Jtc Share Discussion Threads

[aleman] 09/9/2018 15:19

Global trade volumes fall again - third month of falls measure as rolling quarters.

[mount teide] 09/9/2018 13:14

Anyone labouring under the misapprehension that China's spending on infrastructure development has peaked and in decline should read Arden Partners Copper Report very carefully.

The Chinese Government is planning to move between 150 million and 200 million of their rural population to lower tiered cities by 2025, while in parallel undertaking the biggest infrastructure project the world has ever seen - the New Silk Road Project - which Beijing says will see China ultimately lend as much as $8 trillion for infrastructure in 68 countries. That adds up to as much as 65% of the global population and a third of global GDP, according to the McKinsey.

Following re-unification - German and EU taxpayers funds totalling 2 trillion Euros were spent on infrastructure development in the former East Germany to bring the old communist nation up to a second tier EU standard for its 16 million citizens. There are currently over 100 million mostly dirt poor EU citizens living in other former Eastern European communist states - China is aiming to move nearly twice that amount from rural farming communities into new, fully electrified, second tier Cities by 2025.


Arden Note:

'We believe China is accelerating into a phase of infrastructure development. China has gone through a recent period of shadow banking reform, largely around the highly publicised Public-Private-Partnership projects, which currently stand at a value of US$2.8 trillion.

The projects have not had momentum until recent reforms have given central government greater control at local government levels to enable quicker implementation of suitably ‘vetted’ schemes that the Chinese government deem will help to grow their long-term plans; targeted around moving between 150 million and 200 million of the rural population to lower tiered cities by 2025, and with a wider focus on two key dates ahead:
2021, the 100th anniversary of the communist party, and
2022, President Xi’s 10th year in office.'

[grannyboy] 08/9/2018 15:59

Mount Teide's post 68367 ...

Martin Selmayr must read these boards, and red ticked MT's posts(68367)...Otherwise, surely, why would anyone disagree with the facts?!!!!.

[mount teide] 08/9/2018 13:19

'If you add in beneficiaries living longer, then properly funded public-sector pension schemes require total contributions of almost 100 per cent of salary' - John Moynihan


The slow death of the public-sector pension - We need to increase our pension payments, at a minimum, three-fold. Immediately. - The Spectator

'Hedge funds have already spotted it: Jim Mellon’s latest book, Juvenescence, reviews the new science that will lengthen our lives by 20 years. Through regeneration (stem cell) and repair (DNA) technologies, we’ll soon be living healthily and happily to 110 or more. How soon? Who knows. But the repercussions will be enormous. Major insurance companies will go bust; speculators will make a fortune shorting them; 90-year-olds who bought annuities will become destitute when their annuity provider fails; there will have to be a total rethink of the nation’s state pension age.

The annuity recipients; those without savings; company pension funds (many of which are already in negative cash flow): all will be in trouble. But nowhere will the impact be so great as in our public-sector pension schemes.

Private-sector schemes are funded. Most public-sector ones are not — there are no underlying assets to meet the pension promises, which have to be financed on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) basis, out of general taxation. Their unfunded net liabilities now total more than £1.3 trillion. Some 15 per cent of public-sector pensions are funded, but with assets of £266 billion compared with liabilities of £370 billion. Combined liability — £1,425 billion, 75 per cent of GDP — is up 26 per cent since 2010. That’s before adding in quasi-public schemes (such as the Universities Superannuation Scheme, the deficit of which near doubled last year to £17.5 billion).

Public-sector pension fund beneficiaries in their sixties are forecast to receive some 20 years of pension before they die. With luck, actuaries have overestimated current longevity by about three years, so before any longevity increase there may, on average, only be 17 years of future payments to make. But what happens if the longevity revolution adds a further 20 years of life? The pension liability actually almost doubles. Remember: almost all of the original obligation was already unfunded. None of this new obligation would be.

On top of that, we’re adding huge additional obligations all the time, as new young employees arrive into pension schemes. With the existing shortfall, growing obligations and the longevity revolution, if we want to start paying the amount we need for future pensions, we need to increase our payments, at a minimum, threefold. Immediately.

A typical unfunded scheme’s total current contribution rate is more than 30 per cent of salary. Take teachers, who pay in an average of 9 per cent of their salary, while their employer pays 16 per cent (so 25 per cent in total). A teacher earning £40,000 sees £10,000 paid annually. Probably she imagines it goes into a secure pension pot. Not so: that £10,000 gets spent by the government now (housing benefits, road-building etc). There’s no ‘pot’ put aside for teachers: further generations will have to cough up.

And 25 per cent isn’t even enough — the government says (optimistically) that 32.3 per cent is needed (so it’s £13,000, not £10,000 — but let future fools be saddled with that problem). If you add in beneficiaries living longer, then properly funded public-sector schemes require total contributions of almost 100 per cent of salary.

Contributions (£26.8 billion in 2016) are already way below what’s needed to pay for today’s pensions. Ten years ago the cashflow gap between annual contributions and unfunded pensions in payment was a bearable £200 million. Last year, the Treasury had to find an additional £15 billion to plug the gap, rising to £15.7 billion in 2021-22 (0.7 per cent of GDP), and growing. Overall, taxpayers will contribute roughly £33 billion to unfunded public-sector pensions, through employer contributions and the Treasury plug, shrouded within the obscure complexity of the national accounts. Employer contributions to funded schemes (notably the Local Government Pension Scheme) will take this to perhaps £42 billion, adding up to £1,550 per household. That’s before any deficit reduction, or 20-year longevity increase.

With PAYG, this has to be paid out of current budgets. These are contracting in real terms. Across the public sector, some 6 per cent is going to fund retirement and sickness benefits. Ever wondered why they keep cutting the number of coppers on the beat? Increased pensions and health-related costs. Closing down a fire station? Ditto. Why teachers, doctors, nurses all go out on to the streets demonstrating? It’s because of (very limited) efforts to cut their pensions back. Attempts to remove the slightest amounts are met with a furious reaction.

The Hutton Commission was meant to sort this out. Eighteen of Hutton’s 20 commissioners were members of public-sector pension schemes. The report concluded — surprise — that these defined benefit pensions were jolly good things and should be retained. A last-minute panic by the government led to a further watering-down of reforms. The Commission eventually recommended minimal reform — and Lord Hutton confessed, not long after, that his assumptions had been too optimistic; the sustainability of these pensions was in question.

When we decide we need three times as much money to pay for these pensions as we are putting in, the percentage of the UK’s budget increases from 6 per cent to almost 18 per cent of our entire government budget. Something will have to give. A hike in taxes? That usually doesn’t result in significantly increased tax revenues (think stamp duty or 50 per cent income tax rates). Reduce other public services? Good luck with selling that. Or: a renege on promised public-sector pension benefits. Three options that imply those currently living in expectation of receiving their public-sector pension — particularly ex-mandarins with very large pots — should take a very cautious view on whether they will continue to benefit, right up until death do them part from their pension.

One bright note. If a longevity revolution adds 20 years of life, then nearly everyone will be able to continue working until — let us say — 80 at least. And given the financial implications, they may need to. Otherwise, the government may have to make it necessary for each public servant to sign away their pension rights before they’re allowed to get their regeneration treatment.

[mount teide] 08/9/2018 13:11

Britain's £1.3 trillion liability for public sector pension payments, equivalent to a £45,000 burden per household, according to think tank Intergenerational Foundation, means a massive £4 billion of essential public services may be axed next year to help pay the astronomical public sector pensions bill, chancellor Philip Hammond has conceded.

Frontline services including schools, hospitals, the police and armed forces – are all targets for savings to offset the spiralling public sector pension costs.

Schools, hospitals, the police, the armed forces and Government departments pay employer pension contributions direct to the Treasury. Because of an incredibly complex piece of fiscal manouvreing public sector employers will be forced to increase pension contributions for staff next year – bizarrely meaning there will be less money to actually provide services.

Treasury sleight of hand means that frontline public services like hospitals, police, and schools are going to face a major squeeze.

“If the Government wants the NHS to have an extra £20billion a year, the public will expect this money to be spent on improved health care, and not have a large chunk handed back to the Treasury to pay for higher pension bills.” IG suggested.

Totally unacceptable that most of the productive sector(52% of whom have zero pensions savings and few assets), are being forced to work until they are at least 68 years old in order to fund the completely unaffordable public sector final salary pension scheme bill, where most are still retiring at 60 years of age.

[mount teide] 08/9/2018 11:33

Following the damning report by the independent European Ombudsman, which slammed the European Commission for Martin Selmayr's fast-track double promotion within the space of 10 minutes, insisting their responses to allegations of "maladministration" were "defensive" and evasive" and showed either a complete "lack of self-awareness" or "a wilful refusal to admit to them", calls for Selmayr to resign are growing from within EU Institutions, as a result of the fear this political stitch up could destroy the public's trust in the Commission.

Lol - the arrogance of these EU Institutions, never mind Juncker and Selmayr is astonishing - to destroy the public's trust in the Commission it had to have some trust in the first place!


Selmayr responded to calls to resign in a fashion that would have made Amon Göth look shy and retiring - "Never" he roared. "I think resignations are for other people."

Ombudsman officials say he "stretched and possibly even overstretched the limits of the law" in order to attain his status, suggesting several laws were infringed.

Selmayr, accused of "planetary-scale arrogance" and "displaying the rotten core of the EU" by a Tory MEP, casually dismissed out of hand all of the ombudsman's accusations and said that "no laws" were broken.

When asked if he thought the situation was embarrassing for the European Union, he said: "I don't think it is very embarrassing at all. I think the European Union is in a strong position. We have a very good system for selecting senior officials."

He then added smiling: "The European Union is on the basis of law and will continue to be on the basis of law. I'm a very qualified lawyer, that's why I feel very confident. The European Commission has broken no laws."

The Ombudsman's report said Selamyr's promotion was "created artificially".. and "in a context where the proposed appointment of a new secretary-general was not on the meeting agenda and no background papers had been circulated."

In response to the report, the EU's commissioner in charge of staffing, another German Gunther Oettinger's breathtaking arrogance almost matched Selmayr's : "While we do not share all aspects of the underlying report, we welcome that the Ombudsman neither contests the legality of the appointment procedure of the Secretary-General, nor the choice of candidate. On some aspects, where the Commission has a different factual assessment, we will of course provide some further information to the Ombudsman in due course."

In typical EU fashion no one takes the blame, no one resigns. No one is fined, no one sacked, no one reprimanded.

No Conscience, no morals, no shame. See how confident they are that the general public can do nothing to stop them? The stench of arrogance is overpowering as it is with all dictatorships.

Unelected Juncker's complete misuse of power to appoint his protege to this position is blatant nepotism, and reminiscent of the Roman Emperor Caligula declaring Incitatus, his horse, a Consul. I think every highly deluded remainer, from Tony Blair to Nick Clegg, Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May should be asked to justify why they continue to be complicit, through their failure to condemn, Martin Selmayr's appointment.

That they continue to move heaven and earth to keep the UK people under the control of these self serving charlatans and their corrupt Institutions simply beggars belief.

[jtcod] 08/9/2018 11:30

Haha what a mess it all is. No coordination just politics as usual.

Google, Apple and Amazon directors must be ordering more bottles of bubbly as we speak.

[jtcod] 08/9/2018 09:19

It’s been a good week for the Italian 10yr Bond yield which fell back to 2.82% following assurances from the new populist government that they will observe EU rules in their October budget. The EU rules require member states maintain their deficits within a limit of 3% of annual output. This averted an anticipated downgrade on Italy debt from Fitch (currently BBB). It seems to have done the trick (at least for now). Fitch has placed Italy on a ‘negative outlook’ though which often results in a future downgrade.

The incumbent coalition government had previously made election promises which included a cap on VAT, flat rate taxes of 15% and 20% and national wage for the ‘poor and unemployed’ of €780 per month.

The Italian voter may soon be reminded again of how talk is cheap when politicians are looking for power.

[mount teide] 07/9/2018 20:37

Socialist and multi millionaire retired public sector 'worker' Neil Kinnock was rejected by the British electorate to run the Country on two separate occasions; he resigned and then re-appeared like a phoenix from the ashes as a EU Commissioner in Brussels, where he took upon himself more powers than our elected PM.

Is it morally right that a man who is unelected and rejected by the British population, then takes upon himself more political power than if he had won a National election as the leader of a political party ?

Is it morally right that the European Commission has spent the last five or so years negotiating in secret the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the Bilderberg Group that they're backing?

Is it morally right that these people have power over the UK electorate and we don't have the democratic right to get rid of them?

According to the referendum losers, European Commission, European Council of Ministers, ECJ and the EU's 30,000 Bureaucrats - Yes! Its called EU democracy they say and is all a case of mind over matter - we don't mind and the 500 million European people don't matter, because they can't get rid of us!

[blusteradjuster] 07/9/2018 15:25

Satire lives.

The cognitive dissonance must be grinding those gears to dust..

[mount teide] 07/9/2018 10:22

A new 118 page Copper market research report from analysts at Arden Partners strongly supports what some of us have been saying for the past 2 years - that copper is likely to be a standout investment over the next 5-7 years of the recovery stage of a new business cycle for the metal that commenced in H1/2016, following a near 8 year downturn/recession created by an over supply situation following copper appreciating in price over 500% between 2000 and 2006.

The oversupply situation was completely eliminated by 2015 and together with capital investment in the sector dropping by 65% since 2013, has left the copper market facing a forecast deficit of at least 5 million tonne by 2025(some 23% of current global demand).

It is pleasing to note that of the hundreds of producers/explorers in the copper industry to choose from, Arden's three top stock picks from this new coverage of the sector include two of the companies previously mentioned here - ASIA MET (ARS) and Central Asian Metals (CAML).

'Where copper exposure is concerned, not all companies are created equal and this is key in allocation when trying to maximise gains from the copper market. Our top picks from our new coverage are Asiamet, MOD Resources and CAML. We see SOLG as an interesting higher risk yet higher reward option due to its current stage.'

Sector Overview:
'Copper is entering an interesting phase. Supply is stretched from successive underinvestment at the mine level and demand is rising from infrastructure growth in China, new technologies and the ‘green revolution’.

Opportunities exist to ride this cycle and market dynamics have changed, largely from China developing its commodity usage methodology and global economic jockeying. We believe that China is about to go into a major growth and regenerative phase that will be copper and iron ore dependant. Combined with predicted supply shortfalls, we see copper as a standout medium to long-term investment.'

[blusteradjuster] 07/9/2018 07:36

Henry,

Scale and maturing industry and technology.

Same as it was for any technology we now take for granted.

Same applies to solar.



With a capacity of 1,386MW, Hornsea Project Two will become the world’s biggest wind farm, surpassing the 1,200MW Hornsea Project One which DONG Energy is currently constructing.

At GBP 57,50/MWh, the strike price for the Hornsea Project Two (CfD) is 50% lower than the previous round of CfD allocations just two years ago. The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) launched the second CfD auction in April 2017. At the time, the strike price cap for offshore wind projects coming online in 2021/22 was GBP 105/MWh, and for those that will start generating energy in 2022/23 the strike price was capped at GBP 100/MWh.

DONG’s project is expected to be operational in 2022.

The developer said the cost-drivers enabling the bid for Hornsea Project Two include scale, risk reduction, synergies, as well as maturing industry and technology.

[mount teide] 07/9/2018 07:30

The big mistake many made was to think that May was negotiating to leave the EU, when in fact she is negotiating to stay in it.

The following view by Economist Liam Halligan expressed in his new book 'Clean Brexit' is what Brexiteers have been saying all along (thanks for summing it up so clearly), and I suspect largely what the voters were expecting when they voted to leave the EU and its high cost protection racket single market, open borders, and the maladministration and endemic corruption of its institutions.


There's a way out from Chequers for Mrs May - Liam Halligan

'Trading with the EU under World Trade Organisation rules “isn’t the end of the world” said Theresa May, during Prime Minister’s Questions. She was quoting the WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo, the world’s leading trade diplomat.

Azevedo first publicly said those words in a Telegraph interview with me in November 2017. He also described UK-EU trade under WTO rules, with no formal free trade agreement, as “perfectly manageable” – discrediting the doom-mongers who claim Britain must bow to Brussels’ every demand as “crashing out” would be “disastrous221;.

His words won’t surprise anyone with an open mind and knowledge of global trade. Britain conducts most of its trade outside the EU, largely under WTO rules. Such trade is growing, forms the majority of our exports and generates a surplus. Our EU trade, in contrast, accounts for well under half our exports, is falling and in deficit – despite us making massive annual EU contributions and accepting Brussels-derived rules to gain “single-market access”.

It is vital Britain declares “no deal” a realistic and acceptable outcome – not least as it’s true and, with the clock ticking ahead of March 2019, could well happen. Unless we prepare for “no deal”, we’ll be forced to accept any trade agreement the EU offers, however much it favours Germany, France and other member states.

May has lately played down “no deal”, keen to promote her Chequers proposals. Philip Hammond has pitched in, with yet another blood-curdling Treasury prediction that “no deal” would reduce GDP by 8% over 15 years. The idea is to present Brexit as a choice between Chequers and “no deal” – hence the need to make “no deal” look ghastly. Such a strategy is misguided and, if the Prime Minister is to survive beyond next month’s party conference, she must rapidly change tack. Citing Azevedo across the Commons dispatch box suggests she just might understand.

For the truth is, Chequers is dead. Plans to accept EU rules on goods, a modified customs union and ongoing Brussels diktat, with no say, have been viciously rejected by May’s party. Boris Johnson’s description – “vassalageR21; and “miserable permanent limbo” – was right. Even arch Remainer Justine Greening, foreseeing a grassroots rebellion, says Chequers is “more hated than the poll tax”.

Michel Barnier, too, has dismissed May’s plan as “insane, illegal, and fraudulent”, seeing as it breaks single market rules. Perhaps the EU’s lead negotiator is bluffing and will suddenly relent if Britain makes even more concessions. All the more reason for the Prime Minister to abandon this Whitehall-contrived nonsense and take Chequers off the table, returning to the coherent vision she outlined in January 2017 at Lancaster House.

For the real choice isn’t between Chequers and a “no deal disaster”. It’s between “no deal” – “perfectly manageable” – and a free trade agreement with the EU. Barnier has long acknowledged that “Canada-plus” is acceptable, a comprehensive trade deal similar to the recent EU-Canada agreement. That could happen quite quickly. Trade deals are normally very complex, as both sides start with conflicting regulatory regimes. Not so here – the UK and EU have been trading freely for decades, so begin “perfectly aligned”.

A formal UK-EU trade agreement may be impossible before next March. I’ve long said the chances are limited, given required ratification by 27 member states and the European Parliament. So, if the EU won’t accept ongoing tariff-free trade, we go to WTO rules. That’s a good platform to strike a trade agreement with the EU once the tensions of Brexit itself have passed, helping Britain secure a better long-term deal.

As such, May must ditch Chequers and reassert, as she did at Lancaster House, that the UK is unequivocally leaving the single market and customs union. She should publicly stress our preparations for WTO rules, not least the ongoing HMRC upgrade that means required extra “no deal” border checks are possible from January 2019.

May should state the UK won’t put up customs posts across Ireland and that technological solutions are available and adequate – as both British and Irish border authorities have said. And while declaring “no deal” on trade is fine, May must press hard for a basic “withdrawal agreement” on issues such as trade facilitation and airspace – stressing the £39 billion “divorce payment” is contingent on rapid progress.

The EU is legally obliged to extend such non-contentious administrative protocols to the UK, as it has to almost all other non-EU countries. To refuse would break EU treaties, WTO rules and make the eurocrats a global laughing stock.

The world understands trading under WTO rules. It wouldn’t understand the deliberate destruction by Brussels of UK-EU commerce, costing member states billions of euros in profit and countless jobs. And neither would EU voters.

So Chuck Chequers, Theresa! Or be replaced by someone who will.'

[mount teide] 06/9/2018 14:22

Selmayr's dogmatic attachment to European unity is matched only by his bullying arrogance - he now exercises near total control over the EU’s officialdom because, more than any other figure in Brussels, he fulfils the federalist agenda.

We have our own home grown federalist, a certain Olly Robbins. Why do you think the APPEASER has made him her right hand man?

While at university he ran a group of like minded souls, federation is their mantra and the EUSSR fullfills their requirements to a tee.

The only saving grace of this whole BRINO leaving farrago is that Robbins 'Chequers' plan has been trashed by his heroes.

Poetic justice some might think for believing in the treacherous EUSSR - proving once again you are only useful to the EU Politburo when it suits them.

[mount teide] 06/9/2018 13:52

According to a contact who was previously on the Board of the Port of London Authority; without Government subsidies the London Array wind farm in the outer Thames Estuary(previously the largest until Walney) would take 24 years to break even based on the most optimistic of the range of performance forecasts provided by Siemens the turbine suppliers.

He said the actual operating performance turned out to be much nearer to the bottom end of the forecast performance delta.

Wind farms are largely ultra high cost political vanity projects to enable politicians to demonstrate their green credentials at taxpayers expense.

[jtcod] 06/9/2018 13:27

That remains the conundrum Henry.

Still, at least we are a world leader in this folly. :-)

[henryatkin] 06/9/2018 13:18

JTC.... all those wind turbines are equal to the output of one modern thermal power station steam turbine. All the combined future projects approximately equate to the output of one modern thermal power station the size of Drax. I draw no conclusion but do wonder at the capital cost comparison over the lifetime of each.

[jtcod] 06/9/2018 12:12

This has better sound at least

[jtcod] 06/9/2018 12:07

Extension to worlds biggest wind farm at Walney just up and running

[jtcod] 06/9/2018 11:47

Bootie
I think you’re right. :-)

[mr roper] 06/9/2018 11:24

No need to wonder. Mandelsohn receives an eu pension of 40k a year. Conflict of interest every time he opens his mouth

[grannyboy] 06/9/2018 11:12

You have to ask yourself why the likes of Beek s of Arabia are so blinded to the obvious...

We all all aware that anyone who works or have worked for the eu, and hoping to or are receiving a pension, that if they criticize the eu in anyway can lose their entitlement to these extravagant benefits..

Wonder if that's why the Kinnocks(ALL), Mandalson..etc, etc..are so biased in the eu's ideology!!!!.