Feb 29

Today’s News 29th February 2020

  • Escobar: The Afghanistan "Peace Deal" Riddle
    Escobar: The Afghanistan “Peace Deal” Riddle

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    Nearly two decades after the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan post-9/11, and after an interminable war costing over $ 2 trillion, there’s hardly anything “historic” about a possible peace deal that may be signed in Doha this coming Saturday between Washington and the Taliban.

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    We should start by stressing three points.

    1- The Taliban wanted all US troops out. Washington refused.

    2- The possible deal only reduces US troops from 13,000 to 8,600. That’s the same number already deployed before the Trump administration.

    3- The reduction will only happen a year and a half from now – assuming what’s being described as a truce holds.

    So there would be no misunderstanding, Taliban Deputy Leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, in an op-ed certainly read by everyone inside the Beltway, detailed their straightforward red line: total US withdrawal.

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    And Haqqani is adamant: there’s no peace deal if US troops stay.

    Still, a deal looms. How come? Simple: enter a series of secret “annexes.”

    The top US negotiator, the seemingly eternal Zalmay Khalilzad, a remnant of the Clinton and Bush eras, has spent months codifying these annexes – as confirmed by a source in Kabul currently not in government but familiar with the negotiations.

    Let’s break them down to four points.

    1- US counter-terror forces would be allowed to stay. Even if approved by the Taliban leadership, this would be anathema to the masses of Taliban fighters.

    2- The Taliban would have to denounce terrorism and violent extremism. That’s rhetorical, not a problem.

    3- There will be a scheme to monitor the so-called truce while different warring Afghan factions discuss the future, what the US State Dept. describes as “intra-Afghan negotiations.” Culturally, as we’ll see later, Afghans of different ethnic backgrounds will have a tremendously hard time monitoring their own warring.

    4- The CIA would be allowed to do business in Taliban-controlled areas. That’s an even more hardcore anathema. Everyone familiar with post-9/11 Afghanistan knows that the prime reason for CIA business is the heroin rat line that finances Langley’s black ops, as I exposed in 2017.

    Otherwise, everything about this “historic” deal remains quite vague.

    Even Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was forced to admit the war in Afghanistan is “still” in “a state of strategic stalemate.”

    As for the far from strategic financial disaster, one just needs to peruse the latest SIGAR report. SIGAR stands for Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. In fact virtually nothing in Afghanistan has been “reconstructed.”

    No real deal without Iran

    The “intra-Afghan” mess starts with the fact that Ashraf Ghani eventually was declared the winner of the presidential elections held in September last year. But virtually no one recognizes him.

    The Taliban don’t talk to Ghani. Only to some people that are part of the government in Kabul. And they describe these talks at best as between “ordinary Afghans.”

    Everyone familiar with Taliban strategy knows US/NATO troops will never be allowed to stay. What could happen is the Taliban allowing some sort of face-saving contingent to remain for a few months, and then a very small contingent stays to protect the US embassy in Kabul.

    Washington will obviously reject this possibility. The alleged “truce” will be broken. Trump, pressured by the Pentagon, will send more troops. And the infernal spiral will be back on track.

    Another major hole in the possible deal is that the Americans completely ignored Iran in their negotiations in Doha.

    That’s patently absurd. Teheran is a key strategic partner to its neighbor Kabul. Apart from the millenary historical/cultural/social connections, there are at least 3.5 million Afghan refugees in Iran.

    Post 9-11, Tehran slowly but surely started cultivating relations with the Taliban – but not at a military/weaponizing level, according to Iranian diplomats. In Beirut last September, and then in Nur-Sultan in November, I was provided a clear picture of where discussions about Afghanistan stand.

    The Russian connection to the Taliban goes through Tehran. Taliban leaders have frequent contacts with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Only last year, Russia held two conferences in Moscow between Taliban political leaders and mujahideen. The Russians were engaged into bringing Uzbeks into the negotiations. At the same time, some Taliban leaders met with Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) operatives four times in Tehran, in secret.

    The gist of all these discussions was “to find a conflict resolution outside of Western patterns”, according to an Iranian diplomat. They were aiming at some sort of federalism: the Taliban plus the mujahideen in charge of the administration of some vilayets.

    The bottom line is that Iran has better connections in Afghanistan than Russia and China. And this all plays within the much larger scope of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The Russia-China strategic partnership wants an Afghan solution coming from inside the SCO, of which both Iran and Afghanistan are observers. Iran may become a full SCO member if it holds on to the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, until October – thus still not subjected to UN sanctions.

    All these actors want US troops out – for good. So the solution always points towards a decentralized federation. According to an Afghan diplomat, the Taliban seem ready to share power with the Northern Alliance. The spanner in the works is the Hezb-e-Islami, with one Jome Khan Hamdard, a commander allied with notorious mujahid Gulbudiin Hekmatyar, based in Mazar-i-Sharif and supported by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, more interested in restarting a civil war.

    Understanding Pashtunistan

    Here’s a blast from the past, reliving the context of the Taliban visit to Houston, and showing how things have not changed much since the first Clinton administration. It’s always a matter of the Taliban getting their cut – at the time related to Pipelineistan business, now to their reaffirmation of what can be described as Pashtunistan.

    Not every Pashtun is a Taliban, but the overwhelming majority of Taliban are Pashtuns.

    The Washington establishment never did their “know your enemy” homework, trying to understand how Pashtuns from extremely diverse groups are linked by a common system of values establishing their ethnic foundation and necessary social rules. That’s the essence of their code of conduct – the fascinating, complex Pashtunwali. Although it incorporates numerous Islamic elements, Pashtunwali is in total contradiction with Islamic law on many points.

    Islam did introduce key moral elements to Pashtun society. But there are also juridical norms, imposed by a hereditary nobility, that support the whole edifice and that came from the Turko-Mongols.

    Pashtuns – a tribal society – have a deep aversion to the Western concept of the state. Central power can only expect to neutralize them with – to put it bluntly – bribes. That’s what passes as a sort of system of government in Afghanistan. Which brings the question of how much – and with what – the US is now bribing the Taliban.

    Afghan political life, in practice, works out from actors that are factions, sub-tribes, “Islamic coalitions” or regional groups.

    Since 1996, and up to 9/11, the Taliban incarnated the legitimate return of Pashtuns as the dominant element in Afghanistan. That’s why they instituted an emirate and not a republic, more appropriate for a Muslim community ruled only by religious legislation. The diffidence towards cities, particularly Kabul, also expresses the sentiment of Pashtun superiority over other Afghan ethnic groups.

    The Taliban do represent a process of overcoming tribal identity and the affirmation of Pashtunistan. The Beltway never understood this powerful dynamic – and that’s one of the key reasons for the American debacle.

    Lapis Lazuli corridor

    Afghanistan is at the center of the new American strategy for Central Asia, as in “expand and maintain support for stability in Afghanistan” coupled with an emphasis to “encourage connectivity between Central Asia and Afghanistan.”

    In practice, the Trump administration wants the five Central Asian “stans” to bet on integration projects such as the CASA-1000 electricity project and the Lapis Lazuli trade corridor, which is in fact a reboot of the Ancient Silk Road, connecting Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia before crossing the Black Sea to Turkey and then all the way to the EU.

    But the thing is Lapis Lazuli is already bound to integrate with Turkey’s Middle Corrido r, which is part of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative, as well as with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Plus, also part of Belt and Road. Beijing planned this integration way before Washington.

    The Trump administration is just stressing the obvious: a peaceful Afghanistan is essential for the integration process.

    Andrew Korybko correctly argues that “Russia and China could make more progress on building the Golden Ring between themselves, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey by that time, thus ‘embracing’ Central Asia with potentially limitless opportunities that far surpass those that the US is offering or ‘encircling’ the region from a zero-sum American strategic perspective and ‘forcing’ it out.”

    The late Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s wishful thinking “Eurasian Balkans” scenario may be dead, but the myriad US divide-and-rule gambits imposed on the heartland have now mutated into hybrid war explicitly directed against China, Russia and Iran – the three major nodes of Eurasia integration.

    And that means that as far as realpolitik Afghanistan is concerned, with or without a deal, the US military have no intention to go anywhere. They want to stay – whatever it takes. Afghanistan is a priceless Greater Middle East base to deploy hybrid war techniques.

    Pashtuns are certainly getting the message from key Shanghai Cooperation Organization players. The question is how they plan to run rings around Team Trump.


    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 02/28/2020 – 23:45

  • "This Is Serious" – Virus Hunter Who Discovered Ebola Discusses 'Worst-Case Scenario' For Coronavirus
    “This Is Serious” – Virus Hunter Who Discovered Ebola Discusses ‘Worst-Case Scenario’ For Coronavirus

    As the coronavirus becomes the all-consuming news story of the moment, the Financial Times decided to invite an extremely apropos guest for this weekend’s “Lunch with the FT”. That guest is: Belgian scientist Peter Piot, the “Mick Jagger of Microbes”, best known for discovering the Ebola virus.

    Obviously well-qualified, how does Piot feel about COVID-19? He didn’t mince words: “This is serious.”

    “I’m not the scaremongering type,” he says. “But I think this is serious in the sense that we can’t afford not to consider it as a serious threat.”

    “It could be that, indeed, it’s going to be over in a few months,” he continues, crunching into a tempura-covered sage leaf. “But just take the counterfactual. We say, ‘OK, it’s fine and we don’t do anything.’ I bet that we would already have had far more cases in Singapore, the UK, Germany. Let’s not forget, we are already well over 1,000 deaths. That’s not a detail.”

    The interview took place on Feb. 13, which means that since Piot made these comments, 1,500 more people have died, and serious outbreaks have emerged in Iran, South Korea and Italy. Saudi Arabia has halted pilgrimages to Mecca, and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has asked all schools in the country to close.

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    As the discussion delved deeper into the subject of the outbreak, Piot pointed out that although this “certainly isn’t SARS” it spreads much more easily because it resides in the tissues of the throat, allowing it to be spread through the air more easily.

    With all this in mind, the “big question”, as Piot sees it, is how many will ultimately be infected.

    “Now, let’s say, the mortality rate is 1 per cent. So, the big question is, how many people will get infected? Are we talking about hundreds of thousands or millions? Now 1 per cent of one million is 10,000; that’s 10,000 people who will die,” he says.

    “It’s clearly not Sars,” he continues, referring to severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed nearly one in 10 who contracted it 17 years ago. “That’s the good news. But the bad news is, it spreads much faster. The Sars virus sits deep in your lungs. With this virus, it seems that it’s in your throat and that’s why it’s far more contagious.”

    But since there is no vaccine, Piot pointed out that if it things do get bad, we’re screwed, since we only have “medieval” methods of containment at our disposal.

    “Secondly, we have no vaccine. All we have is medieval ways of containment: isolation, quarantine, contact tracing.”

    Piot then offered an interesting comparison to the AIDS outbreak. He recalls that, back in 1981, when the first AIDS cases were discovered among six or seven gay men in California, nobody expected it to go on to infect 75 million people.

    In situations like this, he adds, it’s always better to overreact than to dismiss the threat.

    Piot remembers hearing about the first cases of a mysterious virus in Los Angeles in 1981. “The first report of HIV was six or seven gay men in California. Cumulatively, now we have, like, 75m people who have been infected. Who would have thought that then? Nobody. I’d rather be accused of overreacting than of not doing my job.”

    After exchanging some comments about the food, the epidemiologist explained to his FT interlocutor why he doesn’t begrudge the WHO for ‘going easy’ on China.

    He praises the role of the World Health Organization, which he says is nimbler under Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian and its first African director. Dr Tedros has been criticised for going easy on China, which suppressed information in the early stages of the outbreak. “The dilemma is he could have his five minutes of fame by bashing China. But what happens afterwards? You need to work with them,” he says, scooping up some juicy borlotti beans.

    As for what will happen with the outbreak in China? Piot suspects the situation will get “much worse” before it gets better.

    What’s the worst-case scenario with coronavirus, I ask. “That we’ll have a pandemic,” he replies. “I think it will get much worse in China. And here we will see more and more transmission. That’s my gut feeling. But how big it’s going to be, I honestly don’t know.”

    He actually has some experience in this department: When he was battling the spread of AIDS in 2002 as the head of UNAids, the United Nations-backed NGO dedicated to fighting the global outbreak, he made the mistake of publicly criticizing China about the number of AIDS cases going unreported.

    “It’s a fine line. I learnt this the hard way,” he says, referring to 2002 when UNAids, the organisation he ran from 1995 to 2008, issued the so-called “Titanic Peril” report, which argued that China had many more cases of HIV than it was admitting. “It’s the only time that my then boss, Kofi Annan, called me on a Sunday afternoon. He said, ‘Peter, you’re a brave man, but nobody has ever won against the People’s Republic of China.'”

    Though he also eventually convinced the CCP to make some progressive policy changes to contain an AIDS outbreak.

    “Wen asked me, ‘What’s the situation, what should we do?’ And I thought, you have 10 seconds to think. Am I going to be diplomatic or am I going to say the truth? He must have seen it. He said, ‘Forget who I am. Forget that we’re the Communist party. Tell me what you think and I’ll see what I can do.’ Piot advised Beijing to be more open about the problem and to work with people who were vulnerable, including drug addicts and sex workers, rather than jailing them. China’s policy changed decisively after that encounter.

    Overall, in Piot’s estimation, the world has done a decent job of recognizing the threat posed by pandemics. Still, there’s still plenty of room for improvement, as the epidemic is showing the world, particularly now that the issue of mask shortages is becoming a problem in the US after playing a major role in exacerbating the outbreak in China.

    Piot thinks differently. “If we do nothing, then that’s the case,” he says, particularly since new viruses – as coronavirus appears to have done – can always jump from animal to human. But these days far more people die of non-communicable diseases than of infectious ones, he says.

    “Collectively, we’ve done quite a good job. That’s why we need, how to say it, a fire brigade,” he says, of a stronger and better-prepared global health system. “You don’t set up a fire brigade when your house is already on fire.”

    That’s a catchy line. Hopefully, once the dust settles, the global community will remember that this wasn’t the first global pandemic, and it likely won’t be the last.


    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 02/28/2020 – 23:25

  • Is Wall Street Behind The Delay In Declaring The Covid-19 Outbreak A "Pandemic"?
    Is Wall Street Behind The Delay In Declaring The Covid-19 Outbreak A “Pandemic”?

    Authored by Whitney Webb via MintPressNews.com,

    A little known specialized bond created in 2017 by the World Bank may hold the answer as to why U.S. and global health authorities have declined to label the global spread of the novel coronavirus a “pandemic.”

    Those bonds, now often referred to as “pandemic bonds,” were ostensibly intended to transfer the risk of potential pandemics in low-income nations to financial markets.

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    Yet, in light of the growing coronavirus outbreak, the investors who purchased those products could lose millions if global health authorities were to use that label in relation to the surge in global coronavirus cases.

    On Tuesday, federal health officials at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that they are preparing for a “potential pandemic” of the novel coronavirus that first appeared in China late last year. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that an estimated 80,000 worldwide have contracted the disease, most of them in China, while more than 2,700 have died.

    However, some have argued that the CDC’s concerns about a likely pandemic have come too late and that action should have been taken much earlier. For instance, in early February, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, had told the New York Times that the novel coronavirus is “very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” while former CDC director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden had echoed those concerns at the time, stating that it is “increasingly unlikely that the virus can be contained.”

    Despite those warnings, among many others, the CDC waited to announce its concerns that the virus could spread throughout the United States. Their Tuesday announcement riled markets, wiping out $1.7 trillion in stock market value in just two days. The CDC’s warning has reportedly angered President Trump, who accused the agency of needlessly spooking financial markets.

    Notably, WHO officials have taken an even more cautious approach than the CDC in their recent comments, stating that it is still “too early” to declare the coronavirus outbreak a “pandemic” while also asserting that “it is time to do everything you would do in preparing for a pandemic.”

    The refusal to label the outbreak a pandemic is odd, since it refers to an epidemic or actively spreading disease that affects two or more regions worldwide. This currently describes the geographical spread of the highly contagious novel coronavirus, which has now resulted in significant clusters of cases far from China, namely in Italy and Iran. Countries closer to China, like South Korea, have also recently experienced an explosion in novel coronavirus infections.

    It is possible that concerns over using the word “pandemic” could upset global markets and lead to economic turmoil, similar to what happened to the U.S. stock market following the CDC announcement on Tuesday. Though such concerns are valid, there is also evidence that a particular class of bonds issued by the World Bank that are closely related to official declarations of pandemics may also be responsible for having steered WHO and CDC officials away from using this term, even though the consequences of doing so could negatively impact global public health.

    Pandemic Bonds: a “scheme like no other”

    In June 2017, the World Bank announced the creation of “specialized bonds” that would be used to fund the previously created Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) in the event of an officially-recognized (i.e. WHO-recognized) pandemic.

    They were essentially sold under the premise that those who invested in the bonds would lose their money if any of six deadly pandemics hit, including coronavirus. Yet, if a pandemic did not occur before the bonds mature on July 15, 2020, investors would receive what they had originally paid for the bonds back in addition to interest and premium payments on those bonds that they recieve between the date of purchase and the bond’s maturation date.

    The PEF, which these pandemic bonds fund, was created by the World Bank “to channel surge funding to developing countries facing the risk of a pandemic” and the creation of these so-called “pandemic bonds” was intended to transfer pandemic risk in low-income countries to global financial markets. According to a World Bank press release on the launch of the bonds, WHO backed the World Bank’s initiative.

    However, there is much more to these “pandemic bonds” than meets the eye. For example, PEF has a “unique financing structure [that] combines funding from the bonds issued today with over-the-counter derivatives that transfer pandemic outbreak risk to derivative counterparties.” The World Bank asserted that this structure was used in order “to attract a wider, more diverse set of investors.”

    Critics, however, have called the unnecessarily convoluted system “World-Bank-enabled looting” that enriches intermediaries and investors instead of the funds intended targets, in this case low-income countries struggling to fight a pandemic. These critics have asked why not merely give these funds to a body like the Contingency Fund for Emergencies at the World Health Organization (WHO), where the funds could go directly to affected countries in need.

    Notably, WHO determines if a pandemic meets the criteria that would see investors’ money be funneled into PEF as opposed to their own pockets, which would take place if no pandemic is declared between now and when the bonds are set to mature this upcoming July.

    In 2017, the news site Quartz described the mechanism of “pandemic bonds” as follows:

    Investors buy the bonds and receive regular coupons payments in return. If there is an outbreak of disease, the investors don’t get their initial money back. There are two varieties of debt, both scheduled to mature in July 2020.

    The first bond raised $225 million and features an interest rate of around 7%. Payout on the bond is suspended if there is an outbreak of new influenza viruses or coronaviridae (SARS, MERS). The second, riskier bond raised $95 million at an interest rate of more than 11%. This bond keeps investors’ money if there is an outbreak of Filovirus, Coronavirus, Lassa Fever, Rift Valley Fever, and/or Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever. The World Bank also issued $105 million in swap derivatives that work in a similar way. (emphasis added)”

    In 2017, the World Bank issued $425 million in these “pandemic bonds” and the bond sale was reported to have been 200 percent oversubscribed, “with investors eager to get their hands on the high-yield returns on offer,” according to reports. The premiums bondholders have received thus far were largely funded by the governments of Japan and Germany, who are also the top nation-state funders of WHO behind the United States and United Kingdom. Reports have claimed that most of the bondholders are firms and individuals based in Europe.

    Some analysts have argued that these pandemic bonds were never intended to aid low-income pandemic-stricken countries, but instead to enrich Wall Street investors. For instance, American economic forecaster Martin Armstrong has called the World Bank’s pandemic bonds “a giant gamble in the global financial casino” and a “scheme like no other,” recently arguing that these bonds could present a “a structured derivative time bomb” that could upend financial markets if a pandemic is declared by WHO. Armstrong went on to say that it is in WHO’s interest to declare the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, but noted that, in doing so, they would cause bondholders to take significant losses.

    Even establishment economists like former World Bank chief economist and Secretary of Treasury Larry Summers have criticized the World Bank’s program, dismissing the PEF as “financial goofiness.” Bodo Ellmers, the director of the Global Policy Forum’s sustainable development finance program, has similarly called pandemic bonds “useless,” while Olga Jonas, who worked at the World Bank as an economist for over 30 years, said the program was “designed to fail” because the bonds were crafted in order “to reduce the probability of payout.”

    Economic and business analyst and host of the podcast “Quoth the Raven” Chris Irons told MintPress News that, with respect to the pandemic bonds, “What’s important is to focus on who stands to benefit from this not being declared a pandemic,” a difficult task given that the identity of most bondholders are not currently publicly available.

    Irons also noted that, in his opinion, “WHO and the CDC have been caught a little flat-footed here” and that some governments that fund WHO, particularly the Trump administration, appear “more concerned with the stock market than giving people information that may be necessary and vital.” He added that behind-closed-doors pressure on WHO by those who stand to lose financially from an official declaration of a pandemic would be “unsurprising.”

    How to trigger a payout

    As the coronavirus outbreak grows, concern has grown among those invested in pandemic bonds that payout to countries affected by coronavirus will be triggered, despite the clear delay by WHO in declaring the outbreak as a pandemic. While WHO could theoretically alter the criteria that would trigger payout and cause bondholders to lose big, some recent reports have claimed that bondholders are seeking to rid themselves of the bonds prior to their July maturation date.

    German media outlet Deutsche-Welle noted that the trigger for the first class of pandemic bonds, valued at $225 million, would normally have already been met due to the criterion of more than 2,500 deaths in a “developing country.” However, WHO has said this does not meet said criterion because it does not consider China to be a developing country, even though the World Bank’s own criteria do consider China to be a developing country.

    For the second and riskier category of pandemic bonds, those bonds are triggered when the disease in question crosses an international border and causes more than 20 deaths in the second country. At the time of publication of this article, Iran has recorded at least 50 deaths, which should have triggered this second category of pandemic bonds, valued at $95 million. Yet, WHO yet to comment on how this criterion for the second category bonds has been met.

    The WHO’s decision to refuse to use the “p-word” may be the result of several factors, though the pandemic bonds loom large as a $425 million incentive for not doing so. While avoiding the use of the term may please pandemic bondholders, it is set to have major negative consequences for global public health, particularly given the fact that early action against epidemic and pandemic outbreaks is widely considered to be an imperative.


    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 02/28/2020 – 23:05

  • Oregon Officials Confirm Third Coronavirus Case "Of Unknown Origin"; Risk Of "Community Outbreak" Is High
    Oregon Officials Confirm Third Coronavirus Case “Of Unknown Origin”; Risk Of “Community Outbreak” Is High

    Summary:

    • Health authorities in Texas and Oregon report 12 new coronavirus cases in US
    • US coronavirus case total hits 63, 2nd case ‘of unknown origin’ confirmed
    • US issues travel advisory for Italy
    • Italy says first case discovered in Lazio
    • China, SK release nightly figures
    • Google says employee who visited Zurich office has coronavirus
    • France confirms 57 cases
    • Italy reports 3 deaths in Lombardy; nat’l toll now 21; total cases 821
    • Google employee tests positive for coronavirus after visiting Zurich office
    • British man becomes 6th ‘Diamond Princess’ passenger to die
    • Two Japanese dogs tested positive for coronavirus
    • Mulvaney says school closures, transit disruptions may happen in US
    • Dr. Tedros said Friday that there’s no evidence of ‘community outbreak’
    • Mexico confirms 1st virus case
    • Fauci warns virus could take ‘two years’ to develop
    • Kudlow says “no higher priority” than the “health of the American people
    • Toronto confirms another case
    • WHO says 20 vaccines in development
    • St. Louis Fed’s Bullard pours cold water on market hopes
    • Netherlands confirms 2 more
    • United cuts flights to Japan
    • Advisor to CDC says shortage of tests in US creating a “bottleneck”
    • Nigeria confirms first case in sub-saharan africa
    • SK reports more than 1,000 new cases in under 48 hours
    • Italy cases surpass 700
    • WHO says virus will ‘soon be in all countries’

    * * *

    Update (1100ET): With Washington State health officials expected to brief reporters tonight, we will hopefully have more information about the latest reported coronavirus case in the US – another case that’s believed to be “of unknown origin” – meaning it could be evidence of an emerging community outbreak.

    But before we go, we’d like to leave readers with a few thoughts courtesy of Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA director and frequent CNBC contributor.

    Remember: This shortage of coronavirus tests won’t last forever.

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    Sleep well.

    * * *

    Update (2230ET): China released its final coronavirus numbers late on Friday. They were roughly equivalent to yesterday’s figures.

    China’s NHC reported 427 new cases confirmed on Friday on the mainland. Once again,almost all of the cases were in Hubei province. The mainland total now stands at 79,251.

    Here’s the NHC press release (with English translation provided by the NHC):

    On Feb 28, 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland as well as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 427 new cases of confirmed infections, 248 new cases of suspected infections, and 47 deaths (45 in Hubei province, 1 in Beijing municipality, and 1 in Henan province). 2,885 patients were released from hospital after being cured. 10,193 people who had had close contact with infected patients were freed from medical observation. Serious cases decreased by 288.

    As of 24:00 on Feb 28, the National Health Commission had received 79,251 reports of confirmed cases and 2,835 deaths in 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and in all 39,002 patients had been cured and discharged from hospital. There still remained 37,414 confirmed cases (including 7,664 in serious condition) and 1,418 suspected cases. So far, 658,587 people have been identified as having had close contact with infected patients. 58,233 are now under medical observation.

    On Feb 28, Hubei reported 423 new cases of confirmed infections (including 420 in Wuhan), 159 new cases of suspected infections (including 114 in Wuhan), and 45 deaths (including 37 in Wuhan). 2,492 patients were released from hospital after being cured, including 1,726 in Wuhan.

    As of 24:00 on Feb 28, Hubei had reported 66,337 cases of confirmed infections (including 48,557 in Wuhan) and 2,727 deaths (including 2,169 in Wuhan). In all, 28,895 patients had been cured and discharged from hospital, including 17,552 in Wuhan.There still remained 34,715 confirmed cases (including 28,836 in Wuhan), with 7,370 in serious condition (including 6,585 in Wuhan), and 1,171 suspected cases (including 788 in Wuhan).

    As of 24:00 on Feb 28, 138 confirmed infections had been reported in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan province: 94 in Hong Kong (2 had been dead and 30 had been cured and discharged from hospital), 10 in Macao (8 had been cured and discharged from hospital) and 34 in Taiwan (1 had been dead and 9 had been cured and discharged from hospital).

    In South Korea, the total number of coronavirus cases rose to 2,931 on Saturday as 594 new cases were reported.

    As we wait to see if we’ll hear from Washington health officials tonight, here’s a copy of a press release from the Oregon Health Authority about Friday night’s press conference:

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    Update (2130ET): During the presser – which is still ongoing – Oregon officials confirmed that the case is of “unknown origin”, the third such case in the US. The individual is a Washington County resident, but has spent time at the Forest Hills elementary school in Oswego. The school will inform students and family about the risks.

    The case will remain “presumptive” until they get the test result back from Atlanta, though CDC protocols call for treating presumptive cases as legitimate cases. For the record, the Oregon state health lab was able to conduct an initial test, which came back positive.

    Amazingly, officials confirmed that the patient is still hospitalized, and has been isolated, but hasn’t been subjected to “quarantine” status. They’re reportedly being treated at a hospital in Hillsborough Oregon run by Kaiser Permanente.

    Health officials said they’re scrambling to trace the patient’s movements over the past days and weeks and ferret out anyone who might have come into contact with her during that time.

    “The most important thing to do – as mundane as it sounds – cover your face when you sneeze, wash your hands, and if you have any flu-like symptoms, stay home.”

    As far as the patient’s condition, officials wouldn’t go into specifics beyond saying that she remains “hospitalized”. Since the patient didn’t travel abroad, the assumption is that the infection was acquired “in the community.”

    The officials said they hope Oregonians would “go about their daily lives” and not let the news affect them. We suspect that might be difficult, considering that the patient hasn’t even been quarantined, and is likely only the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to infections in the state.

    Before we go, we wanted to point out an interesting detail from the press conference: When asked by a reporter about a rumor from earlier in the week about a coronavirus patient at a Kaiser Permanente facility in the state, officials said that they believed that rumor “didn’t refer to this case” – when it’s obvious to anybody with a brain that the rumor was accurate.

    Officials insist that they’re conveying the information to the public “just hours” after finding out. But the presence of this rumor seems to contradict that. And if officials did know about the case earlier in the week (their phrasing seemed to imply that the materials for confirmation were sent to the CDC in Atlanta days), why did they wait to tell the public?

    * * *

    Update (2045ET): Any reporters who were hoping for a quiet night relatively free of coronavirus news, well, those hopes have unfortunately been dashed.

    Because in a major bombshell that seriously undercuts President Trump’s ‘everything is under control’ message from his big press conference Wednesday night, state health authorities in Oregon and Texas reported a combined 12 new cases of the virus.

    This is in addition to two new cases that were confirmed earlier on Friday, and brings the total number of cases confirmed in the US to 74.

    11 new cases have been confirmed by federal officials, according to local media reports.

    The new cases include nine from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, one from the Wuhan group of quarantined passengers, and one that was transferred from the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.

    City officials in San Antonio insisted that the risk of infection remains very low, since the patients have all been under mandatory quarantine. Another 145 people are still quarantined at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Ninety Americans evacuated from Wuhan were released after finishing their quarantine without contracting the virus, said the CDC’s Nancy Knight during a Thursday news conference in Austin led by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

    Meanwhile, state officials in Oregon announced the state’s first “presumptive” case of the virus (“presumptive” since the CDC’s strict protocols often delay – or prevent – testing in at-risk patients, as we discussed earlier, as well as in an update from last night).

    State officials are holding a press conference to disclose more details beginning at 9 PM ET.

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    Watch live below:

    Outside of the US, Mexico confirmed its second case (though it also hedged by calling it a “presumptive” case), this time in Sinaloa – which is bad news for the drug cartels. Iraqi authorities reported the first case in Baghdad. Also, in South Korea, the number of new cases exploded again on Friday, with authorities warning that the next batch of confirmations will likely bring total cases above 3k.

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    Once again, China reported only a handful of cases outside Hubei.

    • CHINA REPORTS 427 ADDL CORONAVIRUS CASES FEB. 28
    • CHINA HUBEI REPORTS 423 NEW CORONAVIRUS CASES FEB. 28

    Over the past day or so, a series of critical reports knocked the CDC’s strict testing protocols, blaming them for delaying the confirmation of Cali’s second coronavirus case of “unknown origin” by up to a week. Well, one Reddit user posted an anonymous account of their experience after they returned from a week in Japan and reported to a hospital after developing suspicious symptoms.

    Since he didn’t display the “most serious” symptoms (like shortness of breath which could signify advanced pneumonia) he wasn’t even allotted a test, and told the individual that they were free to “ride the subway, return to work, do whatever I want” even as their doctor “disagreed” and advised them to stay home in a self-quarantine.

    President Trump better pray this thing dies out soon, because it looks like his administration is already repeating some of the same mistakes made by Japan.

    * * *

    Update (1730ET): Health officials in Santa Clara County have confirmed the county’s third case of COVID-19, bringing to total case count for the US to 63.

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    Shortly after officials made the case public, the Washington Post revealed that the female patient is 65 years old and has no known history of travel to countries hit hard by the outbreak, which means she’s the second case “of unknown origin” in the state.

    This means that the odds of a more widespread outbreak in California is extremely possible. As Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told WaPo: Two separate cases of community transmission likely means that there are others in the United States, said Jennifer Nuzzo, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

    “I think there’s a strong possibility that there’s local transmission going in California. In other words, the virus is spreading within California, and I think there’s a possibility other states are in the same boat. They just haven’t recognized that yet,” she said.

     

    Meanwhile, over in Italy, the first case of the coronavirus has been reported in Lazio, a region in central Italy, showing that the virus is spreading across Italy.

    The US has issued a travel advisory for Italy, which should encourage some travelers to cancel their trips since many travel and hospitality companies won’t refund an individual’s money without at least a level 3 advisory.

    Trump had no problem angering the Chinese by imposing a ban on anybody traveling from China or who had recently visited China. But he has appeared to be more cautious about pissing off his European allies, who have opposed travel bans and border closures in what seems like a misguided commitment to their principles of ‘openness’.

    Then again…

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    Earlier on Friday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and city health officials said that they were ‘frustrated’ by the CDC’s strict testing protocols which reportedly prevented the city from running its own tests, extending the time it takes to clear a patient by days. 

    Officials blamed an obscure bureaucratic quirk for the decision, and said the CDC should move to rectify it. De Blasio insisted that city has the resources and facilities, but hasn’t received the OK from the CDC, for some reason.

    “We have the facilities; they are underutilized by the CDC,” de Blasio said.

    NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said this was because of the city’s inability to carry out a final validation step in the testing sequence. However, she said “there are specific procedures in place so every time the test is run, it’s valid…issues were found with the third component.

    So it sounds like us like de Blasio trying to blame the Trump Administration for the shortcomings of NYC’s public-health emergency response system.

    * * *

    Update (1610ET): Another wild market session has ended, cementing the worst run for equities since the financial crisis.

    As for virus-related news heading into the close, well, there really wasn’t a ton. CNN reports that Kenya’s High Court has ordered all 239 passengers who recently arrived in Nairobi on a flight from Guangzhou into a mandatory quarantine at a Kenya Defense Forces base, or a guarded medical facility.

    Following the cancellation of joint military exercises between the US and South Korea, along with reports that an American serviceman was infected in South Korea, the Pentagon has warned that the coronavirus poses an “Increased threat” in certain areas where US troops are stationed around the world (but…mostly in South Korea). Notably, the warning breaks from the administration’s insistence that “everything is under control.”

    The travel industry is the latest to be hit by cancellations as its largest trade group cancelled its annual trade show due to the virus. The event, called ITB Berlin, had been due to attract 160,000 attendees beginning on Wednesday. But it was canceled by city authorities in Berlin.

    In other unfortunate news impacting the travel industry, the Global Business Travel Association estimated in a new report that the coronavirus outbreak could cost the industry as much as $46.6 billion per month, which translates to $559.7 billion annually, the Washington Post reports.

    A couple of hours after BI revealed that a Google employee had been infected with the coronavirus, media reports are now claiming two employees at Intesa Sanpaolo, the Italian banking group, have also been stricken.

    * * *

    Update (1350ET): A Google employee who was recently in the company’s Zurich office has tested positive for the coronavirus, Business Insider reports.

    In response, Google has instituted travel advisories for all employees. Google said it would take all necessary measures advised by public health officials. So far, all Google offices – including the office in Zurich – remain open.

    • GOOGLE IS PREVENTING EMPLOYEES FROM TRAVELING TO IRAN, AS WELL AS TO 2 ITALIAN REGIONS WHERE VIRUS IS SPREADING, LOMBARDY AND VENETO- BUSINESS INSIDER
    • GOOGLE WILL BAN EMPLOYEES FROM TRAVELING TO SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN- BUSINESS INSIDER

    It’s unclear whether this case was included in the US total, or where that employee is now – if they’ve left Zurich or traveled anywhere, like to the US, for example. Switzerland has fewer than 20 confirmed cases.

    Meanwhile, France confirmed that it’s total confirmed cases just climbed to 57 as the French health minister says the virus is now “circulating” in French territory, and that some schools will be kept closed after holiday in the Oise region because of virus-related worries.

    * * *

    Update (1330ET): In a company-wide memo, Amazon instructed all of its employees to avoid ‘nonessential’ travel within the US. Though many companies have been cancelling events and conferences while issuing travel warnings, this is one of the more extreme warnings we’ve seen, CNBC reports.

    Perhaps Jeff Bezos’ animosity toward Trump has something to do with it?

    As President Trump insists that investors are more worried about Bernie Sanders’ and his ‘democratic’ Communist Revolution, here’s a chart that might offer some insights on what’s inspiring the market’s mentality.

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    * * *

    Update (1240ET): The CDC’s Dr. Messonier announced two new cases of the coronavirusin the US on Friday afternoon, confirming that the number of Americans infected aboard the ‘Diamond Princess’ has climbed to 44.

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    It’s just the latest sign how bad the shortage of coronavirus tests has gotten. Addressing the issue, Dr. Messonier admitted that the situation with the tests has been suboptimal, but that the CDC hopes to have it cleared up by early next week.

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    Dr. Messonier

    So expect the ‘official’ US total to shoot higher after that.

    * * *

    Update (1210ET): Italian health authorities just confirmed three more deaths in Lombardy, bringing the national death toll to 21, while the number of confirmed cases rises by nearly 200 to 821.

    Italy now has the third-largest death toll, behind only Iran and mainland China.

    * * *

    Update (1145ET): Reports are claiming a vote on the emergency spending bill to combat the virus could come as soon as next week, which is earlier than the week of March 9, as was previously reported.

    * * *

    Update (1130ET): The People’s Daily reports that Beijing is tightening its “entrant management” – which we believe means it’s once again restricting who can and cannot enter the city – as the government continues to implement measures to suppress outbreaks even as Beijing insists the virus has finally been ‘contained’.

    * * *

    Update (1120ET): Infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci, who has been one of the federal government’s main spokespeople on the timeline for developing a vaccine, said Friday that it could take “up to two years” for a vaccine to be market-ready, according to Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Dem of Illinois. Notably, that’s a longer timeline than the 1 year to 18 months that Fauci and HHS Secretary Alex Azar shared earlier in the week.

    * * *

    Update (1115ET): Ontario has confirmed another coronavirus case in Toronto, the first since an Iranian passenger aboard an Air Canada flight to Montreal tested positive earlier this week.

    * * *

    Update (1100ET): As the left attacks the Trump Administration’s virus response, Trump has dispatched one of his top TV defenders, top economic advisor Larry Kudlow, to drive home the message that the White House has “no higher priority” than “the health of the American people.”

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    Kudlow added that 6 of the 15 coronavirus patients in the US have been released.

    His statement follows a barrage of criticism from Trump’s political opponents claiming his decision to task Mike Pence and Alex Azar with leading the containment effort suggests the president is m ore concerned about the economic fallout, and protecting his own image.

    Speaking to the press corp., Kudlow sounded less like he was trying to jawbone the markets higher and more like he was trying to understand why the selloff has become so ‘overdone’, as he sees it.

    The WHO said in a report published Friday morning that the global community “is not yet ready to implement measures that have contianed the coronavirus in China,” while Dr. Tedros reiterated his view that the “window of opportunity” for stopping a ‘pandemic’ is narrowing every day.

    More importantly, Kudlow insisted that the outbreak wouldn’t have much of a long-term impact on the market.

    “I just don’t think at this point that it’s going to have much of an impact,” Kudlow said.

    Asked what advice he would give a friend planning a cruise, Kudlow responded “stay home.”

    Questions about yesterday’s Trump news presser prompted Kudlow to praise the president – saying “the way he is handling this” will help his reelection. He also said he’s not expecting any “precipitous action” on China tariffs.

    As for complaints about Pence asking all CDC officials to route all decisions and every through his office, Kudlow insisted that the administration wasn’t trying to “stifle” or cover up anyone.

    “No one is being stifled, no one is being told what to say…we are all ears we want to hear what they have to say,” Kudlow said. “I think you have to coordinate.”

    Countries need to understand that they must contain the virus, even if it requires seemingly draconian measures, and while coronavirus cases might increase in the US, it’s unlikely that they will “skyrocket.”

    Finally, the WHO has raised its global alert rating to “Very High” from “High” as it continues to do and say everything that would suggest COVID-19 has become a global pandemic, if if the WHO refuses to acknowledge it (with reason). “Very high” is the last level of the WHO risk assessment short of “pandemic.”

    * * *

    Update (1030ET): WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, better known as Dr. Tedros, said Friday that the WHO has seen no evidence of the type of “community transmission” that the CDC warned about. There’s no evidence that the virus is spreading freely in communities, even though seven countries have reported their first cases over the last 24 hours. 

    He added that there are more than 20 vaccines in development, and that several therapeutics are in clinical trials. The first results are expected in a few weeks, Dr. Tedros said. The spread from both Italy (which has spread cases across Europe) and Iran (which has leaked the virus to its Persian Gulf neighbors) is “concerning”. The WHO added that it has found “no evidence” that the virus will react differently in different climates.

    CDC Director Redfield then added that risks from the virus across the US remain “low.”

    As the market awaits some kind of coordinated central-bank response, perhaps Sunday evening around the time futures open, the Fed’s Jim Bullard said the adjustment to US GDP growth expectations “doesn’t look that severe”, but that he would be willing to act if he saw evidence of a “very severe” economic hit. In other words, Bullard is pouring cold water on the market’s only source of optimism with the Dow off by 1,000 points intraday for the third time this week.

    Fortunately, Bullard won’t have a vote on the FOMC until 2022 (though it’s telling that even the doves at the Fed are skeptical of an ’emergency’ rate cut).

    * * *

    Update (1020ET): CNBC’s Eunice Yoon sent a handful of informative tweets, reminding the world that the outbreak in China isn’t over yet (while suggesting that two more patients reported re-infection in China).

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    Yoon has been reporting from Beijing this entire time, and her feed has been a source of some of the best reporting from the capital.

    * * *

    Update (1014ET): Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged on Friday that the coronavirus outbreak is likely to disrupt everyday life in the US, with possible school closures and public transit disruptions included on the list of potential annoyances.

    “Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably. Maybe see impacts on public transportation? Sure, but we do this. We know how to handle this,” Mulvaney said Friday during an appearance at CPAC, which, notably, did not cancel for fear of the outbreak.

    If you want to read more about how the US outbreak might impact schools, the New York Times wrote a story about what the outbreak might mean for US schools yesterday.

    The CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier stressed the need for companies and schools to develop strategies for keeping employees and students at home during a presser a few days ago.

    * * *

    Update (0950ET): Nigeria’s top public health official said Friday that the country is “more than capable” of dealing with the outbreak.

    “Nigeria is ready,” Chikwe Ihekweazu said. “We successfully managed Ebola and we manage outbreaks all the time and are currently managing Lassa fever. We have a strong team that is used to doing this.”

    United Airlines announced plans to change its flight schedule to Japan now that coronavirus fears are impacting travel and tourism to the world’s third-largest economy.

    Here are the specific flights affected:

    • Los Angeles to Tokyo canceled March 8 until April 24
    • Chicago to Tokyo canceled March 8 to March 27, then switches to Chicago to Haneda on March 28
    • Haneda schedule is not affected
    • Newark to Tokyo reduction to 5 times weekly for April (from daily)
    • Honolulu to Tokyo down-gauged from 777-200 to 787-8 for April
    • San Francisco to Kansai reduction to 5 times weekly in April (from daily)
    • San Francisco to Singapore reduction to 1 time daily for March 8 until April 24 (from 2 times daily)
    • San Francisco- to Incheon reduction to 3 times weekly for March 8 until April 30 (from 1 time daily in March and 2 times daily in April)
    • San Francisco to Taiwan down-gauged from 777-300 to 787-9 for March and April.

    In the US, a longtime advisor to the CDC told CNN that the shortage of COVID-19 tests in the US has created a “bottleneck.”

    “We haven’t been able to test more broadly as many of my colleagues in infectious disease would like,” Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told CNN on Friday.

    * * *

    Update (0925ET): Japanese TV news network NHK has reported that a British man has died after becoming infected with the coronavirus aboard the cruise ship “Diamond Princess”, which was home to the largest COVID-19 outbreak outside mainland China until this week, when South Korea assumed the mantle.

    Moreover, CNN reported that the Japanese Health Ministry confirmed the death of a 79-year-old woman, who it said was the fifth passenger to die from a case of the virus contracted aboard the ‘Diamond Princess’. 10 have died from the virus in Japan.

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    The man is the first Brit to die from the virus, and the first foreign passenger to die from a case linked to the Diamond Princess, and the sixth death linked to the cruise ship.

    A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises, which operates the Diamond Princess, issued a statement: “All of us at Princess Cruises, including the crew of the Diamond Princess, offer our sincere condolences to family members and friends for their loss. Our dedicated care team are on hand to provide support.”

    Speaking on CNBC Friday morning, host Jim Cramer went on an interesting rant about China deliberately infecting people to test its vaccine, before slamming the WHO for kowtowing the China, a criticism that has been widely shared. A spokesperson for the giant NGO said Friday that the virus would likely make it to most, if not all, countries.

    * * *

    Update (0900ET): Spain reported 18 new cases Friday afternoon, bringing its total to 32, although 29 of them have direct links to ‘risk zones’ abroad (including Italy in particular). 

    Still, Spanish doctors and epidemiologists haven’t been able to trace the origins of 3 cases, contributing to anxieties that the outbreak might be much larger than presently detected.

    Some 130 guests at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel in Tenerifem the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands, will be allowed to leave Friday after several days on lockdown. Four hotel guests have tested positive so far, as Spain’s Health Ministry tested every guest.

    With China’s economy humming at less than 50% capacity, the Communist Party has decided to offer another 300 billion yuan (roughly $43 billion) in emergency loans to Chinese companies, particularly the SMEs who are in the most dire need of funding.

    • CHINA TO GUIDE ANOTHER 300B YUAN LOW-INTEREST LOANS AMONG AIDS

    * * *

    Update (0820ET): After several scares, Mexico has finally confirmed its first case of coronavirus, according to Mexico’s deputy health minister.

    According to Reuters, the patient recently traveled to Italy and came up positive on the initial test. His case is only the second confirmed in Latin America, outside Brazil. The patient is said to be “not in a serious condition.”

    In corporate news, following Facebook, Goldman Sachs and a host of other companies, Kraft Heinz has taken the precautionary step of postponing its March conference in Chicago. The conference was supposed to host 250 of the troubled packaged-food company’s best managers.

    * * *

    On Wednesday, the coronavirus outbreak reached a new milestone when the number of new cases confirmed in the world ex-China finally surpassed the number being confirmed on the mainland. Two days later, and we’re almost at the point where the number of Thursday new cases confirmed by Iran was roughly half the total coming out of Wuhan.

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    As of Friday morning, the number of confirmed cases worldwide had passed 83,000, while the number of deaths topped 2,800.

    Since yesterday, we we first noted this chart, the number of cases outside China has soared, particularly in South Korea and across Europe, as the number of new cases in mainland China (but outside Wuhan) dropped into the single digits. Vietnam joined the group of countries restricting South Koreans from entry, announcing Friday that it would stop issuing visas for South Koreans, according to CNN.

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    Of course, China still had nearly two months of lead time over the rest of the world, and it has been home to the bulk of cases so far.

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    Here’s a rundown of deaths outside mainland China:

    Iran: 34
    Italy 17
    South Korea: 14
    Japan: 10 
    Hong Kong and France: 2 each
    The Philippines and Taiwan: 1 each

    A WHO Spokesman said Friday that the coronavirus outbreak is ‘getting bigger’, and that the possibility of it reaching some ‘if not all countries’ is something that we have warned about for a while.

    Every Brooklyn hipster who’s been living in blissful ignorance of the pandemic unfolding all around them – dismissing every new warning as ‘racist right-wing alarmism’ – is about to start paying attention: The dog of a coronavirus patient in Hong Kong has been found to carry a “low level” of the deadly virus, according to a statement from the region’s government.

    Infographic: Where COVID-19 Has Been Confirmed in the U.S. | Statista You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to the New York Post, researchers tested the dog’s nasal cavities and swabbed its mouth on Wednesday, and soon discovered that a test returned a “weak positive” for the samples.

    “At present, the [Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department] does not have evidence that pet animals can be infected with COVID-19 virus or can be a source of infection to people,” Hong Kong’s government said in a press release.

    Don’t worry, dog lovers: The animal is being quarantined in a animal shelter holding no other animals. The pooch will remain under quarantine until it tests negative. Fortunately, it doesn’t appear to be showing symptoms.

    South Korea has confirmed an additional 571 cases of the novel coronavirus so far on Friday, bringing its total to 2,337, making it the largest outbreak outside of mainland China.

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    Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with more than 200 million people, reported the first case in Sub-Saharan Africa late Thursday night (ET). On Friday, Nigerian Health Minister Osagie Ehanire told reporters in Lagos that his government has contacted the airline on which the country’s ‘patient zero’ traveled to try and trace people he came in contact with. Lagos Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi said the patient traveled to Nigeria on Turkish Airlines flight.

    “We are not panicking,” Ehanire says. “We are not banning airlines. We have not seen the need. We are also not profiling and stigmatizing.”

    Nigerian officials offered some more details about their first case on Friday, according to Al Jazeera.

    The first confirmed case was not detected at the airport, allowing them to travel through densely populated Lagos before becoming ill and visiting a hospital, the country’s health minister said.

    The Italian man, who authorities said arrived in Nigeria from Milan on the evening of Feb. 24, had no symptoms when their plane landed.

    Authorities are now working to “meet and observe” all those who were on the flight with him, and are also identifying all the people he met and places he visited in Lagos, a giant city of 20 million.

    Perhaps the most shocking development overnight was the surge of new cases in Germany, confirming the dire warnings of health officials. Europe’s largest economy has now quarantined about 1,000 people and affirmed “about 60” cases of coronavirus across the country.

    Mexico’s streak of being the only country in North America to have rebuffed the coronavirus is about to end: The country just reported its first preliminary positive test on Friday morning, according to Bloomberg.

    as the number of confirmed cases in Switzerland slowly grows, one of the most important events for the global auto industry, the Geneva International Motor Show, has been canceled now that Swiss authorities have banned major public events.

    In Iran, authorities have nearly caught up to a lawmaker’s warning about 50 deaths  in the city of Qom earlier this week: The Islamic Republic reported 143 new cases overnight, raising the countrywide total to 388. It also reported 8 more deaths, bringing the death toll to 34.

    “Iran expects an upward trajectory in confirmed coronavirus cases in the next few days,” the health minister said.

    Singapore has become the latest country to crack down on the South Korean Christian cult at the center of that country’s outbreak.

    Moving over the commonwealth of independent states, Azerbaijan confirmed its first case on Friday, while a second case was confirmed in Georgia. Another case has been confirmed in Thailand after a long period of calm, raising the total to 41.

    German Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said on Friday that the central bank’s official forecasts for 2020 growth were probably a little too optimistic, given the supply-side shock rocking Europe’s export powerhouse. Authorities in Germany’s Heinsberg, which is situated near the Dutch border, asked people who came into contact with a married couple with the disease to stay at home. Over in the UK, the first case was reported in Wales, following the first case in Northern Ireland last night. The tally for the four-country kingdom was 19 as of Friday morning in the US.

    An update on the hotel in Tenerife where an Italian doctor was diagnosed with the virus and hundreds of guests have been quarantined: The first 9 guests of about 700 who have been isolated since Tuesday have been allowed to leave.

    In Italy, cases soared to 650 on Thursday from 400 a day earlier, bringing the European total to more than 700. France has confirmed another 20 cases, according to the Washington Post, while Charles de Gaulle airport is suspected as a source.

    Offering a picture of political unity to millions of terrified South Koreans, President Moon Jae-in joined with the leaders of rival parties to speak about the necessity for “bold and swift extraordinary measures,” including some deficit-widening fiscal stimulus, to combat the outbreak and revitalize economy, Yonhap News reported, citing a joint statement from South Korea’s parties. Meanwhile, in Japan, the Northern Island of Hokkaido has declared a “State of Emergency” following an outbreak.

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    Following the confirmation of the 60th case on US soil, the New York Times blasted the White House Task Force on Thursday for reportedly requiring that all statements and public appearances be coordinated through the office of the VP, a move that the NYT fretted might ‘rob’ Americans of sober, scientific advice. We suspect this isn’t really that major of a violation of norms (otherwise, what’s the point of having someone like Pence in charge of coordinating everything), and the NYT is joining its Democratic partners in slinging mud at the Trump Administration.

    As if that weren’t enough, the NYT quickly pivoted to bashing Pence for selecting a trained scientist as the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, a position that will report to him. The NYT blasted Pence, saying the appointment confused the public about who will be speaking for the administration.

    Last night, President Trump bashed the press coverage of the outbreak in the US during an event celebrating Black History Month at the White House.

    “15 people is almost, I would say, a miracle,” Trump bragged.

    While PM Shinzo Abe tries to quell speculation about the possible cancellation of the Olympics, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi said Friday that President Xi Jinping’s scheduled visit to Tokyo would go ahead as planned.

    Heading into the weekend, stock futures in the US are in the red once again as virtually nobody seems to want to be caught holding risk moving into the weekend.

    Dear reader, if you’re wondering why global equities are once again in the red on Friday, CNBC’s Eunice Yoon has got you covered:

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    What a relief to see China getting back to work!


    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 02/28/2020 – 22:59

  • American Brides Face A Shortage Of Wedding Dresses Thanks To Coronavirus Outbreak
    American Brides Face A Shortage Of Wedding Dresses Thanks To Coronavirus Outbreak

    As the coronavirus disrupts supply chains from automotive to tech to retail, thousands of American brides might be left without ‘the dress’ of their dreams when the big day arrives.

    As KMBC, a local TV station in Kansas City, reports, even without any confirmed cases of the virus in the Kansas City area, the outbreak in China is going to have an impact on local brides – as well as brides across the country.

    Brides might be facing a shortage of dresses as the summer wedding season approaches, they said.

    With so many factories still shut down across China, and only 30% of small businesses back on line, the television station warns that if your dress isn’t already in the country, you might want to start thinking about a ‘Plan B’.

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    Salespeople at a local bridal shop told the station that the coronavirus is impacting which dresses they show and sell.

    “In the past, we’d say go ahead and order it, they’ll manufacture it. It’ll be here in time. I can’t do that today. Today I have to say, ‘You know what sweetheart? We need to find you a different dress,” said Lisa Carson, a stylist at Natalie M. bridal shop in Overland Park.

    As of Tuesday, some shipments have been delayed indefinitely, and the shop will no longer order dresses with any exposure to China anywhere along the supply chain.

    It is not just the dresses; it’s everything that it takes to make the dress that is now on hold.

    “It could be the stones. It could be the thread that’s utilized,” Carson said.

    Sometimes, these factors aren’t explicitly known, so the bridal shops are scrambling to trace the provenance of their merchandise and attain a level of familiarity with their products that they have never before needed.

    “What people need to understand is even if the factory where the goods are manufactured is up and running, maybe it’s the factory where the fabric is made or the notions are made, so there’s all those different pieces of the supply chain and they need to all be back on line,” Carson said.

    The issue isn’t limited to bridal dresses: Prom dresses, bridesmaids gowns – anything, really. If you’re planning to order formal wear, and you don’t have a tracking number showing it’s already in the country, you might be screwed.

    Some shops managed to beef up inventory before the shutdown. But only a handful of retailers had the foresight and financing to pull this off.

    For every thousand women who can’t get ‘the dress’, some will inevitably cancel or postpone their weddings, assuming that the supply-chain problem might be a recurring annoyance.

    That would have knock-on effects for venues, country clubs, so much of the service and hospitality industry which is already being hammered by a drop in tourism could see the other shoe – domestic demand – drop.


    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 02/28/2020 – 22:45

  • During The 70s, The CIA Created A "Robot Dragonfly Spy"
    During The 70s, The CIA Created A “Robot Dragonfly Spy”

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    The United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is well known for its desire to spy on, track, and contact mass surveillance in order to store information on every single human being possible. And now, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, it’s known that they created a robot dragonfly to spy on us.

    Newly-released CIA documents show how the espionage agency developed a robot dragonfly spy. The tiny aerial surveillance device – known as the “insectothopter” – was built in the 1970s according to the CIA Museum, where it has been displayed for 16 years.

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    But blueprints for the robotic insect were released this week by the U.S. spy agency to the website The Black Vault. Those blueprints reveal the finely honed microengineering behind the little spy machine.

    They show how CIA engineers had built miniature listening devices by 1970, but getting them over obstacles such as an embassy wall remained a major obstacle. Many know that the U.S. government, under the Patriot Act, began to spy relentlessly on our every move and store all of the information that they could on us.

    When it was first revealed that the Bush Administration had implemented a secret program of warrantless wiretaps and domestic spying on US citizens, few Americans knew that all of this had happened before. In the early 1970s, it was revealed that US government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, and IRS, were being used as part of a deliberate plan to infiltrate and disrupt political opponents, and this plan had continued for 20 years under four different Presidents, both Democratic and Republican. This report by the Senate Select Committee (the Church Committee) details the elaborate efforts by the FBI, CIA, and NSA to spy on Americans by tapping their telephones, by intercepting and copying their mail, and even by burglarizing their homes (known as “black bag jobs”). In response to this report, Congress established the FISA courts that Bush bypassed when he directed the NSA to once again spy on Americans without court approval or oversight.

    “The ultimate demonstration of controlled powered flight has not yet been achieved,” the CIA chief scientist, who helped develop the robotic dragonfly wrote.

    In the end, the robot dragonfly – developed 40 years before unmanned drones – never flew and the spy agency closed the project, but they didn’t stop their quest to find new ways to conduct mass surveillance.


    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 02/28/2020 – 22:25

  •  Walmart Developing A Membership Program To Rival Amazon's Prime
     Walmart Developing A Membership Program To Rival Amazon’s Prime

    Amazon is dominating the retail space, putting massive pressure on brick and mortar retail outlets. Now it appears Walmart is going to flank Amazon with a taste of its own medicine by launching a new paid membership program to take on Prime. 

    For the last 18 months, Walmart has been secretly working on a paid membership program called Walmart+, reported Vox. 

    For just $98 per year, subscribers will get the benefits of unlimited delivery for groceries and all other store items. Walmart had previously rolled out a program called ShippingPass, which shut down three years ago. 

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    Chief Customer Officer Janey Whiteside is overseeing the development and rollout of Walmart+. Additional perks of the service could include discounted drugs and fuel, as well as a new service called Scan & Go that allows subscribers to dodge long cashier lines. 

    Walmart+ is expected to launch a pilot program next month, Vox said. Walmart executives are hoping that future subscribers would lead to more consumption of products and services under the Walmart roof, which would boost profit margins and help stabilize its losing e-commerce business.  

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    The online retail war between Walmart and Amazon is about to heat up. As we’ve previously noted, Walmart has offered free two-day shipping on orders of $35 or more since early 2017, which helped it keep up with Amazon. Amazon still accounts for about half of all e-commerce spending in the US. 

    Walmart teased Amazon last April when it tweeted, “One-day free shipping…without a membership fee. Now THAT would be groundbreaking. Stay tuned.” 

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    In preparation to take on Amazon, Walmart acquired Jet.com in 2016 to expand its e-commerce reach. Now the retail giant believes it has what it takes to challenge Amazon and keep subscribers in a perpetual loop of consumption, enticed by perks and credit cards to overindulge in products.

    Consumption and capitalism, hand in hand: it’s the American way. 


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 22:05

    • Americans' Vanishing Fear Of Foreign Trade
      Americans’ Vanishing Fear Of Foreign Trade

      Authored by Lydia Saad via Gallup

      Story Highlights

      • Nearly four in five Americans now see trade as mainly an opportunity

      • Fewer than one in five consider trade an economic threat, an all-time low

      • New U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade is favored by both parties

      More Americans than Gallup has seen in a quarter century view foreign trade positively, with 79% calling it “an opportunity for economic growth through increased U.S. exports.”

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      Fewer than one in five (18%) — down by about half from 34% in 2016, and the lowest Gallup has recorded — now perceive trade as mainly a “threat to the economy from foreign imports.” A high of 52% of Americans held this skeptical view of trade during the last recession.

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      While the percentage of Americans viewing trade as a threat has slipped three percentage points in the past year, the share viewing it positively has risen five points to 79%.

      The latest results are from Gallup’s 2020 World Affairs survey, conducted Feb. 3-16. Gallup has asked this question periodically since 1992, including annually since 2011.

      Americans’ perceptions of whether trade is more of a benefit or a hindrance have closely tracked the U.S. economy, particularly since the 2007-2009 recession. As that recession got underway, Americans were highly likely to view trade as a threat because of imports. But as the economy improved and unemployment declined to historical lows, so too have perceptions of trade as an economic threat.

      Party Groups Largely Agree on Trade

      Trade enjoys strong bipartisan support in the U.S. today, with roughly eight in 10 Democrats (82%) and Republicans (78%), in addition to 76% of independents, seeing it as more of an opportunity for growth than a threat from imports.

      Today’s views by party reflect marked increases in both Democrats’ and Republicans’ positive outlook on trade since their low points in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

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      NAFTA’s Replacement Enjoys Broad Support

      The new poll was conducted shortly after President Donald Trump signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — his long-promised replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — after bipartisan approval of the bill in both houses of Congress over the prior month. Trump and his North American counterparts signed the initial agreement over a year ago, but its implementation has been held up as congressional Democrats negotiated with the Trump administration over environmental and labor provisions.

      Americans’ views of the USMCA closely mirror their opinions of trade overall. Eight in 10 say the agreement will be good for the U.S., while 13% predict it will be bad.

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      Reflective of the bipartisan nature of the USMCA’s passage, the newly minted trade agreement receives high support from all party groups, including 88% of Republicans, 78% of independents and 73% of Democrats.

      This reaction is similar to Americans’ initial response to NAFTA after that agreement was proposed during Republican George Bush’s presidency in 1991. At that time, 72% of U.S. adults thought it would be good for the U.S., including 71% of both Republicans and independents, and 73% of Democrats. It was only in later years that NAFTA became more controversial, as well as more closely associated with the Democrats, possibly in part due to Trump’s declaring the agreement a “disaster” during his 2016 campaign.

      Public Not Following USMCA News Story Closely

      Americans’ attention to news about the USMCA has been on the low side for news stories Gallup has measured since 1991. Twelve percent say they have followed it very closely and another 34% somewhat closely, while 28% say not too closely and 26% have not followed it at all. Republicans (56%) are more likely than Democrats (45%) and independents (39%) to have followed it at least somewhat closely.

      The 46% of all Americans following news about the USMCA very or somewhat closely falls short of the 60% average attention score for nearly 230 news items in Gallup’s trend. Support for the agreement is a bit higher among those following it closely (88%) than among those following it not too closely (79%) or not at all (67%).

      Bottom Line

      The large majority of Americans now see trade as mainly an opportunity for economic growth through increased exports rather than a threat from imports. Apart from continued low U.S. unemployment, which raises everyone’s comfort level with trade, Republicans and Democrats likely have differing reasons to feel positively about what trade means for the country. Republicans may feel confident that trade is in better hands under Trump, while Democrats may feel that supporting trade is supporting the effectiveness of the trade deals put in place or championed by Trump’s Democratic predecessors.

      View complete question responses and trends.

      Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works.


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 21:45

    • Billionaire Paul Singer Seeks To Kick Out Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
      Billionaire Paul Singer Seeks To Kick Out Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

      Some will say it’s long overdue. We would agree.

      According to Bloomberg, billionaire Paul Singer’s activist hedge fund Elliott Management has taken a sizable stake in Twitter and plans to push for changes at the social media company, including replacing Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey. As part of its activist campaign, Elliott has nominated four directors to Twitter’s board, and while there are only three seats becoming available at this year’s annual meeting Elliott wanted to ensure that it nominated enough directors to fill all three seats or any other vacancies that may arise.

      Initially, Elliott reportedly approached Twitter about its concerns privately “and has had constructive discussions with it since then”, although the hostile turn of events suggests that discussions were not all that “constructive.”

      Elliott’s push to revamp Twitter comes at a pivotal time – just as Twitter cracks down on alternative voices, silencing and suspending anyone who disagrees with the company’s ultraliberal, virtue signaling ethos without as much as a second thought. As an example of Twitter’s unprecedented anti-conservative bias we can point to the recent tweet of the company’s associate General Counsel Jeff Rich, who in direct breach of his own employer’s Terms of Service, recently urged his followers to “cull” Trump from the herd, in what appears to have been a clear appeal to assassinate a sitting US president.

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      We wonder what, if not that, is grounds for Twitter to conclude that someone is violating its rules against “abuse and harassment.”

      Not only has twitter taken to silencing voices that its own employees disagree with, while falling prey to foreign powers as demonstrated by the company’s Saudi Arabia infiltration,  which may have culminated with the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, but the company has also fallen behind on innovation, choosing to focus on its “core service”, while other social media competitors like Snap and Instagram develop filters and stories popular with their users.

      Besides Elliott, Twitter has been a target for several activist investors over the years as the company has one only class of stock, which means co-founder Dorsey doesn’t have voting control of the company like Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg or Snap co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.

      Dorsey is one of the only people to serve as CEO of two large public companies at the same time — he also runs Square Inc. That makes him a potential target for criticism whenever Twitter stumbles. Bizarrely, the “woke” CEO also said he plans to work up to six months a year in Africa.

      As Bloomberg notes, Elliott isn’t the only investor to voice concerns about Dorsey and Twitter’s governance. Last December, outspoken NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway  penned a letter about his own concerns as an investor in the company.

      “To be clear, my primary objective is the replacement of CEO Jack Dorsey,” Galloway said in an open letter to the company’s executive chairman, Omid Kordestani. “However, your firm’s weapons of mass entrenchment include a staggered board that may force shareholders to seek to replace other directors, including yourself, first.”

      Twitter stock has seesawed in the past year, plunging after its Q3 earnings which fell far short of analyst estimates. At the time, Twitter said its privacy issues involving targeting data would continue to weigh on its advertising business. The company blamed the miss on “bugs” in the way it targeted ads and shared personal information.

      The good news for Twitter shareholders, if not necessarily Jack Dorsey, is that one Elliott gets involved, people get fired. Most recently, the multi-billion fund went activist on Japan’s SoftBank and said it planned to push for a larger share buyback and governance changes at the firm’s Vision Fund, which in recent years has invested billions in virtually every disastrous venture idea it could get its hands on, most notably WeWork.

      Needless to say, once Jack is gone not a single tear will be shed on this website.


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 21:26

    • Mapping The Oldest Companies In Existence
      Mapping The Oldest Companies In Existence

      In just a few decades, it’s possible that some of today’s most recognized companies may no longer be household names.

      As Visual Capitalist’s Iman Ghosh notes, corporate longevity, or the average lifespan of a company, has been shrinking dramatically.

      In the 1960s, a typical S&P 500 company was projected to last for more than 60 years. However, with the rapidly transforming business landscape today, it’s down to just 18 years.

      The Companies With the Strongest Staying Power

      Even with companies skewing younger, there are always exceptions to the rule.

      Luckily, many companies around the world have stood the test of time, and today’s detailed map from Business Financing highlights the oldest company in existence in each country.

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      For centuries, here are the world’s oldest corporations which have made their mark:

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      Whether they were born out of necessity to support a rapidly growing population—requiring new infrastructure and more money circulation—or simply to satisfy peoples’ thirst for alcohol or hunger for fried chicken, these companies continue to play a lasting role.

      The Oldest Company in Every Country, by Region

      Let’s dive into the regional maps, which paint a different picture for each continent.

      In the following maps, countries are color-coded based on the major industry that the oldest company falls under:

      • Primary: Natural resources

      • Secondary: Manufacturing and processing

      • Tertiary: Services and distribution

      • Quaternary: Knowledge and information

      Notes on Methodology:

      This research considers both state-run and independent businesses in their definitions. For countries where data was hard to pin down, they have been grayed out.

      As well, since many countries have a relatively new inception, present-day names and borders have been used. The map does not factor in older companies that are no longer in operation, or if it was unclear whether they were still open.

      Click here to explore the full research methodology.

      North America

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      Mexico’s La Casa de Moneda de México (founded 1534) is the oldest company across North America, and the first mint of America. Owned by the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, it was where the famous ‘pieces of eight’, or Spanish dollars were created.

      In the U.S., the Shirley Plantation in Virginia is an ongoing reminder of the history of slavery. First founded in 1613, business actually began in 1638—and as many as 90 slaves were under indentured labor on the estate growing tobacco.

      Further north, Canada’s Hudson’s Bay (founded 1670) was at the helm of the fur trade between European settlers and First Nations tribes—the two parties agreed on beaver pelts as a common, valuable trade standard.

      South America

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      Three of the five oldest companies in South America are mints—specifically in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru.

      The oldest of these mints, Casa Nacional de Moneda in Peru, was built on order from Spain and established in 1565. After the great influx of newly-mined silver from America to Europe, the Spanish crown outlined to King Felipe II that building a mint would give the colony economic benefits and more control.

      Europe

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      In total, 15 of Europe’s oldest companies are related to the food and beverage industries, from distilleries, vintners (winemaking), and breweries alongside restaurants and pubs. Austria’s St. Peter Stifts Kulinarium (founded in 803) is Europe’s oldest restaurant, located inside the St. Peter’s Abbey monastery.

      Although Germany is famously known for its beer culture, its oldest company is in fact the Staffelter Hof Winery (founded in 862). Today, Germany is still a top wine country, with the industry generating up to $17 billion in revenue per year.

      Asia

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      Asia has six oldest companies in the banking and finance category, as well as another six in the aviation and transport sector. The continent is also home to two of the world’s oldest companies, located in Japan and China.

      The Japanese temple and shrine construction company, Kongō Gumi Co., Ltd. (founded in 578) has weathered a few storms over the millennia, from nuclear bombs to financial crises. In 2006, it was bought by the construction conglomerate, Takamatsu Construction Group Co., and continues to operate today.

      In neighboring China, Ma Yu Ching’s Bucket Chicken House has endured dynasties of change as well. The company’s simple premise has come a long way, and it was named a cultural heritage in the country’s Henan Province.

      Africa

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      Africa’s oldest companies are another vestige of the colonial legacy, with 11 transport companies—airlines, ports and shipping, and railways—and 9 postal services.

      In fact, Cape Verde’s Correios de Cabo Verde (postal service, founded in 1849) and the DRC’s Société nationale des Chemins de fer du Congo (national railway company, founded in 1889) still go by their Portuguese and French names respectively.

      Banking is another one of the oldest industries, with 17 companies across Africa. Zimbabwe’s Standard Chartered branch has been around since 1892, a subsidiary of its London-based parent company.

      Oceania

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      Australia officially became a country on January 1st, 1901—but its oldest company, the Australia Post (founded in 1809) precedes this by almost a century.

      Interestingly, just one more old company could be located for this region, which is the Bank of New Zealand—one of the country’s Big Four banks.

      All in all, these oldest companies paint a historical picture of the major industries which have shaped entire regions.

      Did you recognize any on the list?


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 21:25

    • The Greatest Gold Quotes Of All Time
      The Greatest Gold Quotes Of All Time

      Via SchiffGold.com,

      People have treasured gold for millennia. They’ve draped it over the bodies. They’ve used it as money. They’ve even adorned their tombs with the yellow metal. As beloved as it is, it should come as no surprise that gold has been the subject of many famous quotes.

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      So, what are the greatest quotes featuring gold of all time? We wanted to find out so we held a contest. The prize – once ounce of pure gold.

      Roy Sebag ran the contest through his Twitter account. Roy is the founder of GoldMoney, and SchiffGold is part of the GoldMoney family.

      The contest was pretty simple. Respond to Roy’s tweet with a name and original quote by a historic figure in relation to gold.

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      The response was fantastic. Over 500 people responded with quotes. Roy picked the top four and drew the winner out of a hat.

      And the winner was…

      “Love is the soul’s electric flame,
      And gold its best conductor.” -Robert Burns

      The quote comes from a poem.

      She asked why wedding rings are made of gold;
      I ventured this to instruct her;
      Why, madam, love and lightning are the same,
      On earth they glance, from Heaven they came.
      Love is the soul’s electric flame,
      And gold its best conductor.

      The other finalists were as follows.

      “Gold loves to make its way through guards, and breaks through barriers of stone more easily than the lightning’s bolt.” – Horace

      “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” – Leo Tolstoy

      “Only as an image of the highest virtue did gold get to be the highest value. The giver’s glance gleams like gold. A golden brilliance concludes the peace between the moon and the sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and gentle in its brilliance.” – Nietzsche

      “The return on gold does not depend on the fulfillment of some material condition. It is an ideological problem. It presupposes only one thing: the abandonment of the illusion that increasing the quantity of money creates prosperity.” Ludwig von Mises

      And here are some more of the greatest gold quotes.

      “Let us rejoice that we are poor, And have no gold to keep: We do not need to bar the door Ere we can go to sleep.” -Robert Leighton

      “Gold is money. Everything else is credit.” – J.P. Morgan

      “Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmiths.” – Queen Elizabeth I

      “Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants – but debt is the money of slaves.” – Norm Franz

      “Gold — what can it not do, and undo?” — William Shakespeare

      “We are often told that the Gold Standard will shackle us to the United States. I will deal with that in a moment. I will tell you what it will shackle us to. It will shackle us to reality. For good or for ill, it will shackle us to reality.” – Winston Churchill

      “The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

      “O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper which makes bank credit like a bark of vapour.” – Lord Byron

      “Because gold is honest money it is disliked by dishonest men.” – Ron Paul

      “O Zeus, why is it you have given men clear ways of testing whether gold is counterfeit but, when it comes to men, the body carries no stamp of nature for distinguishing bad from good?” ― Euripides

      “Everything has its limit- iron ore cannot be educated into gold.” – Mark twain

      “Gold makes the ugly beautiful.” – Moliere

      “[Gold] can be made either into bars, ingots, or coins…has no nationality [and] is considered, in all places and at all times, the immutable and fiduciary value par excellence.” – Charles de Gaulle

      “When Gold argues the cause, eloquence is impotent.” — Publilius Syrus

      “An inch of time is an inch of gold, but an inch of time cannot be purchased for an inch of gold. Pure gold does not fear furnace. Read critically, and you will find each word worth a thousand ounces of gold. Words are mere bubbles of water, but deeds are drops of gold.” – 中国谚语

      “Gold was a gift to Jesus. If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!” — Mr. T

      “Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium.” -Murray Rothbard

      “Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon … where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good.” Moses, Genesis 2:10-12

      “Gold is tried by fire, brave men by adversity.” -Seneca

      “Stay gold Ponyboy.” – Johnny Cade in The Outsiders

      “From a strictly economic point of view, buying gold in a major inflation and holding it probably presents the least risk of capital loss of any investment or speculation.” – Henry Hazlitt

      “Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.” Author-Poet Aberjhani


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 21:05

    • US Spy Agencies Monitor Covid-19 Spread, Warn Of Threat To India's 1BN+ Population
      US Spy Agencies Monitor Covid-19 Spread, Warn Of Threat To India’s 1BN+ Population

      This could actually be a rare example of taxpayer money being put to good use by US intelligence agencies for a change, instead of the usual overthrowing governments, funding fanatical “rebels”, and eavesdropping on domestic communications.

      Reuters reports that US spy agencies are closely monitoring the coronavirus and as a global threat to the homeland, and foreign governments’ ability to respond:

      U.S. intelligence agencies are monitoring the global spread of coronavirus and the ability of governments to respond, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday, warning that there were concerns about how India would cope with a widespread outbreak.

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      CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. Image source: Library of Congress

      Both India and Iran are said to be of top concern for intelligence officials, given especially India’s densely packed population of over 1 billion people.

      The New York Post writes: 

      Spy agencies in the US are monitoring the spread of coronavirus across the world — with a focus on India — as officials grapple with concerns over the country’s ability to handle a widespread outbreak.

      India has confirmed just three cases of COVID-19 in the country, while its government says 23,531 people are under observation, the Economic Times reported.

      As for Iran, it’s widely believed the Islamic Republic’s leaders are concealing the true numbers in the hardest hit Middle East country, while lashing out at Washington for stoking fear and “propaganda” – as President Hassan Rouhani put it in a Wednesday speech.

      A new report in The Daily Beast  cites health researches who say Iran’s true numbers of infected could be closer to 18,000 and not the current official figure of over 240.

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      India’s Economic Times: “Places like Mumbai’s Dharavi slum can facilitate contact with virus-bearing droplets emitted by breathing, talking, coughing or sneezing.”

      Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this week that US remains “deeply concerned” Tehran is covering up the true level of its outbreak.

      Meanwhile, the Reuters report notes further that the House Intelligence Committee is being regularly briefed by US intelligence. 

      “The Committee has received a briefing from the IC (intelligence community) on coronavirus, and continues to receive updates on the outbreak on a daily basis,” a House Intelligence Committee official told Reuters.

      “Addressing the threat has both national security and economic dimensions, requiring a concerted government-wide effort and the IC is playing an important role in monitoring the spread of the outbreak, and the worldwide response,” the official said.


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 20:45

    • Domestic Terror? Canadian Environmentalist Protesters Attempt To Derail Train
      Domestic Terror? Canadian Environmentalist Protesters Attempt To Derail Train

      Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

      Shocking video out of Ontario, Canada shows left-wing environmentalist protesters attempt to derail and then set fire to a train.

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      Members of the Mohawk First Nation, who are engaging in rail blockades in an effort to stop the construction of a pipeline, were filmed standing in front of a train before pelting it with rocks and then laying thick tree branches on the tracks.

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      The footage then shows the protesters burning wooden pallets in an attempt to set fire to the train.

      Another video shows firefighters attending to a car that was engulfed in flames and placed on the railway tracks.

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      Some reacted to the clips by calling for the group to be listed as a domestic terror organization.

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      “It is extremely concerning to see people endangering their own lives and the lives of others by trying to interfere with the trains,” remarked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

      According to Quebec Premier Francois Legault, some of the demonstrators have also been seen carrying AK-47s.

      While some of the protesters have been arrested while manning the blockades, no charges have been brought.

      *  *  *

      My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever. It is CRUCIAL that you support me. Please sign up for the free newsletter here. Donate to me on SubscribeStar here. Support my sponsor – Emergency Survival Foods – delicious dishes & a 25 year shelf life!


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 20:25

    • China Reports Catastrophic Data: PMIs Crash To Record Low, Confirming Coronavirus Collapse
      China Reports Catastrophic Data: PMIs Crash To Record Low, Confirming Coronavirus Collapse

      One week ago, ahead of today’s Chinese data release which would for the first time capture the devastation from the coronavirus pandemic, we wrote that “to those who have been following our series of high-frequency, daily indicators of China’s economy, it will probably not come as a surprise that the world’s second biggest economy has ground to a halt, its GDP set to post the first negative print in modern history. To everyone else who is just now catching up, we have some news: it’s going to be bad.”

      Specifically, we said that ahead of official Chinese economic data which will soon start capturing the period when the coronavirus crippled the country’s economy, Nomura’s Chief China economist Ting Lu pointed out that China’s Emerging Industries PMI (EPMI), which gauges momentum in the country’s high-tech industries and is closely correlated with official manufacturing PMI, slumped to 29.9 in February (from 50.1 in January!), its lowest-print on record, which was a “pure reflection of the devastating impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.“

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      What would this mean for the closely followed China manufacturing PMI? As Nomura added, “even adjusting for seasonality and expected progress in business resumption in the coming week, we estimate the official manufacturing PMI could drop to a range of 30-40 in Feb.”

      In retrospect, it turns out that Nomura’s dire forecast was optimistic, because moments ago China’s National Statistics Bureau reported the latest, February PMIs and they were absolutely catastrophic:

      • Manufacturing PMI crashed to 35.7 in Feb, far below the 45.0 consensus estimate, and sharply down from 50.0 in January. A record low.
      • Non-Manufacturing PMI plummets to 28.9, also far below the 50.5 consensus, estimate, and down nearly 50% from the 54.1 in Jan. This too was a record low.

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      Putting these numbers in context, they are far, far worse than the prints for both series reported during the financial crisis, when the mfg PMI dropped to “only” 38.8, while the non-manufacturing PMI never even contracted.

      What is even more ominous is that while China’s non-mfg PMI has traditionally been stronger, in February not only did it collapse into deep contraction, but it plunged to 5 points below where the manufacturing sector currently finds itself, a catastrophic 20-handle. This means that China’s service industries, long seen as the guiding light to China’s successful transition away from a manufacturing-led economy, is now devastated.

      Commenting on the unprecedented number, Bloomberg’s China economist Tom Orlik said that “the first credible gauge of how China’s economy is fairing under virus lock down – the official PMI – is pointing to a brutal drop into contraction.” Well, no: anyone who read our recent series analyzing “high-frequency”, real-time Chinese data already was already aware of the catastrophic collapse in China’s economy.

      Of course, we are confident that as so often happens, the market will take these numbers in stride, as they will be an indication that China is “kitchen sinking” the collapse, and a V-shaped recovery will follow. Alas, it won’t because while not only has China’s economy not picked up even modestly, but it is only a matter of time before Beijing, which has forced people to go to work against their will, succumbs to a second wave of coronavirus infections, one which will result in a far worse economic collapse than the current one, which incidentally has yet to show any actual recovery!

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      Finally, for all those expecting that Beijing will unleash another massive stimulus to kick-start the economy at any cost, we give the last word to Nomura’s Ting Lu, who not only correctly predicted the plunge in PMIs, but also says that “the likelihood of another round of massive stimulus appears low as policy space remains limited.””

      “We believe markets might underestimate the scale of the current growth slump. Due to a slower-than-expected rate of business resumption, we have cut our year-on-year Q1 real GDP growth forecast to 3.0% and expect Beijing to ramp up policy easing measures in coming months. That said, the likelihood of another round of massive stimulus appears low as policy space remains limited.”

      In short, for China – which was the world’s growth dynamo during the global financial crisis and helped the world rebound from the 2009 global depression while raking up tens of trillions in debt – the end of the economic road may finally be here.


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 20:23

    • "Trump Faces An Impossible Trade-Off": Why A Global Recession Is Now Inevitable
      “Trump Faces An Impossible Trade-Off”: Why A Global Recession Is Now Inevitable

      With California reporting late on Friday that a second coronavirus case of “unknown origin” has been uncovered, prompting Santa Claria’s Health Department to caution that “now is the time to prepare for the possibility of widespread community transmission” echoing similar warnings from the CDC, the Trump administration’s response to what now appears an inevitable surge in US-based coronavirus cases is becoming an increasingly politicized topic, and not without justification: after all, it is hardly a secret that Trump’s favorite “job approval” barometer has been the stock market – which hit an all time high as recently as last week – and it is also hardly a secret that Trump hardly wishes to inspire a stock market panic by disclosing the full extent and severity of any potential domestic epidemic (which ironically, aligns Trump ideologically with China, which is now willing to sacrifice its population in the pursuit of restarting the Chinese economy).

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      Yet the more Trump, or various domestic institutions, appears evasive over the full extent of the corona crisis inside the US, the more markets get hit. Worse, the longer Trump avoids addressing the potential domestic epidemic, the more likely it is that the market crash that saw stocks plunge this week at the fastest rate since the financial crisis, will persist.

      This brings us to an absolutely spot-on observation made by Bank of America’s rates strategist Ralf Preusser, who explains why for Trump, and US stocks, it may only get worse, before it gets even worse. That reason is that markets now seem to be taking the view that authorities – i.e., Trump – face an impossible trade-off:

      • On one hand, they can adopt the Draconian quarantine measures seen in China and trigger a global recession as worldwide economic activity grinds to a halt
      • Or, they can risk a pandemic by failing to take more aggressive action on Covid-19, also resulting in a global recession

      China initially tried the first only to watch its economy grind to a halt, and then flipped in pursuit of the second option (while covering up the full extent of the ongoing coronavirus crisis within its borders) in hopes of rebooting the economy (the results of this diabolical approach are dismal at best as the following charts show), at least until the wave of new infections overruns the system and forces Beijing to once again “come clean”, while blaming it on a definition “glitch.”

      Similar to China, the Trump administration realizes the “Catch-22” nature of the dilemma it is facing and is hoping to delay making a decision for as long as possible, knowing well that either choice could trip the US into a recession and with the November elections looming, a recessionary outcome could devastate Trump’s odds for reelection.

      Of course, there will come a moment when even Trump will have to pick an approach, and if it is the first, the US economy would grind to a halt on short notice, similar to China, while the second will not only spark risks of an even greater epidemic over in the long run but trigger an aggressive popular response against Trump (one spearheaded by the resistance media), and which will paint the US President as the American version of Xi Jinping – one willing to sacrifice US citizens just to keep stock prices elevated.

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      While we wait to see which option in this Faustian bargain Trump picks, BofA writes that while it is hopeful that we are ” faced with a situation where the epidemic remains under control with clusters of outbreaks that are contained” even there it “cannot rule out recession risks given possible supply chain disruptions and the extent to which the global recovery is dependent on the consumer.”

      Moreover, Preusser adds, “we need to acknowledge that even after recent corrections in risk assets (equities, credit, EM, periphery), allocations to risk remain meaningful and markets are short of hedges.” From that perspective, Bank of America warns that the “30-50% recession risks implied by the market do not seem extravagant to us.”

      So is a recession looming, and when will we know? According to Preusser, “the question is to what extent next week’s data will incorporate this week’s deterioration in Covid-19.” One place that should give a sense of the supply disruptions is China PMIs, although this data has been notoriously massaged in the past. Separately, the US ISM print may show the sentiment effect of the China element of the outbreak, but would fail to reflect this week’s realization that the virus may be spreading meaningfully beyond Asia. Likewise the labor market report will be backward looking at this stage. Finally, German January factory orders and the details of the European PMI prints will not tell us much about the risks to the European recovery from the outbreak in Italy.

      In short, the lack of any clear confirmation that the global economy is stalling may give Trump just the ammo to keep his head stuck in the sand, pretending there is no trouble and that only Powell is to blame for the market’s woes. The irony, of course, is that the longer Trump delays picking an approach, leading to what Bank of America calls a state of “Schrodinger’s Recession”…

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      … the more likely it is that a very real recession will be the inevitable outcome, and this week the stock market, whose discounting abilities have been crushed by the Fed’s central planning in the past decade but still function if just barely, finally realized that.


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 20:05

    • Why Are Polar Bears Going Extinct? (Spoiler Alert: They're Not!)
      Why Are Polar Bears Going Extinct? (Spoiler Alert: They’re Not!)

      Via Dr. Susan Crockford’s PolarBearScience.com,

      Google says many people ask this question so here is the correct answer: polar bears are not going extinct.

      If you have been told that, you have misunderstood or have been misinformed. Polar bears are well-distributed across their available habitat and population numbers are high (officially 22,000-31,000 at 2015 but likely closer to 26,000-58,000 at 2018): these are features of a healthy, thriving species.

      ‘Why are polar bears going extinct?’ contains a false premise – there is no need to ask ‘why’ when the ‘polar bears [are] going extinct’ part is not true.

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      It is true that in 2007, it was predicted that polar bear numbers would plummet when summer sea ice declined to 42% of 1979 levels for 8 out of 10 years (anticipated to occur by 2050) and extinct or nearly so by 2100 (Amstrup et al. 2007). However, summer sea ice has been at ‘mid-century-like’ levels since 2007 (with year to year variation, see NOAA ice chart below) yet polar bear numbers have increased since 2005. The anticipated disaster did not occur but many people still believe it did because the media and some researchers still give that impression.

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      The prediction of imminent extinction of the polar bear was an utter failure, as I’ve shown in this scientific paper (Crockford 2017) and my most recent book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened.

      Examine the evidence and you will see that claims of polar bears going extinct are simply not true. So far, the response of polar bears to recent ice loss suggests that they will continue to thrive with even less summer ice than there has been in recent years as long as ice in winter (December-March) and spring (April-June) remains reasonably abundant, as has been the case to date. The most recent information available is summarized in the upcoming State of the Polar Bear Report 2019, to be released 27 February 2020 but see also the 2018 report (Crockford 2019b).

      The graph below was constructed by NASA sea ice expert Walt Meier and published by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in early October 2019. It shows clearly that summer sea ice (measured as the average for September) has not declined further since 2007 but has had a flat trend.

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      The graph below is from my book and shows the growth of global polar bear numbers since the 1960s.

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      The final estimate 26,000-58,000 or 39,000 average) is my plausible and scientifically defensible ‘best guess’ based on extrapolation of recent survey results, summarized here and explained in detail in my book.

      FOOTNOTE

      One of Google’s top ‘suggestion’ when I search for the term ‘polar bear’ is a list of questions that people supposedly ask the most (‘People also ask’), including ‘Why are polar bears going extinct?’

      The ‘answer’ provided is not an actual answer but a statement from WWF, an multi-national organization financially invested in promoting the idea that polar bears are suffering due to declining sea ice: it’s paid Google advertising meant to look like answers and facts:

      ‘Because of ongoing and potential loss of their sea ice habitat resulting from climate change, polar bears were listed as a threatened species in the US under the Endangered Species Act in May 2008. The survival and the protection of the polar bear habitat are urgent issues for WWF.’

      Note the statement misleadingly says ‘sea ice’ when it really means ‘summer sea ice’ – the predictions of potential polar bear population decline were based exclusively on summer ice (Amstrup et al. 2007; Crockford 2017, 2019).

      As I said above, ‘Why are polar bears going extinct?’ contains a false premise – there is no need to ask ‘why’, when the ‘polar bears [are] going extinct’ part is not true. This post is for the people who search the internet thinking that polar bears really are going extinct.

      Another question Google offers is: ‘How many polar bears are left?’ Answer [my bold]:

      ‘In fact, the World Wide Fund for Nature (or WWF) estimates that there are only 22,000 to 31,000 polar bears left in the world. Jan 25, 2019’

      Only? This global estimate, provided by the IUCN Red List (not the WWF) means there are almost three times more polar bears than the 10,000 or so there were in 1960 (Regehr et al. 2016; Wiig et al. 2015). But the Red List figure includes out-of-date estimates and low-balled guesses for many of the 19 subpopulations and my book (Crockford 2019) explains why this 2015 estimate sanctioned by the IUCN was almost certainly too low.


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 19:45

    • Greece Sends 50 Naval Vessels & Commandos To Block Refugee Wave Out Of Turkey
      Greece Sends 50 Naval Vessels & Commandos To Block Refugee Wave Out Of Turkey

      Greece sealed its key land Kastanies border crossing with Turkey Friday after Ankara declared it’s allowing refugees to flee Idlib and on to Europe for at least 72 hours, in response to Syrian-Russian airstrikes killing 33 Turkish troops Thursday.

      Germany’s Bild newspaper reported Friday that Greece is taking further emergency measures to prevent Erdogan from effectively “opening the gates” on new waves of refugee and migrant hordes seeking entry to the EU, noting the country “completely closed off its borders with Turkey: not just for refugees, but for EVERYONE.”

      The newspaper said 50 naval ships, likely most of them small patrol vessels, have been deployed by the Hellenic Navy to ensure those coming out of Turkey don’t get through.

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      Hellenic Navy file image

      Citing a top Greek government official, Bild reported further this will include air support.

      “According to BILD information, the government sent 50 warships to the Greek islands to protect the EU’s external borders,” the German tabloid said. “Ten helicopters are also supposed to secure the transitions to Turkey on land.”

      Greece’s Ekathimerini newspaper said military commandos were being sent to key crossings following an emergency meeting of key government officials Friday to deal with the crisis:

      Patrols along the land and river border in northeastern Evros have been bolstered since Friday morning, when the first large groups of migrants began to arrive following an announcement on Thursday night by a Turkish government official saying that Ankara would no longer try to prevent Syrians fleeing war in their country from attempting the crossing to the European Union.

      The army has also dispatched two commando units to help the Hellenic Police guards at the border, and particularly to patrol the more dangerous sections of the Evros River.

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      And The Guardian reported further early Friday: “Hundreds of Syrian refugees in Turkey have begun preparing to travel towards the country’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria after Ankara’s sudden decision to no longer impede their passage to Europe.” 

      “Turkish police, coastguard and border security officials were ordered to stand down overnight on Thursday, Turkish officials briefed reporters,” the report added.

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      Bild: Greece uses tear gas against refugees at the Pazarkule border crossing Photo. Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

      As European officials mull whether this is but more of Erdogan’s threats or perhaps an early “taste” of what’s to come, or whether the flood has begun, Bulgaria has begun taking extra security action as well, bolstering patrols along border areas with Turkey

      Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis vowed that “no illegal entries into Greece will be tolerated” – noting greatly tightened security along the EU’s external borders.

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      Turkey’s communications director Fahrettin Altun had earlier said Turkey had “no choice” but to relax border controls after its pleas for greater European help in assisting with the over 3 million refugees on its territory went unheeded. 

      However, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu sought to downplay new reports of Turkey encouraging refugees exit toward Europe, saying Turkey’s policy hasn’t changed. But footage coming out of Turkey and the Greece-Turkey main crossing throughout Friday speaks otherwise.


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 19:25

    • Corona-Crash Sparks Fastest 'Correction' In History On Record-Breaking Volume
      Corona-Crash Sparks Fastest ‘Correction’ In History On Record-Breaking Volume

      It was a historic week…

      S&P crashed from peak to correction at the fastest pace in history…

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      Dow crashed from peak to correction at its fastest pace since 1928 – right before The Great Depression

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Right on time…we’re gonna need more liquidity…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Some more historical context…

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      The last 7 days has been carnage…

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      As SunTrust’s chief market strategist  Keith Lerner wrote:

      “Investors are selling stocks first and asking questions later.”

      “We are seeing signs of pure liquidation. ‘Get me out at any cost’ seems to be the prevailing mood. There is little doubt the coronavirus will continue to weigh on the global economy, and the U.S. will not be immune. There is much we do not know. However, it is also premature to suggest the base case for the U.S. economy is recession.”

      But, James McCormick, global head of desk strategy at NatWest Markets noted:

      “Asset prices diverged significantly from growth in the past year, in part because of central bank policy, but also because passive investment’s main signal is price action.

      “The COVID-19 escalation runs a real risk of virtuous cycle turning to a vicious one. Either way, given where growth estimates are heading for the next few months, I’d expect more downside.”

      Some of the week/month/year’s high- and low-lights…

      • S&P is down 7 days in a row – longest losing streak since Nov 2016 (worst month since Feb 2009 – equal to Dec 2018’s drop, worst week since Lehman – Oct 2008)

      • Dow is down 7 days in a row – longest losing streak since June 2018 (worst month since Feb 2009, worst week since Lehman – Oct 2008)

      • Dow volume today hit an all-time record high.

      • MAGA stocks lost $780 Billion in market cap in the last 7 days.

      • World stocks lost $5 trillion in market cap in the last 7 days

      • VIX exploded 30 points higher in Feb – its biggest monthly spike in vols ever

      • Bank stocks suffered their biggest weekly drop since March 2009 (worst month since Feb 2009)

      • Airline stocks suffered their biggest weekly drop since March 2009 (worst month since Nov 2008)

      • 2Y yields fell 39bps in Feb – the biggest yield drop since Nov 2008

      • 30Y yields fell 33bps in Feb – the biggest yield drop since Aug 2019

      • Treasury Vol highest since Sept 2013

      • HY Credit Spreads widened by the most since the financial crisis in Feb

      • The USDollar rose by the most since July 2019 in Feb (but the worst week since 2019)

      • Silver suffered its worst monthly drop since May 2016

      • Gold’s worst day today since June 2013

      • Oil collapsed again in February for its worst start to a year since 1991

      At its low today, the Dow wiped out almost all of last year’s 22% gain…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Stocks rebounded a little today on hopes of an emergency cut this weekend… but that failed… and then sheer panic-buying (PPT?) which pushed Nasdaq just into the green!!!

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      Just look at the closing ramp – End of month flows? Algos gone wild…

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      Notably Nasdaq bounced off its 200DMA…

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      Looks like month-end rebalancing, and bonds reversed after the cash close…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Fed speakers and Jay Powell issued statements which definitely didn’t suggest that a Sunday night rescue was planned (despite Kevin Warsh’s urging)…

      0830ET Kaplan: “I’ll be prepared to make a judgement as we go into the March meeting, I am trying to keep my attention on what’s going on in the underlying economy.”

      0905ET Bullard: “Further policy rate cuts are a possibility if a global pandemic actually develops with health effects approaching the scale of ordinary influenza, but this is not the baseline case at this time… Longer-term U.S. interest rates have been driven lower by a global flight to safety, likely benefiting the U.S. economy.” Bullard added that “even with the current stock market price drop, equities have been on a long upswing.”

      1030ET Bullard spoke again reaffirming that US GDP Forecasts “don’t look very severe” and The Fed is “willing to react if virus has major impact but will want to wait and monitor events until the next meeting.”

      1430ET Powell: “The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong. However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity. The Federal Reserve is closely monitoring developments and their implications for the economic outlook. We will use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.”

      Powell’s pumping plan failed…

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      CNBC’s Steve Liesman also summed things up well:

      “At what level of interest rates would I be willing to go to a rock concert and risk infection?”

      Nevertheless, the market is now demanding 36bps of cuts in March (so one cut guaranteed and a 50% or so chance of 50bps), additionally market is pricing in 65bps of cuts by June.

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      Source: Bloomberg

      China, finally, was ugly overnight, starting to catch down to EU and US stocks since Covid-19 struck…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Despite today’s desperate attempt to rebound – perhaps on hopes of an emergency rate-cut by The Fed this weekend and Powell’s statement – the S&P and Dow are down 7 days in a row…with 4 intraday 1,000 point drops in a row

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      Source: Bloomberg

      The S&P 500 just suffered its fastest crash from peak to correction ever… and US stocks saw their worst week since Lehman (Oct 2008), leaving everything red year-to-date…

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      Stock market volume has exploded higher as the crash has accelerated – notably higher volumes than during the Dec 2018 crash…

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      The Dow saw its biggest volume since April 2006…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      FANG stocks were FUBAR…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      MAGA stocks have lost $780 billion in the last week…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      World Stocks lost over $5.1 trillion in market cap in the last 6 days – that is the biggest loss ever…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Airline stocks collapsed over 21% this week – their worst since March 2009…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Bank stocks were a bloodbath this week…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      The biggest 6-day collapse in bank stocks since the peak of the financial crisis…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      VIX surged over 30 points in Feb…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      VIX closed at its highest since Aug 2011…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Liquidity has collapsed in the VIX complex as bid-offer spreads have exploded…

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      Credit markets imploded in the last week, with HY Bond OAS blowing out in Feb by the most

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Treasury yields plunged in February, with the long-end crashing 33bps – the biggest drop since Aug 2019…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      But while all yields were lower, the 2Y saw the biggest drop – down 39bps – the biggest monthly decline since Nov 2008

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      Source: Bloomberg

      As an aside, the Austria 100-year bond price is back to record highs…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      While equity vol is exploding, Bond vol is also spiking dramatically, to its highest since Sept 2013

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      Source: Bloomberg

      10Y Real Treasury Rates crashed down to -75bps…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      The yield curve (3m10Y) flattened for the second month in a row, closing inverted…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      The entire Treasury curve is now trading below the Fed Funds rate…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      The dollar fell 0.25% on the week, thanks to a last-minute statement from The Fed’s Jay Powell. This was the worst week for the dollar since 2019…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Cryptos had an ugly week (BTC -11%, ETH -15%) erasing the month’s gains leaving only Ethereum positive in Feb…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Thanks to today’s carnage in gold, the yellow metal actually ended the month in the red

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      Source: Bloomberg

      The week was also a bloodbath for all commodities… led by oil…

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Silver was clubbed like a baby seal this week to the lowest since Aug 2019…

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      Gold was also monkey-hammered today on massive volume… its worst day since June 2013

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      Oil extended its losses from January for the worst start to a year since 1991…

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      Lots of questions about the crash in gold today – we point to one key chart for the culprit – BoJ!!

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      Source: Bloomberg

      Finally, as @QTRResearch noted:

      MON – People on CNBC said buying – WRONG
      TUE – People on CNBC said buying – WRONG
      WED – People on CNBC said buying – WRONG
      THU – People on CNBC said buying – WRONG
      FRI – People on CNBC said buying – WRONG

      And as Jim Bianco noted, CNBC hit the panic button this week…

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      Or did the market panic over Bernie?

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      Source: Bloomberg

      From “Extreme Greed” to “Extreme Fear” in 2 months…

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      Source: CNN

      Still, we know who will be buying this dip… or telling you to…

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      White House Economic Adivser Larry Kudlow suggested investors “buy the dip.”


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 19:11

    • Democrats Have No Choice Left But To 'Feel The Bern'
      Democrats Have No Choice Left But To ‘Feel The Bern’

      Authored by Tim Kriby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

      Now that Bernie Sanders has been informed that the Kremlin is trying to support him (whether he likes it or not) he has officially become a viable candidate who may actually desire to make real systemic change. In a way the Russia connection accusation can now be worn as a badge of honour by Gabbard and Trump due to them truly being a limited threat to the status quo. Sanders got a gentler version of this form of Deep State virtue signaling by just being told that Russians are pushing for him on their own, meaning that there “may be hope for him yet” to turn around and jump right back on the Beltway bandwagon. Ultimately, the #Russiagate tactic did not disway voters from electing Trump but it did eat up a massive amount of his precious time/resources as US President and put an invisible Iron Curtain between any possible positive cooperation between America and Russia. This “collusion” revelation of dubious validity for Sanders will probably have a similar impact on his campaign and possible time in the Oval Office as it did with Trump, but regardless he is the only chance the Democrats have of winning in 2020.

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      Democratic and Republican voters are obviously different in their beliefs falling onto one of two different sides of every wedge issue, but one thing unites all American voters – no one actually cares about Russia or really any foreign power. Over the last 6 months, less than 0.5% of Americans said their primary concern was “Situation with Russia” based on polling by Gallup. (Gallop lists all concerns with a tiny response at 0.5% meaning that literally one person could have listed this as their big issue and it would be rounded up to half a percent). If we then take a look at the biggest concerns that Americans do have, then not surprisingly it is things like the economy, healthcare, government/poor leadership, immigration, poverty and surprisingly unifying the country.

      This has been a consistent fact for decades, the American voter is vastly more concerned about things that affect them personally than some greater threat or ideological goal. America is a society of individualists so naturally most people’s demands from power are based their own individual needs. There is nothing surprising here, except for the desire to “unify the country” which has not been a priority in previous years.

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      Photo: Bernie speaks to youth better than men half his age

      Perhaps some people in the Beltway are concerned with Russia, but the voting masses are not and the narrative that “Bernie is getting help from Moscow, but then again he didn’t ask for it and is not involved” is very weak sauce. This will not dissuade any real large number of people away from voting for him as the Democratic Candidate.

      What Sanders offered in 2016 that got crushed by inner Democratic Party moves and Hillary Clinton is still fresh and relevant today – “Free” Stuff and cutesy poo Socialism. Just like last time the only hope the Dems have is the man from Vermont with the thick New York accent as all the other candidates are dismal offerings to the public. Sanders’ position is what a large portion of the population wants. Is it viable and can Sanders actually do it? These questions do not matter as the average voter does not think about them, they want their college debt annulled and medical care guaranteed and who cares how it gets done. Sanders promises this clearly and bluntly while the others are too busy looking at percentages from focus group reactions to shift their image from day-to-day. Bernie is really the only choice for the Democrats to compete with Trump.

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      Graphic: A simple message that is deeply relevant to Americans is what gets votes

      Biden managed to throw away all the years of positive brand recognition that he had attained thanks to standing next to Barack Obama by allowing #Russiagate to meltdown into #Ukrainegate expositing his corrupt dealings in America’s newest colony. Additionally there are lots of videos of Biden inappropriately touching children, which is far more important from an electoral standpoint. Biden had it and lost it.

      Tulsi Gabbard as a female veteran (who doesn’t look White) should have gotten the Left excited, but instead they trounced her as she seemed unwilling to play ball. Yang has one idea (Universal Basic Income) and the complete lack of personality needed to push it. Elizabeth Warren has all the problems of Hillary Clinton while still managing to have less humanity on camera. Stuffy anti-gun nut Buttigieg will probably give the Republicans the largest amount of minority votes seen during our lifetimes. Bloomberg is a boring version of Trump who seems to be obviously trying to buy his way into the election, which will ultimately backfire. Who is this Amy Klobuchar woman and how did she actually get a tiny amount of delegates? Bernie’s competition is a joke.

      Sanders, despite being the old rich bald White guy the Left claims to loath, is head and shoulders above anyone else in terms of his ability to deliver a message and get a positive reaction out of people. Basically, he has the showmanship and the ability to relate to people well enough to get the youth and minority vote. Most of all, he promises free stuff that he is going to tax us for which is the naive instant gratification solution that the masses want. The entire country has brutal college debt and the fear of life-crushing medical debt. Even though Sanders has almost zero chance of actually getting Scandinavian Style Socialized Medicine or a Student Loan Amnesty accomplished, just the promise alone is very tempting. When faced with the option of possibly getting tens of thousand of dollars of debt cancelled vs. a 0% chance of that happening with Trump, well you can see whom debt ridden Americans will be casting their ballots for.

      Yang’s Universal Basic Income also speaks to the millions of voices fighting to get from paycheck to paycheck but he was unable to deliver it. Sanders has the charisma and the big pleasant sounding simple solutions that the common man will buy into. If the Democrats again somehow try to sabotage Bernie, then they will be the ones feeling the “Bern” as they will be utterly crushed by Trump, allowing the Republican party to continue its transformation from the perception of a pro-business party to one of a multi-racial pro-Constitutional populist party. The DNC can either back someone they don’t like or shoot themselves in the foot, but judging by their overall irrational political views and emotion driven logic they are probably already trying to put the “magazine” in the revolver as we speak.


      Tyler Durden

      Fri, 02/28/2020 – 19:05

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