May 012021
 


Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Fall of the Rebel Angels 1562

 

Why Are The Covid Vaccines So Toxic? (AchGut)
Covid Lies Cost 100,000 US Lives – Mark Skidmore (USAW)
Perspectives on the Pandemic: “Blood Clots and Beyond” (JP)
Biden Mulls Vax Mandate For All US Military After Huge Numbers Refused (ZH)
It’s Time To Start Shunning The ‘Vaccine Hesitant’ (Stern)
Supreme Court: Pfizer, Moderna et al. May Own Your Genes Once Injected (CB)
Record 34% Of US Household Income Now Comes From The Government (ZH)
US Household Income Soared 21% In March, Largely Due To Stimulus Checks (JTN)
Election Panic Coming in 2022 – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
Rudderless, Leaderless, and Drifting (Kunstler)
The Myth of “Efficient Markets” (Rickards)
EU Charges Apple With Breach Of Competition Law (DW)
First 100 Days: 300,000 Deportations (CD)

 

 

 

 

Google translate from German. Long and good. Do read.

Why Are The Covid Vaccines So Toxic? (AchGut)

In calendar week 16/2021, more than 3,700 people in the USA had died in close connection with the vaccination with (biochemically very similar) SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines from Pfizer / BioNTech or Moderna, with around 210 million inoculated doses. That’s 17 deaths for every million people vaccinated. AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which is based on an adenovirus, has 24 deaths per million vaccine doses in the UK and 18 in France, and 6 in Germany. On average, the mRNA vaccines bring about 20 deaths per million vaccinated, the AZ Vaccine on 10. The figures were compiled by the Rossiya Segodnya agency from Moscow, but we checked them on a random basis: they are correct. Of course, a causal relationship has not been proven in many cases, but such an accumulation of medical reports of deaths in connection with vaccinations has never occurred in the last few decades.

With conventional vaccines, one or two people vaccinated die for every 10 million people vaccinated. Even if you subtract half of the reported deaths in order to price in the spontaneous mortality rate of the sometimes very old vaccinated people, you still have to ask yourself: Why do the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have such a high lethality? Two major causes of death stand out: anaphylactic shock and bleeding disorders. It has long been known that free mRNA in the extracellular space can trigger acute allergic reactions up to anaphylactic shock. In this syndrome, the immune system overreacts and there is massive release of vasodilating and bronchoconstricting substances. This leads to a general dilation of blood vessels (vasodilation) and bronchospasm with severe restriction of gas exchange in the lungs.

The blood fluid seeps into the periphery of the blood circulation, resulting in a lack of volume, as not enough blood fluid can be pumped back to the lungs and heart. At the same time, the little blood that is still available is no longer adequately supplied with oxygen. The heart begins to race, but the blood pressure drops: shock. The patient dies of cerebral hypoxia (insufficient oxygen supply to the brain) or heart failure. In many cases, the mRNA-carrying lipid particles that make up the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna burst when passing through the logistics chain or are already defective from production. As a result, the naked mRNA is brought into the extracellular space (the space between the cells of the muscle into which the injection is made) during the injection. They cause anaphylactic shock in susceptible patients. The risk of anaphylactic reactions with mRNA vaccines is many times higher than with conventional vaccines. That explains some of the dead, probably just under half.

Read more …

“..the question, from a pure cost benefit, is how many lives are saved as opposed to how many lives are damaged from the treatment..”

Covid Lies Cost 100,000 US Lives – Mark Skidmore (USAW)

Michigan State Economics Professor Mark Skidmore revealed more than three years ago, there was $21 trillion in what he called “Missing Money” from government books. He’s doing some new number crunching surrounding public policy and the effects on the Covid 19 (CV19) pandemic. It’s all laid out in a brand new report. What he found is appalling. One big fact his research revealed is up to 100,000 lives could have been saved by using Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Instead, the medical community and the mainstream media trashed it and told people it was “dangerous” and it “did not work.” That was a total lie. Dr. Skidmore explains, “So, we have all these countries that used it, and a number of countries, such as the United States, that for some reason did not use it and actually prevented it . . . claiming it was unsafe.

“So, our estimate is if the U.S. just allowed it and made it widely available from the beginning, we could have saved 80,000 to 100,000 lives.” Dr. Skidmore said medical officials such as Dr. Fauci, who serves as the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, knew HCQ worked well against Corona Virus. In fact, Dr. Skidmore goes on to point out, “There was a paper published in the Virology Journal in 2005 . . . this is the outfit that Dr. Fauci oversees . . . . So, their journal published this paper that said HCQ was effective in treating the Corona Virus. The people who authored this study had been a part of the CDC at the time. So, we have known this for a long time. . . .We also now know there are as many as 200 peer reviewed studies that say it is effective if taken early on when somebody gets sick. It’s pretty overwhelming evidence if you take it early on, it’s extremely effective.”

That’s not all that works, and this too was suppressed and trashed by most of the medical community. Ivermectin, Vitamin D, Vitamin C and Zinc are a few that are also proven scientifically effective to reduce or obliterate CV19. Dr. Skidmore says, “These are inexpensive ways to help protect yourself and your family. . . . It’s overwhelming evidence that these different types of treatments are very effective.” Another revelation of Dr. Skidmore’s study was the CDC changed the definition on how to count CV19 deaths. Skidmore says, “In the middle of the crisis last year, the CDC changed the definition on how you count fatalities, but they only did it for Covid. It amounts to this, basically, the way we counted how somebody died, was you ‘died of’ some disease of some condition. They changed the definition so that it was more characterized that you ‘died with.’ And, if the CDC would not have changed the definition for Covid deaths? Skidmore says, “I think we would have had far fewer deaths. The data suggests that. . . . If they used the old number, there would have been less (CV19 deaths).”

Dr. Skidmore’s study also points out that the vaccines were never approved by the FDA. Dr. Skidmore explains, “You can look it up. The vaccines are only authorized for emergency use, which means it’s experimental, and it’s still experimental. They are tracking it all. . . . The (vaccine) fatalities are now up to 3,000, and there are many strange and unusual side effects that have occurred. It’s the same thing in Europe and other places. There are many reports of neurological problems, blood clots and a range of related issues. . . . There are all kinds of negative reactions and the question, from a pure cost benefit, is how many lives are saved as opposed to how many lives are damaged from the treatment (vaccines), and we don’t really know what the injuries are, and we don’t know what the long run effects will be.”

Read more …

“..we may be creating dangerously overactive immune systems in billions of unwitting subjects.”

Perspectives on the Pandemic: “Blood Clots and Beyond” (JP)

In February, 2021, Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, M.D. and a number of his colleagues warned the European Medicines Agency about the potential danger of blood clots and cerebral vein thrombosis in millions of people receiving experimental gene-based injections. Since then, two of the four injections have been suspended or recalled in Europe and the United States for just that reason. In this episode of Perspectives, Professor Bhakdi explains the science behind the problem, why it is not just limited to the products already suspended, and why in the long term we may be creating dangerously overactive immune systems in billions of unwitting subjects.

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Illegal as hell, but who cares anymore?

Biden Mulls Vax Mandate For All US Military After Huge Numbers Refused (ZH)

President Biden told NBC News in an interview which broadcast Friday that he’s mulling ordering all US military personnel to get a COVID-19 vaccine as commander-in-chief. “I’m not saying I won’t” rule it out, he emphasized in the new interview. This would also mean that anyone wanting to enter military service would have to receive the jab as a requirement to get in, which would likely cause a blow to military recruitment in the near-term. However, he didn’t outright say he’s ready to pull the trigger on the policy, which if enacted would constitute the largest federal government-ordered mandate in terms of forcing the vaccine on some 1.3 million active duty service members, not to mention over one million more reserve personnel.

Describing the decision as a “tough call” he suggested it was being hotly debated. “I don’t know. I’m going to leave that to the military,” Biden told NBC News’s Craig Melvin. “I’m not saying I won’t. I think you’re going to see more and more of them getting it. And I think it’s going to be a tough call as to whether or not they should be required to have to get it in the military, because you’re in such close proximity with other military personnel.” In follow-up to Biden’s comments, national security advisor Jake Sullivan confirmed that a DoD-wide vaccine mandate is “something the Department of Defense is looking at in consultation with the interagency process and [I] don’t have anything to add on that subject today.”

The whole debate was sparked in earnest when multiple headlines earlier this month took note of the large numbers of military members who were rejecting the vaccine. For example, one recent USA Today report noted that nearly 40% of US Marines who have been offered a COVID-19 vaccine have refused to recieve it, according to Pentagon figures. And an earlier report in The Guardian described that “Reluctance to be vaccinated for Covid-19 is now rife in the US military, with about a third of troops on active duty or in the national guard refusing to be administered the vaccine.”

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The new religion.

It’s Time To Start Shunning The ‘Vaccine Hesitant’ (Stern)

For the better part of a year, as the coronavirus racked up hundreds of thousands of American deaths, the flickering light at the end of the tunnel was herd immunity — the antibody force-shield that comes when enough people have survived the illness or have been vaccinated against it. “Go get vaccinated, America,” President Biden said in his speech to Congress this week, referring to the shot as “a dose of hope.” Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, suggested in December that if 75% to 85% of the population got vaccinated, we could reach herd immunity by June. And with herd immunity, we’d return to a measure of “normalcy,” meaning indoor dining, movie theaters and hugs.

But herd immunity is slipping away because a quarter of Americans are refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group recently said: “There is no eradication at this point, it’s off the table. …We as a society have rejected” herd immunity. Hmm, no! “We” have not rejected anything. A quarter of the country is ruining it for all of us. It’s not just wacky former rockers who have put herd immunity out of reach. It is white evangelicals (45% say they won’t get vaccinated). And it is Republicans (almost 50% are refusing the vaccine). In Texas, 59% of white Republicans have said “no” to the vaccine. You can slap the euphemism “vaccine hesitancy” on the problem, but in the end the G.O.P., and the children of G.O.D., are perpetuating a virus that is sickening and killing people in droves.

A big part of the problem stems from the cultish relationship many evangelicals and Republicans have with former President Donald Trump. They absorbed his endless efforts to downplay the danger of the virus and turn public health precautions into a political freedom movement. But the time for analyzing why these human petri dishes have chosen to ignore the medical science that could save them, and us, is over. We need a different strategy. I propose shunning. Biden’s wildly successful vaccine rollout means that soon everyone who wants a vaccine will have one. When that happens, restaurants, movie theaters, gyms, barbers, airlines and Ubers should require proof of vaccination before providing their services.

And it shouldn’t stop there. Businesses should make vaccination a requirement for employment. A COVID outbreak can shut down a business and be financially devastating. And failure to enforce basic health and safety measures is not fair to employees who have to work in offices, factories, and stores where close contact is required. Things should get personal, too: People should require friends to be vaccinated to attend the barbeques and birthday parties they host. Friends don’t let friends spread COVID.

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“hacking the software of life.”

Good overview of history of legal implications of gene tech.

Supreme Court: Pfizer, Moderna et al. May Own Your Genes Once Injected (CB)

Yes, this article contains a lot of scientific and legal mumbo-jumbo. But in a nutshell, biotechnology companies can own living things if said things are genetically-modified and not naturally-occurring. No mouse is born in nature like the OncoMouse. It is thus patentable. Oil-eating bacteria come from genetic manipulation, thus patentable. Notice how all these so-called doctors and scientists avoid pointing fingers at Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson et al. when someone dies within hours, days or weeks of receiving their shots. It’s almost as if said doctors and scientists are carefully navigating the trademark and patent landscape. They don’t want to trespass on someone else’s property, if you will. Moderna owns several mRNA patents. Doctors and hospitals wanting a piece of the mRNA pie cannot bite the hand that feeds them.


The synthetic mRNA of Pfizer and Moderna, along with the viral vector DNA delivery systems of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, change your genetic code, making you “genetically-modified.” Granted mainstream media say the foregoing is “conspiracy theory.” But Moderna Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks tells you straight up that 1) the shots change your genetic code and 2) the shots do not stop the spread of COVID-19. He says the Moderna shot is “hacking the software of life.” Viral vectors do the same thing. So do these companies “own you” once you get the shots? Well, they own mice and bacteria created with their inventions. Once you get these shots, you are no longer a “naturally-occurring” human being. Prosthetic limbs, breast implants, etc. are not “natural” per se. But they are removable and not part of what fundamentally makes you human. Gene therapy is irreversible. Do the math yourself.

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“And that’s how creeping banana republic socialism comes at you: first slowly, then fast.”

Record 34% Of US Household Income Now Comes From The Government (ZH)

Following today’s release of the latest Personal Income and Spending data, Wall Street was predictably focused on the changes in these two key series, which showed a modest jump in personal spending, which however was dwarfed by a record surge in personal income, to be expected in the month when Biden’s latest $1.9 trillion stimmy hit. But while the change in the headline data was notable, what was far more remarkable was data showing just how increasingly more reliant on the US government the population has become. We are referring, of course, to Personal Current Transfer payments which are essentially government sourced income such as unemployment benefits, welfare checks, and so on. In March, this number exploded to a mind-blowing $8.1 trillion annualized, which was not only double the $4.1 trillion from February, but was also $5 trillion above the pre-Covid trend where transfer receipts were approximately $3.2 trillion.

This means that excluding the $8.1 trillion surge in govt transfers, personal income excluding government handouts would be virtually unchanged from a year ago level at $16TN. [..] government stimulus checks hitting personal accounts [..] in turn helped double the savings rate to a whopping 27.6% from 13.6% in February.

Stated simply, what all this means is that the government remains responsible for a third of all income, or 33.8 to be precise! Putting that number in perspective, in the 1950s and 1960s, transfer payment were around 7%. This number rose in the low teens starting in the mid-1970s (right after the Nixon Shock ended Bretton-Woods and closed the gold window). The number then jumped again after the financial crisis, spiking to the high teens. And now, the coronavirus has officially sent this number to a record 34%! And that’s how creeping banana republic socialism comes at you: first slowly, then fast.

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And then prices start soaring.

US Household Income Soared 21% In March, Largely Due To Stimulus Checks (JTN)

U.S. household income spiked an astronomical 21% in March, due in large part to the $1,400 coronavirus stimulus checks that went out that month, the government said on Friday. A press release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that, in the U.S., “personal income increased $4.21 trillion (21.1 percent) in March,” while disposable personal income increased by an even higher 23.6%. The spike “largely reflected an increase in government social benefits,” the BEA said, noting that the American Rescue Plan Act “established an additional round of direct economic impact payments to households.” The BEA also noted a rise in personal consumption expenditures, one that appears to be tied to the ongoing reopening of major swaths of the U.S. economy, particularly restaurants. “Within services, the largest contributor to the increase was spending for food services and accommodations,” the press release said.

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“One of the number one selling objects in Europe is a safe. People are storing cash. Biden was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Election Panic Coming in 2022 – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

According to a recent poll, 51% of Americans think Joe Biden cheated to get into the White House. The breakdown is 74% Republicans and an astounding 30% Democrats think cheating played at least a part of the 2020 Election outcome. In Arizona, the 2020 Election ballots are finally being audited as court battles to stop it continue. Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is predicting an election “panic in 2022.” Armstrong explains, “It means extremely high volatility. Despite whatever they want to say, there is a large proportion of the population that do not believe the election. Polls are saying it’s at 51%, but it’s probably close to 60% or 70%. You are also seeing that 60% of Americans want a third party, and you are talking about Democrats and Republicans. . . .

I think because we have such a high number of people who do not trust the election results, I don’t think they are going to be able to get away with rigging the elections again. It’s going to turn into violence. There is no question about that.” Armstrong also sees Biden Administration tax plans on things like capital gains causing problems in the not-too-distant future. Armstrong says, “If they eliminate capital gains, I don’t care if you are Republican or Democrat, you are going to have to sell. Your accountant is going to say if you don’t sell, you going to pay twice or three times as much in taxes next year. So, they can create a serious, serious collapse in the world economy. This is in addition to all this Covid nonsense that they have created.”

Armstrong has been saying for months that deflation would be the overarching theme in the economy. Is that going to continue or has there been a change? Armstrong says, “Deflation is now over. People have to understand. It has nothing to do with the supply of money. . . . If you don’t see a bright rosy future, what do you do? You save your money. . . . One of the number one selling objects in Europe is a safe. People are storing cash. Biden was the straw that broke the camel’s back. People are now seeing that things are going to cost more in the future than they do today. They have also created shortages because of these lockdowns. The inflation is just beginning to start now. It’s based on shortages, and it will continue going into about 2024.”

The bottom line on the cause of inflation, according to Armstrong, is “a loss of confidence in government.” Armstrong also predicts, “We are looking at the prospect of a serious war between 2025 and 2027. All this is completely because of this great reset nonsense. They have been using the Corona Virus as an excuse to try and shut down the economy. If you look at rents in New York City, they are in a freefall. Real estate is going crazy outside of the urban centers. In Florida, what was a $500,000 house last year is now more than $1 million.” On Trump, Armstrong says, “I don’t see him returning to office before 2024.” But, if massive ballot fraud is proven with the Arizona audit going on right now, Armstrong predicts, “The state legislature can recall a Senator” who won by election rigging.

Read more …

“There’s no Heimlich maneuver for a nation choking on debt.”

Rudderless, Leaderless, and Drifting (Kunstler)

The numbers are already pretty grim: 70 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats say they doubt the veracity of the 2020 election. Will the discovery that massive, widespread election fraud actually occurred lead to a constitutional crisis? How will Joe Biden survive in office if a growing percentage of the public sees him as illegitimate? And what might happen if the establishment attempts to blow the whole matter off? Can they still say “nothing to see” when the public has seen so much that they can’t unsee? None of that will happen in a vacuum. Plenty of other events are roiling in the background with the potential to go critical.


Joe Biden’s proposals to jack the US economy by $5-plus-trillion won’t be very good for the credibility of the US dollar, with other countries already eager to dissociate themselves from dollar-based global trade payment arrangements. But that’s just financial esoterica compared to what’s happening on-the-ground across America, with households running on debt and back payments for rent and mortgages piling up, and landlords and banks taking the hit in the meantime. There’s no Heimlich maneuver for a nation choking on debt. And that plan to become the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where they hung the jerk who invented work, is liable to disappoint even the mesmerists in the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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If you don’t allow markets to function, they cannot be efficient, either.

The Myth of “Efficient Markets” (Rickards)

Mainstream economists have insisted for decades that markets are highly efficient, and they do a nearly perfect job of digesting available information and correctly pricing assets today to take account of future events based on that information. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Markets do offer valuable information to analysts, but they are far from efficient. Markets can be rational or irrational. Markets can be volatile, irrationally exuberant, or in a complete state of panic depending upon the emotions of investors, herd behavior, and the specific array of preferences when a new shock emerges. If markets were so efficient, why was Wall Street surprised when it was obvious to anyone paying attention that Biden was going to raise the capital gains tax?

The capital gains tax increase information had been there for all to see for six months, but it took a press release to get Wall Street to sit up and take notice. It should have been priced in long before, and the announcement just would have confirmed market expectations. So the next time you hear about efficient markets, take it with a large grain of salt. But my forecast from six months ago was wrong in one respect. I said the tax rate on capital gains would almost double from 20% to 39.6%. It turns out the rate will actually be 43.4% once a 3.8% investment income surtax is added on top. That surtax is a holdover from Obamacare.

If one were to add state and local income taxes, the combined rate on capital gains could exceed 50%, depending on the jurisdiction. Of course, capital gains taxes are imposed on investments you make from after-tax dollars, so even the initial investment has already been taxed. And the corporations whose stock you buy pay corporate income tax too. When those burdens are included, you’re lucky to get even 25% of your gains back net of taxes. This will be a headwind to stock markets for the foreseeable future.

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“The US company could be slapped with fines of as much as 10% of its global turnover.”

EU Charges Apple With Breach Of Competition Law (DW)

EU antitrust regulators on Friday charged Apple with illegally distorting competition in the music-streaming market through restrictive App Store rules. It is one of the biggest-ever competition cases against the US tech giant and could lead to hefty fines. An Apple spokesperson rejected the accusations, saying the EU’s case was “the opposite of fair competition.” The charges follow an EU investigation stemming from a complaint by the popular music-streaming service Spotify. “Our preliminary conclusion: Apple is in breach of EU competition law,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Apple’s App Store rules force rival developers to use its in-app payment system — which charges up to 30% commission — and prevent them from informing users of cheaper payment methods. Vestager said this ultimately raised the cost for consumers and limited their choice. “By setting strict rules on the App Store that disadvantage competing music streaming services, Apple deprives users of cheaper music streaming choices and distorts competition,” the commissioner’s statement said. “This is done by charging high commission fees on each transaction in the App Store for rivals and by forbidding them from informing their customers of alternative subscription options.”

This is the first EU antitrust charge targeting Apple. It follows an investigation by the bloc, launched in June, which found that the App Store commission fees are passed on to consumers. The probe was launched after Swedish music streaming app Spotify, which competes with Apple Music, lodged a complaint about the company’s rules two years ago. The European Commission said Apple now has the chance to respond to the allegations and present its case in a hearing before a final ruling is handed down. The US company could be slapped with fines of as much as 10% of its global turnover.

Read more …

Biden’s Promise: Moratorium on deportations for the first 100 days of his administration.

Biden’s Reality: Over 300,000 deported in 3 months.

First 100 Days: 300,000 Deportations (CD)

Rights group United We Dream warned Tuesday that unless he takes immediate steps to improve his administration’s treatment of immigrants, President Joe Biden is at serious risk of repeating the destructive failures of former President Barack Obama, who deported roughly three million people during his eight years in office. Despite Biden’s characterization of Obama’s mass deportations as a “mistake” and pledge to usher in a more humane immigration system, United We Dream estimates that the administration has deported just over 300,000 people since January—largely using a Trump-era policy called Title 42.

The policy was first issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last March—at the start of the coronavirus pandemic—and has been kept in place by the Biden administration. As Human Rights Watch (HRW) explained earlier this month, “The Title 42 expulsion policy has effectively closed the U.S. border to nearly all asylum seekers based on the misapplication of an obscure, 75-year-old public health law.” “That law, the Public Health Service Act of 1944, was designed to confer quarantine authority to health authorities that would apply to everyone, including U.S. citizens, arriving from a foreign country,” HRW noted. “Quarantine authority was never meant to be used to determine which noncitizens could or couldn’t be expelled or removed from the U.S.”

In a statement on Monday, Cynthia Garcia of United We Dream stressed that “Title 42 was designed under one of the most anti-immigrant administrations in modern history.” “President Biden and the Department of Homeland Security must be reminded that their inaction to protect vulnerable immigrant communities seeking refuge in the U.S. is not only putting lives on the line; it upholds a white nationalist immigration system that seeks to expel and keep Black and brown immigrants out at any cost,” said Garcia, who voiced dismay at the Biden administration’s deportation of vulnerable Haitians and others.

Read more …

 

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Oct 292018
 
 October 29, 2018  Posted by at 9:24 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  8 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Roofs of Paris 1886

 

Volcker Rebukes Bernanke and Yellen Feds (Whalen)
China Takes Delivery Of Massive Amount Of Gold From London, New York (Greyerz)
Getting Out: A Godfather Story (Ben Hunt)
Why Do Investors Hate Everything? Maybe Paranoia (BBG)
Desperate IBM Buys Red Hat For $34 Billion In Largest Ever Acquisition (ZH)
The IMF Has Learned Nothing From The Greek Crisis (Coppola)
Greece Reiterates €288 Billion Claim For Damages Under Nazi Occupation (G.)
There Aren’t Enough Lifeboats For Everyone (CHS)
Thousands Of Ships Could Dump Pollutants At Sea To Avoid Dirty Fuel Ban (G.)
Big Food’s Poisonous Propaganda (Lustig)
EU Air Pollution Improves, Causes Only 500,000 Early Deaths A Year (AFP)
Race Doesn’t Come Into It (LRB)

 

 

There goes Yellen’s reputation.

“By pulling tomorrow’s home sales and other economic activity forward via various policy manipulations, tomorrow is now light in terms of growth..”

Volcker Rebukes Bernanke and Yellen Feds (Whalen)

Yellen worries that the rhetorical attacks on the central bank by President Donald Trump is “whittling away the legitimacy and stature of institutions the public has traditionally had some confidence in. I feel it ultimately undermines social and economic stability.” She then goes on to say that “Trump has the potential to undermine confidence in the Fed.” Former Chairman Alan Greenspan, the most politically astute Fed chief in half a century, puts such worries in perspective: “I don’t know a single President, and I worked for a lot of them, who don’t want lower interest rates. Now, obviously that’s not possible. You keep lowering them down to zero, where do you go from there?”

Like Yellen, many observers worry that criticism of the Fed will make it difficult for the central bank to act when necessary. The dual, conflicted political mandate of full employment and price stability created by the Humphrey Hawkins law is not possible to achieve in practice, thus the FOMC lurches from one extreme to the other, causing enormous collateral damage. Consider the effects of QE and Operation Twist on housing. Think about the thousands of people in the mortgage industry, for example, that have lost their livelihoods because the boom and bust policies followed by the Fed since 2008 and even before. Think about the millions of American families today that cannot afford to buy a home because asset prices have skyrocketed over the past five years.

By pulling tomorrow’s home sales and other economic activity forward via various policy manipulations, tomorrow is now light in terms of growth. Tomorrow also carries hidden market and credit risks caused by the Fed’s past actions. As we watch mortgage lending and home building volumes fall next year and thereafter thanks to the property price inflation created by the FOMC under Bernanke and Yellen, remember that Fed policy was explicitly meant to “help” the housing sector.

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“..in normal times, the gold used to stay in London and New York. Now that gold is going via Switzerland to China and India and it will never come back.”

China Takes Delivery Of Massive Amount Of Gold From London, New York (Greyerz)

“They’re all into gold. Absolutely. Yes, virtually all of them own gold. That’s what’s so interesting. The Chinese buying is continuously going up and up and up without stopping. The Chinese know what is happening. They know it and they will continue to buy gold. And one day that’s going to have a major influence on the gold price. And when the paper market breaks, and China dominates the gold market, it’s going to be very interesting because I really look forward to the West failing in their manipulation of the gold price through the various paper markets and through the interbank market. Again last month we saw imports of gold into Switzerland and then exports to Asia and India. Last month, over 70% of the gold import figures (into Switzerland) came from London and the United States.

We again see that Switzerland is buying the 400 ounce bars from the UK and US bullion banks and converting them into 1 kilo bars and then shipping them on to Asia. Last month there was hardly any buying from the mines. It all came out of London and New York. And that proves again, Eric, that central banks are either leasing their physical gold into the market or selling it covertly. And that gold that’s coming into the market in London and New York, before it used to stay in London and stay in New York and it would be traded between the various banks, these banks now get the gold from the central banks and then they give the central bank an IOU. Again, in normal times, the gold used to stay in London and New York. Now that gold is going via Switzerland to China and India and it will never come back. China is never going to send it back, nor is India.

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One of my fave themes: of all the people who say they made so much money over the past 10 years, the very vast majority will be too late to get out.

Getting Out: A Godfather Story (Ben Hunt)

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” It’s one of the most famous quotes in movies, as Michael Corleone rages in Godfather III over the assassination he narrowly avoided and his inability to steer the family into legit businesses. Michael is what I like to call a coyote, someone who is VERY smart and VERY strategic. Actually, too smart and too strategic for his own good, what a Brit would call too clever by half. That’s in sharp contrast to his father, Vito Corleone, who is no less smart and no less strategic, but is somehow far less conniving and far more beloved. You see this difference in character most clearly in the deaths of Vito and Michael. How does Vito Corleone die? Playing in his vegetable garden with his grandson. At home. Surrounded by life and laughter and plenty of bottles of Chianti.

Vito got out. How does Michael Corleone die? Sitting in a stony Sicilian courtyard as two skinny dogs scurry around. Struggling to peel an orange. All dressed up and no place to go. Alone. Utterly alone. For all his smarts and strategy and cleverness, Michael NEVER got out. How did Vito get out, while Michael failed? I think it’s the whole too-clever-by-half coyote thing. Michael never trusted ANYONE in the way that Vito did. Michael was obsessed with finding the Answer, an impossibility in the game of organized crime. Or the game of markets. Michael was a maximizer. Which is another way of saying that, like most coyotes, he wasn’t very good at the metagame. Do you want OUT from the game of markets? I do.

Am I good at the game? Yeah. Do I enjoy it? Not really. I used to. But ever since Lehman it’s been mostly a drag. And that’s okay! The game of markets is a means to an end. It’s a really big, important game, but it’s only one of several big important games within the larger metagame of life and doing. My goal in doing is to have a happy ending. I want the Vito ending, not the Michael ending. How do we get there? We keep our eye on the prize – the happy ending – and we work backwards. We maintain our vision on the metagame and its outcome even while we play the immediate game. My goal as an investor is NOT to maximize my investment returns or to maximize my personal wealth. That’s myopic thinking. That’s coyote thinking. That’s the sort of thinking that ruined Michael.

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Remember: we don’t have functioning markets.

Why Do Investors Hate Everything? Maybe Paranoia (BBG)

Only during the 1970s stagflation period and the global financial crisis have so many asset classes had negative returns in a year. The latter may have a lot to do with why it’s happening again. Investors now overreact to even modest changes late in cycles after not foreseeing the financial crisis, JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by John Normand wrote in a note Friday. Other plausible explanations could be that the global economy and earnings have reached a turning point, or that the Federal Reserve is committing a policy error, they added. “The percentage of asset classes that has generated positive returns this year is only 20 percent, a share that has never been so low outside of 1970s stagflation episodes and the Global Financial Crisis,” the strategists wrote.

“Every market but the Nasdaq, Commodities and U.S. Leveraged Loans has underperformed USD cash in 2018.” The strategists have “no argument with the obvious statement” that markets are tumbling because global growth and U.S. earnings are peaking. However, they said slower growth on those fronts, at least if it remains around long-term-average levels, usually hasn’t been a sufficient condition for investors to turn defensive. “We had expected outperformance for another two to three quarters given near-neutral Fed policy, record share buybacks and significant deleveraging” by some equity investors before earnings season began, the strategists wrote. “This month markets clearly don’t share our time-limited optimism, perhaps given growing fear that the Fed is committing a policy mistake by tightening to restrictive levels eventually.”

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When dinosaurs invest.

Desperate IBM Buys Red Hat For $34 Billion In Largest Ever Acquisition (ZH)

The bad news is that in its desperation for growth at what amounts to be any price, IBM is almost certainly overpaying for Red Hat. This was confirmed by Rometty’s preemptive defense, telling Bloomberg that IBM “paid a very fair price. This is a premium company. If you look underneath, this is strong revenue growth, strong profit strong free cash flow” she said, adding that IBM will not cut jobs as a result of the deal: “this is an acquisition for revenue growth, this is not for cost synergies.” Perhaps, but the bigger question is what the deal means for IBM’s balance sheet. In the press release, IBM said that “the company has ample cash, credit and bridge lines to secure the transaction financing. The company intends to close the transaction through a combination of cash and debt.” In other words, no IBM stock, which is already at the lowest level this decade.

So let’s do the math: IBM ended Q3 with cash of $14.7 billion, and a record $46.9 billion in debt. Which means that IBM will likely incur at least $20 billion in additional debt, and as a result IBM’s already shaky A+/A1 rating could soon be downgraded to BBB. So what is IBM buying for this $34 billion and $20 billion in debt? According to its LTM financials, Red Hat has $3.2BN in revenue and $603MM in EBITDA. These numbers are expected to grow to $3.9BN by 2020, when EBITDA will hit $1 billion. In other words, on an EV basis, IBM is paying roughly 31x (net of $2.2BN in cash) Red Hat’s 2020 forward EBITDA.

Of course, if one assumes continued EBITDA growth for the foreseeable future, this acquisition could make sense. The problem is that between the threat of a recession in the next few years, and aggressive competition from Amazon, Microsoft and others for cloud market share, this is a very aggressive assumption. Meanwhile, in exchange for this $1 billion in EBITDA, IBM’s net debt will grow from $32.5 billion currently to $52 billion, almost doubling IBM’s net leverage from 1.7x level to a whopping 3.2x, and well on its way to a BBB rating if not worse. Which is why IBM promise that it will “target a leverage profile consistent with a mid to high single A credit rating” is, with all due respect, laughable.

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“Harsh adjustment programs do not make unsustainable debt sustainable. They just create misery for the population while making the debt burden even worse.”

The IMF Has Learned Nothing From The Greek Crisis (Coppola)

The IMF has just published a new review of Argentina’s economy. It is grim reading. Argentina is in trouble: economic conditions have worsened considerably since the last IMF review, back in June 2018. But the review also reveals that the IMF could be in even bigger trouble. It is repeating the same mistakes it made in the Greek crisis – but with a much larger amount of money at stake. Argentina has been struggling all year. A drought has severely curtailed agricultural production, widening the current account deficit and triggering a mild recession. Concurrently, Fed interest rate rises and a booming U.S. economy have driven up the U.S. dollar, making it ever more expensive for Argentina to obtain the dollars needed to pay interest on its massive dollar-denominated debt pile.

The central bank has been printing money to finance the government’s growing deficit, but this has helped to fuel inflation that now runs at over 40%. In June, the IMF agreed a standby credit arrangement of $50 billion with Argentina, the largest in the Fund’s history. $15 billion would be drawn immediately and the remainder would be made available as needed over the next three years. Half of the $15 billion would be used for government budget support. But it quickly became apparent that, enormous though this financing agreement was, it would be nowhere near enough. In September, as the peso crashed and Argentina stared default in the face, the IMF hastily agreed to front-load the credit arrangement, so that the Argentine government could immediately draw an additional $13.4 billion (making a total of $28.4 billion).

A further $22.8 billion would be drawn in 2019 and $5.9 billion in 2020-21. This is no longer a “standby” arrangement. It is a full financing agreement. Argentina has now become dependent on IMF funding – and the IMF has committed to lend by far the largest amount of money in its history. [..] The fundamental problem that the IMF made in Greece was lending to an insolvent country. Harsh adjustment programs do not make unsustainable debt sustainable. They simply create misery for the population while making the debt burden even worse. The IMF should not have lent to Greece at all. It should have faced down Greece’s creditors and insisted on orderly debt restructuring right from the start.

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Greece wants over 1000 times what Germany has paid.

Greece Reiterates €288 Billion Claim For Damages Under Nazi Occupation (G.)

Greece says it will pursue its quest for second world war damages and repayment of a loan forcibly extracted during Nazi occupation with renewed zest, despite Germany openly rejecting the claims. Less than two weeks after German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, used a state visit to apologise for atrocities committed by his forefathers, Athens vowed to relaunch the campaign while hailing the onset of a new era in bilateral ties. “This is an issue that psychologically still rankles, and as a government we are absolutely determined to raise it,” said Costas Douzinas, who heads the Greek parliament’s defence and foreign relations committee.

“Obviously Greece couldn’t do that when it was in a [bailout] programme receiving loans from the EU and Berlin. It would have been totally contradictory.” The leftist-led government is expected to press ahead with the claims after MPs debate what has been described as the first all-inclusive parliamentary inquiry into the damage wrought under Nazi occupation. The report, compiled by a cross-party committee over several years, estimates that compensation of €288bn (£256bn) remains outstanding for the destruction Greece sustained between 1941 and 1944, the years the country was subject to Third Reich rule. It also calculates that a further €11bn is owed for a 476m Reichsmark loan Hitler’s forces seized from the Greek central bank in 1943.

[..] Greeks put up heroic resistance to their German occupiers, but the price was heavy. Tens of thousands were killed in reprisals for a guerrilla campaign against the Wehrmacht, and at least 300,000 died of famine. About 40,000 people are thought to have starved to death in the first year of occupation alone, and Greece’s Jewish community was almost entirely wiped out. “Germany has never properly assumed its historical responsibility for the wholesale destruction of the country,” said Stelios Koulouglou, who represents Greece’s governing Syriza party in the European parliament. “It was a catastrophe that was so complete it played a major part in delaying our country’s development as a modern European state.”

[..] The German government strenuously rejects charges that it owes anything to Greece, or Poland which also suffered greatly, for the wartime horrors. It says the chapter was closed in 1960 when it paid Athens 115m deutschmarks, roughly equivalent to £205m today.

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Ain’t that the truth.

There Aren’t Enough Lifeboats For Everyone (CHS)

[..] the status quo is fragile, and everyone’s grip on the crumbling cliff-edge of “prosperity” is precarious–and we all sense it. The security we all took for granted is turning to sand as the system breaks down. Job security–you’re joking, right? Pension security–you take us for chumps? Sure, your bank account is guaranteed by the FDIC, but nobody’s guaranteeing your income, your purchasing power or the security of your grasp on the good life. Everyone knows the markets are as precarious as the rest of the status quo, and the rational response is to limit exposure to risk by selling at the first signs that the herd is nervous.

Switching metaphors, we all know the global economy scraped alongside an iceberg in 2008, and those who look beneath the reassuring rah-rah know that the hull of the global economy was sliced open just like the Titanic’s. Central banks have created the illusion that the damage was limited by printing money and using the freshly created currency to buy bonds and stocks to prop up the markets.

But even the passengers who accept the authorities’ reassurances sense something is wrong with the ship. The bow is slowly sinking, the engines are straining to power the pumps, the First Class passengers are either already in lifeboats or huddling nervously by the davits, and the ship’s officers are openly wielding pistols to control panic. Nobody dares discuss it openly for fear of triggering a panic, but there aren’t enough lifeboats for everyone. A great many passengers are going to find themselves in the icy waters when the great global economic ship finally founders, and humanity’s finely tuned instinct is alerting us to the restless nervousness of the herd.

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A fully adequate picture of my faith in mankind. It costs $2-4 million per ship to cheat the system, and it’s worth it.

Thousands Of Ships Could Dump Pollutants At Sea To Avoid Dirty Fuel Ban (G.)

Thousands of ships are set to install “emissions cheat” systems that pump pollutants into the ocean to beat new international rules banning dirty fuel. The global shipping fleet is rushing to meet a 2020 deadline imposed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to reduce air pollution by forcing vessels to use cleaner fuel with a lower sulphur content of 0.5%, compared with 3.5% as currently used. The move comes after growing concerns about the health impacts of shipping emissions. A report in Nature this year said 400,000 premature deaths a year are caused by emissions from dirty shipping fuel, which also account for 14 million childhood asthma cases per year. But the move to cleaner fuel could see harmful pollutants increasingly dumped at sea.

According to industry analysis seen by the Guardian, between 2,300 and 4,500 ships are likely to install an exhaust gas cleaning system known as a scrubber to meet the regulations on low-sulphur fuel instead of buying the more expensive clean fuel. The scrubbers allow ship owners to continue buying cheaper high-sulphur fuel, which is washed onboard in the scrubber. In the case of the most used system, known as open loop, the waste water is discharged into the ocean. Although expensive at around $2-4m per ship fitting, the cost of buying and fitting a scrubber would be recovered in the first year, the industry analysis says. Cleaner low-sulphur fuel is likely to cost between $300 and $500 more a tonne, according to analysts.

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Sugar addiction.

Big Food’s Poisonous Propaganda (Lustig)

Human brain scans demonstrate that glucose activates the cerebral cortex (the “cognitive” part of our brains), while fructose suppresses that signal and instead lights up the limbic system (your “lizard” brain). Moreover, while sugar does not exhibit classic withdrawal symptoms, it does lead to tolerance and dependence that can cause bingeing, craving, and cross-sensitization to narcotics. These are some of the reasons why the World Health Organization and the US Department of Agriculture recommend that people reduce the amount of sugar in their diets. The addictive qualities of sugar are embedded in its economics. Like coffee, sugar is price-inelastic, meaning that when costs increase, consumption remains relatively constant.

Purchases of soft drinks and other sweetened foods are not dramatically affected by taxes or fluctuating prices. Not everyone who is exposed to sugar becomes addicted; but, as with alcohol, many do. While refined sugar is the same compound found in fruit, it lacks fiber and has been crystallized for purity. It is this process that turns sugar from a “food” into a “drug,” allowing the food industry to “hook” unsuspecting consumers. The evidence is visible in every aisle of every grocery store, where a staggering 74% of all food items are spiked with added sugar. In fact, sugar’s allure is a big reason why the processed food industry’s current profit margin is 5% (up from 1%), and why so many of us are sick, fat, stupid, broke, depressed, and just plain miserable.

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One queston: why?

EU Air Pollution Improves, Causes Only 500,000 Early Deaths A Year (AFP)

Air pollution is slowly easing in EU countries but still causes nearly half a million early deaths each year, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said in its annual report published Monday. Although pollution levels dropped slightly in 2015, they remain far higher than standards set by both the EU and the World Health Organization, the report said. The findings come just weeks after an EU watchdog said most member states fail to meet the bloc’s air quality targets, warning that the toll on health in eastern European countries was even worse than in China and India. The EEA said on Monday that exposure to fine pollution particles known as PM2.5 was responsible for around 391,000 premature deaths in the 28-nation bloc in 2015.

The report also found that 76,000 early deaths were linked to nitrogen dioxide and some 16,400 to ground-level ozone in EU countries in the same year. Fine pollution particles have been linked to respiratory illnesses and heart problems, with PM2.5, the smallest, posing the greatest health risks as they can penetrate deep into the lungs. The EEA said a wider assessment included in the report found that early deaths each yer due to PM 2.5 have been cut “by about half a million” since 1990.

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Book review. How much do you know about genes?

Race Doesn’t Come Into It (LRB)

Before I got pregnant, I thought I understood how DNA works: parents pass on some combination of their DNA, which codes for various heritable traits, to their children, who pass on some combination to their children, and so on down the neat branching lines of the genealogical tree. What I didn’t know was that women can also receive DNA from their children. During pregnancy, foetal cells get into the mother’s bloodstream, mixing freely with her own cells and resulting in what scientists call a ‘microchimera, a single organism harbouring a small number of cells from another individual. Microchimerism is the reason doctors can use my blood to do genetic testing that looks for markers of disease in the DNA of the growing foetus.

And while the number of foetal cells in my bloodstream will drop after birth, some could stay there for decades, even for the rest of my life. These foetal cells may even sense the tissues around them and develop into the same types of cell, becoming an integral part of my body, which may have both positive and negative effects on my health – a sort of backwards inheritance. Foetal cells have been shown to regenerate a mother’s diseased thyroid gland and to help her body fight breast cancer. If a virus enters her body, even years after pregnancy, cells from the foetus may be among the first to attack it. But they may also make her more vulnerable to autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and scleroderma.

And this DNA transfer works both ways: a pregnant woman’s cells – with her complete set of DNA – can enter the foetus, eventually becoming part of her child’s body and living on long after her own death. With a second pregnancy, foetal cells from the first could colonise the new foetus, turning the second infant who emerges blinking into the sharp light of a new day into a microchimera of mother, father and sibling. So much for the neat branching lines of vertical heredity.

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