Mar 24

Today’s News 24th March 2020

  • Chinese Factories Working 24/7 To Build Ventilators For Italy, New York
    Chinese Factories Working 24/7 To Build Ventilators For Italy, New York

    Approximately 19% of those who contract coronavirus become seriously ill, according to a large Chinese study, while just under 14% fall into the ‘severe’ category, and 5% become critical – typically requiring a ventilator to breathe while suffering from multiple organ dysfunction.

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    And while the overall fatality rate is a matter of serious debate as many suspect vast underreporting of cases, for those who fall into the critical category, a shortage of respirators would logically increase fatalities among that demographic.

    Indeed there is a critical shortage of medical supplies across the United States, compounded by a drop in exports of masks, gowns, sanitizer, and other items from China as demand has surged across the world.

    To that end, there is a serious need for ventilators, which several companies – as well as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, have vowed to solve (a claim which ventilator manufacturers aren’t buying).

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    In Seattle, manufacturer Ventec Life Systems has been ramping up production to fill orders as quickly as possible.

    One Chinese company, Beijing Aeonmed Co., has been working around the clock since January 20 to crank out the life-saving machines, according to Bloomberg.

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    “There’s literally no country in the world that doesn’t want to buy a ventilator from China right now,” said company director Li Kai. “We have tens of thousands of orders waiting. The issue is how fast we can make them.”

    The company has been working three shifts to meet demand from international customers, and have been producing ventilators “non-stop” according to the report.

    As the global coronavirus death toll inches toward 15,000, doctors from Milan to New York are desperately seeking ventilators. In severe cases, the availability of a ventilator that can help a Covid-19 patient breathe can determine if he lives or dies. Late last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state, which has about 5,000 to 6,000 ventilators, might need 30,000 of them. –Bloomberg

    “It’s ventilators, ventilators, ventilators,” NY Governor Cuomo told reporters. “That is the greatest need,” he added – saying that he has “people in China shopping for ventilators.”

    According to the Society of Critical Care Medicine, up to 960,000 patients may require ventilators due to coronavirus – however there are only around 200,000 such machines. In Italy, doctors have been forced to triage patients due to the severe shortage.

    The mad scramble for scarce medical supplies comes as China and the U.S. try to deflect blame for their handling of the disease. China has been seeking to claw back an international leadership role after early cover-ups helped the virus spread well beyond its borders. The country has sought to brand itself as Europe’s savior in the fight against the pathogen, providing masks and other supplies to the region’s virus hot spots. –Bloomberg

    “All the ventilator factories in China have reached their maximum capacity, occupied fully by foreign demand,” said director of supply chain at Vedeng.com, Wu Chuanpu. Vedeng connects medical equipment suppliers and buyers – and is receiving over 60 orders per day totaling hundreds or thousands of such machines. Many orders are from governments, he said.

    According to Wu, the factories need to remain at full capacity until May.

    “The expansion of the production line is very time-consuming and resources-intensive,” said Wu, adding that “It also involves personnel training. It is too cumbersome.”


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/24/2020 – 02:45

  • COVID-19 & China's Propaganda Campaign In Europe
    COVID-19 & China’s Propaganda Campaign In Europe

    Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

    The Chinese government has been fast-tracking shipments of medical aid to Europe, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic that first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The largesse appears to be part of a public relations effort by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Communist Party to deflect criticism over their responsibility for the deadly outbreak.

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    Beijing’s campaign as a global benefactor may deliver results in Europe, where pandering political leaders have long been notoriously fearful of antagonizing the European Union’s second-largest trading partner. What remains unclear is if European publics, which are bearing the brunt of the suffering caused by the epidemic, will be as easily willing to overlook the malfeasance of Chinese officials.

    In what can only be described as a geopolitical humiliation, Ursula Von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the administrative arm of the European Union, which touts itself as the “largest economy in the world,” heaped praise on Communist China for donating an inconsequential amount of medical equipment to the bloc. On March 18, she tweeted:

    “Spoke with Chinese PM Li Keqiang who announced that China will provide 2 mil surgical masks, 200,000 N95 masks & 50,000 testing kits. In January, the European Union helped China by donating 50 tons of equipment. Today, we’re grateful for China’s support. We need each other’s support in times of need.”

    The European Union has been incapable of providing meaningful assistance to Italy, the bloc’s third-largest member, which has been especially hard hit by the virus. After Germany, the EU’s most powerful member, banned the export of medical protection gear to avoid its own supply shortages of masks, gloves and suits, China stepped in.

    On March 12, China sent to Italy a team of nine Chinese medical staff along with some 30 tons of equipment on a flight organized by the Chinese Red Cross. The head of the Italian Red Cross, Francesco Rocca, said that the shipment “revealed the power of international solidarity.” He added:

    “In this moment of great stress, of great difficulty, we are relieved to have this arrival of supplies. It is true that it will help only temporarily, but it is still important. We have a desperate need for these masks right now. We need respirators that the Red Cross will donate to the government. This is for sure a really important donation for our country.”

    In recent days, China has also sent aid to:

    • Greece, March 21. An Air China plane carrying 8 tons of medical equipment — including 550,000 surgical masks and other items such as protective equipment, glasses, gloves and shoe covers — arrived at Athens International Airport. The Chinese Ambassador to Greece, Zhang Qiyue, referred to words by Aristotle: “What is a friend? A single soul living in two bodies.” He said that “difficult times reveal true friends” and that China and Greece are “working closely together in the fight against the coronavirus.” This, he said, “confirms once again the excellent relations and friendship between the two peoples.”

    • Serbia, March 21. China flew six doctors, ventilators and medical masks to Serbia to help Belgrade halt spreading of the coronavirus infection. “A big thank you to President Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people,” said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. China’s ambassador to Belgrade, Chen Bo, said the aid was a sign of the “iron friendship” between the two countries. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported: “President Xi attaches great importance to the development of China-Serbia relations, and believes that through the joint battle against the epidemic, the two countries’ time-tested traditional friendship will gain more hearty support from their people, and their comprehensive strategic partnership will grow deeper and rise to a higher level.

    • Spain, March 21. The founder and president of the Chinese technology company Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, donated one million face masks. They were expected to arrive at Zaragoza Airport in northeastern Spain on March 23. The masks will be stored at a warehouse belonging to the Spanish apparel retailer Zara. From there, Zara will put its logistics network at the service of the Spanish government. This shipment could be the first of several, as dozens of Chinese suppliers that have worked with Zara for years are reportedly showing a willingness to send material. The United States has warned Spain about the security risk inherent in opening its fifth-generation communications networks to Chinese mobile technology providers, including Huawei.

    • Czech Republic, March 21. A Ukrainian cargo plane reportedly carrying 100 tons of medical supplies from China arrived at the airport in Pardubice, a city situated 100 kilometers east of Prague. On March 20, a Chinese plane carrying one million masks arrived in the Czech Republic, which reportedly ordered another 5 million respirators from China along with 30 million masks and 250,000 sets of protective clothing.

    • France, March 18. China sent to France, the second-most powerful country of the European Union, a batch of medical supplies, including protective masks, surgical masks, protective suits and medical gloves. The Chinese Embassy in France tweeted: “United we will win!” The following day, China sent a second batch of supplies. The Chinese Embassy tweeted: “The Chinese people are next to the French people. Solidarity and cooperation will allow us to overcome this pandemic.”

    • The Netherlands, March 18. China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines, codeshare partners with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, donated 20,000 masks and 50,000 gloves. The shipment arrived at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on a Xiamen Airlines flight. “These are extremely difficult times for our country and our company, so we are very happy with this help for KLM and for the Netherlands,” KLM CEO Pieter Elbers said. “Less than two months ago, KLM made a donation to China and now we are being helped so wonderfully and generously.”

    • Poland, March 18. The Chinese government pledged to send Poland tens of thousands of protective items and 10,000 coronavirus test kits. On March 13, the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw sponsored a videoconference during which experts from China and Central Europe shared their knowledge on tackling the coronavirus. Police Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz thanked China for its support and stressed the need for continued cooperation with Beijing, including sharing experience in combating the pandemic.

    • Belgium, March 18. A Chinese cargo plane carrying 1.5 million masks landed at Liege Airport. The masks, which will be distributed to Belgium, France and Slovenia, were donated by Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, a Chinese ecommerce giant known as the “Amazon of China.”

    • Czech Republic, March 18. A plane carrying 150,000 test kits for coronavirus landed in Prague. The Ministry of Health paid about CZK 14 million ($550,000) for 100,000 testing kits, while another 50,000 kits were paid for by the Ministry of the Interior. Transport was provided by the Ministry of Defense.

    • Spain, March 17. A Chinese plane carrying 500,000 masks arrived at Zaragoza Airport. “The sun always rises after the rain,” Chinese President Xi Jinping told Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. He said that the friendship between China and Spain will be stronger and bilateral ties will have a brighter future after the joint fight against the virus. Xi said that after the pandemic, both countries should intensify exchanges and cooperation in a wide range of fields.

    • Belgium, March 16. Another shipment of medical supplies donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation for epidemic prevention in Europe arrived at Liege Airport.

    Fortune magazine explained the motivation behind China’s propaganda push:

    “For China, the outreach to Europe is part of an effort to claw back an international leadership role after early cover-ups helped the virus spread well beyond its borders. President Xi Jinping’s government has sought to silence critics, including reporters and online commentators, and also spread conspiracy theories about where the virus originated.

    “Geopolitically, China’s move to brand itself as Europe’s savior aims to improve its standing on a global stage as both spar with the Trump administration. China and the U.S. have continued a wider fight for global influence — Beijing kicked out more than a dozen American journalists this week — while also seeking to deflect blame for their handling of the disease.”

    In an interview with the UK-based newspaper Guardian, Natasha Kassam, a former Australian diplomat, said:

    “Now we see Chinese officials and state media claiming that China bought the world time to prepare for this pandemic. We know the propaganda machine within China is able to rewrite history but now we are seeing that replicated overseas. China’s victory over Covid-19 has already been written and authorities are trying very hard for that message to be received overseas.”

    In an essay for the Spanish publication Libertad Digital, commentator Emilio Campmany astutely explained:

    “The huge Chinese propaganda apparatus has been launched. In Italy they feel, with good reason, abandoned by the European Union and are grateful for the help that the Asian country is giving them. This has been suitably amplified by the Italian media.

    “This is a propaganda operation that hides various truths. The first and most important is that the culprit for this pandemic is the Chinese regime. It does not take any conspiracy theory to point it out. It was widely recognized that Chinese live animal markets are a very serious epidemic hazard. The very severe communist regime of the people’s republic, which controls everything for the welfare of the citizens, has been unable to shut them down. When the first cases emerged, it took forever for the highly efficient Communist Party to react and instead devoted its myriad resources just to hiding the truth. When it could no longer hide what was happening, it intervened brutally, and only in this way has it managed to stop the epidemic, not without first giving rise, due to its negligence, to the virus spreading throughout the world.

    “The second is that communist bestiality is not necessary to effectively combat the virus. Infinitely better results can be achieved with capitalist intelligence, as has been shown by South Korea, which, having been much more capable than China, is not dedicated to paying for items in the West. For days now, this country has shown how valuable it can be to carry out massive tests. That is the best way for now, and the incredible thing is how long it took the Italians and the Spanish to realize this. However, this delay is not a consequence of not being blessed with two communist regimes, but rather of being governed by incompetents who, above all in our case, are that, socialists and communists.

    “China wants to take advantage of this calamity to wrest global leadership from the United States. It will be the communist country that makes us the most energetic medicines to fight the virus. It will discover the vaccine before anyone else and distribute it worldwide in record time. It will buy our assets and invest in our countries to rescue our economies. Ultimately, it will claim to be our savior.“


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/24/2020 – 02:00

  • UK, Europe & IMF Ramp Up Pressure For Trump To Ease Sanctions On Virus-Ravaged Iran
    UK, Europe & IMF Ramp Up Pressure For Trump To Ease Sanctions On Virus-Ravaged Iran

    Reports and in some cases video began emerging last week of mass shipments of humanitarian supplies being halted and grounded by skittish EU countries worried about violating US-led sanctions on Iran. 

    This as Iranian leaders have lashed out at Washington for ensuring a worsening coronavirus death toll through its “inhuman” sanctions. But the White House has also been coming under heightening pressures from European allies as well, including surprisingly by the UK, which has up to this point by and large stood by Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at ousting the government in Tehran.

    “The U.K. has quietly prodded the Trump administration to ease sanctions because of the crisis, the Guardian reported, without saying where it obtained the information,” Bloomberg writes Monday. “On March 17, Iran granted temporary release to British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been in jail in Tehran since 2016.” This is being seen as part of a significant broader thawing in UK-Iran relations amid the pandemic crisis.

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    Protests outside the Treasury Department. Image source: Medea Benjamin/Common Dreams

    Iran’s recently releasing some 85,000 minor offenders from its packed prisons across the country has resulted in the early good faith return of foreign nationals previously accused of spying.

    “On Saturday, a French scholar detained in Tehran was released after he showed signs of the coronavirus, while an Iranian engineer held in France and wanted by the U.S. was released by authorities there,” Bloomberg continues. “The apparent prisoner exchange was denounced by the U.S., which had sought the Iranian engineer’s extradition.”

    The US State Department has claimed it does have ‘humanitarian channels’ in place as well as exemptions authorizing US companies to sell and ship select medicines and hospital equipment, however, reports suggest American companies are wary of jumping in and possibly suffering punishment.

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    The pressure for some kind of dramatic blanket easing of US sanctions is only set to grow, given that Tehran has for the first time in a half-century turned to the IMF: 

    Iranians say that their economy is weak and unable to cope with the humanitarian toll because of the U.S. sanctions. Last week, Iran turned to the International Monetary Fund for the first time since the 1960s for aid, though Ali Vaez, the Crisis Group’s Iran project director, said the U.S. may try to block the IMF loan in order to keep up the pressure on the regime.

    Should Washington block such crucial aid as more and more Iranians die of Covid-19 amid a devastated health system in the country, it could be the final straw that encourages Britain to finally break from Washington’s Iran policy. 

    Washington’s growing reputation as a ‘monster’ inflicting unneeded extra punishment on the suffering Iranian people will also be further cemented in the minds of world leaders across the globe.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/24/2020 – 01:00

  • No Refunds: Costco Hoarders Discover They Can't Return Toilet Paper
    No Refunds: Costco Hoarders Discover They Can’t Return Toilet Paper

    Panic hoarders who rushed into Costco to buy years-worth of toilet paper are finding themselves out of luck when it comes to the big-box store’s typically generous return policy.

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    Those who have regrets after realizing that COVID-19 isn’t a ‘pooping disease’ were met with signs at various Costco locations informing them that they won’t be able to return all that toilet paper, paper towels, sanitizing wipes, water, rice and lysol they bought in anticipation of a societal collapse, according to brobible.

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    Costco, meanwhile, may have over-bought in anticipation of sustained demand which has petered out.

    It looks like “the whole toilet-paper craze has calmed down,” tweeted one shopper.

    Now what to do with all that TP?

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    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/24/2020 – 00:30

  • Sperm-19 And Egg-18: Squashing The Virus Of Death
    Sperm-19 And Egg-18: Squashing The Virus Of Death

    Authored (satirically) by Vladimir Golstein via Off-Guardian.org,

    Scientists at Michael Bloomberg School of Multiplication at Johns Hopkins University have discovered a new and highly dangerous and contagious source of death. It is called life.

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    The discovery was long in the making, with some great sages of Ancient world expounding it, but, it could not be scientifically proven, until the scientists zeroed in on a small mountainous region in Nepal, where people (average age 90) all of the sudden began to die. They were healthy before and then they began to drop like flies, reported local newspaper.

    The team of American researchers from aforementioned university began to eliminate all the possible causes of death: these guys don’t drive, they don’t drink, they practice peaceful coexistence, and they eat solely vegan food. Consequently, there was only one suspect left. It is the virus called life, caused by the two highly powerful strains of this virus, called Sperm19, and Egg18.

    Once the discovery has been made, the scientists got to work and came to the chilling discovery that explosion of life eventually leads to explosion of death: both within the species, and within the biosphere. They were helped in this discovery by the team of the intrepid reporters from two British news outlets.

    While The Guardian was updating its daily map of death – with highly vivid diagrams of new death explosions all over the planet, BBC worked very hard at creating the map of newly born. And then: Eureka. When one lonely British nerd, named White Helmet Belincat and still living in the basement of his mom’s house, had juxtaposed two maps, the uncontestable pattern began to emerge.

    But how do you convince the population, that one of the activities they so much like to get engaged into, such as making babies, leads to death?

    Leave it to CNN and the American knowhow. Hollywood actors, celebrities, the most prominent politicians and scientists began to preach all forms of non-reproductive sex. While making some inroads among gay and transgender communities, the message kept on falling on dead ears among the rest of the population.

    Until a new crusader, called Virgin Greta, was catapulted into stardom by mass media. You sentenced me to death, she began to scream to her parents, then to her local Swedish community, and eventually, she delivered her message to UN. How dare you? How dare you to send us to schools, where they teach us sex education. Just abstain, Just say no! Who needs that stupid animalistic, germ-multiplying, baby producing activity to begin with?

    With Greta onboard, the mass media, consistent of the most conscientious and most responsible members of the society began a new campaign at nipping life at the bud.

    Media began to parade the experts in the field, who demanded drastic actions from the government. Our government is doing nothing. In fact, such people like Trump and Johnson, along with former leaders, like Clinton or Kennedy, demonstrate a highly unhealthy attraction to sex with the opposite gender. Trump was clearly the worst, populating White House with attractive females, and promoting baby making even without a dialogue: just grab them by the … he preached.

    With the epidemic of deaths, occurring now all over the world, in the countries with highly old and decrepid population in particular, there was no time to waste. In comes the foremost scientist of his generation, the Director of the Institute of Immunology, and the Winner of Bloomberg Award of Excellence, Doctor Faquci, who, summarizing the finding of other scientists, begins to preach an active intervention:

    It is not enough to supply all the population with birth-control methods. Besides, our economy being prophet driven and controlled by the lobbyists of children food, and children-cloth industries, are constantly sabotaging our efforts of dressing the population in condoms. We need more active measures.

    People can’t get in groups – there is always a danger that a man can meet a woman in a cinema, bar, or dance club. People should be locked up in their rooms. Preferably individually. But in any case, no mixing of genders.

    When you lock people up, you know damn well, what they gonna do. So say yes to sex, but no to reproductive sex. The virus of death had to be conquered once and for all, and our exceptional nation is uniquely qualified to do so. We have enough cooks, zealots, maniacs, and fools with guns, to see us through the victory.

    While the president of the country, the aforementioned, evil Trump, has originally resisted the idea: he happened to like both babies and baby-making, the pressure from the media, security apparatus, and the most progressive governors, proved too much even for his thick head. The governors of two most progressive States, California and New York, declared a total lockdown with people locked in the single rooms. On odd days, males were allowed to go shopping, on even – females. Transgender and post-childbearing age adults were allowed to shop every day, at the specially designated hours. Soon, other states had followed.

    Special unit of the security apparatus, has been created to confront Russian and Chinese counter-efforts, which consisted in parading exceptionally attractive females, and happy looking families in their social media and TV. These outlets were declared, “state sponsored propaganda” and banned from all known media outlets.

    Army was introduced into the cities, to make sure that everyone follows the orders. Maternity wards of the hospitals were quickly transformed into sterilization clinics, where first celebrities, and then regular people decided to deal a deadly blow to the virus of life, sorry of death. Families who sterilized in bulk (parents and children) were given Greta awards – a condom made of gold, with the words, “how dare you” written on it. The virus of death had eventually been squashed.

    (This story had been written on a piece of paper, found in the lonely bottle, floating down the Mississippi River).


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/24/2020 – 00:05

  • DOJ Orders First Shutdown Of Website Selling Fraudulent COVID-19 Cure 
    DOJ Orders First Shutdown Of Website Selling Fraudulent COVID-19 Cure 

    The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Sunday that “it has taken its first action in federal court to combat fraud related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic” via the shutdown of a website offering a cure. 

    Detailed in the civil complaint filed on Saturday, the operators of the website “coronavirusmedicalkit.com,” which claimed to sell vaccine kits for COVID-19, were engaged in a “wire fraud scheme seeking to profit from the confusion and widespread fear surrounding” the virus crisis. 

    “Information published on the website claimed to offer consumers access to World Health Organization (WHO) vaccine kits in exchange for a shipping charge of $4.95, which consumers would pay by entering their credit card information on the website. In fact, there are currently no legitimate COVID-19 vaccines and the WHO is not distributing any such vaccine,” the DOJ said. 

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    US District Judge Robert Pitman ordered the site to shut down on Saturday, according to his statement. As of Monday morning, a search of the site comes up with a blank webpage with a text that reads: “Sorry… coronavirusmedicalkit.com could not be found.” 

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    Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the DOJ’s Civil Division said the government will be actively monitoring the internet for other COVID-19 fraud-related websites or schemes: 

    “The Department of Justice will not tolerate criminal exploitation of this national emergency for personal gain,” said Hunt. “We will use every resource at the government’s disposal to act quickly to shut down these most despicable of scammers, whether they are defrauding consumers, committing identity theft, or delivering malware.”

    “Attorney General Barr has directed the department to prioritize fraud schemes arising out of the coronavirus emergency,” said US Attorney John F. Bash of the Western District of Texas.

    “We therefore moved very quickly to shut down this scam. We hope in the future that responsible web domain registrars will quickly and effectively shut down websites designed to facilitate these scams. My office will continue to be aggressive in targeting these sorts of despicable frauds for the duration of this emergency.”

    “At a time when we face such unprecedented challenges with the COVID-19 crisis, Americans are understandably desperate to find solutions to keep their families safe and healthy,” said Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs of the FBI’s San Antonio Field Office.

    “Fraudsters who seek to profit from their fear and uncertainty, by selling bogus vaccines or cures, not only steal limited resources from our communities, they pose an even greater danger by spreading misinformation and creating confusion. During this difficult time, protecting our communities from these reprehensible fraud schemes will remain one of the FBI’s highest priorities.”

    The DOJ provided very few details about the scope of the fraud but said an investigation is ongoing. 

    The intervention by the DOJ comes after New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a cease-and-desist order to televangelist Jim Bakker, ordering him to stop promoting an alleged cure for the virus. 

    James has also ordered Alex Jones to stop making misleading claims about virus cure related products offered on Infowars.com.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 23:45

  • The Everything Bubble, Fictitious Capital, & COVID-19
    The Everything Bubble, Fictitious Capital, & COVID-19

    Authored by Frank Lee via Off-Guardian.org,

    The years since the 1970s are unprecedented in terms of their volatility in the price of commodities, currencies, real estate and stocks. There have been 4 waves of financial crises: a large number of banks in three, four or more countries collapsed at about the same time. Each wave was followed by a recession, and the economic slowdown which began in 2008 was the most severe and most global since the great depression of the 1930s.”

    Manias, Crashes and Panics – Kindelberger and Aliber

    Interestingly enough 1971 was the year when Nixon took the world off the gold standard, which had been in effect since 1944. Fiat-bugs please note.

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    More to the point, however. Booms and busts have always been normal in a capitalist economy. But in recent years this has been a feature which has been exacerbated by and involves that part of the economy indicated by the acronym FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) and its growing importance in the economy in both qualitative and quantitative terms.

    Financialisation is a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes. Financialisation transforms the functioning of economic systems at both the macro and micro levels. Its principal impacts are to:

    1. elevate the significance of the financial rent-seeking sector relative to the real value-producing sector

    2. transfer income from the real value-producing sector to the financial sector

    3. increase income inequality and contribute to wage stagnation

    Since 1970 this part of the economy has grown from almost nothing to 8% of US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This means that one dollar in every ten is associated with finance. In terms of corporate profits finance’s contribution now represents around 40% of all corporate profits in the US. This is a significant figure and, moreover it does not include those overseas earnings of companies whose profits are repatriated to their countries of origin.

    Thus, the increasing presence and role of finance in overall economic activity and the increase of profits channelled to the financial sector represent the salient indicators as to what has been termed financialization. It is argued by some that financialization may put the economy at risk of debt deflation and prolonged recession.

    Financialisation operates through three different conduits:

    1. changes in the structure and operation of financial markets,

    2. changes in the behaviour of nonfinancial corporations, and

    3. changes in economic policy.

    Countering financialisation calls for a multifaceted agenda that:

    1. restores policy control over financial markets

    2. challenges the neoliberal economic policy paradigm encouraged by financialisation

    3. makes corporations responsive to interests of stakeholders other than just financial markets

    4. reforms the political process so as to diminish the influence of corporations and wealthy elites

    The rent-seeking nature of finance is common to all forms of insurance, banking, monopolistic pricing, and property. This has not always been the case, or at least wasn’t as pronounced as it is at present. There was a time when the banking system was junior partner in the relationship between banks and industry. Banks provided industry with loans for investment with a view to maximising profit for both. This is patently not the case today.

    Generally speaking, banks will lend for property purchases, stock buy-backs, and perhaps loans for dubious mergers and acquisitions. Moreover, when we speak of ‘profits’ this has now assumed a rather obscure meaning. Profits were generally understood as a realization of surplus value.

    Firms made stuff – goods and services – which had a value, which was then sold on the market at a profit. Given the competitive nature of the system, firms invested in increased capital formation and output which increased productivity, surplus value and ultimately profit.

    With regard to Investment banks like Goldman Sachs and the commercial banks they do not create value; they are purely rent-extractive. For example, commercial banks make a loan out of thin air, debit this loan to the would-be mortgagee who then becomes a source of permanent income flow to the bank for the next 25 years.

    Goldman Sachs makes year-on-year ‘profits’ by doing – what exactly? Nothing particularly useful. But then Goldman Sachs is part of the cabal of central banks and Treasury departments around the world. It is not unusual to see the interchange of the movers and shakers of the financial world who oscillate between these institutions. Hank Paulson, Mario Draghi, Steve Mnuchin, Robert Rubin … on and on it goes.

    This financialised system now moves in ever-increasing levels of instability. But what did we expect when the whole institutional structure – its rules, regulations and practises – were deregulated and finance was let off the leash.

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    Thatcher, Reagan, the ‘Big Bang’ had set the scene and there was no going back: neoliberalism and globalization had become the norm. From this point on, however, there followed a litany of crises mostly in the developing world but these disturbances were in due course to move into the developed world. Serial bubbles began to appear.

    US stock prices [which of course would only ever go up] began to decline in the Spring of 2000, and fell by 40% in the next three years. Whilst the prices of NASDAQ stocks decline by 80%.”

    Manias, Panics and Crashes – Kindleberger and Aliber

    Chastened monies moved out of this market and into property speculation. It is common knowledge what happened next. The run-up to 2008 was floated on a sea of cheap credit. The price of stocks pushed property prices to vertiginous heights until – pop, went the weasel.

    The reason was quite simple. Any boom and bust has an inflexion point where boom turns to bust. This is when buyers incomes, and borrowers inability to extend their loans could no longer support the rise in the price level. Euphoria turned to panic as borrowers who once clamoured to buy were now desperate to sell. 2008 had arrived.

    The strange thing, however, regarding the property price boom-and-bust was that it was based upon pure speculation. Prices went up, prices went down. Some – a few – made money, quite a few lost money. Investors were wondering what had happened to their gains which they had made during the up phase. Where had all that money gone?

    The short answer is – nowhere. It was never there in the first place. It was fictitious capital. Gains which had appeared and then disappeared like a will ‘o’ the wisp. As opposed to physical capital – machinery, labour and raw materials, and money capital which enabled through purchase the production of value to take place, we have fictitious capital which is a claim on future production. If my house goes up by 10% that is a capital gain, if everybody’s house goes up by 10% that is asset-price inflation

    Fictitious capital is a by-product of capitalist accumulation. It is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It is introduced in chapter 25 of the third volume of Capital. Fictitious capital contrasts with what Marx calls “real capital”, which is capital actually invested in physical means of production and workers, and “money capital”, which is actual funds being held.

    The market value of fictitious capital assets (such as stocks and securities) varies according to the expected return or yield of those assets in the future, which Marx felt was only indirectly related to the growth of real production. Effectively, fictitious capital represents “accumulated claims, legal titles, to future production’’ and more specifically claims to the income generated by that production.

    The moral of the story is that it is not possible to print wealth or value. Money in its paper representation of the real thing, e.g., gold, is not wealth it is a claim on wealth.

    Of course, this would be lost on establishment economists, bankers, and financial journalists, whose view is that the policy should be QE, liquidity injections, and so forth. A one-trick pony.

    And what has all of this to do with Coronavirus? Well, everything actually.

    I take it that we all knew that the grotesquely overleveraged world economy was heading for a ‘correction’ but that’s a rather a soothing description. “Massive correction” would be a better description. That is the nature of the beast. The world was a bubble of paper money looking for a pin. It found one.

    Have a nice day all.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 23:25

  • 67 Million Americans Could Miss Their Credit Payments Thanks To Virus Crisis
    67 Million Americans Could Miss Their Credit Payments Thanks To Virus Crisis

    As social gatherings are limited and businesses shutter operations to reduce the spread of COVID-19, millions of Americans could be laid off in the next couple of months as the economy dives into a depression. 

    Most of the job loss will be seen across both the services and manufacturing sectors. The National Restaurant Association estimates that five to seven million jobs could be lost in the next three months. While Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said if government stimulus is not directed at businesses and households, upwards of 33 million jobs could be eliminated.

    With a depression imminent, WalletHub anticipates 67 million Americans could have difficulty servicing their credit cards due to virus impacts. As we’ve routinely pointed out, credit card usage soared to a record high in December.

    “Roughly 67 million Americans anticipate having trouble paying their credit card bills because of the coronavirus. Their struggles could easily ripple through the economy if left unaddressed, especially considering the more than $1 trillion in credit card debt currently owed by U.S. consumers,” said WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou.

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    According to WalletHub’s survey completed on March 9-12, the virus is the most significant stressor among Americans. The second stressor is money problems, then the 2020 election, and people’s current job situation.

    “We’ve seen a lot of panic buying as a result of the coronavirus, with people purchasing things like toilet paper en masse, largely because they don’t know what else to do. Furthermore, 94 million Americans have canceled or plan to cancel travel plans due to the coronavirus,” said WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez.

    “Less apparent, however, is the panic saving that people are engaged in right now. Around 158 million Americans, or roughly 63% of adults, say they are saving more, as opposed to buying more, as a result of this crisis. If there’s a bright side to all of this, people saving more money than usual might just be it.”

    Credit card companies have started rolling out relief programs to affected customers.

    “Yes, credit card companies should give relief to affected customers, just like they’ve done during major natural disasters in recent years,” Papadimitriou said. 

    We wonder if the proposed stimulus checks for Americans, ranging from $1,000 to $2,000 per person, will be used for paying credit card bills or be used at Costco stores to buy toilet paper and milk?


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 23:05

  • COVID-19 Lesson #1 For Investors: Beware Predictions Of Market Bottoms
    COVID-19 Lesson #1 For Investors: Beware Predictions Of Market Bottoms

    Authored by Daniel Nevins via NevinsResearch.com,

    With hoops “out” and exponentials “in” (referring to March Madness, the 2020 pandemic definition), there’s a new, customary disclaimer on economics and financial sites. Mine says that I, too, knew nothing about infectious disease modeling only two months ago. But I’m catching up, just like everyone else. By now, I might have reached a “Dummies Guide” standard, and I’ll keep this article at about that level.

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    So with that preface out of the way, I’ll first offer a health warning of sorts about a type of COVID-19 chart that’s popular with market bulls. Here’s a version that appeared in the New York Times:

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    And here’s a second version that uses the same axes but with different data:

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    The second chart bounced around Twitter for awhile and then appeared on at least one financial site – to support a breezy message that people should stop panicking and start preparing for a surprise melt-up in stocks.

    And why do the charts need a health warning? The problem is the horizontal axis—showing the statistic that epidemiologists call R0—which is presented as though it’s the only information you need to understand how widely a disease spreads.

    In fact, modelers who actually use R0 stress that you can’t summarize the spread of an epidemic with that single input. They say that R0 changes with time and place—it’s not actually a constant. Also, it can approximate the spread of a disease only if the entire population is vulnerable. Critical factors such as prior immunities are handled through other model inputs, not R0.

    More to the point, we already know how widely COVID-19 is spreading, and we can readily compare that information to every other disease that’s already come and gone. So let’s stop pretending that R0—an incomplete and imprecise contagion statistic—somehow does a better job than ripping off the blindfold and watching what’s really happening, in real time.

    The reality-based approach tells us that SARS, to pick one comparable, peaked at about 8000 cases in 2003. By contrast, COVID-19 is rocketing through the hundreds of thousands, certain to hit millions and by some forecasts billions. That’s a stark difference that seems highly relevant, and yet you won’t find it on the R0 chart, no matter how many versions you conjure up.

    The eyes-open approach also says to be wary of claims that “we’re very close to a melt-up” or “the bottom may be closer than you think” or “we’ve probably seen the worst.” (Those are just a few of the bullish stock market predictions we’ve been seeing lately.) To explain why, I’ll first extend the analysis I shared in my last article.

    Case Trajectory Update

    For background, my March 2 article showed how the confirmed case trajectory could evolve if the most bearish epidemiological forecasts prove accurate. This time, I’ll set the forecasts aside and examine how the trajectory has changed in recent weeks.

    I’ll exclude both China and Iran, because their reported numbers fail to match the on-the-ground evidence. I’ll then divide everyone else into two groups:

    • South Korea and Singapore, which I’ll call the “most prepared” group (MPG). These countries implemented a variety of effective disease-containment strategies after suffering from other epidemics in recent years.

    • The rest of the world, which I’ll call the “least prepared” group (LPG). That naming might be unfair to a few other well-prepared countries, but further regrouping wouldn’t materially change the conclusions.

    Here are the confirmed cases for each group through March 21:

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    As of today, the MPG has successfully “flattened the curve,” whereas the LPG continues to see exponential growth. Here are the best-fit exponential curves for the LPG, calculated on a weekly basis from February 15 until March 21:

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    The weekly curves steepened sharply in March, probably due to increased testing. But let’s take a closer look. The next chart shows the daily evolution for the “steepness statistic,” which is the part of the exponential function that determines the trajectory:

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    According to the chart, the case trajectory has passed through two stages since late February:

    1. It steepened almost continuously as testing activity increased.

    2. It then peaked on March 14 and started to flatten.

    So that’s the past, but what about the future? How quickly, if at all, will the steepness statistic fall?

    I doubt anyone can answer that with precision, especially with countries such as the U.S. only recently ramping their testing. But it sure seems as though the overall trend should continue downwards. With the extreme containment measures currently in place, it’s hard to imagine any other result. Or maybe I just don’t want to imagine a different result.

    Either way, let’s be optimistic. Let’s agree that the March 14 peak delivers good news. It says the first derivative of the daily new case count is no longer rising day-after-day-after-day. That might be hard to conceptualize, but it’s exactly how these processes change direction. The first derivative turns downwards, and then the daily new case count turns downwards, and then the inflection point becomes apparent to all.

    Implications for Stock Prices

    Now for the bad news, which is that I’ve just exhausted my supply of good news, at least when it comes to stock prices. As the case trajectory flattens, we should see bursts of optimism that push prices higher, but probably not a market bottom. The problem is the two elephants that seem in no particular hurry to leave the room.

    1. Businesses have shut down more suddenly and completely than ever before.

    2. We have no idea when the business shutdowns will end.

    Let’s say restaurants, bars, stores, factories, offices, schools, entertainment venues and transportation hubs reopen in about eight weeks. That seems possible, but it’s probably not sustainable. If political leaders remain consistent, any newfound infections would then send businesses right back out of work. In my county, for example, all nonessential businesses were told to close just as the confirmed case count climbed from 1 to 2.

    In the meantime, we’re about to be bombarded with the worst economic data releases we’ve ever experienced. The economy is probably contracting even more sharply than it did during the 1933 national bank holiday, which is the only comparable I can think of. At a time when people withdrew cash from banks to make purchases, the bank closures brought much of the economy to a sudden halt. But the bank holiday only lasted seven days.

    Others point to the 1980 and 2008-9 recessions, but in those instances the economy shrank organically. This time, it’s literally being locked down. I fail to see how those past recessions—or any past recessions, for that matter—can shed much light on the present one. And I can say the same thing about past pandemics, which have never before triggered worldwide, government-mandated business closures.

    So instead of looking at, say, stock market returns in 1980, 2008-9 or during any other recession or major calamity, I expect the key to the market’s performance to lie in the answer to this straightforward question: At what point does our capacity to treat COVID-19 patients allow businesses to reopen?

    Notably, at least one policy maker has pledged not to restart the economy until fatality risks reach zero. That approach might not be universal, but it doesn’t seem that far from consensus within the political class. Elsewhere, though, commentators are challenging that consensus, stressing connections between economic decline and public health. See, for example, this editorial by the Wall Street Journal and this commentary by a contributor to the CFA Institute’s Enterprising Investor blog.

    Clearly, my question doesn’t have a single “correct” answer, and yet it might be the most important piece of the current policy mix. To stray briefly from financial to societal commentary, I hope policy makers develop their answers carefully. The WSJ might have summarized the predicament best when writing that “no society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its economic health.”

    Now bringing the discussion back to stock prices, the answer to my question determines when the cloud of uncertainty finally lifts. It determines when investors can resume normal financial analysis, and when commentators predicting the next bull market might finally be onto something.

    Bottom Line

    No doubt, market volatility brings opportunities. Long-term investors are finding value as the market falls, and even short-term traders are finding buying opportunities as prices bounce wildly up and down.

    But risk tolerance is paramount. For those unable to stomach losses on new holdings, my nickel’s worth of advice is to be cautious. I’ve shared my most optimistic chart – showing a declining case trajectory – but I don’t expect it to turn the tide in the stock market. For that, we’ll need more clarity about when we can once again claim “the business of America is business.” That’s at least weeks and possibly many months away.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 22:45

  • "Biggest Lockdown In World History" – India Paralyzed As COVID-19 Crisis Unfolds 
    “Biggest Lockdown In World History” – India Paralyzed As COVID-19 Crisis Unfolds 

    Indian stocks crashed on Monday, suffering their worst single-day loss on record, as domestic and foreign investors were absolutely terrified that a nationwide lockdown triggered by a COVID-19 outbreak could crash the economy. 

    The NIFTY 50 is the flagship index on the National Stock Exchange of India, plummeted 12.98% to a near four-year low of 7,610.25 on Monday. 

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    The Indian rupee hit a record low of over 76 against the dollar and puts pressure on the Narendra Modi government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to ramp up emergency response efforts to protect a crashing currency and economy.  

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    Modi’s “Make-in-India” program, an attempt to revive the economy and diversify its manufacturing sector away from automobiles to bolster its aerospace and defense sectors, has miserably failed.

    The economy has come to a screeching halt as residents in 75 districts across the country, including in major cities, such as the capital New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore have been forced into mandatory quarantine by the government until March 31. 

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    India is the second-largest country in the world, and has reported only 467 cases and ten deaths.

    The lack of test kits has made it virtually impossible for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to detect community spreading of the virus. As test kits come online, India could be staring at a pandemic. 

    Actions by the government already suggest the virus crisis is getting worse. In the last day, India launched the world’s most extensive social distancing lockdown of 1.3 billion people to flatten the pandemic curve to slow down the infection rate. 

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    Flight bans and the cancellation of all passenger trains in the country is another attempt to limit the spread. The country’s hospital system is poorly equipped and doesn’t have enough hospital beds and ICU-level treatments to handle a massive influx of virus patients.  

    “This is the biggest lockdown in world history,” said Raghu Raman, a former soldier with the Indian Army and founder of the National Intelligence Grid, an umbrella database aimed at countering terrorism.

    “This strategic pause gives decision-makers more time to arrest the exponential spread of the virus and evaluate tradeoffs.”

    Foreign investors aren’t sticking around to see if the virus crisis will abate in the near term – they’re currently dumping Indian assets at an unprecedented pace. 

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    Oxford Economics estimates India’s January-April growth forecast to be around 3%, a level not seen since the global financial crisis. 

    Bloomberg Economics says that the Indian government needs to spend at least 1% of GDP, or about $30 billion, to respond to the virus outbreak. 

    India’s manufacturing hubs have ground to a halt as companies have been forced to shutter operations for virus containment purposes. Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., Tata Motors Ltd., Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Hero MotoCorp., Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc., Mahindra Group, TVS Motor Co., Kia Motors Corp., Renault Nissan Automotive India Private Ltd., and Yamaha Motor India are some of the large multinationals that have recently suspended operations. 

    The government’s principal economic adviser Sanjeev Sanyal warned that “waves of default” of corporate debt could be imminent. There’s a record 5.9 trillion rupees of corporate debt maturing this year.

    Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said last week that the government would announce a relief package for companies in the near term. The RBI is expected to slash interest rates and inject 1 trillion rupees into the economy on April 3. 

    We noted back in December that India’s economy was “in a very deep crisis,” which was a month before the world figured out about a virus outbreak in Wuhan, China. 

    It was only earlier this month that India organized a rescue plan for the nation’s fourth-largest private bank as a long-running crisis among shadow lenders threatened to spill over into the banking system.

    With a nationwide lockdown underway, India’s economy could be on the brink of a significant downturn that would be absolutely devastating for the Modi government.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 22:25

  • Pandemic: The Invention Of A Disease Called Fear
    Pandemic: The Invention Of A Disease Called Fear

    Authored by Julain Rose via Counterpunch.org,

    The word ‘pandemic’ bears a similarity to the word ‘panic’ and indeed ‘pandemonium’. In fact ‘pandemic’ evokes an almost instant flush of fear in those easily manipulated by mass media, before any details have even touched the surface or context in which the word is being used.

    Those who plan the major moves on the chess-board of covert human control know that by leading with the word ‘pandemic’ they have an instantly effective weapon at their disposal to psychologically weaken the resistance of individuals vulnerable to irrational and impressionistic mindsets.

    So, in a world heavily conditioned by the proclamations of the mass media, the fear weapon has huge psychological power.

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    As we have all witnessed over the past months, the Coronavirus story has been unleashed with barely contained lascivious delight by news media under orders from the purveyors of malevolent missions against mankind. Pumped-up to maximum volume and dispersed globally, the deliberately designed fear message has the instant effect of making the majority of people feel powerless. The Big problem is at large – and we the people feel small. This is the beginning of entrapment which colors every aspect of daily life.

    Most of humanity has undergone a process of education which depends for its effectiveness on the perceived power of some ‘authority’ to exert an unquestioned controlling influence over the general direction of life. A source of influence that depends for its continuing effectiveness on never being subjected to rational scrutiny, or genuine examination of any kind. Such is the beguiling power of full-on indoctrination.

    In the battle now raging for ‘who controls the world’, some of the largely hidden or disguised controlling agents of planetary life – are now appearing on the surface. And that’s why chaos and fear are very much ‘flavor of the month’. The Corona Contagion is chock full of idiosyncrasies; in fact, there are so many nonsensical factors associated with media attempts to report on what’s going on, that one can only feel dazed and confused should one try and follow the script in real-time.

    However, what has become all too clear is the fact that large numbers of people are being herded – and are not resisting. The scare tactics being employed are more dangerous than the virus that is the excuse for deploying them. Under this induced state of psychosis, all manner of tricks can be perpetrated on mankind – and that is precisely what we are witnessing at this time.

    Many reading this will already be familiar with the ambitions of the controlling deep state ‘elite’ and will know that a pre-planned phase of social and economic chaos is a key factor in their attempted roll-out of totalitarian New World Order. We are now in this phase. Its success depends upon a large body of people following the instructions passed down by the political puppets of the deep state and by the cowardly repetition of these instructions by the mainstream media.

    Once again, the fear card plays a key role. This time, in keeping a constant level of anxiety and hysteria on the boil, while working to ensure that those able to recognize the true nature of the scam are coerced into not stepping out of line, thereby risking their job, security or status within the rigidly enforced master/slave relationship of the status quo.

    The whole sick edifice maintains its momentum based upon pure top-down deception and exploitation. Yet those at the receiving end largely choose to remain oblivious of the fact that they are being used and abused for the benefit of a fascist ideal. By not rebelling in the face of such treatment – but instead by complying with it – a mute populace establishes the basis of its own debasement and slavery.

    These methods have been practiced over and over again in the history of the world, and each time hind-sight reveals the motivation to have been an obsession with power and control, and the perpetrators to be a small number of psychopathic despots. Whether taking the form of military might, religious dogma or modern-day corporate and banking control freaks, provided the drama has been well stage-managed and the ‘might has produced fright’, the hegemons get their way.

    How well is the roll-out being stage-managed on this occasion – and what is the plan?

    Owing to the trans-planetary link-ups that take place today, the ‘master plan’ is no longer a regional or national affair, but a global one. The main players have hatched the plot long before any of us get to know about it and gatherings like the Davos Economic Summit and Bildergerger meetings are used to gain consensus on the timing and methods to be deployed.

    In the case of Covid-19, its appearance on the scene – or at least the spreading of the story about something nasty going under this name – is timed to divert attention from the speeding-up of the installation of what are deemed to be important spokes in the creation of a totalitarian New World Order. For example, the roll-out of 5G microwave modulated WiFi; a digitalised smart grid and ‘internet of things’; a robotic transport system; facial recognition population surveillance programmes; new strains of genetically modified organisms and vaccines, and so forth. However, the predominant game plan is to ‘re-set’ global finance so as to appear to be supporting the euphemistically named Green New Deal with its holy grail ‘Zero Carbon’.

    The fact that China has likely been the initial bio-weapon target, does not detract from a more widespread aim to disrupt the world economy as a whole.

    The effectiveness of this disruption depends upon the greater part of the populus being swept along in a bubble of blind belief in the authenticity of the ‘virtual’ story line. A line which disguises the very actual imposition of a fascist state.

    I would say that the stage-management is pretty poor this time around. The plethora of contradictory and irrational clamp-down actions being imposed in the name of containing the bogey bug stretches the credibility of the operation to the braking point. In point of fact it’s a farce; but a farce which involves actual deaths and the support of a police state, cannot simply be laughed-off.

    Instead, it can be put under the spotlight and be seen for what it is, a planned manipulation of the people and resources of this planet, whose main goading-tool consists of the well-rehearsed art of spreading fear and panic. And this, in turn, to undermine the rational and common sense based gift which we have all been blessed with from birth, and which – when in good order – can clearly see through the facade and hold the line of reason and truth.

    Many have seen this ‘order out of chaos’ drama coming for years. The chaos bit is with us right now and very visible. The ‘order’ is to follow and consists in the emergence of a peacemaker – or peace plan – that involves the lead croupiers raking the chips off the roulette board and cashing them into their temporary satisfaction. Thus allowing for a little holiday period in which the weak-kneed can rejoice at their survival and bless the emergence of the ‘new order’, under the authority of no matter who or what, so long as they can believe that the world has been saved from anarchy and ruin.

    Every one of us whose knees have not turned to jelly and whose brains have not turned to mind-controlled pulp must take this moment to declare ourselves, boldly and resolutely with these four words “We do not consent”.

    There’s a surprise in store for the cowardly imposers of chaos – it is our time that’s coming and – not theirs. For ours is the True World Order which aligns with Universal Law, not the false laws of a manipulated status quo.

    It is our re-emergent marriage with Universal Truth that is going to oust this scare loaded pandemic and all similar manifestations of dark-side deception that have gripped this planet for far too long. Our true-world-order is going to take on this obsessed and demonic dynasty, so that it stumbles, falls and fails to rise again.

    Seize this auspicious moment – and let us be joined as one in an unwavering commitment to get off our knees and stand firm in the cause of defeating the ghosts of chaos and fear.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 22:05

  • "It's Selling Like Toilet Paper": If You Haven't Bought Physical Gold Yet, It's Probably Too Late
    “It’s Selling Like Toilet Paper”: If You Haven’t Bought Physical Gold Yet, It’s Probably Too Late

    Over the past decade, one of the most fascinating observations in the world of precious metals has been the bizarre decoupling in the supply/demand dynamics and thus pricing, between paper and physical gold.

    As gold became increasingly financialized in recent years – through futures, ETFs, derivatives and so on – and as the impact of “financialized” gold became the dominant price-setting factor in a world where the nominal volume of “paper gold” traded is now orders of magnitude greater than “physical”, a bizarre decoupling emerges every time there is a major market stress event. A pattern that has emerged is that during periods of “bathwater” liquidation, when levered asset managers are forced to dump paper gold to cover margin calls in different parts of their book, sending the price of gold sharply lower also happens to be when physical gold buyers step up amid concerns over the viability of either the financial system and/or the reserve currency.

    The result, as discussed last week, is that “the price of physical gold decouples from paper gold” resulting in an arbitrage that physical gold buyers, i.e., those who don’t have faith in gold ETFs such as the GDX or simply prefer to have possession of the metal, find especially delightful as it allows them to buy physical gold at lower prices than they would ordinarily have access to.

    The immediate next step is a surge in demand for physical gold that results in precious metal vendors and exchanges becoming sold out in very short notices. Take for example the largest US precious metals exchange, APMEX, where any attempt to buy gold in size, or rather weight (because the truly rich who need to park several millions can’t be bothered with individual gold coins and instead go for the 400 oz brick or 1 kilo bar), finds, well, nothing because everything is sold out, and not just for bars…

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    … but also smaller gold rounds.

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    … and even plain vanilla gold coins are now only available for pre-sale.

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    But don’t take our word for it: as that beacon of pro-fiat, anti-hard money dogma, the Financial Times, reports this morning, traders have reported and lamented a growing global shortage of gold bars, as the coronavirus outbreak both disrupts supply and stokes demand, “with one business comparing the frenzied buying of the yellow metal with the consumer rush for toilet roll.”

    Of course, the fact that gold makes for very expensive toilet paper and is thus available to a far more exclusive audience, one that can spend substantially more on the yellow metal, was lost on the FT, so here’s the recap: there is a wholesale flight out of “paper” and into physical among some of the world’s richest people.

    One thing the FT does get right is that “retail investors in Europe and the US have bought up gold and silver bars and coins over the past two weeks in an effort to protect their money from the collapse in global stock prices and many currencies.” And with the Fed now set to unleash unprecedented dollar destruction by injecting over $625 billion in freshly printed fiat into the system this week alone…

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    … concerns about the collapse of currencies will only grow.

    But what is more concerning is that it’s not just a demand problem: supply chains are also freezing, and Europe’s largest gold refineries have struggled to keep up because of the region’s widening shutdown. Valcambi, Pamp and Argor-Heraeus are all based in the Swiss town of Ticino, near the border with Italy. Local authorities announced in recent days that production in the area was to be temporarily halted.

    Unfortunately, just like everything else, gold refiners are also shutting down, ensuring that any gold shortages will persist for months at least.

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    With supply collapsing and demand soaring, one would hardly think that the price of gold would plunge, and yet that’s precisely what happened much of last week as funds dumped paper gold, leading to the abovementioned paradoxical divergence in paper and physical prices.

    And since gold vendors are constrained by the price of spot which is largely determine in the paper market, the result is that retailers are reporting shortages and delays of up to 15 days on shipments as demand has surged. Markus Krall, chief executive of German precious metals retailer Degussa, said it was struggling to meet customer appetite for gold bars and coins and had to turn to the wholesale markets. Demand is running at up to five times the normal daily amount, he said.

    “We are being creative to find new sources but what is driving it all are the measures by authorities to stop coronavirus. This is so unpredictable,” added Mr Krall.

    Rob Halliday-Stein, founder and managing director of Birmingham-based BullionbyPost, said the situation was unprecedented. “Basically we’re selling as soon as we get stock on location in secure vaults — but we’re restricted to what we can get hold of, it’s a bit like toilet roll.”

    Another irony: while London’s gold vaults are full of gold bars, they are of the 400-ounce “good delivery” variety traded (and rehypothecated) among large banks (and central banks) such as HSBC and JPMorgan, not the smaller bars that retail customers buy, which tend to be 1kg (35 ounces) or lighter.

    “I don’t think you will find a kilobar presently in Europe and the US for love nor money,” Ross Norman, a veteran gold trader, said. “It’s quite extraordinary.”

    And speaking of Apmex, its CEO Ken Lewis told the FT that in the past week that “product has become increasingly difficult to source as the market becomes more volatile day by day”.

    The company said it had purchased more than 1m ounces of silver grain and bars, more than 20,000 American Gold Eagles coins, thousands of gold bars, and “anything else we can find utilising our many partners and mint relationships”.

    And all of that gets sold out the moment it becomes available for sale.

    JM Bullion, another US-based precious metals retailer, said customer orders would be delayed by 15 days, and introduced a minimum order size (as did Apmex).

    BullionStar, a Singapore-based precious metals retailer, said it is paying a premium to buy back silver and gold coins from customers in an effort to replenish supplies, according to Ronan Manly, one of its analysts. “There’s a disconnect between prices in the physical gold market and the prices you see on your screen,” he said, repeating precisely what he wrote here several days ago.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 21:45

  • Trump Is Finally Happy With Powell: "I Called Him Today And I Said 'Jerome, Good Job'"
    Trump Is Finally Happy With Powell: “I Called Him Today And I Said ‘Jerome, Good Job'”

    It finally happened.

    After the Fed cut rates to zero, launched unlimited QE, is on pace to buy $1 trillion in Treasurys and MBS in 2 weeks, backstopped pretty much every asset class and announced it would purchase bonds, loans, commercial MBS,munis as well as the LQD ETF, Trump is finally very happy with Fed Chair Jerome Powell, ironically on the same day Powell signed the dollar’s death warrant.

    Here’s what Trump said on Powell.

    “I am happy with him. I really think he’s caught up and he’s done the right thing. And I think ultimately we will be rewarded because of the decision he made over the last — he’s really stepped up over the last week.”

    “I called him today and I said ‘Jerome, good job.”

    “He was a little bit slower than what I’d have liked, in the sense of what he was doing.”

    “But today I called up Jerome Powell and I said ‘Jerome you’ve done a really good job.’ I was proud of him. It took courage. Ultimately you’re going to see the fruits — he’s not finished. He’s got other arrows in the quiver.”

    “I’m very happy with the job he did.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    For those who missed it, here is how Jerome Powell finally managed to get Trump to crack a smile:

    • Today, the FOMC expanded its large scale asset purchase program by promising to purchase ‘in the amounts needed.’ One week ago, the FOMC had said it would purchase $500bn of Treasury securities and at least $200bn of agency MBS; Half of that amount was fully purchases within a week.
    • The FOMC also announced that the agency MBS purchases will include agency commercial MBS.
    • The Fed also made CPFF more generous in terms of pricing and opened CPFF and MMLF to a wider set of assets.
    • The Board of Governors relaunched the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), providing loans in exchange for ABS.
    • The Fed also announced it would buy corporate bonds and loans in both the primary and secondary markets.
    • The Fed also said it expected to announce soon the establishment of a Main Street Business Lending Program to support eligible small-and-medium sized businesses.

    All that’s missing is for the Fed to start buying stocks and literally paradrop dollars from a helicopter. Trump will find both delightful.

    * * *

    Whoever Timestamps things, please Timestamp this post and check back in 10 years when the fiat monetary system as we know it is long gone.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 21:39

  • US Prisons 'Ticking Time Bombs' For Coronavirus Explosion, Congress Members Warn
    US Prisons ‘Ticking Time Bombs’ For Coronavirus Explosion, Congress Members Warn

    Authored by Jessica Corbett via CommonDreams.org,

    Rights advocates and Democrats holding state and federal elected offices across the United States are doubling down on demands for the release of “at-risk” inmates and more preventive measures in jails and prisons to prevent mass outbreaks of the new coronavirus, which has killed at least 473 people and infected over 35,000 nationwide as of Monday morning.

    Three Democratic congressmembers from New York—Reps. Nydia Velázquez, Hakeem Jeffries, and Jerrold Nadler—joined David Patton of the Federal Defenders, Anthony Sanon of the union representing corrections officers at the Metropolitan Detention Center, correctional medical experts Dr. Brie Williams and Dr. Jonathan Giftos, and New York City Councilmember Brad Lander for a virtual press conference Sunday. “The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our nation’s jails and prisons into ticking time bombs,” said Patton during the press conference.

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    Image via Los Angeles Times

    “This is no time for business as usual. Unless federal courts and federal prosecutors take immediate and bold action to reduce our federal prison population and limit the intake of new prisoners, we will face a humanitarian crisis of enormous magnitude,” Patton added.

    A goal of the event was to pressure the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York to halt new arrests for nonviolent charges and release from federal jails inmates who are at risk of serious illness or death if they contract COVID-19.

    The press conference came after House Judiciary Chair Nadler sent a pair of letters to U.S. Attorney William Barr in recent weeks asking how the Federal Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshals Service is repsonding to the pandemic. In the latest letter (pdf) Thursday, Nadler and Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) called for considering the release of “vulnerable” inmates, such as “persons who are pregnant, who are 50 years old and older, and who suffer from chronic illnesses like asthma, cancer, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, HIV, or other diseases that make them vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.”

    President Donald Trump said Sunday that his administration was weighing the release of some incarcerated people following the first known COVID-19 case involving an inmate—a man at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. California officials announced Sunday night that an inmate at California State Prison in Los Angeles County has also tested positive for the virus, after five cases among staff at three other state facilities.

    Corrections experts and rights advocates have warned for weeks that, as Maria Morris of the ACLU wrote earlier this month, “prison and jail populations are extremely vulnerable to a contagious illness like COVID-19” because “conditions in correctional facilities are highly conducive to it spreading” and many inmates “are in relatively poor health and suffer from serious chronic conditions due to lack of access to healthcare in the community, or abysmal healthcare in the correctional system.”

    Williams is a University of California San Francisco professor of medicine who focuses on healthcare in correctional settings, particularly for the elderly and chronically ill. “The possibility for accelerated transmission and poor health outcomes of COVID-19 in prisons and jails is extraordinarily high,” she warned. “Coordinated, preemptive, thoughtful, and decisive action around decreasing the population in prisons and jails with public health at its center will save lives in prisons, jails, and in our communities. Business as usual will not.”

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    Image: Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

    Noting that first known COVID-19 case involved an inmate in her district, Congresswoman Velázquez called for “rapid, proactive department-wide steps” to protect inmates and staff in correctional facilities, including the “compassionate release of incarcerated people who are elderly or have underlying health conditions, and who pose no risk to public safety.”

    Velázquez also urged federal prisons and jails “to implement streamlined procedures to release individuals who have not been convicted of any crimes and are awaiting trial in prison or jail” and pressed the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to “exercise maximum restraint in terms of bringing additional individuals into the court and jail system.”

    As Giftos, former medical director of Correctional Health Services at Rikers Island, put it: “Jails simply cannot protect patients and staff from a viral pandemic affecting the city.” Giftos, now the medical director at Project Renewal, which treats NYC’s homeless population, added that “the only measure that will meaningfully impact the spread and harm of coronavirus in the jail-system is to depopulate—to release as many as possible to continue their cases in the community—with a focus on those at highest risk of complications.”

    Some courts and states have moved to prevent the spread of the virus in correctional settings. Cuyahoga County Court in Ohio ordered the release of certain inmates from the county jail earlier this month and the New Jersey Supreme Court on Sunday approved an agreement (pdf) among the state attorney general’s office, county prosecutor’s association, the public defender’s office, and state’s ACLU chapter to release up to 1,000 people in county jails beginning Tuesday.

    “Unprecedented times call for rethinking the normal way of doing things, and in this case, it means releasing people who pose little risk to their communities for the sake of public health and the dignity of people who are incarcerated,” ACLU-NJ executive director Amol Sinha said in a statement. “This is truly a landmark agreement, and one that should be held up for all states dealing with the current public health crisis.”

    After a Sunday announcement that a correctional officer at Cook County Jail in Chicago tested positive for COVID-19, Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli was scheduled to present an emergency petition Monday demanding the release of “vulnerable” detainees, according to the local ABC News affiliate. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that “several” people deemed “highly vulnerable” to the coronavirus were released from the facility last week.

    Local faith leaders planned a socially distanced prayer vigil outside the Cook County Jail for Monday morning ahead of the hearing. Rev. Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church explained in a statement from the Chicago Community Bond Fund that “our faith calls us to advocate for the release of people incarcerated in the jail whose lives are at risk because of COVID-19. We are in an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action.”


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 21:25

  • Stimulus Talks "Are Stalled Out" After House Democrats Unveil $2.5 Trillion Counterproposal
    Stimulus Talks “Are Stalled Out” After House Democrats Unveil $2.5 Trillion Counterproposal

    Update (1805ET): Politico’s John Bresnehan reports that Senator John Thune said stimulus talks “are stalled out.”

    Thune added:

    “My sense is we’re not making a whole lot of progress today & we’re back tomorrow.”

    Additionally, leaving Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office, Sens. Chuck Grassley and John Cornyn said that they didn’t think there would be a vote tonight.

    *  *  *

    Update (1630ET): The new Democrat counterproposal will equate to nearly $2.5 trillion, including a $1,500 direct payment to citizens.

    It will include $150 billion in healthcare funding, $80 billion in loans, and $600 per week in unemployment benefits for those affected by the virus. $215 billion will be allocated for state and local funds.

    Via Bloomberg:

    • Includes $1.5k in aid per individual; as much as $7.5k for a family of 5
    • Would create a temporary Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation of $600 a week for any worker affected by the virus and eligible for unemployment compensation benefits
    • Would expand paid leave and family medical leave
    • Aims to help current borrowers with student debt
    • Seeks more than $500b in grants, interest-free loans to small businesses
    • Would provide $200b in funding for states; $15b to local govts through the Community Development Block Grant program
    • Calls to ensure states can carry out this year’s election with $4b in grant funding; includes national requirement for both 15 days of early voting and absentee vote-by-mail

    Of course, it also requires airlines to adopt strict ‘green new deal’ style emissions rules.

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    *  *  *

    Update (1535ET): House Democrats have published their counterproposal to the Senate coronavirus relief bill, which include the following provisions (among other things):

    You can read the entire thing here:

    *  *  *

    Update (1405ET): With five GOP members absent, the Senate again lacks the votes to advance the largest stimulus bill in US history aimed at fighting the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

    The vote is ongoing, however McConnell says the delays could push the stimulus package package to Friday.

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says the vote is irrelevant because he is still discussing the details of the deal with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, according to Bloomberg.

    Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi says the bill puts corporations first.

    *  *  *

    Update (1240ET): Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) slammed Congressional Democrats for holding up the stimulus bill for unrelated demands.

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    “Are you kidding me?” he asked, adding “This is the moment to debate new regulations that have nothing whatsoever to do with this crisis? That’s what they’re up to over there,” motioning to Democrats.

    “Democrats won’t let us fund hospitals or save small businesses unless they get to dust of the Green New Deal,” he said.

    McConnell has scheduled a new vote for 1:45 PM eastern.

    Meanwhile, House Democrats are set to unveil a bill introduced by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) which would cancel at least $30,000 in student debt per borrower amid the coronavirus pandemic.

    “During this unprecedented crisis, no one should have to choose between paying their student loan payment, putting food on the table or keeping themselves and their families safe and healthy,” said Pressley in a statement.

    “We must prioritize debt cancellation for the 45 million student loan borrowers who are struggling to pay off their debt during this difficult time.”

    *  *  *

    As the country slips into economic chaos, Democratic gatekeepers to a $1.8 trillion stimulus package have made several demands which have nothing to do with coronavirus before they’ll sign off on the legislation.

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    According to Town Hall‘s Guy Benson, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are demanding massive collective bargaining powers for unions, more stringent fuel emissions standards for airlines, and an expansion of wind and solar tax credits.

    Benson then directs our attention to a Thursday article from The Hill, in which House Democrats indicated that they wanted to go “bigger and broader than the already massive economic stimulus package offered by Senate Republicans to blunt the coronavirus pandemic.

    “This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision,” said Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) on a Thursday conference call with over 200 members of the House Democratic caucus.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is not a fan.

    “Anything that doesn’t address that pandemic, it seems to me, should not be considered,” he said.

    A re-vote on the package is expected on Monday at noon.

     


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 21:11

  • Twitter Sells Out – Will Allow Chinese Government Propaganda About Virus Origin
    Twitter Sells Out – Will Allow Chinese Government Propaganda About Virus Origin

    Having withdrawn guidance for the rest of the year earlier in the evening, following a collapse in advertising revenue, it appears Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has once again sold out to the Chinese government (among others).

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    At the time we mocked:

    Who knows maybe once this is all over, Twitter will be forced to lay off its pro-establishment content nazis and the platform that started off as an experiment in free speech will finally return to its roots.

    And ironically, that is almost what they did… except for one thing – if you’re an ‘average joe’, ‘blog’, or ‘Trump supporter’, you’ll still be banned; but if you’re a government official, you’re allowed to say whatever you want about the origins of COVID-19 and not get censored, suspended, or banned.

    Twitter says coronavirus is “affecting our content moderation capacities in unique ways” and it cannot “take enforcement action on every Tweet that contains incomplete or disputed information” about the virus.

    And, therefore, in a tweet this evening, Twitter announced:

    “Official government accounts engaging in conversation about the origins of the virus and global public conversation about potential emergent treatments will be permitted, unless the content contains clear incitement to take a harmful physical action.”

    As many know, following ZeroHedge’s permanent ban from the platform, it appears in recent months Twitter has taken it upon itself to become the supreme arbiter of all that is politically correct, noble and just (or at least is not frowned upon by the Chinese Communist Party) in this cruel world where readers are completely unable to make up their minds on their own without a blue bird telling them what they should or should not read, and what, in its eyes, is arbitrary fake news.

    And now, following Chinese officials completely unsubstantiated claims that the virus emerged in the US, Twitter changes its policy?

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    But, it would seem – given our permanent ban, that telling people to ask someone what happened using public info is “clear incitement to take harmful physical action” but that making completely unsubstantiated claims about another global superpower that could quite easily escalate into social unrest, xenophobia, and inevitably war – is fine if it’s done by a government?

    Ok.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 21:05

  • Trump Says Coronavirus Restructions Will Be Lifted "Soon", The US "Was Not Built To Be Shut Down": Live Updates
    Trump Says Coronavirus Restructions Will Be Lifted “Soon”, The US “Was Not Built To Be Shut Down”: Live Updates

    Summary:

    • Trump says coronavirus restrictions will be lifted “soon, a lot sooner than three or four months.”
    • Japan PM Abe says world “not ready” to hold Olympics
    • Fla. Gov. DeSantis signs order requiring 14-day quarantine for all travelers from NY & NJ
    • Angela Merkel tests negative for COVID-19
    • Australia and Canada pull athletes from the games
    • UK issues stay at home order
    • Japan agrees with IOC to delay Olympics for 1 year
    • NY case total tops 20k
    • Italy sees encouraging slowdown suggesting outbreak might be peaking
    • Greece announces lockdown after reporting largest daily jump in deaths
    • UK PM Johnson to address the country as deaths hit 335
    • Hong Kong bars all foreigners for 14 days
    • Boeing shuts Puget Sound operations for 2 weeks
    • Spain reports 26% jump in deaths on Sunday
    • State Department says 13,500 stranded Americans abroad are trying to get home
    • New Jersey reports nearly 1,000 case jump
    • UK preparing to close “non-essential” shops
    • Dems hold stimulus bill hostage with last-minute demands
    • First coronavirus deaths confirmed in Zimbabwe, Gambia, and Nigeria.
    • Cuomo tourst Javits Center
    • India ban on international flights begins
    • 1.7 billion ppl in 50 countries asked to stay home, AFP says
    • Largest 2-day jump in global cases reported over the weekend
    • France announces more restrictive measures
    • 8 states have postponed primaries
    • Ireland reports largest daily jump in new cases
    • Nigeria closes borders, suspends international flights
    • Myanmar reports first cases
    • Canada reports jump in cases
    • Michigan, Indiana & Mass join stay at home states
    • Spain follows Italy by extending quarantine
    • 1 in 3 Americans begin Monday under lockdown
    • White House correspondent rumored to test positive for COVID-19
    • India shutters domestic transit even as ‘official’ cases remain low
    • Trump sends National Guard troops to New York, California & Washington
    • Fed delivers latest bazooka blast with another massive monetary stimulus
    • Senate holds second stimulus vote
    • Amazon doubles workers overtime pay

    *  *  *

    Update (2015ET):  Perhaps realizing that facing down a second great depression if the US economy is halted indefinitely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic would not improve his re-election chances, President Trump struck a defiant tone at Monday’s coronavirus press briefing when he said that the American economy can’t remain slowed for too long to fight the coronavirus, declaring that the country “was not built to be shut down.”

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    As a result, the president predicted that social distancing restrictions will be lifted “fairly soon” and that the U.S. has learned enough lessons to re-open the economy despite the ongoing pandemic.

    “I’m not looking at months, I can tell you right now. We’re going to be opening up our country,” Trump said. “Can’t keep it closed for the next, you know, for years. This is going away.”

    “America will again, and soon, be open for business. Very soon,” Trump said. “A lot sooner than three or four months.”

    Following a Sunday night tweet by former Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein which said that “crushing the economy, jobs and morale is also a health issue-and beyond. Within a very few weeks let those with a lower risk to the disease return to work”…

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    … Trump and some of his economic advisers appeared to be losing patience with public health experts who believe that easing restrictions and returning to normal life before “flattening the curve” could overwhelm the health system.

    Earlier on Monday, the president of the St. Louis Federal, James Bullard, said Monday that the government should consider shutting down much of the economy for three months to combat the outbreak. This is one day after the same individual said that the worst case from a lengthy shutdown would be a 50% GDP drop and a 30% surge in unemployment. It wasn’t clear if Bullard believes that a depression would serve the economy and public better than taking the risk with a shorter shutdown.

    While Trump didn’t mention Bullard, but said: “We’re not going to let the cure be worse than the problem.”

    Effectively Trump is planning on doing what China did, which after locking out a third of the country, then proceeded to forcefully restart the economy (as the Chinese economy is reliant entirely on its massive workforce). However, to do that, Beijing had to engage in some major rigging of coronavirus cases which it claimed had plateaued even though there is clear evidence China is openly manipulating the data. The question, of course, is whether the CDC will allow the US to pursue similar “data doctoring” as China engaged in.

    Otherwise, Trump may find it difficult to push the economy to restart in a week or two if the number of new cases is still soaring. And with the “resistance” press eager to do everything in its power to force a depression, leading to a Trump loss in November, it is certain that the situation as represented by the mainstream liberal media will only get more dire with time.

    In any case, the following soundbites indicate that Trump appears to have made up his mind:

    • “This is a medical problem. We are not going to let it turn into a long-lasting financial problem.”
    • “You look at automobile accidents. Which are far greater than any numbers we’re talking about. That doesn’t mean we’re going to tell everybody no more driving of cars.”
    • “If it were up to the doctors, they may say let’s keep it shut down — let’s shut down the entire world.”
    • “You can’t do that with a country — especially the No. 1 economy anywhere in the world, by far. … You can’t do that. It causes bigger problems than the original.”
    • “I will be listening to … experts. We have a lot of people who are very good at this. It’s a balancing act. You know the expression, we can do two things at one time.”

    Trump also said that if the economy is forced into a deep enough recession by social distancing measures, there could be deaths from suicides and other causes in excess of those caused by the coronavirus, and that parts of the nation might be able to resume economic activity even as others fight outbreaks.

    “You’re talking about massive depression, massive numbers of suicide,” he said. “They had a fantastic job and now they have no idea what’s going on.”

    “We can start thinking about, as an example, parts of our country are very lightly affected,” he said.

    The State Department physician who advises Vice President Mike Pence on the government’s response to the outbreak, Deborah Birx, said she did not think that Trump’s optimism about soon relaxing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines against large gatherings and eating at restaurants would discourage people from following the recommendations.

    “What we’re asking every American to do is to make those personal sacrifices for this next week, and now, so we can evaluate the impact of that sacrifice,” she said at the same news conference. Trump’s musing about easing the restrictions, she said, “strengthens the willpower” of Americans to conclude “yes, I can do this.”

    She declined to say how she would recommend that Trump proceed, saying the government was still gathering “data” on the outbreak. The number of U.S. cases grew to more than 43,000 on Monday, and the country exceeded 500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

    Asked if he would follow the advice of Birx and Anthony Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director who also serves on Trump’s coronavirus task force, Trump said only that he would listen to them. “I’ll be listening to them and others we have who are doing a good job,” he said.

    “He doesn’t not agree with me,” Trump declared using a double negative, asked if Dr. Fauci agrees with him that the time is nearing to reopen things.

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    * * *

    Update (1850ET): Japan is reportedly “in agreement” with the IOC to delay the Tokyo Games for up to a year.

    Germany reported 4,183 new cases of coronavirus and 29 new deaths on Monday, bringing its total to 29,056 cases and 123 deaths.

    Meanwhile, in the US, President Trump doubled down on warnings that the lockdown shouldn’t totally dismantle the economy, while AG Barr warned that price gouging of cleaning products and other scarce items is a federal crime, and Dr. Birx noted that ‘self-swab’ tests for the virus would be available to the public by the end of the week.

    Here’s more of Trump saying “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself”:

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    Dr. Birx also warned during Monday night’s press conference that the viral “attack rate” in New York appears to be significantly higher than the rest of the nation.

    *  *  *

    Update (1720ET): Now that Boris Johnson has over-delivered by ordering all of Britain to undergo a strict national lockdown requiring all Britons, but especially the vulnerable, to remain inside for 3 weeks (except for certain essential shopping trips, solitary exercise and seeking medical help).

    Those who defy the new restrictions will face fines, a practice that has become commonplace in the Middle East, as well as Italy, France and Spain. US officials including Gov. Cuomo have warned about ‘consequences’ for those who violate his orders.

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    The move should be enough to quiet critics of Johnson’s heretofore hands-off approach, which experts say did too little to slow the spread of the outbreak.

    And in the US on Monday evening, Fla. Gov Ron DeSantis ordered that all travelers to his state from New York and New Jersey, two hot spots of the US outbreak, self-quarantine for 14 days on arrival, though it’s not clear how he will enforce this. DeSantis said visitors to Florida from other states, including New York, are contributing to the spread of COVID-19 in his state.

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    South Africa reports 128 new cases of coronavirus, bringing its national total to 402 cases as it prepares for a 21-day lockdown to begin on Thursday. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Africa, the first coronavirus deaths have been confirmed in Zimbabwe, Gambia, and Nigeria.

    AFP, the French newswire, reported Monday evening that 1.7 billion people – nearly 2/7th of the Earth’s population – have now been asked to stay home in more than 50 countries and territories due to the coronavirus outbreak.

    *  *  *

    Update (1645ET): During a visit to FEMA on Monday, Vice President Pence echoed President Trump’s suggestion that the federal government will ‘reevaluate’ the lockdown measures and its social-distancing recommendations for all Americans at the end of March.

    look at its social-distancing recommendations for all Americans at the end of March.

    “We thought it was important for every American to take action as tens of millions are to help us slow the spread,” Pence told reporters at FEMA. “But at the end of this 15 days, we’re going to get with our health experts, we’re going to evaluate ways in which we might be able to adjust that guidance for the American people.”

    The 15-day period is set to expire March 30.

    Earlier, health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the lead expert guiding the US response, have responded by saying it’s too early for these kinds of economic considerations, and that the US needs to see how the first few weeks go before making any determinations.

    “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump said in the tweet late Sunday, while Lloyd Blankfein echoed those sentiments as well, as we noted earlier.

    *  *  *

    Update (1630ET): Following earlier reports that the UK would order all non-essential businesses to close, it looks like PM Boris Johnson has taken things one step further, and unveiled a lockdown that will see all Britons ordered to stay home at all times, except for certain ‘essential’ tasks like buying food and medicine, or visiting the doctor.

    The lockdown will begin on Tuesday and last for at least three weeks.

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    Invoking language similar to that used by German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week, Johnson insisted the outbreak was the biggest threat the UK had faced in decades. 

    “We will beat the coronavirus and we will beat it together. And therefore I urge you at this moment of national emergency to stay at home, protect our NHS and save lives.”

    In the US, the city of Denver just issued a ‘stay at home’ order, joining the growing number of cities and states telling residents to just stay home.

    Earlier on Monday, Greece has also announced a lockdown following its largest daily jump in deaths. According to Reuters, Greece confirmed 94 new cases on Sunday, its largest single-day jump, taking its total to 624, with 15 deaths, up by 2.

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    *  *  *

    Update (1615ET): As we mentioned earlier, France has tightened its lockdown, raising the fines for people who go out without a legal reason, limiting outdoor exercise even further, and closing all open-air markets.

    “The return to normal life is not happening anytime soon,” PM Edouard Philippe said in an interview on LCI news channel. “This life of confinement will last a few more weeks.” The new fines will start at €135 but can increase to €1,500 for repeat offenders. People are only allowed to play sport, walk or jog if they do so alone, no more than once a day, and within 1 kilometer of home. Local mayors can allow some open-air markets to stay open only if they are critical to a town’s food supply.

    Even more galling, for many, is the announcement that the funerals of COVID-19 victims will be limited to 20 people.

    Ireland, meanwhile, reported its largest daily increase in cases yet as deputy premier Simon Coveney said he tested negative for the coronavirus. Coveney took the test after he was contacted by a health service tracing team “to say I had been in close contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19.” On Twitter he said he “followed all protocols & tested negative.” The deaths of two men brought the number of fatalities in Ireland to six, in addition to two in Northern Ireland, while on Monday afternoon Dublin reported a record 219 new infections, bringing Ireland’s total to 1,125.

    Additionally, anonymously sourced reports claimed the UK government would throw its support behind two ventilator models.

    *  *  *

    Update (1611ET): The UK has confirmed more deaths on Monday, bringing the national death toll to 335. Johnson led an emergency Cobra committee meeting earlier and is expected to order all shops except supermarkets, food stores and pharmacies to close.

    According to the Telegraph, Johnson’s emergency legislation to respond to the coronavirus outbreak has cleared its first hurdle in the Commons, with MPs giving the Coronavirus Bill an unopposed second reading.

    *  *  *

    Update (1520ET): As we near the end of the trading day, we’ve seen Michigan join the ranks of US states that have issued “shelter in place orders”, with Michigan’s requiring nonessential workers and businesses to stay inside or stay closed until April 13. That’s effective Monday night at midnight. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, after being criticized for Trump 2 weeks back for not doing enough, has issued the order, which will close the state for three weeks.

    Michigan joins Indiana, which issued a similar order earlier. Both join the growing number of states ordering or strongly encouraging citizens to shelter in place. Meanwhile, as we mentioned earlier, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, meanwhile, announced a stay-at-home “advisory” for the state’s nearly seven million residents.

    Now, 14 US states have ordered residents or issued advisories calling for residents except essential workers to stay at home.

    Meanwhile, the State Department said it’s monitoring approximately 13,500 US citizens abroad who are seeking assistance in being repatriated, a senior State Department official said Monday.

    As of noon on Monday, eight US states had postponed primaries.

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    In Africa, where more countries are closing borders and restricting travel, Nigeria announced that it’s closing its land borders for four weeks to prevent the spread of coronavirus, President Muhammadu Buhari said via a spokesperson  on Monday. additionally, Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority has already banned all international flights except essential or emergency flights.

    As state and local officials search for more creative solutions to house coronavirus patients, the city of Chicago has partnered with five hotels to house some quarantined people and isolated coronavirus patients, as well as others who need assistance.

    Canada reported a significant increase in Covid-19 cases, especially in its largest provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.
    Most recent data collected from each province indicates at least 2,000 cases with 23 deaths. On Monday alone, new cases spiked by nearly a third. Health officials in Ottawa said they have now tested more than 100,000 people and will be able to test as many as 10,000 people per day. As Italy reports a drop in cases, giving the country cause for optimism as the outbreak appears to be peaking, the Netherlands has banned all public gatherings until June 1.

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    Though Italy isn’t the only European country reporting a decline in new cases. After a jump across the board over the last week, Spain, France and the UK have all reported a slowdown in new cases.

    As the country tries to understand how the federal effort to aid the states will be rolled out, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday that the Army can’t provide help to every state at once. Esper made the comment after speaking with 10 governors.

    “I’ve spoken with 7, 8, 9, 10 governors so far each one of them has had requests for field hospitals, those who have been along the coastline have talked about the need for ships so we clearly can’t meet everybody’s needs with what we have in our inventory so we rely on FEMA to do the assessment, validation and then the prioritization,” he said.

    Instead, the military will be used as a “front-line” aid for states, helping them during the early days of an outbreak before withdrawing and moving elsewhere as more buildings are retrofitted into hospitals for the ill. President Trump and state governors have already called up more than 6,000 national guardsmen across more than 40 states; Andrew Cuomo is scouting locations for the Army Corp of Engineers to start their renovations.

    Boeing, meanwhile, has shuttered its Puget Sound operations for two weeks.

    In France, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced new restrictions Monday night while warning the French people that the lockdown could last for weeks as too many have disobeyed.

    Nearly 370,000 people around the world have been confirmed positive with the virus. Notably, Myanmar announced its first 2 cases of the virus on Monday.

    *  *  *

    Update (1415ET): As more cases are confirmed in New York State, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is reportedly touring the Javits Center in Manhattan, where the Army Corp of Engineers might be converting the space into an overflow hospital.

    Cuomo is also looking at the Westchester Convention Center and two university campuses.

    *  *  *

    Update (1300ET): As more state’s update their confirmed case tallies, CNN Health is reporting that the number of confirmed cases across the US had climbed to 40,069 cases as of 1pmET. This comes as Sen. Schumer’s claim that “we are very close to a deal” has lifted stocks off their lows.

    As researchers continue to pursue treatment options for COVID-19, the WHO on Monday warned against using “untested drugs” to treat patients. This after two patients in Nigeria reportedly suffered chloroquine poisoning after President Trump praised the anti-malaria drug as a treatment for the novel coronavirus.

    Health officials are warning Nigerians against self-medicating after demand for the drug surged in Lagos.

    Maryland has just shuttered all nonessential businesses, though Gov. Larry Hogan hasn’t yet issued a ‘stay at home’ order, he strongly recommended that residents of his state remain home.

    As Germany closes its borders to all foreigners except asylum seekers, the EU has announced that it will provide more than $20 million in “humanitarian aid” to Iran, one of the hardest-hit countries, as critics blame US sanctions for the country’s failure to contain the outbreak.

    In Mexico, which still has a relatively low number of cases, the government is handing over control of hospitals to the military to prepare for them to be overrun.

    Meanwhile, Italy’s Lombardy region reported a drop in hospital patients on Monday, while the region and Milan, its largest city, reported another drop in newly confirmed cases, as Italy prepares to revise its death toll lower. Across the country, the number of new deaths reported on Monday dropped to 601, down from 651 the day before.

    And as the Army Corp of Engineers prepares to start renovating buildings into emergency hospitals, one general has offered more details on that.

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    Update (1250ET): Indiana’s governor has issued a stay at home order, as leaked reports had suggested.

    The state’s lockdown won’t begin officially until Tuesday, with the governor emphasizing that the next two weeks are ‘critical’.

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    We suspect he won’t be the last.

    *  *  *

    Update 1220ET): As Chuck Schumer promises that Senate Democrats are ‘close’ to striking a deal with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the stimulus bill, the UK just reported another 14 deaths, with the total climbing to 303, up from 289 earlier.

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    Update (1200ET): heading into the lunchtime hours, as thousands of traders get up from their couch to go fix themselves a sandwich, there’s some more breaking news about the growing number of lockdown orders.

    First, rumor has it that South Africa is preparing to announce a 21-day lockdown. In the US, reports claim Indiana and Massachusetts are joining the list of states who have declared mandatory lockdowns. That would add13.6 million more Americans to the lockdown total.

    New Jersey health officials just released their latest update on the number of positive tests, and the total has increased by nearly 1,000 overnight, to 2,844 from 1,914. The number of deaths in the state has climbed to 27.

    A joint statement released by the Bank of England and British banks said the country’s banks are in a strong financial position heading into the crisis and that “banks are here to help the public.”

    *  *  *

    Update (1130ET): After heading into isolation over the weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly tested negative for VOID-19, sparing Europe’s largest economy from the challenge of confronting the outbreak without the country’s its longtime leader.

    NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled the latest update on confirmed cases in the state Monday morning, revealing that the number of confirmed cases in the state had climbed to 20,875 cases, up from 5,707 compared with the day before, and 157 deaths, up from 99 in NYC alone as of last night. In the city, Mayor de Blasio confirmed 12,305 positive cases, an increase of 3,260 from Sunday. Across the state, 24% of all cases requiring hospitalization were in the ICU.

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    Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is jockeying with Elizabeth “slush fund” Warren for the VP nomination, revealed Monday that her husband has tested positive for the virus, but that she herself won’t get tested because she doesn’t spend much time around him.

    And here’s Rabobank’s Michael Every with his take on the situation in Europe, the US and Asia.

    The Democrats, meanwhile, are holding the administration’s rescue package hostage, and demanding unprecedented bargaining power for unions, hiking fuel emissions standards for airlines (at a time when governments around the world are trying to save that industry from collapse) and the expansion of tax credits for wind and solar, or they will refuse to vote for the bill, ensuring that it will take longer to pass, at the very least.

    Before the group’s latest “emergency” meeting could even begin, the G-20 was dashing hopes for coordinated action. And despite the unprecedented steps taken by monetary policy officials around the world in the last few weeks, central bankers in Italy, Spain, Portugal and France have called on eurozone finance ministers to embrace coordinated action to launch a rescue package.

    As shortages of hand sanitizer leave nursing homes and private care facilities around the country in a bind, forcing New York state to enlist its prison population to making the stuff, yet another alcoholic beverage maker has offered to donate alcohol to companies producing the stuff. That company is Diageo, which promised 2 million liters of alcohol, joining Pernod Ricard and LVMH.

    Per the FT, distillers use 96 proof alcohol as the base for alcoholic beverages such as gin and vodka but as their factories are not equipped to make gels, some are opting to make liquid sprays, while others (including Pernod and Diageo) are seeking to supply ingredients.

    *  *  *

    Update (0955ET): As CNBC just pointed out, financial services employees are exempt from New York’s stay at home order. Still, Monday marked the first day of all-electronic trading, and though it’s been a pretty interesting ride so far, the fact that we’re not down 1,000+ points on the Dow after another ‘unprecedented’ Fed intervention (just when the whole world thought they were out of ammo…) is making Monday feel…almost normal?

    In the UK, the Telegraph just reported that Boris Johnson’s government is preparing to close all non-essential shops, leaving just grocery stores, pharmacies and others open as the public continues to largely ignore the PM’s ‘social distancing’ recommendations, as many ventured outside in groups during what was a sunny mother’s day on Sunday in the UK.

    Johnson is expected to deliver the latest shutdown order shortly, although enforcement measures will need to wait for new powers in the Coronavirus Bill likely to become law on Tuesday.

    According to Sky News, Britain could be locked down to force people into self-isolation “very soon”, as the prime minister considers racing new laws through the Commons in a day. The laws would expand his powers to enforce a national ‘stay at home’ order.

    MPs are returning to parliament on Monday to debate the government’s Coronavirus Bill and pass it through all the necessary stages (the legislation is expected to pass the Commons thanks to the Conservatives’ majority), before it goes to the House of Lords, where it’s also expected to pass and become law by end of the week.

    Circling back to the US, after Lloyd Blankfein audaciously brought up the possibility that the economic fallout might be more punishing than the virus outbreak itself, President Trump has resorted to tweeting in all caps as he waits for a second Senate vote.

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    This comes as the US shunts aside Spain to become the country with the third-largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with 35k, leaving it on track to surpass both Italy and China by next week.

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    In other news, sorry, rich people: India’s ban on incoming international flights will also include private planes.

    *  *  *

    For millions of Americans, the full weight of the novel coronavirus outbreak, and its ensuing crisis, finally became apparent over the weekend as governors from New York, to Ohio, to Delaware warned that all “non-essential” employees will soon be required to shelter in place.

    Additionally, though hundreds of thousands of cases around the world likely remain undiagnosed, global health authorities revealed on Monday that the acceleration in new cases over the last 48 hours was the fastest on record, according to the FT’s calculations: According to the paper, the total number of confirmed cases around the world increased by a record magnitude this weekend as the situation worsened, particularly in the US.

    Health authorities reported an additional 61,872 cases over the 48-hour period, while the number of fatalities increased by 3,260 to 14,748, the largest two-day jump in new cases on record.

    The US was the hardest hit on Sunday, adding 9,339 cases, nearly 4,000 more than the 5,560 new cases that Italy added. For the first time in nearly 2 weeks, Italy saw a slowdown over the weekend. In Spain, meanwhile, the situation has been the opposite: 450 people have died in Spain over the past 24 hours after contracting the coronavirus, while there has been a surge in intensive care patients.

    The ministry of health in Madrid said on Monday that 2,172 have died, a 26% increase on Sunday’s total of 1,720. Spain, with more than 33,000 infected, is the worst-hit European country after Italy.

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    Across the US, the scale of the crisis was finally laid bare when the total number of confirmed cases surged to almost 30,000 and New York emerged as an international hotspot. As of Monday morning, the total number of cases around the world had climbed to 349,211, per Johns Hopkins.

    During a press conference on Sunday, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that he expected up to 80% of the state’s population to ultimately contract the virus, and told residents to brace for disruptions to daily life that could last for as long as nine months.

    As more governors ordered their citizens to stay home beginning on Monday, Reuters counted that roughly one in three Americans is now under orders to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic as Ohio, Louisiana and Delaware became the latest states to enact broad restrictions, along with the city of Philadelphia, according to Reuters.

    We reported last night that Ohio, Louisiana and Delaware are now the latest states to enact broad restrictions (along with the city of Philadelphia), joining New York, California, Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey, home to 101 million Americans combined.

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    Ohio’s order will go into effect at midnight EDT on Monday and stay in effect until April 6. Louisiana’s order goes into effect at 5 pm CDT on Monday and lasts through April 12. Delaware’s order begins at 8 am on Tuesday.

    Texas’s Dallas County, home to more than 2.5 million people, and Philadelphia, with 1.6 million residents, told non-essential businesses on Sunday to close and residents to stay home.

    In Kentucky, non-essential businesses must close by 8pm on Monday, but authorities stopped short of ordering residents to stay home.

    The orders come as the US cracks 35k cases, leaving it on track to surpass other developed countries given the scope of its outbreak.

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    To be more exact, as of the market open, there were 35,225 cases in the US, and 447 cases according to Johns Hopkins official data base, though numbers varied slightly between sources.

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    As the Empire State ramps up testing faster than many of its peers, thanks largely to the leadership of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York now comprises almost half of all diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in the US.

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    While confirming to the public that he had tested negative for the virus, Vice President Mike Pence said 254,000 Americans had been tested for the coronavirus as of Sunday, and that 10% were positive.

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    Source: Reuters

    More news from the US: As more Americans prepare to rely on e-commerce to buy goods as traveling to the grocery store becomes taboo, Amazon is doubling overtime pay as the outbreak worsens, while other companies focus on mass layoffs. Although the Fed’s latest monetary bazooka blast has pushed futures back into the green, easing the pressure on lawmakers, another vote for the Senate’s $1 trillion-plus rescue package – the third bill to confront the outbreak.

    In Asia, Hong Kong, which reported its largest jump in daily cases yet last week, imposed a controversial 14-day ban on foreign travelers entering the city state. Per the FT, Hong Kong will ban the arrival of all non-residents arriving by plane for a fortnight and all connecting flights will be cancelled from Wednesday, in the latest move by a government to tighten borders in an attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Arrivals from Macau and Taiwan will also have to undergo compulsory quarantine measures like all other foreign arrivals, chief executive Carrie Lam said on Monday. Residents returning from the UK, the US and Europe will be required to undergo virus testing even if asymptomatic.

    Lam’s government is planning to propose legislation to ban restaurants and bars from selling alcohol and order all recreational facilities to close, including changing rooms and gyms.

    Last week, the New York Times reported that the virus total in India was surprisingly low, especially when factoring in the country’s endemic poverty and massive population. But as the country suspends public transit on Monday, hampering medical workers in their quest to get to work, many are beginning to wonder: If the situation in India is so optimistic, why is the government bothering with all of thee closures.

    After a total suspension of services on Sunday, city buses began running again on Monday, but are only operating infrequent skeletal services.

    “How are staff supposed to attend the hospital with no public transport,” said one doctor at a 595-bed private hospital in New Delhi.

    “Hospitals are not run by doctors alone. Doctors all reached because they have their cars. But the electrician couldn’t reach because he didn’t have a scooter. All the staff nurses were calling saying, there is no bus how do we come?”

    “Where was the planning for this?” the doctor asked.

    It’s certainly curious…considering the country is also shutting down domestic air travel on Monday.

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    In other news, Australia joined Canada in withdrawing its athletes from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, placing further pressure on the IOC to cancel the games. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that the Tokyo Games “cannot be held” under the current circumstances.

    Tokyo Olympic organizing committee President Yoshiro Mori said he supports the IOC’s decision to review plans to hold the Olympics.

    “If I’m asked whether we can hold the Olympics at this point in time, I would have to say that the world is not in such a condition,” Abe told a parliamentary session, adding he hopes to hold talks with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach over the issue.

    “It’s important that not only our country but also all the other participating countries can take part in the games fully prepared,” Abe said, according to Kyodo News.

    Spain will become the next country to expand its lockdown for 15 days as deaths and confirmed cases in the country continue to soar, while the British government on Monday ordered 1.5 million people with serious health problems to self-quarantine at home for the next 3 months, the length of time during which PM Boris Johnson believes the UK can quash the virus is enough people follow the government’s guidelines.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 21:02

  • "The World You Lived In No Longer Exists" – Mike Krieger Exposes The 'Massive Power Grab'
    “The World You Lived In No Longer Exists” – Mike Krieger Exposes The ‘Massive Power Grab’

    Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    I met a traveller from an antique land
    Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
    And on the pedestal these words appear:
    ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away

    – Percy Shelley, Ozymandias

    It didn’t take long for the most opportunistic, nefarious and corrupt actors in the U.S. to turn a pandemic crisis into another massive power grab attempt. We’ve seen it before; after 9/11 and also throughout the response to the financial crisis a decade ago. The irredeemable sociopaths who always make the big, important decisions used those crises to consolidate wealth and power. They’re going for it again.

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    There are many examples, but let me list a few:

    – The EARN IT bill, by which senators are attempting to destroy widespread public use of encryption, i.e. private communications. (EFF)

    – The White House and the CDC are asking Facebook, Google and other tech giants to give them greater access to Americans’ smartphone location data. (CNBC)

    – The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies. (Politico)

    – U.S. Senators are attempting to use the crisis as an opportunity to pull off a gigantic corporate coup. (Matt Stoller, BIG)

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    Then there’s the really big one, the Federal Reserve. An institution with more unaccountable power to shape and manipulate our world than any other, yet whose actions remain subject to virtually zero public debate.

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    While we’re at it…

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    I wrote about the scam that is the Federal Reserve last year in the post, Monetary Looting, and what they’re doing now makes those repo operations look like child’s play.

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    We often get distracted debating the implications of Fed actions, and in the process lose sight of the bigger picture. The real question we need to be asking is why do we allow a handful of unelected banker welfare agents the right to shape our entire world? It’s a crazy system, and until we start questioning the underlying premises of everything about our world, we’ll remain confused and subjugated.

    That said, I remain more optimistic than ever that once we get through this crisis and a rough transition period, a far better era awaits on the other side. I say this because I believe this pandemic will shake enough people to such an extent they’ll emerge from it very different people with a more enlightened understanding of the world and their roles in it. An event like this can make people less conscious, or it can make them more conscious. I think humanity will expand its consciousness.

    Of course, the future is not written in stone. Each and every one of us needs to grow up and step up if we’re going to build a better world. We each have our skillsets, so I ask everyone reading this to think about how they can repurpose their talents to the great work of ushering in a new era. I don’t do any of this to change the world. I can’t do that. I do this to inspire as many people as possible to change their own worlds. Then everything changes.

    If I had to summarize where we’ve been and where I think we’re going, it would be with the following.

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    The world you lived in no longer exists, but the world to come has not yet been created. The worst people in society will attempt to create it in their image, but we can’t allow that. We must step up and create it ourselves. It’s entirely possible. Get to work.

    *  *  *

    Liberty Blitzkrieg is an ad-free website. If you enjoyed this post and my work in general, visit the Support Page where you can donate and contribute to my efforts.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 20:45

  • SoftBank Sells $41 Billion In Assets To Finance More Stock Buybacks
    SoftBank Sells $41 Billion In Assets To Finance More Stock Buybacks

    SoftBank’s shift from long-term ‘vision’ to short-term ‘survival’ is now complete.

    After the infamous string of blowups that hammered both SoftBank’s private investments as well as its $100 billion ‘Vision Fund’, which consisted mostly of money from the Saudis and Abu Dhabi most notoriously the collapse of the WeWork IPO as the unicorn’s valuation evaporated, triggering the ouster of its founder-CEO, a string of other executives, and a sudden spiral that ended with an emergency rescue package that narrowly saved WeWork from imminent bankruptcy.

    Now, under pressure from activist Paul Singer’s Elliott Management and a handful of other investors, and with the reputation of Chairman Masa Son likely forever tarnished, it appears SoftBank is taking direct steps to shore up its plunging stock price via – what else? – share buybacks.

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    This, at a time when companies, particularly American companies, are facing tremendous public backlash against plans to buyback stock, which has even gotten tangled up in the battle over the second part of the White House’s economic plan.

    Mirroring, in an ironic way, the forced deleveraging of Chinese conglomerates like Anbang, HNA & Dalian Wanda, SoftBank announced on Monday that it would start selling off some of the crown jewels, including some of its stake in Alibaba, to shore up its balance sheet and prop up its share price.

    The company earmarked up to $18 billion for share buybacks, and another $23 billion to redeem debt and build up cash reserves on Monday, two weeks after announcing share buybacks of roughly $4.5 billion. The move would allow SoftBank to repurchase up to 45% of its shares outstanding, and the planned buyback is more than twice the size of the $20 billion or so that Elliott had pushed for.

    The action “reflects the firm and unwavering confidence we have in our business,” Son said.

    The company is also hoping to pull $3 billion of rescue capital from WeWork, claiming that investigations into WeWork allow SoftBank to pull the funds.

    Though most of the money will be used for stock buy backs, some will go down to pay the company’s massive $173 billion debt pile (though more than half of that debt sits on the books of SoftBank subsidiaries).

    SoftBank’s debtholders are getting restive as well. On a consolidated basis, SoftBank had about ¥19 trillion yen ($173 billion) in debt as of the end of last year, although more than half was held by subsidiaries like Sprint, which SoftBank said it wasn’t on the hook for.

    Soon after SoftBank announced its first share buyback on March 12, credit rater S&P Global downgraded the company’s outlook to negative, saying the move raised questions about SoftBank’s commitment to financial soundness. In recent days, as global credit markets have tanked, the prices of some of SoftBank’s bonds plummeted as well, while the price of a financial instrument offering protection against potential bankruptcy, known as a credit default swap, rose.

    SoftBank also said it has hired an outside firm to search for three new independent directors to improve transparency and governance.

    But given Masa Son’s reputation, and his still-formidable fortune and reputation, we can’t help but wonder if all of this is merely a ruse, as Masa Son, irritated by the encroachment of activists, prepares a long-shot bid to try and take the company – or at least a scaled-back version of the company a la Rupert Murdoch’s new Fox News – private.

    It’s really his only option if he ever hopes to run SoftBank with the level of autonomy he enjoyed before the WeWork fiasco.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/23/2020 – 20:25

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