#how Canadian banks are preparing for trade war

[inc-immigrationnewscanada]

Tariffs Could Slash Canada Banks Rally by 30%: New Alert

In an economic landscape shaped by recent political maneuvers, the Canada banks sector faces a precarious future. Analysts from the National Bank of Canada have issued warnings that a potential trade war with the United States, spearheaded by President Donald Trump’s tariff threats, could undo the recent gains in Canadian bank equities. This unfolding scenario could lead to a significant…

[starseedfxofficial]

The Hidden Edge: Quarterly CAD/CHF Trading Strategies Most Traders Miss Why Most Traders Get CAD/CHF Wrong (And How to Fix It) CAD/CHF might not be the flashiest currency pair on the market, but for traders who know how to unlock its hidden potential, it can be a goldmine. The quarterly trends of CAD/CHF reveal patterns that most traders overlook—patterns that can give you a strategic edge. Most traders treat CAD/CHF like that one item in a buffet they never try—assuming it’s bland and uninteresting. But what if I told you that CAD/CHF, especially on a quarterly scale, follows a predictable rhythm? Imagine knowing exactly when to jump in while everyone else is still guessing. Let’s dive into the underground trends and quarterly secrets that can give you an advantage in this often-misunderstood pair. The Quarterly CAD/CHF Playbook: What the Data Says If you want to trade CAD/CHF like an insider, quarterly market cycles are your best friend. Let’s look at the factors that shape these trends: - Q1 (January – March): The Post-Holiday Liquidity Rush - The Canadian dollar is highly correlated with oil prices. The first quarter usually sees increased oil demand as industries rev up after the holiday lull. - Swiss franc strength is often tied to risk-off sentiment. If the global market is jittery, CHF will gain, but if confidence rises, CAD will outperform. - Key Trading Tip: Watch for oil price surges in February—this can be a CAD booster. - Q2 (April – June): Risk Appetite Shifts - Historically, Q2 sees a stronger CAD due to increased global trade and demand for commodities. - The Swiss National Bank (SNB) often intervenes in the FX market if CHF appreciation gets out of hand. - Hidden Opportunity: If SNB hints at intervention, consider shorting CHF against CAD in early May. - Q3 (July – September): The Summer Slump & Unexpected Volatility - Low liquidity in the summer months can cause erratic CAD/CHF movements. - CHF demand often rises in response to geopolitical uncertainties (think trade wars, elections, or global economic fears). - Pro Tip: Use range-bound strategies in July-August, but be prepared for breakouts in September when liquidity returns. - Q4 (October – December): The Year-End Reversal - CAD tends to strengthen in Q4 due to institutional positioning for the next year. - CHF demand often spikes due to year-end risk management. - Elite Strategy: Look for CAD dips in November—these can offer prime long entries before a December rally. The Secret CAD/CHF Indicators You Need to Watch 1. Oil Prices: The CAD Whisperer - CAD is a commodity currency, and WTI Crude Oil prices are a leading indicator. - Ninja Tip: A sudden oil price spike often leads CAD/CHF higher within 2-5 days. 2. SNB Intervention: Follow the Clues - The SNB has a history of quietly intervening in FX markets to curb CHF strength. - Insider Move: If the SNB mentions ‘excessive appreciation’ in their statements, expect CHF weakness soon after. 3. COT Reports: Institutional Sentiment on CAD/CHF - The Commitments of Traders (COT) Report from the CFTC provides insight into how institutional traders are positioned. - Hidden Insight: If non-commercials are heavily long CAD against CHF, a pullback is likely before a continuation move. Elite CAD/CHF Trading Strategies 1. The Quarterly Breakout Method - Identify key support and resistance levels from the previous quarter’s closing prices. - Trade the breakout only if confirmed by oil price trends. - Use a 50-pip stop loss and aim for a 150-200 pip target. 2. The SNB Fade Strategy - When the SNB signals discomfort with CHF strength, enter a long CAD/CHF position. - Wait for price action confirmation (bullish engulfing candle or breakout above a recent high). 3. The Institutional Flow Reversal - Monitor COT data for extreme CAD/CHF positioning. - When institutions are maxed out on one side, fade the move for a high-probability reversal. Final Thoughts: The Underrated Gem in Forex Trading CAD/CHF isn’t just a random, low-volatility pair—it’s a highly strategic opportunity if you know how to play it. By understanding quarterly cycles, tracking oil movements, and decoding institutional positioning, you can trade CAD/CHF with confidence while most traders are still scratching their heads. Want deeper insights and real-time market updates? Check out these game-changing resources: - Latest Economic Indicators and Forex News – Stay ahead of market movements at StarseedFX Forex News - Forex Education – Learn advanced methodologies at Free Forex Courses - Community Membership – Get insider tips and expert analysis at StarseedFX Community - Free Trading Plan & Journal – Track and optimize your trades with Free Trading Tools —————– Image Credits: Cover image at the top is AI-generated Read the full article

[newstfionline]

Friday, January 22, 2021

Teenager’s Snow Cave Enters Canadian Survival Lore (NYT) In Canada, a country of rugged snow-covered mountains and frigidly cold weather, there have long been extraordinary tales of winter survival. There was the story of John Gow, who in 1969 survived a plane crash and five days in the mountains of British Columbia. There was the 2-year-old in Rouleau, Saskatchewan, who in late February 1994 was found frozen on her doorstep after five hours in minus 8 degree Fahrenheit weather, but miraculously lived. And now there is Robert Waldner, a 17-year-old chess-loving teenager who built an elaborate snow cave shelter in British Columbia last weekend after getting stranded on a mountain during a family outing. It is a feat of survival without the drama of a plane crash or frozen toddler but with a happy ending that has nevertheless captured Canadian imaginations. On social media, Canadians have praised the teenager’s studious pragmatism, with some suggesting he join the scouts or a search-and-rescue team. Robert said he hoped to be an emergency room nurse or a paramedic.

‘America is back’ (Reuters) Joe Biden got to work undoing Donald Trump’s policies hours after being sworn in, signing 15 executive actions and making his first moves on the pandemic, immigration and climate change. Further executive orders today will direct that disaster funds be used to reopen schools and will require people to wear masks on planes and buses. World leaders have welcomed Biden in a series of messages with a common tone: ‘The United States is back’, ‘America is back’, and ‘Today is a good day for democracy.’ Investors got their Biden bounce on, with world stocks racking up record highs on hopes of major U.S. stimulus to cushion the coronavirus’s economic damage.

Biden tells appointees ‘I will fire you on the spot’ for showing disrespect to colleagues (Yahoo News) President Biden issued a warning Wednesday to his appointees that a hostile workplace will not be allowed in his administration. Addressing approximately 1,000 political appointees during a virtual swearing-in ceremony on his first day in the White House, Biden said: “I’m not joking when I say this: If you ever work with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I will fire you on the spot. No ifs, ands or buts.” “Without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury,” Biden said during his speech, adding, “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war.” “Everybody is entitled to be treated with decency and dignity. That’s been missing in a big way the last four years,” Biden told the appointees he swore in.

Biden faces a more confident China after US chaos (AP) As a new U.S. president takes office, he faces a determined Chinese leadership that could be further emboldened by America’s troubles at home. The disarray in America, from the rampant COVID-19 pandemic to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, gives China’s ruling Communist Party a boost as it pursues its long-running quest for national “rejuvenation”—a bid to return the country to what it sees as its rightful place as a major nation. For Joe Biden, that could make one of his major foreign policy challenges even more difficult as he tries to manage an increasingly contentious relationship between the world’s rising power and its established one. The stakes are high for both countries and the rest of the world. A misstep could spark an accidental conflict in the Western Pacific, where China’s growing naval presence is bumping up against America’s. The trade war under President Donald Trump hurt workers and farmers in both countries, though some in Vietnam and elsewhere benefited as companies moved production outside China.

Republicans grapple with post-Trump future (AP) For the first time in more than a decade, Republicans are waking up to a Washington where Democrats control the White House and Congress, adjusting to an era of diminished power, deep uncertainty and internal feuding. The shift to minority status is always difficult, prompting debates over who is to blame for losing the last election. But the process is especially intense as Republicans confront profound questions about what the party stands for without Donald Trump in charge. The party now faces a decision about whether to keep moving in [the course Trump set], as many of Trump’s most loyal supporters demand, or chart a new course. Trump left office with a 34% approval rating, according to Gallup—the lowest of his presidency—but the overwhelming majority of Republicans, 82%, approved of his job performance. Even as some try to move on, Trump’s continued popularity with the GOP’s base ensures he will remain a political force.

Sell high (Foreign Policy) London’s financial district was discovered to be an unusual site for entrepreneurial agriculture after police found 826 marijuana plants growing in a building close to the Bank of England. London police said they were tipped off by the strong smell emanating from the building and blamed the reduced footfall during COVID-19 lockdowns for not finding it sooner. Speaking at an event on Wednesday, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey took the news in stride. “We are now going to be the subject of endless jokes about ‘now we know what the Bank of England has been on,’” he said.

Universities degree ‘not the only route to success’ (BBC) Education and training for young people in England after the age of 16 is to be overhauled to ensure employers get the skilled workforce they need. Ministers are setting out plans to improve vocational education, saying it is an “illusion” that degrees are the only route to success. They say funding will be targeted at training relevant to the labour market. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: “These reforms are at the heart of our plans to build back better, ensuring all technical education and training is based on what employers want and need, whilst providing individuals with the training they need to get a well-paid and secure job.”

Greece-Turkey tensions (Foreign Policy) Greece’s parliament voted to extend its territorial waters in the Ionian sea by six nautical miles on Wednesday, following negotiations with Albania and Italy. The move comes as Turkey and Greece prepare to meet in Istanbul on Monday to discuss their competing claims in the Aegean Sea, a situation made more tense by Turkish survey vessels testing territorial boundaries in recent months.

Even in jail, Russia’s Navalny knows how to enrage his rival Putin (Washington Post) Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wasted no time showing why the Kremlin finds him such a threat: From behind bars in a coronavirus isolation cell, he released a bombshell video accusing President Vladimir Putin of colossal corruption. The YouTube video—released Tuesday less than 48 hours after Navalny returned to Russia in a direct challenge to Putin and his security services—crossed all Putin’s red lines. Videos and social media—anchored by his network of 40 offices across Russia—remain the core of Navalny’s opposition power, pointing out alleged abuses and indulgences by Russia’s leaders under Putin. Navalny’s video published an architectural plan and drone footage of a gigantic palace near Gelendzhik on the Black Sea, including a cellar winery, an indoor ice rink and a casino. The video alleged it was built for Putin using a complex “slush fund.” It included a photo of teenager Elizaveta Krivonogikh, who it claimed was the secret daughter Putin fathered with a lover. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the video was “a con” and “pure nonsense,” denying that the palace was related to Putin, but he gave no details on who they say is the owner.

Twin suicide bombings rock central Baghdad, at least 28 dead (AP) Twin suicide bombings ripped through a busy market in the Iraqi capital Thursday, killing at least 28 people and wounding 73 others, officials said. The rare suicide bombing attack hit the Bab al-Sharqi commercial area in central Baghdad amid heightened political tensions over planned early elections and a severe economic crisis. No one immediately took responsibility for Thursday’s attack, but Iraq has seen assaults perpetrated by both the Islamic State group and militia groups in recent months.

[roundtheworldrambles]

Luang Prabang, Laos - Part 1

Day 161 – Chiang Mai, Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos

In the afternoon, I packed up my bag and hailed a Red Songthaew to Chiang Mai’s airport, boarding a small, propeller plane that would take me to Luang Prabang, Laos. The flight was short, about an hour and a half east, over the mountainous green highlands. The air outside was thick and hazy, caused by smoke from burning farmer’s fields. I learned that between February-April, this was fairly common for northern Thailand and Laos, as farmers burn their fields before reseeding the soil.

Arriving at the small, red roofed airport in Luang Prabang, I quickly passed through customs, paying for my visa on arrival with US dollars. It was an interesting visa experience for me, as the visa application fee varied depending on the home country of the traveller – with Canadians paying the highest amount of any listed country. After doing some research after the fact, it appears that this is based on the reciprocal cost a Laotian would need to pay to visit Canada. Furthermore, the visa costs are also apparently related to the amount of international aid provided to Laos, where citizens of countries which have provided a higher level of aid pay lower visa costs as a result. I had not given much thought to the reciprocity of international visas before my arrival in Laos, and this was an eye-opening, educational experience for me.

As I was negotiating for a ride into town in the arrivals hall, I had the very good fortune of meeting a fellow traveller from San Francisco, Tonya, who was also travelling by herself. We quickly found out that we were also staying at the same guesthouse, and became immediate friends! Sharing a ride into town on a multi-coloured tuk-tuk, we also realized that we had a very similar itinerary planned around Asia for the coming few months! After settling into our hostel for the evening, we headed out into the town as the sun was setting.

Luang Prabang

The small city of Luang Prabang is built on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers, surrounded by lush green mountains. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, Luang Prabang was once the capital of the historic Lane Xang Kingdom from the 14th to 16th centuries (also known as the “Kingdom of a Million Elephants”). Luang Prabang was also a historic trade centre in Southeast Asia, given its proximity to the meandering Mekong Rivier, which runs for almost 5,000 km through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Luang Prabang is also known for being the centre for Buddhism in Laos, and has many active temples, or “Vats” scattered throughout the town centre. The town was part of a French protectorate between 1893 and 1954, and the colonial influences of this era can still be seen in the architecture throughout the urban centre. Modern day Luang Prabang showcases traditional and French colonial styles throughout the town. Given the current UNESCO protections, the historic town centre was also remarkably free of the overdevelopment that can come with tourism. It was evident to me that the town had taken great care to protect their cultural heritage and architecture, with conservation and sustainability in mind.

Luang Prabang Night Market

As evening fell, Tonya and I wandered over a short distance to Sisavangvong Road, the main street through the peninsula, which was bustling with a vibrant night market.  The street had been closed off to vehicles and scooters, and there were hundreds of red and blue covered stalls and bamboo mats lining the street, selling countless beautiful and unique wares. There was an incredible collection of handicrafts, ceramics, silks, clothing, antiques and other souvenirs for sale. Many of the items sold were handmade by ethnic groups in the nearby hills, although some stalls also sold cheap, imported trinkets. Overall, the market had a relaxed atmosphere, with the vendors typically waiting for the visitor to inquire about the items rather than making sales pitches. One stall in particular caught my eye – where the trader was selling jewellery and cutlery which were apparently made by recycling fragments of bombs which had been dropped on Laos by the United States during the Vietnam War.

I had no previous knowledge of the bombing campaign in Laos during the war, and was stunned to learn that there were close to 600,000 bombing campaigns in Laos between 1964-1973, with the goal to cut off supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail running into Vietnam. To this day, there are estimated to be almost 80 million unexploded bombs throughout the country, which continue to kill innocent men, women and children who happen to come upon them – near half a century later. It sickened me to think about all of the bombs lying dormant in fields and forests throughout this picturesque, welcoming country.

Tonya and I briefly stopped by a money exchange to switch out our US dollars to Laotian Kip. The local denominations were huge - with banknote amounts ranging between K500 to K100,000. For the remainder of my time in Laos, this made it quite challenging to monitor just how much money I had, as the many “zeros” on the banknotes automatically tricked my brain into thinking I had more money than I actually did!

One of the Many Fresh Smoothie Stands in the Market

We spent the remainder of the evening browsing the night market, sampling spicy Laotian dishes at the food stalls along the street, and enjoying passionfruit smoothies. It was a great first day in Laos, and I was lucky to have equally terrific company with Tonya!

Day 162 – Luang Prabang

After grabbing breakfast at our hostel and befriending a few other travellers, Tonya and I headed out to explore town, passing first through the morning farmer’s market just along the street outside. The vendors start setting up before sunrise, and it was already busy as we walked through around 8:30am. Local produce and the catch-of-the-day were set up for sale on mats on the ground. Ready-to-eat snacks were also for sale, such as charcoal-grilled honeycomb, baelfruit, mung-bean rice cakes, Mok Pa (a dish cooked with catfish caught in the Mekong), Lao Khao Soi, various meats cooked in banana leaf, Khao Jee Pate (a Laotian take on a Banh Mi Baguette sandwich) barbecued frog, water buffalo sausage, coconut milk pancakes, young coconuts, various noodle dishes, and even grilled rat – just to name a few snacks! We enjoyed stolling along the street, chatting with the friendly vendors, and taking in the vibrant colours, sights and smells of the market.

We continued onwards to the bank of the Mekong River, lined with palm and banana trees. Long, shallow river boats churned through the milky brown water below. Beyond the wide, lazy river, we could see lush green mountains in the distance. As we walked along the embankment, various tour operators approached us, trying to sell us tours in these slow riverboats. While we were certainly interested, Tonya and I had done our research on reputable tours, and planned to purchase our trip up the Mekong for the following day.

Drying Orange Robes in a Monastery in Luang Prabang

Turning inland, we began to meander along the quieter streets of town, lined with traditional Lao houses and guesthomes, many of which were constructed with bamboo materials during the colonial period. The UNESCO protections in the town continued to be evident, as there were no high-rise buildings or large tour buses anywhere in the town centre. Tuk-tuks and scooters were by far the most common means of transportation for locals and visitors. As we walked, we occasionally passed some active Buddhist monasteries, and while we could not enter, we could see the laundered orange robes of the monks hanging out to dry.  

Wat Xieng Thong

We visited one of the best-known monasteries in the town centre, Wat Xieng Thong. Dating back to the 16th century, the temple complex housed a gilded ordination hall, with large, sweeping roofs, along with numerous stupas, chapels, a library, a drum tower, and a funeral carriage - historically used to carry the urns of Lao royalty. The architecture throughout Wat Xieng Thong was simply stunning, with every structure richly decorated with engravings, colourful mosaics, paintings, gilding and elaborate sculptures.  

A close-up of mosaics at Wat Xieng Thong

Ready for some shade and bite to eat, Tonya and I headed to the banks of the Nam Khan River, crossing a bamboo footbridge to the far bank. The bamboo bridges of Luang Prabang are built by local families on an annual basis, facilitating the journey to and from the old quarter of the city. Incredibly, though these bridges are solely built from bamboo and rope, they are very sturdy! As visitors to Luang Prabang, Tonya and I paid a small toll to cross the bridge, which contributes to the upkeep and annual bridge replacement.

Bamboo Bridge across the Nam Khan River

On the far banks of the river, we arrived at Dyen Sabai  – a restaurant recommended by a friend of mine from Western, Brandon - who had briefly lived abroad in Laos, and had generously given me all sorts of local recommendations! He had highly recommended that I visit Dyen Sabai for their Lao Buffalo Fondue. The setting was peaceful – Tonya and I sat on low futons at a riverside table, surrounded by a beautiful bamboo garden. The buffalo fondue dish turned out to be cooked in a similar way to Chinese hot pot/Korean BBQ. The servers prepared a small charcoal fire in a metal container built into the table, before placing a specialized cover overtop. This set-up allowed Tonya and I to cook the meat ourselves on the grill and cook the vegetables in the broth. It was a delicious (and interactive!) meal, a recommendation well worth it.

Buffalo Fondue at Dyen Sabai

After lunch, we traversed back over the bridge, and walked along the banks of the Nam Khan river to Utopia, a outdoor bar and bucket-list destination for any backpacker to the area (I think I had about 10 different friends recommend I go!). Tonya and I spent several hours of the late afternoon enjoying several Beer Lao while sitting on the floor cushions, chatting with other travellers and taking in the incredible ambiance of this lively riverside bar.

Nam Khan River

As evening began to fall, we returned to the town centre to climb Mount Phousi for sunset. A small mountain located in the heart of the historic town centre, Phou-si literally translates to “sacred hill”, and stands approximately 100m tall. While it was a bit of a climb to the top, I was happy for the exercise! Along the trail as we ascended were many gilded statues of Buddha, with a small temple and golden stupa at the summit. Arriving just on time for sunset, we took in an incredible 360-degree view of Luang Prabang, the Mekong River shimmering in a deep shade of orange, reflecting the mesmerizing sky above. The distant mountains were blanketed in a smoky haze from the burning of brush and farmers fields.  While the hill was packed with tourists who had the same idea as us – it was still a wonderful way to end a day of exploring the city. Ready to tuck into some more of Laos’ famous street food, Tonya and I returned to the night market along Sisavangvong Road, taking in the brightly lit red and blue booths framed by tall palm trees and the opulent Royal Palace. After sharing and sampling countless delicious dishes, we headed back to our hostel, stopping at a booth on the main road to purchase tickets for our boat trip up the Mekong River the following day. I crashed almost immediately, as I was planning to wake up before dawn to view the morning Almsgiving ceremony, a daily tradition of local Buddhist monks.

Sunset from Mount Phousi

[dipulb3]

New homes cost $36,000 more because of an epic shortage of lumber

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/new-homes-cost-36000-more-because-of-an-epic-shortage-of-lumber/

New homes cost $36,000 more because of an epic shortage of lumber

Random-length lumber futures hit a record high of $1,615 on Tuesday, a staggering sevenfold gain from the low in early April 2020. That’s a big deal because lumber is the most substantial supply that home builders buy.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said Brant Chesson, the president and CEO of Homes By Dickerson, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based home builder.

“It’s absolutely contributing to a shortage of housing,” he said.

‘This can only last for so long’

And because the housing market is on fire, the lumber shortage is costing many prospective home buyers even more money.

Surging lumber prices alone have pushed the price of an average new single-family home $35,872 higher, according to an analysis by the National Association of Home Builders.

“While lumber prices have gone up, we have been able to pass it on to the consumer with higher prices for homes,” Jeffrey Mezger, the CEO of KB Home (KBH), told Appradab Business. “And there is still far more demand than there is supply.”

But builders can’t jack up prices forever.

“This can only last for so long before affordability becomes pinched and demand pauses,” John Lovallo, lead home builders analyst at Bank of America, said in an email.

The median sale price of existing homes surged by a record 17.2% in March to $329,100 — the highest since the National Association of Realtors began tracking prices in 1999.

Lumber is so hot, it’s being stolen

Independent builders, which lack the scale advantages of large construction companies like KB Home, are already feeling the pain.

Tom McCarthy can’t finish building a home in Bergen County, New Jersey because of the lumber shortage.

“There are pieces of wood that we can’t find,” said McCarthy, a real estate broker with the Chen Agency who also builds homes with his father on the side.

McCarthy estimates the cost of lumber for the home will hit $70,000, nearly double the cost of building the exact same home in a nearby town just eight months ago.

Some renters are also paying the price. The NAHB estimates that the lumber price spike has added nearly $12,000 to the market value of an average newly built multifamily home — translating to households paying an extra $119 per month to rent a new apartment.

The shortage — and price boom — is so extreme that builders report having lumber and other raw materials stolen from their construction sites.

“Theft has been huge in our market. We have tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen during the year,” said Chesson, the North Carolina builder.

Saw mills can’t keep up with demand

Today’s shortage has roots in the previous housing boom. New home construction crashed after the housing bubble popped in the mid-2000s. That made sense because the market was badly oversupplied. But the downturn also drove countless sawmills out of business, leaving the industry unprepared for today’s surge in demand.

And then Covid happened. Sawmills eased output last spring in anticipation of another bust and as they grappled with heath restrictions.

“There was a great fear among sawmills to prepare for a downturn. When home buying surged, they could not open up capacity quickly enough,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors.

At the same time, demand for lumber is also being driven by a surge of renovations and expansions of existing homes.

But contractors are having trouble finding and paying for lumber, creating another headache for consumers.

“It’s a cost that our members can no longer shoulder the burden on,” said David Pekel, CEO of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. “They have to pass the cost on to the homeowner.”

Industry calls on Biden to act

The lumber shortage is just the latest example of how the rapid economic recovery from the pandemic is pushing supply chains to the limit. Manufacturers are desperate for workers. Smartphone, auto and appliance production is being sidelined by a shortage of computer chips. And the lack of tanker truck drivers has raised the specter of gas stations running on empty this summer.

In the case of lumber, the shortage is being amplified by tariffs.

In one of the first shots fired during the Trump trade wars, the previous administration hit Canada in April 2017 with tariffs of up to 24% on lumber. Late last year, the Trump administration slashed those tariffs to 9%.

The home building industry is now urging President Joe Biden to take further action. In a statement to Appradab Business, NAHB Chairman Chuck Fowke called on the Biden administration to “temporarily remove” the 9% tariff on Canadian lumber “to help ease price volatility.”

Fowke also urged the White House to “bring together interested stakeholders to hold a summit on lumber and building material supply chain issues to identify the causes and solutions for high prices and supply constraints.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Sharp fall’ in lumber prices ahead?

The good news is that industry executives expect lumber production to catch up with demand — eventually.

Samuel Burman, an assistant commodities economist, predicted in a recent note to clients that there will be a “sharp fall” in lumber prices over the next 18 months.

“The mills are coming back online. I think we’re past the worst of it in terms of supply availability,” said Mezger, the KB Home CEO.

Let’s hope so, because the market desperately needs more supply.

“We have a housing shortage in America. The way to relieve that shortage is to build more homes,” said NAR’s Yun. “The housing market has created haves and have-nots. Home builders are smiling big, but first-time buyers are very demoralized.”

[orbemnews]

New homes cost $36,000 more because of an epic shortage of lumber Random-length lumber futures hit a record high of $1,615 on Tuesday, a staggering sevenfold gain from the low in early April 2020. That’s a big deal because lumber is the most substantial supply that home builders buy. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said Brant Chesson, the president and CEO of Homes By Dickerson, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based home builder. “It’s absolutely contributing to a shortage of housing,” he said. ‘This can only last for so long’ And because the housing market is on fire, the lumber shortage is costing many prospective home buyers even more money. Surging lumber prices alone have pushed the price of an average new single-family home $35,872 higher, according to an analysis by the National Association of Home Builders. “While lumber prices have gone up, we have been able to pass it on to the consumer with higher prices for homes,” Jeffrey Mezger, the CEO of KB Home (KBH), told CNN Business. “And there is still far more demand than there is supply.” But builders can’t jack up prices forever. “This can only last for so long before affordability becomes pinched and demand pauses,” John Lovallo, lead home builders analyst at Bank of America, said in an email. The median sale price of existing homes surged by a record 17.2% in March to $329,100 — the highest since the National Association of Realtors began tracking prices in 1999. Lumber is so hot, it’s being stolen Independent builders, which lack the scale advantages of large construction companies like KB Home, are already feeling the pain. Tom McCarthy can’t finish building a home in Bergen County, New Jersey because of the lumber shortage. “There are pieces of wood that we can’t find,” said McCarthy, a real estate broker with the Chen Agency who also builds homes with his father on the side. McCarthy estimates the cost of lumber for the home will hit $70,000, nearly double the cost of building the exact same home in a nearby town just eight months ago. Some renters are also paying the price. The NAHB estimates that the lumber price spike has added nearly $12,000 to the market value of an average newly built multifamily home — translating to households paying an extra $119 per month to rent a new apartment. The shortage — and price boom — is so extreme that builders report having lumber and other raw materials stolen from their construction sites. “Theft has been huge in our market. We have tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen during the year,” said Chesson, the North Carolina builder. Saw mills can’t keep up with demand Today’s shortage has roots in the previous housing boom. New home construction crashed after the housing bubble popped in the mid-2000s. That made sense because the market was badly oversupplied. But the downturn also drove countless sawmills out of business, leaving the industry unprepared for today’s surge in demand. And then Covid happened. Sawmills eased output last spring in anticipation of another bust and as they grappled with heath restrictions. “There was a great fear among sawmills to prepare for a downturn. When home buying surged, they could not open up capacity quickly enough,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors. At the same time, demand for lumber is also being driven by a surge of renovations and expansions of existing homes. But contractors are having trouble finding and paying for lumber, creating another headache for consumers. “It’s a cost that our members can no longer shoulder the burden on,” said David Pekel, CEO of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. “They have to pass the cost on to the homeowner.” Industry calls on Biden to act The lumber shortage is just the latest example of how the rapid economic recovery from the pandemic is pushing supply chains to the limit. Manufacturers are desperate for workers. Smartphone, auto and appliance production is being sidelined by a shortage of computer chips. And the lack of tanker truck drivers has raised the specter of gas stations running on empty this summer. In the case of lumber, the shortage is being amplified by tariffs. In one of the first shots fired during the Trump trade wars, the previous administration hit Canada in April 2017 with tariffs of up to 24% on lumber. Late last year, the Trump administration slashed those tariffs to 9%. The home building industry is now urging President Joe Biden to take further action. In a statement to CNN Business, NAHB Chairman Chuck Fowke called on the Biden administration to “temporarily remove” the 9% tariff on Canadian lumber “to help ease price volatility.” Fowke also urged the White House to “bring together interested stakeholders to hold a summit on lumber and building material supply chain issues to identify the causes and solutions for high prices and supply constraints.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment. ‘Sharp fall’ in lumber prices ahead? The good news is that industry executives expect lumber production to catch up with demand — eventually. Samuel Burman, an assistant commodities economist, predicted in a recent note to clients that there will be a “sharp fall” in lumber prices over the next 18 months. “The mills are coming back online. I think we’re past the worst of it in terms of supply availability,” said Mezger, the KB Home CEO. Let’s hope so, because the market desperately needs more supply. “We have a housing shortage in America. The way to relieve that shortage is to build more homes,” said NAR’s Yun. “The housing market has created haves and have-nots. Home builders are smiling big, but first-time buyers are very demoralized.” Source link Orbem News #Business #cost #Epic #homes #lumber #shortage #Whylumberpricesaresohighandwhatitmeansforhomebuildingcosts-CNN

[citizen0ne]

Yakuza White Dragon Society battles New World Order Khazarian Mafia as U.S. troops deploy worldwide with 10,000 sealed indictments to help take them down.

“10,000 Sealed Indictments” – Fulford Report – 12.18.17

By Benjamin Fulford, official spokesman for White Dragon Society (Yakuza)

U.S. troops deploy worldwide with 10,000 sealed indictments to take down the centuries old secret Khazarian mafia

U.S. President Donald Trump spent the weekend at Camp David with his top generals to map out the exact strategy for decapitating the Khazarian mafia worldwide, say Pentagon sources. “The Atlanta airport was shut down while the Department of Defense refused to disclose the locations of 44,000 U.S. troops who may be involved in terminating the cabal worldwide,” a senior Pentagon source said. There are now close to 10,000 sealed indictments as more and more of the Khazarian criminals give up evidence on their colleagues, the sources say.

There are also many extra-judicial killings going on. “The liberal sanctuary city mayor of San Francisco, Edwin Lee, dropped dead after an illegal alien was found not guilty in the murder of Kate Steinle even after his confession,” one source notes. “Lee’s death is a message to the Democrats and sanctuary city mayors like Rahm Emmanuel of Chicago and Bill De Blasio of New York City,” the source warns.

The Khazarian mob is also killing off lots of people. In Japan, two former executives of Toshiba, Atsutoshi Nishida and Taizo Nishimura, suddenly died in the past two months because they were about to provide evidence about the March 11, 2011 Fukushima tsunami and nuclear terror attack against Japan, according to sources close to the royal family.

This attack was carried out by henchmen of the Rockefeller family, whose members include Hillary and Bill Clinton, the sources say. The Rockellers, in turn, were taking orders from the fascist P2 Freemason lodge, they say. The Rockefeller family, by the way, has elected Mel Rockefeller, the son of Nelson Rockefeller, as the new family head, these sources added.

In Canada, Barry Sherman, owner of the Canadian pharmaceutical giant Apotex, was found hanging dead alongside his wife Honey by the family’s indoor pool. According to CIA sources, Sherman was killed to cover up an evidence trail leading to the Clinton Foundation and their crimes in Haiti. “We have a classified document involving the Clinton Foundation and a pharmaceutical company from Canada that was to supply generic drugs for the people of Haiti. The point is that they were going to supply inferior-quality generic medicine and pocket the difference in price,” the CIA source says.

In any case, no matter how many potential witnesses are bumped off, the situation has reached a point where the Khazarians will not be able to murder their way out.

The December 12th Senatorial election in Alabama, for example, was a sting operation against the Khazarians, Pentagon sources say. “Senator Roy Moore was allowed to have his election stolen in Alabama so Trump could collect voting data to take down the Soros organization, the Democrats, and the cabal for vote fraud,” the sources say. “Three poll workers have been arrested already,” they note.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is next to join a growing list of politicians who are resigning in the ongoing purge of the House and Senate, the sources add. Senator John “Daesh” McCain is also apparently wanting to leave this world before his many crimes are made public.

http://fox6now.com/2017/12/15/john-mccain-described-as-increasingly-frail-senate-sources-say/

Even the brainwashed propaganda media is beginning to realize that something is going on when they see Hillary Clinton’s “surgical boot” (hiding a GPS ankle bracelet) staying on long after it should have been removed if the official excuse of a broken toe were true. No doubt some lame excuse will be given and the still-brainwashed segment of the population will accept it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5178037/Clinton-wears-surgical-boot-MONTHS-breaking-toe.html

The people who still believe the cabal’s story line are like the people in the joke about a man who was told his wife was cheating on him. In the joke, he hires a detective to confirm his wife’s innocence. The detective comes back and says, “She met with another man in the street and they entered a hotel together.” The husband asks, “Did you see them enter a room together?” The detective says, “Yes.” “Did you see what went on inside the room?” the husband asks. “Yes, I peeked through the keyhole and saw them on the bed together,” the detective answers. “Were they covered with a blanket?” the husband asks. The detective says, “Yes” to the man. He asks, “Did you see under the blanket?” and the detective says, “No.” “In that case you cannot prove she was cheating,” the husband says.

The husband does not want to face reality because it would upset his entire worldview, and in the same way, the brainwashed people will cling to the lamest excuses to avoid reality. Similarly, if the Clinton people explain the cast is still on because of “complications,” people in denial will go with this story rather than accept that she has been arrested.

Nonetheless, we are reaching the point where even these people will be forced to face reality. The entire FBI and Justice Department network that tried to protect Hillary Clinton from prosecution is also being systematically exposed and dismantled. The link here provides a good visual summary:

http://rense.com/general96/whoswho.html

Now even the corporate media is being forced to accept that the so-called “Islamic State” was a CIA creation. This is coming out now because the November 18th U.S. military raid on the CIA has shut down Operation Mockingbird and the corporate media is being forced to report the truth.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-15/weapons-went-cia-isis-less-two-months-new-study-reveals

A clear sign of how unusual the times we are living in have become is that former U.S. Corporation President Barack Obama is seeking and apparently getting political asylum in England.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/17/prince-harry-interviews-barack-obama-today-programme-guest-slot

What this shows, together with the fact that Donald Trump is not welcome in the UK, is that the Anglo-Saxon world is split between bloodline-controlled England and the anti-bloodline Gnostic Illuminati-ruled Republic of the United States of America.

This situation is likely to come to a head of sorts in January as an informal Anglo-Chinese alliance tries to bankrupt the U.S. internationally, based on its cumulative trade deficit and its inability to pay for the goods it imports with real money.

The U.S. will respond with threats of war. This will appear in the news in the form of U.S. sabre-rattling against North Korea, as it yet again wields the all-out nuclear war card in an attempt to extort more money. The Chinese are preparing to call the U.S. bluff this time, as can be seen by its government warning its people to prepare for nuclear war as it conducts military drills near Taiwan and North Korea.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2124613/north-korea-time-bomb-government-advisers-urge-china

https://sputniknews.com/asia/201712131059976881-beijing-bombers-jets-encircle-taiwan/

https://www.rt.com/news/413269-china-navy-drills-north-korea/

The Chinese and British want the creation of a world government in order to ensure a peaceful and law-based planet, Asian secret society sources say. In the absence of some sort of compromise with the U.S. military government, there will be financial chaos even if war is avoided.

The current financial system is dysfunctional and only serves as a way to funnel privately owned central bank funny money to the super-rich via the stock market. This means of distributing money has pushed financial markets away from reality, and reality always will prevail, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. The Boston Consulting Group surveyed 250 top institutional investors who together manage over $500 billion in funds and found them to be the most pessimistic they have been since the Lehman shock of 2008.

https://www.bcg.com/publications/2017/survey-increasingly-bearish-investors-seek-long-term-value-creation.aspx

Hopefully, a new transparently and meritocratically run financial system will be launched, but we may need to go through the chaotic collapse of the old system before this is possible. We will find out in the new year.

On a final and personal note, Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center will be speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan on December 20th. Cooper had one of my books banned for being “anti-Semitic.” When I asked him what in my book was “anti-Semitic,” he said that I wrote that U.S. President George Bush Jr. was responsible for the deaths of many civilians in Iraq. Bush is supposed to be an evangelical Christian, and the information on the deaths of civilians in Iraq came from the medical journal Lancet. So here we have a supposed Jew banning a book written by a person with Jewish ancestry that is denouncing genocide by a non-Jew because it is “anti-Semitic.” How hypocritical can you get? Poor Mr. Weisenthal must be spinning in his grave.

According to officials at Tokuma Shoten Publishing, the Weisenthal Center paid bribes to editors to place misleading newspaper ads for my book. This then led to a complete ban of all advertising for all of my books in newspapers and other ad venues, no matter what their content. This is typical of what they do to writers worldwide and is a part of their control grid in Japan and elsewhere. In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security froze the bank accounts of entire publishing companies to prevent them from publishing my books in English.

Cooper and his Jewish mafia buddies also pay rent-a-mob right-wingers to do things like attack ethnic Korean shopping districts in order to keep South Korea and Japan fighting each other, according to members of these groups.

The man is a criminal and belongs in jail. If Cooper is arrested, he will sing like a canary about the entire Khazarian mafia control grid in Japan and elsewhere. He will also explain exactly how the Khazarian mafia runs North Korea. I would be very happy if some MP’s showed up at the event and arrested him. Take him to Guantanamo and make him sing.

The Dragon groups we do know to be real include:

the White Dragon which has an ancient Asian counter-part

the Black Dragon (Greater East Asian Co-prosperity sphere etc.)

the Dragon family (Merovingian royalty)

the Green Dragon which has roots in Iran (Persia) and central Asia

the Red Dragon may be the Nazis new name for themselves because the Odessa group (post-war Nazis) is definitely on the war path.

(Benjamin Fulford is a Canadian national who has lived and worked in Japan for over 20-years experience as a professional writer and journalist. He has sold over 500,000 non-fiction books written in Japanese. He’s produced a comprehensive catalogue of scoops in field ranging from business to Yakuza gangsters to high-finance to government corruption. Now focused on exposing U.S. manipulation of Japanese politics, media and education through a combination of bribes, murder, brainwashing etc. My goal is to counter U.S. propaganda and expose the Japanese people to the truth so that they may free themselves from the colonial yoke and use their $5 trillion in overseas holdings to end world poverty and save the environment. Native or near native, spoken and written: Japanese, French, Spanish and English. Conversational, reading ability in Mandarin, Portuguese and Italian. As for his experience: from 2005-present: He published 15 books written in Japanese with cumulative sales running at over 500,000 copies. Has a weekly 2-hour TV show and appear frequently on numerous other nationally broadcast shows. He has regular columns in a variety of best-selling Japanese magazines. From 1998-2005, Fulford worked as Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief for Forbes Magazine, he quit in profound disgust over extensive corporate censorship and mingling of advertising and editorial at the magazine. From 1997-1998: Fulford worked as the Tokyo correspondent for the South China Morning Post. From 1995-1997: Fulford worked as the staff writer for the Nikkei Weekly and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun Newspaper. From 1993-1995 he took a sabbatical in Canada and researched the link between evolutionary forces and modern world society. From 1989-1992 Fulford worked as Senior Tokyo correspondent for the International Financing Revue. There, he created and managed Japan Watch, a news and analysis service available on the Reuters and Telerate news-wires. Created Katana, a Japanese language news service available on the Nikkei Quick news-wire. Triggered several Finance Ministry investigations with articles that uncovered financial industry irregularities. From 1986-1989 he worked as correspondent for Knight-Ridder Financial News; covered a broad range of market related news. One particularly market moving story was used by Knight-Ridder in an advertising campaign. From 1982-1985 Part time jobs during student years included: work as an editor of Hitachi Review, a science and technology magazine; translation in the fields of business and finance and assorted television, radio and movie appearances. From 1978-1982: he spent time traveling and avoiding civilization. He spent 1-year studying with a witch doctor along the upper reaches of the Uquyali river in the Peruvian Amazon. Lived with former cannibals. He also traveled to other wilderness locations and lived off the land describing his experience as peaceful, beautiful. challenging and character building, zen.

Education: Sophia University, Tokyo Japan; the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. BA Asian studies, China area specialty.)

(If you have been following me for a long time, you will remember my post laying out who were “black hats” fighting for the New World Order and who were “white hats” fighting for the people...well this is the “white hat” White Dragon Society (Yakuza) faction I was talking about.

[xtruss]

Why Is There an Enormous Global Dollar Shortage Despite the Fed’s Massive Injections?

It's still the best of a sad bunch — everybody is inflating but at least the dollar is the currency of global trade

— Daniel Lacalle | April 20, 2020 | Anti-Empire.Com

In response to the economic collapse caused by the general confinement imposed by state governments as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve (the American Central Bank) announced an injection of more than $ 2 trillion into the American economy .

But the dollar remains strong against other currencies in the world – as can be seen from the high value of the DXY index , which compares the US currency to the euro, the yen, the pound sterling, the Canadian dollar, the Swedish krona and the Swiss franc.

So the question is inevitable: how can the Fed launch a program of practically unlimited monetary stimuli, and the dollar index still remain strong?

Shortages Amid Abundance

The answer lies in the growing global scarcity of the dollar, something that should serve as a lesson for monetary alchemists around the world, who swear that it is possible to do in other Central Banks (mainly in developing countries) what the Fed is doing.

First of all, it is worth remembering that gold once again reached the historic highs that had only been achieved in 2011 , which proves that monetary inflation is in fact already turning into asset inflation. However, it is a fact that the dollar remains strong against other currencies in the world, which requires explanations.

The $ 2 trillion stimulus package agreed with Congress is equivalent to approximately 10% of American GDP. And, if we include the lines of credit created by the Fed to guarantee working capital for companies, we have a liquidity of US $ 6 trillion for consumers and companies over the next nine months.

The stimulus package approved by the American Congress consists of the following items:

(1) Permanent tax transfers to families and businesses of nearly $ 5 trillion.

(2) Individuals will receive US $ 1,200 in direct payment (US $ 300 billion in total).

(3) Small businesses will receive total loans of US $ 367 billion, which will become subsidies if jobs are kept

(4) There will be an increase in the values ​​of unemployment insurance to the value of 100% of wages lost during four months (US $ 200 billion).

(5) US $ 100 billion will go to the health system, as well as US $ 150 billion to state and municipal governments.

(6) The rest of the package will come from temporary measures to help businesses and families, including tax deferrals and tax waivers.

(7) Finally, the US $ 500 billion Treasury Exchange Stabilization Fund will be used to lend to non-financial companies.

To all of this, we must add the massive quantitative easing program announced by the Fed.

First, we must understand that the word “unlimited” is just a communication tool. It is not unlimited. The entire program is limited by demand from the rest of the world for US dollars. If there is a loss of confidence in the dollar, the program ends.

I myself have had the privilege of working with several of the current members of the Fed, and the truth is that they know it is not unlimited. But they know that communication is important.

The graph below shows the evolution of the assets held by the Fed. To buy assets, the Fed creates dollars out of thin air. That’s how it does its programs of monetary expansion and quantitative easing.

The Fed identified the Achilles heel of the world economy: the huge global shortage of dollars. This was already obvious in September of last year, when the American repo market froze .

The global dollar shortage is currently estimated at $13 trillion. This is the value we reach when we take the entire American money supply, including the bank reserves held by the Fed , and from it we subtract all global dollar-denominated liabilities, especially in emerging countries.

How Did We Get to Such a Dollar Shortage?

Over the past 20 years, dollar-denominated debt, in both emerging

(led by China) and developed countries, has exploded. The reason is simple: domestic and foreign investors do not accept incurring massive risks in the local currency, as they know that, in times of turbulence, as now, several countries experience a sharp exchange devaluation (the dollar is more expensive in terms of local currencies). Such a devaluation generates intense losses for these investors, who, in remitting their profits, would lose all their gains when converting the local currency to the dollar.

Consequently, investors only accept to finance governments and companies if they issue bonds in dollars.

Likewise, several Central Banks around the world, mainly in emerging countries, are making use of their international reserves to try to contain some of the intense and sudden devaluation of their currencies. But international reserves are effectively made up of US Treasury bills. That is, when Central Banks sell reserves, they actually sell US Treasury bills in exchange for dollars, which accentuates the world demand for the American currency.

According to the Bank for International Settlements (the Basel Bank), the number of dollar-denominated debt securities issued by governments and companies in European, emerging countries and China doubled from $30 trillion to $60 trillion between 2008 and 2019.

These countries today have to deal with more than $2 trillion in debt that will mature in the next two years.

To make matters worse, the drop in exports, GDP and commodity prices(initially because of the trade war and now because of the Covid-19 pandemic) has created a huge hole in the inflow of dollars into these countries.

So, if we take the dollar reserves of the most indebted countries and deduct foreign liabilities in dollars, and take into account the estimated dollar revenues in this crisis (exports and foreign direct investment), we have that the global dollar shortage could rise from US $ 13 trillion in March 2020 to $ 20 trillion in December. And that if we consider that the global recession will not be lasting.

China has more than $ 1 trillion in reserves and is one of the best-prepared countries to deal with the situation, but still, these total reserves cover only 60% of the country’s dollar liabilities. If export earnings collapse, the dollar shortage will increase. In 2019, the Chinese took on another $ 200 billion in debt as their exports slowed and the inflow of dollars fell short of expectations.

Gold is Not Enough

Gold reserves are not enough.

If we look at the reserves of the main economies in the world, they represent less than 2% of the money supply. Russia has the largest gold reserve in relation to its money supply: 9% of M2.

China’s gold reserves are equivalent to 0.007% of M2.

As such, there is no “gold-backed” currency in the world, and the one that is theoretically more protected in gold – which is the ruble – suffers the same volatilities as other currencies in times of recession and a sharp drop in commodity prices due to the scarcity of dollars (see the sharp depreciation of the Russian ruble in early 2020).

Still, the volatility of the Russian ruble does not even compare to the volatility of those Latin American countries that suffer from both a drop in international reserves and a collapse in their own citizens’ demand for domestic currency (as is the case in Argentina ).

In addition, the accumulation of gold reserves by central banks in recent years was more than offset, in just a few months, by the increase in the monetary base of these countries. In other words, gold reserves in several countries have increased, but at a much lower rate than the expansion of their monetary bases.

The US is the Privileged – and You Can’t Copy

Given all of this, the Federal Reserve knows that it has the largest of all bazookas at its disposal, as the rest of the world needs at least $20 trillion by the end of the year, so it can expand its balance sheet (creating dollars out of thin air) and thereby finance the US government’s $ 10 trillion budget deficit, and yet the dollar shortage will remain.

The US dollar does not weaken excessively (although, as stated, it is weakening markedly against gold) because all other countries in the world are experiencing loss of reserves, reduced dollar inflows and the need to roll over dollar debts at the same time.

These are expanding their respective monetary bases (in local currency) at a rate higher than that of the Fed, but without the privilege of being the international currency of exchange and the global reserve currency.

In other words, the global demand for dollars has never been stronger: on the one hand, the monetary expansion of other countries is being as or more intense than that of the Fed itself; on the other hand, the supply of dollars has suddenly become scarce because of declines in exports and the

collapse in commodity prices.To make matters worse, as explained, there is also a need to obtain dollars in the short term to roll over debts.

It is an arrangement that no other country in the world experiences, as no other country has the privilege of issuing the international exchange currency and the global reserve currency.

And it gets worse: under current circumstances, and with a global crisis on the horizon, global demand for emerging country bonds in local currencies tends to fall sharply, well below their financing needs. Thus, the dependence on the US dollar will increase. Why? When hundreds of central banks try to copy the Fed by cutting interest rates without having the same legal, financial and investment security as the US, they will simply see a generalized flight from their currencies, further accentuating the currency devaluation.

Therefore, those Central Banks that try to copy what the Fed is doing, ignoring that the real demand for their respective currencies is much less than the demand for the US dollar, will only cause local and foreign investors to abandon these currencies even more, because of the inflationary risk. This could make the exchange rate devaluation even worse.

There is No “Monetary Sovereignty” Without Security For Investors.

So far, the only country that has demonstrated that it has understood this is Japan. As the country with the largest dollar reserves in the world today , Japan not only has its currency completely backed by dollars, but also has a completely legal environment. safe, predictable and conducive to foreign investments, in the same pattern as USA, UK and Switzerland. That is why the country was able to afford zero interest without suffering major consequences.

To Conclude

This race towards zero interest that is being practiced by the Central Banks is not a race to see who wins, but to see who loses first.

Those who lose will be those who believe they are capable of copying the Fed and the United States without having the same economic freedom, the same legal environment and the same security given to investors.

The Federal Reserve can, and should, be criticized for its monetary stance, but at least it is the only Central Bank in the world that really analyzes the global demand for its currency (US dollars) and that apparently knows that the money supply cannot be increased beyond the demand for it.

Indeed, the Fed’s quantitative easing is not unlimited; on the contrary, it is totally limited by the true global demand for the American currency, something that other Central Banks ignore or prefer to forget.

Can the US dollar lose its global reserve currency position? Of course yes. But it will never lose it to another country that decides to commit the same types of monetary madness as the Fed without taking into account the real global demand for the currency they issue.

This should be a lesson for all countries. If you fall into the trap of believing you have the world’s reserve currency, and start behaving like the Fed, printing money without any regard for the global demand for that money, then your dependence on the dollar will intensify. And that at best.

Source: Mises Brazil

[savetopnow]

2018-03-10 03 NEWS now

NEWS

Associated Press

School shooting calls released; gun bill on governor's desk

Officer charged with assaulting black jaywalking suspect

Projected Kim, Trump summit preceded by other landmark meets

Former Trump campaign aide Nunberg at court for grand jury

President Trump plans to meet Kim Jong Un for nuke talks

BBC News

Big cat gets CAT scan

Spain strike: 'Young women are incredible'

Natthanan: the 10-year-old make-up artist

Five ways to break up with plastic

Syria: Seven years of war explained

Chicago Tribune

FBI: Fugitive wanted in Hell's Angels investigation could be in Joliet area

2 injured in extra-alarm fire on Far South Side

Service halted after Metra Southwest train hits truck near Wrightwood

Ex-LaSalle County prosecutor Brian Towne fends off misconduct lawsuit, but other legal trouble continues

Shootings in Chicago kill 2, including 16-year-old boy, and wound 4

LA Times

Smuggled Bengal tiger cub undergoes intestinal surgery at San Diego Zoo

Student dies after collapsing during P.E. at an LAUSD middle school

Essential Education: L.A. Unified commemorates the 1968 student walkouts

Soups, gratins, panna cotta and more great recipe ideas for leeks, now in season

Former Giant Aubrey Huff waits for the perfect pitch for San Diego home

NPR News

Guess Who Knows Both President Trump And Kim Jong Un?

Top Stories: Trump Tariff Exemptions; Robust February Jobs Report

U.S. Signs Off On Tariffs, Angering Trade Partners

Trump Commerce Secretary Says Warnings About Tariffs Are Overhyped

Why Potentially Dodgy Diabetes Drugs Dominate in India

New York Times

Nonfiction: Are iPhones Bad for Kids?

U.S. Added 313,000 Jobs in February. Here’s What That Means.

Rebel Snipers Trap Civilians in Syrian Enclave, U.N. Official Says

Stock Markets Jump in Response to Jobs Report

Opinion: Donald Trump’s Thoroughly American Foreign Policy

ProPublica

Injured Nuclear Workers Finally Had Support. The Trump Administration Has Mothballed It.

We’ve Updated Our Campaign Widget to Better Help You Follow the Money

ProPublica Wins Five SABEW Awards for Business Journalism

The Trump Appointee Behind the Move to Add a Citizenship Question to the Census

Florida’s Governor Will Sign Bill Expanding Workers’ Comp Benefits for First Responders

Reddit News

A sheriff's deputy had his ex-wife arrested because he didn't like what she wrote about him on Facebook

Toxic chemicals found in drinking water of 2 Detroit suburbs

A Bag Containing 54 Severed Human Hands Has Been Found in Eastern Russia

California bill would extend bar closing time to 4am

North Carolina police officer resigns after beating, choking and tasing suspected jaywalker

Reuters

U.S. allies line up for exemptions from Trump's tariffs

Bull market aging but still has juice to break record

Goldman CEO Blankfein prepares to exit as soon as year-end: WSJ

In the cellars of eastern Ghouta, Syrians wait in fear

Israeli troops kill Palestinian in West Bank clashes

Reveal News

Nation’s largest janitorial company faces new allegations of rape

A group of janitors started a movement to stop sexual abuse

The Hate Report: How white supremacists recruit online

New documents about Jehovah’s Witnesses’ sex abuse begin to leak out

California is preparing to defend its waters from Trump order

The Altantic

West Virginia's Teachers Are Not Satisfied

This Average Joe Is the Most Quoted Man in News

The Unsinkable Benjamin Netanyahu?

Eric Garcetti Isn't Expecting Much From Washington

The Particular Horror of Church Shootings

The Guardian

What would The Wire be like in Trump's America?

Russian spy attack: military convoy arrives at Salisbury hospital

Canadian doctors: cancel our pay rise and spend money elsewhere

Mikaela Shiffrin wraps up second consecutive overall World Cup title

Even in the era of super-clubs, football’s pleasure principle still holds | Barney Ronay

The Independent

Winter Paralympics 2018: Team GB brought to tears by good luck messages from family and friends

Goldman Sachs's Lloyd Blankfein to step down as CEO

Women with obese male partners will be denied IVF treatment, rules NHS group

Ricky Gervais interview: 'I don't court controversy - I try to deal with truth'

Selena Gomez's kidney donor Francia Raisa says singer almost died after transplant

The Intercept

Betsy DeVos Just Tried to Take Away the Ability of States to Crack Down on Abusive Student Debt Collectors

Amazon Partnership with British Police Alarms Privacy Advocates

George Nader, Cooperating Witness in Mueller Probe, Was Arrested for Child Pornography in the 1980s

Senate Claims to Fix Its Wall Street Bill, but a Look at the Text Says It’s Still a Giveaway

As Female Imprisonment in Brazil Skyrockets, a Heavy Burden Falls on the Women Left at Home

The Quartz

This is the chart you’d consult if you were looking to punish the US in a trade war

Meet the new gatekeeper of Germany’s finances

For the US, it’s jobs, jobs, jobs! (Just don’t mention wages)

Blend it like Beckham: Victoria and David are launching their own beauty lines

Large corporations represent one quarter of WeWork’s present membership

Wall Street Journal

Trump-Kim Summit Has U.S. Allies Scrambling

Is Putin Turning Into Brezhnev?

China, Europe Slam Trump's Tariffs as U.S. Metalworkers Cheer

Amid U.S. Pressure, Kenyan Rivals Pledge to End Strife

Trial of a Shipwrecked North Korean Calls Attention to Sanctions

[starseedfxofficial]

The Hidden Secrets of the British Pound and Canadian Dollar: Unlocking the Power of the Ascending Triangle Forex traders, brace yourselves! Today, we’re diving into one of the market’s most intriguing mysteries—the dynamic duo of the British Pound (GBP) and Canadian Dollar (CAD). More specifically, we’ll unravel the secrets behind the ascending triangle, a chart pattern so powerful it’s like discovering the cheat codes to your favorite video game. But don’t worry, we’ll keep it fun, insightful, and actionable. Let’s kick things off with a witty analogy: trading without understanding patterns like the ascending triangle is like baking a cake without following the recipe—you might get lucky, but chances are you’ll end up with a mess. So, buckle up as we explore how this pattern can supercharge your GBP/CAD trading game. What Makes the British Pound and Canadian Dollar Pair Unique? Imagine a tug-of-war between two strong economies, each pulling for dominance. The GBP/CAD pair is just that—a fascinating dance influenced by oil prices, global risk sentiment, and central bank policies. Key Drivers of GBP/CAD: - Oil Prices: Canada’s economy thrives on oil exports, making the CAD highly sensitive to crude oil price fluctuations. - Fun fact: When oil prices rise, the CAD often strengthens. It’s like CAD gets a shot of espresso. - UK Economic Data: From inflation reports to Bank of England speeches, the British Pound is a drama queen—always reacting to headlines. - Global Risk Sentiment: GBP/CAD often dances to the rhythm of risk appetite. When investors are adventurous, the pair may soar; when they’re cautious, expect some turbulence. Ascending Triangle 101: The Basics You Need to Know An ascending triangle is a bullish continuation pattern that signals upward momentum. Picture it as a pressure cooker building steam until it finally bursts. How to Identify an Ascending Triangle: - Flat Top Resistance: The price repeatedly tests a horizontal resistance level. - Rising Support: Higher lows indicate growing buying pressure. - Breakout Point: When the price breaks above resistance, it’s game on! Why Most Traders Miss the Boat (And How You Can Avoid It) Here’s the kicker: Many traders spot an ascending triangle but fail to capitalize on it. Why? They lack patience or enter prematurely. Think of it as trying to eat a steak before it’s cooked. Tips to Avoid Common Pitfalls: - Wait for Confirmation: Always wait for a breakout above resistance with increased volume. - Set Realistic Targets: Use the triangle’s height to estimate your target price. - Don’t Ignore False Breakouts: If the breakout lacks volume, it could be a fake-out. Consider waiting for a retest. Elite Tactics to Maximize Gains Now for the ninja-level strategies that separate pros from amateurs. These tactics are designed to help you leverage the ascending triangle for maximum impact. - Pair the Triangle with Indicators: Combine the pattern with RSI or MACD to confirm momentum. - Example: If RSI is above 50 and rising during a breakout, it’s a green light. - Time Your Entry: Use pending orders just above resistance to ensure you’re only triggered when the breakout is real. - Manage Your Risk Like a Pro: Place stop-loss orders below the last swing low to protect your capital. - Analogy: Think of it as wearing a helmet while biking—you’re prepared for unexpected bumps. - Study Historical Patterns: Analyze past GBP/CAD charts to spot how the pair has reacted to ascending triangles. This gives you a roadmap for future trades. Case Study: GBP/CAD and the Ascending Triangle Masterclass Let’s revisit a real-world example from late 2023: - Scenario: GBP/CAD formed an ascending triangle over three weeks. - Trigger: A breakout occurred at 1.7200 with a volume surge. - Outcome: The pair rallied to 1.7500, delivering a 300-pip gain. This isn’t just theory—it’s actionable insight. Remember, history often rhymes in Forex. When to Avoid the Ascending Triangle Even superheroes have weaknesses, and the ascending triangle is no exception. - Low Volume: If there’s no volume spike, the breakout might lack conviction. - Unclear Structure: Avoid trades when the pattern looks more like abstract art than a triangle. - Major News Events: Big announcements can invalidate technical patterns, so always check the calendar. How StarseedFX Elevates Your Trading Game At StarseedFX, we’re committed to empowering traders with cutting-edge tools and insights. Here’s how we can help: - Latest Forex News: Stay ahead with real-time updates on GBP/CAD and other pairs. Learn More - Advanced Education: Master patterns like the ascending triangle with our free courses. Enroll Here - Community Membership: Join a network of elite traders for daily tips and live analysis. Join Now - Smart Trading Tools: Simplify your trading with automated insights. Explore Tools Final Thoughts: Master the Triangle, Master the Market The ascending triangle is more than just a pattern; it’s a roadmap to success. By mastering this strategy and leveraging tools like those from StarseedFX, you can turn potential pitfalls into profit. Remember, trading is part skill, part strategy, and part staying ahead of the curve. Now it’s your turn—study the charts, apply these tactics, and let the GBP/CAD pair work for you. As they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is now. So, what are you waiting for? —————– Image Credits: Cover image at the top is AI-generated Read the full article

[newstfionline]

European leaders are defiant over Trump’s G-7 statement

By Griff Witte and James McAuley, Washington Post, June 10, 2018

BERLIN--It was an image that, in its Rockwellian presentation and characters, seemed to capture an emerging era.

European leaders stood arrayed on one side of a narrow conference room table, leaning in. On the other side: President Trump, seated alone, his arms folded.

The photo, released Saturday on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Instagram account and later tweeted by Trump national security adviser John Bolton, fast became a Rorschach test for an increasingly troubled relationship.

Trump was clearly isolated. But was he making an overdue stand against an expiring global order? Or was he just the odd man out in the world’s most powerful club?

The enchantingly unreadable facial expressions make it impossible to know.

On the day after the Group of Seven summit blew up in spectacular fashion, with Trump using idle time on an airport runway to insult his host and repudiate an agreement he had made with allied leaders only hours earlier, emotions were far easier to divine.

Allies were indignant. They were defiant. Yet they were hardly shocked by the outcome of a critical global gathering that had gone worse than any that longtime foreign policy players had seen.

“It was not a surprise,” said Norbert Röttgen, chair of the foreign affairs committee in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag. “The president acted and reacted in the childish way he could be expected to.”

To the United States’ closest partners, the pattern has become disturbingly familiar. Trump’s abandonment of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear agreement and his decision to impose protectionist tariffs on European steel and aluminum products have established a level of animosity between the United States and Europe that, by many measures, surpasses even the rift over the Iraq War.

The depth of exasperation showed in a Sunday afternoon statement from French President Emmanuel Macron’s office.

“International cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks,” the statement said. “Let’s be serious and worthy of our people.”

For many in Europe, the question is how best to preserve any kind of multilateral cooperation. Dealing with Trump’s whims and last-minute changes of mind has proven a strategic nightmare.

“How is it possible to work this way if once you have agreed to something, two hours later the guy decides he doesn’t agree with what he agreed with?” said François Heisbourg, a former French presidential national security adviser. “Is there any space for a multilateral order under these circumstances?”

Trump’s choice to abandon the G-7 communique was announced in a pair of tweets as he prepared to lift off early from the two-day summit in Quebec City. The decision--which came with an attack on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for being “weak and dishonest”--directly contradicted an announcement by Trudeau minutes earlier in which he declared that all seven member-states had signed the joint statement.

In that announcement, Trudeau had said the summit was “very successful,” but he also said Canada would retaliate against metals tariffs that had been aimed at allies.

Following Trump’s tweets, Trudeau’s office issued a statement saying he “said nothing he hasn’t said before--both in public, and in private conversations with the President.”

How to handle Trump has become one of the most pressing issues confronting U.S. allies.

Röttgen, the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee chairman, said they have learned to anticipate his outbursts and U-turns, and should respond to them accordingly. He criticized Merkel’s team for releasing the much-discussed photo.

“By portraying him as the naughty boy in the room, he will stick even more to his behavior and it will get worse,” said Röttgen, who is a member of Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union. “We have to ignore his behavior and concentrate on what is left of the substance of the transatlantic relationship.”

Just how much is left is a matter of debate. Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, wrote in his tweet of the photo that it was “Just another #G7 where other countries expect America will always be their bank. The President made it clear today. No more.”

The relationship between the United States and its allies could be frayed even further if the trade war escalates--a scenario that Röttgen said he expects, with the United States in his view likely to move against German carmakers.

Of all European countries, Germany has the most to lose from a trade war with the United States. The United States had a $151 billion trade deficit in goods with the European Union last year. Germany alone, with its high-end automobile and appliance exports, accounted for $64 billion of that.

Trump has repeatedly complained on Twitter about German automobiles flooding the U.S. market and has asked his administration to examine possible tariffs as a way to curb their popularity among American consumers, a point he reiterated on Twitter on Saturday.

But amid the animosity, there were signs among otherwise frustrated allied leaders that they see Trump and his “America First” agenda as an aberration and not necessarily as expressive of a new reality.

Macron emphasized his belief that Trump’s vision of America was at odds with American values.

“President Trump saw that he had a united front before him,” Macron said via Twitter. “To find itself isolated in a concert of nations is contrary to American history.”

Other European leaders, meanwhile, continued their attempts to try to tamp down transatlantic disagreements. Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May preferred tact to confrontation, even after Trump allies allegedly told the Telegraph newspaper that the U.S. president had grown weary of May’s “schoolmistress tone.”

Asked Saturday evening by the medial whether she “liked working with him,” May responded, “We have a very good relationship with President Trump.”

May did, however, say that she and Trump had “a very frank discussion” about trade.

[opedguy]

G7′s Dog-and-Pony Show

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), June 11, 2021.--Meeting at the luxury resort at Carbis Bay, near St. Ivess in Corwall, the G7 [Group of Seven], including the U.K. [host], U.S., Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and European Union, starts tonight with a posh dinner including Queen Elizabeth and members of the Royal Family. Despite all the pomp-and-circumstance, there are critical issues related to the novel coronavirus AKA SARS CoV02 or Covid-19 pandemic, especially vaccine availability, new Delta Indian variants ravaging the U.K. and, most importantly, the origin of the virus that G7 won’t address.  U.K Prime Minister Boris Johnson, U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime MinisterYoshihide Suga, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel must address the origin of the pandemic.   

          India and Australia were also invited to attend the meeting, with Russia and China, noticeably absent by design, since the G7 was established in 1975 to represents the world’s democracies, not authoritarian or totalitarian regimes.  China is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, since the economies of all Western democracies are dependent on Chinese manufacturing.  Russia was added to the G7 in 1997, under the reforms of the late Russian President Boris Yeltsin.  Russian Federation was dropped from the G7 in 2014 after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea.  Biden is slated to meet Putin June 16 for a Geneva summit, where he hopes to put U.S,-Russian relations back on track after hitting post-Cold War lows since taking office Jan. 20.  Biden’s been under pressure from the Democrats and Republicans to confront Putin on human rights abuses.  

           When the G7 gets down to business, the Covid-19 global pandemic will be one everyone’s minds, especially how to get industrialized and developing countries more vaccines.  Before heading to Carbis Bay, Biden committed to delivering 500 million does of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson-Jansen vaccines.  Vaccines rates in the U.K. are over 50% using primarily the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine.  But the U.K. has been dealing with the new Indian Delta variant, with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson considering more shutdowns to control the spread.  Biden enters the G7 with about 54% of the 330 million U.S. population with at least one dose, hoping for 70% by the July 4 holiday.  G7 ministers will focus on the pragmatics of vaccine delivery, especially now that the Delta variant is ravaging the U.K. and soon to spread to other countries, including the U.S.    

         G7 ministers should hear the best evidence available about he origin of the deadly virus that’s infected 175,829,827 and killed 3,795,331 worldwide, plunging the world economy into recession.  While there are signs of global economic recovery, the industrialized and developing world deal with incalculable economic losses from the global pandemic.  G7 ministers have a right to know whether the virus occurred naturally in Wuhan, China or was manufactured in a Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV] bio-weapons lab.  Wreaking so much death and destruction around the planet, the G7 deserves to know how another future infectious disease crisis can be avoided.  If it turns out the Covid-19 global pandemic was man made, the world needs to know who’s responsible and what can be done to prevent a future disaster.  It’s doubtful that the G7 ministers will spend any much time on the origin of the virus.   

          Biden has said correctly that there can be no real economic progress without defeating the deadly novel coronavirus and all its new variants.  U.S. officials are prepared to deliver some 500 million vaccine does to slow the spread of the virus now devastating countries like India, Brazil and several African nations where vaccine availability has been sparse.  U.S., U.K. and European Central bankers have to agree, despite whatever signs of temporary inflation, to keep monetary policy accommodating economic growth for the foreseeable future.  G7 minister will no doubt revisit efforts at climate change, requiring the world’s most industrialized powers to redouble efforts to reduce carbon pollution.  U.K.’s Boris Johnson hopes to resolve any remaining trade issues after leaving the EU Jan. 31, 2020.  Biden spoke with Johnson about preserving the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.     

        When it comes to the most pressing world problems, the G7 can pledge in their communiqué a commitment to get Covid-19 vaccines to as many world citizens as possible, while, at the same time, central banks committed to an accommodating monetary policy.  When it comes to forcing multinational corporations to pay more tax, there’s little the G7 can do to enforce collections.  G7 ministers want a statement on global health but must first find out, no matter how controversial, how the deadly pandemic started.  If evidence points to illegal biological weapons experiments in Wuhan, China, the G7 must forcefully express their commitment to hold China accountable for the deadly consequences.  It’s not enough to talk about the global health system.  China must be held accountable for illegal experiments on bat coronaviruses throwing the world into a global health and economic crisis 

About the Author 

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.  

[jobsearchtips02]

Piglets terminated, chickens gassed as pandemic slams meat sector

CHICAGO (Reuters) – With the pandemic hobbling the meat-packing market, Iowa farmer Al Van Beek had no place to ship his mature pigs to make room for the 7,500 piglets he got out of his reproducing operation. The crisis required a choice that still troubles him: He purchased his staff members to offer injections to the pregnant plants, one by one, that would trigger them to terminate their baby pigs.

Van Beek and other farmers state they have no choice but to choose animals as they run short on area to house their animals or cash to feed them, or both. The world’s biggest meat business – including Smithfield Foods Inc, Cargill Inc, JBS USA and Tyson Foods Inc – have halted operations at about 20 slaughterhouses and processing plants in North America considering that April as workers fall ill, stiring global fears of a meat lack.

Van Beek’s piglets are victims of a sprawling food-industry crisis that began with the mass closure of restaurants – overthrowing that sector’s supply chain, overwhelming storage and forcing farmers and processors to damage everything from milk to salad greens to animals. Processors prepared to serve the food-service industry can’t immediately switch to providing supermarket.

Countless pigs, chickens and livestock will be euthanized due to the fact that of slaughterhouse closures, restricting materials at grocers, said John Tyson, chairman of leading U.S. meat provider Tyson Foods.

Pork has actually been hit specifically hard, with daily production cut by about a 3rd. Unlike cattle, which can be housed outside on pasture, U.S. hogs are fattened up for slaughter inside temperature-controlled buildings. If they are housed too long, they can get too huge and hurt themselves. The barns need to be cleared out by sending adult hogs to slaughter prior to the arrival of brand-new piglets from plants that were fertilized just before the pandemic.

” We have no place to choose the pigs,” stated Van Beek, who regreted the waste of a lot meat. “What are we going to do?”

In Minnesota, farmers Kerry and Barb Mergen felt their hearts pound when a team from Daybreak Foods Inc showed up with carts and tanks of carbon dioxide to euthanize their 61,000 egg-laying hens previously this month.

Daybreak Foods, based in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, supplies liquid eggs to dining establishments and food-service companies. The company, which owns the birds, pays agreement farmers like the Mergens to feed and care for them. Motorists typically pack the eggs onto trucks and transport them to a plant in Big Lake, Minnesota, which utilizes them to make liquid eggs for dining establishments and ready-to-serve dishes for food-service business. But the plant’s operator, Cargill Inc, said it idled the center because the pandemic reduced need.

Daybreak Foods, which has about 14.5 million hens with contractor-run or company-owned farms in the Midwest, is trying to change equipments and ship eggs to grocery stores, stated President William Rehm. But egg cartons remain in shortage nationwide and the business now must grade each egg for size, he stated.

Rehm declined to state how much of the business’s flock has actually been euthanized.

” We’re trying to balance our supply with our customers’ requirements, and still keep everybody safe – including all of our people and all our hens,” Rehm said.

DISCARDING HOGS IN A LANDFILL

In Iowa, farmer Dean Meyer stated he becomes part of a group of about 9 producers who are euthanizing the tiniest 5%of their newly born pigs, or about 125 piglets a week. They will continue euthanizing animals till disruptions ease, and could increase the variety of pigs killed each week, he stated. The small bodies are composted and will become fertilizer. Meyer’s group is also killing mom hogs, or sows, to minimize their numbers, he said.

” Packers are supported every day, a growing number of,” stated Meyer.

As the United States deals with a possible food lack, and supermarkets and food banks are struggling to meet need, the forced slaughters are becoming more prevalent across the country, according to farming economic experts, farm trade groups and federal lawmakers who are speaking with farmer constituents.

Iowa Guv Kim Reynolds, together with both U.S. senators from a state that supplies a 3rd of the country’s pork, sent out a letter to the Trump administration advocating financial aid and help with culling animals and effectively dealing with their carcasses.

Hog farmer Mike Patterson’s animals, who have actually been placed on a diet so they take longer to fatten up due to the supply chain disruptions triggered by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks, at his home in Kenyon, Minnesota, U.S. April 23,2020 REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

” There are 700,000 pigs throughout the nation that can not be processed weekly and needs to be humanely euthanized,” stated the April 27 letter.

The U.S. Department of Farming (USDA) stated late Friday it is developing a National Occurrence Coordination Center to help farmers find markets for their livestock, or euthanize and dispose of animals if essential.

Some manufacturers who reproduce animals and offer child pigs to farmers are now providing away free of charge, farmers said, equating to a loss about $38 on each piglet, according to commodity company Kerns & Associates.

Farmers in surrounding Canada are likewise killing animals they can’t sell or pay for to feed. The worth of Canadian isoweans – infant pigs– has been up to zero since of U.S. processing plant disruptions, stated Rick Bergmann, a Manitoba hog farmer and chair of the Canadian Pork Council. In Quebec alone, a backlog of 92,000 pigs awaits slaughter, stated Quebec hog manufacturer Rene Roy, an executive with the pork council.

A hog farm on Prince Edward Island in Canada euthanized 270- pound hogs that were prepared for massacre since there was no location to process them, Bergmann stated. The animals were discarded in a garbage dump.

DEATH RISKS

The latest economic catastrophe to befall the farm sector comes after years of severe weather condition, drooping product costs and the Trump administration’s trade war with China and other crucial export markets. It’s more than lost income. The pandemic barreling through farm towns has actually mired rural neighborhoods in anguish, a potent mix of shame and sorrow.

Farmers take pride in the truth that their crops and animals are implied to feed people, specifically in a crisis that has actually idled countless employees and required numerous to rely on food banks. Now, they’re damaging crops and killing animals for no function.

Farmers flinch when speaking about exterminating animals early or plowing crops into the ground, for worry of public wrath. Two Wisconsin dairy farmers, forced to discard milk by their buyers, informed Reuters they just recently received confidential death risks.

” They say, ‘How attempt you get rid of food when many individuals are hungry?’,” said one farmer, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They do not understand how farming works. This makes me ill, too.”

Even as livestock and crop costs plunge, costs for meat and eggs at grocery stores are up. The typical retail price of eggs was up almost 40%for the week ended April 18, compared to a year previously, according to Nielsen information. Average retail fresh chicken costs were up 5.4%, while beef was up 5.8%and pork up 6.6%.

On Van Beek’s farm in Rock Valley, Iowa, one hog broke a leg because it grew too heavy while waiting to be butchered. He has actually provided pigs to facilities that are still operating, but they are too full to take all of his animals.

Van Beek paid $2,000 to truck pigs about 7 hours to a Smithfield plant in Illinois, more than quadruple the usual expense to carry them to a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, slaughterhouse that the company has actually closed forever. He said Smithfield is supposed to pay the additional transport costs under his agreement. But the business is refusing to do so, declaring “force majeure”– that a remarkable and unforeseeable event avoids it from satisfying its arrangement.

Smithfield, the world’s largest pork processor, declined to discuss whether it has actually declined to make contracted payments. It said the company is working with suppliers “to navigate these difficult and unprecedented times.”

Hog farmers nationwide will lose an approximated $5 billion, or $37 per head, for the rest of the year due to pandemic interruptions, according to the market group National Pork Producers Council.

A recently announced $19 billion U.S. government coronavirus help package for farmers will not pay for livestock that are culled, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation’s biggest farmer trade group. The USDA stated in a declaration the payment program is still being developed and the company has received more requests for assistance than it has cash to handle.

Slideshow(8 Images)

Minnesota farmer Mike Patterson began feeding his pigs more soybean hulls– which fill animals’ stomachs however provide minimal dietary value– to keep them from getting too large for their barns. He’s considering euthanizing them since he can not find adequate buyers after Smithfield forever shut its huge Sioux Falls plant.

” They have to be housed humanely,” Patterson said. “If there’s not enough room, we need to have less hogs somehow. One method or another, we’ve got to have less hogs.”

Reporting By Tom Polansek and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago. Extra reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Composing by P.J. Huffstutter; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Brian Thevenot

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[caplofan]

3 ways the coronavirus is already affecting your finances

The coronavirus may be making its way around the world—95,000 people have contracted the disease, with about 3,300 having died from it. And, depending on how you look at it, it’s already affected nearly every person on the planet. From your portfolio, to your mortgage, to your travel plans, COVID-19 has likely impacted you in some way.

It’s in situations like these where our planet’s increasingly global nature is on full display. Not only is it fascinating to see how the disease has spread from one area in China to cities across the world, but it’s also been incredible to see the illness’ impact on the global economy. Central banks in the U.S. and Canada slashed overnight rates by a half a percentage point this week, while all kinds of companies are cutting earnings forecasts.

With the speed at which this is seemingly picking up—both the disease itself and its economic impact—no one will blame you for being unsure of how all of this will hit your wallet and what to do next. Let’s break it down for you.

Your mortgage and your savings

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020, the Bank of Canada cut its overnight lending rate from 1.75% to 1.25% because of the uncertainty over the virus’ economic impact. The next day, BoC Governor Stephen Poloz said in a speech that while the Canadian economy has been resilient over the last couple of years, “that resilience could be seriously tested by COVID-19.” Canadian companies, he added, “many of whom had already been forced to the sidelines by uncertainty over the future of NAFTA and the US-China trade war, could retrench further.”

There are pros and cons to rate reductions, all of which may present themselves if this cut lasts for more than a few months. Firstly, those with variable rate mortgages will see their interest rate fall by 0.5%, which means more of your monthly payment will now go towards your principal rather than interest. (Indeed, all the big five banks cut their prime lending rate, a key figure for mortgage rates, by 0.5% soon after the BoC made its move.) That’s good news as you’ll now pay off your mortgage in a shorter time.

On the flipside, housing prices could rise as interest rates are inextricably linked with real estate costs. If your borrowing rate is lower today than it was yesterday then you can now buy more house with the same amount of money. It’s not a coincidence that Canada’s housing prices have soared over the last decade as interest rates fell after the recession. Many people are worried about how this cut will impact an already overheated real estate market.

Finally, savings account rates, which are already low, could fall further thanks to the rate cut. Typically, banks cut the amount of interest on savings accounts when rates fall and they increase them when rates rise, through the latter doesn’t always happen. If banks do reduce their interest payments, then it will be even harder to earn money in a savings account.

Your portfolio

Markets have been all over the place over the last two weeks. Last week, Canadian equities fell by more than 7%, while U.S. stocks fell by about 11%—the worst one-week decline since the recession. This week has been a bit better, with the S&P 500 ending the week essentially flat and the S&P/TSX Composite Index climbing falling by less than 1%. However, it’s been a stomach-churning ride; stocks were up 5% on some days and down 3% the next.

Naturally, everyone wants to panic, but you must resist the urge. Think about it: If you sold your stocks on Friday, you would have missed out on the mini-rebound this week. And if you do get out, how will you know when to get back in? Stock markets move a lot faster than you do.

Still, mentally prepare yourself for more decline, especially if earnings suffer from a reduction in consumer spending. Airlines are already in freefall as companies cancel travel—Air Canada is down about 17% over the last two weeks—and many other sectors, such as retail, hotels, manufacturing and more, could struggle if more people work from home or just generally choose to stay indoors.

If you have a longish time horizon, wait it out: Stocks will eventually rebound once the panic calms down. If you’re feeling queasy, then that might mean you need to change your asset mix. It’s in times like these, unfortunately, where people’s risk tolerance gets tested. If you’re really nervous, like sweating-in-the-middle-of-the-night nervous, it’s probably the investing gods telling you to reduce your allocation to stocks—and not just today, but for the long-term. (These kinds of stock market shocks are going to continue coming up over your lifetime.)

Your life

Depending on how long this goes on, the coronavirus crisis could start impacting other parts of your life. If the economy worsens, or if people stop spending, then companies could start laying people off. (The OECD has reduced its global growth forecast for 2020 from 2.9% to 2.4%, which would be the slowest rate of growth for the world’s economy since 2009.) If you decide to cancel a trip you’ve already had in the works, then you could lose money on flights. If things get bad enough and the global economy enters a recession, then you may feel even more panicked, more anxious and more generally crappy than you might now, which is never good.

There are a couple of things you can do here. Make sure you have some money put away in case of an emergency, so if you do get laid off at least you have funds you can access to cover expenses. It might be hard to build up an emergency savings account now, but start putting more away in case things get worse. The other is to take a deep breath. We’ve been through pandemics before, such as H1N1 and SARS, and as bad as they were at the time—and many people did lose lives. But things eventually settled down and the economy recovered.

Of course, all of this is easy to say; it’s easy to succumb to uncertainty. But try hard to stay focused on your long-term goals. Concern around the virus will disappear, your retirement plans, though, aren’t going anywhere.

Original Source: moneysense.ca

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[ainvestops]

stock markets: This market is an opportunity for the risk-savvy investors: Jim O’ Neill

You said thank God Covid coronavirus did not start in India, that would have been really bad; keeping with the context what was that about? Our numbers are really not that bad compared to the rest of the world, look at what is happening in the rest of the countries.

Can I say about the comment that people have picked up on a couple of things: First of all, for nearly 40 years of my professional life, my objectivity has been based on trying to both praise and criticise countries when I think the evidence suggests that is the case. And many times, some countries do not like people saying things that are sensitive but it is important for analysts to be objective. Secondly, in this specific case, even though for some reason that is what some Indian social commentators have focussed on, I also made the same comment about other BRICs countries including Brazil and they as of yet did not say much. But something else I have often said is let us never let a crisis go to waste; crises happen and how all of us respond to them including policymakers are a mark of how adaptive and how effective and how good we can be. Despite how that story was reported, so far India does seem to be coping with this remarkably, reasonably well compared with many parts of the world.

We had the freakiest day in India. In the United States you had President Donald Trump saying it does not matter if the stock markets do not like his policies when it comes to borders and we saw Wall Street tanking to a 30-year low, the worst fall since 1987. But it rebounded on Friday. What is going on in the equity markets? How are you seeing all of this? Famous economist Paul Samuelson once said that the stock markets predicted eight of the last two recessions; it is also probably the case when we do end up with a recession the stock market always calls it in advance. And obviously there were many things to worry about before even without coronavirus.

I would like to see some more decisive domestic leadership in the United States personally. I would like to see some more collective leadership in Europe, particularly from the fiscal policies but also some slightly wiser comments from the central bank. And in particular, what seems difficult, I would love to see a repeat of what we had in 2008 i.e. some coordinated efforts at the G-20 level. Even though it is very different, the sort of shock and awe that was associated with the scale of the coordinated fiscal and monetary policy response is what we need now with some greater confidence to help preventive systems that are being boosted around the world.

We have seen the absolute opposite of coordinate policy intervention happening in the crude markets. There is a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. It has crash-landed Brent by 30%. It is at the time of coronavirus where there should only be one enemy coronavirus but that is really not the case taking place with these countries plugging out of the crude markets. How are you seeing all of this vis-à-vis global growth?

This is a consequence of the slow erosion of the spirit of policy cooperation in recent years and it is partly a consequence of the specific-style of the current US leadership. But the US has faced a bit of a shock this week about antibiotic resistance, something I have spent a lot of time studying. A lot of these antibacterial infections, which luckily this one is not, but also viral infections, which this one is a big new scary version of, do not distinguish between borders or whether you are communist or democrat or black or white or Sunni or Shiites. This is exactly why we need international cooperation and the US is going to have to find a way of swiftly shifting its course and looking to have the help of others and to provide help to others to make sure we can bring this thing under control.

If you look carefully at the number of countries where this started early, particularly in North Asia, it does seem that they are getting it under control. It seems that the Chinese are allowing their economy to pick up now a bit. Hopefully, infection increases start to slow down and I am led to believe in the past two days in northern Italy there were some signs of that. This will give people a bit more hope. Deliberately closing our economies down, which the UK itself is close to doing, will just be a sharp shock to the world. By the second half of the year, we can get back to something vaguely normal and enjoy our daily lives and greater prosperity for us all.

What you are seeing right now in 2020? Would it lead to 2020 being worse than what we saw in 2008 or even 1929? I often think I have not learned that much in 40 years of finance but there are a few things and one of them is you always have to be prepared for something extraordinary and not be too dogmatic. So, it is possible that we could have something worse than those years. In fact, this past week has felt just as bad, to be honest. However, I do have some hope because of the evidence of how you get out of those situations and because of the enormous advancement of technology and health applications in particular. We can solve this with fewer complications. I would not want to be overly confident but I feel that in four or five months’ time, we are probably going to look back and think we did manage to emerge from this in a much better way than people thought at the time. And there are rumours already about a Canadian company possibly having found a vaccine that could be used pretty quickly. If we have our policymakers focussing on a collective way of solving this problem, then we will come out of it as we have seen before whether it was 2008, 1987 and so on.

It is very easy to also talk ourselves into a recession, are we already in a recession or is there hope? Look at what is happening in China, for example, look at the countries where we saw the outbreak early, it is peaking out; in China, the factories are already coming back to life. Do you think the latter half of 2020 could perhaps be dedicated to recovery or is that being optimistic?

We definitely have all the warnings. What makes it more complicated in many big economies is that we are deliberately shutting down our consumers in order to control the spread of the infection and we do not have any choice. But so long as our policymakers give us confidence that it will all be for a very limited period and there would not be great personal suffering, the markets, as they have often done in the past, will show the ability to look forward and start focussing on the second half of the year.

What we are seeing in the crude market is a big positive for India. It is fantastic news for us but globally low crude prices do not go hand in hand with a high growth rate. Do you think this new rate is the new normal? Whilst the drop in oil prices is obviously related to the weakening of demand and the weakening of the world economy led by China; it is obviously for many countries and India in particular really good. This is part of the self-cleaning mechanism of international economics in a strange way. At this moment, India is not alone in being a place where investors do want to explore internationally. But again because the Indian economy is so strongly driven on domestic parts, it inherently helps them built-in attractiveness that makes India a bit more resilient than some of the north Asian economies that are so heavily dependent on global supply chains and international trade. So India will not particularly fall out of favour because of this factor at all.

Everyone seems to be dumping right now and playing it safe, why are you saying what you are saying? Well, that is going on everywhere in the world for the past few days. It is not unique to India but it seems to me India has some inherent attractions that some other places do not. Why India stands clearly in the middle is because of its youthful demographics; there is enormous scope for India to grow more strongly than virtually anywhere else in the rest of the G-20 economies for the next two decades. If a lot of investors are panicking too much then as we often see in times of crisis, it gives an opportunity for the more objective and savvier and perhaps risk-taking investors to use it as an opportunity to invest.

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stock markets: This market is an opportunity for the risk-savvy investors: Jim O’ Neill

You said thank God Covid coronavirus did not start in India, that would have been really bad; keeping with the context what was that about? Our numbers are really not that bad compared to the rest of the world, look at what is happening in the rest of the countries.

Can I say about the comment that people have picked up on a couple of things: First of all, for nearly 40 years of my professional life, my objectivity has been based on trying to both praise and criticise countries when I think the evidence suggests that is the case. And many times, some countries do not like people saying things that are sensitive but it is important for analysts to be objective. Secondly, in this specific case, even though for some reason that is what some Indian social commentators have focussed on, I also made the same comment about other BRICs countries including Brazil and they as of yet did not say much. But something else I have often said is let us never let a crisis go to waste; crises happen and how all of us respond to them including policymakers are a mark of how adaptive and how effective and how good we can be. Despite how that story was reported, so far India does seem to be coping with this remarkably, reasonably well compared with many parts of the world.

We had the freakiest day in India. In the United States you had President Donald Trump saying it does not matter if the stock markets do not like his policies when it comes to borders and we saw Wall Street tanking to a 30-year low, the worst fall since 1987. But it rebounded on Friday. What is going on in the equity markets? How are you seeing all of this? Famous economist Paul Samuelson once said that the stock markets predicted eight of the last two recessions; it is also probably the case when we do end up with a recession the stock market always calls it in advance. And obviously there were many things to worry about before even without coronavirus.

I would like to see some more decisive domestic leadership in the United States personally. I would like to see some more collective leadership in Europe, particularly from the fiscal policies but also some slightly wiser comments from the central bank. And in particular, what seems difficult, I would love to see a repeat of what we had in 2008 i.e. some coordinated efforts at the G-20 level. Even though it is very different, the sort of shock and awe that was associated with the scale of the coordinated fiscal and monetary policy response is what we need now with some greater confidence to help preventive systems that are being boosted around the world.

We have seen the absolute opposite of coordinate policy intervention happening in the crude markets. There is a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. It has crash-landed Brent by 30%. It is at the time of coronavirus where there should only be one enemy coronavirus but that is really not the case taking place with these countries plugging out of the crude markets. How are you seeing all of this vis-à-vis global growth?

This is a consequence of the slow erosion of the spirit of policy cooperation in recent years and it is partly a consequence of the specific-style of the current US leadership. But the US has faced a bit of a shock this week about antibiotic resistance, something I have spent a lot of time studying. A lot of these antibacterial infections, which luckily this one is not, but also viral infections, which this one is a big new scary version of, do not distinguish between borders or whether you are communist or democrat or black or white or Sunni or Shiites. This is exactly why we need international cooperation and the US is going to have to find a way of swiftly shifting its course and looking to have the help of others and to provide help to others to make sure we can bring this thing under control.

If you look carefully at the number of countries where this started early, particularly in North Asia, it does seem that they are getting it under control. It seems that the Chinese are allowing their economy to pick up now a bit. Hopefully, infection increases start to slow down and I am led to believe in the past two days in northern Italy there were some signs of that. This will give people a bit more hope. Deliberately closing our economies down, which the UK itself is close to doing, will just be a sharp shock to the world. By the second half of the year, we can get back to something vaguely normal and enjoy our daily lives and greater prosperity for us all.

What you are seeing right now in 2020? Would it lead to 2020 being worse than what we saw in 2008 or even 1929? I often think I have not learned that much in 40 years of finance but there are a few things and one of them is you always have to be prepared for something extraordinary and not be too dogmatic. So, it is possible that we could have something worse than those years. In fact, this past week has felt just as bad, to be honest. However, I do have some hope because of the evidence of how you get out of those situations and because of the enormous advancement of technology and health applications in particular. We can solve this with fewer complications. I would not want to be overly confident but I feel that in four or five months’ time, we are probably going to look back and think we did manage to emerge from this in a much better way than people thought at the time. And there are rumours already about a Canadian company possibly having found a vaccine that could be used pretty quickly. If we have our policymakers focussing on a collective way of solving this problem, then we will come out of it as we have seen before whether it was 2008, 1987 and so on.

It is very easy to also talk ourselves into a recession, are we already in a recession or is there hope? Look at what is happening in China, for example, look at the countries where we saw the outbreak early, it is peaking out; in China, the factories are already coming back to life. Do you think the latter half of 2020 could perhaps be dedicated to recovery or is that being optimistic?

We definitely have all the warnings. What makes it more complicated in many big economies is that we are deliberately shutting down our consumers in order to control the spread of the infection and we do not have any choice. But so long as our policymakers give us confidence that it will all be for a very limited period and there would not be great personal suffering, the markets, as they have often done in the past, will show the ability to look forward and start focussing on the second half of the year.

What we are seeing in the crude market is a big positive for India. It is fantastic news for us but globally low crude prices do not go hand in hand with a high growth rate. Do you think this new rate is the new normal? Whilst the drop in oil prices is obviously related to the weakening of demand and the weakening of the world economy led by China; it is obviously for many countries and India in particular really good. This is part of the self-cleaning mechanism of international economics in a strange way. At this moment, India is not alone in being a place where investors do want to explore internationally. But again because the Indian economy is so strongly driven on domestic parts, it inherently helps them built-in attractiveness that makes India a bit more resilient than some of the north Asian economies that are so heavily dependent on global supply chains and international trade. So India will not particularly fall out of favour because of this factor at all.

Everyone seems to be dumping right now and playing it safe, why are you saying what you are saying? Well, that is going on everywhere in the world for the past few days. It is not unique to India but it seems to me India has some inherent attractions that some other places do not. Why India stands clearly in the middle is because of its youthful demographics; there is enormous scope for India to grow more strongly than virtually anywhere else in the rest of the G-20 economies for the next two decades. If a lot of investors are panicking too much then as we often see in times of crisis, it gives an opportunity for the more objective and savvier and perhaps risk-taking investors to use it as an opportunity to invest.

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