Paraguay's soybean crushing industry will run out of beans to process by the middle of the year due to a drought hammering production, the country's trade industry body told Reuters, adding it was in talks to import beans for the first time ever. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-paraguay-soy-crushers-hit-by-drought-risk-running-out-beans-2022-02-16/

British consumer prices rose at the fastest annual pace in nearly 30 years last month, intensifying the squeeze on households and reinforcing the chances that the Bank of England will raise interest rates. The annual rate of CPI rose to 5.5% in January, the highest since March 1992. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-inflation-rises-55-january-2022-02-16/

🇨🇦 Live conversation with Canadian bank manager confirming orders from federal government to freeze accounts associated with those exercising their right to protest.
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No fear here, everything this tyrannical government is doing just digs their hole deeper and deeper waking up and connecting more and more people.

Shaun "The Viking" Zimmer
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#unitedwestand #faithoverfear

Blackstone cemented its position as America's largest residential and commercial landlord by buying apartment owner Preferred Apartment Communities in a deal valued at $5.8 billion, demonstrating the unstoppable investor demand for multifamily - i.e., rental - properties in Sunbelt states. https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/americas-largest-landlord-just-got-even-bigger-blackstone-buys-12000-sunbelt-apartments

US- Fire had broken out at Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) Claypool, Indiana, soybean processing and biodiesel plant and the affected systems had been suspended. The suspension of deliveries could slow production of soymeal and biodiesel at a time of high demand. The Claypool plant has capacity to crush 175,000 bushels of soybeans a day. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/louis-dreyfus-reports-fire-largest-us-soy-processing-plant-2022-02-16/

The United States’ Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project has in one of two recently conducted pilot tests achieved a record speed of 1.7 million transactions per second (TPS), way faster than the best cryptocurrency networks. The test was carried out by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, in partnership with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Digital Currency Initiative. https://www.cnbctv18.com/cryptocurrency/us-test-cbdc-hits-record-transaction-speed-12530262.htm

Massive outages of Canadian banking websites yesterday. ATM's reportedly empty in areas. #BankRunCanada trending on Twitter yesterday as protestors bank accounts are frozen. Alternatives of cash, gold, silver and cryptocurrency being considered by protestors to be able to survive.

Canadian fertilizer maker Nutrien Ltd said a surge in prices of potash due to robust global demand and thin supply would boost its profit in 2022. Prices of potash - a crucial crop nutrient - are near multi-year highs in the United States and Brazil following Western economic sanctions against a major potash supplier in Belarus. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nutrien-profit-jumps-higher-fertiliser-225237703.html

Lithuania's central bank has told the country's banks to prepare for power cuts and cyberattacks as Russia's standoff with Ukraine risks spilling over into a military conflict. Losing electricity and internet access are among "extreme but possible" scenarios that Lithuania's central bank told finance companies to be ready for. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-lithuania-warns-banks-cyber-attacks-power-cuts-amid-fears-war-ukraine-2022-02-16/

Central bank governor Yi Gang said China will work with Asian countries to strengthen the use of local currencies in trade and investment. Bilateral currency swaps among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) regional grouping, China, Japan and South Korea have reached US$380 billion. https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3167252/china-work-asian-neighbours-grow-use-local-currencies-over

US- The cost of imported goods leaped 2% in January — the biggest increase in almost 11 years — and added to the strongest surge in U.S. inflation since the early 1980s. Import prices minus fuel rose 1.4% last month — the largest gain since the government began keeping records in 2002. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/import-prices-jump-2-25-as-biggest-increase-in-11-years-adds-to-intense-us-inflation/ar-AATWtX9

Main wheat exporters stockpiles at a 9 year low. Canada as of Dec. 31- Total wheat stocks, at 15.6 million tonnes, down by 38% y-o-y. Wheat stockpiles in China are at a new high at the end of 2021/22, equivalent to near half of the global supply. https://www.producer.com/markets/grain-stocks-remain-tight-in-canada/

Soaring German property prices. Housing costs are mostly excluded from ECB's headline inflation figures. ECB living in lala land, keeping loose monetary policy forecasting lower inflation. Euro zone inflation rose to a record 5.1% in January. Europace House Price Index rose 0.5% in January to hit fresh ATH. Housing Index has risen in tandem w/ECB balance sheet to ever new ATHs. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/surging-housing-costs-boosting-overall-euro-zone-inflation%3A-ecb

Soybean price testing 2007 high resistance band of $16 per bushel. World soybean stockpiles in the 2021/2022 season are now seen at 43mt, down 35% from pre-pandemic levels. Energy crisis in Europe has driven fertilizer feedstock prices to all-time highs. Drought in S. America affecting yields. https://seekingalpha.com/news/3801517-international-grains-council-cuts-soybean-estimates-amidst-doubling-of-prices

The world’s largest NFT (non-fungible token) marketplace, OpenSea confirmed that it has been hit by a phishing attack and at least 32 users had lost their valuable NFTs worth $1.7 million. The phishing attack on NFT marketplace occurred as the UK tax authority last week seized three NFTs, as part of a probe into a £1.4m (R28.7m) fraud case. https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/economy/worlds-largest-nft-marketplace-opensea-hacked-32-users-lost-nfts-worth-r256m-36cc1e79-fba6-540b-bb0f-83aa5e8ff39e

Belarusian potash miner Belaruskali world's 3rd largest potash fertilizer supplier has declared force majeure. It won’t be able to meet its contracts because shipments have been halted due to U.S. and European sanctions. Belarus accounts for about a fifth of global supply. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fertilizer-markets-roiled-belarus-potash-202059540.html

U.S. secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack- "American wheat farmers will boost production and prevent supply chain problems in the event of a Russian/Ukrainian conflict that affects world's grain supply."
Russia and The Ukraine are at the largest and 5th largest wheat exporters respectively. US farmers are unable to plant normal acreage due to high fertilizer/chemical and energy costs. EU’s trade deficit with Russia widened from €15.7 to €69.2 billion last year. Russia’s merchandise trade surplus climbed to a record high of $67.6 billion in Q4 2021. Can the US and the West manage a wheat supply shock while running enormous trade deficits?