Category: Uncategorized

WaPo Changing Its Tune?

One has to wonder why it’s all been GOOD NEWS.

Not RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS, exactly . . . yet all these reports of RUSSIAN INCOMPETENCE.

But now this:

WE’LL SEE WHERE IT GOES FROM HERE.

Here Comes ‘Right-Sizing’

Also known as LAYOFFS.

And talk about MOMENTUM PLAYS:

“Commenting on the surge in layoffs, Piper Sandler’s chief economist Nancy Lazar says that ‘post-covid rightsizing means that lots more layoffs are coming’ and adds that ‘many companies overhired and overpaid during the Covid crisis.’ Lazar also points out the obvious, that ‘the stay-at-home bubble was a bubble, and not a ‘new paradigm’ of goods consumption’ which means that ‘a right-sizing cycle is coming, with weaker growth in jobs and wages.'”

Here are the stunning implications according to Piper Sandler:

  • We could see a million layoffs or more, as many goods sectors that benefited from the pandemic now realize they added too much capacity (as involuntary admissions make clear).
  • Low-income workers – who enjoyed the hottest wage gains during the crisis – are now most at risk of layoffs, with remaining job holders to see much slower wage growth.
  • Payrolls gains are poised to downshift to just 100k/month on average in the second half of the year, from about 515k/month through April.”

“While the above implications are startling for the US economy as a whole, they are especially bad for America’s poorest quintile which, according to Morgan Stanley calculations, now have less “excess cash” than they did pre-covid.”

“As for the Fed, well with the Citi US Eco surprise index already crashing . . .

. . . one can only imagine where it will go not if but when we get a negative payrolls print in one of the coming months, and what that will do to the Fed’s hiking plans.”

HE WHO LIVES BY INFLATION DIES BY INFLATION.

OR . . .

PAY ME NOW OR PAY ME LATER.

REGARDLESS, LATER LOOKS A LOT LIKE NOW.

Stephen Roach: Powell Is No Volcker

Someone had to call out BARE-ASS Powell.

“If the US Federal Reserve wishes to avoid a return to stagflation, it must recognize the huge gulf between the level of real interest rates under former Fed Chair Paul Volcker and the current incumbent. It is delusional to think that today’s wildly accommodative monetary policy can solve the worst inflation problem in a generation.”

Thank God, there are a few REALISTS like Roach left.

And if it means TANKING EQUITIES, so be it.  MUCH of their “worth” is simply a fiction.

Here’s the full piece:

Jerome Powell’s Volcker Deficit

SoHo 90+

Sounding It Out

There are moments when music,
Resplendent in chords,
Or flirting intensely
With counterpoint,
Encounters the Tao
Of epiphany 
And stretches the limits
Of sound.

There are moments when writing,
Unsure of its thrust,
Weary of structure
But eager for form --
Merging with urges
It can't even name --
Burns with a rare
Incandescence.

There are moments when photos,
Haphazardly shot or
Pilfered from images
Crafted and fleshed,
Posted in batches,
Filtered and cropped,
Extract the unseen
From the wish.

There are moments when strolling
Through grave-yarded streets --
Livened by breezes
That soften the stride;
Women who've blossomed
Where homelessness sleeps --
Embolden the weak
And the wise.

There are moments when sinners
Imploring the past --
Cruelly outwitted
Or thinned by remorse;
Stricken by conscience
And sobered by grief --
Attempt in their way
To atone.

There are moments when silence,
Untainted by speech,
Enveloped in stillness,
And heedless of time --
Released from the spell
Of nostalgia --
Commissions the next
Perfect sound.

JAD, 2022
What the Dream Revealed

It wasn't the moments
Recalled in detail,
The ones he was sure
Had occurred,
But fragments unbidden
And lustered by time,
Revealed in a brilliant
Tableau.

The endlessly runaway
Sunny-day Mays,
The blooms of each
Spiraling June;
The women in closeup,
Their features precise;
The future, a 
Ripening hope.

He'd often retreated
In deference to risk,
Conceding to
Beatable odds,
Immune to appeals
For his service,
Unwilling to
Formulate goals.

JAD, 2022

Harvesting Energy from the Sahara . . .

. . . and Delivering It by UNDERSEA CABLE for Distribution in the UK?

And at a cost of $21 billion?

Here’s the full article:

20,000 Volts under the Sea

And here’s a graphic of the project, which once completed by a firm called Xlinks, would be the largest solar and wind generation facility in the world.

Inspiring, eh?

But here’s the rub:

“Today’s media is filled with claims of breakthrough technologies poised to revolutionize our relationship with energy. The reporting follows a predictable pattern: sophomoric barbs launched at oil and gas (now, aimed at Putin’s oil and gas, specifically) couched in breathless excitement over the latest promising solution. However, these features do a disservice in that they are almost always heavy on the possibilities and comically light on the constraints.”

Specifically . . .

“That a project such as this needs high and consistent solar incidence, unusually strong and steady nighttime winds, and a massive battery for storage to deliver baseload power lays bare the weakness of most other renewable power projects. It exposes the fallacy of using levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) measurements for projects that produce intermittent power. The real costs of ensuring grid stability that arise as a direct result of intermittency are specifically and knowingly excluded from such calculations, which only serves to obfuscate the real cost/benefit analyses needed to make informed energy policy decisions.”

With respect to battery storage, “there are simply not enough “green” metals – cobalt, lithium, and nickel (the key ingredients needed to make lithium-ion batteries) – to facilitate a meaningful transition away from legacy internal combustion engine vehicles as it is, and the Xlinks project would be competing for supply with the powerful OEMs under pressure from heavy-handed emissions targets. The price of Lithium Carbonate over the last year makes clear the magnitude of this challenge.”

Finally, the success of this project will depend on a) the creation of “an export-led cable manufacturing industry in Britain“ and b) an ACTUAL FUNDING SOURCE which DOESN’T AT THE MOMENT EXIST.

ARE OPEC AND PUTIN QUAKING IN THEIR BOOTS?

THE PIECE CONCLUDES THAT THEY AREN’T.

Teleporting Bits

I hope civilization lasts long enough to see this on a BROAD SCALE.

“Physicists in the Netherlands have shown for the first time that quantum information can be reliably teleported between network nodes that are not directly connected to each other. According to the researchers, who created the world’s first three-node quantum network at QuTech (a collaboration between the Delft University of Technology and TNO) in 2021, the latest work marks a further step towards a scalable quantum Internet.”

Yes, we are correct in sensing that the everyday material world is less material every day.

Here’s the article: 

Quantum Teleportation Expands Beyond Neigbouring Nodes

Protective Naval Corridor for Ukrainian Grain Exports?

It’s in discussion.

From the Guardian:

“Britain has backed in principle a proposal by Lithuania for a naval coalition “of the willing” to lift the Russian Black Sea blockade on Ukrainian grain exports.”

Also . . .

“According to the latest from the UK Times, London remains open to the plan and is in discussion with allies for establishing the “protective corridor” from Odesa through the Bosphorus, but has stopped short of approving that it should move forward at this early phase. It seems that the ‘invitation’ has gone out to allies, however, and the two leaders are actively floating the idea – perhaps also waiting for Washington’s backing.”

A NAVAL BLOCKADE IS AN ACT OF WAR.  RUSSIA IS AT WAR WITH UKRAINE AND BLOCKADING ITS PORTS TO PREVENT IT FROM EXPORTING GRAIN.  CLEAR ENOUGH.

BUT THEN, HOW DOES ONE DEFINE A NAVAL “PROTECTIVE CORRIDOR” ESTABLISHED BY NON-BELLIGERENTS TO PIERCE A BLOCKADE?

AS AN ACT OF WAR AS WELL?

IT’S POSSIBLE THAT THE WEST COULD ENTER THIS WAR.

AND IF SO, I HAZARD EVEN TO SPECULATE AS TO POTENTIAL UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.