Well, this is Grant's Interstate Observer of the Air, and I am crackly voiced Jim Grant, and welcome to our podcast called Current Yield.

And with me today, as almost per usual, is Henry French at the controls.

Henry is filling in for Eric Whitehead, who's vacationing in one of his more exotic spots.

I've forgotten the name of it.

It is, though, I think, a member of the United Nations.

Is it not Evan?

The last to check, yeah.

The great Evan Lorenz is directly across from me.

Phil Grant is sitting in as well, the editor of Almost Daily Grants.

And our guest today is Jay Van Scriber, who is, first of all, a chemist from Yale, secondly,

but I think rather more pertinently, the cyclicals and industrials and materials analyst.

In fact, he's the head of those institutions at hedge-eye risk management.

So, Jay, welcome.

Thank you so much.

So Jay took the subway to meet us,

so he knows a little bit something about the rolling stock too and rails and transportation.

More than I'd like to. Well, this is an especially pertinent time, I think, for the cyclical world.

The news backdrop is kind of a checker. Is it not, Evan?

Or you come on some, these industrial companies seem not to be proceeding in a full-strength industrial fashion. No. On Monday, BASF, the German chemical giant, came out and they said that their second

quarter earnings before interest in taxes was going to fall 47% year-over-year in the second quarter.

They cited general weakness in industrial production, especially in auto. What others? We see. PMI, which is the purchasing

manager index for China is in contraction. In Europe, it's in contraction. In the U.S.

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