- 20 Years Of Putin
20 Years Of Putin
Today, May 7, 2020, marks twenty years since Vladimir Putin first assumed office as President of Russia and, as this infographic shows, he will have served 24.7 years in power by the end of his current stint in 2024.
You will find more infographics at Statista
As Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, this will bring him close to the length of time Joseph Stalin controlled the Kremlin – 26 years from 1927 to 1953. Even that now looks likely to be beaten by the former KGB agent though after sweeping constitutional changes this year that appear designed to prolong his stay in power.
While it is still unclear which role Putin has in his sights post-2024, this isn’t the first time he has changed the rules to extend his grip on Russian power. During Medvedev’s term a President from 2008 to 2012 the law was changed to extend the presidential term from four to six years.
The new legislation conveniently first came into effect when Putin switched back into the presidential role in 2012.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 05/07/2020 – 02:45 - COVID-19 "Nonsense" Is Exposing Britain's Once-Reliable Office Of National Statistics
COVID-19 “Nonsense” Is Exposing Britain’s Once-Reliable Office Of National Statistics
Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,
The mortality statistics for COVID 19 have been incessantly hammered into our heads by the mainstream media (MSM). Every day they report these hardest of facts to justify the lockdown (house arrest) and to prove to us that living in abject fear of the COVID 19 syndrome is the only sensible reaction.
Apparently, only the most lucrative vaccine ever devised can possibly save us.
The COVID 19 mortality statistics are the reason millions will undoubtedly download contact tracing (State surveillance) apps. This will help the vaccinated to secure their very own immunity passports (identity papers) and enable them to prove they are allowed to exist in the post-COVID 19 society, whenever the State demands to see their authorisation.
But how reliable are these statistics?
What do they really tell us about what is happening outside the confines of our incarceration?
Do they reveal the harsh reality of an unprecedented deadly virus sweeping the nation or does the story of how they have been manipulated, inflated, fudged and exploited tell us something else?
THE ONCE RELIABLE OFFICE OF NATIONAL STATISTICS
In order to register a death in England and Wales, under normal circumstances, a qualified doctor needs to record the cause of death on the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD).
They must then notify the Medical Examiner for a corroborating opinion. Providing the doctor is clear on the cause of death and no irregularities or suspicions are noted, if the Medical Examiner concurs, there is no need to refer the death to a coroner.
The second opinion of the Medical Examiner (another qualified doctor) was introduced in 2016 following a series of high profile systemic abuses. The mass murderer Dr Harold Shipman, and doctors at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and Southern Health NHS Trust, covered up crimes and widespread malpractice by improperly completing MCCDs.
Today, once the Medical Examiner agrees, they then discuss the death with a qualified informant. This is usually someone who knows the deceased. It is an opportunity, more often than not, for a family member or friend to discuss any concerns about the suggested cause of death. If no further issues are raised, the death certificate can be issued to the informant, the Local Registrar notified and the death recorded.
Registered deaths have been recorded in England and Wales since 1837. From 1911 onward the cause of death has been coded in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Maintaining registration records was the responsibility of the General Register Office until 1970 when it became a department of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS). In 1996 the OPCS merged with the Central Statistical Office (CSO) to form the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
There have been some tweaks and legislative changes to the system over the years.
Technology has sped things up a bit, but essentially the simple process of recording registered deaths has changed little over the last century. The ONS have been accurately recording registered deaths in England and Wales for more than 23 years.
From a statistical perspective this consistent, verifiable system has allowed meaningful analysis to inform public health practice and policy for decades. The inbuilt safeguards, maintained and improved over the years, means the ONS provide some of the most reliable mortality statistics in the world.
They record all registered deaths no matter where they occurred in England and Wales. Whether the deceased died in hospital, a care home or in the community, once registration is complete the ONS add it to their statistics.
For weekly statistics the ONS week runs from Saturday to Friday and the statistics are released 11 days after the week ending date. There may be an additional lag for a small number of more complex cases. However, all are eventually resolved and the ONS record the registration of the death in the week it was notified. The ONS also release mortality statistics on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis for comparison.
This does not suit a hungry MSM eager to sensationalise reported COVID 19 deaths. Nor does it serve the immediate interests of State officials who want the public to accept their own house arrest.
Consequently the MSM have reported COVID 19 mortality statistics from a variety of sources. Some from the NHS, some from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and eventually the ONS.
Now the Care Quality Commission have also been thrown into the mix.
Ultimately, all of these deaths will be registered. The ONS will record them and it will be possible to know how many died, the causes of death and the trends identified.
Except in the case of COVID 19.
THE VAGUE CASE OF A COVID 19 DEATH
The Coronavirus Act 2020 received Royal assent on March 25th. This had significant implications for the registration of deaths and the accuracy of ONS data in relation to COVID 19.
Not only did the act indemnify all NHS doctors against any claims of negligence during the lockdown, it also removed the need for a jury led inquest. Effectively, only in the case of death from the notifiable disease of COVID 19. Worrying as these elements of the legislation are, they are just part of a raft of changes singling out registered COVID 19 deaths as unusually imprecise.
The NHS issued guidance to assist doctors to comply with the new legislation. Any doctor can sign the MCCD. There is no need for the scrutiny of a second Medical Examiner. The Medical Examiner, or any other doctor, can sign the MCCD alone. The safeguards introduced in 2016 were removed, but only in the case of COVID 19.
Doctors do not necessarily need to have examined the deceased prior to signing the MCCD. If it is considered impractical for the doctor who last saw the deceased to complete the MCCD, providing they report that the deceased probably had COVID 19, any other qualified doctor can sign the death certificate as a COVID 19 death.
There is no requirement for any signing doctor to have even seen the deceased prior to issuing the MCCD. A video link consultation within the 4 week period leading up to the patient’s death, is deemed sufficient for them to pronounce death from COVID 19.
If that were not tenuous enough, as long as the signing doctor believes the death was from COVID 19, potentially absent any examination at all, perhaps simply by reviewing the patient’s case notes, if a coroner agrees, a COVID 19 death can still be registered.
The coroner’s agreement is practically a fait accomplis. On the 26th March the UK State released guidance from the Chief Coroner. This was intended as advice to all coroners in cases of COVID 19 referral.
There were some notable changes to normal coronal procedures. Paragraph 5 strongly reminded coroners of their obligation to maintain judicial conduct. It stated:
The Chief Coroner cannot envisage a situation in the current pandemic where a coroner should be engaging in interviews with the media or making any public statements to the press.”
This thinly veiled threat to coroners made it clear that speaking out about any concerns would be considered a breech of judicial conduct. A career-ending act it would seem.
Social distancing is essential
The NHS guidance advised that if no signing doctor has seen the deceased prior to registration of death, a referral to the coroner must be made. This is a procedural recommendation, not a legal requirement. A legal requirement is only applicable in cases of unknown or suspicious causes of death. In turn, the Chief Coroner’s guidance states:
“COVID-19 is a naturally occurring disease and therefore is capable of being a natural cause of death […] the aim of the system should be that every death from COVID-19 which does not in law require referral to the coroner should be dealt with via the MCCD process.”
The Coronavirus Act 2020 also meant that a qualified informant, who agrees with the cause of death on the MCCD, no longer needed to be anyone acquainted with the deceased. A hospital official, someone who is ‘in charge of a body’ or a funeral director can perform this vital function. The Chief Coroner advised:
“For registration: where next of kin/informant are following self-isolation procedures, the arrangement for relatives (etc) should be for an alternative informant who has not been in contact with the patient to collect the MCCD and deliver to the registrar for registration purposes. The provisions in the Coronavirus Act will enable this to be done electronically as directed by the Registrar General.”
Most relatives, or someone acquainted with the deceased, will be following self-isolation procedures. They will almost certainly be terrified of contracting COVID19 because they have just been told their loved one or friend died from it. Furthermore, the Coronavirus Act has effectively placed them under house arrest.
In other words, if the MCCD signing doctor hasn’t seen the patient, while they were alive, no further inquiry is necessary. The qualified informant can be someone who has neither met the deceased nor knows anything about the circumstances surrounding their death.
In this situation, but only for COVID19 deaths, it is fine to assume the death was from the disease. If you, the coroner, don’t like the idea, don’t make a fuss. Just sign the damn thing or else.
IMPACTING THE COVID19 STATISTICS
This quite bizarre death registration process compelled the ONS to issue guidance to doctors signing MCCDs. Not only is there no need for an examination to pronounce death from COVID19, nor is there any necessity for a positive test or even an indicative CT scan.
In their guidance the ONS advised doctors on what constitutes an acceptable underlying cause of death. When mortality statistics are used for research it is usually the most relevant factor. The vast majority of COVID19 deaths reported by the State and the MSM also reflect its identification as the underlying cause.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) define this as:
“The disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death.”
For COVID19, this determination can be based upon the clinical judgement of a doctor who has never met the deceased. Quite possibly following nothing more than a video link consultation or a case note review of symptoms.
The problem is the symptoms of COVID19 are largely indistinguishable from a range of other respiratory illnesses. A study from the University of Toronto found:
“The symptoms can vary, with some patients remaining asymptomatic, while others present with fever, cough, fatigue, and a host of other symptoms. The symptoms may be similar to patients with influenza or the common cold.”
Nor is there any requirement for a post mortem to confirm the presence of COVID19. Guidance from the Royal College of Pathologists states:
“If a death is believed to be due to confirmed COVID-19 infection, there is unlikely to be any need for a post-mortem examination to be conducted and the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death should be issued.”
Clear causation between the underlying cause and the direct cause is imperative to establish the fact. Just because someone tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 (SC2) virus it doesn’t mean they developed the associated syndrome of COVID19.
The Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine found that anything between 5% – 80% of people who tested positive for SC2 did not have any symptoms of COVID19. Asymptomatic people do not have a disease which impacts their health in the short term. Even for those who did test positive for SC2, claims that this was the underlying cause of death are dubious in an unknown number of cases.
Following the Coronavirus Act, in keeping with advice from the NHS, the ONS advised doctors:
“If before death the patient had symptoms typical of COVID-19 infection, but the test result has not been received, it would be satisfactory to give ‘COVID-19’ as the cause of death….In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement.”
This isn’t unique to COVID19. Doctors are required to complete MCCDs “to the best of their knowledge and belief” even when test results may not yet be available. The difference in the case of COVID19 is that all the normal requirements for qualified confirmatory opinions and every opportunity to question the cause of death have been removed.
In addition, the need to complete Cremation form 5, requiring a second medical opinion, has been suspended for all COVID19 deaths. Given that post mortem confirmation is also extremely unlikely and agreement from a coroner is all but assured, this means possible COVID19 decedents can be cremated without any clear evidence they ever had the disease.
In light of all the other registration oddities for determining COVID19 mortality, the direct causation, proving COVID19 was the underlying cause of death, appears extremely doubtful. We just don’t know how many people have died from COVID19. We are told many people have, but we cannot state with any certainty what the numbers are. Neither can the ONS.
Obviously concerned about the implications, the Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) have called for a systemic post outbreak review. The Health Service Journal reports that the RCPath expects a detailed investigation into causes of death due to the degree of uncertainty.
STATISTICALLY IT GETS WORSE
The overwhelming majority of medical and care staff, coroners, pathologists, ONS statisticians and funeral directors have no desire to mislead anyone. However, in the case of COVID19 deaths, the State has created a registration system so ambiguous it is virtually useless. The statistical product recorded by the ONS, despite their best efforts, is correspondingly vacuous.
This hasn’t stopped the State and the MSM from reporting every death as proof of the deadliness of COVID19. Claims of COVID19 as the underlying cause of death should be treated with considerable scepticism.
Initially the daily reports were based upon the figures of COVID19 deaths released by the NHS via the DHSC. These were the numbers with positive test results. The ONS also recorded positive test registrations from the NHS, care settings and the community.
As discussed, a positive test for SC2 doesn’t necessarily mean you suffered any health impact from COVID19. In addition, the test itself has proved to have a varying degree of reliability.
Nonetheless, the ONS figures from all settings, were higher than those reported by the MSM and the State in their daily briefings. However, the reliance upon positive tests changed on March 29th.
The State instructed the ONS not only to record all registered COVID19 deaths, where positive tests results were known, but also where COVID19 was merely suspected. In combination with the possibly spurious attribution from hospitals, this ‘mention’ of COVID19, further distanced the statistics from clear, confirmed causes of death.
This prompted a significant increase in the COVID19 fatalities reported by the ONS. Not because more people were dying from it, but because the categorisation of COVID19 deaths had changed. Any mention of COVID19 anywhere on the death certificate, regardless of other comorbidities, such as heart failure or cancer, were now recorded as registered COVID19 deaths by the ONS.
This addition of claimed COVID19 deaths has punctuated the ONS data throughout the outbreak. While we are told by the MSM that these new figures better reflect the reality of COVID19 mortality, in truth we are moving further away from any meaningful record.
The evidence suggests the methodology has been altered at opportune moments to inflate and maintain the mortality statistics. Just after the virus peak of infection and the start of the lockdown, the State instructed the ONS to include suspected “mentions” of COVID19. Again, as the recorded numbers of deaths were dropping, the State started releasing more figures from the care sector. From April 29th they have introduced additional figures provided by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
If the figures from the NHS are at best questionable, the figures from the CQC run the risk of moving us into fantasy land. All the same problems of decedents not being seen, video consultations, lack of corroborative medical opinion and so forth remain. However, in care settings the onus for signing MCCDs shifts from hospital doctors to General Practitioners (GP’s).
The CQC is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. During the COVID19 outbreak it has not required care homes or community care providers to notify them of suspected cases. It has also suspended all inspections.
From the 29th April the CQC will provide statistics to the ONS where a “care home provider has stated COVID-19 as a suspected or confirmed cause of death.” This notification is made online via the CQC’s Provider Portal. Provisional figures will be included in the ONS daily updates.
The CQC is tasked with making sure decedents from care homes who died in hospital are removed from the reports before submitting them to the ONS. Otherwise massive duplication will occur. We can only hope statisticians will be extremely diligent.
The ONS has reported what these statistics from the CQC will be based upon. Frankly, it makes jaw dropping reading. The ONS state:
“The inclusion of a death in the published figures as being the result of COVID-19 is based on the statement of the care home provider, which may or may not correspond to a medical diagnosis or test result, or be reflected in the death certification.”
Most care home providers are not medically trained. Their judgement regarding whether or not the decedent had COVID19 may well be the result of a once weekly phone call with a GP. Guidance to GP’s from NHS England states that Possible COVID19 patients should be identified primarily by weekly check-ins online.
This is in keeping with the NHS Key Principles of General Practice, in relation to COVID19, which states:
Remote consultations should be used when possible. Consider the use of video consultations when appropriate.”
The ONS add:
There is no validation built into the quality of data on collection. Fields may be left blank or may contain information that is contradictory, and this may not be resolved at the point of publication. Most pertinent to this release are place of death and whether the death was as a result of confirmed or suspected coronavirus.
This is the system the CQC will use to collect the data for the ONS reports. Once someone, either in a care home or cared for in the community, is assumed to have died of COVID19, based upon the best guess of the care provider following a chat with a local GP, in keeping with the process we have already discussed, their MCCD will be signed off as a COVID19 death.
The ONS will add their death to the COVID19 statistics and the State and the MSM will report them to the public as confirmed COVID19 mortality.
How anyone can consider the statistics from care providers an accurate and reliable record of COVID19 deaths is difficult to envisage. Nonetheless, that is what we are asked to believe.
THE STATE AND MSM COVID19 FUDGE
All we are able to identify with any certainty are the total number of of all deaths, called all cause mortality, reported by the ONS. We cannot be confident about what caused those deaths during the COVID19 outbreak.
The State has presided over a truly remarkable bastardisation of the ONS data for COVID19. This has not only rendered records of COVID19 deaths a statistical black hole but, during the claimed pandemic, has also made the ONS data for other causes of excess mortality practically unknowable.
Especially for the ONS, any chance of accurately separating COVID19 deaths from other causes of mortality has been completely obliterated by State diktat. For the first time in their history the ONS are reporting a relatively large number of highly dubious registered causes of death. However, they remain our best hope of knowing how many people have passed away.
In the meantime, while we wait for the ONS data to emerge, the MSM are reporting every COVID19 death from any source they can find. Some are vaguely confirmed and some not. They are also reporting suspected COVID19 deaths from care homes, provisional figures from the NHS , the CQC and then the same figures again from the DHSC and later the ONS.
The narrative they are presenting, on the back of this hodgepodge of statistical irrelevance, is designed to convince the public of the severity of the outbreak in the UK. There is clearly high excess mortality at the moment. Thanks to the lockdown, this is happening while the NHS is essentially closed to everyone other than suspected COVID19 patients.
Early studies have already predicted a significant health impact from the lack of essential health care caused by the lockdown. People requiring treatment for a range of other potentially fatal conditions aren’t getting it. This was acknowledged by the UK’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Witty in the daily briefing on April 30th:
“…You have the direct deaths from coronavirus but also indirect deaths. Part of which is caused by the NHS and public health services not being able to do what they normally can to look after people with other conditions….It is therefore important…..to do the other important things like urgent cancer care, elective surgery and all the other thing like screening….which we need to do to keep people healthy.”
How many people have died of other causes, due to the lockdown, only to be registered as COVID19 deaths? We just don’t know and the ONS have no way of finding out.
However we do know, thanks to the ONS, the total all cause mortality as a percentage of population in England and Wales over recent decades. This analysis shows us, while excess mortality this year is high, it is by no means unprecedented. In fact, as a percentage of population, it is notably lower to the comparable years of 1995, 1996, 1998 and 1999. Yet none of these years necessitated the shut down of the economy nor the dire health consequences of closing the NHS to all but a few patients.
Between 27th March and 17th April (ONS weeks 14,15 & 16) the ONS registered 25,932 additional deaths above the statistical recent 5 year norm. Of these 11,427 recorded COVID19 as the sole mentioned underlying cause.
We have just explored the considerable doubt about this attribution. However, if we accept this figure, it means the remaining 14,505 people died with other registered underlying causes. That means approximately 56% of additional excess mortality is attributable to something else, either in addition to or entirely separate from suggested COVID19.
Given this inexplicable Spring mortality, it seems highly likely these are at least some of the indirect deaths the UK’s Chief Medical Officer spoke of. To claim all these excess deaths are the result of COVID19, as the State and MSM persistently do, is without any justification whatsoever.
It is not possible to identify how many people have died as a direct result of COVID19 either from the registration of deaths or the resultant statistics. This is not the fault of medical practitioners or statisticians. It is caused by a State response to a claimed pandemic which has rendered the most crucial processes, and the data gleaned from them, a statistical nonsense.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 05/07/2020 – 02:00 - China Readies Unveiling Of Stealth Nuclear Bomber Capable Of Reaching LA
China Readies Unveiling Of Stealth Nuclear Bomber Capable Of Reaching LA
President Trump is preparing to ‘turbocharge‘ deglobalization by removing critical supply chains from China could be seen with new rounds of tariffs to strike Beijing. Heighten tensions between Washington and Beijing are expected to develop over the summer months as the “evolution of the pandemic and economic crash appears to be deepening geopolitical tensions” between both countries, we noted Monday.
In response to rising tensions, China decided to leak via “military sources” that it will unveil the Xian H-20 supersonic stealth bomber later this year, effectively doubling its country’s striking range. The bomber is expected to make its first public appearance in November at the Zhuhai Airshow, reported South China Morning Post (SCMP).
H-20 “The Zhuhai Airshow is expected to become a platform to promote China’s image and its success in pandemic control – telling the outside world that the contagion did not have any big impacts on the Chinese defense industry enterprises,” a source told SCMP.
The emergence of the stealth bomber will increase tensions with Washington, considering the plane can strike Hawaii or Los Angeles with hypersonic or nuclear weapons. Australia, Japan, Guam, Philippines, and the Korean peninsula are other areas that the bomber could strike with air-launched missiles or smart bombs, many of these areas are home to US military bases.
“The Beijing leadership is still carefully considering whether its commission will affect regional balance, especially as regional tensions have been escalating over the Covid-19 pandemic,” another source said.
“Like intercontinental ballistic missiles, all strategic bombers can be used for delivering nuclear weapons … if China claimed it had pursued a national defense policy which is purely defensive in nature, why would it need such an offensive weapon?” the source said.
The stealth bomber has a range of approximately 8,500 kilometers (5,300 miles). Hypersonic missiles can be stored in internal weapon bays, which could greatly expand the striking range. The arrival of the plane comes as tensions heat up in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
And it’s now clear why the US military elephant walked five dozen stealth jets and a bunch of B-52 bombers earlier this year as a show of force against Beijing.
Commissioning of the stealth bomber, along with increased production of the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter jets, could further cement China’s fifth-generation fleet of aircraft that would be strong competitors against the “F-35 friend circle” that Washington has installed across Asia.
H-20 (left) and J-20s (right) And to make matters worse, an internal report presented to Chinese President Xi Jinping recommended that he must prepare the country for armed conflict with the US.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 05/07/2020 – 01:00 - America's Design Causes It To Fail The COVID-19 Challenge
America’s Design Causes It To Fail The COVID-19 Challenge
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
America isn’t the only country which is so corrupt as to stand at or near the top of the global coronavirus-infection rankings, but, as the June 2020 issue of The Atlantic headlines, “We Are Living in a Failed State: The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.” Why did this happen?
Virtually all other industrialized countries have social-welfare systems in place, such as health-insurance covering 100% of the population; and, consequently, the residents there don’t lose their health insurance if they lose their job — they therefore aren’t desperate to show up for work even when they are sick or can spread an epidemic.
Americans generally are desperate to go to work even if they might be spreading the coronavirus-19. They need the pay and the insurance coverage in order to be able to buy medical care. If they don’t pay for it they won’t get it. So: whomever does show up for work might reasonably be especially inclined to fear likely to catch the disease from a co-worker there. This is one of the many reasons why socializing the healthcare function is vastly more efficient than leaving it to market forces.
On April 23rd, Reuters reported that, “U.S. workers who refuse to return to their jobs because they are worried about catching the coronavirus should not count on getting unemployment benefits, state officials and labor law experts say.”
In such states, the unemployment-benefits system is being used as a cudgel so as to force employees back to work, and therefore to increase the percentage of the population who will become infected by the coronavirus-19.
Furthermore, prisons are among the institutions that especially increase the spread of an epidemic such as Covid-19. And the United States has a higher percentage of its residents in prison than does any other country in the world. In fact, almost all of the Americans who are in prison are poor (since 100% of the poor cannot afford a lawyer), and the poorer a person is, the likelier that the individual is to get coronavirus-19.
This is yet another reason why prisons are a prime place for the spread of the disease. And on April 26th, the New York Times headlined “As Coronavirus Strikes Prisons, Hundreds of Thousands Are Released: The virus has spread rapidly in overcrowded prisons across the world, leading governments to release inmates en masse.” Since America has more of its population in prison than any other country does (lots more: whereas “The world prison population rate, based on United Nations estimates of national population levels, is 145 per 100,000”, America has 655 per 100,000, or 4.5 prisoners for every 1.0 prisoner in the entire world), America has vastly more production of coronavirus-19 that’s generated by its being a police-state than any other country does — and this isn’t even taking into consideration the rotten, overburdened, health-care system, and the billionaire-propagandized public contempt for the poor, that characterize America’s culture, and that make those prisons, perhaps, the worst amongst industrialized nations.
Furthermore, in America, “Approximately 95 percent of criminal cases are plea-bargained, in part because public defenders are too overwhelmed to take them to trial. ‘That means the state never even has to prove you did anything. They hold all the cards.’” So, the Constitutional protections, such as trial-by-jury and all of the other on-paper protections, don’t even apply, in reality, to at least 95% of criminal defendants. And, in many U.S. states, convicts — and even ex-convicts — aren’t allowed to vote. America’s billionaires also use many other ways to keep down the percentage of the poor who vote.
Taken all together (and to list the other details would fill a book), America’s systematized intense discrimination against the poor constitutes virtually an invitation to this country’s having exceptional vulnerability to any epidemic. The fact that America now has 33.3% of the world’s coronavirus-19 cases, though only 4.2% of the world’s population, is actually systemic, and not merely particular to this moment in this country, and in the entire world. Donald Trump, and the current U.S. Congress, are part of a system of oppression, not really exceptions to it (such as the billionaires’ media pretend — with Democratic billionaires blaming “the Republicans,” and Republican billionaires blaming “the Democrats”). The way this Government performs is actually somewhat normal for this country since at least 1980.
In addition, prior to the coronavirus challenge, both America and UK have been reducing, instead of increasing, their social protections; and, therefore, they were the only industrialized nations where life-expectancies were declining even before the coronavirus-19 hit. The recognition and concern about this decline started in UK, but has now started to be published even in the U.S.
British healthcare scholar Danny Dorling headlined at his “Political Insight” blog on 16 July 2016, “Austerity, Rapidly Worsening Public Health across the UK” and reported that “the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) released its latest annual mortality figures – on schedule. An unprecedented rise in mortality was reported which was revealed to have risen across all the countries of the UK.” Then, on 8 July 2018, London’s Daily Express bannered “Britain is the ONLY European country with a declining life expectancy – inquiry launched”. Then, on 8 March 2019, the blog of the British Medical Journal headlined “The deepening health crisis in the UK requires society wide, political intervention” and reported that UK’s life-expectancy had been plunging since 2014. The BMJ then issued an article on 27 March 2020, “Things Fall Apart: the British Health Crisis 2010–2020”. In other words: coronavirus hit UK at a time when the Government was already moving away from socializing and into privatizing health care; and, as a consequence, the death-rates had already started increasing in 2015. Coronavirus kills mainly people who already have bad health; and, so, their population were maximally vulnerable to it at the time when this epidemic struck.
Meanwhile, the same shortening of life-spans was also occurring in the U.S. On 29 November 2018, London’s Daily Mail bannered “American life expectancy DROPS as suicides and drug overdoses soar and progress against heart disease grinds to a halt, CDC data reveal”. A year later, the JAMA Network headlined on 26 November 2019, “Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017” and reported that “Between 1959 and 2016, US life expectancy increased from 69.9 years to 78.9 years but declined for 3 consecutive years after 2014.” So: both UK and U.S. life-spans peaked in 2014. Unlike virtually all other nations, these two were declining in health.
Even prior to 2015, the U.S. was wasting around half of its entire public-and-private spending for health care — it was the most inefficient healthcare system on the planet — and therefore had significantly lower life-expectancies than all other industrialized countries did. But, now, those remarkably low life-spans are actually getting even lower.
Political-science studies that are based upon decades of reliably reported data have established that ever since around 1980, the United States has been a dictatorship: what the public wants (and even needs) is basically ignored, but what the super-rich (the country’s actual dictators) simply want becomes reflected in governmental policies. That’s the very definition of a “dictatorship.” The U.S. national Government is responsive to the wants of its billionaires, not to the needs of the public (such as protecting their health, education, and welfare, even when the billionaires don’t want it to).The findings in one of these studies are summarized well in a six-minute video, here. Although the billionaires who fund America’s liberal Party, the Democratic Party, oppose the billionaires who fund the Republican Party (the conservative Party — the one that’s overtly in favor of the existing wealth-inequality), this is purely for PR purposes. Whenever the issue becomes their own wealth versus improving the wealth and economic opportunity for the poor, they all go for expanding their own empire (sometimes by funding a tax-exempt ‘charity’ that will increase, even more, their personal control over the total empire — by using that tax-exemption to leverage the operation, which will be controlled by themselves instead of by the public tax-funded government). Such ‘charities’ are mainly tax-dodges.
However, in all countries, the people who are the most vulnerable to epidemics are the poor. This also means that the infection-rates and spreading of the disease are the highest amongst the poorest. And, in this epidemic, the interests of the super-rich are opposite to the interests of everybody else. And, since the U.S. Government has, for decades now, been serving predominantly the super-rich, instead of the public, the people who are the most at risk are also the most ignored. This is even proud policy (‘fiscal responsibility’, etc.) in the Republican Party. Bailing-out investors is ‘necessary’, but bailing out employees and consumers is ‘fiscally irresponsible’. For example, on April 27th, the Democrat David Sirota headlined “Red States Owe Workers More Than $500 Billion — The GOP Is Trying to Steal The Money: Trump is boosting a McConnell plan to help states renege on promised retirement and health benefits to millions of workers and retirees.” And he is correct. However, his Party is going to be compromising with that (instead of adamantly refuse to accept it and then go on the political hustings shaming the Republican President and Congress-members so as to break them on their blatantly scandalous whoring to the entire billionaire-class, who want their investments to be bailed out before the public is — which might turn out to be never). It’s a “good cop, bad cop,” routine, to protect the super-rich. It accepts holding the public hostage to what the big political donors want, instead of focuses against that as being the central political issue of the moment, and of at least post-1980 America.
This is ‘democracy’-as-political-scam. For example: some of the Democratic billionaires, who fund anti-Trump ads, pretend to be Republicans, in order to be able to peel off some of Trump’s Republican voters, and so are blaming Trump alone for America’s catastrophically bad performance in the coronavirus-crisis. They’re just trying to deceive their suckers into voting for Joe Biden, or else not voting at all; and, so, their ad doesn’t even so much as just mention Biden. It’s a Biden ad that makes no mention of Biden. It hides its true motive. That’s typical.
This is the reason why America is designed so as to fail the coronavirus-19 challenge. The power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country. It controls both Parties and their respective media, so the public don’t know (and certainly cannot understand) the types of realities that are being reported (and linked-to) here.
It’s also the reason why Joe Biden’s “plan” for dealing with the coronavirus epidemic is just as bad a joke on the voters as Trump’s is. This is a failing country, which is failing in a bipartisan (both Republican and Democratic Party) way.
A “good cop, bad cop” government is, in reality, all bad cop.
(I therefore proposed an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in order to rectify some of the reasons behind this structural failure of the U.S. Government. Perhaps the only alternative to that would be violent revolution, but it would probably make things even worse, not better.)
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 23:45 - California County To Remove COVID-19 Patients From Homes Based On 'Living Situation' — Will Place In 'Other Kinds Of Housing'
California County To Remove COVID-19 Patients From Homes Based On ‘Living Situation’ — Will Place In ‘Other Kinds Of Housing’
Officials in Ventura County, California will be expanding coronavirus testing, tracking the infected and those who they’ve been in contact with, and moving people out of their homes and into specialized housing for COVID-19 patients.
Discussing the need to hire contact tracers and manage active cases, Ventura County Public Health Director Dr. Robert Levin said during a May 4 press conference that people who live in homes where they could expose family members to COVID-19 would be moved into ‘other kinds of housing’ provided by the county.
“We also realize that as we find more contacts, some of the people we find are going to have trouble being isolated,” said Levin. “For instance, if they live in a home where there is only one bathroom and there are three or four other people living there, and those people don’t have COVID infection, we’re not going to be able to keep the person in that home.
Every person who we’re isolating, for instance, needs to have their own bathroom. And so we’ll be moving people like this into other kinds of housing that we have available.”
Watch:
The county walked back Levin’s comments on Facebook, responding that they “are not going to remove anyone from their home,” but that “If someone cannot isolate at their home because of their living situation we have alternative options available.”
Another Facebook user responded, “they can try — they will have a fight on their hands.“
Ventura county has had 595 COVID-19 cases, of which 416 have recovered, 22 are hospitalized, 11 of which are in the ICU, and 19 have died. Most cases are in those aged 45-64, while no data was provided on average age of death.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 23:25 - Poseidon Multi-Purpose Oceanic System And Russian Undersea Warfare
Poseidon Multi-Purpose Oceanic System And Russian Undersea Warfare
Submitted by SouthFront,
The Poseidon has been described as a “nuclear torpedo”, which is true in at least one sense, namely its propulsion. The Poseidon is, by all accounts, powered by a nuclear reactor which makes it a submersible equivalent of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, with an effectively global range. It is for all intents and purposes an unmanned miniature nuclear-powered submarine, with all the benefits that nuclear propulsion bestows on a submarine. The absence of a crew eliminates the need for heavy shielding and allows speeds considerably in excess of even the fastest submarines.
Its top speed is estimated at between 60 and 100 knots, with the upper end of the scale being comfortably in excess of all torpedoes except for the short-ranged, supercavitating rocket-propelled Shkval. And while conventional torpedoes can develop high speeds only at the expense of range, due to the limited propellant or battery charge, nuclear propulsion means high speeds can be sustained for longer periods of time, subject only to the design’s mechanical limitations.
Virtually all descriptions of the Poseidon describe it as a nuclear delivery vehicle, for use primarily against coastal targets such as cities and naval bases, and possibly also against mobile naval high-value targets such as aircraft carrier battlegroups. However, this application is too limited in usefulness to warrant the development of a costly system like the Poseidon and specialized submarines designed to carry it. Even an extremely powerful thermonuclear warhead would have to be brought quite close to the target in order for the underwater explosion to cause significant damage to the coastal site. In many cases, the high-value target may be considerably inland, like Washington, D.C., or shielded by natural coastal features, like New York City. In order to strike them, the large and heavy Poseidon would have to maneuver at slow speed in shallow coastal waters where it would be vulnerable to underwater defenses that would be surely developed to cope with it.
This points to the likelihood of the nuclear delivery mission being one, and possibly not even the most important, of missions that it will be called upon to carry out. A Poseidon diagram shown on Russian TV pointedly referred to it as a “multi-purpose oceanic system”, which rather strongly suggests that it is not only, or even primarily, a nuclear delivery system. Cruise and ballistic missiles, even with conventional and nuclear payloads, are not referred to as “multi-purpose systems”, either. Likewise the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile is also not referred to as a “multi-purpose” system.
In keeping with the general pattern of unmanned combat system development in Russia, which increasingly seeks to pair unmanned systems with manned ones to fully exploit the strengths and cover the weaknesses of each, it is entirely possible that Poseidon is intended to function not as an underwater Burevestnik, but rather as the equivalent of the stealthy Okhotnik combat drone developed as a “wingman” vehicle for the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter.
The peculiar qualities of deep ocean as a theater of war, particularly its opacity to sensors and limits on weapon speed mean that a combat underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV) would be of even greater use to a manned submarine than a combat crone accompanying a stealth fighter. But the support function would be essentially the same. The unmanned platform could enhance the lethality and survivability of the manned one by serving as a platform for sensors, weapons, and in extreme conditions even as a decoy.
The size of the Poseidon, specifically the 1.6m diameter and the length of 24m, suggest considerable internal volume suitable for a variety of configurable payloads, though it is unlikely these payloads could be changed once the Poseidon was loaded onto its carrier submarine. In addition to the already mentioned nuclear warheads, these payloads could include sensors, including sonar arrays, and even anti-submarine torpedoes. An early artist’s impression of the Poseidon actually depicted an underwater vehicle akin to a miniature submarine, complete with an array of torpedo tubes.
That the Poseidon has a broader range of intended capabilities than simply acting as a nuclear delivery vehicle is also suggested by the submarines being built to act as carriers for these torpedoes. There are currently two boats under construction that are intended for this role, the K-329 Belgorod, and the Khabarovsk.
The Belgorod, in particular, is interesting as a Poseidon launch platform because it is not a boat intended mainly for the “kinetic” combat role. Rather, this heavily modified Project 949A cruise missile submarine design is intended to act as a mother ship for the highly classified Losharik deep-diving research submarine, Shelf energo-capsules for the Harmoniya underwater sensor system network, and the Klavesin UUVs. While the diagrams crafted by the respected British undersea warfare analyst H I Sutton have the Belgorod carry Poseidons in forward-mounted horizontal torpedo tubes, the fact that the Belgorod is already extensively fitted for the external docking and internal recovery of manned and unmanned undersea vehicles could also mean that the Poseidon will be launched and recovered from launch bays. The original Project 949A design reserved extensive volume for a battery of 24 Granit anti-ship cruise missiles, whose launch tubes were arrayed on both sides of the hull in banks of 12. But if Sutton’s assessment of the Belgorod as being narrower than Project 949A, with a circular hull cross-section, then the Poseidon could still be carried in payload bays from which it could swim out and be recovered into.
Sutton’s analysis of photographs from the launch of the Belgorod led him to believe the boat is fitted with thrusters for precise undersea maneuvers, which would be required if the boat is to recover undersea vehicles. However, even if the Poseidon is carried in launch tubes and is not recoverable by the carrier submarine, the choice of Belgorod, a dedicated special-missions submarine, would be odd if Poseidon were intended only as a nuclear delivery vehicle.
Even less is known of the Khabarovsk, which is a purpose-designed boat whose main weapon system is supposed to be the Poseidon. Again, Sutton assumes that Poseidon torpedoes would be carried in torpedo tubes in the front of the hull, but the size of the Khabarovsk, a boat of estimated 10,000 ton displacement and 120m length, or only 40m shorter than the Borei SSBN, means there is ample volume for a swim-out launch and recovery bay. It is not yet clear what place Khabarovsk occupies in the Russian vision of undersea warfare. Perhaps it is intended as a mothership for an array of Poseidons with various payloads, to support operations of other submarines, including as escorts for ballistic missile submarines. It is also possible it is a prototype of a future class of attack submarines that will carry one or more Poseidons with conventional weapon and sensor payloads as a standard fit.
Being a world leader in nuclear technology, it is not surprising to see Russia leverage this advantage by creating novel aerial and naval platforms such as the Burevestnik and Poseidon. The coming years will no doubt provide additional information on their actual capabilities. It is already evident that Russia is not lagging behind in the development of novel applications for unmanned platforms.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 23:05 - 'We Have To Adjust To New Reality' – Pandemic Leads To Surge In Americans Drinking At Home
‘We Have To Adjust To New Reality’ – Pandemic Leads To Surge In Americans Drinking At Home
Alcohol sales for home consumption jumped $2 billion more since the start of March than last year, while a top beer producer said the increase in sales at home would not offset lost ones seen at restaurants and bars.
A little more than half a month into lockdowns, around the first week of April, we mentioned how Americans were turning to beer, porn, pot, and chocolate, to cope with coronavirus pandemic stress. The Financial Times has now published alcohol sales data that shows drinking at home soared during lockdowns.
Data analytics firm IRI reported that by mid-April, retailers’ total alcohol sales hit $9 billion over the seven weeks. Sales of spirits increased, including tequila and gin surged 39% to $1.3 billion, and wine rose 28% to $2 billion. Beer also soared 20% to $5.5 billion.
Gavin Hattersley, CEO of Molson Coors, in an earnings call last week, spoke about the “challenging” environment for producers as supply chains disruptions are materializing:
“But obviously, there is no doubt that this is really a challenging time for us, not just for our business, but for everybody in our industry. And our focus, as I said, right now is mitigating the short-term business challenges and positioning our business to succeed in the long-term,” Hattersley said.
“From a sales to wholesalers point of view, the impact of the Milwaukee brewery tragedy as Tracey I think said was from a shipments point of view in February and early March and because of that our inventory levels at the end of March were lower than we would have liked.”
While drinking in quarantine did not offset the collapse in sales from restaurants and bars, Molson Coors reported net sales fell 8.7% in 1Q20 YoY.
The chief economist of the National Beer Wholesalers Association Lester Jones said: “I’m confident there will be plenty of beer, although I don’t know if it’s going to be in the right packages and the right formats that people expect.”
What Jones is describing is exactly what is happening to farmers at the moment. Since restaurants, hotels, resorts, cruise ships, cafeterias, etc., have shuttered operations during lockdowns, these establishments usually order bulk food – and for farmers to rework supply chains from bulk to individual packaging, well that takes time and money. Hence, this is one reason why food supply chains have become disrupted across the country.
Jones added: “Given that we all planned months ago to have a very different market, we have to quickly adjust to the new reality.”
Anheuser-Busch InBev is expected to share new data later this week on drinking habits during the pandemic.
To sum up, the pandemic is changing the way America drinks, lives, and how the economy functions. It has also allowed for people to save money in greater amounts as they have never done before. We noted last week the personal savings rate has exploded to decade highs.
It only took a pandemic for Americans to figure out that drinking at home is much cheaper than going out (which allows them to save money) because what’s ahead is an economic downturn that could last years.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 22:45 - Beijing May Dump US Treasuries In Response To US Hostility, Start Its Own QE: Chinese Media
Beijing May Dump US Treasuries In Response To US Hostility, Start Its Own QE: Chinese Media
In response to recent media speculation that as the blame game over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic escalates the US may cancel some of its $1.1 trillion debt owed to China, the South China Morning Post reported today that China may “move to reduce its vast holdings of US Treasury securities in the coming months” in response to a resurgence in trade tensions and a war of words between the world’s two largest economies.
While analysts have also said that the US was highly unlikely to take the “nuclear option” of cancelling Chinese-held debt, with Larry Kudlow himself refuting this suggestion on several occasions last week, the “mere fact that the idea has been discussed could well prompt Beijing to seek to insulate itself from the risk by reducing its US government debt holdings”, the SCMP writes.
And while the SCMP then suggests that this “could spell trouble for the US government bond market at a time when Washington is significantly ramping up new issuance to pay for a series of programs to combat the pandemic and the economic damage it is causing”, nothing could be further from the truth: yes, the US Treasury will issue over $4 trillion in new debt this calendar year, but now that the US officially lives under central planning, courtesy of helicopter money, the Fed will monetize not just every dollar the Treasury issues, but will monetize double the net issuance.
Which means that not only does the US not need China to buy its debt ever again, the US in fact does not need anyone outside the Fed, now that open debt and deficit monetization is the endgame, with the only unknown is when this will lead to currency collapse.
Surprisingly, the Chinese still don’t get that any tactical advantage they may have had is now gone:
any move to cancel the debt owed to China – effectively defaulting on it – would be counterproductive to US interests because it would likely destroy investors’ faith in the trustworthiness of the US government to pay its bills, analysts warned.
This would send US interest rates soaring, making borrowing more costly for the government, as well US companies and consumers, and in turn strike a sharp blow to America’s already very weak economy.
Again: no. Maybe this idea had some validity when the Fed was pretending it wouldn’t do unlimited QE, but now that the Fed is purchasing hundreds of billions in US paper every month, what China may or may not do with its holdings of US debt is completely irrelevant.
“It’s such a crazy idea that anyone who has made it should really have their fitness for office reconsidered,” said Cliff Tan, East Asian head of global markets research at MUFG Bank. “We view this as largely a political ploy for [Donald Trump’s] re-election and a cynical one because it would destroy the financing of the US federal budget deficit.”
Uhm, Cliff, yes it is insane, but not because China has any leverage left: in case you missed it, the Fed purchased $2.5 trillion in debt in the past 6 weeks.
That’s more than double what China owns. So yes, if Beijing wants to dump its Treasuries, bring it on: it will cause yields to spike for an hour or two, at which point everyone will frontrun the Fed which will activate the turbo POMO and purchase every last penny that China had to sell.
China’s desperate fearmongering – as if it tries to convince itself that it has some leverage over the US continued:
China could trigger a crash in the US dollar and financial markets by flooding the market with US Treasuries for sale, which would push down US bond prices and cause yields to spike. But that would also ignite a global financial catastrophe, hurting China as well.
Two things: the financial catastrophe was already ignited when China allowed – accidentally or on purpose – a deadly pandemic escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It doesn’t need the US. Second: a sale of a mere $1.1 trillion in Treasurys now that the total US debt just surpassed $25 trillion…
… of which the Fed owns $6.66 trillion, would have absolutely no impact on anything, besides long-end yields, and even there the spike would be brief as the market realizes that the Fed can and will buy everything China has to sell.
Oh, and a third thing: if China could actually crash the US dollar, both Powell and Trump would be giddy with happiness. In case someone still hasn’t figured it out, the Fed is desperate to crash the dollar because the longer it remains elevated (as a result of the infamous $12 trillion dollar margin call), the more likely it is that the coming global emerging markets collapse will crush the US as not even the Fed will have power to deflect that particular meteor.
Alas, none of this has registered with China which is dearly holding on to the myth that its sales of US paper could still have some impact:
“There’s a strong urge for countries like China, and Russia, to move away from US dollar settlements. This is simply because the US dollar can be weaponised by the US government,” said Xu Sitao, chief economist at Deloitte China, referring to the recent practise by the US government of cutting off foreign individuals, companies and governments from the global US dollar financial transaction settlement system, greatly complicating their ability to conduct business.
“ Clearly there’s more willingness for certain countries just to diversify and move away from US dollar settlements.”
Right, sure, and just what currency does China propose to exchange its dollar-denominated reserves, which account for some 58% of its total FX holdings, into?
Maybe China is just confused because it has yet to activate a full-blown QE of the type the Fed has perfected for the past decade. Which is apropos because in a follow up article, the same SCMP reports that China’s top economic policymakers have been “engaged in heated debate over whether the country’s central bank should directly buy special bonds issued by the finance ministry to help the government’s economic support measures.”
Which, of course, is preciely what the Fed has been doing on tilt for the past two months.
According to the report, the discord reflects the differing schools of thought in China over how best to help the world’s second largest economy recover from the coronavirus. The National People’s Congress which is due to meet in less than three weeks, is expected to provide clearer signals on Beijing’s economic policy. Liu Shangxi, president of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, a finance ministry-affiliated think tank, kicked off the debate after he recently proposed issuing 5 trillion yuan (US$700.5 billion) in special Treasury bonds to help stabilise the economy
He called on the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to buy them in tranches at an interest rate of zero.
It gets funnier: in China purchases of bonds are technically taboo as central bank law forbids it from directly bankrolling government spending. Well, guess what: there is another central bank whose charter forbids it from engaging in state financing and debt/deficit monetization: the ECB. And here is its balance sheet.
And while for now China is stopped by the threat of soaring inflation once it too triggers monetary financing, it is only a matter of time before China realizes that the initial phase of the coming hyperinflation only affects asset prices, while sparking broader economic deflation (of course, eventually goes vertical as faith in the currency is extinguished). So once China realizes that by starting QE, it too can achieve all of its goals, it will do precisely that.
Which also gives us a glimpse of the endgame: the four biggest economies in the world: the US, Europe, China and Japan, all directly monetizing their own debt, all hoping to crush their own currency before their peers as the only remaining way to stimulate the global economy. Then one day, something will finally snap and the entire financial system will disintegrate overnight. Until them, however, just BTFD because when every central bank in the world is telling you that fiat paper in your hand will soon be worthless so best spend it now, well, you listen.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 22:41 - Your Genes May Determine Whether COVID-19 Puts You In Hospital Or Not
Your Genes May Determine Whether COVID-19 Puts You In Hospital Or Not
Authored by Austin Nguyen, Abhinav Nellore, and Reid Thompson via The Conversation,
When some people become infected with the coronavirus, they only develop mild or undetectable cases of COVID-19. Others suffer severe symptoms, fighting to breathe on a ventilator for weeks, if they survive at all.
Despite a concerted global scientific effort, doctors still lack a clear picture of why this is.
Could genetic differences explain the differences we see in symptoms and severity of COVID-19?
To test this, we used computer models to analyze known genetic variation within the human immune system. The results of our modeling suggest that there are in fact differences in people’s DNA that could influence their ability to respond to a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
What We Did
When a virus infects human cells, the body reacts by turning on what are essentially anti-virus alarm systems. These alarms identify viral invaders and tell the immune system to send cytotoxic T cells – a type of white blood cell – to destroy the infected cells and hopefully slow the infection.
But not all alarm systems are created equal. People have different versions of the same genes – called alleles – and some of these alleles are more sensitive to certain viruses or pathogens than others.
To test whether different alleles of this alarm system could explain some of the range in immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, we first retrieved a list of all the proteins that make up the coronavirus from an online database.
We then took that list and used existing computer algorithms to predict how well different versions of the anti-viral alarm system detected these coronavirus proteins.
A model of an HLA protein (green and yellow) bound to a piece of a virus (orange and blue) – in this case, influenza. Prot reimage via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Why It Matters
The part of the alarm system that we tested is called the human leukocyte antigen system, or HLA. Each person has multiple alleles of the genes that make up their HLA type. Each allele codes for a different HLA protein. These proteins are the sensors of the alarm system and find intruders by binding to various peptides – chains of amino acids that make up parts of the coronavirus – that are foreign to the body.
Once an HLA protein binds to a virus or piece of a virus, it transports the intruder to the cell surface. This “marks” the cell as infected and from there the immune system will kill the cell.
In general, the more peptides of a virus that a person’s HLAs can detect, the stronger the immune response. Think of it like a more sensitive sensor of the alarm system.
The results of our modeling predict that some HLA types bind to a large number of the SARS-CoV-2 peptides while others bind to very few. That is to say, some sensors may be better tailored to SARS-CoV-2 than others. If true, the specific HLA alleles a person has would likely be a factor in how effective their immune response is to COVID-19.
Because our study only used a computer model to make these predictions, we decided to test the results using clinical information from the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak.
We found similarities in how effective alleles were at identifying SARS and SARS-CoV-2. If an HLA allele appeared to be bad at recognizing SARS-CoV-2, it was also bad at recognizing SARS. Our analysis predicted that one allele, called B46:01, is particularly bad with regards to both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV. Sure enough, previous studies showed that people with this allele tended to have more severe SARS infections and higher viral loads than people with other versions of the HLA gene.
The section of DNA that codes for HLAs is on the sixth chromosome. Pdeitiker at English Wikipedia / Wikipedia, CC BY
What’s Next?
Based on our study, we think variation in HLA genes is part of the explanation for the huge differences in infection severity in many COVID-19 patients. These differences in the HLA genes are probably not the only genetic factor that affects severity of COVID-19, but they may be a significant piece of the puzzle. It is important to further study how HLA types can clinically affect COVID-19 severity and to test these predictions using real cases. Understanding how variation in HLA types may affect the clinical course of COVID-19 could help identify individuals at higher risk from the disease.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the relationship between viral proteins across a wide range of HLA alleles. Currently, we know very little about the relationship between many other viruses and HLA type. In theory, we could repeat this analysis to better understand the genetic risks of many viruses that currently or could potentially infect humans.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 22:25 - Putin's Approval Rating Hits Historic Low As 3 Cabinet Members Infected
Putin’s Approval Rating Hits Historic Low As 3 Cabinet Members Infected
Over the past decade, poll after poll in Russia has found President Vladimir Putin to be by far the most popular leader in modern Russia’s relatively short history (since the collapse of the USSR). He’s also of course been the longest ruling, currently serving his fourth 6-year presidential term.
His popularity at home is commonly attributed to the general Russian public’s desire for continued stability and the weeding out of oligarchic control and corruption in society. However, like in other parts of the world, Russia’s ‘stability’ is now under threat by the explosive spread of coronavirus — now witnessing consecutive daily record rises in cases.
Via AP On Wednesday Russian health officials announced a whopping 10,559 new confirmed COVID-19 infections, bringing the national total to 165,929 cases, including 1,537 deaths. This makes Russia the seventh most infected country, days ago surpassing Iran and China.
Following widespread criticism that Russia was slow in locking down the country, doing so at the very end of March significantly after European countries and the United States, a new poll from the Russian independent, non-governmental polling agency Levada Center finds that Putin’s popularity has plunged to a historic low.
This also amid fears not enough was done to insulate the economy amid a national lockdown and work “pause”.
Via Moscow Times The Moscow Times reports the results of the new poll as follows:
President Vladimir Putin’s’s approval rating has hit a historic low of 59% as the country grapples with the coronavirus crisis, the independent Levada Center polling agency said Wednesday.
According to Levada’s results from a phone interview in late April, when most of the country was under enforced lockdown measures, 33% disapproved of Putin’s work.
Putin’s previous lowest approval rating since he first became president, 61%, was recorded in June 2000 and November 2013.
The latest results mark Putin’s lowest approval rating recorded by the Levada Center since September 1999, when he had a 53% approval rating shortly after being appointed prime minister.
The Kremlin downplayed the new Levada poll results, pointing to other research indicators which don’t paint as drastic a picture.
Russia’s culture minister, Olga Lyubimova, file image. Meanwhile, things are looking to get worse, given days ago Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced he was confirmed for coronavirus.
And as of Wednesday a third cabinet minister has become infected (after also the Construction minister tested positive): Russia’s culture minister, Olga Lyubimova, has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Reuters, citing state sources.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 22:05 - This Is What New Normal Looks Like After The Pandemic
This Is What New Normal Looks Like After The Pandemic
Authored by Bloomberg macro commentator Ye Xie
The biggest market news Wednesday was the steepening of the Treasury yield curve as the government boosted planned sales of long-term debt to fund a $4 trillion deficit this year.
With short-term rates possibly staying near zero for the next few years, curve steepening seems to be a natural response to more debt sales. Still, it’s hard to see how much yields can back up when the Fed is gorging on debt. Bond vigilantes are nowhere to be seen, at least for the time being.
In the stock market, the Nasdaq Composite Index outperformed the S&P 500 again. It’s more evidence that the pandemic has accelerated the pre-existing trend: lower rates for longer and the secular rise of tech companies.
For those who are looking forward to the re-opening of economies, the past Golden Week holiday in China offered a sneak peek of reality: consumer spending remains sluggish, two months after the country cut its daily new confirmed virus cases to below 100.
During the five-day holiday, tourism revenue shrank 68% compared with last year. Among those operating restaurants, daily average revenues fell 46% below the levels at the beginning of the year, according to Nomura, citing a report from a catering industry information provider.
One silver lining is that e-commerce has flourished at the expense of brick-and-mortar shops. Sales of mobile phones, laptops and tablets at Tmall, one of China’s largest online shopping platforms, surged by 70%, 100% and 250% year-on-year, respectively, according to Nomura.
Debt, Digital and De-globalization. Welcome to the post-pandemic world.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 21:48 - The Art Of Survival, Part 1: Taoism & 'Warring States'
The Art Of Survival, Part 1: Taoism & ‘Warring States’
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Longtime correspondent Paul B. suggested I re-publish three essays that have renewed relevance. This is the first essay, from June 2008. Thank you, Paul, for the suggestion.
I’m not trying to be difficult, but I can’t help cutting against the grain on topics like surviving the coming bad times when my experience runs counter to the standard received wisdom.
A common thread within most discussions of surviving bad times–especially really bad times–runs more or less like this: stockpile a bunch of canned/dried food and other valuable accoutrements of civilized life (generators, tools, canned goods, firearms, etc.) in a remote area far from urban centers, and then wait out the bad times, all the while protecting your stash with an array of weaponry and technology (night vision binocs, etc.)
Now while I respect and admire the goal, I must respectfully disagree with just about every assumption behind this strategy.
Once again, this isn’t because I enjoy being ornery (please don’t check on that with my wife) but because everything in this strategy runs counter to my own experience in rural, remote settings.
You see, when I was a young teen my family lived in the mountains. To the urban sophisticates who came up as tourists, we were “hicks” (or worse), and to us they were “flatlanders” (derisive snort).
Now the first thing you have to realize is that we know the flatlanders, but they don’t know us.
They come up to their cabin, and since we live here year round, we soon recognize their vehicles and know about how often they come up, what they look like, if they own a boat, how many in their family, and just about everything else which can be learned by simple observation.
The second thing you have to consider is that after school and chores (remember there are lots of kids who are too young to have a legal job, and many older teens with no jobs, which are scarce), boys and girls have a lot of time on their hands.
We’re not taking piano lessons and all that urban busywork. And while there are plenty of pudgy kids spending all afternoon or summer in front of the TV or videogame console, not every kid is like that.
So we’re out riding around. On a scooter or motorcycle if we have one, (and if there’s gasoline, of course), but if not then on bicycles, or we’re hoofing it. Since we have time, and we’re wandering all over this valley or mountain or plain, one way or another, then somebody will spot that trail of dust rising behind your pickup when you go to your remote hideaway. Or we’ll run across the new road or driveway you cut, and wander up to see what’s going on. Not when you’re around, of course, but after you’ve gone back down to wherever you live. There’s plenty of time; since you picked a remote spot, nobody’s around.
Your hideaway isn’t remote to us; this is our valley, mountain, desert, etc., all 20 miles of it, or what have you. We’ve hiked around all the peaks, because there’s no reason not to and we have a lot of energy. Fences and gates are no big deal, (if you triple-padlock your gate, then we’ll just climb over it) and any dirt road, no matter how rough, is just an open invitation to see what’s up there. Remember, if you can drive to your hideaway, so can we. Even a small pickup truck can easily drive right through most gates (don’t ask how, but I can assure you this is true). If nobody’s around, we have all the time in the world to lift up or snip your barbed wire and sneak into your haven. Its remoteness makes it easy for us to poke around and explore without fear of being seen.
What flatlanders think of as remote, we think of as home. If you packed in everything on your back, and there was no road, then you’d have a very small hideaway–more a tent than a cabin. You’d think it was safely hidden, but we’d eventually find it anyway, because we wander all over this area, maybe hunting rabbits, or climbing rocks, or doing a little fishing if there are any creeks or lakes in the area. Or we’d spot the wisp of smoke rising from your fire one crisp morning, or hear your generator, and wonder who’s up there. We don’t need much of a reason to walk miles over rough country, or ride miles on our bikes.
When we were 13, my buddy J.E. and I tied sleeping bags and a few provisions on our bikes–mine was an old 3-speed, his a Schwinn 10-speed–and rode off into the next valley over bone-jarring dirt roads. We didn’t have fancy bikes with shocks, and we certainly didn’t have camp chairs, radios, big ice chests and all the other stuff people think is necessary to go camping; we had some matches, cans of beans and apple sauce and some smashed bread. (It didn’t start out smashed, but the roads were rough. Note: if you ever suffer from constipation, I recommend beans and apple sauce.)
We camped where others had camped before us, not in a campground but just off the road in a pretty little meadow with a ring of fire-blackened rocks and a flat spot among the pine needles. We didn’t have a tent, or air mattress, or any of those luxuries; but we had the smashed bread and the beans, and we made a little fire and ate and then went to sleep under the stars glittering in the dark sky.
There were a few bears in the area, but we weren’t afraid; we didn’t need a gun to feel safe. We weren’t dumb enough to sleep with our food; if some bear wandered by and wanted the smashed bread, he could take it without bothering us. The only animal which could bother us was the human kind, and since few people walk 10 or more miles over rough ground in the heat and dust, then we’d hear their truck or motorbike approaching long before they ever spotted us.
We explored old mines and anything else we spotted, and then we rode home, a long loop over rutted, dusty roads. In summer, we took countless hikes over the mountainous wilderness behind his family cabin.
All of which is to say that the locals will know where your hideaway is because they have lots of time to poke around. Any road, no matter how rough, might as well be lit with neon lights which read, “Come on up and check this out!” If a teen doesn’t spot your road, then somebody will: a county or utility employee out doing his/her job, a hunter, somebody. As I said, the only slim chance you have of being undetected is if you hump every item in your stash on your pack through trailess, roadless wilderness. But if you ever start a fire, or make much noise, then you’re sending a beacon somebody will eventually notice.
The Taoists developed their philosophy during an extended era of turmoil known as the Warring States period of Chinese history. One of their main principles runs something like this: if you’re tall and stout and strong, then you’ll call attention to yourself. And because you’re rigid–that is, what looks like strength at first glance–then when the wind rises, it snaps you right in half.
If you’re thin and ordinary and flexible, like a willow reed, then you’ll bend in the wind, and nobody will notice you. You’ll survive while the “strong” will be broken, either by unwanted attention or by being brittle.
Another thing to ponder is that the human animal is a much better predator than it is an elusive prey. Goats and wild turkeys and other animals have very keen senses of smell and hearing, and it’s tough to get close without them smelling you or hearing you. They’re well camouflaged, and since human sight is selected to detect movement and color, if they stay quite still we have a hard time spotting them.
In comparison, the human is a clumsy prey. It can’t smell or hear very well, and it’s large and not well camouflaged. Plus it’s usually distracted and unaware of its surroundings. It doesn’t take much to kill a human, either; a single-shot rifle and a single round of .22-long is plenty enough.
If the chips are down, and push comes to shove, then what we’re discussing is a sort of war, isn’t it? And if we’re talking about war, then we should think about the principles laid down in The Art Of War by Sun Tzu quite some time ago.
The flatlander protecting his valuable depot is on the defensive, and anyone seeking to take it away (by negotiation, threat or force) is on the offensive. The defense can select the site for proximity to water, clear fields of fire, or what have you, but one or two defenders have numerous disadvantages. Perhaps most importantly, they need to sleep. Secondly, just about anyone who’s plinked cans with a rifle and who’s done a little hunting can sneak up and put away an unwary human. Unless you remain in an underground bunker 24/7, at some point you’ll be vulnerable. And that’s really not much of a life–especially when your food supplies finally run out, which they eventually will. Or you run out of water, or your sewage system overflows, or some other situation requires you to emerge.
So let’s line it all up. Isn’t a flatlander who piles up a high-value stash in a remote area with no neighbors within earshot or line of sight kind of like a big, tall brittle tree? All those chains and locks and barbed-wire fencing and bolted doors just shout out that the flatlander has something valuable inside that cabin/bunker/RV etc.
Now if he doesn’t know any better, then the flatlander reckons his stash is safe. But what he’s not realizing if that we know about his stash and his vehicle and whatever else can be observed. If some locals want that stash, then they’ll wait for the flatlander to leave and then they’ll tow the RV off or break into the cabin, or if it’s small enough, disassemble it and haul it clean off. There’s plenty of time, and nobody’s around. That’s pretty much the ideal setting for leisurely thieving: a high-value stash of goodies in a remote area accessible by road is just about perfect.
Let’s say things have gotten bad, and the flatlander is burrowed into his cabin. Eventually some locals will come up to visit; in a truck if there’s gas, on foot if there isn’t. We won’t be armed; we’re not interested in taking the flatlander’s life or goodies. We just want to know what kind of person he is. So maybe we’ll ask to borrow his generator for a town dance, or tell him about the church food drive, or maybe ask if he’s seen so-and-so around.
Now what’s the flatlander going to do when several unarmed men approach? Gun them down? Once he’s faced with regular unarmed guys, he can’t very well conclude they’re a threat and warn them off. But if he does, then we’ll know he’s just another selfish flatlander. He won’t get any help later when he needs it; or it will be minimal and grudging. He just counted himself out.
Suppose some bad guys hear about the flatlander’s hideaway and stash. All it takes to stalk any prey is patience and observation; and no matter how heavily armed the flatlander is, he’ll become vulnerable at some point to a long-range shot. (Even body armor can’t stop a headshot or a hit to the femoral artery in the thigh.) Maybe he stays indoors for 6 days, or even 60. But at some point the windmill breaks or the dog needs walking or what have you, and he emerges–and then he’s vulnerable. The more visible and stringent the security, the more he’s advertising the high value of his depot.
And of course guarding a high-value stash alone is problematic for the simple reason that humans need to sleep.
So creating a high-value horde in a remote setting is looking like just about the worst possible strategy in the sense that the flatlander has provided a huge incentive to theft/robbery and also provided a setting advantageous to the thief or hunter.
If someone were to ask this “hick” for a less risky survival strategy, I would suggest moving into town and start showing a little generosity rather than a lot of hoarding. If not in town, then on the edge of town, where you can be seen and heard.
I’d suggest attending church, if you’ve a mind to, even if your faith isn’t as strong as others. Or join the Lions Club, Kiwanis or Rotary International, if you can get an invitation. I’d volunteer to help with the pancake breakfast fundraiser, and buy a couple tickets to other fundraisers in town. I’d mow the old lady’s lawn next door for free, and pony up a dollar if the elderly gentleman in line ahead of me at the grocery store finds himself a dollar light on his purchase.
If I had a parcel outside town that was suitable for an orchard or other crop, I’d plant it, and spend plenty of time in the local hardware store and farm supply, asking questions and spreading a little money around the local merchants. I’d invite my neighbors into my little plain house so they could see I don’t own diddly-squat except some second-hand furniture and an old TV. And I’d leave my door open so anyone could see for themselves I’ve got very little worth taking.
I’d have my tools, of course; but they’re scattered around and old and battered by use; they’re not shiny and new and expensive-looking, and they’re not stored all nice and clean in a box some thief could lift. They’re hung on old nails, or in the closet, and in the shed; a thief would have to spend a lot of time searching the entire place, and with my neighbors looking out for me, the thief is short of the most important advantage he has, which is time.
If somebody’s desperate enough or dumb enough to steal my old handsaw, I’ll buy another old one at a local swap meet. (Since I own three anyway, it’s unlikely anyone would steal all three because they’re not kept together.)
My valuable things, like the water filter, are kept hidden amidst all the low-value junk I keep around to send the message there’s nothing worth looking at. The safest things to own are those which are visibly low-value, surrounded by lots of other mostly worthless stuff.
I’d claim a spot in the community garden, or hire a neighbor to till up my back yard, and I’d plant chard and beans and whatever else my neighbors suggested grew well locally. I’d give away most of what I grew, or barter it, or maybe sell some at the farmer’s market. It wouldn’t matter how little I had to sell, or how much I sold; what mattered was meeting other like-minded souls and swapping tips and edibles.
If I didn’t have a practical skill, I’d devote myself to learning one. If anyone asked me, I’d suggest saw sharpening and beer-making. You’re legally entitled to make quite a bit of beer for yourself, and a decent homebrew is always welcome by those who drink beer. It’s tricky, and your first batches may blow up or go flat, but when you finally get a good batch you’ll be very popular and well-appreciated if you’re of the mind to share.
Saw-sharpening just takes patience and a simple jig; you don’t need to learn a lot, like a craftsman, but you’ll have a skill you can swap with craftsmen/women. As a carpenter, I need sharp saws, and while I can do it myself, I find it tedious and would rather rebuild your front porch handrail or a chicken coop in exchange for the saw-sharpening.
Pickles are always welcome in winter, or when rations get boring; the Germans and Japanese of old lived on black bread or brown rice and pickled vegetables, with an occasional piece of dried meat or fish. Learning how to pickle is a useful and easy-to-learn craft. There are many others. If you’re a techie, then volunteer to keep the network up at the local school; do it for free, and do a good job. Show you care.
Because the best protection isn’t owning 30 guns; it’s having 30 people who care about you. Since those 30 have other people who care about them, you actually have 300 people who are looking out for each other, including you. The second best protection isn’t a big stash of stuff others want to steal; it’s sharing what you have and owning little of value. That’s being flexible, and common, the very opposite of creating a big fat highly visible, high-value target and trying to defend it yourself in a remote setting.
I know this runs counter to just about everything that’s being recommended by others, but if you’re a “hick” like me, then you know it rings true. The flatlanders are scared because they’re alone and isolated; we’re not scared. We’ve endured bad times before, and we don’t need much to get by. We’re not saints, but we will reciprocate to those who extend their good spirit and generosity to the community in which they live and in which they produce something of value.
This essay was drawn from my book Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation.
From The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton:
For security against robbers who snatch purses, rifle luggage, and crack safes,
One must fasten all property with ropes, lock it up with locks, bolt it with bolts.
This (for property owners) is elementary good sense.
But when a strong thief comes along he picks up the whole lot,
Puts it on his back, and goes on his way with only one fear:
That ropes, locks, and bolts may give way.
Thus what the world calls good business is only a way
To gather up the loot, pack it, make it secure
In one convenient load for the more enterprising thieves.
Who is there, among those called smart,
Who does not spend his time amassing loot
For a bigger robber than himself?* * *
My recent books:
Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
(Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).
Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 (Kindle), $12 (print), $13.08 ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).
The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)
Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 21:45 - Captured US Mercenary Says In Video 'Confession' Trump Ordered Plot To "Abduct" Maduro
Captured US Mercenary Says In Video ‘Confession’ Trump Ordered Plot To “Abduct” Maduro
The nutty ‘Bay of Pigs invasion Venezuela edition’ which appears to have been an utter failure and half-baked scheme nearly from the start just took a few more bizarre turns.
Two days after Venezuelan armed forces captured two US former special forces soldiers turned mercenaries along with others that made up a Venezuela ‘defector force’ allegedly trying to ‘invade’ the county to topple Nicolas Maduro, state TV has aired a “confession” video featuring 34-year old captured American Luke Denman.
Luke Denman shown on Venezuelan state TV after being arrested. In the heavily edited and scripted “confession” Denman says the mission to orchestrate a coup in the socialist country went straight to the top – ordered by President Trump himself. There were also plans to “abduct” Maduro himself and fly him out of Venezuela and into US custody.
As The Guardian describes of the video:
An American mercenary captured after a bungled attempt to topple Nicolás Maduro has claimed he was on a mission to seize control of Venezuela’s main airport in order to abduct its authoritarian leader – and he alleged that was acting under the command of Donald Trump.
…In a heavily edited video confession, broadcast on Wednesday by the state broadcaster, VTV, Denman said he had flown to Colombia in mid-January, where he was tasked with training Venezuelan combatants near Riohacha, a city 55 miles west from the Venezuelan border.
From there Denman – who said he had never previously set foot in either South American country – claimed the group planned to journey to Caracas to “secure” the city and the nearby Simón Bolívar international airport, before bringing down Maduro.
The group of a least a dozen men, who were trained by Florida-based private security firm Silvercorp, reportedly tried to sneak into Venezuela via fishing boats, but were caught soon after stepping foot on land.
BREAKING: Venezuela’s government releases the confession of Silvercorp mercenary Luke Alexander Denman.
Live now on @teleSURenglish pic.twitter.com/PP8V7sTEt7
— Camila (@camilateleSUR) May 6, 2020
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Denman further describes in the video his task was to “secure the airport” to pave the way for a broader US military invasion force:
Denman said his mission had been to secure the airport, set up a perimeter, communicate with its tower and then “bring in planes” including “one to put Maduro on and take him back to the United States”.
“I thought I was helping Venezuelans take back control of their country,” Denman added.
There was no sign that any lawyers were present during Denman’s alleged confession or that he was not speaking under duress.
The Maduro government is hailing this as a major victory over Washington coup plotting, however on Tuesday President Trump formally denied that the US had anything to do with it.
“It has nothing to do with our government,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Luke Denman, 34 (left) and Airan Berry, 41 (right), being paraded in front of Veneuzlean state TV cameras after their arrests Monday. But Maduro and his top officials have alleged the mission came straight from both Trump and the Colombian president.
The Venezuelan president is further saying he’ll seek the extradition of the ex-Green Beret said to have overseen the mission, since back in the United States, Silvercorps founder Jordan Goudreau.
The fiasco prompted a formal denial of involvement or knowledge from US-backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.
The leader of this bungled assault, Jordan Goudreau, falsely claimed to his ragtag army that he had provided security to Trump. The closest he got was a brief relationship with Keith Schiller, who was Trump’s personal bodyguard. https://t.co/ItTktzYv3d
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) May 4, 2020
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As we previously reported, Goudreau orchestrated the plot alongside a high ranking Venezuelan military defector, who hooked up with the mercenary firm Silvercorps in Colombia last year.
In the wake of the botched ‘invasion’ and ‘overthrow’ attempt, which many on social media are hilariously mocking under the #BayofPiglets hashtag, Goudreau has positively admitted to being behind it.
Goudreau reportedly ran the secret training camps in neighboring Colombia, with the aim to infiltrate the group into Venezuela in order to fuel momentum for a broader ‘armed popular uprising’ à la covert CIA-style Syria regime change ops.
After leaving the Army in 2016, Goudreau worked as a private security contractor in Puerto Rico and set up Silvercorp US in 2018. Image via SilvercorpsUSA/Daily Mail. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday backed Trump’s denial of US military or intelligence involvement: “If we had been involved, it would have gone differently,” Pompeo said. “As for who bankrolled it, we’re not prepared to share any more information about what we know took place. We’ll unpack that at an appropriate time. We’ll share that information that makes good sense.”
And concerning the captured Americans: “We will start the process of trying to figure a way – if in fact these are Americans that are there – that we can figure a path forward. We want to get every American back. If the Maduro regime decides to hold them, we’ll use every tool that we have available to try and get them back. It’s our responsibility to do so,” the Secretary of State said.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 21:25 - Rosenstein Asked Mueller To Investigate Already-Discredited Steele Dossier Allegations, Memo Reveals
Rosenstein Asked Mueller To Investigate Already-Discredited Steele Dossier Allegations, Memo Reveals
Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,
Allegations in August 2017 scoping memo instructing special prosecutor to investigate Carter Page came from dossier that had already been discredited…
Then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein instructed Special Counsel Robert Mueller in August 2017 to investigate allegations against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page that originated with the Steele dossier and had already been discredited by the FBI, a newly declassified memo showed Wednesday night.
The Justice Department’s release of the unredacted version of Rosenstein’s so-called investigative scoping memo provided the first declarative evidence that Mueller was asked to investigate widely suspect allegations from Christopher Steele’s opposition research conducted for the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party back in 2016.
Specifically, Rosenstein’s memo instucted Mueller to investigate “allegations that Carter Page committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the United States, in violation of United States law.”
By the time that instruction was given, the FBI had fired Steele as an informant for leaking, interviewed Steele’s sub-source who disputed information attributed to him and had ascertain that allegations Steele had given the FBI specifically about Page were inaccurate and likely came from Russian intelligence sources as disinformation, recently declassified evidence showed.
In addition, the CIA had informed the FBI repeatedly that Page was not a Russian stooge but rather a cooperating intelligence asset for the United States government.
Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, who long called for the release of the unredacted scoping memo, said Wednesday’s development confirmed his worst suspicions. He accused prior officials of the Justice Department of unnecessarily hiding the evidence from Congress and the American people before Attorney General William Barr intervened.
“This information was redacted until now for one single reason – to hide the fact that false allegations from the Steele dossier were included in Mueller’s scoping memo,” Nunes told Just the News.
“In other words, a bunch of lies paid for by the Democrats were used to engineer the appointment of a Special Counsel to drag the Trump administration through the mud for years. The Russia collusion hoax was a disgrace, and we can’t let anything like it ever be repeated.”
The degree to which the FBI had discredited Steele’s intelligence reporting on Page — including allegations he colluded with Russia — only recently came into focus with the release of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on FBI abuses of the FISA surveillance that targeted Page. In addition, just-declassified evidence showed the FBI had learned by February 2017 that Steele’s information on Page was likely disinformation from Russian intelligence planted with Steele.
“Most relevant to the Carter Page FISA applications, the specific substantive allegations contained in Reports 80, 94, 95, and 102, which were relied upon in all four FISA applications, remained uncorroborated and, in several instances, were inconsistent with information gathered by the team,” Horowitz wrote back in December in debunking key allegations against Page.
More recently, declassified footnotes made clear Steele’s claim he had met with a senior Russian back in 2016 named Igor Sechin and had been offered a lucrative finders fee had been debunked by the FBI by February 2017, or months before Mueller was appointed. In fact Steele’s own source challenged the veracity of the information attributed to him inside the dossier.
“The Primary Sub-source told the FBI that one of his/her sub-sources furnished information for that part of Report 134 through a text message, but said that the sub-source never stated that Sechin had offered a brokerage interest to Page,” Horowitz reported.
“The Primary Sub-Source also told the FBI at these interviews that the sub-source who provided the information about the Carter Page-Sechin meeting had connections to Russian Intelligence Services (RIS),” he added.
You can read the full scoping memo below:
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 21:05 - China Considers Dropping GDP Growth Target Range For 2020
China Considers Dropping GDP Growth Target Range For 2020
Well, it seems after China’s magical V-shaped recovery in PMIs amid the rest of the world crashing into recession, if not depression, as a result of coronavirus lockdowns, a new report via Bloomberg suggests Chinese leaders are contemplating “the option of not setting a numerical target for economic growth this year given the uncertainty caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.”
After a dramatic rebound in PMIs for the second consecutive month after the February crash, artificially engineered, of course, the fakery is not likely to hold, hence why to the prospects of not setting a growth target this year is reportedly being discussed by officials.
Real-time indicators tell an entirely different picture of the economy, still severely damage from lockdowns with no V-shaped recovery.
Sources said the GDP target range would likely not be set at the upcoming National People’s Congress meeting slated for May 22 in Beijing. Last year, the range was set between 6% and 6.5%. The source added that a final decision on how to characterize the target had not been made.
Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee President Xi Jinping, the party in the upcoming meeting is like to project how the country is attempting to normalize after virus shutdowns.
Jinping’s party is facing one of the sharpest economic declines in the post-Mao era, the impact of the pandemic, and unable to completely restart manufacturing plants because Western demand has collapsed, has constrained the economy.
However, there’s good news because CPC leadership can blame the virus for the prospectus of low growth in the quarters ahead. This would likely result in new rounds of stimulus as leadership attempts to revive the economy:
“Such a move would free up policymakers from the obligation to issue significant stimulus to meet a certain growth level as long as employment remains stable. While China has announced credit easing policies, tax breaks and additional spending plans, the efforts are still targeted and more moderate compared with other major economies. The leadership’s caution is driven by fears of another debt blowout after total borrowing ballooned after the global financial crisis,” Bloomberg noted.
We showed last month how Chinese GDP shrank by 6.8% from a year ago (considerably worse than the 6.0% drop expected) and the worst drop on record (since 1992).
China’s top leaders face unprecedented economic difficulty at the moment, and they must effectively blame everyone but themselves about lower growth while attempting to prop up the economy with stimulus. But for those expecting rounds of stimulus, like that seen in 2016, here’s Shang-Jin Wei, a China expert at Columbia Business School in New York and formerly chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, warns: “Prevention of a return or the ‘second wave’ of the virus outbreak is more important than getting a high growth rate for the remainder of the year.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 20:45 - "Buy The Re-Opening Rumor, Sell The Factual Horror": 5 Reasons To Start Selling
“Buy The Re-Opening Rumor, Sell The Factual Horror”: 5 Reasons To Start Selling
Earlier today we posted a chart of forward PE multiples which based on crashing global profits which have yet to find a bottom, showed that the disconnect between markets and reality has reached idiotic proportions.
And while Bloomberg apparently took offense and tried to justify current stock valuations writing the “The S&P’s Real Forward P/E Is What Matters, and It’s Unknowable”, Citi’s Matt King agreed, writing that “the gap between markets and data is the largest on record”, as did Bank of America.
In a report from BofA’s Jared Woodard titled “Too fast, too furious” in reference to the recent market move higher, the strategist who learned his craft under Michael Hartnett’s wing writes that equities “seem to have run too far ahead of fundamentals. From the March lows, stocks have gained $246,567 in market cap for each newly unemployed worker.” And while overshoots are always possible, he expects stumbles ahead for five main reasons:
- Ignorance is bliss: 1 out of every 5 large companies has suspended earnings guidance
- Credit not confirming: after crashes, HY tends to bounce faster than equity; not happening today on drag from “real economy” sectors e.g. energy/retail/industrials
- Companies are saving: 1 out of every 5 large companies either suspended buybacks or cut dividends
- Households are saving: private clients bought the dip but now sell rips & are net sellers since 2012
- Stocks are expensive: the S&P 500 trades at 19.4x earnings, a 20-year high; valuation favors credit
Below we present BofA’s arguments why, as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott wrote earlier, it’s time to selling the rally, but first a look at how we got here, namely “the deepest shock and the greatest response”
- “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.” (Lenin)
- Macro uncertainty has never been this high (Chart 2) and the virus shutdown took only 3 weeks to destroy via unemployment what the economy needed 352 weeks to build. The fastest bear market in history met with the fastest & largest fiscal response in US peacetime (Chart 3) and policy support has taken a retest of the lows off the table.
- But while overshoots are always possible, in our view there are good reasons to expect more stumbles in coming
months.
With that in mind, let’s go down BofA’s list why even banks whose “house view” is bullish can no longer hide their disgust at the “market” farce that central planning has created:
1. Ignorance is bliss
- Buy the re-opening rumor, sell the factual horror: rally-inducing news of stimulus & vaccine efforts will likely give way in coming weeks to disappointing realities of prolonged distancing, supply frictions, and confused calls for budget austerity. For example, a group of prominent restaurant owners just asked the UK government not to end the lockdown; if doors reopen, fiscal support ends, and demand has not rebounded, businesses will fail.
- Flying blind: 98 S&P 500 companies have suspended guidance (Chart 4) and fundamentals have rarely been cloudier. US retail specialists report that $2tn of orders were cancelled in just the first half of March. Even for doomed firms, it is hard to hold liquidation sales when no one can come.
- Dangerous savings: in March the personal savings rate spiked to 40-year highs of 13% (Chart 5). The paradox of thrift: if every sector saves at once (lower corporate capex & payouts, reticent households, fickle government), we all lose. Even if workers are quickly rehired, we don’t know yet how quickly they will be willing & able to spend.
2. Credit not confirming the rally
- After the last three crashes, HY bonds made new highs within 10 months on average…equities needed 2+ years. But in recent weeks, HY has lagged rather than led (Chart 6, far right panel).
- This is due to the higher weighting of resources (energy/materials) at 24% of US HY vs. just 5% for S&P 500.
- Note the daisy chain of consequences from resources decimation. Secular trends, OPEC war & the rise of ESG = resources must defend dividends at all costs and thus cut capex. No capex = pain for industrials (e.g. CAT) & broader manufacturing. Manufacturing (8%) + retail (10%) + leisure & hospitality (11%) = 30% of US payrolls. The Great Depression peaked at 25% unemployment.
3. Buybacks and dividends are falling
- Owning equities made sense even in an era of economic stagnation because shareholders were well-paid. Since the GFC, companies bought $4.3tn of their own stock (vs. just $0.2tn of buying from other sources – Chart 7).
- But US equity market capitalization rose $7.4tn in recent weeks vs. unemployment up 30 million…equities have gained $246,567 in market cap for each newly unemployed worker. Every tick higher in equities = heavier political pressure to limit payouts.
- 70 S&P 500 companies have already cut their buybacks, and 30 have cut their dividends; consensus expectations for 2.2% dividend yields have diverged wildly with market-implied yields at just 1.5% (Chart 8).
- Tech, which briefly had positive returns again for 2020, also remains the king of buybacks. In Q1 Apple repurchased $18.5bn (& authorized another $50bn), Google $8.5bn, Microsoft $6.0bn.
4. Households now sell into strength
- Smart money: since 2016, BofA wealth management clients have been “strong hands” during market selloffs. In 2020 private clients were small net buyers as equities tumbled (Chart 9).
- Skeptical money: they are also skeptical sellers of rallies, with net outflows from equities since 2012. Across US investor accounts, margin debt plunged in 2019-2020, failing to confirm the rally from late 2018 (Chart 10).
5. Stocks are expensive
- Stock prices are already back at 20-year highs relative to expected earnings (19.4x – Chart 11).
- While there has never been less competition from Treasury bonds, this is hardly the time to price equities for a perfect recovery.
- In relative value terms, most fixed income sectors offer better yield (relative to volatility) than any equity region or sector (Chart 12).
If it’s time to sell stocks, what does BofA like?
Three reasons to own gold
“Fed Can’t Print Gold”: Gold is more attractive today. Our gold price target was just raised from $2000 to $3000/oz. Three reasons to buy:
- Low rates: central banks will keep interest rates well below inflation for the foreseeable future. When the opportunity cost of shunning Treasuries is essentially zero, investors buy gold instead (Chart 13); that’s why real rates alone can explain 80% of the variation in gold prices.
- Weaker dollar: central bank balance sheet expansion implies a sharply weaker dollar…e.g. DXY below 2018 lows of 88 (Chart 14).
- Positioning is light: gold is just 10% from record highs yet institutional positions are only 0.6sd above the 20-year average (CFTC); and household allocations are even smaller…just 0.2% of private client holdings.
What happens next? While attention in the past few weeks has been diverted away from the biggest clash of civilizations in centuries, the reality is that tensions between the US and China will not go away on their own… or peacefully. Which means that absent an all out war, there are three conflicts to watch: i) the trade war; ii) the tech war, and iii) the capital war.
The Trade War
- A costly decoupling of US-China economic ties may increasingly be accepted by elites as the necessary alternative to a full-blown cold war.
- The US has become increasingly reliant on Chinese and other foreign manufacturers for many key resources including pharmaceuticals (Chart 22), rare earths, machine tools, advanced materials, military components, casting, electrical steel, fasteners, aluminum, circuit boards, batteries, medical equipment, and much more (per US DoD).
- Just as importantly, the US has fallen behind China in research & development for the first time in history (Chart 23). R&D is one of the most important drivers of productivity and economic growth.
- The administration’s approach so far has been very popular. One poll found 83% of Americans favor a continuation or even tougher position on China (91% Republicans, 74% Democrats).
The tech war
The schematic below summarizes the tech security policy toward China
The capital war
- The trade/tech war may become a capital war in which the US more power to determine the outcome. The first battle will be over delisting Chinese equities from US exchanges. US investors own nearly 10% of the 100 largest Chinese companies, with $5.4tn in market cap. (Table 2).
- In April, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton became vocal about the risks of investing in Chinese companies, which do not adhere to Sarbanes-Oxley accounting standards or give the Public Company Oversight Board audited statements. Investors burned by Sino-Forest and Luckin Coffee already understand.
- Chinese ADRs are often Cayman Islands-based “Variable Interest Entity” (VIE) legal structures, which do not provide ownership of the underlying company and do not confer voting rights. Chinese state authorities could revoke permission of these companies to distribute profits to foreign VIE shareholders.
- Capital markets are also ripe for other forms of intervention. Whether by halting IPOs, taxing foreign capital inflows, or cutting access to USD swap lines and Fed repo operations, policymakers have a range of very powerful unexercised options
The energy war
- In 2020 WTI crude oil traded at negative prices for the first time in history.
- In 2020 China will have 626k megawatt hours of lithium ion battery cell manufacturing capacity, far surpassing capacity in the US & Europe, with the gap expected to widen sharply. (Chart 26).
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 20:25 - Nearly 1.5 Million More Tuberculosis Deaths Expected Due To Coronavirus Lockdowns
Nearly 1.5 Million More Tuberculosis Deaths Expected Due To Coronavirus Lockdowns
Since the coronavirus outbreak forced doctors and hospitals around the world to delay most other medical care to focus 100% on combating the outbreak, lapses in vaccination routines have led to the reemergence of diseases like polio and measles. Alarmed by this trend, one ER doctor and coronavirus survivor in the Bronx warned that the US might as well end its coronavirus lockdowns now due to the impending wave of ancillary health issues.
And now, the Guardian, a far-left publication that has pushed for extended lockdowns, is even reporting that tuberculosis cases around the world are expected to surge.
Up to 6.3 million more people are predicted to develop TB between now and 2025 and 1.4 million more people are expected to die as cases go undiagnosed and untreated during lockdown. This will set back global efforts to end TB by five to eight years.
“The fact that we’ve rolled back to 2013 figures and we have so many people dying, this for me is sickening,” said Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership. “I am outraged that just by not being able to control what we do…and forgetting about programmes that exist we lose so much, starting with the loss of the lives of people.”
There is no TB vaccine for adults, only for children. Some TB specialists have taken umbrage at the reality that there are so many vaccine candidates in the works for COVID-19, while desperately needed adult TB vaccines can’t get funding because they just wouldn’t be a money-maker.
“I have to say we look from the TB community in a sort of puzzled way because TB has been around for thousands of years,” Ditiu said. “For 100 years we have had a vaccine and we have two or three potential vaccines in the pipeline. We need around half a billion [people] to get the vaccine by 2027 and we look in amazement on a disease that … is 120 days old and it has 100 vaccine candidates in the pipeline. So I think this world, sorry for my French, is really fucked up,” she said.
“The fear we have in the community is that researchers are heading towards just developing a vaccine for Covid. That’s on the agenda of everyone now and very few remain focused on the others [diseases]. We don’t have a vaccine for TB, we don’t have a vaccine for HIV, we don’t have a vaccine for malaria and out of all this, TB is the oldest. So why this reaction? I think because we are a world of idiots. What can I say?”
The data were published on Wednesday; they are based on a three-month lockdown and a 10-month period of restoring services after lockdown is lifted.The research was commissioned by the Stop TB Partnership, working with Imperial College London, Avenir Health and – get this – Johns Hopkins University (which is helping track the global outbreak and conduct research).
TB kills 1.5 million people a year, more than any other infectious disease.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 20:05 - The Problem Is Not Deflation, It's Attempts to Prevent It
The Problem Is Not Deflation, It’s Attempts to Prevent It
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,
Let’s investigate the Fed’s effort to prevent price deflation.
Here’s a Tweet that caught my eye.
“We’re about to have deflation and the market hasn’t figure it out yet… when it does, the Fed is going to shit itself.” @hendry_hugh @raoulGMI
https://t.co/aa7m6eTwgC pic.twitter.com/sqGMdUvTDZ— Real Vision (@RealVision) May 1, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“Problem with deflation is- Why buy anything if you know it will be cheaper in the future.,” responded one person.
Let’s investigate that question starting with a look at the CPI basket.
CPI Percentage Weights
Why Buy Anything Questionnaire
Q: If consumers think the price of food will drop, will they stop eating?
Q: If consumers think the price of natural gas will drop, will they stop heating their homes?
Q: If consumers think the price of gasoline will drop, will they stop driving?
Q: If consumers think the price of rent will drop, will they hold off renting until that happens?
Q: If consumers think the price of rent will rise, will they rent two apartments to take advantage?
Q: If consumers think the price of taxis will rise, will they take multiple taxi rides on advance?
Q: If people need an operation, will they hold off if they think prices might drop next month?
Q: If people need an operation, will they have two operations if they expect the price will go up?
All of the above questions represent inelastic items. Those constitute over 80% of the CPI. Let’s hone in on the elastic portion with additional Q&A.
Questions for the Fed – Elastic Items
Q: If people think the price of coats will rise will they buy a second coat they do not need?
Q: If people think the price of clothes will drop, will they stop getting dressed?
Q. The prices of TVs and electronics drop consistently. Better deals are always around the corner. Does that stop people from buying TVs and electronics?
Q. If people thought the price of TVs was about to jump, would they buy multiple TVs to take advantage?
Q. If someone needs a refrigerator, toaster, stove or a toilet because it broke, will they wait if for some reason they think prices will decline?
Q. If someone does not need a refrigerator, toaster, stove or a toilet will they buy one anyway if they think prices will jump?
For sure, some people will wait for year-end clearances to buy cars, but most don’t. And if a car breaks down, consumers will fix it immediately, they will not wait for specials.
Stupidity Well Anchored
The above questionnaires thoroughly debunk the Fed’s ridiculous spotlight on “inflation expectations”.
Yet, how many times have you heard “inflation expectations are well anchored“?
In reality, Fed stupidity is well anchored.
The one and only time inflation expectations matter is in a state of hyperinflation when it pays to buy nearly anything and barter it.
No Economic Benefit to Inflation
My Challenge to Keynesians “Prove Rising Prices Provide an Overall Economic Benefit” has gone unanswered.
There is no economic benefit to inflation but there are winners and losers. The winners are those with first access to money, namely the banks and the already wealthy.
The Fed complains about income and wealth inequality but they are the primary source.
BIS Deflation Study
The BIS did a historical study and found routine price deflation was not any problem at all.
“Deflation may actually boost output. Lower prices increase real incomes and wealth. And they may also make export goods more competitive,” stated the study.
For a discussion of the BIS study, please see Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations
Asset Bubble Deflation
It’s asset bubble deflation that is damaging. When asset bubbles burst, debt deflation results.
Central banks’ seriously misguided attempts to defeat routine consumer price deflation is what fuels the destructive build up of unproductive debt and asset bubbles that eventually collapse.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 19:45 - Trump Resisted Pressuring China To Be More "Transparent" About Coronavirus Outbreak Back In January: Report
Trump Resisted Pressuring China To Be More “Transparent” About Coronavirus Outbreak Back In January: Report
In a must-read piece detailing the evolution of the US-China relationship from productive partnership to bitter rivalry, WSJ reported that back in January, President Trump resisted pressing China to be more transparent about the emerging virus, and the risks it might pose to the global community.
Since President Trump revoked funding for the WHO last month and a British newspaper appeared to confirm that western intelligence agencies (including US intelligence) were investigating the possibility that the virus might have leaked from a biolab in Wuhan, hostilities between Beijing and Washington have taken off, with China’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday prodding Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to show ‘proof’ that the virus came from the Wuhan lab.
Before critics jump on this tidbit, and try to portray the administration’s recent rhetoric against China as cynically political, it’s worth remembering that the WHO was praising China’s response as exemplary, helping to prop up Beijing’s lies. The US was led to believe China was much more on top of things than it turned out to be. That Trump wanted to try and curry some favor after the bitterness of the trade talks isn’t all that surprising. Besides, we doubt any pressure from Trump would have averted China’s dissembling.
Even as he has presided over a China policy many see as the toughest in 40 years of relations, Mr. Trump has frequently praised President Xi and talked of their friendship—a tactic administration officials say is meant to give Chinese leaders an opening to meet U.S. demands for change.
Early this year, several of Mr. Trump’s political advisers inside and outside the campaign urged him to take on China more directly, which they argued would have bipartisan appeal. One idea they suggested was a special commission to investigate the origins of the virus and whether Beijing responded sufficiently to control the outbreak.
Mr. Trump twice declined suggestions from his team in January to press Mr. Xi for more transparency about the virus’s causes and symptoms, in one case saying that the criticism could cause Beijing to be less helpful, said White House officials.
Domestic pressures in both the U.S. and China are likely to aggravate the already strained relations. Supporters of Mr. Biden also have produced attack ads focused on China.
Mr. Xi, too, has faced criticism at home over the coronavirus, and his administration has sought to project a sense of strength in dealing with the U.S. as he tries to revitalize an economy stalled by the pandemic, manage high unemployment and quash persistent antigovernment unrest in Hong Kong.
After Barack Obama’s turn at appeasment, which saw China ramp up its efforts to steal US innovations and technology, President Trump swept into office with a promise to crack down on Beijing. Since then, the distrust has only deepened, with two-thirds of Americans saying they no longer trust China. Meanwhile, the federal government is upping the pressure on China like never before.
The Trump administration has moved to involve much of the U.S. government in a campaign that includes investigations, prosecutions and export restrictions. Nearly every cabinet and cabinet-level official either has adopted adversarial positions or jettisoned past cooperative programs with Beijing, an analysis of their policies showed.
Chinese officials, for their part, are following through on President Xi Jinping’s call last fall to resist anything they perceive as standing in the way of China’s rise. They have stepped up military activities in the contested South China Sea and intimidation of Taiwan, a U.S. ally, and state media has issued extraordinary public denunciations of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The coronavirus pandemic has deepened the rancor, bringing relations between the two to a modern-day nadir. Both governments are forgoing cooperation and trying to outmaneuver each other to shape events in the post-pandemic world order.
President Trump, who has sharply criticized China for its handling of the outbreak, has said he is considering using tariffs and other ways to collect compensation for it from Beijing, though senior officials signaled this week that the administration is holding off on punishing China economically.
Once the virus has finally been subdued – however long that takes – the biggest takeaway here is that there has been a dramatic paradigm shift in US-China relations. We expect tensions will only worsen from here.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/06/2020 – 19:25
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