We have learned historically that if we can isolate sick people, we can often keep a communicable disease from spreading. Unfortunately, the situation with the new coronavirus causing COVID-19 is different: We can’t reliability determine which people are spreading the disease. Furthermore, the disease seems to transmit in many different ways simultaneously.
Politicians and health organizations like to show that they are “doing something.” Because of the strange nature of COVID-19, however, doing something is mostly a time-shifting exercise: With quarantines and other containment efforts, there will be fewer cases now, but this will be mostly or entirely offset by more cases later. Whether time-shifting reduces deaths and eases hospital care depends upon whether medical advances are sufficiently great during the time gained to improve outcomes.
We tend to lose sight of the fact that an economy cannot simply be shut down for a period and then start up again at close to its former level of production. China seems to have seriously overdone its use of quarantines. It seems likely that its economy can never fully recover. The permanent loss of a significant part of China’s productive output seems likely to send the world economy into a tailspin, regardless of what other economies do.
Before undertaking containment efforts of any kind, decision-makers need to look carefully at several issues:
- Laying off workers, even for a short time, severely adversely affects the economy.
- The expected length of delay in cases made possible by quarantines is likely to be very short, sometimes lasting not much longer than the quarantines themselves.
- We seem to need a very rapid improvement in our ability to treat COVID-19 cases for containment efforts to make sense, if we cannot stamp out the disease completely.
Because of these issues, it is very easy to overdo quarantines and other containment efforts.
In the sections below, I explain some parts of this problem.
[1] The aim of coronavirus quarantines is mostly to slow down the spread of the virus, not to stop its spread.
As a practical matter, it is virtually impossible to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.
In order to completely stop its spread, we would need to separate each person from every other person, as well as from possible animal carriers, for something like a month. In this way, people who are carriers for the disease or actually have the disease would hopefully have time to get over their illnesses. Perhaps airborne viruses would dissipate and viruses on solid surfaces would have time to deteriorate.
This clearly could not work. People would need to be separated from their children and pets. All businesses, including food sales, would have to stop. Electricity would likely stop, especially in areas where storms bring down power lines. No fuel would be available for vehicles of any kind. If a home catches fire, the fire would need to burn until a lack of material to burn stops it. If a baby needs to be delivered, there would be no midwife or hospital services available. If a person happened to have an appendicitis, it would simply need to resolve itself at home, however that worked out.
Bigger groups could in theory be quarantined together, but then the length of time for the quarantine would need to be greatly lengthened, to account for the possibility that one person might catch the disease from someone else in the group. The bigger the group, the longer the chain might continue. A group might be a single family sharing a home; it could also be a group of people in an apartment building that shares a common ventilation system.
[2] An economy is in many ways like a human being or other animal. Its operation cannot be stopped for a month or more, without bringing the economy to an end.
I sometimes write about the economy being a self-organizing networked system that is powered by energy. In physics terms, the name for such a system is a dissipative structure. Human beings are dissipative structures, as are hurricanes and stars, such as the sun.
Human beings cannot stop eating and breathing for a month. They cannot have sleep apnea for an hour at a time, and function afterward.
Economies cannot stop functioning for a month and afterward resume operations at their previous level. Too many people will have lost their jobs; too many businesses will have failed in the meantime. If the closures continue for two or three months, the problem becomes very serious. We are probably kidding ourselves if we think that China can come back to the same level that it was at before the new coronavirus hit.
In a way, keeping an economy operating is as important as preventing deaths from COVID-19. Without food, water and wage-producing jobs (which allow people to buy necessary goods and services), the deaths from the loss of the economy would be far greater than the direct deaths from the coronavirus.
[3] A reasonable guess is that nearly all of us will face multiple exposures to the new coronavirus.
Many people are hoping that this wave of the coronavirus will be stopped by warmer weather, perhaps in May or June. We don’t know whether this will happen or not. If the coronavirus does stop, there is a good chance the same virus, or a close variation of it, will be back again this fall. It is likely to come back in waves later, for at least one more year. In fact, if no vaccine is found, it is possible that it could come back, in various variations, indefinitely. There are many things we simply don’t know with certainty at this time.
Epidemiologists talk about the spread of a virus being stopped at the community immunity level. Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch originally estimated that 40% to 70% of the world’s population would come down with COVID-19 within the first year. He has revised this and now states that it is plausible that 20% to 60% of the world’s population will catch the disease in that timeframe. He also indicates that if the virus cannot be contained, the only way to get it under control is for 50% of the world’s population to become immune to it.
The big issue with containing the coronavirus is that we cannot really tell who has it and who does not. The tests available for COVID-19 are expensive, so giving the test to everyone, frequently, makes no sense. The tests tend to give a many false negatives, so even when they are given, they don’t necessarily detect people with the disease. There are also many people who seem to spread the disease without symptoms. Without testing everyone, these people will never be found.
We hear limited statements such as “The United States surgeon general said Sunday that he thinks the coronavirus outbreak is being contained in certain areas of the country as cases of the virus rise across the United States.” Unfortunately, containment of the virus in a few parts of the world does not solve the general problem. There are lots and lots of uncontained cases around the world. These uncontained cases will continue to spread, regardless of the steps taken elsewhere.
Furthermore, even when we think the virus is contained, there are likely to be missed cases, especially among people who seem to be well, but who really are carriers. Getting rid of the virus is likely to be a major challenge.
[4] There is an advantage to delaying citizens from catching COVID-19. The delay allows doctors to learn which existing medications can be used to help treat the symptoms of the disease.
There seem to be multiple drugs and multiple therapies that work to some limited extent.
For example, plasma containing antibodies from a person who has already had the illness can be injected into a person with the disease, helping to fight the disease. It is not clear, however, whether such a treatment will protect against future attacks of the virus since the patient is being cured without his own immune system producing adequate antibodies.
Some HIV drugs are being examined to see whether they work well enough for it to make sense to ramp up production of them. The antiviral drug remdesivir by Gilead Sciences also seems to have promise. For these drugs to be useful in fighting COVID-19, production would need to be ramped up greatly.
In theory, there is also a possibility that a vaccine can be brought to market that will get rid of the virus. Our past experience with vaccine-making has not been very good, however. Out of 200+ virus-caused diseases that affect humans, only about 20 have vaccines. These vaccines generally need to be updated frequently, because viruses tend to mutate over time.
With some viruses, such as Dengue Fever, people don’t ever build up adequate immunity to the many disease variations that exist. Instead a person who catches Dengue Fever a second time is likely to be sicker than the first time. Finding a vaccine for such diseases seems to be almost impossible.
Even if we can actually succeed in making a vaccine that works, the expectation seems to be that this will take at least 12 to 18 months. By this time, the world may have experienced multiple waves of COVID-19.
[5] There are multiple questions regarding how well European countries, Japan and the United States will really be able to treat coronavirus.
There are several issues involved:
(a) Even if medicines are identified, can they be ramped up adequately in the short time available?
(b) China’s exports have dropped significantly. Required medical goods that we normally import from China may not be available. The missing items could be as simple as rubbing alcohol, masks and other protective wear. The missing items could also be antibiotics, antidepressants, and blood pressure medications that are needed for both COVID-19 patients and other patients.
(c) Based on my calculations, the number of hospital beds and ICU beds needed will likely exceed those available (without kicking out other patients) by at least a factor of 10, if the size of the epidemic grows. There will also be a need for more medical staff. Medical staff may be fewer, rather than more, because many of them will be out sick with the virus. Because of these issues, the amount of hospital-based care that can actually be provided to COVID-19 patients is likely to be fairly limited.
(d) One reason for time-shifting of illnesses has been to try to better match illnesses with medical care available. The main benefit I can see is the fact that many health care workers will have contracted the illness in the first wave of the disease, so will be more available to give care in later waves of the disease. Apart from this difference, the system will be badly overwhelmed, regardless of when COVID-19 cases occur.
[6] A major issue, both with COVID-19 illnesses and with quarantines arising out of fear of illness, is wage loss.
If schools and day care centers are closed because of COVID-19 fears, many of the parents will have to take off time from work to care for the children. These parent will likely lose wages.
Wage loss will also be a problem if quarantines are required for people returning from an area that might be affected. For example, immigrant workers in China wanting to return to work in major cities after the New Year’s holiday have been quarantined for 14 days after they return.
Clearly, expenses (such as rent, food and auto payments) will continue, both for the mother of the child who is at home because a child’s school is closed and for the migrant worker who wants to return to a job in the city. Their lack of wages will mean that these people will make fewer discretionary purchases, such as visiting restaurants and making trips to visit relatives. In fact, migrant workers, when faced with a 14 day quarantine, may decide to stay in the countryside. If they don’t earn very much in the best of times, and they are required to go 14 days without pay after they return, there may not be much incentive to return to work.
If I am correct that the illness COVID-19 will strike in several waves, these same people participating in quarantines will have another “opportunity” for wage loss when they actually contract the disease, during one of these later rounds. Unless there is a real reduction in the number of people who ultimately get COVID-19 because of quarantines, a person would expect that the total wage loss would be greater with quarantines than without, because the wage loss occurs twice instead of once.
Furthermore, businesses will suffer financially when their workers are out. With fewer working employees, businesses will likely be able to produce fewer finished goods and services than in the past. At the same time, their fixed expenses (such as mortgage payments, insurance payments, and the cost of heating buildings) will continue. This mismatch is likely to lead to lower profits at two different times: (a) when workers are out because of quarantines and (b) when they are out because they are ill.
[7] We likely can expect a great deal more COVID-19 around the world, including in China and in Italy, in the next two years.
The number of reported COVID-19 cases to date is tiny, compared to the number that is expected based on estimates by epidemiologists. China reports about 81,000 COVID-19 cases to date, while its population is roughly 1.4 billion. If epidemiologists tell us to expect 20% to 60% of a country’s population to be affected by the end of the first year of the epidemic, this would correspond to a range of 280 million to 840 million cases. The difference between reported cases and expected cases is huge. Reported cases to date are less than 0.01% of the population.
We know that China’s reported number of cases is an optimistically low number, but we don’t know how low. Many, many more cases are expected in the year ahead if workers go back to work. In fact, there have been recent reports of a COVID-19 outbreak in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, near Hong Kong. Such an outbreak would adversely affect China’s manufactured exports.
Italy has a similar situation. It is currently reported to have somewhat more than 10,000 cases. Its total population is about 60 million. Thus, its number of cases amounts to about 0.02% of the population. If Epidemiologist Lipsitch is correct regarding the percentage of the population that is ultimately likely to be affected, the number of cases in Italy, too, can be expected to be much higher within the next year. Twenty percent of a population of 60 million would amount to 12 million cases; 60% of the population would amount to 36 million cases.
[8] When decisions about quarantines are made, the expected wage loss when workers lose their jobs needs to be considered as well.
Let’s calculate the amount of wage loss from actually having COVID-19. If workers generally work for 50 weeks a year and are out sick for an average of 2 weeks because of COVID-19, the average worker would lose 4% (=2/50) of his annual wages. If workers are out sick for an average of three weeks, this would increase the loss to 6% (3/50) of the worker’s annual wages.
Of course, not all workers will be affected by the new coronavirus. If we are expecting 20% to 60% of the workers to be out sick during the first year that the epidemic cycles through the economy, the expected overall wage loss for the population as a whole would amount to 0.8% (=20% times 4%) to 3.6% (=60% times 6%) of total wages.
Let’s now calculate the wage loss from a quarantine. A week of wage loss during a quarantine of the entire population, while nearly everyone is well, would lead to a wage loss equal to 2% of the population’s total wages. Two weeks of wage loss during quarantine would lead to wage loss equal to 4% of the population’s total wages.
Is it possible to reduce overall wage loss and deaths by using quarantines? This approach works for diseases which can actually be stopped through isolating sick members, but I don’t think it works well at all for COVID-19. Mostly, it provides a time-shifting feature. There are fewer illnesses earlier, but to a very significant extent, this is offset by more illnesses later. This time-shifting feature might be helpful if there really is a substantial improvement in prevention or treatment that is quickly available. For example, if a vaccine that really works can be found quickly, such a vaccine might help prevent some of the illnesses and deaths in 2021 and following years.
If there really isn’t an improvement in preventing the disease, then we get back to the situation where the virus needs to be stopped based on community immunity. According to Lipsitch, to stop the virus based on community immunity, at least 50% of the population would need to become immune. This implies that somewhat more than 50% of the population would need to catch the new coronavirus, because some people would catch the new virus and die, either of COVID-19 or of another disease.
Let’s suppose that 55% would need to catch COVID-19 to allow the population immunity to rise to 50%. The virus would likely need to keep cycling around until at least this percentage of the population has caught the disease. This is not much of a decrease from the upper limit of 60% during the first year. This suggests that moving illnesses to a later year may not help much at all with respect to the expected number of illnesses and deaths. Hospitals will be practically equally overwhelmed regardless, unless we can somehow change the typical seasonality of viruses and move some of the winter illnesses to summertime.
If there is no improvement in COVID-19 prevention/treatment during the time-shift of cases created by the quarantine, any quarantine wage loss can be thought of as being simply in addition to wage loss from having the virus itself. Thus, a country that opts for a two week quarantine of all workers (costing 4% of workers’ wages) may be more than doubling the direct wage loss from COVID-19 (equivalent to 0.8% to 3.6% of workers’ wages).
[9] China’s shutdown in response to COVID-19 doesn’t seem to make much rational sense.
It is hard to understand exactly how much China has shut down, but the shutdown has gone on for about six weeks. At this point, it is not clear that China can ever come back to the level it was at previously. Clearly, the combination of wage loss for individuals and profit loss for companies is very high. The long shutdown is likely to lead to widespread debt defaults. With less wages, there is likely to be less demand for goods such as cars and cell phones during 2020.
China was having difficulty before the new coronavirus was discovered to be a problem. Its energy production has slowed greatly, starting about 2012-2013, making it necessary for China to start shifting from a goods-producing nation to a country that is more of a services-producer (Figure 1).
Figure 1. China energy production by fuel, based on 2019 BP Statistical Review of World Energy data. “Other Ren” stands for “Renewables other than hydroelectric.” This category includes wind, solar, and other miscellaneous types, such as sawdust burned for electricity.
For example, China’s workers now put together iPhones using parts made in other countries, rather than making iPhones from start to finish. This part of the production chain requires relatively little fuel, so it is in some sense more like a service than the manufacturing of parts for the phone.
The rest of the world has been depending upon China to be a major supplier within its supply lines. Perhaps many of these supply lines will be broken indefinitely. Instead of China helping pull the world economy along faster, we may be faced with a situation in which China’s reduced output leads to worldwide economic contraction rather than economic growth.
Without medicines from China, our ability to fight COVID-19 may get worse over time, rather than better. In such a case, it would be better to get the illness now, rather than later.
[10] We need to be examining proposed solutions closely, in the light of the particulars of the new coronavirus, rather than simply assuming that fighting COVID-19 to the death is appropriate.
The instructions we hear today seem to suggest using disinfectants everywhere, to try to prevent COVID-19. This is yet another way to try to push off infections caused by the coronavirus into the future. We know, however, that there are good microbes as well as bad ones. The ecosystem requires a balance of microbes. Dumping disinfectants everywhere has its downside, as well as the possibility of an upside of killing the current round of coronaviruses. In fact, to the extent that the virus is airborne, the disinfectants may not really be very helpful in wiping out COVID-19.
It is very easy to believe that if some diseases can be subdued by quarantines, the same approach will work everywhere. This really isn’t true. We need to be examining the current situation closely, based on whatever information is available, before decisions are made regarding how to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. Perhaps any quarantines used need to be small and targeted.
We also need to be looking for new approaches for fighting COVID-19. One approach that is not being used significantly to date is trying to strengthen people’s own immune systems. Such an approach might help people’s own immune system to fight off the disease, thereby lowering death rates. Nutrition experts recommend supplementing diets with Vitamins A, C, E, antioxidants and selenium. Other experts say zinc, Vitamin D and elderberry may be helpful. Staying away from cold temperatures also seems to be important. Drinking plenty of water after coming down with the disease may be beneficial as well. If we can help people’s own bodies fight the disease, the burden on the medical system will be lower.
perhaps to lighten things up with some fake news…
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Norway now 3,771 cases and 19 dead and only 7 recovered…
also:
“54 new cases (all of which were imported from abroad), 3 new deaths (all in Hubei), and 367 new recoveries occurred in China on March 27, as reported by the National Health Commission (NHC) of China.
Starting on Saturday, March 28, China is closing its borders to foreigners to protect its citizens from a potential second wave of infections. Almost all new recent cases in China were imported from abroad.”
it’s great that we get these reports about what is happening in China from…
the Chinese government… (sarc)…
while it is totally true (and a bit of karma) that foreigners traveling to China certainly can and will bring some infections with them, it is almost too obvious for words that infections are still spreading within China…
and Norway too… or so I hear…
a quite passive-aggressive comment or two…
don’t believe anything…
3,700 comments and counting… is this Peak OFW?
it’s been great… past Doomers are back, and regulars are posting like crazy…
I suppose I would consider myself irregular, and half crazy…
some think it’s all fake (just a typical flu), some think it’s real (1% die) but no big deal, some think it’s 5% dead if we don’t shutdown, some think it doesn’t matter how many die from viral infections because the economic damage will be worse, and some think things that I’m forgetting…
it’s a shame that the Chinese have given us such fake data, otherwise we would definitely have a better handle on how this has been progressing since December 1st…
oh, some think that although cases are doubling every week just about everywhere, it’s no big deal because local cases are still quite low…
and some doubt that cases are doubling every week…
vive la difference…
age difference matters too… older persons like me 60+ have lived long enough, at least I have, though I wouldn’t mind 10 more good years… he said as many laughed…
most of all, living in a place that isn’t very attached to IC seems to matter the most…
how many millions or tens or hundreds of millions live without FF and electricity and banking etc?
only those persons might be the ones to survive to 2021, and may not even know or care that it’s 2021…
“April is the cruellest month…” – T.S. Eliot
I’ve been here for about 8 years or so, always reading the articles but not always posting. Depends on what’s going on in life. I used to post regularly for a few years and would frequently get into debates with FE, Tim, Derek, and a few others I can’t recall off the top of my head. FE is a lot calmer and saner than he used to be. Anyhow it’s hard to find like minded company these days that actually wants to discuss collapse. Now that it’s happening many refuse to talk about it, as if not talking about it will somehow make it go away.
The MMT crowd just adore the virus. Its a wet dream for them. Any talk of economic consequences is sternly and angrily dismissed as irresponsible and totally uncompassionate. And whats not to love for a MMT fan? We print money and give it to everyone. We print money and give everyone medical services. All suck on the infinite teat of money printing forever. YAY!
While we’re obsessed, quite naturally, with The Virus, that’s no excuse for ignoring everyone’s favorite skoolkid, Greta, who has apparently had a runny nose.
https://youtu.be/HKv1p4vQJ88
It amazes me the obsession of a teenager. Almost as if she’s used as a prop to manipulate division between people.
well, her parents have used her as a prop to highlight what they have considered to be the biggest problem in the world…
they have been shown to be quite off target…
the division between people existed prior to her fame…
I don’t see it as manipulation as much as entertainment, or a minor diversion from the looming dread of death by virus…
or worse, horrible awful unrelenting dire poverty…
The price system is the problem. It requires exponential growth that we all know is physically impossible. It creates more Climate Change and ecological destruction in the name of growth. Not only that be we destroy our resource base in the process. I’m a little confused why people hate on her so much.
Thanks for promoting my podcast Tim 🙂
I imagined that might be you, Eddy, but then I saw the MAGA hat the guy keeps as a decoration.
http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/canadian-heavy-oil-collapses-another-28-to-under-5-as-oilsands-face-shut-ins
Canadian heavy crude now costs less than the price paid to ship it. Thus, the price is effectively negative.
https://financialpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/wcs-march-27-1.png
First country can defoult and start domino can be Australia. Big debit. Malesia Tailandia for zero tourism. All country exporter oil as Nigeria Iran Venezuela Russia . Country as. Italia whit big debit. Who you bet? Lebanon Just defoult
We will have a huge number of countries defaulting on their debt. I wonder if we will also have people wanting to overthrow their governments because they cut back their programs, for example in oil producing countries and in countries like Chile, which produce commodities (copper and lithium in the case of Chile). Commodity prices of all kinds are too low for producers.
“We will have a huge number of countries defaulting on their debt.”
in that case, why won’t every country default on their debt?
Maybe all default. Like hitting the restart button on a computer.
Only debt in foreign currency will not be paid. Local currency will be printed.
Donald Trump wants to bring the economy back by Easter as a way to one-up God. Best Trump impression in the world.
https://youtu.be/sbPQCJtnT6o
How about an energy article? People such as Greta can’t wrap their heads around how much fossil fuels are required to make and maintain their Green World.
“1688 Tons of material to build just 1 windmill”
http://energyskeptic.com/2020/900-tons-of-material-to-build-just-1-windmill/
Worth seeing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR2c0339RDjHC_cUrlbHqqJr6SFZQCUL4t6wEiu6hNwTijvlwFoCYfVIOYc&t=1s&v=d6MZy-2fcBw
Too often, I get the impression that peer review is intended keep academic papers from straying very far from what is commonly believed, whether it is true or not. With all of the modeling papers in economics and in energy, replication is not quite the same issue as it is in psychology.
On that topic is this article slamming it:
https://rwer.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/econometric-modelling-as-junk-science/
The mainstream is really on the back foot now. And with better than good reasons!
I got a chance to watch some more of the video, and when it gets to coronavirus, it is very good. He makes the point that the real incidence of death and other bad outcomes is very low, when we look at those on the Diamond Princess that died, as a percent of those who tested positive. Other places give similar low indications.
I haven’t gotten to the end of the video yet. I wish these things were in written form. It takes so long, and when a person gets done, all you have is the notes you have taken.
In the collaps Germania Francia Olanda Belgio Austria Will keep euro. And Italia Spain Greece Will be whitout currency.
Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece will be issuing a new sustainable currency that is designed to depreciate steadily against the euro while yielding a positive interest rate and insuring moderate but controllable inflation in the adopting nations, and allowing everyone to work at a comfortable pace, just like in the good old days. They’ve decided to call it the siesta.
A storm is brewing:
Latin America Was Already Steeped in Economic Problems. Now Come the External & Internal Shocks of COVID-19
Locking down entire cities or countries and paying millions of non-essential workers not to work while healthcare workers battle to contain the virus is a luxury only afforded to countries with first-world economies, huge public debt capacities, relatively stable currencies and big central banks.
Even before Covid made its first official appearance in Latin America, just over a month ago, big cracks were already showing in the region’s economy. Both Chile and Colombia had been rocked by massive social protests over economic inequality. Venezuela is in the midst of a huge humanitarian crisis, while Argentina is waiting for yet another restructuring of its unpayable debt mountain. The largest economy, Brazil, has barely recovered from its longest recession in history (2014-2017). Mexico, the second largest economy, experienced three quarters in a row of declining annual GDP.
In the last two months, Brazil has suffered $12 billion dollars of capital outflows, mostly the result of foreign investors offloading shares on the country’s benchmark index, reports the Institute of International Finance (IIF). Mexico has an other problem on its hands: the sliding value of its peso against the dollar. In the last couple of days, the currency has rallied somewhat as the dollar has sold off slightly but it is still trading just above historic lows.
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/03/27/latin-america-was-already-steeped-in-economic-problems-now-come-the-external-internal-shocks-of-covid-19/
Africa same same… much of Asia same same…. much of the middle east same same….
It is not possible to bail out the entire world. Even in the countries with the means to provide financial support, that is limited – and those with the lifelines are using them to buy the bare essentials.
They are not going to be purchasing big ticket items like autos, furniture, or appliances. This will obviously wreak havoc on a massive swathe of industries and result in even more layoffs.
https://bavatuesdays.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Ominous-clouds-appear-over-London-in-a-scene-from-Warner-Bros.-Pictures-fantasy-adventure-Harry-Potter-and-the-Half-Blood-Prince.-Photo-courtesy-of-Warner-Bros.-Pictures-68-650×273.jpg
The problem of Mexico Is they was country exported oil and from last year they are import oil
Mexico imports refined products and they are expensive. Their oil production has been falling for a long time.
Money is not a stock money is a flow. That’s the absolute truth. Without flow it’s useless. Big ticket is irrelevant.
Cue the riots…
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hubei-residents-riot-after-quarantine-lifted-police-beaten-their-own-shield-cop-cars
Cheers,
-GBV
Wow! If that is what comes after shutdowns are lifted, governments will use some excuse to keep the shutdowns in place!
Gail,
Who is going to enforce it? Who is going to pay the enforcers? This has the appearances of a society of war lords, not a central government. Immediacy comes to mind, I have often thought generous pensions to police were a way of keeping them honest, when paying pensions is no longer possible, what remains are men well trained with violence which is after all the ultimate way government enforces laws. Someone will have experience as a commander, respect of the men(no, women need not apply, this is not negotiation, most policewomen do not look like Charlie’s angels), men look for leadership, some men step up, with leadership comes personal danger, risk of death. The daredevils doing somersaults on dirt bikes are boys, not girls.
Some leaders seem to be stepping up, putting themselves in harms way, interacting with whom they must, showing solidarity with those they lead and their lieutenants. I am not current, but is there a woman of note who is a leader who has been infected? The society the disease is shaping is going to be much different than the current one.
Perhaps supporting all viable candidates for sheriff in one’s county may have a certain logic. Small groups of people will do what works, what doesn’t will die out very quickly and the results of bad decisions will be very hard to hide. Groups that make bad decisions will suffer similar fates. This is literally life and death for some, for the boys seen on TV partying on the beaches, bragging about not worrying about the virus it could be the end of their gene pool.
Dennis L.
In countries which do not pay their police and military well -and their bureaucrats -guess what?
They become semi-criminals and run all kinds of mafia-style operations, shake-down citizens for bribes, and so on. Torture also becomes commonplace -you will pay that bribe and protection money!
Immunity from prosecution enables this; a total collapse and end of civilisation would be far preferable to living under that kind of corrupted system.
Once dishonesty has become so all-pervasive, it cannot be reformed.
Similarly, social security payments to those below retirement age are, in effect, a kind of insurance against crime. Cut them off and see crime explode, guaranteed.
The natives are getting restless
Ladies and gentlemen, how about putting Covid-19 aside and going back to discussing matters of our finite world?
Our response to COVID-19 seems to lead to collapse.
https://www.declineoftheempire.com/2020/03/self-defeating-fuck-ups.html
:
“Humans are self-defeating fuck-ups in this particular case because here in America and in Europe and elsewhere, humans are destroying the global economy in response to COVID-19. Their already compromised minds are overloaded. This invisible and therefore ever-present virus is construed as the only threat of any real importance now. They’ve got self-defeating tunnel vision. Ironically, it seems that anything or anyone can be sacrificed in the name of fighting COVID-19.
But by and large, the virus is not an existential threat to the vast majority of humans. For that vast majority, the existential threat here is the destruction of working people’s livelihoods and the longer-term demand destruction which will follow. The hysterical response includes the ongoing crash of the stock market and the growing insolvency of the banks, which no longer have cash reserves requirements. The credit markets are imploding.”
Hoiw can we stop this crazyness? I do not know.
All my friends say we do the right thing.
“Humans are self-defeating f-ups in this particular case because here in America and in Europe and elsewhere, humans are destroying the global economy in response to COVID-19.”
This is what I personally was attempting to address on this message board early on, i.e. if we shut down the economy in response to this virus, all is lost. I made the analogy of a colony of ants crossing a stream – they pile on each other making a raft and float downstream using their tiny legs to swim across and at some point they do get across and the colony is saved, even though many ants have lost their lives in the process. The human response has been to remain at the edge of the stream, and as long as we do that the economy will continue to crater and there really isn’t any advantage except spreading out the workload for hospitals, because the virus doesn’t die off, not even in Wuhan where it is still spreading.
In WWII Stalin established a new policy of ‘Not One Step Back’, and with people policing it, it stopped armies from quitting or running away. They eventually won. We need a similar policy.
In Italy, the hospitals are jammed full of virus sufferers, medical staff are resorting to using plastic bags to protect themselves, and doctors are deciding who lives and dies because of the lack of ventilators.
And that is in a country with a total lockdown. And yet there are massive numbers of infections and deaths each day.
What do you think would happen if Italy lifted the lockdown and returned to BAU?
How many infections do you think there would be per day?
How many thousands would die each day (and not only old people – fit young people are dying https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/hayley-wickenheiser-had-to-speak-out-for-olympic-postponement-1.5512175)
How would the country’s economy be able to operate if tens of thousands or more are sick — and large numbers of people were dying?
Not only would you end up with entire offices of people getting sick with some dying (how do you replace people — they need training — they need to have the appropriate education and skills)
You will also have situations where people will simply not report to work — because they do not want to get infected.
That is already happening — in Canada workers at government offices are refusing to report to work — so the government has been forced to shutter their centres where people apply for unemployment benefits. They can only apply online — yet the numbers are so massive that the website crashes.
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/federal-government-closes-all-service-canada-centres-during-covid-19-pandemic-1.4870542
There is no good choice. The better choice clearly is to try to contain. And hope that the virus is eliminated before the economy implodes.
That said, in my opinion, there is no way out of this without a miracle (and Fast Eddy respectfully declines to save the abomination known as humans… HE would save dolphins or any other animals but not humans – because they are vile beasts)
Eliminating a virus once it’s run out of control globally is impossible. Containment is difficult to enforce as Italy demonstrates.
Imagine trying to contain this in Nigeria!!!!
Thankfully there is:
http://postsfromthepath.com/wordpress/media/no_way_out.png
Don’t worry, once humans are gone the dolphins will likely flourish if they can adapt to a little radiation bath.
The friday I left office for home-office 2 weeks ago a collegue said, we will see again in 18 months. This thing will have to run it’s course one way or another we can not avoid that.. Flatten the curve does not mean to avoid anything. so get on with it. collapse now and avoid the rush!
We survived the last ice age only because we let the weak die. This is bad news for snow flakes.
Unfortunately, that’s most people, including the mechanisms of modern society itself. Totally non-resilient.
Nigeria currently has 70 reported cases. However, given the speed at which this thing spreads (doubling every 3 days), this number could reach ~1,000,000 in just 42 days, without social isolation.
Once cases reach 100, it only takes 40 days to get to 1,000,000.
All hail the exponential function!
https://mathbitsnotebook.com/Algebra2/Exponential/exgraph1.jpg
But Nigeria is mostly young people, who get mild cases. Perhaps it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. They will be over it and can get on with their lives. Future waves will be less of a problem.
All ages are susceptible, it’s just that the old are especially so.
Splash some water on your face. Breath into a paper bag. From the New York Post:
“More than 99% of coronavirus patients who died in Italy suffered from other, pre-existing health issues, according to a study by the country’s health officials.
The new research from the National Institutes of Health released Tuesday evaluated 355 of the country’s fatalities and found that only three patients had no prior medical conditions.
Nearly half the COVID-19 victims suffered from at least one of the following conditions: high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease.
More than 75% reported high blood pressure, while 35% had diabetes and 33% had heart disease, according to the study.
The average age of the victims was 79.5.”
And it is not true hat all of Italy is in lockdown. Just Milan, Venice and another small area, I can remember the name.
Anyway, Fast Eddy, your ranting on these issues are enough to make me think that…well, let’s just say that I think you may need to get some help.
As to the effect of the lockdown, yes, that is going to be disastrous. But this flu, well, it’s just the flu and not even as bad as other flus that we have experienced before, like the Hong Kong flu.
“As to the effect of the lockdown, yes, that is going to be disastrous. But this flu, well, it’s just the flu and not even as bad as other flus that we have experienced before, like the Hong Kong flu.”
I said the same thing last week on another forum and it was dismissed/rediculed. I have not bought into the fear and hysteria.
Is the Covid 19 virus bad? Sure
Does it jusitfy shutting down the global economy with the possibilty of creating a Global Depression? No
Italy is full of elderly people. It’s natural they would have other issues.
The whole of Italy is in lockdown.
CV-19 isn’t the flu.
Troll
The greatest prophets and thinkers have always been accused of being ‘crazy’… many have been put to death.
Wait a few minutes as I have a very interesting post…
But for now – guess why it’s mostly the gnarly dead wood that is dying?
Guess….
Here’s the answer —- when you have only so many ventilator machines …. and you have many thousands of people falling ill each day…. with many of them needing to stay on the machines for a month…
Guess what’s gonna happen….
Still don’t know? Well let me tell you … the older patients or those who are diabetes riddled fat slobs…. get a shot to calm them and put them down ….
The young and healthy get to the front of the q for the next machine.
Learn something new here every day. Stick around
Our response the the virus, shutting down economies, is a result of over 100 yrs of industrial expansion, first based on cheap, plentiful coal, then on cheap, plentiful oil. This has led to a normalized thinking that we are and always will be wealthy and capable of anything, including expending 10-20% of our medical care costs on keeping old people alive for the last year of their life. This covid 19 process will damage that mentality….when the medical system is bankrupt (it already is) when the reality that we are now expending >50% of our now reduced GDP on largely keeping those same people alive ( for only another year in many cases), this will result in realization that we are now poorer, and cannot expend this type of flagrant resource allocation. Ultimately, there will not be food on the shelves. The grid may start failing here and there. All powerful gov will be revealed for the paper mache that it really is in the face of diminished energy availability and financial destruction of true capital.
The multi trillion bailout bill shows the true colors….a paltry $1200 per poor laborer but trillion for the corporate cronies and pet projects. The financialization mentality of TBTF will continue to destroy true capital and true productivity…until the electronic monetary credits they use for money transactions have no value to the people that depend on them to buy and sell.
It’s asking a great deal, but do you have a time frame?
Dennis L.
Perhaps a few months. Europe seems likely to start collapsing sooner than the US. Maybe weeks, if the border closings continue.
I agree – we have very little time, yet all the people I know think we have the luxury of putting the economy on hold indefinitely then going right back to BAU. It was even depicted that way in the movie, Contagion. But most people have very little understanding of the financial workings that underpin everything that makes an economy like this work.
“Perhaps a few months. Europe seems likely to start collapsing sooner than the US. Maybe weeks, if the border closings continue.”
so maybe with that time delay, the USA can learn from Europe?
I know, it’s a stretch to think that our leaders could “learn”…
I would like to know what kind of collaps. Whit or whitout grid. Food from army. War Economy. How long. If Forever. Exiction event. Waiting God s kingdom
“I would like to know what kind of collapse.”
Everybody for themselves. Chaos, starvation, violence, destruction, you name it.
Well, that makes it much simpler, last man standing, god of Oden, farm when possible row over to a neighbor and appropriate what is necessary when not; at least we will not have to endure another woke lecture in feminism.
It will be difficult, but need to find the ancestral swords, shields and battle axes, change my exercise program from dancer to warrior. Man, I hope we don’t have to row too far, getting old for that sort of thing.
Dennis L.
When the currency defoult..how can pay debit?
You and me both. Does it make a difference to you? Do you have choices for various scenarios? What part of Italy are you from?
I was in Venice for a few days, beautiful then, visited Croatia, Split, beautiful, wonderful farmers’ market with a wide range of fruits and vegetables, seemed like a good place to live, not easy, but good. Diocletian’s retirement home as I recall, probably had a bigger staff than I could afford.
Robert is in Malta I believe, the Med seems like a good place to hide out, given a year Italy should have some reasonably priced property.
Italy has wonderful climate, a great cultural past and of course Sophia Loren.
When God comes, He comes, in the mean time I work like hell and never give up.
Dennis L.
If the world is destined to collapse into chaos, then Taiwan is not a bad place to be. Much of the terrain is mountainous and sparsely-populated. (You’ve got 20 million people crammed onto the coastal plain, few of whom are much inclined to climb hills.) The weather is good enough not to need fuel for winter. Lots of rainfall. Food may be a problem (we import about half of our food, also I imagine that there could be distribution problems), but that should settle after a few years. Sanitation in the cities is likely to suffer, causing diseases. I suppose the cities are destined be controlled by the army and/or gangsters.
Answer to Marco Bruciai,
The same as it has always been, indentured servitude, if a person has no currency, no wealth they spend part or all of their lives. Many immigrants have done this in the US, somewhere I once heard Chinese immigrants sacrificed their lives so their children could have an education and a better life. In the US, this is in stark contrast to indenturing students with loans.
Dennis L.
Gina Lolabrigida, quite the equal of Sophia in her day…..
If the collapse comes, you won’t even need her consent–you can simply ravish her where she lies.(Please Live-Stream)
“… going back to discussing matters of our finite world?”
okay, putting it aside then:
how is the economy holding up in Norway?
is the fake virus causing any real economic damage?
here in the USA, the damage is getting worse day by day…
https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/crashes-and-covid-19-in-historical-context?utm_source=YaleToday&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=YT_YaleNews%20-%20Alumni%20From%20Peoplehub_3-27-2020
Wishful thinking, IMO.
No doubt. And I’ve been sharing your posts all over.
Sweden (population: 10 millions), people in intensive care unit with Covid-19:
http://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/corona-i-intensivvarden/
good for them, if they have it contained…
not doubling every week, like other places…
and when the cases start to drop, they can never go back up again…
fact or fiction?
For some reason some nordic/central countries is way behind south/west europe in death number.
I propose that in south multigenerational living is common while in north we don’t visit the old even in normal circumstances.
Some people here apparently think this is being overblown and that people are acting hysterical. Let’s take a brief look at just what the United States Federal Reserve has done in the last few months. Not the government with its trillions in stimulus, just the Federal Reserve. These are PANIC actions as they attempt to stave off a full blown depression/collapse of the system.
The Federal Reserve has started a $125 Billion dollar per DAY Quantitative Easing program consisting of buying Mortgage Backed Securities, Treasuries, Student Loans, Auto Loans, Credit Card Loans, Commercial Real Estate, Small Business Loans, and more . To put this in perspective, during QE3 about 8 years ago the Fed was only doing $85 Billion per MONTH and it was limited to MBS and Bonds. This is literally 36 times as much buying as the 2008 financial crisis and they’re buying everything this time!
But wait, there’s more. They’re also bailing out the repo market. This market is what banks and hedge funds use to swap collateral or short term loans and it’s having major liquidity problems. In September until the end of 2020, before this virus was even getting started the Fed injected $500 Billion dollars. By March 12, 2020, the Fed announced it would conduct another $1.5 trillion injection. On March 20, it announced it would be offering $1 trillion in daily repo loans until the end of the month. A TRILLION DOLLARS PER DAY!
But wait, there’s more. The Federal Reserve has also dropped interest rates to 0%. A full 1% drop happened over a 10 day period this month alone. This is a panic maneuver to drop interest rates that quickly in the hopes that it stimulates the velocity of money. If lending freezes so does the economy.
But wait, there’s more. The Federal Reserve has also started a Primary Dealer Credit Facility, a Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity program, a Term Auction Facility, a Term Securities Lending Facility, a Commercial Paper Funding Facility, a Money Market Investor Funding Facility, a Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility, and an unlimited Discount Window. I’m not going to even bother explaining what all of those do, but suffice it to say that these are emergency actions. The Federal Reserve is in panic mode and these actions are unprecedented. If they fail to backstop the system, that’s it. And they know that and these actions demonstrate what’s at stake here.
And I made a math error on their QE. Average business days per month is 21 so 125 Billion per day = 2.6 Trillion per month / 85 Billion = about 31 times the amount of QE as the 2008 crisis. Doesn’t really change how severe the problem is though at all.
Covid-19, scapegoat of the millennium?
possibly..
we know what dastardly deeds they did in response to early PO warnings two decades ago..
True- we are not at peak oil.
That happened in Nov of 2018.
In the rear view mirror, so far.
in the rear view mirror… and forever…
we are now past the peak of almost everything economic…
perhaps too obvious to even type out…
“But wait, there’s more. The Federal Reserve has also started a Primary Dealer Credit Facility, a Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity program, a Term Auction Facility, a Term Securities Lending Facility, a Commercial Paper Funding Facility, a Money Market Investor Funding Facility, a Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility, and an unlimited Discount Window. The Federal Reserve is in panic mode and these actions are unprecedented. If they fail to backstop the system, that’s it. And they know that and these actions demonstrate what’s at stake here.”
My suggestion is for everybody on the message board to take a few moments to read that entire post of Tango’s. Great summary of FED desperate action with amounts of money that make the 08 debacle pale in comparison.
The FED act and talk like their abilities are unlimited, but as we know there are always limits and they will be tested here. Also keep in mind this is just the beginning of the virus spreading in the US. We don’t know how long this will last. The economy is like a weakened boxer and the FED have taken the mantle to hold that boxer up until the virus is beaten down by meds or simply goes away like the Spanish flu of 1918 finally did. Good luck to one and all.
The more worrying concern to mr
1. The Feds are doing it for USA, what is the implication worldwide? It makes no sense if all else break and USA is standing alone (which is not possible anyway in this super interconnected world). Can The Fed help everyone in the world? Does it have the ability and the will?
2. The consequence. Intended or unintended. Derivatives are complex and we have lots of known and unknowns.
3. How about main street everywhere on the world? Bailouts are big but peanuts for the citizens. They need jobs and money to feed themselves and their family.
4. How to recover quickly? Tourism, transportation, energy, etc are all down big time. No one is in the right mind or have the money to buy discretionary stuff.
5. Crude oil at $20. No one factored on the low prices yet. What will happen?
6. We are only 3 months since Wuhan was first shutdown and The Fed has already fired all the bullets.
7. It looks like this virus thing will drag for a long time.
Well when you say it that way of course it sounds bad.
Questions for Gail and commentators on this site.
Before I go on with my questions, I would like to state that: Yes, ultimately BAU must collapse and I don’t see a way for most humans to survive the collapse. And probably all livings things die per Fast Eddy and his radiation contaminated oceans.
However, that does not mean we can have a light BAU for a sometime (maybe years even) depending on EROI (In Joules for energy terms and not dollar terms).
Note that BOJ has been doing what the Federal Reserve is doing now (buy everything in sight) for 20 years.
My question is about challenging your thoughts on MMT and UBI ideas which I know Gail and most commentators on this blog do not believe in dismiss as rubbish. But hear me out:
1. The near-term issue is lack of demand to make commodity manufacturing viable financially. The long-term issue is too scarce resources because of viability of extraction in physical energy terms.
2. But we can stimulate demand by paying UBI with Fed created currency (digital dollar issued by the Federal Reserve Bank).
3. This will create demand. Of course, money creation would have to be “metered” to match what the economy can deliver in terms of goods and services.
4. Note even this scheme will fail when of extraction of real resources and their conversion of goods and services in physical energy terms does not add up.
5. One thing debt does is bring demand forward so can UBI payments too. Does inflation HAVE to be the result when main issue now is demand destruction (deflation).
6. Think of it this way. What if the Federal Reserve gave a loan to each citizen interest free but with very small principle payment per month? Which would eventually be forgiven if payment becomes too large. This is just a mental experiment to understand implications of UBI by relating it to loaned money (debt).
What do you guys think?
I come from an MMT position. It is garnering praise now as it can show a way forward with policy today, in these tough times. MMT is simplistically explained as a Magic Money Tree, but no tree is necessary. It just appears by government action to provision itself ,[Thin Air.] However it must first have to pay a debt. Debts come first, action follows. The government green lights the spending and that signals creation of the currency. Taxation plays no part in government spending, it serves as a measure for government spending to compare with; [the Fiscal Budget]. Annually it resets to zero, so the budget balance line is set by the tax take. Spending up to Below lies a budget surplus. above reins the budget deficit. This matches our understanding of debts and assets in the bank [federal and commercial], Debts are all in the bank and assets are all in the outside world.
The commonwealth js not like a household. It can spend indefinitely [always’ up to resource limits available for sale in the designated currency
Your point 1].True. We’ll just have to wait and see
2] Monetary policy was the habitual weapon the Fed used to stimulate or wind back the economy. It’s exhausted its options, so we switch to Fiscal policy. This generates spending opportunities for all the citizenry both directly and indirectly. I have not yet seen the PTB say much about it but soon enough they will.
3] OK
4] That is the limiting factor for sure.
5] As long as spending is within the fiscal space there will be negligible inflation.
6]This experiment is what will probably happen, maybe not in a sole hit. They will work up to the
$Trillions needed to keep the economy working. All the costs this virus has caused will need to be amortised. It cannot succeed if done in dribs and drabs. The economic fall out from a piecemeal, mean spirited result will be ruinous.
We need to be vigilant to keep out the mainstream toxins trying to undermine the result.
https://i.ibb.co/zrQ8MJP/lukashenko-on-covid-19.jpg
Are they letting Americans in?
Sure, can you speak the language, Ed? lol
Care to elaborate a bit on your hint in regards to US (Dem) primaries.
It was several pages back, but it seemed to me you wanted to tell more..
I guess it could go for months in crazy twists etc.
Here in NYS we are watching the governor try oh so hard to replace Biden as the democratic party candidate. He tries to play the savior of the people of New York State from the dread virus. He is desperate to make an issue over ventilator. He has never himself placed an order for ventilators using state money. He just wines about Trump will not give us massive numbers of vents. That most can see the state does not need. Remember Elon said he would make vents IF THEY WERE NEEDED. It goes on with relentless games by the Democrats for national consumption. NYS is massively democrat because of the mass of poor and union in NYC.
Thanks.
Do you think it is really possible to change horses when ~2/3 of convention delegate votes are already pledged and is it going to happen there or they could somehow drop that fading away Malarkey-touchy guy even way before that.. ? All seems kind of very unprecedented..
Send Joe a ticket to a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater. Problem solved.
Not bad advice?
Die drunk—-
Skål!
The Spaniard created millions of deaths in the second wave, not the first. I want se in May what Will be in Australia. Maybe i Will escape in south emisphere in September
One idea if a person/s can afford it is to get a sea worthy sail boat, fill it with provisions for as long as you can, and set sail. There are all sorts of islands on the planet one could anchor off of at different intervals to rest. I use to sail on SF bay and it’s pretty simple but it does wear a person down, so take another person like a gorgeous woman, and get out of Dodge as they say in America.
Over 3,000 cases here, doubling roughly every 4 days. Incompetent government, and millions of entitled people. Are you sure you want to come?
There is a new modeling study out with respect to the extent of lockdowns required to keep COVID-19 below the capacity of the US healthcare system to handle it. Epidemiologist Mark Lipsitch of Harvard is one of the co-authors.
Some excerpts:
and
and
and
I should point out that the assumptions regarding the amount of care needed are quite low compared to some estimates we have heard:
Asymptomatic or mild infections = 95.6%
Hospitalized but do not required critical care = 3.08%
Critical care patients = 1.32%
Some people are talking about the sum of the two types of hospitalization being equal to 20% of total cases, rather than 4.40%.
I’ve been reading about French Professor Dr. D. Raoult a leading expert on infectious diseases. He is confident he has a cure for Covid 19, which he and his team are using in his Marseilles hospital: Chloroquine + a course of treatment of azithromicyne.
x
There are other articles out that talk about the need for tests.
Malaria Drugs in COVID-19: Hope or Hype?
— Clinical trials may soon provide answers
A few excerpts:
“The official jobless numbers are horrifying. The real situation is even worse.
“Unprecedented: The shutdown of much of the service economy—think restaurants, hotels, and retail stores—in an attempt to slow down the spread of the coronavirus is sending the US toward a deep recession. This week the Labor Department announced that a jaw-dropping 3.3 million people filed jobless claims; the previous weekly record was 695,000, in 1982. As bad as that number is, though, it greatly understates the crisis, since it doesn’t take into account many part-time, self-employed, and gig workers who are also losing work.
“Where it’s going: It’s very hard to say. We’re (quite rightly) purposely shutting down economic activity and telling people to stay home, making this recession qualitatively different to any other. Many small businesses will fail without government help. The downturn will hit people least able to withstand it hardest: low-wage service workers in restaurants and hotels, and the growing number of people in the gig economy.
“What can be done: Some mechanisms to help have been included in the $2 trillion stimulus package expected to be passed by Congress this week. The legislation will send $1,200 to each American earning less than $75,000. And it would expand unemployment benefits for the first time to gig workers and self-employed people. It would also spend hundreds of billions to help businesses stay afloat. ”
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615413/record-jobless-numbers-hint-at-the-coronavirus-economic-pain/?truid=d588ee1e36faed18b0f602ee9f2f16c7&utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_content=03-27-2020
I guess the US popular mentality has gotten to be, fire-hose the situation with “fiat” government cash.
My god
Who still think Is not collaps??
That’s one way to “pay back” the debt…inflate it away! That’s the plan Stan
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/25/fed-economists-warn-of-inflation-and-economic-ruin-if-mt-is-adopted.html
Fed analysis warns of ‘economic ruin’ when governments print money to pay off debt
PUBLISHED MON, NOV 25 201912:29 PM ESTUPDATED TUE, NOV 26 20191:28 PM EST
St. Louis Fed economists warn in a paper of potential “economic ruin” if policies that advocate money-printing to pay off government debts are ever adopted.
The theory says government debt doesn’t matter if inflation is low, and that deficit spending can be used to fuel growth and reduce inequality.
Some of its biggest advocates include Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez
Federal Reserve economists warn that printing money to pay for deficit spending has been a disaster for other nations that have tried it.
In a paper that discusses the burgeoning U.S. fiscal debt, Fed experts note that high levels are not necessarily unsustainable so long as income is rising at a faster pace. They note that countries that have gotten into trouble and looked to central banks to bail them out haven’t fared well.
At least we know what the end result will be!😜
Those that own hard assets, and if society stays intact may fair better
Ownership is malleable. You must be a pirate for pirate code to apply. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl.
That’s why I added “if society stays intact” to my comment..if we go to the outlaw stage, all gets are off.
As a matter of fact, we do have a recent example of the Weimar Republic of what could transpire.
Winners and losers
There were winners and losers from the 1923 hyperinflation. The worst affected were the Mittelstand (middle class) who relied on investments, savings or incomes from pensions or rents. In 1921, a family with 100,000 marks in savings would have been considered wealthy – but within two years, this would not be enough for a cup of coffee.
Public servants also suffered because increases in their wages failed to keep pace with the private sector. Among those who fared better were farmers, business owners or producers who manufactured and sold important commodities. While the value of money fluctuated, the real value of these goods did not; those who sold them could do so on their own terms.
Germans with large debts also benefited from hyperinflation, since they could be easily repaid. Some clever businessmen borrowed early in the inflationary cycle to buy property, then repaid the loan weeks or months later for next to nothing.
Those that fared better we’re Farmers. Business owners or producers that manufactured and sold important commodities.
When fiat government cash is the only tool the economy has, that is what gets used.
The legislation will send $1,200 to each American earning less than $75,000.
I am thinking… that won’t help much.
They have just put a toe in the water. When one realises the GFC write down cost $29 Trillion.such spending is coming like it or not. It is of course free.[as long as resources hold out]
Dear public, your next lesson to be learned is called “Liebig’s law of the Minimum”
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/03/26/liebigs-law-writ-large/
This article is really good. It starts out:
That is an outstanding article
Except for the part about there being a ‘future’
Indeed it is!
Boris Johnson tests positive!
Time he self-quarantined.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52060791
Yes, he should hide inside a giant teddy bear and prank Carrie. He’d look good as a teddy bear.
Boris Johnstone has tested positive for Coronavirus.
Doing his part for herd immunity.
Interesting disease death comparison:
https://rclutz.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/daily-disease-deaths-23032020.png
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238578-uk-has-enough-intensive-care-units-for-coronavirus-expert-predicts/
Hmmm
20000 out of 68 millions is how many %?
.03?
And how many of those were at death’s door anyway? Models are difficult.
Now we just have to calculate the economic carnage and further wealth transfer to the rich.
Do note that it is only 3 months from the day of Wuhan lockdown. These diseases listed above have been there for centuries or even thousand of years.
The hysteria surrounding COVID-19 is deafening
I think it’s a case of both the disease (highly contagious and potentially debilitating) and the cure (societal lockdown for months) being as bad as each other.
One leads to an economic and health disaster.
The other, just an economic disaster.
Nice choice, eh?
I am wondering what the death rate would be if containment was lifted on the Wuhan Virus.
If the Harvard Public Health Care model says:
95.6% of cases are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms
3.08% are hospitalized but do not require critical care, and
1.32% require critical care,
Then at most 1.32% + 3.08% = 4.4% of those with the illness would die, assuming all of those requiring hospitalization would die. Of course, not all of the population would catch the disease before herd immunity built up. If 80% of the population need to catch COVID-19 before population immunity builds up, then at most 3.5% (=.8 x 4.4%) of the overall population would die. Most of these would be elderly or in poor health.
With treatment, we can perhaps get the percentage who die from down to less than 0.5% of the overall population. The percentage who die from other diseases can be expected to rise, however, because non-COVID-19 treatments get postponed or cancelled.
“The United States, Europe, Japan, China and India are unleashing trillions of dollars in government spending and newly created money as they desperately attempt to keep the global economy from sinking into depression.
“The response to the coronavirus pandemic has been unprecedented in terms of speed and scale. Commitments from governments and central banks to date are close to $7 trillion…”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/26/economy/global-economy-coronavirus-bailout/index.html
“European leaders have clashed over how to pull their economies through the coronavirus crisis, as Italy accused other member states of a timid response to an unprecedented economic shock.
“Meeting via a video link, the EU’s 27 leaders papered over deep divisions by agreeing that another fortnight was needed to discuss ambitious economic recovery plans.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/eu-leaders-clash-over-economic-response-to-coronavirus-crisis
2 weeks Will be too late. Now all people and politics want Mario Draghi as prime minister. He want do big debit and give Money . So now all want him. And i think Will arrive soon
It won’t happen. The only course of action that might (a big might) succeed is debt guaranteed by the whole EU, the proposed eurobond. Germany will refuse, and if Merkel says no so will her French poodle, and that kills the idea.
Perhaps people will finally realise that EU solidarity was a fraud from the beginning. Its purpose was to allow Germany and France to loot everyone else; they added the Benelux countries to the club so it would not look like a duopoly. So Germany gets a hugely undervalued new currency, which means everyone else’s is overvalued and they have no way out. France is kept onside by the Common Agricultural Policy, which is a way of taxing everyone else to featherbed the French farmers. So we have Greece, Italy, and very soon Spain pleading for help, and it will not come.
Archaeologists uncovered a cache of letters at Tel el Amarna, real name Akhetaten, from provincial governors pleading for help from the Pharaoh. There were threats from Libya, from the sea, and from the expanding empires around Palestine (Egyptian territory since Tutmoses III). They went unanswered, because the Pharaoh was too busy creating his new religion. Just as the EU oligarchs are too busy creating a Europe subservient to them and their brand new army.
Yes Margaret Thatcher was right. She told euro was disaster for poor country.
Hint:
The She is Dead:
And we may add that in Greece, Italy, Spain, etc, the elites were able to enrich themselves and enjoy a stable currency – suited them very well, and the mass of people were taken in by freedom of movement and all the surface gloss the EU spread around liberally.
“Perhaps people will finally realise that EU solidarity was a fraud from the beginning. Its purpose was to allow Germany and France to loot everyone else; they added the Benelux countries to the club so it would not look like a duopoly. ”
UK must be devastated, imagine not being the one looting for a change …
This will be the real test. If everything can be manipulated and bad debt made to disappear then we will know that we don’t have a “free market system”. I thought that there was an economic problem before this and now I am not sure about anything because of the machinations of central banks. If there is not a global crash from this ….there will never be one.
Well you might just now come to the conclusion that its not a free market system. It hasnt been since bretton woods went away. Most people will not understand that it is not and was not a free market system now. The remarkable thing is how robust it is proving regardless of what it is.
The modern economy. It may be crazy. We may not like it. Its end game always looms. Until the end game it is voracious.
Or maybe it doesn’t and we were all fools for sitting on the edge of our seat waiting for it to happen 😂
What do you mean?
The system has indeed already crashed. It is insolvent. What do you think the Federal Reserves $125 billion a day in repo operations is for? It’s to provide liquidity for broke entities. Banks, brokerages, hedge funds, pensions, companies, middle-class gamblers. The government itself. Etc, etc. This constant stream of helicopter money cannot stop, for one moment, now that Bubblezilla has finally burst. Otherwise, the stock market will stop trading by next Tuesday, and that would be that. Let’s see how long they can keep the helicopter from going into a fatal tail spin. At some stage, they will lose control. This bubble was HUGE.
Bubbles always pop, markets crash, and manias end.
Always.
“The response to the coronavirus pandemic has been unprecedented in terms of speed and scale. Commitments from governments and central banks to date are close to $7 trillion…”
I suspect that pace cannot be kept up for very long. The amounts needed will balloon out of control. In 6 months 7 trillion will need to be 100 trillion and in another 6 months after that it will be in the quadrillion dollars.
My opinion is there is a small window to get this virus under control with meds or just raise the white flag, take off the masks and let the virus do what it’s going to do and go back to work. I know that sounds like we’d have to ignore the sick and dying and to some extent we would, but the alternative is a dead economy that won’t come back. We likely only have 6-8 weeks. That’s an opinion. Maybe more time, but it gets really tough the further out this goes.
The problem is that the massive debt bubble has been burst, getting the virus under control won’t fix that, in the long run. Although there will be rallies and the occasional blue sky moment. All asset classes will be revalued as a result. Sooner, or later.
The U.S. stock market took three years until it had lost 89% of its all-time value. There were a number of distinct waves, up and down. The first saw a rally that regained 66% of the original move down before the life ebbed out of it. It took 25 years to recover.
http://www.online-stock-trading-guide.com/image-files/1929-1932-stock-chart-s.png
How about getting people back to work, instead?
“Profits earned by China’s industrial firms slid 38.3% year-on-year to 410.7 billion yuan (47.63 billion pounds) in the first two months of 2020, the statistics bureau said on Friday…
“The decline in profits points to lingering trouble for the manufacturing sector, which is wrestling with a coronavirus epidemic…”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-economy-industrial-profits/china-industrial-firms-jan-feb-profits-slump-383-year-on-year-idUKKBN21E06D
“”At the beginning the problem was reduction in supply,” says Simchi-Levi, referring to China’s production issues. “But now it is not only a matter of supply from China; it is supply from everywhere. Second, the demand side is completely changing. Now there is a big drop in demand.” With unemployment rising and consumer spending reduced, fewer large manufacturers can keep operating at full capacity or anything close to it…
“”You can see there are cascading effects that have an impact,” Simchi-Levi says. Clearly, without an abatement of the spread of Covid-19, a substantial economic uptick is hard to imagine.
“”This is all fluid and dynamic,” he warns.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-chain-outlook-slowdown.html
“Since last week, emails from foreign clients have been flooding into export manager Grace Gao’s in-box, asking to delay orders already made, putting goods ready to be shipped on hold until further notice, or asking for payment grace periods of up to two months.
“Gao’s firm, Shandong Pangu Industrial Co., makes tools like hammers and axes, 60% of which go to the European market. As the virus ravages the continent from Spain to Italy, the shutdowns there are cutting off orders to Chinese factories just as they were beginning to get back on their feet. It’s a story playing out across the country.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-26/the-second-virus-shockwave-is-hitting-china-s-factories-already
“As the coronavirus outbreak roils credit markets around the world, Asia is under particular threat.
“The region has led the world in economic growth for years as debt helped fuel frenetic construction of airports, bridges and apartment towers for millions of people moving into cities…
““It’s all coming home to roost,” said Charles Macgregor, head of Asia at Lucror Analytics, an independent research firm based in Singapore that focuses on high-yield credit.”
https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/echoes-1997-asia-financial-crisis-haunt-regions-debt-market
“The global role of the dollar and the global nature of the dollar funding markets make it impossible for the Federal Reserve to focus exclusively on domestic funding conditions….
“…the dollar funding strain this time is more difficult for global central banks to fix: they cannot lend directly to non-banks.”
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/03/26/1585218010000/What-makes-this-global-dollar-crunch-different-/
“The specter of widespread corporate defaults in the coming months has caused a massive selloff in junk bonds around the world, as many debt-laden companies face the prospect of going weeks or months with virtually no revenue.
“Bonds without investment-grade ratings plunged at their fastest pace in history in March, money managers said, stunning investors and hitting levels that portend a deep recession with scores of company failures.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/investors-fearing-defaults-rush-out-of-junk-bonds-11585215004
“For many cash-strapped companies, however, the Fed’s interventions will be of little or no help. The central bank’s corporate-debt buying will focus on companies with high credit ratings. But it is riskier-company borrowing that has skyrocketed of late…
“All this suggests that Fed buying will not stem the rising tide in corporate defaults.”
https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-feds-bazooka-will-not-stop-wave-corporate-defaults
“The US Fed has resisted cutting rates below zero so far. In my opinion, it is only a matter of time before either current Fed Chairman Jerome Powell or the one to follow him announces negative interest rates in the US, not because they want to, but because they are forced to.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/vineerbhansali/2020/03/26/why-the-fed-is-going-to-go-to-negative-rates/#8d20763e3bc0
I know that Ibuprofen is very important med for people with arthritis. Is it good and for coronavirus?
It is terrible for Coronavirus. Do not take it! There are articles about this.
Cold cloths on the head would be a good choice, to reduce fever. Tylenol (acetaminophen) to reduce aches.
I would go one further and avoid all anti inflammation supplements as well. Things like Elderberry for example are anti inflammatories and there are papers online saying to avoid taking it if you have the virus. The only safe things to counteract it right now are multivitamins, vitamin C, and make sure you stay hydrated. Acetaminophen is okay to take for fever and aches too like Gail said.
Gail, didn’t your arthritis improve when you cut your food intake of animal products?
It pretty much went away completely. No problems or medications now.
Europe has 250,000 confirmed cases of Coronavirus infections and 15,000 that have died from Covid-19.
Europe is the hot spot with half of world’s confirmed cases.
“Europe is the hot spot with half of world’s confirmed cases.”
Which we Europeans brought upon ourselves. By keeping the borders open because of “solidarity” even when it had long been obvious that the pandemic was being spread by travel. By making exceptions for “asylum seekers” who were already known to be spreading tropical diseases. By listening to the EU bureaucrats living in their secluded bunkers, and to the WHO, whose head is a Chinese sock puppet. All, I would point out, pushed on us by organisations with no democratic accountability, and showing more contempt for ordinary people than the Emperor Nero.
Remember all those warnings in the media that people displaying no symptoms can infect others with THE VIRUS?
Well, that’s not what this case study from South Korea indicates.
A Chinese Case of COVID-19 Did Not Show Infectivity During the Incubation Period: Based on an Epidemiological Survey.
Bae JM1.
Abstract
Controversy remains over whether the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) virus may have infectivity during the incubation period before the onset of symptoms. The author had the opportunity to examine the infectivity of COVID-19 during the incubation period by conducting an epidemiological survey on a confirmed patient who had visited Jeju Island during the incubation period. The epidemiological findings support the claim that the COVID-19 virus does not have infectivity during the incubation period.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32114755
wow, that’s an impressive number of study cases: one!
can’t get any lower than that…
I don’t buy it…
Are you, by any chance, the kind of person who screams, “Dog Germs! I’ve got DOG GERMS!” whenever someone else’s pooch licks your face?
Well, the story going around the press at the moment is that as The Sun puts it, “one in three coronavirus patients are ‘silent carriers’ who show no symptoms – despite testing positive for the disease.” However, if they have no symptoms of any disease, why call them “patients”? So my answer to the Sun is “Gocha!”
Hear the man!
There are things on this earth that eat humans. Mosquitos , black flies. They are unpleasant. This virus is one of them. They dont stop you from getting on. This virus is not nothing. Its not collapse either. Their is more US dollar demand than ever. Infinity and beyond and dollar demand is through the roof. Oil is still being extracted and refined. Sorry this is not collapse.
While not collapse things have changed. Ghost streets. ghost cities. People conditioning themselves to stay away from close proximity to others. Fear of shortages. These are permanent changes in the collective mindset. Everyone is a doomster now whether they admit it or not.
The current oil prices are way too low for producers. So are a lot of other prices: phosphate rock, used in fertilizer; natural gas and coal prices; copper prices; many food prices.
It is easy to see how collapse unfolds from here. Producers cut back on investment. If one of their machines needs major repair, they simply go out of business. They cannot afford a new machine or repairs.
Gasoline stations start closing. Gasoline will still be available, but you may have to drive 30 miles to find it. It is simply too unprofitable to have a gas station.
Grocery stores gradually have more and more out of stock items. Hair dressers and dentists go out of business.
Debt defaults of all kinds rise, as government try to hide these. These may be easiest to hide. Everyone may qualify to buy a new automobile.
Supply lines increasingly are broken. There are no repair parts for broken elevators, for example, rendering the upper floors in high rise buildings unusable.
Eventually electricity fails, essentially because wholesale prices fall too low for producers.
Scary stuff!
There is also the issue of the period “after a person appears to get well.” Some places are requiring a 14 day quarantine after the end of symptoms, I believe.
We’re obviously seeing the stages of collapse right now play out at an accelerated pace. The virus looks ready to wreak havoc on the US right as Trump wants to open the economy back up. No one needs to be a fortune teller to see that this is going to turn out badly. China is lying about their data and never actually got the virus under control after a brutal 2.5 month lock-down. Now they wanna open back up in a week and the virus is circulating again.
Italy and Spain look bad. Several other countries are hot on their heels. Having the global economy pause certainly makes collapse seem more likely, particularly when supply chains are scattered all over the planet. Needless to say globalization is finished, no matter the outcome of the battle with the virus. Regardless of its origins if someone were going to release something intentionally to cause panic and collapse the global economy, it would play out almost exactly like what we’re witnessing.
The Federal Reserve has unleashed more QE than I ever thought possible. Jerome Powell said this morning that the ammo that the Fed has is unlimited. They’re going to do whatever it takes to stop an economic collapse in the US, balance sheet be damned. $600 Billion in one week is a staggering amount of QE, coupled with Congress unleashing a few trillion more in bailouts and helicopter money. “Unemployment on steroids” is how Chuck Schumer described it. Nancy Pelosi is already talking about a 4th stimulus package and the checks from the 3rd haven’t even been sent out yet.
The stock market is an anomaly in and of itself. Low volume melt-ups 3 days in a row. It went up 6% today AFTER they announced 3.3 million signing up for unemployment benefits. This defies logic and shows the market is wholly disconnected from any sort of fundamentals or reality. As long as they keep pumping money out, this thing could be reaching new highs right around the time we’re seeing Grandpa’s everywhere dying on Facebook in real time. This is the type of twisted plot that I expect from a thriller sci-fi movie or novel but here we are. Unreal!
Now how do things continue to break down from here? Supply chains are slowing and being completely severed. Amazon is already selling/shipping less and less on a daily basis. Local stores are closed up, governor’s orders after all. Oil companies talking about sealing wells and pausing operations. We’re obviously on the brink of thousands or more companies going bankrupt, tens of millions of folks unable to pay rent which will tilt bank balance sheets badly. Are bailouts and printing money enough to backstop every corporation from disappearing? Does someone get to pick and choose, sort of like determining which patient gets a ventilator?
I keep telling people that we are witnessing collapse in real time, but nobody wants to hear it. Everyone has been conditioned to believe in happy endings, like any number of tales from Disney. It must be normalcy bias to the extreme because most of the folks I talk to, it all falls on deaf ears. It feels like the big collapse is about to happen but the whole thing feels surreal. At this point, I don’t have any goals in life outside of growing some tomatoes one last time. Right now, July seems like a lifetime away. Just one more heirloom tomato from my garden and then I can let go. Carpe Diem folks.
I’m making some small plans (in my mind) for 2021…
IF we get The Collapse this year, I don’t see any reason to plan for anything… it will be interesting to watch, like a slow motion car wreck, as long as the internet stays up to give enough details about what is happening out there…
IF the economy sinks 50 to 75 % and IC is still limping along after escaping the car wreck, then that scenario will leave people with things to do and choices to make…
it also will be quite interesting to see how IC might partially recover from such a car wreck…
life might be horribly awful though, but I’m guessing there will still be things to live for in 2021…
“Regardless of its origins if someone were going to release something intentionally to cause panic and collapse the global economy, it would play out almost exactly like what we’re witnessing.”
That’s the truth. If you were to sit down and outline a plot about a pandemic taking out the global economy, a person would be hard pressed to find better attributes in a virus for doing just that. It even started in the heart of the manufacturing hub of China, then was asymptomatic in enough people travelling internationally that it escaped detection to go on and infect many more people to spread far and wide. Word is it’s also doing well in hot weather areas when many thought it wouldn’t. It’s even great at targeting those with weak immune systems because they are old or have some medical issue. Isn’ that exactly what a predator does in the wild? But maybe when its taken out the weakest, it will then go after healthier ones. It’s quite possible since it seems unstoppable.
But one thing is certain. Collapse is occurring FAST! I never knew it could happen this fast. I wonder if we are just a few weeks from chaos, regardless of the stimulus package/s because that’s not going to help everyone. And once there is no economy, then you can be certain that at some threshold all hell’s going to break loose.
somewhat agree… economic damage is occurring fast…
and yes, there is most likely a threshold/tipping point where IC disintegrates/collapses…
so that’s the scenario for 2020 forward…
can enough of the economy hold together so it stays above that threshold?
I think it’s quite obvious that no one knows… yet…
I don’t see any reason to plan for chaos, so I’m planning for the economy to stay above the threshold of stalling and crashing…
but yes, in a few weeks (or months or years) it could collapse…
Well put, Tango.
Let’s enjoy the good things of life while they last. Example:
I know this will be an unpopular opinion here, but I just don’t see it. I think the system cares too much about itself to let things get too far out of hand. It’s a very resilient and persistent system. Am in denial? Perhaps, but the system will pull out all the stops to save itself. We are seeing this. The question is always… How long can it keep going? Well, quite a lot longer than anyone here seems to think.
I very much agree…
do you even consider yourself a Doomer?
No, not really. Most of the time anyways.
The system has to end sometime, why not now? The only reason you’re in denial is that you’re living through what may be the end of life as we know it. I mean, how could this be? This wasn’t supposed to happen while I’m still alive. Can’t doom be postponed to under someone else’s watch? Well, doom, it appears, was postponed until 2020. It has now stormed out of the gates, and it is mad.
We had a really good run, got an extra 10+ years, courtesy of all the funny money and accounting tricks done to preserve the system so that it became a zombie, eating the brains of everyone around. The zombie was always going to get whacked by reality at some point, and that point seems to have arrived in the form of a tiny virus that, like a zombie, is neither alive nor dead.
Why not now, indeed, but also, why not later? What is the real limit? Isn’t it resources? Have we suddenly run out of resources? I hope I don’t sound like a Pollyanna, but the system has its believers, and they will put up a helluva fight to keep things going. That’s my point, I guess. It ain’t going down without one heck of a battle. The system is not as in good shape as it was during the Spanish flu, enduring world wars and all, but it’s still got some fight left in it, and you will see it, you are seeing it now, it will fight to the bitter end, doomers be damned.
We could go around in circles at this point.
Has BAU been mortally wounded? Time will tell, but if it hasn’t it sure as heck been severly wounded.
As for earth, neither its sources nor its sinks are infinite. The abuse has to come to an end at some stage. It’s a mathematical cert.
Further to this point. What did QE and all the other central bank interventions around the world do since the system almost expired in 2008 with the GFC? It brought forward consumption. It stole time from ourselves, our children, the unborn and all the other species, so as not to face the pain of being wrong. What might have been averted until perhaps 2030, was instead chewed up in an enormous surge of exuberance.
Don’t worry, I’m sure you sound quite differently from Hayley Mills. (great movie, by the way)
The aircraft is speeding towards the ground and the wings have fallen off … everyone is screaming … the attendants are shouting BRACE BRACE BRACE….
And I am sitting calmly… a slight smile on my face… and muttering… yes Mutherfukkkkers… brace … and good riddance!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/69SZ1Kutr6E/maxresdefault.jpg
“Not so fast, Eddy!”: The scene you described reminds me of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A45jv8uhZwo
(Madagascar – Escape 2 Africa Trailer) [Jun 7, 2008, DreamworksAnimFan]
It’s not just the wings …
“The zombie was always going to get whacked by reality at some point, and that point seems to have arrived in the form of a tiny virus that, like a zombie, is neither alive nor dead.”
Absolutely spot on, psile! People worried the debt bubble would burst and now because of this zombie virus, the debt will balloon skyward. There are always limits and they will definitely be tested, but also, we don’t know the timeline of the virus. It’s almost like we’re holding our breath while the economy shrinks into a former shadow of itself, hoping the virus goes away so we can go back to BAU.
Let’s say this goes on for a year. What is there to go back to? Whether there is full on collapse or a huge leap down for mankind, it’s going to be real slow moving in the aftermath. How much stimulus is it going to take after the virus has been slayed like a dragon with meds? Another 10 trillion? 20 trillion? The thing that galls me is the amount of money already needed and we’re just getting started here in the US with this virus. This will definitely test the limits of what can be done at this late stage of the oil age to keep the beast from falling into the abyss.
Goes on for a year?
Another month or so of this, the way the virus is spreading and the bubble is deflating, and the end of the world WILL be televised!
Just because you don’t want it to end … doesn’t mean it won’t.
You are definitely in denial.
The system was already riddled with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and was on a nutrient poor diet… and now it has been hammered by this virus.
Billions of people — and I mean billions (India alone has 1.3B – and is in lockdown) – are out of work. Some countries are helping out with some monthly cash — most countries are doing nothing for their citizens other than making sure (so far) that they don’t starve.
Billions of people are consuming nothing much more than food. I know I am not. Even if I wanted to I could not – there is not even restaurant delivery here — and there is no online shopping available. I buy nothing but food now.
What cannot continue — will stop. It’s very difficult to determine when though.
Likewise, just because you do want it to end (so very badly) doesn’t mean it will. I could also say that you are in denial that the system will go on for another 20 years or more. We just don’t have a crystal ball. After all, you and I are here against enormous odds.
The system does not want to die, just like you or I don’t want to die. It will fight to stay alive is all I’m saying, and in doing so surprise us all. I wish I had more data to support one outcome or another, to back up my feeling that this will last quite a bit longer, but it’s a chaotic system. There is so much going on at any one moment, that I must admit I know nothing. I have merely an intuition, a belief or a hope.
I suspect what many fear in the advanced economies, if they aren’t among those who expect a quick rebound after the contagion has passed, is that it might all limp on for another decade or two, but in form less pleasant than average life in the Soviet Union……
A bit like knowing a cancer isn’t going to finish you off in a month or two, but that with treatment you will linger to enjoy all the effects of chemotherapy, etc, for several years and a painful end all the same.
The system will try to live, all we can do now is observe.
Where I live it is the harvest time for rice. Everyone is out in the fields, cutting, threshing and bagging the rice. It is a time of hard work but it is also a happy, community time. They have heard about this virus hoax, and there are police on the roads here and there, putting on a ridiculous show with thermometers, but it doesn’t worry anyone.
You people here have all lost your minds. I have never seen such hysteria.
I used to respect this site.
You will change that tune in a hurry when it is time for sowing the next crop.
That is if the ‘merchants of marseille’ get their wishes and let it rip to “save” their already worthless portfolios.
It is science and engineering that will shred this threat back to oblivion. Lean back, grab some popcorn and watch it unfold.
https://youtu.be/HX6M4QunVmA
Gail is not onboard with the hysteria. It’s only the hardcore doomer chorus in the comments section. Of course, they may end up correct that this is the end of everything, but what is obvious to them is far from clear to some of us. What is clear to me is that the lights (of reason, entertainment and industry) are going out all over Europe and America, and I fear we may not see them lit again in our lifetimes. These rich countries, which are, metaphorically speaking, tightrope walking without the aid of a net, have the farthest to fall, and so are likely to suffer much more damage from collapse than places where community farming and frugal living are still practiced and respected.
If they are truly enjoying the harvest, it’s obviously much better now to be a jolly rice-farming peasant than like us, stuck in our apartments and houses, manically disinfecting everything, until……..who knows when?
Next news: rise in mental disorders -at keeps us out of trouble 🙂 – domestic violence, divorce and unwanted pregnancies.
General crime is down, though, and every day feels like a Sunday, which is very pleasant.
Right, off now to disinfect myself in the garden with a nice long, cold, drink. It’s my patriotic duty not to go off my head.
Meant to say that ‘this site keeps us out of trouble’..
I visit this site regularly and I have NOT bought into the hysteria at all.
The virus isn’t a hoax and that’s a dangerous assumption. No one here from what I gather has lost their mind, on the contrary the breakdown in the system is causing many of us to dig deeper into the cogs of system analysis to predict how all these moving components will impact one another. It doesn’t take an actual killer pandemic with 50% death rates to tilt the system and collapse globalization/industrial civilization. It was already super fragile and going into a recession anyways.
The virus has already caused a full blown financial crisis. So basically with the federal reserve and government printing trillions of dollars out of thin air you want everyone to maintain their calm composure. Very laughable. Apparently you are much more knowledgeable about rice than you are about finance, economics, and government. And there’s nothing wrong with that but spare us your judgements.
This is good news, if everyone is out in the fields harvesting rice. Where do you live?
East Java.
To adopt the modern industrial way of life and way of thinking is already to lose one’s mind.
I wish I could live as a rice farmer where Kim lives. Sigh. 🙁
The point is that nearly 8 Billion people are living on this planet today and every single one wants this world to go on and will do a lot that this will go on. There are physical limits and financial limits, both will be tested. It is for sure that humanity’s psyche will take a big hit and that does not point to a disneyland future. People have to get their grips on the fact that the old days can not go on. They will understand that fast also due to the fact that suddenly political moves are possible that were deemed impossible for the last 50 years. People will not forget this. The thing is broken and I count on a healing process
I live in East Java. But allow me to say that I am fully on board with the arguments with regard to peak cheap oil.
Like much of Asia, we have one season of monsoon rice each year and two seasons of rice that depend on small petrol-driven pumps for their oil. Total of three growing seasons. Drive across Asia and you can see the small bamboo huts in fields. Millions of them. They are shelters for the pumps. And small motorobikes are also ubiquitous, vital farm equipment here.
So without cheap petrol, there would be only one harvest, and people would not be able to drive distances to cut grass for their goats and cows.
So, I understand peak cheap oil. But the reaction to this corona thing, it has just been insane. It is society blowing out its brains because it has stubbed its toe.
“What cannot continue — will stop.” or even better –
That which is falling should also be pushed! — Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Wanderer, Friedrich Nietzsche
Mother Nature is pushing hard.
Weather the system cares about itself or not is irrelevant. And most of my post was facts, not fiction or hysteria. I am a systems person and have studied this stuff for years. We are seeing all the signs of a collapse in fast forward on a daily basis. The only thing the system is doing is pumping out enormous amounts of debt in an attempt to keep our heads above water as the storm rages on. Will it work? Maybe, maybe not. If the virus does what I think it’s going to do, we’re on borrowed time.
All my talk of supply chains breaking down is something that is happening in real time. Oil companies are sealing wells and stopping operations. Anyone who follows this site should know by now that if oil stops, vehicles stop, food stops, we all starve. Will a few million people survive in small pockets throughout the globe? Maybe, but industrial civilization will collapse and with it electricity, fuel, comforts, the internet, and more. Then spent nuclear fuel will melt down and wash the globe with radiation. No one will want to be around for that.
Right now the world has too much oil. It’s actually a deflationary death spiral from a drop off a cliff in demand and oversupply since OPEC has disintegrated. But no one is using it, which is just as bad as if it were never there to begin with. Oil companies cannot just restart operations with $20 a barrel oil like flicking a light switch. For starters they’re all going to go insolvent. Then there’s the geophysics of the wells themselves. Flow rates are going to go down, compressing oil companies already disastrous finances. This means we would need to rely on the Saudis or someone else for oil and look how that’s turning out with us relying on China for everything. What could go wrong?
So far, the virus cannot be contained. It can be slowed down or briefly paused if China’s data is to be believed. But now it’s spreading there again. So they’ll shutdown all over again? Workers will refuse to come back and open up factories and when they do arrive in factories they’ll find out they’re laid off due to a drop off a cliff in demand. The virus is globally spreading, after all. So more debt defaults, more shutdowns, more drop in demand, and then what?
At some point governments will lose control of the narrative. When will food or other needed supplies stop coming? We’re already not able to get most other things right now. Government is warning corporations/countries not to hoard food. The FDIC is warning us not to withdraw our money and shove it under a mattress. Would they be doing those types of things if we weren’t already on the edge of it all? Of course not. They’re saying it because some experts at the top of the government hierarchy are already forecasting these things to happen.
You are right this Is mother of all collaps
Looks like BAU ain’t going to be an easy least restart.
China’s factories reopen, only to fire workers as virus shreds global trade
By Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo
ReutersMarch 26, 2020, 1:31 AM EDT
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-factories-reopen-only-fire-053157310.html
mbling to fulfil orders.
Now, the reverse is happening – overseas orders are being scrapped as the pandemic ravages the economies of China’s trading partners.
“The unprecedented shutdown of normal economic activity across Europe, the U.S. and a growing number of emerging markets is certain to cause a dramatic contraction in Chinese exports, probably in the range of a 20-45% year-on-year drop in the second quarter,” said Thomas Gatley, senior analyst at research firm Gavekal Dragonomics.
Shi said his fabric supplier in hard-hit Italy suspended operations on Sunday, meaning no fresh raw materials from May. His stockpile of fabric will last until the end of April.
Shi said he would slow production and might suspend all output soon if business does not improve.
He also told the 50-odd workers who have yet to return from Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak in China, to find jobs elsewhere.
“We know this year is bad and next year would be better, but the question is how many factories can make it to next year?” Shi said.
,…More big layoffs would be a concern for the ruling Communist Party and its focus on social cohesion and economic stability, particularly in a year when Beijing aims to double GDP and disposable incomes from a decade ago.
China’s urban jobless rate hit 6.2% in February, up one percentage point from the end of 2019, and a record since the statistics bureau started publishing the data in early 2018.
Dan Wang, an analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), said the jobless rate could go up by another 5 percentage points this year, which corresponds to an additional 22 million in urban unemployment, on top of an estimated 5 million jobs lost in January-February.
Another 103 million workers could be affected by salary cuts of 30%-50%, Wang said.
These stories are going to get wider and wider distribution. Particularly notice, “Another 103 million workers could be affected by salary cuts of 30%-50%, Wang said.”
Also, we will start seeing actual shortages from some things that are not available from international trade anymore. Some vehicles, for example, may not be available any more.
VW announced they are extending the factory shut down, so it’s now for a ~month..
In terms of “special carz”, this could be manifested in EVs or hybrids, on the other hand these tend to be vertically integrated, at least the Japanese and Korean brands in this segment, so perhaps only European and US brands will be hit the most here. Again, who is going to buy hybrids in the US when gasoline price goes bellow bottled water..
“Now, the reverse is happening – overseas orders are being scrapped as the pandemic ravages the economies of China’s trading partners.”
That didn’t take long to boomerang.
and Chinese leadership was probably aware that a pandemic could do just that…
though too late to lockdown Wuhan sooner than January 23rd…
the Chinese knew that this virus was a real threat to the world…
the “it’s fake” crowd will be disappearing in the coming weeks…
“April is the cruellest month…” T.S. Eliot
“We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread. Than climb the cross of the moment. And let our illusions die.” – W. H. Auden
Great Covid-19 Data
An interactive visualization of the exponential spread of COVID-19.
This is the interactive visualization I pointed out yesterday. It is very good.
Thanks Gail. Good to see we’re all finding these great resources.
Skip the part where gold/silver will save you.
https://srsroccoreport.com/the-energy-disaster-kicking-into-full-gear-world-is-totally-unprepared-for-whats-ahead/
Outstanding timing with this Wuhan Plague thing
All of the shutdowns kill demand, and make prices energy prices fall way too low. So the Wuhan plague is a big part of the low prices.
yes…
but who thinks demand will be back to normal (2019 normal) by the end of the year?
“Now, it seems as if the IEA believes Wall Street’s forecast that there will be a “V-Shaped Recovery,” (hence, the v-shaped oil chart) and everything will be back to normal by the end of the year. I highly doubt it.”
that guy definitely gets it…
You can’t print gold or silver
You cant eat it, or snuggle with it either. Scrooge mcduck excepted.
there’s a classic Twilight Zone episode where a lost man is wandering in the desert with a large gold bar, begging for water, and willing to trade. He dies before he can be saved, and some tourists come along and wonder why he thought the gold was so valuable, since they figured out how to make it so long ago.
Considering unknown unknowns there was a report today in Germany that due to reduced economic activity the return of recycling paper is going down drastically. That will be a problem for the producers of food products as they envision a shortage in packaging material.
The movie for today is not “Contagion” but “Flatilners”
Flatliners of course in case you did not notice
“That will be a problem for the producers of food products as they envision a shortage in packaging material.”
another lesson for the public:
there might be plenty of beans at the bean company, but if they run out of cans, then there will be no cans of beans on store shelves…
even without just the paper labels for the cans, how could the bean company sell it’s beans?
Dry them and sell unpacked.
Harder for milk…
Where do we find evidence that the almost completely automated packaging industry is affected by this?
https://m.startribune.com/empty-shelves-mean-suppliers-like-arden-hills-delkor-are-adding-workers/569127672/
“The increased demand and urgency to keep food companies at full tilt has thrust companies like packaging machine maker Delkor Systems onto the list of essential businesses staying open during the coronavirus pandemic.
Orders for the company’s bus-sized packaging robots are coming in so fast from food companies such as Daisy Sour Cream, Hershey, Hormel and Great Lakes Cheese that the Arden Hills factory is adding space and more than 30 new workers to keep up with demand.”
In all media outlets you read that the corona bill by the senate is 2 Trillion but when you read it, you will see that it is only 1.65 Trillion and 400 Billion is “side effects from the economy itself”.
The Cheque for the public is worth 1 month
We will definitively not be over this in 1 month!
Everybody mixes up economy with a financial system and a goods economy being based on money.
Everything in this economy is based on energy or a bet on future available energy. A few more lessons to learn for the public here…
No kidding!
Fast Eddy:
> Well… I have not been to Italy lately… but I picked up this message which was monitored out of the Death Zone…. it’s nearly 3 weeks old… it could be fake… just like your mate’s wife’s report could be fake…. who knows….
Give me strength …
>This could be taking place on a Hollywood set…
>
> But somehow I do believe these are real…. otherwise why shut down the entire country?
Gail, what do you say?
Chloroquineinamonthorayearoradecade:
> surely cases in Norway are doubling every week, as they are almost everywhere else…
Infected != dead.
> the real spread is always higher in cases and farther in distance than the reported numbers… and that is a fact…
?
Chloroquineinamonthorayearoradecade:
> https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
>
> Norway 3,346 cases, up 262 in one day…
>
> only about 10% up daily… no worries…
>
> 14 deaths and 6 recovered…
>
> isn’t that just like the flu… only 70% die? (sarc)…
>
> and 70 more cases in the serious/critical category…
>
> is that fact or fiction?
Please …
Except we have no idea what the denominator is, if we include all the mild cases that aren’t counted.
Take a look at Norway’s COVID-19 graphs, when normalized by population. They actually look fairly good.
http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?fbclid=IwAR10biLpwk–EaldWkeF4uiaHuBcShjsdHa5s-s_E14Lwbf4yROZhnu17Q0
thanks…
“In nearly every country in the world, when the virus reaches 100 people the number of cases begins to increase by 35% daily.
At that rate, a country would reach 1,000,000 cases just 31 days after reaching 100 cases.”
also to consider, Norway is probably a couple weeks delayed behind a country such as France, which is probably a couple weeks behind Italy…
I hope Norway has no epidemic worse than an average seasonal flu…
but I doubt they will…
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
US +13,968 just today to 82,179 to lead all other countries as #1 in Corona virus ‘OFFICIAL’ Caseload. Disclaimer: I realize this is just based on the above linked official numbers and it is likely the number of cases in China is much higher.
China silver medal
Italy bronze medal
USA! USA!
we’re number one!
good thing Mardi Gras (February 25th) wasn’t cancelled… nor the mid March “spring break” vacations for college students… we needed that to get to the top…
Yeah, US went for the gold and got it! We never settle for being 2nd. Now we’ll show other countries how to build on a lead. “Let’s have a block party! Hey, wait a minute, don’t go back in your houses.” Got to have a little fun with this stuff.
We Chinese will never be behind anyone in anything! NEVER! We WILL be number one! Just you wait and see!
Well, at least we’re already number one in lying and BSing… 😛
Too bad the Tokyo Olympics got cancelled. Not that I’ll miss it — I always figured the Olympics is something stupid.
Just as a side note: I went to the hardware store today and wore my mask. Last time there I got some ‘what’s this guy doing?’ looks, but this time only a few days later was completely different. Some other customer was wearing a mask and clear plexi particians had been added to the counters to reduce customers from breathing & sneezing on the cashiers. The cashier said she was expecting to get a mask in the mail in a couple days. Get that, in a hardware store there aren’t any masks. This report is from No. California.
Also, on the way there was a flashing sign that said, ‘shelter in place’, ‘health officer’, ‘fines’. So I hurried home afterwards.
Also, we were suppose to receive a delivery of food noon-2pm that never came. I wonder what happened.
might be very tempting for a delivery driver to take home some free food…
who knows…
Well, if there is Justice in the Cosmos, this may turn out to be the leading example.
https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-pangolins-found-carry-viruses-103254046.html
Pangolins smuggled into China have been confirmed to contain viruses closely related to the one sweeping the world.
Sale of the animals in wildlife markets should be strictly prohibited to minimise the risk of future outbreaks, says an international team.
Pangolins are the most-commonly illegally trafficked mammal, used both as food and in Medicine
Further surveillance on pangolins in the wild in China and Southeast Asia is needed to understand their role in the emergence of coronaviruses and the risk of future transmission to humans,
The ant-devouring scaly mammal, said to be the most widely trafficked mammal in the world, is threatened with extinction. The animal’s scales are in high demand in Asia for use in traditional Chinese medicine, while pangolin meat is considered a delicacy by some.
These creatures are threatened with extinction….maybe what goes around comes around👍😘
I saw another article in which someone claimed that the virus in the pangolins wasn’t really close enough. There needed to be another step in between. There seem to be a lot of non-peer reviewed studies, claiming one thing or another.
It’s not close enough.
There is a bat virus that has 98% similarity on 29,000 positions.
And one claim being seriously considered is that the virus is by nature at least partly artificial… and deliberately released.
(I’m not posting this for the reason that I want to ridicule those who think eating pangolins is bad, by the way. I’m 95% vegetarian — just a wee bit of fish for me sometimes.)
It just gets sickening how elusive the truth is regarding this stupid virus. Too many vested interests around that want to keep the truth hidden — and not just regarding the virus, but regarding well nigh everything of import under the sun from resource shortage to hydrogen peroxide. Don’t you just wish the Blue Fairy really existed? Sigh…
Hey, just for the fun of knowing. Suppose there’s a mastermind behind this stupid virus. Suppose he’s being identified at last and is now standing in front of you, all tied up and completely helpless. You can do to him whatever you want.
What would you do to him? I would… No, I won’t say it, Gail will immediately delete my post. 😛
It just gets sickening how elusive the truth is regarding this stupid virus. Too many vested interests around that want to keep the truth hidden — and not just regarding the virus, but regarding well nigh everything of import under the sun from resource shortage to hydrogen peroxide.
Yes! Yes! Yes! +++++++
Oh, I used to be disgusted
Now I try to be amused
But since their wings have got rusted
You know the angels wanna wear my red shoes…
https://youtu.be/6rml6a0EL6s
First thoughts only. I would kneel before him, and say, “On behalf of all creatures great and small, of all the wise and wonderful things that now will be spared extinction, I thank you.”
I’m of the mindset like yourself, about peer reviewed papers. Best to select one position that suits ones point of view.
And if we humans go extinct, the price of pangolin scale futures will fall through the floor. O the horror! Martian bank intervention desperately needed.
Oil price.com shows a lot of low prices:
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/block/1
Mexican Basket is $16.84. Western Canadian Select (from the oil sands) is $9.09.
Saudi Arabia is quoting $25 to $26.50…
I wonder if they really are giving their supposed “big discount” off of those prices, because right now those are about average prices…
Ironically (and tragically) one person I know who suggested the virus was ‘hype’ (an MSM ploy to make money) is now currently trapped in a third world country and infected with the virus.
Funny it does not occur to people who believe this is an MSM fabrication to sell ads that those who might buy the ad spaces… are not buying because the MSM ‘fabrication’ is bankrupting them…
Funny those who believe the ‘fabrication’ benefits the MSM when the share prices of the MSM are tanking (see the above for the reason) …
Funny those who believe the ‘fabrication’ do not realize that many MSM franchises are subsidiaries of conglomerates such as GE — and GE is suffering terribly due to the ‘fabrication’ (anyone buying jet engines at the moment???)
If this is a fabrication then the MSM is committing suicide.
I suggest that in our era, the media is the magic. The MSM are magicians for hire performing a stage show designed to fool, deceive and hypnotize the punters. So while we in the audience can enjoy the emotional roller coaster produced by their shock and awe pyrotechnics, we should never, on principle, unquestioningly believe half of what we see and none of what we hear or read.
https://www.dazzling.news/img/articles/4751/1200×630/5b1932d23006a_magic_tricks_revealed.jpg
As far as I can discern from my rather unfashionable and isolated vantage point, we’re currently witnessing a controlled demolition of the world economy—possibly into its own footprint at close to free fall speed, but I digress—but a demolition that is going to devastate the lives of billions of people. The virus is being used as both and excuse for and a distraction from that.
Since the world economy is structurally unsound and likely to collapse at any time given a strong wind, demolishing it in a controlled fashion might be less damaging than letting nature take its course. But the people whose lives are going to be devastated are not likely to see the utilitarian logic involved. By using The Virus, it is possible to camouflage the demolition behind the facade of a partially natural disaster, thereby avoiding becoming the focus of direct blame, and also minimizing the damage done to the assets, position and status of the controllers.
I’m not wedded to this viewpoint and will be happy to abandon it if it becomes untenable. But I think it’s a reasonable provisional stance given what we know about human social and institutional behavior.
Could be Tim. Could be. We wont know. People believe that money is magic. We will see soon enough.
“Funny those who believe the ‘fabrication’…”
I think the “it’s fake” crowd will have almost completely disappeared in a few weeks…
it will take a little more time, so we just need patience…
there’s always a fringe group but, to most persons, the evidence should be overwhelming by mid to late April…
“April is the cruellest month…” – T.S. Eliot
I think the “it’s fake” crowd will have almost completely disappeared in a few weeks…
This is quite possible, David, if the propaganda is kept “on the boil” for long enough.
However, lots and lots of people might suffer and die from all sorts of horrible lung problems and the narrative that this is the work of the Novel Coronavirus could still be fake.
How do you know any of these deaths are caused by The Virus? Can we trust the PCR tests to tell us how much of The Virus is infecting a person. Can we trust the assumption that a person dying from certain symptoms is doing so because of the action of The Virus and not from other causes?
As others have pointed out on this thread, we are governed by people who believe, as Rahm Emmanuel put it, in never letting a good crisis go to waste.
And we should also remember that they also embrace a philosophy summed up by Carl Rove as, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. ”
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the “Big Lie” technique. American psychoanalyst Walter Charles Langer wrote in his secret wartime report on AH:
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
What we the people are allowed to see and what we are prevented from seeing is mediated by those who run the circus. There are lots of filters in place, lots of conditioning going on, and a great deal of what we are told and shown in the news is proven fakery. We all have our pet examples of fake news, from a nurse who told Congress she witnessed Iraqi troops killing babies who turned out to have been the Kuwait Ambassador’s daughter with coaching from Hill & Knowlton to CNN reporters pretending there’s a hurricane blowing a gail while passers by pass by seemingly unaffected by the wind, to the many crisis actors who star in all sorts of events we’ve come to know and love.
But as Harry Field Senior. explained,
“People want to marvel. Fake only disappoints, when found out.”
https://youtu.be/X7-1sdzkj6Q
I have it on good authority (i.e. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble) that in the covid-19 ward of York hospital there are already six patients on ventilators, including a cardiologist who works in the hospital. I don’t know how many spare ventilators there are, but within a few days decisions will have to be made on who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t. The impersonal criteria have already been drawn up by a panel, to remove the dreadful responsibility from doctors.
Bad news for any London residents: in the whole of London they are already down to only one free ventilator.
DEATH PANELS have arrived
what must be, will be…
I would suggest no ventilator for two categories: old, and obese…
I would suggest this also applies to the S T OOOP Id.
Oh hang on…. that would result in near extinction.
Boy have I missed Fast Eddy. Welcome back and keep it up!
Boy have I missed Da vid Hay ward. 😉
I hope you are well…
Meanwhile in Norway:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/03/11/it-is-easy-to-overdo-covid-19-quarantines/comment-page-70/#comment-232978
how many hospitals are there in Norway?
how many covid cases in each hospital?
facts, please…
How about some facts from you corner? Facts.
okay, but first I see that you have dodged my questions… they’re still there if you want to answer them with facts…
here, it’s a fact that there has been a reported case in each of two neighboring towns in the past couple of days…
here (the northeast USA in general), it’s a fact that cases are doubling about every week…
here, it’s a fact that the spread is higher in numbers and closer in distance than the reported cases…
I’m sure that’s also the case in Norway… fact or fiction?
Facts but rather unimportant, infected is not dead (by far).
How about number of dead from/with Covid-19 and number of dead from/with influenza in the same period?
The official term for the losers, if memory serves, is “Lebensunwertes Leben”. You read it first in Der Stürmer.
Norway, our second biggest hospital, intensive care unit:
Number of people with influenza: 4.
Number of people with Covid-19: 4.
Are you suggesting the Wuhan Virus Crisis is fake?
I don’t know, the numbers above is just facts from a doctor at the unit and a colleague of my wife.
*doctor at the unit/colleague of my wife*
Since he seems to not be busy, he might volunteer at an ICU in Italy.
I presented facts. Do you *know* what’s going on in Italy?
surely cases in Norway are doubling every week, as they are almost everywhere else…
do you *know* what’s going on in Norway?
the real spread is always higher in cases and farther in distance than the reported numbers… and that is a fact…
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Norway 3,346 cases, up 262 in one day…
only about 10% up daily… no worries…
14 deaths and 6 recovered…
isn’t that just like the flu… only 70% die? (sarc)…
and 70 more cases in the serious/critical category…
is that fact or fiction?
Well… I have not been to Italy lately… but I picked up this message which was monitored out of the Death Zone…. it’s nearly 3 weeks old… it could be fake… just like your mate’s wife’s report could be fake…. who knows….
https://youtu.be/p3IlVzMVuTE
This could be taking place on a Hollywood set…
https://youtu.be/VgPZtTeEG5k
But somehow I do believe these are real…. otherwise why shut down the entire country?
Ugo Bardi has an interesting take on it
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2020/03/italy-virus-hits-polluted-areas-is.html
I would think that the problem is at least partly the poor condition of people’s lungs in Northern Italy. This was part of the problem in Wuhan, I expect, also.
I learned from Ugo that Northern Italy between the Alps and the Apennines has the worst air pollution in Europe. That was new to me.
Other possible cofactors include a high percentage of smokers, an aging population, lots of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East infected with TB, lots of immigrants from Wuhan working in the dark satanic mills, chronically low levels of vitamin D.
Even without the novel coronavirus, Italy has plenty of deaths from pneumonia and other lung-related maladies every year. As for flu, one study estimated about 6 million cases each year and more than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics over the 4-year study period, and that Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries. especially in the elderly.
We estimated excess deaths of 7,027, 20,259, 15,801 and 24,981 attributable to influenza epidemics in the 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17, respectively, using the Goldstein index. The average annual mortality excess rate per 100,000 ranged from 11.6 to 41.2 with most of the influenza-associated deaths per year registered among the elderly.
Over 68,000 deaths were attributable to influenza epidemics in the study period. The observed excess of deaths is not completely unexpected, given the high number of fragile very old subjects living in Italy. In conclusion, the unpredictability of the influenza virus continues to present a major challenge to health professionals and policy makers.
The authors end their conclusion with a plug for vaccination. Nonetheless, vaccination remains the most effective means for reducing the burden of influenza, and efforts to increase vaccine coverage and the introduction of new vaccine strategies (such as vaccinating healthy children) should be considered to reduce the influenza attributable excess mortality experienced in Italy and in Europe in the last seasons.
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(19)30328-5/fulltext
Perhaps the authors should have written that the best way to reduce the deaths from influenza was to stop polluting the environment. But that would have put at risk their grant renewal, I suppose.
Oil’s 60% Crash Is the Tip of an Iceberg. The Reality Is Worse
Alex Longley and Javier Blas
BloombergMarch 25, 2020, 8:31 AM EDT
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-60-crash-tip-iceberg-060000437.html
(Bloomberg) — As oil crashes due to the impact of the coronavirus, it’s easy to overlook an even more dismal reality for producers: the real prices they’re getting for their barrels are worse still.
Having collapsed by about 60% this year, Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude have stabilized at around $25 a barrel, but the price rout is far deeper for actual cargoes, which are changing hands at large and widening discounts to the global benchmarks. The discounts mean that in the physical market, some crude streams are trading at $15, $10 and even as little as $8 a barrel.
“The physical market is in pain, and there is more pain to come,” said Torbjorn Tornqvist, the co-founder of Gunvor Group Ltd., a large trading house. “We will see the full weight of the oversupply in a couple of weeks
….“Up to now the sharp market imbalances have mostly existed as a spreadsheet exercise,” Roger Diwan, an oil analyst at consultant IHS Markit Ltd. told clients in a note. “In the next two to three weeks, we will see those physical imbalances manifest in physical markets
“Up to now the sharp market imbalances have mostly existed as a spreadsheet exercise,” Roger Diwan, an oil analyst at consultant IHS Markit Ltd. told clients in a note. “In the next two to three weeks, we will see those physical imbalances manifest in physical markets
Man, Trump and Company will manage it as he did in other financial shortcomings.. bankruptcy
plenty of oil to fill the SPR…
it may never be needed, but it will be full to the brim…
“On Wednesday the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve released its survey of conditions in the oil and gas sector, and included anonymous quotes from industry execs.
““We are now expecting an almost total stop in business,” wrote one. “My outlook on the domestic oil and gas industry has never been bleaker,” from another. The expectation is for a “bloodbath at most firms.””
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2020/03/26/oil-headed-to-10-a-barrel-as-virus-lockdown-eradicates-fuel-demand/amp/
Looks like the beginning of the end for oil. They’re gonna seal off wells, drop production, and lay everybody off. If the economy ever does pickup and we get past the Coronavirus, which seems unlikely as of the moment, there won’t be enough oil to juice the economy back up to where it was a couple of months ago. Seems war is likely as well involving any number of players like SA, the US, Russia, and China.
G…. is so happy!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-S14SjemfAg/maxresdefault.jpg
That will be interesting to observe as I stated any possible further drop in oil price will be resisted by ETFs, which have been fully pumped up for that reason now by CBs..
The sequencing of past events tells us somehow – someone – somewhere wrongly discounted the OPEC+ oddball scenario of total war in the overall econ CB support model, hence they are now much more refocused on providing a floor for the the oil price.
I could be wrong though, however I guess I’m not, it’s not going to be as hard vertical crash as the first leg of the downward slope so far.. Perhaps to mid upper teens for a brief moment if ever. Btw, yes my hat is tasty – I’m already looking for some mayonnaise.
Wow!
Yes, that’s another black swan. In 1974 the first oil crisis led [In Italy and elsewhere] to cars only able to drive on alternative days. This unexpectedly led to a glut of gasoline, and storage facilities couldn’t cope So they had to abandon the strategy. Petroleum was still needed to provide the other fractions for industry, so they couldn’t just stop production of gasoline.
Today at least the industry requirements are down as well and stores and refineries can cut back production [that will have its own issues] One would think reserves could be filled in the meantime.
Australia is really close to a big problem with only 23 days worth of reserves. Yet I’ve seen no mention of remedying it. If Shipping stopped, we would be cactus, a whole continent adrift without power. [We area also closing down coal fired power stations, just to make the point even sharper.}
Right! A mix of oil products is needed. Cutting off gasoline and leaving diesel creates a big mess.
“Perhaps worst of all—shutting in oil wells can cause permanent damage to reservoir rock and make it impossible to regain previous output levels later, leading to significant capital impairment. As a result, when the world returns to normal we may find there’s not enough oil ready to come back on line.”
Wow, did not know that.
These are some of the details that cause problems. Skilled workers are lost and cannot be replaced is another issue.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3053073/coronavirus-china-says-90-cent-state-firms-back-business?fbclid=IwAR0-jibVQNbJpBUSL-sVSU2NogxPpwgq9oOh8uCrqyOe80ymud1JWoijZvA
This is still pretty low resumption:
I posted a link elsewhere to a WSJ article commenting on the restart of China’s business. China Is Open for Business, but the Postcoronavirus Reboot Looks Slow and Rocky Factories are back, stores are opening, but demand has crashed as buyers wait for the pandemic to end
People’s finances are in such bad shape that spending (a.k.a “demand”) is way down.