Most Germans do not compromise on holidays for climate:survey

From Xinhua – Re-Blogged From WUWT

BERLIN, June 18 (Xinhua) — A large majority of Germans said that the current climate debate has no influence on this year’s holiday plans, a survey conducted by the opinion research institute Civey on behalf of Spiegel Online on Tuesday showed.

More than 70 percent of the 5,000 Germans that were part of the sample group for the representative survey stated that the current climate debate had no impact on their holiday plans for 2019.

11.8 percent of Germans surveyed said that they would refrain from travel by air in view of the climate debate this year. About three percent of the respondents said they had abandoned plans for travelling on a cruise ship.

Obama Oil & Coal Regulations About to Go

From The Daily Caller – By Michael Bastasch – Re-Blogged From WUWT

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its plan to repeal and replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.
• EPA replaced the Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, which requires coal plants to become more efficient.
• “ACE is an important step towards realigning EPA actions so they are consistent with the rule of law,” a former EPA official said.

New Urine Test May Show Whether Prostate Cancer Needs Treatment

By HealthDay – Re-Blogged From NewsMax Health

A man who learns he has prostate cancer faces a difficult choice: whether to immediately treat the cancer despite potential side effects or wait and see if it’s a slow-growing tumor that never needs treatment.

Men may soon have help making that decision.

Researchers from the United Kingdom report that they’ve created a urine test that can predict the aggressiveness of a prostate cancer far sooner than standard methods.

The new test is called the prostate urine risk test, or PUR. The researchers said it spots men who are up to eight times less likely to need radical treatment within five years of diagnosis. PUR also offers clues about who might need treatment five years sooner than current tests.

Trey Gowdy Interview & Summary FBI’s Peter Strzok in Fierce Grilling

Re-Blogged From You Tube

CONTINUE READING –>

Top 10 Lightning Strike US Cities

By Heather Schultz – Re-Blogged From Accu-Weather

AccuWeather analyzed the cities with the highest numbers of reported lightning strikes relative to the cities’ population densities.

The cities with the most lightning strikes relative to population density lie primarily in the West and Midwest. Out of cities with populations greater than 100,000, the cities with the highest number of lightning strikes relative to population density lie in the South.

Top ten cities with the highest lightning densities

Rank	City	State
1	Green River	WY
2	Rock Springs	WY
3	Dickinson	ND
4	Pierre	SD
5	North Platte	NE
6	Vernal	UT
7	Huron	SD
8	Spearfish	SD
9	Kirksville	MO
10	Hays	KS

NASA’s Dragonfly Will Fly Around Titan Looking for Origins, Signs of Life

Re-Blogged From NASA – Spaceweather

NASA has announced that our next destination in the solar system is the unique, richly organic world Titan. Advancing our search for the building blocks of life, the Dragonfly mission will fly multiple sorties to sample and examine sites around Saturn’s icy moon.

Dragonfly will launch in 2026 and arrive in 2034. The rotorcraft will fly to dozens of promising locations on Titan looking for prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and Earth. Dragonfly marks the first time NASA will fly a multi-rotor vehicle for science on another planet; it has eight rotors and flies like a large drone. It will take advantage of Titan’s dense atmosphere – four times denser than Earth’s – to become the first vehicle ever to fly its entire science payload to new places for repeatable and targeted access to surface materials.

This illustration shows NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Saturn’s exotic moon, Titan. Taking advantage of Titan’s dense atmosphere and low gravity, Dragonfly will explore dozens of locations across the icy world, sampling and measuring the compositions of Titan’s organic surface materials to characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment and investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry.

Credits: NASA/JHU APL

Safe Haven Demand As Rising Risks

By Mark O’Byrne- Re-– Blogged From Gold Eagle.

Gold surged over $1,436/oz this morning, it’s highest level in almost six years as an escalation of US sanctions on Iran added to heightened geopolitical uncertainty and uncertainty in global markets.

Market participants are also concerned about the G-20 summit this weekend where it is hoped that President Donald Trump and China’s Premier Xi Jinping will meet to discuss the deepening trade war.
Gold has closed above $1400 for first time since 2013 as investors diversify into safe haven gold to hedge the growing global risks including the risk of much looser monetary policies again and of zero percent and negative interest rates.

Pope Francis Demands The World Implement Carbon Pricing

By Eric Worral – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Pope Francis has demanded governments of the world punish the poor with regressive carbon pricing, to prevent an allegedly imminent anthropogenic climate catastrophe.

Pope to oil execs: We don’t ‘have the luxury’ to wait to fight climate change

Inés San MartínJun 14, 2019

ROME – Speaking to oil company executives, Pope Francis on Friday said that climate change “threatens the very future” of humanity, adding that the “doomsday predictions” can no longer be met with disdain.

“Time is running out!” Francis said. “Deliberations must go beyond mere exploration of what can be done, and concentrate on what needs to be done. We do not have the luxury of waiting for others to step forward, or of prioritizing short-term economic benefits.”

“The climate crisis requires our decisive action, here and now and the Church is fully committed to playing her part,” he said.

A Third Look at Radiation Versus Temperature

By KEVIN KILTY – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Introduction

In a post on June 8, 2019, Willis Eschenbach showed an interesting plot of monthly average surface temperature against total irradiance absorbed at the ground surface. He has updated this original post. His original figure is at the top of this post. He made no hypothesis about the meaning of the plot. In the thread which followed no one suggested a reason for the relationship. However, it did lead a number of commenters to suggest that it demonstrated a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ would produce only 0.38^°C to 0.5^°C of surface warming. I am going to provide a tentative explanation for the relationship. My tools will be some simple physics such as Newton‘s law of cooling or the Stefan-Boltzmann law, known to many who post here, and a block model of heat transfer at Earth’s surface.

Divestment Goes Full-Billy Madison

By David Middleton – Re-Blogged From WUWT

This post employs Billy Madison as a euphemism.

Fossil fuel divestment is, by definition, Billy Madisoned. It is a concerted effort hold back or slow down fossil fuel production by cutting off access to capital. Fossil fuel divestment is “a really futile and stupid gesture”. An investment can only be divested if an investor is willing to invest in the divested interest.

Perhaps realizing that fossil fuel divestment is nothing but “a really futile and stupid gesture”, Alicia Seiger, a lecturer at Stanford Law School and an affiliate of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, has determined that divestment is not sufficient…

What Gets Measured Gets Improved

By Keith Weiner – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

Let’s start with Frederic Bastiat’s 170-year old parable of the broken window. A shopkeeper has a broken window. The shopkeeper is, of course, upset at the loss of six francs (0.06oz gold, or about $75). Bastiat discusses a then-popular facile argument: the glass guy is making money (to which all we can say is, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”). Bastiat says it is true, and this is the seen. The glazier does make money.

Then he introduces the concept of the unseen. The shoemaker does not earn the 6 francs he would have earned, had the shopkeeper not had to replace his window. The shopkeeper himself has the same window as before, but he is poorer by 6 francs. The unseen are the consumer, and the other producer. The consumer must consume less, and thus is impoverished. The other producer’s business shrinks in proportion to the gain in the glassmaker’s business.

Al Gore Tells Harvard Students ‘Assault On Science’ Threatens Humanity’s Survival

Michael Bastasch From The Daily Caller – Re-Blogged From WUWT

Former Vice President Al Gore said President Donald Trump’s “assault on science” threatens “the capacity of the human species to endure” on Earth.

Gore issued his warning in a speech to Harvard University students and faculty Wednesday, stressing “reason” and “rational debate,” indeed democracy itself, were under threat from the “ideology of authoritarianism.”

Science “is now being slandered as a conspiracy based on a hoax,” Gore said, likely referring to a 2012 Trump tweet where he called man-made global warming a “Chinese hoax.”

Inherent Unreliable Renewables Dictate GND “100% Renewable Electricity” Mandate Yields Unavoidable GHG Emissions

By Larry Hamlin – Re-Blrogged From WUWT

The Green New Deal (GND) and California’s SB 100 are both draconian and completely unrealistic pipe dreams that politically mandate “100% renewable electricity” for the U.S. and California respectively.

A new 117 page study from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has determined that these politically contrived schemes of “100% renewable energy” are self defeating because of the inherent unreliability of renewables which results in significant GHG emissions occurring from the unavoidable need for backup dispatchable and reliable fossil generation. This backup fossil generation is required to provide grid stability functions including frequency, voltage and synchronization control, daily system load ramping and to prevent power shortages and blackouts.

Dancing Closer to the Exits

By Rick Mills – Re-Blogged From Ahead of the Heard

When Americans elect or re-elect a president in the fall of 2020, there is a very good chance the closest thing to their hearts – their wallets – will be top of mind.

 

That’s because many are predicting the longest-running economic expansion in US history is about to slam on the brakes. It’s been over a decade since The Great Recession of 2007-09 plunged the world into monetary despair. That downturn was particularly bad because it combined an economic slowdown with problems in the financial system, rudely exposed by the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

 

In this article we are asking, what is the best indicator for predicting the next recession? What does the current data say about a recession?

When Will Our Quiet Sun Turn Violent?

By Sarah ScolesMay rom Science Mag – Re-Blogged From WUWT

BOULDER, COLORADO—For all of February the sun is nearly spotless, a smooth circle filled in with a goldenrod crayon. It has been more than a decade since it was so lacking in sunspots—dark magnetic knots as big as Earth that are a barometer of the sun’s temperament. Below the surface, however, a radical transition is afoot. In 5 years or so, the sun will be awash in sunspots and more prone to violent bursts of magnetic activity. Then, about 11 years from now, the solar cycle will conclude: Sunspots will fade away and the sun will again grow quiet.

A violent, active sun, as seen in ultraviolet light in October 2014—near solar maximum in its 11-year solar cycle. As the sun approaches solar minimum, scientists are trying to predict the timing and strength of the next solar maximum.

Thinning forests, prescribed fire before drought reduced tree loss

Re-Blogged From WUWT

Who’d a thunk it, forest management might be a good idea?~ctm

Treatments may reduce loss in future droughts and bark beetle epidemics

University of California – Davis

Thinning forests and conducting prescribed burns may help preserve trees in future droughts and bark beetle epidemics expected under climate change, suggests a study from the University of California, Davis.

Dead and dying trees dot the landscape in the Sierra Nevada during the region’s recent drought. Credit USDA Forest Service

The study, published in the journal Ecological Applications, found that thinning and prescribed fire treatments reduced the number of trees that died during the bark beetle epidemic and drought that killed more than 129 million trees across the Sierra Nevada between 2012-2016.

The Golden ‘Moment Of Truth’ Is Upon Us: $1,400-Plus Or Not?

By Michael Ballanger – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

With gold enjoying its best week of the year, with the Daily Sentiment Index charging northward, with the Relative Strength Index (RSI) pressing 72 for the GLD, with the RSI for GDX pushing 75, and finally, with the newsletter community all falling on top of themselves with self-laudatory backslaps, I think it is time to adopt the contrarian view and step back.

It was less than five weeks ago, with gold and the miners all coming off sharply oversold conditions (RSI in the mid-high 30s), that I wrote that “carpe diem” in reference to ownership of GLD calls and my two favorite leveraged miners, NUGT and JNUG. Sure enough, JNUG has moved from $6.50 to $9.50 and NUGT from $14.50 to $22.10, while the GLD July $120 calls rocketed from $2.20 to $7.60. (Note: I did not get “top tick” for any of them, but did bank yet another decent 40% return on the miners, and a double and a half on the GLD calls).

Can Western Central Banks Continue Capping Gold At $1350?

By Dave Kranzler – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

“Shanghai Gold will change the current gold market with its ‘consumed in the East but priced in the West’ arrangement. When China has the right to speak in the international gold market, the true price of gold will be revealed.” – Xu Luode, Chairman, Shanghai Gold Exchange, 15 May 2014

The price of gold has jumped 5.8% in a little over 3 weeks. This is a big move in a short period of time for any asset. Two factors fueled the move. The first is the expectation that Central Banks globally will revert back to money printing and negative interest rate policies to address a collapsing global economy. The second factor, more technical in nature, pushing gold higher is hedge funds chasing the upward price-momentum in the Comex and LBMA paper gold markets.

Socialism Is Bad for the Environment

By Shawn Regan – Re-Blogged From National Review

And markets are much better

As the Soviet Union began to collapse, the socialist economist Robert Heilbroner admitted that central planning had failed economically but said we needed “to rethink the meaning of socialism.” Now it was the thing that had to emerge if humanity was to cope with “the one transcendent challenge that faces it within a thinkable timespan.” Heilbroner considered this one thing to be “the ecological burden that economic growth is placing on the environment.” Markets may be better at allocating resources, Heilbroner thought, but only socialism could avoid ecological disaster.

A metalworking plant in Chelyabinsk, USSR, 1991 (Peter Turnley/Contributor/Getty Images)

Palm Oil – A Gift or a Curse?

Re-Blogged From WUWT

Oil palm is alternatively seen as a gift from god or a crime against humanity; according to science, it is neither

Norwegian University of Life Sciences

IMAGE: The view of an oil palm plantation in Indonesia. Credit: Douglas Sheil

Oil palm is neither the devil’s work, nor a godsend to humanity. Its effects on its surroundings largely depends on case-specific circumstances. Those who ask to boycott all palm oil due to its contribution to deforestation should also consider boycotting coffee, chocolate and coconut if they wish to be consistent.

Why so many tornadoes this year?

By Dr Roy Spencer – Re-Blogged From Fox News

Dayton, Ohio mayor describes ‘complete devastation’ left by tornadoes

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley speaks out on the damage assessment and the community’s path to recovery on ‘America’s Newsroom.’

Progressive politicians like Al Gore, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.N.Y., don’t hesitate to blame any kind of severe weather – even if it is decreasing over time – on global warming.

With the devastating Dayton, Ohio tornadoes fresh on our minds, it is useful to examine exactly why (modest) global warming has produced fewer – not more – of such events.

The simple answer is that tornado formation requires unusually cool air.

OHIO, INDIANA TORNADOES LEAVE AT LEAST 1 DEAD, SEVERAL HURT AMID DESTRUCTION THAT LOOKS ‘LIKE A WAR ZONE’

Video

Very few thunderstorms produce tornadoes. In the hot and humid tropics, they are virtually unheard of. The reason why is that (unlike hurricanes) tornadoes require strong wind shear, which means wind speed increasing and changing direction with height in the lower atmosphere.

These conditions exist only when a cool air mass collides with a warm air mass. And the perfect conditions for this have existed this year as winter has refused to lose its grip on the western United States. So far for the month of May 2019, the average temperature across the U.S. is close to 2 degrees Fahrenheit below normal.

Video

Every year, springtime thunderstorms in Central and Southeast U.S. have plenty of warm, moist air to draw on from the Gulf of Mexico. What they generally don’t have is a persistent cold air mass producing strong wind shear at the boundary between a warm and cold air mass.

In recent decades, slow warming in the U.S. has been accompanied by fewer of these cold springtime air masses over the West.  As a result, based upon official National Weather Service statistics the long-term trend of strong (EF3) to violent (EF5) tornadoes has been decidedly downward, with 2018 experiencing a record low in activity.

But this year, snows have extended into late May from Northern Michigan through Colorado to the Sierra of California.  As a result of this persistent cold air mass, as of May 27, we are well above normal for total U.S. tornadoes.

This is what weather does – it varies from year to year. The alarmist claims of AOC, Gore, and Sanders are not just speculative; they opposed by our observations and by meteorological theory.

CONTINUE Reading –>

To Survive, Britain’s Conservatives Must ‘Get Rid of the Green Crap’

By James Delingpole – Re-Blogged From Breitbart

Besides the Brexit Party, one of the big winners of the European Parliament elections — in Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK — were the Greens.

There’s a lesson buried in this story — but it’s not what you might think. And it’s definitely, definitely the opposite of the conclusion being drawn by the Conservative Party.

In the Conservative mindset, green issues are one of those politically neutral, morally and socially positive causes you can embrace without betraying your principles or alienating your base.

Jezero Crater, Mars 2020’s Landing Site

By Yvette Smith From NASA – Re-Blogged From WUWT

May 28, 2019

NASA’s Mars 2020 will land in Jezero Crater, pictured here. The image was taken by instruments on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which regularly takes images of potential landing sites for future missions.

On ancient Mars, water carved channels and transported sediments to form fans and deltas within lake basins. Examination of spectral data acquired from orbit show that some of these sediments have minerals that indicate chemical alteration by water. Here in Jezero Crater delta, sediments contain clays and carbonates.

Will The US Economy Fall Into Recession? Or Will It Accelerate?

By Arkadiusz Sieroń – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

The current economic expansion has just equaled with the longest boom in the US history. Is that not suspicious? We invite you to read our today’s article, which provide you with the valuable lessons from the 1990s expansion for the gold market and find out whether the US economy will die of old age.

Lessons from the 1990s Expansion for the Economy and the Gold Market

The current economic expansion has just equaled with the longest boom in the US history. Unless the sky falls in the next few weeks, we will celebrate a new record in July. Is that not suspicious?

For Those Who Don’t Understand Inflation

By Alasdair Macleod– Re-Blogged From GoldMoney

This article is a wake-up call for those who do not understand the true purpose of monetary inflation, and do not realise they are the suckers being robbed by monetary policy. With the world facing a deepening recession, monetary inflation will accelerate again. It is time for everyone to recognise the consequences.

Introduction

All this year I have been warning in a series of Goldmoney Insight articles that the turn of the credit cycle and the rise of American protectionism was the same combination that led to the Wall Street crash in 1929-32 and the depression that both accompanied and followed it. Those who follow statistics are now seeing the depressing evidence that history is rhyming, though they have yet to connect the dots. Understandably, their own experience is more relevant to them than the empirical evidence in history books.

WHY ARE NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS GOING CRAZY?

By Dr Tony Philips – Re-Blogged From Space Weather

Another night, another bright display of noctilucent clouds. “On the evening of June 17th, a large area of our sky was covered by noctilucent clouds, even directly overhead,” reports Marek Nikodem of Szubin, Poland. “Simply mysterious, beautiful, stunning, unpredictable and photogenic–this season is unbelievable.”

Noctilucent clouds over Szubin, Poland, on June 17. Credit: Marek Nikodem

Heiko Ulbricht witnessed the same display from Herzogswalde, Germany. “I have been observing noctilucent clouds for 21 years. Never before have I seen such a stunning mega-outburst! The electric-blue waves extended 50° above the horizon with many rippling structures. I was speechless.”

The Polar Ice Melt Myth

By CFACT: – Re-Blogged From WUWT

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (nsidc.org), ice currently covers 6 million square miles, or one tenth the Land area on Earth, about the area of South America. Floating ice, or Sea Ice, alternately called Pack Ice at the North and South Poles covers 6% of the ocean’s surface (nsidc.org), an area similar to North America. The most important measure of ice is its thickness. The United States Geologic Survey estimates the total ice on Earth weighs 28 million Gigatons(a billion tons). Antarctica and Greenland combined represent 99% of all ice on Earth. The remaining one per cent is in glaciers, ice sheets and sea ice. Antarctica can exceed 3 miles in thickness and Greenland one mile. If they were to melt sea level would indeed rise over 200 feet, but not even the most radical alarmists suggest that possibility arising due to the use of fossil fuels. However the ice that flows off of the Antarctic and Greenland called shelf ice represents only half a percent of all the Earth’s ice and which if melted would raise sea level only 14 inches, (nsidc.com).

Advance in Slowing Prostate Cancer Made in Clinical Trials

By Health Day – Re-Blogged From Newsmax Health

Cutting-edge prostate cancer drugs that help extend life in the toughest cases might also be useful in fighting less aggressive tumors, two new clinical trials suggest.

Two drugs that interfere with cancer’s ability to use testosterone for fuel, apalutamide (Erleada) and enzalutamide (Xtandi), are already approved for use against more advanced prostate tumors that do not respond to regular therapy.

But these trials show the drugs also can improve survival and slow progression in prostate cancers that do respond to regular therapy, which typically involves medication that halts production of testosterone.

Baoshang Bank Could Be China’s Indybank

By Michael Pento – Re-Blogged From Silver Phoenix

For the first time in nearly 30 years the Chinese central bank and the Banking Regulatory Commission announced it would take control of one of its banks. The troubled Mongolia-based Baoshang Bank had assets of 576 billion yuan ($84 billion) and its seizure is indicative of the deteriorating health of small-scale banks, mostly in rural areas and in smaller cities, as China’s economy slows.

The turmoil surrounding its conservatorship has led interbank lending rates to spike, forcing the Bank of China to inject billions of yuan to quell the fear of systemic contagion. For years China’s regional banks have used shadow-financing to obfuscate their exposure to precarious borrowers. While China has made an effort to rein in shadow-banking activity, this is the first time in decades that regulators have assumed control of a bank in this way. In 2015 and 2016, they recapitalized lenders and merged stronger banks with weaker ones, but these restructuring efforts were disorganized, inadequate, and didn’t address the main issue at hand…insolvency.

Frothy Bubbles Make Me Whine

By David Haggith – Re-Blogged From Great Recession Blog 

These are not the tiny champagne bubbles Don Ho used to sing about, but those greenish-gray floats of foam that pile up against harbor docks where the churn of the waves meets the oil spittle of boat motors. They are the economic froth that has piled up around us and is now beginning to fizzle.

They are the bubbles of overbuilt retail space, heaps of junk bonds and layers of leveraged loans, rafts of student loans, bloated government spending. They’re the slop that formed from massive monetary expansion frothed up out of less than nothing — out of debt.

You’ve heard about all of them many times, but my concern in this article is that we are starting to hear tiny popping sounds, which leads me to the following scenario as a plausible path into recession this summer: (Not the only possible route, but one littered with likelihoods.)

Why Germany’s Green Party Is So Strong: A Wake-Up Call

By Rainer Zitelmann & Tichys Einblick – Re-B;ogged From GWPF

The Greens have long been defining the cultural and political agenda in Germany. The more the other parties have been currying favour with them, the stronger the Green Party has become: voters now choose the original, not the imitators.

“On many issues today, the Greens are setting the direction, then the SPD follows and finally the Christian Democrats follow, lagging behind with a clear delaying effect … The Green Party’s impact goes far beyond their involvement at state government level and their successes documented in elections. More importantly, the Green Party succeeds time and time again in determining the political agenda and assuming opinion leadership in public debate. This can only happen, however, because they have an above-average number of sympathizers in the media and because the ranks of their natural challengers, i.e. the Christian Democrats (CDU), have softened and leading CDU politicians have adopted key positions of the Greens.”

China Gets UK Aid to Boost Fracking

BRITAIN has given thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ cash to help fracking in China, it has been revealed – to the anger of cross-party MPs. Foreign Office minister Mark Field has admitted since 2016 the department spent £87,000 on projects to improve the “environmental regulation of shale gas development in China”.

By David Williamson – Re-Blogged From WUWT

PUBLISHED: 07:45, Sun, May 26, 2019 | UPDATED: 07:56, Sun, May 26, 2019

The Tories are spending UK aid to support fracking in China (Image: GETTY)

The move has been condemned by politicians, who expressed astonishment that Britain was boosting the economic superpower’s energy sector.

Fracking, which involves breaking open rock layers to release underground gas, has transformed the global energy market but is a source of fierce controversy in the UK.

James Roberts at TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “When it comes to our aid cash, China is big enough to look after itself.

“And at a time when we are crippling our own energy market with rules and regulations, it beggars belief we’re giving the Chinese a leg-up in the shale sector with our foreign aid.”

A senior Conservative source also voiced concern: “The aid budget tops £14billion a year and ministers have lost all financial discipline and control as to where taxpayers’ cash is going.

“To be giving money to China at a time when they threaten our national security is unacceptable.”

Alex Norris, shadow minister for international development, accused the Government of hypocrisy.

He said: “The Tories are hypocritically spending UK aid to support fracking in China, while also announcing the climate crisis will be a top priority of their international development agenda.

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What A US Rate Cut Could Mean For Gold Prices

By Frank Holmes – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

Stocks surged last Friday following a U.S. jobs report that, to put it mildly, fell far below expectations.  At first this might seem counterintuitive. Shouldn’t signs of a slowing economy act as a wet blanket on Wall Street?

Not necessarily. Investors, it’s believed, are responding to the expectation that the Federal Reserve will have no other choice than to lower interest rates this year in an attempt to keep the economic expansion going. Earlier this month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself commented that he was prepared to act “as appropriate” should the global trade war risk further harm. President Donald Trump has also renewed his attacks on Fed policy, calling last December’s rate hike a “big mistake.”

So a rate cut looks more and more likely in 2019, perhaps as soon as this summer. And investors rejoice.

Socialism 2020?

By Stefan Gleason – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

The 2020 presidential election is already shaping up to be one of the most bitterly contested in history. The outcome could have enormous ramifications for all asset markets, including precious metals.

In the meantime, a lot can happen before November 2020 – especially with the Federal Reserve apparently set to turn dovish and cut interest rates this summer.

Some historical research into presidential election cycles suggests that the stock market tends to perform well heading into an election year. The incumbent administration tends to focus on padding economic statistics.

And during election years, Fed officials (who swear up and down they aren’t motivated by politics) tend to avoid making policy moves (such as rate hikes) that could make them vulnerable to political attacks.

India Reacts To Depressed Silver Prices

By Ted Butler – re-Blogged From Silver Phoenix

Several recent articles have highlighted a surge of silver imports to India, prompting me to take a closer look. India has always been a big buyer of silver and gold, befitting the traditions and culture of the country with the world’s second largest population. The population of India, more than 1.3 billion citizens, is now only about 50 million less than that of China. Combined, both countries make up 35% of the total world population (7.7 billion) and have always been large buyers and holders of gold and silver. Together, India and China absorb close to 50% of total world gold and silver mine production.

One big difference between India and China is that the gold and silver buying in India is largely a grassroots phenomenon, emanating from the general population due to deep-rooted customs and traditions; where the buying from China is predominantly from official sources (similar to the gold buying by Russia). To me, this makes the gold and silver buying from India more “free market” and price-sensitive in nature because the more participants in any market, the freer the market is by definition. The many tens and even hundreds of millions of gold and silver buyers from India make the markets there the freest of all.

Trump Blames Iran for Tanker Attacks

By Reuters – Re-Blogged From IJR

U.S. President Donald Trump blamed Iran on Friday for attacks on two oil tankers at the entrance to the Gulf despite Tehran’s denials, raising fears of a confrontation in the vital oil shipping route.

Iran has dismissed earlier U.S. charges that it was behind Thursday’s attacks that crippled two tankers. It has previously suggested it could block the Strait of Hormuz, the main route out for Middle Eastern oil, if its own exports were halted.

The blasts followed similar attacks a month earlier on four tankers, which Washington also blamed on Tehran.

They come at a time of escalating tension between the two countries. Last month the United States sharply tightened economic sanctions against Iran, which in response has threatened to step up its nuclear activity.

Navy/Handout via Reuters

Breaking China Not as Easy as Toppling Tijuana

By David Haggith – Re-Blogged From Great Rcession Blog

A bump from Donald Trump’s thump on Mexico’s head is causing the US stock market to swell this week. Trump tariffied the market last week because his new threat against all things Mexican seemed to say Trump might use tariffs as leverage to get anything he wants. Agent Orange apparently got what he wanted — though it remains unclear whether he got anything that wasn’t already in the offing, but he says he did — so the market’s knock on the head is healing this week.

All par for the course in a market that is smoking rope anyway. Soon enough, however, we return to the market thinking it is all about China, and China is an entirely different syndrome than a Mexican border problem that Mexico was already helping with. It’s also a different tariff war than one in which tariffs have already been implemented, negotiated and removed months ago.

Red Pill Realities

By GE Christenson – Re-Blogged From Deviant Investor

We can face reality by swallowing the “red pill” (from the movie “The Matrix). This choice is uncomfortable because it opposes the propaganda from mainstream media, government statisticians, and Wall Street cheerleaders.

The “red pill” road is difficult and sometimes lonely. Gold is a “red pill” choice.

The “blue pill” path is easier and reassuring. Other “blue pill” advocates will applaud your choices. The herd approves this delusional path. Think debt-based fiat currencies.

The “blue pill” is best swallowed with a healthy slug of whisky, anti-depressant drugs, a few hits from now-legal “weed,” and platitudes from the evening news.

Environmentalism: Evidence Suggests it Was Always and Only About Achieving World Government

By Dr. Tim Ball – Re-Blogged From WUWT

It is common sense to protect our environment, but what has occurred for 50 years is exploitation of that idea for a socialist agenda. We wasted 50 years believing that humans are not natural, and everything they do is destructive. We wasted and continue to waste trillions of dollars on unnecessary policies and useless technologies, all based on false assumptions, pseudoscience, and emotional bullying.

We now know 50 years later that every single prediction concerning the environmental demise of the Earth and the people made in the original Earth Day Report was wrong. We also know that every additional claim, such as overpopulation, global warming, sea level rise, desertification, deforestation, and sea ice collapse, among many others, were wrong. I challenge anyone to produce empirical evidence that proves anything happening today is outside any long-term record of natural activity.

Irredeemable Currency Is A Roach Motel

By Keith Weiner  – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

In what has become a four-part series, we are looking at the monetary science of China’s potential strategy to nuke the Treasury bond market. In Part I, we gave a list of reasons why selling dollars would hurt China. In Part II we showed that interest rates, being that the dollar is irredeemable, are not subject to bond vigilantes. In Part III, we took on the Quantity Theory of Money head-on, and showed the counterintuitive property that, the more dollars are out there, the greater the demand.

Now in this essay, we will tie this all together.

You could say it in one sentence: the regime of irredeemable currency has unintended consequences. We often say that we do not prefer the term “unintended consequences” because it puts the emphasis on the alleged intentions of those who perpetrated it. As we discussed in another recent article, John Maynard Keynes’ intentions really were evil.

Who Does the Media Most Want to Silence?

By Heather Higgins – Re-Blogged From Prager University

In the mainstream media, women on the left are almost always portrayed as paragons of compassion and virtue. But when it comes to conservative women, it’s a different story. Why is this?  Heather Higgins, chairman of Independent Women’s Forum and CEO of Independent Women’s Voice, explains the reasons behind the double standard.

Please Watch the Video.

 

Perfect Storm Brewing For Price Inflation

By Clint Siegner – Re-Blogged From Silver Phoenix

A “perfect storm” is brewing for midwestern farmers. Unending rains have led to the flooding of tens of millions of acres of farmland. The deluge comes on the heels of years of low crop prices.

It has the makings of an agriculture disaster on a scale never seen before.

The nation may see a “perfect storm” in terms of food inflation. Prices for some farm commodities figure to be a lot higher in the months ahead as markets adjust to dramatically lower crop yields. This will be coupled with price hikes associated with tariffs on all manner of goods from China and elsewhere.

To top it off, the Fed is signaling a reversal. The next move in interest rates now figures to be lower.

NASA is Going Green, in Space

By NASA  – Re-Blogged From WUWT

A small spacecraft the size of a mini-refrigerator is packed with cutting-edge “green” technology. NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission, or GPIM, will prove a sustainable and efficient approach to spaceflight. The mission will test a low toxicity propellant and compatible systems in space for the first time.  This technology could improve the performance of future missions by providing for longer mission durations using less propellant.

In this photo, a Ball Aerospace engineer performs final checks before the spacecraft shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch processing. GPIM is one of four unique NASA technology missions aboard the June 2019 SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch of the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s Space Test Program-2 (STP-2).

Credits: Ball Aerospace

CONTINUE READING –>

Fed Running Out Of Time And Conventional Weapons

By Michael Pento -Re-Blogged From PentoPort

The buy and hold mantra from Wall Street Carnival Barkers should have died decades ago. After all, just buying stocks has gotten you absolutely crushed in China for more than a decade. And in Japan, you have been buried under an avalanche of losses for the last three decades. And even in the good old USA, you wouldn’t want to just own stocks if the economy was about to enter another deflationary recession/depression like 2008. Likewise, you wouldn’t want to own any bonds at all in a high-inflation environment as we had during the ’70s.

The truth is that the mainstream financial media is, for the most part, clueless and our Fed is blatantly feckless.

The Fed has gone from claiming in late 2018 that it would hike rates another four times, to now saying that it is open to actually start cutting rates very soon.

My friend John Rubino who runs the show at DollarCollapse.com recently noted: “bad debts are everywhere, from emerging market dollar-denominated bonds to Italian sovereign debt, Chinese shadow banks, US subprime auto loans, and US student loans. All are teetering on the edge.” I would add that the banking system of Europe is insolvent—look no further than Deutsche Bank with its massive derivatives book, which is the 15^th largest bank in the world and 4^th biggest in Europe. Its stock was trading at $150 pre-crisis, but it has now crashed to a record low $6.90 today. If this bank fails, look for it to take down multiple banks around the globe.

Forget Velocity Of Money Circulation

By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

If there is one concept that illustrates the difference between a top-down macro-economic approach and the reality of everyday life it is the velocity of circulation of money. Compare the following statements:

“The collapse in velocity is testament to the substantial misallocation of capital brought about by the easy money regimes of the past 20 years.” Broker’s research note; and

“The mathematical economists refuse to start from the various individuals’ demand for and supply of money. They introduce instead the spurious notion of velocity of circulation according to the pattern of mechanics.” Ludwig von Mises, Human Action.

Exposing the Mass Extinction Lie

By Gregory Wrightstone via Fabius Maximus – Re-Blogged From WUWT

One million species will become extinct in the not-too-distant future and we are to blame. That is the conclusion of a new study by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) was issued on May 6th {the full report will be issued “later this year} and warns that “human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before” and that “around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss.”

It also asserted that we have seen increasing dangers over the last several decades, stating “the threat of extinction is also accelerating: in the best-studied taxonomic groups, most of the total extinction risk to species is estimated to have arisen in the past 40 years.” The global rate of species extinction claimed “is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years.”

Global Manufacturers Just Shrank For The First Time in 7 Years

By Frank Holmes – Re-Blogged From Silver Phoenix    

Perhaps surprising no one, global manufacturers are now in contraction mode for the first time since 2012. That’s according to the most recent reading of the sector’s health, the purchasing manager’s index (PMI), which headed lower for a record 13th straight month in May. The PMI posted 49.8, down from 50.4 a month earlier. As a reminder, anything above 50.0 indicates expansion; anything below, contraction.

Less than half of world economies’ manufacturing sectors are expanding right now, “the worst showing since the throes of the euro area sovereign debt crisis in 2012,” according to analysis by Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research (RenMac).

Truth, Lies And Inflation

By GE Christenson – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

Christopher Whalen wrote “Trump is Right to Blow Up the Fed.” He stated:

“Anybody who cares to read the 1978 Humphrey Hawkins law will know that the Fed is directed by Congress to seek full employment and then zero inflation. Not 2 percent, but zero. Yet going back a decade or more, the Fed, led by luminaries such as Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, has advanced a policy of actively embracing inflation.”

From the Federal Reserve’s web site:

“The Congress established the statutory objectives for monetary policy—maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates—in the Federal Reserve Act.”

New US Sanctions Spark Blowback Against Federal Reserve Note Dollar System

By Clint Siegner – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

US leaders are demanding the rest of the world recognize economic sanctions and stop buying Iranian oil. The U.K., Germany, France, Russia, China, and India are among the nations who don’t fully support the sanctions and would rather not pay higher prices for oil elsewhere.

American officials more and more often resort to delivering ultimatums, both to adversaries and allies alike. Nations that do not follow orders stand to lose access to the US financial system and could face trade sanctions of their own. That is a serious threat.

The huge majority of international trading is underpinned by US. banks and the dollar. Other currencies and banking systems cannot offer the same level of liquidity and convenience.

Mexico to Limit Migrants Crossing Border

By Thomson Reuters – Re-Blogged From Newsmax

Mexican and U.S. officials held a second day of talks on trade and migration on Thursday, with markets rebounding on optimism a deal could be close, although it was unclear if Mexican pledges to curb migration flows were enough to persuade the Trump administration to postpone tariffs.

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that tariffs of 5% on all Mexican exports to the United States will go into effect on Monday if Mexico does not step up efforts to stem an increase in mostly Central American migrants heading for the U.S. border.

Bilateral talks in Washington began on Wednesday to attempt to strike a deal, with the Mexican government, U.S. business groups and even many of Trump’s fellow Republicans keen to avert the tariffs, the prospect of which has rattled global financial markets.