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Canada to Deliver Severe Blow to Relations with Russia

October 8, 2017

Canada to Deliver Severe Blow to Relations with Russia

On June 12, 2017, Russia and Canada marked the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. The relationship has rarely been worse. The two nations spoke even at the height of the Cold War. Now there is almost no dialogue, especially since Canada joined the US and EU sanctions on Russia in 2014.

On October 4, the bilateral relationship received another heavy blow. The Canadian House of Representatives, the lower house, unanimously passed the bill (S.226) that aims to punish Russian officials said to be responsible for the death of an accountant and auditor Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. The legislation calls for the freezing of assets and visa bans on officials from Russia and other nations considered to be “guilty of human rights violations”.

The “Law on Victims of Corrupt Foreign Government” would prevent Canadian firms from dealing with foreign nationals who are “responsible for, or complicit in, extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” The legislation aims Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Vietnam and Myanmar. The Special Economic Measures Act in force does not allow the freezing of assets of human rights violators in Canada. The Magnitsky bill would allow this.

To become law the bill will now go to the Senate for final approval and then on to Governor General Julie Payette for royal assent. “Should [the bill] be passed by the Senate and receive royal assent, it will enable Canada to sanction, impose travel bans on, and hold accountable those responsible for gross human rights violations and significant corruption,” Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said after the vote.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Pension Storm Is Coming To Europe—It May Be The End Of Europe As We Know It

October 7, 2017

The Pension Storm Is Coming To Europe—It May Be The End Of Europe As We Know It

I’ve written a lot about US public pension funds lately. Many of them are underfunded and will never be able to pay workers the promised benefits—at least without dumping a huge and unwelcome bill on taxpayers.

And since taxpayers are generally voters, it’s not at all clear they will pay that bill.

Readers outside the US might have felt safe reading those stories. There go those Americans again… However, if you live outside the US, your country may be more like ours than you think.

This week the spotlight will be on Europe.

The UK Is Headed to a Retirement Implosion

The UK now has a $4 trillion retirement savings shortfall, which is projected to rise 4% a year and reach $33 trillion by 2050.

This in a country whose total GDP is $3 trillion. That means the shortfall is already bigger than the entire economy, and even if inflation is modest, the situation is going to get worse.

Plus, these figures are based mostly on calculations made before the UK left the European Union. Brexit is a major economic shift that could certainly change the retirement outlook. Whether it would change it for better or worse, we don’t yet know.

A 2015 OECD study found workers in the developed world could expect governmental programs to replace on average 63% of their working-age incomes. Not so bad. But in the UK that figure is only 38%, the lowest in all OECD countries.

This means UK workers must either build larger personal savings or severely tighten their belts when they retire. Working past retirement age is another choice, but it could put younger workers out of the job market.

UK retirees have had a kind of safety valve: the ability to retire in EU countries with lower living costs. Depending how Brexit negotiations go, that option could disappear.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK offshore wind capacity factors – a semi-statistical analysis

October 7, 2017

UK offshore wind capacity factors – a semi-statistical analysis

The average capacity factor at 28 operating UK offshore wind farms is 33.6% (most recent 12-month average) and 34.5% (lifetime), increasing to 36.1% and 37.5% when four demonstration projects are discarded. There is a dependence of capacity factor on age, with older farms showing capacity factors of around 30% and younger ones factors of around 40%. This is interpreted to be a result of increased turbine sizes, with taller modern turbines accessing higher wind speeds at higher elevations. There is no evidence for significant degradation of turbine performance with time. A “generic” UK offshore wind farm coming on line in 2017 can be assumed to have a capacity factor of around 41%, although projections indicate that the turbines planned for the Hornsea II farm discussed in previous posts could have capacity factors exceeding 60%.

The data used in this post are from Energy Numbers. I have no way of verifying these data but have assumed them to be correct.

Two recent posts that attracted considerable interest, one by Euan Mearns and one by me, addressed the subject of UK offshore wind strike prices, and since strike prices are directly related to capacity factor I thought this would be an appropriate time to look into the question of what UK offshore wind farm capacity factors have been, what they are now, what we might expect them to be in the future, and in particular what are the factors that govern what the capacity factor is likely to be.

The locations of the 24 offshore wind farms used in the analysis are shown by the red boxes in Figure 1 (the four demonstration projects listed by Energy Numbers bias capacity factors low and are excluded). Ten are on the west coast of the UK and fourteen on the east. Most are close inshore. The map and the accompanying explanation are from this July 2015 UK government publication.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Aston Martin CEO: UK Fossil Fuel Ban “Meaningless”

September 27, 2017

Aston Martin CEO: UK Fossil Fuel Ban “Meaningless”

British performance carmaker Aston Martin’s chief sees his country taking a very unrealistic approach to dealing with air pollution.

The UK government’s July announcement that it will be banning the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040 is “meaningless” to Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer.

Government officials are certainly not automotive engineers and are missing the mark, he said.

“Policy makers should not try to be engineers,” Palmer said. His conclusion was that the July announcement banning fossil fuel vehicles by 2040 was “just spin” and doesn’t stand a chance of being achieved.

China is now becoming one of four countries joining the UK in stopping fossil-fuel powered vehicles on its roads, along with France and Norway. Xin Guobin, the country’s vice minister of industry and information technology, announced in a speech earlier this month that regulators are working on a timeline for phasing out the sales and production of the gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles.

Other countries central to the global auto market are considering heading toward an eventual phase-out of petroleum-powered cars through government incentives and mandates. It’s a big job – with about 695,000 of 84 million new vehicles sold last year being electric; and with about a billon gasoline and diesel vehicles out on roads across the world now.

These regulators are getting their wires crossed with national mandates, Palmer said.

“In my view as an engineer, it’s better to prescribe the emission, and then let the engineers figure out what the right technology is,” he said.

Palmer thinks the technology is already there with fuel efficient gasoline engine vehicles. He made reference to Formula 1 racers in development that can already double their previous fuel economy.

Hybrid vehicles can confuse the issue.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pound Flash Crashes After Moody’s Downgrades UK To Aa2

September 22, 2017

Pound Flash Crashes After Moody’s Downgrades UK To Aa2

In an otherwise boring day, when Theresa May failed to cause any major ripples with her much anticipated Brexit speech, moments ago it was Moody’s turn to stop out countless cable longs, when shortly after the US close, it downgraded the UK from Aa1 to Aa2, outlook stable, causing yet another flash crash in the pound.

As reason for the unexpected downgrade, Moodys cited “the outlook for the UK’s public finances has weakened significantly since the negative outlook on the Aa1 rating was assigned, with the government’s fiscal consolidation plans increasingly in question and the debt burden expected to continue to rise.”

It also said that fiscal pressures will be exacerbated by the erosion of the UK’s medium-term economic strength that is likely to result from the manner of its departure from the European Union (EU), and by the increasingly apparent challenges to policy-making given the complexity of Brexit negotiations and associated domestic political dynamics.

Moody’s now expects growth of just 1% in 2018 following 1.5% this year; doesn’t expect growth to recover to its historic trend rate over coming years. Expects public debt ratio to increase to close to 90% of GDP this year and to reach its peak at close to 93% of GDP only in 2019.

And so, once again, it was poor sterling longs who having gotten through today largely unscathed, were unceremoniously stopped out following yet another flash crash in all GBP pairs.

Full release below:

Moody’s Investors Service, (“Moody’s”) has today downgraded the United Kingdom’s long-term issuer rating to Aa2 from Aa1 and changed the outlook to stable from negative. The UK’s senior unsecured bond rating was also downgraded to Aa2 from Aa1.

The key drivers for the decision to downgrade the UK’s ratings to Aa2 are as follows:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pensions and Debt Time Bomb In UK: £1 Trillion Crisis Looms

September 22, 2017

Pensions and Debt Time Bomb In UK: £1 Trillion Crisis Looms

There is a £1 trillion debt time bomb hanging over the United Kingdom. We are nearing the end of the timebomb’s long fuse and it looks set to explode in the coming months.

No one knows how to diffuse the £1 trillion bomb and who should be taking responsibility. It is made up of two major components.

£710 billion is the terrifying size of the UK pensions deficit
£200 billion is the amount of dynamite in the consumer credit time bomb

How did the sovereign nation that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland get itself so deep in the red?

This is not a problem that is bore only by the Brits. In the rest of the developed world a $70 trillion pensions deficit hangs heavy.

We are all in this boat because we apparently didn’t learn from the massive man made crisis that was the 2008 financial crisis.

The ‘we’ is referring to UK individuals who are on average holding £14,367 of debt. It refers to the pension fund managers who are ignoring the fact they hold more liabilities than assets. It refers to banks and mortgage and loan providers who give loans to people who are already indebted and who will struggle to pay the debt back. It refers to a compliant media who do not have ask hard questions about irresponsible lending practices and cheer lead property bubbles due to getting significant revenues from the banking and property sectors.

And, ultimately the ‘we’ is the government who peddled such terrible monetary policy that it has brought us as close to nuclear financial disaster as we have been since 2008.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Next Brick to Drop on UK Economy: Housing Bubble Deflates

August 27, 2017

Next Brick to Drop on UK Economy: Housing Bubble Deflates

London home prices are already tanking, as demand sags.

The symbiotic sectors of construction and real estate have been a vital engine of economic growth in the United Kingdom for decades, but that could be about to come to an end. In the words of Paul Smith, the chief executive of the UK’s largest independent lettings and real estate agency, Haart, “unaffordability in the UK’s property market is now reaching crisis point.” If drastic measures are not taken to tame prices, the UK could lose its place as a property owning democracy, he warns.

The latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal that the average cost of a home jumped by £10,000 in June from a year earlier, to £223,000. In the last eight years prices have surged by almost 50%. Its National House Price Index is now 18% higher than during the peak of the prior housing bubble (September 2007). This chart is for the UK overall. But home prices in London have now turned the other way.

Demand is already sagging. In the first six months of 2017 alone, first-time buyer registrations dropped by almost 20% across Haart branches. It seems that a trend that began in London is now going nationwide.

For well over a decade soaring property prices have priced most Londoners out of the market. The number of homeowners in London in the 25 to 29 age bracket has dropped more than 50% since 1990. Foreign buyers have virtually cornered the market, acquiring as much as three-quarters of all new-build housing in the capital in recent years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Something is Broken in the UK Intellectual Sphere.

August 8, 2017

Something is Broken in the UK Intellectual Sphere.

The BBC did some kind of educational cartoon on Roman Britain and represented “diversity” in terms of someone looking African in the show as representative of “diversity” at the time. The BBC was effectively applying quotas retroactively (I mean, really retroactively). Any dissent from the statistical errors made by the politically correct police is treated as apostasy. Effectively, scholarship is dead in the U.K.

What was meant to be a “typical” of Roman Brittain by the BBC: flowing quotas of political correctness backward in time.

Representativeness heuristic. The picture was portrayed as representative (playing on the representativeness/availability heuristic in the minds of children). Some people backtracked later by saying it is was not common but not impossible, which is where I shout “BS!” (More technically, calling events that fall in the tails of the distribution, beyond 2 standard deviations “typical” and, as Mary Beard describe it “accurate” is a lunacy. “Typical” is within one STD).
Anecdotal vs Statistical. The backup is mostly anecdotal from cherry picked stories. We find nothing beyond traces of sub-Saharan genes in areas where Roman legions were located (France, Gaul, and even Spain, where most of it came much later from the Arab trade) — but we find genes of other Roman occupiers. Show the picture to a French or Italian person and tell him “this is the typical…” and wait for the insults.
Fuzzy classification. Even the researchers who deal with physical remains miss the point that people from North Africa looked no different from Spaniards, S. Italians, and Greeks. Punics/Phoenicians we now know, looked Canaanite, just like Southern Europeans. Berbers looked like mountain berbers today. So representing “diversity” should focus on the difference between locals and Romans (Northern European vs Mediterranean), not within Romans (in other words, Butter vs Olive Oil ).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Massive Cyberattack” Spreads Across Europe, Hits Ukraine, Russia, UK, Denmark

June 27, 2017

“Massive Cyberattack” Spreads Across Europe, Hits Ukraine, Russia, UK, Denmark

Update 2: RUSSIAN CENBANK SAYS AS A RESULT OF ATTACKS THERE HAVE BEEN ISOLATED CASES WHERE IT SYSTEMS INFECTED

* * *

Update: in addition to the below listed companies, all of which appear to have been targeted in the global cyberattack including Russia’s Rosneft and metals giant Evraz, Danish shipper Maersk, UK ad company WPP, the Ukraine central bank, government and airport, more targets are emerging including Norway’s national security authority which has said that a Ransomeware attack is ongoing in Norway “similar to the attack on Maersk”, while Russia’s Home Credit Bank said all domestic branches are closed because of the cyber attack.

As the Spectator adds, companies in Spain are also now affected by the cyberattack which appears to be a modification of the “WannaCry” virus, and has been named “Petya.”

A Moscow-based cyber security firm, Group-IB, said it appeared to be a coordinated attack simultaneously targeting victims in Russia and Ukraine, according to Reuters.

Now that CNN is officially out of the “Russia hacking” fake news business, the Ukraine has decided to fill in the void, and moments ago Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko said that the government’s computer network was down, in what he claimed was a “massive cyberattack”, one which has also impacted the central bank, power plant and airport, and promptly blamed Russia for being behind the attack without a shred of evidence. To “prove” the accusation, he posted a picture on Twitter of a computer screen showing an error message.

“We also have a network ‘down’,” he wrote. “This image is being displayed by all computers of the government.” The photo showed his PC displaying a message claiming a disk “contains errors and needs to be prepared”, urging the user not to turn it off.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Images Of British Troops Deployed In London

May 24, 2017

Images Of British Troops Deployed In London

As Prime Minister Theresa May promised, troops have been deployed to guard “key locations,” including the Palace of Westminster, several embassies and “other sensitive sites,” in London and other British cities, the Evening Standard reported.

The mass deployment follows Monday’s attack at Manchester Arena, which killed 22 kids attending an Ariana Grande concert, as well as the 23-year old attacker. It was the worst terror attack in the U.K. since 2005.

The Financial Times reports that nearly 4,000 military personnel have been deployed across Britain to help police with counter-terror efforts after May raised the threat level to “critical” on Tuesday as authorities scramble to apprehend any accomplices that may have aided Salman Abedi, the chief suspect in the bombing who was known to police prior to Monday’s attack.

“There are fears an Islamist bombmaker may be on the loose because of the sophistication of the device used in the Manchester attack on Monday,” the Evening Standard noted.

The FT also noted that the attack occurred at a time when police chiefs across Britain have warned about difficulties recruiting the extra 1,500 police the U.K. government promised following the attacks in Paris and Brussels.

Counter-Terrorism forces have arrested Hashem Abedi, the younger brother of the Manchester attacker, in Tripoli, according to media reports.

Parliament has been closed to the public, the changing of the guard at Westminster has been cancelled and the Old Bailey’s public galleries were also shut, the Evening Standard reports.

Soldiers are likely to be on duty at this weekend’s FA Cup Final at Wembley. And Chelsea have cancelled Sunday’s victory parade to celebrate their premier league win, ESPN reported.

Here’s a few photos showing troops arriving outside the Palace of Westminster, Scotland Yard and 10 Downing Street:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Should People Trust CBS, ABC, NBC, NYT, WP, WSJ, BBC, AP, etc.?

April 18, 2017

Should People Trust CBS, ABC, NBC, NYT, WP, WSJ, BBC, AP, etc.?

The following facts were established and published in obscure places in 2002, well before the U.S. and UK invaded Iraq, but did you know them, from the news-reports you saw, at that time, before we invaded, on that day which will forever be remembered in infamy, as the date when America’s rabid dictatorshipbecame clearly exposed for all future history to contemplate in horror, 20 March 2003?:

—

The New Rulers of the World

John Pilger, 2002, Verso Books

p.9:

At the time of writing, Iraq is likely to be attacked by the United States. Using sections of the American and British press as ‘conduits’, US intelligence has successfully created what the CIA in Indochina used to call a ‘master illusion’. This is the threat of Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’. There is no proof or credible evidence of any such threat, which has been denied by numerous authorities, including the former United Nations inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter.17 However, the Iraqi ‘threat’ is central to the Bush administration’s post-September 11 strategy of ‘total war’.

p.152:

The most important ‘evidence’ of Iraq’s complicity with September 11 is that the alleged leader of the Twin Towers suicide hijackers, Mohamed Atta, was supposed to have met an Iraqi intelligence agent in the Czech Republic. In the British press, the intelligence agent was promoted from being ‘low level’ (The Guardian) to ‘mid-ranking’ (Independent) to ‘senior’ (Financial Times) to the ‘head of Baghdad’s intelligence services’ (The Times). Only the Financial Times questioned whether the ‘meeting’ took place at all, or had anything to do with the destruction of the Twin Towers.97 On the BBC’s Newsnight, Mark Urban, the Foreign Office correspondent, revealed that there was ‘secret information’ about ‘a missile Saddam Hussein was planning to launch’. He provided no evidence.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Blowout Week 172

April 16, 2017

Blowout Week 172

In this week’s Blowout we return to Brexit and its impacts. It is now reported that following Brexit the UK will “scale down its concern over climate change” and scrap the EU’s 15%-of-total-energy-from-renewables-by-2020 target. Can outright repeal of the 2008 Climate Change Act be far behind?

Telegraph: Britain preparing to scrap EU green energy targets after Brexit

The UK is currently committed to getting 15 per cent of all energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2020. The UK is currently on course to miss the target and incur millions of pounds in fines from the European Union.

Government sources told The Daily Telegraph that the target, under the EU Renewable Energy Directive, is likely to be scrapped after Brexit. It comes after civil service documents, photographed on a train, revealed that Britain plans to scale down its concern over climate change after Brexit. Details of the policy change were contained in the papers of a senior civil servant at the Department for International Trade (DIT) photographed by a passenger earlier this month. The notes say: “Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts — you will all need to prioritise developing capability in this area. Some economic security-related work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.” The target has led to billions of pounds Government subsidies for renewable power sources such as wind, solar and biomass power plants, which are ultimately paid for by customers through their energy bills. The National Audit Office estimated that green energy subsidies will cost every household £110 a year by 2020.

We follow up with the usual mix of energy and related stories from all over the world, including how OPEC cheated on production cuts, the North Sea revival, Japan makes natural gas from methane hydrates, the growth of nuclear subsidies in the US, more US underground nuclear waste storage planned,

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Inflation To Rise – We expect UK, ECB and US Policy to Diverge

February 20, 2017

Inflation To Rise – We expect UK, ECB and US Policy to Diverge

Purely for geopolitical reasons, namely frustration at the failure of the governments of individual member states to respond to repeated calls for “structural reforms”, your authors had taken the view in recent months that the ECB might increase interest rates this year.

Our views are changing. The key to variances in interest rate policies is likely to be the
relative tightness of labour markets in Europe, the UK and the US. In each of these three currency zones, when inflation has appeared (since the Great Financial Crisis) it has confined itself to the product market. Put differently there have been no spill over effects in the labour market. Because inflation has been small and limited to the product market, the impact on central bank policy has been minimal.

UK Interest Rates Should Rise Sharply Owing to Its Tight Labour Market
John Butler recently wrote an article in The Guardian warning that, owing to several factors, consumer price inflation (CPI) in the UK, mid-January at 1.2%, could soar to 4% this year. Highlighting the base effects of the 20% fall in sterling’s value against the dollar and euro since the Brexit referendum, together with the near doubling of oil prices and increases in the prices of other commodities, he drew attention to the tightness of the UK labour market.

In fact, UK labour costs are rising against a backdrop of stagnant productivity. Noting that workers’ unions are already sabre rattling in limited competition industries such as government, healthcare and transport, inflation has crossed from the product market into the labour market, and it will probably be impossible to contain because, wage increases in a tight labour market have such a strong bearing on product costs, and so commences a spiral. Indeed, the only way to prevent the price level rising to more than double the 2% target is for interest rates to be raised, perhaps sharply.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Upcoming British Legislation Could Jail Journos for 14 Years

February 11, 2017

debtorprison

Upcoming British Legislation Could Jail Journos for 14 Years

Business Arrow Policy Planned Espionage Act could jail journos and whistleblowers as spies … Proposals in the UK for a swingeing new Espionage Act that could jail journalists as spies have been developed in haste by legal advisors, The Register has learned. The proposed law update is an attempt to ban reporting of future big data leaks. The British government has received recommendations for a “future-proofed” new Espionage Act that would put leaking and whistleblowing in the same category as spying for foreign powers. That threatens leakers and journalists with the same extended jail sentences as foreign agents. Sentences would apply even if – like Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning – the leaker was not British, or in Britain, or was intent on acting in the public interest. – The Register

Britain is doing what one of the things it does best, which is thinking of how to punish people. Now it’s figuring out ways to throw more people in jail for longer periods of time for exposing various kinds of government crimes.

That’s right. It’s not thinking about lessening those crimes, only covering them up.

The British government has received an updated Espionage Act that is a good deal stronger than the act on the books. It puts journalitsts in the same boat as foreign agents when it comes to spying and also does not differentiate between those who are citizens of other countries and those who come from Britain.

The proposals have been slammed by journalists who faced down British and US government threats after publishing Edward Snowden’s sensational revelations in 2013. The UK Law Commission’s recommendations are contained in a 326-page consultation paper titled Protection of Official Data [PDF].

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

From New World Order to Hazy Global Disorder

February 11, 2017

From New World Order to Hazy Global Disorder

The Donald Trump administration and the Brexit severance of ties between the United Kingdom and the European Union have, in a matter of a little over a half year, changed the world from a post-Cold War «new world order» based on American supremacy to a global «disorder» of altered alliances on a multipolar geo-political chessboard. In many respects, the new global disorder has also placed in jeopardy various post-World War II contrivances, including NATO, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Australia-New Zealand-United States (ANZUS) alliance.

Every international relations textbook and playbook can be thrown away with the advent of the new global disorder. Trump has kicked off his foreign policy by introducing an incoherent foreign policy. On one hand, Trump claims he wants to partner with Russia on the war against «radical Islamic terrorism». Yet, Trump has also indicated, through his UN ambassador Nicky Haley and Defense Secretary James Mattis, that he is committed to NATO and wants Russia to withdraw from Crimea. It is well known that the annual National Football League’s Super Bowl coordinates its patriotic military-oriented events with the Pentagon. In recent past years, U.S. troops serving in places like Afghanistan and Iraq were featured during and after the game on the host stadium’s jumbotron television screens.

The 2017 Super Bowl in Houston was different. This year the live shot of U.S. troops with the 3rd Brigade Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, was from a military base in Zagan, Poland. The Pentagon’s psychological operations specialists wanted to convey the message that under Trump, the new U.S. front lines were no longer in Afghanistan and Iraq in a war against Muslim radical insurgents but in Poland with Russia as the new «enemy». The optics simply do not match Trump’s statements about seeking closer ties with Russia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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