IKN

While in Cuba, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador gave an interview to Cuba’s officialist daily Granma. Granma has a small potted translation of the interview in English here, but it doesn’t do justice to the much longer full talk that’s published in Spanish here. Very interesting stuff.

China & Copper
Well this news went down well, didn’t it?

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) — China, the world’s largest metal consumer, discarded a plan to buy copper to support domestic smelters because producers are still profitable and inventories aren’t high, government and company officials said. The government also deemed it risky to buy yada yada continues here

There I was last week saying that there’s no reason to get all hot’n’sweaty about copper yet and saying the rebound had little to do with true supply/demand issues. Ho hum. Here’s today’s copper chart.

Venezuelan finances for dummies
I suppose this kind of article has its uses for people who don’t follow Venezuelan affairs much. On the other hand, here we are with another politically biased Bloomberg note about Venezuela finances that manages to quote only anti-gov’t talking heads and even makes the gov’t comments sound snide. Look….it’s Bloomberg…why should you expect balance anyway?