Mar 31

Today’s News 31st March 2020

  • Maersk Crew Hospitalized In First Ever COVID-19 Cases On Board A Container Ship
    Maersk Crew Hospitalized In First Ever COVID-19 Cases On Board A Container Ship

    Despite one of the the world’s largest shipping lines, Maersk, recently suspending all crew changes aboard its container vessels for up to one month in order to shield crew and operations from the coronavirus and keep them “as normal as possible,” this weekend witnessed the first ever confirmed cases aboard a container ship.

    In the past days reports have emerged that an entire crew from the Danish-flagged ship Gjertrud Maers have been tested, with some evacuated and hospitalized in Ningbo, China. A Maersk company spokesman later said in a press statement that “a number of our seafarers” on the ship were suspected for the virus.

    “As per our established protocols, the seafarers were isolated on the vessel when symptoms appeared and we are providing medical treatment based on input from our medical advisers,” the Maersk statement said.

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    File image: Getty/Market Watch

    “The vessel was awaiting phasing into our network and currently idle at the quayside in Ningbo, China,” it added. “Extra precaution measures will be taken for crew replacement and sanitations will be implemented.”

    Subsequent reports on Monday via state-run China News Service (CNS) indicate at least five of the crew members have tested positive for Covid-19, after a total of 22 foreign crew members were put in isolation aboard the ship while awaiting testing.

    Initially seven crew members were reported as having “abnormal physical condition” over a week ago. Maersk did not immediately confirm the crew tested positive, however.

    CEO of Maersk Ocean and Logistics, Vincent Clerc, late last week updated global customers and partners as to how the pandemic will impact shipping volume. He confirmed in a statement that necessary drastic actions taken by governments and companies to contain the spread of the virus will result in an economic slowdown. He added that recent interaction and conversations with customers “confirm our expectation of lower volume demand in the coming weeks.”

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    Clerc said further, “We are actively preparing our network to match a reduced demand level. We believe that it is our responsibility to rightsize in order to protect our cost position, both to be able to weather these storms but importantly also to ensure that you have a partner who cares for the integrity of your supply chain as we look to lifting the world out of this crisis.”

    Last month the company said it was bracing itself for coronavirus to impact its 2020 earnings hard: 

    Maersk said it expects earnings of around $5.5 billion this year, which is about 5% below what analysts had been predicting.

    …Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, has warned of a “very weak” start to the year as the coronavirus keeps factories shuttered in China and dents demand for the transport of goods.

    The Danish ship operator said Thursday [Feb.20] that it has canceled more than 50 trips to and from Asia since the Lunar New Year holiday was extended because of the outbreak. Shipping rates are expected to decrease as demand slips, the company said in an earnings report.

    The company’s forecast for shipping volume growth of less than 1% is “pretty downbeat,” giving it some breathing space if the impact of the coronavirus is worse than expected, said Michael Field, an analyst at Morningstar…

    “We estimate factories in China are operating at 50% to 60% of capacity,” CEO Søren Skou said on an earnings call.

    Already countries in the West, often over-reliant on manufacturing in East Asia, are feeling the crunch of limited supplies of shipped goods as port activity dries up on significantly lower volumes. This is especially the case when it comes to vital medical supplies, including items as simple as protective medical gear like gowns, masks, and gloves.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/31/2020 – 02:45

  • How "Progressive" Ideology Led To COVID-19 Catastrophe In Spain
    How “Progressive” Ideology Led To COVID-19 Catastrophe In Spain

    Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

    The Spanish government, comprised of a coalition of Socialists and Communists, is facing legal action for alleged negligence in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The government is accused of putting its narrow ideological interests ahead of the safety and wellbeing of the public, and, in so doing, unnecessarily worsening the humanitarian crisis now gripping Spain, currently the second-worst afflicted country in Europe after Italy.

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    A class action lawsuit filed on March 19 accuses the Spanish government — highly ideological by any standard, as the Communist coalition partner, Podemos, was founded with seed money from the Venezuelan government — of knowingly endangering public safety by encouraging the public to participate in more than 75 feminist marches, held across Spain on March 8, to mark International Women’s Day.

    The nationwide rallies were aimed at protesting the government’s perennial bugbear: the alleged patriarchy of Western civilization.

    Hundreds of thousands of people participated in those marches, and several high-profile attendees — including Spain’s deputy prime minister, as well as the prime minister’s wife and mother, and also the wife of the leader of Podemos — have since tested positive for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is unknown how many people were infected by the coronavirus as a result of the rallies.

    The lawsuit, involving more than 5,000 plaintiffs, accuses Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his representatives in Spain’s 17 autonomous regions of “prevarication” — a Spanish legal term that means lying and deceiving. The government was allegedly so determined to ensure that the feminist marches took place on March 8 that it deliberately downplayed warnings about the pandemic. These warnings include:

    • September 2019. The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, an international panel of experts convened by the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), warned of a “very real threat of a rapidly moving, highly lethal pandemic of a respiratory pathogen killing 50 to 80 million people and wiping out nearly 5% of the world’s economy.

    • December 31. China alerted WHO to several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, a port city of 11 million people in the central Hubei province. The virus was unknown.

    • January 7. China identified the new coronavirus as the cause of a mystery disease in Wuhan.

    • January 21. WHO confirmed human-to-human transmission of the virus.

    • January 29. Spanish pharmaceutical cooperatives warned that pharmacies were running out of masks due to a surge in demand. Sales of masks surged by 3,000% in January compared to the year before.

    • January 30. WHO Director-General declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

    • January 31. The first known case of COVID-19 in Spain was confirmed in La Gomera, Canary Islands, where a German tourist tested positive and was admitted to a local hospital.

    • February 12. Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest mobile phone trade fair, which draws more than 100,000 participants from 200 countries, was cancelled due to fears of coronavirus. The financial loss to Barcelona and the city’s hospitality industry was estimated to be €500 million ($560 million).

    • February 24. More than 1,000 guests and employees at the Costa Adeje Palace hotel in Tenerife, Canary Islands, were quarantined after an Italian citizen tested positive for COVID-19.

    • February 27. A 62-year-old man from Seville tested positive for COVID-19. His was the first case of local transmission of the virus in Spain. The man said that he believed he was infected during a banking conference in Malaga, where he sat next to a partner who traveled to the Canary Islands on vacation and had had contact with people from Asia. Doctors said that the diagnosis was of “great importance” because it proved that COVID-19 has been circulating in Spain without detection.

    • March 2. The European Center for Disease Control and Prevention advised European countries to cancel mass gatherings of people to prevent the transmission of coronavirus.

    • March 2. The Spanish Medical Agency sent a letter to pharmaceutical distributors to restrict the marketing of masks and to block their distribution across Spanish pharmacies. The agency’s objective, on the advice of the Ministry of Health, was to ensure the supply of masks to hospitals and health centers at a time when the number of confirmed cases was beginning to multiply. The measure blocked sales to Spanish pharmacies, as well as sales abroad.

    • March 3. The regional health ministry in Valencia announced that the first coronavirus fatality in Spain died on February 13. Health authorities did not know he had the virus until 19 days after his death — an indication that Spanish authorities have been slow to understand the outbreak. Since coronavirus cases that end in death last between two and eight weeks, in addition to a 14-day incubation period, it is possible that the man was infected as early as the beginning of January.

    • March 3. Spanish authorities ordered major football and basketball matches to be held behind closed doors with no spectators allowed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

    • March 6. The Spanish Ministry of Health advised: “The precautionary principle must prevail. The emergence of a hitherto unknown virus means that precautionary measures must be taken based on the existing scientific knowledge regarding viruses.”

    On March 7, despite these warnings, the Spanish government’s main point man for the coronavirus, Fernando Simón, claimed in a nationwide press conference that there was no risk of attending the rallies on March 8.

    “If my son asks me if he can go, I will tell him to do whatever he wants,” he said.

    The intrepid, Spain-based journalist Matthew Bennett discovered that the Spanish government failed to report new coronavirus cases between March 6 and March 9, apparently in an effort to downplay the danger to the public of attending the rallies.

    On March 9, after the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Madrid doubled in one day, the President of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, ordered all schools in the capital to be closed for at least two weeks. The decision by the regional government caught the central government by surprise and effectively forced it to act.

    • March 10. Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa, a Catalan philosophy major with no experience in medicine, said: “Today’s situation may be different from yesterday’s, it is changing, and this will continue to be so until we overcome this situation.”

    • March 11. The Spanish government acknowledged that it knew on March 8, before the feminist rallies took place, that the coronavirus outbreak in Madrid was out of control.

    • March 12. Prime Minister Sánchez, defending himself against criticism that he allowed the marches to go ahead, said that his government was responding to the “dynamic” situation of the coronavirus by “adapting” to the “hourly” recommendations of scientific experts.

    • March 14. The central government announced a nationwide state of emergency that effectively placed 46 million people in lockdown for at least 15 days. All non-essential travel has been prohibited and people are confined to their homes except in cases of emergency or to purchase food or medicine. All schools and universities in the country are closed.

    • March 29. The lockdown, the strictest in all of Europe, was extended until April 11.

    The lawsuit has been forwarded to the Spanish Supreme Court due to the prime minister’s immunity.

    Article 404 of the Penal Code establishes a penalty of between nine to 15 years of disqualification for public office for public officials convicted of the crime of prevarication.

    Víctor Valladares, a Madrid-based lawyer who is leading the lawsuit, said:

    “The result of the calls for these demonstrations and their direct approval by government delegations and by the inaction of the central government chaired by the accused, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, could not be more antagonistic to what the EU indicated in its report. Why was not an order issued to prevent any type of mass event?”

    Meanwhile, the Association of Doctors and Medics of Madrid (AMYTS) and the Confederation of Medical Trade Unions (CESM) also filed lawsuits against the government. The complaint demands that the federal and local governments provide hospitals in Madrid with masks, protective glasses and waste containers within 24 hours.

    The Spanish blogger Elentir, who operates the blog Contando Estrelas, a politically astute website that is essential to understanding contemporary Spanish politics, wrote:

    “As we found out, 16 days late, the first death from coronavirus had occurred in Spain on February 13. Faced with the risk that the massive feminist mobilizations on Sunday, March 8 could be cancelled, Fernando Simón commented: ‘We have no specific recommendation on the suspension of the rally on March 8.’

    “On March 9, one day after the feminist marches, Health Minister Salvador Illa expressly recommend that all people with chronic diseases or multiple pathologies do not leave their homes except for emergencies…. He said this immediately after the feminist rallies held on March 8.

    “Honestly, it seems to me a joke that the government has waited until today, clearly for political reasons, to make this announcement. The Socialist-Communist government has once again put its political interests above the common good. This gross negligence should lead to resignations.”

    Criticism of the Spanish government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has also come from members of the Socialist Party itself. On March 22, Juan Luis Cebrián, a co-founder of the newspaper El País, a notorious mouthpiece of the Socialist Party, wrote:

    “The crocodile tears of so many political leaders who claim that no one could have imagined such a thing such as the coronavirus do not make any sense. There were not only those who imagined it: they foresaw it, and they seriously warned about it. There has undoubtedly been negligence on the part of the various health ministers and their bosses, and in France three doctors have already filed a complaint against the government for this reason. The consequence is that most Western nations today are overwhelmed in their abilities to fight the epidemic. They reacted late and erroneously. Lacking is: hospital beds, medical personnel, respirators and transparency in official information.

    “On February 24, WHO officially declared the probability that we would be faced with a pandemic. Despite this and knowing the magnitude of the threat, which has already been fully realized in several countries, hardly any measures were taken in most of the potential scenarios for the spread of the virus. In the case of Spain, attendance at gigantic demonstrations was encouraged, the holding of massive popular festivals was promoted, urgent funding for research was delayed, the threat was minimized, and even the official still in charge today of the scientific recommendations dared to say between smiles that there was no risk to the population.

    “This is not the time to open a debate on the subject, but it is legitimate to assume that in addition to political responsibilities, citizens… will have the right to demand legal redress if there is guilty negligence.”

    Spain is one of the European countries most effected by the virus: As of March 29, more than 80,000 people had been diagnosed with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and more than 6,500 had died as a result. The actual number of people infected may be ten times higher due to the lack of testing of asymptomatic cases. As the pandemic runs its course, Spain is on track soon to overtake Italy as Europe’s hardest-hit country.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/31/2020 – 02:00

  • China Shuts Down All Cinemas, As Scientists Fear Second Coronavirus Wave 
    China Shuts Down All Cinemas, As Scientists Fear Second Coronavirus Wave 

    China spent most of March attempting to normalize its economy after several months of virus-related shutdowns. There were reports of retail stores opening, people going outside, virus cases declining, factories restarting, and even movie theaters reopening. 

    The Hollywood Reporter noted that the government gave nearly 600 movie theaters across China the green light for phased reopening in the third week of March. Then by March 27, Beijing’s Film Bureau requested that all theaters go into lockdown. 

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    “This second closure will not be a one or two-week issue,” an executive at a major exhibition company told The Hollywood Reporter. “They are going to be even more cautious when they attempt to reopen again—and this will set us back a long time.”

    The Chinese government did not explicitly cite the reason for the latest theater closings. Still, scientists are now warning that a second coronavirus wave could be arriving by the end of April: 

    “It’s time to relax the lockdown, but we need to be alert for a potential second wave of infections,” says Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.

    Cowling warned that a second wave of the fast-spreading virus could hit China by the end of April. 

    China’s large network of 70,000 movie screens were all shuttered in January because of the COVID-19 outbreak that started in December and has since infected 741,000 people globally and killed 35,114. 

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    Many Chinese theaters were closed on the weekend of the Chinese New Year, which is the most significant moviegoing time of the year. Box office sales in the country for the first two months were down $2 billion over the same period last year. 

    How China deals with the second round of the virus outbreak remains to be seen. If China delays normalcy and extends the quarantines of its citizens, it could damage movie theater chains, Hollywood studios, and the entire global film industry. This also comes as Europe and the US have shut down movie theaters, further amplifying the stress for the industry. 

    Major movie productions across the world have put filming on hold through spring. Warner Bros. delayed Wonder Woman 1984 from its June debut to mid-August, which suggests US theaters will be dormant through the summer months. 


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/31/2020 – 01:00

  • COVID-19 Derangement Syndrome: A World Gone Mad
    COVID-19 Derangement Syndrome: A World Gone Mad

    Authored by Percy Carlton for the Saker Blog,

    The whole world has gone mad with what I call Covid-19 Derangement Syndrome (CDS).

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    I define it as an acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in response to the Covid-19 Corona Virus pandemic. The infection is particularly prevalent among the media and the government officials of the world.

    Human beings fear what they do not understand and that fear causes them to behave in irrational and destructive ways. The current Covid-19 pandemic is a perfect example of that. I don’t need to describe the paranoia and economic destruction to you because you can see it with your own two eyes everywhere you look. Both the media and the world’s governments are fueling the panic – the media with their hysterical 24/7 coverage and the governments with their draconian police state actions.

    I feel like the man in the following cartoon.

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    I am doomed to helplessly stand by and watch the entire world commit economic suicide for no good reason. At first glance this may seem like a shocking and callous statement but do not mistake this as support for the view that the government should stand back and let the private sector take care of the problem. I have no problem with a strong authoritarian central government response as long as it is reasonable and wise. The current government response is neither.

    Do Nothing VS Shut Everything Down

    The current debate about what governments should do seems to be limited to two options: Do nothing and let the virus run its course or use authoritarian methods to quarantine and restrict the movement of citizens within and across state and national borders. The former will result in many people unnecessarily dying and the latter will save lives but is already resulting in a catastrophic worldwide economic collapse with repercussions that will last for years. It is very narrow thinking to think that those are the only two options that exist. There is always another way. Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a solution to the COVID-19 virus problem that would save lives and not result in a worldwide economic Armageddon? Such a solution exists and I will lay it out for you in this article.

    First let’s define the problem: A highly contagious virus is spreading around the globe and killing people. Governments should be responsible for protecting their citizens so they must take action. But what actions should they take? That is an important question that must be carefully answered, but only after much research and consideration of all options. If we act rashly and arrive at the wrong answer people will die and/or lives will be destroyed by a global economic depression.

    Let’s set aside the fear and hysteria and calmly use the Scientific Method to solve our problem. But I must first make a digression about science.

    Three Kinds of Science

    Did you know there are three kinds of science? Most folks can’t tell the difference between them and are therefore easily misled. The first two are pseudoscience; the third is real science. There is a significant amount of overlap between the first two although they do have enough of the third mixed in to give them the appearance of credibility.

    1) Agenda based science – This type is practiced by people with an agenda. They are blinded by their presuppositions and it results in them twisting, distorting, and sometimes outright lying about their studies, experiments, and data. The people that practice this kind of science are not necessarily evil. They just sincerely but blindly believe something that “just ain’t so.” They think they are helping the world but are instead causing it much harm.

    2) Bought and paid for corporate science – This type is practiced by scientific mercenaries who shamelessly produce studies that support the goals of whoever is paying them. Many of these folks are downright evil in my opinion. Much of what passes as “science” these days is of this type.

    3) Real science – This type of scientist seeks the truth regardless of what it is. If the scientist has a presupposition they will quickly abandon it if their research does not support it. They will tirelessly search for, support and proclaim the truth even if it results in them being ostracized by the scientific community or persecuted by the government.

    The Scientific Method

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    Step One – Purpose – State the Problem

    We have already defined our current problem as a virus that is killing people all over the world, but we have not stated our purpose and objectives. Our main purpose and objectives should be to minimize loss of life and damage to the world economy. These objectives are both very important and are not mutually exclusive regardless of what our governments seem to think.

    Step Two – Research – Find Out About the Topic

    I’m not going to spend much time discussing something you can easily research on the internet. There are plenty of articles in scientific journals and on science websites. Here is one example: How does the new coronavirus compare with the flu? I suggest you conduct your own independent research instead of getting your information from the hysterical media or an armchair doctor.

    Although there are some important differences between the seasonal flu and Covid-19, there are enough similarities that I believe we can find a solution to the problem by applying general medical principles relating to viruses. The entire world did not shut down for the many local and worldwide viral outbreaks we have had in the past 20 years such as SARS, Ebola, Zika, MERS, H5N1 (bird) and H1N1 (swine). There was no need to shut it down for this one.

    We all know about the infection and death rates that vary widely around the world but you may not know why. Italy is pointed to by the alarmists as justification for the police state shutdown of entire states and countries so let’s take a closer look at it.

    The single largest factor that determines the mortality rate is the health of the person at the time they contract the virus. The symptoms are mild for the vast majority of healthy people that become infected. It is well established that the people with the greatest risk of death are those with a weakened or compromised immune system. The death rate increases exponentially with age precisely because of the decrease in immune function that accompanies the aging process. According to an Italian Government Study 99% of their Covid-19 fatalities were already sick and half were diagnosed with 3 or more diseases.

    Here are some excerpts from a Bloomberg article on the study:

    “The median age of the infected is 63 but most of those who die are older. The average age of those who’ve died from the virus in Italy is 79.5. As of March 17, 17 people under 50 had died from the disease. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have been males with serious existing medical conditions.”

    “While data released Tuesday point to a slowdown in the increase of cases, with a 12.6% rise, a separate study shows Italy could be underestimating the real number of cases by testing only patients presenting symptoms.”

    “According to the GIMBE Foundation, about 100,000 Italians have contracted the virus, daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported. That would bring back the country’s death rate closer to the global average of about 2%.”

    A huge factor that affects transmission rates is cultural customs. Getting the locals to alter their cultural customs at funerals is one of the four practices that flattened the Ebola epidemic curve in West Africa in 2013-2016. Italy has an aging population that has a cultural tradition of cheek kissing. Is it a great mystery why their death rate is so high?

    It is probable that the 2-3% global average of the death rate is wildly over inflated due a high false negative rate for the current tests. And what about the many thousands or maybe even millions of people who may have contracted the virus and were not tested because the symptoms were so mild? Several weeks ago a strange virus ran through my family and a number of my co-workers. We felt horrible for a few days but recovered quickly. My daughter got the worst symptoms but tested negative for the flu. How do we know that it was not Covid-19 or another corona virus? Some of the alarmists such as Imperial College London’s Neil Ferguson are now beginning to back off of their doom and gloom predictions. The phrase “Lies, damned lies and statistics” applies here. The infection rate and death percentage numbers are unreliable. The only statistic that is close to accurate is the number of deaths. Let’s focus our efforts on reducing that number.

    Sun Tzu, Firefighters, Preppers, and Floridians

    Let’s continue to gather information by getting some advice from Sun Tzu, firefighters, preppers, and Floridians. After that I will tie it all together for you so that it will make sense.

    Sun Tzu

    Sun Tzu famously said in The Art of War “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

    The world’s governments are fighting a battle against an “enemy” (the Covid-19 virus) they do not understand. Neither do they understand “themselves,” which in this case I will consider to be the human body. This is a battle they will not win. They rushed into it blindly with little knowledge and preparation and the results so far are not pretty. The current battle should be over in a few months but the enemy will likely be back next year and/or the year after that. Will we know our enemy and know ourselves better before the next battle? I sincerely hope so.

    But is treating the Covid-19 virus like an enemy that needs to be destroyed at all costs the right approach?

    War on Covid-19

    The USA has been at war in one form or another since its inception. There have been countless shooting wars but there has also been The War On Drugs, The War On Cancer, The War On Poverty, The War On Terrorism, The War On Global Warming, etc. Have any of these wars resulted in the eradication of the object on which the war was declared? No. All of these “wars” are foolish and misguided attempts at eradicating something that you cannot eradicate. They will always be with us. We have wasted untold trillions of dollars on these wars and have very little to show for it. The results of the current “War On Covid-19” will not be much different. We need to take a different approach and stop blindly declaring war on something we do not understand.

    Trump and other politicians are using the language of war when speaking about their country’s efforts to “fight” Covid-19. That should make us very wary. When the USA declares war on anything we can expect several things to happen:

    • We will go deeper in debt

    • Vast amount of money will be wasted and given away to corrupt corporations

    • The US Constitution will be further trampled and more rights and freedoms will be taken away

    • The people will suffer

    • We will lose the war

    Firefighters

    I am a firefighter/paramedic for a large city in the State of Florida in the USA. Every time something bad happens firefighters are called to mitigate the situation. Heart attacks, Covid-19 patients, car wrecks, and hazardous material leaks/spills are among the situations we respond to, but for this example we will use fire. Firefighters do not treat fire as the enemy. We do not declare war on it and try to stamp out every single flame in our jurisdiction. We understand it to be a naturally occurring phenomenon that can be very destructive and deadly if it is allowed to grow out of control. We do not fear fire because we know it well and we know ourselves well. We do have a healthy respect for it because we frequently see the death and destruction it can cause. When the alarm sounds we calmly but aggressively go about mitigating the fire before it grows out of control and destroys both lives and property. We are well trained and well prepared with the best equipment and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) money can buy. We have several different methods we can use to put out a fire but the simplest and most effective extinguishing agent is plain old cheap and abundant water. If a sufficient amount of water is applied to the fire in its earliest stages, it will be extinguished with minimal damage to the structure. But if we are called too late and the fire grows out of control before we arrive, the building may be completely destroyed.

    Firefighters also educate the public on fire safety. We teach them how to prevent fires and what to do if they occur. I will return to this analogy later but for now the general lesson from firefighters is that the key to mitigating a potentially life and property destroying fire is knowledge, training and equipment. This allows us to apply the right extinguishing agent early enough and in sufficient quantities to put out the fire before the building burns down.

    Preppers

    I am an amateur prepper, not the “doomsday” type. Maybe it’s because I took the Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” seriously or maybe it’s because I love the Biblical story of Joseph saving “the world” from starvation due to famine. In any case, this practice of being prepared has served my family well. When the mob of unprepared citizens began cleaning out the stores recently there was not much I had to run out and buy. (Although I was regrettably almost out of toilet paper.) I already had a freezer full of meat and even a box of N95 masks. Preppers spend time thinking about different scenarios that could happen and then prepare for them. Some do it out of fear but most do it because we know these things will happen to some degree at some point and we want to lessen the impact of these events on our family. We do not want to be dependent on the government to save us. We want to be in the position to help other people and not be a burden on them.

    Floridians

    Floridians are accustomed to preparing for hurricanes. It is an annual occurrence. We don’t panic because we know the enemy well and it is usually not as bad as it could be. We have an advantage over the folks who live in the Tornado Belt because we have plenty of advance notice that the storm is coming. Preparing for the Covid-19 virus to hit looked and felt like it does when we are preparing for a hurricane. We know it is coming but we do not know exactly when and where it will strike or how bad it will be. We all go out at the same time right before the storm and buy the supplies we need to weather the storm and get us through the aftermath. It always results in the store shelves being cleaned out of certain items. Our advice to you is to emulate our calm manner of preparation but do not emulate our practice of waiting until the last moment to obtain the supplies we need. The best approach is to stock up before storm season arrives.

    Step 3 – Hypothesis – Predict the Outcome to the Problem

    The doomsday outcomes predicted by the hysterical media and our clueless government officials are fatally flawed due to linear thinking. This is particularly prevalent in the West because the Western mind thinks in a linear manner – they act as if the trend in motion will continue on in the same direction indefinitely. The trend always changes. It is the Creator’s way. Cycles are the very foundation on which the universe was built. It is how energy moves. All viral outbreaks peak and then subside. This one will not be any different. Because the primary transmission route appears to be aerosolized droplets suspended in the air due to talking, coughing, and sneezing, the infection rate will drop dramatically as the air becomes warmer and moister. Airborne viruses love cool and dry air. Towards the end of the article I will be offering my predictions and proposed solutions.

    Steps 4, 5, and 6

    The world is in the midst of a huge quarantine experiment right now that we have rushed into without adequately stating our purpose and researching our options. In the aftermath we will be analyzing the results and coming to conclusions. Like the aftermath to any other crisis such as 911, most of the official government analysis will be propagandized and used to further their political agendas. We will be deluged with pseudoscience, lies, damned lies and statistics. Truth seekers must use real science to sift through the B.S. and find the truth just like we had to do with 911. Let us hope that the people of the world do not fall for the propaganda and “give up essential liberty to purchase a little safety.” One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” The government officials of the world know a lot that “just ain’t so.” Unfortunately that “knowledge” is what they base their decisions on.

    The World in Turmoil

    The world is in fear driven turmoil right now because of the following reasons:

    • Ignorance: Our leaders are completely ignorant about how the human body works and are relying on guidance from a conventional medical system that is rife with agenda and corporate driven pseudoscience.

    • Poor or non-existent planning and training: This is self evident and seems to apply to most countries.

    • Narrow thinking: The response is the same all over the world – mass quarantines, isolation, and shutting down of commerce and travel. No country seems to be taking a different approach.

    • Incompletely defining the problem: No government seems to be giving any serious consideration to how they can minimize the economic damage that their solution to the problem is causing. Yes, many governments are throwing vast amounts of money at the problem by creating debt based money but does that ever really work?

    • Treating the Covid-19 pandemic like a war that needs to be waged instead of a recurring problem that needs to be properly mitigated with the right tools and approaches for the job: The USA’s war on Covid-19 will be about as successful as the USA’s War on Cancer has been.

    The Cure For Covid-19

    The cure for Covid-19 already exists so there is no need to look to the pharmaceutical industry to save us. It is your body’s own immune system. Instead of destroying the world economy in knee-jerk reactionary style maybe the world’s governments should be finding ways to improve the health of their citizens. We have already established that this virus kills the elderly and the immune compromised and has mild effects on the healthy. We should be focusing on the death rate, not the infection rate. Many people get sick with a virus a few times a year and the world economy doesn’t shut down.

    I could write an entire series of articles on ways you can improve your health and immune system to the point that the Covid-19 virus would be only a minor irritation to you but this is not the forum for that. But I will tell you about the closest thing we have to a “magic bullet” and how the Chinese are using it to mitigate the virus.

    After approving several studies of using intravenous vitamin C for the treatment of Covid-19, on March 1st the Chinese Journal of Infectious Diseases (which is hosted by the Shanghai Medical Association) pre-published the “Expert Consensus on Comprehensive Treatment of Coronavirus in Shanghai 2019.” Among its treatment recommendations was the following:

    “Prevention and treatment of cytokine storm: It is recommended to use large doses of vitamin C and unfractionated heparin. Large doses of vitamin C are injected intravenously at a dose of 100 to 200 mg / kg per day. The duration of continuous use is to significantly improve the oxygenation index.”

    China must be using it very extensively because in February they shipped 50 tons of it to Hubei Province, the capital city of which is Wuhan. No wonder turned things around so quickly at the epicenter of the outbreak.

    Vitamin C: The Magic Bullet for Inflammation

    Inflammation is the term we use to describe the body’s immune system response to injury or a foreign invader such as a virus or bad bacteria. It is at the root of all medical problems and diseases. When the immune system is overwhelmed, inflammation rages out of control. In the case of Covid-19 there is an overwhelming amount of inflammation in the lungs that leads to pneumonia, sepsis and death if the inflammatory fires are not quenched. This normally only happens in people with compromised immune systems. An optimally functioning immune system in a healthy person will easily mitigate the virus before it progresses to pneumonia. There are exceptions of course, but they are few.

    We now return to my firefighter analogy. We can easily extinguish a fire if we arrive on scene while it is still in its incipient stage. A small booster line or even a 2.5 gallon fire extinguisher is all that is needed. If our response is delayed the fire will grow exponentially to the point that is not safe to enter the building. We then apply very large streams of water from the outside and do not enter the building until after the majority of the flames have been extinguished. The sooner we apply the water the less of it that is required to do the job. If we do not apply large streams of water in the late stages of a fire the building will be lost.

    Vitamin C works the same way as water in our firefighter analogy. If enough oral vitamin C is taken at an early enough stage of an illness, the inflammation will be quenched and will never get to the exponential growth phase. The longer you wait to take it the more you will need to quench the inflammatory fire growing inside of you. The key to success is to take it at the first sign of symptoms. One you get to the exponential growth phase intravenous vitamin C is needed and it will be effective in a very large percentage of cases. If it is not applied, the result is death in a large percentage of cases.

    Doctors in China and even the USA are using intravenous vitamin C on Covid-19 patients with great success. Doctors and researchers all over the world have known for decades about the incredible power of intravenous vitamin C to quench the raging fires of inflammation.

    Sepsis is a condition that can be compared to the pneumonia that is killing the immune compromised elderly Covid-19 patients. They are both acute and massive inflammatory responses due to infection. An observational study published in The Lancet found that 100% of the early Covid-19 patients that died in Wuhan had sepsis. And not surprisingly most were older folks with health problems. Sepsis may be responsible for as many as 20% of deaths worldwide. It is one of the top killers of people that die in hospitals. One doctor in the USA has been using intravenous vitamin C in a treatment protocol that has reduced the death rate from sepsis by almost 5 fold – from 40% to 8.5%.

    Is It Really That Simple?

    Yes it is. “But Percy, then why aren’t governments around the world endorsing it and using it?” That is an almost irrelevant question. Does the scientific evidence and case studies prove it or not? I can give you a very conclusive answer for the USA. We have a corrupt and powerful pharmaceutical industry that exerts a massive amount of influence on our government. They use that power and influence to squash and suppress any medical treatment that cannot be patented and used to make obscene amounts of profit. Vitamin C cannot be patented so therefore it will not be widely used or studied. If it is not being used in your country then maybe your medical system has been corrupted or misled by the West. China is using it extensively, as well as a few renegade doctors in countries all over the world. If you look for them you will find them.

    Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

    I do not subscribe to this view because I believe that claims that can be proved or disproved by science all require the same amount of evidence. What is extraordinary to one may be ordinary to another. A good example is 911. I do not consider it to be an extraordinary claim to say that two planes did not bring down three buildings on 9/11/2001, particularly Building 7. The laws of physics prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But to the vast majority of the American public that is too fantastic of a claim to even warrant checking into. So if you summarily dismiss my claims without serious investigation it will be similar to someone refusing to watch the excellent documentary 911: Explosive Evidence- Experts Speak Out by Architects and Engineers For 911 Truth because it sounds too fantastic to be true. Here are some links to get you started if you would like to conduct your own research. I highly recommend that you do so.

    Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm

    I would be remiss if I did not touch upon the more bizarre aspects of this crisis. I will list a few. This is certainly not an exhaustive list and I have only linked to the things that are facts. No conspiracy theory links here.

    I am attempting to apply Occam’s Razor to this crisis but I must admit that the longer this inexplicable and destructive behavior by governments goes on the more difficult it is for me to do so. Are all these things (and more) just amazing coincidences? I will let the reader decide.

    Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

    When a “crisis” comes along, whether false flag or real, Western leaders always use it as an excuse to pass liberty destroying legislation that would be otherwise politically untenable. In the USA, 911 gave us the Patriot Act, TSA, DHS, etc. I fully expect the Covid-19 pandemic to bring us similar legislation such as the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act. Power grabs are being suggested and attempted all over the world. Here are a few headlines:

    I could fill up a page with headlines such as these. It is a very disturbing trend.

    Where We Go From Here

    I see myself as a realist, not an optimist or a pessimist. My study of history, economics, and politics tells me that the future looks grim. Much of the world is suffering under corrupt and ignorant leaders who cannot possibly successfully lead us out of this mess, particularly in the Western world. The world’s interconnected and dollar dominated financial system is a house of cards that has been waiting on the right flap of a butterfly’s wings to set off a series of events that will cause it to come tumbling down. We are past the point of no return. An economic recession or depression will be ushered in by the response to the Covid-19 virus, not the Covid-19 virus itself. The government response to a crisis always sets up the next crisis. Capital flight to the dollar has already begun en mass. By next year or the year after there will be loan defaults that will set off a worldwide contagion that will make 2008 look like a walk in the park. The Eurozone will implode first. The Covid-19 corona virus will mutate and be back next year and/or the year after that. Lord help us if our leaders shut the world down again next year. China will survive and be the beneficiary of the West’s self destruction. They will suffer, but not nearly as much as the West. The USA dominated Anglo-Zionist Empire will be largely over within 20 years, maybe much sooner. The new financial capital of the world will be China.

    Conclusion 1 – What Governments Should Do

    After we are on the downside of the infection bell curve governments should begin planning for the next round of this. Instead of being reactive they should be proactive. The primary focus should be to educate their citizens on how to be healthy. Healthy people have little to worry about from Covid-19 or most any other virus. Healthy people do not clog the healthcare system; unhealthy people do. They should also educate their citizens on ways they can support their immune systems and encourage them to do so quickly in the incipient stages of an illness. This will drastically reduce the strain of sick people on overburdened healthcare systems. That leaves only the worst cases to deal with. For these they should follow China’s lead and develop a treatment protocol that incorporates intravenous vitamin C to quench the inflammatory fire in the lungs that leads to death.

    The mass quarantines of entire cities, states, and countries must stop. It is not stopping the spread and it is destroying the world economy in the process. If they want to quarantine a population it should be the population with the greatest risk of death – the elderly.

    None of this will happen of course. When their approach doesn’t work, Western leaders usually double down on it hoping for a different result. Hopefully there will be some renegade local governments that will defy the unconstitutional decrees of their central government – like what many state governments are doing to the federal government in the USA regarding cannabis laws.

    Conclusion 2 – What You Can Do

    Since I am not under any illusions that this article will be read and considered by any person in power anywhere on the planet, the advice that follows is the reason I wrote this article. There is little chance that any of our overlords will be cured of the Covid-19 Derangement Syndrome that infects them. But, dear reader, if you are living in fear and hiding in your house or apartment and are afraid of contracting the Covid-19 virus there is hope for you. The antidote for fear is knowledge, training and preparation.

    I do not fear fire because I understand it and I am well trained and equipped to extinguish a fire at any stage of development. I always strive to extinguish the fire in its incipient stage before it grows out of control.

    I do not fear any virus because I understand them and I understand how my body uses its immune system to defend me from them. If I begin to get sick I know many natural methods to ramp up my immune system’s ability to fight off any infection whether viral or bacterial.

    If you are not healthy, begin taking steps to correct that now. This virus will be back, and when it does you want your immune system to be functioning at a high level. Take advantage of this “lockdown” time and gain some knowledge. Instead of watching the 24/7 news cycle repeated over and over again (which can rapidly lead to depression and a loss of hope) redeem the time and study how you can change your diet and lifestyle and get in excellent health. After the current madness subsides and the stores are restocked, begin stocking up on the supplies you will need for the next round of this. Become self sufficient and prepared for any emergency. Whatever you do, do not sit back and wait for the government or pharmaceutical industry to save you.

    If you do these things you can join me as I watch in stunned amazement the next time the whole world panics due to a pandemic. You will also be in a position to guide and assist your loved ones and neighbors. An economic storm and additional pandemic storms are coming and like minded people around the world need to pull together and help each other when they hit.

    *  *  *

    Percy Carlton is a soon to be retired firefighter/paramedic in a large city in the State of Florida in the USA. He has relentlessly studied and pursued truth in the areas of health, economics and geopolitics for the past 10 years.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 03/31/2020 – 00:05

  • "Coincidence?" – Japanese Questioning Sudden Surge In Tokyo Infections Following Olympics Delay Decision
    “Coincidence?” – Japanese Questioning Sudden Surge In Tokyo Infections Following Olympics Delay Decision

    As we’ve previously noted, every four decades, something jinxes the Olympics. Japanese officials spent the last several months downplaying the virus outbreak, but as soon as the Games were delayed on March 23, virus cases in Tokyo spiked, with possible lockdowns looming, reported AP News. 

    Former government officials have raised their eyebrows of just how COVID-19 cases were low before the postponement, to now on an exponential curve, as some have suggested there was a coverup by the government to artificially suppress cases to make it appear that the Games would go on. 

    “In order to make the impression that the city was taking control of the coronavirus, Tokyo avoided making strict requests and made the number of patients look smaller,” former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in a tweet.

    “The coronavirus has spread while they waited. (For Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike) it was Olympics first, not Tokyo’s residents.”

    Several weeks ago, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the Japanese government “would overcome the spread of the infection and host the Olympics without a problem.” Abe’s attitude towards the outbreak dramatically changed over the weekend when he said: 

    “Once infections overshoot, our strategy … will instantly fall apart,” Abe warned on Saturday. “Under the current situation, we are just barely holding up. A state of emergency is not needed just yet, but that Japan could at any time face a situation as bad as in the United States or Europe.”

    Abe had a phone call with International Olympic Committee (IOC), President Thomas Bach, last Tuesday, AP notes. That was the moment when the Games were decided to be postponed until 2021. 

    Then on Wednesday, one day after the postponement, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike advised residents to stay home and practice social distancing until mid-April, signaling that possible lockdowns could be ahead to flatten the pandemic curve. 

    Confirmed cases in the country have surged since the postponement of the Games — with an exponential rise expected through April. 

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    Japan COVID-19 Confirmed cases

    “Is this just a coincidence?” Maiko Tajima, an opposition lawmaker from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said during a parliamentary session last Wednesday, citing Tokyo’s sudden spike in cases. 

    Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said there is no correlation between the surge in cases and the Olympic postponement. 

    Abe has since dismissed that Japan artificially suppressed cases by limiting tests and defined COVID-19 deaths as other pneumonia fatalities to boost the prospects that the Games must go on: 

    “I’m aware that some people suspect Japan is hiding the numbers, but I believe that’s not true,” he said. “If there is a coverup, it will show up in the number of deaths.”

    Abe also said the government had secured enough hospital beds and ventilators to prepare for a worst-case. 

    “We fear a situation where severe patients start dying when the medical system collapses, and we must prevent that situation,” Kato told NHK on Sunday.

    And why would Abe’s government allegedly coverup the virus outbreak to make it appear that containment was almost certain? Well, as we explained on March 11, Japan and some mega-corporations would lose billions of dollars if the Games were delayed or canceled. So, another example of profits over human health? 


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 23:45

  • Mike Krieger: "Question Everything!"
    Mike Krieger: “Question Everything!”

    Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    Crises, like pandemics, don’t break things in and of themselves; they show you what’s already broken.

    – Patrick Wyman

    Big macro crises in any form are scary, massively disruptive, and in some cases, literally deadly. This is why governments and entrenched institutions always see such events as opportunities to further consolidate wealth and power.

    The current global pandemic is no exception, as I detailed in last week’s piece: Power Grab. While it’s necessary to be aware of this reality — and to push back against it wherever possible — it’s equally important to recognize there’s a silver lining to all of this.

    The paradigm we live under depends on us not thinking too hard about how power functions. It relies on us being so busy with the basics of survival, or distracted by superficial consumerism and endless entertainment, to contemplate how the system actually works. This method of social control has been wildly successful throughout my lifetime, but what’s interesting about moments of global crises is the mask is forced off for a period. In a desperate scramble to marshal all of the corporate-imperial state’s resources to save the interests of the oligarchy, we’re shown in full color who really matters and who doesn’t.

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    You do not matter. The imperial state doesn’t care about you. Oligarchs don’t care about you. Mega corporations don’t care about you. This truth is cleverly hidden from much of the public during “normal” times when the machine is humming along as intended, but it’s far more in your face during a crisis period. It’s much harder to hide the truth when the world gets turned upside down.

    Aside from the grotesque spectacle of the U.S. government funneling all of its resources toward propping up Wall Street and large corporations, this crisis has exposed the the rot and dysfunction in another meaningful way. Our health experts, ostensibly there to help the public navigate exactly this sort of event, have failed us in spectacular fashion.

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    This is what political actors masquerading as experts do in a crisis. They either give bad advice, or intentionally mislead the public to hide the fact the U.S. simply doesn’t have adequate mask supply and sent its manufacturing capacity overseas. Which brings up an important topic worthy of further discussion: the crucial distinction between experts and expertise.

    An “expert” in our society is someone with expertise in a particular field who’s been propped up by either the media, government or both as an authoritative source to listen to on a particular topic. This individual’s elevated stature is artificially created by an external source that’s selected this particular person as someone you should listen to. It tends to be a political appointment. This person has been chosen, not only because he or she has expertise (many others also do), but due to other attributes that appeal to those who’ve decided to prop them up. Anyone who’s worked in corporate America knows full well that many of those promoted to middle management, or higher, often end up there not because they’re particularly skilled, but because they’re good at playing politics and know the right ass to kiss. The same is true in all large organizations, and government is no exception.

    In the days before the internet and social media, the public might know that government/media experts were behaving dishonestly, but didn’t have realtime access to competitive nonpolitical voices with equal or superior expertise to the government experts. What many of us discovered during this pandemic is people with expertise engaging publicly on Twitter provided far better and more timely advice than the government/media experts. This makes perfect sense because these people tend to not be political actors, but rather humans attempting to share information in an honest and selfless manner. If we’ve learned anything in the 21st century, it’s that actual track records don’t matter when it comes to media and government positions. In fact, the more catastrophically wrong you are in the interests of oligarchy, the more likely you are to be promoted and elevated.

    Fortunately, I entered this crisis with a well established distrust of mass media and government, and therefore knew better than to look toward their experts for any useful guidance. Rather, I sought out the opinions of various nonpolitical individuals with relevant expertise who helped me see things for how they were very early on. Others have not been as lucky, but will no doubt emerge from this crisis with a deep distrust of established institutions and individuals, and with very good reason.

    We’ve just witnessed a catastrophic failure of the centralized state in America, and the blowback will resonate within the larger culture for years if not decades. Similar to how many people were shaken to their core during the financial crisis a decade ago, I think this pandemic event will lead to an even larger wave of people awakening to how completely rotten, pernicious and corrupt the whole system is. Once you see that reality in all its glory, you can’t unsee it.

    Of course, recognizing how broken things are isn’t enough. We need to have a thoughtful conversation about what we have too much of versus what we need. If we’re going to change the world, we need a vision. I have some thoughts on the matter.

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    Nothing is set in stone. The world as it is today is not some divine eternal paradigm beyond reproach. Humans shape the world through their choices, actions and mentality.

    For additional thoughts on that and much more, check out my recent interview with Tales From the Crypt.

    *  *  *

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


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 23:25

  • "A Multitrillion Dollar Helicopter Credit Drop": How The Fed Turned $454 Billion Into $4.5 Trillion
    “A Multitrillion Dollar Helicopter Credit Drop”: How The Fed Turned $454 Billion Into $4.5 Trillion

    Last Friday, to bipartisan cheers – and one sole, rational dissenter who was promptly silenced after asking “if $6 trillion is fine, why not $350 trillion” – Trump signed into law a $2.2 trillion corporate, hedge fund and bank bailout fiscal spending package, which quickly became the main topic of the current new cycle. What was not at all discussed, purposefully so due to the complexity of the underlying math, is that in parallel to the Treasury’s 2 trillion package, the Fed received a green light to lend up to $4.5 trillion in new credit (which is where Kudlow’s misconstrued “$6 trillion stimulus” comment came from).

    And as usually happens with matters Fed related, the fact that the Fed received permission from the Treasury to “stimulate” by more than twice the full amount of the CARES act, flew right over America’s head. Which, if to be expected, is lamentable, because by giving the Fed a green light to inject money at will, the US government officially launched helicopter money.

    Or rather, “helicopter credit” as Wrightson ICAP chief economist Lou Crandall put it, and as Bloomberg further refined it, “a Multitrillion Dollar Helicopter Credit Drop.”

    So how do we get to $4.5 trillion? Here’s how it happened.

    The roles of the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve are different in a bailout. The Treasury Department is part of the Executive Branch. It receives its funding from taxpayers. It is accountable to Congress and to the President. It just received $454 billion in the CARES Act. The Federal Reserve, in contrast, is a private, bank-owned agency which pretends to operate on behalf of the people but in reality makes sure the financial system and the commercial banks that dominate are viable and profitable (if they aren’t they are bailed out).

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    Source: Bank of England

    As a result, the Fed’s members and private owners are banking institutions who keep massive reserves on deposit at the Fed. The Federal Reserve has many roles in the economy, but none of them is to take on credit risk. So how do you get the Fed to establish a “loan” facility, as contemplated in the CARES Act, if it will not take on credit risk? And not just any loan but $4.5 trillion in loans?

    This tsunami of credit (the helicopter comes next… and last) is made possible by the $454 billion set aside in the aid package for Treasury to backstop lending by the Fed. The Treasury’s contribution, as Tom Barrack explained recently, you can think of as “equity” — that is, Treasury will stand in a “first loss” position on every loan made to corporate America.

    The Fed will contribute the “leverage” — the money that will help make loans using the Treasury’s equity and be levered 10-to-1. Such leverage assumes no more than 10% capital losses (on “AAA-rated” paper), as the Fed is not allowed to be impaired. Of course, in a real crash the losses will be far greater but we’ll cross that particular bailout of the bailout when we get to it. The loan fund, now levered up ten-fold thanks to the Fed’s own $4.1 trillion, will then make loans to businesses.

    “Effectively one dollar of loss absorption of backstop from Treasury is enough to support $10 worth of loans.” Fed Chair Powell said in in a rare nationally-televised interview last Thursday morning. “When it comes to this lending we’re not going to run out of ammunition” and he is right – the Fed can apply any leverage it wants; after all the value of the collateral it lends against is whatever the Fed decides!

    Visually, the magic of the Fed’s 10x leverage looks as follows:

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    Source: Tom Barrack

    The overall size of the Fed-Treasury loan fund depends on how much Fed money will be supplied for every dollar of “equity” the Treasury contributes.

    In theory, the answer is a function of what is called the “credit box.” If the loan program makes loans only to investment grade companies (those rated BBB or higher), the Fed will contribute more capital than if the loan program makes loans to companies with lower credit ratings or no ratings at all. In other existing Fed loan programs, the Fed supplies about $9 for every $1 of Treasury capital, but in those programs the loans are secured by extremely high-quality collateral (often AAA).

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    Source: Tom Barrack

    In practice, the Fed – which can “print” an infinite amount of dollars in exchange for any “collateral” including baseball cards, donkey turds, used condoms or oxygen – can lever up 20x, 50x, even 100x or more with zero regard for the underlying collateral.

    And the real kicker is that what and how the Fed decides on what leverage to apply, how to value the collateral, and which companies to bailout (and which to let fail), is now a secret. That’s because the Senate-approved stimulus bill repeals the sunshine law for the Fed’s meetings until the President says the coronavirus threat is over or the end of the year (spoiler alert: the coronavirus threat will never be over). That could make any FOIA lawsuits to disclose details of what’s is taking place in Fed meeting a non-starter since it has been codified in a federal law, to wit:

    SEC. 4009. TEMPORARY GOVERNMENT IN THE SUNSHINE ACT RELIEF. (a) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in subsection 8 (b), notwithstanding any other provision of law, if the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System determines, in writing, that unusual and exigent circumstances exist, the Board may conduct meetings without regard to the requirements of section 552b of title 5, United States Code, during the period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act and ending on the earlier of— (1) the date on which the national emergency concerning the novel coronavirus disease (COVID–19) outbreak declared by the President on March 13, 2020 under the National Emergencies Act (50 20 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) terminates; or (2) December 31, 2020.

    So what does all this mean? Three things:

    1. the US population will go in debt to the tune of at least $454BN to pre-fund the Treasury’s “first-loss” equity tranche which will be then handed over to the Fed as seed capital. That’s in addition to the trillions in additional debt the Treasury will incur to fund the fiscal stimulus and whatever subsequent programs it launches.
    2. the Fed will then apply 10x – or much more – leverage to make any collateral it makes loans against “money good”, bailing out any and all asset holders while triggering the endgame of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, because without even a veiled pretense of scarcity, the dollar literally becomes less valuable than toilet paper. 
    3. As JPM’s chief economist Michael Feroli put it, “The Fed has effectively shifted from lender of last resort for banks to a commercial banker of last resort for the broader economy.”

    And the punchline: this mechanism which is now codified by law and which grants the Fed literally unlimited power to bailout anything and anyone, and which marks the beginning of the end for the US dollar, was delivered by America’s politicians with pride:

    “Very quickly we hope to stand up a very broad based lending facility that could be leveraged up to $2 or $3 trillion,” Senator Pat Toomey told reporters Wednesday. “We’re hoping it’s a mechanism to keep businesses alive for a few weeks or months until our economy can resume.”

    And if it can’t resume in a “few weeks or months”, the mechanism will keep running until the Fed can – and will – nationalize everything.

    So congratulations America, you were just bought by a group of anonymous bankers with your own elected politicians making it possible. The price? $1,200 per person for a month or two.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 22:57

  • Anatomy Of The $2 Trillion COVID-19 Stimulus Bill
    Anatomy Of The $2 Trillion COVID-19 Stimulus Bill

    Submitted by Visual Capitalist,

    The unprecedented response to the COVID-19 pandemic has prioritized keeping people apart to slow the spread of the virus. While measures such as business closures and travel restrictions are effective at fighting a pandemic, they also have a dramatic impact on the economy.

    To help right the ship, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act — also known as the CARES Act — was passed by U.S. lawmakers last week with little fanfare. The act became the largest economic stimulus bill in modern history, more than doubling the stimulus act passed in 2009 during the Financial Crisis.

    Today’s Sankey diagram is a visual representation of where the $2 trillion will be spent.

    <!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–> Broadly speaking, there are five components to the COVID-19 stimulus bill:

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    Although the COVID-19 stimulus bill is incredibly complex, here are some of the most important parts to be aware of.

    Funds for Individuals

    Amount: $603.7 billion – 30% of total CARES Act

    In order to stimulate the sputtering economy quickly, the U.S. government will deploy “helicopter money” — direct cash payments to individuals and families.

    The centerpiece of this plan is a $1,200 direct payment for those earning up to $75,000 per year. For higher earners, payment amounts will phase out, ending altogether at the $99,000 income level. Families will also receive $500 per child.

    There are three other key things to know about this portion of the stimulus funds:

    1. There will be a temporary suspension for any student loan held by the federal government. This means no payments required and no interest accrued until the end of September, 2020.
    2. Borrowers with federally backed loans can request forbearance on mortgage payments for up to six months.
    3. There will be an expansion of unemployment benefits, including a four-month enhancement of benefits. This plan includes freelancers, workers in the gig economy, and furloughed employees.

    Big Business

    Amount: $500.0 billion – 25% of total CARES Act

    This component of the package is aimed at stabilizing big businesses in hard-hit sectors.

    The most obvious industry to receive support will be the airlines. About $58 billion has been earmarked for commercial and cargo airlines, as well as airline contractors. Perhaps in response to recent criticism of the industry, companies receiving stimulus money will be barred from engaging in stock buybacks for the term of the loan plus one year.

    One interesting pathway highlighted by today’s Sankey diagram is the $17 billion allocated to “maintaining national security”. While this provision doesn’t mention any specific company by name, the primary recipient is believed to be Boeing.

    The bill also indicates that an inspector general will oversee the recovery process, along with a special committee.

    Small Business

    Amount: $377.0 billion – 19% of total CARES Act

    To ease the strain on businesses around the country, the Small Business Administration (SBA) will be given $350 billion to provide loans of up to $10 million to qualifying organizations. These funds can be used for mission critical activities, such as paying rent or keeping employees on the payroll during COVID-19 closures.

    As well, the bill sets aside $10 billion in grants for small businesses that need help covering short-term operating costs.

    State and Local Governments

    Amount: $340.0 billion – 17% of total CARES Act

    The biggest portion of funds going to local and state governments is the $274 billion allocated towards direct COVID-19 response. The rest of the funds in this component will go to schools and child care services.

    Public and Health Services

    Amount: $179.5 billion – 9% of total CARES Act

    The biggest slice of this pie goes to healthcare providers, who will receive $100 billion in grants to help fight COVID-19. This was a major ask from groups representing the healthcare industry, as they look to make up the lost revenue caused by focusing on the outbreak — as opposed to performing elective surgeries and other procedures. There will also be a 20% increase in Medicare payments for treating patients with the virus.

    Money is also set aside for initiatives such as increasing the availability of ventilators and masks for the Strategic National Stockpile, as well as providing additional funding for the Center for Disease Control and expanding the reach of virtual doctors.

    Finally, beyond the healthcare-related funding, the CARES Act also addresses food security programs and a long list of educational and arts initiatives.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 22:45

  • Execs Scramble To Buy Spyware To Keep Tabs On 'Locked-Down' Employees
    Execs Scramble To Buy Spyware To Keep Tabs On ‘Locked-Down’ Employees

    Tens of millions of Americans have transitioned from their corporate desks to living room sofas in the last month as “shelter in place” government health orders have forced many to work at home amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Corporate executives, who once had unlimited control over employees, have lost much of it, and that is why they’re now panic buying spy software to monitor employees who work from home, reported Bloomberg. 

    Axos Financial Inc. told employees who are working from home that they’re monitoring every keystroke, logging every website, and taking screenshots of their desktops, in a bid to keep tabs on how productive they’re. In an internal email to employees, the company wrote that “disciplinary action” or “termination” is possible if slacking was seen. 

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    “We have seen individuals taking unfair advantage of flexible work arrangements,” Axos Financial CEO wrote in an internal email reviewed by Bloomberg. If daily tasks aren’t completed, workers “will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”

    It’s not just corporations that are ushering in digital surveillance tools to monitor employees, but also we’ve noted that governments are utilizing mass surveillance to monitor social distancing and the health care system. 

    “Of course, digital surveillance has been used for years on office desktops, yet it seems a violation of privacy to a lot of workers when they’re required to have software on their computers that tracks their every move in their own homes.

    Employers justify going full Orwell by saying that monitoring curbs security breaches, which can be expensive and helps keep the wheels of commerce turning.

    With so many people working remotely because of the coronavirus, surveillance software is flying off the virtual shelves.” – Bloomberg.

    Brad Miller, CEO of surveillance-software maker InterGuard, said businesses are “scrambling” to purchase software that monitors the productivity of employees who are working from home. 

    Axos spokesman Gregory Frost released a statement to Bloomberg that said, “the enhanced monitoring of at-home employees we implemented will ensure that those members of our workforce who work from home will continue” to be productive during these challenging times.

    Along with InterGuard, software makers include Time Doctor, Teramind, VeriClock, innerActiv, ActivTrak, and Hubstaf have developed monitoring tools for corporations. 

    Stacy Hawkins, a professor at Rutgers Law School, said some employers are going to far in their attempt to track workers. 

    Some workers who have been subjected to extreme surveillance while working at home have vented their frustration on forums such as CodeAhoy.

    “I’ve heard from multiple people whose employers have asked them to stay logged into a video call all day while they work,” said Alison Green, founder of the workplace-advice website Ask a Manager. “In some cases, they’re told it’s so they can all talk throughout the day if questions come up, but in others, there’s no pretense that it’s for anything other than monitoring people to ensure they’re working.”

    The virus has been the perfect cover for corporate America to rollout massive spy surveillance technology to monitor employees. Simultaneously, the government is ushering in the surveillance state. 


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 22:25

  • Unpacking China's Viral Propaganda War
    Unpacking China’s Viral Propaganda War

    Authored by Richard Bernstein via RealClearInvestigations (emphasis ours)

    China is waging a propaganda war against the coronavirus on several fronts. In addition to its well-documented efforts to deflect attention from its early suppression of information about the disease and to claim that it has among all nations now halted the scourge, it is also pushing an alternative explanation of its origins—namely that it didn’t start in Wuhan after all, but was a creation of a military biochemical lab in the United States and was brought to China by an American team that competed in the Military World Games in Wuhan last October.

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    While that conspiracy theory was quickly noted and dismissed in much of the West, it is continuing and broadening all over social media in China – a country that strictly monitors what appears on its online platforms, regularly scrubbing it of what the authorities call “rumors.” But a lot of it, put on platforms that are banned in China, seems aimed outward, part of a concerted effort to convince the world that China, once the villain of the coronavirus story, is actually its hero, and that the real villain is America.

    Its effectiveness may provide a new illustration of how fake news, if repeated loudly and often enough, uses social media as a carrier to spread misinformation around the globe.

    Recently, for example, Global Times, an English-language mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, called on the American government to release the medical records of all the members of the American team that competed in Wuhan, so as  “to end the conjecture about U.S. military personnel bringing Covid-19 to China.” In asking the United States to be “transparent,” the paper was giving credence to a claim at the heart of the conspiracy theory, that a 50-year-old bicycle racer named Maatje Benassi, a member of the American delegation, was “patient zero,” the first victim of the disease, which would mean that the virus was brought to China by the United States. This claim has been amplified across Twitter.

    Among the ironies in this is that the demand for transparency is coming from China, one of the most secretive and opaque regimes in history. Another is that the idea that Benassi is “patient zero” stems from an American conspiracy theorist named George Webb. In a Youtube video earlier this month, Webb advanced that notion, along with the theory that the virus was created, not in China, but at Fort Detrick in Maryland.

    It’s not the first time that China has given quasi-official sanction to the rewriting of the recent coronavirus past. The theory that the American army created the coronavirus has been propagated on Twitter, for example, by Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry. What’s become clearer over time is the possible goal of China’s effort: to win respectful treatment for its evidence-free claim, to present the question of the virus’s origins as undecided, something urgently requiring further research and disclosure.

    Chinese websites are carrying numerous videos detailing what one of those sites, dubbed Sharp Arrow Military News, calls “America’s ugly truth.” Slickly produced and professionally narrated, the videos list various supposedly incriminating facts about American behavior and spin them into a tale of a dark anti-China plot — for example, that as late as February President Trump seemed unconcerned about the spread of the virus to the United States. 

    One video making the rounds recently provides one of the more elaborate presentations of the theory to date. It’s not entirely clear who created it, or how broadly it is circulating in China or how great its influence is. A brief, unscientific survey of people inside China, mostly well-educated middle-class city dwellers, turned up nobody who actually believed its claims.

    But the video is professionally done, with a Chinese-language narrator speaking with very much the style and intonation of official Chinese news broadcasts. It has the look and format of other videos that have been put out by a Chinese army propaganda unit in Wuhan, though it could not be confirmed whether this new video was produced in this way or not.

    “We have to find patient zero, the first coronavirus case,” the narrator says at the beginning of what appears to be a piece of investigative journalism, a supposedly sincere and objective effort at sifting through the facts to arrive at “the truth” of the virus’s origins. “At the beginning, everybody thought it came from a seafood market in Wuhan, but now it appears maybe not,” the narrator says, going on to advance the theory that the video will explore: “Maybe it’s related to the Wuhan military competition.”

    In support of that notion, the narrator – according to RealClearInvestigations’ translation – reminds viewers that the 2019 World Military Games were held in Wuhan in October last year, with participation by some 10,000 athletes from more than 100 countries, including the American team with nearly 300 athletes and staff. The U.S., which, the narrator says, “has very strong abilities,” did poorly in the competition, and indeed, the American team won just eight medals, none of them gold, compared to China’s 239.

    Isn’t this a strange thing? the narrator goes on to say, putting the poor American performance into a sinister light and using it to support the theory that the coronavirus must have originated in the U.S., not in China.

    “Do you think the Americans came to Wuhan to buy soy sauce?” the narrator asks sarcastically. “They didn’t come to compete; they came because they had a job to do,” and while he doesn’t say so explicitly, the implication is clear: the “job” was to plant the new virus in Wuhan, thereby framing China as the creator of the new disease.

    And from there, the video moves to other suspicious “facts” about the epidemic, among them: that some Japanese who had never been to China came down with the virus after vacationing in Hawaii; that more strains of the virus have been detected in the U.S. than in China; that Fort Detrick was mysteriously closed by the Centers for Disease Control last July.

    The narrator also repeats some by now discredited claims, notably that Robert Redfield, the head of the CDC, admitted at a press conference that some Americans believed to have died of the flu last fall actually died of Covid-19. Redfield admitted this “very firmly,” the narrator says, thereby, he contends, providing irrefutable confirmation of the theory that the virus was in the U.S. before it was in China.

    What Redfield actually said during congressional testimony in March, well after the virus had begun to spread in the U.S., was that it is possible that some people whose deaths were believed to have been caused by the flu might actually have been victims of the coronavirus but weren’t tested for it. He did not say that people died of Covid-19 last fall, before the disease appeared in China.

    The Chinese video then goes on to answer its question regarding the identity of patient zero: It was Maatje Benassi, the army bicycle racer.

    “The circle is complete,” the narrator says, and then addresses President Trump: “What is your response?”

    The outward circulation of the Chinese claims on platforms like Twitter and YouTube (whcih are banned in China), could be in part a simple matter of national pride, a concern for the country’s international image, and a response to President Trump’s use of the term “Chinese virus” to refer to the disease, which has infuriated many Chinese. But some commentators point out that China’s withholding of information was a breach of international law that could make it legally liable.

    China’s failure to provide timely information about the virus and its level of contagion to the World Health Organization, for example, “is more than a moral breakdown,” James Kraska, a professor of international maritime law at the Naval War College, wrote recently. “It is also a breach of a legal duty that China owed to other states under international law, and for which injured states – now numbering some 150 – may seek a legal remedy.”

    To be sure, conspiracy theories are legion around the world, whether it’s the claim that the 9/11 attacks were a CIA plot to give President Bush an excuse to invade Iraq, or whether it’s the notion, reiterated by Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, that the virus originated in a high-tech biochemical lab in Wuhan itself.

    The difference with China is that misinformation there has been used as an element of state policy, sometimes officially, sometimes more informally, but in either case without any possibility that a free press or an independent judicial machinery will challenge the official “truth.”

    Perhaps the most blatant and well-known example of this in China was the country’s denial that its military massacred civilian demonstrators when it brought an end to the massive pro-democracy protests in Beijing in 1989. Almost immediately after the army moved in to crush the protest movement, killing hundreds of people in full view of thousands of eyewitnesses, Chinese television was saying that the only people killed that night were brave army soldiers attacked by “hooligans.”

    The disinformation effort on the coronavirus hasn’t reached that point; it isn’t a massive propaganda campaign inundating the media. Indeed, some efforts to propagate the idea of American responsibility for the virus have fallen flat. Earlier this month, for example, a blogger in China’s Guizhou Province posted a video of a Caucasian man slyly putting spittle on a subway pole. “This is a solid proof showing that Americans were spreading the virus during the Military World Games,” the blogger wrote, asserting that the man in the video was a member of the U.S. Army team and was riding the subway in Wuhan.

    In fact, the video showed a man riding a subway, not in Wuhan at all, but in Brussels, Belgium, where he was arrested and the subway car disinfected. When other social media users in China pointed that out, the blogger retracted his claim, though not before his original post had been viewed by an undetermined number of people.

    But the idea that Maatje Benassi was patient zero and that there is now a “debate” between China and the United States over the origins of the virus has spread around the world, as a Google search of Benassi’s name shows. China’s demand for the U.S. to be “transparent” by releasing the military team’s medical records has appeared on everything from websites about international cycling to 24-hour news sites across the globe.

    Meanwhile, there has been no retraction of the lengthy video “investigation” of the coronavirus’s origins with its claim that it was insinuated into China by the American military. While some Chinese officials are giving credence to that claim, the government has not officially endorsed it. It seems content to put it out there, to spread an idea that might shift discussion about the virus from China’s responsibility to the question: Did it actually originate in America?

    Correction
    March 30, 2020, 10:45 AM Eastern

    An earlier version of this article misstated the location of Fort Detrick. It is in Maryland, not South Carolina.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 22:05

  • The Math Behind Social Distancing
    The Math Behind Social Distancing

    As we wait for scientists and healthcare professionals to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, there is another, more readily available tool at our disposal.

    Social distancing, defined as measures taken to reduce physical contact, is the first line of defense for containing an infectious disease like COVID-19. That’s because these infections spread when people cough, sneeze, or touch surfaces on which the virus resides.

    To help us grasp the impact these measures can actually have, Visual Capitalists’ Marcus Lu illustrates how a reduction in social exposure can theoretically contain the spread of infection in the following infographic.

     

     

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    Theoretical Potential

    The calculations used to create today’s infographic come from Signer Laboratory, a stem cell research lab located in the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California San Diego.

    Using a summation formula makes it possible to estimate the number of new infections over a 30 day period, across three scenarios.

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    To arrive at the figures reported above, Robert A.J. Signer, Ph.D., and his team made a number of key assumptions.

    First, they estimated the basic reproduction number (R0) of COVID-19 to be 2.5, a figure supported by recent research. This means that, on average, an infected individual will spread the disease to 2.5 other people.

    Next, they assumed that an infected individual will unknowingly spread COVID-19 over the median five day incubation period. After this period, the individual will begin to develop symptoms, immediately self quarantine, and no longer pose a threat.

    Finally, they assumed a direct linear correlation between social interactions and R0. This means that when an infected person reduces their physical contact with others by 50%, they also spread the disease by an amount 50% less.

    Timing is Everything

    While the figures above are the results of mathematical estimations, researchers have actually studied social distancing from a variety of angles.

    One study used simulations to determine the magnitude and timing of social distancing measures required to prevent a pandemic. The distancing measures simulated were:

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    The results, for a community of 30,000 people and an epidemic with R=2.5, are charted below. We can define the final illness attack rate as the share of people from an at risk population who ultimately catch the disease.

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    Results showed that when no action was taken, 65% of the population contracted the disease. However, if a combination of all four distancing measures were implemented instead, the attack rates were:

    • 45% (distancing begins after a 4 week delay)

    • 21% (distancing begins after a 3 week delay)

    • 7% (distancing begins after a 2 week delay)

    What’s clear is that social distancing was significantly more effective when implemented with minimal delay—the final illness attack rate rose quickest beyond the third week. These findings draw a parallel to the visualizations in today’s infographic, which showed us just how quickly a disease can spread.

    Social distancing interventions are important as they represent the only … measure guaranteed to be available against a novel strain of influenza in the early phases of a pandemic.

    – Kelso, J.K., Milne, G.J. & Kelly, H., BMC Public Health 9, 117 (2009)

    We arrive at a similar conclusion when it comes to the types of distancing measures implemented. In the simulations, none of the four measures taken on their own were able to have a similar effect as when they were combined.

    With the global number of COVID-19 cases still rising, many governments have issued quarantine orders and travel bans.

    The math supports these decisions—reducing our physical contact with others, even when we aren’t experiencing any symptoms, is crucial. Studies like the one summarized above also prove that taking action sooner, rather than later, can go a long way in reducing the spread of infection.

    The key takeaway from all of this? Social distancing is a powerful disease control tool, but only if we all participate.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 21:45

  • Hydroxychloroquine Prescriptions Triple Overnight Following FDA Approval
    Hydroxychloroquine Prescriptions Triple Overnight Following FDA Approval

    The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency-use authorization to hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday. But demand for the drug backed by President Donald Trump that is typically used to treat malaria soared prior to the move, according to data from Symphony Health.

    Weekly prescriptions soared from 100k to 300k over the past week, since President Trump first mentioned the drug as one of two commons drugs that produced potentially wondrous results if administered together (the other drug, azythromycin, better known as a Z-pak) to COVID-19 patients.

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    Given the market’s desperation for anything that might cure a disease that is killing 1 in 10 people it infects in certain areas, it would seem that concerns of those who took these medications regularly before the crisis might be struggling to source their medication for the first time.

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    The FDA gave emergency approval to a Trump administration plan to distribute millions of doses of anti-malarial drugs to hospitals across the country on Monday, saying it is worth the risk of trying unproven treatments to try and slow the progression of the disease.

    There have been only a handful of anecdotal studies detailing a possible benefit of the drugs, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, to relieve the acute respiratory symptoms of COVID-19 and clear the virus from infected patients. If these effects could be widely replicated, it would be nothing short of miraculous. And the evidence certainly offers reason to hope, at least for some.

    Interestingly, prescriptions for the drug surged during the week ended March 20, asnearly 300,000 prescriptions were written in the US that week, roughly triple the 113,000 weekly average in 2019.

    We suspect these numbers will only continue to climb.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 21:25

  • China Is "Fixed": Chinese PMIs Soar Back Into Expansion, Smashing Expectations
    China Is “Fixed”: Chinese PMIs Soar Back Into Expansion, Smashing Expectations

    Remember the record plunge in China’s manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMI for February when the entire economy imploded as a result of coronavirus pandemic? Well, forget all about it, because in the latest farce out of Beijing, moments ago the goalseekers at the National Bureau Of Statistics came up with March PMI numbers that are so ridiculous they not only make a mockery out of all Chinese “data” reporting, but put into question absolutely everything that Beijing is officially reporting in connection with the pandemic.

    Here’s how China just made everyone around the world cackle with mad laughter:

    • Manufacturing PMI 52.0, exp. 44.8 and up from 35.7. The 50+ print means China is now solidly back in expansion; even more laughably, this was the highest print since September 2017.
    • Non-manufacturing PMI 52.3, exp. 42.0, and up from 29.6. This print is also well in expansion.

    And here is your perfectly normal, “we ain’t even trying to pretend any more” V-shaped recovery.

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    This was the biggest beat of consensus expectations in history!

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    Putting China’s magical recovery in context, here is the consensus forecast for China’s GDP growth.

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    That these completely fabricated, laughable numbers come the day after China cut its reverse repo rate to 2.20%, the lowest on record, and broke its streak of 29 trading days without a reverse repo operating, injecting 50 billion yuan into the economy which is now cratering, was hardly a coincidence.

    And speaking of cratering economy, just yesterday we reported that contrary to the PMI data, China’s consumer default tsunami has now started, to wit:

    • Delinquent credit-card debt in February rose by about 50% from a year earlier.
    • China’s delinquency ratio jumped to a staggering 20% in February, from 13% at the end of last year.
    • An estimated 8 million people in China lost their jobs in February.
    • Industrial profits crashed by 39%.

    In short: China’s real economy is collapsing and the more it contracts, the more compelled Beijing feels to boost consumer confidence with totally fabricated numbers, which however nobody believes any more.

    So what to make of this statistical farce?

    Simple: it’s a political statement directed straight at the US and meant to indicate that China is now fixed, even though knowing just how idiotic these numbers must look, the China Statistical Bureau – as if out of guilt – said the “rebound does not mean the economy has returned to normal and March data alone cannot tell improving trend” adding that “further attention needed on PMI as China’s economy faces new challenges amid increasing pressure of inbound coronavirus infections.”

    Of course, that statement is for international consumption, domestically China will now parade with the highest PMI print in nearly three years as proof that as far as it is concerned, the Wu Flu is now only the world’s problem.

    As for the “data”, well the algos will dutifully lap it up even though everyone now knows that not only China’s economic data is completely made up but, by implication, its coronavirus statistics. Incidentally earlier today ground zero of the deadliest global pandemic in generations, Beijing, said that all 48 new coronavirus cases on March 30 were imported.

    China’s fake bullshit aside, the real news is that the world was badly in need of laughter, and China just delivered.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 21:23

  • Pentagon Confirms Over 1,000 COVID-19 Cases Among Military, Orders Bases To Stop Public Reporting
    Pentagon Confirms Over 1,000 COVID-19 Cases Among Military, Orders Bases To Stop Public Reporting

    The Department of Defense (DoD) announced a grim milestone Monday — it’s total number of COVID-19 cases among US service members, civilian contractors, on-base civilian staff, and family dependents of troops has surpassed 1,000.

    “Total DoD Cases (current, recovered and deaths) is 1,087,” according to DoD fact sheet released on Monday. The numbers are as follow:

    • 569 military cases

    • 220 civilian cases 

    • 190 dependent cases

    • 64 contractor cases

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    Defense Secretary Mark Esper, via Reuters.

    The Pentagon said 569 service members have been infected, among these 26 hospitalizations, and 34 have recovered.

    The remainder of total cases involve civilian contractors working on military bases and/or at the Pentagon, as well as dependents. This number is up significantly from Friday’s total DoD number of 600.

    But it appears we are fast heading toward a near total reporting blockage in terms of DoD-wide cases, and specifically where they originate, and in what branches of the US armed services. As Stars & Stripes reports:

    The Defense Department has ordered commanders at all of its installations worldwide to stop announcing publicly new coronavirus cases among their personnel, as the Pentagon said Monday that more than 1,000 U.S. military-linked people had been sickened by the virus.

    The order issued by Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday is meant to protect operational security at the Defense Department’s global installations, Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement Monday. He said Defense Department leaders worried adversaries could exploit such information, especially if the data showed the outbreak impacted U.S. nuclear forces or other critical units.

    This constitutes perhaps the clearest admission thus far throughout the crisis that the coronavirus pandemic is a serious threat to US defense readiness and national security.

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    USS Theodore Roosevelt, via US Navy

    Currently at least two aircraft carriers are battling outbreaks in their midst – both are in the Pacific Ocean and likely have seen their operational readiness deeply compromised as commanders try to contain the spread, with the USS Theodore Roosevelt already being diverted to Guam days ago.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 21:05

  • The US 2020 Fiscal Deficit Will Explode To 18%, Unseen Since World War II
    The US 2020 Fiscal Deficit Will Explode To 18%, Unseen Since World War II

    Authored by Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley chief economist

    A Full-Court Policy Press

    I hope that you and your families are well. The past few weeks have been challenging both personally and professionally. Covid-19 is at once a human tragedy and unparalleled synchronous shock, affecting both the demand and supply sides of the global economy.

    Given the scale of disruption to economic activity, we expect a deep global recession in 1H20, with growth contracting by 2.3%Y in 1H20. Assuming the outbreak peaks by April/May, this will likely set the stage for a recovery in 2H20, to 1.5%Y by 4Q20. For the US, we expect an unprecedented drop of 30.1%Q SAAR in 2Q20 with the unemployment rate also rising to a record 12.8% (since data collection began in the 1940s) before we see it bouncing back at a 29.2%Q SAAR pace in 3Q20. However, global growth for full-year 2020 will still see a decline of 0.6%Y, past the 0.5%Y rate of contraction we saw during 2008 and, on our estimates, the weakest pace of growth during peacetime since the 1930s.

    Even before the coronavirus outbreak, the post-GFC global economy had been facing the triple challenge of demographics, debt and disinflation (the 3D Challenge we have written about previously), which the world last faced in the 1930s. At its core, the outbreak represents a substantial shock to incomes, and the impact on aggregate demand will ultimately create renewed disinflationary pressures. The debt challenge will also become more pronounced in the near term as nominal GDP growth weakens and nations, households and corporates face rising levels of indebtedness. Taken together, we expect these forces to bring the 3D Challenge back to the fore.

    The silver lining is that the coronavirus has elicited a strong coordinated monetary and fiscal response. The pace and magnitude at which these policies have been implemented are also unprecedented. Since mid-January, 23 of the 30 central banks we cover have eased monetary policy. The global weighted average policy rate has declined to below post-GFC lows. All the G4 central banks have now announced aggressive quantitative easing programmes. We estimate that these central banks will make asset purchases of ~US$6.5 trillion in this easing cycle, with cumulative asset purchases of US$4-5 trillion by the Fed alone.

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    Over the last few days, the pace of fiscal action has also picked up significantly. We now expect that in the G4 plus China, the combined primary fiscal balance will rise by 440bp (~US$2.8 trillion) in 2020. As a percentage of GDP, the G4+China cyclically adjusted primary deficit will rise to 8.5% of GDP in 2020, significantly higher than the 6.5% in 2009 immediately after the GFC.

    In the US, the speed and magnitude of the policy response have been truly remarkable. The Fed has cut rates to zero and put QE and other lending facilities in place much faster than during the GFC. A fiscal stimulus package has been assembled in a little over a week, compared with two months for the 2008-09 package. In terms of magnitude, we expect the cyclically adjusted primary fiscal deficit to rise to 14% of GDP in 2020 (assuming stimulus of US$2.0 trillion) compared with 7% of GDP in 2009 – the highest level since the 1930s. The headline fiscal deficit will rise to around 18% of GDP in 2020.

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    Based on the experience of the 1930s and of Japan since the 1990s, this aggressive, coordinated fiscal and monetary easing will be critical in addressing the 3D Challenge. With the help of this extraordinary policy action, and assuming an April/May Covid-19 peak, we expect the global economy to be on the mend from 3Q20 onwards.

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    However, based on the experience in China, we foresee a tepid pace of recovery initially, and it won’t be until 3Q21 that output reaches pre-Covid-19 levels in the US and euro area.

    Hawks will undoubtedly argue (and we’ve already heard murmurings) that these expansionary policies bring the risks of rising inflation and deficits and risks to debt sustainability. However, we take the opposing view and argue that these policies need to remain in place for longer until inflation expectations have systematically risen closer to the central banks’ goals. Again, the 1930s offer a cautionary tale. Because expansionary policies were terminated prematurely in 1936-37, the US economy suffered a double dip in 1937-38 (see Global Macro Briefing: 1937-38 Redux?). Hence, policy-makers must not be too quick to sound the all-clear.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 20:45

  • Greater Depression? Shocking Images Show Horror Of America's New 'Breadlines'
    Greater Depression? Shocking Images Show Horror Of America’s New ‘Breadlines’

    “It could never happen again…”

    A quick Google search shows the horrific scenes from the 1930s as Americans lined up by the thousands for food as The Great Depression struck fast, hard, and deep…

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    And here is today’s shocking ‘breadlines’ – This video shows hundreds of cars waiting to receive food from the Greater Community Food Bank in Duquesne, near Pittsburgh…

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

    The last two food bank giveaways drew massive crowds and caused major delays on Route 837. When they had one at Kennywood last week, it drew over 800 cars and backed up for miles.

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    How did America go from “greatest economy ever” to “Greater Depression” so fast?

    And don’t forget, we just had the biggest spike in joblessness… ever…

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    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 20:25

  • France Reports Largest Single-Day Jump In Deaths, Virginia Issues 'Stay At Home' Order: Live Updates
    France Reports Largest Single-Day Jump In Deaths, Virginia Issues ‘Stay At Home’ Order: Live Updates

    Summary:

    • Dr. Fauci says 100k-200k Americans may die from COVID-19
    • Trump extends guidelines to April 30
    • Spain case total passes China
    • Maryland Gov. issues ‘stay at home order’
    • Italy reports slowest rise in new cases in 2 weeks
    • South Korea reports worrying rebound in cases around Seoul
    • Virginia to become latest state to issue shelter in place orders
    • Russia expands Moscow lockdown throughout country
    • 2 dead during outbreak at Tennessee nursing home
    • Ford partners with GE health to produce ventilators
    • NY confirms another 7k cases
    • NYC remains undisputed center of US outbreak
    • New Zealand expands state of emergency
    • Seattle area reports optimistic slowdown in new cases, deaths
    • New York surpasses 1k deaths
    • Indian migrant workers ‘washed’ with disinfectant
    • Dutch navy sailors test positive
    • Netanyahu goes on quarantine
    • Trump: US has enough medical equipment & ventilators to deal with peak of virus outbreak
    • Mnuchin says front-line workers deserve ‘hazard pay’
    • Spike in cases should arrive around Easter, Trump said, deaths expected to be “very low”
    • Washington DC Mayor issued ‘Stay at Home’ order
    • JNJ announces encouraging progress on vaccine
    • Mexico refuses “to implement state of siege” as case numbers remain low
    • Russia ramps up testing
    • WHO said outbreaks in Italy and Spain “potentially stabilizing”
    • LA County reports another 7 deaths, 342 cases
    • UK reports another 2,619 cases
    • Chinese press publishes photo of Xi standing in public without mask
    • France reports another 4k cases
    • Dublin considers travel ban
    • NJ case total climbs to 16.6k
    • UN proposes $2.5 trillion global rescue program
    • Australia launches worker subsidy program
    • Tokyo Olympics officially delayed until 2021
    • Poland imposes more restrictions on life
    • Amazon workers planning strike

    *   *   *

    Update (1900ET): Migrants who cross into the United States illegally are being expelled to Mexico in an average of 96 minutes under emergency coronavirus measures now in force across the U.S. southern border, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the latest government statistics.

    Dublin is considering new restrictions on in-bound travelers, as Ireland reported eight further coronavirus deaths and the detection of 295 new infections. Leo Varadkar, the prime minister, said Dublin may impose new restrictions on people entering the country from abroad in an attempt to combat the outbreak. The latest deaths, reported on Monday night, brought to 54 the number of fatalities, and the overall number of COVID-19 cases now stands at 2,910.

    Once again, China reported 48 new cases on Monday, all of which involved foreigners. Continuing the trend from the past few weeks.

    *   *   *

    Update (1700ET): Monday’s press conference was largely a reiteration of what’s already been said, laced with some classic Trump abuse of the press.

    *   *     *

    Update (1648T): An outbreak of the novel coronavirus at one Tennessee nursing home has left two dead and more than 100 others hospitalized just one week after the state banned most visitors at extended-care facilities. According to Fox News, dozens of residents were evacuated from at the Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing, located in Sumner County northeast of Nashville, on Friday after testing positive for COVID-19, Gov. Bill Lee said in a press release. National Guard troops arrived Saturday to begin testing all remaining residents and staff at the Gallatin Center.

    The incident mirrors a Maryland nursing home where dozens of elderly patients were endangered.

    Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC, has issued an order demanding all residents to stay at home and shelter in place until further notice. This comes just a couple of days after she ordered all bars and “non0-essential” businesses to close.

    Across the Greater DC area, the number of known coronavirus cases climbed to 2,840 as of Monday, with 1,414 cases in Maryland, 1,021 in Virginia and 405 in DC. The regional total of virus-driven deaths also rose, increasing to 26 in Virginia, 16 in Maryland and 9 in the District, for a total of 51 fatalities, according to WaPo data.

    *   *   *

    Update (1638ET): Ford is responding to pressure from the Trump administration (after Trump mostly went after rival GM and its CEO Mary Barra) to step up and build medically necessary equipment, by announcing that under a partnership with GE, it plans to build 15,000 ventilators over the next 100 days.

    The ventilators will be built at a plant in Michigan in cooperation with GE’s healthcare unit. The companies will then build 30,000 per month as needed to treat patients afflicted with the coronavirus, but hope to finish at least 15,000 over the next 100 days as they’re just starting up, as Reuters reported.

    Ford said the simplified ventilator design, which is licensed by GE Healthcare from Florida-based Airon Corp and has been cleared by the FDA, can meet the needs of most COVID-19 patients.

    *   *   *

    Update (1630ET): LA County just reported another 7 deaths, bringing its death toll to 44, along with 342 new cases, bringing the county-wide total 2,474 cases, according to LA local news station KTLA.

    *   *   *

    Update (1525ET): California Gov. Newsom said Monday that hospitalizations have doubled in the last 4 days.

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    *   *   *

    Update (1430ET): Trump said he and Putin discussed the importance of stability in global energy markets.

    Meanwhile, after Maryland issued a stay-at-home order and Virginia also reportedly weighed a similar order, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott has ordered all lodging, including hotels, Airbnb and campgrounds, to suspend operations on Monday, CNN reports.

    Vermont’s order suspends lodging and applies to hotels, bed and breakfasts, as well as short-term rentals such as Airbnb and campgrounds, Scott said. That includes online advertising and booking, he said. “If you don’t need to come to Vermont, please don’t,” he said. “This is about public health and safety which is our top priority.”

    Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is warning that medical experts say the coronavirus pandemic could escalate within two weeks in the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland region, where it could resemble the current level of cases in New York City.

    New Jersey recorded 3,347 new positive cases since yesterday, bringing our statewide total to 16,636.

    Virginia’s new ‘stay at home order’ will last until June 10 until modified, which critics cited as a more reasonable timeline, and noted that even Trump is now making gestures toward June.

    Gov. Phil Murphy kept his promise to “shame” those caught violating the state’s lockdown, among them involving residents facing charges including four buddies who met to drag race in a school parking lot, men who held weddings, a woman who left her home to toss a Molotov cocktail at her boyfriend’s residence (unsuccessfully, we might add) and a billiards hall owner who reopened after he was ordered to close.

    Meanwhile, Italian health authorities have extended the national lockdown by another week, extending it to April 12, from April 3.

    *   *   *

    Update (1335ET): Italy’s new cases has slowed, as this chart from Pantheon Macro shows:

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    Finally, in the US, the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship, has docked in New York’s harbor, where it will help tend to people who don’t have the coronavirus.

    “Help New York. We are the ones who are hit now,” Cuomo said at a press conference from the Jacob K. Javits Center, which was converted into four temporary hospitals by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week. “That’s today, tomorrow it is going to be somewhere else …It is going to work its way across the country.”

     In France, where the public has seen an encouraging drop in new cases, the case total climbed to 44,550 (prev. 40,174) on Monday, while the French death toll climbed to 3,024 (prev. 2,606), making France the fourth nation to see its death toll from the virus surpass 3,000. It was France’s largest one-day jump in deaths yet.

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    Meanwhile, the Washington Post just reported that the governor of Virginia is preparing to issue a mandatory ‘stay at home’ order…

    *    *    *

    Update (1325ET): NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo is delivering his latest press update, confirmed another 7k cases bringing NY’s total to 66,497, with 1,218 deaths so far, up from just under 1k yesterday.

    Cuomo explained that were are currently seeing  the number of hospitalizations for COVID-19 double every six days or so.

    A total of 1,218 New Yorkers have been lost to the contagion, up 253 from the 965 reported by Cuomo on Sunday afternoon, he added during Monday’s press conference.

    The governor also reminded the public that “the soldiers in this fight are our health care professionals…those are the troops who are fighting this battle for us.”

    And now Nancy Pelosi is set to talk about a ‘Phase 4’ package.

    *   *   *

    Update (1250ET): The UK reported 2,619 new cases of coronavirus and 180 new deaths on Monday, bringing its totals to 22,141 and 1,408 deaths.

    Meanwhile, here’s the latest disturbing chart from Deutsche Bank’s daily note:

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    In other news, the WHO’s emergencies chief said coronavirus cases counted in hard-hit countries like Italy and Spain are “potentially stabilizing,” but that’s no time to let up on tough measures to limit and track the spread of the virus.

    “It is our fervent hope that that is the case,” Dr. Michael Ryan told reporters. “But we have to now push the virus down, and that will not happen by itself.”

    The Dutch defense ministry said Monday that a group of sailors on a Navy submarine has tested positive for the coronavirus.

    Meanwhile, a chart from Pantheon Macro Research shows Italy’s drop in new cases finally.

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    *   *   *

    Update (1212ET): This is huge: Italy has reported its smallest jump in new cases in 2 weeks. Italy reports 4,050 new cases of coronavirus and 812 new deaths, bringing its total to 101,739 cases and 11,591 dead.

    In other news, across Italy, 61 doctors who caught the coronavirus have died, the Italian Association of Doctors said Monday. Out of the 61 deceased doctors, 40 were working in Lombardy, the Italian region worst-hit by coronavirus.

    The number of new cases reported across Italy continues to fall:

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    As the AP explained, Italy is seeing a continued slowdown in the rate of its new confirmed coronavirus cases while registering a record number of people cured as it enters its third week into a nationwide lockdown.

    Epidemiologists, however, believe that Italy’s real caseload is as much as five to 10 times more than the official number, but that those cases aren’t being counted because Italy is only testing people with severe symptoms. Of those infected, 14,620 have been declared cured, including a record 1,590 in the past day.

    Of those who aren’t being counted, presumably all of them are being cured since they’re mostly making it through the outbreak and infection without much in the way of symptoms.

    *    *    *

    Update (1120ET): Gov. Hogan is delivering his daily press conference: So far he’s ordered the state to remain under a mandatory ‘stay at home” order.

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    That order takes place as of 8pmET Monday. Violation can lead to fines up to $5k, or even jail time.

    But will citizens in places like Baltimore obey?

    *   *    *

    Update (1110ET): The UAE is extending distance learning until the end of the academic year in June as the government steps up measures to contain the outbreak of coronavirus as Middle Eastern countries try to combat a sudden jump in new cases and deaths.

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    Russia is ramping up testing as the lockdown in Moscow ramps up and the rest of the country starts to implement lockdowns to varying degrees. The president of Mexico, AMLO, said he “wouldn’t impose a state of siege” on the people, as the number of confirmed cases in the country has remained low.

    Poland’s government is planning further restrictions to public life, as officials warn that the number of coronavirus infections is expected to rise rapidly in Poland over the next few weeks. Michal Dworczyk, the top aide to prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, said the government would unveil its new measures on Tuesday, without offering any further details of what they would be.

    The UN has called for a $2.5 trillion rescue package for “Developing Countries” who have been hammered by the crisis.

    Unctad, the UN’s trade and development agency, said $1 trillion should be made available through the IMF’s special drawing rights, $1 trillion through debt relief, and another $500 billion via a “Marshall Plan” for emergency services and social relief programs largely in the form of “grants” that eventually become…welll… grants.

    Richard Kozul-Wright, Unctad’s director of globalisation and development strategies, said:

    Advanced economies have promised to do whatever it takes to stop their firms and households from taking a heavy loss of income. But if G20 leaders are to stick to their commitment of a global response in the spirit of solidarity, there must be commensurate action for the 6bn people living outside the core G20 economies.

    It’s a convincing argument, but nevertheless, there’s so much need at home, it’s difficult to justify just handing out more money to the developing world when they can strike some kind of loan-lease deals with China or whatever.

    *   *   *

    Update (0843ET): Trump reminded his Fox & Friends interlocutors that he is “the one that put the sanctions on” when it comes to Russia, and that when he speaks with President Putin in the near future, he will tell Putin to take a hike if he asks for the sanctions to be removed because of the outbreak.

    “I know more about sanctions because I’m the one who put them on Russia.”

    Then Trump jumped into discussion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and also said he would “discuss” Venezuela, while also reminding the world that the Soviet Union lost 50 million people during World War 2 (we believe the actual figure is closer to 27 million or more).

    Trump also said he feels Andrew Cuomo would be a tougher political opponent than “Sleepy” Joe Biden, who is probably thrilled that he gets to just kick back and sleep through this crisis.

    Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin told Fox Business that hazard pay for workers on the front lines of battling the coronavirus – like nurses but also cashiers at grocery stores – will be included in a fourth legislative rescue package. He said he stands ready, as does the administration, to work with Congress if additional funds are needed in combating the pandemic.

    In other news, the Tokyo Olympics have been rescheduled for the summer of 2021, the International Olympic Committee has announced, though this news was basically pre-announced weeks ago when Japan said it would push for it.

    *   *   *

    Update (0825ET): Before Trump insisted he would “rely on experts” to determine the end of the quarantine and that the worst thing to do would be to “declare victory” over “the invisible enemy” and have it not be true, the president took a few minutes to slam the national press. “I’ve spent three years trying to figure out who is more dishonest the New York Times or the Washington Post,” Trump said. “When I figure it out I’ll call you and we’ll have a special.”

    Steve Doocy laughed a little, though his co-hosts were less amused.

    If you have a cable subscription, you can watch the interview live here:

    https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=5614615980001&w=466&h=263Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

    *   *   *

    Update (0817ET): During President Trump’s interview Monday morning on Fox News, Trump insisted that the number of deaths would be “a very low number,” even as Joe Biden interjected, saying “I am issuing this challenge to Donald Trump…He must use the Defense Production Act within the next 48 hours … He may think the risk is having too many. That would be a wonderful problem to have. The risk is having too few.”

    Trump expects the peak now to arrive around Easter though some projections put it around April 15 vs. Easter’s April 12.

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    Trump meanwhile insisted that New York “should have more than enough” ventilators, seeming to settle the federal position on whether the states have enough ventilators “after this is over they’ll be selling ventilators for $1 a piece…we’ll have a lot of them.”

    Workers at an Amazon “fulfillment center” in New York (on Staten Island, no less) are planning to go on strike Monday morning in a gesture of contempt toward Jeff Bezos, as they accuse the company of not doing enough to stop the virus…so much for hoping Amazon would save us.

    Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli PM, said he would be quarantining for a few weeks after coming into contact with somebody who tested positive for the virus.

    *   *   *

    Hours after Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday and declared that the current modeling projects between 100k and 200k deaths in the US alone, President Trump stood up at last night’s Rose Garden press conference and declared that the White House would extend its current guidelines – which call for Americans to avoid gatherings of 10 or more, along with a host of other commandments intended to help “flatten the curve” – through the end of April.

    Trump added that the “peak” in new cases & deaths should arrive in two weeks, but by June 1, everything should be fine. This, as New York City hospitals have been transformed into “war zones”, while the number of confirmed cases globally closes in on 1 million. Mayors are cracking down, giving police the authority to hand out fines to anybody who isn’t obeying the terms of the crackdown.

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    The biggest headline overnight: Spain has surpassed China in the total number of confirmed coronavirus infections (joining Italy and the US) as the number of cases rose from 78,797 on Sunday to 85,195 on Monday, with Spain’s death toll rose by 812 to 7,340, according to the Spanish Health Ministry.

    Spanish authorities reported more than 6,000 new cases within 24 hours again on Monday. Among those testing positive: Fernando Simon, the leader of the country’s coronavirus task force.

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    In the US, New York City remains the undisputed epicenter of the national outbreak as the number of new cases out of the Seattle area has noticeably declined. An area that produced 37 of the first 50 fatalities in the US has seen deaths drop off markedly, while hospitals have been mercifully underwhelmed. While each infected person was spreading the virus to an average of 2.7 other people earlier in March, that number appears to have dropped, with one projection suggesting that it was now down to 1.4, according to the New York Times.

    That’s largely thanks to strict measures implemented early on by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. While NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio was still encouraging New Yorkers to go out and have a good time in late February, Inslee was barring gatherings of more than 250 people and cautioning Washingtonians to stay home and be careful.

    New York, meanwhile, surpassed 1k deaths from COVID-19 over the weekend.

    As of Monday morning, the US had reported 143,055 cases, according to Johns Hopkins, roughly 1 in 5 global cases (the global case total was 732,000). Projections claim that the global case total should surpass 1 million by the end of the week. The CDC is advising people from New York, Connecticut and New Jersey to stay put, and avoid traveling to second homes or relatives’ homes elsewhere in the country.

    As Tokyo health officials recorded another surprising jump in mostly travel-related cases as of Monday, officials in South Korea warned that they were recording a “sustained increase” in new cases, suggesting new clusters forming around Seoul. Meanwhile, EasyJet, one of Europe’s largest airlines, said it would ground its entire fleet as demand for personal travel collapses.

    Across India, migrant workers have struggled with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sudden lockdown, which left millions of Indians with only hours to prepare. The PM apologized yesterday, and now, news organizations are reporting on some of the draconian steps that local governments are taking to “disinfect” poor migrant workers returning home.

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    Back in Europe, the border closures across the Schengen Area have shuttered borders that haven’t been closed since the fall of the Soviet Union. Here’s a guide produced by a non-profit in the region, which recently noted how many Europeans are now meeting loved ones at borders to share a kiss or a quick hello.

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    As the Russian capital commenced a mandatory self-isolation regime Monday, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin called on regional governors to extend the system across the country to control the coronavirus.

    Now that world leaders expect the virus to last for most of the year, Australia’s government planned to subsidize the wages of private-sector employees for up to six months to help businesses and workers struggling with the impact of the coronavirus shutdown: “We will pay employers to pay their employees,” said Prime Minister Scott Morrison as he announced what he dubbed a “job keeper” program. “Our government has made a decision today…that no government has made before in Australia,” according to the Washington Post.

    The program is part of an $80 billion package.

    In Spain, the number of new cases has surpassed China’s “official” total in the number of confirmed coronavirus infections, as the number of cases rose from 78,797 on Sunday to 85,195 on Monday. The death toll rose by 812 to 7,340.

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    The Chinese press on Sunday published a photo of President Xi standing out in public without a facemask, a notable development as China continues to report no or almost zero new home-grown cases of COVID-19.

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    JNJ meanwhile reported Monday that it has produced a “lead vaccine candidate” in its trials for a COVID-19 vaccine. While it’s certainly a reassuring headline (and CNBC has given it no shortage of attention this morning), it won’t move up the timeframe for an expected vaccine.

    Finally, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said Monday that a new bank lending program passed as part of the $2 trillion stimulus bill late last week will be ready by Friday, and he encouraged every business to apply because the loans will be “forgivable” for companies that hire back workers and retain them.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 20:11

  • IV Vitamin C "Widely Used" To Treat COVID-19 In NY Hospitals
    IV Vitamin C “Widely Used” To Treat COVID-19 In NY Hospitals

    Authored by Cassius K via The Organic Prepper blog,

    For years regulatory agencies like the FDA have subtly targeted the use of such things as intravenous vitamins.

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    One method they use to target the fabric of culture in which people utilize simple, naturopathic remedies is the stringent enforcement of any regulation they can think of. It seems that the FDA targets regulatory violations supposedly committed by those who deal in naturopathic medicine far more than violations from Big Pharma.

    Almost 10 years ago, in 2011 it was reported that the FDA sent out a warning letter to a small pharmacy, urging them not to stock intravenous vitamin C. In Australia, the mainstream media has consistently inundated the discussion surrounding health with propaganda over the last 10 years, and vitamin C has been specifically scoffed at.

    Despite an observable urge for the regulatory agencies to crush the culture of vitamins and erase their history, it’s leaking out into the mainstream that intravenous (IV) vitamin C in high doses is effective against COVID-19.

    Now New York’s largest hospital system is using Vitamin C for Covid-19

    In New York’s largest hospital system, urgently ill COVID-19 patients are now being given large doses of IV vitamin C, an article from the New York Post reported a couple of days ago.

    Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, said his intensive-care patients with the coronavirus immediately receive 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C.

    Identical amounts of the powerful antioxidant are then readministered three or four times a day, he said.

    Each dose is more than 16 times the National Institutes of Health’s daily recommended dietary allowance of vitamin C, which is just 90 milligrams for adult men and 75 milligrams for adult women.

    The regimen is based on experimental treatments administered to people with the coronavirus in Shanghai, China, Weber said.

    “The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C,” he said.

    “It helps a tremendous amount, but it is not highlighted because it’s not a sexy drug.” (source)

    They say the decision to use IV C in New York was based on reports of its effectiveness in China, but vitamin C’s reputation in America far predates that info, although not specifically in response to this virus.

    Intensive-care patients who tested positive for the virus immediately receive a dose of intravenous vitamin C measuring 1,500 milligrams, says pulmonologist Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a Long Island, New York critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities in the area.

    Up to 4 times a day, the same dose is re-administered. It was not specified what form of IV C was used, but it is likely to be either Ascorbic Acid (what you typically buy at the store) or Sodium Ascorbate (a popular form intended to be easier on the stomach or the body’s acidity).

    Some vitamins, originally derived from the phrase “vital amines,” have different, beneficial effects at much higher doses. At the same time, some minerals or vitamins can throw bodily processes into a state of imbalance with doses too high.

    Vitamin C seems to be one of those vitamins that is potent and extremely beneficial at high doses.

    Vitamin C is being “widely used” to treat this virus “throughout the system,” a spokesman for Northwell confirmed, the institution that operates 23 hospitals including Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.

    This may be a better choice than the more pharmaceutical option.

    On a different note, a pharmaceutical combination consisting of malaria drugs known for horrific side-effects, mixed with antibiotics that are known to have no ability to kill viruses (hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin) was promoted by Donald Trump recently.

    Nevada recently banned the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat the virus. For someone who believes in freedom, any sort of ban would seem like a step in the wrong direction, but the side effects of hydroxychloroquine and related compounds are well documented.

    This 2018 paper published in the Journal of Thoracic Disease examined “HCQ-induced cardiotoxicity,” and heart failure in twins born to a mother who took the drug.

    Another paper published in the European Heart Journal of Acute Cardiovascular Care said cardiotoxicity is a “rare but serious complication of hydroxychloroquine.”

    Not only that but as of March 24, some kind of federal permission was granted to New York hospitals to dose patients with a “cocktail” of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to patients who were considered desperately ill, “on a ‘compassionate care’ basis.”

    Hopefully, this compassionate care mentality can be directed toward the firm belief in voluntary treatment, of whatever a hospital has, wherever in the world the person is, rather than involuntary treatment with whatever a hospital chooses to give.

    NY is ahead of the curve

    In contrast to what is happening in other places, the NY Post reported the Vitamin C is being “administered in addition to such medicines as the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin, various biologics, and blood thinners.”

    So why Vitamin C?

    Weber, 34, said vitamin C levels in coronavirus patients drop dramatically when they suffer sepsis, an inflammatory response that occurs when their bodies overreact to the infection.

    “It makes all the sense in the world to try and maintain this level of vitamin C,” he said.

    A clinical trial on the effectiveness of intravenous vitamin C on coronavirus patients began Feb. 14 at Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the pandemic. (source)

    Let’s hope we see more hospitals using IV Vitamin C in the fight against Covid-19.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 20:05

  • "This Will Be A Tsunami" – America Has A New Problem: How To Give Away $2 Trillion In 2 Weeks
    “This Will Be A Tsunami” – America Has A New Problem: How To Give Away $2 Trillion In 2 Weeks

    Markets have rejoiced over the prospect of an unprecedented stimulus bill, which was passed by unanimous vote in the Senate earlier this week, and is awaiting passage in the House on Friday. But as BMO rates strategist Ian Lyngen argued in a note published earlier this week, passing the stimulus bill into law is merely the first hurdle. 

    After that, bureaucrats will need to figure out how to get the money to the people, while individuals and small/medium business owners pray that the money finds its way into their hands before they’re driven into bankruptcy or starvation (or both). The quest to distribute the money will require cooperation between various state and federal systems on a level that’s unprecedented, while states make adjustments to their unemployment systems and other processes to disburse the federal grant money in ways that have never been done before.

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    Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was on President George W. Bush’s economic team during the 2001 recession, said he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the package, but worries about the money getting where it needs to go, while also worrying that it won’t prevent a dramatic economic contraction.

    “I hope it works. It’s designed sensibly on paper. Now we have to get the money out the door,” Holtz-Eakin said. Even still, “we’re probably going to have a second quarter growth rate that is double-digit negative.”

    Barack Obama’s $800 billion stimulus bill was literally the first major policy accomplishment of his administration, undertaken almost immediately after his inauguration as most of the country was still wrapped up in the aftermath of the crisis. In March, Obama would remark that stocks looked ‘cheap’, effectively calling the bottom. And over the following years, the money slowly trickled out of federal departments and state grants.

    Just as the selloff and economic hit seem more concentrated this time around, so is the government stimulus package meant to effectuate a powerful jolt to economic growth – something strong enough to resuscitate an economy that’s bleeding more than 3 million jobs a week, a number that was effectively curbed by our country’s ability to process the claims (remember, most state governments are still running on massive mainframe computers from the 1980s).

    As Bloomberg explains, new programs like the $377 billion subsidy for small businesses via loans that will become “grants” if the businesses simply choose to retain all of their pre-crisis employees for the next few years are intended to get moving quickly, with the money being ladled out in weeks, not months.

    Remember last week when President Trump first said he wanted checks in mailboxes in two weeks? That deadline is probably impossible. But if that money isn’t there in a month or two, people are really going to start to feel it. As one reporter explained via twitter earlier, the financial system isn’t really set up for the mass forbearance of payments.

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    In other words, the government, the banks, the Fed and everyone else involved is racing against the clock. Both the Treasury, the banks, the various state agencies that administer the welfare and unemployment insurance programs that have just been given a shot of “steroids”, as Chuck Schumer put it – basically everybody involved in making sure this money gets to where it was intended to go – is now scrambling to compete in a sack race that will test the capacity of their systems to work together and also process the sheer volume of payments and disbursements necessary for this program to work.

    Remember how state websites around the country crashed last week as millions of Americans tried to file for unemployment insurance? That was just a glimpse of the mayhem to come. The technological pandemonium will be tantamount to a mass marketing opportunity for Amazon, Microsoft and Google as they battle for the lucrative state and federal contracts to transition these systems off the old mainframes and on to the cloud.

    But technological limitations aren’t the only potential roadblocks. The bill was written in a hurry, and some legal definitions and processes remain vague, opening the door to lawsuits and injunctions and other potential disagreements intended to tie up the payments and divert money as everybody scrambles to get a piece.

    The biggest single portion of the stimulus is the billions earmarked for large companies and state and local governments. But the rules for deciding who is entitled to that money, and how it will be distributed, are still being worked out.

    According to the legislation, the Treasury has 10 days from the date Trump signs it into law to come up with a set of guidelines governing who will qualify for the loans and how the application process will be regulated.

    One of the biggest components of the legislation is the $600 billion earmarked for states to dole out via beefed up unemployment benefits through July 31. Maximum state benefits range from $235 in Mississippi to $823 in Massacjusetts, and the number will range depending on income.

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    Though the government wants individuals to take advantage of the programs “quickly”, at best, the money will take a few days to become available, and the checks won’t start to flow for a week or two, probably longer.

    The added boost would be four months for those laid off now, but less time for those losing their jobs closer to July 31. And with so many different state agencies administering their own programs, there’s plenty of room for some stated to stand out as successes, and others to stand out as failures.

    “We want people to take advantage of all of this quickly,” Pelosi said Thursday. Some of that will “depend on how the states do it, and they are not all uniform.”

    As one Obama-era official said to Bloomberg, compensating contractors and the self-employed gig economy workers could be a challenge for some states.

    Seth Harris, who was deputy secretary of labor in the Obama administration, said the expanded coverage in the legislation, especially to contractors and those employed in the gig economy, may be a logistics challenge for some states.

    “These under-resourced, strapped, stressed systems in many cases do not have the latest technology or data systems,” he said. “Now they’re being hit by the largest tsunami of unemployment claims in the history of those data being collected. Now Congress is asking them to change the way they do things.”

    One Kentucky Republican is threatening to throw up roadblocks for the bill by essentially showing up and demanding an in-person roll call vote, while Speaker Pelosi tries to push through a voice vote to expedite the vote and avoid individuals coming close to one another after at least 2 Congressmen have tested positive for COVID-19.


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 03/30/2020 – 19:45

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