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Es ist schon Tradition im law blog: In der Vorweihnachtszeit verlosen wir unter allen Lesern den bekannten und beliebten Anwaltskalender des Karikaturisten wulkan. Auch dieses Jahr ist es wieder soweit. Es gibt insgesamt 10 Exemplare des Kalenders für das Jahr 2019 zu gewinnen. Wie, das steht weiter unten.

Zunächst aber der Hinweis, dass es sich bei dem Kalender auch um ein tolles Weihnachtsgeschenk handelt. Die zwölf großformatigen Juristenmotive kommen im klassischen Schwarz-Weiß-Design. Der Kalender kostet 20,95 € zuzüglich 5,50 € Versandkostenpauschale. Es handelt sich um den Subskriptionspreis; ab dem 1. Dezember kostet der Kalender 25,95 € zuzüglich 5,50 € Versandkostenpauschale.

Der Kalender wird frei Haus geliefert, gerne aber auch an eine Wunschadresse. Wie immer ist der Kalender nur im Direktvertrieb beim Zeichner selbst erhältlich. Bestellung via E-Mail: [email protected] Per Telefon: 0172 200 35 70.

Aber, wie gesagt, wir verlosen ab heute auch 10 Exemplare des Kalender. Es gibt zwei Möglichkeiten der Teilnahme:

1. Einen Kommentar zu diesem Beitrag schreiben. Bitte auf jeden Fall die E-Mail-Adresse gesondert reinschreiben. Das Kommentarsystem zeigt mir die hinterlegten E-Mail-Adressen leider nicht mehr komplett an, vermutlich aus Gründen des Datenschutzes. Ich kann also ohne Nennung der Mail-Adresse im Kommentartext Gewinner nicht benachrichtigen.

2. Wer aus verständlichen Gründen keine E-Mail-Adresse in den Klartext des Kommentars schreiben möchte, sendet einfach eine E-Mail an folgende Adresse: [email protected].

Die Gewinnchancen sind auf beiden Wegen gleich. Die Gewinner werden ausschließlich über die hinterlegte E-Mail-Adresse benachrichtigt. Die Teilnahme am Gewinnspiel ist bis zum 13. November 2018 möglich.

Viel Glück!

In late 2018, the bad economic news just keeps rolling in.  At a time when consumer confidence is absolutely soaring, the underlying economic numbers are clearly telling us that enormous problems are right around the corner.  Of course this is usually what happens just before a major economic downturn.  Most people in the general population feel like the party can go on for quite a while longer, but meanwhile the warning signs just keep becoming more and more obvious.  I have been hearing from people that truly believe that the economy is “strong”, but if the U.S. economy really was in good shape would new vehicle sales be “collapsing”?…

According to the latest estimates released by Edmunds, new vehicle sales for September are expected to collapse both on a monthly basis and year-over-year basis. The company predicted that 1,392,434 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. in September, which makes for a estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 17 million. This will be a 5.4% decrease from last month and an 8.3% drop from September of last year.

Those are absolutely terrible numbers.

And this news comes after all of the major automakers had already revised earnings guidance lower.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

The drop in sales capped another rough month for the auto industry during which Detroit’s carmakers all revised their earnings guidance lower and Ford embarked on a five-year restructuring plan. Earlier this week, we reported that Ford’s CEO claimed that President Trump’s auto tariffs had cost the company $1 billion in profits.

Sadly, this may just be the very beginning of the auto industry’s troubles.

It is now being projected that if this trade war with China continues, U.S. automakers could see total sales fall “by 2 million vehicles per year”…

Retaliation by China to tariffs already in place have made some American auto exports uncompetitive, and could collapse US auto sales by 2 million vehicles per year, resulting in the loss of up to 715,000 American jobs and a devastating hit of as much as $62 billion to the US GDP.

As per NBC News, the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) warns that the auto industry could receive a devastating blow if Section 232 declares foreign-made cars and car parts a threat to national security.

Kristin Dziczek, a vice president and senior economist at CAR, said if Section 232 is enacted, it could trigger a “downward cycle” in the auto industry – not seen since the last great recession.

And needless to say, the thousands of companies that do business with those large automakers would also lose sales and jobs.

Once these downturns get rolling, the domino effect can be absolutely devastating.

On Thursday, we also learned that pending home sales “plunged in August”…

Pending home sales plunged in August, dropping 1.8% MoM (almost four times worse than expected) to its lowest since Oct 2014 (and fell 2.5% YoY) – the fourth month of annual declines in a row…

If the U.S. economy truly is “strong”, then why have we seen four monthly declines in a row?

And it isn’t just one part of the nation that is experiencing a downturn.  According to Bloomberg, all four major regions of the country showed a decline…

As Bloomberg notes, the decline, which was broad-based across all four regions, shows that higher mortgage rates, rising prices and a shortage of affordable homes continue to squeeze buyers. Existing-home sales in August matched the lowest in more than two years, while revisions to new-home sales showed a slower market than thought, according to previously released figures.

Homes are not selling like they once were.  There is a reason why one out of every four home sellers in America slashed their prices in August.  Demand is way down, and that strongly indicates that an economic slowdown is here.

When it looks like the economy is headed for a major downturn, a lot of people go out and stock up on gold, and it turns out that is precisely what global central banks have been doing…

Central banks have emerged as some of the biggest buyers of gold this year, buying a total of 264 metric tons this year to reach the highest level in six years, according to analysts at Macquarie.

Of course the Federal Reserve and other central banks are trying to assure us that everything is going to be okay, but meanwhile their actions are telling us a different story.

Much of the world is already in the midst of a crippling economic crisis, and every indicator seems to be pointing to the fact that the U.S. is headed down the same path.

Even without any extenuating circumstances, the truth is that we are way overdue for a recession.  But when you throw in political chaos, exploding debt levels, an emerging market currency crisis and a trade war between the two largest economies on the entire planet, you definitely have a recipe for a perfect storm.

If you do not believe that this trade war is a big deal, you should consider the words of former Reagan administration official David Stockman…

Folks, it’s not a “skirmish”. On the scale of trade warfare we are now at DEFCON 2.

At this very moment, the US is taxing $250 billion of Chinese imports or nearly half the total flow; and China is taxing $110 billion of its imports from the US or 85% of the flow.

And it’s soon going full monte. The Donald has repeatedly threatened to tariff the remaining $267 billion of Chinese imports if Beijing retaliates against his $200 billion, but, self-evidently, they already have.

The U.S. economy has found a way to muddle through for the past couple of years, and we should all hope that the economy can find a way to navigate through these current problems.

But the storm clouds are growing more ominous with each passing day, and at some point time will run out.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium-members only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

Schlumberger, the world’s largest listed oilfield services group, has said it expects a divergence in the global oil industry this year between solid growth in most countries and “more uncertainty” for the outlook in North America.

The company set out its view of the coming year as it reported a 25 per cent drop in adjusted earnings per share to 36 cents for the fourth quarter of 2018, excluding one-off items. The earnings were in line with the average of analysts’ expectations, according to FactSet,, although revenues were slightly higher than expected at $8.2bn, unchanged from the equivalent period of 2017.

Paal Kibsgaard, Schlumberger’s chief executive, said in a statement that he expected a “gradual recovery” in crude prices in 2019 after their steep fall towards the end of last year, as the production cuts announced by Opec and Russia take effect, US output growth slows, and the Trump administration’s curbs on Iran’s oil exports are tightened.

He added that he expected demand for oil to be supported “as the US and China continue to work toward a solution to their ongoing trade dispute”.

However, he said, he expected the benefit of that upturn to be unevenly distributed around the world, with “solid, single-digit growth in the international markets”, while in the North American onshore industry, “the increased cost of capital and focus on aligning investments closer to free cash flow has introduced more uncertainty to the outlook for both drilling and production activity”.

In the fourth quarter of last year, revenues were $2.8bn, the same as in the equivalent period of 2017, but down 12 per cent from the third quarter as production companies slowed their operations. Outside the US, revenues were $5.3bn, up 1 per cent from both the fourth quarter of 2017 and the third quarter of 2018.

Mr Kibsgaard said:

In this environment, we have built significant flexibility into our operating plan for 2019, which gives us the means and confidence to address any investment and activity scenario. Furthermore, the foundation for our 2019 plans is a clear commitment to generate sufficient cash flow to cover all our business needs, without increasing net debt.

The final 230 miles of the Mississippi river have long reinforced American might in global food markets. Ten grain terminals tower like fortresses along its bends, receiving crops from upstream farms, banking them in concrete silos and sending them over the levees into the holds of foreign ships. Together they can export 500,000 tonnes a day.

Yet this year the autumn high season never came. The amount of grain and oilseeds moving through Mississippi river ports has dropped by 9 per cent since the autumn of 2017, according to the Federal Grain Inspection Service. Buoys for mooring vessels bob unused.

Cargill, the world’s biggest agricultural trading house, repeatedly idled its two terminals on the river, including a five-day shutdown in November when workers stayed home unpaid.

“We’ve never done that [before],” says Jeremy Seyfert, the terminal manager. “We had the ability to take the plant down for five days because we didn’t have anything to load.” 

Between September and December, soyabean volumes shipped through Cargill’s river terminals in Louisiana are down 40 per cent year on year, Mr Seyfert says.

The disruption at the mouth of the Mississippi is an acute result of the US-China trade war. After US President Donald Trump imposed new tariffs on Chinese goods, Beijing punched back with duties on US exports including most of its $20bn in agricultural commodity sales.

Soyabean exports, worth $12bn in 2017, were hit hardest. The oilseed’s conquest of farm fields in the past 20 years has largely been down to US farmers gambling on China’s demand for protein to nourish pigs and chickens. Beijing raised tariffs on soyabeans by 25 percentage points in July, pricing the US crop out of the world’s largest market and making it a symbol of deteriorating bilateral relations.

“As soyabeans have remained the most exposed commodity in the trade war, investors should monitor this market in assessing the state of Sino-US trade negotiation,” says Citigroup.

Soyabean prices depressed by the dispute remain weak, reflecting low expectations even as US and Chinese officials resumed trade talks on Monday. Exporters are focusing their attention on other markets. Soyabean stockpiles are clogged up and down the Mississippi, upsetting rhythms of the crop calendar at a multibillion-dollar cost to American farmers and taxpayers.

Hopes rose in the US farm belt  after Mr Trump and President Xi Jinping of China met in Buenos Aires towards the end of last year and agreed not to escalate their dispute for 90 days, a period that ends on March 2. Beijing has in recent weeks purchased a few million tonnes of soyabeans for its government reserve, in a sign of goodwill. 

Yet the market is sceptical about the possibility of a permanent detente. 

“The reality is that we’re in the early stages of a new cold war,” says Jan Lambregts, global head of financial markets research at Rabobank, a lender to the food and agriculture sector. “China has thrown down the gauntlet: they want to be number one. The US has responded saying that’s not going to happen . . . Within that context, there is no way I can see a lasting deal.”

Even if Beijing and Washington make peace, the effects of the 2018 soyabean showdown will endure. Market veterans recall how a 1973 US embargo on soyabean exports sparked Brazil’s ascent  as a major player in the sector. “Once you are branded with the scarlet letter of being an unreliable supplier, it is hard to completely regain those lost sales,” says Scott Irwin, a University of Illinois agricultural economist. 

Food security is a priority for Beijing. So uncertainty over US relations may cause it to further diversify its soyabean sources.

“No doubt in my mind, this will have some sort of long-term impact,” says Jim Sutter, chief executive of the US Soybean Export Council, a trade promotion body. “We’re going to do all we can to try and minimise the long-term damage in China, but after the 90-day period is over I don’t think we’ll wake up and go back to normal.”

The council has requested government funding to develop fast-growing alternative markets such as India and Nigeria. “We’re trying to make sure we’re going to new markets, reducing, perhaps, our dependency on a particular large market,” Mr Sutter says.

For the year up to September 30, China imported 94m tonnes of soyabeans, more than a third of it from the US. For the year that began on October 1, US government economists forecast China will import 90m tonnes, the first decline in 15 years.

The US has captured very little of that demand. From September 1 to mid-December US exports of soyabeans to China had amounted to just 341,000 tonnes, compared with 18m tonnes in the same period of 2017, US agriculture department data show. Meanwhile, US farmers have hauled in what is estimated to be a record 125m-tonne crop. 

The partial government shutdown  over Mr Trump’s proposed border wall has prevented the release of more recent official data on US exports. 

China looks able to make do with minimal amounts of US soyabeans until new supplies begin streaming in from South America. Its own reserves were already high when the China Feed Industry Association in October lowered the protein standard for pig and poultry feed. If fully embraced, the policy will reduce the country’s annual soyabean demand by 14m tonnes, says Chenjun Pan, a Rabobank analyst in Hong Kong. Further reducing millions of tonnes of demand, an African swine fever outbreak has led China’s livestock farmers to cull pig herds.

Last summer China ended duties on soyabeans and rapeseed — another protein-rich oilseed — from five Asian countries including India. It later reopened its market to Indian-crushed rapeseed meal, dismissing earlier quibbles about its quality. President Vladimir Putin has said he wants to sell more soyabeans to China, and in November a queue several kilometres long formed at Russia’s easternmost border crossings as a “massive supply of soy” made its way through, according to local reports cited by AgriCensus, a price reporting agency.

The biggest winner of the trade war so far has been Brazil, as China snapped up its previous crop. Gross profit margins for farmers exceeded 50 per cent in Mato Grosso state, compared with a historical average of 30 per cent, according to Guilherme Bellotti, senior agribusiness analyst at Itaú BBA bank in São Paulo. Land planted with soyabeans this year is expected to reach a record 36m hectares, adding pressure to convert more forests into cropland.

White House officials have made confident noises that China will offer big commitments to buy more American products such as soyabeans, corn and dairy. Yet crop traders are wary of basing decisions on such pronouncements.

“People in the grain industry spend a lot of time forecasting real demand, real supply, consumption patterns, rainfall patterns. Those are what used to drive grain flows,” says Michael Ricks, the Cargill trading and merchandising manager responsible for the company’s North American soyabean portfolio. “Now you’ve added a new element, which is geopolitical policy. And that’s something that we’re not at all skilled at forecasting.”

The impact of the crop back-up is visible across the US interior. Soyabeans that cannot be exported have in most cases been stored in a bet on higher prices. White polyethylene bags stuffed with excess crops line fallow fields. They are cheaper in the short run than building metal storage silos, whose cost has soared because of new US tariffs on steel imports, silo manufacturers say.

Stocks of soyabeans available just before the 2019 harvest will more than double year on year, the US agriculture department estimates.

In the upper Midwest, soyabean trains that normally shuttle to Pacific ports have instead been redirected to head south-east towards the Mississippi river docks at St Louis, Missouri, says Kayla Burkhart, a grain manager at the CHS SunPrairie co-operative in North Dakota. There they are loaded on barges lashed together and pushed by tugboats to Louisiana terminals.

Flotillas of northern soyabeans in the autumn overwhelmed the local market in Louisiana, where farmers typically grow the crop alongside rice, sugarcane, cotton and pond-raised crayfish. 

Terminals, already full of supplies intended for overseas markets but which no longer had buyers, stopped purchasing Louisiana-grown varieties. More than half the crop in southern Louisiana was unmarketable or left to rot in the fields, according to the Louisiana State University AgCenter.

Damian Glaser, a farmer in New Roads, Louisiana, still had more than half of his 100,000 bushel crop — about 3,000 tonnes — unsold in December. It was the first year he chose not to sell right after harvest. “I normally don’t store anything,” he says.

Mr Glaser agrees with Mr Trump’s position on trade. “But I don’t want to go broke while he’s getting it done,” he says.

The Trump administration’s response has been to introduce a $12bn bailout scheme that includes government purchases of surplus foods, campaigns to identify new markets for crops and direct payments to farmers. Soyabeans have the biggest allocation, with $7.3bn of the total authorised for payment. Mr Glaser calls it “Trump money”.

“Even though he’s killing us right now, I think he’s going to be positive in the long run for the country,” he says of the president. “I was just hoping [the pain] wasn’t going to last this long.”

US farmers built up cash buffers during the commodities boom that ended earlier in the decade, but economic strains are building. In states of the upper Midwest — prime soyabean, corn, wheat and dairy country — banks are contending with rising levels of bad agricultural loans on their books, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. 

In central corn belt states, such as Iowa and Illinois, farm loan repayment rates are declining amid a “decidedly downcast outlook for agriculture”, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reports.

The impact of the tariffs comes on top of a multiyear bear market in grain, with large crops forcing down prices. 

“The longer this goes on, we’re going to see bankruptcies go up and then it’s going to bleed into the banking sector,” says Neel Kashkari, the Minneapolis Fed president. In his five-state region, 84 farms filed for chapter 12 bankruptcy protection in the 12 months to June 2018 — more than twice the level of four years earlier. 

At Curt Engemann’s farm in Maringouin, Louisiana, the roughly $2-a-bushel fall in prices means about $260,000 in foregone revenue, he says. But he just collected a second payment under the federal aid scheme, covering most of his losses.

“I think it’s worth it,” he says of the trade war, adding: “If it continues in the next couple of years, call me back.”