Apr 272020
 
 April 27, 2020  Posted by at 11:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Dorothea Lange On the road to Los Angeles, California 1937

 

Sweden’s Stay-Open Approach Is Creating Herd Immunity Quickly – Ambassador (JTN)
European Shares Rise On Airline Surge, Upbeat Earnings (R.)
Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Windfalls, Tumbling Taxes, Pandemic Profiteers (IPS)
Over 100,000 Virus Deaths in 2020 If UK Lockdown Ends Early – Ferguson (St.)
UK Economy Will Take Three Years To Recover From Coronavirus – EY (G.)
One In Three UK Doctors Left Without Protective Gear (Ind.)
Italy To Reopen Factories In Staged End To Coronavirus Lockdown (R.)
Fauci Says US Coronavirus Testing Likely Will Double In The Coming Weeks (JTN)
US To Cap How Much Each Bank Can Lend Under Emergency Coronavirus Program (R.)
Not The End Of The Road For US Health Secretary Azar, Trump Says (JTN)
How the Unicorn Blowup & Oil Bust Bleed into CMBS (WS)
When Oil Became Waste (R.)
EU’s COVID Recovery Spending Should Be Guided By Green Finance Plan (R.)
Minks Test Positive For COVID19 At Two Dutch Farms (EN)
Israel’s Top Court Says Government Must Legislate COVID-19 Phone-Tracking (R.)
Assange: Espionage is the Charge, But He’s Really Accused of Sedition (Lauria)

 

 

We passed 3 million global cases.

 

• US records 1,330 #coronavirus deaths in 24 hours: Johns Hopkins

• The US now has an overall death toll of 54,841, with 964,937 confirmed infections, according to a tally by the Johns Hopkins University at 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Monday)

 

• Sweden is the favorite of the anti-lockdown crowd, but contrary to what they claim, Sweden isn’t doing very well at all, so it’s a bit of a mystery why.

• Sweden is no. 8 (out of 200+) in the world in deaths per million people, in which it is 3 times worse than neighbors Denmark and 6 times worse than Norway and Finland. It’s even worse than the US.

• Deaths per million population (Worldometer):
Belgium 612
Spain 496
Italy 441
France 350
UK 305
Netherlands 261
Ireland 220
Sweden 217
Switzerland 186
US 167

 

 

NOTE: lowest number of global deaths for a long time.

Cases 3,008,196 (+ 73,557 from yesterday’s 2,934,639)

Deaths 207,361 (+ 3,678 from yesterday’s 203,683)

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-

 

 

From Worldometer – Among Closed Cases, Deaths have fallen to 19%

 

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

As an aside: the ambassador claims that “About 30% of people in Stockholm have reached a level of immunity..” The only numbers of any antibodies I’ve seen on this globally were in the region of 5% or less. How then do the Swedes measure it?

Sweden’s Stay-Open Approach Is Creating Herd Immunity Quickly – Ambassador (JTN)

Sweden’s decision to keep schools, malls and restaurants open with limited restrictions during the pandemic is yielding success, with its capital city about to reach herd immunity in the next few weeks, according to the country’s ambassador to the United States. “About 30% of people in Stockholm have reached a level of immunity,” Ambassador Karin Ulrika Olofsdotter told NPR in an interview published Sunday. “We could reach herd immunity in the capital as early as next month.” Herd immunity means between 60% and 80% percent of a country’s population has become immune to a virus, either recovering from it or through immunization. Sweden banned gatherings of over 50 people but otherwise left schools, restaurants and malls open, provided citizens observe social distancing.


Facilities that don’t comply have been aggressively closed down. Sweden has reported more than 18,500 confirmed coronavirus cases and 2,194 deaths as of Sunday. The country’s approach to the pandemic has bucked much of the Western world, and generated controversy. “We share the same goal as all other countries, and that is of course to save as many lives as possible and protect public health,” Olofsdotter explained to NPR. “So we face the same reality as everyone else. But what’s different, and I think it’s important to underline that all countries are different, is that politicians take the measures that they think works best for their country and their general public.”

Read more …

Airlines receive hand-outs, their shares surge. Why oh why should this proft go to shareholders, when it’s made possible only through taxpayer dollars?? The Airfrance/KLM CEO was set to get a huge bonus because he managed to get the state bailouts; only at the very last minute did a few parliamentarians prevent that from happening? Doesn’t anybody care anymore that we don’t have financial markets but pretend we do?

European Shares Rise On Airline Surge, Upbeat Earnings (R.)

European shares rose on Monday, as airline stocks soared on hopes of state support, while a slew of upbeat earnings added to optimism over signs many countries would soon ease tough lockdown measures. Shares of Lufthansa jumped 7.2%, with Berlin expected to decide on state support, while Air France KLM rose 5.2% after the government said it would give a 7-billion-euros ($7.6 billion) aid package. Positive quarterly reports also helped. German drugs and pesticides company Bayer gained 2.8% and Deutsche Bank jumped 7.7% after their first-quarter earnings topped market expectations.


The pan-European STOXX 600 rose 1.7% by 0720 GMT, following gains in Asian markets after the Bank of Japan pledged to buy unlimited amount of bonds to keep borrowing costs low. The European benchmark ended with weekly losses on Friday, hit by the lack of details in a trillion-euro emergency fund agreed by the euro zone leaders. However, investors are pinning hopes on further stimulus expansion by the European Central Bank, which is scheduled to meet on Thursday. Shares in Adidas, however, fell 1.6% as it reported a 93% plunge in first-quarter profit, and warned of a deeper hit to second-quarter revenue as lockdowns forced it to close stores.

Read more …

From March 18 to April 10, over 22 million people lost their jobs as the unemployment rate surged toward 15%.

Over the same three weeks, U.S. billionaire wealth increased by $282 billion, an almost 10% gain.

Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Windfalls, Tumbling Taxes, Pandemic Profiteers (IPS)

Billionaires dominate our politics, culture, and economy. Their wealth, as this report shows, has concentrated mightily over the last four decades — even as the number of U.S. households with zero or negative net worth is increasing and most of us are living paycheck to paycheck. The current pandemic is exposing our central economic and social reality: Extreme wealth inequality has become America’s “pre-existing condition.” In this report, we show how billionaire wealth has grown astoundingly over the last few decades — and, for some “pandemic profiteers,” even more dramatically since the COVID-19 crisis — even as billionaire tax obligations have plummeted. If this inequality isn’t treated with both short and long-term tax reforms and oversight, America’s “pre-existing condition” of extreme inequality could overwhelm not only our economy, but our democracy itself.

• Between January 1, 2020 and April 10, 2020, 34 of the nation’s wealthiest 170 billionaires saw their wealth increase by tens of millions of dollars. Eight have seen their net worth surge by over $1 billion.

• As of April 15, Jeff Bezos’s fortune had increased by an estimated $25 billion since January 1, 2020. This unprecedented wealth surge is larger than the Gross Domestic Product of Honduras, $23.9 billion in 2018.

• Between March 18 and April 10, 2020, over 22 million people lost their jobs as the unemployment rate surged toward 15 percent. Over the same three weeks, U.S. billionaire wealth increased by $282 billion, an almost 10 percent gain.

• Billionaire wealth rebounded quickly after the 2008 financial crisis. Between 2010 and 2020, U.S. billionaire wealth increased 80.6 percent, more than five times the median wealth increase for U.S. households.

• Between 1990 and 2020, U.S. billionaire wealth soared 1,130 percent — an increase more than 200 times greater than the 5.37 percent growth of U.S. median wealth.

• Measured as a percentage of their wealth, the tax obligations of America’s billionaires decreased 79 percent between 1980 and 2018.

Read more …

The UK is in no position to relax.

Over 100,000 Virus Deaths in 2020 If UK Lockdown Ends Early – Ferguson (St.)

The UK death toll could jump past 100,000 by the end of the year if lockdown is lifted too early, a top professor has warned. Imperial College epidemiologist Professor Neil Ferguson said if the healthy go back to work while the vulnerable remain in lockdown there will be a huge increase in virus fatalities. The expert said social isolation will need to be kept in place until a pharmaceutical intervention is found, whether that is a vaccine or treatment drugs, and one is unlikely within the next year. His warning comes as the British Government faces intense pressure to reveal its Covid-19 lockdown exit strategy .


Speaking to UnHerd, Prof Ferguson said he is sceptical that the UK can achieve a level of shielding that will be effective. “If you just achieve 80 per cent shielding – and 80 per cent reduction in infection risk in those groups – we still project that you would well over 100,000 deaths this year from that kind of strategy,” he said. The Government is under pressure from senior Tories to relax the strict social-distancing measures amid concern at the damage they are doing to the economy. Sir Keir Starmer has also called on the Prime Minister to produce a clear lockdown exit strategy.

https://twitter.com/ThePalpitations/status/1254529121134264322

Read more …

Modeling in finance is as bad as in epidemiology.

UK Economy Will Take Three Years To Recover From Coronavirus – EY (G.)

It will take the UK economy three years to fully recover from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a leading forecasting group. As the damage for jobs and growth unfolds, the EY Item Club said it would take until 2023 for the the economy to return to the level reached at the end of last year due to the depth of the crisis. One month on from the imposition of lockdown measures across Britain, effectively bringing large swathes of the economy to a halt, the group warned that almost half of all consumer spending in 2020 – the major engine of UK growth over recent decades – is at risk of either being delayed or lost completely.


The group of economists said GDP was set to collapse by 6.8% in 2020, before returning to positive growth of 4.5% in 2021 as businesses try to make up for lost time and consumers ramp up their spending again. The forecast is based on the assumption that some lockdown restrictions will start to be eased in May, with controls relaxed further in June. As such, the Item Club believes the economy should benefit later in the year from a degree of pent-up demand as people are allowed to travel again and return to the shops. Howard Archer, the chief economic adviser to the Item Club, said the report assumes that the government’s measures aimed at supporting businesses and saving jobs would have a significant positive impact. “[The support] is absolutely crucial to limiting the potential longer-term damage to the economy,” he said.

Read more …

After all the lockdown- and economic recovery talk, there’s still the real world.

One In Three UK Doctors Left Without Protective Gear (Ind.)

More doctors are being forced to treat coronavirus patients without protective equipment, it has been revealed, as Dominic Raab refused to say when shortages would finally end. A third of physicians working in high-risk settings have reported running short of long-sleeved gowns or full-face visors – a situation that has “worsened over the past three weeks”, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said. Of those working in other hospital areas, 40 per cent are not always equipped with eye protection, while 15.5 per cent are sometimes left without fluid-repellent face masks. They are faced with the “awful” choice “between protecting our own lives or protecting those of the patients we treat”, one physician said.


The grim survey results were disclosed as Mr Raab admitted the government has fallen short on protecting frontline NHS and care staff, more than a month after Boris Johnson insisted PPE would be provided. Asked when there would be “enough”, the stand-in prime minister said: “It’s very difficult to say that with precision and the kind of reliability that you want as a guarantee.” And asked to acknowledge that some medical and care staff had been let down, Mr Raab replied: “I think we’re not in the place on PPE that we’d want to be.”

Read more …

Can’t do anything that involves crowds. Not for a very long time. Forget about soccer games.

Italy To Reopen Factories In Staged End To Coronavirus Lockdown (R.)

Italy will allow factories and building sites to reopen from May 4 and permit limited family visits as it prepares a staged end to Europe’s longest coronavirus lockdown, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Sunday. More than two months after the first case of COVID-19 appeared in a small town outside Milan and following weeks of lockdown, Italy is looking ahead to a second phase of the crisis in which it will attempt to restart the economy without triggering a new wave of infections. “We expect a very complex challenge,” Conte said as he outlined the road map to restarting activities put into hibernation since early March. “We will live with the virus and we will have to adopt every precaution possible.”

Manufacturers, construction companies and some wholesalers will be allowed to reopen from May 4, followed by retailers two weeks later. Restaurants and bars will be allowed to reopen fully from the beginning of June, although takeaway business will be possible earlier. “The reopening is allowed on condition that all companies involved strictly respect security protocols in the workplace,” Conte said, adding that the reopening would lay the ground for deeper reforms of the economy in the months ahead. In addition, parks will be allowed to reopen and limited family visits and funerals with no more than 15 people present will be permitted. But movement between regions remains suspended and people moving about will still have to carry a declaration explaining the reasons for their journeys.

Museums and libraries can reopen from May 18, when sports teams will also be able to resume group training, although Conte said conditions would have to be assessed before any decision on resuming the top-flight Serie A soccer championship. Schools will remain shut, however, until the start of the new academic year in September, leaving families facing childcare problems for months to come.

Read more …

Let’s make a deal: stop talking about relaxing lockdowns until you can test 1 million people per day. That would still mean it takes a year to test every American just once. Which is nowhere near enough.

Fauci Says US Coronavirus Testing Likely Will Double In The Coming Weeks (JTN)

The current amount of COVID-19 testing likely will double in the coming weeks, Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a National Academy of Sciences panel about the virus. “We’re doing about 1.5, 2 million per week,” said Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “We probably should get up to twice that as we get into the next several weeks, and I think we will. “Testing is an important part of what we’re doing, but is not the only part,” Fauci noted. “But no doubt it is important to be able to do the identification, isolation and contact tracing.”


Fauci, who has factored prominently in the daily coronavirus task force briefings at the White House, said it is important to have “enough tests to respond to the outbreaks that will inevitably occur as you try and ease your way back into the different phases.” As the nation moves toward reopening in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump has issued Guidelines for Opening Up America Again, which include three phases.

Read more …

aka lend to the big boys until there’s nothing left.

US To Cap How Much Each Bank Can Lend Under Emergency Coronavirus Program (R.)

The U.S. government notified lenders on Sunday that it will cap how much each bank can lend under the emergency loan program designed to keep workers on payrolls amid the coronavirus pandemic, hours ahead of the reopening of the lending program. The Small Business Administration (SBA) will impose a maximum dollar amount for individual lenders at 10% of Paycheck Protection Program funding, or $60 billion per lender, and pace the applications filed, according to SBA guidance on Sunday to lenders that have received a significant number of applications. The steps are “prudent and reasonable” due to the unprecedented demand for the loans, the memo said. U.S. banks were girding over the weekend for another frantic race to grab $310 billion in fresh small-business aid due to be released by the government.


The SBA was due to reopen PPP funding at 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT) on Monday, allowing lenders to resume processing piles of backlogged applications from businesses hurt by the coronavirus shutdown. The SBA will also take applications in one bulk submission with a minimum of 15,000 loans, the SBA said in the memo. The PPP came under criticism after a number of publicly traded companies with thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales got loans, while smaller businesses did not. Nearly 5,000 lenders, including big banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup as well as community banks, participated in the prior, $349-billion round of funding. No lender accounted for more than 5% of that total, the SBA said previously.

Read more …

US media need this kind of topic; they’d be completely lost without Trump.

Not The End Of The Road For US Health Secretary Azar, Trump Says (JTN)

President Trump emphatically denied Sunday that he is planning to fire Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar, calling reports of an impending dismissal “fake news.” Trump made the comments on Twitter, after multiple reports surfaced over the weekend that Azar’s job is in jeopardy, including in The Wall Street Journal. “Reports that H.H.S. Secretary @AlexAzar is going to be “fired” by me are Fake News,” Trump tweeted. “The Lamestream Media knows this, but they are desperate to create the perception of chaos & havoc in the minds of the public. They never even called to ask.


He added for emphasis: “Alex is doing an excellent job!” White House spokesman Judd Deere also called the reports inaccurate. “The Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of Secretary Azar, continues to lead on a number of the President’s priorities,” Deere said. “Any speculation about personnel is irresponsible and a distraction from our whole-of-government response to COVID-19.”

Read more …

CMBS = Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities. The Fed will bail them out.

How the Unicorn Blowup & Oil Bust Bleed into CMBS (WS)

The office segment of the commercial real estate market – and the debt and the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) that are backed by it – are going through serious gyrations on a combination of factors. Companies have figured out how to make work-from-home manageable. Other companies are moving out, leaving buildings vacant, or are deferring rent payments. Landlords whose cashflow from rents has suddenly crashed are failing to make their mortgage payments or are asking for forbearance. And CMBS are at the receiving end of the process.


That any return to the old normal for landlords, banks, and holders of CMBS is just a dream is now being increasingly accepted, including by Larry Fink, CEO of mega asset-manager BlackRock: “I don’t think any company’s going to go back to 100% of the workforce in the office,” he said at an online event. “That means less congestion in cities. It means, more importantly, less need for commercial real estate.” This new era of office real estate comes on top of the problems currently erupting: Tenants moving out for nicer digs, now that there are plenty available, or tenants laying off people and possibly shutting down. So here are two specific examples of how this is bleeding into CMBS.

Read more …

Given the efficiency of the internal combustion engine, plus the ubiquity of plastics made from oil, its overall effect has always been at least 90% waste.

When Oil Became Waste (R.)

The magnitude of how damaged the energy industry is came into full view on April 20 when the benchmark price of U.S. oil futures, which had never dropped below $10 a barrel in its nearly 40-year history, plunged to a previously unthinkable minus $38 a barrel. In just a few months, the coronavirus pandemic has destroyed so much fuel demand as billions of people curtail travel that it has done what financial crashes, recessions and wars had failed to ever do – leave the United States with so much oil there was nowhere to put it. While the unusual circumstance of negative oil prices may not be repeated, many in the industry say it is a harbinger for more bleak days ahead, and that years of overinvestment will not correct in a period of weeks or even months.


“What happened in the futures contract the other day indicated things are starting to get bad earlier than expected,” said Frederick Lawrence, vice president of economics and international affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “People are getting notices from pipeline companies that say they can’t take their crude anymore. That means you’re shutting down the well yesterday.” Evidence of the erosion of value for a product that has been a mainstay of global society since the late 19th century abounded across the world last week. In Russia, one of the world’s top producers, the industry is considering resorting to burning its oil to take it off the market, sources told Reuters.

Read more …

And who are the experts? Investors. Who only want “to go green” because it promises a big profit.

Green is turning into a swearword, but so many people are invested in it they fail to notice.

The Green New Deals will destroy our ability to save anything, not help it. They will be a huge pool of malinvestment and gobble up what we have left.

EU’s COVID Recovery Spending Should Be Guided By Green Finance Plan (R.)

Planned European Union rules requiring investments to be in line with climate policy should be used to guide economic recovery measures after the coronavirus pandemic, despite not yet being law, the bloc’s expert advisers said on Monday. With the bloc headed for a steep recession and its executive, the European Commission, drawing up a trillion-euro recovery plan, calls are growing from politicians, companies and campaigners to make sure the money does not prop up environmentally damaging industries. The Commission had planned to introduce rules on which investments can be called “green” from 2021, forcing providers of financial products to disclose which investments meet the criteria – known as the EU “sustainable finance taxonomy”.


However, the Commission’s Technical Expert Group (TEG), a 35-member panel of investors, business leaders and climate policy experts, said the rules – designed by the TEG, at the Commission’s request – should inform stimulus plans now. “The opportunity for a resilient, sustainable and fair economic recovery is right before us. We encourage all governments, public institutions and the private sector to use the right tools for the job,” it said in a statement. The TEG has also drawn up a green bond standard for the EU and a framework to assess whether financial instruments, contracts or investment funds conform with the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change. “There’s going to be, potentially, a surge of public and private spending to reboot the economy,” said Nathan Fabian, chief responsible investment officer at the U.N.-backed Principles for Responsible Investment investor group and member of the TEG.

Read more …

“Authorities “assume that people infected animals”…

Minks Test Positive For COVID19 At Two Dutch Farms (EN)

Two Dutch mink farms have reported cases of COVID-19 among their animals, the country’s Ministry of Agriculture confirmed on Sunday. Minks at the two farms located within 15km of each other in southern Netherlands “showed various symptoms including respiratory problems,” the ministry said in a statement. Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals bred for their furs. An investigation has been launched to determine the source of the infections. Authorities “assume that people infected animals” as the two farms had employees with symptoms for COVID-19 and stressed that although “human to animal contamination is possible, the impact of this mink contamination on human health is currently negligible”.


To prevent the spread of the disease to other farms, both animals and manure are banned from leaving the infected farms. Samples are being collected from healthy and infected animals with authorities also collecting air and dust samples in the vicinity “as a precaution”. The ministry said public roads around the two frame have been closed and advised people not to walk or cycle within a 400-metre radius until the samples have been analysed.

Read more …

They didn’t even bother about legislation. Betcha that’s true for most countries.

Israel’s Top Court Says Government Must Legislate COVID-19 Phone-Tracking (R.)

Citing grave dangers to privacy, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Sunday that the government must bring its use of mobile phone tracking deployed in the battle against the new coronavirus under legislation. Circumventing parliament in March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet approved emergency regulations that enabled the Shin Bet internal security service to tap into cellular data to retrace the movements of people infected by the virus. The technology, customarily used for anti-terrorism, has since yielded data used by the Health Ministry to locate and alert those who have been in their vicinity. The practice has been subjected to some parliamentary oversight following a subsequent court ruling.


Accepting petitions from Israeli rights groups, the Supreme Court said the government must begin legislation by April 30 and complete it within a few weeks if it wanted to continue tracking people’s phones in its bid to stop the virus spreading. “The state’s choice to use its preventative security service for monitoring those who wish it no harm, without their consent, raises great difficulties and a suitable alternative, compatible with the principles of privacy, must be found,” the court said. Citing freedom of the press, the court also ruled that monitoring of journalists confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus can only be done with their consent. If they refuse, members of the media could seek an injunction against the practice, in order to protect their sources.

Read more …

After this morning, proceedings have been adjourned until 4 May. Defense and prosecutors both want the May 18 hearing pushed forward to September at the earliest. Even highly partial judge Vanessa Baraitser says question of 18 May start date now “at best uncertain”.

The next period the court would be available for 3 weeks is from 2 November. She should order him freed on bail until then. No threat to his environment, no flight risk.

Assange: Espionage is the Charge, But He’s Really Accused of Sedition (Lauria)

The United States has had two sedition laws in its history. Both were repealed within three years. Britain repealed its 17th Century sedition law in 2009. Though this crime is no longer on the books, the crime of sedition is really what both governments are accusing Julian Assange of. The campaign of smears, the weakness of the case and the language of his indictment proves it. The imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher has been indicted on 17 counts of espionage under the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act on a technicality: the unauthorized possession and dissemination of classified material—something that has been performed by countless journalists and publishers over the decades. It conflicts head on with the First Amendment. But espionage isn’t really what the government is after. Assange did not pass state secrets to an enemy of the United States, as in a classic espionage case, but rather to the public, which the government might well consider the enemy. Assange revealed crimes and corruption by the state.

Punishing such legitimate criticism of government as sedition has deep roots in British and American history. Sedition was seen in the Elizabethan era as the “notion of inciting by words or writings disaffection towards the state or constituted authority.” Punishment included beheading and dismemberment. “In their efforts to suppress political discussion or criticism of the government or the governors of Tudor England, the Privy Council and royal judges needed a new formulation of a criminal offence … This new crime they found in the offence of sedition, which was defined and punished by the Court of Star Chamber.… If the facts alleged were true, that only made the offence worse,” wrote historian Roger B. Manning. Sedition fell short of treason and did not need to provoke violence.

Though the Star Chamber was abolished in 1641, the British Sedition Act of 1661, a year after the Restoration, said, “…a seditious intention is an intention to bring into hatred or contempt, or to exite disaffection against the person of His Majesty, his heirs or successors, or the government and constitution of the United Kingdom.” Under President John Adams, the first U.S. Sedition Act in 1798 put it this way: “To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it, or to aid or encourage hostile designs of foreign nations.”

While WikiLeaks publications have never been proven false, the U.S. government is certainly portraying its work as “scandalous and malicious writing against the United States” and has accused him of encouraging “hostile designs” against the country. Congress did not renew the Act in 1801 and President Thomas Jefferson pardoned those serving sentences for sedition and refunded their fines.


1918 protest in front of the White House against the Sedition Act.

Read more …

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on people’s kind donations. Since their revenue has collapsed, ads no longer pay for all you read, and your support is now an integral part of the process.

Thanks for your generosity.

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth for your own good.

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle April 27 2020

Viewing 32 posts - 1 through 32 (of 32 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #57981

    Dorothea Lange On the road to Los Angeles, California 1937   • Sweden’s Stay-Open Approach Is Creating Herd Immunity Quickly – Ambassador (JTN) •
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 27 2020]

    #57982
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Dorothea Lange On the road to Los Angeles, California 1937

    Oh the irony……………

    #57983
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    We now have achieved the stage of rising domestic violence enabled by lockdowns:
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/domestic-violence-rates-rising-due-to-covid19-1.5545851
    We also have significant mental health issues related to lockdowns:
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadians-angus-reid-pandemic-survey-1.5545594

    We have substantial portions of meat processing plants being closed.
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2020/04/27/as-coronavirus-hobbles-meat-processors-tough-decisions-loom-for-beef-chicken-pork-exports/

    In Quebec Canada 97 percent of mortality from covid was in people over 70. This is shaping up to look like a generational attack on young people who predominantly pay the price (job loss, future payment for handouts) to save the older generation.

    #57984
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    We now have achieved the stage of rising domestic violence enabled by lockdowns:
    Check
    We also have significant mental health issues related to lockdowns:
    Check
    We have substantial portions of meat processing plants being closed.
    Check

    In Quebec Canada 97 percent of mortality from covid was in people over 70. This is shaping up to look like a generational attack on young people who predominantly pay the price (job loss, future payment for handouts) to save the older generation.

    Huh?

    #57985
    zerosum
    Participant

    Yesterday

    ” …In Quebec Canada 97 percent of mortality from covid was in people over 70.”

    Tomorrow????
    You can only die once.
    .In Quebec Canada 97 percent of mortality from covid will be in people over less than 70.
    —–
    What is the cost of dumping milk? plowing crop? Feeding cows?, pigs, chickens?

    Answers: less than trying to selling

    #57986
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    Zerosum you demonstrate a shocking lack of understanding of statistics.
    V.Arnold if you can’t see that the young are paying the price for protecting the old from covid, I don’t know what to tell you. Who is losing their jobs-the elderly? When it comes time to pay for all the covid bailouts, which tax payers are going to shoulder the costs-the elderly? Healthy young people are suffering the emotional and social consequences of a lockdown which for the most part their health does not require-they are essentially being asked to do this for the extremely vulnerable elderly.

    #57987
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    Presumably most of you read Zerohedge but here’s an article providing the perspective of several ER doctors in California
    Highlights
    – lockdown weakens immune system against all infections -get ready for a surge in all infections diseases as soon as you open up
    -large increase in do domestic violence cases in ER
    – they are being told to report Covid as cause of death
    https://www.zerohedge.com/health/2-whisteblowing-cali-er-doctors-urge-open-society-now-because-lockdowns-are-weakening-our

    #57988
    zerosum
    Participant

    sumac.carol

    I hear you. You hear me.
    We cannot change what is happening.
    I’m not going to visit care homes.

    #57989
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    Sorry zerosum – now I get what you were saying about only dying once – I guess we’ll see what happens.

    #57990
    zerosum
    Participant

    sumac.carol

    Close to home

    http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/data
    Look at, lot’s of info. Deaths are now at 100.
    COVID-19 Dashboard
    ——–
    Gardening is later.
    Heavy snow pack may cause flooding.
    Most of my seeds have sprouted
    ——–
    I’m pain free. Therefore, I’m happy.
    Old info forgotten to make room for new info.

    #57991

    In that video Carol references, the two doctors claim they are told to put down COVID19 as cause of death.

    But George Kelder, the CEO and executive director of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association, says sort of the opposite:

    In US COVID19 Can No Longer Be Listed As Primary Cause Of Death

    Last week, because of changes on the national level, the primary cause of death can no longer be COVID-19. It can be a secondary cause or a consequence of the primary cause of death. But the primary cause of death must be something other than the virus itself.”

    #57992
    zerosum
    Participant

    Hamlet says ‘To be or not to be’

    Raúl Ilargi Meijer say, “To be a virus or not to be a virus”

    #57994
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Finally, mainstream NBC reporting that Corona science makes no sense: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-coronavirus-response-questioned-daily-dr-fauci-dr-birx-ncna1192266

    Don’t worry: no one will follow up or notice. Or the 4k-20k deaths per 1% x 20% increase in unemployment = 80,000 – 400,000 premature deaths from the lockdown.

    As long as you die in a cardboard box, it’s all good to me! Just like their health care pricing monopoly. Hey, we gave you the bypass surgery, it’s not our fault if you went bankrupt paying government-enforced pricing and now live in the sewers of Vegas catching typhus. It’s your fault.

    So basically we’ll get our 250k U.S. deaths scenario: 50,000 from Corona and 200,000 from the economy, crime, and civil unrest, food shortages, and delays of screening and voluntary medical care. #Winning! The people cheer! Help us Daddy! Tell us what to do!

    The hospitals of 3,000 counties are empty and going bankrupt, along with the 3,000 county governments and everybody in them. Can we stop now? A: No! There’s still someone sick in Yonkers. Someone in Oklahoma isn’t living in a tent yet.

    Protests in Germany to unlock. +5k dead. / 83M = 0.006% death rate. U.S. +55K dead = 0.02% That’s with the CDC counting all possibles as yes and $17k payout incentive to every one they can stamp as positive.
    Experts = Totally wrong. Off by two zeros. So, so easy to tell. Because that’s been true every day of my life.

    To contradict myself, FT says 60% are unreported. https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c

    Okay. Take it as true: why are the rates wildly, radically, unscientifically different? Why still NYC and not Albany, Pittsburgh, or indeed anywhere coast-to-coast? Because we’re chasing the wrong thing, fighting shadows? Science says if your theories don’t support, shouldn’t you look again?

    The UK death toll could jump past 100,000 by the end of the year if lockdown is lifted too early,”

    That’s weird: Oxford said the opposite. Could you experts get together and science some things for us? Your only success was making everyone totally confused and fight with each other. Maybe we should be fighting you and your catastrophic lack of good advice and solid facts instead.

    social isolation will need to be kept in place until a pharmaceutical intervention is found,”

    Well, that’ll never happen, so expect house arrest forever, until we all die of old age. Why? Because we already found a couple interventions and they were trashed in the media and prevented from being tested. You have to keep voting until you pick the RIGHT solution. Otherwise we’ll remove you. Call it the EU method.

    UK Economy Will Take Three Years to Recover from Coronavirus – EY (G.)”

    Experts know. Estimated to two decimal places. So, good sirs, recover to what? Transplanetary production under neoliberalism of useless disposable goods from China? Thinking not. So we’re not ‘recovering’, we’re changing.

    One in Three UK Doctors Left without Protective Gear (Ind.)”

    And still, every shipment of PPE from China is broken and fake, trying to kill more doctors. Pretty sure that, same as here, the panic has them hoarding PPE in the basement for a final overwhelm that never comes thanks to broken models that can’t be discredited. So “have” it? Pretty sure they “have” it, they’re scared to “use” it, because the decision-makers aren’t the ones being coughed on.

    Fauci Says US Coronavirus Testing Likely Will Double in the Coming Weeks (JTN)”

    Then the rates will double and the death rate will halve (again). No prize for guessing which one the media will report. It will also show their attempted lockdown didn’t stop anything.

    Anyone know if the tests are worthless yet? Heard they picked up flu coronas, not Covids, and other bad habits. They also don’t reveal if you had Covid 6 months ago. My understanding is that at least they work.

    leave the United States with so much oil there was nowhere to put it.”

    I’ve said this for decades: simply drive half as much and the price is negative, we’re an exporter. Since more than half of the driving we do is stupid, time-wasting, and counter-productive, that’s the easiest thing in the world, just old-time frugality and common sense. Not spending is a way not to get poor. But that does not make GDP and tax income, and is fought, subsidized, zoned, and arrested at every turn. Sales are the goal. The efficiency is the enemy. As seen in the next article, the Green New Deal, Teslas, ethanol, solar panels, mega-windmills and all their other energy-and-material wasting projects. By when it’s forced sales, forced extraction from the poorest taxpayers so they won’t have clean water, who cares? FROM the poor, TO the rich, but they need a scam, a con, a buy-in, a sales pitch. If that happens to be “green” whatever, I don’t care.

    “Minks Test Positive for COVID19 at Two Dutch Farms (EN)”

    I guess this is a new level of “everybody’s going to get it.”

    They didn’t even bother about legislation. Betcha that’s true for most countries.”

    That’s why the quarantines are illegal all over, or generally. But we’re being cooperative. Legally, you have to pass a law to do things. The law has to be Constitutional. How last century: the 19th Century.

    the crime of sedition is really what both governments are accusing Julian Assange of.”

    I need not point out that you can’t be seditious to a government not your own. Especially if you don’t live there.

    UV-Disinfection robot”

    But they said light and disinfectant was stupid. Except no help to Captain Dumb-ss, we have internal disinfectants like peroxide nebulizers and light therapy like UV catheters and ventilators. How do we know? Because those manufacturers were banned from Twitter yesterday to hide the evidence of their existence. Dorsey promised to attack Trump and rig the election. Sort of like Jeb Bush back when. Muh private company. But isn’t that an illegal campaign donation of like-kind service? Only when it’s my side. Right or wrong.

    #57995
    WES
    Participant

    Dr D:

    Our problem is who decides who is called an expert!

    My Grandfather said “An expert is an ordinary fellow a long way from home”.

    #57996
    Birdshak
    Participant

    Hi everybody, This morning while milking cows the thought occurred, “More old people die from COVID-19, more men than women, more minorities than whites, but this misses the hugest point: More city than country folk.” If you are sitting in your Manhattan condo with the wife and three kids all screaming, the $3000 rent past due, laid off, people dying all around, you ask yourself, “Where do I want to be when the next pandemic comes?” A few acres, some pigs and chickens, a garden, fresh air. I welcome new neighbors, if they are willing to shovel shit, so much the better.

    #57997
    WES
    Participant

    Carol:

    In the not too distance future, the death rate in Quebec and Ontario will fall rapidly once the coronavirus has finished visiting all of the nursing homes. Then there will be no more old folks left.

    Our socialist leaders have the same plan as the coronavirus. Kill off all the old people.

    #57998
    PlanetaryCitizen
    Participant

    I say the solution to the problem is if ya’ll want to go back to work, going to B ball games, sitting in the restaurant or bar sipping suds, working in the meat packing plant, etc. Have at it. Just agree to not seek medical care if you get sick. Easy peasy! I’m all for Darwinism.

    By the way regarding the young paying the price for the old. First of all, the young are dying as well. Particularly those with high exposure jobs. But it might do your soul good to consider the notion of Depraved Indifference.

    Dr. D as I showed several days ago, your statistic of 400k deaths from unemployment is total bull shit.

    #57999
    generic
    Participant

    I suspect that the Swedish ambassador has confused true nCoV immunity with a limited immunity left over from the common cold.

    #58000
    zerosum
    Participant

    ” … The healthcare workers ….”

    The maintenance workers that must deal with the contaminated, infected products
    —- laundry, loading the dishwashers,discarded PPE, mops, rags, garbage, vomit, etc.

    these are the invisible, lowest, unrecognized untouchable, pillars of societies that are attacking the enemies (stools, bedpans, germs, virus, flues) so that the healthcare workers can do their rescuing of patients.

    That must be why pots and pans are being beaten at 7:00 pm every night.
    🙂

    #58001
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    To blame seniors (I’m 75) for the unemployment of the young is just plain ludicrous, IMO.
    Most of us do not hold jobs; we’re retired.
    What I’m seeing is; people are scared to death because of the flood of bullshit in virtually all of the reporting.
    By all appearances, critical thinking doesn’t exist, just everybody in panic mode.
    Even most of the medical staff seem to be incompetent, including the doctors. Inappropriate medical procedures have likely killed more patients than the virus itself.
    I’ve instructed my wife I do not want to go to the hospital and absolutely no intubation in the event I get infected.
    From my perspective the whole world has gone mad…

    …and just in case some wack job accuses me of dissing the hard working medical staff; they are working hard, just, with a few exceptions, not smart…

    #58002
    zerosum
    Participant

    ” By all appearances, critical thinking doesn’t exist …
    …. incompetent
    ….. with a few exceptions, not smart…”

    Around the world, Seniors said it. It must be true?
    😉

    #58003
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    From my perspective the whole world has gone mad…

    C’mon, V.Arnold. Not the whole world. Just in North America and parts of Europe. Things seem pretty calm in much of Asia. Korea never went into lockdown. Public transportation remained open. Restaurants remained open. Hair salons remained open. Yes, museums and sporting events closed, and kids were home from school, and bars had to close earlier than normal, but life has gone on mostly like normal. From what I hear from colleagues in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, life is not bad at all. Though many tend to be working at home a lot more, they can still go out. I spoke to a friend in Beijing who said that although there is more monitoring of comings and goings, it’s mostly life as normal.

    At the beginning of all this I sent some photos back home of people on the bus all wearing masks, and the signs at the entrance of the building warning that nobody could enter without a mask and a temperature scan. People back home reacted with shock, thinking this was a terrible overreaction. But now I guess it is a different story. Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia have turned the corner. Singapore has some problems with the dormitories for foreign workers, but seems to be doing all it can. Japan fell behind when it tried to keep the Olympics, and it has more cases, now, but the Japanese being Japanese will turn the corner without the need for strict lockdowns. How are things in Thailand?

    #58004
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    I am old. I am a target of the virus. I have all the symptoms, but no fever, shortness of breath or cough. I live at home with no contact with outsiders going on six weeks, with a government pension. To be successful, the virus will have to mutate not to kill its hosts. Humans also must relearn ancient truths, like old farts have seen and lived a lot. Besides greeters they can also be teachers. Western Society has to relearn that life is more important than money.

    Since the world is run by greed-based extractive capitalism and the booms and busts are getting catastrophic; humans must come up with a science based human cooperative society to survive on earth. Since psychopaths gravitate to the top of the pyramid and there will always be fungi, viruses, and bacteria; society will have to be a real democracy with strong borders; defended by public health and militia draftees.

    I find it strange that no one has come with nursing home defense corps who have PPE, are tested to be virus free, trained and paid a living wage to take care of and keep seniors alive. My take is that the psychopaths want to keep the money and let the unproductive ones die now, alone.

    #58005
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    C’mon, V.Arnold. Not the whole world. Just in North America and parts of Europe. Things seem pretty calm in much of Asia. Korea never went into lockdown. Public transportation remained open. Restaurants remained open.

    Yes. I stand corrected. 😉
    Things here are locked down. However, new cases today are just 9, pretty good. 2,931 total cases and 52 deaths. For a country of 63 million people that’s pretty damned good, IMO.
    Restaurants are open here but, only for take-out; which we do often.
    The ban on alcohol chaps my ass though… 😉
    Glad to hear things are good for you.
    Actually things here are pretty good as well. Only 7 cases in our province, so going out is pretty safe for the most part.
    We remain vigilant…
    You and yours take care… 🙂

    #58006
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    My take is that the psychopaths want to keep the money and let the unproductive ones die now, alone.

    Yup. That basically sums it all up. I would add that labor is cheap, and many are already living at the margins, so it does not really matter if some of the productive ones die. From the perspective of those who are driving the narrative.

    #58007
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    VietnamVet

    You bring upsome very important issues regarding the old.
    I live in a culture that still values and honors its old.
    Us oldsters are a library of knowledge and experience, having incalculable value; but alas, nobody seems to give a shit in western societies (thanks Boogaloo) any longer.
    And now we’re blamed for stealing work from the young???
    God’s be good; you’re well and truly fucked!!!!!

    #58008
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    A tale of two cities, Seattle and New York City:

    The initial coronavirus outbreaks in New York City emerged at roughly the same time as those in Seattle. But the cities’ experiences with the disease have markedly differed… There are many explanations for this divergence. New York is denser than Seattle and relies more heavily on public transportation, which forces commuters into close contact… New York also has more poverty and inequality than Seattle, and more international travellers… ”

    “It’s also true, however, that the cities’ leaders acted and communicated very differently in the early stages of the pandemic. Seattle’s leaders moved fast to persuade people to stay home and follow the scientists’ advice; New York’s leaders, despite having a highly esteemed public-health department, moved more slowly, offered more muddied messages, and let politicians’ voices dominate…”

    In early March, as [King County Executive] Dow Constantine was asking Microsoft to close its offices and putting scientists in front of news cameras, de Blasio and New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, were giving speeches that deëmphasized the risks of the pandemic, even as the city was announcing its first official cases. De Blasio initially voiced caution, saying that “no one should take the coronavirus situation lightly,” but soon told residents to keep helping the city’s economy. “Go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus,” he tweeted on March 2nd—one day after the first covid-19 diagnosis in New York. He urged people to see a movie at Lincoln Center.”

    On the day that Seattle schools closed, de Blasio said at a press conference that “if you are not sick, if you are not in the vulnerable category, you should be going about your life.” Cuomo, meanwhile, had told reporters that “we should relax.” He said that most infected people would recover with few problems, adding, “We don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries.”

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not

    #58009

    UVC (100-285 nm or so) doesn’t work if the surface is in its shadow. All the surfaces need to be exposed. It doesn’t get into the interstices of of anything. The further away it is the longer time it needs. Cute little robot, programmed to do a half-assed job. Some UVC makes ozone (less than 185 [?] nm) which also sterilizes (be sure to air out the room!), but most lamps are 200-280nm.

    I am now off looking for correlations for the hypoxia of SARS 2019, because it surely is not The Virus.

    Too many have it and show no symptoms. Too many have severe symptoms and seem to have no virus. (Test problem, or what?)
    There’s something else going on.
    The tests? So far- confusing, to say the least. The antibodies test? Probably useless and stigmatizing or privileging, depending. There’s something else going on here.
    Brescia, northern Italy, 2018. US, “vaping” 2019. “Covid” 2019- 2020.
    “Symmetrical ground glass opacities” lung images. Low blood oxygen levels. Predominantly older, co-morbidities. Predominantly male. Few children affected.

    Plasmodium falciparum is a parasite in the blood that dissolves and metabolizes hemoglobin. A mosquito injects it into the hapless victim, causing malaria. HCQ is toxic to the little critter.
    HCQ+ tends to work on the mysterious illness, no matter what the Lord of Nevada, the French Poobahs, or Gilead scientists say.
    That’s a start.

    #58010
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Too many have it and show no symptoms. Too many have severe symptoms and seem to have no virus. (Test problem, or what?)
    There’s something else going on.
    The tests? So far- confusing, to say the least. The antibodies test? Probably useless and stigmatizing or privileging, depending. There’s something else going on here.

    I agree; something else is going on…
    If I were the conspiracy type…never mind…

    #58012

    But now apparently YouTube has removed the video of the two doctors. Something about not complying with WHO standards. Sorry for giving you Ingraham, please ignore her.

    #58013
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    But now apparently YouTube has removed the video of the two doctors. Something about not complying with WHO standards.

    Given how badly the WHO screwed up, this is outrageous. On March 4, I printed out the Dr. Tedros speech from March 3 that had been uploaded to the WHO website. I wanted a hard copy because it is chock full of claims that had been discredited by that time by people who were paying attention, and I wanted to save a copy in case they took it down later. He claimed on March 3:

    “COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza”
    — though by that time the R0 was estimated between 2.5 and 7

    “With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19.”
    — though by that time it was well understood that there were asymptomatic carriers

    “Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days.”
    — though by that time it was also know that the incubation period was up to 14 days or longer

    The WHO is not a reliable source, but now Youtube says that anyone who disagrees with the official source will be taken down. This is more egregious than anything the government is doing.

    #58027
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Yes, whatever CV19 is, the response backwards. You would always focus on the infected and the vulnerable and not the healthy. The first is uncharacteristically impractical, so the next step would be stop 100% contact of over 70. They knew this in two weeks, by Italy.

    So did anyone plan/pay/volunteer to live-in at nursing homes to be essential workers with near-full quarantine? No. Not even discussed. Not even now after most that can be killed, are. Still locking down the 90% population that statistically isn’t in real danger and provides the resources for the 10% and the national economy.

    Pretty sure that shows they need to be fired because they wanted to kill the old, as discussed in many papers on national sovereignty, or need to be fired because they’re so incompetent they can’t tell up from down.

    Something else is happening, because this should equally hit rural nursing homes, and although would move slower, we’ve been 12 weeks at it and the numbers, therefore their theory, isn’t following. Look at NOLA: the parade sickened the city, okay. But not the ten-thousand visitors who returned to Arkansas and Missouri? This is all over.

    Apparently your main risk is being in a city. Only certain, very specific cities. We don’t have coal-smog pollution anywhere in the U.S. anymore and the cities don’t match it (e.g. L.A.). Not like I want to get there, but that leads only back to 5G, which appear to be the cities affected. If we have overlapping symptoms of two different causes, the virus is real but a light cellular microwaving is also real, we start to see a coherent pattern. Otherwise, how Wuhan and Beijing, Shanghai are completely open? Virus obeys border signs?

    I don’t know how many people die from unemployment or how long it takes, but I promise you the risk is also not zero. For one thing, unemployment means you have no health care; unless you think having no health care isn’t a risk factor and won’t kill you. I’d add that the single indicator of health in the U.S. is income. No income clearly puts you at the bottom of all statistics. And that’s before stress, staying home drinking, and being reckless. Yes, I can’t quantify it, but my link was from the NIH National Institute of Health. Surely you’re not going to say their study isn’t science and they don’ t know what they’re talking about.

Viewing 32 posts - 1 through 32 (of 32 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.