Feb 072020
 
 February 7, 2020  Posted by at 10:28 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Marjory Collins “Crowds at Pennsylvania Station, New York” Aug 1942

 

China Reports 73 New Deaths From Coronavirus, 3,143 New Cases (SCMP)
Trump Expresses Confidence In China’s Confronting Its Coronavirus Outbreak (R.)
Texas Congresswoman Says Russia Responsible For Iowa Caucus Mess (WE)
The GIGO Impeachment (Turley)
Russian, Turkish Military Among 100s Killed & Injured In Idlib Terrorism (RT)
UK Town Halls Told To Fly Union Jack For Prince Andrew’s Birthday (Ind.)
Boeing’s Fraying 737 MAX Suppliers See Capacity Crunch (R.)
Ohio Pension System Slashes Health-Care Benefits To Stave Off Insolvency (ZH)
Interest Rate Controls Could Reduce Real Per Capita Growth (IMF)
Encourage Banks To Tap Discount Window To Prevent Repo Freeze – Quarles (MW)
End of QE-4: Fed’s Repos Drop Below Oct 2 Level, T-Bills Balloon (WS)
Seven In 10 Greeks Threatened By Poverty (K.)
Bumblebee Survival Chances In EU, US Drop 30% In Single Generation (Hill)
Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? (New Yorker)
Canada To Aid Alberta As Deadline For Massive Oil Sands Project Nears (R.)

 

I collected so many “corona”-related articles over the past 24 hours, I’ll do a separate thread with them, because this one would get too long. It’ll be up in a few hours.

China is making an effort to make it seem like they have things under control to the extent that numbers are rising less. Don’t trust them. For one thing, it’s not reflected at all in this graph. For another, Xi is real anxious to get the economy restarted. But that’s not possible while the lockdowns remain. Nice quote I heard: if even just 1% of your car parts are from China, and you can’t get them anymore, you can’t build a car.

 

 

Asking myself: why are there practically no children infected? Does anyone know?

Numbers today:

• China reports 73 new deaths from coronavirus and 3,143 new cases (from 3,797 yesterday)
• Hubei province reports 69 new deaths and confirms 2,447 new cases
• 185,555 people under medical observation, down from 186,354 yesterday
• Japan says 41 new infections on board Yokohama cruiseliner, total now 61 out of 273 tested

 

 

 

Most interesting here is XI: “We are fully confident and capable of fighting the epidemic. The long-term trend of China’s economic development will not change.”

China Reports 73 New Deaths From Coronavirus, 3,143 New Cases (SCMP)

Health authorities in China pegged deaths caused by the novel coronavirus epidemic on Thursday at 73, with 69 in Hubei province, according to official figures released early Friday. The updated numbers raise the death toll in mainland China to 636. Newly confirmed cases rose by 3,143, a second consecutive daily drop, bringing the total to 31,161 cases in the country, according to data released on Friday morning by China’s National Health Commission (NHC). Most the deaths came from Hubei province, epicentre of the outbreak, where 69 new fatalities from the epidemic were reported on Thursday, one less fatality compared with the day before. The total death toll in Hubei rose to 618, the province’s health commission said.


[..] Chinese President Xi Jinping told his US counterpart Donald Trump on Friday that China’s economic development would not be affected by the outbreak, according to CCTV, China’s state broadcaster. CCTV reported that, in a phone conversation with Trump, Xi said the Chinese government and people had put their fullest efforts into containing the outbreak since it had started. “We have adopted the most comprehensive and strictest prevention and control measures through mobilising and rapid responses. We have declared a people’s war against the epidemic through prevention and control,” Xi was quoted as saying. “We are fully confident and capable of fighting the epidemic. The long-term trend of China’s economic development will not change.”

Read more …

After closing the borders.

Trump Expresses Confidence In China’s Confronting Its Coronavirus Outbreak (R.)

U.S. President Donald Trump expressed confidence in China’s strength and resilience in confronting its coronavirus outbreak during a conversation with President Xi Jinping on Thursday, a White House spokesman said. The two leaders agreed to continue extensive communication and cooperation between both sides, the spokesman, Judd Deere, added. Trump and Xi also reaffirmed their commitment to implementing Phase 1 of the trade deal between the United States and China, he added.

Read more …

Honest question: what do you think is more dangerous, RussiaRussiaRussia or the coronavirus?

Texas Congresswoman Says Russia Responsible For Iowa Caucus Mess (WE)

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, suggested during an FBI oversight hearing on Wednesday that Russia is responsible for the vote-reporting issues from Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses. “I hope that the Iowa Democrats will ask for an FBI investigation on the app,” the Texas Democrat told FBI Director Christopher Wray. “I believe that Russia has been engaged in and interfering with a number of our elections dealing with the 2016 election.” Wray responded by reassuring Jackson Lee that the FBI shares her concern about Russian interference. “Certainly, we are also concerned about potential Russian interference with our elections,” Wray said. “That’s why I created the foreign influence task force, which is acutely focused on that topic among other nation-states that are attempting to influence our elections.”


Democrats have faced criticism for not properly testing the voting system in Iowa, which includes an app the Iowa Democratic Party spent $60,000 to implement. “How can anyone trust you now?” a reporter yelled at the chairman of the state’s Democratic Party after reporting issues had still not been cleared up the day after voters caucused. An official winner has still not been announced as of Thursday evening. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez expressed his frustration on Thursday by calling for a recanvassing. “Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.”

Read more …

Starting to feel Turley is writing more than he should.

The GIGO Impeachment (Turley)

Every line of work — from law to carpentry to software — has its own house rule about how bad results come from bad beginnings. There is even an initialism for this: GIGO, or garbage in, garbage out. Unless senators use their closing arguments this week to clarify that they are not endorsing either the prosecution or defense premises in reaching their verdicts, this will go down as the GIGO impeachment: precedent created by false assumptions in both houses. The House blundered in rushing an impeachment by Christmas rather than waiting a couple of months to submit a more complete case with added witnesses, court orders and evidence.

Instead of seeking to compel such direct evidence, the House pushed the vote to impeach on the basis of what my co-witnesses called by the Democrats admitted was an inferential case. There is no question that you can make an inferential case for impeachment, but it is the difference between a strong and a weak case. Rather than wait a couple months to strengthen that record (as I suggested at the Judiciary hearing), the House muscled through an impeachment after the shortest investigation of a president in history. The greatest concern in the House’s case was always the obstruction-of-Congress charge. The House declared that the administration’s failure to yield to demands for witnesses and evidence was by itself a high crime and misdemeanor.

The problem is that other administrations have raised the presidential immunity claims made by the Trump administration, and those claims were supported by legal opinions from the Justice Department. Both Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton were able to litigate their privilege claims all the way to the Supreme Court before facing impeachment. [..] This is a great case marred by passion and distortion. What is surprising is that both blunders were not “accidental” but premeditated by the two parties. It undermined the legitimacy and authenticity of the actions in both chambers. Even if the senators cannot agree on what is appropriate for impeachment, they should at least agree on what is not appropriate.

Read more …

Who supports those terrorists? Is it Turkey or the US?

Russian, Turkish Military Among 100s Killed & Injured In Idlib Terrorism (RT)

Terrorists took over the Idlib de-escalation zone and carried out thousands of attacks in the last two months, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the West is portraying them as “moderate opposition.” Idlib governorate, the last stronghold of anti-government forces in Syria, saw a surge of violence by radical jihadists who have no desire for a peaceful resolution to the almost nine-year-long conflict, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. Most of the attacks are carried out by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the latest iteration of al-Qaeda in Syria. The area was proclaimed a de-escalation zone under the Russia-Turkey agreements. In mid-January, Russian and Turkish forces tried to impose a ‘regime of silence’ there, but the attacks only escalated.


In December 2019 there were over 1,400 terrorist attacks staged from Idlib, with some operations seeing the use of armor and even tanks. The scale of violence remains high, with over 1,000 attacks recorded in the last two weeks of January. Hundreds of Syrian civilians and government troops have been killed, as well as “Russian and Turkish military specialists.” “The relocation of some armed groups out of the de-escalation zone to northeastern Syria and later to Libya has boosted the concentration of radical extremists over the boiling point,” the ministry said. This situation was recently discussed during an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He explained that Turkey needed to separate the armed opposition it is working with from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists, saying that it has failed to do so.

Read more …

Retracted now, but still illustrative of post-Brexit Britain. Ruled by white guys from the 18th century.

UK Town Halls Told To Fly Union Jack For Prince Andrew’s Birthday (Ind.)

Town halls across the UK have been officially reminded they must fly the Union Jack flag on 19 February, to celebrate Prince Andrew’s 60th birthday. Politicians and public alike have slammed the Whitehall order, which they say puts protocol before principles. The prince is not currently performing royal duties amid an ongoing scandal over his friendship with millionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and claims that then-teenager Virginia Roberts was coerced into having sex with Prince Andrew in 2001 and 2002. He denies the allegation, saying he was at a birthday party at the Woking branch of Pizza Express on one of the nights the pair are said to have slept together.


However, the order is now likely to be withdrawn, after the prime minister’s spokesman described it as “an administrative email about a longstanding policy”. “I understand that DCMS [the digital, culture and media department] and the royal household are considering how the policy applies for changed circumstances, such as when members of the Royal Family have stepped back from public duties,” the spokesman said – in a clear hint it will be pulled. The instruction had drawn heavy criticism, Labour MP and deputy leadership candidate Ian Murray saying: “This protocol has to be binned given the allegations against the prince.” [..] ..a council source said: “It seems ridiculous. The government doesn’t appear to be noticing what has happened recently, or factoring in the mood of the nation.”

Read more …

And that’s before the virus halted 10s of 1000s of flights.

Boeing’s Fraying 737 MAX Suppliers See Capacity Crunch (R.)

Boeing Co suppliers are shedding jobs and capacity to cope with a halt in 737 MAX output, but while that staves off chaos, aerospace executives worry the industry might be unable to ramp factories quickly enough when the plane wins approval to fly again. Boeing, struggling to restore public confidence and recover from the biggest crisis since its founding in 1916, has halted production of the once fast-selling 737 MAX, which was grounded in March following two deadly crashes. As a result, industrial heavyweights like fuselage maker Spirit Aerosystems have already laid off workers. Now a cluster of other crucial companies small and big that forge metal, assemble and paint 737 MAX winglets, and build data systems have followed suit with no indication that Boeing will offer a lifeline, people familiar with the matter said.


Losing payments and workers in a tight labor market heaps pressure on Boeing’s U.S.-dominated 737 MAX supply chain, which involves hundreds of suppliers of more than half of the roughly 400,000 parts for each 737 built in the Seattle-area. “One of the main questions is how much capacity will be lost in the supply chain by the time production resumes at significant rates,” said an industry executive with knowledge of Boeing’s industrial network. Such concerns dominated the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance conference north of Seattle this week, where some executives vented frustration over what they called Boeing’s lack of financial support. One executive from a supplier that derives a quarter of its business from the MAX said Boeing has treated his company like “a commodity” in a “transactional” relationship. He predicted Boeing would let some suppliers fail.

Read more …

The Fed’s (and ECB’s) ultra-low interest rates killed all pension systems. We just don’t -want to- realize it yet.

Ohio Pension System Slashes Health-Care Benefits To Stave Off Insolvency (ZH)

For the first time in years, a major public pension system has slashed benefits for retirees: The Ohio Public Employees’ Retirement System voted last week to cut health care benefits provided to the pension’s current and future retirees beginning in 2022 to try and prevent the fund from plunging into insolvency in the not-too-distant future. It’s just the latest reminder that America’s ‘pension timebomb’ isn’t as far off into the future as many retirees, investors and public officials would like to believe. According to Chief Investment Officer and the Bond Buyer, if these changes had not been enacted, the fund would run out of money in about 11 years, executive director Karen Carraher said during a board meeting. The measure passed by a 9-2 vote.

“There is no available funding for health care,” a report from the board said. “All of the employer contribution[s] must be allocated to pension funding until that funding improves. Based on current projections, no funding will be available for health care for 15 or more years.” The vote, which was undertaken after polls showed members would be open to the changes to preserve their retirement benefits, eliminated the system’s group health-care plan and replaced it with stipends that will defray costs for members who purchase plans on the state ObamaCare exchange. Beneficiaries will receive a wide variety of quantitative cuts, depending on their age of retirement, the year in which they retired, and the number of years working in the state.

“Surveys indicate members willing to accept changes/reductions in health care in the interest of preserving it,” the board’s report said. Nearly everyone in OPERS likely will be affected by these changes. The board’s vote constituted the elimination of the pension’s healthcare group plan, and replaced it with a stipend that will help supplement for some members the cost of a new healthcare plan on the marketplace. “Pre-Medicare group plan is unsustainable for OPERS and members as risk core and costs continue to increase,” the report said. The board “needs to reduce the cost of health care to preserve current health care trust fund until such time funding can resume.”

Read more …

Protesting what your own employer supports, and after the damage is done. Lovely.

Interest Rate Controls Could Reduce Real Per Capita Growth (IMF)

With the surge in public debt in the wake of the global financial crisis, financial repression—administrative restrictions on interest rates, credit allocation, capital movements, and other financial operations—has come back on the agenda. In our recent working paper, we argue that countries would be better-off without financial repression. By distorting market incentives and signals, financial repression induces losses from inefficiency and rent-seeking that are not easily quantified. Losses from rent-seeking might occur when administrative restrictions reduce access to certain financial services (such as credit) and improve the benefits (e.g., through low interest rates) for the selected users (at the cost of those excluded), and when these lead to wasteful competition among potential users for such gains.


Using an updated index of interest rate controls covering 90 countries over 45 years, this IMF staff study estimates that financial repression in the form of interest rate restrictions could reduce real per capita growth by about 0.4–0.7 percentage points, on average, with the effect being larger in countries with larger financial systems. The study also finds that a full liberalization of interest rates is necessary to significantly increase growth, and changes in interest rate restrictions short of full liberalization have a limited impact. The case studies suggest that interest rate controls may also disrupt financial stability and may reduce access to financing for small enterprises.

Read more …

The Fed should take care of people, not banks, by now. No body has ever been more destructive to a society.

Encourage Banks To Tap Discount Window To Prevent Repo Freeze – Quarles (MW)

The Federal Reserve could encourage banks to tap a key funding source that has been scarcely used since the financial crisis as a solution to the September dislocations in short-term lending markets, said Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles on Thursday. Quarles said financial institutions should not be afraid of accessing the discount window, where banks have historically borrowed funds from the Fed in return for collateral during short-term liquidity shortages, in a speech held at an event by the Money Marketeers of New York University. The use of the window, however, has been stigmatized following the financial crisis amid worries that tapping the window could end up creating the perception that a bank was in precarious shape and could even be insolvent, precipitating further outflows.

He noticed that despite the equivalence between Treasurys and reserves as sources of capital that could meet the Fed’s liquidity coverage regulations, which are designed to ensure banks can meet sudden cash outflows, the reality was banks would prefer to hold cash reserves as banks could struggle to sell government bonds swiftly if it wanted to raise funds. Quarles’ remarks come as investors and bank executives have pointed to the preference of reserves over Treasurys as one factor that contributed to the surge in overnight repo rates in September, which briefly pushed the benchmark fed funds rates above its target range and raised questions whether the Fed was losing its grip on a key monetary policy tool.

Pushing banks to use the discount window during stress scenarios could help resolve the issues in money markets, as it gave banks sufficient time to sell high-quality capital like Treasurys and raise cash, diminishing the need to accrue reserves as a way of handling liquidity issues. “I think it is worth considering whether financial-system efficiency may be improved if reserves and Treasury securities’ liquidity characteristics were regarded as more similar than they are today,” said Quarles.

Read more …

Stupid games. Close it down or it will destroy you.

End of QE-4: Fed’s Repos Drop Below Oct 2 Level, T-Bills Balloon (WS)

Under these “repurchase agreements,” the Fed buys Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities (MBS), guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or Ginnie Mae, whereby the counterparties commit to buy back these securities at a fixed price on a specific date, such as the next day (overnight repo) or a longer period, such as 14 days (term repo). Repos are by definition in-and-out transactions. When a repo matures and unwinds, the Fed gets its money back, and the repo on the Fed’s balance sheet goes to zero. By buying these securities, the Fed adds liquidity to the market for the duration of the repo. When the repo matures and unwinds, the liquidity gets drained from the market. When a new repo transaction occurs, the process starts over again, but with a different amount and with a different maturity date.

The Fed raised the interest rate at which it offered the repos – for borrowers, the money is getting a little less cheap. Through January 29, the Fed’s average offering rate for overnight repos was 1.55%. On January 30, this increased to 1.60%. And the rate for 14-day repos increased from 1.58% effective through January 29, to about 1.61%. The Fed had been the lender-of-first-resort in the repo market, by offering to lend at these low rates. By increasing the rate, the Fed is gradually making the cash it is handing out less cheap and less attractive compared to what banks might offer, and more of the demand is switching over to banks. Overnight repos have been undersubscribed all year, so there is less and less demand for them at this rate. But the 14-day term repos are often oversubscribed, meaning there is more demand for this two-week cash at 1.61% than the amount the Fed is offering.


[.] The Fed continued to increase its ballooning stash of T-bills (Treasuries with maturities of one year or less) at a rate of about $60 billion per month. To increase its stash, the Fed has to buy the amount of the maturing T-bills, and it has to buy the amounts needed to obtain the targeted increase of about $60 billion a month. Over the five weekly balance sheets since January 1, the Fed has added $78 billion in T-bills, and the total amount of T-bills on the Fed’s balance sheet has now ballooned to $248 billion: These T-bills are a major part of the Fed’s strategy to bail out the repo-market. The purpose is to increase Excess Reserves that banks have on deposit at the Fed. The Fed blames low Excess Reserves last September for the banks’ refusal to lend to the repo market, which then caused the repo market to blow out. So bringing up Excess Reserves to an “ample” level is the goal of these T-bill purchases.

Read more …

Greece is being hit hard by the virus’s effect on tourism. But that’s just the icing on the cake.

Seven In 10 Greeks Threatened By Poverty (K.)

Almost seven in every 10 Greeks are in a dire financial situation, according to data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The figures published in the bulletin of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) indicate that 68.3 percent of the population in Greece are living close to or below the poverty line, with 12.9 percent already having to make do with an income below that line and 55.4 percent categorized as vulnerable, as they too could drop below the poverty line if they miss out on three months’ salary.


The proportion of Greeks who are unable to make a decent living is far above the OECD average, which stands at 50.4 percent. In the United States, which also shows high levels of inequalities, the rate comes to 55.5 percent, while in Denmark it stands at 36.3 percent. Greece’s rate is second only to Latvia’s in the European Union. SEV commented that Greece is among the European countries with the greatest inequalities in incomes, a situation that has been aggravated by the financial crisis of the 2010s, which hurt lower incomes in particular.

Read more …

This sounds too bland for me. Been there done that. And I don’t think suggesting that it’s all climate change is all that smart. If only because it isn’t. Chemicals still play a major role.

Bumblebee Survival Chances In EU, US Drop 30% In Single Generation (Hill)

Bumblebee populations are in decline across North America and Europe due to hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures, and climate change is playing a big role, according to a recently released study. The study by researchers from the University of Ottawa published in the journal Science examined changes in the populations of 66 bumble species across the two continents, and compared them with climate changes. The research found that in the course of one human generation, the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in a given place in North America and Europe declined by an average of over 30 percent.


“We’ve known for a while that climate change is related to the growing extinction risk that animals are facing around the world,” lead author of the study Peter Soroye said in a statement. “Bumblebees are the best pollinators we have in wild landscapes and the most effective pollinators for crops like tomato, squash, and berries,” Soroye said. “Our results show that we face a future with many less bumblebees and much less diversity, both in the outdoors and on our plates.” Researchers used data collected over a 115-year period showing where bumblebees have been found over the decades. They mapped the places the bees lived and how their distribution changed over time. They found the bees were disappearing in areas that had gotten hotter, and some are colonizing in new areas that were previously too cold.

Read more …

Ideal world: “There are very substantial reductions in unemployment, the human poverty index and the debt to GDP ratio. Greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by nearly 80%. This reduction results from the decline in GDP and a very substantial carbon tax.”

Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? (New Yorker)

“If growth were to be abandoned as an objective of policy, democracy too would have to be abandoned,” Wilfred Beckerman, an Oxford economist, wrote in “In Defense of Economic Growth,” which appeared in 1974. “The costs of deliberate non-growth, in terms of the political and social transformation that would be required in society, are astronomical.” Beckerman was responding to the publication of “The Limits to Growth,” a widely read report by an international team of environmental scientists and other experts who warned that unrestrained G.D.P. growth would lead to disaster, as natural resources such as fossil fuels and industrial metals ran out. Beckerman said that the authors of “The Limits to Growth” had greatly underestimated the capacity of technology and the market system to produce a cleaner and less resource-intensive type of economic growth—the same argument that proponents of green growth make today.

Whether or not you share this optimism about technology, it’s clear that any comprehensive degrowth strategy would have to deal with distributional conflicts in the developed world and poverty in the developing world. As long as G.D.P. is steadily rising, all groups in society can, in theory, see their living standards rise at the same time. Beckerman argued that this was the key to avoiding such conflict. But, if growth were abandoned, helping the worst off would pit winners against losers. The fact that, in many Western countries over the past couple of decades, slower growth has been accompanied by rising political polarization suggests that Beckerman may have been on to something.

Some degrowth proponents say that distributional conflicts could be resolved through work-sharing and income transfers. A decade ago, Peter A. Victor, an emeritus professor of environmental economics at York University, in Toronto, built a computer model, since updated, to see what would happen to the Canadian economy under various scenarios. In a degrowth scenario, GDP per person was gradually reduced by roughly fifty per cent over thirty years, but offsetting policies—such as work-sharing, redistributive-income transfers, and adult-education programs—were also introduced. Reporting his results in a 2011 paper, Victor wrote, “There are very substantial reductions in unemployment, the human poverty index and the debt to GDP ratio. Greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by nearly 80%. This reduction results from the decline in GDP and a very substantial carbon tax.”

More recently, Kallis and other degrowthers have called for the introduction of a universal basic income, which would guarantee people some level of subsistence. Last year, when progressive Democrats unveiled their plan for a Green New Deal, aiming to create a zero-emission economy by 2050, it included a federal job guarantee; some backers also advocate a universal basic income. Yet Green New Deal proponents appear to be in favor of green growth rather than degrowth. Some sponsors of the plan have even argued that it would eventually pay for itself through economic growth.

Read more …

Upside down world. You now have to pay for what nature provides for free. Pay people not to pollute. You want less pollution? Sure, but it’s going to cost you… Nice place you got there. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, would you?

Canada To Aid Alberta As Deadline For Massive Oil Sands Project Nears (R.)

Canada is preparing an aid package for Alberta, heart of the country’s struggling oil industry, that would help dull the pain if it blocks an oil sands project that could create thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the matter said this week. Ottawa must decide by end-February if Teck Resources Ltd can build the C$20.6 billion ($15.7 billion) Frontier mine in northern Alberta despite climate and wildlife concerns. The decision is a major test of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2019 election pledge to put Canada on the path to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Complicating the decision, unhappiness with the government’s energy and pipeline policy cost Trudeau’s Liberals all their Alberta seats in October 2019 elections.


“There will be a big fight inside cabinet over this,” said one source directly familiar the matter who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. “Rejecting Teck without providing Alberta something in return would be political suicide,” the source added. In Alberta, the project is considered essential for employment and growth. Teck says it would eventually create 7,000 jobs, although the company’s chief executive recently questioned whether it will ever be built. About 20 oil sands projects currently sit dormant despite receiving approval.

Read more …

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle February 7 2020

Viewing 23 posts - 1 through 23 (of 23 total)
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  • #53637

    Marjory Collins “Crowds at Pennsylvania Station, New York” Aug 1942   • China Reports 73 New Deaths From Coronavirus, 3,143 New Cases (SCMP) • Tr
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 7 2020]

    #53638
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    I collected so many “corona”-related articles over the past 24 hours, I’ll do a separate thread with them, because this one would get too long. It’ll be up in a few hours.

    I trust it will eddify, to those of us following, this media travesty of non-reporting and non-informational clap trap………………………..
    🙁

    #53639
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Great thread today but maybe I just get off on disaster-porn. Pensions are a bomb waiting to go off, the FED is absolutely driving everyone against the wall – all central banks are the same. Too many humans equals this virus going ape-shit. China is the weak link in the chain of supply if you can believe that sentence could be true. Maybe we are entering some crazy-arse Mayan calendar shit this year or something.
    It must be said I agree about the bees- if the climate is so hard for the little guys then what the fuck are they doing here in Australia? I have 14 hives and they are going gangbusters. We got minus 4 celsius in winter and then reached 45 degrees this summer. They are fine…. Just stop dropping Napalm on them in the morning and they will keep thriving- I hate that smell.BTW

    #53640
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Marjory Collins “Crowds at Pennsylvania Station, New York” Aug 1942

    Visual evidence of a war footing…
    War…what a waste of living resources and life in general; resource or not…

    #53641
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Oh shit – that was bumblebees
    My bad

    #53642
    lasttwo
    Participant

    If the russians were behind the Iowa caucus dont you think Clintons accused russian agent would have at least 1 delegate. Think DNC not KGB the .1% wall street and lobbyist are not fans of progressives.

    We just got an email from our niece, the local news is reporting 4 more cases being monitored for the virus in Dane county Wisconsin. Wisconsin is one of the last places to have the first case. It would be interesting to see the number of cases being monitored.

    #53643
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Honest question: what do you think is more dangerous, RussiaRussiaRussia or the coronavirus?”

    The stupidity underlying both phenomena.

    “Who supports those terrorists? Is it Turkey or the US?”

    So many monies and munitions have been given that way that they might be able to run alone for awhile?

    Today I have to visit the medical hospital megaplex that is Portland’s OHSU. I will be wrapping my scarf around my face in public places to set an example. (sounds kinda self-aggrandizing. But it’s true. The sooner people are scared of catching it, the less people will catch it. The panic wave will happen regardless, so… it’s a lovely soft crimson scarf with black houndtooth patterns. Now that’s self-aggrandizing.)

    Proximity Issues

    #53644
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? (New Yorker)”

    Yes, we can. However, prosperity will almost certainly lead to humans living, and therefore increasing. And THAT is growth. I prefer a world less resource-intensive, by definition less GDP, which would be more similar to a utopia almost by structure. However, none of that is going to happen with the present mentally-ill people chasing a win with the power game measured by money.

    …And the only thing worse than it being measured by money is being measured by status and social connections, which is the Socialist system. Then there’s no connection to merit at all.

    Glad they admit that innovation constantly lowers materials, energy (which is really price, a cost reduction), and therefore constantly allows more people. …To a limit, of course. And the limit is whether we live like Al Gore or like Buddhist Monks.

    “what would happen to the Canadian economy under various [computer] scenarios”

    OMG these people. They’ve run these “expert scenarios” since Christ was a Corporal, and they’ve been dead wrong for 100 years and that’s how they got here. Their stupid scenarios are how we got to this level of CO2 production and income disparity. Not that it can’t be fixed, but I don’t give the steering wheel to the same guy who crashed the last 199 buses. Maybe we can find a single guy or institution that did NOT wreck every tool they’ve ever been given into a fiery wreck of destruction and despair? You know, like the Permaculture people, JimmyBob the farmer or something?

    Is it possible? Sure. Nowhere near in his wet fantasy, but it’s certainly possible somewhere, under some timeline. Should we try it? Of course. Maybe without killing all the poor as in France, or rounding up dissenters into re-education camps though. If your plan is working, making people safer, better, happier – and why do I even need to say this? – you won’t NEED to bludgeon them, insult them, berate them, order them, arrest them, to get it done. The success will speak for itself.

    But none of that’s going to happen, and CERTAINLY not through any of them, so no need to plan or worry about it. I’ll just have to do it myself, without them, in the face of their violent opposition.

    Canada to Aid Alberta as Deadline for Massive Oil Sands Project Nears (R.)”

    Just speaking of, the very same people. And St. Greta, haranguing all comers, takes a happy-happy eco photo-op with President Blackface, who has just signed up for 100 square miles of tar sands to be mined…to release all that CO2…to turn clean natural gas into heavy diesel like turning gold into lead…and also pollute the adjacent Indian reservation. A hat trick! A trifecta! Darn you, Trump, why did you…? Oh wait, that was Canada, under hot dreamy, role-model Trudeau? Nevermind, it’s all good! Nothing to see here he and she and Greenpeace are all bestest friends eveh. If only Trump could find 100 miles of the U.S. to ruin and be as eco-friendly as Justin.

    #53645
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “And the only thing worse than it being measured by money is being measured by status and social connections, which is the Socialist system.”

    No it ain’t. That would be truer of many other -isms before pissing on your favorite S-bush. Monarchism. Feudalism. Capitalism/corporatism were practically founded on friend of a friend of a friend connections. Like most everything else including getting a job in the real world.

    Some people blame Trump. Some blame Russia. Let’s add socialism to the mix.

    Status and social connections rule everywhere. Where do you get this half-cocked stuff from, Doc? Let’s throw a caste system in there next to the FED window while we’re at it.

    #53646
    Dr. D
    Participant

    400 million people are on lockdown in China, although only 600 are dead. Hmmm. Numbers…

    Reports trickling in, the virus bioweapon is somehow racial, people surviving are non-Chinese, people outside China dying, as the Philippines, are ethnic Chinese. Now China itself isn’t one group either, nor since race isn’t much of a real scientific thing is it going to be uniform across groups, even say, the Han, but there it is, for the tracking.

    This may be the last piece why the West is feeling relatively relaxed.

    #53647
    Dave Note
    Participant

    Your comment that you haven’t hear or read or seen any mention of children getting this coronavirus strikes me as extraordinarily odd. I hadn’t thought of that til you mentioned it.

    Kids are bags of walking germs normally. Ask any elementary school teacher.

    So the complete utter lack of news on school kids or unibersity students, also a normally giant reservoir of ailments make me think this whole thing is a giant drill, a dress rehearsal for a real pandemic.

    The Spanish Flu in 1918 was believed to have gain a foothold in the US from Army bases full of returning troops from the “Great War” in Europe. Then in part spread by postal workers deliver to every nook and cranny of the landscape.

    So why no reporting of one of the biggest vectors of disease spreading: children and students?

    #53648
    zerosum
    Participant

    Hahahaha. Now I understand the logic.
    If its not coming out of my pocket, then spend it. The result sky high cost of health care. Nobody controls costs.
    • Ohio Pension System Slashes Health-Care Benefits To Stave Off Insolvency (ZH)
    ——
    The result of capitalism. You end up with some people getting more than other people.
    Don’t believe me? Pay an enabler to check out the statistics.
    • Seven In 10 Greeks Threatened By Poverty (K.)
    —–
    Oppps
    There does exist studies.
    • Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth? (New Yorker)
    He says no.
    I say, look around you the degrowth is happening
    First lower the population.
    Then the production goes down.
    After that, what is being produced is being shared by fewer people.
    Therefore, there is more for everyone left.
    At the extreme, the last man standing owns everything. hehehehe
    —–
    A lot of people know what to do but they are not the ones making the decisions.
    Keep the oil. Make and ship finished oil derived products.

    • Canada To Aid Alberta As Deadline For Massive Oil Sands Project Nears (R.)
    —–
    “So why no reporting of one of the biggest vectors of disease spreading: children and students? ”

    My first impression was that China was making “a test of the emergency response system”
    Then
    something went wrong
    However,
    CRUISE SHIP NIGHTMARE
    THESE ARE THE NUMBERS TO WATCH
    These numbers will be hard to lie about to determine if it was a test that went wrong.

    #53649
    Dave Note
    Participant

    An interesting discussion by Max K and Michael Hudson on the definition and history of “socialism’ and ‘capitalism’.

    Dr Hudson, who has done extensive research on economic history says that our present definitions of “socialism’ and ‘capitalism’ bare no resemblance to the original definitions from the 19th century.

    Listen around minute 6:00

    [audio src="https://video.img.ria.ru/Out/MP3/20200204/2020_02_04_DOUBLEDOWN202040220_pl0mdolq.nn2.mp3" /]

    #53654
    Cuauhtemoc
    Participant

    Hello Raul Ilargi Meijier

    Can’t stop thinking about the virus. And I’m not the alarmist type, but what I find unsettling is the constant flow of indirect evidence that there is more than what the Chinese autorities are saying. North Korea, a very very no-nonsense country, and one whose economy is strongly linked with China is taking extreme measures that are surprisiing even the experts:

    North Korea’s coronavirus border shutdown: “Nobody is to come into contact with Chinese people”
    https://www.38north.org/articles/affiliates/north-korean-economy-watch/19202/

    This is a country whose 80% percent (that’s right eighty) percent of exports and imports are with China. They are also talking about “national survival” being at stake. What do you all think about this?

    By the way, I just registered. After years of reading your posts, I am happy to have joined. You are a valuable site, Automatic Earth.

    Thanks.

    #53655
    zerosum
    Participant

    Update (1100ET)::
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/more-400-million-people-lockdown-guangzhou-joins-quarantine

    This is bad news for airlines, casinos and virtually every business (restaurants, bars any other business) in the nightlife or entertainment fields. A team of German scientists have determined that the coronavirus can survive for up to 9 days on a surface.
    That’s bad news, because it means the virus, which was recently discovered to have some genetic markers in common with HIV, is much more hardy than the common flu.
    (the common flu can survive 24 hrs., HIV can survive for 6 days)
    3 provinces, 60 cities and 400 million people are now facing China’s most-strict level of lockdown as Beijing struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak as the virus has already spread to more than 2 dozen countries.

    #53656
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ Dave Note
    I suspect that you know that the use of all “… ism” is a weapon.that is used by the manipulators.

    #53657
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    About the ages of the coronavirus victims. “Young healthy people can have very mild symptoms that may manifest as a cold.”

    Age and conditions of Coronavirus cases

    According to China’s National Health Commission (NHC), about 80% of those who died were over the age of 60 and 75% of them had pre-existing health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

    According to the WHO Situation Report no. 7 issued on Jan. 27:
    The median age of cases detected outside of China is 45 years, ranging from 2 to 74 years.
    71% of cases were male.

    The WHO, in its Myth busters FAQs, addresses the question: “Does the new coronavirus affect older people, or are younger people also susceptible?” by answering that:
    People of all ages can be infected by the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
    Older people, and people with pre-existing medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease) appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the virus.

    February 6:
    2 new cases in Canada (British Columbia): a man and a woman in their 30s. The man displayed only mild symptoms. Health officials said that young healthy people can have very mild symptoms that may manifest as a cold.

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

    #53658
    zerosum
    Participant

    Note:
    I noticed, did anyone else …
    Microsoft Edge vs Chrome do not do a search the same way. Both should give the same search result but they don’t.
    Take your search results with a grain of salt.

    #53661
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “our present definitions of “socialism’ and ‘capitalism’ bear no resemblance to the originals.”

    That may be part of the problem. Often is. Sure, all human systems have favoritism, but “money talks” as they say. So even if you’re not a pal, a family member, I can’t kick you out if you’re effective. Then you make money, move up into the caste system. Without that, nada. Lockout. Stagnation, like the middle ages or elsewhere. Classic definition of “the worst system except all others.” I’d be for tribalism, but since that requires <500 people units, I think that ship has sailed. Failing that, here we are. Can I make stuff and trade it with others, or is somebody going to point a gun at me and stop me? They point the guns, I don’t like thieves, and that’s all it comes down to. If they’d leave me alone, I could pivot and chase bribery and fraud and civil damages among my countrymen more fully, and clean that up too.

    “the use of all “… ism” is a weapon.”

    Also a great point.

    #53667
    WES
    Participant

    Repression of interest rates kills savers and rewards those who can’t live within their means.

    When this insanity hits the wall, there will be nobody left to save anybody!

    #53668
    WES
    Participant

    Trudope is worried Alberta will stop being a “Have” province paying him and become a “Have-Not” province requiring Trudope to pay to support Alberta.

    Trudope needs more money! So is he going to kill his golden goose? You decide!

    #53670
    WES
    Participant

    The Fed needs to call a plumber urgently!

    There are simply not enough liquidity faucets at the Fed to satisfy all the thirsty!

    The Fed needs to install more liquidity faucets to replace all the savers it killed!

    It looks like the Fed has the same problem San Francisco has with their homeless!

    When you enact policies that encourages this, you get more of it!

    So why should the “free money” Fed be surprised that there are more, thirsting for liquidity!

    #53676
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    I noticed, did anyone else …
    Microsoft Edge vs Chrome do not do a search the same way. Both should give the same search result but they don’t.
    Take your search results with a grain of salt.

    I gave up on them a decade ago; Yandex is the only way to go, IMO.
    Both browser and search…

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