Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (December 1, 2018)
Is a stock market top finally in place? Perhaps – all of the major indices have fallen somewhat. The NASDAQ Composite Index has fallen the most, by a net 11 percent since August 30, 2018 (it had been down by as much as 16 percent). The bond market has been in a visible decline for about 4 years. One can already find retail US Dollar CD rates as high as 3 percent per annum in “brick and mortar” bank branches (not merely at Internet banks). Commodities are also in a definite bear market – the “black gold” known as crude oil has fallen by more than 30 percent in 2 months. The US Dollar remains artificially very high, but much of the rest of the world continues to move away from US Dollar denominated international trade. Both the Ford Motor Company and General Motors (GM) have announced substantial job cuts, factory closures and model terminations which represent about 15 percent of their total size. General Electric (GE), once one of the most respected and valuable Fortune 500 companies in the USA, is moving ever closer toward bankruptcy – a future which may also be in store for the United States of America.
This month’s blog deals with huge macro-economic topics confronting today’s global economy. The biggest monetary investment to date is the “One Belt, one Road” (OBOR) project originating in mainland China. The Chinese and their 67 global partners (67 other countries) are investing up to USD $8 TRILLION in massive infrastructure projects which will eventually be a 21st century copy of the ancient Chinese “silk road” which linked China to much of the rest of the world through trade and finance. The 68 countries partaking in the OBOR project comprise 65 percent of humanity and 40 percent of global GDP – most of Australasia, Europe and the Persian Gulf / Middle East / Northeast Africa. The Russians recently revealed an expansion of this which would construct the world’s longest superhighway (freeway) from New York City to the US Midwest, Canada, Fairbanks and Nome (Alaska, across the Bering Strait, over Siberia & the Ural Mountains, through Moscow, Belarus, Central Europe, the Low Countries, France and finally across the English Channel to the city of London, England. This would include a superhighway for cars & trucks plus rail lines and energy pipelines.
The US multinational crude oil and natural gas companies had a goal of investing up to USD $1 TRILLION in Russian Siberia during the Obama Administration, but it does not look like this came to pass as it was planned.
The global automotive industry (the core of global heavy manufacturing which is still the most economically significant industrial sector in the world) has a capital war chest worth about USD $1.7 TRILLION (23% Volkswagen, 16% Toyota, 10% Daimler, 9% BMW, 9% Ford, 8% Hyundai, 5% Honda, 4% RenaultNissan, 4% SAIC-FAW of China, 3% Caterpillar, 3% Tesla, 2% John Deere, 1% Geely-Volvo and 1% Tata-Jaguar). This huge amount of capital is necessary to convert the automotive industry from fossil fuel usage (internal combustion engines which use the likes of gasoline, diesel fuel, biodiesel fuel, corn ethanol, sugar-cane alcohol ethanol, palm leaf ethanol and methane natural gas) to plug-in electricity. Until most electricity is sources from nuclear fusion plants (NOT to be confused with current day nuclear fission plants which require a dangerous mineral known as uranium), carbon emissions will have to continue from centralized power plants. Many of these plants have been and continue to convert from the usage of coal to the usage of methane natural gas and NGL (natural gas liquid) products – not pollution free but much cleaner than the likes of coal.
We are already seeing many more partially electric vehicles (hybrid cars) and fully electric cars (plug in or battery electric vehicles) on the roads. Norway leads the world with electric vehicles comprising 60 percent of all new vehicles sold in September 2018. Iceland is in 2nd place with 22 percent followed by Andorra (9 percent), Sweden-Hong Kong (8 percent), California (7 percent), Belgium-Netherlands-Finland-Switzerland (4 percent), China-Austria-France-UK-Europe (3 percent), USA-Japan (2 percent) and Denmark (one percent).
These numbers will continue to rise dramatically in the coming years, because the major automotive manufacturers are releasing many more such models to the market. Volkswagen AG (the largest automotive group on earth) is introducing the first true mass market battery electric vehicle (BEV) automotive platform likely in late 2019 and plans to build at least 10 million units. VW has already committed USD $50 BILLION to electric vehicle development from today until 2023. At current rates of growth, electric vehicles will comprise a majority of global vehicle sales as soon as 2023 to 2025.
We just need to be prepared for the reality that these electric vehicles are more expensive than the cars we have come to know in the past. They will require less (mechanic) maintenance, which will change the nature of automotive retail dealerships, likely leading to fewer such dealerships. More people will continue to migrate to larger, more vibrant cities and urban areas. Ride sharing (such as Uber and Lyft) will become more commonplace. More people will use mass transportation networks, and private vehicle ownership will likely continue to decline. 43 percent of crude oil extracted & refined today is used to power motor vehicles, 10 percent is used for airplane jet fuel and one percent is used to generate electricity.
The remaining 46 percent of crude oil and petroleum products are used for the paving of roads (asphalt), in the production of cosmetics, foodstuffs & medications and in the manufacturing of all plastic products – a very major source of non-biodegradable pollution and in the severe pollution of the world’s oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and waterways. These issues will also have to be addressed, and more environmentally friendly alternatives will have to be found.
