Double Up.

Normalization without de-radicalization.

Coffee, then News Items. Every day. — Katie Couric.

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1. Currently Active Incidents:

Palisades Fire: 23,713 acres…..18% contained.

Eaton Fire: 14,117 acres…………35% contained.

Hurst Fire: 799 acres……………….97% contained.

Auto Fire: 61 acres……………………47% contained.

(Source: fire.ca.gov)

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2. Many of the world’s richest economies will need to at least double productivity growth to maintain historical improvements in living standards amid sharp falls in their birth rates. A McKinsey report investigating the economic impact of declines in birth rates found that the UK, Germany, Japan and the US would all have to see productivity rise at double the pace seen over the past decade to maintain the same growth in living standards witnessed since the 1990s. The consultancy’s report, published on Wednesday, showed that to match GDP per capita growth between 1997 and 2023, productivity growth in France and Italy would need to triple over the coming three decades. In Spain, it would need to rise fourfold between now and 2050. The report highlights the stark impact of declining birth rates on the world’s most prosperous economies, leaving them vulnerable to a shrinking proportion of the population of working age. (Source: ft.com)

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3. Financial Times ‘Big Read’:

The scale of Chinese appetite for steel has been epic. As China built up its cities, according to government data, the country consumed twice as much of the metal in the two decades from 2000 to 2020 as the US did during the entire 20th century.

This massive industrialization and urbanization, at a pace the world had never seen before, drove a huge commodities supercycle. It sent prices of raw materials like iron ore and steelmaking coal skyrocketing, and profoundly reshaped the global mining and energy industries.

But that supercycle, which started to wane during the Covid-19 pandemic, has now finally come to an end. Last year China’s steel production fell to a four-year low, and is expected to shrink again this year. The country’s consumption of iron ore, a key ingredient for making steel and iron, declined last year after peaking in 2023, according to Macquarie. There are even some indications that Chinese demand for oil is starting to peak — well before most forecasts said it would.