Jun 132020
 


Gustave Doré Dream of the Eagle (Dante’s Purgatory) 1868

 

32 Yemen Doctors Die Of Coronavirus (MEM)
Italian Prosecutors Question PM Conte For 3 Hours Over Virus Response (R.)
June 12 COVID-19 Test Results (McBride)
CDC Warns Restrictions May Be Needed Again If US COVID-19 Cases Spike (R.)
Seattle Coronavirus Survivor Gets A $1.1 Million, 181-Page Hospital Bill (ST)
No Country for Old Men (Ben Hunt)
Churchill Statue Boarded Up Ahead Of Expected UK Protests On Saturday (R.)
Films Aiming To Win Oscars Will Need To Meet Diversity Criteria – Academy (R.)
The American Press Is Destroying Itself (Taibbi)
The Party of Chaos and Falsehood (Jim Kunstler)
Lawyer For Flynn Judge Says Court Will Eventually Dismiss The Case (JTN)
Judges Appear Skeptical Of DOJ Move To Dismiss Flynn Case (Fox)
Graham Granted Significant Subpoena Power For Russia Probe Investigation (JTN)
Some Claim Mayan Calendar Was Wrong, ‘World Will End On June 21’ (Mirror)

 

 

Worldometer reports new cases for June 9 (midnight to midnight GMT+0) at + 140,917. New record.

My count from about 6 am EDT to 6 am EDT is + 141,854 cases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New cases past 24 hours in:

• US + 27,221
• Brazil + 25,982
• Russia + 8,706
• India + 11,320
• Pakistan + 6.472
• Chile + 6,754
• Mexico + 5,222

 

 

US coronavirus deaths

90 days ago: 58 deaths
80 days ago: 704 deaths
70 days ago: 7,152 deaths
60 days ago: 23,649 deaths
50 days ago: 49,887 deaths
40 days ago: 67,682 deaths
30 days ago: 84,118 deaths
20 days ago: 97,087 deaths
10 days ago: 106,180 deaths
Today: 116,831 deaths

 

 

Cases 7,763,875 (+ 141,854 from yesterday’s 7,622,021)

Deaths 428,734 (+ 4,409 from yesterday’s 424,325)

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

From Worldometer:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

The number only becomes significant when you read that only 560 patients have been reported.

32 Yemen Doctors Die Of Coronavirus (MEM)

Some 32 doctors in Yemen have died as a result of the coronavirus, the Yemeni Physicians and Pharmacists Syndicate announced yesterday. Doctor Mohammed Ahmed Seif was the latest fatality, he died in the southern province of Taiz. “Seif is the 32nd martyr from coronavirus,” the syndicate said in a statement. By Wednesday, a total of 560 people were reported to have been infected by the virus, 129 of whom have died and 23 have recovered, according to official data. The data does not include the Houthi-controlled areas, which were reported to have registered a total of four infections and one fatality, though many fear the actual number is far higher.


On Monday, the United Nations (UN) said that the mortality rate from the virus in Yemen was “alarmingly increasing”, warning of what it described as a “deteriorating health system”. Since 2014, Yemen has been suffering from an ongoing war between pro-government forces and the Houthis, who have captured most of the north, including the capital, Sanaa.

Read more …

What’s the use of this? Is it not a case for Parliament instead?

Italian Prosecutors Question PM Conte For 3 Hours Over Virus Response (R.)

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was questioned by prosecutors on Friday about the country’s response to its coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 34,000 people. The prosecutors from Bergamo, one of the northern cities hit hardest by the pandemic, are looking into why badly affected small towns around the city were not locked down earlier in the outbreak, when infections were rising fast. Conte, who was questioned as a witness for three hours in his office in Rome and is not under criminal investigation, later told reporters via his spokesman: “I wanted to explain every stage to the smallest detail.” Prosecutors also questioned Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese and Health Minister Roberto Speranza.

In interviews with several Italian newspapers on Friday, Conte said he would tell prosecutors everything he knew and was not worried by the possibility he could be personally investigated. If that did happen, it would be likely to weaken an already fractious coalition government and add fuel to already frequent speculation that Conte may be pushed out despite his high personal approval ratings in opinion polls. Prosecutor Maria Cristina Rota said the meeting had taken place “in an atmosphere of great calm and institutional collaboration”. The region of Lombardy, which includes Bergamo, was the original epicentre of Italy’s virus outbreak and has remained by far the worst hit of its 20 regions, accounting for about half of its total deaths and most new infections.

The decision not to isolate Bergamo and the surrounding towns has been one of the most contentious episodes, with the central government and Lombardy’s regional authorities each saying the other was responsible. In Lombardy, which is led by the right-wing opposition League party, the Bergamo prosecutors have already interrogated the regional president and health chief. League leader Matteo Salvini was quick to seek political capital from Conte’s interrogation, tweeting that it was Rome’s decision not to set up a so-called “red zone” to seal off Bergamo and enforce it with the army and police. “Now we expect that Conte will at least apologise to the relatives and the friends of too many Bergamo citizens who have died,” he tweeted.

Read more …

US still not testing nearly enough. Like so many other countries. Without testing there’s no crushing the curve.

June 12 COVID-19 Test Results (McBride)

Note: I started posting this graph when the US was doing a few thousand tests per day. Clearly the US was way under testing early in the pandemic. I’ll continue posting this graph daily at least until the percent positive is continuously under 3% and the daily positive is significantly lower than today.


The US is now usually conducting over 400,000 tests per day, and that might be enough to allow test-and-trace in some areas. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly. According to Dr. Jha of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day . There were 583,961 test results reported over the last 24 hours. This was a new high for the number of test results reported (some states might have had a data dump). The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 4.1% (red line).

Read more …

Except for protests.

What on earth will happen if a new lockdown is declared? Should have done the first one right.

CDC Warns Restrictions May Be Needed Again If US COVID-19 Cases Spike (R.)

U.S. health officials on Friday urged Americans to continue adhering to social distancing and other COVID-19 safety measures, and warned that states may need to reimpose strict restrictions if COVID-19 cases spike. In recent weeks, experts have raised concerns that the reopening of the U.S. economy could lead to a fresh wave of infections. About half a dozen states, including Texas and Arizona, are grappling with a rising number of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds. Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the public should continue to maintain 6 feet of social distance, wash hands regularly and wear facial coverings to reduce the risk of infection.


“If cases begin to go up again, particularly if they go up dramatically, it is important to recognize that more mitigation efforts such as what were implemented back in March may be needed again,” said Jay Butler, the deputy director of infectious diseases at the CDC, who spoke to reporters along with CDC Director Robert Redfield. As the United States reopens its economy, a number of U.S. states, including Texas, Arizona and Florida, have relaxed social distancing guidelines in recent weeks. Many U.S. states also do not require residents to wear protective masks. Most Americans support stay-at-home orders and said they always or often wear face coverings in public , according to an online survey conducted early May of over 2,000 adults in New York City and Los Angeles. Most also said they would feel unsafe if restrictions were lifted.

Read more …

In the history books this will be known as: “How Medicare for All Got Started.”

Seattle Coronavirus Survivor Gets A $1.1 Million, 181-Page Hospital Bill (ST)

Remember Michael Flor, the longest-hospitalized COVID-19 patient who, when he unexpectedly did not die, was jokingly dubbed “the miracle child?” Now they can also call him the million-dollar baby. Flor, 70, who came so close to death in the spring that a night-shift nurse held a phone to his ear while his wife and kids said their final goodbyes, is recovering nicely these days at his home in West Seattle. But he says his heart almost failed a second time when he got the bill from his health care odyssey the other day. “I opened it and said ‘holy [bleep]!’ “ Flor says. The total tab for his bout with the coronavirus: $1.1 million. $1,122,501.04, to be exact. All in one bill that’s more like a book because it runs to 181 pages.

The bill is technically an explanation of charges, and because Flor has insurance including Medicare, he won’t have to pay the vast majority of it. In fact because he had COVID-19, and not a different disease, he might not have to pay anything — a quirk of this situation I’ll get to in a minute. But for now it’s got him and his family and friends marveling at the extreme expense, and bizarre economics, of American health care. Flor was in Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah with COVID-19 for 62 days, so he knew the bill would be a doozy. He was unconscious for much of his stay, but once near the beginning his wife Elisa Del Rosario remembers him waking up and saying: “You gotta get me out of here, we can’t afford this.”

Just the charge for his room in the intensive care unit was billed at $9,736 per day. Due to the contagious nature of the virus, the room was sealed and could only be entered by medical workers wearing plastic suits and headgear. For 42 days he was in this isolation chamber, for a total charged cost of $408,912. He also was on a mechanical ventilator for 29 days, with the use of the machine billed at $2,835 per day, for a total of $82,215. About a quarter of the bill is drug costs.

Read more …

For now, I’ll stick to the pandemic having become embedded, but not yet endemic.

Ben’s point is salient: if -when- COVID19 becomes endemic, other health care options must vanish, while premiums rise.

No Country for Old Men (Ben Hunt)

Connecticut is opening up a bit, so I’ve got an outpatient surgery scheduled at the big local hospital (specialty clinics are still closed) next Friday. I feel lucky to get on the calendar so soon. I also feel nervous. My dad was an ER doc. My brother is a healthcare lawyer. Again, these are things that have certainly made an impression on me. To be clear, my lack of healthcare options today and over the past 3 months isn’t because of the lockdown. That’s how a child would see this. My lack of healthcare options is because of the virus. In its acute phase, Covid-19 shuts down non-emergency healthcare provision entirely. In its endemic phase, Covid-19 forces enormous and costly changes in healthcare provision. There is no “v-shaped recovery” for medicine. Covid-19 is now in its endemic phase. The enormous and costly changes in healthcare provision that Covid-19 requires and the resulting impact on healthcare consumption lead me to three conclusions about the healthcare industry and national politics.

Conclusion #1: Endemic Covid-19 permanently dents healthcare provision (and consumption). The days of “efficient” (i.e., insanely lucrative) specialty medical clinics where docs go through 3 knee replacements or 10 lasik procedures in an afternoon are GONE.

Conclusion #2: Although both acute and endemic Covid-19 sharply reduce my healthcare options and healthcare consumption, my healthcare insurance costs have not gone down. They’ve gone up. Healthcare payers (insurance cos) are a public utility. They should be regulated as such. #BITFD

Conclusion #3: For the past 30 years, US fiscal policy has been largely driven by Boomers’ insatiable demand for more and more healthcare, to the advantage of both the Dems AND the GOP. Covid-19 destroys that cozy political dynamic, but neither party realizes this yet.

Read more …

I’m sure we can find a few very wrong things that the Queen is, or has been, invested in. Why stop here?

Churchill Statue Boarded Up Ahead Of Expected UK Protests On Saturday (R.)

Statues of historical figures including Winston Churchill have been boarded up ahead of more expected protests on Saturday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “shameful” that the monument to Britain’s wartime leader was at risk of attack. Anti-racism protesters, who have taken to the streets following the death of African American George Floyd, have put statues at the forefront of their challenge to Britain’s imperialist past. A statue of Edward Colston, who made a fortune in the 17th century from the slave trade, was torn down in the city of Bristol last Sunday, and authorities have acted to protect monuments they believe could be next.

They have now boarded up a statue opposite parliament of Churchill after demonstrators daubed it with paint last weekend. “It is absurd and shameful that this national monument should today be at risk of attack by violent protesters,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. On Friday, around 500 people gathered in Hyde Park chanting “the UK is not innocent” and “Black Lives Matter”, before marching through central London, with many saying that statues such as Colston’s were legitimate targets. “If we have these big images, and we’re telling people that these people and what they stood for is OK, we’re just allowing everything that they did to pass,” said student Samantha Halsall.

Meanwhile in Britain:

Read more …

Next up: the music scene. Imagine what they can do to country music.

Films Aiming To Win Oscars Will Need To Meet Diversity Criteria – Academy (R.)

The organization that hands out the Academy Awards said Friday it would form a group to develop diversity and inclusion guidelines that filmmakers will have to meet in order for their work to be eligible for Oscars. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has been criticized for honoring few movies and creators of color, said the move and other steps represented a new phase of a 5-year effort to promote diversity. The group said in a statement it would work with the Producers Guild of America to convene a task force of industry leaders to develop “representation and inclusion standards” for Oscars eligibility by July 31 that will “encourage equitable hiring practices on and off screen.”


The rules will not apply to films vying for Oscars at the next ceremony in 2021. Criticism of the movie academy intensified in 2015 with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, a backlash against an all-white field of acting contenders. The academy responded in part by doubling the number of women and people color in its invitation-only ranks. Still, by 2019 just 32% of its roughly 8,000 members were women, and 16% were people of color. New members will be announced next month. “We know there is much more work to be done in order to ensure equitable opportunities across the board,” Academy Chief Executive Dawn Hudson said. “The need to address this issue is urgent.”

Read more …

Good theme, pretty weak execution. The press has been destroying itself for years. Everything they say has become full-blown partisan.

The American Press Is Destroying Itself (Taibbi)

Probably the most disturbing story involved Intercept writer Lee Fang, one of a fast-shrinking number of young reporters actually skilled in investigative journalism. Fang’s work in the area of campaign finance especially has led to concrete impact, including a record fine to a conservative Super PAC: few young reporters have done more to combat corruption. Yet Fang found himself denounced online as a racist, then hauled before H.R. His crime? During protests, he tweeted this interview with an African-American man named Maximum Fr, who described having two cousins murdered in the East Oakland neighborhood where he grew up. Saying his aunt is still not over those killings, Max asked:

“I always question, why does a Black life matter only when a white man takes it?… Like, if a white man takes my life tonight, it’s going to be national news, but if a black man takes my life, it might not even be spoken of… It’s stuff just like that that I just want in the mix.”

Shortly after, a co-worker of Fang’s, Akela Lacy, wrote, “Tired of being made to deal continually with my co-worker @lhfang continuing to push black on black crime narratives after being repeatedly asked not to. This isn’t about me and him, it’s about institutional racism and using free speech to couch anti-blackness. I am so fucking tired.” She followed with, “Stop being racist Lee.” [..] If there’s an edge to Fang at all, it seems geared toward people in our business who grew up in affluent circumstances and might intellectualize topics that have personal meaning for him.

In the tweets that got him in trouble with Lacy and other co-workers, he questioned the logic of protesters attacking immigrant-owned businesses “with no connection to police brutality at all.” He also offered his opinion on Martin Luther King’s attitude toward violent protest (Fang’s take was that King did not support it; Lacy responded, “you know they killed him too right”). These are issues around which there is still considerable disagreement among self-described liberals, even among self-described leftists. Fang also commented, presciently as it turns out, that many reporters were “terrified of openly challenging the lefty conventional wisdom around riots.”

[..] Max himself was stunned to find out that his comments on all this had created a Twitter firestorm. “I couldn’t believe they were coming for the man’s job over something I said,” he recounts. “It was not Lee’s opinion. It was my opinion.” By phone, Max spoke of a responsibility he feels Black people have to speak out against all forms of violence, “precisely because we experience it the most.”

Read more …

Jim reintroduces Hillary as a candidate. But I think she is simply too unpopular.

The Party of Chaos and Falsehood (Jim Kunstler)

The Democratic Party Resistance apparently believes that all this mayhem, and the false sanctimony excusing it, works to their advantage in the coming national election. They may be disappointed about how that works out, as they’ve been disappointed in three years of previous gambits to overthrow the government and seize power by any means necessary. The picture of them is resolving into the party of bad faith, foul play, coercion, and tyranny. Even the corona virus scare carries a taint of Resistance manipulation. One moment the populace is hustled into an economically devastating lockdown; and then suddenly, on a fine spring day, they’re incited to mix in moiling mobs of street protests with the predictable result of a fresh spike in virus contagion and the possibility of a second lockdown.

Like many activities in our national life lately, it’s another hostage racket, and, guess what, you’re the hostage. Their most transparent artifice is the utterly false elevation of Joe Biden as their candidate for president. Everybody knows he’s incapable of performing the job, and probably even of functioning through a campaign. His inchoate utterances on events and policy make Donald Trump sound like Ralph Waldo Emerson. He’s left behind himself an evidence trail of financial crimes running to at least nine digits of grift. And, of course, if you believe all women, he’s a sexual molester. Everything about his public presentation is false, including his hair, teeth, and soul. This past week, his handlers posed him as Grief Counselor-in-Chief (via video from his basement) at the state funeral for George Floyd, accompanied by an inspirational music soundtrack to shore up the sham sentimentality.

Never have so many hollow platitudes been woven into such garment of alternative reality for public consumption. Most pathetically of all, the audience of mourners, mere props, as black America has long been employed by the cynical party, went along with the charade that George Floyd was a model citizen and father, now soaring on golden wings to the place on high where you don’t need methedrine and fentanyl to feel happy. A couple of days later, Democratic Party bigwig and Clinton henchperson, Terry McAuliffe, told a meeting of the faithful that Joe Biden should remain confined to his basement. In a matter of weeks, you may be sure, we’ll learn that the party is compelled to draft Hillary Clinton as poor Joe’s replacement. It can’t be helped. Her turn will not be denied, even if she has to destroy the country to take it.

Read more …

Everyone agrees and knows the case will be dismissed. But the “lead” judge says: “There’s nothing wrong with him holding a hearing; there’s no authority I know of that says he can’t hold a hearing,”

No wonder people think thiis all just to get this past the election. But I’m convinced Flynn and Sidney Powell have long seen this coming.

Lawyer For Flynn Judge Says Court Will Eventually Dismiss The Case (JTN)

A lawyer representing the judge overseeing the Michael Flynn trial suggested Friday that the court will eventually dismiss the case against the former Trump national security adviser, arguing that the judge’s decision to call in outside opinions on the matter was merely an issue of seeking advice before the probable dismissal. The lawyer, Beth Wilkinson, made the acknowledgement during a roughly two-hour federal appeals court hearing on whether the court should order a lower court to immediately dismiss the case, as was requested last month by the Justice Department, or allow the case to proceed through at least July.

“There’s no reason at this point to fear that the District Court is going to deny the government’s motion to dismiss,” she told the three-judge panel Friday morning, stating that the lower court is simply “getting advice” from third parties before likely doing so. It was unclear at the end of hearing, at about noon, when the panel of judges—Neomi Rao, Robert Wilkins and Karen Henderson—would make a decision. A ruling could come before the weekend but is expected to likely happen no sooner than Monday. Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States Jeff Wall argued Friday in the virtual hearing that the federal government has gone “beyond what we thought we were obligated to do” in explaining its reasoning behind its dismissal request, and that Sullivan should honor that decision and drop the case rather than draw it out.

“There’s no reason not to take that final step. This has already become, and I think is only becoming more of, a public spectacle,” he said, arguing that the appeals court should force the lower court to end the trial. Sidney Powell, one of Flynn’s attorneys, made similar arguments, saying the Justice Department provided an “extensive and thoroughly documented” argument in favor of dropping the case and that Sullivan should obey the request and bring the prosecution to an immediate end. The trial “cannot go on any longer,” Powell argued, claiming that the judge overseeing the case “has no authority” to continue it after the executive branch requested it be dropped.

Failing to bring the trial to an end immediately, Powell said, would simply be “delaying the inevitable,” arguing that Sullivan will eventually be found to have exceeded his authority in this case. Yet the court at times appeared reluctant to quickly dismiss the case. Henderson pointed out that Sullivan has scheduled a hearing for July on the matter instead of electing to keep the trial “waiting and languishing.” “There’s nothing wrong with him holding a hearing; there’s no authority I know of that says he can’t hold a hearing,” she said.

Read more …

TEXT

Judges Appear Skeptical Of DOJ Move To Dismiss Flynn Case (Fox)

Judges on a D.C. appeals court Friday seemed skeptical of arguments that they should force a federal judge to dismiss a case against President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as sought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) – after Flynn’s lawyer said the case was “concocted” and slammed previous “government misconduct” against him. The unusual move from Judge Emmet Sullivan to keep the case alive despite prosecutors’ wishes was preceded by an unusual move from the DOJ itself to drop the charges against Flynn even after he had pleaded guilty – saying the FBI interview that led to his charge of lying to investigators had no “legitimate investigative basis.”

But the long-running case continues to drag on. The latest twist involved the higher D.C. appeals court panel agreeing to review the handling of the matter. After Sullivan moved to accept input from outside parties, he was called to defend his own decisionmaking before the panel in response to a petition from Flynn to force the judge to let the case die. At issue is the discretion of the judiciary to delay, deny or question the prosecution’s decision to continue pursuing a criminal case. “This record contains enormous evidence now of government misconduct,” Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell said. She added that she believes Sullivan doesn’t have the authority to do anything but approve the DOJ motion, and that continuing the case would be an unnecessary burden on Flynn.

“We would simply be delaying the inevitable,” Powell said. “He just got dumped on a 72-page brief that we have to answer by Wednesday … the toll it takes on a defendant to go through this is absolutely enormous.” “The government’s just wasting resources out the wazoo,” she said. Powell also complimented the government’s claim that the case against Flynn was flawed: “This is the most impressive motion to dismiss I have ever seen in decades of practice.” [..] For his part, government lawyer Jeff Wall told the judges that it is the government’s position that it does not need to tell the court all of the reasons why it wants to dismiss a case — just those it chooses to disclose.

Read more …

“..the president’s attack on the Russia investigation..”?

The 3-year $40 million investigation ended in utter and complete disgrace for Robert Mueller and the people who appointed him, and now you’re saying none of this should be looked into?

Graham Granted Significant Subpoena Power For Russia Probe Investigation (JTN)

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham on Thursday was granted broad subpoena power in his probe into the federal government’s 2016 Russia-Trump campaign probe, allowing him call more than 50 people for interviews, including high-profile Obama administration officials. Graham received the authorization in a party-line vote in the GOP-controlled committee. “I find myself in a position where I think we need to look long and hard about how the Mueller investigation got off the rails. This committee is not going to sit on the sidelines and move on,” said Graham, a South Carolina Republican.

The committee is currently conducting a broad investigation into the 2016 Russia probe, including “Crossfire Hurricane,” which was the FBI’s name for their investigation into Russian election interference by way of the Trump campaign. The FBI’s actions during that operation gave way to what is broadly referred to as the (now mostly debunked) Russia-collusion narrative. With Thursday’s vote, Graham now has the authority to subpoena former intelligence officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

The committee chairman has also been granted the authority to subpoena documents and records reference in Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report assessing the use of FISA warrants against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Tensions ran high during the committee meeting in which member voted on the subpoenas. To issue a subpoena, the committee chairman needs to either strike a deal with the top Democrat – now California Sen. Dianne Feinstein – or secure a majority vote by the committee. Republicans hold a 12-10 majority, so they were able to grant Graham unilateral subpoena power, rejecting several amendments by the Democrats.

“Unfortunately, it appears that Senate Republicans now plan to spend the next several months bolstering the president’s attack on the Russia investigation and his Democratic nominee, Democrat Joe Biden. Congress should not conduct politically motivated investigations designed to attack or help any presidential candidate,” Feinstein said.

Read more …

Compared to actual news these days, even this is light reading.

Some Claim Mayan Calendar Was Wrong, ‘World Will End On June 21’ (Mirror)

From the coronavirus pandemic to an influx of terrifying murder hornets, 2020 has thrown a number of tricky obstacles in humanity’s way. But the worst is yet to come, according to conspiracy theorists, who claim that the world will end next week. The bizarre theory is based on the fact that when the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, 11 days were lost from the year, to better reflect the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun. While 11 days might not sound a lot, over 286 years it adds up, with some conspiracy theorists claiming we ‘should be in 2012.’ In a now-deleted Twitter post, scientist Paolo Tagaloguin said: “Following the Julian Calendar, we are technically in 2012.


“The number of days lost in a year due to the shift into Gregorian Calendar is 11 days. For 268 years using the Gregorian Calendar (1752-2020) times 11 days = 2,948 days. 2,948 days / 365 days (per year) = 8 years”. According to this theory, June 21 2020 should actually be December 21, 2012. If you cast your mind back to 2012, you may remember various theories, indicating the world would end on December 21. NASA said: “The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 – hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.”

Read more …

 

 

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Apr 272015
 
 April 27, 2015  Posted by at 1:05 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


Jack Delano Brakeman H.B. Van Santford on the AT&SF line from Summit to San Bernardino 1943

Debt Addiction Could Send Us The Way Of The Mayans (Satyajit Das )
Negative Interest Rates: The Black Hole of The Financial System (SI)
The S&P 500 Has A Serious Revenue Problem (CNBC)
Boston Fed Admits There Is No Exit, Suggests QE Become “New Normal” (Zero Hedge)
China Inc. Finds Cure to Debt Hangover in Stock-Market Boom (Bloomberg)
Chinese Energy Figures Suggest Much Slower Growth Than Advertised (Cobb)
China Considers Launching QE; Shanghai Stocks Soar (Zero Hedge)
Talking To My Daughter About The Economy (Yanis Varoufakis)
Greece’s Day of Reckoning Inches Closer as Debt Payments Loom
Greeks Add Pressure on Tsipras to Compromise as Talks Resume (Bloomberg)
The “War on Cash” in 10 Spine-Chilling Quotes (Don Quijones)
Deutsche Bank’s Record Fine Reveals Its Rotten Heart (Coppola)
World’s Coolest Economist Hot On His Numbers (NZ Herald)
Putin Says US Helped North Caucasus Militants In The 2000s (Guardian)
Russian Jews Face ‘Grave Dangers’ If Putin Is Ousted, Warns Senior Rabbi (RT)
Chipotle Removes All GMO Ingredients From Menu (WSJ)
Forget The ‘War On Smuggling’, We Need To Be Helping Refugees (Guardian)
Five Billion People ‘Have No Access To Safe Surgery’ (BBC)

“It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.”

Debt Addiction Could Send Us The Way Of The Mayans (Satyajit Das )

Nowadays many countries’ social and political structure relies on debt-driven consumption and increasing levels of entitlements. Blame the policy makers. To drive economic growth, boost living standards, and manage growing inequality, policy makers have used debt and monetary tools to create economic activity. This has resulted in excessive borrowing and imbalances in global trade and capital. Governments played a part, too, allowing the buildup of social entitlements to win or maintain office. Private companies also encouraged the growth of employee benefits to avoid immediate pressure on wages as well as boost current earnings and share prices. But such expensive commitments were rarely fully funded.

Rather than deal with the fundamental issues, policy makers substituted public spending, financed by government debt or central banks, to boost demand. Strong growth and higher inflation, they hoped or believed, would correct the problems. The current state of affairs echoes Archaeologist Arthur Demarest’s observation about the Mayan civilization: “Society had evolved too many elites, all demanding exotic baubles…all needed quetzal feathers, jade, obsidian, fine chert, and animal furs. Nobility is expensive, non-productive and parasitic, siphoning away too much of society’s energy to satisfy its frivolous cravings.” Seven years into this crisis, the level of debt in major economies has increased. Global imbalances have decreased, but primarily as a result of slower economic growth.

Countries such as China and Germany are reluctant to inflate their domestic economies, moving away from their export-driven model. Major borrowers, such as the U.S., refuse to reduce spending and bring their public finances into order. Enthusiasm for fundamental financial reform has dissipated, driven by concern that lower credit growth will decrease economic growth. Policy makers refused to acknowledge that available fiscal and monetary policy tools cannot address the underlying problems. They repeatedly use complex jargon, obscure mathematics and tired ideologies to disguise their failures and limitations. Perhaps, as the writer G. K. Chesterton suggested: “It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.”

Read more …

” If this is how the system ends up working, we fear that the effects will be irreversible.”

Negative Interest Rates: The Black Hole of The Financial System (SI)

A black swan event is a metaphor for an enormous problem that develops underneath the surface and then suddenly puts the whole financial system at risk. The financial crisis of 2008 was a black swan event, for example, that slowly developed in the US real estate market where excess had ruled in the years before. Today, market conditions are ideal for a new black swan event to develop. An event like this takes people by surprise, because it matures under the radar in places where no one is looking. Today, for example, everyone is afraid of deflation. That means that everyone is also trying to prepare for deflation.

If everyone takes measures against deflation you get a mass migration to cash and government bonds, however, which are the assets that perform the best in a deflationary environment. Take a look at Japan: the yen had been on the rise for years up until the Japanese central bank took exceptionally aggressive monetary measures to fight the trend (at which they succeeded). Japanese investors historically also like its country’s government bonds, however, ever since deflation tormented the country in the ‘90s. At one point you got a 5% yield on a 10-year Japanese government bond, today you get 0.3% per year for the next 10 years. [..]

Who is going to save money then? Not a single soul, of course. People will start to create debt en masse, because it is the better and cheaper option. The resulting investments will rise in value, moreover, when an increasing amount of people take on debt in search for returns. Things cannot get a lot crazier than this. If this is how the system ends up working, we fear that the effects will be irreversible. It is like a black hole that sucks in more and more matter – read: capital – and never lets go. This financial black hole story will also end with a sudden implosion, a flash of light and a big bang, just like in space, and those who do not own hard assets at that point in time could lose every bit of wealth they’ve ever accumulated.

As Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Fed and original promoter of monetary expansion, said once: “Or how you can lose your savings in a blink of an eye”. The big issue is that we do not see any measure that can reverse this process. Governments are not moving a finger to turn things around; and why would they? They are on the side of the debt creators; the ones that are profiting enormously from this black hole. Central bankers are frustrated, however, because they do not have a lot of tools other than to make monetary demands more flexible, which has the wrong effect: it accelerates the wildfire of negative interest rates.

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Why make money when stock proces keep rising and you can borrow your way into profit?

The S&P 500 Has A Serious Revenue Problem (CNBC)

The bottom line of earnings season adds up to this: companies are running into big trouble with their top lines. While companies generally tend to beat both earnings and revenue expectations, this year more have missed their first-quarter top-line estimates than beaten. Out of the first 201 S&P 500 Index companies to report first-quarter earnings, only 47% have beaten revenue estimates, according to FactSet. If this number holds, it will be the first time that more companies have missed than beaten earnings expectations since the first quarter of 2013.

Now, analysts on the whole expect to see S&P 500 revenue fall 3.5% year-over-year, whereas they had expected just a 2.6% drop when the first quarter ended. Meanwhile, earnings have surpassed analyst expectations nicely, with 73% of companies beating earnings-per-share estimates, according to FactSet. That’s equal to the five-year averag epercentage of beats. The surging dollar and sliding crude oil have certainly played a role in leading to this divergence.

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“.. the Fed’s exit strategy is that there should be no exit.”

Boston Fed Admits There Is No Exit, Suggests QE Become “New Normal” (Zero Hedge)

Perhaps it was inevitable. After all, the term “QEfinity” entered the financial lexicon long ago and there were already quite a few commentators out there suggesting that it may now be too late to remove the punchbowl, meaning an “exit” will not only prove difficult, but may well be impossible. Take Makoto Utsumi, who oversaw foreign-exchange policy at the Japanese Ministry of Finance from 1989-1991, for example. Utsumi recently said a BoJ QE exit was out of the question “for the foreseeable future” and went on to note that “even the thought of an exit is a nightmare.”

Meanwhile, it’s virtually impossible to say what effect Fed tightening will have in both the Treasury and corporate bond markets given the lack of liquidity in both and then there’s EM where carnage unfolded in 2013 after a certain bearded bureaucrat said the wrong thing about the direction of Fed policy. Given all of this, we’re not surprised to learn that in a new paper entitled “Let’s Talk About It: What Policy Tools Should The Fed ‘Normally’ Use?”, the Boston Fed is now suggesting that QE become a permanent tool at the disposal of the Fed. After all, “financial stability” depends on it…

During the onset of a very severe financial and economic crisis in 2008, the federal funds rate reached the zero lower bound (ZLB). With this primary monetary policy tool therefore rendered ineffective, in November 2008 the Federal Reserve started to use its balance sheet as an alternative policy tool when it began the large-scale asset purchases. Now attention is turning to how the Fed should transition back to a more conventional monetary policy stance. Largely missing from these discussions about the Fed’s “exit strategy” is a consideration that perhaps it should retain, not discard, the balance sheet tools.

Yes, oddly missing from the Fed’s exit strategy is the idea that there should be no exit.

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Sounds like a dangerous cure.

China Inc. Finds Cure to Debt Hangover in Stock-Market Boom (Bloomberg)

China Inc. is turning to the stock market for a cure to its unprecedented debt hangover. As authorities show a newfound tolerance for defaults and debt levels at Shanghai Composite Index members climb to all-time highs, Chinese companies are increasingly tapping the equity market for funds to pay down liabilities and invest in growth. They’ve announced $82 billion of secondary stock offerings in 2015, a figure UBS predicts will increase to a record $161 billion by December. That comes on top of $10 billion already raised through IPOs. Investor appetite for new shares has rarely been stronger after a world-beating rally in the Shanghai Composite added $4.4 trillion to China’s market capitalization over the past year.

While the gains came too late to stave off the first default on domestic debt by a state-run company last week, officials at both China’s securities regulator and the central bank have endorsed the flow of funds into equities as a way to support an economy growing at the slowest pace since 2009. “Valuations are very high now thanks to the stock rally and capital is very cheap,” said Xu Gao, the chief economist at China Everbright. “Companies that have access to the stock market will be able to tap the cheap funds.” Equity fundraising in China surpassed net sales of corporate debt last month for just the third time in the past three years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In one of the latest examples of the shift, China Eastern Airlines said on April 23 that it plans to sell as much as 15 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) of stock to fund the purchase of 23 planes and pay off debt. Shares rose 10% in Shanghai after the news as they resumed trading following a two-week halt.

Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical, a drugmaker backed by billionaire Guo Guangchang, said April 16 it will raise as much as 5.8 billion yuan from a stock sale and apply more than 60% of the proceeds toward repaying debt. Lingyuan Iron & Steel, whose share price has more than doubled in the past 12 months, said in February it will sell as much as 2 billion yuan of shares in a private placement to repay bank loans. The aggregate debt-to-equity ratio for companies in the Shanghai Composite reached 165% in January, the highest level since Bloomberg began compiling the data in 2005.

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“February data showed a 6.3% decline in electricity consumption from the previous month. March saw another decline of 2.2%.”

Chinese Energy Figures Suggest Much Slower Growth Than Advertised (Cobb)

Last year China reported the slowest economic growth in 24 years, about 7.4%. But the true figure may actually be much lower, and the evidence is buried in electricity figures which show just 3.8% growth in electricity consumption. David Fridley, a staff scientist in the China Energy Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been a longtime collaborator with the Chinese on energy management, efficiency and policy. Fridley, who has held Chinese energy-related jobs for 35 years, believes that electricity consumption in China is a better indicator of its economic growth. Historically, electricity consumption and economic growth in China have been very closely linked. “From 2005 to 2013, the average elasticity of electricity demand was 1.09, meaning electricity demand was up about 1.09% for every % rise in GDP,” Fridley wrote.

“In 2014, that number fell to 0.51, the lowest in this 10-year period. During the economic crisis of 2008, it did fall below the average, to 0.60, but quickly rebounded to above 1.” That tells Fridley that something is up. He’s not the only one who thinks the government growth numbers aren’t reliable. China’s premier, Li Keqiang, has said China’s GDP figures are “for reference only.” Bloomberg reported that in a declassified U.S. diplomatic cable from 2007 then-U.S. ambassador Clark Randt related a dinner conversation with Li, secretary general of Liaoning Province at the time, in which Li revealed his preferred indicators of Chinese economic activity: rail cargo volume, loan disbursements and–wait for it–electricity consumption. China’s leaders don’t believe their own government growth numbers.

Fridley notes that electricity consumption figures are considered quite reliable and have suffered only minor revisions over the years. Preliminary numbers for the first quarter of 2015 suggest further slowing of the economy as year-over-year electricity consumption growth decelerated to just 0.8%. February data showed a 6.3% decline in electricity consumption from the previous month. March saw another decline of 2.2%. Fridley also notes that residential electricity growth registered an extraordinary fall: “From 1980 to 2013, residential electricity grew on average 13.5% a year—and last year it fell to 2.2%. From 2005 to 2013, elasticity of residential energy demand was 1.11, and fell to 0.30 in 2014. This is unprecedented.”

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“..finally leading to the terminal phase for fiat currencies.”

China Considers Launching QE; Shanghai Stocks Soar (Zero Hedge)

Nearly two months ago we explained “How Beijing Is Responding To A Soaring Dollar, And Why QE In China Is Now Inevitable” in which we cited Cornerstone who reminded us “that from 2007 to late 2008, U.S. fed funds dropped 500 bp, and then the Fed still needed to do QE? The backdrop for China looks a bit similar. We had a credit bubble, they have a credit bubble. We had a housing bubble, they have a housing/investment bubble. Will China eventually have to go down the same path as the U.S., and the Eurozone? … The PBoC will first cut rates to 0%, before contemplating QE.”

To this we added that “once China, that final quasi-Western nation, proceeds to engage in outright monetization of its debt, then and only then will the terminal phase of the global currency wars start: a phase which will, because global economic growth and that all important lifeblood of a globalized economy – trade – at that point will be zero if not negatve, will see an unprecedented crescendo of money printing by absolutely everyone, before coordinated devaluations mutate into uncoordinated, and when central bank actions morph from “all for one” to “each man for himself.” We may not have long to wait because just hours ago, MarketNews first among the wire services hinted at what we suggested was the endgame.

*PBOC DISCUSSING DIRECT PURCHASES OF LOCAL GOVT BONDS: MNI; *PBOC IS DISCUSSING UNCONVENTIONAL POLICIES: MNI

Bloomberg adds more, citing MNI as saying that the Chinese central bank discussing “adopting unconventional policies to rebuild its balance sheet and reinvigorate economy, including making direct purchases of local government bonds from market.” Of just as we predicted. MNI continues that “although wide range of possibilities tabled about how PBOC operations could change, common thread of discussion involves need to expand balance sheet to ensure supply of liquidity meets economy’s demands, report says.” In other words, China is about to engage in the biggest QE of them all, and drown the world with exported deflation as the global supply glut which we explained yesterday, hits unprecedented levels and ultimately leads to the biggest inventory dumping phase in global history which central bankers will have no choice but to offset with Friedman’s infamous “helicopter drop” of money, finally leading to the terminal phase for fiat currencies.

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“..European peoples [..] to be set apart by a… common currency.”

Talking To My Daughter About The Economy (Yanis Varoufakis)

One of the enduring memories from my early childhood is the crackling sound of Deutsche Welle radio transmissions. Those were the bleak years of our dictatorship (1967-1974) when Deutsche Welle was the Greeks’ most precious ally against the crushing power of state propaganda. Mum and dad would huddle together next to the wireless, sometimes covered by a blanket to make sure that nosy neighbours would not get a chance to call the secret police. Night after night these ‘forbidden’ radio programs brought into our home a breath of fresh air from a country, Germany, that was standing firm on the side of Greek democrats. While I was too young to understand what the radio was telling my mesmerised parents, my child’s imagination identified Germany as a source of hope.

As I am writing this preface to the German edition of a book aimed at another child, my daughter, I feel the urgent need to recount that memory. To turn it into a small homage to the idea of Europe as a realm of shared democratic ideals. A small gesture of defiance against the recent tendency for European peoples, who were hitherto coming closer and closer together, to be set apart by a… common currency. Our European Union began life under the presumption that to achieve political and social union we must first bind together our economic interests; that economics would lead the way to a united European polity. It was a good idea except that, as the years and the decades went by, a problem emerged: our collective understanding of ‘economics’ became increasingly crude.

We slipped into a simplistic mindset according to which the sphere of the economy began decoupling, separating itself from that of politics, of philosophy, of culture. As it did so, the economic sphere acquired massive discursive and social power for itself, thus causing democracy, politics and culture to fade out, to become shadows of their former selves. We economists were, I confess, responsible for this steady erosion of our collective understanding of the economic sphere. Before we knew it, markets were no longer means to be placed in the service of social ends but emerged surreptitiously as ends in themselves.

Under the influence of, on the one hand, financialisation and, on the other, economic theory, we began to resemble Oscar Wilde’s definition of the cynic: one who knows everything about prices and nothing about values. Naturally, our European Union’s institutions also tended towards the conviction that the large decisions should be taken by technocratic committees that constitute ‘politics-free zones’. In an ironic twist the language of economists helped usher in a mindset that jettisoned from the corridors of power and the halls of decision making not only politics and culture but also …economics.

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Daily dose.

Greece’s Day of Reckoning Inches Closer as Debt Payments Loom

Greece will look for ways to assemble enough cash to pay its pensioners and employees this week, after euro area finance ministers on Friday said they won’t disburse more aid until bailout terms are met. Europe’s most-indebted state will use the deposits of local governments, cities and other funds to meet end-of month payments totaling over €1.5 billion.. By doing so, they risk straining liquidity buffers, after households and companies withdrew almost €1.3 billion in savings last week, according to a person who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.Greece has fought to unlock aid since striking a deal to extend its bailout program in February. The government has repeatedly expressed confidence that a deal was imminent, only to be rebuffed by euro-area officials seeking concrete steps.

Last week was no different: days after Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said views were converging, his counterparts across the region hit him with a volley of criticism.Greek bonds fell on Friday, sending yields on three-year notes up 144 basis points to 26.3%.Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week and later told reporters he was “very optimistic we are closer than before.”Still, support for his confrontational strategy fell to 46% in a University of Macedonia poll for Skai TV published on Tuesday, compared with 56% a month earlier. Researchers interviewed 1,007 people between April 15 and 17 and the margin of error was three percentage points.

The consensus at the IMF meetings in Washington this month was increasingly that a Greek default would be systemically manageable, UBS Chairman Axel Weber told the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. The Governing Council of the ECB may debate on May 6 whether to raise the haircut on Greek collateral posted against Emergency Liquidity Assistance, a decision that could worsen the country’s cash squeeze. ECB staff have already proposed increasing the discounts imposed on the securities banks post as collateral when borrowing emergency cash from the Bank of Greece. State coffers may be further depleted on the same day when Greece needs to find €200 million for an IMF payment. Bleeding deposits and unable to access ECB’s regular financing operations while the bailout review remains stalled, Greek lenders currently rely on a €75.5 billion ELA lifeline.

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Making it look like the Greeks hate Syriza. Predictable tactic.

Greeks Add Pressure on Tsipras to Compromise as Talks Resume (Bloomberg)

Greece resumed efforts to break a deadlock with its creditors as weekend polls showed a majority of the country’s people want the government to make compromises needed to release funds for its economy. Two opinion polls published over the weekend showed a continuing drop in support for the government’s confrontational stance in talks with the euro area and the IMF. More than half of respondents in an Alco survey in Proto Thema newspaper said the government should compromise even if creditors reject Greek demands.

“The Greek people are absolutely clear that they want to stay in the euro come what may,” said Aristidis Hatzis, associate professor of law and economics at the University of Athens. “They’ve understood that it will require hard compromises, even austerity.”
Greece is struggling to amass cash to pay its pensioners and employees this week. Europe’s most-indebted state is counting on deposits of local governments, cities and other funds to meet end-of-month payments of over €1.5 billion after euro-area finance ministers on Friday said they won’t disburse more aid until bailout terms are met. State coffers will be further strained on May 6, when Greece needs to find €200 million for an IMF payment.

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Cash will stay.

The “War on Cash” in 10 Spine-Chilling Quotes (Don Quijones)

The war on cash is escalating. As Mises’ Jo Salerno reports, the latest combatant to join the fray is JP Morgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., which recently enacted a policy restricting the use of cash in selected markets; bans cash payments for credit cards, mortgages, and auto loans; and disallows the storage of “any cash or coins” in safe deposit boxes. In other words, the war has moved on from one of words to actions. Here are ten quotes that should chill the spine of any individual who cherishes his or her freedom and anonymity:

1. Kenneth Rogoff (from the intro to his paper The Costs and Benefits to Phasing Out Paper Currency): “Despite advances in transactions technologies, paper currency still constitutes a notable percentage of the money supply in most countries… Yet, it has important drawbacks. First, it can help facilitate activity in the underground (tax-evading) and illegal economy. Second, its existence creates the artifact of the zero bound on the nominal interest rate.”

In other words, cash (not money) is the source of all evil and must be destroyed because governments can’t trace its every movement, and it represents a limiting factor on central banks’ ability to continue their insane negative-interest-rate experiment.

2. Citigroup’s Chief Economist Willem Buiter responds to the monetary economist Charles Goodhart’s description of abolishing currency as “shockingly illiberal.” “(T)his cost has to be seen against the cost that the anonymity of currency presents to society. Even though hard evidence is hard to come by, it is very likely that the underground economy and the criminal community are among the heaviest users of currency.”

This, I believe, is the hidden intent behind all the excited talk about banning cash: to do away with the personal anonymity it offers.

3. France’s finance minister Michel Sapin adds a dose of scare-mongering, which can do wonders. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders, he put much of the blame for the attacks on the assailants’ ability to buy dangerous things with cash. Shortly thereafter he announced a raft of capital controls that included a €1,000 cap on cash payments, down from €3,000. Such radical counter measures were necessary, he said, to “fight against the use of cash and anonymity in the French economy.”

4. Guillermo de la Dehesa, a Spanish economist, former senior civil servant and current international advisor to Banco Santander and… (cue drum roll) Goldman Sachs, already demonized cash (as opposed to digitalized bank credit) as a source of all crime and evil back in 2007, when he wrote the following in an El Pais article titled “The Great Advantage of a Cashless World”: “Without cash, we would live in a much safer, less violent world with enhanced social cohesion, since the major incentive fuelling all illegal activity [i.e. cash]… would disappear.”

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It’s the entire field. And they get away with it.

Deutsche Bank’s Record Fine Reveals Its Rotten Heart (Coppola)

Deutsche Bank has been issued with the largest fine of any bank for rigging international bank offer rates – what the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) calls “IBORs”. There are several of these rates: the best-known is Libor – “London Inter-Bank Offer Rate” – but there are also the EU’s Euribor, China’s Shibor and Japan’s Tibor. Deutsche Bank’s fine is specifically for the manipulation of Libor and Euribor. Libor and its siblings are commonly known as the rates at which banks lend to each other. But that is not their most important purpose. What is far more important is their role as benchmark rates for the pricing of all sorts of financial products. The NY Department of Financial Services has a useful summary:

The London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) is a benchmark interest rate used in financial markets around the world. It is the primary benchmark for short term interest rates globally, written into standard derivative and loan documentation, used for a range of retail products, such as mortgages and student loans, and the basis for settlement of interest rate contracts on many of the world’s major futures and options exchanges. It is also used as a barometer to measure the health of the banking system and as a gauge of market expectation for future central bank interest rates.

For traders, a move of a few basis points in a Libor rate could make an enormous difference to their profits. The incentive for them to manipulate rates is obvious. Not that rate manipulation is solely the province of traders at investment banks. Until now, the largest fine issued by the FCA for benchmark rate rigging was issued to the UK retail bank Lloyds, which had the temerity not only to rig the Libor rate but also the repo rate used by the Bank of England to price emergency liquidity provided to, among others, Lloyds. The Guardian newspaper described this as “biting the hand that feeds it”. It is now clear that manipulating benchmark rates has been so widespread in the banking industry that it could be described as “the way we do things round here”. Eradicating this practice will require not just severe penalties, but a fundamental change in attitude.

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Nice little story.

World’s Coolest Economist Hot On His Numbers (NZ Herald)

Michael Pettis must be the world’s coolest economist. That’s a very uncool thing to say of course. He’d probably dispute it too. But it is hard to imagine a much cooler character than the casually dishevelled American who greets me at his hole-in-the-wall underground rock club, buried on an otherwise nondescript street in Beijing’s university district. There’s black paint falling off the walls, there are skateboards parked in the corner and the ashtrays are still full from the night before. If it wasn’t for the hip Chinese indie kids busily working around the place it might have been lifted up in its entirety from the New York post-punk scene and rebuilt in China like some crazy art installation.

In his day job Pettis is a finance professor at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. He’s also a highly influential blogger and author when it comes to the Chinese economy. The club is a base for Maybe Mars, his independent record label, and the local avant garde music scene he is fostering. Broadly it’s art rock, he says. Think New York rockers Sonic Youth, a band which the 50-something Pettis – dressed today in black jeans, skater sneakers and unbuttoned business shirt – could easily pass for a member of. He grabs some Tsing Tao beers from behind the bar, we head up a claustrophobic stairway and grab a seat in his loft office where we talk some more about the peculiar administrative difficulties of trying to foster a music scene in Beijing.

“Do you like The Clean,” he asks, making the New Zealand connection via one of Dunedin’s legendary alternative rock acts. It turns out The Clean’s Hamish Kilgour has been producing for Carsick Cars, one of the hottest Beijing bands on Pettis’ label. You get the feeling he could talk all day about the music but of course that’s not what we are here for. We’re here because Pettis is considered one of the smartest and broadest thinkers in the world on the Chinese economic rebalancing act. Pettis is a rare breed in the world of academic finance and economics, he’s a Wall St veteran. Before moving to China in 2001, he was managing director and head of the liability management and Latin American capital markets groups at Bear Stearns. He has also run fixed income trading and capital market teams at CSFB and JPMorgan.

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“..a lot of presidents and prime minister told me later on that they had decided for themselves by then that Russia would cease to exist in its current form..”

Putin Says US Helped North Caucasus Militants In The 2000s (Guardian)

Intercepted calls showed that the US helped separatists in Russia’s North Caucasus in the 2000s, Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed in a new documentary in which he underscored his suspicions of the west. The two-hour documentary, to be aired on the state-owned Rossiya-1 TV channel later on Sunday, is dedicated to Putin’s 15 years in office. It focuses on Putin’s achievements as well as challenges to his rule – which the producers and Putin blame on western interference. Putin was elected Russian president on 26 March 2000, after spending three months as acting president, and was sworn in on 7 May 2000. The documentary shows Putin interviewed at the Kremlin in the dimly lit St Alexander’s Hall.

In excerpts released shortly before the film’s broadcast, Putin said Russian intelligence agencies had intercepted calls between the separatists and US intelligence based in Azerbaijan during the early 2000s, proving that Washington was helping the insurgents. He did not specify when the calls took place. Following a disastrous war in the 1990s, Russia fought Islamic insurgents in Chechnya and neighboring regions in the volatile North Caucasus. “They were actually helping them, even with transportation,” Putin said. Putin said he raised the issue with then-US President George W Bush, who promised Putin he would “kick the ass” of the intelligence officers in question.

But in the end, Putin said the Russian intelligence agency FSB received a letter from their “American counterparts” who asserted their right to “support all opposition forces in Russia”, including the Islamic separatists in the Caucasus. Putin also expressed his fears that the west wishes Russia harm as he recalled how some world leaders told him they would not mind Russia’s possible disintegration. “My counterparts, a lot of presidents and prime minister told me later on that they had decided for themselves by then that Russia would cease to exist in its current form,” he said, referring to the time period around the second conflict in the Caucasus. “The onl question was when it happens and what consequences would be.”

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“..Putin’s government provides more guaranteed support for the Jews than those in Europe and the US..”

Russian Jews Face ‘Grave Dangers’ If Putin Is Ousted, Warns Senior Rabbi (RT)

Russian Jews would be in serious danger if Russian President Vladimir Putin was ever ousted from power, a senior Russian rabbi has stated. He added, the current government guarantees the safety of Jewish people better than many Western powers do. “The Jews of Russia must realize the dangers inherent in the possible collapse of the Putin government, understand the rules of the game and be aware of the limitations,” the head of Russian Federation of Jewish Communities Aleksandr Boroda said at an annual Jewish learning event, which was organized by Limmud FSU. The conference, which saw around 1,400 participants attend, opened on Friday at the state-owned Klyasma resort in the Moscow region.

Boroda mentioned that Putin’s government provides more guaranteed support for the Jews than those in Europe and the US, adding that Russian religious institutions are better protected against anti-Semitism, while other countries don’t provide enough security. “In Russia, there is virtually unlimited freedom of religion and the Jewish community must ensure this situation continues,” Boroda said. “We do not have the privilege of losing what we have achieved and the support of the government for the community.” All Russian Jews, especially those who oppose Putin and his administration “must understand the grave dangers that they take upon themselves and the potential consequences,” he added.

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Let’s make this a wide campaign.

Chipotle Removes All GMO Ingredients From Menu (WSJ)

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. said it has finished removing genetically modified ingredients from its foods, becoming the first major restaurant chain to do so amid growing U.S. consumer questions about the agricultural technology. Chipotle, which has 1,831 restaurants, has been working for more than two years to eliminate ingredients made with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs—corn, soybeans and other crops whose DNA is altered to achieve traits like pest-resistance. The company had said it hoped to be done by the end of 2014, but the transition “took a little longer than we thought,” a Chipotle spokesman said late Sunday.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a number of genetically modified crops, which proponents, including many science groups, argue are safe. Critics claim they cause a variety of environmental ills and could be harmful to human health. The skepticism is part of a wider backlash in recent years among consumers seeking simpler, more natural ingredients. Chipotle in 2013 began telling consumers which of its menu items contained GMOs. Founder and co-Chief Executive Steve Ells has said Chipotle is making the move to avoid GMOs until the science around the technology is more definitive. The effort involved substituting a non-GMO sunflower oil for a genetically modified soybean oil it had been using, and sourcing non-GMO tortillas.

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But we don’t want to.

Forget The ‘War On Smuggling’, We Need To Be Helping Refugees (Guardian)

The crisis in the Mediterranean, which has led to more than 1,700 deaths already this year, has evoked an immediate response from European political leaders. Yet the EU response fundamentally and wilfully misunderstands the underlying causes. It has focused increasingly on tackling smuggling networks, reinforcing border control and deportation. Somehow European politicians have managed to turn a human tragedy into an opportunity to further reinforce migration control policies, rather than engage in meaningful international cooperation to address the real causes of the problem. The deaths in the Mediterranean have two main causes. First, the abolition in November 2014 of the successful Mare Nostrum search-and-rescue programme, which saved more than 100,000 lives last year, immediately led to a reduction in the number of rescues and an increase in the number of deaths.

Second, and most importantly, there is a global displacement crisis. We know that in last week’s tragedy – as with wider data on this year’s Mediterranean crossings – a growing proportion are coming from refugee-producing countries such as Syria, Eritrea and Somalia. These people are fleeing conflict and persecution. Of course, others are coming from relatively stable countries such as Senegal and Mali, but the majority now are almost certainly refugees. Around the world there are currently more displaced people than at any time since the second world war. More than 50 million people are refugees or internally displaced, and the current international refugee regime is being stretched to its absolute limits. For example, there are nine million displaced Syrians, of whom three million are refugees. The overwhelming majority are in neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

A quarter of Lebanon’s entire population is now made up of Syrian refugees. Yet the capacity of these states is limited. Faced with this influx, Jordan and Lebanon have closed their borders to new arrivals. But these people have to go somewhere to seek protection and, with few alternatives, increasing numbers are making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe. In this context, there are no easy solutions. Yet European politicians are taking the easy option of failing to understand the wider world of which Europe is a part. From early last week, Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, focused on proclaiming a “war on trafficking”. Politicians across Europe followed suit. Yet this fails to recognise that smuggling does not cause migration; it responds to an underlying demand. Criminalising the smugglers serves as a convenient scapegoat, but it cannot solve the problem. Rather like a “war on drugs”, it will simply displace the problem, increase prices, introduce ever less scrupulous market entrants and make the journey more perilous.

The proposals to emerge from last week’s emergency EU meetings in Luxembourg and Brussels have been similarly disappointing. They have focused on destroying the vessels of smugglers and committing to higher levels of rapid deportation, presumably to unstable and unsafe transit countries such as Libya. The humanitarian provisions of the plans have been vague and problematic. The EU has committed to triple funding for Operation Triton. Yet unlike the abolished Mare Nostrum, that operation has never had a search-and-rescue focus. As the head of the EU border agency, Frontex, has explained, it is primarily a border security operation with little capacity to save lives.

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Many of us wouldn’t have survived.

Five Billion People ‘Have No Access To Safe Surgery’ (BBC)

Two-thirds of the world’s population have no access to safe and affordable surgery, according to a new study in The Lancet – more than double the number in previous estimates. It means millions of people are dying from treatable conditions such as appendicitis and obstructed labour. Most live in low and middle-income countries. The study suggests that 93% of people in sub-Saharan Africa cannot obtain basic surgical care. Previous estimates have only looked at whether surgery was available. But this research has also considered whether people can travel to facilities within two hours, whether the procedure will be safe, and whether patients can actually afford the treatment.

One of the study’s authors, Andy Leather, director of the King’s Centre for Global Health, said the situation was outrageous. “People are dying and living with disabilities that could be avoided if they had good surgical treatment,” he said. “Also, more and more people are being pushed into poverty trying to access surgical care.” The study suggests a quarter of people who have an operation cannot in fact afford it. Twenty-five experts spent a year and a half gathering evidence and testimony, from healthcare workers and patients, from more than 100 different countries as part of this report.

They are now calling for a greater focus on, and investment in, surgical care. They say a third of all deaths in 2010 (16.9 million) were from conditions which were treatable with surgery. That was more than the number of deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. The authors suggest the cost to the global economy of doing nothing will be more than $12 trillion between now and 2030.

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