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Perspective
FT – US haul from credit crisis bank fines hit $150bn – Kara Scannell 8/6
- “A single bank, Bank of America, has paid more than one-third of all recoveries to US authorities, according to an analysis by the Financial Times. Its $56bn in settlements with state and federal regulators and the DOJ cover its own mortgage sales and actions by two companies it acquired — subprime mortgage lender Countrywide and broker Merrill Lynch.”
- “JPMorgan Chase, which acquired Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, has paid the second-largest amount, with $27bn in fines and relief.”
Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice
NYT – The Debt-Ceiling Crisis Is Real – Edward Kleinbard 8/7
FT Alphaville – Electric vehicle realities – Izabella Kaminska 8/3
- “Electric vehicles (EVs) are all the rage. But they’re also fast becoming the sacred cows you can’t criticize for fear of being shredded by the EV, renewable, and tech lobbies.”
- “Questioning the cost structures of the industry in general is not allowed in public forums. My colleague Jonathan Ford discovered this recently when he dared to question the economic realities underpinning the renewable sector.”
- “Brian Piccioni and team at BCA Research offer a good starting point to our questions on Thursday, in a report entitled Electric Vehicles Part 1: Costs of Ownership.”
- “The bad news for EV fans is their work determines that the cost of ownership of an EV still far exceeds that of an internal Combustion Engine Vehicle (ICEV), even after subsidies are accounted for.”
- A couple of points.
- Battery packs are expensive and more expensive than generally claimed.
- Batteries degrade and the cost of replacing them are expensive (more so than the manufacturers let on).
- Additionally, think of your experience with the value of your old cell phones or computers. While the hardware may still work, the value of your device tends to decline rapidly with an old battery.
- Back to the subsidies.
- “Nevertheless, most people are encouraged to buy EVs because of the fuel subsidies or free parking promises. Yet is difficult to assess how long EV subsidies will persist. Fundamentally, the economics dictate that they can only really be affordable to governments as long as the number of vehicles sold remains small. If EV sales accelerate swiftly, these subsidies would get very costly for government coffers very quickly — straining public finances if not creating massive implied contingent liabilities.”
- “On that basis, when electric car subsidies start eating into the funding that’s available for other vital government services, public perceptions of EV efficiency will change markedly.”
- All for EV adoption, just trying to be more aware of the factors in play.
Bloomberg Gadfly – OPEC’s Existential Sucker Punch – Julian Lee 7/30
Markets / Economy
WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – US Prime-Age Labor Force Participation 8/7
WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – US Civilian Labor Force Participation by Gender 8/7
Environment / Science
NYT – Let Forest Fires Burn? What the Black-Backed Woodpecker Knows – Justin Gillis 8/6
- “Scientists say that returning forests to a more natural condition would require allowing 10 million or 15 million acres to burn every year, at least.”
- “Today, closer to four million or five million acres burn every year.”
Agriculture
WSJ – Daily Shot: CBOT Soft Red Winter Wheat 8/7
- “The US wheat rally has been fully reversed on improved crop conditions.”
India
FintechFT – India’s fintech revolution – Don Weinland 8/7
Bloomberg Gadfly – Indian Banks’ Soaring Price-to-Truth Ratio – Andy Mukherjee 8/7
- Several Indian banks have more non-performing loans in their books than they are letting on and are aware of. Worse, there a quite a few loans issued to companies (i.e. Videocon) with too few restrictions, who are then using the funds to pursue moonshot projects out of their core competencies.
Middle East
WSJ – Egypt’s Leader Makes a Risky Bet on the Healing Power of Economic Pain – Yaroslav Trofimov 8/6
- “Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi is cutting food and fuel subsidies, a program long plagued by waste and corruption, in a high-stakes gamble to aid the stalled economy that none of his predecessors dared execute.”
- “The economic shock therapy, coupled with a steep currency devaluation, has rocked the Arab world’s most populous country. Fuel prices went up 50% in June, cooking-gas prices have doubled and the annual inflation rate has surpassed 30%.”
- “Every day, millions of Egyptians line up at government bakeries to buy five loaves of bread for less than two U.S. cents, a fraction of the wheat’s cost. The food subsidies extend to some 80% of Egypt’s families and were first instituted as part of rationing during World War II.”
- “Farmers across Egypt nurture their crops with water pumps operating on diesel that, even after June’s 55% increase, still retails for 77 cents a gallon, less than a third of retail prices in the U.S.”
- “The government’s goal is to end the subsidies in three to five years, according to Mr. Kabil, the trade and industry minister. ‘The right thing to do is to lift them totally,’ he said. ‘But you cannot do it today because you cannot correct 40 years of problems in one day.’”
- The question is whether or not the people of Egypt will be able to make to that point without changing course?
South America
WSJ – Daily Shot: Caracas (Venezuela) Stock Exchange Market Index 8/4
- If you live in Venezuela, there is nowhere else to preserve your money (outside of hard currencies – if you can get them).
WSJ – Daily Shot: Black Market Bolivar (Venezuela) USD Exchange Rate 8/7
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