Cotton hit a high in May of 158. It’s now down to 102 and the subject of financial debate on Twitter, some of them funny.
Suggested Answers
- Has anyone checked to see if cotton is a stablecoin?
- Speculators bid up cotton futures due to misguided conclusions about inflation and availability and are now unwinding en masse.
- Spandex is back?
- National Nude Day
- Clothing retail stores have way too much supply and no longer ordering more is my guess
Spandex is Back
Correct Answer
As much as I would love to attribute this to National Nude Day or spandex, the answer is over-ordering followed by demand destruction of a recession and a good crop forecast on top of it.
Copper
Iron Ore
Steel
Lumber
Unleaded Gasoline
Natural Gas EU
Coal
Economic Messages
- Copper, iron ore, steel, lumber, and cotton all inputs to discretionary spending and housing. Demand is falling off a cliff. A recession is coming.
- Unleaded gasoline tells us that gasoline is mostly not a discretionary item and remains in short supply.
- Coal is a sad story of major economic incompetence by global leaders.
In an effort to punish Russia, the US and EU attempt to reduce Russia’s output of oil and natural gas.
The result has been more money to Russia, a rising Ruble, and higher prices for energy across the board.
The EU is resorting to burning more coal for energy as a result.
In irony of ironies, not even the German Greens complain about more coal use.
Spotlight Biden
Next month, Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia hoping for a commitment for them to pump more oil.
Last week I noted Biden Skips Meeting With Oil Executives to Meet With Wind Energy Executives
Priorities, Priorities
There are about 130 million US households.
Biden called a meeting to do something about gas prices but failed to show up for his own meeting.
Instead, Biden is working on a plan to supply wind energy to 10 million households by 2030.
A couple people objected to my wording because Biden never planned to attend the oil meeting. So what? He called a meeting then went off on a wild goose chase in search of wind. What’s the message here?
Biden also antagonizes Elon Musk. No matter what one thinks of Musk, he does produce more EVs and batteries than anyone else.
Even the liberal New York Time complains about President Biden’s misguided feud with Musk
Biden’s beef with Musk seems to be a big missed opportunity — politically. By ignoring or poking fun at Musk, he has helped turn the most famed entrepreneur of our time, even if erratic, from being a Biden supporter — Musk voted for him — to a vocal backer of Republicans.
Musk, who has become increasingly polarizing as he has publicly switched allegiances, last month tweeted that he’s moving right, at least for the midterms, because “this administration has done everything it can to sideline & ignore Tesla.”
Biden has seemingly pushed aside someone who should have been a natural ally.
Biden went so far as to push a provision in a bill that would benefit electric-car makers that are unionized at the expense of those that are not, namely Tesla. He frequently touts hiring figures by the likes of Ford, which last week said it was hiring 6,000 workers, without ever mentioning that Tesla hired nearly 50,000 people around the world in the last two years.
The same applies to solar panels. Rather than eliminating tariffs and promoting more use, Biden is more interested in protecting a few hundred US manufacturing jobs than creating thousands of installation jobs and promoting clean energy.
For more discussion, please see Why Are Energy Prices High? Blame President Biden
Spotlight G-7, EU
In my previous post, I noted G-7 Agrees to Cap the Price of Russian Oil Using a Buyer’s Cartel
This is true economic madness. As a direct result of US and EU sanctions the EU will burn more coal.
Sanction madness is driving up prices of energy more than the war itself and the world is burning more coal as the solution.
High energy prices compound the difficulties of the Fed while making matters worse for the environment.
The G-7 leaders have collectively gone mad.
This post originated at MishTalk.Com.
Thanks for Tuning In!
Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.
Subscribers get an email alert of each post as they happen. Read the ones you like and you can unsubscribe at any time.
If you have subscribed and do not get email alerts, please check your spam folder.
Mish
If Biden is smart he’ll scrap the oil request to Saudi Arabia and beg them not to crash the petrodollar system.
phenomenon that occurs when a nonrandom sample is selected from a
population and the two variables of interest measured are imperfectly
correlated. The smaller the correlation…” Britannica
– Sales growth +79% v +9%
– Operating CF margin 21% vs. 0.01%
– Gross margin 21% vs. 6%
– Tesla was one-seventh the size of Ford by car sales in 2019. By 2021, they were 36% the size of Ford.
– Cap-x 18% of sales vs. 5%.
– Free cash burn was about 10% vs 56% if Ford’s sale of its Rivian shares are excluded
Yes, of course Senile Joe hates Tesla. When did a Democrat ever favor success?
Maybe they are learning.
Are you a bot, or just so far up your own butt you can’t follow a conversation?
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2022 is 0.3 percent on June 27, up from 0.0 percent on June 16. After recent releases from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the National Association of Realtors, and the US Census Bureau, the nowcast of second-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth increased from -9.0 percent to -8.1 percent.
The next GDPNow update is is Thursday, June 30.
know sh*t’s bad right now, with all that starving bullsh*t, and the
dust storms, and we running out of french fries and burrito
coverings.“