- Champagne Sales Fizzle, Worse Than Great Depression
Champagne Sales Fizzle, Worse Than Great Depression
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/05/2020 – 02:45Champagne sales fizzled during lockdowns as restaurants were closed, weddings canceled, and international travel halted, reported AP News.
The world’s top producers, based in France’s eastern region, are now warning they’ve lost an estimated $2 billion in sales this year. They say turnover has fallen by a third, with some of the worst-selling conditions since the Great Depression.
The industry expects 100 million bottles will be unsold this year as a virus-induced downturn has severely damaged winemakers.
“We are experiencing a crisis that we evaluate to be even worse than the Great Depression of 1929,” said Thibaut Le Mailloux of the Champagne Committee (CIVC), who represents 16,000 winemakers.
CIVC will announce to members at an upcoming meeting (Aug. 18) that harvests will be capped this year to avoid overproduction that would ultimately result in bottle price declines.
AP said small winemakers are alarmed by CIVC’s caps because they’re more susceptible to output declines than larger wineries.
Anselme Selosse, of Jacques Selosse Champagnes, was angered by the prospects that some of his harvests will have to be destroyed this year.
“We are to destroy (the grapes) and we pay for them to be destroyed,” Selosse said, referring to the industry as a whole. “It’s nothing but a catastrophe.”
“Champagne has never lived through anything like this before, even in the World Wars,” Selosse added. “We have never experienced … a sudden one-third fall in sales. Over one hundred million bottles unsold.
Top champagne producer Vranken-Pommery said the virus-induced downturn could damage the industry for years.
“It should not be forgotten that (champagne) has lived through every single war,” said Paul-Francois Vranken, founder of Vranken-Pommery Monopole. “But with the other crises, there was a way out. For now, there is no way out — unless we find a vaccine.”
Vranken said with fewer parties, gatherings, and festivals, champagne marketing must change from a celebratory drink to one that is like wine.
“Even if the bars and the nightclubs are closed for five years, we don’t plan on missing out on customers … There will be a very big change to our marketing that highlights the grandeur of our wines,” Vranken said.
The champagne industry will remain pressured through the end of this year as virus cases and deaths flare-up. This will likely result in a bankruptcy wave among winemakers.
- Turkish-Backed Forces On Guard For Liberal Values And Same-Sex Marriages In Syria
Turkish-Backed Forces On Guard For Liberal Values And Same-Sex Marriages In Syria
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/05/2020 – 02:00Democracy and liberal values are on the rise in the opposition-held part of Syria’s Greater Idlib region.
On July 31, forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) raided positions of the Syrian Army in the vicinity of the town of al-Ruwaihah in southern Idlib. Following the attack, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham also launched unguided rockets at army positions near the town of Maarat al-Numan. Pro-militant sources claimed that 5 Syrian soldiers were killed or injured in the attacks. Pro-government sources denied these claims.
On August 1 and August 2, militants shelled the government-controlled villages of Kafr Nabel and Hazzarin.
The army responded to these actions on August 2 and August 3 by targeting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham positions at Kafr Uwayd, al-Barah and Wadi al-Butah. It also deployed reinforcements to the frontline in the Zawiya Mountian area. Pro-Turkish and pro-militant sources claim that these actions signal that the Syrian military is preparing an offensive operation in the area.
At the same time, they emphasize that Idlib rebels are adamant to secure gains of the so-called Syrian revolution from attacks of the Assad regime. On August 1, Idlib rebels even held a special performance dedicated to this on the frontline. A thermal surveillance system of the Syrian Army recorded two militants having gay sex on the roof of a building at a frontline position in the vicinity of the town of Enkawi in southern Idlib.
The town is jointly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the National Front for Liberation. Both these groups pretend to be promoting hardcore conservative, Islamic values (often similar to al-Qaeda-styled ideology). However, the practice, specially with multiple sex scandals over the recent years, demonstrates that their members and leadership have their own version of this ‘conservative ideology’.
On August 1 and August 2, ISIS cells attacked Syrian Army positions in the provinces of Homs and Deir Ezzor. The first attack took place in the outskirts of the town of al-Sukhnah, while another one erupted west of Deir Ezzor city. At least 5 pro-government fighters were killed and several others were injured.
In a strange coincidence, the ISIS attacks increased just after the so-called Self-Administration in North and Northeast Syria, an administrative body of Kurdish militias controlling the northeast, reached a deal with the US oil company Delaware-based Delta Crescent Energy LLC. The company will manage oil trading in the territory controlled by US-backed Kurdish forces and modernize the oil fields that they and the US-led coalition currently control.
Kurdish militias and US troops control a larger part of the Syrian oil resources, including al-Rmelan and al-Omar oil fields. The development of the cooperation between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the US in the field of oil business is setting conditions for a further separation of the territories controlled by US-backed forces from the rest of Syria.
- Virgin Galactic Unveils Concept Images Of Supersonic Commercial Jet
Virgin Galactic Unveils Concept Images Of Supersonic Commercial Jet
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/05/2020 – 01:00Shares of Virgin Galactic Holdings were up 3.5% on Monday afternoon following a press release earlier in the day announcing its partnership with Rolls-Royce to develop a high-speed commercial aircraft.
Virgin entered a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Rolls-Royce to design and develop engine propulsion technology for a commercial airliner that can fly at speeds over March 3.
But shares quickly tumbled after the company announced it is planning a new share sale and will delay plans to carry founder Richard Branson into space until early next year – a milestone flight seen as the beginning of the company’s tourism business.
Branson’s trip will occur in the first quarter of 2021 instead of this year, assuming two test flights “demonstrate the expected results,” Virgin Galactic said in a statement Monday as it reported earnings. The company said the share offering would generate gross proceeds of about $460 million, to be used for general purposes.
But, Virgin also released a few fantastic conceptual designs of the new supersonic commercial aircraft that would have the capacity for 9 to 19 people at an altitude above 60,000 feet.
The now-retired Concorde flew at average cruising speed around Mach 2, which would mean the Virgin aircraft could hit speeds over 2,300 mph, or about 50% faster.
Supersonic travel for commercial use was paused in 2000 when Air France Flight 4590 crashed shortly after takeoff. However, there’s been an effort to revive supersonic travel in the late 2020s, with even talks of hypersonic flight after 2030.
Virgin announced in May it would work with NASA on supersonic travel for commercial use. NASA has been developing a plane with new technology that would transform supersonic booms into a sonic thump, or as loud as a car door.
Another company, developing a supersonic commercial jet, is Boom Supersonic, set to unveil its supersonic demonstrator this fall.
George Whitesides, Chief Space Officer, Virgin Galactic, said:
“We are excited to complete the Mission Concept Review and unveil this initial design concept of a high-speed aircraft, which we envision as blending safe and reliable commercial travel with unrivaled customer experience. We are pleased to collaborate with the innovative team at Rolls-Royce as we strive to develop sustainable, cutting-edge propulsion systems for the aircraft, and we are pleased to be working with the FAA to ensure our designs can make a practical impact from the start. We have made great progress so far, and we look forward to opening up a new frontier in high-speed travel.”
Rolls-Royce North America Chairman & CEO Tom Bell said:
“We are excited to partner with Virgin Galactic and TSC to explore the future of sustainable high-speed flight. Rolls-Royce brings a unique history in high-speed propulsion, going back to the Concorde, and offers world-class technical capabilities to develop and field the advanced propulsion systems needed to power commercially available high-Mach travel.”
The good news for Virgin and Boom is that, none of their supersonic planes will fly passengers until the late 2020s, if not early 2030s. We’ve noted on several occasions, the travel and tourism industry could take 3 to 5 years to recover.
- P Is For Predator State: The Building Blocks Of Tyranny From A To Z
P Is For Predator State: The Building Blocks Of Tyranny From A To Z
Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/05/2020 – 00:05Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.”
– Professor Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Discourse in the Age of Show Business
While mainstream America continues to fixate on the drama-filled reality show scripted by the powers-that-be, directed from the nation’s capital, and played out in high definition across the country, the American Police State has moved steadily forward.
Nothing has changed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a convenient, traumatic, devastating distraction.
The American people, the permanent underclass in America, have allowed themselves to be so distracted and divided that they have failed to notice the building blocks of tyranny being laid down right under their noses by the architects of the Deep State.
Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton: they have all been complicit in carrying out the Deep State’s agenda. Unless something changes to restore the balance of power, the next president—the new boss—will be the same as the old boss.
Frankly, it really doesn’t matter what you call the old/new boss—the Deep State, the Controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the corporate elite, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that no matter who occupies the White House, it is a profit-driven, an unelected bureaucracy that is actually calling the shots.
If our losses are mounting with every passing day—and they are—it is a calculated siege intended to ensure our defeat at the hands of a totalitarian regime.
Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, media, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more are casualties in the government’s war on the American people.
Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized federal police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms are being steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.
As a result, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.
None of these dangers have dissipated in any way.
They have merely disappeared from our televised news streams.
It’s time to get educated on what’s really going on. Thus, in the interest of liberty and truth, here’s an A-to-Z primer that spells out the grim realities of life in the American Police State that no one seems to be talking about anymore.
A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE. A police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”
B is for our battered BILL OF RIGHTS. In the militarized police culture that is America today, where you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is rarely held accountable for violating your rights, the Bill of Rights doesn’t amount to much.
C is for CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE. This governmental scheme to deprive Americans of their liberties—namely, the right to property—is being carried out under the guise of civil asset forfeiture, a government practice wherein government agents (usually the police and now TSA agents) seize private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property and it’s virtually impossible to get it back.
D is for DRONES. It was estimated that at least 30,000 drones would be airborne in American airspace by 2020, part of an $80 billion industry. Although some drones will be used for benevolent purposes, many will also be equipped with lasers, tasers and scanning devices, among other weapons—all aimed at “we the people.”
E is for EMERGENCY STATE. From 9/11 to COVID-19, we have been the subjected to an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. The government’s ongoing attempts to declare so-called national emergencies in order to circumvent the Constitution’s system of checks and balances constitutes yet another expansion of presidential power that exposes the nation to further constitutional peril.
F is for FASCISM. A study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere economic units or databits.
G is for GRENADE LAUNCHERS and GLOBAL POLICE. The federal government has distributed more than $18 billion worth of battlefield-appropriate military weapons, vehicles and equipment such as drones, tanks, and grenade launchers to domestic police departments across the country. As a result, most small-town police forces now have enough firepower to render any citizen resistance futile. Now take those small-town police forces, train them to look and act like the military, and then enlist them to be part of the United Nations’ Strong Cities Network program, and you not only have a standing army that operates beyond the reach of the Constitution but one that is part of a global police force.
H is for HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS. The government’s efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration stockpiling millions of lethal hollow-point bullets, which violate international law. Ironically, while the government continues to push for stricter gun laws for the general populace, the U.S. military’s arsenal of weapons makes the average American’s handgun look like a Tinker Toy.
I is for the INTERNET OF THINGS, in which internet-connected “things” monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is control. This “connected” industry propels us closer to a future where police agencies apprehend virtually anyone if the government “thinks” they may commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.
J is for JAILING FOR PROFIT. Having outsourced their inmate population to private prisons run by private corporations, this profit-driven form of mass punishment has given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep their privately run prisons full by jailing large numbers of Americans for petty crimes.
K is for KENTUCKY V. KING. In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers can break into homes, without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home as long as they think they may have a reason to do so. Despite the fact that the police in question ended up pursuing the wrong suspect, invaded the wrong apartment and violated just about every tenet that stands between the citizenry and a police state, the Court sanctioned the warrantless raid, leaving Americans with little real protection in the face of all manner of abuses by law enforcement officials.
L is for LICENSE PLATE READERS, which enable law enforcement and private agencies to track the whereabouts of vehicles, and their occupants, all across the country. This data collected on tens of thousands of innocent people is also being shared between police agencies, as well as with government fusion centers and private companies. This puts Big Brother in the driver’s seat.
M is for MAIN CORE. Since the 1980s, the U.S. government has acquired and maintained, without warrant or court order, a database of names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation. As Salon reports, this database, reportedly dubbed “Main Core,” is to be used by the Army and FEMA in times of national emergency or under martial law to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security. There are at least 8 million Americans in the Main Core database.
N is for NO-KNOCK RAIDS. Owing to the militarization of the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for routine police matters. In fact, more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually possession of some small amount of drugs.
O is for OVERCRIMINALIZATION and OVERREGULATION. Thanks to an overabundance of 4500-plus federal crimes and 400,000 plus rules and regulations, it’s estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. As a result of this overcriminalization, we’re seeing an uptick in Americans being arrested and jailed for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room.
P is for PATHOCRACY and PRECRIME. When our own government treats us as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police and other government agents, mistreated, and then jailed in profit-driven private prisons if we dare step out of line, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.” Couple that with the government’s burgeoning precrime programs, which will use fusion centers, data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics in order to identify and deter so-called potential “extremists,” dissidents or rabble-rousers. Bear in mind that anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right or somewhere in between—is now viewed as an extremist.
Q is for QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. Qualified immunity allows police officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing. Conveniently, those deciding whether a cop should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all cronies with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.
R is for ROADSIDE STRIP SEARCHES and BLOOD DRAWS. The courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving government officials—especially the police—vast discretion in carrying out strip searches, blood draws and even anal and vaginal probes for a broad range of violations, no matter how minor the offense. In the past, strip searches were resorted to only in exceptional circumstances where police were confident that a serious crime was in progress. In recent years, however, strip searches have become routine operating procedures in which everyone is rendered a suspect and, as such, is subjected to treatment once reserved for only the most serious of criminals.
S is for the SURVEILLANCE STATE. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. A byproduct of the electronic concentration camp in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.
T is for TASERS. Nonlethal weapons such as tasers, stun guns, rubber pellets and the like have been used by police as weapons of compliance more often and with less restraint—even against women and children—and in some instances, even causing death. These “nonlethal” weapons also enable police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely. A Taser Shockwave, for instance, can electrocute a crowd of people at the touch of a button
U is for UNARMED CITIZENS SHOT BY POLICE. No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, often attributed to a fear for their safety. Yet the fatality rate of on-duty patrol officers is reportedly far lower than many other professions, including construction, logging, fishing, truck driving, and even trash collection.
V is for VIRUSES AND FORCED VACCINATIONS. What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including the U.S.) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents. With millions of dollars in stimulus funds being directed towards policing agencies across the country, the federal government plans to fight this COVID-19 virus with riot gear, gas masks, ballistic helmets, drones, and hi-tech surveillance technology. The road we are traveling is paved with lockdowns, SWAT team raids, mass surveillance and forced vaccinations. Now there’s talk of mobilizing the military to deliver forced vaccinations, mass surveillance in order to carry out contact tracing, and heavy fines and jail time for those who dare to venture out without a mask, congregate in worship without the government’s blessing, or re-open their businesses without the government’s say-so.
W is for WHOLE-BODY SCANNERS. Using either x-ray radiation or radio waves, scanning devices and government mobile units are being used not only to “see” through your clothes but to spy on you within the privacy of your home. While these mobile scanners are being sold to the American public as necessary security and safety measures, we can ill afford to forget that such systems are rife with the potential for abuse, not only by government bureaucrats but by the technicians employed to operate them.
X is for X-KEYSCORE, one of the many spying programs carried out by the National Security Agency that targets every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. This top-secret program “allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.”
Y is for YOU-NESS. Using your face, mannerisms, social media and “you-ness” against you, you are now be tracked based on what you buy, where you go, what you do in public, and how you do what you do. Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. The goal is for government agents to be able to scan a crowd of people and instantaneously identify all of the individuals present. Facial recognition programs are being rolled out in states all across the country.
Z is for ZERO TOLERANCE. We have moved into a new paradigm in which young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike, often for engaging in little more than childish behavior or for saying the “wrong” word. In some jurisdictions, students have also been penalized under school zero tolerance policies for such inane “crimes” as carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick, bringing nail clippers to school, using Listerine or Scope, and carrying fold-out combs that resemble switchblades. The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician, police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the post-9/11 America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.
We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age.
You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Or the American police state.
Whatever label you want to put on it, the end result is the same: tyranny.
- Woman Throws Coffee In Man's Face For Not Wearing A Mask, Gets Boyfriend's Ass Beat
Woman Throws Coffee In Man’s Face For Not Wearing A Mask, Gets Boyfriend’s Ass Beat
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 23:45A woman in Manhattan Beach has been caught on video after throwing a hot cup of coffee in a man’s face after he refused to put on a mask when she demanded that he don one.
California’s new social distancing requirements order people to wear masks in public even when they’re outside, especially if they’re within six feet of another person. When accosted by the woman, the two men said they didn’t believe in masks, and refused when she demanded that they put one on.
According to a report by Fox 11, James Hernandez and his friend Matthew Roy were eating burritos outside while out in public in Manhattan Beach without masks on. They said they had just sat down to eat when a woman – who was walking with her well-dressed boyfriend – stopped and demanded they put their masks on.
Hernanez caught everything that happened next on camera. He wears a bodycam, he says, because he is frequently accosted for being a Trump supporter, and having the stones to wear his Make America Great Again hat in public.
Here’s more from Fox 11:
“Y’all need to be wearing masks,” the woman can be heard saying.
“No we don’t,” Hernandez replies. “We’re locals here but were on the other side of the fence, we don’t believe in this stuff.”
“I hadn’t even gotten to start eating the burrito yet before someone wanted to give me a mask lecture,” Roy said.
“I guess the guy really wanted to impress his girlfriend because I was pretty dismissive, I thought when I turned my back on them they would just move on, but he wanted to stand there and engage me.”Roy says the woman then stuck her middle finger in his face, and tensions escalated further until she threw her coffee in his face.
Roy immediately gets up, and begins punching the woman’s boyfriend in response.
“She decided to slam her coffee into my head and that’s when I decided to get up and beat up her boyfriend,” Roy said.
“I got a few licks in and I have brothers at home and as soon as the gentleman or the gentler man said stop, I did, I backed off.”
The bloodied man called police and reported he’d been assaulted.
The man called the police to report that he had been assaulted (a total alpha move), but after a brief investigation, neither the man, nor Hernandez, nor the woman, were arrested. The couple in the video haven’t been identified.
Watch a clip of the attack in the report below:
- Veteran Virologist Slams Mainstream Media's "Misinformation" About An Effective COVID Treatment
Veteran Virologist Slams Mainstream Media’s “Misinformation” About An Effective COVID Treatment
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 23:25Authored by Steven Hatfill via RealClearPolitics.com,
On Friday, July 31, in a column ostensibly dealing with health care “misinformation,” Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan opened by lambasting “fringe doctors spouting dangerous falsehoods about hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 wonder cure.”
Actually, it was Sullivan who was spouting dangerous falsehoods about this drug, something the Washington Post and much of the rest of the media have been doing since for months. On May 15, the Post offered a stark warning to any Americans who may have taken hope in a possible therapy for COVID-19.
In the newspaper’s telling, there was nothing unambiguous about the science — or the politics — of hydroxychloroquine:
“Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus game-changer increasingly linked to deaths,” blared the headline.
Written by three Post staff writers, the story asserted that the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 is scant and that the drug is inherently unsafe.
This claim is nonsense.
Biased against the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 – and the Washington Post is hardly alone — the paper described an April 21, 2020, drug study on U.S. Veterans Affairs patients hospitalized with the illness. It found a high death rate in patients taking the drug hydroxychloroquine. But this was a flawed study with a small sample, the main flaw being that the drug was given to the sickest patients who were already dying because of their age and severe pre-existing conditions. This study was quickly debunked. It had been posted on a non-peer-reviewed medical archive that specifically warns that studies posted on its website should not be reported in the media as established information.
Yet, the Post and countless other news outlets did just the opposite, making repeated claims that hydroxychloroquine was ineffective and caused serious cardiac problems. Nowhere was there any mention of the fact that COVID-19 damages the heart during infection, sometimes causing irregular and sometimes fatal heart rhythms in patients not taking the drug.
To a media unrelentingly hostile to Donald Trump, this meant that the president could be portrayed as recklessly promoting the use of a “dangerous” drug. Ignoring the refutation of the VA study in its May 15 article, the Washington Post cited a Brazil study published on April 24 in which a COVID trial using chloroquine (a related but different drug than hydroxychloroquine) was stopped because 11 patients treated with it died. The reporters never mentioned another problem with that study: The Brazilian doctors were giving their patients lethal cumulative doses of the drug.
On and on it has gone since then, in a circle of self-reinforcing commentary. Following the news that Trump was taking the drug himself, opinion hosts on cable news channels launched continual attacks on both hydroxychloroquine and the president. “This will kill you!” Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto exclaimed. “The president of the United States just acknowledge that he is taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug that [was] meant really to treat malaria and lupus.”
Washington Post reporters Ariana Cha and Laurie McGinley were back again on May 22, with a new article shouting out the new supposed news:
“Antimalarial drug touted by President Trump is linked to increased risk of death in coronavirus patients, study says.”
The media uproar this time was based on a large study just published in the Lancet. There was just one problem. The Lancet paper was fraudulent and it was quickly retracted.
However, the damage from the biased media storm was done and it was long-lasting. Continuing patient enrollment needed for early-use clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine dried up within a week. Patients were afraid to take the drug, doctors became afraid to prescribe it, pharmacies refused to fill prescriptions, and in a rush of incompetent analysis and non-existent senior leadership, the FDA revoked its Emergency Use Authorization for the drug.
So what is the real story on hydroxychloroquine? Here, briefly, is what we know:
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, a search was made for suitable antiviral therapies to use as treatment until a vaccine could be produced. One drug, hydroxychloroquine, was found to be the most effective and safe for use against the virus. Federal funds were used for clinical trials of it, but there was no guidance from Dr. Anthony Fauci or the NIH Treatment Guidelines Panel on what role the drug would play in the national pandemic response.
Fauci seemed to be unaware that there actually was a national pandemic plan for respiratory viruses.
Following a careful regimen developed by doctors in France, some knowledgeable practicing U.S. physicians began prescribing hydroxychloroquine to patients still in the early phase of COVID infection. Its effects seemed dramatic. Patients still became sick, but for the most part they avoided hospitalization. In contrast – and in error – the NIH-funded studies somehow became focused on giving hydroxychloroquine to late-presenting hospitalized patients. This was in spite of the fact that unlike the drug’s early use in ambulatory patients, there was no real data to support the drug’s use in more severe hospitalized patients.
By April, it was clear that roughly seven days from the time of the first onset of symptoms, a COVID-19 infection could sometimes progress into a more radical late phase of severe disease with inflammation of the blood vessels in the body and immune system over-reactions. Many patients developed blood clots in their lungs and needed mechanical ventilation. Some needed kidney dialysis. In light of this pathological carnage, no antiviral drug could be expected to show much of an effect during this severe second stage of COVID.
On April 6, 2020, an international team of medical experts published an extensive study of hydroxychloroquine in more than 130,000 patients with connective tissue disorders. They reaffirmed that hydroxychloroquine was a safe drug with no serious side effects. The drug could safely be given to pregnant women and breast-feeding mothers. Consequently, countries such as China, Turkey, South Korea, India, Morocco, Algeria, and others began to use hydroxychloroquine widely and early in their national pandemic response. Doctors overseas were safely prescribing the drug based on clinical signs and symptoms because widespread testing was not available.
However, the NIH promoted a much different strategy for the United States. The “Fauci Strategy” was to keep early infected patients quarantined at home without treatment until they developed a shortness of breath and had to be admitted to a hospital. Then they would they be given hydroxychloroquine. The Food and Drug Administration cluelessly agreed to this doctrine and it stated in its hydroxychloroquine Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) that “hospitalized patients were likely to have a greater prospect of benefit (compared to ambulatory patients with mild illness).”
In reality just the opposite was true. This was a tragic mistake by Fauci and FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and it was a mistake that would cost the lives of thousands of Americans in the days to come.
At the same time, accumulating data showed remarkable results if hydroxychloroquine were given to patients early, during a seven-day window from the time of first symptom onset. If given during this window, most infections did not progress into the severe, lethal second stage of the disease. Patients still got sick, but they avoided hospitalization or the later transfer to an intensive care unit. In mid-April a high-level memo was sent to the FDA alerting them to the fact that the best use for hydroxychloroquine was for its early use in still ambulatory COVID patients. These patients were quarantined at home but were not short of breath and did not yet require supplemental oxygen and hospitalization.
Failing to understand that COVID-19 could be a two-stage disease process, the FDA ignored the memo and, as previously mentioned, it withdrew its EUA for hydroxychloroquine based on flawed studies and clinical trials that were applicable only to late-stage COVID patients.
By now, however, some countries had already implemented early, aggressive, outpatient community treatment with hydroxychloroquine and within weeks were able to minimize their COVID deaths and bring their national pandemic under some degree of control.
In countries such as Great Britain and the United States, where the “Fauci-Hahn Strategy” was followed, there was a much higher death rate and an ever-increasing number of cases. COVID patients in the U.S. would continue to be quarantined at home and left untreated until they developed shortness of breath. Then they would be admitted to the hospital and given hydroxychloroquine outside the narrow window for the drug’s maximum effectiveness.
In further contrast, countries that started out with the “Fauci-Hahn Doctrine” and then later shifted their policy towards aggressive outpatient hydroxychloroquine use, after a brief lag period also saw a stunning rapid reduction in COVID mortality and hospital admissions.
Finally, several nations that had started using an aggressive early-use outpatient policy for hydroxychloroquine, including France and Switzerland, stopped this practice when the WHO temporarily withdrew its support for the drug. Five days after the publication of the fake Lancet study and the resulting media onslaught, Swiss politicians banned hydroxychloroquine use in the country from May 27 until June 11, when it was quickly reinstated.
The consequences of suddenly stopping hydroxychloroquine can be seen by examining a graph of the Case Fatality Ratio Index (nr CFR) for Switzerland. This is derived by dividing the number of daily new COVID fatalities by the new cases resolved over a period with a seven-day moving average. Looking at the evolution curve of the CFR it can be seen that during the weeks preceding the ban on hydroxychloroquine, the nrCFR index fluctuated between 3% and 5%.
Following a lag of 13 days after stopping outpatient hydroxychloroquine use, the country’s COVID-19 deaths increased four-fold and the nrCFR index stayed elevated at the highest level it had been since early in the COVID pandemic, oscillating at over 10%-15%. Early outpatient hydroxychloroquine was restarted June 11 but the four-fold “wave of excess lethality” lasted until June 22, after which the nrCFR rapidly returned to its background value.
Here in our country, Fauci continued to ignore the ever accumulating and remarkable early-use data on hydroxychloroquine and he became focused on a new antiviral compound named remdesivir. This was an experimental drug that had to be given intravenously every day for five days. It was never suitable for major widespread outpatient or at-home use as part of a national pandemic plan. We now know now that remdesivir has no effect on overall COVID patient mortality and it costs thousands of dollars per patient.
Hydroxychloroquine, by contrast, costs 60 cents a tablet, it can be taken at home, it fits in with the national pandemic plan for respiratory viruses, and a course of therapy simply requires swallowing three tablets in the first 24 hours followed by one tablet every 12 hours for five days.
There are now 53 studies that show positive results of hydroxychloroquine in COVID infections.
There are 14 global studies that show neutral or negative results – and 10 of them were of patients in very late stages of COVID-19, where no antiviral drug can be expected to have much effect. Of the remaining four studies, two come from the same University of Minnesota author. The other two are from the faulty Brazil paper, which should be retracted, and the fake Lancet paper, which was.
Millions of people are taking or have taken hydroxychloroquine in nations that have managed to get their national pandemic under some degree of control. Two recent, large, early-use clinical trials have been conducted by the Henry Ford Health System and at Mount Sinai showing a 51% and 47% lower mortality, respectively, in hospitalized patients given hydroxychloroquine. A recent study from Spain published on July 29, two days before Margaret Sullivan’s strafing of “fringe doctors,” shows a 66% reduction in COVID mortality in patients taking hydroxychloroquine. No serious side effects were reported in these studies and no epidemic of heartbeat abnormalities.
This is ground-shaking news. Why is it not being widely reported? Why is the American media trying to run the U.S. pandemic response with its own misinformation?
* * *
Steven Hatfill is a veteran virologist who helped establish the Rapid Hemorrhagic Fever Response Teams for the National Medical Disaster Unit in Kenya, Africa. He is an adjunct assistant professor in two departments at the George Washington University Medical Center where he teaches mass casualty medicine. He is principle author of the prophetic book “Three Seconds Until Midnight — Preparing for the Next Pandemic,” published by Amazon in 2019.
- The Circle Of Death: Bankrupt Companies "Unfile" To Receive Government Bailouts, Then Immediately File Again
The Circle Of Death: Bankrupt Companies “Unfile” To Receive Government Bailouts, Then Immediately File Again
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 23:05By now everyone knows that one fifth of LL corporations are “zombies” – companies that should be out of business as they are technically insolvent and don’t even generate enough cash flow to meet their debt obligations, but continue to exist thanks to either record low rates which allow them to issue even more debt and use the proceeds to pay for existing interest expense (and roll over debt maturities), or government handouts which perpetuate their pathetic, deflationary existence.
But did you know that there are now reincarnated zombies: companies which were in such a dire state they did file for bankruptcy despite the Fed’s unprecedented monetary generosity… and yet shortly after they “unfiled” just so they would be eligible for government “stimulus”?
As Bloomberg’s Steven Church puts it, say your business needs a bailout from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, but you’ve already gone bankrupt, making your firm ineligible. Tough luck, right? Well, maybe not.
Such is the pathetic state of modern capitalism that some companies have “unfiled” for bankruptcy, arranged a PPP bailout loan, and then almost immediately refiled for bankruptcy. They range from a rural Texas hospital to a group of pizza joints in Tennessee and a Portland, Oregon firm that
As Church explains, “the logic behind the PPP law was to ensure money went to save jobs, not to prop up failing companies, said Las Vegas bankruptcy attorney Brett Axelrod. But Congress didn’t do its homework. There isn’t any real difference between a company that can’t pay workers during a pandemic without a government loan and one forced into bankruptcy by a pandemic, she said.”
“The government really wasn’t thinking it through,” Axelrod said. “What do companies do in a pandemic? They file for bankruptcy.”
And in this case, they then unfile to get some more taxpayer cash for which they are only eligible if they are out of bankruptcy court… and then immediately file again!
According to Bloomberg, a proposed change to the law could make such legal contortions unnecessary, but only if Congress is willing, during an election year, to vote to give federal aid to bankrupt businesses. Faith Community Health System in rural, northern Texas “unfiled” its Chapter 9 case in May, lined up a $1.8 million PPP loan, and went back into bankruptcy about two weeks later.
“It was a matter of life or death for us,” Faith Community Chief Executive Officer Frank Beaman told Bloomberg. Two nearby hospitals had shut down in recent years, leaving Faith Community the only option within 50 miles for many of Jack County’s 9,000 residents, according to court records. The hospital initially filed bankruptcy in February after losing an arbitration fight with an insurer that refused to pay for lab tests. Covid-19 made things worse.
Lawyers warned that if U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mark X. Mullin didn’t dismiss the bankruptcy, it “could jeopardize the lives of citizens who may find themselves suffering with Covid-19 and in dire need of medical treatment.” The judge allowed Faith Community to proceed.
In the end, however, death won… again.
One of the first companies to unfile was Starplex Corp, a Portland, Oregon-based provider of security and related services for concerts, fairs and sporting events. Starplex argued that if it had to stay in bankruptcy without a PPP loan, it would most likely have to liquidate. Starplex got a loan and returned to court within a month.
Henry Anesthesia Associates used the technique even though its original bankruptcy began last September, long before the Covid outbreak. The Stockbridge, Georgia medical service left court protection in June to pursue a PPP loan, and returned on July 28 after getting almost $1 million. The move was justified, Henry said in court papers, because it’s the sole anesthesia provider to the local hospital, and it “continued to be on the front lines fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Needless to say, the law is completely broken, bankruptcy lawyers say – and we wholeheartedly agree – but in a world where money is worthless – and in some countries a liability thanks to negative interest rates – that’s the norm. If the program is designed to protect small businesses during the pandemic, it makes no sense to deny a bankrupt company a PPP loan, said Joe Cotterman, one of about 250 small-business trustees empowered by federal law to help companies navigate Chapter 11.
The U.S. loans are forgivable if the money is used to pay employees or other approved expenses. It’s easier in bankruptcy to ensure a borrower complies with those rules, since borrowers must disclose far more detail when reorganizing in court, Cotterman said.
“There are a lot more eyes on it,” he said, although how that justifies this epic abuse of taxpayer funds to reincarnate a corporate zombie just to then burn it down again, is a different question entirely. - The Underground Bunker Business Is Booming As Global Events Spiral Out Of Control
The Underground Bunker Business Is Booming As Global Events Spiral Out Of Control
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 22:45Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
This is a really good time to be selling underground bunkers. The COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest in major U.S. cities, and concern about what else may be coming have combined to create a tremendous amount of demand for “survival real estate”. In all my years of writing, I have never seen anything like this. I have been hearing from so many people that suddenly feel a great urgency to prepare for the total collapse of society, and quite a few of them have either recently relocated or plan to do so in the near future. For some, moving entirely out of the country seems like the best option, but for most others the goal is to find a way to survive the coming chaos here in the United States.
Of course a lot of people are still tied to major population centers by their jobs, and for a lot of those individuals a “survival bunker” in a remote location that they can bug out to if things get crazy enough is an attractive option.
In South Dakota, one company has established the “largest survival community on Earth”, and the New York Post recently interviewed a 69-year-old man named Tom Soulsby that purchased one of the very first underground bunkers in that community…
Tom Soulsby, 69, and his wife, Mary, were one of the first to buy a bunker at Vivos xPoint — the self-proclaimed “largest survival community on Earth” — near the South Dakota town of Edgemont. In 2017, he made a $25,000 down payment and signed a 99-year land lease (with fees of $1,000 per year) to occupy an elliptical-shaped, 2,200 square-foot underground concrete bunker once used as a military fortress during World War II to store weapons and ammunition.
For a while there, sales were not happening too briskly. But then 2020 happened, and at this point sales of underground bunkers at Vivos xPoint are “up over 600 percent”…
When Soulsby signed on the dotted line, he was one of a handful of new owners. But in 2020, Vivos xPoint has become hotly sought-after real estate. The price has jumped to $35,000, says Robert Vicino, the California developer and CEO of the Vivos Group, which launched in 2008, and bunker sales are “up over 600 percent.”
I really admire what they are trying to do, and I am sure that having major news stories done about your community helps sales, but it will also make the community a target when things really do hit the fan.
Another project that has been making a lot of headlines is “the Survival Condo” in central Kansas. It is completely underground, and it was originally designed to survive a nuclear war…
The Survival Condo has a lot of the hallmarks of your standard fallout shelter. It’s underground (200 feet underground, in the middle of rural Kansas, 200 miles from Kansas City). It was built during the Cold War (as a nuclear missile launch facility). It’s also been retrofitted with nine-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls designed to survive everything from tornadoes to 12-kiloton nuclear warheads dropping half a mile away.
This converted nuclear silo has been described as an “underground skyscraper”, and this is how author Bradley Garrett described his visit to “Level 11”…
On level 11 of the Survival Condo, about 50 metres underground, Hall and I visit a 1,800 sq ft home. I have had the same feeling as walking into a bedroom in a hotel chain. The apartment has never been used. It has a Navajo print rug, a cushy white sofa set and a stone electric fireplace with a flat panel TV over it. A marble countertop extends to a bar separating the living room from the kitchen, which is filled with high-end appliances.
It sounds quite lovely, but the units are not cheap.
In fact, prices start at more than a million dollars…
Half-floor apartments here are $1.5m (£1.2m); full-floor apartments $3m (£2.4m); and a two-level, 3,600 sq ft penthouse has sold for $4.5m (£3.6m). In total, 57 people will be living in 12 apartments, each paying an additional $5,000 (£4,000) a month in residents’ association fees. One apartment, bought with cash, is designed to feel like a log cabin, with a loft looking down on a fake fireplace flanked by a six-screen display of a snow-capped mountain range.
The company selling the units insists that the location is super secret, but if that is actually the case it probably is not a good idea to let reporters roam around inside the facility with a film crew.
In any event, only the ultra-wealthy will get to live there, because most Americans could never even dream of being able to afford such an elaborate bug out location.
But all of us should be doing what we can to get prepared for the hard years that are ahead, because things are about to get really, really crazy.
We live in truly unprecedented times, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.
As global events spiral out of control, many among the elite will be heading for their underground bunkers, and some are already there…
As coronavirus infections tore across the U.S. in early March, a Silicon Valley executive called the survival shelter manufacturer Rising S Co. He wanted to know how to open the secret door to his multimillion-dollar bunker 11 feet underground in New Zealand.
The tech chief had never used the bunker and couldn’t remember how to unlock it, said Gary Lynch, general manager of Texas-based Rising S Co. “He wanted to verify the combination for the door and was asking questions about the power and the hot water heater and whether he needed to take extra water or air filters,” Lynch said. The businessman runs a company in the Bay Area but lives in New York, which was fast becoming the world’s coronavirus epicenter.
It sure must be nice to have a luxury underground bunker in New Zealand.
Unfortunately, most Americans are going to have to deal with whatever is ahead right where they are currently located.
But whether you have an underground bunker or not, the truth is that challenging times are coming for all of us, and no amount of money is going to change that.
- On Verge Of Six-Week Shuttering, Australian Small Businesses Beg: We Can't Survive Another Lockdown
On Verge Of Six-Week Shuttering, Australian Small Businesses Beg: We Can’t Survive Another Lockdown
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 22:25The reality on the ground in Australia is that many small businesses were struggling even before the coronavirus lockdowns began. Now, with the country on the verge of what Financial Review is calling “Lockdown 2.0”, it could be the last straw for many businesses.
Nellerichal ‘‘Sree’’ Sreeju, who owns a gift shop in Richmond said: “It was already hard and this has made it five times harder. It’s really uncertain.”
He represents a microcosm of businesses in Australia who are begging for some sanity after the country has announced that “non-essential” retailers will once again have to close, starting at midnight on Wednesday this week.
‘‘It has been a roller-coaster. In March, it was really eerie and quiet, and then there was the boost from the stimulus package. Luckily for us, people have been finding us online,’’ he said. His business did “fairly well in July” after pivoting and adapting to the post-virus world.
Just in time for the government to shut him back down again…
Sreeju “We’ve been doing a few corporate jobs and that’s kind of keeping us afloat now but the street income, we’re doing maybe 10 to 20 per cent of what we would have done,” he said.
The country’s restrictions also mean that barbershops and hairdressers will have to shut down. Joshua Mihan, owner of The Bearded Man barbershop said: “I think for any business owner, six weeks of no trading, the amount of money we’ll lose is quite a lot but at the same time, I think the government has been really good to small business. Without government support, I would definitely be in a terrible position right now.’’
He has already been forced to permanently close his second shop. “I acted quickly so the business didn’t suffer as much because I thought I’d rather have one stronger business than two depleted businesses,” he said.
Now, with another shutdown looming, he has no business.
Industry groups are calling this second shutdown the “final nail in the coffin” for many small businesses. Anne Nalder, chief executive of the Small Business Association, said: ‘‘A lot of very good businesses are going to be destroyed. Small business needs to be looked after financially. It’s going to mean a lot out of the government’s purses, but to do nothing, you will have no economy. Full stop.’’
Council of Small Business chief executive Peter Strong says there’s a “high number” of businesses that simply won’t survive the second lockdown: ‘‘At the moment, we’ve got to work to ensure this lockdown lasts only six weeks and people can open again because if it goes any longer, the damage will keep compounding. You won’t have an extra 10,000 businesses close, it’ll be 20,000 and we’re all afraid to put numbers on it.’’
Dani Zeini, who founded restaurant chain Royal Stacks and Grand Trailer Park Taverna, is deeply concerned about the toll of another lockdown on his businesses. He said: “The Melbourne CBD, 900,000 workers come to the city every week and that’s just disappeared not to mention there’s no shopping, football, tourists and then on top of that the little remaining workers we had, they can’t come.”
Meanwhile, we had just pointed out yesterday that Australia was implementing Draconian lockdown rules once again for its residents. Melbourne initiated its most severe restrictions yet, we noted:
The premier of Victoria plunged the region into a “state of disaster” on Sunday, announcing even stricter lockdown measures, introducing a nightly curfew and banning virtually all trips outdoors after Australia’s second largest state recorded 671 new infections in a single day.
Daniel Andrews told Victorians at a news conference that “we have to do more, and we have to do more right now,” as the state battles to contain a devastating coronavirus outbreak that had already stripped residents of their freedoms, livelihoods and social interactions and made it an outlier from the rest of the country.
The new rules include:
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“Where you slept last night is where you’ll need to stay for the next six weeks.“
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Curfew between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m.
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Only one person per household will be allowed to leave their homes once a day — outside of curfew hours — to pick up essential goods, and they must stay within a 5 kilometer radius of their home unless nearest shop is over 5 KM away.
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Exercise can be taken for up to an hour a day, with one other person, but still within five kilometers of a person’s home.
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- Understanding The Gravity Of The Russia Hoax
Understanding The Gravity Of The Russia Hoax
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 22:05Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,
One of the claims Democrats love to tout about the Obama administration is that it was “scandal free.” For those who paid attention to the IRS targeting, Benghazi, Fast & Furious, and the cash smuggled to Iran, to name just a few illegal and/or immoral activities, that was always a peculiar boast. The Obama administration was up to its eyeballs in scandals. It was Obama who finally said what had really happened, which was that “We didn’t have a scandal that embarrassed us.”
In other words, the issue wasn’t that the administration was scandal-free. The issue was that the media protected the administration from voters’ wrath should they learn about those scandals.
The Russia Hoax has benefitted from the media’s continued unwillingness to report on Obama-era scandals. When it looked as if the Russia Hoax could achieve a coup against the Trump presidency, members of the press developed a form of Tourette syndrome that saw them obsessively mouth “Russia, Russia, Russia” all day, every day.
However, when Robert Mueller’s handpicked Democrat-friendly team, despite two years and 35 million dollars, was unable to find a smidgen of proof that Trump or his administration had colluded with the Russians, leftists inside and outside of the media fell silent. Sure, they’ll still raise the fact that Trump, at a press conference, said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing,” but their hearts aren’t in it.
They know that normal people understand that Trump was making a pointed joke about the fact that the Russians, the Chinese, and every other hacker on earth had read through Hillary’s emails for years. Aside from leftists being utterly humorless, the media learned that raising this statement periodically was chum to the true believers but not very interesting to anyone else.
When it came to burying the whole Russia Hoax, the Democrats and their media lackeys were helped by the fact that the story is so gosh-darned complicated. It involved dozens of people (some genuinely bad actors and some useful idiots), several countries, thousands of pages of cryptic papers, and a dizzying timeline. It’s hard to get people who aren’t political junkies excited about something like that, and even harder to arouse them to a sense of outrage over what the Obama administration did.
And that’s where Andrew C. McCarthy’s latest column comes in. His columns are always interesting because they help explain each new revelation about the hoax. This time, though, McCarthy has opted to open with an overview of the entire scandal and why it matters. With unusual clarity, he explains how the Obama administration used the vast power of the intelligence agencies to spy on an opposition candidate and then try to commit a coup.
I’ve cherry-picked a few relevant paragraphs, but I urge you to read the whole thing. Once you’ve read it, you’ll understand why the Russia Hoax isn’t just an inside politics thing that ultimately doesn’t matter:
As I contended in Ball of Collusion, my book on the Trump-Russia investigation, the target of the probe spearheaded by the FBI – but greenlighted by the Obama White House, and abetted by the Justice Department and U.S. intelligence agencies – was Donald Trump. Not the Trump campaign, not the Trump administration. Those were of interest only insofar as they were vehicles for Trump himself. The campaign, which the Bureau and its apologists risibly claim was the focus of the investigation, would have been of no interest to them were it not for Trump.
[snip]
You don’t like Donald Trump? Fine. The investigation here was indeed about Donald Trump. But the scandal is about how abusive officials can exploit their awesome powers against any political opponent. And the people who authorized this political spying will be right back in business if, come November, Obama’s vice-president is elected president — notwithstanding that he’s yet to be asked serious questions about it.
[snip]
Congress’s investigation was stonewalled. The more revelation we get, the more obvious it is that there was no bona fide national-security rationale for concealment. Documents were withheld to hide official and unofficial executive activity that was abusive, embarrassing, and, at least in some instances, illegal (e.g., tampering with a document that was critical to the FBI’s presentation of “facts” to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court).
[snip]
The Obama administration and the FBI knew that it was they who were meddling in a presidential campaign – using executive intelligence powers to monitor the president’s political opposition. This, they also knew, would rightly be regarded as a scandalous abuse of power if it ever became public. There was no rational or good-faith evidentiary basis to believe that Trump was in a criminal conspiracy with the Kremlin or that he’d had any role in Russian intelligence’s suspected hacking of Democratic Party email accounts.
[snip]
In the stretch run of the 2016 campaign, President Obama authorized his administration’s investigative agencies to monitor his party’s opponent in the presidential election, on the pretext that Donald Trump was a clandestine agent of Russia. Realizing this was a gravely serious allegation for which there was laughably insufficient predication, administration officials kept Trump’s name off the investigative files. That way, they could deny that they were doing what they did. Then they did it . . . and denied it.
It is to be hoped that John Durham releases his long-promised investigative report sooner, rather than later. The American people need to understand just how scandalous the Obama administration and its holdovers were.
- Florida Man Arrested After Buying New Porsche, Rolexes, With Fake Checks Printed On His Home Computer
Florida Man Arrested After Buying New Porsche, Rolexes, With Fake Checks Printed On His Home Computer
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 21:45A Florida man has been arrested for grand theft after purchasing a brand new Porsche – and then several Rolex watches – using checks he printed on his home computer.
Perhaps trying to take a page out of the Fed’s book, 42 year old Casey William Kelley has found out the hard way that you can’t print your way to prosperity. According to the Palm Beach Post, he used a nearly $140,000 bogus check at a local car dealership and was taken into custody one day later after trying to buy several Rolex watches with additional checks.
He was arrested for grand theft of a motor vehicle and uttering a false bank note.
Photo: Walton County Sheriff’s Office After the dealership sold Casey the car, they tried to cash the check. When it bounced, they immediately reached out to police to report the vehicle as stolen.
The jeweler kept the watches and the check until the money cleared – which it never did. The checks came back fake but, by then, Kelley had already been arrested by authorities.
After his arrest, he admitted he had printed the checks at home.
We wonder if Neel Kashkari could learning something from this analogue: apparently you can’t just create wealth from a printing press. Who would have guessed?
- Here Are All The Professors "Cancelled" By The Left
Here Are All The Professors “Cancelled” By The Left
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 21:25Authored by Cabot Phillips via Campus Reform,
As we’ve reported extensively at Campus Reform, professors across America are facing mounting pressure to fall in line with the Left’s “Social Justice” movement. While it sounds nice, oftentimes, supporting “social justice” means supporting socialist, Marxist policies and organizations.
Increasingly, those within academia who fail to wholeheartedly support such movements are labeled “racists” and “white supremacists” and fired or suspended by their institutions.
Here’s a list breaking down some of the most egregious examples of professors being discriminated against because of their unwillingness to support the far-left social justice movement.
UMass-Lowell
The Dean of Nursing at UMass-Lowell was fired by the school after saying “everyone’s life matters” in an email to students and faculty, following the protests and riots after the death of George Floyd.
In her email, Dean Leslie Neal-Boylan said, “I am writing to express my concern and condemnation of the recent (and past) acts of violence against people of color… I despair for our future as a nation if we do not stand up against violence against anyone. BLACK LIVES MATTER, but also, EVERYONE’S LIFE MATTERS.”
That email was deemed “racist” by students and community members, and days later, Neal-Boylan said she was fired “without trial.”
University of North Texas
A professor at the University of North Texas was fired after making a joke about microaggressions. Nathaniel Hiers, an adjunct professor in the school’s math department, found a flyer in his classroom that warned students against using phrases like “America is a melting pot” and “America is the land of opportunity,” because they were microaggressions.
In response, Hiers placed the flyer on the chalkboard, where he wrote “Please don’t leave garbage lying around.”
The following week, Hiers was “fired without notice.”
University of California-Los Angeles
Gordon Klein, a lecturer at UCLA, was suspended after refusing to lower the grading standards for his Black students. When students demanded special grading privileges for Black students in the wake of the George Floyd protests, Klein told them in an email that it would be wrong to give “preferential treatment” to students based on the color of their skin.
This resulted in outrage, with more than 20,000 people signing a petition for his firing, citing his supposed “blatant lack of empathy.”
West Virginia University
At West Virginia University, W.P. Chedester, the Chief of Police on campus, was forced to issue an apology after a “Blue Lives Matter” flag was visible in his office during a Zoom call.
Students and faculty were outraged by the presence of a pro-law enforcement symbol and demanded he be fired. One professor at the school accused Chedester of sharing “white supremacist” images, while others demanded his termination or resignation.
Chedester was allowed to keep his job after issuing a letter of apology and removing the flag.
Marymount Manhattan College
Professor Patricia Simon was accused of falling asleep during a campus “anti-racist” Zoom meeting, which resulted in a petition that garnered nearly 2,000 signatures calling for her firing, claiming she must be a racist if she wasn’t taking the call seriously.
Simon disputes the claims made against her, saying “I was not asleep as is implied at any point during the meeting. The photo used was taken without permission when I was looking down or briefly resting my Zoom weary eyes with my head tilted back which I must do in order to see my computer screen through my trifocal progressive lenses. I listened with my ears and heard the entire meeting.”
Cornell University
Professor William Jacobson, an outspoken conservative professor, says there is “an effort from inside the Cornell community to get me fired.”
Citing his conservative views and unwillingness to support the Black Lives Matter movement as the main motivation behind efforts to oust him, Jacobson said people are “trying to shut down debate through false accusations of racism.”
Winthrop University
Mark Herring, a retiring Dean at Winthrop University, was censored by the school after publishing an op-ed referring to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan Virus” in an op-ed detailing China’s culpability in the current pandemic.
After complaints of racism and xenophobia, Herring’s op-ed was removed and he was condemned by the school in a university-wide email. In response, Herring told Campus Reform, “If everything is racist, we end up with nothing being racist. And particularly at this time and the horrific murder of George Floyd, I think we really need to be careful about how we label things.
Virginia Commonwealth University
Javier Tapia, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, has been banned from campus after being accused of racial profiling, despite the fact that an investigation found no signs of racism or discrimination on his part.
The controversy began when Tapia allegedly called campus security on his fellow faculty member, Assistant Professor of Art Caitlin Cherry, when he found her in an area restricted to faculty only. A letter from the school says that the two professors “did not know one another” at the time. Cherry believed that Tapia called security on her because she is black, but Tapia claimed that he mistook her for a student, due to her “youthful appearance.”
An investigation concluded that Tapia had not “initiated the security check based on Professor [Cherry]’s race and/or color.” Despite that fact, he later received a letter from the school informing him he’d been placed on leave, and was banned from appearing on campus or contacting any of his colleagues.
- How The Race For A COVID-19 Vaccine Could Go Horribly Wrong For The Market
How The Race For A COVID-19 Vaccine Could Go Horribly Wrong For The Market
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 21:05The research departments at Wall Street investment banks have every incentive to provide clients with a stream of worrisome (but not too worrisome) reports about the future trajectory of the global coronavirus outbreak. After all, too much unpleasant fearmongering, and they might instead go somewhere else, where another broker can tell them exactly what they want to hear. A lot of people are like that
Which is why a research note published by Goldman’s top economist Jan Hatzius, who made his bones with a set of bearish calls just before the financial crisis, is so interesting. With public officials in the US, UK, China, Russia and elsewhere promising that a workable vaccine is just around the corner – Dr. Fauci has reassured Congress on multiple occasions that an FDA-approved vaccine by the end of the year is a realistic timeline – the market appears to be pricing in the best-case scenario. Stocks greet every new headline – even headlines that are simple rehashes of previously released early clinical trial data – with a modest rally.
At the very beginning of Hatzius’s note, he points out that his ‘base case’ calls for a COVID-19 vaccine to be widely available throughout the US and Europe by the end of Q22021, or the end of Q32021, at the very latest. There are more than a hundred vaccine candidates in the making, but all the major candidates are targeting the same protein. This means that once a vaccine succeeds, there should be at least a modest surplus – though, to be sure, governments are striking deals for future vaccine supplies left and right.
This base case, in turn, supports Goldman Sachs’ ‘house view’ for “above-consensus” global growth in 2021 (after all, so much of economics is influenced by perception).
But since most of the vaccine candidates are focused on the same approaches and are working off the same assumptions – that is, everything we currently know, or think we know, about SARS-CoV-2 – there is, of course, a risk that some unforeseen obstacle could disrupt this timeline.
And if that happens, things could go south in a hurry.
Or as Hatzius puts it: “the risks around this vaccine baseline…are clearly skewed…toward the downside…”
First, Hatzius starts off the note with a helpful summary of where most of what are seen as the biggest and most credible vaccine projects are at.
Then, Hatzius explains Goldman’s research on vaccine approvals. The firm found that the race to discover a vaccine for HIV was perhaps the best comparable example. Since in the beginning, many competitors were working on similar projects. Typically, the more parties are working on vaccine candidates, the more quickly a vaccine is approved by the FDA. But HIV was one interesting example where this wasn’t the case. Note: this isn’t the only time we’ve brought up HIV in our writings on COVID-19.
Since all the big vaccine projects are focusing on one of only a handful of approaches – for example, AstraZeneca/Oxford and Moderna are both focusing on vaccines that rely on messenger RNA (known as mRNA). Others are focusing on antibodies culled from the blood of survivors. Because the number of approaches is so small, the outcomes for these trials are likely highly correlated…
As the left panel of Exhibit 3 shows, a large number of industry sponsored vaccine attempts typically goes hand in hand with many approvals. This historical relationship would suggest an eventual approval of 43 vaccines. Furthermore, six candidates are already in Phase III. The historic approval odds of a given Phase III vaccine targeting the median disease is 79%. However, the history of trials and the fact that all major vaccines currently target the same spike protein also suggest that vaccine approvals are likely correlated, with either many succeeding or all failing, as for HIV.
We tentatively expect FDA approval of at least one vaccine this fall. First, six developers running late-stage trials following solid Phase II results are planning to seek approval in 2020Q4. Second, regulators have ramped up the transparency, flexibility, and speed. The FDA, for instance, has released specific safety and effectiveness standards, works directly with developers, analyzes interim results, and can provide Emergency Use Authorization as soon as studies have demonstrated safety and effectiveness. However, conflicting expert views on the odds of 2020 approval highlight the risk to our baseline timeline (Exhibit 4).
Increasing the risk of an outcome like what we see in the chart below for HIV.
Once a vaccine is discovered, Goldman expects the US, Europe and China will all experience a pronounced economic boost (though Goldman expects the boost to the US to be bigger, since the virus is more widespread).
By that logic, if a vaccine isn’t forthcoming in the next year or two, the US is likely also the furthest along the path to herd immunity, if such immunity is even possible for COVID-19. Some studies appear to show some decay in antibody levels, though it’s impossible to draw any solid conclusions at this point. Virologists insist that infection definitely confers some level of immunity.
On the other hand, it’s also possible that another treatment will lessen the need for vaccines by proving to be a reliable and effective treatment for the disease. Dr. Anthony Fauci is now touting a new class of drugs called manufactured antibodies, as Reuters explained on Tuesday.
These “manufactured” antibodies are grown in bioreactor vats, and essentially replace the antibodies that your body naturally manufactures to fend off infections.
As the world awaits a COVID-19 vaccine, the next big advance in battling the pandemic could come from a class of biotech therapies widely used against cancer and other disorders – antibodies designed specifically to attack this new virus.
Development of monoclonal antibodies to target the virus has been endorsed by leading scientists. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, called them “almost a sure bet” against COVID-19.
When a virus gets past the body’s initial defenses, a more specific response kicks in, triggering production of cells that target the invader.
These include antibodies that recognize and lock onto a virus, preventing the infection from spreading.
Monoclonal antibodies – grown in bioreactor vats – are copies of these naturally-occurring proteins.
Scientists are still working out the exact role of neutralizing antibodies in recovery from COVID-19, but drugmakers are confident that the right antibodies or a combination can alter the course of the disease that has claimed more than 675,000 lives globally.
“Antibodies can block infectivity. That is a fact,” Regeneron Pharmaceuticals executive Christos Kyratsous told Reuters.
A timely vaccine will help drive a recovery and limit “scarring effects” on the economy, Hatzius said.
Since the race to find a workable vaccine is so intense, many are worried that a rushed job could produce a vaccine that’s ineffective, or worse, harmful. Even if at least one vaccine is approved before the end of the year as Goldman expects (though it admitted it’s still relatively uncertain on this) it’s possible that we could later find its effectiveness limited. Studies have shown COVID-19 antibodies start to decline after a few months. It’s likely that one’s antibody count doesn’t have much bearing on the body’s ability to fend off infection, since the body can always produce more. But it’s also possible that this could be a sign of fading immunity to the disease.
“An early approval does not imply full effectiveness or long-run protection,” Goldman writes.
And even once a vaccine is approved, there’s precedent for the FDA withdrawing its approval – however unlikely that might seem right now.
An early approval does not imply full effectiveness or long-run protection. On effectiveness, the FDA only requires the vaccine to show a difference of 50% between events, such as infection, in the vaccine versus control arms of the study. The effectiveness for the elderly also remains uncertain, with weaker antibody responses to the CanSino vaccine and no elderly testing for most other vaccine trials so far.4 On the length of protection, little reinfection so far and the potential of T-cells to provide long-lasting immunity are encouraging while a recent Nature study found that antibody levels started to decline after 2-3 months.
However, as noted by a recent NY Times Op-Ed by leading Yale immunologists, a waning antibody count does not necessarily indicate waning immunity because memory B cells can produce additional antibodies and lead to long-term immunity. Finally, approval could be overturned subsequently as happened with the yellow fever and rotavirus vaccines that were pulled from the market after rare severe side effects.
Thanks to all the government deals with big pharma, if most of the leading vaccines succeed and achieve their production and purchase targets, the US and the UK will probably have a big surplus, while the EU and Japan – which are currently reportedly in talks with producers – also should have large supplies.
Despite China’s promise to dole out vaccines to the developing world, the lack of their own pipeline makes the outlook for the EM universe less certain.
Now, for an equally important question: is the market under-pricing the risk of some delay in the process of finding a vaccine? As Hatzius explained, the ‘diversity’ of vaccine projects doesn’t confer as much security as some might be inclined to expect.
- California Suffers Fewest COVID-19 Cases Since June; Texas Positivity Rate Climbs For 3rd Day: Live Updates
California Suffers Fewest COVID-19 Cases Since June; Texas Positivity Rate Climbs For 3rd Day: Live Updates
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 20:59Summary:
- Goldman warns about rising positivity in some states
- Texas positivity rate climbs for 3rd day
- California cases fall to lowest since June
- Novavax vaccine trial data shows strong antibody response
- RI added to tri-state quarantine list
- NYC health chief quits in major blow to de Blasio
- 45 Florida hospitals see ICUs hit capacity
- Poland weighs lockdown after another record COVID reading
- UCLA releases plans for fall
- Global COVID outbreak slowest spread in 3 weeks
- Death toll nears 700,000
- US deaths finally start to edge lower
- Hong Kong extends lockdown measures, builds temporary hospitals
- Tokyo reports 300+ new cases
- India reports more than 50,000 new cases
- China reports 36 new cases
- Philippines suffers another record jump in new cases
* * *
Update (2030ET): In its latest daily research note about the US COVID-19 outbreak, produced for the benefit of its wealthy corporate and investment-banking clients, Goldman Sachs’ team of researchers highlighted the trend of climbing positivity rates in some states – a trend that got Rhode Island added to the tri-state area’s quarantine list earlier.
The virus situation continues to improve on net in many states, including those with very high levels of new cases. Over the past few days, several states have seen initial declines in the level of new cases progress to more encouraging 14-day downward trajectories. The federal government and many states want to see this sustained path of improvement before moving forward with reopening plans. Combined with the nationwide decline in the prevalence in COVID-like illness symptoms in late July, this decrease in new cases is driving the average number of federal government-recommended gating criteria that states meet higher.
The number of states with positivity rates north of 10% is on the rise, even as case numbers fall across the US.
But at the same time, the share of states with positive test rates above 10% is on the rise slightly, despite the average test rate declining modestly on a national basis. Available hospital capacity has also decreased to less than 30% in an increasing number of states, likely reflecting increases in the number of both COVID and non-COVID patients receiving care. But in most of these states, available capacity still remains above the more critical recommended threshold of 20%.
And their latest daily tracker:
* * *
Update (1730ET): Novovax’s latest report on its vaccine candidate showed that a course of its vaccine, accompanied by the company’s immune-system-boosting technology, could produce an amount of antibodies equivalent to 4x the number produced by the average COVID-19 survivor, Bloomberg reports.
However, a media misinterpretation of the vaccine’s safety data sent shares of Novovax, which received $1.6 billion from Trump’s “Operation Warp Speeds”, the second-largest slug of government money behind the $2 billion handed to Pfizer in a deal involving the vaccine its developing with BioNTech.
As far as the big news from the Sun Belt, Texas’s positivity rate climbed for a third straight day to 13.88%, the highest since July 22, according to state health department data. That’s still well below the July 16 peak of 17.43%. Texas also reported 9,167 new cases, bringing the total to date to 451,181. More than 7,000 Texans have died.
On the bright side, California reported 4,526 new cases, its lowest daily tally since June, and well below the 14-day average of 8,476 infections. There were 113 new deaths, compared with the two-week daily average of 125. That brings the total to 9,501.
There were other signs of improvement in the Golden State: hospitalizations fell 1.5% and the 14-day average test positivity rate declined to 6.7%, down from 7.5% last week.
A preliminary reading for new cases on Tuesday showed they were up 1.1% (compared with 1.4% average from the past week), as compared with the same time Monday, to 4.74 million, per BBG & JHU data. Deaths rose 0.7% to 156,133.
On the political side, a bipartisan group of governors led by Maryland’s Larry Hogan has formed a pact with the Rockefeller Foundation to buy millions of coronavirus antigen tests, a move that was reminiscent of the early days of the outbreak, when states were banding together to secure supplies like ventilators.
* * *
Update (1245ET): Are New York, New Jersey and Connecticut getting a little out of control with their quarantine list?
Visitors from Rhode Island, Connecticut’s tiny New England neighbor, must quarantine for 14 days when traveling to the state, or risk stiff fines, Gov. Ned Lamont threatened.
CONNECTICUT TRAVEL ADVISORY UPDATE:
Rhode Island added to list of impacted states, Delaware and DC removed.
If you’re traveling to Connecticut from any of the following locations, you need to self-quarantine 14 days.
See list ⬇️ https://t.co/gZjVfum7Wt
— Governor Ned Lamont (@GovNedLamont) August 4, 2020
There are now 35 states and territories on the list (including Puerto Rico). Delaware and Washington DC, both previously on the list, were taken off. NY and NJ are also adding RI to their lists.
States listed typically have a positivity rate of higher than 10% over a 7-day rolling average.
Like NY, Conn. bristled at Rhode Island when the governor moved to crack down on out-of-state visitors traveling to their second, or third properties, many of whom were coming from NY and CT.
Here’s the full quarantine list, as of Aug. 4:
- Alaska
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Arizona
- California
- Florida
- Georgia
- Iowa
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maryland
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Mississippi
- Montana
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Nebraska
- New Mexico
- Nevada
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Puerto Rico
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- Wisconsin
Meanwhile, Gov Andrew Cuomo of NY released the latest numbers for the Empire State.
Today’s update on the numbers:
Of the 70,993 tests reported yesterday, 746 were positive (1.05% of total).
Total hospitalizations are at 568.
Sadly, there were 3 COVID fatalities yesterday. pic.twitter.com/cL5VrdKGi2
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 4, 2020
In NYC, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene head Oxiris Barbot resigned following months of disagreements with Mayor Bill de Blasio over the city’s virus policies. She expressed her “deep disappointment” with the bungling mayor, who infamously urged residents to “go about their lives” in early March as the virus was spreading unimpedeed around NYC (where it would eventually infect roughly 1 in 5 people, according to early results from antibody surveillance testing).
Her resignation is the culmination of an ongoing dispute with the mayor’s office, who stripped the Department of Health of responsibility for managing the city’s contact tracing effort. The effort has been criticized as a resounding failure despite the immense resources the city piled into hiring its “army” of some 3,000 contact tracers.
She slammed the mayor in a statement that was published by the NYT.
“I leave my post today with deep disappointment that during the most critical public health crisis in our lifetime, that the Health Department’s incomparable disease control expertise was not used to the degree it could have been,” she said in her resignation email sent to Mr. de Blasio, a copy of which was shared with The New York Times.
“Our experts are world renowned for their epidemiology, surveillance and response work. The city would be well served by having them at the strategic center of the response not in the background.”
Even the NYT acknowledged that her resignation was a major embarrassment to de Blasio.
Dr. Barbot’s resignation could renew questions about Mr. de Blasio’s handling of the response to the outbreak, which devastated the city in the spring, killing more than 20,000 residents, even as it has largely subsided in recent weeks. And it comes at a pivotal moment: Public schools are scheduled to partially open next month, which could be crucial for the city’s recovery, and fears are growing that the outbreak could surge again when the weather cools.
The mayor had been faulted by public health experts, including some within the Health Department, for not moving faster to close down schools and businesses in March, when New York emerged as an epicenter of the pandemic.
Dave Chokshi will be brought in to replace her, the mayor said in a news conference Tuesday.
* * *
Update (0940ET): Poland has recorded yet another record jump in new COVID-19 cases, with 680 reported Tuesday, the largest increase since the beginning of the pandemic. As a result of the rising numbers, the government is considering whether to impose quarantine restrictions on travelers returning from certain countries.
A communications officer for the Ministry of Health told CNN on Tuesday that the 680 cases mainly came from three regions in the country. At least 30% of these (222 cases) came from the Silesia region, known for its coal mines. Another 88 cases were recorded in the Malopolska region in southern Poland. At least 94 cases were confirmed in the Wielkopolska region in central Poland.
Finally, UCLA said it will only offer about 8% of fall course on campus in a new hybrid model that will require nearly all classes to shift to remote delivery after Thanksgiving, according to an announcement last night. In June, UCLA planned to offer up to 20% of classes in some sort of in-person format. But “with Los Angeles county experiencing a dramatic rise in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, we have found it necessary to adjust our plans to reduce the health risks to our campus community,” according to a statement from the school.
* * *
Update (0930ET): Hospital capacity across the state of Florida has improved over the past couple of weeks according to data from the Agency for Health Care Administration. Per the latest update, shared by CNN, at least 45 hospitals in the state have reached ICU capacity and have no ICU beds available. 7 of these are in Miami-Dade, 5 are in Broward County.
Another 34 hospitals have ICU capacity of 10% or less, which, as we’ve explained in the past, isn’t unusual, since hospitals typically run their ICU units as close to full capacity as possible (since these are typically the most profitable beds).
Fortunately, according to County-level data, 1,000 ICU beds are available across Miami-Dade County.
Across the state of Florida, 19.6% of ICU beds are available.
* * *
*CORRECTION*: Earlier, we reported that the global number of COVID deaths was nearing 7 million. The number of COVID-19 deaths is, in fact, nearing 700,000.
We apologize for the error.
* * *
Globally, the number of new cases reported on Monday (remember, these cases are reported typically with a 24-hour delay) tumbled to the slowest rate of expansion in nearly three weeks, while the global death toll neared 700,000.
In the US, the death toll surpassed 155,000 yesterday. That comes five days after the US first broke above 150,000 deaths. Though experts like Dr. Fauci and others have warned about the potential for deaths in the US to accelerate, the number of daily deaths has remained anchored at around 1,000.
Over the past two weeks, the worst-hit countries, including the US and Brazil, have seen new cases turn mercifully lower after a streak of record-shattering single-day infection numbers.
Even the number of daily deaths in the US have moved off their highest levels since April and May, despite experts warnings about a further spike.
Most of the big news out so far on Tuesday comes out of Asia.
One day after placing Manila and its surrounding area on a strict two-week lockdown, the Philippines reported a record 6,352 new coronavirus infections, a new single-day record, bringing the total to 112,593. The 11 new fatalities reported raised the death toll to 2,115.
Yesterday, the WHO’s Dr. Tedros revealed during a press briefing (where he also noted that there may be “no silver bullet” vaccine, at least not right away) that the team of independent scientists from the WHO had finished the first part of their fact-finding mission to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the outbreak. According to a Reuters report published Tuesday morning, the team had “extensive discussions” with scientists in Wuhan and “received updates on epidemiological studies, biologic and genetic analysis and animal health research.”
The mission is the first part of a broader international probe that was demanded by the Trump Administration, Australia, EU and others.
In Japan, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike announced another 309 new infections, up from 258 on Monday. The SCMP reports that the Hong Kong government is building at least 2 new makeshift hospitals that will add 2,400 new beds to the territory’s COVID-19 capacity. The government announced on Monday that it would extend its social distancing restrictions for another week. Hong Kong’s “third wave” of the virus has also been its deadliest yet. Fortunately, the city reported just 80 cases on Tuesday, on par with yesterday’s number. Yesterday, the city’s health authorities reported fewer than 100 new cases for the first time in nearly 2 weeks. Chief Executive Carrie Lam has sought help from the mainland to increase testing and hospital capacity.
India reported more than 50,000 cases for the sixth straight day, bringing total infections to over 1.85 million.
The world’s second-most-populous country also reported another 803 deaths, bringing its total to 38,938.
China reports 36 new cases, down from 43 the previous day. Of those, 28 were in the northwestern region of Xinjiang and two in Liaoning Province in the northeast. Another six were from Chinese arriving from overseas.
After imposing a curfew earlier this week and shuttering a large swath of its economy in another lockdown, new legal measures go into effect on Tuesday whereby anyone caught outside in breach of Victoria’s isolation orders will face fines from AUS$1,652 ($1,200) to AUS$5,000 ($3,559).
Officials warned that noncompliance with quarantine and social distancing rules is widespread. Random checks by police on 3,000 infected people had found more than 800 were not home isolating, as they were supposed to be.
However, the Australian press, for whatever reason, focused on Chief Commissioner Shane Patton’s complaints about a small number of self-declared “sovereign citizens” who have hectored – and in at least one case, attacked – police officers trying to enforce the new orders.
Victoria Police had seen an “emergence” of “concerning groups of people who classify themselves as ‘sovereign citizens'”, the BBC reported Tuesday.
Under the current “stage four” lockdown, Melbournians can leave home only to shop, exercise and provide essential medical care, or do frontline work. Residents must shop and exercise within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of their home, and for no longer than 1 hour at a time.
This, despite a growing body of evidence that the lockdown in Victoria is having little impact on suppressing the growth of cases.
- Your Phone Is Spying On You: Companies Are Generating Secret "Surveillance Scores" Based On That Data
Your Phone Is Spying On You: Companies Are Generating Secret “Surveillance Scores” Based On That Data
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 20:45Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
Nothing that you do on your phone is private. In this day and age, most of us have become extremely dependent on our phones, and most Americans never even realize that these extremely sophisticated little devices are gathering mountains of information on each one of us.
Your phone knows what you look like, it knows the sound of your voice, it knows where you have been, it knows where you have shopped, it knows your Internet searches and it knows what you like to do in your free time. In fact, your phone literally knows thousands of things about you, and all of that information is bought and sold every single day without you knowing.
And as you will see below, there are lots of companies out there that use information collected from our phones to create secret “surveillance scores” that are used for a whole host of alarming purposes.
It is really important to understand that your phone is a surveillance device. The reason why the advertisements on your phone seem so perfectly tailored for you is because of all the information that your phone has gathered on you previously.
To this day, many people are still amazed when they see an ad pop up for something that they were just talking with a friend about, but that doesn’t happen by accident. The following comes from Fox News…
Perhaps you’ve been talking to a friend about an island vacation, when suddenly deals for the Maldives or Hawaii pop up on your Facebook feed. Or you are talking to your co-worker about yard renovations when advertisements for lawnmowers litter your Twitter, or maybe you were talking about why you stopped drinking and a random sponsored article about the growing trend of “elective sobriety” is suddenly in front of your eyes.
Industry experts insist that our phones are not actively “eavesdropping” on us, but they do admit that our phones are “actually spying on us” in other ways…
“It’s easy to feel like our phone is spying on us. It is actually spying on us, but it is not eavesdropping,” Alex Hamerstone, Government, Risk and Compliance practice lead at information technology security firm, TrustedSec, told Fox News via email. “The reason why we see ads pop up that seem to be correlated to the exact thing we were just talking about is because technology and marketing companies gather extensive amounts of personal and behavioral data on us, but it’s not from eavesdropping — it’s from surfing the web, shopping, posting on social media, and other things people do online.”
Most Americans have come to accept targeted ads as a part of life, but what most people don’t realize is that the information our phones gather is being used for far more intrusive purposes.
“Surveillance scores” are being created, and these “surveillance scores” seem quite similar to the “social credit scores” that China has been compiling since 2014.
In China, if you do good things like paying your taxes or taking a parent to the doctor, your social credit score will go up.
But there are also lots of things that will cause your social credit score to go down…
It aims to punish for transgressions that can include membership in or support for the Falun Gong or Tibetan Buddhism, failure to pay debts, excessive video gaming, criticizing the government, late payments, failing to sweep the sidewalk in front of your store or house, smoking or playing loud music on trains, jaywalking, and other actions deemed illegal or unacceptable by the Chinese government.
And if your social credit score gets too low, the consequences can be quite dramatic…
Punishments can be harsh, including bans on leaving the country, using public transportation, checking into hotels, hiring for high-visibility jobs, or acceptance of children to private schools. It can also result in slower internet connections and social stigmatization in the form of registration on a public blacklist.
Here in the United States, private companies are doing something very similar. Information collected from our phones is being used to create secret “surveillance scores”, and selling those scores has become very big business. The following comes from the Houston Chronicle…
Operating in the shadows of the online marketplace, specialized tech companies you’ve likely never heard of are tapping vast troves of our personal data to generate secret “surveillance scores” – digital mug shots of millions of Americans – that supposedly predict our future behavior. The firms sell their scoring services to major businesses across the U.S. economy.
And just like China’s system, high scores come with rewards and low scores come with punishments.
For example, your scores can determine whether or not someone will rent a property to you, whether or not you will be hired for a job, and even how long you will have to wait for customer service…
CoreLogic and TransUnion say that scores they peddle to landlords can predict whether a potential tenant will pay the rent on time, be able to “absorb rent increases,” or break a lease. Large employers use HireVue, a firm that generates an “employability” score about candidates by analyzing “tens of thousands of factors,” including a person’s facial expressions and voice intonations. Other employers use Cornerstone’s score, which considers where a job prospect lives and which web browser they use to judge how successful they will be at a job.
Brand-name retailers purchase “risk scores” from Retail Equation to help make judgments about whether consumers commit fraud when they return goods for refunds. Players in the gig economy use outside firms such as Sift to score consumers’ “overall trustworthiness.” Wireless customers predicted to be less profitable are sometimes forced to endure longer customer service hold times.
To me, all of this is extremely creepy.
Eventually, it may get to a point where you are basically a societal outcast if you are not willing to conform to a particular set of politically-correct standards, values and behaviors.
You may not get thrown in jail the moment you do something “unacceptable”, but your phone will be watching you every step of the way.
Each mistake that you make will be recorded by your phone, and that information will be stored and used against you for the rest of your life.
I know that all of this sounds very strange, but without a doubt we are living in very strange times.
My advice would be to only use your phone when necessary, but of course the vast majority of the population will never listen to such advice.
Most of us have become highly addicted to these marvelous little devices, and in the process we are helping the elite construct a system of surveillance and control that is unlike anything ever seen before in all of human history.
- Why COVID-19 Will Make A Comeback In NYC This Fall – And Lockdowns Won't Help
Why COVID-19 Will Make A Comeback In NYC This Fall – And Lockdowns Won’t Help
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 20:25As we noted earlier, Bloomberg on Friday published a story decrying the risks facing NYC as the northern hemisphere moves toward the fall. Three weeks ago, Melbourne entered lockdown that was supposed to last for 6 weeks. However, new infections have only continued to climb, and it’s currently unclear whether officials will abandon the lockdown, or extend it.
The problem? Some epidemiologists suspect that, since Australia is now in the heart of its winter season, most people are spending the bulk of their days indoors, relying on heat and ventilation systems in multifamily buildings that can, at least in theory, carry the ‘airborne’ virus from apartment to apartment, infecting unsuspecting neighbors without them even needing to leave their homes.
That’s all speculation at this point, however (though examples of the virus spreading rapidly within apartment blocks abound in Hong Kong and mainland China).
But the fact remains: Since June, the outbreak in Melbourne – suspected to have begun with failures in the hotel quarantine of travelers arriving from overseas – has exploded. Thursday and Friday saw the worst increases yet: 723 and 627 respectively across the state of Victoria, the second-largest state in Australia, where Melbourne serves as the capital.
These numbers have left Australian health officials stunned: Their models projected that the lockdowns should have crushed the outbreak by now. But even with strict social distancing measures in place, the virus has continued to spread.
The American press hasn’t done much reporting on the situation in Australia. It’s clear why: Not only is the country on the other side of the world, but it’s also raising uncomfortable questions about the efficacy of lockdowns, particularly as the world heads into the heart of winter/summer (depending on whether one is in the northern or southern hemisphere).
So, why isn’t Melbourne’s lockdown working? The BBC has some ideas.
Throughout the state of Victoria, most outbreaks have been traced back to aged care homes, meat factories, schools and public housing estates.
But as Bloomberg reported on Friday, the falling temperatures and growing reliance on air conditioning suggest that NYC could soon see a related comeback – even a Gov Cuomo pledges to investigate “outdoor” gatherings like a drive-thru concert in the Hamptons, while completely ignoring anti-police brutality protests.
Melbourne, Australia, with 5 million people, offers a case in point. With the Fahrenheit dropping into the 50s, Melbourne has seen an upswing in cases, a foreboding indicator of how tough it may be for cities like New York to control infections as the mercury drops. With fall and winter approaching, it’s “inevitable” Covid-19 cases will tick up, said Ashish Jha, director of Harvard University’s Global Health Institute.
“I am worried about complacency,” Jha said in an interview. “New York went through such a difficult few months, and I am worried that people are tired. A lot of people are looking at New York over the next six months and saying: ‘Could we possibly see a spike?’”
New York’s success is seen as somewhat of a beacon for the rest of the country. If the city can keep its rate low as it reopens through the fall and winter, then epidemiologists say its efforts can serve as a model for other big cities nationwide.
NYC entered Phase 4 of its reopening on July 20. Stores are now open, though capacity is limited, and New Yorkers can enjoy outdoor dining at restaurants, but there’s no clear timeline for the return of indoor dining. The wearing of masks, social distancing and aggressive hygiene practices are still being pushed as mandatory by local officials.
New York reported just 59 new cases citywide on Tuesday. But it hasn’t eased up yet. On Thursday, Gov Cuomo said the state is making $30 million available to counties to increase contact tracing as well as testing for the coming flu season, which generally hits in the fall and winter. Cuomo has warned that the flu could complicate the COVID-19 response by, among many reasons, upping the strain on laboratories.
If NYC can suppress a rebound of new cases in the fall, it could stand as a model for the rest of the country. If it fails, then maybe our medical experts will need to rethink their approach.
- 3 Reasons Treasury Rates Can Still Hit 0%: Part I, Inflation Vs Deflation
3 Reasons Treasury Rates Can Still Hit 0%: Part I, Inflation Vs Deflation
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 20:05Authored by Eric Basmajian via EPBMacroResearch.com,
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Deflation remains the more credible risk, not inflation. The output gap suggests core inflation could sink below 0.5% in the coming years.
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FX hedged Treasury yields remain higher than yields at home. This will increase foreign appetite for US rates.
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From a longer-term secular standpoint, economic growth will fall into a new regime, sub 2% which will weigh on bond yields.
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Further stimulus from the fiscal side will delay the full extent of the deflationary output gap but will not change the end result in the final analysis.
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As part of your balanced portfolio, long-term Treasury bonds are still a valuable holding as the path to 0% remains a probable scenario.
The inflation vs. deflation debate remains one of the more hotly contested ideas in the marketplace today. The inflation hawks argue precious metals are a one-way street higher while cash is trash, and bonds are worthless. The deflationary crowd continues to play with the multi-decade trend arguing that interest rates are not done falling, and more gains are left with nominal Treasury bonds.
In this three-part series, I am going to highlight the main reasons behind why I believe that the path to 0% interest rates is more probable than an inflationary rise to higher yields. Three main factors support the conclusion for lower long-term rates, including:
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a more credible risk of deflation compared to inflation,
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high and positive FX-hedged Treasury yields,
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and a continued decline in trend economic growth.
Each part will cover one of these factors in detail.
While I reside in the disinflationary camp, I am not one to argue that an inflationary outcome should be disregarded. A blanket denial of the potential for inflation is unwise, but an over-exaggeration of the risks with faulty analysis of historical macroeconomic trends is more dangerous.
The best path forward for the long-term, prudent investor is to start with a portfolio that is relatively balanced to each risk, inflation, and deflation. Depending on which risk is more probable over the next 12-36 months, tilting the portfolio from a balanced stance to an overweight stance in favor of the more likely outcome allows an investor to capitalize on the developing opportunity while allowing the possibility of the opposing scenario.
A comprehensive review of macroeconomic trends firmly suggests that deflation or disinflation, not inflation, is a more credible risk. Many of the common inflationary arguments we hear today are repeats of decade-old analysis that came about during the first round of Quantitative Easing “QE” or “money printing,” which proved incorrect in assessing the direction of inflation and bond yields.
In part I, we’ll review many of the common inflationary theses while arguing that deflation or disinflation is still a more credible threat.
Having a balanced portfolio with bonds, gold, stocks, and commodities always makes sense, but it is still premature to rid your strategy of disinflationary bets such as Treasury bonds altogether.
Deflation, Not Inflation, Is The Bigger Risk
Inflation is a highly consensus view among analysts. Typically this takes the form of “deflation now, but inflation later,” acknowledging the severe demand shock caused by the COVID lockdowns across the global economy. The “inflation later” part of the puzzle usually makes reference to Federal Reserve policy actions, including “printing” money and what is now a ubiquitous chart of money supply growth.
The Federal Reserve cannot “print” spendable dollars but rather purchase assets using reserves.
The inflation crowd has made frequent use of the following chart of money supply growth, quick to point out the record level.
Decades ago, with profoundly different circumstances which will be outlined below, significant increases in money supply growth gave reason to be worried about rising inflation. Today, there quite literally exists no correlation between money supply growth and inflation.
M2 Money Stock, Year over Year:
The Federal Reserve quadrupled the size of its balance sheet over the last ten years before the COVID crisis, and the result was below average inflation and a decline in market-derived inflation expectations. Despite what should be considered a well-established fact now, the same arguments for rising Federal Reserve assets and inflation have reemerged.
It is incomplete to present an argument regarding money supply growth and inflation without presenting a long-term chart of the velocity of money. To argue that a rise in money supply growth in insolation will cause inflation assumes that the rate at which money changes hands in the economy is stable.
Velocity, noted below, has collapsed and will decline further in Q2 2020, which negates the inflationary impact of rising money supply growth.
Velocity will undoubtedly rise in Q3 and possibly Q4 of 2020 as a pent-up demand recovery takes hold, but multi-decade secular trends must be respected and understood.
It is easy to suggest that the velocity of money will suddenly break the near 30-year trend and start rising, along with a continued increase in money supply growth, but why? Putting money in the hands of consumers to spend on basic necessities such as rent, food, and clothing are not high-velocity uses of capital and will not meaningfully change the long-run trajectory of the ratio.
Velocity Of M2 Money Stock:
High velocity uses of capital stem from productive investment into plant & equipment, products or properties that generate a lasting income stream.
In order for the growth in money supply to have an increased chance of generating lasting inflation, the velocity of money has to be at least stable.
Another consideration in the new era of QE is that the relationship between money supply and reserves in the banking system has meaningfully changed. Looking at the growth rate in money supply and jumping to an inflationary conclusion disregards the fact that the reserve multiplier is far from stable, and completely altered.
The chart below is the reserve multiplier or the ratio of broad money supply to total reserves in the banking system.
Reserve Multiplier:
Another ratio that is assumed to be stable in the traditional money supply arguments is the relationship between broad money supply and the monetary base controlled by the Federal Reserve. The ratio of M2 money supply to the monetary base or the “money multiplier” is also highly unstable and has steadily declined over the last few decades.
The money multiplier rose through the 1960s, 1970s, and peaked in the 1980s, a stark contrast to the recent multi-decade decline.
The money multiplier ratio shows the ability and desire of private sector banks to turn high powered base money into broad spendable dollars.
Money Multiplier:
Dr. Lacy Hunt, in his Q1 2020 Quarterly Review, wrote about both the money multiplier and the velocity of money.
Two critical equations define the U.S. monetary structure. First, M2 = MB x m where MB stands for the monetary base and m stands for the money multiplier (known as little m). Second, GDP equals M2 multiplied by the velocity of money, or GDP = M2 x V and V is GDP divided by M2. It is important to note that both m and V are complex variables and their operation in determining economic activity is opaque. Our understanding is that the essence of m is that the banks and their customers must reach an agreement that a new loan will be profitable to both. Prior to reducing reserve requirements to zero, swings in currency and time deposits could change m, but that is no longer the case. As long as the required reserve ratio remains zero, total reserves and excess reserves are identical. Swings in Treasury deposits still have a role, albeit minimal. It appears that the key to V is whether a new loan is productive in the sense that it generates an income stream to pay principal and interest. It becomes apparent therefore that the Fed has extremely limited capacity to alter m or V.
As a result of the weakening economy and high levels of public and private debt, banks are likely to maintain their reluctance in extending high quantities of new loans. Similarly, the capacity for borrowers to demand new loans for productive investment will remain low.
The relationship between the monetary base and the money supply is unstable and currently in a declining trend. The relationship between money supply growth and inflation measured by either the Consumer Price Index or the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index is highly unclear.
The chart below shows the relationship between the year over year growth rate in money supply and the year over year change in Core CPI, adjusted for a 12 and 18-month lag.
Money Supply Growth Vs. Core CPI Inflation Rate:
Source: Federal Reserve, BLS, EPB Macro Research
Economists Stephen G. Cecchetti and Kermit L. Schoenholtz of the Money, Banking, and Financial Markets blog complied a more comprehensive chart of money supply growth and the core PCE inflation rate. They concluded:
During the early period, when inflation temporarily rose above 10 percent, there was a positive relationship: increases in money growth were associated with higher inflation two years later. For the most recent decade, the period when the Fed’s balance sheet exploded, the two are nearly uncorrelated (see the red dashed line). In other words, at low levels of inflation, inflation appears to be unrelated to money growth. (While we do not show it here, another implication of this chart is that the velocity of money—the ratio of nominal GDP to money—is unstable.)
Money Supply Growth Vs. Core PCE Inflation Rate:
Source: Money, Banking, and Financial Markets
Cecchetti and Schoenholtz went on to note the lack of relationship between the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and long-term market-derived inflation expectations in a chart I recreated below.
Fed Balance Sheet Vs. Market Derived Inflation Expectations:
Source: Bloomberg
Using the rate of money supply growth as the base of an inflationary argument has demonstrated poor results over the last ten years due to a multi-decade decline in the velocity of money and an unstable (currently falling) relationship between reserves, broad money and the monetary base (reserve multiplier and the money multiplier.)
While money supply growth is an unreliable determinant of inflation, the economic output gap has demonstrated a sound relationship to core inflation, particularly over the past two decades, when economic volatility dropped to record lows.
The output gap is a measure of the potential growth in an economy relative to actual growth. When an economy is growing below trend potential, the difference is called the “output gap.”
The output gap is measured by using “potential GDP” and actual or projected GDP.
Potential GDP is published by the Congressional Budget Office “CBO” through a calculation of potential labor force growth and potential productivity growth.
The chart below shows nominal GDP in black, potential GDP in blue, and projected GDP through 2030 in red.
US GDP Vs. Potential GDP (Billions):
Source: Bloomberg, CBO, BEA, EPB Macro Research
The difference between potential GDP and actual or projected GDP is the “output gap,” graphed below. A negative output gap is deflationary because the economy has unutilized capacity, driving down the price of goods and services. Too many workers will drive down wages.
Using the projected estimates from the CBO, the output gap will reach nearly $2.5 trillion and will last through 2030.
The output gap after the 2008 recession lasted for roughly 39 quarters.
Using the projected GDP estimates from the CBO, the deflationary output gap is not only expected to be the largest in modern history but last more than 44 quarters, through 2030.
The chart below shows the output gap as a percentage of GDP.
US Output Gap (% Of GDP):
Source: Bloomberg, CBO, BEA, EPB Macro Research
Over the past ~20 years, the output gap has demonstrated a strong correlation with core inflation. Typically, it takes about a year for underutilized capacity to flow through to consumer inflation.
The correlation between the output gap and core inflation has increased in recent years as overall economic volatility has compressed due to the increased use of automatic stabilizers such as government transfer payments as well as a general shift away from the more cyclical manufacturing sector.
Economic Volatility:
Source: Bloomberg, BEA, EPB Macro Research
At the trough in growth, the US economy will have an output gap of roughly -11% and a four-quarter average of approximately -7.7%.
Using the output gap for a point estimate of core inflation can be extremely imprecise and highly dependent on the variables in the analysis. Still, directionally the relationship makes a strong case for record low core inflation over the coming years.
US Output Gap (% Of GDP) (4-Quarter Lag) & Core CPI:
Source: Bloomberg, CBO, BEA, BLS, EPB Macro Research
Using the output gap to determine the inflation bias over the coming 12-36 months is likely to have more success than arguments centered around the growth rate in money supply with variables that are far different than the 1970s, a common inflationary reference point.
In the 1970s, the output gap was mild and oscillating between positive and negative. Over the last 15 years, the economy has been in a persistently negative output gap and expected to remain there through 2030 based on estimates from the CBO.
US Output Gap 1960-1980 | US Output Gap 2005 – 2030:
Source: Bloomberg
From 1960-1980, the velocity of money was extremely stable, while the last two decades have shown a downward trend in velocity that hasn’t been experienced since the 1920-1930 period.
Velocity Of M2 Money Stock:
As noted above and presented again below, the money multiplier was stable and rising from 1960-1980 compared to unstable and falling sharply today.
Money Multiplier:
Lastly, total non-financial debt in the economy (government, household, and business) as a percentage of GDP was extraordinarily stable and below 140% from 1960-1980 compared to rising and north of 260% today, breaching critical thresholds discussed here.
Total Non-Financial Debt To GDP Ratio:
Source: Z.1 Financial Accounts, Bloomberg, EPB Macro Research
High levels of public and private debt hinder economic growth and exert disinflationary pressure on the economy.
Summary & Part II
Money supply growth is an important variable, but it must be used in context to explain future impacts to price inflation. Over the last decade, using the money supply growth or Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion to forecast inflation has been a losing proposition due to the consistent decline in velocity and the changing relationships highlighted by the reserve multiplier and the money multiplier.
Commodity prices and other measures can provide a shorter-term indication regarding the direction of inflation, but the outlook over the next 12-36 months is most consistently identified by the output gap and long-term secular forces.
Most of the arguments for higher inflation fail to consider rapidly changing relationships in the economy that more often than not stem from an extreme condition of overindebtedness.
As mentioned at the start of this note, disregarding the possibility for inflation is unwise, and holding a portfolio with inflation-sensitive assets is a prudent decision for the conservative investor, particularly while short-term inflation indicators such as commodity prices are trending higher.
The bias in the economy is still for deflation/disinflation, and holding an overweight investment in Treasury bonds continues to generate strong risk-adjusted returns as well as dampen the volatility of a balanced portfolio by offering a negative correlation to equity prices on average.
In part II, we’ll take a look at another force that will keep downward pressure on US interest rates; FX-hedged Treasury yields.
Many investors seek to make simple comparisons between US bond yields and foreign bond yields without adjusting for the cost of hedging the currency risk. This is a critical variable and one that we will tackle in the next part of this series.
* * *
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- Trump Calls Beirut Explosion "A Terrible Attack – A Bomb Of Some Kind" After Briefed By Generals
Trump Calls Beirut Explosion “A Terrible Attack – A Bomb Of Some Kind” After Briefed By Generals
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 19:50Lebanon’s health ministry has raised the death toll to over 73 killed, including 3,700 wounded, after late afternoon a blast centered on Beirut’s port unleashed a massive seismic shock and explosion that leveled an entire district of the city and was felt as far away as Cyprus in the Mediterranean.
Later in the evening Lebanon’s Prime Minister announced that the explosions were caused by an estimated 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate left unsecured for 6 years in a warehouse. This came on the heels of a formal Israeli denial that it had anything to do with it, which also seemed be echoed by Hezbollah officials.
With the official consensus growing that the massive explosion was horrible accident due to neglect, President Trump’s words on the tragedy once again presented that it could be something more. He said early in the evening that after meeting with top military commanders: “They seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind.”
This after speculation and conspiracy theories were rampant throughout the day. After all it is Lebanon, which has witnessed decades of bombings, war, and covert intrigue, also as it borders Israel, war-torn Syria, as well as a corner of the Golan Heights. And the blast was so overwhelming in its force, destroying homes up to ten miles away, local residents thought they were under nuclear attack, especially given it briefly blocked out the sun and a mushroom cloud hovered over the city.
The president further said that it “looks like a terrible attack” — leaving people to again question whether there’s intelligence he’s seen that points to an attack or bombing. According to the AFP:
Trump says military experts tell him Beirut blast a ‘bomb of some kind’.
“It was a bomb of some kind, yes” — he emphasized when questioned on it.
Without providing any evidence, President Trump claims the explosion in #Beirut is a result of an attack.
This contradicts the official statement of the Lebanese prime minister. @akhbarpic.twitter.com/QbfiS6DN68
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) August 4, 2020
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His remarks were made during a Tuesday evening address to reporters:
Trump said he had been briefed by “our great generals” and that they “seem to feel” that the explosion was not an accident.
“According to them – they would know better than I would – but they seem to think it was an attack,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It was a bomb of some kind.”
This has caused Israeli officials to be vehement in their denials that it could have been the result of Israeli attack, amid recent tensions with Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border:
Israeli military sources tell Israeli 10 News reporter: Israel didn’t bomb Beirut. The explosion did not occur in a Hezbollah weapons depot. This was not a security-related event. https://t.co/hgDXFVxZdH
— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) August 4, 2020
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Did Trump just reveal classified information? Was he merely speculating like everyone else?
Are his words based on legitimate intelligence information which contradicts the official story that it was an accident? It remains that he specifically invoked “our great generals” when citing the information.
So the President of the United States is (1) once again publicly revealing highly sensitive national security information; or (2) needlessly exacerbating an already tense and fraught reaction to a tragedy—or both.
Must be Tuesday… https://t.co/OvA7Xs7Vvw
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) August 4, 2020
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It will be interesting to see if the Pentagon issues a follow-up in the wake of the president’s unexpected comments.
Meanwhile Beirut has been declared a ‘disaster zone’ by Lebanon’s defense council, with countries around the world pledging emergency aid.
The actual moment when a massive explosion rocked #Lebanon’s capital city #Beirut pic.twitter.com/zHEpxeTJYC
— eurochan.org (@eurochandotorg) August 4, 2020
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also pledged aid after the “horrible tragedy”.
The US Embassy in Lebanon was warned American citizens and residents in the surrounding area of the potential for toxic gases and chemicals in the air.
“There are reports of toxic gases released in the explosion so all in the area should stay indoors and wear masks if available,” the embassy said on its website.
- Ultra-Wealthy Northeast Town Sees Surge In COVID-19 Cases After 'Secretive' Teen Parties
Ultra-Wealthy Northeast Town Sees Surge In COVID-19 Cases After ‘Secretive’ Teen Parties
Tyler Durden
Tue, 08/04/2020 – 19:45It’s a by now somewhat familiar pattern: upscale posh neighborhood in the northeast takes steps to isolate itself from the pandemic exploding in less fortunate surrounding neighborhoods and areas, only to itself get hit hard through the carelessness of its own residents throwing ‘exclusive’ parties.
A New York Times profile of one such elite area ravaged by COVID-19 begins as follows: “On a warm summer weekday in the middle of July in Greenwich, Conn., one of the wealthiest communities in the country, a group of teenagers gathered at a house party. Many were seniors who had just finished their final year at two elite private college-preparatory schools, Greenwich Academy and the Brunswick School, as well as the local public high school, Greenwich High School, according to accounts from students and school officials.”
Though after weeks of lockdown the particular county appeared to have things under control, the story assures, restless teenagers still continued to party, albeit somewhat furtively, at private beach fronts, mansions, and outside of yacht clubs.
File image via Living Greenwhich “It’s summertime,” one local teen interviewed by NYT said. “It’s beach weather. People are out on boats. They are having parties. And I think they are beginning to let their guard down. It’s critically important that young people understand that they can get the virus and they can spread the virus.”
But local health officials are concerned that a documented “mini-surge” of the virus in Greenwhich is due to groups of carefee, drunk, young people coming together on a regular basis, social distancing be damned.
Reports the Times:
Two weeks after the parties, Greenwich is experiencing what health officials called a “mini surge” of infections, an outbreak that has cascaded through the community and underscored how social gatherings among young people are posing fresh challenges to containing the virus.
More than 20 people between the ages of 16 and 21 have tested positive for the virus, with more cases expected as testing continues, according to Greenwich health officials.
Contact tracers currently attempting to get a handle on how the outbreak spread said that most teens have refused to admit attending the parties, which apparently are common enough knowledge throughout the community, adding to frustrations.
The scenario is bringing into further doubt whether the elite private high school in town, the Brunswick School, can reopen in the fall.
NEW: Ultra-wealthy Greenwich, Conn., is experiencing a jump in virus cases because teens at elite private schools are crowding into house parties.https://t.co/OiCg8890fV
By @mihirzaveri— Cliff Levy (@cliffordlevy) July 31, 2020
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“Caroline Baisley, the health director for Greenwich, said officials first realized something was amiss when they began hearing rumors of large parties around the weekend of July 18,” the story continues.
“In the following weeks, they started looking at testing data and noted a trend — several young people were testing positive.”
“When you start to see multiple 18-year-olds and 17-year-olds, then you have to start to wonder what’s going on here,” Baisley told the Times.
Via The Hartford Courant: Indian Harbor in Greenwich. The Fairfield County town has recently experienced a small surge in coronavirus cases. We should add that perhaps most annoying about this whole trend is that it gives the NY Times and others yet more excuse to compose finger-wagging, moralizing sermons in condemnation of ‘privileged’ northeast suburbs, detailing the ‘evils’ of not staying home.
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