Sep 07

Today’s News 7th September 2022

  • Visualizing The World's Flight-Paths And Airports
    Visualizing The World’s Flight-Paths And Airports

    There are up to 8,755 commercial flights in the air at any given time of day. These flights transport thousands of people (and millions of dollars worth of goods) around the world.

    But where are these people and goods headed? This map from Adam Symington uses historical data from OpenFlights to visualize the world’s flight paths.

    As Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang details below, the graphic shows a comprehensive data set encompassing 67,663 different routes that connect 10,000 different airports across the globe.

    A Note On the Data

    The map uses an OpenFlights database provided by the third-party source that hasn’t been updated since June 2014.

    Because of this, the data used for the graphic is of historical value only. However, this detailed map sparked our curiosity and got us wondering—what are some of the busiest aviation hubs around the world right now?

    We did some digging, and here’s what we found.

    Busiest Airports by Passengers

    There are several ways to gauge an airport’s popularity. One way is to measure total passenger traffic throughout the year.

    According to Airports Council International (ACI), eight of the top 10 busiest airports for passenger traffic in 2021 were in America. Here’s a look at the top 10 list, as of April 11, 2022:

     

    In 2021, the airport with the most passenger traffic was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. It accommodated more than 75 million passengers last year—a 76.4% increase compared to 2020 figures.

     

    Hartsfield-Jackson is well-known for being one of the busiest airports in the world. One reason for this is its convenient location—according to the airport’s official website, Atlanta is within a two-hour flight from 80% of the U.S. population.

    Dallas/Forth Worth (DFW) came in second place, seeing 62.5 million passengers throughout 2021. DFW was one of the only airports to boost its service offerings throughout the pandemic, and is also the main hub for American Airlines, the world’s largest airline by fleet size.

    Busiest Airports by Cargo

    While the U.S. dominates the ranking when it comes to passenger traffic, the list is much more diverse when looking at air cargo volumes. Here’s a look at the ranking, based on loaded and unloaded freight and mail (including transit freight):

     

    Hong Kong (HKG) takes the top spot since the airport processed more than 5.0 million metric tonnes of freight and mail throughout 2021.

     

    Hong Kong has been known as one of the busiest air cargo hubs for over a decade and is able to maintain this reputation because of its strategic location, impressive infrastructure, efficient customs, and business-friendly trade regulations.

    The COVID-19 Impact on Aviation

    The global pandemic hit the aviation industry hard. At its lowest point, international travel was down 98% from normal levels.

    While the aviation industry is starting to recover from its COVID-induced slump, things still haven’t fully bounced back yet, especially in places like Shanghai, where lockdowns are still being mandated.

    But experts remain hopeful for the future. According to ACI World’s General Director Luis Felipe de Oliveira, last year’s recovery was just the beginning.

    “With many countries taking steps towards the return of a certain normality, lifting almost all the health measures and travel restrictions as supported by science, we welcome the continuation of air travel demand’s recovery in 2022.”

    -LUIS FELIPE DE OLIVEIRA, ACI WORLD’S DIRECTOR GENERAL

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 23:20

  • US, China Reportedly Want Same Moon-Landing Sites: "Could Be The First Potential Point Of Conflict Over Resources Beyond Earth"
    US, China Reportedly Want Same Moon-Landing Sites: “Could Be The First Potential Point Of Conflict Over Resources Beyond Earth”

    Authored by Katie Hutton via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    The United States and China are preparing for an embarrassing showdown in the event that both countries decide to land their respective lunar rockets on identical locations near the Moon’s south pole, which, according to the present plans, may very well transpire.

    According to SpaceNews, both NASA and China’s space agency have discovered various landing locations that are comparable to one another for their respective lunar missions. These landing sites include the Shackleton, Haworth, and Nobile craters, which are situated close to the lunar south pole.

    According to SpaceNews, both organizations may have selected these locations because of their elevated heights, favorable lighting conditions, and closeness to shadowy craters that have the potential to store lunar water ice. These factors may have contributed to their decision.

    Futurism notes that it is currently unknown how the United States and China intend to deal with the possibility of a landing site overlap during their respective moon missions, which are scheduled to take off in the years 2025 and 2024, respectively.

    The fact that more and more nations are considering sending astronauts to the Moon has created a brand-new problem for scientists to solve.

    According to SpaceNews, the United States is in a difficult circumstance when it comes to space agreements with China as a result of a budget resolution insert defined as the “Wolf Amendment.”

    The “Wolf Amendment” is a stipulation that was introduced in 2011 by then-representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) and severely restricts NASA’s ability to work with China in any capacity. The unwillingness of countries to play nice when it comes to space is undoubtedly going to cause many issues going forward in the Space realm. And some fear that this will usher in further Space militarization.

    Despite the efforts of past presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to participate in space negotiations with China, the conversations ultimately did not get very far. According to the findings of the report, the administration of President Joe Biden does not now have any apparent intentions to re-engage in the discussions.

    Although the two nations’ options for landing locations on the moon aren’t exactly shocking, they might be a historic first nevertheless. And we should expect to see more instances like this in the future as tensions rise and humans continually venture into space.

    “It is not hard to see why they both want the same spots,” space and law policy professor Christopher Newman told SpaceNews. “It is prime lunar real estate for in-situ resource utilization.”

    “This could be the first potential point of conflict over resources beyond Earth,” he added.

    Newman stated that in addition, on the basis of the fact that both sides had signed the Outer Space Treaty, they should, in principle, “accept the use of celestial bodies for peaceful purposes.”

    “It will be interesting to see what happens,” Newman tells SpaceNews, adding that “a lot will depend on who gets there first.”

    Folks, it looks like we could have a good old fashioned show down.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 23:00

  • Pentagon Makes "Unusual" Announcement Ahead Of ICBM Launch
    Pentagon Makes “Unusual” Announcement Ahead Of ICBM Launch

    “There will be an operational test launch of an Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile early tomorrow morning, Sept. 7, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California,” Pentagon spokesman Brigadier-General Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday. 

    Ryder said the ICBM test would be “routine,” adding Russia was notified per treaty obligations about Wednesday’s test. But as AP noted:

    “The announcement ahead of the launch was unusual; the Pentagon has not confirmed recent tests until after they take place.” 

    He said the objective of the test “is to demonstrate the readiness of US nuclear forces and provide confidence in the security and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear deterrent.” 

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    The test comes weeks after a Minutemen III ICBM launch on Aug. 16 was postponed twice before to avoid any misunderstandings between Russia and China.

    Nuclear tensions between the US and Russia have only accelerated in the last six months because of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war. NATO countries’ fierce hybrid fight against Russian forces by supplying Ukraine’s military with weapons puts the world on a dangerous path to expanded conflict. 

    Then Sino-US tensions reached levels not seen in decades last month when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei angered Beijing, who then launched a war drill around the self-ruled island it claims as its own. 

    Western globalist elites are hellbent on destabilization to contain the emergence of a multipolar world. 

    Perhaps the Pentagon now feels a pre-launch ICBM press conference is needed to project military dominance (or what’s left of it) to countries that challenge its unipolar world as a way to preserve its hegemony. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 22:40

  • What Is America's Goal For The Ukraine War? Answer: We Don't Have One
    What Is America’s Goal For The Ukraine War? Answer: We Don’t Have One

    Authored by Daniel Davis via 19fortyfive.com,

    Does America Have a Goal or Strategy for Ukraine? 

    On Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced the G7 had agreed to impose a price cap regime on Russian oil. As with most other actions by the U.S. and Europe related to Russia’s unjust war against Ukraine, the announcement of the cap was big on rhetorical flourish, but thread-bare on any evidence of a coherent strategic objective.

    (19FortyFive Contributing Editor Daniel L. Davis, author of this article, analyzes the situation in Ukraine on Fox News above.)

    The intent of the cap is to set a global price just above Russia’s marginal cost so that Moscow won’t make a profit on the sale of oil but high enough that Russia won’t stop producing altogether. Current global demand can’t be met without the nearly nine million barrels of oil per day provided by Russia, and if Putin were to stop producing suddenly, the resulting supply shock could send the price of oil into the stratosphere.

    The purpose of the cap, Yellen claimed, would be to “deliver a major blow for Russian finances and will both hinder Russia’s ability to fight its unprovoked war in Ukraine and hasten the deterioration of the Russian economy.” It remains to be seen if the G7 can make good on its aspiration and actually develop and implement a worldwide price cap scheme. But along with other actions sponsored or endorsed by the United States government, it is far from certain what end state Washington hopes to obtain.

    On February 7, about three weeks before Putin ordered the Russian military to invade its smaller neighbor, President Biden threatened to “impose the most severe sanctions that have ever been imposed” should Russia invade. Four days later, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan explained that President Biden “believes that sanctions are intended to deter.  And in order for them to work — to deter, they have to be set up in a way where if Putin moves, then the costs are imposed.”

    Yet after the threats of sanctions failed to deter Putin, Biden adjusted the rationale when he claimed that in fact “no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.” Instead, he continued, the sanctions were designed to show Western “resolve,” which, over time, “will impose significant costs on him (Putin).” Even with this new claim on his justification for sanctions, there was no explanation for what these “significant costs” were designed to accomplish. The Administration’s lack of focus didn’t stop there, unfortunately.

    In late April, Secretaries of Defense and State, Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken, traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to explore ways the U.S. could help Ukraine’s military. Following their meeting, Austin said the United States wanted to see Ukraine remain a “sovereign country,” and that the U.S. wants “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” It’s what Austin, Blinken, and Biden have not said, however, that illustrates a continuing problem with American foreign policy.

    HIMARS Attack. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

    To date, none of America’s top leaders have said how our support for Kyiv is expected to achieve the outcomes sought. No one has articulated what a “weakened” Russia looks like or how we’ll know when that standard has been reached – or even why weakening Russia is a vital interest to the U.S. that is worth taking huge risks. These are not just academic or hair-splitting questions. They are foundational. Here’s why:

    Since even before the war began, the United States has had no vision for the end state it wishes to produce. For example, if Biden’s objective prior to 24 February genuinely was to deter Russia from launching a war, it should have been clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a threat of sanctions alone would not have been sufficient to convince Putin not to invade.

    Washington would have had to be aggressively engaged diplomatically with both Kyiv and Moscow to use the full heft of U.S. power to find a route to prevent war. There is no evidence the U.S. put any serious diplomatic effort towards averting war. Without a clearly articulated objective, there was nothing to guide the various departments of the Administration on how to achieve the desired outcome. The result was predictable: policy failure.

    Virtually the only objective voiced by any member of Biden’s national security team since the war began has been Austin’s aforementioned desire to see Russia “weakened.” Yet if the White House doesn’t know what a weakened Russia looks like, how will it ever know if its actions are contributing towards a successful outcome beneficial to America? That’s where we are right now.

    We send multiple rounds of multi-billion-dollar support to Ukraine, including some modern and some antiquated gear, but it is not a coherent set of military kit tied to enabling a specific capacity in the Ukraine Armed Forces. The White House leads multiple tranches of sanctions against Russia, but there is no declared purpose as to what they are intended to produce.

    RGW-90 rocket launcher in Ukraine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

    Since we don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish, no one can tell the American people how much the effort is going to cost, how long it’s going to last, or even what success would look like. If this sounds familiar, it should: it is basically the same aimless, incompetent foreign policy the United States has been pursuing for decades.

    • We fought a generational war in Afghanistan that never bothered to set an objective; no one in power even articulated what success would look like, and thus no victory of any sort was ever achieved;

    • We started a war in Iraq beginning in 2003 that quasi-ended in 2011, only to return again in 2014 – without any president bothering to set an attainable military objective or even articulating what the Force was there to accomplish so the American people could know when the operation could successfully end – and it continues without success or end to this day.

    • We have had the same malady in our actions in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Niger, and many other locations in Africa: the government has not identified any attainable military objectives whose accomplishment would benefit our country and signal the end of the mission – and thus none have benefitted the U.S. and most still drone unsuccessfully on.

    The cost to the United States for all these failures has been profound – and now we’re creating a new mission without a clear objective and no identifiable end state. The Russia-Ukraine war just passed the six-month mark. The danger isn’t as much that we might still be trying to divine the Administration’s objectives six years from now – though that sad outcome is entirely possible – but that this war could one day spill over Ukraine’s borders and get us sucked into a war we should never have fought and from which we could never benefit.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 22:20

  • The Periodic Table Of Endangered Elements
    The Periodic Table Of Endangered Elements

    The building blocks for everything on Earth are made from 90 different naturally occurring elements.

    As Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang and David Cole-Hailton shows in the graphic below, made by the European Chemical Society (EuChemS), of these 90 different elements, which ones are in abundance and which ones are in serious threat as of 2021.

    On the graphic, the area of each element relates to its number of atoms on a logarithmic scale. The color-coding shows whether there’s enough of each element, or whether the element is becoming scarce, based on current consumption levels.

    While these elements don’t technically run out and instead transform (except for helium, which rises and escapes from Earth’s atmosphere), some are being used up exceptionally fast, to the point where they may soon become extremely scarce.

    One element worth pointing out on the graphic is carbon, which is three different colors: green, red, and dark gray.

    • Green, because carbon is in abundance (to a fault) in the form of carbon dioxide

    • Red, because it will soon cause a number of cataphoric problems if consumption habits don’t change

    • Gray because carbon-based fuels often come from conflict countries

    For more elements-related content, check out our channel dedicated to raw materials and the megatrends that drive them, VC Elements.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 22:00

  • FBI Ignored 'Eyewitness Testimony' Of Joe Biden’s Involvement In Son’s China Deal: Senator
    FBI Ignored ‘Eyewitness Testimony’ Of Joe Biden’s Involvement In Son’s China Deal: Senator

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) said that the FBI ignored eyewitness testimony regarding President Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s dealings with a Chinese conglomerate about a month before the 2020 election.

    President Joe Biden (L) waves alongside his son Hunter Biden after attending mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Johns Island, S.C., on Aug. 13, 2022. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

    The former Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman told the New York Post that “suppression and censoring of his testimony and Hunter’s influence peddling impacted the 2020 election” far worse than anything China or Russia could have achieved.

    About a month before the November 2020 election, a former associate of Hunter Biden, Tony Bobulinksi, told media outlets that Joe Biden was involved with his son’s and brother Jim Biden’s dealings with CEFC, a Chinese Communist Party-linked energy conglomerate. Bobulinksi confirmed the authenticity of emails sourced from the younger Biden’s laptop hard drive that referred to Joe Biden as “the big guy” due to a 10 percent cut in the new corporate organization.

    “Unfortunately, Tony Bobulinski’s first-hand eyewitness testimony regarding President Biden’s knowledge of Hunter Biden’s compromising web of foreign financial entanglements, especially with the Chinese, was not only ignored by the media, but also by the FBI,” Johnson said this week, referring to the 2020 claims.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the FBI for comment.

    Senate Report

    Johnson along with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has long investigated Hunter Biden, published a lengthy report on the Bidens’ business dealings in September 2020 (pdf), which raised questions about the younger Biden’s reportedly lucrative position at Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings while his father was vice president and took a leading role in handling the Obama administration’s relations with Ukraine.

    The senator’s comment came in response to reports alleging that former FBI special agent Timothy Thibault, who departed the bureau last month, hid intelligence that was provided by Bobulinski.

    Thibault was named several times by Grassley and Johnson in letters to the FBI and claimed the former agent displayed an animus toward former President Donald Trump. Whistleblowers from within the bureau told Grassley that the FBI had obtained information in 2020 about “criminal financial and related activity” on behalf of Hunter Biden, according to one of the senator’s letters (pdf), dated July 25, which was then allegedly suppressed by Thibault.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 21:40

  • Mike Wilson Sees Stocks Tumbling To 3,400 In 3 Months, Slashes S&P EPS Forecasts As "Fire & Ice" Shifts Into High Gear
    Mike Wilson Sees Stocks Tumbling To 3,400 In 3 Months, Slashes S&P EPS Forecasts As “Fire & Ice” Shifts Into High Gear

    Over the weekend, in Morgan Stanley’s Sunday Start note, the bank’s in-house permabear Mike Wilson, previewed the topic of his weekly fire and brimstone sermon, which ironically was fire and ice, part 2, and his justification for why stocks are going far lower: his view that “this this time the decline in stocks will come mostly via lower earnings (and a higher equity risk premium) rather than higher rates” adding that the bank’s leading earnings models are all flashing red for the S&P 500, “and we have high confidence that the decline in NTM S&P 500 EPS forecasts is far from over.”

    Well, judging by today’s aggressive ERP expansion which saw all asset slump, Wilson was right again (and as usual miles ahead of the consensus). But just so Wall Street is up to speed with his latest worldview, Wilson spends much of his latest weekly note laying out his new concept, writing that while “fire and Ice” – Wilson’s framework which defined much of the past year –  has proven to be an effective way to describe the first half of this year – as Fed tightening in response to historically high inflation, the Fire, has weighed heavily on valuations for all asset markets while growth has also disappointed…the Ice – he writes that “part 2 will turn out to be more Icy than Fiery as slowing growth becomes the bigger concern for stocks, rather than inflation and the Fed.“

    Here are some more details on how Wilson sees the transition from part 1 to part 2 of “fire and ice”:

    At the risk of stating the obvious, 2022 has been a challenging year for stock investors of all stripes. The Russell 3000 is down approximately 18% (total return) year to date (YTD): and while Russell 3000 Growth has underperformed significantly (-24%), it’s been no picnic for value investors either (-11%). Clearly, the relative value trade of value over growth has worked well this year, but we note it’s mostly been due to Energy’s outperformance combined with defensive cohorts, rather than cyclicals like Financials. In fact, only 2 sectors, Energy and Utilities, are up in absolute terms this year while just 24% of all stocks in the Russell 3000 are in positive territory. To put that into context, in 2008, 48% of Russell 3000 stocks were up on the year as we entered the month of September. Suffice it to say, this year has been historically bad for stocks in terms of both price and breadth, but that is not a sufficient reason to be bullish. We think that poor breadth is indicative of more challenges to come on the growth side of the equation, which we address in our note today. While some have recently argued the breadth thrust off the June lows is a sign of better times ahead, we firmly disagree as our top down earnings work does not support such a conclusion. Meanwhile, that breadth thrust is losing altitude quickly and looks vulnerable to taking out the 50-day moving average, something it did not do off the March 2020 lows. Let the debate begin.

    Of course, as bad as it’s been for stocks, it’s been even worse for bonds on a risk-adjusted basis: 20-year Treasury bonds are down 24% YTD and the Barclay’s Agg. Index is off by 11%.

    Finally, commodities have been a mixed bag, too, with most commodities down on the year despite heightened inflationary concerns. To wit, the CRB RIND index, which measures the spot prices of a wide range of commodities, is down 7% YTD. Cash, on the other hand, is no longer trash, especially if one has taken advantage of the higher front-end rates. Interestingly, most of the damage for bonds was front end loaded as the Fed made its pivot clear in January.

    Wilson next reminds readers that he turned more positive on bonds versus stocks back in April, and while since then bonds have outperformed modestly, he argues that they now appear poised to see further outperformance technically and fundamentally if the second half brings more concern about growth rather than inflation as we expect. Outside the US, the picture is even clearer with bonds having outperformed stocks since June of 2021 with the global economy in far worse shape than the US.

    Next, Wilson extends on what he wrote over the weekend, and notes that while the June low for stocks and bonds was dramatic, he has been consistently in the camp that it wasn’t “THE low” for the S&P 500 in this bear market, but having said that, Wilson is more confident it was the low for long-term Treasuries for this cyclical bear market in view of the Fed’s aggressive action that has yet to fully play out in the real economy (well, maybe not, with 10Y yields soaring as we type this and threatening to break above the YTD highs). The MS strategist concedes that it may also have been the low for the average stock, given how poor the breadth was at that time, and the magnitude of the decline in certain stocks. His more pessimistic view on the S&P 500 index, meanwhile, is based on analysis that indicates all of the 30% de-rating in the forward S&P 500 P/E that occurred from December to June was due to higher rates: “we know this because the equity risk premium (ERP) was flat during this period. Meanwhile, forward NTM EPS estimates for the S&P 500 have come down by only ~1.5% and P/Es are now ~8% higher. With rates now ~30bp below the June highs, the ERP has fallen once again, to just ~285bp. This makes little sense, particularly given the significant slowdown in earnings we think is still to come.”

    And so, with the Fed dashing hopes for a dovish pivot (at least until futures tumble another 10%), Wilson thinks that asset markets may be entering fire and ice part two. In contrast with part one, this time the MS strategist contends that the decline in stocks should come mostly via a higher ERP and lower earnings rather than higher rates.

    Meanwhile, the bank’s earnings models are all flashing red for the S&P 500, and Wilson is highly confident that the decline in NTM S&P 500 EPS forecasts is far from over. In short, Wilson writes that “part two will be more icy than fiery, the opposite of 1H22. That’s not to say rates don’t matter – they do – and we expect bonds to perform better than stocks in this icier scenario.”

    What about the timing on Wilson’s “icy” forecast? Well, as the weather turns appropriately chilly this fall, so should growth – he writes – which could weigh mightily on stocks given the paltry ERP investors are getting paid to take this risk.

    And just to confirm his renewed bearish fervor, today Wilson revised his S&P 500 EPS estimates lower, and writes that “while we took our first cut to these numbers in our mid-year outlook, we waited to do the larger downward revision until now in order to better time the actual fall in bottom-up estimates, which drive stock prices. Our experience – i.e., prior mistakes – has taught us that it always takes longer for these cuts to play out than it should given the typical corporate optimism about the future.”

    So what are Wilson’s new S&P ESP forecasts following today’s downward revisions which point to continued and increasingly significant EPS growth downside well into 2023? Here is the answer:

    • cut the 2022 base case EPS estimate to $220 from $225 (down 2%),
    • 2023 base case estimate cut to $212 from $236 (down 10%),
    • 2024 base case estimate cut to $226 from $237 (down 5%).

    The ’22/’23/’24 base case estimates are now 3%/13%/14% below consensus, respectively, and more notably, in Morgan Stanley’s base case, 2023 now marks a modest earnings contraction (-3% year-over-year growth), although Morgan Stanley is still terrified to make a recession its base case scenario (that would scare off too many clients).

    The logic here is that nominal top line growth slows, but remains positive (mid-single-digit territory), while margins contract materially (1-1.5% margin compression) driven by sticky cost pressures, particularly on the labor side. The bank’s 2023 bear case EPS is  modestly lower to $190 from $195 – a case which continues to assume an economic recession (consistent with views published in our mid-year outlook), and implies an 11% year-over-year EPS growth contraction. The ’23 bull case EPS forecast also comes down to $234 from $245. In this scenario, nominal top line is slightly better and margin pressure is less significant.

    Yet while the bank slashes its EPS forecasts, its price targets set in June do not change, and EPS downside is offset by modest upside in P/E multiple expectations (ye olde goalseeking trick). The good news is that the bank’s new price and multiple expectations
    are point in time, June 2023 estimates. By then, Wilson notes, equities will be processing the growth path into 2024 (a  reacceleration), not the decelerating growth path into 2023 that’s in the rear view. As such, Wilson’s call for price downside as a result of declining EPS into mid-2023 – the basis of this note, and a high conviction view – is very much a tactical view (next 3 months). To further reinforce this point, the strategist notes that the market multiple typically troughs when EPS is only a third of the way through its decline (i.e., price front-runs EPS declines).

    Putting it all together, Wilson’s base case tactical view remains that fair value price for the S&P 500 is ~3,400, and while he expects that price level to be reached before year end, stocks will then work back toward 3,900 by mid next year (actually they will be much higher as the QE needed to monetize all the energy stimmies will long have been in play by then). As previously noted, Wilson thinks tactical fair value in his bear case (an economic recession) is 3,000, which implies an overshoot to the downside of his June ’23 bear case price target in advance of that date.

    * * *

    Wilson’s bottom line: the next several quarters will end up containing some of the most significant downward revisions to forward EPS forecasts seen in the past several cycles. As for valuation, the Morgan Stanley strategist thinks very little of these revisions have actually been discounted, as evidenced by the still depressed ERP component of the S&P 500 P/E ratio. While that view could be challenged as a subjective one, Wilson is confident that his ERP model suggests it is at least 100bps too low today and probably even more since the US is headed toward a recession (our bear case). That said, the strategist certainly appreciates that “this debate is what makes a market and have no illusion markets can trade more richly than they should for long periods of time.” On that note, he thinks the increased size of QT that is expected to begin this month could play a significant role in changing the market’s view of fair value for the ERP.

    Full Mike Wilson report available to pro subscribers.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 21:20

  • A Glitch In The Matrix? Researchers Explore Déjà Vu… And How The Brain Can Sometimes Short-Circuit
    A Glitch In The Matrix? Researchers Explore Déjà Vu… And How The Brain Can Sometimes Short-Circuit

    Via The Epoch Times,

    Have you ever experienced the sudden feeling of somehow being exactly where you’ve been before, doing exactly what you swear you’ve already done? It could be while rearranging your living room, having a conversation, or simply sitting alone doing nothing.

    If so, you’re not alone.

    This feeling of familiarity is, of course, known as déjà vu (a French term meaning “already seen”) and it’s reported to occur on an occasional basis in 60 to 80 percent of people. It’s an experience that’s almost always fleeting and it occurs at random.

    So what is responsible for these feelings of familiarity?

    Despite coverage in popular culture, experiences of déjà vu are poorly understood in scientific terms. Déjà vu occurs briefly, without warning, and has no physical manifestations other than the announcement: “I just had déjà vu!”

    Many researchers propose that the phenomenon is a memory-based experience and assume the memory centers of the brain are responsible for it.

    Memory Systems

    The medial temporal lobes are vital for the retention of long-term memories of events and facts. Certain regions of the medial temporal lobes are important in the detection of familiarity, or recognition, as opposed to the detailed recollection of specific events.

    It has been proposed that familiarity detection depends on rhinal cortex function, whereas detailed recollection is linked to the hippocampus.

    The randomness of déjà vu experiences in healthy individuals makes it difficult to study it in an empirical manner. Any such research is reliant on self-reporting from the people involved.

    Glitches in the Matrix

    A subset of epilepsy patients consistently experience déjà vu at the onset of a seizure—that is, when seizures begin in the medial temporal lobe. This has given researchers a more experimentally controlled way of studying déjà vu.

    Epileptic seizures are evoked by alterations in electrical activity in neurons within focal regions of the brain. This dysfunctional neuronal activity can spread across the whole brain like the shock waves generated from an earthquake. The brain regions in which this electrical activation can occur include the medial temporal lobes.

    Electrical disturbance of this neural system generates an aura (a warning of sorts) of déjà vu prior to the epileptic event.

    By measuring neuronal discharges in the brains of these patients, scientists have been able to identify the regions of the brain where déjà vu signals begin.

    It has been found that déjà vu is more readily induced in epilepsy patients through electrical stimulation of the rhinal cortices as opposed to the hippocampus. These observations led to the speculation that déjà vu is caused by a dysfunctional electrical discharge in the brain.

    These neuronal discharges can occur in a non-pathological manner in people without epilepsy. An example of this is a hyponogogic jerk, the involuntary twitch that can occur just as you are falling asleep.

    It has been proposed that déjà vu could be triggered by a similar neurological discharge, resulting in a strange sense of familiarity.

    Some researchers argue that the type of déjà vu experienced by temporal lobe epilepsy patients is different from typical déjà vu.

    The déjà vu experienced prior to an epileptic seizure may be enduring, rather than fleeting—as it is for those who don’t have epileptic seizures. In people without epilepsy, the vivid recognition combined with the knowledge that the environment is truly novel intrinsically underpins the experience of déjà vu.

    Mismatches and Short Circuits

    Déjà vu in healthy participants is reported as a memory error, which may expose the nature of the memory system. Some researchers speculate that déjà vu occurs due to a discrepancy in memory systems leading to the inappropriate generation of a detailed memory from a new sensory experience.

    That is, information bypasses short-term memory and instead reaches long-term memory.

    This implies déjà vu is evoked by a mismatch between the sensory input and memory-recalling output. This explains why a new experience can feel familiar, but not as tangible as a fully recalled memory.

    Other theories suggest activation of the rhinal neural system, involved in the detection of familiarity, occurs without activation of the recollection system within the hippocampus. This leads to the feeling of recognition without specific details.

    Related to this theory, it was proposed that déjà vu is a reaction of the brain’s memory systems to a familiar experience. This experience is known to be novel, but has many recognizable elements, albeit in a slightly different setting. An example? Being in a bar or restaurant in a foreign country that has the same layout as one you go to regularly at home.

    Even more theories exist regarding the cause of déjà vu. These span from the paranormal—past lives, alien abduction, and precognitive dreams—to memories formed from experiences that are not first-hand (such as scenes in movies).

    So far, there is no simple explanation as to why déjà vu occurs, but advances in neuroimaging techniques may aid our understanding of memory and the tricks our minds seem to play on us.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 21:00

  • Kansas School District Pays $95K Settlement After Suspending Teacher For Not Using Preferred Pronouns
    Kansas School District Pays $95K Settlement After Suspending Teacher For Not Using Preferred Pronouns

    A Kansas school district has agreed to pay a settlement of $95,000 in a civil lawsuit brought by a teacher who was suspended for refusing to use the preferred pronouns of a self-declared trans student (a female demanding to be referred to as “he/him”).

    Pamela Ricard, a math teacher at Fort Riley Middle School, says she was pressured by school officials to placate a trans student in her class by using preferred pronouns.  When Ricard asked for a religious exemption to the rule she was allegedly denied.  Ricard also claimed that the school district forced teachers to lie to parents about students and their trans status, and even asked teachers to not use student trans names during parent/teacher conferences in order to avoid revealing any sensitive information.    

    Ricard received a three day suspension after referring to the trans student as “Miss,” and for using the student’s legal enrolled name.  She was warned that any further “misgendering” would lead to more disciplinary actions.  

    It is important to note that there are no laws in the state of Kansas requiring that anyone use transgender pronouns, and that these rules were being unilaterally enforced by school district officials.  The Fort Riley School District was cornered into settlement when a federal court ruled in May that Pamela Ricard had a religious right to refuse censorship and to refuse to submit to pronoun requirements.  They also ruled that teachers cannot be pressured to keep secrets from the parents of trans students.

    The Kansas incident is only one of thousands of exposed events that prove the existence of a concerted widespread social justice agenda within the American school system.  Though the political left has consistently claimed that such an agenda does not exist and that parent accusations are nothing more than “conspiracy theory,” the evidence is undeniable.  

    The exposure of transgender indoctrination and policy enforcement in schools led to a national firestorm over Florida’s anti-grooming bill, which leftists called the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.”  The bill, now passed into law, prevents teachers from engaging in sexualized discussions or sexualized propaganda lessons with young children, and also demands that teachers share their lesson plans with parents.  Teachers that violate the law can be fired.

    Multiple states across the country have had to formulate similar pieces of legislation as a means to stop intersectional ideology from being injected into school curriculum.  Florida alone found that at least 44% of school textbooks the state reviewed contained multiple instances of social justice propaganda including Critical Race Theory propaganda.  Interestingly, the majority of the propaganda was discovered in books for children K-5. 

    Desantis provided multiple examples of leftist and CRT propaganda implanted in school texts, but to this day leftists claim no examples were given and that CRT is “not real.” 

    Twitter group ‘Libs Of TikTok’ famously showcased hundreds of video, made mostly by teachers, in which they openly admit to indoctrinating students with LGBT and CRT propaganda in their classrooms.  The group has faced multiple suspensions from various social media platforms, and has been accused of “hateful conduct” simply for reposting the videos to their own account.  

    The trans movement is a movement to control and to dictate speech while pretending it is a movement for civil rights.  No one has a right to compel another person by force or coercion to use their preferred pronouns.  The entire situation can be bewildering because of the multiple tentacles the extreme left employs in their culture war, but there are some rules that can help to clear the fog and confusion.

    The first rule which makes it possible to understand and predict the actions of the social justice left:  They ALWAYS lie.

    The second rule is:  They always double down on the lies.

    The third rule is:  They always gaslight when they are caught lying.

    The fourth rule is:  Believe what you see right in front of your eyes, not what they say that you should see.      

    The Kansas settlement for Pamela Ricard reveals yet another piece of the hidden puzzle that is woke ideology within public schools.  It is an indoctrination process that has been ongoing for years and only recently have parents started to notice and become involved.  

    Interestingly, though, in the case of Fort Riley, it was apparently school district officials that were threatening teachers in order to make them comply with the agenda, rather than specific teachers trying to slip their propaganda under the radar.  This shows that leftist teachers grooming children is not the only concern – We must also watch out for School board members and other officials using their power to frighten non-woke teachers into silence.    

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 20:40

  • "Blackouts Imminent" – 75,000 Powerless As Record California Power Usage Sparks 'Demand Response Event'
    “Blackouts Imminent” – 75,000 Powerless As Record California Power Usage Sparks ‘Demand Response Event’

    Update (2030ET): As was expected earlier, California power usage surged to a record high this afternoon raising the emergency status of the state’s electrical system to the highest possible level amid a blistering heat wave, which means rolling blackouts are imminent.

    This triggered a “demand response event”…

    And CA ISO is warning of more “blackouts imminent”.

    “This is going to be so dicey,” Michael Wara, director of Stanford University’s climate and energy policy program, said earlier in the day.

    “There’s a gap for two hours in the evening right now between available supply and projected demand.”

    This farce for one of the most-taxed states comes just four days after President Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm praised the state’s green energy policies.

    Granholm said that California was leading the nation in green energy development and praised its ability to shape national energy policy, according to an interview conducted by Fox 11 Los Angeles.

    “I love the fact that California is unabashedly bold about (green) energy policy,” Granholm stated, calling the state as a green “leader” for the rest of the country.

    “California’s boldness has … shaped our willingness in the federal government to move further and faster,” she said of California’s green energy policies.

    California’s energy policy has currently left 75,000 Californians without power already…

    And the state’s largest power company, PG&E Corp., said in a statement that it had notified about 525,000 homes and businesses that they could lose power for up to two hours.

    So this is what the rest of America can look forward to?

    *  *  *

    Update (1700ET): As we warned about earlier, Califiornians are apparently not heeding officials’ warnings that they should sacrifice their comfort for the sake of whatever business or social-engineering plan is the new thing.

    CAISO shows that usage is up 13% today from yesterday at the same time of day and for a second consecutive day, the state’s grid operator issued a level-2 energy emergency alert.

    The emergency declaration allows officials to order some large power consumers to shut down in a last-ditch effort to avoid outages.

    “We are heading into the worst part of this heat wave, and the risk for outages is real and it’s immediate,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a video posted Tuesday on Twitter. He urged residents and businesses to cut back on energy use during the late afternoon and early evening to help the state avoid outages.

    And average day-ahead prices for power on Tuesday in the southern part of the state surged 44% to $300.55 a megawatt-hour, the highest in 18 months.

    With heat soaring things are only likely to get worse:

    “We’re looking at a lot of records today,” said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center.

    “They are having a lot of issues with power out there, and this isn’t going to help.”

    *  *  *

    California narrowly avoided rotating outages on Monday while power grid officials asked customers to conserve electricity amid a record-breaking heatwave.

    The prospect of outages did not bother Californians. Many customers continued to use appliances, air conditioning, and at-home electric vehicle chargers despite conservation pleas from California Independent System Operator (CAISO). 

    Monday was the fifth straight day CAISO warned about a blistering heat wave that pushed its electric system to the brink. Even though no widespread blackouts were reported, electricity demand surged to one of the highest levels (52,646 megawatts), outlining how customers widely ignored conservation calls. 

    A Reuters report showed soaring demand for electricity sent power prices in the state to the highest levels since August 2020.

    Power prices at the Palo Verde hub in Arizona and SP-15 in Southern California rose to $850 and $505 per megawatt hour, respectively. That was their highest levels since hitting record highs of $1,311 in Palo Verde and $698 in SP-15 in August 2020 when the ISO last imposed rotating outages.

    CAISO predicts demand could reach all-time high levels today as homes and businesses turn their thermostats down to escape triple-digit temperatures.

    And since Californians aren’t conserving electricity as demand steadily rises, this could mean CAISO would instruct utilities to start imposing rotating outages if duress on the grid continued — maybe then, after the fact, customers will get the message to conserve. 

    Elliot Mainzer, CEO of CASIO, said Monday: “We need a reduction in energy use that is two or three times greater than what we’ve seen so far as this historic heat wave continues to intensify.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 20:39

  • Top Senator: FBI Director Wray Must Do "Much More" To Combat Agency Bias
    Top Senator: FBI Director Wray Must Do “Much More” To Combat Agency Bias

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) proclaimed this week that FBI Director Christopher Wray has to do “much more” to deal with alleged bias inside the bureau amid whistleblower claims that agents slow-walked an investigation into Hunter Biden and the current probe targeting former President Donald Trump.

    “We wouldn’t even know about it if there weren’t whistleblowers, very patriotic people in the Justice Department that came to me and gave me this information about Thibault,” Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News on Monday, referring to former FBI special agent Timothy Thibault, who left the bureau several weeks ago.

    Grassley said Thibault allegedly opened an investigation into Trump “based upon very just fuzzy newspaper reporting and then closes down an investigation on Hunter,” referring to President Joe Biden’s son.

    “At least Wray moved him out of that position. Now he is not even in the department,” the Republican senator continued.

    “But I think Wray has to do much more to come up with a plan to show that this political bias within the FBI is going to be attacked and rooted out.”

    “Total transparency is important,” he concluded. “The public’s business has to be public.”

    Whistleblowers

    A lawyer for Thibault, an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI’s Washington Field Office, confirmed that he departed the bureau in late August, although the lawyer disputed claims that he “did not supervise the investigation” into Hunter Biden and wasn’t “involved in any decisions related to any laptop that may be at issue in that investigation.”

    The lawyers also said there was nothing controversial about how he was escorted out of the building following his departure.

    Chuck Grassley (R-IA) speaks during a Senate Judiciary hearing in Washington, DC on April 20, 2021. (Bill Clark-Pool/Getty Images)

    Thibault turned in his security badge before he “walked with two long-time special agent friends through the field office to finish processing his paperwork,” Thibault’s lawyers added to The Epoch Times. “He walked out of the building by himself. Claims to the contrary are false.”

    In late July, Grassley said that “highly credible” whistleblowers approached his office and said there is widespread bias within the FBI, including efforts to discredit or downplay investigations into Hunter Biden There was a 2020 FBI intelligence assessment, Grassley wrote in a letter, that was “used by an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation.”

    “Based on allegations, verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation,” he said, citing whistleblower claims.

    While the FBI whistleblowers have not been identified, a lawyer for several of them told the Washington Times late last month that agents have “lost confidence” in Wray’s leadership amid the bias allegations.

    “I’m hearing from [FBI staff] that they feel like the director has lost control of the bureau,” Kurt Siuzdak, a lawyer and former agent who represents FBI whistleblowers, said in an interview last week. “They’re saying, ‘How does this guy survive? He’s leaving. He’s got to leave.’”

    “All Wray does is go in and say we need more training and we’re doing stuff about it, or we will not tolerate it,” added Siuzdak.

    The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 20:20

  • Putin Attends Military Drills With China, Hails Beijing's "Balanced Approach" To Ukraine Crisis
    Putin Attends Military Drills With China, Hails Beijing’s “Balanced Approach” To Ukraine Crisis

    President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday attended and observed the Vostok-22 Russian war games in person, held in the country’s far east, as well as in waters just off the eastern coast.

    Crucially, the exercises featured Chinese military participation, and others including military units from India and Syria. “According to Moscow, over 50,000 soldiers and more than 5,000 units of military equipment, including 140 aircraft and 60 ships, were to be involved in the drills,” The Moscow Times writes.

    Putin observing this week’s Vostok large-scale drills, via kremlin.ru

    This year’s drills are being described as greatly scaled down compared to the largest Vostok games which took place in 2018 – which is no doubt due to Russia’s concentration of forces for its invasion of Ukraine.

    The ongoing drills began on Sept. 1 and are scheduled to end on Wednesday. “Putin met Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov at the Sergeyevsky military range and later observed the final phase of the military exercises,” The Moscow Times describes.

    Putin is also in the far east to address the Eastern Economic Forum hosted in the port city of Vladivostok, where an estimated 5,000 people are in attendance for the four-day conference that kicked off Monday. The largest delegation in attendance is from China:

    At the forum’s plenary session Putin will be joined by China’s top legislator Li Zhanshu — who ranks third in the Chinese government hierarchy — with a bilateral meeting also on the agenda.

    Li will become the highest-ranking Communist party politician to travel to the country since Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine.

    The Kremlin issued a statement underscoring the importance of the large Chinese presence: “Russia-China relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation are developing progressively,” it said before the bilateral meeting with Putin.

    The statement further hailed “China’s balanced approach to the Ukraine crisis” and its “understanding” of what’s driving Moscow’s ‘special operation’ in Ukraine.

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    In October, Russia and China held joint naval drills in the Sea of Japan. Days later, Russian and Chinese warships held their first joint patrols in the western Pacific. The next month, South Korea’s military said it had scrambled fighter jets after two Chinese and seven Russian warplanes intruded into its air defense identification zone during what Beijing called regular training.

    Just days before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow announced a “no limits” partnership, although U.S. officials say they have not seen China evade U.S.-led sanctions on Russia or provide it with military equipment. Russia’s eastern military district includes part of Siberia and has its headquarters in Khabarovsk, near the Chinese border.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 20:00

  • Huh? Biden Screams That He "Beat Pharma This Year"
    Huh? Biden Screams That He “Beat Pharma This Year”

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    During a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee Monday, Joe Biden screamed that he “beat pharma this year” despite the fact that he provided billions in record profits for the pharmaceutical industry by attempting to enforce vaccine mandates.

    Watch:

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    Biden repeated the claim at a second speech in Pittsburgh:

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    A few violent extremists took issue with Biden’s claim:

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    *  *  *

    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.
    Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 19:40

  • California's 2035 EV Mandate Being Debated In More Than Dozen States
    California’s 2035 EV Mandate Being Debated In More Than Dozen States

    More than a dozen states are now debating whether to adopt California’s radical green vehicle initiative, which bans all gasoline-powered new car sales by 2035.

    Fox News reported seventeen states could soon be on a path to follow the Golden State’s emission standards.

    Several of the 17 states are likely to move forward with the plan, including Washington, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. California’s restrictions are the strictest in the country, mandating that all new vehicles run on either electricity or hydrogen by 2035.

    Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, the District of Columbia, and Rhode Island are other states that might consider the new emission standards. 

    Meanwhile, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Virginia are three states rebelling against rapidly moving toward electric vehicles. 

    Source: Daily Mail 

    The problem with states mandating future new car sales to be 100% electric in 13 years is that power grids will need a drastic upgrade to handle the millions of new EVs. Consider California. There are more than a million plug-in vehicles registered in the state, and in the last week, utility officials requested EV owners not to charge their vehicles due to a menacing heatwave. 

    Without a power grid overhaul to reliable on-demand clean energy, such as nuclear, grids across the country will be under extreme duress in the future of increased EVs on roads, leading to instability issues and frequent blackouts, similar to a third world country (or California). 

    Forcing everyone to depend on a battery without a grid overhaul sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen.

    Let’s hope this 2030 prediction doesn’t play out:

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 19:20

  • The Vital Role Of Nuclear Power In Reducing Emissions
    The Vital Role Of Nuclear Power In Reducing Emissions

    Authored by Robert Rapier via OilPrice.com,

    • The growth of the renewable energy industry in the last decade has been remarkable, but these new technologies cannot supply global energy demand.

    • Nearly every model out there points to the important role nuclear power must play in an energy system designed to reduce emissions.

    • In order to ensure the future of nuclear power, the world needs safe reactor designs, effective waste disposal solutions, and more political support.

    Any time I write about nuclear power, it evokes passionate responses from readers. That was certainly the case following my previous article, Nuclear Power Could Cut The World’s Carbon Emissions In Half.

    There is always a contingent who are convinced that all we need is solar power. I tend to think of these people as those “who haven’t done the math.” They provide lots of qualitative responses like “solar is cheaper than nuclear power” and cite solar energy’s incredible growth rate.

    It is true that solar is ramping up rapidly. In fact, I have written about it many times. All the way back in 2007 I wrote The Future is Solar. I have written dozens of articles on the topic since. But some solar proponents always try to convince me that we don’t need nuclear by citing facts I already know.

    Consider one of the responses to a discussion that broke out on Twitter following my previous article. Jigar Shah is the director of the Loan Programs Office of the U.S. Department of Energy. He was the founder of one of the early, successful solar companies, SunEdison. There isn’t a bigger advocate of cleantech out there than Jigar. But he knows that solar can’t do it alone, tweeting in response to someone who suggested otherwise:

    It is not a choice between the two. #solar will grow as fast as it physically can and won’t be 100%. Same with #wind, #geothermal, #hydro, #BiomassCCS, #efficiency, etc. You still have a huge political/resiliency hole that #nuclear has to fill. Every model shows it. #cleanfirm

    — Jigar Shah (@JigarShahDC) August 27, 2022

    [ZH: the tweet has since been deleted]

    Jigar argues that as fast as solar grows, it won’t be fast enough. There is a hole that nuclear has to fill. “Every model shows it.”

    In fact, the International Energy Agency knows it, projecting that we will need to double the world’s nuclear output by 2050 to reach net zero energy.

    That’s the difference between someone who has looked in detail at the numbers and someone who hasn’t. It’s the reason so many environmental organizations and advocates have come to the conclusion that if we don’t have a faster ramp-up of nuclear power, the world is going to keep burning coal.

    Look, I wish renewables could do it all. But the largest renewable market in the world certainly doesn’t think so.

    China has rolled out more solar power in recent years than any other country. Last year China’s solar output increased by 66 terawatt-hours (TWh). That was good for 35% of the entire global increase in solar power. China’s total solar generation for the year — 327 TWh — was double that of the U.S., which is in second place globally.

    But that hasn’t stopped China from building both new coal-fired power plants and new nuclear plants. China’s coal consumption has more than doubled in the past 20 years. The country accounts for 53.8% of the world’s coal consumption, and last year China set a new record for coal consumption.

    However, China has recognized that solar power — as fast as they are adding it — can’t do it all. That’s why China’s nuclear power output is growing steadily. Over the past decade, China’s average annual growth in nuclear power output was 16.7% — the most for any country except Iran. Over that time, China’s nuclear power consumption has increased by 320 TWh, and they still have 21 nuclear reactors under construction.

    Total global nuclear consumption increased by 148 TWh in the past decade, which means outside of China, nuclear power consumption declined over the past decade.

    Where is nuclear power growing? Below are the 10 countries with the fastest growth rates for nuclear power over the past decade.

    1. Iran — 41.9% average annual growth from 2011-2021

    2. China — 16.7%

    3. Pakistan — 14.9%

    4. Argentina — 5.4%

    5. India — 3.1%

    6. Russia — 2.5%

    7. Mexico — 1.7%

    8. Czech Republic — 0.8%

    9. Belgium — 0.5%

    10. Slovakia — 0.2%

    Global growth is an anemic 0.5%. In the U.S., which is still the world’s largest market for nuclear power with a 29% share globally — nuclear output declined by 0.2% on average over the past decade. The European Union saw an even bigger decline, at 1.3% per year.

    The EU overall is dependent upon nuclear power for 11% of its primary energy consumption. For the U.S. that number is 8.0% (this is for all energy consumption). In contrast, Asia Pacific’s, which is the region responsible for most of the world’s carbon emissions, is only dependent on nuclear power for 2.4% of its primary energy consumption.

    Can Asia Pacific region continue to develop with renewables supplying the bulk of the new energy demand? Given the rapid growth of overall energy demand in the region, it appears highly unlikely that renewables alone can meet the demand. In recent years this has translated into a large expansion of fossil fuel consumption in these regions.

    More nuclear power in developing regions could help supply growing energy demands without a continued explosion in the region’s carbon dioxide emissions. However, the world needs safe nuclear reactor designs, effective waste disposal solutions, and more political support.

    In the next article, I will relay findings on all of these fronts from a recent conversation I had with Dr. Kathryn Huff, the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 19:00

  • Biden Issues "Final Decision" On State Sponsor Of Terror Label For Russia
    Biden Issues “Final Decision” On State Sponsor Of Terror Label For Russia

    President Joe Biden has made up his mind regarding whether or not to designate Russia an official ‘state sponsor of terror’ – after both the Ukrainian government as well as some prominent Democratic Congressmembers have been pushing hard for him to do so.

    Biden has “made a final decision against designating Russia as a state sponsor of terror,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday, according to Reuters. She described that “The designation of Russia as state sponsor of terror could delay food exports and jeopardize deals to move goods through the Black Sea,” according to a press readout.

    US Embassy Moscow, file image

    The reference wis to a delicate UN-brokered agreement between Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey to allow grain exports to leave Ukrainian ports through a monitored ‘safety corridor’. 

    Jean-Pierre was following up on a comment made by Biden the day prior:

    U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday said Russia should not be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, a label Ukraine has pushed for amid Russia’s ongoing invasion while Moscow has warned it would rupture U.S.-Russian ties.

    Asked if Russia should be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, Biden told reporters at the White House: “No.”

    In July, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the White House must designate Russia or else Congress would do it. The formal designation would allow the further expansion of sanctions on the targeted nation, and would place Russia on the list with Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

    While some countries like Latvia and Lithuania have already made the formal designation, the US administration has consistently resisted calls to do so, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently arguing that a terror designation wouldn’t change things much:

    “The costs that have been imposed on Russia by us and by other countries are absolutely in line with the consequences that would follow from designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” he said in July.

    Earlier in the now six-month Ukraine conflict, the Biden administration began using the word “genocide” when talking about alleged Russian atrocities (but more recently has stopped using the specific word), but has so far resisted some Congressional calls to label Russia a terror state sponsor. 

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    Moscow has previously warned that if the US went through with a terror label designation, it would immediately sever all diplomatic relations. While relations are already of course at a low point in recent history due to the ongoing Ukraine invasion, each side still has their embassies open and diplomats in residence – though John Sullivan, the US ambassador to Moscow, has announced his retirement this week after nearly three years at the post.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 18:40

  • Oil Market Is Short On Conviction And Positioning
    Oil Market Is Short On Conviction And Positioning

    By Alex Longley, Bloomberg markets live commentator and reporter

    Last year a much-loved phrase of Goldman’s commodity guru Jeff Currie was that the oil market was long on conviction, short on position — in the third quarter, the oil market has been short on both conviction and position.

    Currie’s premise last year was that a huge chunk of the oil market was bullish but that traders weren’t backing those in a big way. Right now, the oil market is gripped by a whirlwind of headlines — a cap on Russian oil prices, a surprise OPEC+ cut, a global growth slowdown and the potential return of Iranian oil supplies to name but a few — but options trades show the huge spread of views out there.

    On Monday, 5,000 Brent $200 calls for October traded. A cheap punt on higher prices, pretty straightforward. But on the same day, another trader was buying ratio $70/$75 put spreads for October. A cheap bet on a collapse in prices over the next two weeks.

    With futures open interest generally falling as well, it’s clear that the oil market remains light on position. But what the options market tells us right now, is that unlike the pre-war oil market, lots of traders are also struggling with conviction in the face of big intraday price swings.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 18:20

  • "A Dangerous Escalation": Majority Of Americans Think Biden Speech Was "Designed To Incite Conflict"
    “A Dangerous Escalation”: Majority Of Americans Think Biden Speech Was “Designed To Incite Conflict”

    A majority of Americans, 56.8% think Biden’s declaration of war on Trump voters was a “dangerous escalation in rhetoric” which was “designed to incite conflict amongst Americans,” according to a new poll by the Trafalgar group.

    Perhaps even more telling is that 71% of Democrats said Biden’s speech – in which he said “MAGA forces” pose a “clear and present danger” to Democracy – thought it was simply “acceptable campaign messaging that is to be expected in an election year.”

    What should worry Democrats is that 62% of independent voters agreed with 89.1% of Republicans who said the speech was a “dangerous escalation.”

    This, from the president who campaigned on uniting America against hatred. 

    Conservatives on social media were appalled at the speech.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 18:00

  • Why Some Cities May No Longer Be Viable
    Why Some Cities May No Longer Be Viable

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    Any city whose lifeblood ultimately depends on hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization will no longer be viable.

    The human migration from the countryside to cities has been an enduring feature of civilization. Cities concentrate wealth, productivity and power, and so they’re magnets to talent and capital, offering newcomers the greatest opportunities.

    Cities are efficient, packing population, productivity and wealth creation into small areas. Slums and sweatshops are immensely profitable, and cramming people into centers of manufacturing is far more efficient than scattering people and production across a landscape.

    Cities generally arose on coastal harbors, navigable rivers or the confluence of overland trade routes, as these hubs enabled profitable trade and transport of goods protected by defensible barriers.

    In sum, cities offered unmatchable advantages over more widely distributed settlements, trade and production. Given their typically strategic location and regional dominance, they tend to become political, military and cultural centers as well as economic / financial heavyweights.

    But the nature of cities has changed, and so has their viability as magnets for talent and capital. I recently discussed these shifts with longtime correspondent T.D., who succinctly summarized the economic foundations of New York City–a set of dynamics that applies in one way or another to virtually all major cities globally: cities are transport / value-added hubs.

    “With the creation of the Erie Canal, New York became a major port and city, a place where cheap immigrant labor and the precursors to all sorts of products could be immediately brought together in a value-added manner for finishing into a manufactured product which was then cost effectively shipped onward.”

    These longstanding economic foundations began shifting in the 1970s. Slums and manufacturing were deemed undesirable for environmental and aesthetic reasons, and globalization began chipping away at manufacturing within costly urban zones as production was shipped to lower-cost regions.

    The other core dynamic of the past 40 years, financialization, replaced value-added trade and goods with value-added financial instruments and services. As globalization and financialization transitioned to hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization, cities became magnets for real estate speculation, global capital seeking a safe place to park money, healthcare and higher education. status-enhancing conspicuous consumption and entertainment, i.e. the good life of diverse cultural attractions, neighborhoods, venues, cafes, bars and nightlife, all of which are the foundation of global tourism, now the primary industry in many cities.

    The shift to finance funded both the speculation and the consumption. Cities morphed from centers of value-added manufacturing and trade to financial transactions and the origination of financial instruments, developments which enabled and expanded a series of ever-larger speculative bubbles.

    Cities have always been more expensive than the countryside, but hyper-financialization has boosted urban costs to the point that only the top 10% or 20% can own their own home and afford all the good things the city has to offer without family wealth or speculative gains banked by playing hyper-financialization games.

    One driver of higher costs is cities are magnets for graft, corruption, insider deals and quasi-monopolies, as the aggregation of money and power make the rewards of insider self-service irresistible. All of these forms of skimming add cost without adding any value to residents or enterprises.

    Even worse, they erode competence and accountability, as the essence of insider self-service is the elimination of accountability so low-level corruption and incompetence cannot be reined in. Insiders have a free hand to exploit their access to the enormous flows of money and power that sluice through every major city.

    As T.D. explained, large-scale industry is the only force with sufficient heft to demand competence and accountability of city governments. The current batch of what passes for “industry”–tourism, hospitals, universities, museums, etc.–can’t threaten to leave, as their own existence depends on the city. None wield sufficient political power to clamp down on corruption and incompetence.

    As the energy, water, waste and transport infrastructure decays to the point of breakdown, industry would have stepped in and demanded managerial competence to get it fixed because industry needed those systems to survive. The complaints of highly segmented service industries don’t seem to wield the same power or urgency.

    As for finance, it’s already global, and it right-sizes its footprint to match the flows of capital sluicing through the city as well as its costs and amenities. If any of these factors goes the wrong way, finance will abandon the city in a New York Minute.

    In effect, globalization and financialization have hollowed out the traditional economic foundations of cities in favor of services and entertainment which are dependent on the speculative gains of financialization. Should the flood of wealth being generated by ceaseless hyper-financialization reach its zenith and crash, cities will lose their source of wealth and income even as their managerial competence has been eroded by the very success of financialization in generating staggering flows of money.

    Given an ever-expanding flood of money, competence and accountability can both be dispensed with. If the flow of money keeps expanding, simulacra of accountability and competence will do just fine.

    But when the flood of money dries up, and the city needs administrative competence and accountability to adapt, these have decayed to the point nobody in power has any experience of anything but an ever-expanding flood of money.

    In other words, the “efficiencies” of the city now depend on the permanent expansion of hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization, both of which are increasingly vulnerable to decay, downsizing or collapse.

    Any city whose lifeblood ultimately depends on hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization will no longer be viable. Non-viability of the globalized, financialized urban model is currently considered “impossible.” Let’s check in around 2030 and make an accounting of the second-order effects of the demise of globalization and financialization. One such effect might be a reversal of the human migration as people leave no-longer-viable urban zones en masse.

    *  *  *

    My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: When You Can’t Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 09/06/2022 – 17:44

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