Posted on 01/30/2015 7:57:56 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The Baltic Dry Index just hit a 28-year low. The index drew attention for mapping the financial crisis, going through the floor as the global economy tanked in 2008, but it just slumped to an even lower level. The index measures shipping costs for dry bulk commodities (minerals and metals like coal and iron, as well as grain and other food).
It plunged by more than 90% in just a few months in 2008 as the global crisis unrolled. Then, it was an impressive bellwether for the global situation.
Shipping costs were previously so expensive because demand was strong and enormous cargo ships can't be built overnight. As the demand disappeared, the Baltic Dry dived.
It has now dropped by more than 50% in less than three months.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
idled ships, cheaper fuel... a situation like this could presage a big economic problem. The devil is in the details.
anyhow the economy doesn’t look so much now to be swooning as to be slowly suffocating.
Socialism will do that. Heavy-handed government regulation will do that.
iron ore and copper, too
China is going quiet. But their internal debts are too large to be able to survive quiescence.
iron ore and copper, too
China is going quiet. But their internal debts are too large to be able to survive quiescence.
Yes, yes they will.
I bitterly cling to a theological explanation here. As other things substitute for God in people’s lives, blessings diminish.
Nobody’s asking the Chinese tiger to roar. That’s why it is quiet.
World Depression. They can not hide it much longer.
We got the Socialist Earth Blues.
predicting ship supply and commodities demand has a pretty high margin of error, at the same time remembering how sensitive the BDI is to small mismatches due to the inelastic nature of its underlying supply and demand, and you quickly realize that predicting the BDI is a fool's game and also that it is not a reliable forward indicator given that it is a spot rate index in a market where both sides are basically forced to close a deal due to high fixed costs. The BDI is measure of supply/demand mismatch at the moment, and can change drastically on a dime. Its little else beyond this.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cost-of-global-shipping-is-a-lousy-economic-indicator-2009-5#ixzz3QJJqeXpc
The article didn’t mention all of the new ships that came available earlier that had been sparked by high shipping rates even earlier.
Socialism is a form of idolatry ... The Almighty Government replaces THE LORD as “god” in peoples’ minds. It becomes the source of all good, the arbiter of truth, the distributor of blessings.
In fairness, “Capitalism” can become a form of idolatry, as well. People can place just about anything in a temple and worship it ... to their detriment.
Who needs stuff? Just buy apps and consume streaming entertainment.
The automated systems used to trade in the financial markets allow some to manipulate prices and pull out huge sums of money in the gaps before the smaller investors get a chance to even make a trade. And thus the market is not based on a broad trading market but instead based on how an elite few have gamed that market. Of course this element has always been around with insider trading and such BUT now the speed and which this system gaming works makes the whole system volatile to the point that you can get a flash crash and literally nobody really knows why it happened and it panics everyone and then the sell orders flourish for no reason except an algorithm gave a positive indicator to sell and it raced through the system and expanded exponentially.
I fear this system flaw may be what finally takes the dollar down. And there is no one in the whole damn circus who knows how to make it stop.
Well you must buy the new iPhone every two years so you can be the hippest of the hipsters don't ya know...
True, it can jerk around wildly on little provocation.
There’s always the people factor, which might have added to a panic atmosphere in 2008. Metaphorically, it doesn’t matter that the earth isn’t warming if people are convinced that it is; they will dedicate great resources to meeting the “threat.”
Yup, it does just that. It is a sad misdirection of the faith capability that God built into humanity.
There have been many economic/market events over the years, both good and bad.
What’s this index’s track record in predicting those?
Indeed, the revelations about IRS abuse has opened a LOT of eyes in Washington, DC, and we may be on the verge of the biggest reforms in Federal tax laws since the passage of the 16th Amendment itself.
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