- UK Covid-19 Could Last Until Spring 2021 With Millions Hospitalized
UK Covid-19 Could Last Until Spring 2021 With Millions Hospitalized
A public health document viewed by The Guardian says the Covid-19 outbreak could last until spring 2021 and lead to millions hospitalized.
The secret document was written by the Public Health England (PHE) reveals the virus crisis could be sticking around for another 12 months and infect upwards as 80% of Britons over time.
The document says that: “As many as 80% of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15% (7.9 million people) may require hospitalisation.”
UK Covid-19 Cases And Deaths (as of March 15) Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty recently said the worst-case scenario has modeled 80% of the population “are expected” to contract the virus.
Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, told The Guardian that if the public were to hear that the virus would be disrupting their lives for one year, then they would be “really upset” and “pretty worried about that.”
“A year is entirely plausible. But that figure isn’t well appreciated or understood,” added Hunter.
“I think it will dip in the summer, towards the end of June, and come back in November, in the way that usual seasonal flu does. I think it will be around forever, but become less severe over time, as immunity builds up,” he added.
As we noted Sunday, the UK likely missed the containment window to implement social distancing policies that would flatten the curve to slowdown infections, suggesting the country could see an exponential rise in Covid-19 cases over the next month, sort of like what’s happening in Italy at the moment.
It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the military could be deployed to keep order at supermarkets, hospitals, and in the streets, as Britons could soon find out that virus disruptions may extend into early 2021.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 03/17/2020 – 02:45 - War Games, Covid-19, And NATO's Dis-jointed Flight Forward
War Games, Covid-19, And NATO’s Dis-jointed Flight Forward
Authored by Brian Gray via The Canadian Patriot,
Presently NATO is in the initial stages of military operations called Defender-Europe 20. The 40,000 soldier strong war game exercise includes roughly 20,000 American troops and accompanying weaponry. This witnesses the largest deployment of US personnel in Europe since 1983 Operation Re-forger exercises in the height of the Cold War era. Dutifully, Canadian forces based in Latvia are poised to play their willing role in this exercise. Despite some amusing logistical glitches in Poland (no re-fuelling stations, no bivouac for US troops) Operation Defender is scheduled to run into June. There is some speculation that the contagion of the COVID-19 virus, much to the chagrin of the NATO brass, may cause some re-assessment of this operation.
So why exactly do the brain trusts of this British/US-led bully boy global army deem this silly stomping of boots and rattling of sabres necessary?
Because of course… as the leaders of the desperate, morally and financially bankrupt so-called rules-based western liberal democracies and the lying legacy media have been shouting for the last two decades… that evil thug and dictator Vladimir Putin and his “Red Army” is intent on invading and conquering Europe and world domination.
In a press service sidebar blurb found in sundry print media, according to NORAD commander US General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, Mad Vlad and his evil Kremlin cohorts have designs of military dominance of the arctic and thus “…an avenue through which Russia can quickly attack…” US targets.
O’Shaughnessy should cause Irish folk everywhere to be embarrassed.
In the initial stages of Defender 20 at the Strategic Command Centre in Nebraska, US Defence Sect. Esper participated in computer scenarios simulating nuclear exchanges between the U.S. and Russia.
In statements made to the US Senate earlier this month, General Tod Wolters, the commander of US European Command and head of all NATO armed forces has fully embraced what he defined as a “flexible first strike” doctrine which exposes the US and allies’ “nuclear deterrence” policy a sham.
When the commander of NATO makes such insane statements at the same time that NATO is flexing its military muscle on Russia’s border, the risk of inadvertent nuclear war is real.
The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad is NATO’s main target. All economic, geopolitical and military policy that both Russia and China have adopted over the last two decades, have been a direct reaction to unwarranted and unjustified British/US/NATO aggression.
In an interview on a Russian TV station Putin stated,
“We are not going to fight against anyone. We are going to create conditions so that nobody wants to fight against us.”
The YouTube video of Vladimir Putin’s comments made at the 2007 Munich Security Conference should be earnestly heeded.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 03/17/2020 – 02:00 - Execs At Over 20 Companies Agree To Forfeit, Freeze, Or Cut Salaries Or Bonuses Amid Virus Fallout
Execs At Over 20 Companies Agree To Forfeit, Freeze, Or Cut Salaries Or Bonuses Amid Virus Fallout
Believe it or not, corporate executives are reportedly slashing some of their pay as a result of the coronavirus.
Despite what Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would have you believe about the rich, they apparently have at least some sympathy for other human beings: executives and boards at more than 20 companies agreed to cut, freeze or forfeit their salaries or bonuses in recent weeks.
The companies include those who work in travel, airport baggage and jewelry sales, among others, according to Bloomberg.
Some cuts were made as part of broader cuts due to industries like travel collapsing – but other executives cut voluntarily as a show of solidarity with their employees.
Michael Maslansky, CEO of communications advisory firm maslansky + partners said: “Whenever a CEO asks for concessions in times of financial strain, the first question is almost always: ‘Are you feeling the pain, too?’ The only way to make an employee-wide pay cut possible is if management leads by example.”
The most prominent reductions have come from airlines. Thai airways said senior executives would surrender 25% of their salaries for 6 months. El Al Israel Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, Australia’s Qantas Airways, U.K.-based Virgin Atlantic, Sweden’s SAS and Cebu Air have all followed suit.
United will see its top two executives give up their salaries until midyear and Southwest’s CEO will take a cut of 10%. Robin Hayes of JetBlue will surrender 20% of base pay. Delta’s CEO is also reportedly considering a reduction.
The concessions won’t have a major impact on each company’s financials, nor will they have a profound impact for most executives’ quality of life.
Robin Ferracone, CEO of executive-compensation advisory firm Farient Advisors said: “Widespread cuts probably hurt people lower down in the organization more than the people at the top since a significant part of compensation at the top is comprised of incentives, which presumably are not cut.”
JetBlue’s Robin Hayes And it’s not just airlines feeling the pain. Singapore’s national post office will cut and freeze pay for upper lever managers and Hong Kong based jeweler Chow Tai Fook is making its directors take a 30% pay cut through April.
Travel agencies in Australia, like Helloworld Travel, are following suit. Along with Webjet, they are cutting pay for their top executives as much as 30%.
Senior executives at two companies in Singapore that provide baggage handling and airport security are also taking cuts of up to 15%.
Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Carlos Brito was denied a bonus in the second half of 2019 due to coronavirus zapping the company’s profit growth. He commented: “If you own a bakery and don’t make any money one year, you don’t get a bonus — this is the same thing. After a bad year, that’s when you see leaders rising to the occasion.”
Maslansky conlcuded: “CEOs are acutely aware of how the market and public react to their peers. So when the first one goes, others quickly follow.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 03/17/2020 – 01:00 - Event 201 Unfolds: Covid-19 Action Platform = Global Government
Event 201 Unfolds: Covid-19 Action Platform = Global Government
In late January we noted Event 201’s significance:
Only three months ago, John Hopkins, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum (a hive of self-professed globalists) ran a “pandemic simulation” called “Event 201” specifically focused on Coronavirus. Not Ebola, or Swine Flu or even Avian Flu – but CORONAVIRUS. The simulation features the spread of coronavirus in South America, blamed on animal to human transmission (pigs). The conclusion of the exercise was that national governments were nowhere near ready, scoring 40 out of 100 on their preparedness scale. The simulation projected over 65 million deaths worldwide.
Event 201 played out almost exactly as it has been in China today. Some very disingenuous or perhaps rather stupid people have been arguing that this kind of thing is “normal”, claiming that we are “lucky” that the elites have been running simulations in advance in order to “save us” from a coronavirus outbreak. I assert that Event 201 was not a simulation but a war-game to study the possible outcomes of an event the globalists already knew was coming. Set aside the fact that before almost every major crisis event and terrorist attack for the past few decades authorities were running simulations for that exact event right before it happened; does anyone really believe that Event 201 is pure coincidence?
And warned that while it was still hard to say with certainty, this appears to be the “black swan” that the globalists were waiting for (or planning) all along.
In the discussion below, Derrick Broze discusses a recent announcement by the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control regarding the Event 201 pandemic exercise and the new COVID Action Platform. What does this mean for liberty?
But what do globalists have to gain directly from a coronavirus pandemic beyond simple chaos that can be exploited?
As Max Parry asks and answers below, is the global pandemic a product of the elites’ Mathusian agenda and US biowarfare?
On March 11th, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to be a global pandemic, the first since the H1N1 swine flu in 2009. Initially reported in the city of Wuhan in Central China in December, just four months later there are now over 150,000 cases in more than 130 countries which has put many on total lockdown while the world economy has been brought to a virtual standstill. While the People’s Republic of China was the first country to report COVID-19, there has been a widespread presumption that the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) must have emerged in the capital of Hubei province that has not been held under sufficient scrutiny by Western corporate media.
The question of whether the COVID-19 coronavirus could have come from the U.S. army was controversially raised by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liljian Zhao, who tweeted an article from the Center for Research on Globalization website which subsequently went viral. Feigning concern over the spread of “disinformation”, Western media coverage uniformly avoided sourcing the article Zhao had shared on social media while predictably dismissing the claim as a “conspiracy theory.” Meanwhile, Iran’s Civil Defense Chief also said the coronavirus could be a biological attack on China and Iran, as the Islamic Republic has been the third-most impacted nation with more than 12,000 cases including many at the highest levels of its government with multiple senior officials infected. Contrary to such mainstream media scaremongering, it is completely reasonable and should be permitted to speculate about the origins of the virus. That Zhao’s posing of the theory received such a hostile response from the U.S. establishment is telling of how delicate their propaganda echo chamber is.
Although the disease is widely assumed to have been first transmitted through zoonosis because the earliest grouping of cases were linked to a Wuhan seafood market trading exotic wildlife in late December, the actual first known case was traced to the beginning of the month and may not have been originally passed through an animal. Many on the political right have even suggested the coronavirus is an effect of Chinese biological warfare which unexpectedly leaked from a lab in Wuhan, a theory disseminated in the pages of propaganda rags like The Washington Times, a newspaper owned by the founder of the right-wing Korean Unification Church cult, Sun Myung Moon, as well as The Epoch Times of the similarly fascistic religious sect of Chinese expatriates, the CIA-linked Falun Gong. In spite of that, it is true that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has close ties to the Galveston National Laboratory in the University of Texas, one of the Pentagon’s largest biological defense lab programs. Whereas no evidence exists that the Chinese government is responsible for COVID-19, nor does the PRC have a history of engaging in bio-warfare, there is an abundance of proof that the U.S. government has long been involved in the manufacturing and use of biological weapons since the Korean war.
When the accusations were first made by North Korea and China that the U.S. was using biological and germ warfare in the 1950–1953 Korean War, they were rejected outright by Washington as a hoax and rebuffed by the Western-biased WHO. In the decades since, the U.S. has maintained its denial while scholarly debate on the subject is divided. However, an unredacted report from 1952 from an investigation sponsored by the World Peace Council and conducted by an International Scientific Commission headed by Sir Joseph Needham, a highly reputable British biochemist of his era, was unearthed in 2018 and presents ample substantiation of the allegations, including eyewitness testimony, photographic evidence and documented confessions by American POWs. More disturbingly, the investigation indicates direct links between the U.S. biological warfare program and the germ warfare program of Unit 731, a clandestine bio and chemical warfare unit of Imperial Japan during World War II. During the Cold War, the Japanese researchers were secretly given immunity and recruited by the U.S. in exchange for their knowledge in human experimentation, along with many “former” Nazi scientists in Operation Paperclip.
Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army collected data not only through performing deadly experiments on humans but environmentally testing “plague bombs” by dropping them on Chinese cities to see whether they could start disease outbreaks. Many of these tactics were continued by the U.S. in the Korean War. According to Stephen Kinzer, journalist and author of Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, the CIA’s Project MK-ULTRA which was coordinated with the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories was:
“…Essentially a continuation of work that began in Japanese and Nazi concentration camps. Not only was it roughly based on those experiments, but the CIA actually hired the vivisectionists and the torturers who had worked in Japan and in Nazi concentration camps to come and explain what they had found out so that we could build on their research.”
Frank Olson , one of the biowarfare scientists and CIA employees in the program who died under mysterious circumstances in 1953, is the subject of the Netflix docu-drama series Wormwood, directed by Errol Morris and featuring renowned journalist Seymour Hersh, which reveals Olson may have been a potential government whistleblower on the CIA’s activities and U.S. bio-war crimes. It is worth noting that the usage of such agents in the Korean War included Chinese targets, the last and only major armed conflict between the U.S. and China, so if the COVID-19 pandemic were proven to be a product of U.S. biowarfare against Beijing, it would not be the first time.
Officially, the U.S. is said to have abandoned its bioweapons program in 1969, but its installation in Fort Detrick, Maryland, has continued conducting research into deadly pathogens and viruses on the stated purpose of bio-defense, as well as fighting disease outbreaks, developing vaccines, and other public health concerns. Yet just last year, research into fatal viruses and bioweapons were suspended amid concerns they could be accidentally be released. The last time Fort Detrick’s germ warfare research was suspended was in 2009 after the Pentagon found discrepancies in the inventory of its infectious agents, the same year as the last pandemic of the H1N1 swine flu outbreak.
Fort Detrick has been under tighter restrictions since the 2001 anthrax attacks were traced to Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher at the facility. The suspected perpetrator and army biologist committed suicide in 2008 after learning the FBI was going to charge him with terrorism, which if proven to be true would mean that the Pentagon’s own biodefense research itself had led to rather than protected the American public from bioterrorism — though there is plenty of evidence suggesting Ivins was framed by the feds. As journalist Whitney Webb uncovered, the U.S. Army’s Medical Research branch headquartered in Maryland has cooperated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology mentioned previously for decades.
Toying around with organisms that can produce disease is a regular practice for the Pentagon. In 2005, U.S. scientists announced that they had even successfully recreated the avian influenza flu virus in a lab which killed at least 50 million people worldwide in 1918, widely known as the ‘Spanish flu.’ The name is actually a misnomer, as it was disproportionately attributed to Spain which was neutral in World War I and was not subject to the same wartime censorship of the press to upkeep morale like in Germany, the UK, France and the U.S. whose media initially underreported the pandemic’s effects in their respective countries. The geographic source of the Spanish flu is still the subject of much debate, but the first observation of the disease was at a U.S. military installation in Fort Riley, Kansas in 1918. Needless to say, the risks involved with resurrecting a disease that wiped out more than a quarter of the world’s population are not trivial, but this did not prevent the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology from extracting the genetic coding of the Spanish flu from the exhumed corpse of a Native Alaskan woman frozen in the ground who died of the disease in an Inuit town in 1918.
Soldiers ill with the Spanish flu at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1918
There is no direct evidence showing that the 2009 swine flu said to have originated in Mexico through zoonosis from pigs was any leak of the restored Spanish flu, but the previous swine flu outbreak of 1976 began at a U.S. army base in Fort Dix, New Jersey, just like the Spanish flu of 1918. After the Gerald R. Ford administration jumped the gun and announced a flu epidemic was pending following the death of a single soldier, a subsequent mass immunization program without proper testing for side effects was administered to a staggering 45 million people, exactly a quarter of the entire U.S. population at the time, which ended up killing more Americans than the disease itself. The scandal forever sowed the seeds of public distrust regarding inoculation after more than 450 people developed Guillain-Barré Syndrome and 25 died from the immunization before it was halted.
If such a mandatory vaccination program were to be implemented again in the U.S. for COVID-19, the government would have to reassure the public its previous negligence of such side effects would not be repeated, an unlikely scenario after the corporate breach of trust exposed on Wall Street in recent years involving large pharmaceutical firms. Regardless, Big Pharma is already partnering with the U.S. army to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus which would have to be tested and evaluated before licensing by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and recommended for use by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), both of which partner with the WHO whose largest financial contributor is the U.S. government.
One of the WHO’s other largest benefactors is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with whom it has a partnership on vaccinations. The billionaire Microsoft Corporation founder has used his enormous wealth to dodge paying taxes under the guise of philanthropy and his ‘charitable’ private ventures have mostly focused on producing vaccines for developing countries and purportedly tackling global poverty, especially in Africa. On the surface this may appear to be benevolent work, but like many so-called altruistic projects it is a scheme which allows ultra-wealthy plutocrats like Gates to influence global policy and obtain political power with no accountability by investing in “fixing” the social problems caused by the very system which made them rich, with the expansion of neoliberalism as their real agenda. The consequences of this can be seen with charitable projects involving Gates in the Congo which forced its local agribusiness into using GMO seeds which only benefited private companies like Monsanto.
More disturbing is that in regards to environmental concerns about man-made climate change, Gates has made public his views on curbing human population growth as a solution. At a 2010 TED Conference, Gates stated:
“First we got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.”
To put it another way, one of the world’s wealthiest men admitted in public he believes vaccines should be used for depopulation, just as he is financially investing in both developing and delivering them to countries in the global south. The misanthropic myth of ‘overpopulation’ pushed by Gates and the elite not only suggests that depopulation is a solution for slowing the warming of the climate but retains the logic of an essential component of eugenics with the implicit idea that the quality of life for the human species can be improved by discouraging human reproduction. Since developing countries have the highest child mortality rates, families are more likely to be larger because children are less likely to survive. Hence, the inherent racism and classism in such a misconception.
Given that the vast majority of carbon emissions are produced by a short list of fossil fuel companies and the world’s largest polluter is the U.S. military, promoting this dangerous fallacy is the perfect way for the ruling elite to shift the responsibility for climate change onto the world’s poor. Unfortunately, this dangerous falsehood has been popularized in the mainstream environmental movement and pseudo-left with examples such as BirthStrike, a group of mostly female activists protesting the lack of regulations on the ecological crisis by refusing to bear children that has been irresponsibly endorsed by popular “progressive” politicians such as U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). ‘AOC’ is also the face of the Democratic Party’s Green New Deal which has troubling ties to the United Nations Agenda 21 sustainable development program that calls for “achieving a more sustainable population.”
The false notion of “overpopulation” became a misguided cornerstone of the modern day environmental movement thanks to the publication of German scientist Paul Ehrlich’s best-selling book The Population Bomb in 1968 , an alarmist diatribe that has in the years since become famous for its inaccurate doomsday predictions as a result of the mistaken belief which never came to fruition. Today’s doom merchants regarding the climate, no doubt a serious issue, are in many respects channeling Ehrlich’s false prophecies which are considered a modern rehash of the influential 18th century British economist and philosopher, Thomas Malthus. No single scholar was more loathed by Karl Marx and and the working class movement than Malthus, whose pseudo-scientific theories about demography were thought to have been intellectually defeated until they found new life in Ehrlich’s eco-fascism. As much as today’s ‘population bombers’ like Bill Gates may shun the more explicitly racist Malthusian ideas that the global north should contain the population of developing countries, they still tacitly endorse them by arguing that the size of the population itself is a source a poverty and climate change.
Bill Gates has cited business tycoon John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in American history who had an even greater monopoly on the oil business as Gates had at one time on the computer industry, as an inspiration in using his wealth to invest in medical research as a focus of his philanthropy. However, Gates has something else in common with the Rockefeller family in his views on population, as the Rockefeller Foundation was the single largest donor to the American eugenics movement in the 1920s and 30s and helped establish its German branch, even subsidizing the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics that Nazi physician Josef Mengele worked in prior to his wartime experiments. Despite the fact that a line can be traced from the American eugenics movement to the Nazi regime’s programs, which Nuremberg defendants even tried to use as justification for their atrocities in court, Rockefeller’s grandson John Rockefeller III continued the family legacy of interest in demography with the founding of the Population Council NGO which conducts research in “reproductive health” (sterilization) in developing countries. The Nazi government was also the first to ever pass legislation safeguarding the environment which they equated with German national identity, another unexpected intersection between brown and green politics.
In an astonishing coincidence, the Gates Foundation hosted an event just last October with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the World Economic Forum called Event 201, a pandemic simulation which gathered elite figures in government, business and health expertise to plan for the possibility of a worldwide outbreak. Gates himself has warned of pandemics for years and ominously wrote that the world should “prepare for epidemics the way the military prepares for war.” The Event 201 fictional scenario just so happened to be a coronavirus called CAPS from Brazilian pigs which infected people globally and after a year and half in the exercise caused tens of millions of deaths and set off a worldwide financial crash. Since the outset of the real COVID-19 coronavirus, Gates himself has stepped down from Microsoft to focus on his philanthropy while his foundation is busy working on a vaccine.
Many have observed that some characteristics of COVID-19 bear a resemblance to HIV that could not have happened organically. The recent documentary Cold Case Hammarskjöld, which won an award at last year’s Sundance film festival , puts forth a chilling theory that a South African white supremacist organization deliberately spread HIV/AIDS among black Africans through vaccines in previous decades. The film begins as an investigation of the mysterious plane crash in Northern Rhodesia which killed Swedish diplomat and United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961. In 1998, a document authored by a shadowy paramilitary organization called the South African Institute for Maritime Research (SAIMR) was uncovered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission justice assembly in post-apartheid South Africa which indicated that Hammarskjöld was the victim of an assassination. Not only do the filmmakers discover in their inquiry the distinct likelihood that the plane was shot down by a Belgian mercenary employed by SAIMR which was operating under orders from MI6 and the CIA, but the more stunning revelation is a recorded confessionfrom a former SAIMR soldier to having deliberately spread HIV/AIDS to black Africans through immunization. If what is claimed about SAIMR is true and that they were connected with Western intelligence, that the COVID-19 virus could be something deliberately spread is not outside the realm of possibility.
Maybe it will prove to be the case that the yellow press’s version of the coronavirus beginning with the zoonotic transfer of the disease after the consumption of a pangolin or wild bat by a ‘patient zero’ in Wuhan is accurate. Nevertheless, the pandemic should be a chilling reminder of the elite’s eco-fascist agenda and the continuous danger that the military-industrial complex puts the world’s population in by continuing to conduct dangerous research into deadly pathogens where the risk vastly outweighs the benefits. If the outbreak has led many to be suspicious of the official story, it is exactly because of the history of U.S. biological warfare and the elite’s potentially genocidal and pessimistic worldview that the only way to prevent the demise of humanity is by thinning the herd.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 23:50 - "I Apologize" – Money Managers Sorry For Losing Clients' Money Amid Brazilian Bloodbath
“I Apologize” – Money Managers Sorry For Losing Clients’ Money Amid Brazilian Bloodbath
While American asset-gatherers and commission-rakers were busy demanding investors ‘buy the dip for the long-term’ this week as each leg down just went further down (until Friday, of course), Brazilian money-managers were a little more frank with their clients.
Although US markets were a bloodbath, Brazil was worse with shocking moves intraday – including a high to low drop of 20% on Thursday – leaving a trail of red in Brazil’s fund industry.
And, as Bloomberg reports, the best-performing money managers are reeling after the nation’s markets were especially hard hit by the global selloff. Some took to social media to try to appease anxious investors.
One apologized outright:
“Unfortunately, we were unable to defend ourselves from this fall like we did in 2015, or in the drawdowns of 2016 or in May 2018 and in other moments,” Joao Braga, co-head of equities at XP Asset Management tweeted on Wednesday.
“I apologize and we will work hard to recover.”
He has some apologizing to do as the XP Long Biased fund is suffering its worst monthly loss since its 2013 inception, down 30% through March 11, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The fund, with about 2 billion reais ($425 million) under management, still has the best five-year return among 100 peers.
Another discussed his sleep patterns:
Alaska Asset Management’s Henrique Bredda and Luiz Alves Paes de Barros took to social media to explain their losses. Their Alaska Black Master fund, one of the nation’s best performers, is down 43% year to date through March 11. Barros says moments of massive stress can take a toll on how much he sleeps, but so far he’s fine.
“I’ve been sleeping like a prince,“ he said.
“I wake up very satisfied willing to start buying.“
And a last manager admitted his mistakes and promised to do better:
After posting a return of 155% in 2019 – more than three times its peers’ average – Logos Capital posted a 51% loss this year through March 11. Assets have dropped to about 170 million reais from a peak of 333.7 million reais in early January.
“Moments like this have happened to us before and we usually manage to recover,” Luiz Guerra, the Sao Paulo-based chief investment officer at Logos Capital, said in an interview, saying the firm also made a mistake with banking stocks, which it scrapped, and is now focusing on utilities, telecom companies and exporters.
This humility in the face of collapse should be worth more than the permabull BTFD hubris of every other talking head on business media.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 23:30 - Central Banking Is Socialism
Central Banking Is Socialism
Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,
Last week, the Federal Reserve responded to Wall Street’s coronavirus panic with an “emergency” interest rate cut. This emergency cut failed to revive the stock market, leading to predictions that the Fed will again cut rates later this month.
More rate cuts would drive interest rates to near, or even below, zero. Lowering interest rates punishes people for saving, thus encouraging consumers and businesses to spend every penny they make. This may give the economy a short-term boost. But, it inhibits long-term economic growth by depleting the savings necessary for investments in businesses and jobs. The result of this policy will be more pressure on the Fed to indefinitely maintain low interest rates and on the Congress and president to create another explosion of government “stimulus” spending.
Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren has suggested that Congress allow the Federal Reserve to add assets of private companies to the Fed’s already large balance sheet. Allowing the central bank to buy assets of, and thus assume a partial ownership interest in, private companies would give the Federal Reserve even greater influence over the economy. It could also allow the Fed to advance a political agenda by, for example, favoring investment in “green energy” companies over other companies or refusing to purchase assets of retailers who sell firearms or tobacco products.
Mr. Rosengren’s proposal to allow the central bank to “invest,” in private companies seems like something one would hear from democratic socialists like Senator Bernie Sanders. This is not surprising since the entire Federal Reserve system is a textbook example of socialism.
The essence of socialist economics is government allocation of resources either by seizing direct control of the “means of production” or by setting prices business can charge. Federal Reserve manipulation of interest rates is an attempt to set the price of money. Federal Reserve attempts to set interest rates distort the signals sent by the rates to investors and business. This results in a Fed-created boom, which is inevitably followed by a Fed-created bust.
Economic elites benefit when the Federal Reserve pumps new money into the economy because they have access to the money created before there are widespread price increases. Artificially low interest rates also facilitate the growth of the welfare-warfare state.
The Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies harm the average American by eroding the dollar’s purchasing power. This forces consumers to rely on credit cards and other forms of debt to maintain their standard of living. Many Americans are unable to afford their own homes because they are saddled with student loan debt that can even exceed their income.
Since the bailouts of 2008, there has been a growing understanding that the current system is rigged in favor of the elites and against the average American. Unfortunately, popular confusion of our system of Keynesian neoliberalism with a free-market economy, combined with a widespread entitlement mentality, has led many Americans to support increasing government control of our economy.
The key to beating back the rising support for socialism on both the left and right is helping more people understand that big government and central banking are the cause of their problems and that free markets in all areas – and especially in money — is the solution. It is important that the liberty movement put pressure on Congress to cut spending and rein in or, better yet, end the Fed.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 23:10 - Here Come The Mass Layoffs: New York Unemployment Site Goes Down After "Tens Of Thousands" Lose Their Jobs
Here Come The Mass Layoffs: New York Unemployment Site Goes Down After “Tens Of Thousands” Lose Their Jobs
In many ways the US economy is currently in the eye of the coronavirus storm: cities and states are under quarantine lockdown, the CDC has prohibited any groupings of more than 50 people; stores, clubs, restaurants, bars and hotels are voluntarily shuttering indefinitely as the economy grinds to a halt and yet besides a tapestry of ghost cities across the nation, the immediate impact of the devastating viral storm on the service economy has yet to manifest itself.
But the hurricane is about to hit front and center, and the service-industry mecca of New York City is leading the way.
As the Daily News reports, New York’s unemployment website was overwhelmed Monday as the coronavirus pandemic put tens of thousands of people across the state out of work.
Screenshot of crashed Department of Labor website The flood of suddenly jobless workers hitting the Department of Labor website with applications for unemployment benefits was unleashed by a drastic move by Gov. Cuomo, who announced all of the state’s restaurants, bars, movie theaters, gyms and casinos would close by 8 p.m. Monday to contain the corona outbreak.
So many people tried to apply that the website crashed several times throughout the day, while the DOL’s hotline was so jammed up that callers seeking aid could not get through to someone who could handle their claim.
The unemployed can apply from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. DOL spokeswoman Deanna Cohen said the department saw a “spike in volume comparable to post 9/11,” adding there are more than 700 staffers assigned to handle the high demand.
Gabe Friedman, a drag queen who performs under the name Kiki Ball-Change “I’m completely unable to log in and apply” said 26-year-old Gabe Friedman, a drag queen who performs under the name Kiki Ball-Change. “Me and so many other drag queens are completely out of work for at least two months. If I pay rent at the end of April, I would be broke.”
It’s not just the drag queens that find themselves with zero demand for their unique “skills”: tens of thousands of workers across New York’s service industries have already been, or are about to be let go as their employers are forced to either shut down permanently or hibernate until the economy recovers.
The DOL on Sunday waived a seven-day waiting period on unemployment benefits for people out of work due to coronavirus — but that concession proved to be moot as many people could not apply at all.
Rita Lee, 57, who works in the film industry (hopefully not as a drag king), said she started to apply Sunday night after movie productions shut down across the city. She hit a wall once applications opened Monday.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lee tried and failed to apply on the website, saying she kept “getting either a system or server error message, or the page will never load.”
“I’ve called all the toll-free numbers, which are recordings that redirect you to a main menu or a message saying that all the operators are overloaded now and to call back,” said Lee. “Can’t reach a human to help.”
David Stollings, a sound engineer at a now-shuttered Broadway theater, called the situation a doozy. “I got the site to load once,” said Stollings. “Before this it was just not loading at all.”
Marnia Halasa, a Manhattan-based figure skating coach, said she was also unable to apply and became worried about paying rent. “What if I have to blow the New York popsicle joint and run back to Ohio to live with my father?,” asked Halasa, who’s lived in the city for 28 years.
* * *
While it is not clear how many New Yorkers will lose their jobs due to the pandemic, Empire Center founder E.J. McMahon told the NYDN the hit could be worse than the Great Recession of the late 2000s when roughly 370,000 people lost their jobs in a more than two-year span.
“The website crashed, that’s evidence that there has never been anything like this so quickly,” said McMahon. “You can fix a computer glitch. But I don’t think the problem is how the safety net operates. I think the problem is how the economy operates in the future for all these people.”
Incidentally, the chief economist of a multi-billion macro hedge fund advised us that they are now modeling approximately 10 million job losses over the next two to three months. We leave it up to readers to decide if that’s too little, too much or just right.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 22:50 - Watch: CBS Argues That Any Term With The Word "Black" In It Is Racist
Watch: CBS Argues That Any Term With The Word “Black” In It Is Racist
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,
CBS News wants to reeducate America on how racist everyone is by policing their language and making them understand that the country’s founding fathers were really awful bigots.
That’s the overriding message that emerged from a Tuesday segment on This Morning where the anchors and their guests attempted to convince viewers that everyday terms with zero racial context are proof of how “the roots of racism” are deeply embedded in the US.
The segment promoted a new book aimed at children titled ‘Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America’, by CBS News contributor Ibram X. Kendi and co-author Jason Reynolds.
Anchor Tony Dokoupil announced that “Many headlines referred to the stock market plunge yesterday as ‘Black Monday,’ and that is just one of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that racism has been braided into our everyday culture.”
Co-host Anthony Mason then listed more terms with the word ‘black’ in them, ridiculously suggesting that they are all really racist.
“Terms like ‘Black Monday,’ ‘Black Sheep,’ can be freighted with a negative connotation that sometimes we don’t even realize.” he said, with the other co-host Michelle Miller chiming in that the terms are “baked into the vocabulary.”
A graphic (see picture above) then appeared on screen “Words With Negative Connotations: Black Monday, Black Sheep, Blackballing, Blackmail, Blacklisting.”
“Yeah, and I don’t think we even realize when you have a skin color and regular color and we’re connoting both in a negative fashion. There are relationships between the two and I think we have to break not only the relationship, but those negative connotations.” Kendi suggested.
Miller had earlier argued that children need to be reeducated about how racist the founding fathers were, saying that there are “so many misconceptions and truly lies throughout the history of what children are taught about their history.”
“I hate to put it that directly, but, you know, when you go back and you look at people like a Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, these founding fathers who were so revered, how do you re-teach that?” she worried.
So, just to summarise, even saying the word ‘black’ is now racist, terms that have no racial context, and refer specifically to the colour black are racist, and children need to be re-educated about how racist everyone is.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 22:30 - Netanyahu Gives Himself Broad Phone Tapping Powers To Fight "Invisible Enemy" Coronavirus
Netanyahu Gives Himself Broad Phone Tapping Powers To Fight “Invisible Enemy” Coronavirus
Over the weekend we noted with alarm that the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now tapping counter-terror forces and technology to fight the “invisible enemy” of the coronavorus – as Netanyahu put it in a Saturday address.
“We will very soon begin using technology… digital means that we have been using in order to fight terrorism,” Netanyahu had said. Among these new “emergency measures” include broader domestic phone tapping powers as part of the counter-terror technology initiative, as AP reports:
Netanyahu’s Cabinet on Sunday authorized the Shin Bet security agency to use its phone-snooping tactics on coronavirus patients, an official confirmed, despite concerns from civil-liberties advocates that the practice would raise serious privacy issues. The official spoke on condition of anonymity pending an official announcement.
Via Reuters: Netanyahu called coronavirus the “invisible enemy that must be located.” Ironically enough the outbreak scare has emboldened Netanyahu to admit that much of his plan will “entail a certain degree of violation of privacy.” This extreme overstep action comes as Israel has reached over 200 confirmed Covid-19 cases and has thousands in mandated quarantine.
The technology, which according to the prime minister has “never been used on civilians” – a highly doubtful claim – will help track an infected person’s history of past interactions as well as current whereabouts, ensuring they don’t break isolation, according to the plan.
“They are not minor measures. They entail a certain degree of violation of the privacy of those same people, who we will check to see whom they came into contact with while sick and what preceded that. This is an effective tool for locating the virus,” Netanyahu said.
Well at the very least he was honest about taking Israeli society down the road of Orwellian police state in the name of “protection” from the pandemic. However, we would note that it’s the first we’ve heard of a country openly touting its counter-terror technology and domestic spying as being used to fight the virus, with the exception of China.
Netanyahu said these are “means that until today I have refrained from using among the civilian population.”
This is not the Purge, but policemen arrest a man who disobeyed to his quarantine orders in Tel Aviv#CoronaVirusUpdate pic.twitter.com/usnUCsliFS
— Guy Elster (@guyelster) March 14, 2020
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In a clear understatement, yet deeply disturbing nonetheless, one opposition party leader from Meretz party, Nitzan Horowitz noted that tracking citizens “using databases and sophisticated technological means are liable to result in a severe violation of privacy and basic civil liberties.”
Meanwhile, former US special forces soldier and now journalist Jack Murphy put it more bluntly:
Once these “emergency measures” are implemented, they will never ever be repealed.
Likely soon to come to your country, and a neighborhood near you.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 22:10 - Coronavirus Bill Stalls As GOP Lawmakers Demand Corrections, Transparency
Coronavirus Bill Stalls As GOP Lawmakers Demand Corrections, Transparency
House Democrats’ coronavirus package which was passed on Saturday has become a point of contention, as Republican lawmakers continue to pick apart the bill negotiated between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Speaker Nancy Pelosi which garnered a late endorsement from President Trump, according to The Hill.
The bill faces two primary hurdles. First, technical changes had to be dealt with between House Democratic leadership and the White House – which they had hoped to have hammered out on Monday to no avail.
Second, with House lawmakers on a vacation of indefinite length over coronavirus concerns, any agreement will need to clear the house by consent – which isn’t guaranteed at this point.
Republicans have also demanded more transparency, with Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) insisting that the technical corrections be read on the House floor before he’ll let it move to the upper chamber, according to House aides on both sides of the aisle.
“He’s concerned and wants all of the changes to be made public before the vote,” one GOP aide told The Hill.
If Gohmert isn’t satisfied, he could stall the revamped House coronavirus bill until Pelosi is able to bring the chamber back to Washington to vote a second time.
“I cannot in good conscience give my consent to something that has not been finished or made available to members of Congress before it is up for a vote,” Gohmert told CNN about the holdup.
The measure, which passed 363-40 on Saturday, includes provisions that would ensure some workers can take paid sick or family leave, bolster unemployment insurance, and guarantee that all Americans can get free diagnostic testing for the coronavirus. –The Hill
GOP Senators have criticized the bill for not doing enough to protect small businesses, or help struggling Americans cover short-term costs while the coronavirus epidemic takes a toll on the economy.
“I and a lot of the other senators who I’ve spoken to over the weekend are worried that we’re not doing enough to get cash in the hands of affected workers and families quickly, so we’re going to be focused this week on how to do just that,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) told Fox News in a Monday interview.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) also pushed back against the House bill during a Monday interview with Wisconsin radio station WTMJ, according to The Hill. “Nancy Pelosi is going to make businesses give paid leave when people aren’t working. The businesses are going to pay for that.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) also signaled opposition, saying he wants to insert additional protections for small businesses into the House bill.
Another potential roadblock was removed on Monday after Senate GOP leaders cut a deal to extend three USA Freedom Act provisions for 77 days, along with allowing a handful of amendment votes once they adopt the deal passed by the House last week.
The House bill pairs an extension of the intelligence programs with certain changes to the court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Recall this is the same court which the Obama FBI tricked into granting a surveillance warrant on a Trump adviser during the 2016 US election, only to issue slaps on the wrist all around and carry on with business as usual.
“We’re working on trying to process both of these measures. Those discussions have been underway over the weekend, and we’re hoping to move with dispatch on both the House-passed bill, once we get it, and some way to move forward with the FISA issue as well,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters.
Senators have urged leadership to agree to a short-term extension so they can turn their immediate attention to the coronavirus legislation.
Senators in both parties had urged leadership to agree to a short-term extension so they can focus on the coronavirus package.
“The FISA program can also be extended with Senator [Mike] Lee’s [R-Utah] proposal for a 45-day extension and future consideration of the House bill with six amendment votes. That could all be done by [unanimous consent] as well. Given this pandemic, time is of the essence and we should not delay,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicated that he could support a short-term extension.
“If the alternative is staying dark, I’ll take an extension,” Warner said.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) added that the FISA program needs broader reviews and that the Senate should instead pivot to the coronavirus legislation.
“FISA needs to be carefully reviewed. That takes time. That can wait. The emergency response to #coronavirus should be the first order of business in the Senate tomorrow. There is no reason for this to take days & days,” Hawley tweeted on Sunday. –The Hill
McConnell faces greater pressure from within his own party over the coronavirus legislation – as any amendments would mean the bill is bounced back to the House, which is now on the aforementioned indefinite break.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 21:50 - McDonald's Closes Dining Rooms, Play Areas To Protect Customers From Covid-19
McDonald’s Closes Dining Rooms, Play Areas To Protect Customers From Covid-19
Even after President Trump explicitly said he was not asking restaurants to close, though many have as state and local officials bar large gatherings and – in some cases – explicitly order restaurants, bars, gyms, venues etc. to close, McDonald’s has apparently decided to stay “ahead of the curve” by closing the dining and play areas of its company-owned restaurants, and strongly encouraging its franchisees to do the same, CBS 2 Chicago reports.
Many readers might not realize it, but McDonald’s dining rooms serve an important function in society: they provide a gathering place for people who have nowhere else to go, or are living on a fixed income. Retirees often congregate in McDonald’s restaurants in the US, and homeless people often depend on McDonald’s for myriad reasons, most of which we’d rather not get into, though you can read more about that here.
For these reasons, Micky D’s dining rooms are often referred to as a “poor man’s lounge”, or a “crossroads of humanity.”
Perhaps because so many of McDonald’s most loyal customers are elderly or poor (both high risk groups), the company’s decision is understandable. In a statement, it said protecting customers’ safety is the company’s “highest priority.”
“Ensuring the health and safety of our people and our communities is our highest priority as the United States quickly mobilizes to slow the spread of COVID-19. Our decisions are guided by expert local and national health authority guidance. Additionally, we are complying with all local and state restaurant restrictions, where applicable,” the company announced in a news release on Monday.
Another reason for the decision: most of the company’s directly-owned restaurants are in Illinois (McDoanld’s corporate headquarters relocated to Chicago a few years back from nearby Oak Brook), they will need to comply with Gov. JB Pritzker’s order to close all restaurants and bars in the state at the end of business.
In addition to the dining area, the company is closing all beverage and service kiosks. Restaurants will continue to serve food through drive-through windows, walk-in take-out, and McDelivery through Uber Eats.
“We believe this temporary change is the right decision for our consumers, our communities, and our business and will continue to evaluate our operations as the situation evolves,” the company said in a statement.
McDonald’s franchisees are being “strongly encouraged” to do the same, and the company says it expects “most” to follow suit.
“Franchisee leadership completely supports the decision to adhere to social distancing guidelines and ensure that large groups of customers are not gathered together inside our restaurants. We are committed to our role in supporting the communities in which we do business and protecting the public’s health by shifting our operations to Drive-Thru, walk-in take-out and McDelivery,” said Mark Salebra, National Franchisee Leadership Alliance Chair for McDonald’s
McDonald’s employs 517,000 people in a full or part time capacity in the US, most of whom will not receive benefits – though its corporate employees and restaurant managers typically receive benefits including PTO and sick pay).
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 21:30 - Nasdaq, Dow, S&P Futures Surge Limit-Up, Erasing Trump Presser Melt-down
Nasdaq, Dow, S&P Futures Surge Limit-Up, Erasing Trump Presser Melt-down
Another overnight session that reverses trend entirely from the day session… and another limit-up futures halt…
Nasdaq futures are limit-up… once again…
S&P futures are limit-up…
And for context, Dow futures (are limit-up) have erased the late-day melt-down during Trump’s presser, up almost 1000 off the lows…
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 21:26 - Oregon Police: 'Don't Call 911 Just Because You Ran Out Of Toilet Paper'
Oregon Police: ‘Don’t Call 911 Just Because You Ran Out Of Toilet Paper’
In an almost hard to believe story which proves people are taking the “shit hit the fan” description of the current state of things way too literally, an Oregon police department had to warn people in a public announcement against calling 911 because they were out of toilet paper.
“It’s hard to believe that we even have to post this,” police in Newport, Oregon stated in an official Facebook message. “Do not call 9-1-1 just because you ran out of toilet paper. You will survive without our assistance.”
The national phenomena of panic-buying toilet paper is the one thing in all of this that makes least sense, unless perhaps given that markets are in nose-dive — and who knows if currencies could be next down the line — people are viewing TP as the next currency of the post-apocalypse, giving new meaning to ‘dirty money’.
The Newport police statement urged people to “Be resourceful. Be patient. There is a TP shortage. This too shall pass. Just don’t call 9-1-1. We cannot bring you toilet paper.” And it went so far as to offer ideas as using grocery store receipts, torn magazine pages, cotton balls, and even corn cobs as apparently the Mayans and some among Colonial Americans did.
“History offers many other options for you in your time of need if you cannot find a roll of your favorite soft, ultra plush two-ply citrus scented tissue,” the department wrote.
The local police department posted the below after apparently receiving multiple 911 calls:
Meanwhile, it seems as much of the nation settles in for a possibly lengthy self-isolation mode, Facebook and other social media sites have been inundated by a deluge of toilet paper hording memes.
This is so much so that mainstream media has begun reporting on the accompanying meme craze, noting that their consistent message is: “Go urgently and buy toilet paper. Don’t worry how much you need, buy as much as you can.”
“Free roll of toilet paper with every entree,” Dirty Dick’s Crab House posted Saturday outside its restaurant in coastal Nags Head, North Carolina. https://t.co/8eaYvFHZCw
— WBTV News (@WBTV_News) March 15, 2020
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Of course, given stores like HEB and Kroger have begun cutting back on hours, and as more cities declare states of emergencies, with San Francisco and the Bay area issuing a ‘shelter in place’ emergency on Monday, we could soon see a situation where the very places selling the valuable TP simply shut down.
Now in Western civilized societies you need three armed special police officers to protect toilet paper pic.twitter.com/NJ8rmqr2To
— Bassem (@BBassem7) March 16, 2020
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And then those who didn’t stock up could be shit out of luck.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 21:10 - Is The Bottom Finally In: Bridgewater Puts On $14 Billion Short
Is The Bottom Finally In: Bridgewater Puts On $14 Billion Short
2020 has been a bizarre year: not only did stocks finally crash after the longest and most artificial “bull market” in history, sending an entire generation of clueless traders who had never seen more than a 10% correction puking into their toilet paper-free bathrooms as the Fed finally ran out of ammo to artificially prop up markets, but the metaphorical demise of Dennis Gartman meant a replacement had to be found for the market’s biggest counter-indicator, and how refreshingly surreal is it that the new Gartman turned out to be none other than Ray “Cash is Trash” Dalio.
You see, back in late January when stocks were melting up to new record highs every single day, Ray Dalio speaking from the Coronavirus-free billionaire boondoggle of Davos, put on his best momentum extrapolation hat on, and predicted that “cash is trash.”
Little did Dalio know that just a few months earlier some Chinaman had bitten off the head of a typhoid bat, in the process setting off the apocalypse, and as the world literally ground to a halt amid a cascade of sovereign quarantines, global stocks suffered their biggest crash since Black Monday.
It got so bad that Dalio’s own macro fund suffered its worst start to a year in history, losing an epic 20% in just a few weeks (we are still waiting for confirmation that the Bridgewater risk parity fund still exists). Speaking to the FT, as if compelled to explain why his performance was so dismal to the general public, Dalio said “we did not know how to navigate the virus and chose not to because we didn’t think we had an edge in trading it. So, we stayed in our positions and in retrospect we should have cut all risk. We’re disappointed because we should have made money rather than lost money in this move the way we did in 2008.“
And while Dalio didn’t specify “in what terms” he should have made money, just like that the new Dennis Gartman was not only born but baptized in blood, er bat.
Which is great new for all the bulls who have just suffered through the most painful three weeks of their careers, because if Dalio is indeed the new Gartman, his turning bearish would mean the bottom is in… which according to media reports, that’s just what the billionaire Bridgewater founder is now. Bloomberg writes that Dalio – perhaps disgusted from seeing his reputation sink to the level of a newsletter author – has built up a $14 billion short position in European companies, expecting they will “continue to sink amid the worsening coronavirus outbreak.”
According to the report, Bridgewater has made a string of wagers-against stocks in countries from Germany to Italy, according to filings between March 9 and 12 compiled by Bloomberg. They include a $1 billion bet against software company SAP SE and a $715 million wager against semiconductor equipment maker ASML Holding NV, with France and Germany at the top, responsible for roughly $5 billion in short positions each.
And while the value of Bridgewater’s European shorts has been rising this month as European stocks – well, really all stocks – got crushed, it appears the fund still has more than an offsetting amount of longs as the fund already lost about 12% in just the first two weeks of March.
Naturally, it’s not clear whether the bet is an outright wager on a fall in shares or part of a broader hedging strategy of the firm that manages about $160 billion. Ironically, a similar report published by the WSJ last November suggesting Dalio had developed a “bearish view on the stock market”, was met with harsh criticism by Dalio and a barrage of petulant LinkedIn posts. Ironically, if only Dalio had been bearish, he would be on top of the world now instead of being the butt of watercooler jokes about cash somehow being trash at a time when the Fed just backstopped or injected over $6 trillion in, drumroll, cash.
However suggesting that this time Dalio was indeed bearish was his latest LinkedIn post in which he said that the Fed’s decision to cut rates to almost zero puts the markets in an even more precarious position.
“Long-term interest rates hitting the hard 0% floor means that virtually all asset classes go down because the positive effects of interest rates falling won’t exist (at least not much).”
“Hitting this 0% floor also means that virtually all the reserve country central banks’ interest rate stimulation tools (including cutting them and yield curve guidance) won’t work.”
So yeah, it looks like Dalio has indeed gone to the dark side which in this bizarro world, in which the founder of the world’s (formerly) biggest hedge funds is now also the market’s most reliable contrarian indicator, is probably the best news the steamrolled bulls could hope for.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 20:52 - Boeing, Which Repurchased Over $100BN In Stock, Is Downgraded To BBB, Seeks "Short-Term" Bailout
Boeing, Which Repurchased Over $100BN In Stock, Is Downgraded To BBB, Seeks “Short-Term” Bailout
Just hours after S&P took the machete to Exxon’s long standing AA+ credit rating, moments ago the rating agency went after the company which until just a few weeks ago seems invincible, and whose stock price has crashed from $350 to $130 in a little over a month after it announced it was fully drawing down its revolver: Boeing.
S&P cut Boeing’s credit rating by two notches late on Monday, to BBB from A-, as its “cash flows for the next two years are going to be much weaker than we had expected, due to the 737 MAX grounding, resulting in worse credit ratios than we had forecast.” In addition, S&P notes, “the significant reduction in global air travel due to the coronavirus will likely result in an increase in aircraft order deferrals, further pressuring cash flows.”
And worst of all, Boeing will likely be downgraded again, as S&P kept it on Credit Watch negative, meaning it may be just a matter of time before Boeing is downgraded to junk, making it the world’s most iconic fallen angel.
More details from the downgrade:
Cash flow and credit ratios will likely be much weaker than we had expected for the next two years. We now expect free cash flow to be an outflow of $11 billion-$12 billion in 2020 and an inflow of $13 billion-$14 billion in 2021. This compares to our previous expectation of positive $2 billion in 2020 and $22 billion in 2021.
The significant difference is due to an absence of MAX predelivery payments (PDP) into 2021, higher and more front-loaded cash compensation to airlines, additional cash costs related to the production halt (including supplier support), and lower MAX production rates and deliveries than previously expected.
We are also now expecting weaker cash flow from the rest of the business due to cuts to 787 production (including lower PDPs), delays to the first 777-9 delivery, and lower cash flows at the defense and aftermarket segments.
This results in higher debt levels in 2020 (with balance sheet debt peaking at more than $46 billion, including the debt from the Embraer joint venture) and a weaker improvement in 2021, with funds from operations (FFO) to debt in 2020 now likely to be only about 5% (previous expectation was 29%) and about 30% in 2021 (previous expectation was 75%). This forecast remains highly uncertain with the potential for increased downside from the coronavirus.
Why is S&P really taking this draconian action, which could topple one of the beacons of US manufacturing into junk status? Simple: in the past two years, Boeing feasted on cheap debt, doubling its debt load in one year.
But wait there’s more.
Just a few days after drawing down on its revolver, Bloomberg reported moments ago that Boeing is now also seeking “short-term aid” in talks with the White House and lawmakers; in other words a “bailout.”
- *BOEING SEEKS SHORT-TERM AID IN TALKS W/WHITE HOUSE, LAWMAKERS
- *BOEING AID WOULD BE FOR ITSELF, SUPPLIERS, AIRLINES AMID VIRUS
- *BOEING TRYING TO AVOID LAYOFFS, SUPPLIER MELTDOWN
Some more details from Boeing:
Boeing Co. has asked White House and Congressional officials for short-term aid for itself, suppliers and airlines as the outlook for the travel industry worsens by the day, said people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. planemaker is seeking to avoid layoffs and damage to hundreds of smaller companies that make parts and systems for its aircraft, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. Boeing has also been buffeted by the grounding of its best-selling 737 Max, which awaits regulatory clearance to resume flights after two deadly crashes.
We have one small problem with that: while Boeing was perfectly happy to load up on as much debt as it could over the past decade, the bulk of the proceeds was used for none other than enriching its shareholders and management, with zero consideration for those same employees and suppliers that the company suddenly cares so much about now. And Boeing certainly didn’t care about its passengers when it cut every corner it could find, to design the 737 MAX as cheaply as possible, a plane that was “designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys“, even if it meant the airplane would become a deathtrap.
As the chart below shows, Boeing has repurchased over $100 billion in stocks since 2013, helping push its stock to all-time highs not that long ago.
So, no, nobody in their right minds should give Boeing even one penny in “short term aid”. Instead, management and the board should be ordered to sell as much stock as they need – you know, the opposite of buying it back – to maintain the business, even it means sending the stock price crashing far lower.
Because it’s called capitalism, and because there is no reason why taxpayers should foot the bill for a company which instead of saving cash when times were good, was handing it out to shareholders and a handful of executives, and which should now for some insane reason be eligible for a bailout when times suddenly go bad.
No: force Boeing – and others like it that spent billions repurchasing its stock while incurring massive amounts of debt – to sell its stock. After all that’s what a public company’s stock is – a currency – and just as Boeing could repurchase it when it had cash, and lifted its stock price to all time highs, it should now sell its stock and use the proceeds to fund itself, like any other corporation does when it needs funding. Last time we checked, Boeing’s market cap was $73 billion, and it certainly afford to drop much more as the company now does the buyback in reverse.
This is also a warning to Congress and the White House: if chronic stock repurchasers such as Boeing, are bailed out instead of ordered to find their own sources of liquidity, there will be a mutiny in America and rightfully so, because it was Boeing’s shareholders that got rich on the way up, and now it is somehow up to taxpayers to make sure the company, loaded up with record amounts of debt used to fund buybacks, survives one more quarter.
That, in a word, is bullshit.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 20:45 - The World Must Not Forget The Fight For The Saudi Crown Amid Virus Panic
The World Must Not Forget The Fight For The Saudi Crown Amid Virus Panic
Authored by Patrick Cockburn via The Independent,
The fear caused by the coronavirus outbreak is greater than that provoked by a serious war because everybody is in the front line and everybody knows that they are a potential casualty. The best parallel is the terror felt by people facing occupation by a hostile foreign army; even if, in the present case, the invader comes in the form of a minuscule virus.
The political consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic are already vast because its advance, and the desperate measures taken to combat it, entirely dominate the news agenda and will go on doing so for the foreseeable future, although it is in the nature of this unprecedented event that nothing can be foreseen.
History has not come to a full stop because of the virus, however: crucial events go on happening, even if they are being ignored by people wholly absorbed by the struggle for survival in the face of a new disease. Many of these unrecognised but very real crises are taking place in the Middle East, the arena where great powers traditionally stage confrontations fought out by their local proxies.
Top of the list of critical new conflicts that have been overshadowed by the pandemic is the battle for the throne of Saudi Arabia: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), whose dwindling band of admirers describe him as “mercurial”, this month launched a sort of palace coup by arresting his uncle, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, and his cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, whom he displaced as crown prince in 2017.
The new purge of close relatives by MbS may be motivated by his wish to eliminate any potential rivals for the crown who might step forward upon the death of King Salman, his 84-year-old father. This need to settle the royal succession has become more urgent in the past few weeks because the US presidential election in November might see the crown prince lose an essential ally: Donald Trump, a man who has become increasingly discredited by his shambolic response to Covid-19, and who faces Joe Biden’s emergence as the likely Democratic candidate for the presidency.
Trump has been a vital prop for MbS, standing by him despite his role in starting an unwinnable war in Yemen in 2015 and his alleged responsibility for the gruesome murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018. MbS has denied personal involvement in the killing, but told PBS last year: “It happened under my watch. I get all the responsibility, because it happened under my watch.”
The record of misjudgements by MbS after he established himself as the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia five years ago makes Inspector Clouseau seem like a strategist of Napoleonic stature by comparison. Every one of his initiatives at home and abroad has stalled or failed, from the endless and calamitous war in Yemen to the escalating confrontation with Iran that culminated in Tehran’s drone and missile attack on Saudi oil facilities last September.
The latest gamble by MbS is to break with Russia and flood the market with Saudi crude oil just as world demand is collapsing because of the pandemic’s economic impact. In living memory in the Middle East, only Saddam Hussein displayed a similar combination of hubris and erratic performance that inspired disastrous ventures such as the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980 and of Kuwait in 1990.
I once asked a Russian diplomat knowledgeable about the workings of the Iraqi ruler’s inner circle why none of his senior lieutenants, some of whom were intelligent and well informed, had warned him against taking such idiotic decisions. “Because the only safe thing to do in those circles was to be 10 per cent tougher than the boss,” explained the diplomat. MbS reportedly shows similar impatience towards anybody critical of the latest cunning plan.
When it comes to the oil price war, the likelihood is that the Kremlin will have thought this through and Riyadh will not. Russian financial reserves are high and its reliance on imports less than during the last price conflict five years ago between the two biggest oil exporters. Inevitably, all the oil states in the Middle East are going to be destabilised, Iraq being a prime example because of its complete reliance on oil revenues. Iran, suffering from the worst outbreak of Covid-19 in the region, was already staggering under the impact of US sanctions.
In time, the Russians may overplay their hand in the region – as all foreign players appear to do when over-encouraged by temporary successes. For the moment, however, they are doing nicely: in Syria, the Russian-backed offensive of President Assad’s forces has squeezed the rebel enclave in Idlib without Turkey, despite all the belligerent threats of President Erdogan, being able to do much about it.
These developments might have provoked a stronger international reaction two months ago, but they are now treated as irrelevant sideshows by countries bracing themselves for the onset of the pandemic. It is easy to forget that only 10 weeks ago, the US and Iran were teetering on the edge of all-out war after the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was assassinated at Baghdad airport in a US drone strike. After ritualistic Iranian retaliation against two US bases, both sides de-escalated their rhetoric and their actions. Rather than drastically changing course, however, the Iranians were probably re-evaluating their strategy of pinprick guerrilla attacks by proxies on the US and its allies: this week, the US accused an Iranian-backed paramilitary group of firing rockets at an American base north of Baghdad, killing two Americans and one Briton. Iran has evidently decided that it can once again take the risk of harassing US forces.
Covid-19 is already changing political calculations in the Middle East and the rest of the world: a second term for President Trump looks much less likely than it did in February. The election of Biden, an archetypal member of the Washington establishment, might not change things much for the better, but it would restore a degree of normality.
Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere has always been less innovative in practice than his supporters and critics have claimed. Often, in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was surprisingly similar to that of Barack Obama. The biggest difference was Trump’s abandonment of the nuclear deal with Iran, but even there Trump relied on the “maximum pressure” of economic sanctions to compel the Iranians to negotiate. For all Trump’s bombast and jingoism, he has never actually started a war.
However, this is now changing in a way that nobody could have predicted, because in its political impact the pandemic is very like a war. The political landscape is being transformed everywhere by this modern version of the Great Plague. By failing to respond coherently to the threat and blaming foreigners for its spread, Trump is visibly self-isolating the US and undermining the hegemonic role it has played since the Second World War. Even if Biden is elected as the next president, the US will have lost its undisputed primacy in a post-pandemic world.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 20:30 - Global Deaths From Covid-19 Pass 7,000; Silicon Valley Shuts Down: Virus Updates
Global Deaths From Covid-19 Pass 7,000; Silicon Valley Shuts Down: Virus Updates
Summary:
- Australia prepares 2nd stimulus package
- Canada closes borders to foreign travelers
- New York State closes schools for 2 weeks
- Dutch PM says experts believe ‘most’ citizens will catch virus
- House leaders postpone return to Washington ‘indefinitely’
- US airports seek $10B in gov’t assistance, per CNN
- Trump tweets US will “powerfully support” industries life airlines
- MLB opening day ‘indefinitely delayed’
- New Jersey reports 80% jump in cases
- Italy reports another 3,233 cases, 349 deaths
- France orders people to stay home for 15 days
- CDC says employee has tested positive
- EU finance ministers announce ‘coordinated fiscal response’ worth 1% of GDP
- White House releases new ‘national guidelines’ to stop virus
- San Francisco earmarks $10M for those who miss work due to outbreak
- El Salvador and Mexico spar over flight out of Mexico City:
- Maryland governor bars utilities for turning off service for non payment
- Barr tells American prosecutors to crack down on any virus-related fraud:
- SF mayor orders residents to shelter in place beginning at midnight
- 6 Bay Area counties to issue ‘shelter in place’ order
- Actor Idris Elba tests positive
- WH conference set for 3:30pmET
- G-7 releases communique about ‘coordinated’ virus response
- Trump tells governors to try and get their own respirators
- Washington State shuts down bars, restaurants for 2 weeks
- McDonald’s closes dining areas at company owned restaurants, asks franchisees to do the same
- First cases confirmed in Tanzania, Somalia
- Ohio requests to delay primary until June 2
- Russia ‘limits’ entry of foreigners
- Roche starts shipment of 400,000 tests
- UK reports 18 new deaths, asks citizens to avoid all non-essential contact and travel, but avoids public closures
- S&P cuts Boeing’s credit rating 2 notches
- Chile tightens borders, bans foreigners from entry
- Kudlow teases helicopter money; Romney pushes plan to hand every US adult $1,000
- Cuomo warns US might not succeed in flattening the curve enough
- Lombardy reports smallest jump in new cases since beginning of outbreak
- Greenland reports first case
- Google’s virus website booked up on first day of operation
- Moscow bans all events with more than 50 people
- Top Iranian cleric dies
- Germany closes restaurants, bars, gyms and nightclubs until further notice.
- EU Commission bars “non-EU citizens” from entering the area, but refuses to cave on internal controls
- NY, NJ, Conn bar large gatherings
- Israel mulls national lockdown
* * *
Update (2030ET): Testing began on Monday for the first Covid-19 vaccine human trial in the US. The NIH has been fast-tracking work with biotech company Moderna to develop a vaccine using the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus. Other trials are also ongoing, including one run by Gilead in Wuhan.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration can finally confirm some good news about its supply of tests, which it has been promising to swiftly ramp up to more than 1 million.
Roche, the Swiss drug company that is one of several companies working with the administration to increase the supply of tests, has started shipping tests to labs across the US.
- ROCHE STARTS SHIPMENTS OF COVID-19 TESTS TO LABS ACROSS U.S.
- ROCHE BEGINS SHIPMENTS OF FIRST 400,000 COVID-19 TESTS TO LABS
- ROCHE: PLANS TO SHIP AN ADDED 400,000 TESTS PER WEEK
- ROCHE: SHIPPING OF INITIAL 400,000 TEST KITS BEGAN MARCH 13
* * *
Update (2000ET): There have been a few more notable Covid-19 related developments as we move into Monday evening and US futures lurch higher, according to the FT.
Barr tells American prosecutors to crack down on any virus-related fraud:
Prosecutors have been ordered to prosecute sellers of fake cures and online fraudsters who target vulnerable and unsuspecting internet users with promises of information about the virus.
S&P cuts Boeing’s credit rating 2 notches
S&P cuts Boeing’s credit rating two notches. The big new problem looming for Boeing is the fact that the coronavirus’s impact on airlines (putting them out of business) could impact deliveries, especially now that the company’s order flow has been delayed, and many sales contracts offer outs for airlines in financial distress.
El Salvador and Mexico spar over flight out of Mexico City:
The coronavirus ‘nightmare at sea’ almost became a ‘nightmare in the sky’. An Avianca flight due to depart Mexico City bound for El Salvador was cancelled after the president of El Salvador, the smallest country in Latin America, tweeted that it was not welcome because of 12 passengers who had purportedly been confirmed positive for Covid-19. Mexican diplomats denied this, and said the source of the president’s information was unclear.
Meanwhile, down in Florida, college students aren’t letting some stupid virus get in the way of spring break. Quarantine? OK, Boomer.
BUSY BEACH! This is what @MyClearwater Beach looks like right now as spring break crowds flock to the sand. #Clearwater leaders haven’t decided if they should add a curfew or close beaches but they may vote on measures related to the #coronavirus this Thursday. @abcactionnews pic.twitter.com/jGoxQdYJg5
— Sarah J. Hollenbeck (@SarahHollenbeck) March 16, 2020
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* * *
Update (1910ET): Seeming to confirm reports that the airlines are in talks with the government about a bailout (just like the shale drillers, Boeing, gig economy workers…) President Trump tweeted that the US would “powerfully support” American industry like the airlines through the outbreak.
The United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus. We will be stronger than ever before!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2020
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Liberal critics will undoubtedly take umbrage at the phrasing “Chinese virus”, despite the fact that it’s 100% true, because not only is it ‘racist’, but it runs counter to their narrative that the outbreak is somehow Trump’s fault.
* * *
Update (1850ET): Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of a blue state, was one of the first governors in the country to call up the National Guard, and he announced unprecedented measures earlier that “may sound extreme” but might be needed to “save hundreds of thousands of lives”.
In addition to the usual closures and orders to increase hospital capacity, he’s also prohibiting utility providers from turning off power, water, heat etc. for nonpayment.
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Today I announced additional actions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Maryland. They may sound extreme, and they will be terribly disruptive, but they are also absolutely necessary to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Details here: https://t.co/XwwTJot69H
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020
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I have ordered the closure of all bars and restaurants in the state, as well as fitness centers, spas, and theaters, effective at 5:00 p.m. today. The order allows for restaurants to continue carry-out, drive-thru, and delivery services.
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020
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We are marshaling every tool in the arsenal of public health to combat this crisis. I have issued an omnibus public health order that includes increasing hospital capacity, activating the Maryland Responds Medical Reserve Corps, & lifting restrictions on healthcare practitioners.
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020
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It is impossible to know how long this threat will continue. What I do know is that we cannot afford to wait to take action.
For updates on our administration’s actions, visit https://t.co/Z1UGRIJCGm.
For health resources, visit https://t.co/Shy9A0czWz.
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020
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I am prohibiting utility providers from shutting off any residential customer’s service or charging any residential late fees, and prohibiting Maryland courts from ordering the eviction of any tenant who can show that their failure to pay rent was the result of COVID-19.
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020
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We are marshaling every tool in the arsenal of public health to combat this crisis. I have issued an omnibus public health order that includes increasing hospital capacity, activating the Maryland Responds Medical Reserve Corps, & lifting restrictions on healthcare practitioners.
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 16, 2020
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When you’re a Republican governor in Maryland, you definitely need to stay “ahead of the curve.”
And at least energy is cheap and getting cheaper…
* * *
Update (1820ET): Gov. Cuomo has ordered schools in his state to close for two weeks, a decision he telegraphed long in advance, leaving another ~1 million kids in the state without anything to do during the day.
In other news, US airports are seeking $10 billion in government assistance, Reuters reports. The $10 billion figure is in line with expected losses.
ACI-NA President and CEO Kevin M. Burke confirmed the talks with lawmakers.
“The swift drop in air travel has forced airports to get creative by cutting budgets and lowering their operating costs as quickly as possible, all while stepping up their efforts to clean facilities and ensure the health and safety of passengers and employees alike,” he said in a statement. “We appreciate the leadership of the administration and members of Congress to ensure this immediate financial hardship does not permanently cripple a critical component of the country’s transportation infrastructure.”
Airlines, and now, Boeing, are also in talks with the government over a bailout (the coronavirus represents something of a double-whammy for Boeing, which is still reeling from the 737 MAX 8 debacle).
Apropos of nothing, as more photos of empty shelves flood the internet, here’s a photo from Sydney, where hoarding is also ramping up as the government weighs another economic package.
Meanwhile, Sydney shoppers continue to lose their minds 🤦🏻♀️ #COVID19Aus pic.twitter.com/ZW6FaQRSv3
— Haidi Lun Stroud-Watts 伦海迪 (@HaidiLun) March 15, 2020
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* * *
Update (1745ET): As Dr. Fauci explained earlier, if the warnings out of the government seem dire, and if the measures state and local governments (along with the Feds) are taking seem extreme, that’s because it’s critical that we “stay ahead” of the virus, as he explained during the press conference earlier.
So when the Surgeon General says something like “when you look at the projections, there’s every chance that we could be Italy” it’s meant to be taken with a grain of salt, and as a warning: If you don’t obey the recommendations, you’re putting yourself and – more importantly – other, potentially more vulnerable people, at risk.
Apparently, the reason Trump’s comment about the ventilators and respirators earlier – asking states to try and find their own through their own supply chains, as Trump said during the press conference – touched such a nerve among the governors is because there’s some kind of nationwide “problem” with supplies, according to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who discussed the issue with the Washington Post.
“There is a problem with supplies and ventilators,” Hogan said. “There’s not enough supplies. The states don’t have enough. The federal government doesn’t have enough. They’re not getting distributed fast enough. And that’s a problem for all of us.
Hogan added that some of the governors “were pretty upset” that Trump had the gall to make the request.
Meanwhile, more cases have been confirmed across the US. In sleepy Connecticut, state health officials announced moments ago that the number of confirmed infections in the state had increased by 15 to 41.
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases across the US has surpassed 4,000, yet another grim milestone.
Per WaPo, which keeps the most up-to-date count of both confirmed and “presumptive” cases, put the total in the US at 4,287 as of Monday evening, with 69 deaths. Washington State still has the most deaths, with 42 – most of whom were residents of a nursing home in Kirkland.
Coupled with a rash of deaths in Europe (mostly Italy, but some in Germany, France and the UK too), the global death total surpassed 7,000 on Monday, nearly equivalent to the number of people who were infected during the entire SARS outbreak.
New York State came in second with 7.
For weeks now, experts have been waiting for more data to try and answer an important question about the virus: Can children – who seem to be unusually resistant to symptoms – easily spread the virus? It’s a question that will need to be answered eventually, or the public education system in this country could face some very serious disruption.
Following President Trump’s amusing fumble when asked by a reporter what it was like taking the Covid-19 test, the Telegraph reported that Brazil’s foreign trade secretary, who was part of Jair Bolsonaro’s delegation to the US, has also tested positive. Though at this rate, if Trump did have the virus, he’d be showing more symptoms (it’s likely that Trump’s longstanding and widely acknowledged germophobia helped him avoid catching the virus if he was indeed exposed).
MLB has postponed opening day ‘indefinitely’, moving beyond the initial two week delay and suspension of spring training.
The best case scenario now has baseball starting back up around the second week in May.
According to the Washington Post, the last time Opening Day was delayed, in 1995, teams conducted a condensed, two-week spring training before launching into an abbreviated, 144-game season. The only problem this time around is that baseball teams were already well into spring training – and pitchers were well into the necessary arm-strengthening exercises that are one of the most important reasons for the spring training ritual.
Since delaying the baseball season into November raises complications due to the weather (though games could be moved to a neutral, domed stadium, something that would be unprecedented in the sport’s history).
In a statement, Commissioner Bob Manfred said that following a phone call with the 30 MLB clubs on Monday, the League decided to suspend play, though it remains committed to playing “as many games as possible” this season.
Statement from Major League Baseball: pic.twitter.com/E5xPfMGOc0
— MLB (@MLB) March 16, 2020
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In other news, McDonald’s said it will close all seating areas at its company owned restaurants and “strongly encourage ” franchisees to do the same.
* * *
Update (1603ET): After the market completely unraveled at the close, we’re getting even more bad news about the second federal compromise bill. The Hill reports that House Democratic leaders have indefinitely postponed their return to Washington as a precautionary measure, as Pelosi continues to haggle with Mnuchin, while the Senate mulls over the possibility of ‘reopening’ the House legislation.
Of course, if the second aid package fails to pass, it will be absolute pandemonium in markets this week, and President Trump could risk losing control of the narrative and the outbreak.
The House was scheduled to return to the Capitol on March 23, but Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told rank-and-file Democrats on a conference call Monday that they will postpone that date.
“Hoyer said for sure not Monday, and he will update them about the rest of the week,” one aide said, noting that potential cancellations of domestic flights may also play a role. “This is all pending domestic travel situation too.”
House leaders are also exploring the possibility of staggering future votes so that all 435 members (most of whom are in the ‘high-risk’ group of the population) won’t need to be on the floor at the same time.
* * *
Update (1555ET): The CDC just confirmed that one of its employees has tested positive for the coronavirus.
Trump just added that the White House is looking into using the Army Engineers “very strongly”, an idea floated by NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
* * *
Update (1535ET): Trump said the US is currently not considering a nation-wide quarantine akin to what’s happening in Europe and certain parts of the country. He did say he might consider lockdowns in certain “hot spots”, but in most cases, governors and county-level leaders have already ordered locals to shelter in place before the White House told them too.
Per the guidelines, the White House is advising people to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people. Trump added that he’s looking at expanding unemployment benefits, and promised to get back to reporters with exact numbers of critical equipment like ventilators and respirators.
Trump acknowledged that the virus may cause a recession in the US, when asked directly when he think a recession might hit, Trump refused to offer a projection, saying projecting recessions isn’t is responsibility (Trump can only project economic booms), and said he was focusing on getting rid of the problem, and that “once we do that, everything else will fall into place.”
He also insisted the White House would “back the airlines 100%”.
“They were having record seasons before this came out of nowhere,” Trump said.
* * *
Update (1530ET): After saying it would follow Spain with a strict lockdown order over the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday ordered all of France to stay home for 15 days, with people leaving only for “essential duties”.
“We are in a health war,” Macron said, and added that anybody caught disobeying the order would be punished. He said he was taking steps to limit people’s movements to save the lives of French citizens.
This comes after the G-7 promises it will do “whatever is necessary” to fight the outbreak.
* * *
Update (1520ET): During this afternoon’s press conference, the White House task force has released a set of ‘national guidelines’ that it asks all Americans to follow over the next 15 days, including avoiding gatherings of more than 10 people, and that states with community spread must close bars, gyms, restaurants and other public areas, as well as schools.
Across the Atlantic, EU Finance ministers have reportedly agreed to a ‘coordinated fiscal response’ equivalent to 1% of GDP to stop the economic fallout from the virus. Christine Lagarde must be thrilled. And Mario Draghi probably can’t help but feel a little slighted.
* * *
Update (1515ET): As we previewed earlier, San Fran Mayor London Breed has put the city on lockdown until April 7, requiring residents to stay home as of midnight.
Essential stores will remain open.
Effective at midnight, San Francisco will require people to stay home except for essential needs.
Necessary government functions & essential stores will remain open.
These steps are based on the advice of public health experts to slow the spread of #COVID19.
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) March 16, 2020
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A total of 6 Bay Area counties will also adopt these same shelter in place measures, as we noted earlier.
Earlier, the mayor introduced a $10 million fund to help workers who pay because of the virus.
* * *
Update (1500ET): Earlier this afternoon, the Washington Post managed to get its hands on leaked comments from President Trump’s call with state governors (that the Democratic governors on the call would leak a damaging, out-of-context comment to undermine the president during a national crisis is hardly surprising).
After President Trump repeatedly promised that the ‘private-industry partnerships’ negotiated by the administration would help alleviate shortages of medical supplies across the country, the president reportedly told the governors to try and get ventilators and other equipment on their own if they can.
Instead, states should try to work on obtaining respirators, ventilators and other equipment on their own, according to two officials briefed on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private teleconference.
Trump tweeted on Monday that he had a good call with the governors.
Just had a very good tele-conference with Nation’s Governors. Went very well. Cuomo of New York has to “do more”.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2020
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In response to Trump’s alleged ‘request’, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has taken steps to maximize camera time since the outbreak began, holding multiple daily press conferences and appearing on CNN and other news channels, took a swipe at the president, demanding that he ‘do something’.
I have to do more?
No — YOU have to do something! You’re supposed to be the President. https://t.co/tYeDt1lcOZ
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) March 16, 2020
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Meanwhile, after Louisiana delayed its primary, Ohio is now seeking to delay its primary to June 2.
* * *
Update (1450ET): The San Francisco Chronicle reports that six San Francisco Bay Area counties are about to declare a “shelter in place” order, asking residents not to leave their homes and stay away from others as much as possible for the next three weeks.
The directive is set to begin at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and will include San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties – a combined population of more than 6.7 million.
The order falls just short of a full-on lockdown – the order doesn’t explicitly forbid people from leaving their homes without permission – and it’s unclear how it will be enforced, and to what degree.
* * *
Update (1435ET): Actor Idris Elba, the “Luther” star once rumored to be the next James Bond, has tested positive for the virus, he revealed in a tweet a few minutes ago.
This morning I tested positive for Covid 19. I feel ok, I have no symptoms so far but have been isolated since I found out about my possible exposure to the virus. Stay home people and be pragmatic. I will keep you updated on how I’m doing 👊🏾👊🏾 No panic. pic.twitter.com/Lg7HVMZglZ
— Idris Elba (@idriselba) March 16, 2020
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At this point, the fact that tourist attractions are closing down is hardly a surprise. But on Monday, the National Parks Service announced that the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island would be closing ‘temporarily’.
The #StatueofLiberty and #EllisIsland are temporarily closed in response to the #coronavirus #COVID-19 outbreak. We promise to keep Lady Liberty’s light shining brightly through this difficult time. For ticketing and refund inquires please contact @StatueCruises. @StatueEllisFdn pic.twitter.com/YwlB3EjmWm
— Statue of Liberty NM (@StatueEllisNPS) March 16, 2020
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In New Jersey, health officials revealed an 80% spike in cases on Sunday, bringing the state’s total confirmed cases to 176. Watch the rest of Murphy’s press conference here.
The time is NOW for us to take our strongest and most direct actions to slow the spread of #COVID19. Watch live as I discuss our new extensive social distancing measures: https://t.co/2ljXqc7ugf
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) March 16, 2020
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* * *
Update (1422ET): One day after closing its border (and sealed off the state of Bavaria, the epicenter of its outbreak) and just a few hours after Chancellor Angela Merkel closed bars, cinemas, gyms, brothels and other public spaces, Germany has reported another ~1,100 cases, bringing its national total to 6,012. It also reported an additional death, bringing its total to 13.
Washington State just announced that it’s closing bars and restaurants for 2 weeks, the latest state to jump on that bandwagon, while Russia said it would “limit” entry of non-citizens as Moscow scrambles to limit the spread of the virus, which has been surprisingly mild in Russia.
As we noted earlier, as the outbreak in Iran continues to rage out of control, a top Iranian cleric has also died.
* * *
Update (1400ET): Just like they did following the lockdown in Wuhan, CNN has flown its trusty camera drone over Northern Italy and captured some chilling footage.
Drone video shows almost entirely deserted roads in this part of northern Italy following the coronavirus outbreak. The country now has more than 24,000 cases of infection in total and on Sunday announced 368 deaths in just 24 hours. https://t.co/SsQZFIs7CB pic.twitter.com/6nGKxZKXNt
— CNN (@CNN) March 16, 2020
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Italy reported another 3,233 cases on Monday, and nearly 350 deaths, even as new cases reported in Lombardy leveled off.
UK officials have reported 18 new deaths, bringing the national total to 53.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, PM Mark Rutte said experts suspect a large portion of the Dutch population will contract the virus.
* * *
Update (1345ET): After facing criticism for not doing enough to stop coronavirus-carrying travelers from entering Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is currently running the country from home after his wife contracted the virus, announced Monday that he will be closing Canada’s borders to non-citizens and non-residents due to the coronavirus pandemc.
There will be some exceptions – for instance, travelers from the US can still visit Canada. Trudeau said the “window is closing” to combat the outbreak of the virus.
Air Canada sunk even lower, trading down 30% on the day, off the headline.
In other news, the G-7 has released a statement following Monday’s tele-conference:
We, the Leaders of the Group of Seven, acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic is a human tragedy and a global health crisis, which also poses major risks for the world economy. We are committed to doing whatever is necessary to ensure a strong global response through closer cooperation and enhanced coordination of our efforts. While current challenges may require national emergency measures, we remain committed to the stability of the global economy. We express our conviction that current challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic need a strongly coordinated international approach, based on science and evidence, consistent with our democratic values, and utilizing the strengths of private enterprise.
We are committed to marshalling the full power of our governments to:
Coordinate on necessary public health measures to protect people at risk from COVID-19;
Restore confidence, growth, and protect jobs;
Support global trade and investment;
Encourage science, research, and technology cooperation.
By acting together, we will work to resolve the health and economic risks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and set the stage for a strong recovery of strong, sustainable economic growth and prosperity.
Accelerate Our Response to COVID-19
We will work hard to protect the health and safety of everyone in our countries. Stepping up the response to the outbreak remains our foremost priority. We will coordinate our efforts to delay the spread of the virus, including through appropriate border management measures.
We will enhance our efforts to strengthen health systems in our countries and globally. We fully support the World Health Organization in its global mandate to lead on disease outbreaks and emergencies with health consequences, leaving no geographical vacuum, and encourage all countries, international organizations, and the private sector to assist global efforts such as the Global Preparedness and Response Plan.
We stress the value of real-time information sharing to ensure access to the best and latest intelligence, improving prevention strategies and mitigation measures.
We will pool epidemiologic and other data to better understand and fight the virus.
We will increase coordinated research efforts, including through voluntary support for the global alliance Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation. We will support the launch of joint research projects funded by both public and private resources, and the sharing of facilities, towards rapid development, manufacture and distribution of treatments and a vaccine, adhering to the principles of efficacy, safety, and accessibility.
We will make efforts to increase the availability of medical equipment where it is most needed.
We will coordinate with online platforms to maximize public access to the latest correct and relevant official information, in recognition that millions of citizens receive information and news via social media.
To implement these objectives, and adapt measures if necessary, will require efforts across all parts of our governments, and we ask our health ministers to continue to coordinate on a weekly basis.
Forcefully Address the Economic Impact of the Outbreak
We resolve to coordinate measures and do whatever it takes, using all policy tools, to achieve strong growth in the G7 economies, and to safeguard against downside risks.
To this end, we are mobilizing the full range of instruments, including monetary and fiscal measures, as well as targeted actions, to support immediately and as much as necessary the workers, companies, and sectors most affected. This is particularly important for small and medium businesses and working families. We also ask our central banks to continue to coordinate to provide the necessary monetary measures in order to support economic and financial stability, and to promote recovery and growth.
We ask our finance ministers to coordinate on a weekly basis on the implementation of those measures and to develop further timely and effective actions.
We reinforce the importance of coordination among international organizations even in the face of challenges to business continuity. We call on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group and other International Organizations to further support countries worldwide as part of a coordinated global response, focused on this specific challenge. We also ask our finance ministers to work closely with International Organizations to design and implement swiftly the international financial assistance that is appropriate to help countries, including emerging and developing economies, face the health and economic shock of COVID-19.
We will address disturbances to international supply chains and continue our work to facilitate international trade.
Restore and Expand Growth
We will continue to work together with resolve to implement these measures to respond to this global emergency. In facing the economic challenge, we are determined not only to restore the level of growth anticipated before the COVID-19 pandemic but also to build the foundation for stronger future growth. We will continue to coordinate through the G7 Presidency including at the G7 Leaders’ Summit and call upon the G20 to support and amplify these efforts.
* * *
Update (1235ET): Larry Kudlow’s attempt to jawbone the market higher with promises of sugarplums and helicopter money failed to spark a rally in stocks, as did a report claiming the administration is drafting an aid package for airlines.
With markets still deep in the red into the afternoon, Google’s new virus-screening website that features information about the outbreak and testing, while helping individuals figure out if they qualify for testing, has reportedly been booked up on its first day.
Some tech journos are complaining about Google’s demands that users create an account, potentially giving Google access to a list of people with the virus, or who have been tested.
To use the Google/Verily screening program to see if you’re eligible for COVID-19 testing, you have to create a Google account or connect it your existing Google account.
This is both a barrier to entry and a major privacy problem pic.twitter.com/L9j5ZDIFGp— Natasha Singer (@natashanyt) March 16, 2020
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Meanwhile, in other news, Malaysia has reported 138 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, bringing its national total to 566 cases in total. Portugal has reported its first death.
Finally, UK PM Boris Johnson warned that cases of the virus could double every five days if the government doesn’t take more stringent measures. To prevent this, Johnson asked the public to stop all “non-essential” contact and travel, with Johnson recommending 12 weeks of shielding for those most at risk.
However, the government stopped short of closing schools, though the administration’s chief scientific adviser said they could close schools if they felt it necessary. Hundreds of thousands of children across the country have been staying home.
* * *
Update (1140ET): Here’s a quick rundown of everything that has been announced so far during Gov. Cuomo’s daily press conference, courtesy of Fox 5 New York.
NYS has confirmed 950 cases of the virus, along with 7 deaths, 158 hospitalizations, 463 cases in NYC. Outside NYC, Cuomo said NYS schools would be cancelled for two weeks (many schools in the state have closed already). Cases in Nassau have climbed to 101, and in Suffolk, they’ve hit 60.
The state might also cancel all elective surgeries. NY has opened more drive-thru testing sights on Staten Island and Rockland County.
Perhaps most importantly: The state liquor authority said it would allow wineries, distilleries and bars to sell liquor via delivery during the shutdown.
Officials in Moscow, meanwhile, have just announced a ban of all gatherings over 50 people. Moscow has also closed schools for 3 weeks.
* * *
Update (1130ET): More bad news: Greenland has confirmed its first case of the coronavirus, per the FT.
Greenland has recorded its first case of coronavirus after a person in the capital of the self-governing Arctic nation tested positive. Authorities in Nuuk said the infected person had been placed in self-isolation at home and warned of further potential infection from tourists. However, Greenland, which is part of the kingdom of Denmark, has followed Copenhagen’s lead and barred foreigners from entering the world’s largest island from Monday.
There goes Trump’s deal…
Meanwhile, the German Finance Ministry has reportedly said it expects its GDP to “shrink this year” thanks to the coronavirus outbreak…hardly surprising. A more formal draft of the budget expected in June will likely take into account the emergency fiscal measures to combat the virus.
* * *
Update (1120ET): Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivered his latest press update at 11:20 on Monday, and opened by warning “I don’t believe we’re going to be able to flatten the curve enough” before calling on the federal government to take drastic steps to expand hospital capacity in places that are being hard hit by the virus.
He complained that states have been forced to take a “hodgepodge” approach to combating the crisis, and called on the federal government to display “more leadership.”
Updating New Yorkers with the latest on the State’s #Coronavirus response. WATCH: https://t.co/Ho4oV9GrV9
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) March 16, 2020
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Cuomo reiterated some of his claims from an NYT op-ed published yesterday. While NYC is facing a complete shutdown, the broader tri-state area has banned all large gatherings with more than 50 people.
* * *
Update (1057ET): Traders feasted on a morsel of good news Monday morning when health officials in Lombardy reported the smallest jump in newly confirmed cases in a week.
The drop suggests that the spread of the virus in the region is no longer exponential, said Lombardy Regional President Attilio Fontana. Cases in Lombardy climbed by 1,587 on Monday to 13,272, which is lower than the 1,865 reported the prior day.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths reported in the region climbed to 1420 from 1,218 the prior day.
The COVID-19 outbreak appears to be on a much worse trajectory in Madrid than in Lombardy.
It took Lombardy 11 days to go from 200 cumulative deaths.
Madrid just did the same in 5 days.
(And Lombardy’s population is >50% larger than Madrid’s).#COVIDー19 pic.twitter.com/uOqzbRKJ0G
— Joe Brew (@joethebrew) March 16, 2020
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Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has finally proposed a ban on all “non-essential” travel to the EU (though she continues to oppose plans by members to shut out foreigners and other Europeans). The news isn’t a surprise: the ban was previewed earlier, which we mentioned below.
And Charles Michel said that G-7 leaders have “agreed to work more together” during Monday’s video call. A ‘formal’ teleconference between members of the group is now scheduled for tomorrow.
In Germany, Chancellor Merkel said theaters, museums, restaurants and other public venues must all close until further notice.
* * *
Update (1048ET): The White House has denied a CNN report claiming that a ‘national 8 pm curfew’ is being discussed.
* * *
Update (1000ET): The UK has report nearly 200 new confirmed cases of the virus on Monday, raising the national total between England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland to 1,543, from 1,372, while the death toll held steady at 35.
Earlier, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s top advisor, said the administration didn’t intend for its policy of targeted quarantines while leaving restaurants, shops and the broader economy open.
According to Reuters, PM Boris Johnson is asking manufacturers like Unipart Group, which supplies parts for jet engines and heavy machinery, to start producing ventilators and other emergency medical gear for Britain’s NHS. Though it wasn’t immediately clear how manufacturers like Rolls Royce, Unipart would accomplish this shift, Johnson is reportedly planning to hold a press conference on Monday to explain everything.
“The prime minister will speak to British manufacturers including Unipart Group to ask them to support production of essential medical equipment for the NHS,” a Downing Street spokesman said.
“He will stress the vital role of Britain’s manufacturers in preparing the country for a significant spread of coronavirus and call on them to step up and support the nationwide effort to fight the virus.”
Britain has taken a “distinctly different” approach to tackling the virus, Reuters said, including shunning widespread lockdowns.
Over in the US, NY, NJ and Connecticut have all decided to ban gatherings of 50 or more people, after the CDC asked that all large gatherings and events be ‘postponed’ until the crisis is over. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has also announced a curfew for all “nonessential” businesses to close by 8 pm.
While the outbreak in Mexico isn’t nearly as large as the outbreaks in Canada and the US, that didn’t stop Mexican President AMLO from greeting supporters on Sunday with handshakes and hugs.
Presidente do México, López Obrador, cumprimentando apoiadores ontem, no meio da pandemia de #coronavírus pic.twitter.com/DpndO5ydDA
— Lucas Rohan (@lucasrohan) March 16, 2020
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As we mentioned earlier, Hungary PM Viktor Orban announced on Monday that he would close his country’s borders until further notice. Per Reuters, Orban has also temporarily prohibited cultural and sporting events.
Orban added that all shops must be shut except groceries and pharmacies, and asked people over the age of 70 to stay at home. He said all events should be canceled except for family gatherings, and restaurants must close at 3 pm local time.
In South America, Chile has announced plans to close its borders to foreigners beginning on Wednesday, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said. There are 155 confirmed cases of the virus in Chile, he said.
The number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan have increased to 122, with 76 of those among people who were released following a 14-day quarantine in Taftan on the Pakistan-Iran border. A sudden jump in cases raised concerns about a possible quarantine over the weekend.
Somalia, Tanzania and Liberia all reported their first cases of the virus on Monday.
The number of confirmed cases in the Netherlands climbed by 278 to 1,413, the National Institute for Public Health said on Monday, after the country unveiled plans to close schools and bars yesterday, before
Finally, CNN reports that the White House is considering a national curfew that would force all “non-essential” businesses to close by 8 pm. The European-style measure is expected to come up during the president’s phone call with the nation’s governors on Monday, where CNN’s sources said it has been ‘strongly encouraged’ at the state level.
* * *
Update (0800ET): The IMF just tried firing a “bazooka” of its own on Monday morning, when Director Kristalina Georgieva revealed that the NGO sees global economic conditions deteriorating “by the hour”
“The case for a coordinated and synchronized global fiscal stimulus is becoming stronger by the hour,” IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva wrote in a recent blog post.
Meanwhile, Sanofi and Regeneron meanwhile are beginning a US-based trial for patients with severe coronavirus symptoms in New York, one of the epicenters of America’s outbreak.
* * *
Update (0735ET): European newswires are reporting that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel have agreed on measures to potentially close or tighten the EU border. Those measures will be released in the coming hours.
So Brussels is finally throwing in the towel…
* * *
Update (0730ET): US Surgeon General Jerry Adams said Monday that the country will likely need 6-8 weeks for the virus to run its course.
If Europeans have anybody to blame for the continent-wide spread of the novel coronavirus, the European Commission should be pretty high on that list. Since the beginning, Brussels has advised member states to leave their borders open, arguing that closures within the Schengen Area are not the answer.
Unfortunately, the absurdity of this open-borders-at-all-costs philosophy has finally been exposed as Spain and France joined Italy in imposing a national lockdown, and Germany, Austria and Denmark joined the Czech Republic, Hungary (which announced its border closure just minutes ago) and Poland – where populists hold outsize sway – in closing their borders. The Czech Republic has also joined in the mass quarantine movement, sealing off some towns entirely.
In a leaked statement on Monday, Brussels doubled-down on its stance, saying that border closures are not the answer as France mulls shutting its borders after Germany announced its border closures on Sunday.
Italy’s neighbors have mostly shut their borders with the literal ‘sick man of Europe’.
Meanwhile, in China, health officials suspiciously warned on Monday that ‘imported’ cases of the virus are creating ‘uncertainties’ as the outbreak comes to an end.
So get ready for Beijing to blame foreigners for re-starting the epidemic (giving it fodder to reject international calls for Beijing to acknowledge some accountability for the outbreak) as doctors suddenly “discover” another 100,000 ill.
In the UK, Boris Johnson’s senior advisor Dominic Cummings insisted that the government’s plan doesn’t rely on building so-called “herd immunity” to an outbreak. The UK is taking a different approach, leaving businesses open while advising any ill persons to immediately stay home in quarantine.
* * *
Those who spent their weekend on one last bar crawl may not have noticed that millions of people are waking up to a fundamentally different situation on Monday than they saw on Friday. In the US, more than one million students in NYC schools – including ~100,000 homeless students with no regular access to shelter or hot meals – are waking up to the first of many school-free days. Some of their parents are scrambling to find childcare, others, left at home because of the mass closures of restaurants, gyms (just in LA), concert venues, nightclubs, cafes, plus myriad other closures, are desperately hoping that government check lands soon.
In Italy, Italians are heading into a second week of nationwide lockdown, while citizens in Spain and France are facing these measures for the first time.
In Washington’s King County, Executive Director Dow Constantine said late Sunday night that “it’s time, right now, for people to assume that they and everyone they meet is infected.”
“It is time, right now, for people to assume that they and everyone they meet is infected.” King County, WA, as confirmed cases reach 420, bans gatherings of 50+, orders restaurants, bars, theaters, gyms, and similar venues to cease operations until March 31 #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/9VGJyURgQf
— Meg Tirrell (@megtirrell) March 16, 2020
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In the Philippines, which acted early to bar visitors from China, infections have repeatedly doubled over the past week, leading the government on Sunday to prepare to lock down the entire island of Luzon, according to the Rappler.
President Duterte said earlier that his ultimate goal with the country’s virus-containment measures is to “save ourselves from ourselves”.
BREAKING NEWS. The Philippine government is set to place the entire island of Luzon on total lockdown in a bid to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease. #COVID19Quarantine https://t.co/DrBA0rFW3N
— Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) March 16, 2020
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In some places, neighborhoods are banding together to coordinate child care…though in other communities, dangerous levels of hoarding continue.
My street are pulling together. Whatsapp group set up, everyone offering help. No-one asking for right now but that might change
— BisphamGreen (@BisphamGreen) March 16, 2020
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In China, the government is expanding its crack down on foreign arrivals by threatening to “probe and punish” anyone who violates rules on mandatory 14-day quarantines for foreign travelers arriving in the country, especially “those who plan to lie about whether or not thy are infected,” according to a Bloomberg report.
The global outbreak reached a grim milestone on Sunday: the number of coronavirus cases confirmed outside China has now surpassed the mainland total. Last night, China’s NHC reported 16 new confirmed cases, extending their streak of near-zero infection figures into its second week. Though few ever trusted the Chinese data, there’s now little doubt that the outbreak that originated in the city of Wuhan is now mostly under control.
Then, in the early hours of Monday morning, Johns Hopkins University reported that the number of deaths outside mainland China had also surpassed the number of deaths (at least the number of officially disclosed deaths) in mainland China.
Nearby in Australia, the conservative government led by PM Scott Morrison is considering a second round of economic stimulus, Reuters reports, as Canberra accelerats efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus that has now killed five people in the country.
The situation in Australia is especially concerning, because, as Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding reports:
Why should we all care & deeply worry about New South Wales, Australia 🇦🇺 ‘s 171 #COVID19 cases? Because it is the MIDDLE OF SUMMER THERE!!! This virus will not be die out when summer comes to Northern Hemisphere. Forget that fantasy. We are stuck with it until vaccine arrives! https://t.co/dGbQqGkvfJ pic.twitter.com/avDV5TUpkK
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) March 16, 2020
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Back in the US, after several governors on the east coast joined in the national emergency, closing schools etc., VP Pence and the rest of the White House coronavirus response team again promised to have testing on-line and paid for by the end of the week, with millions of tests and up to 2,000 labs across the country expected to come online this week, now that the CDC has revised its strict standards that allegedly surrounded the testing process with red tape. After Trump tested negative on Sunday, the media was quick to lash out at him again after he said that the virus is “something we have tremendous control of” during last night’s press conference.
During the press conference, Pence and the team promised to release federal guidelines on ‘social distancing’ some time on Monday.
Five governors have now closed bars and restaurants, including California, and mayors in Nashville and New Orleans announced restrictions in those cities, too, with more cities expected to join in the coming days. In Las Vegas, Wynn Resorts and MGM closed their casinos. Casinos in Massachusetts also closed over the weekend. At this point, more than 30 US states have closed schools, with many not set to reopen for at least two weeks, with schools in NYC closed until April 20.
Before we go, here are a few quick updates on the state of the epidemic around the world.
Canada:
Coronavirus update, Canada:
– 89 new cases today
– 341 cases in total
– 13% hospitalized
– 51% women
– 74% are travelers
– 31% above age 60— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) March 16, 2020
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The US:
Coronavirus update, U.S.
– 823 new cases in last 24 hours
– 3,774 cases in total
– 12 recovered
– 69 deaths
– 49 states reporting cases— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) March 16, 2020
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Coronavirus cases, U.S.
Washington: 769
New York: 729
California: 371
Massachusetts: 164
Florida: 155
Colorado: 135
Georgia: 111
New Jersey: 108
Louisiana: 103
Illinois: 93
Texas: 77
Pennsylvania: 66
Virginia: 45
Michigan: 45
Tennessee: 39
Oregon: 39
Ohio: 37
Minnesota: 35— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) March 16, 2020
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The Americas:
Coronavirus update, Americas:
– USA: 823 new cases
– Canada: 89 new cases
– Brazil: 79 new cases
– Peru: 28 new cases
– Mexico: 17 new cases
– Venezuela: 15 new cases
– Chile: 14 new cases
– Argentina: 11 new cases
– Colombia: 11 new cases
– Ecuador: 9 new cases— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) March 16, 2020
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Europe:
Coronavirus update, Europe:
– Netherlands: 176 new cases
– Czechia: 104 new cases
– Greece: 103 new cases
– Sweden: 79 new cases
– Portugal: 76 new cases
– Estonia: 56 new cases
– Ireland: 41 new cases
– Slovenia: 38 new cases
– Denmark: 28 new cases
– Luxembourg: 26 new cases— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) March 16, 2020
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Coronavirus update, Europe:
– Italy: 3,590 new cases
– Spain: 1,801 new cases
– Germany: 1,228 new cases
– France: 924 new cases
– Switzerland: 842 new cases
– UK: 251 new cases
– Austria: 205 new cases
– Belgium: 197 new cases
– Norway: 177 new cases— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) March 15, 2020
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In Africa, more cases are beginning to crop up as South Africa, which reported its first case last week, begins the process of closing its borders with several neighboring states.
Brazil reports 79 new cases of coronavirus, 200 cases in total, with 136 cases in Sao Paulo alone. Offering another jarring stat, one twitter user pointed out that 50% of coronavirus patients in intensive care in the Netherlands, which has like many other European countries seen cases spike last week, are younger than 50. In Bavaria, the hardest-hit German state, the governor has also closed schools and bars. The government of Ireland has shut pubs across the country (just in time for St. Paddy’s Day).
On Monday, Iran reported 1,053 new cases of coronavirus and 129 new deaths, bringing its total case load to 14,991, and the ‘official’ death toll to 853.
And finally, we’d like to leave off with a bit of levity.
im annoyed that this isn’t some new ongoing series someone came up with 4 days ago https://t.co/TCo2vVXmlE
— Gene Park BFG Edition (@GenePark) March 16, 2020
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 20:27 - US Food Industry Scrambles To Resupply Stores Amid Apocalyptic Surge In Demand
US Food Industry Scrambles To Resupply Stores Amid Apocalyptic Surge In Demand
As coronavirus spreads throughout the United States, millions of panicked Americans have been hoarding everything from canned food to absurd amounts of toilet paper. Images of empty store shelves are compounding the situation, as worries over shortages amid a potential quarantine have added to the surge in purchases.
According to the nation’s largest retailers, meat producers and dairy farmers however, there’s plenty of food in the country; the problem is that the supply chain wasn’t designed to handle this type of nation-wide surge in purchases and is now scrambling to catch up, reports the New York Times.
Industries that are calibrated to supply consumers with just enough of what they need on a given day cannot keep up with a nationwide surge of relentless shopping fueled in large part by fear. –NYT
As distributors and retailers struggle to restock shelves with a sudden demand for canned soup and oat milk, industry officials insist that these are temporary problems.
“There is food being produced. There is food in warehouses,” said North American Meat Institute CEO, Julie Anna Potts. “There is plenty of food in the country.”
Costco COO Ron Vachris said in a Saturday interview “Our stores are getting stocked every day,” adding “Transportation is functioning, our suppliers are working around the clock and the flow of goods is strong.”
Notably, hot dog orders at Costco and Walmart have increased by as much as 300% according to meat suppliers – with some hot dog plants adding Saturday and Sunday shifts, and are shipping Memorial Day stockpiles to meet the surge in demand. Hot dog makers say they have a year’s supply of ingredients such as garlic, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the National Chicken Council says they aren’t seeing any disruptions in production – and that “ample surplus supplies of chicken” are currently in cold storage – 950 million pounds worth, according to government data.
None of this matters to shoppers facing empty shelves right now, however.
The panicky buying is testing the food system’s capacity in the near term. Over the past few weeks, sales of rice have increased more than 50 percent, according to data from the research firm Nielsen. Canned meat is up more than 40 percent. And sales of other essentials like beans, pasta, peanut butter and bottled water have also risen substantially, with a sharp spike this month. Kroger told its suppliers that demand had surged 30 percent across all categories in recent days. (For comparison, the company’s sales for all of last year rose about 2 percent.) –NYT
Another factor in helping to restock store shelves is shifting the food supply from closed restaurants, school cafeterias and college campuses.
“The food is there. It’s just going into different spots,” according to FreshDirect CEO David McInerney. “Cruise ships are not using up all of the avocados. We have a giant surge of avocados.”
The hoarding began around two weeks ago. According to the Times, shortages in hand sanitizers and wipes “set off a wave of panic buying that spread in recent days to include bread, canned goods, milk and frozen food.” Perhaps a more plausible explanation is that the reality of a potentially protracted home-quarantine combined with people who don’t want to shop at a store with aerosolized, three-hour hang-time coronavirus in the aisles has driven Americans to stock up before it hits en masse.
Ramping up
Despite there being ‘enough food’ – there are logistical issues to increasing production, such as the 50-days or longer it takes for chickens to go from egg to mature bird to store shelves.
For some chicken suppliers, the process takes even longer, depending on the type of bird.
Across the industry, “you’re talking about 50 days to get to a customer,” said Matthew Wadiak, who runs Cooks Venture, a chicken supplier based in Arkansas and Oklahoma. “Fifty days ago, we didn’t know this was even on the horizon. There was essentially no way to plan for it.”
…
“It’s clear that the modern supply chain, for all its efficiency and speed, is not equipped to deal with this kind of surge.” –NYT
Amazon’s algorithms, for example, have been designed to provide near-perfect estimations of exactly how much inventory warehouses or particular stores must keep on hand during a typical week – but they’re unable to cope with this type of exogenous event leading to bare shelves in such a short period of time.
“When the shelf is emptied in the course of 24 hours and the safety stock was built intent upon protecting a week or two of demand, you get this tremendous dislocation,” said Columbia Business School director of retail studies Mark Cohen.
“The trouble is that the hoarding hasn’t abated. We’re just seeing the very beginning of this kind of behavior,” he added. “The question is: How long will it take for industry to catch up?“
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 20:10 - Why The Covid-19 Rescue Plan Should Be Vehemently Opposed
Why The Covid-19 Rescue Plan Should Be Vehemently Opposed
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
More than a few reasons exist to vehemently oppose the federal covid-19 economic rescue package. This is the hastily drawn up package, which Trump said he fully supports and is rapidly working its way through Washington on its way to becoming law. The two major reasons for strongly objecting to this bill are, we have no idea what it will cost and it will totally miss its target while dealing a crushing blow to small businesses across America. Still, because of politics, the measure passed in an overwhelming 363-40 vote in the House soon after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reached an agreement.
Politics And Grandstanding For The Masses
The 110-page bill is being painted as proof lawmakers could work together during a crisis after being sharply divided over party lines during the failed impeachment of President Trump. By framing the poorly and hastily crafted pork-packed bill this way promoters are positioned to demonize those unwilling to support it. The chamber approved the bill less than an hour after the text was released. This bill is aimed at assisting millions of Americans directly and is in addition to the $8.3 billion emergency spending bill already approved to curb the spread of covid-19.
Jim Banks, a congressman from northeast Indiana was among 40 Republicans who opposed the bill. Interestingly, the rest of Indiana’s nine-member delegation, six Republicans and two Democrats, voted in favor of the act which has been named “Families First Coronavirus Response Act.” Banks claimed it was because “Some language will mean major harm for small businesses and our economy.” Bank’s office referred to a message sent to House leaders from the National Federation of Independent Business, which objected to a provision of the legislation that would require employers with fewer than 500 workers to provide paid medical and family leave. The question is, how many struggling businesses with two to twenty workers have the resources to weather this storm.
90% Of Businesses Are Small
The bill scheduled to go to the Senate will provide free testing for the virus, expand unemployment assistance and increase spending on nutrition programs. Banks tweeted: “There is much in this bill we need to pass, but as the NFIB said in their letter of opposition, the bill would impose potentially unsustainable mandates on small businesses’ hurting not helping the backbone of our local economies.”
The NFIB correctly contends that “many small business owners simply cannot afford the cost of the new mandate at the same time as they experience increasingly slower sales.” The advocacy organization said that many businesses “may not stay afloat” long enough to claim quarterly tax credits provided by the paid-leave provision. According to the bill, employers would have to provide 14 days of paid sick leave for at least two-thirds of a worker’s pay. This applies to employees who have the coronavirus, are caring for a family member who has it or who need to care for children due to facilities being closed. For those now forced to take on this burden, this is enough to make their heads spin, unlike government agencies small business owners cannot turn to taxpayers when they can’t pay their bills.
Below is a list of what this legislation promises to do:
-
Requires private health plans to cover covid-19 testing at no cost, and allocates $1 billion for testing for uninsured Americans
-
Ensures employers with fewer than 500 employees and government employers offer two weeks of paid sick leave through 2020.
-
Requires those same employers to provide up to 3 months of paid family and medical leave for people forced to quarantine due to the virus or care for family because of the outbreak
-
Offers payroll tax credits for employers providing those leave benefits
-
Puts $1 billion into emergency state grants for providing unemployment insurance benefits. It includes $500 million for staffing and logistical costs for states, with an additional $500 million reserved for states that see a 10% increase in unemployment
-
Puts $500 million into food assistance for low-income pregnant women and mothers with young children, $400 million into local food banks and $250 million into a senior nutrition program
-
Suspends the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program work requirements for the duration of the crisis
In an effort to silence GOP opposition Trump wrote this bill “will follow my direction for free CoronaVirus tests, and paid sick leave for our impacted American workers.” He also said he directed Mnuchin and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia “to issue regulations that will provide flexibility so that in no way will Small Businesses be hurt.” Many political pundits see Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on Friday and his endorsement of this package as an effort to mitigate damage from his administration’s initially weak response to the crisis.
In what appeared a contrived stunt to rally stocks, Trump declared a national emergency, 15 minutes before the market closed on Friday. In his declaration, Trump said he would temporarily waive the interest on federal student loans but more importantly directed his administration to buy oil for its strategic reserve. This caused oil and stocks to soar. The reality and fears of widespread economic disruption with workers, either sick or laid off has resulted in all major U.S. stock indexes dropping by more than 8% for the week despite rising on Friday.
As expected, in a series of tweets, the president said “I fully support” the legislation negotiated by Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and said he looks forward to signing it “ASAP!” The Senate has canceled its recess plans and is expected to take it up Monday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said senators “will need to carefully review” the proposal. “But I believe the vast majority of Senators in both parties will agree we should act swiftly to secure relief for American workers, families, and small businesses,” he said.
4,000 Queue For Hours At Chicago O’Hare
It is difficult to think the incompetent clowns in Washington have a handle on the cost of this bill or that the Congressional Budget Office has had time it asset it. The information is so sparse few of us are able to get details about the language it contains but one thing is certain, the politicians are rushing to pander and pour forth “free stuff.” Sadly, few are considering the unintended consequences that will flow from their so-called efforts to blunt the economic damage of the global pandemic.
Never underestimate the stupidity of government. An example of their lack of competence can be seen at the 16 US airports approved to handle Americans returning to the country. At these airports, unimaginable long lines of people crowd together for hours and hours without masks. This is also playing out in other airports, a passenger arriving at JFK confirmed that they were told to share pens and there was no hand sanitizer. “So if we didn’t have the virus before, we have a great chance of getting it now!” one passenger stated.
The reason to vehemently oppose the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act.” is that it is ill-conceived. Why will anyone want to work, especially government workers when they can get paid to stay home? How do you staff healthcare facilities when nobody comes to work? The greatest irony of this farce is that small business owners will be the first to take it on the chin. Privately-owned companies with fewer than 20 are the backbone of America and what makes it work. This means Trump may not understand at what point a small business becomes a medium or large business or simply doesn’t care. Ironically, the members of the NFIB strongly supported this same President that is throwing them under the bus.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/16/2020 – 19:50 -
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