- French Local Official Bans Sales Of All Alcohol During COVID-19 Lockdown
French Local Official Bans Sales Of All Alcohol During COVID-19 Lockdown
French authorities in Aisne, a region in northeast France, were forced to do the unthinkable: ban the sales of alcohol during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Ziad Khoury, the prefect of Aisne, announced the “ban on takeaway sales of alcohol” on Tuesday, reported ParisDepeches.
Khoury said bars restaurants and cafes had already been shuttered in the region because of the national lockdown. Courrier Picard noted that Aisne has had 22 virus-related deaths.
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Khoury said during mass quarantines, alcohol consumption is expected to rise, which could lead to increased domestic violence cases.
“Excessive consumption of alcohol is likely to create increased disturbances and violence, especially within the family,” he said.
The ban drew international attention, and RT News said, Twitter users overwhelmingly thought the ban would cause more harm, than good:
“Incompetence or dictatorial will? The measure will only have negative effects: black market, withdrawal effects, bottlenecks in hospitals, etc. A curfew would prevent gatherings. You deprive people of their liberties and endanger the population,” one wrote.
Making the lockdown intolerable for alcohol addicts, who will effectively be forced into a sudden withdrawl that can entail serious health complications is incomppasionate at best, and dangerous, some noted.
“You can’t suddenly deprive an alcohol addict of alcohol, it’s dangerous!” a commenter wrote.
“It’s a shame you put people in danger and will add more trouble for caregivers! Reverse this decision as soon as possible!” another chimed in.
Some went as far as to suggest that the prefect, who is of Lebanese origin, mulls imposing the “sharia law” in the department, with the ban on the booze being just the first of many steps.
“Sharia law on the move!” a witty netizen wrote, poking fun at the name of Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! (“Forward!”) ruling party.
After an uproar from locals and across the internet, Khoury decided hours later to temporarily halt the ban “in order to consult more widely, particularly with addiction specialists about the possible side effects of a ban,” reported The Local.
Local authorities in several other regions have enforced rules of their own on top of the nation lockdown – beaches, public areas, and citywide curfews have been imposed on citizens until March 31. The French government has already suggested if the pandemic curve does not start flattening by March 31, then there is a strong possibility that extensions could be seen.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 03/26/2020 – 02:45 - Turkey's COVID-19 Situation Is "Out Of Control", Health Experts Warn
Turkey’s COVID-19 Situation Is “Out Of Control”, Health Experts Warn
Health experts have warned that Turkey’s coronavirus situation is out of control and that deaths from the disease could soon be on a par with Italy or Spain, reported the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network on Tuesday.
“The recent data on cases and death tolls shows that the situation is out of control in Turkey. If the necessary measures are not taken, Turkey will be like Italy or Spain, where the daily death toll is in the hundreds,” Emrah Altındiş, a Turkish professor from Harvard University’s Medical Faculty, told BIRN.
Turkey only reported its first coronavirus patient on March 11, but cases and deaths have rapidly risen since then. The Turkish health minister confirmed on Tuesday seven more deaths due to the coronavirus and announced 343 new cases, raising the total number of cases in the country to 1,872.
Turkey has halted incoming flights from dozens of countries and closed a wide range of non-essential businesses and venues, and announced a curfew on elderly and vulnerable citizens over the weekend, though it has refrained from enforcing a full lockdown.
However, some medical experts have said that the measures are insufficient.
Altındiş said that South Korea was successful in restraining the pandemic because it was testing 20,000 a day, and that China reduced transmission by shutting down the infected city of Wuhan – but he said that there had not been widespread testing or strict lockdowns of major cities in Turkey.
“Either the government is hiding the real numbers [of cases], or silly things are happening in Turkey,” he said.
“The Turkish government is making propaganda to show that the process is being managed well. They know this situation will have very severe political and economic consequences.”
The Health Ministry has tested more than 24,000 people, but this number may quickly rise after the arrival of 50,000 quick diagnostic kits from China on Monday. A further 300,000 are expected to arrive on Thursday, the ministry said.
The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) urged the government on March 23 to be more transparent regarding the pandemic.
“The cities and towns where cases were confirmed should be announced publicly as well as death and infected people’s gender and age range,” TBB said.
One doctor who works in a university hospital told BIRN under condition of anonymity: “What I observe in my hospital and the general situation is that the real numbers are at least two to three times higher than the numbers that the government announced. The COVID-19 pandemic is now out of control.”
The same doctor said the Turkish Health Ministry seemed to be implementing a wait-and-see policy, but this meant it was late in implementing necessary steps.
“It seems that this week is the most critical since the incubation period for the new coronavirus is around 14 days,” he said. “Many people will flock to hospitals and we will be speaking of thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths on a daily basis. Turkey will be a second Italy or worse,” he told BIRN.
The government has introduced a a 100 billion lira ($15.4 billion) aid package to help Turkey’s economy cope with the global coronavirus outbreak, but some economists and opposition politicians have criticised it as being insufficient.
“The government has asked people to stay at home but these people have to work and feed their families,” the doctor told BIRN.
“The government’s economic package has had no effect on ordinary people. If it does not support these people financially, we cannot talk about stopping this pandemic.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 03/26/2020 – 02:00 - Iran Rounding Up Whistleblowers Who Try To Expose Real COVID-19 Death Toll: State Dept
Iran Rounding Up Whistleblowers Who Try To Expose Real COVID-19 Death Toll: State Dept
The State Department now seems to be leveling new accusations against Iran and China on a near daily basis related to their role in facilitating the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
On Monday Mike Pompeo issued ‘5 facts’ detailing Iran’s recklessness regarding the virus, including the charge Tehran spread it “to at least five countries,” and on Wednesday the newest charge is that Iran is imprisoning whistleblowers who are trying to the get the true numbers of Iran’s cases out to the public.
Iran was one of the two earliest epicenters outside of China along with Italy, and currently has the sixth highest number of total confirmed Covid-19 cases, but ranks fourth in deaths at 2,077 which have succumbed to the disease.
Image via The Atlantic “The regime has imprisoned dozens of Iranians for sharing statistics and forced hospital officials across Iran to falsify the number of cases and deaths,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told the neocon Washington Free Beacon, yet without offering further details.
The new allegation comes as Tehran is begging the IMF for $5 billion in emergency funds to help with coronavirus relief, and simultaneously lashing out at Washington for its unrelenting sanctions regimen. The White House has kept up its so-called “maximum pressure” even as the Islamic Republic’s health system collapses under the strain of 27,000 official reported cases.
The EU announced earlier this week it plans to send Iran 20 million euros in relief funds, also demonstrating Europe’s increased resolve to buck Washington’s near total blockade of the country, US claims to have kept certain ‘humanitarian channels’ open notwithstanding.
“We can be sure that the same regime that lied about shooting down a passenger jet and that still hasn’t revealed the number of protesters killed last November is not being transparent with the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus today,” Ortagus added, referring to the Ukrainian airline downing tragedy on January 8.
According to the Free Beacon’s commentary, which tracks closely with Iran hawks in the Trump administration:
The Iranian regime claims the numbers of those infected and dead stand at 24,811 and 1,934, respectively. But the United States and other observers say there are far more casualties. In a bid to keep the actual infection rate and death toll secret, Iranian officials have resorted to violence and subterfuge. Their efforts include enlisting U.S. allies in a campaign to weaken the Trump administration’s tough economic sanctions on the country, a move that could provide the regime with billions in cash.
However, the Free Beacon report fails to list a single name or example of an Iranian recently arrested for defying authorities’ official Covid-19 numbers.
Regardless, it is widely acknowledged that Tehran is likely keeping a tight lid on its actual infections rate, though it wouldn’t be the only country to do so.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 03/26/2020 – 01:00 - Are We Living Through "12 Monkeys"?
Are We Living Through “12 Monkeys”?
A brand new mini-documentary “We’re Living in 12 Monkeys” was released today by Truthstream Media that outlines the agenda that is unfolding from the coronavirus hysteria.
The full New World Order agenda of complete control over humanity is in play. Watch below:
As we watched we were reminded of an article written in 2018 by Abraham Riesman who noted (at the time) that ’12 Monkeys’ was the apocalypse movie we need right now.
Critically, Riseman had just completed an addendum to his essay (excerpted below), tying it perfectly back to what the world is currently experiencing…
…the world has not yet collapsed.
I just went to pick up some supplies from my local chain pharmacy outlet and people seemed to be going about their daily business much as they always do.
The ambience stood in stark contrast to the reports I’d been reading all night about what the situation is likely to become in the near future.
I felt like 12 Monkeys’ protagonist, James Cole – someone who has been in the future, after it all hit the fan, and is granted a brief, bittersweet opportunity to visit the world as it was before the fall.
Given what’s happening, we thought we should republish this essay, which I wrote a year and a half before the COVID-19 pandemic, about 12 Monkeys, a film that is less about surviving a plague than it is about making a meaningful life on the eve of a crisis – and stubbornly believing that there’s something on the other side worth preparing for.
* * *
“How can I save you?” says the protagonist, Bruce Willis’s James Cole, early on in the 1995 Terry Gilliam film.
“This already happened. I can’t save you. Nobody can.”
He’s speaking before a panel of psychiatrists in a mental institution in 1990, a year in which he’s newly arrived. He’s been deemed crazy for his ravings about how he’s been sent from the year 2035, where a scant remainder of humanity lives in squalid underground tunnels after having been driven from the surface by a viral pandemic.
The movie wisely wastes no time on ambiguity about whether Cole’s story about a chronological jaunt is true or mere madness. By the time he appears before the shrinks, we’ve already seen Cole’s home time.
Throughout the story, we know – sometimes even better than he does – the worldwide doom that awaits. Though there are moments in the movie in which it seems as though fate might be altered, the conclusion of this deeply pessimistic masterwork (spoiler alert) makes it clear that Cole is right: humanity falls, right on schedule.
He couldn’t save anyone. Nobody could.
I’ve been thinking about 12 Monkeys a lot lately. It seems, these days, as though the human race has passed a Rubicon and is now on a straight path toward the end of days, or at least the end of the social order as we know it…
…That’s why 12 Monkeys feels so urgent: Perhaps it is, indeed, too late to avert the great catastrophe. But we cannot accept that the catastrophe is the end of the story.
There will be some kind of future, however difficult it may be to live in.
It is our responsibility to prepare whatever we can for the survival of what’s worth preserving in that coming existence.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 23:50 - Rio's Favela Gangs Impose Strict Curfews To Fight Spread Of "Disease Of The Rich"
Rio’s Favela Gangs Impose Strict Curfews To Fight Spread Of “Disease Of The Rich”
Brazilian newspaper Extra says gangsters and militias in Cidade de Deus, Brazil, have deployed vehicles with massive loudspeakers blaring prerecorded messages to inform residents in the slums that they must shelter in place amid the COVID-19 outbreak, reported Reuters.
“We’re imposing a curfew because nobody is taking this seriously,” the message said, according to Extra.
“Whoever is in the street screwing around or going for a walk will receive a corrective and serve as an example. Better to stay home doing nothing. The message has been given.”
Cidade de Deus is a West Zone neighborhood of the Rio de Janeiro city, known for lawless favelas.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been criticized for his slow response to the outbreak, as more than 2,274 confirmed cases and 47 deaths had been reported in the South American country.
There was speculation earlier this month that Bolsonaro tested positive for the virus, though, later reports revealed that was false.
JUST IN: Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has tested negative for coronavirus, according to a post on his Facebook page pic.twitter.com/xOP7zo61S9
— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) March 13, 2020
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Reuters notes, while Extra is a “well-sourced Rio newspaper,” they could not verify the recorded message that was played to residents.
Criminal gangs and militias often act as de facto authorities in favelas, one where the government has very little oversight. Favela residents have called COVID-19: “the disease of the rich,” due mostly because wealthier Brazilians returning from Europe brought the virus over.
Manda quem pode, obedece quem tem juízo.
QUARENTENA na Cidade de Deus após às 20:00hrs. pic.twitter.com/TH5oJCRjCM
— ÁKA TRANSGRESSORES – DOIDEIR@ 🤘🏾 (@Aka_da_tijuca) March 24, 2020
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Since the government has been unprepared to fight the virus in the country, but more importantly favelas like Cidade de Deus, it has been up to gangs and militia to make sure residents obey social distancing rules. Another issue, and one that gangs cannot solve, is the access to healthcare, the area does not have a modern hospital system.
Across all of Brazil, 40 million people lack clean water. At the same time, 100 million, or about half the population, don’t have access to public sewage, increasing fears that the lack of basic sanitation and weak immune systems could lead to a significant outbreak.
“Basic sanitation is terrible,” said Jefferson Maia, a 27-year-old resident of Cidade de Deus. “Sometimes, we don’t even have water to wash our hands properly. We are very concerned with the coronavirus issue.”
🔴 RIO – Coronavírus “sobe morro”:
Cidade de Deus tem 1° caso de COVID-19 / Gazeta do Brasil
— Nelson Carvalheira (@N_Carvalheira) March 22, 2020
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Thamiris Deveza, a family doctor, working in Rio’s Alemao complex of slums, told Reuters that the fast-spreading virus could wreak havoc in favelas.
Bolsonaro has followed President Trump’s playbook in attempting to keep the economy open and restore normal life as quickly as possible.
Bolsonaro has defied advice from the medical community to implement a nationwide lockdown, has also lashed out at local governors who have closed their economies to slowdown infections.
On Tuesday, Rio’s Governor Wilson Witzel reduced public transportation while shuttering local shops and even closed the beach.
Witzel recently warned that Rio’s public health system was at risk of “collapse.”
Edmilson Migowski, a virologist at Rio’s Federal University, said favelas across the country could be the epicenter of the virus outbreak.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 23:30 - Trump Admin Offers Alternative To Student-Debt Forgiveness During Pandemic
Trump Admin Offers Alternative To Student-Debt Forgiveness During Pandemic
Authored by Eduardo Neret via CampusReform.org,
The Trump administration is taking action to offer relief to students during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a report by Politico, the Department of Education “stopped seizing the wages, tax refunds, and Social Security benefits” of individuals who are defaulting on their student loans.
The department also protected borrowers by directing private companies to suspend collection pursuits during the crisis.
The Politico report estimates that the administration’s actions will aid approximately 9 million borrowers who have defaulted on their student loan debt.
The new actions by the administration followed a recent decision to suspend interest on federal student loans during the crisis.
Campus Reform previously reported on efforts by congressional Democrats to include student loan debt forgiveness of at least $10,000 per person in the coronavirus stimulus package.
Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) also introduced legislation to cancel student loan debt during the pandemic. The proposal would have eliminated at least $30,000 in debt per person.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden endorsed the plan to forgive up to $10,000 of student loan debt per person, writing in a tweet that Congress “should forgive a minimum of $10,000/person of federal student loans, as proposed by Senator Warren and colleagues.”
“Young people and other student debt holders bore the brunt of the last crisis. It shouldn’t happen again,” Biden tweeted.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 23:10 - Six States Declare Marijuana Dispensaries "Essential Businesses", Exempting Them From Lockdown
Six States Declare Marijuana Dispensaries “Essential Businesses”, Exempting Them From Lockdown
Nothing says we’re coming together and collectively fighting a respiratory disease quite like keeping dispensaries open so people can smoke.
And that seems to be exactly the case, as dispensaries across the U.S. appear to be staying open alongside of other essential businesses, like gas stations and grocery stores. More than six states over the past week have agreed that pot shops and medical marijuana dispensaries could stay open, according to the NY Times.
It’s official recognition for how important marijuana has become for some. Many in states like California, Oregon and Michigan have rushed to stock up on cannabis, along with their other regularly used household goods. Even Massachusetts has exempted dispensaries from its statewide shut down.
Liz Connors, director of analytics at Headset, a cannabis market research company, said purchases of edibles have surged only to levels seen on April 20 each year. She said women and young people accounted for the push in sales growth.
Connors said: “It shows that a lot of people think cannabis is just another consumer good, like beer or wine. It’s probably the easiest way to get high without touching your face very much.”
On Monday, Denver’s mayor issued the exemption for marijuana shops after there was an outcry in the city upon his first attempt to shut them down. In Pennsylvania, dispensaries have remained open even though liquor stores were ordered to be closed. States like New York have decided that liquor stores could stay open and Alabama even issued an order allowing curbside sales of alcoholic beverages at licensed stores.
California, Colorado, Washington and Pennsylvania have all seen marijuana sales “soar” over the last week.
#SanFrancisco goes on lockdown tonight… and the entire marina is buying weed. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/eTZRvZ3GO9
— Victoria Najjar #StayHome (@victorianajjar) March 17, 2020
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Greg Rochlin, CEO of Ilera Healthcare, a Plymouth Meeting, PA dispensary, said: “People were concerned we would be shut down. [It was like the rush] hoarding toilet paper.”
Many states are being careful to toe the line with federal regulations allows them to stay open and be deemed “essential”. Nevada has allowed its dispensaries to operate as long as they don’t allow crowds to form. Illinois is allowing patients to pickup curbside orders.
Curaleaf, which has 53 dispensaries in 17 states, dedicates its first hour of operations each day to those 60 and older. It also has an app that allows curbside pickup and service.
Jackie Subeck, a cannabis industry consultant in Los Angeles, said: “I want to make sure I have enough to maintain my daily lifestyle. For me, it’s more important to have enough cannabis around than alcohol.”
One not-so-legal marijuana dealer, Chris, said that many customers tell him marijuana is their only relief from anxiety: “They’ll say things like, ‘I’m going to be locked up with my wife for the next-God-knows-how-long and need this desperately.’”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 22:50 - Are We On The Cusp Of The First Ever Cyber World War?
Are We On The Cusp Of The First Ever Cyber World War?
In its quest for global economic and geopolitical domination, America has made many enemies. To help fund 800 military bases all over the world, last year the American taxpayer spent $620 billion on defence, $69 billion for ‘war-funding’ and $10billion on cybersecurity. Military spending represents about 40 per cent of America’s entire global exports trade.
However, corporate America describes as derisory the funding for cybersecurity and it is stepping up to the challenge as they get to grips with the threats they now face. As a result of government inaction and under-funding, private sector companies have been forced to take cybersecurity more seriously and, according to some projections, will spend an eye-watering $1 trillion on the digital security of their global operations from now until then end of 2021.
America’s enemies are in no position to fight a hot war – for the time being. They know that. In the meantime, President Trump has continually stepped up trade wars and financial sanctions that some countries are now finding too much and are soon to fight back. The cold war between China and America is just one. Russia, North Korea and Iran are obvious allies of China, so are a number of other countries across the Mid-East, Africa and Asia – weary of endless American intervention in their affairs.
Although the cold war with China is by definition a low-intensity conflict, a sharp escalation is likely during 2020. To some Chinese leaders, it is hardly a coincidence that their country is simultaneously being attacked on all sorts of fronts at the same time. In the last twelve months, China has been beset with a massive swine flu outbreak, a severe bird flu outbreak, and a coronavirus epidemic that has destabilised the entire workings its economy. The trade war is financially damaging and unpopular at home. Political unrest in Hong Kong, the re-election of Taiwan’s pro-independence president, combined with stepped-up US naval operations in the East and South China Seas also add to keeping Chinese leaders awake at night. The coronavirus crisis that now grips the world provides some with an opportunity though.
Contrary to what we have heard in the MSM, in China, hospitals are overwhelmed and overflowing with the sick and dying as a result of CoVid-19. But the Chinese authorities know that the very same disease is now gripping the rest of the world as well.
Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics at New York University was Senior Economist for International Affairs in the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration. He has worked for the International Monetary Fund, the US Federal Reserve, and the World Bank. He takes the view that China is ready to fight back and says that –
“China’s immediate response to US containment efforts (the trade war) will likely take the form of cyberwarfare. There are several obvious targets. Chinese hackers (and their Russian, North Korean, and Iranian counterparts) could interfere in the US election by flooding Americans with misinformation and deep fakes. With the US electorate already so polarized, it is not difficult to imagine armed partisans taking to the streets to challenge the results, leading to serious violence and chaos.”
These are strong words from someone like Roubini who also asserts that within a year, “the US-China conflict could have escalated from a cold war to a near-hot one. A Chinese regime with its economy severely damaged by the CoVid-19 crisis and facing restless masses will need an external scapegoat, and will likely set its sights on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and US naval positions in the East and South China Seas; confrontation could creep into escalating military accidents.”
The US, of course, will respond as it comes under an asymmetric attack. It has already been increasing the pressure on these countries with sanctions and other forms of trade and financial warfare, not to mention its own world-beating cyberwarfare capabilities. Roubini goes another step to say:
“US cyberattacks against the four rivals will continue to intensify this year, raising the risk of the first-ever cyber world war and massive economic, financial, and political disorder”
In the meantime, the European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has warned that a cyberattack on European financial markets could cost $645 billion. Just three weeks ago Lagarde warned that another financial crisis could occur if systemically important institutions failed to protect themselves. “History shows that liquidity crises can quickly become systemic crises,” Lagarde said, adding, “The ECB is well aware that it has a duty to be prepared and to act pre-emptively.”
And while the western world looks to defend itself from cyberattacks, other threats now require considerable effort and money. One of those is the climate crisis. It is already causing a huge shift of capital from fossil fuel investments. The signs are there that the focus is now moving its trillions invested in coal, gas and fracking rigs (and so on) towards more environmentally friendly forms of power. The capital shift is gigantic.
Roubini says that –
“As of early 2020, this is where we stand: the US and Iran have already had a military confrontation that will likely soon escalate; China is in the grip of a viral outbreak that will become a global pandemic; cyberwarfare is ongoing; major holders of US Treasuries are pursuing diversification strategies; the Democratic presidential primary is exposing rifts in the opposition to Trump and already casting doubt on vote-counting processes; rivalries between the US and four revisionist powers are escalating; and the real-world costs of climate change and other environmental trends are mounting.”
The point to be made here is this.
If China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and others were looking for a moment in time to concentrate their efforts and contain America’s hegemonic empire – 2020 is the best opportunity they have ever had. It’s a perfect storm sceanrio. All four countries are facing problems domestically, all four have strong nationalistic backing from their own citizens, all four have new cyber warfare tools and all four have been collaborating in recent years. On the other side of the scales, the world economy is rapidly sliding into negative territory, vast quantities of money are shifting into safe havens (and away from tech gamble’s) – all of which threatens Trump’s re-election prospects and at the same time, a global pandemic is banging hard on the front door of Western countries – America’s included.
If Trump’s election prospects start to dip – as they are, the tiniest trigger could see America looking for a bogeyman as its scapegoat and before anyone is aware of it – we have a cyber world war.
And it is notable that while there is debate over how a ‘cyberwar’ might turn out, there are really only eight countries that are prepared for it in any tangible way – the Western allies consist of the United States, United Kingdom, India and Israel on the one side – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea on the other. These two opposing sides are the only countries that have significant and active cyber operations for offensive and defensive operations. Both sides are currently experiencing many political and economic challenges that are surging in 2020.
On either side, it could be an act of aggression or even a response to a perceived one, committed through a digital network, meant to cause damage in the real world, either to civilian or military targets, in order to force its opponent to act or refrain from acting. Power or water supplies, financial hubs and health systems could be targets.
We humans are now living in a two-lane world. One is physical, the other is digital. It’s the same for us individually as it is for the country we live in.
As for the trigger to a cyber world war, here is a good example of that two-lane world. In June last year, Iran fired a surface to air missile at an American surveillance drone flying over the Strait of Hormuz and brought it crashing out of the sky. America responded by launching a cyber attack against Iran by hitting Iranian computer systems that control missile and rocket launches. The Iranians now knew where their cybersecurity weaknesses were and whilst working to plug the holes in their networks – brazenly responded that they weren’t done and used cyberattacks against American businesses.
This is why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a special alert about an increasing number of cyberattacks from Iran. Attacks which are not only going after U.S. government agencies but also U.S.-based businesses:
“These efforts are often enabled through common tactics like spear-phishing, password spraying, and credential stuffing. What might start as an account compromise, where you think you might just lose data, can quickly become a situation where you’ve lost your whole network.”
It appears to be that America has somehow become more peaceful recently as it hasn’t physically attacked a new country recently. But that’s not true. Traditional warfighting methods and cyber warfighting methods are used interchangeably and used in conjunction with economic sanctions and trade wars. This suite of tactics is well underway – it is just that we don’t hear the bombs going off.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 22:30 - Fed Buys $587 Billion In Bonds In Past Week, 2.7% Of GDP, Just As Foreign Central Banks Start To Liquidate
Fed Buys $587 Billion In Bonds In Past Week, 2.7% Of GDP, Just As Foreign Central Banks Start To Liquidate
Having moved from “Not QE” (or QE4 as it was correctly called), to the $750BN QE5 which came and went with the blink of an eye, to the Fed’s open-ended and unlimited QEnfinity in the span of one week, the full “shock and awe” of the Fed’s money printer is now on full display, and in just the past week, from March 19 to March 25, the Fed has purchased $587BN in securities ($375BN in TSYs, $212BN in MBS), or roughly 2.7% of the $21.4TN in US GDP.
This means that as of Wednesday close, when accounting for last week’s repo operations, the Fed’s balance sheet has increased by roughly $650BN, bringing it to just over $5.3 trillion, an increase of $1.2 trillion in the past two week, or roughly 5.6% of US GDP.
Some more scary statistics: if the Fed continues QE at the current pace of $625 billion per week, the Fed’s balance sheet will hit $10 trillion by June, or just below 50% of US GDP. Even assuming the Fed eases back of the gas pedal, its balance sheet is almost certain to hit $7 trillion by June.
Which is hardly an accident: one look at the Treasury securities held in custody at the Fed shows that the past two weeks have seen a whopping $50BN in foreign central bank sales, a 1.7% drop which was the highest in six years since Russia pulled over $100BN in TSYs from the Fed in response to US sanctions imposed over the Ukraine conflict in 2014 which was precipitated by the US state department.
As Bloomberg observes, the selling may have contributed to record volatility in the Treasury market and prompted the Fed’s intervention. More importantly, it also means that the biggest buyer of US Treasurys in the past decade, foreign official institutions (i.e., central banks and reserve managers) are now sellers, so now the U.S. government needs private investors to soak up the ever increasing debt issuance.
And since those are busy avoiding a deadly virus, it means that only the Fed now can fund the exploding US budget deficit… which is precisely what it is doing.
Ironically, it was back on Jan 28, just as the world was learning about the coronavirus pandemic that we showed the long-term trajectory of the Fed’s balance sheet as calculated by the CBO…
… when we said that “MMT will be launched after the next financial crisis, and which will see the Fed directly monetize US debt issuance from the Treasury until the dollar finally loses its reserve currency status.”
We were right about the first part. Now we just have to wait for the second.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 22:10 - Believe All Women, Right? Biden Accused Of Sexual Assault
Believe All Women, Right? Biden Accused Of Sexual Assault
Joe Biden has been ‘credibly’ accused of sexual assault – and in a world where Democrats set the rules for these types of claims, she must be believed.
Biden with visibly uncomfortable girl (not accuser) The woman, Tara Reade, accused Biden last year of inappropriate behavior when she worked in his Senate office in 1993. Now (well actually, last April), Reade says Biden touched her inappropriately when she was in her mid-20s.
“My life was hell,” said Reade. “This was about power and control. I couldn’t get a job on the Hill.”
Now, She’s given a graphic podcast interview with Rolling Stone’s Katie Halper where she tells her full story.
Reade describes a graphic incident from 1993 in which as superior asked her to run a gym bag to Biden “down towards the capital.” When Biden greeted her (not allegedly of course, since we’re believing all women), he forced her up against a wall and shoved his hands up her skirt.
Biden’s “hands were on me and underneath my clothes,” she said, after he “had me up against the wall.”
“I remember him saying first, like as he was doing it, ‘Do you want to go somewhere else,'” she said, adding “And then him saying to me when I pulled away, he got finished doing what he was doing, and I kind of just pulled back and he said, ‘Come on man, I heard you liked me.’ And that phrase stayed with me because I kept thinking what I might’ve said and I can’t remember exactly if he said ‘i thought’ or ‘I heard’ but he implied that I had done this.”
Reade then went on to say that “everything shattered in that moment” because she knew that there were no witnesses and she looked up to him. “He was like my father’s age,” she said. “He was like this champion of women’s rights in my eyes and I couldn’t believe it was happening. It seemed surreal.”
Reade then said Biden grabbed her by the shoulders and said, “You’re okay. You’re fine” and proceeded to walk away.
Reade said that Biden also told her something after the alleged assault that she initially didn’t want to share because “it’s the thing that stays in my head over and over.” But after some pressing from Halper, Reade decided to share:
“He took his finger. He just like pointed at me and said you’re nothing to me.”
Halper said she spoke with Reade’s brother and close friend, and both of them recall Reade telling them about the alleged assault at the time. –NewsOne
This is a story that @ReadeAlexandra has been trying to tell since it happened in 1993. It’s a story about sexual assault, retaliation and silencing. #meToo https://t.co/yHz3iFi9a5
— Katie Halper (@kthalps) March 25, 2020
Reade says that after she revealed some of Biden’s inappropriate behavior, she was accused of doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin, according to The Intercept.
Probably nothing, right?
— DrJanesDC™️ 4️⃣5️⃣ (@DrJaneRuby) April 1, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 21:53 - The Grasshoppers Are Swarming Mad That You Are Prepared For The Crash
The Grasshoppers Are Swarming Mad That You Are Prepared For The Crash
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
Most people are familiar with the tale of the Ant And The Grasshopper, an ancient fable about a grasshopper who spends the fruitful months of spring and summer in idle recreation, dancing and playing carelessly while the industrious ant works tirelessly to prepare for what he knows will be a harsh winter. In many versions the Grasshopper harasses the Ant, criticizing him for wasting so much time on work when he could be out enjoying himself in the sun.
Eventually, winter does arrive and it is as brutal as the Ant had predicted. Not surprisingly, the carefree Grasshopper finds himself cold and starving with no supplies, begging the Ant to share the bounty he had worked so hard to procure over the summer. The Ant refuses, telling the Grasshopper he can “dance the winter away, now….”
What many people do not know is that there is also a decidedly more socialist version of The Ant And The Grasshopper written by a French poet named Jean de La Fontaine in which the Ant is portrayed as the bad guy, and his industry as “mean spirited”. And here in this little fable we have represented one of the greatest conflicts of our modern era:
Should the people that refuse to work and prepare be bailed out and saved from their laziness and foolishness? Or should they be allowed to suffer for their mistakes? And if they are bailed out, should they be bailed out by the very people they used to mock for working so hard; the people they used to mock for seeing the danger ahead?
Now, in the versions I read as a child the ant did not just work diligently while ignoring the grasshopper; he consistently tried to warn the grasshopper that winter was coming, but the grasshopper was incredulous. And, I have to say if we apply this fable as an allegory to our current situation in the middle of a pandemic and economic collapse the ants (preppers) have been LOUDLY pleading with the grasshoppers to stock supplies because a crisis event on a national and global scale was inevitable.
Our industry has hardly been mean spirited; we gave other people every chance to see the danger and prepare. We tried to save them. We went above and beyond. Yet, some grasshoppers out there now claim that this is not enough. They want a sacrifice…
Over the past couple weeks we have seen an avalanche of articles which label people stocking supplies as “hoarders”, not to mention a number of bizarre arguments by economists on why stockpiling goods is “bad for the economy”. Even Donald Trump has been telling Americans to “stop hoarding supplies” and to have faith that food will still be in the stores weeks from now. Preppers are being accused as the main culprits behind the rush.
I would point out that the vast majority of people that are suddenly rushing to stores to load up on goods during the crisis are NOT really preppers. Preppers were already equipped for this event months or years in advance. Preppers were buying their their extra supplies two or three months ago when they first heard about the virus threat. We all knew what this meant not just for public health, but the economy overall.
The current narrative is essentially lumping together all the people who have stockpiled goods meticulously over years in with people who raced to Costco a few days ago to buy all the toilet paper, and I think this is a deliberate misrepresentation.
Hoarder is a negative word used to describe people who were smart enough to prepare ahead of time by people who were not smart enough to prepare ahead of time.
I would also point out that gun stores, dealing with a massive influx of new firearms owners purchasing whatever they can find as the situation becomes more grim, are also reporting that the majority of these people are Democrats and leftists that were previously “anti-gun”. Many of these people have never even fired a gun in their lives. This is not to say that all preppers are conservative and all the panic buyers are leftists, but I think the evidence suggests that there are far more on the left that are unprepared, and this is where we start to run into problems.
I don’t condemn people who raced out to buy supplies the past week, I’m glad they did because that buys the country a little more time before the REAL panic starts. However, we need to be practical and accept that many of these folks are inexperienced in preparedness and think that buying an extra cartload of food is going to save them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this phrase from people in the past couple days:
“We have more than enough supplies until the lockdown is over in two weeks…”
This is a serious disconnect from reality. It shows that these people are hyperfocused on the virus alone, they actually believe the rumors that the virus will be gone as spring floats in and they are completely oblivious to the economic collapse that is happening while the pandemic is developing. They really do think this will all be over before their meager supply of goods from Costco runs out.
These are the people I feel bad for, because at least they were trying. These are not the grasshoppers, they have simply been misled.
Trump’s latest announcement that he hopes to have lockdowns lifted and the economy up and running “by Easter” is just one in a long line of false hope headlines in the mainstream; and people desperately want to believe it. After only a week of restrictions in some states and two weeks of rushes on the grocery stores, many in the public are already on edge about their situation. This is because many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with almost no safety net, and those that do have a safety net are secure for two or three weeks at most. They are looking down a long dark train tunnel and they can hear a whistle in the distance.
The demands for America to “go back to work” are going to boil over in the next couple of weeks, and this is completely understandable. However, it’s not going to happen.
With the US about two weeks behind Europe, the pandemic is only getting started here. The spike in confirmed cases is due to massive increase in testing, but the deaths will accelerate as the infection settles in and takes its toll over the course of the next month. I see little chance that the contagion will burn out in April. But if the elites want to reassert the “need for lockdowns”, they might lift them for a time, only to create a resurgence of new cases and then bring back restrictions with even more force than before.
This is how all major crisis events tend to be handled by governments in history – the populace is told that the danger will pass in weeks and to hunker down until then. After a couple of weeks, the government announces again that we are almost there, just a couple more weeks. In the meantime, martial law-like measures and assets are being moved into place incrementally, because the authorities never intended to lift restrictions at all. Governments seek to keep people passive until they are positioned to more effectively control them. Once they are, the mask comes off and all the empty reassurances disappear.
This would also build up the hopes of the public only to abruptly dash them against the rocks, and when people realize this event is going to continue for months to come, THAT is when they will truly lose their composure. At this stage, there are those who will be desperate and will seek aid from government, then there will be those that become enraged and demand that supplies be taken from other people they don’t like in order to fill their own bellies.
The grasshoppers are people that not only attacked preppers as “doom mongers” for years, not only refused to stock their own supplies during the coronavirus event, but they are also the same people that now are taking to social media to throw salt at preppers (ants) who now say “We told you so…”, and the grasshoppers want to make the ants pay by demanding their supplies be taken and redistributed.
How dare we call out the grasshoppers for their imprudence and their hypocrisy, right?
Does it help to say “I told you so”? Absolutely. Shaming people for making stupid decisions and for putting themselves and others at risk because of their stupid decisions is a hallmark of human survival that has been discouraged by the mainstream in the past decade. It needs to make a comeback.
The socialist grasshopper narrative is starting to pop up everywhere on the web these days, though I think it will not gain steam for another month when people finally realize the crisis is not going to be over anytime soon. The ants will be accused of being the bad guys, but we always knew this was a possibility, and we have prepared for that as well.
Here’s the issue; our labor is one of the few things we truly own from birth, and according to the constitution we are supposed to own it outright. If you plan to steal or “redistribute” the labor of others, then you are making them into slaves. You are using their work to support people who did not earn it and often times don’t deserve it.
And yes, I realize that this kind of exploitation of the productive class is going on today, and that is something that needs to be undone, but what I am talking about is full blown confiscation and redistribution. People think things are bad now? They haven’t seen anything yet.
If grasshoppers want to maintain the moral high ground, then they can appeal to prepared people and their sense of charity, which I myself have done on occasion. I do not think that preppers should turn away every single person in need of help, but it has to be THEIR CHOICE, not an imperative forced at gunpoint. If they refuse then that is their decision and it does not make them a villain. They are merely reaping the benefits of their own struggles, their own blood, sweat and tears.
The grasshoppers do not care about any of this, though. They feel they are entitled to a livelihood and to comfort even if they did not work for it, and they are happy to take it from others if they can, or even better, they are happy for the government to steal for them.
Mark my words, give it a month or two and these people are going to start swarming in droves like locusts. They are vicious narcissists, their pride has been damaged and they are out to prove that even though preppers were right, we are still wrong because now we are going to be forced to feed the same grasshoppers that used to tell us our prepping was pointless. That will teach us!
Of course, I don’t think they comprehend the measure of response from the ants. Many of us plan to fight back, and frankly we do not care who our opponent is or how well equipped they are. If you come to pirate our livelihood and labor and claim it as your property, then we plan to take as many grasshoppers down as possible in the process.
My suggestion to the grasshoppers? Learn how to plant and farm quick, because you are not going to get anything from us for free, and trying will only start a war. Maybe, if you ask nicely, we’ll even teach you how to provide for yourselves.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 21:50 - Food-Security Fears Spark Panic-Hoarding, Could Drive Inflation Sky-High
Food-Security Fears Spark Panic-Hoarding, Could Drive Inflation Sky-High
A senior economist from the United Nation’s (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told Reuters that food inflation could be imminent as people and governments panic hoard food and supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“All you need is panic buying from big importers such as millers or governments to create a crisis,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at FAO.
“It is not a supply issue, but it is a behavioral change over food security,” Abbassian said. “What if bulk buyers think they can’t get wheat or rice shipments in May or June? That is what could lead to a global food supply crisis.”
Consumers from Asia to Europe to the Americas have been panic hoarding food at supermarkets as governments enforce strict social distancing measures to flatten pandemic curves to slowdown infections.
Grain futures are green on Monday morning, have caught a bid in the last several sessions, led by soybean, oats, and wheat. Investors are starting to pile into grains as the demand for food staples (especially bread, flour, pasta, and crackers) has been elevated.
France’s grain industry has seen surging demand and struggles to find enough truck operators and staff to keep factories running as panic buying of flour and pasta has led to an increase in wheat exports.
European countries have enforced strict measures at their boarders amid the virus crisis that is devastating Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the UK. This has led to food supply disruption across several European countries.
Inflationary pressures could be nearing for food prices as the stockpiling continues. Combine this with a crashing global economy and high unemployment, and maybe stagflation is ahead.
Here’s what Daniel Lacalle, chief economist at the wealth management firm Tressis Gestion, recently said about the threat of stagflation:
“It is very likely that the shutdown of major developed economies will be followed by a shutdown of emerging markets, creating a supply shock as we have not seen in decades. Taking massive inflationary and demand-driven measures in a supply shock is not only a mistake, it is the recipe for stagflation and guarantees a multi-year negative impact generated by rising debt, weakening productivity, rising inflation in nonreplicable goods while deflation creeps into official headlines, and economic stagnation.”
Could surging food prices, a crashing global economy, and high unemployment be the catalysts for what unleashes riots across the Western world?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 21:30 - 12 Experts Question The COVID-19 Panic
12 Experts Question The COVID-19 Panic
Below is our list of twelve medical experts whose opinions on the Coronavirus outbreak contradict the official narratives of the MSM, and the memes so prevalent on social media.
* * *
Dr Sucharit Bhakdi is a specialist in microbiology. He was a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and head of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene and one of the most cited research scientists in German history.
What he says:
We are afraid that 1 million infections with the new virus will lead to 30 deaths per day over the next 100 days. But we do not realise that 20, 30, 40 or 100 patients positive for normal coronaviruses are already dying every day.
[The government’s anti-COVID19 measures] are grotesque, absurd and very dangerous […] The life expectancy of millions is being shortened. The horrifying impact on the world economy threatens the existence of countless people. The consequences on medical care are profound. Already services to patients in need are reduced, operations cancelled, practices empty, hospital personnel dwindling. All this will impact profoundly on our whole society.
All these measures are leading to self-destruction and collective suicide based on nothing but a spook.
* * *
Dr Wolfgang Wodarg is a German physician specialising in Pulmonology, politician and former chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In 2009 he called for an inquiry into alleged conflicts of interest surrounding the EU response to the Swine Flu pandemic.
What he says:
Politicians are being courted by scientists…scientists who want to be important to get money for their institutions. Scientists who just swim along in the mainstream and want their part of it […] And what is missing right now is a rational way of looking at things.
We should be asking questions like “How did you find out this virus was dangerous?”, “How was it before?”, “Didn’t we have the same thing last year?”, “Is it even something new?”
That’s missing.
* * *
Dr Joel Kettner s professor of Community Health Sciences and Surgery at Manitoba University, former Chief Public Health Officer for Manitoba province and Medical Director of the International Centre for Infectious Diseases.
What he says:
I have never seen anything like this, anything anywhere near like this. I’m not talking about the pandemic, because I’ve seen 30 of them, one every year. It is called influenza. And other respiratory illness viruses, we don’t always know what they are. But I’ve never seen this reaction, and I’m trying to understand why.
[…]
I worry about the message to the public, about the fear of coming into contact with people, being in the same space as people, shaking their hands, having meetings with people. I worry about many, many consequences related to that.
[…]
In Hubei, in the province of Hubei, where there has been the most cases and deaths by far, the actual number of cases reported is 1 per 1000 people and the actual rate of deaths reported is 1 per 20,000. So maybe that would help to put things into perspective.
* * *
Dr John Ioannidis Professor of Medicine, of Health Research and Policy and of Biomedical Data Science, at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Professor of Statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences. He is director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS).
He is also the editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation. He was chairman at the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine as well as adjunct professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.
As a physician, scientist and author he has made contributions to evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, data science and clinical research. In addition, he pioneered the field of meta-research. He has shown that much of the published research does not meet good scientific standards of evidence.
What he says:
Patients who have been tested for SARS-CoV-2 are disproportionately those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes. As most health systems have limited testing capacity, selection bias may even worsen in the near future.
The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.
[…]
Could the Covid-19 case fatality rate be that low? No, some say, pointing to the high rate in elderly people. However, even some so-called mild or common-cold-type coronaviruses that have been known for decades can have case fatality rates as high as 8% when they infect elderly people in nursing homes.
[…]
If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to “influenza-like illness” would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average.
– “A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data”, Stat News, 17th March 2020
* * *
Dr Yoram Lass is an Israeli physician, politician and former Director General of the Health Ministry. He also worked as Associate Dean of the Tel Aviv University Medical School and during the 1980s presented the science-based television show Tatzpit.
What he says:
Italy is known for its enormous morbidity in respiratory problems, more than three times any other European country. In the US about 40,000 people die in a regular flu season and so far 40-50 people have died of the coronavirus, most of them in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington.
[…]
In every country, more people die from regular flu compared with those who die from the coronavirus.
[…]
…there is a very good example that we all forget: the swine flu in 2009. That was a virus that reached the world from Mexico and until today there is no vaccination against it. But what? At that time there was no Facebook or there maybe was but it was still in its infancy. The coronavirus, in contrast, is a virus with public relations.
Whoever thinks that governments end viruses is wrong.
– Interview in Globes, March 22nd 2020
* * *
Dr Pietro Vernazza is a Swiss physician specialising Infectious Diseases at the Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen and Professor of Health Policy.
What he says:
We have reliable figures from Italy and a work by epidemiologists, which has been published in the renowned science journal ‹Science›, which examined the spread in China. This makes it clear that around 85 percent of all infections have occurred without anyone noticing the infection. 90 percent of the deceased patients are verifiably over 70 years old, 50 percent over 80 years.
[…]
In Italy, one in ten people diagnosed die, according to the findings of the Science publication, that is statistically one of every 1,000 people infected. Each individual case is tragic, but often – similar to the flu season – it affects people who are at the end of their lives.
[…]
If we close the schools, we will prevent the children from quickly becoming immune.
[…]
We should better integrate the scientific facts into the political decisions.
– Interview in St. Galler Tagblatt, 22nd March 2020
* * *
Frank Ulrich Montgomery is German radiologist, former President of the German Medical Association and Deputy Chairman of the World Medical Association.
What he says:
I’m not a fan of lockdown. Anyone who imposes something like this must also say when and how to pick it up again. Since we have to assume that the virus will be with us for a long time, I wonder when we will return to normal? You can’t keep schools and daycare centers closed until the end of the year. Because it will take at least that long until we have a vaccine. Italy has imposed a lockdown and has the opposite effect. They quickly reached their capacity limits, but did not slow down the virus spread within the lockdown.
– Interview in General Anzeiger, 18th March 2020
* * *
Prof. Hendrik Streeck is a German HIV researcher, epidemiologist and clinical trialist. He is professor of virology, and the director of the Institute of Virology and HIV Research, at Bonn University.
What he says:
The new pathogen is not that dangerous, it is even less dangerous than Sars-1. The special thing is that Sars-CoV-2 replicates in the upper throat area and is therefore much more infectious because the virus jumps from throat to throat, so to speak. But that is also an advantage: Because Sars-1 replicates in the deep lungs, it is not so infectious, but it definitely gets on the lungs, which makes it more dangerous.
[…]
You also have to take into account that the Sars-CoV-2 deaths in Germany were exclusively old people. In Heinsberg, for example, a 78-year-old man with previous illnesses died of heart failure, and that without Sars-2 lung involvement. Since he was infected, he naturally appears in the Covid 19 statistics. But the question is whether he would not have died anyway, even without Sars-2.
– Interview in Frankfurter Allgemeine, 16th March 2020
* * *
Dr Yanis Roussel et. al. – A team of researchers from the Institut Hospitalo-universitaire Méditerranée Infection, Marseille and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille, conducting a peer-reviewed study on Coronavirus mortality for the government of France under the ‘Investments for the Future’ programme.
What they say:
The problem of SARS-CoV-2 is probably overestimated, as 2.6 million people die of respiratory infections each year compared with less than 4000 deaths for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of writing.
[…]
This study compared the mortality rate of SARS-CoV-2 in OECD countries (1.3%) with the mortality rate of common coronaviruses identified in AP-HM patients (0.8%) from 1 January 2013 to 2 March 2020. Chi-squared test was performed, and the P-value was 0.11 (not significant).
[…]
…it should be noted that systematic studies of other coronaviruses (but not yet for SARS-CoV-2) have found that the percentage of asymptomatic carriers is equal to or even higher than the percentage of symptomatic patients. The same data for SARS-CoV-2 may soon be available, which will further reduce the relative risk associated with this specific pathology.
– “SARS-CoV-2: fear versus data”, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 19th March 2020
* * *
Dr. David Katz is an American physician and founding director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center
What he says:
I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near-total meltdown of normal life — schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned — will be long-lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself. The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order.
– “Is Our Fight Against Coronavirus Worse Than the Disease?”, New York Times 20th March 2020
* * *
Michael T. Osterholm is regents professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
What he says:
Consider the effect of shutting down offices, schools, transportation systems, restaurants, hotels, stores, theaters, concert halls, sporting events and other venues indefinitely and leaving all of their workers unemployed and on the public dole. The likely result would be not just a depression but a complete economic breakdown, with countless permanently lost jobs, long before a vaccine is ready or natural immunity takes hold.
[…]
[T]he best alternative will probably entail letting those at low risk for serious disease continue to work, keep business and manufacturing operating, and “run” society, while at the same time advising higher-risk individuals to protect themselves through physical distancing and ramping up our health-care capacity as aggressively as possible. With this battle plan, we could gradually build up immunity without destroying the financial structure on which our lives are based.
– “Facing covid-19 reality: A national lockdown is no cure”, Washington Post 21st March 2020
* * *
Dr Peter Goetzsche is Professor of Clinical Research Design and Analysis at the University of Copenhagen and founder of the Cochrane Medical Collaboration. He has written several books on corruption in the field of medicine and the power of big pharmaceutical companies.
What he says:
Our main problem is that no one will ever get in trouble for measures that are too draconian. They will only get in trouble if they do too little. So, our politicians and those working with public health do much more than they should do.
No such draconian measures were applied during the 2009 influenza pandemic, and they obviously cannot be applied every winter, which is all year round, as it is always winter somewhere. We cannot close down the whole world permanently.
Should it turn out that the epidemic wanes before long, there will be a queue of people wanting to take credit for this. And we can be damned sure draconian measures will be applied again next time. But remember the joke about tigers. “Why do you blow the horn?” “To keep the tigers away.” “But there are no tigers here.” “There you see!”
– “Corona: an epidemic of mass panic”, blog post on Deadly Medicines 21st March 2020
* * *
As always, this list have been impossible to build without Swiss Propaganda Research. Follow their work and share widely. An indispensable resource.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 21:10 - 200 NYPD Officers Test Positive For COVID-19 As NYC Cements Its Position As 'Epicenter' Of US Outbreak: Live Updates
200 NYPD Officers Test Positive For COVID-19 As NYC Cements Its Position As ‘Epicenter’ Of US Outbreak: Live Updates
Summary:
- Prince Charles tests positive for coronavirus
- House delays stimulus-bill vote until tomorrow
- Singapore, Tokyo report largest daily jump in new cases
- 236 NYPD Officers test positive
- Lombardy cases report another decline
- Italy reports broader decline in cases
- Global total ~438k, 19,600 deaths
- Spain deaths pass mainland China total
- 1/3 of global population facing movement restriction
- Spain asks NATO for assistance
- Trump’s approval rating matches personal best
- Apple donates millions of masks
- NYC case total nears 18k
- Spanish deputy PM tests positive
- France confirms another jump in cases, deaths as police issue 100,000 fines
- Deal struck on $2 trillion US rescue bill
- Thailand latest to announce lockdown
- Treasury to grant more tariff exclusions pertaining to medical products
- Germany, Japan scramble to pass their own rescue legislation
- US case total ~55k, death toll ~750
- Indian governor defies lockdown
- Pakistan PM facing “increased pressure” to impose lockdown
- Switzerland tightens borders
- ECB says it’s in favor of activating OMT if necessary
- Putin tells Russians to stay home
- Bank of Spain warns about economic fallout
- Maryland requests disaster declaration after Trump declares La. “major disaster”
- Taiwan announces 19 new cases
- WHO expresses concerns about US outbreak
- 3 Navy sailors test positive
- Britain’s NHS recruits more than 150k volunteers overnight
- UK shuts Parliament Wednesday night
- Mali becomes 44th African country to confirm COVID-19
* * *
Update (1940ET): The Treasury is preparing to issue more tariff exclusions pertaining to Chinese-made medical products, though some have pointed out that some exclusions seemingly granted as part of the initiative include consumer tech products.
- USTR TO GRANT TARIFF EXCLUSIONS ON MORE CHINA MEDICAL PRODUCTS
Some pointed out earlier that a batch of exclusions approved by the Treasury seemed “mostly non-medical”, including one related to the Apple Watch.
USTR Released status on request for exclusion from section 301 tariff “Wrist-wearable communications devices, bluetooth tracking devices, wireless mesh network speakers, wireless mesh network audio components, batteries, components, etc…”GRANTED” https://t.co/oRuJ9XXQ5q
— Stephanie Battista (@StephieBattista) March 25, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
* * *
Update (1840ET): There are 236 employees of the NYPD who have tested positive for COVID-19, according to numbers provided by the department. Of those, 197 are officers and 39 are civilians.
Meanwhile, during another rambling press conference, President Trump again insisted that large swaths of the country could probably go “back to normal” during the coming days even as health officials and governors warn that doing so could lead to thousands more deaths. Trump also tussled with reporters on Wednesday, with Trump claiming in a roundabout way that the economic crisis at hand was engineered by the media, before insisting that the US has “run more tests than anybody”, a statement that is flagrantly false, though the US has caught up with remarkable speed.
Not that it matters: As is typical during a national crisis, Trump’s popularity has climbed, with Gallup finding that Trump’s popularity has climbed to 49% approval, matching his personal best.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said there are now 198 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state with 35 new cases. There were fewer new cases added Wednesday than Tuesday, he added.
As NYC’s outbreak crisis shifts to Queens, Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed that Elmhurst hospital has seen at least 13 deaths. At least 285 New Yorkers have died from the outbreak so far.
The number of confirmed cases in NYC, now officially the epicenter of the outbreak, as Trump said on Wednesday, reached 17,856 Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced. This represents 54% of the cases in New York state and 32% of all cases in the country
“[It] does not apply to anything we’re seeing in New York City,” de Blasio said about Trump’s goal to restart the country by Easter, which Trump clarified on Wednesday wouldn’t apply to NYC, but to areas with far fewer confirmed cases.
In other news, Apple has sourced 10 million masks to donate to US, as well as millions more for the “hardest hit parts of Europe.”
Proud to share we’ve been able to source 10M masks for the US and millions more for the hardest hit regions in Europe. Our ops teams are helping to find and purchase masks from our supply chain in coordination with governments around the world. pic.twitter.com/uTsA6eA5ks
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) March 25, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
On a more somber note, celebrity chef Floyd Cardoz died on Wednesday after testing positive for COVID-19 a week ago, according to a spokesperson for Hunger Inc. Hospitality, the hospitality company he co-founded.
* * *
Update (1800ET): The White House has just kicked off Wednesday’s press conference…notably with Dr. Fauci in tow.
* * *
Update (1635ET): Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut and Governor Phil Murphy have just released new numbers for their respective states.
New Tri-state #Covid19 numbers. pic.twitter.com/Dh2y0X9DEL
— Ken Buffa (@KenBuffa) March 25, 2020
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The total number of deaths in the tri-state area has now climbed to 366.
*. *. *
Update (1420ET): AFP reports that, by its count, the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 has climbed above 20,000.
Shortly after reaching this grim milestone, France added even more cases to the register by confirming 2,931 new cases and 231 new deaths, bringing its total to 25,233 nationwide, with 1,331 deaths.
Meanwhile, as Trump and Bolsonaro push to consider the economic repercussions, the WHO warned against lifting the lockdowns too early as the pandemic intensifies.
“To slow the spread of COVID-19, many countries have introduced unprecedented measures, at significant social and economic cost,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.
“We understand that these countries are now trying to assess when and how they will be able to ease these measures,” he said. “The last thing any country needs is to open schools and businesses, only to be forced to close them again because of a resurgence.”
“How many more [lives are lost] will be determined by the decisions we make and the actions we take.”
of course, since WHO followed up this shade by directly praising President Trump for his “real leadership”, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has reportedly been sidelined by the president for disloyalty (according to the Washington press corp rumor mill).
Local French TV celebrated the ‘essential’ workers who are braving the conditions to keep people fed. France24 reports that while the French public has been ordered to stay home amid the worsening coronavirus pandemic, the vast majority of supermarket cashiers, most of them women on small salaries, have continued to man the registers even as the duty puts their health at risk.
* * *
Update (1330ET): As Thailand declares a state of emergency, becoming the latest country to enter a broad lockdown because of the coronavirus outbreak, the nation’s borders will be closed to foreign visitors, social gatherings will be banned, domestic travel restricted and all but essential stores and shops will be shut until the end of April, Bloomberg reports.
“Thailand is at a turning point in the outbreak and the situation could get a lot worse,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said in a televised speech in Bangkok. “It’s important that we impose stricter rules to reduce the spread.”
Describing the “unprecedented” challenge ahead, Prayuth said the state of emergency could be extended if needed. He also noted that the central bank had earlier forecast the economic damage by predicting a 5.3% contraction for 2020.
As Americans blast President Trump for suddenly pushing to send Americans back to work by Easter, Brazilian President Bolsonaro took things a step further by claiming that the nation must stand up to the virus by going back to work immediately, adding that because of his “athletic” history, he would likely only suffer a slight cold because of the virus.
As Brazil’s largest city went into lockdown on Tuesday, Bolsonaro slammed the “hysteria” over the coronavirus and urged that life must continue and jobs be preserved.
In an address to the nation, Bolsonaro urged mayors and state governors to roll back lockdown measures that have brought Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to near standstills.
“We must return to normality,” he said. “The few states and city halls should abandon their scorched-earth policies.”
Bolsonaro has faced criticism for his cavalier attitude toward the virus, which he has dismissed as a “fantasy” and a “small flu” even as the global death toll climbs into the tens of thousands.
In his Tuesday night address, he said that Brazil’s warmer climate would protect it from a severe outbreak on par with Italy’s.
“In my particular case, with my history as an athlete, if I were infected with the virus, I would have no reason to worry, I would feel nothing, or it would be at most just a little flu,” he said.
In other news, in the US, several Republican Senators are throwing up a roadblock, claiming the coronavirus relief package includes unintentional incentives for employees to be laid off instead of going to work, a “massive drafting error” that needs to be fixed, Republican Sens. Tim Scott, Ben Sasse, and Lindsey Graham said in joint statement.
* * *
Update (1310ET): Italy has reported another drop in cases nationally to match the drop in cases locally.
- ITALY DEATH TOLL FROM CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK RISES BY 683 TO 7,503 – CIVIL PROTECTION AGENCY
- TOTAL NUMBER OF CONFIRMED CASES OF CORONAVIRUS IN ITALY RISES TO 74,386 FROM 69,176 ON TUESDAY
So Italy’s total new cases 5,210, down from 5,249 yesterday. Italy total deaths 683, down from 743 yesterday.
* * *
Update (1227ET): According to CNBC’s Kayla Tausche, the Republicans caved and agreed to a ‘no buybacks or dividends’ provision.
Per text circulated among lawmakers before a call with Sec. Mnuchin, a company that takes a government loan cannot buy back its stock until 1yr after the loan is paid back –> pic.twitter.com/VspnHpbEya
— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) March 25, 2020
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AND: While the loan is outstanding? No dividends. pic.twitter.com/Ru9b1YjxQV
— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) March 25, 2020
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And a Politico reporter just reported that the administration has denied rumors about possible tariff relief due to the outbreak as the US seeks to import more critical medical equipment and medicine from China.
* * *
Update (1220ET): The ECB said Wednesday that it’s “broadly in favor” of activating its OMT program – aka even more asset purchases – if necessary, as the eurogroup and the European Commission promise to do whatever is necessary to save the European economy.
As a reminder:
List of Central Banks buying assets (inc FX):
🇺🇸 Fed
🇪🇺 ECB
🇬🇧 BoE
🇯🇵 BoJ
🇨🇭 SNB
🇦🇺 RBA
🇳🇿 RBNZ
🇸🇪 Riksbank
🇰🇷 BoK
🇹🇭 BoT
🇵🇭 BSP
🇵🇱 NBP
🇷🇴 NBR
🇪🇬 CBE
🇿🇦 SARBComing soon:
🇨🇦 BoC
🇳🇴 Norges
🇭🇺 NBH
🇨🇿 CNBQE is the New Normal
— Viraj Patel (@VPatelFX) March 25, 2020
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In other news, Spanish Deputy PM Carmen Calvo has tested positive for the virus in other news.
* * *
Update (1205ET): Hours after President Trump approved Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edward’s urgent request for a “major disaster declaration” in his state, granting it more access to federal aid, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has followed up with a similar request asking for aid from Maryland.
The request for more federal money comes as Maryland State Superintendent Dr. Karen Salmon extended the closure of public schools until at least April 24, though few expect students to return before the summer break.
“Based on what we have documented so far, it appears that the virus has a harder time spreading between people in warmer climates,” Uni of Maryland Institute of Virology prof.https://t.co/4575126o9T pic.twitter.com/2z5FicSxL6
— Kabir Taneja (@KabirTaneja) March 25, 2020
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Hogan delivered his latest update on the situation earlier:
LIVE: COVID-19 Update – March 25, 2020https://t.co/8cenrBZ1PG
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) March 25, 2020
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* * *
Update (1145ET): Cuomo has dedicated most of Wednesday’s press conference to slamming the federal government – both the White House and Capitol Hill – for not doing enough to help his state.
Cuomo said that he is short on equipment and cash by massive margins, particularly if cases continue to outpace the worst-case projections. Cuomo said the state will have an estimated 40,000 ICU cases, but has only 3,000 ICU beds. As far as ventilators are concerned, the federal government has offered 4k, but Cuomo believes he needs 30k to be completely prepared.
Though the pace of the outbreak has slowed thanks to early containment measures in Westchester and Long Island, as well as the city, many are anxious that New Yorkers leaving the state might carry the virus with them.
“We have 10x the problem that the next state has, which is New Jersey,” Cuomo said. In his opinion, the reason NY has 15x the number of cases of California, has two answers.
The first is that New York ‘welcomes people from across the globe’. New York City is a global city, international travelers visit the state at higher rates, and the virus was likely in New York “much earlier than we even know…and much earlier than any other state…because those people come here first.”
The second answer: “Because we are close.” “We talk about the virus and how it transfers in a dense area…we live close to one another, we’re close to one another on the street…because we’re close to one another on the bus, or in the restaurant…and we have one of the most dense, close, environments in the country. And that’s why the virus communicated the way it did. Our closeness makes us vulnerable,” Cuomo said.
New York reported 30,811 cases as of Wednesday, that’s +5,146 from Tuesday. In New York City, officials counted 17,856 cases, an increase of 2,952.
* * *
Update (1130ET): Lombardy reported another drop in new cases on Wednesday, according to local health officials.
LOMBARDY NEW VIRUS CASES SHOW DECLINE VS TUES: SOURCE
— north hero fx (@northherofx) March 25, 2020
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The region saw declines in both new cases (dropping from 1,942 to 1,643) and new deaths (from 400 to 296).
* * *
Update (1120ET): After a clip of him begging the federal government to release more ventilators from its stockpile to New York State, promising to ‘personally deliver’ the ventilators to the next state once the apex of New York’s outbreak had passed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is preparing to hold his Wednesday news conference:
Holding a briefing with updates on #Coronavirus. WATCH LIVE: https://t.co/Z3IdQirL3Y
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) March 25, 2020
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So far, Cuomo said the number of New Yorkers hospitalized with serious respiratory illnesses due to COVID-19 is outpacing projections, which is…not good.
- N.Y.’S CUOMO: NEED FOR HOSPITALIZATIONS EXCEED PROJECTIONS
- N.Y. GOV. CUOMO: ‘HAVE NOT TURNED’ TRAJECTORY, HIT APEX
Meanwhile, the US case total is right around 55k (just above or just below, depending on whose data one uses), and the death toll is right around 750 (once again, either slightly above or below).
* * *
Update (1117ET): Though it’s widely expected and a mere formality at this point, German lawmakers said Wednesday that they’re ready to suspend the constitutional ‘debt brake’ before blowing out the budget deficit with a massive stimulus package to be introduced before the eurogroup during tomorrow’s meeting.
* * *
Update (1040ET): After the Senate departed on a “well-deserved break”, the House gaveled out a quick session on Wednesday without passing the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, suggesting that the vote on the bill won’t come until tomorrow.
A Democratic leadership aide told CNN that the House still has emergency convening authority and can quickly come back into session today, but that it’s “more likely” the House vote would wait until tomorrow.
Meanwhile, by CNN’s count, 1/3 of the global population is under lockdown as of Wednesday morning, largely thanks to India’s decision to bolt the country closed.
Across, India, officials laid out the strictures of the new lockdown: Essential services like ATMs, gas stations, grocery stores and pharmacies would remain open, though a strict requirement for all ‘nonessential’ workers to remain home with one or two exceptions per day has made India’s lockdown among the most strict.
The issue is the pockets of extreme population density in India’s slums, which would be ideal breeding grounds for the virus if it were ever to take hold.
As the outbreak worsens in Spain, which is just behind the US now in terms of confirmed cases, while its death toll has already surpassed the ‘official’ numbers from mainland China, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez has reportedly asked NATO for help.
France, meanwhile, has been under lockdown for a week, and has also been ramping up enforcement with increasing numbers of fines: the country has handed down more than 100k fines already.
Now who’s holding the country hostage?
Nancy Pelosi is *actually* doing what the media and Democrats accoused McConnell of doing last week. Note the sudden lack of outrage. https://t.co/M6OrVgbDqv
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 25, 2020
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* * *
Update (1000ET): The global case total has climbed to around 438,000, with roughly 19,600 deaths.
The president of an interest group representing French hospitals said the number of individuals who have died due to the outbreak in France is “much higher” than official figures reflect.
“We only know the data provided by hospitals… The increase in the official data is already major, but the absolute numbers would no doubt be effectively much higher if we aggregated what is happening in retirement homes as well as the people who die at home,” Frederic Valletoux, president of the French hospitals federation, said on France Info radio.
Over in Singapore, the city-state situated on the tip of peninsular Malaysia that has been widely celebrated for its efforts to contain the virus early, has just confirmed another 73 cases on Wednesday, its largest daily jump yet. Among other steps, Singapore closed its borders to most foreigners back in January.
Still, most of the cases are imported, as officials blame the decision to lift some restrictions on travelers for the resurgence in new cases. The new figures bring the number of confirmed cases to 631. Among these new cases, 38 are imported. Out of the 35 local cases, 27 are linked to previous cases, while 8 are unrelated, according to Yahoo News Singapore.
Even Iran is worried about a second wave, as the first wave of infections, which Iranians helped spread all around the region, hammered the country.
The Swiss government said Wednesday it would expand its border controls to include all countries in the EU’s Schengen open border zone. The move comes after Switzerland last week introduced controls at its borders with Italy, France, Germany, Austria and Spain and all countries not in the Schengen zone.
“Since midnight, the tightened entry requirements have also been applied to flights from all remaining Schengen states with the exception of the Principality of Liechtenstein,” the government said in a statement.
The Schengen area is a 26-country passport-free zone.
As more countries unfurl lockdown orders around the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on all residents to stay home next week, while announcing that a vote on constitutional reforms that had been set to take place on April 22 would be postponed.
While President Trump presses Americans to get back to work by Easter, Putin tells Russians “health, life and safety of the people is an absolute priority for us,” as Russian authorities count 658 total confirmed cases of the virus on Wednesday, with 163 of them new cases reported within the last day. Putin addressed Russians directly in a speech on Wednesday.
In Pakistan, the government of Pakistani PM Imran Khan has been criticized for not declaring a national lockdown – Khan has argued it would harm 25% of Pakistani workers who are the poorest and most vulnerable. However, the Pakistani military has taken steps to combat the outbreak, while flights have been cancelled and highways have been closed.
Pakistan crossed the 1,000-case threshold on Wednesday, and has recorded at least 7 deaths.
After the Senate voted to pass the stimulus bill, lawmakers went on recess for just under a months, leaving the House to pass the bill it has in its hands now, or leave Americans badly in need of money high and dry.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Portugal increased 27% to 2,995, up from 2,362. That compares with a daily increase of 15% reported on Tuesday and a 29% gain on Monday. The total number of deaths increased by 10 to 43.
* * *
The American press and the progressives who make up most of its journalists have so far focused on how the novel coronavirus will inevitably harm the poor and vulnerable. But so far, that’s not what we’ve seen – at least not in the West. Connecticut’s Fairfield County and New York’s Westchester County, two havens for wealthy businessmen, doctors, lawyers and other rich professionals, have been especially hard hit by the virus, both becoming hot zones in their own right.
Over in the UK, the Royal Palace announced Wednesday morning that Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, has tested positive for the virus.
This is hardly a new trend. Since the start of the crisis, numerous government officials from Iran, to Canada, to the US and over in Europe, have caught the virus, as have famous professional athletes and others who travel. Dozens of politicians and leaders have tested positive (and that’s just in Iran).
During the early hours of Wednesday morning, Democrats finally dropped enough of their ‘Green New Deal’-type demands to strike a deal on the $2 trillion “largest bailout package in American history”. In addition to a $500 billion pool of ’emergency liquidity’ for American corporations that will be administered by the Fed and a $367 billion loan program for small businesses, the legislation will include a one-time $1,200 transfer to all Americans making less than $70,000 a year.
Mitch McConnell celebrated the news in an early-morning tweet, and promised that legislation would pass in the early morning.
At last, we have a deal.
After days of intense discussions, the Senate has reached a bipartisan agreement on a historic relief package for this pandemic.
We’re going to pass this legislation later today.
— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) March 25, 2020
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As President Trump pushes to bring the economy back on-line by Easter, close American ally South Korea, a country lauded for its swift and widespread testing program that managed to test roughly 10,000 a day, agreed to send the US spare medical equipment in response to Trump’s request for ‘reagents’ – a critical component for COVID-19 tests that was missing or damaged in the first iteration of the CDC’s test.
The number of confirmed cases in the US had topped 55k by Wednesday morning, with 55,225 cases exactly as of 7amET, according to Johns Hopkins. The number of deaths climbed to 782.
Yesterday, the WHO warned that the rapid number of confirmations in the US would soon qualify it as the new ‘epicenter’ of the global outbreak, and on Wednesday, the organization reiterated that warning.
After Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte threatened Italians who break the quarantine with possible prison time as the numbers of new cases and deaths continued to climb despite the government’s best efforts – Italy’s mortality rate, at roughly 10%, is the highest in the developed world – Spain released some unpleasant news.
Spanish authorities warned on Wednesday that they expect the crisis to worsen, despite imposing strict measures in line with what Italian officials have adopted. As WSJ explained, one reason why quarantine orders in the west haven’t been as effective in suppressing the outbreak is that officials aren’t taking enough time to trace the contacts of confirmed cases.
Many foreign governments that initially ruled out lockdowns, saying they wouldn’t work in democracies, are now implementing similar, though less draconian, restrictions, but without corresponding efforts to identify and isolate cases, WSJ said.
Europe’s fourth-largest economy has been struggling with the second-worst outbreak on the continent after Italy. The outbreak, which accelerated following an International Women’s Day march in Madrid earlier this month, claimed 738 Spanish lives on Tuesday, according to figures released Wednesday morning by Spain’s public health officials. That’s the largest daily jump in deaths yet, bringing Spain’s death toll to 3,434, an increase of 27% over Tuesday’s figures.
Spain now has 47,610 cases in total. In mainland China, 3,281 people have died, according to the ‘official’ numbers. Top Spanish health official Fernando Simon said Wednesday that he expects the number of Covid-19 cases to continue increasing in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Spain, the country’s central bank and a constituent of the ECB said coronavirus outbreak mitigation measures have caused severe disruptions of the economy since March, and the impact on jobs will most likely be very significant in the near-term.
Once Prince Charles was confirmed positive for COVID-19, attention turned immediately to the Queen: The Monarch “remains in good health”, according to palace officials. Charles and his wife Camilla are now isolating in Scotland.
In other UK news, HMG is planning on shuttering Parliament beginning Wednesday night in another effort to slow the spread.
In recent days, speculation about Japan’s relatively small number of confirmed COVID-19 cases ranged from Japanese culture being a mild form of ‘social distancing’ to other quirks of life in modern Japan that have potentially helped to defend its people from viral outbreaks like the novel coronavirus. But on Wednesday, officials in Tokyo confirmed 41 new cases, the biggest daily jump in Japan since the crisis began, Nikkei reports.
In other Japan-related news, officials announced that the Diamond Princess cruise ship is expected to leave Yokohama port on Wednesday after scientists confirmed that samples of the virus had apparently survived on the ship for weeks.
Taiwan’s government announces 19 new cases on Wednesday, all imported, bringing the total number of infected people on the island to 235. Thailand health officials report 107 new coronavirus cases, bringing its total to 934.
China’s re-opening continued on Wednesday, with officials in Beijing warning local party functionaries around the country not to tamper with the data anymore (enabling Chinese officials to act quickly to stop a resurgence). After announcing yesterday that the Wuhan lockdown would end on April 8, health officials said they now expect to resume domestic passenger flights to and from Wuhan starting on the same date, April 8, when travel restrictions placed on the original epicenter of the viral outbreak are to be lifted.
Another sign of business (almost) as usual! The neighborhood counterfeit DVD shop is now open— with #coronavirus prevention measures. Wonder if the seller would register their own name since they deal in… oh, NVM. 🤔😐 #China pic.twitter.com/zRXLvNA216
— Eunice Yoon (@onlyyoontv) March 25, 2020
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Following the US deal on the coronavirus package, parliaments in Germany and Japan continued to battle over their own fiscal stimulus packages, according to CNN.
Britain’s National Health Service announced that it is waging a “war on coronavirus” and called for a quarter of a million volunteers. Overnight, nearly 200k registered via the NHS’s website. Meanwhile, the death toll from coronavirus in the United Kingdom jumped on Tuesday by 87 to a total of 422 on Wednesday – the biggest daily increase since the crisis began.
In the latest news from the Pentagon, three Navy sailors aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean tested positive for the new coronavirus, officials said Tuesday, becoming the first example of sailors testing positive for the virus while at sea. Per Stars & Stripes, the number of ventilators in the government reserve designated to strengthen overwhelmed hospitals in the event of a national medical crisis is critically low, according to the Center for Public Integrity. That number – 16,600 in the Strategic National Stockpile – is a small supplement to the national health system’s estimated 160,000 ventilators, which are mostly already in use.
India, the world’s second-most populous country, went into lockdown Wednesday, suspending all nonessential services and severely restricting movement to halt the spread of coronavirus cases. But not all officials equally respected the order: hours after the lockdown’s start, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state in north India, Yogi Adityanath, participated in a ceremony at a temple marking the start of a nine-day Hindu festival, highlighting the challenge the nation of 1.3 billion faces in implementing the drastic containment measures.
अयोध्या करती है आह्वान…
भव्य राम मंदिर के निर्माण का पहला चरण आज सम्पन्न हुआ, मर्यादा पुरुषोत्तम प्रभु श्री राम त्रिपाल से नए आसन पर विराजमान…
मानस भवन के पास एक अस्थायी ढांचे में ‘रामलला’ की मूर्ति को स्थानांतरित किया।
भव्य मंदिर के निर्माण हेतु ₹11 लाख का चेक भेंट किया। pic.twitter.com/PWiAX8BQRR
— Yogi Adityanath (@myogiadityanath) March 25, 2020
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Photos and videos shared by Adityanath on Twitter show him performing rituals surrounded by police and local officials. Later, addressing the gathering, he asked citizens to follow the government lockdown directives, which explicitly ban religious ceremonies, among other things, for 21 days.
As doctors get a better sense of mortality across the world, they found that the mortality rate in Italy is nearly 10%, while fatalities in France were just 4.3%, while in Germany and Austria, the number dead is 0.4%. The number of cases in Germany climbed to 31,554 on Wednesday, compared with 149 deaths.
Finally, in Africa, Mali has reported its first coronavirus cases, becoming the 44th country to record a case in Africa which has seen its spread speed up in recent days. Health experts have warned that Africa is the region least prepared to deal with the pandemic because of widespread equipment shortages and generally weak healthcare infrastructure. The continent now has roughly 2,400 cases and many countries have implemented stringent social distancing restrictions.
And as President Trump continues to push a common malaria drug for treatment of COVID-19, a brief study in France found that the malaria drugs Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine (an analogue of Hydroxychloroquine) had little additional benefit while treating infected patients, BBG reported.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 20:55 - NYC Cuts Subway Service By A Quarter After Ridership Plummets 87%
NYC Cuts Subway Service By A Quarter After Ridership Plummets 87%
In an extremely rare move considering it’s managed to stay operational in its over century of existence, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) will begin to cut services starting Wednesday after the coronavirus pandemic has seen ridership plummet 87% compared to the same day last year.
The New York Times reports the city is cutting bus and commuter rail services as well, in total slashing public transport by at least 25%. This is a stunning drop of nearly 4.8 million riders.
In normal times the city’s famous subway system sees about 5.5 million people ride each weekday, but even with the plummeting numbers and with more commuters opting for more ‘social distancing’ friendly means like bicycles or walking, the MTA has struggled with personnel shortages as well amid the crisis.
Image source: NY Times The NY Times reports:
Personnel shortages forced the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees subways, buses and two commuter rails, to temporarily eliminate service on three subway lines: the B, the W and the Z.
So far, 52 M.T.A. workers have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said, and worker shortages have caused around 800 service delays.
The MTA began mulling the scale-back of operations starting two weeks ago as at that moment around the time of Trump’s ‘national emergency’ declaration there was a noticeable 20% drop in ridership as New Yorkers sought to increasingly avoid crowds.
MTA recently tried to assure the public that the trains “remain safe” but still recommended for those with underlying health issues, “If you can get around without riding the subway, do it.”
But as for ‘safety’ the fact that over 50 employees and operators have caught Covid-19 is not a good sign for how quickly for virus potentially may have spread among remaining riders.
Via AP “Most people should stay off mass transit,” MTA Chairman Patrick Foye said Tuesday. “The step we are taking today is a tenet to advance the governor’s goals of flattening the curve of positive cases and slowing the spread of the virus.”
As The Hill notes, the MTA projects “it will lose about $3.7 billion, not including $300 million for coronavirus-related expenses or the loss in local and state funding from taxes.” The MTA has thus far requested a $4 billion federal bailout, with New Jersey Transit has appealing for $1.25 billion.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 20:50 - Rickards: It'll Get Worse Before It Gets Better
Rickards: It’ll Get Worse Before It Gets Better
Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,
We’re well into the coronavirus pandemic at this point. As of this writing, there are 360,765 reported infections and 15,491 deaths worldwide.
Over the next few days, you may be certain that those numbers will be significantly higher.
That’s how pandemics work. The cases and fatalities don’t grow in a linear fashion; they grow exponentially.
It’s widely acknowledged that this pandemic will get much worse before it gets better. There’s no doubt about that.
It didn’t take long for the coronavirus crisis to turn into an economic and financial crisis.
The Worst Collapse Since the Great Depression
The U.S. is falling into the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression in 1929. This will be worse than the dot-com collapse of 2000–01 and worse than the Great Recession and global financial crisis of 2008–09.
Don’t be surprised to see second-quarter GDP drop by 10% or more and for the unemployment rate to race past 10% on its way to 15% or higher.
The questions for economists are whether the lost output will be permanent or temporary and whether U.S. growth will return to trend or settle on a new path that is below the pre-virus trend.
Some lost expenditure may just be a timing difference. If I plan to buy a new car this month and decide not to buy it until August, that’s just a timing difference; the sale is not permanently lost.
But if I don’t go out for dinner tonight and then do go out a month from now, I’m not going to order two dinners. The skipped dinner is a permanent loss.
Unfortunately, 70% of the U.S. economy is based on consumption and the majority of that consists of services rather than goods. This suggests that much of the coronavirus impact will consist of permanent losses, not timing differences.
More important is the question of whether growth returns to trend by next year or follows a new lower trend. (Bear in mind that “trend” for the past 11 years has been 2.2% growth compared with average growth in all recoveries since 1980 of 3.2%; any decline in trend growth would be from an already low base.)
This is unknown, but the result will be as much psychological as policy driven.
The Fed’s Bazooka Is Empty
In situations like this, the standard policy response is for the Fed to cut rates, which it has certainly done.
The Fed has also launched massive amounts of quantitative easing.
In addition, they have guaranteed or offered credit facilities to banks, primary dealers, money market funds, the municipal bond market and commercial paper issuers so far.
Now the central bank has taken the unprecedented step of committing to buy as many U.S. government bonds and mortgage-backed securities as needed to keep the market functioning.
The problem is that the Fed’s programs won’t work as a form of stimulus. We’re seeing a supply shock as the economy grinds to a standstill. What’s everyone going to buy with all the money?
Still, they may have done things exactly backward.
Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, says that the Fed should have focused on payment system problems and liquidity first but should not have cut rates.
Interest rates were already quite low. Once the Fed goes to zero as they did, they are incapable of cutting rates further (leaving aside negative rates, which also don’t provide stimulus).
El-Erian argues the Fed should have saved their rate cuts in case they are needed more acutely in the weeks ahead. Too late now. The interest rate bullets were fired. Now the Fed’s bazooka is empty at the worst possible time.
No Stimulus Bill
Meanwhile, Congress is working to pass a “stimulus” bill to fight the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Negotiations stalled this morning as Democrats want to insert provisions that would give tax credits to the solar and wind industry, give more power to unions and introduce new emissions standards for the airline industry.
“Democrats won’t let us fund hospitals or save small businesses unless they get to dust off the Green New Deal,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Once again, I need to emphasize the point: The economic impact of coronavirus could be devastating.
If consumers get used to not spending and decide that increased savings and debt reduction are the best ways to prepare for another virus or natural disaster, then velocity will fall and growth will be weak no matter how much money the Fed prints or the Congress spends.
The bottom line is that these spending bills provide spending but they do not provide stimulus. That’s up to consumers. And right now consumers are hunkered down.
It may be that the last of the big spenders just left town.
Physical supply is drying up and dealers are running out.
That’s why I’ve been warning my readers for years to get their gold before the crisis hits. Once it does (and it has), you won’t be able to get any.
What about silver?
Silver’s dynamics are a little bit different than gold because there are some industrial applications, but there’s no question that it’s a monetary metal.
And I always recommend that people have a “monster box.” A monster box is 500 American Silver Eagles, fine pure silver that comes directly from the Mint. It comes in a green case and is sealed.
The 500 coins at retailer commission will run you about $12,000 right now, but everybody should have one.
You ought to have a monster box of silver because if the power grid goes down, which could happen for a lot of reasons, the ATMs won’t work and neither will credit cards.
But if you walk into a store with five or six silver coins, you’ll be able to get groceries for your family.
Believe me, that’ll be legal tender when the time comes, so I definitely recommend silver.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 20:30 - "Overnight, The World Became The Twilight Zone" – Exodus From Cities Sparks Mountain-Dweller Greatest Fear
“Overnight, The World Became The Twilight Zone” – Exodus From Cities Sparks Mountain-Dweller Greatest Fear
Social distancing is transforming society as we know it. City dwellers are packing up their bags and are heading for the mountains amid the virus crisis.
“Overnight, the world took a sharp turn into the Twilight Zone,” Gina Grande told the Los Angeles Times. “I had to get out of there. So, I made a beeline to my boss’ office and said, ‘This is awkward, but can I please telecommute from Southern California?'”
Grande, terrified of the fast-spreading COVID-19 outbreak in San Francisco, which is where she works and lives, left the metro area for her second home on the outskirts of Joshua Tree National Park, a desert area located in southern California.
As the pandemic sweeps across California’s largest cities, residents are fleeing their urban settings to isolated communities in the Mojave Desert or the rugged Sierra Nevada. The hope is that a remote area can reduce their transmission risk.
But for some, social distancing measures enforced by the government have not just limited their mobility to and from work and or even their ability to go outside, residents in Los Angeles last week were restricted from leaving the city to vacation homes.
In Mammoth Lakes, a town in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, banned non-residents because infection risk in the small community would quickly overwhelm their hospital system.
The flight from cities to rural communities during the outbreak, ignited by fear, could be the next hottest trend for real estate that revives dying suburbs. Families, who’ve been subjected to chaos at Costco stores of panic hoarding or forced quarantine in their tiny 550 square-foot studios, want the freedom of rural communities and the security of land that could power them through any crisis.
In Joshua Tree, vacation rental companies have said concerned families from large metro areas are renting short-term rentals for weeks and or months at a time following the virus outbreak.
“We just confirmed two rentals for long-term stays over three weeks,” said Josh Sonntag, who operates several rental units in the area. “In both cases, social distancing and the ability to work remotely was important.”
Bryan Wynwood, the owner of Joshua Tree Modern Real Estate, said, “Every call I get is related to the coronavirus. Some of them are from city dwellers worried about being stuck in the center of a metropolis that loses control of its basic public services.”
Sam Steinman, 28, owns several short-term rentals in Joshua Tree, said he’d noticed the desperation in city dwellers’ voices who are willing to pay double for his properties to escape the outbreak in large cities.
“I’ve seen this kind of fear and desperation before in Israel during rocket attacks,” Steinman said. “A friend recently asked if I had a gun he could borrow. I said absolutely not.”
And maybe, just maybe, COVID-19 will have a long-lasting impact on choices made by city dwellers, who have just realized their entire lives can come crashing down in a public health crisis – though, some are making a mad dash to remote areas where life goes on as usual.
A noticeable trend is developing: A revival of dying suburbs could be on the horizon as cities are just too dangerous when everything goes to sh*t.
If you’re looking to flee a metro area, not just because of a virus crisis, but also because housing prices in cities are due for a major correction, here are some affordable suburbs in America that you might find interesting.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 20:10 - Peter Schiff: Hyperinflation Is Now The Most Probable Scenario
Peter Schiff: Hyperinflation Is Now The Most Probable Scenario
March 23 was Peter Schiff’s birthday. It was also the day the Federal Reserve announced QE Infinity. So, Peter spent over three hours hosting a live videocast talking about the latest Fed moves, the potential impact on the economy and answering questions from viewers.
Peter said he was hoping to combat the rampant economic ignorance that is pretty much everywhere.
There’s probably one thing that is spreading right now throughout the country faster than the coronavirus and that is economic ignorance and misinformation. It’s all over the place. It’s gone completely viral … The best thing anybody can do to combat the virus of ignorance is to turn off their television sets or their computers and don’t listen to anything that is being said in conventional media, whether it’s a news-related channel or a financial channel, I can virtually assure you that every single thing that you’re hearing is wrong.”
Peter hammered on a number of central themes you won’t hear discussed in the mainstream. For one thing, the Federal Reserve and the US government are repeating the mistakes of 2008.
Peter reminds us that as the crisis unfolded in ’08, he warned that the policies of bailouts and monetary stimulus were a mistake and that they would lead to a bigger crisis in the future.
Well, welcome to the future.”
He also emphasized that this isn’t about the coronavirus. The virus pricked a bubble that was inflated long ago. The economic chaos we’re seeing today started long before the virus reared its ugly head.
Everybody wants us to go back to normal, the way things were before anybody heard the word coronavirus of COVID-19. But you know what? We weren’t normal back then. The economy was sick before the virus infected us. It was a bubble. There was nothing normal about that bubble. And the problem with bubbles is once they pop, they’re not going to reflate. You need a new bubble. You need a bigger bubble. That’s what the Fed did. They inflated the NASDAQ bubble. That popped. They inflated a bigger bubble in housing. That popped. And then they inflated a bubble in everything. Well, everything has already been in a bubble. There’s nothing left to bubble up. It’s over.”
Peter also warned about what’s coming down the pike with all of this money being injected into the economy.
They are going to unleash a tsunami of inflation.”
And people losing their money in this crisis is going to be the least of the problems.
What we’re going to suffer as an economy is far worse than losing your money. Because you know what’s worse than losing your money? Having your money but your money losing it’s purchasing power. That is the worst thing that can happen and that is what’s going to happen. Hyperinflation has gone from the worst-case scenario to the most probable scenario. And that means people have to act quickly to protect themselves.”
Peter spent a lot of time taking questions from viewers. This is a great opportunity to get some economic analysis you’re not going to see on CNBC or Fox Business.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 19:50 - Private Equity Asset Values May Be Haircut By 50% In The Next 3 Months
Private Equity Asset Values May Be Haircut By 50% In The Next 3 Months
For the longest time, private equity firms seemed like the perfect investment in this market climate: unlike public equity, PE valuations would seemingly increase year after year, and without drawdowns and with no volatility, PE provided an island of stability in a market that was getting increasingly jittery even as stocks hit all time highs. Sure, unlike stocks, PE had virtually no liquidity and carried multi-year lockups, and their portfolio company purchase multiples were absolutely idiotic…
… but why would that matter in a market that seemingly would only go up?
Well, as the events of the past month demonstrated vividly, boy does liquidity and leverage matter. And so, with the US entering a depression, all those pristine PE returns are about to be savaged, the only question is by how much.
The answer – according to a new report from Investec, PE is about to go through a period of violent repricing matched only by the collapse in the global financial crisis: some 50% over the next 3 months!
In the report from Investec’s Fund Finance team, authors Michael Zornitta and Ian Wiese write that valuations will fall this month, with “major adjustments” downward foreseen in June reporting, and that hedging transactions are on the rise as risk management becomes the priority for fund managers. Just one problem: one hedges before the crisis, not after.
“Almost all managers have shifted their focus from deploying capital to defending assets,” Zornitta and Wiese wrote. Managers are looking into “alternative forms of liquidity to prop up companies, prevent breaches and reduce the possibility of having to call any remaining capital” from investors, they wrote.
Ironically, after PE firms were playing down liquidity for much of the past decade, the vital importance of liquidity during the Global Coronavirus Crisis has been underscored by none of the than PE giants Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group which told their portfolio companies to tap bank credit lines and preserve cash. In Europe CVC, EQT and Permira have also urged some companies they own to draw down credit facilities to prevent liquidity crunches if economic prospects worsen.
Apollo Global is one of the few firms that has revealed the impact of the outbreak on its funds so far. It expects to mark down its private equity portfolio by 15% to a “low 20%” figure in the first quarter, Bloomberg reported.
“The next few months will be defining for the industry,” Zornitta and Wiese said. “Defending value and ensuring there is sufficient liquidity will be the name of the game,” which is ironic for an industry that demands its investors accept no liquidity for many years at a time.
So what about all those tens of billions in private equity dry powder, with PE funds furiously raising capital in recent years? Well, as the Friendly Bear said, “it’s a good thing PE has so much “dry powder” – with leverage at 6x EBITDA on average, much of that dry powder will be going into bailing out existing companies…and it would be a good time to ask sponsors what exactly they have been including in “EBITDA”.” A very good time indeed.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/25/2020 – 19:47
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