China will slow the pace of IPOs and further regulate share reductions, the country's securities regulator said on Sunday.
Exchanges will also lower margin requirements, the regulator said.
Sunday, August 27, 2023
Fla. officials: gas stations supplied by CITGO have 'strong likelihood' of diesel contamination
Florida officials announced on Sunday that fuel purchased after 10 a.m. on Saturday was likely contaminated with diesel if it was supplied by CITGO from the Port of Tampa.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) made the announcement on social media, saying the contamination was caused by human error.
Gov. Ron DeSantis noted the announcement during a press conference regarding Tropical Storm Idalia, which is barreling toward the U.S. southern coast and could make landfall in Florida.
DeSantis said an investigation into the fuel contamination and how widespread it is, is underway.
The governor also said the contamination was "just human error," and the workers put diesel in tanks that were supposed to be for regular gasoline.
"Obviously if you have a tank of gas, and it’s 90% regular and 10% diesel, the dilution…probably may not ruin your car, but I mean if you put a whole tank of diesel in, that’s going to be a major, major problem," DeSantis said.
He added that he spoke with FDACS Wilton Simpson, who said they were trying to get a list of all the gas stations that may have cross-contaminated fuel, so people know if they filled up at those stations.
The FDACS said if anyone believes they were sold contaminated gas, they can file a complaint by calling 1-800-HELP-FLA or by visiting fdacs.gov.
A spokesperson for CITGO told Fox News Digital that on Saturday, the company discovered contaminated product at its Tampa, Florida terminal because of a product routing issue at the terminal, and immediately shut down the rack.
"All CITGO Marketers who lifted gasoline and diesel from the terminal between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. have been notified and asked to stop sales," a statement from the company read. "A limited number of retail locations are affected, and CITGO is currently coordinating efforts to remove the product from the retail locations that received it."
The company said it is committed to safe, reliable and responsible operations and is conducting a full investigation into the incident.
CITGO also said it is committed to maintaining the quality of its fuels and ensuring customer confidence in its products and brand.
If a consumer believes they purchased contaminated fuel on or after Aug. 26, they can file a claim with the CITGO Good Gas Guarantee program on the company’s website.
Biden To Fund New COVID Vaccine "For Everybody... Whether They've Gotten It Before Or Not"
President Joe Biden on Friday told reporters that he's planning to request more money from Congress to develop a new coronavirus vaccine.
"I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to the Congress a request for additional funding for a new vaccine that is ne- — necessary — that works," the official White House transcript reads.
"Tentatively, it is recommended that — it will likely be recommended that everybody get it no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not."
The announcement follows a recorded rise in Covid-19 cases in some regions, which has been accompanied by the return of mask mandates and cancelled classes by some colleges and businesses.
New vaccines containing the version of the omicron strain XBB.1.5 are already being developed by Pfizer, Novavax and Moderna. However, the virus’s continuing mutation will likely necessitate updated vaccines.
The Biden administration’s supplemental funding request for Congress for the start of the new fiscal year did not include COVID-19 vaccinations. Instead, the White House asked for roughly $40 billion to fund short-term key priorities such as more aide for Ukraine, federal disaster funds, climate change and border priorities. -The Hill
Maybe this time it will actually be safe and effective?
Biden admin seeks to boost tourism, trade with Raimondo's China visit
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo arrived in Beijing late Sunday to kick off a four-day trip that the Biden administration hopes will stabilize trade ties with China as tensions rise amid a geopolitical competition between the world’s two largest economies.
Raimondo spoke with President Biden on Thursday in advance of the trip, and she told reporters that the president’s message centered around the idea that the U.S. and China need to keep lines of communication open to prevent disputes from escalating.
"We want to have a stable commercial relationship – and core to that is regular communication," Raimondo said. "We need to communicate to avoid conflict."
The U.S. and its allies have been working to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductors due to concerns the high-end chips could aid the Chinese military’s modernization and enhance Chinese companies’ competitiveness while also furthering the government’s internal repression and human rights violations.
Republican lawmakers have criticized reports that Raimondo will establish a working group with China to serve as a forum for discussions about U.S. export controls on semiconductors. Raimondo didn’t confirm plans for a working group on semiconductor issues but said she would tell Chinese officials that "when it comes to national security, we don’t negotiate. We don’t give concessions. We don’t compromise."
Her visit to China comes a little more than one year after the bipartisan CHIPS Act was signed into law, which provided $52 billion in subsidies and incentives to build semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the U.S. to boost domestic production and reduce reliance on Chinese supply chains.
"Just because we’re investing in America does not mean at all that we want to decouple from China’s economy," Raimondo said.Last spring, China slapped restrictions on Micron, a leading producer of chips used in computer memory and data storage hardware, after the U.S. and Japan announced curbs on Chinese firms’ access to tech used in chip manufacturing. China’s lead cybersecurity regulator cited "serious network risks to China’s critical infrastructure supply chain, affecting China’s national security" as the reason for the restrictions.
Raimondo's trip comes amid reports that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has received roughly $30 billion in government funding and is building semiconductor manufacturing facilities under different business names that could allow it to dodge U.S. sanctions.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security told FOX Business in a statement last week, "Given the severe restrictions on Huawei, Fujian Jinhua, PXW and others, it is no surprise that they have sought substantial state support to attempt to develop indigenous technologies. BIS is continually reviewing and updating its export controls based on the evolving threat environment and, as evidenced by the Oct. 7 2022 rules, will not hesitate to take appropriate action to protect U.S. national security."
Another topic on which Raimondo hopes to make progress during her trip to China is restoring tourism to pre-pandemic levels. Although the U.S. and China agreed this month to double the number of flights permitted between the two countries, it remains a fraction of what it was prior to the COVID pandemic. Raimondo estimated that if China returned to its 2019 level of tourism to the U.S., it would add $30 billion to the economy along with 50,000 jobs.
Chinese airlines have also been blocked from taking deliveries of Boeing 737 MAX jets for the last four years in deals worth "tens of billions of dollars," Raimondo noted in 2021. Boeing says it's ready to deliver airplanes to Chinese airlines "when the time comes," although it's unclear whether those deliveries will resume after Raimondo's trip.
Raimondo – who is the fourth high-level official from the Biden administration to visit China in recent months and is the first commerce secretary to go to China in seven years – is set to hold bilateral meetings with Chinese officials on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing before she goes to Shanghai. U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns will join the secretary on the trip.
Escobar: BRICS 11 - Strategic Tour de Force
Chinese President Xi Jinping defined all the major decisions embedded in the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa as “historic”. That may be seen as an understatement.
It will take time for the Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright President Lukashenko), not to mention the stunned collective West, to fully grasp the enormity of the new strategic stakes.
President Putin, for his part, described the negotiations on BRICS expansion as quite difficult. By now a relatively accurate picture is emerging of what really went down on that table in Johannesburg.
India wanted 3 new members. China wanted as many as 10. A compromise was finally reached, with 6 members: Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Argentina and Ethiopia.
So from now on it’s BRICS 11. And that’s just the beginning. Starting with the rotating Russian presidency of BRICS on January 1, 2024, more partners will be progressively included, and most certainly a new round of full members will be announced at the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in October next year.
So we may soon progress to BRICS 20 – on the way to BRICS 40. The G7, for all practical purposes, is sliding towards oblivion.
Bur first things first. At that fateful table in Johannesburg, Russia supported Egypt. China went all out for Persian Gulf magic: Iran, UAE and the Saudis. Of course: Iran-China are already deep into a strategic partnership, and Riyadh is already accepting payment for energy in yuan.
Brazil and China supported Argentina, Brazil’s troubled neighbor, running the risk of having its economy fully dollarized, and also a key commodity provider to Beijing. South Africa supported Ethiopia. India, for a series of very complex reasons, was not exactly comfortable with 3 Arab/Muslim members (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt). Russia assuaged New Delhi’s fears.
All of the above respects geographic principles and imprints the notion of BRICS representing the Global South. But it goes way beyond that, blending cunning strategy and no-nonsense realpolitik.
India was mollified because Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at the table in Johannesburg negotiating on behalf of President Putin, and highly respected by New Delhi, fully understood that a new, single BRICS currency is a long way away. What really matters, short and medium term, is expanding intra-BRICS trade in their national currencies.
That was stressed by New Development Bank (NDB) president Dilma Rousseff in her report to the South African summit hosts – even as Brazilian President Lula once again emphasized the importance of setting up a work group to discuss a BRICS currency.
Lavrov understood how New Delhi is absolutely terrified of secondary sanctions by the US, in case its BRICS role gets too ambitious. Prime Minister Modi is essentially hedging between BRICS and the completely artificial imperial obsession embedded in the terminology “Indo-Pacific” – which masks renewed containment of China. The Straussian neo-con psychos in charge of US foreign policy are already furious with India buying loads of discounted Russian oil.
New Delhi’s support for a new BRICS currency would be interpreted in Washington as all-out trade war – and sanctions dementia would follow. In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s MbS doesn’t care: he’s a top energy producer, not consumer like India, and one of his priorities is to fully court his top energy client, Beijing, and pave the way for the petroyuan.
It Takes Just a Single Strategic Move
Now let’s get into the strategic stakes. For all practical purposes, in Eurasian terms, BRICS 11 is now on the way to lord over the Arctic Sea Route; the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC); BRI’s East West Corridors; the Persian Gulf; the Red Sea; and the Suez Canal.
That blends several overland corridors with several nodes of the Maritime Silk Roads. Nearly total integration in the Heartland and the Rimland. All with just a single strategic move in the geopolitical/geoeconomic chessboard.
Much more than an increase of BRICS 11 collective GDP to 36% of the world’s total (already larger than the G7), with the group now encompassing 47% of the world’s population, the top geopolitical and geoeconomic breakthrough is how BRICS 11 is about to literally break the bank on the energy and commodities market fronts.
By incorporating Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, BRICS 11 instantly shines on as an oil and gas powerhouse. BRICS 11 now controls 39% of global oil exports; 45.9% of proven reserves; and at least 47.6% of all oil produced globally, according to InfoTEK.
With BRICS 11 possibly including Venezuela, Algeria and Kazakhstan as new members as early as in 2024, it may control as much as 90% of all oil and gas traded globally.
Inevitable corollary: operations settled in local currencies bypassing the US dollar. And inevitable conclusion: petrodollar in a coma. The Empire of Chaos and Plunder will lose its free lunch menu: control of global oil prices and means to enforce “diplomacy” via a tsunami of unilateral sanctions.
Already in the horizon, direct BRICS 11-OPEC+ symbiosis is inevitable. OPEC+ is effectively run by Russia and Saudi Arabia.
A ground-shaking geoeconomic reorientation is at hand, involving everything from routes plied by global supply chains and new BRICS roads to the progressive interconnection of BRI, the Saudi Vision 2030 and massive port expansion in the UAE.
By choosing Ethiopia, BRICS expands its African reach on mining, minerals and metals. Ethiopia is rich in gold, platinum, tantalum, copper, niobium and offers vast potential in oil and natural gas exploration. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, incidentally, are also involved in mining.
This all spells out fast, progressive integration of North Africa and West Asia.
How Diplomacy Goes a Long Way
The BRICS 11 Shock of the New, in the energy sphere, is a sharp historical counterpoint to the 1973 oil shock, after which Riyadh started wallowing in petrodollars. Now Saudi Arabia under MbS is operating a tectonic shift, in the process of becoming strategically aligned with Russia-China-India-Iran.
Diplomatic coup does not even begin to describe it. This is the second stage of the Russian-initiated and Chinese-finalized rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, recently sealed in Beijing. The Russia-China strategic leadership, working patiently in synch, never lost sight of the ball.
Now compare it with collective West’s “strategies”, such as the G7-imposed oil price cap. Essentially the G7 “coalition of the willing” self-imposed a price cap on Russian crude imported by sea. The result is that they had to start buying way more oil products from Global South nations which ignored the price cap and duly increased their purchase of Russian crude.
Guess who are the top two: BRICS members China and India.
After wallowing in several stages of denial, the collective West may – or may not – realize it’s a fool’s dream to attempt to “de-couple” the West-ruled part of the global economy from China, whatever is spewed out by Washington.
BRICS 11 now shows, graphically, how the “Global South/Global Majority/”Global Globe” is more non-aligned with the West than anytime in recent history.
By the way, the president of the G77, Cuban leader Diaz-Canel, was at the BRICS summit representing the de-facto new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 actually incorporates no less than 134 nations. Most are African. Xi Jinping in Johannesburg met in person with the leaders of most of them.
The collective West, in panic, regards all of the above as “dangerous”. So the last refuge is, predictably, rhetorical: “de-coupling”, “de-risking”, and similar idiocies.
Yet that may also get practically dangerous. As in the first ever trilateral summit in Camp David on August 18 between the Empire and two Asian vassals, Japan and South Korea. That may be interpreted as the first move towards a military-political Asian NATO even more toxic than Quad or AUKUS, obsessed to simultaneously contain China, Russia and the DPRK.
The Collective Outstripping of the Global North
The UN lists 152 nations in the world as “developing countries”. BRICS 11 is aiming at them – as they outstrip the Global North on everything from population growth to overall contribution to global GDP growth measured by PPP.
In the past 10 years since the announcement of BRI first in Astana and then in Jakarta, Chinese financial institutions have lent nearly $1 trillion for infrastructure connectivity projects across the Global South. The upcoming BRI forum in Beijing will signal a renewed drive. That’s the BRI-BRICS symbiosis.
In the G20 last year, China was the first nation to lobby for the inclusion of the 55-member African Union (AU). That may happen at the G20 summit next month in New Delhi; in that case, Global South representation will be close to parity with the Global North.
Claims that Beijing was organizing a malign conspiracy to turn BRICS into a weapon against the G7 are infantile. Realpolitik – and geoeconomic indicators – are dictating the terms, configuring the Shock of the New: the G7’s irreversible irrelevance with the rise of BRICS 11.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-brics-11-strategic-tour-de-force
Climate Stupidity Canadian Style
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doubles down on carbon taxes, hammering Canadian farms and raising prices for everyone.
Destroying Canada’s Farms, for What?
Competition is high between nations to see who can implement the silliest climate policies. President Biden is far in the lead, but other nations want to catch up.
Please consider Destroying Canada’s Farms, for What?
On April 1, 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau implemented a national minimum carbon price of $15 (Canadian) per tonne, due to rise to $170 per ton by 2030. Last month, he added a second carbon tax that, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, will “require producers to reduce the carbon content of their fuels or be forced to purchase credits.”
These two carbon taxes will cost the average family more than $2,000 per year, according to the Government of Canada’s own calculation. The same report notes that the taxes will “disproportionately impact lower and middle-income households,” “single mothers,” and “seniors living on fixed incomes.”
“Canada’s own emissions are not large enough to materially impact climate change,” admits Trudeau’s own Parliamentary Budget Office, due to increased emissions from the developing world.
“My competitors to the south of me in the United States do not pay that [carbon] tax, so now my cost goes up and I have no alternative,” says Jeff Barlow, a corn, wheat, and soybean farmer in Ontario. “By penalizing me, there’s nothing else that I can do but just be penalized.”
“If you push farmers against the wall with no wiggle room, I don’t know where this will end up,” warns Gunter Jochum, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. “Just look at what’s happening in Europe, in the Netherlands. They’ve had enough of it.”
The Green Solution?!
To eliminate the benefit of US farmers, Jonathan Pedneault, deputy leader of the Green Party of Canada, has a solution. He wants to raise tariffs so the US would not have a competitive advantage over Canadian farmers.
Pedneault proposes “introducing tariffs for countries that apply no carbon tax or one that is lesser than Canada’s.”
Mercy!
Magic Money
To mitigate the hardships, Canada proposes Climate Action Incentive Payments. Through the magic of those payments (tax hikes or bigger deficits), Trudeau says the average family comes out ahead.
However, the overall economic impacts are hugely negative as the next chart shows.
Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan Fiscal and Economic Impact
Fiscal and Economic Impact
Our estimate of the economic impact captures the loss in employment and investment income that would result from the federal fuel charge.
Differential impacts on the returns to capital and wages, combined with differences in the distribution of employment and investment income drive the variation in household net costs across provinces. When the economic impact is combined with the fiscal impact, the net cost increases for all households, reflecting the overall negative economic impact of the federal fuel charge
The above charts from a Distributional Analysis of the Federal Fuel Charge under the 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan.
Even “free” money does not mitigate the losses.
Let’s sum it up this way. You gain $699 in Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, you lose your job.
And for what? If Canada stopped all carbon emissions tomorrow it would not even register, except for the Canadian economy which would crash.
EU Imposes the World’s Largest Carbon Tax Scheme, Inflationary Madness Sets In
On December 19, 2022 I noted EU Imposes the World’s Largest Carbon Tax Scheme, Inflationary Madness Sets In
To prevent “carbon leakage” the European Parliament Reached a Deal on a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, CBAM for short.
And now Canada proposes it will match or exceed the carbon taxes of anyone.
A New Green Deal Trade War Accelerates Between the US and EU
The result was A New Green Deal Trade War Accelerates Between the US and EU
It’s safe to add Canada to the mix.
The Shocking Truth About Biden’s Proposed Energy Fuel Standards
In case you missed it, please consider The Shocking Truth About Biden’s Proposed Energy Fuel Standards
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA did an impact assessment of 4 fuel standard proposals and compared them to the cost of doing nothing. Guess what.
The NHTSA conclude: “Net benefits [of stricter mile standards] for passenger cars remain negative across alternatives” vs doing nothing at all.
https://mishtalk.com/economics/climate-stupidity-canadian-style/
Idalia expected to hit Florida as hurricane
Tropical Storm Idalia has formed in the Gulf of Mexico and could strengthen into a hurricane, bringing high winds and storm surges to Cuba and Florida later this week.
The storm has sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph) and could reach Category 1 strength with winds of 90 mph when it is forecast to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Sunday.
The storm is currently near the Yucatan Channel about 80 miles (130 km) east-northeast of Cozumel, Mexico.
Idalia could cause life-threatening storm surge and flooding from heavy rains along parts of Florida's west coast and the Panhandle as early as Tuesday, the Miami-based weather forecaster said.
Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 33 Florida counties on Saturday.
"Floridians should have a plan and a stocked supply kit," DeSantis wrote on social media.
Duke Energy is closely monitoring the approach of Idalia and preparing crews and equipment to respond if customers lose power.
https://news.yahoo.com/tropical-storm-idalia-heading-toward-154107106.html
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