of climate change regulations.

• SEC Probes Exxon Over Asset Valuation, Climate Change Accounting (WSJ)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating how Exxon Mobil values its assets in a world of increasing climate-change regulations, a probe that could have far-reaching consequences for the oil and gas industry. The SEC sought information and documents in August from Exxon and the company’s auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, according to people familiar with the matter. The federal agency has been receiving documents the company submitted as part of a continuing probe into similar issues begun last year by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the people said.

The SEC’s probe is homing in on how Exxon calculates the impact to its business from the world’s mounting response to climate change, including what figures the company uses to account for the future costs of complying with regulations to curb greenhouse gases as it evaluates the economic viability of its projects. The decision to step into an Exxon investigation and seek climate-related information represents a moment in the effort to take climate change more seriously in the financial community, said Andrew Logan, director of the oil and gas program at Ceres, a Boston-based advocacy organization that has pushed for more carbon-related disclosure from companies.

“It’s a potential tipping point not just for Exxon, but for the industry as a whole,” he said. As part of its probe, the SEC is also examining Exxon’s longstanding practice of not writing down the value of its oil and gas reserves when prices fall, people familiar with the matter said. Exxon is the only major U.S. producer that hasn’t taken a write down or impairment since oil prices plunged two years ago. Peers including Chevron have lowered valuations by a collective $50 billion.

Shipping prices will plummet.

• Court Says Hanjin Shipping Rehab Plan ‘Realistically Impossible’ (R.)

The South Korean court overseeing Hanjin Shipping’s receivership said a rehabilitation plan is “realistically impossible” if top priority debt such as backlogged charter fees exceed 1 trillion won ($896 million), South Korea’s Yonhap newswire reported on Wednesday. Hanjin Shipping, the world’s seventh-largest container carrier, filed for receivership late last month in a South Korean court and must submit a rehabilitation plan in December. With debt of about 6 trillion won ($5.4 billion) at the end of June and the South Korean government’s unwillingness to mount a rescue, expectations are low that Hanjin Shipping will be able to survive. Top priority debt means claims for public interests, which are paid first to creditors and include cargo owners’ damages and unpaid charter fees, Yonhap reported citing the Seoul Central District Court.

Shouldn’t such an inquiry be as obvious as common sense??

• Elizabeth Warren to Wells Fargo CEO: Resign, Return Earnings, Face Inquiry (G.)

Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf should resign, return his pay and be criminally investigated over the bank’s illegal sales practices, Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Tuesday. The Massachusetts senator’s comments came moments after Stumpf said he was “deeply sorry” for the more than 2m unauthorized accounts his staff opened for the bank’s customers. The accounts, ranging from credit cards to checking accounts, were opened by thousands of the bank’s employees in an effort to meet Wells Fargo’s sales quotas and have already led to a record $185m fine. While testifying in front of the Senate banking committee, Stumpf said he was “deeply sorry” that the bank let down its customers and apologized for violating their trust.

“I accept full responsibility for all unethical sales practices in our retail banking business, and I am fully committed to doing everything possible to fix this issue, strengthen our culture, and take the necessary actions to restore our customers’ trust,” Stumpf said in his prepared remarks. Warren accused Stumpf of “gutless leadership”, telling him that his definition of being accountable is to push the blame on lower-level employees who do not have a PR firm to defend them. Warren questioned Stumpf’s compensation, asking him: “Have you returned one nickel of the millions of dollars that you were paid while this scam was going on?” “The board will take care of that,” Stumpf said after attempting to duck the question. He also told Warren that this “was not a scam”.

Warren pointed out that during the time that the unauthorized accounts were being opened, the share price of Wells Fargo went up by about $30. Stumpf personally owns about 6.75m shares of Wells Fargo stock and made more than $200m just off his stock during that time, Warren said. [..] At the hearing Stumpf pointed out that the lowest paid employees at Wells Fargo earn $12 an hour and that the employees let go for opening unauthorized accounts were making “good money”, earning $30,000 to $60,000 a year. “How much money did you make last year?” New Jersey senator Robert Menendez asked Stumpf. “$19.3m,” said Stumpf. “Now that’s good money,” said Menendez.

Kudo’s.

• Mexico Police Raid Sawmills To Rescue Monarch Butterfly Refuge (AFP)

A special Mexican police unit has raided seven sawmills near the monarch butterfly’s mountain sanctuary in a bid to prevent illegal logging threatening the insect’s winter migration, officials said Tuesday. Backed up by a helicopter, some 220 members of the country’s police force and 40 forestry inspectors participated in the September 12 operation in the western state of Michoacan. North American governments have taken steps since last year to protect the monarch butterfly, which crosses Canada and the United States each year to hibernate on the fir and pine trees of Mexico’s western mountains. Last week’s raid was the first since the government decided in April to add the police to protection efforts for the brilliant orange and black monarchs.

The force has been conducting foot patrols day and night, using drones and helicopters for surveillance when weather permits, Abel Corona, director of the special units, said at a news conference. [..] Illegal logging dropped by 40% between the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 butterfly season, environmental protection authorities said last month. But March storms killed seven% of the monarchs. The cold spell came after authorities had reported a rebound in the 2015-2016 season, with the butterfly covering 4.01 hectares (9.9 acres) of forest, more than tripling the previous year’s figure.

Renzi in his referendum desperation finally tells the truth, somewhat.

• Italy PM Renzi: Merkel Is ‘Lying To The Public’, Europe Is a ‘GHOST’ (Exp.)

Angela Merkel has been lying to the public about European unity, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has said. In a brutal attack on his fellow EU members, he said the first EU summit without the UK amounted to no more than “a nice cruise on the Danube”. Having been excluded from a joint news conference by the German Chancellor, Mrs Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, he said he was dissatisfied with the Bratislava summit’s closing statement. The outspoken Italian premier hit out at the lack of commitments on the economy and immigration in the summit’s conclusions, despite signing it himself. In a fiery interview in Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Mr Renzi intensified his criticisms, although he remained vague on what commitments he would have liked the summit to produce.

The Prime Minister has staked his career on a referendum this autumn over plans for constitutional reform, promising to resign if he loses. Talking about his fellow leaders, he said: “If we want to pass the afternoon writing documents without any soul or any horizon they can do it on their own. “I don’t know what Merkel is referring to when she talks about the ‘spirit of Bratislava’. “If things go on like this, instead of the spirit of Bratislava we’ll be talking about the ghost of Europe.” Mr Renzi said he is preparing a 2017 budget which he claims will cut taxes despite a slowing economy and record high public debt. He added: “At Bratislava we had a nice cruise on the Danube, but I hoped for answers to the crisis caused by Brexit, not just to go on a boat trip.”

He was similarly belligerent about the Italian budget to be presented next month, saying there would be “no negotiation” with Brussels, and money he planned to spend on tackling immigration and making Italy safer from earthquakes would be excluded from EU rules on deficit limits. Other countries were more guilty than Italy of breaking budget rules and Italy had met its commitments on tackling the inflows of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, Renzi said. He said: “I’m not going to stay silent for the sake of a quiet life. “If someone wants to keep Italy quiet they have picked the wrong place, the wrong method and the wrong subject.”

In case anyone still had any doubts about this, here’s more proof that it’s the EU, not Greece, that is responsible for the expanding misery. Europe wants the islands to serve as holding pens, so richer Europe doesn’t have to face the consequences of the policies it itself dictates.

“To avoid secondary movement to the rest of Europe, that means keeping asylum seekers on the islands..”

• EU: Refugees Must Stay On Greek Islands Despite Lesbos Fire (AP)

Authorities on the island of Lesvos called for the immediate evacuation Tuesday of thousands of refugees to the Greek mainland after a fire gutted a detention camp following protests. But EU officials appeared cool to the idea. More than 4,000 people were housed at the camp in Moria on Lesvos where the fire broke out late Monday, destroying or damaging tents and trailers. No injuries were reported at the camp, about 8 kilometers north of the island’s main town. Nine migrants were arrested on public disturbance charges after the chaotic scenes. Families with young children hastily packed up their belongings and fled into the nearby fields as the fire raged after nightfall. Many were later given shelter at volunteer-run camps. “We have been saying for a very long time that overcrowding on the islands must be eased,” regional governor Christiana Kalogirou said.

“On the islands of the northeast Aegean, official facilities have a capacity of 5,450 places, but more than 10,500 people are there. There is an immediate need to take people off the islands because things will get even more difficult,” she said. More than 60,000 migrants and refugees are stranded in transit in Greece, and those who arrived after March 20 have been restricted to five Aegean islands under an EU-brokered deal to deport them back to Turkey. But the agreement has been fraught with delays. In Brussels, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, Natasha Bertaud, said the Greek government had described the situation as being under control. Transfers to the mainland, she said, would remain limited. “To avoid secondary movement to the rest of Europe, that means keeping asylum seekers on the islands for the most part,” Bertaud said.