- UK Trade Group Warns Of "Jobs Bloodbath" And No V-Shaped Recovery
UK Trade Group Warns Of “Jobs Bloodbath” And No V-Shaped Recovery
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/21/2020 – 02:45Europe is facing a deeper recession in 2020 than previously thought, while the UK economy could shrink by 10% this year.
The shape of the UK recovery is turning out to be anything but a “V,” forcing more than half of the manufacturers in the country to reduce their respective labor forces in the back half of the year, according to Make UK’s latest Manufacturing Monitor survey.
The second round of job layoffs could be much deadlier for the economy than the first. Why is that? Well, it’s being called a “jobs bloodbath” by Make UK, because high-value skill jobs are the next to be axed.
The survey, which covered 170 companies between 7 and 14 July, shows 53% of manufacturers across the automotive and aerospace sectors are expecting layoffs of highly skilled workers by the end of the year. Make UK said these high-value sectors have long supply chains that employ tens of thousands of people directly and indirectly. If these jobs are lost due to an extended downturn, it would be disastrous for the economy and suggest a recovery could take years.
Take, for example, Airbus. The European planemaker, with production sites in the UK, said in late June it would cut 15,000 workers across its entire global workforce and doesn’t expect a recovery in air travel until 2023.
Make UK’s warning about high-value job loss comes as the UK economy is expected to shrink by nearly 10% this year, making it one of the worst-hit economies on the continent.
The road to recovery is far from a smooth sail, as what it’s routinely pitched by government officials and central bankers.
“At present, the prospect of a V shaped recovery for Industry seems remote.” said Stephen Phipson, CEO of Make UK.
With no “V” shaped recovery expected, the government might have to support additional rounds of its furlough scheme that pays wages of more than 9 million people. The program is expected to be round down in August and halted in late October.
- Drone Wars Open New Phase Of Conflict In Syria
Drone Wars Open New Phase Of Conflict In Syria
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/21/2020 – 02:00Submitted by South Front
Early on July 20, positions of the Syrian Army came under shelling by militants in the villages of Furu, Bahsa and Beit Hassno in the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone. In response, government forces struck positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sam near Kansafra and surrounding areas.
Local tensions increased just a few days after a key infrastructure object of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib became the target of a drone attack. On July 18, three suicide drones hit facilities of the Watad Petroleum Company in the town of Saramada. This company is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and has a monopoly on the fuel market in Greater Idlib. It is deeply involved in oil trafficking with nearby Turkish-occupied areas in northern Aleppo and responsible for the illegal import of fuel from Turkey. A notable part of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s revenue is generated by Watad.
The HTS news agency Iba’a confirmed that the drones struck the headquarters of the company as well as its fuel market. However, the agency claimed that the strikes didn’t result in any human or material losses.
A photo of one of the drones made before the attack shows an X-shaped wing design similar to that of the Hero family of loitering munitions produced by Israel’s UVision. Syrian sources speculate that this drone may be a Russian, Syrian or Iranian reverse-engineered copy of the Israeli munition. At the same time, it is likely that the strike was conducted by Turkey itself, which is silently working to undermine the dominance of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the region.
Earlier in July, Idlib militants attacked a joint Turkish-Russian patrol on the M4 highway with a detonated car driven by a suicide bomber. It is hard to believe that such an attack could be possible without the coordination with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that controls the frontline in that area. So, Ankara may opt to employ some additional measures to demonstrate its dissatisfaction with such actions of its al-Qaeda partners, that Turkish state media like to call ‘moderate rebels’.
On July 19, an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded in the Turkish-occupied town of Afrin in northern Aleppo. The IED targeted a vehicle of the Sham Corps militant group wounding at least 3 of its members, including a field commander. On the same day, a car bomb attack in the town of Sajjo reportedly killed 5 people and injured dozens of others. Turkish sources often blamed Kurdish rebels for these attacks. However, ISIS cells are also quite active in the Turkish-controlled part of Syria.
On July 16, a quadcopter armed with an explosive charge targeted a group of Russian and Syrian service members in the vicinity of the town of al-Darbasiyah in northeastern Syria. Three service members of the Russian Military Police and three Syrian personnel were injured. According to reports, the attack took place during a meeting at a local coordination post, which was initiated due to the increase of ceasefire violations by Turkish-led forces on the contact line in northeastern Syria.
Even if this attack was not initiated by Turkish forces themselves, but was a local initiative of Turkish proxies, such incidents do not contribute to the stability in Syria’s northeast. The regular ceasefire violations and attacks create an explosive situation on the frontline, which runs the risk of turning into an open military confrontation between the Syrian Army and Turkish forces. The areas with a strong Turkish military presence and the US-controlled zone of al-Tanf remain the main sources of tensions and instability in Syria.
- Tucker Carlson Livid; Dismantles The New York Times Over Alleged Plan To Dox Him
Tucker Carlson Livid; Dismantles The New York Times Over Alleged Plan To Dox Him
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/21/2020 – 00:00In November of 2018, an organized Antifa chapter known as “Smash Racism DC” showed up at the home of Fox News host Tucker Carlson – ringing his doorbell as their violent co-founder, Michael Isaacson – who loves dead cops and called for VP Mike Pence’s assassination – led them in chants such as “Tucker Carlson, we will fight! / We know where you sleep at night!“
Later that evening, the group posted “Every night you spread fear into our homes — fear of the other, fear of us, and fear of them. Tonight you’re reminded that we have a voice. Tonight, we remind you that you are not safe either.”
The angry mob would return weeks later to further hassle Carlson and his family.
The previous month, Carlson said that he’s “not a restaurant guy anymore” because of the constant harassment from the left – including a verbal altercation the Fox News host got into with a man who allegedly called his 19-year-old daughter a “whore” at at a Charlottesville, VA club.
Due to the ongoing threats, the Carlsons packed up and moved to a new house in order to keep his family out of harm’s way.
Except now, Carlson claims that the New York Times is about to dox his family by revealing their new address in an upcoming article.
This was his response Monday night:
“As a matter of journalism, there is no conceivable justification for a story like that. The paper is not alleging we’ve done anything wrong, and we haven’t. We pay our taxes. We like our neighbors. We’ve never had a dispute with anyone. So why is The New York Times doing a story on the location of my family’s house? Well, you know why. To hurt us, to injure my wife and kids so that I will shut up and stop disagreeing with them,” Carlson said, adding “Editors there know exactly what will happen to my family when it does run. I called them today, and I told them. But they didn’t care. They hate my politics. They want this show off the air. If one of my children gets hurt because of a story they wrote, they won’t consider it collateral damage. They know it’s the whole point of the exercise: To inflict pain on our family, to terrorize us, to control, we say. That’s the kind of people they are.”
Watch:
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The Times has denied the allegation, saying in a Monday night statement: “While we do not confirm what may or may publish in future editions, The Times has not and does not plan to expose any residence of Tucker Carlson’s, which Carlson was aware of before tonight’s broadcast.”
Smash DC’s Isaacson, meanwhile, has an axe to grind after Carlson demolished him on live television in September, 2017:
In addition to airing his violent fantasies across the internet, a January, 2017 undercover video from Project Veritas captured the now-fired Isaacson encouraging his supporters to “throat punch” conservatives.
“Generally speaking, Nazis will only actually attack people if they strongly outnumber them because Nazis are essentially cowards. So if it’s three of them and a homeless guy, they’re going to beat him up. If it’s one of them and like six other people, they’re gonna run the f*ck away,” he told the Veritas journalist.
Throat punching is just a joke, huh? @lacymacauley seems to think so, but our footage seems to say differently. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/jNPUq1rlQQ
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) January 19, 2017
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And now, if the New York Times does indeed dox Carlson – an unemployed Antifa leader with violent fantasies will know right where to send his angry mob.
- Jack Ma’s Ant IPO Signals Start Of De-Dollarization
Jack Ma’s Ant IPO Signals Start Of De-Dollarization
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 23:30Authored by Bloomberg macro commentator Ye Xie
Monday’s trading saw a continuation of recent themes.
- Winners among the sectors least affected by the virus: the Nasdaq Composite Index rose to another record
- More government and central bank stimulus is coming: 10-year real Treasury yields are inching toward an all-time low, and the two-year Italian BTP yield turned negative again
- The stimulus suppresses asset volatility
- The dollar has peaked. The DXY Index is testing the post-Covid lows
- Buying the dip in risky assets makes sense because they have an imbedded call option on a vaccine. As time passes by, the chance of a medical breakthrough increases
Back in China, the biggest news overnight was that Jack Ma’s Ant Group is seeking a valuation of more than $200 billion as it goes public in Hong Kong and Shanghai. It could seek to raise more in its IPO than Saudi Aramco’s record $29 billion haul, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The significance of this deal is multifold:
- It would be the biggest IPO ever on mainland exchanges, smashing the record $10 billion debut by Agriculture Bank of China in 2010.
- It signifies the rise of New China in the form of private high-tech companies, as opposed to the Old China dominated by state-owned banks and energy giants.
- And it lends much needed credibility to the Shanghai stock exchange’s STAR board, which is designed to harbor tech startups.
More importantly, the choice of Shanghai and Hong Kong for listing signals China’s deliberate efforts to reduce its reliance on the U.S. capital market for fund-raising amid the tension between the two countries. Already, Chinese and Hong Kong exchanges accommodated the world’s biggest four public listings this year, including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and JD.com.
In the debt market, China’s borrowing in foreign currencies seems to have also peaked. The external debt was little changed at $1.3 trillion last year, after rising 16% in 2018 and 22% in 2017. Dollar-denominated debt accounted for 83% of the total foreing debt outstanding, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
Considering everything from the U.S.’s threat to delist Chinese companies, to moves to strip Hong Kong of its special status, it’s more than clear that China is starting its process of de-dollarization and furthering the internationalization of its own currency.
- Commercial Mortgage Delinquencies Near Record Levels
Commercial Mortgage Delinquencies Near Record Levels
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 23:10Delinquency rates across commercial properties have shot up faster than at any other time.
As thousands of restaurants, hotels, and local businesses in the U.S. struggle to stay open, delinquency rates across commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) – fixed income investments backed by a pool of commercial mortgages – have tripled in three months to 10.32%.
As Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld notes, in just a few months, delinquency rates have already effectively reached their 2012 peaks. To put this in perspective, consider that it took well over two years for mortgage delinquency rates to reach the same historic levels in the aftermath of the housing crisis of 2009.
The above chart draws data from Trepp and illustrates the recent shocks to the CMBS market, broken down by property type.
Storm Rumblings
While there is optimism in some areas of the market, accommodation mortgages have witnessed delinquency rates soar over 24%.
Amid strict containment efforts in April, average revenues per room plummeted all the way to $16 per night—an 84% drop.
Similarly, retail properties have been rattled. Almost one-fifth are in delinquencies. From January-June 2020, at least 15 major retailers have filed for bankruptcy and over $20 billion in CMBS loans have exposure to flailing chains such as JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, and Macy’s.
On the other hand, industrial property types have remained stable, hovering close to their January levels. This is likely attributable in part to the fact that the rise in e-commerce sales have helped support warehouse operations.
For multifamily and office buildings, Washington’s stimulus packages have helped renters to continue making payments thus far. Still, as the government considers ending stimulus packages in the near future, a lack of relief funding could spell trouble.
Weighing the Impact on U.S. Cities
How do delinquency rates vary across the top metropolitan areas in America?
Below, we can see that the delinquent balance and delinquency rates vary widely by city. Note that this data is for private-labeled CMBS, which are issued by investment banks and private entities rather than government agencies.
Despite the New York city metropolitan area having a delinquent balance of $7 billion, its delinquency rates fall on the lower end of the spectrum, at 7%. New York alone accounts for 18% of the total balance of private-label CMBS.
By comparison, the Syracuse metropolitan area has an eye-opening delinquency rate of 69%. Syracuse is home to the shopping complex, Destiny USA, which is facing tenant uncertainties due to COVID-19. The six-story mall attracts 26 million visitors annually.
Like the overall market, delinquencies are being driven by accommodation and retail properties across many of these U.S. metropolitan areas.
What Comes Next
What happens when delinquency rates get too high?
Often, when borrowers do not make payment after a reasonable amount of time, they enter into default. While time ranges can vary, defaults typically take place after at least 60 days of nonpayment. Between May and June, defaults in the CMBS market surged 792% to $5.5 billion.
As effects reverberate, properties could eventually fall into foreclosure. At the same time, institutional investors who own these types of securities, which include pensions, could begin seeing steep losses.
That said, the Federal Reserve has set up mechanisms to purchase CMBS loans with the highest credit quality. This is designed to inject liquidity into the mortgage market, while also financing small and mid-sized properties that house small businesses. In turn, this can enable the employment of millions of Americans.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether the mortgage market will face a sustained downturn akin to the financial crisis, or if the temporary decline will soon subside.
- Watch: Screeching Woman With Tape Measure Lectures Others For Not Social-Distancing
Watch: Screeching Woman With Tape Measure Lectures Others For Not Social-Distancing
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 22:50Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
A video clip posted to TikTok shows a woman holding a tape measure screeching hysterically as she appears to be upset with beachgoers for not adhering to proper social distancing.
The woman screams something unintelligible before shouting “Fuck you! Get out of here!” at other people who appear to have gathered near a lake or a beach.
The protagonist is wildly flailing around a tape measure she is holding as a man tries to restrain her.
“It’s people like you that are ruining it for all of us!” she yells.
What’s happening here? pic.twitter.com/D46qJxAVT5
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 20, 2020
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According to respondents on Twitter who translated comments made by the woman filming the video, the screeching lady is upset at the others for being too close and not properly social distancing.
Others suggested that the woman was upset because she was trying to “measure something” and loud music was preventing her from concentrating.
Either way, the woman filming the video says that she just wanted to have a “tranquil” day with her family.
This looks like another case of a social distancing Karens gone wild.
* * *
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- World's Largest Producer Of Small Gasoline Engines Files For Bankruptcy
World’s Largest Producer Of Small Gasoline Engines Files For Bankruptcy
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 22:30Briggs & Stratton Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of small gasoline engines with headquarters in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, filed petitions on Monday morning for a court-supervised voluntary reorganization under Chapter 11, along with plans to sell “all the company’s assets” to KPS Capital Partners.
The Fortune 1000 manufacturer of gasoline engines was able to secure a $677.5 million in Debtor-In-Possession (DIP) financing to support operations through reorganization efforts. The Company also said it “entered into a definitive stock and asset purchase agreement with KPS.”
To facilitate the sale process and address its debt obligations, the Company has filed petitions for a court-supervised voluntary reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The Company has also obtained $677.5 million in DIP financing, with $265 million committed by KPS and the remaining $412.5 from the Company’s existing group of ABL lenders. Following court approval, the DIP facility will ensure that the Company has sufficient liquidity to continue normal operations and to meet its financial obligations during the Chapter 11 process, including the timely payment of employee wages and health benefits, continued servicing of customer orders and shipments, and other obligations.
This process will allow the Company to ensure the viability of its business while providing sufficient liquidity to fully support operations through the closing of the transaction. Briggs & Stratton believes this process will benefit its employees, customers, channel partners, and suppliers, and best positions the Company for long-term success. This filing does not include any of Briggs & Stratton’s international subsidiaries. – Briggs & Stratton’s press release states
Todd Teske, Briggs & Stratton’s CEO, stated the Company faced “challenges” during the virus pandemic that made reorganization “necessary and appropriate” for the survivability of the Company.
“Over the past several months, we have explored multiple options with our advisors to strengthen our financial position and flexibility. The challenges we have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic have made reorganization the difficult but necessary and appropriate path forward to secure our business. It also gives us support to execute on our strategic plans to bring greater value to our customers and channel partners. Throughout this process, Briggs & Stratton products will continue to be produced, distributed, sold and fully backed by our dedicated team,” said Teske.
Briggs & Stratton is the world’s top engine designer and manufacturer for outdoor power equipment, with 85% of the small engines produced in the U.S. The pandemic and resulting virus-induced recession have been brutal for the Company, with declining engine sales, resulting in a reduction in the US workforce.
Financial Times noted, in June, the Company had difficulty refinancing a $175 million bond that matured in September. Sources told FT the Company’s deteriorating position made it impossible to obtain refinancing funds in the bond market.
Add Briggs & Stratton to the list of bankrupted companies as an avalanche of bankruptcies is expected in the second half of the year.
Not surprising whatsoever, Robinhood daytraders have panic bought collapsing Briggs & Stratton shares.
The bankruptcy wave is not over, it’s only getting started as the virus-induced recession will be more prolonged than previously thought.
- Citadel Fined For Frontrunning Of Client Orders After Threatening To Sue Zerohedge
Citadel Fined For Frontrunning Of Client Orders After Threatening To Sue Zerohedge
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 22:17One month ago, shortly after our return to twitter from “permanent” banishment, when so much public attention had suddenly shifted to the retail daytrading platform Robinhood, we explained just how it is that Robinhood was so efficient at moving markets, and it had nothing to do with Robinhood or its small but dedicated army of 10-year-old daytrading fanatics. Instead, it had everything to do with various High Frequency Trading platforms buying up the retail orderflow that Robinhood was so generously packaging and reselling to the highest bidder, effectively giving HFTs a risk-free way of making pennies from every trade, which would then propagate like wildfire across various trading venues, massively accentuating every small move thanks to the momentum-ignition capabilities of HFT algos.
We then also pointed out that Robinhood engages in a practice called payment-for-order-flow…
… for reasons that would become known shortly.
Unfortunately, both of those tweets no longer exist for the simple reason that just days after they were published, we received an angry letter from Citadel’s lawyers at Clare Locke threatening to sue us into oblivion if we did not immediately retract and delete said tweets.
Some key phrases of note from the above text:
- “‘Frontrunning’ is an industry term of art that refers to an illegal form of trading.”
- “Citadel Securites does not engage in such conduct [i.e., frontrunning] and there was no factual basis whatsoever for ZeroHedge to publish such an incendiary, false, and reckless allegation to its 742,000 Twitter followers” [it’s 771,000 now].
- “ZeroHedge’s statement obviously disparages the lawfulness and integrity of Citadel Securities’ business pratices.”
- “Quite obviously, this most recent iteration of this same harmful allegation was not made in jest.”
- “We demand that ZeroHedge immediately retract this tweet by deleting it from ZeroHedge’s Twitter page… A refusal to promptly take down these remedial steps will be seen as further evidence of actual malice and will only increase the already substantial legal risk faced by you and ZeroHedge.”
As the letter correctly notes, this was not the first time Citadel Securities (which is majority-owned by Ken Griffin, the billionaire investor, and is the sister firm to Citadel, the hedge fund he runs) threatened legal action against Zero Hedge for accusing the trading giant of frontrunning orders. On November 22, just hours if not minutes after a tweet of a similar nature, we got a similar legal threat from the same law firm. Again, some of the highlights from that particular letter:
- “ZeroHedge’s statement obviously disparages the lawfulness and integrity of Mr. Griffin and Citadel Securites’s business practices, and thus is defamatory per se.[sic]”
- “As you well know, “frontrunning” is an unethical and illegal trading practice.”
Needless to say, instead of engaging in a legal battle with the world’s richest and most powerful trader and his army of lawyers, we decided to simply comply with their demand. That said, dear gentlemen from ClareLocke – we do know very well that frontrunning is an unethical and illegal trading practice. But we wonder: does your client know that?
The reason why we ask is very simple. According to a Letter of Acceptance (No. 2014041859401), Waiver and Consent published by financial regulator FINRA, none other than Citadel Securities was censured and fined for engaging in – drumroll – “trading ahead of customer orders.”
Now we admit that our financial jargon is a bit rusty these days, but “trading ahead of customer orders” sounds awfully similar to another far more popular “term of art“, one which we know very well: frontrunning!
Jargon aside, some of the other highlighted words we are very familiar with, such as “hundreds of thousands”… and “559 instances” in which Citadel traded ahead of customer orders.
Now, we may be getting a little ahead of ourselves here, but it was Citadel’s own lawyers that informed us on more than one occasion that:
“frontrunning” is an unethical and illegal trading practice.”
So, what are we to make of this? Could it be that Citadel was engaging in at least 559 instance of what its lawyer called “unethical and illegal trading practice.” Surely not: after all the lawyers would surely know very well how ridiculous and laughable their letter and threats would look if it ever emerged that Citadel was indeed frontrunning its customers.
But then we read that Finra censured and fined Citadel $700,000 – or as twitter user @KennethDread puts it 0.70% Basquiats…
What a time to be alive when front running retail order flow only sets you back 0.70% Basquiats pic.twitter.com/LQ7sXGXtyJ
— Kenneth Dredd (@KennethDredd) July 21, 2020
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… and it appears that Citadel may indeed have engaged in some of what its own lawyers called “unethical and illegal” trading practice, especially since Citadel Securities’ own General Counsel, Steve Luparello signed the Finra AWC:
Well that’s… awkward.
And lest someone ignores all of the above – after all it was published in a fringe, tinfoil conspiracy theory website which according to glorious liberal wizards at Wikipedia is somehow both “far right” and “libertarian” at the same time – here is the far more “erudite” Financial Times explaining what happened:
Over a two-year period until September 2014, the market-maker removed hundreds of thousands of large OTC orders from its automated trading processes, according to Finra. That rendered the orders “inactive” and so they had to be handled manually by human traders.
Citadel Securities then “traded for its own account on the same side of the market at prices that would have satisfied the orders,” without immediately filling the inactive orders at the same or better prices as required by Finra rules, the regulator said.
In February 2014, a sample month reviewed by Finra, the market-maker traded ahead in nearly three-quarters of the inactive orders. “Based on this review, in 559 instances, Citadel Securities traded ahead of 415 inactive OTC customer orders,” the regulator said.
Of course, since the action was launched by Finra and not the SEC – probably for a reason – Citadel was allowed to put the whole sordid affair behind it without admitting or denying the claims. Just one glitch: the company was required to make whole any customers affected, not something a market maker does if they legitimately “deny” anything bad actually happened.
The good news is that neither Citadel nor its lawyers can go after us again for merely reporting what Finra already found because on page 11 of the AWC we read the following:
The Firm may not take any action or make or permit to be made any public statement, including in regulatory filings or otherwise, denying, directly or indirectly, any finding in this AWC or create the impression that the AWC is without factual basis.
Which means that going forward, allegations about Citadel frontran its clients – on at least 559 instances no less – are fair game. That said, Citadel did make a statement to the FT:
“We have addressed all of Finra’s concerns and take very seriously our obligations to comply fully with its rules. The issue relates to a limited number of manually handled orders, most of which occurred in 2012-2014.”
Which is a succinct way of summarizing precisely what Finra said. Our own request for comments was not returned by the publication time.
But wait, there’s more!
Finra also said Citadel Securities fell short of supervisory requirements and failed to display certain OTC customers’ limit orders: instructions to buy or sell at a specific price, or better. As the FT notes, “nearly half of the 467 limit orders reviewed by the regulator in the six years until September 2018 were found to violate Finra’s requirements to display orders. The bulk of the violations were for failing to execute trades against existing quotations in a timely manner, Finra said.”
What does the above mean for clients? Well, they are welcome to sue Citadel Securities and get their money back. As Finra writes, “the imposition of a restitution order or any other monetary sanction herein, and the timing of such ordered payments, does not preclude customers from pursuing their own actions to obtain restitution or other remedies.“
What does the above mean for Ken Griffin? Well, as noted above, the penalty is about 0.7% of what the CEO recently paid for a Basquiat painting.
It’s also clear that the size of the “penalty” will certainly not force Griffin to mortgage one or more of his extensive properties located in New York, London, Chicago, or Palm Beach and countless others cities across the globe:
Source: @CommishCW One thing that is certain is that “trading” clearly pays, even if it means occasionally and purely unaccidentally “removing hundreds of thousands of mostly larger customer orders” from mandatory Trading Ahead and Limit Order Display Rules and customer protections. Surely that happens every day to all of us.
In fact the only confusion we have at this moment is who is more ironically named: Citadel or Robinhood?
- The "Primary Subsource's" Guide To Russiagate, As Told To The FBI
The “Primary Subsource’s” Guide To Russiagate, As Told To The FBI
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 22:10Authored by Eric Felten via RealClearInvestigations.com,
Much of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Donald Trump was built on the premise that Christopher Steele and his dossier were to be believed. This even though, early on, Steele’s claims failed to bear scrutiny. Just how far off the claims were became clear when the FBI interviewed Steele’s “Primary Subsource” over three days beginning on Feb. 9, 2017. Notes taken by FBI agents of those interviews were released by the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday afternoon.
The Primary Subsource was in reality Steele’s sole source, a long-time Russian-speaking contractor for the former British spy’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence. In turn, the Primary Subsource had a group of friends in Russia. All of their names remain redacted. From the FBI interviews it becomes clear that the Primary Subsource and his friends peddled warmed-over rumors and laughable gossip that Steele dressed up as formal intelligence memos.
Paul Manafort: The Steele dossier’s “Primary Subsource” admitted to the FBI “that he was ‘clueless’ about who Manafort was, and that this was a ‘strange task’ to have been given.” AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File
Steele’s operation didn’t rely on great expertise, to judge from the Primary Subsource’s account. He described to the FBI the instructions Steele had given him sometime in the spring of 2016 regarding Paul Manafort: “Do you know [about] Manafort? Find out about Manafort’s dealings with Ukraine, his dealings with other countries, and any corrupt schemes.” The Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI “that he was ‘clueless’ about who Manafort was, and that this was a ‘strange task’ to have been given.”
The Primary Subsource said at first that maybe he had asked some of his friends in Russia – he didn’t have a network of sources, according to his lawyer, but instead just a “social circle.” And a boozy one at that: When the Primary Subsource would get together with his old friend Source 4, the two would drink heavily. But his social circle was no help with the Manafort question and so the Primary Subsource scrounged up a few old news clippings about Manafort and fed them back to Steele.
Also in his “social circle” was Primary Subsource’s friend “Source 2,” a character who was always on the make. “He often tries to monetize his relationship with [the Primary Subsource], suggesting that the two of them should try and do projects together for money,” the Primary Subsource told the FBI (a caution that the Primary Subsource would repeat again and again.) It was Source 2 who “told [the Primary Subsource] that there was compromising material on Trump.”
And then there was Source 3, a very special friend. Over a redacted number of years, the Primary Subsource has “helped out [Source 3] financially.” She stayed with him when visiting the United States. The Primary Subsource told the FBI that in the midst of their conversations about Trump, they would also talk about “a private subject.” (The FBI agents, for all their hardnosed reputation, were too delicate to intrude by asking what that “private subject” was).
Michael Cohen: The bogus story of the Trump fixer’s trip to Prague seems to have originated with “Source 3,” a woman friend of the Primary Subsource, who was “not sure if Source 3 was brainstorming here.” AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
One day Steele told his lead contractor to get dirt on five individuals. By the time he got around to it, the Primary Subsource had forgotten two of the names, but seemed to recall Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. The Primary Subsource said he asked his special friend Source 3 if she knew any of them. At first she didn’t. But within minutes she seemed to recall having heard of Cohen, according to the FBI notes. Indeed, before long it came back to her that she had heard Cohen and three henchmen had gone to Prague to meet with Russians.
Source 3 kept spinning yarns about Michael Cohen in Prague. For example, she claimed Cohen was delivering “deniable cash payments” to hackers. But come to think of it, the Primary Subsource was “not sure if Source 3 was brainstorming here,” the FBI notes say.
The Steele Dossier would end up having authoritative-sounding reports of hackers who had been “recruited under duress by the FSB” — the Russian security service — and how they “had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct ‘altering operations’ against the the Democratic Party.” What exactly, the FBI asked the subject, were “altering operations?” The Primary Subsource wouldn’t be much help there, as he told the FBI “that his understanding of this topic (i.e. cyber) was ‘zero.’” But what about his girlfriend whom he had known since they were in eighth grade together? The Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI that Source 3 “is not an IT specialist herself.”
And then there was Source 6. Or at least the Primary Subsource thinks it was Source 6.
Ritz-Carlton Moscow: The Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI “he had not been able to confirm the story” about Trump and prostitutes at the hotel. But he did check with someone who supposedly asked a hotel manager, who said that with celebrities, “one never knows what they’re doing.” Moscowjob.net/Wikimedia
While he was doing his research on Manafort, the Primary Subsource met a U.S. journalist “at a Thai restaurant.” The Primary Subsource didn’t want to ask “revealing questions” but managed to go so far as to ask, “Do you [redacted] know anyone who can talk about all of this Trump/Manafort stuff, or Trump and Russia?” According to the FBI notes, the journalist told Primary Subsource “that he was skeptical and nothing substantive had turned up.” But the journalist put the Primary Subsource in touch with a “colleague” who in turn gave him an email of “this guy” journalist 2 had interviewed and “that he should talk to.”
With the email address of “this guy” in hand, the Primary Subsource sent him a message “in either June or July 2016.” Some weeks later the Primary Subsource “received a telephone call from an unidentified Russia guy.” He “thought” but had no evidence that the mystery “Russian guy” was “that guy.” The mystery caller “never identified himself.” The Primary Subsource labeled the anonymous caller “Source 6.” The Primary Subsource and Source 6 talked for a total of “about 10 minutes.” During that brief conversation they spoke about the Primary Subsource traveling to meet the anonymous caller, but the hook-up never happened.
Nonetheless, the Primary Subsource labeled the unknown Russian voice “Source 6” and gave Christopher Steele the rundown on their brief conversation – how they had “a general discussion about Trump and the Kremlin” and “that it was an ongoing relationship.” For use in the dossier, Steele named the voice Source E.
When Steele was done putting this utterly unsourced claim into the style of the dossier, here’s how the mystery call from the unknown guy was presented: “Speaking in confidence to a compatriot in late July 2016, Source E, an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP, admitted that there was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership.” Steele writes “Inter alia,” – yes, he really does deploy the Latin formulation for “among other things” – “Source E acknowledged that the Russian regime had been behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee [DNC], to the WikiLeaks platform.”
All that and more is presented as the testimony of a “close associate” of Trump, when it was just the disembodied voice of an unknown guy.
Perhaps even more perplexing is that the FBI interviewers, knowing that Source E was just an anonymous caller, didn’t compare that admission to the fantastical Steele bluster and declare the dossier a fabrication on the spot.
But perhaps it might be argued that Christopher Steele was bringing crack investigative skills of his own to bear. For something as rich in detail and powerful in effect as the dossier, Steele must have been researching these questions himself as well, using his hard-earned spy savvy to pry closely held secrets away from the Russians. Or at the very least he must have relied on a team of intelligence operatives who could have gone far beyond the obvious limitations the Primary Subsource and his group of drinking buddies.
But no. As we learned in December from Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Steele “was not the originating source of any of the factual information in his reporting.” Steele, the IG reported “relied on a primary sub-source (Primary Sub-source) for information, and this Primary Sub-source used a network of [further] sub-sources to gather the information that was relayed to Steele.” The inspector general’s report noted that “neither Steele nor the Primary Sub-source had direct access to the information being reported.”
One might, by now, harbor some skepticism about the dossier. One might even be inclined to doubt the story that Trump was “into water sports” as the Primary Subsource so delicately described the tale of Trump and Moscow prostitutes. But, in this account, there was an effort, however feeble, to nail down the “rumor and speculation” that Trump engaged in “unorthodox sexual activity at the Ritz.”
While the Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI “he had not been able to confirm the story,” Source 2 (who will be remembered as the hustler always looking for a lucrative score) supposedly asked a hotel manager about Trump and the manager said that with celebrities, “one never knows what they’re doing.” One never knows – not exactly a robust proof of something that smacks of urban myth. But the Primary Subsource makes the best of it, declaring that at least “it wasn’t a denial.”
If there was any denial going on it was the FBI’s, an agency in denial that its extraordinary investigation was crumbling.
- The Four Horsemen Of Disinflation: The Coming Rent-pocalypse
The Four Horsemen Of Disinflation: The Coming Rent-pocalypse
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 21:50One month ago, we discussed “The Most Important Question In Finance Today“, namely whether in the aftermath of the covid pandemic the world ends up with runaway inflation or price-crushing deflation. Today, Bank of America provides some additional perspective on what it calls the “inflation rollercoaster.”
Separating the inflation stories
As BofA notes, the pandemic has created significant disinflationary shock to the US economy, with the latest CPI report showing core inflation running at a meager 1.2% yoy clip and core PCE later this month likely to come in at 1.1%. That said, it is important to note that current inflation readings are suggesting conditions are much worse than they actually are. Indeed, most of the deceleration can be attributed to a handful of idiosyncratic components. The underlying trend is stickier and has slowed more modestly.
Looking ahead, the underlying trend slows with rental inflation holding the key. This means that the rollercoaster will eventually turn-the base effects will turn positive in March 2021-and accelerate before settling at a higher, although still likely below target. Consistent with this thinking, Bank of America expects core CPI to trough at 0.8% yoy in 1Q 2021 before rising to 1.6% by the end of next year.
Four horsemen of disinflation
From March through May, the months when the covid shutdowns unleashed unprecedented damage on the US economy, core CPI declined by a cumulative 0.6% resulting in the % yoy rate collapsing to 1.2% from 2.4% in February. The deterioration owed largely to four main areas of weakness: lodging away from home, airline fares, apparel, and motor vehicle insurance. Despite these categories amounting to 6%-7% of CPI, each experienced a record drop in prices.
The first three fell as nonessential travel and businesses activity were shut down, and followed the same pattern of April being the worst month, followed by March and then May. Motor vehicle insurance dropped after insurers began an assortment of COVID-19 relief programs that provided temporary discounts or credits on auto premiums, for April and May for the most part.
According to BofA, these components have added significant noise to the data and should be largely faded when thinking about the underlying inflation trend. They are extreme idiosyncratic moves and are likely to prove transitory (unless there is a second wave of shutdowns of course). Moreover, we have already started to see stabilization in June as all four components posted an increase. With prices so low still, further positive payback seems more likely going forward than another major leg down. If excluded from core CPI, then inflation has slowed more modestly through June to 2.42% from a February reading of 2.59%.
Another more standard inflation metric that paints a similar picture of stickier underlying inflation is the Cleveland Fed’s Trimmed Mean CPI-an index that excludes the 8% of components with the most extreme moves to the upside and the 8% to the downside. TM CPI has also seen modest slowing to 2.27% yoy from 2.42% in February. But the risks are skewed to the downside going forward. Given the stickiness of underlying inflation, it takes some time for the demand shock to percolate and pull down prices.
The coming rent-pocalypse?
The key for underlying inflation will be what happens to owners’ equivalent rent (OER) and rent of primary residence, since the two comprise more than 40% of core CPI inflation. The housing data have been particularly resilient relative to the broader economic data, with the NAHB housing index just recently popping up to 72 in July from 58 and existing and new home sales likely to rise in June. Indeed, homebuying demand has been surprisingly firm during the pandemic as lower interest rates have raised affordability and preferences have increasingly shifted towards suburban living where homeownership is more feasible. However, the resilience of the homeownership market is likely to come at the expense of the rental market. While owners’ equivalent rent is meant to reflect housing costs borne by owner-occupied households, it is estimated using rent data and will therefore be sensitive to rental market dynamics.
So where do rents go from here? According to BofA, the labor market conditions will be a major driver of the rent trajectory. The early data have surprised expectations with the unemployment rate peaking at “only” 14.7% in April and falling to 11.1% in June. However, job gains going forward will not be quite so easy to come by. The virus is not under control as several hotspots have emerged in the last month, and most states have either put a pause on or reversed the reopening process. The real-time labor data are ominous as well as the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse survey have shown declining employment since the week of June 16th.
Meanwhile, BofA notes that it has started to see weakness register in CPI in the latest June report: both owners’ equivalent rent and rent of primary residence increased by only 0.1% mom-the softest readings since early 2011. This resulted in the % yoy rates for OER falling to 2.8% yoy from 3.3% in February and for rent of primary residence to 3.2% yoy from 3.8%. And while it may be premature to read into one month of data, BofA’s economists believe that this could be the beginning of a downtrend.
The regional OER data reveal that the soft June data were largely driven by the South and West. Weakness was also relatively broad in these two regions as rent inflation in both large (A, > 2.5mn people) and small (B/C, < 2.5mn people) urban areas were 0-0.1% mom. Meanwhile, the Northeast and Midwest posted trend-like rent gains in June. These two regions have not been immune to the deterioration in labor conditions, so that does pose a bit of a disconnect in terms of the labor-rent response. The June print would be more convincing if all four regions had softened-should this happen clearly there is scope for even weaker monthly readings in broad OER and rent of primary residence.
Even if June ends up being slightly fluky, the risks ahead are clearly skewed to the downside. It is worth reiterating that the CPI methodology allows for significant deflation to materialize in the rent components. If there is a missed payment and the landlord does not expect or is uncertain they will receive it, then that will register as a 95% decline in rents. Therefore, even a small share of missed rent payments can exert a noticeable drag. This is a tail risk though: Janson and Verbrugge (July 2020) found that the incidence of nonpayment in the CPI sample was quite low during the Great Recession. However, given the speed and severity of the current downturn, it could prove to be different this time.
What will slowing rents mean for underlying inflation? We can proxy the impact by simulating the effects of rent on core CPI. If OER and rents average a 0.15% mom clip from now until the end of 2021, then core CPI % yoy would slow by roughly 0.5pp.
If a softer average 0.1% mom reading, then it would be a 0.7pp deceleration. FWIW, BofA believes the underlying trend could slow by an amount within this range, although they can’t eliminate the risk of an even worse outcome as labor market slack will remain elevated with the unemployment rate ending next year close to 8%.
Stuck in purgatory
Putting it all together, BofA expects core CPI to continue to be biased lower through early next year, with core CPI settling below the pre-COVID trend-1.6%. After this point, the special factors will start to fade allowing for acceleration.
- "Pent-Up Supply" Floods San Francisco Housing Market, Most Since Housing Bust
“Pent-Up Supply” Floods San Francisco Housing Market, Most Since Housing Bust
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 21:30Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,
There is a lot of discussion about the low levels of inventory for sale, as potential sellers have pulled their homes off the market or are not wanting to list their homes at the moment, waiting for the Pandemic to blow over, or waiting for more certainty or whatever; or their mortgage is now in forbearance and they don’t want to make a move.
These discussions cite buyers who, after being kept out of the housing market for a couple of months due to the lockdowns, are now swarming around out there, stumbling all over each other, looking for homes to buy, jostling for position, and engaging in bidding wars with each other.
And then there is the widely reported move to the suburbs, or to small towns, and away from big densely populated cities, by those who have shifted to work-from-home, to work-from-anywhere, which blatantly contradicts some of the other stories of big cities being overrun by buyers engaging in bidding wars.
Those are some of the narratives we’re hearing, and they all make some intuitive sense. But this is not the case everywhere. So we’re going to look at San Francisco, one of the most expensive housing markets in the US, based on weekly data that was compiled by real-estate brokerage Redfin, from local multiple listing service (MLS) and Redfin’s own data, updated at the end of the week.
San Francisco is now flooded with homes for sale. “Active listings” surged to 1,344 homes in the week ended July 5, up 65% from the same week last year, and the highest number since the housing bust, amid a 145% year-over-year surge in “new listings.”
There normally is a seasonal surge in active listings after Labor Day that peaks in late October. But this month, the surge of active listings (1,344) has already blown by those peaks in October, including the multi-year peak of 1,296 in October 2019. This is “pent-up supply” coming on the market at the wrong time of the year when supply normally declines (chart via Redfin):
Redfin’s data doesn’t go back that far. But the 1,344 active listings would be the highest since 2011, during the final stretch of the San Francisco Housing Bust, based on MLS data provided by local real-estate site, SocketSite.
Supply of homes for sales has more than doubled, from 7.8 weeks last year at this time to 16.6 weeks now, at the current rate of sales. Note the spike of supply in May, a function of sales that had collapsed (chart via Redfin).
Homes are being pulled off the market again: 61 homes were delisted, over double the number in the same week last year. The chart below shows the spike in delisted homes that started in mid-March during the early phases of the lockdown. It also shows the normal seasonal spike of delistings ahead of the holidays in December – yes, inventory is low because sellers pull their unsold property off the market. But now, with the flood of inventory for sale on the market, the surge in delisted homes has started again (chart via Redfin):
Pending sales lack pent-up demand. Pending sales had collapsed 77% by early April compared to the same time last year, but then started digging out of that trough. In early July, pending sales were still down 8% from last year and now are following the seasonal downtrend and appear to be back on track, just slightly lower.
In terms of the recovery, that was pretty good. But there is no sign of pent-up demand, and the home sales that didn’t happen during the collapse in March, April, and May have not created a surge in deals, and there is no sign of pent-up demand (chart via Redfin).
Buyers now have the largest choice of homes for sale since the Housing Bust nearly a decade ago. And there is no need to engage in bidding wars or other foolishness.
Sellers might be motivated, as they say. Among the sellers might be those who – given the issues of the Pandemic, or future Pandemics – are itching to leave the second most densely populated city in the US, and one of the most expensive, and head to cheaper pastures inland in California, or to other states, or to smaller towns with big price tags along the California coast.
There is lots of anecdotal reporting on these trends, including housing markets that have caught fire in places such as Carmel-by-the-Sea, a beach town on California’s Monterey Peninsula, on Highway 1, about 110 miles south of San Francisco and about 75 miles south of Silicon Valley.
And with work-from-home in place, it might be convenient too. It doesn’t take very long to drive to San Francisco and less long to Silicon Valley for the twice-a-month meeting, especially now, with work-from-home having cleared up some of the previously infernal congestion.
There are all kinds of anecdotal observations and theories people are spinning at the moment, trying to come to grips with the changes underway. But one thing we can now see: The sellers have come out of the woodwork in San Francisco. Just don’t look for the usual thicket of open-house signs on the sidewalk. The process has gone digital and by appointment only.
* * *
- Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Well Known Tech Antitrust Critic Works For Apple And Amazon On The Side
Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Well Known Tech Antitrust Critic Works For Apple And Amazon On The Side
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 21:10One of the country’s most well known antitrust critics, Fiona Scott Morton, happens to be advising two of the biggest tech names in the country, Amazon and Apple, on the side. Morton was labeled a “antitrust crusader” in 2019 by the New Republic.
Scott Morton has consistently said that tech giants are stifling competition and innovation in the country, but failed to recently disclose relationships with Amazon and Apple in papers she recently co-authored, according to Bloomberg. The papers laid out how the U.S. could bring antitrust cases against both Google and Facebook.
She claims that she usually discloses conflicts and that lack of disclosure on the papers shouldn’t be an issue because “Apple and Amazon didn’t pay her to write them” and because they “didn’t focus” on either company. She failed to address the obvious, however: that those companies are competitors of both Google and Facebook.
“I work for companies that I’m comfortable are not breaking the law. So you’re articulating what is making the market work well and how the company’s conduct is pro-competitive or efficient,” she said.
The consulting work she is doing raises obvious ethics questions, especially as antitrust probes are starting to broaden. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are all expected to face significant government scrutiny when they testify July 27 before a House panel.
Scott Morton’s past includes serving for the Justice Department’s anti-trust division from 2011 to 2012. She claims that consulting is “important to her research and teaching” (and wallet) and declined to offer further details about her work.
George DeMartino, a professor at the University of Denver who specializes in ethic says that Scott Morton “should have disclosed her work for Amazon and Apple in the papers”. American Economic Association principles dictate that “economists disclose real and potential conflicts that might influence their work”.
DeMartino said: “Professionals have a duty to maintain trust, which as we now know is a fragile thing. That requires disclosing any actual conflict of interest or any entanglement that might reasonably be interpreted by others as a conflict.”
Gene Kimmelman, a senior adviser at Public Knowledge, who worked with Scott Morton on the Google and Facebook reports said that “conflicts are rife in the antitrust field”. He defended Scott Morton and said that she disclosed her work to him. “I wish all antitrust economists and lawyers had the level of integrity and consistency in analysis she has demonstrated over and over again,” he said.
He also says he hired an outside lawyer to navigate potential conflicts regarding 10 different advisors he asked for help. Almost all of them had conflicts, he said. “Part of the game is to hire them to prevent your opponents from being able to hire them. It’s a large investment that can pay off enormously.”
Economists are “among the most important” hires for companies facing anti-trust violations, Carl Shapiro, an economist at the University of California-Berkeley, said. Google specifically has hired tons of economists, who have cranked out a total of about 330 research papers between 2005 and 2017 that the company supported directly or indirectly. Recipients failed to disclose the funding source in 65% of cases.
Scott Morton stands out, however, because she has been such a high profile name: she has appeared on panel discussions and has testified in front of congress. Last year she helped pen a paper about the “immense power of tech platforms”.
And the names funding her have also come under scrutiny. Amazon has specifically been the target of Elizabeth Warren, who Tweeted in 2019: “Giant tech companies have too much power. My plan to #BreakUpBigTech prevents corporations like Amazon from knocking out the rest of the competition. You can be an umpire, or you can be a player — but you can’t be both.”
At the time, Scott Morton retweeted the Tweet and said: “This is the most articulate explanation of this Amazon theory of harm I have heard so far.”
She has since deleted the Tweet.
- Suspect Who Killed Son Of Epstein-Linked Judge Identified
Suspect Who Killed Son Of Epstein-Linked Judge Identified
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 20:55Update (1540ET): Citing federal law enforcement sources, the NY Post has just published more details about the deceased suspect in an attack that left the son of a judge overseeing a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank involving the bank’s failure to hold Epstein accountable.
Though some reports claim the suspect actually intended to target Judge Salas’s husband, it appears initial reports that the suspect was a lawyer who had once argued a case before the judge have been confirmed.
The suspect, whose body was found in the Catskills, has been identified as lawyer and men’s rights activist Roy Den Hollander. It’s believed that Hollander had a case pending before Salas where he was challenging the “men’s only” draft. Hollander also once sued Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press, the New York Times’ commentator David Brooks, and Major Garrett of CBS. He accused them of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by allegedly committing “wire fraud” for publishing “fake news” reports about President Trump.
Roy Hollander
Authorities told a local ABC affiliate that they’re still trying to determine if the judge, or her husband, a well-known criminal defense lawyer, was the intended target.
* * *
Update (1324ET): Last night’s killing in North Brunswick has dominated the news cycle on Monday as numerous ‘experts’ have stepped forward to denounce the connection between the shooting and a civil suit against Deutsche Bank that Judge Salas had recently been charged with overseeing.
Now, authorities are telling media that the suspect in the shooting has been found dead via suicide in Liberty, NY.
That’s an unexpectedly morbid turn. But there’s more: The suspect was a white man (remember, lower-case “w” for white) who wore a face covering and a FedEx uniform, law enforcement sources told ABC News, and he used an ordinary car to make a getaway.
But here’s the real twist. Though his name hasn’t been released, authorities said the suspect was an attorney who once argued a case before Judge Salas, back in 2015. Police told reporters that they suspect the suspect killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot.
Here’s more from ABC:
The suspect was later found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound near Liberty, New York, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News. A municipal employee discovered the body in a car.
The deceased suspect was an attorney who had a case before Judge Salas in 2015, sources said. A FedEx package addressed to Judge Salas was discovered in the car, sources said.
“As a judge, she had threats from time to time, but everyone is saying that recently there had not been any,” said Mayor Womack, who is personal friends with the judge and her husband.
FedEx Spokesman Jim Masilak said in a statement, “We are aware of the media reports and are fully cooperating with investigating authorities.”
It sounds plausible enough. However, in a world where everything with even the most remote connection to Epstein inspires intrigue and suspicion, we wouldn’t be surprised if the authorities’ eventual report produces more questions than answers.
#The Man Who Tried To Kill The Epstein Judge Did Not Kill Himself
too soon?
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 20, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
In addition to the FBI, the New Jersey State Police, the North Brunswick Police and the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office are also involved in the investigation, which isn’t over yet, apparently. The US Marshals have been called upon to provide a detail for the judge.
* * *
When we first spotted headlines about a lone gunman’s lethal assault on the home of a federal judge in New Jersey, we feared this was just another example of how criminals have been emboldened by the nationwide backlash against law enforcement embodied by the ‘defund the police’ movement.
But that was before we learned that the judge targeted in the attack – Newark-based US federal judge Esther Salas – had been assigned to a Deutsche Bank/Epstein lawsuit just four days before the attack.
The shooting occurred Sunday night at around 5pmET. Salas 20-year-old son Daniel Anderl, a student, opened the door at the family home in North Brunswick after hearing the doorbell ring. The man outside appeared to be a FedEx employee, according to media reports.
Almost immediately, the gunman started blasting, shooting and killing Anderl, and badly wounding his father, Mark Anderl, 63, a prominent defense attorney in the area. Salas has reportedly received threats from time to time, but local press reported that Salas hadn’t received any threats recently.
Seated in Newark, Salas’ most high-profile cases recently involved the tax evasion prosecution of Joe Giudice, the husband of RHNJ star Theresa Giudice. She also spared a murderous gang leader from the death penalty over what she ruled was an intellectual disability that made him ineligible for capital punishment.
But Salas is now presided over an ongoing lawsuit brought by Deutsche Bank investors who claim the company made false and misleading statements about its AML policies while failing to monitor “high-risk” customers like sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Since the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, public interest in all things Epstein has been revived.
The FBI revealed last night that it will be spearheading the investigation into the slaying.
Investigators said they’re looking into any connections to the Epstein/DB lawsuit, while also investigating any connections to her husband’s work as a criminal defense attorney.
The FBI’s announcement was met with a sarcastic response by many on twitter.
If there is one organization in the country that can stand up to the Epstein-linked mob and keep democratic society on track, this is that group. https://t.co/xCb5SYUqP7
— Mark Melin (@MarkMelin) July 20, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The FBI says it’s looking for one suspect. The Marshals Service is also carrying out its own investigation, since the agency takes its responsibility to protect federal officials “very seriously”.
So far, authorities have refused to confirm that the Epstein connection might have been a motive. A friend of the judge’s said Salas hadn’t received any threats recently.
Salas, 51, was New Jersey’s first Hispanic woman to serve as a US district judge. She was nominated by Barack Obama in 2010, and confirmed by the Senate the following year.
- What Did Comey Know And When Did He Know It?
What Did Comey Know And When Did He Know It?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 20:50Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,
On March 20, 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey told Congress that the FBI was formally investigating whether there were contacts between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. We later learned that the alleged basis for this investigation was the Steele Dossier. Since then, we’ve also learned that the information in the Steele Dossier was fake.
The big question now is when did the FBI know that the whole investigation, which severely handicapped Trump’s first term, was baloney?
The answer, based upon newly released documents from the Senate Judiciary Committee, is that by mid-February 2017 Comey knew or should have known that the Steele Dossier was a hoax perpetrated by the Hillary campaign.
To go back a step, we know from Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December 2019 report that the FBI relied upon the Steele Dossier both to spy on Carter Page and to investigate the Trump campaign. The same report establishes that the FBI’s investigation revealed that Steele’s information came from a source who, in turn, got his information from yet another source. By March 20, when Comey announced that the FBI was looking into the Trump campaign, FBI agents on the ground had already stated that the primary source had no credibility.
What the Horowitz Report did not address was when Comey personally learned about the credibility problem. Comey refused to cooperate with the IG investigation, so Horowitz glossed over Comey’s knowledge or lack thereof. One of the problems (see pp. 370-371 of the report) was that the FBI agents who interviewed the sub-source wrote documents falsely implying that he was reliable, even as their notes said otherwise.
That confusion held Horowitz back from imputing knowledge to Comey. The two newly declassified documents, however, practically cry out that, when Comey announced the Trump investigation, he knew or should have known that it had no basis.
The first document, which is heavily redacted, establishes that the primary source was not (as many speculated) a highly placed Russian. Contacts with the Kremlin would have militated in favor of believing him or her. But when the FBI identified Steele’s primary source, they found that he was not a Russian official, nor was he even based in Russia. That should have been a huge red flag that there was a problem.
The second document poses an even bigger problem for Comey. On February 14, 2017, the New York Times published an article entitled, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contact With Russian Intelligence.” Peter Strzok, who headed the Trump investigation (aka Operation Crossfire Hurricane), read the article and made notes establishing that the FBI had no basis for investigating Trump. Sharyl Attkisson quoted the notes:
Claim in NYT article: “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.”
Note by Strzok: “This statement is misleading and inaccurate as written. We have not seen evidence of any individuals in contact with Russians (both Governmental and non-Governmental)” and “There is no known intel affiliation, and little if any [government of Russia] affiliation[.] FBI investigation has shown past contact between [Trump campaign volunteer Carter] Page and the SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation], but not during his association with the Trump campaign.”
[snip]
Claim in NYT article: “Officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, and how many of Trump’s advisers were talking to the Russians.”
Note by Strzok: “Again, we are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intel officials” and “Our coverage has not revealed contact between Russian intelligence officers and the Trump team.”
[snip]
Claim by NYT: “Senior FBI officials believe … Christopher Steele … has a credible track record.”
Note by Strzok: “Recent interviews and investigation, however, reveal Steele may not be in a position to judge the reliability of subsource network.”
The FBI’s decision to investigate a duly elected president was arguably the most consequential investigation the FBI has ever undertaken. The man leading the investigation, who was only two levels below Director Comey, wrote notes that strongly imply that, five weeks before Comey announced the investigation (and after the FBI had engaged in months of intensive work), the FBI had nothing.
These documents make it more likely than not that Comey knew that the investigation was baseless. If he did know, and he nevertheless continued the investigation and publicly announced it, thereby deliberately and severely damaging a duly elected president, what he did was nothing less than sedition.
The fact that Comey still walks free is a troubling indication that it’s business as usual in the Swamp. When swamp rats who support Democrats break the law, they go free.
- Top Shale Boss Warns US Production Won't Revisit 2019 Levels "In My Lifetime"
Top Shale Boss Warns US Production Won’t Revisit 2019 Levels “In My Lifetime”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 20:30America’s energy dominance could be coming to an end as the country’s shale industry is experiencing steep production declines. Rarely do we hear President Trump these days touting shale jobs and production output, mostly because the industry has entered a bust cycle.
Matt Gallagher, CEO of Parsley Energy, a top 20 producer in Texas, spoke recently with the Financial Times and said crude output of 12 or 13 million barrels per day is over:
“I don’t think I’ll see 13m [barrels a day] again in my lifetime.
“It is really dejecting, because drilling our first well in 2009 we saw the wave of energy independence at our fingertips for the US, and it was very rewarding . . . to be a part of it,” Gallagher,37, said.
Us Crude Oil Production
The shale bust of 2020 is an ominous sign of America’s energy dominance is over. Crude output will continue to wane this year and likely into next. The lack of shale profitability, mainly due to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices sub-$40 per barrel won’t be enough for highly indebted shale companies to survive.
We’ve pointed out the shale industry could be on the verge of destruction due to the sharp decline in demand and plummeting energy prices brought on by coronavirus pandemic. So far, bankruptcies in the shale patch are accelerating to levels not seen since the first half of 2016.
Another significant driver of lower production levels is a halving of rig counts due to collapsing price and demand; rigs dropped from 539 in mid-March to 258 last week.
“Tight oil production will decline by 50% by this time next year. As a result, US oil production will fall from to less than eight mmb/d by mid-2021,” we noted via Arthur Berman via OilPrice.com.
The combination of the Saudi-Russia oil price war and the virus pandemic has been nothing but disastrous for shale companies. These two factors forced Gallagher earlier this year to shut down wells and slash spending.
He said the recent oil-price crash was “hands down” the worst ever. In April, WTI prices dove below the zero mark for the first time in history due to oversupplied conditions triggered by virus-related lockdowns.
WTI May contracts dove into negative territory in April.
Gallagher said car and air travel demand has slumped – which could result in oil production stabilizing around 11 million barrels per day. He said producers would focus on maintaining output, not increasing it.
Gallagher concluded the interview by saying hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on the shale industry, adding that activity levels for the industry will be “dramatically lower for a long time.”
Slumping crude production is more bad news for the stock market…
Contrary to Larry Kudlow’s constant touting of a “V-shaped” recovery – this is more bad news that deep economic scarring from the virus pandemic will result in years of high unemployment and sub-par economic growth. And it now appears shale has lost its energy dominance in the world.
- The Real Unemployment Rate Is 21%… And Heading Higher
The Real Unemployment Rate Is 21%… And Heading Higher
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 20:10Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
As businesses, agencies and organizations recalibrate to the reality that the V-shaped recovery was nothing but a brief fantasy, 6 million additional jobs lost may be a best-case scenario rather than the worst-case scenario.
It is somewhat less than reassuring that the “official” unemployment rate of around 12% is roughly half of the “real-world” unemployment rate. As always in the wonderful world of statistics, especially politically potent ones, it depends on what you measure, what you don’t measure / act as if it doesn’t exist, and how you measure what you do measure.
Everyone who digs beneath the headline numbers of employment / unemployment soon discovers a number of jarring anomalies in what the media presents as “factual statistics.”
The first is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) doesn’t actually count the number of people who are employed / unemployed; they rely on a sampling survey of employers, which is more like an election poll than an actual measurement.
Secondly, they estimate the number of new businesses which are “born” and existing businesses that “die”, and then guesstimate the number of additional employees this real-time churn generates. This birth/death model is notoriously inaccurate, as it ignores little things like pandemics and is often magically revised to create or eliminate hundreds of thousands of presumed jobs.
State unemployment offices tabulate the number of unemployment claims received and processed. These are real numbers, not guesses like the BLS estimates. Wolf Richter prepared a chart of the real unemployment claims numbers which is reprinted below, from his post 32 Million People on State & Federal Unemployment, 2nd Highest Ever: Week 17 of U.S. Labor Market Collapse.
The BLS reported that the U.S. employed workforce stood at about 152 million in February. With 32 million claiming unemployment, that’s an unemployment rate of 21%. How do we arrive at a 12% unemployment rate? We ignore the 14.3 million contract / gig workers who are currently drawing emergency Federal unemployment via Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA),and the 936,000 in the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program.
But even the 21% real-world unemployment rate doesn’t reflect the full unemployment picture: previously full-time workers who have had their hours cut to part-time aren’t counted in unemployment statistics, even though their employment status has changed for the worse.
Then there are the millions of workers who were recalled to work as businesses re-opened whose employment is up in the air as the expected return-to-normal has failed to materialize.
An entire class of workers has been glossed over: small business owners who have closed their businesses. Those owners who incorporated and paid unemployment insurance on themselves as employees of the corporation qualify for unemployment, but many small business owners didn’t pay themselves as employees, and their status is uncertain.
Anecdotally, the number of small business owners who have decided to close in recent weeks appears to be significant, as the hoped-for V-shaped recovery failed to materialize even as states re-opened. This trend could gather momentum as hope decays into realistic assessment and funds borrowed from emergency federal programs (PPP) run out.
The number of employees who will be laid off again as a rising flood of small businesses throw in the towel could quickly become consequential.
Barring an immediate additional influsion of federal stimulus, local governments will also start laying off temp and contract workers as tax revenues continue their downward spiral.
As Corporate America’s revenues falter, the only ways to reduce costs are 1) dump leases on commercial space and 2) lay off employees and 3) slash spending to the bone. All of these end up triggering layoffs.
Could the number of unemployed rise to 38 million from 32 million, a 25% rate of unemployment? As businesses, agencies and organizations recalibrate to the reality that the V-shaped recovery was nothing but a brief fantasy, 6 million additional jobs lost may be a best-case scenario rather than a worst-case scenario.
* * *
My recent books:
Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
(Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).
The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)
Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).
* * *
If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
- Woman Who Refused To Wear Mask In Starbucks To Sue Barista For Half Of $100K GoFundMe
Woman Who Refused To Wear Mask In Starbucks To Sue Barista For Half Of $100K GoFundMe
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 19:50A San Diego yoga instructor who refused to wear a mask in Starbucks says she plans to sue a barista who wouldn’t serve her.
Amber Lynn Gilles took to Facebook earlier this month in a now-deleted entry, posting a photo of the barista, Lenin Gutierrez – complaining that he “refused to serve me cause I’m not wearing a mask. Next time I will wait for cops and bring a medical exemption.”
After Gilles’ post went viral, Orange County resident Matt Cowan started a GoFundMe – which received over $100,000 in donations.
And Gilles wants half of it.
“It was discrimination and everybody is OK with it and enabling and rewarding that behavior,” she said, adding that she has medical conditions which prevent her from wearing a mask. “One of them I get shortness of breath, dizziness and it messes with the heartbeat. And I do have asthma as well, and I do get mask-acne. So there’s several things going on and not only that but it doesn’t even work.”
She provided KGTV with two documents to prove her medical exemption. One is a pelvic exam from 2015 with results that say “probable exophytic fibroid arising from the anterior wall of the uterus measuring 2.9 cm size,” and “simple 2.5 cm left ovarian cyst.” A second piece of paper is a handwritten note with letterhead from a San Diego chiropractor who she asked not be named. The handwritten note reads “Amber has underlying breath conditions that prevent her from wearing a mask or any type of facial covering whatsoever. Please contact me if have any questions.”
When that chiropractor who wrote the note was called, he said he could not discuss her situation. When Gilles was asked why a chiropractor gave her a breathing-related medical exemption, she responded “because they are dedicated to providing non-invasive personalized care and treatment. They are real doctors.” –WTVR
When asked if she wanted to apologize or had a message for the public, Gilles – who’s been labeled a “Karen,” said “No absolutely not. I feel like I need the apology. I’ve been discriminated against, I’m the one who’s sick.”
Gilles says she’s too broke to sue right now, and has set up a GoFundMe to raise money for ‘expensive’ lawyers.
- Another California Death Row Inmate Succumbs To COVID-19: Live Updates
Another California Death Row Inmate Succumbs To COVID-19: Live Updates
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 19:43Summary:
- Another California death row inmate dies of COVID
- Texas sees another decline in hospitalizations
- Broward County makes mask mandatory.
- Gov Newsom expected to announce that more businesses can operate outdoors
- California cases climb by less than 7-day average
- Controversy over ‘Pandemic Pods’ flares
- NJ Gov says schools will reopen in September
- Houston ICU census hits 2-week low
- Arizona cases fall for 3rd day
- Florida deaths top 5,000
- NYC begins Phase 4 reopening
- Cuomo warns about risks to reopening as NYC enters Phase 4
- Stocks turn red despite Oxford-AZ vaccine data
- Scientists warn of 2nd wave in Sweden as COVID-19 deaths dwindle
- India suffers 40k+ new COVID cases in new record
- Global death toll tops 600k
- Cases top 14.5 million
- China reports 16 new cases
- Victoria outbreak could take “weeks” to subside
- Pfizer reports incremental vaccine results
- Tokyo confirms 168 new infections
* * *
Update (1930ET): California’s state prison system has just suffered the second death of a death row inmate via coronavirus. The rash of deaths come as the federal government is moving ahead with executions after a lengthy delay.
Troy Ashmus
A local TV station reported that the inmate, Troy Ashmus, was the 7th death row prisoner and 12th prisoner overall to die from the virus at California’s infamous San Quentin prison.
A death row inmate arrested in Sacramento County in the 1980s has died of complications believed to have stemmed from COVID-19, officials said Monday.
Troy Ashmus, 58, was the seventh death row prisoner and the 12th overall at San Quentin to die from confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infections.
Ashmus was sent to death row in 1986. He was convicted of raping 7-year-old Marcella Davis, who had biked to a Sacramento park in May 1984. The girl also was sodomized before plastic bags, cellophane and the girl’s own shorts were shoved down her throat, prosecutors said.
The coroner has yet to determine an exact cause of death.
There are currently 718 people on California’s death row. There have been nearly 7,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases among inmates in the state prison system, including more than 2,000 active cases and 39 confirmed deaths, according to state figures.
Dozens of inmates are hospitalized, some of them in intensive care.
More than 800 employees also have active cases of COVID-19, according to corrections officials.
We imagine the families of these inmates will have a case when this is all over.
* * *
Update (1700ET): Texas coronavirus cases increased by 7,404 on Monday (vs. +7,300 on Sunday), while the state reported another 62 deaths (from +93 yesterday). Hospitalizations declined by 23 (vs. -66 yesterday), according to the State Health Department. Earlier, data released by TMC showed occupied ICU beds in Houston decline to their lowest level in 2 weeks.
The state has confirmed 4,020 deaths (roughly 1,000 fewer than Florida) and 332,434 cases.
* * *
Update (1600ET): Broward County, which is among the worst hit in Florida after Miami-Dade, has just made wearing masks mandatory.
EmergencyOrder20-22 by Zerohedge on Scribd
One of the most shocking provisions in the executive order is that residents are responsible for ensuring that guests in their homes follow guidelines. So, if a Broward County resident is having guests over, they will be legally required to wear their masks in the house, and anywhere else on the property where the rules might apply.
Broward County orders that you must wear a mask IN YOUR HOME!!! 🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/Zw9JoWflan
— Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) July 20, 2020
So far Broward County has ordered masks for interacting with essential businesses, so I take this to mean that currently a pizza delivery guy can get a homeowner arrested for not wearing a mask on their own property
— Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) July 20, 2020
This comes as the county sheriff says he is stepping up enforcement of house parties and other gatherings that might violate social distancing rules.
* * *
Update (1500ET): California Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to announce plans to allow more industries – like nail salons – to reopen for outdoors operations only.
WATCH #LIVE: Gov. Newsom expected to announce that some CA industries will be allowed to operate outdoors, sources say https://t.co/oZSWHhLbRh
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) July 20, 2020
Newsom is expected to make an announcement on changes to the beauty industry, sources tell ABC7. He will likely announce that some industries, such as hair salons and nail salons, will be allowed to operate outdoors, according to sources. Some salon and beauty workers have been asking the governor to change the rules and allow outdoor operations, so they can start working again during the pandemic.
* * *
Update (1430ET): California’s total COVID-19 case count hit 391,538 cases on Monday (all numbers reported with a 24-hour delay), up 6,846 (+1.8%) from the prior day. That’s well below the 7-day average of 2.7%, just the latest sign that the Sun Belt peak has passed.
It’s just the latest sign that the peak has passed, although officials will remain on high alert, looking for any excuse to shut it all down once more.
* * *
Update (1350ET): In keeping with its newfound focus on “social justice”, CNBC on Monday dedicated a chunk of its afternoon programming to the issue “Pandemic Pods” in the Bay Area. If this is a new concept for you, allow us to explain: ‘Pandemic Pods’ are groups of families who hire private teachers to school their children at home using the tools provided by schools districts.
CNBC warned that the big concern with ‘pandemic pods’ is that they could create ‘an exodus’ of wealthier Bay Area kids from Bay Area public schools. It’s a “social justice” issue, the reporter assured their audience, since these private tutors charge as much as $50 an hour for 1 child, plus an additional $5 per additional child.
Blue checks have been complaining about the Pandemic Pods (something that only a very small number of region’s uber-wealthy are even considering, we imagine). But wouldn’t keeping more students at home in private ‘pods’ free up more public resources for other families? CNBC never really got around to addressing the hows and whys of the “inequality” question, beyond merely insisting that this would be bad because rich people can afford it, and the poors can’t.
That was fast. Three days after @laurameckler and I reported on a new U.S. education trend — families who can afford it are banding together to hire private, in-home tutors, a movement critics say will exacerbate inequity — I’m getting PR pitches for “Pandemic Pod” experts … https://t.co/GzPMgBRpUJ pic.twitter.com/UR9YzgYXnI
— Hannah Natanson (@hannah_natanson) July 20, 2020
* * *
Update (1226ET): NJ Gov Phil Murphy confirmed that schools in the state will reopen in the fall, although he will allow parents to opt in to all distance learning.
The state saw just 9 deaths over the last 24 hours.
Sadly, we must report an additional confirmed 9 #COVID19 deaths, bringing our total number of confirmed deaths to 13,741.
As a reminder, this is not the number of New Jerseyans who have passed over the past 24 hours. pic.twitter.com/CLGJBx1QDK
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) July 20, 2020
While the rate of transmission in the state dipped back below 1.
☑️Spot positivity rate for tests from July 16th was 2.8%
☑️Rate of transmission has fallen to 0.90The lab delay may be impacting today’s spot positivity rate. pic.twitter.com/cO8rU8qfje
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) July 20, 2020
And hospitalizations continue to fall.
YESTERDAY:
☑️798 patients in our hospitals patients in our hospitals – there was a roughly 50-50 split between those who are known #COVID19 positive and those listed as Persons Under Investigation
☑️146 patients in either critical or intensive care
☑️72 ventilators in use pic.twitter.com/3h139hlKgX— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) July 20, 2020
* * *
Update (1212ET): Houston has seen hospitalizations fall to their lowest level in 2 weeks, plunging 18% to just 811 ICU patients in the Greater Houston Area. So far, the area has suffered only 535 deaths, along with 55,769 new cases.
- HOUSTON-AREA VIRUS ICU CENSUS PLUNGES 18% TO TWO-WEEK LOW OF 811
Houston saw fewer than 1,000 newly confirmed cases yesterday.
Meanwhile, Texas Medical Center’s projections suggest that Texas and Houston has already passed peak hospitalization and ICU levels.
Source: TMC
It’s just the latest sign that the surge in deaths that experts like Dr. Fauci have predicted may not come to pass, and that President Trump’s push to reopen schools in the fall just might pan out.
* * *
Update (1150ET): As fears of a COVID-19 resurgence prompt even the states that successfully managed to suppress the outbreak to reimpose certain restrictions, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot just announced on Monday that bars and restaurants in the city won’t be allowed to serve alcohol indoors starting Friday.
The city is also planning to limit indoor fitness classes to a maximum of 10 people, while barring treatments like shaves and facials, which require patrons to beauty salons to remove their masks.
The news was delivered abruptly via a press release published by the mayor’s office after Lightfoot stopped speaking during an unrelated press briefing. Lightfoot has warned that she wouldn’t hesitate to roll back restrictions if there is a spike in cases. Fearing a spike linked to bars, Chicago was slow to allow them to reopen. Now, many establishments in the Windy City will be effectively forced to close down once again.
Gov Pritzker praised Lightfoot’s decision, and a similar decision made by the mayor of Springfield.
Now: @GovPritzker reacts to news that Chicago is banning alcohol in bars during an uptick in COVID cases. He commends mayors in Chicago and Springfield for implementing new restrictions. Cites a study that says wearing a mask reduces infection risk by 80%. pic.twitter.com/AbIpOZXN0D
— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) July 20, 2020
Lightfoot blamed an uptick in new cases in Chicago for the decision.
* * *
Update (1135ET): For the 3rd straight day, Arizona reported fewer new COVID-19 cases than the prior 24-hour period, with 1,559 (+1.1%) new cases reported. It brought the statewide total to 145,183. That’s the lowest daily total since June 29.
The state reported just 23 new deaths, bringing its death toll to 2,784 deaths. Maricopa County, home of Phoenix, the state’s capital and biggest city.
And iCU capacity moved lower to 87%.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca Executive VP Mene Pangalos told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell that protection from the AZ-Oxford candidate will last for “hopefully a year”.
AstraZeneca’s Mene Pangalos says based on previous vaccine work using same Oxford construct, #COVID19 vaccine protection may last “hopefully … a year, if not actually a little bit longer than that.” But larger studies will need to prove it.
— Meg Tirrell (@megtirrell) July 20, 2020
The company also plans to test two-dose regimen during the Phase 3 vaccine trials. To be safe, they plan to use two doses per patient, which could create complications in terms of supply.
AstraZeneca’s Mene Pangalos says based on previous vaccine work using same Oxford construct, #COVID19 vaccine protection may last “hopefully … a year, if not actually a little bit longer than that.” But larger studies will need to prove it.
— Meg Tirrell (@megtirrell) July 20, 2020
* * *
Update (1100ET): Stocks shot into the green earlier after the release of Phase 1/2 trial data in the Lancet earlier showed that one of the most hyped up vaccine candidates appeared to be safe for human consumption.
However, as that rally fades and both AstraZeneca shares and the broader market slump back into the red, analysts are pointing to one important detail of the study results: the fact that responses were strongest after a booster dose.
If a patient needs two doses of a vaccine for it to be effective, than it will take twice as long to produce and distribute to the population.
“We saw the strongest immune response in the 10 participants who received two doses of the vaccine, indicating that this might be a good strategy for vaccination,” Professor Pollard said.
Read more on that here.
In other news, Florida and New York kicked off Monday’s big numbers. On Monday, Florida reported 10,508 new cases and 92 newly reported deaths, marking the sixth straight day with more than 10k new cases. Of all the tests counted over the past 24 hours, 14.74% of them came back positive, which is still well below Florida’s peak north of 20% (all these COVID-19 data are reported with a 24 hour delay).
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The new deaths reported Monday pushed Florida’s total north of 5,000 to 5,072. The state has also counted 360,394 infections, still rough;y 70k shy of New York’s 411k+ total. New York has also reported more than 30k deaths. Monday’s data follow a new weekly record for cases, deaths and tests in Florida that was cemented on Sunday. Statewide, 740 virus deaths were reported from Sunday to Sunday, compared with 511 the prior week.
As Florida and Texas draw nearer to NY’s COVID-19 case total, the two states have logged only 1/10th the death rate of NY.
How come we haven’t seen more reporting on what Fla and Texas did to keep the mortality rate low? We suspect it has something to do with the fact that they didn’t explicitly ask hospitals to send COVID-19 positive patients back to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
Meanwhile, NYC entered ‘Phase 4’ reopening on Monday with Gov Andrew Cuomo warning that he wouldn’t hesitate to roll back the reopening if cases start to climb once again. Any rule-breaking “has to stop” Cuomo said, as he threatened to revive the lockdown if compliance doesn’t improve.
There are facts and then there are myths.
If you are in your 20s you can get sick.
And you can make other people sick.
You’re not a superhero. But you could become a superspreader.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) July 20, 2020
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) July 20, 2020
He also shared the latest NY numbers.
Today’s update on the numbers:
49,342 tests were performed yesterday. 519 tests came back positive (1.05% of total).
Total hospitalizations fell to 716.
Sadly, there were 8 COVID fatalities yesterday. pic.twitter.com/9sGbfcMgvM
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) July 20, 2020
* * *
Update (0930ET): Sweden’s approach to tackling the virus has become a major topic of COVID-19-related discussion as more skeptics argue that the country’s approach to tackling the virus – which never involved lockdowns – shouldn’t be written off solely because it tracked higher mortality rates than several of its neighbors.
While Sweden’s high (relatively speaking) mortality rate figures heavily into these criticisms, the truth is Sweden has reported fewer deaths per million than several of the worst-hit countries in Western Europe, including the UK, Spain, Italy and Belgium, all of which adopted strict lockdowns to combat the virus.
- Belgium: 858
- UK: 681
- Spain 608
- Italy: 580
- Sweden: 552
- Chile: 454
- France 449
- US: 429
- Peru: 412
- Brazil: 379
Goldman once claimed that Sweden’s success was largely attributable to cultural factors, like the fact that most Swedes obeyed the government’s social distancing guidance.
CBS News traveled to Stockholm recently and found that, despite the worrying statistics, most Swedes still back the public health agency’s approach.
“I think the people are taking their responsibility to social distance, so I am fine,” said Stockholm resident Mia Soderberg. “I am glad…because I think people are in better shape mentally, because we’ve been able to go out.”
Though, to be sure, Sweden’s neighbors have punished Swedes by imposing travel bans that prohibit Swedes from crossing over the border.
But while herd immunity remains a ways off, according to Sweden’s top virologist, the country’s efforts to safeguard nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have caused deaths to drop precipitously.
Although Sweden never locked down, and never mandated masks, the country is for the most part finished with the outbreak. Deaths and new cases have dwindled, as critics of the country’s approach continue to warn about the possibility of a dangerous second wave. Although the country is reporting daily deaths in the teens, CBS News warned that in a month or so, when the summer ends, millions of Swedes will head back inside, triggering the start of a whole new wave of the pandemic.
* * *
Globally, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths surpassed 600,000 on Monday, while the number of confirmed cases topped 14.5 million over the weekend.
The world saw two consecutive daily record tallies over the weekend, as the pandemic continues to intensify in the US, India, Brazil and elsewhere.
In the US, daily deaths saw a promising pullback yesterday.
As deaths and hospitalizations creeped higher over the weekend and last week, the number of new cases in the four worst-hit states have climbed. Most notably, Texas reported a promising slowdown just last night, even as LA Mayor Eric Garcetti warns that his city is on the verge of another shutdown.
FUNDSTRAT: “It is too early to be certain, but this 4 week surge in daily cases seems to be flattening, particularly in the 4 hardest hit states, FL, CA, AZ, TX ..” @fundstrat pic.twitter.com/uH5Dh9hKsb
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) July 20, 2020
For the first time, India reported more than 40k new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, a new daily record. Exactly 40,425 cases were reported on Monday, which brought the total in the world’s second-most-populous country to more than 1.1 million. The number of confirmed deaths has climbed to 27,497, up 681 since Sunday morning.
In Japan, Tokyo confirmed 168 new infections, according to Nikkei, down from 188 a day earlier. Tokyo’s metropolitan government raised its COVID-19 alert to the highest level out of four last week, and has urged workers who can to stay home. In South Korea, 26 new cases were confirmed on Monday, down from 34 a day ago. Total infections reached 13,771, with 296 deaths.
After suffering more than 100 new cases in a day – a new record – over the weekend, Hong Kong reported just 73 new coronavirus cases on Monday, including 66 that were locally transmitted, as sweeping new restrictions imposed by Chief Executive Carrie Lam took effect.
The city reported more than 100 cases on Sunday, a record, as Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that nonessential civil servants must work from home.
Melbourne’s surge in COVID-19 cases over the past month could take “weeks” to subside despite a lockdown and other social distancing measures, according to Australia’s acting chief medical officer. Victoria state, where Melbourne is located, reported a daily record on Friday with 438 new cases. Numbers have cooled slightly since then. People in Melbourne must wear masks when leaving their homes, and could be fined $200 Australian dollars ($140) if they are caught outside without one.
Mainland China reported 16 new cases of the novel coronavirus as of the end of July 18, up from 22 a day earlier. Of these new infections, 13 tested positive in Urumqi, the capital of China’s far western region of Xinjiang region, which assumed a “warlike posture” over the weekend as new cases surged.
As the world awaits the results of the Oxford University-Astrazeneca trial, which is expected to be published by the Lancet, a medical journal known for its early work on SARS-CoV-2, later on Monday. Pfizer reported some early results Monday morning, including the first T-cell response data.
- PFIZER INC – T CELL CYTOKINE PROFILE SHOWS VACCINE ELICITED T CELLS EXHIBIT A TH1 PHENOTYPE, WHICH IS ASSOCIATED WITH ANTIVIRAL PROPERTIES
- PFIZER – BNT162B1 INDUCED ANTIBODIES HAD BROADLY NEUTRALIZING ACTIVITY IN PSEUDOVIRUS NEUTRALIZATION ASSAYS ACROSS PANEL OF 16 SARS-COV-2 RBD VARIANTS
The data “supports and expands” on previously published results, marking the news as largely incremental.
Meanwhile, earlier, Scott Gottlieb focused his daily commentary on CNBC on the lessons we’ve learned about pandemic preparedness, repudiating the narrative pressed by Democrats who have blamed Trump for ‘dismantling’ an Obama-era preparedness office.
“There are a lot of gaps in our preparedness,” @ScottGottliebMD says about the U.S. response to the pandemic. “And this isn’t a sort of a new problem, this has been building over many years.” https://t.co/xbNbmx8xhr pic.twitter.com/LMnJ10u3HP
— CNBC (@CNBC) July 20, 2020
- Universities Nationwide Promote Mental Health App To Treat "Anxiety Over Racism"
Universities Nationwide Promote Mental Health App To Treat “Anxiety Over Racism”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/20/2020 – 19:30Authored by Maria Copeland via Campus Reform,
A mental health app circulated by colleges recommends allying with efforts toward antiracism for users with anxiety.
Sanvello, a service marketed as the “#1 app for stress, anxiety, and depression with over 3 million users,” offers therapies for dealing with mental health stress, including tools for coaching, peer support, and self-care. Users receive premium access to the app free of charge for the duration of the pandemic.
The website for the app recently published a blog article titled “Anxiety over racism: A path towards peace” which encourages readers to work through their anxiety and choose to be active against racism, in a piece listed under the same category as articles providing tips for managing anxiety attacks and handling flight anxiety.
“If you’re white, approaching the process of unraveling racism may seem foreboding, yet discomfort (and there will be some) does not dismiss the necessity of the work,” author Roxane Battle writes.
“To be sure, there will be bumps in the road ahead. Mistakes will be made. But the fear of saying the wrong thing or not getting it exactly right should not deter. It’s part of the process. As many a scraped knee can attest, we have to keep climbing back on [the] bike until we all learn to ride.”
Allyship, Battle writes, “is a pathway forward, a path towards peace.”
The Sanvello app has been endorsed by universities across America.
The University of Missouri-St. Louis promoted Sanvello as a resource for dealing with stressful situations.
“It helps people gain more mindfulness around their mental health and well-being,” the associate vice provost for Student Affairs at UMSL commented.
“The great thing is that it’s customizable and really specific to different circumstances. Before you give a presentation in class, you can listen to a 10-minute meditation on being mindful about how you’re going to present yourself. There’s also one for flying. People can gain some valuable skills if they get into the app and really immerse themselves in it.”
Pepperdine University and Southwest Tennessee Community College advertise Sanvello in conjunction with other COVID-19 resources, while Brigham Young University, Syracuse University, Texas A&M University, the University of Maine-Machias, the University of Missouri System, and the University of Washington-Seattle recommend Sanvello as part of their student wellness services.
When discussing an initiative to improve mental health resources for students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, co-chair Kathryn Brewer said the university was seeking to update its services and develop new strategies — which specifically included the addition of Sanvello.
“These initiatives will save lives,” Brewer said.
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