“At least 350 million people were impacted by power outages last year as extreme weather and the shift to cleaner energy sources saw more markets hit by supply disruptions, IHS Markit said in report.
“More than 4% of the world population were affected as regions with previously reliable power supply, such as Texas and China, suffered blackouts and rationing.”
“Tank bottom: topping up a depleted world could push oil toward $100.
“”Stocks of oil in some of the world’s top economies have fallen to their lowest levels in almost a decade and a drive to refill them could nudge oil toward $100 a barrel.”
“Lack of investment risks pushing gas bills even higher.
“Delays and underspending on new gas projects could cause a prolonged global shortage as ministers try to protect households from surging energy bills, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.”
“Global coal prices surge as Ukraine tensions worsen supply woes…
“To protect themselves from any fuel shortages, European utilities have stepped up imports of coal, further tightening a market that has yet to recover from Indonesia’s shock ban that cut coal flows during the peak winter demand season.”
“Russia-Ukraine Tensions Drive Global Wheat Prices Higher.
“The two nations account for just under a third of global wheat exports, much of which goes to the Middle East to keep bread prices affordable.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-ukraine-tensions-drive-global-wheat-prices-higher-11643630790
“There have been angry clashes between Russian and US envoys at the UN Security Council, after the US called a meeting to discuss Moscow’s troop build-up on its borders with Ukraine.
“US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the mobilisation was the biggest Europe had seen in decades.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60203208
“The rulers of the great powers are playing with fire: It is not an exaggeration to say that what is currently happening in the heart of the European continent is the most dangerous moment in contemporary history and the closest to a Third World war since the Soviet missile crisis in Cuba in 1962…
“…events in such circumstances quickly acquire their own dynamics to the beat of the drums of war—dynamics that surpass the control of all individual actors and risk triggering an explosion that none of the players had originally wanted.”
https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7498
“Ukrainian police arrest suspects over alleged ‘mass riots’ plot.
“Ukrainian police have detained a group of suspects for allegedly planning mass riots in multiple cities including the capital Kyiv, with the aim of destabilising the country as fears of a full-blown Russian invasion linger.”
https://www.ft.com/content/7ce051bf-4356-439b-8cea-8ffec4f76620
“Britain’s pig industry said on Monday it faces collapse after an exodus of east European workers led to a shortage of butchers and a backlog in slaughtering more than 170,000 pigs.
“National Pig Association (NPA) Chairman Rob Mutimer… said emergency visa measures designed to soften the impact of Brexit and COVID-19 were not working.”
“UK food producers and brewers have warned of shortages of meat, beer and fizzy drinks, as well as higher prices, after the government opted not to renew support for the carbon dioxide industry.
“Meat processors, brewers, bakers and soft drink producers all use CO2 in making and packaging their goods. It is also required for the humane slaughter of animals including pigs and chickens.”
“U.K. Manufacturers See Their Energy Bills Up 65% This Year Versus 2020…
““That’s “a staggering amount when you also consider inflation is also impacting costs across the board for businesses too,” said Carl Ennis, chairman of the group and chief executive officer of Siemens AG’s U.K. and Ireland unit.”
“Europe Is Losing Nuclear Power Just When It Really Needs Energy.
“Wholesale power prices are more than four times what they were at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Governments are having to take emergency action to support domestic and industrial consumers faced with crippling bills…”
“Norway’s Hammerfest LNG plant faces a further delay to restarting production after a fire in 2020, operator Equinor said on Monday, delivering a fresh blow to hopes of securing more gas for Europe to help reduce surging prices.
“The plant, operated by Equinor, is now expected to resume output on May 17, more than six weeks later than the previous goal of restarting on March 31.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/equinors-hammerfest-lng-plant-extends-outage-2022-01-31/
“China’s property sales slump persisted in January with top developers seeing a steeper decline in transactions… The 100 biggest companies in China’s debt-ridden property industry suffered a 39.6% drop in sales from a year earlier…
“Home sales have been falling since July last year… The decline in transactions is worsening the cash crunch for property firms…”
“China’s local governments risk collapse… As the economy slows and real estate enters a bear market, a financial collapse on the order of Puerto Rico’s is a real possibility…
“Beijing must be vigilant. China’s municipal debt crisis might spring out of nowhere, and anywhere.”
“Sri Lanka’s Inflation Accelerates to Asia’s Fastest on FX Crunch.
“Sri Lanka’s inflation rate surged past Pakistan to make it the fastest in Asia, stoked by failed harvests, import restrictions to conserve dwindling foreign-exchange reserves, and high global prices of key commodities.”
“John Simpson: I’ve never seen Afghanistan as desperate as it is today… a staggering 97 per cent of the population have fallen into poverty. That’s a figure unmatched anywhere else on earth. Twenty-three million Afghans no longer have enough money to buy their daily food…
“Now almost everyone I meet seems to share the same deep anxiety: that they and their family won’t get through the winter.”
“U.S. and Kurdish forces battled ISIS fighters in northeastern Syrian on Saturday, in the most intense urban combat involving American soldiers in Iraq or Syria since the self-declared ISIS caliphate fell in 2019.
“Fighting spilled into the residential areas of Hasaka, Syria, near where Kurdish forces were trying to subdue the last ISIS gunmen barricaded in a prison in a weeklong siege.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/world/isis-prison-syria.html
“A surge in fertilizers prices fuel food crisis in Africa… With prices tripling over the past 18 months, many farmers are considering whether to forgo purchases of fertilizers this year. That leaves a market long touted for its growth potential set to shrink by almost a third…
“That could potentially curb cereals output by 30 million tons, enough to feed 100 million people…”
https://africa.cgtn.com/2022/01/30/a-surge-in-fertilizers-prices-fuel-food-crisis-in-africa/
“The hunger crisis in Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest in the world, with some 27 million people experiencing high levels of food insecurity in the country…
“…the lasting legacy of a brutal conflict, failed harvests, Covid-19 and rising food prices have created a perfect storm for extreme hunger.”
“Kenyans struggled to put food on the table last month as food prices rose by 8.89 per cent compared to the same month in 2021.
“The latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows that the retail price of a kilo of cabbages, onions, spinach, and sukuma wiki (kales) increased by 27.6 per cent, 21.9 per cent, 20.5 per cent and 17 per cent respectively.”
“Zimbabwe Dollar’s Second Death Seen as Only a Matter of Time – When Zimbabwean businessman Nigel Chanakira asked 100 chief executive officers at a seminar in Harare on Jan. 27 if they were willing to use the local currency, only one raised his hand…
“That reluctance is a stark demonstration of the government’s failure to win confidence in the Zimbabwe dollar…”
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/zimbabwe-dollar-second-death-seen-080000249.html
“Mexico Follows Brazil Into Recession After Fourth-Quarter Contraction…
“Monday’s data means that activity in Latin America’s top two economies is [in recession] after Brazil’s GDP shrank in both the second and third quarters of 2021.”
“Chile anti-migrant protesters destroy camps in tense north.
“Chilean protesters marched against immigration and crime in the Andean country’s far north on Sunday, with some violent factions destroying belongings from migrant camps in the streets amid growing tension in the region over border controls.”
“US stock markets endure worst January since global financial crisis.
“The US stock market has suffered its worst start to the year since the global financial crisis, as the threat of rising interest rates, slowing corporate earnings growth and geopolitical tensions sent stocks tumbling across the board.”
https://www.ft.com/content/5cf5199c-5538-40b6-a059-d2c795108919
“Nasdaq Index Poised for the Worst January in Its 50-Year Existence.
“The Nasdaq Composite Index is headed for the worst start to a year in half-a-century of its existence after the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hike plans roiled high-flying technology stocks.”
“Junk bonds are increasingly adopting some of the lax terms from the loan market, a trend that investors say signals a deeper erosion in credit standards. Companies and their private equity sponsors have been weaving looser conditions into deals, confident that strong market demand will outweigh concerns.”
“The world’s top central banks have underestimated the stickiness of inflation spreading throughout rich economies, prompting them to launch a quicker than expected rate hike cycle this year.
“Measures used to quantify the severity of underlying inflation pressures will stay high even by the end of the year in most rich countries, according to fresh analysis by Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs.”
“The era of free-lunch economics is ending…
“Every economy has a limited reservoir of policy credibility and resources, which are best used to mitigate genuine economic distress, not to shield those who can bear some pain. If everyone wants a free lunch, the bill eventually will be paid by those least able to afford it.”
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-era-of-free-lunch-economics-is-ending-20220131-p59sol
You can read the previous ‘Economic’ thread here. I’ll be back tomorrow with a ‘Climate’ thread.
If you found value in this content, please help me continue this work by becoming a patron of my work via Patreon. And if you are already a subscriber or have donated – thank you! It really means a lot.
so if a open food market has fresh fruit and vegetables say, and the prices are sooooo high that literally nobody can pay and at the end of the day not one iota of food has been sold, what then happens to all that fresh food, do they dump it somewhere? and what if all those people who couldn’t pay, then come along and take it anyway where ever it has been dumped, this of course would not happen in a country like mine, Australia, because if none of the food was sold at a supermarket they would never allow it to be dumped somewhere where those who couldn’t pay could then take it anyway. I don’t know whether I have made any sense in what I have just said, but the whole food system is a mess, even in so called 3rd world countries. I mean, I read headlines like ” people struggle to put food on the table” and there’s a photo of a man displaying his fresh food in abundance, and I just visualised people passing by him all day unable to pay the prices he was asking. Anyway, I am just thinking out loud here and decided to write my thoughts here in a comment. Thanks Harry from Julie.
Julie, nice to have you commenting on my site! As I understand it, food shortages and famines tend to be the result of an immediate scarcity (whether self-inflicted like Mao’s, imposed externally like Ukraine’s or just the result of poor harvests) that is then compounded by an inability or lack of will to redistribute food in from areas of abundance. Thinking of your photo, I guess that applies on the micro as well as the macro. Overcoming those logistical and moral challenges is only going to be harder as we move forwards into an era increasingly defined by scarcity.
supermarkets in Australia are required to donate all unsold fresh produce to charity or to “animal” feed.