David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - General

    The Manhattan Project to Wean the US Off Russian Uranium

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section:

    In 2021, Urenco had no plans to expand in the US. But standing in a vast storeroom in Eunice crammed with ready-to-ship canisters, each filled with more than 2 tons of enriched uranium and worth $1 million, Keith Armstrong, the company’s chief of staff, said orders have increased almost 25% in the past year as the world tries to avoid Rosatom. 

    Armstrong, who has worked at Urenco for 11 years, said Moscow’s militarism had jolted the industry and exposed gaping vulnerabilities. “The invasion of Ukraine changed the market dramatically,” he said. “It went from a static state to ‘we need to expand now.’”

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    Americans Have Almost Depleted Excess Savings, SF Fed Study Says

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    “Our updated estimates suggest that households held less than $190 billion of aggregate excess savings by June,” San Francisco Fed researchers Hamza Abdelrahman and Luiz Oliveira said in a blog post published Wednesday on the bank’s website.

    “There is considerable uncertainty in the outlook, but we estimate that these excess savings are likely to be depleted during the third quarter of 2023.”

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    Ex-JPMorgan Gold Traders Get Prison for 'Prolific Spoofing'

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    Smith and Nowak “used their positions as some of the most powerful traders in the worldwide precious metals markets to engage in an egregious effort to manipulate prices for their benefit,” Acting US Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri said in a statement, adding the Justice Department was committed to holding “accountable those who engage in fraud and manipulation that undermines the investing public’s trust in the integrity of our commodities markets.”

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    Thaksin Return From Exile Shows Thai Royalists Have Bigger Enemy

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section:

    The awkward 11-party alliance emerged after both camps saw their interests align in the wake of a May election that produced a stunning win for Move Forward, a party that advocated changes to a law forbidding criticism of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and other top royals. The royalist parties wanted to keep Move Forward out of power, while Thaksin sought to strike a deal that would allow him to return to Thailand after 15 years of shuttling between Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and London.

    “Pheu Thai is the most powerful party to battle the emergence of Move Forward, after the electoral defeat of the conservative parties,” said Yuttaporn Issarachai, a political scientist at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University. “As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

    Thaksin’s return will mark a full-circle moment in Thailand’s political drama, which has seen a cycle of coups and deadly street protests erodes the nation’s competitiveness as a Southeast Asian manufacturing destination since the turn of the century. Foreign investors have dumped about $3.8 billion of Thai stocks this year, triggering an almost 9% slump in the main stock index to rank it among Asia’s worst performers.

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    Cybertruck employee deliveries 'imminent' with dual-motor or tri-motor options as Tesla films launch ad

    This article from Notebookcheck may be of interest. Here is a section:

    The source mentions that the launch is "imminent" and only a few weeks away which jibes with Elon Musk's "end of Q3" Cybertruck release date promise back in April. There are a few other signs that point towards a Cybertruck launch in September, too.

    For one, Tesla has been filmed loading multiple units on trailers and shipping them out of Giga Texas just this past week alone, as the parking lot there seemingly gets new production batches every few days. They seem heading to the Fremont factory while some stop for crash tests on the way.

    Moreover, Tesla has reportedly been filming what could turn out to be the first Cybertruck launch ad up in the glaciers of Iceland. Locals have taped the Cybertruck surrounded by camera equipment there, or doing laps on the glacier fronted by a black Land Rover with its tailgate open as if for capturing footage.

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    Run It Cold: Why Xi Jinping Is Letting China's Economy Flail

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section:

    But where Biden has opted to run his economy hot, spending trillions of dollars on household stimulus and infrastructure to goose the economy, Xi is running his cold in a bid to finally break China’s addiction to fueling growth with speculative apartment construction and low-return projects funded by opaque local borrowing. If China is a “ticking time bomb,” Xi’s aim is to defuse it.

    The clash of economic philosophies between the world’s two largest economies is already shifting investment flows and may delay the date at which China overtakes the US, or perhaps mean that moment will never arrive. The risk for Xi and his team, led by Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier He Lifeng, is that the determination to avoid excessive stimulus undermines confidence across the nation’s 1.4 billion people. 

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    LNG Strikes Could Begin Early September Amid Australia Disputes

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Strike action in Australia’s LNG sector could begin as early as Sept. 2 if new talks between Woodside Energy Group Ltd. and union officials on pay and conditions fail to resolve disputes. Ballots are also taking place on potential walkouts by workers at Chevron Corp. facilities.

    Any outages would threaten about 10% of global supply and a local export sector that generated an estimated A$92 billion ($59 billion) in earnings in the year to June 30.

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