Month: December 2019

Authored by Alan Macleod via MintPressNews.com,

After months of speculation, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg formally announced a high-profile, big-money campaign to become the Democratic Presidential nominee on November 24.

The 77-year-old former Republican has decided that he is the perfect candidate to prevent the president from achieving a second term. Bloomberg has a long history of support for conservative positions, including endorsing George W. Bush’s War on Terror and defending Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza.

In 2014, Michael Bloomberg went so violently right wing, that the White House’s Valerie Jarrett had to stop him and say that Israel’s bombing of 500 sleeping Palestinian children was inexcusable. He defended it.

More by @mehdirhasan at @theintercept here: https://t.co/qrfFPnKLPH pic.twitter.com/P5hLoiBQ6C

— rafael (@rafaelshimunov) November 26, 2019

The primary reason why the self-described conservative has the ability to credibly enter the race at such a late date is his financial clout. Bloomberg is the world’s ninth richest individual, enjoying a net worth of nearly $55 billion and he owns a huge eponymous media network, one of the largest in the world.

His recent entry into the ring has proven controversial with many who see the plutocrat’s power and influence as an unfair advantage. Sawyer Hackett, the National Press Secretary for his Democratic nomination opponent Julian Castro noted that if someone had made half a million dollars per day since the United States’ founding in 1776, they would still be far poorer than Bloomberg himself is. Hackett concluded, “that kind of wealth shouldn’t be allowed to leverage success in our primaries.”

Writer and former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas pointed out that Bloomberg’s pitch to the American people, that his wealth makes him incorruptible and therefore more trustworthy, was illogical, given that the Democratic Party is currently attempting to impeach a billionaire president on corruption charges, arguing that “being very rich gives you more interests, not less.”

It is for this reason that Elizabeth Warren has accused him of trying to essentially “buy the nomination.”

“Someone who can’t be bought.”@MikeBloomberg is running on the idea of the ultra-rich being especially incorruptible — at the moment we are impeaching a rich president, who said he’d be incorruptible, for corruption. Turns out being very rich gives you more interests, not less. https://t.co/mKPHYhKLSi

— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) November 26, 2019

Yet Bloomberg’s run for President highlights another danger: that of freedom of the press. As the New Republic warned, the 2,700 journalists working directly under him in his extensive media network are in an impossible position. Can they truly report fairly and in an unbiased manner on the presidential race when their owner has such an obvious and important stake in its proceedings? If history is any judge, the answer to that will be “no.” Silvio Berlusconi, for instance, used his vast media empire to propel him and keep him in power as the Prime Minister of Italy for nine years.

Bloomberg Editor in Chief John Micklethwait announced a series of top-down measures attempting to head off this problem, instructing the company to simply not cover their boss or any of the other candidates in the Democratic primaries. How a major news outlet is going to ignore such an important ongoing process was not explained.

Yet the company appears to already be breaking this promise. The organization ran three negative stories on Elizabeth Warren in a 24-hour period earlier this week. Was this as a response to her criticism of his actions or an attempt to undermine one of the most popular rival candidates’ chances? That is a question that arises uniquely in a situation where a politician owns the means of communication.

Bloomberg the billionaire has muddied the waters between his political interests and his media empire even further by hiring David Shipley and Tim O’Brien, Executive Editors from his news outlet, to key positions in his presidential campaign.

Yet another important danger to media freedom is the fact that Bloomberg is promising to lavish enormous amounts of money to corporate media outlets in the form of political advertising. Even before he had officially announced his candidacy, he already spent $33 million in television advertising alone, beaming his message nationally and in 98 local markets. With the prospect of a bonanza of a seemingly bottomless pile of advertising money, will corporate media outlets, under intense financial pressure, be influenced in their coverage of the billionaire’s activities? There is always a quid pro quo when one accepts funding from any powerful person or organization.

The billionaire already has a list of ringing media endorsements from some of America’s most influential media figures. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman claimed as President he would “forcefully put a Democratic pro-growth, pro-innovation, pro-business agenda on the table” in a column entitled “Why I like Mike.” His colleague Bret Stephens cheered him on. His article “Run, Mike Run!” argued that the wonderful thing in choosing a conservative Republican as Democratic candidate was that all the usual Republican talking points about the Democrats being too liberal would not work on Bloomberg. Meanwhile, one New York Post commentator said he was “delighted” that the plutocrat was “saving the party” from out-of-touch socialists like Warren.

The uber-conservative Bret Stephens came out to bat for Bloomberg in the New York Times

Can we be sure that these are genuine expressions of support, or merely a calculated quid pro quo? This is again a question that only arises in a corporate, advertiser-dominated media ecosystem. Corporate media have every reason to prop up the multi-billionaire’s campaign, keeping him in the race as long as possible, knowing that the money will continue to flow, as long as they do not portray him poorly. (Rest assured that MintPress News has not been approached to carry water for his campaign).

The New Yorker’s presidential bid highlights the contradictions between both extreme wealth and a for-profit, corporate advertiser-driven media landscape and democracy and freedom of expression. Any expansion of democracy and solution to these dilemmas requires seriously questioning whether either of the first two are legitimate. As Bernie Sanders said, “Billionaires shouldn’t exist.”

With the US economy once again rolling over, as various Fed nowcasts see a sharp slump in Q4 GDP and the Citi economic surprise index slumping from a nearly two year high hit at the start of September…

… while real GDP growth is tracking the ISM lower month after month…

… the one part of the US economy that has proven remarkably resilient to the US-China trade war, now in its 553rd day, has been the US jobs market; so resilient in fact, it was an embarrassment to the Fed to have to explain why it is cutting rates with US unemployment at 50 year lows (we will have more to say on the quality vs quantity of US jobs in a subsequent post).

So as we await this Friday’s jobs report where consensus expects another solid 188K job gains for the month of November, it appears that the US labor market is finally starting to crack. Below we present some recent empirical evidence that confirms the growing downside risks to US employment, starting with the recent plunge in percentage of firms who are planning to increase their employment according to NFIB. As this is a leading indicator to nonfarm payrolls, it suggests that the US may be facing a -100K print in the near future – if confirmed, it would be the worst number since the financial crisis.

It’s not just the NFIB: the drop in the ISM employment similarly has held a strong correlation to payrolls. Unless this series stages a powerful rebound in the coming months, it is only a matter of time before the US job market dives.

There has been recent notable weakness in the BLS’ other key labor market metric, the JOLTS job openings, long a favorite of Janet Yellen. Here, too, we find an ominous sign as the 3 month moving average in job openings has posted the most negative print since the financial crisis. This, too, leads broader payrolls data:

But it is probably the composite PMI employment index, which recently suffered its biggest drop since the financial crisis, that offers the most ominous picture yet:

For those asking what may catalyze this coming swoon in the jobs market, blame US companies’ eagerness to repurchase their stock (boosting management comp and stock prices) instead of investing in growth: as the next chart shows, rising capex tends to lead hiring, and by extension, a drop in capex would lead to job cuts.

But the biggest red flag comes from the unprecedented divergence between CEO/corporate confidence and consumer confidence. While the latter is no doubt a function of the record highs in the stock market and the historical near record unemployment prints, when it comes to the future, it is what CEOs think that matters, and according to the chart below, they are only seeing red.

Via The Voltaire Network,

The situation in Lebanon is deteriorating.

Traffic lanes have all been reopened, but a rift has emerged between those who favour the free flow of traffic and the road blockers.

• The Free Patriotic Movement of President Michel Aoun, the Shiite Amal Movement of parliament speaker Nabih Berri and the Hezbollah condemn road closures;

• while the Future Movement led by Saad Hariri, a Sunni, the Lebanese Forces of the Maronite Samir Geagea and the Progressive Socialist Party of Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon’s Druze, have attempted to reintroduce the roadblocks.

In the current political landscape, pursuing a simultaneous fight against corruption does not seem possible. Gebran Bassil (Free Patriotic Movement) announced that all the leading members of his party would make public their bank accounts. He also tabled a bill aimed at verifying the assets of civil servants. However, several hurdles would render such measures unworkable (the waiver of bank secrecy being prohibited by law in these circumstances; nothing has been said about the bank accounts belonging to the family members of political leaders; etc.).

Actually, corruption in Lebanon is not a violation of the law; it is the law itself that generates it. For example, there are import taxes, which nobody pays since the law grants an exemption to the 17 recognized religious communities. It is therefore sufficient to have the import declared by a person from one of these communities to avoid paying the tax. Thus, the port of Beirut loses out on US$ 3 billion every year.

The liquidity crisis, which sparked the 17 October protest movement, has worsened. Banks only allow cash withdrawals in Lebanese pounds up to a maximum amount equivalent to US$ 500 per week. All the rating agencies (Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s) have downgraded Lebanon’s credit rating. Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor, Riad Salamé, maintains that the country holds US$ 38 billion in foreign currency reserves, but according to Moody’s they do not exceed 5 to 10 billion. On 28 November, Lebanon paid off a Eurobond of US$ 1.5 billion but may be unable to cover the next payment. The possibility of a bail-in targeting all Lebanese bank accounts is increasingly being brought up.

The personal fortune of the Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, has come under scrutiny. As was previously reported by the Saudi press, Mr. Hariri had to reimburse astronomical sums to the Saudi state. No one seems to know what has become of that unfathomable amount of debt. A lawsuit was filed against Hariri’s personal bank to constrain it to return one billion dollars to one of its clients.

The Lebanese think tank “Triangle” regards the entire Lebanese financial system as a scam devised by the Central Bank Governor, Riad Salamé, to emulate the Ponzi scheme investment fraud. According to Sami Halabi and Jacob Boswall, the attractiveness of Lebanese banks stems from the high interest rate they offer on dollar deposits. But this rate can only be honoured provided there is a continuous flow of new deposits (see the full note below for details). A close confidant of deceased president Rafic Hariri, Riad Salamé has been at the helm of Lebanon’s Central Bank since 1993, and is universally celebrated as one of the best central bank directors. His system only works because it benefits the country’s historic warlords.

Such a system has never been observed in any other country since the Second World War, except in Albania in the 1990s. However, the scam in Albania consisted of a misappropriation of funds that benefited private companies, while in Lebanon it was designed to favour political leaders, to the detriment of taxpayers.

*  *  *

As the impeachment inquiry moves from the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), top House Judiciary Republican Rep. Doug Collins (GA) says Schiff is the most important witness the GOP wants to interview – after the whistleblower who sparked the entire affair approached Schiff’s committee before filing an official complaint.

“My first and foremost witness is Adam Schiff,” Collins told “Fox News Sunday,” adding that Schiff had “compared himself in the past to a special counsel,” while noting that former special prosecutor Kenn Starr testified during the GOP-controlled House’s impeachment of President Clinton, according to The Hill.

The top Republican on the House Judiciary committee Rep Doug Collins joined FOX News Sunday. Collins reacts to a letter from Jerry Nadler asking whether or not Republicans want to subpoena witnesses to testify on behalf of the president. #FNS #FoxNews #Impeachment pic.twitter.com/TajnwAsM6X

— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) December 1, 2019

“[Schiff] has put himself into that position,” added Collins. “If he chooses not to [testify], then I really have to question his veracity in what he’s putting in his report.”

“Why are they hiding the stuff from us? If they think they have such a case, give us all the materials and don’t let Jerry Nadler write a crazy letter that says on the 6th, let us know who your witnesses are. We don’t even have the information from the Intel Committee yet. This is why this is a problematic exercise and simply a made-for-TV event coming on Wednesday.“

According to Politico, Schiff will begin circulating a report on Monday within the House Intelligence Committee which will contain the conclusions of his panel’s investigation of President Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

 

Authored by Emma Fiala via TheMindUnleashed.com,

In a move hailed as a positive step by environmentalists, Washington became the first U.S. state to legalize the composting of human bodies in May of this year.

And now, the Evergreen State will become home to the world’s first human composting facility in 2021 thanks to Katrina Spade, founder and CEO of Recompose, after the legislation she helped enact goes into effect in May 2020.

According to its website, Spade founded the revolutionary company with the goal of offering “natural organic reduction to the public,” a system that converts human remains into soil as an alternative to cremation or burial.

Recompose’s website explains the benefits of natural organic reduction:

“By converting human remains into soil, we minimize waste, avoid polluting groundwater with embalming fluid, and prevent the emissions of CO2 from cremation and from the manufacturing of caskets, headstones, and grave liners.

By allowing organic processes to transform our bodies and those of our loved ones into a useful soil amendment, we help to strengthen our relationship to the natural cycles while enriching the earth.”

In November, around 75 people attended what was described by the Seattle Times as “a housewarming party for a funeral home where bodies would not be burned or buried, but laid in individual vessels to become clean, usable compost.”

Spade told the crowd, made up of investors, doctors, architects, funeral directors, legislators, and lawyers:

“You are all members of the death-care revolution.”

When all is said and done, the process will yield about a cubic yard of soil per person. The soil can be taken home by friends or family and used to grow a tree or a garden. Remaining soil will be used on 640 acres of conservation land in southern Washington that will one day become an ecologically sustainable village.

In contrast, those who have opted to be cremated as a means to save money or take up less space geographically, have inadvertently left a burden on their family members. Spade explained:

“These days, some families regard even ashes from cremation as a burden, not a joy. As in, ‘we’ve had these ashes in the garage for six years.’ And we’re creating a cubic yard of soil.”

While Recompose is not yet up and running, the company is aiming for a $5,500 price tag for its natural organic reduction services while a green burial in the state of Washington averages around $6,000, cremation can range anywhere from $1,000-$7,000, and a conventional burial in a cemetery can set you back at least $8,000.

The idea may seem outlandish or uncomfortable to some, but Recompose is more than just a pipe dream. As an architecture student, Spade first became interested in the funeral industry back in 2012. She quickly delved into the idea of “environmentally sustainable, urban-focused method of disposition of the dead,” after seeing a lack of environmental ethic in both the cremation and burial industries.

In 2014 Spade’s idea took a turn toward reality when she received the Echoing Green Climate Fellowship. With the funding that followed she founded the non-profit Urban Death Project (UDP) and began working with soil science researchers, law professionals, and those in the funeral industry to lay the groundwork for a revolutionary system of death care the world had never seen.

Over the next few years Spade continued to work on UDP before securing over $90,000 via a Kickstarter campaign. Her idea also reached wide audiences through worldwide media coverage.

Then in 2017 Space founded Recompose, a public benefit corporation, to bring her idea to reality—a reality now taking shape in a warehouse in SoDo, where the company is ready to live out their mission to “offer a new form of death care that honors both our loved ones and the planet earth.”

Two significant weather disturbances are causing headaches for holiday travelers, including one moving inland on the West Coast and another traversing from Upper Midwest to the Northeast, reported NPR News. More than 50 million people across the country are under winter weather alerts as the holiday shopping weekend comes to an end. 

The first storm is expected to impact Seattle to Los Angeles, dumping feet of snow across higher elevations, and heavy rain and gusty wind to coasts and valley regions. 

There are already flight delays for Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles airports on Sunday morning. 

The National Weather Service (NWS) warns “travel is highly discouraged” between Saturday morning and Monday evening across portions of Northern California and Nevada, where winter storm watches or warnings have been posted. The Sierra Nevada region could expect several feet of snow at higher elevations. 

Snow forecast for I-80 & HWY 50. Heaviest snow amounts expected Saturday evening into Sunday. Up to 2-3 feet of snow are possible at pass levels. Snow decreases Monday night, with lighter snow accumulations continuing into Tuesday. Avoid travel by Saturday afternoon! #cawx pic.twitter.com/adotwjm2sf

— NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) November 29, 2019

Heavy rain and gusty winds are forecasted for the coasts and valleys through Monday with rainfall totals 2 to 4 inches. Mudslides and flooded roadways are likely for parts of Northern California. 

NWS meteorologist Lara Pagano said the second storm has already created a nightmare for travelers in the Upper Midwest into the Great Lakes from Friday through Sunday. The storm is then expected to dump a mix of wintery precipitation across the Northeast from Sunday into Monday.

“We’re seeing travel impacts for the Upper Midwest into the Great Lakes, and then that’s going to transition into portions of the Northeast for wintry precipitation as we get through the remainder of Sunday, Sunday night and then getting into Monday as well,” says Pagano. The Great Lakes region is going to see “significant snow and blizzard conditions that will continue into early tomorrow.”

Traveling north and west of Sioux Falls today? That may not be very easy, or even possible in some cases. A major winter storm will continue to take shape today and come to an end through the day on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/upbfUO7xAj

— NWS Sioux Falls (@NWSSiouxFalls) November 30, 2019

The storm is expected to arrive in the Northeast by late Sunday afternoon. New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts could be setting up for a “nasty evening…complete with snow, sleet, freezing rain, and rain. 8 pm radar shown below,” tweeted Ed Vallee, head meteorologist at Empire Weather.

He said, “We continue to be concerned for very heavy snowfall in the southern Green Mountains, Berkshires, and Monadnocks, where we expect 8-16″ of accumulation by Tuesday, varying with elevation.”

NWS tweeted that the winter storm could create “difficult travel conditions across parts of the Eastern US Sunday & Monday. The big storm that moved onto the west Coast last Tue will reach the Eastern US this weekend, redeveloping off the Delmarva coast Sun evening & moving Northeast on Monday.” 

Wintry weather will produce some difficult travel conditions across parts of the Eastern US Sunday & Monday. The big storm that moved onto the west Coast last Tue will reach the Eastern US this weekend, redeveloping off the Delmarva coast Sun evening & moving northeast on Monday. pic.twitter.com/TqhkWvBNSu

— NWS Eastern Region (@NWSEastern) November 29, 2019

NYC Sanitation Department Commissioner Kathryn Garcia told reporters at a Saturday press conference that 705 storm spreaders are “loaded” and ready to combat the winter storm. The city could see 1 to 4 inches, Garcia said.

Airports from Philadelphia, New York, and Boston are expected to be hit with delays through Monday. 

From start to finish, this Thanksgiving holiday season has been a nightmare for travelers on both coasts. 

Via The College Fix,

An Australian professor has been charged with implementing a bogus harassment campaign against herself following the controversial cancellation of a degree program.

Dianne Jolley, a professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at the University of Technology Sydney, allegedly sent threatening letters to herself between May and September as a protest against abolition of the degree in traditional Chinese medicine, university officials believe.

According to Stuff.com, Jolley, who’s also the school’s Dean of Science, claimed that in addition to the letters, various articles of clothing had been sent to her … had clothes stolen from her backyard.

As a result, “significant security measures” were put in place to protect the professor. But after an investigation by Sydney Police, officials ended up charging Jolley with “obtaining a financial advantage by deception, giving false information about a person or property in danger, and making false representations resulting in a police investigation.”

Jolley attorney Aaron Kerneghan said his client would plead “not guilty” to all charges.

From the story:

Outside court Kerneghan said his client was “obviously concerned to have her day in court”, describing the claimed threats as genuine.

“She’s loyal to her university, she’s concerned for her students, she’s looking forward to returning to there.”

He said Jolley had “been experiencing a long and steady progress of difficulties at the university” but it was “difficult to say what the threats were over”.

Kerneghan said he could not speak for UTS, as to claims the alleged harassment was linked to its plans to drop the Chinese medicine degree.

But he said there had been interest from “a number of stakeholders” in that course.

“That has led to a number of very passionate actors out there… That’s been difficult for all the staff, I imagine, at the university but certainly my client.”

Jolley’s case will be heard in court in February. She currently is on paid leave from UTS.

After nearly two weeks of relative calm in Hong Kong surrounding the pro-democracy camp’s landslide victory in last week’s elections, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in renewed anti-government demonstrations on Sunday.

Protesters spilled out of railway stations – some waving American flags, as they began chanting “Hongkongers, take revenge!”

As the day turned to evening, things rapidly devolved into all too familiar stand-offs with the police amid rioting and vandalism, resulting in the deployment of tear gas, rubber bullets and other crowd-control measures, according to SCMP.

And while the protests have been largely peaceful – with many families bringing children as they marched down the waterfront promenade, packs of radicals began hurling smoke bombs and bricks at police, smashing restaurants and shops in Whampoa, and vandalizing the local railway station. A gasoline bomb was thrown at a police van at one point.

Defiant demonstrators said the massive turnout for the Sunday procession – titled “Do not forget why we started” – demonstrated their determination not just to savour the electoral victory, but also to keep up the protests, which will enter their seventh month next week, until all their demands were met.

“We want to let the younger protesters know that they are not alone,” said KC, a 35-year old man who joined the demonstration with his son, who is in Primary Six.

“We cannot pretend and act as if everything is normal just because the pro-democracy camp has scored a victory in the district council elections.” –SCMP

Protesters have maintained five demands – the first one of which has been satisfied after Hong Kong leadership withdrew a controversial extradition bill that sparked the protests. The other demands have not been satisfied; an independent inquiry into police’s use of force, retracting the riot label for the events of June 12, amnesty for arrested protesters and implementation of universal suffrage (via SCMP).

At the Tsim Sha Tsui march, tensions soon flared when crowds deviated from the approved 1.2km route and flooded the streets.

Police raised the blue flag warning protesters they were taking part in an illegal assembly by doing so.

Rounds of tear gas and other projectiles, including pepper balls, were fired at the packed crowd, whose number included the elderly and young people. The crowd control measures were targeted at both ends of Salisbury Road shortly before 5pm. –SCMP

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters marched to the US consulate waving American flags to show ‘gratitude’ for US support, after President Trump signed a Human Rights bill into law designed to show solidarity with the pro-democracy movement.

At one point they sang the US National Anthem while waving signs that read “Make Hong Kong Great Again.” Another shows Trump standing atop a tank with ‘Trump’ stamped on the front and side.

“The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 reaffirms and amends the U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, detailing U.S. policy toward Hong Kong and ordering an assessment of the political developments there, among other things,” according to the WSJ.

Obviously the CIA sent in their shortest operative, as Beijing continues to accuse the West of stoking discord.

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Financial writer and professional trader Rick Ackerman says don’t expect a replay of the 2008-2009 financial crisis where the Federal Reserve bailed out almost everything in sight.

Ackerman explains, “It ended up Lehman Brothers went under, and they needed a couple of sacrificial lambs, along with Bear Stearns. It could have just as easily been, and it might be the next time, Goldman Sachs...”

“So, in that way, the Fed is kind of out of bailout bullets. We’ve already been through a bailout where it took a big hunk of the financial system. Each one takes more bailing out to get to that critical threshold of credibility where the bailout itself works.”

Ackerman sees bailout needs everywhere and gives the example of underwater state pensions across the country. Ackerman points out:

“If you take just one piece of what they are going to have to bail out, which is going to start with the State of Illinois, which is probably going to be the first state that is going to collapse. It will renege on its pension obligations. So, if you picture the federal government riding to the rescue, the minute they bail out the Illinois pension system, California is there, along with New Jersey, Kentucky and a lot of other states, maybe 19 or 20 of them that have pension systems almost as insolvent as Illinois…

This means they are going to have to mail out checks to Illinois and then expand it to California, and all the other states that go under is to court hyperinflation. Of course, hyperinflation, in that sense, you can see where it has to collapse into deflation because… printing so much money that it is not going to buy the pensioner anything close to what it would have bought before the bailout…

So, a bailout is really self-defeating… We can never inflate our way out of this abyss. . . .So, there is no bailout coming… The debts will always be paid by either the borrower or the lender.”

Some people see a “Mad Max” scenario might be coming because of the enormous unpayable global debt. Ackerman contends,

“I am a little more bearish than that. I see a Mad Max scenario as inevitable… I try not to think about it because we’ve all got lives to live and kids to raise… When you go back to the calculous of deflation and that every penny of every debt must be paid, if not by the borrower then by the lender, we have already put ourselves into a condition where Social Security is going to fail. Medicare is going to fail. All the ‘just-in-time’ deliveries are going to be in jeopardy. Food from the grocery stores, one day shipping from Amazon, I don’t see how all these thing s can continue to operate in a condition other than in the false prosperity that we have now. We are at the pinnacle of affluence.”

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with financial writer and analyst Rick Ackerman of RickAckerman.com.

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While markets and economists were quick to conclude the global economy had recovered from its post-2018 slump which had sent $17 trillion in bonds in negative yielding territory, some time in early September and that the widely anticipated recession of 2020 appears to now have been delayed amid growing speculation that the US and China appear to put the whole trade war nastiness behind us, the reality is that the global economic signs in the past three months have been mixed at best, with the Citi US eco surprise index sliding from a nearly two year high back to negative in mid-November, and now just barely peeking above the flatline.

Of course, any such downshift in the economy is news to stocks which have continued to surge to all time highs courtesy of the Fed’s QE4 (sorry, we won’t call it NOT QE anymore for reasons we explained yesterday), rising every single week the Fed’s balance sheet has been increasing since the resumption of POMO in mid-October, and falling the one week the balance sheet shrank… 

… even as virtually all other risk assets have peaked amid a surge in growth “jitters“, with bond yields dropping…

… junk bond spreads widening…

… and commodities sliding.

What is surprising is just how immune stocks have been to any adverse news; and while the Fed’s QE and record stock buybacks are certainly helping preserve the market’s optimism, one could in theory make a fundamental case that stocks have no priced in a full-blown economic recovery as the following chart from Morgan Stanley shows.

Which brings us back to the original question: is the modest recovery that flourished in early September, then wilted in the next few weeks, still on track or is it time to start pricing in a 2020 recession all over again.

Over the weekend we got two data additional economic points that provided only added to the confusion.

First, on Saturday morning (local time), China reported that its official manufacturing and service PMIs had both escaped from the sub-50 “contractionary” zone, with both prints beating consensus expectations.

Specifically, the official NBS manufacturing PMI came in at 50.2 in November, up from 49.3 in October, beating consensus estimates of 49.6, and the highest print since March. Meanwhile, the non-manufacturing PMI rose sharply from 52.8 to 54.4 in November, and also the highest since March.

Adding to the good news, both production and new orders sub-indexes suggested stronger growth momentum, and trade indicators improved. The production index was 1.8pp higher at 52.6, and the new orders sub-index went up 1.7pp to 51.3. The employment sub-index was unchanged at 47.3. Trade indicators – the imports sub-index – climbed 2.9pp (the largest rebound among manufacturing PMI sub-indexes) to 49.8, back to the levels seen around mid 2018; and the new export order index was also 1.8pp higher at 48.8, the highest reading since April. By enterprise type, manufacturing PMIs for large, medium and small-sized enterprises all increased in November.

It’s almost as if China’s factories have already priced in the end of the trade war, and are stating to restock for a year free and clear of tariffs. In retrospect, this may prove overly optimistic…

The non-manufacturing PMI (comprised of the service and construction sectors at roughly 80%/20% weightings, based on our estimates) rebounded to 54.4 in November, the highest reading since March this year. Services PMI rose to 53.5, a five-month high. Among sub-sectors in services, property, railway transportation and catering saw weaker growth momentum while production related services, logistics, telecom, capital markets and insurance sub-sectors saw stronger growth momentum. The construction PMI fell by 0.8pp to 59.6, modestly below the average level of more than 60 over the past two years.

Putting the two together, China gave a clear sign that the economic storm clouds are dispersing, while the combination of better import sub-indexes and lower finished goods inventory pointed to stronger demand, and the NBS attributed the better new export orders to “more foreign demand ahead of the Christmas holiday”. Commenting on the data, Goldman said that the fading of payback effects after earlier export front-loading, as well as early signs of better global growth, likely contributed to the rebound in new export orders. The dissipation of potential drag on some activities around the October 1 celebration of the 70th anniversary of the PRC might have also added to the recovery in PMI indexes in November (average reading of October to November NBS manufacturing PMI is 49.8, slightly higher than the average reading in the first nine months of this year). The stronger manufacturing PMI also helped with a better services PMI – production related services and the logistics industry saw stronger growth momentum in November.

Still, one naturally needs to take the Chinese PMI surveys with a grain of salt: after all, there is no country on earth more prone to manipulating and goalseeking its “data” as the political narrative may fit, and of all the data, the PMI happens to be the most malleable. As such we would wait for separate confirmation that China is now in the clear, especially following the recent collapse in China Industrial Profits which plunged to an 8 year low. If the PMI data was indeed just a fabrication, expect no rebound in this far more important and tanbile data set.

Then again, one may not even have to wait that long, because in addition to China’s latest PMI prints, over the weekend we also got the latest South Korean export data, and it was a doozy.

The data, which is a closely watched bellwether for world trade and a leading indicator for global corporate profits, not only plunged again, but dropped far more than expected in November, dealing what Bloomberg dubbed “a blow to nascent optimism that a prolonged slump in global demand may be bottoming out”, the same optimism Bloomberg was cheering on just one day earlier with the Chinese data.

In November, trade ministry data showed that exports tumbled 14.3% from a year earlier for a sixth straight double-digit decline; the drop was about a third worse than the 9.7% slide consensus expected, and refuted preliminary figures which had also offered hope of some respite in the export slide. This was the second worst annual export drop in the past 4 years, and one of the worst months for Korean trade since the financial crisis. At the same time, imports decreased 13% y/y.

Exports to China dropped 12.2% in November from a year earlier, reflecting slowing growth in the world’s second largest economy and South Korea’s biggest export destination.  Exports to Japan fell 10.9%, while imports declined by 18.5%, as the two neighboring countries go through their own trade dispute. Japan said in summer that it would impose tighter checks on its exports of gas and two other materials used in the tech industry, citing national security concerns. The ministry said the materials make up only 1.4% of Korea’s total imports from Japan and haven’t yet caused any disruption to production.

The export numbers confirm that the Asian country is on course for its weakest economic growth in a decade. The BOK on Friday slashed its growth projections for this year and next by 0.2% points to 2% and 2.3%, respectively. That according to Bloomberg would be the slowest pace since 2009 when the country suffered in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Other key indicators like industrial output and consumer prices have also been pointing to deteriorating demand, but the government has few policy options left to support the economy, with rates already at all time lows, while expansionary fiscal and monetary policies are pushing household debt to all-time highs as people borrow more to invest in the domestic property market in search of higher yields. That in turn is jeopardizing President Moon Jae-in’s pledge to provide affordable homes.

“Korea is not the only casualty of the U.S.-China trade dispute, a slowdown in the global economy and no-deal Brexit,” the ministry said, noting that most of the world’s 10 biggest exporting countries had seen shipments decline as of September. “We’re particularly harder hit because of heavy reliance on China by region and semiconductor by sector.”

That said, Korea did everything it could to give the impression that its dismal data was also set to turn higher: Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol insisted two days ago that the economy was passing through its most painful moment and talked of a gradual recovery next year.  Still, the latest data suggests that any optimism may be premature.

As Bloomberg notes, South Korea’s trade figures have gained particularly close attention in recent months as markets try to infer whether the worst of a tech sector slump is over and how quickly it might recover.  Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics are among the world’s biggest suppliers of semiconductors, smart-phones and other tech-related items. The November data showed that chip exports, the largest category in Korea’s overseas shipments, dropped 30.8%, compared with falls of more than 30% in recent months.

South Korea’s export-dependent economy has been one of the hardest-hit by the U.S.-China trade war and the disruptions it has caused in the global supply chain, with almost 40% of the nation’s shipments headed to the two countries. The government, just like the US stock market, has pinned its hopes on an export recovery next year as the U.S. and China move towards a preliminary trade deal.

That said, with just two weeks to go until Trump and Xi have to conclude a Phase 1 deal or else the US is set to trigger more tariffs, optimism of a deal may disappear quickly if no progress is made in the coming days.