Tag: news

“Horror” In Ghana As A Third Of Banks Shutter, Sparking Unprecedented Bank Run

It’s bad enough that drought-like conditions and rapid population growth have stoked a shortage of water and other vital resources in Ghana, a country that boasts one of the fastest growing economies on Earth (if it is still poor). But a banking crisis is just now roiling the country’s economy, and has wiped out $1.6 billion.

One couple, two of some 70,000 investors who were impacted by the shuttering of some 23 savings and loan companies – about one-third of banks in the country – and a run on the country’s asset managers, described to Bloomberg how they deposited money in a short-term investment product, intended to help save money for the wife to finish her economic Phd., only to discover they may never get the money.

The couple are among at least 70,000 investors who have become collateral damage from a cleanup of Ghana’s banking industry. The crackdown, which reduced the number of lenders by a third and saw the closure of 23 savings and loans companies, also triggered a run on fund managers, who couldn’t sell their holdings fast enough to meet demand.

That’s tying up as much as 9 billion cedis ($1.6 billion) of investments, more than a third of the 25 billion cedis in assets that private fund managers oversee for retail and institutional investors.

“My wife was very disturbed,” the 36-year-old said by phone from Kumasi in Ghana’s Ashanti Region. They’re not getting answers and are now worried they’ll never get back the 12,000 cedis they expected back from their investment. “If I knew this would happen, I wouldn’t have gone there.”

The run left investment companies holding too any illiquid assets – unlisted bonds, private debt placements etc. – and now securities regulators in Ghana are trying to figure out who broke what securities laws, and to what degree. Even the SEC has gotten involved.

But many Ghanians are cynical.

They’re in for a long wait. The nation’s markets regulator is looking into whether 21 fund managers violated rules by placing their clients’ money into illiquid assets. The Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up the pressure, blocking these money managers from accepting new investments for fear they may use the funds to pay out existing investors.

“The harm has already been done,” Lord Mensah, a senior finance lecturer at the University of Ghana, said by phone. “Assets need to be protected.”

The SEC hasn’t yet released the list of fund managers who are under investigation, but it’s believed that nearly two dozen will be named.

As much as 5 billion cedis is tied up in unlisted bonds, direct private-equity stakes and other deals with small- and medium-sized businesses, according to the SEC. Another 4 billion cedis is stuck in fixed-term investments with banks rescued during the clean up, savings and loans companies, and microlenders.

The SEC hasn’t yet released a list of all the fund managers it is investigating. An 11.2 billion-cedis bailout for lenders that were closed down and another package of about 925 million cedis for microcredit companies whose licenses were revoked is helping to release some of the funds locked up in those segments. The number of fund managers dropped to 140 in 2018 from 155 a year earlier as some voluntarily shut down and the licenses of others were revoked, according to the SEC.

The fallout for thousands of Ghanians will be financial crisis-level bad.

“It’s cutting across all the finance houses and when it happens like that the government needs to step in to build confidence again,” Mensah said. “There’s nothing we can do apart from making sure that we create that necessary environment to regain investors’ confidence again.”

That’s of little comfort to the Boahens, who were going to use the money to cover the costs of field-data collection for Bless’s thesis with the University of Ghana. After being promised a return of 26% a year on the investment, Isaac, an accountant, had to borrow money against his provident fund.

While he got the loan at a reduced rate of 10% a year, Boahen didn’t want to go the route of raising debt, he said. “It’s costing me more now.”

It’s too bad more Ghanians didn’t allocate more of their assets to bitcoin.

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

In The US, A Transportation Recession Has Already Officially Arrived

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

A transportation recession often precedes a recession for the entire economy, and while the debate about when the U.S. economy as a whole will plunge into a recession is quite vigorous right now, the truth is that the debate is over regarding when a transportation recession will begin. 

Throughout 2017 and most of 2018, U.S. freight shipment volume was booming, and that was a very strong sign that overall economic activity was rising.  But when economic activity begins to decline, freight shipment volume often goes negative, and that is precisely what is happening right now.  In fact, U.S. freight shipment volume has now declined on a year over year basis for eight months in a row…

Freight shipments within the US by all modes of transportation – truck, rail, air, and barge – fell 5.9% in July 2019, compared to July 2018, the eighth month in a row of year-over-year declines, according to the Cass Freight Index for Shipments, which tracks shipments of consumer and industrial goods but not of bulk commodities such as grains. This decline along with the 6.0% drop in May were the steepest year-over-year declines in freight shipments since the Financial Crisis

When something happens for eight months in a row, that is definitely a trend, and we haven’t seen declines of this magnitude since the last recession.

And other numbers confirm what the Cass Freight Index is telling us.  For example, ACT Research says that the trucking industry is officially in a recession after “two consecutive quarters of negative growth”…

The trucking industry is officially in a recession, according to data tracked by ACT Research.

After months of suggesting a pullback was possible, ACT President Kenny Vieth told FreightWaves on Thursday, July 11 that all metrics his firm tracks meet the technical definition of a recession – two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

“Every freight metric we look at has been negative for at least six months,” he said.

Of course it is possible that the transportation industry could pull out of this recession without the U.S. economy as a whole dipping into one, but I wouldn’t count on it this time.

As I have been documenting for months, just about every economic indicator is telling us that big trouble is ahead.

And more bad news just keeps rolling in on a daily basis.  In fact, we just learned that yet another major retailer is shutting down all of their stores…

Plus-size women’s clothing retailer Avenue Stores, LLC is shutting down all locations.

On Wednesday, the company announced plans to close all 222 stores across 33 states. Everything from clothing to store fixtures will be sold from locations across America, according to a press release.

Usually major retailers don’t do this sort of thing so late in the year.  If at all possible, there is usually an all-out effort to hang on through the highly lucrative Christmas season, and so things must have been really bad for Avenue Stores to pull the plug here in mid-August.

And all of this is happening even though interest rates are still much lower than the long-term average and the federal government is borrowing and spending money like there is no tomorrow.  According to Wolf Richter, our national debt is up by more than a trillion dollars over the last 12 months…

The US Gross National Debt has jumped by $363 billion in the two weeks since President Trump signed the law that suspended the debt ceiling. This surge pushed the total debt to $22.39 trillion. That’s up by $1.01 trillion from 12 months ago. And these are the good times.

This is emergency level spending, and it has been happening while the U.S. economy has still been relatively stable.

When the federal government borrows money that it does not have and spends it into the economy, that tends to boost overall economic activity and raise GDP numbers.  This was Barack Obama’s favorite economic trick, and Donald Trump has followed right in his footsteps.  But of course in the process we are literally destroying the bright future that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have.  What we are doing to future generations of Americans is beyond criminal, and all of us should be deeply disgusted by what is happening.

But of course the politicians in D.C. are deathly afraid to do anything about our exploding debt, because if we cut spending to sustainable levels that would immediately plunge the U.S. economy into a horrific recession.  And when bad economic times come, voters tend to vote out the people that are already holding office.

For President Trump, keeping the U.S. economy out of a recession is absolutely critical to his chances of winning in 2020, and he knows it.

His opponents know it too, and that is why many of them are openly rooting for a recession.  For instance, just check out what Bill Maher said on his show on Friday…

HBO’s Real Time host Bill Maher made another desperate plea for a recession on Friday, saying that the economic downturn “would be very worth getting rid of Donald Trump.”

“So I’ve been saying for about two years that I hope we have a recession,” Bill Maher said. “And people get mad at me, as Sean Hannity thinks I’m actually causing a recession. I’m just saying we can survive a recession. We’ve had 47 of them. We’ve had one every time there’s a Republican president.”

“So, yes, a recession would be very worth getting rid of Donald Trump and these kind of policies,” Maher said after citing a dubious United Nations report that claims a million species are at risk of extinction.

On the other side, President Trump and his team are going to try to make things seem as rosy as possible between now and election day.

So they will keep telling us that everything is just wonderful, and they will keep insisting that a recession is not coming…

Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday he does not forecast a recession “at all,” despite warning signs exhibited by the bond market last week.

“First of all, I don’t see a recession at all,” Kudlow told “Fox News Sunday.” “Second of all, the Trump pro-growth program, which I believe has been succeeding – lower tax rates, big rollback of regulations, energy opening, trade reform – we’re gonna stay with that. We believe that’s the heart of the free enterprise. We want an incentive-oriented supply-side economy, providing opportunities for everybody across the board.”

In the end, it really isn’t going to matter who is in the White House.  What is coming to America is going to be extremely painful, and we are about to reap the consequences for decades of incredibly foolish decisions.

How we view reality should never be distorted based on what political party we identify with.  When we willingly choose not to see things objectively, we become very susceptible to deception.

The truth is always going to be the truth, and in our case the truth is not pretty.

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

NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo is Fired 5 Years After Placing Eric Garner in a Chokehold

Five years after Officer Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner, the New York Police Department (NYPD) has fired him.

In 2014, Pantaleo was part of a group that attempted to arrest Garner, who they suspected of selling individual untaxed cigarettes. In the ensuing confrontation, which was captured on video, Pantaleo put Garner in a chokehold. Garner told the officers repeatedly that he was unable to breathe. They ignored his pleas, and he died. Garner has since become a symbol of the movement against police brutality.

An internal disciplinary hearing followed, and The New York Times obtained and released its results yesterday. In the report, Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado writes that while she does not believe that Pantaleo intended to choke Garner, the autopsy results, the video, and Pantaleo’s own interviews led her to conclude that he used the prohibited move. Maldonado also called Pantaleo “untruthful” about his behavior. “I found [Pantaleo] to be disingenuous when he viewed the video and denied using a chokehold,” she wrote.

Maldonado found Pantaleo guilty of recklessly causing physical injury and not guilty of strangulation with intent to impede breathing. She recommended Pantaleo’s dismissal, and NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill announced today that Pantaleo is being fired.

“While this is some measure of long-overdue relief, we have a long way to go to achieve true police accountability,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New York, said in a statement. “The NYPD must take further steps to rebuild trust between officers and the communities they serve, put an end to police brutality against communities of color, and ensure what happened to Eric Garner will never happen again.”

Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, responded to the decision by accusing O’Neill of choosing “politics and his own self-interest” over the interests of NYPD officers. He continued: “Now it is time for every police officer in this city to make their own choice. We are urging all New York City police officers to proceed with the utmost caution in this new reality, in which they may be deemed ‘reckless’ just for doing their job.”

Garner’s daughter, Emerald Garner, thanked O’Neill for “doing the right thing”:

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Bitcoin Bounce Builds Since Bakkt Unveils ‘Physical’ Crypto Futures

After dropping back below $10,000 on Friday, Bitcoin has surged over $1,000 (breaking out this morning) following news that the Bakkt exchange will be offering ‘physically-settled’ Bitcoin futures (as opposed to the cash-settled contracts that are currently traded).

In a blog post last Friday, Bakkt revealed the details of its bitcoin futures and warehousing plan.

One year ago, we announced our ambitious vision to bring institutional infrastructure to digital assets with an end-to-end regulated marketplace. That vision will be realized on September 23 when Bakkt launches custody and physically-delivered daily and monthly bitcoin futures contracts in partnership with ICE Futures U.S. and ICE Clear US.

Our contracts have already received the green light from the CFTC through the self-certification process and user acceptance testing has begun. Withapproval by the New York State Department of Financial Services to create Bakkt Trust Company, a qualified custodian, the Bakkt Warehouse will custody bitcoin for physically delivered futures. This offers customers unprecedented regulatory clarity and security alongside a regulated, globally accessible exchange in a market underserved by institutional-grade infrastructure.

Put simply, as CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbale notes, BTC futures trading on Bakkt will not rely upon unregulated spot markets for settlement prices and the party will receive delivery of bitcoins from the Bakkt Digital Asset Warehouse at the end of the contract period.

Many observers, including cryptocurrency analyst and trader Scott Melker, are of the opinion that Bakkt’s physically-delivered futures product will open the floodgates for the institutional money and is a long-term bullish development for bitcoin.

Physically delivered futures require the actual purchase of bitcoins, which, according to Melker is a “huge” development. Also, there is general consensus that the price discovery in new physical delivery markets will contribute to building confidence in BTC prices.

Bitcoin breaking back out of its range…

Source: Bloomberg

Additionally, as CoinTelegraph notes, crypto markets are reacting to news cryptocurrency exchange Binance was planning to release its own version of Facebook’s Libra digital currency, in what is also a direct response to China’s central bank.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31Q1MIw Tyler Durden

Activists Try To Stop Redevelopment of ‘Historic’ Business Over Owners’ Objections. Again.

NIMBYs are suing to stop the redevelopment of a historic business over the objections of the business’s owners. Again.

In July, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) sued Los Angeles over its approval of a plan to redevelop Amoeba Music’s Hollywood location into a 26-story, 200-unit apartment building.

Since the record store chain opened its Hollywood location in 2001, the store has become famous for its distinctive neon signs and murals and for hosting famous musicians like Paul McCartney. These features, the AHF argues, make the Amoeba Music building a significant historic resource that the city cannot lawfully allow to be demolished without further environmental study.

Amoeba Music’s owners feel differently. The lawsuit, they say, is actively harming their ability to keep their record store alive.

“Using Amoeba without our consent in their battle against development is more likely to permanently close our doors than anything else we have faced to date,” Amoeba co-owner Jim Henderson told the Los Angeles Times.

Amoeba sold its Hollywood building four years ago for $34 million and has since been looking for another, more affordable storefront.

The lawsuit, Henderson tells the Times, is turning off potential landlords who fear they too could run into legal trouble if they rent to Amoeba and later choose to redevelop their property. Henderson also said that declaring the current building a historic landmark could prevent Amoeba from moving its distinctive neon signs to a new location.

The lawsuit, which AHF filed in conjunction with the Coalition to Preserve L.A., has also argued that the city did not do enough to study the impact of a 26-story tower on nearby utilities and that the city did not require the developer to include rent-restricted affordable units that would be rented out at below-market rates.

AHF and its various advocacy arms have gotten deeply enmeshed in housing politics both in Los Angeles and at the state level.

The non-profit was the primary funder of 2018’s failed Proposition 10, a ballot measure that would have repealed state-level restrictions on local governments’ ability to impose rent control policies. AHF and its allies are currently gathering signatures to place a second rent control initiative on the 2020 ballot.

In Los Angeles, AHF has sued the Los Angeles city government multiple times over its approval of Hollywood-area developments, arguing that these approvals violated federal and state housing laws and that the new developments themselves will lead to gentrification and displacement.

Its attempt to preserve the current Amoeba Music building over the objections of its owners is reminiscent of other historic landmarking battles.

In Seattle, a coalition of preservationists, musicians, and most of the Seattle City Council is trying to prevent the redevelopment of the Showbox music venue into apartments over the objections of Showbox’s current owner.

New York City landmarked the Strand bookstore, despite pleading from the store’s owner that such landmarking would be detrimental to her business.

Similarly, in Denver, activists tried to landmark the popular downtown restaurant Tom’s Diner to prevent its owner from selling it to a developer. The preservationists eventually dropped their landmarking attempt last week after a fierce public backlash.

The desire to preserve old buildings is an understandable one. However, that desire is also often in tension with demands for new housing and commercial space. Ideally, markets would relieve this tension by letting preservationists and developers offer competing bids for urban properties.

But by allowing activists to landmark buildings without having to actually buy a property, and oftentimes over an owner’s objections, cities have heavily tilted the scales toward too much preservation and not enough development.

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NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo is Fired 5 Years After Placing Eric Garner in a Chokehold

Five years after Officer Daniel Pantaleo killed Eric Garner, the New York Police Department (NYPD) has fired him.

In 2014, Pantaleo was part of a group that attempted to arrest Garner, who they suspected of selling individual untaxed cigarettes. In the ensuing confrontation, which was captured on video, Pantaleo put Garner in a chokehold. Garner told the officers repeatedly that he was unable to breathe. They ignored his pleas, and he died. Garner has since become a symbol of the movement against police brutality.

An internal disciplinary hearing followed, and The New York Times obtained and released its results yesterday. In the report, Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado writes that while she does not believe that Pantaleo intended to choke Garner, the autopsy results, the video, and Pantaleo’s own interviews led her to conclude that he used the prohibited move. Maldonado also called Pantaleo “untruthful” about his behavior. “I found [Pantaleo] to be disingenuous when he viewed the video and denied using a chokehold,” she wrote.

Maldonado found Pantaleo guilty of recklessly causing physical injury and not guilty of strangulation with intent to impede breathing. She recommended Pantaleo’s dismissal, and NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill announced today that Pantaleo is being fired.

“While this is some measure of long-overdue relief, we have a long way to go to achieve true police accountability,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New York, said in a statement. “The NYPD must take further steps to rebuild trust between officers and the communities they serve, put an end to police brutality against communities of color, and ensure what happened to Eric Garner will never happen again.”

Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, responded to the decision by accusing O’Neill of choosing “politics and his own self-interest” over the interests of NYPD officers. He continued: “Now it is time for every police officer in this city to make their own choice. We are urging all New York City police officers to proceed with the utmost caution in this new reality, in which they may be deemed ‘reckless’ just for doing their job.”

Garner’s daughter, Emerald Garner, thanked O’Neill for “doing the right thing”:

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Activists Try To Stop Redevelopment of ‘Historic’ Business Over Owners’ Objections. Again.

NIMBYs are suing to stop the redevelopment of a historic business over the objections of the business’s owners. Again.

In July, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) sued Los Angeles over its approval of a plan to redevelop Amoeba Music’s Hollywood location into a 26-story, 200-unit apartment building.

Since the record store chain opened its Hollywood location in 2001, the store has become famous for its distinctive neon signs and murals and for hosting famous musicians like Paul McCartney. These features, the AHF argues, make the Amoeba Music building a significant historic resource that the city cannot lawfully allow to be demolished without further environmental study.

Amoeba Music’s owners feel differently. The lawsuit, they say, is actively harming their ability to keep their record store alive.

“Using Amoeba without our consent in their battle against development is more likely to permanently close our doors than anything else we have faced to date,” Amoeba co-owner Jim Henderson told the Los Angeles Times.

Amoeba sold its Hollywood building four years ago for $34 million and has since been looking for another, more affordable storefront.

The lawsuit, Henderson tells the Times, is turning off potential landlords who fear they too could run into legal trouble if they rent to Amoeba and later choose to redevelop their property. Henderson also said that declaring the current building a historic landmark could prevent Amoeba from moving its distinctive neon signs to a new location.

The lawsuit, which AHF filed in conjunction with the Coalition to Preserve L.A., has also argued that the city did not do enough to study the impact of a 26-story tower on nearby utilities and that the city did not require the developer to include rent-restricted affordable units that would be rented out at below-market rates.

AHF and its various advocacy arms have gotten deeply enmeshed in housing politics both in Los Angeles and at the state level.

The non-profit was the primary funder of 2018’s failed Proposition 10, a ballot measure that would have repealed state-level restrictions on local governments’ ability to impose rent control policies. AHF and its allies are currently gathering signatures to place a second rent control initiative on the 2020 ballot.

In Los Angeles, AHF has sued the Los Angeles city government multiple times over its approval of Hollywood-area developments, arguing that these approvals violated federal and state housing laws and that the new developments themselves will lead to gentrification and displacement.

Its attempt to preserve the current Amoeba Music building over the objections of its owners is reminiscent of other historic landmarking battles.

In Seattle, a coalition of preservationists, musicians, and most of the Seattle City Council is trying to prevent the redevelopment of the Showbox music venue into apartments over the objections of Showbox’s current owner.

New York City landmarked the Strand bookstore, despite pleading from the store’s owner that such landmarking would be detrimental to her business.

Similarly, in Denver, activists tried to landmark the popular downtown restaurant Tom’s Diner to prevent its owner from selling it to a developer. The preservationists eventually dropped their landmarking attempt last week after a fierce public backlash.

The desire to preserve old buildings is an understandable one. However, that desire is also often in tension with demands for new housing and commercial space. Ideally, markets would relieve this tension by letting preservationists and developers offer competing bids for urban properties.

But by allowing activists to landmark buildings without having to actually buy a property, and oftentimes over an owner’s objections, cities have heavily tilted the scales toward too much preservation and not enough development.

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Dems Forced To Apologize After Mock Assassination Of Trump Enacted At Fundraiser

Authored by Steven Watson via Summit News,

Pictures show ‘assault weapon’ being pointed at likeness of the president

Democrats in Illinois have been forced to apologize after photos emerged of attendees at a fundraiser carrying out a mock simulation of assassinating President Trump.

The scene was photographed at a fundraiser for Democratic Illinois State Sen. Martin Sandoval.

Sen. Sandoval had to take to Twitter and apologize, noting that he doesn’t “condone violence toward the President or anyone else”:

The Democratic party of Illinois followed suit, albeit with an embedded dig at the President, insinuating that he is guilty of inciting mass shootings:

The state’s Democratic governor was also forced to apologize.

Democrats everywhere are now being forced to either apologize for the bizarre actions of their own supporters, and even party members, or more insanely, to embrace them.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KG9K0U Tyler Durden

Nomura: Global Equity Sentiment “Has Managed To Avoid ‘The Panic Zone'”… For Now

US equity markets are excitedly recovering last week’s losses as hope once again washes across global markets that lower rates, fiscal recklessness will save the world. The explicit driver of the bounce is yet another short-squeeze – the second biggest since the start of 2019.

Source: Bloomberg

The last time we saw a bounce like this was the first days of June, when – again – a heavy oversold reading going into a barrage of Fed speakers prompted more panic-buying…

Source: Bloomberg

However, Nomura’s Global Markets Research group note that while US/global equities rebounded at the end of last week, global stock market sentiment still remains negative.

While US and global equities rebounded at the end of last week, its gauge to capture the global stock market sentiment remains in negative (risk-averse) territory, but has improved slightly, contracting slightly from -7.5 on 15th August to -5.5 on 16th August.

“Sentiment has managed to avoid the ‘panic zone’ of two standard deviations below the mean, but there is no clear recovery in investor sentiment, with sentiment continuing to bounce back and forth in a range of one to two standard deviations below the mean.”

By region, Nomura notes the improvement in US and China equity market sentiment, but euro area equity market sentiment has deteriorated, and the fragility of equity supply demand conditions in this area is particularly noteworthy.

Nomura says macro funds US equity dip-buying.

“We believe that an end to the global economic recession trades currently brewing in the market will require trading on positive surprises, namely on expectations for (1) the withdrawal of the fourth round of tariffs on Chinese goods or the US and China concluding a trade agreement, (2) an emergency rate cut by the Fed of the order of 50-100bp (or an implicit promise to make such a cut in September), or (3) a coordinated fiscal response. The stock market rallies at the end of last week look to have been somewhat motivated by factors (2) and (3) and look to have been macro-driven.”

Nomura says that it is worth noting that global equity markets are in a bit of a nervous phase in which rises and declines can be quite conspicuous, with a seasonal decline in liquidity also coming into the equation.

“However, the over-arching situation is that the market jitters resulting from a negative spread between 2-year and 10-year US Treasury yields and signs of economic slowdown in major areas outside of the US are yet to be resolved, and evidence of such can be seen in a slight shift in preference from cyclicals to defensives by long-short funds, and larger short positions in Nikkei 225 futures, Hong Kong Hang Seng futures, and German DAX futures at trend-following CTAs.”

Even assuming that CTAs are swayed to some degree by daily market fluctuations, Nomura believes they have been continuing their net selling of equity futures in major regions.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33LVhrW Tyler Durden

Ever Fewer Wealthy, Ever More Poor, Projected To Equal Ever More Demand?!?

Authored by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,

  • Wealthier half of the world population (with incomes of $4k+) consumes 90% of total energy and oil.

  • The under 65yr/old population of the wealthier nations begins declining (depopulating) in 2023, declining in excess of 10 million annually by 2035.

  • Despite the imminent decline in working age / consumer age populations of wealthier nations, total global energy and oil consumption are projected to continue rising on growth among the poor.

First chart is the 0 to 65 year old population of the worlds nations that have in excess of $4,000 annual gross national income per capita or average of $16k per capita (solid blue line) and their total energy consumption (dashed blue line).  This is versus the worlds nations with annual gross national income per capita below $4,000 or average of $1.6k per capita (solid red line) and their total energy consumption (dashed red line). 

Same variables as above but showing the annual change in the nations with $4k+ and annual change in population under $4k…again versus their total energy consumptions.  Population data includes anticipated ongoing immigration to the wealthier nations away from poorer nations at present rates…absent this, the wealthy nation depopulation begins sooner and is even more significant.

Global oil consumption with EIA projection through 2040 (black line), annual wealthier under 65 year old population growth (blue columns), annual poorer under 65 year old population growth (red columns), plus Federal Reserve set federal funds rate (yellow line).

Finally, just two variables – the change per five years of the 0 to 65 year old wealthier (blue columns) and poorer (red columns) nations populations versus change per five years of global oil consumption (black line).  As the population of nations that consumes 90% of oil globally begins declining and growth among the poorer nations decelerates, oil consumption is projected to continue increasing?!?

Despite population growth driving up to half of GDP growth and the poorer nations reliant on growth among wealthier nations for their own growth…despite present near zero, zero, and negative interest rates to accommodate massive debt loads…somehow depopulation amidst the heavily indebted nations that consume 90% of global energy (coupled with conservation and innovation) is projected to be offset and outweighed by demand growth among the consumers of 10% of global energy?!?.  Go figure.

Total energy and oil consumption data via EIA International Energy Outlook 2016 and population data via UN World Population Prospects 2019.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TPo0rk Tyler Durden