Tag: news

Bret Stephens Is Not a Bedbug. He’s a Delicate Snowflake.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens quit social media on Tuesday after being widely mocked for sending an email to a George Washington University professor who called him a bedbug in a tweet.

The tweet in question was a response to news that The New York Times‘ newsroom had suffered an infestation of bedbugs. “The bedbugs are a metaphor,” George Washington University Associate Professor David Karpf tweeted. “The bedbugs are Bret Stephens.”

The tweet did not achieve viral status right away. According to Karpf, it initially received nine likes and zero retweets. And he did not tag Stephens in it. Nevertheless, Karpf soon received a complaining email from Stephens in which the columnist berated the professor for setting a new low for online discourse. In an interview with MSNBC, Stephens later claimed that the bedbug tweet was an example of “dehumanizing” rhetoric that called to mind various totalitarian regimes likening their enemies to insects.

Stephens’ complaining email was not just addressed to Karpf. He also copied the offices of George Washington University Provost Forrest Maltzman. In other words, Stephens complained to Karpf’s boss. This is stunning hypocrisy from Stephens. In a May 17 Times op-ed, Stephens—who regularly inveighs against political correctness run amok on college campuses and elsewhere—castigated “all those who recklessly participate in the search-and-destroy missions of the call-out culture.” Stephens specifically criticized students at Harvard, Middlebury, and Yale for “alleging an invisible harm in order to inflict an actual one.”

“In place of an eye for an eye, we have professional destruction for emotional upset,” wrote Stephens. “Careers and reputations built over decades come to ruin, or nearly so, on account of a personal mistake or a disfavored opinion.”

Yet Stephens is now engaged in exactly the same kind of attempted canceling of Karpf.

To be sure, Stephens maintains that he had no desire to get Karpf in any trouble. But, as Stephens well knows, inviting university administrators to take a hard look at students and professors who said or did something controversial is a dangerous game. Administrators routinely engage in censorship as part of their efforts to placate squeaky wheels.

I’ve often enjoyed Stephens’ work, and I agree with him that many young people are all-too-eager to destroy people for venial sins. (In fact, I wrote an entire book on this subject!) But informing the provost was a lapse in judgment.

Bret Stephens is not a bedbug. But he might be a delicate snowflake.

Provost Maltzman released the following statement Tuesday afternoon affirming Karpf’s right to academic freedom.

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De Blasio Panel Wants To Eliminate ‘Racist’ Gifted Programs In New York Schools

A panel appointed by NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio to combat desegregation has recommended getting rid of public school programs for gifted and talented kids, as they are filled “mostly with white and Asian children,” according to the New York Times.

Photo: James Estrin/The New York Times

If de Blasio adopts some or all of the proposals, “He risks alienating tens of thousands of mostly white and Asian families whose children are enrolled in the gifted programs and selective schools,” the Times‘ Eliza Shapiro notes. 

That said, the plan “may also face opposition from some middle-class black and Hispanic families that have called for more gifted programs in mostly minority neighborhoods as a way to offer students of color more access to high-quality schools.”

The panel’s report, obtained by The New York Times, amounts to a repudiation of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s education agenda, which reoriented the system toward school choice for families, including more gifted and screened schools, to combat decades of low performance.

Some of those policies deepened inequality even as student achievement rose. Mr. de Blasio has been sharply critical of his predecessor’s philosophy on education, but must now decide whether to dismantle some of the structures that Mr. Bloomberg helped to build. –New York Times

According to the panel “made up of several dozen education experts,” gifted programs and screened schools have “become proxies for separating students who can and should have opportunities to learn together.” They have recommended replacing gifted schools with new magnet schools, “which have been used in other cities to attract a diverse group of students interested in a particular subject matter — along with enrichment programs that are open to students with varying academic abilities.”

If the mayor adopts the recommendations, elementary and middle schools would no longer be able to admit students based solely or largely on standardized exams or other academic prerequisites, and high schools would have diversity requirements.

Alternative means of admission should be decided by the Department of Education and individual districts, the panel found. 

Last year there were approximately 16,000 students enrolled in gifted classes – 75% of which were White and Asian, while Black and Hispanic enrollment in the same programs has fallen off a cliff over the past decade. 

The panel noted that if the gifted programs are eliminated, New York would have to take steps to prevent middle-class families from fleeing the area for better educational opportunities. 

If those students decamp to private schools or to the suburbs, “it will become even more difficult to create high-quality integrated schools,” in New York, the report said. The panel wrote that “high-achievement students deserve to be challenged,” but in different ways. 

Also recommended is that the city eliminate the standardized admissions exam for elementary school gifted programs – currently offered to prospective Kindergarten students in order to identify those with exceptional talents, while de Blasio should also “place a moratorium on new gifted programs, stop most grouping by academic ability and phase out existing gifted classes by not admitting new students.“

In order to integrate high schools, the panel recommended that the city not open any new screened high schools, eliminate geographic zones as a criteria for admission and should not consider lateness or attendance in evaluating prospective students.

The city should also redesign its competitive high school admissions process to ensure that high schools reflect the racial and economic make up of their boroughs, the panel found.

“Here we go kneecapping the fastest track team members to help the slow ones run faster. Because diversity and inclusion! “commented one Redditor, who added “Maybe we should shutter ivy league schools and make our most elite post doc academics go to community colleges while we are at it?” 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Zsa7QZ Tyler Durden

Bret Stephens Is Not a Bedbug. He’s a Delicate Snowflake.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens quit social media on Tuesday after being widely mocked for sending an email to a George Washington University professor who called him a bedbug in a tweet.

The tweet in question was a response to news that The New York Times‘ newsroom had suffered an infestation of bedbugs. “The bedbugs are a metaphor,” George Washington University Associate Professor David Karpf tweeted. “The bedbugs are Bret Stephens.”

The tweet did not achieve viral status right away. According to Karpf, it initially received nine likes and zero retweets. And he did not tag Stephens in it. Nevertheless, Karpf soon received a complaining email from Stephens in which the columnist berated the professor for setting a new low for online discourse. In an interview with MSNBC, Stephens later claimed that the bedbug tweet was an example of “dehumanizing” rhetoric that called to mind various totalitarian regimes likening their enemies to insects.

Stephens’ complaining email was not just addressed to Karpf. He also copied the offices of George Washington University Provost Forrest Maltzman. In other words, Stephens complained to Karpf’s boss. This is stunning hypocrisy from Stephens. In a May 17 Times op-ed, Stephens—who regularly inveighs against political correctness run amok on college campuses and elsewhere—castigated “all those who recklessly participate in the search-and-destroy missions of the call-out culture.” Stephens specifically criticized students at Harvard, Middlebury, and Yale for “alleging an invisible harm in order to inflict an actual one.”

“In place of an eye for an eye, we have professional destruction for emotional upset,” wrote Stephens. “Careers and reputations built over decades come to ruin, or nearly so, on account of a personal mistake or a disfavored opinion.”

Yet Stephens is now engaged in exactly the same kind of attempted canceling of Karpf.

To be sure, Stephens maintains that he had no desire to get Karpf in any trouble. But, as Stephens well knows, inviting university administrators to take a hard look at students and professors who said or did something controversial is a dangerous game. Administrators routinely engage in censorship as part of their efforts to placate squeaky wheels.

I’ve often enjoyed Stephens’ work, and I agree with him that many young people are all-too-eager to destroy people for venial sins. (In fact, I wrote an entire book on this subject!) But informing the provost was a lapse in judgment.

Bret Stephens is not a bedbug. But he might be a delicate snowflake.

Provost Maltzman released the following statement Tuesday afternoon affirming Karpf’s right to academic freedom.

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Possible Currency War Would Be A Disaster For Oil

Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Oil prices plunged on Friday after the U.S. and China both announced tariff hikes in tit-for-tat fashion. At the same time, markets opened on a positive note early Monday after President Trump struck a more conciliatory tone. But the respite could be brief.

Global financial markets are completely at the mercy of Trump’s twitter account these days. On Friday, stocks and commodities fell sharply after China announced an increase in tariffs on U.S. goods. In response, Trump announced yet another 5 percent increase in the suite of tariffs on Chinese goods, although, notably, he waited until after financial markets had closed for the week.

Over the weekend at the G-7 Conference in France, Trump sent mixed messages on the trade war, suggesting he had “second thoughts,” with his team subsequently clarifying that his second thoughts regarded his regret he hadn’t hiked tariffs by an even greater amount. Nevertheless, traders took comfort in his comments about wanting to make a deal with China, in addition to his assertion that China had called him up asking for a return to negotiations.

Stocks opened up on a positive note on that news. However, it should be noted that Chinese officials said that they were “not aware of” the phone call that Trump alluded to. When pressed by reporters about the nature of the phone call, Trump said: “I don’t want to talk about calls. We’ve had calls. We’ve had calls at the highest levels.”

If we’ve learned anything over the past few months, it is that these events turn on a dime. The incoherent strategy from the White House, and the complete lack of an official policymaking process, makes it impossible to predict how events will unfold. It is odd then that financial markets were so sanguine at the start of the week.

One particular area of risk to watch is the further weakening of the yuan to the dollar. The yuan depreciated to 7.15 yuan to the greenback, the weakest rate since prior to the global financial crisis 11 years ago.

“It has been a bit of a roller coaster. We had the dollar opening up quite weak in Asia last night. Then a number of things have happened to reverse that including dollar/CNH pushing higher,” Daniel Katzive, head of foreign exchange strategy for North America at BNP Paribas, told Reuters.

“The gloves are coming off on both sides and as such yuan depreciation is an obvious cushion against US tariffs,” Mitul Kotecha, a senior emerging markets economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, told Bloomberg news.

“As long as China can ensure that yuan weakness is well controlled, i.e. it does not provoke strong outflows, expect to see further depreciation in the currency.”

Allowing the currency to depreciate is not without risks, even for China. With mountains of debt, a weaker yuan could make debt repayment at the company level more painful for Chinese firms.

But the global impacts are probably even more important to keep an eye on. Because of the importance of the yuan as a global currency, and because of the size of the Chinese economy, a weaker yuan will reverberate around the world. In early August, when the yuan initially weakened to the 7:1 level with the dollar following Trump’s announcement about new tariffs in September, the depreciation sparked an immediate response from multiple central banks. India, New Zealand and Thailand cut their interest rates in an attempt to head off a currency appreciation relative to the yuan. A week later, Mexico cut interest rates. Around 30 countries have already cut interest rates this year, according to Refinitiv and the New York Times.

Now that the yuan has dropped to roughly 7.15 to 1 with the dollar, there will be another round of pressure on emerging market currencies. For instance, on Monday, Turkey’s lira plunged by 12 percent relative to the Japanese yen. The China-U.S. trade war “means that EM FX will continue to weaken for the foreseeable future. In the absence of a thawing in trade frictions it remains a market to be structurally short EM and buy dollars on any dip,” currency analysts at Societe Generale said in a note.

“The hot and cold approach to negotiations continues and is creating a great deal of confusion,” said Ole Sloth Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S in Copenhagen, according to Bloomberg.

“At this stage we have to assume that tariffs will be raised, which is not good for growth and demand.”

It goes without saying that currency volatility and the risk of economic recession is bad news for oil prices. On top of that, China also just announced a tariff that specifically targets U.S. crude oil.

“The escalating trade dispute is likely to weigh not only on the global economy and thus on oil demand, but also on US oil exports directly,” Commerzbank said in a note.

“After all, China has been one of the largest importers of US crude oil in recent months.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32aREKC Tyler Durden

Big Trouble In Little Costco: Big Box Retailer’s Chinese Debut Closes Early For “Security Reasons”

After the Berlin Wall fell, one of the first aspects of western society that East Berliners were attracted to were the supermarkets, stocked with goods and brands that simply weren’t as plentiful in the formerly Communist bloc. China’s “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” has long since offered Chinese people a similar consumer culture as can be found in the West. But on Tuesday, shoppers in Shanghai got their first taste of what it means to shop at an American-style warehouse club when the first Costco in China opened its doors.

It was almost immediately overrun by curious shoppers, who signed up for memberships in droves. For a few hours, everybody seemed to forget about the trade war, and simply shopped for bulk packages of peanut butter, toilet paper and whatever regionally popular products ended up in the stores.

Demand was so intense on opening day that Costco was forced to close early as crowds of thousands of people showed up to shop.

The scene inside looked like Black Friday crowds on steroids. But according to one reporter, police soon forced the store to close for security reasons.

Hu Xijin, the editor in chief of the Global Times, pointed out that, contrary to President Trump’s demand that US companies leave China and relocate back to America, Costco was moving ahead with its plans to expand within China.

“Such a grand opening can’t be seen in other places,” Hu said. The “Chinese market is crucial to American companies.”

Signs outside the store, located in the Minhang District of Shanghai, warned customers that they might have to wait three hours to park, and another two hours to pay for their goods.

According to CNBC, one nearby school sent out an advisory to parents, warning them that the dismissal of their students would be “severely delayed” that afternoon because of the Costco Grand Opening.

A local media outlet run by the Shanghai government advised shoppers to visit the store during “off-peak” hours and to “consume in a rational manner.”

With the trade war between the US and China escalating, Costco announced last month that it would open its first store in China. Before that, it had first entered the country in 2014 by selling goods via an online store on Alibaba’s Tmall.

Costco’s blockbuster first day comes as other western retailers, including Amazon, Tesco and Carrefour, are retreating from China.

To be sure, Costco isn’t the only company selling bulk goods in the Chinese market: Walmart’s Sam’s Club has been in China for about 20 years, and has about 24 stores across the country. Walmart said earlier this year that it plans to add 16 more location in mainland China by 2020.

According to one local media outlet that publishes in English, most shoppers said they loaded up on as many items as possible so they wouldn’t have to come back.

When it opens on Wednesday, Costco said it will control the number of shoppers and limit the number to 2,000. That probably won’t stop the crowds from swamping the store once again. There’s been no word yet on the number of new memberships the company has sold, but judging by the response, the store has been a success.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NBSewW Tyler Durden

Pat Buchanan Asks: “Will Bibi’s War Become America’s War?”

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

President Donald Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran, after the shoot-down of a U.S. Predator drone, to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a U.S. war with Iran. But the same cannot be said of Bibi Netanyahu.

Saturday, Israel launched a night attack on a village south of Damascus to abort what Israel claims was a plot by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force to fly “killer drones” into Israel, an act of war.

Sunday, two Israeli drones crashed outside the media offices of Hezbollah in Beirut. Israel then attacked a base camp of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in north Lebanon.

Monday, Israel admitted to a strike on Iranian-backed militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. And Israel does not deny responsibility for last month’s attacks on munitions dumps and bases of pro-Iran militias in Iraq.

Israel has also confirmed that, during Syria’s civil war, it conducted hundreds of strikes against pro-Iranian militias and ammunition depots to prevent the transfer of missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Understandably, Israel’s weekend actions have brought threats of retaliation. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has warned of vengeance for the death of his people in the Syria strike.

Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani reportedly tweeted from Tehran, “These insane operations will be the last struggles of the Zionist regime.” Lebanese President Michel Aoun called the alleged Israeli drone attack on Beirut a “declaration of war.”

Last Friday, in the 71st week of the “Great March of Return” protests on Gaza’s border, 50 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli live fire. In 16 months, 200 have died from gunshots, with thousands wounded.

America’s reaction to Israel’s weekend attacks?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Netanyahu to assure him of U.S. support of Israel’s actions. Some Iraqi leaders are now calling for the expulsion of Americans.

Why is Netanyahu now admitting to Israel’s role in the strikes in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq? Why has he begun threatening Iran itself and even the Houthi rebels in Yemen?

Because this longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, having surpassed David Ben-Gurion, is in the battle of his life, with elections just three weeks off. And if Netanyahu falls short — or fails to put together a coalition after winning, as he failed earlier this year — his career would be over, and he could be facing prosecution for corruption.

Netanyahu has a compelling motive for widening the war against Israel’s main enemy, its allies and its proxies and taking credit for military strikes.

But America has a stake in what Israel is doing as well.

We are not simply observers. For if Hezbollah retaliates against Israel or Iranian-backed militias in Syria retaliate against Israel – or against us for enabling Israel – a new war could erupt, and there would be a clamor for deeper American intervention.

Yet, Americans have no desire for a new war, which could cost Trump the presidency, as the war in Iraq cost the Republican Party the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008.

The United States has taken pains to avoid a military clash with Iran for compelling reasons. With only 5,000 troops left in Iraq, U.S. forces are massively outmanned by an estimated 150,000 fighters of the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces, which played a critical role in preventing ISIS from reaching Baghdad during the days of the caliphate.

And, for good reason, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, with its crew of 5,600, which Trump sent to deter Iran, has yet to enter the Strait of Hormuz or the Persian Gulf but remains in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Oman, and, at times, some 600 nautical miles away from Iran.

Why is this mighty warship keeping its distance?

We don’t want a confrontation in the Gulf, and, as ex-Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, says:

“Anytime a carrier moves close to shore, and especially into confined waters, the danger to the ship goes up significantly…

It becomes vulnerable to diesel submarines, shore-launched cruise missiles and swarming attacks by small boats armed with missiles.”

Which is a pretty good description of the coastal defenses and naval forces of Iran.

Netanyahu’s widening of Israel’s war with Iran and its proxies into Lebanon and Iraq — and perhaps beyond — and his acknowledgement of that wider war raise questions for both of us.

Israel today has on and near her borders hostile populations in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq. Tens of millions of Muslims see her as an enemy to be expelled from the region.

While there is a cold peace with Egypt and Jordan, the Saudis and Gulf Arabs are temporary allies as long as the foe is Iran.

Is this pervasive enmity sustainable?

As for America, have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not of ours?

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HtfRUp Tyler Durden

While Celebrities Pass Off Fake Pictures Of Burning Amazon, Here’s What The Raging Fires Actually Look Like

The tens of thousands of fires burning in the Amazon right now have caught the attention of environmentalists, politicians and celebrities alike. Unfortunately, many of them have been spreading bad information in the form of decades-old pictures and incorrect facts, such as the claim that the Amazon is the “lungs of the world,” according to Forbes. 

Singers and actors including Madonna and Jaden Smith shared photos on social media that were seen by tens of millions of people. “The lungs of the Earth are in flames,” said actor Leonardo DiCaprio. “The Amazon Rainforest produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen,” tweeted soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. “The Amazon rain forest — the lungs which produce 20% of our planet’s oxygen — is on fire,” tweeted French President Emanuel Macron. –Forbes

And while the fires raging in the Amazon are undoubtedly concerning, “the photos weren’t actually of the fires and many weren’t even of the Amazon,” according to Forbes. 

The photo Ronaldo shared was taken in southern Brazil, far from the Amazon, in 2013. The photo that DiCaprio and Macron shared is over 20 years old. The photo Madonna and Smith shared is over 30. Some celebrities shared photos from Montana, India, and Sweden. –Forbes

And as the New York Times noted on Friday, “These fires were not caused by climate change,” nor is the Amazon the “lungs of the world.” 

“It’s bullshit,” said Dan Nepstad – one of the world’s leading experts on the Amazon forest. “There’s no science behind that. The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen but it uses the same amount of oxygen through respiration so it’s a wash.“

Also debunked is a claim by CNN that the fires are burning at a record rate, as well as a claim by a leading climate reporter that “The current fires are without precedent in the past 20,000 years.”

According to Nepstad, the number of fires in 2019 is just 7% higher than average over the last 10 years. 

So what do the fires actually look like?

Here are some current photos of the devastation by photographer Leonardo Carrato, via Bloomberg

The Amazon biome accounted for 52% of Brazil’s fire reports this year, with more than 40,000 outbreaks since January, according to data from INPE.

In August alone more than 26,000 fires were detected there. 

Conservation efforts had limited Amazon deforestation, but data from INPE show that trend broke in 2012. Tree losses soared 73 percent between 2012 and 2018, coinciding with a period of economic malaise. 

Last season alone, almost 2 million acres, an area bigger than Shanghai, were cleared from the world’s largest rainforest.

An analysis by Global Forest Watch from 2001 to 2015 showed that the conversion of forest and shrubland to agriculture and mining were among the main catalysts for tree loss.

Commodities are key drivers behind the increased pace of deforestation.

Soybean acreage in the Amazon is up more than fourfold in the past 12 years, representing 13% of Brazil’s total soy area in the 2017-18 season. However, almost all of the increase is from pastures that have been converted to farmland

Meat-packing companies in Brazil have made a commitment to no longer source from livestock farmers involved in deforestation. It’s a hard task given difficulties in tracking individual cattle as they move through the supply chain.

Firefighting efforts have been stepped up in recent days as well as the resources available for it. Brazil’s government approved the immediate release of $9.3 million while G-7 leaders have committed $20 million.

Brazilian soldiers unload equipment from a vehicle near the Amazon rainforest in Porto Velho, Rondonia state. President Bolsonaro had authorized military operations in nine states to combat the fires.

Perhaps celebrities and politicians will share these instead.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZEuZsx Tyler Durden

Solid Demand In 2Y Treasury Auction Despite 2 Year Low Yield

The 2Y Treasury yield may be higher than every other Treasury maturity except for the 30Y (with the 2s10s inverted by almost 5bps), but that doesn’t mean that there was a shortage of demand for today’s 2Y auction, in which the Treasury sold $40 billion in two-year paper in the first auction since the 2s10s curve inverted on Aug. 14 for the first time since 2007.

The auction stopped at a high yield of 1.516%, which tailed the When Issued fractionally, by just 0.1bp; this was the lowest 2Y auction yield since September 2017, and sharply lower from July’s 1.823%.

Despite the sharp drop in yield, the internals were quite solid, with the Bid to Cover rising from 2.50 to 2.60, above the six-auction average of 2.57. More importantly, foreign buyers were present unlike July, with the Indirect bid jumping from 43.5% to 47.1%, also above the recent average of 46.8%. And with Directs taking down 20.4%, roughly in line the recent average, that left Dealers holding 32.5%.

Overall, a solid auction which took place just as the 10Y yield dropped to session lows of 1.47%, and which had no impact on the curve due to what appeared to be substantial demand even as yields continue to slide.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Zs2Gcx Tyler Durden

A Perfect Storm Is Brewing For US LNG

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

That the U.S. energy industry would be among those hardest hit by a full-blown trade war between Washington and Beijing was a no-brainer. Yet the extent of the fallout as the war continues is only becoming evident now, as some companies find it hard to secure the funding for their ambitious LNG projects.

According to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, a number of companies may delay their final investment decisions on new LNG capacity to next year because of U.S.-Chinese trade tensions. Bloomberg reports these include Tellurian and NextDecade, as well as other companies focused exclusively on LNG.

“We see delays as likely given current pricing headwinds, no resolution yet on the U.S.-China trade war, and minimal contract announcements in recent months,” BofA analysts wrote in a recent note to clients, referring to Tellurian’s US$28-billion Driftwood LNG project in Louisiana.

While the companies themselves are not too talkative when it comes to possible obstacles to the so-called second wave of LNG projects in the U.S., the facts are not encouraging: China has imported no U.S. LNG since March, according to data from ClipperData. Bloomberg data is even gloomier: it suggests no U.S. LNG has made its way into China since February. No wonder, since Beijing first imposed a 10-percent tariff on the commodity and then upped this to 25 percent in retaliation for U.S. tariffs.

Yet there is another aspect of the trade war that is more damaging to U.S. LNG producers. To secure funding for these projects that typically cost billions, U.S. companies need long-term commitments to convince banks the projects are viable. Chinese buyers were the natural choice for these long-term commitments but this is no longer the case as Chinese investors shun U.S. projects amid the war.

To add insult to injury, the gas price context is increasingly unfavourable and could add justification to delays in final investment decisions. U.S. energy companies are producing too much gas at a time when domestic demand is stalling and global demand is being met by a growing number of countries. LNG projects are also suffering the effects of low gas prices. As RBC recently forecast, this year, the natural gas market will remain oversupplied, and this oversupply will extend into 2020 as well.

U.S. LNG exports were hailed as a double blessing: on the one hand, expanding U.S. companies global presence on the LNG market and on the other, relieving a persistent natural gas glut resulting from the growth of the shale oil and gas industry. The size of this relief grewfrom just 2.92 billion cu ft in 2013 to 1,083 billion cu ft last year. Now, its further growth that could turn the United States into the world’s top LNG exporter by 2024 is under threat.

Meanwhile, Big Oil majors, which are a lot more resilient to any single segment of the energy industry, are forging ahead with their own LNG projects outside the U.S. Mozambique is a hot spot and so is Papua New Guinea. They are adding capacity that would ultimately compete for market share with U.S. independents. That’s just one more headache-generating problem for these independents to deal with.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2UaOT9d Tyler Durden

US Stocks Leg Lower After Chinese Media Signal No Trade-Deal Progress

US equity markets just legged lower, erasing more of the happy-talk gains from yesterday following a tweet from Global Times Editor Hu Xijin that appears to signal no great desire to move towards a trade deal any times soon:

” China on Tuesday issued 20 directives to boost consumption, in an effort to further tap domestic market, not putting so much emphasis on trade talks. China’s economy is increasingly driven internally, it’s more and more difficult for the US to press China to make concessions.“

Dow is tumbling…

Treasury yields also accelerated lower…

Source: Bloomberg

We’re gonna need another imaginary phone call to save this one!

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