- 65% Of Greek Hotels Face Bankruptcy As Lockdowns Continue
65% Of Greek Hotels Face Bankruptcy As Lockdowns Continue
The Greek tourism industry has collapsed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and on track to lose at least 50% of its revenues in 2020, said Grigoris Tasios, President of the Greek Hoteliers Association, who spoke with the Greek Reporter last week.
The Hellenic Chamber of Hotels, a group that oversees the tourism industry in Greece, warned in a new study on Monday that a bankruptcy wave looms.
Alexandros Vasilikos, the president of the Chamber, told the Greek Reporter this week that a recovery in the tourism industry, reverting to 2019 growth rates, could take a very long time to achieve.
According to the Chamber’s study, 65% of Greek hotels indicate that the threat of bankruptcy is “likely” or “most likely” — at 46.6% and 18.3%, respectively.
Hotel in Greece About 95% of hotels said their business volumes had been halved since the crisis unfolded. The Chamber is estimating that the hotel sector would lose upwards of 4.46 billion Euros in 2020.
Tasios told Greek Reporter last week that the tourism industry is facing an unprecedented crisis:
“It is very difficult to plan ahead during these times, simply because we do not know how long the coronavirus scare will last. We hope to launch the Greek tourist season on July 1, but this is speculative, since everything will depend on how the virus situation will unfold,” he said.
Tasios said about 300 hotels are currently operating in the entire country under strict social distancing rules. Thousands remain closed, as nationwide lockdowns from mid-March extend into April.
“We really do not know how many will be in a position to reopen when the situation becomes normal again,” he said, noting that hoteliers up and down the country basically have zero income right now.
“We are monitoring developments in the pandemic on a day-to-day basis, not just in Greece but throughout the world, and in particular, in the countries that are tourist markets for Greece,” Tasios said. He then added that the number of arrivals from Greece’s traditional markets will probably be far lower than that of previous years.
“I think that the situation in Germany, UK, France, Poland and maybe Russia, countries that are among the top five tourism markets for Greece, does not allow much optimism about a quick rebound in visitors,” he explained.
The Greek Ministry of Tourism announced last month that it would reopen the industry around April 30.
For the remainder of the year, tourism across the Western world will struggle to attract guests, specifically in Europe and the US.
We noted last month that the Spanish tourism industry plummeted after the country went into lockdown following a massive surge in cases and deaths. The tourism industry across Europe has likely gone bust as well.
Flight bans across the world have made it almost impossible for people to travel to top tourist destinations.
Several weeks ago, we reported how the services sector in the US crashed, especially travel and tourism and other consumer-facing industries.
With no proven vaccine, people are likely to stay home in 2020 — no matter how much optimism governments create in their attempt to reopen crashed economies. It could be years until the global travel and tourism industry recovers.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/15/2020 – 02:45 - Will Quiet Middle East Last? Or Is It Lull Before Next Storm?
Will Quiet Middle East Last? Or Is It Lull Before Next Storm?
Authored by Martin Sieff via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Across the Middle East, the coronavirus is stirring up both upheavals and more subtle changes from Tel Aviv to Riyadh, little reported and when covered little understood in the Western media.
In Israel, the virus has enabled that master political magician Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pull off yet another spectacular escape as improbable as any in a James Bond or Star Wars movie to remain in power indefinitely.
After matching him in three successive national elections, Blue and White opposition leader, former Army Chief of Staff retired Lieutenant General Benny Gantz finally blinked: Because of the coronavirus pandemic crisis, he agreed to enter into a coalition with Netanyahu leading it for the first 18 months.
This is more than enough time for Netanyahu, a master political infighter and intriguer to splinter Blue and White into fragments. Indeed, Gantz has already done the biggest part of the job for him.
His own top allies in the new party, former Finance Minister Yair Lapid and former Defense Minister and Army Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon both firmly opposed any agreement to compromise with Netanyahu refused to go along with it. Currently, even Gantz and Netanyahu have not yet finalized their agreement, but Netanyahu has seized the initiative from him. His record in power over the past decade suggests he will not release it easily.
Netanyahu can at least boast that his lockdown has kept Israel relatively isolated from the pandemic. That is not the case in Iran, which boasts close trade and energy ties with China and where the virus has been raging ferociously.
That of course, is also the case in the United States. Extremist US hawks have been gloating – hopefully – that the crisis in Iran might discredit and topple the government there. That seems very unlikely at the moment.
What remains possible is that if the virus does significantly “decapitate” the current leadership in Tehran, more extreme and unpredictable rather than more moderate figures may take over more ready to act on provocations from Washington rather than play them down.
In Saudi Arabia, the virus may also have unpredictable “cushion shot” – surprise ricochet – effects.
Saudi Arabia’s elite King Feisal Specialist Hospital, which treats members of the kingdom’s royal family, is said to be on “high alert” as senior members of the Al Saud clan become infected with COVID-19. As many as 150 royals in the kingdom are now believed to have contracted the virus, according to a report in the New York Times.
The highest royal to be infected so far is Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz al Saud the governor of the capital Riyadh who is in his 70s and therefore at increased risk. Worse yet, at the time of writing, he is said to be in intensive care.
King Salman bin Abdulaziz, aged 84 is believed to have taken refuge on an island palace near the city of Jeddah on the Red Sea along with Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman on the same coast with his ministers. But these moves , if extended, may isolate them dangerously from the national centers of power.
Bin Salman was already in an uncharacteristic subdued mood before the pandemic hit as his oil price war on Russia and the United States backfired disastrously. Since then, he has been busy mending bridges with Moscow and appears close to completing a deal on reducing oil production with the Kremlin.
However, the prolonged slump in global oil prices will certainly continue and may intensify. Russia is in a sound position to ride out such a longer-term wave: Saudi Arabia is not.
If on top of all this, Bin Salman himself should contract the coronavirus, he has made so many enemies across society from royal to business circles with his reckless, warmongering and spendthrift policies that any sign of personal vulnerability could launch an attempt to drive him from power. He has almost certainly survived at least one assassination attempt already.
Only last month, Bin Salman ordered the arrest of two senior members of the royal family – Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, the younger brother of King Salman, and Mohammed bin Nayef, his first cousin and the king’s nephew.
Like Netanyahu, Bin Salman has good reason for caution rather than dangerous adventures as both men struggle to maintain their increasingly precarious bases of power. That should point to a quieter, more peaceful region, at least in the short term.
But as I learned a long time ago in my native North Belfast, no time is more dangerous than when things get too quiet in a dangerous neighborhood.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/15/2020 – 02:00 - US Flexes Military Might Near Russian Forces In Provocative F-35 Flight Over Syria
US Flexes Military Might Near Russian Forces In Provocative F-35 Flight Over Syria
The U.S. military flew their new F-35 stealth jet over Syria’s skies this past week, as they display their strength in front of the Russian Armed Forces who are only a few kilometers away from the American troops in the eastern Euphrates region.
In a tweet on Monday, the Special Ops Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in Syria and Iraq released three photos showing the F-35 above Syria, likely in the Al-Hasakah or Deir Ezzor governorates.
“A USAF F-35A Lightning II fighter jet flies near the ATG in Syria, April 10, 2020. Coalition and partner forces continue to strike at extremist organizations in Syria despite COVID-19, reflecting the world-wide unity to see an enduring defeat delivered against Daesh,” the U.S. military account posted.
The three photos showed up close and far away shots of the F-35A as it flew over the skies of eastern Syria.
A USAF F-35A Lightning II fighter jet flies near the #ATG in Syria, April 10, 2020. Coalition and partner forces continue to strike at extremist organizations in Syria despite COVID-19, reflecting the world-wide unity to see an enduring defeat delivered against Daesh #DefeatDaesh pic.twitter.com/z474lPHpuB
— Special Ops Joint Task Force-OIR (Iraq/Syria) (@SOJTFOIR) April 13, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Interesting, the statement invoked the ongoing pandemic which has severely impacted the US military – a situation no doubt closely watched by America’s rivals and enemies.
The coalition statement indicated that US strikes in Syria would continue “despite COVID-19, reflecting world-wide unity…”.
While the U.S. conducted this flight, the Russian military was likely watching from afar, as they have headquartered their forces in eastern Syria at the Qamishli Airport in the northern region of the Al-Hasakah Governorate.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/15/2020 – 01:00 - A Brave New Normal, CJ Hopkins Has A Theory
A Brave New Normal, CJ Hopkins Has A Theory
Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via ConsentFactory.org,
So the War on Populism is finally over. Go ahead, take a wild guess who won.
I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t the Russians, or the white supremacists, or the gilets jaunes, or Jeremy Corbyn’s Nazi Death Cult, or the misogynist Bernie Bros, or the MAGA-hat terrorists, or any of the other real or fictional “populist” forces that global capitalism has been waging war on for the last four years.
What? You weren’t aware that global capitalism was fighting a War on Populism? That’s OK, most other folks weren’t. It wasn’t officially announced or anything. It was launched in the summer of 2016, just as the War on Terror was ending, as a sequel to the War on Terror, or a variation on the War on Terror, or continuation of the War on Terror, or … whatever, it doesn’t really matter anymore, because now we’re fighting the War on Death, or the War on Minor Cold-like Symptoms, depending on your age and general state of health.
That’s right, folks, once again, global capitalism (a/k/a “the world”) is under attack by an evil enemy. GloboCap just can’t catch a break. From the moment it defeated communism and became a global ideological hegemon, it has been one evil enemy after another.
No sooner had it celebrated winning the Cold War and started ruthlessly restructuring and privatizing everything than it was savagely attacked by “Islamic terrorists,” and so was forced to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and kill and torture a lot of people, and destabilize the entire Middle East, and illegally surveil everybody, and … well, you remember the War on Terror.
Then, just as the War on Terror seemed to be finally winding down, and the only terrorists left were the “self-radicalized” terrorists (many of whom weren’t even actual terrorists), and it looked like GloboCap was finally going to be able to finish privatizing and debt-enslaving everything and everyone in peace, wouldn’t you know it, we were attacked again, this time by the global conspiracy of Russian-backed, neo-fascist “populists” that caused the Brexit and elected Trump, and tried to elect Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, and loosed the gilets jaunes on France, and who’ve been threatening the “fabric of Western democracy” with dissension-sowing Facebook memes.
Unfortunately, unlike the War on Terror, the War on Populism didn’t go that well. After four years of fighting, GloboCap (a/k/a the neoliberal Resistance) had … OK, they had snuffed both Corbyn and Sanders, but they had totally blown the Russiagate psyop, and so were looking at four more years of Trump, and Lord knows how many of Johnson in the U.K. (which had actually left the European Union), and the gilets jaunes weren’t going away, and, basically, “populism” was still on the rise (if not in reality, in hearts and minds).
And so, just as the War on Populism had replaced (or redefined) the War on Terror, the War on Death has been officially launched to replace (or redefine) the War on Populism … which means (you guessed it), once again, it’s time to roll out another “brave new normal.”
The character of this brave new normal is, at this point, unmistakably clear … so clear that most people cannot see it, because their minds are not prepared to accept it, so they do not recognize it, though they are looking right at it. Like Dolores in the Westworld series, “it doesn’t look like anything” to them. To the rest of us, it looks rather totalitarian.
In the span of approximately 100 days, the entire global capitalist empire has been transformed into a de facto police state. Constitutional rights have been suspended. Most of us are under house arrest. Police are rounding up anyone not cooperating with the new emergency measures. They are pulling riders off of public transportation, arresting people whose papers aren’t in order, harrassing, beating, intimidating, and arbitrarily detaining anyone they decide is “a danger to public health.”
Authorities are openly threatening to forcibly pull people out of their homes and quarantine them. Cops are hunting down runaway grandmothers. They’re raiding services in churches and synagogues. Citizens are being forced to wear ankle monitors. Families out for a walk are being menaced by robots and Orwellian drones.
Counterterrorism troops have been deployed to deal with non-compliant “rule breakers.” Anyone the U.S. authorities deem to have “intentionally spread the coronavirus” can be arrested and charged as a coronavirus terrorist. Artificial intelligence firms are working with governments to implement systems to log and track our contacts and movements. As a recent Foreign Policy article put it:
“The counterterrorism analogy is useful because it shows the direction of travel of pandemic policy. Imagine a new coronavirus patient is detected. Once he or she tests positive, the government could use cell-phone data to trace everyone he or she has been in close proximity to, perhaps focusing on those people who were in contact for more than a few minutes. Your cell-phone signal could then be used to enforce quarantine decisions. Leave your apartment and the authorities will know. Leave your phone behind and they will call you. Run the battery down and a police car will be at your door in a manner of minutes …”
I could go on, but I think you get the picture, or … well, you either do or you don’t.
And that is the really terrifying part of the War on Death and our “brave new normal” … not so much the totalitarianism. (Anyone who’s been paying attention is not terribly shocked by GloboCap’s decision to implement a global police state. The simulation of democracy is all fine and good, until the unwashed masses start to get unruly, and require a reminder of who’s in charge, which is what we are being treated to currently.)
No, the terrifying part is how millions of people immediately switched off their critical faculties, got into line, and started goose-stepping, and parroting hysterical propaganda, and reporting their neighbors to the police for going outside for a walk or jog (and then sadistically shrieked abuse down at them like the Goodbye Jews Girl in Schindler’s List as they were wrestled to the ground and arrested).
They are out there, right now, on the Internet, millions of these well-meaning fascists, patrolling for signs of the slightest deviation from the official coronavirus narrative, bombarding everyone with meaningless graphs, decontextualized death statistics, X-rays of fibrotic lungs, photos of refrigerated morgue trucks, mass graves, and other sensationalistic horrors intended to short-circuit critical thinking and shut down any and all forms of dissent.
Although undeniably cowardly and sickening, this kind of behavior is also not shocking. Sadly, when you terrorize people enough, the majority will regress to their animal instincts. It isn’t a question of ethics, or politics. It is purely a question of self-preservation. When you cancel the normal structure of society and place everyone in a “state of emergency” … well, it’s like what happens in a troop of chimpanzees when the alpha chimp dies or is killed by a challenger. The other chimps run around hooting and grimacing until it’s clear who the new dominant primate is, then they bend over to demonstrate their submission.
Totalitarians understand this. Sadists and cult leaders understand this. When the people you are dominating get unruly, and start questioning your right to dominate them, you need to fabricate a “state of emergency” and make everyone feel very afraid, so that they turn (or return) to you for protection from whatever evil enemy is out there, threatening the cult, or the Fatherland, or whatever. Then, once they’ve returned to the fold, and stopped questioning your right to dominate them, you can introduce a new set of rules that everybody needs to follow to prevent this kind of thing happening again.
This is obviously what is happening at the moment. But what you probably want to know is … why is it happening? And why is it happening at this precise moment?
Lucky for you, I have a theory.
No, it doesn’t involve Bill Gates, Jared Kushner, the WHO, and a global conspiracy of Chinese Jews defiling our precious bodily fluids with their satanic-alien 5G technology. It’s a little less exciting and more abstract than that (although some of those characters are probably part of it … all right, probably not the Chinese Jews, or the Satanic-Alien Illuminati).
See, I try to focus more on systems (like global capitalism) than on individuals. And on models of power rather than the specific people in power at any given time. Looking at things that way, this global lockdown and our brave new normal makes perfect sense. Stay with me now … this gets kind of heady.
What we are experiencing is a further evolution of the post-ideological model of power that came into being when global capitalism became a global-hegemonic system after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In such a global-hegemonic system, ideology is rendered obsolete. The system has no external enemies, and thus no ideological adversaries. The enemies of a global-hegemonic system by definition can only be internal. Every war becomes an insurgency, a rebellion breaking out within the system, as there is no longer any outside.
As there is no longer any outside (and thus no external ideological adversary), the global-hegemonic system dispenses with ideology entirely. Its ideology becomes “normality.” Any challenge to “normality” is henceforth regarded as an “abnormality,” a “deviation from the norm,” and automatically delegitimized. The system does not need to argue with deviations and abnormalities (as it was forced to argue with opposing ideologies in order to legitimize itself). It simply needs to eliminate them. Opposing ideologies become pathologies … existential threats to the health of the system.
In other words, the global-hegemonic system (i.e., global capitalism) becomes a body, the only body, unopposed from without, but attacked from within by a variety of opponents … terrorists, extremists, populists, whoever. These internal opponents attack the global-hegemonic body much like a disease, like a cancer, an infection, or a virus. And the global-hegemonic body reacts like any other body would.
Is this model starting to sound familiar?
I hope so, because that is what is happening right now. The system (i.e., global capitalism, not a bunch of guys in a room hatching a scheme to sell vaccines) is reacting to the last four years of populist revolt in a predictable manner. GloboCap is attacking the virus that has been attacking its hegemonic body. No, not the coronavirus. A much more destructive and multiplicitous virus … resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology.
If it isn’t already clear to you yet that this coronavirus in no way warrants the totalitarian emergency measures that have been imposed on most of humanity, it will be become clear in the months ahead. Despite the best efforts of the “health authorities” to count virtually anything as “a Covid-19 death,” the numbers are going to tell the tale.
The “experts” are already memory-holing, or recalibrating, or contextualizing, their initial apocalyptic projections. The media are toning down the hysteria. The show isn’t totally over yet, but you can feel it gradually coming to an end.
In any event, whenever it happens, days, weeks, or months from now, GloboCap will dial down the totalitarianism, and let us out, so we can go back to work in whatever remains of the global economy … and won’t we all be so very grateful! There will be massive celebrations in the streets, Italian tenors singing on balconies, chorus lines of dancing nurses! The gilets jaunes will call it quits, the Putin-Nazis will stop with the memes, and Americans will elect Joe Biden president!
Or, all right, maybe not that last part, but, the point is, it will be a brave new normal! People will forget all that populism nonsense, and just be grateful for whatever McJobs they can get to be able to pay the interest on their debts, because, hey … global capitalism isn’t so bad compared to living under house arrest!
And, if not, no problem for GloboCap. They’ll just have to lock us down again, and keep locking us down, over and over, indefinitely, until we get our minds right. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to do anything about it … right? Didn’t we just demonstrate that? Sure, we’ll bitch and moan again, but then they’ll whip out those pictures of mass graves and death trucks, and the graphs, and all those scary projections, and the Blockwart-hotlines will start ringing again, and …
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/15/2020 – 00:05 - 'Rice ATM' Feeds Vietnam's Working Poor In Covid Lockdown
‘Rice ATM’ Feeds Vietnam’s Working Poor In Covid Lockdown
Vietnam’s working-class poor are being fed by a 24/7 automatic dispensing machine providing free rice following a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, reported Vietnam+.
Hoang Tuan Anh, the Vietnamese entrepreneur behind the idea, designed the “rice ATM” to help “underprivileged people that have been impacted” by the shutdowns.
As of Tuesday, there are 265 cases of the virus in the country with zero deaths. The spread has been slowed through strict social distancing measures enforced by the Communist government.
The first ATM was installed in Ho Chi Minh City, a city in southern Vietnam. It dispenses a 3.3lb bag of rice to workers, many of whom have lost their jobs, as the government has shut down all non-essential businesses to slow the spread of the virus.
Vietnam+ said the rice ATM would operate until the end of June. Similar ATMs have been set up in other large metro areas across the country.
“This rice ATM has been helpful. With this one bag of rice, we can have enough for one day,” a 34-year-old mother of three children told Reuters. “Now, we only need other food. Our neighbors sometimes gave us some leftover food, or we have instant noodles.”
Reuters documents how the rice ATM works in several images:
24/7 rice ATM in Vietnam. h/t Reuters 
Women filling a bag with rice at ATM. h/t Reuters 
Man filling a bag with rice at ATM. h/t Reuters 
At least three rice ATMs can be seen at the one location. h/t Reuters 
Behind the scenes of rice stockpiled, being prepared to be placed into rice ATM hopper. h/t Reuters Considering the hunger crisis developing in the US since the economy crashed and 17 million people or so have lost their jobs, could rice ATMs, or maybe food ATMs, be next?
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 23:45 - An Alchemist Explains To Joe Sixpack: "COVID-19 Alters America's Hidden 'War' Forever"
An Alchemist Explains To Joe Sixpack: “COVID-19 Alters America’s Hidden ‘War’ Forever”
Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
A perception ‘gap’, so wide, you could sail a Cruise Liner through it.
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On the one hand, we have the looming spectre of recession; a major loss of jobs, and of earnings cratered (some 80% of the global workforce has seen their workplaces closed, or partly closed, as a result of the virus crisis),
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and on the other hand, the shocking non-sequitur of the U.S. Fed reporting that, despite the crisis, ‘the average consumer expectation for higher stock-market prices one year hence has now surged to 47.7%, the highest on record’.
ZeroHedge wryly comments, “Right … because with his job gone, his $400 dollars of emergency savings just spent on a roll of toilet paper, his bank preparing to foreclose on his home, all while a deadly virus lurks in every corner, all Joe Sixpack can think of – is how to get his ‘money on the sidelines’ into the stock market – since it is about to soar to all-time highs. And so, thanks to the Fed’s now grotesque interventions in all capital markets … as the economy slides into a depression, it is only ‘logical’ – we use the term loosely – that expectations of higher stock prices have never been higher.”
A freak result, devoid of serious consideration? No. Actually, the paradox rather neatly ties together what is implicit, from that which has been explicit in U.S. policy, both domestically, and in terms of its foreign policy.
In foreign policy – in the post-Covid era – we see tensions with China ratchetting higher. The U.S. already is engaged in a full-spectrum info-war to blame China for the virus (and to divert criticism from the U.S.’ lack of preparedness). China, recalling the earlier ‘Century of Humiliation’ visited on it by western states, and sensing some inherent racism in the taunts, inevitably is responding unusually assertively.
In a recent episode of soul-searching by an Obama National Security adviser, Ben Rhodes has written of GW Bush’s speech (in wake of 9/11): “Our War on Terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated”. He further defined the nature of the conflict by saying, “Americans are asking, ‘Why do they hate U.S.?’ They hate what we see right here in this chamber – a democratically elected government”. To have this unfathomable event framed in a way that fitted neatly into the American narrative that I’d grown up with in the 1980s and ’90s, was reassuring, Rhodes admits.
He later (in the article), says that he had been naïve, and swept along by his emotions, at seeing New York’s Twin Towers cascade down into dust – and was roused by Bush’s fiery rhetoric. Mr Sixpack probably feels similarly: He too, had been told that America’s economy was strong and booming, until the virus flew into it, despatching America’s economy into free fall. Shocked and angry, Joe probably hopes that America will ‘Give it to them’ (the Chinese that is, “they”, whom the narrative suggests were responsible for it).
That is the explicit – in conjunction with Trump’s Trade War, triggered ostensibly by China’s ‘hijacking’ of America’s commercial assets.
The ‘unsaid’ in this narrative is an old story of warfare. Destroy your enemy’s supply-lines to weaken him. In Britain in 1891, a small circle of the inner élite was formed, in secret, around Cecil Rhodes, the South African diamond millionaire, and Lord Rothschild. Its members aimed to renew the bond between Britain and the U.S., and they believed that ruling-class men of Anglo-Saxon descent, rightly sat at the top of a hierarchy built on predominance in trade, industry, banking and the exploitation of other lands (much as America’s élites do today).
This élite harbored a deep-rooted fear however, that unless they acted decisively, British power and influence across the world would be eroded, and replaced by that of a burgeoning Germany. In the years immediately after the Boer War, the decision was reached: The danger had to be addressed. And ‘war’ with Germany was planned: initially as a severing of its supply-lines; a propaganda ‘war’ casting Germans as child-eaters, and through diplomatic containment.
Narratives were harnessed to this objective, and the historian, Paul Vincent, tellingly recreates the atmosphere of jubilation that surrounded the outbreak of the war that was truly the fateful watershed of the twentieth century. H.G. Wells, for instance, gushed: “I find myself enthusiastic for this war against Prussian militarism … Every sword that is drawn against Germany is a sword drawn for peace.” Wells later coined the mendacious slogan “the war to end war”.
Britain, from the onset of war in 1914, imposed a tight naval blockade on Germany. By preventing food from being imported into the country, the British brought starvation and malnutrition to large masses of the German people. German submarine warfare was a desperate response to the British blockade—a blockade so effective that it threatened to force the Germans out of the war.
Fast-forward to today: The uprooting, and ‘re-patriating’ of China’s supply-lines back to America (given new fuel now, from the discovery that so many of America’s basic medical needs are ‘made in China’); seizing the commanding heights of technology; building out, militarily, into Space; mobilizing Europe against China; sanctioning China’s external sources of energy, and casting China as the virus-demon – all form today’s toolbox for what threatens the Anglo-élite.
Perhaps the resident ‘Alchemist’ at ZeroHedge, will take Joe Sixpack aside, and quietly say to him:
“Look, Joe, Covid-19 is merely a virus – an invisible organism. You can’t see it. You cannot ‘make war’ on it. When the British began imagining Germans as demonic monsters to be destroyed, they ended by not only destroying European culture, but also any commitment to the Ancient World’s notion of Virtù or Homeric heroic conduct.
In their place, successive generations embraced relativism, nihilism, brooding pessimism and resentment. And from the massive, warring, governments’ intrusions into every facet of civil society, arose the German Kriegssozialismus that was to become the model for the Bolsheviks. Again, as Vincent points out, “the British achieved control over their economy, unequalled by any of the other belligerent states: But everywhere state seizure of social power, was accompanied and fostered by propaganda lies, unparalleled in history, to that time”.
But why (asks Joe) did you smile so enigmatically when I said that I might buy stock (shares) on credit provided by my broker, to try to recoup my loss of earnings, as a result of the Coronavirus?
“Well”, says the Alchemist, “I was thinking of the ‘hidden ‘war’, and how a virus ‘out of nowhere’ has changed its course, for good”.
“What do you mean?”, queries Joe.
“You recall how you said that the U.S. economy was fundamentally the strongest in the world? Well that’s not quite true. Sometime ago, U.S. growth began to falter, and the Authorities opted for a debt-driven, consumer-led economy. Money was printed (as credit), and – normally – a lot of new money or debt in circulation, would have created inflation (such as we had during the Reagan Administration).
“How we managed this difficulty (apart from regularly re-jigging the price index), was by the so-called ‘China Trade’. China was then in the midst of its Industrial Revolution: they sent cheap products to Walmart. They effectively subsidised the middle classes, by giving U.S. a standard of living – access to cheap consumer-goods – which otherwise, we could not have afforded. And better still, they recirculated the monetary proceeds back to Wall Street, through buying U.S. Treasury bonds.
“The point here, was that in so doing (buying our debt), the Chinese allowed U.S. to shrink our created, new-money ‘footprint’, by exporting U.S. dollar debt out of harm’s way – to Emerging Markets. We have lent out $13 trillion in this way, thus repressing the domestic money footprint.
“These little ‘tricks’ were necessary to avoid inflation. But the inflation threat was mitigated also, in another way. All this new money was used to ‘financialise’ and leverage ‘everything’, from healthcare to education. They blew ‘bubbles’.
“This gave U.S. a simulacrum of ‘growth’ – but money-printing did not make the dollars available to you, I’m afraid, Joe. They got stuck in the financial system and were hoarded. You may have noticed that times were getting less rosy. But that was also a result of the U.S. business model, which has always prioritised capital formation and allowed labour costs to take the strain, or be eased-down by off-shoring labour costs to overseas.
“Ah, but what of the ‘hidden war’ that you spoke about. How does that fit in?”, asks Joe.
“You recall what I said earlier about Britain fearing that it could not stay at the pinnacle of international power forever? And seeing Germany somehow coming together, and building-out towards the East, in order in order to rival Britain? Well, China some years ago, stopped re-circulating the proceeds from the China Trade back to Wall Street, and instead started building-out towards Central Asia. It began spending the proceeds of the ‘China Trade’ building the Belt and Road, instead. As Germany had threatened to rival Britain, China was on a path to rival America.
“This posed a problem for the U.S.: firstly, how now to finance that China Trade; and secondly – not least – how to let the middle classes’ down gently, from the loss of their ‘China Trade’ ‘subsidy’, and avoid a ‘revolt’ inside the U.S. The blowing of the housing ‘bubble’ was intended – at least partly – as the offset.
“Equally problematic for U.S. was that the Chinese-Russian Eurasian project, was intended to channel trade – in a hugely important sphere, including energy and raw materials – not via our channel – the dollar – but rather, away from it. The dollar has been ‘squeezed’ by the de-dollarisation crowd since at least 2007.
“Hence all the ‘tricks’ in the toolbox that I outlined earlier. But it got worse: We have tried to keep all the oil sales in the world going through the dollar (sanctioning non-compliant producers, creating instability of supply etc.), but scattergun of sanctions just brought everybody into our jurisdiction, and made their financial systems subject to arbitrary U.S. Treasury threat. The world doesn’t want to do that anymore. The revolt grew.
“This, in essence, was the ‘hidden war’. And it was not going so well: The U.S. Treasury – simply – was running out of further bubbles to blow. Finally, it had resorted to blowing the ‘everything bubble’ to maintain the appearance of a strong economy; but as this structure became ever bigger, more leveraged, more complex and thus opaque – so it became less stable. The Coronavirus ‘pin’ popped the bubble – forcing Washington to deploy unlimited money-printing, and to bailout simply, ‘everything’ (which is the inevitable ‘logical’ response to an ‘everything bubble’, I would imagine)”, said the Alchemist.
“Then, what happens now” blurts out Joe, alarmed: “Will it end in war, like in the 19th Century?”
“Possibly, but probably, not”, responds the Alchemist calmly. “China is too powerful, but its economy inevitably will have been weakened too. More likely, America will continue the struggle against China (and Russia) through proxies, such as in Venezuela, or in the Middle East. (Iran though is a special case, on account of Israel).”
“At the end of WW1, European economies had been partly shut down by the war – and there were huge dollar debts owing to the U.S. Today, western economies are in partial lockdown due to Covid-19. And national debts today are similarly, more or less, at levels associated with (real) wartimes. And there is the $13 trillion – owed by emerging markets, and for which repayment in full, now must be viewed as problematic.
“After WWI, there was no debt forgiveness (no debt jubilee), just a pass-the-parcel practiced by the European states, as they tried to off-load their debts onto others. To find an exit, some hoped that austerity could fix the problem. But others did resort to ‘helicopter money’ (much as the U.S. is so doing, in its response to the Covid-19 lockdown). The gold-backed German Reichsmark became the unbacked Papermark. Initially, the Reich financed its war outlays, in large part, through issuing debt. But From May 1923, the quantity of Papermark started spinning out of control. Wholesale prices skyrocketed. By 1918, you could have bought 500 billion eggs for the same money you would have to spend, five years later, for just one egg. The Papermark was scrap value.
“With the collapse of the currency, unemployment was on the rise. Hyperinflation had impoverished the great majority of the German population, especially the middle class. People suffered from food shortages and cold. And political extremism was on the rise. This is a real risk, since all the earlier Treasury gigs to suppress inflation are no longer available.
“So what might Washington do – especially about the $13 trillion debt owed by EMs?”, pleaded Joe. “Why don’t they reform the system?”
“We don’t know what they will do”, sighed the Alchemist, “but the signals suggest that the Central Bankers are toying with a new global, reserve digital crypto-currency – against which EMs (and the U.S.) might devalue their currencies.
(The former governor of the Bank of England has hinted at something like this).
It might never happen. The type of ‘crypto’ the Central Bankers have in mind is one giving the authorities complete control: no real money, just a credit at the central bank with ATMs spitting out only what the central banks determine. And no, there will be no real reform – only ‘mumbleswerve’. But that – dirty money, lots and lots of it – is another story. Transparency is not an option.
“So, you would advise me not to buy stocks?”, asks Joe.
“No, I wouldn’t Joe. It seems that Trump now wants to bail out the American Middle Class in a different way. I know you, like many others, like to check out daily their 401K (stocks held as a future pension provision). And if it’s up, they are happy; if not they are gloomy. So Trump is trying to blast-up markets, with a wall of freshly printed money – and bailouts unlimited.
“The President has taken full control of the (nuclear) button that controls the global supply of money, in dollars. He has control of the Treasury which has completed its take-over and merger with the Fed. How things work is that Congress authorises $450 billion in a CARES bailout. The Treasury gives it to the Fed as its stake – and then instructs the Fed to multiply that stake, by a factor of ten (through printing fresh money). The $450 billion becomes $450 trillion and is handed over to a friendly Hedge Fund – Blackrock – to distribute. And the details of the distribution are all tied up in confidentiality clauses and opacity. Trump becomes a secular Croesus: he can ‘print’ as much as he wishes. Nothing to stop him. Will be able to contain himself?
Joe sighs.
“So, the question then, Joe, is – is it really feasible for the market to soar when maybe half the economy is semi-furloughed, and inherent value is plunging?
“As I mentioned earlier, money ‘printing’ does not always make dollars available. Liquidity is being provided to the U.S. banks: yes, but the problem is not so much liquidity; but one of potential default – especially on the $13 trillion owed overseas. So there is a massive scramble by those overseas debtors for dollars, with which to pay interest, and capital repayments, as they become due – and that means the dollar will soar (for now). It is the dollar strength that brings to world to its nadir (just like the 1930s).
It is the dollar system that is the really big problem. This virus will either prick the dollar bubble and collapse it in an inflationary spiral downwards – or, the CBs will be forced to find some other solution (though God knows what!)
Joe sighs again.
“I’m afraid Joe, that I may not have been much help to you – sorry”.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 23:25 -
- China Will Be Hit With Second Coronavirus Wave In November, Top Shanghai Clinical Expert Warns
China Will Be Hit With Second Coronavirus Wave In November, Top Shanghai Clinical Expert Warns
Over the past two weeks we have reported on several occasions that hidden behind Beijing’s endless barrage of lies that “all is well”, China – which rushed to reopen the country in March long before the epidemic was eradicated from the mainland – is starting to suffer a second wave of coronavirus despite the government solemn vows that all new cases are imported.
Needless to say, the last thing the global economy – which is mostly shut down everywhere but in China – can take is another Chinese lockdown.
And yet, that’s precisely what may be coming. According to Caixin, China could see another surge in coronavirus infections starting in November, one of the country’s highest-profile medical experts has said, as low numbers of new cases prompt governments nationwide to get people back to work.
While countries may be able to bring the deadly pandemic under adequate control by autumn, the coming winter may bring a “second wave” of infections in China and elsewhere, said Zhang Wenhong, who heads Shanghai’s Covid-19 clinical expert team and directs the infectious disease department at one of the city’s top hospitals.
Zhang’s comments come as Chinese officials gradually ease quarantine restrictions as part of efforts to revive the country’s economy. The East Asian nation, where the previously unknown virus was first detected last year, has seen numbers of daily new cases fall in recent weeks after recording thousands of Covid-19-related deaths and rolling out unprecedented lockdowns.
Zhang Wenhong, head of Shanghai’s Covid-19 clinical expert team Speaking Saturday during an online livestream broadcast by popular short-video platform Kuaishou, Zhang said China’s experience with disease control means any resurgence in infections later this year will be manageable, and not require a repeat of the dramatic measures taken to curb the virus’s initial spread.
“China won’t implement any shutdowns, and imported cases will certainly still make up the bulk of the outbreak,” Zhang said. In recent weeks, Beijing has been reporting that infected people traveling into China have made up the vast majority of the country’s new confirmed cases. Of course, Beijing has not been reporting that there were several thousand more urns mysteriously appearing in Wuhan than “official” deaths, so frankly when it comes to Chinese data, it’s all a lie.
Like other public health experts, Zhang expects that in the long term, countries will have to take a flexible approach to recurring outbreaks. “For a long time, epidemic prevention and control will go through periods of relaxation and tightening. It will be possible to live and work normally, but it probably won’t be possible to completely eradicate the outbreaks,” he said.
That means countries must continue to fight the pandemic together even after their initial domestic outbreaks have peaked, Zhang said, adding: “Only when all nations have properly controlled the disease will we all be able to live well again.”
It wasn’t clear just how China would fight its next pandemic without shutting down the entire nation, when that’s precisely what China did in February, and the result has been a historic surge in defaults and delinquencies which Beijing has yet to address even as China’s economy fails to reboot.
Aggressive testing and contact tracing, combined with immediate hospitalization of confirmed cases, is the secret to effective epidemic control, Zhang said, perhaps unaware that China did none of those and instead simply dragged the sick away to some unknown place while putting down whole towns and provinces under complete lockdown.
But what may be most troubling of all, is that if China indeed suffers its next wave in November, that is right around the time when Morgan Stanley predicted the US will be hit by a second coronavirus wave as well.
Incidentally, as we reported earlier today, according to BofA’s latest Fund Managers Survey, a second, more powerful and economically crippling wave of infections similar to the one observed during the Spanish Flu…
… is now the biggest “tail risk” facing investors.
In that case, investors are about to be hit with a perfect storm some time in November/December when not just China but also the US are shut down for a second time. We only bring this up for those who – after watching the recent market surge with a dumbfounded expression on their face – are considering what month to pin their calendar put spread on. Well, now you know.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 23:12 - Mapping The Wealthiest Person In Every US State In 2020
Mapping The Wealthiest Person In Every US State In 2020
There are different degrees of wealth that exist, even among the richest in America.
For example, a heavy-hitting millionaire might have the most impressive fortune in his or her home state – but, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins shows below, venture a few miles across the state border, and suddenly they become a small fish in a much bigger pond.
Today’s map comes to us from HowMuch.net, and it shows the incredible variance in the biggest fortunes on a state-by-state basis.
The Rich List, by State
Below is the full list containing the wealthiest person in every U.S. state, based on calculations by Forbes in early March 2020.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tops the list with a net worth of $117.1 billion in the state of Washington — meanwhile, the smallest fortune on the list is located in Alaska at just $0.3 billion.
While all of the names above are considered extraordinarily wealthy in their home states, there is still a magnitude of difference involved. The low end of the list ($0.3 billion) would need to multiply their fortune by 390 times to get up to the $117.1 billion Bezos level.
To put this another way, the same degree of difference exists between the median household wealth in the U.S. (~$100,000) and a multi-millionaire with $39 million to their name.
Rising and Falling Fortunes
The above figures were obtained prior to the COVID-19 market crash, which will surely impact the size of some of the fortunes listed here.
Who will be most and least impacted by the recent stock market turmoil?
Even though Jeff Bezos has most of his wealth tied up in Amazon stock, so far it has been relatively unaffected by the volatility. With more people staying home because of social distancing, orders on online platforms such as Amazon have exploded.
Similarly to Amazon, the heirs of the Walmart fortune in the Walton family — including Jim Walton, Alice Walton, and Rob Walton — are also seeing Walmart’s stock price hold relatively steady in the face of volatility. In fact, some analysts consider Walmart to be the ultimate “recession-proof” stock, as consumers flock to discount goods in poor economic times.
Warren Buffett is also an interesting case. Though the stock market has certainly disrupted the real-time value of his fortune, that’s not the game that Warren Buffett plays. In fact, he is known for waiting for times of crisis to deploy his cash, and has a significant stockpile of money ready for just this kind of situation.
Billionaires like Sheldon Adelson in Nevada or Philip Anschutz of Colorado might be singing a different tune than some of the other above magnates. Adelson, for example, owns a good chunk of the Las Vegas Strip, as well as casinos and hotels in Singapore and Macao. Unfortunately, tourism-related businesses are some of the hardest hit in the COVID-19 crash.
Meanwhile, Anschutz owns the Coachella Music Festival and stakes in many professional sports teams (LA Lakers, LA Kings, and multiple MLS teams), which have all been impacted by the cancellation of big events and gatherings throughout the country. Like many others, Anschutz is probably itching for things to get back to normal.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 23:05 - Social Distancing Efforts Are Now Cemented Into American Life
Social Distancing Efforts Are Now Cemented Into American Life
Authored by Justin McCarthy via Gallup.com,
Avoiding public transportation such as planes, buses, subways or trains (89%) and small gatherings (84%) has become the norm for more than eight in 10 Americans. Nearly as many Americans are avoiding public places such as stores and restaurants (78%) out of concern about COVID-19. A smaller majority of U.S. adults (61%) have stocked up on food, medical or cleaning supplies.
Majorities of Americans have reported taking each of these actions since Gallup polling conducted March 20-22, and figures for most measures have remained at about their current levels since then.
The latest results, from a probability-based Gallup Panel survey conducted online April 6-9, reflect Americans’ reported actions they have taken to socially distance themselves since late March.
Some notable differences by subgroup include:
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Adults aged 18 to 44 are a bit more likely than older adults to have taken each of these actions.
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Solid majorities within all major political party groups report having taken these measures — but Democrats are most likely to report having done so. The biggest differences between Democrats and Republicans are seen in the percentages saying they’ve avoided public places (86% among Democrats and 70% among Republicans) and avoided small gatherings (92% among Democrats and 74% among Republicans).
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Few differences exist across income groups in terms of actions they have taken — except for the percentages saying they’ve stocked up on food, medical or cleaning supplies. While at least six in 10 higher-income households (66%) and middle-income households (61%) report having stocked up, less than half of lower-income households (49%) say the same.
A majority of working adults (63%) say they have worked from home as a result of concerns about the pandemic — on par with the 59% to 63% recorded since March 23.
Meanwhile, one in five U.S. workers have stayed home and have been unable to work as a result of the outbreak. This figure has ranged from 19% to 25% since March 16.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 22:45 -
- "Black People Not Allowed" – China Denies Reports It Banned African Residents From Guangzhou
“Black People Not Allowed” – China Denies Reports It Banned African Residents From Guangzhou
Africans living in the Southern Chinese city of Guangzhou say they have been victims of racism, forced into quarantine, banned from shops, and evicted from rentals, following five Nigerians testing positive for COVID-19, in a district of the city known as “Little Africa.”
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports infections are centered around Kuangquan Street in Yuexiu district, “has raised the alarm in a city that has so far reported only 463 cases of COVID-19.”
Guangzhou is a major trading partner with countries in Africa and has a sizeable African population.
Local authorities have forced Africans into a 14-day quarantine and submit to random virus testing. There are even reports that some of these folks have been banned from shops and, in extreme cases, evicted from their rental properties.
The move by authorities has triggered a backlash by a Nigerian community group in Guangzhou, led by Maximus Ogbonna, who said,
“People are not happy because they’re being forced out of their apartments and into hotels where they have to pay [$30] a night for 28 days.”
Ogbonna is in a 14-day quarantine at his home. Police installed a camera above his front door to detect if he breaches the health order.
African diplomats sent a letter to China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying, “The Group of African Ambassadors in Beijing immediately demands the cessation of forceful testing, quarantine and other inhuman treatments meted out to Africans.”
Beijing rejected allegations of racism in Guangzhou, saying the accusations are nothing more than a Western ploy to undermine its image in this challenging time.
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Monday that the Chinese government “treats all foreign personnel in China equally, opposes any differential practices targeting specific groups of people, and has zero tolerance for discriminatory words and deeds.”
He said he stands with its “brothers” in Africa…
However, BBC Africa business editor Larry Madowo was upset with China’s response. He tweeted: “Chinese government’s statement on racist treatment of Africans in the country because of coronavirus is objectively terrible. It’s a word salad that says nothing, offers no apologies and provides air cover for racist officials.”
The Chinese government’s statement on racist treatment of Africans in the country because of coronavirus is objectively terrible. It’s a word salad that says nothing, offers no apologies and provides air cover for racist officials pic.twitter.com/noLBlAOObP
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) April 12, 2020
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On Saturday, the US consulate in Guangzhou advised African Americans to halt all travels to the city. It issued a security alert that read “police ordered bars and restaurants not to serve clients who appear to be of African origin,” and police are conducting mandatory testing and self-quarantine for “anyone with ‘African contacts.’“
AP News said local law enforcement in the city recently responded to rumors that “300,000 black people in Guangzhou were setting off a second epidemic,” which caused alarm. Officials later said the rumor was fake news… Or was it? Because as we’ve explained, the second wave of infections could be imminent, and China is likely to blame foreigners this time around instead of bat soup.
Twitter account Black Livity China posted a video on Saturday that showed a sign at a Guangzhou McDonald’s that read: “We have been informed that from now on black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant”; McDonald’s told Forbes once it heard of the sign, it “immediately removed the communication and temporarily closed the restaurant” as it was “not representative of our inclusive values.”
Again, for those who still doubt that Black people and particularly #AfricansinChina are being targeted we feel it is our duty to share this. A sign at a @McDonalds restaurant seems to make this perfectly clear pic.twitter.com/FaveKrdQHi
— Black Livity China (@BlackLivityCN) April 11, 2020
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China’s new virus cases hit a six-week high over the weekend, sparked mainly from travelers arriving from overseas, well that’s at least what Beijing is telling the world. It seems the Communist government is gearing up for the second infection wave and will likely blame foreigners, maybe specifically Africans in Guangzhou.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 22:25 - JPM Sees Global Profits "Cratering" 70% In Q2, No Recovery Until 2023
JPM Sees Global Profits “Cratering” 70% In Q2, No Recovery Until 2023
Late last week, we showed a chart from Credit Suisse which we described simply as “insanity” because it demonstrated that as the US careened into a depression, with GDP crashing and the unemployment rate soaring, between the latest Fed-driven surge in stocks and the collapse in earnings estimates, the PE multiple on the broader market had eclipsed the previous record of 19.0x set during the market’s February all time high, and had now hit a new all-time high of 19.4x. In other words, the market has never been more overvalued than it is right now.
Following today’s market surge, this disconnect got even greater because as earnings estimates fell further…
… stocks rose, and the latest PE multiple (on 2021 earnings mind you) is now a dot com bubble-eseque 24x.
That this it taking place as the global economy careens into the biggest contraction in generations is patently absurd, or would be if the Fed had not directly taken over markets to lift risk prices in a move that has gotten even the world’s largest asset manager openly admitting the only strategy left is to buy what the Fed is buying.
Meanwhile, with asset prices now completely disconnected from underlying earnings, the global economy can go to hell in a hand basket and none of the billionaires in control will mind – after all the value of their stock holdings is once again fast approaching all time high.
And speaking of hell in a hand basket, that’s precisely where the global economy is headed despite what the market may be signaling, because while global GDP is now expected to slump 14% in the first half of 2020 according to JPM, resulting in the US losing a “stunning and unprecedented 25 million workers and pushing the unemployment rate to a level last seen in the Great Depression”, a more important question is what happens to corporate profits, and it is here that the real pain – at least for those tasked to find a connection between profits and stock prices – comes because according to JPM, since global profits are levered to GDP and not to the Fed’s balance sheet, the largest US commercial bank (which itself reported the biggest plunge in its profits since the financial crisis) expects global profits to plunge by 70% in Q2 2020.
How does JPM get this number? As the bank’s economist Joseph Lipton explains, in the 2001 recession, global GDP growth slowed by 3.7%-pts. Over this same period, global corporate profit growth slumped roughly 62%-pts—a huge decline driven in part by the crash of the tech bubble. Next, in the global financial crisis, global GDP growth slumped 9.8%, while corporate profit growth tumbled nearly 68.5%-pts—a profit to GDP “beta” of seven.
In the current recession, JPM expects global GDP growth to collapse by the same 9.8%-points in the year through Q2 202 relative to the prior year. Despite the differing nature of the shocks and additional significant hit to the service sector now,
JPM still assumes a beta of seven—on par with the global financial crisis. This implies a plunge in corporate profits of roughly 70% in the year through 2Q20.While earnings will get support from fiscal and monetary policy, that support will come at a cost to tax payers according to JPM. Government debt will surge well over 10%-pts of GDP this year and rise further in 2021. Most policy actions are aimed at supporting aggregate demand, thereby indirectly cushioning private sector income loses. Still, some actions will directly boost profits through tax and credit policies. Nevertheless, despite the huge policy supports, JPM concludes that “the global profit loss will likely still be material” and from the bank’s top-down macro perspective, “global corporate profits look set to crater 72% in the year through 2Q20.”
It gets worse: while many expect a V- or even U shaped recovery, JPM admits that even with the projected strong subsequent rebound, global profits are expected to stand more than 20% below their forecasted pre-pandemic level at the end of 2021!
In other words, profits won’t recover their pre-pandemic baseline until some time in 2022 if not 2023, which is terrible news for Wall Street strategists as it means they will now have to apply forward multiples from 2023 for their optimistic recos to make any sense.
Overall, lost profits will cumulate to roughly three-fourths of one-year’s earnings by the end of 2021 (50% in 2020 and another 25% in 2021). The reason for JPM’s dour take: “with corporate debt set to balloon and a significant rise in bankruptcies increasingly likely, the overall deterioration of corporate sector balance sheets will likely be an ongoing legacy of the COVID-19 shock.“
JPM then admits that even this catastrophic forecast could prove to be optimistic as the projected path of profits is based on the historical response to nominal GDP growth; and while the relationship is fairly robust (Figure 1), such an exercise is rife with uncertainty given the unique nature of the COVID-19 shock as well as the policy response. As a result, the breadth of the shock to sectors that are usually less impacted by the cycle (namely services) suggests profit losses could be amplified. As such, “it remains likely that the path ahead will incorporate both a significant hit to profits and large rise in corporate debt outstanding.“
JPM saves the worst possible scenario for last: according to the bank’s economists, the breadth of this recession could also amplify the breadth of the hit to profits. Unlike the GFC, which began as a financial market shock in the US, the COVID-19 pandemic has spread globally. Consequently, each country is experiencing both a loss of external demand (typical for a global recession) and a unique hit to domestic demand from containment policies.
The same argument can be applied to the outlook across sectors. Although profits dropped 50-60% in each of the past two global recessions, the composition varied (aside from earnings in the energy sector, which dropped 42% peak to trough in both). The 2001 recession owed to the bursting of the tech bubble. Both IT and Telecom experienced massive declines in earnings: 64% and 40%, respectively. Tech was hit in the GFC but only about one-half as much as in 2001, while Telecom fared well. Rather, the GFC hit the financial sector hard. In contrast to the 2001 recession, when financial earnings were only down 19%, the GFC exacted a 72% toll on the sector. Materials were hit even more, down 80% compared to 29% in the 2001 recession. This discrepancy owes to the fact that the 2001 recession sparked the beginning of the housing bubble, which ended badly in the GFC.
Long story short, investment banks which have given up on 2020 as a forward PE anchor – because nobody knows what happens this year yet somehow everyone knows what will happen next year – and are instead using 2021 now, will soon have to go forward even more and within the next several months, we expect to see PE valuations models based on 2022 earnings and eventually 2023. At some point the market will realize that such a “valuation” – which is merely an excuse for not admitting the terminal disconnect between fundamentals and prices – is idiotic and absurd, and when that happens, the S&P will not only take out the March 24 lows but sprint right for the March 2009 “generational bottom.”
And a quick tangent: there is a possibility, if companies rush to make Q2 a kitchen sink quarter, that Q2 earnings will not even be positive. Which, in keeping with the idiocy of these centrally planned markets where the lower the EPS, the exponentially higher the PE, would mean that there is a distinct probability that – with the Fed’s blessing of course – the S&P500 could hit +∞ in the coming weeks.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 22:01 - Navy's Mercy Hospital Ship Off L.A. Now Battling Serious COVID-19 Outbreak Among Crew
Navy’s Mercy Hospital Ship Off L.A. Now Battling Serious COVID-19 Outbreak Among Crew
It was supposed to help relieve local California hospitals in the fight against coronavirus, but now it may have become a dangerous source of spreading the disease.
The emergency response ship USNS Mercy, docked since last month in the Port of Los Angeles, has been hit with a significant outbreak on board, with seven total crew members testing positive for COVID-19, the Navy said.
The USNS Mercy arrived at the Port of Los Angeles on March 27, 2020. Image via KTLA All of the infected have now been removed from the ship and put into isolation in an especially worrisome situation given the ship is geared toward housing and caring for vulnerable non-coronavirus patients to take the strain off of area hospitals.
People recently having contact with the newly positive crew members have also been put in isolation off the ship and are being monitored. In total the Mercy has 1,000 military personnel, assisted by a small civilian staff.
The Navy says the rise in infections aboard the Mercy will not stop its mission to receive medical patients: “The ship is following protocols and taking every precaution to ensure the health and safety of all crew members and patients on board,” a statement said. “This will not affect the ability for Mercy to receive patients at this time.”
It must be remembered that an entire nuclear aircraft carrier and its crew of nearly 5,000 was put out of commission off Guam last month amid a growing number of infections. The Theodore Roosevelt now has at least 585 sailors that tested COVID-19 positive, including the death of one sailor.
USNS Mercy previously departing from San Diego, via AP. Concerning the Mercy, there’s growing concern as to the source of infections which may trace back to major military hospitals in San Diego.
The sailors came aboard after serving at various Navy medical installations, including Naval Medical Center San Diego. The hospital is one of two military medical facilities in San Diego County seeing service members who seek treatment and testing for COVID-19. The other is Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton.
Because some medical staff rotated through the COVID-19 screening area at Naval Medical Center San Diego prior to deploying on the Mercy, one sailor told the Union-Tribune, there is concern on board that the crew brought the virus with them when they left San Diego.
The Navy has actually been the most severely impacted by the pandemic, as numbers showed that were made public prior to the Pentagon clamping down on public Covid-19 military infections reporting.
A similar floating hospital, the USNS comfort in New York, has also witnessed a handful of crew members catch COVID-19, with the Navy reporting at least three at the start of the week. The Comfort was originally intended to house non-coronavirus patients as NYC facilities dealt with rising cases, however, after local hospitals were overwhelmed the ship switched to taking on coronavirus patients.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 21:45 - COVID-19 & The War On Cash: What Is Behind The Push For A Cashless Society?
COVID-19 & The War On Cash: What Is Behind The Push For A Cashless Society?
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
Cash may well become a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic…
As these COVID-19 lockdowns drag out, more and more individuals and businesses are going cashless (for convenience and in a so-called effort to avoid spreading coronavirus germs), engaging in online commerce or using digital forms of currency (bank cards, digital wallets, etc.). As a result, physical cash is no longer king.
Yet there are other, more devious, reasons for this re-engineering of society away from physical cash: a cashless society—easily monitored, controlled, manipulated, weaponized and locked down—would play right into the hands of the government (and its corporate partners).
To this end, the government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been waging a subtle war on cash for some time now.
What is this war on cash?
It’s a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.
According to economist Steve Forbes,
“The real reason for this war on cash – start with the big bills and then work your way down – is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”
Much like the war on drugs and the war on terror, this so-called “war on cash” is being sold to the public as a means of fighting terrorists, drug dealers, tax evaders and now COVID-19 germs.
Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with the ultimate method to track, control you and punish you.
In much the same way that Americans have opted into government surveillance through the convenience of GPS devices and cell phones, digital cash—the means of paying with one’s debit card, credit card or cell phone—is becoming the de facto commerce of the American police state.
Not too long ago, it was estimated that smart phones would replace cash and credit cards altogether by 2020. Right on schedule, a growing number of businesses are adopting no-cash policies, including certain airlines, hotels, rental car companies, restaurants and retail stores. In Sweden, even the homeless and churches accept digital cash.
Making the case for “never, ever carrying cash” in lieu of a digital wallet, journalist Lisa Rabasca Roepe argues that cash is inconvenient, ATM access is costly, and it’s now possible to reimburse people using digital apps such as Venmo. Thus, there’s no longer a need for cash.
“More and more retailers and grocery stores are embracing Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay,” notes Roepe.
“PayPal’s app is now accepted at many chain stores including Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Home Depot, and Office Depot. Walmart and CVS have both developed their own payment apps while their competitors Target and RiteAid are working on their own apps.”
So what’s the deal here?
Despite all of the advantages that go along with living in a digital age—namely, convenience—it’s hard to imagine how a cashless world navigated by way of a digital wallet doesn’t signal the beginning of the end for what little privacy we have left and leave us vulnerable to the likes of government thieves and data hackers.
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First, when I say privacy, I’m not just referring to the things that you don’t want people to know about, those little things you do behind closed doors that are neither illegal nor harmful but embarrassing or intimate. I am also referring to the things that are deeply personal and which no one need know about, certainly not the government and its constabulary of busybodies, nannies, Peeping Toms, jail wardens and petty bureaucrats.
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Second, we’re already witnessing how easy it will be for government agents to manipulate digital wallets for their own gain. For example, civil asset forfeiture schemes are becoming even more profitable for police agencies thanks to ERAD (Electronic Recovery and Access to Data) devices supplied by the Department of Homeland Security that allow police to not only determine the balance of any magnetic-stripe card (i.e., debit, credit and gift cards) but also freeze and seize any funds on pre-paid money cards. In fact, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment for police to scan or swipe your credit card.
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Third, the war on cash is about giving the government the ultimate control of the economy and complete access to the citizenry’s pocketbook.
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Fourth, every technological convenience that has made our lives easier has also become our Achilles’ heel, opening us up to greater vulnerabilities from hackers and government agents alike.
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Fifth, if there’s one entity that will not stop using cash for its own nefarious purposes, it’s the U.S. government. Cash is the currency used by the government to pay off its foreign “associates.”
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Sixth, this drive to do away with cash is part of a larger global trend driven by international financial institutions and the United Nations that is transforming nations of all sizes, from the smallest nation to the biggest, most advanced economies.
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Finally, short of returning to a pre-technological, Luddite age, there’s really no way to pull this horse back now that it’s left the gate. While doing so is near impossible, it would also mean doing without the many conveniences and advantages that are the better angels, if you will, of technology’s totalitarian tendencies: the internet, medical advances, etc.
To our detriment, we have virtually no control over who accesses our private information, how it is stored, or how it is used. Whether we ever had much control remains up for debate. However, in terms of our bargaining power over digital privacy rights, we have been reduced to a pitiful, unenviable position in which we can only hope and trust that those in power will treat our information with respect.
Clearly, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have come full circle, back to a pre-revolutionary era of taxation without any real representation.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 21:25 -
- Vince McMahon's XFL Has Shuttered And Filed For Bankruptcy…Again
Vince McMahon’s XFL Has Shuttered And Filed For Bankruptcy…Again
This time it was supposed to be different.
But it ended the same: with Vince McMahon signing his name on a bankruptcy declaration for the XFL.
The league’s “comeback” season has ended in unceremonious fashion as the coronavirus pandemic has forced the league to once again shutter. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing was put into process days after the league laid off its employees and revealed that it had no plans for a 2021 season.
McMahon executed his written consent for bankruptcy as the sole voting member on Sunday, according to Law & Crime. The document, filed for McMahon’s Alpha Entertainment, LLC, reads:
“The undersigned, being the sole voting Member of Alpha Entertainment LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (the ‘Company’), hereby adopts the following resolutions, by written consent, effective as of the date hereof,” the filing began. “WHEREAS, the Company desires and has requested that John Brecker and Vincent K. McMahon each serve as a Liquidating Agent (as defined in the LLC Agreement) of the Company and, in such capacity, to commence a case (the ‘Chapter 11 Case’) under chapter 11 of title 11 of the United States Code (the ‘Bankruptcy Code’) and manage the business and affairs of the Company during the Chapter 11 Case.”
According to the LA Times, the league’s coaches rounded out the list of its largest creditors. “The creditors include seven of the league’s eight head coaches, led by Bob Stoops of the Dallas Renegades ($1 million) and Marc Trestman of the Tampa Bay Vipers ($777,777). Winston Moss, who served as coach and general manager of the Los Angeles Wildcats, is owed $583,333.”
“Unfortunately, as a new enterprise, we were not insulated from the harsh economic impacts and uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 crisis,” the XFL said in a statement.
“It’s done and it’s not coming back,” one person was quoted as saying.
Here’s a look at the XFL during the fonder days of the 2020 season:
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 21:05 - Aussie Cops Use Surveillance Helicopter To Track Down Remote Campers
Aussie Cops Use Surveillance Helicopter To Track Down Remote Campers
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
Police in Tasmania are using a surveillance helicopter to track down people camping in remote locations in violation of coronavirus lockdown laws.
“Tasmania Police officers conducting aerial surveillance around the state, including on the North-West Coast located several campsites where people were directed to leave and return home,” reports The Advocate.
“When u social distance so well that the cops have to find u by helicopter,” tweeted Twitter user @PetiteNicoco.
When u social distance so well that the cops have to find u by helicopter pic.twitter.com/iOmd0AOqCf
— Petite Nicoco (@PetiteNicoco) April 12, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
17 people across the state were charged with a lockdown offense in a period of just 24 hours over the Easter weekend.
The Westpac Rescue Helicopter “landed near campsites which were viewed from the air” to interrogate campers in the region. Where the chopper couldn’t land, officers were dispatched to the area on foot.
Commander Rob Blackwood called the campers “selfish” for endangering other people during the COVID-19 pandemic despite them literally being around no other people.
“Covert and marked police vehicles, and the Westpac Rescue Helicopter, will continue to undertake patrols around the state, so if you’re away from your primary residence you can expect police to stop and speak to you about your movements,” Tasmania Police said on their Facebook page.
The practice was denounced by many as absurd overkill given that the campers are hardly posing a threat to anybody.
“That seems like a waste of resources,” responded one Twitter user.
“You will do as commanded, even if you’re already doing it in the woods. Compliance is nonoptional. The state knows what is best, citizen,” commented another.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 20:45 - Second Wave Of Coronavirus Layoffs Claiming Workers Who Thought They Were Safe
Second Wave Of Coronavirus Layoffs Claiming Workers Who Thought They Were Safe
When the United States went into a virtual lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the effects were devastating. Within a three week period, nearly 17 million people have filed for unemployment, while modern day ‘bread lines’ are getting longer each day across the country.
The initial victims of the lockdown were the most financially vulnerable; restaurant workers, retail employees, and other low-paying jobs in industries which were immediately impacted by a lack of foot traffic.
Now, a second wave of layoffs is hitting those who thought they were safe, according to the Wall Street Journal. White collar workers working from home are being laid off by companies suffering from dismal sales. Law firms are cutting hours and eliminating positions as court systems and legal actions have ground to a near-standstill. And goverment who assumed their jobs would be safe are being furloughed amid city and state budget shortfalls. Even healthcare workers who aren’t directly fighting the pandemic are finding themselves without work.
And according to the Journal, there’s more pain in the cards.
The consensus of 57 economists surveyed this month by The Wall Street Journal is that 14.4 million jobs will be lost in the coming months, and the unemployment rate will rise to a record 13% in June, from a 50-year low of 3.5% in February. Already nearly 17 million Americans have sought unemployment benefits in the past three weeks, dwarfing any period of mass layoffs recorded since World War II.
Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist of Oxford Economics, projects 27.9 million jobs will be lost, and industries beyond those ordered to close will account for 8 to 10 million, a level of job destruction on a par with the 2007-09 recession.
Oxford Economics, a U.K.-based forecasting and consulting firm, projects April’s jobs report, which will capture late-March layoffs, will show cuts to 3.4 million business-services workers, including lawyers, architects, consultants and advertising professionals, as well as 1.5 million nonessential health-care workers and 100,000 information workers, including those working in the media and telecommunications.
“The virus shock does not discriminate across sectors as we initially thought,” Mr. Daco said. –WSJ
And where jobs haven’t been lost, hours have been reduced across many sectors:
Tales of economic chaos
The Journal interviewed a diverse sampling of professionals, who shared what they’re seeing within their industries.
“Customers who paid like clockwork for 10-plus years are suddenly late,” said Gary Cuozzo – owner of Connecticut-based web host and developer, ISG Software Group, who says he’s received just a few hundred dollars in accounts receivable in recent weeks from customers which include manufacturers, retailers and nonprofits.
Gary Cuozzo, owner of ISG Software Group, stopped drawing a salary to keep his business afloat. Cuozzo says he stopped drawing a salary several weeks ago and has filed for unemployment – ‘essentially volunteering’ while working from home so his business can remain afloat.
“We have no software projects,” he said. “Everything is on hold.”
Those employed in industries where working from home is feasible are facing widespread layoffs, said ZipRecruiter labor economist Julia Pollak. The recruiting site itself laid off more than 400 of its 1,200 full-time employees at the end of March.
A survey of visitors to the job-search site found 39% employed in business and professional services reported they were laid off, nearly the same rate as respondents in retail and wholesale trade. (Active job seekers are more likely to be laid off than the average American.) Among the respondents who still had jobs, many in white-collar industries said their hours were cut. –WSJ
“Any company that had been planning to open a second location, that hired an architect, an office designer, and contractor—they’re not opening that location this year and those people now won’t have jobs. Any company planning to go public this year, that hired accountants, consultants, PR professionals—they’re laying off all those teams,” said Pollak, the economist.
Hospitals have been cutting elective surgical procedures and routine care across the country in order to free up resources (while many have been filmed virtually empty, and nurses have enough time on their hands to make tiktok videos all day).
“In a sense we kind of sacrificed that revenue for a public-health interest,” said Manchester, NH cardiologist Daniel Philbin of the New England Heart and Vascular Institute. “The hospital systems really are facing an incredible crunch because of this—the longer the curve gets pushed out, the more they face difficult decisions about employment.”
Emily Hill thought her job as a dental assistant was safe, being in an in-demand field and employed through the military. She worked as a contractor at a dental clinic on Fort Hood in Texas.
“I always felt untouchable,” she said. “This really puts you in your place.” –WSJ
Law firms, meanwhile, have been cutting staff and slashing pay due to a stark lack of business, as courts are virtually paused and new deals – which typically require lawyers – just aren’t happening.
“Law firms are not going to be the top of the priority,” said Timothy Lupinacci – CEO of 700-layer firm Baker Donelson, which has some 20 offices in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic region. They’ve reduced compensation for staff and associates by 20%.
Meanwhile, New York City-based Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, a 400-attorney firm specializing in financial services has slashed salaries by 25% – and partners aren’t currently getting paid at all.
Economic analysts, meanwhile, are basically all over the place when it comes to predicting when the labor market will bounce back, as it all depends – of course – on when this much-promised vaccine will materialize, and when the economy can ‘open back up’ successfully.
The biggest wild card in the jobs outlook is how long it will take for jobs to bounce back, which depends heavily on how long the pandemic and social-distancing measures last. The consensus among the economists surveyed by the Journal is for employment to return to its February 2020 level in 27 months, but views varied widely.
Economist Amy Crews Cutts, of AC Cutts & Associates LLC, expects the labor market to take 5½ years to fully bounce back. The sheer scale of job cuts so far, even if they don’t worsen further, are “an extraordinary number of jobs to reverse and put back into the economy,” she said.
Still, post-lockdown prospects aren’t great either according to some – as many industries are going to enter their own cyclical recessions (or worse).
“Industries that are subject to cyclical cycles, like finance, real estate and manufacturing, are likely to have layoffs,” said Moody’s Analytics economis Adam Kamins, who thinks that about half the jobs lost to the pandemic will be regained by the end of the summer.
“The lockdown may be over, but there’s likely to be a prolonged period of stagnation.”
Read the rest of the report here.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 20:25 - NY Fed Head Trader: "The Scale Of Our Asset Purchases Has Been Unparalleled"
NY Fed Head Trader: “The Scale Of Our Asset Purchases Has Been Unparalleled”
In remarks delivered before the Foreign Exchange Committee of the NY Fed, Lorie Logan, who is the head of the Fed’s open markets, i.e., the head trader of the world’s biggest hedge fund, commented on the Fed’s unprecedented intervention, and takeover, of capital markets, saying that “the scale of these purchases has been unparalleled, totaling about $1.6 trillion in the past four weeks“, something we showed last week when laid out the hundreds of billions in weekly purchases in the past 4 weeks, eclipsing the intervention during the financial crisis by orders of magnitude, as follows:
- April 8: $$272BN
- April 1: $557BN
- March 25: $586BN
- March 17:$356BN
Then again, hearing it from the person who made it all possible is so much more fulfilling.
Logan than explain why the Fed decided it was in America’s best interest to nationalize the capital markets, saying that “supporting smooth market functioning does not mean restoring every aspect of market functioning to its level before the coronavirus crisis. Some aspects of liquidity—especially aspects related to transactions costs and market depth—are importantly affected by fundamental factors such as how the current extraordinary uncertainty about the economic outlook influences trading behavior. These aspects of market functioning may not return all the way to pre-crisis levels for some time, even as our purchases slow.”
That’s the spin, the reality is that liquidity is collapsing in the Treasury market because of the Fed’s purchases, which is soaking up so many bonds it now owns up to 50% and in some cases more, of any given Cusip, especially those with longer maturities.
Lorie Logan, Head of Market Operations Logan then had some disappointing words for those who are hoping the Fed will push the VIX back to 10: “supporting smooth market functioning” does not “mean eliminating all volatility. In well-functioning markets, prices will respond rapidly and efficiently to new information.” Except, of course, when the information is negative and the Fed has to buy everything that is being sold as it just did in the past 3 weeks. But then again, this is the same Fed which thinks the US population is too dumb to understand what is going on.
Some words of advice for Ms. Logan: the people are no longer dumb and they understand precisely what the Fed is doing. Perhaps to preempt the populist anger that will soon target the Fed itself, Logan then elaborated by saying that “during the unprecedented disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a great deal of new information arrives every day about the outlook for specific markets, such as housing, and for the economy as a whole. These changes in the outlook should move the Treasury and agency MBS markets irrespective of the Federal Reserve’s purchases.”
Right, they “should”, which is probably why the Fed had has been the buyer of first, last and only resort, and why even the $7 trillion BlackRock is no longer even shy to admit that the only trade in this farce of a market (as Howard Marks discussed) is to front- or back-run the Fed: “We’ll Just Buy Whatever Central Banks Are Buying“‘
Finally, in one desperate attempt to deflect the coming shitstorm that will – we hope – finally end the Fed, Logan tried to deflect blame stating that “today’s crisis is different, having originated outside the financial system, in an enormous challenge to public health.” Which is, of course, also a lie, because had companies not spent $4 trillion on buybacks in the past 4 years and instead had allocated the money to a “fat tail” fund, none of the insanity observed in the past month would have happened.
As if a whole new level of pandering to the unwashed peasants, the NY Fed head trader then went so far as to lie that the Fed had learned some lesson in all of this:
Yet the lesson of the previous crisis still applies, and the Federal Reserve has taken it to heart in responding to the recent stresses in funding markets, Treasury and MBS markets, and credit markets.
Translation: last time we bailed out just the banks and people were angry. This time we “learned our lesson”, and in addition to bailing out the banks and the mega corporations that are now swallowing all of America’s small and medium businesses whole, we will pretend to be bailing out main street by handing out taxpayers a check for $1,200 per month. Enough to pay about a third of the rent thanks to the latest massive housing bubble that the Fed has inflated.
But in the end none of this matters. What does matter? Why getting stocks to new all time highs of course:
By acting quickly and forcefully to support all of these markets at once, we have been able to stabilize market conditions.
Well that’s just wonderful, because who cares about a second depression and the total collapse in cash flow if bonds are trading at par in a complete disconnect with fundamentals, and TSLA is up 100% in the past week because the company can no longer pay its rent.
Lorie’s conclusion:
Many challenges surely lie ahead for the economy and financial markets. But the past month demonstrates that the Federal Reserve will use its tools aggressively to keep markets working so that credit can flow to households, businesses, and state and local governments throughout our economy.
Translation: the Fed will buy as many trillions more as it needs to completely disconnect all prices from fundamentals and create a Potemkin Village economy so vast, the USSR will be spinning in its grave.
One last point: to keep track of just how “well” the Fed is doing in its true endgame mission – to crush the dollar and hyperinflate away the debt – just keep an eye on gold. It will tell you all you need to know.
Logan’s full speech can be found here.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 20:05 - New Study Exposes More Evidence That Summer Won't Stop The Coronavirus
New Study Exposes More Evidence That Summer Won’t Stop The Coronavirus
One of the public’s last great hopes as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases nears the 2 million mark is that the onset of summer in the northern hemisphere will help defeat the virus as warmer temperatures make life for the virus more hostile, hampering the virus’s ability to spread.
However, it’s looking increasingly likely that the novel coronavirus is stronger than its predecessor, SARS, when it comes to resisting intense heat. One recent study of additional steps that could be taken to protect lab technicians handling samples of the virus found that samples of the virus can survive when exposed to temperatures as high as 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit).
That would seem to preclude the onset of summer as a potential ‘miracle cure’, while also suggesting that the outbreaks in Africa and South America might be worse than they appear, since the theories that high temperatures slow the virus’s spread don’t appear nearly as convincing.
According to SCMP, the French scientists who conducted the experiment had to heat samples of the sample, strains of the virus mixed with various animal proteins (to mimic real-world conditions in the test tube), to nearly 90 degrees Celsius (210 degrees Fahrenheit) to completely kill the virus.
Professor Remi Charrel and colleagues at the Aix-Marseille University in southern France heated the virus that causes Covid-19 to 60 degrees Celsius (140 Fahrenheit) for an hour and found that some strains were still able to replicate.
The scientists had to bring the temperature to almost boiling point to kill the virus completely, according to their non-peer-reviewed paper released on bioRxiv.org on Saturday. The results have implications for the safety of lab technicians working with the virus.
The team in France infected African green monkey kidney cells, a standard host material for viral activity tests, with a strain isolated from a patient in Berlin, Germany. The cells were loaded into tubes representing two different types of environments, one “clean” and the other “dirty” with animal proteins to simulate biological contamination in real-life samples, such as an oral swab.
After the heating, the viral strains in the clean environment were thoroughly deactivated. Some strains in the dirty samples, however, survived.
The French researchers found that using the higher temperature could help solve the problem, heating the samples to 92 degrees Celsius (~210 degrees Fahrenheit) for 15 minutes could render the virus completely inactive. However, using these high temperatures as part of disinfection protocols for lab technicians could severely fragment the virus’ RNA, potentially scrambling the results of more sensitive tests.
It’s just the latest curve ball that the coronavirus has thrown at researchers since the outbreak began in Wuhan.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 19:45 - Gold Miners Now Deemed "Essential" In Canada
Gold Miners Now Deemed “Essential” In Canada
Authored by Neils Christensen via Kitco.com,
Mining companies with operations in Quebec are wasting no time jumping back into action after the provincial government announced Monday night that mining is now considered an essential service and operations can restart Wednesday.
While miners in Quebec will be heading back to work, the government has also put in place new work policies. According to the new provincial guidelines, mining companies will have to reduce the number of fly-ins and fly-outs from their mining sites and they are encouraged to use more local workers.
Under a new work regime, miners will see their time at work sites extended to 28 days instead of 14.
To maintain social-distancing guidelines, companies will also have to use more chartered planes and shuttle buses to transport their workers
It has not taken mining companies long to react to the news. On Tuesday, Yamana Gold Inc. announced that it was going to restart operations at the Canadian Malartic mine in Abitibi, Canada’s largest gold mine. Yamana operates Malartic in a 50/50 joint venture with Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.
“The resumption of mining activity will occur over a period of several weeks with full attention to the health and safety of returning employees, contractors and suppliers,” Yamana said.
Along with Malartic, Agnico Eagle said that it is also restarting operations at its LaRonde Complex and Goldex mine.
Eldorado Gold Corp. also said in a statement Tuesday that it is preparing to restart operations at its Lamaque mine in northern Quebec.
“We are pleased to resume operations at Lamaque,” said George Burns, president and chief executive officer of Eldorado.
“With the safety measures we have put in place at all our sites, we are confident that we can adapt our business and continue to create long-term value for our stakeholders.”
Some of the new safety protocols Quebec companies will implement include temperature checks, mandatory social distancing, enhanced sanitation and disinfecting.
Meanwhile, Iamgold Corp. said it will restart its Westwood Gold Mine in Quebec on Wednesday.
“Ramp-up activities will take approximately one week, with employees being trained on new procedures and sanitary measures, including adjusted work schedules and transport, physical distancing and protective equipment,” Iamgold said.
“Protecting the health and safety of our workforce is critical for the successful resumption of mining activities at Westwood.”
Quebec mines were shut down March 23 as the Quebec government closed all non-essential services to try to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of April 13, 360 people have died in Quebec as a result of the coronavirus.
The government’s decision to allow miners to operate again comes at a good time for the sector, according to some analysts. Gold prices have broken through critical resistance and are trading near fresh seven-year highs. June gold futures at last traded at $1,768.60 an ounce, up 0.41% on the day.
Meanwhile, mining companies are enjoying lower input costs as energy prices have not seen a sustained recovery after falling to an 18-year low last month. May West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices last traded at $21.46 a barrel down more than 4% on the day.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/14/2020 – 19:25
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