some update from bw on jim.
Jim Rogers on Why Gold Is Glittering So Brightly
Maria Bartiromo talks to Jim Rogers, creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index
By Maria Bartiromo
I was on assignment in Singapore on Nov. 24 when gold hit an all-time high of $1,174 an ounce. That was fortuitous because Singapore is the home base of commodities guru Jim Rogers, creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index. Meantime, back in the U.S., reports were surfacing about growing discontent in the halls of Congress over the performance of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the possibility he might be replaced by JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon. When I rang up Rogers, he was his usual low-key self, with quiet opinions about the future of gold prices, commodities to watch, and why Obama should dump Geithner.
MARIA BARTIROMO
Gold, as you know, hit an all-time high today, with the Russian central bank buying bullion. How high can gold go?
JIM ROGERS
Well, I own gold and I have for a while. How high can it go? I fully expect it to be over a couple thousand dollars an ounce sometime in the next decade—I didn't say the next month, I didn't say the next year, I said the next decade—because paper money around the world is very suspect. But right now everybody's bullish on it, so I don't like to buy things when that's happening. But I'm not selling under any circumstances.
What's behind the runup? Has buying by the central banks changed the equation here? Or is this still a demand story?
Certainly a demand story because, as I said, everybody's printing so much money and people around the world are worried about that. But you also have central banks, which five years ago were selling gold, now buying. So that's a huge shift in the marketplace. Central banks are like lots of other people—they just follow the crowd. There are probably better commodities to buy than gold, but you can't tell that to central banks because they've got gold on the brain.
How much of the runup is being driven by U.S. deficits and the weakening dollar?
A huge amount is about not just U.S. deficits, but all deficits. Deficits are going berserk nearly everywhere. Throughout history, printing money has led to weaker currencies and higher prices for real assets. And there are many, many pessimists about the dollar, including me. So many pessimists that I suspect there's a rally coming. I have no idea why there should be, but things do usually rally when you have this many bears at the same time. I've actually accumulated a few more dollars. I mean, it's not a significant position, but I do own more dollars than I did a month ago. And we'll probably also have a gold correction because there's so many bulls on gold.
So you're looking at other commodities you think are better opportunities?
If you want to buy precious metal, I'd rather buy silver or palladium. Both are very depressed. I continue to be more optimistic about agriculture than some other commodities.
As BusinessWeek reports this week, global investors are snapping up thousands of acres of farmland in Africa. Money from everywhere—from Saudi Arabia to Wall Street-backed funds—is pouring in. Why the sudden focus on Africa?
The gigantic acreage in Africa has been underfarmed because there is not much infrastructure, not much machinery, not much expertise, not much fertilizer. I think the world is going to have huge food problems in the next few years. Other people seem to see that, too, so they're buying up farmland. You can either buy it or lease it. It's very, very cheap, it's incredibly fertile, and it hasn't been overexploited. And if you take in some expertise and some machinery and some fertilizer, you should make a lot of money. The labor's cheap, everything's cheap.
So you think Africa is a good investment opportunity?
I think it's a fantastic investor opportunity. Now there are over 50 countries in Africa, so we can't make too gross a generalization. But I mean, in the Congo, you don't even have to plant anything. You just sit by the road long enough, something will grow. Yes, I am very, very optimistic.
What's your outlook for commodities in 2010?
I'm not smart enough to know. But I will say that if the world economy gets better, then commodities will be one of the best places to be because of the shortages that are developing. If the world economy does not get better, commodities will still be the place to be because governments are printing all this money.
Tim Geithner has been under attack lately. How's he doing?
Listen, I have been a critic for years. Geithner should never have been appointed to anything. He's been wrong about just about everything for 15 years.
Do you think he'll lose his job?
Of course he's going to lose his job, because as Mr. Obama realizes that Geithner doesn't know what he's doing, he's going to look for somebody else because he doesn't want to take the heat himself. So he's going to look to blame somebody, and the obvious person is Geithner.
28 November 2009
26 November 2009
CLIMATE FORECASTS
first time ever you should read the counter opinion on climate change. this revealing article from wsj is the one we all should read.
QUOTE
Global Warming With the Lid Off
The emails that reveal an effort to hide the truth about climate science.
The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. . . . We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind."
So apparently wrote Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) and one of the world's leading climate scientists, in a 2005 email to "Mike." Judging by the email thread, this refers to Michael Mann, director of the Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center. We found this nugget among the more than 3,000 emails and documents released last week after CRU's servers were hacked and messages among some of the world's most influential climatologists were published on the Internet.
The "two MMs" are almost certainly Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, two Canadians who have devoted years to seeking the raw data and codes used in climate graphs and models, then fact-checking the published conclusions—a painstaking task that strikes us as a public and scientific service. Mr. Jones did not return requests for comment and the university said it could not confirm that all the emails were authentic, though it acknowledged its servers were hacked.
Yet even a partial review of the emails is highly illuminating. In them, scientists appear to urge each other to present a "unified" view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the "common cause"; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to "hide the decline" of temperature in certain inconvenient data.
View Full Image
climate
Associated Press
A satellite image of Tropical Storm Ida. Some climate researchers claim that an increase in tropical storms is proof of anthropogenic climate change.
climate
climate
Some of those mentioned in the emails have responded to our requests for comment by saying they must first chat with their lawyers. Others have offered legal threats and personal invective. Still others have said nothing at all. Those who have responded have insisted that the emails reveal nothing more than trivial data discrepancies and procedural debates.
Yet all of these nonresponses manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn't have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them.
Consider the following note that appears to have been sent by Mr. Jones to Mr. Mann in May 2008: "Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. . . . Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same?" AR4 is shorthand for the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, presented in 2007 as the consensus view on how bad man-made climate change has supposedly become.
Read a Selection of the Emails
Climate Science and Candor
In another email that seems to have been sent in September 2007 to Eugene Wahl of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Paleoclimatology Program and to Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Climate and Global Dynamics Division, Mr. Jones writes: "[T]ry and change the Received date! Don't give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with."
When deleting, doctoring or withholding information didn't work, Mr. Jones suggested an alternative in an August 2008 email to Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, copied to Mr. Mann. "The FOI [Freedom of Information] line we're all using is this," he wrote. "IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI—the skeptics have been told this. Even though we . . . possibly hold relevant info the IPCC is not part of our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don't have an obligation to pass it on."
It also seems Mr. Mann and his friends weren't averse to blacklisting scientists who disputed some of their contentions, or journals that published their work. "I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal," goes one email, apparently written by Mr. Mann to several recipients in March 2003. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."
Mr. Mann's main beef was that the journal had published several articles challenging aspects of the anthropogenic theory of global warming.
For the record, when we've asked Mr. Mann in the past about the charge that he and his colleagues suppress opposing views, he has said he "won't dignify that question with a response." Regarding our most recent queries about the hacked emails, he says he "did not manipulate any data in any conceivable way," but he otherwise refuses to answer specific questions. For the record, too, our purpose isn't to gainsay the probity of Mr. Mann's work, much less his right to remain silent.
However, we do now have hundreds of emails that give every appearance of testifying to concerted and coordinated efforts by leading climatologists to fit the data to their conclusions while attempting to silence and discredit their critics. In the department of inconvenient truths, this one surely deserves a closer look by the media, the U.S. Congress and other investigative bodies.
UNQUOTE
QUOTE
Global Warming With the Lid Off
The emails that reveal an effort to hide the truth about climate science.
The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. . . . We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind."
So apparently wrote Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) and one of the world's leading climate scientists, in a 2005 email to "Mike." Judging by the email thread, this refers to Michael Mann, director of the Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center. We found this nugget among the more than 3,000 emails and documents released last week after CRU's servers were hacked and messages among some of the world's most influential climatologists were published on the Internet.
The "two MMs" are almost certainly Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, two Canadians who have devoted years to seeking the raw data and codes used in climate graphs and models, then fact-checking the published conclusions—a painstaking task that strikes us as a public and scientific service. Mr. Jones did not return requests for comment and the university said it could not confirm that all the emails were authentic, though it acknowledged its servers were hacked.
Yet even a partial review of the emails is highly illuminating. In them, scientists appear to urge each other to present a "unified" view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the "common cause"; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to "hide the decline" of temperature in certain inconvenient data.
View Full Image
climate
Associated Press
A satellite image of Tropical Storm Ida. Some climate researchers claim that an increase in tropical storms is proof of anthropogenic climate change.
climate
climate
Some of those mentioned in the emails have responded to our requests for comment by saying they must first chat with their lawyers. Others have offered legal threats and personal invective. Still others have said nothing at all. Those who have responded have insisted that the emails reveal nothing more than trivial data discrepancies and procedural debates.
Yet all of these nonresponses manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn't have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them.
Consider the following note that appears to have been sent by Mr. Jones to Mr. Mann in May 2008: "Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. . . . Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same?" AR4 is shorthand for the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, presented in 2007 as the consensus view on how bad man-made climate change has supposedly become.
Read a Selection of the Emails
Climate Science and Candor
In another email that seems to have been sent in September 2007 to Eugene Wahl of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Paleoclimatology Program and to Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Climate and Global Dynamics Division, Mr. Jones writes: "[T]ry and change the Received date! Don't give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with."
When deleting, doctoring or withholding information didn't work, Mr. Jones suggested an alternative in an August 2008 email to Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, copied to Mr. Mann. "The FOI [Freedom of Information] line we're all using is this," he wrote. "IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI—the skeptics have been told this. Even though we . . . possibly hold relevant info the IPCC is not part of our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don't have an obligation to pass it on."
It also seems Mr. Mann and his friends weren't averse to blacklisting scientists who disputed some of their contentions, or journals that published their work. "I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal," goes one email, apparently written by Mr. Mann to several recipients in March 2003. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."
Mr. Mann's main beef was that the journal had published several articles challenging aspects of the anthropogenic theory of global warming.
For the record, when we've asked Mr. Mann in the past about the charge that he and his colleagues suppress opposing views, he has said he "won't dignify that question with a response." Regarding our most recent queries about the hacked emails, he says he "did not manipulate any data in any conceivable way," but he otherwise refuses to answer specific questions. For the record, too, our purpose isn't to gainsay the probity of Mr. Mann's work, much less his right to remain silent.
However, we do now have hundreds of emails that give every appearance of testifying to concerted and coordinated efforts by leading climatologists to fit the data to their conclusions while attempting to silence and discredit their critics. In the department of inconvenient truths, this one surely deserves a closer look by the media, the U.S. Congress and other investigative bodies.
UNQUOTE
20 November 2009
Green, Japan and Dow
Many people these days are trying to go green.
But how green is green?
Green cars
All governments and car companies these days are vying for electric cars to cut carbon emissions. However manufacturing the batteries, setting up the infrastructures, replacing the batteries during lifetime of the car require a lot of power from power plants plus the power [ie carbon emission] required for mining of the necessary minerals which make up the components of the batteries and infrastructure.
We all seem blindfolded and never asked questions like HOW MUCH WE SAVE ON CARBON EMISSIONS when comparing electric cars with conventional fuel cars.
We also have not yet handled the question of recycling the batteries which would mean even more carbon emissions and pollution.
Wind power
We also heard that wind power is infinite and is green as it does not emit CO2. Do people know how much steel is required to erect a wind turbine tower? The lowest height is at least 50m [15 storeys] and could go as high as 100m [30 storeys], the higher it goes, the larger the diameter of the tower to sustain higher wind speed. That would mean a lot of steel is required. For every wind tower, it means the steel required is enough to build a building, the height of which depends on how high the wind tower is.
Wind power has to be stored too which means another round of infrastructure is required [like power cables] to support its use.
Wind power will push up prices of steel when used on a large scale by many countries.
Again here we have never heard or seen any valuation of the savings in carbon emissions estimated by Green Peace or Friends of the Earth. Simply no cost/benefit analysis had been made available to the public.
Solar Power
This option is even worse, it took up a lot of space and the cells are composed of toxic materials when disposed of at the end of their useful life.
Again we do not hear from Green associations giving a rational model to support such wide use of this alternative power source.
JAPAN
This country has always pursued a homogeneous society which means minimum immigration, thus becoming the earliest advanced country to have an aging problem. Population growth due to aging would not support organic growth in internal demand, this will cause severe stress in Japan's economy and it may again fall into a deflation spiral.
The bureaucrats also have engineered a high savings society to benefit the corporate world so they can borrow cheaply to expand their productions. Now that, after the financial crisis, these corps are challenged at the low end by China/Taiwan producers of electronic gadgets [mobile phones, pcs] and electrical appliances with also the high end challenged by Korean producers, they have nowhere to hide but to report heavy losses ever since the financial markets hit their peaks in 2007. Major power houses in the past like HITACHI, TOSHIBA, PANASONIC, FUJITSU, SONY had better spin off their subs and concentrate on a smaller core of products/markets, otherwise they may go bankrupt very soon. Like I said earlier in this blog, yen can go as high as 65 because of more layoffs down the road thus causing even more contraction in money supply.
Dow
Earlier I said Dow will hit 11000, more likely in 2010 than 2009.
Now that Dow is only 600 points from it, highly likely that it may hit around end 2009 or early 2010.
Another forecast is that we might see another mini crisis [of Dow] very soon but no drastic fall like that of 2008, after which Dow will resume its climb. Recent currency swings to the upside [dollar falling] and starting to either fall off a trendline [like NZD just did and AUD likely to follow suit] or the formation of an inverted head and shoulder [USDCAD] suggest the mini crisis will not be too far off.
Two scenarios
1. Mini crisis happening before Dow reaches 11000 or
2. Dow reached 11,000 and then fall off the peak fast.
My call is option 2 more likely than 1 bearing no major incidents like the failing of a major bank as we are coming close to year end with most banks already made their fortunes from trading and will not trade aggressively before Xmas ie the year ends. Low volume will make any major unloading of stocks by funds etc triggering heavy selloff ruining the bonus party, thus the upside is easier to achieve on low volume given the lack of interest in selling.
But how green is green?
Green cars
All governments and car companies these days are vying for electric cars to cut carbon emissions. However manufacturing the batteries, setting up the infrastructures, replacing the batteries during lifetime of the car require a lot of power from power plants plus the power [ie carbon emission] required for mining of the necessary minerals which make up the components of the batteries and infrastructure.
We all seem blindfolded and never asked questions like HOW MUCH WE SAVE ON CARBON EMISSIONS when comparing electric cars with conventional fuel cars.
We also have not yet handled the question of recycling the batteries which would mean even more carbon emissions and pollution.
Wind power
We also heard that wind power is infinite and is green as it does not emit CO2. Do people know how much steel is required to erect a wind turbine tower? The lowest height is at least 50m [15 storeys] and could go as high as 100m [30 storeys], the higher it goes, the larger the diameter of the tower to sustain higher wind speed. That would mean a lot of steel is required. For every wind tower, it means the steel required is enough to build a building, the height of which depends on how high the wind tower is.
Wind power has to be stored too which means another round of infrastructure is required [like power cables] to support its use.
Wind power will push up prices of steel when used on a large scale by many countries.
Again here we have never heard or seen any valuation of the savings in carbon emissions estimated by Green Peace or Friends of the Earth. Simply no cost/benefit analysis had been made available to the public.
Solar Power
This option is even worse, it took up a lot of space and the cells are composed of toxic materials when disposed of at the end of their useful life.
Again we do not hear from Green associations giving a rational model to support such wide use of this alternative power source.
JAPAN
This country has always pursued a homogeneous society which means minimum immigration, thus becoming the earliest advanced country to have an aging problem. Population growth due to aging would not support organic growth in internal demand, this will cause severe stress in Japan's economy and it may again fall into a deflation spiral.
The bureaucrats also have engineered a high savings society to benefit the corporate world so they can borrow cheaply to expand their productions. Now that, after the financial crisis, these corps are challenged at the low end by China/Taiwan producers of electronic gadgets [mobile phones, pcs] and electrical appliances with also the high end challenged by Korean producers, they have nowhere to hide but to report heavy losses ever since the financial markets hit their peaks in 2007. Major power houses in the past like HITACHI, TOSHIBA, PANASONIC, FUJITSU, SONY had better spin off their subs and concentrate on a smaller core of products/markets, otherwise they may go bankrupt very soon. Like I said earlier in this blog, yen can go as high as 65 because of more layoffs down the road thus causing even more contraction in money supply.
Dow
Earlier I said Dow will hit 11000, more likely in 2010 than 2009.
Now that Dow is only 600 points from it, highly likely that it may hit around end 2009 or early 2010.
Another forecast is that we might see another mini crisis [of Dow] very soon but no drastic fall like that of 2008, after which Dow will resume its climb. Recent currency swings to the upside [dollar falling] and starting to either fall off a trendline [like NZD just did and AUD likely to follow suit] or the formation of an inverted head and shoulder [USDCAD] suggest the mini crisis will not be too far off.
Two scenarios
1. Mini crisis happening before Dow reaches 11000 or
2. Dow reached 11,000 and then fall off the peak fast.
My call is option 2 more likely than 1 bearing no major incidents like the failing of a major bank as we are coming close to year end with most banks already made their fortunes from trading and will not trade aggressively before Xmas ie the year ends. Low volume will make any major unloading of stocks by funds etc triggering heavy selloff ruining the bonus party, thus the upside is easier to achieve on low volume given the lack of interest in selling.
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