22.34% : Singapore M3 money supply growth (Jun 2007 update)

The latest money supply report from the Singapore government is out. The figures show an M3 money supply growth of some 22.34% (from $242,723.7 million in May 2006 to $296,951.8 million in May 2007).

That's still a very high rate. But how about d2y/dx2? (not just rate of change, but the rate at which the rate of change *changes*). Or to put it simply, just take a look at the chart above. Yup, it's coming down slightly.

What to make of that? Not sure. But in a system predicated on d2y/dx2 growth, it might not be very good for the property or stock markets. As I am writing this, crude oil on the NYMEX exchange has just shot up to US $75.00 a barrel. That can't be very good for the economy, either.

China's finance ministry to soon issue US$200b in bonds

channelnewsasia.com :

China's finance ministry is expected to soon issue 1.55 trillion yuan (204 billion dollars) in bonds to fund its new forex investment agency, state media said Thursday [5 Jul 2007]. The first tranche is expected to total 500 billion yuan, with the remainder sold at an unspecified later date in two similar but separate batches, the China Business News reported. Stock market dealers said the report had impacted investor sentiment, with the Shanghai Composite tumbling 2.7% in morning trade on concerns of a liquidity crunch.

China had amassed more than 1.2 trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves by the end of March, some 70 percent of which is thought to be in US dollar-denominated assets, typically in relatively low-yielding Treasury bonds.

- That's a masterful move to soak up the money floating around the Chinese stock markets.

(2007-07-17 12:55:36 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

Russia to allow private armies for energy giants

peakoil.com -> guardian.co.uk :

Russia's parliament voted yesterday [4 Jul 2007] to allow the country's two biggest energy monopolies, Gazprom and the state oil pipeline company Transneft, to employ and arm private security units. Under the deal, Russia's interior ministry will supply Gazprom with guns from its own armoury. The weapons that the armed units will be allowed to carry are restricted to hand-guns and pump-action shotguns. The law includes no restriction on the number of armed employees.

Supporters of the plan say that Russia's oil and gas installations - which are key to the country's boom and burgeoning economic revival - have to be protected from terrorist attack at all cost. However, Gennady Gudkov of the Fair Russia party, said the law paved the way for the creation of corporate armies and described it as "a Pandora's box". "Gazprom and Transneft are proposing the creation of their own corporate armies," he told the chamber.

Gazprom is Russia's biggest company. It controls a fifth of the world's gas reserves, runs entire towns with martial efficiency, and owns a newspaper and the country's third-largest bank. Many observers regard the state-owned energy giant as a state within a state and also the Kremlin's most brutally effective geopolitical weapon, as well as a tool for bludgeoning the neighbours.

Climate deals turn up heat in Indonesia's dark peatlands

energybulletin.net -> reuters.com :

Science has long known that Indonesia's 20 million hectares (50 million acres) of dense, black tropical peat swamps, formed when trees, roots and leaves rot, are natural carbon stores, explained University of Nottingham peat expert Professor Jack Rieley. "They are 50-60% carbon. Peat stores more carbon than all of the planet's vegetation combined," he said. Now the dots have been joined between peatlands and the massive amounts of climate change-related carbon emissions they release when burnt or drained to plant crops such as palm oil.

Years of lucrative deforestation for timber and palm oil plantations has entrenched the practice of burning vast areas of Indonesian land, smothering neighboring Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei in annual choking smoke clouds, known as haze. Now, in a sudden reversal, keeping Indonesia's forest cover intact is a hot investment ticket in a warming world. Already, investors are knocking on doors in towns close to peat swamps, such as Palangkaraya, in Central Kalimantan. Emissions cuts from forest areas such as peatlands are not yet eligible for trade, because they were excluded from the Kyoto Protocol's first, 2008-2012, round. But many predict they will be in six months' time, after the UN climate meeting in Bali hears a report on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation

As home to 60% of the world's threatened tropical peatlands, and among the world's top three carbon emitters when peat emissions are added in, Indonesia is in the spotlight. But stitching up peat swamp carbon deals without involving local communities risks raising real tensions, said Jutta Kill of FERN, the Forests and the European Union Resource Network. "Because the focus is narrowly on keeping the carbon stored, the incentive to police is increased," she said from Britain. "In Uganda, people have been shot at by forest rangers to defend carbon forestry projects." This kind of market-led carbon trading is not the only way to safeguard forest carbon, she said. "Northern countries could do a lot by not pushing deforestation through (expanding) palm oil and biodiesel (developments)".

- This is an interesting development, from the point of view of someone who lives in one of the countries affected by the annual Indonesian haze. It could get even more interesting if big money moves into this carbon trading thing.

See the highlighted portions above - one can imagine shooting wars between rival factions, one interested in burning the forests to grow palm oil, the other interested in defending the forests to protect billion-dollar carbon credits. Gives a new meaning to "resource wars", doesn't it.