Economy
State Department orders non-emergency employees to leave Iraq amid Iran tensions (Sparky1)
A State Department spokesperson said that they do not discuss personnel numbers or operational details for security reasons, but that “Mission Iraq will continue vigorous diplomatic engagement in Iraq.” It is expected that most US personnel will remain in Iraq following the ordered departure. The departure is expected to take several days.
German, Dutch military suspend training operations in Iraq amid U.S.-Iran tensions (Sparky1)
The order came as tensions build up between the United States and Iran. Washington has applied new sanctions pressure on Tehran and sent additional forces to the Middle East, saying there is an increased threat from Iran to U.S. interests there.
Boom in Dodgy Wall Street Deals Points to Market Trouble Ahead (jdargis)
“At some point, people are going to get burned,” said Marshall Front, the chief investment officer at Front Barnett Associates and 56-year Wall Street veteran. “People want to take their companies public because they don’t know what the next years hold, and there are people who think we’re close to the end of the cycle. If you’re an investment banker, what do you do? You keep dancing until the music stops.”
The media is lying to you about Trump’s China tariffs (thc0655)
Meanwhile, the total value wiped off U.S. stocks during Monday’s panic was about $700 billion. More than 20 years’ worth of the new tariffs.
Even if Trump slapped 25% taxes on all Chinese imports, it would come to a tax hike of … $135 billion a year. U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) last year: $20.5 trillion.
Crazy Not! Much Higher Gold Prices (GE Christenson)
The currently popular nonsense is MMT—Modern Monetary Theory or Magic Money Tree economics. Print and spend trillions of digital currency units on political projects, boondoggles, and giveaways to buy votes. What could go wrong after creating trillions in “free” dollars? Well, history shows other countries have tried and failed. The MMT socialists in the U.S. are courting disaster.
Netherlands suspends government mission in Iraq over security threat: ANP agency (Sparky1)
Dutch military personal help train Iraqi forces in Erbil, northern Iraq, along with other foreign troops.
The report gave no details about the nature of the threat.
Intel stockpiling 10nm chips, warns that 14nm shortages will continue (Thomas R.)
So great is the demand for 14nm manufacturing capacity that in some areas the company has even had to go backwards. Most 300-series chipsets, introduced with Coffee Lake processors, are built on 14nm. In December last year, Intel released a new chipset, B365, aimed at mainstream consumer and corporate desktops.
Fourth-largest coal producer in the US files for bankruptcy (jdargis)
But thinning margins have strained the mining company as customers for thermal coal continue to dry up. Coal-fired electricity is expected to fall this summer, even though summer months are usually boom times for coal plants as air conditioning bolsters electricity demand. That’s because cheap natural gas and a boost in renewable capacity have displaced dirtier, more expensive coal.
If the Old River Control Structure Fails: A Catastrophe With Global Impact (PaulJam)
America became the world’s greatest economy because it had a wealth of natural resources. But those goods needed the world’s greatest network of navigable rivers—the Mississippi River system—on which to be transported. Naturally, that network of rivers needed a port at the ocean, to regulate the flow of goods into and out of the country. Between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the Lower Mississippi River has four of the fifteen largest ports in America. Those ports handle over 60% of all U.S. grain exports to the world, thanks to the barges moving downriver. Going upriver, those barges transport the petrochemicals, fertilizers, and raw materials essential for the functioning of U.S. industry and agriculture.
The IEA’s Dire Warning For Energy Markets (Michael S.)
Upstream spending rose by a modest 4 percent, which only partially repairs the savage cuts following the 2014 bust, which saw upstream spending fall by about 30 percent. However, the IEA said that 2019 could be a bit of a turning point, with a “new wave of conventional projects” in the works.
Saudi oil facilities attacked, U.S. sees threat in Iraq from Iran-backed forces (Sparky1)
Tuesday’s attacks on the pumping stations more than 200 miles (320 km) west of Riyadh and Sunday’s on four tankers off Fujairah emirate have raised concerns that the United States and Iran might inching toward military conflict.
The abnormally warm conditions in this region stemmed from a bulging zone of high pressure centered over western Russia. This particular heat wave, while a manifestation of the arrangement of weather systems and fluctuations in the jet stream, fits into what has been an unusually warm year across the Arctic and most of the mid-latitudes.
Exxon Predicted 2019’s Ominous CO2 Milestone in 1982 (tmn)
All of this is why the company and other oil majors are now facing a host of lawsuits for spending decades misleading the public and shareholders as well as calls for trying fossil fuel executives for crimes against humanity. Those decades of spreading denial are why we’re now facing a crisis and the need to rapidly drawdown emissions. Because the future Exxon charted back in 1982 is one we don’t want to be headed towards.
Trash found littering ocean floor in deepest-ever sub dive (tmn)
Plastic waste has reached epidemic proportions in the world’s oceans with an estimated 100 million tonnes dumped there to date, according to the United Nations. Scientists have found large amounts of micro plastic in the guts of deep-dwelling ocean mammals like whales.
Gold & Silver
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