China Reports Slowest GDP Growth On Record, As Retail Sales, Industrial Output And Fixed Investment All Beat

The Chinese goalseek-o-tron was in perfect working order on Monday morning, when moments ago Beijing reported that China's Q2 Y/Y GDP rose at 6.2%, once again precisely as consensus had expected, down from 64% in Q1 and the lowest since "modern" records started to be kept 27 years ago in 1992, dipping below even the financial crisis low of 6.4$

Additionally, 2Q cumulative GDP rose 6.3% y/y, also matching the consensus estimate, and down from 6.4% in Q1.

"We expect Beijing to ramp up stimulus measures in the second half despite more limited policy room, though markets should not put too high expectations on the scale and duration of these stimulus measures,” Nomura's China economist Lu Ting wrote in a recent research note. “Domestic policies will to a large extent be dependent on the U.S.-China trade tensions.”

The disappointing GDP print comes just day after another miss, this time in the value of exports, which sharnk by 1.3% in dollar terms in June, after inching up in May despite the tensions with the US.

Property investment moderated to 10.9 per cent in the first six months, compared with growth of 11.2 per cent in the year to May. Strong property sales helped brighten the economy into April, but the sector lost momentum in the second quarter.

But while the record Chinese slowdown was widely as expected, there was an unexpected silver lining to the lowest Chinese GDP print on record, as all three core June economic indicators - retail sales, industrial output and fixed investment - beat sharply lowered expectations, to wit:

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AI-Trained Robots Set To Automate Recycling Centers, Will Displace Countless Jobs

AMP Robotics, an artificial intelligence and robotics company that is automating the recycling industry, has rolled out new trash-picking robots for recycling centers that will replace countless low-skilled jobs, reported The WSJ.

Single Stream Recyclers (SSR) in Sarasota, Florida, which processes 350 tons of waste per day, said last week that it would add eight AMP trash-picking robots to its already six. "Robots are the future of the recycling industry. Our investment with AMP is vital to our goal of creating the most efficient recycling operation possible, while producing the highest value commodities for resale," said John Hansen co-owner of SSR.

AMP robots are more productive than humans, can sort garbage more accurately and faster, are set to eliminate most human sorter jobs at SSR's Florida facility in the coming years.

"AMP's robots are highly reliable and can consistently pick 70-80 items a minute as needed, twice as fast as humanly possible and with greater accuracy. This will help us lower cost, remove contamination, increase the purity of our commodity bales, divert waste from the landfill, and increase overall recycling rates," said Eric Konik co-owner of SSR.

Hanson said, "It's 95 degrees, they're [human sorters] standing on a platform and sorting," adding that AMP robots are "twice as fast and they don't make mistakes."

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Big Pharma Hikes Drug Price 879% And That's Just One Of 3,400 So Far This Year

Big Pharma continues to jack up the prices on the drugs they peddle. The price of one drug was hiked 879%, and that’s only ONE of the 3,400 price increases that have occurred so far this year.

Pharmaceutical companies raised the prices of more than 3,400 drugs in the first half of 2019, surpassing the number of drug hikes they imposed during the same period last year, according to an analysis first reported by NBC News. While the average price increase per drug was 10.5%, a rate around five times that of inflation, about 40 of the drugs saw triple-digit increases. That includes a generic version of the antidepressant Prozac, which saw a price increase of 879%.

ARS Technica reported that the surge in price hikes comes amid ongoing public and political pressure to drag down the sky-rocketing price of drugs and healthcare costs overall. In May of 2018, President Donald Trump boldly announced that drug companies would unveil “voluntary massive drops in prices” within weeks, however, Big Pharma didn’t announce any big drops or actually reduce their prices. Trump then went on to publicly shame Pfizer for continuing to raise drug prices. The company responded with a short-lived pause on drug price increases mid-way through last year, but it resumed increasing prices in January along with dozens of other pharmaceutical companies.

“Requests and public shaming haven’t worked,” Michael Rea, chief executive of RX Savings Solutions, told Reuters last December. His company helps health plans and employers seek lower-cost prescription medicines. It also conducted a new analysis of some drug prices.

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The Workings Of The Gold Standard

A gold standard is a monetary regime where the monetary unit, the base money of the banking system — the outside money or the high-powered money — consists of a defined amount of gold. 

Gold standards can come in all manners and versions and with particular institutional and historical quirks that affect their operations. The key characteristic that unites them is that an economy’s underlying money is ultimately based on an amount of gold. 

Using the language and the classification in the first reading session of our Harwood Graduate Colloquium, commodity monies such as a gold standard consist of objects that have alternative nonmonetary uses (for instance in production or ornament) and are absolutely scarce. That is, their scarcity is a fundamental aspect of the good itself — as opposed to fiat money, which can be expanded at the discretion of a central bank. 

When money is gold, it can be increased only by extracting more gold from mines and minting it into monetary circulation. This process, expanding supply through the incentives provided by the price mechanism, subjects the supply of money to market forces rather than to discretionary policy making as is the case under our current monetary regime. That carries with it a few remarkable characteristics:

The opportunity for price inflation is — by present standards — very limited, as the total amount of money in the economy is limited by the amount of gold. This need not be strictly so, as monetary theories going back at least to Wicksell’s pure credit economy have bank credit (and money velocity) remedying the scarcity of a commodity money. Free banking under a fractional-reserve gold standard, can, in other words, mitigate this strict supply schedule somewhat. 

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30% Of The Companies In The Russell Are Unprofitable

Today we have 3 suggestions for portfolio positioning in 2H 2019. First, overweight US equities; ever more negative global interest rates over recent weeks are a warning sign. Second, expect more volatility from late July (post Fed meeting) through October; seasonality and fundamentals align on this point. Lastly, be cautious on US small caps; they are more cyclical than large caps and are levered to financial conditions.

From a fundamental standpoint, nothing much good happened in the first half of 2019. Specifically:

• We didn’t get a US-China trade deal, and based on current press accounts we’re further away now than we were on January 1st. Moreover, bilateral tariffs are higher now than just a few months ago and apply to more goods.
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• Corporate earnings growth has been slipping. For example, first quarter S&P 500 earnings were slightly negative as compared to last year. Analysts expect the same for Q2, and margins are lower than a year ago for both quarters.
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• Slowing global growth. The export-driven German economy, long a bright spot in the Eurozone, likely slipped into contraction in Q2. Japan’s economy managed to post +2.2% GDP growth in Q1, but Q2 will almost certainly be slower. China’s economy has benefited from some easing of financial conditions, but trade tensions are clearly taking a toll as we start Q3.

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"The Deutsche Bank As You Know It Is No More": DB Exits Equities In $8.4 Billion Overhaul, To Fire Thousands

The bank which only a decade ago dominated equity and fixed income and sales trading and investment banking across the globe, and was Europe's banking behemoth, is no more.

On Sunday afternoon, in a widely telegraphed move, Deutsche Bank announced that it was exiting its equity sales and trading operation, resizing its once legendary Fixed Income and Rates operations and reducing risk-weighted assets currently allocated to these business by 40%, slashing as many as 20,000 jobs including many top officials, and creating a €74 billion "bad bank" as part of a reorganization which will cost up to €7.4 billion by the end of 2022 and which will result in another massive Q2 loss of €2.8 billion, as the bank hopes to slash costs by €17 billion in 2022, while ending dividends for 2019 and 2020 even as it hopes to achieve all this without new outside capital.

"Today we have announced the most fundamental transformation of Deutsche Bank in decades. We are tackling what is necessary to unleash our true potential: our business model, costs, capital and the management team. We are building on our strengths. This is a restart for Deutsche Bank – for the long-term benefit of our clients, employees, investors and society", CEO Christian Sewing said in a statement.

“In refocusing the bank around our clients, we are returning to our roots and to what once made us one of the leading banks in the world. We remain committed to our global network and will help companies to grow and provide private and institutional clients with the best solutions and advice for their respective needs – in Germany, Europe and around the globe. We are determined to generate long-term, sustainable returns for shareholders and restore the reputation of Deutsche Bank.”

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Goodbye Dollar, It Was Nice Knowing You!

Well the worm has finally turned, maybe. Even the feckless Angela Merkel’s Germany now understands that national interests must prevail when the United States is demanding that it do the unspeakable. At the recently concluded G20 meeting in Tokyo Britain, France and Germany announced that the special trade mechanism that they have been working on this year is now up and running. It is called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (Instex) and it will permit companies in Europe to do business with countries like Iran, avoiding American sanctions by trading outside the SWIFT system, which is dollar denominated and de facto controlled by the US Treasury.

The significance of the European move cannot be understated. It is the first major step in moving away from the dominance of the dollar as the world’s trading and reserve currency. As is often the case, the damage to US perceived interests is self-inflicted. There has been talk for years regarding setting up trade mechanisms that would not be dollar based, but they did not gain any momentum until the Trump Administration abruptly withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran over a year ago.

There were other signatories to the JCPOA, all of whom were angered by the White House move, because they believed correctly that it was a good agreement, preventing Iranian development of a nuclear weapon while also easing tensions in the Middle East. Major European powers Germany, France and Great Britain, as well as Russia and China, were all signatories and the agreement was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. The US withdrawal in an attempt to destroy the “plan of action” was therefore viewed extremely negatively by all the other signatories and their anger increased when Washington declared that it would reinstate sanctions on Iran and also use secondary sanctions to punish any third party that did not comply with the restrictions on trade.

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HP, Dell & Amazon Join Manufacturing Exodus Leaving China

Though China wasn't the only Asian nation where manufacturing activity slumped last month, according to a slate of almost unilaterally disappointing PMI readings released earlier this week, the tend over the past year is increasingly clear: The trade war is President Trump's to win, as more tech companies resolve to move at least some production outside of the mainland.

And in the latest warning to Beijing that the trade war is having a real, and perhaps irreversible, impact, Nikkei Asian Review reports that HP, Dell and Amazon are joining the wave of consumer-electronics manufacturers who are planning to shift production elsewhere.

The burgeoning exodus, which also reportedly includes a half-dozen Apple suppliers (most notably Foxconn), Nintendo, Sony and others is threatening China's status as the global manufacturing hub.

HP and Dell, the world's No. 1 and No. 3 laptop manufacturers, who are responsible for a combined 40% of the world's production, are planning to shift 30% of their production elsewhere.

Lenovo Group, Acer and Asustek Computer are also evaluating plans to shift production elsewhere. And Amazon is planning to shift at least some of the production for its Kindle e-reader and Echo assistant. For all of these companies, the focus would mostly be on products bound for the US.

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From "Ponzi" To "We're Working On It" - BIS Chief Reverses Stance On Crypto

The head of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has appeared to U-turn on issuing digital currencies after a fresh interview with the Financial Times on June 30. 

Speaking to the publication, BIS chief Augustin Carstens actively endorsed the creation and issuance of digital versions of national fiat currencies. 

“Many central banks are working on it; we are working on it, supporting them,” he said.

“And it might be that it is sooner than we think that there is a market and we need to be able to provide central bank digital currencies.” 

The comments struck a curious note with many, coming just months after Carstens emphatically advised against issuing such digital currencies.

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Is This The Beginning Of A New Oil Crisis In Canada?

Canada is desperately trying to build the much-delayed Trans Mountain Expansion, but even as it tries to advance the ball on one front, another pipeline has found itself in the crosshairs.

Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline carries more than a half a million barrels of oil and products per day from Alberta, across the border into the U.S., and ultimately to refineries back in Canada at the major refining and petrochemical hub of Sarnia, Ontario.

The 540,000-bpd pipeline may be in trouble, however. The state of Michigan just launched a lawsuit, which could force Enbridge to shut the pipeline down. Michigan is concerned about the possibility of a leak from the aging pipeline, which crosses under the Straits of Mackinac. A leak could threaten drinking water and spoil the scenic Great Lakes.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer promised to stop the “flow of oil through the Great Lakes as soon as possible.”

Enbridge has been trying to build a replacement for the pipeline, which is nearly 70 years old. But the replacement proposal has been a huge point of contention. Michigan’s attorney general is hoping to shut it down. The risk the state most fears is an anchor strike.

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China's Rogue Regime

It is commonly accepted now that China is using its trade with the United States and other OECD countries to increase the size of its economy, which in turn will allow it to build its military to the point where it can attack the United States and other countries and hope to win. At its simplest, every Chinese container landed at the Port of Los Angeles contributes to a U.S. combat death at some point in time of China’s choosing. Every item of injection-moulded plastic from China picked off the toy shelves at Walmart contributes to a future U.S. combat death.

Some of our leaders seem to comprehend this but speak in a kind of code. Thus,Vice President Mike Pence told the West Point graduating class last month, “You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen.” General James Mattis has made similar remarks. How can they be so certain that the size of the U.S. military won’t be enough to discourage a belligerent from disturbing the peace of the world?

Because that belligerent country is China and their intentions are as plain as day. Would a peaceful country continually bait Japan as China does?  This graph from the Japanese Foreign Ministry shows Chinese incursions into Japanese waters.

The sudden leap in incidents in 2012 was due to the rise of Xi Jinping as Supreme Leader, later uprated to Core Leader. All these incursions by Chinese fishing vessels are funded by the Chinese Government; it seems the budget is for 12 per month. This is the steady heartbeat of Chinese hate and enmity while they wait for the moment when they can attack.

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Stunning Exposé Offers New Details About China's Infiltration Of 8 Tech Giants

Over the past year, Western media organizations have published a non-stop stream of reports about "Operation Cloudhopper": The Chinese government's clandestine program to spy on and siphon economic secrets from some of the world's largest tech companies. 

We have shared some details of the program before: China's Ministry of State Security has worked with a shadowy group of hackers called 'Advanced Persistent Threat' 10 to infiltrate American and European enterprise tech firms using a very consistent MO: Hackers would infiltrate the cloud computing networks of 'managed service providers', then 'hop' from network to network', gaining entree to the networks of these firms' clients. Back in December, the US named some of the hackers suspected of working with APT10, and was backed up by Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Britain, Australia and other allies all issued statements.

Notably, the Chinese cyberespionage campaign continued even after Beijing and the Obama Administration agreed to a pact to cease all cyberespionage activities.

But as devastating as these attacks have been, the details have been kept under wraps, as corporate victims have pushed for their privacy to be protected. But for the first time since the US indicted the two suspected APT members, a sweeping Reuters investigation has laid out details of attacks, many of which have been previously reported, but not in quite as much depth.

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Exposing The Fed's False QE/QT Narrative With Its Own Data

It doesn’t take much calculation to see that the Fed’s position on quantitative tightening (QT) is blatantly inconsistent with its position on quantitative easing (QE). You only need to notice that the excerpts above, taken together, violate the following pair of postulates:

1. When A and B are opposites, the effects of A should be opposite to the effects of B.
2. QT is the opposite of QE.

So financial markets and the economy should respond significantly to both QE and QT—although in opposite directions—or they should respond to neither QE nor QT. To claim otherwise, as in the excerpts above as well as other similar communications, is like arguing that one of the two postulates is wrong in the context of the Fed’s bond portfolio. That seems unlikely, but not impossible. In particular, the first postulate falls short of being an absolute truth, reality sometimes being more complicated than we’d like it to be. Consider that Newtonian physics seemed absolute enough until Einstein came along.

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Ethereum Co-Founder Slams Facebook's Libra Token For Centralization

Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin said that Facebook’s Libra token is like “a centralized wolf in a decentralized sheep’s clothing” in an article published on tech news outlet Quartz on June 21.

The social media giant released the white paper for a its cryptocurrency dubbed Libra earlier this month to mixed reviews from experts in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries and concern from government regulators.

In his article, Lubin notes that Libra’s white paper describes feelings common among many in the cryptocurrency community. It states that “sending money across the globe should be as simple and inexpensive as sending a message on your phone,” and “financial infrastructure should be globally inclusive and governed as a public good.”

While noting the white paper’s claim that “People will increasingly trust decentralized forms of governance,” Lubin pointed out the need for users to trust Libra’s fiat currency and government bond backing, and merchants to trust that the network be responsibly run. Furthermore, Lubin also noted its centralized infrastructure:

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Bring on Higher Oil Prices: They’ll Boost the US Economy. Powell Sees it Too. A New Experience for the US

Powered by the iffy situation in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman, with attacks on tankers and now the downing of a US drone, the price of crude oil got a little nervous in recent days. WTI jumped about 6% today to over $57 a barrel.

But this was just a minor uptick in the overall scheme of things: The US, which has become the largest oil producer in the world, is in the middle of its second oil bust in five years:

These two oil busts are largely a consequence of surging US crude oil production. During the oil bust of 2014-2016, the price of WTI collapsed by over 75%, careening from $107 per barrel to a low of $27 per barrel in 18 months, before starting to rebound. In the process, a slew of oil-and-gas drillers filed for bankruptcy.

For a while it looked like the shale boom, where all the growth in production had come from, was running out of money, and therefore out of fuel. Production fell sharply from early 2015 through much of 2016, but then new money from Wall Street appeared, and production began to soar again, hitting new records all along the way.

Shale wells produce a variety of liquid hydrocarbons (they also produce gaseous hydrocarbons which are not included here). This production of crude oil and petroleum products soared from just over 7 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2010 to 16.6 million bpd currently, according to EIA data:

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