Aluminum Shortage In The United States Due To COVID 19?

Due to COVID 19 related nightlife restrictions and social distancing since the beginning of March 2020, is the United States now experiencing a shortage of aluminum because of this?

By: Ringo Bones

Demand for cans, especially aluminum cans, had been booming since the COVID 19 lockdown restrictions had been enforced, propelling can makers to boost manufacturing capacity to prevent shortages. And the trend is especially true in the United States as can manufacturers capitalize on a trend that they’ll hope will stick. When bars and restaurants were ordered to close to close by authorities across the United States and with nightlife restrictions still in effect in most areas, consumers rushed to buy large packs of drinks -typically sold in cans –in supermarkets and sales of canned food also jumped, not to mention that most hand sanitizers sold in bulk are contained in aluminum cans. But given that the United States sources its aluminum mostly through recycling form seemingly virtually unlimited supply of decommissioned aircraft from boneyards for about half a century, why the resulting aluminum shortage?

There are various notable aircraft boneyards / aircraft graveyards spread across the United States. The most notable of which is the Boneyard in Arizona made famous during the first Top Gun movie when the band Berlin shot a music video there, and the one in the Mojave Desert in California well known as the graveyard for large decommissioned passenger jets were the number one source of recycled aluminum in the United States to be used in the food and beverage industry during the past 50 years. If you ever see these sites, even from just documentary films, it is not too farfetched to assume that America has a virtually unlimited source of recyclable aluminum that could perhaps last for a few centuries with existing demand. And yet the food and beverage industry of the United States’ demand for aluminum cans skyrocketed during the COVID 19 lockdown that American aluminum can manufacturers were forced to import billions of aluminum cans from oversees manufacturers since August 2020.

Given the rather strict existing COVID 19 travel restrictions are still in effect, has this also affected America’s ability to recycle used aluminum cans? I mean financially disadvantaged people who used to collect these cans and sell them to aluminum recycling plants for a pittance probably now can’t do this as freely as before in post COVID 19 America. Let’s just hope that aluminum won’t become again a “noble metal” that’s twice as expensive as gold – like that time of the first 20 years after aluminum’s discovery by Sir Humphry Davy back in 1827.

Business Interruption Insurance: Small Business Savior During The COVID 19 Pandemic?

It is carried in some small business insurance policies, but can business interruption insurance save one’s fledging business in the time of the COVID 19 pandemic?

By: Ringo Bones

If you still don’t have this coverage, it is likely too late to purchase it now as insurance companies usually won’t cover losses for a crisis that’s already underway. However, after COVID 19 blows over, you should look at this small business insurance policy in the future. Some small business insurance policies carry business interruption insurance clauses, either as a stand-alone policy or part of an overall package policy. Depending on the type of policy your business holds, you may have coverage for some types of losses. However, there’s a good chance the coverage might be limited or contain exclusions. This is because there are other “potential pandemics” that occurred in recent years.

After the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, many insurance companies have updated their business interruption policies to exclude infectious diseases. Every policy varies, so it depends on the wording of your policy, its exclusions and limitations. Review your policy and talk to your insurance agent to see what, if anything, your policy covers. But policies that provide coverage to events as catastrophic as the still ongoing COVID 19 pandemic will be more likely than not to carry a heavy premium.

Could the 2020 Cornonavirus Global Stock Market Sell-Off Trigger A Global Economic Recession?

It appears to be easing off but is it too early to write-off coronavirus triggering a global recession by the middle of 2020?

By: Ringo Bones

Could the COVID-19/ novel coronavirus 2019 trigger a global economic recession by the middle of 2020 due to the ongoing manufacturing shutdown of China – the world’s sole manufacturing center? Sadly, the FTSE 100 index closed 3.3-percent lower, its sharpest decline since January 2016. While in the United States, the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 experienced its sharpest daily decline since 2018 and the Milan stock market experienced a 6-percent drop on Monday, February 24, 2020 – all of this due to the fears that the ongoing novel coronavirus epidemic in Mainland China would still not be over during the start of the second economic quarter of 2020. But despite of the recent ease in the global stock market sell-off and a mad scramble for safe haven investments, could the high probability of a global economic recession by the middle of 2020 still be avoided?

Due to the still ongoing shutdown of factories in parts of China still severely affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, toy manufacturers in the United States and Europe already warns of a so-called “toy shortage” by the time of the 2020 Yuletide Season if China’s toy factories still don’t return to full steam production by the second quarter of 2020. The same situation applies too with other low-cost mass-market goods that have since been manufactured in China since the year 2000.

Was Adolf Hitler A Good Economist?

Given that President Trump is currently creating an “aura of economic instability” due to his economic policies does Trump truly believe that Adolf Hitler was a good economist?

By: Ringo Bones

Remember that famous speech coined by Milton Friedman that was later attributed to the late US President Richard Nixon that goes: “…we are all Keynesians now…”? Well the keyword here is Keynesian – as opposed to “Hitlerian” like what US President Trump’s latest economic policy is starting to look like.

During the past few years, the so-called “global populist movement” have recently elected illiberal politicians that can only be described as “Hitlerian” in the hopes of solving genuine problems and concerns – i.e. the economy. Unfortunately, Adolf Hitler was not known for being as a “good economist”, if he was, Keynesian Economics would have an operational counterpart that could be labeled as “Hitlerian Economics”. Would it be only a matter of time when President Trump will ask Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for “economic advice”?

It may have been the inherent terror in the so-called inverted yield curve that President Trump’s economic team have been ignoring since they set up shop, never mind the recent red flags from the bond market signaling that holding long term debt is increasingly risky, it seems like the inverted yield curve will strike the US economy as soon as the start of the 2020 fiscal year. Given the recent 800-point drop of the DOW and the recent US Federal Reserve rate cut seems to be doing nothing to prevent this, it seems that the Trump administration is already out of options – economically speaking.

Google Restricting Huawei’s Use Of Android: The E-Commerce Side of the Trade War?

Even though security concerns on Huawei products has been around since 2006, does Google’s latest move now makes Trump’s trade war with China now has a e-commerce front?

By: Ringo Bones

Back around 2006 to 2007, tech-savvy Gen-X’ers’ primary reason for “boycotting” Huawei and ZTE gear was primarily due to the Tibetan Freedom Movement and how Beijing kept incrementally ratcheting their crackdown on Uyghurs since the 1990s. Sadly such concerns were largely forgotten or dipped below the radar of activist social media since a relatively unknown senator from Illinois got elected to The White House. Then and now, no major news correspondent manage to ask Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei about what he thinks about consumers who chose to boycott Huawei products because of Tibetan Freedom Movement and Uyghur crackdown concerns. But recently in February 2019, the Huawei issue surfaced yet again – and in a way bigger manner – after the company faced growing backlash from Western countries, primarily lead by the Trump Administration, over possible risks posed by using Huawei products in next-generation 5G mobile networks.

Back in Friday, May 17, 2019, the U.S. Commerce Department said it was considering scaling back restrictions to Huawei to “prevent the interruption of existing network operations and equipment.” It was not immediately clear on Sunday whether Huawei’s access to mobile software would be affected. On May 20, 2019, Google decided to start restricting new designs of Huawei smartphones access to some Google apps. This move comes after the Trump Administration added Huawei to a list of companies that American firms cannot trade with unless they have a “special license”. In a statement, Google said it was “complying with the order and reviewing the implications”. At the moment, Huawei declined to comment. The extent to which Huawei will be hurt by the US government blacklist is not yet known as its global supply chain assesses the impact. Chip experts have questioned Huawei’s ability to continue to operate without U.S. help.

At the moment, existing Huawei smartphone users will still be able to update apps and push through security fixes, as well as update Google Play services, but when Google launches the next version of Android later this year, it may not be available on Huawei devices. Future Huawei devices may no longer have apps such as YouTube and Google Maps. Even though Huawei has already a so-called Plan B to prepare them from such scenarios brought about by the Trump Administration’s “Trade War”, the company probably must now abandon its plan to overtake Samsung to become the world’s best-selling smartphone brand by 2020.

Beyond Meat’s Recent IPO Surge: Are the Wolves of Wall Street Now Going Vegan?

With both environmental and health concerns may be driving its recent IPO surge, will Beyond Meat eventually make the Wolves of Wall Street go vegan?

By: Ringo Bones

During the company’s first day of trading at Wall Street back in Thursday, May 2, 2019, the share price of Beyond Meat surged 163 percent, thus signaling surprising interest in a new generation of companies that are creating plant-based alternative to meat. Beyond Meat, which makes vegetarian burgers and sausages, began trading at $25 a share on the Nasdaq stock exchange and ended the day at $65.75. The stock’s first-day pop is one of the biggest in recent IPO history. In the last decade, only two other companies – both of them biotech start-ups – had bigger increases on their first days of trading on major American stock markets, according to the data from the University of Florida professor Jay Ritter.

Beyond Meat is the first ever plant-based meat-alternative company to go public, but it is part of a growing industry of start-ups looking to replace animal agriculture. And in recent weeks have provided several indications that the business is gaining traction largely because of growing environmental and health concerns in both the raising and the consumption of meat. A study conducted back in 2005 have shown that if all Americans reduced their overall meat consumption by just 10-percent, the resulting reduction in overall carbon footprint is akin to taking 20 million cars off the road.

Beyond Meat’s biggest competitor, Impossible Foods, teamed up with Burger King to roll out a meatless-version of the Whopper sandwich last month. Burger King announced this week that it would offer the sandwich at all of its restaurants in the United States, after a trial in the company’s St. Louis restaurants exceeded expectations. A day after Burger King’s announcement, McDonald’s chief executive, Steve Easterbrook, told analysts that his company was “paying close attention” to the trend and considering whether it will develop a meatless alternative to its hamburgers. In the lead-up to the Beyond Meat IPO, the poultry company Tyson Foods said it sold its early stake at Beyond Meat, in part because the food conglomerate is developing its own plant-based protein.

Like many high-tech companies that are debuting on Wall Street this year, Beyond Meat is losing money - $30 million last year – but revenue grew faster than last year’s losses, increasing 170 percent to $88 million. And like its competitors, Beyond Meat pitched investors on the idea that its plant-based burgers and sausages can appeal to traditional meat eaters and break out a niche market that vegetarian alternatives have traditionally occupied.

The start-up, based in the Los Angeles area, has tried to mimic the texture and taste of meat with ingredients like pea protein and beet juice. But it has also argued for the environmental and health benefits of moving away from meat. “I see it as a movement,” Beyond Meat’s chief executive, Ethan Brown, said in an interview back in Thursday, May 2, 2019. “We’re tapping into something within customers – within the human race – that is important.” Beyond Meat’s products are available in 15,000 supermarkets and several fast-food chains.

Leading up to the IPO, Beyond Meat steadily increased the number of shares it planned to sell and the price where it projected the shares to begin trading. The company ended up raising around $240 million in the public offering, which is more than it had raise from private markets. When it last raised money from its investors last fall, the company was valued at $1.35 billion, according to Pitchbook. Beyond Meat manage to finish the Thursday May 2, 2019 trading day to be worth $3.8 billion. The holdings of Beyond Meat’s founder Ethan Brown, are now worth more than $200 million. 

Inverted Yield Curve: Surest Sign Of An Upcoming Economic Recession?

It accurately predicted the September 2008 global credit crunch when it manifested back around July 2007, is the inverted yield curve the surest sign of a looming recession?

By: Ringo Bones

It managed to trigger an Asian market sell-off during the start of the Monday, March 25, 2019 trading day after investors were spooked by the United States’ inverted yield curve of its treasuries. Unfortunately, the Asian traders’ worries aren’t unwarranted, after all when the so-called “pesky inverted yield curve” manifested itself back in July 2007 it accurately foretold the 2008 global credit crunch. Worse still, the Trump Administration has not been preparing for the predicted looming recession since they set up shop back in 2017, relying instead on the so-called tax-break driven “MAGA-nomics” and this – according to the world’s leading economists – could plunge the U.S. economy into recession by 2020 that could make the 2008 recession look like a minor economic slowdown. But first, here’s a brief explanation to what is an inverted yield curve.

An inverted yield curve is an interest rate environment in which long-term debt instruments have a lower yield than short-term debt instruments of the same credit quality. Usually triggered by a loss of investor confidence when, for example, 30-year treasury bonds are ditched by investors in favor of a shorter term 5 or 10-year treasury bonds. This type of yield curve is the rarest of the three main curve types and is considered to be a predictor of economic recession. An inverted yield curve is sometimes referred to as a negative yield curve.

Historically, inversions of the yield curve have come before many of the United States recessions. Due to this historical correlation, the yield curve is often seen as an accurate forecast of the turning points of the business cycle. A recent example is when the U.S. Treasury yield curve inverted in late 2005, 2006 and again back around July 2007 before U.S. equity markets collapsed back in September 2008. The curve also inverted in late 2018 under the watch of the Trump Administration. An inverse yield curve predicts lower interest rates in the future as longer-term bonds are demanded, sending the yields down. Does the Trump Administration have the wherewithal to halt and reverse the looming U.S. economic recession that could arrive around the last quarter of 2020 and enact measures so that it won’t become much worse than the one that happened back in 2008?