- Should Governments Save Lives Or Jobs Amid Pandemic?
Should Governments Save Lives Or Jobs Amid Pandemic?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/01/2020 – 02:45It looked like the U.S. had reached the peak of its coronavirus infections on April 24 when it experienced 36,738 new daily cases, a figure that fell to 17,618 by May 11. Back then, it looked like the U.S. had put the worst of the pandemic behind it and President Trump consistently pressed for the economy to be reopened. While testifying in front of the Senate in mid May, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, cautioned against reopening too early, stating that the virus could spiral out of control resulting in increased suffering and death as well as a setback on the road to economic recovery.
On June 26, the U.S. reported 45,300 new daily infections and at least 16 states have either paused of backtracked on reopening their economies. And as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, the push to reopen led to a debate about whether it was better to to save lives and incur economic damage or press on with reopening without taking precautions to keep people safe.
Most countries around the world adopted the former strategy with Italy, Spain, France and Germany among those waiting until the infection rate dropped substantially so that effective testing, contact tracing and isolation strategies could be implemented. All of those countries are now reaping the benefits of that approach, opening up their economies in time for the busy summer holiday season.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Edelman analyzed public attitudes to both approaches in a Spring Update to their Trust Barometer. Out of the 13,200 respondents polled across 11 countries, 67 percent agreed that the government should save as many lives as possible, even if it means the economy will sustain more damage and recover more slowly. 33 percent of respondents said it is becoming more important for the government to save jobs and restart the economy than to take every precaution possible to keep people safe from the virus.
On a country-by-country basis, Japan had the highest proportion of people valuing lives over economic recovery at 76 percent. Elsewhere, 66 percent of Americans say that saving lives should be the government’s priority while 34 percent think the government should focus on saving jobs.
In China, where the coronavirus intitially took hold, 56 percent of respondents said the authorities should focus on saving people while 44 percent want the economy reopened, regardless of the impact on citizens.
- Varoufakis Exposes The EU's COVID Class War
Varoufakis Exposes The EU’s COVID Class War
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/01/2020 – 02:00Authored by Yanis Varoufakis via Project Syndicate,
The European Union’s proposed recovery fund to counter the pandemic’s economic fallout seems destined to leave the majority in every member state worse off. Finance will again be protected, if badly, while workers are left to foot the bill through new rounds of austerity.
The euro crisis that erupted a decade ago has long been portrayed as a clash between Europe’s frugal North and profligate South. In fact, at its heart was a fierce class war that left Europe, including its capitalists, much weakened relative to the United States and China. Worse still, the European Union’s response to the pandemic, including the EU recovery fund currently under deliberation, is bound to intensify this class war, and deal another blow to Europe’s socioeconomic model.
If we have learned anything in recent decades, it is the pointlessness of focusing on any country’s economy in isolation. Once upon a time, when money moved between countries mostly to finance trade, and most consumption spending benefited domestic producers, the strengths and weaknesses of a national economy could be separately assessed. Not anymore. Today, the weaknesses of, say, China and Germany are intertwined with those of countries like the US and Greece.
The unshackling of finance in the early 1980s, following the elimination of capital controls left over from the Bretton Woods system, enabled enormous trade imbalances to be funded by rivers of money created privately via financial engineering. As the US shifted from a trade surplus to a massive deficit, its hegemony grew. Its imports maintain global demand and are financed by the inflows of foreigners’ profits that pour into Wall Street.
This strange recycling process is managed by the world’s de facto central bank, the US Federal Reserve. And maintaining such an impressive creation – a permanently imbalanced global system – necessitates the constant intensification of class war in deficit and surplus countries alike.
Deficit countries are all alike in one important sense: whether powerful like the US, or weak like Greece, they are condemned to generate debt bubbles as their workers helplessly watch industrial areas morph into rustbelts. Once the bubbles burst, workers in the Midwest or the Peloponnese face debt bondage and plummeting living standards.
Although surplus countries, too, are characterized by class warfare against workers, they differ significantly from one another. Consider China and Germany. Both feature large trade surpluses with the US and the rest of Europe. Both repress their workers’ income and wealth. The main difference between them is that China maintains huge levels of investment through a domestic credit bubble, while Germany’s corporations invest much less and rely on credit bubbles in the rest of the eurozone.
The euro crisis was never a clash between the Germans and the Greeks (shorthand for the fabled North-South clash). Instead, it stemmed from an intensification of class war within Germany and within Greece at the hands of an oligarchy-without-frontiers living off financial flows.
For example, when the Greek state went bankrupt in 2010, the austerity imposed on most of the Greek population did wonders to restrict investment in Greece. But it did the same in Germany, indirectly repressing German wages at a time when the European Central Bank’s money-printing was sending share prices (and German directors’ bonuses) through the roof.
Class warfare is arguably more brutal in China and the US than it is in Europe. But Europe’s lack of a political union ensures that its class war verges on being pointless, even from the capitalists’ perspective.
Evidence that German capitalists squandered the wealth extracted from the EU’s working classes is not hard to find. The euro crisis caused a massive 7% devaluation of the surpluses that the German private sector had accumulated from 1999 onwards, because capital owners had no alternative but to lend these trillions to foreigners whose subsequent distress led to large losses.
This is not only a German problem. It is a condition afflicting the EU’s other surplus countries as well. The German newspaper Handelsblatt recently revealed a notable reversal. Whereas in 2007, EU corporations earned around €100 billion ($113 billion) more than their US counterparts, in 2019 the situation was inverted.
Moreover, this is an accelerating trend. In 2019, corporate earnings rose 50% faster in the US than in Europe. And US corporate earnings are expected to suffer less from the pandemic-induced recession, falling 20% in 2020, compared to 33% in Europe.
The gist of Europe’s conundrum is that, while it is a surplus economy, its fragmentation ensures that the income losses of German and Greek workers do not even become sustainable profits for Europe’s capitalists. In short, behind the narrative of northern frugality lurks the specter of wasted exploitation.
Reports that COVID-19 caused the EU to raise its game are grossly exaggerated. The quiet death of European debt mutualization guarantees that the gigantic increase in national budget deficits will be followed by equally sizeable austerity in every country. In other words, the class war that has already eroded most people’s incomes will intensify. “But what about the proposed €750 billion recovery fund?” one might ask. “Is the agreement to issue common debt not a breakthrough?”
Yes and no. Common debt instruments are a necessary but insufficient condition for ameliorating the intensified class war. To play a progressive role, common debt must fund the weaker households and firms across the common economic area: in Germany as well as in Greece. And it must do so automatically, without reliance on the kindness of the local oligarchs. It must operate like an automated recycling mechanism that shifts surpluses to those in deficit within every town, region, and state. In the US, for example, food stamps and social security payments support the weak in California and in Missouri, while shifting net resources from California to Missouri – and all without any involvement by state governors or local bureaucrats.
By contrast, the EU recovery fund’s fixed allocation to member states will turn them against one another, as the fixed sum to be given to, say, Italy or Greece is portrayed as a tax on Germany’s working class. Moreover, the idea is to transfer the funds to national governments, effectively entrusting the local oligarchy with the task of distributing them.
Strengthening the solidarity of Europe’s oligarchs is not a good strategy for empowering Europe’s majority. Quite the contrary. Any “recovery” based on such a formula will short-change almost all Europeans and push the majority into deeper despair.
- The Purge: The Natural Progression Of "Woke" Censorship Is Tyranny
The Purge: The Natural Progression Of “Woke” Censorship Is Tyranny
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/01/2020 – 00:05Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
As I have noted in the past, in order to be a conservative one has to stick to certain principles. For example, you have to stand against big government and state intrusions into individual lives, you have to support our constitutional framework and defend civil liberties, and you also have to uphold the rights of private property. Websites are indeed private property, as much as a person’s home is private property. There is no such thing as free speech rights in another person’s home, and there is no such thing as free speech rights on a website.
That said, there are some exceptions. When a corporation or a collective of corporations holds a monopoly over a certain form of communication, then legal questions come into play when they try to censor the viewpoints of an entire group of people. Corporations exist due to government sponsored charters; they are creations of government and enjoy certain legal protections through government, such as limited liability and corporate personhood. Corporations are a product of socialism, not free market capitalism; and when they become monopolies, they are subject to regulation and possible demarcation.
Many corporations have also received extensive government bailouts (taxpayer money) and corporate welfare. Google and Facebook, for example rake in billions in state and federal subsidies over the course of a few years. Google doesn’t even pay for the massive bandwidth it uses. So, it is not outlandish to suggest that if a company receives the full protection of government from the legal realm to the financial realm then they fall under the category of a public service. If they are allowed to continue to monopolize communication while also being coddled by the government as “too big to fail”, then they become a public menace instead.
This is not to say that I support the idea of nationalization. On the contrary, the disasters of socialism cannot be cured with even more socialism. However, monopolies are a poison to free markets and to free speech and must be deconstructed or abolished.
Beyond corporate monopolies, there is also the danger of ideological monopolies. Consider this – The vast majority of silicon valley companies that control the lion’s share of social media platforms are run by extreme political leftists and globalists that are openly hostile to conservative and moderate values.
Case in point: Three of the largest platforms on the internet – Reddit, Twitch, and YouTube just acted simultaneously in a single day to shut down tens of thousands of forums, streamers and video channels, the majority of which espouse conservative arguments which the media refers to as “hate speech”.
To be sure, at least a few of the outlets shut down probably argue from a position of race superiority. However, I keep seeing the mainstream media making accusations that all the people being silenced right now deserve it due to “racism” and “calls for violence”, and I have yet to see them offer a single piece of evidence supporting any of these claims.
A recent article from the hyper-leftist Salon is a perfect example of the hypocrisy and madness of the social justice left in action.
It’s titled ‘Twitch, YouTube And Reddit Punished Trump And Other Racists – And That’s A Great Thing For Freedom’. Here are a few excerpts with my commentary:
Salon: “Freedom is impossible for everyone when viewpoints prevail that dehumanize anyone. And it appears that several big social media platforms agree, judging from recent bans or suspensions of racist accounts across YouTube, Twitch, and Reddit.”
My Response
Freedom cannot be taken away by another person’s viewpoint. Every individual has complete control over whether or not they “feel” marginalized and no amount of disapproval can silence a person unless they allow it to. If you are weak minded or weak willed, then grow a backbone instead of expecting the rest of the world to stay quiet and keep you comfortable.
Remember when the political left was the bastion of the free speech debate against the censorship of the religious right? Well, now the leftists have a religion (or cult) of their own and they have changed their minds on the importance of open dialogue.
Salon: “For those who are dehumanized — whether by racism, sexism, classism, ableism, anti-LGBTQ sentiment or any other prejudices — their voices are diminished or outright silenced, and in the process they lose their ability to fully participate in our democracy. We all need to live in a society where hate is discouraged, discredited and whenever possible scrubbed out completely from our discourse. This doesn’t mean we should label all ideas as hateful simply because we disagree with them; to do that runs afoul of President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous statement, “In a democracy debate is the breath of life”. When actual hate enters the dialogue, however, it acts as a toxic smoke in the air of debate, suffocating some voices and weakening the rest.”
My Response
Where do I begin with this steaming pile of woke nonsense? First, it’s impossible to be “dehumanized” by another person’s opinion of you. If they are wrong, or an idiot, then their opinion carries no weight and should be ignored. Your value is not determined by their opinion. No one can be “silenced” by another person’s viewpoint unless they allow themselves to be silenced. If they are right about you and are telling you something you don’t want to hear, then that is your problem, not theirs. No one in this world is entitled to protection from other people’s opinions. Period.
It should not surprise anyone though that leftists are actively attempting to silence all dissent while accusing conservatives of stifling free speech. This is what they do; they play the victim while they seek to victimize. They have no principles. They do not care about being right, they only care about “winning”.
Under the 1st Amendment, ALL speech is protected, including what leftists arbitrarily label “hate speech”. Unless you are knowingly defaming a specific person or threatening specific violence against a specific person, your rights are protected. Interpreting broad speech as a “threat” because of how it might make certain people feel simply will not hold up in a court of law. Or at least, it should not hold up…
Political leftists have declared themselves the arbiters of what constitutes “hate speech”, the problem is they see EVERYTHING that is conservative as racist, sexist, misogynistic, etc. No human being or group of human beings is pure enough or objective enough to sit in judgment of what encompasses fair or acceptable speech. Therefore, all speech must be allowed in order to avoid tyranny.
If an idea is unjust, then by all means, the political left has every right to counter it with their own ideas and arguments. “Scrubbing” all opposing ideas from the public discourse is unacceptable, and this is exactly what the social justice movement is attempting to do. If you want to erase these ideas from your own home, or your personal website, then you are perfectly within your rights to do so, but you DO NOT have the right to assert a monopoly on speech and the political narrative.
Generally, when a group of zealots is trying to erase opposing ideals from the discussion, it usually means their own ideals don’t hold up to scrutiny. If your ideology is so pure and correct in its form, there should be no need to trick the masses into accepting it by scrubbing the internet.
Finally, America was not founded as a democracy, we are a republic, and with good reason. A democracy is tyranny by the majority; a collectivist hell where power is centralized into the hands of whoever can con 51% of the population to their side. Marxists and communists love the idea of “democracy” and speak about it often because they think they are keenly equipped to manipulate the masses and form a majority. But, in a republic, individual rights are protected REGARDLESS of what the majority happens to believe at any given time, and this includes the right to free speech.
In the same breath, Solon pretends to value free discussion, then calls for the destruction of free speech and opposing ideas in the name of protecting people’s thin-skinned sensitivities. In other words, free speech is good, unless it’s a viewpoint they don’t like, then it becomes hate speech and must be suppressed.
Solon: “Reddit referred Salon to a statement explaining,”We committed to closing the gap between our values and our policies to explicitly address hate” and that “ultimately, it’s our responsibility to support our communities by taking stronger action against those who try to weaponize parts of Reddit against other people.””
My Response
In other words, they don’t like conservatives using their platforms against them, and since the political left is unable to present any valid arguments to defend their beliefs and they are losing the culture war, they are going for broke and seeking to erase all conservatives from their platforms instead. The “hate speech” excuse is merely a false rationale. Social justice warriors stand on top of a dung heap and pretend it’s the moral high ground.
Solon: “No one who understands Constitutional law can argue that these corporate decisions violate the First Amendment which only protects speech from government repression. Professor Rick Hasen at the University of California, Irvine Law School told Salon by email that “private companies running websites are not subject to being sued for violating the First Amendment. The companies are private actors who can include whatever content they want unless there is a law preventing them from doing so.”
My Response
Again, this is not entirely true. Corporations are constructs of government and receive special privileges from government. If corporations form a monopoly over a certain form of communication and they attempt to censor all opposing views from that platform then they can be broken up by government to prevent destruction of the marketplace. Also, government can rescind the limited liability and corporate personhood of these companies as punishment for violating the public trust. And finally, any company that relies on taxpayer dollars or special tax break incentives to survive can and should have those dollars taken away when attempting to assert a monopoly.
Yes, there are alternative platforms for people to go to, but what is to stop leftist/globalist monopolies from buying up every other social media and standard media platform (as they have been doing for the past decade)? What is to stop leftist/globalist interests from using the “hate speech” argument to put pressure on ALL other web platforms including service and domain providers to cancel conservatives?
Finally, just because something is technically legal does not necessarily make it right. Corporations exploit government protection, yet claim they are not subject to government regulation? The left hates corporate America, yet they happily defend corporations when they are censoring conservatives? This is insane.
The Salon author then goes on a blathering diatribe about how he was once a victim of racism (all SJWs measure personal value according to how much more victimized someone is compared to others). His claims are irrelevant to the argument at hand, then he continues…
Salon: “Trump threatening to use the government power to retaliate against those companies, on the other hand, is a threat to both the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment. He and his supporters are not being stopped from disseminating their views on other platforms…”
My Response
Here is the only area where I partially agree with Salon. All of my readers know I do not put any faith in Donald Trump to do the right thing, mostly because of the elitists he surrounds himself with in his cabinet. When it comes down to it, Trump will act in THIER best interests, not in the public’s best interests. Giving him (or the FCC) the power to dictate speech rules on the internet is a bad idea. Also, for those that think the election process still matters, what if we gift such powers to the government today and then the political left enters the White House tomorrow? Yikes! Then we’ll have no room to complain as they will most certainly flip-flop and use government power to silence their opposition.
Of course, if the roles were reversed and corporations were deplatforming thousands of social justice forums and videos, the leftists would be screaming bloody murder about “corporate censorship” and “discrimination”. For now, in their minds, racial discrimination = bad. Politicial discrimination = good.
The monopoly issue still stands, though, and an ideological monopoly coupled with a unified corporate monopoly is a monstrosity that cannot be tolerated. Government can and should break up such monopolies without going down the rabbit hole of nationalization.
Yes, we can go to small startup platforms and leave Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, etc. behind. I have been saying for years that conservatives with the capital should start their own alternative social media. In fact, that is exactly what is fianlly happening. There has been a mass exodus of users from mainstream websites lately. I say, let the SJWs have their echo chambers and maybe these companies will collapse. Get Woke Go Broke still applies. But, government can no longer protect these corporations, either. With the government raining down bailout cash and corporate welfare on media companies, voting with your feet does not have the same affect or send the same message.
The future of this situation is bleak. I have no doubt that leftists and globalists will attempt to purge ALL conservative discussion from the internet, to the point of attempting to shut down private conservative websites through service providers. The final outcome of the purge is predictable: Civil war; an issue I will be discussing in my next article.
Leftists accuse conservatives of hate, but social justice adherents seem to hate almost everything. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a group of people more obsessed with visiting misery on others, and they will never be satisfied or satiated. That which is normal speech today will be labeled as hate speech tomorrow. The cult must continue to justify its own existence.
I for one am not going to live my life walking on eggshells around a clique of narcissistic sociopaths. Cancel culture is mob rule, and mob rule is at its core the true evil here; far more evil than any mere words spoken by any “white supremacist” on any forum or video ever.
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- Cocoa Futures Hit One Year Low As Pandemic Wrecks Global Consumption
Cocoa Futures Hit One Year Low As Pandemic Wrecks Global Consumption
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 23:45ICE Europe cocoa futures plunged to one year low on Monday following demand concerns and oversupplied conditions amid mounting global economic headwinds that suggest no V-shaped recovery in the back half of 2020.
September London cocoa futures ended the session down 6 pounds to 1,682 pounds per tonne, now in bear market territory, plunging -20% since mid-February. In 15 quarters, from 3Q16, cocoa futures have tumbled 34%.
Reuters explains the bearish fundamental backdrop for the cocoa market will likely pressure prices ahead:
“Above-average rains last week in most of top producer Ivory Coast’s cocoa regions bode well for the start of the next main crop in October but could hurt the current mid-crop, as indicated by falling port arrivals.
“An expected rise in production in the upcoming 2020/21 season combined with increased signs demand is flailing amid the economic downturn is weighing on cocoa.” – Reuters
Cocoa futures are a proxy of economic activity among consumers. Chocolate companies suffered steep declines in sales as lockdowns closed restaurants, resorts, movie theaters, concerts, and other forms of entertainment. Consumers across the world have been crushed by lockdowns, unlikely to spend money at 2019 levels.
Days ago, we outlined similar bearish fundamentals playing out in coffee markets, sending spot prices to 15-year lows.
What this all suggests is that consumption is lagging – hopes for a V-shaped recovery are set to fade as economic reality should rear its ugly head this summer.
Falling spot cocoa prices could suggest the next move for global stocks is down.
- Russiagate's Last Gasp
Russiagate’s Last Gasp
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 23:25Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,
On Friday The New York Times featured a report based on anonymous intelligence officials that the Russians were paying bounties to have U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan with President Donald Trump refusing to do anything about it. The flurry of Establishment media reporting that ensued provides further proof, if such were needed, that the erstwhile “paper of record” has earned a new moniker — Gray Lady of easy virtue.
Over the weekend, the Times’ dubious allegations grabbed headlines across all media that are likely to remain indelible in the minds of credulous Americans — which seems to have been the main objective. To keep the pot boiling this morning, The New York Times’ David Leonhardt’s daily web piece, “The Morning” calls prominent attention to a banal article by a Heather Cox Richardson, described as a historian at Boston College, adding specific charges to the general indictment of Trump by showing “how the Trump administration has continued to treat Russia favorably.” The following is from Richardson’s newsletter on Friday:
— “On April 1 a Russian plane brought ventilators and other medical supplies to the United States … a propaganda coup for Russia;
— “On April 25 Trump raised eyebrows by issuing a joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin commemorating the 75th anniversary of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops on the bridge of the Elbe River in Germany that signaled the final defeat of the Nazis;
— “On May 3, Trump called Putin and talked for an hour and a half, a discussion Trump called ‘very positive’;
— “On May 21, the U.S. sent a humanitarian aid package worth $5.6 million to Moscow to help fight coronavirus there. The shipment included 50 ventilators, with another 150 promised for the next week; …
— “On June 15, news broke that Trump has ordered the removal of 9,500 troops from Germany, where they support NATO against Russian aggression. …”
Historian Richardson added:
“All of these friendly overtures to Russia were alarming enough when all we knew was that Russia attacked the 2016 U.S. election and is doing so again in 2020. But it is far worse that those overtures took place when the administration knew that Russia had actively targeted American soldiers. … this bad news apparently prompted worried intelligence officials to give up their hope that the administration would respond to the crisis, and instead to leak the story to two major newspapers.”
Hear the siren? Children, get under your desks!
The Tall Tale About Russia Paying for Dead U.S. Troops
Times print edition readers had to wait until this morning to learn of Trump’s statement last night that he was not briefed on the cockamamie tale about bounties for killing, since it was, well, cockamamie.
Late last night the president tweeted: “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or the VP. …”
Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP. Possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax, maybe by the Fake News @nytimesbooks, wanting to make Republicans look bad!!! https://t.co/cowOmP7T1S
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
For those of us distrustful of the Times — with good reason — on such neuralgic issues, the bounty story had already fallen of its own weight. As Scott Ritter pointed out yesterday:
“Perhaps the biggest clue concerning the fragility of the New York Times’ report is contained in the one sentence it provides about sourcing — “The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals.” That sentence contains almost everything one needs to know about the intelligence in question, including the fact that the source of the information is most likely the Afghan government as reported through CIA channels. …”
And who can forget how “successful” interrogators can be in getting desired answers.
Russia & Taliban React
The Kremlin called the Times reporting “nonsense … an unsophisticated plant,” and from Russia’s perspective the allegations make little sense; Moscow will see them for what they are — attempts to show that Trump is too “accommodating” to Russia.
A Taliban spokesman called the story “baseless,” adding with apparent pride that “we” have done “target killings” for years “on our own resources.”
Attendees at the Taliban-U.S. peace signing ceremony in Doha, Qatar, on Feb. 29, 2020. (State Department/Ron Przysucha)
Russia is no friend of the Taliban. At the same time, it has been clear for several years that the U.S. would have to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. Think back five decades and recall how circumspect the Soviets were in Vietnam. Giving rhetorical support to a fraternal Communist nation was de rigueur and some surface-to-air missiles gave some substance to that support.
But Moscow recognized from the start that Washington was embarked on a fool’s errand in Vietnam. There would be no percentage in getting directly involved. And so, the Soviets sat back and watched smugly as the Vietnamese Communists drove U.S. forces out on their “own resources.” As was the case with the Viet Cong, the Taliban needs no bounty inducements from abroad.
President Lyndon Johnson announces “retaliatory” strike against North Vietnam in response to the supposed attacks on U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 4, 1964. (LBJ Library)
Besides, the Russians knew painfully well — from their own bitter experience in Afghanistan, what the outcome of the most recent fool’s errand would be for the U.S. What point would they see in doing what The New York Times and other Establishment media are breathlessly accusing them of?
CIA Disinformation; Casey at Bat
Former CIA Director William Casey said: “We’ll know when our disinformation program is complete, when everything the American public believes is false.”
Casey made that remark at the first cabinet meeting in the White House under President Ronald Reagan in early 1981, according to Barbara Honegger, who was assistant to the chief domestic policy adviser. Honegger was there, took notes, and told then Senior White House correspondent Sarah McClendon, who in turn made it public.
If Casey’s spirit is somehow observing the success of the disinformation program called Russiagate, one can imagine how proud he must be. But sustained propaganda success can be a serious challenge. The Russiagate canard has lasted three and a half years. This last gasp effort, spearheaded by the Times, to breathe more life into it is likely to last little more than a weekend — the redoubled efforts of Casey-dictum followers notwithstanding.
Russiagate itself has been unraveling, although one would hardly know it from the Establishment media. No collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Even the sacrosanct tenet that the Russians hacked the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks has been disproven, with the head of the DNC-hired cyber security firm CrowdStrike admitting that there is no evidence that the DNC emails were hacked — by Russia or anyone else.
U.S. Attorney John Durham. (Wikipedia)
How long will it take the Times to catch up with the CrowdStrike story, available since May 7?
The media is left with one sacred cow: the misnomered “Intelligence Community” Assessment of Jan. 6, 2017, claiming that President Putin himself ordered the hacking of the DNC. That “assessment” done by “hand-picked analysts” from only CIA, FBI and NSA (not all 17 intelligence agencies of the “intelligence community”) reportedly is being given close scrutiny by U. S. Attorney John Durham, appointed by the attorney general to investigate Russiagate’s origins.
If Durham finds it fraudulent (not a difficult task), the heads of senior intelligence and law enforcement officials may roll. That would also mean a still deeper dent in the credibility of Establishment media that are only too eager to drink the Kool Aid and to leave plenty to drink for the rest of us.
Do not expect the media to cease and desist, simply because Trump had a good squelch for them last night — namely, the “intelligence” on the “bounties” was not deemed good enough to present to the president.
(As a preparer and briefer of The President’s Daily Brief to Presidents Reagan and HW Bush, I can attest to the fact that — based on what has been revealed so far — the Russian bounty story falls far short of the PDB threshold.)
Rejecting Intelligence Assessments
Nevertheless, the corporate media is likely to play up the Trump administration’s rejection of what the media is calling the “intelligence assessment” about Russia offering — as Rachel Maddow indecorously put it on Friday — “bounty for the scalps of American soldiers in Afghanistan.”
I am not a regular Maddow-watcher, but to me she seemed unhinged — actually, well over the top.
The media asks, “Why does Trump continue to disrespect the assessments of the intelligence community?” There he goes again — not believing our “intelligence community; siding, rather, with Putin.”
In other words, we can expect no let up from the media and the national security miscreant leakers who have served as their life’s blood. As for the anchors and pundits, their level of sophistication was reflected yesterday in the sage surmise of Face the Nation’s Chuck Todd, who Aaron Mate reminds us, is a “grown adult and professional media person.” Todd asked guest John Bolton: “Do you think that the president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election, and he doesn’t want to make him mad for 2020?”
“This is as bad as it gets,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday, adding the aphorism she memorized several months ago: “All roads lead to Putin.” The unconscionably deceitful performance of Establishment media is as bad as it gets, though that, of course, was not what Pelosi meant. She apparently lifted a line right out of the Times about how Trump is too “accommodating” toward Russia.
One can read this most recent flurry of Russia, Russia, Russia as a reflection of the need to pre-empt the findings likely to issue from Durham and Attorney General William Barr in the coming months — on the theory that the best defense is a pre-emptive offense.
Meanwhile, we can expect the corporate media to continue to disgrace itself.
Vile
Caitlin Johnstone, typically, pulls no punches regarding the Russian bounty travesty:
“All parties involved in spreading this malignant psyop are absolutely vile, but a special disdain should be reserved for the media class who have been entrusted by the public with the essential task of creating an informed populace and holding power to account. How much of an unprincipled whore do you have to be to call yourself a journalist and uncritically parrot the completely unsubstantiated assertions of spooks while protecting their anonymity? How much work did these empire fluffers put into killing off every last shred of their dignity? It boggles the mind.
It really is funny how the most influential news outlets in the Western world will uncritically parrot whatever they’re told to say by the most powerful and depraved intelligence agencies on the planet, and then turn around and tell you without a hint of self-awareness that Russia and China are bad because they have state media.
Sometimes all you can do is laugh.”
- US Interest In Coronavirus Waning
US Interest In Coronavirus Waning
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 23:05COVID-19 cases are reaching record levels yet again in the U.S., despite most developed countries around the world successfully flattening their curve and reopening without another major wave of infections. One of the big problems in the U.S., Statista’s Willem Roper suggests based on recent data, may be a growing indifference amid a weariness of misinformation and a news cycle dominated by the virus.
In a new survey from the Pew Research Center, nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults in June say the outbreak has been exaggerated – an almost 10 percent increase since April. In terms of political party, respondents who identified as Republican or leaning Republican had the largest increase between April and June, going from 47 percent to 63 percent believing the outbreak has been exaggerated.
You will find more infographics at Statista
In March and April, Pew recorded that a majority of Americans were closely following updated news on COVID-19 and how it was spreading locally, nationally and globally. Since then, new surveys show Americans’ interest has quickly dissipated, going from 46 percent in May to just 39 percent of U.S. adults saying they’re closely following COVID-19 news in June.
Other data from this Pew survey show how misinformation is coursing through the country, with nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults saying they’re finding it hard to identify truth from fiction regarding COVID-19. A growing percentage of Americans are also paying more attention to the conspiracy that the coronavirus outbreak was planned by “powerful people.”
- Bill Clinton's Serbian War Atrocities Exposed In New Indictment
Bill Clinton’s Serbian War Atrocities Exposed In New Indictment
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 22:45Authored by Jim Bovard via The Libertarian Institute,
President Bill Clinton’s favorite freedom fighter just got indicted for mass murder, torture, kidnapping, and other crimes against humanity. In 1999, the Clinton administration launched a 78-day bombing campaign that killed up to 1500 civilians in Serbia and Kosovo in what the American media proudly portrayed as a crusade against ethnic bias. That war, like most of the pretenses of U.S. foreign policy, was always a sham.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was charged with ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by an international tribunal in The Hague in the Netherlands. It charged Thaci and nine other men with “war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.” Thaci and the other charged suspects were accused of being “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders” and the indictment involved “hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents.”
Image source: TSGT Victor Trisvan/Public Domain Hashim Thaci’s tawdry career illustrates how anti-terrorism is a flag of convenience for Washington policymakers. Prior to becoming Kosovo’s president, Thaci was the head of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), fighting to force Serbs out of Kosovo. In 1999, the Clinton administration designated the KLA as “freedom fighters” despite their horrific past and gave them massive aid. The previous year, the State Department condemned “terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army.” The KLA was heavily involved in drug trafficking and had close to ties to Osama bin Laden.
But arming the KLA and bombing Serbia helped Clinton portray himself as a crusader against injustice and shift public attention after his impeachment trial. Clinton was aided by many shameless members of Congress anxious to sanctify U.S. killing. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CN) whooped that the United States and the KLA “stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.” And since Clinton administration officials publicly compared Serb leader Slobodan Milošević to Hitler, every decent person was obliged to applaud the bombing campaign.
Both the Serbs and ethnic Albanians committed atrocities in the bitter strife in Kosovo. But to sanctify its bombing campaign, the Clinton administration waved a magic wand and made the KLA’s atrocities disappear. British professor Philip Hammond noted that the 78-day bombing campaign “was not a purely military operation: NATO also destroyed what it called ‘dual-use’ targets, such as factories, city bridges, and even the main television building in downtown Belgrade, in an attempt to terrorize the country into surrender.”
NATO repeatedly dropped cluster bombs into marketplaces, hospitals, and other civilian areas. Cluster bombs are anti-personnel devices designed to be scattered across enemy troop formations. NATO dropped more than 1,300 cluster bombs on Serbia and Kosovo and each bomb contained 208 separate bomblets that floated to earth by parachute. Bomb experts estimated that more than 10,000 unexploded bomblets were scattered around the landscape when the bombing ended and maimed children long after the ceasefire.
#ICYMI | Addressing the nation on Monday from Pristina, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci declared that if the war crimes indictment against him is confirmed, he will “immediately” resign his office.
https://t.co/4FuilSZKbu— Balkan Insight (@BalkanInsight) June 30, 2020
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In the final days of the bombing campaign, the Washington Post reported that “some presidential aides and friends are describing Kosovo in Churchillian tones, as Clinton’s ‘finest hour.’” The Post also reported that according to one Clinton friend “what Clinton believes were the unambiguously moral motives for NATO’s intervention represented a chance to soothe regrets harbored in Clinton’s own conscience… The friend said Clinton has at times lamented that the generation before him was able to serve in a war with a plainly noble purpose, and he feels ‘almost cheated’ that ‘when it was his turn he didn’t have the chance to be part of a moral cause.’” By Clinton’s standard, slaughtering Serbs was “close enough for government work” to a “moral cause.”
Shortly after the end of the 1999 bombing campaign, Clinton enunciated what his aides labeled the Clinton doctrine: “Whether within or beyond the borders of a country, if the world community has the power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing.” In reality, the Clinton doctrine was that presidents are entitled to commence bombing foreign lands based on any brazen lie that the American media will regurgitate. In reality, the lesson from bombing Serbia is that American politicians merely need to publicly recite the word “genocide” to get a license to kill.
After the bombing ended, Clinton assured the Serbian people that the United States and NATO agreed to be peacekeepers only “with the understanding that they would protect Serbs as well as ethnic Albanians and that they would leave when peace took hold.” In the subsequent months and years, American and NATO forces stood by as the KLA resumed its ethnic cleansing, slaughtering Serb civilians, bombing Serbian churches and oppressing any non-Muslims. Almost a quarter-million Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, and other minorities fled Kosovo after Mr. Clinton promised to protect them. By 2003, almost 70 percent of the Serbs living in Kosovo in 1999 had fled, and Kosovo was 95 percent ethnic Albanian.
But Thaci remained useful for U.S. policymakers. Even though he was widely condemned for oppression and corruption after taking power in Kosovo, Vice President Joe Biden hailed Thaci in 2010 as the “George Washington of Kosovo.” A few months later, a Council of Europe report accused Thaci and KLA operatives of human organ trafficking. The Guardian noted that the report alleged that Thaci’s inner circle “took captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a number of Serbs are said to have been murdered for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market.” The report stated that when “transplant surgeons” were “ready to operate, the [Serbian] captives were brought out of the ‘safe house’ individually, summarily executed by a KLA gunman, and their corpses transported swiftly to the operating clinic.”
Despite the body trafficking charge, Thaci was a star attendee at the annual Global Initiative conference by the Clinton Foundation in 2011, 2012, and 2013, where he posed for photos with Bill Clinton. Maybe that was a perk from the $50,000 a month lobbying contract that Thaci’s regime signed with The Podesta Group, co-managed by future Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, as the Daily Caller reported.
Clinton remains a hero in Kosovo where a statue of him was erected in the capital, Pristina. The Guardian newspaper noted that the statue showed Clinton “with a left hand raised, a typical gesture of a leader greeting the masses. In his right hand he is holding documents engraved with the date when NATO started the bombardment of Serbia, 24 March 1999.” It would have been a more accurate representation to depict Clinton standing on a pile of corpses of the women, children, and others killed in the U.S. bombing campaign.
In 2019, Bill Clinton and his fanatically pro-bombing former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, visited Pristina, where they were “treated like rock stars” as they posed for photos with Thaci. Clinton declared, “I love this country and it will always be one of the greatest honors of my life to have stood with you against ethnic cleansing (by Serbian forces) and for freedom.” Thaci awarded Clinton and Albright medals of freedom “for the liberty he brought to us and the peace to entire region.” Albright has reinvented herself as a visionary warning against fascism in the Trump era. Actually, the only honorific that Albright deserves is “Butcher of Belgrade.”
Clinton’s war on Serbia was a Pandora’s box from which the world still suffers. Because politicians and most of the media portrayed the war against Serbia as a moral triumph, it was easier for the Bush administration to justify attacking Iraq, for the Obama administration to bomb Libya, and for the Trump administration to repeatedly bomb Syria. All of those interventions sowed chaos that continues cursing the purported beneficiaries.
Bill Clinton’s 1999 bombing of Serbia was as big a fraud as George W. Bush’s conning this nation into attacking Iraq. The fact that Clinton and other top U.S. government officials continued to glorify Hashim Thaci despite accusations of mass murder, torture, and body trafficking is another reminder of the venality of much of America’s political elite. Will Americans again be gullible the next time that Washington policymakers and their media allies concoct bullshit pretexts to blow the hell out of some hapless foreign land?
- Meijer Stops Accepting Cash As Nationwide Coin Shortage Erupts
Meijer Stops Accepting Cash As Nationwide Coin Shortage Erupts
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 22:25We recently penned a piece on a developing nationwide coin shortage sparked by the virus pandemic. As a result of the shortage, at least one major supermarket chain has removed the ability to pay in cash at self-scan checkout machines.
Meijer Inc., a supermarket chain based in the Midwest, with corporate headquarters in Walker, Michigan, announced last Friday, that self-scan checkout machines at 250 supercenters would only accept credit or debit cards, SNAP and EBT cards, and gift cards.
They’re probably all in the fountains. A national coin shortage? @meijer? 🤔🤨🤷🏼♀️ pic.twitter.com/rzKe68WBqw
— Silvia A. Mansoor (@SilviaMansoor) June 30, 2020
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“While we understand this effort may be frustrating to some customers,” spokesman Frank Guglielmi told ABC12 News Team. “It’s necessary to manage the impact of the coin shortage on our stores.”
Fed Chair Powell admitted to lawmakers last week that The Fed has been rationing coins as the circulation of coins across the US economy ground to a halt due to the pandemic.
“What’s happened is that with the partial closure of the economy, the flow of coins through the economy … it’s kind of stopped,” Powell told lawmakers.
He said the shortage was due to the mass business closures that prevented people from spending their coins, as well as a lack of places that are open where people can trade coins for paper bills.
“We’ve been aware of it, we’re working with the Mint to increase supply, we’re working with the reserve banks to get the supply to where it needs to be,” Powell said, adding he expected the problem to be temporary.
Americans Googling “coin shortage” started to erupt in the back half of June and has since hit a record high. Mainly people in Midwest states are searching for the search term.
Google search “coin shortage” shows the issue isn’t limited to Meijer stores but is widespread.
Social media users report the shortage is happening at many big-box retailers.
🙏♥️✌
Meijer not accepting cash at self check out due to coin shortagehttps://t.co/eHL0nUqAqc
— Long Haired Hippie Rebel 🕉 (@lbox327) June 30, 2020
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Coin shortage?
Yeah right…..Ya think there might be something else going on behind the scenes that the media aren’t talking about?🤔 https://t.co/o37H3KmReC pic.twitter.com/z8j8FjtygE
— MajorTom🚀✈️⚡️🇳🇿🇦🇺☧ (@MajorTomXRP) June 28, 2020
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Coin shortage? Guess we getting our news from @cvspharmacy in 2020 pic.twitter.com/sXdQSQAk7l
— Aaron Soriano (@aaroninbrooklyn) June 26, 2020
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My job…. now where in the hell is the coins going? pic.twitter.com/Le8k1ApFeH
— woo. (@i_INTIMIDATE_uu) June 27, 2020
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Really? A coin shortage? pic.twitter.com/rsOk2Wg2FF
— Mike 🏌🏻 (@NYRfan46) June 28, 2020
Is this a sly move to ban cash transactions in favor of credit cards under the guise of a coronavirus-related issue?
- China Caught Smuggling 10,800 Assault Weapons Parts Into Louisville By US Customs
China Caught Smuggling 10,800 Assault Weapons Parts Into Louisville By US Customs
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 22:05China has been caught smuggling 10,800 Assault Weapons parts into Louisville by US Customs and Border Protection officers. The shipment arriving from Shenzhen, China, and destined for a residence in Melbourne, Florida was seized on May 22. The parcel was manifested as containing 100 Steel Pin Samples – a common practice used by smugglers for contraband trafficking.
China Caught Smuggling 10,800 Assault Weapons Parts Into Louisville By US Customs
At the Express Consignment Operations hubs in Louisville U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized a shipment from China that contained over 10,000 Assault Weapons parts being smuggled into the country. As per the CBP press release:
The shipment was seized on May 22. Officers inspected the item, which was arriving from Shenzhen, China, destined for a residence in Melbourne, Florida. The parcel was manifested as containing 100 Steel Pin Samples. This is a common practice of smugglers manifesting the contraband as a harmless or a legitimate commodity in hopes of eluding further examination.
10K assault weapons parts seized—CBP officers in Louisville recently intercepted over 10K assault weapons parts arriving from China in a shipment manifested as “100 steel pin samples.” Learn more via @CBPChicago: https://t.co/KhqaSdoxFn pic.twitter.com/eBrCXpSLyB
— CBP (@CBP) June 28, 2020
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Thomas Mahn, the Port Director at Louisville said that the Chinese smugglers were knowingly trying to avoid detection and smuggle in Assault Weapons parts into US.
“The importing of any type of munitions is regulated by the ATF,” said Thomas Mahn, Port Director, Louisville.
“This smuggler was knowingly trying to avoid detection, however, our officers remain vigilant, ensuring our community is safe.”
The CBP Center of Excellence and Expertise, Machinery team estimate the domestic value of the shipment to be $129,600.
Earlier, in February, Indian intelligence caught China secretly shipping nuclear arms to Pakistan. The ship belonged to a Chinese shipping company COSCO blacklisted by the Americans last year. Sources in Coastal intelligence told GreatGameIndia the intercept was based on a tip-off from the Americans who were monitoring the entire fleet of the shipping line believed to be a front of Chinese intelligence.
The weapons shipment from Chinese smugglers has been caught at a time when the United States of America has been caught in the grip of a civil-war. The issue is complicated by the fact that the group leading the civil-unrest movement, the Black Lives Matter has direct ties to known terrorists.
Numerous Black Lives Matter organizers have ties to extremist movements of the past, and are not some brand new movement simply fighting for marginalized people today. Black Lives Matter has declared war on the police and has released a blueprint for Black Panther style armed ‘patrols’ monitoring police officers on the streets. BLM’s leader revealed in an exclusive interview that they are mobilizing a highly-trained military arm.
- "Book Your Dome" – Yoga Bubbles In A Social Distancing World
“Book Your Dome” – Yoga Bubbles In A Social Distancing World
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 21:45As US daily COVID-19 cases hit a record on Friday, recording 45,242, the most significant single-day jump of the entire virus pandemic, several states, including Texas, Florida, and California (states with current flare-ups), are now rethinking reopening plans.
The emergence of the second coronavirus wave could be problematic for gyms and fitness studios that have recently opened because health officials could quickly shut these facilities backdown.
One possible alternative that fitness centers could adopt to satisfy health officials in an era of social distancing is yoga domes.
A pop-up yoga studio in Toronto, Canada, located on the grounds of Lake Ontario-front Hotel X, has installed 50 yoga bubbles that measure 7 feet tall and 12 feet wide.
h/t Reuters Each bubble is outfitted with heating and cooling systems, allowing attendees of classes to practice safe yoga while minimizing virus transmission risks.
h/t Cole Burtson “The domes are our design. We actually fabricate them in Canada here,” Steve Georgiev, the yoga event organizer, told Reuters.
Classes began last week, is hosted by Lmnts Outdoor Studio in conjunction with local yoga studios in the Greater Toronto Area.
“Everybody’s been really cooped up for the last few months and haven’t been able to go out,” Georgiev said. “This allows us to do this in a safe and responsible way, where people get to enjoy … a group fitness activity in a private environment.”
A world of social distancing will be here until a proven vaccine is seen and mass-produced. So, in the meantime, get used to COVID bubbles, if that is at the yoga studio or at restaurants.
- Where New College Grads Want To Work During The COVID-19 Crisis
Where New College Grads Want To Work During The COVID-19 Crisis
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 21:25Authored by Amanda Stansell of Glassdoor
Key Findings
- During the COVID-19 crisis, new grad-related job openings have dropped 68 percent from this time last year, but new grads are still aspiring to work in tech. Seven of the top 10 employers attracting the most new grad applications are tech companies.
- Amazon and Microsoft attracted the most job applications from new grads on Glassdoor in May 2020. TikTok also received significant interest from new grads, receiving the fifth highest number of job applications from recent graduates.
- New grads are still gravitating towards technical roles. Software engineer, data analyst, and business analyst are the roles seeing the most job applications during the COVID-19 crisis, accounting for 18 percent of all new grad applications during this time.
With tens of millions of people newly unemployed, the class of 2020 has stepped into one of the worst job markets in history. As of May 2020, the number of open jobs on Glassdoor that contain “entry level” or “new grad” in the job title has dropped 68 percent from this time last year. Now, confronting this significant drop in the number of open jobs, new grads are commencing their job searches in a profoundly different economic environment than could have been imagined a few months ago.
Where do new grads want to work? Using U.S.-based Glassdoor jobs and salary data, we show where new college grads in the United States are applying in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and economic crisis.
What We Did
For this analysis, we used a large sample of real-world job applications started on Glassdoor between May 1, 2020, and May 31, 2020, by users likely to be recent college graduates. We define new graduates as those with a bachelor’s degree born in 1994 or later (aged 26 or younger). We then used these data to show which employers, metros, and occupations new graduate job seekers are applying to most frequently in the U.S. during the COVID-19 crisis. Similarly, to estimate pay for new grads, we examined anonymous Glassdoor salary reports left between May 1, 2019, and April 30, 2020, by U.S.-based employees aged 26 or younger with a bachelor’s degree.
Where are New Grads Applying to Work?
The table below shows the top jobs that new grads are applying to during the COVID-19 crisis and the estimated salary for each. Software engineer applications accounted for 8 percent of all job applications from new grads in May, making it the most popular role to apply to for new grads. This is not surprising given its high salary of over $94,000 for workers fresh out of college. Additionally, there are several other high paying roles attracting new grads in May, including data scientist and software developer.
However, money is not the only factor driving applications. New college grads are also applying to some lower paying jobs that have shown resilience during the COVID-19 crisis and often allow remote work options. Administrative assistant and sales representative were two of the jobs in the top ten roles new grads were applying to in May.
Top 10 Jobs Attracting New Grad Job Seekers
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research (Glassdoor.com/research)
The table below shows the top 10 companies that new grads applied to in May 2020. High-profile employers including Amazon, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs stood out to new grads during these uncertain times.
With seven of the top 10 companies on this list in the tech industry, it’s clear that tech employers haven’t lost their appeal among new graduates amid a shaky job market. Interestingly, a relatively new social media company, TikTok, is already gathering strong interest from new grads. New grad job seekers also aspire to work at non-tech companies like Goldman Sachs, EY, and Randstad.
Even within industries that have seen job declines in recent months, there are some bright spots of employers still hiring. For example, Amazon has been hiring intensively for warehouse and delivery roles in response to booming e-commerce during the pandemic, and is hiring for many corporate roles as well. Several of these employers are having hiring surges right now, as highlighted on Glassdoor, including Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
Top 10 Employers Attracting New Grads During COVID-19
Next, we look at the major metros where new grad job seekers are seeking work. The table below highlights the top 10 cities where new grads are applying to jobs. New York City accounts for 15 percent of all new grad applications, followed by Los Angeles with eight percent. While these job openings are listed in specific metro areas, many of these jobs may begin remotely as many companies continue to work from home during the COVID-19 crisis.
Top 10 Metros for New Grad Job Applications
Conclusion
New grads are being forced to search for jobs in the midst of a pandemic. However, like previous grads, they are still applying to tech giants like Amazon (that are boosting hiring in response to COVID-19), and others, like Microsoft and Apple, known for their strong company cultures. New grads are also applying to jobs at trendy companies like TikTok. Even though the backdrop of their job hunt has changed dramatically over the past few months, leveraging Glassdoor data and insights provides a deeper understanding of the career interests of this newly graduated class of job seekers during a particularly challenging time.
- "Red Flags Galore": Companies Sold A Mindblowing $113 Billion In Stock In Q2
“Red Flags Galore”: Companies Sold A Mindblowing $113 Billion In Stock In Q2
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 21:05When it comes to bearish market flow red flags, aggressive selling of stock by corporate insiders is traditionally viewed as the biggest red flag – after all nobody knows the prospects for their companies better than the people who run them – followed closely by companies selling stock. The logic is simple: why sell today if you believe you may get a better price tomorrow.The answer is simple: you don’t, and instead you rush to lock in gains afforded by the market today.
In which case, it’s “red flags galore” because as the following chart from Goldman’s head of European Equity Sales, Mark Wilson, shows companies haven’t sold this much stock in a single quarter in… well, forever.
According to Bloomberg data, secondary offerings in the U.S. raised $113 billion in the second quarter, the most on record. The nearly 400 deals that priced this quarter is also the most ever.
As Goldman adds, “we’re about to close out another record month of global equity issuance, with June set to eclipse the recent record set in May; the numbers (>$230b of supply in 7 weeks), and the market’s ability to absorb this sizeable supply, have been impressive (the quantum of global supply vs prior peak periods shown in the 1st chart; US supply vs recent years trend shown in 2nd chart)”
Following up on this staggering pace of equity sales, Bloomberg writes that “the record-high pace of secondary offerings that took hold in the second quarter is poised to continue into the summer” as share sales by U.S.-listed firms and their top holders raised the most money and happened the most frequently of any other quarter on record.
With coronavirus shutdowns creating a sudden need for cash, issuers found an opportunity in a stock market that came roaring back from depths of the selloff in March. The paradox, of course, is that companies dumped stocks – with buybacks largely dormant – to a market dominated by (mostly young) daytraders who were so eager to lap anything up they almost bought an equity offering of worthless stock by bankrupt Hertz, another unprecedented event.
And in recent weeks activity has continued apace, with Bloomberg predicting that this promises big things for the third quarter as Covid-19 continues to rattle the economy. Convertible bond issuance also surged this quarter. Those deals amounted to more than triple the cash raised in the second quarter of 2019 as some companies needing money looked to minimize the impact of dilution while capitalizing on lower rates.
It’s not just companies that have benefited from the unprecedented demand for equities: for bankers, these deals have been a helpful avenue to recoup business lost to the slowdown in initial public offerings and M&A activity.
And all of this was, of course, started by the Fed which unleashed trillions in liquidity, including buying corporate bonds and ETFs – the Fed is now a Top 5 shareholder in some of the biggest bond ETFs…
The Federal Reserve is now:
#3 holder of LQD
#5 holder of JNK
#2 holder of VCSH
#5 holder of VCITThe @federalreserve has taken over capital markets under the false pretext of “helping the middle class” pic.twitter.com/PiEocURL16
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 30, 2020
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… all under the convenient lie that it is laboring on behalf of the US middle class.
- The COVID Crisis Supercharged The War On Cash, Part 1
The COVID Crisis Supercharged The War On Cash, Part 1
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 20:45The corona crisis has already taken a very high toll and caused deep damage in our societies and our economies, the extent of which is yet to become apparent. We have seen its impact on productivity, on unemployment, on social cohesion and on political division. However, there is another very worrying trend that has been accelerated under the veil of fear and confusion that the pandemic has spread. The war on cash, that was already underway for almost a decade, has been drastically intensified over the last few months.
The “problem”
Over the last years, and as the war on cash escalated, we’ve gotten used to hear certain arguments or “reasons” on why we should all abandon paper money and move en masse to an exclusively digital economy. These talking points have been repeated over and over, in most western economies and by countless institutional figures. “Cash is used by terrorists, money launderers and criminals” is arguably the most oft-repeated one, as it’s been widely employed in most debates about the digital transition. Just a couple of years ago, it was also used by Mario Draghi, to support the decision to scrap the 500 euro note. We didn’t get any specific information or data about how many terrorists were actually using this high-denomination note, but we do know a lot of law-abiding citizens were using it to save, as did small business owners for their operational liquidity needs.
Now, however, the corona crisis has introduced a whole new direction of anti-cash rhetoric and fresh arguments in favor of a digital economy. Even in the early stages of the pandemic, when essentially nothing was concretely known about the virus itself or its transmission, the seeds of new fears were already planted by sensational media reports and fear-mongering political and institutional figures. The insidious idea that “you can catch Covid through cash” might have been prematurely spread, but it did stick in most people’s minds. This is, of course, understandable, given the extremely high levels of uncertainty and anxiety in the general public. Wanting to eliminate potential threats was a natural instinct and so was the urge to take back at least some control over our lives, after they’d been suddenly thrown into utter chaos in the wake of the global economic freeze.
Another factor that concretely helped the shift away from physical cash was an entirely practical one. Given the lockdown measures and the new “social distancing” directives that were enforced all over the world, it became difficult to use cash, even if you really wanted to, or had no other means of transaction, as is the case for billions of people. With physical stores being forced to shut down and with more and more online shops offering contactless delivery (either as a choice or as a service requirement), the need for cash very quickly gave way to digital payments.
For most of us, who have access to online banking, cards or other digital payment services, this introduced no real inconvenience and we probably didn’t even give it a second thought. However, for many of our fellow citizens it was a serious impediment, which in some cases blocked their access to basic goods and essential supplies. Contrary to the glowing promises of the digital economy, of financial inclusion and convenience, the fact remains that there are still millions of people who simply do not have access to this brave new world. According to figures by the World Bank, globally there are 2.5 billion people with no bank account, with a high concentration in the developing world. In the West too, however, there is a very large part of the population that is unbanked and/or has no access to digital solutions, while the elderly are also to a very large extent “locked out” of the digital economy. For all these millions of people, cash is the only way to save, to transact and to cover their basic needs.
The “solution”
With cash being presented not just as a danger to society and to national security, but also as a direct health hazard due to the coronavirus, the push towards digital alternatives has been massively reinforced over the last few months. Both international organizations and individual governments have actively participated and encouraged this push, some through public guidance statements and others through the blunt enforcement of direct rules and measures that leave no real room for their citizens to make their own choices.
The CDC in its official guidance to retail workers recommenced that they “encourage customers to use touchless payment options”, while a report by the Word Bank highlighted the need to adopt cashless payments for the sake of “social protection”. The UAE Central Bank encouraged the use of online banking and digital payments “as a measure to protect the health and safety of UAE residents”, and the Bank of England has acknowledged that banknotes can hold “bacteria and viruses” and recommended that people wash their hands after handling money. In March, a report from Reuters revealed that the U.S. Federal Reserve was quarantining dollars that it repatriated from Asia and so did South Korea’s central bank, while banks in China were forced by the government to disinfect bills and keep them in a safe for up to 14 days, before putting them in circulation.
A highlight, however, came in May, when the World Economic Forum published an article in its “Global Agenda” strongly supporting the mass adoption of digital payments, for the sake of public health. In it, the authors argue that “contactless digital payments at the point of sale, such as facial recognition, Quick Response (QR) codes or near-field communications (NFC), can make it less likely for the virus to spread to others through cash exchanges.” They also applauded the efforts of China in digitalizing payments and appeared to hold the country and its measures as a model to be emulated: “China’s path to enabling digital payments should provide some lessons to other countries eager to follow suit.” Since a number of Western governments may indeed be “eager to follow suit”, let us take a closer look at this bright example and examine what it really entails.
Fiat money 2.0
The digitalization drive in all aspects of the Chinese state, society and economy is nothing new and it certainly predated the emergence of Covid-19. The country’s infamous “social rating system” has made headlines years ago and the government’s eagerness to use technology, the internet and all sorts of digital systems to track its citizens’ behaviors and affiliations has long attracted International criticism and widespread condemnation by human rights organizations, privacy advocates and free speech supporters. Now, however, the state has been given a reason to accelerate its efforts in the mass adoption of digital payments and the abandonment of cash.
To a large extent, this digitalization of payments task was much easier in China, as digital payments there are already very widespread in the population. More than 80% of consumers already used mobile payments in 2019, according to management consultancy Bain, a sharp contrast with the US that had adoption rates of less than 10%. So, as the population has already accepted a new way of payment, the new initiative sought to dominate the means of payment too. Thus, a new “digital yuan” was introduced. This new fiat currency, that has been in development for over 5 years, was rolled out in April in four Chinese cities with a plan for national adoption soon, so that it eventually replaces the physical legal tender.
This so-called Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) will be put into circulation through China’s big four state banks and citizens will be able to receive and use it by downloading an electronic wallet application authorized by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), which will be linked to their bank account. On the surface, it appears to work just like the old currency. It is issued and backed by the PBOC, it’s valued the same as the physical banknotes and, thanks to partnerships with Alipay and WeChat Pay, that control 80% of the country’s payment market, it will be used to get paid by anyone and to pay for anything. In fact, some public servant salaries and state subsidies are already being paid out in this new digital yuan, arriving in their intended recipients’ digital wallets.
According to China’s state media People’s Daily, the new currency is meant to simplify domestic transactions and trade, but it will also facilitate and ease cross border transactions. The implication there is clear: It is yet another attempt to challenge the global dominance of the USD, after the Belt and Road initiative failed to really move the needle as the Chinese state had hoped. The strategy of spending of huge amounts of Chinese money abroad did provide some leverage over developing countries, but it didn’t come anywhere near “dethroning” the Dollar and internationalizing the Renminbi. Perhaps, this initiative will fare better, especially as it now has the “first-mover” advantage.
Entering this “digital fiat” arena first is hugely important and the timing of the currency’s launch was no coincidence. The development and the rollout plan were significantly accelerated following Facebook’s announcement of the Libra, as the Chinese state wouldn’t have the private tech giant beat them to the punch. In fact, the digital yuan resembles the Libra in many ways. Most importantly, neither of them is a cryptocurrency, which is decentralized by design and allows for peer to peer transactions without the need of an intermediary or third party. In this case, the issuer is the third party and all transactions go through a very centralized system that controls and has access to all the data. In another non-coincidence just a few years back, China’s government banned initial coin offerings and placed great burdens on cryptocurrencies and crypto-investors making it very hard to operate in the country, thereby dismantling the threat of potential competition from the private sector and clearing the way for its own digital coin.
* * *
In the upcoming second part, we take a closer look at the wider implications of this digital transition and we look ahead at the impact of this shift as it spreads to the West.
- Gordon Johnson: Warranty Accounting Impropriety At Tesla Similar To Accounting At Wirecard
Gordon Johnson: Warranty Accounting Impropriety At Tesla Similar To Accounting At Wirecard
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 20:25Right around the same time that Tesla was leaking to electrek that the company could break even in Q2 despite the pandemic, analyst Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research was putting his clients on notice about “continued deception” and “accounting impropriety” that is “similar” to Wirecard.
Of course, the stock responded on Tuesday to only one of these two reports, surging higher on the back of Musk’s comments and a continued gamma squeeze helped along by multi-million dollar sweeps of $1500 and $1800 calls on Monday.
Options data via @CheddarFlow Regardless, Johnson’s note about Tesla’s warranty accounting talks about serious issues that eventually may not be able to be ignored. Johnson estimates on Monday that Tesla has recognized just $1,427 per car in warranty reserves versus the $3,308 per car that it should. This has led to a gross profit overstatement of $148.93 million, according to Johnson:
If you take TSLA’s adjusted warranty reserve in 1Q20 of $78.95mn and divide by its adjusted aggregate cars on the road of 763,755, you arrive at a number of $103.37/car; thus, given TSLA provides an 8-yr battery/motor warranty, and thus every car sold is still under warranty, $103.37/car x 32 = $3,308/car of lifetime expense x 79,200 cars sold and on the road in 1Q20 = the amount TSLA should have taken in 1Q20 pre-adjustment warranty provision (~$275mn) ; yet, taking the adjusted 1Q20 warranty provision of $119mn vs. 79,200 cars on the road, TSLA recognized just $1,427/car in reserves in 1Q20.
So ($3,308/car x 79,200 cars on the road) – ($1,427/car x 79,200 cars on the road) = gross profit overstatement of $148.932mn. This is a pretty big deal, and not only overstates gross margin, but also overstates net income – see below for TSLA classifying warranty cost as “goodwill”.
Johnson then posted several examples of the company accounting for warranty costs as goodwill, thus artificially boosting its gross margin and net income.
Interestingly, Johnson also noted last week that Tesla’s end of quarter push didn’t seem to be going well, which contradicts what has apparently been leaked to electrek. Johnson noted that Florida and Texas were very important markets to monitor since they were the closest to “real-time” of any U.S. Tesla data sets. New York and California, he noted, were 1-2 months behind.
Johnson noted the following trends last week:
- OVERALL THIS WEEK (i.e., the most important week for TSLA’s 2Q20 numbers): Model 3 slowing in FL; Model Y slowing in FL; Model Y slowing in TX; Model 3 accelerating, slightly, in TX.
- FLORIDA THIS WEEK (i.e., the most important week for TSLA’s 2Q20 numbers): Last week TSLA was averaging 54 3+Y/day; this week, so far, it’s 40.
- TEXAS THIS WEEK (i.e., the most important week for TSLA’s 2Q20 numbers): Last week TSLA was averaging 36 3+Y/day; this week, so far, it’s 39 (the data come in much stronger than expected today – the strength is 100% from the Model 3).
Johnson concluded that “the end-of-quarter push is the weakest it’s been since they ran out of cars in 4Q19 (unlike then, however, this time they have a record level of inventory)”.
And for those not familiar with accounting who still want the gist of Johnson’s note, we’ll refer you to this Tweet, which popped up yesterday:
Tesla Model 3 on fire & still moving. No other details known. $TSLA pic.twitter.com/UHUUfH5cUc
— KillingMyCareer (@MelaynaLokosky) June 29, 2020
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- General Flynn To The 'Silent Majority': "Wake Up! America's At Risk Of Being Lost"
General Flynn To The ‘Silent Majority’: “Wake Up! America’s At Risk Of Being Lost”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 20:05Authored by General Michael Flynn (ret.), op-ed via WesternJournal.com,
I was once told if we’re not careful, 2 percent of the passionate will control 98 percent of the indifferent 100 percent of the time.
The more I’ve thought about this phrase, the more I believe it. There is now a small group of passionate people working hard to destroy our American way of life. Treason and treachery are rampant and our rule of law and those law enforcement professionals who uphold our laws are under the gun more than at any time in our nation’s history. These passionate 2 percent appear to be winning.
Despite there being countless good people trying to come to grips with everything else on their plates, our silent majority (the indifferent) can no longer be silent.
If the United States wants to survive the onslaught of socialism, if we are to continue to enjoy self-government and the liberty of our hard-fought freedoms, we have to understand there are two opposing forces: One is the “children of light” and the other is the “children of darkness.”
As I recently wrote, the art and exercise of self-governance require active participation by every American. I wasn’t kidding! And voting is only part of that active participation. Time and again, the silent majority have been overwhelmed by the “audacity and resolve” of small, well-organized, passionate groups. It’s now time for us, the silent majority (the indifferent), to demonstrate both.
The trials of our current times, like warfare, are immense and consequences severe and these seem inconquerable.
As a policewoman from Virginia told me, “People don’t feel safe in their homes and our police force is so demoralized we cannot function as we should. In my 23 years with my department, I have never seen morale so low.”
Another woman from Mississippi told me that we need our leaders to “drop a forceful hammer. People are losing patience. It simply must be stopped! Laws MUST be enforced … no one is above the law.”
Don’t fret. Through smart, positive actions of resolute citizen-patriots, we can prevail. Always keep in mind that our enemy (these dark forces) invariably have difficulties of which we are ignorant.
For most Americans, these forces appear to be strong. I sense they are desperate. I also sense that only a slight push on our part is all that is required to defeat these forces. How should that push come?
Prayers help and prayers matter, but action is also a remedy. Our law enforcement professionals, from the dispatcher to the detective and from the cop to the commissioner, are a line of defense against the corrupt and the criminal. It is how we remain (for now) in a state of relatively peaceful existence.
We must support them with all our being. They are not the enemy; they bring light to the darkness of night through their bravery and determination to do their jobs without fanfare and with tremendous sacrifice.
The silent majority (the indifferent) tend to go the way of those leading them. We are not map- or mind-readers; we are humans fraught with all the hopes and fears that flesh is heir to. We must not become lost in this battle. We must resoundingly follow our God-given common sense.
Seek the truth, fight for it in everything that is displayed before you. Don’t trust the fake news or false prophets; trust your instincts and your common sense. Those with a conscience know the difference between right and wrong, and those with courage will always choose the harder right over the easier wrong.
I believe the attacks being presented to us today are part of a well-orchestrated and well-funded effort that uses racism as its sword to aggravate our battlefield dispositions. This weapon is used to leverage and legitimize violence and crime, not to seek or serve the truth.
The dark forces’ weapons formed against us serve one purpose: to promote radical social change through power and control. Socialism and the creation of a socialist society are their ultimate goals.
They are also intent on driving God out of our families, our schools and our courts. They are even seeking the very removal of God from our churches, essentially hoping to remove God from our everyday lives.
Remember, we will only remain united as “one nation under God.”
And yes, there is a “resistance movement” by the forces of darkness. However, we must also resist these onslaughts and instead take an optimistic view of our situation. Like war, optimism can be pervasive and helps to subdue any rising sense of fear.
We must, however, be deliberate about our optimism. Otherwise, we may get lost in discouragement and despair of any failings we encounter. We must be tenacious in the ultimate end we wish to gain. That end is to remain an unwavering constitutional republic based on a set of Judeo-Christian values and principles. We must not fear these and instead embrace each.
Our path requires course corrections. To move our experiment in democracy forward, we should fight and reject the tired and failed political paths and instead pursue a more correct path that shines a bright light on liberty, a path with greater and greater control of our livelihoods instead of being controlled by fewer and fewer of the too-long-in-power politicians. They have discarded us like old trash.
Our will, our individual liberties and freedoms, remain powerful forces and must be understood and applied smartly. We must not be overly stubborn. Following the Constitution as our guide and adapting to change as we have throughout history, we learn more about what freedoms humans desire.
At times, however, we have to fall back on what got us here. We cannot afford to lose our God-given human rights and the strong inner desire for freedom to choose and to breathe the fresh air of liberty. We must stand up and speak out to challenge our so-called “leaders” of government. We put them in charge; we can remove them as well.
It is through our rights and privileges as American citizens that we challenge the political class and leverage our election process so “we the people” can decide who will govern.
We must not allow a small percentage of the powerful to overtake our position on America’s battlefield. We, as free-thinking and acting individuals, must control how we will live and not allow a few passionate others to change our way of life.
To the silent and currently indifferent majority: Wake up. America is at risk of being lost in the dustbin of history to socialism. The very heart and soul of America is at stake.
In war, as in life, most failure comes from inaction. We face a pivotal moment that can change the course of history of our nation.
We the people must challenge every politician at every level.
We also must stand and support our law enforcement professionals: They are the pointy end of the spear defending us against anarchy.
Now is the time to act.
- India Sends Tanks Along Border To Prevent China "Redefining" Line Of Actual Control
India Sends Tanks Along Border To Prevent China “Redefining” Line Of Actual Control
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 19:45Last week satellite imaging analysts based in the West observed a significant build-up of Chinese PLA forces along the India-Chinese border Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Galwan Valley. This included the expansion of what appeared permanent or semi-permanent bases, as well as tanks and artillery units, after the deadly June 15 Galwan Valley clash which left 20 Indian troops dead and an untold number of PLA casualties.
The Indian Army responded by sending its quick reaction surface-to-air missile systems known as Akash to the disputed border region, reported widely in Indian media Saturday. New Delhi is also now said to be seeking rapid S-400 acquirement from Russia.
India has further apparently answered China’s tank build-up with its own in a continuing tit-for-tat deployment of additional forces. This despite ongoing deconfliction talks between the opposing military delegations. The Hindustan Times reports Tuesday the army has sent at least six T-90 Bhishma tanks to the LAC, along with additional defensive hardware such as shoulder fired anti-tank missiles for infantry troops.
Image via Defence.Capital The Hundustan Times describes the extra force deployment as specifically in answer to the PLA’s own tanks along the border:
The army’s decision to deploy the T-90 Bishma tanks was taken after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had beefed up its positions on the river bed with armoured personnel carriers and troop tents. The Indian Army is occupying the dominant heights in the sector within its side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Infantry combat vehicles along with 155mm howitzers have been deployed all along 1597 km long LAC in East Ladakh with two tank regiments deployed in Chushul sector to repel any aggressive plans of the adversary through the Spanggur Gap. While Chinese PLA wants to make a deal on the LAC in this sector as part of withdrawal, the Indian Army is no mood to give an inch as the military aggression came from the Western Theatre Command of China with the intention of redefining the LAC.
The report adds further that Indian commanders are prepared for a “long haul” deployment of additional forces and tanks to the border.
Hindustan Times image: “T-90 missile firing tank deployed in Galwan Valley sector.” This also as India’s air force and navy are said to be in their “highest state of alertness” according to widely circulating Indian media reports.
India’s military has been saying the “extraordinary circumstances” warrant both the build-up and altered rules of engagement giving local commanders “freedom of action” ability if provoked or attacked.
“There is no change in the rules as such. Our side will only react to provocations and in case of extraordinary circumstances,” former Indian director-general of military operations, Lt. Gen. Vinod Bhatia, previously said.
- US Tops 40k Daily COVID-19 Cases For 5th Time In 6 Days: Live Updates
US Tops 40k Daily COVID-19 Cases For 5th Time In 6 Days: Live Updates
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 19:32Summary
- US tops 40k daily cases for 5th time in 6 days
- Texas reports record jump, deaths tick higher
- Pence, Surgeon General urge mask wearing
- WH spox says Trump has “no problem” with masks
- San Quentin outbreak tops 1000 infected
- California cases tick higher
- FDA releases standards for COVID-19 vaccine
- Fauci says US could see 100k new cases per day
- NY Gov adds 8 states to ‘must-quarantine’ list
- Stocks climb on Fla, NY case numbers
- Texas moves to temporarily ban more types of elective procedures; hospitalizations fall
- Bar owners sue Texas for reimposing lockdown
- Dr. Fauci testifies to Senate HEL&P Committee
- EU bars US travelers, as expected
- Goldman says mask mandates can cut spread by 25%
- Victoria imposes 1-month lockdown as cases climb
- US sees total new cases below 40k for yesterday
- LA County closes beaches for July 4th weekend
- Indian PM makes speech as country approves plan to help supply food to 800 million
- South Korea, Tokyo see rise in new cases
- Morgan Stanley says total case number projection is now 3.8 million
* * *
Update (1900ET): For the fifth time in the past six days, the US has reported more than 40,000 cases daily, roughly double its weekly average for much of May.
- U.S. CORONAVIRUS CASES RISE BY MORE THAN 40,000 ON TUESDAY, THE FIFTH TIME IN THE PAST SIX DAYS
Hospitalizations also saw their biggest jump since April.
Our daily update is now published.
States reported over 44k new cases, the new normal. The 7-day average of new cases per day has doubled since 6/13, and now exceeds 41k.
Current hospitalizations saw their biggest jump since 4/21.
For details, see: https://t.co/PZrmH4bl5Y pic.twitter.com/uhD6Ifv8oT
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 30, 2020
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What’s even more disturbing: Cases have climbed just enough in New Jersey and other parts of the northeast that the 7-day average in the region is no longer declining, but plateauing, meaning that not one region of the country is seeing average case totals decline. And the Midwest is seeing cases tick higher as states from Missouri to Illinois to Kansas to West Virginia reported record highs over the past week.
The number of confirmed cases is no longer falling in any region of the country.
The Northeast has been flat for 12 days. The Midwest is rising again. pic.twitter.com/ya0wuIXjt4
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 30, 2020
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However, there are more than a dozens states, including NY, NJ, CT & Rhode Island (which entered phase 3 of its reopening plan on Monday) where the numbers are very much under control.
One optimistic point: there are 15 states on the left side of this chart that are finding very few positive cases, even if they’re doing a lot of testing. This suggests their mitigation strategies are working. pic.twitter.com/i9bbZKvMkC
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 30, 2020
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It all underscores the warnings from Dr Fauci and Dr. Scott Gottlieb: this is a critical time for the US.
* * *
Update (1700ET): Texas just reported a new record daily jump in new cases, validating expectations that a backlog over the weekend would send Tuesday’s number even higher.
- TEXAS POSTS RECORD 6,975 NEW VIRUS CASES; FATALITIES RISE 0.90%
Texas is one of the four states generating more than a quarter of the US’s total cases, the other three being Florida, California and Arizona. Meanwhile, VP Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams have urged all Americans to wear masks.
* * *
Update (1400ET): White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany insisted during a hastily arranged press briefing on Tuesday that President Trump has “no problem with” wearing masks, reiterating a comment made by the president himself (he has said he has “no problem” with masks, but avoids wearing them because he says it doesn’t look “presidential”).
It appears the briefing was called mostly to walk back some of Trump’s comments encouraging the anti-mask crowd, and double-down on claims Trump was never briefed about reports Russia bribed Taliban terrorists to kill American troops in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the latest numbers show that US cases are up 1.9% on Tuesday, which is higher than the 1.6% 7-day average.
- U.S. VIRUS CASES RISE BY 1.9%, ABOVE PAST WEEK’S 1.6% AVERAGE
* * *
Update (1530ET): An outbreak in California’s oldest, most infamous prison has spun out of control, Gov. Newsom acknowledged on Tuesday. San Quentin prison has more than 1,000 of its ~3,500 residents infected.
California’s oldest correctional facility is battling a widespread coronavirus outbreak that has affected nearly a third of its inmates.
San Quentin State Prison reported more than 1,000 positive coronavirus cases as of Monday morning, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a news briefing. The prison housed 3,507 inmates as of Wednesday, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“That is our deep area of focus and concern right now,” Newsom said. He said 42% of San Quentin’s inmate population is considered “medically vulnerable.”
San Quentin’s outbreak is more than double the size of the one at the California Institution for Men in Chino. According to data released by the CDCR, there are 509 confirmed coronavirus cases at the institution. By Monday night, there were 1,059 confirmed cases at San Quentin, according to the same data.
In other news, Florida has decided to start reporting total hospitalization figures again following criticism from a whistleblower who accused the state’s Department of Health of trying to deliberately misrepresent the severity of the outbreak.
* * *
Update (1515ET): Apparently, there’s going to be a WH press briefing in 15 mins.
With 40 minutes notice, the White House just announced there will be a press briefing today.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 30, 2020
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Watch live here:
* * *
Update (1450ET): Dr. Fauci’s testimony ended hours ago, and the performance from Mnuchin & Powell was mostly a snoozefest (Mnuchin’s decision to briefly remove his mask seemed to generate an outsize share of commentary), but here’s an interesting snippet from the AP’s story on Dr. Fauci’s performance that we neglected to mention in our brief summary of the highlights.
Lawmakers also pressed for what Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat, called a national vaccine plan — to be sure the race for the COVID-19 vaccine ends with shots that really are safe, truly protect and are available to all Americans who want, one.
“We can’t take for granted this process will be free of political influence,” Murray said. She cited how President Donald Trump promoted a malaria drug as a COVID-19 treatment that ultimately was found to be risky and ineffective.
The Food and Drug Administration released guidelines Tuesday saying any vaccine that wins approval will have to be at 50% more effective than a dummy shot in the final, required testing. That’s less effective than many of today’s vaccines but independent experts say that would be a good start against the virus.
Dr. Fauci warned that the US is heading in the wrong direction, and warned that we could see 100k new cases a day, double the current rate, if states aren’t more proactive.
* * *
Update (1344ET): With the US on track to report fewer cases on Tuesday than it did on Monday (remember all these numbers come with a 24-hour delay), California just reported more new cases on Tuesday, with the number eclipsing both the prior day and the 7-day average increase.
- CALIFORNIA COVID-19 CASES RISE 2.9% VS 2.8% 7-DAY AVERAGE
According to CDC data, 35,664 new cases were reported Tuesday vs 41,075 a day ago.
Circling back to Cali, the 6,367 new confirmed cases is the state’s second-biggest daily jump yet, bringing its total to 222,917. Deaths, meanwhile, climbed by 0.7%, or 44, to 5,980, while hospitalizations jumped 6.3% to a record 5,077 patients. The number of intensive-care patients also hit a new record, climbing 4.3% to 1,528. The state’s rate of positive tests over the past 14 days inched higher, to 5.6% from 5.5% a day ago.
* * *
Update (1330ET): Contradicting that “whisper number” on Texas hospitalizations earlier today (which we advised readers not to trust), Houston’s biggest hospital operator reported 97% ICU capacity on Tuesday.
- HOUSTON-AREA ICU WARDS AT 97% OF CAPACITY: TEXAS MEDICAL CENTER
That 97% level is up from 95% a day earlier, per TMC. COVID patients occupied 460 ICU beds as of Monday night, a 3.4% increase from Sunday, while virus victims accounted for ~35% of all ICU cases.
Here’s Gov Abbott’s declaration from earlier intended to make more room for patients. He has also ordered a slowdown in the state’s reopening, in addition to other measures like closing bars.
#Texas @GovAbbott issues proclamation to expand #Hospital capacity in 4 additional #TX counties due to surge in #coronavirus cases & hospitalizations. #TexasCovid19 pic.twitter.com/gqGkmxDx6o
— Exante Data (@ExanteData) June 30, 2020
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Meanwhile, here’s a rundown of Arizona’s hospitalization numbers from earlier.
ARIZONA COVID stats today have some good news and some bad news.
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) June 30, 2020
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Bad news: Testing positivity remains still sky high: ~20%+, suggesting not enough people are getting tested.
COVID/suspected COVID patients in hospital beds set another new record — 2,793 (+72).
44 deaths reported today.
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) June 30, 2020
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Arizona hospitalization growth though hasn’t been quite as high as some recent days, ventilators in use down 2%.
New cases are 4,682, technically a record, but that’s artificially boosted by delayed reporting which made yesterday’s number look artificially low.
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) June 30, 2020
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Visits to ERs by suspected COVID patients also peaked about a week ago in Arizona.
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) June 30, 2020
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By WaPo’s count, there are 7 states seeing hospitalizations hit record highs: Texas is included.
* * *
Update (1310ET): Perhaps the biggest news on Tuesday was Dr. Fauci’s testimony that the US could soon be reporting “100,000 COVID-19 cases per day” if the trend of rising case numbers doesn’t turn around soon. While deaths so far remain low, the doctor worries that mortality could surge in the fall if COVID-19 and the seasonal flu are circulating at the same time.
As more Republicans join Chris Christie in urging President Trump to rethink his strategy, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy encouraged President Trump to don a mask, while Alex Azar and even Goldman Sachs have urged people to wear masks in public.
As hospitalizations continue to accelerate, 7 states, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, South Carolina, Montana, Georgia and California, are seeing seven-day averages at least 25% higher compared with last week, according to WaPo.
On Tuesday, the FDA unveiled its criteria for vaccine candidates to win regulatory approval: any potential vaccine must prevent the disease or decrease its severity in at least 50% of people who receive the vaccine, while requiring drug companies to continue monitoring the vaccine for any “performance issues” after release.
* * *
Update (1130ET): NY Gov Andrew Cuomo just added 8 more states to the state’s “must-quarantine” list. Travelers from these states must quarantine for 2 weeks upon arriving in New York.
If you’re traveling to New York from the following states you must self-quarantine for 14 days.
The states are: AL, AR, AZ, CA, FL, GA, IA, ID, LA, MS, NC, NV, SC, TN, TX, UT.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 30, 2020
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Anybody caught violating the quarantine could face massive fines of between $2,000 and $10,000. Presumably, Connecticut and New Jersey, which joined NY in adopting the quarantine earlier this month, will also move to add these states to their lists for the 14-day quarantine order.
The 8 new states join South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Washington and Utah on the list. Meanwhile, critics have accused Cuomo & Co. of hypocrisy after the NY governor infamously threatened to sue Rhode Island for targeting New Yorkers hoping to escape to properties in Rhode Island and quarantine there instead of hellish NYC. Cuomo claims the situation is different because he’s not targeting just one state, like Rhode Island was allegedly doing, according to Cuomo.
Meanwhile, in Texas, the state has expanded its temporary ban on elective procedures to free up more resources for coronavirus patients. In Texas and other states seeing a coronavirus resurgence, local leaders expressed frustration that inflexible state-level reopening and health guidelines have led to mixed messaging and contributed to the resurgence in cases.
More than 30 bar owners in the state are suing to try and block the governor from ordering all bars to close again due to the pandemic. We suspect the battle will be intense, as Gov Abbott has conceded that reopening bars was a “mistake”.
* * *
Update (1100ET): Stocks are moving higher on a spate of new data out of Florida and New York. In Fla., cases climbed day-over-day but remained below their peak levels from last week.
Florida added 6093 new COVID-19 cases overnight:
-152434 total cases (up from 146341)
-14580 hospital admissions (up from 14354)
-3505 deaths (up from 3447)
-36820 in Dade (up from 35222)
-15624 in Broward (up from 15045)
-14150 in Palm Beach (up from 13711)— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) June 30, 2020
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New York’s numbers showed a string of 700+ daily numbers reported late last week might have been just a fluke, as positive test numbers have moved lower again.
Today’s update on the numbers:
52,025 tests were performed yesterday. 524 tests came back positive (1.0% of total).
Total hospitalizations are at 891.
Sadly, there were 13 COVID fatalities yesterday. pic.twitter.com/iHDZjiB9nT
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 30, 2020
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And don’t forget to wear a mask…
Wear. A. Mask. pic.twitter.com/cruhuzNjVI
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 30, 2020
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…and keep those nursing homes protected.
* * *
Update (1020ET): Dr. Fauci kicks off his testimony to the Senate “HELP” (Health, Education, Labor & Pensions) Committee, Texas has just reported a 20% drop in hospitalizations with a warning on the dangers of the flu and COVID-19 supercharging the outbreak in the fall. However, as Texas, California, Arizona and others rollback some economic reopening measures, the ‘whisper’ number for Texas hospitalizations has just hit, and it looks like it’s down 20%.
The number has fallen to 4,739 from 5,913 cases, a number that some have warned might be a misprint.
* * *
Update (0945ET): As expected, the EU has barred travelers from the US as it extends its travel ban for most of the world aside from a select handful of countries, including China.
In addition to China, residents of the following countries are set to be allowed to travel to Europe as of July 1: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay.
In other news, comments made by a team of Goldman analysts are starting to get a lot of attention: Analysts at the bank projected that mandatory mask-wearing requirements could cut infection rates by 25%.
Goldman Sachs argues a national face mask mandate could partially substitute for renewed lockdowns that would subtract ~5% frm GDP. Goldman estimates imply mask mandates cut the growth rate of infections by 25%
— Jennifer Schonberger (@Jenniferisms) June 30, 2020
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So now we have Goldman Sachs warning that mask wearing should be mandatory? Given the recent wave of corporate activism, it’s not terribly surprising. But it’s also certainly worth considering.
* * *
Arizona Gov Doug Ducey last night announced plans for a month-long rollback of the state’s economic reopening, closing bars, restaurants, movie theaters, water parks and other venues, while pushing back the first day of school in the state until Aug. 17. Hours later, on the other side of the world, the leaders of Australia’s second-most-populous state, Victoria, ordered 36 suburbs surrounding Melbourne, the country’s second biggest city, to try and stop a cluster that has emerged over the past couple of weeks.
Australia never had a huge COVID-19 problem (the biggest outbreak before this incident in Victoria was caused by the “Ruby Princess” and the decision to allow infected passengers to disembark without any real scrutiny. Yet, weeks after its neighbor, New Zealand, declared the outbreak over, the country is seeing its worst outbreak yet.
Beginning at midnight on Wednesday (local time), the first suburb-specific stay-at-home order will come into effect for 320,000 people, according to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who spoke at a news conference on Tuesday. For four weeks, residents in the suburbs will be seeing a return to lockdown conditions: They must stay home unless traveling for work, school, healthcare, exercise or food. Restaurants are back to takeout only just weeks after the reopening. Local leaders described the move as a devastating setback for the local economy.
Most of Australia has reported zero or low single-digit daily increases in COVID-19 infections for weeks, Victoria has experienced double-digit increases for each of the previous 14 days, bringing Australia’s national daily totals back toward their highs. Victoria reported 64 new cases on Tuesday, down from the previous day’s 75 new cases.
More lockdown news from overnight: Nevada Governor announced the state won’t hesitate to reimpose restrictions if state-wide trends don’t improve. Georgia Governor Kemp extended his state’s public health emergency until Aug. 11, while LA Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a ‘hard pause’ on cinema reopenings for the largest theater market in the US.
As the number of new cases reported daily accelerates around the world, global cases have reached 10,278,458, according to JHU, while the worldwide death toll has hit 504,936. Elsewhere in Asia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday unveiled plans to extend a plan to provide free grain to more than 800 million Indians until the end of November as the battle against the virus has left India’s economy in tatters. Though its daily number of new cases is off its highs, the numbers its seeing are still well above the peaks from just a couple of weeks ago. On Tuesday India reported 18,522 new cases, down from the 19,459 recorded the prior day, bringing the country’s total to 566,840. The country reported 418 new deaths, bringing the total to 16,893 deaths.
Indian PM Narendra Modi said Tuesday that while the country’s COVID-19 death rate is “under control,” the country’s outbreak has reached a “critical juncture.”
“People are becoming careless,” he said, adding, “we need to call out the violators.”
Back in East Asia, South Korea confirmed 43 new cases, up from 42 a day ago, as total infections reach 12,800 with 282 deaths, while in Japan, Tokyo has found more than 50 new cases for the fifth day running, TV Asahi reported.
China reports 19 new coronavirus cases, up from 12 a day earlier. Of the new infections, seven were in Beijing, which has been battling a fresh outbreak. China also reported four new asymptomatic patients, who tested positive for COVID-19 but showed no symptoms.
Yesterday, US states recorded fewer than 40k new cases for the first time in a week.
States reported ~36k new cases today. States typically report the fewest cases on Mondays (red in the chart) because of a weekend lag effect.
For example, Arizona reported 600 cases today after four straight days over 3000 cases. pic.twitter.com/PUMWCzmlnI
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 29, 2020
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And deaths remain at or close to their lowest levels from March.
There were 332 reported deaths today. The 7-day average in deaths remains about unchanged.
Why are deaths falling or holding steady while cases rise?
Probably for a few reasons: https://t.co/ZXFERIyS6I pic.twitter.com/FkkYBQ7U96
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 29, 2020
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In the US, a team of Morgan Stanley analysts determined, according to a research note published Tuesday, the US reproduction number has remained at 1.17 since last week, while the time for the number of total cases to double has declined slightly to 41 days (vs 46 days last week), “suggesting that spread is ongoing and accelerating. Our total predicted infections now stand at 3.8M.”
Following a move to rollback California’s economic reopening by closing bars and other venues, LA has joined a growing group of cities around the country that are planning to close their beaches for the July 4 weekend.
BREAKING: All L.A. County beaches ordered CLOSED for 4th of July weekend 7/3 through 7/6. This new order makes it illegal to trespass at these locations and is punishable by law to include, but not limited to, a $1000 fine. @FOXLA
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) June 29, 2020
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Following a handful of vaccine-trial updates out of China, British media reported that a global trial designed to test whether the anti-malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine can prevent infection with COVID-19 will soon re-start after being approved by regulators.
Finally, the US isn’t on a “safe list” of destinations for non-essential travel due to be released by EU members later on Tuesday as the bloc unveils guidelines for leisure and business travel beyond its borders. For the past few days, a steady stream of leaks has claimed that the EU would exclude travelers from the US for the remainder of the summer, at least.
- The Problem With Government "Contact Tracing"
The Problem With Government “Contact Tracing”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 19:25Authored by James Ketler via The Mises Institute,
As states move through phases of reopening, “contact tracing” has remained a topic of national interest. For months now, talking heads in the government and media have hailed the strategy as the country’s saving grace. One NBC headline read, “Coronavirus contact tracing could stop COVID-19 and reopen America,” and a CNN article declared, “the US — or really any country — can’t safely reopen without significant amounts of contact tracing and testing”.
With this starry-eyed perception, dozens of states have rushed to train and hire tens of thousands of contact tracers – what former CDC director Tom Frieden gleefully described as an “army” of tracers.
It’s true that contact tracing has been an indispensable asset many times in the past – helping to snuff out viruses by diligently tracking their spread. So it’s no mystery why some health experts are flocking to it in the current crisis.
In short, this is how it works: contact tracers conduct short, over-the-phone interviews of newly-diagnosed patients about who they have recently been in close, physical contact with. The fear is that these recent contacts could have contracted the virus from the patient before he was diagnosed. These contacts are then phoned by tracers, informing them of this risk and encouraging them to seek testing and self-quarantine immediately. Tracers continue this process on down the line, with the aim of reducing the instances where the virus is transmitted
A few states have also begun developing smartphone apps to conduct a digital form of contact tracing. Phones running the app exchange unique, encrypted numbers via Bluetooth, which are then stored on their devices. If an app user is diagnosed with COVID, he’s supposed to notify the app, which then publishes the log of numbers his phone received in the last fourteen days. If one of these numbers matches one stored on the device of another user, the app will send that user an alert that he’d been in recent contact with a newly-diagnosed COVID patient.
So far, the adoption of these apps has been left completely voluntary in the US, unlike other countries like China and South Korea. Overall, though, most of the states have yet to show much excitement towards digital tracing. The main focus remains on building an “army” to track the virus’ spread, no matter what it might cost the country.
Financial Costs
Contact tracing job positions are temporary—lasting for months or up to a year, with annual salaries ranging from $40,000 to $70,000. Those numbers are about on-par with the entry-level salaries of registered nurses, for a job that anyone completing a free, six-hour course can be hired for. Few, however, have questioned whether such pay is excessive or this use of taxpayer money prudent. It’s all been blindly okayed under the hallowed pretense of “public health”.
With experts recommending that the country hire a total of 150,000 contact tracers, these programs may end up costing the states somewhere between $1 billion and $10.5 billion altogether. On top of that sum lie whatever additional costs the handful of states developing digital tracing apps incur. Worse, bills currently floating around the House and Senate would, if made law, establish a federally-led contact tracing program with a price tag as high as $100 billion. To government budget-breakers, that may just look like zeros and decimal places, but there’s a serious economic toll to be reckoned with.
Increased government spending is often accompanied by a rise in taxes, and almost always by an expansion of the money supply. In either case, people’s wealth is subsequently decreased. Individuals and their families must, accordingly, cut back on the amount of money they save, which in turn decreases the stock of loanable funds from the level that would have otherwise been available. As a result, the amount of investment in the economy falls, dulling the momentum of economic growth. That could severely dampen the economy’s post-recession recovery.
In our present crisis—unlike any before—many businesses were shut down for months not by economic circumstance, but by state decree. That contributed to the sharpest ever employment crisis in the US, with more than 20 million workers being cut from payrolls in April alone. Some of these cuts were temporary furloughs, but a part of that number reflects permanent job loss—either from companies being forced to slash operating costs or going bankrupt outright.
Some of the proponents of the state’s contact tracing programs see themselves as killing two birds with one stone—helping to eliminate COVID, while also putting people back to work. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) made this clear when stumping for the federal contact tracing bill she co-sponsored: “Our policies must meet the needs of the current moment, and that means getting creative about how we get people back to work”.
But government jobs programs don’t actually create employment in any way besides superficially. The reality is that they siphon labor away from potentially productive ventures at wages propped up at artificially high rates. This too will defer the economy’s recovery and must—for the good of private enterprise—be halted immediately. But by the looks of it, the program will continue forward uninterrupted, as it plays perfectly into the narrative that the state can solve all of society’s ills—no matter what the economics and epidemiology really say about it.
Public Health Doublethink
Much of how the public should respond to the virus hinges on the question of how common asymptomatic transmission of it is. Unfortunately, the research available on this is limited and contradictory, allowing cunning politicians to play both sides of the fence in order to get their way.
Some early findings suggest that the virus undergoes considerable shedding in patients not showing symptoms, meaning that asymptomatic transmission is indeed common. Viewed through this narrow lens, it would seem that there’s cause to worry. However, the data suggesting the prevalence of asymptomatic transmission is ultimately rather paltry, and there’s evidence pointing to the contrary.
WHO spokeswoman Maria van Kerkhove recently claimed that based on “a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” asymptomatic transmission is “very rare”—directly contradicting what public health officials had long assumed about the virus. If the risk of contagion remains low until after symptoms appear, patients are far less likely to spread the virus to others. This notion too, though, is based on data that is, as of yet, incomplete, leaving the question of asymptomatic transmission unsolved and open to further inquiry. But whatever the underlying reality is, a significant problem must inevitably emerge for defenders of the government’s pandemic response efforts.
At the outset, governors imposed the lockdowns for fear that asymptomatic carriers were spreading the virus. Since anybody could unknowingly be infected and contagious, lockdowns were put in place as a proactive quarantine on the entire population. But according to Dr. Don Printz, a former research leader at the CDC, if there’s “shedding 2-5 days before any signs or symptoms, I would think [contact tracing] would be almost impossible”. Indeed, with an incubation period lasting between two and fourteen days, many patients would remain contagious for a long time without ever showing symptoms. New chains of transmission would easily emerge, generating exponential growth in the number of new cases. By the time contact tracers tried to map the probable path of transmission, the virus would have already spread to a number of other people—and on and on after that.
On the flip-side, if asymptomatic transmission is “very rare,” as van Kerkhove asserted, contact tracing may be a successful strategy. If only symptomatic patients are spreading the virus, though, the whole rationale for the lockdowns is then completely destroyed. For all the economic, political, social, and psychological damage the lockdowns caused, they would have yielded absolutely no public health benefit. It boils down to this: it’s either (1) that the lockdowns were effective or (2) that the contact tracing is effective, but politicians can’t have it both ways.
Still, the government’s big-spenders have pushed forward without delay. In fact, they’ve doubled down on their self-contradictions. The CDC, for instance, declared that “asymptomatic transmission enhances the need to scale up the capacity for … thorough contact tracing”. That is, of course, a repetition of the perennial call for more funding—oh, how our problems would disappear if only we spent more. Funneling more money towards programs that are inherently faulty won’t lead to better or more effective results, but to programs just as faulty, only with larger personnels.
Trying to Trace COVID Probably Won’t Work Anyway
Even casting aside politicians’ obvious public health duplicity, their contact tracing plans don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. Whatever the case with asymptomatic transmission may be, COVID’s characteristics pose contact tracers unique and probably insurmountable challenges, leaving the US’ tracing “army” already besieged.
The first problem is that catching COVID is not activity-specific, unlike other viruses like, say, HIV. Anyone in close proximity to a contagious COVID patient is at-risk for inhaling virus-ridden droplets that had been coughed, sneezed, or breathed out—it doesn’t matter where people are or what they’re doing. That suggests that the virus may often be transmitted between complete strangers, in which case contact tracing is rendered impossible, as tracing relies upon patients recalling their recent contacts.
This has only been exacerbated over the past month with the Black Lives Matter riots springing up across the country—a perfect storm for the virus’ spread. Research has shown activities like yelling, singing, and chanting to extend the distance that infectious droplets are spewed into the air. Not only does this lead to more new cases, but it also makes it much more difficult—even impossible—for tracers to figure out who passed the virus to whom.
The second problem arises once symptoms begin to show. The way COVID manifests itself is multifarious, with some patients only exhibiting irregular symptoms not usually associated with the virus, like loss of smell, rash, and delirium. Many of its key symptoms—including dry cough, fever, and shortness of breath—are found in a variety of other illnesses, further muddying the waters. That leaves gaping holes in the health record and may lead to new, hard-to-trace outbreaks.
Though meant to increase efficiency and efficacy, digital tracing apps are also riddled with significant problems. If the apps aren’t downloaded by enough residents, many may easily fall through the cracks and infect others. The apps only confer public health boons if they’re in common and widespread use. But today, nearly 20% of Americans still don’t own smartphones and a recent poll indicated that only half of those who do would consider downloading a tracing app. And that’s not even to mention the fact that people don’t always have their phones on their person, meaning that many interactions could take place untraced and under the radar.
In focusing entirely on proximity, digital tracing continues to get it wrong. Indoor air flow poses a risk of spreading infectious droplets across rooms and throughout entire buildings—far beyond the six-foot proximity the apps look for. This summer, that risk may be augmented by AC ventilation. Then there’s also the risk of touching infected surfaces, which may harbor traces of the virus for hours or up to a few days. The apps simply can’t account for this sort of spread, chipping further away at their overall effectiveness.
Moreover, there are some instances where people who are physically close together are extraordinarily unlikely to become infected, like in a supermarket checkout line, separated from the clerk by a plexiglass shield. Nonetheless, this would trigger an alert to be sent to people’s phones, warning them of possible COVID exposure with no further explanation—triggering a false alarm and probably a lot of worry and confusion. Divorcing the human factor from the process takes an undeniable toll on its reliability, when it was never that reliable in the first place.
Why should anyone still have faith in the government when it’s made fatal stumbles at every step of the pandemic? Public health officials were unable to stop the first instances of community spread of COVID in late January and even remained in denial that the virus was spreading uncontrollably until the end of February. The notion that contact tracing is right now serving as a useful strategy in the US—with active cases hovering around 1 million—is preposterous.
Officials may feign confidence in the decisions they make, but that’s fueled by pure optics, not science. Across all fifty states, these programs are on track to reroute billions of dollars and more than one hundred thousand workers away from otherwise valuable uses. And for what? All to spin our wheels and sink into a false sense of hope and security.
- Trump Never Briefed On Unvetted Russian Bounty Intel Because NSA "Strongly Dissented"
Trump Never Briefed On Unvetted Russian Bounty Intel Because NSA “Strongly Dissented”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/30/2020 – 19:05On Tuesday, the same day that Joe Biden finally emerged to hold his first press conference in 89 days in order to lash out at what he called Trump’s “dereliction of duty” over the NY Times Russian bounties for Taliban militants to kill American troops in Afghanistan story, The Wall Street Journal issued this bombshell:
The National Security Agency strongly dissented from other intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia paid bounties for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, according to people familiar with the matter.
The disclosure of the dissent by the NSA, which specializes in electronic eavesdropping, comes as the White House has played down the revelations, saying that the information wasn’t verified and that intelligence officials didn’t agree on it.
NSA headquarters in Maryland, file image. As we noted before, it appears a return this week to mainstream media’s prior years of near daily breathless Russiagate reporting, with “anonymous intelligence sources” issuing new leaks of unvetted raw intel to the press.
The WSJ points out that it was primarily the NSA’s firm dissent that kept the Russian bounties allegation out of the president’s daily briefing — which both further confirms the White House’s denials of the initial Friday Times reporting, as well as contradicts the NYT “revelation” itself.
“Because of that [NSA dissent], President Trump was never personally briefed on the threat, the White House said, although a key lawmaker said the information apparently was included in written intelligence materials prepared for Mr. Trump,” WSJ underscores.
No details were given as to precisely how the NSA differed in its assessment of the Russian bounty allegations. For those keeping score, this marks the third major formal distancing from the substance of the NYT reporting by US intelligence agencies and intel community leadership.
Also recall this isn’t the first instance of significant NSA pushback concerning explosive charges aimed at Russia:
In 2016, the NSA also strongly dissented from the CIA’s — aka John Brennan’s — assessment that Russia meddled in the US election to elect Trump. https://t.co/TlNbjERp8D
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 30, 2020
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On Saturday Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a statement that he had “confirmed that neither the President nor the Vice President were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting.”
CIA Director Gina Haspel also appeared to vindicate the White House’s assertion of lack of credible intelligence behind it in a Monday statement. Essentially the CIA director seemed to reference the danger of “cherry-picking” from lower level unvetted raw information.“When developing intelligence assessments, initial tactical reports often require additional collection and validation,” Haspel said.
“Leaks compromise and disrupt the critical interagency work to collect, assess, and ascribe culpability,” she added, strongly suggesting that indeed there was not enough to go on concerning the Russian bounty allegations for it to rise to the level of the commander-in-chief. In actually this was further a CIA condemnation of the “anonymous” leakers out of which the whole narrative was spun.
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